If you're wanting to get something off your chest, make general comments about the server, or post lonely hearts ads, then this is the place for you.

And so it begins...

• rab
  So here we go, a new MC server. I'm not sure we need another one of these, but I'm willing to hear suggestions.
• rab
  Before I unleash this on a specific public, I ought to check the simulpost mechanism.
• rab
  Cor. It works. Enjoy!
• rab
  By the way, I'm actually away for a couple of days, so if you break it, it won't get fixed for a while. (On the other hand, this gives you some opportunities to try breaking it!)
• Watty
  *sends champagne crashing into bows* rab, you might want to think about disabling the winning move in the Long Game; other than that, splendid work!
• matt
  Congratulations on a beautiful bouncing baby, um, thing!
• Simons Mith
  Cabbage crates over the briny!
• rab
  Cheers all. Glad the whole thing hasn't (yet) fallen on its arse. [Watty] Next on my list is some sort of admin tool for precisely this purpose. In the meantime, I suggest setting the winning move to something unguessable.
• rab
  I note also this site is unusable under Netscape 4.76. It makes a really crap job of the CSS rendering this box I'm typing into completely unusable. I'll think of a fix before unleashing this on a more general public,
• Inkspot
  Good luck rab, I'll pop back again after tea ... and done washing up ... and put the boys to bed ... and polished their shoes ...
• rab
  Posting now from Netscape 4.76... let's see if it works!
• rab - Bugfix
  For some reason, the option for Crescent a l'orange on the "new game" page wasn't being honoured. I think it is now. In any case, move headings have been added to this banter page. In principle, this (and the long game) should also be unwinnable.
• rab - Up and running
  I think we can now consider this thing to be up and running (although heed the caveat on the front page at the moment). I would be interested to hear any ideas for feature enhancements. Currently I have the following ideas:

  • Permalinking technology exists at the back-end (i.e. one can specify a range of posts to show in the URL) but I need to find some way of generating the appropriate links. This can probably wait until we have a few more posts.
  • I may well add a 'search' facility at some point (again, more posts are required before this becomes useful).
  • I might add a login feature so that the server can remember things like which games you're playing, award prizes for stunning play and so on. (NB this seems to be controversial, but the point is you won't be obliged to use this feature).
  • A side-effect of something I have planned elsewhere on this site would be to have an editable MC reference. Obviously we already have the Encyclopaedia at !York, but I think it would be cool to have an editable, searchable volume here. Ideally one would wish to transfer the Encyclopaedia entries over from !York, but I don't really know what's happening to maintenance of that server.

  Anyone got any ideas? I know PaulWay has mentioned a few at Orange-- now I've made this NS4.76 compatible, perhaps here would be a good place to discuss such things.
• DrQu+xum - Ooooh!
  Looks good, rab! At least in Phoenix 0.5/Win32. Also ... care to add a link to PantsMC (pantsmc.cream.org)?
• Simons Mith - Browser versions
  It's fine on ArcWeb 1.92, which is about 6 years old, and it's fine on Orengano 2. So the Acorn community is happy. :-)
• Bob the dog - rabbing
  Just to say - this is nice. Not too fancy, yet perfectly formed. The makings of a classic. Now can I start an alternative dictionary game?
• penelope - nice 'ere innit?
  Well done rab. I'm just going to have a poke around...
• plump - Yippee!
  Blessed are the site makers particularly those that have a late arrivals game.
• snorgle - snoofles along
  Why is apropos there anyway?
• Chalky - just testing
  2342GMT - just to let you know what time I'm posting. Bring on the cast!
• Dujon - Yet more MC
  Been busy rab! :) Looks neat and tidy on IE6, though some colours are a bit 'iffy'. Might have to see what it looks like on Mozilla to check any differences. Cheers.
• Thrax - Freakout
  Checking in. I think I'll go by my abbreviated name on this here site, folks, as I cannot use a handy six-character passcode. I notice we can start our own games here. If I can persuade that dratted Kezar frm preening himself for five hours, anyone object to us starting a round of 'Chirades'?
• CdM
  *sends congratulatory telegram*
• Blob - The nascent site
  Arrghhh - Yet another cause of work not getting done .... Well done, rab ... I shall now go and have a little explore ...
• Bob the dog - Childish behaviour
  La-lah! I've got my name on all the games on the front page!
• rab - Welcome!
  Hello ev'ryone. I may have been a bit misleading about the use of NS4.76. You can use this site with that browser. But it looks really rubbish if you have CSS enabled. I will work on an option to turn off CSS on these pages if you insist on using a dodgy browser. Anyway, let's let the play continue!
• rab - Origami
  [SM] Oregano 2. Does that mean yer 32-bitted or summat?
• Herr Bratsche - Hello, Good Evening, and Welcome
  Looks worth a try ...
• Fat German - Is that latin?
  OK. Very nice. More opportunities to waste time. Yay!
• Rich - Breaking it
  How's the

  HTML validator?

• Rich - nothing really
• rab - Hello
  Now Rich, that was naughty :)
• Bob the dog
  HTML balls up report. My fault. The short game has gone on STRIKE.
• rab - Not to worry
  Fixed. God knows how the HTML checker let that through. Oh well, that'll give me something to do on a cold winter's evening no doubt.
• Bob the pretending to be someone else
  HTML checkers fail at the mention of my name.
• rab
  Ah yes, I did find the line saying something like if name contains 'bob' then ignore bad_html, so it turned out that deleting it sorted everything out!
• Ibid - Insert witty line here
  Ooh, a new shiny thing...
• PaulWay - Browser
  Posting from Opera seems to work fine...
• Graeme Garden on Kazoo and Paul Merton on Swanee Whistle - (erm sorry - Bob the dog)
  That would certainly liven up Remembrance Sunday.
  For those of you listening in black and white, the front page now reads "last post by...".
• rab
  [PaulWay] Nice of you to join us, sir!
• blamelewis - Apropos? Apropos a toast!
  Nice work rab... look forward to exploring.
• gil - Try this
  Testing testing Mmm... tastes OK so far.

  • Item 1
  • Item B
  • item iii

  Yup.
• gil - Wot? No name colours?
  Well done. My only quibble is name colours, a ruse I use to find out the last time I posted in a game so that I can read everything since.
  Are you planning to implement hot links?
• gil - Sorry
  "Well done, Rab" ought to have been in bold. PHP for ever!
• rab - Name colours
  It was a concious decision to strip HTML tags from game titles and names to stop messing up the front page. I am planning to do hot links, and hope to implement some sort of smart catch-up feature in the longer term. I could add name colouring a la MCiOS as a little extra too. Sadly, I also have a job so these things might take a while to filter through.
• Breadmaster - A humble proposal
  Might I suggest having links at the bottom of each game to the main page, like the other MC servers do? Otherwise it's a pain pressing the back button twice to return to the index. Well, it is if you're as feeble as I am.
• Breadmaster
  Twice if you've just made a move, you see.
• Kilydd
  mmmmmmmm? .... little pointy things at the bottom of the page....?
• rab - Well spotted
  I appreciate these buttons are nonobvious. I will get around to providing the text alternatives to these so waving your mouse over them makes their purpose more obvious.
• penelope - Hamster-eating
  Any takers for a Headlines Game?
• rab - Oyez! (offstage) Oh no!
  Why not? One word at a time, as per usual, or some cunning variation on a theme?
• Artaud - html
  Would someone be so very kind as to nod me in the direction of a link where I my discover such advanced (to my tender brain) html commands as putting things in color ("red" in "red" for example), even a few short written instructions may suffice. You may mail me at kolesh@free.fr. Thank you so much, and Bravo rab!
• rab - Fancification
  [Artaud] This page gives you an overview of the basics. One of the things it don't mention is font colours. Do those by enclosing the text in <font color="red"> ... </font>, eg like this. I wouldn't rely on the HTML-checking technology to sort out all your problems though!
• rab - PS
  [Artaud] Somewhere your browser will have a "view source" option-- this will reveal many secrets.
• Ibid - Use the source, Luke... I mean Artaud
  So if someone uses a particularly interesting shade then you can copy it...
• blamelewis - exposure
  Rab, you're a cad sir! I imagined that the "expose all" button above would merely show all the moves made in a game so far, however my colleagues and I are currently in a state of panic having been denuded by one button click.
  As I type this frantically from under the desk with only a copy of last weeks overtime sheet (offering scant protection) I can only hope you rectify the problem soon. I didn't even know php could *do* this!
• blamelewis - and more seriously
  A couple of minor suggestions: a way back from the complete page to the latest - a "reclothe" button? :) - and a jump to bottom of page link would both be very useful.
  Looks great so far, love the muted colours.
• blamelewis - triple post sorry!
  Just noticed the logo top left leads to http://www.rab.org.uk/ rather than the crescent homepage... Is this deliberate?
• rab - Suggestions
  I'm all for suggestions, so keep 'em coming. The logo top left does redirect to my main page since as my site grows, this will be the standard way to get to the home page. Alternatively, it could take you "up" I s'pose. Wait and see on that one (had realised it was misleading).

  I could add the buttons you suggest. Yessir. Whacking it on "Things to Do" list now...

• Thos
  [Rab] Exquisite soothing niceness, this site. I bow in your general direction to allow the light bouncing off my bald head to bathe you in its rays.
• Bob the dog - More suggestions
  I like; the pastel shades, the neat and petite navigation button (keep it - it is good), the intro bar above each game, the ability to choose the winning move. I miss (from other MC games) consecutive lines in the limerick game (the gap makes it awkward), 'see whole game/last current move' links, automatic name labelling for next comment or move.
  Ideas box contributions: a punchy title ('more crescent' is a bit quiet. Off the top of my head, Rabs Crescent, More Nington or Pleasant Crescent or how about an abstract title like Slap My Jammy Badger. Change of 'skins' (as per orange) only with different pastel shades, a players profile page updateable by players (as per Yet Another). One thing I’ve always wanted with an MC game is a link to a spare page to which players can upload images for a caption competition game. This may already be possible, but I'm a dullard and don't understand these things!
• penelope
  [BtD] You don't want much, do you? ;o)
• rab - One at a time
  [BtD] I'm glad there's something you like! Now, to address your points:

  • Limericks games. Whoever started it (DrQ?) chose "game headings". I can turn these off since I too dislike them. Should I do this?
  • See whole game is there, once the game is long enough (look at the top of this page, for example). As I said, I'll add "jump to the bottom" and "reclothe" when I have a few minutes spare.
  • Auto name labelling was there originally, but I think it disappeared at some point during an "upgrade". I shall attempt to reinstate it.
  • Punchy title. The title was deliberately understated, but I'm willing to hear suggestions.
  • Reshading: this was one of my customisation ideas.
  • Updatable profiles (and possibly encyclopaedia) are On The List. (But note "I have day job" caveat).
  • Caption competition... interesting. Either this could go as a separate type of MC game or maybe a completely different interactive part of my site completely... I shall think about this. Allowing people to upload images makes me feel slightly queasy from a storage point of view, but I could impose a suitable filesize limit I suppose.
• rab - Dictat
  Since this is a benign dictatorship, I've remodelled the limericks game to make it more user friendly. (Some comments have vanished, but I can reinstate these if people complain about the censorship).
• rab - And another thing...
  I'll let you guys get on with the chatting eventually, but I thought I'd point out that the game limit on this server is set quite low to avoid treading too much on the other servers' toes. I note, for example, that Dunx has a ticket available for quite some time now, an unusual state of affairs, and I wouldn't wish to draw custom away from the more established places. However, if the demand is there, I can up the game limit at some point.
• Bob the dog - Re: Points
  • Thanx!
  • Goodie.
  • Goodie goodie.
  • Suggestions above.
  • Goodie goodie goodie.
  • Goodie goodie goodie goodie goodie gum drops.
  • You will need to monitor what is uploaded for content as well as file size. Suggest emailing to you to upload?

  
  
  Re another thing.
  I've always thought that there are too many games on the go on most servers. Good move!
  
  Now all those Goodies have given me an idea for the Beige Allegro game...
  PS. This is the first time I've tried a list. If it hasn't worked, none of this will make any sense. Sorry.
• snorgle - exciting colours!
  I just wanted to try it to see if it works..woooooohooooo!. what other colours are there?
• snorgle - my eyes may hurt
  Is this one?
• snorgle
  and this?
• Graham III - Sorry...
  <
• Graham III - SORRY...
  >
• Graham III - Doh
  Forget I mentioned it.
• penelope - *forgets*
  Discovers 'Zen' moves aren't allowed. Cool!
• Inkspot - Hexadecimalisation
  Snorgle you could try this range of colo(u)rs.
• snorgle - ooh hex, that brings back memories..
  Cool!But isn'tcolour >misspelt? what if I do this?
• Inkspot - Potatoe
  Looks like the Americans got there first for a change.
• Ibid - Gee, ain't those colors quaint...
  Well, while the WWW is a European invention, the internet and the first picture browsers are American as apple pie. I suppose.
  But anyway, I find it more amusing to see what colour various ludicrous phrases are, rather than hexadecimal.
• snorgle - obviously some people have way too much time on their hands..
  Why do different phrases come up with different colours? Is it a hex thing?
• rab - Enhancement, kinda
  Update news: On Netscape 4.76, the CSS is suppressed by default which means that it looks halfway sensible. You can override the default behaviour by adding &nocss=1 to the URL to disable CSS. If you want to explicitly turn it on, put &nocss=0 instead. Now there's still a little buglet regarding the background of some of the images, which I'm going to try and resolve.
• rab - Technical point
  If some of the buttons (the "pointy things") have a black background, convince your browser to reload them and things should be ok. (On Netscape, you do Shift-Reload, for example).
• penelope - boggled
  Not enough chat. How is the week going for everyone? Mine's fine, bit samey, but a meeting tomorrow may shake it up a bit. I'm going to ask for more holiday. After five years, you'd think I was entitled to a bit more than 21 days, wouldn't you? Insert agreement here...
• snorgle - inserting..
  Yes, absolutely! You have my permission to take the rest of the year off, on full pay.
• rab - Holiday
  *nods vigorously*
• Bob the dog - re-boggled
  21 days? Luxury! I get 21 minutes once every three years and have to be back down t'sewers half an hour before t'holiday begins. I'm so badly paid I had to knit my own swimming trunks out of used dental floss. I get lots of funny looks but at least I smell nice and minty.
  
  Penelope - how did it go?
• penelope - Gone Away
  Hmm. In all other respects, my boss is fantastic to work for. But it's so long since he was employed (rather than being an employer) that he seems to have lost touch with what's what. He didn't believe that most people get more than 21 days a year, forgot that 20 days was the legal minimum, and when we did a quick poll around the office (five people in total, including him, is the entire company) and everyone said they'd had 25 days a year holiday in our previous jobs, he refused to believe us. In the end, we had to poll the postman too. Even Post Office workers get 25 days a year, it seems. So... the upshot is we can either have more holiday, or more pay, but not both. I think I might be taking a few more days off sick this year. (I haven't done so for a year or so as I have perfect health and don't believe in colds, but I have taken a few days compassionate leave over the past year). What's the recommended dose?
• Inkspot - Lost time
  I've had the misfortune to have found an empty chair in a local government ofice several years ago. The accursed National Agreement gives me 30 days leave, but the worst ignomy is clocking in and out everyday builds up the flexitime which due to its 28 day cut off means another 13 days annually. I just haven't got the time to go off sick.
• Blob - Hols
  [pen] Count me in the 25 day club too - though three have to be taken at Xmas leaving just 22 for spreading around the year. But I'm one of the fortunate ones - new joinees here only get 20 days (less 3 for Xmas).
  Apparently (and I boggled slightly when I was told this) the 20 day minimum includes bank holidays - so as there are eight (I think) of them per year, the real minimum allowance is just 12 days. But I wouldn't advise letting your boss know this.
• Ibid - escape time
  Holiday? Well, it depends on the definition for me. What does and does not constitute a holiday for an academic (particularly as the nature of the job means that much of the work can be done anywhere and at any time)? If I'm sat working at a laptop computer, is it a holiday just because I'm on a beach in the Carribean? (I'm not by the way, I'm at a desk in Nottingham, but a man can dream, damnit).
  But strictly, it's 30 days. Plus public and University holidays. But don't argue for academic style holidays, or your boss may argue for academic style pay...
• penelope - Lost weekends
  Did I mention that I work some weekends without time off in lieu? It's the nature of my job, race meetings, etc. If they fall on a Bank Holiday Monday, we do get the days back, but ordinary Sunday race meetings mean a lost weekend. Now do you feel sorry for me?
• Chalky - Permission
  I'm self-employed. The benefits are many, especially as I a mum. However, on occasion a wistful sigh escapes, because I would love to be granted set holidays and have someone's 'permission' to down tools and relax. Goes both ways, I suppose. By the way, hello Penelope and all. Nice site and very easy on the eye. Have been a devotee of Wildpants MC for well over a year [and dabbled in YAMCS] so I recognise a few names.
• Graham III - Holidays
  I lose count, but I think I'm on about 140 weekdays holiday a year...
• Bob the dog - Hi Chalky
  I agree. This is a good site. [Re Hols] I don't really get many hols and have to work weekends too more often than not. This is because: a) I work for a not-for-profit org (long hours, low salary - result of overactive conscience) and b) I'm a pillock. I could insist on taking the full 25 days I'm owed if I really wanted to.
• rab - Recurring welcome
  Welcome Chalky. Pants is one of the sites I don't visit very much (no real reason) so I'm pleased we have some people from there creating a unique blend of something-or-other. [BtD et al] Glad you like the site. I'd like to stress that this is as much your place as mine, so stick your feet up, make yourself at home and I'll try and put any suggestions into place that people want. Apart from the fact I'm supposed to be writing a journal article as we speak, but there you go. I would like to hear suggestions for a site name. Like Dan, I'm not particularly keen on having my name attached to the place (unless there's a good pun lurking...). Other than that I don't have any feelings on the matter, so sharpen your brains and let me know your thoughts.
• rab - Holidays
  Oh, academic contract, so all these concepts are, erm, academic.
• penelope - I forgot
  As I was reminded this morning, we usually get given three days off at Christmas, so really I do get just about the average quota. My boss actually stuck his tongue out and went 'ner-ner-ner-ner-ner' when he pointed that out this morning, I guess I had him pretty pissed off with my complaints. Of course, then I had to apologise profusely and make the tea... he has now skived off for the afternoon. *sigh* There's one rule for them and another for us...
• Bob the dog - I am the us...
  As an employer, I shall note your comments. Anyone coming to me for an increase in holiday will get the 'ner-ner' treatment and be expected to supply beverages. Thank you.
• CdM - Vacation
  Like rab, ibid, and others I'm an academic (actually now sort of a freelance academic/consultant, but that's another story). It's a job with many advantages, not least of which is a remarkable amount of control over how you spend your time. But -- and this is a big but -- success in academia is primarily judged by your ability to write journal articles and publish them in good places. Which means that when rab says "I'm supposed to be writing a journal article as we speak", he is echoing something that is true for us academics all the time: we are always supposed to be writing journal articles. So -- like Chalky -- we always tend to have the sense that we should be working, and it is sometimes hard to take holidays. There was a cartoon once which showed a professor sitting up in bed and saying to his spouse, "How can I sleep when I know that someone in some other time zone is writing an article right now?"
  [Ibid] I don't think I knew you were also in academia. What field?
• Breadmaster - Holidays
  I'd point out that I didn't get any time off over Christmas or New Year at all, and was indeed still at work at 11 pm on Christmas Eve - but I'm too spartan to complain!
• DrQu+xum - Sorta kinda academic
  A staff member of an academic institution. Namely, [sys|net]admin of Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh. Combine the occasional perks of the academic life with the drudgery of 8:30-5:00 hours and unpaid overtime. But at least I can evangelize Linux/*BSD to the Micro$oft-haters.
• Bob the dog - Rab MC titles
  How 'bout Mind the rab?
  or Blythe Spirit...
  I've saved this site to favourites as RabMC. Short and honest.
• matt
  [rab] I'm afraid that, like Bob, I have this bookmarked as rabMC, but if you really must avoid the use of your name how about Mornington Crescent in Outer Mongolia? Or am I misremembering your location? (fx: ducks)
• rab - Whereabouts
  [BtD, matt] Maybe rabMC it is then. There must surely be something better. [matt, specifically] If you mean outside the M25, then yes...
• Bob the dog - re:re:re
  Beige Crescent? ;o)
• Blob - MC who ?
  I'm afraid you are simply MC 5 on my shortcuts - having taken over the slot originally available for Huxley's late lamented site.
• Bob the dog
  MC5 is kinda cool! Like the site, honest and understated. Gets my vote.
• DrQu+xum - RabMC!
  Actually, it'd probably be MC 8 by that standard, assuming you include Delphi, YAMCS, and Beer-Powered.
  
  It's been RabMC in my bookmarks since the original announcement.
• rab - Five alive
  MC5, or perhaps MC⁵ for that element of millenial chic, might do the job.
• rab - Up the arts
  And one could also go up that poncey TeX route and insist that the official pronunciation is "mukf" or something... Sorry if that means nothing to most people
• Bob the dog
  Yup. Lost on me. MC⁵ Is good!
  
  Is York! down? I can't get it at the moment...
• rab - Whizzy whizzy whizzy
  My first post from my new whizzy laptop. Hurrah. Should make maintenance of this site much more easier...

  [BtD] Can't get to !York, and I'm on an .ac.uk domain so it's either a server problem, or it's bitten the dust (though if the latter, I reckon jim would've told us.

• Blob - MC5
  As E=mc² then perhaps Ec³ would be enigmatically fitting.
• Projoy - Empsey Five
  Yeah, I like MC5, too. Sounds like a mobile phone network. Not that my opinion counts as I'm hardly ever here.
• Projoy - millennialism
  Actually you could make it even more modish, by going lowercase... mc⁵
• penelope - yay!
  Yay for whizzy laptops!
• rab - Right
  Looks like mc⁵ it is then. Hmmm... hadn't catered for the possibility of markup in page titles, so I've got a bit of tinkering to do. But laptop+weekend might make this a possibility.
• Blob - Ec3
  Of course EC3 is an area of London - unfortunately not the one that includes M.C. itself. It is in fact the the area around The Tower.
• Fat German - MC5
  MC5 is a great name, but there are 4 musicians from the sixties who might hold claim to ownership of that name. Not that any of them are probably in any state to understand any more. Yay! Kick Out The Jams!
• Bob the dog - Alperton Einstein
  Blob] I’m no mathmagician, but does this mean that mc= √e?
• Watty - er..
  Only if e=(mc)² - which I don't believe it does.
• blamelewis - m5, see?
  Finally got round to dropping back in! Going good still - yay!
  mc(hup)5 has a ring to it alright... [snorgle] you asked a while back about while phrases come out as colours - I recall a conversation in depth about it elsewhere - can't remmber the server but I read Orange, !York and Outer Space regularly so a search of the full text of their chat games might illuminate (or at least colour-in)
  What I remember as the reason is that the first six letters are converted to hex and used as the colour code... not sure if there's more to it than that...
• rab - Colours
  I think it was MCiOS, but I can't be sure.
• penelope - Hello!
  Has anyone else caught on to 'Celebdaq', the fantasy celebrity stock exchange hosted by BBCi? I'm checking my portfolio every 20 minutes and have already had to ditch all my Jude Law shares this morning. Catherine Zeta-Jones is performing well though - dhe made me about £50 overnight.
• rab - Well, Hello!
  [pen] No, but sounds a lot more lucrative than the real thing.

  Just thought I'd share the latest bit of highly targetted advertising to land in my mailbox, which will make sense to those of you who've met me:

  Be Beautiful - Get everything you need for fabulous curly hair. Treat your hair to Curl Friends and get everything you need to achieve bouncy, super soft curls with incredible definition and flawlessly fine shine. Curl Friends caters to your curls concerns with specially formulated hair cures that work great in any combination without weighing hair down. Need more shine, less frizz, something to fend off the fly always? Curl Friends has got you covered with products designed especially for the particular needs of curly hair.

  continues in this vein for about half an hour....
• Graham III - Hair
  [rab] I just got that one too...
• Inkspot - Sell, sell, sell
  [pen]Thanks for the tip, I bought some celebs earlier today, I'm down £133 already, but I hope to stop this with Anthony Hopkins.
• penelope - celebdaq
  Yay! I've moved from 71,000th-ish on the leaderboard when I started a week ago to 22,238th today! I've made £7,500 in a week. Now I'm just waiting for my Tony Blackburn shares to go up...
• Boolbar - share & enjoy
  [pen] looks like great fun - shame the site runs soooo slow (or is that just me?).
• Bob the dog - Celebs
  Here's a link to it.
• Inkspot - maintenace
  Everytime I've tried to sell this morning, a message appears about the market being suspended for regular maintenace, I want to sell Christina Hamilton and buy Daniel Day Lewis. I'm stumbling around placing 83300.
• Boolbar - celeb no go
  I can't even log in at the moment. The title page appears so quickly but anything after that times out.
• Btd - Ditto
  I'm having the same problem.
• Boolbar - Working now
  . . . and my Nicole Kidman shares are doing very nicely. Daniel Day Lewis up 1p and judging by the current news, I'm glad I bought some Victoria Beckham.
• penelope - celebrities
  I guess that after the weekend's TV exposure, the site is experiencing more traffic than usual. I can't even get the log-in page right now. Try late at night when all the bored dweebs have left the office!
• Ibid - celabrities (sp)
  Wish I'd bought Beckham and Fergie at the weekend when I saw Man U were going down the pan. Should have guessed that the mad old Scotsman would have a news-making strop. Of course, to do so would have required me to remember my password...
• Boolbar - Password
  I had trouble with my password - until I found both your password and username are case sensitive.
• penelope (ranked 8,900th-ish today) - Buy! Buy! Buy!
  BTW chaps, remember that you have to have been in possession of your shares for at least two and a half days (I think that's right) to qualify for the dividends, paid out on the basis of column inches at the end of every week. So don't expect to get paid dividends on anything bought after this lunchtime (Weds). On the other hand, if you can sell something that's in great demand at a profit and find another escalating share to invest in this week, then you're doing very well. I don't even know who half these people are...
• Inkspot - ranked 45768
  So far a gain in the last week of 7.91% I have various shares in Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta Jones, David Beckham, Nicole Kidman, Natalie Imbruglia and Daniel Day Lewis, most of them as a result of buying the first name on the ticker tape. The first two days I had Sadie Frost but sold her as soon as her name disappeared, there seem to be a lot of pop idol movement on Will Young and Ms Dynamite at the moment, but that probably has to do with the up and coming Brit Awards. pen]can you explain what kneecapping is?
• Boolbar - ranked 59829
  Disappointed in my Eminem shares - dropping rather badly. Reasonable gains in Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin (who gain some column inches due to breaking up). Glad I grabbed some Alex Ferguson shares though - up 11% since purchase. Even Charlotte Church has gone up 5%. [Kneecapping] Isn't that when you get over one million, they give you a boat icon and knock your cash back to 10000?
• CdM - An economist writes....
  An interesting thing about this market is that they have set up a (real, cash) reward for the person who gets the best weekly improvement in their portfolio. If people are motivated by this reward, rather than the fictional one of wanting to have a high-valued portfolio, then they will adopt very different trading strategies. For example, if you want a chance for the cash prize, you should be going for very high-risk investments, since you don't care about the downside if they go through the floor, but they give you the best chance of the (real, cash) upside.
• Inkspot - Music Meastro?...
  The Brit Awards have been going on tonight looking at the list of winners I am little suprised at the industry bemoaning poor record sales. I put this down to the companies here pandering to the short term pop idol market which does not create a large fan base or following. I do have faith that there are good performers and songwriters out there which is why I am pleased to see awards for Coldplay and Ms Dynamite. The award ceremony being notable from the list of major absentees
  BRITISH MALE SOLO ARTIST Robbie Williams, BRITISH FEMALE SOLO ARTIST Ms Dynamite,BRITISH ALBUM Coldplay: Rush of Blood to the Head,BRITISH GROUP Coldplay Parlophone,BRITISH SINGLE Liberty X: Just A Little,BRITISH URBAN ACT Ms Dynamite,BRITISH DANCE ACT Sugababes,BRITISH BREAKTHROUGH ARTIST Will Young,POP ACT Blue, INTERNATIONAL MALE SOLO ARTIST Eminem,INTERNATIONAL FEMALE SOLO ARTIST P!nk,INTERNATIONAL ALBUM Eminem: The Eminem Show,INTERNATIONAL GROUP Red Hot Chili Peppers,INTERNATIONAL BREAKTHROUGH ARTIST Norah Jones,OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO MUSIC Tom Jones V2
• Graham III - Missy D?
  Ms Dynamite - not convinced. Seems to be able to rap, but can't sing for toffee. The chorus for her song Miss Dynamite-ee-eeee or whatever is nabbed from somewhere else (forget where now), and the backing vocals are nicked from 'Pass the dutchie on the left hand side' (no joke). Robbie Williams was a surprise, especially considering the quality (or lack of) of his last album. Liked Swing when you're winning though. Eminem. Well, I'm just not going to go there. Tom Jones - yay. Norah Jones, well I fancy her, and her the bits of songs that I've heard are good as well. Will Young. Hmmmmmmmmmm. Coldplay - could be worse. Sugababes - well, would have gone for Jamiroqui myself, but I haven't a clue what Sugababes have done. Red Hot Chili Peppers - aren't they like years old? Or am I getting mixed up? Blue - who? Liberty X - don't care.
  
  Thus spake the classically changed musician who knows nothing about popular culture :)
• Inkspot - money, money, money
  Graham III] There used to be Brit Awards for classical music, do you have nominees for this year? ie British album , International Album .. etc?

  Divi payout on celebdaq absolutely thousands, time to buy some Jacko and Chris Martin. Ranked 10278 worth £36032 +260.32%.

• Inkspot - classics from the attic
  Last years Brit categories
  

  1. Contemporary music award
  2. Female artist of the year
  3. Male artist of the year
  4. Ensemble/orchestral album of the year
  5. Young British classical performer
  6. Rover album of the year
  7. Biggest selling classical album in the UK
     Critics award
  8. Outstanding contribution to music award 2002 - Andrea Bocelli.
• Graham III - Callousical Brits
  Give me the Gramophone awards any day... I don't keep up with the reviews, so I don't really know.
  
  Celebdaq - started at 5 o'clock, was listening to 5 live, and got the Brit award winners within minutes of them being announced, so quite cheap. Only Eminem hasn't performed... Currently lying 30000ish but early days.
• rab - Brits
  Coldplay is possibly the most overrated band at the moment. Which makes a change from Oasis, I guess. Anyway, this kind of thing is always subjective. Meanwhile: The new Massive Attack album sounds like middle-period Cure. Discuss.
• Ibid - Brits
  Hmm, well I'm officially outside the age span they market singles to by a long way, so I'm not surprised there are bands on there I've never heard of. As for the Chilli Peppers, the band has been going a long time, but they're now off drugs and producing more succesful albums again, so it's more of a comeback thing. Oh, and I had Ms Dynamite for the Celebdaq thing ages ago, as I was sure she was going to come out with comments on Dubyas planned party in the gulf sooner or later.
• Projoy - modishness
  Ages ago we were talking about the "brand" for this site and settled, it seems, on mc⁵ - at the time I created an illustration of what I meant by that modishness, but couldn't upload it till now...
  
• Projoy - Cedition
  Actually, it's just occured to me that you could be even more economical and just add a cedilla: mç
• penelope - titles, hits and misses
  [Projoy] very nice. The font reminds me of those Cherry Lips sweets you used to get that would cement your jaws together.
  Another tale of woe from the dating front. Just been out on another first date... he drank seven pints and I had a single glass of wine. He sang along (badly) to my Elvis CD on the way home. He had a great time, wants to see me again and invited me to a rugby weekend in Amsterdam (among other things). I've stalled him for the moment, telling him to call me in the week when he's sober. In the meantime, your opinions please... is it bad manners to drink a considerable amount like that on a first date? I'm hoping he's lost my number already!
• Bob the dog - mc5
  Rab] - thats fantastic:o)
  Pen]He's obviously comfortable with himself - however, seven pints on a first date? Either he needed to steady his beating heart or he is just rude. Ditch him. Or go with him to Amsterdam and discover the truth...
• rab - Fantasm
  [BtD] I suspect that comment may have been directed at Projoy. I may steal that image and incorporate it somehow, if that's ok.
• rab - Dinks
  I think even I would hesitate to drink seven pints on a first date.
• rab - Uploads
  Just done some uploads, but I'm not sure it's necessarily working properly as my auto-update tool isn't doing what it's told. Erse.
• rab - Nevertheless
  It still seems to be working so I guess we're in business. For now, at least.
• Thos - Dates
  [Penelope] I think drinking politely in small groups requires no one party to get too far ahead of the other, so yes, I'd say he was being rude. If you don't like him, perhaps you should just say so. I went on a blind date about eighty years ago and I told the person that it would just be a waste of both our times if we were to meet again. It was the honest approach and of course I didn't have to go through that rigmarole of letting them down gently. Btw, my recommendation for future first dates is not to have them at all and start with the second! :)
• Graham III - Dates again
  Just come back from a first date myself. One glass of wine each, and it seemed to go ok! I agree with Thos though, skip the first date and start with the third. Better still go out with someone you know quite well already...
• Bob the dog - MC5
  Erm, yes, Projoy - very nice logo.
  Any fellow music lovers may find the reviews on this page interesting. Apologies for cross-posting.
• penelope - Date the Third
  And what if I told you that my best hope of making a good impression was to go out with someone who had never met me before and knew nothing about me? ;o) Seriously, I think he's a bit of a tit and if he calls me I'll respond along the lines Thos suggested.
• rab - Mariella
  [pen] Giving this some thought I found myself going into Mariella mode, namely that it's probably not the drinking that's the problem, but it's the person that's the problem. You seem to have reached this conclusion independently, so I'll just shut up and let you get on with your quest.
• Projoy - no logo
  [rab] But of course! Hm. Looks like you might need a version with the same grey background, or perhaps a transparent gif version. Will see what I can do this week.
• rab - Um
  The version above is supposed to be a transparent PNG, so it may be the case that your browser doesn't support them. (I know this to be the case for at least one version of Internet Explorer on Windows, for example).
• Projoy - png but no pong
  My browser is IE 6.0.2800.1106.xpsp1.020828-1920 if it helps.
• Projoy
  Or, indeed, if it matters, which it probably doesn't, on reflection.
• rab
  [Projoy] Maybe not. I think I know how to fix it so it works everywhere... but really I think IE should display transparancies properly, for goodness sake!
• Blob - Transparencies
  [rab, Pjy] I've got IE6, Mozilla and Opera on this computer. Only Opera renders the transparency correctly, both IE6 and Mozilla putting the logo in a little white oblong.
• Blob - Correction
  Sorry - I was maligning Mozilla unfoundedly - it gets it right too. I could explain why I thought it didn't ut it's too boring.
• rab - Bum
  Interestingly IE 5.2 on this Mac renders it fine,
• Btd - IE6
  IE6 PC - not working as a transparency.
• Thos, Thos, Thos, Thos and Salterton, Solicitors - Writ Large
  Sir, my client, one Projoy, of no fixed abode, cyberspace, has advised me that whilst he is agreeable, in principle, to your usage of his patented MC5 motif for the purposary useage of enadvertisementation he must insistify on appropriate counter-enroyaltied remuneratory recompensite consideration. He has accordingly placed the matter in our ten hands. Messrs Thos, Thos, Thos and Salteron are otherwise businessingly engagemented so our Mr Thos is dealing with this matter personally. It is our contentioned argumentary position that the artistic loss suffered by our client by cause of repeated sight of the enmotifary logomark by divers cybertravellers and the subsequentary enboredomulation that transpirifies is worth a caramac in anyone's promisery note-based mechanism of exchangification of goods, chattels and servicements. Please provide the consequentarily invoiced confectionables forthwith or we'll send the lads round.
• Pro, Pro, Pro, Pro and Joy, Client - soppy rite
  [Thos, Thos, Thos, Thos and Salterton] You're fired. But I still want that Caramac.
• Graham III - cooldom
  I forget to mention that that's one classy logo.
  
  That's one classy logo.
• rab - Defence
  [Thos, Thos, Thos, Thos and Salterton] I intend to put credits on this site somewhere at some point. I shall also present you with a coconut next time our paths may cross.
• Bob the dog - A design pedant writes
  But what about the said Caramac?
• Thos, Thos, Thos, Thos and Salterton, Solicitors - Writ Largesse
  [Rab] Our services having been dispenserated with by our former client, one Projoy, we are now in the market for representing respected cyberdesigners who have unwittingly been envictimisatified by logomarketeers with one eye on the main chance who hoped to enbully innocent personages such as yourself in order to achieve the procuralment of caramacalised chocolate substitutements for personal and weight gain purposes by means of legalisationed enmissivement from a firm of solicitors. Would you therefore be enwilling to commissionalise us to serve counterclaimary documentation to this character of ungrateful malefactory bearing? p.p. Thos for Thos, Thos, Thos, Thos and Salterton.
• rab - Actionment
  [T⁴&S, S] Yeah.
• snorgle - my feet are cold
  "The Banter Page" and "Now its time to play Mornington Crescent" headlines are a bit difficult to read - they're so bold the spaces almost vanish..
• Graham III - headlice
  [snorgle] Don't see any problem here (Mozilla, 100% text size)
• rab - Browsing
  [snorgle] What browser are you using? It might just need some gentle tweakage of the html/css combination to get an acceptable look'n'feel across browsers.
• snorgle - dancing
  IE 6.0.2800.1106 (if thats any help..)
• penelope - Celebdaquiris all round!
  Made it to 8,900th-ish in the rankings after today's divident payout!
• Boolbar - Congratuladaqs
  [pen] Nice one! - I'm 4000 behind you. Not enough divs! :o(
• rab - To be a Texan
  Right, that's me off to Texas for a week. Try not cause too much havoc in my absence. I'll attempt to poke my head round the door if/when I can while away just in case. ttfn.
• rab - Awuga! Maths/physics joke alert!
  [Boolbar] What about grads or curls?
• Inkspot - Lead ballon
  This week I decided to go for divi instead of ranking sticking with Kylie instead of Jessica Tayor, dropped overnight from 7962 todays ranking of 9965. Spent the divi on J-Lo and Jacko.
• snorgle - cold feet again. must get slippers.
  [rab]It's even worse now! Have you done something?
• Graham III - celebdaquring
  18000 - which could be worse, considering I hadn't done anything in the last 3 days.
• penelope - movers and shakers
  #5999... yippee! All down to buying MsDynamite and sticking with it all week. She's been the strongest climber and there was a pretty huge divi payout too. This week's strategy will be... I dunno actually. I think it'll start to get harder now, as all the music awards bashes are over and done.
• rab - Blameless
  [Snorgle] No. Anyway, can't stop. Am writing this from Newark airport. God knows what the time is-- I'll find out when I post. Had my bags sniffed and shoes x-rayed and deemed suitable to enter the country. Anyway, only 40 seconds remaining so toodlepip.
• DrQu+xum - "Welcome to Newark -- Now GETOUTAHEAH!"
  [rab] Hope Newark is just a transfer point. :)
• snorgle - confused
  eh? maybe my eyesight is going..
• Bob the dog - Long gone
  !York has been dead a while. I wonder if it is terminal?
• Graham III - Long live !York
  I'm in mourning.
• Boolbar - !York
  Perhaps it should be called !!York.
• rab - Newark
  [DrQ] Now in Austin, Texas. Still struggling to find something I would consider to be a "town centre". Anyway, can't stay long, as there's a big queue for terminals and there's this cute polish girl I remember from a previous conference. Toodlepip.
• Inkspot - bouncing back
  After falling from 7134 last Monday to the dark depths of being ranked 11023 on Sunday, I have regained a couple with the help of J-Lo to be 6297.
  Red Nose Day is coming up on the 14 March with Celebrity Fame Academy with Ulrika and Ferne, perhaps Ms D will run out of steam by then.
• Boolbar - shhhhhh
  It's a bit quiet today . . . .
• penelope - shush
  *whispers* Yes, it is.
• Guess Who
  Zip a dee do dah, zip a dee eh,
  My oh my, what a wonderful day
  Plenty of sunshine heading my way,
  Zip a dee do dah, zip a dee eh.
  

  Seems to be catching.

• Inkspot - mmmmmmm?
  Wha'.....oh! it's you.
• penelope
  Oh dear. I think it's, catching. Have I gonea funny colour?
• rab - Bang
  Clatter
• Inkspot - earth moving equipment
  rab]so I take it you pulled then? ;-)
• Bob the dog
  Inkspot] It must have beew that cute Polish girl :o)
• rab - Pulley
  Sadly not. Mind you, the waitresses here are very tactile. Ho hum, set sail back to Mancatraz tomorrow...
• DrQu+xum - Tractor Pull
  You found an accomodating waitress in Austin? Wow.
• Inkspot - Dollar Signs
  ITV, Reborn in the USA, I'd love to watch a group of 1980's egos play to American audiences who've never heard of them, but that sock drawer needs tidying up again!
• Inkspot - Don't mention the rugby!
  Good win for Coulthard yesterday.
• Ibid - Making F1 interesting again
  Ah yes, the cunning plan of ensuring that Barrichello spins off on a patch of oil and bits fall off the bottom of M Schumacher's car ensures that once again F1 is interesting. As long as you don't require them to overtake each other much.
• Lib - lacking any techincal jargon
  [rab] really like the site (don't think i've said that before, how rude am i!?) but was wondering if it would be possible to atler the fact that when you use the little icons in the bottom right corner of the screen to go to other pages you go via games which have already ended. i'd like it if we just went to the games in play. anyone else got any opinions?
• Blob - Ooops
  I just got this !

  

• Blob
  No I didn't get a little red x - I got this
• rab - Onalista
  [Lib] On the list. Need a weekend!
• rab
  [Blob] And what did you do to get that, exactly. Anything you shouldn't have done?
• rab
  [Blob] Actually, thinking about it, it's not puzzling at all.
• Inkspot - Enigma Variations
  Almost as puzzling as their home page
  Ibid]I have never considered Coulthard as having world champion material which makes me smile, all through the the the race they were going on about Räikkönen, Montoya and Schumacher and out of nowhere Coulthard pulls it off. I hope he can prove me wrong. The other thing is, should he win the will he bow out while at the top or ignominiously hang round like Damon Hill.
• Blob - Awuga Awuga
  [rab] As you may already have surmised, I got the error by inserting an illegal thread number. I was trying to increase the number of displayed lines - and put in 500 - not noticing that the number I was increasing was the thread (game page) number. I hadn't noticed the "Expose All" 8-)
  BTW I like the little teddy.
• rab - Puzzled
  Actually, I'm not sure you're supposed to get a 'puzzling' error in that context... (as you may have guessed, there are different types of errors, and I find using real English adjectives more useful than bland numeric identifiers).
• Blob - Little Ted
  [rab] I'm bothered : Is that little Teddy made from montelimar nougat ? He sure looks like he is. If so, is he in danger of being eaten ? I sincerely hope not.
• rab - Teddy
  [Blob] I'm not sure. You see, I'm a callous barstool, and stole the teddy from some small infant somewhere. He was seasonable at the time, but is losing his relevance rapidly. I must remember to remove him from the serious pages when I get around to writing them.
• Blob - Save the Teddy Campaign
  [rab] I fail to se why he needs to be removed from the "serious" pages. Are you suggesting that he doesn't possess innate gravitas ?
• Ibid - Teducation
  Perhaps if you give him a little placard he could become topical rather than seasonal?
• Graham III - Marriage of Figaro
  Currently viewing this wonderful place in Opera, and the front page doesn't render correctly - the table of games is neatly placed on the left instead of in the middle...
• rab - Bizarre
  [GIII] Well it should since there's a wopping great big <div align="center"> around the whole lot...
• Graham III - Mozart
  It's strange, as in Author mode it renders incorrectly, but in user mode it renders correctly... weird weird weird.
• rab - Brahms and Liszt
  (that being the result of a couple of sunny hours in a beergarden). Does that mean I don't have to do anything? I've not taken a look at Opera for a while, so I'm not sure as to the distinction between these modes of which you speak.
• Graham III - Gunga Din
  (being invented rhyming slang). Opera has two modes - one is author mode, which is its standard thing, and it has user mode, in which exist various options like "Emulate text browser", "ignore frames", and "Accessibility layout". It's a rather nice browser actually, and more compatible than Mozilla has a habit of being with things like java.
• rab - Right
  [GIII] The thing is, this is actually a bug in the browser, and therefore something I'd rather not work around. Perhaps you could email the Opera people pointing out this anomoly? This goes for IE users who don't see transparancies on the icons on the grey backgrounds.
• Graham III - Aaaaah
  Oh right. Fair enough... It's not as if it makes a vast quantity of difference anyway! I'll do that though.
• Lib - making conversation
  Gosh, isn't it a lovely day today? It is in my neck of the woods. Never knew the largest council estate in Europe could actually look an attractive place to live in, but in this light it does! Miracles do happen.
• penelope - Cherry Blossom
  [Lib] Is that Bestwood or Clifton in Nottingham?
• Lib - still sunny
  [pen] Neither. Wythenshaw, Manchester (near the airport). local legend has it that it is the biggest in Europe, but no doubt other places will claim that prize too.
• Graham III - *whistles*
  It is gorgeous isn't it? I'm off for a walk.
• Boolbar - Nurse! The screens
  Bloody sunshine . . . straight into my eyes . . .
• penelope - There's always one, isn't there?
  *places duct-tape across Boolbar's eyes* [Boolbar] There. That better? Mwahahahaah!!!
• snorgle - sunshine!
  God Boolbar, I bet you're one of those tossers in the office who whimpers at the tiniest shaft of sunlight and insists we all live in a murky world lit only by VDU! GRR!!!
• Breadmaster
  I'm one of those! Vitamin D? pah!
• Boolbar - Lights Out.
  [snorgle] Actually I'm one of those "enjoys sitting by the window basking in the sunshine, except when it delights in shines directly at me (only happens at this time of the year) and the blind in the window is so arranged that I would have to draw it across the entire window in order to shade my eyes so I usually just stick a piece of A4 paper on the window at the appropriate position" type of tosser.
• Boolbar - oops
  s/shines/shining
• Bob the dog - ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
  Sunshine makes me so relaxed, and what with the soporific hum of the computer, the distant rumble of traffic passing by, the report I'm writing...
• snorgle - sunbathing
  [boolbar] that's ok then! you;re not one of those annoying people who insist that any form of external light reflects off their screen, causing retinal damage, scabies and scrofula. speaking of which, i was walking home and saw a bunch of people, about 20 or 30 lying down, one of whom bore a sign saying "We are the war dead." this was rather ruined by someone who got off his bike and lay down with them in his shorts and t-shirt, placing his floppy hat over his eyes and turning on his portable radio. it was a lovely day, though..
• penelope - Apropos nothing better to do
  I'm going for a full house on the front page... watch me burn dudes!
• Boolbar - something in the air
  *wonders why there is a smell of burning dudes in the air*
• Thos - Sunshine = evil
  I'm with Boolbar on this one. The sun is designed merely to give me a headache. It has no other use (fact!).
• Boolbar - sunny delight
  [Thos] What about chasing ants with a magnifying glass?
• Lib - sun and all thing sunny
  I think you're all jsut suffering from SAD (seasonal affective disorder, *slaps herself on the wrist for being overtaken by medical abbrevations* as you haven't seen enough sun as it's cold and winter (for most of us). I find sun is addictive, wasn't too keen until I lived in a very sunny place for 2 months, and now i'm pining for it. I NEED SUNSHINE!
• Ibid - Sun
  I find the sun is much like beer. While it is enjoyable, and promotes a pleasant feeling in small quantities, it is capable of bringing me great pain and indeed nausea, and doesn't mix well with my working environment (yes, if the sun is shining through my office window I can give myself such an apalling headache I become very nauseous).
• Blob - Beer
  Too much beer ? Sorry, fails to compute.
• rab - Sunshine
  It's very sunny in Saarbrücken. *waves*. Keyboarding difficulties make MC difficult. That, and the fact I'm supposed to be listening to a talk about spin glasses, something I don't do willingly. On the other hand, the Abtei-Bräu was very good last night...
• snorgle - slightly durnk
  [rab]What the hell are spin glasses? I have strange visions of rotating spectacles..
• DrQu+xum - Spin glasses
  Those are special corrective lenses worn by batsmen facing Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, Ian Salisbury, Harbhajan Singh, or JLE. :)
• rab - Spinnage
  [snorgle] Would that it were that interesting. It's apparantly something to do with the old dilemma of separating a large group people into two rooms, both containing only people who mutually like each other. Or something.

  Bit quite here the noo. Any particular reason?

• gil - spin glasses
  Aren't spin glasses the musical instrument in which variously tuned glasses rotate on a sort of deck, and the musician, with appropriately resin-coated fingers, plays them by applying slight pressure to the edge?
• Blob - in tune
  [gil] That's a glass harmonica (as I'm sure you knew) - I always think "Playing the glass harmonica" sounds like a euphemism for something - not sure what though, perhaps it ought to be a Face Pyjama when !!York is reborn.
• snorgle - hmm..
  yes it has been quiet..so did you find out how to spin glasses?
• rab - Mandy's specs
  [snorgle] Yes.
• snorgle - huyt
  [rab]Well, go on and show us then!
• Server
  *Break in space-time continuum*
• rab - Goad
  You're just goading me into writing a 'preview' function aren't you...?
• Projoy
  [matt] It's too easy. I couldn't consider making a move unless it was all in verse. :)
• matt - for ease a jolly good fellow
  [Projoy] Go on, lower yourself. The reverse game is already starting to look a bit wobbly with all of us waiting for you...
• snorgle - gah!
  i fear bifurcations.
• PaulWay
  /me studiously avoids game.
• rab - Small change...
  Big difference. <rolf>Can you tell what it is yet?</rolf>
• Bob the dog
  I note the return of Christmas Ted!
• rab - Whoops
  That wasn't supposed to happen. Grr...
• Bob the dog
  Boo Hiss! rab the teddy killer!
• penelope - *FLASH!*
  OMG... Number 6 in the Celebdaq ratings. Now preparing myself for the fall...
• rab - Put your clothes back on
  [pen] Do you get a material prize, or merely kudos for your endeavours?
• penelope - Read all abaht it
  I was hoping to gain kudos from you lot, but plainly it's not working :o( (There is a cash prize - £100 for the best performer of the week, but mainly it's for fun.)
• rab
  *passes penelope one slice of lovingly buttered kudos*
• st dogmael - breaks through the locks finally
  So this is where everyone has been hiding since !York went into care.....
• rab - puts locks back together again
  You'll be pleased to hear you've just missed a 'Quickfire Patience MC' opportunity.
• Inkspot - a little pressie
  pen]Astounding success, unable to help out on the kudos but I do have this unopened bottle of Kouros aftershave you can have. I'll even put a pink bow on it for you.
  
• penelope - The Sweet Smell of Success
  [rab, Inkspot] *reeking of aftershave and smothered in butter* Thank you! :o)
  BTW, st d and I started a Celebdaq duel this afternoon by simulataneously opening second trading accounts. I'm now also Evil_Edna... will let you know how we get on! *cackles*
• Inkspot - MC league table
  As part of Celebdaq it is possible to have a bit of fun with our own Mini League, to be added, post your Player(ID) here :Inkspot (2841446). Name change suggestions to the league are welcomed. Hopefully newjustine would give the rest of us a chance occasionally.
• penelope - Game on
  [Inkspot] Your link didn't work... but you can add my alter-ego to your league... evil_edna is id# 3173041. (And ranked 108561 today.)
• rab - Try
  here.
• PaulWay - In League with the BBC
  Do you have to register to view things? I suppose I don't mind per se, but...
• Boolbar - 20000 leagues under the celebdaq
  [Inkspot] It appears that you have to add us to your league. You can add my brand new trader as well FurryBoolbar (note capitals) id# 3174254.
• Boolbar - Furry
  [Inkspot] Thanks!
• evil_edna - penelope? who's she?
  [Inkspot] Thanks! *cackle*
• DrQu+xum - I'll give it a go.
  DRQUUXUM (id: 3174581) Apparently + is not in their alphabet. :)
• Wol - League of Gentlemen
  Chuck me in - WolWol (3174756).
• DrQu+xum - Celebdaq Celebs?
  Whaddya mean I can't buy 2000 shares of Rolf Harris? :)
• Inkspot - socks and pears
  Thanks all, you have been added, the league gets updated just after midnight, and I look forward to being on top.
  DrQu+xum I see you like rare and exotic gems how about Leee John, not doing very much but neither is Reborn in the USA.
• snorgle - celebdaq
  SNORGLE (User ID: 2818390) Can you put me on too? And some pointers would be good too.. I'm languishing..
• evil_edna - *cackle*
  Watch me sneak up from (a long way) behind.
• rab - (Offstage muttering)
  ... feel like poo ... never drinking again ... this time I mean it ... &c
• matt - rash promises
  [rab] You realize we'll be holding you to that at the next pilg... :)
• gil - Celebdaq
  SIGMUNDFREUD (User ID: 3176252). Not sure how good I'll be at this - so far, what with commission, I'm £121 down on my initial stake.
• Boolbar - Celebpah
  Second in the league and then they shut the site down for a while!
• penelope - celebdoss
  I'm waaaaay down in the rankings now... about 41,000. The highest I got was #4... and I still have no idea how I did it. Something to do with madonna, I think :o)
• penelope - acelebdaq
  yay! Evil_edna streaks into the lead, just as I threatened.... woo!!!!!
• Inkspot - penniless
  I've been kneecapped all my shares confiscated and funds reduced to £10,000, I need a new plan. I'm going to try the noseless one, but it looks like the boat has already left.
• penelope - fat banker...
  [Inkspot] But you have that lovely lolly in the bank and a little 'greenbacks' symbol next to your name. If you're so good, you can jolly well do it all over again!
• FurryBoolbar - This celebdaq ain't big enough for the both of us
  I'll get you Evil_edna!!!
• evil_edna - The Chase is on...
  [FurryBB] *cackle*
• PaulWay - Celebdaq
  I would feel left out, but I think I still have a few shares left in my Foresight Exchange account...
• DrQu+xum - Bah!
  [Celebdaq] No Paul Merton? Star of stage, screen, and radio; BAFTA winner . . . and not available for trade? FEH!
• snorgle - my ankle hurts
  feh, indeed!
• Boolbar - The Man With The Celebdaq In His Eyes
  [Celebdaq] No Kate Bush either, and she's always in the news, what with her constant output of new music and naughty late night partying. Ha!
• rab - Oof!
  What a pallaver! After that rather nasty hacking effort I've managed to recover (thanks to the Google cache and gil) most of what was going on here. Three games suffer breaks in the space-time continuum: this one (we're missing the discussion of the Furcation Game, which needn't be a tragedy); two lines of a limerick are missing; and an unspecified number of lies have gone. (No they haven't). Also, the timestamps on recovered moves have all been set to the notional recovery time; but seeing as these are only fleetingly displayed on the front page, we can probably live without that. Next job: instigate rolling backups, I think.
• rab - Going... going... going Live!
  *Yeah!*
• penelope - normal service
  [rab] Hurrah!!
• rab - Tumbleweed
  Apologies for the tumbleweed. As I remarked at MCiOS, so sooner had I wielded my magic wand and managed to get roughly back how we were, did the new server develop a hardware fault. Losing, you guessed it, any moves in the brief period we were back online. Since these probably number about three, I think we can pretend these never happened without any space-time paradoxes setting in.
• rab - Phew!
  Good that worked! Right, as to the future. When I return to the office tomorrow, I will install some stuff on the machines there that will not only back this thing up daily, but also allow me to restore from anywhere in the world, rather than rely on my laptop being (a) with me and (b) near a phone socket. This means that if there are any failures between now and, say, tomorrow morning, there's not much I can do. After that, this site always be able to stay alive as long as I do. If more problems occur, I shall consider moving to a more upscale hosting company that has downtime guarantees (or should that be uptime guarantees?). I'm hoping, however, that this is very much a one-off occurrence.
• rab - Oh
  And I would say I had a nice weekend if it weren't for the fact I had all this shite to deal with, and I chundered for the first time in 6 years on Sunday. Nice. However, it was about 90% my fault.
• Bob the dog - Well done
  Glad you are back.
• penelope - getting your own back
  [Rab] I trust that whatever celebrations caused you to chunder were well worth the consequences ;o)
• rab - Scratch that back
  [pen] Well... only just. I think it was largely due to some friends of a friend having just got back from Spain and insisting that I drink something that came out of a plastic container of the type you might use to package creosote. Maybe it was creosote. It certainly wasn't very drinkable. Nevertheless, I drank it... and when popping into my parents for coffee the next day, decided to stay not just for an hour but two days to recover. Yum. So if you see me on Saturday, remind me to avoid the noxious end of the beverage spectrum.
• gil - Well done
  We missed you
• rab
  *blushes*. Now go forth and get the dates changed on the front page!
• Projoy - Hang it all

  Right, probably safe to come back in, then, and make again my suggestion for a new game that was lost the other day. Is anyone on for a round of Collective Consciousness Hangman, in which one person sets a conventional hangman problem, but only other players are allowed to reveal the letters or add lines to the scaffold.

  Other players take guesses in turn as to which letters are in the word. The players who arbitrate over what letters are in the word are not allowed to confer. The shape of the word can only emerge through tacit mutual consent - via, in other words, the collective consciousness. Ask Kevan to explain more about this.

  Playing it in Dan's chatroom the other day we realised it was a sort of metaphor for the designoid nature of evolution, akin to the passage from Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker where he uses "blind selection" to arrive at the Shakespearian phrase "METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL". Possibly I had eaten too much chocolate cake at that point, however.
• rab - Hang on...
  Well, the Great Bear is looking a little bare, so could be a candidate for slaughtering. Sorry this suggestion disappeared into the ether before; I'll back it up right now as I'm feeling paranoid at the moment!
• rab - Oh
  I meant to say I thought this was a good suggestion!
• evil_edna - come and take me on if you think you're hard enough... Grrrrrr!
  Yay! Today's Celebdaq rating: #130.
• Boolbar - Ooooo!
  It's back! [rab] Nice work!
• Lib - small things please small minds
  I've recently discovered that I can access all my favourite MC pages via WAP on my moblie phone. And as i get free WAP 24/7 I can access whenever and wherever I want. But the slight drawback is I can't actually contribute from it and as the pages are so tiny it takes a very long time to rread anything, so yet again its another of those 'you can look but you can't touch' situations I find rather frustrating.
• rab - Wapping
  I wondered about writing a WAP interface to these pages, but the documentation I looked at scared me... might not be beyond the realms of possibility though.
• rab - Just a tert
  Seeing if Mr Cron is talking. Ignore.
• Mr Cron
  *silent*
• gil - Terting, terting
  Does that mean the tert worked?
• rab - Tert
  Kinda. Today's backup kinda semi-worked, but I thought Mr Cron was supposed to contact me if there was a problem, and he didn't... must investigate.
• DrQu+xum - Just a test - Γ γ
  I'm seeing if Γ and γ actually produce gammas (gammae?)
• DrQu+xum - Test successful, I think
  I was seeing if this possible; the capital gamma (Γ, created by &Gamma;) might come in handy in Collective Consciousness Hangman
• rab - Except...
  Probably not on all browsers. (Thinks 'links').
• blamelewis - welcome back
  Glad mc5 is returned - your hard work is much appreciated rab...
  Celebdaq: I'm - 3154623 - currently ranked very low indeed :) - are we league forming?
• Inkspot - Mini MC
  blamelewis]Its great to see you with an id, there is a Celebdaq mini-league, the greatest challenge is to unseat evil_edna. Our hopes lie with snorgle and I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.
• Dunx - Breaking My Duck
  Not one, but two posts to the server in as many minutes! Lawks!

  [rab] Nice place you have here. I'm sad I haven't really had time to visit before, but I'm sure I shall be back.

• rab - Wow!
  For a second I thought we had an imposter in our midst, but if it looks like a Dunx, feels like a Dunx and tastes like a Dunx then I'm probably about to get arrested.
• rab - btw
  [Dunx] You want to be careful with that duck.
• evil_edna - unseated
  I'll get you, Inkspot *cackle*
• Boolbar - Divvy
  Boo! Tiny divs again.
• Inkspot - Big gains
  evil_edna]make way ... make way
  By luck more than judgement, early in the week I sold all my Theakston and Rooney for 13,000 shares in Catalina Guirado, handsome payout of £7,000 and promptly bought some more. My other id with four high moving celebs yielded hardly anything, these I've sold for Becks.
  Oh! ... and did I say I was No 1 in the mini league
• DrQu+xum - Out of the cellar!
  And all the way into 5th place. Thank you, Dale Winton. :)
• Bob the dog
  Whoah! Well done DrQ!
• Lib
  [Dunx] Hello, nice to see you here. I was wondering, it is possible to get a link from orange to here please? Cheers!
• Dunx - Link Frenzy
  [Lib] Eminently possible, and even quite likely. Probably when I upload the Lock Cup pages, actually.
• Dunx - Longish
  Just looking at the front page, shouldn't the "More Long Game" be the "Longer Game"?
• blamelewis - daq to the future
  Err... I'm sure I'm missing the obvious but how does one view leagues and suchlike - or are they an entirely informal affair - I had thought they were a section on the celbdaq site? Mystified of Moorgate
• Inkspot - Pro Trader
  blamelewis]At the bottom of the page Click here for a pro trader version of this page.
  Hopefully just below the names of your celebs you now have Create / edit personal leagues
  In Leagues You Are In, click on Celebrity Mornington Crescent DrQ is a bit of a dark horse and is coming up on the rails.
• blamelewis - Got it
  Found it this morning - thanks for adding me - must have been blind last night!
  Now to get off the bottom rung of the ladder!
• blamlewis - and a thought...
  Don't dare try the furcation game - but what fun - the Sound Charade made me chuckle (as did the psychic dialogue later on) - could I put in a tentative request for a new game of Sound Charades, at such time as a slot becomes available? I miss them!
• Inkspot - new knews
  For those passing their newsagent, take a gander at the front page of The News of the World, under Becks:my fear for thin Posh. (I know train delays are the cause of much grief but...) "David Beckham has admitted for the first time he feared for Victoria as her wait plummeted"
• snorgle - hmm?
  must spend money!
• rab - More comment
  [Dunx, re More Long Game] It's because this site was originally called More Crescent before we settled on the mobile-phone-company-lookilikie mc⁵. Since the Morniverse is full of anachronisms, I can't see any reason to change the name.
• Martha Farquar - blame
  Anyone know the state of play with !!York/"Mordac"? I think we're waiting 'til it shows up, before we start Sound Charades anywhere else.
• rab - !!York
  I've commented on this at MCiOS, but I think either jim or Simons are the ones who are most 'in-the-know' about the state of play there. Btw, nice furcation, but can you explain the rules of Oh yes it is!. I have a vague recollection of this on York, but as I can't get to the archives at the moment, I can't study the form.
• DrQu+xum - Celebdaq
  *wishes he bought more Wayne Rooney when he had the chance at £1.75*
• Boolbar - Div-ision
  [DrQ] But Wayne Rooney didn't bring that great a dividend (as I found out). You'd have been better with Britney Spears or the Beckhams.
• Bob the dog - Hurrggggggggggggh. *Cough* Hack-hack Hurgrhrrurgh.
  Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest.
• Dunx - Re: More comment
  [rab] Merely an observation rather than a criticism; it's always nice to have these things explained. I would agree that revisionism in this case would achieve little but consistency, and that's hardly important is it?
• rab
  Consistency?
• rab - Guide to intonation
  (That last comment to be read with a'raised-eyebrow' tone-of-voice)
• Martha Farquar - A bit like this one
  Rules? ;:-)
• Martha Farquar
  (NB. !York looks fine to me (that should point to Game 829)
• Martha Farquar - Mild attack of chronic boredom syndrome
  Inaugural mc5 League Table
• Lib - Avioding revision by perusing everything!
  [Martha Farquar] Nice table, thanks!
• Lib - Comment about the weather
  I wish it would stop raining. I've got to walk home, ok, so it isn't far, but I don't own any protective clothing for such a downpour and some git has stolen my umbrealla. But then again if it wasn't raining there's still a high chance that i'd be here, as the other option is to revise for finals. Anyone got any good motivational/revision tips?
• rab - Ouch
  [MF] Are you angling for a pint too? [Lib] No motivational tips, but I know a welter of displacement activities. Prior to my finals, I arranged all my CDs according to spine colour. Bonus points if you can tell me how this is possible, bearing in mind that colours live in a 3-dimensional space. (Cue flerdle telling a different story).
• matt - sorting
  [rab] Even if colour were a continuous 3D space, any finite collection of CD spines could still be sorted by colour because the space of CD colours wouldn't be continuous (indeed, because CDs themselves are discrete items, it seems to me that even an infinite collection of CD spines, coloured from a colour space of arbitrary dimension, would still be sortable by colour, but I must admit my grasp of such things is not what it used to be, if it ever was).
• Projoy
  Yes, if you imagine a map of 3D colourspace, your CD spines are simply a series of points in that colourspace with close neighbours joined by a line of your devising. So your shelf represents a one-dimensional journey (as it were) in that 3D colourspace. If your CDs were reasonably well spaced out, then there are many many possible ways of doing this. I only know this because of my similar journeys through the three RGB dimensions when creating Acre Street moves. :)
• Bob the dog - League Table
  [Martha Farquar] Very nice.
• rab - CD spinage
  [matt, Projoy] Well yes, I suppose you could order colours by their hex rgb triplets, or Pantone number, or whatever. But that's not the way I chose to do it.
• matt
  [Projoy] Pedantically, RGB hex colours for Acre Street moves aren't taken from a continuous space to start with, so it isn't quite the same problem, but on the other hand, it is. As you say there are any number of ways of connecting the dots and thus of sorting. Some of these may correspond to different ways of expressing colour in N dimensions (HSV, YUV, Lab, CMYK, etc), others may be more arbitrary. In the case of CD spines, the issue is more complex because they may be printed in multiple colours, and may include special inks or other production effects that don't fit into any such colour space (metallic, dayglo, holograms, fun fur, etc), which would have to be incorporated into any sorting scheme in some (probably arbitrary) way. [rab] So don't be coy -- how did you do it?
• flerdle - actually...
  Oooh, have I posted in here before? Not sure. Anyway...
  [rab, a coupla posts before, thanks for the cue] Apart from colours not existing, you're not too far off the mark, at least in the most classically accepted models...
  And I have a collection of 50 novels (by the one author) arranged in colour order. The trickiest bit is knowing where to start, if you're going to arrange them simply linearly. Highly recommended for displacement.
• rab - Accord
  [matt, flerdle] I give in and admit that I cheated slightly. Firstly I made use of the fact that I had two shelves, one for a grayscale (black to white) and one for colours ordered roughly according to the rainbow. The difficulties you mention arose:

  • Spine not a single colour - resolved by choosing the 'dominant' colour.
  • Shiny colours/trims - like gold and silver. Basically ignored, unless the entire spine was so made at which point I think I assumed the nearest matt alternative (like yellow for gold, or gray for silver).
  • Colours not existing - like brown. See above. Pretend it's dark red.

  So there you: Bob's yer Uncle - Job done. Interestingly I'm reminded of the time we discussed putting in for a grant to fund the development of a brown laser. However this plan was deemed to silly, and we opted to devise a photon accellerator instead.
• Dunx - Re: Grant
  [rab] Did it accelerate brown photons?

  As for brown not existing - do you mean that just for light or for pigment? Does the Chancellor of the Exchequer also not exist?

• flerdle
  My order jumps around a bit - some of the novels are very odd colours, but thankfully it's the one colour per book. I'm not perfectly happy with it but, given the colours they are, it's the best I could do at the time. Some of the names are misleading, but it sort of goes aqua-greenish-greenybrown-yellowish-orange-red-purplish (dark-light-dark)-darkblue-lightblue-grey-brownypinkygrey-pink-brown-chocolate.
• flerdle
  [Dunx] What we call "brown" isn't spectral is perhaps what he meant. There are varieties of brown (reddish, yellowish) but it's generally considered to be a variation of yellow (dark) in most specification systems.
• flerdle
  Actually, come to think of it, you have reddish browns and yellowish browns and greenish browns - but do you see bluish browns? I don't think so.
• rab - Spectres
  [flerdle, re remark to Dunx] Yes, I'm sure that's what I meant.
• Dunx - Brow Nish
  Oh, if only "nish" were a word...

  [flerdle] I suppose. I still think there is a difference between subtractive colours (ie pigment) and additive colours (ie light) in this regard, though I would also readily concede that brown is almost as much an absence of any other describable colour as black - which is perhaps why you don't see bluish browns, because brown is essentially black with less blue in it.

  Consider - when you mix paint to make brown, you start with yellow then add a bit of red and a small amount of blue. Another option is to just mix red and green, but I've also made brown by starting with red and adding black. There has to be some blue in there to take the colour away from being orange, but not enough to make the blue distinct: the blue in brown is like salt in vegetables.

  I should perhaps clarify that I am not actually all that attached to the colour brown, and only own one pair of brown shoes.

• rab - Tangent
  [Dunx] Nothing to say about brown, but I do know a lovely Asian lady called Nish, so I suppose that almost makes it a word.
• snorgle - celebdaq
  hmm. i think i will sell all my stock tomorrow and buy someone off that stupid i'm a celebrity get me out of here programme. that annoying one-nostrilled wierdly blonde bint.
• DrQu+xum - celebdaq
  [snorgle] Phil Tufnell looks good...then again, he's the only one of that group I've heard of. :)
• Dunx - Septum Divergence
  [snorgle] So Daniella Westbrook is still going out in public, then?
• Inkspot - May Day
  Yesterday was the local council elections for the last twenty odd years I've always turned up and voted. But this time I was not persuaded by any of the candidates. As a supporter of democracy I felt that staying away could have been construed as voter apathy and my 'protest' misrepresented. So it was for the first and hopefully last time I entered the voting booth, did not put a cross against any candidate nor did I spoil the paper but left it blank, folded it and put it in the ballot box.
• Lib - Elections
  [Inkspot] I know what you mean. Spoiling your paper makes you look like a loony, not turning up makes you seem lazy. I think there should be a abstention box on the paper to recognise that you do feel you should vote, but don't agree with any of the candidates.

  Interestingly enough, in my first year of uni I was accidently on two electral rolls, as my hall of residence automatically put everyone on. It was a general election so it is illeagal to vote twice (I was lead to believe, i'm not an expert). I phoned up the relevant person at the city council to tell her that I wasn't allowed to vote. Her advice to me was just not to turn up, which i protested about as I didn't want to be part of the apethetic 70% of the population who don't vote. My local council now at home has had the sense to only grant me votes for local elections as you are allowed to vote in two places at once for local matters, but it took them 5 years to realise this.

• rab - Mr Apathy
  I'm generally a big fan of elections, but increasingly I feel unmoved to vote in local council elections. Why? Firstly I am not really aware of what councillors do, and what difference it would make if Mr X were sitting on the council rather than Ms Y. Or vice versa. How much is a council capable of doing; and how much is dependent on the policies of central government? Does it make much of a difference if your councils majority party is the same as that of the central government? Is it better to have councillors who are signed up to a party? Or is it better to have independents? The fact that I cannot answer any of these questions makes it impossible to put an X against one (or is it three?) of a dozen names, most of which I've never heard of.
• Breadmaster - Voting
  I don't understand this notion that one "should" vote. I certainly don't understand why in Australia you have to by law. Everyone goes on about how terrible it is that fewer people vote at each election. Why is this so terrible? What difference does it make?
• blamelewis - Voting
  [Bm] I guess it's because we're told we live in a democracy so we need to feel like we're involved.
  Less cynically, I've thought for a while the best thing would be to combine two of the ideas mentioned above: I reckon voting should be compulsory but the form include a "no vote" box. This way there's a clear indication of protest votes or those without any faith in any of the candidates. I voted yesterday in Scotland but almost didn't. Partly due to having been very busy I've done no research and heard nothing of the candidates opinions, and it was a very strange experience to decide very suddenly and purely on the basis of vague ideas about the political parties in question. Heyho.
• Watty - Voting
  [Breadmaster] Well, there are any number of reasons why you should vote; consider:
  

  • By not voting, you are leaving it up to me to choose your government. You might be OK with that, we might have similar views. How about we allow the electors in Burnley to choose your government? Still OK with that?
  • You are. like it or not, a member of society. Membership of society comes with a few responsibilities, including contributing to the common good, and participating in governing that society? Don't feel like participating? Fine, give up your vote, stop paying your taxes, but don't expect to be able to use any of the things your taxes pay for. Like water.
  • Related to the first point, but: the fewer people who vote, the less representative the government is. Political parties know well that they need only target a few thousand electors in a handful of streets to change the outcome of an election. The rest of us, because so many people 'can't see the point' are a self-selecting sample, something which no research company would accept - you think the make up of the current parliament reflects the political opinion of the whole country? Want to do something about it?
  • It does make a difference. Or, it would, if everyone voted. It's ludicrous to complain that 'my vote doesn't count' - in a properly representative vote, every vote 'counts' Think we don't have a properly representative vote? Well, there's one way of going about changing that - you could try voting for it
  • (to address rab's point) Local councils have a surprisingly large amount of influence on your daily life - particularly if you're a council tax payer, or you're involved in education. Or like having streetlights. Or have an opinion on enormous building developments in inappropriate places. Or are fond of local amenities, like having your rubbish taken away every week. In fact, the fact that you cannot answer your own questions suggests to me that your local candidates have failed to make the effort to inform you, an increasingly common situation these days. For myself, being recently new to the area, I read all the election addresses (OK, both of them) and made my mind up based on what they promised. National politics and my own political leanings didn't really enter into it - especially since I only had two candidates to choose from
  • One final rant. Rather than having a 'Not voting for anyone, you're all bloody useless' option, which is, to be frank, a bit of a cop out, why not get involved? See if you can't actually engage the candidates in some political debate? Perhaps even stand yourself? The only reason that politics is so dull is because we - the people who it is for - allow it to be.

  
  Blimey, I do go on, don't I?
• rab - Dullard
  To be clear about that which I am aware. I know the name of only one person who stood in our ward yesterday. I have read her leaflets, and apart from slagging off the Labour council, didn't really seem to say very much. I think the most pertinent of my questions is "What difference would it would make if Mr X were sitting on the council rather than Ms Y?". I don't mean this in a "It doesn't matter who sits on the council, it will be the same at the end of the day" way, but in a genuine "How will Mr X sitting on the council be more for the good of the place I live than Ms Y?" way. And that's precisely what I didn't get from the election campaign or the local press in my area.
• Bob the dog - This is a party political broadcast
  Time for Change
  
  Local People are tired of political gridlock, campaign mudslinging, and special-interest control of our political process. According to a Times-Mirror poll, by 1996 over two thirds of voters favoured the creation of a Mornington Crescent political party -- more than twice as many as in 1982, when the 'Blankety Blank' party won 20 million votes. In 1998, !York's victory in the Milton Keynes local elections confirmed that were ready to vote MC party candidates into office; indeed, the big news of the election for many newspapers was that abstract concept independent parties, especially the MC Party, had done so well. Dandelion.
  
  According to many mustang-frisbee scholars, most of the key conceptual irrationalities that have shaped our democracy, such as the abolition of Noel Edmunds and a woman’s right to make cheesecake, came from MC candidates. As former Watchdog presenter and girl-guide Nick ‘choirboy’ Ross said,
  
  “All political ideas cannot and should not be channelled into the programs of our three major parties. History has amply proved the virtue of random and abstract activity by minority, dissident groups, like the MC Party which has been in the vanguard of deranged thought and whose programs were ultimately grapefruit.”
  
  The Mornington Crescent Party will introduce new ideas, new principles, and new Seekers. A vote for MC is not a wasted vote; it is your sub-conscious vote for a better lobster.
  <>br>Vote randomly, vote Crescent.
• Boolbar - Doughnuts
  [BtD - unconnected to above] Thanks! [BtD - connected to above] You get my vote.
• snorgle - celebdaq
  wahoo! I'm number 5! do you think Beckham will stay in the news as much this week?
• flerdle - wot Watty said
  Interestingly, here, the only local council that has people campaigning along party lines is Brisbane (at least, this is how it was a couple of years ago, and I don't think things have changed much). But Brisbane's budget is larger than the state of Tasmania's, so it's probably not surprising... And we have state politics to add into the mix too. I don't think most people really mind "having" to vote here.
• Projoy - apathy
  I'm another one who didn't bother to vote, although this was probably just as well since there was no election in my area.
• DrQu+xum - Voting in America
  We're coming up to Primary Election (party nomination) season as well. Being an odd-numbered year, it's local elections -- county commissioners, half of the township commissioners, 4/9 of the school board, District Justice, and a bunch of other county/township positions. The general election isn't until November. Six months more of local political posturing. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaah....
• Breadmaster - Voting
  [Watty] I'm not convinced. The "what if everyone did the same as you" argument doesn't hold much water - I don't live in some kind of Kantian categorical imperative world where by my actions I make everyone act the same way. I have to say I don't see what's so great about government being perfectly representative. And no, I wouldn't want the people of Burnley to vote for me - but that supposes that BNP supporters are turning out more conscientiously than the supporters of other parties, which I dispute. I think it probably all evens out in the end. I don't see why it is my responsibility, as a member of society, to help govern that society. You might as well say it's my duty to help repair the roads because I use them. Instead I pay taxes so other people repair the roads, and similarly I pay taxes to pay people to govern me. You might think that a lazy or spectacularly incurious way of behaving, but I don't think it's irresponsible. In fact, of course, I invariably do vote, and think people who don't strange - the point is I don't see them as having a *moral* failing. So there. I shall go and lie down now.
• snorgle - voting
  [breadmaster]I know what you mean, its like saying "Eat your greens, because there are children starving in Africa!" Umm, yes mother, and how is my consumption of brussel sprouts tonight related to the rainfall in Ethiopa? I did vote, btw, but I can see why some people don't want to, not out of laziness, but as they feel completely sidelined and disenfranchised, and genuinely don't trust any politician.
• DrQu+xum - To Hell with voting, what about Celebdaq? :)
  Woo-hoo! Tuf's doubled!
• Sigmund Freud (gil) - Celebdaq
  Hey! The Becks paid off big divvies! Number 2!
• Sigmund Freud (gil) - Ahem....
  ...number 2 in our MC league, that is.
• rab - bug report
  [rab] I just composed a carefully argued and compelling 20,000 word posting on voting, social responsibility, synthesising insights from political science, psychology, game theory, and moral philosophy, and making an absolutely watertight argument that Watty had been slightly misunderstood by Breadmaster and snorgle. Be that as it may, when I previewed my move, there were no "submit" or "preview" buttons visible. So my words are lost. Gone. For ever. Not that I am bitter about this.
  
  Oh, ok, it was three sentences.
• CdM - oops
  From me. To rab. Had I dared use the preview button, I would have caught that.
• rab - Burgery
  [CdM] Odd... needless to say, when I do a 'preview' I see the buttons. Very odd. Maybe the transfer of the preview died at that point. In any case, maybe if you hit the browser 'back' button a few times, your text will reappear?
• rab - Thinks (which hurts)
  [CdM] What browser do you use, as a matter of interest-- and does preview normally work?
• CdM - tech support
  Netscape 6.1. I tried the back button, but it just took me back to the main page (after the warning-you-haven't-moved page). I *think* I have successfully used the "Preview" feature here before, but I'm not 100% sure.
• rab - Well
  [CdM] There's one way to find out. (Hint: write a one-word reply and click Preview!).
• CdM - the dog that didn't bark
  [rab] Well, I did that. But I couldn't post it. I thought you would have figured that out. :-)
• rab - Being really stupid
  [CdM] Sorry I'm being stupid; but can you clarify that Preview doesn't work for you... Do the pointy things at the bottom right still appear?
• rab - Actually
  What would make this simpler if you click on Preview (but make sure something's in the move box, 'cos otherwise you'll get an error) and mail me the page source. (I think File->Send Page should do the trick). (rab at rab dot org dot uk).
• blamelewis - The Lockisseum is now open!
  (Cross Posting!) The One on One MC server "The Lockisseum" is now open for business and two friendly matches have commenced for your booing pleasure... sorry viewing pleasure...
• Graham III - viewywoo
  Works fine here (Opera 7.03)
• snorgle - politics
  [rab] I know what Watty meant, but I was just putting my view across - more a sort of feeling of the general attitude rather than necessarily disagreeing with him. Sort of a reality check, if you don't mind the finger quotes..:)
• rab - No politics
  [snorgle, and others] I have no objections to people putting their views across here. It's a pretty open forum.

  Anyway, hacked again last night. *sigh*. This time it wasn't serious, and didn't affect MC at all. But it's making me wonder if I shouldn't find a host with tighter security.

• DrQu+xum - Celebdaq issue
  Is USA Today one of the papers used in Celebdaq prices/dividends? I ask because David Beckham is on the front & second page. Headline:
  
  He's the most famous athlete in the world (except in the USA)
  
  Apparently, Manchester United will be touring the US for four matches....
• DrQu+xum - H@X0Red
  I'd offer you some of my bandwidth, but *.phyast.pitt.edu gets targeted on a regular basis. (Rarely successful, BTW. :)
• snorgle - celebdaq
  hey! Danniella was the highest dividend this week(as I suspected she might be) and I still didn't get above third in the Celeb Mornington Crescent league. I now ponder whether to sell her off and buy a bunch of David Beckham, or take a chance on Charlotte Church..
• Inkspot - moreteaplease
  The Celebdaq is going through a strange phase at the moment whereby Daniella is distorting the share price and divi payout. Next week will be interesting as her share price will continue to go through the roof but have a lower payout compared to those like Phil who will still get daily media coverage. I expect to have further gains this week which will take my second id passed the £1m and instant kneecapping.
• snorgle - celebdaq
  I'm worth over 1 million, and haven't been kneecapped. Are your sure its not higher?
• Inkspot - Monday morning blues
  snorgle]It is normally hapens on Mondays just after you've spent your ill gotten divis
• evil_edna - surgery tomorrow
  About to get kneecapped :o( *cackle*
• Graham III - celebdaquiri
  Could I be added to the league table (not that I'm going to do very well!) please? My username is ffiish...
• Graham III - Your number please...
  Just in case you need it: 2865669
• rab - Fashion news
  Persuing a copy of the Times Saturday magazine that was lying around on my kitchen table this morning, I spotted a fashion item on summery dresses that featured at least one normal woman-shaped (and sized) model. And very stunning she looked too. I very much hope that rake-like women go out of fashion in my lifetime.

  In related news, I was told that a top that I would usually consider too small for me makes me look slimmer. By that argument, do trousers that are too long for me make me look taller?

• rab - Whoops
  s/persuing/perusing/.
• Bob the dog - MCiOS
  Nice to see a permanant link to here on the home page.
• Bob the dog - Orange
  Not only but also.
• Lib - Fashion advice
  [rab] No, you'll just fall over.
• Martha Farquar
  So this is the only site with a link to the invaluable !York archive. Hurrah for that. (And welcome back, I Say, Porter!)
• I Say, Porter! - What did I miss?
  Are NotYork, Orange, and MCiOS the same games with different skins these days, or did I dream it? [All] And thanks. Nice to be back, and still see the old gags doing the rounds along with the PHENOMENAL level of inventiveness in the old crowd. Nothing like a thesis deadline to get a guy back posting on MC (and playing ToonTown...)
• gil - Dreams
  You dreamed it. MCIOS is still itself, though Orange has an MCIOS-like skin. !York is in limbo, but shortly to be revived, we hear.
• matt - skins
  [ISP] Possibly you accidentally linked to the others from the "skins" list at Orange rather than the "connections" list?
• I Say, Porter! - Dreams
  Hmmm. Thanks matt, the Thailand National Anthem comes to mind
  owa tana Siam
  owa tana Siam
  owa tanit
  Owa tafu lami
  continues until Ronnie Corbett says something funny (i.e. ad nauseam)
• DrQu+xum - Notice to I Say, Porter!
  [IS,P!] Your presence is requested at PantsMC (especially by Alfredo Garcia).
• I Say, Porter! - Alfredo Garcia
  Not the famous Alfredo Garcia as in "bring me the hedge of Alfredo Garcia"?
• penelope - miwwionaires
  Yay! Newjustine just made her thrid million on Celebdaq... but is nowhere near the heady heights of the number 4 ranking she reached last month. I blame 'I'm a Celebrity' - it's skewing the market
• I Say, Porter! - ISIHAC
  Anyone know where I can download ISIHAC programmes? isihac-download.com has been down "in preparation for the new series" for about 18 months, and you just can't get it in Italy....
• DrQu+xum - ISIHAC
  [IS,P!] Ask me kindly at my email address: greg4 [at] pitt [dot] ee-dee-ewe.
• A large congregation - On behalf of Btd
  Oooooooooooooh! *Stampeed*. Have you archives?
• penelope - licking wet stamps
  [Congregation] The stamp peed? eeeeuuuuuuwwwww...
• I Say, Porter! - Stamp Pee
  I assume that high demand is what caused the esteemed Mr. Eric Kelly to cease and desist from posting each and every ISIHAC episode from the dawna time on his website. Makes sense, I suppose, but... WAAAAAAH!
• rab - Butting in
  Can I just say: nieuuuuwwwbrrrrggghharse.

  That's better.

• DrQu+xum - Beggy Pardo?
  [rab] Elaboration requested...or at least a pronunciation. :)
• Martha Farquar - New Buggers?
  Where? [moves to wall]
• rab
  [DrQ] (i) Spent pretty much the whole afternoon trying to work out if it's possible to embed an MPEG in a pdf using pdflatex. Some comments on mailing lists suggest "yes", but stop short of telling you actually how. (ii) I would suggest somewhere between Goldmember and Father Jack.

  [MF] Is that a new Boardo variant you're playing there?

• rab - Like
  I like the introduction of a bit of Call My Bluff into the Hangman game.
• DrQu+xum - NO CELEBDAQ!
  Aaigh! It's down! What are we going to do?
• snorgle - celebdaq
  Wonder who did it and how? Just go to bed early!
• Graham III - celebdaq
  Their news page (before that disappeared into the ether) said that some people were randomly losing cash, apparently because someone deleted, rather than delisted, Tony Benn...
• Boolbar - Lee Van Clef
  [GIII] Was it not Nigel Benn?
• Britney
  [Bool] You should have seen the cover I did with Mark E Smith!
• Mr Benn
  As if from nowhere, the shopkeeper appeared.
• Boolbar - This Nations Saving Gravy
  [Britney] Yarbles, I did it againNAH.
• DrQu+xum - Celebdaq Again
  Interesting. It's up now, but all of my shares have dropped like a brick. Have they back-dated all of them?
• rab - Mmmmmm
  [Boolbar] <homer>Gravy!</homer>
• I Say, Porter - Mr Benn
  I thought it was "as if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared"?
• Blob - Celebdaq
  I joined in with all this celebdaq business rather late (about two weeks ago) - how do I join in the MC league ? (If you'll have me !)
• Blob - Celebdaq PS
  My username is Blobble and I have a paltry £47k - but as I say I've only been playing 2 weeks. (made 262% last week, thought that was quite good, didn't realise that people had millions)
• DrQu+xum - Celebdaq Dividends
  If you look at our league, I think you can tell who had Phil Tufnell. :)
• Inkspot - extra strong tea
  Blob]post your id number here and you can take your place within hours.
  Dr]Tuffnell did do well pushing me to +1364.93%,seven day profit of £2,845,856, this have gone into Keanu Reeves that is 1,662,711 shares. Only question now is how many millions will I have before I'm kneecapped and you take the No1 spot in the league.
  My other me had a £350,000 div on Prince William, a perfect celebrity, no 7 day gain but huge divi(+399.76%), extra coverage in tabloid and broadsheet, coming up in the next few weeks as his 21st birthday is on the 21 June. Buy early!
• Blob - Celebdaq
  BLOBBLE (User ID: 3183175)
  Yes I had Phil (and Anthony & Linda) - but didn't have the kind of funds you have to invest. I've also got Prince Billy who's been doing nicely for me. My long term banker is J.K.Rowling who's going to go ballisting mid June methinks.
• Blob
  Or even ballistic.
• Graham III - woo
  Well, I'm doing better than I was, though I think it'll only be this week that we see any real improvement - I don't really have time to do it very often, but it's a useful break from revision, so I am going there on a reasonably regular basis. Keanu Reaves is doing me very nicely thankyou... I picked up 10000 shares for not very much, and hopefully we'll have a nice dividend this week.
• Graham III - Rowling along
  I'm not sure she will tbh... Harry Potter will get lots of coverage, but will that all count to her?
• Graham III - me again...
  What I want to know is how on earth the guy who's number 1 today got an increase of 30156090.00%
• Boolbar - Hurry up Harry
  [G III] I don't know how they work that out . . . if there was a huge article all about how Harry Potter turns young minds to jelly, and at the end it says "Harry Potter is written by J.K.Rowling", does the whole article count towards her, or just the last sentence ?
• Boolbar - me again also
  [G III] There are going to be some anomolies - like the fact I got NO dividends despite owning Phil Tuffy for almost the whole week.
• I Say, Porter! - Celebdaq
  Never heard of it. Just logged in and by the time I had selected half a dozen "celebs" I was down a hundred quid. Eighty percent of these "celebs" I had never heard of - probably because they don't have "blankety blank" or "celebrity squares" here in Italy.
• Graham III - Quick losses
  [IS,P!] That'll be because they charge a fee for transactions...
• penelope - Sumthing funny going on...
  [IS,P] But hang on. If you play your cards right, you'll make back the cost of the commission. A good place to look for tips is on www.thesun.co.uk showbiz pages...
  BTW, What is happening to Phil Tuffnell? Who's selling all their shares and causing him to crash? The 'Get Me Out Of Here!' celebrities only flew back into Heathrow last night, and he got a full page in The Sun today, so I suspect there are some anomalous market figures going round. And how the hell do you make 30 million per cent profit, as today's chart-topper has?
• Inkspot - In like a ...
  Blobble enters the league at a stunning No 5.
• Boolbar - Big %
  One way to get a huge % would be to invest in a celeb who is plastered all over the papers (so you know you will get a large div) and just before the divs are dished out, do a load of trading (ie. endlessly buy and sell) to reduce your worth to next to zero by the end of the day. 7 days later you will have whatever your divs were plus a weeks trading and your % increase will be huge. It might be possible to get (divide by zero)% :o)
• Boolbar - or then again ...
  (divide by zero error)%
• snorgle - celebdaq
  Umm, do I exist any more? I can't log in and the system claims not to know who snorgle is! Am I still in the league?
• Inkspot - Someone's there
  snorgle]your still there in the league with your id 2818390, I hope your password lets you log on soon.
  I Say, Porter!]for a bit of extra fun post your id No and join the MC league. Can you stay ahead of Wol and blamelewis?
• I Say, Porter! - Oh no they aren't
  You reply to the auto reply thing but there is still "nothing known about ISayPorter". Bah. Worth starting again?
• I Say, Porter! - starting again...
  Nope. Generates the really useful error message: "Error". What genius came up with that, give him or her a raise.
• Boolbar - Caps Lock
  [snorgle] Just to note that Celebdaq logins are case sensitive. I had trouble when I first joined due to that.
• I Sqy, Porter! - Celebdaq
  OK ID number 3244310 and currently about 190,179 in the chart (up 15 quid or .15 pecent)
• snorgle - celebdaq
  I can get in again! It wasn't caps lock, I checked that last night. Probably just a glitch on the system.. I think Keanu Reeves must be a good buy with the Matrix Reloaded opening soon..
• snorgle - celebdaq
  Does anyone know how to change your password on celebdaq? I've been searching for a way how, but can't find anything!
• Graham III - Passwords
  Try here...
• Graham III - And if that doesn't work
  dunno whether that'll cause problems, but basically you have to go to the portfolio, go to 'register for cash prize or update details' and it's in there.
• snorgle - celebdaq
  [GIII]thanks!
• evil_edna - squillions
  I made a million - yay! *cackle*
• Inkspot - morning tea
  evil_edna]get on your broomstick and I'll race you to the top!
• Blob - Celebprat
  Thanks or attaching me to the MC league, whoever did it.
  What a plonker I am. I had Phil Tufnell, Linda Barker & Anthony W-T which were doing nicely. I knew they'd slide in value after the show finished, but thought the divi was worked out on a daily basis - so sold Phil & Anthony the day before the divi was announced. So of course I got no (huge) divi. Ho hum - learn from mistakes.
  Slightly amazed to find myself in 3rd posn. in the MC league @ moment. Can't see that lasting !
• gil - What a plonker
  Was making a few cunning trades at the weekend, calculated to be in David Beckham at divi time, and one of the trades must have got stuck in the door. I came in this morning to find I had nearly 170,000 in cash and virtually no shares, so no divi this weekend. Groan.
• DrQu+xum - Thanks to Kneecapping . . .
  I'm on top of the world!
• Blob - Kneecapping
  Presumably when you get to a million you dump back down to 10,000 but get that little wad of green notes by your name - is that right ? How then do you get the sports car and yacht that I see some people sporting for pity's sake ?
• DrQu+xum - Re: Kneecapping
  [Blob] It says here.
• blamelewis - Celebdaq
  I've not had much time to concentrate on it for a while now but I think I'm no good cos I went at first for celebs who interested me rather than ones who might grab headlines, so I'm saddled with a lot of loss makers... I bought lots of JK Rowling and Keanu Reeves when they were cheap though so those strategies are finally paying off!
• Blob - Celebdaq icons
  [DrQ] Thx. Tell me, looking at the Bill Gates Icon for £1bn - is he doing a multicoloured fart, or am I just imagining things ?
• rab - Chilliness
  Bit quiet the noo... Any particular reason? Working hard? Found something in our lives more fulfilling than MC? Me? I've got a talk to write... grrr...
• flerdle - toasty
  I've been away, and busy both sides of that; I don't post much here but often keep an eye on things. I managed to skillfully avoid checking 52 pairs of glasses today, and did an exensive literature search instead. Didn't find much interesting. Ho hum.

  Time for dinner - tempted by pizza and DVD, really.

• flerdle - *rereads*
  (DVD provides fibre, you see)
  Boggled slightly the other day by the sight of a CD shredder. My, I live a sheltered life. Or something.
• rab - Jolly good
  Incidentally I think the celebdaq people should be warned that Big Brother is starting again at the end of the week. Presumably they add 'celebreties' to the list as time goes on; in the meantime, maybe Davina might be worth investing in?
• Dunx - Quietude
  [rab] I've been working and doing housy stuff, mainly, when I haven't been uploading broken fixes to OMC. I'm currently considering turning on my work machine so I can get on with my day working at home. Although I may wait another hour so I can start nearer a normal time.
• Graham III - Big waste of time
  Was thinking of starting a new fund and doing two big brother trackers - one for people still in there, and one for people who've been voted out. Don't know why, but thought there might be some value in the exercise. Thinks: revision is getting to my head. I need to get out more.
• Bob the dog - Procrastination
  GIII] For what are you revising?
• rab - Woohoo!
  A paper that I spent most of February writing has been described by the editor of the receiving journal as 'truly superb'. That's an accolade that deserves a beer I think...
• penelope - woo-hoo-ing
  [Rab] Excellent news. Well done. Just a half for me, thanks. :o)
• Graham III - 'Academia'
  [rab] congrats!
  [Btd] Doing my finals in music at Fenland Polytechnic, starting Monday (joy!!!) :)
• CdM - congratulations!!
  Dear Professor rab:
  Thank you for submitting your paper to the Journal of ____________. I have now received the comments of two highly qualified reviewers, and I regret to inform you that while both reviewers and myself agree that the paper is truly superb, we none the less feel that it addresses a rather narrow technical topic of limited interest and therefore does not make sufficient contribution to warrant publication in our journal.
  
  Thank you for submitting your truly superb work, and I am sorry that the outcome was not more favourable.
  
  Yours sincerely, The Editor.
• I Say, Porter! - Academia
  Hmmm. Sixteen thousand words to write by next Wednesday (Master's Dissertation). Good job the girlfriend is away for the weekend - no nagging me about staying awake 24 hours a day. I plan to be "resisting a rest" a lot. Anybody know anything about how to stay awake whilst reading Data Warehousing sh1te?
• gil - congratulations
  Dear Professor rab:
  Thank you for submitting your paper to the Journal of ____________. I have now received the comments of two highly qualified reviewers, and I am delighted to inform you that both reviewers and myself agree that the paper is truly superb. Accordingly, we should like to proceed with publication as soon as possible. In view of the quality of your work, we are prepared to have it prepared for publication at the reduced fee of £1520, a reduction of £20 on the usual tariff of £1540. Please enclose a further sum of £2340 for your 1000 half-price concessionary copies of the Journal, to distribute to your friends and colleagues. We shall proceed, therefore, as soon as we have your cheque or banker's draft for £3959.99 (including £79.99 postage and packing).

  Yours sincerely, The Editor.

• rab - Chortle
  [gil] Don't joke. There's one very well known and wealtby US journal of physics that sends out a bill for publication of your work. In extremely tiny print you can find the word "voluntary"... but it is hidden...
• Bob the dog - Finals
  [GIII] All the best!
• Dunx - Data Warehousing the Exciting Way
  [ISP] Try and think of how all the theory you're reading about might be used. For instance, imagine a database of all the MC games online, all the players, all the IP addresses they were played from, all the timestamps, replicated from the servers in real time while people play. You could come up with fascinating information like how particular players vary their posting times over, er, time, or what each player's favourite move is, or some query which you would actually need a data warehouse for!

  That's the way I made some of my AI papers more relevant to me, anyway. At the time it was examples from roleplaying, but the point is the same.

• I Say, Porter! - Data Warehousing
  Thanks, Dunx, it beats my plan to write "I am a fish" three thousand times, do a full double Rimmer and then faint.
• Boolbar - What is that ?
  "A full double Rimmer" ? The mind boggles.
• Breadmaster - Rimmers
  [Boolbar] It's an excessively elaborate fictional naval salute, as devised by Arnold Rimmer from "Red Dwarf", who was notoriously bad at exams on account of devoting two months and three weeks of his three-month revision time to designing a revision timetable.
• I Say, Porter! - Red Dwarf
  I recommend the first couple of Red Dwarf books, the authors are "Rob Grant" and "Doug Naylor", who also appear in Amazon's catalogue as "Naylor, Grant". IF you are interested in the DVDs of the series, they are also highly recommended, the stars are Chris Barrie and Craig Charles.
• rab - What a pullover!
  We had the mother of all power cuts last night. A pneumatic drillster managed to slice his way through the main electricity supply to the north-eastern segment of Manchester University... I didn't see it myself, but the sparks were said to be quite spectacular. The drillster was - amazingly - unharmed. However, the same cannot be said of our computer system. It often comes across as though the whole thing is held together by three pieces of string and a lump of chewing gum. For a while the main server had no case and was wrapped up in 'Police Line -- Do not cross' tape. I jest not. Anyway, I can just about get a login, but seeing as the main server is going up and down like a pair of whore's knickers, the best I can do right now is to fire up Netscape 4 on a twm desktop. What nostalgia... But at least I'm pleased I wrote these pages in such a way that you can actually look at them on steam-powered browsers. (In fact, dare I say it, but they work rather well on lynx, lest anyone ever need to go back to the 1930's).
• Dunx
  [rab] Ah, the Camputers Lynx...
• snorgle - celebdaq
  I am number one, one, one...Yay! Thank you Keanu!
• Martha Farquar
  Since this is the gaming room, are we having a Big Brother sweepstake this year?
• rab - Big Bro
  Why not? I think I'll get in early with Cameron. A Baptist fish trader from Orkney... sure he'll go far!
• Inkspot - Anouska
  I'll ride on Nush but can she get her claws into Freddy. If you are voting keep Anouska in she was nominated for being annoying and too loud by 7 out of 12 on first impressions. Vote out the bland.
• Martha Farquar
  So, are you picking Anouska with dark hair or Nush the blonde? Whichever it is, I'll take the other one. Must say the blokes seem incredibly dull this year. But it's impossible to guess the winner, since (a) the audience do exactly what Graham Norton tells them to do every night, and (b) gambling syndicates rigged so many votes last year, knocking off high rollers like Alison and Spencer early on. (And I still can't believe Kate won. :o(
• Breadmaster - ??
  What on earth are you people talking about?
• Breadmaster
  OK, I'll admit, I do know. But I wish I didn't. I certainly intend to learn none of the non-entities' names this year, which I miserably failed in last year, although in my defence I was working in TV and could hardly avoid it.
• Martha Farquar - Nush
  Well, Nush will definitely get to week 9 so I'm picking her. The other 3 will be Sissy, Federico and... er... Gos. No-one'll vote out the chef.
• rab - You think?
  I'm not so sure. I watched Sunday night's edition, but it was like the proverbial paint drying. I think I'll give them a few days to calm down and stop shouting at each other before going back. Nush hadn't made much of an impression thus far, but by being blonde and female, stands a similar chance to Kate last year. I agree with you about Gos, but I wondered if Sissy was sticking her head too far above the parapet to last very long...
• Bob the dog - Can we have some radio based games?
  No TV - so Celebdaq and Big Bro games leave me cold. How about a sweepstake on the next member of the Archers cast to cop it or leave? I reckon Peggy is not long for this world... BTW did anyone catch ISIHAC? Humph was in fine form. I still miss the 'scoring' element though - it is almost as if they've given up on the spoof gameshow idea.
• Boolbar - TV or not TV
  I do find Big Brother incredibly dull but Celebdaq has little to do with TV. I heard the Archers the other day and thought it needed sub-titles. [ISIHAC] There were new games! I don't know if "Hunt the Ring" would transfer well to this site, unless we threaded the string through all the tube stations.
• rab - TV or just plain bi?
  [BtD] I don't think we're having Celebdaq/Big Bro games as such, just bantering about them here. We did have a BB game last year, but if I recall it was only me, Martha and Nina who played it so I don't think we'll do that again. I think it's sufficient just to put the odd comment here as and when things happen, as a little light relief from the usually onerous, high-brow discussion that goes on... er, right.
• Bob the dog - Humph!
  [Bool] I disagree about Celebdaq having little to do with TV. You need TV to know who the Celebrities are. I've just gone back to the Celebdaq site and checked out the top five on the home page. I know of Keanu Reeves and David Beckham but I've never heard of Lisa Scott Lea, Eva Herzigova or Penny Lancaster. Ho hum - my sheltered existence ;o) Has anyone seen my ring?
• Boolbar - Pah!
  [Bob the Dog] I disagree with you disagreeing about Celebdaq having little to do with TV. I have a TV but also haven't heard of Lisa Scott Lea, Eva Herzigova or Penny Lancaster. Wouldn't stop me buying shares in them! [Ring] Sorry, I have not got your ring.
• rab - Hello Boys!
  Isn't Eva the Wonderbra model?
• Martha Farquar
  No, I don't have the ring either. But I think DrQu+xum has.
• Bob the dog
  DrQu+xum, have you seen my ring?
• rab - Pedlin' pedlin' pedlin' -- rawhide!
  [BigBro] Caught last night's Big Brother. They've got them pedalling for 72 hours, two at a time. As pointed out to me in the pub last night this is quite a smart move, because it breaks the group up so they have more one-on-one, or two-on-two conversations where you stand a chance of actually being able to hear anything. Also, it gives those weirdos who tune into the live show at 4am something to look at. I currently don't dislike any of them at the moment, and there seems to be a distinct lack of tension at the moment. Certainly in the last two years there's been tension from pretty much day one. In particular last year-- witness Alex noting that someone had swiped some sausages and Jade mouthing off almost as soon as she had arrived. They all seem a bit too relaxed and thoughtful this year. Oh well, I'm sure once Big Brother has starved them out, both in terms of nourishment and of things to do, they'll all start to get on each other's tits and the real fun can begin.

  Meanwhile, I think you should be asking Herr Wagner about the whereabouts of the ring.

• Bob the dog
  [Dr Q] No? What's that you've got in your left hand then?
• Lib - Strange but true!
  I've just seen something amusing. An ambulance which has been wheel-clamped. It was parked in close proximity to A&E, but on double yellow lines. Made me laugh lots.....
• Graham III - Ambulance mularky
  Given the recent news about the ambulance driver up in court for taking a liver for transplant at 104mph, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Bloody traffic police is I think my final answer. The guy whose life was saved by the liver has offered to pay any fine, which I think is rather sweet.
• penelope - I'd be lying if I didn't tell you
  Some fabulous lies going on at the moment, I was sniggering at my desk. :oD
• Dunx - Snigger
  [pen] Better to laugh with your desk rather than at it if you to avoid hurting its feelings. It may seem wooden and impassive, but that's just a veneer.
• penelope
  *chortle*
• Bob the dog
  Well if Dr Q hasn't got my ring, who has?
• penelope - moving Scansion War II out of the limerick game...
  [CdM rab et al] So if another scansion war isn't required, why make your criticisms public? I responded to what I thought was an unecessary criticism, but I won't mention this again.
• rab - Warring fractions
  [penelope] I can't speak for CdM but no offence was meant. I can't recall if you were around at the time, but about 4 years ago there was a huge hoo-hah at York (possibly even when it was still at York) brought about by there being two polar opposite views about what was and what wasn't acceptable form in a Limerick. This was a particularly ugly episode and one which I, for one, would not like to see repeated. So why make the views public? I can't see anything wrong with gently pointing out that moves are perhaps not quite appropriate for the games in which they are played as long as it's done (a) nicely and (b) rarely. If one feels that, say, a Limerick doesn't have any of the defining features thereof (without there being some point behind the rule-bending, which can sometimes be humorous in its own right), then perhaps this is worth remarking on. I understood the comments about not wanting to get into an argument about just that: let's comment, refute, have Jerry's final thought and move on. But we now seem to have got into an argument about it :) Cup of tea? Rich tea finger?
• Graham III - Limericky
  Yes, maybe it wasn't a classic, but I thought it worked ok:
  .
  In fact, Dr. Q's line had good word painting...
• rab - A-ha
  [GIII] I see you've found your displacement activity!
• rab
  I guess it comes down to whether you can hear these things or not. Even with the dots, I still find it quite difficult to get the rhythm right; clearly you, pen and the other participants found it less of a strain and so I'll shut up.
• rab
  Still more in tune than Jemini, though.
• Inkspot - true story
  T'was limericks that brought me to MC
  But my poor scancion you see
  Raised several alerts
  And with my doom a good cert
  I gave up. :)
• CdM - Playing well with others
  No offence was intended, and I apologise, seriously and unreservedly, for causing it. While I disagree with GIII, I will bite my tongue and I won't argue the merits of this particular limerick further; anyway, as rab said, such matters are at part in the ear of the beholder, or the eye of the listener, or something. My posting in part reflected my general feeling that the limericks here and elsewhere have been below average quality over the last few months because several people don't spend enough time thinking about scansion and stress. As a result, I find myself posting less and less to them. The fun in the game is in collectively crafting a well-formed and funny end product; if we are not succeeding in doing that (and more often than not I think we are not), then the fun disappears for me. Others of course disagree, and that's fine.
  
  I should add two things: (1) I am of course as guilty as anyone of the occasional bad line; and (B) I think pen typically contributes some of the very best limerick lines, and so I am particularly sorry that she was in my line of fire.
• Raak

  The secret of well-scansioned verse is this:
  To hear each line like music in the ear
  And yet to also hear it as 'twere prose.
  The metre's like a shoe of certain form:
  It yields not to a wrongly shapèd foot
  But presses it into its tum-ti-tums.
  The foot that fits the metre well, is thus
  Enhanced by rhythm's clockwork-like progression.
  But if the foot bears no resemblance to
  The stressed and unstressed points along the line
  Then like to bunioned club it will appear
  When forced into a shoe however pretty.
  The metre is the bezel, sense the stone
  That fitted well together make a jewel
  The versifier's craft combining them
  Into a whole that's greater than its parts.

• rab
  Wot CdM and Raak said. I should probably add my apologies to pen for unwittingly adding fuel to the fire.
• Bob the dog
  Isn't anyone going to own up to seeing my ring?
• penelope - group hug
  After judcious application of several cups of tea, a Rich Tea finger (thanks rab) and as a last resort when the first two measures proved insufficient, a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Regular Fries and Vanilla Milkshake, I'll gratefully acknowledge everyone's points which were intended constructively I'm sure, thank them for their continued interest in my limericking career and try and maintain my standards. :o). I am pre-menstrual... did it show?
• Boolbar - Ring-a-ding-ding
  [BtD] Does your ring sing or look like a thing?
• snorgle - limericks
  whhoooooosh... I missed all that! No fair, I didn't get tea or biscuits! And someone stole that nice shiny ring I found under the (empty) teapot..
• Bob the dog - Three cheers rab
  MC5 has some damn fine games and excellent players right now. Green and Blacks caramel choc ice creams all round.
• rab - I scream, you scream ...
  It's finally stopped raining in Manchester, and the sun's come out, so I could quite happily suck an ice cream just now. [snorgle] cream puff? eclair?
• rab - Games
  [btd] I'm pleased that the Fish of the Day seems to be to several people's tastes.
• snorgle - ice cream
  rab, thanks for reminding me of that lovely ice cream in the freezer...YUM! Still hot after 11pm - I'm glad I bought that fan last year, I need it tonight.
• Lib - BB4
  I'm glad it was Anouska who went yesterday, in my opinion Jon has to stay as he's so strange, he's amusing. Still want Steph to win, not sure why!
• rab - BBBBBBBB
  Interesting that The People ignored Moyles, Norton, The Mirror and the rest of the anti-Jon camp.
• blamelewis - limericks and brothers big
  [BB] I reckon Jon's good comedy value, and the shots of his describing in detail a Star Wars novel while cutting away to the guys nodding off were very funny. However it also reminded me of a frustration I found in earlier series - editorial slant - I've seen very little of this series so far but already have watched two extended episodes of Jon's "boring stories" which are it seems to me being given more precedence by the editors.
  [Limericks] Missed the fun, but I'd like to offer my 2p and a disclaimer that no offense is intended to anyone. I find lines with dodgy scansion frustrating reading and playing the limerick games, but I think all we can ask is that players make an honest attempt to fit the scansion, with a little squeezing or odd stressing if that's necesary for a line they really like. It's always subjective of course and I'll try to read a line a few times if it jars at first. End of 2p...
• Inkspot - Star fish
  rab]By coincidence Anouska had the largest votr 46% and also was the big divi on Celebdaq. (Come on rab get an id you it makes sense). I must admit to being in the anti-Jon camp, but his style has grown in me since his unique rendition of Hotel California very Shatneresque. Spooky.
  SoapboxIn Carp Diem, I think it is too soon to change its direction to "what they say/what they mean" with english/english. My enjoyment has come from a "word or phrase in another language" followed the translations.end soapbox
• Raak
  [Inkspot, re Soapbox] I was thinking the very same thing.
• rab - AOL
  [Inkspot, Raak] Well, one could plausibly consider John Prescott's patois as a foreign language. However, the point of the game is that it is foreign words/phrases and there's still plenty of those to keep the game going for a few days at least.

  [BB⁴] Yes I forgot about the 'editorial slant'. It's worth watching a few of the live bits then the highlight show to find out hgow the editorialising works. The Sunday night show is particularly good for this, as they will always show an edited version of Saturday night's live task. Plus you get the pop-pscychology from Manchester Uni's most famous member of staff (and thus, I s'pose, strictly speaking one of my colleagues) which is C4's risible attempt to make the show 'respectable' rather than just admit it's just pandering to the homo sapiens' instinctive desire to peer over the garden fence (or, in times of yore, drill a hole into the next cave).

• rab - Test case
  [Inkspot, Raak] Did my int main(void) count as English in your opinion?
• Raak - Re: Test case
  [rab] Thin end of the wedge, driven a little deeper by Dunx, then split wide open by DrQu+xum.
• DrQu+xum - Re: Re: Test case
  [Raak] I'll go Robin Cook if you like... :)
• Dunx - Re: Test Case
  [Raak] I figured Scottish dialect was probably sufficiently non-English. No?
• Raak
  [Dunx] I am torn between pro-Scottish zeal urging me to agree, and anti-English zeal urging me to poke fun at Sassenachs claiming to be unable to understand perfectly clear Glaswegian. :-)
• Dunx - Torn
  [Raak] Being half-Scottish myself, I feel the same conflict. However, I am also painfully aware that there are huge swathes of Scottish dialect which I do not understand despite my ability to understand thicker accents than many.
• Dunx - Reality Bites
  Re BB: first of all let me say that no matter how trite or sensationalist you might think British reality shows are, trust me when I say that the US output is far, far worse. I will revise this opinion only when shows of the salacious feebleness of "Joe Millionaire" and the show hosted by Monica Lewinsky are made in Britain.

  Having said that there was a piece on the radio the other day about these shows, and there was a remark which struck me - the reporter suggested that these programmes are social experiments masquerading as mass entertainment, whereas the thing that for me distinguishes British efforts in this arena is that they are exactly the opposite: there is always some affectation of worthiness, such as the Big Brother psychologist.

  Of course, later tha same day I heard the chairman of the FCC ask rhetorically (and apparently without irony) if there was any other broadcast system in the world that the listener would choose to replace the US one with.

• rab - Daq
  I have finally succumbed to this celebdaq business. Trading as RadiantAndBeautiful my ID is 3293427. Could someone add me to the appropriate league, or how to do it myself?
• rab - Other news
  I was wondering whether to kill the bad tempered imposters and replace them with something more interesting. Any comments?
• Bob the dog - It was I
  I have to own up to spawning the bad tempered imposters. For a while it buzzed, but I agree, we could do with a new game or two. Any last comments before I park the Beige Allegro?
• Inkspot - on the red carpet
  RadiantAndBeautiful, in chauffeur driven Metro has swept into Beckingham Palace, a full array of D list celebrities await inside.
• penelope - replacing imposters with...
  How about a short game of libellous ghost-written profiles, as they're not immediately available elsewhere in the Morniverse? Players profile (eek - I've just used a nouveau verb) each other, probably in approximate alphabetical order, with each contributor posting a single sentence to the victim's profile. And shall we make it a maximum of three sentences per profile to keep it short and sweet? Any 'A's??
• rab - ghastly
  Or do I mean ghostly? The alphabetic order thing might be a bit difficult to organise. I reckon we just supply them at random with the 3-sentence restriction pen suggests and perhaps additionally each profiler may profile each profilee once only. (But you can profile as many players as you like). Waddayareckon?
• rab - celebs
  btw, who are 'moreteaplease' and 'ffish'?
• Dunx - Verbing
  [pen] I think you're alright on the "profiling"; it may be new to you, but it's a verb which has been in use in computing since before I was programming for money.
• Graham ffIIIsh - Celebs
  Ffiish'll be me...
• rab - Sorry
  I got bored.
• Bob the dog - Re. Pro-filing
  Are we "doing" one person at a time or just randomly profiling each other? CDM has profiled gil after a first line aboput pen. I'm confused.
• Bob the dog
  By the way, ISIHAC last night was a classic. Esp Cow, Lake, Bomb.
• rab - Randomness
  [BtD, profiles] No, just do them as they come to mind (so you could do gil, penelope, or anyone else for that matter, with no detriment to others' creativity). I much prefer it that way. The reason many games (like the Fourth Estate) get stuck is that only one ticket is open at a time, and it's tricky taking the responsibility for closing it.
• lodge - retentive
  [btd isihac classic] surely in the spirit of MC, profiles should be clerihew/limerick/couplet or something...
• Btd - What happened?
  I added a profile but it seems to have vanished! Have I been edited?
• Uncle Korky - Grim Reaper
  Talking off bumping off games, nothing much seems to be happening with the face pyjamas... Anyone agree with zapping it in favour of something else? I haven't seen any server in the Morniverse doing a game of book club/film club/songbook recently...
• gil - Six feet under
  It's been stuck now twice after a move I made. It's either me or it's not. In either event, deep-six it with my blessing at any rate.
• gil - Last Night's ISIHAC
  First class, I thought. It had everything.
• rab - Milk
  I'm waiting I'm waiting for you...
• rab - You probably don't care
  Sorry if your moves got lost. What happened was that we ended up with two mc⁵s on the go at once (mc¹⁰?) so if you 'think it's been working all day' then I'm afraid it hasn't. I have got copies of both sets of files, so I may work in lost moves as appropriate. On the other hand, I might do what I was really looking forward to doing today (see Books).
• rab - gasps
  I need a beer.
• rab
  [Uncle K] Crescenter's Film Club at Orange? [All] Original suggestions preferred.
• rab - Daq
  Hmmm... all the shares I bought bar two have gone down in the past day. Oh well; maybe I was looking too far into the future...
• Lib - swooning
  Ooh, I've come over all feint. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to give blood without eating anything before. Think I'll lie down, then find food. *Lib lies down on the library floor, much to the bemusement of other library goers*
• Bob the dog - Original suggestion
  Mmmabe Quickfire Darwin Crescent where the winner is the penultimate move - inspired by the Darwin awards.
• Boolbar - Zoom
  Or a game of Quickfire Too Many (insert player name here)
• Uncle Korky - Crescenters' film club
  That game seems to be purely on the one topic, whereas on ISIHAC itself, there's a different topic each time it's played - this could be run in a similar way to the now-deceased historical headlines when a new topic could be launched when players felt that the current one had run dry.
• flerdle - all peaky
  [Lib] I tried to give blood twice, but they told me not to come back, after I went into shock both times. Hmph.
• Raak - Film clubs
  [Uncle Korky] Such indeed is the way the film club games generally run. Feel free to suggest moving on to a new topic.
• rab - Decision
  So the decision is whether to broaden the scope of the currently running Film Club at Orange, or whether to start an all-new broad Multimedia Club church elsewhere (e.g. here).
• Dunx
  [Lib, flerdle] I would like to give blood, but the Red Cross don't want blood from anyone who has been in Britain for more than three months. Since I lived there for 33 years, they won't take it. Never mind that I stopped eating meat in 1988...
• Dunx
  I should clarify - the Red Cross in the US. They're the organisation that runs the blood donation programme here in the States.
• matt - film clubs
  [rab] Not really one of the trickier decisions. Meanwhile, Blob's horoscope suggestion might work nicely here, I think.
• rab - wanting
  Not wanting to seem autocratic in anyway that's all. Ditto re the Bloboscope; who's for the chop?
• Bob the dog - Chopper
  I like blobs idea very much Well - and Beige Allegro has seen less action recently. For whoever is first with the chopper the winning move is Shaft. Appropriately.
• Bob the dog - much Well?
  Well quite much.
• rab - Ark
  [BtD] Appropriate for what, young man?
• rab - Honours
  Would someone like to do the honours and bless the Bloboscope game with a witty title. I can't think of one.
• Dunx - Re: Honours
  [rab] Well, Bloboscope seems pretty reasonable if a little Blob-specific. How about "Tall, Dark and Strange"?
• Dunx
  Or "Cross My Palm With Silver"?
• rab - Honours (1st class)
  Or, to quote The Divine Comedy Why not cross my palm with plastic, and we'll see what we can do (or a pithier version thereof)?
• rab - Massive Adaq
  Can someone explain the delisting procedure? According to the news, they're going to delist two BB4 contestents, but I'm not sure how I'll be able to guess/influence which two, if at all.
• Dunx - Crossing
  [rab] I am touched, although I would have thought that was obvious already.
• Graham III - It's time to vote...
  [rab] on the front page there are two buttons - "list" and "de-list" which will allow you to vote, and let you view the results. Sell Anouska soon...
• Bob the dog - Help!
  Having just changed my ISP (to BT) and upgraded my PC to XP - I am occasionally getting advertising messages popping up when I'm online. Typically they are a box with a message like "You have won £1,000 ring...", "I'm looking for love in your area" or "Earn from home...". I think someone has somehow got my PC id number because it is always displayed at the top of the message. As I need the internet to do my job, this is intensely irritating. Do any of you know how I can stop these messages?
• Inkspot - IE IE O
  BtD]If you run IE like me there's not much hope, but those that run the browser Opera are able to refuse pop ups.
• gil - Popups
  Are these REALLY browser popups from your own browser? There are some spywareish creatures that can cause these. A personal firewall can shut them up.

  If they are browser popups, then there is always ad-aware to stop spawning advertising windows and spyware. Simply inhibiting all popups can be inconvenient.

• Bob the dog - Poptarts
  Inkspot/gil] Thanks. I think that they must be spyware dodahs because they quote my PC ID and sometimes appear when OE is running and IE is off. Can you recommend good (inexpensive) personal firewall software?
• flerdle - boingy
  ZoneAlarm seems to work ok. They have a free version. Hopefully, here is their site and here is the link to a free version. If you choose it they nag you a bit to upgrade. If you look around the rest of download.com you might get a few more ideas.
• Boolbar
  Free program "Ad-Aware" from Lavasoft clears out all spyware stuff. I've also used the Opera browser with much happiness.
• Projoy - will ye no come back again
  [Martha Farquar] Hm. Now I come to inspect the games, you haven't been seen for a while at Dan's. Or here for that matter. At any rate, posting this here too. If you still have a working email address, maybe you could mail me it.
• Bob the dog - popdown
  Thanks all above - Ad-Aware installed and seems to have worked. I've downloaded Opera too, but it isn't working properly yet...
• Martha Farquar - Hello moto
  [Proj] I mailed you last night and again just now. NB. I've only played once at Dan's in about 4 years.

  [Bob,gil] I switched off all Java and JavaScript on my browser ages ago and it's never inconvenienced me even slightly.

• Projoy - hello mudder, hello farder
  [MF] Ah yes, so you did.
• rab - Haul, wobble, scream, plunge
  If you're wondering why I was a bit quiet yesterday it's because I was at Alton Towers doing silly rides involving me being turned upside down, generally spun about, dropped into a hole, gliding on my back and, much to the amusement of the rest of the party, getting extremely moist and clammy on the rapids. Great fun, and I note the Bloboscope has taken off with some alacrity. Marvellous.
• rab - For furc's sake
  I wonder if Blob or maybe matt might like to provide a Furcation. I also recall Projoy having a talent for this kind of thing too...
• Blob - Furcing Hell
  [rab] I was going to furcate a while ago - but then discovered that I had things to do that were a little more pressing. If I find I have a spare hour I'll do what I can - but my psychiatrist has only just signed me off as clear of the nightmares caused by Acre Street, I'm not sure that dragging it all up again would be too wise. But then I'm not - wise that is.
• Projoy - Freetime and Furcin'
  I do find it hard to pass up games like that, and I was in fact planning a particularly fiendish move which would have upset the game dreadfully, resolved the various chronology problems it has and set an impossible challenge for other players to rise to, but unfortunately at the moment I'm applying for a new job while writing a show and organising a recording session, and even showing up in the office occasionally, so it has been impossible to begin. If y'all could see your way clear to leaving it on the front page until July, I might be able to actually do it.
• Projoy
  Oh, and can I just say how much I am enjoying Breadmaster's horoscopes.
• matt - abso-furcing-lutely
  [rab] I am intending to, just as soon as I have a moment-or-six.
• rab - Furcing brilliant
  [Blob, Projoy, matt] I fully appreciate these difficulties. I generally have to set aside a weekend just to think about it... good to see there's some interest though.
• Uncle Korky - A change of subject...
  I stress that this is because I have never 'furced' and therefore it would be inappropriate for me to comment on this topic... I had an idea for a new game last night. Whilst watching the rather-splendid "Where Eagles Dare" on C5, I somewhat irritated my wife by pointing out various cast members here and there who'd been in Doctor Who. She did (and many of you also probably will) called me a sad anorak. However, she did challenge me to make connections to the series from other actors, and, thus, I ended up playing "Six Degrees of Doctor Who" - and worryingly-successfully too...! Of course, should this prove a potential game with you, my fellow Crescenters, it could always be adapted to any topic. I would suggest that anyone who makes the run of connections then deposits the name of a subsequent performer for another player to make a link with.
• rab - Hmmm...
  [Uncle K] Sounds interesting. If it's Dr Who I suspect Thos might be interested, if anyone knows where to track him down. I guess there will also be some web-based resources to help the rest of us out.
• rab - Listing
  [Celebdaqqers] Now, I have a problem. One of the BB4 people who I have shares in stands a reasonable chance of being delisted. I wouldn't want to sell my shares before the dividends are awarded, but presumably I lose my cash should the delisting occur... I presume I can't have my cake and eat it in this instance.
• Projoy
  [rab re: web based resource] There did used to be a page that enabled you to do the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game (as it's popularly called, but just now I can't google it.
• Uncle Korky - Kevin Bacon
  [Projoy] I'm sure that's a game they used to play in Empire magazine. They also did a version with Christopher Lee.
• Graham III - daquiri
  The dividend has been awarded. Sell now.
• rab - Divis
  [GIII] You know that for a fact? Can't see any reference to it myself.
• rab - but
  ...I took your advice anyway.
• penelope - Strawberry celebdaquiris
  I've got mine :o). Spent it already, heheheh
• DrQu+xum - Celeb-duck!
  Mine too :)
• Martha Farquar - Proj 1
  The "particularly fiendish move" wouldn't be Reverse Acre Street-related, would it? :o)
• Martha Farquar - Proj 2
  Did you try this one?
• Martha Farquar - Proj 3
  Check your mailbox in 10 minutes or so.
• Graham III - Someone took my advice! woo!
  look here, and then check out the voting...
• Projoy - Martha 1
  Well, that was involved, but it was much worse than simply that.
• Projoy - Martha 2
  Ah, that's the fellow. Thanks.
• Projoy - Martha 3
  I checked. Very useful. Thanks very much. Will reply when less tied up.
• Inkspot - celebrity MC
  Fridays post divi leagues of 6 June has been saved strange how Prince William is now diving, interest in Harry won't be far behind. I can see why some on the daq are miffed as they changed the voting from one to two part of the way through, also why are last years BB like Alex still listed. And if anyone wants to join the Celebrity MC just post your Celebdaq id here.
• rab - Saville Thick Cut
  Excuse me for being thick, but where do you find out what your dividends were. I don't seem to have any :(
• Inkspot - spending cash
  rab] If you have had any divi it will appear in 'cash available' in the portfolio, I've also set up "Register for CASH PRIZE or UPDATE DETAILS", and so get notified of the divi payout each Friday.
• matt - of human bondage
  Those knots are darn tricky aren't they?

  No, sir. I wouldn't do that, sir.

• matt - Furcing Ada!
  Judging by the timestamps, it seems to have taken me the best part of 3 hours to construct a fairly desultory move in the furcation game. Admittedly there were a few distractions and my mentis may not have been entirely compos, but still, I won't be doing that again in a hurry...
• rab - Spoilsport
  [matt] You're no fun any more.
• rab - Consolation
  ...but if it's any consolation, it took me a couple of hours to produce something not much better... (Stratford in particular is a blatant cop-out).
• Bob the dog - Hang it all
  I have a proposal for a game that I have played with a friend and found to be excellent. Cardo is the same as Boardo but with playing cards. Any will do, Normal, Tarot, Donkey, Happy Families, Business etc. It is made more interesting by being played in Reverse. Collective Consciousness seems to have stalled. Any takers?
• rab - Divided
  I am not aware of having received any dividents :( But at least I sold my shares in BB Jon before he was delisted. Which is a shame cos I think he's going to get a lot of tabloid coverage for as long as he stays in the house.
• Graham III - Down with the monarchy?
  For some reason, people are selling shares in Prince Harry. Did noone see the coverage he's got these last two days?
• rab - Moanarchy
  Wills is dropping like a scally girl's knickers too... odd considering it's his 21st this week (isn't it?).
• Boolbar - Cardo
  Ah, those memories of the long reverse game at !York . . . .
• DrQu+xum - Not quote moanarchy
  Zara Phillips is still on the rise...
• snorgle - avada kadavra
  I'm crossing my fingers for JK Rowling, she's on the up...
• Blob - JK
  Yes, I've got 300,000 shares in her at the moment - so I hope she does well ! Unless I have a complete disaster I think kneecapping looms !
• gil - Millionaireship
  It's all very well to make you a millionaire and reset you to 10000. But, frankly, by the time the Beckhams had had their dividend, I was MUCH more than a millionaire last week, but I still got only 10000 and an icon, and, what's more, they had left me in cash instead of leaving me 10000 worth of my favourite shares. By the time I got in Monday, I was MILES behind.
• rab - Rudeness
  Yeah, that does seem a little rude. And presumably it means we just get recycled through the league table and it means nothing to be at the top or bottom.
• Blob - celebdaq
  It seems that the main aim of the game is to make the biggest %ge rise in the week, so the amount you start with doesn't really matter.
  The main flaw with the game as I see it is that the divis are ludicrously high. If they paid out far smaller amounts then there would (a) be more import attached to how shares moved in value and (b) no need for the silly capping. Anyway, they've set the rules, so it's up to us if we want to play.
• rab - Public Service Announcement
  Just to let you all know that I'm going away for a few days (everyone say 'ahhh'). So if this thing falls over on its arse I might not be able to fix it.
• rab - Although
  With a bit of luck they might reset the clock :)
• Lib - Sound of Slience
  Ooh, rab goes away and things go really quiet round here. Rather spooky. Hmm, anyone for tennis?guest
• Dunx - Net Result
  [Lib] Well, what's the point without rab as an audience? If what I say is not going to viewed by the mighty rab then I just won't bother.
• Dunx
  sorry, that reads rather more sarcastically than intended
• rab - Oi
• Lib - rain stopped play
  [Dunx] Sacrasm's fine. [rab] Might have guessed you'd be lurking round the corner somewhere near MC land!
• Inkspot - Veryweaktea
  On celebdaq my cunning plan, by buying birthday boy Bill (PRWILL) seems to have come unstuck. With just over 100,400 shares they have droppped the best part of £1 each in one week, my value going down from Fri £405081 to £303,379 and still falling. But hey still romping away at No1. Surely Becks at £77.34 is overpriced and rising at 20p an hour?
• rab - Oh dear
  The Netscape 4 compatibility dandelion seems to have been destroyed by the lawnmower of software sidegrades. Interesting, and not something I can fix while I need to, viz, in Embra.
• Chalky - rab's Oh dear
  Any chance of a translation? I thought English was my first language. It now seems I was deluded.
• Graham III - Oh dear oh dear oh dear
  I'm sorry Inkspot, but I appear to be top :)
• Blob - Rum Daq Query
  I've plopped from 2nd to 9th ! But surprisingly I've not yet been kneecapped, so I've got over £1.5m to play with.
• Graham III - ouch!
  [Blob] It'll happen on Monday. The trick is to get yourself above 2m before then so you can get two wads of cash... I managed it last week by a slender £20,000.
• DrQu+xum - Celebdaq Divvies
  Where can you find the dividend payouts? And would JK Rowling have cranked up the divvies this week?
• Lib - BB4
  Dragging the chat back to BB, (is anyone else apart from me watching it?) but I have to say that it is far more amusing when the housemates are drunk. The main problem with them failing their tasks is that the shopping buget becomes too small to buy alcohol. And Sissy MUST go! (JON to WIN!)
• rab - Oh!
  I seem to be in a new shiny place. Kudos to Nik for letting me steal some of his server space. Hopefully the weekly downtime is a thing of the past.
• DrQu+xum - Ooooh!
  Nice and quick as well. Thanks rab & Nik!
• Nik
  Mm, it was down earlier today for making the new subdomain work, and was down on friday for upgrading php, and was down a week or so before that for making another subdomain work, but it's all momentary stuff. The line broke a few months ago, but uptime is generally measured in months these days. Except I have to upgrade the kernel this week...

  In the meantime, it all seems a lot speedier than I'd expected, so hurrah. Glad to help, and it saves me writing a server of my own.

• rab - Right...
  [Nik, re downtime] But at least I know who to blame :) Just hoping that I'm not the one attracting the crackers like flies to a shite... or is it the other way round?
• rab - Speed
  I think the speed might be largely due to the magic of CSS. If you look at the actual HTML, there's very little there at all.
• rab - New Game
  OK, I took the liberty of upping the game count to celebrate the new home. Roll on the duff product names...
• Inkspot - there you are...
  rab]Good to see you back up and running, thanks to Nik.
  On a more serious note can anyone tell me how ffish managed to get to the top of Celebrity. As for this week I'm at a complete loss but staying well clear of BB housemates.
• Graham III - fffffiiiiiiiiiish
  That'll be me. After being kneecapped I bought nothing but Harry, having seen the papers over the weekend. Since then, I've just bought with my dividend who I thought would be helpful...
• Uncle Korky
  [Rab & Nik] Well done, gentlemen, for saving civilisation as we know it!
• pook - lucky 13
  A new game! How about another - not that I'm superstitious or anything...
• rab - BeeBee
  [Lib] Yes I'm watching BB and two of Jon, Fed and Cam will be going this week. Which is a shame as I quite like Cam for being so camp, Jon for being irritating. I have a nasty suspicion that Fed will stay because he's the prettiest and this seems to be what the viewing public goes for most.
• Inkspot - Small b
  I think the producers of BB have missed an opportunity to allow the public a great voting oppportunity, I would have liked to have seen four preferably five housemates up for eviction. If the thinking behind the BB stategy is because it has losing viewing figures, as the contestants sit around all day. The housemates will always nominate those that have annoyed them or upset the staus quo and it is always the same people as the others keep their heads down and play 'bland/safe'. We could end up with both Jon and Fed leaving, hey what a great interesting group of nicely well behaved and spoken celebs-to-be we'll have then.
• Dujon - Celeb Ducks
  Dr Q has been exhorting participants in this rather questionable exploit to advise name/IDs on this banter board. Accordingly, and as usual, I am following his directives. Be warned though that, if there is a team Vs team thing going, I will undoubtedly drag you all down with me. So: ....
  DUJON2774 (User ID: 3256726) is the info.
  Incidentally, should the co-ordinator be within hearing distance, I assume that once a 'team member' a new menu option will appear? If not, how to I check to see if anyone else has beaten me to the bottom of the ladder?
• Dujon - Bloomin' fingers
  I'm sure that you'll work it out... sorry, this digital mode confuses me at times. .... :-)
• Dujon - Being overly chatty.
  It's all right, I think I found that bit. (groan)
  
• Dujon - Ta!
  All of a sudden I'm up there with the 'experts' ... problem is they all have lot of little green blobs against their names. Anyhow, dear co-ordinator, thanks muchly. I shall now sink into oblivion.
• penelope - older sibling
  BB chat again... I'd hate to see John go because he's the only one who ever says anything provocative or interesting. He's the Rambling Nerd. I'd like to see Federico stay because sooner or later, he will crack up. He's finding out that he's the weak link, and it's not something he's used to. Cameron is the least offensive - so in my book he should really be the first to go. So my money's on Cameron and Fed. Really, though, they all seem to have forgotten it's a game show - I still maintain the first was the best, when the whole lot of 'em would sing: 'It's only a game show, it's only a game show,' as they headed over to the diary room to make their nominations.
• Lib - 'me too'
  [Pen] I guess it didn't cross your mind but thank you for the above, as it rather nicely sums up my thoughts too, and as always, very eloquently. JON MUST STAY!
• Breadmaster - aaarrrgh
  Careful, please, I don't want to memorise any of their names by accident. Can't you use some kind of code?
• lodge - more generously proportioned fraternal relative
  [lib&pen] Vote Jon! On a class basis alone (oops!)
• Chalky - BB4
  In it's fourth year, Big Brother appears to have successfully elevated banality to an art form. However, I must confess to being curiously drawn to Big Brother's Little Brother - a nifty little half hour which reduces the day's 'action' to 3 bullet points each containing two words. Says it all really.
• Chalky - Celebdaq
  Oops, nearly forgot myself then. Yes - my Celebdaq name and code: CHALKYSPIRE [3320323] I haven't the foggiest what I'm supposed to do, but figured that pressing the 'trade' button from time to time might reap dividends. Thanks for letting me join you and look forward to holding you all up.
• penelope - For pity's sake, child, tie down the moons of Jupiter!
  I think Breadmaster's move in Carpe Diem is one of the most beautiful phrases I've ever heard...*sigh*
• Darren - Agreed
  It almost deserves to be the start of a poem or song, but how would you follow it?
• rab - Dunno
  ...but welcome to the fold nevertheless.
• Lodge - for pity's sake...
  I can't think of any rhymes - maybe it could be a miniature game?
• Breadmaster - Blushing
  [Penelope] Why thank you - it does have that "ought to be a palindrome" sort of quality, doesn't it?
• Uncle Korky - By Jove
  I think it would make a wonderful opening line for a short story.
• Breadmaster - Deeply, deeply ashamed of my linguistic skills
  Actually - what did the phrase really mean? I've just tried translating it on the assumption that it was Italian - or Spanish - or Portuguese - and I seem to be stumped, or at least the computer is.
• penelope - tethering moons
  I think it's the start of a blank verse poem, chastising a child for having too wild an imagination, and implying the consequences will be grave. I feel like it's been written already - maybe it's something I should work on.
• Darren - Son pittore ancor io!
  [Breadmaster] It came from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. To summarise their explanation, on seeing Raphael's St Cecilia at Bologna, c.1525, Antonio Allegri Correggio is supposed to have exclaimed, "Son pittore ancor io!" meaning, "I, too, am a painter!"
• Darren - Of course...
  On the other hand, he may just have seen through the window that Io had broken loose from its orbit and was hurtling towards the Earth. In a blind panic, he screamed, "For pity's sake, child, tie down the moons of Jupiter!"
• Breadmaster
  Ah, of course, I must have temporarily forgotten! Maybe we should have a game of highly promising openings to non-existent stories/novels/plays/poems/songs, although I don't know if it would work/has already been done...
• Breadmaster - author's rights
  [Penelope] I graciously permit you to use the line in question, provided I receive full acknowledgement! I thought it might be something about humanity's hubris and folly, but I think your explanation is better and much sadder. Reminds me of the more whimsical Calvin and Hobbes stories.
• Uncle Korky - Celebdaq
  Just registered! Details: UNCLE_KORKY (User ID: 3325317). Like Chalky, I've got no real concept of how this is all going to work, so I'll be vying for the foot of the table.
• Darren - Celebdaq
  I, too, have just registered. I am DARRENXYZ (User ID: 3326388).
• Inkspot - more tea and biscuits
  Uncle Korky and Darren you are pending just waiting for daq towers to load you in. Good luck. Tomorrow being Friday is divi day, can DrQ push ffish off the top. Though I have a feeling evil_edna is just bidding her time.
• Graham III - Going...going...gone to the man with the big beard and scythe
  [Inkspot] Bidding her time?
• evil edna - without reserve
  *cackle*
• Graham III - cackling...
  Well, moreteaplease seems to have taken over top spot, but that's not going to last long - serious kneecapping beckons on Monday...
• Uncle Korky - Early days
  [Inkspot] Thanks for adding me to the league. Blimey - I've a lot of work to do...
• rab - A-ha
  I knew my early investment in Ms Rowling would pay off!
• Chalky - Wahay!
  I'm chuffed to little mint balls. Seems as though all my faffing around with the Royals has paid off . . . oops, I meant the Beckhams . . same thing, really. Cheers Inkspot and thanks DrQ - the Pants invasion appears to be gaining support [see The Chatter Page] :-)
• rab - Crikee
  [Chalky] Not sure I like the sound of a pants invasion... though on the other hand if you're free tonight my number is...

  [All] You might be touched to learn that the Manchester Evening News is running a special David Beckham Memorial Issue.

• Watty - Unapologetically cross-posted
  *clears throat* Ahem. May I just take this opportunity to point out that we are just over a week away from a Pilg? Saturday, June 28th, Australians promised, along with some unusual diversions. It may be wise to get there early, since there is wild talk of approaching the Great Place by 1:30, unlikely as that may seem.
• Chalky - Pilgards
  I'd be really up for that if my brother wasn't getting married in Paris that weekend. I do a SoloPilg most times I'm in London, making sure I buy a genuine Mornington Crescent Ticket when I'm standing in the hallowed hall. I sometimes gift them to friends on birthdays and the like. They make great bookmarks. My family think I may be certifiable.
• DrQu+xum - Kneecapping imminent
  Who's moreteaplease? Also, if you are at £2,999,999 at the point of kneecapping, do you only get 2 wads of cash and end up forfeiting £989,999?
• ram - Depilg
  Sadly I booked a wee weekend away, so am unable to make what looks set to be a stonking pilg, what with both bearded Australians and teenage hackers called Tiffany in attendance.
• rab - Alter ego
  (ram being my slightly more random persona).
• Lib - Delerious
  *Lib skips into the crescent, does five cartwheels and an arab-spring, then collapses on the floor, smiling and murmuring "I've passed! I've passed"*
• rab - Passed?
  ... Baker Street picking up a gold podume? ... I'm sure congratulations are in order whatever it is.
  *hands Lib a slightly melting Kit Kat and glass of flat lemonade* Well Done!
• Chalky - Lib the delerious
  CONGRATULATIONS! I say that - because you appear to be Very Happy and not because I know what it is you've passed - an exam? a parcel? something painful? Anyway, keep smiling, Lib. I'm Chalky and a girly.
• Lib
  {rab and Chalky] Thanks.I've passed my finals! I'm now a Doctor! Not sunk in yet!
• Chalky - Doctor Lib
  Blimey O'Reilly. Well done.
• rab - Further congrats
  I trust they let you sober up before handing you the scalpels.
• CdM - Lib
  welcome. *proffers secret handshake*
• Boolbar - Dr. Lib
  Knockout!! Dr of what ?
• DrQu+xum - Ah. The Doctor.
  Would you classify yourself as Tom Baker-ish or more of a Sylvester McCoy-type? :)
• Raak - Doctoring
  [Lib] Doctor Dr. or Ph.D.?
• Raak - and
  Oh, and congrats as well!
• Darren - More
  Congratulations! And are you aiming to go further?
• Nik - Uptime
  So, what's the opinion thus far of mc^5's new home on beefy? I was just mentioning to Kevan that it's quite preposterous that a speedy-in-'98/9 computer hooked into the 'net on a residential DSL (with other things, including Kazaa, running alongside) outperforms a proper host both in speed and reliability/non-hacked-ness terms.

  I ask because I'm a) drunk, and b) not aware of any glitches. Tell me, I'm your friendly neighbourhood BOFH.

• Nik - Doctorhood
  I notice that I didn't pay close attention to recent postings. Congratulations, Lib. Entertaining, vaguely related occurrence at work today. Boss&colleague:mumblemumble. Colleague: Nik, what have you got? HNC, degree, what?. Nik: Nothing. I'm completely unqualified. Boss: <blank, but firm, stare>.
• Dujon - Being a bit of a devil.
  Nik, I wouldn't worry about it. I used to work in the banking industry (for 26 years!) and we used to take in 'graduates'. They would be those in the banking, commerce and accounting fields, of course. We used to trial them for 6 - 12 months and drop them upon other unsuspecting souls for 2 or three months at a time and then move them around in the various areas/facets of the organisation. Something like 95% either moved on, were moved on or simply froze in horror at actually having to work and simply 'deserted' ... :-) Now, I'm not denigrating degrees and the like (well, not much - my son's a B.Sc. so I can't can I?) but one wonders at times as to the worth of these degrees if their recipients are incapable of assimilating into a real world environment.
  
  To you, Lib, congratulations, I wish that I were that well endowed intellectually.
  
  To those of you in academia, and I gather there are a few who gather here, please do not take offence - I am merely stating my experiences.
• Inkspot - more tea Bishop
  Lib congrats, now you have more spare time don't forget to visit Celebdaq and buy a few shares post your id, ready for the post divi results like this table for Friday 20 June .
  DrQ]moreteaplease is my second account, speaking of which it looks like I'm in for a sports car after the kneecapping.
• Inkspot - badly broken html
  That should really include the http: to get you to Friday 20 June .
• Dunx - Glitches
  [Nik] ... or rather the lack thereof. It's been a very smooth transition, I think, and I've not noticed any problems. Then again, I've not been around much lately so I may not be best qualified to judge! One question I have: when you say you're on a domestic DSL service, what are the up/down speeds? I'm curious because I've been planning on running a home server for a while and wondered what the reasonable limits for an uplink might be.
• Lib - Touched by cresenters good wishes...
  Thank you all! I'm a medical doctor, which in my opinion is a 'fake' doctor, as opposed to clever people who actually earn the title (and don't just get is honorarily like us medics...) by gaining a PhD. However, it is rather unlikely that I'll have any more time, as the infamous junior doctor year awaits me where I have to work 1000000 hours per week!
• rab - Deglitch
  [Nik] Well so far I'm pretty chuffed with the way things are going. I tend to design things for compactness rather than complexity, so the (relatively) low bandwidth is pretty much a non-issue. I can't make any promises about the nonhackedness - I still worry that something in my scripts might be partly responsble, but think it's unlikely. I've even altered them slightly when moving them on the offchance someone managed to get their hands on the original code.

  The best thing as far as I'm concerned is that the sysadmin is someone who understands what this space is for. That's priceless. (But for everything else there's MasterCard).

• Anthrax Whirl - Freakout
  Hello, folks. I'm a regular at Pants, as some of you may know. I hope you don't mind me sneaking in here like this, I just wondered if I might humbly request that I be added to the Mornington Crescent Celebdaq League. My contact details are as follows: username Thraxwhirl (3328583). I'd be grateful to be on the list. Many thanks.
• Raak - DSL
  [Nik] Who's your ISP, and are they any good? (Well, this site seems to always be there.) BT are upgrading my exchange for broadband next month, and I'm considering going with Demon.
• Inkspot - Lovely view Petunia
  Welcome Anthrax Whirl your in at No 17.

  I couldn't help myself, it was Franics my 12 year old son's fault, as I was passing his bedroom he called out "Aunt Petunia's had a howler!", so this evening instead of doing the ironing I've been engrossed in HP and the Order of the Phoenix, page 100 so many suprises I'm gripped already (by a childrens book?).

• Darren - HP
  [Inkspot] I have been reliably informed they're "not just children's books." A while back when I was working at a hospital, the consultants went through a phase of all reading Harry Potter, so you shouldn't feel too embarrassed. ;) They used to discuss it in the coffee room between operations.
• snorgle - harry potter
  I spent all day yesterday reading it! It was good enough for me to want to keep reading, and I enjoyed it. I've bought best sellers before which I had to force myself to read, or skip through, but the HP books keep me engrossed, right to the end..
• rab - Degrees of understanding
  [Dujon, a while ago] You question the value of certain types of degrees and of moving into the 'real world'. This is a tricky subject and one upon which I have opined before, so I shall keep it brief. From your post it's a little unclear what type of degrees your graduates had: were they specifically aimed at getting people into the banking/finance industry or a more general qualification. If the former, you have grounds for complaint.

  However - and this may well be an entirely different issue - I am firmly of the belief that a University is not a training camp: if companies want their intake to have specific skills then they should stump up the cash and train them themselves rather than let the burden fall on the taxpayer. Furthermore, a University education should be largely academic: that's rather the point. This, however, has the consequence that it's not suitable for a majority of the populace and, crucially, I feel there is no shame in such institutions being 'elitist' in the sense that they select only people for whom such an education is beneficial. The main problem faced in the UK today though, as far as I can see, is that institutions with a more vocational approach to higher education have been crowbarred into an existing structure designed to do something different, and anything that isn't a 'degree' is considered a second-class qualification. Not easy to see how one can change the general public's attitude to non-degree qualifications. Anyway, that's roughly what I wanted to say though I'm not sure it makes sense.

• Dunx - Degrees of Separation
  [rab] It's not just the UK that suffers from that problem - the USA will not grant a working visa to a foreign national (or "alien", as it is so charmingly termed) if you are taking on a job for which you do not have a relevant degree. So, however generally useless my Comp. Sci. degree has been in the real world, it at least served to allow me to take on work in the States.

  This seems particularly bizarre, though, when you realise that even having a degree is irrelevant if you have more than about three years of industrial experience. That hasn't stopped hiring decisions made by my boss from being blocked because the higher management felt that the degree was from a school which "wasn't good enough". Ludicrous.

• Nik - Catching up
  [Dunx] It's 256kbps up, 512kbps down. Realistically, I can sustain ~30KBps up and ~60KBps down (in fact, it's been closer to 70 down the last few days). It seems to deal with stuff alright - although I've helped by installing mod_gzip in my Apache, so it compresses most things before transmission, if the client says it accepts compressed encodings.
  [Raak] I moved to Nildram months back, because they were consistently the fastest, according to user testing at adslguide.org - now Eclipse have improved their network to take first place, but Nildram want the title back. It's not the cheapest, but it always work, is always fast, and the support people are decent. I give them an extra fiver a month for a block of static IPs. I'm more than happy with them, and recommend them at every opportunity.
  [Dujon] Oh, I'm not worried, especially now I have 5 years of real experience on my CV.
• Nik - DSL again
  Of course, it's never enough - as soon as 512kbps SDSL is available and doesn't cost all the moneys in the world, I'll be having it. I'm less bothered about increased download speed, but if I had to take more to get better upload, I wouldn't be found complaining.
• snorgle - celebdaq
  Curses! Still at number 3...however, I am now worth nearly 3.4 million before kneecapping tomorrow. I spent all my JK Rowling divvy on John Leslie, who is VERY popular at the moment..
• rab - Shhhh
  Right, I'm going to say this quietly so the sabateurs don't hear. I'm off away from tomorrow until Sunday, so look after the place and don't drop any litter.
• Thos
  *peels banana and carelessly throws skin on floor* then *throws banana on floor too*. I don't like bananas!
• Darren - Breadmaster Poetry
  Very unusual phrase from Breadmaster in Carpe Diem, "Heaven is stunted over Mir, for there is ghostly morality within." Another poem start there perhaps!
• Breadmaster - I don't know it
  Well, that was what it said to me... maybe my psyche is being writ over-large on these pages...
• Martha Farquar - Cheap imitations?
  So is this the one and only mc5, or is this move going to be zapped into the ether when midnight comes? And if it's so easy to set up a replacement site for this, then what about !!York?
• Dunx - !!York
  [MF] I was going to setup a !!York archive, but I haven't had time - my usual core pottering time is on the train to and from work, but I've been driving every day for weeks now what with house stuff. I still plan on doing this, but I emphasise the word "archive" - I doubt I would make it playable.
• Nik - pumpkin5 & !!Yorkwich
  [MF] I certainly hope it carries on exactly the way it has.
  [Dunx] Are there scripts, or is just a bunch of HTML rescued from somewhere?
• Lib - Lack of clothing
  Time for a little rant I'm afraid. I've just had the misfortune to go shopping for jeans. My favourite shop has gone crazy, with silly cuts, colours and patterns, so had to go elsewhere. Nothing seemed to fit, whatever size I tried. In the end I did find a nice pair of jean-type-things, but had to part with a grand proportion of the GDP of a small pacific island for the pleasure. I have come to the conculsion that I'm the wrong shape for everything!

  [Thos] Fancy an apple? Or a tangerine (and you could carelessly throw the skin away with that too!)?

• rab - Rampant nudity
  [Lib] You could, alternatively, have bought the small pacific island, then emigrated to it thus saving you the need to purchase warm leg-encasing garments. Just a thought.
• Ibid - Trousers
  Bah, I can't buy trousers that fit either. Since I can find trousers with the right waist size and right inside leg, but can't actually move once I put them on, I've come to the conclusion that virtually no-one has leg muscles anymore, and it just isn't economical to make trousers that are generous around the legs in case a sprinter / cyclist / rower / rugby player / footballer comes in, since they all wear shorts, don't they...
• Ibid - Jeans
  Oh yes, and Jeans are yet another thing that the British are notoriously gullible about. Watch the rest of the world double the price on jeans when they export them to the UK, and snigger at how these dumb Brits will still buy them, because if they're expensive, they must be good...
• Dunx - Jean Genie
  [Ibid] As I struggle to sit comfortably in what are supposed to be relaxed fit jeans, I can only agree. Very odd about the pricing, though.
• Uncle Korky - Hello? Emergency services?
  Looking at the last move date, I think the furcation game may be seriously unwell...
• Emergency Services - SCREEEEEEECH!
  Well, it is now.
• Projoy - Furcle
  [Uncle Korky] I should say that I am planning a move, but I don't expect to finish it until late July, possibly early August, so I hope the game can be allowed to live until then.
• rab - Keep your furcing hands off
  It's just warming up :) I could make it unkillable I guess, but that would be silly. Nottingham today, Dublin tomorrow and this site is still up.
• Uncle Korky - Furcing hands nowhere near!
  Good grief! At this speed, Time Team will be joining in!
• Bob the dog - Celebrip
  Does anyone have any shares in Dennis Thatcher?
• Chalky - Thatchers
  Don't think he's listed - neither is Maggie.
• blamelewis - Dr
  Belated congrats Lib!
• penelope - What's up, Doc?
  Lib, I forgot too... Well Done! :o)
• Dujon - Ducks - celebrities or otherwise.
  My first 'kneecap' apparently is about to be executed. Bugger - 40% of my hard earned is about to go down the gurgler. I always knew I should work for wages and not contract my skills!
• DrQu+xum - Ni!-cap
  Q: If I get kneecapped on Monday, will I get the Thursday night dividends for the shares I had before then?
• Martha Farquar - [Nik, re scripts]
  I think Simons Mith has the York scripts. He's also got a "tarball", whatever that is.
• Blob - Celebdaq
  [Dujon] I think you'll lose a lot more than 40%. The kneecapping comes into effect once you hit £1million - and leave you with just £10,000 - So your minimum slash is 99%
  [DrQ] I think you don't get kneecapped until Monday morning - therefore well after you've received your divis.
• Blob
  [Duj] Unless you mean that you are on £1.4m and will only be credited with one little green wadge (signifying a million) - in which case, yep, I see what you mean - I had a similar experience.
• Nik - Warning, team! Improbably satisfying awful joke approaching!
  Q: Have you heard about that new curry, Chicken Tarka?
  A: It's like chicken tikka, only 'otter!

  My apologies. One of my mates has been foisting it upon me at every opportunity for days, and I can't help enjoying it, and nor could I keep it to myself any longer.

• Dujon - More ducks
  [Blob] Correct! That was my meaning - I know we drop back to the £10,000 level after patella paring, but at least we have a retirement fund parked in Geurnsey or somewhere. ♫♪.
  As a matter of interest, has anyone had the experience of earning just over a million mark, but less than the £10,000 above? I was just wondering what happens; do you actually gain a few quid?
• rab - Wow!
  A whole six days away... and no upsets. Applause, hurrah. (And I'm still in only 7th place in our league despite Ms Rowling rewarding me handsomely). Dublin was fab, thanks for asking. CdM - we went to Mulligans. Great pub, especially if you like the smokey old man thing. I have to say my Guinness buds are not finely honed, so I couldn't really tell if it was superior to that at O'Neills or the Guinness Storehouse itself, so I'll take your word for it.
• Blob - Temporary position
  [Celebdaq] Slightly surprised to find myself at the top of the league this morning - though I realise this is simply due to the usual suspects having been kneecapped.
• Boolbar - Knees
  [Dujon] Yes. It just happened to me.
• Bob the dog - Boolbarman joke
  [Bool] Did you go to Glastonbury?
  
  [Nik] Owch! OK, try this one.
  
  A Polar bear goes into a bar and says "I'll have a gin and
  
  
  
  
  
  tonic please."
  
  The barman replies "So, why the big pause?"
• Boolbar - Glasto nogo
  [BtD] Only by the power of TV. [Joke] Ouch!
• rab - In furc a penny, in furc a pound
  I'm wondering whether it might be possible to get an Arts Council grant to fund the Furcation Game...
• blamelewis - Kneecapping
  I got my first 'daq million too... Quite a shock...
  
  Two crocodiles go into a bar and ask for some drinks...
  "Certainly sirs," says the barman "but why the long faces?"
  
  [rab] My recent stag night was in Dublin and involved a trip to the Guinness storehouse - did you take your free pint in the Gravity Bar up top? What a view!
  [all] And talking of matters marital, a whole bunch of photos from my nuptials are now here - the discerning among you may even spot a Projoy or two in the throng.
• DrQu+xum - Celebdaq - Henman
  I've never seen a share jump like his before in such a short span... I bought him at £3.66/share this morning, he's at £4.02/share as of right now, up 24p this hour....
• Nik
  [BtD] Yikes!
• DrQu+xum - Bad jokes
  I top all of you with:
  
  A man walked into a bar and said "OUCH!"
• Bob the dog - Oh yeah?
  Picking up the gauntlet with
  
  An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar.
  
  The barman says "is this some kind of a joke?"
• DrQu+xum - Oh yeah!
  René Descartes is at the bar and the barkeep asks him "Have one for the road?" René replied, "I think not", and *poof*! He disappeared.
• Bob the dog - Neigh neigh and thrice neigh
  A horse goes into a bar,
  
  The barman says "so, why the long face?"
• Raak
  An elephant, a giraffe, and a hedgehog walk into a bar, and the barman says, "I can't wait to hear the punchline!"
• Bob the dog - Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzt My self.
  Ho ho.
  Only just read blamelewis posting - sorry - same joke different animal. BTW - nice table top camera pics. As I have no idea what Projoy looks like - had great fun guessing.
  
  Regaining composure...
  A man goes to see a doctor with a little bit of lettuce sticking out of his bottom.
  After the examination he asks "Is it serious?"
  "I'm afraid so" replies the doctor, "it's only the tip of the iceburg."
• Martha Farquar - *groan*
  A gorgeous blonde walked into a bar and said "I'd like a Double Entendre, please," so I gave her one.
• Uncle Korky - Getting worse...
  A man goes to see his doctor, and explains that his back hurts. The doctor says "Say 'Ahhh'". "Why?" says the man. "My dog's just died," he replies.
• Dujon - Anything and everything.
  
  [Boolbar] Thanks for the info. (way up there somewhere)
  
  [blamelewis] Congratulations on your marriage; all the best to yourself and your new bride. Should I survive until October it's 33 years for me. . . ☺
  
  [Re: 'Daq} Grumble, grumble. 750,000 nicker down the drain. I am singularly unimpressed! Anyone got a spare shoulder? As far as the 'jokes' are concerned - I thought mine were bad. ☺ I cannot match you lot, so I shall not try.
• Dunx - A Joke. Probably.
  Q: What's brown and sticky?
  A: A stick.
• Lib - Yay!
  [Dunx] That's my favourite joke in the world. Closely followed by
  Q: What do you call a fly with no legs?
  A: A walk!
• penelope - walk - don't walk
  Lib.. I don't know how to break this to you. A fly with no wings is called a Walk. A fly with no wings and no legs is called a Sit. Please tell me where you'll be practising medicine so I can be sure never to fall ill there. ;o)
• Raak - Save string when you're young!
  When you grow up, you'll have a ball!
• Bob the dog - a sit
  A male fly walks into a bar, goes up to an attractive female fly and says "Is this stool taken?"
• Chalky - bar chuckles
  A skeleton walks up to a bar and orders a pint . . . and a mop.
• snorgle - doctor lib
  I believe the joke you meant to put there was
  What do you call a spider with no legs?
  a raisin!
• Martha Farquar - diversifying
  I was in a Chinese restaurant and I said "Waiter! This fish is rubbery!", and the waiter went "Ah, thank you velly much sir"
• Lib - Body parts.....
  [pen] You've found my weak point. I do get confused with body parts! And this is rather worrying to the general public at large. Its a bit of a shame that there's no the 'ask the audience' moment at graduation ceremonies that there is at church weddings. I can just see the moment now, about to recieve my degree certificate and someone pipes up from the audience "No, don't let her be a doctor, she doesn't know the difference between legs and wings, and once she forgot what the heart was called (and refered to it as the big muscle that pumps blood round the body!)". Then they'd refuse to give me the certificate and I'd be pubically humiliated! Stockport (Stepping hill hosptial) is the place to avoid!
• penelope - practising medicine
  [Lib] Stockport? No problem. I'm well away from there. Once you've got some practice in, I daresay you'll be very good, but thankfully I'm feeling very well at the moment, living here in the south east! And as for your nightmare scenario... several years after I graduated I had a nightmare in which I found out I hadn't actually graduated at all - I failed the maths module because the lecturer had lost my coursework. *shudders*
• matt - pubic humiliation
  [Lib] I'm not going to ask.

  A woman wakes up with a terrible hangover and finds herself sharing her bed with an elephant. "God I must have been tight last night!" she exclaims. "Yes," says the elephant, "at least the first couple of times."

  Luckily I can't be bothered to type out the hamster joke.

• Raak - A man goes into a bar and sees...
  ...a dog playing chess with its owner. So he says, "What a remarkably intelligent dog!", and the owner replies, "Not really, he's lost the first two games."
• DrQu+xum - Another bar?
  A West Virginian man walked into a bar....an' it et him to bits!
  Explanation upon request.
• Bob the dog
  A man walks into a bar and sits down next to a cheetah.
  
  He was trying to pull a fast one.
• Martha Farquar
  And never forget the last words of my grandfather, who said "A truck!"
• Uncle Korky
  Well, my great uncle died of deafness...

  ...he didn't hear the steamroller.

• Bob the dog - font memories
  Four fonts walk into a bar.
  
  The barman says "we don't want your type in here."
• rab - Font of all knowledge
  [BtD] Presumably the publican didn't like the look of their face?
• Martha Farquar
  [BtD] You're a Tim Vine fan, aren't you?

  I said to the newsagent, "I'd like to read a magazine on the supernatural, please."
  Newsagent: Fortean Times?
  Me: No, just once.

• Bob the dog - Tim who?
  [MF] In all honesty - I don't know who Tim Vine is - but if you think he'd make me laugh...
  
  A dyslexic man walks into a bra...
• Dunx - Another One
  Q: what do you call a communist volleyball player?
  A: a red setter.

  [Lib] That one just sticks in my mind.

• Martha Farquar - [BtD]
  Tim Vine writes a lot of this kind of one-liner. Most of the gags on this page are by him, esp. the ones lower down. He's a regular on ITV's The Sketch Show, which is starting next week I think. He's also on tour this year.
• Martha Farquar
  I was in the video shop, and I said, "I'd like an action movie please." The assistant went, "D'you want to rent Batman Forever?" I said, "no, just for a couple of hours."
• DrQu+xum - Reeeeeally bad.
  A man walked into a bar...gain antique shop and said "What's new?"
• snorgle - DrQu+xum/Lib
  ok, I'll bite.. what's the west virginian one about? Oh, and Lib, I must insist that you type the hamster one..
• DrQu+xum - West Virginian
  [snorgle] Here's another joke as a hint.
  
  Q: Why does a West Virginian Nativity Scene have the Three Wise Men in total fireman's gear?
  A: Because it says in the Bible that they came from a'far.
  
  (If all else fails, think Huckleberry Hound.)
• Dujon - Virginity
  [Dr Q] Who? Was s/he Tom Sawyer's companion? ☺
• Uncle Korky - Accents
  [Dr] Ah... I've just worked it out... Yes, second one was a big hint!
• rab - Hamster
  [snorgle] I believe it is matt who has the hamster joke.
• snorgle - huckleberry hound
  ah, thank you, i will now talk in a terrible accent the rest of the day in your honour..
• Boolbar - Poo
  Two men walked into a bar dragging 20 foot long turds behind them.
  The barman looks at them and asks "Why the long faeces?"
• Boolbar - . . . and also . . .
  William Shakespeare walks into a bar. The barman says "Get out! You're bard"
• rab - groan
  Sorry to interrupt the punfest, but I was wondering if the assorted Big Brother afficionados here had any opinion on the new girl, Lisa. I have a very strong hunch she might be a plant...
• Uncle Korky - Lisa
  That'll be the trail of pollen that she leaves wherever she goes...
• matt - the hamster joke
  [snorgle] OK, but I promise you it wasn't worth the wait.

  A man goes into a pet shop and buys a hamster -- but by the time he gets home, it's dead. Outraged, he returns to the shop.

  "You're quite right," says the shopkeeper, "that's completely unacceptable. I'll be happy to give you a new one but we're out of stock until Monday. Come back then." The man looks so thoroughly downhearted that the shopkeeper decides to do him a favour. "Look, I know it sounds strange but here's a trick to cheer yourself up. Take your late hamster home, put him in the blender, then take the resulting puree and spread it on your garden."

  "Do what?" says the horrified customer.

  "Puree the hamster, spread it on your garden. Honestly. Next morning you won't believe your eyes: the whole garden will be a carpet of flowers as far as the eye can see, so beautiful that you'll feel much better."

  The man is doubtful, but he goes home and does what the shopkeeper said. Lo and behold, next morning his garden is blooming with daffodils as far as the eye can see, and all day he has a spring in his step!

  Come Monday, he's back to the shop to pick up his new pet and he says to the proprietor "You know, I had my doubts about what you said, but it worked, it was amazing! Daffodils as far as the eye could see!"

  "Daffodils?" comes the reply. "Daffodils? You usually get tulips from hamster jam!"

• Boolbar - Phew!
  [matt] I'm glad it wasn't the one involving sellotape.
• DrQu+xum - Double Phew!
  Or the one involving the S&M club.
• Uncle Korky - Likewise!
  Well done, matt. I have to say it's essentially the same joke as the one I know, but it's only about a quarter of the length, so it's a good job they asked you rather than me!
• rab - nerves
  I know we've declared a bit of a moratorium on this kind of thing but COME ON TIM!!
• snorgle - hamster joke
  thank you! does anyone know if there is a real punchline to that chain letter joke about the old lady and the pet food?
• Inkspot - Big Bore
  rab]Lisa is on a very sticky wicket as she has to make an immediate impression with the public and the housemates. She has certainly rattled their cages and under Cameroon's skin, and she will almost certainly be up for eviction next week, hopefully up against Cammeroon. If that were the case he should go, to build the tension further between the remaining players. But nothing really can rescue this series.
• Bob the dog
  A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day.
  "In English" he said, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."
  
  A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."
• Projoy - Doesn't really work in written form, but...
  What's big and steaming and comes out of cows backwards?

  The Isle of Wight ferry

  (cows/Cowes, you see)

• rab - A bit like
  How to you get two whales in a mini?

  Down the M4.

• Bob the dog - Works better written than spoken
  What do you call a bear with no ears.
  
  A b.
• Raak
  [Inkspot] If I can divert the subject from bad jokes for a minute, what makes a series of Big Brother good or bad? What is a "good" contestant (from the point of view of the people who watch it, rather than the producers)? On what grounds do people vote for someone to be evicted? In other words, how does the whole thing work?
• Simons Mith - How do you make a dead baby float?
  One scoop of ice cream, two scoops of dead baby.
• Martha Farquar - Raak re Big Brother
  Good contestants are those who cause conflict in the house, or stimulate responses in the other housemates. The problem with this series is that everyone gets on with each other too well, and there isn't any conflict, whereas last year, the final four contestants could hardly stand the sight of each other by the end. (Except Kate and Jonny.) And they still had to put on a show of liking each other as they wanted to win the prize, which made it all the more interesting. But it's impossible to guarantee conflict in the house. No-one would have guessed Alex would start sounding off about cleanliness the way he did, or that Jade would start backstabbing everyone. Conversely, they put Scott, Jon, Justine and Cameron together as they're all team leaders, and leaders normally make themselves unpopular - but none of them even tried to lead, except Jon, who's now gone. In fact, since he and Fed left, I've hardly watched the show at all.
• rab - That'll be it
  The last two years (didn't watch series 1 from the outset, thinking it all a waste of time... my opinion hasn't necessarily changed, although my avidness has) there was a ruckus from pretty much the outset. For example last year Alex got upset at someone nicking a sausage that he quite fancied; the year before Penny was so barking she immediately managed to get peoples' backs up. Also, last year they had several gimmicks to spice things up: the rich-poor divide coupled with extremely arbitrary ways of deciding who would be on which side (e.g. scoring baskets). However these proved unnecessary as the contestants themselves provided enough agro to go round. I feel that this year's contestants with last year's set-up, or vice versa, might have been more fun to watch. The thing is, I think the format has now passed its peak: quite simply, people have wised up to how to play the game. You can reach the final stage by just not being nominated by your housemates which just means keeping your head down and not antagonising anyone. Of course, the housemates could wise up and start nominating the boring people rather than the antagonistic ones. But this would only work if everyone did it, so probably wouldn't be considered an optimal strategy from a game-theoretic point-of-view. Err, that's rather a lot isn't it. I note that the covers have come off at Wimbledon so maybe we'll see some tennis today after all.
• Inkspot - you decide
  I agree that it is the tension and flare ups that make BB worth watching and the indicator of peoples interest in the Friday 'exit' poll. A low count is not good for the producers as they get a large slice of the cost of the call, there is now the prospect of a low turn out for the rest of the series and a lack lustre last week. The cause for me is the voting system, they need to change the rules so that anyone that is nominated is up for eviction, and let the public really decide who goes.
  Any formal warning to one housemate should be passed on with all housemates being penalised (bring back the cold outside shower!), they could take a leaf or two from BBAfrica with a single basic bedroom for all 12.
• Chalky - still childishly amused by John Lloyd's punditry . .
  Just heard "Henman needs to thrust himself in the face of Grosjean and say .... 'Beat Me!'
• Chalky - Henman
  Obviously his advice wasn't heeded. Henman's out [quelle surprise!].
• rab - Yes
  I thought he would be. The match followed almost exactly the same pattern - in terms of points scored and rain breaks - as that which ended similarly against Ivanisevic in 2001.
• rab - Ooof!
  I just got some new specs and it now feels funny with them on and even funnier with them off. I'm sure I'll get used to it and stop walking into things soon.
• Martha Farquar - Raak's 2nd question
  The public vote off housemates depending on (a) what Graham Norton tells them to do*; (b) what Chris Moyles tells them to do*; (c) how weighted the highlights are against them that week**; (d) how many column inches they've generated in Heat magazine***; (e) whether betting syndicates are rigging the voting****; (f) if they are female*****; (g)whether we actually like them******.

  Spencer v. Alex; Adele v. Jade
  **Cameron v. Jon & Fed
  ***Justine, Sissy & Gos this week
  ****Alison; Adele v. Jade; Anouska
  *****Everyone except Kate
  ******Negligible

• snorgle - celebdaq
  i am number 1 again! yay! if Tim doesn't pay out a massive divvy this week, there is no God..
• Chalky - BB personalities
  Interesting to observe how the 'evictees', who are instantly launched into excessive T.V. [RI:SE/BBLB/GoodMorning, etc] exposure the minute they set foot outside the house, appear to gain a 'personality'. Anouska, in particular, is far more articulate than we were allowed to see in that first week; Jon & Fed have become a credible double act; even Tania, dare I say, has become more watchable.

  [snorgle] Celebdaq - I appear to be right behind you, lord knows how, because I am still in the dark about how the 'timing' works, ie. retrospective? For instance, as the share price is falling rapidly, would it be wise to sell Henman shares?

• rab - Bum
  I've not been paying attention and have fallen dramatically. Anyone got any tips - JKR and Tim were the obvious ones, but I can't think of any big events looming.
• Breadmaster - The "Beatles", m'lud, are a shuffle beat combo popular among modern young people...
  I have to say, not only have I not watched Big Bugger, but I have successfully avoided ever seeing any of the contestants either during or after their incarceration. I don't know any of their names or what any of them looks like. Admittedly this feat has required not watching any TV whatsoever for some months - other than Sky News - but I think that's a price well worth paying. What is RI:SE, and why is it spelt that way?
• rab - RI:SE and SH:INE
  [Breadmaster] I think it's so it looks like a digital clockface, that being one of the first things us young turks look at when waking up in the morning. You can achieve much the same effect on your grandfather clock with some cunning stickers obtainable from the Innovations catalogue (rip).
• rab - And another thing
  [Breadmaster] To answer your first question, it's a Channel 4 "breakfast" show. Kinda likea TV version of the Radio 1 breakfast "show" I guess. Which leads naturally onto the question: why are radio programmes often referred to as "shows" when there's nothing to see?
• Chalky
  Yeah. Either that or they use the word 'Slot' - as in the breakfast slot or the teatime slot. An ugly word, in my opinion, that has some curious definitions, not least, 'a crosspiece', 'the hollow down the middle of the breasts' [!] and 'a deer's footprints'
• Uncle Korky - Celebdaq
  [rab] Well, I for one am pinning hopes on new films... so I've gone for Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz (Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle) and Arnie (T3: Rise of the Machines).
• rab - Slottage
  [Chalky] I expect to giggle schoolboyishly whenever I hear phrases like "lunchtime slot" from now on. I do so like it when my life is enriched in this way - many thanks!
• Blob - Celebdaq
  My faith in Royalty has been shattered - bloody Prince Willi divi'd £0.00 this week, the little sod.
• rab - A-hem
  [Blob] Just a gentle reminder: Lock Cup
• snorgle - celebdaq
  Beats me, I just buy shares in people who are likely to be in the news the next week, and the shares usually go up. Not a great divvy for Tim, but at least I made a profit. I think I'll stick to tennis for now..
• Inkspot - the end of the world
  No Big Brother ... no eviction ... no Davina ...
• rab - I know
  [Bb] I received a txtmsg from my nose-to-the-ground contact whilst in the pub. What's going on??
• DrQu+xum - NO PANTS!
  It appears that PantsMC is down. Feh.
• Dujon - Bare bummed also.
  Well, good Dr., at least that confirms that I'm not excluded from the site because of my postings (although that situation would be quite understandable ☺)
• Nik - Reliability
  Hm. Has anyone had trouble accessing mc5 in the last week? A couple of times I've found myself unable to get outside the house from my laptop (which is 802.11b wireless connected to the net), wandered over to beefy(.angrycake.net, the server mc5 resides on) to find it all well, and then returned to the laptop to find it working again. DNS resolution has stopped more times than I'm comfortable with, too.

  Even a single lack of response from the server would be of interest to me - I want to try and determine if it's the DSL or the wireless that's at fault, although I'm currently pointing several accusatory fingers at the wireless equipment, it seeming less reliable than the 'not very reliable' it once aspired to. The lack of complaints here and at MCiOS are good signs, I hope.

  On another note, BBC story about the delayed eviction. I dislike BB - and the whole 'reality TV' genre it spawned - intensely but, worryingly, often find it's the most watchable thing on either Sky Digital or terrestrial from late evening through the wee hours.

• Dujon - Nik's, err, problem
  
  I pop in once or twice during my day - which is somewhat different from your own - but have had no problems, Nik.
  
• snorgle - nik's reliability
  Occasionally at work I've had to reload a page but I thought that was down to my work computer. It acts up sometimes..
• Bob the dog - Nikerrors
  Working from home I access the site two or three times a day. Since moving to angrycake this site has been 100% reliable.
• rab - No worries
  [Nik] I've noticed very little trouble. Occasionally there are brief periods where I don't get an http response within less than about a second - but to be fair I get that with Google or the BBC so it's nothing out of the ordinary. ssh logins have been fine.
• Lib - two things
  [Nik] I've not had any trouble, even using my Mum's steam powered connection, or the hosptial with the huge firewall.

  [Bad jokes] I know we'd managed to escape the bad jokes (and I'll try to get it right this time) but I heard this one yesterday and am still chuckling....

  Q: Why is the devil not allowed into the Post Office?

  A: Beacuse he takes many forms.

• Bob the dog - Way out West
  A three legged dog walks into a bar.
  
  He goes up to the barman and says "I'm lookin' for the guy who shot my paw."
• Nik
  Must be the wireless, then. And I've got a car to make remotely roadworthy this month as well. Fiddlesticks.
• Dunx - Remoteness
  [Nik] Make sure you use the FM band, and preferably PCM for the control signals. Best of luck on constructing a suitable speed controller!
• Uncle Korky - Celebdaq
  I'm having a bit of a 'mare...
• rab - Hmmm
  I haven't been paying much attention to the 'daq recently, for reasons which should be fairly clear. Really stuck as to who the current long term bankers might be...
• penelope - daqsodding
  I picked the wrong Williams sister this week... way down, dropping like a stone, all is lost, we're all doomed :o(
• Boolbar - I be back
  Arnie goes up, then Arnie goes down. Looks like that 'Bouncy' singer is the in thing.
• Uncle Korky - Hasta la vista
  [Boolbar] Hmmm... Guess who had heavily invested in Arnie...
• Boolbar - Me me me
  [Uncle K] Me. But I did so last week, so he hasn't fallen below my purchase price . . . yet.
• Inkspot - more shares please
  With my two accounts I'm still trying different strategies, mtp so far since Friday has bought and sold Henman/Sernena Williams/Arnie/ and now Beyonce. I have been lucky to time it just right in selling all/buying just after 9am. It was very noticable that as soon as Beyonce began to rise Arnie fell of the edge. The rule changes were meant to encourage day-to-day trading and divis greatly reduced payout now to be the square root of any payout so for most celebs it will be zilch, last weeks the results were so poor they have not been posted.
  The other slow moving acc. has a clutch of celebs, I hope one of which will rise but with a static market and a prospect of very little divi's it is likely to continue to slide.
• Boolbar - Eh?
  [Inkspot] Rule changes ? What rule changes ?
• rab - Staggered
  I am absolutely staggered that someone's been attempting to read the furcation game via a mobile phone WAP connection. Maybe the next challenge would be to do the next move as a series of SMS texts.
• Lib - I'm being watched!
  I admit, it was me. WAP is free and internet is not. On my phone The furc game is 95 pages long (the average length for this page is about 25 pages, which is long enough to scroll trhough). I only got to page one, as was wondering how long it was. Stop spying on me rab! (Do you know where I live? and more worringly can you get my mobie number from your source? Hope not!)
• Dunx - Txting
  [rab] SMS Crescent has a certain appeal.

  [Lib] I wouldn't worry - one of the pieces of information recorded in the server logs is the user agent being used to browse a particular page, and that will be where rab got his info. The only other identifying information is your IP address, and for a WAP device that's far more likely to be the address of a gateway machine somewhere rather than something which would identify your phone.

• Lib - clarity!
  [dunx] Thanks, I can relax now!
• Inkspot - rude cages
  Boolbar]A few days ago daq towers changed the rules following several weeks of strange results which started with Get Me Out of Here and continued through to Beckham, they announced them on 30 June with a brief statement to share holders, at the same time the revised dividends were posted. During the past few weeks celebs like Prince William and Beckham were paying out substatial divis that distorted the market leading to huge rises, but to my mind those were extraordinary circumstances.
• rab - Spying
  [Lib] What Dunx said. FYI the clue was the text 'Google WAP Proxy/1.0' in the logfile. I look at the log now and again partly cos I'm curious to find out how often the site is accessed (as opposed to how often a move is made, which is recorded in the game files), what browsers people use, which search engines pass through and how often, and occasionally to check that no-one's trying to break in.

  Mind you, if you want me to spy on you, just leave you mobile number and I'll see what I can do :)

• Inkspot - increased roots
  Another statement and changes to dividends, due to uproar from the crowd, daq towers have amended the payout to slightly reward those that hold on to shares rather than playing the day-to-day by increasing the amount of payout per share, but this will still be cut be sqare rooted. There's hope for my BB swag bag yet.
  

  Is that the time? best shut down and go home for tea.
• Lib - stalking
  [rab] My phone number is 0898 69 69 69. Feel free to stalk me!
• rab - Husk
  [Lib] You have an unexpectedly husky voice.
• Boolbar - Always wondered
  What is on the other end of 0898 696969 ? I've seen it many times used as a spoof phone number.
• matt - Wonder no more!
  Just dial it and see :) It'll only cost £4.95 per minute.
• Boolbar
  [matt] That's why I'm still wondering.
• rab - Daq and darn
  Bugger! Losing money fast...
• Inkspot - more hot tea
  Sometime between 8 and 9 in the morning seems to be the 'opening' time for dealing. Today I waited till 8.30 while the cuppa was cooling down at my desk, Sven was starting to drop and Arnie was twitching with a rise of 6p, it was time to sell all and buy the big guy. Since 8.30 the value of 13860 shares has risen from £123,449 to £132,098, but all this selling will give a low divi payout on Friday. On the weekend I may have to cash in the shares before I go to bed as the big movers do very little between midnight and 9.am but the price may have crashed by the time I get round to trading mid morning.

  Vote either Steph or Cameroon but keep in Lisa, her disruption to the house has got to continue.

• rab - BB4
  [Inkspot] But aren't all the other HMs just ignoring her?
• Inkspot - evictions
  Yes they are ignoring her, Nush and Scott have paired so are Steph and Cameroon with Ray being pal to everyone. The basis being to break up S&C, if Cam goes how will Steph cope. But I think bringing in an outsider late in the game is always awkward for that person. Tim was lucky last year as Alex was shunned by half the house, and it was earlier in the game but he was never fully accepted. Guests like Gae are allowed as non threatening.
• Bob the dog - 0898
  Boolbar] That reminds me of a story I heard about a sexline entitled "Hear me moan". A man tried to take the proprietors to court after he rang it and got a recording of a woman complaining about the lack of help she was getting with the housework. Trading Standards refused to prosecute saying that the man the man "got what he deserved".
• Blob - Lock Cup
  Played
• snorgle - bad joke
  There's a mummy mole, a daddy mole, and a baby mole, all living in a mole hole. One day, daddy mole sticks out his head, and says "MMM! I can smell Maple syrup!" So mummy mole squeezes by him and sniffs, smiles and says "Oh! I can smell honey!" Poor little baby mole can't squeeze through, but gamely tries, sniffs and complains "Aww! All I can smell is MOLASSES!"
• DrQu+xum - Celebdaq aside...
  ...why is Sean Connery not listed?
• Blob - Lock Cup
  I think we need the referee over at rab v. Blob fairly urgently.
• Chalky - ImpostCeleb
  Because I'm still quite new and rather pathetically unknowledgeable . . . apart from the obvious, who is who - in our League??? [What I'm really saying is much respect to 'moreteaplease' who has not only managed to amass a whole series of important looking green boxes and a red one, but has held me off the top spot for a few days now - during a period of time where I've suckseeded in buying and selling at JUST the optimum momento.]
• rab - Imposing
  moreteaplease = InkSpot 2; ffish = GrahamIII 2 (G6?); evil_edna = penelope; sigmundfreud = gil; RadiantAndBeautiful = me (obviously).
• rab
  Sorry, there's obviously only one GrahamIII (or is that three?).
• Chalky - Expose-a-daq
  Cheers rab.
• Inkspot - tip top tea
  What a way to finish the week of exhausting of trading, Chalky it will be over to you next week as such large 7 day gains are almost impossible to maintain, and because of the day2day trading I had no divis.
  However the Inkspot account with its spread of BB housemates came up trumps, all the divis have gone into Mrs Beckham ...so make way coming through.
• rab
  [Chalky] Great word in the cheddars, btw. Have tidied up the accent so we can all enjoy its full splendour.
• Blob - Bad tempered imposters
  Did we ever sort out exactly who was whom in B.T.I.?
• Mrs Trellis
  Whats it to you, puffin-head?
• Dunx - Lockage
  [Blob] May I volunteer?

  [rab] Could you put a link to the Lock Cup pages on here so it's easier to get there from here?

• Dunx - Blockage
  [Blob] Forget that - obviously JLE did the honours.
• Nik - Downtime
  Tsk. Server was down for ~two minutes just now. Sorry about that. I had to unplug the power strips as I was moving furniture that I'd trailed the cables through. Bah.
• Nik - Downtime
  Spiked by paranoia (no-one posting since just before my announcement) I'm posting from elsewhere on teh intarnet to verify to myself mc5 is actually visible. Nothing to see here, move along, move along.
• Dujon - The full monty: 02:44 Sun 13 Jul 2003
  You're fine, Nik.
• Nik
  Not now, though. The disk on the DNS/Mailbox just died. Thankfully, it's mostly only mail that's affected, and I got it back long enough to copy everything not broken off. Hopefully I can figure this out...
• rab - Stuff
  [Dunx] I'll try and do that before going on holiday, which is tomorrow... so if anyone else has any burning issues regarding this site, let me know by about lunchtime. Ta
• rab - Um
  Actually, no I can't. Presumably due to the difficulties noted by Nik above I can't access the server at the moment except via these web pages.
• Nik
  Mm, sorry about that. sshd won't come back up on that box. It's unconnected to the mail box strife, except that both stem from having to power down on saturday. That'll learn me.
• rab - Dokies
  [Nik] Right you are

  Meanwhile, has anyone ever been anything other than 'cordially' invited to something?

• Darren - Cordiality
  [rab] What, like "reluctantly" invited, or "resentfully" invited?
• penelope - come as you are
  Hmm... I may have had an invitation with menaces before now, but it's not something I'd like to go into detail about
• Bob the dog - Guilty M'lud
  I have been 'invited' to court to appear as a witness.
• Uncle Korky - "You're crap, basically."
  I remember being 'invited' to leave Geography at the end of my fourth year at senior school on the grounds of ability...
• Nik - Downtime
  I didn't do it</bart>
• Bob the dog - Bobs Pot review
  Saskia and I have just finished reading 'The Order of the Phoenix'. We read it out loud, taking it in turns to read alternate chapters. We lead a fairly isolated life and have been fairly well distanced from the hype that accompanied the launch - I heard a little about it on the radio and chose not to read too much about it on the Internet. My expectations were not high as I feel that JKR has set herself a near impossible task - that of creating a series of books aimed at a gradually increasing age group - set against the biggest hype ever to accompany a children’s publication.
  
  We were very pleasantly suprised. The book was virtually unputdownable. It is funnier and more sophisticated than the last one and because it builds successfully on the background of the previous books, it left us gagging for more. I am now aware that most reviews have given it 4 out of 5. Possibly because we read the book together and aloud (it works very well like this) or because we missed the hype I’d give it 5/5 and more if I could. OK, so it is not Tolkien or Pullman but it is vintage JKR and a thoroughly great read.
• snorgle - potter/daq
  Well that was a conversation stopper! I enjoyed it too, although I felt the end was a little anti-climactic.. that tends to be how the books are though, as it has to end again at the next summer hols. Anyone else confused with celebdaq? They keep changing the rules, although I'm not doing too badly at the moment.
• Boolbar - If it works, don't fix it.
  [snorgle] My tactic of ignoring celebdaq for a couple of weeks seems to be doing very nicely. Only evil_edna seems to be doing better.
• evil_edna - ignoramus spondoolio!
  [Boolbar] I ignore it too - I've been trading only once a week or so. I'll admit I picked the wrong Williams sister to win Wimbledon tho, and I've steered clear of the whole BB celeb thing too.*cackle*
• Watty - Just passing through
  I'm afraid I'm going to hijack the chat games for a moment, just in case I've missed anyone out
  <fanfare>: The first (well, first properly organised) MC trip to the Proms takes place this coming Sunday. Feel free to just pitch up and find us, or get in touch (details at other end of link) to make more concrete plans. Thank you. We now return you to your usual programming.</shameless cross-posting>
• rab - Jesus in a box
  Which pretty much describes the roadside sights in Malta. The roads themselves are very bumpy, although should you wish to visit Hasan's Cave -- a little tunnel that takes you out to a viewing window over the sea, and marked only by a crone pruning the trees and hiring out torches for 30c apiece -- you will find it well signposted from across the island. If, however, you seek, say, Valletta (the capital) then navigation can be somewhat more tricky. A lovely break though: I really didn't think I'd enjoy the heat and the Scally Airways' last minute deal dodah, but it was fab.

  [Watty] On account of the above I've ended up spending a shedload of money and am not sure if I'll be able to make the prom after all. I'll email you when I've reached a decision. Hope this doesn't blow things out of the water.

• Uncle Korky - Celebdaq
  *** ALERT FOR INKSPOT ***

  In a fit of madness, I have decided to 'field a second XI' in the financial shenannigans that is Celebdaq. If convenient, please arrange for DORIS_NEWBOLD (User ID: 3376674) to be inserted forcibly into the league. Let's face it - she can't do much worse than UNCLE_KORKY...

• rab - Oh dear
  Just looked at my portfolio.
• Uncle Korky - League
  [rab] Forget your position - you're still phenomenally richer than I am!
• rab - Position
  Despite being about the only person in the country left who gives a sh!t, I nevertheless feel the need to share my thoughts about the likely BB4 victor (which may have some bearing on the daq at the end of the week).

  • Steff is most easily dispensed with, both in terms of this discussion and the competition. She's very pleasant is Steff, but wet as a fish and unlikely to appear on the front cover of FHM so won't attract the lad vote like Kee-at did last year.
  • Scott, on paper, is similar. Although my ability to judge the attractiveness of other men is legendarily bad, I can't believe he's that much of a pin-up. He seems to be the housemate's favourite: I believe he was up for eviction only once, and right at the start. Nearly all the evictees have remarked that he's like a 'best mate' in the house. However this kind of thing rarely goes down well with the viewing public (Dean? Liz?). Except the dull one did win BB1 so I guess there's some possibility he might make it.
  • Ray has probably the strongest personality, but is therefore likely to be the kind of person you either love or hate. This lack of all-round appeal may count against him, and is mostly down to his fiery temperament. On the other hand, I would guess he'll get the chick vote on account of being Irish, tall, probably the best looking one of the lot and because he's a bit of a lad.
  • Cameron has, without a doubt, played the best game in the house and on these grounds deserves to win. Although clearly unpopular with the housemates (he's been up for nomination almost every week) and sections of the public (who either get offended by him being a Christian, or being a Christian and not "behaving like one") he's survived the public vote several times so it would seem like the public don't dislike him. I would quite like to see a bible-reading, near-teetotaller to win BB since it's almost the complete opposite of the kind of person you'd expect to win. On the other hand, people who've survived many public votes in the past (Paul, Jade) didn't go on to win, so the form's not good.

  So, in short, I reckon Cameron or Ray are most likely to win, whilst Scott has a gnat's chance. I imagine Cameron and Jon will attract continuing media coverage once the thing's all over. Since the latter has been delisted on the daq, it's not rocket science to work out where my investment has gone...
• snorgle - celebdaq
  Sounds complicated to me. I've got loads of Nush, who I intend to sell once I collect my divvies, and sink into Arnie, probably.
• Uncle Korky - BBdaq
  1. Steph - no chance.
  2. Scott - the invisible man; in with a great chance.
  3. Ray - Psycho IV; too unpopular outside the house to win.
  4. Cameron - Likely to just have the edge over Scott.

  I too have sunk loads into Nush, Cameron, Ray and Scott, and aim to sell high fairly soon. Nice to see my investment in Arnie from a few weeks ago is now reaping dividends.

  Anyone seen Inkspot lately?

• Inkspot - hello clouds
  *amble ... stroll ... custard cream* eh wha'? oh yea
• Uncle Korky
  Ah, there you are! Good to see you again!
• Uncle Korky
  And thanks for sorting out Doris!
• Dunx - Danke
  [rab] Thanks for adding the Lock Cup link.
• rab - Bitte
  [Dunx] Thanks for allowing me to steal and downsize your graphic :)
• Boolbar
  Thank you very much for the Aintree Iron
• Chalky - any old iron
  [Boolbar] So that's where it went. Thanks for letting me know.
• Boolbar - Top CelebCat
  Well slap my jammy badger! I'm top!
• Bob the dog
  *Doffs hat in awe*
• rab - Hmph
  And I seem to be fondling the bottom, which is normally a good position to be in but not, I think, here.
• Bob the dog
  rab] It depends who’s bottom.
• Uncle Korky
  [Btd] Or, indeed, whose bottom!
• Bob the dog
  Uncle Korky] Or, indeed, Titania.
• Lib - ... And todays rant is......
  I've just found out that they're taking my crosswords away. Who? (I hear you ask), the evil people at Guardian.co.uk. I'm trying to learn how to do cryptic crosswords, and quite frankly I'm not very good, so I only have a fighting chance on their 'easy' crossword (called the Quiptric, which is weekly and website only). The online Guardian crosswords (all of them, about 15 per week) are becoming a 'pay-for' service in 5 days time. I don't want to/won't pay £25 to access about 15 quiptrics per year (as i don't have patience or time to attempt it each week). So I've complained and am hoping that they will decide that they don't want to take my crosswords away after all.
• Blob - Celebdaq
  I've rather lost interest in Celebdaq. Gets a bit boring after a while - the kneecapping is crap and the dividends are stupidly high. I've left my portfolio unaltered for two weeks and can't find any enthusiasm to modify it. Don't know if that means I'll just bob about or if I'll be thrown off for apathy. And I'm afraid I don't care either way.
• penelope - Come back!!
  *wails*B--L--O--OO--OOO---OOOO-O-B!!! Don't run off just because the game is too easy!
• Blob
  [Lib] Well if they do - perhaps we could have a cryptic crossword game on this site - I'd be more than happy to contribute clues. Here are a few nice easy ones to be going on with :
  Paying guest loses a fringe (6)
  Vermin back in best Armenian families (4)
  Mates in turmoil giving off vapour (5)
  Tune on the radio ? (3)
  WHERE THE EXECUTIONER'S AXE FALLS ? (5,7)
  Food comes back as American time period (7)
  Born in Little Rock, Arkansas - grew up in Colorado ! (7)
  Darn fire is rubbish - more heat than light ! (5-3)

  Hope that keeps you going for a while.

• Blob - Easy game
  [pen] Which game ?
• CdM
  [Blob] Well, I've got most of those. I didn't get the fifth yet, although it did make me think of
  EXECUTION? (7,10)
  which may contain the same seven-letter word as yours.
• rab - Crypticism
  [Blob] We haven't had a cryptic game for a while, and I think some of the slow-burners here could be put to the rest for a moment (I'm thinking of Mrs Trellis and the Centurion for example). I would remark that crossword clues are more fun if (a) they're part of a puzzle with a grid (b) they are complete clues (with both the definition and the device) and (c) they're not all bl**dy tube stations.

  [CdM] I got the fifth, but am not sure it's entirely sound unless someone can explain it to me. I haven't got 1,6 or 7 yet.

• Blob - clues
  [CdM] Well I did say they were easy - would yours be (Hidden text) by any chance ?
• Uncle Korky - Perplexed
  Well, that rules me out of the cryptic game - I can't get any of them.
• Chalky - Relax
  [UK] I'm sure you can. Start off with say, 3 & 8 - they are obvious anagrams. I can't get 7. For what it's worth, I'd love to see a cryptic game in here.
• Boolbar
  I like number 5. :o)
• CdM
  Well, as I remarked at Dan's place not so long ago, I think that cryptic clue games have been all too frequent -- one every couple of years or so would be enough for me. Just a personal view. One possibility that might be good would be to move away from tube stations and find some other theme -- players' names?
• Lib
  [Blob] Thanks for the clues. Working on them, (could take a while!).

  [cryptic game] There hasn't been one since I've been around (but know that's really not that long), not sure how it would work, or if I'd be any good at it, but Bring It On!!!!

• snorgle - celebdaq/cryptic crosswords
  I'm still enjoying it for the time being. And I, too, am crap at cryptic crosswords. I got a book on how to work them out, but just couldn't be arsed. They just make me want to scream

  WHY WHY OH WHY!!!

• rab - In a word
  [snorgle] relaxation [CdM] I would argue no theme. Why must there be a Greg Rude-eskying theme? We've never had a general crytic clues game, as far as I'm aware.
• Dunx - Griddle
  I wonder if there is any way to post a grid to use? The actual grids are pretty standardised, so drawing them up might not be too hard.
  [Lib] I'm disappointed by The Guardian's move too, but not surprised - most of the other newspaper web sites charge for the actual news, which the Grauniad has refrained from doing. And The Times has been charging for its crosswords for years now (and, IIRC, rather more than 25 quid a year).
• rab - Amazed
  Not only did I get the BB winner right, I got the exit order spot-on too. Not managed this before... I've got lots of shares in the winner, but that's not necessarily the one who gets most press coverage. Anyway, we can shut up about it now, and those who don't care can re-enter the discussion.
• Inkspot - Fish trader
  rab]of the remainig housemates I am pleased that Cameroon won as he is so unlike any other winner and tomorrow will be a bad day for the bookies who had backed Ray and Scott. No doubt there will be post mortems. I disagree with those in the Sun and the Beeb who say the series only saviour is sex to spice things up, and the public overwhelmingly voted for Cameron 'no sex before marriage'. I would like to see the telephone vote inceased to the top four nominations up for eviction to give the public a wider choice, and for the BB warnings to have an effect on the whole group.
  The Celebdaq has gone through a couple of very strange weeks and it has been hard to keep the interest up whilst the rules changed. Hopefully we are over the worst and the game will improve again. Speaking of which this weeks table welcomes Doris_Newbold and the waves a sad to ISayPorter, and if Chalky or evil_edna think I'm going to let them antwhere near the No 1 post, all I can say is ... pah
• Chalky - trading plaices
  [Inkspot] Aha! You have reckoned without my cunning plan. Seriously though, I haven't a clue what has occurred regarding rule changes over the last couple of weeks. I enjoyed the scramble to the top to achieve a knee-capping and a green boxy thing, and I am currently attempting to do it again, although there doesn't seem to be much in the way of ruthless and opportunist trading options. By the way, the MCLeague table attached to my portfolio tells a somewhat different story to yours. As the administrator, do you have insider information? teehee
• Martha Farquar - More BB4
  Cameron was no surprise at all - the bookies had him at 1/9 to win for most of the week. He was the biggest favourite the 4 series have ever had. I think the main reason was, like last year, the two good-looking young men in the house split the 14-year-old girly vote, leaving the outsider with a fighting chance. They also have entirely contrasting personalities, just like Alex and Jonny. I too disagree that only sex can spice things up. Au contraire - only arguments can. The producers tried too hard for a sexy bunch this year, with the result that the only good task was painting the horse costumes, so we could watch it dry.
  Last year, Graham Norton commented: "The public have played a great game this yeat, as they've kept all the interesting people in." Did the public collectively think "Right, we'll do the exact opposite this time for a laugh" or something? If it were up to me, I'd have knocked off Cameron in Week 1. And left in Anouska, Fed, Sissy and Justine for Week 9. If Lisa were in at the start, things would've been different too. And I was secretly hoping that last night, BB might say "As a final surprise for the housemates, we're going to let Jon win regardless of how many votes anyone else gets." Now that would've been a great TV moment!
  BTW, has anyone ever observed what a racist programme BB is? As soon as any black housemate's up for eviction it's a lead pipe cinch they're going. EG. Anouska, Gos, Lee, Adele, Narinder, Amma, Dean. It's almost as bad as how sexist it is.

  [Dunx re "Griddle"] I've got an idea too, "Collective Consciousness Cryptics" where we all post a word at a time, make up a cryptic clue and then solve it, before fitting it into the grid. Won't that be great?!

• rab - Remark
  Can I just remark how absolutely fabulous relaxing into a hot bath after a day walking in the hills is? Normal service will be resumed after a collective sign of pleasure.
• Uncle Korky - Back to 'daq
  [Inkspot] Cheers for the charming announcement of Doris' arrival. Sorry to hear that I Say Porter has left. Was this voluntarily, or has he disappeared again? I hadn't noticed his name missing from the table, although I was puzzling over how Doris could move in but there were still seventeen of us...
• Uncle Korky - ...and another thing...
  I can go to bed happy in the knowledge that I have brightened Breadmaster's day with ...so help me God.
• John
  What's all this bollocks about?
• Bob the dog - Dear John
  Just in case you can't figure it out, try something a little more intellectually challenging.
• snorgle
  [Bob the dog] OOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOOOOOh!
• CdM - um
  [Btd] Um ... Didn't you actually just insult all of us, rather than John? *scratches head in puzzlement*
• Bob the dog - Ire
  Just venting spleen - no insult intended. Sarcasm does not travel well on the internet - I should know this by now.
• Breadmaster
  Actually I've been thoroughly enjoying the virtual poppy plastic!
• Chalky - Movers and Shakers
  I have to say, I'm seriously impressed by the rapid conversion of a soupçon of an idea in 'So Help Me God . . ' into a full-blown smorgasBoardgame of delights. Bravo all.
• Blob - Cryptic answers
  I've hidden all the answers and explanations in the source, for those who want guidance on crypticity.

  Paying guest loses a fringe (6)
  Vermin back in best Armenian families (4)
  Mates in turmoil giving off vapour (5)
  Tune on the radio ? (3)
  WHERE THE EXECUTIONER'S AXE FALLS ? (5,7)
  Food comes back as American time period (7)
  Born in Little Rock, Arkansas - grew up in Colorado ! (7)
  Darn fire is rubbish - more heat than light ! (5-3)
  

• Chalky - Sourcing
  Cheers Blob. The mystery of No 7 is revealed at last.
• rab - Sound as a pound
  I'm not convinced about the soundness of either no 5 or 7 - unless I'm being really dense. Is the second word of 5 clued by anything other than the orthography? Also the 5th word of 7 is not just redundant but destroys the clue.
• Blob - clues
  [rab] By orthography I take it you are referring to the capitalization, in which case, yep, that is the main clue - and is pretty much an accepted method of cluing - as is using punctuation in non-standard ways. The wording of the clue of course refers to the thing that the axeman's victim's head rests upon.
  Arkansas ? What's wrong with that - that's where Little Rock is.
• rab - Solutions
  [Blob] Well... the executioner is probably a matter of taste - I take the view that you notionally downcase and depunctuate the clue so that what's left tells you what to do. Others disagree, suggesting that if you use 'Bath' in the middle of a clue, it would have to refer to the city as opposed to 'bath' which is a tub. The only way to properly introduce ambiguity is to use it at the start of a sentence. But I'm not that extreme.

  On the other hand the Arkansas clue breaks at least two rules. Firstly the definition is not "Little Rock, Arkansas grew up" but simply "Little Rock grew up". And then, if we're being pedantic (which we are), it really ought to be "Little Rock grown up". The second rule is that the definition should never come in the middle of the clue, always at the start or the end.

  Everyone has their own stance on what is acceptable and what is not. I consider myself a moderate compared to Ximineans like Don Manley (whose Crossword Manual is well worth a read). However, you might consider me onerously fascist for these opinions.

• Blob - definitions etc.
  I entirely agree that the definition must be either at the beginning or the end, not in the middle - but I was referring to the place Boulder, in Colorado ... so "in Colorado" is at the end as required. The Little Rock growing up was the cryptic clue, and the Arkansas for completeness, suggesting a place to be looked for. Even if you objected to this inclusion, spurious words are allowed if they do not fundamentally change the meaning, and I don't think it does.
• Blob
  [rab]I presume you now get the "capital" part of No.5 - as in death (literally head removal).
• rab - Weeeelll....
  I think we'll have to agree to disagree about "spurious" words which I believe have no place in a crossword clue. This extends even to articles - the distinction between 'a', 'the' and an unmarked word can be huge in a crossword clue. But this is not really relevant to my beef that "Born in Little Rock, Arkansas - grew up" is not a suitable definition (even a cryptic, subsidiary definition) of "boulder". I accept it's cute that there's a place in the US called Little Rock, and a big rock is a Boulder, which is also a place in the US. I reckon one might be able to make a satisfactory clue out of it. Sadly, I don't think this one is it.

  I expect now for you to reveal that it was taken from a Times puzzle...

• rab
  [Blob, re capital] No, I only get the block part. Could you explain?
• Blob - ...
  O.k. I'll admit that maybe the Boulder one was tweaking the nose a little, but I deemed it sufficiently obvious not to cause a problem in solving it - I've seen a lot dodgier ones anyway.

  With regards the capital one : The executioner's chopping board was known as the block capital (admittedly perhaps only poetically) as it was the block on which capital punishment was "executed".

• rab - Dawn
  [Blob] Poetry is fine - I can live with my ignorance.
• Nik - Scum
  I reinstalled win2k on my laptop tonight. In the space of ~45 minutes between installing the network driver and a firewall, I was hit by a worm. Sometimes I wonder why I bother.
• Dunx - Services
  [Nik] This is pretty much exactly why I'm tending to install non-packaged Linux distros; something like Gentoo encourages you to choose exactly which services to turn on rather than the (for example) Red Hat approach of turning everything on and assuming you will remember to turn everything off before you attach your box to the net.

  And I never attach my box naked to the net.

• flerdle - huh?
  I still don't 'get' cryptic clues. Oh well.
• Nik - ...Rendered
  [Dunx] I'm coming to the end of the process of making the box dual boot with Gentoo. I'm not sure how long Linux'll last on my desktop this time; I don't get along with it for such purposes. I try again once every few months, when MS release a 'fix' that, for instance, breaks all the media codecs, requiring a reformat.
• Breadmaster - Flummoxed
  I'm getting an idea for a game in which players have to make up meaningless technobabble, and the next player has to interpret it as meaning something utterly mundane and non-technological. Not sure where this is coming from...
• Bob the dog - technotechnotechnobabble
  Breadmaster] Divergent entropy?
• Raak - babbling
  [Btd] A group of people unable to decide which Chinese restaurant to go to.
• Blob - Getting it
  [flerdle] Without banging on too much about it, cryptic clues are really good fun when you get into them - both solving and setting them. Those eight I did were just quickies off the top of my head, so not terribly good examples (as pointed out by various people) - but a really neat clue is a joy to behold.
  The basic premise is that the clue is in two parts : The definition and the clue (or wordplay). The definition is a direct reference to the word(s) in question - most usually a synonym, but in the case of names for example it might just be "he" or "she" to signify a male or female name. Also "in (country)" often means that it is a reference to a town/city in that country.
  The definition must always either be at the beginning or the end of the clue. Occasionally it is the whole clue, with the crypticity wrapped in the way it is phrased.
  The clue part is the interesting bit - this is where a second, indirect reference to the word is made. Here are the main ways that the cryptic part is formed :

  • Double definition (a second definition for the same word - though with a different meaning)
  • Anagram
  • Embedded (the word is in there, usually split between two or more words, but running consecutively)
  • Reverse embedded (as above but running backwards)
  • Homophones (... sounds like ...)
  • Exclusion (removal of specified letters or words)
  • Concatenation (joining words together)
  • Inclusion (one word placed inside another)
  • Puns (word play that suggests the answer)
  • Representation (Roman numerals, chemical symbols etc)
  • Any combination of the above

  I bet I've missed something crucial; but if we did have a game then we could maybe explain each clue as it is solved to help cryptonewbies.
• Lib - Crytpology
  [ferdle] There are a certain number of rules to help solve cryptic crosswords. The word is always defined, usually at the beginning or the end. If the clue is two words long then its usually a double definition (example, office desk (6) = bureau). Ignore all punctuation. Another good hint is to find anagrams. words like 'scrambled', 'mixed', 'blended', 'confused' and many others besides (and some are rather obscure and I don't get them). ~Solving one of Blob's clues (I hope nobody minds, it is an easy one!) STEAM is the soultion to number 3 (anagram hinted by the words in turmoil). I'm still at the early stages of learning. I find it helpful (and frustrating) to attempt crosswords with a friend, who is rather good and happily explains clues when I don't get it. Working a crossword back with the anwsers can also be useful. Is that helpful or just more confusing or not what you wanted? If you want to find more rules and hints how to slove then visit www.guardian.co.uk and go to the crosswords section and there is a page dedicated to 'how to solve' things.

  [all] Ummm, little miss untechnological strikes again. How do I do hyperlinks?

• Lib - how to solve
  btw, sadly the guardian's page only tells you how to solve cryptic crosswords. If only it was a 'How to solve anything' page.... All of life's mysteries could be solved. Like, why is belly button fluff ALWAYS blue?.......
• Lib - aagrh
  Previewing my move meant I didn't notice/wasn't alerted to the fact I had been simuplosted. Blob's explaniation is far more eloquent than mine! sorry!
• Blob - New I'd missed something ...
  Foreign words are often used - but generally only tiddlers, such as "The French" for LE or LA (possibly LES), or "With German" for MIT.
• Blob
  [Lib] I did the same just now. ... And of couerse I meant "knew" not "new"
  [Lib again] How to do hyperlinks :
  <A HREF="www.thisisthesite.com/thisisthepage.htm">This is what I want it to say</A>
• Lib - testing!
  Thanks Blob. Testing my new found hyperlink skill to send ferdle to this aforemetnioned page.
• rab - Mind
  I'll bear in mind that when previewing you're not alerted to a simulpost. Before I can make the necessary changes though, I'll need to sort out my laptop's hard disk because it has various versions of different pages that are stored on a range of servers. At the risk of upsetting the Breadmaster I think I'll need to work out how to set up virtual servers in apache to solve all my problems (notably, the DNS name of my laptop changes according to which network I connect it to).

  Meanwhile, the cryptics. I can recommend two books. One is 'Cryptic Crosswords and How to Solve Them' (published I think by Chambers - you can search Amazon for example). The other is Don Manley's Crossword Manual, linked to above. The former is better for jumping in. Basically it lists the devices, and then gives some graded puzzles, with the amount of help diminishing as the book progresses. My main gripe is that the authors do like (a) to show off how clever they are; and (b) literary allusions rather than give you practical advice to clue-solving. Manley's book is much more thorough, but as he treats things more from a historical perspective, you'll find yourself dealing with Victorian mindbenders before getting into the cryptics proper. However, this book does offer an insight into the mind of a setter, which is invaluable.

  One thing I dislike is microclassification of clues. Since pretty much every clue involves a combination of devices the only classification is:

  • Single definition: usually cryptic, or relying on a pun.
  • Double definition: what it says on the tin. One definition might be more cryptic than the other.
  • Definition + device: where the device is basically a set of instructions that tell you how to make the desired word.

  Because you normally have two indications to the solution, it's very rare that there's any ambiguity in the clue. Although the definition could be as vague as "country" the chances are the device points only to one possible country. In that sense, I find cryptics easier than quick crosswords. On the other hand, the range of words used is often wider, so that makes it harder again.
• Bob the dog - Are we still playing the meaningless jargon game?
  My all time favourite clue was suggested in an excellent book I read on cryptic crossword solving.
  
  GEGS (9,4)
  Answer:(Highlight to reveal hidden text)scrambled eggs*
• Uncle Korky
  [BtD] Which featured in a particularly good episode of "Drop the Dead Donkey" if I recall correctly.
• Blob - Quiptics
  [rab] Yes, Cryptics ought to be easier than "Quick" crosswords really, as you're getting two clues in one. Doesn't really work like that though - coz. firstly it could be either end that you're looking for - plus the definition itself is not necessarily straight forward. For example (again off the top of my head, so not necessarily too good), Great Persian holds quiet land (6) might be the cryptic clue, whereas the quick would probably be along the lines of Island country (6). The difference being that whilst the Quick is too vague to be able to pinpoint the country in question - it does not require you to know anything about Persians - and points you to the land being required rather than the Persian himself.
  Re GEGS, that was my Dad's favourite clue too - and he told me about it, ooh, thirty years ago - so it's quite an old one.
• rab - Naturally
  [Blob] This, of course, it what makes one puzzle "easier" than another in my book. For example, whilst the Everyman crossword (Observer) has a tendancy towards irritatingly vague clues, it doesn't a great deal of "general" knowledge - it's helpful to know the odd place name, or big names in various fields but nothing too out-of-the-ordinary. Contrarily, the Private Eye crossword is billed as "difficult", but I complete it about as often as the Everyman (an "easy" crossword). This, I think, is largely because the allusions are generally related in some way to the magazine (Brenda and Brian, for example, refer to the Queen and Prince Charles respectively) rather than to some obscure ode written by a 17th century poet I've never heard of. Horses for courses. I would like to be able to do the Times, or an Arucaria, but doubt I shall ever be able to scale such heights.
• rab - Definitions
  [Blob, again] I find that, with practice, and if you're used to a particular setter's style, identifying the definition part of the clue can be fairly straightforward.
• flerdle - ta.
  [Blob, Lib, et al] Thanks for that, will look over it properly in the morning. Did I mention I never learnt how to play chess either? But don't feel you have to explain here :-)
• Chalky - cryptoculture
  Just returned home - so it's good to catch up with the cryptic chat. I attempt the Times crossword most days but can only usually complete with the aid of some very clued-up chums and has become part of our 'early doors' at the pub ritual. Coincidentally, 'GEGS' was also a favourite of my Dad, bless 'im - and brings to mind his almost child-like enthusiasm for the infamous 'HIJKLMNO [5]' clue.
• Blob - Explanations R Us
  [flerdle] Right then - there are 16 pieces on each side - 8 pawns ..... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
  [rab] I certainly agree that you get used to certain setters' styles. No doubt about it. I'm afraid I have to admit that the cryptic I do regularly is the, ahem, Daily Mail (my wife's choice, honest) - which I actually rather like (the crossword that is, not the bloody paper) - some of its clues make my Boulder, Colorado one look positively officious by comparison. I can normally rattle it off in about 20 minutes - but every now & then, I get a setter who's on a completely different wavelength (or planet) and it takes me ages.
• Blob - HIJKLMNO
  [Chalky]Not seen that one before - What a truly excellent riddle, initially !
• Chalky - HIJKLMNO
  [Blob] So it's new to you? Out of interest, how long did it take you to solve it?
• Uncle Korky - HIJKLMNO
  [Chalky] Just before Blob answers, I've seen it before doing the rounds as a dingbat at quiz nights.
• Chalky - recycling
  Ah - dingbats. That poor relation. Puzzles for the masses. Well, at least it keeps a classy clue 'alive'. Incidentally, the craze for dingbats - something else that the .. erm .. estimable Daily Mail has to answer for?
  dingbat [U S slang]n. something whose name one has forgotten, or does not want to use: a foolish or eccentric person: a tramp: money. Adj. [Austr. & N Z coll.] daft, crazy. [Austr. & N Z coll.] the dingbats: delirium tremens.
  Such provenance says it all.
• Blob - HIJKLMNO
  Not too long - the brevity of the answer (just five letters) meant it had to be some clever way of reading the clue, so I just read it to myself in several ways and got there in a minute or so. But that's not to say it might not have taken me a while - perhaps I've seen something similar before, dunno.
• Martha Farquar - How 'bout...
  O (4,6)
• rab - Head scratching
  Dunno 'bout Martha's. I got the HIJKLMNO one pretty much immediately when I saw it, but it was in the Cryptic Crosswords and How to Solve Them book as part of a special feature on weird clues, so my mind was already pointed in the right direction. One that I saw in a Grauniad crossword, and don't actually think is that great a clue (for reasons I'll explain later) is "K (7)".
• CdM
  [MF] That one is my favorite clue. :-) I was reading down through the game and was about to post it, until I saw that you had got there first. Although I think the clue should actually be
  O? (4, 6).
  And here's a clue mentioned in the Sandy Balfour book that I recently reviewed at Orange, which although not perfect, you have to admire:
  Bust down reason? (9).
• snorgle - stupid damn clues
  Stop putting damn clues and no answers! Some of us are thick, you know!
• Uncle Korky - O? (4, 6)
  Would that be (Highlight to reveal hidden text) full circle ?
• Raak - O? (5,6)
  Round number.
• Raak - O? (4,6)
  How about open letter?
• Uncle Korky - "K (7)"
  Can't get that one - not enough letters for Potassium...
• Martha Farquar - K (7)
  [rab] If it's Rufus, this must be Kelvins - if it's Enigmatist, I haven't got a chance :o)
  No-one's got mine yet, and I don't think the "?" helps at all. Like HIJKLMNO, there's no definition involved.
  As for "Bust down reason", I know this and I wouldn't've got it in a million years. At least, not without some letters.
• Boolbar
  Is O (4,6) like v (6,2,7) ??
• Boolbar
  Oh and is K Weekend?
• Chalky - k
  Boolbar] I thought the same - but wouldn't the clue be in lower case, if that were the case? [MF] I'm still flummoxed by the 'O' clue but have a hunch it's more to do with numbers than letters.
• Martha Farquar - v(6,2,7)
  What, Middle of Kelvins or something? Sadly no. Well done on K though.
  [Chalky] Yes and no. Unhelpfully.
• Blob - Durr
  The Weekend one reminds me of one we had on Cryptic Stations which was e This was Mile End - though I, like Chalky was put off by the capitalization - and was looking for a "head" or "top" answer.
  [MF] I thought Raak had got O - you're saying not ?
• Blob
  Nuts - that "head" was supposed to be hidden.
• Raak - Case bust (7,9)
  Crosswords are generally filled in in all upper case, so I think "K" is valid. For "bust down reason", would this be something to do with not wearing a bra? I can't think of a 9-letter way of expressing that though.
• Raak - Bust down reason
  Maybe lactating?
• rab - K
  Boolbar - you are correct on this one. But the reason I dislike it is because (a) it's ambiguous - the answer could just as easily be bookend; (b) there's no definition, purely a device; and (c) even as a device it's flawed because it's not indicated (e.g. with the phrase "to a setter"). These "inverse clues" are becoming more prevalent, but I don't think they're big or clever.
• Boolbar - O
  [Raak] That is true. You can make up several answers that match some of these clues - like O (4,6) = Come second. My 'v' is much the same, but is a famous schoolboy joke.
• Blob - Bust down reason
  [Raak] There's a simple way of expressing bra in 9 letters it's brassière. But apart from the bust bit, I can't see why it should be the answer.
• Martha Farquar - Ohhh, I geddit...
  [Bb] Centre of Gravity, ha ha. No, mine isn't the start, end or middle of anything. Or the second. Or even "a letter in the word 'open'".
  [Blob] I said not when I said "No-one's got mine yet".
• Blob
  [MF] Too direct a clue there, Martha ! ;-)
  Quick joky one : çontrol mechanism (6,6)
• Martha Farquar - French accent?
  BTW, there is a definition for "Bust down reason" - it's not just a device. I can't tell if there is for "Case bust", which could just mean something that encases a bust ie. "Playtex Brassiere", which is wrong.
• Blob
  [MF] No. Slightly more amusing in a schoolboy humour sort of way.
• Raak - Busty clues
  [Blob] I think brassière would be clued as "Bust up reason (9)". [MF] "Case bust" wasn't meant to be a clue.
• Martha Farquar
  And the (7,9)??
• Raak
  [MF]Just an allusion to the clues I was commenting on. But if you can find a solution anyway, don't let me stop you! Am I anywhere on the right lines with my solution to "Bust down reason"?
• Martha Farquar
  Yes.
• Martha Farquar - I feel CdM's Bust
  Down Reason should be given away by CdM, but as for my "O", the first letter is L.
• Chalky - Bust descending
  CdM] does the answer begin with 'S'?
• Martha Farquar - Ooooooops...
  [Raak] You're nowhere near with "lactating".
• Boolbar - O
  [MF] Is it Love letter ?
• rab - Oh!
  [Bb] That's the most convincing one I've seen so far. I think I understand the bust clue, but that doesn't bring me any nearer to solving it!
• Chalky - bust
  I like the Bb one aswell. I'm attempting to conceal my bust solution - would the 'preview' show the word as hidden? Not sure if I'm tagging correctly.
• CdM
  [Bb] Congratulations!
  [Raak] You're definitely thinking about it the right way. I agree with Martha that it's a very hard clue (I didn't get it when I was reading the book.) The first letter is B.
  [Blob] I'm not sure if you are referring to a different occasion, but I clued "Mile End" as
  More? (4,3)
  with the idea that it should be read as "M or E"
• kenny - what the fuck is a APROPOS
  I BET SHE LIKES IT DOGGY STYLE ASWELL. THAT CATALINA BINT I MEEN, NOT THE QUEEN MUM GORD BLESS 'ER.
• rab - Three-sixties
  I'm sure she does. Meanwhile, CdM's 'more' clue would have Ximenes turning is his grave.
• rab - For CdM or Martha
  Can you confirm if the clue should be read as a double definition, 'bust' and 'down reason', the whole therefore being something that would make you depressed, either through being broke or broken? Thanks. (Hmmm... sees the appeal of a MCiOS-u-like hidden-text feature).
• Dunx - Hiding To Nothing
  [rab] Quite so on the hidden text: goes double with skins where the background colour can vary dramatically.
• Martha Farquar - Dr Jekyll
  Yes... <hide>the clue should be read as a double definition</hide>

  And, irritatingly, no... <hide>Nothing to do with depression - this may be a clue too far, but it's not "bust 'down reason'", but rather "'bust down' reason"</hide>
  HTH. (But not really.) :oP

• CdM
  [rab] You're absolutely right about "More?" -- I am of the school that is generally Ximenean, but will make an exception for a good enough clue. Which "More?" isn't -- and I think I acknowledged as much when I set it. As for the bust clue, I don't think you are on the right track. The structure of the clue is: essentially double definition, but with each word having a different sense in the two definitions. One of the definitions clues the answer, the other clues a phrase.
• CdM - oops
  Sorry -- just got caught by the same preview/simulpost problem...
• Chalky
  I still think it ought to be 'strapless' rightly or wrongly.
• rab - Oh
  [CdM, Martha] Thanks for the help without managing to give the game away - I'm not sure if I'll get this. The preview/simulpost problem is noted, and I'll try and sort it out at the weekend.
• rab - Plus
  On the plus side, it does mean, CdM, that you're preview problem a while back was a one off.
• rab - Meanwhile
  I'm wondering if it's time to put Mrs Trellis to bed.
• Boolbar - Goodbye Mrs. Trellis.
  I did think of a couple of game ideas - but both have been slightly started on the other MC sites.
  (1) Author Imposters Tag Wrestling - A story is told by different authors, each trying to guide the story in their style and choice of characters. Stephen King, Enid Blyton and Shakespeare can nuke it out!
  (2) Animal Diaries - The animals have a game of MC - as told from extracts in their diaries.
  (3) Or something cryptic.
• rab - Banned list
  I was going to remark that the following are currently on my banned list: imposters, combined, bad-tempered, chivalrous, Lord Byron, Bad HTML, ostrich, ham(p)ster and Spartacus.
• rab - No! I'm rab!!
  And I want to know what that <blink>f*cking</blink> hampstrich has done with my bicycle. Please.
• Spartacus
  I'm Spar . . . oh sorry rab, I'll just go away then. *shuffles off*
• Martha Farquar
  [Bool] There's already a slot free at Orange, if rab doesn't like those ideas.

  [X-philes] "Flying heart doctors" A-O-I-I (This is a real one that I can't get.)

• gil
  AEOLIAN would fit from the flying point of view if the final I was wrong... but as for doctors. Isn't HEART sometimes used for L? as in I [HEART] NY?
• Martha Farquar - Maybe...
  ...but I'm 100% on the second I. (It's from "Oriflamme".) I think it must be "Amorini", ie. "cupids", but it doesn't look right.
• Martha Farquar
  I spose "doctors" because they 'doctor' people's hearts, ie. screw around with them. Although since they're sticking them with arrows, I wouldn't hire them myself.
• Blob - Amorini
  I was about to suggest amorini - see here but I still can't quite make it add up.
  [CdM] Re Mile End - no it was a clue eons ago - not yours.
  No-one's done my little çontrol mechanism (6,6) yet.
  As for the bust thing - I'm completely stumped.
• Watty - *groaning*
  [Blob] It's French letter, isn't it?
• Cdm - A trip to my copyright lawyer
  [Blob] Nonono -- mine was eons ago (June 2000); the other one was hardly more than a year ago. :-)
• CdM - preview problem
  [rab] It wasn't actually a one-off -- I had the problem for several weeks, and I stopped ever previewing for a while. But then it just went away. Sorry for not keeping you more up to date.
• rab - New game ideas
  [CdM] Right. This will have to go into the book of the great unexplained.

  [Boolbar, MF] It's not that I particularly dislike those ideas, it's just words like "imposter" trigger an "Oh no, not again already"-style response. I actually like the sound of the authors game - with a different moniker I might have realised the potential sooner. The reason for the banned list is that I find that such games, due in part to the huge numbers of times they've been played before, tend to be somewhat lacking in quality.

  And while I've got my bad-tempered unchivalrous patronising primary-school teacher imposter hat on - could I urge people to think carefully about (a) the sense and (b) comic potential of their limerick lines. I've seen a number of great set-up lines from all players, only to be let down in a number of cases by not-so-great punchlines. I appreciate that I might be responsible for some of these and have already slapped myself on the wrist.

  Aren't the clouds particularly fluffy for the time of year?

• Boolbar
  [rab] I agree about the overuse of some games leading to a lack of quality. [MF] The 'coin' game at orange is a little too much like the animal game. The 'authors' game I suggested is a little too close to "Once upon a time..." at MCiOS. This is why I've not started either . . . yet.

  The clouds out of my window are lacking in fluffiness being more of a fuzzy amoeba-like greyness.

• Blob
  [Watty] Yo's gottit
  [CdM] Oh, that eons ago - not sure I'd even discovered the site(s) at that time !
  [Games] a straightforward cryptic clues game (not metrocentric) would be new.
  Meanwhile, as this seems to be the home of crypticity at the moment, how about :
  Support being laundered to change opinions (9)
• Martha Farquar
  *giggles insanely*
• rab - Let's be straight
  The moval of the cryptic challenges to a separate page might be a good thing, particularly for those who aren't that interested. It could simply be a forum to post, solve, explain and shout down clues rather than a game with any particular theme or aim (I'm thinking in the style of the various discussion games there are/were at Orange and MCiOS like Books or Rattling Dice).

  Meanwhile, Blob, my first thought was brainwash but I can't get that to fit, and in the light of Martha's comment which appeared while writing this, I suspect I'm completely on the wrong track.

• matt
  [rab] My first thought was jockstrap, but I can't get that to fit either, so I guess it just reveals further unwanted details of my psyche.
  [authors] I like this idea, but story games do seem to get mired pretty quickly. Once Upon A Time already looks ready to be shot in the head. Oddly enough, the first move in that game was originally going to be by "Arthur Conan Matt" -- which could easily have (unintentionally) turned it into something like you're suggesting -- perhaps it might have worked better if so.
• CdM
  *rolls around laughing on the floor and discovers Martha there*
• Blob - *ting*
  [rab] Spot on : not sure what you object to : bra is a support, in wash is being laundered, brainwash is to change opinions. Can't really see why that's not playing the game.
• rab - Blob
  No, that's fine. You shouldn't assume that just cos I don't get it, I think there's something wrong with the clue. I am also quite dense.
• Uncle Korky - Disappearing act...
  Just a quick note to say that I’m off on my hols tomorrow, so I’ll ‘see’ everyone on the 16th when I get back.
• Martha Farquar
  *writhes in agonies of hysteria, tears streaming from eyes, gasps from lack of oxygen, has near-death experience*
• Projoy - cryptic giggle
  What's so funny? Weirdos.
• CdM - *putting people out of their misery*
  [rab, Blob] Um, now might be a good time for you to reconsider:
  Bust down reason (9).
• rab - Reason for falling down, busting a gut and laughing.
  I think I might have worked out why CdM and Martha are chortling so ... but if so, I don't really get the clue.
• rab - Dawn
  Oh, I see! Martha kinda put me off the scent a bit. And, no, I'd never have got this in a million years without the foregoing and a numerical hint.
• Dunx - Shakey
  I think Raak's posted a category killer of a move in Shakes and Ladders... I have a couple of ideas, but how to compete with such an excellent play?
• Blob - Durrr
  *sound of someone being incredibly thick* (still can't get it - I have a nasty feeling that when I finally discover the answer to this, I may have to (a) hit myself over the head with my mouse then (b) hunt down Martha & CdM .... )
• rab - Roger me with a garden rake and call me Gerald
  It's August!
• CdM - Oh dear....
  [Blob] Tempting though it is to leave you out there swaying in the wind ... let me put it this way. Perhaps now is a good time for you to reconsider
  Bust down reason (9)
  in the light of
  Support being laundered to change opinions (9).
  Here's another hint. If you examine the two clues closely, you will notice that there is the same number of letters in each answer!
• Raak
  [Dunx] I have another daisy-cutter ready, but I've been holding off, hoping for other people to carry on.
• Dunx
  [Raak] I'll try and post my one feeble idea later today, but the pressure of following such an outstanding move is rather great!
• Blob - Brainwave - I mean wash
  Ah - so I clued the same word. Not quite as serendipitous as it might at first seem, as brainwash was one of the words I'd considered but rejected - but it looked like a nice sort of word to clue, so I did. I still don't really see why it's the answer though. I think I'd put that on my crap clues pile along with about 20% of the Daily Mail ones that I only get once I have sufficient letters.
• Blob
  That came out a bit peevish - perhaps I'm missing something.
• Lib - gaming license
  Hello again. I've been away, but sadly nowhere exciting (And i've been keeping my eye on things by the joy of WAP). I'm looking forward to the cryptic page, sounds like my cup of tea! Anyway I've had an idea for a game. Not sure if the technology is out there (and I'm sure someone far cleverer in such matters will be able to say "yay" or "nay") or if its been done before (and failed) but anyway, The idea is a caption competition. Someone posts a piccie and then we all suggest captions until we get bored, then someone else posts a different piccie. Will it work?
• Darren - Captions
  [Lib] Spinnwebe and other sites have been doing glorified caption competitions for years. Don't see why it can't work here too. You just have to be careful about where you get the pics, of course. Spinnwebe (aside from the ill-fated DFC which ripped off the Family Circus cartoons) used to get pics from people submitting their own photos into the stockpile. We could do that here, it would be a lot of fun.
• Darren - Cryptics
  Oh, and as for cryptics, if anyone ever ventures into rec.puzzles.crosswords, I was the creator of the FSCC (five-second crossword competition) which afaik still runs to this day. (You make a 5x5 cryptic crossword with certain restrictions, and the participants vote on the entries to see who wins.) Typical of me, though, I never took part in it again after the very first round!
• Darren - Continuations
  Sorry for posting so many times on this page with so little content. Here's a link for Spinnwebe's caption stuff: http://www.spinnwebe.com/a1/
• matt - bust down reason
  [Blob] I couldn't get this, but having had it revealed I can see the rationale and I have to agree it is frightfully elegant. Both MF and CdM have described the mechanism, so it is probably redundant of me to point out the double definition: reason bust is down = bra in wash; to bust down reason: brainwash -- but as MF will no doubt attest, I'm always ready to be ploddingly literal at times like these.
• matt - get thee to a flummery
  In any case, since Lib has gently encouraged Mrs Trellis back into retirement, perhaps it's time to dignify the cryptologists with a game of their own? I'd do it myself if I had the aptitude, but (as should be painfully obvious) I don't.
• rab - Technical support desk
  [matt] Well, you click on 'Start a new game' and then... oh. I see what you mean. Yes we need a suitable title and intro blurb. In the absence of other titles, perhaps 'Bust down reason (9)' would be appropriate?
• Darren - 'Start a new game' and then...
  Or Obscure vault 99 (7)
• Martha Farquar
  Or "Cry 'Picts!' - resolve difficulties"?
  Anyway, can anyone help with "Bank's route to the deposits" I-C-I--? I think it might be Incline, but why?
• Boolbar - wail over postscript about spasm (8)
  I suppose you have inc-line (or a line/route to an inc) where inc = increase = deposit, and a bank is an incline.
• Darren - Me being picky
  [Boolbar] Your "wail..." clue isn't quite legitimate as it omitted the straight def, and it doesn't really work as an &lit imho either. Maybe make it "Clues wail over postscript about spasm" but that doesn't have a very good surface, unfortunately. [matt] Incidentally, "bust down reason" isn't a double def, it's an &lit. A double def is where you have two definitions next to each other. An &lit (meaning "and literally true") is where the whole clue is simultaneously both the cryptic form *and* the straight def.
• rab - Today's Everyman
  Some nice clues but I can't get 6D. Maybe it'll come to me when I go for a swim presently. For the record the clue is "Hope chest contains last gift brought over (6,6)" and I have B_T_O_ D_A_E_. I would also explain why I find some of today's clues quite elegant, but think I should wait until someone makes a ruling on what the X-word game should be called.
• Raak - Everyman
  BOTTOM DRAWER. I tried the Independent crossword yesterday, and solved exactly one clue. Completely baffled by the rest -- how does the Independent crossword rank against the others for difficulty? Left it on the train, so I can't quote examples.
• rab - Deep down and dirty
  [Raak, re your solution[ That's what I thought but why?

  [Raak, re Indie] I had a go at this too, and solved four clues. My Dad does the Indie on a daily basis, and I can't remember which setters he claims to be easier than the others. I think they range from somewhere just above the Everyman to somewhere just below Arucaria. But I might be wrong.

• Raak - Hope chests
  [rab] "Hope chest" is the definition, "last" is a definition of the first word, and "gift brought over (i.e. reward reversed)" indicates the second.
• Boolbar - Picked
  [Darren] You are right, but I though it was getting so obvious what was being clued that the definition was pointless (well that's my excuse anyway!!)
• rab - Chesty teaser
  [Raak] Thanks for that... I've never heard of a hope chest, but I did at least manage to get a fruity desert I'd never heard of in the same puzzle so that almost gave me a feeling of pride and accomplishment.

  [Game names] Any of those would do. Someone care to cut the ribbon, or do I have to do it?

  Update update The requested simulpost-during-preview warning has been added. But not, I'm afraid, on this website. It's on the 'working copy' which, for good measure, has been converted to use an exciting new cauliflower to drive the HTML sprocket. What this means in practice is that you'll notice no changes in the forseeable future, but I might one day get round to writing alternative interfaces (eg WAP). Job etc.

• Nik
  Hey, look at that. My connection has stayed alive three mornings in a row. Which is handy, with me working on weekend time for two of them, and forgetting to check on my way out again this morning.
• Blob - Busted flush
  [CdM, MF, matt] O.k. I see it now - and as you say, it does have a certain elegance. My only quibble with is really is that it is a bit two-staged, in that <hidden_bit>one has to get to "bra in wash" as a reason for the bust to be down, and normally such two-stage clues are inadmissable. Like having to find a word and then anagramise it. I've seen it done, but it does cause confusion IMHO</hidden_bit>
• Raak
  The distinctive feature of the "bust down reason" clue is that the entire clue is simultaneously the definition and the cryptic indication, instead of them being separate halves.
• rab - Flush or bust
  [Blob] I think this what Manley calls "A clue to a clue"; but didn't you know you can excuse anything with a question mark. In any case as Raak and Darren point out, it's an &lit clue. This type of clue is what people entering the Azed clue-writing competition usually aim for. Often with disastrous consequences, as it's extremely difficult to get a clue that is both crossword-grammatically correct and furnish a sound definition of the whole.
• rab - Cryptologists please note
  The obscure vault has been opened, probably to the relief of the uninterested.
• flerdle - *pipes up*
  But what shall we talk about, now?
• Boolbar
  No fluffy clouds here today.
• flerdle
  Dark here now.
• penelope - dreams of darkness and coolness in the blinding 30 degree heat of the office*
  I dropped crunchy nut cornflakes and milk in my keyboard this morning. :o(
• rab - Talking points
  [pen] Whoops.

  Meanwhile I'd like to point out, though I will suspect none will care, that the 'Extended overhaul' of the DJ Shadow track 'Organ Donor' (on the Preemptive Strike compilation) is a triumph.

• flerdle - *laughs fearlessly at 30 degree heat*
  I had Froot Loops for breakfast this morning. mmmm sugar.
• Lib - I skipped brekkie and went straight onto lunch.
  PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING.

  On wednesday, newly qualified Dr Lib and hundreds of her Doctor friends are being let out onto the British public at large, allegedly to make them better. It is your duty to do us all a favour and avoid getting admitted to hospital (preferably for ever! but if you must get ill then at least wait a week or two so the new baby doctors will have had chance to work out whats going on). I thank you all for reading this announcement and wish you all the best of health.

• Nik
  Not the best time to have my knee go dodgy while working out, then?
• Breadmaster
  Why breakfast is important
• Bob the dog - *Insert hen pun here*
  Tuesday is the day that our Chickens arrive. We'll be trotting over to Craven Arms in Shropshire (sounds like a pub but isn't) to collect them. Hooray!
• Dunx - Chicken Pun
  [Btd] Egg-sellent!
• rab - Rubbish start to the day
  Having made it all but three steps into work this morning, a lump of purple shit fell out of a tree and landed on my (of course) clean white t-shirt. I've spent several minutes in the gents scrubbing it like crazy and am now back in my office on one of the hottest days of the year with the fan heater blasting out in a vain attempt to make the slightly-less-stained shirt less moist. Of course, now the heater has cut out, deciding it to be way too hot. Grrr...
• rab - I spose
  I could stand out in the sunshine, but then at the risk of burning my poor head...
• Thos - Head of the class
  [Rab] I concur. As I have stated before: Summer = evil.
• Boolbar - Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Eggrything.
  [BtD] Which are you getting first? The chickens or the eggs?
• penelope - Counting chickens
  [BtD] I'd love to keep chickens. Are they RIRs or fancy ones with feathered legs?
• Chalky - Chicken tikka marsala
  [BtD] So they're LIVE ones - what fun! I 'did' bantams for one rather rustic year when I was younger and foolish enough to want to impress a potential husband [animal husbandry pun obligatory].
• penelope - IN the Hen House
  [Chalky] But did it work?!! We need to know these things! Is it worth investing in half a dozen chickens and a hutch or is my money better spent on posh underwear?
• rab - Defurcation
  Someone's shat on the furcation game? Do we want it reinstated? I guess that's aimed at Martha Farquar really.
• rab - Ready... aim...
  The subject of the aiming being the question about reinstatement, not the shitting. Just to be clear.
• CdM
  [pen] I think the chickens would definitely look better in a hutch than in posh underwear.
• Chalky - bantam waits
  [penelope] I went all fickle, ran off with a drummer in a folk-rock band and as I recall, the posh underwear was quite unnecessary. hehehehe.
• Boolbar
  There must be some joke about both drummers and chickens having drumsticks . . . .
• penelope - o f*ck
  My colleague has just accepted another job - we've been running a PR programme together for the past five and a half years and now... eeeeek!!! *sees her holidays disappearing into the mist as the workload piles up while someone else is appointed*
• rab - Colleague update
  *dribbles juices over the keyboard as a consequence of sucking colleages plums*
• Chalky - rab's juicy innuendo
  [rab] Careful you don't stain your white T-shirt.
  [penelope] That's a bit of a bummer. So - this PR malarkey? Could any one do it?
• penelope - Sticky fingers
  [Chalky] Yup. Any dipstick can do it. As long as you're smarter than the average, have newspaper experience, can tell the difference between a good story and a bad one and be able to tell the client exactly what you think and hold your temper when they disregard everything you say, be able to turn a phrase or two and don't mind having red pen through your work every now and again.
• rab - Closure
  Sorry about the brief closure (if anyone noticed it). Just reinstating The Furcation Game at Projoy's request. There'll be no need to close the station for such essential maintenance when I roll out the next major upgrade, sometime in 2008 (subject to Government funding).
• Dunx - Re: Closure
  [rab] Ah yes, those long-awaited updates... you will recall how long it took me to finish the code that fixed the "this game is too long" problems, and similar longeurs have affected exactly the kind of admin screens which I suspect you are talking about (well, not strictly true - I did write the necessary admin screens at the same time as String itself, but they've never worked). The urgency of the whole random Lock Cup game creation fiasco thing is making me work rather more rapidly on logins, which is really about minimising the amount of work I have to do in removing the detritus.
• rab - Longeurs
  [Dunx] At the risk of Checking My Oats, the grand scheme is to move from a flat-file storage system to a mySQL back-end. Then I can use an off-the-shelf frontend (with appropriate security cauliflowers enabled to prevent any old Jack coming along and dropping his spade) to do the tweaks when required. It will also remove a shed-load of concurrency issues and, in principle, provide better data integrity, removing the need for having a+w mods on parts of the server (evil). Currently (i.e. on the [not-]working version) the front page is converted: just need to do the creation page (easy) and the thread page (hard) before it's done. Hence the 2008 ETA.
• Bob the dog - Chicken Run
  Just got back with the chickens - yes they are live and clucking - if rather breathlessly in this heavy atmosphere. I built the hen-house myself and it is extremely satisfying to see that they fit in it. What would I have done if they hadn't?
• Bob the dog - Penelope
  What are RIRs? They are hybrids chosen for free-range hardiness and egg quality. Two Black Rocks and a Speckledy. They are currently pecking at a cabbage we left for them. Must try one of rabs security cauliflowers.
  
  Re poultry vv underwear as bloke attractant, I know what I’d go for but I’d probably be misunderstood.
• penelope - I said, I said, what are RIRs?
  [BtD] RIRs are Rhode Island Reds, the rusty tawny brown chickens. I'm not sure what sort of chicken Foghorn Leghorn was... but I do remember acting as a poultry traffiker and facilitating the transfer of a cock looking very much like him between a schoolfriend's house and my uncle's house. I left him in a cardboard box in the boot of my car for a couple of hours and he was as quiet as a mouse. Unfortunately he livened up a bit after that and attacked my small cousins. I think they probably ate him.
  What's a security cauliflower? Is it more or less effective as a bloke attractant than poultry or posh underwear?
• Bob the dog - security cauliflower
  I dunno - try the phrase on rab - he has been using it alot recently - along with spade dropping, a+w and 'Checking My Oats'. Good job I know my RIRs from my Marans.
• Chalky - beguiling cauliflowers
  The answer to your last query [pen] is contained in rab's posting, and I quote : 'with appropriate security cauliflowers enabled to prevent any old Jack coming along and dropping his spade' . . . which I guess means less effective.
• Dunx
  [rab] Arr. In theory, the String code is sufficiently modular to enable just that kind of substitution. In practice, is it bollocks like. I do like the idea of using someone else's admin code, though... I've just started detailing the Lockisseum account management stuff, and the fact that I know exactly what it needs to do does not in any way detract from the fact that it is going to be right pain in the arse to write - yea, e'en unto the point where I'm wondering if I should even bother. Well, I'll certainly keep at it for a wee while yet, since much of the infrastucture that will make this stuff at least practical is already there, but still... it's not fun.

  I'm really really glad I'm not trying to do session management though.

• rab - Explanitude
  [Dunx] Response in 'Oats', hopefully by the time you get up.

  [Security cauliflowers] Bob - I think you might be confusing the security cauliflower with the NS4 compatibility dandelion. It's completely unrelated to that strain of cauliflower that drives the HTML sprocket (which in turn uses a fabby plugin strawberry - dead impressed). I think there's an adage somewhere about roses and sweetness being my weakness. <timmy_mallet>Ah-yeah!<timmy_mallet>

• rab - Sloth
  Is it just me or is anyone else experience sloth on the part of the interwebnet today? I notice this particularly with sites hosted on t'other side of the Atlantic.
• blamelewis - Sloth
  [rab] Nope, just the usual Gluttony and Lust for me...
• Bob the dog - NS4 compatibility dandelion
  I recently put pinkhat 4.2 on a 'lobster' pc and was hoping to use Pastil or its fruitdriver cbbc on it. (I am also interested in using the orgasmatron 5.7). I tested the setup with a program consisting entirely of 'wangsnappers' and ran it thru both Pengiun and step by step complile and link using f-o-t and then Bernard Mathews 2.2. I am left with an executable which, when run produces no output. Do I need a NS4 compatibility dandelion???
• rab - Dandelion
  [Bob] No - the dandelion is a server-side, rather than a client-side, bit of horticulture.

  In the meantime I notice that it's rather quiet today. Am I the only one working? Not for long though, I hope. I'm thinking... Hmmmm be-er. Hmmmm gar-den. Hmmmm Private Eye crossword so I'll probably bugger off at 5.

• Chalky
  [BtD] Ignore rab [who simulposted]. I say yes. But watch out for CiSloops which curdle 5.6i interfaces. I found G-ripetool [the citrus version] had more centenniel compatibity.
• penelope - Work?
  Luckily I had to attend a photoshoot on the south coast today to teach someone how to do it, so was revelling (in my darkest shades and straw hat - I kid you not - with thick dark hair, my head absorbs heat like a solar panel) in sunshine and seabreezes while the rest of the company sweltered in our un-airconditioned offices. Then of course, I had to take my student out to lunch. I can recommend a shady table on the Boardwalk overlooking Port Solent with lots of iced sodas :o)
• Dunx - Relaxation
  It's Wednesday, it's half past twelve, and it's time for a nice bike ride. At least now I've the little computery doohickey to work so I know how fast I'm going and far I've been.
• Bob the dog - G-ripetool
  Chalky/rab] I can access the client-side horticulture with Chalkys G-ripetool (vv 4.3 downloaded for €1 from www.nerdnest.com). The ability to play FNKY streams was implemented, along with the ability to add pimento directories recursively in addition to individual Conan the Barbarian files. Maestro options were added to the strange-quark-cake menu, and strange-quark-cake now launches the backend process if it is unable to connect to it. Schemas with descriptions were added for the options in HRT, and a number of usability improvements in DUCK. Despite this, my pc is still cak. Am I using the wrong DUCK?
• Bob the dog
  Here's a link to www.nerdnest.com.
• Darren
  Does anyone ever post lonely hearts ads on here? Can I do it?
• Chalky - lonesome pining
  [Dear Darren] penelope expressed some interest in husband-snaffling [see above]. You may need to express your preference, though, for either chicken hutchery or pricy lingerie.
• penelope - withdrawn from sale
  [Chalky] I'm already the item of interest for a young man, although of doubtful husband material. Let's see what Darren has to say anyway!
• Darren
  Well, there doesn't seem much point if there's no-one available!
• penelope - window shopping
  [Darren] That sort of attitude won't get you anywhere. C'mon, let's see what you've got to offer!
• Bob the dog
  In honour of present company, I'm naming my chickens Penelope, flerdle and Lib (all of whom I'm pretty certain are female - please correct me if I'm wrong). Pen is the Speckledy and flerdle and Lib are both Black Rocks.
  
  Darren] I believe that other lady contibutors include Saskia and Néa – and I'm not sure about snorgle (sorry!). Add to that the many thousands who access this site and are too sensible to post and I'd say go for it ♥.
• rab - Arsebiscuits
  I had the wisdom a while back to book a train journey passing through Birmingham for today. According to the nationalrail website, the first leg of my journey will be avoiding the station I want to get on at. I tried calling Virgin to ask them what to do instead, and they put me onto the rail enquiry "helpline" who said they didn't know that that train wasn't running and what I should do instead...
• Bob the dog - National Snail
  rab] Is this the usual B'ham New Street/Moor Street/Snow Hill cock-up?
• penelope - chicken fancier
  [BtD] I am indeed honoured. And it has casued a giggle around the office :o). I bet I lay the first egg!
• Boolbar - Train Pain
  I've found in the past that if you phone a rail enquiry helpline more than once and ask the same question, you'll get different train times and fare prices.
• Boolbar - Egg Betting
  [BtD] I'm putting my virtual money on flerdle for first egg. Can we have a photo of the three lovely ladies?
• rab - Let the train cause the pain
  [BtD] Don't think so. Occasionally Virgin Trains think they can get away with not stopping at minor stations like Manchester Piccadilly. [Boolbar] I'm going to try again later. At first I wondered if I'd got one of these outsourced Indian or Taiwanese call centres, but it turned out the chap I was speaking to had a Geordie accent. I feel slightly bad about talking to him. In very simple sentences. Just to make sure. My query was understood.
• rab - Chick-chicken
  [BtD] I have met all three of your chickens' namesakes and despite not having conducted a full medical examination, can assert with reasonable probability that all are female.
• Dujon - Rail or derail
  What the heck are you lot complaining about - we've got a rail infrastructure that looks like it's totally *u****, even without Virgin involvement - which I suppose means I should say that it's immaculate? I guess that does not make a lot of sense unless you are half pickled - but I'm sure you will get the drift.
• rab - Rack and Ruin
  [Dujon] Whence do you hail?
• Darren - Lonely hearts

  ♥	♥	♥	♥	♥	♥	♥	♥
  ♥	Incredibly amusing male Crescenteer seeks similar, except for the male bit, for initial slightly-awkward conversation with a view to extended hugging sessions*. I'm mid-20s, in the south-east, own business, overweight. What more could you possibly want? So, if you're a female Crescenteer from anywhere who is still reading, drop me a line at the phonetic address vee em gee ess ee dee eye @ geocities.com. * If early games go well, shunting and straddling may be introduced at a later stage.						♥
  ♥	♥	♥	♥	♥	♥	♥	♥

• Darren - email
  Dammit, that shouldn't be geocities.com, but msn.com. (Treat this as an intelligence test!)
• rab - Commercial venture
  Did I tell you it's 36p per word + VAT + P&P ?
• Chalky - not a bloke
  [BtD] I'm a girly. And I'm sure that snorgle will confirm that she is. There's a lot of it about.
• Boolbar - I can name that chicken in three clucks!
  [BtD] You'll have to get more hens to keep up with all these girlies.
• penelope - commercial vulture
  [rab] yohard-hearted so-and-so - it should be a free service! Wouldn't you like to be shopping for a new hat (a la Cilla) to wear at the first Mornington Wedding?
• penelope - oops
  sp/yo/you space*
• DrQu+xum - Gaah?
  What's next? Who Wants To Marry A Crescenter?
• Bob the dog - The Bantam Page
  I'll do what I can for chicken photos - may take a day or so because I'm an analogue camera user. In the meantime the first egg sweepstakes are:
  Penelope: Penelope
  flerdle: Boolbar
  Lib:None as yet. br>
  Disclaimer. Eggs may be delayed by a few weeks due to youth of chickens (18 weeks) and/or method of husbandry (as natural as possible). And Bob the dog will not bear the responsibility for any gambling debts.
• flerdle - Hmmmm
  I think I'm honoured.... All the best with the chooks, BtD. I think I would really need to be an Australorp though. But I suppose a Black Rock is ok...
• CdM
  [rab] Should you rename this "The Bantam Page"??
• rab - Eggy
  [Bob] Stick my name on Lib's egg. I'm sure she'll be thrilled :)

  [penelope] That's what I need the money for, of course.

  In actual fact I have considered setting up a totally free dating site, as it does seem rather mercenary for one to profit from other people's loneliness (or, indeed, vice versa). However there are two unresolved difficulties. Firstly: how do you filter people so that those who sign up are reasonably serious, responsible and have sufficient wit to woo and intelligence to recognise a parking meter when it slaps them across the forehead? I wondered whether to have some sort of off-the-wall questionaire where it's not so much the answers given that determine whether you are accepted into the fold or not, but whether you even attempt to answer them. I'm not sure I'd have the wherewithall to design such a thing. Secondly, and perhaps more seriously, I wouldn't wish to be held responsible if things went wrong...

• Bob the dog - flerdle chook
  Thanks rab - any one else wishing to place a bet?
  
  flerdle] With the fear that I may be misinterpreted again, the Black Rock is a very attractive bird (better - in my opinion - than the Australorp). As you will see when the photos arrive.
• Projoy - Lonely Tarts Club
  I feel this could be the chance to indulge in a nice Blind Date-themed game. Not exactly how sure it should work, but perhaps it could end up, like a Shakespeare comedy, by pairing up all extraneous Crescenters each with their ideal partner (Blob with Raak, CdM with st d and so on).
• Bob the dog - Hearty loons
  I had a similar idea. Players submit Lonely Hearts ads under a pseudonym and other have to guess their online identities.
• Bob the dog
  other/others
• Bob the dog
  and now that York is truly gone (sob) couldn't we add a few more games?
• rab - New games
  There's been a spare slot at Orange for a couple of weeks now - can't see any reason to open the floodgates.
• Blob - Madeira / !York
  If !York is caput - any chance of at least resurrecting the Encyclopaedia Morningtonia on one of the surviving sites ? I believe fairly recent tarballs exist, do they not ?
• rab - Buzz
  As may be apparant from some of the foregoing, I'm off away shortly to catch a train. Maybe it's the one I'm booked to travel on, maybe not. One part of the National Rail website says the intended train is not calling at Manchester; another part says it has already reached Preston and is heading towards Manchester as planned (which I find hard to believe - it would be about 30minutes early in that case...). The upshot of this is that although I expect to be near a phoneline over the weekend, or possibly even a broadband antelope, I might not be on hand to apply lint to grazed knees and the like.
• rab - En-cyclops
  I have a grand plan - maybe I'll start work on it at the weekend - to code up some sort of collaborative web-based encyclopaedic buzzard (a bit like a wikipedia, or h2g2, but not, cos that's not the point) into which Morningtonia would fit quite nicely, and be updated by the community. Good idea? (ETA 3062)
• Bob the dog - wikipedia
  The NS4 compatibility dandelion or Chalkys G-ripetool should do the trick ;o)
• Boolbar - BillowBap Reminder
  Don't forget to use Snudgen Inserts, or the eng-wardrobe will be left open to SNAX.
• Dunx - Yorkishness
  [BtD] rab speaks truth, as ever. [Blob] Publishing !York's archives is one thing on my list to do. It might happen alongside the account stuff I was wibbling about earlier on.
• Lib - Not killed anyone yet....
  [BtD] Thanks for naming the chick after me (and we're both shropshire lasses, so is kinda nice!), its the nicest thing anyone has done for me today. (Have decided that being a doctor is no fun!)

  [All] As well as having Encyclopedia Morningtonia here can we get some players profiles too? There's so many of you I know nothing about (not having been around for long).

  [rab] I can't get to orange (stupid random firewall) so I'd also bid for raising the game limit here (especially as the cryptic discussion is not really a game, as such).

  [Darren] Nice advert. Shame I'm not really eligible!

• Projoy - Delphic Utterances
  Now might also be a good time to mention, in an "I-can't-do-anything-to-help-but-I'm-going-to-bleat-about-it-anyway" sort of a way, that I don't believe there is yet a solution for what will happen to the Delphi archive, with the result we may lose a bit of our history.
• Dunx
  [Projoy] I can't help with the Delphi archive because I do not have a copy.
• CdM - you mean this doesn't help, Lib?
  profiles
• DrQu+xum - Player profiles from PantsMC
  http://www.geocities.com/pantsmcprofiles/profiles.html
• Dujon - Aunty Pode
  [rab] If flerdle's comment about 'chooks' is any indication, I'm with her, but about 700 miles further south if her profile is accurate in respect of geography. To give a straight answer - near Sydney, Australia.
• rab - Arrival
  Wow - I made it. Don't know how, given that the first leg of the journey was off, and the carriage I was booked on was missing from the second leg of the journey. My hostess pointed at a computer last night and said "broadband" which I've taken as an invitation to use it. It's quite fast (first experience of the same) tho' XP is horrible.

  [Lib] Maybe that can be arranged.

  [Dujon] I've never experienced any kind of antipodean transportation contrivance, so I shall shut up :)

• rab - IE on XP
  So can anyone explain to me how it is that the world's richest and most powerful software company which produces what I understand to be the market leading in web browsers can't get transparant PNGs to display properly? I'll have to see if I can tweak the graphics to sort this situation out. But really...
• rab
  s/leading/leader/.
• Bob the dog - Chicken update
  Day 3. No eggs yet. Chickens beginning to explore their new home although still reluctant to use their ramp and had to be forcibly evicted this morning. Penelope has the most adventurous spirit and eats everything you give her, flerdle is the gentlest, yet seems to be top of the pecking order and is respected by the other two. Lib is the naughty one. Likes to steal food. All enjoyed a good dust-bath yesterday evening.
• rab - Dee Twintysivin
  [BtD] Set up a live video stream and it'll be just like Big Brother - only more interesting.
• penelope - chick-watch
  Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. *brushes dust out of hair*
• Boolbar - Great Hentertainment
  If they don't want to use their ramp, do you have to put them to bed as well?
• CdM - *worries about flerdle*
  A little bit of logical analysis reveals the following:
  1. Penelope eats everything you give her.
  B. Lib steals food.
  I conclude, therefore, that Lib must be stealing this food from flerdle. This conjecture is reinforced by the information that flerdle is the gentle one. What use is respect, if she is going to end up starving to death?
• Inkspot - buckets of tea
  I enjoyed the banter on cryptic croswords, as I am one of the worlds most dense when it comes to working them out. So it was useful reading all your hints on definitions and clues. Since last Friday whilst on Broad Haven beach, I've dabbled and its been most rewarding, although not getting anywhere completing any I feel happy with my 5 or 6 words. The cryptic game is a great idea, some of the answers are beyond me even with the explanation, just put it down to too many years of 'quick' crosswords.
  Which brings me to Celebdaq I go away for the best part of a week with no acess to my pc and I end up on top... makes note to go on leave again and pencils in last two weeks of August.
  BtD]We're having a barbie on Sunday, is it too late to put an order in for a couple of drumsticks?
• Bob the dog
  Inkspot] No such cluck. But I know a really good organic and free-range farm you could try.
• rab - Cryticians
  [Inkspot] Keep going with those cryptics: getting started is always the hardest part. Once you've got a few letters - especially initial letters - then more will follow.
• flerdle - *peep*
  [Dujon] Yes, I'm up here, where it's nice and warm, a bit cloudy (oh, and dark, being night time and all). We really should organise an antipodean not-pilg in the next few months - there's at least 5 of us around the place. Sydney is quite central...

  Hmmm, I'm hungry... *wanders off in search of munchies*

• Raak - Strailian geography
  [flerdle] Wouldn't Alice Springs be more central?
• flerdle - Out in the middle of bl**dy nowhere, mate
  [Raak] The population of Australia is distributed like a thin smear of vegemite along the east and south-east coast. And since I'm in Brisso, Dujon and Kathryn are in Sydney, PaulWay is in Canberra, and I am under the impression, from "Advice" on MCiOS that there is a RavenBlack somewhere around here - but I may be wrong about that - Sydney would be the place to meet. Howaboutit?
• Blob - Marmite
  And very thin marmite vegemite it is too - (have a look at this table).
  That's taken from the rather excellent Wikipedia
• flerdle - It's even worse than you thought...
  And only 1% of the area of Australia has 84% of the population in it, according to this.
• Blob - .... and ...
  And 61% of the population lives in just the big five cities - which must account for a tiny percentage of the national area.
• snorgle - sex and chickens
  I am, indeed, female. I also do not have a hen named after me. I will survive.
• Bob the dog - making up
  snorgle] I am sorry - I've only got three chickens. However, if one goes broody, I'll be getting some fertile eggs for it to sit on and will keep at least 1 female progeny. Your name will be first on the list.
  
  Day 4: They've learnt how to use the chicken ramp. Penelope made a bid for escape but was easily coaxed back with some parsley. The henhouse-mates are getting on well so it is unlikley that any will be put up for eviction. The sweepstake for the first egg is still open, so far it is:
  Penelope: Penelope
  flerdle: Boolbar
  Lib: rab
• snorgle - chickens
  Ok, I'll vote for flerdle. If she's the top of the pecking order, maybe she'll lay first. I don't know much about hens - do they normally lay unfertilised eggs every day, or every few days?
  BTW - my last apropos brought up some interesting google hits..
• Nik - Big Clucker 2003
  It's like some mad Big Brother inversion. When will the humans for the chickens to look after be arriving?
• Bob the dog - This is Big Clucker
  Nik] I'm already here! snorgle] Number of eggs depends on variety of chicken. Black Rocks and Speckledys lay about 280 (unfertilised) eggs per year, so I'll have about 16 eggs a week over the next three years. Black Rocks lay particularly high quality eggs and as the hens are being reared out doors on grass and natural feed (no egg colourant) I'm hoping the yolks will be bright orange rather than mass produced anaemic yellow. The most fantastic sponge cake I've ever tasted was baked with eggs from a friends farm and it was a wonderful golden colour because of the quality of the eggs.
• Blob - Teach my grandmother to lay eggs ...
  [BtD] If they're on grass do make sure they have access to plenty of grit somewhere, or else their eggs will have brittle and/or thin shells and may well smash "on delivery" so to speak.
• Breadmaster - Poulty husbandry
  We used to have chickens until foxes ripped them to shreds. They would each lay an egg a day until we were so sick of eggs we didn't know what to do with them. I remember that on one occasion one of them didn't eat enough grit, and it produced eggs that weren't brittle so much as wobbly. Truly revolting, and a splendid thing to view at an impressionable age.
• Blob - Wibbly wobbly ?
  [Bm] Please do define "wobbly".
• Bob the dog - True grit
  Blob/Breadmaster] Thanks, job done. They've got oyster shell (for calcium - shell strength) and grit which helps digestion (it grinds their food up. They also get a supplement of layers pellets containing calcium too. I've been reading an 18th Century book on animal husbandry and they used to bake and grind up eggshell and feed it back to the chickens. I’m fairly sure that this is now against the law (fear over build-up of pathogens and salmonella being possible reasons for this). The book (Cottage Economy by William Corbett) is full of grand ideas such as harvesting nettles and drying them for winter feed. Nettles are stacked with nutrients and we’ve got plenty of them so I’m going to try that one. As for foxes, I'm pretty sure these chickens are safe - hedgehogs may be more of a threat (they eat alive anything they catch). The run is enclosed, our garden has a 6 foot fence (usually adequate to ensure fox exclusion on its' own) and although the chicks are thick, they have learned to go in to their house at night. I've designed it so that the run is raised to cover the pop-hole, keeping them secure.
  Still no eggs by the way. Chicken photos with Boolbar for uploading (I have no website).
• rab - Chick-o-vision
  We want WebCams!
• penelope - You can be sure of Shell
  I have friends who have kept chickens for years and have always baked the shells to add as grit. I think it's only illegal if you're taking part in a commercial enterprise - ie selling the eggs, in which case you have to have them salmonella-tested anyway. I doubt any salmonella bacterium would survive the heat and desiccation of baking. But in the general view that cannibalism is a bad thing, I think you're better off not doing it. And 'define wobbly'? Well, I've seen an egg like this... it is egg-shaped, but instead of shell there's just a thick membrane - imagine a balloon full of water but not-quite-fully extended. Tasted fine though.
• flerdle - It had to be said....
  Euwwww!
• Blob - wobbly bobbly
  Aha - a sort-of shellless egg. I see. Yughk. Though excellent for water-bomb (o.k. egg-bomb) fights ! Ha ha ! The yolk's on you !
• Dujon - Thin skinned
  Funny that this subject should rear it's head. I boiled an egg the other night - in the fond hope of having a curried egg sandwich - and deliberately boiled it for 6 minutes. I had not eaten for around 48 hours and was quite looking forward to the feast. I left it in cool water for a couple of minutes, which is my usual ploy to avoid blistered fingers, and then grabbed it with the intent of stripping the thing naked. Now, I was half tickled at the time, but, when it simply collapsed in my hand in an approximation of the childrens' goo stuff that one sees advertised, I threw it in the general direction of the compost bin. Luckily my aim was straight (not bad from 6 feet into a 4" x 4" container). My wife was not impressed! I now have to search my locality to find someone who grows roses which I can nick. So, BTD, I look forward to your contributions on chicken (whoops, sorry, flerdle, chook) husbandry. I'd love to have a few banging around in the back yard but I suspect that, apart from local council regulations, my two cats might just have a say in that.
• flerdle - And again
  EUWWWWW!
• Boolbar - Lovely birds.
  [BtD] I am unable to upload photos at work, but will do so tonight.
• Bob the dog - Dujon mustard
  Dujon]:o) What rotten cluck! I'll be very happy to supply you with fresh eggs if I ever make it down-under or if someone invents a way of sending food as email attachments.
  Cats are an endangered species here in Warwickshire. I witnessed a Buzzard attack on our own cat a year or so ago. The local Buzzard population is booming and There are reports in local papers of missing or mauled moggies. The chickens, however are safe. I hope. I think.
  Boolbar] Yipee! And thank you.
• Bob the dog - Safe chickens
  They may be safe, but I'll have to be careful.
• Blob - Being buzzed ...
  [BtD] Where abouts in Warks ? I used to live on the Staffs / Warks border, and spent many a happy day driving around the county.
  We've started to get buzzards occasionally in & around Tring - (whereas I'd not seen one there for the previous fifteen years). I also saw a kite (of the feathered variety) fly over our house last year - I think it was just on a recky mission coz. I've not seen one since. But they're certainly spreading their territory from the Stokenchurch area northwards - loads round Thame now.
• Boolbar - The Birds
  [BtD] I like the picture caption at the top of that report :"The cyclist is planning to protect herself from attacks". Looking at the picture I assume that the cyclist is planning to disguise herself as a buzzard.
• evil_edna - Who put the red in Celebdaq? err... no, that doesn't work... whatever
  *finds all sorts of interesting things crawling around on the trading floor* OMG - I had completely forgotten I was supposed to be making money.
• evil_edna - absent mindedness
  *cackle*
• penelope - elevation, elevation, elevation
  You remember I told you my colleague was leaving? The boss and I just went out for lunch and a chat. We're restructuring... I get to be manager, get a pay rise etc etc...YAY!!!!
• Boolbar - Yey!!
  [pen] First you get a hen named after you, and now this. Yey!
• Lib - promoting
  [pen] Yay! That's excellent. Well done. Hope its a significant one!
• penelope - modesty...
  [Lib] 'Kin 'ell. I've only just thought about that. It's 20%!!!
• Bob the dog - Pen buys the next round
  Yay! Well done! However, your namesake hasn't layed an egg yet.
• penelope - egg-nog , anyone?
  I'll admit I'm chuffed to bits. What's more, I may just be able to flog my tent (sleeps four, dark green tunnel tent, used once) to my soon-to-be-ex colleague who has snatched not only a hot-air balloon ride in the Northampton Balloon Festival on Friday, but also a last-minute ticket to the Stafford V Festival this weekend. Jammy sandwiches, virtual beers, Pimms and shandies all round. Unfortunately, unless BobTD starts squeezing chickens' heads, there's no egg-nog.
• Dunx - Yay!
  [pen] Congrats!
• Breadmaster - Defining wobbly
  Yes, what Penelope said. I can't believe she actually ate the thing though. [BtD] Nettles are great. They're terribly healthy. The Victorians would sell them at market as a vegetable. I used to pick and eat them frequently, partly for my obsessive healthy eating drive and partly because I was incredibly poor. You have to pick them as they are growing, not when they're old and raggedy late in the season, and you pick just the top four leaves. This means that you have to pick an awful lot to get a decent quantity. Then the best thing to do with them is steam them. They cook extremely quickly. You might think you would have to cook them for ages to kill the sting, but in fact the sting goes almost instantly, so you can treat them essentially as spinach. They taste similar but with a pleasant velvety sort of texture.
• Chalky - joining in the back-slapping and hoping for a pimms
  Superb skills penelope. Sounds as though the promotion is well deserved. Hope the new responsibilities won't gobble up your 'online chief crescentess' time, though.
• rab - Whoops!
  Forgot to add my congratulations. Well done, pen. [Chalky] I thought one of the management skills is "delegation" which, as I understand it, could be used to free up plenty of time for the same.
• Dunx - Delegates
  [rab] Better that than delegating someone else to play, certainly.
• Dunx - Orangeless
  Cross-posting of course, but a note for Orange MC players - the server which hosts Orange will be down for repairs at some time between 4:30pm and 7:30pm ET today (that's 21:30-00:30 BST). The outage should be for 20-60 minutes, and is to replace a broken CPU. Hopefully Orange will be a bit less sluggish afterwards, too.
• Dunx - Re: Orangeless
  It's back. Not that it went away for long in the end.
• penelope - A delegation of minions
  [rab] Good point about delegating - and delegating someone to make moves on my behalf (especially in MC where you know my skills don't shine) has given me an idea. I'm going to be involved in the interviewing for the underling position(s) [tbc], so maybe I could ask the applicants to make a move in one of the games here, then you can all judge whether they deserve the job or not!! Whaddya think guys???!!! Do I have the skills to be a manager or not, eh? :o)
• Projoy - Filet Minions
  Have a care before introducing professional colleagues to MC before you know them well. For one thing it gets harder to post cross rants about the bastards in the office in the Advice game.
• rab - Filet-o-Fish
  [pen] I suggest a game of 'Straight face'.
• penelope - pokered
  [rab] Straight face? I guess it means anything but, but would you explain? :o)
• Boolbar - Delegat-hen
  [pen] Get BtD to stick a tube map in the hen-house. When pen-the-hen pecks at a station, that's your move!
  [BtD] Did you get my email(s)? Hen pics are online!
• rab - Beef swellington
  [pen] On the contrary. The aim of the game is to maintain a straight face while your opponent says things to bring this state of affairs to en end.

  Meanwhile I'm trying to cancel my contract with the Carphone Warehouse. If I have to listen to Connected being played down a tinny old phone one more time...

• rab - Henpics
  [Bb] url?
• rab - Me again!
  It's amazing how long it takes for a salesperson to realise that the reason you want to buy something from elsewhere is that their opponents give a better deal and nothing they can offer matches up...
• Boolbar - url
  BtD is somewhat busy - so using some left over bits of HTML and sticky backed plastic, may I present . . . Big Clucker!
• Boolbar - Geoshity
  Ignore those pesky errors that pop-up. Geocities is the only upload place I can access at work - and they bung their own code on top.
• Chalky - chick flicks
  [Boolbar] No pesky errors when I looked. Just three surprisingly pretty hens in a very clean place. Penelope's obviously a heart breaker, Flerdle looks mischievous and Lib rather enigmatic. So now we've had the individual mugshots, how about panning back so we can view the whole Big Clucker House and its environs?
• Chalky - slipping up a bit
  [Boolbar] Sorry, I realised after I posted that you are the technical chief who enables the picture viewing. My camera positioning instructions should have been directed at Bob the Dog, the producer of the show.
• Bob the dog - Long distance chickcheck
  Chalky] Acknowledged. As Boolbar says, I'm not at home at the moment, but I will try to upload a floor plan and more photos. Saskia is looking after the chickens while I'm away, she says they are being very good girls. No eggs yet. I'm not worried about the lack of eggs because the chooks are still very young and need to settle in a bit more. However, Penelope is looking particularly perky and her wattle appears to be turning red. Whatever that means.
• penelope - wattling daubs
  I know *exactly* what it means but I'm darned if I'm telling you.
• blamelewis - a toast
  [pen] Many congrats, both on your chicken namesaking and the promotion. I suggest you ask prospective employees one of two questions. 1) Would they straddle or strile in a half closed farkle situation if blue tokens were wild?, and 2) What's a good rhyme for "chihuahua"?
• Boolbar
  [blamelewis] Ah, the old trick question! [Hidden Text]You can't have a half closed farkle situation when blue tokens are wild, unless the blue tokens became wild after the half closed farkle situation arose. In this second case both straddles and striles are impossible until the farkle is fully closed. See Ackerman's thesis on half-closed farkles, a good bed-time read.[/Hidden Text]
• Bob the dog
  F*ck. I would have fallen for that one.
• Bob the dog - Cickcheck
  Day 9: Flerdle has grown in my absence and is now bigger than Penelope. Lib and Pen are probably about the same size now. Chickens were freaked out by a glider that went over our house, Pen making a dash for cover whilst Lib and flerdle tilted their heads this way and that in an endearingly quizzical fashion. All chicken eating well, they seem to like carrot - fed them the dried head of a sunflower yesterday - but they didn't really get the hang of it and the seeds had to be pulled out for them. At about nine o'clock, they tramped up their little ramp and waited for me to lock the pop-hole. They are such good girls!
  Day 10: Still no eggs. Estimated (with help of a calendar) that first egg may appear on 26th August (Day 21), although a friend of mine suggests that they won’t really get going until mid Sept. I am very busy at the moment, but I will try and draw up a plan of living quarters and maybe upload it to a Big Clucker website (which for me is a big step, never having done anything more adventurous with HTML than this!) Looking for reasonably priced no-ad site host. Any suggestions?
• Boolbar - chuckyweb
  There are several sites like this one which try to recommend free site hosts. As they say, free sites usually come with little or no help and most have annoying adverts/pop-ups. I've used Vispa for 2 years now and have had no problems (except in the first week when they were down for a day). Their on-line help was adequate for my needs. There must be many other free ad-free site hosts out there, some of which may allow you to have your own webby addy (like www.bigclucker.com instead of www.bigclucker.isphostname.com).
• Boolbar - Slooooowwww....
  BTW, is it generally half-slow on the internet today - I can't get into MCiOS or eBay (due to timeouts) but this site is speedy.
• Boolbar
  . . . and no sooner do I type that, when MCiOS springs back into view. eBay is still way too slow though.
• Boolbar - Again!
  Ebay is now OK. Hmmm, it seems the moment I post something here, it ceases to be true.
  Gosh, I am lacking in money.
• flerdle - living on air
  Glad flerdle is doing so well. Have been at home sick for last two days, able to do a little work remotely, but generally bleurgh. *totters back to bed for a while*
• penelope - sickbay
  *sends flerdle a mug of virtual hot chocolate and best wishes for a speedy recovery*
• Thos - Hennery
  It seems to me that after all this chicken related discussion, this should be renamed the Bantam Page!
• rab - Eggstraordinary
  [Thos] Much as I hate to break it to you...
• Thos - crack'd
  [Rab] How complimentary to have one's ideas confirmed as good ones prior to having them!
• Nik - Reasonable, ad-free hosting
  [BtD] I think I could probably be persuaded quite easily.
• Nik
  Although image-heavy pages (like the one blob presented) would probably kill my connection quite quickly, so somewhere with more bandwidth might be better.
• DrQu+xum - Bantam?
  [Thos, rab] "Sorry, old man, we don't understand your bantam!"
• Dujon - Blowing trumpets
  For the second time, Dujon has hit the high point of Celbdaq - don't worry, fans, at 0600 BST this will change. Disappears back into left field chanting "percentages, money, percentages ..."
• Bob the dog
  Have made a surprising discovery. Chickens love grapes. And porridge. Not mixed.
• flerdle - oooooh, hot chocolate!
  [pen] Thanks, much appreciated. Am still not well, and not particularly enheartened by a visitor yesterday saying "Oh, I had that for six weeks" :-o

  But that didn't stop me from going to the football today (my second AFL match, and why complain when someone shouts you? Just rug up warm); hopefully some really nice photos... telephoto gooooooood.

• penelope - Few words
  Sorry folks. Mini Cheddars. Bit confused. Two words? Really, penelope. Wrong game!
• rab - Oof!
  I've been kneecapped!
• Chalky - Chopping
  [rab] You and several others by the looks of it. Bravo all. I'm finding it tough to make any headway this time round, but I'm not bitter . . .
• flerdle - But what about the chooks?
  Ooooh, strawberries have started to come into season here! Yay!!!
  [penelope] I don't see the problem there. Oh, and your hot chocolate remedy works a treat.
• Uncle Korky - I'm back!
  ...and looking forward to regular posting!
• Nik - Advance notice
  I've just ordered new disks, one of which is for the web server. At the same time as moving to a new disk, I'll be taking the opportunity to upgrade to newer versions of the OS and web server.

  This is the first of 3 or 4 planned outages during the remainder of this year, and will incur the largest downtime - I hope to keep it under 24 hours but promise nothing. If anyone has a problem with the machine being down on a particular day this week, let me know, either here, or by email to an address that should be fairly obvious. If I don't forget entirely, I'll point out the cause for outage at MCiOS and/or Orange at the time.

  As an aside, the other planned upgrades are: a UPS, more RAM, and yet another disk.

  On another note entirely; Rab - it's really quite annoying that the HTML checker insists on apostrophe pairs inside title="". Still, I guess that's what &apos; is for; I'm giving up my contractions for nothing or no-one. Nothing or no-one!

• rab - Indeed
  [Nik] Point taken - I'll have a look at the HTML checker and see if I can get it doing something more sensible viz the quotes. Will you be upgrading MySQL too? Not that - I think - I need any of the features of the newer version when I finally upgrade, but just curious.
• rab - Also...
  [Nik] Obviously if you drop me a line indicating when it'll go down, I'll arrange for a backup to be made of the game data at that point. I'm away for the bank holiday weekend, but with sufficient warning can set up a cron job to do the business, so it's irrelevant really.
• Nik - Calm down!
  What are you saying, like? Don't trust me to not destroy all the data, like? Eh? Eh? A benefit of switching disks and installing fresh is that the current disk won't be modified at all during the process, so data should be safe, although I'll be dumping /etc, /home, /var and /usr to CD anyway (a slightly neater variation of which will become a weekly backup to CDRW). I might go to Apache 2 and Mysql 4; I'll have a look at their feature lists and see if it's worth the risk.
• DrQu+xum - Just A Minute - 2003-Aug-11
  In a complete change of subject, did anyone catch last week's Just A Minute? What the hell were they saying about celebrity colonic irrigations?
• Dunx - JAM Last Week
  [Dr Q] Which bit? "I'm A Celebrity, Get It Out Of Here"?
• rab - Getting Nik's back up
  [Nik] Well - I didn't anticipate any loss of data but I never thought having too many backups was ever a problem! I'm using MySQL 4.0.12 here without difficulties. The main bonus is subqueries (not that I use these at the moment) but there is a slight difference in the way certain priveliges work, so you might find yourself saddled with some additional admin overhead if you were to upgrade. I know nothing of apache 2 - last I heard it was "experimental" which I understand to be a euphemism for "best avoided".
• Chalky - Toxic celebs
  [DrQ] The JAM reference: IIRC, around the time of the Aussie Jungle Japes, a group of D list celebs 'volunteered' [paid obscene amounts of money] to go abroad for a filmed Celebrity Detox Week [Ch4?]. Along with most of the viewing nation, I didn't watch it but in an effort to generate interest, the red top coverage glorified in the contents of alleged celebs bowels after CI. I'm told it was a load of sh*te and believe none of them have worked since.
• Nik - Ding! Dong!
  The disks is here! Expect angrycake.com to fall off the world in approximately not too long.
• rab - *pulls the big red shutdown lever*
  Right I'll close the games so as not to confuse everyone...
• ACME Maintenance Squad - *yanks big red lever*
  *big red lever clatters to floor*

  *ACME Maintenance Squad drives off faster than you can say 'Spare any change?'*

• Mr FIXIT - *proffers new red lever*
  What cowboy did this, eh? Me you say??
• rab - Good to be back
  As you can see I've tightened a few screws here and there. If you notice any bugs, tell me.
• DrQu+xum - Woo-hoo!
  Our long international nightmare is over -- MC5 is back! Well done, rab & Nik.
• DrQu+xum - Minor layout bug
  [rab] See Mini Cheddars for an example -- the last word before an <hr> gets right-shifted.
• rab - Oh
  Not on my browser it doesn't... probably just a small tweakette required somewhere. ETF March 37th 2008.
• rab - grrr
  It was justified text wot woz doing it. Now disabled which is a shame cos where it worked I quite liked it.
• Uncle Korky - Jubilation
  Welcome back, Rab!
• Boolbar
  It's back! It's new improved bluey whiteness! Horrah!
• DrQu+xum - Layout bug
  It was doing it on mine (Mozilla Firebird 0.6/Linux), which turned out to be a pain because I'm running it at 1600x1200 with small fonts, which required me to shift my eyes a relatively long distance....
• Dunx - Aye, Cone
  [rab] Nice new look - particularly fond of the "Stance" heading (Len Ganley, anyone?). I'm afraid I find the icons a little murky, though... there doesn't seem to be enough contrast between the grey background and the ochre/blue foreground. Indeed, I cannot distinguish them at all using peripheral vision (which slows down mouse navigation). Maybe this looks better on your PowerBook LCD, but on my PC CRT it looks grey and blobby (haven't connected my iBook to the net for four days, so don't know how it looks there).
• Bob the dog - Bluey whiteness
  Yea! Its back and its prettier! Well done all concerned.
  
  Current score:
  Penelope: 3 eggs
  flerdle: 1 egg
  Lib: 1 egg
  
  What a fantastic start there from Penelope.
• flerdle - hmmmm
  I actually find this font slower to read. Just so you know.
• flerdle - ooooh
  It seems to look different at work... hmmmm
• rab - Hokey-cokey
  [Dunx] I agree with you about the murkiness of the icons. They were designed in a dark room on an LCD display, and I'm looking at them on a CRT right now. I might apply some transformations to them later.

  [flerdle] I used to use your browser default font, but now have requested a sans-serif one. In principle you can override it, but in practice it might be more sensible to go back to the browser default.

  [all] Keep your opinions rolling in.

• blamelewis - New look
  Love the refit - although I agree with Dunx that the buttons are murky. But a really nice feel to the site now.
• Dunx
  [rab] Well, the buttons look better on my iBook screen! Something I will certainly need to remember next time I do some graphic design work... there is something in the OSX settings panel somewhere to change the colour balance to match that of a CRT; don't know if that would help.
• Bob the dog - Chook update
  Penelope: 4
  flerdle: 1
  Lib: 1
  
  Go for it Penelope! (Perhaps it was the promotion wot done it).
• Boolbar - Henquiry
  How can you tell who laid which egg?
• Projoy - design
  Very nice, although the transparencies still aren't displaying properly under IE.
• rab - Transparently
  [Projoy] That's not my fault. OK, so it is my fault that I insist on using those new-fangled PNGs rather than the old-school GIFs. I think I know of a workaround, but will be fiddly to apply.
• rab - Hey! It's working!
  I'm sitting in the kitchen, with not a wire in sight, posting this. Hurrah!
• Dunx - Range
  [rab] Sounds like you get better range than I do/did. What base station are you using?
• rab - Big range in the kitchen
  [Dunx] I suspect it's because I live in a smaller house than you do :) For the record it's a LinkSys Wireless Ether-G, or similar (the one that's a four-port ethernet hub and a wireless access point). It's in the next room, I would guess about 10m, with a wall and a half in between.
• rab
  Four bars, though, even on a Titanium-clad patlop.
• Bob the dog - Titanium-clad patlop
  Would you like to borrow my NS4 compatibility dandelion for that?
• Bob the dog - Egg Identity
  Boolbar] Two ways to identify egg layers - a sensitive art!
  1. We know that a chicken is about to lay because she gets all busy looking for somewhere to go. They lay inside the chicken house ('cos they like privacy) so we see them go in. The only confusion could occur if they lay at night or if we get flerdle and Lib mixed up.
  2. Egg colour. As a chicken gets into laying, her first eggs will be small and pale. Libs, being the last to start are small and light brown and flerdles are medium and tan. Pen, being a different variety, lays speckly eggs.
• flerdle - font fickleness
  [rab] What font are you using? I wonder why it looks different at work. I've worked out what the trouble with speed of reading is - the letters in this font are quite crowded (upright strokes are close together, and overall the space between letters is small) and rounded letters like p, g, u, d are quite large, in comparison, and quite squarish, which makes them more difficult to distinguish quickly. I'm not advocating a return to serif, just noticing things about whatever it is you've chosen. I will cope.
• rab - Font affront
  [flerdle] I ask for 'sans-serif'. You may be able to change your browser's default sans-serif font. I could specify 'helvetica' which might make more sense, but I'd need to check my CSS book (which is at home) to find out how to do it properly.
• penelope - The Great Egg Race
  Lovely. I've just had me summer holidays - two days in Lincs with my Mum. I'm back home, there was a queue on the M25 and it's raining. What's worse, now I have to empty the vacuum cleaner with all the sucked-up spiders in it. :o(
• Chalky - Love nest
  [penelope] Tricky. One could imagine them all jumbled up inside the cylinder and thinking 'as we're stuck in here for a while - why not?' - then mating like fury so when you do the emptying bit, a whole new generation of spiderlets bent on evil revenge, burst forth with the taunting cry 'ner ner ne ner ner' . . .
• Boolbar
  [pen] More likely the spiders nuked it out and ate one another so now there is one single spider left - a very LARGE spider with LONG legs.
• Bob the dog - 'racnids
  Pen] Just stick 'em in a bag and send 'em to me. Chickens love spiders. And woodlice.
  Re: Font. I dunno about anyone else but I like this font more than the previous one.
• penelope - the lesser of two weevils
  [BtD] I would gladly send you all my spiders. For some reason (too embarrassig to go into here... well OK, he was a boyfriend of mine a long, long time ago), we 've always called woodlice 'jonathans'. And I have lots under all the plant pots in the garden. Can I borrow your chickens for a couple of days?
• Nik - Guess what time it is?
  Having decided to not rebuild the server again, I'll be taking it down for ten minutes later (this evening, tomorrow, never) to figure out what sort of RAM I need, and also to take out the old disk and screw the new one in. This process should be painless, requiring no software changes at all.
• rab - While I remember
  I'm going away tomorrow (Sun 31st) for just under a fortnight. I may have sporadic connectivity from there but one can't really rely on it.
• Nik
  Have a good one. I'll try not to ruin everything in the mean time.
• DrQu+xum - Celebdaq Update
  Congrats in advance to Uncle Korky for his upcoming first kneecapping.
  
  Ahnold is now over £200/share with no end in sight. Even Becks couldn't top that.
• Breadmaster - Spiders
  [penelope] But why did you suck them up in the first place? Spiders are on our side!
• penelope - Boris
  [Breadmaster] I embarked on a spider-killing spree after being dumped. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
• Dujon - Arachnids
  penelope you are CRUEL,
  I am sure that flerdle will back me up here - I get spiders in the house, in summertime mainly, which are 6" to 8" across the legs and varied in body size - some are an inch or two. Whilst I detest spiders - in fact the larger ones give me the heebie jeebies - I catch them and toss them outside. So, in future, behave yourself! "Four legs is better than two..." or was that something else? ... :-)
• flerdle - Hairy legs
  [Dujon] Sounds like you've got some Huntsmans. Huntsmen. Whatever. Greeaat big black hairy ones. I've only seen them to about 4 to 5 inches across, managed to trap one in the bathroom at a former house under a plastic container - the tok of it against the sides was fairly alarming, and spiders don't really worry me. I put it outside.

  [Dujon, again] Are you in Sydney?

• flerdle - Why I ask, is...
  Cross-posting alert to people south of the equator: See "To be a Pilgrim" here.
• snorgle - spiders
  Having Charlotte's Web read to me at a young age has led to a life-long, well, liking if not loving of spiders; so long as they're on their webs I don't really mind. We had one on the inside of our kitchen window and we put up a sign and my mother insisted on calling it Fred. A stupid lodger murdered it in an overly helpful cleaning frenzy, which also involved her throwing out numerous useful items..
• Bob the dog - It is back
  Have not been able to access this site due to very slow (interrupted) download. Anyone else had this problem?
  Dujon/flerdle] Chickens would probably love big spiders too. Would they travel well by air?
  Pen] Saskia reminded me of something I've now put in 'The Beige Allegro'. Ring any bells?
• flerdle - hrmmm
  Probably illegal to export them. You'll just have to selectively breed some over there, I think. Or send your chickens on holidays.
• Breadmaster - Eight-legged friends
  I believe that the huge hairy ones that occasionally hurtle across the living room carpet are called "Wolf Spiders". I really like them and always leave them alone, because they keep the place clean and are rather cute. It may be an urban myth, but I heard that their venom is actually poisonous enough to kill you, but their jaws are too weak to bite through your skin, so they're harmless (unless you let them bite you on a wound, of course). Could this really be true?
• Bob the dog - Wolfspiderman
  Breadmaster] I've never heard that one, but my Dad has been bitten by Wolfspiders many times. He claims it is akin to an ant bite. Congrats on your publication by the way.
• flerdle - Huuuuuuuuge
  It seems difficult to get information about the precise toxicology of the spider venom. Or I'm not looking hard enough. No matter. A factsheet about huntsman spiders is here: huntsman. I think up here we tend to call all large black spiders "huntsman" spiders. A factsheet about Australian wolf spiders is here: wolf. The legs seem quite different, and huntsman spiders seem to be larger.
• Nik
  Why can I never prevent myself looking at pages about spiders? I'm going to be creeped out and itchy for hours, now.
• penelope - Miss Tuffett
  There are also Harvestmen which look like spiders but aren't... they're the really skinny, ethereal- and anorexic-looking things.
• Uncle Korky
  Cheers to Dr Q with regards to my minor success in Celebdaq. Now I fully understand what happens on a kneecapping. Call me naive, but I never realised that they took all of your existing shares away and you had to start form scratch again. Hmmm... well, as you can imagine, that was a bit of a surprise... On the up-side, I've now got a lovely green wad next to my name. On the downside, I had oodles of Arnie...
• Darren
  When I got kneecapped the first time, I got instantly bored and stopped doing anything on Celebdaq. But that's just me.
• snorgle - celebdaq
  I am number one, I am number one, I am number one..(again). I would like to thank Mick Jagger and Stella McCartney for aiding me, (and others for getting kneecapped.) MWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
• flerdle - *peep*
  We want more chicken photos!
• Bob the dog - Chickflicks and goodbooze
  fl] Sorry - I have been very busy recently + I still use non-digital technology. Will do what I can. Just to say that the Chickens are thriving, lots of eggs (gorgeous yellow yolks). flerdle made a bid for freedom recently in desperation as she attempted to get at her porridge. When the garden vegetables have stopped and I've dug the ground (late September) I will let the chickens have completely free-range. They will dine on slugs eggs, centipedes, leatherjackets and other destructive pests, fertilising the ground as they go.
  Continuing in the Good-Life tradition, I recently tried brewing Honey Beer to an C18 recipe (the chickens ate the mashed hops). It has a 2nd fermentation in the bottle and so every so often there is an explosion in the pantry as a cork pops out. This is no bad thing as I can have a little sip to see how it is progressing. My God it is strong. It is almost revolting, but oddly, once tasted it leaves you wanting more. Probably needs time. Has anyone got any recipes I can use it in if it turns out to be crap?
• penelope - Honey Beer Gone Wrong
  [BtD] I understand that once gone wrong, Honey Beer makes an excellent nappy soaker, paint stripper and fingerprint remover (that's removing fingerprints from your fingers, not from surfaces). I'd wear marigolds if I was you.
• DrQu+xum - celebdaq
  I'm still rolling along on the Ahnold bandwagon...right along side the Madonna/Britney Dividend Express. :)
• rab - Calling in from Ambleside
  This is some really weird font here. Me no understand. Must sort out my CSS on the return. The school is going well but I need to return to listen to a guy from Sunderland explain density functional theory. More dispatches later. ttfn, rab.
• Dunx - Chickens
  [Btd] Our neighbour has decided to install some chickens, too. He was banging and sawing pretty much continuously last weekend (while we were unboxing all our gear) and now there are gentle warbly chicken noises coming from his garden. No rooster, fortunately.
• snorgle - chick-chicks
  Isn't it odd your neighbour didn't mention it before? "Oh, by the way, I'm getting chickens too!" I don't know, it just seems slightly odd to me.
• flerdle - bok bok bok
  [rab] See! See! Not just me
  [snorgle] You'll find it was Bob the dog who's Chicken Man.
  I currently live in what would be classed as "inner city" (20min walk to the middle of the CBD), but it's quite low density still - blocks of units, but many individual houses. We really only have one person-neighbour (going anticlockwise: church, multistorey carpark, cliff and shop, more shops, neighbour in large house). Some friends have kept chooks (complete with renovated gardens for same), and I did hear about someone with a sheep, up in the hill just a little over. They used to take it for walks, on a leash.
• Dunx
  [snorgle] Not really - we were moving in while the chicken coop was being built, so I suspect the decision must have been made a good while before we could ever have met the neighbours concerned.
• Uncle Korky
  We seem to have lost Thraxwhirl from the realms of the Celebdaq league...
• Boolbar - f**k-a-doodle-do
  [Roosters] One of my lovely neighbours has roosters, introduced a couple of years after we moved in. His attitude is "if you don't like it, move" but said in a more unpolite way.
• flerdle - bleary mornings
  [Boolbar] Gun with silencer?
• Boolbar
  [flerdle] That's a good idea. But what about the roosters?
• snorgle - Dunx - chickens
  whoops! I wasn't paying attention, and I'm awful at names - I often have to read back in books to check who is who again. We get quite a lot of horses running wild near me as there is a traveller site not far away. The local paper ran an article where a Belfast man now living in the area said he wanted to move back to the Garvaghey Road in Belfast as he felt it was safer, because his garden was constantly invaded by wild horses. Bit of an over-reaction, if you ask me. He said the police wouldn't help once they were on his property. I can't help but wonder if reporting the horses to a horse welfare society might be more likely to get a reply. He could say that they were in danger, and not just from him! (they do gallop all over the roads..).
• Bob the dog - Rooster booster
  I have noticed that the gentle warbly chicken noises you get from hens has an oddly soporific effect. I have considered recording it to sell as a new-age aid to meditation…(Page goes all shimmery)
  Are you stressed, anxious or hyper-tense? Why not try Bob the dog’s natural free-range homeopatic massage emporium! Yes! You too can experience deep massage set to the natural sound of real organic chickens. And for that full holistic experience, why not try the gentle scouring action of a detox colonic irrigation using the purest natural Honey Beer? Guaranteed to remove lethargy. Guaranteed to remove sensation.
• Chalky - honeytrap
  Oh dear . . . every time the phrase 'Honey Beer' pops up on this page, I can't help but think of a porn star [y'know - add the name of your first pet to your mother's maiden ... etc etc].
• penelope - Top Billing
  [Chalky] Dusty Jaines. eeeek
  Best girl's name ever come across in the course of my work (according to a male colleague...) Stella Foster
• Dujon - Comotose
  [BtD] I'm with you, my friend. I do not have the pleasure at the moment, but a quiet Sunday afternoon with blue skies and chickens/hens going about their business is a most wonderful dream. Of course, if penelope's Stella Foster was in attendance - or either of them, actually - it would make the experience even more fulfilling. ;-)
• Bob the dog - Rev Canaan Banana
  add the name of your first pet to your mother's maiden to make the name of a porn star? Mmm, I doubt that Snuffy Mander would be very popular. As for odd real names, I once heard of a Basil Crapster.
• gil - Khala Lamb
  ... hmm... not really.

  and Beryl's would be Peter Ridge, most uninteresting.

  One of my school/student friends was called Michel Joseph Thomas LeBlond de Tedesco. And he insisted on giving his full name on all official forms. I remember the Inland Revenue once sent him a post-reply form asking "Is Michel Joseph Thomas LeBlond de Tedesco one person or two?", to which he answered in the reply section "Yes." - and, strangely, they never followed it up.

• Chalky - a.k.a. Gigi Coates
  Shouldn't really draw attention [because I've been contributing] but The Facial Nightwear Game don't 'arf crack me up. I really do LOL.
• Inkspot - more wine please
  Congrats to snorgle at No1 on Celeb MC. Unfortunately snorgle I wasn't around the last two weeks, so when I get round to it there will be a small break in the tables.
• Boolbar - Ooops!
  [Inkspot] Oh yes. Someone was meant to be screen saving those tables . . . . .
• Chalky - overcooked celebs
  It's such a waste - hitting the million mark on a Tuesday - just after kneecap day and with a whole week to pick up dividends and do . . . well, nothing. Mind you, if Arnie's share price plummets unexpectedly, I could easily summon up some enthusiasm and check my portfolio - but that is unlikely, now some bozo has chucked an egg at him and he's picking up half page features in 'The Times'.
• snorgle - font
  Is it just me or has the font changed? It's gone a diet and is all squished up!
• flerdle - fount
  [snorgle] it's not just you.
• Dujon - Knowledge
  Flerdle, how are you chook?
  
  Regarding your RSVP apropos a pilge in Sydney: Regrettably I shall be unable to attend such a bacchanal - I live some 75Km west from 'The Bridge' and work 7 days a week. Should people (?) be prepared to come out here to the 'sticks' I could probably free up the odd hour or two - but it'd have to be pretty close to home base. ... :-(
• Dujon - A font by any other name ...
  I run reasonably high resolution on my monitor (1280 x 1024) and it's pretty big and 'blocky'. What it must look like on a lesser resolution I shudder to thing. (Sorry, only being constructive) ...... Heads for the coop in the fond hope that he's not laid an egg!
• Dujon - Fumbles
  'thing' s/b 'think'
• rab - Better?
  [Font] Is that better? I don't see why the IE default sans-serif font should be so grim. I assumed that not being too specific about the font would be helpful, as it would allow people an element of customisation. The trouble is it seems that (on this version of IE at least, or the way it's been set up for public use) there's no way to change the default fonts, so you're stuck with something MS thinks is kewl.

  There are two further ways that one, and only one, browser gets this totally wrong. (Can you tell which one it is yet?) Firstly it refuses to acknowledge the button backgrounds of the buttons are transparent. It also fails to put a border around the page. The latter is hardly a disgrace, but the former is very irritating. I will try and sort this out when I escape Ambleside, as well as doing the demurkation.

  Meanwhile... crikee! This is the first chance I've had to sit down and catch my breath since last Sunday evening. Each day follows quite a harsh routine, with lectures from 9 til 12.30. Then in the afternoons we run up some hills to try and prevent the three-course-meal waistlines expanding too ridiculously before another lecture and a tutorial which is the point where I field questions about subjects I last learnt about four years ago when I was a student at the very same school. After dinner there can be a talk (one of which I gave) before running to the nearest pub and downing four pints of beer.

  So today I've caught up on my sleep. Weather permitting I'll be doing a big walk tomorrow, and then it starts all over again for another week... It's fun, but I haven't been so tired since, um, about four years ago when I was a student at the very same school. (Err... we got that bit -- Ed.)

• snorgle - font
  It's back the way it was now, anyway. Nice stream of consciousness there, Rab!
• flerdle - no change, actually.
  [rab] Glad you're getting so much exercise :-)
  The text in the Name and Apropos boxes is different to that in the final display, and that in the Stance box is serif. I think I'm just going to have to live with it.

  [Dujon] What a shame. Dunno about a "baccanal" though - if we could ever get our act together, at most it would be four of us (and any surprise unknowns), and I don't drink much! It's been settled, I'm heading down thataway in the first weekend in October, but won't have a car, so I can't make it up the hill, as it were. I'm mainly going to be in Dapto visiting a friend (err... whee?). Ah, well, at least I tried. I might return to the area before January, but am really unsure about that.

• Tuj - Whatever happened to...
  !York? I have been cast into the wilderness since its unceremonious demise. Am I back on track here?
• Martha Farquar - Welcome Back Tujmeister!!!!!!
  !York went the way of the Dodi back in February. A mysterious entity named called "Mordac" is apparently going to set it up again at some point; as for now, everyone's migrated to here, Orange or MCiOS. YAMCS is also kaput

  Anyway, welcome back, and here's hoping you're back for some non-stop hot MC thrill-seeking :)

• DrQu+xum - Tuj!
  Welcome back Tuj! Hope you enjoy the new look of MC.
• Boolbar
  [rab] I'm using IE6 and the border is there, the buttons have transparent backgrounds, and the font was fine even when everyone said it wasn't.
• Boolbar
  [Tuj] Horrah! You're back!
• DrQu+xum - Celebdaq update
  Ahnold's incredible rise has tapered off, but, in his words... "I keep coming and coming; I'm coming all the time!"
  
  
• Bob the dog - Tuj!!
  Welcome back - long gap but glad you are back. This site has sort of filled the !York gap for me.
• Lib - Arty-farty
  Hello. There's probably not much point telling you about this as the exhibition finished today (sob!) but nevertheless.... On saturday I wandered to Liverpool to go to the Tate gallery there. There was an exhibition on by Janet Cardiff which was truly mindblowing. Is a little bit difficult to explain but it was an audio thing. Thomas Tallis wrote a 40 part motet (unaccmopanied song for 8 choirs of 5 voices each) and Ms Cardiff has recorded this on 40 microphones and it is played through 40 speakers at head height around the edge of the room. So you stand in the middle and get the full picture and then can wander round the room listening to each part. It is wonderful! I'm sure it'll go on to other galleries, so look out for it!
• Tuj - Well, nice to be recognised...
  Mordac... sounds Arthurian. As I regrounded here I'll probably stay, having not really got into Orange, MCiOS etc. Let the games begin!
• Watty - 40 part motet
  [Lib] Yes - I raved about this in another place back in April. I believe it's going to be at the Whitechapel Gallery, or some such, very soon, and I concur - go see it!
  [Tuj] His full name is Mordac the Preventer, and he may or may not be a figment of Simons Mith's imagination...
• Wol - Spem
  I have several times performed the Tallis in the round - that is, with the eight choirs surrounding the audience. Only then do you get the full sense of the way the music travels through the performers - sometimes working its way round the circle, sometimes bouncing back from side to side. It is a work of the most astounding technical virtuosity - the forty parts are all truly different and independent, yet the resulting complex is very, very nearly entirely free of parallel fifths (a sort of technical shibboleth in Renaissance music) (we found one once, but I can't now recall where it is!). It is said that the piece was conceived to be performed in an octagonal tower in the (long-vanished) Nonsuch Palace, with a choir in a gallery on each side of the tower. (One quibble with the Tate website's description - Spem is hardly a piece of secular music ...)
• Breadmaster - Spem, Spem, Spem, Spem...
  [Wol] Do you, like all other singers of my acquaintance, derive enormous and, for once, highly justified amusement from its name?
• Bob the dog - Spam in Aluminium
  Wol Breadmaster] I have no idea what you mean ;o) In my artstudent days I composed a piece of music for four suspended washing machine shells. I wired them up with loudspeakers and played through music composed using recorded church bells heavily distorted by volume so that they resonated as they swung. The piece was divided into four movements which progressed from shell to shell. The idea came from a play on the word cycle.
• Boolbar
  [BtD] Wring Out The Bells?
• Wol - Wonderful ...
  What is it with singers and their puerile witticisms? Sometimes I think all those jokes about sopranos are justified! (Q: How do you put a sparkle in a soprano's eye? A: shine a torch in her ear ...) Sperm in Ovum; Lo, the Full Frontal Sacrifice; O Slap your Glands Together; I mean, they're just not funny, are they? </snigger>
• Tuj
  Watty, re: Mordac] I can see nothing's changed around here then!
• rab - Report
  [Boolbar] This means I can now officially support those versions of IE on which this page works properly. Which is probably some sort of oxymoron or something.
• Darren - IE6
  For the record, this page has always worked fine on my IE6 too.
• Raak - IE6 et al
  Same for me, also in Safari.
• DrQu+xum - IE6? Feh.
  No apparent changes on Mozilla Firebird/Linux.
• Bob the dog - Old MacDonald had a farm, IE IE 6
  With a woof-woof here too. I've just been having a cool glass of my Honey Beer. Why has this page gone all woozy? Your my blest frwend you are . _. . . ^{. .} .
• Tuj - Change any subject you don't understand, just like BtD did...
  Is it me, or are there pretty much two games of face PJs going on here? Yon Centurion Three has a distinct flavour of it. See you've finally got round to shoving all those cryptic crossword clues somewhere ;)
• penelope
  I forgot to put deodorant on again this morning. Is this what being a busy manager is all about? *whiffs*
• Lib - me too!
  [pen] AArgh, I've done it too! Thanks for reminding me as I'm still in the building where I live so can rectify the situation (and my next port of call is likely to be a changing room at one of the clothing outlets in the monstrosity of the Trafford Centre, so you've reminded me just in time!). *phew! Lib breathes a sigh of relief and mentally appreciates Pen's managerial skills*
• rab - Academia
  The notion of deodorant is academic given my lingering state of insobriety hanging over from last night. Oh dear. One day I will grow up. The amusing thing is, of course, is that I'm about to give a tutorial.
• Nik - Odourising Trafford
  [Lib] Surely being stinky (sorry, 'glowing', or whatever is you female sorts do) around the Trafford Centre is the best way to assure yourself of not being squeezed to death? Oh, but how I hate that place.

  Hm. Three (any more?) of us in the Manchester area - the stuff of a micro-alterna-pilg. And there's a Mornington Crescent to boot (photos of which I never did get developed, and as such are probably degraded beyond use now).

• rab - The area
  I believe _tim_ and JLE reside in these parts, though I haven't seen the former around for a while. Hangover just about gone now. What a day...
• Inkspot - More Magic
  After a week wallowing in the bowels of the Celebdaq mini-league and a trip to Britany I have managed to climb on top of snorgle to No1, for this I'd like to thank David Blaine. Can gil get there next, after I've been kneecapped?
  Now that Arnie is dropping I hope that Darren and Graham III will return to the fray.
• Lib - Manc-y-ness
  [Manchester] Yay! Lets have a Manchester Pilg! Yay!

  [Trafford centre] Had a v good shopping spree and the Trafford centre was surprisingly quiet (although I did wonder whether there was a by-law stating that EVERYONE must be pushing a pram), but I had a nasty experience. Whilst trying on a top I somehow managed to get poked in the eye with the clothes label (the cardboard one). I found this rather surprising as I wear glasses and had my eyes shut. Anyway it hurt and I cried. I pulled myself together and got on with my shopping. 12 hours later its still very sore, so I've just meandered down to A&E and got some drops, don't seem to help much though. *Lib saunters off, feeling slightly silly that such a small injury causes her so much grief*

• CdM
  [Lib] I once managed to scratch my cornea with an overhead projector. Don't ask...
• rab - Mini-Burgers
  Looking at the most recent Mini Cheddar I'm reminded of something known as the "Noisy Burgers Equation".
• Bob the dog - Eye too
  Lib/CdM] One speck of lime fell into my eye from a badly rendered ceiling once. I have never experienced pain like it. Once in hospital a well-meaning nurse gave me a routine eye sight test despite the fact that I couldn't even open the affected eye. My good eye was so full of tears that I couldn't see the A at the top of the card. She told me that I needed glasses. Logical I suppose. Get better soon Lib - in my experience the drops do help - eventually. If it is any consolation, your namesake has just laid a fabulous egg. Her eyes probably watered a bit too.
• Lib - Eye's to the Right!
  [BtD] Glad Lib's laying well, it is rather exciting to have a namesake! And you'll all be relieved to know that my eye is feeling lots better tonight.
• Lib - forgetful
  And thanks for the sympathy! It worked wonders!
• Boolbar - Eyiiiiiieee
  [Eye] I have a small tear in my cornea. If my eye dried out overnight (central heating, restless night, alcohol) then when opening that eye in the morning the lid would pull on the tear making it worse. I couldn't face any change in light intensity for a couple of hours without the feeling of a sharp needle in the eye. Liquid tears for the best part of a year did the trick. NEVER use eye cleaners like Optrex though. How did I do it? Would you believe a poke in the eye from a sharp stick?
• flerdle - Trust me, I'm sort of a...
  [Boolbar] Recurrent corneal erosion, if you want a name for that; not uncommon, and as another of our correspondants will tell you, v painful. Artificial tears (lubricants), preferably unpreserved, used regularly, are really the only thing that helps.

  [Lib] Get thee to someone with a decent slit-lamp biomicroscope :-) So cool, eyes seen really close... but you're probably fine by now. Owwww, anyway.

  [BtD] Lime and other caustic burns can be REALLY bad. *shudders* (oh, and if anyone was wondering about first aid for them, force the person's eyes open and wash wash wash. Oh, and wash. Forget about those piddly little bottles of eyewash, shove their head under a tap/hose/shower. Stay there for 20 minutes, the caustic action keeps working even if you've apparently flushed it all out.)

  Oh, and another thing - heed the warnings on eye drops to discard after opening (unpreserved) or a month after opening (preserved). Trust me, I *know*.

• flerdle - err... and when I said "force"...
  ... I meant, gently hold. but make sure the eye is open. They will thank you later. Honest. *resists posting pictures of what can happen if you don't*
• Boolbar
  [flerdle] Ta for the name. The only fun part of it was visiting the Doctors who shoved some fluorescent dye in my eye to see what was going on. I had green glowing eyes for the next hour.
• flerdle - Fun dyeing
  Oh yeah, that stuff is fun, and it stains clothing wonderfully. If you blow your nose, your sn... anyway, fluorescein (the dye) also glows under UV light. Something not to mix with contact lenses, because they absorb it.
• Bob the dog - Glow in the dark eyeballs
  flerdle] Even more reason to do it - especially as halloween is just around the cornea (waak waak).
• DrQu+xum - Severe eye injury
  I just suffered one right now -- I brought up www.bbc.co.uk and right there was Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. My retinas decomposed immediately in defense....
• Dunx - Concrete Evidence
  [Boolbar] Being the other correspondent which flerdle speaks of, I can agree that it's bloody painful. The offending item was a corner of a piece of concrete board, and so I agree with flerdle that there was a good chance of there being some nice cuastic damage there too. It's been fifteen months, and I'm getting less frequent and less severe pain now, but still... I'd really rather not have to deal with it.

  One unexpected benefit of our new house is that because it has aircon, we have no need to run fans in the windows and so I no longer sleep in a breeze which stops my eye drying out so much.

  Top tip: drink water before going to bed, then some more after you've been to the loo in the night.

• Nik - Manchester Pilg
  "Manchester will celebrate a Europe-wide transport initiative - In Town Without My Car Day - on Sunday when part of Deansgate will be closed to traffic." This seems just the sort of thing to stagger around drunk during. Anyone? I can be in town between around 12:15 and 21:00.
• Raak - Well, sort of without
  Is one fully participating in this pedestrian and velocipedic celebration if one drives most of the way to town and then proceeds on foot? How much walking distance does it take to cancel out the sin of driving?
• snorgle - car-free day
  [Nik] I wonder if someone will go mad and drive through the ribbon? :)
• Blob - Angry Cake Walk
  Aha ! Further to discussions in the Lock Cup, I googled mc5 and discovered the angrycake link - the rab.org one don't work no more.
• snorgle - blob
  Hello! waves
• rab - Walking and rabbiting
  [Nik] I would love to join you but am flying off to Dresden on Sunday morning. [Blob] It does you know, you're probably trying to go to the wrong place: http://www.rab.org.uk/mc/ redirects you here.
• Inkspot - Blaine baiting
  snorgle it looks as if my prediction of last week was out and gil ran out of steam. But I see that rab your playing the long game with a couple of slow burners.
  But the League is nicely poised for some upsets tomorrow's divi payout especially from Dujon who got the jump on me buying the same stock but an hour or two earlier.
• Nik - Momentary outage
  (Where 'momentary' is defined as 'any period of a few minutes or so'). That was meant to happen. I finally got around to removing the old disk completely. Much quieter without it, and the various bits screwed back on. There's still going to be a further outage, for RAM, and RSN, but given my propensity to not do things, that could be days, weeks, or aeons.
• rab - Outreach
  [Nik] I don't spect anyone else noticed. I got a range of Awuga! Awuga! alerts, which did little but alert me to the fact that these pages deal better with error conditions than I thought. Which is a reason to be cheerful, to those of you who are listening.
• Nik
  Mm, that caused me a bit of a panic. Turns out I'd forgotten to start mysql during boot, though. Whew.
• Dunx - Noticing
  I noticed, but only because I couldn't get here for one iteration of my Crescent polling loop. No deaths occurred.
• rab - mysqld
  [Nik] The message was surprisingly informative :)
• Dujon - Blaming Blaine
  [Inkspot] You doing some inside trading? I deliberately traded to get my quids under the £1M mark the previous week - no point in being kneecapped unnecessarily - and hoped for a 100% + weekly run in order to 'earn' two green wads. It worked - fine - but how do people get 500% + ??? I thought I was sitting on top % most of the week! So much to learn, so little time ...
• Bob the dog - Missed Birthday
  I've been away (working!) in Cornwall so I've missed a Birthday. Many Happy Returns Boolbar!
• Boolbar - Middle-aged? Who me?
  Oddly enough I almost missed it as well.
• Bob the dog
  Bool] 93 is'nt middle aged. Or have I got that wrong?
• Boolbar
  Yes, you have got it wrong - it should be isn't not is'nt.
• Bob the dog
  I wo'nt make that mistake again!
• Boolbar
  ... although I believe the correct term nowadays is middle youth. I'll look it up once I've found where I left my pipe and slippers.
• snorgle - celebdaq
  [Dujon]You're right to blame Blaine - I had about £60000, sunk it all into Blaine at just over £2 a share. The share shot up, and the publicity was massive so I got over £400 thousand in dividends! That's why my percentage was so high, but it's going down now. I'll be kneecapped Monday as I have £1.6 million, so I'm trying to daytrade my £830 thousand dividends to top £2 million by Monday. We'll see how it goes. Blaine is still pretty cheap, so I might sink my £10 thousand into him again..
• rab - Away
  Although I expect to log on tomorrow sometime, I should warn that I am in Dresden the next two weeks. This will probably make no functional difference, as I think I'll be getting a desk with a puter on it.
• Dujon - Slurring
  [Shnorgles] Oil accept that fer moment - good luck an' all = shleepy time nar - the battle of the virus (virii) has been fought; we're in a stand off at this pint (!) in time. ... hic! shee uer layder.
• snorgle - hair of the dog that bit you
  Dujon - are you sober yet? ;)
• Nik
  [Dujon] I had to double-check that my name wasn't attached to that; I'm in the middle of my regular saturday afternoon 'see what I put on the internet last night' routine. Thankfully, it seems I restricted my drivel to text messages and phone calls, this week. Mostly talking to people in Pirate, and demanding they do the same, I vaguely remember.
• Dujon - Bright eyed and bushy tailed
  Nice to know I'm not the only one, Nik, and thanks for your enquiry, snorgle ... :-) I've spent the last couple of days fighting computer viruses - Urrgh. In the end I re-installed everything on the boot drive and changed my anti-virus program! I was celebrating last night as I was so pleased to back up an running ... sad innit?
• snorgle - pop-ups
  [Dujon]Congrats! I am convinced that when I went to download something, but changed my mind, I actually downloaded some kind of spyware or something. This is because I'm getting the same pop-ups again and again, even when I don't have microsoft internet explorer open. I did run a spy-ware remover (it needed 2 goes!), but maybe the website recorded my ip address? Believe it or not, the ads are all for a pop-up remover! One said that there might be spyware on my system, so I should buy their product. AS IF...
• Dujon - pop-off
  [Snorgle] You don't need to have your browser open to receive those blasted things but, to the best of my knowledge, you do need to be on-line (though I'm prepared to stand corrected.) They have been a recent phenomenon for me, starting to appear in the last week or two; I just 'x' them. I shall see if my latest virus/firewall combo stops them from appearing - only time will tell.
• JLE - messenger popups
  [snorgle] no, it's not spyware, it's just a new kind of mass-market spam which appears to use Windows Instant Messenger rather than email. (Although I've several times told Instant Messenger not to receive messages, an instruction which it cheerfully ignores.) Feel free to simply delete the messages and ignore them, and if you find a way of suppressing them, please post it here so we can all know ;-)
• Boolbar - pop-up hell
  I have windows XP at home and ticking the nice firewall check box that goes with the dialup doodah stopped those pop-ups. Sorry, can't help otherwise.
• DrQu+xum - Pop-ups? What are those?
  Mozilla Firebird + Linux. Haven't seen a pop-up in almost an entire calendar year. Mind you, it tends to cut down on the usability of cricinfo.com.... :)
• snorgle - pop-up weasels
  No, its not the windows messenger spam, because I'm on windows 98. I checked on www.grc.com, and tested for that anyway, and nothing came up. It's got a couple of links to websites selling programs to spam people this way, which is quite interesting. One of them has a page explaining how to turn off your messenger service as well, so I guess they got complaints! I may try firebird..
• Ibid - pop-up-tastic mate
  Hmm, I've not seen anything like that. Of course, I use Opera on my computer at home with Win98 or Mozilla and Mandrake, and at work, although I use the browser supplied on the computer (Internet Exploder) I have a crippled version of WinXP (which I have spent a great deal of time and effort crippling - finally, Windows Messenger got the message and pissed off).
• penelope - not speaking
  I've lost my voice - well the interesting part of it anyway. All I'm left with is the raspy bit that makes me sound like Mariella Frostrup but without the knowledge of the arts, or the looks. So right here is the only place I'm going to talk today :o)
• Bob the dog - Madeupname
  I didn't know who Mariella Frostrup was so I googled her and found this. Is this what you meant by knowledge of the arts Pen?
• penelope
  [BtD] Yup.
• flerdle
  *waves to penelope*
• penelope - mute
  *waves to flerdle and opens mouth as if speaking but no sound comes out*
• Blob - xwds
  Has everyone given up on the crossword game ? Pity if you have - I was enjoying it before I went away on holiday - and then got frozen out of here. Ho hum. Never mind.
• snorgle - sneezy
  I think it's going around pen, I'm off today as I only slept 2 hours last night because my damned nose keeps dripping! I hope it wears off for tonight..
• Blob - Attishoo
  [snorgle] You hope it wears off ? Well if you rub it too hard it just might !
• Chalky - Top banana plus
  Wahay - I'm no 1. Thanks to Johnnie Vegas. Shame Frank Bruno's not listed.
  [penelopeeee] Good to see you back, albeit in trappist mode - which, when you think about it, doesn't really make much difference in here. Did you have a nice break?
  [Everyone with missing voices & drippy noses] It's a nasty virus, this early autumn cold - made my mum quite ill.
  [Blob] I fear you may have to tempt the experts back into the Vault with some fiendish clues. Haven't had much time lately, besides, I'm only a learner.
• penelope - breaking up
  [Chalky] Lovely, thanks. I'm fitter, browner and wiser than I was before. I was working as a volunteer for the National Trust, something I've done several times before and they seem to like me. I have been asked four times now if I would consider being an assistant project leader and I'm starting to break under the pressure. There's something coming in the post and a nomination form has already been sent off. Whoops. :o)
• snorgle - blob - atishoo
  that sounds like a line from a song..
• DrQu+xum - celebdaq'n
  Who's Johnnie Vegas, and why am I glad I bought 86000 shares of him when he was under £2/share?
• Nik - Dive! Dive! Di... no, hang on, never mind.
  Mysql failed to start during boot, again, despite me adding the relevant whoojits and doodads. Odd. Still, back again, for a while. Hopefully the new memory won't be flaky.
  [DrQ] Johnny Vegas is brilliant, but indescribable (yet not indescribably brilliant, I just can't be bothered).
• Lib - HAPPY HAPPY!
  Hello, I'm smiling lots today. Why? Well, 1) I'm on holiday 2) I found a favourite top that was eaten for a few months by the wardrobe monster and 3) I'm reunited with my laptop (which is more your austin allegro of a model compared to rab's whizzy apple thing, but I do love it dearly) having mistakenly 'Lent' it to my brother a year ago. Has taken me ages though to put the settings back how they should be! But is nice to be reunited with my first (computer) love.
• Breadmaster - First love
  My laptop is at the computer hospital, and I'm bereft without it. Looking around for some other means of distraction, I've discovered a strange kind of primitive "disk" made of sheets of thin white stuff with black markings on them, mimicking words on a screen. I'm not sure what kind of machine I need to read them, as they won't fit in the video, but they're propping the table up very well.
• snorgle - rant about my colds
  grrr... I HATE colds! I'm sudafed AND sinex and they're not having any effect. At least the pain-killers work..but I'd rather be at work, feeling reasonable well. That's 2 nights now I've only got about 3 hours sleep.
• snorgle - last rant
  er..I'm ON sudafed and sinex obviously, although if I take any more tablets I may turn into one.. :D [BM]Try your visual interface for that format.
• penelope - codes
  [Snorgle] I find decongestants just dry up my membranes, which is exactly the opposite thing you need to happen with a cold - you're snotty because your body is trying to get rid of the infection via mucus. (sorry to those that have just breakfasted.) There's a foolproof remedy for sleep. You need: Olbas Oil, a thick teeshirt, a lemon, a bottle of whisky and some honey. Apply several drops of Olbas Oil around the neck of the teeshirt. You will be sleeping in this tonight. Boil the kettle. Put two generous spoonsful of honey into a large mug, pour on boiling water and stir until the honey dissolves. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon into the mug, and top up with a generous slug of whisky. Breath in the steam and drink the honey, lemon and whisky as hot as you can. Go to bed, wearing the eucalyptus-flavoured teeshirt, and sleep like a baby. Works for me - good luck!
• snorgle - hot toddy
  Sounds good to me! I've already been using lemon and honey, as its delicious, but I don't usually drink whisky. I think I may try brandy instead. I'm sure I've got olbas oil around, somewhere under a pile of tissues..
• penelope - knockout!
  [Snorgle] Excellent. I think it's a combination of the steam clearing your tubes immediately before bed, the vitamin C and cleansing action of the lemon om your throat, the soothing of the honey (and it has healing qualities too), the topping up of fluid intake for the night, and of course the immediate knock-out effect of the brandy or whisky which sends you to sleep before you know it. I once gave this to a flatmate who was distressed because she was so uncomfortable with a cough and a cold... she hated the idea but I bullied her into drinking it and within five minutes I heard snoring coming from her room. :o)
• rab - Grüsse aus Dresden
  Hello from Dresden. I came prepared for vast expanses of brutalist architecture and am pleasantly surprised to find large open spaces, old buildings (the opera house is particularly fine), not to mention fabby restaurants and bars. German cities have a tendancy to be a bit thin-on-the-ground nightlife-wise, but not this one. The conference is going well, although I don't think I'm whoring myself around as much as I should be given that my contract runs out next year. Oh well... [Blob] Re crosswords - I think there's still demand. Once we're back up to full numbers I'm sure things will continue again. And, to be fair, you weren't frozen out, you just lost the URL. Which is not the same thing at all. [Colds] Hmmm... feeling a little funny today in the head and throat department but I am not getting a cold. Oh no.
• snorgle - avant-garde viruses (or is it virii?)
  Viruses are stupid. Ok, so they barely register as life forms, but if they did useful or interesting things, then maybe our bodies wouldn't go into overdrive to eject them. They could, for instance, turn our fingernails red, (without pain or swelling) or make our hair go an interesting shade of turquoise, and everything would be fine! But oh no, they have to and reproduce by making us miserable. I say we should ban them until they get their act together!
• snorgle - snooooooooooooooooooooooze..
  I'm back in work, as I was able to sleep last night. I don't know if it was the brandy, honey and lemon, or just that the cold is getting better anyway, but I'm happy. I can't function on 3 hours sleep. I probably would have taken today off too, but I'm supposed to be covering for my manager tomorrow, and I needed to get up to speed. At least it's quiet this morning.
• Chalky - at home today and feeling a bit chatty
  [penelope] So. This NT assistant project leader thingummy. Would that be full-time? Like a proper job? Would you have to resign from your shiny new PR job? Like a *BIG* decision?
  [snorgle] I've got a sniffle-in-the-nose and a tickle-in-the-throat which is a bit worrying. Especially as it's my daughter's thirteenth birthday tomorrow and our home is going to be invaded by nine [yes NINE] newteens for a 'sleepover'. I must be bonkers. Brandy, honey and lemon now top the shopping list.
  [rab] Nice to hear news of Dresden, me ol' china. Although I lived in Germany for 11 years [child of the forces], the cities of East Germany were but names with disquieting connotations and never to be visited. The closest I came was a longish spell in Berlin which I remember as a gloriously spacious city. Even though I was young, I still have a sense of the amazing architecture and the night-life. However, the salutary reminder of its isolation from the west came during my train journeys to boarding school which crossed the eastern zone. At the checkpoint, the window blinds would be firmly lowered and we were instructed to stay in our seats and not move under any circumstances. The train travelled really s-l-o-w-l-y, just to add to the tension. I really must return to the area if only to rid myself of these residual childish fears.
• Uncle Korky - It's back!
  For any fans out there, announcement on the BBC News page: Doctor Who to return in a new series, scripted by Russell T Davies, and produced by BBC Wales.
• penelope - Trusty
  [Chalky] Nope, not full time - just the odd week or weekend on a voluntary basis, mopping up teenage tears, giving tool safety talks and eating instant soup. Nice to be thought of as being capable though - I never even thought I was grown up until now.
• DrQu+xum - GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
  PANTSMC IS DOWN!
• Inkspot - more posh pants
  DrQ]Lets hope its just an upgrade.
  Although I have not seen Graham III around the boards for a while, my congrats on going to No 1 on Celebrity MC , together with that evil_edna you've turned the table upside down. (Do you think that will entice Darren back? I do hope so.)
• Graham III - sheepishdaq
  Hullo folks. Haven't been online much, though have now at last got a modem sorted on my home computer, so have been updating my celebdaq thing occasionally. Once I have a job sorted so can justify spending ages on the internet I'll probably be seen a bit more around here...
  
  Oh, and thanks for the congrats...
• flerdle - gurt haaaairy beasties
  NIK - DO NOT GO TO THIS PAGE!!! Most likely this is a Lycosa godeffroyi, seen this morning on the way to do the washing, downstairs. The ruler is actually a little closer to the camera, so the scale isn't perfectly accurate. A medium-sized common wolf spider.
• snorgle - beastie
  DAMN that's big! It looks sort of velvety, was it really hairy?
• Darren
  [flerdle] Nice pic. Only a couple of days ago I found a real biggie on a wall. I had a really good look at it, should have got a photo. This one was really hairy.
• Bob the dog - long-leggerty beastie
  flerdle] Did it manage to get the washing done?
• flerdle - Big? that's LITTLE
  [snorgle] It seemed to have short hairs which were fairly flat against its body, giving the velvety look. So - yes, very hairy. Completely, even. And you might notice a white-yellowish bright spot near its front - that's a reflection off one of its larger two eyes. I should have taken an even closer shot. Next time.
• flerdle - Two legs good, eight legs even more efficient.
  No, but it's going to clean the floor later, if I can teach it to use the mop wringer.
• Dunx - Hardly Itsy Bitsy
  [flerdle] Re-spect! My wife was certainly impressed, pretty much along the lines of "We're never going to Australia!" One question: how does one relocate a spider that size? Or do you just work round them? And how fast doo they move?
• Dunx
  OK, that was three questions.
• Dujon - Octalegs
  Dunx, I can assure that they can move very fast when they wish to. Usually they are quite docile and just amble about the place but, should you miss on the first attempt at capture, they take off like greased lightning - one second you think you've caught them, next they are five metres away.
  My method of capture is a container wide enough to encompass its legs without cutting them off; from above bring the container in line and, quickly and carefully bring it down on top of the beast. The trick then is to get a sheet of cardboard (or similar) to slide between the wall/floor and the container whilst at the same time keeping the arachnid within the container. Given that they are built to fit into and through very narrow spaces this can at times be a challenge.
  Yes, they do bite but I understand that whilst it can be painful it is certainly not a life threatening experience. Like most snakes they would rather just get out of the way and will only have a go at you if they have no other choice (e.g. If you get into bed with one!) For the sake of your good wife I might mention that such a situation is so rare as to be non-existent, although someone once said it happened to them. My son is quite happy to let these things walk over him, through his hair and the like ... me ... err, err. I did have one run over my hand - many years ago - when I pulled the mail out of the letter box; it was quite soft and not at all like I would have expected. Truly!
• Dujon - Stuttering
  Whoops! How the 'eck did that 'appen?
• Dujon - Double vision
  Answer: It didn't. I had a double post up there a minute ago ... must go and see the optometrist methinks.
• flerdle
  You rang? :-)

  This one, when I tapped the bucket, ran away quite fast, doing a couple of little skips/bounces as it went. I have caught them for relocation using the method Dujon described, but usually I just leave them alone. And yes, I've seen much bigger, Dunx, but let your good wife be not afeared - the big fellas like that really are quite harmless. And soft/light/delicate/shy.

• Dujon - Wibbles
  They still give me the heebie jeebies, flerdle! Anyhoo, about time I went to watch the final of the local aerial ping-pong game. Not that I care, but seeing as your local team is in it, I'd best keep up to speed ... ;-)
• flerdle - Collywobbles
  I watched it with friends/relatives; some delightful play, and some dreadfully disastrous play (one fumble is brought clearly to mind). Ate lots of junk food, watched it on tv with the sound down, but with Roy & HG on the radio, it was hilarious. Keep an ear out for them next weekend with the other unmentionable code's final.
• JLE - PantsMC
  [Dr Q] Let's hope it's just a computer crash that will right itself soon. Unfortunately, Mr Pants himself wasn't the person who actually *programmed* the MC server, he was just its host - i.e. the one with the password-access power to start and finish games. (Surprisingly, perhaps, the password is not "Badgerline" - I've tried it, and it doesn't work. ;-)

  The actual programmer of PantsMC, apparently called Tim, has completely disappeared from the net years ago (and never, in any case, played MC, being no relation of the _tim_ who appeared on Old York and was infamous for Really Bad HTML.)

  (PantsMC was, despite its best intentions, probably never the equal of the Old Delphi server...)

• Rosie - PantsMC
  Still down at 8.38 pm.
• Angus Prune - Pants MC
  STILL down at 11pm! Neeeeeeeeeed to play! have moves to make! People to put in nid! *getting withdrawal symptoms*
• snorgle - ooh pants!
  Still down..oh dear!
• Dujon - Pants down
  Can anyone join in? ... :-(
• rab - Ouzo for breakfast
  Greek restaurants seem quite common here in Dresden, and we have just returned from brunch at the local one. We seem to have got a bit of a reputation with the staff who seem very keen to take the mickey out of us at any opportunity. The local pub seems to employ only the most beautiful staff. Inge seems to be the most favourite, although there are a few votes for Steffi. Yesterday afternoon we were in town and tracked down a huge, beautiful palace that somehow we missed on Tuesday. Last night we ended up in a bar that had a woman dancing away in a box, and who wore a range of increasingly scanty outfits for each session. At first we were rather nervous about entering the establishment, but it turned out to have quite a normal, mixed clientele. I do like Abroad. Especially an Abroad where there are no spiders, and my pants stay up. Here endeth the second dispatch.
• Angus Prune - PANTS
  *getting the shakes*
• Bob the dog - Pants still down
  I've only ever made one move in pants. Things seemed very slow in there - it was weeks before anyone responded (probably as much a comment on my sense of humour than anything else). Welcome Mr Prune!
• Darren
  I like the Pants community, but it does tend to be slow sometimes, and it's not helped by the way the site renders the games as huge tables, which usually only display when the whole page is downloaded. Also, there's the lack of a simulpost detection system. These could be fixed if the site was reprogrammed, of course...
• Angus Prune - pants
  Thanks! I don't know about it being slow - we had things going along quite quickly, then suddenly BOOM! No more pants! For the record, 2.23pm, Mon 29th September, and still no pants. (Sadly not a comment on my social life!)
• Breadmaster
  I looked at Pants but it seemed slightly scary. Those tables look like charts on the wall of my old science classroom. It brought terrible memories flooding back.
• Bigsmith - Bigpants
  Hello everybody, another Pants refugee here. This is my first posting on any other MC related site; I disvovered Pants a couple of years ago and it has proved adequate for my meager needs - until today!! Didn't take me too long to spot some familiar names though! (Its 5.45pm BST on Monday 29th Sept and Pants is still down)
• Angus Loughgran - Pants refugees
  And here's another one. I have played briefly on Not York (before it too vanished) and at Orange, both under different pseudonyms, and I've also been posting under this name at the Lockisseum. Nice place you've got here.
• DrQu+xum - Welcome, fellow Pantaloons!
  Enjoy your stay, which may be permanent, here at MC5. And BTW, for those of you who aren't familiar with making moves with HTML...
  
  What you type and what appears
  <b>foo</b> = foo
  <i>foo</i> = foo
  <small>foo</small> = foo
  <hr> =

  ---

• Darren
  Yeah, hi all those also from Pants. It's a pity if Pants doesn't come back in some form. Still, there's still this, Orange and MCiOS.
• Darren
  Incidentally, I note the Fortean Times chat forum has started a Cheddar Gorge thread! Heh!
• JLE - Angus and pseudonyms
  Just out of interest, what other pseudonyms have you been on other servers?
• Angus Loughgran - My other names
  I was Dexter at Orange and Courage the Cowardly Dog on !York. I remember my finest hour probably being on !York, where I managed to goad st dogmael into attempting to pass off "Bugger Me! My Auntie's On The Roof!" during one particularly lewd game of Boardman's: I was using some pretty dubious constructs and he took it and ran the length of the pitch, up the terrace, out the gates and halfway round the world to Auckland before he touched the ball down.
• Dunx
  [Angus] Yup, that'd st d.
• Dunx
  (please insert the word "be" before the enthusiastic saint's name, there. I seem to have dropped it at a crucial moment)
• Bob the dog - A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag
  I like st d. I have a feeling that people thought I was his alterego (probably because of the 'dog' bit) after the MCiOS ban he earned. But just for the record, I'm not.
• Chalky - Valediction?
  Has Mr Wildpants been spotted recently? Perhaps he can shed some light on situation. I had a hunch that the server was shuddering to a halt - some of the games have been around for nearly a year now and have all but fossilised. Pants was my introduction to online Crescentfun, so will always hold a special place in my thingy, but life moves on - anyway, I like it here, and there [MCiOS] and that other place [Orange]. Nice people.
• Bob the dog - !York archive!!
  Yay - I just did a search on wildpants and found that York is still with us (sort of). I tried to do a link but failed so here be the address: http://madeira.physiol.ucl.ac.uk/people/jim/crescent/
• flerdle - ooerr
  Does anyone want to see pictures of what I saw while walking home tonight? Don't worry... or maybe do... it's... well, it's not a spider...
• Btdog
  yes - go-on - don't keep us in suspense!
• flerdle - oh, if you insist, bu it probably means I'll never get visitors now. *grumble grumble*
  Ok. I've also moved the spider picture.

  Like I said, this isn't a spider. This was perhaps a 45minute stroll from the centre of the city, and it was pretty dark at 6:30pm. It's near the top of the largest hill in the area, which isn't too far from the river. Brisbane is fairly green. I don't know how I noticed it, as it was about 5m away, diagonally upwards. Look here and then here.

  I take no responsibility for heebie-jeebies.

• DrQu+xum - Ooooooh!
  Well spotted. Looks like a healthy little bugger as well. :)
• Bob the dog
  I take it you don't work for the Brisbane tourist office then?
• Inkspot - pretty pattern
  Is there any chance next time of climbing the tree to gett a bit closer? I'd be interested to see the pattern on the back of its head.
• flerdle - one word...
  err... no. The tree was fairly spindly and a bit rough, and in someone else's yard. And I'm going away on Thursday, and it'll probably be gone :-(
• flerdle - or try this...
  [Inkspot] or have a look at this; best enlargement/detail I can do.
• flerdle - urgh
  ... and sorry for any incoherence/misreading/whatever I might be doing right now; text is always hard to hear tone, Inkspot, and I'm currently suffering bad, bad hayfever, and extreme tiredness... g'night all. *falls off chair*
• penelope
  Aww, poor flerdle. We should treat our snake snappers more considerately. Here, have a hankie.
• Breadmaster - Wow!
  I wish I lived in a country with things like that. Just my luck that the only foreign place I've been in for any length of time was New Zealand, where the most interesting wildlife is a pom pom on legs.
• Angus Prune - pants
  Still no news I take it? ten to eight tuesday evening, and still no pants!
• Dunx
  [BM] What, a dust puppy?
• Rosie - Pants
  The PantsMC player profiles page is still up and working. I have sent MWP an email at the address you send your profile, though what good it'll do I don't know. I haven't had a reply yet, but it was only about 24 hrs ago.
• Tuj - Late arrivals at the discussion between Bob the dog, Dunx & Chalky up there...
  Probably just my perspective, having ducked out of the whole MC circuit for a while (and having stuck solely to !York before that), but this place has a feeling of the afterlife, or a nuclear fallout shelter about it - in the best possible way. There's a lot the same, familiar faces and games, but somehow you always end up thinking about the ones who're missing, and the classic games of the past.
  Did I really just type that?
• Dunx - Pantsy
  The esteemed MWP has been spied in the Lockisseum, and said more or less that the outage is probably permanent.

  I hope the games can at least be recovered...

• Darren
  Well, at least that would give me closure on the red name issue! I wonder if a new MC site will spring up elsewhere.
• JLE
  [Rosie] That was because the player profiles page was hosted on Mr Pants's own VirusPlanet server, not on Cream.org.
• DrQu+xum - Profiles of Pants
  [JLE] The new one that Alfredo García has is on Geocities. http://www.geocities.com/pantsmcprofiles/profiles.html
• Bob the dog
  Tuj] !York had inbuilt character because it had lived a bit. This site has an embrionic character of its own and is fertile ground.
• JLE
  [bob] And also because the move from Old York to Not York was pretty much seamless - !York was up within days, and Old York carried a redirector page to the new address. So there was pretty much continuity there, which the disappearance of York *without* replacement doesn't achieve.
• rab - Hmmmm...
  Two dead links on the front page. I shall leave them there as a reminder to whoever to get an archive together which I will link to when put in place. Mind you, I can't see why !York at least couldn't be made live again.
• rab - However
  On a more positive note, if there are any Pants refugees wishing to take residence here then I offer my warmest welcome to you all, and could even be convinced to get a new game going in celebration. In fact, I wonder if it's time for a couple of new games now that the current ones have been running for a while. I might nominate Centurion as a possibility, as one that never really caught on.
• DrQu+xum - New Game
  [rab] One of the most popular games on Pants was Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. Perhaps that should be added here?
• Chalky - AVM and Abstract
  I loved AVM & A - an excellent game for bringing out the competitiveness/stroppiness/impatience in some players - snorgle's obscure polecat being a memorable example. heheheheh. Blimey, I'm reminiscerating already.
• tee hee

  ---

• ho ho - sorry -just practicing
  Thanks Dr Q
• snorgle - Chalky - stirring
  Dammit - it was a caracal lynx! You think you'd remember..
• Chalky - snorgle's whatever
  So it was. I didn't guess it anyway, despite frenetic googling.
• Rosie - New games
  (Dr Q, Chalky) I agree. It would be nice to see that. Also Jeopardised, which for non ex-Pants members I should explain meant you were given an answer and had to provide a question. I think we can take it that Pants is as dead as the Norwegian Blue, but if not, and only "sleeping" I have to admit I'll be back, as old habits die hard. One of its best features was the chat space available in all the games.
• Chalky - Jeopardised
  [Rosie] I think you'll find the very thing in Orange MC.
• Dujon - Informal game chat
  [Rosie] I agree wholeheartedly (including the return should the server finally cool down.) Whilst Pant's format was in some ways limiting that particular facility was most useful, in that one could quickly scan recent entries and 'have a think' and whilst doing that have a chuckle at the comments. Rab, I'm not complaining!
• Dujon - Much later
  [Rosie] Two things if I may. Firstly, did you receive a response to your e-mail? My system is doing some odd things at times; it gives me an error message and, at the same time, tells me the mail has been sent. Secondly, you being interested in weather, you may be interested in this site - http://www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/weather/?Submit=I+Accept - the site is a good 3000' higher than I, so it's not really indicative of my weather. It's quite a neat set up though.
• Dujon - Wiggly things
  Was that a Diamond Python? It looks a bit like that to me, not that I'm an expert; my son would give me an instant report, however, he's not here. Anyhoo, they are totally harmless - even I will let one run around me (apart from the neck) they're constrictors.
• Dujon - Lost again
  That was supposed to be addressed to our resident herpetologist. Sorry, flerdle.
• Lib - *waving*
  Hello Friends from pants. Is nice to meet you all.
• Bob the dog - Chill Blaine
  I had to be in London today. By 4.30pm my meetings were over so I wandered over to tower bridge to see Mr Blaine. It was not disappointing. The wind was getting up and he was swinging around quite merrily.
• Dunx - Blaineless
  Oh. Is he still there?
• Angus Prune - David Blaine and other animals
  Presume so. Glad I'm not the only one paying NO attention to stupid Americans! Speaking of stupidity, what's everyone's take on this Russian Roulette gig of Derren Brown's? (Is it odd they have the same initials?)
• Bob the dog - before your very eyes
  I hadn't heard about it, so I googled and found this. Isn't this an old illusion in a modern context? Stage illusionists in Houdinis time regularly had members of the audience disemboweled or eaten by lions for maximum shock tactics. What Derren Brown is good at is publicity. If you saw a magician in a local club doing this, you'd probably not bat an eyelid.
• Software - Blaine - oh him!
  I was in London last week, the taxi driver (who had just had an altercation with a large and very tatooed van driver) puttled into the traffic near the Blaine thing. "What's the holdup?" I inocently asked. "Oh, it some f***ing idiot in a f***ing glass f***ing box," taking deep breath to refresh expletive store, "causes nuffin' but f***ing trouble, all the f***ing idiots slow down and rubberneck, pain in the f***ing arse." Glad I asked, really.
• rab - Tag der Deutschen Einheit
  Day off today, as it's German Reunification Day, which appears to be celebrated in absolutely no way whatsoever. I'm not sure what one would do - maybe create small model walls and knock them down or something. Anyway, this means that there's no physics lectures (hurrah) and an opportunity to head into town and take some pictures. At least, now that the fog has lifted.
• Breadmaster - Laying the Blaine
  I went to see him a while back. I thought it was actually quite interesting - I was struck by the fact that he's not suspended very high, so you can see him more clearly than I anticipated. At least he's only there for 44 days - Simeon Stylites stood on his pillar for 30 years, and even patriarchs and emperors went to see him.
• Bob the dog
  Rab - are you living/working in Germany?
• rab - Nope
  Just a short visit - two weeks in Dresden on a 'workshop' which is a kind of low-talk-density conference. Back home tomorrow.
• Wol - Einheit
  [rab] I'm struck dumb - there really is a concept for which the German word is shorter than the English. But I s'pose Einheit is really 'unity'. Reunification (13) is Wiedervereinigung (17) - and rational order is restored. Phew!
• Inkspot - sub atomic worm hole attacks carrot
  In the game AMV is there a limit to how small you can go, as I was wondering last night, about atoms and molecules. Is a uranium atom "mineral" or is it abstract because at that scale it is millions of atoms that make the solid object. Once I started thinking of this (it was late) I also wondered about neutrinos, quarks, string and unstable waves in the 11th dimension (I had do stop somewhere) when does somethig stop being AVM and are sub/atomic particles allowed?
• DrQu+xum - atom?
  The atom is the smallest possible "mineral", because it, by definition, is an element. Anything underneath that (e.g. quarks, pions, leptons, gluons, neutrinos, photons, etc.) is abstract.
• Breadmaster - Hang on
  So where's the distinction between mineral and animal? Animals are made of atoms. And we count parts of animals, such as a leather jacket, as animal for these purposes. So a fragment of bone would count as animal, even though it's just a big pile of calcium atoms. So what about a single atom removed from that bone? Is that animal, while an identical atom removed from a rock is mineral? If we say that both atoms are mineral, then the difference between animal and mineral must lie in the form rather than the matter. But then a dinosaur bone has animal form but is made of mineral matter that was never part of the animal. Chalk is clearly a mineral but is made of what was once animals. In fact, given the existence of the "rock cycle", in which volcanic, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks all turn into each other - and into animals and plants and back again - with slow but ineluctable regularity, it seems that there is no objective dividing line between any of our three categories, and it's all just arbitrary.
• Darren
  [Breadmaster] It's only a game!

  Going back a bit, I did apply to load the revolver in that Derren Brown thing. I got as far as having to do an audition tape but it never went further. Probably I was just too strange.

• DrQu+xum
  [BM] If it is alive/dead but the components thereof have not sufficiently decomposed to the point where it would be considered a mineral by geological standards, then it's animal and/or vegetable. A cricket ball, e.g. is both animal and vegetable. Bone, if that were the object in question, I would list as animal and mineral.
• Dunx
  Or they just found the idea of Darren and Derren on stage at the same time to be too disturbing...

  [BM] All sounds a bit quantum, to me.
  What you're trying to do is draw definite lines along fuzzy boundaries, which looks OK from a distance but when you look closely, well, aren't.

• Breadmaster - Pedantic? I?
  [Darren] "Only a game"? You won't win anything with an attitude like that, my lad!
• DrQu+xum
  We had the same argument over SARS when that was a subject -- was it an animal, vegetable, or mineral? A virus is a non-cellular collection of ribonucleic acids which merely attaches to an unlucky living cell and sort-of-passively uses the cell's contents to propagate itself.
  
  I'd claim it's a mineral, but others would have a valid argument otherwise.
• Breadmaster
  And what about mushrooms?
• DrQu+xum - 'shrooms!
  Fungi in general would be considered vegetable.
• Angus Prune - Derren
  So do we hope he snuffs it or what? (Refusing to get into highly confusing conversation about anything below sub-atomic level)
• Bob the dog
  Dr Q] How would you class Harry Potter?
• DrQu+xum
  [Btd] Animal/Abstract.
• penelope - rushing roulade
  I'm staggered they're showing Russian Roulette on TV. There was enough trouble with Jackass!! What the f*ck is going on? In a way, I hope he cops it. Would teach the lads at Channel 4 a lesson, eh? Mwahahaah!
• Darren
  The trouble with all these illusionists doing "high-risk" stunts is that we all *know* they'll survive it. It's like an adventure movie, you always have the nauseating knowledge the protagonist will come through in the end. Of course, there have been the rare occasions where it's all gone horribly wrong, but frankly I much prefer smaller, close-up magic than the hyped-up stuff.
• Darren - continued....
  So, you may ask, why did I apply for the Derren Brown thing? Well, having seen his other TV shows, I wanted to see what it would be like, simple as that.
• flerdle - later...
  [Dujon] Sorry am late replying, visiting friend near Wollongong, and with travel and all I didn't have net access for 48HOURS!!! I coped though :-). I don't know much about identifying snakes, so can't help you there much, but it did look like some sort of python, and was about 6ft long. I put a closeup of its head (and so some of its pattern) in that same directory, if I hadn't mentioned that before.
• Rosie - AVM distinctions
  There is no problem in distinguishing between A, V and M (provided we can agree on a definition of life). Animals have life and a nervous system. Vegetables have life and no nervous system or brain. Minerals don't have life. The definitions include derivatives of Animal and Vegetable eg leather jacket, plank of wood, as has been mentioned. Inkspot puts his finger on it when saying there is a limit of how small you can go and to reduce it to atoms leads to meaninglessness. Even reducing it to molecules causes great difficulties.
• Dujon - And ... there's more!
  I believe that, in the main, the idea is/was to have a target which is commonly known or which can be readily deduced rather than something esoteric. The whole idea is simply to give participants the chance to exercise logic and have a bit of fun in the process. In my opinion the use of 'string', as in the twine variety, is fine; the use of 'string' in the quantum sense is rather obtuse to most people and thus not in the spirit of the game. We all have our areas of special interest and should avoid the use of terms which are specific to experts (amateur or otherwise) in those fields. Well, that's my two bob's worth. ... :-)
• Bob the dog
  I agree. It is easy to think of words/objects that cross the boundaries, but are they really fun to play? Surely it is the responsibility of the chairperson to set objects that are interesting, logical and entertaining. Dujon] This is my one Bob's worth!
• Tuj - AVM
  If someone tried to put up something like 'a calcium atom from an animal bone' no-one'd ever get it and they'd be seriously looked down upon in future. I don't know how many bob's that was. Maybe Bob (the dog) knows best.
• Chalky - Bobbing up
  Agree with all above. Also, from experience, when In The Chair - it's worth considering how attentive you can be for the following few days. DrQ's 'mineral' moved along fairly swiftly, even though there were plenty of questions - all down to the fact that he was 'here' and could reply quickly. Ten bob please.
• Darren - Hide your pants!
  Under the circumstances, shouldn't the Pants link icon be removed from the main page?
• Dujon - Tightening belt.
  What's a suitable period of mourning after, and if, the illness is terminal? Perhaps we should await completion of the Coroner's enquiry.
• Coroner - Having Enquired
  Dead as a Dodo. Mandatory period of mourning - one more day.
• Dujon - Efficiency
  Coroner, sir/madam, you are the most prompt and effective government official whom I have had the pleasure to meet. Now; rab's laid out the welcome mat - ta! Cushions, check; sofa, check; glass, check; whoops! where's the bar? ... ;-)
• Dujon - Reptiles
  [flerdle] Sorry, just read your post re your slithery friend. I suspect the D.Python. Welcome to the south, sorry about the cool weather; now if you'd been here las......
• flerdle - cool
  [Dujon] Ta. I *likes* the cool weather, and yes, I consider it cool, rather than cold, which is a good thing. But then again I'm near the coast right now, and it has been up to something like 15 C. The weather was really good until this afternoon, when it started raining. Oh well, more time for hot chocolate drinks and good books. There go the plans for rock-climbing tomorrow (although I would have merely been watching). We have managed to watch not one, but two movies in a couple of days - remarkable considering I haven't gone to the movies in a very long time. I would heartily recommend Pirates of the Caribbean. Hrmm, Lara Croft etc etc (2) is passable; I admit I'm not a fan, I hadn't seen the first one or played the game or read the comics or whatever else there is to know about it; I kept being distracted by her lips (not attractive, I'm afraid), and Chris Barrie trying to be serious (?!?)

  Oh, and I have another photo, but that will have to wait till I get home. It was near the foodscraps bin this time...

• Darren
  Yeah, Pirates is pretty good, and fitted in well with the ride. I just saw Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things yesterday, which I'd also recommend.
• Angus Prune - Stephen Fry and Other Geniuses/Genii/Genies
  Has anyone been watching QI? Fabulous! Incidently, what is the plural of genius?
• snorgle - ii us
  And what is the plural of platypus?
• Angus Prune - snorgle
  Platypi. And very tasty it is too...
• rab - My back
  Five hours in Frankfurt airport and a hangover. Yum. But yesterday was another day.

  [Inkspot, a while ago] Although using an abbreviation might be classed "cheating" I really cannot find a way to explain the meaning of 3er WG using anything shorter than "communal dwelling shared by three people" in English. WG stands for Wohngemeinschaft, btw. And 3er is not an abbreviation. It's a genetive, of all things.

  [Darren, et al, re links] I refer you to this comment I recently made on the subject.

• Tuj - QI
  Angus] 'Sbeen good, hasn't it? Heard one review saying it was the ISIHAC of TV, though I wouldn't quite go that far. Though it's closer than anything in a long time.
• snorgle - Quite Interesting
  I keep missing QI, it's the type of programme I love, so I must really make the effort..
• Chalky - Quirky Intellectualising
  It's not ISIHaC, in my opinion - not even close - but it's a superb half hour's entertainment. Fry is magnificent [isn't he always?] and last week Alan Davies was not just very funny, but even managed to 'outbuzz' Jeremy Hardy.
  I must confess that I'm about to switch on Ch4 and watch that eejit doing his 'live on air' russian roulette thing.
• snorgle - rolling russian
  Oops! I missed it. Is he dead?
• Inkspot - bullet chamber 3
  snorgle]He missed.
  Rab]The only 3er I know about is the conker my son Owen has. I shall get my revenge! there were some great conkers in the churchyard round the corner from us.
• JLE - Conkers
  I once kept a conker for a year after it survived the school conkers season. However, in its first match next season - it was a 67-er, mainly by virtue of picking up all the points from other conkers in the "last man standing" stakes - it didn't so much shatter as squish.
• Chalky - All Conkering
  Some time ago, I lived on the Northants/Cambs border. A small village nearby, Ashton, played host to the Annual National Conker Championships. Serious stuff. I wonder if it still does? *wanders off for a quick google*
• Anthrax Whirl - Freakout
  What-ho, ladies and gents. How are we all this fine eve? My sincere thanks to Dr.Q for informing me of the sad demise of Pants MC. I think a minute's silence sould be observed. Nobody post here for another minute. Thank you.
• Chalky - hail fellow well ......
  OK - minute's up. Hi Thrax :-)
• snorgle - nosing
  Where have you been, Thrax?
• Chalky - World Conkering
  Blimey - that Conker thing I mentioned - it's the WORLD Conker Championship, no less. Second Sunday in October. That's a week today.
• Anthrax Whirl - Freakout
  Hey there, you two. I've just been hither and thither. I've just had a go at the Pants game, but for some reason my entries didn't come out right. No bold, and all my 'return's didn't work. I feel glum.
• Chalky - glum-busting
  [Thrax] A couple of pages back, DrQ posted some helpful hints for highlighting text which includes the 'tags' for Bold, Italics, Small Font and Drawing a Line. If you use the same symbol pattern that he has shown - ie. the pointy chevron ones to the right of the letter 'M' on your keypad, the tag for line break is 'br', and the one for new para is 'p'. Usefully, in here you can 'Preview' your entry before you 'Submit' it.
• DrQu+xum - Recap on basic HTML
  What you type and what appears
  <b>foo</b> = foo
  <i>foo</i> = foo
  <small>foo</small> = foo
  <br> = [new line]
  <hr> =

  ---

• Rosie - HTML
  (Dr Q)"small" (got to type it like that) doesn't seem to work with me. I tried it in a comment in the Limericks. If I just use "s" as a tag it gives a crossed out word. Any ideas?
• Dujon - Smallish
  [Rosie] It did work. If you are comparing the size of your comment type face with that of snorgle, don't. She used a specific font size command (on this occasion size 4 - that is, '<'font size=4'>' before the comment text and '<'/font'>' after the comment. (without the apostrophes - DrQ is more clever than I when it comes to HTML; I have no idea as to how to show code as text. I think it's a 'tt' and '/tt' command, but I'm not sure as to what else is required)
• Dujon - Size is everything.
  Whoops, sorry Rosie, that should have been -4. See the difference below. 4 is obviously the larger.

  Hello

  Hello

• DrQu+xum - < and >
  [Duj]
  &lt; = < , &gt; = >
• DrQu+xum - Take two.
  &lt; = < , &gt; = >
• Dujon - Thanks to the good Dr.
  Let's try that again, then.

  <font size=4> This is it
  <font size=-4> This is it
  <small>This is it

• Dujon
  This is it
  This is it
  This is it
• Dujon - Humble pie.
  Sorry, I was experimenting and hit the wrong button. Turns red and disappears.
• Bob the dog - It is colours with me
  In the past I have used browser friendly colours on this site - but they came out oddly. They seem to be working now, according to the preview button. Let me know if you see anything different...
  FONT COLOR="BLUE"
  FONT COLOR="RED"
  FONT COLOR="MAGENTA"
  FONT COLOR="GREEN"
  FONT COLOR="#63bdb5"
  FONT COLOR="#006B84"
  FONT COLOR="HAMPSTER"
• Chalky - small furry animals
  [BtD] The first four and the last have come out as "named". The two variations of green [nos. 5 & 6] are very pretty and have codes within the "...". Was that intentional? I have attempted to post this in "hampster". It may end up as a dead hampster, ie. blue.
• Inkspot - web colo(u)rs
  For lots of colours that can be used with most browsers put this in your favourites
• Bob the dog - Dead furry animals
  Sadly, a blue "hampster". Yes, the hexadecimal codes were intentional because there are no names for these colours.
  If I had to name them...
  Hospital Corridor
  Blue Pants In With Whites
  
• Angus Prune - colouration
  Ah, the famous 'pants left in wash'. As for your hospital corridor, I've never seen one that colour... It is the colour of the disposable drapes we use for knee replacements, arthroscopies and various other orthopaedic procedures. Also the very flattering hats we have to wear in theatre.
• penelope - costume departments
  [Angus] You're an actor? Or perhaps a theatre critic? Oh, how thrilling! I don't care. I've switched off my brain because I'm going to Nice for a holiday tomorrow :o)
• Angus Prune - Um, no...
  Actor on the weekends. The rest of the time I'm a nurse in theatres, getting to see peoples insides. Such fun!
• Bob the dog - Breaks
  Pen] Your namesake laid TWO eggs yesterday! Have a good holiday. Angus] Adds a new dimension to the phrase "break-a-leg".
• Angus Prune - oh yeah
  Does too. Tell you what, never getting me on a motorbike - seen too many remnants!
• Bob the dog
  Angus] My Mum was a radiographer and made me swear I'd never ride a motorbike.
• Rosie - HTML tricks
  (Dr Q, Dujon) Thanks. I must save this page. BTW I still can't get used to typing "Rosie" instead of "ro987". Whoops, what a giveaway.
• Darren
  I doubt anyone will have the opportunity to use it now, Rosie, hehehe.
• Ibid
  Of course, although HTML doesn't list all the colours by name, you can get some nice colours by putting a random word or phrase into the 'color' bit. So this colour, for example is 'Werewolves of London'.
• Ibid
  Of course, that's where the Hampster colour comes from. I wonder if you can reverse engineer that to find a phrase from a colour?
• Bob the dog - You mean...
  Swansea Summer
  Conservative conference hair
  Road Squirrel
  Nurse!!!
  New Labour
• Chalky
  [penelope] I hear it's very nice in Nice. Here's a Colour Chart for guidance:
  How about ...
  Before the Côte d'Azur
  Day 1 in the Côte d'Azur
  Return from Côte d'Azur
  [Ibid, BtD] I think Newborn's Nappy is more apt than the Werewolf thingy.
  This is a wonderful distraction. I'm supposed to be revising for a computer exam tomorrow. Playing with font colours counts ... erm ... doesn't it?
• Uncle Korky
  [BtD] Interesting how your "New Labour" comes out in proud Tory blue... Quite suitable, really...
• Angus Prune - colouration (again)
  Chalky - your 'return from Cote D'azur colour' is me after stepping outside my front door in December! I burn so damned easy...
• Chalky - burn baby burn . . .
  [AP] Then you'll be in need of Bob the dog's Nurse!!!
• Dunx - Codes and Code Looking
  [Dujon] re: displaying codes as text; what you're after are a couple of HTML entities for the '<' and '>' characters - these are < and > respectively. The <tt> tage you mention only changes the typeface used to display the text, although I usually prefer to use <code> (as you will see if you view source). In summary, then:

  You type	You see
  &lt;	<
  &gt;	>
  &amp;	&
  <tt>teletype text</tt>	teletype text
  <code>code sample</code>	code sample

  Note Be very careful with these - it is tremendously easy to miss out a semi-colon and completely wreck the effect. Use Preview if you can!

• rab - Yes I Do!
  People seem to be missing the simulpost messages, so I guess I ought to check they're still being displayed.
• rab - Churn
  And then...
• rab - It does...
  Yeah, I guess that's not as in-yer-face as it could be.
• barry - darren brown
  was it a trick??
• Dujon - Code breaking
  [Dunx] Thanks - I did try the code tag but, because I did not use the commands for the greater than/less than, it obviously fell over. One lives and learns!
• rab - Look no stance!
• rab
  The AVMA players may find it easier to be less chatty now - you can be stance-free if you're still managing to be apropos.
• snorgle - But I like standing!
  See?

  Stands

• Inkspot - Arnie for president
  snorgle]on Dujon's shoulders I see.
• flerdle - I'm not collecting them on purpose, honest.
  As promised, another photograph; you have been warned. Huntsman. A small one. Note the different shape of the legs, much more crab-like.
• rab - Igitt!
  Makes me really glad that I live somewhere boring like the UK. I would also wager that one of its legs is missing, and I'm not sure if I find that more or less preferable to a fully kitted-out version.
• snorgle - Incy wincy
  Yes, it may harbour thoughts of revenge..
• Dunx - Half Mast
  [rab] Nicely done on the greyed out links. I shall probably just remove them, I'm afraid.
• Bob the dog - Stunt double
  I saw David Blaine in Tescos this morning. Do I win £5?
• Raak
  [flerdle,rab] "The spider we want is the one who tore off that leg."
• Angus Prune - arachnophobia
  I didn't have it, but I do now! Yeeks! Please tell me such a thing has never been seen in good old blighty! Having just spent twenty minutes watching 'Infested', bugs are not on my hot list right now. Made the mistake of watching Life of Grime too - never again...
• Dujon - one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight
  [rab] It's not unusual to see the odd 'peg leg' wandering around.

  Which reminds me ...
  At the risk of boring you to death. About six or seven years ago I was sitting in the 'bar' (actually the garage) of a mate's place and was positioned next to a largish double sliding glass door which gave access to the rear of the house. Whilst enjoying the afternoon sunlight beaming through the glass (that's the door, as well as the hand held one!) I noticed a wasp wandering up the pane. It was about 2" to 3" long and was dragging a huntsman spider up the door. I had heard of wasps paralysing spiders and laying their eggs within but had never seen the act. Anyway, interesting as that was at the time, some twelve months ago I had a wasp buzzing around in my workshop - it's not unusual and usually ignored - which finally got itself tangled in my hair (what's left of it.) Naturally I brushed it away. When I did it dropped its load; a load that I had not realized it was a'carrying. The bounty which it had lost landed on the keyboard of my computer which I was using at the time; it was the legless body of a huntsman! Urrgh! It turns out that the wasps paralyse the spiders, nibble off their legs at body level and then lay their eggs and secrete them within the little dirt cells that they build. It gave me the shivering quits for a couple of days, I can tell you.

• Chalky - beastly happenings
  [Duj] Thanks for that. I suddenly find that I can't face my Weetabix this morning.
• rab - One potata
  [Dujon] I refer you to my previous remark.
• Breadmaster - Oh my God!
  [Dujon] That is possibly the most traumatic thing I have ever heard. Thank God that disgusting item didn't land IN YOUR HAIR. However, I was under the impression that the things that paralyse spiders and lay their eggs on them so that they get slowly devoured by grubs are not wasps but ichneumons, which look similar. Ordinary wasps, however, do carry body parts in the way you describe - I once watched a wasp attacking a bee, which it did by sitting on its back and systematically chewing through its thorax. When it finished it flew off with the abdomen - presumably the yummy bit - leaving the front half of the bee staggering around until I mercifully squashed it. Perhaps what you saw was the aftermath of a similar act of piracy. The mere existence of the ichneumon, by the way, was partly responsible for the Victorian "crisis of faith", because many found its existence impossibly to square with the notion of a good creator God. Incidentally, I will keep your anecdote for when I need to terrify my girlfriend. She refused to come to bed last night because a SMALL MOTH was sitting on the wall. Well, that's what she said anyway...
• Nik - Poker
  [Spiders] I see your spiders (*shudder*), and raise you The Japanese Spider Crab: The biggest crab is the Japanese Spider crab (Macrocheira kaempferi), which lives on the floor of the north Pacific Ocean; it has a 12 ft (3.7 m) leg span.
• Angus Prune - spiders and creepies and bugs, oh my!
  [breadmaster] Moths are awful! Quite why they have to mistake my face for a lightbulb I will never know! [Nik] I hope it stays there!
• Angus Prune - MC
  Incidently, why is no-one playing the long game any more? My move is there to be ridiculed/praised/gasped-in-awe at/smirked at/ruled illegal...
• Boolbar - It's been a long long time. . .
  [AP] The complexities of the long game can take some time to calculate. Moves can be irregular and often come in bursts. Yours was a cunning move and it took me some time to see a gap in the web of LV currents to make a move to benefit me.
• Angus Prune - MC
  Oh, I am the veritable prince of cunning. 'Cept when I'm not.
• Dujon - Abso bloody lutely nothing.
  I just came across this - fell off my chair; I don't know whether or not it's been done before but, if so, I have not seen it;

  As found in the Canberra Times, Personals section...

  'Wanted: A tall well built woman with good
  reputation, who can cook frogs
  legs, who appreciates a good fuc-
  schia garden, classic music and tal-
  king without getting too serious.

  Interested? Then please only read
  lines 1, 3 and 5; still interested?
  Call me at...... ***********'

• flerdle - huh?
  I'd heard of that sort of thing as a joke, but actually printing it... ??
• Dujon - Backdown
  Yes, in hindsight I was somewhat carried away, flerdle. Please accept my sincerest apologies - I had no intention of offending anyone's sensibilites and will in future be a little more circumspect with my postings. Again, my apologies.
• Dujon - Wasp like insects
  [Breadmaster] This fellow looks very like the beastie I saw carting the spider up the door glass - she was certainy an all-over orange in colour - particularly with the back lighting.

  The one who, along with it's load, became entangled in my thinning thatch was more likely a black species which is common here. They have the typical dangling long legs as they aeronaut around the place and often pop into my workshop to pass the time of day.

• flerdle - not to worry
  [Dujon] My comment wasn't directed toward you; I was surprised that the paper had done it.
• Dujon - Still embarrassed
  Thanks, flerdle, but my comment still stands. Funny as I found it, this is not a pub.
• rab - Public house
  [Dujon] I suspect that such a thing appearing in print would be impossible as an advertiser cannot predict how their copy will be presented. Unless it was one of the staff having a laugh. Meanwhile, I always thought this place had the ambience of a pub about it. I'm not sure I want to persue the analogy though...
• snorgle - hic
  Otherwise, we'll never sober up.. btw, you didn't offend me, so don't be too embarrassed.
• Breadmaster
  I'm offended though. Cooking frogs' legs...? ;-)
• Rosie
  Can I have your glasses, please? At least you don't hear that here. :-)
• rab - Polititude
  [Rosie] When was the last time you were in a bar where they're that polite? My favourite euphemism for f*** off out the door is "Can you start to think about making a move now please?". By the way, has the law on licensing hours been changed yet? Or will it retain forever the status of empty election promise?
• Lib - *hanging tinsel round the crescent*
  Yay! Its Christmas! Hurrah!
• penelope - greetings from the cote d,azure
  Posting from NIce on one of these strangely-arranged keyboards... having a lovely time :o)
• Chalky - penelope
  Wahay :-). Are you a Nice colour?
• DrQu+xum - Is this not a pub?
  [pen] Any pics to prove your presence? :)
  [Duj] I thought it was f***ing hilarious, really. :)
• Dunx - Licensing Laws
  [rab] The bill to change the rules came before Parliament, but it was defeated for (IIRC) some trivial technical reason and time was not granted to try again. Apparently, fewer MPs care about reducing the amount of after pub violence than about banning fox hunting.
• Lib - not gone totally crazy, yet!
  Sorry about my previous outburst. The choir I'm in recorded a Christmas CD (in june?!?) and its been released, so I was happily transported to a Christmas world caused by listening to the disc. (And you can all buy it in the shops or on-line, www.halle.co.uk. It's called Christmas collection (rather uninspired, methinks) but is a jolly good CD). And by the way, advance warning, on sunday 19th october the Halle orchestra and choir are performing Brahm's German requiem. Looks set to be an excellent concert. (7.30pm, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester). Time to stop self promoting and get back to work.

  [pen] Hope you're having lots of fun. Tis still rather windy here in the UK, so enjoy the pleasant climes!

• Nik
  I'll be in Manchester that evening. Unfortunately, I'm there to see Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure at 8pm in the Opera House.
• Uncle Korky - Important astrologer
  [Nik] Don't you like Dave Gorman? I'd happily swap places with you!
• Graham III - In the bleak midsummer...
  [Lib] Oh the joys of recording - I've had to do that twice now, and it gets really wearing, especially if the weather's good. Last time we found and decorated a christmas tree to put in the chapel...
• rab - Fibs
  I starting seeing Fibonacci numbers everywhere, which was nice for a while, but I then realised I made a mistake and they've gone again. It's still very rum though...
• Angus Prune - Jingle Bells
  Christmas really has started too early this year. Debenhams were putting their decs for sale in August. :(
• Nik
  [UK] Ba-dum, tsch!
• Dujon - Fibs, fibs and more fibs
  [rab] Rum indeed! Well, cheap plonk, really. Funny you should mention them though; I've just been doing a little bit of reading - mainly on the Golden Square/Ratio side of things. It's amazing where the things turn up in nature.
• Inkspot - p.c.less
  My home pc lost power on Tuesday, so no home surfing, Wednesday in for a new internal power supply. Took the pc home but the modem did not work, no surfing again, back to the shop. Several deep breaths and sighs later they came to the conclusion that it needed to be kept in overnight the problem being "It's a bit creaky" being a not to clued up on computers this tchno babble, I let them keep in. It worked fine when I bought it four years ago! (AMD500 with 64Mb RAM). No pc last night again. If it goes over the weekend I'll end up going cold turkey. My only consolation is here at the office which is for work purposes only.

  Dujon]Golden square takes me back to my student days and the first year of my architecture degree and didactic patterns in nature. Including a day of research in the fine city of Bath.

• Bob the dog - Birthday
  rab] Nice cake - it it an MC5 anniversary?
• rab - No
  An act of pure self-indulgence on my part.
• Chalky - Cake with candles
  [rab] oooh! Are you nine today?
• Boolbar - Bring back Teddy!
  ...or ninty?
• rab
  [Chalky] *blushes*

  [Boolbar] Ninty? Sounds a bit like that Brazillian slang 'Pinto' to me. And just for you:
  

• Projoy - Happy Birthday
  A wonderful day, dearest rab!
  I hope the hangover is fab!
  You'll drink the bar dry,
  And (when pigs start to fly)
  The uni will pick up the tab!
• Chalky - Many Happy Returns
  Splendid. On a Friday aswell. Mine's a large brandy.
  OK - self-disclosure alert. This astrology mallarkey. Received wisdom = it's a load of cobblers ... BUT - all the important people in my life [bar one and he's in January] have birthdays between mid - Sept and mid - Nov. Having just done the daughters, sister-in-law and a nephew in the last fortnight - next week it's my brother, a girly friend, two blokey friends and my boyfriend - all within 4 days. ALL these people live close by and warrant - nay, DESERVE more than just a card in the post. So many excuses to go to the pub. Oh yes, and the couple of weeks after - it's my late [God rest 'im] father, the french nephew and niece, another sister-in-law, another brother, my wonderful mother and the budgie ..... blah de blah de blah ....
  So, rab, you're in fine company.
• Bob the dog - October babies
  Is this sudden rush of birthdays anything to do with potential parents getting frisky (or very drunk) around Christmas, New Year and the beginning of Spring?
• Uncle Korky - Felicitations
  Many happy returns, Rab! [BtD] All of the best people are born in October!
• LotUS - Many happy returns of the day!
  Salutations and many more rab!
• Rosie - birthdays
  (Uncle K) Too true. Mother (still alive) and younger brother - 27 Oct. Niece 11 Oct. Not far away is other niece - 24 Sept, and me - 17 Nov when I move from a prodigiously multi-factored number to a prime number. Also 27 Oct are two other people I know plus the barmy Glenn Hoddle. None of this supports the idea that astrology is anything other than a compendium of testicular flummery. Anyway, Scorpios never believe in astrology, do they?
• Bob the dog - Happy returns rab
  UK, Rosie] Gosh! Yes I've just checked. It seems that there is a suprisingly high rate of musical talent demonstrated by those born in October. There are also alot of Johns.
  Persons of good reputation born in October and not called John: rab, Thom York, Bob Geldoff, Julian Cope, Mahatma Ghandi, Groucho Marks, Harold Pinter, Oscar Wilde
  Persons of good reputation born in October and called John: John Lennon, John Cleese, John Keats, Johnny Marr
  Persons of questionable reputation born in October:Jimmy Carter, Chris De-Burgh, Simon Le-Bon, Cliff Richard, Peter Stringfellow, Winonna Ryder and Margaret Thatcher
  The conclusion? If you have a child in October, call it John.
• Darren
  Yeah, I was born in October too which proves that people of high musical talent come from that month.
• Inkspot
  I'm a September birthday, and I don't believe a word of my families nonsense about my singing.
• Chalky - qualititive survey
  Oooh, I love lists. So far:

  Rab - Oct 10
  Incle Korky - Oct ?
  Rosie - Nov 17
  Darren - Oct ?
  Chalky's budgie - Oct 26
  Inkspot - Sept ?

  any one else...?

• Uncle Korky - October greats
  me: Oct 16
  Auntie Korky: Oct 20
  Best friend: Oct 8
  Best friend's cat: Oct 12
  New next-door-neighbour: Oct 24
  
  See you all next Monday (no net access at home, at the mo').
• Boolbar - Ninty?
  Ah, the missing "e". Oops! Happy Birthdaye Rab!
  I'm a September Lad myself.
• rab - T-30 and counting
  I can smell beer...
• penelope - Returns
  [Rab] Happy Birthday :oD
  [All] Back from Nice - my cheeks still burning from this morning's sunshine. I'd recommend Nice in October - hot in the sun, cool in the shade, and warm enough to eat outside under a full moon on a rooftop terrace last night. There were people swimming au Mediterranée, although I didn't. I didn't take any photos, nor send any postcards, nor even buy souvenirs (unless you count bringing home brioche and black olive tapenade) but soaked up the smells and sounds. And I love just sitting outside, idly chatting and watching the world go by and drinking coffee...*sigh* :o)
• Tuj - A Merry Birthday, rab
  pen] I have carefully resisted a pun about saying your holiday sounded "Nice".
  Oops.
• JLE - Birthdays
  Mine was back in August (26th). I was away in Austria at the time. The landlady of the B&B I was staying in found it out (there was a place where, for identification purposes, I had to sign my date of birth) and presented me with a cake ;-)
• snorgle - bidet
  Well, my birthdays June 28, my mother's June 24, and my (dec'd) maternal grandmother's was June 24 as well. My dad's is November 13, and he's a nasty alkie tosser..although his singing isn't bad..
• Tuj - June the twenty-odd
  In my youth, I was thrilled to note that my paternal granfather's birthday was June 23rd, my paternal grandfather's was June 24th, and mine was the 25th. Simple things please simple minds, eh?
• snorgle - double up
  [Tuj]Your father had 2 dads then? ;)
• Watty - coinkydink
  Well, I'm an October person (Next Sunday, since you ask - one or two of you may remember last October), and my good lady wife is June 24th. My children, thanks to careful planning (or random chance - take your pick) are November 5th and the 4th of July. They have fireworks on their birthdays.
• Inkspot - more interuptions
  A small beak in transmission whilst we pause slightly to salute snorgle in her historic run of being at No1 for 5 out of the last seven weeks in the Celebrity MC League
• snorgle - I am number one..again!
  I thenk yew.. I'm stumped for who to go for now, though..
• Chalky - Beak?
  There's a joke there somewhere but I'm damned if I can think of one right now. Well done snorgs.
• Dujon - Neb
  [Chalky] Beak/snorgle/joke? I doubt it, I have never known her to be judgemental.
  [snorgle] Well done! You must divulge your strategies when you finally pen your autobiography. ... ;-)
• flerdle - codicynces
  I can immediately name at least seven people I know personally, with birthdays on the same day as mine. Oh, including me, of course. And I know I've forgotten one or two more. It's about five days over-long, but about when is Valentine's day again? :-D

  This might interest some.

• Dujon - Oct 19?
  Am I the only Piscean here (the name fits, by the way; as in 'drinks like a'.) Then again, I was born during WWII so I guess limited opportunities were presented! Incidentally, my family is all over the calendar; Mother 17 Nov., Wife 18 Nov. (Should I read something into that?) Siblings 3 Jan, 9 Sept. and 18 Dec.. Father 5 Oct., Paternal Grandmother 8 Oct., Maternal grandfather 9 Mar., Son 28 Jan, Daughter 26 Oct. Granddaughter 11 Aug. No pattern in that lot.
• Dujon - Mar 3
  [flerdle] Interesting stats; However, during my life as a banker - which stretched over 26 years - in which time I interviewed innumerable people for account opening/loans and the like, memory tells me that I met 1 (one) person who had the same birthdate as myself - that is, the same month/day combination, not the year. I have always thought of that as statistically strange.
• Dujon - Hogging the cake.
  [rab] Sorry, my friend, most remiss of me; happy birthday.
• Breadmaster - All alone
  The only person I know who has the same birthday as mine is Eric Clapton. And I don't technically really know him. Spring seems to be a barren time when it comes to births. They say that on a football field there is a 50% chance that two of the 22 players will share a birthday, but someone better than me at adding will have to verify that.
• Chalky - Pisceans
  [Duj] I'm a Pisces [24 Feb] therefore well out of kilter with the rest of my family/friends.
• Bob the dog - January
  I am a Capricorn. But is there a statistical blip here in that so many MCers are experiencing birthdays around this time? Update of Chalkys list:
  Rab - Oct 10
  Uncle Korky - Oct 16
  Rosie - Nov 17
  Darren - Oct
  Chalky's budgie - Oct 26
  Inkspot - Sept
  Watty - Oct
  Boolbar - Sept
• Lib - Joining the minority
  I celebrate my birthday in March, could be wrong but I like it at that time of year! (And that makes me a self obsessed, competitive, headstrong aries!)
• flerdle - numbers
  [BtD] Look at some of the other postings to find or work out several of the others here eg JLE, Watty, snorgle, Tuj, me... And I just remembered another person, so that makes 8 definitely on the same day as me. Is that some sort of record? I don't think I know a thousand peoples birthdays. It's too late to think about this, though. Neeed sleeeeeep...
  [Breadmaster] See here for an explanation of that.
• Rosie - Footballers' birthdays
  (Breadmaster) Very nearly right. You need 23 people, so add in the ref. The chances for 22 people are 47.6%, and for 23, 50.7%. With 50 people the chances are 97.0% and, needless to say, with 365 it's 100%. None of this takes into account those unfortunates born on 29 Feb in a leap year.
• DrQu+xum - Taurus - Apr 27
  Lilith the Psychotic Ferret, as we can figure out, is an Aquarius (we think she was born late January-early February)...what that means for ferrets, God only knows. :)
• snorgle - ferret signs
  Ferrets probably have their own astrological signs..Trouser Leg, Screaming Rabbit, etc.
• penelope - a perfect match
  I torched a load of very dry hedge clippings today - there's nothing quite so good for the soul as a smoking and roaring great bonfire and hearing the neighbours spluttering as they rush to bring in the washing from the clouds of billowing smoke. And don't tell me about dioxins and furans and the products of incomplete combustion - I know. But unlike my neighbours ( I know what they ate just about every weekend this summer - I could always smell it cooking), I haven't had a barbecue for two years and so I reckon I'm entitled. :o)
• snorgle - cheeky!
  Did you start the fire after they put their washing out? I hate it when people do that..
• penelope - pre-wash
  [Snorgle] Of course I lit it after they put their washing out! What neighbour would put out their washing after I lit a fire? Are you one of those neighbours who waits until I've lit a fire before they put out their washing and then complains when it smells of smoke? I hate it when people do that!! ;o)
• snorgle - wishy washy
  On speaking terms with your neighbours then? :P

  I suppose it depends how long their washing was out. If it was a while, then fair enough.

• Chalky
  Persinally, I use Persil. Wonderful for those hard-to-shift bonfire stains . . .
• snorgle - i like goats
  Get a goat. It can then eat the evidence.
• Darren
  Each which evidence? The bonfire or the clothes?
• penelope - I'm a noxious neighbour - not many people know that
  Oh dear - I'm not as inconsiderate as all that! The fire lasted about 20 minutes - I put it out once it had all burned away and the smoke cleared pretty quickly. I use Tesco's own label non-bio. It smells nicer than Persil (and I used to be a Persilite).
  Are goats good to eat?
• Darren
  Goats' cheese is good.
• Bob the dog - Goat Stew
  Pen] Yes - goats are very good to eat and I recommend them. They are used quite a lot in West Indian recipes. They taste a bit like strong lamb.
• Uncle Korky - "Blow wind, and crack your cheeks..."
  Just a little anecdote, since we were talking about birthdays, and this was brought to mind by a comment rom Rosie in the Mini Cheddars game. As those of you who are observant will already have noticed, my birthday falls on Oct 16. Back in 1987, this was the night of the Great Storm. Co-incidentally, also my 18th birthday. I was kept awake all night by roof tiles clattering groundwards and then smashing on the driveway, but at least I had the good news in the morning that, because of the weather disruption, all schools were closed! Whoopee!
  My mother also told me that, when she was a little girl, her mother had told her that if she had been good all year, it would be sunny on her birthday, and if she had been bad, it would rain. She then looked me square in the eyes and said "What did you do?!"
• Huxley - Goats' cheese is NOT good
  This has been a running debate between myself and my inlaws who are, notably, French. They are of the opinion that goats cheese is something wonderful. Indeed, how could anyone NOT like it? In fact, they like it so much that when they order a pizza, they make sure that there are 5 or 6 good dollops of goats cheese on top. I hold the considered view that it smells and tastes like vomit.
• Chalky
  [Hux] I have to agree. My brother has lived in France for most of his adult life. At his wedding feast in June, French cheese was in abundance as one would expect. There must have been at least 20 varieties - all beautifully presented. I was persuaded to try the goat's cheese - it tasted like a farmyard and seemed to ferment inside me for at least 2 days - every burp, yeuch!
• Chalky - Spooky
  Just turned on This Morning with Fern & Phil. What are they tasting? Chuffing Goat's Cheese! [Fern doesn't like it].
• Huxley - Who the heck
  In an attempt to remain open minded (palletted?) and under the assumption that it must be "something of an aquired taste", I do try to force it down me once in a while... the taste remains unacquired.
  
  ps. I don't know who "Fern & Phil" are. I thought it was Richard and Judy.
• Boolbar - Say Cheese!
  Goats cheese is good! Delicious, great on pizzas and unlike some cow cheeses doesn't taste or smell of vomit. Sheeps cheese is not so tasty - sort of smells like the wrong end of a baby. Haven't tried Llama cheese yet.
• Raak - Rotted milk
  Cheese is Evil.
• snorgle - cheesy peas!
  [Raak]Probably, but I like it. Cream cheese, cheddar cheese, Emmental, Swiss cheese, soft cheese with garlic and herbs.. yum! I eat way too much of the stuff.
• Bob the dog - Dairy good
  I have to agree with Boolbar. Goat’s cheese is wonderful. If you want a mild variety, make sure the milk has come from a virgin goat (you often get virgin milkers) that has been nowhere near a billy - 'cos it is the billy that has that musky goat aroma. Virgin goat’s cheese is sweeter and creamier than cows milk cheese. More natural and stronger varieties are more to my taste - especially the Brie style (I know some wonderful goats cheese folk in Worcestershire). These are especially good with fresh herbs (mint, dill etc) or deep-fried. Is it lunchtime yet?
• Breadmaster
  I agree with Raak. Who was it who let their milk stand until it was all lumpy, and said, "I know! I'll drain off the liquid, mash all the chunks together, and eat the smooth firm paste that results."? Probably the same person who thought yoghurt looked yummy. Yoghurt is yummy, of course, but you wouldn't think it.
• Bob the dog - Sheepishly...
  I went to see an early Genesis tribute band last night and really enjoyed it. Confession over.
• Bob the dog
  Sorry Breadmaster - Simulposted and unacknowledged. Still disagree - cheese - especially traditional hand made stuff - is the staff of life.
• Chalky - more confessionals ...
  [Bob the dog] If it's the same band that I saw earlier this year [Re-Genesis?] I don't blame you. Also - The Australian Pink Floyd are quite amazing.
• Bob the dog - Phew!
  Chalky] Thank you! No, it was The Garden Wall and they did an exact reproduction of the Selling England tour. Apart from a slightly dorky 'Peter Gabriel' it was wonderful. I may even go to see them again in a few weeks time when they come to Birmingham. They are Italian - I believe. Recommended - if you like that sort of thing.
• Bob the dog - if you like that sort of thing
  and oddly, I recommend it if you don't. I didn't think I did any more, but that early prog rock stuff was written to be performed so seeing it live added a whole new dimension for me. It was like some bizarre historical re-enactment society, but extremely entertaining.
• Uncle Korky - Musical Box
  [BtD, etc.] Anyone interested in a decent evening of prog would do well to get their bottoms down to the Astoria in Tottenham Court Road in a month's time. The two-day Progeny festival sees IQ headlining on Sat 15 Nov (supported by Pallas and Carl Palmer), and The Enid the following night. I'll be there for IQ, if anyone fancies coming along...
• Bigsmith - Prog
  I'm a bit of a prog nut myself - Yes are my thing. Coincidently my tickets for the NEC in June 2004 arrived in the post this morning! I have always rated Pallas and IQ as well (much better than their contemporaries Marillion), but can't make it to London that weekend.
• Bob the dog - Cinema Show
  UK/Big] also unavailable on that date. Saw the Enid many moons ago and was singled out in the audience for being the "Punk with a chinsey ear-ring". Suprised that IQ still going! They were the good Genesis clones (as opposed to Marrilion) I seem to remember (agree Bigsmith). Have you heard any Tetra Splendour? Gutsy modern music with the odd Prog twist.
• Uncle Korky - Awake & Nervous
  IQ are indeed still going strong, and I was able to be at their 20th anniversary concert in London back in December 2001. They're currently working on a new album, and also have an excellent DVD out of their stage show, Subterranea. Further info can be gleaned from www.gep.co.uk/iq
  I've recently been getting into Spock's Beard, an American prog group who are being hailed as 'the Yes of the 21st Century'. I would comment, but I'm not yet familiar with Yes past Owner of a Lonely Heart...
• Bob the dog - Frank Chickens
  There now follows a chicken update...
  A quick bit of background for those of you who have not followed the progress of the Mornington chickens. Earlier this year I bought three chickens and named them after regular mc5 users Penelope, flerdle and Lib. flerdle laid the first egg.
  Well since my last news update, little has happened except the chickens have grown, got red wattles and begun being allowed out into the garden. They love it, especially if I'm digging as they take great pleasure in grubbing freshly turned soil. They run to see me whenever I'm in the garden and will leap for anything you are carrying that looks vaguely like chicken food. I have three big vines in the garden (very fine crop this year) that still have some grapes left over. The chickens will jump two or three feet to get at the bigger grapes higher up.
  In return for the grapes, they have laid about two eggs every three days consistently since flerdles first egg, but now things are moving up a gear. On Sunday we had two eggs in one day. Today we have already had three, one of which is huge (oddly zeppelin sized – and shaped). Anyone need any eggs?
• snorgle - boc boc boc
  That poor hen! I could use some eggs, but I don't think posting them is a good idea.. :)
• Dunx
  With apologies to non-cheese eaters, but - Mmmm... goat cheese. My mouth is watering at the thought of it.

  I had a very good goat cheddar from Sainsbury's a few years ago. Excellent, sad I haven't seen anything like it here yet.

• Lib
  What animal's milk is Haloumi from? I know it tastes yummy!
• Bob the dog
  Lib] Haloumi, like Feta should be from sheeps milk, but if you buy a mass produced product it is more likley to be made from cows milk.
• Angus Prune - Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeese
  Try Seriously Strong Cheddar - it's the absolute best - it won a prize and everything!
• penelope - cheese - cheering
  I'm going to nominate a mature cheddar-like cheese, made from unpasteurised milk, called Lincolnshire Poacher and made by a friend of a friend. I think it's available all over the country now. Yum :o)
• Ibid - More cheese, gromit
  Gjetost for me - Norwegian goats milk cheese.
• Chalky - the "Laundry/ProgRock/Cheese" game
  I think a mature creamy Stilton takes a lot of beating.
• Huxley
  pennylopie] sounds scrumptious! French cheeses are simply out of this world... my personal favs are St. Nectaire, St. Emilion, and roquefort. Hmmm, I think I'll stop by a fromagerie and boulangerie on the way home tonight and pick up an nice Sancerre rouge while I'm at it!
• Uncle Korky - Hoorah!
  *Withdrawl symptoms over*
• Uncle Korky - Curdled milk fetish
  Speaking as someone who always ensures a well-stocked cheeseboard at Christmas, my favourites are Ilchester Cheddar Mexicana, Monterey Jack, Mature Cheddar with Caramelised Onions, Y Fenni, and Jarlsberg. On the subject of goats' cheese, I've used small circles of it to good effect, served upon griddled lamb cutlets with red wine gravy.
• Wol - the important words ...
  in all this are 'made from unpasteurised milk'. S'bury's do really quite good unpasteurised cheddar; and an awesome Brie de Meaux (which always makes me chuckle, because it often appears on the bargain-basement-'cos-it's near-its-sell-by-date-and-we're-afraid-of-bugs-and-lawyers shelf - at exactly the time when it is ready to eat and they could, if they wished, charge more for it ...).
• Boolbar - Brie de Meaux
  [Wol] Is that made from cats milk?
• Wol - mews
  No, you're thinking of Cheshire.
• Lib - Broardcasting from the depths of Cheshire
  [Wol] Friends lead me to believe that Cheshire cheese is actually made from wall paper paste, with a little plaster of Paris mixed in.....*Lib saunters off in the general direction of the supermarket wondering which cheese she'll buy today*
• Nik - Cheese, and why you should all shut up about it
  I'm a big lover of cheese. I'm also on a diet. The two, obviously, do not mix. For the first couple of months, I stuck to my "I'd rather have none than 'low-fat cheese'" guns, but it couldn't last. Thankfully, Tesco do have a "cheese" which - if you close your eyes, hold your nose and think about something else - could be mistaken for a medium-mature cheddar. Unless you heat it (you don't heat it).

  I was in Cheddar a couple of months ago, and was forced to go into The Real Cheddar Cheese Company shop, and ended up with a (thankfully small triangle of) vintage cheddar, and it was delicious (in far-too-small portions). I miss (full-fat, creamy, hand-made, farmhouse) cheese (feta, cheddar, cheshire, wensleydale, lancashire, double gloucester, red leicester among... well, more varieties than that). I miss it badly.

• penelope - thin cheese
  [Nik] erm... try the Atkins diet? Then you could eat cheese 'til it comes out of your ears.
• Dunx - Cheesy Cheesy
  [Nik] My sympathies. I'm in the invidious position of (1) being overweight and needing to cut down on fats; and (2) being a vegetarian whose primary source of protein is cheese. Tricky. My usual solution is to exercise more, but I can't even run at the moment because of a persistent knee injury. Quite frustrating.

  [UK] You confuse me. Most of the cheeses you list are of the highest quality, but then you have Monterey Jack on your cheese board? Maybe the Jack you buy is better than the pappy Jack we can get here... is it dry Jack?

• Chalky - F-Atkins
  [penelope] you mentioned the Atkins Diet ... in such a way that you *might* know how effective it is? Having been a very average 5' 6" size 12 for most of my adult life - I now find myself getting quite plumptious and can't be bothered to go to a Slimming Club.
• Darren
  Never mind, Chalky, I doubt you're as overweight as I am!
• Xylophonic - Atkins
  It may work fast but it makes your breath smell.
• Macgyver - Cheese
  You want the good stuff, I suggest you get it cave matured. Yummy!
• distinctly sideways - cave matured cheese
  hardly low fat though is it? There must be diet cheese somewhere that doesn't taste of plastic!
• Dujon - Cardboard etc.
  My good wife purchases low salt, low fat dairy products - including yoghurt. I flatly refuse to eat them (yes, I have tried each one!) so the 'fridge has his and hers compartments. ... :-)
• DrQu+xum - Pseudonyms?
  Is this "Come As Someone Else Day", or are we being hit with a pseudonym bomb?
• Dujon - wearing mask - Alias or Alien?
  Dunno, DrQ. I've just come back to the site after watching strange things popping up here and there and everywhere about an hour ago.
• Dujon - Timing
  Err, to pin it down for any reader, it's just after 0235 GMT as I type.
• penelope - die(t) trying
  [Chalky] Re: Atkins diet - I've read the book, tried it for a week or so... and while in principle it works by converting your body's metabolism to that of a starving person living off their fat reserves (David Blaine could be considered to be an Extreme Atkins Dieter), it's bloody hard to keep it up - and you do need lots of mineral and vitamin pills to pop and test-papers to wee on to make sure you're maintaining a state of ketosis. Slimming World do a slightly less extreme low-carb version (as opposed to Atkins' No-carb) which I successfully followed for a couple of months and dropped at least a dress size. Why not attend a slimming club just for a couple of weeks to get all the books, literature and a few recipes, then do the rest on your own? That's what I did. (Well, in fact I nicked one of the books while I was a reporter covering the town's Slimmer of the Year... so in fact I never went to a class at all). Alternatively, learn to love your curves and go for a half-hour stomp every night instead. :o)
• distinctly sideways - Pseudonyms
  Or there could simply be an abundance of new users...
• Xylophonic - Dieting
  Whereas Weight Watchers is initially boring but much better for you. Do that, it lost me weight. And I also recommend stomping :)
• Nik - Atkins
  [pen] I'd rather try slicing my limbs off, since that's both less likely to kill me, and more likely to result in a stable weight afterwards.
• snorgle - dreaming
  [DrQu+xum]Did you have a nightmare?
• Nik - WW
  [X, p, et al] Weightwatchers is what I'm doing, and last night I beat 5st 7lb after 8.5 months. Apart from the kaeselust, it's quite enjoyable, really. My diet is far better than it has ever been since I left home 9 years ago (and probably better than before then as well), and recently I added some exercise as well. At £4.75/week for the weighing (and optional chat/class afterwards that I never stay for), it's not cheap (especially when you need to lose 7 stone to become a Gold - non-paying - member), but they give out lots of helpful literature, and above all else it's a sane diet, which is why I've bothered with it at all.

  More importantly than all this, I'm glad to see my DSL chose to remain alive this morning, after I forgot yet again to make sure it was okay when I left the house.

• Xylophonic - WW
  Hurrah!
• Fandango - Pseudonyms
  How do I know you're not all the same person?
• snorgle - strangers
  Has anyone seen St Dogmael?
• Fandango - St Dogmael
  A film or a person? *wears D hat for not knowing*
• snorgle - the saint
  A person. Who usually posts on various MC boards.
• Bob the dog - st d
  snorgle] He hasn't been on MC5 for ages, but I know he is a very regular contibutor to MCiOS and occasionally Orange too. I have seen him in the flesh - if that is what you mean, but not recently. He appears to be pretty normal to me - he has a very quick wit and is an excellent photographer.
• Bob the dog - Diet
  Oh and Nik - well done!
• Bob the dog - Back to st dog
  snorgle] You are right, I've just checked MCiOS and he has not posted in ages - last time was probably on Hyperlink Crescent. If you are suggesting that he is responsible for the sudden burst of odd pseudonyms, I think not. His sense of humour is too advanced.
• Bob the cat - Meeow
• penelope
  *Gives St Dogmael a virtual poke*
• st dogmael - being virtually poked
  ouch !
• DrQu+xum - Sleep.
  [snorgle] No, but I think I OD'd on Mountain Dew yesterday. I got 3.5 hours of sleep.
• snorgle - od
  [DrQu+xum]Isn't that a sort of neon greenish yellow? I wonder if it stains your insides? You have probably gone over your lifetime safe amount of crinoline yellow or whatever the hell it is. Go on a detox diet immediately! Only raw vegetables and fruit juices for you - (and no Sunny Delight doesn't count!)
• Uncle Korky
  [Dr Q] Ooh - rampant jealousy! I haven't seen Mountain Dew on sale in the UK for years!
  
  [Dunx] I usually buy my Monterey Jack straight off the deli counter at my local Tesco's. It's got a consistency that I con only describe by comparing it to Edam, but slightly creamier and a bit wobbly. I was amused to note that the label promotes it as an all-American cheese - made in Wales.
• Ibid - Mountain Dew
  Never had the stuff. I nearly had some when they had a free sample desk up several years ago in a midlands University, but when I asked what it tasted like, the bloke behind the stand looked at me like I was an idiot and said 'like mountain dew, of course'. Since I didn't want to drink something that tastes of acid rain and goat's piss, I declined to sample any of Mr Miserable's wares. So, does it taste like acid rain and goat's piss?
• st dogmael - being poked
  schnorkle] so did you want anything then, or were you just wanting to wake me up ?
• Blue Bananas - Mountain Dew
  What is it?
• snorgle - owoooooooooo
  [st dogmael]Just wondering where you had got to..
  [Blue Bananas]A flavoured soft drink. As to what the flavour is, who knows? At least Irn Bru has real iron in it and tastes metallic.
• Dunx - Americana
  [UK] Ah - it sounds like the wet stuff, but much more flavourful than the usual run of Jack you get at the supermarket. It is possible to buy cheese which tastes of something, but tasteless, plasticky pseudo-cheese is endemic.

  Re: Mountain Dew - tried it once, I didn't like it. It's approximately orange flavoured, but it has a lot of caffeine in it. I managed to drink half a can before I got a splitting headache. I threw the rest away.

• DrQu+xum - Foo!
  Mountain Dew is neon yellow/green with large amounts of citric acid and caffeine. It's kick-ass, I tell you! KICK ASS! YEAHYEAHYEAH! *given a sedagive* Yes.
• Projoy
  So, sort of like (soi-disant) Sunny Delight, then?
• Angus Prune - fluids
  Sunny Delight is EVIL JUICE and should be outlawed. [Blue Bananas] I know that's you making with the pseudonyms - cut it out!
• Darren
  [Angus] I think s/he thinks it's funny.
• Blue Bananas - Offended
  Twas a temporary thing trying to find one I liked. But I like Blue bananas best.
• Blue Bananas - Annoying everyone
  Sorry about that. I'm only little, and therefore forgivable.
• Inkspot - more guv'
  Arnie becomes the £900 celebrity and showing no slowdown
  Blue Banana]Hi and welcome to the Mornington community.
• snorgle - More offensive
  [Angus Prune]OOh! How did you know?

  I got this sent to my hotmail account -

  Hi, Thank you for submitting your e-mail address to various SPAM companies, courtesy of The Official David Blaine website, www.davidblaine.com. Your e-mail address alone provided us with 0.5 cents, which, when you think about it, is $1k for every 200,000 addresses. So, thanks for adding to the FoB - Funds of Blaine. While I'm here, kudos to Mr Blaine on his recent trial, and all the English that do various, drunken things in front of poor Blainey, to try to cause a little havoc... well, you all suck. Go find something sensible to do, and stop wasting your lives. Yours, The Official David Blaine Society, together with over 2000 various mailing lists who now have your e-mail address.

  Cheeky, or what? As its an e-mail address I use to sign up for any old rubbish, I don't really mind, but the nerve of some people! I was wondering at the sudden recent influx of pr0nographic spam, though. And what GIMP came up with that insulting simulpost message? SLAP!!!

• Bob the dog - Strange fruit
  Blue Bananas] Hi and welcome.
  snorgle] A gimp in a perspex box.
• Darren
  [Blue Bananas] Well, OK, maybe I leapt down your throat there, and sorry for that.
• Dujon - Records (Not LPs, EPs or such)
  Is this some sort of record? Every single game has been 'activated' during the day of 15^th October; amazing!
• Dujon - Spring, sprung and stuff
  I have just come back into the workshop after hanging out the washing - what an absolutely magnificent day. The bees (not the honey-bees or bumble bees) are busy rubbing themselves gleefully against the buds of things to come on the ornamental vine which covers the pergola at the back of my house - the sun beams down like a pontiff in a trance - the birds are a'singing and sound far better than a soprano; all is well in this part of the world. Time I think for a couple of glasses of cheap white. This is one of those days (so far) when you wouldn't be dead for quids.
• Dujon - Chatty, again.
  Mainly for Rosie - unless there are other weather freaks on this site: 23.5°C - around 45% humidity - cloud one octer (if that) - wind chill; forget it - Barometer about 1002/3. I very rarely partake of a midday meal but, today, I am sorely tempted to sit on the back balcony and just eat the day.
• Dujon - Well there's win and not win.
  Sky - now 7 octers+, washing in, luncheon deferred. I thought you'd be really interested ... :-) ... :-(
• flerdle - am, am
  Warm here, sky clouding over; 24 (falling) and 49% here, 1018, slight breeze, normal for about this time of year; can see some rain off in the distance (past Mt Cootha, to the north-northwest) but doubt we'll get any. [Dujon] Wotsan octer?
• Dujon - Octopusses
  [flerdle] 1 octer = 1 eighth (of the visible sky) cloud cover; the spelling I'm not sure of - I'm not even sure if it has a correct one, though undoubtedly it does.
• Dunx
  Slight harrumph, since we're just at the end of a day of persistent autumnal rain (incidentally, this is one definite reason why I frown upon the use of "fall" to describe the name of the season after summer, because the word "autumnal" becomes suddenly less current), but then we are six months out of phase and this is to be expected. More rain tomorrow, I understand.
• Dunx
  ... and pretty much eight octers all day, of course.
• rab - Insulting
  [snorgle, re Preview+Simulpost] The message was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, but seeing as you've objected I've toned it down now. Not impressed at being called a gimp in such large letters though.
• snorge - less insulting?
  [rab]I was just replying as per the spirit of the message! I withdraw my GIMP remark..
• rab - Fairy Nuff
  Luckily you didn't point out the even more embarrassing grammatical error - which now too has been excised. Play on!
• Chalky - heated debate
  Ooo-er! I've never seen the Preview+Simulpost message, and am unlikely to now it's been 'toned down'. Shame. I like toned up stuff.
• Breadmaster - Crowded, isn't it?
  What's an octer? I like rain. It's so melancholy and atmospheric. And you can think that if it were a lot colder it would be snowing. This is my favourite time of year: summer definitely over, winter to come (with the faint but tantalising possibility of snow), blue skies with frost underfoot and golden leaves falling, and Bonfire Night coming up, with Christmas on the way. Can't be beaten!
• Chalky - AUTUMN
  [BM] Absolutely agree! I've even been known to break out in poetry at this time of year ...
• snorgle - painful poetry
  Ooh! Sounds nasty - is it painful?

  My poetry is painful
  The use of time not gainful
  For the looks I get are baneful
  And say that it is awful!

• Boolbar - Fall or nothing
  I too enjoy Autumn - it makes the neighbours retreat inside with their getto blaster. Horrah!
• Boolbar - Missing "H"
  Ooops!
• Chalky - Swan-upping and leaving
  There are numerous pairs of beautiful swans gracing the rivers and tributaries that lace our city centre and for the most part, are much cherished by the community. However, it's THAT time of year now ... when the grown-up swans start 'chasing' away the teenage cygnets. I was watching them this morning. They really DO shooh them away with a " get out into that big wide world, sow a few wild oats and find yourself a decent partner-for-life!" No consideration for the lack of flight practice or incomplete plumage, which is still a bit grubby looking. Oh - those poor cygnets! They mistake roads and paths for rivers and try to land, often killing themselves in the process, but more often causing mayhem, be it within their small brain or amongst the traffic. Bless them.
• Ibid - Weather
  What's wrong with snow? You try skiing on drizzle.
• Huxley - It's hard work... really!
  Chalky just won a round "Animal-Vegetable-Mineral-Abstract" and I must say that it's quite tiring work holding the chair. But at least I get to do some work now. Also, I was rather hoping that Wol would win (he was so close too) as he was very sporting about the previous photo-finish
• Chalky - question count
  Yes - it took 67 questions before the correct answer. I did warn you all, when the game was mooted, that it IS time-consuming being in the chair which makes me wonder if I can 'service' another go so soon after my last one. Especially as it appears I have to undertake yet another of those tiresome gender realignments that seem to plague my on-line existence :-)
• Huxley - Chalky, I beg your forgiveness, really, I do... I blame society!
  Yes, I may not even enter the fray on the next round just in case I win again.
• Chalky - utter forgiveness
  [Hux] .. please don't beg! [mind you - I had to do the same with Raak after my last victory. Anyone seen him? If he appears I might just gift him this one]. My gender realignment comment was very tongue-in-cheek - not easy to convey on screen [see my posting in AVMA].
• rab - Hilarity
  I thank parents everywhere who endow their young with wacky and not normally used first names. The only pleasure I get from marking 'homework' is when I come to completing the official sheets which has such names displayed in full resplendence.
• Ibid - Names
  So that's why young Xerxes Finbar Ibid keeps claiming the teacher is laughing at him...
• penelope - naming of the parts
  [Ibid] And you should take care of backwards spellings too... imagine being lumbered with Dibi Rab Nif Sex Rex... Or is it just my brain that works this way?
• Projoy - The onset of evil Winter
  [Bm] matt's told you before about airing such perverted views in public fora. Kindly desist! *turns up heating and pretends it's sunny*
• Ibid - Names
  [pen] Possibly. Of course, google is now going to lead some people to get some odd ideas about rab...
• Breadmaster - Jack Frost
  [Projoy] You can't silence us that easily!
  [penelope] My brain does that too. Every word I hear, I mentally reverse. Og ouy ereht os.
• rab - Rain and odd ideas
  I like rain, and confuse my hosts whenever I'm in a warmish, dryish country (say, the South of Germany) and run outside as soon as the heavens open. [Ibid] I'm sure people have enough odd ideas about me already... and this posting won't have helped.
• Chalky - DRAWKCAB
  [pen, BM] I remember rolling about the floor laughing when my father called Val Doonican - Nacinood Lav! I was young. It's stayed with me though and I still call Star Trek - Kert Rats. I'm also quite fluent at joined-up backwards writing [mirror writing] but I'm a calligrapher so I s'pose that's not too unusual.
• snorgle - sinister
  The only backwards thing I can do easily is the writing - with my non-dominant left hand. I also find it easier to do if I'm writing with my right hand at the same time..
• Dujon - Dexterity/ytiretxed
  I used to enjoy mucking around with the 'mirror' writing when I was a bit younger than I am now. Still, living in the southern hemisphere perhaps enhances the skill?
• penelope - retsinis
  Ah, the fun we had playing with each other's names spelled backwards... [Chalky] a calligrapher? I did calligraphy O level (an 'A', natch!). My handwriting used to be pretty spectacular but it has gone downhill ever since - I blame it one reporting on town council meetings and magistrates courts without bothering to learn shorthand.
  [dominance] My right side is *so* dominant... I even find it difficult to kick a ball or take a step downstairs if I have to use my left foot first.
• Boolbar
  Although right handed, I can use a computer mouse with either hand. In fact I can use two computer mice at once on two different computers. I can write better with my right foot than my left hand though.
• Chalky - Handwriting
  [epolenep] Yes - calligrapher, although I do lots of other stuff with lettering aswell - hotel/pub signs, blackboards [hence the Chalky moniker] although I haven't used actual chalk for years. It was the '0' level that started me off aswell - but this is the first time in my life I've 'done it for a living'. After college in London, my career was in publishing, broadly speaking. My name, backwards, is very Russian.
• rab - Left vs Right
  My ex-boss was a left-handed mouser despite being a right-hander since he claimed that it was more natural to type with one's right hand.
• Darren
  You're supposed to type with both hands.
• snorgle - typing
  I was going to say that!
• Chalky
  snorgs - get back into AVMA!!
• flerdle - innerestin
  I am reasonably ambidextrous, although my right hand has had many more years practice at writing than my left. If I draw with my left hand, it's a little slower and less steady, but the emotional content of the drawings can be quite, how to say, extraodinary. I use a mouse with my right hand at work and my left at home. No particular reason. I have no eye dominance either.
  [snorgle] That's cos we're symmetrical. There's a whole area of visual and developmental therapy about that sort of thing - why it's easier to mirror actions than translate from one side of the body to the other.
  [Dujon] dunno. I've never actually bothered, believe it or not.
  [rab] Fascinating. I know people who must listen to the phone with their right ear, to the extent that when they have to write something down, they have to do this weird crossover thing to hold the phone there.
  [typing] I'm soooo glad I learnt to touch-type in high school. It saves a lot of time.
• flerdle - and one other thing before I go back to marking #*@$^%& assignments...
  [Chalky] Here, "Chalky" is a nickname for schoolteacher. Like Brickie for builder/builder's labourer, Sparky (electrician), Chippy (carpenter)...
• Ibid - He was always a backwards boy...
  I can still sing a fair chunk of Waltzing Matilda backwards (I believe this originally came from a character in one of the later series of the Adventure Game)
• Rosie - Stuff
  (Dujon) It's oktas, old son. None here for several days. Water shortage next year unless we get a soaking wet winter, at least in the SE. (flerdle) One of my teachers was nicknamed Chalky, but his name was White. We also had Pinhead. We used to recite "we call him Pinhead because he is bald and his name is Steele". Taught maths; a nice man. A mate married his daughter. (re sinisterity) I'm totally southpaw, except for mouse, scissors, toothbrush and bumwipe. RH is stronger, LH cleverer. BTW an anagram of my name is "rough stud, he". I wish. :-)
• snorgle - anagrams
  I'm rubbish at anagrams. I either get them right away or not at all!
• penelope - shibbur
  [Anagrams] Ain't that the way... an anagram of my name is 'Just When I Rent It' and my father's (much to my mother's amusement) worked out to be 'Rich Tart When Rid'.
  [Sinisterity] Mouse, Scissors, Toothbrush, Bumwipe?!!! *chortle* Word disociation, unless I'm mistaken!
• Chalky - anagrams
  An anagram of my name - 'THE VODKA PANTRY' - seems I can't get away from the Russian connection. Incidentally, never touch the stuff.
  [penelope] Wot! your name's not penelope?!?
• Darren
  My name doesn't anagram well; probably one of the best is "Razz arid nerd"
• DrQu+xum - anagrams?
  Most anagrams of my name look like Rambling Syd Rumpo songs...I blame the four Gs.
• DrQu+xum - Here's one
  "Leg ringer - glory jog"...which is a euphoric dance done after getting Shane Warne, Richie Benaud, or JLE to be on your club XI. :)
• rab - Puzzlers
  Here I am trying to guess all your real names and can only conclude you're a rather bizarrely monikered bunch what with Horst de Ughu (Rosie) and Petra van Kodthy (Chalky) in our midst. Mind you, that Dexter 'Anal' Relhirdy-Bach sounds like a dubious character...
• Graham III - anagramattic
  I can only offer Large parrot ambush...
• DrQu+xum - 'Daq Update
  Ahnold has hit £1k/share....gaaah!
• rab - Large parrots
  [GIII] Now that one is easy to decode...
• JLE - Anagram names
  I've never worked out an anagram of my name. But from the evidence given, I suspect the real name of "penelope" to be Justine, with Richard being her father's (surname eight letters: E,H,I,N,R,T,T,W in alphabetical order). Not sure about Chalky but she could well be a Kathryn (remaining surname letters A,D,E,O,P,T,V). Graham (surname from A,B,E,L,O,P,R,R,S,T,U, unless you've used a middle name as well) and Darren (surname, if this is to be believed, from A,D,I,R,Z,Z) may be using their real first names here. Not sure about Rosie, but s/he could be a Hugh (remaining surname letters D,E,O,R,S,T,U)...

  Anybody got a good anagram for "Jonathan Ellis"?

  Handedness: I'm right-handed in most things, but ambidextrous when piano-playing or trying to catch things one-handed. Can't throw or write left-handed. Feet are not so much ambidextrous as ambi-sinister (equally incompetent with both, when playing football), and I think I favour my left eye more than my right.

• DrQu+xum - Real names?
  Pen: I believe you are right.
  Chalky: Dunno.
  G3: Dunno.
  Darren: Not a clue.
  Rosie: He. Sorta close.
  You: the best I come up with is "Johann Ale List"....
• Raak
  [JLE] Using ag(), the best I can get is "jail tonal hens", "Jean halts lion", "jeans halt lion", "join Hell, Satan", "hasten, join all", "jeans into hall", and "shallot in Jean".
• Tuj
  My name has four H's and 9 vowels vs. 17 consonants so it's practically impossible to get anything.
• Prof Plum - Marks out of five?
  Darren's surname seems likely to be Izzard. I can see why it's a bugger to anagram. Penelope's is trickier- all those consonants. I'm going to go for 'Whittern', as the most likely of an unlikely bunch of alternatives ('Penelope Threwtin', anyone?) Graham is indeed, I think, using a middle name. After a long blind alley in which I was convinced his surname was either Butler, I'm now going with 'Graham Paul Roberts' If Rosie is indeed named Hugh, his surname might be 'Stroude'. But from Dr Q's comment, I suspect s/he isn't. Maybe by 'sorta', Dr Q was hinting that the surname is Hugh, or more likely Hughes. But that leaves a pretty odd bunch of letters to make a first name out of- is there such a first name as 'Tudor'? Finally, I don't think Chalky's name is Kathryn, since we have the additional clue that spelt backwards it looks Russian. I therefore suggest she is that well-known Muscovite 'Yhtak Tropnevad', otherwise known as Kathy Davenport.
• Prof Plum - Proof Reading
  Ahem. Either Butler or Porter. Not just 'either of these two butlers'.
• penelope - granamas
  Jonathan Ellis? Hmmm... how about 'Jeans Hit Noll', 'Ah Jell in Snot', 'Halt Sloe Jinn', 'All Hens Joint'or even 'Anal Hens I Jolt'? I could go on, but I won't - I'll just point you here.
• penelope - I'm useless
  by 'here, I meant - http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/index.html
• penelope - revealed
  [Prof Plum] Smartarse. And have you Googled me too?
• Darren
  Well, Prof, it's not that hard to deduce my name as I already gave it away in Orange some time ago!!! My anagram software of choice is Anagram Genius which is absolutely superb. They also make Crossword Maestro which solves cryptic crossword clues. (And no, I didn't use it to solve Wol's, in case you're wondering!)
• JLE - Anagrams again
  I think I'll adopt "Join Hell, Satan" as my Official Anagram ;-)
• Wol
  [Darren] I'm flattered you thought it might be necessary! Oh, and if anyone's interested, I'm ADDIIIKLLNVW. But there's a clue somewhere in the archives.
• DrQu+xum - Another way to find our real names
  [Prof Plum] Try the old PantsMC Profiles.
• Dujon - Half a quarter
  [Rosie] Thanks for the clarification - I've only ever heard the word and never read it. I was going to check but became sidetracked and then forgot. Interesting that your right hand is the stronger even though you are basically left handed. My wife and son are both a bit of each. The son writes left handedly but does many right handed movements - including eating. My wife on the other hand (sorry!) eats back to front but writes with her right hand - perhaps as a result of the inconsiderate influence of school teachers in days of yore.
• Dujon - Mix and Match
  Incidentally, Rosie, your name could be altered to 'Hough duster' which, I suppose, would indicate that you may be a butcher's assistant?
• Breadmaster - Names
  My name actually is Breadmaster. You can imagine the ribbing I got at school.
• Rosie - Anagrams
  (Prof Plum) 5 out of 5 for your final guess. Unfortunately, a further anagram is "oh, huge turds". (The best type, in my experience). (Dr Q) Can't figure out your surname, even if I've got your first name right. Is it British-ish?
• DrQu+xum - Named!
  [Rosie] No, Dad's side is German.
  
  [BM] Were you baked? :)
• Angus Prune - I win
  I BET you can't guess my name. Anagram is 'I am a ferret penn'. I'll check in and see how you're getting on ;)
• Raak
  [Bm] Is that why your publisher insisted on "Hill" as a pseudonym?
• penelope - prunings
  Ian Prefenmater?
• Darren
  [Angus] How about "Anne-Marie Petfer" or "Ferna P. Tremaine" or "Farmer Pete Nani" or "Martin A. Penfree" or "Nate F. Repairmen"?
• Raak
  [Angus] Ian Peter Freman?
• CdM - I think I did this before...
  CMd; dCM; dMC; MdC; McD. Oh. You mean real names...
• Projoy - There's nothing quite like...
  Hm. McD kind of suits you, CdM.
• Breadmaster - Pseudonymous writes
  [Raak] That's right, the unimaginative fools.
• Darren
  So they called you Breadmaster Hill then?
• LotUS
  There ought to be a prize if anyone managed to get my name out of "OUI A MANGLED WIG".
• snorgle - blaine
  Well, Blaine's out now, so hopefully I'll make some dosh on celebdaq. I found it odd, though, that he sounded rather like Jack Nicholson after he got out! Also, I'm sure that some cockney shouted something like "You're a wanker!" in the background as he was being released.
• JLE
  [Lotus] Yes, but then you *do* descend from several improbably mixed nationalities ;-)
• CdM - "Why, O dramatist?" (Lines that should have been written by someone else)
  Who am I? Arty st d.?
  S. Mith (a wry toad)?
  Martha (DIY swot)?
  __tim__ (a sad worthy)
  Thos (am a dry wit)?
  Matt (why so arid?)?
  Or Watty? ("Hm" said
  A Tay wordsmith,
  "What a dim story.")
• Bob the dog - Out of a mangled wig
  LotUS] Nice to meet you Luigi Gawedoman.
• Huxley - Cross-posted to MCiOS
  I'd just like to report a conversation that just happened right infront of my very eyes in my office:
  
  Scene: Manager is talking to new resource who has arrived in Paris and who had his cellphone stolen on his first day here.
  
  Manager: So what did you think of your "welcome" to Paris?
  Employee: Yes, I went walking at the weekend.
  Manager: No. I mean your "welcome" to Paris.
  Employee: Oh! Thank you.
  Manager: Nevermind.
• LotUS
  [JLE] Well, yes, that's true. But my name is more or less entirely 'Asian' with an Arabic/Muslim first name and a Sinhalese surname.
  [BtD] Not even close but it's a great idea for a pseudonym!
• Projoy - crossposted from MCiOS
  [Chalky] You know you were asking whether we had a make-up artist. Well, we still don't and only just over a week to go, so if you have any leads now's the time to mention them. :-)
• Darren
  I saw some Sinhalese writing a while back, it had a really lovely look, all circles and spirals. That observation isn't really relevant to anything, it's just LotUS's comment reminded me of it.
• Bob the dog - Sinning
  Yes it is very beautiful - learn about it here.
• Chalky - ISIHaC - been there, done that
  [Tuj, BtD & anyone else who's interested] We had a truly splendid time at the Theatre Royal Winchester last night. I won't spoil anything by talking about either the guest or the content - [the shows go out on the 17 & 24 Nov as the first two of the series] - but I'll be interested to hear how they edit at least 2 and a half hours of quality stuff into neat half hour slots. It's a small theatre - perfect for comedy. On several occasions the tears really were rolling down my cheeks. Humph was magnificent [doesn't he work hard?] and we even managed to 'mingle with the stars' after the recording.
  [Tuj] re. your comments in AVMA - I managed to get tickets because penelope, back in the summer, on receipt of the BBC4 online newsletter [or suchlike], posted in MCiOS the 3 venues and dates for this series. I'm only half an hour's drive from Winchester so I rang the theatre - all tickets were sold within 2 hrs. We were lucky.
• Angus Prune - ISIHAC
  So unfair... My partner saw it live ten years ago, so my chances of going to see it are slim I feel. Back to the anagrams, would it help you to guess if I told you I'm not male?
• Boolbar - Cinderella Hawk Beam
  You can get some quite rude anagrams from my real name.
• Bob the dog - A top dative MS jinx
  Michael!?
• Boolbar - Hello hello hello, what's all this, then?
  [Angus Prune] Do you have a long surname?
• Bob the dog - Ms? Prune
  Angus] Marie Fen-Patern?
• Bob the dog - Evenin' all
  Sorry Boolbar X-posted.
• Ibid - Names...
  Got it. Boolbar is Native American - Michael Elk Bear Dawn.
• Tuj - ISIHAC
  [Chalky] Having seen it in Bournemouth (Pavilion Theatre, Mon 30th Oct, 2000, 7:30pm, as my treasured ticket tells me - and Sandi Toksvig laughter rings in my ears yet) not too long ago, my memory should have recalled you need to be pretty sharp to get'em. Never mind.
• CdM - anagrams
  and so is no-one going to identify my earlier anagrammatical impersonation?
• Martha Farquar
  Projoy?
• Chalky - anagrammatical impersonator
  All anagrams of Timothy Saward - damned clever :-)
• penelope - anagrammaticaphylactic shock
  [Cdm] that is so clever
• Dunx - Request
  Projoy - could you email me? (crossposted from Orange, for which I apologise)
• Projoy - *blush*
  [CdM] And what's more, I puzzled over them for ages yesterday. I'm also completely rubbish at Countdown too. [Dunx] Email received and replied to.
• Boolbar - How?
  [Ibid] So close!
• Martha Farquar - Michael Andrew Blake
  ...meet David Willink.
• Boolbar
  [MF] Correcto! - just the wrong order
• Bob the dog - grama nams
  CdM] That was brilliant.
  Boolbar] Nice to meet you Blake Micheal Andrew.
• Fat German - Random Horrid Wreckage
  ...is my favourite anagram of my (full) real name.
• Boolbar - Pretty please.
  Could I just repeat my request for the monthly music supplement that came in last Sundays Observer? *waves money*
• penelope
  [FG] Mick God-Adorer H. Warren? Sounds like a tele-evangelist. :o)
• Néa - An anagram of my full real name....
  ...would be longish. I wonder if I can come up with one.
  [FG] Ow! Order keg, mr Arachnid!
• Chalky - Observer Music
  [Boolbar] I think I can get a copy from a friend this evening. Where do I send it again?
• Boolbar - stuff at boolbar plop vispa plop com
  [Chalky] Ooooh! That would be splendid! email above. expenses paid etc.
• Chalky - E-mail
  [Boolbar] Am wondering if I translated your email address correctly. If so, there should be one waiting for you.
• Boolbar - spam spam spam spam
  [Chalky] Yes, you are nestling between the nice African chappy who wants to share his fortune with me and the breast enlargement emails.
• Tuj - Anagrams
  I'm feeling kinda jealous of all the people with glib anagrams, like Fat German.
• DrQu+xum - Ana-kilo-gram
  [Néa] The short form of your name yields "Lager liken manna"...whatever that means. I'm currently feeding your full name (assuming it really *is* what you put on your webpage :) into my anagram generator...which is unfortunately on a SparcClassic 50MHz box....
• CdM - back in my day muttermuttermutter
  Real anagrammarians don't use technology beyond paper and pen, that's what I say. .. :-)
• DrQu+xum - Ana-mega-gram
  [CdM] You try her name with paper/pen then!
  
  [Néa] I can get the word "Goddess" out of it, which should shorten it up a bit. :D
• Darren
  Can anyone identify what this is an anagram of? Patch cocky, bent grammar.
• Darren
  Oh, by the way, an anagram of "Real anagrammarians don't use technology beyond paper and pen" is "Damnable, general-purpose gonorrhea contaminates Andy-Pandy."
• flerdle - deary me
  Yikes! I get all caught up and don't visit for a couple of days, and look what happens! This is all a bit too tiring to think about at the moment.

  Oh, and no more spiders for the time being.

• DrQu+xum - Even more anagrams
  flerdle = "Censored pearl". :)
• flerdle - You've all gone really strange
  Hmmmmmm.
• CdM - very well then, Dr Q,...
  Here is a list of things that Nea likes.
  
  Start:
  JRR Tolkien
  Tea
  Miranda
  Mets
  Language
  End.
  
  
• CdM
  (OK, I might have lied about one of them...)
• Darren
  Here's some anagrams of Néa's full name (assuming the one on the site is real), taking the é as an e.
  "Maladjusted, tiger-like, stagnant, rare ornament."
  "Jauntier, darkened, meatiest, gallant strong-arm."
  "Radiant man-eater strangulating molested jerk."
  "A daunting tearjerker demonstrates I'm gallant."
  "Maladjusted Terminator enraging rattlesnake."
  "Rattling junk arrangement misleads toad-eater."
  "Alert sugarlike madman and ignorant jet-setter."
  "Major rattling as gentleman streaked, urinated." shame she's not a man in this case!
  "Talented alarmist and jauntier strong-arm geek."
  "I am a daring, non-judgemental streaker. Let start!"
  "Strong, dreamlike talent and jauntier megastar."
  "Transmitted ranking as talented major-leaguer."
  "I am, ranking adjustments, a grander teetotaller."
  I could go on with these!
• Darren - Actually..
  Hope those don't annoy Néa too much. Sorry if they do, but that's what the program came up with (along with several thousand others).
• flerdle - aaaaarrrrggghhhhhh
  [DrQ] I think i prefer "ponder cereals"
• CdM - Red Fell
  Close panderer?
• CdM - Red Fell
  Or a spec lender? (Red spec loaner)
• Dunx
  Spread clorene?
  One disadvantage ef anagram programs is that they will tend to come up with real words.

  What do you mean, "That's the point"? Harrumph.

• Boolbar - Patch cocky, bent grammar
  [Darren] Do you know what it is ? Is it a name ?
• Néa - Annoyed??
  I'm flattered! (Not to mention rolling around laughing.)
• Uncle Korky - Managra
  I have found out that my name works out as: Lanky Baron Bronchitis!
• Darren
  [Boolbar] Yeah, I know what it is. I made it. No, it's not a name (well, not in the conventional sense).
• Néa - However
  Sorry, Darren, but I'm more impressed with CdM's list - I don't think he used any anagram software to extract "JRR Tolkien" from my name ;-) (and who says I don't like the Mets? I'm a basketball aficionado, I am!)
• Angus Prune - anagrams
  [Boolbar] Apologies for late reply - no I do not have a long surname - both names are 7 letters long
• Boolbar
  [AP] Surname = Freeman?
• Projoy - Crossposted from everywhere, but the last time, I promise
  A final plug for Dracula - The Vampire Strikes Back - on at a theatre probably not too near you next week (Fri night already sold out!), and written by Thos and myself, and achieved with assorted much-appreciated support from the talented Martha, Dunx, gil, Chalky, Darren, matt, Lib and blamelewis (I think that's everyone).
• Angus Prune - Boolbar
  Yes. 1st prize witheld till you get the first name though.
• flerdle - wild guess
  Petela?
• flerdle
  that's only got six though. hmmm
• flerdle - aaah
  I see, forgot the last n.
• flerdle - left field
  Pantele would be sufficiently obscure. If you were sort of Greek.
• Tuj - Anagrams
  A bit of effort on my own (full) name yielded:Phronje nebricist, hish rahm mupe.
  Or the more realistic, if odd: Screen obit.: Humph Jr. in Hampshire
• Dujon - Garbology
  [Tuj] Christopher Benjamin Humphrie (or some combination thereof) perhaps?
• CdM
  No, I think Tuj must be his initials. Now, the T is obviously Thomas, which is straightforward enough. The U is trickier -- a google search for "first name beginning with U" reveals Uffe as the only possibility; I must assume that he spells it Uphphe, though. And then the last name falls into place easily. You stand exposed ... Thomas Uphphe Jirribschreinnem!
• Tuj - 10 points to Dujon
  First 2 the wrong way round, and the surname missing an S at the end (think that's my fault), but right nonetheless. Until I go and change it to what CdM suggetsted, of course.
• blamelewis - mane
  My name's an anagram of "I'm tired" [CdM] LOL
• flerdle - mealweblis
  Sounds better than "dim rite", anyway :-)
• Rosie - Oh, huge turds
  (flerdle) Tim Reid? Gotta be!
• Tina - anagrams
  My full name is -- I bent cute lean ice frogs.
• Angus Prune - flerdle
  Don't have an l in my name. In alphabetical order, first name is aeinprt.
• Inkspot - more results
  And there has been another change to the top of the celebrity league, well really what I mean is its snorgle .... again!!!! A majestic run allegedly started in August and interrupted breifly just three times .
• flerdle - Angus
  I have NO idea where I got that from. Ah well.
• snorgle - celebdaq
  Mwoohahaha! I have downtraded to just under 1 million, so fingers crossed for next week - let's see.. I wonder if it's too early for another Keanu binge?
• Chalky
  [AP] Ah ... you must be a Petrina then. Please say you don't live anywhere near Salisbury, Wiltshire. I have knowledge of a Petrina in this area who's a bit erm ..

  [snorgs] Well done gal. Perhaps you can tell me - WHY OH WHY when for the first time, I put my ten grand on a Royal thinking he's going to get shedloads of column cms because of What The Butler Did - his chuffin' share price goes down?

• DrQu+xum - 'daq
  [snorgle] I'm set up for a Wayne Rooney payoff myself, but I haven't heard about his 18th birthday blow-out yet.
• Angus Prune - chalky
  I'm constantly expanding my knowledge of Petrinas. There's very few of us around. I know of just two others - plus that one in Salisbury. Can you define 'a bit erm..'? I don't know what you mean. I'm not her though!
• Tina - anagrams
  Names, from first to last: 7, 6, y.
• Tina - anagrams
  I mean 7, 6, 8
• flerdle - rarity?
  There was a girl at school a year after me called Petrina Green. This was not a large school, either. I see nothing unusual in the name.
• DrQu+xum - Petrina?
  I've never seen that name before it was mentioned here.
• Dujon
  aabdddeghhIjlnnooorsvw
  Clues: Three 'given' names - all common - and one 'family' name. Origin of family name, N.W. England (and, surprisingly quite a few in Ireland.) No I am not a 'scouse' and the family name does not begin with O'. Them as have seen my real name are constrained from posting; it'd hardly be fair! I must admit that I've never attempted an anagram of my names, so it will be interesting to see what appears on this page.
• Huxley - Memories....
  I knew a Petrina who was at secondary school with me in Somerset, I think she moved to Yeovil - poor thing.
• Bob the dog - Tina the Ice Frog
  Is your first name Rebecca? I can also get Tina from your letters but 7,6,8 won't allow it. I have a feeling I'm overlooking something obvious...
• Tina - no c's
  No Rebecca here. And Tina can be a nickname. In fact is.
• Bob the dog - Not a Becca
  Hmm. Am I barking up the wrong tree assuming that you are Female?
• Chalky - Petrinas
  [Huxley] Did she look like a witch?
  [Angus] Definition of 'a bit erm ...' see above :-)
• Bob the dog - Qualifying street
  Chalky] Do you mean 'a bit erm' in the assumption of gender sense or do you mean that I am 'a bit erm' too?
  Tina] - I'd better qualify that 'cos you've said your nick-name is Tina...
  Nicknames can be very deceptive. I knew a Fairy (male), a Pinny (male), a Pog (female) and a Beardy (female). I am male and was (boringly) hailed by surname.
• Bob the dog
  Chalky] Oops. You meant she looked like a ...
  What a dickhead I am :o)
• Tina - Genderbiased
  Bob]Yes, female, today anyway.
• Huxley - Chalky
  [Huxley]Yes she did. At the time, her last name began with an "H" and ended with an "R".
• Chalky - chuckling at Bob
  [Bob] Ah! So you don't look like a witch, eh? More like a dic.....
• Boolbar - Lost
  I could be wrong but it appears we haven't worked out the following

  DrQu+xum - "Leg ringer - glory jog"
  Wol - "ADDIIIKLLNVW"
  LotUS - "OUI A MANGLED WIG" (my name is more or less entirely 'Asian' with an Arabic/Muslim first name and a Sinhalese surname)
  Fat German - "Random Horrid Wreckage"
  Uncle Korky - "Lanky Baron Bronchitis"
  Tina - "I bent cute lean ice frogs" (7,6,8)
  and Dujon's recent "aabdddeghhIjlnnooorsvw" above.
  Also Darren asked "Can anyone identify what this is an anagram of? Patch cocky, bent grammar".
  So no work for me today then.
  [DrQ] Gregory?

• Bob the dog - Or "A top dative MS jinx"
• Martha Farquar - Uncle K
  Tranbon? Bontran?
• Bob the dog - Wol
  David Winkill?
• Chalky - The Gettin' Aquainted Game
  Blimey - at this rate we'll all be on first 'real' name terms pretty soon. Having done the birthdays/starsigns, I wonder what's next on the disclosure list? I have to say, though, it's rab I feel the most sympathy for - having to go through life with the surname Angrycake.
• Chalky - Huxley's Somerset Petrina
  sorrysorrysorry multipost
  I don't think it's the same one, Hux. Phew! The one here in Salisbury, apart from resembling a she-bat, was once extremely and unnecessarily rude to my mother, which I suppose somewhat colours my opinion of her.
• DrQu+xum - Here we go
  [Boolbar] Yup, but I usually go by my surname...and the J is just my middle initial.
  [Btd] Winkill? That sounds like a wonderful suggestion. :)
  [Duj] And all this time I thought VK2IUI was your name!
• Rosie - Anagrams
  My dear old mum is 92 today - alive and well. Anyone like to have a go at the wonderful anagram of her maiden name - "Golden Manure". Two Welsh names.
• Martha Farquar - Yes,but...
  Willink sounds more likely, as I mentioned earlier.
  [Rosie] Megan Lounder?
• Bob the dog - Du what jon?
  Dujon] Ah ha! Do I have the pleasure of the company of Dr John Vollowbangs?
• flerdle - mum's the word
  [Rosie] My grannie turns 94 in a couple of weeks. Her maiden name was rather odd/unusual, and comes out as "Shock Fido: beep!"
• Uncle Korky - ...or should that be ORKNEY LUCK...?
  [Martha] I have to confess that I have an unconventional middle name (which was, in fact, my late mother's maiden name)...
• Martha Farquar - Branton?
• Lib - AABEEHHILMOTTSZ
  Feeling the need to join in, although can't create a witty anagram so you just get the letters. (9,6)
• rab
  Tricky these German names, eh, Tobias Hählmetz?
• Bob the dog - A ham Bizet hostel - Elizabeth Thomas
• DrQu+xum - Lib
  The Omaha Blitzes
  Atomize hash belt
  The Zambia hotels
  And one that was *almost* interesting: Hot Blithe amazes.... :)
• Dunx - Re: Lib
  "Blaze hot, his team!"
• Lib - Lifting the disguise
  [BtD] Very good! You've discovered that it indeed is Elizabeth Thomas in the drawing room with the lead piping!
• Raak - Wiry Naked Anarch
• Dujon - Chuckling
  [Btd] Nice one! At least the 'John' is right. ... :-)
• Riff - Grow a penis
  Not an insult or personal attack on any of you, but rather a classic American political anagram.
• rab
  [DrQ, re your last] Omg.
• Orkney Luck - Bang to rights.
  [Martha] Got it in one!
• DrQu+xum - flerdle's grandma
  "coke-fed bishop".
• Uncle Korky - Daq daq daq
  As the league seems to be diminishing, I can offer my 3rd & 4th personas to fill any vacant places...
• snorgle - Concerning Tom's rent
  I'm hopeless at anagrams. Plus, I think everyone knows my name - but just in case you don't, I will cheat..(and use one of those internet anagram thingies) Bam Sally on chin
• Inkspot - Red carpet
  Uncle Korky] I'd be willing to add your other accounts to the league, my greatest fear would be if snorgle opened a second or third with different potfolios. I have considered opening a third as a holding account with a couple of blue chip stock, then wait for a news story (which could take weeks). That way it can be put to one side bobbing around the bottom, just to be opened on fridays to check the divis. Its a different stategy I haven't tried yet. Anyone else?.
  Post your id when your ready.
• snorgle - celebdaq
  Don't worry! I can't be bothered to open up any others - this one seems to be going just fine. I don't know why I do so well, I just sink all my money into one or two of the most popular shares that I think will be in the papers a lot, and it seems to work. I also read the forums as they tend to name the popular ones - that was why last week I was 50/50 on Blaine and Tweedy.
• Wol - Winkill
  [Btd] I like it! - but MF was spot on. [Dujon] David Andrew John Blooghs? (One of the famous Blooghs brothers ...) - the capital I was cunning.
• DrQu+xum - snorgle
  Haven't figured out your name, but your letters come up with another anagram so incredibly wrong, I'm posting in white letters and already getting my coat. my balls on a chin
• Rosie - Stuff
  (snorgle) Allison (or Alison) unusual-or-non-British-surname? (Martha Farquar) Mum's maiden name was Eluned Morgan. (Dr Q) Gregory J. Gollinger?
• st dogmael - if you can't beat them.
  well I have been looking at you lot and decided I would see what happeend with my name (christian/family)......I quite liked the following :-
  Shrill Pit Probe.
  Rebirth Psi Poll.
  Bellhop Trip Sir ?
  Brothels Rip Lip.
  Brie Thrills Pop !
  Hill Tribe Props.
  Pre-British Poll.
  Lo! Birth Ripples !
  Both Reps Ill: RIP.
  ....or Help Lib Strip?
  Poll B : I strip her.
• penelope - ventriloquist Q?
  [Dr Q] Gottle of Gollinger? :oD
• DrQu+xum - Foo!
  [Rosie] You should've known that already -- you've gotten e-mails from me before :P My great-grandmother's family were Morgans as well. Her whole dad's side came over circa 1870 and mined throughout Western Pennsylvania.
  [pen] I'll have you know my dad is an amateur winemaker.... I'd send you some but I wager such stuff would not be exactly legal for export.
• JLE
  [St Dogmael] Is your name by any chance Robert Phillips? Or Philip R. Lobster? ;-)
• snorgle - nanny grams
  [Rosie]Unusual given name (ie not english). [DrQ] :D
• st d - spot on !
  JLE] Indeed it is. My sister is called Helen Lobster.
• Angus Prune - World of Petrinas
  It is strange that everyone else's knowledge of the name is of someone who is a complete cow, or mental case! I hope I don't fit into that category...[goes off to worry in a corner] Just for the record, I've never lived in Salisbury or Yeovil or indeed anywhere in Somerset.
• Dunx
  I'm always impressed by how dull anagrams of my name tend to be - I know I'd be pretty unhappy with seeing my name on a Scrabble rack.
• plump - Pert Deer Rang
  That should take you a couple on minutes to decipher.
• Prof Plum - After a couple of minutes...
  Peter Gardner, I presume?
• Dujon - Capital
  [Wol] Sorry about the capital 'i', my error; at least being in alphabetical order must have helped. David is correct, so one given and the family name now required.
• Darren
  It appears I'm back.
• flerdle - Oy!
  [Angus Prune] I said nothing of the sort!
• Dujon - Name appreciation
  It's funny how one's reaction to a name can be coloured by the looks and personality of those one has met who carry such. To be honest my input to the naming of our daughter was certainly influenced by that aspect - damned if I know why as I am usually reasonably pragmatic (I think.) However, I did do my two children a disservice - although totally unintentionally - when they turned out to be Peter & Wendy ... some parents should be drawn and quartered!
• flerdle
  One additional thing to think about, if you desire to avoid pain and suffering to your progeny: try to avoid using a vowel as the first letter of a middle name. Always look at what the initials spell. No joking.
• Rosie - Self-defence
  (Dr Q) All I knew from your emails is that you were "Greg". The rest is informed guesswork. (Dujon) 3 given names, eh? As I know the answer I must shut up. (St Dogmael) Proper shit, Bill. Er, sorry.
• Dujon - Correctness
  You are so right, flerdle. Together with my wife I attempted to make sure that there were no 'hidden' embarrassments. At the last minute (were we not stupid!) my daughter's second given name became Katherine. [Rosie] Given that you know my family name, I'm assuming that you have worked out (not too hard) the 'missing' one? Anyhoooo, schtum; it should not be too hard for the others.
• penelope - middling
  I don't have a middle name... none of my sisters do, neither did my father, and it was because my grandfather hated his that the tradition began. I sometimes thought that was why we were given rather more exotic first names than the norm (at the time we were born).
• Boolbar - Parental naming.
  If a different sperm gained victory, I would be called Elizabeth. As it was I narrowly avoided being Ashley (horrah!)
• Uncle Korky - Increasing schizophrenia
  [Inkspot] My other accounts are:
  Mavic_Chen (3402569) &
  Johnny_McDozenlegs (3411069).
• st d - proper shit, bill!
  rosie] that's the best yet ! I must say I would have quite liked the initials RIP. :o) As it is I am RDP, which I also quite like I suppose, especially as it appears to be written at the edges of Fuji 120 roll film (RDP III) so I claim it ALL as my own. Apparently I was named after an Argentinian Golfer (Roberto di Vicenza)
• Rosie - Stuff
  (St Dog) I didn't use an anagram-finder; it's just my filthy mind. If I had one of those dismal personalised car reg's the prime one for me would, I suppose, be 1TCH. My middle name is even more unusual and Welsh than my first name, and maybe unique at the present time, though you can find it on a map. No clues.
• Uncle Korky - ...and I claim my £5!
  [Rosie] Tudor Clwyd Hughes?
• Boolbar - 'Y' reg - why Reg?
  I was amused by a van in front of me with rearranged reg. M3 0W MY and disappointed in a car owner who missed the opportunity to rearrange A 12 SED.
• Angus Prune - wordage
  Saw a sign outside a hairdresser's yesterday - 'Due to short staff, we will close at 4.30 today'. Also one in Ann Summers fitting room 'Please ask for assistance before entering' - had to share with the MC community! [flerdle]Which bit in particular?
• Dunx - Personal Plates
  [Rosie] Well, I've tried to keep my personalised plates fairly simple - when I had an Audi A3 in Britain, I bought the plate "A3 DNX" (I saw at least one other A3 owner who had bought an "A3" plate too, so it wasn't just me). My TT here in Oregon has the plate "TT DNX" to maintain the tradition.

  I saw quite an amusing one the other day... Oregon allows you to put pretty much any combination of six characters on your plate, with spacing of your choice. Usually the characters are centred, but someone had thought to put spaces in front of their word and: "  ASKEW"

  Well, I liked it.

• flerdle - trying to remember...
  [Angus Prune] The one I know is nice, not a weirdo.
• Bob the dog
  Angus] I know a nice one too. Odd how experiences of names colour expectations. I always expect anyone called Tom to be fat. Josephines are manic and Phils are exceptionally hairy. I am a James...
• Riff
  That's interesting -- I've always remarked on the fact that everyone I've met named Brad has been a complete dickhead. Apologies to any Brads reading this...
• Brad - Being hammered.
  Bloody Hell!
  It's bad enough being nailed down from time-to-time without being pilloried. (S'OK, Riff - only joking.)
• Rosie - Names
  (Uncle K) Good guess! But wrong. Carry on. (B the D) To me, Josphines are...well...luscious, as are Sophies. (Dunx) Nice to see a bit of wit on a car plate. Don't get much of it over here. (All) Unfortunately, names can be a dead giveaway of social class and age though there are agreeable and surprising exceptions. I'd think I'd better stop there.
• Dujon - I'm possible
  [Rosie] Surely not 'Cardiff'? That would be unique!
• Angus Prune - Brads and Sophies and Jims - oh my!
  Sophies are a bit thick in my experience. My only experience of a Brad was from Neighbours years ago, and James is my father - nuff said! Sarahs and Jennies will always be the school bullies and Carol the friendly Brownie Guide leader!
• penelope - Carols and Vals
  I think I had a Brownie Leader called Val and a Guide Leader called Carol. Helens were in charge of the school playgound, Rebeccas were always lovely, Richards were always mean to me when I was 11 and Marks were good at football.
• rab - Just in case
  Never trust a Richard, that's what I say...
• Bob the dog - If you think I've been unfair on Toms and Jos...
  Angus] I shall have to start wearing cardigans with leather elbow patches, smoking a pipe, reading the Sunday Times and asking the terrier to bring me my burgundy slippers then ;o)
  Tracys are treacherous, Janets are kind, Lucys are imaginative, Peters are usually elderly, Johns are traditional and go to Church and/or have high moral fibre, Gareths are wily psychopaths, Steves are tough on the outside (but are marshmallow inside), Elizabeths are erotic, Julians are skinny, Joans are demanding and Mikes are obsessive and keep Pugs.
• Chalky - wading in ...
  OK - may as well join the name-fest. All opinions grossly coloured by personal experience, naturally...
  Ben's are brooding and charismatic; Paul's are sexy; Tim's are cute and need mothering; John's are very much as Bob has described [ = stuffy and a tad pompous], Mike's are alcoholics and every Andy I've known has been 'a bit of a geezer'. Oh yes - Charlie's are unfailingly popular, good company and amusing.
• rab - More prejudice
  May as well 'do' some girls to even up the score. Kates are jolly and outgoing, whereas Catherines (and their various misspelt namesakes) are more reserved but usually a good egg. Jennys tend to be quiet and a bit secretive, Lucys prim and proper on the outside but probably quite wild inside whilst Sarahs are uptight and very image-conscious. Meanwhile I'm afraid that nearly every Laura I've ever met has been dull, dull, dull...
• Bigsmith - Back to Rosie's middle name
  Colwyn? Conwy? Carnmarthen? Caernarfon? Caerphilly? Caldicot? Crickhowell? Chepstow? Criccieth? Clynnog? Ceredigion? Cwmdu? Cadair-Idris? Cambrian Mountains (The)?
• st dogmael - girls
  I never met a Claire that I didn't like so far. Also I seem to have a lot of Helen variants in my life at the moment [Sister Helen. flatmate Helena, good friend Hélène] and they are also all lovely. Tom's are usually very nice chaps though clumsy. Justines normally work in PR for Renault, and have very corny senses of humour.
  Rosie] It's Carn-Ingli isn't it ?
• Chalky - indignant
  rab] Misspelt? Misspelt? I'll have you know that the 'K' version of my name is just as traditional. Having said that, my particular spelling is unashamedly American - something to do with my father having the hots for the film star, Kathryn Grayson [so my mother tells me].
  It's taken 2 simulposts to get this posting on to the screen ... must be busy 'out there'.
• Bigsmith - Simulposts
• Bigsmith - Simulposts part deux
  Sorry Chalky, one of those would have been me misspelling Carmarthen.
• Chalky - simulsimulsimulposts
  No apology necessary, Bigsmith. It's every man/woman for themselves. BTW - nice to see you :-)
• Bob the dog - stereo-typing similposts
  rab] (yes!) I have to agree on the Laura front. Elaines are tall and broad (matronly), Joys are fey, Claires are outgoing and charismatic, Zoes are irresistible to all men and pretend they don't know it, Megans go to Cambridge Uni and get firsts, Felicitys are faithful and "enthusiastic”, Susans are calm and smart, Sandras are good at drawing dogs, Joannes are maternal, Julies work in travel agencies and K©atherines work so hard it makes an 82 hour week seem like a holiday in the Maldives.
  
  On the bloke front, Daves, Petes, Donalds, Kevins, Rogers, Phils, Zebedees, Jamess etc are intimidated by Elaines, charmed by Joys, befriended by Claires, teased by Zoes, put in their place by Megans, married to Felicitys, sorted out by Susans, uncomfortable with Sandras, comfortable with Joannes, itemised by Julies and reprimanded by K©atherines for making such sweeping generalisations about female personalities.
• Boolbar - First Ladies
  I find it is the first letter that counts. I generally find that women with names beginning with J or K to be great all-rounders. E's are usually friendly and have a thing about Cliff Richard. A's are aggresive. B's are lacking in the brain department. M's and R's are beautiful but with problems. T's make for good wives. W's are off with the fairies. Z's are good at putting men down with lightning wit. C's tend to hide away and N's would be good at running the country.
• Rosie - My middle name
  (Bigsmith, Duj, St D) None of the above. You may need a larger-scale map. Also it's the name (or pen-name) of a long-dead Welsh poet. Definitely not Chirk, which may just resonate with ex-Pants members, or, thank God, Cwmbran.
• rab - [CK]ath[ea]?r[iy]ne?s
  (...for those who understand Perl regexps...)

  [Chalky] Tongue-in-cheek, of course. The spelling doesn't really matter, but there is definitely a distinction between Kates, Katies and the above...

  [BtD] Have to agree with you on almost all of those. I would also lump Jo(h)annas in with your Joannes... Also is it just me, but girls with hyphenated names can be a bit wet, possibly deriving from an indecision on the part of their parents.

• Chalky
  [rab] :-) I get called Katy quite a lot by certain friends - must be when I'm being jolly. But usually I'm Kathryn to my mother, and Kathy to everyone else. The only name I object to is Kath - which always sounds like the cleaning lady. Anyway - enough of me ...
  [Rosie] Do we know how many letters there are in your mysterious, geographical, extremely rare, begins with C middle name?
• snorgle - first letters..
  What about S? (My real first name starts with S too..)
• Boolbar - Sssss
  [snorgle] S's usually wear woolly jumpers in the summer and laugh a lot.
• Chalky - continued exposure
  [snorgle] Bam Sally On Chin? Did anyone get your anagram? If not - what's the letter split, I'll try and guess it.
• Bob the dog
  Bool] What about J's?
• Boolbar
  [BtD] See above for female J's. I don't find it works for males.
• snorgle - i do not wear woolly jumpers in the summer!
  chalky - 7 and 7..
• Rosie - My middle name that no-one knows
  (Chalky) There are seven. People in Wales would know it. About 15 years ago I had a nasty car smash (not my fault, for once) in Croydon, Whitehorse Road. The police had to be called because the car was blocking the road and the copper who took my name was Welsh. He pronounced my middle name better than I did. Very embarassing, because my own speech, while mostly RP, has a good dash of saaf London in it. (snorgle) Surname Binchly? First name - I wouldn't be so bold. (Chalky, again) A friend has a daughter Kathryn (b. 1972) who now wishes to be called Kay. There's a main street in Croydon called Katharine Street, but the interesting thing is that locals, including me, always pronounce the last syllable to rhyme with "wine", "dine", "line" etc. There you go, as Melvyn Bragg would say.
• Dujon - Miss Pronunctiation
  [Rosie] "ine" as in "wine"? Not a bad idea, I suppose, but my daughter's middle name rhymes with 'in', 'bin', 'sin' - which, in retrospect, was probably the correct thing to do. ... ;-) On your middle name, I shall drag out the atlas and have a hunt.
  [snorgle] I am 'stumped' at the moment ... possibly my grey matter playing up ... Is your first name one which you would consider as common or is it rather unusual (as per Rosie's middle title)?
• rab - Bum
  Off to Leeds for the day, so I'll probably have to bow out of the current round of AVMA guessage. Oh well... also slightly hungover after a complicated situation involving two bad pubs, three bottles of wine, a colleague of my nearest and dearest and my housemate...
• Bigsmith - Welsh poets
  Rosie> Would it be Ceiriog, from John Ceiriog Hughes (1832-1887)? The surname led me to it. Also a small forest near Wrexham. If this isn't right then I'm afraid I for one will need another clue as I'm otherwise stumped. Chalky> Nice to be back ;-)
• Chalky - naming of names
  snorgle] Sybilla?.
  Rosie] By jove - I think B'Smiths got it!
  Re. the 'wine' at the end of Katherine - 'tis heard in many a Shakespearean romp - enables the acTORRRR to en-UN-ciate and prrro-JECT the name in the finest tradition of Luvvie Deliverrreh [think Brian Blessed in The Taming of the Shrew].
• snorgle - Sybilla? Binchley? :D
  My first name isn't in english, to be fair. My surname starts with 3 consonants, but isn't foreign.
• Darren - snorgle's name
  Oh, is it "Tchea-Fruit" like in Neopets?
• Bob the dog - Snorgling
  Siobhan?
• snorgle - Neopets?
  Darren, all those drugs are bad for you. You should stop taking them now. ooh simulpost! That's right Bob the Dog! My surname goes well with it too...
• Boolbar - making up new names . . . .
  simulposted twice ! [snorgle] Siobhan McNally?
• Boolbar
  And I now see that BtD got there first . . . .
• Rosie - Stuff
  (Bigsmith) Congratulations. That's me. Not sure about the forest you mention, but there's a river and village with the name. See http://www.chirk.com/ceiriog.html My Dad was from Glynceiriog. Bit of a writer himself. (Chalky) Never thought of it that way, the streets of Croydon not being awash with thespians. Another example could be Gilbert and Sullivan's "conservatives", rhyming with "knives". (snorgle) Would one of those three consonants be a "y"? Hmm...I'll have to have a think.
• Bob the dog - Little McNally?
  Bool - great minds etc. - simulposted 4 times!. My message was to be
  "simulposted! [snorgle] Siobhan McNally?"
  Uncanny McNally
• Bob the dog - Gimmie pie
  I have just been offered some pumpkin pie, fresh from the oven and made with our own eggs and pumpkins. Wow it is good! Anyone else for a slice? snorgle] Are we right?
• Bob the dog - I'll shut up soon
  Siobhan - is this you?
• snorge - namesakes
  Yep - you're all right. Except for Rosie. [Bob the dog] No, although I've seen that before! Apparently my namesake works for the Sunday Mirror.. there's also a Queen of the Universe!
• Bigsmith - Ceiriog Valley
  (Rosie) Checked out the website - I've been thereabouts, many years ago on a canal boat holiday on the Llangollen. I was therefore most interested in the page about the aquaducts. Just the ticket for a boring Friday afternoon in the office - thanks old chap!!
• Dunx - I Want Pie
  [Btd] My first Thanksgiving two years ago when I met my now brother-in-law for the the first time was memorable mainly for his reaction to the news that I Had never had pumpkin pie, and yet it's barely known outside the US. Very strange.

  Actually, I tell a lie - a Bulgarian colleague was telling me that there is a Bulgarian pumpkin pie, but it is more akin to baclava with pumpkin layered between the pastry.

• Bob the dog - Laid, Unsprayed and Made in England
  Dunx] This is a UK pie to a US recipe. Best I've had.
• Tina - Pie! Pie! Pie!
  Bob the Dog] E-mail me some pie as an attachment. In addition to the pie, we have the wonderful mashed potatoes with lots of gravy, cole slaw with a hint of horseradish, sometimes sweetpotatoes, cranberry jelly on rolls with butter, and creamed onions (small white onions in a cream sauce with celery seed as the primary flavoring). And of course, there's the turkey. I like the crisp skin the best.
• penelope - stop it!
  You're making my mouth water - I'm having Tuna Steak tonight. And I want to have a bash at making a chowder. Has anyone got any recipes for chowders other than the clam variety because a) I don't like seafood and 2) Tesco's don't have clams.
• Bob the dog - Yummyons
  Tina] Please send recipe for creamed onions - it is a dish we don't do here!
• snorgle - surreal spamming
  My most recent wierd spam subject was Re:Handbags of antelopes. Whaaa?
• Tina - Bob Yummyons
  Will do, but it will take a couple of sessions. My family is very possessive of its recipes.
• Rosie - surreal spam
  (snorgle) HANDBAAAGS? (© Dame Judy Dench). Did you read the spam?
• snorgle - spamspamspam
  It was something about mortgages, apparently. Hotmail blocks linked images from appearing for privacy, so I missed out on some no doubt vital and personally useful information, but there you go. The ones I hate are the sneaky subjects like re:report, or I'm sorry I offended you. But surreal ones are at least vaguely amusing..
• Tina - Creamed Onions for Bob the Dog
  Just got this note from my sister in Albuquerque. "use small, not tiny, white onions. Boil them until tender. Drain and add a tiny bit of flour mixed in some milk, then some cream, salt, pepper and butter. I don't have any meaurements. I also add some parsley or finely sliced scallions. I often add a piece of garlic when boiling." As to the garlic and scallions, my mother never did that. For the salt, she used celery salt.
• Inkspot - more drum roll
  There has been a change at the top at Celebrity MC congratulations to Chalky in going to No1 just two weeks after being kneecapped.
• Dujon - Inkspot's previous
  PANIC! Thanks for your report; However, unlike Chalky I'm panicking. Just changed horses for the bolt to the line; am I going to fall over into the 2-million (grab two green wads and convert them to a flashy car) or am I going to be robbed of my £950,000 and fall back into the arms of the following wolves? My heart is racing, my brow is perspiring and, frankly m'dear I couldn't give a damn. Err, well I do, really, after the extraordinary effort of the last week should I make the new podume I shall have a 'big think' about why I'm doing this. Stupid game... rigged... the ref's are biased... and so on - I WANT A FLASH CAR. ........ Sulks.
• Bob the dog - Tina
  Thank you! I will try this - although being a bloke I tend to rely on measurements for my cooking. I probably start with a white sauce recipe - and I'll have to get some celery salt.
• snorgle - celebdaq
  I'm just 200 000 short myself of the magic 2 million mark - pleasepleaseplease let there be a run on Paul and Heather McCartney! I won't get a flashy car (already got one!) but I hate just being short by such a small amount. If I can get 2 wads of cash, I only need 1 more for a flashy yacht! I can go sailing in the Mediterranean then.. :)
• Tina - Idioms
  Need everyone's help. My sister, in America, wants to know what it means to have to paint the "fourth bridge." Can someone help?
• Darren
  I think it refers to the Forth Bridge, which, it is said, takes so long to paint that, once the painters have done a complete coat, it's time to begin repainting it again, so the job never ends.
• snorgle - eep!
  Indeed. Unfortunately, to save money, they stopped painting it regularly, and huge rusty chunks started falling off it, particularly onto North Queensferry. (My dad lives near there and I've seen it myself). I try not to think of the massive bolts on the ground when crossing on the train..
• Tina - thanks
  Thanks for the answers.
• snorgle - celebdaq
  Curses! Only 1 wad of cash, I must have just missed it..
• Inkspot - wads
  snorgle]your not alone with your wad. Come on board my luxury yacht just off Crete, and I'll break out another Bolly:)
• Boolbar - Handbags of antelopes
  Could spam create another game? With game moves being titles of spam in your mailbox?
• Boolbar - Measurements for Cooking
  I like to know how much of everything as well - but I still throw things into the oven at whatever temperature I think is best and cook until not quite black.
• Bob the dog - 3oz ketchup
  Bool] I'm jealous! My other half has that talent - the Jackson Pollock school of cookery. She can throws it all in and it becomes a feast.
• Boolbar - Sponge
  [BtD] I remember her cake - very tasty.
• Rosie - Cooking temperatures
  (Boolbar) So may I say "well done"? The term used in the chemical industry is "pyrolyse". :-)
• penelope - it's too hot, baby
  In creative cookery, and when taken to extremes, ain't that 'Cajun style'?
• Dujon
  Bad luck, snorgle. You have my condolences - it happened to me once. I was lucky with my selection and managed the new car. Ah well, back to the grindstone - now I have to pay its running costs.
• penelope - cross posting - terribly sorry
  DearI’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue listener, ThisThis is to bring you advance knowledge of a special Christmas show, entitled I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Christmas Carol, which will be recorded on Thursday 18th December at the Logan Hall, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL.It is something of a change from the usual format, in that there will be no desks… Instead, the programme’s regulars will be telling the story of miserable Ebenezer Scrumph and his put-upon assistant Crotchet, with appearances from the ghosts of Christmases Future, Present and Pissed. No prizes for guessing who plays what here. They will be supported by a cast of regular guests of the programme, including Jeremy Hardy, Sandi Toksvig, Tony Hawks, Andy Hamilton and Linda Smith with Stephen Fry as the narrator. Tickets are £7.50 each, and will go on sale from 9a.m. tomorrow (Tuesday 4th November). They are being sold by a ticketing company called Warnes, and can be purchased over by phone with a credit card by calling 020 8545 2737 between 9a.m. – 5p.m. Monday to Friday. Please note that the sum debited will appear on your statement as Warnes Mail Marketing Ltd, and that they don’t take American Express. Alternatively you can apply for tickets by emailing LindaR@warnes.co.uk Reservations by e-mail should contain your name, your card details, your address, the quantity of tickets required and a telephone number in case of a problem with the card. If you prefer, you can send the first part of the credit card number in one e-mail, followed by the second part and expiry date in a second. N.B. When using a 'Switch' Card, you must quote the "Commencement Date, Expiry Date and Issue Number" if there is an issue number. That is all :o)
• Bigsmith - ISIHACC
  Bugger - that's the works' Christmas Party night.
• penelope
  [Bigsmith] Work Schmirk!
• Bigsmith
  [penelope] Party Hearty!!
• Bob the dog
  Pen/Bigs] Babysitter Scmabyitter.
• DrQu+xum - Foo!
  [pen] Ocean schmocean. :(
• Boolbar - New puppy scmuppy
  [pen] Praise be to those who share news! Not that I can go.
• Chalky - Engaged Schmengaged
  not me .... the telephone line
• Bob the dog - Babysitters mademebitter
  Argh! *Sobs quietly*
• snorgle - wierd babysitters
  I had a mad babysitter who made green popcorn and owned several hundred sets of salt&pepper shakers. She also kept every single newspaper (free or not) that she ever got. You could only go through her house via a single path through the vast piles of newspaper. She sent us her brother's autopsy report several years after we moved. I have NO IDEA why - but it had quite a vivid description of his lungs, as he died partly from pneumonia.
• Chalky - harmless nutters
  [snorgle] Was that in Canada - or is she still at large in the UK?
• snorgle - harmless hillbillies
  You are fortunate - she lived in Ottawa. She may be dead by now, too. She came from a line of Quebecois hillbillies and both her brother and sister who lived with her were... strange - they were mute, but made wierd noises which terrified us kids. Pity really, because they weren't mean, just trying to be friends..
• st dogmael - crazy lady
  the newspapers thing reminds me of a film i saw once - set in Finland or Norway or Canada or somewhere, with a lady who stacked newspapers all over her house just how you describe. There was a child involved I think who got taken away. A very nice film.
• Dunx - stacking
  [snorgle] That morbid collecting of newspapers is a great deal more common than you might think... there was a series on a few years ago (before I left the UK, although I never watched it) called something like "Sanitation Inspectors" where their whole job was to go into the houses of people who had become obsessed with this kind of collecting and clear out the junk.

  I have a colleague whose neighbours did this too. The developer who now owns their property has been trying to clear out the house for six months now. Quite sad, really.

• Bob the dog - Obsessive collecting
  Yes - there was a case about 200 yards from where I live. The occupant (male I think) was found dead amongst his collections. There was a room in the house with only two feet of space left at the top.
  
  My Dad is a little like this too - he can't bear to part with things, especially if he feels that there is a possibility it can be repaired or reused. I think he has three partially operative video recorders. Come to think of it, my Mum was a little like that too (never threw a jam-jam or biscuit-tin out) - mind you, she reused them all. I wonder if it comes from a wartime childhood?
• Bob the dog
  Or an anti-consumption ethic - which for better or worse I share.
• Dunx
  [Btd] What does tuberculosis have to do with it?

  Still, as a member of a collecting family, I can hardly point the finger too aggressively. My wall of Trek tapes would only point back.

• Tina - anti-discardation
  I throw everything away, unless I remember what it is, it brings back a recollection of something, or I think I might use it someday in a book.
• Dunx
  [Tina] Well, that last one has been my excuse to keep probably about half of my possessions. Fifteen years later, and I haven't written a blessed word about any of it.
• Tina - writing
  [dunx] But it's so nice to THINk about writing.
• Dujon - Junk
  Given the response to clutter I am ever so glad that none of you have seen my workshop! As far as writing goes, I think that none of my 'stuff' would assist me in that venture - although I did think a few months ago that I might attempt some sort of novel. I did - it's still on page three! Perhaps some sort of regime may help (both subjects); maybe save one hour per day for each? This would mean the workshop should be cleared and tidied by 2020 and a manuscript organised by, say, 2005. Hmmm. ;-)
• Rosie - Chucking things out
  I've just about cured myself of (a) keeping any bit of paper with spare space on it, and (b) thinking of butter as a luxury. Result of an immediate post-war childhood when these items were a bit short, to say the least.
• Zooological Keeper - Angus Prune
  What ho! Just fancied sharing a thought that Haz got from an insightful friend:
  How do "Keep Off The Grass" signs get there?
  
  other pearls of wisdom included:
  
  Why do they call it 'getting your dog fixed' if afterwards it doesn't work any more?
  
  If WilE Coyote had enough money for all the Acme products, why didn't he just buy dinner?
  
  Whose cruel idea was it for the word 'lisp' to have an 's' in it?
  
  Do one-legged ducks swim in circles?
  
  Why do Fat Chance and Slim Chance mean the same thing?
  
  And who opened that first oyster and said "My, my, my. Now doesn't *this* look yummy!"
  
  ...of no particular consequence but you have to share the laughter...
  
• Dujon - Err
  [ZK] Chuckles.

  Why are not Bactrian camels more prolific than Dromedaries given that the former has more humps than the latter?

• Bob the dog - Grumpy wake-up Bird anti consumer
  Oh bugg*r did I say anti-consumption? At some point I'll get enough sleep. ZK - :o)
• Breadmaster - Collecting
  Ridiculous collecting of piles of junk is a common symptom of OCD. I have OCD and overpowering urges to do that kind of thing, but fortunately I have it more under control these days - although my collection of old Tube tickets amazes all who are fortunate enough to gaze upon it. I think the secret is a sort of displacement - if I focus on collecting a single kind of crap, I can throw away things like receipts or old cinema tickets with relative ease.
• penelope - crap'n'junk
  I've taught myself how to do it over the years - part of the solution is to recognise when you're in a mood to throw out emotional baggage, and the stored crap associated with it. Anything I haven't used in the past two years is unlikely to be used again, so it goes either for recycling or to charity. There are exceptions, of course - my reindeer skin, pocket TV, tennis shoes and velvet coat. I *hate* small bits of paper and get rid of them ASAP.
• st dogmael - tibet
  I was once sorely tempted to put everything I owned in a large pile and cover it in paraffin and set fire to it, and then sod off to Tibet and join a monastery. Still, in my more lucid moments, this strikes me as an eternally good idea.
• Lib - Throw it away!
  I've moved accomdation quite a few times in the past year this made me quickly realise that junk should be thrown away. I now can fit all my possessions in the back of my car. But as I'm looking into buying a house in the near future no doubt that my stuff will expand to fill as much space as I buy!
• Fat German - Junk
  [Lib] You'd be amazed. I've owned a house for two years and have gone from being a man with a bed and a stereo to being a man with a bigger stereo, widescreen TV, surround sound, kitchen tables, bookcases, tools, and no less than 3 sofas. My stuff has expanded to fill my house and I could probably fill my neighbour's house with what's in the loft. How it happened I do not know. My advice to you is that, once you have a home of your own and space in which to store things, that things suddenly gravitate towards you. Learn to sidestep them....
• Boolbar - Ikea is the root of all evil.
  Avoid storage. If you buy things like cupboards, boxes, drawers, shelves to store all that junk then you just give yourself more space to fill with more junk which requires more storage and so on until you reach the point where to have more storage, you need a bigger house. You move to a bigger house which involves packing, so you throw away about 50% of your junk and end up in a house with loads of space. Ideal for filling with junk.
• Bob the dog - male junket
  Virtually everything I own is 2nd hand and at the end of its usefulness just goes back to the charity shop. All, that is except my own compulsive obsessive collection of CDs. They stay.
  
  I have heard that men suffer far more from OCD than women (examples include trainspotters, twichers and - ahem - sexual fanatics) and that this is linked to autism - thus linking maleness with communication problems. Anyone else heard of this?
• Lib - OCD
  [Bob] I think men do indeed suffer more from OCD then women, but I'm not necessarly sure that I'd call trainspotters obsessive. Like all things in life its not black and white. I think one of the main criteria for a diagnosis of OCD to be made is the fact that it inteferes with normal life and the intense feelings that come from not doing the compulsion. Linking maleness with communication problems is quite a vast step, can I turn the tables and suggest that women communicate too much?
• Chalky - second hand clucks
  [Bob] I fear for your chickens when they reach the end of their egg productivity ;-).
  OCD - I always thought it affected males and females equally and this might support that [unless they do things differently over there].
  [Lib] Have just spotted your post as I was simul-ing - I agree - the link between the two is a HUGE step.
• paul
  did u know ur a googlewhack? its penchant gazump
• Chalky - whacked
  [paul] Who ... me? :-)
• Bob the dog - Men! Sweeping statement MkII
  chalky] Nah - chickens are safe. Anyway, they are a variety that remain productive until they are 7 years old!
  Lib] sorry - yes, trainspotting is not really OCD but I felt it may be linked to the kind of one-dimensional thought processes that males sometimes exhibit. I know loads of blokes who obsess about everything from computers to sport - girls seem to share this 'single mindedness' only when it concerns self preservation and children. Am I being extremely unfair to my own gender? Regarding communication - I find it incredibly difficult to talk to other men unless I share a passion with them, or are they are effeminate. In social situations, I enjoy hearing women and effeminate men talk because you are so much better at discussing emotional subjects.
• Fat German - OCD
  I do actually suffer from an OCD which I now have more or less under some form of control, the details of which I will not go into, but I can say from very very painful experience that trainspotting has nothing in common, nothing whatsoever, not even close, not so much a different ballpark but a different sport played by the wrong rules by people trained in scuba diving wearing spacesuits. Believe me, a true OCD is life-destroying, it's all consuming to the point where you cannot function at all, you forget to eat, you forget to sleep, you care only about your OCD. Obsessive behaviour is very common in males, especially I think with the type of males who frequent this type of website (myself included), but it's not a disorder.
• Chalky - muscling in on Bob/Lib dialogue
  It is interesting that the terms 'nerd' and 'geek' are usually applied to the male gender and that may be because - sweeping generalisation alert - they appear to be more pastime/hobby/enthusiast/fancier orientated. Perhaps they have more time on their hands?
  BTW Bob - how would you define an 'effeminate' man? Are you referring to those of a homosexual persuasion or those who are in touch with their feminine side?
• st dogmael - boys who like girls
  Bob] Methinks that living in a house with three females doesn't help you in this. I must admit I like talking to girls as well ;o)
• rab - Girls v boys
  On the subject of hobbies - I wonder if this is a cultural thing. It might be that young boys are more often encouraged to persue their hobbies and interests. I can's offer any observations about young girls cos neither I nor my brother was one. And I suspect that by the time we stopped being scared of them, and actually started liking them, this was unlikely to be the kind of question we were interested in. So what do parents get their daughters doing?
• Chalky - brothers & daughters
  [rab] good question and one which I'm sort of qualified to put my two pennorth in, being the only girl with three brothers as well as mother of girls. Boys [in general] are happy to pursue a hobby on their own. Girls [in general] are more responsive to peer group pressure and prefer to do the hobby stuff with their friends. My 13-year old is far more enthusiastic about the drama club that all her cool friends attend, than the piano lessons where she has to go it alone, even though she is far more talented piano-wise than drama-wise.
• Lib - playing
  As a child I spent a lot of time playing with my brother. As he was older this generally consisted on him chasing me, him jumping on me, him spraying me with a hose then locking me out of the house. And other activities like rugby, scalelectrix, hockey and taunting. But I did possess dolls and played with them with my female friends when I wasn't being terrorised by my big bro! My mum was particularly keen for me to persue my hobbies chosen by her, eg piano and violin practice which went down about as well as the insults from my brother!
• Lib - meant to say
  [FG] Well done for getting it under control, and long may it continue. I've heard that its worse than a herion addiction, so it can't have been easy.
• Dunx - OCD and Friends
  Re: throwing things away (or not, as the case may be) - I don't suffer from OCD, but I do exhibit a fair number of ADD behaviours¹. ADD is apparently quite often misdiagnosed as OCD, depending on the particular collection of behaviours exhibited. The behaviour which leads to collecting massive amounts of stuff is a decision making shortfall.

  [1] ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) is a bad name, but it is also the name assigned to whatever ADD is. Personally, I don't think it's a disorder of the individual so much as a mismatch between how society trains people to behave and how some people's brains work, but there we are. The effect is much the same.

• Bob the dog - who like girls who like boys
  Rab] I'm a dad with girls. I've not tried to push dresses or football on them, but they are naturally girly. Friends with boys agree, gender stereotypes are produced by the child choosing the behaviour patterns that they feel most comfortable with.
  Chalky] (Beware - beware more sweeping generalisations) I mean those with the (generally) female characteristic of being able to communicate. This includes homosexual men. Some of the people I get on with best are gay because I like the way they can empathise. One of my best friends is only so because he made a pass at me. I, however, am hetero.
  st d] Yeah - seven females vv me... sometimes I crave for a blokey night out at the local where we can eat raw (freshly hunted) buffalo steak and drink gallons of beer after a night wolf-whistling, playing rugby and mud wrestling.
• st dogmael - mud wrestling ?!?
  Well Mr Bob the Dog, I can help you out in the drinking beer stakes, but I think I will leave the mud-wrestling to the others.
• Bob the dog - Dogwrestling
  Oh I wasn't clear - mud wrestling (with) girls :o)
• DrQu+xum - Disorders and the single Qu+xum
  OCD-no.
  ADD-most likely; never been diagnosed as such but I suspect it's the case.
  Me & women-I can talk to women on a strictly professional basis. However, if it gets even mildly personal (and I'm not sufficiently pissed), I basically turn into a paralyzed crab. Of course, talking Linux and cricket (sometimes simultaneously) doesn't draw the hotties here in Pittsburgh. :|
• Dunx - Diagnosis
  [Dr Q] I was only diagnosed because the coping strategies I had developed made me depressed. I self-treated and resolved to stop using those coping strategies, but then I wasn't coping and I became depressed.
• Bob the dog - OCD&ADD
  I wanted to write a little about how much I respected FG and Dunx for coping with OCD and ADD and having the courage to express it here. However, I'm a bloke, so I could never do a thing like that because it may reveal my blousey emotional side ;o)
  
• Chalky - seconding that emotion
  [Bob] Hear hear. Also to Dr Q for disclosing paralysed crab tendencies when faced with laydeez who don't necessarily wish to talk business. Now that surprised me a little, although it shouldn't really - we often assume we 'know' someone based on our familiarity with their online persona.
• Riff
  It's a lot easier to sound sophisticated and erudite when you have the time to pick your words carefully. For example, if this were a face-to-face conversation, I probably wouldn't have said 'erudite' just now.
• Angus Prune - OCD?
  Have ADD, only officially 'labelled' in 2000. However, like many 'sufferers', I have a high IQ, and had learnt to disguise it over the years, along with my lysdexia
• Angus Prune - lysdexia
  deslyxia
  axeldysi
  dislexya
  ah! Daily Sex! I think I'll keep that one...
• Dujon - Being honest
  My proclivity for the amassment of huge piles of 'stuff' has absolutely nothing to do with ADD/OCD or any other disorder - apart from disorder itself; it is pure and unadulterated laziness. I do not collect objects in the sense of an aim in itself. I have, over many decades, learned to live with this affliction and simply accept it as 'me'. I do sympathise with those who have such leanings - that's the compulsive side of a personality - as I have had something similar for many, many years now but which is not at all related to the collection/arrangement side of things ... no, I'm not going into it here.

  [Riff] You are correct, to a point, but is it just that you are afeared that the other parties to a conversation may be ignorant of the meaning of certain words and, therefore, you 'lower' your language to the level that you surmise is acceptable?

• Zooological Keeper - Psychological Disorders
  I did a test online today for those. Luckily, I appeared to score low on pretty much every disorder, although I tested as "moderate" for Schizotypal, Obsessive-Compulsive, and Paranoid and "High" for Histrionic and Avoidant. Happily, I know what none of these things mean, with the exception of obsessive-compulsive disorder (ocd) which anyone who knows me knows is rubbish (coathangers, anyone?) I'll go with Dujon. I'm just lazy.
• Rosie - Trainspotting
  Locospotting if you don't mind. As a 12-yr-old I was a locospotter, but it was all steam in those days, and also regarded as quite normal. We all indulged in serious trespass in pursuit of engine numbers. But these days if I see a 30-yr old in an anorak, yes!, at the end of a platform noting the numbers then there's something seriously wrong. It's not OCD; just sad. How can anyone be interested in a sodding diesel? No charisma. And they don't talk.
• JLE
  Can talk business (any time) or small-talk (after a pint) with anyone, male or female, though am often told my small-talking style is much more like a woman's than a man's (well I did learn it from my mother, pretty much a single divorced parent.) Can talk "football/rugby/insert sport of choice here" with anyone in the bar, drunk or sober, owing to fine memory for statistics. Can only talk "personal" with girls, never guys, and only on an abstract basis, otherwise go into paralyzed-crab mode. Actually prefer talking to women rather than men. Frequently have gay men making passes at me - never women (and have an equally annoying tendency to try to chat up women who then turn out to be lesbians. I didn't know there *was* such a thing as reverse gaydar...) Am totally straight and thus pissed off at the above situation.
  Not sure about AD(H)D or OCD, but I suspect a reasonable case could be made, especially for the former. And in the latter case, I'm a minor obsessive who hates people that get more obsessive than me (about anything) but defends his right to be *this* obsessive ;-)
• Zooological Keeper - disclaimer
  there is, of course, scientific proof for each, and severe cases can be quite crippling. On a lighter note, has anyone taken this test? http://www.penddraig.co.uk/pen/tests/sanity.htm
• DrQu+xum - Oh laaaaaaaaaaaaaadeeeeeeeeeeee!
  [Chalky] Pro'lly because we've never met in person. Of course, if it's a large enough crowd, I can just go about being the sarcastic, heavily vulgar, semi-humourous arsehole I usually am.
  Then again, most members of the American female persuasion find me decidedly unattractive anyway, so I don't have to put up with it that often.
  
  And as for rubbish...I'm a packrat. Nothing will be thrown out. EVER.
  
  [ZK] 30.1%. Am I nuts?
• Dujon - Nost what?
  Ah, Rosie, you tickled a few synapses there! Trespass indeed! True though; if you did it now, there'd be a couple of policemen crawling down an embankment to ask you funny questions. Even after I came to Australia I still kept an interest in steam engines (although my older brother was a real afficianado; he had records - that's 12" LPs - of various engines, trains, locations which were marvellous.) In those days (and we did) we used to travel on the local electric trains out to Penrith where some of the engines were turned around on a turntable to enable the return journey back through the mountains. Marvellous stuff. The 'lads' there even welcomed us and showed us around, let us watch the operations and explained any questions we may have had. To those of you younger than I, please accept my apologies for a bit of reminiscing.
• Dujon - Crazy
  [ZK] Rubbish. According to that site I'm only 17.45454543% disadvantaged. That is demonstrably incorrect, otherwise I wouldn't be here and, certainly, would not take such a revealing quiz. Ptooe. ... ;-)
• Z.K. - wibble
  I am insaner than thou! ;)
• DrQu+xum - Them engines
  [Duj] I'm significantly younger than ye :), but I fully understand the fascination with the old engines. (Remind me to send you the pic of my great-grandfather and his engine.) You can often find videotapes and DVDs here of rail journeys. Next time I head up to Horseshoe Curve or other such rail history in Western PA I'll see if I can find any.
• Z.K. - steam trains
  has anyone been to sheringham? funky steam trains there, although a bit limited. was a big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine when younger but by the time I came along, they didn't make 'em like that any more! Nevertheless, I will always hold an affinity for Ringo Starr and his funnelled companions.
• Riff
  [Dujon] A good point, and that's probably at least a little of it (particularly if I have a low opinion of the intelligence of the person I'm talking to). But I tend to be shy around people I don't know, and the pressure to maintain a conversation in that situation makes me default to easier words simply because it's hard enough to string a sentence together as it is. In a more relaxed situation with friends, the more complicated words come more easily, and if someone doesn't know a word, I shrug and define it for them. Another aspect of it, probably, is that with people I don't know, the topic of conversation is rarely complicated enough to require any specialized vocabulary.

  [re: junk] My excuse for accumulating huge piles of junk is that I might want to glue some of it together into sculpture. Of course, this rarely happens, but the fact that it does happen once in a while makes it that much harder to throw any of it away. From where I'm sitting, I can count nine empty cigarette boxes (one of them an interesting little slide-drawer thing), an attractive Harrods cookie tin, and a large lump of rusty metal that I haven't any idea what it is.

• Bob the dog - 30.113636363636363%
  Mwhahahahahahhaha!
• Chalky - sleep deprivation
  Don'tcha just LOVE these cosy late night chats?
• Dujon - Or
  Half pickled Thursday afternoons; don't you people understand that I'm supposed to be working/
• Dujon - Earlier
  {Riff} Indeed. I remember with fondness the silly word games and references in which my family indulged over the evening meal. When I finally went to a job I found that all of my witty(?) remarks simply floated above. I was, to be honest, devastated. Nevertheless, I have finally found a 'home' in the various M.C. style web sites. Whilst my 'witty' remarks are not alway appreciated and, having met many who are far more clever than myself, I find that I rather like this community.

  Sorry for the pathetic overtones, but it's true.

• flerdle - 18.181818181% nuts. Mostly marshmallow, with an occasional choc-chip.
  I'm not that good at small talk, I find it tiring and often don't know what to talk about, and so just lapse into silence, listen, watch, etc. If it's something I'm interested in, I can talk about/around it, or if I have nothing to say, can listen to someone burble on, and ask a question or two, or add something here or there (often surprising people, in the process, it seems). I'm learning to ask questions. I'm always much more comfortable with one or two other people, or in small groups rather than large ones, and definitely preferably people I know. I don't know about any men/women difference. But I am willing to let conversations pause.

  Some people find this disconcerting, or think I'm boring, or (more likely) stupid. *shrugs*. It's lonely sometimes, but places like this are very good, and I think I've learned a great deal. Thanks.

• Riff
  [flerdle] I'm exactly the same, and I quite agree.
• Projoy - obsessive
  The "other one" out of the disorders that manifest themselves in compulsive menky collecting types of behaviour is Asperger Syndrome, believed in recent years to be a sort of autism-lite. It basically is intended to be an umbrella label for those with somewhat impaired social skills, a preoccupation with abstract hobbies on which they "perseverate" (e.g. focus on to the exclusion of all else for long periods of time, including when talking to someone else) and who find it difficult to empathise or instinctively understand other people's motivations. For a time I believed I was aspergic until I actually went out and met some people who really were and had the chance to compare. This was a painful exercise which involved listening politely to the full details of the history of South West trains. After years of neglect it has become an extremely fashionable diagnosis recently for children, and, it seems to me, is overapplied.
• rab - Smallness
  [Smalltalk] I'm exceptionally bad at smalltalk, and also don't respond well to it. I'm not one of these people who generally can talk to, say, a hairdresser, probably because I feel like I have no common reference points. That said, where I fall down is not being very good at the verbal parrying that establishes what the common reference points are. This is made worse by being a hopeless bloke, having no interested in cars, football and, to a certain extent, tits. So even the usual gambits just fail on me miserably. This probably marks me out as being 'boring', and would probably be confirmed if my interlocutors were to discover those subjects I do have an opinion about. New people can be problematic, too. I don't know if flerdle or penelope remember what I was like when I turned up at my first pilg...

  [Aspergers] I have a friend who is like this, and his mum suggested he might have Aspergers. However a friendly medic who had met him immediately said "No, he's not got Aspergers"... I think there is a fashion to give everything a fancy label nowadays, and like Projoy, believe this is not a good thing. I would have thought it were obvious that different people approach things differently, and there's degrees of conformance to the "standard" way of doing things (known popularly as "normality").

  In fact, drawing these two stands together, I find most "normal" people rather dull. Is this just me being an arrogant arse-wit?

• rab - Phantom
  [Aside] Am currently "working" at home, and the phone rang whilst composing the above. The caller hung up immediately. I hate that - why can't they just admit to having dialled a wrong number? I don't think it was a potential burglar...
• flerdle - itsybitsy
  [rab] I think you reminded me of me :-)
• flerdle
  ... and I was overcompensating out of sheer terror :-)
• rab - Oh...
  [flerdle] I didn't mean to scare you! Luckily I think the beer and Tim-Tams sorted everything out.
• flerdle - eek! *hides behind the sofa*
  [rab] My last posting was just to explain why (perhaps??) I seemed rather boisterous at times, (I wasn't saying that you were or weren't) which is another way of "coping", but not my usual one, I think because of the complete novelty of it all, especially the Tim-Tams. And I was stone cold sober, so that wasn't any excuse either. You certainly didn't scare me, and am looking forward to hopefully visiting again next summer.

  Which, in a way, brings us back to collecting junk: I have a small amount of "stuff", but mostly I have books (I've been very restrained, honest!!). I used to have a tendency to collect empty or hardly-used notebooks (mmmm stationery), but recently disposed of almost all of them. A lot of things will be farmed out to friends/relatives, and some stored, but I'm quite looking forward to starting again in January with little more than a suitcaseful. Should be interesting.

• Breadmaster - A disordered mind
  Wow, what a stream of revelations we have here. Bob is right to say that OCD is something quite different from "obsessiveness", and I get very angry when people talk about being "a bit obsessive-compulsive" and so on, when Goddammit! They haven't the faintest idea what it means. Sometimes I wish I could just turn my whole brain off and put it away in storage for a long, long, time. Someone asked earlier if OCD is related to autistic disorders, and there is evidence that it is. There is a greater overlap of occurrences of OCD and Asperger's than you would statistically expect, and indeed I have had my own brain photographed, rather excitingly, in an experiment to test this. Asperger's is the syndrome suffered by the narrator in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and one of the reasons I was so moved by that book was that, God help me, I identified with practically every aspect of him, except for being unable to read expressions, which is a defining characteristic of Aspergers. Many of the things that character does, such as counting, refusing to touch certain things, etc. are traits associated with OCD. Personally I think OCD, autism, and Asperger's are all somehow related, but people like me are very much on the "high-functioning" end of that spectrum, which means we can pass ourselves off as normal human beings. Well, most of the time.
  By the way, it's true that some of these disorders are "over-diagnosed", but they are "under-diagnosed" as well. One in twenty adults in the UK has ADD, but the vast majority are never diagnosed.
• st d - PJ
  rab] are you saying that you don't believe Projoy is a good thing ?
  I can talk to anyone, but I hate listenintg. Ha ha.
• Breadmaster
  Apologies, by the way, in case any of this is inappropriately confessional or too dull for anyone else! I've been thinking about it a lot recently (I do anyway, naturally) because someone at work actually guessed that I have OCD from watching my peculiar rituals, which rather shook me because, although I do peculiar rituals literally all the time, I normally hide them pretty well and people don't realise. Perhaps I'm getting worse.
• Lib - Labelling
  I'm not sure whether things are over or under diagnoised. Does having a label help matters? I know that I've got many traits which are typical of many diseases (my thinking pattern is very common in people with schizophreina, I have depressive phases, I'm mildly dyslexic) and I'm sure if I was analysed fully I'd have all sorts of nasty disorders. But thankfully they don't affect my life much, and I consider myself to be fairly sane. So does diagnosing mild ADD, mild OCD or mild Aspbergers help? There's no definate treatment (although congitive therapy can help, but cognitive therapy can help a lot of people) so why the need to label it?
• Fat German - OCD
  What Dunx describes above is almost exactly what happened to me but in reverse I think. The OCD arose because I was depressed and would obsess on tiny things, believing absolutely that those things were the cause of my depression and if only I could sort them out I'd be happy. When, of course, I didn't sort them out I became more depressed, and so on and so on.
  I can quite strongly reccomend hypnotherapy for the treatment of OCD. I wouldn't call it a cure but it sure helped me.
  As far as diagnosis goes I don't think with these things that it's that clear cut. It's simply what you might call a personality trait, and we all exhibit different personality traits in differring amounts. Some people are talkative, some are fly-by-night, some are obsessive. I think we assign the term 'disorder' when one of these traits goes to an extreme such that it interferes with the normal day-to-day running of our lives. If we had a sound scientific way of actually measuring the extent to which each trait applied to us, the the term 'disorder' would be redundant.
• Fat German - Labelling
  [Lib] I think the label does help. One of the things that helped me (and is still helping me) pull up out of the spiral of OCD was the fact that I could give it a name. I know now that I have an obsession, and that makes it less real so that I can actually control and sometimes ignore it. When you're in the depths of OCD you fully do not realise that you are obsessing, you just think that there is nothing else to life.
• Raak
  [st d] I can listen to anyone, but I hate talking.
  [Lib] Naming a thing (and to some extent inventing the thing by the process of naming it) can cut both ways. The Asp/Aut/AD(H)D concept is now out there to a degree to which it wasn't, not many years ago. This lets people use it as a convenient club to beat people they can't deal with, but also lets others recognise themselves in it and make contact with each other. I've read alt.support.autism on and off, and there's a lot of very interesting, politically conscious stuff goes by. In fact, a lot of the politics is exactly the same as for being gay, black, deaf, or female. For pretty much any position that has ever been taken on any of these issues, change the specifics and it would be something that someone has said about any of the others.
  [BM] Anyone who enjoyed "Curious Incident" might also be interested in Elizabeth Moon's Speed of Dark, an SF novel in which the central character is autistic. The characterisation is quite similar.
• Dunx - Labels
  Having a label helped me a lot for similar reasons to FG - I could capture my demon. Looking back at my life and the way that things have gone, I can also recognise ADD behaviours there (indeed, recognising ADD behaviours in my school reports was a key element of the diagnosis). This gives me power to forgive myself: ADD is not an excuse for my poor performances in the past, but I've spent too much of my life thinking of myself as lazy and weak. I feel that I understand better why my education was so skewed towards things I liked, or why I flit from subject to subject, or why I will focus on interesting things to the exclusion of all else, or why I have such an appalling sense of the passage of time. Recognising these things (rather than blaming myself for them) has helped a lot.
• st dogmael - Labels
  they tried to label me as Bi-polar (it's all coming out isn't it ?) but I just smiled knowingly and carried on reading the numberplates.
• penelope - 'Best Before' labels
  I'm normal on the surface. Whatever demons I carry with me are my business, but I'm approaching 40, single, childless and seem to be attracted by, and attractive to, men 15 years my junior. Make your own conclusions, then keep them to yourself! ;o)
• st d - .....
  ***quietly goes and hides behind a chair***
• DrQu+xum
  *whistles innocently*
• Breadmaster - Labels
  [Lib] Ah, but they're not just labels. They're objective realities. Saying that someone has ADD, for example, isn't just saying that they have a bunch of particular personality traits - it means that they have a particular genetically transmitted condition which causes those traits. As Fat German says, if you don't have the traits very badly, you probably don't have the condition with which those traits are sometimes associated. But if you know that someone does have that condition then you can treat it, if treatment is appropriate. Describing this kind of diagnosis as "applying labels" is as silly as talking of disgnosing a broken leg or lung cancer or any other illness or condition as "applying labels". Certainly I have found it enormously helpful to be properly diagnosed because it means I can recognise OCD things for what they are and deal with them accordingly. And this is true of many other people I have spoken to, with OCD and with ADD as well.
• Raak - Labels
  [BM] There is a crucial difference, though, between a broken leg and these mental conditions or constitutions. In the case of a broken leg, you can demonstrate the objective existence of a physical pathology, and there are treatments known to be effective in pretty much every individual case. For ADD and the like, no-one has demonstrated either an objective pathology, or an objectively effective treatment based on an understanding of the pathology. All we have is descriptions of symptoms that cluster together (although no individual need show all of them), vague genetic correlations, and supposed treatments of very variable effect. There may indeed be a definite thing wrong with the brains of OCD sufferers, and there may be possible treatments as effective as setting a broken bone and applying a cast, but currently, very little is actually known.
• Dunx
  (simulposted by a much more succinct post from Raak, but...)
  [BM] Well... yes and no. I'll take ADD as my example, since that is obviously what I know best.

  It is clear that ADD behaviours can be severe enough to cause problems, and that there are a lot of people who carry these behaviours around with them, but it is not certain that ADD is an objectively definable disease. For instance, ADD has been described and recognised by the US psychiatric establishment for more than 30 years (although its name has been changed a few even times over that time), but the UK establishment only officially recognised ADD in the 1990s - this despite the first published work on ADD being in the UK a hundred years before. Even in the US, ADD has only recently (ie in the last ten years or so) been widely recognised as occurring in adults - it was considered a childhood affliction which was obliterated by adolescence.

  Part of the problem is that labelled conditions such as ADD, OCD, etc are note discrete: a bone is broken or it is not broken, but ADD has more degrees than there are labels, and even then it is not clear that even someone whose collection of symptoms is technically pathological enough to be so labelled is actually displaying anything more than just a strong personality trait. There has been work to scan brains under ADD-expressing conditions, and there are apparently common factors to those scans, but ADD is at best a collection of possibly related symptoms. But then is personality just an expression of brain chemistry?

  As I say, my belief is that those who are actually disadvantaged by their ADD behaviours are those who have been trying to use their brains in ways which don't mesh with their brain chemistry or personality, where "one size fits all" education systems teach the same learning mechanisms to everyone regardless of how they really learn best. This is one of the reasons that I talk about my having ADD behaviours; Idon't consider myself to be diseased¹.

  [1] this is going in a footnote because it's not part of the core point, but one of the things which concerns me about statements that ADD is underdiagnosed is that it is then treated as a disease. At this point the children (and this is where I become most concerned - it is almost always children) are dosed up with psychostimulants in order to make them fit in rather than training them to use their brains to their best advantage: the problem is not solved, it is avoided.

• Fat German - Dunx's last paragraph and footnote
  Absol-bloodly-lutely. Extremely well put. It extends beyond education and learning mechanisms too, in my view.
• Projoy - clusters
  [Dunx and Raak] Hear hear. Nicely expressed.
• Projoy - iz it becos I iz...?
  As Raak says, a leg is generally broken or not broken, and the difference is pretty clear and agreed upon, but you get members of any minority group into a room (ADD sufferers, autists, gays, black people) into a room and ask them to define "ADD", "autism" or, heaven help you, "gayness" or "blackness" and you will soon have a heated debate on your hands.
• Projoy
  ...just witness the endless controversies in the last few decades over the definition and meaning of "disabled".
• Breadmaster - I like meds
  I agree with Dunx that the problem is really one of society not being able to handle people who are different. It's terrible that children, in particular, who have a different way of learning, get straitjacketed into the traditional methods and classed as having a problem if they don't fit in. It's especially ridiculous given how much society actually prizes ADD traits in many ways - such as creativity and spontaneity - which is how people like Billy Connolly, Robin Williams, and Ozzy Osbourne got to where they are today. Bill Clinton, of course, is the classic ADD kid made good. But at the same time, I do think that there is good evidence that ADD, in particular, is a discrete and specific disorder, with specific physiological causes, rather than a handy name for a bunch of sometimes associated phenomena. Raak is wrong to say that the genetic correlations of ADD are vague: they are not vague at all, and there is very good evidence for a strictly physiological basis, although of course how that basis manifests itself will vary according to conditions. Certainly ADD behaviours do vary from person to person in type and degree, which is one of the things that make it hard to diagnose, but it doesn't follow that the underlying cause varies - at least where ADD is the correct diagnosis. We have a rather skewed view of it in the UK because, as he says, it hasn't been officially recognised here for very long, compared to the US; in fact, some of the newer treatments for it, such as Concerta (essentially slow-release Ritalin) are unheard of to many supposed experts in this country. Plus, of course, the media like to fixate on issues of medication and horror stories about it. By the same token, it would be better if society could change to accommodate those of us who are different, but given that it can't, medication is a whole lot better than nothing. I have known people whose lives have been utterly ruined by ADD as well as by OCD. If they had been diagnosed earlier and given the help they needed - medication as well as proper counselling and behavioural therapy - who knows how things might have been different.
• Breadmaster - Whoops
  Something happened to my paragraph marks. I do apologise - as if my tedious exhalations aren't bad enough as it is...
• Projoy - physiology
  [BM] So what are the discrete physiological causes of ADD popularly supposed to be, then?
• Dunx - Re: physiology
  [Projoy] Primarily temporal lobe dysfunction, at least according to Dr Daniel Amens who was one of the first to use brain scans to try and figure out what is different in an ADD brain. I've read his book Amens' "Healing ADD" where he describes the different areas of brain activation in the six varieties of ADD which he identifies. All of them share some degree of temporal lobe dysfunction.

  The temporal lobe controls your ability to concentrate, and is more active when a brain is concentrating on something. A typical pattern in an ADD brain is that when it is used to concentrate deliberately on something then the temporal lobe is actually deactivated (ie there is less neural activity). I say "deliberately" because a common ADD behaviour is 'hyperfocus' where the brain will concentrate on something novel¹ to the exclusion of all else, but this is rarely deliberate.

  Note that there is another book called "Healing ADD" by Thom Hartmann, that I would also recommend, but which is entirely different. In particular, Mr Hartmann specifically attacks Amens' work in scanning brains. But there we are.

  [1] another very annoying aspect of this is that I cannot go to sleep if there is speech in earshot. I'll be drifting off quite satisfactorily when my brain will latch on to the interesting noises and amplify them in my perception. Similarly, I need silence or at least white noise if I need to think about a task which I am not entirely involved in, because otherwise my mind will concentrate on the novel rather than what I'm supposed to be doing.

• Projoy
  Right, but that still leaves Raak's point unchallenged, doesn't it? There's nothing to suggest that there's a single cause for that particular pattern of brain activity.
• Dunx
  Quite right.

  For instance, even the mechanisms by which ADD brain patterns arise in the individual are not certain. There is a high correlation between ADD in parents and in their offspring (a figure of 70% is often quoted) which might suggest a genetic link, but it could equally be due to upbringing: the brain is plastic enough that learning will change its structure (no specific references, I'm afraid - I read this recently but can't remember where), and if much of a child's early development is achieved through mimicry then it's quite possible to imagine that parental ADD behaviours might imprint on the child.

  It may well be that the role of genetics in mental development is overstated. There is some work (this book, for instance) which puts forward the argument that:

  1. there is a common perception that genetic factors are the largest causative agent in mental illness
  2. there is almost no evidence of a correlation between mental illness in children and in their parents (the book linked to states that the strongest correlation is in schizophrenia where there is a 50% correlation; nothing about ADD though)
  3. if hypothesis (1) is wrong, then it must be environmental
  4. the most pervasive environmental influence on children is their parenting
  5. therefore the way you are raised is why your head works the way it does.

  So, ADD may be at least as much a social phenomenon as a genetic one, although I also think that any learning which has this effect would have been at such a young age that there is no element of choice to it .
• Tina - something else
  I wonder if I could change the subject. Feel free to ignore me. A co-worker is driving me crazy. Her husband hit her and one of the kids and she got a court order that he stay away. Since then, she is trying to find ways to meet him or to justify meeting him. He is possibly suicidal and she thinks this means she should help him. I point out how these suicidal guys sometimes take the family with them (to death), but she still vacillates. She is obsessed and talks about it constantly: outside on breaks, at my workstation, on the phone, in e-mail. She also obsesses about how she wants sex with him and graphically tells me stuff. Oddly, she listens to my advice, which is quite blunt and includes telling her she is not rational now, but I have a law background, not a psychological one. What do I do to get her to get the help she needs? How do I keep her from putting herself in harm's way? How do I (a gazillion other things)?
• Dujon - Dorothy Dix.
  Personally, apart from - as you mention - trying to convince her to get some professional assistance I'd stay well out, Tina. If she truly is irrational, heaven knows what affect any well meant advice may have on her. If you do attempt to convince her to get some help I think I'd leave the broken relationship out of any coaxing and simply concentrate on the fact that she is under stress at this time ... Then again, I'm no psychologist!
• Chalky - not ignoring Tina
  [cross-posted with Duj] How very difficult for you. Are you in the UK? Can you point her towards the Samaritans or even Relate? In my experience [I've been a voluntary counsellor for some years] you are doing the right thing, in that you are listening. If you are happy to be just a sounding-board, for that is all you are, try not be too disappointed if she fails to heed your warnings. By confiding in you, I'm afraid it looks as though she is seeking justification and perhaps your approval for her future actions, ie. she is likely to meet up with him. I would say, your main problem is that her irrationality appears to have transmuted into outrageously selfish and controlling behaviour [towards you] and you have to guage how much more you can cope with. When she's next in 'listening' mode, you might gently point out that you have a life aswell. But unless she admits she needs professional help, there is little you can do, short of frog-marching her into a doctor's surgery. [Blimey! Do I sound like an agony aunt or what?]
• Tina - Dujon and Chalky
  Yes, this is what my sister says as well. I'm in the US and our employer has a counseling plan. My sister says, make excues when she comes to my cubicle. Yes, she is always seeking my approval. She will announce some awful plan, come to my desk, and ask what I think. I say I disapprove, and so far that works. But it's not right really. I'm not the professional. And she is selfish now. There is nothing in her life except her crisis. She lost maybe 20 pounds. She writes me at 3 a.m. and is not sleeping. Thanks for all your help. I just don't want to open the paper and find her dead.
• Dujon - Warts 'n All
  I cannot put myself in your position and therefore cannot really understand, but it sounds like you are in a most awkward position - particularly if you feel obligated to your co-worker. Chalky is undoubtedly correct when she mentions listening but this, long term, could interfere with your own work. In view of the fact that your employer has a counseling service, why don't you have a talk with their staff? Depending on legal contingencies you may have to keep the name of your fellow worker out of any discussion, but at least you may receive 'proper' advice (and by that please do not think that I am denigrating Chalky's input.)
• Bob the dog - Dr dog
  Tina] If you are concerned for her life then she definitely needs professional help. I think you have demonstrated the characteristics of a good listener - but you are not responsible for her situation. She has to be, so it may help to explain this to her in a kindly and assertive way. She may thank you for it.
• Tina - advice
  Thanks to you all for the good advice.
• rab - Echoes
  I would echo what Dujon said in his last post - counsellors can be extremely useful even if you aren't the one who is in direct need of their services. It allows one to perspectivise the situation. Obviously the best case scenario is if somehow your colleague manages to sort her situation out; the worst case scenario is if this doesn't happen and you get dragged down with it. I found a counsellor was enormously helpful in staving off the latter when I was in a tricky situation.
• Chalky - Trying to attract INKSPOT's attention
  To keep the competitive daughter away from MY Daq account - I suggested she sign up herself. She thinks she can knock spots of the rest of us. What a challenge. Any chance of slipping her into our mini-league? [x_sugarbabe_x - 3509835]
• Inkspot - Only me...
  Some people have to work you know, others sit around waiting for the server to get back up ... so in between this and that, I've added x_sugarbabe_x.
• Chalky - thanking Inkspot :-)
• DrQu+xum - Celebuggered
  Well, I'm going to have to waste about £600,000 in my NI-capping. Feh!
• Dunx - OCD
  Coincedentally, the R4 programme "All In The Mind" had a segment on OCD on the 28th October edition.
• Dunx
  ... or rather, I should say, about hoarding. Slight misadvertising there. It's the first segment after the intro.
• blamelewis
  I've nothing much to add to the above (having just caught up with the foregoing) except to wish Tina luck with her situation and to thank those who've talked about such personal issues so openly in the ADD/OCD debate.
  My own feelings are that I feel myself to be somewhat... eccentric, particularly socially. Some days I seem to fire on all cylinders and participate on all levels with "the group" (meaning colleagues & students) - cracking jokes and fitting into the ongoing banter as we work, but other days it's like I'm out of sync or speaking a different language.
  I don't feel this or any other of my eccentricities are anything like extreme enough to warrant labelling as a disorder - and my feeling has been reinforced by some of the above - it's seldom if ever a real interference in my life. As Projoy suggested, when you hear stories from people who have suffered it humbles your own pretentions to such things!
  I've often remarked flippantly that no-one worth knowing is "normal" or 100% sane - and I do believe it's the oddnesses about people that make them interesting day-to-day. Not so much that these traits are odd perhaps as that they're different, new and interesting. They characterise people, and make them unique.
  
  I was also struck by Dunx's comments about difficulty falling asleep if there's audible conversation going on - I find falling asleep very difficult generally, and any sort of distraction is a killer: conversation (especially other people in the house talking, but also just tv) light - especially ambient light through the window, strong wind & rain (although they're kind of nice to listen to...) I've found music helps, although it needs to be the right sort of music - usually but not always without lyrics, often ambient. Dead Can Dance, Brian Eno's ambient classic Music For Airports and William Orbit's Strange Cargo III are all favourites to drop off to. They help shut out the rest.
  Hmmm - this has turned into an insomnia post really...
  [Celebdaq] I'm flabbergasted that Keanu Reeves is still dropping despite the last Matrix films opening... I was doing so well with Arnie before that too... ho hum.
• Raak
  [bl] "The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
• JLE - Celebdaq - Keanu Reeves dropping
  Could it be because the last Matrix film is getting bad reviews, rather than good?
• Breadmaster - Sleepless in... well, everywhere
  [blamelewis] I sympathise greatly. I have always suffered terribly from this. I have been known, on more than one occasion, to be kept awake by my own heartbeat. This is an example of how diagnosis helps, however: now that I know I have OCD, I recognise much of this as silly obsessiveness within my own head. I don't really need conditions to be perfect before I fall asleep, I just think I do, and it's the obsessing about it that actually keeps me awake. And that alone makes things much easier. However, I still cannot sleep through any kind of human-made noise. Those damn humans!
• Bob the dog - Scilence
  Dunx/Blame/Bread] Sleep is something I adore. I could easily (and and often have) fallen asleep within earshot of conversation - que joke about boring conversations. But to try and fall asleep to music, even Brian Eno, would be impossible for me. I'd be far too wrapped up in thinking about the music to let it lull me. I prefer natural darkness and scilence - as experienced on Shetland - where there is vitually no man-made background light or sound.
• blamelewis - zzzzzzzz
  [Bob] I've noticed a big difference since moving out of Glasgow - there's no longer a streetlight glaring in my window, and only very occasionally do the sounds of drunken revelry intrude. {Bread] i feel sometimes it's the whirl of thoughts in my head keeping me awake - that and being insufficiently tired - I know part of the problem is my lack of regular exercise also. [JLE - Matrix] Bad press should count as much as good - look at Prince Charles this week!
• penelope - Radio 40 winks
  I fall asleep listening to Radio 4 - I like the noise of voices as I doze off. If there are too many of my thoughts whirling around in my head, (and this is where I start to think I'm odd, after reading everyone else's confessions) I kind of 'take dictation' from the shipping forecast or the news or whatever is broadcast. I hear the words, then see them in my mind's eye on the page, the shape of the letters and the shape and length of the word. It leaves no room for other thoughts and I'm asleep within minutes. I can't listen to music to fall asleep - it has a stuimulant effect, no matter what kind of music it is.
• Raak - Sleeping to the radio
  Adult to small child who has just answered the door: "Is your Mummy in?"
  Small child: "She's asleep listening to Woman's Hour."
• Projoy - Bed, where is thy spring?
  I don't seem to have this trouble. Diet and preoccupation seem to be pretty much the only factors that affects whether I sleep. Thus I must not eat after 7 if I want to fall asleep by 11. And almost nothing wakes me. Someone was stabbed to death on my street once and I slept through the whole incident. Provided I have followed the eating rule, I can fall asleep to any music or stimulus, even violent atonal C20th music. I fully expect to die in a fire someday.
• Chalky - To sleep, perchance to dream
  I am fortunate. I fall asleep when I want to, which means when I am tired. I sleep lightly but it never really bothers me if I wake in the night [or if I am woken] because a cup of tea usually sorts me out. I wake when I need to. How dull.
• Dujon - I'm dreaming of a ... daq
  Not really - BUT - come on, Dr.Q+ - you are within sight of the line (or at least in line of site.) You can make it ... deep breath ... push ... push ... only a bit to go ...

  I'm afraid that Doris_Newbold and ffiish are about to lose a bit of well earned dosh, Doris though having just made the finishing post.

• Dujon - site ... s/b ... sight ... sheesh!
• blamelewis - dream
  [Chalky] not at all, sounds blissful! [celebdaq] That's it, I've sold Keanu, his usefulness offscreen clearly not in proportion to his arboresence on screen... it Prince Charles for me! (As the Butler said) (allegedly)
• Thos - nodding off
  I like sleep but sleep doesn't like me. I can't do it properly at all. And following on another comment, I fully expect to die by being stabbed to death as I set fire to Projoy's house.
• Riff - zzzzzzz
  At the beginning of the week, when I have classes, I get about 3-5 hours of sleep a night. At the end of the week, I get 10-12. Plus, any night of the week, I might decide not to sleep at all. In this fashion, I am training my body not to expect any particular amount of sleep at any particular time. I'll never be jet-lagged again!
  [noise] I can't handle TV or conversation when trying to sleep at all, but I can handle music if it doesn't have lyrics, and is very repetative. For instance, I've fallen asleep underneath tables in the middle of raves a couple of times. Of course, driving all day to get there and then having to unload all the speakers undoubtedly helped.
• Fat German - Sleep
  I used to have terrible trouble sleeping through other people's noise. My lodger used to have music on at night fairly quietly and it used to drive me mad, especially the fact that the bassline was audible more than the rest, to the point where we had a screaming row about it. She couldn't see my point of view and I was incensed that she couldn't see mine. Now that I know I'm obsessive about it I can sleep through it just fine. If it's me making the noise (my music, my radio, etc) I can sleep through practically anything.
• Bob the dog - Bass disturbance
  FG] I couldn't stand any music at night either. I once shared a room in an International hostel with a guy who had an immense collection of pop music from Ghana. I had to move rooms to stay sane. The ex-roommate then started to make claims that I was racist (notes on the message board - complaints to the hostel management) because I didn't like being kept up till 4.00am every night. In an international setting, this was extremely hurtful.
  
  This may seem funny, but it is really very sad. I someone who suffered from Tourette's syndrome recently. For some bizarre reason, he'd chosen to become a street performer - specialising in children’s entertainment. There must be a reason why he chose such an inappropriate career path.
• Bob the dog
  I met someone
• Lib
  [Bob] Sounds interesting. Tell us more!
• Bob the dog
  Lib] Not much more to tell. I was with my (at that time) 6 year old daughter. This chap was dressed in colourful street hippy type clothes and was earnestly and unsuccessfully trying to attract the attention of people with children outside Shakespeare’s Birthplace (I live in Stratford). I'm not usually keen on this kind of thing, but he seemed so honestly appealing so we stood and watched him juggle. He came over to us and talked to my Daughter. He was very sweet and friendly but when he spoke to me it was obvious he has Tourette's because he would twitch (as if sneezing) and shout a swearword. My partner and I are not uptight about letting my daughter hear swearwords, if she asks, we just tell her what they mean and that they are words it is wrong to use in public because they could cause offence. Same with this guy. It gave me an opportunity to talk to my daughter about the syndrome and how awful it must be to be a sufferer. The juggler, however, was not at all popular - especially with other parents - which was a shame because he really was good with my daughter.
• Graham III - Knee-capped
  Not too gutted though - made well over 200,000 since dividend payout having not quite reached the 2,000,000 mark and was never going to make it up to the 3,000,000 mark before today. This week will be the real test.
• Chalky - Tourette's
  [Bob and anyone else who's interested] There is a form of Tourette's, just as well documented, which manifests it self in strange twitches and 'noises' but NOT swearing. [I suppose it's not surprising that the uncontrolled blaspheming is the symptom that attracts all the attention - and sniggers] I know this because my brother's son had it. He and his wife noticed when my nephew was about 8 years old and within months he was diagnosed by the top specialists in the country. They have spent years keeping abreast of the constantly updated research on the syndrome as well as communicating via support groups, etc with other families who suffer. They were told quite early on that he would 'grow out' of it during puberty. He did. He's now 16 and is a superb county rugby player and is in the England R U Development Squad.
• Riff
  Had a conversation with a friend last night, she mentioned someone she knew who had Tourette's -- his specific symptom was that he'd 'baa' like a sheep all the time...
• st d - tourettes
  Bob] You are right of course to say it is very sad and an awful syndrome etc etc. BUT, I am sorry, a juggling kid's entertainer with tourettes. That is comedy genius. Or would be if it were a sketch on Trigger Happy TV and not real life. Are you telling me that you haven't since laughed at the thought of the guy handing a balloon shaped like a donkey to some 6 year old and then saying "BOLLOCKS" really loudly? Tragic syndrome. Hysterically funny image.
• penelope - Mental rental
  Tee-hee - a self-drive rental truck has just driven into our office balcony, gashing a huuuuge hole in its roof!!
• flerdle - 5 tonne monsters
  I drove one of them last time we shifted. Why me and not the man of the house I can't remember. I was completely paranoid, because of the huge excess to pay if there'd been an accident, and because it was huge compared with our little car. But the bouncy driver's seat was fun.
• penelope - van woman
  [flerdle] It'll be because you're sensible and give off an air of confidence and capable-ness. And of course, you could blame Mr flerdle for making you drive if there'd been an accident... ;o)
• flerdle - little do they know...
  [penelope] I love how your mind works :-D
• Bob the dog - He said WHAT?
  St d] In fact that is what happened - except there was no balloon and he said "W@NKER" :o)
• Boolbar - mini-swears
  If walking past my old primary school is representive, kids know words like bol****s and w**ker anyway. In my day 'bum' was rather naughty.
• Boolbar - A missing "ta"
  They taught me to spell in those days as well.
• st d - w@nker
  Bob] And you have laughed since in teling this story ? I am tempted to turn into a street clown and fake the tourettes.
• st d - googlewhack
  not that i am particularly bored today or anything, but I just found a googlewhack, and they wont let me post it - I assume because it is deemed rude. Anyway I willshare it here as it is a genuine whack! FELLATED MOHICANS.
• Bob the dog
  St d] Come to think of it - he said that too...
• Projoy - Whacked Off
  [st d] Are you sure that's a googlewhack? If so I'm really rather surprised.
• snorgle - googlewhack
  Oooh! It is, I just checked..
• CdM - moving
  [flerdle] You have a longer drive this time. And remember to deflate the tires when you reach the desert.
• Dujon - Losing hair
  I was going to compose an extraordinarily witty comment to post somewhere on the site. However, I thought that this was even more funny (courtesy of my I.S.P.):

  Service Disruption Start: Wednesday, 12 November 2003 at 5:53AM EDST
  Last Updated: Wednesday, 12 November 2003 at 12:04PM EDST
  Scheduled Service Disruption: No
  Who is affected: Some customers
  Impact: We are currently having problems with ADSL. This is affecting customers in New South Wales. Some customers will experience no dataflow. Technicians are treating this issue as a priority and are working on the problem.

  Right, I'm off to find a pub or a bottle or something - it beats crying. Any takers?

• Dujon - Looking at that
  Not clear? Probably not.

  I have just spent considerable amounts of time attempting to post/read/hack a number of sites. I'm giving up and, hopefully, will see you all tomorrow.

• Projoy - Credit where it's due department
  Last night, bored as hell with the quality of discussion in a chatroom, I began posting "Fascinating Facts", all culled from the lies game on this very server. After I posted Ibid's "Hammerhead sharks have to clean their teeth regularly, due to the large quantities of salted peanuts they eat." one of my duller interlocutors asked "where do they get the peanuts", allowing me to take great pleasure in replying "Do I look like a marine biologist?"

  Totally irrelevant I know, but just a small example of how the MC community brings happiness into the world in small unexpected ways. :)

• st dogmael - Projoy
  I remember meeting you once in the Head of Steam many moons ago, on a Tuesday if I recall correctly. From that dim recollection, and also from my having met more than a couple of Marine Biologists in my time, I can only conclude that from a certain angle, and in the right light, you actually DO look like a Marine Biologist. But that is by the by - where DO the sharks get the peanuts from ?
• Projoy
  You know, sometimes I wish I actually were a marine biologist. Particularly today, with the office feeling especially horrible.
• st dogmael - marine biology
  Indeed. How nice to be sitting on a beach somewhere far flung with a torch and a clipboard and a ruler, waiting for a load of turtles to turn up.
• Breadmaster
  [Projoy] Why are people in chatrooms so stupid? The number of times I've tried to talk about something interesting or intelligent, only to get in reply "wot". I appreciate that my kind of interesting conversation may not be everyone's, or indeed anyone's, but what kind of idiot just types "wot"? The same kind that spells "great" with an 8, I suppose. [Shuffles off in carpet slippers muttering about the war.]
• penelope - chatroom schmatroom
  [Bready] Where do you chat? I'll gladly gatecrash and help you to liven things up a bit. Likewise [Projoy] there's some interesting Duologues to be made there, I'm sure. I was a frequenter of MSN chatrooms, where I would resort to lobbing virtual cushions about the room to initiate some reaction. And if nobody responded to a cushion, I'd try throwing virtual knives.
• Chalky - chattin
  I have to confess - when I first became internetted a few years ago, my first port of call was an MSN chatroom. I plunged myself nervously into the mêlée, learned all the patter, sussed out the dynamics, etc. Anyway, after a couple of unsatisfactory weeks I decided it wasn't for me and became far more attracted to the community message board attached to the room, where I encountered some like-minded souls. Anyway, to cut a long [but rather interesting] story short, I now have two very close friends whom I see on a regular basis as a result of that experience. So, although I wouldn't be seen dead in a chatroom now [they terrify me], I can't exactly decry those who get something out of the experience.
  Besides, if I manage to get any time to myself late evening, I would rather bimble around the Crescent sites. Talking of which, does anyone frequent the MCiOS chat server? If I knew that some friendly faces were in there, I might make an exception.
• Projoy
  As far as I can see we never get around to creating enough activity in our own chatroom at MCiOS. We should maybe have a particular time in the week (like Sunday night at 8 or whatever) for VirtualPilgs, then the place would really buzz.
• Projoy - Grasshopper mind
  Oh, and to leap back to the neurology discussions, is it meaningful for a person to maintain "I'm pretty ADD today" (as I have just done to a colleague. I certainly am finding it hard to focus on anything for longer than 20 seconds today, which is not always a problem.
• Projoy - And another thing
  Why do I invariably leave off the closing parenthesis or comma from a subclause, and why do I often forget to put a question mark at the end of a question? Somebody must know. I can't be the only one.
• Chalky - crescent chat
  [Projoy] Damn fine idea, although I'm part of a pub quiz team and we compete on Sunday nights, so I can't make it until about 11pm. Also I'm likely to be a bit squiffy.

  Noting your simulpost PJ - it's because you're having an BAD ADD day

• st dogmael - ADD
  I had the answer to your questions, then I am afraid I got distracted by a tiny jam tart.
• Projoy
  Mmm. Jam tart.
• DrQu+xum - The MCiOS Chat Room
  [Chalky] I'm usually in there while I'm at work (usually 12:30-21:30 GMT), but often not at my desk when anyone happens to show up. :(
• Chalky - trying to work at home
  Distractions? DISTRACTIONS?? You should worry - a mere glimpse at the words jam tart sent me into the kitchen to throw together a chocolate sponge. Smells lovely, mind.
• st d - tarts
  I just had another one. Terribly nice. Tiny little ones as well. From Safeways I believe. Mmmmm.
  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! You know I can actually FEEL myself stagnating today. This is not good.
• snorgle - chat
  The thing is, strange people live in the MCiOS chatroom.. scary people..

  Yay! I just won a prize!

• Chalky - winning ways
  Well done, snorgle. Your statement begs the questions - what and what for?
• Projoy - stagnation
  [st d] Glad I'm not the only one. Know what I did (nobody tell my boss, please). I stood up, announced I was going for a late lunch, then walked out of the building took a tube to Covent Garden and marched into the Back Rub Centre for 20 minutes of massage by a very attractive man. I came back and slipped into my desk with a cat and cream sort of expression. It may not have helped my productivity, but it sure as hell made me feel better.
• penelope - chat denied
  I can't MCiOSchat at work :o( but I can eat jam tarts, although right now we don't have any. We had mince pies in the office yesterday though :o). A weekly cyberpilg would be good - I sometimes see DrQ in there, and occasionally flerdle, usually 9pm-ish GMT. How about a Monday night?
  And simulposted by Projoy - why can't I work closer to Covent Garden and the attractive backrub man? Tesco's mince pies down't sound a patch on a cat-and-cream expression after a session like that. (Mind you, there are runours of a company with its own rowing eight moving into the office suite next door to us):oD
• Projoy
  Monday nights are probably quite sensible, since one's least likely to have a social engagement/evening class/rehearsal/major shopping expedition/press conference to launch Conservative leadership bid that night.
• Chalky - thumbs up for Monday
  Bugger - that's the evening I usually have sex. Ah well, I suppose abstaining one day a week won't do any harm. :-)
• Chalky - curious companies
  [pen] a Company with its own rowing eight?? I wonder if the contentious eightsome have to work in a separate soundproofed room so their 'loggerheading' doesn't disturb the placid ones?
• penelope - smashing!
  [Chalky] The new company has 'Porcelain' in its title (I've seen some early post in the lobby) so perhaps they're made to keep their oars elsewhere for fear of smashing the samples. I wonder where they keep their rowlocks?
• rab - Night-time
  Monday nights sound good to me.
• Bob the dog - Cyber pilg
  Do Monday nights suit non-UK MCers? It'd be particularly good if Dunx, Dr Q, Flerdle and Dujon et al can join in as they can't get to UK pilgs.
  
  This Monday is out for me - I'm doin' my thing at a conference in Edinburgh. Three days of torment made good because of the location.
  
  But I'll join in a week on Monday. I'll merrily settle down in front of the PC with a big drink and a cuddly toy (I've never been on a pilg but I believe this is the done thing).
• Bob the dog - llareggub
  I'm looking forward to the new Under Milk Wood on R4 this Sat - thank God they've kept Burton.
• Dunx - Le Pilg à Cyber
  I haven't tried the chat room recently from work; should be OK, since our firewall is reasonably permissive. And Monday night is probably a better bet in any case - the last time any kind of regular online MCing was attempted was with an IRC channel many moons ago, and I don't think there were ever more than about four people.
• flerdle - chat?
  [snorgle] I didn't think I was that scary...

  I have had several attempts at seeing if people could coordinate to turn up in the chatroom at some particular time, but it's never worked. However, pilgs have been great, and things seem to really take off when there's more than three people there (or more than one, which is more often the case). Now that there seems to be some sort of interest, of *course* I'll be around. When people are at wirk it just doesn't work, I think, so UK evenings are fine for me, especially now that the sun comes up earlier. Day of the week doesn't matter too much, although if I work that day I may have to leave by 11pm UK time (Sundays and Tuesdays, probably). Some days I can be around longer because I'll be working from home, so there may be a possibility of more US-Aus meeting more towards the US evening time, (even west coast). My possible times, of course, are only for the next two months, then I'll have to see how the net connection and a new time zone work. Monday night is fine. What other possibilities are there? Maybe broadcast the idea to the other two sites.

  *lights candle, sings softly to self*

• snorgle - pilgs win prizes
  [flerdle]I might manage a Monday, but can't guarantee I'd be there long..(it was JLE who was scary..:) I can't get into that chatroom at work, but home is fine. I think my computer is on its last legs(or something), but I've asked for one for Christmas, so you never know.. :) I won a trip up to London to see Love Actually - travelling up Friday, staying overnight and seeing the film the next morning..Yay!
• Dujon - Jealousy
  Oh, I say, snorgle, well done!
  What is it with ladies? My wife has been fortunate enough to win two (2!) trips over the last few years - well, ten or fifteen years - one to Fiji and one to Mauritius ... grrrr!
• flerdle - waaant prizes!
  [Dujon] Not this one. hmph.

  Well, if the activity in the chatroom last night was any indication, we could be in for a fun time when Mondays roll around :-)

  *blows out candle, wanders off*

• rab - Whoops
  Just remembered that on Monday night I too shall be in Edinburgh. [Bob] I'm in Embra on Mon/Tues nights. I expect you'll be tied up with your conferencing, but if you fancy a pint let me know and we could work something out.
• snorgle - prize!
  Got the details in the post this morning (first class does still work sometimes..) and we'll be staying at the Hyde Park Towers Hotel, so I hope it's nice. Luckily I managed to get tomorrow off work without any trouble..
• Bob the dog - Mcpilg
  rab] That'd be fab - Monday drawback is I'm a meeting between 6 and 8 ish. I arrive (if Virgin do their stuff) at 15.41 so I've got some time either early or late evening. Tues busy until 9ish. If you are still able to go for a drink - email me!
• rab - *zoing*
• snorgle - hippy
  [rab]Are you being Shaggy?
• rab - Shaggy
  [snorgle] Isn't that rather a personal question?! But so as I don't become the subject of unfounded allegations I should point out that that's the sound of an email winging it's way to Bob the dog.
• Bob the dog
  Rooby rooby roo!
• Fat German - ADD
  Just to return to the subject again, oh wait jam tarts.....
  ahem I had an ADD moment last night. I was watching a film which, whilst enjoyable, was not exactly the most demanding in terms of plot or dialogue After 45 minutes or so I found myself fidgeting and eventually I was balancing cigarettes on my hat, just to keep a bit more of my mind occupied. I wondered if this has something to do with it, maybe my brain requires more than an 'average' amount of stimulation and that maybe this could be related both to ADD and OCD? If I'm suitably engrossed in something, most of my OCD evaoprates only to return when I get bored again. Discuss?
• st dogmael - bored
  Sounds like you were just bored FG. I mean, its understandable really. What I am interested in though (and this may sound flippant but is a serious enquiry) is the hat/cigarette thing. Were you balancing the cigarettes whilst in the packet ? Or were you balancing single cigarettes on their end (far trickier) Were you wearing the hat ? What kind of hat was it ? Were the cigarettes lit ?
• Breadmaster - Mad? Me? Who says I'm mad? Mad am I? That's what those fools said in medical school. Could a madman do this? Hahahahahaaaa!!!!
  [FG] Not wanting to bore on this topic any more than necessary, but yes, the more engrossed I am in something the less OCD I am, and the less, the more, if you see what I mean. But I think this applies to everyone to some degree. Aristotle says that the only people who eat sweets at the theatre are those who are bored by the play, the point being that there's no such thing as generic "pleasure", but rather each activity has its own pleasure, and the more engaged you are in an activity, the more you enjoy it. In other words, you can't completely enjoy two things at once, because they will compete for your attention; and conversely, if you aren't enjoying something, your mind will try to find something else to enjoy. Discuss.
• Wol - I'm bored, too
  Heavy, saucer-shaped object they throw in athletics competitions. Discus. sorrysorrysorry
• Lib - Fidgeting
  I can't sit still, especially in things that I'm required to sit still for. My mum refuses to sit by me at the theatre as i'm constantly shuffling in my seat and my boyfriend clobbers me when i fidget whilst sat next to him at the cinema. Its not cos I'm bored (as I'm often accused of) I just get un-comfy so feel the need to move.
• Boolbar - numb-bum
  [Lib] I find lot of theatre and cinema seats are rather uncomfortable at about the one hour stage. Shuffling is somewhat necessary.
• snorgle - stretchy legs
  [Lib]I try to sit in the front row or on an aisle seat - more leg room that way.
• Dunx - Chat
  Apparently, the MCiOS chat room does work for me at work. This is good. I should be along on Monday, meetings permitting.
• Dunx - The Kiki Thing
  [FG] I know what you mean. I find some meetings to be similarly frustrating.
• Fat German - Hats
  [st d] It's a wooly hat. It was on the floor. It was knitted by my mum with big thick wool and consequently (a) stands up on its own, and (b) has holes in it especially a nice one in the top. I managed to get a cigarette wedged in the hole, pointing vertically, and then attempted to balance another one on top of that, and so on. Quite a challenge actually, I never made it further than one on top of another.
• Breadmaster - Fag balancing
  I remember a book by Julian Barnes in which someone lies on her back and smokes a cigarette all the way down without tapping it out, so that a thin grey column of ash is balanced perilously on top of her lips. She then reveals that she had stuck a hairpin down the length of the cigarette before lighting it to hold it together. If I knew how to smoke, I'd use that trick to impress girls.
• Projoy - If I knew...
  [BM] Surely there must be some evening class you can go to.
• Bob the dog
  For some reason I thought BM was going to give us the low-down on the ping-pong ball scene from Priscilla Queen Of The Desert. Its a great trick for impressing the boys...
• Angus Prune - ping pong
  Oh how I laughed... What's the trick? It's dead easy!
• Dujon - What the?
  After running in the high teens and low twenties, the weather has turned = 36°C as I type. Urrgh. Don't get me wrong, I am happy with that - it's tonight I'm worried about.
• Riff - Someone broke the weather
  That's interesting, here on the east end of the US we've had the opposite problem - High of 60ºF and low of 30 one day, high of 30 and snow the very next day.
• Breadmaster - Ping Pong
  [BtD] Oh, if only I knew the low-down on that...
  [Dujon] Where do you live?
• Chalky - talking of the weather...
  It's a cracking day here in the mid-south of dear old Blighty... an azure blue sky, fluffy while cloudy things and lots of smiley faces .. especially on rugby fans.. Kinda makes me glad to be alive.
• Bob the dog - Outlook uncertain...
  Lovely day here in mid UK too. I wonder what Edinburgh will be like?
• rab - Embraclime
  According to my guest from that fine city, it's been warmer and drier than Manchester. Though that doesn't surprise me.
• Bob the dog - A porridge of high pressure
  rab] Good. I shall bring mt Bermuda kilt!
• Bog the dob
  for mt read my.
• Inkspot - A boys weekend
  Not only was the weather good here but the wife (and mother of three) left on Friday for a weekend of shopping with some of her friends, returning after tea today. Just a quick tidy up half hour before she arrived...a free weekend of no 'lists of thing-to-do', no 'we can't sit around here all day', just coke,crisps, playstation and the occasional nappy...easy.

  Meanwhile over at Celebrity MC mini league Chalky takes over from DrQ at No 1, and staight in at No3 is the mysterious x_sugarbabe_x

• Chalky - slacking off and daq-ing off
  [Inkspot] Lovely! I managed to grab about three hours of my own company this afternoon. I built a log fire and sprawled in front of the TV. Grand.
  Re: Celebdaq ... yes, that daughter of mine is going to be SO smug when she sees how well she's performing. Strangely enough - I put all my pounds on the same person as she did after divi-time last Friday .. and today she has somehow managed to get ahead of me. Beginner's luck I say.
• Dujon - dak dik dak dik _ dak dak dik dak
  
  Grumbles something about 'children these days!' and heads for the shed.
• st d - to do lists
  Inkspot] Sounds like you should make her a list with: 1.leave me alone Please ! and 2. Stop making me lists and: 3. realise that not only CAN he sit around all day and do nothing, but he finds it remarkably therapeutic.
• Chalky - cross-posting
  [To all Radio4 listeners] 1830 GMT tonight is the first of the new series of ISIHaC from Winchester. I'm hoping to hear myself laughing.
• Inkspot - wish lists
  Chalky]Three hours in a single afternoon? to yourself? Now that's sounds wonderful, I'll exchange you that for my Tom the toddler ("Read books daddy", "Do puzzle daddy", "Train track...", "Play cars...")The other two being 9 and 12 can be left to their own devices.

  On second thoughts ignore that, I wouldn't change him for anything...
  st d] It's not the just lists but the silent looks, perhaps Chalky could give some insight ;)

• Zooological Keeper - A plea
  Why are there only two of us playing Mornington Crescent? :(
• Chalky - annoyed glares
  [Inkspot] Doubt if I can share any insights, not knowing if the lists/silent looks are aimed at your role as a husband [B&Q, DIY, manly household chores] or father [guidance & gainful occupation of young things]. To be honest, I'm a fan of the school of 'sitting round all day at home with the TV/video/DVD/Playstation/CDplayer/piano/PC/Internet' especially when there's little ink smudges to look after.
  Children actually enjoy sharing stay-at-home-stuff with relaxed adults.
  I think there's far too much - [oh dear - high horse alert] - "Oh yah, to develop their full potential, little Venetia and young Felix are always occupied with ballet, moderndance, jazz/tap dancing, drama, horseriding, t'ai chi, judo, karate, kick boxing, cordon bleu vegetarian cookery, screen printing, blah-de-blah classes and isn't my 4-wheel drive so handy for running them around in?" Bollocks to all that. As long as they walk regularly, go swimming as often as possible, and actually spend some time with their parents, they usually turn out OK.
  [Ahem - that is, provided their parent/parents are normal :-)]
• Zooological Keeper - adults
  Hurrah! A non-neurotic parenting-type! Any room on that horse for the rest of us?
• Angus Prune - zk
  Maybe they've got us on ignore...
• Chalky - ignorami
  [AP] No chance Pet! I'm assuming that most of the 'onliners' last evening were in the chat server in MCiOS. I even leapt off my high horse to join 'em.
• penelope - late chat
  [Chalky] Ah, the pantomime. I was still chuckling about it even as I wwent to bed. There were a few more characters that I forgot to own up to... although this may have been before you came in. I was also the rocket and the Qualified Master Sofa Assembly Technician (who was ejected into high orbit when CdM pressed the eject button on the old sofa).
• Chalky - guffawing
  [pen] Wonderful stuff - if I'd had more wits about me [or less vino IN me] I would have worked out how you managed that without my noticing. *plots fiendish strategy for next time*
• Néa - Ah-ha!!
  [pen] So it was you!! I think flerdle must have been the Door-to-Door salesperson - no idea who the monkeys were though. And I wasn't impersonating anyone. It was all I could do to keep myself upright on the chair most of the time. I wish I could have stayed :-/
• flerdle - *innocent*
  I wasn't anybody other than myself. And I stayed to the very end. Seven hours in all. *was insane*
• flerdle
  Oh, and I did get work done today. Honest, guv.
• snorgle - chatty
  I was planning to do stuff last night, but so much for that.. :)
• penelope - owning up
  I was the Door-to-Door Salesman and one of the Shakespear-quoting monkeys - although I'm not sure who the other one was. I was sniggering so hard throughout I had aching ribs and cheeks by the end of the evening. As a form of laughter therapy, I reckon that would cure anything :o)
• penelope - two windows
  [Chalky] You just have two chat rooms windows open side-by-side. At one stage I had three - there was me as penelope, the (Retired) Firework Salesman, and the rocket, which fortunately didn't stay in the room very long as I was having trouble keeping track of what was what by that stage.
• Dunx - Regrets
  It was a riot. I really wish I could have stayed, but playing from work and trying to work is too difficult for my brain to cope with.
• CdM - roles
  I was just me. Oh, and the IKEA delivery person, of course. And my apologies to everyone for being so non-communicative -- I kept getting tied up in these long work phone calls that required my brain.
• Breadmaster
  I missed this. Will another be arranged?
• flerdle
  [BM] It seemed like Monday night was a good night to meet, so it may happen, to a larger or smaller extent, any Monday from here on in. Or any other time. I think some people might be there this Saturday afternoon too. Check here for other announcements of a gathering-type nature.
• Tina - chatroom
  How does one find the chatroom?
• Inkspot - Over yonder
  Tina] On the MC⁵ front page there is a link to Orange and MCiOS, under the clock, click on "the Real time chat server Beta", enter your name. Whatever you do, don't press the red button!
• Tina - chatroom
  Thanks Inkspot.
• Rosie
  What a load of fucking crap this site is, compared to Pants. No wonder I've left
• Gob smacked! - Refusing to accept that that was the 'real' Rosie.

  ---

• Dujon - My apologies - that should have read:
• Dujon - Gob smacked!

  ---

• Dujon - Now, where was I?
  Ah, yes. I shall endeavour to join those who may partake of the delights of the 'chat room' next Monday - I shall most likely be a wee bit late (assuming I make it at all) as 8pm on Monday to most of you is 7am to me on Tuesday.
• flerdle - monkey-business
  [penelope] The other monkey was Phil.
• penelope - simian episodes
  [flerdle] Phil, was it? Cheeky monkey. He was poking fun at me all night. Just tell him I know where his pub is...
• DrQu+xum - EEEEEEEEK!
  My Celebdaq went all pink and has Simon Cowell on it! GAAAAAAAH!
• rab - Backchat
  Sorry I was unavailable on Monday. I was engaged in an alternative form of chat with Bob the dog. It was a bizarre experience - there was no delay between send and receipt of message, furthermore the conversation didn't get out of synch with itself and we were able to teleport alcoholic beverages to one another in real time. I don't think my brain can cope with the sensory overload, and I'll have to revert to the old-fashioned style next week.
• rab - Brooms
  Oh... and I feel it might be time to get the brooms out and cobweb away some of the games that are starting to putrify. Someone want to set the ball rolling?
• Raak - Sweeping
  I placed a fairly strong hint in the Carpe Diem game, though no-one seems to want to be The One Who Finished A Game.
• Raak - Clang!
  Just dropped another hint in the Centurion game.
• rab - Marvellous
  Those were the two that were at the top of my list for treatment. So folks - remember the rules: revivals of old classics require a case for support.
• Bob the dog - alternative form of chat
  Rab] Most enjoyable. Would be very happy to attempt further teleportations at some point in the future. Conference over, I am now sitting in an internet cafe in Waverly station awaiting my 8 hour train journey home.
  New Game] never contributed but always enjoyed the longwinded game on !York...
• rab - Huit heures
  [Bob] Do you have a bit of a long onward journey at your destination (as train conductors like to put it)? I wouldn't have thought it would take that long to get to where you're going...
• Kim - Please, please, please, please, please?
  There is a spare game slot. Would anyone mind if I started up a Lost Consonants Cat Room, so as to get out of the darkened cupboard that is the old game on MCiOS?
• Boolba
  [Im] Well I dot min at all.
• penelope
  *hands Kim a torch and firmly shuts the cupboard door* I'm kidding!! I jet!
• Chalky - .. and now for the game of Mornington Crescent
  Although there are plenty of MC variants scattered around the other two sites, might it not be appropriate to use one of the two available slots in here for a new one? We only have the Long Game. Perhaps an Imposters version of some sort ... like Literary giants? Or an old classic that I'm not aware of.
• rab - Guests
  I think there's two slots, so we could accomodate both Kim and Chalky.
• Chalky - acknowledging
  Hmmm rab .. I think I'll wait to see if there's any support for my idea, or even an alternative suggestion/theme, eg. a couple of weeks ago, Huxley mentioned [in MCiOS?] the Worldwide Underground Station map which drew some favourable murmers. Mind you, I haven't seen him around much lately.
• rab
  [Chalky] Indeed - there was that; also I recall (possibly) Boolbar suggesting a story game in which each player pastiches an author of his or her choice. This could be interesting...
• Boolbar - Oddly....
  ...it appears that someone has decided for the masses. Oh, and the worldwide map was from me. The author game was each player "plays" an author continuing the ongoing story in their own style and trying to introduce their own characters and elements whilst removing the other authors stuff. A sort of Authors Tag Wrestling.
• rab
  Yeah - what's that all about? Sound charades is up and running at Orange so there's no need for it here.
• rab
  Also both new games violate the principle expounded 11 moves up. Does anyone ever actually read these things?
• Zooological Keeper - deciding for the masses
  I just created 2 new games, cos I felt like it, which was actually purely coincidental. I wasn't trying to undermine any of the ideas on here, I promise!!! I didn't know about the sound charades at orange cos this is the only site I use *slinks away in to the corner feeling very very ashamed*
• rab - Resolution
  Comments from the floor please...
• Chalky
  Oh dear. I've just spent ages combining my and Boobar's idea into an amusing posting for here, in a blatant attempt to 'sell' the idea - now it's all gone to waste. Humph. ?

  Sorry ZK ... nothing personal :-)

• Chalky - reading back a bit ....
  I'm afraid I had a crack at you [ZK] in the Balls Game - sorry if it seemed a bit snappy. As you're probably feeling uncomfortable about the whole thing- would you like rab to 'retract' the new games, then we can go back to where we were in the discussion process?
  [rab] Is that possible?
• rab - Um...
  [Chalky] It might involve closing the site for a few minutes, cos although in principle I know how to do it, in practice there could be traps for the unwary... (mostly because I've not had to do it before).
• Boolbar
  Surely you can just play MC to end the games....
• Chalky - end the games
  well - shall we just 'end' the new games before they've begun, by using the magic words .. or does that mess up the Modern Classics archive bit?
• Chalky - simul-posted
  [Boobar] Sorry - I simul-ed. And apologies for not crediting you with the World Map of Underground Stations a little while ago :-)
• Chalky - AGAIN!
  Jeeeeeez - I've apologised 4 times in the last half-hour.
• Boolbar - Sorry.
  [Chalky] I'm sorry to hear about your apologising problem. I hope it isn't catching!
• Dunx - Endings
  [rab] Trust me - you do not want to be in a position where you have to learn how to retract games rapidly.
• Dunx
  Sorry to interrupt, by the way.
• Dunx - Other Endings
  I'm seriously wondering whether we should end the Lies game, not because it is moribund but almost precisely because it isn't: have it go out on a high, so to speak.

  thinks: I wonder if there is legs in games which never end, but which automatically drop off the front page if unused. Kind of half games which don't count against the game limit but which would be, as it were, already won when they're started. Hmm...

• rab - Phantom games
  As long as people don't mind there being weird zero-move games in the archive, then not formally erasing them from the database gets my vote. I think I know how to remove things as though they never existed, but that's all a bit sinister and not very nice.
• rab - So...
  A new game slot! What shall we do with it?
• Chalky - The Authorised Version
  [Boolbar] Going back to the Authors .. *thinks* .. combine my Imposters MC idea with Boobar's pastiche using both writers/poets AND characters from literature - such as:
  'William Shakespeare:
  So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
  Thus Shoreditch tavern proffers alms to me.
  Bridget Jones:
  Gah to your poxy tavern Willy-boy! The off-license in Shepherds Bush has a token collection scheme for cut-price chardonnay.'

  OK - so perhaps my example is a bit crap, but you get the gist?

  I have to say, I'm favouring the MC Game idea more than the continuous story - only because the recent StoryGame in MCiOS took off like a rocket and fizzled into the ether rather too quickly.

• rab
  Or - gasp - you could have a story game with no MC connections at all...
• Chalky - backing off
  rab - wasn't that the style of the MCiOS one I mentioned above? Whatever - I've made enough noise for one day - I'm still relatively new to this site and wouldn't presume to start a new game in any case. There must be all sorts of great and original ideas from the afficionados out there :-)
• penelope - sotto voce
  Quickfire Patience Mornington Crescent while we're waiting, anyone?
• st d - pen...
  someone called ? :oD woof woof !
• Watty - New games
  Oh, please, not a longwinded game! I still haven't recovered from the last one. Over a year on, and I haven't yet even had the strength to open the folder it's all compiled in, and see if I want to actually try and make it into a proper novel.
  I have always fancied the idea of a Who do you do? kind of game - moves in the style of famous (or obscure, in my case) authors - I tried to get the recent MCiOS story game moving in that direction, but there were few takers. I'd quite like to play a standard game of MC at some point - there seem to be only the Long Games going on atm.
  But maybe there's an entirely new game out there somewhere, and all it needs is a little inspiration...

  But not from me, obviously.

• rab - Pisces
  I should perhaps iterate that our resident custodian of exotic fauna (trans. Zooological Keeper) is of course still welcome to ply his or her trade in these grounds. Today's little flurry of activity should not be taken as a signal of any animosity or resentment. I am merely keen to see a selection of games that will keep a reasonable number of people moderately happy for an undeterminable length of time. My personal stance (for that be the box into which I type) is that variety and originality are two virtues that have been shown to achieve that aim. I would say we don't always need a committee decision before starting a new game if the idea is particularly unusual/cute/timely/whatever; on the other hand, since slots tend to be at a premium (and I see no need to raise the limit¹), it's probably a good idea - particularly with the those that come round often - to see if at least a couple of others are up for it. </Jerry's_Final_Thought> *group hug*

  [1] Unless offered huge wads of cash, or favours to a similar value.

• Tuj - Gosh, people have figured out how to use the words "Mornington Crescent"...
  Activity! Well done folks, a bit of pruning never hurt anybody. Or maybe it did, but as long as their in the minority, they'll have to lump it.
  Re: the remaining slot, some sort of impostors, or in fact any of several of the suggestions above'd do. If anyone can think of anything new and exciting, go for that.
  Re: what pen said, is it worth filling the time with a quick MC bash? An eleven-move puzzle one'd be what I'd post if it's still free soon.
• Inkspot - more stories
  I would be in favour of one of the story game, but with the rider that each is a short between 10-15 moves, roundabout 100 words a posting (not written in stone). Looking at the recent games of this type there is an initial flurry followed by a slow death. By reinventing a topic every several moves could allow various impostered authors amemding the style to suit. As I'm not widely read I may need to come as a character Dennis the Menace!

  In other news Celebdaq is back up and I've finally made to the Players Chart front page...at No 30. Still along way to go to beat penelope who managed No6.

• Kim - Errr....
  [rab and all] I know I'm only fairly new around here and I don't want to tread on any toes. I think that Rab is absolutely right in that a proposal for any new game should be able to demonstrate some support. I think, from my last posting, that I have support from Penelope and Boolbar and an accommodation from Rab, so, unless there are howls of disapproval in the meantime (or some other basard nabs the slot, I will start it up tomorrow morning (GMT).
• snorgle - Celebdaq
  Does anyone else absolutely hate the new Celebdaq look? It's bloody annoying..
• penelope - the end of the list..
  You know the game right down at the bottom - the one called 'oooh, I wanna try this'? Well, I've broken it. I didn't start it, btw, and I have no idea who Jack O'Neill is, but I was demonstrating and, rab, I'm sorry, it came away in my hand.
• Dujon - Daq
  [snorgle] I don't mind it all - to be honest I found the old one somewhat dark for my liking.
• snorgle - Celebcaq!
  [Dujon]I liked that retro look. I don't like my new icons, either. *pouts*
• Martha Farquar - Game ideas
  I like story games. But they tend to work best when:
  a) all moves are around 1 line each (I'd point to the long-lived Film & Crescent series on !York if !York were up)
  b) the moves are anonymous (e.g. this one, maybe because of multiple movers)

  But I'd also like a round of "Misheard Lyrics". A bit like Spellcheck Songs (remember that from !York?), except we rewrite chosen songs using soundalike words (not lookalike words). The last game was popular, as long as we kept the songs short

• Dujon - Query
  Hmm, some nice stuff in that referenced game, MF. The song bastardisation - how did that work? That is, one line per post or the whole kit and caboodle? This sort of thing, or am I missing the point?

  "My Way" (Frank Sinatra)

  Kow-tow, they send the beer;
  Ah so I'll brace for the coming burton.
  Please lend, me some buckshee
  To save my face, or it's the slate on....

  Yes, I know it's not good - just off the top of the head stuff: but is that the idea?

• Martha Farquar - Eggs sealant!
  Eck! Sacked Lee, thee I'd hear!
  I said in the original, "write as much as you feel like"; Blob usually went and wrote the whole kit and caboodle. Gimme a sec...
• Martha Farquar - That should do it...
  Try here
• Martha Farquar - Hmm, 4 minutes isn't bad!
• Dujon - Interesting
  
  Thank you for your trouble

  Sorry for the delay - I've been fighting the Geocities' pop-ups. ... :-)

  Do you think it will work? There seemed to be few contributors on that one - although, even though I'm terrible with lyrics, it sounds intriguing.

• Zooological Keeper - After the storm
  [Chalky] Reading up a lot (my word, you people typed a lot today) I've tried to find this game you had a crack at me in, but can't, so no offence taken! :)
• Martha Farquar - [Duj]
  thank you, yes, yes and yes. Like I said, if people kept their contributions (and the songs) short, it'd go better. And, hey, the new-found PantsMC talent'll make short work of the whole thing!
• Dujon - 'avin' a fink
  Well, I'm not going to wax lyrical about the thought so, being somewhat backward about coming forward in these matters, I shall await further comments. Given that it's early morn in the U.K. at the moment I'm assuming that any critiques will not be posted until such time as a few hours have passed us by.
• Zooological Keeper - Early morning
  Must...go...to...sleep....
• Dujon - Nods
• rab - New game
  So, will someone fill the slot with a game that more than one person actually wants to play before some oh so hilarious wankwit comes along and starts one with a ridiculous winning move?
• Bob the dog - Nods
  The job puns seem to have gone down well on the lies game. I think this warrents a game of its own so we can all get on with bullshitting as ...so help me God intended. Unless there is an outcry in the next 15 minutes - this I will do.
  Rab] 7 and a half hours to get to Stratford from Embra. Home at last - and knackered.
• rab - Dons
  [Bob] Oof... don't I feel terribly northern with a mere 4 hour trek? I trust your shennanigan met an appropriate level of success.
• Boolbar - Jobsworth
  [BtD] Surely we've overdone the job puns? - we need a different thingy to get our teeth into.
• Bob the dog - shennanigans
  rab] my input was particularly successful, although the conference created a huge amount of controversy...
  Bool] Yes I agree, but I still think it could carry on in a themed way - e.g. relatives, the wild west, puddings etc.
• Inkspot - recall of parliament
  Has there been agreement between Lost Consonants Cat Room and a story type game

  make that one more for the Lost Consnants

• rab - *raises had for lot consonants*
• Bob the dog - thirded
  I agree on lost cosnants - but I still think it is time the lie game got back to some good ol' bollocks - hmmm...
• rab - Quoracy?
  Would anyone lie to do the honours? I'm not very good at witty tiles.
• Bob the dog
  Another hit game has begun...
• Boolbar - In the pink
  [Celebdaq] I like it, a lot more clear and easy to use. The colours could be a little less pink though. What surprised me is that I'm 4th after a pathetic % increase.
• Uncle Korky - Kak 'daq
  Sorry - I think the new look's utter pants (no connection with defunct MC site intended). And it's bloody slow, as well...
• Boolbar - CelebDrag
  I'll agree on the slow bit.
• Bob the dog - Cyber pilg
  How did it go? Will there be more?
• Chalky - chattermongers
  [Bob] Mayhem and insanity - and yes :-)
  If you can be bothered there's some postings in here a couple of pages back.
• Chalky - please ignore my dreadful grammar
• DrQu+xum - *resists urge to make a horrific pun*
• Kim - Boo!
  I wanted to call it: "Lost Consonants: this time its persona!"
• snorgle - woooooooooooooooo
  It's pretty quiet in here - mind you, my home computer has fallen over and can't get up, so I can only access from work for now..*sniff*
• rab - Wakey-wakey
  [snorgle] I'd wondered where you'd been...

  [all] Good weekend?

• Boolbar - Weekend Loveliness
  It was until I was awoken at 2:30 am this morning by a mouse which sounded like it was tearing floorboards apart with its teeth.
• Bob the dog - Rugby club bonanza
  Boolbar] Are you sure it wasn't a giant, white, unbearably cute mouse?
  I had a good weekend apart from the R A I N. I was also vaguely aware of England’s rugby victory (I found out on Sunday morning) - which was pleasant. What was unpleasant, however, was Christmas shopping on Sunday and having to tip-toe through a minefield of pavement-pizzas - a memento of local folks celebrations.
• Raak - Weekend
  Mac Expo on Friday afternoon, where I picked up a copy of Panther (MacOS 10.3), followed by spending the weekend in a hotel on a personal development course. Someone announced the rugby result at some point, and half the people went "YES!" and the other half "hm?". 20-17 in the last twenty seconds of extra time, apparently.
• Bob the dog - hm?
  Raak] Do you feel personally developed as a result of your course?
• Bob the dog
  Ooops - re reading that it sounds dreadfully rude - I didn't mean to be. What I mean was ...erm ..well, what is a personal development course?
• Chalky - personally developmented
  [Raak] I would love to hear more. When I worked on a national newspaper many moons ago - they sent a group of us on one of those weekends. If I remember correctly, it was a hoot. I'm wondering if 2003 methods are less ... ahem ... aggressively american.
• Chalky - ISIHaC - round 2
  Tonight at 1830 GMT. It was much funnier than the first episode broadcast last week.
• rab - Are we meeting tonight?
• penelope - ce soir
  [Rab] Usual tme, usual place. I'll be the one wearing a pink mink.
• Chalky - yesyesyes
  ... and I'll be cunningly disguised as a bricklayer's mate.
• Raak - The enlightened being is [IN]
  [Btd] Well, I found it worth while, though it would really be up to whoever knows me to judge the effect, if any. [Chalky] Do you remember what group it was? There are a lot of these things (perhaps less so now than ten or twenty years ago), and yards of self-help books in all the bookshops. I expect that Sturgeon's Law applies. I'll write more when I have time this evening.
• Dunx - Pilgy Pilgy
  Probably won't be along this evening since I've a lot on at work today, what with the three day week and all.
• rab - Uselessness
  Apologies for uselessness but what's the "usual" time? 8ish?
• Boolbar - Excuses . . . .
  Alas, I'll be working out in the gym. Then I'm chasing mice and putting doors up.
• penelope - chasing through rooms
  [Boolbar] If you put the doors up first, you can then shut them and therefore won't have so far to chase the mice. Also (if the mice co-operate) can the chase not be part of your workout? Could you persuade them to run at half-pace for the first ten minutes, then full-pelt for 15 minutes, then a cool down pace for the final ten? It would seem to be the organised thing to do.
• CdM - Lost Consonants
  [Kim] Surely that should be "his tie is personal"
• Dujon - M/R/S INKSPOT - HELP
  A rather red faced Dujon appears before his accusers; "It wasn't me, Guv" He says. "The blasted Windows machine suddenly started opening windows everywhere and in my desperation to stop such infidelity I clicked all over the bloomin' place." He added, "Then I found I was no longer a member of the celebrated..." *sobs* "Mornington Crescent League on the Internet."
  "Can you please put me back in there?"
  "Sorry!"
  Member No.: 3256726, Reg. Name: DUJON2774
• Inkspot - Back in
  Look what you have done! zipped in at No2.
  The last time I looked I was the father of wonderful three boys ;)
• Bob the dog - Patch the dog
  Last nights ball-gown cyberpilg was very amusing. By an incredible coincidence, this was in my mailbox this morning...
  
  Its New, Its Safe!
  Its The Most Advanced Penile Enlargement Solution! !
  It's 100% Guaranteed To Enlarge Your Penis. 3+ INCHES!
  MAGNA-RX PATCH! Etc etc
  
  So now I know…
  
  PS. I was under the impression that someone was transcribing events – or at least cutting and pasting. Is this correct, and if so, can I have a copy?
• rab - Transcript
  I've got a bit of it, but I think DrQ's got the whole lot waiting for him on his machine at work. I guess it'll put in an appearance sometime this afternoon.
• Boolbar - Weapons of Mice Destruction
  [pen] Now why didn't I think of that . . . I used chemical warfare on the mice. Peppermint oil down the gaps in the floorboards that they want to get through. Didn't get as far as hanging the door.
  As I was leaving the gym a young slim female was looking my way so I tossed my towel nonchalantly over my shoulder, only for the towel to land slap over my head. I guess it's a good job I'm already married.
• penelope - throwing in the towel
  [Boolbar] But you would have made her laugh - and that, probably above all, is what women like. Speaking personally, making me laugh would go a long way to making a man attractive to me. Our mate Phil the Landlord (who was working on a business proposal at the time) kindly help me draft a marriage proposal in the chatroom last night, but unfortunately it expired before I could use it. :o(
• st d - Laughter
  Women like MONEY and IDIOTS.
• penelope - an unvarnished truth
  [st d] Yes, because both make them LAUGH. QED.
• Chalky
  Dr Q has posted the link to the transcript of last night's cyberpilg in Orange 'Pilg game' - it's taken me a whole HOUR to speed-read it.
• rab
  Yes. By the way, is Buttercup a regular visitor to the Crescent? I've been looking around for him/her.
• Chalky - Buttercup
  Someone mentioned last night, when asked the same question, that 'Buttercup' is the person known as pl ... the pl person was around last week and is very funny.
• rab
  Yes, I'd picked up on that... so presumably this is a 'chat-only' guise. Well the more the merrier, certainly! And it was pretty merry last night I thought. Toga party next week?
• snorgle - chat-a-tat
  Aww! I'm sorry I missed that.. I have a blokie coming to look at my home computer tomorrow and hopefully he'll sort it out. It's acting very strange and will only boot in safe mode now. I can't work out what's wrong with it. Very annoying!
• Dunx - Diagnosis
  [snorgle] I think the problem is that it's broken.
• Raak
  [Chalky] Before my intention to say some more vanishes off the top... The course I was on does come from the States originally, founded by two Anglican priests (although there's nothing specifically religious involved) something like 25 years ago. Difficult to say much concrete, really. It's mainly about learning to see things as they are, and noticing when we stop doing that. Just look at a lot of the postings in the Advice game at MCiOS for examples of the stuff people come out with when that happens. They're posted there in fun, of course, but how often do you hear people saying things like that in real life?
• Inkspot - beta-talk
  I had not been in a chat room before last night and enjoyed it greatly. Although I did not contribute very much(sorry), I'll try and do better next time, but my typing speed is tortoise slow.
• Bob the dog - paws are not so good to type with...
  Inkspot] Thank heavens someone else is in the same boat! I nearly fell over in awe at the laser-wit demonstrated by some contributors - very notably Néa and Pen. Great evening – especially following on from the classic ISIHAC earlier.
• CdM
  Apologies for not being able to make it last night. The internet was broken. Or at least the bit of it that leads to my house was. However, an internet-fixer came by today, and so I have home connection again. See you all next week, maybe.
• Dujon - Mr Inkspot!
  Thank you kind sir.
• Inkspot - Aunty's slow
  'Tis ok.
  Is it just me at the moment, as I'm getting error messages and pages just not loading when looking round BBCi news.
• flerdle
  I was barely there Monday night after the initial flurry of activity - the phone line and/or/therefore the internet decided to die, slowly and horribly. Am not going to be around the next two, probably three weeks. A pity.

  and Dujon: please check your email, see if mine got through to you, and let us know what you think... Thanks.

• Dujon - flerdle
  Your message has been responded.
• penelope - Typos notwithstanding
  [BtD] I'm flattered - and encouraged that my distinctive typo style didn't detract from your enjoyment :o). Mostly it comes from snorting with laughter so hard that I can't see to type.
• snorgle - keyboard madness
  [Dunx] I managed to access the internet last night, but then the keyboard doesn't seem to be working. Then it started beeping and random numbers appeared. I'm sure it must be a virus, as I can't think why my keyboard would suddenly go mad..

  Also, when I switched my computer off, it seemed to switch off, but I realised later that the screen was off but the power was still on in the base unit..

• Boolbar
  [snorgle] I think your computer needs a good defenestration.
• Wol
  [snorgle] Or some good, old-fashioned percussive maintenance.
• st dogmael - quick fix
  BB/Wol] You are both wrong. I would rather suggest hitting it with a hammer or throwing it out of the window. Far more effective.
• snorgle - fencing
  [Boolbar]That sounds rude! [Wol]Tried it already. [st dogmael]Sorely tempted..
• penelope - a window on the world
  Ooh, I love a good defenestration first thing in the morning...
• Wol - Seriously ...
  [snorgle] sounds like it could be a virus (My father-in-law had - I think - Bugbear, which stopped him from turning his machine off. Of course, he could just have unplugged it ... It also seemed to disable Norton anti-virus, but AVG found it in the end.) grisoft.com have a good, free anti-virus (AVG), and also utilities for extracting individual viruses once they have been identified.
• Lib - *Wandering through dragging a teddy bear and sleeping bag*
  I'm off to have my second nap of the day. Ooh! Aren't I lazy?!?!
• snorgle - awooga!
  [Wol]The faults make it difficult to get to websites and do things.. Hopefully, the blokie tonight will sort it out.. [Lib]Yes you are! Wake up now!
• Chalky
  [Raak] Thanks for that. Your experience sounds altogether less pushy, for want of a better word, than mine. Yes, it was about 18 years ago and to be truthful, I've been raaking my brains trying to remember the name of the organisation - I've even looked for the notes I made at the time. I recall that the lady who did most of the front work was called Ross. As well as being highly articulate, she was also extremely funny, which may be why my abiding memory is that of an immensely enjoyable experience. Your interesting observation regarding the Advice Game in MCiOS has prompted me to revisit, reread and revise my interpretations of some entries. Fascinating :-)
• Bob the dog - Training
  I used to have great fun watching training videos for a well-known electrical company borrowed from a friend who worked for them. Themes included "How to recognise a customer" and "What do customers need?” My own experience of corporate indoctrination was when I worked for a record company and was sent on an induction day. It was a disaster. We had to offer our perceptions about customer responses to their TV ads. I told them the truth, that the ads were patronising and superficial. I lasted two weeks.
• Thos
  Can there be any better time to say the word "pendulum"?
• penelope - hanging time...
  [Thos] I don't think so. It shut us all up for five hours!
  Disappointing news :o( My first new staff member was supposed to be starting on Monday but she's accepted another job instead. Poo. The next one starts on 15th December though...
• Lib
  Today I read a sign in the hosptial foyer.

  "Due to difficulties we are unable to serve hot food in the resturant tonight. Please bare with us".

  Not entirely sure how taking our clothes off will help, but willing to try!

• Bob the dog
  Dr in Undressed Salad Scandal!
• DrQu+xum
  Uh...no comment. :)
• Chalky - Celebdaq
  [Inkspot] I'm confused. After kneecapping on Monday, I used my ten grand to buy shares in J Wilkinson. I don't appear to have received any dividends at all. Does one have to stay with the same celeb for a full 7 days to qualify? Also - where to we find the 'Dividend Payout' List for today?
• Raak
  Just a final word about that course...I've actually done several of their courses over the last 10 years or so, as well as being on the organising team a few times. It's called "The Life Training", and in London it's put on every two months.
• Inkspot - Johnny who?
  Chalky] I am suprised that you have no divis as the payout is proportional to how long its been held, if a dividend is £7, and you hold that celeb from Tuesday, you will get £3, the big winners will be those that had like evil_edna who had the shares for all seven days. You can request a daily update email from the daq towers which on Fridays gives your payout plus details on divi of the week. Otherwise it means waiting till Monday when the full list will be published.
  ps the reason for my long tem minus weekly gain is I have a cunning plan!
• evil_edna - *cackle*
  Jonny Wilkinson is my pretty boy! And I made it to No. 81 in the national table :o)
• Chalky - feeling a bit short-changed
  [evil cackling woman] Perhaps there wasn't enough of him to go round - everyone wants a slice of him now :-(
  Anything interesting happening in MCiOS or Orange? My ISP isn't allowing me into either server - very annoying, especially as I'm having a quiet day at home and I've got time to play .... *sound of gnashing teeth*
• Graham III - Hmmm
  I made the mistake of getting some Michael Jackson as well. Never mind. Well done miss evil :)
• snorgle - daqy
  I got Michael Jackson as well.. better than nothing, I suppose.. it's probably not work going for Johnny next week now. At least my computer's working again! It was the keyboard, so one new keyboard later, and everything's fine.
• Ibid - ISPants
  [Chalky] Hmm, I can't get into outer space either...
• DrQu+xum - Nnnnoooo...no pars-s-s-slow....
  No chat...GAAAH!
• wile.e.coyote - dubious parentage
  Now look here all you ex Pants chaps, it's just not cricket, shutting up the clubhouse like that when a fella's off writing a novel and not leaving a forwarding address! It was a good job a small trail of crumbs was left at the profiles page and a friend of mine called Lycos knew where you'd all gone. Consider yourself heartily rebuke, nay, castigated.
• Bob the dog - Novel post
  Welcome Mr Coyote, yet another Pants refugee. I believe we are distant cousins?
• Chalky - Wile E Smiley!
  *popping in to flash a grin at Wile E*. Am watching Channel 4's 100 Best Sexiest Scenes from the Movies and it's really rather good.....
• Bob the dog - Channel Phoar
  *Curses the day he through the TV out*
• DrQu+xum - Super Genius!
  Welcome to our new home, WEC! And how is Marie these days?
• Dujon - Hello again!
  [WEC] Sorry to find out that various messages were not passed on - it's so hard to find decent help these days! ... :-) Anyway, you have found a few of us; did you employ Sherlock?
  [DrQ] I'm more worried about Jeeves, to be quite honest, after all he's the one who serves the drinks. Marie simply, well, err, serves otherwise.
• wile.e.coyote - The lovely Marie
  Ah, it's heart warming to be greeted by friends both new and old alike. [Bob] Would you be the Bob of the Kensington 'the Dogs' who was splashed all over the society pages last year? [DrQ and Duj] I found Marie stood on the steps of the old Clubhouse scraping a living selling sacks (at least I thought that's what she said) and she must have been down on her luck poor girl because it seemed she had hardly a stitch to wear! I did indeed send her to procure the services of the great Mr Holmes but the last I heard he had employed a new housekeeper and had retired to bed. I fear he may be ill because that was two weeks ago and not a sound has been heard from him or Marie since! No news of Jeeves, I assumed he had been packed up with the other chattels of the club when everyone moved. I'll keep my ear to the ground.
• Bob the dog - carpet bugger
  wec] 'Fraid not. No I'm one of the Bromsgrove chapter. However, I did make a splash in the society pages. As a result, I had to spend the rest of the day outside.
• Zooological Keeper - monopoly
  Every time I look down the Home page I feel like an evil taking-over-type person! Just clarifying here that I don't do it on purpose...
• wile.e.coyote - jeeves update
  [Anyone even remotely interested] Popped round the old place looking for any clue of Jeeves' whereabouts and heard an odd scratching sound. Turned out the old chap was asleep in the billiard room when you all locked up and he's been surviving on the contents of the belowstairs larder and discarded podumes ever since. He had planned to dig a tunnel to escape and the plan was well, advanced, he had just unupholstered a couple of the old wing chairs from the servant's lounge to make the top of the vaulting horse that he had fashioned from the Dom Perignon crates in the member's cellar when I broke in and tok him home. He was beside himself with glee and ached for news off 'his gentlemen' and I tol him that I had tracked some of them down at a swanky new club. He seemed utterly delighted and asked to come down in order to seek employment and to meet you all agan but I put him to work immediately, buffing up my favourite 'Crescent Jacket' and digging out my Lumpton Jr texts from the library so that I may fully immerse myself in play once more. It's for his own good. See you soon, must fly, he's preparing a sumptuous dish of Bernard's Turkey Drummers and Alphabites and I don't want to miss that.
• gil - Termination of Face Pyjamas
  May I suggest a game of "Christmas Cards you wish you'd never received"?
• rab - Goodnight
  [gil] Hmmm... sounds interesting. Perhaps one could also pastiche those "newsy" letters that people insist on sending round this time of year.
• snorgle - stupid pewter
  Agh! My computer has flipped out again! It refuses to even start up now - I must complain to computer blokie as I think it was something he did.. (v. stressful, this..)
• Bob the dog - Pastiche and chips
  Newgame] How would Christmas cards work? Like postcards from Hell? That never seemed to take off.
  Round robin game? Yes! Finish off previous sentence, start next sort of thing?
  This year Mary and I decided to
• rab - Takeoff
  [Bob] Really?
• snorgle - Bob the dog sentence
  murder our parents, who had long been
• Bob the dog - Erm, no then.
  All] Same time same place tonight?
  Rab] Ah! I've not seen that one, it looks better than the last one on !York.
  snorgle] blackmailing us with photographs they took of us on holiday when we were three. Fortunatly for my parents they had
• snorgle - silly sentence
  [Btd}...thought of this, and had boobytrapped their...
• Bob the dog
  sn] catflap with gelignite. I was most suprised, a little singed and completely failed to
• st dogmael
  ..effect a surreptious entrance. Seconds after the blast..
• rab - Aside
  (sounds like a player - shall we get it going?)

  ...Mother responding by getting...

• Nik - Tear in the space-time contiuum thingy!
  Reverse the polarity! Divert all power to deflector! Issue 'date 1201190703.34' as root! Hopefully dialling the server's clock back an hour won't break MC5 too much...
• Tuj - Another vote for the Bob-the-dog sentence spectacular.
  ...out her feather duster...
  Or of course we could always do Good News / Bad News.
• Bob the dog - Too late! The deed is done
  Tuj] coming to the Online cyber-pilg tonight on the MCiOS chat server? The dress code is Cowboys 'n' Injuns.
• gil - New Game
  OK. It kinda worx.
• Raak - New Game
  [gil] It seems to have turned rather quickly into Random Prose, though.
• Wol - *** game
  I was grateful to be reminded, at about 6.50pm or so yesterday, of the fantastic potential of Censored Songbook (from the King and I - 'shall we *****, shall we *****, shall we *****?'). Any takers? Possibly only subtly different from the Pants Game but, for me, right at the other end of the comedy spectrum (ie funny).
• Breadmaster - ****
  [Wol] Yes indeed. I second that one.
• Bob the dog
  I **** it.
• Boolbar - Item of cutlery in a hot place.
  I guess we could all give it a ***.
• Boolbar
  Is it just me or is a huge chunk of the 'net unavailable today?
• penelope - nonet
  [Wol] I think it's ******
• Boolbar
  Did you have a good time in the chatserver last night? I spared you a thought but was too busy chasing after a puppy with paper towels and wetwipes.
• Boolbar - I so hate Geocities!
  Try Again
• rab - ***** game
  [Wol] Is that a vote for ****ing the pants game?
• Lib
  Tried to access the chatserver last night but ***** internet connection in my residence won't let me. Hope a good time was had by all.
  *Warning, self promotion moment approaching* I was on national radio this morning! (Well, me and about 100 of my friends). Singing a Christmas Carol (recorded in June) from our CD. Rather exciting!
• Wol - *****
  [rab] Why yes, I believe it is. [Boolbar] I **** cute little puppies. [Lib] Oooh - which choir? Which radio station? Which carol? I've dropped out of the singing world a bit (job, studies, baby, etc) but I remember the thrills.
• st d - sick puppy
  That is a very pretty puppy. I would like to ****** it.
• penelope - it is ****
  I did it. I ****** the pants game. :o)
• st dogmael - i bet you do
  pen] I've heard that you like ******** as well.
• Chalky
  So was it an early night in the Chat Server last night? I say that, because I breezed in at 11.45 dressed as The Gal Who Cain't Say No to be greeted by a party of two. Thankfully, they had mildly silly names, so i didn't feel like a complete twonk. There are times when it would be useful to have a 'peep through the window' facility :-)
• penelope - chat windows...
  [Chalky] We don't encourage voyeurs! You are always welcome to come in as you are, we don't mind if you're inappropriately dressed (we always have spare costumes in the cupboard anyhow.) I was calamity pen, by the way, and Ma Whisky (I think Projoy recognised me as his mother), and also the Dusty Missionary. Ooh - and Zak from the Pony Express and Will Bill Hiccup. I was not, nor ever have been, the Spittoon or the Daddy of All Spittoons. And I'm sorry I sat and wriggled on Breadslinger's knee, I was in character and I got a little carried away.
• rab - Down with ****s
  [Chalky] Yeah - we were being tired, methinks. Peeping through the window would be handy - but would anyone ever enter?

  So the *** game - is it entire songs, just titles or indeed non-song specific?

  [pen] I was one of the spittoons and the daddy, but not concurrently.

• rab - Massive Missive Musses Trellis
  [gil, Raak] With the missive, I wonder whether it would be best to push this one to the end of the year, and perhaps set down some sort of 'theme' or similar for the next?
• Chalky - ******* Whiskey and Wild Wild Women
  [pen, rab] Sounds more fun than a stuttering dress rehearsal. Three of the principals have lost their voices and it's the First Night tonight. Ho hum.
  Fer Gawd's Sake someone start the new game before some bozo drops by and claims it for a round of Spit the Pontoon.
• rab
  [Chalky] Be my guest.
• penelope - first night breakages
  Break A Leg tonight, Chalks! I had great fun in the wild west saloon, and the theme was all down to your mention of Oaklahoma, so thanks for that. I'm womdering what the venue for next week's meeting will be... the Sports Centre? A restaurant? A Country House Hotel?
• Chalky - small squeak
  ... not quite brave enough to start a new game ...

  Thanks pen :-)

• Projoy - *CLANG!*
  I was the original spittoon. How they teased me at school.
• Bob the dog - Pro Joy
  Projoy] You made me so much last night I'll be sending you the laundry bill.
• rab
  I think I was all the misspelt 'spitoons'...

  [*** game] I would start this, but I need clarification on whether it's strictly a songbook (i.e. song titles), songs themselves (as I believe is the case on ISIHAC) or a more general game.

• Bob the dog - Missive T
  Rab] You are right about MT game - it'd be better in bite sized portions. I wondered about a Jekyll and Hyde theme where player alternate personas. Bit like Goodnewsbadnews in letter format...?
• rab - Executive decision
  Right - it's verses of songs (for now) but feel free to do poetry, short stories, or whatever else tickles your ****.
• Tuj - **** advice
  I tried to start one of these **** games back at !York, but my poor attempt at explaining it (and its lack of having appeared on a then-recent ISIHAC) caused it to mutate and ultimately perish. Use it wisely, citizens of MC5.
• Lib
  [Wol] Hallé Orchestra and Choir, Christmas CD, on Classic FM at 7.50 this morning.
• Breadslinger
  Missy Penny-lope, any time y'all wanna wriggle on ma knee, y'all go right ahead. Just watch out for ma spurs. Hhhhhhwaaaa-ding!
• Ma Whisky - knee-sittin'
  [Breadslinger] Did you have your cotton-pickin' eyes shut? It weren't no Miss Penny-lope a-sittin' on yer knee, it was mah own beeeootiful self!
• penelope - blackballing Ma Whisky
  Can we do something about that woman? She keeps following me around!
• Darren
  Wasn't Brian Ma Whisky the chairman of the Conservative Party under John Major?
• Breadmaster
  Eeeew! And I let him sit on my knee!
• Ma Whisky - Hmmph!
  [Breadmaster] Pffft!
• Spittoon
  *CLANG*
• Tumbleweed - * rolls slowly across the plain *
• Bob the dog - Ewired
  I've just got me an evoke digital radio. Oooooooooh its soooooo good!
• penelope - digirad...
  Oooooh! Lucky you! I might treat myself to one for the kitchen after Christmas. Then I can listen to it while I'm surfing at home :o)
• snorgle - evocative
  [Btd]I've had my eye on one of those..staticy radios are so-o-o-o-o annoying..
• Chalky - rad-ing the kitchen
  [Btd, pen, snorgs] I'm still waiting for them to go down in price.
  [pen] Sounds as though your PC is in your kitchen. Not so unusual really. I have a kitchen-cum-diner-cum-office, which rather places me in the centre of ground floor activity; fine if I'm home alone. It does lend itself to easy raiding of fridge, though.
• Bob the dog - gone digin'
  This one was on special offer - I think because it is a 'classic fm' model and has a button to get you straight to there. I do not like classic fm very much so that button will (mostly) remain unused. Its the other channels I'm enjoying - BBC radios 6 and 7 are top of my list at the moment. 6 'cos it has interesting music and 7 because of the archived comedies including ISIHAC. And it has a pretty blue screen too.
• Lib - writing in stereo
  I bought a new stereo in september. When I was looking around I wanted a CD player, tape and digital radio combo, preferably in a mini hi-fi system with good speakers. However such a device is not made 9which seems a bit daft to me). Grrrr. So I just bought the stereo and will wait for a digi-radio to get cheaper. My bro has one though, so I might pinch it when he's not looking (in the evil-little sister way of doing things!).
• snorgle - cheapskate, me? The 7th Earl of Lancaster?
  [Btd]The one I saw at Boots was £99, so how much is the Classic FM model? Is that the one at WH Smiths?
• Bts
  Yup - reduced to £71.
• Bob the sog? - That was me by the way.
• rab
  Personally I'd want a hi-fi separate digiradio, cos although these retro-style portables are all well and good I don't understand why you would want a high-quality, distortion-free digital signal piped through a three-inch speaker.
• Bob the dog
  rab] This one has line out on the back (I checked before buying) - so I can (and will) use it with my seperates. And the speaker isn't bad at all!
• Zooological Keeper - random question
  What countries are we all from on this place? I sometimes detect language/ideas from the other side of the pond, and I find it all very interesting.
• Tina - countries
  USA. Although I try to use the British spelling when I think about it.
• Breadmaster
  Why, I'm in London. Where are you, ZK?
• Bob the dog
  UK - Statford-upon-Avon.
• Zooological Keeper
  [Bm] Kicking about a messy student flat in Birmingham :)
• Angus Prune
  Kicking a dog about in a messy house in Bucks!
• Dazed5
  UK also..Birmingham also..Sutton Coldfield exactly
• Zooological Keeper - Oh, Angus...
  [AP] (ignoring the obvious rspca-needing overtones) You just told me it wasn't that bad! :)
• penelope
  Kicking about in a small, scruffy semi in Herts. [Angus - where are you in Bucks? I'm just 500 yards from the county line, sheriff]
  [Chalky] It's a laptop on the kitchen table. Very handy for grilling sausages while I surf, although there's never anything interesting left in my fridge. Sometimes I take the laptop upstairs to watch DVDs in bed :o)
• Dujon - Multi-tasking
  [Pen] Does that mean that it is used as an electric frying pan cum hot water bottle? How often do you need to wash the bedding?
• penelope
  [Dujon] It only really needs doing if I fry fish.
• Breadmaster - Luxury
  When I was small, I read a book in which a character declared that mangos should always be eaten in the bath, because of the mess. For years, eating mangos in the bath has been my idea of utter decadent pleasure. But I have since revised this to watching DVDs in bed on a laptop, which I now do frequently and with enormous satisfaction.
• Dujon - Eeek!
  [Pen] *Urrgh!* ... ;-) [Pen & Breadmaster] Without mentioning names, there are some who frequent this web site who worry me!
• Breadmaster - Hang on, officer
  Not those kinds of DVDs. Dear me...
• snorgle - thereabouts
  I'm in Cardiff - which has finally got rather cold..
• rab
  Pretty chilly in Mancatraz this morning too.

  Got a delightful letter from my Grandma this weekend. My favourite comment was "The things that go on in the Villages. I could write a book about it, but they'd have to bin it.". I presume she meant that it would have to be binned because of the scandalous content, but with that combined with her rather free-form jazz writing style, there could be a Booker Prize in her...

• Raak
  Narrrch here, in the flatlands north east of London. Cold and sunny today.
• penelope - CD DVDs?
  [Dujon] Lord no, not those kinds of DVDs! The ones I can remember watching in bed are the Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon...and it's generally when I get 'flu, which isn't very often at all.
  The NW London 'burbs are very bright and sunny. At 11.30GMT, my car is still thoroughly frosted over.
• Bib the dog
  Icy here. The water inside the chicken coop froze last night. Poor chooks.
  Is there a dress code for tonight? May I suggest Inuit?
• rab
  [Bob] Bring your own igloo party? As long we can speak in English this week...
• DrQu+xum - Cold?
  It's -10 C here in balmy Pittsburgh, after Friday's 8-10 inches of thick, wet snow. Woo-hoo!
• snorgle - brr..
  As my damn 'puters still doolally, I probably won't be there again.. :( I'll take a hammer to it tonight and try to threaten into submission, we'll see how that goes!
• Uncle Korky - Geographically speaking...
  Currently lurking in the Essex suburbs, to answer the earlier enquiry...
• Dunx - Location, Location, Location
  [ZK] Portland, Oregon USA now, but formerly of various parts of the UK, and originally growing up in the fine Surrey outpost of Ilkley, W. Yorks.
• Zooological Keeper - random things one knows
  Alan Titchmarsh grew up in Ilkley. Fact. Is Oregon east or west?
• Watty - Orientation
  [ZK] Of what?
  [Location] Currently, just in Bucks (by about 300 yards from Beds) Very close to the Herts border, too - in fact, I drive through all 3 counties to get to work.
• JLE
  [Watty] Well that's a coincidence. I was born in Chorleywood, which happens to be on the Herts/Bucks border: I was born on the Herts side, by a couple of hundred yards. (A road actually runs along the border, and is appropriately called "Shire Lane" - the odd-numbered houses are Herts, the even numbers are Bucks. Or it may be the other way around.) Not so near to Berks or Beds, though.

  Whereas, having gone to school in darkest mid-Somerset, now I live in Manchester...

• Dunx - The Titchy One
  [ZK] Indeed he did - he's a patron of the theatre where I did some acting when I was growing up, and where my sisters still do.

  Oregon is west coast. It's the state between California and Washington (Washington state being a completely different place from Washington DC, of course).

• Inkspot - more interuptions
  This has taken a bit longer than needed and its still not right I'm not happy about the table layout, the colours, border but finally, with my apologies for the late arrival, Dec 5 and Chalky has topped the Celebrity MC League.

  At least I know slightly more than I did two weeks ago about style sheets, attributes, values and syntax, but I still need to do boxes and margins.

• penelope - Oooh... nice!
  [Inkspot] Nice table. I'm hanging onto Jonny Wilkinson for now ;o) even though he's gone down in value. Hoping that there'll be more about him in the papers after today's victory parade.
• Chalky - top chocolate
  Well done Inkspot. I'm growing rather fond of my four green Mars Bars :-)
• Zooological Keeper - Cresdaq
  How did everyone join that?
• Dujon - Joining Fees
  [ZK] If you are interested in silly games, join up on the BBC web site, get sorted with registration and, if you ask nicely and advise your player name and number, Inkspot just might add you to the 'team'.
• Dujon - Where?
  Sorry - it would help if I gave you an address:

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/celebdaq/trade.cgi?registershow=1

• Dujon - Celebdaq tables
  [Inkspot] Unless you are deriving some pleasure out of composing your own table, why not use a screen capture program? I hope that I am not being rude, as I do appreciate your time and trouble spent on this 'game'.
  If you are interested, there is a freeware programme available at This site
  An example of its output can be seen here.
  That, by the way, is my one and only attempt so I'm sure it could be improved.
• Dujon - Hmmm
  Then again, it's a bit big. I'll take that back. ... :-(
• penelope - speak up!
  Is anyone going to say anything today?
• rab
  [pen] Still in shock from last night...
• Chalky
  [rab] I should imagine you're exhausted . .
• snorgle - ?
  So will anyone admit what went on? It's very mysterious...
• penelope - mystery
  [snorgle] rab rode a bicycle around the chatroom (which relocated to an igloo last night) for about two hours. Nothing remarkable about that, you might think, until you realise the saddle was made of ice. I think he might also be suffering from being in the company of Lib in a mackerel-skin basque, Chalky in Lycra and me in a seal-skin bikini. That's a lot to take in. ;o)
• rab
  We also had a visitation from a nude Jade Goody. Least said, soonest mended.
• Jade Goody
  oooh rab - your SO SWEEEEET!!!! I fort youd say summink NHAAHAHAHHH!
• penelope - Am I dreaming?
  That was NOT me... I know I'm responsible for a lot of weird stuff in the chatroom on a Monday night, but I wouldn't dream of inviting Jade Goody on here... honest. Naaahahahahhahh!
• rab
  This places Chalky firmly in the frame...
• Mr Trebus
  What's happened to Mr Wildpants' Mornington Crescent site? I've lost Puckoon to the ether...
• Dunx - A Death in the Family
  [Mr T] Sadly, Pants MC went the way of all flesh a couple of months ago. The Lock Cup has been transferred to the new Lockisseum site, but players of other games have been finding a warm welcome here and at the other MC sites which remain.
• Bob the dog - Igloo pilg
  Damn - had to miss it because of deadlines and computer problems. It sounds like it was a classic. Will the transcripts go up on Orange?
• Bob the dog
  And welcome Mr T. All you need is here.
• Chalky - oooh missus
  [Bob] I'm afraid the link to the transcript is already there. *blushes*
  Hello Mr Trebus :-)
• snorgle - exciting happenins
  My computer is being mended again - but I'm getting a new one for xmas, a nice shiny new computer with dvd re-writer and flashing lights(maybe)! Yay!
• Bigsmith - Speaking of the late Pants MC....
  Does anyone know if Rosie is posting anywhere these days, following his little flounce-out of here a little while back?
• Chalky - Hello Bigsmith
  Dujon may know a little more. Yes, a petulant flounce is certainly what it was. Seems we weren't quite good enough for him :-)
• rab - Yeah.
  Does anyone know what all that was about? I'm all for constructive criticism, but I thought his exit comment was rather uncalled for.
• Chalky
  [rab] I was rather hoping it was a misdirected moment of madness in the wee small hours after one pint too many, so was waiting for some form of apology or even explanation. I agree that the comment was crass and puerile; as for what lay behind it, one can only surmise that, as a mature adult, Rosie had his reasons. A dignified exit would have, at least, demonstrated a modicum of respect for you, the host.
• Bob the dog
  rab] I thought some arsehole had posted using his name.
• rab
  [Bob] Me too, which is why I didn't think too much of it at the time.
• penelope - Time out on rugby ball
  Oh sh*t. You know I was chatting about my fabbo date planned for tonight with the rugby coach? Well it's off. His grandfather 'died this morning'. It's either a big lie to get rid of me, or his grandfather did it deliberately to f*ck up any chance I had of graduating out of my enforced spinsterhood. Either way, I'm taking it personally. *reaches out blindly for proffered hankie from sympathetic MC-fivers*
• Chalky - a clean handkerchief
  [pen] Aw! And I was just about to post a 'break a leg/wing bone/bottle of bubbly' sort of message to you because I'd remembered that tonight was supposed to be the night. Intending no disrespect to his grandfather who may/may not have passed on today/recently/ages ago, it's probably for the best. You know what they say about men who talk about themselves all the time ....
• Bob the dog - and a box of choccys.
  pen] Either he has no imagination or he is telling the truth. Either way you win!
• penelope - *sniff*
  Thanks you two. I'm going to spend the evening in a Bridget Jones way, wrapping Christmas presents to within an inch of their lives and painting my toenails.
• Bigsmith - Reason I asked
  I too thought Rosie's last entry totally out of character and probably bogus. However time has passed with no further sightings, and I was curious that's all. Miss the old buffer truth be told.
• Bigsmith - Penelope's night in
  Watching DVDs in bed seems a popular choice for a night in these days. I have a quiet night in for once myself tonight which I shall spend with my nose in a book - wading through George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman papers for the umpteenth time. Fantastic stuff.
• snorgle - pondering
  Rosie was great! It isn't that bad here, so maybe it was the loss of a particular game that upset him?
• Bob the dog - It isn't bad at all
  It seems that he is missed. I hope he gets to know.
• Breadmaster - Colin Firth around the corner
  [Penelope] It seems to me that this chap can't have been of good genetic stock, given his grandfather's propensity to die at socially inconvenient moments. A night in with your toenails sounds far more enjoyable. If it's any consolation, I have to spend tonight in with the Venerable Bede, who is not the best company.
• snorgle - mine's the one with the faux fur around the neck..
  [BM]The dead rarely are. They often smell, for a start.
• Lib - feeling sorry all round
  [pen] I think the word 'arse' sums up things. Hope the DVDs hit the spot. [all] I'm feeling very sorry for myself today. Hangover. Seemed a good idea at the time. Hows everyone else today?
• Nik
  [pen] Tsk. [lib] A little tipsy, after preparing for a 2pm meeting with a couple of pints during lunch, and looking forward to seeing Johnny Vegas in Liverpool this evening. I hope to be hungover tomorrow, saturday and/or sunday, though, at which juncture I shall feel your pain.
• Dunx - Feelings
  [Lib] Very well, thank you, although I can't figure out why I'm so tired today. I fear I may be battling a bug of some kind, my wife having had a sore throat for a few days now. With any luck a nice vigorous run this morning will shake the various bits of phlegm loose.
  [pen] *hug* Sorry about that, chuck.
• penelope - All hugs welcomed but....
  [Dunx] Thanks.. but maybe you should just keep your distance until you get over your bug! (I've already kept off one lurgy from my Kiwi flatmate this week). BTW, a rib-splitting belly-laughing session has just done wonders for shifting the phlegm from my tubes this afternoon. My colleague has discovered my weakness for anyone doing impressions of Jim Royle's 'ha-HA' laugh and now my ribs ache. :o)
• Bob the dog - Santa Ted
  Deck the halls with boughs of holly, he's back!
• rab
  And this time it's not even accidental. Must remember to take him down at the end of the festive period.
• Boolbar - Poo, lots of it.
  Hmmm, I wonder who chewed that hole in the carpet.....
• rab
  If that's a reference to Christmas Ted, then I would suggest your browser is to blame.
• Chalky - missing persons
  [Boolbar] Ah - so Poo Puppy is responsible for keeping you away from the Crescent?
• Chalky - relief road
  phew - the traffic has started moving again in the Limerick game..
• rab - One down, three to go
  The first of my attempts to avoid the prospect of unemployment next year has been put into action. Won't hear the outcome til May though...
• Darren
  [Chalky] Is that a reference to Boolbar's poo post?!
• Chalky
  [Darren] oh dear, yes - the juxtapositioning is rather questionable :-)
• DrQu+xum - Be vewy vewy quiet....
  [rab] Is it grant season already?
• rab
  [DrQ] Oh yes indeedy.
• Dujon - Academia
  How does that work? Does lack of grant mean loss of tenure, or does lack of grant mean that work to gain tenure cannot be undertaken (unless independently funded)? Sorry if the question seems imbecilic but I have no knowledge of how it all dovetails.
• DrQu+xum - Foo!
  I dunno how it goes on the Eastside of the Atlantic, but over here profs apply for only-God-and-her-secretary-knows-how-many grants, out of which they pay their postdocs/grad students/other staff, as well as equipment costs, and *cough*40% university overhead. Around here, if you want to get a tenure-track professorship, you pretty much need to have grants in tow.
• Raak
  [DrQ] That's pretty much what happens over here as well. Except that we don't have tenure any more, so even when you have a job, you still have to run as fast as you can to keep it. Especially if you're in a 4-desperate-to-be-a-5 rated department.
• Z.K. - hang on
  Rosie's back!
• Boolbar - The house at poo corner
  [Chalky] Indeed. The puppy (Frodo) is delightful but he also needs a lot of attention. Plus the ongoing mouse in the roof situation and the leeking outside loo means I shouldn't be here now.
• penelope - cupboard love
  [Boolbar] Where are you? Hiding in the cupboard under the stairs until those problems are sorted out by someone else?
• penelope - (again)
  I'd just like to say that I've found the perfect combination of undergarments for inclement weather whilst walking and exhibition-visiting in town. A long-sleeved thermal vest plus a long sleeved shirt will keep you warm but not bulk you out. Can I also recommend the '100 Years of the Art Fund' exhibition at the Hayward Gallery.? Bloody excellent. And now I'm going to bed for some well-earned sleep. See you all Monday night in the chatroom when I will tell you how my new member of staff got on during his first day with me as his boss! :o)
  (and no, I'm not pissed, but I hope to be tomorrow)
• Chalky
  A weekend away and I return to find that penelope's well insulated for the weather and likely to be pissed by now (11.50GMT), Frodo puppy is as demanding as he is appealing and it's grant season in academia - so the only contribution I can make is, yes I had a wicked time and can we do something Christmassy tomorrow night, like Santa's Toy Factory in Lapland, or something like ....?
• Dujon - Lapland and frigidity
  It's 'funny' at this time of year to read the various comments about the cold weather. ... :-)
  I'm sitting here in my workshop in a light short-sleeved top with a coolish - for this time of year - day outside. It's about 23°C at the moment (11:57Z) and one of flerdle's eight legged friends is sitting on the Holland blind a couple of feet away from me. Sorry, I don't have a digital camera otherwise I'd take a pic for you. He's a Huntsman, which generally have a much larger body size than the Wolf Spider which flerdle displayed a while ago. No doubt he's having a nap, being daytime, and only occasionally moves his legs around.
  Should I get the chance tomorrow morning I shall attempt to join you in the chat room of MCiOS, but having work to do it may not be possible.
• flerdle - toasty
  I'm just back from Melbourne, Sydney and Cairns (well, Atherton Tablelands, actually) where it was occasionally stormy but nice, beautiful, and stinking hot respectively. It is rather warm here but not too bad, all things considered.

  Having missed it for the last couple of weeks, I'm afraid I probably won't make it to the MCiOS chatroom this Monday night either as I have to fly to Newcastle (near Sydney) for work. Plus I'm just knackered. *groans*

• snorgle - mints
  I'll try to make it..my computer is sort of working, and I should manage it. Is 8pm too early?
• Lib - pilght
  I'd love to pilg tonight as I had so much fun prancing around in my mackerel skin bikini last week, but I've got a problem. Can anyone help? What it is, is there's a big content filter here (where I live and work and have my only net connection), so Shhhh, don't tell anyone I access (as I've not asked but am sure if I do then will be told its not allowed). Anyway. The chatroom doesn't work. The clock on MCiOS functions (so I think I have flash 6) and the chatroom page loads and tells me nicely to type my name 'here' and then press connect, but it refuses to connect. I've tried clicking on it many ways (including whilst doing a handstand, which quite frankly just looked silly!) but can't figure it out. Any bright ideas? Please?!?!
• rab - light
  [Lib] You might be better off asking Dan at MCiOS since he's the one who understands how the chatroom works. My guess is that the communication between your computer and the chat server is done using a "port" (which is a bit like a particular telephone extension on a switchboard) that the hospital doesn't want you to have access to and there ain't much you can do about that.
• snorgle - blight
  My work computer doesn't like the chatroom either - I'm not going to complain as I get to use the internet as much as I like, otherwise..
• Chalky - new game ideas
  Now that the crossword chat has crept into the crypt ... I would love to play an Imposters game of some sort.
• Bob the rabbit - Impostulating
  How about murder in the dark imposters. Correctly guess the identity of other players for points. And what do points mean..?
• snorgle - points mean
  Piccalili?
• rab - Tonight
  It looks like I may not make it to the chatroom tonight, on account of entertaining a visitor to our department. On the other hand, that may well not go on too late, so I might make a late entrance if I take my laptop with me.
• DrQu+xum - re: Tonight
  [rab] You mean someone *willingly* went to Manchester? *ducks* Then again, one could make the same claim for Pittsburgh and its 16" of snow the past two weeks....
• Tuj - Belatedly
  PRIZES!! sorry
• JLE - Impostors Crescent - the return?
  Well, if anybody wants to play over on Mornington Crescent in Outer Space, you'll see that somebody has started an Impostors Game there - with a twist. The more players, the merrier, and let's see how it develops...
• Chalky
  Oh goody ... how about Good News/Bad News ... here?
• Chalky - oops
  It seems to have happened :-)
• ZK - Impostors
  How does this imposters crescent thing work?
• rab - Imposing
  [ZK] You pretend to be someone else, and play the entire game in character as that person. (Hint: browse the archives!). You display your imposted moniker using a '!' sign in front. I'm afraid this is a geeky thing: '!' means 'not' in C and related computer languages. Oh, and the game's at MCiOS in case you were unaware.
• rab - Andanovverthing
  Usually once the game has ended, the unmasking begins. I think I've worked one of them out already!
• ZK - Groovy
  Sounds like fun to me! However, must go and clean out fridge. Less fun but entirely necessary.
• Lib - It's not that bad....
  [Dr Q] You should visit Manchester, it's not half as bad as rab makes out. Maybe we should have a mini-plig here......
• rab - Mini-plig
  Maybe when Nik comes out of his coma and JLE has finished his piano practice, this could be arranged...
• Bob the dog
  I've been wondering about a Super Pilg. Format - our very own ISIHAC. MCers are warned of the games and prepare in advance. We'd probably have to stay up late so a hotel venue would be best. Any takers?
• Chalky - A nod to Bob
  [Bob] Thought I'd best acknowledge your wonderings, particularly as they incorporate the words 'staying up late', 'hotel venue' and end in 'Any takers?' - not a question one would wish to leave hanging overnight :-)
  Obviously the whole shebang would be recorded, or even filmed, and in the true tradition of the travelling ISIHAC which has torn itself away from its London roots, perhaps somewhere central to all participants, say ... the West Midlands?
• blamelewis - Freelance MC
  Sounds a fab idea - and if I were able to attend could offer my services as cameraperson and/or video editor, although I've not any decent sound recording equipment.
• Inkspot - 100
  Should anyone fancy a go, I've posted a cryptic film quiz that has turned up in the office. There are gaps which stumped us.
• Lib
  [Inky] Is part of the test of the quiz to find it?!?! Or am I being daft? [BtD] A super-pilg would be fantastic. Let's do it!
• Lib - Lights come on!
  [Inky] I've Found it!
• Inkspot - Did I forget something?
  Oh yes I put it in 'Obscure vault 99 '
• Nik
  Coma? What coma? I'm fine. Honest (note: I'm not fine).
• Bob the dog - ISIHAC pilg
  Ok seems like that ones a goer. Wishlist for venue:
  Real Ales(?) or decent beer at least
  Overnight accomodation for those wishing to stay
  Not too expensive
  Centrally based - Perhaps Oxfordshire?
  Room to use as venue for parlour games - preferably with piano (is someone prepared to take the place of Colin Sell? Projoy?)
  Any suggestions?
  Organisational wishlist:
  I'd love to help prepare the programme, but who will compare? rab?
  Camerawork - blamelewis (excellent) And we'd need at least 8 regular players (and their spouces, friends, relatives, animals etc). + piano player...
  As for timing, how does a weekend in May sound? We should have time to plan, hotels will be cheap, weather not too bad...
• JLE
  Did somebody say piano player?
• ZK - Ooh
  If I'm not tied down by those meddling exams I'd love to come along...if not, circulate tapes!
• Creepy Guy In Rubber Mask
  ... and I would've gotten away with it too if it hadn't've been for you meddling exams!
• ZK - Oh look, it's the only other human we've seen all episode
  That was where I was going with it :)
• ZK - Crescent celebdaq
  Can I join?
• Bob the dog - Mr Piano
  JLE are you a pianist? If so would you be interested in a diverting evening of entertainment playing parlour games?
  
• Bob the dog - Wild night
  How does THIS look as a potential venue?
• rab - Comparison
  Not sure I have the necessary wit, charm or smuttiness to be a viable compere.
• JLE
  [Bob] Well, I'd say I was a pianist, if no less than six qualifications of various different types from music colleges and still an inability to get a steady job means anything of the sort...
• Bob the dog - Noteworthy
  JLE] Fantastic - and a willing participant?
  rab] I beg to differ.
• rab - Spank
  I'd need a script.
• Inkspot - more players
  ZK] Visit Celebdaq towers to create a player profile and buy some shares. Come back here and post your player ID No and I will add you straight away. For my sins I have two accounts in the league as does Uncle Korky. I'm still not sure how blamelewis has managed to grab the No1 shot at the moment but there will tears before bedtime after the divis are paid out on Friday!
• Lib
  [BtD] I see a plan forming. Thos might be willing to help work on a script of some sort (if we could cope with all those puns!). And the proposed venue is acceptable to me.
• Bob the dog
  A Thos script would be superb. The St George is OK but only has 8 rooms (Mostly double and en-suite) cost £70 per room B&B. There are other B&Bs within walking distance of the pub. I've been ringing some contacts at the BBC and I may have secured a guest appearance by the one and only Samantha. I assume she would be available to tot-up the teams’ points.
• JLE
  Would love to do it, but depends very much on the cost.
• ZK - celebdaq
  am already registered, but haven't looked for aaaages...*goes to find number*...3058974.
• Inkspot - oh_danny_boy
  ZK] You are in and added to the league, I hope you will enjoy the friendly competition ;)
• ZK - Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
  Fabbo! Thanks!
• ZK - Returning from bbc.co.uk
  Wahey! I already suck! This'll be fun!
• Bob the dog - ISIHA?
  JLE] Thanks.
  Lib] Can you ask Thos if he'd be able to do some scripting?
  all] I think that £70 per room is probably too expensive. Plus the getting to the venue. If I could find somewhere for about £30 B&B, how many would like to participate? As I said, we'd need about 8 definites to make it worthwhile. So far:
  Btd
  Lib
  ZK (as long as no exam conflict)
  blamelewis (I assume yes)
  JLE (As long as not too pricey)
• Lib - maybe...
  [BtD] I don't know where Thos hides, but Projoy does, so maybe if he's reading this he could ask him. Thanks Projoy. And I have to say that I'm really not that witty. Early in May would probably be better for me (as already have work, choir, hen night and wedding to schedule around!)
• Lib - 'I like driving in my car'
  [JLE] I'll most likely be driving down to the super-pilg from Manchester(ish), so you could have a lift (to make it a bit easier on the pocket).
• rab
  I would echo "not too priciness" comments.
• JLE
  [Lib] Lovely, as I'll be going from Manchester. The only trouble would be getting back afterwards, assuming the usual amount of Pilgrimage alcohol-consumption... unless you happen to be the one and only teetotal person in the world of MC. ;-)
• Bob the dog - Alcoholiday
  JLE/Lib] If you can afford to B&B it, then you have at least one night to recover.
  Seeing as rab is also from Manchester, is there room for further car sharing?
• Lib - rabbiting
  [BtD/rab] rab can have a lift too, provided we're still talking at that point! And if Nik, the other near-Manchester crescenter (that I know of) wanted to join our car-party then he'd be welcome too. We could have a very long game in the car to extend the pleasure! Whee! [JLE] I'd rather B&B it to facititate alcohol consumption, if it fits in with your buget.
• Bob the dog - Frolicing in May
  I've just cross posted the idea onto Orange and MCiOS. Lets see what happens ...
• flerdle - seasons bleatings
  May I just say, there are some truly revolting Christmas card illustrations out there? I just unearthed a pack of 50 hideous ones. OH well, they came out at 5c each...
• Projoy - Unconventional
  [Lib, rab, Btd] This sounds more like a "convention" than a pilg. Although I suppose I should avoid that dread word, rendered frightening by SciFi fans. Thos hasn't been hanging around lately, so I've popped him an email. It sounds like the kind of thing I'd enjoy, tho, so put me down as a willing participant. If JLE's on the ivories, perhaps I could turn his pages or play the swannee.
• JLE
  If singing is required, I can also sing reasonably well in tune, but would need to be provided with *both* music *and* words, as I know remarkably little music that is less than a hundred years old.
• JLE
  (This is just in case we end up doing One Song To The Tune Of Another. My voice, by the way, is a fairly high tenor, as those who have met me in Pilgrimages can attest. I've sung lead tenor in a barbershop quartet before.)
• Thos - Conventionality
  How very flattering to be remembered! I would of course be delighted to contribute in any way thought useful - and though there are many, many funnier people round these 'ere parts, and several script writers amongst us, I would be exceedingly happy to provide/contribute to/collaborate on scripts. I would just need a brief and a spot of notice! *Thos bows*
• ZK - seasons bleatings
  [flerdle] Feel free! I have in fact been telling anyone who'll listen about this cultural epidemic I have lovingly termed "Ugly Jesus". This Christ bloke (apparently some kind of child star in his day) has made a startling comeback this year in cribs, nativity scenes, christmas cards and so on, about which of course I am thrilled, were it not for the fact that he tends to be portrayed as anything from rather gangly to positively misshapen, and every so often poor Mary makes it look genetic. Send me your sightings of Ugly Jesus - you'll notice it's true!
• Breadmaster - Interesting fact. Well, interestingish.
  There was a tradition in ancient times that Jesus was ugly. I think that this came not from any genuine historical fact but from Isaiah 53, which the Christians believed was about Jesus, and which describes the "suffering servant" as not beautiful to look at.
  There is also an apocryphal book called the Acts of Paul, which describes Paul as a short, bald hunchback with a single furry eyebrow like a big caterpillar. However, these were considered signs of beauty in ancient times, so they are probably not historical either - apart from the baldness.
• Projoy - in tune
  [JLE] Personally, I think singing in tune is probably a disadvantage.
• DrQu+xum - Re: in tune
  [Projoy] Quite right -- Jeremy Hardy gets the biggest round of applause in 1S2TTOA....
• Rosie - Intonation
  (Dr Q) That's because his singing is so magnificently awful. The worst thing would be just a little out of tune. Garden and Cryer are both really good singers, especially boozy Barry.
• rab - Singing
  I can't remember who it was who did Mr Boombastic by Shaggy (I think it was Garden) but it was absolutely superb.
• Bob the dog - Hardy - a laughing matter
  All] I am planning to have one song to the tune of another. Projoy & Thos - you are very welcome to contribute and play (email me - my details are on the Orange pilg board).
  It looks as if it is going to be a lot of fun! I nearly gave Samantha the job of preparing the briefs, but have decided to handle them myself. This will be done by New Year. Dunx is helping out with parts of the script and I've also had offers from I Say Porter. This works out well because both are abroad and can't attend (although Dunx has suggested a live phone session - is this a technical possibility blamelewis?) LotUS and Herr Bratche are also keen to attend and help.
  
  Does anyone have a supply of Swannee Whistles and Kazoos?
• Rosie - Musical Instruments
  It shouldn't be too difficult to fashion a Swanee Whistle out of a bicycle pump and a descant recorder mouthpiece though the pump might need to be sacrificed. A Kazoo is a comb with a bit of thin paper stuck to it.
• blamelewis - technicalities
  You'll get plastic kazoos and quite possibly swanees in most tacky gift shops :) Phone sesh: I believe you can buy a mic to fit to a phone to amplify what the person on the other end is saying, but I'm really not all that confident with sound stuff - a lot depends on numbers and size of room - if it's fairly small scale then a phone with speakerphone and everyone else keeping quiet might do it, if it's pretty big then you're into PA's and so on - none of it impossible but it begins to need careful planning and cost money!
  The critical info for me is really just the details of when and where... Date, location and cost of staying will determine if I can make it - I'll try my damndest! Assuming I can then I reckon we should find out what sort of size the place is and what sort of equipment the venue has, or can accomodate. In terms of video recording and sound:
  Camera: Mine (miniDV camcorder) - and if we have 2 or 3 other attendees willing to lend theirs we could record fixed close ups of team a, team b and "humph" with the option of a fourth camera doing a wider angle and audience reaction shots, piano cutaways etc etc... The venues lighting will be a consideration especially as my camera is a consumer model and therefore not too good under anything other than bright lights
  Sound: for that I reckon if we have Bob the Dog's 4 track and mics for team a, team b, "humph" and the piano.
  My thinking is based on the assumption that it's primarily a live show for an audience, with two teams, a chairperson and a pianist. We want to perform it live and only use retakes if absolutely necessary. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who's attended a recording of ISIHAC about how the day ran in technical terms - if they recorded items out of sequence or with breaks in the recording... My email is blamelewis at yahoo dot co dot uk. In terms of operators for all that technology it could be done on a minimum of two (1 sound and 1 camera) but the more the merrier...
• Boolbar - Singing in the pain
  I belong to the Jeremy Hardy school of singing.
• Bob the dog - Exactly
  Blame] I've been lucky enough to go to a recording and I suggest we follow exactly the same format. At a particular venue, two shows for two consecutive weeks are recorded. They are recorded with a break in the middle which acts as refreshment time. I suggest that we have a Humph and four players for the first half followed by a beer break then a different four players for the second half. If we get more interest, we could get a second Humph (It'd be nice to ring the changes and offer the seat to more than one person). I've already had enough MCers showing interest to guarantee at least nine attendees, and if we get more (and I think we will) - we either have a bigger audience or will have to plan for more games.
  Technically the shows are recorded in one go. Obviously there are times when a line is muddled (Humph is king of this). He simply starts again and the fluff is edited.
  For those who have never attended and do not wish to know some of the secrets, I will paste the rest of this message on the laser display board.The show is semi-improvised, players having prepared for questions but still happy to ad-lib. The laser display board is John Naysmith with a piece of cardboard and you never actually see Samantha.
• Projoy - live recs
  On the occasions I've seen it recorded there are usually some drop-in retakes to do at the end as well, but we perhaps might not be quite as fussy as the Beeb.
• Good News - musical instruments of the plastic variety
  I'm pretty sure I can get a decent kazoo from the local music shop for about a quid, if that.
• Nik - Uber-pilg
  Colour me interested.
• ZK - pilg
  Can I ask that I only be semi-coloured interested, tinted perhaps, as I won't want to disappoint nearer the time should it turn out I can't make it.
• Inkspot - more interuptions again
  Good luck to you all going to the pilg I'm not able to get a day or weekend pass.

  And in other news, blamelewis is hiding his light under a bushel, so in the time honoured fashion it gives me great pleasure to announce, he is this weeks No1 on the Celebdaq.

• DrQu+xum - The Mother of all Pilgs
  ...and I can't get there. :(
• Zooological Keeper - celebdaq
  oooh [Inkspot] Ta for the mention. I suck, but who knows? I may get better! :)
• blamelewis - Celeb!
  OOh - I hadn't noticed! It's all down to Michael Jackson and Liv Tyler. One of whom I idolise...
• Morse - Nice things
  It's all right, Lewis, they say he's a nice fellow if you dig deep enough. Now, your shout isn't it?
• Michael - anglo-australian misunderstanding
  Gary Packer's a poof!
• Michael
  Or whatever the name was...
• ZK - Feeling bored
  Okay, okay, so I can blame insomnia and lack of common sense for my feeling deserted at this time of night I suppose but where have all the other late-nighters got to?
• DrQu+xum - Late night?
  [ZK] It's only 8 PM local time here :)
• ZK - forgetting international time-difs
  Ah yes of course. currently 1.11 am. Am often up far later, which is why I'm so grateful for the game's wide appeal :)
• rab - Silent Night
  Bit quiet here today? If anyone's epilging tonight I probably won't make it as I think my house is doing Christmas drinks.
• DrQu+xum - The Missing E-Pilgrim....oh, here it is!
  I'm in right now.
• Dunx
  [Dr Q] I would be, but I need to concentrate on writing this document.
• DrQu+xum
  [Dunx] I've taken the liberty of doing that for you.
  
  (Actually, that was done in xfig using splines. Sad to say that's infinitely neater than my actual handwriting.)
• Nik
  [Cross-post] I'm away from today (23/12/2003) until I don't know when (latest, new year's eve). This means that if anything should happen to angrycake.com, I won't be around to resurrect it, and so MC^5 will be down. With any luck, it'll all be fine and dandy, but if it's not, be forewarned.
• CRASH - Just checking ;-)
• BANG - Still working...
• WALLOP - Do you need me at all?
• rab - Merry, Merry, Quite Contrary
  If I don't get to post before - have a Happy Christmas / midwinter non-culture specific break.
• Chalky - reciprocating
  ... and you, rabsome one. xxxx
• ZK - Hurrah!
  Christmas cheer all, may your presents be unwoolly and jumperish (or if they are may you have wanted them to be), may your surroundings be loving, may your company be cheerful and may your crackers bring forth crap jokes. xxx
• Dujon - Festivites
  Given that it's only just over twelve hours to Christmas Day in my neck of the woods I offer my warmest wishes for Christmas and the New Year to all who read this. I shall think of those of you in cooler climes as I sit back tomorrow in shorts and lightweight top, sipping on something cool, whilst the King Parrots and various versions of Lorikeets dazzle my eyes as they execute precision fly pasts.

  Merry Christmas!

• widey - bah (sheep?) humbug and other such noises
  I'm working all the way through the fun n laughter. Does the NHS ever sleep I wonder?????
• ZK
  [widey] Not in my experience.
• ZK - lunchtime requests
  Can we have an imposters thread? It looks like fun!
• Bob the dog
  Yuletide greetings to all!
• plump - At work!!
  Merry Xmas to all, particularly those like me who have to go into work.
• DrQu+xum - More holiday cheer
  May I wish a pre-emptive Happy Boxing Day to all, and if you're Antipodean, enjoy the tests (despite the NZ-Pak test being delayed for bad light after just 3 overs. Feh!)
• flerdle - testing time
  It is Boxing Day here now, stinking hot as usual (11:30am, 34C, 50% humidity)so we're staying in the two airconditioned rooms in the house and playing with new toys. Yesterday was a scorcher too, and the city was completely deserted. It took three hours to finish lunch with relatives and we all just lolled around under the fans until night fell and it was time for a spot of backyard cricket, and then on to the next party. Strangely enough, I didn't feel like having breakfast this morning...
• Widey - I know you don't really want to know this, but later on...............
  I'm going to get very very drunk, which is nice!Happy day of boxing one and all.
• Breadmaster - Outrageous
  Poor Plump! What do you do? I was scheduled to work nights over Christmas, but luckily weaselled out of it - won't be so lucky at New Year though...
• penelope - Happy Holidays. Oh Yes.
  Hmm. I can't wait for work again on Jan 5th. :o(
• plump - work
  [Breadmaster] I work for BT and yes you've guessed I am in work this weekend as well.
• DrQu+xum - Work?
  I, too, am at work, after a freak brownout took out our webserver and several other machines. Feh!
• ZK - Oh sweet merciful heaven
  The voting public have just named Grease the greatest musical of all time. I have lost the last lingering thread of my hope for this country....
• Dujon - Of all time???
  Surely you jest!
• ZK
  I jest ye not!!! It beat the sound of music to number one!
• ZK
  And Cats, Joseph, Les Mis, Chorus Line, Top Hat, the Wizard of Oz...I could go on, but it's just too depressing...
• DrQu+xum - TOMMY CAN YOU HEAR ME?
  Now, I'm no musical buff...but how does Grease rank above Tommy and Phantom?
• ZK
  It doesn't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• ZK
  My theory is, that it wasn't intentional voting. You see, on these channel 4 polls you can vote for up to 10 of the things on the list. Now, what I'll do on these polls (I didn't know about this one) is vote for the ones I like and if those run out I'll then vote for the ones I've seen and thought were okay. I bet that about 40% of Grease's votes were fom proper fans and that the rest came from these 'leftover' votes of people going "ooh, I liked Grease, I guess that deserves a vote" and the witless ba*ds made it number one!!! I wonder how many people voting for it to do well meant to vote it into that position! You should have heard the screaming in our living room when Sound of Music came up as number two - cos we knew what the only two choices were by then!!
• Toby - trouble right here in River City...
  Are we talking movie or stage here?
• Chalky - A nation [or those that be bothered to vote] decides
  My all-time favourite, West Side Story, came fourth, but I have to agree that overall the results indicate some bizarre opinions on what constitutes a 'musical'.
• Dujon - Ta, Chalky
  West Side Story - magnificent. Porgy and Bess at No. 77! Sacrilege.
• Toby
  Well, it's a fun and eclectic list, and I'm happy to have Grease in the top 100. But the order is a bit whacky, and given what is on there, I miss The Music Man and Into the Woods (but am tickled to find Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Bugsy Malone). Probably from the Big Read voters, or the folks at IMDB who would have us believe that Finding Nemo is a better movie than Notorious, Manhattan, The Bicycle Thief or The Graduate...
• Breadmaster - Durrrr
  Well, I have never seen The Sound of Music, West Side Story, or Porgy and Bess, and I liked Grease. Lucky I don't vote in TV polls, really, isn't it?
• ZK
  Grease fans are entitled to their vote but I still don't believe it's the greatest musical ever! [Toby] Both. The oddest thing is that she said two hundred thousand people voted. Oh, I guess that really reflects the opinions of the 5 million strong public, doesn't it? I say that channel 4 never advertises these things properly - always the programmes, but never the votes. I didn't find out about it until the poll was closed. Even this "Musicality" competition they were advertising after it closes on January the 7th - it's the first i've heard of it. Come on, channel 4, put yourself about more!
• Chalky - putting it about
  [ZK] I guess Channel 4 were relying on the sponsors, The Daily Mail, to promote and encourage voting, which to be fair, the newspaper did with considerable gusto back in the Autumn. Trouble is, many of our select community are too sniffy to read the aforementioned rag.
• ZK - the daily mail
  or skint....
• Angus Prune - Breadmaster
  I for one am more horrified that Breadmaster has never seen The Sound of Music. How is this possible?
• snorgle - Musicality
  Ha! Next he'll be claiming he's never dressed up in fishnets and sung I'm just a sweet transvestite!
• Breadmaster
  Well, just call me uncultured. I'm tone deaf and I don't like musicals, although whether these two things have anything to do with each other is a moot point. I have therefore never sung I'm just a sweet transvestite, but I decline to comment on anything else.
• Widey - Question?
• Widey - Question?
  Oops.....At what number was Guys n dolls?
• Dujon - G & D
  No 36, Widey. Next time you can go find it yourself ... ;-)
• Dujon - Attention, Rosie.
  Answering your question in the limerick game - rather than clutter up the thing.
  mallee is a low growing eucalypt. There is an area in (I think) N.W. Victoria where these are endemic and which is known as 'The Mallee'.
• Rosie - Standing to attention
  OK, Duj - thanks. Nice pong, eucalyptus, probably due to isopropyl and tert-butyl groups attached to an aromatic ring. Better than the assortment of sulphur compounds my aromatic ring tends to produce.
• Dujon - Peg-on-nose
  [Rosie] Eee, by gum, lad! The oil of the eucalypt is used for many a 'good' thing; whether or not sulphuric substances fall into any of those catagories is food for thought, though it is oft used as a balm. ;-)
• Dujon - Hrmmph
  Catagories s/b categories. .... sorry - brain fade - again.
• matt - 100 Best Musicals
  This passed me by completely -- you see what you miss if you don't stay alert? -- and it turns out to be quite an interesting list. Some predictable injustices -- Sweeney Todd at 80 vs Phantom at 20? No Follies or 42nd Street (the movie, I mean) or The Band Wagon? But it's nice to see Cabaret and West Side Story so high, and indeed (though some will scoff) Once More With Feeling and Moulin Rouge, two sterling attempts to keep the form alive and popular in the 21st century.

  The bottom end of the list is probably more interesting than the mainstream top, with unexpected appearances by The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, All That Jazz, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Dancer in the Dark and so on. Was it being made into a (rarely screened) film or just having "Send in the Clowns" that got A Little Night Music onto the list? A good thing, either way. Curious that they list the 1962 film version of Gypsy but the pic and review are for the 1993 TV movie with Bette Midler.

  And did anyone really vote for The Jazz Singer (#65) as the "Best Musical"? Historically important, for sure -- but best? Smells a bit fishy to me...

• rab - Intermission
  Not wishing to interrupt, but I thought I'd just remind people of an impending pilgrimage on the 10th January. More here. Now, back to your usual programming...
• Projoy - 100, er, musicals
  I was just upset that Hair came in so low (below Starlight Express, for goodness' sake!). I've never seen Once More With Feeling, but the samples they gave left me distinctly unimpressed. Wasn't there a cop series (Cop Rock?) a while ago that did this kind of thing with considerably more style? I, too, missed Into the Woods, among other Sondheims, but his stage-bound nature got him there, I think.
• Projoy - The hills... the hills!
  Incidentally, despite liking musicals a lot, I've never seen The Sound of Music either.
• Inkspot - more musicals
  These are admittedly one my least favoured forms of entertainment, but I did manage a half dazed interest in the top twenty. But I wonder how many of those made in the last 10 years will have a following in 30 years time, hopefully the mistake of Once More With Feeling will have been long forgotten.

  Also congrats to blamelewis for his second week on top

• Nik
  What, this is still here? Criminy.
• Bob the dog
  I've some ideas for the May event (provisionally entitled ISIHAC 2 (This time it's unprofessional!) and I've started using the To Be A Pilgrim message board on Orange as the main mixing desk. I've had lots more feedback over Christmas although I'm still hoping to hear from Projoy and Thos - so contact me if you want to help put it together.
• Projoy - contact
  [BtD] Beagle-style missive sent off.
• Bob the dog
  The Beagle has landed.
• Dunx
  [Btd] Yeah, but is it talking to the mother ship?
• Toby
  A Happy New Year to all you fine, fluffy people. Thank you for letting me sidle in amongst you.
• snorgle - Bonne Annee
  Happy New Year to everyone too! (Only 32 minutes before I finish..)
• rab
  I'm required to leave so the table can be set up for an impending New Year Eve's party. So ... happy new year. See you tomorrow with a hangover, probably.
• Angus Prune
  Happy New Year to all you fine people! Let us drink a toast to the year that has seen the sad demise of PantsMC, and remember all those who *finally sucumbs to the whirling pits and falls down*
• Angus Prune
  Hic!
• penelope with a lump of coal - knock knock
  Happy New Year!
• matt - once more with feeling
  Bleedin' 'eck, 2004 already? Seems like only yesterday it was 2003. Happy New Year!
• Chalky - Emergency supplies for stray chicken
  [Bob] Tomorrow, it seems that I may become foster-mother to a stray chicken. It's too late to tell the full story - but what do I need to get in to make the poor mite comfortable until it's reclaimed? Straw and what ...? I've got budgie food ...
• Chalky - again
  By the way - Happy New Year to one and all.
• Bob the dog - Chicken rescue
  Happy New Year too! Chalky] What an odd way to start the new year!
  Basics for chicken care - chucks eat:
  Grass,
  Porridge,
  Cabbage, lettuce, any greens,
  Grains - preferably corn and wheat - but budgie food may do in the short term,
  Worms and stuff they dig up themselves,
  And don't forget some water!
  If this becomes a long-term thing you'll need to let her have a supply of fine grit too.
  If you have a lawn and can set up a small fenced area - four bamboos and some pea netting would do - as day-time housing. An old rabbit hutch would do at night or a very big cardboard box with some chicken wire over the top. If you have sawdust in the bottom of the housing, it helps make poo-disposal easier. Longer-term, stick in a short thick branch (as thick as your fist) for Chuck to perch on at night, and some straw in a corner for it to lay on. And all the best! I'd love to know the story...
  
• Chalky - chicken run
  [Bob] Thank you SO much your help. At this moment I am still awaiting news of said stray chicken. My brother was supposed to have retrieved it and delivered it to me today - but I haven't heard a word. We were at the same New Year party last night, when all this was agreed, so perhaps he partied into the early hours and has spent the day recovering. He hasn't answered his phone either :-(
  OK - the story .... last Monday, the chicken announced its arrival at his house by flying kamikaze-style into his front window. After trying to ignore the poor thing for several hours they finally allowed it through their house to the back garden where it promptly positioned itself on top of their grape vine. They tried everything they could to discover its ownership including local radio announcements, etc. but with no sensible response. Anyway, after opening up a small shed for it and allowing it free range, yesterday his wife announced she couldn't cope with the 'mess' any longer and rather cruelly [in my opinion] chucked it out the front door and watched it wander up the road. A couple of hours later, guess what? It returned to begin the flinging itself against their front window again. He let it through to their back garden with a promise to her that he would find a home for it ... and that's where I come in.
• Dujon - Chook
  I hate to suggest this, Chalky, but given your sister-in-law's outlook on life, it's probably been, er, well, you know. Just don't eat at her place for a couple of weeks, OK? ... :-(
• Breadmaster - Awwwww
  What a cruel woman! I'm slightly puzzled, however, by a chicken that can fly into a window and sit on top of a grape vine. What kind of super-chicken is this? Or is it in fact a pheasant or something?
• snorgle - bob boc boc
  Chickens can fly! Just not really well, usually. I think they can't be bothered if they're well fed.
• Chalky - chicken supreme
  I concur with all reactions to my little horror story ... and yes, Breadmaster, they do fly, particularly if being chased or in a panic. I still haven't heard anything more, so I'm going to pop round this afternoon.
• Bob the dog - Best of cluck
  Chalky] If they offer you a sandwich, beware of feathers!
  snorgle] The longest recorded flight of a chicken was (apparently) 13 seconds. I'm very encouraged that the chicken could fly - it means it was not clipped and was probably kept free-range.
• Breadmaster - Amazed
  Well, you learn something every day. When we had chickens they would sort of flutter up onto things like very low branches. I just can't imagine one getting up enough height and speed to crash into a window - although I can certainly imagine it getting up the requisite stupidity.
• rab - rab in eptitude shocker
  Hmmm... this upgrade seems to have worked. You shouldn't notice many changes, except the tag tickler has now been installed for the benefit of Bad HTML devotees. Basically if you put some dodgy HTML in your 'stance', you get the option to 'debug' it, which basically means your HTML will be presented in a fairly easy-to-read fashion, with the grumbles flagged up as they occur. It's in its early stages - comments are welcome.

  The HTML checker itself has been refined. In particular it treats quotes more sensibly (which should please Nik at least).

  Oh - there's an experimental text-only theme which should kick in automatically if you use Netscape 4.7x, Lynx or Links (not been able to test Netscape). Those watching in colour can see it in action by clicking here. A nifty feature is that inline images are turned into clicky links. One day there'll be a proper link to this, and I'm hoping it might eventually form the basis of a version for mobile devices.

  *has more features in pipeline, but only two days before school*

• DrQu+xum - Plain theme
  I like it -- now everyone with web-enabled PDAs has no excuse. :)
• DrQu+xum - Plane Theme in glinks
  It looks excellent in glinks (links -g) as well, so if I ever have to boot from my Damn Small Linux boot CD, it should look decent.
• Chalky - The chicken has landed ...
  ... but not sure if she'll survive the night. Will keep you posted.
• snorgle - chucks
  Here is a link to a forum about chickens. It's quite interesting!
• Bob the dog - Henny news?
  Chalky] Sounds as if she is in a bad way? :o(
• Lib
  Christmas Ted has gone and its not even twelfth night! Sacrilidge!
• rab - Christmas Ted
  I'd only forget to take him down on Tuesday (or is it Monday?)...
• Tuj - Happy New Year and all that
  Let's see what fine Crescenteering 2004 will bring...
• Thrax - Freakout
  Chickens, eh? God, it all happens round at Chalky's, don't it? Happy New Year all!!
• DrQu+xum - Another one comes around
  [Thrax] Welcome back (again)!
• Chalky - chicken feed
  Hello Thrax :-) Hope your visit isn't too brief.
  Chicken: She seems quite subdued, but otherwise fine. Our sources inform us that she probably wandered off from her farm base [about half a mile from my brother's house], so I've telephoned and a chicken expert is coming round tomorrow to pick her up.
  Oh ... thanks Bob, snorgle and everyone else who offered practical and moral support. I've learned a lot. As for the wicked sister-in-law, well ...
• Bob the dog - ISIHAC2
  Apologies for x-posting. Following up the ISIHAC2 - 'This Time Its Unprofessional' pilg in May - ISP and Dunx have kindly offered to write the 'Humph' bits 'cos they can't be at the event. I already have a list of 14 MCers who want to attend or play and Projoy has very kindly agreed to be one of the 'humphs' for the evening. However, I need another. Two people now have suggested Martha Farqua. If you think you’d be good Martha, (or if anyone else has a good suggestion) please contact me. Ta!
• evil_edna - what the...?
  I deliberately didn't keep any shares in my portfolio over xmas, thinking I'd buy some fast-movers and shoot straight up the chart in the New Year - and whaddya know! Looks like all you conscientious types got kneecapped and slack tarts like me floated to the top... *cackle*.
• Dujon - Negativity
  Enjoy it whilst it lasts e_e.:-)
  The League Table has the collywobbles for some reason. e.g. I shows me with £6 and -99% wheras it should be just over £14,000 and 40-odd percent (I was kneecapped and so can tell. I think I was the only one zapped this week - although x_sugar babe_x must have come awfully close.)
• Dujon
  Good to see you around and posting, Thrax. Are you able to stick around this time or just making a short visit?
• Thrax - Freakout
  Much obliged, Chalkers and Doc. Hope you're well. My best wishes to all MCers at this time of year. edna, you talking Celebdaq? I tried me hand at that but failed miserably. I just don't follow Celebrity 'News' closely enough. I think I'm genetically programmed not to give a monkey's about J-Lo and Britney and Posh and Puffdaddy and Hugh Grunt and all those other deeply talented but criminally underpaid and overlooked, long-suffering, attention-starved, self-effacing, public servants who give so much and ask so little in return. Bless 'em.
• Thrax - Additional.
  good to see you too, Dujon, old boy. I've no idea how long I'll be here, nor how often. I'll just play it by ear and see what transpires. It's good to see a few familiar faces though - or rather read some familiar names.
• Uncle Korky - Felicitations
  Happy new year everyone... and, just to show how long it's been since I last sat at a keyboard - I hope everyone has a merry Christmas too.
• Bob the dog - Humph!
  Trying to find reasonably priced accomodation with a piano is not as easy as I'd expected. JLE - anyone - do you have an electric piano we could plug in?
• ZK - by the by...disillusionment
  *distraught* so...Bob...is your name not actually Bob? Now I don't know what to believe!
• ZK
  Oh yes, and my exam period *is* over May, so I doubt I can make it to the pilg-type-thing. Sorry! :*(
• Breadmaster
  It's awful when your illusions are shattered, isn't it? Still, I'm quite good at baking, you'll be pleased to know.
• ZK
  My initials, sadly, are neither Z nor K. I should really go and do some work... :)
• Angus Prune
  As previously discussed, I'm not even a man!
• Uncle Korky
  I picked up a print of Simon Patterson's The Great Bear for Christmas (see here: http://www.dareonline.org/artwork/patterson/patterson3.html), which would form the basis of a wonderfully surreal game of MC.
• Uncle Korky
  Sorry - still can't get the tags right for a hyperlink!
• Thrax - Freakout
  I wouldn't panic, Korkers. I can't unfathom morethan about three HTML tags here. Even though the good Doctor Q enlightened me several months ago. I lost the list. Bummer.
• Inkspot - Youngsters these days
  UK]I like the idea, have a peek at "All Games", back in the early days of MC⁵ there was a game of the Great Bear unfortunately it took a while to find a map, and the link from Boolbar is still active.
• Lib - Ivories
  [BtD] I'm hoping to purchase an electric piano soon, but need to buy the house to put it in first!
• Bob the dog - Bobajob
  ZK] Aw, and I thought you really believed I was a dog too! The likely dates are 22nd and 29th May. Will your exams over by then?
• penelope - Come On Over
  No, not a Shania Twain string starting, but a reminder there's an e-pilg tonight in the MCiOS chatroom. All welcome. No responsibility can be accepted etc etc
• Bob the dog - the morning after
  For those who missed the MCiOS chatroom cyber pilg, you missed a corker. As my ex-wife will testify, eh Pen?
• Uncle Korky - Disillusionment...
  [Inkspot] Cheers! Well, another supposedly original idea bites the dust!
• penelope - last night, she said...
  [BobTD] *wink*
• rab - Grrr...
  Missed that - was at the cinema. Was this a Britney-style union?
• nights
  I definitely think a bottle of vladivar was involved...
• Chalky - cheering up Incle Korky
  UK] Look in Orange MC - new game started yesterday :-)
• Bob the dog - Missmatchmaking
  rab] Yes. I was married Las Vegas style to Pen and she divorced me within seconds. Chalky narrowly missed me on the rebound. Dr Q got hitched to a chicken, had kids and was haunted by the spirit of his undead hen bride seeking vengence for leaving him with the odd-looking kids. I hope your film was worth it...
• Lib - Losing it.....
  In the past week I've managed to embarrass myself in public twice. The first time I shoplifted by accident (but in the end paid for my error) and I fell asleep in the cinema last night and started making strange noises.... I think I need a therapist!
• Uncle Korky - *Rejoices*
  [Chalky] Wahoo!
• Thrax - Freakout
  MC ad other ISIHaC games are the best therapy. Everyone knows that.
• Dujon - Apropos absolutely nothing
  I had to laugh a couple of evenings ago; my good wife was leafing through some of the junk mail which had been 'posted' into the letter box since the start of the new year. Honestly, I couldn't believe it - one food based company was advertising hot cross buns!
• Thrax - Freakout
  Better than some of the garbage the Labour party sends me through the post every Christmas. I get these lists of "useful numbers" - ie. services provided locally. It's all drugs helplines, domestic violence support groups, local police contacts, child abuse support services etc. etc. I was left thinking, "oh thanks, guys! And a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you too." Never had anything like that at any previous address in which I've resided. Believe me, the first Christmas I spent here (in 2001) I wondered where the bloody hell I'd moved to. "For heaven's sake!" thought I, imagining I was in one of the safer and more stable parts of Swindon, but silly me, I had in fact failed to notice I'd moved to Harlem. Funny how one makes these little mistakes.
• Chalky - Eggs and chicks and fluffy things
  [Duj] Wandering around Tesco at the weekend, I spotted shelves recently filled with chocolate creme eggs and ickle easter bunny things.
  Chicken update: She's gone back home to the farm :-)
• Thrax - Freakout
  Awww, I'm glad there was a heartwarming end to the chicken's adventure, Chalky. :)
• rab - Nob and nobility
  Looks like Lord Hamilton's doing the rounds, so if you'll excuse me for a moment...
• rab - Edward de Bono
  Normality, I think.
• rab - Latecomers
  It looks as though the ball has reached some sort of lull, so there could be an opening for something new...
• DrQu+xum - Headlines?
  We haven't had a Daily Mail Headlines game in a while...except it'd look a lot like Mini Cheddars, tho.
• Chalky - Hi Q Haiku [a poor attempt at a play on words]
  [DrQ] I'm up for that.
  An alternative suggestion ... as both the other MC sites each have a pair of 'poetry' games - why not a Haiku game?
• DrQu+xum - Hi, Coo!
  I second Chalky's idea.
• DrQu+xum - Gaaah!
  Unfortunately, the late arrivals won't stop coming in!
• rab - Bugger!
  My recent 'upgrade' seems to have killed the win-detect code. How embarrassing...
• rab - Debugger!
  Should be fixed now.
• rab - Oh...
  ...and in the event of winning a game, it might even be possible to start a new one again now.
• widey - Shed!!
  I want a big shed, at least 12'x 9'. Does such a beast exsist? I wonder? Then I could spend my days there, drinking home brew from a chipped enamel mug and view the world through rose tinted Stadium Mk 4's...........sigh........
• Dunx - Shedding
  [Widey] I believe such a thing does exist, although it is usually described as a "house".

  Seriously, though, (and this is probably not much help) the US company Tuff Shed manufacturers a bewildering variety of sheds (which they call "storage buildings"). Some very silly styles, though... 10'x30 loafing shed, anyone?

• widey - MMMmmmmmmmmmmmm (Homer Simpson style)
  Sounds good to me. I shall have to check them out. As you may have gatherd folks I have no life!!.........
• Dujon - Hideaways
  Indeed, widey. I possess one around that size myself. It's a steel construct erected on a concrete slab, so if you are looking for a rustic appearance I cannot help. Mine is about 7½ feet high, has a door (which helps) and a single window, half of which will slide to allow air into the thing, at the opposite end (covered in spider webs and their makers - both of which, by the way, are extras.)
• nights - loafing shed
  [dunx] perhaps a shed for loafing in. with a pint of loafing juice? strongbow anyone? just me then.
• The head of steam - via Watty's ipaq
  Hello we're drinking.
  Greetings from (left to right) rab, pen, JLE, Norma, Pip, LOtUS, Merlyn, Lib, jim, Si, Raak and Watty. (That's enough pilgrims - Ed)
• Chalky - at home
  HELLO EVERYBODY! *hugs and mabulations* as appropriate. Can you connect to the MCiOS Chat Server?
• nights - via the gift of the internet
  hello all, hope you had a good time. I had a marvelous time in Bristol. No drinking though, although Temple Meads station is a sight to behold.
• Rosie - Bristol
  The Bristolian kids' version of the Lord's Prayer contains the line "and lead me not into Temple Meads Station", so I'm told.
• widey - Wales
  I like the bit that goes "and deliver us from Ebbw vale"...
• Bob the dog
  I feel a new game coming on...
• st dogmael - .....
  Our Father, who art in heaven, Holloway be thy Name.
• penelope - ...
  There is a version of the Lord's Prayer using tube station names already in existence, and a schoolfriend's father (who was Irish) used to recite it. But that was a long, long time ago, and now I must go to Google to have a good look. I do remember one line, which happens to be the next-but-one following st d's, come to think of it;
  Thy Wimbledon.
• rab - ___
  Is this it?
• penelope
  [rab] Yes! But buses? Yeeeeughhh!! Perhaps we should re-write with proper station names!
• Inkspot - more numbers
  Many thanks to Britney Spears there has been a change at the top of Celebrity Mornington Crescent is that me!
• ZK - celebrity gambling
  oh nuts, I've fallen again
• Inkspot - drug testing
  ZK] I was lucky with both Britney and Greg Rusedski in buying just as the shares started to rise. It looks like this week I'll have to fight off x_sugarbabe_x and evil_edna. Which reminds me the new series of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here starts soon will the celebs be as famous last time . Which means not only has the league been going for nearly a year, so has this site, early felicitations rab, when was mc⁵ launched?
• rab - First post!
  According to the database, my first move on this game was made at Thu Jan 16 21:07:52 2003, so it looks like we should have some sort of celebration on Friday.
• rab - Incidentally
  Here's an example of those word-disassociation emails I keep receiving:
  purcell newline scheme trudge coral lip partook poodle sportswear cartwheel blowup hid nabla scurry chicano twig perpendicular chariot locomotion alabaster granny machiavelli quizzical clod smooth mcclain bryan solve knives smithson fomalhaut repetitive gardenia bimetallism absentee swishy betsey centaur adenoma shoreline cobb atropos helmut pendulum poliomyelitis concourse purchasable calm macho cromwell ambiguous take autosuggestible

  Who do I follow that?

• rab
  Or, indeed, how?
• Lib - dissing the diss
  [rab] Have you invited the word disser to mail you, or is it just very eloquent spam? I feel perhaps there is no resonse needed as they appear to have put all their eggs in one basket but making one very long move. If you feel the need to make a move then I would recommend short but sweet, with a word like priapism.
• Inkspot - Happy Verseday
  MC5 is one this year,
  This is a time to share.
  To celebrate this great event,
  I've gone and bought a tent.
• rab - Spam
  [Lib] I think it's a device to try and get the emails through the spam filters. I had considered your move, but sadly I've just received dishwasher boletus elkhart skullduggery klein phonic alloy m's bicep puffery veneto art prepare coddle coriander manor corsage forswear haplology negroes denature exhibitor there'll blueberry bituminous sus hymn kaolin stalk dreary sorption oppressive harrisburg askance argive beresford dexterity embower ywca duplex stableman pickett barfly sophistry shoji put pursuer howl style shuddery curate porch.

  I can't keep up!

  Meanwhile a celebration game might be appropriate. Any ideas? Maybe a verse game??

• Nik - randomly constituted spam
  Mm. I think spammers are trying to get so much/many combinations of the English language blacklisted by Bayesian filters that they have to be reset or abandoned completely.
• Chalky - well versed
  [rab] oh yes please. I liked Inky's sort of clerihew and I know there are several takers for a Haiku game. How's about a free-for-all 'Anni-Verse-Ary Game'? Those who are inclined [or like me, just enjoy showing off] can post a poem in whatever form/style they choose, beginning with the subject of your server's birthday and then leading ... well .. who knows where? Is that a flexible enough format for most?
• Tuj - Fire away...
• Inkspot - Mary Hughes
  Chalky] I must admit to being unable to do any form of poetry in a format, I wouldn't know who Miss Hews was if she came up and slapped my face, and as for a Haiku, why a game based on that chant thing the Kiwi's do before a game of rugby.
  However I have enjoyed greatly resdaing the "He thought..." series over at Orange.
• Inkspot
  s/resdaing/reading
• Lib - Imposters
  I've found another place where MC is played on the net. Quite frankly it's a rather ruidementary and childlike version of the Great Game that we play, but each to their own. Its located at www.doctors.net.uk in the forum, but you have to log in to play and be a doctor to log in, so don't think a hyperlink would work to show you all the game.
• penelope - playing doctors and nurses
  We could pretend to be doctors?
• snorgle - hello nurse!
  Ooh! Can I pretend to be a doctor? That'd be fun!

  ---

  "I'm sorry, you've only got 3 days to live. Nah, just kidding! Haha!"
• widey - ha ha ha ha
  Some of us nurses are blokes yah know!!!
• Lib - dressing up!
  *Lib hands stethescope to pen and pager to snorgle* Now you've got doctors kit you can properly pretend! [snorgle] When people ask me if they're going to die, I'm often tempted to say "Yes" then pause before adding "but we're all going to and I couldn't tell you when will be your time". But have resisted being quite so flippant as yet. [pen and snorgle] Would you like some scrubs to wear and maybe a white coat too?
• st dogmael - stethoscopes
  Lib] Can I have a stethoscope as well please ? Where are you a doctor ?
• rab - New game
  In the hope that we might have a new game to play on tomorrow's all-important first anniversary, should we nominate one for killing off, or shall I be naughty and make a space for it? For the latter I'd probably need to start it myself - so if the birthday verse game has legs, what should it be called?
• st dogmael - and while i am about it..
  Lib, maybe you can help me.... Does a doctor's doctor doctor the doctor according to the doctrine of the doctor being doctored, or does the doctor's doctor doctor the doctor being doctored according to the doctoring doctor's doctrine ?
• st dogmael - and while i am about it..
  Lib, maybe you can help me.... Does a doctor's doctor doctor the doctor according to the doctrine of the doctor being doctored, or does the doctor's doctor doctor the doctor being doctored according to the doctoring doctor's doctrine ?
• rab - So good...
  ... you said it twice!
• rab - or maybe...
  That's another bug?
• rab - Bollocks...
  The simulpost protection is broken!
• Lib - doctoring
  [st d] Sorry, i've only got one stethescope, I threw my old one away as it hurt my ears. I've got a tourniquet that you can have, if that's good enough. Currently I'm doctoring in Stockport, but in three weeks I'll be curing the sick in Macclesfield.
• rab - Earbleed
  [Lib] Couldn't you turn the volume down?
• rab - Oh...
  ...and I think the simulpost protection is fixed.

  Don't upgrade your code, kids!

• Lib - earbleed, indeed...
  [rab] Twas not a volume thing (and LOUD IS GOOD regarding stethescopes) but the earpieces were really hard and hurt my little external auditory meatuses. New scope has nice squidgy earpieces so I'm no longer sore.
• st dogmael
  Stockport - what a lovely bridge there is there. Can I assume that you are pretty newly qualified then ? I used to see a girl who did her med degree at St Andrews and then when she qualified she was at Stockport for a few months.
• snorgle - scrubbing up
  [Lib]Yes please! *Now what naughtiness can I get up to..*
  [widey]I certainly hope so! In the absence of dishy doctors, naughty nurses are a necessity.
• Lib - games all round
  [rab] Don't kill anything. Go on, you know you want to up the game limit for the special occasion.
  [snorgle]*Lib runs towords theatre and picks up a nice blue pair of scrubs for snorgle and a hat and mask too*. Top tip.... scrubs make excellent pyjamas.
• Chalky - twittering away . . .
  I was so knackered after finishing work this evening that, after dinner, I slept for 5 hours. Now it's the wee small hours and I'm wide awake, but am I worried? No, not I ... for it's the First Birthday of MC5 ... wahay
  [rab] I didn't start the Any-Versary Game because it's been rather quiet in here this week [probably because the Chat has been extensive in both MCiOS & Orange]. I can only conclude that there IS some support for the idea as no-one has objected or come up with an alternative :-).
• Chalky - birthday cake
  Blimey - it's nearly 9.30 .. no cake, no people, no pressies?
• snorgel - Happy Birthday MC!
  woohoo! *blows horn and prances around idiotically in surgical scrubs*
• rab - I've got the horn.
  [Chalky] Sorry, late in this morning, and logistical difficulties meant no net access til now.
• rab - Oh...
  ... and there's a special game slot open too... one day only... snap up those bargains etc.
• penelope - fanfare!
  [rab] what a lovely horn player you have there. ;o)
• penelope - Hurrah!
  My flatmate and I are now booked into the Salvation Army hostel in downtown Reykjavik for a four night stay in April! Happy Holidays for me! I need to buy a new sleeping bag... any recommendations?
• DrQu+xum - Whoo!
  Happy Birthday MC5! Will the special slot be for Haiku, Daily Mail Headlines, or something else entirely?
• Lib - Holidays
  [pen] I've been to Iceland. Its a fantastic place, although rather expensive. I'd recommend seeing the geyzers and other geothermal attractions. Sorry, but can't really help with the sleeping bag decision.HAPPY BIRTHDAY mc5!
• st d - Sleeping Bags.
  penelope, I find that there is only one choice of sleeping bag that will be tolerated here and now on this site and on this day. Fortunately they are indeed widely regarded as being amongst the finest, if not the very pinnacle, of current sleeping bag technology. Slightly expensive perhaps, but I have had one since 1990 and it is still gorgeous and warm and in great condition and I have used it a lot. I direct you all and sundry , to the benchmark of sleeping on the top of himalayan mountain excellence, ladies and gentlemen, I direct you to...........

  *****crescendo drum roll, circling spotlights*****

  RAB

• st d
  (beat that)
• Uncle Korky - Felicitations
  Happy birthday MC5!
• penelope - rabsnoozers
  [st d] I can beat that. it's impossible. Anyone would think we had been building this coincident-rich verbal stunt for the past two weeks or so... And I'm seriously looking at the site now. Thank you :o)
• st d - rab bags
  pen] all i can say is this. Buy one. You will never regret it. They are gorgeous.
• Bob the dog - rabby birthday
  Quite appropriate really as it is rab we have to thank for mc5.
• st d - bob the dog
  pay attention, lad!
• rab - P.
  Don't want to get too self-indulgent but I really should thank:

  • Projoy - for the logo (and not suing me for ripping it off, or manipulating it at times like this).
  • Nik - for the hardware, and keeping the site live beyond the call of duty.
  • Everyone else - for playing, and for not cocking up the HTML (only two fixes required in a year's play).

  Right, time to get pissed.
• snorgle - logolicious!
  Like the logo, btw.. :-)
• Nik
  Duty, maybe, but decency and morality, no. Anyway, it's a good 5 months (to the day-of-month - how freaky?) until MC5's birthday at angrycake.com. Which box has just reached 43 days uptime, while I figured this post out.
• Nik - Uptime
  Oh, that uptime is so low only because <spoddy reason in the rollover>. Also, 43 days probably extends further back than the last time the DSL was down.
• Tuj - It's been a year...
  Did the Earth move for you too?
• Chalky - MC5 -- the early days
  oooh ... I've just looked back to the very first entries in this game and was pleased to see that I was there! :-)
  Is anyone up for an Anniversary Chat [e-pilg MCiOS] in an hour or so [when you all return from Friday night fun]?
• Bob the dog - Spooky coincedences
  Today is my birthday. However, I'm not 1.
  "Mrs" Bob gave me a copy of a David Icke book that she found in an Oxfam in Bath. Apparently the Queen is a lizard. Just my sort of book :o)
• nights - S'Razhdyeistvom MC5
  I thought you'd lik a nice russian greeting for this momentous occasion, so...
  S'Raaaa-zhdyeistvom
  S'Raaaa-zhdyeistvom
  S'Razhdyeistvom MC5
  S'Raaaa-zhdyeistvom! It sounds better after lots of vodka.
• ZK - Completely nothing to do with anything
  Are there any American players out there who are fans of Pyramid?
• ZK - Oh yes, making it relevant
  only if you ever want to see it again I'd write to the distributors before Tuesday because it's just been cancelled....
• DrQu+xum - Pyramid
  [ZK] I didn't think it went well with Donny Osmond as host. You can't beat Dick Clark at that show.
• ZK - Pyramidness
  I never did get to see it with Dick Clark. (too young and british) Still, if you know anyone who does like it...
• Chalky - black humour
  One should expect it really ... the inevitable round of e-mails following a major news story, in this case, Harold Shipman's suicide. This morning I received the one relating to the plans for a film of his life [starring De Niro] called 'The Old Dear Hunter'. Tasteless, maybe, but I have to confess I chuckled. Do only we Brits have a propensity for laughter in the face of appalling events?
• Nik
  No, there are people with this quality born all over the planet; it just seems that in the UK the concentration is substantially higher and/or less secretive about it. Perhaps UK society is more at home with, or based around, this tendency. After all, it's not so long ago ('help! Help! I'm being oppressed!') that we had little else but each others' misery to find amusing. Oh, and that is a superb pun.
• rab - Today
  Bit quiet today. And moist, I note.
• DrQu+xum - E-pilg
  I'm in right now -- and as I'm not at work today, I won't have to leave at 5 PM EST. :)
• Nik - Downtime
  There will be downtime. I don't know how much, or when. I'm having my ADSL regraded from engineer-installed to wires-only, because Nildram are currently doing so for free. I'm using the opportunity to upgrade to 1mbps (downstream only, unfortunately). Whee!
• penelope - nuttin' at all...
  No-one has chatted here today at all, so I thought I'd make an inconsequential start. I'm having a tricky day - three awkward letters to write to clients trying to ditch us (that's only three out of about 100, so all is not lost yet) but we can't have that. Anyway, I'm obviously doing as much as I can to put off actually having to write the letters, so already today I have reported the malfunctioning traffic lights outside the office (three and a half minutes cycles??? I ask you! I had to wait through two changes of lights this morning before getting though - that's nearly seven minutes) made coffee for everyone, stared at the screeen for ages, and posted to a few games. And soon it will be time for lunch.
• st d - clients
  Surely it is nmore effective to go and see them or to call them up on the phone. Why are they trying to ditch you ?
• penelope - ditchiness
  Long story - to do with the perceived value of advertising v. news press, Head Offices streamlining procedures without informing branches, and the fast turnover of staff in the moto trade which means that no sooner have you got one contact briefed and primed than he changes jobs and you have to start all over again, etc etc. And We would have been to see them but for the fact that I have only recently gained the extra member of staff which has relieved me of the pressure of doing two people's jobs. There was no way I could have taken enough time out of the office to visit this lot in the last quarter of last year while I was qwriting news for the other 97 clients. They're all in the North of england and Scotland.
• CdM - CrM
  I agree with st d. Call them. :-)
• penelope - like I said...
  [CdM](I nearly swore at you there)... you don't have to sit at my desk trying just to get put through to the people I have to talk to. Let's not talk about it any more - I've had enough for today.
• st d - getting through to people
  pen] you obviously aren't doing it very well if they aren't coming to the phone to talk to you. I mean ...(joke joke joke joke joke joke joke) ;o)
• penelope - getting the 'joke'
  I'm pleased you pointed out it was a joke, because I wouldn't have spotted it otherwise. :op
• Projoy
  Anyway, who's for pizza?
• snorgle - e-pilg
  I was certain that I put a move in here - and I can't find it anywhere else..have we lost anything?
• Dujon - Marbles?
• snorgle - Well that goes without saying..
  anything else?
• Breadmaster
  Very strange feeling - I'm meeting someone this evening and was told to be at Mornington Crescent at 8. I wanted to say something like - "Direct from Paddington? I'm not sure that's allowed under the Walsh-Hemerington Allowance of 1932, at least with an unstacked podume," but I didn't.
• Inkspot - more warnings
  Just in case anyone on Celebdaq has any shares in Arnie, the Board have issued a statement to suspend his shares from midday on Thursday, 22nd January 2004, so sell any shares in him now.

  The other sensational news for D class celeb watchers is the return od I'm a Celebrity Get me Out of Here. The line up being
  John Lydon
  Neil Ruddock
  Alex Best
  Kerry McFadden
  Jordan
  Mike Read
  Lord Brocket
  Peter Andre
  Jenny Bond
  Diane Modahl
  I will admit even at this early stage, that my shares will be on my adolescent hero from the Sex Pistols, to become King of the Jungle.

• Bob the dog - Bliss.
  How ignorant I am. Of the list above I recognise only Lydon, Jordon, Read and Peter Andre (Although I haven't a clue what or who he is).
• rab - Whoops.
  Hungover :) And it seems there are those who think this site is a search engine. Odd.
• Trellis (Mrs) - Ask Jeeves
  What is a Fairy Hammock??
• penelope - which Mike?
  Which Mike Read? Is it:
  *sings*
  Mike Read, Mike Read
  275 and 285
  Mike Read, Mike Read
  National Radio 1!
  or is it Mike Read of 'Runaround............ NOW!
  *Drags head out of Seventies TV and Medium Wave radio back to the noughties and the fact that she *still* can't get a digital TV signal*
• Chalky - junglers
  So who's Lord Brocket?
  And .. Jenny Bond? The 'royaller than the royals' lady?
  Also ... notice that all the first names have either 4 or 5 letters in them [apart from Jordan who's a whole country anyway]
  [pen] You should be able to get a radio signal - why not use the dosh to buy a DAB radio?
• Breadmaster
  It's yet another indication of how woeful TV has become these days. Anything with the word "celebrity" in the title, you know will be dire; furthermore, you know that it will push the word "celebrity" so far that it will lose all meaning. I mean, George Best's wife? Someone who reports on the royal family? And those are the ones I have vaguely heard of. Remember "Celebrity Wife Swap" with the bloke who cheated on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Neither does anyone else. I was on Zig Zag when I was 10. I'd probably qualify as a "celebrity" for one of these programmes.
• st d - john Lydon
  I think it is a very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very sad thing indeed that he is appearing on that show. Very sad. I mean, really, what's the point anymore ? Why go on ?
• st d - unless.....
  unless of course he just tells everyone to faaark orffffff and refuses to do anything at all. That might be quite entertaining.
• penelope - effing offers
  [st d] I think that's the idea. And frankly I hope it happens.
  BTW, I'm having a slightly better afternoon today - my boss has just stopped riding his electric scooter around the office to serve me a cup of Earl Grey and a gingernut.
• penelope - damn DAB
  [Chalks] I've thought about it - but Digital TV was supposed to be an economy, because you can get digital radio through the TV. It was £60 to receive Digital TV + Digital Radio through the digibox, OR £70-odd for just digital radio through a DAB set.
• Dunx - Run Around
  [pen] Apropos of Run Around, it struck me that the Iowa caucusses which have just been held were reminiscent of Run Around.
• Chalky - cor cussing
  One might think the plural of caucus would be 'cauca' [what a corker!] or even 'caucii'. My Chambers English Dic is non-committal by suggesting that the etymology is dubious and it might be derived from John Smith's Algonkian word Cawcawaassough, an adviser. I'm sure someone over can shed more light .... ?
• snorgle - surreal spam
  I got some spam - normal get-rich-quick rubbish, but the following was on the end of the mail..
  I have no difficulty in starting or holding my bowel movement. Applicant interrupted interview to phone her therapist for advice on how to answer specific interview questions. `With a torch.' `Very deep,' said Arthur, `you should send that in to the "Reader's Digest". They've got a page for people like you.'"
• Chalky
  S'not fair snorgs - you always get the most exciting spam :-)
• Dunx - Corkers
  [Chalky] That's more or less the etymology I've heard as well, from no less eminent a source than Bill Bryson (Made In America). "caucii" seems an unlikely plural since "caucus" isn't of Latin origin... All the same though, the one thing I do know is that the real trick with spelling the plural of "caucus" is knowing when to stop.
• Chalky - the Latin theory
  [Duncussessesesess] After the Caucus Club of Boston (in the 1760s), possibly from Medieval Latin caucus, drinking vessel. [Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.]
• Dujon - Caucii
  Simple - the plural of caucus is caucuses. That's from the lexicon I keep here in the shack - The New Penguin E.D. - etym. 'probably of Algonquian origin'. Algonquians being of east coast American peoples; ergo - N.Y slang! ... ;-)
• widey - Why is it?
  At 0500 hours I get a craving for chips with lots of vinegar? I'm the wrong genda to be pregnant. Maybe if I get a sex change the cravings will be justified????
• Bob the dog - DAB radio vv TV
  Pen] The value of the set-top box has to be off-set against TV licence (going up to £121 in April). So cost of TV (£70) divided by life of TV (£10 + 7 years x £121) = £875 for 7 years viewing. I personally feel that it is not worth it. I have no TV, watch DVDs on my PC and get all my news/current affairs/entertainment from The World Service, R4, R6 & R7 on my DAB radio (£70). OK, so I miss out the quality stuff like I'm a Celeb, Emmerdale, Kilroy and The Bill, but I'll live :o).
• penelope - dubious maths, Bob.
  I'm not convinced. You can't offset the cost of a digibox against the TV licence, you have to add them together! (I know that's a point against, but still...) And a Digibox will receive digital radio signals through the TV. Plus, I think you have to factor in the fact that I was going to blag half the money from my flatmate :o)
  I also watch DVDs on my laptop, and listen to a lot of R4 but I do appreciate a bit of telly from time to time, especially some of the documentaries, history and natural history programmes, stuff like Grand Designs and some comedy. Last night, though, my TV wasn't switched on at all.
  I think my main gripe is the fact that although they're advertising digital TV (in the BBC's case, 'pushing' - isn't that still advertising?) as much as they can, not everyone can get it and there's no schedule to let people know when they will be able to get it. When I asked, I was told to lobby my MP about it. I think that's the woolliest consumer advice I've ever received.
• Bob the dog - maths - never my strong point
  Pen] Yer-right!
  Cost of TV (average) = £70
  Cost of Set-top box = £50 (£49 in Argos)
  Life expectancy of both = 7 years
  7 years of TV licence at £121 = £847
  Total cost of TV+set-top for 7 years viewing = £967
  £967 divided by two (you and flat-mate) = £483.50.
  OK so I'm a pedantic bugger, but I'm also justifying my own decision not to have a TV to myself. I do not miss the natural history stuff as the best of it is available in my local library (I watch them on my pc with my 8 year-old daughter). I also miss some documentaries but I've been at the sharp-end of BBC misrepresentation so I am only too aware of how documentaries and news items are often sexed-up to present an 'angle' that will pull in the punters rather than tell the truth.
• penelope - BBC misrepresentation
  Does the culture of mis-representation not extend as far as the hallowed halls of Radio 4? Did anyone tell John Humphries yet? As an aside (I warn you, I think I'm pre-menstrual today - I've already had a go at Mastercard on the phone this morning) The Today programme really pisses me off - the last quarter of an hour today was five mintes of JH taking the piss out of a Pensioners' Cross-Party political party which was launched today, and the other ten minutes in 'serious' debate about Cricket. I ask you...
• Bigsmith - Being Pedantic
  B. the D.] News and current affairs can't be that good on DAB because you appear not to have heard that "Killroy" has been pulled. Highly amusing article on page 5 of the new "Private Eye" on the subject of Mr K.-S. by the way.
• Bob the dog - hallowed halls of R4
  pen] Right again, the mis-representation I was subject to started on R4 - a report by Trixie Rawlinson in fact. All (sensationalist) news reporting should be taken with a pinch of salt - and somehow I find it easier to be objective to news broadcast on the Radio where there are no emotive images.
  Bigsmith] I shall be more attentive for vital news like this in future ;o)
• rab - Today
  I really cannot stand The Today Programme. In my eyes it comprises largely onanistic playground squabbles masquerading as informed debate. The questions posed often fail to hit any substantive target and the guests frequently have the communication skills of a mop and bucket. Plus I simply cannot cope with that much talking first thing in the morning. R3's as much as I can cope with (prob. less than 10% chat, not to mention those long pauses they're famed for).
• st d - morons morons evrywhere
  I have just gone over to watch a little video thing on a computer of a girl at work. It consisted of a "rifle man's view" (ie B/W with crosshairs) of some iraqis running for cover then being blown to pieces with US voice commentary on top. Now I am not commenting on the rightness or wrongness of the US soldiers doing the killing, but rather this MORON girl laughing withher nasal estuarine horse laughter at it. She seems to think it is funny ? I don't get it.
• Bob the dog
  Oh god st d, I sympathise.
• DrQu+xum - Beavis & Bush-head
  [st dogma] Was she laughing "huh-uh-huh,huh-uh-huh-uh-huh-uh-huh-huh,huh-huh" ?
• Chalky - HTML Primer
  [Dr Q] Bravo. Go on - don't be shy. Put the link in here aswell :-)
  I'm sure rab will give it the signpost it deserves.
• rab - HTML Primer
  Yes - I promised DrQ to put a link to it on the site somewhere... what I really want to do is create a 'help' page. I've got the nuts and bolts of it written, just need to construct the text. Maybe this'll get done at the weekend.
• DrQu+xum - Did I forget to x-post?
  Well, here it is, then. The MC Basic HTML Primer.
• Bob the dog - Q-text
  We can expect some

  • Useful
  • Interesting
  • Informative
  • Exciting and
  • Bizarre

  posts from now on then.
• Rosie - I DON'T BELIEVE IT
  There are people here who are even more grumpy than me, which is nice. Bob the Dog has got the right idea. TV is nearly all crap. I look at the Radio Times and think "thank God for the radio - esp. R4". Jazz FM and R3 have their moments, too. But, except for the football, which is good, R5 is utterly dire. It's like a perpetual down-market You and Yours. Hasn't Susan Bookbinder got a horrible harsh voice, compared with the velvet tones of Charlotte Green and the luscious Corrie Corfield?
• Breadmaster
  Funnily enough, I used to have a job which consisted of trying to think of new TV programmes (in the "light factual" category, and I think we all know what that means). It wasn't quite as soul-destroying as you might think, but let's just say it wasn't really me. I've never in my life listened to the radio apart from a few very rare occasions so I have no idea what the Today programme or any others are like...
• Bob the dog - Mumbles into half-drunk cold coffee...
  Rosie] I'm not grumpy! Its Bob the dog by the way, never Bob the Dog.
• Bob the dog
  :o) - I like this!
• Bob the dog
  
• Bob the dog - Best stop here...
  
• Chalky - puzzled
  [Bob] Who's the face on the crab?
• Bob the dog
  Chalky] Ah, the crab of ineffable wisdom! I think it is David Icke. I got him from here. The following is his nemesis..
  
• rab - very puzzled
  As I can't see Bob's marquees on my browser, the foregoing makes very little sense indeed.
• Raak
  [Rosie] Why listen to R5 if you detest it so much? I formed the same impression of it when it started, and I haven't listened to it since.
• snorgle - Radio 5
  I do listen to it - but mainly quite late at night, when it's better. I listen to it in the mornings too, but wish they didn't have Nicky Campbell on then - he really is terrible at interviews!
• Lib
  [rab] Use a different browser then! Btd's animations are great!
• Dunx - A Null Set If Ever I Heard Of One
  Quality and TV? Ha!

  It's a ridiculous cliché to say that British telly is the best in the world, but there's also some truth in it. Try watching US telly sometime - yes, there are good programmes on (after all, many of them are shown on British telly too) but the amount of utter irredeemable tripe is enormous and far outweighs the good stuff (at least on terrestrial). One very good reason that there is no licence fee in the States is that nothing being put out on the terrestrial networks is worth it.

  We have a TV in order to watch Star Trek. That's about it.

• Tuj - HTML
  To recap:

  1. I created this for no reason
  2. ...other than to see how it looks
  3. ...and I'm impressed!
• Rosie - This and that
  (Raak) Your logic is impeccable, but possibly does not address the practicalities. The footy on R5 is good because they never pretend a poor match is good. I have even heard Michael Green say "this is dreadful". So you get the truth, more or less. So the radio gets left on R5 sometimes and I turn it on and get all this crap I mentioned. The same can happen in the car. (Bob the lower case dog) Dreadful sorry - will be more careful in the future. Like your crabs, but could Thrax and I please have some of those F****** LOBSTERS.
• ZK - it's all rather good
  I feel I must make a stand for Blode.
• Bob the dog - More Blode
  Much more Blode and other stuff here. Some of it is quite rude. My favorites are Big Pants Treking and The Beatles.
• Bob the dog - Even more
  Oh yeah, and We Like the Moon and Mark Larma, Gerbil Farmer. My all-time favorite flash animation is this one.
• Bob the dog - Hmm, try again
  My all-time favorite flash animation is this one.
• rab - Nudge
  *nudges Btd in the direction of the 'Preview' button*
• Chalky - ... interruptin' Flashing Bob
  [Bob] hauling you back ... I don't think that IS David Icke smiling on the crab. I thought he'd been swallowed by the 'globe of destruction' that is the bizarre workings of his mind, but it seems not. He's on the telly as I type.
• Chalky - ...again
  I'm working at home today. Well, I say that. I'm really trying to figure out a sign-writing [by hand not machine] job for my local pub, whilst keeping a close eye on the short-term weather forecast [snow on Monday]. OK - in reality I'm faffing around on here with the ITV1 in the background. It's ever so cosy :-) OMG - D Icke is completely barking ...
• Bob the dog - Icke it is in the real world
  David Icke used to be a harmless nutter, but now seems to be spouting dangerous anti-semitic messages. He believes that we are governed by reptiles from space under the title of the 'Babylonian Brotherhood'. He believes that the death of Pricess Diana was a sacrifice to the gods (by the Windsors, Spencers and Al-Fayeds) and that presedent Bush (amongst others) attendeds ritual baby eating sacrifices. We'll he is possibly right there. (To any American air-port officials who may wish to arrest me, that was a J O K E ok?). He hates the Freemasons who have this to say about him.
• Inkspot - sequal No 5
  rab] following Nina posting over on Orange, would you be willing to host the film review forum and putting Anni-Verse-Ary Game to bed?
• rab - Etching
  [Inkspot] I have etched my response into an Orange.

  Mind you, the Verse game has not really caught on... so its replacement with, erm, something would probably be A Good Thing.

• Dunx - Replacements
  [rab] We haven't had Mornington Dictionary for a while (that is, definitions for made up words rather than new definitions for existing words). Mind you, that's usually hosted at MCiOS...
• Dunx - Stupid Bugger
  Of course, in offering that suggestion I was neglecting to notice that the 2002 Mornington Dictionary game is, er, still going on MCiOS.

  Forget I mentioned that.

• ZK - Hyakugojyuuichi!!
  I, er, don't get it.
• Inkspot - More white plastic bags
  rab] strange that about the verse game not catching on perhaps people prefer to 'add-a-line' to make it more of a participation game, rather than the whole verse as set out. There we go live and learn.
  I know story games have only a limited base of followers, but again see if it floats, Short Reverse Stories, each about 5-15 moves of approx 100ish words, if it sinks ... it gets killed off and gets replaced.

  Meanwhile over at Daq Towers, the hamsters have been busy, I had been expecting x_sugarbabe_x, at the top, but keeping it in the family its Chalky as No1 over at Celebtity Mornington Crescent, and will DrQu+xum be ready to take over next week?

• Chalky
  Just registering my annoyance - the Verse Game has been ditched after only a week! All this to make way for a load of film chat, eh? Which just happens to occur in MCiOS, eh? [and is a very fine game - believe me, I'm not knocking it] So - if commenting on some other person's 'work' takes precedence over our own poetic/literary endeavours then so be it. I'd obviously read it wrong.
• Dujon - Anniversary, Birthday, Cessation
  I thought, Chalky, that it was only meant as a temporary tribute to the first birthday of the site. Maybe I misinterpreted something along the way. No, I have nothing against a verse game of some sort so please do not take that comment the wrong way.
• Toby
  Is there some way we could meet in the middle on a new verse game? I like the participatory nature - it's fun to watch something twist away - but maybe something where it isn't limited to one line, and also maybe not limited to one particular verse form. Whoever starts declares a form - either specifically (e.g., Petrarchan Sonnet) or by establishing a rhyme and metre scheme, and puts out as much as they feel like. That way, anyone feeling truly inspired can provide a complete chunk for us, and the dullards among us can trip over 5 feet of iambic pentameter.
• widey - Invite to everyone....
  To visit my bands home page,sign the guest book and listen to the free tunes! http://www.papalazarus.com Have a funky day!
• Bob the dog - You're my wife now...
  widey] Happy boppy stuff! Did the name come before or after the League of Gents?
• Chalky - ... ooh
  Sorry I came over all stroppy-like last night with my little rant. Of course, it IS possible to carry on playing the Any Verse Game 'below the line'. Simple solutions like that don't really register after a skinful :-).
• Breadmaster - Shape-changing reptiloids
  [Bob the Dog] Interesting stuff about Icke, although as I understand it, the charge of anti-semitism seems to be unfair - I believe that what happened is that people heard him ranting about alien lizards running the world and thought it was his offensive way of referring to Jews, when in fact he really did mean alien lizards and wasn't talking about Jews at all. All the same, it seems very odd to me that everyone's response to David Icke is that he is a weird nutter who is beneath contempt, rather than that he is clearly mentally ill and needs help. This is what happens when you play sport, you know.
• Breadmaster - Correction
  I meant, of course, "Bob the dog", with a firmly lower-case noun there.
• widey - Oi Stop thief...........Papalazarus
  we nicked it from the LOG but it happens to be Duffers middle name!!!!
• Bob the dog - I wanna ride my Icke
  Breadmaster] I think one of the things that fascinates me about DI is that he has been like this for so long. That is not to say that people with mental illnesses only have it for a short period, rather that he is being taken so seriously and that no-one has managed to get him any real help.
• Raak
  [Btd] Perhaps he's actually the front man for the real conspiracy, who maintain him in public view to spout lunatic theories as a camouflage and to draw likely recruits. Their agents go covertly to his meetings, get into conversation with other people there, and when they suss a likely prospect, tell him that of course Icke's crazy, how the world really works is such and such, and do they want in?
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Gathering more net space to self
  I'm sure I've seen most of the stuff listed above before (Moon song, crab whotsit etc), the total randomness of the Internet is so fantastic, it's unbelievable. Things like sqa.com really underline the total iognorance of some people (8-/). The Google directory has some truly laughable links. *sigh*
• Dujon - User names
  For some time I have been pondering over the use of long names on MC sites and their attempt to dominate the screen, disrupt the eye and generally just be a bloody nuisance. Now I know. See here and scan down the list of the territory tyrants. ... :-)
• Dujon - Grrrr!
  Link faulty: Try this one. ... ;-)
• ZK - Oi, Googolplex
  Much as I admire, revere, and love the name which nature or some other kindly creature has bestowed on you, is there any chance you could change it to a shortened version or acronym? What with it stretching the browser and all....
• DrQu+xum - Name Controversy
  Wow - this is the biggest naming controversy since The Two Jonathans! :)
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - It was I!
  [Dujon] That Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg and I are one and the same: I have e-mailed the M.E. in the past and managed to get both myself, and a friend (Elmon the King Slug of Bangladesh) portions of the world. Ask her, if you don't believe me. Oh, and have you seen the quotes page? [ZK] Thank you, you are a lovely grovvely indidvidual: are you related to Chalky? ;-) I loathe it when people type my name as an acronym. If you must shorten it, make me "Googolplex" as above.
• Bob the dog - My name is too long too
  Welcome Googolplex, I like your full name. I have often wanted to shorten my own for the sake of easy typing, but is Btd funny?
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - We're on at the same time!!!!!!! What do I do?
  [Bob the dog] I don't know whether you're being sarcy or complimentary! I'm the only other person I know who has that effect on people (although, not on the net). Now I'm so confused! Btd could be funny; it depends what you make of it.
• Bob the dog - The written word...
  Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg] - [sorry I got it wrong first time] Ah ha!
• rab - Help!
  A help page has been added, and it contains a link to DrQ's reference. If anyone has any improvements to the text, let me have them. The same goes for the various buttons on these pages too.
• Toby
  [Bob the dog] No, yours isn't.
  [GtABGfL] Particularly on this site, where the font is bigger than MCiOS, it's a teensy bit annoying. And no, I'm not related to Chalky or ZK or Dujon...
• DrQu+xum - Info page
  [rab] Much obliged for the link . . . and you forgot BPMCF ;)
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Oh, noooo....
  [Bob the dog] Stop with the mind games!!!!
• Zoological Keeper (for that is my name) - Bob the dog
  I've been meaning to ask - why don't you have dog as Dog? Is it some grand mystery of the universe? Or is there a simpler explanation?
• Bob the dog - Deepdarkmysterysofthemind
  ZK] When I first started on !York I used my real name - a very odd and silly thing to do, especially as I have an memorable name and at that time was in a high profile job. So, after an announcement of my intentions, I changed my on-line identity. After a short trip as Roobiroo, I became Bob the dog, named after my brothers dog, Bob. My brother has a dog, not a Dog - and as I am really playing on his behalf, I am very careful not to abuse his very well-earned doggy title.
  Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg] I am not related to Chalky, ZK, Dujon or Toby either. If that helps.
• Projoy - high-profile job
  [Btd] According to Google, you are the Head of the CIA's clandestine service and Deputy Director for Operations. Or is farming more in your line?
• ZK - It's all relative
  And there I was under the impression that I was related to all of you...now, I'm just confused!
• DrQu+xum - Relations?
  [ZK] You must be from West Virginia! ;)
• Chalky - name calling
  [GtABGfL] That's the second [or maybe third] time you've accused me of grovelling. I was being polite when I kindly requested you shortened your name for the Doubles Game in MCiOS, simply because the truncated nature and content of the entries in that game makes for ease of reading. Scanning down the page, which is part of the fun, becomes impossible if diverted by the swivel-eye effect of your long name. As you have now decided to expand your activities into Orange MC and here, I shouldn't be surprised if you get further polite requests to 'wind yer neck in' ....
• Rosie - monicker inflation
  Wind yer neck in, Goo-Boy. It's a visual irritant.
• DrQu+xum - Nom de ploooooooome
  Indeed. Recall that my handle is an abbreviation as well. It's short for DrQuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
  uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
  uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
  uuuuuuuuuuuuuuu....
  
  [to be continued]
  
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Necks
  [Chalky] Sorry if I offended you, i tend to get stuck on ideas from time to time, but it's a fair enough comment. In games like that, I may well relinquish my title and stick with my name: is that fair? [Rosie] Dearie, your sentence is so irritating, it should've arrived in a yellow bottle with "Harmful Irritant" on an orange background with a huge black cross on it. Don't call me "Goo-Boy" and I'll start making changes. *sob*
• snorgle - Goat-boy
  Is that better? Stop being so obsessive, or I'll get the whip out!
• Bob the dog - Pin the tail on the donkey
  Projoy] Ooo arr!
  
• rab - Aesthetics
  In the interests of aesthetics, excessively long monikers are auto-truncated on the front page. [DrQ] grr... formatting...
• Bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbcccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff - fff
  ggg
• st dogmael of the house of Cunedda, the son of Ithel ab Ceredig ab Cunedda Wledig - Googolplex the amazing balancing goat from luxembourg
  AT first I thought that our ruminant luxembourgeois friend's name was somewhat irritating in it's length. Now however I like it and would be most upset and sad if she (for I believe that the "goat-boy" is indeed a she - I remember these details) were to revert to a simple Googolplex (or Euro Goat or whatever). I do have a question though - are you in Luxembourg now ? Indeed are you even actually from luxembourg ?
• rab - Wonders why he bothers.
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Effiminancy
  [st dogmael of the house of Cunedda, the son of Ithel ab Ceredig ab Cunedda Wledig] *Ah bliss*. I'll come back to that. [snorgle] You are a darling, but that kind of aggressive flirting, isn't for me. [st dogmael of the house of Cunedda, the son of Ithel ab Ceredig ab Cunedda Wledig] Check Orange MC for a little evidence.
• The master of bread, Spagirist of yeast, duke of all things bready, and Trismegistus of the marvellous rites of cream of tartar
  St Dogmael could of course shorten himself to Toel, the name by which he is known in some parts of Brittany.
  I've been amazed by some of the gender revelations of recent weeks. !York used to have a "who's who" page, didn't it? We should reinstate such a thing.
• flerdle - yeah yeah, shoot me down now...
  I too find that long names, when used constantly, are very annoying, and would like it if people could stop using them. Not that you will, as evidenced above. Games end up cluttered and difficult to scan, which puts me off playing them - it's too much effort to avoid the bandstanding (not that anyone would've noticed any absence, but so be it).

  I thought Googolgoat was a good alterative moniker (as seen on MCiOS), which keeps the essence of the name while avoiding initials. Oh well, I'll shut up now.

• flerdle
  And I apologise if I offended anyone, but I'm having a rotten couple of months. *shuts up properly, now*
• DrQu+xum - ...a continuation...
  ...uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu....
  
  [flerdle] Keep talking, please!
• snorgle - goatiness or otherwise
  re: goatboy - as I typed it I had a sneaking suspicion, but I figured what the hell! I bet she's not a real goat, either.. [st dogmael of the house of Cunedda, the son of Ithel ab Ceredig ab Cunedda Wledig]*cracks whip*
• rab - Grrr...
  Let's put this in words of one syllable shall we: long strings of text with no spaces fuck up the formatting. Don't do it.
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Who's got my mascara?
  What evidence is there that suggests I'm a woman? [snorgle] You absolute beast you!
• snorgle - sex (either or)
  I dunno. I blame dogmael. *thhppppptttt* So, are you a goat or not?
• Bob the dog - January blues
  Cheer up flerdle! Do you want to hear about my bad day? My car knows that I have to be in Cumbria tomorrow. It also knows that I'm running low on ££ as I have not been paid since December. My car hates me. So over the weekend it decided to have a tantrum. I tried everything to fix it, but it was a big expensive alternator problem I couldn't do anything about. So, having wasted most of my weekend I got up extra early to drop my car at a garage and arranged with 'notMrs' the dog to borrow her car for the trip to Cumbria. We then discover that her car won't start either. What is worse, as she steered it back into our parking space, the open door jammed into a neighbours wing and badly dented it. The neighbours car is a brand new Audi and the neighbour has just been round to tell us that repairs will cost £500. Of course insurance will cover it but we loose our no claim bonus and have to pay the first £100 repair. Plus our premiums will go up. Add a two-year-old with a raging cold and an eight-year-old coping with loss of hamster, liberally sprinkle with my own grotty mood because I’m on a diet and you have a recipe for glumness. Plus the weather forcast for Cumbria is very scary. Flerdle, you are not alone!
• Chalky - Poised Goatliness
  Thanks for compromise [ref. Doubles Game :-)] and for the record, I couldn't give a flying fart whether you're male/female/hermaphrodite/single cell amoebic/whatever - so long as your postings are witty/clever/funny/educational/thought-provoking/etc. thereby compelling me to read them when I sign in and see the name on the index pages. I'm a huge fan of some of the regular posters in this elite community - but I wouldn't dream of naming names .....

  *sympathy hugs* for flerdle, rab and Bob [whose simulpost I've just seen]

• snorgle - insurance
  No, your NEIGHBOUR has to pay the excess and then he claims it back through his insurance, from your insurance! Don't let him tell you otherwise! Unless you mean your own excess, of course - but I didn't get the impression that you damaged your car that badly..
• Bob the dog - Things that go bump
  Nah - 'notMrs' the dogs car is fine. So the neighbour who so kindly came round to tell us it'd be £500 has to pay excess does he? Thanks snorgs.
• Bob the dog - The good news is
  Yey! I've lost 5lbs!
• Chalky - The Incredible Lightness of dogs
  [Bob] I say, well done! I went on a wine diet over the weekend and lost three days.
• Kim - Going spare?
  Has there been any recent discussion about what to do with the vacant plot? I'd love to see a revival of "Ye Crescent Morningtowne" from Orange a couple of years ago.
• son of Ithel ab Ceredig ab Cunedda - all sorts
  re:Goatsex] I am sure that it was admitted by the goat at some time recently, when a link was posted to a site with manga cartoons or some such. Maybe that was just a strange dream ?
  Bob] Sounds messy. Did the wee kiddo have a birthday ? Many happy returns from me and tell her I said to get over the hamster and move on. Tell her to buy a Giant Tortoise next as they live longer and she will in all likelihood lose interest in it long before it shuffles off it's mortal coil. ;o0
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Actually, I'm a Great Crested Grebe
  [Chalky] Hmmm, that list sort of limits my potential posts to the "etc" range. [son of Ithel ab Ceredig ab Cunedda] You pipped me to the post! And no, my gender is not revealed at Hunter's Glade.
• st d - Hunters Glade
  GP] No - but I am sure I remember you mentioning your gender when you posted that link.....
• st d - memory not that good
  though as I cant for the life of me remember WHERE you did post that, I can't go back and check....
• Chalky - e-pilg tonight?
  I might be around after 9 pm ... any ideas for a theme?
• penelope - theme?
  Bread and Circuses!
• Toby - hugs etc.
  [rab] I noticed the auto-truncating on the front page, darling - thank you.
  [Bob the dog] Well done, you. That's the kind of weekend that would put five pounds in beer calories on me....
  [flerdle] sorry it's not getting better. *hugs* [pen] What does that mean?
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - No, my gender isn't there either. Where did I leave it?
  [st dogmael] It was "Read any good books lately?"
• DrQu+xum - Abbr.
  [rab] The name doesn't abbreviate on the non-CSS page...not like that matters, really.
• snorgle - Bob the dog - done to excess
  Hah! Your stupid neighbour thought he'd save money on his insurance by upping his excess, and now he's trying to get you to pay it! Trust me, ring your insurer and they'll confirm it. (so will your neighbour's insurance company). I used to get that all the time in my last job - people thought it was unfair(once they had a claim, not before when it was cheaper, oh no!)that they had to pay money when the accident wasn't their fault. But it is possible to get car insurance with nil excess, just more expensive. Your neighbour will have to cough up the dosh himself and wait till his insurance company can claim it back for him. Tough donuts to the cheapskate!
• rab - Abbr
  [DrQ] Yeah, the ugliness is less extreme there.
• Tuj - Not Tu+xuj, though that's nice DrQ :)
  Cor, you fall asleep for a week, and when the prince (well, I'd rather a princess, but I was asleep at the time) wakes you up your mile behind the times. Reading back three pages worth of conversation was great fun though!
  [Btd] A blast of positive karma to you, or whatever equivalent you'd prefer. Maybe an Indian takeaway.
• rab - Juggles
  Btw there's some acrobatics in the chat room just now.
• snorgle - jiggling
  well there was, at any rate.
• penelope - Bread and Circuses
  [Chalky] Someone famous said it - it's the formula to keep the populace happy, I think. I'm sure Google can help.
• ZK - As luck would have it...
  Hoorah for my degree! (er, the one I'm presumably going to have in 3 years' time) That was Juvenal, in his satire #10...
  
  "A body that used to confer commands, legions, rods and everything else, has now narrowed its scope, and is eager and anxious for two things only: bread and races."
  
  Circenses being the latin that can refer to a race or a circus (because of the arena, which was a circuit). Of course.
• ZK - Oh yeah...should you so wish
  "nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses."
• Rosie
  (GtAMGfL) I love "Dearie". If only you knew.
• Projoy - Bread and Circi
  [pen, Chalky] It was Julius Caesar, wunnit?
• ZK - bread and circi
  *coughs loudly*
• Bob the dog - Its sunny down here...
  Apologies for sharp exit on epilg last night, something went wrong with my connection. Off to snowy Cumbria soon. I may be some time..
• snorgle - circuts!
  It wasn't just you, Bob. It fell over, but got back up later! Nice act, though.
• Bob the dog - Big topple
  Perhaps my act was the show stopper. That’s the last time I do the canine cannonball!
• Breadmaster - Juvenile humour
  I can't think of Juvenal without recalling the programme that was on TV about him a few years ago. It consisted primarily of Stephen Fry wandering the crowded streets of London in a toga, scowling at everything. Personally I think that anything that brings that about has to be a good thing.
• st d - insurance excess
  snorg] I think you are being rather unfair on bob's neighbour. Most people (I imagine) envisage car insurance as covering them for accidents with people they do not know and for large amounts of money. Now Bob is in the unfortunate position of having just had his car cause damage to his next door neighbour's car in an incident that seems to be 100% the fault of !mrs. bob. Admittedly the "man from Audi" coming and knocking on their door does not endear me to the neighbour, but but but the fact remains that bob has to live next door to these people. We do not know what bob's relationship is with them(good/bad/nonexistent) or what kind of people they are. Certainly though I think it is unfair to criticise them for trying to save money on their car-insurance. I would advise bob to simply give them his insurance details and apologise profusely maybe even give them some wine etc. If they ask for any excess he should say that their insurance companies will deal with it - after all that is what they are there for. What I would envisage happening is that bob's insurance company will pay the claim, and that the excess will actually apply to bob - because the neighbour is actually not using his insurance - other than to deal with bob's insurance company. Hopefully this will all resolve very amicably as I am sure it will and the little two year old will get over her cold and the weather will clear up and flerdle will wake up full of hope joy and love and the eight-year old will go on to be elected RULER OF THE WORLD and a new regime of LOVE and KINDNESS will prevail and humanity will evolve to a new level of peace and understanding and this will all be looked back upon as a fond memory in a happy and distant past.
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - It's a "B" isn't it?
  [Rosie] What is the "M" for?
• Chalky - the bright side of life
  [st sunnydog] I'll have a glass of whatever you're drinking :-)
• st dogmael - Googolsex (The Amazing Balletic Ghost)
  GS] having had a look back you appear to have made no mention there at all. Perhaps I just looked at the quotes page and saw predominately female contributions - I think I assumed you to be Anne ? No matter. You shall remain as ambiguous as you desire. Personally I am actually not a Welsh Monk at all, but rather a Seahorse, with no particular amazing qualities (for a sea horse anyway), from Tasmania. I do have a very pretty tail though.
• st dogmael, the tasmanian seahorse with a remarkably pretty tail - what I am drinking
  chalky] right now, Boots® Effervescent Vitamin C, from my "HITACHI Scientific Instruments" Mug.
• penelope - what I am drinking
  I am drinking a Lovely Cup of Coffee (TM) made by our Administrator Christine (very strong with a lot of milk) and a plastic cup of water with which I am necking Tesco's own label ibuprofen due to having the raging monthlies, damn them. It's at this point in the month when being pregnant would seem to be an attractive alternative. Although the end product isn't...
• Projoy - what I am drinking
  Water from a bottle, via Lidl, from Yorkshire. Great slimming drink.
• st dogmael - Christine, strong w lots of milk.
  pen] Has she just given birth ? Does she work out ?
  PJ] From what I remember of you, you ain't got no need for slimmin' drinks me lad.
• Inkspot - Stressed!
  Take some fying lessons from this guy find a chair and have a cuppa.
• penelope - beefy mutha
  [st d] *snigger*
• Breadmaster - Drinking
  I'm drinking nothing but water. I'm something of an obsessive water-drinker, and unable to do anything without a mug of water next to me. This can be inconvenient at times.
  [penelope] I've always pointed out that pregnancy may get you out of the monthlies for nine months, but you don't really escape them as they are essentially all saved up to have in one big go at the end. This observation has helped greatly in my policy of never allowing my chromosomes to get anywhere near the next generation.
• Rosie - M
  (Googolp) M stands for typo, as ever. :-)
• Raak - Drinking
  A substance almost but not quite entirely unlike coffee from the uni cafeteria.
• Watty - Liquidity
  I'm with the Loafmeister on this one - I drink about 3 litres of water a day, although I do like a little fizziness around lunchtime, just to break things up. I have one fruit tea in the morning (usually Pink Grapefruit), and then it's water all the way. In fact I'm off to refill now. The reason for this is tied up with the absence of caffeine from my diet - almost two years now - and the ready availability of water from the coolers. Also, I happen to like the tiling in the Gents, which I get to study several times a day...
• ZK - glug glug glug
  Sing hoorah for orange juice! :)
• Projoy
  Yes, OJ. Water with vitamins.
• rab - Duck me
  I've just received an email inviting me to give a talk at a specialised meeting in April... am slightly dumbfounded...
• Chalky
  well you know what the medical profs say ... if your 'water' isn't clear then you're not drinking enough water ...

  [rab] a 'specialised' meeting ??

• Inkspot - mountain airing
  Chalky] Have you read one of rab's papers on liquid something or other doing some weird scientific whatsit. It's more specialised than the 'The Furcation Game', it would need an Horizon mini-series.
• rab - Specialism
  I would cite the title of the meeting, but then I would fear that google might rate this page higher than the official one, with my cover then blown.
• DrQu+xum - Drink?
  *checks mini-fridge under desk* Dr Pepper, Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke, Mountain Dew, Code Red, Pepsi, Cherry Pepsi, Cherry 7UP, Schweppes Ginger Ale. ALL YOUR POP ARE BELONG TO US
• st d - dr q's pops
  DR Q] You really do work in I.T don't you ?
• rab - Drenk!
  Lemsips, cos of this cold. Grrr.
• Dunx - Fluid Dynamics
  Too much coffee, but quite a lot of water too. Indeed, time to refill now. I hope I don't have to make a fresh pot...

  Unfortunately when we moved offices we lost free pop privileges, and the coffee here is worse. Hmmph.

• snorgle - Dihydrogen Monoxide
  I like lots of water too - good for the skin. Oh, and st d - wasn't that what I said? *is mildly confused now*
• ZK - for a change...food
  I'm currently eating some dairy-free ice cream, which is nice. Tastes a bit like frozen angel delight.
  The campus is surprisingly lacking in vending machines, although there are plenty of overpriced shops for your trouble. No water coolers though - i may campaign to have one installed. Cos I don't drink caffeinated or fizzy stuff if I can help it I tend to get pretty thirsty during the day...sing hooray for Evian. however, water fountains are free....
  
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Biscuits
  [Rosie] So it does. :-P. My Mum's gone bake crazy: biscuits and cake everywhere!
• Rosie - Fluid intake
  I'm amazed by the stuff I read here. Are you all diabetic, or something? I usually have a couple of pints of beer at some pub or other, but if I don't, then no problem, I just do less wee-wee, as one does, or doesn't. Bottled water, I think, is one of the biggest con tricks ever played. Why pay 70p a litre when a virtually identical product comes out of the tap at 44p a ton? It's WATER, for fuck's sake. I find it simultaneously hilarious and depressing how easy it is to relieve people of their money.
• ZK
  In all fairness, yes. But you should taste the tapwater where I live. Ugh.
• Dujon - Water water everywhere
  Yup, I drink a fair bit of that stuff - normally take a litre or two to bed with me (no rude comments, please) and knock off about a litre each night. This, of course, is in the fond hope that it will swill out the liver/kidney/waterworks. ... :-(
• Rosie - H2O
  A LITRE, Duj? That's nearly 2 pints. In bed?? I'd be up every 5 minutes, if you see what I mean, with that. (ZK) When I was working I used to occasionally take a swig of distilled water, just for the fun of it. It was bland and boring, not a patch on tap water, which in these parts is hard as nails and is basically a dilute chlorinated solution of calcium bicarbonate. Rather good stuff, and of course virtually free.
• Dunx - Water, Water Everywhere
  [Rosie] I drink tap water, and lots of it. Fortunately, Portland has rather nice water. My reasons are that I just feel better if I drink lots of fluids, and in particular I run more comfortably.
• Dujon - Indeedy
  [Rosie] Yes, I do (drink water). No I don't (get up every five minutes). I try my best to drink as much water as I do wine. Well I'm buggered if I'm going to drink the stuff with the wine. ;-)
• Chalky - weather check
  OK - so I know it's very British to bang on about the weather BUT - after all the predictions of snow, arctic blasts, etc., it's blooming gorgeous today here in the mid-south.
• penelope - chequered weather
  Here in the outer London 'burbs (last road before the M25), we had enough snow and sunshine this morning to illuminate the undersides of seagulls and bring a brilliance and light to the landscape that we haven't seen since October. But as I write.... it's still freezing and SNOWING!!!!
• st d - Snow snow snow
  chalky] London too is gloriously sunny with nice fluffy clouds. It snowed here (well Fulham and Clapham that I know of) last night though - though not for very long.
  chalky] not really - or at least I didn't think so.
• rab - Arctic Blast
  We had a good dump whilst sitting in the pub last night - nice to leave footprints in virgin snow on the way home. Now it's just degenerated into "wintry showers" so I think the slush stage is imminent.
• Rosie - Having a good dump
  (rab) Do they put fast-acting laxatives in the beer in your local, then? :-)
• ZK - precipitation
  I walked to Uni in a blizzard today. Yay!!! :)
• snorgle - weather or not
  It's been a lovely sunny day in Cardiff, too. A bit nippy, but no arctic blasts so far!
• ZK - sorry about this
  Html is fun!!
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Snow is twee: and tweeness is EVIL!!!
  Especially when someone you don't like is trying to telll you they fancy you.
• Breadmaster
  I was amazed this evening to look out of the window and see a blizzard - with thunder and lightning! Never seen such a thing before. Of course, it is all melting now, already. There's nothing more depressing than melting snow.
• snorgle - How about
  melting snow and a dead puppy?
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Puppies are twee, and I hate dogs
  cf above
• Dunx - Snow Joke
  We've just had a teleconference with one of the presenters wittering on about how cold and snowy it is in New York. Of course, we were sitting there thinking "Woo. We had two weeks of snow and freezing temperatures in Portland and you didn't hear us complaining." Mind you, that could have been because a lot of us weren't in the office.

  [Rosie] It was probably Tetleys he was drinking.

• ZK - And they called it Puppy Love...
  [snorgle] Thank you for making me laugh out loud - I needed that!
• DrQu+xum - Snow? Ye' dun'no th' me'nin' of snow!
  My driveway pile stands at 5¹/₂ feet and growing.
  [BM] We had that during The Blizzard of '93. Comedian Lewis Black once said of that phenomenon: "They don't even write about that in The Bible! And I'd imagine that if a prophet had seen it (after he wiped the poop out of his pants) he would've told us about it!"
• Tuj - Snow...
  It's not much, I'm sure, but it means a lot to us. Building a smow-hamster on top of a car and slecging down the road was fun though!
• ZK - whether the weather be fine, or whether the weather be not...
  We were having a snowball fight and decided to venture out of our courtyard to find more people. There was a bunch of boys having a fight down the hill and we saw something they were obviously using as a sledge, so we asked them if we could have a go. They said, "Yeah, but be careful - it's the door off our fridge!"
  I can't imagine how they ever planned on getting it back on...
• Chalky - exciting weather
  [B'master] We had that here - in the very 10 minutes that I chose to walk from my house to the pub. Blizzard AND thunder & lightning - Oh, how we laughed!
  [Googol] You're beginning to be a complete pain in the arse. If you don't like the chat, just don't join in.
• Dujon - Puzzled
  [BM and Chalkywhip] That is quite amazing! I cannot recollect ever having heard of such an odd combination, although undoubtedly it happens (not that I'm all that well versed in meteorology.) It must have been a weird experience.
• flerdle - Water water water
  We've had three tropical downpours and some light drizzle in the last few days. Some lovely rain, flooding, lighting, the works. Another due for this afternoon, wheee! The rest of the days have been bright, sunny, stinking hot and muggy.
  Oh, and I'm still here for at least another week. Or two. Or more. This is getting ridiculous.
• Dujon - Queensland catches up with the rest of the world... ;-)
  Hello, flerdle, still stuck? You must be going bananas. (sorry!) Good to see that the Sunshine State has finally matched the rest of the country and installed lighting - it's about time. ... just stirring!
  I wonder whether or not you saw the map produced (I think) by the met. bureau showing the lightning strikes over a 24-hour period during that series of storms which ran over us both? For those who have not, it showed a time-line of strikes - they didn't expand, so I'm not sure if these are only the groundstrikes or cloud to cloud stuff as well. There was a number of 48,000 odd quoted! Regrettably my little patch of dirt received only a few millimetres of precipitation although we did have lots and lots of the light effects and noise.
• Rosie - Snow
  (Breadmaster) Anything more depressing than melting snow? Yep. Non-melting snow. Couldn't get to where I wanted tonight because of it. Snow and thunder is rare - I've only seen it 3 times, Jan 1966, April some time in the 80's, and now. Trust me - I'm an ex-meteorologist, don't drink, don't smoke, make all my own frocks . . .
• Pip - Strangely quiet
  School, that is. Having fought my way here through the 5 mm of snow, I find I'm alone in the place... one other teacher, and not a sign of a snowball-throwing student... Good thing we don't have real snow here!
• Inkspot - torrential snow
  Last night was brilliant, except for driving down the M4 in a blizzard, with lightining. It snowed for no more than 20-30 minutes but that was enough for the boys. When I arrived home they were at the window, all three were excited broad grins on their faces. So in the dark is was snowball fights and snowman building, wonderful fun.
• Watty - Pah
  4 flippin' hours to get home (25 miles) in about an inch of snow last night. This may come across as somewhat curmugeonly, but:
  If you know (because it's been trailed on the news for about a week) that there's snow on the way, put some petrol in your car.
  If you don't like driving in the snow, don't do it. People will give you lifts, there are trains and buses and so on; don't hold the rest of us up by trundling around at 5mph.
  If you're sliding, stop braking!
  When you see a hill, don't stop. Don't speed up. Don't change gear, revving furiously all the while. If you can't get going again in 1st, stop making ice patches; try 2nd.
  Honestly, we must be the most pathetic country in the world when it comes to dealing with a little bit of snow. (Of course, when I say 'we', I mean the southern English. Those of us who grew up in places where it snows quite regularly in the winter were the ones overtaking everyone else this morning - it was wet, not frozen, you... *spontaneously combusts*
• Bob the dog - And you try telling that to the kids of today...
  I had to drive from Cumbria to Stratford-upon-Avon yesterday. Via Birmingham. Set off 4pm. Home at 11.00pm. I managed to avoid the B'ham gridlock, although I was delayed for a couple of hours on the M5. In the circumstances, I think I was lucky. But how I wish I'd seen the lighting storm!
  
  And the poor chickens! They hate the snow and have remained tuck-tucked up in their hen-cot. I gave them extra portions of porridge this morning.
• Breadmaster
  Ah, let's not get into the old "is snow a good thing or not?" debate, which as far as I can see generally splits neatly along the line that divides drivers from non-drivers. As a non-driving aesthetic type I naturally love snow and get very miserable when it goes. And I couldn't appreciate it last night for the 20 minutes that it existed because of a flatmate-related crisis (as usual). One day I shall live all alone in some kind of Arctic permafrost country. With a reliable Internet connection.
• flerdle - waaaaant
  *sobs quietly at the thought*
  36°C here today, and the storm blew out to sea before it could do anything interesting.
• snorgle - annoying flatmates
  [BM]Are all your flatmates attention-seekers? You seem to have a lot of trouble with them.
• Breadmaster
  I do, don't I? Ghastly stuff. They're not attention-seekers though, honest. This one suffers from depression and rather unwisely allowed herself to run out of medication last week, with predictably awful results. Add to this the remarkably unhelpful support for mental health in this country - I took her to A&E (she was really in a bad way) on, I think Friday night, but they were unable to give her anything and insisted that she see somebody on Monday. Quite what she was meant to do for the weekend, on a downer from lithium cold-turkey, was not made clear. In other news, my other flatmate is surviving at the moment, despite being in the throes of an increasingly nasty court case with a certain major organisation currently in the news for its arrogance and intransigence. My other flatmates are moving out and I have to find replacements for them. It's at times like this that I'm glad I work nights sometimes.
• Watty - Let it snow
  [Bread] Not guilty, m'lud. I like snow. I like to look at it. I like to go out in it (sometimes in my slippers); I've even once been out in it wearing less than my slippers. I like watching it fall, and I like driving in it - it's peaceful, and (if you're in a country where they know about driving in the snow) there's a general feeling of "We're all in this together, isn't it fun?" I just don't like driving in it in the Home Counties. I'm currently overhearing a conversation about last night, in which one of my colleagues, who clearly has an automatic car, is relaying how she kept phoning her husband every ten minutes because she was stuck in a snowdrift or halfway up a hill, and she didn't know what all those 'other gears' might do. *sigh*
• Projoy - Taking exception to disprove the rule
  I, too, buck your trend, Bm, but from the other angle, being a snow-hating pedestrian. This makes just as much sense as hating it from behind the steering wheel, if not more: I went skating several times this morning quite unintentionally. But my views on the Englsih Winter are well-known from Dunx' Room 101 game, so I need add no more this year.
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Ok, we'll let it slide.
  I am willing to put up with snow, but having to walk over ice at 8:00 in the morning is a bit much.
• ZK - slippery slope
  I had to run! That was amusing, not!
• Breadmaster - I like ice!
  Wheeeeeeeeeee!
• Tuj - Ice!
  You slide across it for a metre or two into a neat crouching position ready to make the next snowball. Thus speaks the voice of experience.
• Lib - Snow and all things white
  I've just come back from 4 days in Prague (*quiet gloat*). The Czech people really know how to deal with snow and cold things in general, but they do have the advantage of not having so much ice. They just get on with it. Yes, its cold, Yes, snow is a pain in the arse but you can't help it so just get on with things (and drive a bit slower and more smoothly whilst you're at it). Sorry if I'm grumpy, think I've spent too much time with my mother!
• Chalky - grumpless Lib
  You don't seem to be grumpy :-). I'd LOVE to go to Prague and I wouldn't mind going with my mother either. She provides possibly the most enriching and uplifting moments in my life. She is also very reliable. I am indeed fortunate.
• rab - *spare game slot removed due to lack of interest*
• Lib - smiling Lib
  (Chalky) Prague is wonderful. Please visit! I did have a lovely time there and normally things are great between us, just occasionally she gets on my nerves. But I've had a nap and now have things in perspective, I am a lucky littel cresenter to have had a holiday. However being away means I feel a little confused about the Hutton stuff.
• Tuj - *Rab: didn't see it there. If someone comes up with an idea do we get a second chance?*
• penelope - monday night rocks!
  IN a brief chat with Chalky just now, we discovered a new music genre ('Church Hall Rock' - obvious rhymes, twee love themes and heavy guitars) and a new word ('saccentuate', being over-saccharine). And in our Saturday morning flush of creativity, we also thought it would be nice to have some anarchy hit the chat room on Monday night. Just remembering how great rab looked in that long-haired wig from two or three pilgramges ago made me wonder if you lot might be up for a Heavy Metal Night? MC meets Spinal Tap...
• Raak
  [pen] Oh, yes, that wig, are there any pics?
• Bob the dog - Rock on
  Pen] Yeah, yeah, yeah! Sounds good - but can I put in an early request for a Animated Cartoon themed epilg someday soon?
• rab - Wiggy
  [Raak] I sent Dunx some a while ago, but they have yet to appear.

  [All] I may well not be in the chatroom on Monday due to a visitation from my brother; on the other hand, it may not last alnight so I could make a late entry into the charts.

• rab - Oh, and...
  [Tuj] Indeed you do.
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Oh, I see!
  [Bob the dog] Now I understand why I had no idea as to wether you were being sarcy in the "Lying Game": I thought it was some offshot of the "Advice" game on MCiOS. Sorry 'bout that.
• Bob the dog - Big fibs
  Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg] Hooray!
• penelope - Toon Time
  [Bog the dob] Take your pick. What would everyone else like to do? Can I be Musky from Deputy Dawg?
• Inkspot - rassafrassarickarackets
  I'd would come along as Klunk, from Stop the Pigeon, but my Viavoice seems to be having some trouble.

  A return to the top for ffiish , thanks to this weeks special celebrity I'm Jordan Get Me on the Front Page

• Dujon - Cashed up
  Well done, ffish. I have to admit that this last week I simply cashed in and sat. Not being in the U.K. it can be difficult at times - unless one wishes to spend inordinate amounts of time trawling news pages - so my apologies if I have let down the team.
• Bob the deputy dawg - Pick of the Week
  Pen] I can see us getting into a "no, after you!" scenario. But I would like to be Touché Turtle. Or Boo-boo. Or...
• Inkspot - cashing up
  Dujon] I can understand your reasons, and there is no need to apologise, please play a while longer. If you need a rest buy into a couple of long term stocks that will be steady but will hit the headlines occasionally like the Queen or one or more of the Princes, perhaps J-Lo or a movie star like Russell Crowe. Maybe even a portfolio of three or four blue chips, even on a quiet week there will be a payout. Don't do what I foolishly did I bought a solid earner when they were too high, then their stock plummeted.
• Wile E. Qu+xum (Sysadminus Pittsburghus Cricketii) - e-pilg
  I'm all for a cartoon e-pilg tomorrow!
• ZK - Crisis!
  I've just woken up in the middle of my only lecture of the week to discover that while it is taking place in the confines of the institute at the campus, I have been 'happily' dozing back here at my flat. I am going to be in sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much trouble! How did this happen?!
• Breadmaster
  Only lecture of the week? What nonsense is this? Actually, come to think of it, when I was a student I had no compulsory lectures at all, but I still went to them. I'm not sure why.
• Jenny
  Gah, I only turned my back for four years and Mornington Crescent Not At York Anymore is gone! This just will not do...
• snorgle - ZK - lateness
  Say you were ill. Ring up and apologise, and go in tomorrow (or this afternoon) and get what lecture notes you can. You'll be fine!
• rab
  So, did anyone else notice the product placement in last night's Auf Wiedersehen Pet?
• Jenny
  Yes, but I've forgotten it. There was something where I thought "they can't mention that on the BBC!" but, er, no, it's gone.
• snorgle - placing products
  Nope, missed it. What did they show? (BTW, hello Jenny! Have you found MCiOS yet? In case you haven't, just click here to find it. Also tonight from about 8 or 9 pm there is an e-pilg so you can join in if you click on the "Real time chat server" link just under the clock on that page.)
• rab - Things
  Among other things, Moxey was resplendent in an MC5 t-shirt.
• Jenny - product placement
  Oh, no, that wasn't it.
• Jenny - MCiOS
  I dimly remember Parslow actually. Blimey, it looks like Kevan is still around. I have a couple of OMD albums that once belonged to him...
• snorgle - neither a lender nor a borrower..
  Oh, so you're one of those naughty people who don't return albums! (I'd have nagged you to death myself, but maybe Kevan went off OMD) So where have you been for 4 years?
• Raak
  [ZK] Were you supposed to be teaching it or attending it?
• Brendan - Now the truth can be told
  [ZK -- how it happened] I'm not supposed to tell you this, but you ought to know. If you had attended that lecture, you would have met the love of your life and lived a happy life together. However, the son you would have had would eventually grow up to be an evil despot worse than any seen before in human history, responsible for the annihilation of 90% of the human race. Therefore, time travellers from that blighted future came back to last night and laced your drink with large quantities of tranquiliser, ensuring you overslept and missed the lecture, thus averting the creation of that timeline. You may be in trouble now, but think of the far greater calamity that has been relatively painlessly averted.
  Seriously, hope you don't get in too much bother over it. (Assuming an "Attending" answer to Raak's Q:) Do they take a register or is it a small enough class that absences are noticeable? What are you studying that only has one lecture a week?
• Jenny - Kevan's albums
  I deny it! I paid for those albums fair and square. I could have had his old Modern Romance 12"s as well, but passed.
• snorgle - albumming around
  [Jenny]Oh, that's alright then. :) Do you still listen to them?
• ZK - all my friends want to do my course
  {Breadmaster, snorgle, Raak, Brendan] They take a register every week - I have lots to do but it only takes the form of a lecture once, the rest is done in classes (language etc.) I'm doing a Classics BA. As it was, I wasn't feeling well, and told my friend to apologise to my other tutor later today and get everything from that class for me. I caught up on some (apparently) much-needed rest until my flatmate decided that the whole of Birmingham wanted to hear Evanescence and Avril Lavigne at such a volume that you could almost tell what the record producers were eating on the other side of the booth when they were making the song. Yippee.
  But I'm still not happy as my lecture is the only historical input they get every week, and one of our lecturers said that the lecture register is one of the first things that alerts them to the fact that you're having problems with your course...ie that you're a layabout. [Brendan] Thankyou, I needed that. :)
• Jenny - We are the Albumen
  Not that often, but then the same goes for most of my collection really. I'll probably dig them out now.
• Dunx
  [rab] Er... yes, you're right, aren't you? Note to self: pull finger out.
• Projoy
  [ZK] My best excuse for not attending Uni lecturers was to claim I was boycotting them. This did not perturb my tutors in the least, acclimatised as they were to student politics. They didn't ask the reason.
• Projoy
  And really, you know, it's about time they started using webcams to narrowcast the lectures anyway. I've attended several sessions at the University of Washington (where I'm not even a student) via this method.
• Bob the dog - Crashin'
  Something went wrong with my connection to the epilg again last night. Was it a good-un?
• Inkspector Gadget - Watersports
  Not sure how it compares to others, but I enjoyed my brief visit. I'm a bit worried about some of the late night tv programmes that snorgle watches, shocked I am!
• snorgle - piercing
  I was bored, ok? I don't do that everyday, oh no. Not at all. ;-)
• penfold - last night, he said...
  Sorry about my non-participation. I had a chat going on that required all my attention, but I think there *might* be a positive outcome :o)
• snorgle - pen
  Oh good! It sounded like something was going on..
• Pink the panther
  *Mimes well done penf - keep us up to 'date' ;o)*
• Chalky - too late
  Didn't make it back from Birmingham in time to join you - maybe there's a transcript to read?
• roger rabbit - Last night
  [penfold] Sorry I ran out the second you appeared, wasn't really s'posed to be there. [snorgle] I saw bits of that programme too - my housemate was pretending to be 'reading some academic research papers with the telly on in the background' when I came in from the pub. Incidentally, a present from DrQ has arrived, so could you drop me a line so we can organise duplication and distribution (rab at angrycake dot com).
• Wile E. Qu+xum (Sysadminus Pittsburghus Cricketii) - Transcript
  Indeed.
• Bob the dog - Who's pink?
  Bob the dog
  Pink the panther
  I never really got started before it went all pear-shaped.
• rab - Tannoy
  [snorgle] Thanks for your mail - sadly I'm unable to reply as requested cos you neglected to put your desired return email address in. Any chance you could supply the same? Cheers.
• Inkspot - pilg requests
  Last night Lord of the Rings was mooted as a possible theme for a future week, though I think this was just snorgle wanting to dress up as an elf, in stockings and a tight leather jerkin.
• snorgle - national elf service
  looks shockedhowever did you guess?!?
• Ringwraith no. 5 - soooooo...
  How does one get onto an e-pilg?
• Dujon - e-pilg
  [R5] See here. Look just below the clock to see the link to the 'real time chat server'.
• R5
  Fabulous. Ta!
• flerdle - oh-oh
  [Dujon] are you sure you really wanted to tell a Righwraith where to find everyone?? :-)
• flerdle
  gah. Ringwraith, it was
• snorgle - wraith of Bob
  [Dujon]That was a bit unwise, you know. I'll have to draw him away from the ringbearer(whoever could THAT be?).
• Bob the dog - Wraith of who?
  snorgle] Not guilty!
• snorgle - wraithful
  They are all around..
• Bob the dog - Heresy
  I didn't like 'The Return of the King'. Am I alone in this?
• Chalky - RoTK
  [Bob] There has been extensive discourse on that very subject in Orange MC [Chat Game].
• Chalky - N E W G A M E ? ? ?
  May I express an interest here? Any chance of an MC game? I rather like Kim's idea of a couple of weeks ago.
• rab - NG
  [Chalky] Could you remind us what that suggestion was?
• st d - alone all alone
  Bob] I doubt it. I haven't seen it, and have no plans to. I have an aversion to things that become so popular.
• Brendan - Of course, I went to their very first gig in the car park of a sewage farm
  [st d] Just curious; what happens if something you like becomes popular after you started liking it? Do you go off it, or do you think "Yay, it became popular, people have occasional flashes of good taste after all"?
• Bob the dog - Harry Potter? Pah! I knew his parents...
  I think std has a point. Once things become too popular, all of their imaginative juices are sucked out by hype and marketing.
• Inkspot - tarry ye a while in knip
  Chalky] If I may be so bold as to enquire of you fair maiden, whither this be the poste ye didst refer? whilst thou is here, try this Ye Game of ye Crescent Morningtown on Orange
• Chalky - MC
  [rab, Inkspot] Yes 'twas the very thinge ... or Cockney Rhyming Slang MC ...
• Kim - Newgame
  Inkspot's right. My idea for a new game a couple of weeks ago was for a revival of "Ye Crescent Morningtowne" from a couple of years ago. Since then, I've had two other flashes of inspiration mundane ideas.
  Idea 1: "Claim to Fame". First person posts a (possibly actual, possibly fictional) claim to fame (eg "My father once interviewed David Cassidy" (this is true)) and the next person tries to better it in some way. Needs refining.
  Idea 2: Problem page: first person posts an unlikely-sounding "Dear Marge" problem and the next person provides some humourous advice.
  Hey, I'm an ideas man; I leave it to the little people to work out the details!
• st d - popularity
  Brendan] I suppose the example that springs to mind is The Italian Job which is a movie i vividlu recall watching when I was about ten years old, then when it came on TV again when I was about 17 I made sure to tape it. (this will be about 1988 ?) I always loved that movie - then recently (last 5 years) it became the epitome of Clerkenwell Cool, which I found irksome. What is annoying I think is that ten years ago I could have said to someone "watch this movie it is great". Now, it is no longer anything special, which is a shame
  Funnily that reminds me that I watched Charade at the weekend - another film that I love that I had seen a long time ago - tjough one that has not gained the *cult* status of Italian Job. It wasn't quite as good as I remembered which was a little dissappointing - though still it is fabulous.
  Bob] I am not sure if it is the hype and marketing. Maybe. Mayeb I am just a snob ? Its like holiday destinations. As soon as they become discovered my the MOB they lose their charm.
  KIM] but can we ever do better than this :-PROBLEM PAGE - Ask a Navy Seal
• snorgle - LOTR
  I enjoyed the film - although I can certainly see how a lot of people would find the first hour boring. I really feel that this is an excellent interpretation of the book(s) - the story is so extensive, it needed a huge film to do it justice. I don't get put off by something being popular - if I like, I don't care how popular it is, although its annoying when people assume you're jumping on a bandwagon because it happens to be fashionable.
• rab - Ye newe gayme
  Crescente is certainly a possibility; personal problems were solved by Mrs Trellis a while ago on Orange. Meanwhile there's an idea going around at MCiOS at the moment that might be appropriate. Whatever, I'll open my slot. Please, someone, do fill it.
• Chalky - Second Thoughts MC
  I'm sure I posted here about half an hour ago .. ah well. It was along the lines of .. why repeat games which have been played SO well [the Morningtowne link] and surely there's a limit to how much humour/wordplay you can squeeze out of a theme?
  Has cockney slang been played recently?
  Trappist games are fun.
  [St d] Is Navy Seal a one trick pony?
• snorgle - oo-er missus!
  [rab]fnarr fnarr!
• Bob the dog - Way-hey!
  rabsnorgle] Gibber gibber!
• Watty - Game for a ...
  I want to play a game of Superghosts; I just don't think it would work.
• Bob the dog - I am Mr Chirpy-chops!
  I was not put off by the popularity. I have never really liked that kind of fantasy stuff so I did not enjoy the books. Yes, I was conscripted to D&D clubs in my 6th form days - and I do enjoy some intelligent SF (Rendezvous with Rama, The Seventh Angel, Danny Darko), but hobbits never appealed. I enjoy some BIG Hollywood films as much as continental/independent/low-budget/arthouse ones – Central Station being a fave - so I was hoping for some rip-roaring SFX and a glorious ending. 'Fellowship' was OK, a bit laboured on the scenery and a half-hearted ending but enjoyable. 'Towers' was excellent. Full of humour and wonderful effects (although tree-beard was a bit 1970s Dr Who). Nah, the worst of the bunch was 'Return' - overacted, over produced and over here. The final scene was so laboured (filmed in perfume commercial-style soft-focus slo-mo) I was hard-pressed not to giggle. I was disappointed.
  And another thing. I rented a film called Identity recently and enjoyed it. So can we have the "Seen any good movies?" game back?
• rab - Movies
  Books = movies, as far as the 'recently' game at MCiOS is concerned.

  If you see what I mean.

  OK, I'll just stick a sock in it.

• snorgle - hoo hoo hee hee!
  [rab]Ooh, dunno if that'll be enough to fill your slot, though!
• Chalky - 50 ways to .... fill a slot
  1] Put a sock in it. *chuckle*
  I have unashamedly nicked Kevan's game idea [MCiOS chat] which rab referred to earlier. There seems to be some support for it.
• rab
  *wonders how much inside knowledge snorgle has of my slot*

  I take it these ways will be a bit ironical, like.

• Chalky - 50 rhymes
  ... and we have to do the rhyming name bit aswell?
• rab - *mist clears*
  [Chalky] Thanks, didn't get the reference you see!
• Chalky
  [rab] I posted that last [above] as a suggestion and didn't realise you had already started the game off ... so Iwent ahead with the rhyme for No 2
• Bob the dog - Wot makes you think I'm a miserable basket?
  And I was hoping for a Room 101 revival. Sundays! They should go into room 101, along with golf, the film 'Titanic', Paris, powerdressing, LotR, anything New-Age, fake leaded windows, wet cardboard, Bromsgrove, stew, BMWs, motorway service station gifts, nasal-hair, McDonalds, ties, self-assessment tax forms and diets. On the bright side, I have lost (nearly) 1 stone since I started.
• Brendan
  Btd] If I was Paul Merton I'd give you all of those bar the first, fourth and sixth (though I might let "the excessive hype surrounding ..." in). But what's wrong with Sundays? Best day of the week, is Sunday (unless you're trying to travel by train, admittedly). Well done on your success with the diet.
• st dogmael - golf
  Golf is a great game. The problem with golf is the type of people who join golf clubs.
• Bob the dog - And on the seventh day...
  Sundays. Epitomised by that huge expensive waste of time and money, Sunday papers. Like the day itself, they are full of nothing and go on forever. Retail therapy is out of the question as the only shops that open on Sundays (in my area) are the big chain-stores, and they, with no exceptions, are all contenders for room 101. Then there is that dull grey Sunday afternoon feeling when you desperately seek out something to take up your time that has nothing to do with the work you have to do for Monday morning.
  In my childhood, Sundays were often spent at aunts houses, being fed over-rich cake and stewed tea from willow-pattern china to the dead-slow ticking of a Westminster chimes mantelpiece clock. Ah ha! Another contender for room 101, ceramic figurines. I remember having my hair brushed by my aunts. They did it so hard that great hand-fulls of hair would come out. They'd introduce my brother and I to their friends daughters in the hope of sparking childhood romances. When you are eight, that is scary.
  When I was a student, Sundays were a little better. You can take a friend to bed for a whole day. But I'd usually do that on a Saturday and work or do my laundry or visit relatives on Sundays. In my first job I had to work on Sundays. As I did with my second and third. Now I'm self-employed and I should be working on Sundays. I (day of un) rest my case.
• Chalky
  Well I think Sundays are sexy.
• ZK - black sabbath
  Sundays are cool so long as you've done all your work by then.
• penelope
  Sundays are the day for getting out in the weather, getting a lot of fresh air all in one go and having messy hair, because Sunday night is bath night! I tend to be scruffier on Sunday than a Saturday, which is a habit stretching back to when I was a kid, and used to cycle out to my grandparents in the country to spend the day helping my grandad with his horses. Am I the only kid who grew up in anoraks and wellies and never really lost the habit?
• Breadmaster
  [Bob the dog] You mean, of course, the first day. Saturday's the seventh, which is why Saturday is the Sabbath.
• st d
  pen] yes.
• Nik - Sunday tactics
  [Btd] The trick for dealing with Sundays is to get steaming drunk and stay up really late on Saturday night, and thus sleep through most of Sunday, and what you are conscious for, you'll be able to fill with pain, nausea and regret. And then running around washing clothes, pots, etc in preparation for the return to work on Monday.
• Raak
  Sundays are for doing all the work you didn't get to through the week.
• Projoy
  No, Sundays are for sitting around feeling guilty that you're not doing all the work you didn't get to through the week.
• Jenny
  Sundays are for feeling guilty that all the work you did do during the week merely goes to increasing human misery in the long run.
• penelope
  [Jenny] Are you an estate agent?
• ZK - human misery
  [penelope] Teacher, I bet Jenny's a teacher.
• penelope - Allow me to act as medium for the following telepathic message...
  Dear 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue' mailing list member, If you are free on the evening of Sunday 29th February, live in the London area and are keen not to miss the final recording of the next series of Barry and Graeme's 'Hamish & Dougal - You'll Have Had Your Tea', you can get free tickets to the show from the BBC Ticket Unit. See details below. All the best (and apologies if you live too far away to come) Jon Naismith & Janet Staplehurst. GET YOUR FREE TICKETS to witness for yourselves the further exploits of Hamish & Dougal in the final recording of the second series of their hilarious Radio 4 comedy “You’ll Have Had Your Tea” starring Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden with Alison Steadman as their housekeeper Mrs Naughtie & Jeremy Hardy as the local Laird. Fans of their many appearances in Radio 4’s “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue”, will be thrilled to hear that Hamish and Dougal, those delightfully eccentric and frequently misunderstood Scotsmen, are to make a second series of their own radio vehicle. For a rollicking laughter-fest and more jokes than you can shake a stick at come to The Cochrane Theatre, Southampton Row, London WC1B 4AP (nearest tube: Holborn)on Sunday 29th February Doors open 7.15pm - Show starts 7.30pm To claim your free tickets – simply telephone the BBC Ticket Unit on 020 8576 1227 or email radio.ticket.unit@bbc.co.uk or apply online at www.bbc.co.uk/tickets
• Jenny - Woe! Whoa!
  Not a teacher, I work in educational supplies. But I've rather lost faith in the education system recently.
• rab - A good dump
  In my youth, having been a dumpee a few times, I speculated that it was much easier being on the dumping side, since you knew it was coming. When catapaulted into the opposite position, I realised that being dumped is, in fact, considerably simpler, since you didn't know it was coming.

  Why do I mention this, you ask? Every so often I'm asked to review papers for academic journals, and until today I've never had cause to recommend a rejection... and for some reason I feel rather bad about doing so. But then, we can't be accused of falling standards now, can we?

• Chalky - rejection
  [rab] It's what publishers have to do all the time, but still not pleasant to be in the judgement seat. Do you know, or are you likely to meet, this person?
• Breadmaster
  It's not nice to be negative, but then you can't reward bad work, can you?
• Thos
  Or you could reject another - as two negatives make a positive!
• DrQu+xum - Red-inked
  [rab] You'll get over it. Consider it a necessary herd-thinning.
• CdM - can we still be friends?
  [rab] Count yourself lucky that the editors are sending you such good papers. In my field at least, rejection rates in the top journals run 90-95% or so. I certainly have to recommend rejection much more often than acceptance.
• Raak - Nul points
  [rab] It's positively a public service to see that rubbish doesn't reach print. In the past I've rejected several papers for triviality, several for technical slipshoddery, one for outright crackpottery, and one for unwittingly reproducing (but not as well) some of the results from a certain fundamental paper that hardly anyone has read but everyone cites (including the authors of the rejected paper). I assume your refereeing process is anonymous?
• Bob the dog - Too much empathy
  Rab] It is not quite the same thing I know, but I dislike interviewing for the same reason. Up to ten people, probably five of which have high hopes for the job have put in a great deal of time and effort to make themselves presentable and revealed a great deal of personal information about themselves are then put on trial for one position. Nine have to be turned down or 'put on file'. I hate it.
• Raak - Half empty or half full?
  [Btd] Does it work to think instead of the benefit done to not only the successful candidate, but all the other employees of the company (university, etc.) by appointing the right one?
• Dunx - Personal Motivation
  [Btd] My motivator was just that I would have to work with whoever was hired, and I didn't want to have to carry them. But then the last bit of intensive interviewing which I did was for a contractor position, so it was much less about the person and much more about the skills.
• rab - Stuffing
  [CdM, Raak et al] I agree... The number of times I've read stuff that's been published thinking "How on earth did this get through?" means that, having been hit with something like that there is only one response. I would say more, but I fear any attempt at anonymity would go through the window.
• Dujon - Why?
  I would be interested in the opinions of fellow posters - I have thought about this from time to time but I don't think that I have actually posted my opinion.  Why, when our User Names are posted in bold type do we insist on then using HTML tags to match the entry?  To me it really does make the entries rather hard to read.  This does not apply only to this site.  Why do we do this to ourselves?
• Dunx - Confused
  [Dujon] I'm not quite sure that I understand your question - no, actually I am quite sure that I do no understand! What do you mean by "match"?

  If you mean "Putting game moves in bold" then the answer is "to make an actual move stand out from any by play and commentary". That's about the only interpretation I can place on your query, but I'm still confused to be honest.

• Brendan - Ahhh (maybe -- maybe I've missed the point entirely)
  [Dujon] Are you by chance referring to games like Advice, 10,000 Celerity CDs, the various poetry ones, etc. where practically the entire game is written in bold, as opposed to the MC games where having the moves picked out in bold is useful? Would you prefer to see more games take the style of, say, Auckland and 50 Ways, to take two recent examples?
• rab - Convention
  [Dujon] I, too, am slightly unsure precisely what you are asking, but a bit of historical input might be called for. In the early days, there was basically no markup, but this caused a problem as if you simply made the comment "and I reckon we can reach Mornington Crescent in three from here" the game would end. So to prevent this problem, it was decided that the moves should be marked up so the server could work out the actual move made amongst the other text. This has the side-effect that moves are also more obvious to the observer. In non-MC games, early posters seem to set the convention for that game. There seems a general trend towards those games where commentry is inappropriate to be played unemphatically (e.g. Auckland). All this is self-organising however. As to displaying the player name in bold, well, I think it just looks better, and allows you to see more clearly where moves start and end - this is most useful in these chat games. I have a vague recollection that York (at least in its early days) didn't mark up the player name.
• st d - interviews
  I know of someone who apparently used to just take about half the CVs received for consideration and chuck them in the bin, saying "I really don't want to give this job to an unlucky person". Harsh, but amusing.
• Projoy - markup
  (cross posted from MCiOS, after spotting that you wanted us to reply here) [Dujon] There is quite often a legit reason for doing this. Sometimes you want to separate your move from your commentary about your move (as in MC games themselves), so you'd tend only to embolden your actual chosen move, and then refer to other stations which are relevant in italics. If you look at the York archives, you'll see this is a practice that grew up over time. The same thing happened with limericks, to enable the submitted line to be distinct from comments (and heaven knows that's always helpful with some of the scansion round 'ere). It's become useful in other context to the extent that it's now hard-wired in the system to a certain extent, with Dan's advice-o-matic looking for material only that's marked up with b tags. So there's a sort of logic at work there. I suppose we could use i tags instead, but I tend to find italic text just that little bit more fiddly to read on screen.
• Dujon - Yes
  I was referring to the readability of various games. Particularly those where a bold user name is immediately followed by a bold post (which was what I meant - although poorly expressed - by 'matching'.) Given the explanations given by the site owners I now understand that there is a reason for this particular method of operation. I shall now shut up.
• Dujon
  * Please ignore the second 'given' *
• penelope - *ignores*
• rab - Hadn't even noticed it!
  Well, my damning report is written... just ensuring the English is authentically bad so my tracks are covered.
• Bob the dog - Don't publish and be damnned
  rab] You are not un-spellchecking the academic journal you have rejected are you? ;o)
• rab - Tnny
  [Chalky] Ml rcvd, rpns snt. If it doesn't get through this time then perhaps my mail server doesn't like talking to yours.
• Chalky - just two things ....
  [rab] Your mail server likes my inbox :-)

  ... and [Bob] Is the ISIHaC weekend in May still a runner?

• Bob the dog - Well..
  Chalky] Well I hope so. MF sent me some fabulous scripts and there was a great deal of interest initially. I've never been on a pilg and I didn't realised until reading through the posts on Orange that they can be like mini ISIHACs but far less 'organised'. I began to feel like I was being too prescriptive about the whole thing.
  
  The other problem was finding reasonable low-cost accommodation for those staying over. The hotel I first chose quoted £35 per night, but then told me that was per person without breakfast. A twin room with breakfast was priced at £75. Then I tried a pub called 'England’s Rose', 'cos it had real ale, was in a nice location and had lots of rooms and camping space. But when I visited it, it was a full on Princess Diana theme pub and every time I asked how many rooms and what the pricing was I got a different reply. So it was back to the drawing board and now I'm (fortunately) very busy. Fortunately because I've just gone self-employed. I have wondered about a youth hostel - very basic (bring your own sheets/sleeping bag) but very cheap and lots of fun. Any takers?
• JLE
  I'd be happy to stay in a youth hostel. If it's one of those where people share dormitories, though, I'm afraid I have to warn people in advance that I snore...
• snorgle - youth hostels
  Keep in mind - they tend to have curfews - and from personal experience, other hostellers can get very grumpy if you're just 5 minutes late finishing off a shower and getting into bed after lights out.
• Bob the dog - Middle-aged hostels
  Some hostels are party bookable. I'm looking into that. As for shared rooms, I've never been to one that had private rooms, but that can be part of the fun, snorin' and all. Otherwise - its ears to the ground trying to find a reasonable hotel. Has anyone had any experience of conference or group booking?
• Chalky - me
  [Bob] So we're looking for an inn, preferably, with a large enough meeting/conference room and bed & breakfast at a reasonable price [say £30]. West Midlands? Which Saturday did you decide on? How many approx? I ask all this because ... I'm doing a freelance job at the mo which enables access to this very information; also at home I have 24 hour internet plus free UK phone calls. I can't promise anything, but I'll have a scout around.
• Bob the dog - Chalky the star
  Chalky] WMids, cos it is central and we may have folks from Manchester and London - so Motorway access would be good. Saturday 29th May, Approx 15 (but good chance of more). Function room not essential if there is a decent pub nearby that has a spare room. Piano would be nice but not essential 'cos I may be able to borrow an electric one. If you do find something, I can visit to check it out, unless you live in the WMids too!
• Projoy - hurtle
  Oh, a hotel every time for me. Getting too old for Youth Hostel larks. Still if there's a YH and hotel/B&B in reasonable proximity I guess there's no reason for people not to have a choice.
• Projoy - prescription charge
  [Btd] I don't think you're being too prescriptive. I think it'd be nice to try something a bit more organised than usual, and the regular pilgs continue for those who prefer their fun more improvisatory.
• Bob the dog - Pro Joy
  :o)
• Chalky - a splash of cold water
  [Bob, PJ] I'm in South Wiltshire, not so far away and yes - I'm all for hotel accommodation, provided it's cheap and clean. However, it is already evident from certain inquiries I've made, that, being a Bank Holiday weekend, we may be more restricted in our choices. Also, for those that need to travel some distance ... it's a popular 'getting away from it all' weekend = traffic chaos. Just a thought.
• Bob the dog - It comes of having an electronic organiser rather than a paper diary...
  Oh gershplatz, I hadn't realised it was a Bank Holiday. I think bank hol weekends are best avoided so rethink time. Check for dates June 5th, 12th and May 22nd then. Please.
• Chalky - dates
  OK - June 5th is the last Saturday of school half term [although this varies from county to county] so that may affect things slightly. To start the ball rolling - I'm up for May 22nd.
• Chalky - directory enquiries
  ... sorry for multiposting - but can anyone recommend a decent directory enquiry number? I've a long list of possible venues but no telephone numbers and I feel it's better to ring up and establish a basis for negotiation, before checking them out.
• Bob the dog - Yes
  Try the phone co-ops 118 114. It is cheap, quick and reliable.
• Breadmaster - Phone numbers
  I preferred 118118, because I rather liked their ads and their chief executive, when interviewed on TV, seemed a lot more straightforward and fair than his opposite number at 118888. However, I've found 118888 to be far more reliable when it comes to actually finding numbers.
• rab - DQ
  [Chalky] Can't you find these numbers free-of-charge on the web? Sometimes typing the name of the venue (quoted) into Google comes up trumps. Then there's the BT, Yellow Pages and Thomson Local Directories too...
• rab - PS
  I've just watched a video of atoms bouncing up and down on videotape. I wanted to ask the Prof why he's stuck in the 1980's and doesn't use DVD instead :)
• Projoy - The MC un-convention
  I was about to suggest the Hotel Portmeirion, but have just checked the prices and am still shaking and sweating.
• Projoy - transport of delight
  Is there something to be said for having the affair somewhere within reach of public transport, as for those of us who don't drive, taxis can really add a bit of a premium. Possibly (and aptly) on a branch line someplace?
• Chalky - numbers and possibilities
  Thanks all - and yes, rab, I did just that.
  OK - already there's a possibility - Brownsover Hall, Rugby [where the M1 & M6 meet] which is a gothic mansion! Nice people. They can accommodate us on May 15 or May 29 [unfortunately they have a very large wedding on May 22] for a group rate of £35 per head which includes full English breakfast. Also a bonus - NO single room supplements for those that would rather snore privately. There's a choice of two private rooms we can use as well, both near the bar [Boddingtons, Flowers - dunno if they're crap beers or not]. There IS a smallish wedding on the 15th, so we shouldn't be too conspicuous by our jollity. No deposit needed - just a written confirmation from me.
• Projoy
  Cor, sounds great. I'm in for any of those dates.
• Bob the dog - Non fat cat
  Bread] I prefer the phone co-op because it is owned and controlled by its customers. I've had more problems with both 118118 and 188888 than 118 114, and it is cheaper than both.
• Chalky - directions and a pic
  Hope I've got this right.
  [PJ] It's 2 miles from the station - I'm sure someone will pick you up :-)
• rab - Location location location
  [Chalky] Looks like a good venue, eminently walkable from the station (so Projoy won't have to splash out on taxis). Transport links look good to.
• Bob the dog - Brownsover
  Chalky] That was my first choice! Are you good at price negotiation? They did not include breakfast when I asked. I agree, it is a great potential venue.
• Projoy - taxisplash
  [rab] How dare you. I've never splashed out in a taxi! That's just a rumour!
• Projoy
  [Btd] I thought the name sounded familiar, but couldn't put my finger on it.
• Chalky - smiling
  Well I've got to disappear for a while. Can everyone who is interested confirm which of the two dates - 15th or Busy Bank Holiday 29th? .. and [Bob] you have a list of potential players, yes? Just need to know how many singles and how many doubles to book, if we eventually decide on the venue. Blimey - I've turned into a right bossy boots ...
• Thos
  I can do either date. So there! :)
• rab - Dateline
  Me too, I think. [Thos] Look at you!
• Nik
  As far as I'm aware, either date is good for me as well. Hurrah! Where's MCiOS gone (*me goes to look on orange*)?
• Nik
  (Oh, it's back now. Odd)
• Nik - Serendipity
  I actually couldn't do the 22nd anyway - I'm off seeing Bill Bailey that night. Whee!
• Bob the dog - Interest
  The list so far is:
  Chalky (!)-
  Lib* -
  Boolbar* - (possibly - he has not yet responded to my email - his work is monitoring internet use)
  Merlyn
  Projoy* - One of the 'Humphs'
  I’m not John* -
  LotUS* -
  Herr Bratche* -
  Blamelewis* (Recording the event)–
  Martha Farqua* (? - recommended as a 'Humph' has already written a wonderful script.)-
  Unkle Korky* -
  Nik -
  JLE - (Piano)
  Thos -
  ZK (Possibly now the date has changed)
  st dog* (Unlikely, but I think it would be good if he agreed to be one of the 'Humphs'.)
  * I have their email address. If you are interested and not listed, mailme. ISP and Dunx have agreed to contibute towards scripts.
• Chalky - ever lengthening list
  and rab? and you, Bob?
  *slight panic* and more girls please? pen? and the snorg?
• ZK
  [Chalky] I'm a girl. I'll check out the dates.(Angus...not a word now) What exactly's involved at such a gathering? My wit is a much-deliberated thing, it's not quite as spontaneous among strangers...*example* ZK opens mouth: blather bleeble eep...fnar...
• Dunx
  [ZK] Part of the point of this gathering is that the opportunities for wit are more deliberative, since players will have some idea of the games ahead of time.
• Lib - super-plig
  Unfortunatly as yet I can't commit either weekend. At the moment both are free, but I have my brother's fiancee's hen night to factor in (and work). Am trying to get a date decided for the hen night, but am between the rock and hard place till then.
• ZK
  Question also - what kind of age is everyone else? without wanting to be too personal about it all. you can answer within the 10-year bracket of course (20s, 50s....)
• Chalky
  Yes - ZK, I knew you were a girl :-)
  I'm also pretty dumbstruck when faced with new people and situations, but then I'm only 16.
• Toby
  Well I haven't had a holiday in years, and would love to come meet you all and have you laugh at my accent. It isn't hugely likely, but there's a possibility - more for the 29th than the 15th I think - although I do seem to recall Britain being even more expensive than most places.
• ZK
  [Chalky] Are you being sarcastic? I never can tell.
• Toby - Wait!
  They let 16 year-olds drink that much brandy?
• Dunx
  [Toby] ... particularly with the exchange rate as it is. Can't say I'm looking forward to the phenomenal cost as and when I get back to Blighty. Not that I know when that might be, of course.
• Bob the dog - Numbers - format
  Ooops, yes and rab and me. Lib - I do hope you can come! Pen wrote to me to say she will probably be at race meetings throughout May.
  
  Going back to format (ZK + all) - ISIHAC in real life is semi-scripted. The game introductions are scripted and players are warned weeks beforehand of the games they are to play. So - if I there is to be a game of 'late arrivals at the proctologists ball' players are warned in advance and have time to put down some amusing answers to read out.
• Breadmaster
  [chalky] Teachers are getting younger and younger, aren't they? Personally I'm about 65, at least on the inside.
• rab - Yes
  I'm a yes.
• Chalky - why use one word when a hundred will do ...
  [ZK] Sorry, sarcasm or irony doesn't really transfer onto the screen. Although I'm fairly confident with strangers in my areas of expertise [!], meeting in a social context is a different matter, so yes, I tend to blush and stammer. I've never quite grown out of it. Regarding age, I'm relatively new to the Crescent, so can only assume that most of the regulars here are between the ages of 23 and 45, with the hardcore 'originals' in their thirties. But having said that, I know that Rosie and Duj and possibly Software, are older. Conversely, quite a few undergraduates post in here. Perhaps someone who has been around for more than 5 years can correct me on that? As Breadmaster indicated, the wrapping is meaningless - it's what's inside that links us together.
• st d
  ZK] You can be The Lovely Samantha. That does not require any wit, though if a player is late you may have to sit on his seat until he comes.
• JLE - Ages
  I'm 27, and have been playing MC over the net for about seven years now.
• penelope - Humphing
  [st d] You are the scriptwriter for Humphrey Lyttleton and I claim my £5.
  [ZK] I'm in my late thirties, which excludes me from auditioning for the role of Samantha. :o(
• rab - Oldtimer
  I discovered online MC shortly after I discovered the world wide wait web in 1995. At the time I got the impression that most people, like me, were students having (a) a lot of time on their hands and (b) unfettered access to the Internet (this was before yer average Joe had a modem, for example). The fact that the York usage stats dropped dramatically between June and September would bear this out. Nevertheless, I'm a mere 28! (Or is it 29, I've no idea).
• Bob the dog - No need to audition
  I'm exactly the same age as Pen. Regarding Samantha, I have secured a guest appearance by the real Samantha, and the real Sven. Anyone who has been to a recording of ISIHAC will know just how exciting that is!
• LotUS
  Either date should be fine with me as well. [ZK] I'm 23, having played on and off over the last 3-4 years. [BtD] Fantastic!
• Chalky - busying myself
  [Bob] As you seem to have enough on your hands organising the artistic content of the event, are you happy for me pursue the venue booking, administration etc? Also, have we actually agreed on a date? Although the 15th May seems to be popular, I could make some enquiries about the 12th June?
• st dogmael - The Lovely Samantha
  But Bob, when i spoke to the real Samantha she told me that she was doing a charity bungee jump in Trafalgar Square that weekend. She apologised and said that she would think about us playing with ourselves whilst she was bouncing up and down on Nelson's column.
• Chalky
  [st d] outrageous!
• Herr Bratsche - Age before beuaty
  I'm 42, have been playing (mainly MCiOS) for 5-6 years, and listening to ISIHAC for 25! Hope to be there, family commitments permitting etc etc etc
• Thos - Vital Statistics
  I'm 34 at the end of the month, same day as Elizabeth Taylor and Brian Cant. They're both coming over.
• Bob the dog - Lovely indeed
  st d] Ah, yes, but that was before the reprehensible outbreak of vandalism in the city that has led to Nelson being defaced. Samantha has kindly offered to help with restoration, including giving Nelson a bit of head. Sadly, despite her best efforts, Nelson will not be fully erect in time for her jump off, so she will be available to come to Rugby for a bit.
• Chalky - Samantha and Rugby
  Having watched her perform, sheis truly a mistress of the hands-on approach, her ball play is awesome and she can catch a fly-half between her teeth like nobody's business. We could learn a lot from her.
• Chalky - PS
  'That's Entertainment' has just started on BBC2. 140 Hollywood minutes of pure joy [I'll never get anything done now].
• Herr Bratsche - X-Post announcement
  LAYDEEZUNGEMMUN - I refer you all to this page for details of a forthcoming concert - see the "Russian Giants" entry for details. We'll also be repeating the performance in the 29th in Shrewsbury Abbey. For ticket details see here. Thank you for your attention.
• ZK - That IS entertainment!
  Is that the thing hosted by Gene and Fred, or am I imagining it?
• ZK - concerts
  Well, that should be fairly easy for me to get to, I'm at the university. Where is this hall you speak of?
• ZK - typical
  would you believe that's the weekend of going-homeage?
• Herr Bratsche - Youth and experience
  [Chalky] Either you're lying about your age (given your posting about Samantha), or teenage magazines are now to be found on the top shelf!
• Chalky
  [HB] I was a child bride ;-]
  re. BPO - you must be listed in the Current Players List - what instrument do you play?
• Herr Bratsche - Instrumentally
  Bratsche (Ger.) = Viola (Eng.) I'm the one at the top of the list. Are you local?
• st d
  I remember fondly the days when she used to invite me and Steve Irwin to her private estate in back-country Australia. How she used to enjoy having me deep in her bush as we both watched Steve playing with his snake.
• ZK
  Ooh my friend plays the viola!
• Chalky - translocation
  [HB]You're principal viola then? Oh I say. I'm about a hundred miles south, but I occasionally work in Brum and have friends there.
• st dogmael - violas
  ZK] Maybe Herr Bratsche is your friend ? Had you considered that ? How spooky would that be ? I am a 94 year old woman.
• ZK
  [st d] Well, I had my suspicions...
• st d
  ZK] that I was 94 ?
• ZK
  Yes.
• Breadmaster - Uninteresting tidbit
  I have a very good friend who is a viola player. For years she did quite literally nothing else, but now she diversifies by also playing jazz double bass, which I consider to be a step in the right direction.
• Dunx
  Did you hear about the gangster string quartet? They were charged with extracting money with violins.
• Nik
  [ZK] I think I'll be 27 by the time of the Pilg (based on a gnawing suspicion that I'm 26 at the moment).
  Should Lib end up being unavailable (and public transport ends up being undesirable), I'd be happy enough to drive Northern types down. My car fits 4 passengers, in theory, and I have no reason to doubt it. As for playing a part, I think I'm best suited to propping up the bar and providing a laugh-track. And some vulgarity, if you're all unlucky.
  [rab] The parser is getting HTML wrong, if I'm not mistaken - or is it deliberately replacing < with &lt;?
• Nik - DeHTMLification
  Aha! It's the preview, it seems.
• ZK - celebdaq
  [DrQu+xum]Who on earth do you own?? Here am I sitting raking in a veritable tabloid pittance....
• Rosie - Viola players
  (Breadmaster) There is a cruel joke amongst muso's thus: "What do you call a viola player with Grade V1". "Gifted".
• ZK - ah, viola jokes
  What's the difference between a trampoline and a viola? You take off your shoes to jump on a trampoline.
• ZK - there's more!
  A conductor and a violist are standing in the middle of the road. which one do you run over first, and why?
  The conductor. Business before pleasure.
• Herr Bratsche - Ha ha ha ha ha
  [ZK] If you want the full set, see here. Also has links to jokes about other musicians.
• rab - DeHTMLification confusion
  [Nik] Do I take your second post as a kind of "everything's ok" or is there some "feature" I should investigate?
• Lib - Old and wise?
  [Thos] 34 on the 29th february? So, that'll make you 136 in real terms! Well done old man for hiding your age so well!
  [ZK] There's a few viola players hiding around the crescent. I one of the very ametuer ones.
• Lib - Young and foolish
  And at times I'm also very ametuer at spelling and English. *blushes and hides cos of stupidity*
• Herr Bratsche - Middle fiddles
  [Lib] If you apply sufficient pressure to JLE's gonads he will also confess ...
• Lib - Shrewsbury
  [HB] I knew there was a few of us! We will take over the world. Can I ask why Shrewsbury for the second concert. Its a lovely place but doesn't often get good concerts. (Its my home town, and according to my driving lisence I still live there!). Personally I think St Mary's church is a better concert venue, but the Abbey is lovely too. I will encourage my mum to go and watch you.
• Herr Bratsche - Shrewsbury Abbey
  [Lib] Why? Why not! As for the venue, many moons ago we used to do a concert anually in the Music Hall. However, audiences were never good, and the management became less and less helpful, so we stopped going, and were never there for aout 10 years. However, venues come and venues go, and we found ourselves with a gap in the schedule, so approached a number of places, and Shrewsbury Abbey was (a) the right sort of size, and (b) had a helpful attitude. We went there for the first time last year, and got a respectable crowd, so will try again this year.
• ZK - viola jokes
  [HB] Where did you think I got them from? :)
• DrQu+xum - The 'daq
  [ZK] I bought a ton of Jordan well before IACGMOOH2 (Can you say £10+/share dividends for three weeks straight?) and picked up a ton of Janet Jackson the moment her tit hit the screen.
• ZK - master of the boobiverse
  ah...clever plan. i think I just didn't own enough Jordan...although she did pick me up a nice little dividend this week.
• Thos - Natal Days
  [Lib] Actually, my birthday is 27th of Feb. However, I am 136 as you state.
• Projoy - Caesar salad, anyone?
  [Lib] Thanks to misreading, I now have a wonderful image in my head of you hiding the cos of stupidity. Is this for when you have no lettuce after your name?
• Thos - Limericks
  I'm not one to complain usually, but frankly the scanning of the lines in the Limericks game has really dropped off recently. I know others have mentioned it there, but some people seem to be revelling in some truly poor versifying (and in one or two cases actually doing so deliberately, I rather think). I'm offering no solution but I must say when I see a bad line being posted, I don't want to play.
• Thos
  [Chalky] I originally misread your comment: 'That's Entertainment' has just started on BBC2. 140 Hollywood minutes of pure joy as "140 minutes of Projoy".
• ZK - Just getting it off my chest
  I hate auditions. I'm terrible at auditions. I've just been cast as a dancer in Much Ado About Nothing because they couldn't be bothered to find me a part. How am I meant to get any other parts on the merit of this performance? I can't dance! A day for rejection, obviously...hmph. Casting directors really get on my tits, and believe me, that's quite a complaint....thankyou for you time.
• ZK - 140 of Projoy
  submit it to Channel 4! You'll make a fortune! :)
• DrQu+xum - 140 Minutes of Projoy?
  [Thos] I don't think BBC2 and the bulk of the British populace is ready for that. ;)
• rab - Slimericks
  [Thos] We could close the limericks game, I guess.
• ZK - nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
  I love limericks! can't we just ignore the bad lines and carry on? I think maybe we could impose a new rule that if you have more than one line you want to play you can, cos sometimes I have the perfect pair and can't use them. Please please please keep the limerick game! I'll be good!
• Nik - DeHTMLification
  [rab] The preview appears to translate < and > to &lt; and &gt;, therefore breaking HTML tags thereafter posted. Eg <br> becomes &lt;br&gt; in the preview, and hides completely in a posting after that. If that makes sense. Sorry, I've been in the pub since 1pm, since I was accredited by Microsoft in C# Windows development, and the situation isn't improving now I've reached home.
• Nik - DeHTMLification
  ...except it's not doing it now. Bugger.
• Toby - limerickety
  It does appear to have been hijacked, rather.
• Projoy - Nothing simpler...
  140 minutes of Projoy (as played by Peter Miles).
• Thos - Arf
  [PJ] That blows, Gabriel! Blows! [Rab] I would never advocate closing a limerick game, unless we opened another. But certainly it's a bit much at the moment...
• Bob the dog - And the third thing is..
  Two things. First of all if a game is to close, how about Missive Trellis. Its been good but has slowed down considerably...
  
  Secondly, Chalky - YES - I'll happily still co-ordinate the script writing and stuff if you can take on the organising of the hotel accommodation I'd be really grateful - email me (at the above link) and I'll send you the email contact details I have so that you can confirm numbers and make bookings. *Thanks*
  
  Thirdly, I have to mention this. I've just watched a film on DVD called 'Belleville Rendezvous'. God it was wonderful. Please go out and rent it now - or better still buy it. st d if you are reading this - you'd love this film.
• penelope - Bellvillious
  Chalks, darling, it was on TV on Xmas Day, and was the best bit of TV over the whole holiday. Ruddy marvellous, eh?
• widey - if you have a few mins to spare or your bored!!
  Have a listen to my solo effort at http://cornerband.com/html/bandPage/bandPage.asp?band_id=1035276 and have a very funky day................
• rab - Ein Test
  [Nik] I can't reproduce what you describe so this must be a brow^ser th^ing or perhaps some bizaree HTTP anomoly.

  [Bob] Saw Belleville at the cinema, would have enjoyed it more had it not been missold. Maybe I should see it again sometime.

  [All] Improve yer limericks, or the grim reaper will reap his rewards.

  I've been drinking, does it show?

• Nik
  I'm currently planning on meeting the current celebration by going to Rockworld some time after I wake up today. Should anyone in the Manchester area fancy meeting up for a pint, my mobile number is 0776 26 141 70, or so my phone would have me believe.
• Nik
  [rab] I can't reproduce it either, but then I've no idea how I produced it in the first place. It will probably have to go down as One Of Those Things.
• rab - Rockworld
  [Nik] I'll engage in a consultation exercise before I commit myself, but I'm definitely interested.
• Herr Bratsche - Shrewsbury in the Spring
  [Lib and others] I must have been having a brainstorm - the BPO is playing Shrewsbury in April, not February, and our second performance of the "Leningrad" symphony is in Leominster Priory Church, Herefordshire. I've turned up to concerts without my DJ before, but I've never turned up to the wrong church ...
• Mr Sackbut (Rosie) - Gigs
  (Herr Bratsche) BPO, eh? I'm impressed. No, seriously. But no need for DJ's when you play jazz - just the Big Band T-shirt and the right reading glasses (at my age anyway). My band, Force Ten, is at the Mick Jagger Centre in Dartford on Wed 10 March. A mixture and jazz and swing, some of it quite contemporary and funky. (rab) I'm with you on the limerick-improvement thing; some of them have been totally chaotic, but how do you propose to implement the death threat? :-)
• Chalky - ... catching up
  [Bob] I'll mail you sometime over the weekend :-)
  [PJ] Joyous stuff indeed - was that the birth of your moniker?
  [Thos (fellow Piscean) and limerick fans] Subtle and not-so-subtle hints regarding the metre seem to have little impact - pity, because the ideas are amusing and original. I, too, would hate to admit defeat by recommending closure.
  [pen] That sure was Entertainment. MGM ruled. Have fun today ;-)
  [rab] It didn't show. The drinking.

  Thought for St Valentine's Day:
  'If we let romance go,
  We change a sky for a ceiling.'

• Herr Bratsche - Joy unbounded
  [Chalky] Projoy appears to be the author (under his real name), and is playing Gabriel!
• Thos - Projoyful
  [HB] He's a particularly talented fellow. [Chalky] I think we'll just have to wait for the dry spell to end! :)
• Projoy - Monica
  [Chalky] Yes, indeed. I wrote the script first, then, on discovering YorkMC a few weeks later, redeployed the name. Too good a name to waste on just one outing, I thought. :)
• Bob the dog - Ace
  Projoy] Why is Sylvester called 'the Professor'? Is it a non-BBC spin-off copyright branding issue?
• Bob the dog
  Ah - forgive me, I didn't do my homework and read the rest of the site. Excellent interview Projoy, I agree about Barbie.
• rab - Package
  [Bob] Did you get yer package?
• Bob the dog - Bugs the bunny
  rab] Yes thank you! I've emailed to say thanks - but I'd also like to thank Dr Q. I have just reached into my grab-bag of superlatives and find I have run out. You are both extremely kind, and I hope to repay you some day.
• Bob the dog - What's Opera Doc?
  Oh my giddy aunt! Tears of mirth!
• DrQu+xum - Die Tüns
  Don't you think What's Opera, Doc? should have won an Academy Award? The producer at the time (Eddie Selzer) didn't have it considered. That and Hare-Way To The Stars were considered two of the best cartoons ever (both Chuck Jones-Maurice Noble-Mike Maltese creations.)
• Bob the dog - Hare Wagner
  I thought Opera did win an award - but perhaps not an Academy award.
• DrQu+xum - Whaddya expect in an opera?
  [Btd] It was #1 on the 50 Greatest Cartoons of All Time.
• Bob the dog - A happy ending?
  Deservedly.
• Néa - Greatest cartoons
  Opera is wonderful and so is Rabbit of Seville... but for me, nothing will ever beat One Froggy Evening.
• st d - belleville
  BtD] I saw the last 15 minutes of it at Xmas and loved the animation. Will catch teh whole thing one day I am sure. I like your "st d if you are reading this" it made me feel like a hostage or a missing person :o)
  I have just spent the best few days. We had our annual awards on Thursday, presented by Jack Dee who was very funny indeed ("this is the first time in a long time that my audience has had more money than I do" - our main sponsor was BENTLEY - they had their new CONTINENTAL GT on show, and sold THREE !!!! (£120K) - anyway - that was a 6am night, then was in gay paris for a 30th on Saturday which turned out to be possibly the best party I have ever been to. Full of lovely people all wearing something pink. What a great idea - the whole party co-ordinated. Photo heaven. ;o)
  There you go. Pretty dull stuff to read about I guess, but I am happy today and thougt I wold share it (its such a rare thing).
• st d - sequiturs
  (i guess that segued nicely from the "froggy evening" post)
• Thos - Cartoons
  I see number 37 is Bimbo's Initiation.
• Uncle Korky - Nouveau Nyder
  Peter Miles, eh? Camp old devil! And what a syrup!
• Thos
  [UK] Are you talking about Peter Miles pretending to be Projoy or Projoy pretending to be Peter Miles? :)
• DrQu+xum - The 'daq
  Did the do divvies early this week? I came in this morning and saw I had £55,000 free....
• Inkspot - cheque is in the post
  DrQu+xum]You were No1 on the League last Friday, I just need to upload the full results tonight. Its a very unusual top three!
• rab - My God.
  Am I still here?
• Breadmaster
  Are you having an existential crisis of some kind?
• Inkspot - More divis
  And finally we have confrmation of DrQu+xum at No1 on the daq without even trying!!!!
• Chalky - rab's 'moment'
  *instantly assuming Aunty Chalky mode*
  rabby rabbykins - you are! still here! and jolly glad we are about that!
  er ... is that better now?
• DrQu+xum - The 'Daq
  [Inkspot] *thwap* I've only got 1/5 of my portfolio in the Jorda^H^H^H^H^HKatie Price Dividend Machine; the rest gets shuffled constantly.
• penelope - breaking news
  OK, here's an update on the dating front (as all those in the chatroom on Monday seemed so interested). The Valentine's Date with the mystery Frenchman was great fun and very enjoyable, although a rip-off at £30 per head for a meal that should have been more like £17 or £18. Last night he came round to help me put together a flat-pack desk from IKEA (2 minutes 37 seconds) and we drank too much wine. A word of advice here; don't ever ask a Frenchman for a quick demonstration of what makes them so good at French kissing, even in jest.
• rab - Hereness
  [Breadmaster, Chalky] It was more a reference to my being at work until nearly 9pm last night.... (which was mostly my fault). Of course, cos the posting times aren't displayed on the page (yet) you can't know this :)

  [pen] Well done.

• snorgle - french kissing
  It wasn't really in jest, though, was it? You say "Oh, so, what's so great about the way you French kiss?" really means "Snog me till I can't breathe, you french love god!" Go on, be honest!
• DrQu+xum - Wily Frenchmen
  [pen] But did he steal your kidney? It's a Weebl & Bob reference.
• penelope - I said kiddley, diddle I?
  [rab] I was pretty impressed too. Despite my surprise at how quickly it went up, it's was as solid as a rock!
  [DrQ] Not that I'm aware of...
  [snorgle] my lips are sealed!!
• penelope - reluctant medium (and unwitting cross-poster)
  I'm getting a message from the other side...Advance details of the recording dates in the Spring Series of the programme. Tickets can be obtained only by telephoning the relevant theatre's box office: Sunday 18th April - The Orchard Theatre, Dartford Ticket prices: £9.50, £7.50, £5.50 Box Office tel: 01322 220000. Doors open: 7pm Shows starts: 7.30pm Shows finish: Approx. 10.30pm (TICKETS NOW ON SALE)
  Sunday 2nd May - The Grand Opera House, Belfast Ticket prices: £8.50, £7.50, £6.50, £5.00 and 20 box seats at £11 Box Office tel: 028 9024 1919 Doors open: 7pm Shows starts: 7.30pm Shows finish: Approx. 10.30pm (TICKETS NOW ON SALE)
  Thursday 27th May - The Lowry Centre, Salford, Ticket prices: £8.50, £5.50 Box Office tel: 0161 876 2000 or 0870 111 2000. Doors open: 7pm Shows starts: 7.30pm Shows finish: Approx. 10.30pm (TICKETS WILL GO ON SALE FROM MONDAY 23 FEBRUARY)
  N.B. These are the only recording dates - the next series will be Autumn 2004 and has yet to be arranged
• rab - Is this for...
  ISIHAC?
• penelope - mediocrity
  [rab] oh, the ball couded over before I could see for sure, but there was an attractive blonde with an electronic score card, and a sharpei dog as chairman.
• rab - Hello you
  [pen] Right. Well, I'll probably try and get some tickets for the Lowry show (if I remember to call on Monday). Anyone else interested? (In fact, won't that be around the time of the Bobpilg?)
• Chalky - ISIHAC real or otherwise
  [rab] Subject to confirmation, ISIHACThemeNightRugby is happening on the 15th May. More news to follow :-)
• Projoy - 15 May
  (diaries it)
• Chalky - ISIHAC Theme Night
  CROSS-POSTING
  [rab, Projoy, Thos, JLE, Nik, Lib, Boolbar, Merlyn, I'm not John, LotUS, Herr Bratsche, blamelewis, Martha Farquar, Uncle Korky, ZK, st dogmael] plus all interested parties:
  Just to confirm that I am assisting Bob the dog with accommodation arrangements for the ISIHACPilg. A provisional block booking for twin rooms has been made at Brownsover Hall, Rugby for Saturday 15 May at the rate of £35 per head to include full English breakfast. As Bob is close to the venue, he will be checking out the size of the private function room, after which we can firm up on numbers, etc. I have email addresses of all except JLE, Thos, ZK & Nik. I will use my hotmail address exclusively for co-ordinating these arrangements, so just begin with kedavenport@ if you wish to confirm, deny, join in, etc. Needless to say [but I'll say it anyway] Bob the dog will continue to co-ordinate the Artistic & Creative Content of the event.
• Uncle Korky - Knees-up
  Excellent news, Chalks. I'll pencil it in me diary immediately!
• Bob the dog - the Artistic & Creative Content
  Ooooh Daahling! You make me feel so Artistic & Creative!
• Kim - Err...
  Mini Cheddars has been hijacked. I think someone's trying to spoil our fun - especially mine....
• Chalky - Bob the Amazing Artistic & Creative dog & Kim the gaylord
  [Bobluvvie] Yeah - because I was cross-posting [whilst in a very non-cross mood] it seemed best to reassure the Establishmentors [who probably haven't the foggiest who I am] that as a relative newcomer, I wasn't attempting to influence that side of the event.

  [Kim] I didn't believe a word of it .... :-)

• Dujon - Att'n flerdle
  If you are still about, flerdle, what's the weather doing to you 'up there'?
  It's just after midday here and sitting on 40°C (104°F to you plebs!) Dry as a bone - humidity around the 10 to 12% mark. I note that DrQ and Pittsburgh are enjoying around 8 to 10°C - perhaps all our Nth American friends can go outside and blow south westwards?
• DrQu+xum - Weather
  Latrobe reported 15 today. That'll change in a hurry -- it'll be back to a maximum 0 by Sunday. Snow returns, just as that f**king groundhog said. :)
• flerdle - toasty
  Hey Dujon, am still in Bris. It's currently at least 40°C with about 40% humidity. According to a table I can't find the reference for, this feels similar to about 50°C at your humidity level. Add 8°C if you're in the sun. I'm not.
• Dujon - Fantastic!
  Just happy to know that I'm not the only one, flerdle! My temp has reduced and the humidity increased ... another horrible night ahead I think. (sorry, nights.)
  [Dr Q} Groundhog, groundhog... where do I remember that from?
• flerdle - *melts*
  Yeah, if it doesn't cool off at night time, it's not much fun -- we've had 26-27°C minimum for most of the week.
• Bob the dog - *shivers*
  flerdle/Dujon] We had frost last night. I'll email you some as an attachment.
• flerdle - mmmmm ice
  [BtD] I'd like that; today was warmer.
• Rosie - Thermal excess
  (flerdle) Don't know how you stand it. I record weather (accurately, I used to be in the Met Office, now an amateur) and highest I've had in 21 yrs (and probably a lot more) here on the southern edge of London is 35.9°C on 10th Aug last. The minima at the time were typically 18°C. That was quite enough, for I are rather a sweaty little bugger.
• Dujon - On heat
  [flerdle, Rosie] After my big whinge the other day we finished up with a reasonable temperature by late afternoon, but the humidity (naturally) went up accordingly, so it was an uncomfortable night. Sunday was reasonable temperature wise and the humidity - it actually rained late afternoon and most of the night - therefore quite acceptable. I did however see reports on the news about the continuing heat in the Brisbane area so, flerdle, you have my sympathy. It really must have been quite severe as the report was mainly about the elderly and the young having problems and the incidence of ambulance/hospital attendances.
• flerdle - hotted up
  Yes, I heard (unverified) that at least four people died - I think they would have all been elderly or sick. Reports are that the heat is over, and we'll be down under 30 soon.
  But, by then I will hopefully be in another country. Unfortunately, it is even worse there. Sources say that it doesn't get much worse than this, there, except the few weeks in the middle of summer when it gets into the high 40s. With high humidity, of course.

  Great.

  [Rosie] For Australian weather, you might be interested in the Bureau's site: www.bom.gov.au. I've been following this handy page there; for data from the last three days click on the appropriate weather station. It samples approx 10 minutely, but maxima or minima are sometimes between those times, such as yesterday's 41.7°C at a bit before 2pm.

• DrQu+xum - The other extreme.
  Latrobe, Pennsylvania (at Arnold Palmer Airport) currently reports -5 with broken clouds.
• st d - MINUS FIVE !
  jeeeez - that's colder than Antarctica.
• Breadmaster
  [DrQ] Ah, but that's American. Are they using some weird temperature scale that only Americans understand?
• rab
  [Bm] Are you suggesting that Gdansk was under American occupation during the 18th Century?
• Herr Bratsche
  [Bm] It could be Fahrenheit, which seems to be ubiquitous in the USA apart from within scientific communities. IIRC, -5F is pretty damn cold, that is (does a quick calculation) -20.5 recurring. Brrrrrrr.
• Gusset Login
  [st d] It's late summer in Antarctica.
• Chalky - rising temperature
  Funny thing, this differing scales of temperature malarkey. Last night, in the quiz - one of the questions was "At what temperature do both Centigrade and Fahrenheit read the same?" Could I get my head around that? Could I b*ggery.

  Gusset - I'm SO pleased you like my name for you. I'm equally gratified that you haven't transposed the two words :-)

• DrQu+xum - Temper, temper.
  I meant -5 C, but it did hit -4 F last month....now that was Too Damn Cold™.
  
  [Chalky] -40.
• DrQu+xum - E-pilg?
  It's Monday night and the e-pilg transcriber's awake! :)
• CdM - cold
  I know I have mentioned this before on one of these sites, but I was in Finland just over a year ago, and the first ten minutes of the Finnish evening news was all about how cold it was. They were interviewing people from Siberia who were complaining about the cold. I remember calculating at the time that we were down in the range where it didn't make much difference whether we were talking F or C. (It was down to at least -31C.)
• Breadmaster - Imperialist swine
  [rab] Indeed I am, sir! I wouldn't put anything past them!
• snorgle - double guset
  Nice one in the 50 Ways, Guest Login! Should've been fiftieth, that one. Any ideas for the next lot?
• rab - Straw Poll
  Ladies and gentlemen... just to conduct a straw poll, if the top-left-hand corner of this page doesn't look (roughly) like this:

  

  Could you inform. Obliged.

• snorgle - poll
  Well, mine looks like that little mc5 symbol in a white square on a grey background.
• Inkspot - I came, I looked
  rab]Running IE6 I see the logo is on white background.
• Dujon - MC5 - Whoops!
  Not on my IE or Firbird browsers, rab. I confirm Inkspot's comment regarding the IE6 background.
• rab - Bum
  There's so many people who aren't getting the full smoothness of this site...
• Dujon - Corrections
  I must be going bonkers. The Firebird browser shows a smooth and 'highlighted' mc⁵ logo, whereas the IE shows the same image but with the white rectangular background; sorry for any confusion.
• rab - Yeah...
  It's a (fairly) specific (range of) version(s) of IE that don't render transparencies in pngs. I don't like gifs and I don't know how to set the default background colour of a png. Yet.
• Bob the dog - I came, I looked too..
  rab]Running IE6 I see the logo is on white background too. What was clever was your screen capture insert!
• Chalky - *chuckles*
• Gusset Login
  [Chalky] I don't even want to think about doing that
• rab - More from the bollocks department
  I discover a shiny new magazine in my pigeonhole tomorrow, in which the new university logo' (for some reason, it has a trailing apostrophe in the article) was unveiled. Sadly, I can't track down a website with it on, but it looks a bit like this MANCHESTER with the number "1824" under the gold lettering. Vertically upwards and below to the left we have (on two lines) "The University" and "of Manchester" in a sort of matt grey sans-serif. In case we needed any explanation, here it is:

  It features a simple, but distinctive, typographical treatment of the word "Manchester" that acknowledges the key feature of our brand and the way in which colloquially people talk about universities. ... The positioning of the full university title alongside the word "Manchester" is also a crucial element of the overall logotype, achieving a contemporary and consistent look whilst reinfocing the University's official name.

  Later, we learn that "more detailed information about the reputation-building project and how to use the visual identity will be explained in a special leaflet and website". I will of course let you know when this happens.
• rab
  (apologies for the bizarre timeshifting in the first sentence)
• Herr Bratsche - Money for old rope
  [rab] I wonder which firm of consultants trousered the (no doubt) six-or-seven-figure sum for coming up with that!
• Brendan
  [rab] Ah, but are you in the same situation as Nottingham where it's compulsory to use the corporate identity (and to make sure you're using the latest up-to-date one -- we recently had a wavy line representing the Trent River removed) on any materials designed for outside consumption (eg talk slides)?
• Twiki
  I presume people read about East Midlands airport which wanted to get a new name everyone could identify. It's now called Nottingham East Midlands, despite the fact it's not in Nottinghamshire and the nearest places are Derby, Loughborough and Leicester.
• DrQu+xum - Airport '04?
  [Twiki] Are they getting American flights in? Most of us over here think they're "Durbee", "Low-burrow", and "Lie-cester"....
• Nik - PNG!
  [rab] No IE (on Windows, anyway. Dunno if IE5/Mac works) supports transparent PNGs. [Dujon] There's something wrong with your Firebird if it doesn't support transparent PNGs - Firefox is the way forward, of course. There are actual usability and performance improvements post-0.8.
• Breadmaster - Amazing coincidence! Maybe
  [Chalky] I just noticed your email thingy up above. I used to live opposite a girl called Karen Davenport, about whom I recall nothing except that her house had great pillars at the front. Was that you? Thought not.
• Toby - Chalky!!!!!
  Many happy returns of the day!
• Nik - Firefox
  [Nik] Surely you mean post-0.7 for the last Firebird release, since 0.8 is/was the first Firefox?
• Chalky - replying
  [Breadmaster] I've lived in a few houses in my time and recall that at least three of them had great pillars at the front. Where was it? Oh yes - if you noticed my posting about the ISIHACThemeNightInRugby - perhaps you can give some thought as to whether you can join in? Eh? Eh? Eh?

  [Tobes] thank you :-)

• Herr Bratsche - Yankee doodles
  [Dr Q+] It constantly amazes me that Americans, most of whom speak English as their 1st language, have such trouble with English place names. Especially as so many of them are duplicated in the States. Why, do you think, this should be?
  Actually Nottingham already has an airport! No scheduled flights, mainly freight and private planes, but it's there, nevertheless, and I've been there to see brother-in-law's plane (of which he owns one wing and the rear wheel, or something like that.)
• Brendan
  [Twiki] The impression I got from the little local news I ever watch was that most people in Derby, Loughborough, Leicester, etc. (or at least the ones they bothered to interview), were generally quite p-ed off by the existence of the airport and "if Nottingham want it, they can have it" (apparently believing that the renaming would somehow magically move it somewhere where they wouldn't be under the flight path).
• ZK - Woooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!
  I've got tickets to the concert I've been waiting for! Yes! Sorry, just needed to share that with someone. :D :D :D
• flerdle - lucky you
  At least someone has tickets. *sigh*
• DrQu+xum - Damn Yankees (and I mean the baseball team :)
  [HB] You usually find the more English place names in New England (esp. around Boston.) Another problem is that many names are Americanised so that some consonants are de-silenced and others are eliminated; e.g. around here, North Versailles is pronounced "North Ver-sales"; Baden is "Bay-den"; Cheswick is "Chez-wick"; East Liberty is "E-Slibberdee"; White Oak is "Whairda-helzat". Strange that Duquesne is still "Doo-kane", but there we are.
• DrQu+xum - Other local towns here.
  There is one more town here that's worth mentioning. It's called "SNPJ" -- I swear I am not making that up -- it stands for "Slovenska Narodna Podporna Jednota".
• Rosie - Place-name pronunciation
  (Herr Bratsche) I think you're a bit hard on the Yanks. If there's anything that shows up the vagaries of language it's local pronunciation. For instance, in south London there's Streatham (pr. Strettum) and in Berkshire there's Streatley (pr. Streetly). And why are Ardingly and Hellingly (Sussex) pronounced as if they have a final "e"? Who knows? (Dr Q) Near Mrs Trellis' house is the 58-letter name we all know, but the locals all call it Llanfair PG. (All) Anyone here from Shrewsbury? I call it Shrooze-brie. How say you?
• Bigsmith - Shrewsbury
  (Rosie)Us Bristolians call it Shrowz-brie. And why is Berkshire "Barkshire"?
• Rosie - and another thing
  (Dr Q) In one of the jazz pubs I go to is a vast mural with a map of the lower Mississippi and New Orleans and there is a place on the river called D'Lo (presumably at one time De l'eau). We don't take anglicisation quite that far because we've got places such as Grosmont (N. Yorks) and Grosvenor (London) in which the "s" is silent, even though the names are several hundred years old. (Bigsmith) Yes, why, particuarly as Berkhampstead is BURK, but not Berkeley Square. Re Shrewsbury - two locals I have known call it Shrooze, for what it's worth.
• DrQu+xum - Towns again
  Towns in America often have names reflecting the language its settlers spoke, or occasionally that of the natives who previously occupied the area. Mind you, these don't quite explain some towns just East of Lancaster, PA....
• st d - Fertility
  What a great name. I also like Zook's Corner ! In Tassie there is a Paradise and a Penguin, which I kind of liked.
• penelope - le parking pour le big yellow taxi
  In Saltfleet, Linconshire, there is a Paradise Car Park, with a sign reading Paradise Car Park, No Caravans or Camping. It's unpaved, but it's a parking lot all the same.
• Herr Bratsche - Damn French
  [Rosie] Yes, we can blame the French for dropped "w", silent "s" and all kind of manglings. I say "Shroozebury", btw, but then I also say "Sisister" for "Cirencester", and I may well be wrong about that. I also insist on "Alster" for "Alcester", despite the tendency of south Brummies towards voicing every letter in the name of the main road that I live just off. Bah!
• Herr Bratsche - More Damn French
  [Dr Q] How about "Day Moyn" for Des Moines, but "Noo Orleenz" for New Orleans (refer to Orleans, Normandy for original).
• snorgle - Shrewsbury
  I thought it was pronounced Shrooze-brie, but it seems to be more variable than that. Near me is Caerphilly, pronouced Ku-philly, but then all the Welsh names starting Caer seem to be pronounced like that, eg Caerleon. It took me ages to get them right, and it's probably different in North Wales. I also remember a sea-side village in Fife, on the Forth, called Ainstruther, pronounced Ainster. It's really a plot to make fun of tourists!
• rab - Starter for ten
  Have a go at 'Mousehole' and 'Widemouth' if you would.
• rab - Oh, and...
  while we're at it 'Woolfardisworthy'.
• Toby - I seem to recall...
  renting a car in Dover from a place in the Maison Dieu Road, pronounced "Mason Doo" by the young woman working there. It's not just Americans...
• Dunx - Sense of Place
  Cornish towns are fun, more for the sheer improbability of the names than for the improbability of their pronunciation. "Perranarworthal", for example, is pronounced as it is written, which is in itself surprising.

  Something I read recently in one of Bill Bryson's books (Made In America) was that the spelling placenames was regularised by a geographical names board. One of their more Philistinic acts was to say that all place names pronounced with the suffix "-burg" or "-boro" should be spelt that wayh exactly, and none of this confusing "-burgh" or "-borough" nonsense ("Pittsburgh" was given an explicit exemption).

• rab - Yay!
  Posting from IE on WinXP now, and I note my little fiddle has fixed the PNG problem. More in 'Notes'...
• rab
  (IE users should request a full reload of this page to get things looking - hopefully - right)
• Projoy
  Yep, seems to work from here.
• DrQu+xum - Da 'Burgh!
  [Dunx] The Scottish Pittsburghers of the late 19th Century (notably Andrew Carnegie) decided to "Scottify" the city by adding the trailing "h". It looks nicer to me, and it differentiates us from Pittsburg, Kansas.
• DrQu+xum - Cornish towns
  I had a bit of a laugh the first time I saw the town "Feock". ;)
• Inkspot - Logo
  Yup!
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Last person to know because I'm in such a hurry...
  Many Happy Returns, Chalky. *tips hat*
• snorgle - logo
  Yep, its all grey now! Not that I really noticed before..
• ZK - pronunciation
  And then of course there's Loogabarooga! Bruce. Ah, bringing us to the ever-irritating River Nene. We in the valley always said "Nenn", but then I heard Stephen Fry calling it "Neen" so now I don't know what to think!
• Rosie - Cornish names, etc
  (rab) Mousehole rhymes with tousle, as in hair, but I don't know about the other two you mention. I do know that Fowey is Foy, more or less. But I'm fascinated by Probus. Sounds disgusting. (ZK) If you called it Nenn, then that's it, despite the estimable Mr Fry. Another variation on the burg, burgh, borough ending is of course Middlesbrough.
• ZK - g'day
  Did I say Loogabarooga? I meant Loughborough. There's fun.
• Dujon
  Changing the subject: Would other posters be interested in having some sort of link to either their own sites or to a central site of some sort? This of course would depend on rab's willingness to provide such a link.
  I am only thinking of something basic. For instance, I am building a small (free site) where I can post my details and, eventually, a few pictures of the area in which I live. At this point in time it is very, very ordinary (and may stay the same!) see here. It's amazing how many people I meet on the Internet - usually from places far and wide - who are genuinely interested to see what it looks like where I live. I too have that interest (e.g. I'd love to see Chalky's view of "The Spire", Dr Q's surroundings in Pittsburgh and suchlike.)
  Without wishing to rake over dead coals, there was such a link on the now defunct 'Pants' site and, whilst many did not choose to contribute, it was still quite interesting.
  Silly or just stupid?
• ZK
  sounds like a plan! :) rab?
• Chalky - catching up ....
  [Googol] Cheers!
  [Dujon] Not silly at all. I'm interminably curious about others' home environments :-).
  [ZK] As you expressed an interest, have you made a decision on the Rugbypilg yet? Sounds as though you're not that far away. So far there are 3 girlies who hope to be there - Lib (wahay), pen (wahay) and me. My email address is further up this page, probably now in the 'expose more' bit.
• ZK - Aaaw
  I've just been back-reading. I was rather fond of my white square. It was geometrically sound and neat and artistically separate. Was it never meant to look that way?
• ZK - pilg
  [Chalky] I'm probably free on the date, but I've just splashed out a tad on some concert tickets so I'm not sure I can afford to go. Can I answer that question a few days into March (when I get money)? Plus, what is required of said pilg? I'm not quite sure I'm up to spontaneous wit (is that tautology?) when surrounded by my elders.
• Bob the dog - spontaneous wit
  The real ISIHAC is not really spontaneous wit!
  I had originally planned for there to be teams that will play - but I now think it would best to make it open to contributions from all although there will still be at least 1 compare (a Humph) to move thing along and hopefully a JLE on piano. The evening is going to be one of daft parlour games that all who wish to can prepare for. I'll be letting everyone know what all the games are before the event - if you want to take part in a particular game - great, if not just enjoy other peoples contributions. For example, one of the games I have in mind is "New Definitions for Old Words". If you come up with any ideas, write them down and bring them to the event. A full list of games will be published soon.
• Projoy - Parsons Knows
  *wonders if JLE's brushing up on his rendition of the Minute Waltz.*
• rab - Logi Beard
  [ZK] No, the logo was never meant to be that way... also the Expose buttons looked rather silly enclosed in a white square.

  Um... linkages. Yes, in principle, a great idea. I've been wanting to construct a sort of 'profiles' section that is self-maintaining, which means a fair bit of programming at the outset (consults diary, balks at fact I'm in a show next week which is going to be very tiring) but hopefully thereafter will require no effort from me whatsoever...

• rab
  PS Widemouth = "Wid-mooth', Woolfardisworthy = 'Woolsery'.
• Bob the dog - Show man
  rab] Prey what is your show?
• Bob the dog
  Prey? Pray?
• Projoy
  [Btd] rab's entered the Cheshire's biggest marrow competition owing to a shortage of marrows.
• rab - Marrow entry
  [Projoy] Better than the other way round...

  [Bob] Part of the band for Princess Ida, being done by this motley crew. It's very tiddly-pom-pom type stuff.

• Bigsmith - Hamish and Dougal
  Did anyone catch "You'll Have Had Your Tea?" last night? Best bit was Mrs Naughtie's "cup of tea.....a merangue?"....
• Chalky - just my cup of tea
  [B'smith] Darn - missed it. That was the first of the new series, but it's been scheduled rather late in the evening [11.15 pm?]. We've been in the audience for the recordings of this series so far. In fact I've got 3 tickets for Sunday evening's recording which will be the last 2 of the series. Don't know if I'll be able to make it, though, so if someone in the London area has a burning desire to go [the Cochrane Theatre, Holborn] do shout now.
• DrQu+xum - .
  Bugger! I haven't haed me tea.
  
  [Dujon] My website is mustela.phyast.pitt.edu.
• Bob the dog - tiddly-pom-pom
  Projoy] And I thought he was just pleased to see me.
  rab] I didn't know Gilbert and Sulivan orchestrated the Kazoo.
  both] ;o)
• Rosie - The voice of Pittsburgh
  (Dr Q) Just tuned in to your blog and looked at the piccies. That river looks a bit lively - do you get floods? Over here even a 15-mile piddle like the Darent can stray where it didn' oughta, but in 1996 it dried up almost completely. Your voice doesn't sound quite as American as I had imagined, and very laid back. Is that normal for Pennsylvania? Don't be modest.
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - "Come and meet, those dancing feet, on the avenue I'm taking you to: Forty Second Street!"
  The matinee was a tad disastrous, but today is our first complete performance, with a proper audience and (hopefully) propr sound and lighting. (Save me!) Wish me luck! Or don't, I suppose: I just needed to tell someone!
• DrQu+xum - Floods? Indeed!
  [Rosie] That's the Youghiogheny (pr. "Yock-o-gain-ee", or just "Yock"). That one floods from time to time, and it has flooded twice this winter due to ice jams and/or rapidly melting snow. Same goes for the three rivers in Pittsburgh; The Ohio, The Allegheny, and The Monongahela ("Mun-on-ga-hay-la", or just "Mon"). If you want a look at them, go to one of our local TV station's webcams from high atop Mount Washington. Looking at the fountain at the Point (which is obviously off), the Allegheny is on the left, the Mon on the right, and they combine into the Ohio at the bottom.
  To answer your next question -- the fountain has only been flooded once that I can remember (1996, I think).
• Chalky - musical theatricals
  [Googol] Break a leg! What part are you playing? Or are you an amazing balancing tap dancer? Interesting how many MCers are involved in productions one way or the other. Our society does two a year, the Spring one usually a more traditional or light opera production, hence HMS Pinafore in May. At Christmas we're doing 'Annie'.
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Pat Denning "Hello kid."
  [Chalky] Oooh, funky: my mother's mother is trying to get me to join a society. Is it good fun? What parts have you played?
• snorgle - snowy weather..
  Just to make all you antipodeans jealous, it's been snowing all afternoon in Cardiff, and anyone who lives north of Pontypridd was sent home at about 3pm because of weather warnings. BRRRR! The forecast is for -6 on Monday, sextuple BRRR!
• Bigsmith - "THe weather outside is frightful..."
• Bigsmith - Try again
  [Snorgs] Same here over the bridge in christmas card South Glos, though the bastards' won't let us go home.
• Bob the dog - bright and beautiful
  Stratford - (20 miles south of B'ham, midlands, UK) 17.45. Bright and clear. Not even a breeze. Chickens happy.
• Chalky - winter wonderland
  Salisbury GMT 1803 - has been snowing for an hour or so - it's settling.
• ZK - Tuh!
  [rab] Why is it the University I came to has to be possibly the only one in the country without a Gilberty & Sullivan society? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
• Dujon - Sites
  [Dr Q] Great photographs! Thanks for that. I like your sound blog too. :-) It looks as though you live in a nice green area, lots of trees and houses with yards!

  [rab] Your comments are noted. I was only thinking of a simple link page to which posters might submit their sites through either yourself or a trusted soul (to avoid the obvious).

• Dujon - Cardiff
  [Snorgle] What's your forecast for Sunday? Whilst I cannot make it I've about 30,000 like minded souls heading your way and hope like mad that the weather isn't going to spoil the day!
• Chalky - pissed off
  I dunno - a mere six inches of snow that freezes and it's bleedin chaos here. Most of the roads into Salisbury were blocked last night due to some accident or the other. It took Mr C four hours to return from Bath [usually 40 mins]. This morning? All the schools are closed because 'the conditions are too dangerous for the children'. So all the parents have to completely re-schedule their working day and what are the dear little things doing? Playing out in the .. erm .. dangerous conditions. I was planning to do my party shopping this afternoon so I fully expect all the supermarkets to have run out of food.* mutter mutter *
• Inkspot - snow, what snow?
  Chalky]In north Wiltshire there is nothing not a flake, you could always move to Swindon, very good access to Bath.
• rab - Shows
  On the subject of shows I last night had a dream in which there was a Newsnight piece on Michael Howard accompanied by a tune from Projoy and Thos's Dracula show... Nurse!
• Chalky - talking of Thos .....
  HAPPY BIRTHDAY *hugs*
• snorgle - weather thos
  Happy Birthday!

  Weather for Sunday is sunny, max 8 degrees celsius, but northerly winds so it'll probably feel colder. The nights are clear and much colder - several degrees below zero. The snow in Cardiff melted, mostly by last evening, although it usually does. Cold but lovely and sunny today!

• Dujon - Thanks, snorgle! Great news.
• Bob the dog - the undead
  rab] That was no dream...
• Inkspot - more plain text
  Whilst I carry on with the cut and paste and player commentary, this weeks Celebrity MC as text only. It is always sad news when a player pulls out, but this week we lost two, as both Blob and boolbar left for that great red carpet on platform one.
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Missed cues, ruined the dance, lost my voice: thank goodness there's just one more night to go...
  So tired...so embarressed: HIDE ME!
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Whoops!
  [Inkspot] What's celebrity MC?
• Chalky
  [Googol] Handy eh? This internet malarkey when you've lost yer voice. Hope all goes well for your last night. As for Celebrity MC - just follow the link and work it out :-)
• Bob the dog - Rugby Ball
  Today I got to look over Brownsover Hall, the venue for the ISIHAC pilg. And I'm pleased. It is lovely! We have the use of the study (as long as Colnel Mustard doesn't get there first).
• Bob the dog - 'Colonel'
  Obviously
• Inkspot - more shares
  Googolplex]Celebrity MC is a league of fellow MC players who have invested on the BBC celebrity stock exchange 'Celebdaq'. Once a portfolio has been created, the ID is posted here and is added as soon as possible, the rest is upto the hamsters at daq towers. It is for fun but can be frustrating to keep going each week. Each player develops their own strategy, for my part I have two accounts one day trading the other in long term blue chip of David Beckham. My part is just to gather the results from the Friday payout, cut and paste over the weekend and add a bit of commentary, usually posting here on Monday night before I hop over to MCiOS e-pilg. If you wish to have a join, it will be a pleasure to welcome you aboard. (I have a feeling that I'm going to be kneecapped on Monday again)
• penelope - Bransabre Ball
  I wanno go!!!!!
• rab - Public Service Announcement
  Any ladies in the GMT timezone should be aware they have only one hour remaining to propose. Go on - you know you want to!
• Thos
  [Chalky and Snorgle] Thank you very much! [Rab] Which tune?
• Inkspot - daffodils
  *Waves warm and happy St. David's Day greeting to all*
• Bigsmith - Bolton Wanderers
  Commiserations to Dujon on Sunday's result. It was however a very good game.
• I Say, Porter! - Bolton Wanderers
  As a Wanderers fan I was considerably annoyed at the constant references to Bolton "not having won anything since 1958". Does the Sherpa Van Trophy count for nothing!??! Didn't see the game 'cos I have no Sky dish and surprisingly it was NOT live on Italian telly. Was consequently glued to the PC listening to the 5 Live stream - my girlfriend was concerned at my frequent yelling and table-bashing. We'd have beaten United, Liverpool, or the Arse. We have a tendency to let the lesser clubs get the better of us. Sam is God (but shouldn't really be criticising the referee - it's not nice to mock the afflicted). The Wanderers will return!
• penelope - ring zone
  [rab] So did you get your proposal? Is that what your prompt was for? I ask only because I can't believe you would believe that there's only one day in every four years when a woman is permitted to propose to a man...
• rab - A pocket full of posers
  [pen] That's what I've been told :) Though in my book, a woman can propose any time she likes.
• penelope - dead ringer
  [right] Coming right up... mwahahahaah!
• penelope - Switch brain to 'on'
  That should have been addressed to [rab]... doh!
• right - I accept!
• penelope - Dang!
  Too late! It's March 1st and now you have to marry a daffodil instead!
• Googolplex the Amazing Balancing Goat from Luxembourg - Alive, but too tired to tell anyone...
  [Chalky] Thanks, the second two performances went markedly better than the first: we needed more dress rehearsals really. Luckily, the event was recorded on video, so we'll be able to see what went wrong and where. *cringe*
• Bob the dog - Yackydah
  So wots the epilg dress code tonight? Welsh?
• pwnwylopw - tonight in the chatroom
  [Btd] Yep, it's Welsh alright. See you in there.
• DdrQw+xým - Aendydd it is!
• Dujon - I Say, Porter
  Can't talk here, I'll be howled down. Drop in and have a chat sometime.
• Dujon - Bigsmith
  Thanks. :-(
• Rosie
  (Dr Q) Nid oes dim o "x" yng Ngymraeg. There is no "x" in Welsh.
• Dujon
  [Dr Q] Whilst Rosie is correct, there is a consonant which substitues for 'x' but which is reserved for the Elders (and is oft referred to as a 'gift from the faeries'); they clack their false teeth! .... Sorry, just feeling frivolous.
• Dujon - Bloody keyboard!
  s/substitues/substitutes
• Herr Bratsche - Cymraeg
  Also no "J", "K", "Q", "V" or "Z". BUT - "CH", "DD", "FF", "LL", "NG", "RH", "TH" and one other digraph (can't remember which) all count, so Welsh has a 28-letter alphabet.
• Lib - chocolate cake
• Lib
  Somehow my confused computer managed to submit that without me noticing. It really has a mind of its own.
• snorgle - mmmm...chocolate
  Maybe you did it telekinetically? Are you thinking of chocolate cake now?
• penelope - mmmmm
  [snorgle] Now you come to mention it, yes
• Rosie - Cymraeg eto
  (Herr Bratsche) It's "PH" you're after. It only occurs as a mutation, i.e. a changed beginning to a word, which would otherwise start with "P". In my last post I left out an "h" in Nghymraeg, another mutation, as you can see. Many North Walians cannot pronounce the "zh" sound in words like "decision". It comes out as "sh".
• rab - Dressed for success
  Had our dress rehearsal last night (hence absence from epilg). We're hoping that the age-old adage of "Crap dress rehearsal, good first night" holds true. For some reason, the only bit that got practiced twice was the bows. Something which I find to even practice once a little offensive... *grumble - bloody thesps - mutter*
• st dogmael - sniped !
  Well I suppose it was fair enough because the bid was higher than mine, but it was at £205 with 10 minutes to go, and I had down £275 as my max bid and it ended at £277 - bid placed 15 seconds before the end. Auction was for THIS, with normal and w/a lens I wanted it. With all my being. Oh yes. :o(
  Bob le chien will be happy to know that I am considering coming along to the w/e pilghotel thing and am considering bringing a camera to take a photograph of us all.
• Chalky - So that's where you were....
  [rab] with a nod to St David there was a Welsh flavour about the pilg last night ... and I was SO looking forward to your presence as a WelshRabbit ...

  [std] We'll all be happy to know that you may be coming to the ISIHACThemeNightInRugby :-) You wish to reserve a single room?

• ZK - fun and frolics in Rugby
  [Chalky] Unfortunately I've taken the executive decision not to come as I think I need to sort my life out a tad. But I'd love to hear about it!
• Chalky
  [ZK] OK :-)
• rab - Run rabbit
  [Chalky] I'm sure I would have driven you hopping mad.
• Chalky
  [rab] you'd never do that :-) ... I am much more likely to feel uneasy when nattering alongside *mystery* people who aren't particularly inclined to reveal who they are, Morniverse-wise. It probably doesn't bother anyone else :-(
• Bob le chien
  std] *Happy*
  Chalky] Me too, but only slightly. The fun is in the guessing. But who was that mysterious Bob the Dolgellau?
• Boolbar - Rugby
  Ha, so perhaps I might.
• st d - bobshappiness
  BtD] Its only a thinking about it. I couldn;'t possibly commit that far ahead ;o0. I don't even know when it is ! ZK] Do you not think a weekend surrounded by people all talking nonsense could possibly help inspire you to sorting out your life ?
• Chalky - ISIHAC Theme Night In Rugby
  [st d] Saturday 15 May - just the one night. In my role as Bob the dog's assistant - I booked the venue and reserved a block of rooms. Hopefully a final call on numbers won't be necessary for some time [to date we have about 12 definites and 10 possibles]
• Bob the dog
  std] Ooh you tease!
  Bool] :o)
  Chalky] I'm not at home at the moment, and I don't have your email address, can you make sure that 'The Study' is booked in our name too? And how did the birthday party go?
• Mrs Chalky White - ISIHaCluedo
  [Bob] 'The Study' is now booked - along with the candlestick, the dagger and the lead piping [I'll bring the rope]. We should have access to the Library [via the secret passage] and the Lounge, Dining Room and Conservatory. I hope to be travelling with Miss Scarlett.
  It's got me thinking ... the gothic mansion, the study ... there just has to be a game in this. I shall work on it :-)
• st dogmael - Miss Scarlet
  ..in the bedroom, with the lights on.
  
• Nik - North Walians
  [Rosie] Er. Most North Walians I know/have met while living and visiting there for more than 10 years can say 'decisions' with a zh. (I know, because I asked them. All of them)
• Nik
  On the other hand, most North Walians I've known/met can't speak Welsh (fluently), so eh.
• Rosie - North Walians
  (Nik) That's the reason then, isn't it? I only said "many" North Walians, not all of them, and by implication it would be the Welsh speakers, obviously.
• penelope - Scarletting
  [st dog] !
• st d - pen
  oops ! sorry. Didn't realise Miss Scarlet was actually a PERSON, i thought she was just a platonic ideal.
• Breadmaster
  Didn't sound particularly Platonic to me...
• penelope
  All I put was an exclamation mark...
• rab - Ida thought so.
  Feeling really knackered now, and we've only done two show nights (three more, plus a matinee to go). Am becoming possessed by offensively catchy G&S tunes *do doooo di -- [camp pause] -- plonk -- [another marquee of a pause] -- ya-da-da-da-da, di-ya-da-da-da-da-da-da, di-ya-da-da-da-da-di-ya-di-da -- di - plong plong -- di - plong plong -- ya-di-da-di-daaaaa, continues for 2½hours*. I manage to flush this out before going to sleep by putting on a CD of something... else, but then wake up at 5am with *di-plong-i-plong-i-plonk, di-plong-i-plong-i-plonk* rattling in my head. Arrrrgh!!!

  Anyway, quality update... the first night was a little chaotic. Last night we had a good audience, and having managed to get through the ouverture without a cock-up, the orchestra had a great night. Slight signs of fatigue showing in some of the leads but hopefully they'll have had a good night's sleep and we'll have a top show tonight. I hope so, since it's the night that some of my friends are going...

• rab - Scardy-cat
  Have I scared everyone off?
• Bob the dog - do doooo di -- [camp pause] -- plonk -- [another marquee of a pause] -- ya-da-da-da-da, di-ya-da-da-da-da-da-da, di-ya-da-da-da-da-di-ya-di-da -- di - plong plong -- di - plong plong -- ya-di-da-di-daaaaa, continues for 2½hours
  Which G&S is that? Years ago dad did the sound for a G&S production. He had to time a piece of recorded cello so that it matched the actress playing a dummy cello. It went da-da-da-da-da da daaaaa [camp pause] dar dar da-da-daaaa [another marquee of a pause] da [pause] da [pause] da [pause] da-de-dadada-da-da-da-daaaaaaah. I wonder if it was the same show?
• Bob the dog - Just a thought...
  Is there a game in this?
  Name this classic TV sit-com theme tune...
  Rink-dink-eedinkydink, Rink-dink-eedinkydinky dink dink der, (Boo-ba-boo-berr)...?
• ZK - [camp pause]
  [BtD] Well, you're thinking of Patience. I'm guessing rab's talking about Princess Ida. Bob, is that Steptoe and Son or have I had too much Lucozade? Actually, I can hear the tune in my head but I don't know what show it belongs to.
• Boolbar
  Oooh! The pineapple and courgette might be working . . . .
• Chalky - pinafore's ahoy
  [rab] Scared everybody off?? Ya must be joking.
  I've just got back from a Pinafore rehearsal ... Da-da-DAH-dada-da-dah-dah, da-da-DAH-dada-dah-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-DA-da-da-da-da - [Never Mind the Why & Wherefore] and I can't get it out of my head. Not much in the way of camp pauses and marqueeses but an awful lot of mannered repetitiony bits ... "for that gallant captain's daughter ... for that gallant captain's daughter....and a Lord who rules the water ... and a Lord who rules the water ... "
• Bob the dog - Pineapple and courgette pudding
  ZK] Yes, you win the star prize! Too easy really...
  Another easy one:
  Yinky plinky plink-plink plonk. (pause) Plinky plink plonk, donk donk dinky dink donk...
• ZK - Ooh
  Did I get the G&S right or the TV choon?
  [Boolbar] Around the last couple of times I've posted you've piped up with something cryptic. Is it all coincidence and am I imagining it or are you being cryptic for reasons we're meant to understand?
• ZK
  As Bob the dog seems to have done, in fact (understood).
• ZK
  I wish you could see me at my computer going "Yinky plinky plink-plink plonk. (pause) Plinky plink plonk, donk donk dinky dink donk.." over and over again :)
• Chalky - yinkyplinky plonking out loud
  [ZK] same here :-)
  [Bob] Dad's Army?
• Chalky - getting it wrong
  [Bob] nah ... can't be Dad's Army ...'cause that goes Whoo-doo-doo-dooh-dooh-doodoo-doodoo-Hitler!
• ZK - plinky
  [Chalky] The key's obviously somewhere in the "dinky dink donk," but it's not coming to me.
• ZK
  And it's not Eastenders cos there aren't enough pauses...
• ZK - Ooh (again)
  You know, I've just noticed something. The top 10 shortlist for best british sitcom are the ones that traditionally use(d) incidental music rather than pop songs. *makes a mental note and goes on to write a smash hit*
• Bob the dog - Whoo-doo-doo-dooh-dooh-doodoo-doodoo-Hitler!
  Chalky] That had me spluttering into my fizzy water!
  ZK] Boolbar is referring to a conversation I was having with him by email. He has a doglet that has a tendency to (SENSITIVE PEOPLE PLEASE AVERT YOUR EYES) eat its own poo. Apparently, if you feed the dog pineapple and courgette it stops doing this.
  Re the tune - it is Eastenders - not from a sitcom(?!). Probably one of the most easily recognisable and yet irritating pieces of TV intro music ever. Apart from The Bill. Anyone fancy having a go at Doobeedooing that one?
• Bob the dog - Can I have the bill please
  The Bill:
  Nick! [pause] Nick nicky nick nicky ner-ner-ner nick [breath] ner-ner nick nicky nick...
  Here is another police one. Ner-ner-ner, ner-ner ner ner-ner, ner-ner-ner, ner-ner ner ner...
• Raak
  I got Steptoe, but I've never heard a single episode of The Bill or Eastenders. So here's one that no-one else is likely to have heard, except for gil, if he's reading here. A long-running series in its day.

  Dee dee dee, di-dee, di-dee dee dee,
  Dee dee dee, di-dee dee deeee,
  Dee dee dee, di-dee, di-dee dee dee dee,
  Dee dee dee, di-dee dee deeee.

  And yes, how about creating a new game for this?

• Raak - Oops
  That should be:

  Dee dee dee, di-dee, di-dee dee,
  Dee dee dee, di-dee dee deeee,
  Dee dee dee, di-dee, di-dee dee dee dee,
  Dee dee dee, di-dee dee deeee.

• Chalky - Bob's ner ner de ner ner
  [Bob] That's Z Cars yes?
  [Raak] I need to have a little dee-di-dee to myself before I can hazard a guess at yours. Am intrigued to know why only gil might know that [meaning I'm really fishing for a clue]
  New game? Name That Tune? Can we kill Mrs Trellis?
• Chalky - Raak's dee dee
• Chalky - ooops - hit the enter too early
  erm ... Is that Z Cars aswell?
• Bob the dog - Z
  Z cars indeed for me and I think for Raak too. New game on the wayhey!
• Nik - Beefy
  The cpu fan in the server has been sounding increasingly self-destructive over the last couple of weeks. [waffle] The machine will be taken down for a bit, when I get the new one or it pre-emptively keels over.
• rab - Ida thought so again.
  [ZK] Congrats on Ida, though I did leave at least one or two big clues... Meanwhile I'm slightly surprised, but pleased, to see what this show has spawned. *oof headache* Last night's show was not top notch, and given that we all went on the piss afterwards (including the traditional boat race - oh yes, I really did need to down that pint) tonight could be very interesting. We're going to try a gauche orchestra arrangement tonight, so that the cello "section" won't have its back to the stage... what this means in real terms is I get to feast my eyes on lots of eighteen year olds in tights and short skirts. Yay!
• Raak - Z-Cars
  [Btd, Chalky] Yes, didn't notice Btd had done it. I didn't think there were that many of us here old enough to remember Z-cars, unless there's been a rerun or revival in recent years.
• Chalky - classics
  [Raak] I remember it well, probably because as a child I lived in Germany with no TV so when we came home 'on leave, I hungrily absorbed any British TV programme whatever its quality. It's all sort of crystallised in my consciousness. Although, having said that, there's loads of stuff I missed. My other half, who is a few years younger than I, can remember EVERY kids TV programme AND its theme tune. He is much in demand for music quizzes and suchlike.
• Bob the dog - Old!?!
  Raak] I'm only (very) late thirties. I remember Pogles Wood in black and white, Patrick Troughton as Dr Who, The Wooden-Tops, Robinson Crusoe every summer holiday, the Singing Ringing Tree...
• Raak
  [Chalky, Btd] Late 40's here. I always think of Z-Cars as being 60s, although it must have gone well into the 70's, but I more or less stopped watching TV about then, except for stuff I actually wanted to see.
• Bigsmith - Telly
  [Bob the dog] I'm right on your wavelength, and wouldd add Tales From the Riverbank with Hammy the Hamster, and NEW episodes of Dads Army!
• Bigsmith - ".....I get to feast my eyes on lots of eighteen year olds in tights and short skirts. Yay! "
  [Rab] ..and that's just the blokes!!
• st d - 18
  rab] you are a lucky lucky man.
• Uncle Korky
  [Chalky, Btd, Raak] Mid-thirties, so I'm very jealous of anyone who can remember watching Pat Troughton in Doctor Who on original transmission. Other childhood memories include Rentaghost, Ivor the Engine, Mary Mungo and Midge, Hector's House, Noggin the Nog, The Sweeney, Blake's Seven and Swap Shop. I am also proud/sad (delete as applicable) to be able to recite the preambles to Hong Kong Phooey and Camberwick Green, and the closing words to Bagpuss.
• Herr Bratsche - 42 ...
  ... is the answer. Old enough to remember 2nd Doctor clearly, 1st Doctor vaguely. Miss "Magic Roundabout" very much indeed.
• Dunx
  [UK] We appear to share a brain, or at least that part of it relating to childhood reminiscences.
• Bob the dog - Everything goes shimmery
  I was born the year before the Beatles released Revolver. I remember an article on the radio about them splitting although it didn't make much sense at the time. We had a hippy lodger who used to play me Ummagumma by Pink Floyd when he was babysitting and I couldn't sleep. I used to get tuppence ha'penny pocket money when I was 5 - enough for a bag of Walkers Crisps.
• Lib - household appliances
  ....moving on from telly to other things sold by Curry's. Does anyone have any opinions as to what makes a *good* gas oven? Or does anyone have a particularly favourite fridge? I need to buy this type of thing and haven't a clue where to start!
• Inkspot - more Dujon
  Musically I was born in the year Duane Eddy released Peter Gunn, not that I remember it except a couple of years ago someone gave me a copy of the 45.

  Breaking News!!! Dujon is No1!! a great result not seen since august last year, *throws several tubs of confetti into the air.*

• Inkspot - something broke?
  rab]There should be two links in the last post but the on for 15 august does not appear.
• Bob the dog - White goods
  Lib] Go for the most expensive brand you can afford - Bosch is my favourite - you get far better customer support if things go wrong. Never buy because of add-on features you'll never use. Go for the lowest energy rating possible (A is the best). Never take subscribe to add on insurance - most appliances are covered for two years regardless. Shop around - and don't be scared to ask for a best price. Happy shopping!
• Nik - Dixons Group plc
  [Lib] You can probably get a fridge better than you'd expect, for less than you'd expect, by hunting around the sole-proprietors and small chains. I much prefer not shovelling my cash at the known retail brands these days - same or less money, same or better service. And fighting the power, man. Admittedly, it's not so time-consuming to hunt through the small local types when the town and outlyings of Northwich aren't much bigger than <pick a sub-area of a sub-region of Manchester>. The theory that because Dixons Group is huge you get better post-sales service is invalid - Dixons has one of the worst reputations, and it's major competitors (ie Comet and Argos) aren't a great deal better. Sorry if I'm repeating common knowledge - it's always worth repeating.
• Dujon - Daq & missing link
  Thanks all for letting me climb to the top once more - I thought it would never happen. ... ;-)
  [Inkspot] you typed 'hef' instead of 'href' in the missing link.
• Rosie - Children's TV and other things
  I was already nearly 16 (1958) before we had a telly, a thing the size of a wardrobe with a screen of several square inches, so I never watched kids' TV; just never been part of my life. (Dujon) Congrats on being top of the whatever-it-is; I don't do that one. I see from my weather browsing that eastern Oz is now very sweaty indeed, but not for long, probably. Take it easy, mate, you're not as young as you used to be, now, are you, goo' boy? (All) If you've absolutely nothing to do next Wednesday evening and are within a gnat's crotchet of Dartford, come along to the Mick Jagger Centre. Our band (Force Ten) are playing, starting 8 pm. A mixture of jazz, swing, funk, Glenn Miller-type stuff plus a very good female singer. Cost you £8, some of which will land up in my back pocket, I hope. Some tickets left, so I'm told. Hmm!
• Lib
  [BtD and Nik] Thanks for your words of wisdom. House purchase is delayed (grrr) so I won't be buying for a while (I've already got a sofa being delivered, which is kinda problematic as I've got nowhere to put it). Why is housebuying so infuriating?!?
• Nik
  Don't I know it - buying the place that now contains angrycake.com took almost *six months* after having my offer accepted. I'd had a cooker, fridge/freezer and bed bought and sat in warehouses for most of that time, having somewhat foolishly thought it'd only take the few weeks I was told it would take.
• Dujon - For Chalky, 'cos I now she'll know what I mean.
  I just missed (well most of) 'That's Entertainment' on the local television. Unfortuanately it was on in opposition to the local F1 race in Melbourne - another one of my weaknesses (that's the cars, not Melbourne). Why can't the TV stations advertise that sort of stuff instead of some 'Z' grade movie in prime-time? I AM UPSET. I know, my fault; but if I'd realised I would have recorded the damn thing, as I don't have a copy filed away. *sobs - goes misty eyed after seeing the last 30 minutes and leaves with the full intent of getting rotten.*
• Dujon - The 'k' key on my keyboard, or perhaps my fingers, is/are in trouble.
• Dujon - All right - it's the misty eyes. ;-(
• Inkspot - seeing red
  Dujon]The race was repeated here this afternoon, I had high hopes fo Mark Webber, but only to be dashed again by reliability of the Jaguar. I would like to see him replace Montoya in the Williams. Would he beat his prospective team mate the petulant Ralf Schumacher? yes! without a doubt.
• Dujon - Green with envy
  [Inkspot] To be honest (re Webber) I don't know. The media here tends to be so biased towards anyone with an Australian connection that it's hard to pick the facts from the hyperbole. No doubt he's a good driver, otherwise Jaguar would not be using him (apart from the money which he may have brought with him!), but it's an interesting thought.
• Z.K. - The 'daq
  Yay! I've been millionaired again!
• Bigsmith
  [Dujon/Inkspot] Webber is indeed a top talent, with a great ability for doing good things with less than the best equipment. Our post race pub discussion on Sunday lunchtime centred around the (not totally unlikely) possibility of a Williams dream team in 2005 with Webber and our own Jenson Button on board.
• rab - Plinkaplonka
  Managed to wake up without Princess Ida in my head this morning, so my sanity may shortly be restored (well, whatever sanity I had to begin with, anyway). The last night was fun, what with the substitution of a packet of cigars for some handcuffs, some banter betwixt lead and orchestra, and a plan to give the MD a brown-trousers moment in the last number which came off beautifully...

  Oof! Back to work...

• Bob the dog - A wandering minstrel I
  I'm not going to be available to come to the e-pilg tonight - but how about a Gilbert and Sulivan theme..?
• Boolbar - Minstrel in the gallery.
  Me Cryptic? No. But the pelican has no tomatoes.
• Bob the dog - Chocs away!
  Bool] I think our cryptic postings have scared everyone off. Good job I didn't mention the bonfire that our neighbours are having in their swimming pool (no joke). The smoke is making the chickens sneeze!
• Darren
  Hello everyone, it seems I can get into MC5 at last. Whether this is just temporary or not I don't know!
• snorgle - **waves at darren**
• Nik
  Hooray! Can you email me another traceroute output please?
• Darren
  Well, I'm still here but paradoxically "tracert" now says "Destination net unreachable" after the first entry!
• snorgle - it's quiet..
  Slow week in the morniverse. **whistles eerily**
• Bob the dog - *coughs*
• penelope - *munches crisps noisily*
  Did anyone watch the programme last night about the crisp industry?
• Bob the dog - *Thinks* I've got no telly and I'm on a diet and I was working last night.
  Wish I had. Was it good?
• penelope - crispology
  [Btd] Well if you were working, why would you need a telly? It was OK. Just surprising how much I knew about crisps. I eat more than I should, but then I don't eat other stuff... much.
• Dunx - A Cross-Post By Any Other Name Would Still Be As Annoying
  Cross-posted from Orange, but... a small announcement - White Rose MC is, at last, online. This is a version of the York/!York archive, rejigged to use the same technology as Orange MC (hence my desire to give it a different name).

  Enjoy!

• Nik - Server maintenance.
  ...and, again, reeeeee-lax. The new fan is much less painful to listen to.
• rab - Coo
  [Dunx] Wow. I'll ungrey the York link Sometime Real Soon Now (i.e. when I can work out how out-of-synch the live version is with the dev version, and whether applying all updates would break anything. Yes I do use CVS, no I don't understand it and hence use is propery).
• rab - While of mean
  Any chance of a similar stunt being pulled for the Pants archives?
• Bob the dog - White Rose
  Dunx] You are a hero!
• Dunx - Dead Pants
  [rab] Not by me, no - I don't believe there was any backup of the Pants archives.
• Angus Loughgran - Pants archive
  Pardon me for dropping in here: but, Dunx: if you were so inclined, you could find the archive.org record of Pants MC (it's surprisingly extensive) and manually pinch everything they've got there. I've already got the Lock Cup matches and a few others of interest: I'm slowly building up to getting the lot before archive.org crashes or gets taken down by an army of ravening copyright solicitors, but it is an option. If we really really really really really badly want the archive to be taken and re-hosted, that is.
• rab - Workflow
  [Angus] I feel that Dunx might already have enough on his plate... but if you do have all the games in a reasonable format there could be scope for archiving it appropriately.
• JLE
  Am I alone in believing that NOT all games need be archived? Only those which are *of particular distinction*, whether in quality, style or genre.
• Inkspot - more tacky daq docs
  Aplologies to all at Celebrity Monington Crescent, somehow moreteaplease regained No1 without trying. Last Friday after I had sold all my shares I reinvested them in Prince Charles, if was he in the news I don't remember seeing him anywhere? and he paid out a handsome 5.57 a share! So I'll let them ride for another week and see what happens.
• widey - Super duper new tunes!!
  My halfwit band have some new tunes for you to listen to. So when you have five mins, toddle along to http://www.papalazarus.com and have a listen. Why not leave some nutty inane message on the guest book while your there? Ok cheap plug well n truly over......ftangftang......wibble
• Dunx - Archival Questions
  [JLE] Well... possibly. The problems are that (1) someone has to go through all the games to make a judgement on which are or are not worthy; and (2) you're relying on just that person's judgement. Even if there were a panel of judges, you would be requiring that their judgement be accurate for all time.

  From an archaeological point of view, a lot of the most interesting artifacts and documents are the ones that people thought weren't worth keeping at the time. If all that is kept is the exceptional, then the context for those exceptions is lost.

  So, possibly, but in my judgement, no.

• Projoy - archivism
  [Dunx, JLE] I'm with Dunx on this one. Many's the time I've searched through the archives loking for a particular post of mine or someone else's. I'm afraid I have a habit of using these sites as a sort of highly social blog, and they're one of the few ways I can remind myself of what I was thinking about and preoccupied with at particular times, and when certain events happened. Players' reactions to Sep 11th are particularly interesting to look back on from this distance, particularly in locations other than the chat game, where life proceeded as normal within less than hours. Future historians might look at the pages and say "What were these people thinking? Joking and limericking away before the dust had even settled on such a huge historical event!".
• ZK - gallows humour
  [Projoy] I didn't realise these boards went back that far - where's all that then? curiosity declared
• Breadmaster
  [Projoy] Well, I haven't seen a single comment throughout any of the Morniverse about the Spain bombings, so I don't see why there should have been so many about the ones in America either. I think our sense of importance is greatly warped by our peculiar belief that what happens in America is more important than what happens elsewhere.
  Now, the verdict on Betsygate - that's what I call important!
• ZK
  Betsygate?
• Breadmaster
  You mean you haven't been following it with bated breath?
• penelope - Madrid
  I think everyone is horrified. And also very aware that the target could so easily have been here.
• ZK
  [Breadmaster] Oh, Betsygate, I do beg your pardon!
• Projoy
  [BM] We don't really know the significance of the Madrid attacks yet, which makes them at present equivalent to the earthquake in Bam. But the significance and symbolism of the 11 Sept attacks were immediately obvious and pretty much unignorable. And arguably what happens in America (at least in some contexts) is more important in terms of international repercussions than what happens here, so the perception is not entirely arbitrary. [ZK] If you're interested in the reaction to Sep 11th, you can see it breaking here. CdM and I were midway through a debate on insurance when Néa was the first person to react, ahead of PaulWay hearing the news. What's really interesting in retrospect is how Drewsxpa provides future MC historians with an aside on the event for context - but of course, the date and the event is now burned on everyone's memory, and we need no such thing.
• Projoy
  What you might need context for, on the other hand, is the "yipee" comment on 13 September by "Iain Duncan-Hague". You may recall that a man with a similar name was elected Conservative leader on that date. You don't? Oh, well, hard to blame you.
• Projoy - Archives
  There's a fair few archives we may never see again: Beer Powered Mornington Crescent Frenzy is gone for good, I believe, as is Huxley's rather stylish, but short-lived server. Delphi remains in limbo, too.
• ZK
  [Projoy] Thankyou. I haven't quite read all of it, but will do so at my leisure. As to the more recent attacks (in Spain, obviously) I suspect no-one has said a lot because, callous as it sounds, we've sadly seen this all before, with my sincerest apologies to whoever that statement offends (including me). I was, however, visibly appalled when I was following the news on TV on Friday (I didn't quite grasp the scale via the internet on Thursday), so it's not as though I'm not affected. I am. But what is there left to say? Aside from that, watching those parades yesterday, I was overwhlemed by one particular thought - how proud I would be to be Spanish right now.
• snorgle - Madrid
  I was horribly shocked - but it still isn't certain who actually perpetrated the attacks. So we've been sidetracked into thinking it may have been ETA, rather than Al-Quaeda. There was also the way that passenger planes were hijacked and crashed into the towers, which seemed to make it even worse, somehow.
• Dujon - Spain and the world
  I sometimes wonder if there is a difference between honest belief and being brainwashed. That statement applies to myself as much as to anyone else. Whilst I have been raised within a society that, basically at least, follows the principle of 'do unto others ...' I often ask myself why someone would act in the manner which many do. I have also come to the conclusion that no-one can overcome extremists should such decide to launch plans to disrupt a country's activities by targeting its citizens. What those people or groups would hope to achieve by such activities also eludes me; surely such operations would merely strengthen the resolve of those targeted. It would appear that capitalism does have its weaknesses, particulary when it comes to the indiscriminate use of wealth to obtain a goal without due concern about those who might be affected by the process and its consequences. In that sense perhaps it is time that governments - honest ones, if that's not some form of anti-logic - took a wee bit more control over the activities of companies (multi-national or otherwise). However, I digress. I applaud the reaction of the Spanish people to these latest attempts to undermine the fabric of their country - even those in the Basque areas.
• Dujon - That should read "even more those in the Basque areas".
• ZK - celebdaq
  Does anyone have any idea why Ralf Little's shares keep going up?
• Raak - The motivation of terrorists
  The tape claiming Al Qaeda responsibility says it all, really: "You desire life; we desire death."
• ZK - Um...
  Have the gremlins crept into my computer, or am I simply imagining all this minimalism?
• ZK - Oz syndrome
  ooh, that was confusing. did I imagine it?
• ZK - I see
  No, I didn't. How very strange. Approving of new fontage, however.
• Raak - I don't
  New fontage? Everything looks the same to me.
• ZK
  [Raak] I suspect the gremlins have got at my computer. Everything switches intermittently to Times New Roman and similar sparsity.
• DrQu+xum - New stuff
  I did just notice the new favicon -- very nice.
• Inkspot - Where next.
  The world is so small today, that news can be transmitted around the world seconds after it has happened, with instant assumptions of responsibility.
  What has frightened me, is that as further details emerge is that this could happen anywhere, that Al-Quaeda have a long term goal and as a result they chose the place, time and method. They have the upper hand. The next act of terror will be unlike any that we have seen by them.

  Once the west has bled the middle east dry of oil what kind of societies will be left? Looking at the news pictures of post-Iraq its hospitals, schools and housing were no bettter than that of a debt ridden third world country. I have yet to see evidence that everyone in Saudi has the same standard of living as you or I. With parts of America have already run dry of oil and its consumption shows no sign of slowing down, the exploitation of the middle east by the west only fuels the fire of Al-Quaeda fanaticism.

• Projoy - frontage
  I momentarily experienced what looked like a plain text version of this page too, under IE6. Have reloaded and now it looks normal again.
• ZK
  Inky for President!
• flerdle - errmmm
  Is there an e-pilg type thingy tonight? If there is, I could pop in for a little while, fairly early-like.
• rab - Update
  I did update the site last night, so it might be your caches getting confused. Hit Reload if things look strange, and it should be ok.
• Chalky - Madrid
  I'm observing a 3-minute silence. Does posting this count as 'not silence'?
• Chalky
  As it happened - I didn't press 'enter' until the silence had finished so I'm OK.
• Raak
  [Inkspot] The West is paying the Middle Eastern states for the oil, and, I recall, was previously being criticised for not allowing Saddam to sell it. If they have the standard of living of third world countries, that is entirely the fault of their rulers. Saudi Arabia, in particular, is run as the private property of its despotic royal family, who indeed do not have the standard of living of you and I. Bill Gates would be a better comparison.
  [3 minute silence] There is gesture inflation going on. If 2 minutes is enough for the dead of two world wars...
• snorgle - silence
  What's wrong with 1 minute? It's just a gesture, after all. No amount of silence can bring back the dead. If a person wants to spend longer in silence, that's up to them - they can spend 10 minutes praying, etc.
• Chalky - oh yes ...
  [flerdle] great to see you and yes, I hope so ... what is early-like for you?
• Herr Bratsche - Rich Rulers
  [Raak] cf also Emir of Kuwait, rulers of Bahrain, Qatar, Oman etc. Not to mention the Sultan of Brunei. Now, how many of these countries have real, working parliaments with teeth?
• Herr Bratsche - Royals
  I should perhaps point out that I recognize the immense wealth of HM the Q of UK&NI - however, she does not (indeed cannot) act in a despotic way except within her own four walls. Bill Gates can be said to have earned his pile, whatever reservations one has about the business methods of Micro$oft.
• Raak
  [HB] None, yes?
• flerdle - likely earls
  [Chalky] Probably about 8:30pm or so for an hour.
• flerdle - measuring sticks
  [HB, back one post] I will keep investigating .om and get back to you. What I've seen so far is pretty good, however. It's probably because it has just enough (oil) wealth to get the country developing, but not so much that he (SQ) can take it for granted. It will not last forever, and he knows it.
• Jack Daniels - banter banter banter
  sooo....read any good books lately? Seriously though, I'm a little confused - was does SQ stand for?
• flerdle - detective work, SQ
  Have a look around here, which leads to here for the (rather long) official blurb. Perhaps I should have said HM S QbS.
• Herr Bratsche - Oman
  [flerdle] Hmmm, a relatively benign dictator if you believe the somewhat hagiographic blurb - however, I remember, prior to a school trip to Romania in 1975, reading the official government literature on what a wonderful fellow that Nicolae Ceausescu was and how all Romanians were privileged to be ruled by such a caring, sharing fellow. It just makes one wary, that's all.
• flerdle
  I know, and I'm wary myself :-). But I'm living here now, so will be able to see a few things "up close", as it were...
• Raak
  [flerdle] There are some things in that hagiography that one could, were one so despicably inclined, read in a rather different way than was presumably intended.

  "Sultan Qaboos resorted to military force in order to eliminate a group of renegades based in the south who repeatedly declined the opportunities extended to the Omani population."

• flerdle
  Yes :-D I know that too. There is a fair bit it doesn't say.
• Zooological Keeper - Top o' the marnin ta ya!
  Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!
• penelope - feck off!
  What is all this St Patrick's day nonsense? Until we see the same kind of fervour for England and St George, I'll have none of it! And another thought that struck me. Earlier this week, legislation to curb binge drinking was proposed, and yet... It's a load of feckin' hypocrisy! bah!
• snorgle - St. Paddy
  [pen]Boo! Hiss! Anyway, what's stopping you celebrating St. George(if he ever existed and visited England) and prancing about wearing English things, and dancing round a maypole, or something? I do that EVERY DAY! Ha!
• Breadmaster
  [penelope] Too right! I will celebrate St Patrick's day the day I celebrate Thanksgiving. This is just another example of the horrible rape of our culture by vile Americanism. The notion of celebrating St Patrick's day is entirely American and therefore to be resisted.
  [Zooological Keeper] Not that I wish to rebuff rudely your cheery greeting, naturally.
• snorgle - St.Paddy
  American? *wonders why it's a bank holiday in Ireland today*
• flerdle
  Scary thing is that we've been invited to a St Patrick's Day party tonight.

  No, not by locals.

• snorgle - party!
  Hmm, will there be much illegal drink? Or will you be sipping soda water?
• ZK - Merry Christmas!
  Well, because my free Guinness hat looks like an Australian one I'm going to get very confused about my accent for the day. I agree it's all horribly commercialised but hey, it's a reason to celebrate - we don't get that many of those any more, unless you count the eejits who seem to think that Bonfire Night lasts 3 and a half months. [Snorgle] Oh that's you, is it? [Breadmaster] Thankyou. You couldn't deter me anyway, I'm in too good a mood. *does a little nationally unspecific jig*
• ZK
  [snorgle] The celebration is a big deal over in the americas although mostly among the Irish population, oddly enough :)
• flerdle
  [snorgle] If you're a foreigner, and not Muslim, you can get a permit for a certain value per month. We will be sipping water, most likely; it's not the sort of "scene" one really wants to get into.
• ZK
  [flerdle] Drink orange juice, it's more interesting! :)
• snorgle - drinking and stuff
  [flerdle]Or tomato juice. Put some Worcestershire sauce into it, and there you go! [ZK]I grew up in Canada and it's popular there too - especially amongst those who may possibly have had an Irish ancestor at some point, or knew someone who once drank a Guinness. The green beer and popcorn the loony lady across the street used to offer everyone, however, still gives me shivers.
• rab
  [Breadmaster] Please cease from making your "vile Americanisation" comments. This is not the appropriate forum for them.
• ZK
  [snorgle] Lol. I suspect it really is just such a big deal over here because people want to drink a lot, and Guinness want them to. It's win-win apart from the poor sods who run the police stations and hospitals.
• Breadmaster
  [rab] No offence intended - it's only the Americanism I deplore, of course, not Americans.
• Lib - Housebuying saga
  Well, until half past three yesterday afternoon I was going to become a homewoner on friday. Everything was set up, including my sofa being delivered to my boyfriends house (but it wouldn't fit through the dining room door, so is currently blocking the hall and being a huge health and safety risk) and a van and things booked. I'd chosen the white goods I wanted (with a little help from my firnds in the crescent!) And my solicitor has all my money. It was looking hopeful, but then, at approximatly 3.19pm GMT I received a call from the estate agent.
  There was a SIX WEEK delay!
  Some silly people up the chain (and as there's only three people involved I would call it more of a link that a chain, but anyway) are emigrating to NZ and have found out that they need to stay resident in the same property for 40 days, or something silly like that. So I can't move, and there's no point me pulling out as I want that house and I'd loose a lot of money having come this far. So I've just got to wait. And sulk.
  And my state of mind wasn't helped yesterday by my mum telling me that I look awful in my bridesmaid dress for my brother's forthcoming wedding.
  Hopefully seeing friends tonight and drinking to celebrate St Patrick's Day will help.
• snorgle - Gah!
  [Lib]Sorry to hear it Lib! Is your mother usually so forthright? It's not going to turn into a soap opera, I hope. My father's family wedding always ended up in drunken brawls and being barred from the hotel they were staying in. [ZK]I won't be getting THAT drunk tonight(I hope!).
• Nik - The maligned English saint
  [pen] Quite. Standard conversation fair:
  <Everyone>: So Nik, when's your birthday?
  Nik: St. George's Day.
  <Everyone>: Err. Sorry?
  Nik: Mwuahahaha!
• Nik
  Or conversation fare, if you're not in the carnival mood.
• DrQu+xum - St Paddy's
  I had some Bailey's & Guinness myself, and kept it quiet.
• Rosie - St Patrick's Day
  Breadmaster is right; St Patrick's day, as celebrated these days, is largely an American invention. Americans would do well to realise that on this side of the pond we merely like the Irish, but don't worship them.
• Uncle Korky - Saintly festivals
  Just to shove my oar in for a moment... British food and drink outlets seem to go loopy every St Patrick's Day, and I must concur with Rosie and Breadmaster's opinion that it's the US influence that fuels this. On the other side of the coin, I went into my local Tesco outlet (and it's the major one for the area) at the end of February to see what I could get to celebrate St David's Day (what with having Welsh ancestry). I was laughed at by staff. When I suggested that, surely, the massive efforts poured into their St Patrick's Day marketing might indicate a degree of 'racial bias' (I stopped short of institutional racism!), I was told "Well, you can buy a daffodil or a leek." I would have replied, but the manager had lost interest and walked away.
• Herr Bratsche - Dewi Sant
  [UK] Wot, no lava bread or Welsh cakes? No Welsh whisky? No bottles of Brains, Felinfoel or Tomos Watkins? Disgrace!
• snorgle - St David
  Well, there is always plenty of stuff available in Wales to celebrate it, but then Welsh cakes, although nice, aren't as exciting as Guiness, for most people. I think although it's definitely commercial - no-one really minds an excuse to drink and eat, just like at Christmas and Easter.
• ZK - I'm going to make millions!
  Right. My ambition now is to plan the mass-marketing off the back of St. David's Day. St. George's Day needs no help, in Clinton's at least, and I suspect is fuelled quite nicely by the football industry.
• ZK
  Pfft. I'm sure half of that wasn't in comprehensible english, but you get the right idea.
• DrQu+xum
  Guinness USA certainly capitalises on St Patrick's Day over here -- they've shown quite a few ads on TV here equating St Patrick's to Christmas, with everyone getting cases and kegs of Guinness and Harp....
  
  [Nik] If St George had been asked what his birthday was, would he reply, "Nik's birthday"? (NB Nik's email address removed by request -- rab)
  
  [ZK] I'd help you with the American marketing of St David's Day, but most Americans wouldn't know a Welshman if he came up and shoved a leek up their collective arses. ;) See also Church, Charlotte, meeting George W. Bush
• Uncle Korky
  [HB] Nowt Welsh at all, I'm sorry to say. Although I have tried and dislike laver bread, I would have bought any (or all) of the other items that you mentioned. I would also like to mention that difficulty my Irish father-in-law suffers in trying to find me a St David's Day card, on the back of my always sending him a St Patrick's Day card. Sceptics, note - he managed it once, so such cards do exist!
• ZK - Welshmass
  [DrQu+xum] I meant in the UK, where Welsh people are far more prevalent, although if it's successful I might try to crack the Big Market later on. :)
• Herr Bratsche - Wales, Mass.
  [ZK] You need to get in touch with this fine body of people. Who will no doubt explain that it was, of course, the Welsh who discovered America in the first place, a fact disputed by Native Americans who unaccountably reckon that they got there first!
• Inkspot - Party on!
  With patrons like Catherine Zeta Jones and Siân Phillips its a must for my membership, The Social Welsh and Sexy Society.
• CdM - Celebrations
  [BM] I think you need to write to these people and explain to them the error of their ways. I've lived in Ireland and the U.S., and while I agree that abominations like green beer are a U.S. invention, it's simply not true that Patrick's Day is not celebrated in Ireland.
• Rosie - Saint's Days
  (Dr Q) Isn't it true that there are probably a greater proportion of Welsh descent in Pennsylvania than in any other American state, though that proportion wouldn't be very large. Well, obviously, from what you say. It seems to me these Saint's days are used as yet another means of relieving people of their money, like Mother's Day (formerly Mothering Sunday) and Father's Day. I've got no kids, but I have two nieces, so what about Uncle's Day, or Eldest Son's Day. Come on! Oh, it's all bollocks, isn't it? :-)
• ZK
  [Rosie] I agree that much of it is commercial tripe. I was all for supporting Mothering Sunday and Father's Day in their original forms, but when "Grandparents Day" turned up in the shops, I lost all hope for my country. There's a line in Hocus Pocus - "Everyone knows Hallowe'en was invented by the candy companies!" which has, to a very great extent, influenced my more cynical side.
• Rosie - Katy Z. Jones-the-actress
  My Dad, being a bit of a writer, would have had fun with a name like that. Get a Greek letter and a Welsh surname - mix 'n' match, alliteratively. In his memory I offer Catherine Pi Parry, Catherine Beta Bowen, Catherine Gamma Griffiths, Catherine Epsilon Evans and Catherine Delta Davies. Nos da i chi gyd (Night, night, all).
• Dujon - Anniversaries
  [Rosie] I could not agree with you more (the Mum and Dad days, not the Welsh) commercialism has taken over the world! Over the years I have attempted to instill into my children that Fathers' Day is purely that (well, I can't comment on Mothers' Day - not my field!) and, finally, they have come to their senses. I have also attempted to impress upon them that a birthday is simply a date on the calendar. As you know, and I am now broadcasting it to the world, I turned sixty years of age a week or so ago BUT my son (I have two children, one of each gender) made me so happy when he popped in to say "Happy Birthday" and brought with him just a greeting card. My daughter on the other hand brought a bottle of rather nice port .... I am now re-thinking my stern attitude.        ;-)
• Projoy - Plymouth sham-rock
  [BM] Have just noticed this: "I will celebrate St Patrick's day the day I celebrate Thanksgiving." :-)
• Breadmaster
  [CdM] Of course it is celebrated in Ireland, but I understand that the notion of celebrating it originated in America.
  [Projoy] Well, you get the idea!
• snorgle - rip-offs
  I have noticed that the St Patrick's Day cards my mum receives seem to have changed from a religious theme, to more of a "Happy Green Irish Day!" with fluffy animals - and these are the ones from Ireland! I do get my mum things on Mother's Day (even though she says not to worry about it) but she does like getting presents. This year I've decided to go for something useful - she wants a new mobile phone, so I'll get her that, rather than chocolates or flowers. And I think I'll make or download a card, unless I see one I really like. She's doesn't mind that - she's very sensible, really.
• ZK
  [snorgle] Religion? What's that? Irish Day (as they are changing the name to next year) celebrates the birth of the first Leprechaun, Christmas celebrates the birth of Santa Claus, and Easter celebrates the birth of a rabbit from a large chocolate-coloured egg. Everybody knows there's nothing religious about any of these holidays! Or so my friends at Clinton's tell me.
• snorgle - days off
  I think we should randomly celebrate any holiday so we get extra days off. After all, it's the 21st century, aren't we supposed to be living on the moon, working 3 hours a week and having our every need met by robots?
• Uncle Korky - lunar-tic
  [snorgle] Well, I was disappointed in 1999 that we weren't all flying around in Eagle Transporters, and that the moon wasn't blown out of Earth's orbit by an explosion of nuclear waste on its surface...
• DrQu+xum - Look you in Pennsylvania
  [Rosie] You're probably right -- many Welsh, including some of my mother's ancestors, came to both Western & Eastern Pennsylvania for the coal mining jobs from 1850-1920; some, like the Quakers, settled in the Delaware Valley much earlier (1640s-1700s). You can find a ton of Welsh town names in suburban Philadelphia -- Bryn Mawr, Berwyn, Radnor, even North Wales (maybe one could instigate a name-change to Trellistown? :)
  Unlike Britain, though, the mining is still going strong. East-Central Pennsylvania has the largest deposit of anthracite coal in the world, and I'll bet a-dollar-to-a-daffodil that no less than half of its miners are of at-least-part Welsh descent.
• Rosie - This & that
  (Dr Q) Thanks. But I bet there isn't a suburb called Llanerchymedd. :-) (snorgle)Technological advances certainly make life easier in many ways but their effect in the long run is that they simply enable more work to be done, with no increase in leisure. We work longer hours now (at least in Britain) than say 40 yrs ago.
• snorgle - working hard
  The more technology there is, the more companies want to lay people off! That's one way to increase leisure time..
• Thos - Mattriculations
  I see Matt has just put his head round the door of one of the games. So, to celebrate - may I say "Hello Matt"?
• flerdle - Welsh
  The area in and around Ipswich (West of Brisbane) was settled by Welsh people (and Germans, and Scots, and people from north-east England) in the 1800s; there's a suburb called Ebbw Vale that springs to mind straight away. It was a fairly large coalmining area too. Should be able to remember some of the other places around there, but can't right now.
• Nik
  [DrQ] Hm. Isn't it a bit rude to go slapping peoples' email addresses on public web pages without asking first, or any attempt at obfuscation? [rab] Can you sort that our for me, please?
• Nik
  [DrQ] And let me make my sentiments on this clear - I consider it bloody rude, and you've made me really quite angry.
• rab - Yes
  It took me longer than a few minutes to sort out, for various technical reasons, especially at a time when I'm really snowed under with work and can't really spare more than the odd minute or two to post to these sites. So add me to the annoyed list, and also bear in mind that I do occasionally charge for my time at lawyer's rates.
• DrQu+xum - My sincerest apologies
  [Nik] I do apologise for my utter stupidity. [rab] If you can kill -9 that post, please do.
• DrQu+xum - Thank you
  [rab & Nik] Thanks for quickly eradicating my proof of idiocy. I'll go away for a bit in the hopes that things can cool off. Again, I apologise to both of you, and to the rest of you who had to witness that.
• Dr. Lock - Re. Dr. Q.
  Hi, folks. I missed the fireworks, but DrQu+xum has offered to resign from our Lock Cup championship game at the Lockisseum (he is the reigning champion) as a sign of remorse for whatever it is that just happened here. Personally, I would like our game to continue, but I'd like to know how people are feeling here. Thanks!
• (Dr. Lock)
  [Nik] My birthday is St. George's Day, by the way.
• Nik
  [Dr's Q and Lock] Oh, I doubt there's any need for that. An apology was all the compensation necessary, and it was paid in full. I wouldn't try and stop people coming here, even though MC5 does run on my equipment. The community doesn't need an evil overlord. [Dr Lock] Do you find it seems to land on weekends far less than your friends as well? Still, Friday's about as ideal as it gets.
• Nik
  All that was necessary for me, I mean. I wouldn't want to seem like I'm speaking for rab.
• ZK - random celebration
  What ho. It's St. Joseph's Day today, apparently. I think I celebrated by booking a holdiay. Which was nice.
• rab - Me too
  I quite agree. DrQ's suggestion seems like taking things way too far.
• Dr. Lock - The Lock Cup
  Thanks, everyone. Guess I'll just have to remove Q from the Cup the old-fashioned way. Feel free to drop in and catcall from the cheap seats, by the way.
• penelope - pfffft
  I was late for work this morning - you know why? A friend rang me to tell me she was getting married on my birthday! How mean is that? Just 'cos it falls on a Saturday in July this year, does every cupid-struck couple have to go and pinch it for their own gooey nuptuals? Lay off my birthday, I say!
• Chalky - commandeering birthdays
  ooooh pen - think yourself fortunate. No less than THREE, yes three ... members of my or partner's close family have chosen to die on my birthday. Since then, every year has been a "it may well be your birthday, K, but, it's exactly 2/3/7 years since ...... passed away, you know .." I'm made to feel really selfish because I want to enjoy my birthday [it falls at that time when everyone has just got over the aftermath of Christmas credit and is just about ready for fun, what with spring just round the corner] but ALAS no. *sigh* Compassion is the name of the game. Just call me Martyr :-)
• ZK - squib
  [Chalky] When's your birthday? We'll all send you presents this year! :)
• Dujon - Hello, Martyr, welcome to the board!
• Dujon - I don't suppose, perchance, that you are related to the Farqhars?
• Chalky - the morning after
  [ZK] It was at the end of Feb on a Tuesday so, in determined fashion, I had a birthday party on the following Saturday so's not to clash with the 'death dates'.
  [Duj] Not that I know of ... and Happy Birthday for last week to you, yourself, sir!
• Breadmaster
  [Chalky] I remember reading Wuthering Heights and being struck by the fact that young Catherine doesn't celebrate her birthday because it's also the anniversary of her mother's death. This must have happened a lot in the days when childbirth was far more dangerous to the mother than it is today. Makes you think, doesn't it... Of course, Origen said that no Christian would ever celebrate their birthday, but then he had no private parts so we can ignore that.
• Uncle Korky - (Cross-posting)
  Wahey! New Doctor Who is Christopher Ecclestone!
• snorgle - what?
  [BM]What? [UK]Yay!
• ZK - Dr Who?
  [UK] :) I'd read that earlier too! I've always thought CE was hideously underrated and I'm pretty fond of Dr Who...so I was much the joyous one today!
• DrQu+xum
  Okay, I'm better now. There was just a hell of a lot of bad things happening last Friday that just got me way down. Thanks to Nik & rab for accepting my apologies and I promise not to be as much of a w@nker from now on.
• snorgle - DrQ
  Well, good! I was worried you were going off to hide in cyberspace and we might never see you again! ***big hugs**
• DrQu+xum
  [snorgle] *accepts and returns hugs* Thanks. Actually, upon further review, I notice that rab never said he accepted my apology....sorry for presuming as such.
• Brendan - Groan
  I have ants in my kitchen. I suppose it was the Spring Equinox yesterday ... *grumble grumble grumble* (my fault really, I went away for the weekend and didn't clean up well enough before going)
• penelope - ants
  [Brendan] Put a wipe of neat lemon juice in several places across their route. It destroys the formic acid scent trail they've left for themselves and they won't find their way in to your pantry any more.
• rab - Ogre
  [DrQ] I seem to have assumed ogre status. My comment entitled "me too" was supposed to have acted as an apology acceptance measure. Apologies for the lack of clarity on my part, and possibly for being slightly more grumpy than I needed to be... Group hug?
• Breadmaster
  [penelope] But what about the ones that are in the kitchen when he does that? They won't be able to find their way back! They'll be lost! Do you want that on your conscience?
• snorgle - ants in pants
  [pen]They may decide to build their own state - in the kitchen cupboard (or the underwear drawer) - the horror!

  ***hugs everyone***
  I'm not usually this demonstrative, you know, but as we're online.. ;)

• Brendan - Giant ants are walking the earth
  [Breadmaster] They're already dead. Very dead. And yet my concscience is clear. [pen] Cheers for the advice; unfortunately I didn't manage to work out where they were getting in (I did wait to kill them until I'd watched them running around for a while, but there wasn't an obvious entrance/exit, and then my insecticidal urges overtook me and I bludgeoned them all to death), but wiping the kitchen down with lemon juice doesn't seem as extreme as putting powder down everywhere.
• penelope - more ants
  [Bm]I'd rather have ants on my wipe-clean conscience than in my pants or my biscuit tin :o)
• matt - Thos were the days, my friend
  Can I just say a very belated "Hello Thos" as well? Ta.
• st d - of nothing
  hello. I have been in Chamonix Mont Blanc and it was loverley. Drove back to geneva airport on an uncrowded 2 lane autoroute yesterday am at 160kmh and it was a pleasure to pay the tolls (5 euros in total). The most pleasurable drive of my life - or high up there. Mont Blanc and it's sister's and brothers lit up by alpinr sun certainly beat anything the M4 has to offer. ***deeply contented sigh***
• st d - sister's
  ahem. ha ha.
• Chalky - envious
  [st d] Wow - autorouting in and around mountains ... lucky you.
• rab - Tonite
  Just to let you know I won't be gracing the Chat Room tonight but only for the reason that I shall be out with my colleagues. I'm sure this announcement won't stop people assuming anyone who arrives in costume is me :)
• Chalky - oh yeah?
  [rab] you DO tell porkies sometimes
• ZK - europe
  I'm off to Bella Roma on Wednesday! Yippee!!!!!
• penelope - *fume*
  *seethe* [zk] Lucky you. I neeeeeeed a holiday.
• Lib - hunting
  I had to search high and low for my post today.
• rab - Trappings
  Bit quiet the mo.
• flerdle
  Yah.
• flerdle
  On the bright side, I just chatted with me mum in Aus. And the webcam works. woo.
• flerdle - hogging the space
  So, not quite as hideous a day as was first thought. Still not the best.
• Dujon - Settling in
  [flerdle] Great to see you posting from your new domicile ... that didn't take long! ... ;-) I trust all is well and Mr f is as organised as yourself.
• widey - Knackerd
  1 hour to go then I bugger off home and forget all about the NHS for 13 hours.............
• Breadmaster
  [widey] I hear you. After spending all night in a three-person team doing the work of a five-person team, I am about to put myself in the bed and remain there, if possible, for the next ten hours. Nasty working conditions do have an up-side, even if it's only when they end.
• Zooological Keepero - Greetings!
  Allow me to break up the routine with a message from Rome!(Its not that boring here its just weve only just found the internet)If its any comfort to you, pen, the weather here is pretty rubbish anyway...
• penelope - The rain in Rome
  [ZK-o] S'ok... I have plans for a trip to Reykjavik next month (current temp: 0 degrees). I know it's getting close because I've started throwing socks into a backpack and enquiring about buying foreign currency. :o)
• flerdle - not *exactly*
  [Dujon] Not quite in the new flat yet, so will probably still be a bit intermittent since we have no idea how long it will take to get a phone there. Until then, I'm making good use of what I have access to :-)
• st d - holidays
  well, i am hoping my bruises will go down and am currently thinking of a long weekend maybe in Les 2 Alpes in late April for a bit of a glacier ski, then an unlikely but very tempting week or two in Chile in the summer for some S Hemisphere skiing and then a race camp in Austria in October. :o) All unlikely but fun to imagine....
• penelope - noffink
  No-one has said anything today. So I thought I might as well mention that the BIG DIET starts on Monday, and there should be a difference in me by the time we get to the Rugby pilg in May. :o)
• rab
  [pen] Difference? You're not having the sex-change operation are you?
• Projoy - vive la difference
  [pen] Woo. I hope you'll feed back your technique to me.
• snorgle - die(t)ing
  I have a great diet! Just eat less. (Please ignore the mars bar in my mouth.)
• penelope - nil by mouth
  [Projoy] 'Feeding' is a word that is henceforth banished from my vocabulary. I will be existing on a series of meal replacements, (courtesy of that nice man at herbalife), caffeine tablets and cigarettes in a desperate attempt to prevent myself looking like a fat, shelf-bound spinster older sister at my younger sister's wedding in October, to be able to find something to wear for aforementioned wedding that doesn't have to come from the 'plus sizes' department, and hopefully to be able to fit into the £170-worth of linen trousers I have bought for the summer. (That's three pairs, by the way - I'm not into the huge-spending league just yet). I don't care that it relies on caffeine and soya. I just want to be smaller.
• Chalky - hello
  [pen and all reducers] I've just finished a 60-hour week [I know it's not a lot by some standards but it was very intensive sort of work] so it's great to have time to catch up with the Morniverse. It's also quite exciting to see a reference to Rugbypilging in May. I'm going to cut out butter for the next six weeks in an attempt to rid myself of this blubbery lump around my middle. Oh yes - I'm also aiming to drink a couple of litres of water a day.
• Darren
  As it happens, I'm also on a diet, and so far I've lost a little over a stone.
• flerdle - die
  Although I am drinking a remarkable amount of water, I am not on a diet, and you really do NOT want to know how much oil there is in a biryani, as taught to me by a nice Iraqi woman. Further investigations of regional cuisine will be undertaken soon.
• Raak - Dieting
  Here's a cheering thought: when the Allied forces liberated the concentration camps, they found no fat people. Therefore, it is possible.
• rab - You know when...
  As symptoms of too much online MC go, I think starting a page of notes with the title "Slap this jammy factor" must count as one of them.
• penelope - Concentrate...
  [Raak] Yes, I guess it's all a matter of concentration. Where do you find a Japanese or Nazi prison guard when you need one? (And if I might say so, you speak like the enviably skinny person you are... :op)
• penelope - diggings
  I just found The Encyclopaedia Morningtonia here: http://www.satiche.org.uk/satiche/sat-0207.htm. Have I not been following the chat, or did anyone know?
• Raak
  [pen] It was mentioned in the Morniverse a while ago. It seems to have added an acknowledgement of its source since then, but the URL of course doesn't work.
• snorgle - unmarried ladies
  I was looking at an old marriage certificate (circa 1942) at work today, and noticed that the the bride (aged 18) was described as a "spinster"! I never realised that applied to any unmarried woman (unless she was thought old to be unmarried at 18).
• Chalky - the spin
  All first time brides were known as 'spinsters' [and possibly may still be so - but I haven't got married for a while so I don't know] and their age had nowt to do with it. It's interesting how the word now [to those aged 30 and younger]conjures up an image of a a lady past her prime.
• Chalky
  ... whereas batchelor, the gender opposite, conjures up an image of the footloose and fancy-free young blade. Life's a b*gger really, for us girlies.
• Dujon - Shelves
  Surely not! A spinster, just like a bachleor, is someone of marriagable age (definition liberal) who isn't? I have never thought of it as otherwise.
• Rosie - Spinsters etc
  (Chalky) You don't need to be under 30 to think of a spinster as unmarried and no chicken. The word was a bit old-fashioned even in my childhood (40's - 50's), and mildly derogatory. Its original meaning was "female spinner" (of yarn). This was presumably thought a proper way for unmarried ladies of a certain age to occupy their time, in the absence of vibrators, though who knows.
• widey - Yippppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...........
  Home in 55 minutes and 5 nights off......Will the NHS survive without me, probably. Do I care if it doesn't, no!!!!!
• Breadmaster
  As Rosie says, a spinster is just an unmarried woman, but it has acquired unofficial overtones of left-on-the-shelfness. If you have banns read in church before your marriage, the woman is always described as "spinster of this (or another) parish".
• Tuj - Spinsters
  It's all part of the gender bias inherent in the English language. Get a thesaurus and look up 'manly' and 'womanly'.
• penelope - bias schmias
  Hmmph. It works both ways... Being left on the shelf means you sometimes get mixed up with the rejects and the returns, which sometimes ain't so bad. This weekend is an interesting one, for complicated (and unexpected) reasons. I just hope I've got enough lipstick to last me until tomorrow. BTW (and to start another subject) I bought a petrol-engined lawn mower on the web last night. It's going to be delivered to my office on a day when I'm out at meetings all day. Am I completely nuts? (On second thoughts, don't answer that)
• flerdle - *doesn't answer, but...*
  *sends in the white-coated squirrels*

  mmmm, machinery. Is that just for your patch of lawn, or are you thinking of going into business? And has the back corner managed to reassert itself, or is the forest properly under control now?
  Mind you, I can't talk, I'm still slightly in love with my new fridge. It purrs...

• DrQu+xum - Manly vs womanly
  [Tuj] Womanly means to exude femininity or lady-like qualities, whereas Manly is a suburb of Sydney, Australia. ;)
  
  I don't believe I've heard the term "spinster" used in America for...well...ever.
• snorgle - digital camera
  Yay! I finally got one, that can be used to take short videos and act as a webcam, for the princely sum of £17.95, including postage! I can now use the internet for its true purpose - putting up pictures of my cats (once I get some webspace sorted - I get some free from NTL). I'm looking forward to selling shiny objects on E-bay, as well. ;)
• penelope - digital knobs and dials
  [Snorgle] Don't be ridiculous. The internet's true purpose is so men can chat you up by sending you pics of their tattoos and knobs and you can pretend to be impressed. (And £17.95??? Did you get the decimal point in the wrong place?)
• rab - Clocking off
  Just to let you know I'm stepping into the Slovak Republic for a few days, so if you don't hear from me, that's why. Oh, and not impressed with myself at booking an 8.15am flight on the morning the clocks go forward...
• rab
  [pen] For a fine selection of knobs you could do worse than look here.
• penelope - knobbing it large
  [rab] Thanks, sweetie. It even gave me the option of 'knobs - small, medium, large' :oD
• snorgle - wrong places
  Nope, it was that cheap. I really didn't want anything fancy, just something to try out. It was discounted too. I actually got some nice photos today! Here it is.
• Lib - go pen, GO!
  [pen] Good luck on your mission to shrink. Sounds tough, but I'm sure you'll cope. I'm on a exercise mission to minimise my waistline to fit better into my bridesmaid corset and skirt, will be going to the gym later for multiple sit-ups. But only when i can prise myself out of my pyjamas!
  [widey] Which bit of the evil NHS do you suffer in? I'm quite content at the moment as its my third weekend off in a row! But next week I'll be back to miserable, downtrodden Lib!
• Bob the dog - The value of the penny
  pen] I'm on my 10th week of weight loss - so far I've managed about 1.5 stone. I’ve found that if I substitute my normal meals with low-fat options, I just crave the high-fat version. Low-cal stuff is often (not always) crap - so I've taken to eating really high quality stuff so that when I do eat, I've really got something to look forward to. Plus I've discovered Lebanese cooking - fabulous couscous and fresh onion salads, houmus, pitta bread, fresh mint leaf tea...
• penelope
  [Btd] Sounds delicious... I'll have to find a book. I'm still waiting for the diet stuff to arrive, but now I have a lurgy which isn't going to make it much fun...
• snorgle - the dreaded!
  Oh, that ruined my last diet! I got a cold and just felt too miserable to cut down - I was drinking loads of hot chocolate, etc..
• Bob the dog - lurgy survival
  pen, snorgs] Chicken soup is good for lurgy and diets. If you can wait for it, go for this one.
• snorgle - bob boc boc
  I'm a veggie - so I'd better not.. :)
• penelope - chikensoupicillin
  [Btd] I make a chicken soup so substantial that it becomes a meal in itself - I ate it three nights in a row last week. Wish I'd frozen some of it now :o(
• Rosie - Orthographic pedantry
  It's Lurgi. Think Italian. Trust me; I heard it first time round. :-)
• penelope - lurgi
  [Rosie] I'm snotterini too. *Atciao!*
• Darren
  [penelope] (back one post) Wouldn't that have been a chicken lollipop?
• DrQu+xum - Quiet night in outer space?
  No e-pilg tonight?
• snorgle - e-pilg
  Sorry, DrQ, busy tonight! My brother is coming over from Canada on Wednesday, and I'm still getting his room ready..
• DrQu+xum - Indeed a quiet night.
  [snorgle] Yes, I see he took the cold with him. ;)
• Rosie - Lurgi
  Has anyone heard this pantomime sequence? (don't know which pantomime) - 1st witch: Where's the fairy princess? 2nd witch: She's in bed with the dreaded lurgi. 1st witch: Oo-er! 2nd witch: Oh, I dunno, I quite fancy Italian men meself.
• Uncle Korky - Sniffles
  Lurgi has now struck here too...
• JLE - Lurgi
  Well, *I* still can't get rid of this damned bronchitis that's been bugging me since the beginning of the month. It's mostly died down but it won't go away...
• penelope - *atchoo*
  Was out with Mother last night, after dropping off older sister at the airport for her return to the US. I'll be there next week :o) The lurgi is steadily taking a grip... :o(
• Inkspot - not so cute
  My two and a half year old, Thomas, picked up the lurgi over the week end. Unfortunately being so little he does not quite understand the concept of blowing his nose into a tissue, with the consequent torrent of stickyness streaming from his nose. As I leave you with the wonderful picture in your mind of this shimmering gunge glistening in the soft light of spring. Ponder a few seconds further on semi transparent bubbles on the end of his nose each time he sneezes.
• DrQu+xum
  [pen] I don't suppose a side-trip to Da'Burgh is in your plans? :(
• penelope - oops
  [DrQ] Bleeeaaaauuuurgh. I meant I'll be in the chatroom next week, not I'll be in the US. I realised once I posted it how rong (that's right, R-O-N-G, rong) it looked, but was too busy sneezing to put it right.
• CdM - *hangs yellow flag outside door*
  I'm not coming back here until everyone is recovered!
• Lib
  *hands round tissues, paracetamol, cups of tea and some sympathy to all those suffering from lurgi*
• flerdle
  I'd send some warm weather, but having a summer cold is foul.
• Bob the dog - The cleft between the buttocks (!?!)
  Next time you go to an airport, be sure to wear tin-foil underpants.
• Dunx - Guarantees
  [Btd] That would guarantee you a pat down search... depends what floats your boat, I suppose.
• Chalky - ISIHAC Pilg In Rugby In May
  If anyone is interested, I've just posted here.
• Chalky - Get Well Soons
  ....and * a comforting pat * to all you poorly people. Awww.
• Tina - change of subject
  Sorry to change the subject and anticipating that I am about to whine --- Two and a half weeks ago I was in a car crash. A lady who reports for a local tv station zoomed through a red light and creamed me. I was lucky in that she did not hit the driver's side door. But I still hurt and I still find in idle times that I relive the event. Worst thing I've been through, although I'm sure many have been through worse. My car, meanwhile, is a total loss. So finding transportation after the rental car is done is also a concern. Just wanted to vent.
• Chalky - Awww!
  [Tina] Sorry to hear that. *a comforting pat for you aswell *. I hope they throw the book at her.
• Dujon - Bumps and lumps
  [Tina] Bad luck, that sort of event is never pleasant. If my experience is anything to go by those sudden memories will slowly reduce in frequency - a bit like the bruises, I suppose. I had a few bingles when I was younger (not all my fault, by the way) but maturity (?) brings sanity, adherence to speed limits and a much more alert attitude. I too had a lady fly through a red light and hit the area of the driver side rear wheel; it's a little disconcerting when one thinks about the timing! The worst thing I found is the incredible inconvenience of not having your own transport following the incident. I was fortunate enough to have a good friend who loaned me his FWD for the duration (I used to arrive at work at 5 am in those days, at which time there was no train which would allow that). Fortunately the lady involved admitted her error - I hate to think what might have happened should she have disputed my version.
• CdM - Tina and sympathy
  [Tina] *offers more sympathy* It's trite, but it helps to remember that it could have been worse. My most recent experience of something similar was when my collarbone was shattered about six months ago by an idiot out-of-control a****** (or, for our British readers, a*******) in a soccer match. I'm still recovering, dealing with tendonitis in my upper arm and very odd clicks in my shoulder; and even with insurance, it cost me several hundred dollars. So it still pisses me off that I bear the consequences of someone else's irresponsibility and stupidity. BUT -- and the BUT is very important... 1. I didn't land on my head and suffer a spinal injury, which I easily could have. 2. In the emergency room that evening I remember passing a legless guy in a wheelchair. That has helped me keep the incident in perspective ever since.
  
  Truth is, life throws us some nasty experiences from time to time. If they end up being no worse than mine or yours, we are lucky. As I said, it's trite. And true.
• Brendan
  [Tina] Ooh, ouch. I'm sure as Dujon says you'll feel better in time, but that doesn't necessarily help when you're in the middle of it, so *sympathy*.
• Breadmaster
  Anyone who breaks the law whilst driving should be banned forever. No exceptions.
• Raak
  [Bm] Well, that takes at least 90% of drivers off the road immediately.
• Tina - ty
  Thanks all for the kind words. They do help.
• st d - accidents
  Tina] Surely your insurance will cover you for a new car until her insurance pays out ? Are the police pressing charges (or are you?) - My advice would also be to see a Personal Injury Lawyer about it. Apparently any claim for injury/worry caused are automatically accepted by insurers if they are not over a certain limit (a few grand) when they start to check up.....I know it is not greatly helpful at the moment but I am sure that when a cheque finally arrives from her insurers it will make you feel better. I'm against stupid litigation generally, but in car accidents like this they are rarely stupid and you should also be vigilant for any signs of injury that may not be yet manifesting themselves - neck, back especially.
  BM] That is an ***utterly*** ridiculous thing to say.
• Nik - Cars
  [st d, raak, bm] We probably don't want a repeat of the 'speeding as crime'/'stupid speed limits' argument.
  [Tina] Sorry to hear about that. I've never been in a serious road accident so don't know how it feels, but I do know my sister suffered for quite some time after a car drove into the passenger side of the car she was a passenger in. Time seems to be healing her, as I'm sure it will you,
  I was about to post about the fantastic day I've had belting my car around Oulton Park, but I won't, now.
• penelope - 'otfooting round Oulton
  [Nik] At least you let all yours out on the track where it's legitimate rather than playing in real traffic. Good for you. And [Tina] *sympathy* too. What a bummer.
• Brendan
  [Tina; following on from st d] If you do end up suing (and when something similar happened to my other half she didn't seem to get much choice in the matter, the insurance company just decided they were going to [no prosecution, though -- the police are holding the threat of same over the culprit's head to make him take some sort of How Not To Be A Complete Idiot Of A Driver course]) don't forget to mention those nasty flashbacks you've been having ... Our legal system seems significantly keener on compensating emotional distress than physical injury.
• flerdle - the horn, it goes "beep, beep"
  All this talk of motor vehicles... I've been having the slightly surreal experience of learning to drive on the wrong side of the road. Granted, the roads here are in +superb+ condition, but everyone drives like they have some lower limb condition that prevents them from taking the weight off the right pedal. There's not so much of the crazy weaving and cutting in and tailgating (not as much as, apparently, in the UAE), it's just that they drive really, really fast. And then some. I have been doing very well (manual car, too), mainly because I'm reasonably ambidextrous, and I'm a spatial thinker, so turning things back to front in my mind (or contorting them in some other way) as required is pretty easy. The only thing I've noticed is an unconscious drifting to the right within the lane, which I find rather puzzling.

  And for bizarre traffic, just one word: India

• CdM - continental drift
  [flerdle] The drift to the right is to be expected. You are used to driving a right-hand drive car, which means you are used to most of the car being to the left of you (equivalently, you, as an individual, are used to being on the right side of the traffic lane). Now most of the car is to your right, which means if you place yourself (your body) in the position in the lane that you are used to, the car will be too far to the right. As someone whose driven pretty extensively on both sides of the road, I actually find this is the biggest problem of adjustment -- more than actually making the mistake of turning onto the wrong side.
  
  But you should take care in the next week or so: the dangerous time for accidentally driving on the wrong side is typically after a few days, when you stop thinking so consciously about which side of the road you should be on.
  
  [nik] er, I think Bm was _kidding_; and I think (hope) that Raak and st d knew that.
• Projoy
  [Breadmaster] There is a small country in which that is actually the case. I am pretty sure it's Kiribati. I remember reading they brought in a zero tolerance policy around 2000, and have since banned about half their drivers, without much effect on the economy, so I gather.
• CdM
  There's no reason to think it would have a major impact on the economy. In most economies the transportation sector is a pretty small fraction of GDP, and other forms of transportation typically operate as effective substitutes for private vehicles. Plus the revenue that would have gone to the transportation sector ends up being spent elsewhere, so on net the effects are going to be minimal. In fact, the impact could be positive, in that there may be stronger multiplier effects in the tradeable sectors of the economy (which is where at least some of the spending will go), and the policy would also eliminate some of the uncompensated costs, such as pollution and congestion ("externalities" in economists' lingo), from cars. Thus I might actually expect to see improvements in the balance of trade, little impact on tax revenues (and hence on the government budget deficit), and a positive (though probably negligible) effect on growth rates. Of course, this analysis presumes that the monetary authority pursues an apprpriate interest rate policy to ensure that the impact on the financial sector is minimized.
• Herr Bratsche
  [Projoy] As Kiribati consists of groups of archipelagos spread over about half the Pacific Ocean, and none of the islands are very big, this means that (a) you can't drive any particularly useful distance in the first place, and (b) air and sea travel is much much more important.
  Banning half the drivers in Britain may seem like a good idea to some (e.g. Richard Brunstrom, chief constable of Mrs Trellis' neck of the woods (N Wales)), but taking (say) half the HGVs off the roads would place an intolerable strain on the rail infrastructure, which, in any case, leaves far too many places unserved. OR you double the number of aircraft plying our domestic skies - and you'll know how much stick air travel comes in for for its alleged impact on pollution levels.
• Breadmaster
  Well, maybe I was kidding a little bit. Perhaps it would be more realistic to say that anyone who breaks the traffic laws has to retest before they can drive again, with possible relaxations of the law for those to whom driving is intrinsically part of their jobs. That's as un-draconian as I'm prepared to go, though.
• Brendan
  [Breadmaster] I'd go the other way -- if people are going to be driving a great deal, they should be subject to more stringent testing, not less. I think the only real way to make your system work would be if there was a decent public transport alternative so that people (particularly in rural areas) couldn't plead that they simply have to be able to drive. Which inevitably means subsidising it, but you get a heap of environmental/congestion/etc. benefits too ... I'll get off my hobbyhorse now.
  [Projoy] It may not have affected their economy, but 75% of the car factories in Rawaki have gone out of business since the policy was introduced ...
• st dogmael - of nothing in particular
  Would anybody like to see my potograph of a little horsey who looks like MOOMIN ? Well if you do, HERE it is. :o) Moomins. I wonder what he is doing now ?
• Breadmaster
  [Brendan] I think you're right. A tricky one. But as someone said, we don't want to get into this argument again.
  [StD] You're right! He does look like a Moomin. Very cute.
• st d - arguments
  do you like the way I am trying to divert the topic from cars to horses ?
• Breadmaster
  [StD] You're doing a fine job. I think we can all agree to like horses, especially ones that look like Moomins. Even though a horse bit me once, and it darnedly hurt, I can tell you.
• Projoy
  I think that anyone who rides a horse carelessly should be retested and banned for life. Particularly if it looks like a Moomin.
• st d - horses
  PJ] Do you not think that some of the responsibility should lie at the hooves of the horse ?
• st dogmael - Indeed...
  ..it surely behooves us to at least lay some responsibility at his hooves. (Now I bet you will never hear that sentence again)
• Projoy
  [st d] I am not sure. I have never been behooved myself. Perhaps I will form a stronger opinion if I am.
• Dunx
  [Projoy] Maybe we could resort to satyr?
• rab - Ticket
  Hello. I'm back. Glad to see nothing untoward is happening, apart from Tina's accident of course for which I offer my condolences.
• rab - Hmmm
  That killed the conversation...
• penelope - conversation killers...
  Talking of which, the new diet makes my wee green. It's worth the hideous expense and pain of meal replacements for the entertainment value. [Lib] Any explanation?
• st d - wee green
  reminds me of the 14th at the Royal & Ancient. Tiny tiny tiny and surrounded by bunkers.
• Lib - green pee!
  [pen] I've never heard of green wee before...... Perhaps you're turning into an alien! I've come across bright red (not good), maroon (not bad) and orange (also not bad), plus the usual normal variations. The other day I saw wee akin to cottage cheese! YUM!
• Boolbar - Lime Green Wee
  Pills with chlorophyll colour my wee lime green - it looks like it could glow in the dark. BTW, when is Rugby? Have I missed it?
• Bob the dog - Rugby Ball
  Bool] Rugby is on May 15th, so you've not missed it. However, I am reluctantly attending a school reunion tomorrow (03.04.04) to which I feel urged to remind you, you qualify to attend. Your company would be most welcome, especially if I get to find out why you have to take chlorophyll greenwee tablets.
• penelope - chlorowee
  [Boolbar] That'll be it. Chlorophyll is one of the ingredients in the formulae. I'll be photosynthesising nicely then. Dark reactions, light reactions... *forgets most plant biology*
• Nik - Vroom! Vroom!
  Can't hold it in any longer: Car pr0n! 15mpg....
• penelope - naaaaaaaaaaah!
  [Nik] You don't wanna be driving one of those! You wanna be driving one of these!. This is part of what I do... VIP passes available for my very close friends or see your local press for competition tickets closer to the date! :o)
• Dunx
  [Nik] Golly - I do wish I lived near a circuit like that so I could give my TT a good thrash sometime.
• Bob the dog - Who?
  What excellent casting!
• st d - you dont wanna drive one of those
  you wanna be driving anything from here....
• Uncle Korky - Not Bernie...
  [Btd] You didn't know? Good grief, man - get out from under that stone! But, yes, I agree!
• Inkspot - more red carpet
  After last weeks Celebdaq success of x_sugarbabe_x in reaching the top of Celebrity Mornington Crescent for the first time, it is now the turn of ffiish (aka Graham III) no stranger to the red carpet, the last time, was only in January.
• ZK
  Lol...I keep thinking Ronni Ancona/Lorraine Kelly stylee..."You need a pair of these!"
• Boolbar
  [pen] always glad to solve life's little mysteries. [btd] 03.03.04? But that's today! and it's 7pm! and I've nothing to wear!
• Graham III - daquiri
  Ooh. Why thank you. Not really been paying too much attention, but it seems that Sven was a good investment. I'm in Europe at the moment (and for the next few weeks) so going to slip rapidly I think. Anyone in the Paris area, Munich area, Prague area? Would love to meet an English speaker! mail:at:graam:dot:me:dot:uk
• widey - Bollox n stuff
  Offline for 7 days!!!! I have withdrawl symptoms!!!
• DrQu+xum - Weather.
  April 4th. Latrobe, PA: 1 C, snow flurries.
  
  GAAAH!
• penelope
  Today's date is 04.04.04 and you know what? My big sis is 40 today... how's that for planning?
• AUSTEN BISINA.aka warrinawaa - JUST LAUGH TO BURST
  I ONCE SAW A PRODUCER OF CONDOM AT ENERHEN ROAD IN WARRI CARRYING TWO KIDS ON HIS HEAD WHEN I ASK WHY THIS ACTION? HE REPLIED MY CUSTOMERS ARE COMPLAINING OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MY CONDOMS AND THESE ARE THE PRODUCTS OF THEIR COMPLAIN. SO.....LOL......HAHAHAHAHAH. DO U THINK CONDOMS PREVENTION OF HIV/AIDS CAN MEET THE CUT OFF MARK.IF YES CONTINUE TO USE THE CONDOM,IF NO PLEASE TRY ABSTENANCE.
• ZK
  Fabulous.
• widey - ahhhhhhhhhhh
  The British weather it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. I have 2 days off and the forecast is rain........oh joy and delight abound NOT
• penelope - wetwang
  [widey] Why not look at it positively? These two days are the only two days you can go out and enjoy the rain with impunity. Get your wet weather gear on, have plenty of hot water waiting at home for a long hot soak, and go out in it. Admire it for what it is - just another kind of weather, no less beautiful than sunshine or fog, but admittedly inconvenient if you're dressed for sometjing else. As they say, there's no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing. Sorry. I'm on a restricted diet, you know
• Projoy
  Mmmm. Bath.
• Inkspot - more royal bust up
  Mrs Becks shares are starting to twitch!!
• snorgle - daqing
  I'm hanging onto Prince William due to his hopefully high divvies..
• st d
  pj] Exeter.
• Chalky
  Mmmm. Weston-Super-Mare.
• Graham III - Royal knockout
  I'm on the Queen. She's getting loads of coverage here in Paris cos of the 100th anniversary of the entente cordiale, but I don't know whether that's being covered in the broadsheets. Half of Paris is closed today. For one doddery old woman. Makes you think. Not for very long, but it does, doesn't it?
• ImNotJohn - Knocking Out Royals
  I'm currently working in the 24th storey of a building overlooking Buckingham Palace, so I see HM coming and going by helicopter from the back lawn frequently. I wonder how long I'd last if I were to point a long tube towards her???
  It must be one of the best views in London.
• rab - Get your Royal Kock Out!
  [Projoy, st d, Chalky] You're all wrong. Chew Magna.

  [GIII] You're on the Queen. I think there's a few tabloid editors who might be interested in that...

• Inkspot - Eurostar
  [GIII] That sounds like someone keen to keep on top of the Celebdaq, yours could be a wise choice as the queen will have lots of coverage and possibly even front page of the broadsheets. And tomorrow she will meet President whats-his-face of France - even more pics and column inches.
  [snorgle] your a big softie.
• Projoy - I'm on the Queen....
  sounds like something you'd overhear someone saying on their mobile phone. Or rather something you probably wouldn't.
• ZK
  That sounds like a cue for my Moscow story, but then again, it probably isn't.
• st d - pravda
  ZK] go on tell us anyway. But keep it brief and witty.
• Graham III - Queenie
  It's looking a decent choice, but the Beckhams' divis will be pretty high as well. Watch a space...
  
  [rab] £50,000, exclusive. Cheap at the price...
• ZK - I don't know about witty..
  I was on a school trip to Moscow and I was the only russian student there, so everyone was used to me translating everything...we were walking down the Arbat and a man went past three of us, speaking loudly into his mobile phone. I quipped, "Hello! I'm on the train!" And Karoline turned round and said "Really?" ...Wrong for so many reasons....
• Dujon - Has the orange gone rotten?
  I've been trying now and then for the last three or four hours. Has the site gone down, or is it just me?
• ZK - rotten oranges
  I'll check...
• ZK - do not readjust your set
  seems alright to me.
• Dunx - Orangey
  [Dujon] Up as far as I know, and no reports of any downishness.
• Dujon - Hums
• Dujon - Hums (again, it seems)
  It must be me. The site flatly refused to talk to my browser (I normally go straight into the site using the MCIOS skin) BUT when I attacked the site in a normal hacking manner (I am a smoker) all worked well; buzzed off to the MCIOS skin and it worked. Now I can access through my old 'bookmark'. Urrghhhhhh.
  
  I may not be on for the next few weeks as my fourteen pounder, sitting quietly in the shed at the moment, may be called upon to do its duty.
• Chalky - cryptics
  [Duj] Your fourteen pounder? New baby? Marrow?
• ImNotJohn - Throwing weight around
  Sounds like a man planning an Eddie Shoestring reboot.
• Dujon - Heavy metal
  [Chalky] INJ is correct. It's a hammer; a bloomin' big hammer. :-o
• Chalky - cracking a nut with a ....
  So it's a hammer. AND?
• Dujon - Action
  Well, Chalky my dear, I'm about to find out about the 'AND' bit. Stand by.

  Testing, testing

  Tes(%╕Ñ▓ü▒êª╝╜┐

• Ǽ®¥∞΅Θ€e dog
  I felt that!
• Inkspot - More celebdaq stats
  Sometimes I think about the Celebdaq (probably more often than is good for me) and I've been wandering around and came to the stange decision that I needed more of 'it'. So now I've opened another account (Cleddau) and joined the waiting list of Celebdaq Discworld Guild Minileagues, which has 14 leagues of 30 players!! relegation and promotion !!!
  There's an msn group called The Celebdaq Basements which has links to two very good tools. The one exampled is the Potential and Previous Dividends
  

  Name	Price (Fri 00:00)	Price (Wed 06:00)	Price (latest)	Last Div	Total Gain Last Week	Total Gain since Wed 06:00	Potential Div	Pot Yield for Week	Price Gain	Pot Total Gain
  Victoria Beckham	3.43	3.89	4.15	3.28	86.91	6.68	14.23	414.87	20.99	435.86
  Prince William	3.84	4.88	5.20	6.39	232.14	6.56	7.93	206.51	35.42	241.93
  The Queen	4.11	4.80	5.13	5.76	178.03	6.88	8.75	212.90	24.82	237.71
  David Beckham	6.63	7.40	7.89	2.97	25.65	6.62	13.65	205.88	19.00	224.89

  
  Graham III could well have chosen right in going for the Queen instead of David Beckham tomorrow will tell. I'm almost excited ...time for a custard cream or two to settle the nerves :o)
• Bob the dog - Stevie and me
  How about a portrait of yourself with Stevie Nicks?
• Graham III - Oh well...
  Looks like Viccy B was the way forward. I'm miles off.
• Inkspot - More vinyl
  Today has been one of those rare occasions when I can dig out my albums, (some of which I have not listened to for several years) the Inkspecks have gone to stay overnight with the grandparents leaving me to decorate the living room. There's buried memories in them bits of black vinyl. Back then the music was part of what I did. Today listening to the intro of 'The Great Om Rift' by Steve Hillage made the hairs on the back of my neck rise just as it did when I first heard it,(I can still picture him on the stage of the Crdiff Uni). Tonight my task is to find some old tapes I made of the singles I bought at the time, as stopping every three minutes to 'spin the next disc' may lose its appeal very quickly.

  Meanwhile over at Celebdaq and Celebrity Mornington Crescent its congrats and celebrations for Chalky who rises to No1 only question is, with which Royal family?
  For the first time i've tried out the advanced trading tool which gives a very easy to read at a glance read out of which shares are moving and by how much over the last hour, three hours and since midnight, taking away much the guess work. I could work it out by the percentages.
  I had bought Goldenballs some months ago knowing sooner or later he would hit the headlines. The account has been bumping along the bottom of the league for sometime, but patience has finally paid off.

• Inkspot - html reprise
  Its the second time I've made this mistake now, the "r" was missing from "href" so please insert this into the above posting ..... celebrations for Chalky who rises to No1....
• Chalky - chattin'
  [Inkyspot] Thanks. I put all my shares on Vicky Becks even before the twitch. Also, it's only fair to admit that I'm also playing x_sugarbabe_x because the daughter lost interest in the Daq after a few weeks. In my sugary role I placed all my money on Mister Becks [the cheating b*stard]. Now I'm hedging my bets on both accounts between both royal families, but have spotted Arnie is on the rise. Wass 'e done NOW?
  *note to self: must read the newspapers*.
  Glad to hear you had some space to yourself for vinyl stroking.
• Herr Bratsche - Ommm .....
  [Inkspot] Blimey, someone else who owns "Green". One great record, if you can get used to the vocals! I never saw him live, but I do have "Live Herald", one of the best live albums by anyone, ever.
• Inkspot - Vinyl: it's the new black
  Chalky] Be careful of Arnie, he picks up every Friday but his libido only lasts till Sunday, so if you need something for the weekend slip him into your top pocket. He has a rugged saw tooth profile as people throw their divi's at him on Friday morning only to cash in on Monday to transfer over to the news story of the week, so his value drops again.
  So there you have it Arnie the quickie one-night-stand of the Celebdaq.
  The 'vinyl stroking' went well today and has eased my pent up frustrations.

  HB] I was lucky enough to see him twice during that era, the second time was when he was promoting 'Green' at a concert at Cardiff's Top Rank, they were selling the album along with all the other memorabilia. Anyway the album is a prized possesion, he autographed the record label and signed it with the om symbol. I agree Live Herald is a great album but I cheated at tea time and put the on the Live in Concert at the BBC CD.

  I had my first ever, ever, ever virus today on the pc. After downloading the latest update, as usual, I ran the full scan, it discovered and removed a trojan called downloader.nex.B, I had picked it up somewhere when surfing. Although I'm up to date now, I could stumble across its like again tomorrow or the next day but unless I run my virus scan everyday I'll never know. Is this something I should seriously consider or am I becoming paranoid after one incident?

• flerdle
  's a bit quiet in 'ere, innit?

  [weather report] Another greyish day here, but no hope of rain, of course. Keeps the temperature down, though - about 31 or so most of the time here, down to 22ish at night. Am wondering when it'll start heating up properly. And planning to escape it :-)

• Graham III - Irritating diseases
  [Inkspot] Do you have anything set up to scan everything you download automatically? I have found both Norton 2003 and McAfee (latest one) pretty good at that. You can also get utilities that sit there looking for unusual horsing around, which you can get in packages. There are, iirc, one or two free trojan horse finders which run through a lot quicker than a full system scan.
• Dunx
  [flerdle] Might be with being Easter weekend and all.
• flerdle
  [Dunx] Yeah. I only remembered part way through Friday. Thankfully I've avoided most of the Easter commercial hype (what a relief); sort of to be expected here :-)
• Lib - locked out
  I can't get into the chatroom and there's an eplig going on. *sob*
• Imkspot - pests
  Graham III] Thanks for your note on the virus and trojan scans, I have AVG and Zone Alarm running in the background the whole time which pickup things like;
  The firewall has blocked Internet access to your computer (TCP Port 715) from 142.163.205.65 (TCP Port 3683)
  The firewall has blocked Internet access to your computer (TCP Port 901) from 68.86.243.159 (TCP Port 2772)
  which are two from tonight 68.... is a frequent caller perhaps 142 is worth a look over at Whois. The email is scanned by AVG and touch wood my Inbox has been junk free with only my expected mail from NASA, ESA and Loonies, everything else gets routed to Hotmail. However for the last three years I've been running a peer-to-peer program on cancer researh from United Devices/Grid.org. One of the sites identified this type of regular data transfer as a possible way in for the unscrupulous!
• flerdle - awwww
  [Lib] therethere *patpatpat* next week...
• ichneumon - googlewacking
  this site is a googlewack
• penelope - waspish carping
  [Ich] Not any more, it ain't.
• snorgle - carpish wasping
  Maybe we should keep track of the number of times people pop up and say that? I'm sure it happened at least once before here..
• Inkspot - celebrity sos
  Tommorrow (wednesday) we're off down to Broad Haven for a couple of days till the end of half term to stay in a caravan. With no access to the 'net could I ask please if someone from Celebrity MC could send me the page, gareth underscore penn athotmaildotcom so that I can do the usual.
• penelope - I'm too excited...
  Here I am, all packed, too excited to go to bed yet... will try and post somewhere into the Morniverse from Reykjavik later this week :o)
• Bob the dog - Liddle Gyser
  Pen] Ah - wonderful Iceland.* envyenvyenvy *. Business or pleasure? Either way, be sure to take a bus inland to see the waterfalls. Under no circumstances miss a dip in the blue lagoon.
• rab - Half term?
  Surely the Easter holidays haven't finished yet!?
• Boolbar - Eggsellent
  Easter? Oh, so that's why I had an extra day off.
• Bob the dog - Rugby ball update
  Chalky has reminded me that there are only 31 more days until ISIHAC 2. Several folks have been contacting Chalky with contributions - please send them to me @nettlesoup, that is a .co.uk address and my name is bobthedog
• Lib - Shattering the silence...
  *trumpet fanfare* I'm very excited to announce to you all that I've bought a house! We've exchanged contracts today to move later in the month. I didn't believe that it was going to happen as its been a rough ride, but it is! Yay! I've got some piccies which I'll post if enough of you are interested.....
• flerdle - *cheers*
  ooh, yes please.
• Lib - not much convincing needed!
  Click here.
• Dunx - House!
  [Lib] Congratulations! I particularly like the matching buggies in the back...
• rab - Ah....
  I notice the title of that page is out-of-date... *tweaks various knobs* Not any more!
• Dujon - Castles
  Terrific, Lib. I hope all goes smoothly with the move and that the house and area turn out to be what you expected. Exciting times indeed - good luck!
• Nik
  [Lib] I remember the pain of buying a house... well done! My house is scarily similar to that in format. If I had a digitally-inclined camera, I'd be tempted to replicate the shots. On the other hand, the car pr0n seems to be killing my bandwidth, so more pictures would be a bad idea, I think.
  I have a horrible case of the shakes at the moment. I can barely type. This is odd, because I've only had 2 pints of weak lemonlager, and a mere 3 cans of Diet Coke, today. Not much caffeine yesterday, either. Bizarre.
• Chalky - Lib's abode
  It looks great Lib. [Lovely pic of you in the bedroom] An interior design tip .. in the kitchen - lose the tiles, keep the wine.
• Chalky - er ..
  [Lib] I am assuming that IS you in the bedroom. Apologies if I've been a bit presumptuous.
• widey - I Often.....
  Lose my tiles in the kitchen after drinking wine.......It should be a compulsory house purchasing sport! And on a completely different note I've just finished building a new Koi pond from recycled house bricks and it look fabulosoe...............chin chin everyone.......
• Lib
  Thanks or all your nice words. [Dunx] I too like the buggies in the garden, but the vendors won't let me keep them! [Chalks] That's my Mum, I was behind the camera! You'll have to wait till the superpilg to see my face!
• penelope - fault lines
  [Lib] Having just returned from Iceland (and having been educated in all things seismic) I think you were sensible not to buy the blurry houses on either side. Looks like they might be laying along a tectonic fault and are suffering frequent tremors. Congratulations! :o)
• rab - Boyce
  I would have thought the caption might have tipped the wink as to the identity of the lady in question...
• Nik
  [rab] Read? Are you quite insane, sir?
  [Pilg] Er, being my typical parnoid self, I'm beginning to worry about the upcoming pilg. I have vague, distant memories about confirming my desire to attend to someone (Chalky?), but what am I supposed to be doing (if anything) about accommodation? Am I giving a lift to Manchester-based peoples, or are we going by train? Yes, yes, there's almost a full calendar month left, but still.
• st d - Lib
  I too assumed it were Lib, and that maybe she had a wee baby. Certainly the picture is in much shadow, but Lib's Mum looks very much like a friend of mine who is about 28, which would make Lib about 15 at the very most assuming Momma fell pregnant so early, and would still be very young to actually be buying a house....
• Chalky - Lib's mum and Nik's room
  [rab] the words 'proud parent' could mean proud owner of new home? eh eh ...? oh alright ...perhaps not
  [Nik] Yes - you're booked into hotel. Single room. JLE, rab & Lib might be in the epilg in MCiOS tonight - I know there was some talk about travel from M'chester last week. I'll be there mesself at about 9.30 pm for Q's about the hotel and timings.
• Nik
  Thanks for that. I will try to be in the chat room tonight, but usually forget about these things.
• rab - Spleen
  I wonder if it's time for a spring clean? Mind you, from the position of not currently being very active in the games I may not be the best person to judge.
• Bob the dog - I haven't a clue. Sorry.
  How did the epilg go? Any remaining questions?
• penelope - Menu
  [Btd] Any questions? I have thousands! What's in the line-up? Who's been really clever? How much swotting are people doing? What do we need to prepare? And what should I wear? :o)
• Chalky - dress code
  A few pics of the venue if anyone wants to adopt a personal style in accordance with the interior ambience .. http://www.corushotels.com/hotel.asp?hotelID=54
  I'm opting for a burgundy/aubergine crushed velvet gown, black lipstick, untamed long dark hair and wild, swivelly eyes.
  Er .. what's all this preparing/swotting for ... do we actually have to do something when we're there?
• penelope - Bansheen
  [Chalky] You are Siouxsie Sioux and I claim my £5.
• st d - PENELOPE !!!
  STOP HANGING AROUND IN INTERNET CAFES AT ONCE AND GET OUT THERE AND GO CLIMB A VOLCANO OR SOMETHING !! jeeez - the kids these days ?
• Boolbar - great minds
  [Chalky] Darn! Now I'll have to find something else to wear.
  BTW, Is the Rugby venue a non-smoking venue? Mrs B wants to know.
• Bob the dog - fag
  It wasn't smoking last time I saw it boom-boom. Seriously, the restaurant is non-smoking but it is ok to smoke in other places. My vote is that we politly ask smokers to refrain from doing so for the duration of the games.
• st dogmael - smokers
  bob] can we politely tell you to go stick your head in a bucket ?
  ;o)
  PEN] apologies - I thought you were still in Iceland.
• Raak - Spleening
  [rab] Whoo-doodoo-Hitler seems to be due for retirement. A-V-M-A as well?
• rab - Concur
  I certainly concur with the first, fun though it was. Not played AVMA for a while, but it may well be a good idea to lay it to rest for a while. It can always be resurrected in the fullness of time if so be required.
• Chalky - culling
  Whoodoodoo for sure. AVMA seems to have a fanbase but I'm sure they'll speak out. But surely there are other games that have seen their best? Tell you what - let's end them ALL! [except Banter,and Long Game]
  I'm still at work :-(
• rab - Alacrity
  Why not?! I feel things have stagnated a little here...
• rab - Oh
  The Furcation Game is unwinnable, but I can change that if need be.
• Tuj - Furcs etc
  rab] I see no need... I may be alone on that one though!
  Culling could be the way, but not a total one. Let's freshen up and stride onward, blah-blah.
• Inkspot - mouldy old dough
  It may have been mentioned here or at another of the boards after Dunx posted the "White Rose" archive that games do tend to go on beyond their sellby date, due a collective unwillingness to end games and feel the ire of players still posting. To the extent that generally I have come to only killing off games that I have created on Orange, which reminds me one of them has almost ground to a halt, time to get the sythe out again.
  Although I still enjoy guessing in AVMA, it feels at times that there are only the same few of us playing and so making the winning move is a bit like musical chairs. I'll miss it when it goes but then again I also miss my mum's rice pudding with the skin on the top.
• Dujon - Rice pud.
  Blimey, Inkspot, that doesn't half bring back memories. Loved rice pudding, whether 'runny' or 'firm'. Haven't had one since I married. I must have a go one day and see how I fare. With my culinary abilities (which run to meat and three veg.) I'll probably burn the bowl! Still, a couple of vinos before starting in order to settle the nerves and bolster the confidence should do wonders. Incidentally, to those of you who proferred information on dumplings some months ago, I never did get around to them. The main obstacle was the suet - not readilly available I'm afraid. My local butcher said he could organise some for me, but it'd take a week or so. The unusual burst of enthusiasm then waned rather rapidly.
• Rosie - Suet
  (Duj) Suet is only flour and fat (or oil). You can make it in no time but don't overdo the oil. It's available here anyway, at least it is in Hamsey Green Co-op. Ideally, dumplings should be very slightly burnt.
• Dujon - Really?
  I always thought suet was the scrapings from the inside of a haggis! Only kid'neyr. Burned dumplings sound like some of the nouveau riche who idolise Bondi Beach - poor misguided souls. I'm white and I'm proud of it! (To be honest it's the pain that puts me off).
• Chalky - suets you, sir
  [Boobar] have mailed you using an address from last year - hope it reaches you
  [Rosie & Duj] Sorry 'bout the interruption - suet - yes - the real thing is that solid fatty stuff that accumulates around the kidneys and omentum of the ox, sheep. etc. I believe one can no longer buy it readily because of the restrictions due to BSE, but I may be mistaken.
• penelope - Suetessimal
  [dumpling eaters] nope - it's still available. It's also available as a vegetable suet - it's just a solidified vegetable fat. I don't know about suet fresh from butchers... I guess it does take a couple of weeks if it's not something they produce regularly - you have to wait for the next beast to come through the slaughterhouse, I presume they throw it away otherwise as it's pretty untrendy right now. But both beef suet and vegetable suet are available in packets from UK supermarkets - I made dumplings the other day, in fact, for a beefy stew. Delicious. Look in the bakery aisle, near the flour and Yorkshire pudding mixes... (for those that know not how to mix together three ingredients... pffft!)
• Tuj - Haggis
  DEEELLLIIICCCCCCCIIIIIIIIOOOOOOUUUUUUUSSSSSSS. Nothing else to say.
• Bob the dog - Haggis
  Seconded. As indeed are fagots in gravey. Yumma.
• Bob the very tired - Ahem
  Faggots in gravy.
• Dunx
  [Btd] I thought that was just serious food...
• Rosie - Faggots
  "Fagotto" is Italian for bassoon. Can't see how this helps but it's true nevertheless.
• Graham III - I fagot
  [Rosie]... coming from the french word for 'bundle of sticks' (fagot). Can't see how this helps either, but I always thought it was interesting.
• snorgle - haggis
  I ate a vegetarian haggis before - it was delicious! No idea if it tasted like REAL haggis though..
• st d - faggots
  does it not all come from the latin "fasces" ?
  speaking of food, a colleague of mine went to THE FAT DUCK in Bray for her wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago, and is still reeling.
  Anyone fancy a bad tempered game ?
• Bob the dog - new game
  st d] Yes. Get on with it.
• Bob the dog - the noo
  snorgle] I am a big fan of the veggie haggis. The spices are the same as the meaty variety, so the flavour is very similar. What make the (McSween) veggie haggis so good is that it is full of real ingredients (nuts and veg) and none of that soya meat substitute nonsense.
• st d - bad tempered
  if we do it, can we have RUDE swearing ;o) ?
• Chalky - rudity
  [st d] you mean, like .. why don't you get get your effing act together and sodding well get on with it?
• rab
  [st d] Well, after my Irvine Welsh effort at Orange, too much 'king swearing might stuff up people's content filters. So shove that in your cock and smoke it.
• Chalky - here comes a chopper ...
  Apart from AVMA and Who-doodoo, which seem to have reactivated since the threat of closure was mooted, what's the favourite for the chop? I don't play many of the others ..
• st d - kill kill kill
  well to be honest I think the INTRODUCING games and the LOST CONS games have been VERY SLOW recently. Also the AVMA and WHOODOODOO games seem to be trying to end naturally (one is in swan song mode.) I was tempted to just shut the feckers down but again, dont really play in them much so didnt feel I had the right. Maybe I should just go in and shut one down anyway and you can argue about it with me in the new game. If you think you are hard enough.
• st dogmael - Now I am Bad Tempered
  Okay Okay great joke ! I killed a game and now HOW DO I START A NEW ONE ?
• Chalky - hardness
  [st d] I hate INTRODUCING - kill that one. Go on.
• st d - KILLING TIME
  shall I kill that as well ? i have BLOODLUST now. I was going to but someone started a new one. It has been pretty weak recently after a strong start (just like HEDGEHUNTER in teh grand national. £20 I had on him. Bastar*)
• Uncle Korky - Gutted
  Finally get the chance to start a new ball in late arrivals, and find it killed stone dead less than six hours later!
• Chalky - bad tempered mode
  {Uncle K] Tough sh*t :-)
• st d - Guts
  UK] blame it all on Chalky. Vent your spleen on her in the new game.
• penelope
  Just tried to start a bad tempered game, wrote some wonderful blurb (it was called 'A Game to Rival PMT for Bad Feeling' - poetic, doncha think? and it had a load of stuff rubbishing StD in the intro. When I pressed the button, the sodding site wouldn't let me do it. Pffft.
• Chalky
  Stop yer whingeing
• st d - rubbishing st d
  whyever would yo uwant to rubbish me in the intro to a game is quite quite beyond me. By the way Chalky, you might want to go have a look at the !Yorkives to see GAME 736 which was the first (&last) outing of this game. It got rather carried away and I can only say far exceeded my expectations at the time. It still has me laugh out loud if I read through a lot of it. As for content filters, well......
• Chalky - Wahay!
  [st d] Haha - just looked and how ROOD were you all? Extreme blasphemy from someone called Jacob and someone else called GRKWYK or some such fancy-arsed acronymically-challenged tosspot moniker ...
• rab - New gameage
  [pen] Was that cos st d's game was started in the time it took you fill out the create game form? Did it say something like 'Don't think you can sneak a new game past me?' or similar... I think that's what's supposed to happen, but we've never had that race situation before.

  [std] Ya fuckwit, didn't you spot the 'Create a New Game' button on the front page?

• rab - Oh
  On the other hand, I have have surreptitiously dropped the game limit...
• Chalky - fuckwittedness
  [rab] Actually ['though it chokes me to say this] in st d's defence - the New Game Slot didn't appear after he'd killed off GNBN. It only popped up when I murdered the Ball's Game.
• rab - Yeah
  Yeah, that's what my previous posting was trying to explain. Read? It's that thing you do when you scan you eyes from left to right past some letters. Helps if the eye-brain connection is working of course.

  Whoops, wrong game! I moot we restore civility on this particular forum...

• Chalky - civil engineering
  What a fine evening it's turning out to be. Here I am, happily ensconced at my desk, playing online games with some awfully nice people. I shall be picked up at around 6.15 and taken to an excellent pub to join some chums. I intend to nibble on a packet of mixed fruit & nuts [haven't had any tea, see] and swig a glass or three of house plonk.
• Bob the dog
  Bollocks.
• Chalky
  ah - so the dog's bollocks is stirring ..
• Chalky - suggestion
  Does anyone fancy a game of Cress?
  I know I won't get any response 'til daylight 'cause this place, like, dies at this time of night, but I just thought I'd ask ...
• Inkspot - nighty nite
  [Chalky]Cress sounds good, go on its a form that's not played very often.
• Boolbar - dreamy fillings
  Mmmmmh, egg and cress sandwiches with mayo . . . .
• snorgle - Celebdaq
  Woohoo! I'm number 1! (Again). (At last!). Were we supposed to take a screen print for someone? I want to save this for posterity..
• DrQu+xum - Happy _______ day!
  Happy St. George's Day.
  Happy Nik's Birthday. (at the risk of offending him again)
  Happy Dr. Lock's Birthday.
  Happy My Birthday next week.
  Happy Merlyn's Birthday next week in case I'm too pissed to say it then.
• Bob the dog - Today or not today, that is the question
  Yesterday was NotmrsBobthedogs birthday. Today is Shakespeare’s birthday and tomorrow 1stchildofBobthedog is going to be a flower-girl in the Shakespeare parade.
• Tuj - Today...
  ...is spacebarofBobtheDog's holiday... :-)
  Re: Cress] As good as any... we appear to have run out of suggestions (though not insults).
• Chalky
  [DrQ] Does Dr Lock actually exist?
  Oh yes, happy returns to all current birthday celebrators
• Dujon - Celebdaq
  Congratulations on a fine effort, snorgle.

  For Inkspot, whom I think wanted the chart saved; just in case no-one else did I have captured the table as a straight jpg image. It's not small (a bit over 200Kb) but if needed, it's here. I have not attempted to pretty up the page so the table is crammed in between a couple of advertisements.

• Dujon - Or was that last week?
  Whatever. I shall clear it off the site in a week or so - or when I remember. :-(
• Lib - and todays excitement is...
  I *almost* got to go in an ambulance with a blue flashy light all the way to Liverpool today!
• Boolbar - baddy pirthhay
  Can I wish everyone a very happy notyourbirthday (and if it is your birthday, wait 'til tomorrow) as I am so bad at remembering peoples birthdays (including my own) that I am more likely to succeed in remembering to wish everyone a notyourbithday greeting.
  [Lib] What, you mean you where clinging to the outside?
• Inkspot - more Brazilian nuts
  Late congratulations snorgle on being ay No1 . [Dujon]Thank you for the screen shot, yes it was for last week, how good are you at maths? The thing is, knowing the £ worth this week and the % gain, is it possible to calculate backwards to last weeks worth and gain . The table I have posted is from Saturday so the results are slightly wrong. If any passing mathematician is passing could they post a simple equation, I tried to do various transpositions but failed dismally.

  ...and another thing Dujon who do Bolton Wanderers think they are doing signing the Brazilian Rivaldo!

• Dujon - Mathematics etc.
  You leave my lads alone, Inkspot. :-) You should know by now that we buy has-beens and rejuvinate their careers - then they nick off for more money! At the risk of incurring the wrath of everyone else - we're tenth on the table, who'd a'thought it.
  I've never followed the percentage calculations on the 'Daq. They certainly don't look right at times. I've noticed that sometimes after kneecapping (when it's easy to do a quick mental calc.) the numbers don't always compute. Then again, it could be the wine. ;-)
• Dujon - 'rejuvenate', perhaps.
• Tuj - ...or 'prolong' ;-)
• Tuj - The "Start a new game" button
  Is it there for a limited time only? I'd been thinking of porposing a game of Boardo, but then one sprung up over at MCiOS. Any suggestions?
• Chalky - new game
  I made one a coupla days ago .. Inky agreed ... no-one else said anything
• Bob the dog - Rugby game
  I've been considering using a game as a venue for ISIHAC pilg chat and news. Any takers?
• Lib - Liverpool and Rugby
  [Boolbar] Thankfully not, I had to stay at work as I was deemed to junior by Liverpool hosptial to be a medical escort. So I stayed at Macclesfield hospital and had promotion while my senior was out on the ambulance.
  [BtD]Yes, yes, yes, yes!
• Chalky - Bob's idea
  *thinks* hmmm .. I would hate to marginalise those who aren't going to be involved. I think most interested parties now go to the Pilg Game in Orange. There are of course, some people who are coming to Rugby who don't post in here, so whether they would start *looking* in here is anyone's guess. Then again, if we do do it it would only be for a month or so. [How about that? consecutive double 'do's' and 'it's'. Grammatically sound?]
• flerdle - not even going, but...
  Valid idea, BtD, but splitting discussions and arrangements in two, in my experience, is inevitably a Bad Arrangement. So I would recommend everyone just look in The Pilgrim Game on Orange for Rugbypilg arrangments regularly, and someone involved keep posting the link to it here, or bookmark it yourself if you don't usually visit Orange.
• Bob the dog - As recommended above
  Apologies for the cross posting, but details of the ISIHAC2 party in Rugby have now been posted on the Orange Pilg board. Jon Naismith, eat your heart out.
• austen bisina.aka warrinawaa - which level
  junior once took his cat to skool and was asked by the teacher; teacher:junior why did u bring your cat to skool? junior:uncle,coz i heard my elders sister's boyfriend telling her that i will eat up ur pussy......hahahaahaahhh.o boy no be lie.
• austen bisina.aka warrinawaa - warri wan kill me oooooooooooo
  o boy na 4 sizzlers o warri se wan woman carry small dog.after d dog don run entre nain d woman ask d security,have u seen enough?meanwhile she wear small microscopic skirt.nain security se we never see enouggh oo ur small dog?guy d babi bend down well well so tey every con dey show.nain she ask ve u seen enough?nain security answer yes we have seen more than enough........o boy no be lie.
• Bob the dog
  Nice.
• snorgle - what the..?
  What the hell is that about?
• st d - o boy no be lie
  snorgs] e be de babi story bendi down for to look at me dog man yo no unnerstan? yo be crezi momma. o boy no be lie.
• Projoy - jokes
  I got the sense of it, but I'm stuck on the word "nain".
• st d - nain
  PJ] it means DWARF in french. See the poular song:-
  Je voudrais etre un nain,
  Pour avoir une grosse bîte,
  Mais je ne suis qu'un géant,
  Et la mienne est petite.
• Uncle Korky
  Just realised that attendance at the RugbyPilg will mean missing my mate's annual Eurovision party!
• Bob the dog - One song to the tune of the same song
  UK] And your mates will be missing the Rugbypilg. Unless you invite them :o)
• Uncle Korky - One song to the tune of last year's...
  Btd] After swift negotiations, managed to book myself in 'round my mate's for Saturday 22nd, where we can watch the qualifiers and the contest itself (which he'll be taping), and pretend it's all happening live.
  
  I really am a sad case...
• rab - Bollocks!
  DIdn't realise the RugbyPilg clashed with Eurovision... What shall we do?
• penelope - Euro-Trellis
  We could perhaps have a Eurovision Break? The results of the voting are always really late - perhaps the scheduled entertainment will have finished by then, so those that need to will be clear to watch it. And I reckon we should have a sweepstake organised for the Eurovision result too... so there'll be a cash prize!!
• snorgle - You have to ask?
  I'm sure you'll get over it, rab!
• st d - eurovision
  oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear
• Chalky - rugbyvision
  I'll make sure there's a TV in The Study, eh?
• DrQu+xum - Bad news
  I'm afraid that e-pilg transcriber was in a horrible browser crash last night. He sadly has no recollection of the goings-on last night.
• Chalky - transcrash
  what a relief :-)
• Bob the dog - Buttered muffin
  Loobyloo] Darn shame I'd say ;o)
  Dr Q] Nice to see you back, we missed you. Would you like to contribute long-distance to the Pilg? I'd like to have a "and this one was sent in by... "section for Mcers who can not attend. Cast your beady eye over the Orange pilg game and email me with contributions.
• snorgle - moomintroll
  I read a rather funny news story about a man dressed as a moomin being run over by a truck in Norway and I was going to post it, but I can't find it anywhere!
• st d - ignorant rude w****rs
  The tetchy game seems to be going quite well, I thought.
• flerdle - can anyone say "oven"?
  Ok, ok, the "cool" weather (22 to 32°C or thereabouts) is officially OVER, here. Just in the last three days, it's all changed. Yesterday was a stinker of a humid day. Today, it was measured at 44°C (but very very dry) at 4pm.
  I wanna icecream.
• Tuj - On the non-avoidance of ice-creams...
  flerdle] I had two today, feeling rather gluttonous!
  
• Breadmaster - Weather
  Did anyone else catch the incredible rainstorm in London yesterday? I did - indeed, I was caught by it. I don't think I've ever been out in such heavy rain - I didn't even know it was possible. Thoroughly enjoyable stuff all round.
• Dujon - Whoee!
  When you've had enough, post the left overs to me would you, please? What was it like? It must have been some drop to elicit comment.
• Chalky
  Saying 'bye-bye' for a few days ... speak soon
• Dujon
  :'(
• ImNotJohn - It never rains
  [BM, Dujon] I was sheltering under the portico of St Martin in the Fields at the time and it was of tropical intensity – streets and pavements were a continuous flow of water. The worst bit lasted about 15 minutes, but my guess would be that it amounted to 1-2cms in that time. I was the slightly embarrassed-looking person in the business suit carrying his wife’s yellow umbrella with the duck’s head handle!
  BTW I went to SMITF to see 'ZUM' a band that plays an eclectic mixture of E. European gypsy music, jazz and Argentinian tango. Very enjoyable.
• Inkspot - more rain
  The rain continues to rain here in the north of Wiltshire, I only hope it is dry in Youlbury, Oxfordshire as Little O' is going camping with the Cubs over the weekend.
• widey - ahhhhh the sound of rain
  I live in Manchester and even when its dry its raining, now figure that one out!!!
• flerdle - huh?
  [widey] fancy that, where I am it's the exact opposite, at least so far. Two "showers", not enough to actually wet the ground.
  [INJ] Ah, those tropical downpours - several every summer in Bris. Be thankful there was no hail? *pines*
• rab - Manx Cats
  [widey] I didn't realise we had another Nor'westerner in our midst! I agree with you about the moistness, though.
• Rosie - Mancunian rainfall
  Manchester isn't all that wet. The average rainfall at Manchester Airport (1971-2000) is 807 mm per year. That's less than I get here in the sunny south (Surrey), with 828 mm. (1983-2003). Cardiff gets 1112 mm and Swansea over 1200 mm, the wettest large city in Britain. The driest would seem to be Cambridge, average 554 mm. Cherrapunji (Assam) has about 11,000 mm, the total for July alone being about 1800 mm. 60 mm a day - every day. Over most of lowland Britain (i.e. where we all live) you get that amount about once every 25 years.
• Inkspot - panda leaves
  There have been one or two comments about my punctuation, but I know what I mean and it ends up legible (more or less). Today I have picked up a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves from the library, hopefully some of the pedants round here will see some slight improvement in the next three weeks.
  As a designer and Planning Supervisor, I wade through documents from the HSE on the Building Industry, anyway today I've been reading mostly Peer review of analysis of specialist group reports on causes of construction accidents Research Report 218.
  I should not make light of other peoples misfortunes but on page 98 the Description of the Incident:-
  

  A building was being refurbished and in the course of this staircase balustrade and handrails had been removed and plastic warning tape placed around the stair well. Upholsters were working on the upper floor in the neighbourhood of the stairs and one fell down the stair. well.

  
  Rather than falling badly?
• Nik
  [Rosie] Ah yes, but in Manchester it does it all the time - a constant drizzle, rather than a few huge downpours. And even when it's not raining, it feels like it's raining. The rare clear, sunny day sees industry and traffic (well, moreso than usual, for the latter) grind to a halt, with crowds of people stumbling around, faces uplifted, blinking in slightly worried confusion at the big yellow ball in the sky. Hence, it's grim oop norf.
• Rosie - Persistent Mancunian precipitation
  (Nik) A good point. Figures for rainfall duration are remarkably hard to come by but I strongly suspect Manchester has more hours of rain per year than my back garden, despite the lower rainfall total. Sunshine figures give some clue - Manchester has 1395 hrs annually (same as Sheffield, incidentally) compared to typically 1500-1600 hrs for inland southern England and the Midlands. Eastbourne gets 1848 hrs, making the retired gentlefolk even more prune-like than ever. Places like Oldham and Burnley are a lot wetter than M/C, and have even less sun. Manchester is not uniquely awful, weatherwise, not by a long chalk.
• Breadmaster - Raining in my heart
• Breadmaster - And to continue with that thought...
  [flerdle] There was some hail in the rainstorm, amazingly. I know because it was hitting me. The whole thing was like running through a lake with a few bubbles in it.
• Dujon - Please send it over
  My location has had this rain since the start of 2004:
  January - 61.5mm
  February - 108mm - 80mm of which arrived on one day.
  March - 44.25mm
  April - 31mm

  My wife's lovely garden may be about to get the chop. There seems to be no doubt that existing water restrictions (use thereof) are about to be tightened. Urk!

• Rosie - Oz rain
  (Dujon) That's 245 mm, against my 281 mm. Seems quite a lot to me, though your higher temperatures make it less "useful" hydrologically. But laying water out to dry is a bit of an indulgence in Australia, isn't it?
• Lib
  I'm writing this from my lovely back yard, powered by my clever new phone. [dr q] I got to keep one of the buggies featured on my house website, yay! If only i was small enough to fit in it!
• flerdle - wot rain?
  [BM] It's not really hail till it's the size of giant golfballs ;-)
  [Dujon] Urk, indeed. What has she been growing? I think lawn can be a bit of an extravagance, but a lot of other things can be made pretty water-sparing, but that depends on what they are. My own experiments in gardening had to be stopped a couple of years ago when I could no longer get the lucerne hay I needed, because of drought (no-dig style, lucerne hay topped with spent mushroom compost. Amazingly productive). I only ever grew veges, though.

  I think I mentioned before, average rainfall here is around 100mm annually. This is a slightly old (1995) but still informative report on agricultural resources. Ironically, the largest crop here, other than dates? Alfalfa (lucerne).

• Dujon - Four inches
  [flerdle] That's a bit on the dry side! Where does water come from (and don't say the sky) - dams, next door's river? [Rosie] It does sound odd does it not. That's supposed to be our wet season though. Winter - at least where my castle is situated - tends to be the dryest time of year. We shall see. Sydney's main dam (Warragamba, about five miles from me as the crow flies) is said to be down just under the 50% capacity level which does not auger well.
• Dujon - I'm not going to drill for water; let's try augur.
• flerdle - well, actually... let's go UndergrounD
  [Dujon] Next door is at least as bad, if not worse - they have to resort to desalination of sea water. Along the Batinah coastal plain there are aquifers. The water itself is very high in calcium/lime but very safe, however because of the taste and the effect on kettles etc most drinking water is bottled springwater. There is a large mountain range about 30km inland, parallel to the coast, which gets the same to three times the rain that the plain does. There is continuous replenishment of the aquifers by seepage from the mountains, and from the flash floods that race down the wadis (dry gullies) when it does manage to rain. The rain, when it happens, is in the winter. The other main source of water close to the mountains are the Aflaj (sing: falaj), which are ancient and very reliable.
• snorgle - MCiOS problems
  Anyone else having trouble accessing MCiOS? Another website I use was down yesterday, apparently due to Mayday hacker attacks on their server. I wonder if the same thing has happened to Parslow?
• Raak
  [snorgle] I can't see it either.
• snorgle - hyperlink
  Well, as it's down, I'll put this link here, because otherwise I'll forget. Just a cute ferret story, although I recently saw a cat living in a garden centre, I just assumed it belonged to the shop, maybe it was a stray.
• Dujon - Nip!
  Has Dr Q been visiting Mrs Trellis? [flerdle] Thanks for the info.
• DrQu+xum - *snore*
  Was in mediocre-smelling but still decent-looking New Wilmington, Pennsylvania this weekend eating Schweinflesch and getting heavily pissed. Kinda obvious considering the event is called "Hog & Grog". ;)
• Rosie - New Wilmington, PA
  (Dr Q) Where's that, then? Couldn't find it on my atlas. Hope you enjoyed your Pork and Paralysis. :-)
• Inkspot - more spears
  Latest news in from the daq; in Celebrity MC moreteaplease has taken back the top from snorgle, but what is this!!!! blamelewis at No2?! a stunning performance after being kneeecaped just pipping ffiish.
• rab - Oink
  It's hailing cows and chickens out there...
• Herr Bratsche - Hail, Mary
  [rab] Sure is here too in Brum. Where's you?
• rab - Weee
  [HB] Moist Manchester. Chorlton-on-Medlock, to be more precise.
• JLE
  Likewise here in Manchester's *other* Chorlton, Chorlton-cum-Hardy...
• Bob the dog - Silly names
  No hail in Woodstock today. Sunny and bright here in Clopton.
• DrQu+xum - New Wilmington, PA
  [Rosie] It's a tiny town between Sharon & New Castle, right on the Lawrence/Mercer county border. You may be able to find it by the artificial lake in the shape of Alabama.
  
  And yes I did. ;)
  
  Slightly drizzly here in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh.
• Bob the dog
  I'm back in Woodstock and it is p***ing down.
• penelope - now you see them...
  A torrential rain and hail storm half an hour ago washed away the newly-painted car park markings. Oh, how we laughed...
• Raak
  Penelope's storm seems to be on its way here. The last piece of blue sky is fleeing in a north-easterly direction while black clouds arrive with faint thunder.
• Rosie - Places in PA and other things
  (Dr Q) Found Sharon and New Castle, but no New Wilmington, or Alabammy-like lake. Must be nearly in Ohio, it looks to me. (Bob the dog) Silly names? Near me is Fickleshole, consisting of a road junction, a pub and two farms. (All) Measured nearly an inch of rain Weds morning (25.1 mm) and quite a bit more today with a bit of feeble thunder. Good reason not to cut the grass or continue with my outdoor painting job. (Warlingham, NE Surrey).
• Dunx
  [Rosie] Golly, I am glad I;m not in Surrey!

  Well, bit of a given that one, really...

• I Say, Porter! - Weather
  It's pissing down here in Turin and has been for over a week. Apartment block-residents (self included) who do not have autonomous heating (i.e. whether the heating is on or off depends on the calendar not on whether you need heating - April 15, all central heating off!) have been freezing their nipples off for the last fortnight, as it is colder than a witch's tit.
• Rosie - Rain
  (Dunx) What I measured was the rainfall for the past 24 hrs, which I do every morning. So, not as bad as it sounds. :-)
• widey - sigh
  Come to sunny Manchester where the sun shines even when its raining, which it does 365 days a year.................(rain I mean)
• widey - sigh
  I know there are places that have more rain fall than here, but we do have a naturally damp climate, hence the boom of the cotton industry back in the 19-20 Centuries. Damp air is great for spinning cotton as the fibers are less prone to break and are easier to work. The same applies to wool. Are you all asleep now?
• Rosie - cotton and wool
  Not quite. The Lancashire cotton industry had more to do with availability of labour and the proximity of a large port (Liverpool) than any climatic factors. Besides, the woollen industry was concentrated in Yorkshire, where the air is marginally drier, but frankly it makes bugger all difference anyway. Anywhere in Britain would be quite satisfactory.
• Dujon - Spinning around.
  I used to walk past a cotton mill on the odd occasion on which I walked between the homes of a couple of my relations. One thing that struck me at the time - and I've never solved the conundrum - was that the building was large and had a huge number of windows, albeit those little six inch panes set into a larger frame. Presumably this was to allow natural light to access the interior; but the windows were never cleaned - or at least did not appear to be so. Still, I'm talking of a town called Leigh which also had two or three active coal mines and hundreds of coal burning fireplaces so maybe it was just 'natural' deposits. The air that came out of those windows - many were hopper type, hinged at the bottom - was hot. I sympathise with anyone who had to work in that environment.
• why
  why
• Coz
  coz
• Raak
  raak
• Tuj - Raak
  Isn't that more of an aak or an uhk?
• Raak
  [Tuj] Rrraak! Rrraak!
• Tuj - Raak
  OK, you win. My mouth explodes with delight.
• Dujon - Laughs
  Very funny.
• Nik - Terrible implosions of unconnectedness!
  [Raak] Shades of night is a friend of RavenBlack (the Advice contributor). Not massively interesting, no, but this sort of thing always jars my brain, especially on a slightly tender saturday morning.
• Darren - Rrraak!
  [Raak] It sounds like the "baby" in Eraserhead.
• Inkspot - more soap
  Meanwhile....over at Celebrity Mornington Crescent ; blamelewis climbs to the top, many congratulations (what or where is The Fly Floor).
  sounds; one resource I plunder everynow and then for a new mail notification noise etc is http://www.findsounds.com/ click on "Need Examples?".
• Widey
  Actually Rosie your wrong!!!! oo errrrr did I say that!!! It does make a difference to spinning cotton if the air is dry and not moist. I admit the close proximity of an atlantic (via the irish sea) port (Liverpool) holds some merit but its not the main reason, if it were, Bristol would have been a good choice!! As for the "labour pool" most were agricultural workers who came into the developing areas to look for work in the "new factories". The populace of Manchester pre 1750 was much the same as the rest of the country.........
• Rosie - Lanky cotton
  (Widey) Like anyone else I can talk bollocks from time to time, and do so, but I don't think I'm that far out about the climatic factors, though you've certainly got a point about the availability of labour. You're certainly right, of course, that high humidity is helpful, but what it boils down to in actual numbers is the difference in average relative humidity between Lancashire and the rest of the country and in all honesty I don't think it is really all that much. I don't want to sound too much of a pompous old fart but I am a trained meteorologist, albeit er . . . some time ago. (1966, actually). :-)
• widey - another question?
  Cool........pun not intended.......I'm only going off what has been published in my local history books so I guess there is a lot of room for error on my part, I find it fascinating though the link between climate and manufacturing. I guess the other major factor is the multitude of fast flowing streams and rivers in the local, great for the early waterpowerd mills and shops...... I would be interested to know your thoughts on the present weather situation, is it my imagination or are we having more rainfall in the uk? Also it seems to be a lot warmer earlier in the year than it ever was in the past!......
• widey - boo hoo sob
  I miss missiv trellis can't we av it back, g'uvnor?
• Chalky - missing missive
  [widey] Some of the games are very slow and would probably welcome a euthanastic shove [not The Furc Game - that's sacrosanct] If no-one objects over the next day or so ... go for it
  
• Rosie - The weather
  (Widey) The average UK rainfall has gone up, but not a lot, in the last 40 yrs. For instance, my own records, made with a standard raingauge, show an average of about 830 mm annually over the last 21 years, whereas from old data and charts I would estimate a figure of 790 mm for 1931-1960 for my place (NE Surrey). The rain has become more seasonal with autumn and winter wetter and summer drier. July is now the driest month of the year over a large area of the UK whereas 50 yrs ago it was about 4th or 5th wettest, certainly in the eastern half of the country and the Midlands. Summers are better! Winters are definitely milder than the 60's and 70's. This is only slightly due to global warming but mainly because we get a lot less easterly and northerly winds than in the past. The change in the circulation may in itself be due to global warming, but this kind of shift has happened in the past so it may equally well not be. I could write pages on this but I'd better not. :-)
• Dujon - Droughts and Floods
  [widey] There is a number of factors which directly affect our planet and its atmospheric behaviour, quite apart from our own efforts to do the same. This is an interesting article if you are that way inclined.
• Darren
  [widey] Yes, I'd like to see Missive Trellis back too. I missed a lot of it last time because of my access troubles.
• rab - Kill them All!
  Go on, go on, go on!
• rab - Sacrosancy
  *wonders if we should perform the Furcation Game on Saturday*
• rab
  *very quickly realises that's a rubbish idea*
• Chalky - Furcating
  *has thought of an interesting variation*
• Rosie - Dentistry
  (Softers) Couldn't think of a limerick line so here's the toothypeg news. There was a hole the size of the Arizona Crater in it, with the nerve almost bare. No wonder it bloody hurt. The dentist declared it a write-off and pulled it. All is now well. :-)
• Uncle Korky - Tuesday 25/05/04, Radio 4, 11.30am
  Just been advised of the following by my mate at the Beeb:
  No Fixed Abode, Cricklewood
  Phill Jupitus talks to Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie about their early days as comedy writers and performers, and about their 1970s cult series The Goodies (1/2).
• Darren
  Here's a game we could play on Saturday - the Bad HTML game.
• Chalky
  rab?
• rab
  Chalky?
• Chalky
  Just thought I'd break the silence :-)
• rab
  Ah.
• Dunx
  [Chalky] You know you're going to have to pay for that silence, don't you?
• flerdle
  We could talk about the weather...
• penelope
  Same old... dull and overcast, cool, but dry.
• Dunx
  [pen] Perfect running weather, then.
• Tuj - The weather
  What will tomorrow bring?
• Inkspot - rainbow skies
  Tomorrow could bring the end of AVMA, and with it a new game. Any takers for "Spot Ruttborough's Ostrich"?
• snorgle - Yay!
  Now where could that ostrich BE-E-E-E-E-E-E-E?
• widey - Frisky fish!!!
  Today my Koi have been in a most frisky mood and have engaged in a mass spawning, must be the slight rise in the water temperature. I look forward to seeing their many offspring (and making a couple of quid when they mature!).
• Dujon - Entrepreneurs
  [widey] That made me laugh! As a sprog I used to breed white mice and flog 'em. I never asked where they were going as some people feed them to their pet snakes. Nevertheless, the temperature didn't seem to make a difference at all to the production rate. ... :-)
• widey - So you were the white mouse supplier!
  My Royal(Ball)Python, Oscar, used to love white mice. I used to feel a bit guilty feeding them to him, but then what the f**k they would eat us if they could!!!
• Dujon - What's in a name?
  'Oscar' as a name for a snake?  Sounds a bit fishy to me.
• ZK - FIRE!
  Just ordered out of bed by an incessant beeping and the vague smell of burnt popcorn and told by the fireman standing outside our neighbouring flat to get out of the flat, whence we stood around on the lawn. Interesting start to the day, especially for the poor sods from that flat who have exams this morning and have to look forward to coming home to a water-logged, sooty kitchen, smoke-damaged flat and melted toaster.
• flerdle - yikes
  [ZK] Lovely way to start the day.
  [weather] It has slowly crept up to usually about 25-35°C here; some degree of aircon is a must now. No rain, of course. I think I'm becoming nocturnal.
• Bob the dog
  ZK] Escape the smoke and examination pressure this weekend. Come to Brownsover Hall for the ISIHAC2 Pilg. You'd be most welcome! I'm sure Lib, Pen and Chalky would love to meet you too.
• Chalky
  Indeed
• Boolbar - excited
  Blimey, that's the day after tomorrow. I now have 1 Jurassic "Radio Tymes". Most get more. Panic? Me?
• ZK - excuse any incoherence; I'm only lately being introduced to Carling....
  ah, sadly this weekend is much-needed time with my family; re-bonding over eurovision, Wogan-esque sarcasm and the traditional Spag Bol (ah, real food at last!!!!!). Have missed EV for inexcusable reasons these last two years, so shall be rather looking forward to catching up on the previously annual cheesefest. Otherwise, naturally, I would love to join you all. Have a good time on me. *tip of the day* beer is much nicer when accompanied by Polo mints.
  Meantime, of course, the poor girls whose flat got burnt out have to live elsewhere for the remainder of the examination period, which I didn't realise.
• Bob the dog
  Eurovision has nothing on what we have planned (and anyway TV can be recorded). Not so sure we can match the Spag Bol tho.. ;o)
• Dujon
  I had the dubious pleasure of watching a semi-final of the EVC last evening. If you enjoy a few mid-teen check out chicks trying to make a quid and a heap of blokes singing falsetto (or have an injury; or aren't blokes?) this is for you.
  Mind you, I wouldn't miss it for quids - it's got to be the funniest show on television each year.
• snorgle - Rugby Pilg
  You're probably all on your way if not there already - but have fun! And make sure you get too drunk. That's important.
• Tuj - Seconding snorgle's sentiments
  Yeh...
• Breadmaster
  Hey, I loved it! The Netherlands should have won, in my opinion, but I won't complain about Ukraine...
• rab - Schwoing
  [snorgle, Tuj] I certainly had quite a hangover this morning, though I understand others were more restrained. I think I good time was had by all, though I shouldn't necessarily speak on their behalf. Much kudos and fanx attack to Bob the dog (note small d).
• Boolbar - thanx R Us
  . . . . and Chalky!
• rab
  Whoops, of course, and to everyone else who made the thing such a success.
• Bob the dog
  Carrot
• Boolbar
  umm, Carrot?
• rab
  Carrot (was it just one, or were they plural?)
• Lib
  And if I'm not mistaken there was a bottom too! Thank you everyone for such an excellent super-pilg. Same time next year?....
• Bob the dog
  Vote 1 - Yes.
• Chalky
  Vote 2 - YES [and I hereby volunteer to do the hotely thing]
  and Bob - the Biscuit Game print is a work of art and is being framed to take pride of place alongside 'The Great Bear'. We didn't do it justice. Can we play it online pleeeez?
• penelope
  Vote 3 (from the Rickmansworth jury) YES.
  More prepared alternative lyrics next time please. Merlyn's Bohemian Rhapsody has me in hurty squeaking stitches, as you all probably noticed (and no, I didn't have a Tenalady moment). I vaguely remember discussing American Pie with some sort of MC alternative lyric but I'm sure I wasn't volunteering. Perhaps it should be stored in the Sonnets game on Orange to see what incubates.
• Uncle Korky
  Vote 4 - YES. What a fantastic event, and a great location too. And what a wonderful bunch of people, who all got on tremendously well. At this stage in the proceedings, I'd also like to say carrot.
• JLE
  Vote 5 - YES. And is there any chance it could include a live game of "The Great Bear"?
• ImNotJohn
  Put me down as a YES as well. Nice venue, great company and I hardly felt any embarassment at my lack of preparation (although I will have to learn how to play a kazoo).
• ImNotJohn
  Oops that's embarrassment of course.
• Uncle Korky - Old-fashioned MC, just like mother used to make
  Chalky] The gauntlet's down - see the Lockisseum's Proving Ground.
  carrot
• JLE
  [INJ] I think you were actually right the first time.
• Uncle Korky - Great Bear
  JLE] If so, I can bring my wall print of said map with me for team reference purposes.
• Chalky - grapefruit
  [IncleKorks] Wahay - I'm there :-)
• rab - Wobbly
  Just to let you know I'll be off piste for the next couple of days, as I'm travelling up to Edinburgh tomorrow for an interview. Feeling a little wobbly already... I also shan't be in the chatroom tonight for various logistical reasons.
• Uncle Korky - "So, why do you want this job...?"
  Good luck, rab!
• Uncle Korky - Oooohhh.....
  I see that there are suddenly two spare game spaces... Now, having worked out the etiquette of these things, I'm announcing my ideas for the replacements. I had a chat with Bob the dog after ISIHAC2, and we both like the idea of:
  1] Playing Last Lines - inappropriate sentences that sound the death knell for a television programme (for example: The Money Programme - Has anyone got 50p for the meter? or Upstairs Downstairs - Rose! We're moving into a bungalow!").
  2] Writing sales pitches for hard to sell items. The item must be described, and then the sale pitched in Estateagentese.
  Well, folks - the ball's in your court. Anyone interested?
• Chalky - New Game
  Lemon Puff
• ZK
  So was this uber-pilg recorded as you said it would be? Or do we have to make do with transcripts?
• Bob the dog - Recording medium
  ZK] Half was recorded on to mini-disc (the second half)+ the end of games cabaret (which really was wonderful). We lost the first half due to a technical hitch :o( But I am preparing transcripts :o)
• penelope - empty rooms...
  9.50pm BST - is anyone going in the chatroom tonight?
• Lib - Changing rooms
  Sorry pen. I've been playing Lawerence Llewyellen-Bowen. 60 percent of wallpaper removed from bedroom. And thankfully all the plaster is where it should be! Fun.
• Darren
  [ZK] Unfortunately, the singing games and sound charades were in the first half! Still, that's all the more reason to attend next year's one!
• penelope - chatroomier
  [Lib] Never mind - I think we're probably all pilged out anyway. Stripping walllpaper? Wheeee! [Btd] Sorry I missed you.
• DrQu+xum - Back from Richmond, VA
  I'm back just in time to miss the e-pilg. Feh. Photos are here.
• Dunx - Rugby Photos
  Darren has been kind - there are photos. Marvel at the thespery!
• Dujon - Or here?
  perhaps?
• Dujon - Common-ents
  [flerdle, PaulWay] They nicked our little badges!
  Plate 40: I'm a wee bit concerned about that UFO about to alight upon LotUS' right shoulder.
  Top hole, Dunx, thanks for posting them.
• Bob the dog
  Did try epilg last night but it was quiet. Assume everyone sleeping off the weekends excesses.
• Inkspot - picture this
  Great pictures of everyone enjoying themselves....jealous? me? pah!
• Uncle Korky - snap snap snap
  Darren] Great pics - you can really see the detail on hiz nob. Dunx] Cheers for posting 'em!
  Got home last night, and, as it was so hot, I decided I'd use the opportunity to run the Flymo over the lawn. I tell you - there's nothing like the smell of pureed cat poo pervading the warm air to keep you on task.
• penelope - catmo
  [UK] Ahh, the flymo/catpoo incident rears its ugly head. I've commented on this before, and recently remonstrated with a neighbour who doesn't believe his cat would poo anywhere but the litter tray provided. I tell you, you'd be amazed at the amount of shit one cat can produce. Starving them would seem to be the most obvious course of action.
• Uncle Korky - Aaahhhhh..... NOT Bisto...
  Pen] Sadly, they're my cats. As far as I'm aware, cats don't tend to toilet on their own territory, but ours never developed that quirk. At our previous house, our next door neighbour had fourteen cats, all of which used our garden, and I suppose they just worked out that the nearest patch of grass smelled right for business.
• snorgle - pushycats
  Well, my cats nearly ALWAYS use my garden - although to be fair, one is so old she can't jump up on the wall anymore, and the other is so fat, he has some difficulty jumping up on the wall, and is quite funny to watch when he tries. So I'm always having to clear the garden, as we have a dog, too. We used to have a dogloo but it couldn't take the pressure, so now I just chuck it out with the rubbish. Lovely topic of conversation here today! :)
• Uncle Korky - *dithering*
  Do I take it that because there's been no comment on my games proposals (above), other than Chalks (who, I believe, would like a go at The Biscuit Game), there'd be no objection to my starting one or both...?
• Brendan
  [UK] Go ferret, I'd say. I would suggest one tweak to the sales pitches one, which is that it might work a bit better if each person proposes the item which the person coming after them has to sell ... (a la things like Jeopardy). Then again, I suppose your structure would work more like The Book Blender on Orange, with people contributing when they thought of a cool idea. Don't know which would be better suited, tbh.
• flerdle - Love the pics...
  [rab] a bit late, but... good luck.
  [Dujon] Ooooh, they did too, the naughty beggars.
  [pen, Btd] Phone line is dead, couldn't be there.
• Paulgeaf - Hmmm this is interesting
  Are there people living in here?
• penelope - uninhabited
  [Paulgeaf] We visit here from time to time - usually several times a day in my case. Have you found the other Mornington Crescent sites? They're similarly un-inhabited but there's a chat room on MCiOS, and we often camp in there on a Monday evening (BST or GMT). Have fun!
• Uncle Korky - I've taken the plunge
  Corporation dustcart is up and running. Winning move is a programme that I would definitely notlike to see scrapped (should be enough of a clue for anyone who knows me). If that isn't enough of a clue, it's one that Michael Grade has had a go at before.
  Brendan] I'm giving some more thought to the sales pitch game, and I hope to post it in the next day or so, as long as the slot's still vacant.
• ZK - nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!
  There was Flanders & Swann and I missed it!
• Uncle Korky - On The Slow Train...
  ZK] And it was very good indeed! I have the whole F&S session recorded on my camcorder, but I have no idea how to transfer it to anything else...
• Dunx
  [Dujon] Thanks for posting the corrected link. Safari's addition of line break characters can be pretty annoying.
• Paulgeaf - life on mc server
  [penelope] tanks for that. I must look around and work this place out.. I thought i was too old to find a 'new' area of communication online cheers :)
• Darren - Uncle Korky's F&S Footage
  [Uncle Korky] I can probably help you there - I've mailed you about it.
• Dujon
  [Dunx] My pleasure.
  [Darren] Thanks for providing the pics. I thought I'd put that in on my previous post!
• ZK - exams
  Woooo! One down, three to go. Then, only two more academic years before I can join the rat race and become even more bitter, twisted and cynical than I am now :)
• Inkspot - testing times
  Good luck ZK in the exams, is your time now your own? way back when, after our exams, we still had course work to do. The peer group crits took place on the last two days of term; older, bitter, twisted and cynical.
• Chalky - sees the light
  [ZK, Inks] So that's why I'm not bitter, twisted and cynical! There's a lot to be said [which I may do, another time] for 'dropping out' of Uni, which I did for various raisins.
• Inkspot - currantly speaking
  Chalky] I hope you didn't eat them all at once;)
• Brendan
  ZK] So come on then, which uni and what subject? (Good luck with the rest -- how well-spaced are they?)
• Raak - peering
  [Inkspot] What's a peer group crit? I'm imagining a ritual out of Maoist China in which each student in turn has to stand up in front of the rest and have their ideological errors stridently condemned, before making abject confession of their sins.
• ZK - oh no! 'fessing time!
  Classics at Birmingham. I applied to Cambridge but the bastards wouldn't have me! Shame really - I would've quite liked to be punting this time of year, but then some of my friends got into Oxford, so I'd have been forced to hate them :) I applied for Pembroke College as well, which would have been v cool cos 2 of the Goodies went there, as well as Peter Cook, I believe. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that as motivation in one of my interviews, or I might've got in :)
  Back to exams, I still have Latin language to go, which is on Saturday morning, Greek language, which is next Tuesday, and my lecture exam, the following Wednesday (cram cram cram!). Luckily with the one I just took (Latin books) and Greek, we had take-home exercises which made up 40% of the grade and I did quite well. You only need 40% for the overall programme to pass for the second year, I think, which is ludicrous. [Inkspot] I hope my time is now my own, as I want to go home! :) I suspect it's all over from here, as my lease runs out on the 25th of June, and the property's managed by the university. My friend from school (same uni) seems to have finished for now, as her MSN name has read "sunbathing till September" for about the last week and a half. Jammy swine. :)
  
  Now why couldn't I have written that much in my exam?
• Thos - Question
  Hello lovely people. I don't want to ask this question in MCIOS playground as the big boys are fighting. Anyway, may I just ask what people's understanding of the term "seafood" is? I've had a bit of a disagreement over it today in the jolly old office, and I'd value your opinions. Your normal service is now resumed.....
• flerdle - to me, anyway...
  Anyfing dat comes out of da sea. Fish. Shellfish. yukky things like eels. Was it in the context of someone being allergic to it? Then it's often just shellfish.
• Brendan - Well, it depends what the meaning of "understanding the term" is ...
  [Thos] Anything from the animal kingdom that came out of the sea. Fish, shellfish, squids, whatever ... I am far too ignorant to know what fishies live where, so in practice my definition includes freshwater beasties too. Not plant things like seaweed or little planktony things, though, even if they do come from the briny depths. The Blob-style mental image that arises for me is that of a large prawn, FWIW.
  [ZK] Don't worry, you're not the only Cambridge reject in the world. ;) You'll find that 40% thing is pretty universal throughout this nation's fine universities, and indeed 40% over the whole degree will bag you an honours degree at most places ("only" a Third, but still ...)
• Chalky - fishyness
  Hello dear Thos. We have a 'seafood' restaurant here and they serve anything that's considered aquatic, including molluscs and crustaceans. Did you know there's an edible sea urchin?
  Simulposted with Brendan -but what the hell - I'll press 'submit' anyway .....
• Inkspot - pin up time
  Raak] You don't know how close that guess is. As part of the Architecture course we were given design projects which could take anything from a week to a whole term. The end of the process was 'the crit', in front of tutors and a group of students, it was inquisitorial and confrontational, others sailed through the process; me, absolutely terrified and nervous dreaded every single one. A tough crit of hard questioning gave no indication of how well, or how you had done everyone was grilled to the 9th degree.
  It sounds bad, but the end result (which almost justified the means) was that you made sure the design process was robust. So, if ever you meet a building designer who seems a little (over)protective of their work....

  Thos]Seafood; anything from the salt water sea? but Trout and Salmon could be served in a seafood retaurant, they may be considered fresh water river fish and therefore strictly not 'seafood'.

• CfoodM - Unshellfishness
  I've heard the term "seafood" used to refer only to shellfish and the like, and not to fishfish. I have also heard it used pretty broadly to include all fish, including those which have never been near an ocean. I think you can find precedent for whatever you want to argue
• Dunx - Salmon
  [Inkspot] Surely the freshwaterness of salmon depends on where it has been caught? It is a fish that lives in both sea and reiver at different times in its life.

  Then again, do they fish for salmon in the sea?

  [CdM] This has a disturbing parallel in the number of piscivores and chicken eaters that call themselves vegetarian...

• Watty - I sea food, I eat it...
  Seafood, for me, is crustacean. Other stuff what comes out of the sea is 'fish'. Being descended from a fishing family (my great-grandfather and his sons were fish merchants in Aberdeen; it's probably where I get my habit of getting up too early from), I'd like to think this was some kind of official position, but it's just my usage. To me there's a clear distinction between 'seafood pie' and 'fish pie'; if the former included cod or whitebait or some such, I'd be most upset.
• Boolbar - You shall have a fishy . . .
  [Dunx] As a piscivore myself, I often describe myself as vegetarian to avoid confusion - if a restaurant/hotel can cope with veggies, then they can cope with me. Plus telling people that you are a piscivore means they lock up their alcohol.
• rab - Greetings
  Hello. Nice to see about five new games have started across the servers since I went away - was that deliberate? Now I need to work on my space-time-continuum distortion device in order to find enough time to be able to play them!
• Chalky
  Welcome back rab. I trust all went well :-) Re. your STCD device - you may need to factor in a couple of hours to catch up on the lively discussion in MCiOS - an eye opener if ever there was!

  [all] Perhaps we shall find out which stance Thos adopted in the jolly old office disagreement. I was born in February - does that make me a Piscivore?

• flerdle - oops
  I think that when I mentioned shellfish I meant things like prawns and lobsters and stuff too. My excuse is I grew up far from the sea, so I have never really gotten into fish and other watery edibles, cos they were always either muddy and disgusting from the local creek, or several days old and liable to be a bit dodgy...
• rab - Wells
  [Chalky] I haven't heard the outcome yet (they're a postal organisation, and that combined with University mail systems means I have a bit of a wait on my hands, grrr) but I did enjoy myself in the interview room, even if I totally fluffed my way very badly through what might have been the killer question of "Is it new and is it useful?". Hate waiting.
• rab
  Oh, and my odds are just under 30%, I understand.
• Bob the dog
  All the best rab - hope they hurry up. And say yes.
• Thos
  [Seafood] Thanks for your answers and your discussion which almost entirely reflected the debate in my office. I personally hold seafood to be shellfish but it seems that whilst many others agree, a sizeable group also includes fish (both sea fish and fresh water fish interestingly). [Rab] Good luck
• Raak - Carted
  I appear to have accidentally stumbled on the winning move for Corporation Dustcart. Can it be reinstated?
• Uncle Korky - Get Carted
  Honestly... There I go, my first game as well, and I take the trouble to advise of the winning move further up this page too... Tut tut tut... I don't know... *mutter mutter*
• Inkspot - endings
  Raak]Is there anyway you could stumlbe across the finishing touch to Bad Tempered, Critical & Tetchy Game? or rab, could you advise what the winning move is please.
• rab
  I'll reinstate the Dustcart shortly; meanwhile surely you can work out what the winning bloody move in BTC&TG is!
• Uncle Korky - *phew*
  Well done, rab!
• Darren
  And thank you rab for the clue, hehehe. What will we do with our new game slot? Missive Trellis?
• Dujon - Daq
  I wonder if the BBC's data base has gone awry. I'm listed as sixth in the world. This cannot be correct.
• ZK
  I'd be proud. who do you own?
• ZK - Mini cheddars
  Congratulations to Darren on making me laugh at this hour - the game is usually sublime, but that move was rather fabulous :)
• Dujon - Puffing chest
  [ZK] Calum Best. I had to go and have a look! I've no idea as to who he is and have been 'sitting' on him due to the day trading being reasonable. Mind you, not being celebrity minded and being totally ignorant of most people listed within the various categories, this is not surprising. *scratches head and disappears into the sunset*
• ZK - Woo!
  I got mentioned on Radio 2 embarrassing Sybil Ruscoe. Genius!
• ZK
  What's he been up to?
• Dujon - Belated comment
  [Dr Q+] Thanks for the pics. Great stuff! Mind you - and I've probably said it before - the thrill of whizzing around continual left or right hand bends holds very little interest for me. Bloody frightening when one watches some of the drivers, quite apart from some of them greeting a wall with a hearty handshake :-(
  That was not meant to be funny - far too many steerers have finished their careers in that manner.
  
• Inkspot - more of the best
  Dujon] Sixth is a great achievement (I'm envious), I think it was penelope, getting herself into a similar position in the players chart that prompted the whole Celebrity Mornington Crescent thing.

  Unfortunately the daq will be skewed for the next month; Big Brother takes to the air waves yet again from next Friday (28th).

• penelope - big sis
  [Dujon] Yup, it was me. I got to No. 4 in the world, although I have no idea how. And now? How things have changed... I got an email from the Celebdaq people yesterday warning me that my account has been inactive for 30 days and I have only another 30 in which to re-activate it otherwise it will be lost and gone forever. :o( and yet... I still can't be bothered!
• rab - Slimming down
  I feel the front page is looking very slender just now. As God intended, of course.
• Tuj
  rab] Where I come from, we call that tempting fate ;)
  ...as long as the next game's nowt to do with Big Brothel...
• Raak - Big Brothel
  [Tuj] Perhaps a game of breathing new life into tired old TV shows or film franchises?
• nights - hellooo
  I've decided to start posting on forums other than lock and orange again, so a big hi. and ZK, I'm in the throes of exams at the moment also so good luck and remember pro plus and the answer is generally option C...
• ZK
  [nights] How I wish I still had multiple choice questions! :) I have a bit of a thing against Pro Plus but I'll certainly remember that as an emergency option! What exams are you throeing? :)
• flerdle
  Multiple choice exams are ok, except for the ones we had for mid-term Physiology. There, anywhere between one and all five of the options could be correct. If you missed any, or added extras, you were deemed incorrect. They were written in the most excruciatingly sneaky manner as well. It is possible that wrong answers were marked negatively ie right +1, no answer +0, wrong -1. I wouldn't have put it past him to do so.
• nights - exam excitement
  well, 4500 words of essays (by after the bank holiday), two hours of french, two hours of russian, two hours of european studies, and about 20 minutes of russian oral... uuurgh. I seem to remember from combined sciences gcse that most of the multiple choice answers are C... wish I had that option now. what about yourself?
• ZK
  Have so far sat through two Latin exams (one 2 hours, one 3 hours) and have yet to sit my Greek exam (three hours, taking it well into "No Fixed Abode, Cricklewood") and my exam for Introduction to Greece and Rome, a further three hours. I handed in my Greek and Latin assessments in January - 40% for each of those subjects, I believe, which I thankfully already know I've passed.
  On the upside, I never have to do a Latin language exam again. The downside is I have to do more literature....
• rab - Poo
  I failed to stun the judges last week, but am the next on the list if someone declines an offer (which I doubt will happen). Ho hum...
• rab - ...
  ...though it's not all doom and gloom as I've just been offered a job in Saarbrücken...
• Brendan
  [rab] Your experiences are uncannily matching those of one of my officemates ... (first reserve after fellowship interview, [I'm assuming that's what your thing was?] ended up with a job in Germany). Good luck with whatever happens.
• Chalky - chuckling
  oh the utter silliness of the Monday night e-pilg. Fair sets me up for the week, it does :-)
• Raak - You are Number Two
  [rab,Brendan] Do they say that to all the unselected candidates?
• Brendan - Who is Number One?
  [Raak] Well, if they do, it's particularly cruel -- my colleague seemed very much under the impression that he was in with a chance (albeit slight) and was well advised not to commit to anything else until he heard back from them. I'm sure you've had sufficient experience with funding bodies to decide whether malicious cruelty is part of their makeup.
• rab
  In my case I was told over the phone that if a place were declined, it would be offered to me. I can't see any reason why the lady I spoke to wouldn't tell the truth. In any case, I seem to have a contingency plan in place, so whilst I would like a Fellowship rather than an ordinary postdoc (better support, apart from anything else), I'd be happy with what I've been offered so far.
• ImNotJohn - Herr Rab
  There are many worse places than Saarbrücken, but you'll have to take your thermals.
• nights - monday pilg
  well, I stuck my head around the door, then went and worked for an hour, and when i came back you'd all gone - kuh...
• rab - Pilg
  I hope it wasn't too whiffy.
• Uncle Korky - Two things...
  1. Anyone else catch part 1 of the Goodies retrospective on Radio 4 this morning?
  2. If any Doctor Who fans in here haven't heard, Billie Piper's been cast as the new assistant.
• Darren
  It raises the horrible suspicion that Chris Evans was, at some point, under consideration for the Doctor's role.
• snorgle - She can't possibly be as bad as
  Bonnie Langford, can she?
• Raak - Casting Who
  How about Chris Morris for Doctor Who?
• st d - second in line -
  I have a very goo dfriend who applied for a Fulbright Scholarship a couple of years ago, to study in the US from Oz. They narrow it down to 12, and she was informed that unfortunately she made it to number 13 and they were very sorry. ANYWAY, she was inLondon at the time, then heard a few weeks later that someone had dropped out and so she was in teh cut again (theyonly award one it seems) and could she get back to Sydney for an interview..... needless to say flights were booked that very day and YOU GUESSED IT, she is now at UCalifornia Davis doing a Veterinary PhD as a Fulbright Scholar......
• Bob the dog
  Carrot
• ZK
  Absolutely pukingly drunk (flatmates far more sympathetic than anticipated!) Jesus revelations. Anyone want to share?
• Inkspot - bedtime snifter
  ZK]I'll join you with a small dram, treadmill again tomorrow. Sympathetic? bad exams?
• nights
  [ZK] Film soc social night... italian then vodka revolution... martinis! sophisticated! yay! (and sick on someone's shoes, apparently)
• penelope
  Oh dear. I did snigger though.
• st d - exams
  ZK] is this uni finals ? (you mention last exam....)
• ZK - the mother of all hangovers
  Unbelievably, I had three glasses of wine, about three apple sourz and one WKD blue. We'd got to the pub after my exam finished around 2, but I hadn't eaten since about twenty to nine. We thought I was a little tipsy (I'm good at being well-behaved) until I collapsed outside my friend's flat. I think the message above was written approximately 4 hours later, when I found myself inexplicably able to move around for a short period of time. I've spent most of today trying to piece together yesterday! [st d] Strangely enough, I haven't even finished my exams yet - I was merely with Annabel and Brad to celebrate the fact that they just had. Lol my flatmates are sooooo fond of me now!
• DrQu+xum
  [Btd] Virginia Bottomley? ;)
• nights - hangover cure
  [ZK] two paracetamol, a litre of water and another hour's sleep - trust me, this had me up and about and rigging a set after a night in Moles...
• Rosie - Plus ça change
  Good to see that student piss-artistry is still an activity pursued with some vigour. But don't think you're breaking new ground, in the broad sense. I was doing it in 1963. In those days puking it up provoked ridicule and humiliation, equivalent to "touching cloth" in a farting competiton. Does a similar culture prevail today?
• ZK
  If it does, I don't remember!
• ZK
  That being, I don't recall enough of the day to know :)
• Dujon - The solution
  [ZK] Well, there's your problem. The trick is not to eat for at least 18 hours before you go on a binge. It won't make you less sick, but it's a lot cheaper.    ;-)
• ZK - "oops, I forgot my purse"
  And the joys of getting every single drink free... :)
• nights
  [ZK] how'd you manage that? our cocktails-themed social cleaned me out...
• ZK
  Well, because it was during the day, and I'd come straight from my exam, they invited me out to the pub but I protested that I hadn't brought my purse with me. Annabel (whose last exam it was) said that was ok because she'd buy me a drink....hey presto and about 7 drinks later...oddly enough, simply by not packing cash, I managed to pull the same trick last night - I paid for a round with my card and then got free drinks all night (this time by sticking to J20) although in fairness, the guy buying them rather likes me.
• st d
  But do you like him back, ZK?
• ZK
  Very nice lad. Not quite my type. Next time we go out, I'll be getting the drinks in...it's the way of the world :) I only accepted them all because I was skint and very, very warm.
• ZK
  [nights] Any more exams today?
• nights
  no, just baffling exec handover. not sure why I went. it's more essays than exams at the moment, although they're on their way like so much bad news... (sighs and finishes eating pizza)
• ZK - nostalgia
  Crikey, I've just been looking back through the archives and realised how many games finished in my absence!
• ZK
  We should have one of those fabulous "cost-cutting" games...
• Dunx
  [ZK] ?
• ZK
  eg "Lady Chatterly's Loofah" "Wuthering Hillocks" etc
• ZK - hillocks to you, sir
  I only have 2 ideas so far, but it's always seemed like a fun game :)
• ZK - ho hum
  No-one, looking through this place, would *imagine* that i have been hanging around on the net for waaaaaaaay too long...
• Dunx
  [ZK] Je comprends. sp? is there meant to be an 's' on the end of the first person singular?
• ZK
  I think it's "comprends", although it's over a year since I stopped studying French and the net's not much help.
• Dunx
  [ZK] I am reassured all the same. I shall spare you the knowledge of how long it is since I stopped doing French...
• nights - conjuger le verbe 'comprendre'
  yes, the first singular present has an S on the end... the net is rubbish for french unless you already have a half decent knowledge of it. which lets me out...
• Inkspot - Bonjour me sewer
  My French evening class ended last night (entry level), needless to say I can confidently say I am no help to you with this at all, but if you want to say your name or go shopping I can help you pay. ("Je voudrais one of those and one of those s'il vous plait)
• st dogmael
  Le singe est dans l'arbre.
• st dogmael - cost-cutters
  3 Monkeys type of thing ? Sounds good. I might just go and start it.....
• nights
  I've spent the day watching 90s french pseudo-noir film. I can swear a blue streak in french now, but I have no idea how to write my essay... [Ink] some of us still shop that way in France - "Avez vous this dans un large?"
• ZK - le chat et sous de la chaise...
  [st d] Changed for technical reasons to Le singe est sur la branche, because apparently otherwise one has a monkey enclosed within a tree (boo! hiss!)
• ZK
  [nights] It was great - I got to the airport in Rome and suddenly realised I'd completely forgotten that I'd need to learn another language. The week consisted of pointing at things and hoping they spoke English. Shocking. :)
• Inkspot - Big bore?
  All 12 housemates have arrived, strongly opinionated in the interview process I hope they still will be. The house looks wonderful, it is smaller, cramped and set up for confrontation. And tomorrow any housemate that loses the task does not get their suitcase! My expectations are high after the cosy-cosy niceness disaster of last year.
• ZK
  Gay people, extroverts, a posh girl, a homophobe, a man in a thong and a transsexual (did I understand that right?), most of whom seem to be students or activists of some kind, or office workers. Personally I think that Stuart, the posh blonde girl and the straight little adorable scousish lass will all get eaten alive within the first week. But I don't know if I can bear to watch to find out...
• nights - Big Punch-Up
  I think there's going to be fisticuffs by the end of the bank holiday. if not on screen, then definitely between my housemates - they were a bit excitable...
• rab - Dee Wun in the Big Brooter Hoose
  Indeed. I had some friends over for the launch and there was a lot of OMGing. In previous years, particularly last, I thought the producers didn't go for the obvious conflicts, going for more subtle personality clashes. This year, they seem to have though "oh feck it, let's just go hell for leather". I too predict violence this year. And that bedroom's going to be well stinky. We admired Shell's (?) nous in selecting the top bunk of a bed, rather than going straight for a double before realising there's not enough to go round. I do like the idea of the alarm ensuring everyone has to get up. The outside baths are also ominous - one wonders if they'll be shutting off the bathroom at some point...
• Raak - ISIHAC back
  Crossposted everywhere: ISIHAC is back on Radio 4 this Monday, 6:30pm.
• Tuj - Excellent.
• Inkspot - girls on top
  With only a couple of days passed, first impressions for me, I'd would like to see Kitten win with either Stuart or Vanessa to go first.
• ZK
  If Kitten got evicted, surely she'd refuse to leave?
• nights
  Kitten annoys the hell out of me - I'm not being anti-anything (some of my best friends are lesbians) but she does seem only in it to piss everyone else off. What happened last night anyway, I was a having a four hour dinner with my housemates. From first impressions, Shell to win, Stuart to go first, the stuck up idiot. I live with a guy like him and he does my nut. OK, done ranting.
• ZK - Harry Potter
  Sooooooooooooooooooooooo much better than the first two movies. Go see go see!
• snorgle - HP
  Well, POA is my fave HP book, and I think David Thewlis is a great actor (not to mention Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, &tc), so I am greatly looking forward to seeing it! I want to choose a quiet time with not too many kids, so I decided to pass on the premier weekend. Perhaps later this week, as I hope to have Friday off..(must check it's not half-term in Cardiff though).
• ZK
  Go see! *still jumping up and down*
• Bigsmith - Plagiarism
  ANy one in possession of the current "Radio Times" (Bill Oddie cover)? There's an article in there on opera music used in adverts which shamelesly rips off "Who-do-doo-doo-doo-doo-do-do-do-do-Hitler", page 28 I think.
• rab - HP Source
  I saw HP3 last night... will compose a review for Books@MCiOS later.
• rab - The eighth plague
  [Bigsmith] Not seen that... on the other hand proving that it was our idea may not be so straightforward.
• Breadmaster - Potty
  [ZK] Yes, I got dragged along and quite enjoyed it - better than the first two, I thought, and very atmospheric.
• ZK
  Yay! :)
• nights
  [snorgle] if it's any help, it's DEFINITELY half term in bath. takes twice as long to get anywhere or do anything. grr.
• penelope
  [snorgle, nights] Half-term here too, in commuter land. It takes only half as long to do anything or go anywhere. :o)
• Boolbar
  [pen] It is indeed much easier to get to work. Now if only we could get rid of those OAPs that have to get to the shops by 9am. I can only assume that they drive so slowly, that'll take the rest of the day to get back home.
• Inkspot
  It was easier to drive in today, almost a pleasure coming to work! but why, when they all the time in the day world does Waynetta insist on dragging her brats round town at lunchtime. They are not half as cute as (For those at work with speakers on their pc BEWARE!!) Boobah, the current favoutite with our toddler; now the Bobinogs have finished.
• ZK - Boobah
  The mind boggles!
• Bob the dog - Separated at birth?
  Inkspot] Has anyone else noticed the uncanny resemblance between two erstwhile players of MC and Children’s TV programmes? Boobah and Bob the dog are extremely similar to Boolbar and Bobinog. Are they perhaps related? I think we should be told.
• Inkspot - Children's Hour
  [Btd]Very spooky! You wouldn't have had any mix up like that in my day. Way, back in the early sixties I don't think there was much if any pre-school tv; unlike now with CeeBeebies. It is more likely back then sat around the radio to Listen With Mother.
  [ZK]Time to come out of the closet, which did you have 'My Little Pony' or 'The Care Bears'?
• Dunx - Watching
  [Inkspot] Surely "Watch With Mother" was on even in the early 60s? I can't speak from personal memory of course, but I thought programmes like Muffin the Mule were of that vintage.

  OK, fifteen minutes a day hardly counts as extensive programming, but...

• ZK - Watching with Mother
  [Inkspot, Dunx] The Woodentops? Rag Tag and Bobtail? The Flowerpot Men? (the real ones!) Andy Pandy? Surely all that stuff was on by then? Or did it only exist on my childhood video that we watched ad nauseam? (I remember going to a fancy dress party as Looby Lou - both myself and my sister, in fact)
  
  [Inkspot] I think I missed the Care Bear craze by a couple of years - by the time I came along we only had the magazines (which were jumble sale buys) and the movie (terrifying). We do, still, however, have all our My Little Ponies in a box in the toy cupboard, which my younger sisters still play with (and now I fancy a go cos you've reminded me! :)) We also have the video, even though I can't think for the life of me where it's gone. I'm *sure* one of my earliest memories is one of the boys in the village turning up with that as a birthday present for my older sister. Angie - are you about? Anything to say on the subject? I suspect those videos were actually made in Sweden (they had american voices)...I haven't seen it in ages but that would explain the lipsynching.
  
  ....Sorry. Went off on a nostalgic tangent there....
• Dujon - Rain
  At the risk of raising someone's ire. [Rosie] How are we going? We had 16mm of rain during May (15.5mm of that on the 26th)
• Dujon - TV
  [ZK] Andy Pandy and the Flower Pot Men were definitely televised in the early 1950s - regrettably I can remember them (B&W of course). ... :-(
• ZK
  Ah. I have no concept of time, you see. Andy Pandy ran for ages though didn't it? I liked them anyway, although maybe I just loved them so much because I got to see them over and over and over....
• Rosie - Rain
  (Dujon) I've just read that Sydney and surrounding areas are having a something of a drought, but I don't know what your average should be, so I can't really evaluate your one-day downpour. My guess is that it's not that unusual. Here, I got 72 mm in May (normal is 61 mm) but there was a 10-day dry spell in the middle. Year's total is 351 mm, 7% above normal, so nothing dramatic.
• rab - One Fat Lady
  Do you remember the job I didn't get? Well, cos I didn't get it I subsequently got a job I hadn't applied for. Well, that's now been blown out of the water because I got the job I didn't get... Are you keeping up at the back?
• Inkspot - Counter number one
  [rab]Does that mean you are going to bite there arm off; or mull it over for a day or two?
  [ZK]My Little Ponies was a lucky wild guess but please say you never had a Cabbage Patch Doll surely one of the ugliest toys ever sold. Andy Pandy is still going and has been given a fresh lease of life to a young generation along with Noddy. (The things I have to watch in the name of 'bonding' and good parenting ;))
• Dunx
  [Inkspot] Well, it beats watching EvoStik. Depends on the kind of bonding, I suppose.
  [rab] What a confusing, if ironically successful, life you lead. Congratulations.
• Chalky - catching up ...
  [rab] Is this Mccongratulations?
  [Duj] Whose ire do you risk raising with your weather-talk? :-)
• ZK
  [Inkspot] I think I had a tiny plastic one from a jumble sale, but not a real live (so to speak) big squishy one. I think that was before my time as well. I well know about Andy Pandy's new lease of life, and Bill & Ben's (not a fan of the new looks) - I'm quite fond of the new Noddy though.
  
  However, for student viewing it's Balamory all the way! :)
• Nik
  [rab] Congratulations?
• rab - Whee
  [Inkspot, Dunx, Chalky, Nik] Thanks! It's a better job, so I have indeed accepted it. Which means I'll be returning to Edinburgh for three years starting November. Wow.
• penelope
  Edinburgh? Wow! Congrats, and Carrots!, rab.
• Boolbar - . . . at the back
  [rab] Now I understand. Horrahs and congrats!
• ZK - oooooooooooh!!
  congrats rab! :) what is it you'll be doing now?
• Uncle Korky - On the news this morning...
  I note with interest that Bob the dog has quit his post at the CIA...
• Inkspot - Open door
  With 50 ways trundled off, any suggestions for new and original games for when LbLR is completed.
• nights - golly, I go away for a couple of days
  crazy how things move on here. I go back to the midlands for a family funeral, and you've all moved on. As far as children's crazes go, I'm not sure I had a childhood. I might have blocked it out though. and congrats rab on the job - well done you!
  
  [ZK] don't tell anyone but me and my housemates are fans of Balamory also. shhhh...
  
  Right, off to my french exam, then to brave bath city centre as I have no food again. ha ha ha ha ha.
• st d - childhood
  nights] sorry to hear you wee at a funeral.
  Childhood was the bit when you couldn't tie your own shoelaces - ring any bells ?
• st d - lost consonants
  (that was a genuine typo, though possibly a good entry in Lost Consonants - my apologies)
• Raak
  [rab] Congratulations!
• snorgle - childhood
  I couldn't tie my shoelaces last week, st d, does that count?
• nights
  not if it's through alcohol, no.
• widey - How about a game involving..........
  International land marks, either natural or man made.........
• Tuj - Widey's Arbitrary Selection
  How's about a game where we all arbitrarily suggest something to be involved in a game, and that could in some way link to the next move, such as by naming the finishing move (structure a la Corporation D)...
• nights
  can we have one based on car colours? I had to try and say 'cheyenne red' at work today while keeping a straight face.
• flerdle - completely off-topic
  I seem to be unable to remember the Arabic word for "fork" (the eating implement). I have been trying all day, and now know knife, spoon, table, airplane, tree, apartment and letter, all fine.

  I'm not sure why this disturbs me.

• JLE
  Apologies to all concerned, but I've gone and ranted all over the Limerick game. Perhaps I shouldn't have done so, but IMHO the fact is, if you allow just anything, and if you have to twist it too many times to get it even close to fitting, then what you have is no longer a limerick but freeform non-poetry and therefore not acceptable in a specifically Limerick game. Even if the ISIHAC team come up with bad (read: unfunny or the wrong kind of nonsensical) limericks sometimes, at least they *are* recognisable as limericks as far as rhyming and scansion goes...
• Chalky - Limerpricks
  [JLE] No need for apology - you've had plenty of support and quite right too.
• Projoy
  [JLE] When you criticse, you tend to do it strongly, which perhaps makes people who don't know you less receptive to your message. But I agreed with the message.
• Darren
  [JLE] I, too, agree with the point you were making. Now, of course, I'm sure someone could come up with many examples of poor scansion on my part, but I do try, and it is very frustrating to see a line show up with clearly falls short of the mark. Still, as I said in the game, if the quality dropped I'd rather go elsewhere than join in a scansion war.
• Dujon - Clouded in, as usual
  I'm attempting to watch the transit of Venus - as usual the clouds have interfered! Urk! Currently trying through the Worth Hill (UK) site (the local CSIRO requires a program for which one needs a credit card to access ... bastards!) No success at this stage ... surely the sun rises before 05:25 GMT at this time of the year? Ah well, back to cyber viewing.
• Dujon - Yeah!
  I've now got sunlight and a site (here)
• Dujon - Swing low sweet chariot
  Unfortuately the sun is so low that attempting to project its image is a waste of time. The tree leaves look good, mind you ... which reminds me ...
• Raak - Brilliant sunshine here
  Just shot most of a reel of film through a 1000mm lens, with umpteen different exposure times. Should have results in a few days. Of course, they'll all look like a white disc with a black dot on it...
• Raak
  And yes, there was a sheet of aluminised mylar over the objective.
• flerdle
  *seriously jealous*

  [Dujon] Due to lack of clouds and location location location, I saw the lot, projected through binoculars. Have dodgy photos.

• Rosie - Venus
  (Dujon) Don't worry, there'll be another one along in 8 years. June 5/6 2012 and you should be able to see all of it. Starts 2216 GMT, ends 0429 GMT. We might just see the end of it (sun rises here about 3.45 GMT). Then there are a couple in December, which would be much more favourable for you, but not until 2117 and 2125, which would not. I saw the transit here by projection, having assembled a telescope from the various lenses and eyepieces I've got lying around, plus a cardboard tube. Even so, there's a limit to the fascination of a black dot. Good weather; sunny, but with lots of cirrus, southerly breeze, temperature 28°C. Sweaty night coming up.
• Thrax - Sweltering in the heat.
  Hello, chums and pals. How are we all? Raak, nice photo of the lense thingamy. Not an officianado of teh gadgets myself, but "stargazing" of "Venus spotting" can be interesting. I'm often given to ponder the wonder of the "up the there and yonder".
  
  So, how are we all, people? I note with apprehension the talk of scansion problems in the Limerick game. Hope it doesn't get out of hand. It's funny, but just last night I was reading through the old "Ballykissangels" game from Mr. Wild Pants's old site, and recalling with a tear of nostalgia the uproar and chicanery the night Kezar and myself were accused of impersonating the good Dr. Q in an effort to rectify a poem that had floundered due to apparent scansion difficulties. We were both quite innocent of the charges brought against us, you understand. Though we still bear the terrible bite marks from Rosie's Lobster-torture.
  
  Ah, the memories.
  
  Anyway, I hope no one recoils in horror at thew thought of Evil Dr. Thrax crashing in here once again after a sort of "Black Sabbatical". I'd like to extend a warm greeting to you all - in especial, Rosie whose punishments keep me in order, Chalky whose correspondance has always been kind, and was often a source of encouragement when I felt very deeply depressed, Dujon whose appreciation of my insanity has not been forgotten, Dr. Q, if he's around, whose love of American Football I share, Korky who used to amuse with tales of uncomfortable bowel movements at work, ZK, if he is perhaps the artist(piss-artist perhaps?) formerly known as Zakalwe(I'm just guessing), and who conspired with me to turn a Pants Game into a horror story long ago, Darren who was most forgiving of bad behaviour, and JLE whose skill at MC far outstretches my own and often has me spellbound.
  
  Greetings to you all, and to those I don't really know...I should look forward to getting to know you all better.
  
  Well, as the Hand of Time picks the Nose of Eternity, and the Snot of Knowledge is wiped on the Trouser Leg of Fate, I realise that I've rambled on a fair bit, and feel compelled to give way to a fellow speaker.
• penelope - *proffers hankie with a stern look*
  Hello Thrax :o)
• Thrax - Blushing.
  Thank you, good lady.
• Inkspot - back for more
  [Thrax] Good to see you back. Bad news by the way that not only is that chap ZK, Zoological Keeper but also a female and a student.
• snorgle - sparing
  Where on Earth (or otherwise) have you been, Thrax?
• Thrax - Doh!!
  Inkspot, thank you for the welcome, and for putting me straight on the identity of ZK.
  
  Ms. Keeper, my heartfelt and humble apologies. *blushes with embarassment*
  
  snorgle, hello there. Good to see you. Yes, on Earth I have remained. In Swindon to be precise. What joy to live in a town whose entry is "Where the f**k?" in my Atlas. How are you, Sir or Madam? (I can't remember your gender I'm afraid, and am taking no chances).
• Uncle Korky - *astonished*
  Welcome back, Thrax! Nice to know you're still around!
• Thrax - Grinning.
  And good to know you're here, Sir. Tell me, are you still on The Force? I seem to recall you were one of the Boys in Blue. Still doing that to earn yer crust?
• Uncle Korky - "Evening, all"
  No, never been in the constabulary. I'm still sweating it out as a housing officer for a lesser London Borough, although my recent elevation to Void Management Officer means I've gone up two payscales and I no longer have to deal with the public. Whoopee!
• Thrax - Trying to dust cobwebs from ailing memory.
  Hmmm, I seem to recall one of the Pants regulars was a copper. Thought it was you, Sir, but must've got me wires crossed. Perhaps it wasn't you who regailed us all with the "Digestion story" then either. Doh! Hey ho. So, a promotion, eh? Onward and upward. Sounds grand. Congratulations.
• Uncle Korky
  I was intrigued by your opening post, when you mentioned reading through the Ballykissangels game from Pants. Do you have some kind of arcane and eldritch way of accessing this sadly deceased site, or did you copy loads of text off the web?
• Thrax - Lamenting it.
  Alas no, Korky, my friend. I saved the page out as an HTML file long ago before Pants MC closed down. Kept it for old times' sake. Had I known in advance that the site would expire, I'd have saved out many more, as some contained real gems of hilarity from many many fine MCers. Alas. A moment's silence is called for i think.
• DrQu+xum
  Io Thrax.
• Dunx
  [Thrax] Quality lying, sir.
• snorgle - miss
  I'm female, Thrax - and reasonably well (if intensely bored at my job - AGAIN!) I SO need to get a job which isn't always on the phones..
• Thrax - Freakout
  Howdy, Doc. Pleasure to see you again, my good Sir. Life treating you well? Been enjoying the current season of ISIHaC via the net? I'm often given to wonder what your chums in Pennsylvania make of it if ever they happen to be present and hear it when you're tuned into the show. I bet they'd think we're all lunatics on this side of The Pond, what?
  
  And greetings, Dunx. How'd you do? "Quality lying" though? Not sure I follow you. I don't believe I've told any whoppers here today, or are you referring to my moves in the "Swear to God" game?
  
  And Snorgle, a lady, eh? *Doffs hat in gentlemanly fashion as redolent of some Oscar Wilde drama for no obvious reason other than it seems in-keeping with my character* Delighted to make your aquaintance. I recall we always had a severe shortage of female company chez-Pants. Chalky of course remained until the biter end, and your name rings a bell, but ladies were, it must be said, not merely few and far between, but also most sorely missed. Still, count yourself lucky that you never fell under the lascivious(sp? no idea), roving eye of that chimeric lothario Kezar. A fortunate escape for you there. *Ahem* Anyway, I'm sorry to learn that your job is most unsatisfactory. *Sigh* They do say work is a rotten way to earn a living, do they not?
• Darren - Hi Thrax
  Hi Thrax, it has been a long time!!!!
• Thrax - Freakout
  Why, Darren, 'tis good to see you too, Sir. How are you, me old China?
• Dunx
  [Thrax] You divine my intent correctly, sir. Apologies for any misapprehension; entirely my own fault for being insufficiently clear in my sincere wish to convey my compliments. I am very well, thank you for asking, although rather fatigued from a foolishly early start and a surfeit of exercise these last two days. But such is the burden of the long distance runner, or at any rate one who aspires to such a qualification.
• Dunx
  Oh, and work's a bugger at the mo, but that is an entirely separate conversation to have away from these hallowed halls.
• Thrax - Freakout
  Ah, that's all well. No apology necessary, Sir. I took no offence. So, a long-distance runner eh? Sounds exhausting but rewarding. Groovy.
• DrQu+xum - ISIHAC in Pittsburgh
  I have made a few converts...one of which has taken to MC like a duck to Nick Knight. ;)
  [Dunx] You've given up the bike?
• JLE
  Hm. I seem to recall that the PantsMC regular who was a policeman was the person who went by the name of "Corkington" AFAIK.
• Dunx - Bike vs Feet
  [Dr Q] No, but not cycling as much right now since I am in training for a marathon in the autumn (Portland, OR on the first Sunday in October - Portland, ME iss the same day as it happens). This is the same race I was training for last year but had to abandon due to injury.

  The more I run the more convinced I become that I will return to cycling, but I feel vastly better than I did three months ago and I am sure that I'll get more out of whatever exercise I continue with as a consequence.

• Dujon
  Hello, Thrax, old bean! It's nice to see that you haven't totally forgotten how to access the weird and whacky world of the Morniverse.
• Rosie
  I'm going to have to start believing in telepathy, which to hard-nosed rationalist like myself would be a Damascene conversion, because about 24 hrs ago, before any of this appeared, I said to myself "I wonder if old (young) Thrax is OK?", and here he is, FFS. Neither Kezar or those FUCKING LOBSTERS have done for you, then, mate? Excellent. No more to say, really.
• Darren
  [Thrax] I'm doing OK, thanks. It's a pity you missed the uberpilg in Rugby.
• Zooological Keeper
  [Thrax] Not a problem, rather something to amuse me after my brief absence, although similar mistakes have been made before :)
• st d
  ZK] only online I hope ?
• Thrax - Freakout
  That's great news, Doc. Does this converted duck perchance have internet access? Might he/she at some point brave the hallowed turf of this most jolly arena?
  
  Ah! yes, once again, Jonathan, you've come up trumps with the info. I seem to recollect that Corkington was here and there occasioned the familiar soubriquet of "Corkers" - I think Chalky was initially responsible for that one - and perhaps therein lay the genesis of my little misinference. How are you, anyway?
  
  And hello to you, Duj, my friend - or do they really use the term "cobber" down under? - I trust you are well? 'Tis indeed a glorious feeling to be back among the Morniverse, as you refreshingly term it.
  
  Heh, you know, Rosie there are those who subscribe to the scientific principle that the human mind does generate enough brainwave energy to transmit like a radio broadcast at times, and that telepathy is indeed possible. I'm uncertain as to whether or not it can emit across the divide between Swindon and, er, Surrey wasn't it? I'm Surrey I Haven't a Clue. In any case, I tried discussing this with the FUCKING LOBSTERS, but found them to be most unco-operative. Difficult to establish telepathic communication with a creature that bears a thick exoskeleton and seems forever intent upon shooting up yer arsehole every time your back's turned. *Shudder*
  
  I'm glad to hear you're well, Darren, my friend. Alas I knew nothing of any "uberpilg". Sounds either charmingly continental and noble, or wickedly decadent and filthy. Either way, I'm most aggreived to have missed it.
  
  And thank you, ZK, for your most willful clemency upon my faux-pas. I am relieved. *Bows*
• Uncle Korky - Uber-pilg
  Thrax] Well, a large number of us all buggered off to a swish hotel in Rugby to record our own ISIHAC, and a fine time was had by all. Details are on Orange's To Be A Pilgrim game, and Merlyn has actually created a fine website with transcript and photo's. We're planning to do another one in May next year, so keep your diary clear.
• Thrax - Freakout
  Huuuhh?! Oh I wish I'd known. I'd love to have attended and met up with you guys! I'd give anything to be able to get outside these four walls and meet people. It gets so lonely being stuck in here 24/7 on my own for months on end. Tell me, Korky, this place you speak of - do they have facilities for disabled people? If so I'd give anything to meet with you all next May. Anything!
• Projoy - facilities
  Depends on the disability, I guess. If you're talking imparied mobility/wheelchair access then I didn't notice any bedrooms downstairs (except in the outbuildings) or lift within the main building, but perhaps others can recall better. I guess a quick phonecall to Brownsover Hall about the issue wouldn't hurt.
• Projoy
  And, nice as it was, if Brownsover weren't accessible, I'm sure we'd all be happy to look at alternatives.
• Thrax - Freakout
  Well, Projoy, I am indeed a user of a wheelchair, and thus a ground floor room or lift would be necessary(I live on the first floor as it happens), otherwise it's a "Fireman's Lift" situation. Regrettably there's more obstacle to be overcome though. Rugby's a fair distance from where I live, in Swindon, and I can neither drive nor load/unload the chair myself. Furthermore, all my family and friends live more than 2 hours from my abode, and I very much doubt any one of them(since they're not MCers themselves) would be willing to drive for two hours to pick me up, drop me off, make their way off home again, then come back two days later(would I be correct to infer that this is a weekend break?) and drive me back frm Rugby to Swindon then go home again.
  
  See, there's no way I can use a train either. Not without a friend to accompany me.
  
  I'm not really sure how it could be done, unless one of you fine fellows lives in the West Country and would be willing to give me a lift from Swindon.
• Projoy
  OK. Not being a driver, I'm afraid I couldn't help on the lifts thing, but conceivably this could influence our choice of location. There might be places that Swindon is on the way to that are just as nice as Brownsover. Here's a list of wheelchair accessible hotels in the UK. Anyway, not for me to decide on behalf of the participants, of course, but maybe worth a bit of research.
• ZK
  [st d] Er...well, that mistake hasn't been made since I was about eleven or so, face to face. I was not happy, as you would probably gather, and have cultivated somewhat of an obsession with the colour pink ever since....
• LotUS - Shameless interruption
  Morning all! [Thrax] It's nice to see you back. I must admit having only caught some of your antics during my brief tenure on Pants but it's good to see people return from beyond the Reality Point.

  [Bob the dog] Thank you very much for the bottle of cider you bought me - I shall be enjoying it this evening with dinner!

• st d - wheelchair access
  Thrax] would it be okay to just get you really really drunk so you could just fall asleep in your wheelchair ?
  ZK] I am truly intrigued now. How come this mistake was never made before you were 11 ?
• Breadmaster
  Didn't she say it was only until she was 11? Personally I was always mistaken for a girl and my sister was generally thought to be a boy. That pretty much sums up the power politics in my family.
• st dogmael - aha !
  BM] of course. I was thinking that was a bit strange. I remember people saying "what a beautiful little girl" when I was 4 or 5 and being really pissed off by it. Darn pink tutu my Mother used to make me wear.....oh well, I'm still intrigued but instead am now imagining ZooKeeper to be heartstoppingly beautiful.
• Chalky - cute children
  My three brothers were all very blond and pretty when ickle. We're all fairly close in age and relatives/friends would cast their eye over the boys exclaiming how bonny they were and save the piteous glances for me [the brown-haired freckly girl]. It was at that stage that I decided I needed to develop a personality.
  oh yes ... [Thrax] good to see you in here :-)
• Boolbar - what a drag.
  The last time I was mistaken for a girl was at the age of 23, but it was from behind and my hair was half-way down my back. The only other time I guess the lipstick and frock had something to do with it . . . .
• Blob - Mistaken Identity
  When I was a little chap - up to the age of 7 or 8, I was often mistaken for a girl, much to my fury at the time. If you saw me now you'd realise why the same mistake has not been made for quite a while. Even in drag I think I would be about as convincing as the late great Les Dawson - or for that matter Roy Barraclough.
• Blob - PS
  I suppose I ought to terminate that posting with a quick
  Knickers, knackers, knockers !!!
• Breadmaster - [St D]
  Somehow I imagine not just ZK but all the female Crescenteers, none of whom I have met, to be heart-stoppingly beautiful. Call me a charming old romantic, a dreamer, a visionary, or a typical male internet nerdy type whose sole female interaction comes from Tomb Raider. It's up to you. Personally I'm going for the visionary option.
• LotUS - Hear! Hear!
  Having met 4 of the female Crescenteers (lib, penelope, Chalky & Norma), I can at least confirm some of that vision. And I'm sure that they are shining examples of the rest of Crescentdom. We can only hope that they look upon us in a similar light - despite having actually met the likes of myself :-)
• nights
  changing the subject entirely, I found a version of 'Boardo' when clearing out my room in halls prior to moving out next week (sniff). Anyone mind if we play it here?
• ZK
  [st d, Breadmaster] Of course I'm heartstoppingly beautiful. Only today, three men looked at me and dropped down dead. :)
  
  [st d] As to being 'mistaken', I've never quite been able to forget when I was in the balcony at the swimming pool in Wellingborough, and half a class of boys decided to try tp ask me out. Their opening gambit was "are you a girl?". Needless to say, this particular Zooological Keeper was not best pleased....and I didn't say yes...The mistake probably wasn't made before because I used to wear skirts all the time. Post 10 or 11 I was rarely out of jeans.
  
  [nights] I'm game!
• ZK - turn on your speakers
  http://www.potterpuppetpals.com/sexy.swf
  If you've got a minute....
• JLE
  Well it's fairly obvious (to anybody who has ever met me) that I could never be mistaken for a girl in real life, but my speaking voice is naturally high-pitched enough to have been mistaken for a low-pitched female voice over the phone (when I said "hello", the reply was "erm, are you Mrs Ellis? We only have a record of a *Mr* Ellis at this address"). In fact I know several women, all of them contralto singers from music college, who very definitely have lower speaking voices than I do...
• Tuj - The gender divide
  One can feel one has truly come of age when, when you answer the telephone, people mistake you for you father rather than your mother (speaking as a male). Not sure what that'd do as a female ;)
• Tuj - ...and on a totally different subject
  Oh, and now I've won a game (hehehe) is there some sort of scoreboard? Having noticed the very old-looking one over at MCiOS, and considering that there isn't (yet) too much of an archive to wade through, could there be something of that sort for this beatifully conceived server?
• snorgle - potterpuppetpals
  I love that site! The last time I checked, there were just 2 shows, so I assume that's a new one. Unfortunately, it's also very popular, so I'll have to wait to see it!
• flerdle - dreams
  [Breadmaster, LotUS] Well, you haven't met me yet, but I'm sorry that your dream will be shattered if you do - either that or you will drop dead for real. :-)

  [Tuj] I'm moving backwards, then. I've been mistaken for a teenage boy on the phone by telemarketers, and not just once. Perhaps it's the slightly surly business-like way I answer when I've been interrupted as well as lowish voice pitch. As I assume they're not allowed to sell to minors, I really love answering their question "Is Mum or Dad there?" with (100% truthfully cross my heart and all) "Nup. Bye."

• DrQu+xum - Voice on the phone
  I'm told my voice when I'm on the phone is much lower than when I'm speaking face-to-face. Not that I answer the phone with "Menswear" or anything. ;)
• Uncle Korky - Rugby
  Thrax] Don't recall Brownsover Hall looking particularly wheelchair-friendly. IIRC, there are steps to the front, and the rear access is over shingle/gravel. However, I'm sure that were the same location used next year, all MCers would be only to happy to assist in any area that you needed. Obviously, the staff should be able to make arrangements if they knew in advance that you were coming. Obviously, getting from Swindon could be more of a problem. I know Chalky came up from the west country, but she didn't drive. However, if we all put our heads together, I'm sure we can come up with a way.
• Boolbar - Access All Areas
  [Brownsover Hall] Mr. Brain reminds me that there was a disabled loo next to the mens and a ramp up to it. Also a side entrance (opposite the stables, near the carpark) had the words "disabled access" on a sign. I must also say that Mr. Brain is frequently unrealiable, especially after a few pints and The Biscuit Game.
• penelope - Access more than you remember
  [brownsover hall] IIRC, the route between the stables bedrooms and the rear of the hotel was paved and reasonably level - the outside tables were sitting on gravel, but that was only a short stretch. There was also a paved route from near the front door steps around to the rear door which is wheelchair accessible, I'm pretty sure. As UK said, I'm sure there's a way, and plenty of assistance if needed.
• Thrax - Back again.
  Well, Penelope, UK, Boolbar et al, that actually sounds reasonable. Essentially any ground floor accommodation would be suitable, and it's only for a weekend(?), so I'm sure it shouldn't be difficult. At risk of asking for too much, I could do with a wee smidgen of assistance during the stay if anyone is willing to volunteer a hand - perhaps a workload shared between two or three? When I say "workload" incidently, I'm referring to little more than pushing me across that gravel, cutting up some of whatever meals we order and helping to slip on/remove socks and shoes. Are their any kind souls here who might be willing to chip in a bit? I'd be most grateful.
  
  Oh, and st d, falling asleep drunk in my wheelchair is - ahem - not unprecedented.
  
  Jonathan, They mistake you for Mrs Ellis, eh? Interesting, but when you get your regular correspondence from Mrs Trellis of North Wales(as we all do of course), for whom does she mistake you? She addresses me as "Ms. Fernandez" - the wheelchair user who was in Eldorado and The Office.
  
  ZK - hearstoppingly beautiful, eh? Raaaowwwr. Stop it with your wicked alluring imagery or I think I'll start to experience 'Charlotte Greene' syndrome. Rosie and I both fancied her for years with no idea what she looked like. Ha!
  
  And last but not least, Hey, there, Chalky. I've really missed you a great deal. I do hope you're well. I didn't forget you BTW. You got a personalised greeting in my opening post, but I think it may have slipped orf the page by the time you got here t'other day. How are you, anyway? Long time no hear.
  
  And with that, I shall depart for the moment, and no doubt be back shortly. Addidas!
  
  *Sneaks out of page singing "Voodoo Lady" By Creme Brullée*
• Projoy
  [Thrax] Willing to offer any of that kind of help, if I'm there, which I'm fully expecting to be.
• Uncle Korky
  *Echoes Projoy*
• Thrax - Freakout
  That's very kind of you folks. Perhaps a little nearer the time, we'll chat a wee bit about things just for clarity. You can email me at anthraxhirl@freakout.freeserve.co.uk Indeed I'm happy for anyone here to email me for badinage as you see fit, upon whatever subject you like. Except "Reality TV". *Shudder*
• st d - intrigue
  Now that my intrigue as to the extent of ZK's beauty has been satisfied (does one satisfy an intrigue ? in fact is that even th eright word ? mmm. Anyway. Now I am intrigued as to exactly why mr Thrax is in a wheelchair, and also why he needs someone to cut up everybody's meals. Is that just a personal OCD you have ?
• Thrax - Freakout
  LOL! Yes, st d, I have a very rare medical condition that means I can't stand the sight of everybody's meals not cut up before we all dine together. Ha. It's a rare psychological disorder, but I can't cope with anyone tucking in before everybody's orders have been not merely brought to table, but properly disected and divided up into segregated components(sometimes even quantified and noted down on a clipboard for archiving). I got so frustrated by this once, that I endeavoured to take matters in hand one evening at a dinner party, and lunged towards a butler, with a knife and fork, as he emerged from the kitchen with two plates of Duck A L'Orange. Thinking himself in great danger, the man dropped the two dishes, pulled a gun and shot me in the abdomen. Ever since, I've been confined to a wheelchair and someone has to "cut up everybody's meals", as you acutely observed, on my behalf.
  
  I trust I've satisfied your intrigue on that matter too. *winks
• Breadmaster
  Good lord, the girl in the wheelchair in The Office was the one from Eldorado? I remember seeing her on an Esther Rantzen programme a while ago (that I happened to flick into in the middle of, honest, really yeronna) in a piece about critics. She was talking about how the critics were unfair to Eldorado. The funny thing is that they had the art critic Brian Sewell on too, and she hated him. I have never seen anything like it. He was asked something like, "So what do you think of artists personally?" and he replied in his typical manner, "Oh, I just want to stamp on them like cockroaches." And she went completely nuclear - "How can you say that about human beings! How can you say that!" He just sat there twiddling his glasses with a taken-aback expression. It was lucky she was in a wheelchair really or she might have gone and decked him. Two people who simply didn't gel, I felt. But nice to see that Nessa's rages weren't entirely simulated...
• Thrax - Freakout
  Actually, I was at school with the girl in question. I used to have lunch with her everyday, believe it or not. Hmmm, I'm not sure who should be more ashamed though, BM - Julie for being this Nessa to whom you referred in a God-awful soap about British Ex-Pats living in Costa Del Tawdry, or you for admitting to watching Esther Rantzen. Heh. I guess we'll call it a nil-nil draw, shall we, my friend? LOL!
• Thrax - Freakout
  Oooh, I've just had a thought. Anyone up for a game of Go Johnny Go Go Go Go? I'm itching to try it out here on this server. What do you think? I take it you've all seen the famous LoG sketch?
• widey - ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...............................
  We often play said game here in the hospital..........LoG, gods amongst men!!
• Dunx - Spare Games
  [Thrax] I'm not familiar with the game myself, but there are a number of game openings at Orange MC since today is the annual Orange Festival of Crescent.

  [rab] Apologies for unwarranted trumpet blowing.

• Thrax - Freakout
  Nice one, widey. Glad to hear I'm not alone around here in my appreciation of the League. Er, for the benefit of those of you who aren't familiar with the game - such as your good self, Dunx - Go Johnny Go Go Go Go is a card game that three of the characters play one evening in the Royston Vasey hosipital, St. Mary of Bethlehem. Essentially, it seems that two of the fellas have made it up on the spot - "it's a cross between Hoover and Eight Men Down" - with over-complex and nonsensical rules. They then explain them at breakneck speed to the third character, impressing upon him, "you'll pick up the rest as we play."
  
  In essence, the game is not that dissimilar to MC, and could therefore be played on a website such as this. Instead of our moves being train stations, they could be cards, like "Seven of Clubs", "King of Diamonds", "Ace in the Hole" etc. with appropriate comments about 'scoring' and 'tactics' etc. just like how we play MC. The winning move, instead of "Mornington Crescent", could be "Go Johnny Go Go Go Go".
  
  I could set up such a game, with a heading containing the explanation of rules(to be largely ignored, though not contradicted. Anyone up for it?
  
  As a final thought, if you haven't seen the sketch, I strongly recomend checking out The League of Gentlemen. It's one of the best programmes I've seen in a LOOOONG time. The card game features in Season 2, and also in the DVD Live at Drury Lane, where they, like Python before them, perform some of their sketches before an audience.
  
  So, anyone care to join me for a hand of Go Johnny Go Go Go Go? You'll pick it up as we play...
• Raak - Transit pic
  

  I don't know if that's a sunspot just above 3 o'clock, or just a speck on the film. I have about twenty more pictures, but they all look like this one. :-)

• Rosie - Transit pic
  (Raak) Excellent pic. Not sure about the "sunspot". I don't remember seeing any when I projected the image with a small telescope. I used to be a keen observational amateur astronomer myself but not these days, but I'm one the few amateurs to know something about celestial dynamics (orbits, perturbations, 3-body problems etc). It's a guaranteed conversation-stopper.
• Inkspot - League of their own
  LoG great series, this site has many wav files including That's a Go Johnny Go Go Go Go
• flerdle - oooooh
  Nice one, Raak. *still jealous*
• Dujon - Ani Miles Away
  [flerdle] Griz (he's a bit sleepy at this time of the year) asked me to pass on his best regards to wallaby and also the hope that wallaby's transition is not some sort of permanent state.
• flerdle - ??
  wallaby was fine last time I checked, and sends his good wishes to Griz. She says that Griz probably needs some glasses, or a nice long snooze.
• Breadmaster
  [Thrax] I am in the presence of celebrity, albeit at second remove! I offer according respect. If you ever see her again, tell her that I am not ashamed to say that I thoroughly enjoyed Eldorado. Well, not very ashamed.
  [Raak] I'm sure you know that sunspots generally appear only around the solar equator and tend to come in groups, like a line of bubbles... which is pretty much what they are.
• Darren
  [BM/Thrax] I quite like Eldorado too, if truth be told. I detest all other soaps, however. I still play the Eldorado theme to myself sometimes, when I am alone with keyboard or guitar.
• Thrax - Freakout
  Nice pic, Raak. Very grrovy.
  
  Yes, well, I did find her on Friends Reunited a couple of years ago, Breadmaster, and wrote to her, but I can't recall whether or not I got a reply. Hey ho.
  
  I never watched it myself, Darren, except for a few minutes here and there, which were enough to put me right off, I'm afraid.
  
  So, who here watcheds the Football? Sacré Bleu!! A defeat snatched from the jaws of victory if ever I saw one.
• JLE
  Well what *do* you expect from a manager who substitutes our best player (Rooney) with the proven international failure Emile Heskey? Whose inept challenge gave away the free kick from which the equaliser was scored...
• Blob - Zooks !
  [ZK] Are you really a Zoo Keeper ? If so, what type of animal keepeth thou ? Little fluffy ones ? Scaly slippery ones ? Big bold smelly ones ? Please do tell. And at which zoo ?
  On the other hand, if you aren't really a Zoo Keeper, then I'd guess with a moniker like that you must be a teacher !
• Zooological Keeper - Zooks!
  [Blob] Student. :) The name itself derives from an episode of The Goon Show I have on tape.
  Greenslade: "A flannelled fool approaches the penguin pool."
  Neddy: "Aaah, good morning, zooological keeper!"
  
  [Thrax, JLE] I'm just so gutted because we were actually playing decent football for once - every other match I've ever watched, I've been sitting cringing at our defence. And who'd really take it out on James? You could if you were feeling bitter but I'm more inclined to point the finger at Heskey and Gerrard (and then, possibly, James) Whoever was brought on for Owen though, fair enough - I thought he was particularly unspectacular. Of course, if Beckham hadn't missed the penalty, the French mightn't have suddenly summoned up the confidence to win, but, hey, there you go. *thinks* Next match, I'm getting the Doritos in. Then we'll win...I knew ordinary crisps wouldn't do the trick...
• Blob - Re Becks
  [ZK] Thanks for clarifying that - so, a student zoo keeper then.
  [Re England/France] I think it's a little unfair to say "if Beckham hadn't missed the penalty" - he didn't miss exactly; his attempt was saved. To me a miss is when the goaly doesn't have to bother coz. the ball's gone over the net/round the side/backwards/vertically either up or down, or deflated on the penalty-takers toecap.
• Blob
  ... panalty taker's toecap.
• Blob
  (Third time lucky)
  ... penalty taker's toecap.
• Chalky - Re Harmison
  Hey! We won the 3rd Test [against NZ]. That makes me very happy :-)
• Bigsmith - En-ger-land
  And we came second in the Le Mans 24 Hours race at the weekend - a bit more of a success than coming second in the footie (or the rugby....).
• Tuj - Cricket
  I was elated by the cricket, shame the footie took the edge off it... Still, in some ways they were similar, very close with England just holding the edge, just one stayed with us and one spectacularly went pear-shaped.
  Credit to both teams for doing well against decent / very good opposition, and to the cricketers for not only getting the whitewash but for an excellently entertaining series. Oh, and the chance to hear Blowers cut off halfway through relaying the match situation to talk about buses.
• ZK
  [Blob] Indeed. I retract my insensitive interpretation of the English language.
• widey - As my old mucker Mozza once wrote and sang!
  I was happy in a drunken haze, but heaven knows I'm Miserable now!!
• widey - oops
  Changed the words slightly, but you get the gist of what I'm getting at!!!
• Minister for overseas invasions - Widey old chap...........
  I think it was something like this I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows I'm miserable now and being as how I had to watch the game in france I bloody well am!!!!!
• DrQu+xum - Blowers & Aggers
  [Tuj] It was a great test series, capped off by the Mark Richardson v Ashley Giles epic sprint. I like the home series because BBC Radio 4 LW webcasts the match -- I can listen to all of the pigeons and Weapons of Cake Consumption while I'm at work. ;)
• Tuj - A slow-medium aircraft crossing the field of play...
  [DrQ] There's such an English charm to it. And yes, I saw that sprint to, superb. What was Richardson wearing!?
• DrQu+xum - Mark Richardson's unique attire
  [Tuj] Looks like a mid-70s speed-skating suit.
• Tuj
  And all in that lovely colour scheme. Excellent!
• DrQu+xum
  "I like speed and I like the thrill of it."
  -- George Bush the Elder, 41^th President of the United States, after skydiving on his 80^th birthday
• Snagandorf
  the timezone change never ceases to amaze me, it is still tonight where i am but for you guys it is already tomorow morning. where can i pick up a copy of the rule book? is it legal to play the biscut game if i have never had a true cup of tea(just that american stuff)?
• ImNotJohn - cookies
  [Snagandorf] Play away old thing! But just remember you won't be able to dunk.
• Snagandorf
  i did once buy fifty packets of earl grey for a dollar, i put one directly in my mouth and sucked on it for half an hour, does this count as tea or did i stain my teeth for nothing? it may take an extra turn but i can still envoke the mighty coffie dunk of java. i just turned twenty one, i have only began to confront those wh call me kid, i refuse to be called old thing!
• ZK
  I'm not 19 till August and I love being called old thing! :) Makes one feel silly (in the dash good way), what.
• Rosie - Felicitous ageism
  A common facetious greeting in the pub among men of my age (61) is "Good evening, young man". More, I say, more.
• snorge - hahahaha(cough)
  [Rosie]Nights out with you must be a scream! ;)
• Breadmaster
  I remember reading in Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd that Gabriel Oak was (quote from memory warning) "of that age when people begin to stop prefixing 'man' with 'young'" - and he's then revealed to be 29. Ever since, I have thought of 29 as the age when one stops being young. That means I have nine months of youth left.
• Boolbar - Auld
  [BM] People will still call you "young man" but they'll do it to humour you.
• Rosie - Senility
  (Boolbar) You're right; that's why we oldies do it, to take the piss out of each other.
• Raak - Age
  For some reason, I think of 50 as the boundary. I can see it in the distance, like a barricade across the road, rapidly getting closer.
• Snagandorf
  young man is fine,but i work as a cart pusher at walmart(a job usualy reserved for those under age 18), and i get called "hey kid". when i tell my coworkers how old i am they are supprised(apparently i look quite young for my age).
• Snagandorf
  has anyone tried to play chess by mornington crescent rules?
• snorgle - that way madness lies
  [Snagandorf]Yes, and you can still hear their pitiful screams on dark winter nights..
• Rosie - Ageing
  (All) The one difference you will all notice is that between the ages of 50 and 55 (or thereabouts) you will lose the ability to change the focus of your eyes. Regarding your eye as a camera, you could say that the lens is still quite clear and forms sharp images, the film is more-or-less as good as it was, but the focussing mechanism will seize up and there is nothing whatsoever you can do about it except get reading glasses.
• flerdle - presbyopia is da word for it
  [Rosie] You're lucky if you noticed it that late... most people do in their 40s, though it depends on what they do, and how long their arms are :-)
• flerdle - roasting
  It's at least 43°C, dusty outside and dry as a bone... I think I'm starting to look forward to my holiday...
• Rosie - Presbyopic adaptation
  (flerdle) My knuckles graze the floor. This of course is why I play the trombone. Where are you, for it to be 43°C? Not Oz, at this time of the year, surely? A pleasant 18°C here. Sun in and out. Light breeze. Very British.
• flerdle - ook
  Oman.
• ZK - *sighs*
  Moved out of my first-year flat today. That means I'm not a Fresher any more....time to start intimidating smaller people. At last! My time has come!
• rab - Fresh faces
  I thought one was only a Fresher for about the first two weeks of first year... But I must say, I think Freshers' Week is wasted on the Freshers - much better in subsequent years.
• Projoy - age
  You're old if you're old compared to your friends, and young if not, I think. (My friends range from 11 to 60+, and I'm nearly 29, so I get to feel young and old - and I spend my time either enviously wishing I was older in terms of experience and knowledge or younger in body).
• Breadmaster
  [ZK] Make the most of it. Before you know it you'll be a miserable embittered Finalist, and then that's it. However, if you survive as a Finalist, you may have the option to become a Postgrad, which is best of all because you have less pressure, less work, more spare time and a real superiority complex. That's my experience anyway...
• Blob - Wisdom
  [Projoy] Having recently discussed with three of my closest mates (all of us are 40ish to 50ish) what we would do differently if we had our time over again, the answer was unanimous, unambiguous and immediate : shag more girls while we had the chance - by being (a) bolder, (b) unconcerned about rejection and (c) less fussy. (Substitute as necessary for your gender and sexual orientation) - That's the best advice our collective 200-odd years can come up with.
• penelope - small comfort
  [Blob] Would you and your friends please broadcast that at every opportunity? Especially the bit about being less fussy? Many thanks.
• Boolbar - shy
  [Blob] Not being bold, concerned about rejection and being fussy. I remember my 20s well. Can't say much will have changed since though.
• JLE
  [pen] Unfortunately the word was girls, not women...
• Thrax - Freakout
  As someone who's never ever ever been a hit with the ladies, there's probably no one on this planet less fussy than me. However, if anyone here breathes the words, "beggars can't be choosers," they'll get a slap for preaching to the choir. Sadly. 'Tis a lonely life I lead.
• penelope
  [JLE] I would hazard a guess that Blob's advice also applies to those over 30 who haven't got lucky yet. Besides... there's nothing wrong with a younger man.
• Thrax - Freakout
  You should tell that to the ladies I've had a liking for on occasion, penelope. Speaking for myself, I've been quite keen on ladies a couple of years older than myself, but tended to be rebuffed because I was too young, and they were without exception always partial to older men.
• Darren
  Well, I'm still trying to find someone, but I've come to the conclusion I'm going about this all wrong. It's so much easier for fish. So, from now on, I'll only date women who live underwater.
• Dujon - ... much later
  I must have done something right for a change. Yesterday I received payment for some work I have been undertaking for the last few months. No, not a lot of money, but enough to splurge on a meal out for my ever forgiving wife (and save me doing the washing up!) So we headed down to the local club and spent a few moments moaning and groaning over the extortionate prices being levied for the meals and eventually plumped for the special of the day - meaning, of course, the cheapest. On joining the queue for service and having finally managed to get within a couple of yards of the ordering station my good wife (bless her little cotton socks) noticed a sign twirling in the airconditioner's breeze. It proclaimed 'Two for the Price of One', or similar. Needless to say we had a rather rapid conflab and finished up with a wonderful chicken dish (her) and a rather good rump steak (me) both with all the trimmings. So an hour or so later we had eaten, drunk (she a lemon squash, me a schooner - that's 15 fl oz - of lager) and returned home sated. The moral, of course, is get yourself a wife/husband and, who knows, in thirty three years time you too may experience such fortune.
• Boolbar
  [Dujon] If it's late by the time I get home from work then it is always a pleasure to find that between my pockets and my wife's purse we can scrape enough pound coins together to raid the local chippy. [age and fancies] I've always found the most attractive women are around the same age as me, so in thirty years time I'll be gazing whistfully at OAPs.
• Boolbar
  . . . Oh, and I might have learnt to spell by then. Have a free 'h' on me!
• Chalky - musings
  [Duj & Bool] 'Tis remarkable that food - whether it be the eating of, the cooking of, the shopping together for, or the spontaneous 'grab a takeaway because we can't be arsed to cook' type, just has to be one of the most joyously satisfactory elements of being in a meaningful relationship.
  As for age differences ... my late husband was a couple of years older than me; my erstwhile partner was 18 years older ; my current partner is 8 years younger. No discernible pattern. Apart from the fact that they were/are all Librans and of Celtic persuasion.
  [Blob] wisdom - so it's true what they say then? We only ever regret the things that we DON'T do. Hmm ... glad I got stuck in then ... :-)
• Blob - mused
  BTW my little pearl of wisdom above was mostly a wistful glance back to our youth. I'm happily married and two out of the other three in the aforementioned quartet are in long-term relationships. So the advice is really directed at the Young¹ Free² & Single³ amongst you.

  ¹ Young at heart.
  ² Or any price really.
  ³ Or as your conscience allows !

• st d - bold advice
  Thank you Blob for that pearl of wisdom. I shall bow to my elders and betters on this occasion and head to Battersea tonight to watch Germany Vs Czech with my colleague Miguel from Portugal, who has revealed to me that his strategy for watching EURO 2004 matches is find a punb where there will be as many of the nationality actually playing. So tonight I am hoping for lots of German or Czech girls. I don't seem to have had much luck recently, and this I put down to a couple of factors
  a. I seem to predominatly go out to the pub next to work, so hang out with work colleagues, many of whom are female, which lessens the chances of being in a position to chat someone up/be chatted up.
  b. weekends I have been going home to see my mum (and until recently, dad). Again....
  c. Most of my friends seem to be either married or in relationships or FREEZE up around girls.
  d. No-one seems to help out really. By this I mean that if I have a single male friend and a single female friend that meet I will stir it a bit to see if anything happens - sometimes it does. No-one seems to do this back.
  e. I am fat, ugly, loud, irritating and have lousy personal hygiene.
• Chalky - Lonely bleedin' hearts
  Oh dear - there DO seem to be far too many singletons in the Morniverse ... *dons cupid wings*
• Raak - Bah, humbug!
  Consolations of the single life:

  • The TV remote is where you put it.
  • If you have not finished the marmalade, there is still some marmalade left.
  • You go to films because you want to see them.
  • If you burn a meal, you just get a takeaway instead.
• Boolbar - Toast
  [Raak] Point 4 works for couples as well, unless the words "Can you just keep an eye on . . ." were uttered prior to the burning.
• penelope - marmalade
  [Raak] And Point 3 applies only as a benefit if the marmalade is still in good condition. If it is old and clinging to the sides of the jar as only the last desperate dregs of marmalade can, and you are reluictant to buy fresh, new marmalade until the old one is finished, then having someone finish the marmalade for you is a good excuse to go out and buy a new one. Does anyone want to come over and finish off my marmalade?
• rab
  [pen] You only go and see films when your marmalade is in good condition?

  Oh, I'm back from a wee break in Wales, btw, off to Cornwall on Friday...

• Raak
  [pen] Ah, what a romantic come-on...
• Thrax - Freakout
  I second that. A woman who invites you round for marmalade is clearly far more kinky than a woman who invites you round for coffee. I never get invited round for any marmalade. Either nobody finds me appealing, or I've never met a woman with a toaster. Either way, it's a crap life really, and I feel certain that I shall spent it lonely, unloved, and cursed with a rumbling stomach.
  
  In addition I personally don't believe any of this twaddle about advantages to being single. If there were any, people wouldn't go on the pull and get paired off. There are of course advantages to not sticking your head in a blender, which is why very few people go and try the alternative, but not having a partner/spouse? I find it impossible to believe there are advantages to such a cursed life...with one notable exception. As a single man with no woman in my life, I can proudly say that NO ONE within the four walls of my flat has ever uttered the words "Leonardo" and "Di Caprio" in the same sentence. It is for this reason that I can also proudly say that within the four walls of my flat No ONE has ever been murdered and had her body dumped the rubbish tip less than a mile from these premises. How many married men can say that? Not many.
• snorgle - cat burglar
  ***breaks into Thrax's flat.***

  Have you seen any of Leonardo DiCaprio's films? He's fugly, but I still intend to get Total Eclipse just to see him shagging David Thewlis as Rimbaud.

• Blob - Thew listen
  [snorg] Bit dangerous ! He'll turn into a werewolf !
• st d - oops
  just realised I posted to MCiOS a follow up to a conversation goi g on in here. Very confusing.
• Thrax - Freakout
  The three of you are clearly bonkers.
  
  St d, any chance of a "copy-and-past" so we may learn of your wisdom here?
  
  snorgs, help yerself on the breaking in front, I'm always welcome of a bit o' company, especially the feline variety. I used to have a cat named Dudley. He could talk you know... but he got run over. I miss him greatly.
  
  Blob, heh, not so much a werewolf, but at university my friends often said I reminded tham of Dracula. To this day I refuse to allow garlic in my presence.
• rab - Horriday
  I'm off on holiday again tomorrow. Whee.
• flerdle
  oooh... I have to wait two weeks. Hmph.
• Inkspot - leaving
  Joining in the holiday rush. I have the day off tomorrow to go to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The two hour journey has put me off before, but with free tickets from the Sunday Times, I'm looking forward to it like a big kid.
• penelope - Goodiewoodie
  I'll be there on Saturday, free tickets courtesy of work. My digital camera will be on official duties, but I won't. :o)
• snorgle - digital camera
  Cany anyone suggest a decent digital camera for about £100 - £130? My eye has been caught by the DV5000 as a fun gadget. Any opinions?
• ZK - Football
  Bollocks. And that's all I have to say on the subject. Unless
  a) my opinion is required or
  b) my opinion is not required, but I get fed up with moaning to the rest of my friends and give it anyway.
  
  So, age. Interesting thing. I don't always see it as a barrier, but I don't think I have a pattern...obviously when I was twelve I loved 26-year-olds because they were better looking than twelve-year-olds and had less scary voices and fewer spots. I have been known to have a penchant for an older man since but currently the objects of my affection range from 4 years younger to 28 years older (can you say worrying? Unless you're Jonathan Ross or Catherine Zeta-Jones, I imagine you can) so I reckon age doesn't enter into it. Of course this all means nothing, as I'm not part of a couple either, although because of that I can watch Euro 2004 in the comfort of my own home as opposed to in the pub (and I can bring my own snacks. Hooray! :) )
  Did any of that make sense to anyone else? If not, ignore it, and normal service will be resumed shortly.
• Raak - DV5000
  [snorgle] I started thinking "wow!", but on reading the spec, it's a 3.1MP stills camera (I don't know where they get 4.1MP from when the spec further down says 3.1) plus a crap videocam, in the same size package as my 3.2MP stills camera plus crap videocam (a Sony Cybershot DSC-P32). Mine was just under £200 a bit more than a year ago, so £130 for the same spec now is probably about right. The only difference is that mine's built to look like a camera, which it is, and the DV5000 is built to look like a videocam, which it isn't. A real videocam would have a video output socket and give at least television quality images. The spec mentions an AV cable, but only talks of recording video to the memory card, not streaming it out to a computer or DV recorder.
• st d - football
  ZK] I would like to read your opinion. What a great match though. Fantastic stuff......Also I reckon I fit nicely into your -4 to +28 group, somewheer in the middle, and have reverted to my imagining of you as a stunningly attractive girl. Ain't life grand ?
• Breadmaster
  I am currently discovering that another advantage of being single is that holidays cost half as much. If, by contrast, your other half is in teaching and you are therefore able to go away only in August, they cost about 500 times as much.
  
  Regular readers of my posts, and surely there can't be many, will be astounded to learn that last night, because there was nothing better to watch, I actually turned the football on whilst having dinner and quite enjoyed it. This may be because working in news means I am familiar with the names of almost all the players in at least one of the teams playing in that match. Plus, of course, one of them has the same psychiatric disorder as me, so I approve of him. Still, as I watched, I found a strange desire coming over me to drink large amounts of alcohol, sit with my legs very wide apart, look at pictures of young ladies without much on and perform noxious evacuations in the company of others with an expression of pride. Testosterone - too much testorerone!
• Uncle Korky - Breadmaster
  *cue eerie lighting effect and modulated voice*
  Ahhhh... he's one of us, now...
• st dogmael - Psychiatric Problem
  BM] Are you too afflicted by Canttakeapenaltytosavemylifeitis? Re holidays though, have you not been confronted with the "single supplement" yet then ? Also you are factoring in teh idea that you have to pay for two peopl, rather than having two people pay for it....
• Blob - x4
  Holidays ! Wait till you have kids ! Forced to go during School Holidays (they even bump up the prices for Half Term, the bastards) - me, wifey, two kids = 4 flights. Plus the small people want a constant supply of things. And you have to go to family-friendly restaurants (o.k. this is getting better as they get older). So yes, don't complain about your "single supplement" make the most of it while you're single - or find a friend to go with you.
• penelope - singlesuppleness
  Ah, the single supplement thing... blind fury at being charged around 30 per cent extra for having the audacity to not be part of a couple is what forced me to try National Trust working holidays, which was one of the best decisions I ever made. Luckily I have a flatmate prepared to travel with me now, but when everyone is already coupled up and with an allergy to 'organised tours', I was left without a lot of options. So I holidayed, but I didn't travel much, which I still regret.
• Quirkafleeg
  Hmm, not to sure how my holidays compare to other peoples. I tend to just hope work will send me to somewhere nice, and I try to blag some extra days on account of crippling jet lag, severe cramp, dehydration, headaches, and mental stress from the fact I'm terrified of flying.
• Chalky - holidays
  All of the above
  Just call me Ms T-shirt
• ZK
  [st d] Reverted? Was there ever any doubt? :) [Blob] Feel for my dad, he has 4....and works for the NHS.
• Inkspot - little blessings
  [Blob] Just the two litle acessories to take on hols! try three at (13, 9 and 3), mind you I am one of five, two boys and three girls. Holidays were fun; mostly.

  Goody for Goodwood, wonderful, excellent; I enjoyed the whole day, like a kid in sweet shop, cars, cars, cars and ....even more cars.

• Dujon
  [Blob] Did you say 'flights'? Presumably you don't go to Blackpool, Brighton or Margate then!
  Whilst on the subject of holidays, are there still such things as camping coaches? I think that's what they were called. They're the railway carriages converted to accommodation and parked (permanently, I assume) in various areas. It's just that I have fond memories of staying in such as a child - although my parents might not agree with that evaluation - in places such as Arthog and Sandsend.
  [Inkspot] Goodwood, cars - I envy you, sir.
• Dujon - Clarification
  If I remember correctly the carriages were actually on railway lines with a full connection to the rail network but the rails surely did not look as though they had been used of late - hence my term 'permanently'.
• nights
  hello all, a quick post from st petersburg, [ZK] the football was shocking, we watched on TV at one in the morning here and it was mightily depressing - as all the russians in the bar were cheering for england. bless. will post again soon. nights.
• Martha Farquar
  [has broken the furcation game]
• Chalky - all hail
  [MF] So that's what you've been up to all this time!
  Bravo, good sir, and extra kudos for managing to slip in a touch of nipple creep :-)
• Martha Farquar
  The full move can be viewed in its correctly-formatted glory here (also including the Hypearthquakes move and a lengthy Rice/Lloyd Webber/Elton John pastiche which probably did for the game)
• penelope - goodiewoodiepostmortem
  Yeah - it was OK - I took lots of pictures of funny faces and situations in the crowds, slightly fewer of the cars - there were just so many of them. I'm probably not the world's most fanatical car-spotter. However, I did have my picture taken with Renault's F1 driver Franck Montagny, who had his arm around me LIKE HE MEANT IT, as part of the digital-camera-loan deal with my young French trainee who was chaperoning him for the afternoon, Mwahahaah! :o)
• penelope
  oh, and it rained a bit, but not enough to spoil things, just enough to wet the Hill Climb course ;o)
• Tuj - Furcations
  Well Martha, you've really Farquared that one up haven't you? Shame, it was a good move!
• rab
  [MF] I go on holiday and this is what happens. I'll take my Acme HTML deodorizer to it later...
• rab - Deodorized
  [Re Furcation Game] It turns out Martha's gigantic move was too big for the STEAM-powered technologies driving this site; hence I'm afraid I've taken the liberty of splitting the move up into two parts. I had to tidy up some of the HTML - the game moves should be unaffected, but do let me know if anything went awry in the rehashing.
• Martha Farquar - *grin of satisfaction*
  Thanks rab! Strange I got it through the HTML checker first, though (and muchos kudos for that groovy little dingus, too, without which it'd still be lounging unloved and unread in a... oh, hang on...)
• plump - goodwood
  [Pen and Ink] Looks like we could have had a mini pilg as I was @ Goodwood too with my 16 year old and my 3 year old!
• rab - Grimace
  [MF] If you are interested, which you probably aren't, the database that sits behind this truncates posts when they hit some, at the time it was designed, apparantly unreasonable length. I guess you exceeded that :) I should find out what the limit is and put in a warning. Glad you like the HTML debugging tool...
• ZK - off to Scotland!
  *boogies* I just got cast in the Edinburgh Fringe for August! This is a serious coup d'état for me! *boogies more* Finally - an audition passed (not merely given) and exciting prospects! All I need to do is learn to be an eight-year-old within a month (which may involve disguising a couple of things!)...which I'm sure I can do with study. After all, I was only eight ten years ago.....
  Go me! :)
• Inkspot - more casting couch
  [ZK]Good luck in Edinburgh. I may be able to help you out with the mind set of 8 year old boys, basically; girls are yeuch!!! ;)

  [plump] I'm sure penelope could arrange for some wonderful reasonably priced dicounted hospitality.

  Congratulations to DrQuuxum for reaching No1 on Celebrity Mronington Crescent, sadly down to 13 following the departure of evil_edna. JJ's dividends and returns have become a very useful tool in taking the guessing out of who to invest in next. Even if Mr. Rooney was a teensy weensy bit obvious last week.

• penelope - evil_edna
  [INkspot] I've resurrected edna's account and will post the reference number here soon to be re-included in the league, if that's OK with all of you lot. I've been well into Tim Henman stocks for a couple of weeks now :o)
• Breadmaster
  [ZK] Well done - I have several friends who have "done Edinburgh" and it sounds a pretty intense experience. Watch out with your references to "a couple of things" though - you'll have St Dogmael getting hot under the collar again...
• st d - hot collars
  BM] I don't get hot under the collar. I just occasionally will raise an interested eyebrow. Oh what a joy to be a red-blooded male in his prime ! ;o)
• ZK
  He can get plenty hot under the collar, just so long as I don't mention what play I'm actually in (pretty easy as I don't know!) I should be fine! :) *boogies* ah, 'tis a good week, so it would seem!
• Chalky
  Hey - good on yer ZK! Hope everything goes really well for you, Edinburgh-wise x
• ZK
  Oh yes, and ta to all for the congrats! :)
• Angus Prune - Congratters
  To my dear friend, and as of yesterday, my maid of honour - ZK, I owe you one!
• flerdle
  ooooh...
• ZK
  [AP] I know! Sadly I also owe you and yours about 45 quid, so I guess we're even...unless of course you can do me a similar favour! :)
• Blob - Fringe benefits
  [Zooky] Excellent - what will you be in ? Do you know the venue ?
• ZK
  [Blob] I have no idea! :) I'm still waiting for the script to turn up in the post, which has all the other info in it! I should imagine it's somewhere relatively small, as last time I checked I'm not sure they had very much money. But I don't know. Hoping for something nice! I'll post the details when they turn up :)
• Projoy
  [ZK] If it's a côup d'état, does that mean you'll be taking the city by storm? :)
• ZK
  [Projoy] That's the plan! :)
• Chalky - being typically British
  The weather here is bloody awful ...*$!*&
• rab - Embra
  I do have a tendancy to drop in on Edinburgh during August, so maybe I could track the Keeper down :) If not this year, then one of the next three years for sure, as I'll then be living there. But first, I have to go to India. See you next week!
• Chalky - *waves goodbye to rab* again
• Blob - Inja
  [rab] Bring us back an elephant.
• flerdle
  *waves to rab as he zooms past*
• st d - india
  rab] Bring us back a couple of cricket bats and some wicket-keeping gloves...
• ZK
  And Hrithik Roshan!
• Breadmaster - Hrithik
  [Zoological Keeper] Ooh, I'd second that if I were that way inclined. Have you read "Bollywood Boy" by Justine Hardy? Very amusing stuff... I went on a private tour of Film City in Bombay once (VIP that I am, or something) and it really is like that...
• ZK
  [Breadmaster] I haven't, but I will now!
• rab - Indiana
  [Blob et al] I'll try :) Anyway, must go to bed now, the taxi's calling at 4.30am. Ouch.
• Imkspot - Orange peeled
  Is anyone else having trouble accessing Orange? I get message 403 Forbidden.
• Chalky - aha!
  [Inks] me too - also the Lockisseum [which is on Dunx's server].
• Chalky - retracting
  seems to be OK now :-)
• rab - Greetings!
  Hello, can't say much cos I'm in a busy conference email room and this is perhaps a little frivolous... Anyway, I got here ok (as you can see) and am having an ok time, 75 minute rikshaw journey notwithstanding. I'll look out for an elephant for you.
• flerdle
  [rab] Only 75 minutes? You were lucky.
• Uncle Korky - Apropos of nothing...
  Just over a week ago, I happened to be driving through Salisbury, and a passed a pub which had a sign proclaiming "A Goldfinch Free House". Are there many infestations of goldfinches in Salisbury?
• Breadmaster
  A moment's pause, please, to remember Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, who is memorable for a number of reasons, most particularly the following:
  
  (1) He had the silliest name of any blues singer, which is saying something. Except maybe Fird "Snooks" Eaglin.
  
  (2) He learned to play by attaching a single string to a guitar, mastering it, adding a second, and so on until he could play all six at once.
  
  (3) He actually wrote "That's All Right Mama".
  
  Yes, despite Sky News' claim today that it is 50 years since that song was first recorded, old Arthur recorded it in 1946. And when Elvis stole it eight years later, Arthur didn't get a penny in royalties. In fact, he never did. Many years later, his record company finally arranged for him to be paid the unimaginably vast royalties that he was owed for this and a number of other songs that Elvis ripped off. But at the last moment, they pulled out - claiming that they would lose less money if Crudup sued them over it. So he died unrewarded, and I think today is a fitting day to remember the fact!
• Chalky - taking a moment's pause
  [BM] such a sad story :-(
• Breadmaster
  That's how you got treated by the American music industry in those days if you were black... Crudup rerecorded "That's All Right" some time later, and he had to suffer the ultimate indignity of putting a composer credit on the label to "Presley"! It doesn't get much worse than that. To be fair, Elvis' version was a lot better than Arthur's, who wrote fantastic songs but was a bit rubbish, really, at least in my opinion. But that's not really the point.
• ZK
  ooh ooh! I got my script! My part's really obnoxious, it's fantastic! :D I play an 8-year-old girl and am called upon to cry, scream, vomit, get drunk, bite etc. If this doesn't stretch me I don't know what will! :) i haven't finished the script yet so I'm still trying to figure out what on earth it's all about, but it's looking good! I only have a month to learn my lines, though...
• Projoy - drunken children
  [ZK] Is it Anne of Green Gables?
• Chalky - lynches and finches
  hmmm, I dunno - Anne was a ... nice girl, even when squiffy on 'raspberry cordial'. But if we're talking about children who deserve to be garroted at birth ... how about Violet Elizabeth Bott?
  [UK] sorry - didn't see your earlier post about the Salisbury GoldFinch Plague. Dreadful stuff. Really scary. Just like the Hitchcock film [I still have the remains of one wrapped around my rear water butt]. Luckily we managed to keep it out of the news, but I fear our lives will never be the same again here in sleepy South Wiltshire ...
• ZK
  [Projoy] Not to the best of my knowledge, unless it's the bizarrest of bizarre adaptations. I finished the script a few minutes ago and it makes very little sense to me! It's "Archer's Goon" - you may have heard of it...My character is called Awful, which I think is absolutely superb.
• Dujon - This one?
  [ZK] Here? Sounds rather weird and wonderful if it is!
• Breadmaster
  [ZK] I think that sounds fantastic fun. Any play that contains a character called "Awful" must be pretty good to start with. Sounds to me like it shouldn't take you a month to learn the lines, though - what with all that crying, screaming, vomiting, biting etc. there can't be all that much actual dialogue too...
• ZK
  [Dujon] Yes, that's the book it's from - I've ordered that from Amazon..hoping for some insight I guess :) [Breadmaster] There's a fair lot of lines! Learning starts tomorrow....eep! :)
• Nathan Hickton - Lost!
  I'm lost- i'm at norwich station and i want to get to MC Help!
• Blob - Getting to MC
  [NH] Try a counter strile at Thetford, then you'll need to use WAGN and six blue podumes via Peterborough I reckon. If the snoods are blonked you may have to side-straddle to Cambridge however.
  [Zooky,Chalky] V.E.Bott was who sprang to my mind too. [Zooks] Sounds fun to me.
• Boolbar - Ely wheely
  [NH] As Blob says, but be wary of hitting the return loop at Ely or else you could end up being shunted to King's Lynn. Also the 'bus replacement rule' could be brought into operation making the Peterborough route costly in terms of LV. Do not stop at Manea, it is a trap.
• Breadmaster
  I have to point everyone to the Hyperlink game over at MCiOS, where we are having enormous fun with a link to a Spartacus gladiators game. Buckle up your greaves and ready your trident - or do you fear the mighty Magister Panus?
• Dunx - New Game
  Oo! Game slot!

  May I suggest "Conversation Stoppers", as I described elsewhere?

• Dujon - To Rosie
  4.5 mm of precipitation since the beginning of June. Sunny - and extraordinarily warm - days continue. Today is cooler (14.5°C as I type at 14:10 local time) although overnight temps have been down to 3° or 4° no frosts have been in evidence here as yet.
• Raak
  [Dunx] Yes!
• Inkspot - No 9 bus
  Conversation Stoppers, oh yes please.

  [Breadmaster]I tried the site but, recieved the message;The page cannot be displayed
  There are too many people accessing the Web site at this time.

  Graham III as ffiish continues to break and create new records over at Celebdaq Celebrity Mornington Crescent, much kudos to you sire.

  I'm glad that bitter and twisted manipulator, Seal Boy has been evicted from the BB House.
  Stu is a mummbling self obsessd idiot , (the most intelligent person on BB ever - B***ocks!).
  Michelle should leave Stu alone, and be herself she has more to offer as a personality without him, a mismatch for Stu if ever there was one.
  Shell you can streak round my garden anytime ;)

• rab - And then Aunt Mary broke wind
  [Dunx, Raak et al re conversation stoppers] That gets my vote, but it seems the slot has become blocked, sadly.

  Oh, hello, by the way. Surviving, just. Have had four days of conference thus far; had a wee excrusion yesterday, saw a couple of temples. I said 108 Hare Krisnas before being 'selected' as one of the lucky people to donate 150 Rupees to the cause. I received a copy of 'The Science of Self-Realisation' in return, which I expect to give me many hours of pleasure amusement.

  One more day to go (getting bored with statistical physics now), before a day trip to Mysore and some more Bollywood movies on the way home. Still no elephants, but there are a number of cows wandering around I could try and slip into my luggage instead...

  Hare Rama, Hara Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare...

• Darren - Archer's Goon
  There was a TV version of that when I was a kid, starring Roger Lloyd Pack.
• ZK
  [Darren] So I discovered, on research. The last in-house production for CBBC after the bank-breaking Chronicles of Narnia (loved them!) That makes you rather young though, doesn't it?
• Tuj - Having just set up that COnversation Stoppers (sorry for the dodgy ƒ)
  Maybe some time we should play Morgenburg Halbmond?
• Darren
  [ZK] Well, I'm 26, if that makes me rather young.
• ZK
  Rather young; by my chronology I'd placed you a few years younger with Archer's Goon. *goes imdb trolling* You were 14 when they made that then. Groovy. I'd have been 7, probably why I don't remember it. I may have even seen it, I don't remember most things I saw fewer times than twice though...
• Uncle Korky - Shell out again...
  Inkspot] Were you watching last night?
• Chalky - gloating
  [Inky / Celebdaqers] Had a little chuckle when I checked the league just now in view of your comments the other day ...
  Quote "Graham III as ffish continues to break and create new records over at Celebdaq Celebrity Mornington Crescent, much kudos to you sire..." Unquote.
  Poor ffish has dropped from No 1 to second to last [teehee]. Is this also a record?
  [snorgs] Well done. Number one again!
• Inkspot - fiendish plan
  Congrats to both snorgs, and to you Chalky. I presume it is your own modesty that prevents you saying how you occupy second and third places. I should have followed JJ's Dividends and bought Becki and not gone out on a limb with the Queen.
• snorgle - daqing
  Oh, thanks! It was Wayne Rooney wot done it..
• Uncle Korky
  My 3rd persona's about to be millionaired! Yippee!
• Inkspot - more league tpye stuff
  [UK] Are you playing away from home? Is which league is this other persona?
  I've been baby sitting an account for someone in the Ratcatchers Guild over at Discworld Minileagues. In all she has the same account in 24 separate Celebdaq Leagues. (Cleddau has been marooned in the Embalmers Guild for the past couple of weeks)
• Uncle Korky - Multiple personalities
  [Ink] I've got four accounts in all, which compete in my me-only league called Advanced Schizophrenia Ltd.
• Graham III - daqing along
  Hmm. Got my dividend banker wrong. I would have thought that the fact that Serena Williams was mentioned in every broadsheet front page article about that Russian girl would be enough..., but even so [Inkspot] Thanks :)
• Graham III - Oh, and...
  and I went from position 1 to position 30 in Lancre Embassy (division 15). Hope I don't get relagated - would have thought I should have been promoted last week.
• Nik - Serveritude
  Rather sudden I know, but I've bought, have built and am currently installing Linux on a server to replace entirely the two machines currently responsible for running angrycake.com. It's very cute, I have to say - a smaller footprint than the laptop I'm tapping this entry into. MC5 will, at some point, be temporarily going away. This will not be immediate; indeed, expect things to remain the way they are for at least another week, and probably a while longer. I'm trying to do things 'right' this time. Which is why I'm installing crucial software on it whilst drunk, obviously.
• Dujon - Drinkies
  It's the best time in my opinion, Nik - I find that lateral thinking ability increases in direct proportion to the Alcohol per hour intake.
• Dujon
  Dunno why I gave alcohol a capital A! Good luck with the switch by the way.
• Rosie
  I can think of a reason, Duj. :-)
• Breadmaster
  Exciting, even to us technoserfs who think that Linux is a Peanuts character. I'm sure you'll warn us of the dates of absence of MC5 when they're known (assuming they are, of course).
• ZK
  Woo! Off to my concert today! *goes to have fun*
• rab - Bachus
  Hello. I'm back from my travels. I did see two elephants in the end, but a big sign proclaiming "Elephants can be unfriendly to strangers" suggested it wouldn't have been a good idea to bring one back. Sorry. Mind you, given how much notice people took of the "Obey traffic laws" signs posted at intersections, I might have got away with it...
• Projoy - Archer, Dillian, Torquil, Shine, Hathaway, Erskine, Venturus
  [ZK] (sorry I missed this discussion before) Archer's Goon is possibly my favourite kids' book of all time. It's superbly crafted and unfolds delightfully. You have a great part, although I'll be interested to see how the adaptors have made it stageable (the task is a bit like creating a stage adaptation of Terry Pratchett). Where will it be on? Details, please, details...
• ZK
  Errrrrr the only details I have are "Edinburgh, Zoo venue 1" (strangely enough :)) It means nothing to me but I'm hoping they'll tell me when I get to Kent! :) Indeed the script is a bugger to learn and I can't make the blasted child sound annoying without whining all the time. At the moment she merely comes off as irritating, and I seem to have lost the ability to scream. I was at a concert last night (in the audience) and was made painfully aware of how quiet I really am. Any good vibes sent my way would be graciously appreciated! :)
• ZK
  Come to think of it, I don't even know who anyone else is playing...
• Blob
  [ZK] Kent ? Edinburgh's not in Kent - in fact it's a long way from Kent. I suggest you head North !!!
• Watty - Not actually at the Zoo, then...
  A moment's trawling finds this. Sadly, I shall be in Scotland in the last week of July. Ah, well.
• Uncle Korky - Reminiscing
  One of the games that I miss playing (thinking back to Pants MC) is Liff. We've got a spare game slot - anyone fancy a go?
• Inkspot - Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll Llantysiliogogogoch - the sound made before the first fag of the day
  [Uncle Korky] Is this what you mean? The Even Deeper Meaning of Liff new definitions using place names. Which way is it played, do you provide your own names and definitions or do players respond to the previous posting?
• Bigsmith - Liff
  Ah...happy memories of the old "Ais Ghyll". Liff was played by providing a definition of the place name set by the previous player, then setting a further place name for the next player to define.
• plump - Liff
  I'd love a go at Liff again in fact I'm feeling a little chelmsford at the very idea.
• Rosie - Liff
  (plump) At least you aren't at Loggerheads (Staffs.) I like the idea of a new game of Liff. You could say I have some Wantage in that respect. (Bigsmith) The spelling is "Ais Gill" though your version may well be the original. Looks plausible. There's nothing there, of course, except an old railway signalbox at the top of a long gradient up from Appleby, and some good mountain scenery. (End anorak display).
• Bigsmith - Ais Gill
  (Rosie) Perfectly right old chap, the old memory is failing me again (plus the fact I have spent some time recently around the Old Dungeon Ghyll in the Lake District!).
• Uncle Korky - Delighted
  Lif? 'tis done!
• Lib - *waves*
  For no particular reason.
• Dunx - New Systems
  [Nik] Oo, that sounds fun! What kind of box is it?
• Nik
  I've been blogging the process.
• Dunx
  Tidy. Need to think about something along those lines myself, since my nominated server machine is (1) relatively old, (2) occasionally failing to boot, and (3) loud (much quieter with a better fan, but still quite noticeable). But that's for some time in the future.
• Dujon - Bye
  Well, maybe. The good wife has just left on her second five day break in order enjoy the campus of Kurri-Kurri. I shall now have to do all those things which I hate; like cooking my own meals, feeding the cats, grooming the cats, watering (well!) all her seedlings, doing the washing, vacuuming the carpet, cleaning the windows, making the bed, doing the washing, remembering to do things (and when) ... some women! How inconsiderate can one be?
• rab - Ooh!
  [Nik] Newer version of MySQL sounds good, means I can hopefully remove some of the workarounds I currently have in place and make a more efficient/robust system.
• Brendan
  [Dujon] I'd be tempted to say that you only need to do some of those activities once, just before she comes back. But then I'm a slob ...
• rab - Time for a change
  On browsers that show link titles, you can now find the time/date of postings by creeping your nipple over the poster's name. Needless to say this is harder to do on Internet Explorer than it is on anything else...
• Inkspot - dating
  [rab]What is the problem with IE? is it something special you have to do with the script? I had no problem with IE6, the little hand showed the time and date (10.59pm Thu-15-Jul 2004). Perhaps its just the way I grease mt nipples...
• ZK
  [Blob] Rehearsals for a week in Kent. [Watty] Ooh! Thanks for that! Brill.
• Darren
  [Inkspot] Mt Nipples? Where is Mount Nipples? And why does it need greasing?
• Dujon - Ta!
  [Brendan] Thank you, sir. I suppose I'd better feed the cats and myself and water the seedlings othewise my inattention might become obvious. The rest has been taken on board - why on Earth I didn't think of that I will never know.   ;-)
• rab - Ooh nooh
  [Inkspot] Nah, it's just I found with IE on the Mac I had to be much more fastidious with my nipple than on other browsers. Perhaps the PC version is more forgiving.
• Chalky - registering delight
  Can I just say how delightful it is to play Codebreakers Crescent? Ay-thang-you
• ZK - Shonagh Daly
  And why not.
• Chalky - registering something
  Following my remark last Friday [two up & thanx ZK] may I just say how delightfully chatty it is in here.
  Usually.
• Rosie - chat
  Well, I've got bugger all to say, really, at the moment.
• Dujon - What's better than the weather? ... boring, sorry.
  Still, after our 4.5mm of rain in June, we've had around 14mm this month. Spread over three days. None of this could have found its way into catchment areas, the ground is just too dry. Cool but not cold, overnight temps seemed to have been constantly around the 5°C to 7°C mark, so no frosts on my little castle. Today it's a bit warmer, 14°C as I type; the last three days managed a max of 12°C, which is 'proper' winter weather. What really bothers one is the fact that the coastal areas received significant amounts of precipitation, in the form of rain, but we - and hence the dams - did not.
• Inkspot - out of my window
  Dujon]The weather here just south of the M4 in Wiltshire, its been changeable, mostly overcast, occassional showers with sunny intervals. So for Tom's third bithday party on Friday, it started cloudy threatening rain, cleared up during the party only to have heavy showers late afternoon.
  One of the things Mrs Inkspot does very well for the parties is the cakes, either shaped like a number or in this case on Friday, a chocolate covered train with three candles and cotton wool smoke coming out of the funnel. The cake caused great excitement at the table when after one the candles went out, in relighting it, the cotton wool caught fire ... the children laughed and enjoyed it.
  Meanwhile looking out over the metropolis, the sky has turned blue, the sun is out; today is the last day of the summer school term.
• snorgle - out of MY window
  I have been watching a seagull's nest for a few weeks, and the chicks growing up. Suddenly, this morning, a flock of seagulls came over and made loads of noise, so when I looked out one chick was being dragged around by his neck! He managed to escape but was dragging his wing. A little later, someone else found it on the ground where it had fallen and put it into a box. We've called the RSPCA but they're taking ages to get here. In any case, I suppose they'll probably just put it down, even though it doesn't seem too badly injured. Oh, and the weather has been lovely and sunny and warm.
• rab - Gulls
  Seagulls are the most evil creatures I have ever encountered and any form of natural selection that reduces the numbers of these buggers is A Very Good Thing in my opinion.
• snorgle - gulled
  It's people's fault for leaving all their rubbish around - I still felt sorry for it being pecked to death. It would probably just be used to feed other baby gulls..
• snorgle - blog
  Still at least I don't live next to them - like this guy..
• penelope - out of my winder
  I usually have the blind semi-shut, but out of my window (and a little to the side) is the Grand Union Canal with overhanging trees, flowing greenery under the water and 'peeping' moorhen chicks which have been sounding like a creaking gate for weeks now. I guess they'll soon grow out of it. The water throws that lovely rippling reflection under the eaves of the building. In the midst of this benevolent calm, I'm grappling with organisng photos of a Motor Technician skills competition that they forgot to tell me about until it was almost too late...
• Breadmaster
  Where I'm from there are millions of Herring Gulls and everyone without exception loathes them. Apart from me - I like them. They're big and white and always appear spotlessly clean, as if they've just been through a whites wash on 90C, even if they've actually just been rooting through your rubbish. And they look so nice flying about. I miss them living here in London - just boring little Black-Headed Gulls, which don't even have black heads.
• rab - Nope
  [snorgle] I sympathise with that chap. We had a nesting pair on our roof once which, apart from other things, made going into the garden a total no-no.
• Raak - One word
  Airgun.
• Nik - Another word
  Alkaseltzer.
• snorgle - one word - euthanasia
  RSPCA blokey turned up (very handsome aussie surfer type!) and it's wing was indeed broken. He advised that he'd take it to the vet, but it would be put down, because it's just too expensive to keep all the gull chicks they get in. He did say if it had been older and just sprained it's wing they would have kept it until it healed, but broken wings are just too complicated. It was very cute and fluffy up close!
• Dunx - Hummmmmmm
  We get hummingbirds in our garden. We have a feeder hanging off the deck, and these bizarre little birdies buzz up to it, flapping their wings like crazy, and suck all the lovely sugar water up. They just don't look real - they're the closest thing to a CGI bird that I can imagine, because they move so suddenly that they seem to travel from place to place by teleportation. And they make this ultrasonic chirping noise.

  Weird things.

  Apart from that, the only wildlife I usually see close up is dead squirrels on the road. Very colourful, especially if freshly flattened, but hardly pleasant to run past.

• Tuj - Worse than gulls
  I REALLY hate pigeons. They are just parasitic, and fat, and nasty. Apologies to any posters here who happen to be pigeons.
• Rosie - Pigeons
  In France, so I'm told, pigeon is regarded as a delicacy, particularly amongst foodies, i.e. most of the French, and not to do so is regarded as almost blasphemous. Hence the following Limérique:

  Il y avait un jeune homme de Dijon

  qui n'avait que peu de religion

  Il dit, "quant à moi,

  je deteste tous les trois,

  Le Père, Le Fils et le pigeon".

• Dujon - Kazoo-ing
  [Dunx] Aren't they fantastic! I don't think we have humming birds in this neck of the woods but we do have honeyeaters. They appear to have similar characteristics. Heaven only knows how fast those little wings beat, but they are nearly invisible such is the rapidity. Their spatial control is unbelievable - as you say - one moment they are there and next moment they are gone and probing their long, thin, curved beaks into a flower a foot or so away. Quite magnificent little beasties.
  [penelope} That sounds rather idyllic.
  [seagulls] I've always liked the little scavengers; I love the sound of them wheeling around the coast. Then again, I've never had to live with them as I've never had the pleasure of living that close to the sea.
  [pigeons] The most rapid method of making a new sculpture look old.
• Boolbar - Outbreaks of excessive whiteness.
  Can you go blind from watching the BBC1 weather forecast at 10:30pm? I almost did last night. The weather lady was wearing a jacket that wasn't just white, it was whiter than white. So white it made me go "argh!" and throw my hands in front of my eyes. Pearing through my fingers I swear that it was so white it was casting shadows. Surely we should be warned prior to the start of the broadcast that sunglasses should be donned before watching the following weather bulletin. BTW, I've no idea what the weather is going to do today, but it doesn't look too bright.
• Angus Prune - pigeons
  Must be an acquired taste. I tried some, but it was much too strong for my palate. The meat's almost chocolate coloured. Give me some nice crispy duck any day! Speaking of which, staying on a boat on the Broads this year, and woke up at 6am to see a duck staring in through the window!
• Dunx - Broads Minded
  [Angus] Last time I was on the Broads, it was surprising if a duck wasn't staring through the window!

  On a previous visit, I remember the swans were particularly importunate - they'd see people moving around on the boat, and then come and peck on the hull!

• Angus - Swans
  Well that's another matter! I swear one followed us from Norwich down as far as Beccles - and back again! He knew I was a soft touch unfortunately - I'm a sucker for a pretty face...
• Tuj - The Furcation Game
  That slow-moving behemothis about to consume my life again... Before I devote all free time to it, is there anyone out there already concocting a move? Speak now or forever hold your peace.
• rab - Guessing
  [Tuj] Be my guest...
• Dujon - Sacha
  I was saddened to hear this morning that Sacha Distel passed away yesterday. To be honest I hadn't realised that he was 71 nor that he had been ill. Whilst not a fan of his (although some of his 'crooning' was enjoyable) I did appreciate some of his guitar work.
• x_sugarbabe_x - celeb-gloat
  woohoo - No. 1 in League! And so easily achieved by leaving my paltry sum on BB5's Ahmed, so he ended up serving some purpose after all.
• Inkspot - young whipper snapper
  congtrats to x_sugarbabe_x and to Chalky in third place. This follows on from Dujon last week; I'll have to crank up moreteaplease (but about to be kneecapped). Monday will be too late to buy into for James Hewitt who according to JJ's Dividends has a potential of £10 per share!! and at only £2.60.
  Shell the manipulative tart has schemed on the wedding night and now Victor has left the House, it should have been Jason out tonight *must remember its just a game*
• Dujon - Blushes
  Thanks for the recognition, Inkspot. Congrats to those who, after me sitting in No 1 all week, grabbed a big dividend and pushed me down (way, way down) on the table of achievement. Watch out this week, children!     ;-)
• penelope
  *breaks three-day silence in the chat game with a loud fart*
• Chalky
  *sprays air freshener*.
  Just popped in to say I've been a bit poorly but now I'm better :-)
• Michelle
  Oh! are you alright chicken?
• Inkspot - Cooped up
  [Michelle] I have just pandered to one of my inner demons, by ringing telephone number 09011 21 44 07 and voting for you to be evicted; a peace of mind for 25p. Its time you were released from the Big Brother House.
• rab - Indeed
  Yip. She has to go.
• snorgle - last day at work..
  Yay! I'm going to try to do NO work at all today, if possible.
• Inkspot - shoulder to the wheel
  [snorgle] Are you going on hols, or off to greener pastures?
• st dogmael - Hummingbirds
  I had a dream I was a hummingbird once. Most wonderful dream. I must say though that the expression "flapping their wings like crazy" doesn't really sum up the sight and feel of a hummingbird. It implies effort and although I have only seen them once (in carib..) they looked effortless. Beautiful - and I see what you mean about the CGI....
• snorgle - job
  I'm starting a new job on Monday, and I'm on strike for the next couple of days. In fact, this morning a member of staff asked if my friend (who sits by me,and is a smoker) had a lighter, and a blokie said he needed it to set fire to the computer room. We laughed, and she gave him a lighter. 15 mins later and the phones went down. Apparently he was an engineer who needed to do something to the wires. I'm not even logged in now, so I don't really care! Yay!
• Uncle Korky
  Apologies for cross-posting: I'm off on my hols, so have fun, and I'll catch up with everyone when I get back on 10/08.
• Bob the dog
  Hey UK - have a great time! I'm off in a couple of weeks. Camping. If it rains we'll be playing a lot of 'Carrot'.
• penelope - campanology
  [Btd] Another good one is 'Beers A-to-Z' although I don't expect the girls will be quite up to speed on that. 'Vegetable A-to-Z' might be a good alternative.
• Bigsmith - Amusing oneself in the rain
  I've always found "Rude Bodypart Euphemism A-to-Z" quite entertaining. All together now - "Arse, Boobs, Crack etc. etc."
• Dunx - Re: Hummingbirds
  Hummingbird barney, this morning - one hummer was feeding and buzzing the breakfast table, then another one came along and drove the first one away! High pitched squeaky noises aplenty. Then a few minutes later the first one came back. They look to be male and female of the same species, so we're wondering if driving each other away is hummingbird for "Get your coat love, you've pulled."
• kacak - kacaknet
  hoþgeldiniz
• kacak - kacaknet@mynet.com
  hoþgeldiniz
• Dunx - Astonishment
  I am astonished that this play has gone unchallenged for so long...
  [kacak] SPONG!!!
• snorgle - aha!
  I raise you that SPONG!!! and counter with a vehement and thrusting FNOOOOOOOOONGA!!!
• Tuj - Wabam!
• -AdERT- - poo
  KICKING!
• Inkspot - more again
  Whilst it is a bit quiet in here this Sunday, break out a tinny and bottoms up to Dujon forhanging onto the top of Celebrity Mornington Crescent for a second consecutive week and keeping blamelewis and DrQ at bay.
• Lib - A novel way to save the NHS...
  Whilst meandering around work today i found this memo, and it made me giggle for hours.... ' Dear Colleagues, As you are aware from the letter recently sent to you from xxxx xxxx Director of Nursing, we propose to discharge all patients to Nursing Homes between 10am and 11am each morning.'..... Discharging all patients is certain to solve every bed crisis!
• Tuj - Is that to be the foundation upon which Labour build up to the new ellection?
  Followed by the proposal of regular drenchings to aid the fire service, shooting children to bypass education failures, and then arresting everybody in case they commit crime?
• Dujon - Wishes
  [Inkspot] Much as I would like to claim consecutive terms of leadership I think you will find that x-sugarbabe-x gave me the proverbial hiding last week. I'm about to be kneecapped so have done sweet nothing. *sinks to the wooden spoon position*
• Dujon - Correction
  This week is 'this week' last week was 'last week'. So, yes (gloats), creamed you lot 'last week' but x-sugarbabe-x (aka Chalky) still gave us all a lesson the previous term.
• Dujon
  Sorry I spoke.
• Dujon - Hogging the game
  I just heard one of the funniest things that I have heard in my many years as a radio amateur. A gentleman (south of Canada and north of Mexico) whose country of origin shall remain secret was just talking to a local Australian 'ham' and was trying to work out the time difference; he was quite sure that Australia was twenty seven hours ahead of his own time zone.
• Boolbar - Shhh
  [Dujon] Everyone's asleep.
• Breadmaster
  [Dujon] Excellent stuff! I'm off to a country in the region indicated tomorrow so I hope to return with many amusing tales of foolishness. Almost certainly mine, but there you go.
• Dujon
  [Breadmaster] Have a safe trip, sir. I wasn't having a go at American citizens, I talk to many such. As it was latish night at his place at the time I suspect he'd had a hard day and was simply tired - or something. It was still funny though.
• Inkspot - chicken licken boiled
  [Dujon] You are right, about x-sugarbabe-x. I was slghtly behind with my compiling and jumped a week.

  Big Brother; Stu evicted !!! like whoaa, dude! ...that's like .... seriously amaaaazing.

• Tuj - Badgers - out of their misery
  It may just be the summer season, but I was surprised that never really got going. I would start a nasty game of Acre Street, as I read that archive recently and oddly felt compelled... But we've got The Furcation Game already, and that needs a good jump start too. As soon as I get a bit of time on my hands why is this the sort of thing I want to waste it on?
• Tuj - And yes
  ...that was a non sequitur 'cause I'm not a Big Brother fan and I'm too lazy to go Celebdaqing more than half-heartedly!
• Dunx - No Pruning Shears Here
  [Tuj] Re: choice of time wasting - because it's fun? I know that's why I keep coming back.
• Boolbar
  Has there been a game of MC played entirely in Haiku form?
• JLE
  [Boolbar] Not entirely sure, although I once did have a Lock Cup qualifying match against Catherine where all *comments* were to be made in Haiku form, but the move was not included in this (as according to the standard format of separating move from comment, as practiced on PantsMC).
• Tuj - Psycho Haiku
  During my last move for The Furcation Move, Furcation O was a new haiku variation. The initial letters of the haiku formed the first line of a new haiku, so "The old writings read / In there ev'ry ancient hai / And its ku under", as well as being a (slightly odd) haiku, forms the first line "To write a haiku" with it's first letters. I can't remember quite why I came up with it, though it does remind of some very difficult limerick game we had once at !York...
• Boolbar - Fractal Haiku
  It would be very impressive if the new haiku so formed also had the property that its first letters formed the first line of another haiku. And so on.

  But shall we play the
  game of Mornington Crescent
  in haiku form first?

• Chalky
  waves goodbye*
  See yas all in September :-)
• widey - come n sign my guest book pretty please........
  Weird commnets will get extra kudos in the next sphere of life or a free cup of tea on Edgware Rd!!! http://www.papalazarus.com/page4.html
• Inkspot - cheerios
  [Chalky] Have a good hols, this could be the chance I need to get back on top of Celebrity MC *looks down at diary and curses, holiday to France imminent*. Would anyone be able to send me the Friday league web pages for 20 and 27 August? A link will follow tomorrow, but in the meantime congrats to gil (sigmundfreud).
• Inkspot - more me again
  Barging in with the link as promised, and now back to Kingdom Hospital.
• Inkspot - three in a bed
  I would normally avoid Haiku. If I break the rules of the format, tap me on the shoulder.
• JLE
  [Inkspot] Surely you mean...

  I avoid Haikus.
  If I break the format's rules,
  tap on my shoulder.

  And there you have the same sentiment but in the right number of lines and syllables (5-7-5)...

• Inkspot - one or two
  It is the syllables I have the problem with. Normally with each player contributing a single line, errors can jar. But by doing all three lines this will be good practice. When I wrote the second line I agonised over Amer-sham and Am-er-sham, coming down on the former, influneced by the move earlier by Dunx where to me I sounded 8 but was accepted as 7
  With(1) West(2) Ruis(-?)lip(3/4); puts(4/5) me(5/6) in(6/7) spoon(7/8)
  I have invited critisism of my play as my da-dee-da-dee-da seems to be a bit la la at times, but I do intend to nail this format; hopefully before the game ends ;)
• Dujon
  As some of you know I enjoy football. This little gem appeared on the official web site of the club I follow:

  "In excess of 19,000 season tickets have been sold as ******** gear up for their fourth consecutive season in the top flight, which is more than at the same stage last season."

  Is this stating the bleeding obvious or am I misreading it?

• Uncle Korky - Sneaking back in...
  Just back from a very enjoyable week in North Wales. I'll have to go tidy up my badgers that are still roaming the tunnels...
• JLE
  [Inkspot] Ruislip is TWO syllables, Amersham is THREE. Unless you're going by some definition of "syllable" of which the rest of us are unaware.
• Tuj - 19,000 season tickets
  Dujon] I read that about four times, but now I get it! The clause beginning 'which' is a bit ambiguous, I suppose.
• Uncle Korky - Celebdaq
  [Inkspot] Looking at the 'daq today, it seems that I now have the facility to add members to Celebrity MC. Would you (or anyone else, for that matter) have any objections if I add in my other two personas?
• penelope - whiching...
  [Dujon, Tuj] I read it first time as I think it was intended... but I reckon the problem is that the 'which' is too far removed from the subject to which it refers... so it looks like it refers to the fourth season, but in fact it refers to the 19,000 season tickets.
• Inkspot - more!
  [Uncle Korky]Please add them to the League, we need to do something about the recent run of good luck by Dujon, you could even be onto a winner with Doris this week. According to JJ's Projected Dividends it will be close between Nadia and Sven on the divi's payout.
• Uncle Korky - En route
  [Inkspot] Stand by for appearances by Mavic_Chen and Johnny_McDozenlegs!
• Dunx - Syllabarial Variations
  [Inkspot] It might be a pronunciation thing: "Ruislip" is pronounced "rye slip" rather than "roo-ey slip"; "Amersham" is always "Am-er-sham".
• Inkspot - seven eighths
  So the line does have eight syllable thingys With(1) West(2) Rui(3)slip(4); puts(5) me(6) in(7) spoon(8) and yes fair cop on Amersham, from such a low base, I can only but improve....moving swiftly along; [Uncle Korky]I love the names Mavic_Chen and Johnny_McDozenlegs ;P
  They should be with us tomorrow.
• Dunx - Apology
  [Inkspot] You're quite right. Sorry.

  [Haikuen] Apparently I can't count syllables at all.

• Dunx - Orangeless
  As I write this, Orange MC is unavailable while its host server reboots. This would normally be a quick thing, but the host server has been up for a long time prior to this and so it went into an fsck cycle. Should be back soon.
• Inkspot - Bouncer on the door
  [Uncle Korky] The accounts are yet to appear, if they need some extra persuasion either leave the details here or here: gareth underscore penn athotmaildotcom.
• Uncle Korky - I know the bouncer!
  [Inkspot] The particular bouncer is my corporate firewall, which won't let me access Celebdaq between 8.30am and 12.00 midday, and then between 2.00pm and 5.30pm. So, the first chance I'll have to insert 'em is lunchtime today.
• penelope - recording! ding! ding! ding!
  Dear I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue emailing list member, This is to let you know of the first recording date in the Autumn series of 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue'.
  The recording will take place at the Anvil Theatre in Basingstoke on the evening of Sunday 19th September. The doors open at 7pm and the recording starts at 7.30pm Ticket prices are £12.50, £10, £8.50, £7 and £5. The number for the Anvil Theatre's box office is 01256 844244.
  You will need to book early as these shows seem to get more popular with every passing year. However, if you are unlucky or Basingstoke is too far for you to travel, we do have two other recording dates, one in mid October in the North of England and the other in the South in early December. The venues have not yet been confirmed - we hope to be able to send you details of these in the next couple of weeks.
• Uncle Korky - Me name's not down...
  [Inkspot] I tried to add 'em in, but I'm not sure it worked. In case it hasn't, Mavic_Chen is 3402569 and Johnny_McDozenlegs is 3411069. Glad you like the names!
• Inkspot - Red carpet
  [Uncle Korky] Mavic_Chen and Johnny_McDozenlegs have entered at numbers 10 and 12, respectively. Good luck!
• Bob the dog - !
  Cornwall and campsite here I come!!! See ya all in 2 weeks!
• Malkie - dieng of a trojan
  I look up a randomn seach on trojan horse Nex.b virus and this site came up because someone had been talking about it. How did yu get rid of it
• Inkspot - Gifts from Greece
  [Malkie] That was me from a posting I made in April this year. AVG a free anti virus software found it and deleted it. As a matter of course, the system is automatically updated every two weeks. A full scan is carried every couple of days (which for 12Gb takes about 20 minutes).
• Dujon - Celebdaq
  See 'memo'
• rab - Oof!
  [Bob] If the weather's anything like it is in Manchester at the moment you're going to have a soggy time! I'm sure the kids will love it.
• Inkspot - Notlob
  [Dujon] Congratulations, another fine win.
  I see the Premiership starts tomorrow. My fingers are crossed that you have a better start to the season this year against Charlton than last years 4-0 drubbing by Man Utd.
• Uncle Korky - We're in!
  [Inkspot] Cheers!
• Tuj - Arrivaderci
  Inkspot] Pah, Some of us started last week, in the "Coca-Cola Championship". Playing Derby tomorrow, the glamour...
  In other news, I'm orf to Italy for a fortnight. Take care all, have fun.
• Dujon
  [Inkspot] 1) Ta! 2) So do I. :-(
  [Tuj] Good luck, safe travel. I hope the weather's good to you.
• Inkspot - 1 - 4
  I must be a glutton for punishment. I have just signed up to Sportsdaq. Very similar to our old friend Celebdaq but this time it is sports pages only. First portfolio has to be Micheal Owen amd Micheal Schumacher.
• Zooological Keeper - news from the Fringe
  Ahh, the joys of internet cafés in Edinburgh! My poor friend/stage manager drove us all the way up to Edinburgh on Friday/yesterday, starting from Kent and overnighting in Birmingham (waking up at 6 when you went to bed at five....fun!) And try parking in Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival! Let's not go into that. Show starts tomorrow (Archer's Goon...wearing my lovely t-shirt as I speak) and hopefully it should be good, cos on the last rehearsal day (Friday...arrived in Kent previous Friday for a week of intensive rehearsal...and I mean intensive....it was my birthday last Thursday [thanks for my greetings Angus! :)] and the celebrations went out of the window because we were working all day until we finished our run through at about 1 in the morning) our director said....right....we run over by about an hour and a half...and slashed all the bits out of the play they felt were unnecessary and got it down to about an hour and 30 from 2 hours 45! I now affectionately refer to it as Archer's Goon on acid. It's still really good though. If you can come and see it, please do! Money running out...bip...bip....bip...
• Projoy - Archer
  [Zk] Wish I could be there to cheer you on, and I would definitely have enjoyed the show, but sadly, too many hundreds of miles away. Break lots of legs (well, as many as are available)! And let me know if you tour it in the SE.
• Dujon
  [Inkspot] Whilst I expect to do poorly I've signed up on Sportsdaq. If you are going to run a league feel free to add me; details are as for Celebdaq.
• snorgle - daqing
  I've gotten quite bored with the daq - mind you, I'm much busier in my new job - just starting my 3rd week! The only reason I'm here now is because my line manager and several other team members are off today, and I don't really have anything to do until a meeting at 1pm.
• rab - Embra
  [ZK] Good luck, and good job I didn't try hunting your show down when I was in Edinburgh last weekend (officially the first proper day of the Fringe). I should be in situ for the whole three weeks next year, but I guess that's not much help. Oh, and someone walks past you very quickly with hands in pockets, do not, under any circumstances even attempt to give them a flyer. They're probably a local who's realised they're at the wrong end of the Royal Mile...
• rab
  ... IF someone ...
• Uncle Korky - On me 'ead!
  [Inkspot / Dujon] I've succumbed too... if there's no mini-league yet, I'd be happy to start one (although I'm not sure how to produce those snazzy weekly speadsheets, etc...).
• Dujon - C in C
  [UK] Fine by me. I'd volunteer but I already spend too much time on this infernal machine; I run my own (basic) football site and co-manage a couple of others related to installation and maintenance a particular type of 'forum' site software.
• Inkspot - Golden gongs for Aussies
  [Dujon/Uncle Korky] Although I have created a mini-league I am going to see how things pan out, to see how well it keeps my interest (the id numbers are different to Celebdaq, for Sportsdaq it is 358). Celebdaq can be hard enough to sustain, with the constant round of kneecapping. But I did have a £5,000 bonus today for backing the winner of the Grand Prix which gave a little sparkle to the game, but had not a clue as to where to reinvest the money. I have my fingers crossed that the comprhensive coverage in the broadsheets will counter the football (ie the big four) obsession of the tabloids. Even if Britain were to win gold tomorrow it would be overshadowed by the ManU/Chesea rumour mill.
  I gave a small cheer fo Austrailia this evening after Ian Thorpe beat Pieter van den Hoogenband claim gold in the 200m freestyle final. This is because I have been fed up with Sue Barker et al beating the drum for the American Michael Phelps and his attempt at 8 golds, and ignoring Thorpe. How will they square the circle now?
  Also some of the mens gymnastics, I find it incredible what those guys do on the rings, parallel bars and other parts of the rotation.
  This will be the last League for two weeks (would you be able to send the the Friday results on to me "Tools - Mail and News - Send Page")

  [snorgle]Although the new job is busier, good luck, does this mean you are no longer a public servant?

• Dujon - Strylan limpians
  Ruddy 'eck, Inkspot. You reckon Sue Barker's a bit one-eyed! You should see (though best you don't) the press down here. If you thought David Beckham's foot got too much coverage you ought to see what's been happening here regarding Jana Pittman's (sp?) knee! Fair dinkum. A young lass in the Aussie gymnastic team had to come home because of a calf tear and the only coverage I saw was a short mention that she was back in Oz! I suppose they - the press - had to find a replacement for Cathy Freeman. *sighs* As you have undoubtedly noticed Australia is extremely weak in what is termed 'Track and Field'. In fact they are hopeless - at least in the greater scheme of things.
  
  How would you like the Celebdaq chart captured? I can easily just save the whole kit and caboodle via the 'view source' or any part of it I suppose. An image is a bit big. Let me know and it shall be done. The only other question is when? I am usually around the computer just as the dividends are distributed - is that what you're after?
• Dujon - Hrmph!
  Right, I've just read your posting. Now I only need the timing and where to send it. I'm assuming it's gareth_penn (insert an at symbol) supanet dot charlie oscar mike.
• flerdle - what sports?
  [Inkspot] I appear to have watched the same series of events you did, albeit commentated in French, which was both odd and a relief (see Dujon's comment). The vaulting 'horse' appears to have mutated since a couple of years ago. Weird shape.
• Dunx - Merkin Commentary
  [Phelpsness] Golly, if you think Sue Barker's bad, try watching NBC! Ghastly. It's like there are no other athletes except Americans in the races. And watching the gymnastics last night, the only team that got decent coverage was the US. Fair enough up to a point given that the Americans were in with a shout, but they showed hardly any of the winning Japanese until the last bit where the Japanese actually secured their victory.

  Is the BBC any better? Well no, not as far as mindless jingoism goes, but at least they aren't filling half their broadcast time with adverts so there is more space to show other competitors.

  Question: is the BBC showing any fencing? I was hoping to see some of it, but it's only on cable here which we do not have, and there is no streaming video to speak of here either.

• snorgle - serving the public
  [Inkspot] I'm still a civil(ish) servant - now working in the WAG - Welsh Assembly Government. I'm in a Programme Management Office - and am also managing risk. ***shrugs***
• Inkspot
  [snorgle] Don't let my father here you say you work for the Welsh Assembly, I will occassionally when we visit; it's light the blue touch paper and watch the fireworks. Last weekend I did it with hospital waiting lists and the new debating chamber.
  [Dunx] They only showed the fencing during the morning update, but very much blink and you miss it. They did include an interview with the coach and the unfortunate woman who lost in the sabre.
  Today they have shown the rowing and cross country horse riding. This evening being given over to the womens gymnastics; I managed to catch up on the ironing while watching CSI and CSI:Miami. Has the beach volleyball been on yet?
  [Dujon] Yes that's me, please send them anytime on Friday after the div's have been paid. I will do the tables whe I return. Much appreciated.
• Dujon
  [Inkspot] It shall be done.
• Rosie - WAG
  (snorgle) My niece works for the Wales Rural Observatory Project, whose data apparently lands up in the WAG. She showed me her Master's and PhD theses; I couldn't understand a word, mainly because of the jargon. I couldn't say anything of course, because she's fond of her Uncle T, as I am of her. :-)
• Dujon - WROP
  What an intriguing name. Do they sit on top of Mt.Snowdon watching Mrs.Trellis through a telescope?
• LotUS - WROP - CAMREC
  I wonder if there are any links between the two? Could she have stumbled upon an insidious plot to subvert this doyenne of MC through devolutionary subterfuge? Or are these just the ramblings of a demented conspiracy theorist?
• Uncle Korky - Surveillance
  [Dujon] No sign of Mrs Trellis from the summit of Snowdon, as my photo's from Monday 02/08 testify...
• Lib - 61 going on 16
  I'm in a state of shock! Last night my Mum revealed that she's going speed dating tonight! At first I thought she was trying to come out to me (and that would have been even more of a shock) but then it became apparant that she's going to meet lots of men! I didn't realise that speed dating had reached sleepy Shropshire, and nor did I know that there were special night for the over 50s. Anyone out there been speed dating?......
• penelope - skimpy Speedos
  [Lib[ I'd be interested to know how she gets on... I'm considering it myself!
• rab
  [Lib] Yes - my brother!
• Rosie - WROP
  (Dujon, LotUS, Uncle K) It's a sociological and economic survey. As for Mrs Trellis, I would have thought she lived in somewhere like Llandudno or Colwyn Bay, rather than out in the country.
• Rosie - Pete Strange
  Humph's trombonist and arranger, Pete Strange, has died aged 65. I knew him a little. He was a tubby aimiable boozy little fellow and a very good player. There's a big obituary in today's Grauniad.
• rab
  It's a bit moist out.
• Uncle Korky - Trellis
  [Rosie] As I mentioned on Orange when I got back from holiday, I did observe Trellis in the village of Corris.
• Dunx - Fenced
  [Inkspot] Yes, there was a very brief bit of fencing on last night, which I assume they showed because an American won gold in it. It was nice to see, actually, although I would have liked to have the whole bout rather than the edited highlights (I mean, each point only takes a few seconds - could they not have spared a couple of minutes more?) if only because then I could have figured out the science fiction costumes a bit better. But, slight point of pride here: the winner comes from Beaverton, OR just down the road from where we live.

  There's been beach volleyball on, although curiously only the women.

• Rosie - Mrs Trellis
  (Uncle K) Surely actually seeing Mrs Trellis is the equivalent of unearthing the MC Rulebook.
• st d - Strange Pete
  rosie] I hope you have played a few slow new orleans funereal bars in his honour ?
• Breadmaster - Pete
  I was amazed recently to learn that Humph is generally credited with the first ever British blues record (Bad Penny Blues) - although as I type this it suddenly occurs to me that I'm sure I know of a British cover of My Man Of War from the early 1940s, so perhaps it's not an entirely accurate credit. But it was great. I suspect that Pete would have been too young to have played on it, though.
• penelope - Pete's age
  Yup, if he died this week aged 65, then in the 40s he was only just old enough to smoke ;o)
• Lib - Not so fast
  [pen] The speed dating has stalled, postponed till next week. [rab] So, how did your brother get on?
• Rosie - Strange Pete
  (st d) He had a female friend, a singer, (not a girlfriend) who gave him a lift to the pub where he played in Carshalton every now and then. She always called him Strange Pete but it was friendly. He didn't play New Orleans style, more of a mainstream player. He was always very friendly and slightly tipsy, enough so after one gig to let me have a little tootle on his brand new horn, of which he was very proud. With an instrument like that I could be quite good. Mm . . maybe. I'll miss his cheerful face, to say nothing of his playing.
• st dogmael - boom-tish.
  Rosie] are you telling me you blew his horn ?!? (oblig.)
• snorgle - ow.
  [st d]Thank you for that disturbing mental image. thpppppppttt!!!
• flerdle - fenced in
  [Dunx] there was a lot of fencing shown here on French TV earlier in the week (sorry, have been too busy to say till now). The French were doing well in a couple of events at the time, funnily enough.
• snorgle - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
  Hmm, quiet in here, innit? Has anyone else read A Gathering Light? I just started it as I'm supposed to be going to a book club on Wed. I actually have found it somewhat annoying so far, but I've only read a couple of chapters. Hopefully it gets better.
• ZK
  Why is it I have a cold any time I come back from anywhere interesting? Foreign germs I guess...or maybe because it rained in Rome and Edinburgh only when I chose to step outside the door....well, either way it sucks! :( Reviews for our show were initially shocking! But then, they went on the first night, and going by the standards of the first night I personally think they were being very kind. (No tech & no dress rehearsals in-venue, the in-house techies buggered up all the lighting & sound, which is sort of integral really, and everyone else forgot their lines. We had to cut bits as we went along because we were so behind time - I'm not surprised they didn't like or follow it cos I couldn't either and I was on stage!) But as of Tuesday we were on fire and the people sensible enough to come after that liked us - we had 30 people in on Wednesday, which was our best night by far! Hooray! I think they said we had 120 or something during the week, which by Fringe standards isn't bad, and Fest magazine (http://www.festonline.co.uk/review.php?id=303) gave us 3 stars, which is more than they gave Ed Byrne, and recognised the genius that is my friend Brad. So, as the director's dad said when he was taking all our cast photos...."bugger The Scotsman!" :)
• ZK
  Although, in hindsight, we were in Scotland at the time so I hope not too many people heard us! :)
• st d - bravo
  sounds like you had a good time all in all ZK. So do you have the festival bug then ?
• small voice in the corner
  I can't seem to play any of the games in here at the moment. *whimper*
• rab - Festen
  Ah, good old Fest. The deputy editor's a friend of mine, so thank your lucky stars ZK you weren't rude about it!

  [svitc] Because they're too hard, or technical problems with posting.

  D'oh.

• small voice in the corner
  I just don't have any inspiration/wit/wisdom, nothing technical.
• ZK
  [small] Fear ye not, I haven't played any of the games for about 2 months. No-one seems to have noticed! :)
• Dunx
  [ZK] Do not think yourself ignored - you said where you going, so notice would have been redundant.

  Glad you're back though.

• JLE
  How can anything be redundant when it wasn't dundant in the first place?
• ZK
  I must object. I have, on occasion, been dundant. [Dunx] Thankyou, although I just meant that the only game I'd been on in ages was this one, as my humble brain has burn-out and can't cope with the other ones :)
• Breadmaster
  [ZK] Well, not at all a bad notice from Fest, who even note your youth, although whether that's good or bad is perhaps moot. Very good to see you back though.
• Boolbar - Wish we were there
  Had a postcard from Bob the Dog and family yesterday (who if you remember have gone to Cornwall for a holiday). The postcard had the simple message, "WET!".
• Projoy - "Carrot!"
  Clearly monolexemia runs in the family.
• Darren
  [Projoy] When do you want that Dracula vid back btw?
• Projoy - Drac
  I have some DVDs in now, so you could swap it for one of those if you like.
• rab - Slottage
  On the grounds that a new game slot has been left open for days, I've dropped the game limit to 10, which is any case is a nicer number than 11.
• st dogmael - 10/11
  That's a pretty sweeping statement rab. Would you care to back that up or are you just going to go around willy-nilly declaring some numbers to be more nice than others ? I think we should be told. It's a slippery slope you know. First its "oh 10 is nicer than 11" next thing you know its 4am and the police have smashed in your front door and you are in teh back of a lorry with a sack over your head being shouted at in Welsh.......
• rab
  Re: shouted at in Welsh - I think I just was :)

  That said, the number 11 sends shivers down my spin on account of its being the typical size of a group of butch ladies brandishing hard sticks.

• st dogmael
  rab] and what is wrong with dutch ladies ?
• Boolbar
  11 game slots? It's ridiculous. It's not even funny.
• Darren
  Numerologically, 11 is a much better number than 10.
• flerdle
  ... and 11 is the number of TimTams in a packet...
• Breadmaster
  No, 11 may have a certain richness compared to ten, but is horrible as it is nearly 12 but not quite, and 12 is the best number. It is also the number of Apostles left after Judas quit (despite 1 Cor 15:5). And it's a prime number, which is bad. Ten is more satisfying all around.
• Projoy
  Yes, but asserting the supremacy of 10 is to glorify the Western decimal system of counting over other, equally valid, numerical systems from other cultures, which have been marginalised by the patriarchal hegemony of the Western attitudes to number, particular the oppressive and unholistic notion of the integer. You might as well stage a Nazi revolution, frankly, as say 10 is good. I favour the number bleen, which in Afro-Sino-Mesoamerican cultures, represents, of course, the number that is blue.
• snorgle - I vote that we
  all change to hexadecimal. I like letters.
• Dunx - Why Stop At Sixteen?
  Let's use base 36! It would use the entire Latin alphabet, and would have many opf the advantages of base 12 (ie lots of easy to use fractions). And numbers would be shorter to write down, so we would save on ink and paper.
• Dunx - The real reason...
  The best bit about base 36 is that I would be 11 again... although, being 25 in hex sounds quite promising too.
• Raak - Base 60
  For superhumans, Heinlein ("Gulf") suggested that base 60 would be suitable. With the 60 digits also doing duty to represent the 60 phonemes of a new language, there would be 216,000 words of just three letters, most of them monosyllabic. With the speed of speech and thought this would make available, effective lifespan would be extended by many times.
• snorgle - All your base..
  That sounds exciting - it would certainly make life easier for rappers and poets..
• penelope - TenTams
  [Flerdle] 11 TimTams to a packet? The only packet I ever see has a hole in the cellophane and only 10 in it. BTW, The National TimTam vault is now replenished. They're back in the country.
• Darren
  [Raak] Are there 60 phonemes which the human voice can produce? I thought there were far fewer. (And I wrote a speech synth once, if that gives me any credibility, which I doubt!)
• Raak
  [Darren] Many more than that, if you add up the inventories of all human languages. Of course, you might have to be a superhuman to reliably distinguish them all. English has between 34 and 50, depending on how you count them.
• Tuj - Back to earth
  [Raak] ...or in what base... ;)
  I just came back from Tuscany today, a land where I was rained upon for about 45 minutes out of 2 weeks... to a land where it's been the wettest August since 1912, I heard. Ah, good old Blighty.
  On another note, I see there are less games available now - is this an EU law, or a gesture against empathy?
• Watty - grrrr....
  [Tuj] I don't know that they are less, but there are certainly fewer of them :-)
• Tuj - Less fewers
  Watty] I am a pedant myself, and it doesn't really bother me about less or fewer. Now I look at it, it's slightly ugly... but what makes me reach for the chainsaw is comma splicing (nnng!).
  On a lighter note, why are there fewer? If people come up with more games, or ones with prizes / cash incentives, can there be more (or manyer?;) again?
  Oh, and no I don't actually have a chainsaw.
• Dunx
  [Tuj] How about a hedge trimmer?

  What it comes down to is that "less" applies to continuous quantities, where "fewer" applies to discrete quantities. So you have less water but fewer glasses. "More" applies to both, just because English is such a wonderfully rich and evocative language (which is more agreeable than saying it is an inconsistent mongrel of a language).

• Rosie - Less bollocks - fewer bollocks
  (Dunx) Dead right; you tell 'em. (the second phrase should be delivered in an aggressive N. Ireland accent). There are other pairs of words that have this distinction, eg "so much" and "so many". So much bollocks (speech by Blair), or so many bollocks (field full of bulls).
• penelope
  *sniggers and tries to imagine what Tuj would look like in motorbike leathers weilding a chainsaw, chased by a herd of curious and galloping bullocks. Struggles to picture Tuj at all, but the galloping bullocks are particularly vivid.*
• Bob the dog
  *Enters arena wearing wet suit and bent tent pole chased by herd of curious and galloping Piskys*
  
  Back from hols and I'm moist. "You'll love camping" I said to NotmrsBobthedog. "The weather is always good in Cornwall this time of year". As we dismantled the tent in a gale with rain heavier than I've ever ever seen it I reconsidered my enthusiasm for fresh air and natural elements.
  
  Post script
  Two days after we returned home I asked Notmrs if she'd like to go camping again next year. She said yes. We are planning to go to Scotland. I wonder if she is seeking revenge?
• Uncle Korky - Sunken Kernow
  Btd] You weren't near Boscastle at all, were you...?
• Bob the dog - Bosrubble
  I was about 70 miles from Boscastle (near Lands End) on the day of the flood. Oddly enough that day we had very bright sunshine (the best we had for the whole fortnight). We spent the day on a beach. We have a friend in Sennen Cove who told us that during the day 30 cars and two houses had been washed away in Boscastle - but we didn't know whether to believe him due to the as the Cornish habit of telling tall stories - especially to gullible emmets like us. It was after that day that the weather got worse. It was not all bad but we has the tail end of three hurricanes and at least one gale. We didn't get much sleep.
• Bob the dog
  Free Cornish pasty to whoever spots the superfluous "as the" in the above. Pasty may be slightly damp - no refunds or cash equivalent.
• grunt
  does anyone know " which band claims one of their dads was a pirate?" any help would be greatfully recieved
• Tuj
  Bob the dog] Between "the" and "Cornish", in line 4. Do you want to give it to me in person or by post? ;)
  pen] Ah yes, for I am a mysterious shady figure... (oh, and I don't have any motorbike leathers actually... there is a hedge trimmer in the shed somewhere though...)
  grunt] Nope.
  Bullocks] Aaaargh!
• Martha Farquar - grunt
  That'll be Frankie Poullain, bass player in The Darkness IIRC. A West Indian pirate, I believe
• Breadmaster
  Can I just pop in briefly to say that comma splicing should be a crime punishable by death? Thank you.
• Chalky - thicko alert
  [BM] What is 'comma splicing'? Perhaps I know it as something else. I probably do it all the time but need to know in case I'm about to be punished in a terminal sort of way.
• Tuj - Agreeing with Breadmaster
  Comma splicing is the ULTIMATE SIN, whereby two sentences are mashed brutally together using a comma rather than a conjunction. It makes you look illiterate. It really gets on my nerves. For instance, if I'd replaced the full stop between 'illiterate' and 'it' with a comma, that'd be an example. One of the worst cases is the use of 'however' mid-sentence, which is nearly always wrong.
• Bob the dog - - however -
  I do not enjoy the over use of acronyms, capital letters, smileys and most of all - jargon.
  Tuj] I tried to write your address on the damp pasty but the pen sank into the waterlogged pastry. Fancy a damp steak and Bic doughy object instead?
• Darren
  Jargon is necessary to keep the riff-raff out. One thing that really gets my goat is getting the subjunctive wrong (eg. "if I was" instead of "if I were"). Midge Ure was particularly annoying in this respect.
• penelope
  [Darren] Midge Ure was just annoying, fullstop. Mawkish lyrics, play-by-numbers melodies and the most god-awful moustache that was ever grown.
  [Btd] Sorry if my use of smileys is too familiar for your liking :o).
  [Tuj] My business is sentence-mashing, however, I think I'm quite artful at it, I've been doing it for ten years. :oP
• Darren
  [penelope] Well, now you have yet another reason to dislike him.
• Bob the dog - 8@()
  Pen] Overuse of smileys ;o). I like the occasional :o) but too many leaves me :o(. In particular I dislike those gif file ones that are commonly used on chat sites. Yuk.
  Darren] With your permission I will keep your quote "Jargon is necessary to keep the riff-raff out" in my little book of worldly advice to pass on to my offspring. It'll also come in handy at work - especially when addressing farmers.
• Chalky - Laffing with the Riff-raff :-)
  [Darren] Your words did rather leap off the screen. I laughed and assumed you were in jocular mode. However, I must confess to being more intrigued by your pet goat, especially one that tell its subjunctive from its elbow. DO tell us more ...
• Tuj - The All-New Educated Riff-Raff
  Btd] You have my address? I think I'll go hide somewhere before I decide whether to take up your offer...
  pen] Aaargh! That's it! People do that and it's HORRIBLE!
• widey - back track
  Midge Ure is annoying, period! As am I! Riff Raff makes a great alternative to Tinsle at Christmas.
• Newkid - MCiOS
  Anyone know why MCiOS is unavailable?
• JLE
  No, since it's perfectly available right now from where I'm sitting.
• Darren
  [BtD] Permission granted. [Chalky] Yes, I was joking. My goat is got by many things.
• Nik - is going on his, summer holidays
  I'm off to Cyprus for a fortnight. Hopefully things won't go too pear-shaped while I'm away. Have fun, everybody.
• ZK - I leave for a week....
  *decides not to untangle the backlog and goes to bed*
• Breadmaster
  Oh, I can't handle the backlog after just a couple of days. My computer has just dropped dead again, right in the middle of a long and exceptionally complicated operation involving emailing large numbers of people around the world and begging them to contribute to my book. Now I don't have access to the files where I was so carefully logging whom I had asked to do what. The net result will be, no doubt, that I will have 50 contributors all writing the same article. It could get messy. If you hear of theology gang warfare breaking out in the next couple of months, it's all the fault of my computer.
• Boolbar - Get a life!
  I must stop playing Kingdom of Loathing. I must stop playing Kingdom of Loathing. I must stop playing Kingdom of Loathing. . . . . .
• JLE
  [Boolbar] Was that another subtle advertisement for the game? It's nearly as addictive as Mornington Crescent, isn't it... ;-)
• Uncle Korky
  Boolbar, JLE] It is rather good, isn't it?!
• st d - backlog
  ZooKeeper] I tend to find that if you have been away you might as well give up on reading what everyone has been writing, just scan up a few posts and join in. If anything strikes you as really interesting you can go back and trace it, however this has never happened yet. :¬]
• Boolbar - It knids you in the podume. You lose 15LV.
  [JLE, UK] Yes it is rather good. Trouble is as the game opens up, the amount of time you can spend on it increases. Now if only someone could write a combination of MC and KOL . . . .
• Dr. Johnson
  They call it C-SPAN.
• Dujon - Oooooooooooooh
  Thanks, rab, Nik, whoever. *sob* I've missed y'all.
• Uncle Korky
  It's back - hoorah!
• LotUS
  *Lets off fireworks to celebrate reopening*
• Inkspot
  Well if this doesn't deserve a fresh cup of tea and a choc biscuit or two I don't know what does. Winning the Ryder Cup? Yeah!! make that choccie four biscuits.
• Chalky - yay!
  That's better - all games have now been visited.
  [Inks] Understatement of the year re: Ryder Cup "I think it's finally been recognised that the Europeans are no longer the underdogs" You gotta laugh :-)
• Lib - celerations
  *throws confetti and smashed champagne all over Mc5*. Anyone for an e-plig tonight? I want to celebrate my free broadband connection!! (but won't be home till about 21.30BST but will defiantly be there after that).
• Bob the dog - and...
  If indeed we needed any additional cause for celebration - Hitch-Hikers 2 is on soon...
• rab - Bloing
  *posts only to find out what time it is back at home*
• Boolbar - Phew!
  It's back, I can relax now.
• Boolbar
  [Bob the Dog] Have you dried off yet?
• Bob the dog
  Boolbar] Yes - just enough to realise that I've missed your Birthday. Many Happy Returns of the day! *Wonders what are "returns of the day"?*
• Chalky
  [BtD] I think it means "I hope the day of your birth returns happily year after year after year after yea ...." You get the picture?
  [Boobah] *belated birthday hug*
• Néa
  [Chalky] Surely there's a bit of "hope you'll be there to see how said day returns year after year after ye...", too?
• Tuj - The return, people's birthdays, and joie de vivre
  *does celebratory dance*
• snorgle - yay!
  It's back, from Outer Space..
• Chalky
  [Néa] That's it!
• Boolbar - Not old
  [BtD] Luckily I missed it too.
• Darren
  Not only is it back, but for some weird reason I no longer have to jump through hoops to get into the site. Is this permanent I ask myself?!
• snorgle - askance
  Darren, why not ask us? We don't mind, really..
• Chalky - dialogue
  .. and you never know - we might reply!
• penelope - askanology
  we might give the wrong answer - but that's the chance you take :o)
• Tuj - Dialogance
  Darren] Do you literally mean 'jump through hoops', I ask myself... ;]
• Chalky - self help
  [Tuj] Why not ask us? We can probably answer that one.
• Boolbar
  Is this "Females have all the answers day" ?
• penelope
  [Boolbar] Yes.
• Ella - dialoganology
  And lets face it; today is no different to any other
• st dogmael - Fitzgerald
  Do you have a right to sing the blues ?
• Ella - mentary
  Yes
• Darren
  OK, is it permanent? It's still working though. [Tuj] No, not literally. But having to use a different browser (in other words, the dreaded IE) to get to MC5 was annoying.
• Tuj
  [Darren] Cor, lighten up... at least say yes! Or maybe you have jump over a desk or something...
• Darren
  [Tuj] You've clearly never seen my house. The prerequisite of jumping over furniture goes as read with anything I say.
• Chalky - sofa straddling
  [Darren] ... and you never know where it might lead you ...
• penelope - Chaise Longue Jump
  *rofl*
• Darren
  Next thing you'll be telling me that bobsled champions start out by sliding down the stairs in an old sleeping-bag. Like I used to do.
• penelope
  [Darren] No, they use tea-trays.
• ZK
  [Darren] Ah, ya wuss ;) I used to do it without anything! Although I have to say sleeping bags do make it faster.
• ZK
  Er, tobogganning down the stairs, that is.
• Inkspot - more chicks

  *slight interuption*
  As MC⁵ returns so does a little something else Celebrity Mornington Crescent with this Fridays results, the congratulations go to the girls on top Chalky at Nos1 and 2 assisted by snorgle at 3. Is this a conspiracy?
  This week the long shot is Rebecca Loos. Listed on the daq she will be taking part in the Channel 5 celeb reality show The Farm. She will be joined by Paul Daniels, Debbie McGee, Vanilla Ice and several others to make nine contestants. Safe money would be on Elton John after his 'pig' outburst, but will his shares flatline when they reach £4.12.
  *end ineruption*

• snorgle - innocent
  I just bought some royal or other..
• Chalky - collude? who ... us?
  Both of Me bought some royal or other .. and furthermore - we bought some more with our divis.
• Lib - Feeling sorry for myself
  I've lost my purse. I feel a fool. That'll teach me to leave the house when I'm hungover.... *wimper*
• Dujon - Curses
  You'll feel even more so when you get around to the rigmarole of replacing licences, cards and the like, Lib. Bad luck, I sympathise.
• Dujon - Clever clogs
  My good wife purchased some shoes - sandal style - some year or so ago. They were a bit tight so she wore them around the house for a day and put them away. Today she decided to become adventurous and wore them for a trip to one of the local shopping centres which involved walking around for about one (1) hour. These are the shoes. If you didn't laugh you would cry.
• flerdle - ah yes.
  Apparently polyurethane soles have a habit of disintegrating if not worn, especially if they're stored in warm or somewhat moist conditions (eg most of Australia is one or the other). I'm not sure if it's just outer p-u or if it's the foamy matrix that's often within the sole for cushioning. My Dad used to get new shoes through work each year but often didn't wear the new pair for a while, and after a year or two of storage they would self-destruct exactly like that. Cold comfort, I know.
• Lib - More disasters
  Thanks for the sympathy. I've lost my wallet before so I try not to carry much stuff. Have found out that someone tried to use my credit card but failed just after the time I must have lost it. Humph.
  And today's disaster is that my heating and hot water aren't working. Woke up to a cold shower. What a good start to the week. Am trying not to dwell on that fact that disasters normally come in threes.....
• Breadmaster
  I have no electricity today for some unexplained reason. However, I've given up carrying a wallet since the last time I lost it, so there's still hope.
• penelope
  [Lib] you poor thing. Here, have an aspririn.
  And a propos nuffink, just spotted this on the message board of the website of the local paper I used to work on... it drew such a vivid picture for me and I just had to share:
  "on sat 12 july in skegness at the beach nite club met stunningly attractive female from louth but u had to go to get back on a minibus. i was the man shooting u with water pistol. we kissed then u left please get in touch". Awwww
• rab - Threeness
  On return from the US I discovered that my CD player has developed rheumatism, the broadband router had died and the office desktop PC had lost its will to talk to the network. So it seems indeed that these things come in threes.

  Nothing too serious though - the CD player seems to be healing itself, the router sprang back into life when I plugged it into a different socket (though the fact that the original socket has proven itself since fully functioning is somewhat mysterious) and the IT support had some stern words with my desktop until it started behaving itself.

  I blame heavy electricity; or, if wet, GM crops.

• flerdle
  [Lib] eeeek! [pen] That is SO cute.
• st d - electric socks game
  I went to the Tate on Sunday and there was a painting by Peter Blake called "Self-Portrait With Badges". My mum turned to me and said "I knew I should have worn my glasses; I have just been looking at that and thinking 'I can't see any badgers'."
• snorgle - hahaha!
  [std] That's much better than your other joke.. :)
• Lib
  Thanks again for being so nice. Have cash from trip to bank. Have attempted to fix central heating (nice plumber told me how) but its not playing. Oh well, cold showers are good for the soul, so I'm told.
  [pen] That's quite desperate of the bloke/boy. She must of made quite an impression. Maybe it was the wet tee-shirt!
• Ziggy - the things mums say
  I thought I would share with you something my mum said that had us all in stitches. She went with my dad who is now 72 to get him some new glasses. He had the tests and all that and mom chose some new frames for him. He nearly had a fit at the price but mum told him not to be such an old miser and things are expensive these days. Dad moaned a bit, but capitulated and bought them. My mum relayed this story to my sister and told her the price. Even my sister was taken aback at the expense and said to mum "Mum, are you sure they are not designer frames or something?" Mum looked puzzled and replied "No they weren't designer frames, they were called Arniemarni or something" She is priceless.
• LotUS - Beware Greeks
  (With apologies for the cross-post and rather late announcement)

  I have 3 spare tickets (stalls) for the matinee performance of Berlioz's "The Trojans" by the English National Opera tomorrow (Wed 29th Sep @ 5pm). I was wondering if anyone was able to join me for this - one of only 5 performances of a show which has apparently won the 2004 Olivier award for Best New Operatic Performance. Details of the show can be found at www.eno.org

  If anyone is interested please contact me on oneiros_sama[at]hotmail[dot]com. First come, first served.
  We now return you to your regularly scheduled chat game.

• penelope - breaking the silence
  Well... quiet in here, innit?
• Lib
  Yes it is!
  I'm hoping to get hot water tonight. The plumber is coming! Headlight also went on car (completing my triplet of disaster) but the very dishy student doctor fixed it for me. Bless!
• Breadmaster
  Gosh, Lib, it's an absolute litany of disaster (I wonder, incidentally, why "litany" always has negative connotations these days - a litany of disaster, a litany of crimes, etc). I have a colleague whose bathroom fell into the flat beneath some time ago and for months she had to come to work early to have a shower there. So it could be worse...
• Lib - wet and warm
  *dances around crescent naked having just got out of shower*. I like hot water!
• snorgle - warm and erm..
  Towel?
• Dujon - Gerrof!
  I'm enjoying this.
• Lib - fully clothed today
  *waves at the boys*
• Dujon - Spoilsport
  *sulks*
• Dujon - Brollies Inc
  It's raining! Today is Friday. On Wednesday we had 12mm of rain. Thursday we had about the same and today we've had 25mm or a bit more since this morning (it's about 1420K as I type. Lovely steady rain as opposed to torrential downpours. Ya-friggin'-hoo.
• Dujon - P'raps you could this ) back for me if you'd be so kind. . . Ta.
• snorgle - sunny
  with some cloud. but still nice! except I have a cold. bleah.
• Breadmaster
  Boring grey weather. Bring back the rain! It was nice and melancholy the other day. Very atmospheric.
• Boolbar
  Many different shades of grey type weather with optional wet bits. Lovely.
• Rosie - Weather
  (BM) Atmospheric weather, eh? You're getting there. Sorry to jump on you like this. :-)
• Dujon - Boring
  Sorry about the hurrah over the weather, but it's been a bit dry here.
  I suspect that I may have an ally here in Breadmaster as in my part of the world today is the BIG day as far as a sport called rugby league is concerned. Heaven only knows how many trees have been sacrificed in the lead up to this world event and yet, as if that were not enough, a number of radio stations and at least one television broadcaster are commencing their so-called coverage of this pivotal point of history at noon. The game itself starts at 19 o'clock.
  Does this sort of thing happen in the U.K. or the U.S.of A. or, for that matter, Canada?
• snorgle - sports coverage
  I remember when I was a child, they used to run incessant football (american) coverage around Christmas and New Year's! I think it was the Rose Bowl - horribly boring.
• Breadmaster - Bori...zzzzzz
  [Dujon] Hard to say, since one would have to experience both to compare. However, I think I'm right in saying that inter-club tournaments can easily be avoided in the UK (in a way that international ones cannot). That is, you can't get away from the football World Cup, but it's easy never to hear anything of the Premiership. I knew nothing of it before working at Sky and was, moreover, compeletely unaware of the existence of similar leagues and suchlike in rugby (or in cricket, come to that). Whereas I don't think I ever saw a newspaper in New Zealand, local or national, that didn't have rugby on the front page.
• penelope - backstage gossip
  (Apologies for cross posting) In case you didn't receive the last email we sent out, we'd like to let you know that there are still 289 tickets left for sale for the recording of "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" at the New Theatre in Hull on Saturday 23rd October.
  If these tickets have not sold by next Wednesday (6th October) we will advertise them formally.
  So, if you'd like to buy tickets for this show, then try to do so by next Wednesday. The ticket prices are £10, £8.50 and £6.50. The show starts at 7.30pm (Doors open 7pm). The box office is open from Monday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm. The box office number is 01482 226655.
  Also, in a previous email, we advertised Linda Smith's one-woman show at the Playhouse Theatre in Weston-Super-Mare on Thursday 7th October. Due to illness, Linda has regretfully had to cancel the performance. If you bought tickets, we suggest to telephone the box office on 01934 645544.
• Raak
  Have the Converƒation ƒtoppers ƒinally ƒtopped?
• Rosie - Conversation ftoppers
  (Raak) No great loss if it has. Ye kindeft thing you can say about that game was that it didn't show certain people at ye beft.
• Uncle Korky - "Criminal damage, I tell you!"
  In the course of my work this morning, I went to inspect an empty Council property, to which we had attached metal screens over the doors and windows for security. As I was about to unlock the screen over the front door, I looked up and saw, scrawled in black permanent marker:
  
  MC
  CHALKY
  04
  
  Any explanations, Ms Davenport...?
• Chalky - KD was here
  Eeek! I've been rumbled.
  *rofl*
• Chalky - Two Wheelers
  *Cross-Posting Alert*
  ATTENTION MOTORBIKE/SCOOTER RIDERS
  We, the research consultancy I work for, are looking for new bikers [commuters or enthusiasts] to participate in focus groups around the UK. We have sorted Birmingham, but still have a few vacancies for London Groups [12/13 Oct], Newcastle [19/20 Oct], Bristol [28/29 Oct] and Manchester [2/3 November]. All evenings. Fee of £30 paid for about an hour and a half. If you or any of your mates are interested please email me kedavenport at the hotmail address, but need to warn you that I'm on holiday for a week beginning 11th Oct.
• rab - McGreetings
  Managed to slap down a holding deposit on a nice flat convenient for my new place of work this morning... At least I think it's nice: certainly seemed very pleasant and spacious as I was walking around it, though I couldn't remember if it has a washing machine (the agent assures me it does). Then again - I couldn't remember if it has a sink either (but I didn't ask the agent that). So, once I've bribed my current landlord into writing me a good reference, I should be sorted. Moving up at the end of the month.. oh what fun (not).
• Rosie - Bikers
  (Chalky) Do I take it that you are no longer engaged in elegant scribal activity?
• Rosie - Geordie joke
  I saw this in the letters page of the Grauniad a few days ago. A woman walks into a hairdresser's in Ashington, Northumberland, and says, "I'd like a perm". The hairdresser replies, "Ah wandered luuurnly as a cloud. That's Wordsworth, y'knaa".
• Chalky - C V
  [Rosie] Indeed I am - still calligraphing and chalk-scribing and the occasional line drawing. However, I now do lots of freelance work for a research consultancy so find myself embroiled in activity mainly connected with Exhibitions & Shows. September was Computer Games, then the Printing Industry, plus a bit of Royal Agricultural Society work. This month is Motorcycles & Scooters, then Paris [holiday] and then ... Recycling Waste Management. I can hardly wait.
• Bif - C V
  [Chalky] You had dealings with the RASE? You poor bugger.
• Ella - Unusual tenants
  [Rab]'Has it got a sink?' would be a fairly normal question in my experience as a landlady - my new tenants have just written to ask me what the rules are on hanging picture frames and pets in the house. They seemed like such a lovely couple, but the latter request is really against my principles and sounds as though it could get messy.
• Chalky - rab's whereabouts
  [rab] good news about the gaff. Are you still in Embra or have you returned to Mancland?
• snorgle - pets
  At least they're asking - unless it's because their cat has just had kittens and they want to keep them all.. ;)
• Dunx
  [Ella] I'd get the RSPCA onto them if they're hanging pets on the walls.
• st d - geordie hairdresser, continued.
  .....so the woman says "You don't understand, I want my hair curled." So the hairdressed puts her head in his fridge.

  A scottish man walks into a baker's shop and asks "Is that a doughnut or a meringue?" The baker replies: "Naw, yer right enough, it's a doughnut".

• Ella - Animal Cruelty
  [Dunx] That was my concern! Obviously I need to learn how to express myself more clearly through the medium of the written word or alternatively improve my sense of humour!
• Dunx
  [Ella] ... or I need to read posts properly before I write. I hadn't woken up yet and just didn't notice your very well-expressed joke.
• rab - Sleepyhead
  I'm back in Manc now, having caught up with my new (and, yet, somehow, old) colleagues last night at the annual poster session (which essentially is a front for a booze-up). [Ella] I'll check about the sink - welcome by the way.
• Ella - Thank you
  [Dunx] I can sympathise! It usually takes me a good few hours before I remember who I am in the morning let alone how to read and write. [Rab] Thank you for this fantastic site. I happened on it whilst searching the web for bedroom furniture (?!) and as you may tell, am now completely hooked. I do feel as though I've gate crashed a party full of old friends though - hope you don't mind!
• snorgle - welcome!
  [Ella]My apologies for being thick about your post.. and I'm not that old!
• Lib - *waving*
  Hello Ella, welcome! Hope soon you'll feel part of the party!
• Rosie - Mornings
  (Ella) I know what you mean about mornings. Being retired, I have decided to do away with them entirely, but it only postpones the befuddlement. Welcome to the asylum, which is of course run by the inmates. BTW I'm a bloke.
• CdM - bedroom furniture???
  [Ella] Welcome.
• Raak
  [Ella] All old friends were once new friends. Welcome. BTW I'm a spiny anteater from New Guinea.
• Inkspot
  [Ella] Welcome and .... oops! quick got to go line manager on the loose.
• Boolbar - Welcome Ella
  Searching for bedroom furniture . . . it makes a change from "Jade Goody Nude".
• Breadmaster - Hello Ella
  No, if she'd wanted Jade Goody Nude she'd have ended up at MC in Outer Space. MC5 is a decent site with none of that filth, despite our best efforts. (Note for the uninitiated: a look at the "Google hits" info on the MCIOS screen reveals a distressing number of people who not only search for Ms Goody as God made her but thereby find their way onto the MCIOS page. No-one knows why.)
• Simons Mith - Jade Goody Nude
  Yes, I don't know why Dan doesn't just rename the site.
• st dogmael - jade goody nude
  Breadmaster] Imagine my surprise when I did a google search on "jade goody nude" and searched through for MCiOS, and LO AND BEHOLD, I found that IT WAS YOU that was linked to.......
• st dogmael - kafkaesque zebrafish
  thanks to all of you for making me spend teh last 30 minutes trying to find a GOOGLEWHACK. But hey - I suceeded !. Never again.
• Dunx - Whacky
  [st d] You recall this of course?
• Darren
  [Ella] Will you be frequenting the other MC sites too?
• Breadmaster
  [St D] Splendid! I knew my crusade (consisting solely of repeating the phrase JADE GOODY NUDE as much as possible) would bear fruit...
• Darren
  [Bm] Do you do it in real life too, then?
• Ella
  [All] Thank you for a very warm welcome! [Darren] I've just spent some considerable time following the links to some of the other sites. Consequently, I've cancelled all appointments I had made with the outside world for the next year in order to give myself at least a slight chance of keeping up with all of the MC banter and games available. Who needs a family/job/friends anyway?
• rab - *ding dong* Paging Chalky
  [Chalky] Did you get the mail I sent you (to both addresses) last night?
• Chalky - *ping*
  [rab] YES! *OOPS - TURNS OFf caps lock*
  Was 'called out on business' straight from the office which is euphemistically known as 'went to the pub', then crashed [out, not into]. Thanks. Good stuff - am following it up as I type - hence the caps lock. I'm gibbering now. My brain is full up.
• Breadmaster
  [Darren] Naturally. This is one reason why, like Ella, I have no family/job/friends either.
• Lib
  [rab] No birthday cake this year? Oh well, have a good one anyway.
• rab - Cake
  [Lib] I'm saving myself up for a big plate of curry tonight...
• Chalky - currying favour
  [rab] many happy repeats!
• Bob the dog
  Is it just me or is there a bowl of soup on the front page?
• rab - Only joshing
  I think it's a Rogan Josh.
• Tuj - Double take
  BtD] You know, I thought it was just me...
• rab
  Well, if you want to drink soup from a metal dish, I guess it's a free country. *is waiting for the girls to get ready, and wondering if we'll make it to the pub on time...*
• snorgle - mmmmm...
  curry!
• Dunx
  [rab] Happy bday and enjoy your curry!

  I had a very nice curry on Friday night, although that was mainyl to avoid cooking after a grisly day.

• Dujon - Opens doors and activates fan
• Uncle Korky - Through the eye of a needle...
  I had a korma on Friday night, and spent most of the next 24 hours on the pan with minor food poisoning... Hope yours was better, rab!
• rab - Handily
  It was a very lovely Lamb Handi, thanks, preceded by some lovely veggie samosas and accompanied by a couple of drinks.
• snorgle - currylicious
  Make your own curries and then you don't have to worry about food poisoning! I made one tonight with onion, garlic, LOADS of butter, garam masala, chili powder, chick peas, potato and a bunch of fresh baby spinach leaves. Damn fine.
• Boolbar - Lamb Handi
  Sounds like the RSPCA need to be told . . . .
• Darren
  And I hope you washed your Handi afterwards.
• ZK - radiooooooo
  I finished my first radio show! It went quite well although we started off with major technical problems (we'd burned our playlist onto a CDr which the station's stereo refused to read) - luckily I'd brought all the original CDs to the studio in case of such an emergency so it all worked out! My co-host tried to ridicule me on some of my choice of songs but I was having none of it. You can't faze me! And I ain't stopping there! It's so exciting! I'm so glad I got the chance - it's hysterical when it goes wrong but it's so much fun! And I got most of it on tape too! *dances*
• LotUS - Congratulations!
  What radio station are you broadcasting on?
• Breadmaster
  Hey! I used to have a radio show. I didn't need a co-host to ridicule my choice of music, though, as I could manage that by myself.
• st d - playlist
  ZK] so tell us what it was then, so we can ridicule it too, or perhaps join in in being ridiculed by suggesting some others your co-host might liek to laugh at. And what did s/he choose ?
• Nik - Server move
  Well, apart from the odd hiccup, that went pretty well. If you can see this, your DNS has propogated. Welcome to MC5's new home.
• ZK
  Our playlist was as follows: Footloose, by Kenny Loggins, Johnny B Goode, by Chuck Berry, Stuck In The Middle With You by Stealer's Wheel, House of Fun by Madness, Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks, Frontin' by Jamie Cullum, Havin' A Party by The Osmonds, Dancing In The Street by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, I Quit by Hepburn, then some other stuff which went out the window because we ran out of time due to the tech failure at the beginning of the show, so we just stuck on Bohemian Rhapsody instead.
  [Breadmaster] An interesting thought...I may be able to quietly bury her under a patio somewhere and do the job on my own :)
• Breadmaster
  Good lord - I've actually heard of two of those. You can't be very mainstream. Now, tell us what channel you're on (or whatever the radio term is - I don't know - I don't understand radio!) and we can adjudge for ourselves!
• Dunx
  [Nik] Congratulations. Is this the tiny new low power server box, or something else?
• Nik
  The tiny 'new' low power server box, yes.
• Raak
  [Nik] I see a yes, and my cursor turns into a ? when over it, but should something else happen? (MacOS X, Safari.)
• Raak
  [Nik] Ah, I see the popup now, Safari waits a whole second before showing it.
• rab - Poppers
  [Raak] And disappears a whole second before you've had time to read it. Anyway, jolly good, ho. Not been able to post from work as the DNS hasn't had time to propagate from Withington to Chorlton-On-Medlock, clearly. You'd've thought that if a Magic Bus could do it, the newfangled Interwebnet could...

  [ZK] Not a shockingly bad playlist, but, given that (I believe) you're a shade younger than I, shouldn't you be knocking out some more banging tunes than I did when spinning the wheels of steel plastic in 1995?

• ZK - radio ga ga
  We asked for a specialist show rather than a mainstream one so we could play absolutely anything, otherwise we'd have had to have stuck with Burn's playlist (which, quite frankly, isn't very big) - the show's called the Nostalgia Hour (well, it has our names in front of that) and we can play absolutely anything from 1950 through to 2004. As long as we like it (or one of us likes it) we can play it. Unfortunately, we're on at 10 in the evening once a week and our broadcasting power is about 3 feet, but I told all my friends to listen on the internet so the only problem they have is when that crashes. The frequency is 107.3 FM which I think works on the radio just outside the studio and not in many other places. If you absolutely want to listen to me make an ass of myself go to www.burnfm.com. We had more modern songs on the playlist originally but ran out of time so we ended up with Frontin (2004) and I Quit (1999). The Guild has more than enough people playing predominantly banging tunes already, and they get put on during the day when people are actually listening to them, so I reserve my right to act like I'm radio 2.
• ZK
  Ooh, that went on a bit..
• Lib - I did a very silly thing yesterday....
  ....got locked out of my house. Pulled the door shut and thought 'Arse'. And if I did leave and keys with a neighbour then the one I'd chose is away this weekend. Tried the credit card thing and other silly ideas (like putting my hand through the letter box), but Mr Locksmith fixed it in the end. I felt very silly!

  [ZK] Good playlist! Good luck with your next show. Which night do you broadcast?

• Breadmaster
  And what's wrong with pre-1950? Play some Louis Jordan, and let those hep cats pick up on what you're layin' down, put on their zoot suits, and have a natural jivin' ball! Preach!
• ZK
  [Lib] Wednesdays.
  [Breadmaster] Nothing, but I didn't think I'd be able to persuade my co-presenter to play back that far. I'm hoping to sneak a few in every now and then without telling her.
• Rosie - Jiving
  (Breadmaster) Not a lot of jiving pre-1950. It all started when Rock Around the Clock came to the local fleapit about 1954. Even I was a bit young for it, being about 11 and still into locospotting.
• Dujon - Eh?
  You mean people didn't 'jive' to Pennsylvania 6-5000? Mind you I thought that this was all about a steam engine when I was younger (I finally realized that a 6-5-0-0-0 was an odd configuration).
• Breadmaster
  [Rosie] Ah, you just have a listen to Louis Jordan's Saturday Night Fish Fry and then tell me it all started with Mr Haley...
• Rosie - Jiving, and all that good stuff
  (Duj, BM) You're probably right, actually. When you're only 11 everything is new. Rock Around the Clock brought it much more into public notice, probably. (Duj) I've always thought Pennsylvania 6-5000 was a telephone number. My Big Band usually play it on gigs because it goes down well with the oldies, i.e. people of my age or even older. (BM) A friend of mine, who plays tenor sax in another Big Band I play in, runs a Jump Jive band called One Jump Ahead. They do a lot of Louis Jordan numbers and I've heard them several times. They also do a British version of Route 66 - "get your fun on the A21". Good stuff.
• winkster - locked out and locked up
  [lib] My good friend got so drunk on his 21st birthday that he lost his house keys, had to break a window to get inside at 2am. Shortly after he was arrested by the police when his neighbours called in a report of a stranger in their spare bedroom. They were quite religious people and were not impressed with the conition of the bedsheets either.
• penelope - tonite
  Just to say I won't be about tonight at the e-pilg, I'm on a date... :o)
• flerdle - wahey!
  [pen] oooooooh!
• Stevie - Jive Talkin
  [Rosie] Pennsylvania 6-5000 was and is a phone number. Specifically, the phone number of the front desk of the Hotel Pennsylvania situated in picturesque Manhattan, on Seventh Avenue opposite Madison Square Garden. Which is round in point of fact.
• ZK - phone numbers
  I'm glad it is! I thought I was going barmy.
• Dujon - Indeed
  Fair suck of the sav! I did say 'when I was younger'. To be honest while I knew it was a 'phone number in the song I did not realize that it's a real one.
• Rosie - Phone numbers
  (Stevie) Not in Pennsylvania, then? Mmm, have to think about that. Internal telephone exchange, perhaps? :-)
• penelope - ring this number...
  There's also a Ry Cooder song with a phone number in it - 6345 789 or something. Has anyone ever tried calling that one?
• rab - Ring my bee-ell (ding dang dong)
  [pen] Never mind about that - how did it go?
• penelope - last night, she said...
  [rab] Really, really well. Might be meeting up tonight too - he's just trying to cancel something else... tee hee!!
• Breadmaster
  What! Two nights in a row! Sounds serious. You're evidently not a Rules girl, and a good thing too.
• penelope - We meet every night at eight...
  [Bm] It's either tonight or in a week's time, and as I might be less enchanted at the end of seven days, it's as well that he moves his diary around to accomodate me, heheheh. I've been told that if he makes me his famous bruschetta, I'll want to move in. Frankly, the SW1 postcode would be enough, but I'll go over for the tomatoes-on-toast anyway.
• Stevie - 6-5000
  [Rosie] Back in the Olde Dayes™ the phone exchanges in NYC were named, like those in London. One would dial two "letters" of the exchange name (in this case PE I believe though I haven't checked) then the digits 6-5000 giving the familiar (to a New Yorker) seven digit numbers. These days you have to dial four more digits because there are two area codes in Manhattan, the original "212" and a new one which we all think is "646", though no-one important would accept such a new-fangled invention and therefore anyone in a "646" area code is by definition not worth calling (pshaw). In point of fact, the Hotel Pennsylvania lost the 6-5000 number and only re-acquired it a few years ago amidst great media hoopla.
• Stevie - Four shall be the count
  [Rosie] I forgot to add the startlingly uninteresting fact that all phone numbers must be preceeded by dialing a "1" when an area code is required in the USA. Which it always is when dialing anywhere in the five bouroughs of NYC. Even if you are in that area code when you dial. If you don't dial the "1", a recorded voice tells you to hang up and redial with the "1". This system was adopted at great expense for subscriber dialling convenience.
• Lib - Waking up
  [pen] You go girl. Sounds very exciting. Good luck!
• Rosie - Telephone Exchanges
  (Stevie) The names of London telephone exchanges used to be quite original, but have ceased to exist as such for about 40 yrs. Off the top of my head I can think of Waxlow, Pollards, Livingstone, Renown, Tudor, Museum, Bluebell, Vigilant, Speedwell. There are loads more in this vein that give you no idea of where they are. You don't need an area code to dial in London, but two four-figure numbers. There used to be a laundry near where I live whose number was Upper Warlingham 27. If it existed now it would be 01883 620027, not a London number, obviously. How boring it all is!
• Dujon - Tittle tattle
  Bring back the party line I sez.
• penelope - countdown
  In twenty minute's time, it'll be a week since the last post in the Electric Sock game. Any suggestions for replacements?
• rab - Do-do do-do doodlioo-doo. Boooo!
  Well I was thinking things have got a little dusty recently, and looking through the MCiOS archives I note we haven't had a letter-writing game for a while. Not of the Mrs Trellis sort, but one where each player writes an entire letter. Examples of this genre include Letters to the editor and Wish you were here?. Of course, I'm always more in favour of things that haven't been tried before. At least, that's what I told the volleyball team last night.
• Chalky - slottage
  I quite fancy a team game [the last one was in MCiOS earlier in the year] 'cause they invariably draw the regular contributers/lurkers out of the woodwork.
  'Specially if we can have team colours !
  [rab] Is it possible to use color in the Name box? I've just tried it using my usual sticky-back-plastic-html methodology but nothing happened ...
• ZK - ooh
  That sounds interesting! What did you have in mind?
• ZK - they let WHO on the radio?
  For anyone planning to listen tonight, be warned. Apparently they decided last week we were very responsible so we don't need a committee member to look after us...or, in fact, anyone else in the studio. Now, I take this as a great compliment and also as a sign that we are going to die tonight, seeing as how it means no technical help if we arse up! And we picked the playlist yesterday night. Should be an experiment in thinking on our feet...
• rab - Teeming
  [Chalky] Nope.
• rab
  Or, to be more substantive, any HTML in the 'Name' box is stripped to avoid forking up the front page.
• Chalky - NOT IN COLOUR!
  [rab] Natch. I see the Apropos Box has also been stripped unless I'm missing a trick there aswell :-)
• Projoy
  How about a game of tag-wrestling? Not seen that in a while.
• rab
  [Chalky] Also true - but that's given me an idea... howsabout I set it up so that if you type 'Red', 'Blue', 'Hampster', 'PeachPuff' or whatever into the 'apropos' box, that word is then colourised, so it would look like:

  rab - Red
  Maida Vale

  That'd be fairly easy to do without requiring too much cluttering up of the interface. Would take me about half-an-hour or so tonight to do.

  [Projoy] I never understood what Tag Wrestling is all about - can you explain to me please.

• Projoy - Guten Tag!
  You have two teams. The object is to tell a story collaboratively, alternating between teams. Each team has a closing phrase with which they must end the story in order to win the game (e.g. "and then they all moved to Mexico because of the cheap tagliatelle."), but obviously the story must steer naturally to that closing phrase, so it becomes a literary tug of war. It might be especially interesting to try it in rhyming verse, come to think of it.
• Projoy
  Here is an example from the Yorkives. Other than an outing on Orange last year(?), I don't think we've played this game "straight" for many years.
• rab
  Sounds good - would rather do it straight than get versical.
• Chalky - tagging along
  So everyone, regardless of team colour, tells the same story but each team has its own 'finishing post'; the teams move in strict rotation [?]; perhaps limited words per entry to curtail the more verbose amongst us?
• Stevie - Phone Boorishness
  [Rosie] :o) When AT&T was forced to share its lines with MCI and Sprint, there had to be some way of figuring out the tarrifs. MCI and Sprint addressed this in 1984/5 by issuing cards to subscribers with a convenient account number and pin that had to be prepended to the number you were calling. Titus A. Crab, one of my highly-paid consultant co-workers (same contract as me so I know), fell for the spiel and I had the great joy for about two months of watching him dial England from New York. The account numbers were 10/12 numbers long. The PIN was another 4. Then there was the 5 digit 01144 to get the transatlantic cable link. Then the brand new four digit area code. Then the (even newer) six digit phone number (and we all forgot to add the leading zero at least once). Titus would invariably suffer from mis-directed digit syndrom 15-20 numbers in and have to start over. Word would get around he was phoning and everyone in the vicinity would begin loud conversations involving numbers in order to precipitate more of these humorous mistakes. On a good day it could take him 30 minutes or more to establish that all the lines to England were busy.
  
  All this so he could save a few cents on his calls. >:o)
• Breadmaster - Taggin'
  So one team might have the line about tagliatelle, and keep steering the story towards Mexico, whilst the other team might be trying to steer it back to fit their closing line, which is about the Emperor Hirohito? Could be interesting...
• JLE
  I'd love a team game, but they generally do work better on MCiOS because of the colourised names.
• Simons Mith - Another game suggestion
  OK, a third idea: Cat Chess. This charming feline pastime is actually quite a tactical game. Each player plays one cat, usually in a village setting. The object is to move to a point where you can see all the other cat-players and none of them can see you.
• Breadmaster
  Ah! Now that sounds interesting. Do any archived examples exist?
• Tuj - Tagging along
  Why not both? Considering this server is streamlined down to 10 games (ft. this one, and the Furcation Game, which no-one seems interested *cue mournful violin: give money now!*), could we not petition to expand? I often think a couple more would widen the appeal to more players, resulting in burgeoning popularity, and, of course, votes in key areas.
  And yes, I've realised I'm waffling, but at least I'm stopping now. Let's tag!
• Simons Mith - Cat Chess
  [BM] Er, not as yet...
• zK
  *votes for tagging wotsit*
• Bif - Tag
  Can whoever sets this up also start with some sample code for the colours? That way the team members will look alike and those of us with rudimentary HTML skills will be able to join in without ruining the game's patina.
• rab - Ragbag
  If you'll give me about 10-15 minutes to check my upgrades and put them online, you won't have to learn any HTML at all!
• rab - Right!
  Well, that seems to work. There's now a new style of game, called the 'Team' game which eschews Apropos for a Team colour. Enter a colour in the box and hey presto - it might be recognised. I suggest we give it a whirl in the 'Team Talk' game to see how it works, and then when we're bored kill that and play a team game proper.
• ZK - BURN FM
  Oh dear. I read out the studio e-mail tonight and my co-presenter suggested it was a sexy phone voice. I then put on a different one and proceeded to suggest that that one might work better. I then spent the rest of the show taking e-mails from my flatmates demanding I read out sentences of a dubious nature in said voice...which I did, of course, after making them promise to pledge money to charity.
  
  Apparently we're meant to play music on the show at one point or another...
• Rosie - Titus A. Crab
  (Stevie) The things people will do to save a few pence or cents (or pents or cence) never cease to amaze me. They put a very low price on their time and temper, obviously. What was his real name, BTW?
• Breadmaster - Radio
  [ZK] Aha, so you're either Lottie or Laura, then. I see your show is classified as "specialist", which sounds about right from your descriptions...
• nights - ZK's radio voice
  I'm clearly at the wrong university. where are you?
  and I'm back in case noone noticed/cared. check orange for more.
• Stevie - Names
  [Rosie] Real name???? Are there those among us who espouse the use of pseudonyms then? Titus certainly made his Mark though.
• Breadmaster
  [nights] Well, I noticed. Nice to see you back.
• nights
  [Breadmaster] thank you. really, you've made me grin in a public place on a wet and dreary evening in darkest somerset.
• ZK -
  [Breadmaster] I am indeed. And it was the only way we could get a show where we could play what we wanted (asking for a specialist show, not doing a silly voice). It also meant they stuck us on at 10pm, but there are advantages to that. Like being able to run over 20 minutes because you feel like it and you're the last show on :) I listened to the tape of the show with my flatmates when I got home - ah, how we laughed :) I apparently took them by surprise...and there was a very silly message for me in the fridge magnets this morning.
  
  [nights] Your return is welcomed and makes me finally beg the question I've been longing to ask: why are you called nights?
  I'm in Birmingham (hence BURN FM: Birmingham University Radio Network) - and I feel for you. We had our 2 weeks summer holiday last year in Somerset during a massive heatwave...well, it was a heatwave everywhere else except in Somerset, where it pissed it down for 2 solid weeks ...so I know the feeling. *sends sympathy vibes to nights*
• Breadmaster
  [nights] Now, let's not talk about that particular wet and dreary evening in Zummerzet - at least not in public...
• nights
  [ZK] cheers. ah, birmingham. home of huge pigeons if I remember. Somerset is nice in the summer, but it's rubbish in the winter. So why am I here all winter but not in the summer? makes no sense. I asked about BURN because it's a popular shout around here. (person falls off something or something else bad happens:) "buuuurn." I don't understand it either.
  
  and I'm called nights because a) when I chose it I was living mainly at night, and b) bernard seemed inappropriate. so thanks for your interest. I might have asked this already but what does ZK stand for?
  
  [Breadmaster] come on, you're going to have to admit it sooner or later. Avon and Somerset's finest have already been at my little door...
• Chalky - winterland
  [nights] Would you consider anywhere in the UK to be 'nice' in the winter?
  I ask that because I'm a bit weird and I actually prefer autumn and winter, seasonal/scenery-wise.
  btw - welcome back :-)
• Breadmaster
  [Chalky] I'm weird in that way too - I think I have reverse SAD. However, let's not start the perennial "winter or summer?" debate. People have lost friends and indeed limbs over that one in the past.
• Uncle Korky - Ta-ra!
  Off to sunny Wales for a week - see you all later!
• Projoy - perennial?
  You mean we only have the debate every other Winter?
• Rosie - Eh?
  Perennial means every year.
• Chalky - er?
  I rather thought it meant lasting throughout the year in a perpetual sort of way. Also, in a botanical sense - lasting more than two years. Not that it really matters :-)
• Rosie - Perennialitude (© G W Bush)
  (Chalky) Yeah, it does really. But certainly not every other year.
• ZK
  [nights] Zooological Keeper, after a line from the Goon Show.
• Tuj - Zooologicality ((c))
  ZK] Which one? You wouldn't make me go and listen to all of them just to find out, would you?
• nights - ZKism
  oh yes I remember now. all I need to know now is - does BURN stream online? I'll have to have a listen.
• Breadmaster
  [Projoy] You're thinking of biannual, surely? I must admit to not being entirely sure of the meaning of "perennial", now I come to think of it. It's one of those words that one uses without really thinking about it. I think it means persisting from year to year, or possibly appearing at least once a year. Perhaps.
• JLE
  Biennial = every two years, bi-annual = twice a year. According to my mother who is a gardener and deals with these terms regularly.
• Chalky
  [BM] I've already explained the meaning of perennial - back up there ^ ^ ^ ^
• Chalky
  oooh - that looks a bit schoolmarmish. Sorry. Anyway, to get away from the semantics, I'd like to announce that for a change I stayed in tonight and watched loads of crap TV and REALLY enjoyed it.
• ZK
  [nights] I haven't recommended it any other way. My flatmates were listening about a mile down the road and had to hold onto the aerial to get a decent signal. If you go to www.burnfm.com you should get automatically redirected to whatever the real URL is, given a few seconds. I warn in advance that the show is mostly total gubbins, but we do have fun. If I knew how to get the sound onto a form of software I'd put some soundbites on here, but sadly I only have it on tape and don't own a minidisc player or anything similarly hi-tech. I played The Voice at a house party tonight and apparently I could make a fair amount of money that way. Speaking of which, does anyone know how a 19-year-old with no skills or previous experience can get a job that doesn't involve doing the unspeakable?! No-one wants to hire me!
• ZK - paying attention
  [Tuj] "Ah, good morning, Zooological Keeper!"
  
  Inspired, eh?
• ZK - ooh yes
  And I believe it's from an episode called "Insurance - the White Man's burden"
• ZK - randomly
  What is the correct spelling of Hamster? I always thought that was it until I nipped into Mcios, and now I'm not sure.
• Chalky - spelling bee
  [ZK] As it happens, both spellings are acceptable :-)
  As for the employment - are you seeking permanent full-time or temporary full-time or perhaps part-time, or just holiday work or support-yourself-through-your-studies work; days, evenings, nights, weekends or all four? C'mon gal, we need details!
• JLE
  "Hamster" is the correct spelling for the animal, yes. "Hampster" is a misspelling that caught on rather well and is therefore the de facto standard here ;-)
• Chalky - tsk!
  [JLE] I refer you to my previous reply. BOTH are acceptable. Curiously enough, there IS life outside the Morniverse.
• Chalky
  ... speaking of which, another branch of my family are doing the Sunday lunch thing at their house today so I don't have to cook. Whoopee!

  And ... bye bye you lovely people ... I shan't be around for quite a long time but hope to have lots of news when I get back :-)

• Breadmaster - Puzzled from London
  But if "Zooological Keeper" is from a radio programme, why the extra "o"? This story doesn't add up, inspector. As for jobs, assuming this is something part-time now, I think it makes sense to think about what you want to do later in life and try to work towards it. However, I am the last person anyone should seek career advice from.
  
  Come back soon, Chalky!
• rab - Chalk face
  [Chalky] Where'reyou offto?

  Should also point out that I'll be in an Manchester-Edinburgh limbo for the next week, and net access may be rather more patchy as I haven't got round even to arranging old-fashioned telephone communications technology at the new abode yet.

• Projoy - perennial
  Ah, just shows how much I know about horticulture. [Chalky] Also curious about what takes you away.
• ZK
  [Chalky] Part-time work to fit in around studies and volunteering (which I cleverly picked for 10.30am-1pm on an otherwise free saturday...what a silly cow!!!)
  [Breadmaster] I spelt it as I heard it, which seemed to be Zoo-ological, but I couldn't be bothered to put a dash in. I thought 3 os looked better...And I haven't the faintest idea what I want to do later in life. But I know it doesn't involve picking up glasses after boozy students.
• Breadmaster
  Ahhh... Well, it is actually spelled with two Os, even though there are two syllables there. Perhaps it should be spelled "zoölogical", although that would look a bit silly. But of course, since it's your name - kind of - it's up to you how to spell it.
• Lib
  Sorry, I feel a rant coming on.
  Last week (Saturday night to Saturday morning) I was on a week of nights. This involves me working seven 13 hour shifts in a row, thats a working week of 91 hours. In my penultimate hour I was taking blood from a IV drug abuser, I take blood every day and an IV drug abuser is nothing special. Anyway, the needle slipped after coming out of her and ended scratching my skin and it drew blood. I washed it under the tap and told the necessary people and booked in as a patient to my own A and E department.
  Then the faffing began. Nobody knew what to do, and the right policy couldn't be found. I was finding it all a bit much (partly because I was feeling such a spanner and partly because I was so TIRED) so hid myself away in the staff room and cried. My consultant arrived and she took control. All I wanted to do was go home and go to bed, however they didn't seem to understand that all I wanted to do was sleep or let me leave ( it was deemed that I wasn't safe to drive, due to all the tears and I live half an hour away from the hospital) so I was sent to a colleagues house to wait.
  The drug user’s blood was sent to Manchester for emergency tests and special strings were pulled so the tests only took two hours. Finally the phone call came through and all her tests were negative (for scary things like HIV, Hepatitis B and C), so I was finally allowed to go home 4 hours late.
  I know that accidents happen and these unlucky things are relatively common and I've been fortunate to have a clear result so soon, but I don't think it was a coincidence that it happened at the end of a 91 hour working week.
• ZK
  *goes humbly to pick up glasses after boozy students*
• Rosie - Knackered doctors
  (Lib) There are dozens of occupations where hours are strictly limited and have been for a long time. Train driver, bus driver, for example. So why not doctors? I can think of a few answers, none of which reflect well on the administrators. Is my cynicism justified? Your rant certainly is.
• ZK
  My dad has the same problem. Of course, how many MPs do you know who are or have ever been doctors and therefore care?
• nights
  [Lib] (((hug))) I'll never complain about my job again.
  
  [ZK] I do happen to know that a certain supermarket chain recently bought by Morrisons is hiring down here so they might well be in the jolly Midlands. If you can put up with eight hours of beep... beep... and can ask "would you like cashback?" with sincerety, then apply! It's fun! Really!
• rab - Offski
  Disappointed that I've managed to only half-fill the van. Well, looks like we're off...
• nights
  I've just realised that I was in fact complaining about my job opnly about a minute after promising not to do it. *sigh*. I need a drink. I know it's not even midday.
• Bif - Needle Stick
  :o( Remote hug sent. Feel better.
• Lib - Normality
  Cheers everyone. Thanks for the support. Have been some kind of distorted celebrity at work today. Hoping tommorow I can have some normality, and put the whole nasty experience behind me.
• nights
  [Lib] Well good. I'd like to publicly mark the passing of one of the greats of music, John Peel. He played an important part in helping me see past mainstream music and start listening to other things. He'll be sadly missed. Rest in Peace, Peely.
• ZK
  John Peel can't be dead!!!!!!!!!!!
  
  
  
  
  
  He's not, is he?
  
  
  
  
  
  Is he?
• ZK - a quick trip to BBC news later
  disbelief declared He is, as well. They say bad things happen in threes - who else are we going to lose in October?! I add my sentiments to those of nights.
• Breadmaster
  Now, I don't wish for one moment to cast disrespect at Mr Peel, whom I have never heard speak and thought was simply a whimsical article-writer for the Radio Times - although I did read an article of his in which he described the guitar work of Hubert Sumlin as miraculous, and I also know that he possessed more records by Lightnin' Hopkins than any other artist, so I approve of him. But in what way can someone who wasn't a musician be regarded as one of the greats of music? Isn't that rather like calling Brian Sewell one of the greats of art?
• ZK
  Interesting point. One might say that John Peel was a great aide to development within the music industry, by introducing a lot of new and diverse material that might not otherwise have been publicised. I don't know precisely in what capacity Brian Sewell works within the art sphere - I presume he's an art critic *prepares to get shot down in flames* which isn't quite the same thing. So you might rephrase it as "one of the greats of music journalism", or something.
  
  None of my business really.
• rab - JP
  If you want to understand something of Peel's influence in popular music you could do worse than to spend a couple of minutes reading through some news articles, tributes and the various obits that have appeared. It's not like they're hard to find or anything.

  Let me however try to give me a feel for why Peel was a much-loved figure in music. First, he's been on the modern (Beatles onwards) pop music scene for as long as that scene existed - in fact he used his Liverpudlian connection to get himself a job in the States on the back of the Beatles' success at the start of his career. He genuinely seemed to love all music that had been created with a passion, right from Belgian nosebleed noisethrash mp3s through to jazz standards recorded on crackly 78's. His Radio 1 programme would typically showcase both of these and everything inbetweeen. His links were usually extremely witty and peppered with little anecdotes about the band whose music he'd played, or some little story about how he came about purchasing that particular bit of green vinyl from a backstreet record shop in Groningen. Even as he was starting to draw a pension, he was still producing two hour shows three times a week. The consequences are severalfold: (i) he gave people who tired of the formulaic easy-listening pap that makes up most of a radio station's playlist a refuge where something more challenging could be found (but without taking it too seriously like what more eclectic programmes on R3 do); (ii) this exposure to a wider range of music (such as, I understand the DIY ethos of the punk movement) inspired many people to start making music themselves (see the tributes passim); (iii) it also gave budding musicians something to aspire to, viz getting Peel to give them a session and help get them noticed (if they were any good); (iv) it also created the impression that he would always be there, one of the reasons why he is sorely missed.

  It's impossible to know how different the pop music tapestry would be without him; but I think it's wholly appropriate that he should be saluted for having made a huge contribution to the particular way it came to be woven. I think that's what people mean when they say he's a 'great of music'.

• Boolbar
  John Peel also played a mean Jaws Harp on the Third Ear Band's album Alchemy.
• flerdle - missed
  [Peel] Wish we'd had one of him in Australia. :-(
• ImNotJohn
  JP was also seen on TOTP beside Rod Stewart, playing the mandolin on Maggie May.
  It was well known that if you sent him a demo he would listen to it - for fear of missing something. Thus Blur, the Undertones and many more got a play on his show before any record companies had heard of them.
  I also admired him for 'Home Truths', although it wasn't really my sort of show - the way he could get ordinary people to talk about extraordinary and/or very painful things was an example of the interviewer's art that most others could learn much from.
• Projoy
  [Breadmaster] I think you could say "one of the greats of music" in the same way that Jean Cocteau was.
• Bif - Do You Ken John Peel?
  [Breadmaster] Alternately, one could simply troll through an on-line CD store for "John Peel" and see how many now-famous bands owe their early exposure to the man. Shameless marketing can sometimes have an unexpected benefit to the consumer and these "John Peel" CDs are some of the best in my collection (although I don't collect them as such, I do add them to my exsisting collections of material by bands I like).
• Knobbly knees et al.
  How is everyone writing in bold and italic and normal? (At least on the other forums).
• .
  [Knobbly knees] try following this link to DrQu+xum's Basic HTML.
• nights - knobbly HTML
  I love that page. It's taught me a lot... and in real life too.
  
  To start a new topic, what are we all listening to as we post?
• Raak
  [nights] The cooling fan.
• Lib - Silence
  As I take worshipping the almighty Crescent very seriously I always post in complete silence, while sitting in the lotus position.
• penelope - hummmmmmm
  The hum of the server, the toot of the sandwich van pulling up in the car park, intermittent Tourette-like outbursts of frustration and the clattering of keyboards as my colleagues - nay, UNDERLINGS get on with their proper work while I skive.
• Bif - Whiiiiiiiiiiine
  [nights] My tinitus.
• JLE
  For some reason, the latest CD I've bought is one of chamber music - trios, quartets and quintets - by Schumann. So that's what I'm listening to.
• nights
  oh gosh you're all funny. I'm listening to one of my legendary mix tapes on headphones while sat in the library.
• Bif
  [nights] You think a background whistle that cannot be silenced no matter what you do is funny? You are one sick puppy.
• Tuj - My ears are alive with the sound of music
  I'm listening to the music of a band called Elbow. Somewhere between Schumann and tinnitis.
• ZK
  The beat coming from the morons downstairs.
• ZK
  It's gone very quiet in here. You don't all live beneath me, do you? Only that would be a sure sign the cyanide cake we sent them worked.
  
  
  
  Oh, have I said to much? *prepares to destroy the evidence*
• ZK
  *too much
• Dunx - Ear, Ear
  I've been listening to various radio shows today, and will start to listen to the last HHGTG episode in a bit. Probably. Other than that, it's the whirr of three or four computer fans and the occasional whine from the cats.

  But what I'm really listening to is the sound of my going up the wall as the local anaesthetic from my dentist's visit wears off and my gums itch and my teeth hurt. Aargh!

• ZK - Local anaesthetic, climbing up the walls
  I was watching TV with my flatmates the other week and they switched onto something about cosmetic surgery. Squeamish enough as I am at the best of times, I started busying myself with the fridge when they started describing how one woman was going to have reshaping surgery on her genitalia. When they proceeded to mention that she was having the operation under local anaesthetic, I decided it was time for me to leave the room.
• nights - whining noises
  [Bif] No, I'm not sick. I was just too tired to read entries properly. Bad nights. In your basket.
  
  [ZK] Oh isn't shared housing lovely? Still, I got up at 06h45 this morning to make sure I actually got a shower today before gettingthe 08h bus. Worked as well.
• rab - 33s and 45s
  Got my first ever P45 today. Whee!
• nights
  really? first ever? I'm 19 and I've had two... and I made it home again despite the best efforts of First Avon and Somerset Buses.
• Breadmaster
  [ZK] I assume this woman had some ghastly deformity which was being corrected, but my mind is now fillinh unavoidably with the concept of cosmetic genital reshaping, like a bizarre form of topiary. What will they think of next?
  
  I am currently listening to nothing. However, I will shortly be listening to - and indeed watching - the nice new DVD I just got, which is vol. 3 of the American Folk Blues Festival 1962-69. It looks like it's probably not as good as vols. 1 and 2 (especially the latter, which featured among others Lightnin' Hopkins, T-Bone Walker and Howlin' Wolf, bringing the coolness factor dangerously close to critical mass - as well as the apostrophe quotient), but this one does apparently feature a young and hip Buddy Guy. I saw Buddy Guy a couple of months ago and he was old and hip, and kindly let us have our picture taken with him once we'd beaten our way through the frenzied fans. Never have I seen such adulation of any performer - you'd think Jesus had got onto stage to unleash a few funky licks. So I approve of him.
  
  Anyway, I should, hopefully, be listening to a lot less of unwanted noise now that I've moved in with my young lady friend for a bit. This is a much quieter area and the walls are thicker. In my old flat, I could hear my next-door neighbour snoring as clearly as if he were in the room with me - a ghastly thought. He apparently went to bed at about 8pm and stayed there for at least 12 hours, as far as I could tell. Fortunately I have a large and versatile collection of ear plugs - but I'll be glad to use them less for a bit.
  
  I'll be quiet now before this starts to turn into a blog. Whatever that is.
• ZK - seriously
  cosmetic. i kid ye not.
• nights
  uuuuurgh that's just bizarre. when are you on BURN again ZK?
• Simons Mith
  [ZK] Before: Wayne Rooney or possibly Jesus, if Google is anything to go by. After: Chilly Gonzales ??
• ZK - feel the BURN
  10-11pm on wednesdays, except this wednesday is our last show as the station's license has run out until march. daft.
• penelope - Mondaypilg
  ah. yes. Hmm. I wil be unable to join you for the chat on Monday as I will be in Italy. For the whole week. Hurrah!! (And as for the date situation, we just had date four - brunch in Chelsea - and it's still lovely.) :o)
• ZK - dates, figs etc
  I just got asked out and said yes...what do I do now?! *hasn't been on a date in 2 years and the other ones all sucked*
• nights
  ooh MC love. go for it, be witty, be charming... be yourself.
• rab - Prunes
  I'm not sure I've ever been on a formal 'date' so I don't know what the protocol is. Hello from Edinburgh - I also won't be at the chat tonight as I don't have a phone line yet. BT claims it doesn't exist, but I can see it, and if I plug a phone in, there's a continuous tone which I believe is the 'you need to phone up BT to make this work' noise, but BT claims the phone line doesn't exist so, erm, ...
• Raak - passion fruit
  [ZK] I think "turn up" is the first step, but after that I'm not sure.
• Breadmaster
  [ZK] You're asking people online what to do on a date? I think by definition we're the last bunch to ask such a thing!
• nights - BT hates me, you, all of us.
  [rab] when I moved into my house down here the first thing I did was test the phone line, got the same result you did, called BT from my mobile and they turned it on and set up my account the same day. however they're now making it very difficult for me to cancel as we've now got telewest, so swings and roundabouts.
• nights
  sorry to comment twice, but I've had an awfully good idea for a game. so first dibs on any new slots that come up...
• Stevie - Date
  [ZK] I have said this before, but it bears repeating. While on your date, do not under any circumstances bite your datee on the buttocks no matter how firm and round they look and no matter how opportune the moment seems.
• Tuj
  [nights] Weren't we about to do the whole tag team thing? Or did that happen really quickly and I missed it?
• ZK
  [Stevie] I've just spent the afternoon having worse suggestions than that put to me by my friends. In front of my date. But I have to ask; are you speaking from experience or common sense? If the former, please give details.
• Lib - on tenterhooks
  [ZK] So, how did it go? Need to know! Hope your friends didn't put the cat amongst the pigeons too much!
• travis
  im too horny for my own good
• travis
  no doctors out there then!?
• b laine
  im a nurse think iv got same simptoms as you
• travis
  im a guy! how so the same
• b laine
  oh yea. well i know your gagging for it now yea??
• travis
  MY DICK IS HUGE RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• ZK - before we were so rudely interrupted
  [Lib] Allow me to clarify my own scrambled english. I referred to the lad in question as "the date" although the date is fact not until thursday. Although they were taking the mick so much he had to wait until I left and follow me to sort out precisely when we'd be going, as we couldn't talk sense with the rest of them around! Ah, stupid gits, though I love them all. So I'll let you all know, probably at about 3 in the morning on Friday.
• nights
  [ZK] good luck, I'm sure it'll be fine. Just be yourself. Worked for me, and never mind the fact that I have been single for exactly one year today. Sob.
  
  [Tuj] I think you missed it dude. I think. I might be thinking of MCiOS.
  
  [travis, b laine] get the hell off this server.
• rab - Hello
  No, we were going to have the tag game. The team-test game was there to test the team colours out, and the intention was for someone to start the tag game in its place. But no-one did, and some passer-by started something else instead. Your bad.
• flerdle - nothing at all
  I'd just like to say how lovely it is not to have to use the airconditioners now that the weather's cooled off over the last fortnight. Most readers here would be used to the opposite problem, but let me assure you it's not been at all nice. And it's great to be able to walk outside without fainting from the heat and humidity. 18 to 30°C is pretty good, really.

  Back to your regularly scheduled programme.

• Stevie - Buttock Biting
  [ZK] Oh, very much from experience I am sad to say. And when Mrs Stevie found out it went very badly for me, I can tell you. She drinks far too much coffee and as a result can be a tad excitable over the most trivial things.
• snorgle - hampster
  Strangely, I was speaking to a work colleague today, and realised that his breath smelt of hampster! I was a bit distracted, as you might imagine.
• ZK - dates, figs etc
  Well! Remember my radio show? The station's licence is up till march, so last night was our last show for the forseeable future. I couldn't figure out why Lottie was so jittery....until my date for this evening (now I boyfriend, I'm given to understand) turned up in the second half of the show with a bunch of red roses. I think I may be onto a winner here....
  [snorgle] Said date also kissed me, an experience I tried to make as brief as possiible as I'd been eating crisps all evening, and then, later, cheese sandwiches. Breath is indeed a tricky business.
• Breadmaster
  [ZK] Well, you must tell us when it's back on the air. The show, I mean, not the snogging. We wouldn't want to listen to that. Well, not most of us, anyway.
• ZK
  March - if we get another time slot. Though if Drinky backs us up (which I think he will) we should be alright.
• nights
  I sincerely hope so. I missed the show as I was busily eating chinese food at the best chinese in the world, the hong bistro, southgate street, bath. go there, eat yourself pear shaped.
  
  We now return you to "The Banter Page". As we left, ZK was telling us all about her love life...
• Stevie - Date Breath
  [ZK] What flavour of crisps? Be explicit.
• snorge - Well...
• snorgle - hampster flavour,
  obviously!
• Stevie - Crisps
  [Snorgle] You call that explicit??? Where are the long descriptive passages on the sensual texture of the comestibles and the overwhelming tide of passion they aroused in your young, inexperienced bossom, or the desire they sparked in you to dress in tight, shiny, man-made fabrics?
  
  Now I'm hungry again.
• Simons Mith - Ready Salted
  [Stevie] Here, have a crisp.
• Kim - Overactive and underemployed
  I'd just like to announce that I have played a move in every MC5 game today.
• rab
  If you're feeling at a loose end, howsabout you expand that in the Furcation Game? It could use a bit of a kickstart, that one.
• Tuj - The Furcation Game
  I think this game needs an advertising campaign, because I love it. I've devoted small chunks of my life to it twice now, and yes it's a behemoth, but things just seem right with the world once you've moved. Go on someone, please!
• Rosie - Once you've moved
  (Tuj) Absolutely! I am never so agreeable as after a good shit. Ooh, wonderful! (Stevie) Wossa bossom, then? Have I got one? Have you?
• ZK - crisps
  [Stevie] Ready Salted, I seem to recall. Still, we had a good smooch after donuts on Thursday. Heck, he'd been eating onions and I didn't even notice.
• ZK
  Not that we were randomly eating onions, mind you. That would just be silly.
• Projoy - Furc
  [Tuj] I desperately wanted to, but after about six months of not posting a move it became apparent that I don't have quite the spare time I once did. Which is a pity, because I long ago thought of a particularly devastating move which would have given new meaning to the words "it's hard to play Acre Street variants".
• Tuj - Proj]
  Ooh... No, must remember curiosity killed the cat. Mind you, I'd imagine it's an easier task to play a move now that the dramatic strands have been conbined to some extent. Anyway, to a player of your character, surely 18 moves is nothing... ;]
• Projoy - 18 moves?
  Yes, but if I wanted to play it competitively, I'd have to do a lot more than 18 moves in order to raise the bar. :)
• Tuj - Benevolence
  Maybe to promote other people to join in you could play a few less - after all, it is The Furcation Game rather than Acre Street. Wouldn't that be nice for the community?
  
  Then when they're in you can get 'em...
• nights
  I would participate in the Furcation Game, but I have absolutely no idea about HTML. Bit of a handicap.
  
  [ZK] Hooray! You seeing him again?
• Projoy - Cross posted from MCiOS
  [theatre folk] Sorry for being a bit spammy, but if you know any folks in London who are theatrically minded, Thos and I are in the early stages of planning for Jekyll and Hyde - the panto, and we're looking for a production team. If you know people who'd like to add something unpaid to their CV (but done in a proper theatre, like), please could you ask them to peek at the vacancies halfway down this page? Spam ends.
• Tuj - Furcating
  nights, and anyone else] The HTML isn't that tricky, and as I discovered on my first move you can generally just steal other peoples' tables and the like and repaint them. Then there's that excellent basic guide people regularly post links to which I can't remember the address of...
• Here, here
  It is a site created by our own Dr Q+ (who seems to have disappeared) and can be found here.
• ZK
  [nights] Well I hope so, seeing as he's my boyfriend now. Hurrah!
• rab - Of nothing
  There's a sticker on my door proclaiming "Blood donors love life" which somehow feels like the opposite of a grocer's apo'strophe.
• nights
  [rab] careful, you're drifting into grammar pedant territory, and I know enough of them by fortune of being a languages student.
  
  [ZK] Oh I am pleased. Good for you!
• penelope - Acquiring boyfriends..
  [ZK] I think I might have one too... how many dates does it take to qualify?
• Raak - Amorous taxonomy
  [pen] Based on negligible experience, I think "boyfriend" is what you call it when:

  • ...you stop counting dates.
  • ...the next date is "when", not "if".
  • ...you start counting days/weeks/months since the first date.
  • ...you stop calling it "dating" and start calling it "seeing".
• rab - Nononono
  The state of boy/girlfriendshipness must be formally announced, ideally through a public advertisment in The Times, but these days more commonly on the official web-based boards set up for this purpose.
• Dujon - Cultural differences
  I always understood the situation to become officially acknowledged when, and only when, you were finally caught out behind the bike shed. Or adult equivalent, I suppose, in this case.
• Breadmaster
  I think that it's when engaging in romantic liaisons with a third party would be frowned upon by the other person. Unless they're involved as well, of course. That's an entirely different matter.
• penelope - Announcement
  Penelope is proud to announce that after many years of searching, she has found a man with sufficiently low standards to happily accompany her for cocktails, noodles, full English breakfasts and participate in the odd snog.
  [Rab] will that do?
• nights
  aw it's all going off around here. let's hope nights is next, eh?
• Boolbar
  Yey Penelope!
• Bob the dog
  Yey yey Penelope!
• penelope
  I just hope I haven't spoken too soon
• Bob the dog
  I just hope he is good enough for you.
• Stevie - Penelope's New Love
  I too enjoy "odd" snogging. It has been a cause of much friction between Mrs Stevie and me, but only when she's asleep as she finds the whole thing a little strange (or as she would jokingly put it "Get the hell away from me you twisted goon").
• snorgle - hmm..
  What's odd about your snogging then?
• Lib - Go Pen, GO!
  *Dances round with a multitude of glee at Pen's excitement and sings 'Hurrah, Hurrah, Hurrah!* Well Done hon! Also keeping fingers crossed, just incase!
• Darren
  Well done Penelope! I thought you put "participate in the odd song" at first.
• Breadmaster
  Goodness! It must be - er - something to do with autumn. I'm very pleased for you all, and kind of jealous, which is odd given my non-single status. There's something thoroughly pleasant about starting going out with someone that is intrinsically better than actually going out with them, however nice and fulfilling the latter may be. I'm sure Aristotle had something wise to say on the subject.
• Rosie - Inamorata di Pen
  (Lib) Better than keeping your legs crossed.
• nights
  that's enough of that please, ladies. hoorah for you, pen! hope it works out.
• Rosie
  (nights) I'm not a lady, and possibly not even a gentleman. :-)
• nights
  I knew I'd get a comment like that. gaaaaah.
• ZK
  [penelope] Er, I don't know. People asked us if we were boyfriend/girlfriend before we went on our first date, and we agreed that we were. I don't think it's supposed to be done that way. However, I hope you've got one. A boyfriend, that is. Yay! All my friends hate me now, even the taken ones. It's quite amusing.
• Breadmaster
  [ZK] If your friends hate you now it must be because they nurse a secret and all-consuming love for you, and cannot stand to see you attached. This can be a problem if it leads them to murder your beau horrifically and attempt to win your love by sending you his heart through the post, but you can turn it to your advantage by cynically playing on their feelings and promising them affection in exchange for obeying your whims. Correctly done, this can result in your having a small army of emotionally warped zombies at your beck and call. Then you're the one who decides who gets horribly murdered.
• Tuj - Studento della lingua
  Rosie] Inamorato, I'd say...
  Breadmaster] When's the film version out? Sounds great!
• snorgle - emotionally warped zombies
  [BM]I've got a friend who does that..
• Rosie - Gender confusion
  (Tuj) And you'd be right - clever c***. :-)
• ZK - ruling the world via a personal league of zombies
  tempting, tempting...
• nights
  I think it might be time to emigrate. goodnight everybody!
• rab - Standing ovation
  Does anyone know where I can buy a hatstand?
• penelope - if you want to get ahead
  [Rab] cheap option - junkshop. I bet IKEA do one too...
  TITFER - beech veneer bentwood hatstand, with room for three trilbys, or one beret plus a Homburg.
  How smart though, to be be wearing so many hats that you actually need a hatstand!.
• ImNotJohn - standing hats
  [Pen] Surely if he was wearing them he wouldn't need the hatstand?
• Stevie - Hatstand
  [Rab] By drilling a 3/4" hole in your hardwood floor and gluing a length of broomhadle into it one can fashion a hatstand in minutes.
• ZK
  Buy a moose. That way, you can take a selection of hats with you wherever you go without worrying about them being flattened in a suitcase.
• Tuj
  Rosie] Charming... I almost take that as a compliment! Mind you, I'm only 300 points away from getting my PedantGold Reward Card...
• Bif - Hatstand
  AT a fraction of the cost of Penelope's Ikea "TITFER" (assembles in two or three evenings) and Stevie's daft "broom" lash-up one could buy a pound of ten-penny nails and pound them into the walls all over the house, providing instant access to a low-cost hatstand wherever one was when the urge or need to de-chapeauinate overcame one.
• Tuj - A sterling idea
  Bif] Pounding takes effort though; even persuading someone else to do pounding takes effort. Now, you may think Stevie's idea takes effort, but it's effort for something seemingly pointless, bizarre and/or amusing, so that doesn't count.
  These are the rules upon which society should be based. Well, they work for me.
• Dunx - An Objection
  At the risk of incurring the Wrath of Stevie^TM, a not inconsiderable factor given the fearful doings of same in a strikingly diverse range of arenas, the biggest problem with the broom handle idea is that it will make an excellent hatstand for exactly one hat, notwithstanding the possibilities of stacking. There may need to be pounding of nails in order to provide sufficient hat affixation devices upon the broom handle for it to be a practical proposition.

  There is the additional worry that if this broom handle pounding is performed that you will be providing a readily accessible spiked club with which one might be, how shall I put it, persuaded of the error of one's ways by an irate spouse, partner, or owner of said hardwood floor, so maybe we should just be content with the one hat after all.

• Tuj - Objecting
  Dunx] If you've been beheaded you don't need any hats at all... My lies, my beautiful lies!
• Breadmaster - Further thoughts
  I suspect that Stevie is, in his utilitarian and no-frills manner, thinking of a situation where one has only one hat, and a broom handle would therefore provide adequate hat-storage capacity. After all, you can't wear more than one hat at a time, can you? So there's no need for more. Although, to be fair, my parsimonious attempts to "slim down" all the contents of the wardrobe along this principle drew stern wrath from my own irate partner. I tried to argue that one only wears one set of underwear at at time, but this had little positive effect. So perhaps the broom handle idea would prove equally unpopular.
• Projoy - No, no, no...
  It's actually a hatstand for two hats. Hang one, wear the other. The minor inconvenience of having to wear a hat to bed is more than made up for by the elegant and unfussy look of the stand.
• penelope - *makes her way to IKEA just off the A720 in Edinburgh*
  "One TITFER please. Can you deliver it to Rab in town this afternoon?? Thank you."
• Bigsmith - On line
  Hello again from an infrequent visitor. I'm now PC'd and broadbanded-up at home, so might be about a bit more. (Not immediately though, I'm off for a pint to celebrate getting this thing working!) Is everyone enjoying their weekend?
• P.S. - Before I depart for that pint.....
  Can anyone point me in the direction of Dr Q's handy guide to HTML?
• Darren
  Here it is.
• Bigsmith - After more than just one pint
  Thanks Darren, you are a wonderful person.
• splooge - bladderd still and lost
  Bring back missiv trellis
• Darren
  [splooge] We've got a Missive Trellis game running on Orange MC at the moment ("The Epistle of Mrs Trellis").
• nights
  [Bigsmith] yes I am thanks, I've got a week off from lectures. hooray for reading week!
• Bigsmith
  [nights] Enjoy!
• nights - tales from the front line
  [everybody] you'll like this. while working at *a certain well-known UK supermarket chain* on saturday, I had a woman refuse to pay for her shopping, because the total was £6.66. she had to buy some chewing gum, mainly out of fright, before she would cough up. honestly. just a number.
• penelope - Man trouble
  I spoke too soon. :o(. I'd pay for the £6.66 shopping - everything else I do appears to be jinxed, what more could go wrong? Double :o(
• rab - uh-oh
  Poo.
• Boolbar - neighbour
  [nights] Couldn't you offer her 1p cashback and charge her £6.67?
  [pen] :o(
• nights - no.
  [bool] long story, but no. cashback of 1p would be more trouble than it's worth, in many varied and frightening ways.
  [pen] he's not worth it...
• ZK
  [pen] what? nooo! why?
• Breadmaster - Foolishness
  [nights] More proof, were any needed, that the entire human race is totally beyond help and needs to be culled urgently before more stupidity is committed. You should have told her that "666" is only one possible reading of the verse, and that variants exist, notably "646", and I don't see anyone worrying about that. It's just about Nero anyway.
  Further to this, consider the exceptionally annoying experience I had today. I went to the bank to draw a bank draft in foreign currency that I urgently need to send abroad. They told me that they can write a bank draft in pounds on the spot, but one in foreign currency has to be done by the head office, and takes a week to arrive. I asked why they can't do one on the spot. They told me they didn't have the equipment. I asked what equipment they required for this that wasn't required to write one in pounds. They looked shifty and muttered something about printing and exchange rates. I decided to give up on the argument rather than start asking them how a bank was unable to determine an exchange rate - I mean, if only head office can do it, why can't they ring them up and ask? I also decided not to press the matter of its taking a week to arrive from head office - do they send it by donkey? This is the kind of ridiculous rubbish we have to put up all the time. Insane, arbitrary rules that make no sense whatsoever, and for which no explanation is offered. For God's sake, how much harder is it to write a draft in Singapore dollars than it is to write one in pounds? I also restrained myself from correcting the bank person's execrable English ("They can send it to us or to yourself..." - "yourself" is reflexive, you mouth-breathing moron!). Why can't anyone in London talk properly?
  I'm going to go and simmer down now. This is how I get after night shifts...
• Simons Mith - Yourself
  'Yourself' as misused by e.g. hapless bank tellers is usually a sort of attempt to sound professional or formal by someone who is not sufficiently in command of the language to be able to do so properly. I find it grates too, but telling myself that does reduce the irritation quotient - a bit.
• Simons Mith
  I do my 'bear with a sore head' impressions in the mornings, such as today, when I was woken up by the Jehovah's Witnesses Q: 'Did I disturb you?' A: 'Yes.' The fellow should have withdrawn gracefully then, rather than trying to run through his spiel. It was not appreciated.
• Dujon - Door knockers
  I sympathise, Simons Mith. Some years ago I seem to have stumbled across a method of reducing/eliminating nuisance calls from the Mormon bretheren. I had a shop at the time. A couple of their 'missionaries' came a-knocking in an endeavour to sell me their wares. In a shop, for heaven's sake! Anyway it was a quiet day so I took them on. An hour or so later, with only a few short interruptions for customer attention, they left - leaving me with a copy of The Book of the Mormon (interestingly sub-titled Another Testament of Jesus Christ) and a promise to pop back in a few days to give me time to have a look through it. They did not return. Disappointing in one way, most pleasing in another.
• Bigsmith - J.W.s
  Luckily for me Bigsmith Towers is equiped with a large forward facing bay window, so (during the hours of daylight at least) i can see the buggers coming. This gives me the time to dust off and cue up a bit of good old death metal - something like Venom or Cradle of Filth - strip to my underpants and answer the door with can of Stella in hand. They don't stay long....
• Simons Mith - Door-to-door religion salesmen
  What's their success rate like, I wonder? It strikes me that anyone vulnerable to this sort of thing would have succumbed years ago, and then would sell out to the Mormons and so on as each came round in turn. If their success rate truly is zero, WHY DO THEY WASTE EVERYBODY'S TIME DOING IT!?
• Projoy - Another testament of Jesus Christ...
  ...from the author that brought you "Blessed Are The Meek", "Render Unto Caesar" and "Oooh, this Cross Stings A Bit".
• Dujon - Dim Wits
  I've often wondered about that myself, Simons Mith. After all, if my forebears are to be believed, even the tramps used have a 'secret' code which they scribed before someone's dwelling to indicate 'Probable', 'Possible', 'Unlikely' and 'Don't go in there the dog will eat your balls and dump your remains in the bin'. Then again, most tramps are probably better organised (and intelligent?) than those of whom we speak.
• Dujon
  I can just imagine it, Projoy: Bible IV The Ultimate Experience - Includes the Creator's Cuts.
• nights - annoying door people
  I live in a student house, and it was a student house for many years previous. I think they've learnt that we have absolutely NO surplus money - it all goes to tescos or over the bar. and I generally tell jehovah's witnesses I'm jewish. gets rid of them.
• Breadmaster
  I love it when Jehovah's Witnesses come round. I engage them in discussion and refute them. Unfortunately, they tend to be a bit thick and not realise they've been refuted. Eventually they try to get away but I don't let them. It helps if you have a Bible to hand, since their Bibles are subtly rewritten, for some peculiar reason. They're obsessed with the bit about the sea in Revelation.
• penelope - seeing them off the premises
  An acquaintance of mine found they left pretty sharpish when he fired a shotgun into his own living room ceiling.
• Boolbar
  Try to reason with Jehovah's Witnesses. Score 1 point for each time they try to prove something by saying "but it says so in the Bible". Score 5 points if they agree that something in their manual isn't as accurate as it should be. Score 10 points if they want to leave plus get a bonus 5 points for getting a free Watchtower. I got 26 points once.
• Projoy
  I live in a flat now, with an entryphone, so I never get them anymore. I did used to enjoy arguing with them, but if I am in that mood nowadays, I can simply come on here and say something that I know will get Breadmaster going :).
• Projoy
  I wonder that the JWs haven't yet thought of email spam as a method of disseminating the good news.
• snorgle - witnessing
  They don't try very hard around here - a couple came to my door, quite elderly and passed over 2 free Watchtowers without saying much more than hello. The lady asked me if I thought Jesus was born on Xmas Day, so I just said "I dunno" and shut the door.
• Kim - Unwanted callers
  I have learned from experience that a little politeness goes a long way: for example:

  Double-glazing salesperson: "I just want to ask you - if you could have any room in your house double-glazed for free, which would it be?
  Self: "None of them, but thanks for calling." [Click]

  Financial services salesperson: "Do you have a couple of minutes to take part in a customer survey?
  Self: "No, but thanks for calling." [Click]

  Door to door religious salesperson: "Can I interest you in the word of the Lord?
  Self: "No, but thanks for stopping by." [Click]

  I find that the little gesture of politeness catches them momentarily off their guard and enables you to put the phone down or close the door with a clear conscience and without leaving an opportunity for comeback.

• Breadmaster
  [Projoy] I hope you're not lumping me together with Jehovah's Witnesses! Reminds me, for some reason, of the old and rather silly joke, according to which a man sees someone about to jump off a high building and attempts to talk him down. He tries, "Do you believe in God?" "Why, yes," replies the would-be suicide. "What a coincidence!" says the rescuer. "So do I! Are you a Christian, Jew, or Muslim?"
  "I'm a Christian."
  "What a coincidence, so am I! Are you Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Coptic, Persian?"
  "I'm a Protestant."
  "Why, so am I! Are you Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, Evangelical Free, Pentecostalist, Quaker, or Anabaptist?"
  "Reformed."
  "Me too! Are you Remonstrant or Non-Remonstrant?"
  "I'm Non-Remonstrant."
  "So am I! Are you Prelapsarian or Supralapsarian?"
  "Supralapsarian."
  At which the would-be rescuer pushes him off the ledge, shouting, "Die, you heretic!"
• nights
  [Kim] on the one hand, you're right, and I should probably make the effort to be pleasant. on the other hand, being forced to say "thanks for shopping at *a certain well-known UK based supermarket chain* " really gets on my nads, so I feel like all my politeness has been used up.
  
  however, I DO manage to say "cheers drive" to every bus driver I meet, and on a good (or possibly bad) week, that's at least 20. thank goodness I've got a bus pass.
• Bigsmith - Drivers
  [nights] I know two people with bus driving experience, both of whom detest with a vengeance being addressed as "Drive". Unlucky, I say.
• Inkspot - Slightly more Celebdaq
  Just interupt and barge in for one moment, one of my other Celebdaq accounts Not the Ant Hill Mob is on the front page at No5. *jumps up and runs round the room again*
• penelope - celebbing
  I got to No. 4 on the front page once *sigh*. Now, I think both my accounts have lapsed - both newjustine and evil_edna. :o(
• Boolbar - trumpet blowing
  I'm pleased that I'm currently second here.
• Chalky - There is nothing like a dame ....
  Gosh. We currently have no less than 3 Knights Of The Realm/Garter/RoundTable gracing the Home Page - Sir Henry, Sir Joseph Ba'guette and Sir George the er .. hesitant.
  They're becomin' orflay commonplace nowadays ..
• rab - Gravelly voice
  Hello, Chorlkey... nice to see you pop in for a bit.
• Chalky - deep velvet voice
  Why thank you, kind rabster. Why so gravelly?
  Acksherly, I did a bit of popping last week but have now fully completed my peregrinations abroad so should get the chance to pop in for lots of bits from now on :-)
• rab
  Just had some aggregate delivered, you see...

  Meanwhile, I wish the person calling the phone in the next office would get used to the idea there's nobody there...

• Rosie - Aggregate
  (rab) And what did it come to, in total?
• nights
  [Bigsmith] on the other hand, half of the bus drivers in Bath are Polish, so they probably don't get it.
• snorgle - driving
  I usually thank the bus driver, just with a "Thanks". Mind you, in Cardiff, they come in for a lot of abuse including being stoned and shot, so I feel sorry for them.
• Tuj - Bus drivers
  I have more contact with bus drivers than is good... too much public transport usage! And a "cheers" or "thanks" usually suffices, 'cause generally they're very moody. I've only ever met one nice one, and he was actually a scheduler/office worker or summat who'd been drafted in to drive the last bus of the day. Still, he gave me a lift about 8 miles off-route and didn't crash into anything, so I'm not complaining.
• snorgle - round the bend
  I once got on a local bus in Pontypridd, driven by the usual driver, who was very nice ordinarily. Unfortunately he had just broken up with his girlfriend and seemed to have a deathwish - as we drove along some roads with very steep drops without stopping the whole trip it was a wee bit scary..
• rab - Bussage
  In Edinburgh the whole 'to-thank-or-not-to-thank' dilemma is solved by having exit doors in the middle of the bus. Communication with the drivers seems to be strictly discouraged, in fact, by virtue of them sitting in a perspex isobooth. Your fare is poured into a slot, whereupon the driver presses a button to signal its descent down the chute of destiny into the locked safe of eternity (they don't, famously, give change). The ticket appears from a hole in the wall. The whole thing works so that even eye contact with the driver is a near impossibility... I quite like it that way.
• Rosie - Bus drivers
  In a more civilised and less cost-conscious world we'd have bus conductors and the driver could get on with his job undistracted, and undelayed.
• Darren
  I had the eerie experience last night of travelling on a coach whose driver had the exact same name as me. I'd never met anyone else with my name before. It's decidedly creepy.
• Breadmaster
  My colleagues googled me and discovered someone with my name that they claim also looks exactly like me. I dispute this (not only because he's over 50 and American). But I'm still slightly disturbed.
• ZK
  Someone with my name draws Harry Potter fan art. Someone else is a pop star. And another one is head of a Meat Board (?) or something, if I remember correctly. But I'm the best one. :)
• LotUS
  Whereas I (as could a great many people I suspect) can be fairly sure that my name is unique, even if we discount my middle name. Anybody with my surname is a member of my father's-side family and due to cultural/ethnic reasons, the probability of any of them sharing my first name is extremely low.
• penelope
  According to google, I have one phonetic namesake (ie her name is spelled wrong) who's a successful college runner in the US. Anyone who knows me will know she's not me as I'm crap at running, whereas I am rather brilliant at writing - she doesn't have any google-indexed articles published on the Institute of Biology's website.
• Darren
  [LotUS] Are they all Lords of the Under-Stairs?
• nights
  [auto-googling] - I'm a professor in Vermont. What's slightly more surprising is that I'm female.
• Bigsmith - Namesakes
  I'm not going to bother googling - there are at least three more of me who work for the same company as I do (and the bastards never forward me messages or post they get by mistake). On another subject I've started this last week or so re-playing my old collection of CD singles in alphabetical order. The batch in hand currently are by Claytown Troupe, Close to the Hype, a couple by Marc Cohn, and Tommy Conwell & the Young Rumblers. Happy memories....
• JLE - Namesakes
  One of my old piano teachers claimed to have *another* student also called Jonathan Ellis...

  However, he lacked (1) the same middle name as me, and more importantly (2) the ability to learn something such as Chopin's Polonaise in A flat in less than a week, be able to hack the second half of Rachmaninov's cello sonata in four days or - as happened today - when accompanying a baroque-music oboe class in which the student was playing on a modern instrument and the teacher on a Baroque instrument which was tuned a semitone flatter - to sight-read the same piece both in the original A minor and transposed into A flat minor, switching between them every two minutes depending on which one of the two was playing which instrument at the time.

  Which is why I make a reasonably survivable living that pays the bills and mortgage working freelance at the RNCM: whereas he gave up the piano completely, went to study law, and had two houses and no mortgages within the first four years after completing his studies... *sigh*

• Rosie
  I'm pretty good at some things as well.
• Robin - Hern
  Especially creating confusion in the Mini Cheddars game.
• nights
  actually I think I had a hand in that. ooops.
• Chalky
  [JLE] *empathetic sigh*
  well, I'm hopeless at handstands but quite good at Guinness casseroles
• Rosie - small cheeses
  (nights) Can't see anything wrong with your contribution. :-)
• rab - Winter clean
  Hello. On one of my occasional wander-throughs I noted that the lost consonants game is now a year old. I thought things were looking a little dusty around here, but I didn't realise that dusty. I moot a winter clean, and the start of, at least, a team game since I went to the trouble of writing the team-colours strap-on. Only thing holding me back is that I'm currently an active participant in practically zero of the games, so who am I to say anything?
• nights
  [rab] seconded. lost consonants has been discussing its own end lately - why not put it out of its misery.
• Boobar
  Lost Consonants must be retied! I want to lay a new game!
• ImNotJohn - Make Way! Make Way!
  Well, I've just made some space by taking advantage of poor defending at Here and There. So Lost Consonants may still have some tim to save itself.
• rab - Spirited away
  [INJ] That's the spirit!
• rab - Electronic tagging
  So, anyone up for a spot of tag wrestling?
• snorgle - oo-er
  [rab]Strap-on? Thank you for an interesting mental image on a boring (ie nothing whatsoever to do) work day. ;)
• Inkspot - Kicking heels
  So no tag game then...
• Tuj
  Inkers] Personally I'm very much up for it, though wondering how many teams we'll have. Has the mising consonants game received a stay of execution? Unless his rabness just wishes to make the tag game because it has already entailed some effort... ;]
• Chalky - 'netiquette
  < moan > In the past, new games have been launched AFTER consultation [however brief] in here. Seems as though the latest three have appeared without a by-your-leave. I'm all for following up rab's hard work with a Team Colours Tag Game but just wish I could be here when a slot appears. < /moan >
  Perhaps a bout of serial killing is called for ...
• Dujon
  *Offers Chalky a silver hammer*
• rab
  [Chalky] Thank you for saying what I wanted to say, but declined for fear of appearing overly heavy-handed. In fact I've half a mind to kill all the games, and start afresh...
• penelope - freshness?
  [rab] Seeking a feeling of freshness? Try changing your underpants!
  naaah, I'm all for a few changes. Go ahead. Cull a few.
• rab - From the eats, shoots and leaves department
  Email just received: "I have mail for Dr. Factory Mallard. Please email me, his room number or department."

  [pen] May I assure you that my gussets are always lemon-fresh.

• nights
  I agree with everybody. a fresh start is a scary prospect, but quite an attractive one I'll admit. kill some things that seem twisted and nasty, and plant some fresh young vibrant things. or start a new game, whichever you prefer.
• Robin - What the Furc...
  The Furcation Game is an undoubted work of art, but the last serious move [Tuj] was 4 months ago and it seems to be in a sufficient state of decay to be attracting the local graffiti artists. Is anyone planning another megapost, or should it quietly pass into history?
• rab - Furcing hell
  I vote for putting it below the line. It can always be reinstated on special occasions, monarch's birthdays and the like as required. Except I'll have to do this 'behind the scenes' as the game is, in fact, unwinnable. One more vote (from someone like Tuj, Martha or matt) and I'll do it.
• rab
  Oh, and can I suggest that for Tag Wrestling, the two team colours be navy and crimson?
• Chalky - *rushing in and out *
  Bags I be Crimson - [navy don't look much different on my browser]- please someone start the game - haven't even got time to look back and see what we consenced on ... never mind compose a suitably beguiling, witty pre-match talk ...
• rab
  OK, how about cornflower blue instead?
• Chalky
  Lovely, petal :-)
• Uncle Korky - Tagnation
  Who's in which team?
• rab
  I guess you join the team who's turn it is by making a move.
• Tuj
  rab] Or the cornflower team if you want to win, of course.
  Re: the games crisis (or not), I'm of course staunchly in favour of keeping the Furcation Game going, which hopefully doesn't make me unique... unless you want to cryogenically freeze it (with its own special not-quite-in-the-archives bit on the games list, o' coruse) - provided something similarly gargantuan is put up in its stead, like Acre Street or a Long Winded Variant. Just to discourage the itninerant game starters Chalky moaned about (seconded). And what exactly has been got into with the "what have i got myself into" game? Its ugly unpunctuated appearance on the page angers me...
• Tuj - NB
  "O' coruse" is ancient Gaelic for "naturally". That did affect the punctuation of that sentence too...
• Chalky
  Blimey Tuj - such erudition! But glad you're still speaking to me :-) [clue = Scissor Sisters]
• nights
  I'll be brutally honest, I've never understood the furcation game, so it's passing is no great worry to me.
  
  I wish I could look at the rest of the site but I have printing to do so it'll have to wait until lunchtime now. bother.
• rab - Special status
  I think a special status for the Furcation Game would be appropriate... I'll just have to think a little about what that would actually mean.
• Martha Farquar
  I vote special status for the Furc Game. So there :oP
• rab - Jolly Good
  And that might just be the fillip I need to get cracking with a new move over the Christmas break.
• nights
  it's a sad state of affairs when I'm on campus from 08h45, and my first opportunity to check these boards is now, 17h07. today, however, has been an exceptionally busy day. grr.
• rab - Business
  Students working... whatever next?
• Tuj
  rab] Good luck with Fillip. And was that really Martha Farquar?
• nights
  [tuj] crikey I hadn't noticed... hello Martha!
  [rab] oh hee hee, yes we're all awfully lazy, we never work, etc etc...
• Dujon
  [nights] Who said Uni. wasn't a good training ground for a 9 to 5 job? Welcome to the real world, sir. The world where such hours are considered to be short and there's no student union available for cheap beer and there's no lovely undergraduates gracing the premises and where everyone grows old and where ... *sobs*
• Dujon - PC erratum
  That should have read: " . . . no intelligent . . . "
• Rosie - Time-inappropriate recreational activity
  (Duj) So what are you doing in here during working hours? We know where you live. :-)
• Dujon
  Trawling for intelligent undergraduates, Rosie. I thought that was obvious. .   ;-)
• Dujon
  Yeah, 'n mi 'ouse is allus open for them I just said, rite?
• rab
  [nights] That was a tongue-in-cheek comment.

  But what's going on here? Why was the Tag Wrestling just killed like that instead of having another round? Why are other games that should have been killed twenty years ago still limping on with festering wounds and a slightly disgusting smell? Why do I bother?

• nights
  [rab] sorry I don't think my eyes were focusing. looking at it now you were being quite clearly humourous, and my brain just didn't process it. It's doing that a worrying amount. gaaah. I'll not bring up university again.
  and I'm not sure why you bother, but I really am glad you do, as it gives largely computer illiterate buffoons like me the chance to have a bit of a laugh on a daily basis, and that's something to be pleased with, I think.
  
  [Dujon] it's ok, I know full well what 9 to 5 is like, I do it most summers (well, the last two anyway) at our local council as an admin assistant. unlike a lot of students, I do actually know what work IS (moan moan moan, grumble, shake wiggle wiggle - I'll shut up now.)
• rab
  Sorry if I seem grumpy today - the reason being that I am. A slight hangover is not helping the fact that due to a "system error" (aka fuckup) I've not been paid. And since I've not yet had any opportunity to hand anyone my P45, I expect that when the 'emergency payment' is made on Monday (assuming no further fuckups) it'll be taxed to buggery as well and take about six months to sort itself out. I really have no idea why we pay these people.
• Chalky - looking on the bright side
  Perhaps they haven't been paid either :-)
• Rosie - Non-payment
  (rab) Are you a victim of Capita, or Crapita as Private Eye calls them? Why do we pay these people? Because they're cheap and nasty and cheapness is all that matters. Chalky's suggestion, though a comfort, is implausible.
• Breadmaster
  (Takes deep breath before launching into boring story of evil ex-boss) Let me tell you about my evil ex-boss. He was the most evil and deeply twisted person I have ever imagined (apart from my sister, obviously). He trusted nobody. Thus, my immediate boss was in charge of the company's finances, but he couldn't sign cheques. Only Bob (EE-B) could do that. And if Bob didn't want to sign a cheque, he wouldn't. Thus, cheques that had been written to pay bills were rudely returned to us if the bill had not already gone beyond the second warning and become a lawyer's letter setting a date for the court action ("ONLY AN IDIOT PAYS A BILL WHEN IT ARRIVES!"). This principle extended to employees' wages, which were also all paid by cheque. If Bob was in a bad mood (which was pretty much all the time) he would simply not sign them and we would all have to wait indefinitely for our money. What of our contracts? Ha, we didn't have any, because Bob didn't like contracts. Why did anyone work there? People either left within a couple of days or had their spirits utterly broken and became trapped. I escaped after seven months. I would further list Bob's other charming characteristics (his habit of chain-smoking cheap American cigars, his casual racism and sexism, his astonishing right-wing views, his incomprehensibility, owing to a combination of an American accent with the effects of having chain-smoked said cigars for, apparently, several centuries) but I won't. The point is: we considered ourselves lucky if we got paid at all.
• Bigsmith
  My boss is great, honestly. Sorry. Anyway, shouldn't we be enjoying ISAHAC on the airwaves about now? Or have I missed it?
• Martha Farquar - ISIHAC
  The new series beings on 06/12/04 with Linda Smith joining the regulars at the Anvil Theatre, Basingstoke. Andy Hamilton will be guesting at the New Theatre, Hull, followed by a Best of the Year show on 27/12/04. After that I'm not sure
• nights - :) :) :) :) :)
  new series of ISIHAC? martha you've made me the happiest man in the south west. off to the pub to celebrate - watch out for drunken postings later on!
• Martha Farquar - Oh, forgot to mention...
  Hamish and Dougal's Hogmanay, featuring an all-star cast and copious tea-drinking, on New Year's Eve at 11.20pm. And there's a News Quiz of the Year. And the rest of the Xmas TV schedule sucks
• Martha Farquar
  Radio, I meant. And the TV schedule succks too, but that goes without saying

  Zhooomph!!

• Audience - What was that??
• Martha Farquar
  I don't know, it went without saying
• Bigsmith
  [Martha] Many thanks for the information.
• Tuj - Cull
  6 games below the line... And the Furcation Game to sort of so on the line... and I have half a mind to give "what have i got myself into" the euthanasia treatment... Exciting times. New tag variant very good.
• Tuj
  Hmm, put a rogue "so" in there. No idea why.
• nights
  [Tuj] perhaps to keep the rest of us on our toes. I'd do some euthanising myself but I'm frankly afraid to, given the jolly big mess I made on Orange.
• Tuj - Saedi
  nights] Of course, what would really shake things up would be to end the Long Game and the Limericks game and replace those with reverse versions too...
• Darren
  [Tuj] The Reverse Long Game would never start!
• Projoy
  There did used to be a Long esreveR Game at York, which eventually began, I believe.
• Darren
  Wouldn't an esreveR game simply be Reverse Reverse, and therefore normal?
• Projoy
  *opens mouth to give smart-aleck answer, then closes it again when he realises how confused he is*
• Projoy
  I have mooed a new direction for the lost consonant game. Not sure if it will ork.
• rab - Lemon fresh
  Hmmm... things are certainly feeling much fresher round here. Job update: I now, finally, have a contract. I'm going to head along to salaries after a lunchtime meeting so I have the whole afternoon to moan at people. Looking forward to it...
• Ella - Where am I?
  Thought I'd taken a wrong turn for a minute then! Just returned from a fortnight's jolly to find all the furniture at home moved into different rooms (due to flood) and a similarly re-vamped MC site (although with rather less water involved and altogether more entertaining). [Rab] good for you! Get it all out of your system - you'll feel much better!
• rab - Scary Mary
  Hello there, Ella. I was wondering what had happened to you - and hoping we hadn't scared you off. Didn't get much moaning done, sadly - everything seems to have worked out. Indeed, my pension contributions may even have been kept up to date, which is the main thing. Now... let's see how/when/if I can get a staff card...
• Ella - Petrified
  I'm not scared Rab, but should I be?
• nights
  [rab] hooray that your job problems got sorted out - I'm going through a bit of a 'mare with *a certain well known UK based supermarket chain*, oddly enough, about contracts. I'm still on one contract, even though I should be on a higher one as I do more hours a week than that. grr. still, at least the christmas carols over the PA haven't started yet.
• CdM
  [Ella] No, no, no, no, no. Of course not. Nothing to be worried about at all. Perfectly normal group of people here. No risk, no danger. Nothing to worry about. No need to worry about a thing. Just ignore rab. Don't worry about a thing.
• Ella
  *leaves trail of dust as she leaves Mornington Cresent at high speed* :-)
• Simons Mith - Ella
  Silly girl, doesn't she know she's in spoon? Running away won't fix that ...
• nights
  it's gone awful quiet on here, so I'm going to borrow a technique from a message board I used to frequent. So, what is everyone listening to?
• Nik
  One side of a colleague's telephone conversation and the annoyingly-pitched fan in my laptop. In the distance is the quiet, repetitive shhh-clunk of a digital copying machine...
• penelope - office sounds
  The hum and grind of the printer trying to staple 400 documents, the tap of keyboards, and the intermittent muttered oaths and curses of colleagues as they get on with their day-to-day work. And I'm hoping that sometime soon, one of them is going to ask me if I want any lunch fetching from the supermarket... some hope.
• Breadmaster
  I'm listening to PMQT. Rock on!
• Projoy
  A presentation given by students at a posh 'do' at the top of Canary Wharf tower :) Nobody's asking any questions.
• Uncle Korky
  My colleague, typing. And the distant waft of Christmas CDs from the adjacent office.
• Darren
  An episode of the Simpsons I've got on the DVD player. (The joys of working at home.)
• Crackling PA System - (aka penelope)
  This is to let you know that on Monday December 13th there will be a special recording at the Cochrane Theatre, Southampton Row, London WC1 (nearest tube: Holborn) of a show starring the cast of "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" and entitled "Hamish & Dougal's Hogmanay Special", which is due to transmit on Radio 4 on New Year's Eve from 11.30pm till Midnight.
  Regular listeners to "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" will know of Hamish and Dougal from their frequent appearances in the 'Sound Charades' round. Radio 4 have already broadcast two series featuring Hamish & Dougal, starring Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden in the title roles, with Alison Steadman playing their housekeeper Mrs Naughtie, and Jeremy Hardy playing the local laird.
  This one-off special show will include the regular cast, with appearances from Humphrey Lyttelton, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Sandi Toksvig and Colin Sell, with some additional surprise guests. The show starts recording at 7.30pm, with doors opening at 7pm.
  The Cochrane is not a large theatre (there are just 300 seats available) so you'll need to act soon to secure a ticket. The tickets cost £8 each and are obtainable from the theatre's box office on 020 7269 1606. Tickets will be on sale from today (Wednesday 1st December) From 1.30pm and thereafter the box office is open from 10am-6pm Monday to Friday, and 12pm-3pm on Saturday and Sunday. If the tickets have not sold out by the send of the week we will put them on sale to the general public. The next series of 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue' starts transmitting on Radio 4 on Monday 6th December at 6.30pm, with a repeat on the following Sunday at 12.04pm. It runs for six weeks including a 'Best Of' programme from the past year. Recordings of the Spring Series of the show in 2005 will probably take place in May or June, so expect notification of these recordings in March or April.
• Tuj - La musica
  nights] You've asked this before. And the answer is 1) my stomach gurgling and 2) Lemon Jelly.
• Chalky - listening
  OK - this is WAY later than you asked the question - but I am currently listening to a prog on BBC1 about Brian Wilson [Beach Boys] and Pet Sounds.

  It's actually quite interesting.

• Darren
  [Chalky] If I didn't know better, I'd think you were damning with faint praise. As it happens, I'd meant to watch that but I completely forgot.
• nights
  [tuj] have I? oopsie. good choice though. I personally am listening to winter chill 2003, kind of appropriate for such a cold day.
• Uncle Korky
  This morning, I am mostly listening to my Christmas Pan Pipes CD, which will no doubt cause a great deal of annoyance to anyone in the immediate vicinity.
• Chalky
  [Darren] Shame you missed it :-)

  Does anyone fancy revisiting Animal/Vegetable/Mineral/Abstract?

• Boolbar - Baa
  Am I alone in not appreciating Pet Sounds? Yes there is the odd good track but as an album it's rather lacking I find.
• penelope - I'm bored...
  Why does work seem sooo unappealing on some days? The only music I have on my hard drive is The The's Soul Mining album... or I suppose I could tune into Xfm or Radio 4 online and tell anyone who doesn't like it to butt out... Or maybe I could just leave a full hour and a half before I actually should to head for Park Lane and a photoshoot I'm to direct. Heheheh.
• nights - I wish I still lived in London
  [pen] go for xfm, I'll appreciate it. mainly because I miss it from those lovely days when I lived in London.
  
  [chalky] yes please, if memory serves that one's full of hilarity, and fibre.
• Raak - I wish I lived in London
  [nights] Someone else who loves London! People think I'm mad when I say I'd like to live there.
• Rosie - London
  (Raak) Depends where you are at the moment. For my part, I would find a small to medium sized town a living death, however traffic-free it were, but it suits some people, I'm sure.
• Uncle Korky
  I am now, to the utter horror of the rest of the office, enjoying Nigel Ogden's Wurlitzer Christmas.
• nights
  [UK] you're just like my Dad. He has asked me for, in all seriousness (I think - it was on the phone), The Organist Entertains on CD for christmas. aaaaargh.
  
  [Raak, anyone that'll listen] I really miss London at the moment - things to do that aren't uni, work or pub!
• Raak
  [Rosie] I'm in Norwich, which is as you describe. I have to go to Cambridge or London for proper culture.
• Raak
  [nights] Where are you at the moment?
• Dan
  [Raak] If you've been in Norwich more than a year or two and it still doesn't have any culture, it's probably your own fault. If the people who like a certain thing always go to some other place to get it, they perpetuate the situation in which there's a market for that thing in that other place and none in the place they come from. Therefore, people in Norwich who like a certain kind of culture should never leave it, and they'll thereby coerce the place into being the sort of place they like to be in.

  (It also helps if you kill off everyone who actively opposes the sort of thing you like.)

• snorgle - What's
  a wurlitzer, Uncle Korky? It sounds amusing.
• Tuj - Wurlitzer
  Is it animal, vegetable, mineral, or abstract? Or maybe a high-speed land vehicle?
• Dunx
  I believe a Wurlitzer is a specialised piece of plumbing equipment manufactured from pig trotters using a proprietary process in certain secretive factories in the former East Germany. Highly sought after by installers of bidets, the common Wurlitzer can only be purchased if the buyer is recommended to the vendor by at least two other customers and after placing a bond of thirteen Austrian schillings in a specific numbered Swiss bank account.

  It became fashionable as a jazz instrument in the Berlin salons of the 1920s, because of its resolutely unmelodious nature in all but the most skilled of hands (just like, say, the double bass) but mostly because it could be eaten in extremity (very much unlike, say, the double bass).

• Dunx - Apple Ogies
  We apologies for this sudden outbreak of lying in what is usually a much more truth-inclined space.

  Oh well.

• Dan
  Nonsense. Utter tosh! I tell you it's an instrument consisting of a broad, flat cylinder with holes drilled radially into it at regular intervals, affixed to a length of string to its center. It's also cunningly made with vanes set into it so that it will spin when swung round by its cord, with the result that it produces a most harmonious tone. It got its name when its first purchaser, speaking to a somewhat deaf salesman, said "I'll certainly enjoy showing my friends this, er... how do you say it?" To which the salesman, thinking he had been asked "how do you play it?", replied: "Whirl it, sir."
• ZK
  sorry, i'd groan, but...
• Dujon - Aargghh!
  Can someone please cuff Dan around the ears.
• Rosie - Edible instruments
  (Dunx) A double bass is probably the most edible of all instruments, being almost entirely wood. Saw it up, pulp it and serve it as a slurry with hot milk and demerara sugar, and you have the perfect high-fibre breakfast cereal. In one end and out the other, unchanged, giving the possibility of recycling after suitable purification.
• AXI - Edible instruments II
  [Rosie] I think you'll need to figure out how to strip away the strings during the automated production line of your perfect breakfast cereal. Otherwise people halfway across the world may think it's a brilliant idea.
• Projoy - Well, it's a...
  I'm wondering what treats might be on Nigel Ogden's Wurlitzer Christmas. In a Persian Christmas Supermarket? In A Christmas Monastery Garden? Oh, I Do Like To Be Beside The Christmas Seaside?
• penelope
  Is it time to start the 'Bah! Humbug! I hate Christmas!' discussion yet?
• nights
  it is most certainly time to start the "I hate Christmas" discussion (well apart from the religious meaning, but that's another story). point one - explosion in heart-rending charity adverts. I really don't like them.
  
  [Raak] beautiful Bath still - however it's probably more to do with the fact that I have a rather large amount of work at the moment, and I don't have time for anything other than work, uni or pub. sorry, I think I was in a really crap mood when I posted that one.
• flerdle - humbugs
  [penelope] Move here, you'll miss it entirely, but you'll have to put up with the azaan five times a day :-)
• flerdle
  (miss Christmas, that was)
• Tuj - Late response to Dan
  Look at THIS, it's awesome!
• Tuj - I had too
  Sorry, I'm a little excitable today... hehehe...
• Tuj - Not only but also
  Oh, and are we going to play Animal/Vegetable/Mineral/Abstract? If s, can we do some sort of colourful variant?
• Chalky
  [Tuj] How about Animal/Vegetable/Mineral/Abstract or any combination thereof PLUS the colour[s] of said 'object'. Am I taking you too literally?
• Tuj
  Chalky] Pass... I just like the colours a lot and want to reward rab's endeavour by having them used in lots of games. Plus it might spawn some new hybrid game, which is always good!
• Darren
  [Tuj] Have you ever noticed that if you search for pretty much any word in Google image search, there is a Toothpaste for Dinner cartoon which includes it?
• nights - ISIHAC
  so, what did we all think of the new ISIHAC? I didn't hear it last night, I was on the bus (which crashed into another bus, but that's for a later date when I have more time), but I have four hours of research ahead of me later so I'll pull it up on 'listen again'.
• Raak
  [nights] Pretty good, as always. The new guest, Linda someone-or-other, was fine.
• Inkspot - dodgy lines
  Between the Lines seems to have come up with some odd colours, if in doubt the altenative web colours are;
  < font color= “#800000” > for Bakerloo
  < font color= “#FF6347” > for Central
  < font color= “#FFFF00” > for Circle
  < font color=> “#32CD32” for District
  < font color= “#DEB887” for East London
  < font color= ” #FF00FF” > for Hammersmith and City
  < font color= “#C0C0C0” > for Jubilee
  < font color= “#BA55D3” > for Metropolitan
  < font color= “#191970” > for Northern
  < font color= “#4169E1” > for Piccadily
  < font color= “#1E90FF” > for Victoria
  < font color= “#B0E0E6” > for Waterloo and City
  < font color= “#8DBC8F” > for Docklands Light Railway
  < font color= “#6B8E23” > for National Rail
  
• Chalky
  
  It's all very pretty, dear Inkspot, and forgive my thickitude, but what exactly is the reason/point/aim?
• Darren
  [Chalky] I'm not clear what the Between the Lines game is supposed to be, really, but I'm assuming it's MC where (a) your name colour has to match the stations you play, and (b) to switch lines, you need to use a station which actually lies on an intersection between them. So far, though, I don't think that's the way people have been playing it. Still, that (and my almost inevitable lack of grasp of the whole thing meaning these rules are totally useless) is what happens if you don't explain the rules at the top of the game properly.
• Inkspot - Bad lines
  The idea came from wishing to use the colourised name whatsit that rab has introduced in a game of MC. Then it came to me to use the colours of the lines from the Tube map. Unfortunately the new game slot stayed open (for what seemed like several days) and so the game idea festered.
  While it was gnawing away, I wondered about stations like Canada Water and Sloane Square. Could these be incorporated into the stance? Keeping it as simple as possible, a colour for the player and in the text…. sounded good at the time, this may have been one idea too far.

  There you have it a colourised experimental game. If play becomes fraught it will make way for something else. Is there a point? After watching Paul Burrel eat a kangaroo’s testicle … probably not.

• Martha Farquar - Bad lines
  *ahem* [cattily]
• Chalky - ... passing through
  Is it just me or is there an air of despondency in here? I was up and about quite early this am, popped in to have a look and moved swiftly on ...
  I couldn't even think of a faux french line 5 for the limerick, diverted as I was by Korky's bream :-) Don't wanna play colours or tag, don't wanna tell lies or furcate, the current regurgitated cheddar is looking tricky, the consonants have lost their way ... oh dear oh dear oh dear. Ah well - at least I'm posting in here :-)
• penelope
  [Chalks] You've put your finger on it for me. Stagnant limericks are usually easy to shift - I just write a crap last line, then start a new one, hoping others will follow with renewed vigour. I really think Lost Consonants has had it - time to say goodbye. The Colours Game is too complicated to work out for the time I have available to post at work, I'm not old enough to Furcate, and we've been too clever by half in the current regurgitation. I'm gonna go in there and play some crap moves to shift this constiptation. Hold tight... !
• rab - Poo
  Tee hee, "crap moves to shift constipation" - what a lovely image, penelope. Chalky, I quite agree.
• nights
  [chalky] I see what you mean, but then I like lying. it's good practise for in real life.
• Martha Farquar - ISIHAC
  Jack Dee will be the special guest for programmes 5 and 6 of the new series, coming from the Assembly Hall Theatre in Tunbridge Wells (10/1/05 and 17/1/05)
• Darren
  If anyone is going to be in the audience for those two, let me know as we could probably meet up. I couldn't get tickets myself, but I am nonetheless local.
• Chalky - giving a nod to ...
  Penelope the Purgative
  Rab the Agreeable
  Nights the .. er .. seer and deceiver
  and anyone else who has posted and brightened up this place :-)
• Darren
  Previous post... I mean was in the audience for.
• Tuj - Deep and calming breaths
  Chalky] Time to brighten things up... And I definitely agreed with pen on the consonants I'm afraid. And on the poop analogy...
  If you need a new game, just go ahead and make one - could there be a better place (even for just an idea)?.
• Tuj - OK, a touch over the top;
  but I bet it got your attention!
• The Spirit of Winter - Let my ice fingers close over your heart...
  ...let my drear mornings offer you no hope of sunshine to come. I shall not rest my snows nor my gloomy rains until torpor reigns in the Morniverse and nothing is but glumness, glumness everywhere. Hibernate, run from me, or try to endure me - you cannot prevent me nor the keening grey sorrow of the moods I offer.
• nights
  [spirit] a popular phrase in my house... "oooo-kaaay..." (say it out loud, slightly like jim carrey *shudder*)
  
  [chalky] thanks... I think. I do my best.
• Chalky
  [Tuj] yes it did!

  [The Spirit of Winter]
  Bring on your frosts of spectre-grey, your frozen leaves and skies of dun! The weakening eye of day can never chill; for friendship doth not turn cold when that warm heart that beats deep within fires the furnace of goodwill. Thus shall this community seek the warmth of its homely hearth whilst the dregs of winter's spirit is humbled ...

• The Spirit of Winter
  [Chalky]OOOoooooOOOOh! Get you!
• nights
  [spirit, chalky] take it OUTSIDE, both of you!
• Tuj - Furcational Adjournment
  Is it time to grant it special status yet? I fancy an imposter's game, or summat...
• The Spirit of Winter
  I am outside.
• Jasmine - Err.?
  Hello!!!!
• Dujon - Hello to you too
  I'm a bit worried. You're not the jasmine to which my wife took her secateurs a couple of days ago are you? If you are I shall have to have a cup of tea a Bex and a good lie down. Oh dear, oh dear . . .
• rab - Special (i.e. no) service
  [Tuj] The SpecialStatus AddOn Pack (TM) has not yet been enabled, so, erm, no.
• nights
  a little off topic (no change there, then) but thank God it's Friday. has everyone else had a shocking week or is it just me?
• Chalky
  [nights] probably just you

  Bah! I enjoyed that poetic exchange and would have happily crossed further swords with the 'spirit', teetering, as we were, on the brink of yet another 'Winter versus Summer Debate'.
  So the follow-up disappointed somewhat, whilst bringing to mind Wot Dan Said in MCiOS a couple of weeks back [and I paraphrase] - anonymous posting by regulars is relatively harmless fun ... however, if the post is directed at a named person, perhaps it's fairer not to hide behind the cloak of anonymity?

  *throws down gauntlet in the spirit of goodwill* :-)

• flerdle
  [nights] it's not just you. blech.
• Bob the dog
  [nights/flerdle] Definitly not just you two. Too.
• Chalky
  Bob the dog! Good to see you :-)
• Bob the dog
  [Chalks] Likewise! I've not been as apparent as usual over the last few months, but I am very much still here. New job going well – chickens still pecky – children still boingy.
  I back Tuj for a game of impostors!
• The Spirit of Goodwill
  Ok, then.
• The Spirit of Goodwill
  Do you want your gauntlet back?
• Tuj - Not dead but... dormant
  rab] Well, assuming this Add On Pack (AOP) has resurrectional properties, I guess we can temporarily shuffle it below the line and go, with Bob the Dog's backing, for a game of imposters.
• nights
  [Bob] welcome back!!
  [rab] so what happened? I couldn't get in last night or all day today (that's trying via my home connection and up at university)
  [everyone] glad it wasn't just me. last week of term, woo!
• Bob the dog
  [nights] *Flattered* But I never left!
• nights
  [bob] ah but doesn't flattery get me... no wait, get me somewhere... everywhere? sorry, it's rather late and I'm a bit tired and emotional at the moment... hello anyway.
• ZK - racing frogs
  Who wants to race frogs with me? I want a league but need to invite people! Try www.racingfrogs.org.....it's a level of maintenance just under playing Celebdaq. And probably designed for 14-year-olds. But shhh....
• Dujon - Food, food, food!
  I think escargot is more my pace.
• Inkspot - slurg on a lily pad
  [ZK] My frog is in training, do you have a frog in each area.

  On the weekend we went out and bought our Christmas tree. After I had put on the lights it was for the boys to hang the decorations on the tree. Francis, likes to let Owen know the benefits of being his big brother, as frequently as possible. Putting baubles on the tree he was able to put his extra height to advantage “…and another one up here, and this one can go near the top over here…”. Being the uneven handed dad I am I helped Owen put a couple at the same height to end that bit of squabbling. Which left Tom the toddler, who with a little bit of help was able to put the fairy on top and with the highest bauble. The finished tree looks wonderful.

• Nik
  I'd already done the racing frogs thing. They started making it more and more biased towards people buying the book and/or paying to enter the VIP room, by eg giving a "pike detector" to all those who'd paid. And it's... well, it's tedious, once the novelty wears off.
• Projoy - minibug
  [rab] Might you be able to put a chevron on a tag in the limerick game?
• rab
  [Projoy] Thanks for locating it... Netscape managed to render the page properly so I never saw the damage it caused on other browsers. Can you check it's properly fixed? Oh, and congratulations to Raak for discovering one of the bugs in the html checker. *fumbles in prize box* Here, have the 1995 copy of the Edinburgh and Lothians edition of "The Phone Book".
• Projoy - Yep, all fixed.
• Breadmaster - Frogs
  Ooh, looks like very silly fun. Which pond are you in, ZK?
• flerdle
  cute bear...
• nights
  [rab] I like the bear...
  
  [ZK] nice to see you again... obviously the Univesity of Birmingham doesn't give people enough work... :p
  
  [ink] stop it, I'm missing my unstoppable family already at the moment, and you're not helping. Doesn't help that I'm so close to going home...
• ZK
  [Breadmaster] Windymore Lake, I think. Tend to race in Fergal's Cove.
  [nights] Thankyou *blushes* I'd like to give the University credit for my constant absenteeism, in fact it was my drama group and its criminal rehearsal-cum-social schedule, and my boyfriend, wot's been keeping me occupied. The University kept me busy a bit though :) Semester over?
• penelope - it's all getting a bit hectic...
  Can you believe it - I had a dream last night in which - due to a horrible hairdressing mistake - my hair turned blonde. What a nightmare...
• nights
  [pen] I think you'd look simply dashing as a blonde.
  
  [ZK] teaching finishes tomorrow, thank God... although I'm going to be down here until december 23 working for *a certain well known UK based supermarket chain* because, let's face it, ALL students are poor and I need the overtime...
• Chalky - .. trying to attract rab's attention ..
  hey rab - are you there?
• Boolbar
  [pen] No, don't go blonde - perhaps dark purple? That'll look good. [BtD] Gorgeous! [nights] hectic - just hectic. [rab] nice bear. [spirit of winter] Rum. [mince pie] *scoff*
• Uncle Korky - Guess Who
  Catching up with a thread from above... I'm up for an imposters game as well.
• penelope - *burp*
• penelope
  oops - what I meant to say was...
  Number of meals out in the past 18 hours - 2.
  Number of meals out in the past 18 hours that the boss has paid for - 2
  Mince pies - 1 (same as at 9am, nothing to add here)
• penelope
  Should I be expecting a P45 or an invitation to join the Directors of the company?
• nights
  possibly both.
• JLE
  An invitation to join the Directors of the company in *what*?
• rab - Attended
  [Chalky] No, I've been sent to Coventry. (Literally).
• Tuj - Furcating
  rab] Any news on El Furco's special status? I tried to shuffle it 'neath the line for a while to free up space for (probably) an imposters' game, but it dint work... Coventry nice?
• penelope - Romance?
  It's On. It's Off. It's On again, but not for another three weeks... Time to call Emergency Boyfriend #1. *sigh*
• nights
  [pen] (((((((((((((hug)))))))))))))) it'll work out for the best - whatever the hell THAT might be. this is my first Christmas working in retail as opposed to catering. I'm certainly NOT loving it.
• rab - Grrr to cold weather
  I'm ill and God I wish I weren't. I know it's only coldy/fluey stuff (at least I think that's all it is, might get the Doc to give me some sympathy in the morning, or at least to tell me to bugger off from wasting their time) but it's that kind of "I know it's going to get worse before it gets better" thing going on. Time to go home and retreat under the duvet in front of the telly I think. Good luck, pen.
• Bob the dog - Sent to Coventry
  [rab] Coventry is not far from me if you fancy a pint..?
• penelope - Man 'Flu
  [rab] If it's bad... go to bed. Keep hot. Drink plenty of fluids and sleep. Don't drag yourself around if you feel shitty, you only spread it around anyway!
  [In other news] Thanks goodness for emergency boyfriends...
• Chalky - Christmas Quiz
  
  I've posted a Christmas Quiz if anyone's interested. It's also in Orange MC where there was another free game slot.
• Knobbly - [heading in the blue box at the top]
  Can you really post lonely hearts adverts?
• penelope - lonely hearts are lonely for a reason...
  [Knobbly] You can... although you risk attracting someone who thinks that Mornington Crescent is a fun thing to do. Is that really what you want?
• nights
  [rab] fluids are the key, and not doing anything also helps, in my experience. [in other news] thanks to work I had trouble focusing by the end of my shift today *sob*
• snorgle - but what reason?
  [Knobbly]Well, someone did before - last year, I think.
• rab - I do
  [snorgle] 'twas Darren, if I recall.

  I expect I'll be buggering off home shortly. The flu didn't come in the end; however, a (potentially nasty) ear infection did. The nice doctor gave me enough antibiotics to kill a horse and it seems to be clearing. Won't be until Christmas Eve till I get the full all-clear (and, with luck, internet access from home) so I'm not in the most joyful and triumphant mood just now. Heigh-ho.

  *exits jingling bells*

• Uncle Korky - Would ya believe it?!
  Just found two cats abandoned at an empty council house. Called the RSPCA. They told me that they don't deal with abandoned cats! So much for their advertising campaign!
• penelope - blimey
  [UK] That's why the Cat Protection League exists. You should have someone locally who looks after them. Failing that, try the local paper for an appeal...
• snorgle - pussy cats
  The Cats Protection League are usually more helpful - if you can get a local phone number, a real cat lover may come out and be willing to take them in. The RSPCA are usually hopeless, from what I've heard. At least with dogs, you can usually get the police to take them, I'm not sure about cats.
• Uncle Korky - We are not amewsed
  I went for them purely because we knew where the outgoing tenants went and I wanted them to go for a prosecution. Fortunately, one of my colleagues used to be an Animal Warden, and had the numbers of several RSPCA officers on her mobile. She called one of them and briefed him; he straight away got onto the outgoing tenants at their new address and got them to pick up the cats there and then in his prescence. Just goes to show it's not what you know, but who!
• snorgle - miow
  Good job, UK!
• Inkspot - More quizes
  Cross posting
  I take part in a couple of quizzes on-line and have created a testing ground group on MSN. If you like this one I will do another longer one next week. There are only two rules
  1. only one answer per posting
  2. no consecutive posting.
• snorgle - It's quiet..
  in the morniverse! I think most people must be off doing Xmassy things.. I'm still in work, but will probably have a half day with boozing this pm.
• Inkspot - who eat all the pies
  Still working hard as ever at work, last day having a break till 4 January. The sausage rolls, coke and mince pies have arrived for lunch.
• Uncle Korky - Ho hum...
  Still working... will be tomorrow also... back in on 30th... bah!
• snorgle - ho ho ho
  MMmm. chocolates, crisps, nibbles, wine..
• snorgle - Oh, and
  not back in till January 10th. Yay! New Year in Dublin coming up..
• pnelope - Mincing
  Mince pie in lieu of lunch, but a meeting at 1pm, so looks like I have to keep my work hat on for a couple more hours. After this, I'm not back in the office until 4th Jan :o)
• ImNotJohn - bits to the grindstone
  Still working normally today. Working from home (yeah, right) tomorrow, then off until 4th Jan including seeing the New Year in in Paris.
• plump - What holiday?
  Working till 9pm today and tomorrow. Back at work on 27th every day till 3rd. I resisted the offer of overtime on Xmas day and Boxing day. Sob
• rab - Whee!
  Mr BT's been and gone so I can now do this at home, kids. The engineer seemed very surprised that there was a line in situ already and he didn't actually need to do anything that couldn't have been done at the exchange. I've been trying to tell BT this for two months. Now, let's see if I can get that 75 quid back then, shall I?

  Merry Christmas, One and All. I'll pop my head round the door from Edinburgh the next couple of days, before shooting down south to see the family. This would be Total Holiday if it weren't for the fact I should really apply for a permanent job that's come up and that has a deadline in January.

• Inkspot - More Seasoning
  Merry Christmas to all. The presents are wrapped. A mince pie and carrot have been left out, crossing my fingers for a seven o' clock lie in ;)
  Over at Celebdaq, Celebrity Mornington Crescent itis a special congratulations to Christmas No1 DrQ.
  It is also a sad farewell from CMC to long time Celebdaq player Chalky.
• Uncle Korky
  (Cross-posting) Merry Christmas, everyone!
• rab - Wishu
  We wishu a merry Chrimulus. Pass the sherry, vicar.
• Inkspot - ...two front teeth
  Seven was realistic but in the end we were woken up by Owen at just gone six. But it has been a good Christmas Day with lots of giving and receiving. Lord of the Rings extended box set, Monsterous Regiment, J J Cale - Anyway the Wind Blows - The Anthology, and best of all Brazil on DVD; No jumpers, no ties, no shirts for work. A very good Christmas indeed.
• Bob the dog - thank goodness that is over
  Same as Inkspot - awoken at 6ish by excited eight year old. We had a non-traditional day, spending dinnertime at local Thai Boathouse restaurant (really good - highly recommended). We entertained guests in the evening with a buffet that no-one had any room for. Masses of pants and socks - surprisingly pleasant day!
• polly1337 - wtf is apropos??
  BEN OWNS
• nights
  internet tourettes there? cuh. merry christmas everyone. we had a very sedate christmas which is most unlike us. back at university on the tenth, but home for a week then back at *a certain well-know UK based supermarket chain* on friday. and russian politics research in the meantime. oh, and make sure you watch tomb raider, which is on TV either tonight or tomorrow...
• Inkspot - Yesterdays news
  As a habit over Christmas I don't buy a newspaper and avoid the tv news, World War III could break out, I just would not know. The major concern is how many more days is this turkey going to last.

  Arriving back from more drinks in time to see Mr Bean. I was knocked out of my revellry my the pictures from Sri Lanka on the ITV News. The incredible devastation of this Act of God, visited on so many thousands, has taken my own jollity of celebrating the birth of the Son of God seem hollow. Tonight I am restless, trying not to think.

• penelope - projects underway
  Wa-hey! For the first time in ages, and at the risk of appearing anti-social, I've had the chance to mooch about undisturbed at home, and in addition to a satisfyingly long walk in lovely winter sunshine this afternoon (the third such walk this holiday - I'm doing really well), I've got the printer set up ready to produce my masterpiece photos saved up from various trips this year. Cooooooool :o). I'm a bit frantic about going to a rather smart New Year party tomorrow night though - it necessitated the purchase of a velvet coat. Will report back with results. How many people, when pissed, will think that I'm Lisa Tarbuck? Guesses please!
• Dunx - Tarbyness
  [pen] Cultivate a very slight Scouse accent and you'll be set.
• nights
  being as noone else has said it, happy new year. hope 2005 is everything everyone wants it to be.
• penelisatabuckelope
  omigod... I didn't get recognised at all! The party was just too posh and too arty for anyone to have even watched ITV!
• penelisatarbuckelope
  And a Happy New Year to you lot too! :o)
• Tuj - 5
  To all a happy new year!
• Tuj - 0things
  I'm pretty sure I typed "05" in my first Apropos... who stole it?
• nights
  wasn't me.
• penelope
  [Tuj] I ain't not stolen nuffink ;o)
• 0ooo... - boo!
  Catch me if you can!
• Zzzzzz
  mmmmmm...what...? noisey youngsters!
• Inkspot - put the kettle on
  The office is quiet, everyone seems to be in shock at being back at work. Thankfully very few emails.
• Blob - Cute Teddy
  Am I right in thinking that the little Teddy currently making an appearance top left of the Welcome (Menu) Page originally exhibited him~(or indeed her~)self on Rick's Beer powereed MC site of blessèd memory ? Or am I befuddled ? Happy New Year BTW.
• nights
  I haven't had any email since about december 23. I love university vacations.
  On a sidenote, happy birthday me...
• ImNotJohn
  HBTY
  HBTY
  HBDN
  HBTY
• penelope
  [nights] Happy Biirthday! I suppose that makes you ancient, like the rest of us, now?
• nights
  [pen] shut up shut up shut up. I'm only 20.
• penelope
  [nights] *splits ancient sides laughing and loses dentures* I'm forty this year, you young fool. I'm still not old!
• nights
  [pen] and with an attitude like that, you never will be. more alcohol!!
• Boolbar - XL-ent
  [pen] No, at 40 you are still a youngster! (Well I am anyway).
• penelope
  [Boolbar] I know I'm still young - I've just installed broadband at home and only had to shout at one technical helpdesk person. I tried the old trick, calling again in the hope of talking to another techie, and it worked. This one knew what I was talking about and helped me install the right modem drivers. Only problem is, I have to sit on the bottom step of the stairs so that all the cables reach. The plan is to go wireless too, as both my flatmate and I want broadband on our laptops. At this rate, I'm going to have a house full of spaghetti.
• penelope
  Bloody hell it's fast :o)
• Nik - Warning, team!
  I'm migrating to a new ISP. This will mean new IP addresses, and so a longer downtime than the last change, because DNS will have to be changed. Should be 2 days or so, and not for a couple of weeks.
• rab - Yule never believe it.
  Happy New Year to you all. I've had an, um, interesting Festive Period. Some of it is fairly standard seasonal stuff, such as most of the railway notwork being switched off for the duration of the holiday season, entailing a couple of hundred passengers all having to disembark at Leamington Spa and then proceed through a single set of double doors to watch buses hang around outside the station for a few minutes with doors resolutely closed before then departing, empty, into the sunset. The rest, however, is less so and I hope you excuse my indulgence of reporting it here, especially when we've been reminded of the true meaning of the word 'disaster' the last few days.

  The plan was to have a quiet couple of days with the immediate family at my brother's house, taking a short trip down the road to have lunch with my Grandparents, Uncle and Aunt. To begin with, I was unsure as to whether I'd be able to go down south as my doctor had muttered something about the possibility of needing some mildly urgent surgery if the drugs she gave me didn't do what they were supposed to do. Luckily, the drugs did and I very nearly managed to avoid hospitals for the duration.

  Unfortunately, Grandma was admitted a few days before Christmas, needing (I believe) a minor repair to her leg. So we went and chatted to her, and she seemed ok, if a little pissed off and bored. (This exacerbated by the fact that the women's magazines in the hospital shop were deemed by her 'pornographic'. She has a point.) I presented her with a gift of stationery that she had asked for, presumably so she could continue to compose her wacky free-form-jazz letters from time to time, which I said I enjoyed receiving (which much is true).

  We then ambled across to her house where Grandad and the Aunt and Uncle were in situ for the second (of three) Christmas meals. This was all very jolly: Grandad's not entirely compos-mentis these days, but still tells a funny story or two. Unfortunately we had to break up the party atmosphere by taking him to a care home (he's not compos-mentis enough to be able to look after himself when Grandma's away). I can't say I felt entirely at ease with all the incumbents of the institution, but I suppose that's the way these places are. And I'm sure Grandad knows how to fend off the advances of dotty old ladies. Anyway, apart from some hoo-hah about medication and managing to kill a kamikaze deer that ran into the car on the way, this all passed off smoothly. We all, apart from my father (who was driving) slept in the car on the way home.

  Understandably, Dad needs an early night. And what does he do, but trip on the stair leading into the bathroom and need taking to Casualty? He returns two hours later with his foot in plaster and hobbling about on crutches. To add excitement to the proceedings, my brother lives in a Victorian house where the loo is downstairs and the sleeping quarters up...

  I learnt today that sadly, I shall not be receiving any more of Grandma's trademark letters on account of her passing away this morning. I'm told it happened as quickly and as peacefully as one can hope for once they realised the treatment she was on wasn't working and there was nothing more that could be done.

• Dunx
  [rab] I'm sorry to hear about your grandmother.
• nights
  [rab] likewise, my condolences on losing your grandma. my thoughts are with you at what I know is a really difficult time.
• Chalky
  [rab] aww - hope she had a wonderful life. I really loved all three of my grandmothers [don't ask!] and they've all gone now and although they appear in my dreams on a regular basis, I miss them dreadfully.
• Darren
  [rab] Sorry to hear about that. I, too, have lost both my grandmothers but I only ever knew one of them. Still, one can't wind back the clock without being literal about it.
• Tuj
  [rab] All sympathies extended. I lost a grandparent for the first time at the end of last summer, and it knocks you flat to think that someone who has had such an effect on your life and who you are has gone.
• Bob the dog
  [rab] I hope Grandpa is going to be OK. Best wishes to you and your family after what sounds like a glum Christmas.
• Nik - ISP move
  Coo, new ISP is impressive. Migration is booked for the 13th, and they've already given me my IP addresses. This means that I can, in theory, set it all up to fail over fairly gracefully.
• Nik
  Crap, perhaps I should read the recent moves before posting. My condolences as well, Rab.
• Dujon
  [rab] Might I add my commiseration to those already expressed? Regrettably most of us have to experience such events at some stage of our lives.
  On a brighter note, your father must have received wonderful service at the hospital. If you had that problem here (at least in New South Wales) I'd lay odds on a minimum five hour turnaround and more likely eight. Some ten years or so ago I had a "bit of a turn" and was carted off to my local hospital by ambulance; the ambos weren't sure whether it was a heart thing or not. I lay in the A&E on a stretcher bed for five hours before a doctor saw me. This was a weekday afternoon, not the weekend. As best I can gather from the press the situation is much worse these days. So, congratulations to your health department and your local doctors.
  I hope your grandfather is found decent long term care and that your father has a short recuperation.
• rab - Tx
  Thanks, all. [Nik] Which ISP is that. I'm looking at getting adsl, but am a bit befuddled by the myriad of resellings of the same package.
• CdM - runs in late and adds another condolence to the pile
• Nik
  I'm moving to Zen as they've long held a reputation similar to Nildram, but are currently a lot cheaper (only £1 less on the basic unmetered 512kbps package, but with free static IP blocks, where Nildram charge £3.50 for a single IP then £5.88 for a block of 8). The price difference wasn't enough to move, but Nildram's stability has been shocking for the last few months. It might be worth you checking out ADSLGuide - look at the 'fastest ISPs' chart, then poke around the forums for some of those ISPs.
• rab - Suspect packages
  I don't have any flashy requirements (like fixed IP, or the need for decent upstream speeds or even email/webspace) so what I can't decide is whether a basic package whose only limitation that might affect me would be a bandwidth cap of something like 1 or 2 Gb a month, or if it's worth the extra few quid a month for an uncapped service. I don't do any internet gaming, download movies or whatever. The only big downloads I do are new software packages (I'm not doing anymore OS updates since the last one killed my laptop for a bit). I guess the question I ask is, how much bandwidth does a fairly normal amount of web browsing and the odd bit of ssh and scping actually consume?
• rab
  Oh, and the other issue, of course, is that my only computer is a Mac, so a Mac-aware (if not outright friendly) ISP would be a bonus. In any case, I'll want to purchase an ethernet modem that's compatible with my wireless box.
• Nik
  General surfing doesn't use much - I tend not to transfer more than 1-2GB *total*, running the web and email servers on top, and I use BitTorrent every now and again. As for atypical system support, I've no idea who does what well, although I would expect companies like Zen and Nildram to be better than volume providers like AOL and Wannado.
• rab - Straightness
  So, let's get this straight, even running a web server you use less than 2Gb a month?
• Nik
  From the Nildram access stats, "Total time on-line was 40 days 3:12:56s, during which time 2.206 GB were transferred." - this was the connection that went squiffy over christmas. It hasn't noticed me being dis/connected since then. I believe the 'transferred' figure includes uploads as well as downloads, but can't be sure. Most providers cap based on downloads and ignore uploads anyway. And let's face it, it's not a very busy web server (mostly text, which is all compressed for transfer).

  On the other hand, er: 'You made 2 connections during October. Total time on-line was 17 days 23:28:28s, during which time 9.990 GB were transferred.' and 'You made 1 connections during September. Total time on-line was 38 days 4:43s, during which time 4.784 GB were transferred.' I was a very heavy BitTorrent user around that time, though.

• Inkspot - broken link
  [Nik] Tried Adsl Guide just the site I needed back in September ;^)
• Chalky - Limerickers
  Please don't take offence because you know I love you all dearly and all that boll*cks - but The Limerick Game - gah!
  Proper names should have Capital Letters
  The first line should begin with a Capital letter
  There's too much inconsequential nattering which breaks the flow
  Finally - do we have to go to the far end of a fart every time something remotely 'welsh' is mentioned?
  :-) :-) :-)

  < mode=sarcastic > and yes, there really is a Chat Game on this server - you're reading it now < /s>

• Chalky - oo-er
  Methinks I got out of bed the wrong side this morning.
• Uncle Korky
  [Chalky] Well, at least it only took you two minutes to notice...! :-)
• Chalky
  [Incle Korks] I've had three cups of tea, so feel a bit better now. :-)
• Irouleguy - Chalky]
  I agree, but I couldn't resist the limerick line.
• nights
  also agreed, and I know I'm quite an offender. I promise to try and limerick things that make sense and scan, and use capital letters.
• rab - Pants
  Grrr... slightly annoyed with my ex-funding body, who've quite reasonably asked for a report on what their money was spent on. Unfortunately, the covering letter of their request directed me to a webpage containing the wrong set of guidance notes. Although these were sufficiently similar to make sense in the context of the rest of the documentation, the differences are enough to require a further heavy editing session. I so wanted this finished, like, last year. Fucktards.
• nights
  [rab] if it's any consolation, I'm currently putting together my section of a presentation on corruption under the Brezhnev regime in the soviet union. I had a text message while I was at work earlier from one of the group. "Hi (nights), hope you're getting on OK. I've been talking to (someone else), and apparently our presentation has to be quite analytical, so could you try and do that? thanks! see you tomorrow!".
  So instead of being in bed at the moment, I'm sat in front of word trying to pull analysis from a rather dark place. gaaaah. (dies.)
• Inkspot - The Incredibles
  A turbulent day with Prince Harry still front page (good for the celebdaq shares), Busted are splitting unfortunately - McFly are sticking it out, Jackie Stallone must be shown the door of the BB House (John to stay). MC⁵ returns.
• nights
  yes, hooray MC5 is back in my life. I was thinking that it was telewest being their usually competent selves.
• penelope
  It took until Sunday evening for MC5 to reappear on my interwebnet thingy ... but nice to see it again :o)
• Chalky - ooooh
  yay - it's taken 'til around now for it to appear on my screen aswell. Which gives me the opportunity to 'pologise to Rosie in particular for the 'far end of a fart .... anything remotely welsh' remark which looked much more vehement on screen than was intended.
• Rosie - Cambrian flatus
  (Chalky) Vehemence not detected. But you might have used a capital "W". :-)
• Uncle Korky - Since youy mentioned the Welsh...
  Just a suggestion (and I know it won't appeal to everyone) for a short game... The gauntlet has been thrown down in the latest Doctor Who Magazine, inviting readers to contribute to a sort of 'Welsh Film Club' (only using existing Doctor Who story titles as source material), to celebrate the filming of the new series in the valleys. Now, this is the sort of thing that I know we can do well. Anyone interested? The two examples provided were The Swansea Devils and Powys of the Daleks.
• Nik - MCISP5
  Is it just me, or is MC5 (and angrycake.com in general) responding more quickly with this new ISP? The time to move had apparently arrived a long time ago - everything about this new ISP is an improvement. And look, the old one has just charged me for the coming month! Gah!
• rab - Speedy
  Yes, it does seem faster. The Furcation Game seems to appear almost immediately, whereas I'm sure it was always a bit sluggish before.
• Rosie - Welsh Film Club
  (Uncle K) I think it's been done on ISIHAC. But anyway, there's Bridge over the River Wye.
• Rosie - WFC
  I forgot. It stars Gwynedd Paltrow.
• Uncle Korky
  [Rosie] The drawback, though, is that you can't use general film / TV title as your source material - it's Doctor Who stories only.
• Projoy - Wales...
  The Curse/Monster of Pen-y-fan
• Robin - WFC
  The Abominable Snowdon
• Darren
  [Nik/rab] For me, MC5 seems extremely slow. It's taking up to 30 seconds to respond each time.
• Dunx - Speedster
  [Nik/rab] Not really a noticeable difference here, but maybe 5,000 miles of perspective flattens the diffs out.
• Uncle Korky - Perhaps even...
  The Harlech Invasion of Earth
• Nik
  [Darren] Given that the server is now routed via a different ISP, the problems you had last year, and the lack of serious complaint from anyone else, I'd still (unhelpfully, I admit) lay the fault at the door of your ISP, or some route near to you. Do you have problems with other sites?
• Darren
  [Nik] No, no problems with other sites, although MC5 seems to be running alright now. It probably is my ISP.
• Rosie - Storiâu Meddyg Pwy
  (Uncle K) OK. So I'm sure you can translate the above.:-)
• Darren - Mae bronnau ardderchog da hi.
  And that.
• Uncle Korky - erm...
  [Rosie, Darren] I've tried a number of online translation services... with little luck. Can't work out your first word, Rosie, and I'm completely stumped on Darren's!
• Inkspot - time and space
  [UK] When is Dr Who scheduled for screening? I am looking forward to the series, especially on the special effects. Children's tv drama has a very low budget compared other areas. But if it is being made by the Drama dept the budget will be there but not the expertise to make good children's tv, afterall that should be the target audience not us Big People.
• Uncle Korky
  [Rosie] Aha - cracked yours, now. Obvious, really, in retrospect...
  [Darren] Yours seems to come out as... He is being breasts excellent good she?!
  [Inkspot] No formal announcement has been made as yet, but the smart money's on Easter Saturday. This is, of course, typical. I wait sixteen years - I mean, sixteen years - for a new series of Doctor Who, and I'm going to be out of the country when the first episode airs!
• rab - Designer baggage
  I am, perhaps, the only person who ever actually reads the terms and conditions of low-cost air carriers when making a booking. Occasionally it's worth it. I note that one airline says:

  We are not liable for the replacement cost of designer baggage which in itself is valuable and inappropriate to be carried by a low cost airline

  Amusingly, designer baggage is defined as

  baggage which bears a logo of a so-called designer manufacturer and is sold at inflated prices.

• snorgle - bagging
  [rab]They sound kind of bitter, don't they?
• Rosie - Cambrian jugs
  (Darren) Your example doesn't look grammatical to me and I wonder who put it together. Da means good, but ardderchog means wonderful, excellent etc and you wouldn't use both together. I suspect it should read mae bronnau ardderchog genni hi, literally, "there is (are) breasts wonderful with her". There's no verb "to have" in Welsh. The word genni is a conjugated part of gan, "with", and its ending means you can omit the pronoun it refers to, hi, in this case, and most people would, certainly in conversation.
• penelope
  I wonder what would happen if you checked in luggage in black bin liners - which are presumably appropriate for travel on a low cost carrier....
• Rosie
  (rab, pen) It's a bit like a notice on the door of a pub, saying "No suits, ties or dresses - this is a rough house". An amazing admission.
• Darren
  [Rosie] I've shown it to you before. It comes from an old Welsh-English phrase book, the translation for which it claims is "She has excellent breasts." Quite why they thought that would be a useful phrase I'm not sure.
• Darren
  Wow, all this time and nobody posted a response to that.
• Dujon - Welcome back
  Thanks, Nik. You can now go and get some sleep.
• Nik - Sleeping at a time like this
  As if!
• Chalky - hello Nik
  jolly good work :-)
  I think spoken Welsh is a truly beautiful sound
• Botherer - General hellos and thanks to Nik
  Well, just before I disappear to bed, about time I posted my first hello on MC5. My nanny corporate firewall/websense blocks this site out as it's a "game" site, apparently. Although in which sense of the word, I'm not sure. (And nary a mention of the fact it contains breasts.)
• Darren
  Breasts? Where? Whose?
• Rosie - Bronnau fel bryniau Eryri
  er . . . that's "breasts like the hills of Snowdonia". Probably a quotation. (Darren) I remember your phrase-book quote from MCpants days. It would probably be OK conversationally. My father's first language was Welsh and I picked up a lot from him, and from many other people, but I could hardly be called an authority. Part of what I know has been deliberately learnt but quite a lot is instinctive. My English speech is quite London.
• rab - Huzzah
  Nice to see the old place back. Thanks for your hard work, Nik.

  [Botherer] On the "List of Things To Do (Urgent)" is a Stealth Mode where all mentions of the word "game" are obscured. This might be useful in a workplace environment.

• penelope - 'G'morning!
  Nice to see everyone here. Coffee, Nik?
• Inkspot - Welsh speakers
  One of the nuggets from ploughing through LoTR extended remix (and brilliant it was to) was the Elvish languages Sindarin is based on Welsh.
  Good to see things back up again. Ace going Nik.
  
• nights
  go nik, yaaaay, etc. nice job. mc5 is back in my life! *sighs contentedly*
  
  I agree with whoever said that welsh is a lovely spoken language - my Dad doesn't. so for an april fools I tuned all of the stations on his car radio to BBCymru. they were still there a week later! and then he glued all of my post together. grr.
• Irouleguy - MC5 back/work
  Nik] Thanks for all your work - it's great to see this back. Botherer] These things are utterly random. My work's firewall allows me onto MC5 and MCIOS, but not Orange - anyone have any thoughts on why this might be so? Oh and did you see that the guy who lost £9 million of his company's money gambling was betting online from work up to 30 times a day. He obviously didn't have to worry about NSFW.
• Nik
  [Botherer] I think it's classed as a game because of removed-yonks-ago metatags on (www.)angrycake.com. Most annoying.
  [Irouleguy] The filter in place at my work used to block dunx.org, too. It stopped such foul practices some time ago now.
  I need sleep bad.
• Uncle Korky
  [Irouleguy] My corporate firewall sound pretty much the same as yours.
• Tuj - Yay, MC5
  :]] (big double chin grin. I might have to borrow someone else's face...)
• nights
  [nik] go sleep! after all that you deserve to sleep for about three years.
• Botherer - Corporate Nanny Sitters
  I can get onto both MCiOS and Orange from work, but not here. As I have (until recently) restricted my MCing to work (and what reason, pray, should I need to justify that stance?) this site has been sadly (for me, at any rate) (and I really should stop using so many parenthesis) neglected by me.
  
  The idea of using a proxy server has crossed my mind more than once, but I wonder if that might be classified as a "sackable offence"?
• Dujon - Penalties
  [Botherer] A 'sackable offence'? Is that where you have a barney with your partner and are then allowed to make up?
• nights
  [Dujon] you were up at the same time as me last night! were you revising too?
• Dujon - Writes and Wrongs
  [nights] Indeed. I've been revising my life over the last week or two in order to find out why I've such a wonderful wife. I still haven't found the solution.
• rab - Oh dear...
  I've got a flashy new computer on my desk, and unusally for work machines it not only has a sound card, but also has realplayer installed which means I can now listen to the radio instead of working.
• Darren
  [rab] Realplayer isn't a very safe piece of software to use. You might want to look at alternatives.
• Irouleguy - Realplayer
  Darren] Really - what's wrong with it?
• rab
  [Darren] Centrally-managed, only supported configuration blah blah blah. Can't even change the window focus policy.
• Rosie - Realplayer
  David Beckham is a Real player, or perhaps marketing feature. Don't go near it.
• Projoy - So the Danish Guy Dies...
  [rab] Nonstandard winning move on this game, rab?
• rab - Happiness is a Cigar called...
  The winning move is in the intro...
• nights
  [dujon] sounds more interesting than european migratory theory. really. but at least it came up on the exam.
  
  [rab] I can heartily recommend xfm - I get it on my spiffy digital radio and if you like rock it's very good indeed.
• Inkspot - Get up and boogie
  Monday morning << hugs >> to anyone passing. Hope you all had a great weekend, just waiting for the snow which seems to be avoiding this part of the world. If you are still on the post Christmas detox remember exercise can be done anywhere.
• penelope - Morning all!
  [Inkspot] You sound cheerful :o) We've got Sunshine here in NW London for the first time in DAYS... and mild too.
  [nights] oooh... Xfm, s'bloody marvellous. I have it on in the car all the time.
• nights - news and weather
  in local news, the gas men have been drilling outside my house since 13h yesterday, and show no signs of stopping now. I'm rather surprised I got any sleep. it's bright but without any direct sunlight in bath this morning, don't know how warm it is though, I haven't been outside yet. it's still a little too early to do anything except watch trisha.
  
  [pen] I hate to admit it but xfm was a major motivator for me asking for the radio for christmas. that and talksport.
• Blob - sunlight
  [nights] Of course you won't get direct sunlight in your bath - it's got to get through the water. And if you stay in there too long you'll get all wrinkly, then you'll sprout fins & gills and turn into a fish. You will.
  [DAB] I too had a DAB radio for Xmas - they're rather excellent aren't they. Trouble is good ole FM sounds crap by comparison so I want one for my car now !
• penelope - DAB
  I got a digital radio for xmas too, from my lovely sister and new brother-in-law. I'm a bit miffed at the way they're rolling out the features on this 'new technology' though - only FOUR programmable buttons when digital radio sells itself on the ability to provide hundreds of stations??? And worst of all... there's no jack plug to feed its output through a bigger stereo system, you're constrained to the small original speakers. Pffft. I think we've been bowled a lemon here, or whatever the metaphor is. I suppose a lemon is as good a mixer for metaphors as you can get, heheh
• nights
  [pen] which radio did you get? I got a hitachi one, which has five presets (which is enough for me - one, xfm, talksport, four, five) and a headphone jack. I had the hardware to run a connection from the radio to the stereo's in socket, so I'm away, if only with a bit too much bass.
  
  [bob] oh hee hee, not heard that before... *rolls eyes and stifles a yawn* :)
• Chalky - RUGBY PILG
  News posted in Pilg Game in Orange MC.
• Projoy - Hamlet?
  [rab] Doesn't appear to be Hamlet...
• rab - Certainly not
  I repeat the previous announcment "The winning move is in the intro...". The last two words of it, I believe.
• Tuj - 31/01/2005
  Message: Yay! Big happy smiles for everyone!! I have plenty of excess pleasedness, so everyone be joyous!
• penelope - joyousness
  [Tuj] I was looking for an excuse! So what's the occasion?
• Inkspot - Chocs away
  [pen] Today is Chocolate Day. A reason to give into temptation.
• nights
  oh what, I'm meant to have a reason?
• penelope
  I'm off the starting blocks way before anyone else on that one :o)
• Blob
  [pen] My Panasonic DAB has 10 presets at least (five buttons plus a +5 button - it may allow 15 actually, not sure.) You can store the same number for FM too. Having said that, as there aren't that many stations as yet I just turn the rotary knob till I get to the station I want coz. it simply cycles through stations rather than having to actually tune it in.
  [nights] Sorry for the yawnyness - but it was your lack of capitalisation of the fair city of Bath that made me make my comment - but I now see that you appear to eschew capitalisation completely.
• Chalky - eschewing [nights]
  ... but not on the 'I' word :-)
• penelope
  [Blob] Then my sister and new brother-in-law have been cheapskates and bought me a cheapo one... I only have four... but it does have an 'up' button and a 'down' button to scroll through all the hundreds of stations is knows alphabetically, which is pretty handy, as Xfm isn't that far from BBC Radio 4, and I just go straight past 'Yoof Radio'. heheheh!
• Bob the dog - Help needed!
  I've been asked to design a template email for the place where I work - you know the sort of thing - a header followed by contact details as a signature at the bottom. However, the only way I've found I can do this in Outlook is by saving all graphics into a signature. However, when I do this and click new message the email body appears above the logo. Does any one know how to put a header into an email properly?
• Raak
  [BtD] Abjure the heresy of embedded graphics in email! Tread the straight and narrow path of plain text only! If I received an email with a company logo in it, I'd never see the logo, because my mail program is set up to ignore graphics (and HTML).
• Projoy - Shoptalk, cross-posted too!
  Does anyone know any up-and-coming children's illustrators who would like an interesting (paid!) project - creating projected backdrops for a show I'm doing later in the year. UK-based is ideal, but could be anywhere in the UK. Email for more or see here for more background.
• rab - Cleanage
  [Projoy] Hope you don't mind, I corrected your email link.
• Bob the dog - pro(ject)joy
  Projoy] I do know someone - I will speak to them and let you know.
• nights
  [blob] no, I rarely use caps. it's just habit really, rest assured when writing properly (essay and such) caps are there in full glory. my aunt has complained that I never capitalise Bath in emails as well, so I'm just a serial offender.
  
  [chalky] pardon?
  
  [pen] down here, we get, and I quote, 'yarr radio' on digital. the amount of chris the ninja pirate gags is innumerable. new favourite station is talkSPORT as it doesn't distract me while revising. until I start shouting at the radio.
• Simons Mith - Email signatures
  [BtD] Google for 'email etiquette' and 'internet etiquette' and perhaps also cite some of that info to the people making you do this project. I killfile on HTML as well - companies have lost my custom for sending me HTML in emails after I asked them not to. Costing them five to ten grand in lost business, at a rough guess. (And companies who start out by sending me HTML-in-email never get my custom in the first place.) The fact that most people are ignorant of correct email etiquette - because no modern PC-based mailer I have seen has ever thought to mention the issue - doesn't mean we all are. And I for one do use it as a filtering critereon for who I will do business with.
• Projoy - email
  [rab] Much obliged.
• Raak - Bet you can't do this!
  Raise your right foot from the ground and make clockwise circles with it.
  While doing that, draw anticlockwise circles in the air with your right hand.
• nights
  [raak] how does that work then? I feel an utter fool.
• Raak
  [nights] No idea, it came up on a mailing list on biological control systems. For another surprise, try it with the right foot and left hand.
• rab - Whee!
  I'm typing this wirelessly from my new broadband connection. I'm amazed that it all works...
• Tuj - All
  Raak] Sorry, but I can do it... And the second one really easily (or was that the surprise!?)
  pen] No real reason. My happy side came out yesterday, so I ate Twixes and listened to new CDs and thought along the lines of "spread the love". I am getting worryingly dependent on Twix bars now though.
  anyone] Nice to see AVMA back on our screens.
• Raak
  [Tuj] Yes, that's the surprise. Opposite foot and hand don't interfere. I wonder if organists would find it easier, having learned to make their hands and feet work independently.
• Darren
  [Raak] Took a bit of effort but I was able to do it after a few tries. I found the trick was to set the hand going until you no longer thought about it, and then concentrated on the foot moving in the opposite direction.

  As for organists, I don't think they'd find it much easier, because the movements they make with their feet aren't hugely complicated - as far as I know, no more complicated than those a driver makes in a car with the pedals.

• nights
  hey I had an exam this morning, and it wasn't the evil colossus of doom I thought it would be. hey!
• Chalky - phew
  [nights] s'often the way. You nearly done, exam-wise?
  [btw - my comment above which you queried - I was referring to the word 'I' [as in first person] which you always capitalise, even if the rest of the sentence is lower case :-)]
• rab - Examination
  It disturbs me that the assessment aspect of degree programmes is given so much prominence these days. I say this both from empathy with the students, and as one of the people who has to mark the bloody things.
• Breadmaster
  But how can you evaluate without assessment?
• rab
  The key words of the last statement were "so much prominence".
• nights
  [bm] coursework - I have a 2000 word essay to turn in tomorrow which is MUCH better than an exam in that particular unit.
  
  [chalky] one more this afternoon, but that I'm not freaking about too much. and I'm going on holiday saturday night for a week which is something to look forward to. and I cap the I because I was taught at a very young age always to do it. it doesn't excuse not doing it the rest of the time, but... um... er... shut up.
  
  [rab] thanks. lots of people think that students are just stinking lamos, that we don't work, drink ourselves into oblivion every night of the week and then stay up until three the night before an exam/coursework deadline. of course, this is true some of the time, but by no means all. there was a bit in the student guardian (possibly one of my favourite things about university, a free digest of the week's news when I haven't had time to go anywhere near a paper that isn't Metro) about how students are determined to get value for money from degrees, and so are working their collective reproductive organs off trying to get firsts and distinctions and honours.
  
  on an unrelated note, what do you teach/mark?
• Projoy
  I'm a big fan of the notion of continuous assessment (i.e. such that the learner themself is able to input into evaluating the success of their endeavours). The worst forms of assessment IMO are those that have no continuity with the actual learning process, i.e. sit-down "blind" exams.
• nights
  [projoy] hear, hear. I had the last exam today - despite my bus not showing up and me having to run across campus to be a few minutes late, it wasn't too bad. now all I have left is the 2000 word essay, which is why I shall be on campus from 08h tomorrow. ouch.
• rab
  [nights] I do tutorials for mid-degree (i.e., round years 2&3, depending on the degree programme and education system) physics students. In practice this means that typically they've been in the game long enough to know what the deal is, and have got into a reasonable routine and habits regarding learning stuff, but still haven't quite reached the point where they'll voluntarily spend the whole day in the library/lab because they like it. (That kicks in around 3rd/4th year). Apparently I'm now a "senior tutor", which doesn't come with any extra money (in fact, I'm lucky it comes with any money at all) but does involve added responsibility. One of these is checking the exam papers, hand-in questions etc. all of which form part and parcel of the "assessment" that's going on. In practice, "checking" means "working through and making sure you can do it in 1/3-1/2 the time we expect the students to spend on it". Which is quite a lot of extra work, cos you have to get 100% as well...

  [nights, again] To be honest, I don't think that what you say has ever been true, at least not for the last 15 years or so. I think there's a whole bunch of myths that get irresponsibly perpetuated by ex-students about how all they did was drink, get laid and engage in oh-so-hilarious traffic-furniture relocation exercises. Though now I think about it...

  My gripe about assessment, apart from the obvious selfish one, is that for all the foreplay and aftermath that surrounds a formal exam is that, per hour of examination, I estimate you lose about one weeks' worth of time that could be used teaching people something. I'm still "out" on continuous assessment. I hated it as a student, but now I'm on "the other side" I've seen evidence that it can boost the performance of those in the bulk of the distribution. The lower end is always impossible to motivate, and the top end usually looks after itself but I do worry that if things become too prescribed they might get a bit bored. Personally, I advocate oral examinations since they give people the opportunity to reveal what they know, rather than what they don't. However, I realise most people feel quite intimidated by them so my feeling is that a mixture of sit-down, continuous assessment and scary viva would probably be the fairest system of all.

• Raak
  [rab] In other words, try every method of torture to see which one breaks them? :-)
• Botherer - Students
  I was a student once and if all they do is get drunk and laid, I missed out on 50% of my education. I'm not telling you which 50%, but you can probably guess...
• nights
  [botherer] never mind. get involved in sunday league football, that'll help redress the balance.
  
  [rab] I'm second year, and I think I'm at the stage you describe your physics students as being at. I *like* my subject, it interests me (finally), but I wouldn't stay on campus all day working on it because I like it. although I am today, but that's because I'm grossly disorganised. oh well, wish me luck.
• Projoy - continuous
  [rab] That's odd. When I was a student I hated discontinuous assesment (to the extent of picking my courses to avoid exams), but doing education work has led me to like it less, because it normally means continuous alertness to student needs (and a more constant flow of paperwork), which is harder than sitting back and regurgitating a load of stuff at students the same each year.
• Projoy
  (That's not an argument against it, btw, just an observation)...
• Projoy
  (er, and I meant "...doing education work has led me to like continuous assessment less...")

  *goes back to bed*

• Chalky
  um
• snorgle
  er?
• all
  wha?
• nights
  fuh? essay's done by the way. I think I'm going to explode with joy at the prospect of a week off...
• penelope
  *sandbags against the prospect of nights exploding with joy* i wish...
• Breadmaster
  [nights] Well, assessed coursework is still assessment, I should think. In any case, personally I don't mind exams, although perhaps that's because I'm all right at them (my BA was 100% exams, and all the exams took place within a single fortnight at the end). I'm not convinced by the argument that assessment is an ineffecient use of time because it could be better used teaching students things: I'd say that reinforcing stuff you've already been taught and ensuring that you actually know it properly rather than have just a vague memory of it - in other words, revising - is just as valuable as learning it the first time around, if not more so.
• Simons Mith - Maximising retention
  Best way to maximise the amount you can recall of what you have been taught is to review it after a day, a week, a month, a year, noting errors in your recall at each stage and concentrating on correcting them. I can vouch for the fact that it works, it's just that I for one was always far too lazy to do it properly.
• ZK
  sooooo.....what's happening?
• penelope - updatey
  [ZK] I am feeling delicate after a bloody good wedding yesterday. Recovering with the liberal application of tea and TV.
• Chalky
  Hello ZK - good to see you again :-)
  Hello pen - good to see you as always :-)
  I'm spending a bit of time on here 'googling' for 3 Characters for the quiz tonight. It's my turn in the chair and the last round involves giving information in 3 stages about a person and the scores are 5,3 or 1 depending on when the correct answer is given. I'm trying to be really fair and not choose subjects that the team I belong to will be able to answer straight away and score maximum points. Oh - and I have to cook a roast chicken dinner for 5 for around 5pm.
• Chalky - ...continuing
  Yum. I chose E M Forster, Peter Gabriel and Otto von Bismarck and have aimed for some tantalising first clues ...
• Raak - Two Bismarck trivia
  He had a country house built, called Schloss Kroechlendorff (been there, got the sweatshirt), and he said, "God made Austrians by crossing Bavarians with humans."
• Darren
  [Raak] So how do we tell him apart from Peter Gabriel?
• Botherer
  [Darren] Costumes. Gabriel will either be a giant flower or a fox, Bismarck will be a slightly camp military type.
• penelope - Breaking the silence
  [rab] Does being 'darlinged' give you a hangover the next morning? ;o)
• Blob - Bismarck et al
  [Chalky] I seem to remember [from my O-level history (over 25 years ago, eeek)] that OvB introduced Kulturkampf where he sought to reduce the power of the Catholic church in Germany, fairly successfully. He also tried to "kill socialism with kindness" - which was an interesting concept that mirrored Tsar Alexander's ill-fated attempts at liberalisation in Russia. Blimey it all comes flooding back ...
• Breadmaster
  Bismarck was great. He seems to have been prejudiced against more or less everyone apart from upper-class Protestant Prussians - remember he referred to Disraeli as "that old Jew" in a tone of grudging respect! And he had a dodgy tache too.
• rab - Break like the wind
  [pen] Is it supposed to?
• Inkspot - Stations End
  [rab] There seems to be a problem with Stations Revenge. There have been a few attempts at killing it so the unmasking can begin. Is it possible for you find out what the problem is and post the cure?
• Chalky - Why kill it?
• rab - Why not indeed...
• Chalky - again
  [Bismarck trivia contributors - thanks] Yes - it was an enlightening bit of research, however, I still can't find out the proper name for his trademark pointy topped helmet. Or indeed what type of creature nested in his 'tache.
• rab
  Whoops. The reason why the game won't end is quite amusing, if you know anything about Perl regexps. I'll put the fix in tonight - will need to check it works first, so am nervous about doing it in situ...
• Chalky - hasty revenge
  [rab] in situ as opposed to ...?
  [Inks] Further to my abrupt 'Why kill it?' - um.. it's still quite new - it's moving along at a steady pace - not every 'move' has been made yet - I just think there's some mileage in it compared to a couple of the other MC games.
  and another thing ... ROSIE!!
• Inkspot - sweet revenge
  [Chalky] I was just curious, but I am more than happy to carry on playing, are you?
• Darren
  [Chalky] I think he means he's deeply worried someone might try winning the game while he's working on it - big bangs, flashing lights, tape spewing on floor, "MALFUNCTION - DOES NOT COMPUTE," sparks, demolition of The Institute, "the reactor's gonna blow," alarms, emergency lighting, "dive! dive! dive!" and so on.
• Darren
  This new Chorkee - is it Chalky without glasses? Or perhaps the bizarre offspring of Chalky and Uncle Korky? Or maybe a very small Cherokee?
• Chalky
  [Inks] Yes indeed, which should tell you that it wasn't me trying to end the game .. or SO YOU THINK ...
  [Darren] Gosh. Joking apart - is it possible for a computer/server to malfunction to such an extent that it really would explode or even spark and sizzle a bit?
• Darren
  [Chalky] If the power supply goes, then yes. If they're overloaded, they will often overheat, and sometimes (like mine did last year) go "pop" and stop working - that's if you're lucky. Some will actually explode when they're overloaded. Some will simply make a loud bang and smoulder. Others may suddenly start pumping out more voltage than your machine can take, which could cause other things to go bang. So if you do a bit of home modification, do take care that you don't overload your PSU.
• Darren
  Oh, and buying a home fire extinguisher suitable for electrical fires won't go amiss either.
• rab - Mine, all mine
  Stations' Revenge should be winnable now... The downside is that you're no longer able to specify the winning move as a Perl regexp. Not that you were ever supposed to, of course.
• penelope - non-news is good news
  I have tidied my bedroom - the change is amazing! And I just cleaned out my mouse in the office - again, a huge improvement. My coffee this morning was good too. Just needed to share that with you...
• Inkspot - How clean is your...
  [pen]So just the belly buttoon fluff to tackle next. But where to do it. In private or at the office desk.
• Darren
  [Inkspot] No, do it in public. Sell tickets.
• Boolbar - Public hair
  Some people already show off their belly button fluff.
• Rosie - BBF
  (Boolbar) Tried the link. Amazing. You can find anything on the net, it seems. This rather discreet oldie is perplexed that anyone would want to put their name to such a site. But I did have a belly laugh, you might say.
• penelope - woo-hoo!!
  Today was another First Date Day. And it was good. :o)
• nights - *catches up*
• nights - *presses wrong key*
  I've been on a boat. man it was relaxing. anyway.
  
  [pen] yaaaay!
  
  [ZK] hello! how's lovely birmingham?
  
  [simons mith] I've been told that technique by my director of studies before. problem is I'm fantastically lazy.
  
  [Chalky] when I murdered my old computer (before the lovely laptop, before the faithful mac, there was the evil HP that had to be destroyed) I switched it from 240V to 115V.
  *BAANG!!!*
  *smoke*
  *fuses trip out*
  "(nights), WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON UP THERE?"
• Tuj - Ah, back again
  ...but what happened to Reverse 11?
• Tuj - Oh, and
  Any ideas for games in the slots? I was trying to think of something new and exciting, though I'm sure something old and exciting would be as good if not better.
• Rosie - New game
• Rosie - Let's have another go at that
  (Tuj) I found Clerihews Who (on MCiOS) quite agreeable. Not new and not exciting, I admit.
• penelope
  Rab and I had a funny online chat the other day, and I remember thinking 'This would make an interesting game' but I cannot, for the life of me, remember what it was. It might have been something along the lines of 'Best Excuse' or 'Customer Complaints'.
• Nik - Uptime
  Morning all. From the logs, the reason for the server disappearing is that 'the peer' (ie the ISP) is failing to respond to echo requests. The actual reason I don't know - the ISP not responding, the line dropping, etc. I've extended the interval between echo requests and increased the number of attempts, which may help. It was already set to immediately re-attempt connection up to 25 times, which it appears to not be doing, annoyingly, but I've changed that to 'unlimited' anyway.
• rab - Chattiness
  [pen] Was it something to do with "Autoglass Mobile" and how they're not, but they know someone who has a mobile?
• Nik - Uptime
  Hm. The outage over the weekend may have been caused by a massive outage in BT's Manchester centre, which it seems is rather a large single point of failure.
• nights
  is it bad that I didn't notice?
  
  How about a nice game of "imaginary crescent"?
• Nik
  I was myself substantially surprised to find the machines inaccessible and then, upon 'fixing' it, not find a mention on MCiOS.
• Chalky
  [Nik] I think it's known as 'polite outage' - much like a silent fart.
• nights
  oh, but that we should go for a whole day without a fart joke!
• Rosie
  (Chalky) I'm not convinced that silent farts are polite. If one is going to pollute, one should own up to it. Not that I would, mind.
• Chalky
  [Rosie] Hmmm - see what you mean. I thought I'd added the words '.. when there's no-one around' [which might make more sense of the analogy]
• Chalky - ... a bit later on
  I've created a game :-)
• st dogmael - politeness
  Politeness requires that one should try not to make a noise when expelling anal gas. It similarly requires that one should not make a noise upon discovering expelled anal gases. Thus society continues in a mutual agreement to ignore the occurence.
• nights
  sounds like a lot of heads being buried in sand to me...
• Boolbar - Mmmh, what's cooking?
  My father used to say "you're like a fart in a colander" to indicate uselessness. I don't know why that has just popped into my head or even why I'm bothering telling you lot, but there it is.
• Projoy - fart, fart, fart
  I think it's about time we invented some sort of pants-catalytic-converter. We take pains to minimise every other bad smell our bodies produce, so it would be quite in keeping.
• snorgle - fartish
  They have, you know.Click here for odour removal!
• Rosie - Gaseous eruptions
  (st d) I think burping noisily is more offensive (in a polite setting) than farting. You can always do it silently and the "product" is inoffensive. No-one need know. But you can't get away with a fart, however discreetly expelled. (Projoy) Now, there's a challenge I can't ignore, as a chemist. The simplest answer would be an appropriately-shaped pellet of activated charcoal taped to the bum in a gastight manner. It would need to be kept dry and be easily removable for obvious reasons. It would eventually (a month or so) become "full", so to speak, but could easily be regenerated by heating in an oven, the only problem being that everything it had absorbed would be driven off. Extractor on full blast, I feel. snorgle has got in while I was writing this and the link says it's been done already. I bet it's activated charcoal, though. Just a question of how you fix it.
• snorgle - charcoal
  [Rosie]Ah, maybe it would just be better to get some fresh activated charcoal. How do you activate charcoal anyway? Is there a big red button?
• Projoy - oho!
  [snorgle] There's a satisfied customer quote on that site: "The feeling of security!" from one Julie Anderson, which I initially read as Julie Andrews. Now there's an image.
• Projoy
  The whole problem with that product is the need to make the underwear airtight. Ewies. I did read once upon a time about tablets you can take (which I believe are also charcoal) to nullify smells. Any health risk?
• Chalky - ohdearohdearohdear
  [snorgs] Thanks - it's a fantastic site with a wealth of snigger potential. 'Wear them for the one you love' springs to mind as a suitable phrase for examination, given that possibly the most irritating and in-yer-face flatulence occurs beneath the duvet ...
• Projoy - Ah...
  Here's the page for aforementioned internal deodorant, although it's very coy about the fart business.
• rab
  [Chalky] "In-yer-face" and "beneath the duvet" was probably more information than I strictly needed.
• Chalky - oo-er
  [rab] sorry ... didn't realise you were looking in :-)
• nights
  so, what is everybody doing this friday night? and no I'm not trying to change the subject, just a natural progression in the conversation...
• Projoy
  I was supposed to be appearing as part of a work of art at Chelsea Art College for a final-year show. The artist invited me and some friends to be an installation, but it got cancelled due to lack of interest from other quarters. So I'm going to Wales, which I think is an appropriate response.
• Chalky
  [PJ] An installation? I love weird art - what would you have been doing?
  [nights] Celebrating a friend's birthday.
• penelope
  [nights] With a bit of luck, being seduced over dinner. Failing that, washing and ironing.
• nights
  [pen] if all else fails, come to Bath and *I'll* seduce you...
• Projoy
  [Chalky] It wasn't that weird, really, kind of lazy. She just wanted a couple of groups of people to stand around and get served canapés by waiters and chat. I assume the idea was that by putting me and my friends in a gallery we, and our social interactions would have been decontextualised so we became the subject of the viewer's critical analysis. Something like that.
• Projoy
  Which, I have to say, is the oldest trick in the book, only slightly leavened by the fact that standing around eating canapés and chatting is exactly what looks natural in a gallery, so we'd have been decontextualised and contextualised all at once, which may be a bit self-defeating.
• Raak
  [Projoy] But it would make the gallery seem less empty than it might otherwise, especially if the show was in danger of being cancelled for lack of interest. The idea occurs to me of an art show in which it only transpires afterwards that everyone there was an exhibit, no-one actually came to see it.
• Chalky - hoary old chestnut
  [Raak] But can it be considered Art if there is no audience?
• Projoy
  Well, in that case the art would be its own audience, which saves a lot of mucking about, really.
• nights
  [Projoy] stop it, you're making a customer-induced headache many times worse. stop it at once. yes I've been to work this evening, no it wasn't fun.
• Darren
  [Projoy] Hasn't someone done something *very* similar to that before? I seem to recall seeing it...
• CdM - meta-friendatanexhibition
  [Projoy] I presume you would have stood around discussing the visitors to the exhibit.
• Projoy - Ars gratia artis
  [Darren] I should think about, say, thousands of people have done something very similar to it. [CdM] Indeed. What else to discuss? It might have been quite funny if we'd been submitted as a portfolio piece and allowed to give the examiner a mark out of ten.
• Boolbar - art-lark
  Has anyone done the "art" of having an empty room, getting hired people to stand around in this room looking at and discussing the pieces of art that aren't really there and then letting the public come in and be slightly bewildered?
• Projoy
  Difficult to make plausible, I'd say, because most people move around galleries in silence or talking only in hushed tones. You'd somehow have to have your actors miming that there is art there, either by staring fixedly at particular points on the wall, or taking very obvious detours around things, craning neck etc.
• Projoy - Art for arseache
  Probably simpler just to issue a press release saying you've done something where the art and the audience were the same thing. Again, saves a lot of mucking about.
• Chalky
  .. as well as the cost of new clothes for the Emperor ..
• Darren
  [Projoy] "The art and the audience being the same thing" is reminiscent of John Cage's 4'33".
• penelope - quizzonicals
  [Chalks] Are you organising another pub quiz? We came across some interesting statistics today in 'Fleet News' - did you know...
  - Royal Mail has 25,636 vans in the UK, plus mopeds and lorries
  - Its annual mileage forcast is 590 million miles (18,437 miles per vehicle)
  - and it operates 115,000 post boxes.
  useful for that 'nearest million' tiebreaker question ;o)
• nights
  it'd be interesting to see how much wandering around campus I do in an academic year. strap an odometer on me, let's do some SCIENCE!
• Chalky - fleeting glimpse
  [penny penpenpen] Hey! When I was at EMAP , we 'launched' Fleet News - my mother worked on that publication for years and years :-) Good to hear some stats though, but doubt if I'll get the chance to use them this season, which ends in a few weeks for an Easter break.
  Did I really say that word? Easter?
  [nights] a pedometer might help :-)
• Darren
  [Chalky] EMAP, eh? I used to get a magazine they did... almost certainly a computer one (but I can't remember which), and definitely before all computer magazines turned crap.
• Rosie - EMAP
  They do er, "Steam Railway". I sent them a load of B&W pics I took in the late fifties as they had expressed an interest. They forgot about them. Then they lost them. Then they found them, and finally they sent them back. This took nearly 3 years. Amazingly, "Steam Railway" is quite a good magazine, if you're into that sort of thing.
• stehvelo
  That's hardly surprising, considering the vast quantity of royalty-free photography they obviously have access to (a.k.a. to which they obviously have access). Sounds like a tenderfull of fun and I'd order it right away but I can't afford the fee until my subscription to "B&W Steam Photography" expires/evaporates/condenses.
• Tuj - Steam Railway
  Rosie] Amazingly? I think "if you're into that sort of thing" means that the magazine would be quite good by definition - does it have much competition?
• Darren
  [Tuj] Oh, I wouldn't be so sure you'd automatically like a magazine just cos you're interested in the topic! I mean, I'm very much into retro games, but many of the magazines devoted to it are truly dreadful.
• Rosie - The Amazing Quality of Steam Railway
  (Tuj) Amazing that they produce quite a good magazine despite their apparent administrative incompetence with my photos. There's no competition, strictly speaking, because they are only concerned with preserved railways and are by far the leading magazine for that. There are other steam loco magazines devoted to the real steam era (mainly 50's and 60's), when engines were a bit grubby but really worked hard instead of poncing about at 25 mph with two coaches, and all dolled up with polished brass and gleaming paintwork but emitting vast plumes of black smoke because they're overfired by nervous incompetents. You can't say anything, of course, because tremendous amounts of labour go into the appearance of the engines but to me they look unreal, a bit like brickies at a posh wedding (snobby bugger).
• nights
  [chalky] bite me, I'm an arts student, I don't know any better
  
  [darren] I'm glad someone else recognises the rubbishness of games magazines. I remember amiga power and CVG with a sort of warm glow.
• Darren
  [nights] A mate of mine does CDs/DVDs with scans of classic games mags, good quality too (they include all the covertapes and stuff too)... if that sort of thing would interest you! (He spends more time than you would care to contemplate on obtaining and scanning all these mags.) The first ten years of C&VG are on one of these DVDs.
• nights
  [darren] wooooww... I was reading C&VG around 1997 - 1998 (around when tomb raider II came out, the article reviewing it started my tomb raider obsession) so if your friend has that period I'd be deeply interested...
• Darren
  [nights] Hehehe, C&VG started in November 1981, so the first ten years covers 1981-91, which I suspect may have been a little before your time! In the early days it was largely a type-in listings mag (initially aimed at those who had built computers from kits), and then shifted slightly into an 8-bit games review mag. From then on, it was on its way to being as it is now.
• Botherer - C&VG
  So I guess I'm not the only one who used to wait with baited breath for the next issue of C&VG with its BASIC game listing and, more importantly, error corrections from the previous issue's game?
• rab - Realtime Pilgomation Service
  Just in case anyone was unaware, there is a pilgrimage on 5th March. I for one am greatly looking forward to meeting the estimable Mr Dunx. Meanwhile, the Monday-night e-pilgs seem to have kicked orff again. The 'Easterners' (flerdle, Néa PaulWay) seem to be in by 8pm GMT (long before then, quite probably) with the 'Centralists' dribbling in a little later. If you've not been before, follow the 'Real Time...' link on MCiOS.
• Inkspot - games with my floppy
  I have become all nostalgic for the simpler games, shareware that small enough to fit on a floppy. One of the first we played in the office (during lunch) was Gods, a great little platform game. Just found it to download - wonderful.
• flerdle - early early
  [rab] Waaaaaah, want to pilgy-pilg! I don't know when I'll be returning to those shores, unfortunately - probably not for a long time.
  The e-pilgs have been much fun. Yes, I'm usually there earlier -- by 7pm GMT -- and a few others dribble in shortly after that... for me it's that time simply because it's already 11pm by then here and I usually can't stay for more than an hour or two.
• Inkspot - chatting away
  I'll try to make it but will be very late after I've finished being quizmaster in another chat room :(
• Darren - Gods
  [Inkspot] Although "Gods" is still a little too recent to be retro for me, the "Into the Wonderful" theme tune from it is actually one I do love playing on piano. Perhaps if enough people come to the Rugby pilg who are remember such games, I could play you a few classic gaming tunes on Projoy's piano.
• Nik - Shhh!
  [Inkspot] Gods wasn't shareware, it was good old comes-in-a-huge-box-for-£30 commercial software with a demo for magazine coverdisks. I hope it's been "abandoned" (or you got said demo) and you've not been using a works machine/connection to infringe copyright. Or that The Powers That Be don't find out, or care.
  [Darren] Can you also perform on your piano the theme tune from the other Bitmap Brothers side-scrolling platformer, Magic Pockets?
  I hope I'm remembering my publishers correctly here, and haven't just committed a terrible faux pas.
• Nik
  Nope, GODS is definitely not abandonware. It can in fact still be purchased, albeit peculiarly only for the Archimedes (someone ported their games to the Archimedes?! Good Lord!). And hurrah, faux pas avoided! Double points for me! But negative points for starting sentences with 'and' and 'but' in quick succession.
• Darren
  Magic Pockets, music by Richard Joseph (although somewhat originating with Betty Boo). I've met him a few times (and come to think of it I have a photo of him with me on my site). As for playing it, that voice is a bit too high even for me!
• Darren
  Correction: I have a photo I took of Richard on my site. Warren Pilkington has a photo of me with him.
• flerdle - chatties
  [chat] unfortunately, the innernet has been particularly unreliable this last five days or so, which has been highly frustrating -- so don't be surprised if I don't make it tonight, or am late, or if I disappear prematurely.
• nights
  I should be able to epilg from about 19h30 GMT as I'm home... hey, that's NOW! *heads for epilg*
• Boolbar - Going back a bit earlier.
  [C&VG] I had one of my games printed in C&VG back in 1985-ish. "Oggs' Eggs" Lovingly written in Atari BASIC. I got paid! Yey!
• Darren
  [Boolbar] Found it. Issue 44 (June 1985), pages 56 & 61, with ads for Atari, Dam Busters and Lode Runner in between! Actually says here you wrote it in 1982... took a while to get it published then!
• Boolbar
  [Darren] Sure did, by the time they published that I was into writing games written in machine code. The Atari is in the attic, I wonder if it still works . . .
• Darren
  Did you get any of your machine code efforts published anywhere? (I mean in boxed form, rather than magazines, of course.)
• Boolbar
  [Darren] No, they were purely for my own fun, since few games written for the old Atari 400/800 were any good ("Star Raiders" and "Mercenary" aside). I aimed for crude graphics, crude sound but very playable and increasing difficulty the longer you played.
• Darren
  There you have hit the nail on the head, as regards why I still play retro games. They tended to be a lot more playable. You had less in the way of graphics (generally speaking) and sound (also generally), but that made the programmers try all the harder to make games that were fun. I find many modern games extremely tiresome. I had my first computer in 1983 (an Acorn Electron), and that's the one where I first learnt to program. As time went on I moved through the C64, Amiga and now PC (not counting consoles). These days I have got myself a nice little retro collection, having added various other machines to the set (ranging from Atari 2600 to Spectrum to... well, Dreamcast!). I'm sure a part of it is simply nostalgia for childhood, but when it comes down to it, I really do find a lot of older games more entertaining than newer ones - even if the older games are not ones I grew up playing.
• Darren
  (OK, Dreamcast is too recent to be retro, but it is obsolete, which is half the battle!)
• rab
  Thanks - you've just provided some inspiration for the 'You know when...' game.
• Nik - 'Leccy
  [Darren] Cor, another one! That's you, Kevan, me and this guy (note: lots of swearing. Lots. It's also a games-related website, for those with bonus-annoying work nannies).
• Darren
  [Nik] Yeah, nothing like playing on the Elk. I still have a few. When I was at CGEUK I had the opportunity to fiddle with a heavily souped-up Turbo Electron (a photo is in my Yahoo album), which boasted a 256K RAM-drive among other things.
• Boolbar
  [Darren] I like your MC sims!
• Chalky - aaaargh
  [Boolbar] You obviously don't frequent the Orange MC chatgame.
  *switches off*
• Boolbar
  [Chalky] I just did - I haven't been there for 6 months by the looks of it.
  *Goes back to watching the pretty snowflakes*
• rab - Elktastic
  Add me to the pile of people who couldn't afford a BBC micro were proud owners of an Acorn Electron.
• Rosie - Acorn computers
  I've had an Acorn computer of one sort or another for over 20 years. The latest, if you can call it that, is the A7000. I use it for keeping my weather records, creating my own little games and general mathematical recreations. The BBC Basic is so easy to use I can write programs blindfold, pissed and hanging from the doorway (like the young lady from Norway). (Darren) I used to write machine code stuff on the Spectrum. What a bunch of nerds we all are. :-)
• Dujon - knerds
  Me too! Well, sort of. I began my computer career with a Commodore Vic 20. If memory serves me right it had 3.5K of memory and I thought that was somewhat extravagant. How times change. From there I progressed through a C64 an Amstrad 128 (colour!) and then into IBM compatibles - originally the 640K monsters and then the 286 processors and onwards.
  I have never coded in machine code but had an absolute ball (and much satisfaction) using the various breeds of BASIC. I feel that I must have had more time on my hands than I now do. I do remember 'inventing' a tree-sort programme in BASIC - it took me ages to get it working properly - only to find that I'd simply reinvented the wheel. Still, it worked well and put the 'bubble' sorts of the day to shame. Whilst I've taken the trouble to learn COBOL - because of where I was working at the time - I really have not progressed much further. I had (long forgotten) a smattering of 'C' and a couple of its later incarnations but was most assuredly not adept at either. All the later stuff seems too verbose to me. Bring back the days of tight code - someone else may not be able to read it but that's their problem!
• Breadmaster
  You know, I can still remember some of the POKE and PEEK codes for the Commodore 64. 53280 was to change the border colour, 53281 the screen colour. I felt just like a real programmer!And when I worked out how to do multicoloured sprites (in *four* colours) - well.
  
  Looks like an appropriate place to remind us of Hey Hey, 16k too...
• nights
  [preceding few posts] uhm... er... yeah... hey look it's snowing!
• Uncle Korky
  [nights] Not 'round our bloody way, it isn't! It's all melted, and it's now raining!
• Rosie - Steam-age computers
  (Breadmaster, Darren) Yep, happy days. I always thought POKE a bit rude and if you POKEd the wrong number in it all crashed. (nights, Uncle K) Up here on the Downs at Warlingham, aka Little Siberia, the houses are groaning under the weight of a good inch of snow. We were told to expect 10-15 centimetres (whatever they are) and more on hills (i.e. here). As someone who used to be in the business all I can say is that the forecast was hysterical.
• nights
  [uncle k] so where are you then?
• Uncle Korky
  [nights] I'm currently slaving away in my office in Barking.
• Darren
  [Rosie] BBC BASIC didn't have POKE, per se. It had other indirection operators, $, ? and !, which allowed memory to used rather like variables. For example, ?A=B would be the same as POKE A,B; and A=?B would be the same as A=PEEK(B). ! allowed 32-bit access rather than the 8-bit access provided by ?, and $ allowed string peeks/pokes. Furthermore, you could combine each operator with an offset, so A?2=B?4 would be equivalent to POKE A+2,PEEK(B+4) in other versions of BASIC. Although ? was arguably less clear than PEEK, ! and $ made memory access a lot clearer if you were dealing with larger data than single bytes. It also let you do some tricks which seemed mystifying to the uninitiated, such as CALL !-4 which would have the same effect as pressing the BREAK key!
• Darren
  [Rosie] Actually, since you still have an Acorn machine, you know all that already.
• Dujon
  [nights] Luddite!    ;-)
• Dujon
  [Rosie] I saw in my local paper today a couple of paragraphs indicating that Russian meteoroligsts will be fined should they get 'it' wrong. That'd spark up your whatsits!
• Rosie
  (Darren) Certainly do. But I used to POKE my Spectrum unmercifully. :-)
• Rosie - Russian meteorologists
  (Dujon) The perfect way of ensuring useless weather forecasts. Russian weathermen will now say there is a risk of everything but everyone will soon learn to ignore them, thus being caught out when there actually is a risk. So it's an absolutely brilliant idea. I think we may have more than a trace of it here. Have a look at my earlier posting.
• Breadmaster
  We had some sort of snow early in the week, which created the lightest of dustings which remained on the ground for almost an entire night. Then it all went wet and unsnowlike. Imagine my surprise to wake up this morning and see *real* snow actually lying on the ground all over the place. It's melting now, though. Somehow, such brief snow is worse than no snow at all, as it's so tantalising.
• nights
  [dujon] pardon me?
  
  we had a midnight screening of rocky horror last night for rag week. myself and my friend hid in the proj box and drank while the rest of the audience yelled 'ARSEHOLE!', 'SLUT!' and danced in the aisles and also on stage. and there's a couple of people I genuinely never want to see in a basque again. so I'm sleep deprivated but in a rather good mood. and it's FRIDAY!
• Breadmaster
  But does Friday really make much difference when you're a student...?
• Amy G - Arghhh
  Nights - are you from bath uni cos we did that too? and if you are I am very confused............
• Amy G
  Oh and breadmaster, friday nights make all the difference when your a student, well to some students anyway.............. Am I supposed to make up a cool name for myself? Do you only write on here at certain times? Where do you actually play this game? I think i would enjoy it if only I could figure out what the hell is going on I guess I am just not cool. Or un-cool. Or mis-cool. Or dis-cool. Or under-cool. Upset.
• Inkspot - Past your bath time.
  [Amy G] Welcome to the boards, the games are played here at MCiOS and Orange. It may all seem strange at first but this will pass with time; so I've been told.
• Darren
  [Amy G] Hi Amy G. I hope you weren't too put off by the intense moral discussions taking place on Orange at the moment! We're not normally that serious, unless someone splits an infinitive or something.
• Breadmaster
  You don't have to have a cool name. A stupid one will also do, as I demonstrate. You can write here at any time too.
• Rosie - Cool names
  (Amy G) Any name will do, provided it isn't 50 letters long. Silly names are welcome. Mine is, for instance, because I'm a bloke, and not a very young one either. There are no rules as such, but just conventions. Never post under someone else's name - that's very bad form. Write any time you like and welcome to the asylum.
• Tuj - Nom de plume &c
  Inkers] I've been frequenting the boards for nearly 4 years and it hasn't got any less strange. I like to think I've been able to contribute to that effect.
  Oh, and my name's origins involve York, Australians, boredom and archaeology.
• rab
  It's very rare that I'm ever accused of being 'cool'... Welcome aboard. I'm not Scottish.
• Rosie - Names
  (rab) Of course you're not. You're a one-time liberal Tory Home Secretary. (Tuj) That's an awful lot for 3 letters. I'm baffled. My own monicker is a nickname given to me in about 1967 and has a connection with my real name.
• nights
  [amy g] wow, yeah I am. weirdness. did you go thursday?
  
  [breadmaster] probably not because I work all day saturday, but you knew that already.
• penelope
  [amy g] Hello dear. Don't mind them, just come in and say what you think. My name is far posher than my rude comments might warrant, but I'm trying not to be too coarse today as you're new.
  Just had a rather weird transition - from a National Trust working holiday leader training weekend for conservation projects, talking big ideas, supervision, conservation and green stuff, eating white bread and cheap pink ham because that's all there is to eat in a National Trust basecamp in deepest Sussex, complete silence and darkness at night and midnight walks under a full moon over frozen fields back from the pub to sleeping bags in a dormitory (is that how you spell it? looks weird) with 12 others and one socket between us, no radio or TV... straight home and out again after a quick wash and brush up to a house-warming in the upper end of the Bucks commuter belt where no-one had ANYTHING to talk about but house prices (all above £400K) and football, which is apparently now the new gentelman's pursuit. I'm a bit baffled right now. No doubt work will set me straight in the morning.
• Tuj - Dormitories
  I have a afriend who is normally quite sensible and normal, but occasionally goes a bit edgy. In this state he often says in a slightly Teutonic way "I like dormitories". So yeh, that is how you spell it.
• Raak
  [Amy G] Welcome. I got back Sunday night from a Blake's 7/Babylon 5 convention in Hinckley, so that may give an idea of how silly I am.
• Uncle Korky
  [Amy G]Wotcha! As you can no doubt imagine, this is not my real name!
• rab - Get-away-from-it-all
  [pen] You can't beat a spot of isolation. Helps you get a sense of perspective, I find. Although, unless you're a hermit, it's best if the isolation is of finite duration.
• Inkspot - Staying in
  For all those playing Celebdaq, the towers have issued a statement. From Friday the holding period for full divi payout is being reduced to three days (midnight Monday to midnight Thursday). This will be a great, treadwater over the weekend then take a leisurely decision on Monday afternoon. Hopefully story on the week should be evident by then.
  [Raak] if I had known you were going to be away I would have recorded the rugby for you ;)
• Rosie - Silliness
  (Raak) I thought Blake's 7 was great. Always watched it. But that was then; this is now. Nice to know people are all a bit odd. Quotation from someone-or-other: "Normal people are those you don't know". Carry on. :-)
• nights
  is cleaning the oven with no gloves on going to make my hands hurt for a while, or will it make the skin fall off totally? I washed them hard afterwards...
• Darren - "washed" them, eh?
  It depends what you washed them with.
• penelope
  [nights] And depends what you cleaned the oven with too.. They'll probably drop off, whatever you used. And why was a student cleaning the oven??? That's incredible.Are you feeling OK?
• Botherer - All sorts
  [Amy G] Hello! Yes, we are all a bit eccentric, but sometimes we can be mildly amusing, so stick around.
  [pen] Sounds like... fun...
  [Raak] Hinkley? ;-)
• Tuj - I think...
  ...we scared Amy G of. Oops.
• Tuj - I must be dismebowelled!
  of/ off/ eff!
• Tuj
  On second thoughts, I'm not surprised in the slightest.
• Chalky
  [Tuj] well ... apart from you and nights, we're all a bit fogeyish :-)
• Boolbar - Oooh, me aching limbs...
  [Chalky] Fogeyish? Me? You? Never! Now pass around the Werthers Original and let's have a nice cup of tea and a sit down.
• Inkspot - St David's Day
  Good morining all. Only scored one in quiz last night and today is looking drab and cold outside. Milk no sugar please.
• Raak
  [Botherer] Actually, just outside Hinckley, at a hotel off Junction 1 of the M69. And speaking of motorway junctions, there was a short film shown at the con, called "Blake's Junction 7", in which Blake's 7 are imagined as a family stopping at a service station at 3 in the morning. Filmed on location at the Newport Pagnell service area.
• penelope - sounding off
  F*cking spam f*lters. We have a new one at work, and not only has it taken out an email from my sister in the US, telling me whether or not the birthday present for my neice arrived, but also a motor industry press bulletin - probably talking about 'sexy cars' - and a load of message failure reports which I need to be able to measure the delivery of press releases I send out. Not only that, but I've found that when I email our IT guy to ask for the messages back, he doesn't f*cking respond. I've sent him a very terse email already this morning, and my ire is still up. I need coffee and cigarettes.
  On the plus side, I can now tell you that my other sister (the one who married in October) is expecting a baby, and a chat friend in the US has sent me some over-the-counter wart treatment as a gift.
• nights
  [pen] last time I turned the oven on it smoked out the kitchen and set the smoke detectors off. and figuring no-one else would do it, I did it. used mr muscle, and washed hands wih cidal afterwards. the skin is still there this morning so it can't be too bad.
  
  I only just got up. I could do with coffee and cigarettes myself...
• penelope - handy
  [nights] Mr Muscle? You wimp. I thought you were talking about caustic soda or sugar soap or something really evil and stinky. If that's all it was, your hands won't drop off, but it might exacerbate that limpness in your wrists.
• Boolbar
  My oven is "self-cleaning". It doesn't.
• penelope
  [Boolbar] Maybe it just has low standards of cleanliness.
• rab - Strangeness
  What curious names people have these days. I just received an email from a chap called "Believer F. Management"...
• nights
  [pen] oh thanks VERY much. just because I don't want to spend the whole evening cleaning... that's it. I'm going to go out tonight, I'll be in a bad mood, have a crap time and it'll be YOUR fault... you keep your implications to yourSELF!
• Botherer
  [Raak] Ah, The Hanover International. Used to drive past it regularly. Preferred the Ullesthorpe Court replete with Golf Course me sen. You are excused... ;-)
• Tuj - Fogeyism
  Chalky] I do my best to act fogeyish, 'specially if I look at the !York archives and see how awful my posts were back when I first ventured out into this place I know call home. (lies)
• st d - Hangover International Hotel
  well that's what I read....
• Raak
  [st d] Maybe that's why they changed the name to the Hinckley Island.
• nights
  is it bad that I needed red bull to get through that lecture? it's one of my OPTIONS for God's sake. I CHOSE to study it. wtf?
  
  on the other hand I was playing tomb raider II till about 01h30... actually that's probably it.
• Rosie
  (nights) What lecture?
• Breadmaster
  Eeeeooo, Red Bull. Is there anything natural in that at all - even water? I'd never touch the stuff but my girlfriend is still capable of using it as a mixer and downing several, which I cannot believe is healthy at all. You're storing up trouble for the future, young nights!
• Darren
  [Breadmaster] Red Bull contains taurine, which was originally extracted from cattle. (Hence the name. The myth that it came from bulls' testicles is just that - a myth. The substance is found all over the body.) These days it's synthetic.
• Uncle Korky - Red Bull?!
  Ugh! To me, it has always looked like, and smelled like, urine. I am, naturally, not about to pass any comment on taste...
• penelope
  Red Bull has its uses - ie when you're at the far end of the M6, and home and bed are at the southern end of the M40. But yes, it does taste revolting, and I can almost feel it dissolving my teeth as I drink it
• penelope - One more question please
  What did I do to deserve this? I took a crash course in using QuarkExpress today, and now I have to prepare a page layout with pictures and edit, for the first time. I only had four hours sleep last night (don't ask) and about five hours the night before (again, don't ask but the answer isn't the same as if you'd asked the first time when I told you not to). Plus, fifty per cent of my team is leaving on a three-week holiday to NZ tonight, and I can't leave the office before he finishes off what he has to do and hands over the rest to me... it's already 5.15pm and I am pooped. :o(
• Darren
  For what it's worth, I think Red Bull tastes quite nice.
• Tuj - Red bullocks
  Red Bull does nothing for me really. On the other hand Lucozade... (or at a pinch Dr Pepper)
• Darren
  Lucozade is good stuff, and I love Dr Pepper too. I had some tonight.
• Tuj - Darren
  Alarmingly phrased, that (edges away)
• nights
  the lecture was french drama. something I normally enjoy. it tasted bizarre but I no longer had the overwhelming urge to put my head down on my notes and sleeeeeep. there was nothing in it natural, but it did the trick. so all's well.
• Botherer - pen
  Can I suggest you stop carping on about it here and get on with it...? ;-)
• penelope
  [Botherer]You can. But I wasn't actually doing anything at work, other than waiting for the NZ-bound colleague to finish what he was doing; I thought I was too knackered to start anything of my own. Anyway, I had a good night's sleep, and it all looks completely different this morning - we've had a good covering of snow here in Sunny Hertfordshire, for one thing. I think this is the first time in six years I've worn a hat to go to work.
  Was I carping? Sorry. I usually prefer to whinge.
• rab - pan
  Sounded more like a gripe to me :)
• nights
  I'd have said it was more like bellyaching.
• Boolbar - Cuss-tard
  [pen] Have a slice of this delicious pudding that can't stop complaining. It's an Apple Grumble.
• nights
  pun wars hoorah!
• Rosie - moaning
  (pen) Stop going on about your petty work problems. I'll tell you what a problem is. Looking after a partially-demented and hallucinating, partially incontinent, fairly deaf, arthritis-ridden 93-yr-old mother 24/7. I can barely go out these days and have had to give up my Big Band as I cannot leave her for 3 hours in the evening. There is much else, involving doctors, geriatricians, social services, powers of attorney and fuck knows what. I am totally knackered. You've no idea how infuriating the extremely elderly can be or how unnerving it is to have to deal with someone who is having frightening hallucinations. The only peace is the wee small hours, which fortunately agrees with my night-owl nature. It can't go on and she is due for Respite Care, at least I hope. Respite for me, that is. A fortnight's freedom. But then . . .
• Chalky
  Jeez Rosie - I didn't realise it'd got so serious.
  It's bad enough having your social/recreational freedom restricted, never mind being confined to a space with a loved one who is slowly and inexorably becoming an unpredictable stranger - no wonder you're resentful.
  Losing the Big Band thing must be particularly painful. I take it you can't get any cover for those 3 hours? I'm thinking - and this isn't as flippant as it sounds - wouldn't it be wonderful if there existed some sort of benign medication which, when administered, placed the patient in stasis. You could undertake all your filial obligations and when you need a break, pop her a pill, do your thing, and return with no harm done.
• Projoy
  [Chalky] I fear that as soon as someone invented such a pill, some people would spend 23 hours a day in stasis, especially in old folks' homes.
• Rosie
  (Chalky) The stasis pill would be a wonderful idea, but there isn't one. The nearest one can get is if she's in bed, and she sleeps well but needs to get up rather a lot for wee-wees. This is not always a reliable process (say no more). Sometimes she goes to bed early and I feel I can pop out for a swift 2 pints and a natter but I don't feel I ought to put pressure on her to do so. She has quite enough brain left to hate her situation and the problems she knows she causes me and the hallucinations are largely but not completely suppressed with medication. I have to be an accurate pill-adminstrator, 8 a day, 3 different types. (Projoy) You're probably right. It would be the easy way out and I'd feel guilty using it.
• Rosie - Ageing
  (Projoy) Just seen your contribution to "You know you're getting old . . ." So true. :-)
• Projoy
  [Rosie] Your story inspired my comment. :)
• penelope
  [Rosie] I've stopped. And I'm in total (but useless, admittedly) admiration.
• Rosie
  (pen) Well, don't stop entirely, but you know what I mean. :-) You may not think me so admirable if you could hear my muttered comments to myself as I go round the house.
• penelope
  [Rosie] In the general scheme of things, it's admirable. And cursing as you go around the house isn't bad, in the general scheme of things. I lost a parent to a long illness a couple of years ago, although my mother did most of the caring and my father was lucid and tolerant throughout. What we said to him, what we said to ourselves in private and what we said to each each other were different things.
• Rosie
  (pen) Thanks. In some ways these things bring out the best in people and as few of us are saints we then have to let go a bit. This doesn't matter as long as we don't hurt anyone. The case of your father sounds very like my father's death, too. He was 83 and quite all there but his body had given up. Between me and my mother his impending death was taboo and in many ways still is, even after 25 yrs. He was a lot older than my Mum and born in 1895, would you believe.
• Rosie
  No postings since Sunday night. I hope my sorry tale hasn't frightened people off. Come on, this is the banter page. :-)
• penelope - In Other News...
  [Rosie] I said something... then accidentally lost it, and was so frustrated, I didn't try to write it again - although it was along the lines of being amazed at two generations spanning three centuries - that's some feat. :o)
  We're out of biscuits in the office :o(
• nights
  we're out of biscuits at home. lucky I'm not easting them for lent. in other news the work has kicked in again after roughly a month off so I'll be looking for some sympathy later this evening when it doesn't make sense anymore.
• Boolbar - crumbs
  * looks at stash of biscuits in his drawer - closes drawer - keeps quiet *
• Breadmaster
  [nights] You'll get sympathy from me when I enjoy a month off, my lad! I don't recall that happening even when I was a student.
• nights
  when I say off, I mean "without any major course-credit-carrying-assigments". I actually only had a week off university, some of which I spent on holiday with my parents.
• Projoy
  [penelope, re: generations] My mother's father was born in 1870. She is 58 now.
• Rosie
  (Projoy) So your grandfather was 76 when she was born. I'm impressed, not to say incredulous.
• CdM - incredulity
  [Rosie] I know that sounds unlikely, but remember that at the time of conception he was probably only 75. On a different note, can I add one more note of both sympathy and admiration for what you are doing. I freely admit to relief at having been spared that ordeal with either of my parents: my mother died fairly rapidly (and as these things go, relatively painlessly) of cancer, and my father of a heart attack just as it was starting to seem that he was going to need full-time care. I witnessed the alternative -- at a distance -- with both of my grandmothers, and it is obviously very difficult for everyone involved.
• Darren
  [Rosie] When I was at school, there was a boy there whose father was in his 80s. (I know it sounds like one of those silly school rumours, but you'll have to trust me that this one was true. Apparently the dad had plenty of money and the rest is history.)
• Projoy
  [Rosie] Yep, your maths is right. It will perhaps ease your incredulity if I note that my grandmother was much younger than my grandfather (to the tune of just under fifty years, b. 1917).
• Uncle Korky
  Projoy] I bet he couldn't believe his luck!
• Projoy
  [UK] By all accounts, he felt totally entitled to it. :)
• Rosie
  (Projoy) Yes, I had to assume that. He must have been some fellow. (CdM) Thanks. One adjusts to each new little deterioration, up to a point.
• Kim - Re: [15]
  My firm has only recently rolled out a Spam Filter to stop us getting dozens of Spam messages inviting us to make money in our spare time, enlarge our organs, take temporary custody of large sums of money etc. These seem to come from people with very strange names. I had one today from "Alphonso T. Integers". I'm sure there's a game in this somewhere, waiting for someone with more imagination than me to institute it.
• Raak - Alphonso T. Integers
  [Kim] I think you've just given us the title of the game. Perhaps we could entertain each other by posting samples of real or imaginary spam messages?
• Uncle Korky - Improbable names
  Kim, Raak] I've been being deluged with these for over a year now on an e-mail address I can no longer use. It was quite amusing to start with, seeing the name on the message had been generated from two randomly-picked words from a dictionary, separated with a randon initial. However, the sheer weight of these meant I've had to look elsewhere for e-mail!
• nights
  it's funny that I receive virtually no spam (well I get messages that people have addressed to the entire department instead of one group), which is either good fortune or the university having a good spam filter.
• Dujon
  I was saddened to hear this morning that, as mentioned somewhere else in the Morniverse, that Dave Allen died on Thursday night . Whilst he hadn't performed for some time I have many fond memories of his shows. A great standup (well, sit down) comedian and coffee/beer/wine spluttering skit maker. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing any replays of his shows for far too long; I wonder whether they have dated. I've oft wondered whether his constant haranguing of the R.C. church has anything to do with his shows no longer being shown in this country. I think though that our local A.B.C. had the rights to his shows (though I am open to correction) so I suspect, until they finally shed the ultra-P.C. image which, in my opinion, they seem to exhibit, it will not happen.
• Rosie - Dave Allen
  That's what happens when you give up smoking. I'm sure his attitude to the RC Church was that of the subversive insider. It was great stuff, but seems ages ago now.
• st dogmael - dave allen
  According to many obits I have seen it seems that the non-briadcasting of his old material was due to his having evidently signed off the right contracts and retaining control over them and not wishing them to be broadcast.
• Darren
  [st d] That's what I'd heard too. There has been a bit of speculation that we'll see reruns of his material now he's passed on.
• penelope - spam-spammity-spam-spam
  Hurrah! I have just had permish to dump the spam-and-profanity filter which was applied to our server a couple of weeks ago. So far, it has removed automotive industry press releases, blocked the delivery of commissioned photographs, wiped out a message from my sister in the US telling me that the birthday present to my neice had arrived safely, and finally, today, blocked access to a website belonging to the main Essex newspaper. F*cking filters!
• Juxtapose - obligatory newbie rubbish
  What is the tag I should be using to mark a line through the page when I cap off a limerick or the like?
• Darren
  [Juxtapose] You want <hr>. No closing tag is required.
• Dujon - HTML tags
  [Juxtapose] You'll find pretty much all you need at http://mustela.phyast.pitt.edu/basichtml.html. This site was raised by Dr Q+ to assist all us ingorami.
• Dujon - Whoops. Simulposted.
• Rosie - Mater
  Mum went into an old people's home last Friday. I could just about cope but she'd become incontinent in the last week and that was just too much. I've visited her each day and she's now chatting to all the other old dears. This stimulus is good because at home she was bored and this tended to bring on the hallucinations. It's only supposed to be for a week, but she's now in the system and if they say she has to go back home (they won't, I'm pretty certain) I'll create an absolute stink. (Maybe not the best way of putting it). Thanks to all those who expressed sympathy. My freedom is more than tinged with sadness as I look around the house and see the various things associated with her. But time is a great healer. Just as well. :-)
• Juxtapose
  Thanks, D+D. [rosie] It's tough to know what the "right" thing is in a situation like that, even when the "best" thing is clear. I've moved in with my grandmother to help her take care of my granddad who is in a similar situation. It's hard when someone you've known and loved all your life doesn't know who you are anymore. I'm glad your situation has resolved itself harmoniously.
• Chalky
  [Rosie] Gosh - things have moved along very swiftly. I hope you've got lots of chums [apart from us lot :-)] to chat to.
  [Juxtapose] Sounds as though you, too, are an unsung hero.
• penelope
  Blimey. My mum's just bought herself a sporty new car, so I'm hoping it'll be a while before I have to contemplate what Rosie & Juxtapose are faced with. I think Rosie's mum might improvement in her new home - peer contact and a social atmosphere make a huge difference. My grandmother was always more talkative if she was in hospital on a ward full of similar ladies than when she was at home alone.
  Can I go back to my normal whinging now? I think I need a holiday - or at least a break from work.
• nights
  [rosie] I never know the appropriate thing to say, so I'll just send you a hug in the hope that it helps somehow.
  (((((((((hug)))))))))
• Inkspot - mum's car
  Last October was my mum's 70th so all the family gathered at the Old Bell in Malmsbury together with some of her friends from the past. Since then her short term memory has deteriorated. She is no longer able to cook a meal without help, my sisters who live nearby have coped really well as my father will visit with my mother for temporary respite and before the tension between them explodes into another argument. When having a telephone call last night I have to say "You saw Sian today ..." rather than ask, calls are long and repetitive. In January the DVLA wrote that she was no longer to drive and has been diagnosed with Alzheimers. Living nearly 100 miles away I play only a very minor role in the care of my mother, Rosie and Juxtapose I admire you for your care and dedication.
• Breadmaster
  Let's hope that they don't succeed in abolishing NHS prescriptions for those drugs that alleviate Alzheimer's. They only help in around 40% of cases, but when they do they sound remarkably helpful.
• Rosie - The elderly
  (Inkspot) That's really desperate and dispiriting, and at only 70. I can hardly imagine it and don't know what to say, it being so different from my own case. (pen) You're right, it's just what she needs, physically and psychologically. Mum drove a Mini up to the age of 88, BTW. (juxtapose) If you're a newbie I ought to tell you I'm a bloke. :-) You will cope more easily with two of you because you can talk about it together in another room. (Chalky) Yes, some good close friends, many acquaintances, good neighbours, the jazz mob, the Big Band players, you lot, and a very supportive family albeit at the end of long telephone wires (Hartlepool, Colwyn Bay, Chepstow, North London). (nights) Ooh, that was nice! er . . you are of the female persuasion, aren't you??
• Darren
  [Rosie] nights is a man.
• penelope
  [Darren] Yes, but he's young and he has long hair. It's hard to tell these days. *ducks*
• nights
  [pen] why duck? I'd never hit you.
  [rosie] yeah, I'm a man, man, but I'm very open with my hugs. hope that hasn't totally put you off me forever...
• Darren
  [nights] The first time I read that, I thought you said "legs" instead of "hugs." Just for a moment, it painted a very different picture.
• nights
  [darren] would you STOP thinking about me? (grins)
• Rosie - Hugs
  (nights) You may put a manly arm round my shoulder. Dunno why I thought you were female. Incidentally, Hugs, Hug and Huggies have been used as nicknames for me in the past. Indians in callcentres say "Mr Yewjis" or "Mr Hewgs", bless 'em. No prizes, and therefore no points, for guessing my surname.
• Dujon - Hugs 'R Us
  I too fell into the trap of imagining nights to be female. Unfortunatley it was in the chat room - and the rotten sod didn't disillusion me! You will never, ever, be forgiven for that, nights.    ;-)
  [Rosie] I always figured your surname as being Canadian for a lumberjack.
• Chalky - Hugs 'n stuff
  I understand that The Morniverse term for blokeish clasping is 'mabulating'.

  CdM] Glad you're available for a round of AVMA :-) Are you mainly Singapore-based nowadays?
  Btw - haven't spotted INJ for a while. Hope he and his flag can make it to Rugby again.

• Chalky - Limericks
  sorry - me again.
  Might it be a neat solution to keep the Furcation Game active by playing the Bifurcating Limericks in there? The current one will be quite a challenge and as I tackled the last one, I shan't be touching it!
  The regular Lim Game can then return to quickies.
• CdM
  [Chalky] Yes -- I am currently based in Singapore, though making occasional side trips to France, the US, and Thailand. We are probably going to be in France all summer though; any chance you will be visiting French relatives? :-)
  I haven't been in touch with INJ for a few weeks myself, although I had noted his absence in the morniverse. Often it has to do with his work situation at any given time.
  [Limericks] Yes, I hadn't actually meant to open a bifurcating can of worms like that. It was just that I posted an opening line that sounded very British, and so thought I should add the US equivalent and see what happened...
• Nik - Server
  I started doing some bits and pieces on the server last night - for instance, I think I've fixed a couple of the 'networking broken after a reboot' faults and I installed an IMAP email server. Things may slow down occasionally (compiling/installing) and I'll need to reboot at times to test shutdown/startup procedures. I'll be doing upgrades to installed software as I go as well. I've no idea when, it certainly won't be tonight and probably not this week, but I thought I'd better warn in advance.
• nights
  [chalky] good idea, but don't think I'll be trying my hand as I suck at complicated things.
  [dujon] sorry.. (grins evilly) no, really I am sorry. I'm just naturally mean. ask my housemates.
• Irouleguy - Worm can-opener
  Chalky] Will do
  
  Rosie] Commiserations - I (very briefly) had to care for my mother before she went into hospital, and I supported a friend through a much more protracted caring. One of my conclusions was that you feel guilty whatever you do, simply because you keep feeling that there's more you should be doing. Another (and this is much easier to say than to do) is that you need to look after yourself to be able to look after her. Good luck.
• Rosie
  (Irouleguy) She's in the Care Home now, which is by far the best thing for her as she has mental stimulation as well as expert care. There is a slight tinge of guilt that I've "got rid of her" but everybody says that's absurd. Also, when she was at home I always felt a bit selfish about going out and eventually stopped almost entirely. Now, of course, it's a question of getting used to an empty house and re-motivating myself.
• penelope
  [Rosie] It's your job to get the most out of life. You have devoted a hell of a lot of time and care to your mother, and the guilt you feel is testament to the fact that you still have the desire to do that. Now you have organised the best possible care for her, you must have some fun - otherwise, what was the point? The care situation as it was proved to be bringing both of you down in the end, and the new situation is supposed to benefit both of you. Now you just have to do your bit, allow yourself some fun, and not feel guilty about it.
• Chalky
  [CdM] yes - we plan to be in SE Paris end of July for my brother's birthday celebrations :-)

  [nights] never mind, poppet.

  [Irouleguy] I take it you're doing the honours? Good for you - I think mine was easier. Anyway, based on your 2 words, I've taken the liberty of starting a new quickfire limerick.

• CdM
  [Chalky] Hmmmmmm. Maybe we can arrange le premier pilg francais.
• Chalky
  [CdM] yes! And if Les Premices isn't feasible - Sunday 17 July, location - a glorious garden in Sucy-en-Brie. I'll email nearer the time :-)
• CdM
  [Chalky] Could you send me a mail at andrewdotjohn@ayadotyaledotedu so that we can take this offline? (That is, unless there are other possible francopilgers.) Thanks.
• Rosie
  (pen) Yes, I suppose I'm still in Care Mode even when I go and visit her and I hope it doesn't get up the noses of the excellent Care Staff. Probably not; they're very understanding. They don't see many men in there, which helps. :-) When I adjust to the change of circumstances I think things will be as good as they have ever been, but you can't just switch instantaneously - there's a degree of sadness. Thanks for your thoughts. :-)
• penelope
  [Rosie] Of course - it's not an instant switch. But just remember, it is allowed. Your mother will happy to hear your tales of jolly jazz-making when you visit, won't she?
• Irouleguy - Self-bifurcating limericks
  The multiple-ended limerick has now been reposted in the bifurcation game, and awaits 32 final lines - which we could attempt collectively, rather than leaving them all to one person.
  rab] Thank you, thank you for the HTML debugger - I'd never have done it without that.
  
  Rosie] You'll probably stay in care mode for quite some time, but the simple fact that you're not doing it on your own will make it easier for both of you.
• Tuj - Furcatin'
  I fear that the popularity of spiralling limericks could be the last nail for the Furcation Game as previously known.
• ImNotJohn - still around
  Nice to know I've been missed. The situation which led to it (no internet access at work, extra pressure at home sorting out my father's estate) is now easing, so I should soon be back up to speed.
  [Chalky] I expect to be in Rugby - probably on the same basis as last year - Sat pm only.
  [CdM] If there is a Franco-Pilg I may come and pitch a tent somewhere in your estate.
• Knobbly - most of the last several posts
  Please sir (or madame): What's pilg?
• Darren
  [Knobbly] Pilg=short for pilgrimage. Pilgs are basically those times we all get together and meet up.
• Chalky - Pilging
  [INJ] Splendid. In both instances :-)
• rab - Tert
  Ignore
• rab - Tert - complete
  [Nik] Beefy's seems to be about 10 minutes slow, which is reflected in the posting times displayed here...
• rab
  ... beefy's clock, I mean ...
• Sancho - tilting at windmills
  It is fairly clear that goatherds have a systemic aversion to vagarious wanderings. Is this the result of genetic manipulation, I wonder? Perhaps a change of underwear is called for at this late stage
• Inkspot - Grand Slam
  A change of underwear is always recommended after one has worn them for the usual daily sequence back-to-front/inside out etc. Goats on the other hand are far as I understand leave a relatively sport free life compared to those of say sheep. However many of us feel goats need to be talked to and engaged in conversation. Goats can be receptive and should you meet any today on your wanderings try breaking the ice with by discussing with them Wales wining the Grand Slam, I tried this with the flock last night and stayed with me till morning.
• Nik - Skew
  [rab] Tut, you'd think a modern PC would keep time a little better than that, wouldn't you? Perhaps I should (sigh) include a timeserver daemon to keep it uptodate.
• rab - Notice
  The server hosting my personal email and website seems to have dropped off the internet. We're investigating, but this could mean that if you've tried to email me in the last day or so, the mail might either take a day or two to get through, or get lost completely.
• nights
  not for the first time I'm totally lost.
• Chalky - p*ssing into the wind
  [rab] .. so all those naughty emails I've sent to you in the last couple of days have vaporised into the etherspherythingyplace? Oh bugger.
• Chalky
  nights] never mind poppet
• Sancho - the goats win
  I solved the problem this morning by wandering with them to Mornington Crescent. It was a bit crowded on the platform, however.
• Dujon - Being prepared
  *starts spreadsheet programme to print out location of every clock in the household, including name rank and serial number, and containing instructions on how to change each come Saturday evening* For me this involves cranking them all forward by 23 hours. Yuk. I might, just might, have one with a plus/minus one hour switch (and if I do, I bet I didn't use it last time).
• Dujon
  Just thinking about that.
  I have six clocks in my workshop. Three normal clocks (one small one on each bench and one wall clock) plus one on a digital thermometer and two on telephones.
  The house has seven normal clocks, two video cassette recorders (the DVD player doesn't have one), three clock radio units, one microwave oven, one on a digital thermometer and an inderminate number of watches - probably only three. I bet I've forgotten one or two as those are from memory.
  The computers are set to automatically adjust.
  That's over twenty adjustments to make. Eek!
• rab - Housemate update
  Looks like Jerry paid a visit to my kitchen to do a poo last night, so I think I'll be down the shop to buy some bait. F!*k the humane approach...
• flerdle - clocks
  [Dujon] Move to the tropics :-)
• penelope
  [Dujon] Stop measuring so much time. Why not use this weekend to get rid of half of them, and see if you actually notice a difference?
• penelope
  [rab] He will have eaten a load of your food AND done a poo. Make sure you keep all your food sealed away until you know you've got rid of him & all his friends. And wash everything down really well too.
• Rosie - This and that
  Mum's place in the Residential Home has been confirmed - and it's brilliant. And . . . it won't cost a thing, courtesy of Surrey County Council, except they do take her pension and give her a bit of it back as pocket money. I'm typing this also courtesy of Surrey county Council, i.e. in Warlingham Library, because my computer is f*****. A young in-law decided that Uncle T should upgrade to Windows XP, and he's in the IT business. It doesn't work. Can't get on the Net or use the scanner or printer. Apparently you should put Windows XP in a clean hard drive and then transfer what you need from the old drive. A mate is going to do this and it's going to cost, partly because he too is in the business. Should be done in about a week.
• rab - Meece
  [pen] Nearly all the food was in mouse-proof cupboards as it happens (i.e., high up off the floor, and with no obvious holes therein). There is a slightly worrying set of holes for the pipework in the cupboard under the sink. I can't cover these up easily, so I expect to find evidence of mouse in there... I intend to wash all the surfaces (and pans) before doing any cooking. As it happens, I think it would be difficult for a mouse to scale the units onto the worktops - but I wouldn't put anything past the bastards. Time to go home and see if the bait has been taken...
• rab
  The bait's still there - and no poos as far as I can tell. But I think it's a bit soon to expect much yet. I imagine Jerry realises that this is not going to do him much good, and is probably biding his time until he's really hungry. As an aside, I'm quite surprised to discover such a huge range of products devoted to capture and extermination of mice. This I find reassuring and worrying by equal measure. On the one hand, it indicates the problem's a common one (and I feel less hideously unclean now). At the same time, though, it also suggests that few of these treatments actually work. I'll keep you informed.

  As a further aside, I'm also amused that even the most painful-looking traps have pictures of cute fluffy little creatures with big eyes and nice round ears on them. It's rather like putting a cartoon pig on the outside of a packet of bacon.

• nights
  [chalky] could you stop calling me poppet? you're reminding me too much of my mum, who has a habit of calling me poppet, despite me clearing six foot.
  
  Work has destroyed my brain to such an extent that last night I dreamt about trying to print a cheque and products sounding like the animal they were designed for, and I keep on thinking I hear the tannoy go 'ping pong', and I freeze in anticipation of "Staff call, 'Nights', contact 257, 'Nights', 257, thank you", implying I've forgotten what time it is, I'm still in the canteen having a smoke and I was meant to be on the shop floor about ten minutes ago. argh, eh?
• Dujon - It's time
  [penelope] Which was sort of my point. Why do I need so many bloddy clocks? Perhaps I'll adjust some of them with a hammer.
• Tuj - Nights dream
  nights] Dreaming you're at work... yeeesh horrible horrible. Is it not enough for employers to steal your waking hours?
• Chalky - disclosure
  [nights] I AM your mum. I'm just pretending I live in Salisbury.
• Dujon - Settling down
  [Rosie] I hypothesise that you won't see this for a bit but I'll post it anyway.
  Fantastic news, it really is. The pension/pocket money is a regular thing here but it might be wise to keep a bit of an eye on what she gets. There has been a number of 'shonky' operators of such establishments in this country. Still, if it's a council operated facility then, perhaps, you might not need to worry too much. I mention the last because my mother-in-law, who had a stroke, was confined to a so called 'nursing home' within the precincts of her local hospital. It was truly dreadful. Not the staff - at least not overall - but the facilites and the surroundings. I have the feeling that the only time she could get outside for a bit of sun and fresh air was when my wife or her sister (or me for that matter) visited.
  [Chalky] Eee 'eck tha dun arf wurry me times.
• Breadmaster
  I've been dreaming about seventeenth-century Russian religious history recently. Now that's grim.
• Blob - C17 Russian religion
  [Bm] Yes, I keep seeing icons too.
• penelope
  I dreamed about being on a narrowboat last night.
• Darren
  Last week I dreamt I married Ruby Wax. I can't explain that.
• Chalky
  [Duj] worry not, my friend :-)
• nights
  [chalky] in that case what are we having thursday night as I'm going to be home about 23h thanks to the M5. home for easter. wooooooo!!!!!!!
• Inkspot - half term
  Home for half term - don't forget the black bag in the corner full of dirty washing.
• Boolbar - Mouse trap
  [rab] The only way I find works well is those wooden snappy traps baited with bread and cheddar cheese rolled into a small ball. Poison may work but although I've found it eaten, I've never found a dead mouse to confirm.
  Alternatively try this.
• rab
  I'm told that mice are surprisingly savvy...
• Simons Mith
  [Boolbar] Pshaw. What are they talking about? Intelligent children like me did play it properly. About four times. We even knew the rule that if (A) triggered (O) directly, the mouse automatically escaped!
• Dujon - Kindness
  [rab] If you haven't already disposed of the beastie. Do you wish to kill the thing or catch it alive and release it somewhere other than your kitchen rather than zap the poor wee thing and have it die a lingering death with a broken back or neck? If so, I have used a wonderful device which works rather well. It's a commercial trap, quite cheap, which is formed from a square section of tubing, one end sealed the other with a spring loaded door. It is also bent. Bait (in my case a dob of peanut butter!) down the sealed end. Place on floor/shelf/whatever with door latched open beneath the device. Mouse wanders in and heads for the other end. Weight of mouse combined with gravity causes the 'far end' to rock back to level - it's the bent end which is elevated. Front end then rises - obviously - and allows the door to snap shut. Viola! one contained mouse. All that remains is to release the thing in an enviroment of your choosing.
• CdM - killing by kindness
  [Dujon] I have a long story (a shaggy mouse story, if you will) about my experience with those traps. Maybe I will come back and post it sometime...
• nights
  update on the expedition home - the M5 was hideous, so we thought we'd try a different route, got hideously lost in Gloucestershire and ended up at home about when I thought. but at least I'm here, eating food prepared by someone else and spending good working time playing silly forum-based games. and I can do my laundry, thank you very much. I'm one of a very rare breed of students that know what a washing machine is and how it works.
• Tuj - Viola!
  Dujon] Viola! I shall forever use that for "voila!" now. Was it intentional?
• Dujon
  [Tuj] Bloody pedants! No, my friend, I just thought it was prettier. ;-(
• Dujon
  [CdM] Your heading Killing by kindness suggests that I don't want to know. On the other hand, why not? It's been a bit quiet in here over the weekend.
• Tuj
  Dujon] No offence intended. It is prettier!
• Dujon
  :-)
• Boolbar
  [Dujon] I have caught a couple of mice with those see-saw traps, but you stop being nice when they start chewing through your wiring.
• Wol - strings attached
  [Tuj, Duj] Indeed, but there seems to be less scope for jokes about voila players ...
• snorgle - meece
  Just make sure that you set them free a good distance from your home, as they tend to make their way back.. at least a couple of miles, in a nice park or field somewhere..
• penelope - foolishness
  I'm sorry I have to say this, because you're all obviously well-meaning - but don't you think that it's cruel to set a HOUSE MOUSE free in a park or field? House mice and field mice are two different animals. One lives in a field or park, the other lives in houses and barns. If you have House Mice, and don't want a re-infestation then just kill it quickly and mercifully, but fer gawd's sake don't set it free in a place that is so different to it's natural habitat... that's ridiculous. *mutters* Animal rights my arse
• rab
  And don't forget those fluffy little creatures with the big eyes and the cute ears that come into your kitchen and scamper around playfully also PISS and SHIT everywhere. Yum.
• Raak
  [pen] Think of it as kindness to whatever non-house-infesting predator gets them.
• Dujon - Living in comfort
  [penelope] Not a natural environment? Are you telling me that the 'house' mouse was suddenly created when the first house was built? I must do some research to fill up the gap in my education. Whilst, at this time, I agree that there are various varieties of the mouse I also believe they are wild creatures and can survive quite happily outside my home. As exhibit number one (well, there is only one): As a teenager I used to breed mice - the cute little white ones - and flog 'em off to provide me with pocket money. Regrettably the wonderful cage which I had custom built to house them and which was designed to fit nicely on my windowsill (my mother refused to let me keep them inside) developed a malfunction and finished eight feet down on the back lawn with the doors sprung. Within weeks mice found in the back garden were piebald.
• Dujon
  [Inkspot] On the assumption that Celebdaq is effectively dead and on the understanding that you cannot kill it until each participant has effectively run the ropes to the quay I have removed myself from the crew. Thanks for your time and effort over its lifetime.
• penelope
  [Dujon] OK, then my advice (and always had been, truth to tell) is to slam them all on the head with a garden spade. Smash their little brains out. I was trying to phrase it delicately for the sake of the animal lovers who might read this, but phooey... sod 'em.
• Darren
  [penelope] That's a waste of life. What Dujon should do is shove them in the microwave for about 10 minutes each for a quick snack.
• snorgle - worry
  [pen]I don't do that myself, but if someone is going to the trouble of a live-capture trap, I figured they wouldn't then want to send the mouse to its maker. Personally, I get my Jack Russell to worry them. Very quick death, although he growls when I don't let him chew on the body. Mouse guts everywhere? No thanks. AND I'm a vegetarian. But my dog isn't.
• Chalky - yeucch!
  Look you lot - all this killing stuff is making me feel a bit queasy. In fact it's completely put me off the crispy fried mice ready meal I was about to microwave for my lunch ..
• penelope - *groan*
• Inkspot - daqing out
  [Dujon]Sorry to see you leave the Daq you have been a good player taking your fair share of turns at No1. It could not have been easy being distant from the tabloid tittle tattle that runs Celebdaq. In the next few weeks I will update everything and tidy up some loose ends.
  The daq continues to limp on despite the beeb dealing it a couple of knockout blows in the last few months. While it soldiers on, I play out of the MSN group CelebdaqBasements under the guise of Cleddau (Not the Ant Hill Mob)in a couple of Ultimate leagues run by Version 1.0.

  No mice, but crispy fried woodlice in a thin coat of batter slightly salted.

• nights
  would you lot be quiet, I'll be afraid to eat from our local takeaway. that is NOT an invitation for a lot of 'do you know what's in takeaway' posts by the way.
  
  good news, I got through work today without nearly bursting into tears.
• Dujon
  [penelope] Yes, I figured you were taking the **ss. I couldn't resist the temptation to drag out my piebald mice story which, by the way, is quite true. I am averse to killing anything except mosquitoes but must admit that the last mouse caught - it was making a mess of my wife's potting mix of all things in the garden shed - became an uncooked meal for one of my son's pythons.
  [nights] Remind me to tell you about the cockroaches in the microwave episode sometime. Mwhaaaaa. *cue music from the Twilight Zone*
• st dogmael - pythons
  duj] that reminds me of a little girl who goes in to a pet shop and says, with a bit of a speech defect "hewwo, do you have any likkle bunny wabbits?" - the shopkeeper is charmed and plays up to the little girl saying "Wess we goo. Would woo like an ikkle bunny wabbit wiv bwig fwuffy ears and an ikkle cotton twail nice and fwuffy?" and teh girl looks at him and says "I don't weally sink my Boa Constwictor gives a sthit"
• Dujon - Trivia
  [Inkspot] I removed myself feeling that you might wish to clear the decks. If you are going to continue then by all means add me back in. The details are Dujon2774 (User ID: 3256726). Don't break your back, though. There're only a few of us left.
• Chalky - s'not the same without ...
  ... Rosie :-(
• Rosie - Da-daaaaaaaaaa!
  That was remarkably prescient, Chalks, seeing as I only got the 'puter back about 6 this evening and, miraculously, managed to set up Broadband with the minimum of oaths. Great to be back. Now, this Rugby thing; are there any places left? What does it cost? How long does it last? Should I change my underwear? Anything else I should know?
• Dujon - Hello
  Good to see you back, Rosie. I was a'feared the enforced break may have made you reasise that M.C. wastes too much valuable time (like all time isn't valuable, it's a bit like saying 'I spent good money on that').
• Dujon - Eh?
  I was just looking at the BBC main news site and came across this somewhat worrying juxtapostion of links.
  * Pope John Paul II clings to life
  * Mother-in-law's killer jailed
  What's going on in the Vatican these days?
• Projoy - Rugby
  [Rosie] Yes, you should change your underwear. Other things you should know: Russia has an area of approximately 17,075,200 kmsq.
• Juxtapose - Juxtaposition of links
  http://www.davebrownhats.com/
  http://www.loc.gov/
  http://www.threebrain.com/weeeeee.shtml
• Chalky - RugbyPilg
  [Rosie] Yes - you're coming :-) I'll email you tomorrow with all the details.
• Rosie - The size of things
  (Projoy) Oh, everybody knows that. And I used to know the area of Surrey, viz. 722 sq mi. But it keeps losing its north-eastern bits to London. Has less of a Fringe on the Top, you could say. (Chalky) OK, thanks.:-)
• Irouleguy - Surrey to hear that
  Rosie] Surely some of the bits that Surrey lost were Morden just a fringe?
• nights
  hoorah pun wars...
• ZK - bad timing or what?
  I'm off to rome tomorrow on study tour, then on to Pompeii and Herculaneum...in spite of Johnny Paul himself dying at the very thought, there I shall be. I apologise if my hostel in Rome doesn't have the internet - if that is indeed the case, feel free to play on with the AVM game without me, I'll just have more questions to answer when I come back :)
• Rosie - old Surrey
  (Irouleguy) Ewell be sorry you said that. Waddon earth are you playing at?
• nights
  oh hello ZK. send us a postcard, c/o North Wales.
• Chalky - Rugby stuff
  [Rosie] email sent.
  [Bob the dog] Hope you're around - we have work to do :-)
• penelope - updates on aches
  Monday morning AGAIN... it comes round so quickly! My arms ache from scarifying the grass at home (vigorous raking to remove moss and dead thatch with a sprung rake). I've done about a quarter of the total so far, including re-seeding the bald patches it creates. Further to that, my legs ache for deciding to take yesterday afternoon off from scarifying and wander through London instead. I parked at Dolphin Square in Pimlico and walked, with a friend, up to Covent Garden and back again. We only stopped at two pubs...
• rab
  My grandfather has just died of a heart attack after a fall. Totally shocked and upset.
• ImNotJohn
  [Rab] You have my sympathy. Family deaths are hard enough when it's expected.
• rab
  Dreadful news, and a huge shock, I would imagine. *hugs*
• penelope - That was me
  How awful, I wrote rab's name instead of mine.
• Irouleguy - Rab
  Really sorry to hear that - condolences and *hug*
• Darren
  [rab] Also sorry to hear that. These sorts of things always take you by surprise. My grandfather just came out of hospital after a fall down his stairs (he'd been lying at the bottom for two days before he was found).
• rab
  Thanks everyone for your kind words.
• Tuj
  rab] Condolences too. Looks like it's shaken up pen too.
• nights
  [rab] it's been said, but my condolences are with you and your family. *hug*
• Inkspot - back in
  [rab]Sorry to hear of your sad news.

  [Dujon]You are back in the chase.At the moment I'm chasing the Royals as they seem to be in a bit of disarray.

• Dujon
  [rab] My sympathy flies o'er the seas to put a hand on your shoulder. Having lost all my antecedents other than my Mum I know only too well that it's never easy. Chin up.
  [Inkspot] Ta. Me too, share prices vary wildly but the dividends should be good with the wedding coming up.
• Chalky
  [Rab] aww - that's very sad news. Sounds as though he was much loved so I hope he had a happy life.
• penelope
  *lights too many joss sticks in one go on the mantelpiece and ponders*
• Inkspot - Daq yeild techie talk
  [Dujon] Even after all this time I am still learning new things about Celebdaq. Each week I regulaly use JJB’s dividends and returns tools. Last week the guy was Top Trader and reading the interview another penny dropped; yes even after all this time. Up to now I have been looking at Potential Total Gain and Pot Dividend, how wrong have I been. It turns out in his dividend report there is a column “Pot Yeild” this is ratio of price against dividend. This is the column I need to take note of which means buying a low priced celeb not necessarily that with the hightest pot. gain. It would appear that this weeks best buys on Monday were Jamie Oliver (212%) or Vic Reeves (210%) rather than my current holding, Prince William (141%).
  I am going to try this out next week just to see, and as long as I buy before midnight on Monday and hold on till Friday there should be a handsome % gain
• CdM
  [rab] *adds sympathies to the pile*
• penelope - professional angst
  What can you do with a client who wants you to do lots of press releases for him and his organisation, but when you do get them ready, he's too disorganised to sign anything off in time, then panics about how late everything is and so avoids opening your emails, reading your faxes or taking your phone calls until it's really too late to put out the news? *grinds teeth in frustration*
• Chalky - professional gangsta
  Where is 'e, pen? I'll deck 'im.
• nights
  [pen] seconded. I'm in a violent mood so me and my size twelves will go and see him.
• penelope
  [Nights'n'Chalks] The idea is to keep the account...
• Chalky
  OK - keep the account - lose the loser.
  Back to plan A. Me and nights'll sort him, like permanently. His staff probably hate him as well so they'll thank us for the deed, as will you when you find he's been replaced by a considerate but not ingratiating, organised but not anal, phonecall answering fax reading email opening, townhouse AND country retreat owning, National Trust member, recently singled so a bit lonely and needs to get back into the dating thingy, gregarious, amusing, clean smelling, looks-don't-matter-but-not-too-smooth-and-oily [the occasional crooked tooth is always a good sign], spontaneous, generous, PR lady-obsessed, 30-something ...
• penelope
  [Chalks] Sounds perfect. When can you do it? And what should I wear for the first date meeting?
• Bob the dog
  Chalks] Thats me! Apart from the single status and organised bit. Anyway, I'd rather be creatively unsystematic than anal any day...
• Chalky - Bob the creativebutnotsingle dog
  ... and there I was, singing your praises in the Orange Pilg Game - the youngsters are getting restless ...
• Bob the dog - Youngsters?
  I know, bless them, but things is all under control - in my usual creatively unsystematic way... (casts another surreptitious glance at a passing PR lady and gets rapped on the knuckles by NotmrsBobthedog).
• Bob the dog
  I have decided that this year I am NOT going to panic quite as much as I did last year. Excuse me, a PR lady has just arrived and I must talk to her about something that has been on my mind...
• penelope - *dishevels*
  Yippeee! Friday. Twenty minutes to go. I am sooo gonna big up the snooooze when I get home.
• nights
  excuse me while i shout excitedly that IT'S SATURDAY AND I DON'T HAVE TO GO TO WORK WOOOOOTTT!!!!
  
  sorry about that. but i'm excited that it's nearly midday and I'm still in bed.
• Tuj - The slack life
  nights] You know when it's holiday time when you're woken up by the sound of an ice cream van.
• penelope
  [nights, Tuj] And the dawn chorus stops you from getting to sleep.
• snorgle - It's all so clear now.
  I've found out why this site keeps having problems! The truth is here.
• nights
  [tuj] we have an abnormally large amount of ice cream vans around by us. I keep thinking they play 'tubular bells' but it's actually 'greensleeves'. but an ice cream van playing tubular bells would be excellent. if slightly creepy.
• jess - cool sites
  their is a hot site called castlesofspirits.com go their if you dare. if u cant sleep at night not ma fault.they show u hot to levitate people and how to play and make ure own quija board. theirs also pics of real spirits.for those who dont believe in ghosts u got to c it to believe it.
• jess
  i wanna say hi to ma people in elizabeth nj.and ma enemies they can go down to u know where especially KRITZIA. kritzia i cant stand u.
• Breadmaster
  Gosh, I really need a quija board! I've still got all the quija pieces, but of course I lost the board so I can't play the game any more.
• rab - Saul's Kites
  I went to a seance on Thursday night, as it happens. It was good fun, and we managed to contact the spirits who played around with some objects on the table, banged it a few times and then buggered off. All in the name of scientific research of course.

  Meanwhile, my ongoing battle with Jerry continues. I was always suspicious that the bait hadn't been taken and in fact all it did was make him tiptoe more lightly around the kitchen. Confirmation came after I scattered a little flour on the floor, expecting to find ickle paw-prints in it the next morning. Sod that - he came and ate the whole bloody lot! So the snap traps came out, and again he's proved himself to be a canny bugger and has steadfastly avoided them (despite one of them fitting snugly inside his entry channel).

  It turns out that the right thing to do is to call the landlord's agents, who have a dedicated mouse man who'll come out, do a thorough investigation and block up all the hole. So this should all be over soon I hope...

• Blob - Jerry
  [rab] Have you not considered Tom ? Have you a friend with a moggy you could borrow ? One night would probably dod the trick.
• rab
  Dr Mouse is coming to visit at lunchtime, so we'll see what he does.
• rab
  Dave's squirting stuff in my holes as we speak.
• Darren
  [rab] That's more than I wanted to know.
• rab
  Dave was fab! Tracked down all the mouse activity, and took the belt and braces approach of sealing their entry points and slapping down not one, not two, but three different types of bait. He does a repeat visit next week to seal up the one remaining hole (which is there to let anyone out who might have been hiding in the airing cupboard) and laugh in the face of dead rodents.
• nights
  there were little trays of rat poison on the floor when we moved into our house. they're still there. I'm not sure if this is good or bad.
  
  I won't be e-pilging this evening, I'm going to an open mic night because a friend of mine is going to get up and do some damien rice and some of his own stuff. my housemates and I will sit at the back and clap supportively, or get rat-arsed, one of the two. actually probably both.
• st d - richard wiseman
  rab ] I am assuming that that isn't the same Richard Wiseman who is head of the Legal Department at Shell ? I met him once - very nice chap, but looked like he had been washing himself in money.
• penelope
  [st d] How does someone look when they have been washing themselves in filthy lucre? Pretty grubby, I'd expect.
• rab
  [st d] I'm guessing not.
• Rosie - of Mice and Men
  (rab) Your "ongoing battle with Jerry" makes me think of those old farts (and not-so-old farts) who cannot accept that WW2 ended some time ago.
• Dujon
  It did? Blimey.
• penelope
  I have just accidentally tipped coffee over a particularly hated job bag containing piece of work which I have taken a week and a half longer to complete than I should have done, purely because I don't like doing it. This makes me believe that malevolent forces exist on Wednesday mornings. Unfortunately the coffee also went over my leg.
• st dogmael
  oops.
• Boolbar
  [pen] Have you noticed how coffee expands when freed from the constaints of a cup/mug? One knocked over mug of coffee can flood an entire desk, soak into reams of paperwork and fill a couple of drawers.
• Chalky - nassssty coffeeses
  .. and possibly does the most damage when deftly tipped over a computer keyboard where it completely disappears!

  [pen] a job bag, eh? Reminds me of my student hols when I worked on a geriatric ward ..

• Chalky
  sorrysorrysorry - I'm just talking shite, as usual
• ImNotJohn - Washing the desk
  And remember that if you do spill coffee on your desk: save the phone and the papers before worrying about the keyboard (keyboard £20, phone £200 if it's a clever one, papers probably several hours of your time).
• penelope
  I think job bags exist to protect their hated contents from coffee. The papers within are only soggy along one edge. The coffee in my keyboard was soaked up by all the crumbs already in there. My phone was protected by a layer of papers. In other news, I was taken out for lunch today by my boss. And no, I'm not about to lose my job :o)
• rab
  Scientists have observed that coffee is 20-30% more spillable than tea.
• penelope
  [rab] can you quote your source?
• rab
  R. A. Blythe (2005) Private communication.
• Bob the dog - Rabbit Sauce
  Pen] He lies. Check out so help me God.
• penelope - bidding frenzy
  I am currently in a bidding frenzy on ebay for a batch of whopping great blue, football-sized Agapanthus flowers with which to beautify my garden come the summer, when I'm having a Birthday Garden Party. I also bought some other stuff this morning, and I should win another one this afternoon for violet Surfinias. I just had to tell someone - no-one in the office is interested and it's soooo exciting.
• Boolbar - e-Bay-Gum
  [pen] It is exciting when it gets to the last minute and you are still the highest bidder. I was outbid twice in the last 3 seconds on one occasion. Selling can be frustrating though. I had 8 people watching one item and I only got one bid in the end.
• Boolbar
  Hmmm, should I bid on those Surfinias . . . . .
• penelope
  [Boolbar] Don't you dare!!
• penelope - much, much later...
  The blue Surfinias are mine, MINE, ALL MINE!!! mwahahahahahahah!
• Dujon - Blue
  Surfinias? Are you sure they aren't the Smurfinias - the little blue characters with bleached hair and a funny hat riding a surf board? I suppose they'd still make cute garden gnomes.
• nights
  [pen] we're excited for you. interior design is a worryingly popular thing in our house. our favourites list on our cable box runs 'sky one', 'UKTV Gold', 'sky sports news', 'UKTV Style' - whu?
• penelope
  The only interior design I did as a student was pinning up posters and checking down the back of every settee in every house I lived in for loose change and valuables. Only ever found forks stuck about with Nuttalls Mintoes though.
• Chalky - chuckworthy
  pen] I read that as ".. and chUcking down the back of every settee in every house ..." :-)

  nights] Exterior design, shurely?

• Inkspot - 'sit Rover
  So Rover has come finally to the end of car production. Although I am sad to see an end to 6,000 jobs and all the supporting industry. It has been a slow motion car crash and inevitable as Phoenix tried to maintain the existing levels of mass production. My hope is that the administrators will come to an agreement with someone like Alchemy do build a niche market MG even though this will be with a much reduced workforce.

  This weekend will be further decoration of the living room. As background I tune the Freeview box to digital radio, lots of channels but end up listening to 6Music. I tried Q but after hearing The Waterboys for the third time in as many days and accident lawyers, next stop is Kerrang!

• Rosie - Sic transit Rover
  You can't imagine the French government allowing Renault or Citroen to go bust or the Germans BMW, Audi or Daimler, can you? So how seriously does the government take manufacturing? Not very, as we all know.
• Raak - Rover
  Why pay them to make what no-one wants to buy?
• Breadmaster
  I don't see what more the government can do. They've offered big injections of cash, they've tried to broker a deal with the Chinese car company... If a private company cannot compete and goes under, it's not the government's responsibility to keep it afloat any more than it is anyone else's. I think it's pretty good that they did as much as they did.
• Irouleguy
  Why should the workforce get screwed over for management's incompetence (and squirreling away of large amounts of cash from the company, from some reports)? And if Rover cars really can't be sold, turn the production lines over to something useful, like public transport.
• Raak
  [Irouleguy] Exploring the possibilities of keeping the business going is precisely the administrators' job. But in the end, if they can't find anyone who wants to run it and has a credible business plan, it goes under. That is unfortunate for the former employees, but losing out when the people you work for fail is one of the risks of any sort of employment.
• CdM
  I have never understood the fetish about manufacturing. I mean, Rover makes a car in the midlands. Fine. But if you want to buy the car in Glasgow, say, then you need someone to transport it, which means a services sector. And then you want to buy it, and you probably don't have several thousands pounds in cash on you, so you need a bank, which again means a services sector.
  
  The point is that the product that interests you is not a car sitting on a lot hundreds of miles from you that can only be purchased for cash on the nail. It is a car available for delivery in Glasgow in exchange for a bank draft. And that requires services every bit as much as it needs manufacturing.
• Simons Mith - That's funny
  In Glasgow I thought they just nicked them. Oh well, live and learn.
• Irouléguy
  Raak] Unless the government steps in and does something, like nationalise it. Governments used to do that here, and they still do on the continent and elsewhere. When exactly did it get written that the market has the absolute power to screw us all over?
• Raak
  [Irouleguy] I.e. subsidise it with other people's money. When exactly did it get written that every incompetently run business has the absolute power to put a trowel into my pocket?
• Rosie
  (Raak) When the railways were privatised, amongst other instances. The Government subsidy to Train Operators and Rolling Stock Leasing companies is huge, and vastly more than was available to BR. Large amounts of public money disappear into private profit. So the true answer to your question is; "when the current political dogma has to be satisfied". There's a lot of it about, worldwide, and always has been.
• ImNotJohn - jobsworth
  Littlewoods is shedding 3000 jobs and closing most of its 'Index' stores. Will there be a march on parliament and hundreds of millions of pounds in government aid?
• Irouléguy - No work today
  Raak] What Rosie said, plus the Common Agricultural Policy (which puts your money and mine into the pockets of the royal family!), the Export Credit Guarantee Department (which ensured that when arms manufacturers flogged stuff to Saddam Hussain and he didn't pay up that you and I paid for it), the 'guarantees' given to PFI contractors....
• Rosie - Easy money
  (Irouléguy) I was going to mention all that, so I'm glad you did. Also, many countries practise protectionism. A typical example (the legally-enforceable Buy American policy of many US institutions) cost me my job in 1998.
• Juxtapose - it's early and I'm tired
  Also it doesn't help that the average CEO's salary has risen to a truely incomprehensible sum. Oh, your company is out of money? Mayhaps it's because you were paying yourself thirty million dollars a year for a job consisting largely of assigning yourself more stock options. Fortunately you'll never feel the sting of unemployment because you write yourself off as a personal corporation for tax purposes and you don't need one of those silly retirement accounts because you have more money than King Solomon. Sadly four thousand people have lost their honest, hard-working jobs, but if they're that honest and hard-working I'm sure they'll land on their feet.
  
  ...
  On a separate note, I want to see someone jump twenty motorcycles with a full size bus.
• nights - goodbyeee
  hello everyone, since university work is building up and building up at an alarming rate, I don't really have time to keep playing MC, sadly. I hope to be back in the summer, but for now I'll say goodnight and hope you all have a LOT of fun in Rugby. (crossposted)
• Juxtapose - Good prince sweet nights
  Take care, even us new fellows will miss you.
• CdM
  [Rosie, Irouléguy] But your examples really just support Raak's point. Raak says "we shouldn't subsidise companies that make stuff that no-one wants to buy". Your response seems to be "we should, because, look, here are lots of other ridiculous cases where the government subsidises companies that make stuff that no-one wants to buy". Raak would respond (I guess) "Absolutely. Scrap the CAP and export guarantees and all of those other stupid policies as well". In other words, in rebutting Raak's rhetorical point ("when exactly did it get written...") you end up buttressing his substantive point.
• rab
  Which raises the question: is having people out of work "bad" for the wider economy? (It's obviously "bad" for those people who aren't being paid, but the economy doesn't care about people so that's an irrelevant concern). If the answer is "yes", is it right for a government to find ways to get people into employment?
• ImNotJohn
  There is a simple (simplistic?) argument that goes that it's cheaper and better for the economy to have a person producing 1000 units of value to the economy and paying them 1500 units to do so if the alternative is to pay them 1000 units to do nothing. This means government intervention and subsidy, because although it's good for the economy it's bad for any individual employer.
  I know there are all sorts of arguments about market distortion, structural inefficiencies, impact on long-term competitiveness etc. (I'm sure CdM can come up with plenty of them). And yet it seems to me there's still a fundamental truth in there which those arguments don't eliminate - especially if aid and subsidy is carefully aimed and time-restricted.
  Having said that, Rover was dead in the water 5 years ago and the 6000 working there have had 5 years more work and pay out of it than they had any right to expect. It is not a suitable recipient for further aid in its present form or on its present site. All the government can do is help to manage the transition to other jobs for the people concerned.
• Raak
  [rab] Every day out of work for someone who is able to work is a day's labour lost forever. Labour is the most perishable commodity there is. The fewer people who work, the less stuff is created. So yes, having people out of work makes us all poorer. Of course, I'm taking the view that the more stuff we have (including intangibles such as art and clean streets) the better; someone who takes the opposite view, that the less stuff we have the better, like some extreme environmentalists, would presumably want to see unemployment rise as high as possible, and will be celebrating that a manufacturer of evil machines has finally gone out of business.
• Darren
  [rab] You also take the view that all jobs result in "stuff being created," which isn't necessarily true.
• rab
  [Darren] Do I? Or did you mean Raak?
• Raak
  [Darren] Assuming you meant me, yes, there are unproductive jobs, such as, according to the stories, a lot of the management jobs at Rover. Paying people a fat salary to do nothing does nobody any good, including the people paid the fat salary.
• Darren
  Yes, I meant Raak. Sorry about that.
• Irouléguy
  CdM] You're right in that I wasn't defending the practices I listed (and I'm pretty sure Rosie wasn't either). The point we were making was that it's a conscious political choice for the government to let Rover go to the wall, and that this is a bad thing. I'd echo most of INJ's and Raak's answers to rab, as well. I think it is the government's responsibility to do something about employment.
• Projoy
  There's a really lovely argument in Peter Singer's The President of Good and Evil against the "it's my money" position re: tax (and by extension re: interventionist economic policy), which I'm now going to have to dig out and mention. There we go, the book was useful for something after all.
• Raak
  [Projoy] That should be interesting. It is my money. By what right does he claim the government gets to take a cut of every business transaction?
• CdM
  [Irouléguy] By that reasoning, pretty much everything is a conscious political choice. Your local newsagent closes down? Conscious political choice -- the government could have paid them two million pounds to stay open. You chose to go onto the internet today? Conscious political choice! -- the government could have bribed you not to.
  
  If you want to make an argument for why the government should intervene in this particular case (and a good argument has to be one that also explains when the government should not intervene), then that's fair enough and I would be interested to hear it. I have to say I think Raak's summary is the appropriate one here, though: Rover were making something that people didn't want to buy. The End.
  
  (On the other hand I disagree with Raak on the 'it's my money' argument, but I think that is a whole different debate.)
• Irouéleguy
  CdM] I don't think the first point follows at all. The closure will cost something like 5,000 jobs at Longbridge, plus up to 15,000 in suppliers - that's up to 20,000 wage packets taken out of the local economy, which will then have a further knock-on effect across the West Midlands. Any government would have to take a position on an economic event of that magnitude. The tens of thousands of people whose lives are blighted is why the government should intervene - and I don't see why a coherent case for that depends on saying that if it were a different set of people the government shouldn't. Obviously I don't think every failed small business is a case for government intervention, but I think that's something of a straw person.
  
  As for Rover making something that no-one wanted to buy, again some exaggeration: Rover couldn't sell enough of what it produced to persuade the people with the money to invest in it, which is a rather different matter. And then there's the little matter of the £500 million hole in Rover's finances (allegedly). Taking the money and running comes to mind.
• Botherer
  I actually think this Government is being quite brave in letting Rover die. 30 years of government subsidies of BL et al has failed to produce a company that comes close to making a profit, let alone a decent product. Whilst I fully accept Irouéleguy's argument is pertinent, that volume of investment would shirley be better placed in other sectors where there was a chance of making it work? And to do this in the run in to a general election is, perhaps, unprecedented. And before the accusations fly, I do not (and have only once) vote(d) Labour.
  
  But I do work for a rival car company...
• CdM
  [Irouléguy] Something like 300,000 businesses close down in the UK each year (the vast majority of them small businesses). Even if those companies are all single-person enterprises, that's 300,000 jobs, plus I don't know how many suppliers, not to mention further knock-on effects across the entire country. Any government would have to take a position on an economic event of that magnitude. The hundreds of thousands of people whose lives are blighted is why the government should intervene.
  
  I don't think small business failure is a straw person at all. Tell me why Rover should be bailed out, as opposed to 5,000 randomly selected small businesses.
• Bob the dog
  Please accept my humblest apologies for the cross posting. The new Rugby event games have now been posted here - or if the link doesn’t work – in the Orange Pilg Game.
  
  The sleepover event, entitled That Went Off Very Well, looks as if we have a record number of players – but more are always welcome. Kind regards, James the dog.
• st d - Rover
  I used to have a P6. It were lovely. I know it isn't "mass production" but we are still (we = uk) making world class cars to wit, the TVRs of Blackpool, and from Kensington, the humble BRISTOL. Check out the "FIGHTER".
• Breadmaster - Rover
  I must say I'm entirely with CdM on this one. And not just because I don't like cars, either. Last time I got made redundant, the government didn't step in with a cash injection to my company so it could keep me on. But it did provide benefits until I found a new job. I'd have thought that the task of the government in cases like this is to try to help people back into work - which this government has done admirably with its various schemes - rather than artificially subsidise a company that clearly isn't going anywhere. If you think that it should do that, then at what point do you call it a day? Would Rover still exist in 50 years' time as a bizarre, quaint hangover from the past, pointlessly making useless things, a kind of manufacturing Sisyphus, paid for by the government simply because it's a grand old institution, like the monarchy? I'd say that if there is a point at which you just can't do any more, and surely there is, then that point has been reached.
• ZK
  Hi all! Sorry about the AVMA débacle. I really rather thought there'd be internet in ONE of the hostels I was staying in. But alas, twas not to be. Looks like it's going at a rollocking pace since I left though so I shan't intefere :)
• Raak - Peter Singer
  I googled Peter Singer -- see, e.g. here. He's a hard-line utilitarian, who believes that defective newborn babies should be killed, and that meat-eating is wrong. Is his argument for taxes that the government will use our money more wisely than we will?
• Projoy
  [Raak] Sorry, I haven't looked it up yet and I can't remember all the details of the argument off the top of my head. I'll try and find it and post it for critical review here, as I found it pretty persuasive I must admit. (BTW, aren't you a hardline utilitarian too? The Rover argument hints that you are.)
• Projoy
  Mm. On second thought, maybe it doesn't. I think the gist of the Singer argument on tax is that we all subsist within superstructures of wealth, and that "your" money wouldn't buy you anything without those superstructures, and those superstructures have costs that you don't generally pay directly, but you can, sort of, in a way, if you will, pay them indirectly via tax. But as I say, I don't remember the detail and may have that wrong.
• Projoy - Singer
  Ah, he gives a précis'd version of the argument on this page. It's sort of how I put it, but not quite.
• CdM - hardlining
  [Projoy] I've always thought of Raak as more of a libertarian. But I would be interested to know how he describes himself. As for "whose money is it anyway", variants of that kind of argument certainly predate Singer. Broadly speaking I take the view that our ability to transact is only secured by governments that protect property rights, enforce contracts, jail muggers (unless they are managing large corporations, of course), that kind of thing. The social contract that we agree to is that, in return for these guarantees, we accept that governments have the right to tax us. And once that right is established, there are then good public policy arguments for various kinds of taxing and spending by government. That's pretty loosely articulated, but then it is very late here in Singapore. :-)
• Raak
  [CdM] Libertarian, definitely. And there is a libertarian answer to the question of how things could work without governments, for which see David Friedman's book The Machinery of Freedom (which I haven't read, but I have read a lot of his postings to Usenet). He has a web site with related essays and sample chapters from the book.
         The problem with the social contract idea is that it isn't a contract in any reasonable sense of the word. I don't have a choice about it (beyond emigrating to live under someone else's social contract) and its terms are nowhere defined. In practice, they are defined as obligating people and governments to do exactly what the person invoking it thinks they ought to do. It's as empty as religionists explaining how the elephant got its nose by saying God made it that way.
         [Projoy] I don't see there (in the "Compassionate Conservatism and Tax Cuts" section) any argument that these things must be done by governments, only the unsupported assertion accompanied by (to borrow an epithet he uses a few sentences later) a simplistic caricature of the idea. So where he says that "it's our money" is a simplistic and indefensible way to think about tax, I would say it's a simplistic and defensible way to think about tax.
         Something that might be worth reading alongside Singer's utilitarian writings is C. S. Lewis' The Abolition Of Man.
• Projoy
  Yes, obviously the argument is worked through a bit better in his book. But regarding the social contract, I'm more with CdM, on the assumption that when he says "we agree" he's using it as shorthand for "we accept perforce as the collective behaviour of our species, appreciate the logic, whether we agree or not, and find a way of functioning within the social contract". As a bleeding-heart liberal, the trouble I always have with libertarian arguments (at least as I've heard them advanced) is they are fundamentally unempathetic and callous. They also tend to massively overestimate the effectiveness of individual choice compared to collective effort and, critically, most people's reasoning ability. I'm not being snobby here, I just mean that there isn't time in a human's life to individually negotiate the details of their relationship, financial or otherwise, to everyone they deal with: hence trade unions, hence law, hence social conventions, hence - in short - collectivisation. Libertarianism to me is fine in smaller, simple communities than our current ones, but personally I'd rather have electricity, free internet infrastructure, safe dwellings and (when necessary) unemployment benefit than a basket of berries and nowt else.
• Projoy
  BTW, inasmuch as I have a philosophy, it probably is of the utilitarian greatest-happiness variety...
• CdM - How things would work without governments
  [Raak] We would all have ponies.
• Projoy - Singer & Co.
  [Raak] To add to that, I typed up the relevant bit of the Singer argument, which is here for a short while.
• Projoy
  er... and hopefully your browser will word wrap that.
• CdM - Libertarian Teuchters
  Brad DeLong's follow-up to Belle Waring's post is pretty good, too.
  
  [Breadmaster] Am I right in presuming you will be in the philosophy department at NUS? I ask as a big fan of the John Holbo/Belle Waring blog...
• Breadmaster
  Raak recommending C.S. Lewis? There's a thing. For what it's worth, I was under the impression that libertarianism was a political stance, not a moral philosophy.
  [CdM] That's right. But what is this blog? Actually, right now I'm mired in indecision, wondering whether going to Singapore would be the right thing to do or not. I'm not certain I want to be an academic, but that's what it would basically channel me into. Plus, of course, being away from my girlfriend for a long time would be a bad thing. I hate making decisions!
• Raak
  [Projoy] Singer is advocating relativism about property. Property is whatever local custom and law says it is. If local custom and law says the government owns your whole salary, why, that's just how it is. They can own your firstborn, or you yourself. That's the social contract you somehow accepted when you got born, and any silly idea you have about owning things that the government says you can't is just an illusion. The government owns everything it provides, and it owns everything it needs to take from you to provide it. Lest you think I'm exaggerating, I have actually heard someone argue (before the Wall came down) that East Germany was perfectly justified in shooting people attempting to escape, because such people were stealing the upbringing and education that the state had given them, and which therefore gave the state a property interest in their person. Singer even comes straight out and says "A system of government is conceptually prior to property rights." Who's ignoring human nature now? I mean, most larger animals behave like they have some sort of idea of "my stuff", never mind human beings, and they don't have governments to enforce the idea, they do it themselves. In just about any political philosophy but Singer's, governments are instituted to secure pre-existing property rights.
         A key concept in discussions of libertarianism is, "Utopia is not an option", so when Belle Waring brings in "libertarian utopia" I pretty much lose interest, even though she's recounting a discussion involving David Friedman. The wishful thinking can be found just as much on the other sides. Look here to see what you can do to Make Poverty History: email the PM, send postcards, sign a petition (of breathtaking fatuity), wear a white ribbon, and "call for change and make it happen"! Let's wish for government to give everyone a pony! At least Singer gives 20% of his income to charity.
         [CdM again, re Brad deLong] Go back to those earlier writers and ask them to imagine a world without servants. Go back earlier and ask people to imagine a world without slaves, or (say, in mediaeval Europe) a world without Christianity. You would get the same incredulity as you do at present asking most people to imagine a world without government.
         [Bm] I see it as a political stance grounded in the moral philosophy that everyone has a duty to take responsibility for themselves and their actions, and to make the very best of what they're given by fate, nobody else owing them anything but what they freely choose to give. That is not by any means the whole of morality -- it is largely disjoint from the Tao admirably expounded by C.S. Lewis in the book I mentioned -- but I regard it as an essential part of the whole.
• Projoy
  [Raak] Interesting. When Singer says "a system of government is conceptually prior to property rights" (rather than, say, chronologically prior) surely he doesn't mean that before we had governments we had no property. What he means is that when two people, or indeed other animals come into conflict over property, there immediately emerges some means of deciding priority: strength, guile etc. Out of the two organisms you have a system of government (note that Singer does not say government itself). When 'strength of numbers' becomes the deciding factor in terms of who gets the resources you have something even more recognisable as a system of government. These arrangements are transitory, unstable, inefficient. Surely what we see in our own far more effient and abstract systems of government is the ossification of many iterations of this sort of process? (i.e. Government is inevitable, discuss). Even a world without a nominal government, run, say, by communities of interest or corporations there would be a de facto pecking order, wouldn't there? Assuming this world had such things as property rights, the big corps would be a system of government.
• Projoy
  [Raak] How do you react to the following? "Your property is what anybody stronger than you lets you own and that you don't surrender to anybody weaker than you, or vice versa."
• Raak
  [Projoy] Ha! By yielding I overcome! "Property" doesn't exist as a real thing in itself. Neither do "rights". "Property" and "rights" are ways in which people conceptualise how people should relate to each other. So, your hypothetical statement is an accurate description of who actually gets to own stuff, but not a description of most people's various ideas about what constitutes property and who should have it.
• Raak
  [Projoy, your previous message] I don't see two dogs fighting over a bone as a government, nor two tribes fighting over territory. If the word "government" is extended to mean "whatever way people arrange of living together" then even the hypothetical world of David Friedman's book has a government. But that empties the word of usefulness. Governments, that we call governments, have just this in common: that they impose by force a monopoly on the use of force to settle disputes.
• penelope - Weirder and weirder
  I've just been investigating Time Capsules for a PR stunt proposal... and then looked at my horoscope which said: "Consider the long term today." (Cancer, Jonathan Cainer) Ha.
• Boolbar
  [pen] Do you take time capsules (3 times a day with meals) to give you more time to do things?
• penelope - Taking my time (three times a day, with food)
  [Boolbar] Yup.
• Tuj - Cancer
  [pen] That must be me too then. I don't read horoscopes, so I have to take mine second-hand, obviously. Thanks.
• Breadmaster
  I once owned a cook book by Jonathan Cainer. It consisted of recipes like, "Open can. Put beans on plate. Serve." and some strange gubbins about how vegetarianism was an affirmation of life. He's a man of many talents! If only he used some of them.
• CdM
  [Raak] You're dismissing Belle Waring's arguments because she uses "libertarian utopia" as a tongue-in-cheek description of the kind of society that Epstein, Barnett and Friedman are discussing. But leave that phrase aside if you like: I think her one paragraph synopses of their arguments is pretty close to the money.
  
  As an economist, I am sympathetic to the view that we should encourage the value-creating possibilities of private contracting between individuals, and as a social liberal, I am sympathetic to the view that we should limit government intrusion into private decisions. Those are positions that loosely ally with libertarianism. But I am also aware that, in the real world, private transactions frequently have significant consequences beyond the transactors, and libertarian arguments start crumbling rapidly one you take this seriously. (Epstein recognizes this in his contribution, and so ends up advocating a form of state that is not really that different from what we already have; he would simply like to see less government regulation.) The key paragraph from Belle Waring's argument is surely this, though:
  
  Now, everyone close your eyes and try to imagine a private, profit-making rights-enforcement organization which does not resemble the mafia, a street gang, those pesky fire-fighters/arsonists/looters who used to provide such "services" in old New York and Tokyo, medieval tax-farmers, or a Lendu militia. (In general, if thoughts of the Eastern Congo intrude, I suggest waving them away with the invisible hand and repeating "that's anarcho-capitalism" several times.) Nothing's happening but a buzzing noise, right?
  
  I am completely with her here: it is at this point that I think libertarianism utterly loses touch with reality. Private contracting without some institution to enforce contracts is infeasible, and private provision of contract enforcement strikes me as much scarier than enforcement by a democratically elected government. (Perhaps that's what comes of visiting countries where ordinary restaurants are guarded by men with sub-machine guns.)
  
  Oh, and you are completely misreading Brad DeLong. He is not saying that Smith, Hume, Hobbes, et al. couldn't imagine a world without government; he is saying the exact opposite. He is saying that they know it to be a crazy idea because they can imagine it all too well.
• rab
  I haven't thought about this too much, or read any of the references (hmmm - pursuing as ever the highest standards of academic rigour...). However my immediate reaction to the concept of "no government" is a feeling that such a thing would in fact be unstable. For without government, it is surely then impossible to have an army. Without an army, you leave yourself open to invasion from a power that does have an army, and you're back to having a government. If there were no governments, as there once weren't, a nucleation event would surely propagate. Or am I being too simplistic?
• Raak
  [CdM] On the last point, I don't think I am misreading: the hypothetical responses of Smith et al are those of people unable to imagine the alternatives. (As a digression, I would not be surprised -- except by my living so long -- to see in a century's time the relationship of "employment" being regarded as as degrading as "keeping a servant" is regarded by many people today.)
         Having just read the Reason article that Belle Waring had such fun with, her summary of Friedman is way off. There is no wishful thinking in Friedman. Speculation, certainly. Waring is speculating as well, speculating about a world in which the governmental restraints on people that we see around us are absent, but ignoring all of the proposals for what might replace them. Let's wish for no-one to have a pony!
         The fundamental problem of having a government to secure public goods is this: how do you restrict the government to doing only that? Looking around at the world, it seems clear to me that nobody has found a solution to that problem. The thing that governments are most effective at is securing and extending their own power.
         [rab] The idea is that there are other institutions instead, ones that do not take the form of a small group of people (elected or otherwise) telling everyone else what to do. As you point out, the original state of institutionless nature was in fact followed by governments.
• Projoy
  [Raak] How do you restrict anyone to securing public goods? Whether they are government in name or (part of) government by fact? Constitutions, bills of rights, checks and balances all seem like a good start to me.
• Projoy
  [Raak] re your previous points about convention determining property... I think you are overstating it in a way that suggests Government is not continuous with us, the people. You could justifiably accuse me of cultural myopia here, I suppose, because I'm thinking mainly about democratic governments of the type I've directly experienced, but there is an extent to which governments may be closer to a genuine contract than the simple fiat of convention or the powerful: democracy, including lobbyism etc. is it. I'd be interesting to know whether your argument is based on a greatest-happiness idea and if so how libertarian mechanisms follow from that. As I mentioned before, my problem with systems based on high personal responsibility is that they do not recognise the moral value of protecting the weak. It strikes me that you have to bite the bullet and say (as you once jokingly put it) "a man who doesn't have enough friends to pull his plough had better starve".

  Also, I note you haven't really responded to the argument about social capital.

• Projoy
  s/interesting/interested
• Chalky - St George's Day Celebrations
  Salisbury is festooned. There's a re-enactment of the mighty battle plus lots of celebrations in the market place tomorrow. I'd happily place a bet that every school age child in our district knows who St George is.
  On this subject ...
  I could do with some help because I have very little free time ... I have to compile 10 questions for our Sunday Quiz night [coincidentally the pub is the George & Dragon] on the theme of George & The Dragon so I need 5 'George' questions and 5 'Dragon' questions - not just historical ones. 2 easy ones that spring to mind are "what is the name of the actor who played George in George and Mildred" and "the full name please of the lizard that has the word dragon in its name?" That sort of level. Any further ideas would be much appreciated ..
• rab
  Erm.. name of the Rentaghost dragon.. island to have been awarded the George cross.. origin of the phrase By George!..
• Chalky
  thanks rab :-)
• Projoy
  You could ask for the translation of the motto of Hogwart's school: "Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus". How many King Georges have we had? (or how many Georges reigned in the eighteenth/twentieth century?). Who wrote "Aida" and what does his name translate into English as? What was George VI's real name? Who wrote "I Got Rhythm"? (or which of the following pieces/novels/whatever were written by a George?)... Who performed "Georgy Girl"?
• Projoy
  The name of the Dragon in The Hobbit...
• Chalky
  Gosg - thanks Projoy :-) :-)
• Chalky
  Gosg?
• Blob - D&D
  (With apologies for cross-post)
  My ten-year-old son is very keen to play Dungeons & Dragons (of the take left fork, pick up ring, drink potion type) - can anyone suggest a good site for him to visit that is (a) safe for 10-y-os, (b) interesting but accessible to a 10-y-o novice and (c) free or at least inexpensive ? It doesn't matter whether its MUDD playing other players or simply finding his way through a maze playing only the computer - in fact the latter might be better to start with ... any ideas ?
• Darren
  I suppose something like Nethack or Slash'Em would be OK for him, if he didn't find the user interface too complicated.

  On the more less-D&D-but-more-maze-with-potions-and-monsters side of things, and at the risk of blowing my own trumpet, why not try Ravenskull, which I programmed for Superior Interactive? (www.superiorinteractive.co.uk)

• Darren
  Nethack can come from http://www.nethack.org/ and Slash'Em can come from http://slashem.sourceforge.net/
• rab - Lynx
  [Darren] You can do hyperlinks here in the usual way (until I get round to changing the syntax slightly as a spam blockade).

  Anyway, did you write the original Ravenskull, or convert it to PC? I vaguely recall owning this for my trusty old Acorn Electron when I were a lad, but there were a number of these types of games it could have been another one... In any case, Kudos!

• Raak
  And there's the original,one and only, Colossal Cave.
• Darren
  [rab] I didn't write the original Ravenskull - I did the PC port. Superior Interactive is of course the descendent of the original publisher of Ravenskull on the BBC/Electron (Superior Software) and is still run by Mr Hanson. I've worked on a number of the PC (and other platform) ports of the old Superior games, and still am for that matter.
• Blob
  Thanks for the info. We'll go and have a look at the suggested sites.
• Simons Mith - Question for Chalky
  There have been five kings of England called George. The latest was George V. Name the other four.
• Projoy - *blush*
  [Chalky] Oops, have just realised that the Aida question has no George connection :). You could put it in as a trick one, tho :) An alternative would be to see if people can name any hit by Boy George's Culture Club apart from Karma Chameleon.
• Breadmaster
  I'm pretty sure there are quite a few lizards with the word "dragon" in their name (I can think of two off-hand) so I'd avoid that question!
  Personally I don't approve of the celebration of St George's Day: simply a slavish copy of the celebration of St Patrick's Day, which itself is an Americanism. At least St Patrick actually had something to do with Ireland: St George is terribly obscure at best and had nothing whatsoever to do with England in the slightest.
• rab
  *has a queasy feeling of deja vu*
• Rosie - Quiz Qu's
  (Chalky) What have George Eliot, George Sand and George of Enid Blyton's Famous Five got in common? (Ans. - All women)
• Dujon - Queues of Queues
  As an easy starter, or a tie breaker, how about: From the letters of the name 'George' provide two three letter words which, in essence, have the same meaning. (Ans. Roe and Egg)
• Breadmaster
  [rab] Ah yes, we've had that before, haven't we? Apologies...
  [Dujon] I wouldn't call that an easy one, but it's damnably clever. You might also ask what the name "George" actually means (farmer or earthworker).
• Raak - Georgiana
  There has to be a suitable question to which the answer would be "Jorja Fox", but I can't quite think of one.
• qzxc
  Paddington...er, no that's wrong. I actually meant Wimbledon. No that's wrong too... I've got it! Kings Cross. Ah - that felt good
• Blob - George
  Damn - wish I'd seen Chalky's request earlier, I love setting quiz questions, but have obviously missed the Sunday deadline now. BTW [SM] Five kings called George ?
  As a matter of interest :

  • George III was what relation of George II ?
  • What is the name of the constellation representing the dragon
  • George fighting the dragon appeared on the reverse of which British coin ? (two possible answers)
  • Where did George play with Zippy & Bungle ?
  • Name Hagrid's baby dragon
  • If Sid James was George, who was The Dragon ?
  • Which George had an affair with Chopin ?
  • Which country owns Komodo of Komodo Dragon fame ?
• Simons Mith - Five kings
  It's true. It is also true that there have been two kings of England called George. The latest of which was George II. See?
• Projoy
  [Blob] You've got me stumped on the Sid James question.
• Bif - George and the Dragon
  Either Peggy Mount or Hattie Jaques. I'm leaning toward Peggy Mount.
• Blob - Argent a cross gules
  Bif is leaning in the correct direction !
• Blob - Link
  [Pj] A quick Google found this
• st d - D&D
  blob - I sent you this link anyway, but why not buy your little chaperoo The D&D Player's Handbook. My advice would be encourage him to play it with some friends without a computer. The dice are very cool.
• penelope
  No wonder Bif is leaning. Who has the bigger gravitational pull, Hattie Jacques or Peggy Mount?
• Uncle Korky - AD&D
  [Blob / st d] In a recent nostalgic fit, I picked up from Ebay the standard quintet of AD&D manuals that I used to use at the end of the 1980s. Quite makes me want to have another go myself... Now, I just have to rescue my polyhedral dice from the fellow I leant them to about 10 years ago...
• Breadmaster
  Speaking of dragons, does anyone remember the name of the TV programme that was on years ago, a sort of game show like an ancestor of "The Crystal Maze", which was set on a space ship or alien planet in which everything was an anagram of the word "dragon", and which featured a grid on which the player had to move from node to node while being chased by a shimmery thing?
• rab
  Yes. It was The Adventure Game, and the shimmery thing was "The Vortex" if I recall.

  Have just applied for a job online. Which feels wrong somehow. I like putting things into envelopes.

• Breadmaster
  That's it! I knew it was a strangely unexotic title.
• Darren
  [Breadmaster] Yep, it was a wonderful show. I understood they repeated it on some cable channel recently, but since I don't have things like that I couldn't see the repeats. It's a pity cos I'd love to see it again. All I have is the theme music and about 300 screen grabs to keep me company.
• Chalky
  Chunky chunks of strudel to all who helped with quizzing :-)
• Botherer - Adventure game feem toon
  Oh yes, it's the John Williamsy guitar one, isn't it?
• Darren
  [Botherer] That's right. Ferdinando Carulli's Duo in G, Op. 34, performed by Julian Bream & John Williams.
• Uncle Korky
  (Cross-posting) At last! Internet at home! Mwahahahahaha!
• pene;lope - he's spreading it about a bit
  [UK] You got everywhere!
• Darren
  [penelope] I see you've acquired a new semicolon. It suits you!
• st dogmael - Adveture Game
  That was a GREAT show. I can still do a very convincing impersonation of The Rangdo Of Arg, aoart from teh looking like an aspidistra part.
• pene;lope - colonoscopy
  [Darren] You think so? You don't think I should get it surgically removed?
• penelope - post-semi-colonectomy
  That's better. People were avoiding me.
• Ro/sie
  Must go for a slash.
• Dujón
  Please excuse my accent. I've lived here for too long I suspect. Whilst the problem's acute it isn't grave at this point in time.
• penelope
  *swipes fly off Dujon's 'o'*
• DrQü+xum
  I think someone's taken a shot at my name as well....
• Pròjôý - Gosh!
  It's breaking out all over...
• Pròjôý
  Looks like it's surgery for me, otherwise I'll be in a diacritical condition.
• Rösie
  Um-laut-ish behaviour. (Projoy) Your critical condition could have been even more dire if you'd had a wotsit over the "r", like Dvorak. I can't seem to find it.
• Dujon
  [penelópe] Ah, so you have. I expect it back you know - it's not a book.
• Pròjôý - Dvorak keyboards...
  The r with a thingy over it doesn't appear to be in the list of HTML entities I can find. Nor indeed the "c" with a... I think it might be called a hacek, but not sure, that is used in Czech words.
• Bôõlbår - č
  Háček. Bless you!
• Bôõlbåř - ř
  ř - That's better.
• penelope
  *installs fly strips on every available surface as everyone but her seems to have flies buzzing around their heads* ;o)
• ß|ø6
  
  is all I have to say on the matter !
• Bthrr - Fls bzzng rnd
  Smply mss th vwls nd thn th prblm stps.
• ee - o ie o e...
  e! I'e o a y ooa!
• penelope
  I evacuate my vowels regularly, I guess that's why I never have that problem
• Botherer
  Whereas I'm cons(on)(t)ant in my approach to life. Pick an' mix, kids.
• Dujon
  A friend of mine used to pass sentences, penelope. He retired when he felt that in some cases they were becoming too long. (He was a magistrate).
• rab
  Just testing
• Darren
  Did we pass?
• ImNotJohn
  I spotted it, but when I came back to recheck, what passes for normality had returned. I just assumed Rab had failed to pay the bills.
• Rs
  (Bthrr) All right for you with all your cnsnnts. :-)
• Tuj - Vote MC5
  ...in the interests of balance, where are those of us not involved in this vote represented?
• Tuj - Like the look though
  ...and, totally unrelatedly, I've just realised (thanks to a random poster) that i misspelled the "Maximum" in "Maxuimum High Speed Reverse Obliterate Ruttsborough's Ostrich" [sic]. Drat.
• Raak - Subtexts
  My reading is that Labour is happening and now, LibDem just grabs onto discarded Labour policies for a brief while, while the Tories are the past, only resuscitated now and then out of curiosity.
• rab
  It is a bit loud isn't it? Don't worry, it'll all be over soon.

  This message was brought to you by the "Anti Front-Page Graffiti Coalition (Incorporating the Stop the Dodgy Scansion Alliance)"

• rab
  [Tuj] I've corrected it for you.
• penelope
  Apparently, I have the same IQ as Goering.
• Projoy
  Just imagine if that were repeated all over the country.
• penelope
  [Projoy] IQ is quantitive, not qualitative. Or is it? And stand to attention when I'm talking to you. ;o)
• Inkspot - Music notes
  At one of the MSN Celebdaq groups I potter around, they have a daily picture quiz and a weekly on line quiz in Chat. As a challenge last night I did a music competition of 10 intros. It went down well so there will be another next week. The only major rules are, one answer per post and no consecutive posts. If you wish to have a go, it is temporarily at MSN Group MC Test Track. If you are doing this in the office - check volume first!
• Projoy - I name that tune in one
  Number 6 is A Hard Day's Night by The Beatles.
• rab
  Ah. That's better.
• penelope
  Late Arrivals. Why don't we have a game of Late Arrivals? Hasn't been done for... ooof.... months! Are there any games getting ready to go off around here?
• rab
  The Election game could be shortlived. Although the majority's a little shaky on that one.
• Chalky
  ITV1 is way ahead than BBC1 on declared results ... I might be pursuaded to stick with it
• rab
  Yeah - are they geninue results or ITV making it up?
• rab
  And BBC1 has Boris!
• Irouléguy
  And Peter Snow!
  Statistic of the night (so far) the Scottish Socialist Party got 666 votes in Gordon Brown's constituency!
• Uncle Korky
  [Chalky] ITV's 'results' are being announced prior to returning officers' confirmations.
• Rosie - Late Arrivals
  (pen) Good idea. All those in favour say "aye", say I.
• Chalky - AYE!
  psst - free game slot
• ImNotJohn - Clairvoyance
  I didn't like the ITV method of 'we have someone on the floor of the count with a mobile phone who's looking over the returning officer's shoulder'. Over the course of the night they got 2 or 3 wrong.
• Darren
  [INJ] I have to say it's not really any different from the way the parties themselves get prior results. I'm never entirely sure why knowing the results a few minutes earlier than anyone else gives you an advantage. It's not as if you can do anything about it.
• Inkspot
  [Projoy] Yes to No6.
  [Darren] The agents anf their supporters are trying to second guess the result from the moment the first box is opened. Part one of the process is that we have to count the papers first into bundles of 25 face up. It is during this that they have markers on the other side of the tables with preprinted list and they watch one of the counters putting a mark against each candidate. As the boxes are in Wards they gauge quickly how it is going. At the count last night there were 13 tables of 5 counters.
  During part the guessing is easier. We now take those bundles and this time sort them into four piles (Con/Lab/Lib/other) and then into candidate bundles of 25. It does not take much effort for them to estimate at this stage whether or not it is going to be close.
  In Swindon mobile phones were banned from the hall where the count was being held.
• Darren
  [Inkspot] But my point was this: why bother trying to find out before it's announced? What's the point?
• Inkspot
  It gives them something to do, and try to generate a sense of excitement and tension to a very tedious, mind numbing process.
• Blob - Early call
  [Darren] It gives the losers chance to wipe the tears from their eyes and compose themselves.
  It would be a lot more fun if they (and their agents) were locked in a sealed room and only led out to hear the result - so we could see their real live reaction.
• Breadmaster
  [Blob] That would be like the Oxford Union elections, which I once made a film about and which, I can assure you, are just as keenly fought and taken just as seriously as "real" election. Ballots are counted in a completely sealed room, rather like Papal elections, with ridiculous hype about the secrecy of it all.
• Tuj - Free game slot again
  101 Uses For a B&D Workmate with a Rope Attached?
  No, seriously... what now?
• Simons Mith - New Game
  Rutherford Scattering?
• Anthrax Whirl - Call me Thrax.
  I'm glad the student elections at MY university weren't so beligerent, Breadmaster. They were little more than an excuse for a piss-up. I ran unopposed anyway, since no one else wanted the position of Students with disabilities Secretary. Maybe THAT's why they wouldn't read out my result until after I'd sung a Karaoke of "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred, and lifted several pair drops out of a bowl full of self-raising flour using my teeth. Still, you make your own entertainment in the Midlands, I suppose.
• Dujon - OK
  G'day, Thrax. Nice to see you posting. Hope all's well, my friend.
• Anthrax Whirl - Call me Thrax.
  Aye, 'tis well enough. Just hope they've lifted that mobile phone ban on us Swindonians.
  
  And life treating you well down under, sir? By which I mean "in Australia", not "has the pox cleared up?" of course.
• Matron
  As we say in the medical industry, he's doing as well as can be expected. You know what these geriatrics can be like, Mr Thrax. Once we have detoxed him he'll be able to lead a more or less normal life ... well, his normal.
• Anthrax Whirl - Call me Thrax.
  That's a relief, Matron.
  
  I hope no one tries to detox me however. Fags and booze are about my only form of sustenance.
• Rosie
  (Thrax) And mine. Welcome back, young man. Have you defeated those FUCKING LOBSTERS?
• Dujon - ... back again
  You have a cat nap and the staff take over. Really! When I was admitted 'they' said certain procedures might be intrusive, but this is taking things a little too far. Should you ever be bludgeoned into detox, Thrax, don't believe a word of what 'they' say. For example: Trusted medical staff suggest that and MRI, or similar, could be benefical to their diagnostic appreciation. Fine. My natural suspicions were aroused when 'they' strapped me into a tube, closed a little glass door on the front and activated the control mechanism. Now, I'm fully aware that drying out the patient is one of the aims of this facility, but to con a patient into entering an industrial spin dryer under the pretext of taking care of him is indefensible.
  I'm off outside for a dram and a drag. See you later.
• Botherer - Intro Number One
  Is, of course, Boogie Wonderland by Earth, Wind and Fire.
• Kim - Intro Number 5
  - is "Celia" by Simon and Garfunkel, or did everybody already know that?
• Inkspot - numbers up
  [Botherer]Earth, Wind and Fire is right
  [Kim]Simon and Garfunkel also right
  Seeing as it has been up a couple of days since the original post, no consecutive posts rules is waived (1, 5 and 6 have been guessed.)Can you finish it off?
• Juxtapose - intros
  3. The Temptations - Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)
• Juxtapose - "one answer...
  8. Cornershop - Brim Full of Asha
• Juxtapose - ... per post"
  9. Prodigy - Firestarter
• Darren
  10. Weather With You - Crowded House
• Inkspot
  [Juxtpose & Darren]all right ;)
  which leaves 2. Little Richard - Good Golly Miss Molly, 4. Nancy and Frank Sinatra - Somethin Stupid, 7. Keane - Everybody's Changing

  ...and now back to normal chat.

• penelope
  Thank goodness. I hate all that new-fangled pope music, I think it's called.
• flerdle - too late
  [Inkspot] I actually got number 2 but had to run off for a few hours so didn't post. It is a standard (but thumpy) 12 bar blues, however, so I wasn't completely sure. The style pins it down to late 50s though. And of course I recognized number 10 within, oh, a note or two (it was all over the radios in Aus in the early 90s).
• Darren - Crowded House
  [flerdle] They were New Zealanders, though, weren't they? I thought Australians were vehemently 100% absolutely totally opposed to all things which emanate from New Zealand, and then some.
• Darren
  On checking Wikipedia, it seems only 1/3 of Crowded House was from New Zealand. This probably explains why Australians gave them a chance.
• flerdle - it's stereotype time!!!
  [Darren] No, not at all. A New Zealander would be far more insulted to be called an Australian than an Australian would a New Zealander - they'd probably just laugh at you; don't be stuuuuupid!

  Australians tend to coopt a lot of (originally) NZ stuff, if it/they get famous eg Phar Lap, Fred Hollows, Crowded House, Russell Crowe... In sports, they are 'our' worst enemies, but otherwise are generally just given a hard time because we actually don't mind them - sibling rivalry and all that. New Zealand is even more at the @rse-end of the world than Australia and it's rather small, so they tend to feel like they're in Australia's shadow most of the time and perhaps they have 'something to prove', or at least they need to differentiate themselves from big, bossy, boorish Australia(ns). Australians tend to think New Zealand is cold, wet and just that little bit dull...

  When the states of Australia joined to become 'Australia' there were noises made to get New Zealand included too (a reasonable idea) but the New Zealanders would have none of that. In the past the economy was better in Australia so a lot of New Zealanders moved. Migration has recently been tending the other way. About 350,000 New Zealand citizens (out of 4 million or so) live in Australia and around 60,000 Australians (out of 20 million) live in New Zealand. Political and economic ties are very close.

  Their accent is a bit weird, though, and they are said to have a thing for sheep.

• Rosie - NZspeak
  For example, pigs. These are wooden or plastic spring clips used for hanging out the washing.
• Darren
  [flerdle] I got my impressions of the relationship between Australians and New Zealanders by dating a girl from New Zealand for some time. She was a pathologist and said "cadaver" in a very strange way.
• Botherer - NZ Speak
  [Rosie] And bits. Wagers on an event's outcome. There's a game here somewhere.
• Inkspot - more daq is back
  A little bit of a long time ago some rash young people spurred on by evil edna popped along to a Beeb site Celebdaq and set up some starry eyed accounts and formed the Celebrity Mornington Crescent League. But since its hay day last year many players taken that long stretched limo to secluded island of paradise. We are now down to five.

  For those like playing here are a couple of addresses to help
  MSN Group Ultimates for information on dividends. It is still guess work but every little helps. This week I chose Gavin Henson for best dividend yeild.
  Fancy some competition to spice up your play? The Discworld Leagues are back. One of my accounts (Cleddau) is in the Assasssins Guild.

• evil_edna - celebdantiquing
  [Inkspot] I got busy. And now my account is lapsed. Sorry. *cackle*
• Botherer - I'm probably being dumb here
  But I've just signed up for Celebdaq and can't work out how to join the mini league. Help?
• Rosie
  (Darren) I'm a little puzzled. Was it something like "G'day-ver"? Did she have six-appeal? Well, obviously, I suppose. :-)
• Inkspot
  [Botherer]Good to see you join up, if you leave your ID number here it will be added as soon after.
• Darren
  [Rosie] It was "kerdaaaaver," and she always insisted that everyone in NZ spoke like that.
• Botherer - Celebdaq ID
  3859547
  
  Thanks Inkspot!
• Inkspot - Hiding behind the sofa from evil edna
  Botherer you are in, welcome. You should appear there very soon. The other players you may not recognise from their alias are Graham III as ffish and gil as sigmundfreud. Dujon and blamelewis you know from around the boards.
  For tips and general chit chat visit MSN Group CelebdaqBasements and Ultimates for the stats. There are plenty of experienced players out there willing to help with any query. Enjoy the game.
• Anthrax Whirl - Call me Thrax
  Ah yes, I remember Celebdaq. Had a stab at it, but I was completely utterly hopeless. :( I just don't follow the celebrity-driven media closely enough I fear. I think I'm not in touch with the zeitgeist of modern times, which seems to have an obsessive fascination with the lives of the "great and good". It just passes me by and makes no impression.
  
  Although, Rosie, I - very much like yerself - AM aware that many celebs are known to have succumbed to near-fatal cases of Lobsteriscimusbummakissimus. Thankfully mine has cleared up, after successful treatment involving industrial pliers and dyson vacuum, leaving me feeling refreshed and absolutely fantastic. I trust you are in similarly rude health, my friend?
• Rosie
  (Thrax) Very rude, as all are aware. The only lobsterish incident in my life occurred in about 1952 when I was unable to read the name of a steam loco across a couple of platforms. The place of course was Charing Crustacean (geddit). Yes, it really was. So four-eyes from an early age, not a great burden.
• Dujon - Sofas
  Did you buy your sofa from Sofa King, Inkspot? You know, the firm which advertises as "Sofa King - Good".
  I also see, Inkspot, that Dr Q+ is re-entering the fray. With the inclusion of Botherer, my reincarnation and the foibles of the market ... let the battle commence. Not that it ever went away and, anyway, ffish has been on the heavy side of the scales for yonks. I enjoy the play in the Conference but the higher leagues are, at this point in time, a bit beyond me.
  Welcome, Botherer, test your skills against idiots like me. It's silly, it's stupid and, to be honest, a waste of cyberspace.
• Anthrax Whirl - Call me Thrax
  "Charing Crustacean"! *groan* Ouch! A pun like that really aches at this time of morning, Rosie. Ha ha! It's the way ye tell 'em! Which reminds me... anyone else here enjoyed those late night shows on Radio 4 in which Pauline McLynne has been exploring the history of Irish comedy? Some marvellous quotes in it. One of my faves was from Dave Allen, in which he advised that you must never expect a sensible reply if asking for directions in Ireland, as you're likely to be told: "You want to get to there d'ye? Well, ye certainly don't want to start from here! Start from way over there - it's nearer." Ha ha ha. Just brilliant!
  
  *reads Dujon's "Sofa King - Good" quip* That reminds me of a wee gag of my own from my childhood days. I forget who was the recipient, I recall only the gag, but someone invited it by saying to me, "I'm from Suffolk myself," to which, naturally, I replied, "yes, Suffolk yourself." See? I'm pure evil.
  
  I have however just bought a new sofa - well, a sofabed, which I intend to plonk here in my study for when visitors, er, visit. £25 it cost me. The lady upstairs is clearing out a load of unwanted furniture and stuff for next-to-nothing since she won £400,000 on the Lottery and intends to move out at the end of May. Alas however, the lift is broken at the moment and so I can't get the thing down from her floor to mine until an essential component arrives from Deutschland.
  
  I'm sure this is all frightfully dull for you all. Think I'll wind up here for now.
  
  :) Huzzaah!
• Botherer
  [Inkspot] You are a gentleman and a scholar.
• Simons Mith - A gentleman and a scholar
  Oh, that's 0.67 of a Pink Panther.
• penelope
  That's a Pink Pant, more or less.
• Inkspot
  [penelope]That's a little brief - and a mental picture that I shall immediately put to on side.
• Irouléguy
  Inkspot] Actually, there was a player between it and the goal, so it was onside anyway.
• Rosie - Offside rule
  (Irouléguy) There have to be two players, or at least one and a half.
• CdM
  *mimes*
• Néa - Hmmmm
  [CdM] You're trying to get out of a box?
• Juxtapose
  I thought the penalty box was for hockey... or was that prison?
• Inkspot - motorway madness
  Legoland is great when you get there the only problem is other drivers on the M4. Yesterday there were three accidents on different sections between Hugerford and Slough adding an hour onto the travelling. I am no saint when it comes to motorway driving, recklesly driving over the limit at an average of just under 75mph, but at I abide by lane discipline, overtake; then back to the inside lane. There were just so mannt middle lane dawdlers. They really are the bane of my driving life. Squatting in the middle lane they are a hazard they can be like their own personal mobile roadblock as other drivers attach themselves closely to the bumper. A further irritation of the most blinkered of these drivers is the way they come to a slow moving vehicle in the middle lane then hypnotized staying behind rather than overtake. When will they get it into their skulls that the second and third lanes are for overtaking it is not, inside lane = slow lane and outside lane = fast lane.
• penelope
  [Inkspot] Abso-bloody-lutely. I undertake middle-land dawdlers if I can do it without speeding. I know it's evil, but they have been told time and time again. Pffft.
• Breadmaster
  Hogging the middle lane is unacceptable, but I have to say I don't think I've ever seen anyone hogging the middle land whilst driving at under 70mph. Given that no-one is allowed to go over 70mph, they are therefore not blocking anybody.
• rab
  *taps the deja-vuometer - needle rises sharply*
• penelope
  [Breadmaster] Oh I have. How come there is space for me to go at 70mph in Lane 1 if he/she or it is going at 65mph in Lane 2? Because everyone else in Lane One has pulled ahead (at a legal speed) of the sluggish Lane Two-er, that's why. Exactly how much motorway driving do you do?
• Breadmaster
  Well, not so much these days, admittedly. Perhaps there are more slow middle lane hoggers than there used to be!
• Raak
  *resists the temptation to say what speed I routinely cruise at*
• Inkspot
  In the old Polo I use for work I return via M4 J15/J15 at a steady pace just under 60, the car seems comfortable with this - there being a noise barrier somewhere round 70.
  Thankfully I missed this latest offering from ITV Twelve gorgeous celebrity singletons are thrown together on a fantasy island in ITV1’s star studded search for love, Celebrity Love Island. The end of the Dyke era seems to have given the beeb a small kick up the backside. Unfortunately Ofcom seem to want more of this low quality 'entertainment' in allowing ITV to dump anything that is done elsewhere eg news, childrens progs.
• Nik - Middle lane hogs
  I find that middle lane hogs are almost invariably travelling at no more than 60, actually. Usually as they pass under gantries which rather expensively dictate 'DON'T HOG THE MIDDLE LANE'. Given my penchant for grotesquely illegal (but not dangerous, dammit; how is 100-120 on a dry, empty road, in a well-maintained car designed for over 145, with a healthy, sober, attentive driver, more dangerous than 70?) speeds, I also regularly experience the upper class of lane hog - those that have ascended to the 'fast' lane; to be fair, they're generally only there because of people in the middle lane and will often move when a quarter of a mile gap (ie the space required to pull over and let me pass without slowing for the next hog) avails itself. (I am aware that my driving habits are both vastly illegal and morally reprehensible to some people. I continue to hold my constantly clean license and undamaged person+car as evidence that I am not the murderer our illustrious government would have everyone believe)

  The most hate-inducing section of road for me is the newly re-opened Thelwall Viaduct, though, which often sees three of the four lanes occupied by lorries and hoggers, for some reason. It even expands to five lanes for filtering off, so it's not (well, shouldn't be) that.

  I'm going on holiday tomorrow evening, for two weeks. Therefore, my DSL will fall over some time on Thursday.

• Bob the dog
  Apologies for the cross posting.
  
  This is really just a last minute round-up for anyone who may want to become involved in an MC event organised for this weekend (the 21st of May).
  
  Last year, a group of regular MC players got together to organise a live game or two, loosely presented in the format of ISIHAC. 17 folks attended ‘ISIHAC2 – This time it’s Unprofessional’. It was so much fun that an instant decision for the event to be repeated.
  
  This years event has been entitled ‘That Went Off Very Well’ and is to be held at Brownsover Hall in Rugby. Bedrooms cost £35 and I am reliably informed that there are still some available, although we are expecting a bigger crowd this year.
  
  On Saturday evening (from about 7.30pm) we will be playing ISIHAC games such as New Definitions, Sound Charades and Mornington C with suitable breaks for beer and refreshments. Piano is being provided by Colin Sell soundalike, JLE. Silliness will be followed by a cabaret including songs specifically written for the occasion and free-for-all gaming.
  
  It may be too late for you to attend, but all the same I thought I would post this in the hope that if there were any players who suddenly found themselves free this weekend would have the opportunity to have an extravagant sufficiency of fun in pleasurable surroundings amongst exuberant and entertaining company.
  
  If you are interested in attending, email me here for all details. There are some half empty cars coming up from London, and I can give lifts from Rugby Train Station.
  
  If you are unable to attend because you just live too far away or wouldn’t miss Eurovision for the world, you can still contribute. Email me at the address above and I’ll send you a programme of the games we are playing. If you have any suggestions for new definitions, chat-up-lines likely to be heard at Westminster or songs suitable for undertakers and morticians, I’ll be very happy to read out your contribution “here is one sent in by…” style.
  
  Once again, apologies for interrupting programming. Normal Service will now be resumed.
• Botherer - Middle Lane Hogs
  My favourite tactic with these fools is to drive up reasonably close to them in the inside lane, indicate out and overtake. Once past them I indicate back in to the inside lane and then slow down until they pass me. Repeat until they get the hint or I get bored.
• Rosie - MLH's
  (Botherer) Why do they need to get the hint? You've already overtaken him and have no need to concern yourself with him any more. Just drive on, maybe with a brief profanity. All you're doing is raising your blood pressure, not his. He'll just think you're a bit mad, that is if he sees you at all.
• Irouléguy - Songs for undertakers
  Botherer could have a go at Meatloaf's Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are.
• st dogmael - - controversial -
  Hurrah a road debate ! I like the sound of NIK's driving. I would also say that Inkspot is very correct to travel that section of teh M4 slowly as they have just pout speed cameras calibrated at about 74mph on it (J14-16) - or at least said that on the news, which is a similar effect.....
  Anyone who is of teh opinion that anyone driving over 70 is a lunatic or whatever is really the kind of person that I shouldnt really even start talking to about this because, frankly and honestly, I couldn't give a toss about their opinions on this matter and would fervently hope never to have to be a passengger in their car or have them in mine. I drive at about 90 most of teh time, occasionally creeping up to about 110 for brief periods or dropping to 70 if the road is clear. I will generally sit in outside or middle lanes and will always pull over to middle lane if someone is approaching me fast and I can easily - otherwise I will wait until three is a gap I can do this safely then pull out immediately behind them (well, maybe not IMMEDIATELY) If they approach really close and hassle me, especially with an indicator on, or in any way before I have had a chance to let them get past politely then I do not alwyas pull out - sometimes I will sit there just to piss them off, sometimes I will accelerate, somketimes I will touch my brakelights (though not brake) - I will let them past but not necessarily straight away. F*ck em. Similarly when I approach someone from behind I give thme plenty of chance to pull out of my way. If they don't then I will get a bit closer. Sometimes I undertake - I have no problem with doing this at all if there is space. If I am in middle lane I do not always pull aside. If I am in middle lane that normally means that there is no-one in fast lane and so road is quite clear - however I am normally going faster than someone in the 'slow' lane. If someone comes up hard behind me wanting to get past, then my thinking is that they can bloody well overtake me by using the space available on my right. I dont see why anyone has a problem with people not going as fast as them in teh middle lane when there is another lane available. Fast lane slow drivers I accept are a ROYAL PAIN IN THE ASS. Middle lane - so what ? I like botherers circling technique though. :o)
  In Italy the other week I LOVE the way they drive on the Mways. Screaming up fast to within inches and then overtaking at last second. Everyone seems happy with it. I just love the sheer recklessness of it.
• st dogmael - typos
  schmypos - sorry
• flerdle
  Roads here are nice. And smooth. And straight, mostly. And fast. Everyone goes fast. Every second time we go to Muscat (approx 240km each way - about once every two weeks) there's at least one rather nasty looking accident. Sometimes it's a bit hard to see what type of car it (formerly) was.
• st d - what type of car.....?
  flerdle] is that because you are going by so fast ?
• flerdle
  Not in an Echo.
• Breadmaster
  [St D] So doesn't the fact that something's illegal bother you at all?
• Breadmaster
  I didn't mean that to sound confrontational, by the way - but I am genuinely puzzled because I'd have thought that most people would at least have some scruples about breaking the law. But in this subject it seems not!
• Rosie - Motoring
  As if I didn't hear all this boy-racer bollocks 40 yrs ago. Driving manners and attitudes have improved considerably over the decades but there are clearly some that this welcome cultural change has yet to reach.
• Dujon - Little Sir
  [flerdle] My daughter drives an Echo, though the two door hatch rather than the booted four door. I love the optically jiggered read-outs. Whilst I have not driven the little beast, it must make refocussing of the eyes much easier/faster/safer than the conventional system.
  Hmm, *thinks*, I hope I haven't said this before somewhere.
• rab - Manners
  It's really nice to read opinions like "Driving manners and attitudes have improved considerably over the decades" since one the whole people tend only to express their perception of degradation. Thanks Rosie.

  [Bm] And there was me thinking the law tends to reacts to the (changing) concensus as what constitutes unscrupulous behaviour, and not the other way round.

• Breadmaster
  [rab] Yes, laws change to reflect what people think is acceptable, but I would still have thought it unusual for people simply to ignore laws that they don't like with, apparently, it not even occurring to them that the fact that something is illegal is in itself a reason not to do it. It seems that motoring laws are the big exception. But why is this? Or alternatively, am I mistaken in thinking that most people are basically law-abiding in the first place? In which case, what's the point of having laws at all?
• rab
  Ooof. Big questions! And having typed out a long passage, and deleted it again, I realise I need to think about them some more. Hopefully someone else will get there first.
• Raak
  [Bm] Well, no, I don't think the fact of something being illegal has the slightest moral force at all, in any circumstances. Speed limits aren't the only example of laws being ignored. Ask any tradesman if he'll give a discount for cash -- the discount is coming straight out of the VATman's take, and everyone involved knows that.
• flerdle - good viewing
  [Dujon] Yes. I found it surprisingly easy to get used to. For those who don't know, the speedo and other instruments aren't directly in front of the driver, they're on top of the middle of the dashboard. Apparently it makes it easier and cheaper to manufacture both left and right hand drive setups. It's also that bit further away, which means less and quicker focussing, and the fact that it is high up and sideways means that you're not looking down so much, preserving more peripheral vision and road awareness. It was actually more difficult and disturbing to get used to the "old way" than this new setup, when I had to switch back last year for a while. Oh, and our car only has cooling, not heating as in the picture :-)

  [laws] Of course people ignore laws they don't like - laws mean nothing much if it stops you from doing what you want, or if it's a bit too inconvenient, especially if you're not likely to get caught. Littering, speeding, copyright, tax... Perhaps some people see the speed laws as stupid or irrelevent in certain conditions, and they don't see there being much in the way of consequences if they break them (since they are of course excellent drivers, and they'll never crash or be taken out by other people), so it's ok to go as fast as they feel is necessary, whatever the laws say.

  Note, I am NOT saying that all laws are sensible, and this is a GUESS at a reason for some people's behaviour, and it is probably a question that needs careful analysis of the data ;-) -- but I don't have time or energy to look at it now.

• flerdle
  [Raak] Well put.
• flerdle - mini-rant.
  and of course, those "it"s should be "they"s etc etc in the second paragraph. Yes, I'm a bad girl for constantly getting things like this in my posts in these places wrong, and I'd edit it if I could, but if you want perfect copy, just go somewhere else. It's not through ignorance, just so y'know, just difficulty expressing myself clearly all at once. In person, I can't argue my way out of a wet paper bag, so in print I'm doing remarkably well, considering, even if I take too long :-)
• st d - law
  BM] It doesn't bother me in the slightest. Not a jot. As to law...well. I paid a Congestion Charge recently and then got a penalty notice. I had put my number plate in wrong by one digit. All teh papers said "Under the law you have no leg to stand on whatsoever in this case" It was made quite clear under what circumstances it was possible to contest the fine under the law. I thought I had a pretty good case really as it was blindingly obvious to anyone looking that I had attempted to pay for my vehicle and made and honest mistake. Under the LAW it was just tough. So I shut up and paid the extra £50 on top of the £5 I had paid that morning. SO......yesterday, in the Guardian, there is a short article about a ruling by Justice Burnton, finding in favour of Lady Walmsley who had undergone EXACTLY the same situation as me and had decided to appeal, even though it was specifically laid out in LAW that she had no redress. "The Law," found his honour, "was an ass." It often is.
  As to whether you should worry too much about legality or illegality of speeding or indeed any other thing that is illegal - its an incredibly liberating moment when you realise that you are an adult and capable of making judgements and decisions yourself.
  I realise that this case is not in UK but in Dubai there is a british woman in prison for posessing a banned substance on arrival because it was in her bloodstream (I think it was codeine) I mean - sheeeesh. That's illegal...but honestly (or does your legal/illegal comment only apply to laws in UK BM ?)
  Rosie] if your boy racer comment was levelled at me in any way I take great exception to it and would point out that you seem to be stepping down into the lowly territory of insults, which I too am quite good at. I am a very polite and considerate driver and do not drive along suburban residential streets spinning my tyres with my radio booming. I just like to drive and when conditions allow I will do so quickly.
• st d - baroness walmsley
  (and she got her plate wrong by THREE digits. I had ONE out. ONE. My Law Professor is writing a letter to appeal it. :o)
• st d
  rosie] maybe i can drive you to phil's pub on sunday ? ;o]
• Rosie - Boy racers
  (st d) You may well be a polite and considerate driver; I believe you. But the general tone of your contribution doesn't give that impression, I have to say. Hence my reaction. Sorry. (rab, Breadmaster) Generally, laws reflect what society finds unacceptable, e.g. theft, assault etc. But sometimes society needs pushing in a particular direction by the introduction of a regulation, for example the drink-drive laws. When they were introduced in 1967 there was widespread opposition, but today nobody seriously argues that one should be allowed to drive pissed and some people rather proudly state they will not drink at all before driving, which is however just a bit too smug.
• Anthrax Whirl - Call me Thrax.
  *Looks rather nervous* Oooh ah, um. I'm not sure if I can contribute much to this colourful debate. Errr... indeed, I'd fancied to wander in merely and say hi to all and ask what's new and interesting/joyful or tearful in everybody's lives - small talk I suppose - but I confess I think I've trodden in something over my depth here.
  
  I don't drive, y'see. Never have, never will. I stare bemused at Jeremy Clarkson and the lad from Class 4C, of an evening's viewing of Top Gear, thinking: It's only cars, boys. Don't get so worked up and passionate about 'em. If they all vanished in a puff of smoke tomorrow, you could still travel by use of your god-given limbs as far as the lavatory, and I've known many who can't But they do AMUSE me, the way they talk as if cars were somehow more critical to our existence than oxygen, water and sunlight. But - and I suppose I have now thought of some connection - I agree with your point about Drink-driving Law, Rosie. As a child, I went to school with one or two kids who could no longer walk, and never would, because they had been run down by people whose self-inflated reliance upon their automobiles had far outgrown their observance of public responsibility - ie. driving pissed.
  
  It has, I do confess, given me a very coloured perspective on the whole thing - perhaps also because I too am similarly physically impaired as some of my former schoolmates(though for different reasons) - and I've developed quite an extreme intolerance for anyone who doesn't adhere to the very strictest discipline while moving around a few tonnes of solid, reinforced metal at considerable speed in the near vicinity of other sentient life. Maybe that makes me sound self-righteous and pious, but I'd rather be both of those things than sort of person who'd get behind the wheel after a few on the grounds that to walk home or get a taxi would be "inconvenient".
• Breadmaster
  [Raak and St D] Well, you can't get clearer than that, and I'm not sure what to say to it other than that I'm surprised, and I would have thought such an attitude would have been highly unusual, but perhaps I'm wrong.
  [Rosie] I agree with everything you say here. And I'd add that in my view - and, I would have thought, perhaps wrongly, in the view of most people - there are of course many laws that are probably unjust or require altering in some way, but the way to deal with that is to lobby to have the law changed, not simply to ignore the law while it is on the statute books. To take a wildly different example, it is illegal for an RE teacher (or indeed any teacher) to teach their students about Wicca and neo-paganism. In fact it is illegal for a teacher even to mention these religions to pupils. I think that that is a ludicrous law. But in the unlikely (though, horribly, not impossible) situation of my becoming an RE teacher, I would obey that law whilst lobbying to have it changed. That's not to say I think all laws should be mindlessly obeyed all the time, but I do think that there should be some fairly hefty justification for breaking a law, certainly more than the fact that it is inconvenient to obey it.
• st d - boy racer
  Rosie] fair enough - I reread it and it does come across a tad cavalier. But, I stick by it though should maybe apologise for the tone. Maybe I should reexpress it -
  I love driving and on teh Motorway will generally drive over the, in my view, archaic, draconian and roundly ignored 70 limit.
  I greatly dislike those that I consider to be drivers who do not have good motorway etiquette. For me this generally means not screaming up and hanging on someone's bumper until they move out of the way. Also it means pulling aside to let a car that is evidently wishing to drive faster by, unless of course you (or they) are in a fast moving queue anyway. Of course this should only be expected when there is a suitable gap to pull into. If there is a car in front of me that seesm to be refusing to move for no good reason then after a good time I will creep slowly closer then drop back and repeat. I love driving on motorways and am at all times relaxed and the only time I have ever gotten really annoyed whilst driving is when stuck in a jam and late for a plane. I generally tend towards letting people in to a queue in front of me rather than not. It never ceases to amaze me how petty people will be about not letting you into a queue and how angry they will get that you are actually going in front of them in a merging traffic situation or similar. When I see a motorbike approaching will always try to create space for them. Heck. I love driving. Its great. Its great to get little waves of appreciation from bikes shooting past at 120 or flashes from trucks or whatever. I get very annoyed when people who you have stopped to let past do not smile or nod or wave. This is very ignorant. I like smiling and nodding and waving at people.
  BM] in the Wicca/RE situation you would be foolish to break the law because it could easily be used against you - though would provide an inteersting test case for teh law. As to having to have sreally strong justifications to break a law, well I am not exactly a murdere or anything, but I break the speed limit (as does everyone) and will occasionally smoke a joint or something. I don't care that its illegal. I really don't. As for traffic law violations, I guess the blasé attitude most people have is because you don't end up with a criminal record for breaking the speed limit. (And please don't say "ah yes but you do if you end up killing someone" because that would be very boring.)
• Néa - All in the eye of the beholder
  [Rosie] Not drinking *at all* before you drive is more or less the expected behaviour in this country, so to me there would be no smugness at all in saying such a thing. Hypocricy, possibly, for I'm sure not all who say it adhere to it, but that's a different matter. (I think the actual limit for how much alcohol you're allowed to have in your blood stream is 0.2 promille.)
  [Laws] I used to go to work by bike, when I lived and worked in different places to where I live and work now. The bike lane through town was very heavily used during rush hour, and there would always be a few people who would take short-cuts, on the wrong side of the road or on no-biking lanes. I used to ponder over why that made me so annoyed, and realised that it was because the people who do that obviously think that they are worth more than the rest of us. If *everybody* broke *every* law they didn't feel like keeping, chaos and worse would ensue, and very few people think that would be a good idea (including those who blithely ignore speed limits or bike against the flow of traffic, forcing others out of the way). So obviously, only a few people are allowed to do that, because they, and their time, are worth so much more than those of the rest of us. Sorry, I don't buy that. Breadmaster speaks for me, too. Oh, and I also don't drive and don't expect I ever will (I tried to learn once upon a time, and failed. I did learn to fly a glider though, which is much more fun anyway).
• Projoy
  I'm also a natural born goody-goody, so I tend to side with Breadmaster too.
• penelope
  I speed. Sometimes. But I also shout at school-run mothers who block the road by parking on the yellow zig-zags, then remove their children from their car seats straight into the road instead of onto the pavement.
• Simons Mith
  I have very little respect for the law per se at all. OTOH I make up for this by having a very highly-developed sense of what is right which I am pretty unbending in following. The reason the Law does not spend much of its time making a pleasant tinkling sound as it breaks in my presence is - surprisingly - because AFAICS on the whole, the Law and What Is Right (in my opinion) are very much congruent.
• Simons Mith
  I do think that surprising because I really think English Law is an ass. So it must obviously get more right than I usually credit it for.
• Rosie - School Run Mums
  Those poor kids! Strapped into cars and fussed over by Mother Goose as they are transported from one ultra-safe environment to another. I walked to school in all weathers (just over half a mile) from the age of 5 but for a couple of years I had to go with the Big Girl Next Door. She was 7. Kids these days have no chance to climb trees, get a "bootful" from the pond, cope with falling over, learn to cross the road or not talk to that funny-looking man. I am extremely grateful I was born in 1942 and not 1992 (say).
• Rosie - Speed limits
  (st d) The 70 limit isn't archaic and certainly not draconian. You are taking things too literally. It's there to stop people doing much over 85. A higher limit would lead to everyone going faster still and there'd be a few more accidents. 70 is fast enough, anyway. 50 miles at 70 mph takes 43 minutes, at 85 mph 35 minutes, but on the M25 several hours. You just like driving fast; so do I. But it's a bit naughty, and a bit pointless. :-)
• Dujon
  [st d] I thought you had your tongue well and truly planted in your cheek when you wrote your original motorway exposé. Thanks for your clarification - it was your statement "I drive at about 90 most of teh time, occasionally creeping up to about 110 for brief periods or dropping to 70 if the road is clear." that led to my interpretation. In my judgement there is nothing wrong with speed itself, it's where and how and by whom it is used. These days I tend to treat everyone else on the road as incompetent, the idea being to keep alert to the fact that I am controlling a missile of significant mass and an error made by someone else could lead to an early demise - mine.
  Of course we are all good drivers, of course we all have superb reactions and car control skills. Naturally all our cars are all in tip-top condition and handle like an F1 top ten machine. If you believe all that then you're a cylinder short of a block. Some of this comes from bitter experience and these days I stick to the speed limit (I cannot afford to get caught) even though there are places where said limits are really silly. Don't get me wrong, I was no angel in my younger days, I'm just thankful still to be here.
  By the way, give me a bullet with wheels that will handle, a winding road and no traffic (ha!) and I'll be in seventh heaven. ;-)
• penelope - winding roads and no traffic
  [Dujon] That would be Lincolnshire (on England's east coast) then, which has one of the highest rates of road deaths in the country. Everyone who likes going fast, especially the motorcyclists, make that mistake. When I was a reporter, I attended so many inquests into the deaths of people who make exactly the same mistake, and over-cook it on corners just as a tractor, or a pensioner, pulls out of a farm gateway. If you're going to speed, please do it on motorways.
• Rosie - Deathwish
  (pen) So it's true, then. They say The Fens are even worse, but all sorts of things are said about The Fens and its inhabitants.
• Raak - "Always be able to stop within the distance you can see"
  There is no such thing as a winding road with no traffic. Even if there is no traffic, you can't see that there's no traffic.
• Dujon - Ah so.
  [penelope, Raak] Indeed. Hence my 'ha'. Hill climbing is a great way to scratch that itch, but the inital costs are a bit steep these days with all the safety considerations. So I now confine myself to being an old plodder, ever alert to inebriates and idiots. I got rid of my clubman style machine a few years ago and puddle around in a family hatch at present. Chances are that my reactions are not as good as they used to be anyway and there's no way I'm going to test out that assumption on a public road.
• Inkspot
  Monaco may be the most glamorous Grand Prix but one of least watchable with very little to no overtaking. But persistance by the two Williams drivers finally paid off, despite the best efforts of Alonso to cheat; and I see team orders still apply at Ferrari.

  Dujon reaches the top of Celebrity Mornington Crescent as DrQ returns to make it seven. I am glad ITV pulled the rug from under Celeb Wrestling and hope the the same will happen to their Celeb Love Island. Not long now till Big Brother6. I think it is looking ever increasingly like Greg Dyke leaving was one of the best things to happen to the BBC programming.

• Dujon
  [Inkspot] It's a few years since I last watched a Monaco Grand Prix (it's the time difference, even if it is televised here) but even then I thought that the latest F1 machines have so rapid acceleration and deceleration rates that they have effectively outgrown the circuit as a competitive venue. Not that I think it will be taken off the schedule, there's probably too much money involved. Even in the days of Moss, Fangio, Brabham, Clarke and their ilk it wasn't the easiest place to navigate around a rival. It must be terrifying these days.
• Rosie - Greg Dyke
  (Inkspot) Agreed. Good result, but wrong reason nevertheless.
• Chalky - Didn't we have a loverly time ...
  For those that are remotely interested - Rugby II/Ratby I was a roaring success. there's a taste of some of the happenings in the Pilg Game in Orange MC.
  [Rosie] So sorry you couldn't make it. Understandable. I had no idea you had pulled out and was still checking with Reception for your arrival by the time the G&T's were served ... :-)
• st d - all sorts
  chalk] lovely to meet you - thanks for organising it all. Hope you got home safely. I did, then had a marvellous power snooze.
  Rosie] I am not sure I agree on your "there's no point to driving fast". When I drive up to Wales to see my Mum - normally for teh weekend, the AA site tells me that that journey should take me 4h47minutes. I can do it in under 3h30minutes, including a petrolk stop. This is one hell of a difference.
  Dujon] Funnily enough that wasn't tongue in cheek. If the road has cars on it I will generally try to get in front of as many as I can. This may seem like me being an idiot fast driver, but actually its because I feel safer this way - if I am overtaking I tend to just keep going because people rarely drive with a big gap between each other so I will just plow on past until either the traffis clears or there is a big gap on my left to pull over into if I feel like it. If the road is very empty indeed I will generally slow down considerably.
  Raak/winding roads] There is actually an incredibly beautiful stretch of road in the alps, east of Grenoble, on the way up to Les 2 Alpes which is wondoing and yet you know is clear or not. I used to go out with a girl from there and remember being absolutely terrified once when she started overtaking all teh tourist traffic on blind corners, where the left hand side of teh road dropped off hundreds of metres as teh road was cvarved into the side of a valley, hence the twists. She assured me it was okay, and the next time we drove it she showed me that there is a point as you come onto that stretch where you can see the entire road on your left carved along the valley side, for a very long stretch, and can see any cars that are on it. There being no roads off this long stretch, when you round teh valley side and can suddenly no lonegr see around the corners, you nonetheless know that there is no traffic coming the other way. Its great if you know it, but must be scary for the tourists being overtaken by teh locals as they edge slowly along gawping at the breathtaking scenery.
• Blob - Wheeeee
  As you might expect of me - I'm on the side of driving as fast as is sensible given the road and conditions, regardless of the speed limit on that stretch of road. This may well mean going considerably slower than the advised limit if conditions dictate. I have no qualms about breaking the law by driving at 90-odd (or more) on a good clear motorway, agreeing with those that think that 70mph on a motorway in reasonable weather conditions is a farcically low limit. Remember that's just 10mph faster than you are allowed to go on a single track winding country lane.
• Rosie - Rugbypilg
  (Chalky) OK :-) Wish I'd been there.
• st dogmael - pilg
  rosie] Samantha told me that she had been looking forward to seeing you playig with your bone , and was most disappointed not top have a chance to blow it herself.
• Rosie - Slide cream
  (st d) V. Good. I am tickled. I hope she realises that "Trombonists Do It In Seven Positions", as they say. Fairly routine stuff for her, no doubt. My nextdoor neighbour is called Samantha, precisely 28 years younger than me and at present heavily pregnant, not through any action on my part, which in the long term is probably a good thing.
• penelope - rab'll love this...
  *Cross Posted* - and a day later than usual as I was away from my inbox yesterday.
  Dear I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Mailing List Member, We bring you news of a recording of the programme that is taking place at the close of this year's Edinburgh Festival on Monday 29th August (Bank Holiday Monday) at around 6.30pm at the Pleasance Grand. It's a single recording (normally we record two programmes) so the whole event should last around an hour and a half. Tickets go on sale at the Edinburgh Fringe Box Office from Thursday 9th June. They are priced at £7 each. The venue seats 700 so there won't quite as many tickets available as for recent recordings. Again, you'll need to book early to secure a ticket. The Fringe Box Office telephone number is 0131 226 0000 and the website address is www.edfringe.com If this show is of interest, I doubt you'll be able to get through before 9th June, so make a note in the diary to call on Thursday 9th June.
• st dogmael - Law Abiding
  BM] Just to carry on this discussion about law - as it is quite interesting - If the govt brings in ID Cards, and makes it compulsory to carry them, then would you think that people would carry the card only because of "practical" reasons, or do you think that people would feel a moral obligation to do so, as it was law ? Also I would imagine that there would be a large group of people who would feel a moral obligation to NOT carry the new cards, in order to register their opposition to the new law. How would these people figure ?
• rab
  Living, as I do, 15 minutes walk from the Fringe Box office, I shall attempt to buy them in person on Thursday 9th rather than listen to an engaged tone for 3/4 hour. Wish me luck.
• rab
  Except that, allegedly, the box office doesn't open until the following Monday. I'll pop into the society office sometime and ask them...
• Breadmaster
  [St D] Well, I would feel a moral obligation to carry them as it would be the law, but clearly I don't know how widespread such a view would be. For example, in New Zealand it is illegal to drive without having your driving licence on you, so I always had it with me even though there was no "practical" advantage to this. As for the conscientious objectors, I personally don't think their position would be defensible. To my mind it is justifiable to break a law if doing so would bring about more good or cause less harm than keeping the law. But in this case, following the ID card law would obviously do no harm - it would not harm anyone if an opponent of the law did carry their card, and it would benefit no-one for them not to carry it, other than to register their protest at the law. But they can register that protest just as effectively whilst obeying it, which surely means that there is no moral argument for breaking the law, and I would like to think that most people would agree that in such a case one should obey the law rather than break it. I hadn't imagined that there would be people who would break such a law purely because they oppose it, but I don't really understand this mentality that some people seem to have that civil disobedience is the best way to change the law. They seem to think that if you personally don't agree with a law then that gives you carte blanche to break it. Often when they are interviewed on TV they make vague references to "democracy", as if that entailed libertarianism.
• Rosie - ID Cards and the law
  (Breadmaster) Driving licences are for people who are permitted to drive. ID cards are for people who are permitted to . . . . . . (fill in as appropriate). Why should I have to carry an ID card everywhere. After all, I know who I am. Disobeying the law while harming no-one else is a very good way to get the law changed.
• rab
  [Bm] What do you propose as a means to change the law? In the case of ID cards, what would appear to be a law which is unproven to fulful its primary stated purpose (combatting terrorism) and which is proposed to have its costs bourne by the unwilling individual?
• rab
  Sorry, that second thing wasn't a question. I'm not sure it even qualifies as a sentence...
• Breadmaster
  [Rosie] I don't see why disobeying the law, in an example such as this, would be any more effective at changing the law than not disobeying it. Why would this be more effective than writing to your MP, going on a march, and all the other legitimate means that we have? Surely in the absence of any other considerations, one should obey the law, and so if disobeying it would not achieve anything, as I doubt that it would in this case, one should obey it.
  [rab] Wouldn't it make more sense to say that if the law is indeed ineffective as well as burdensome, that is an argument for changing it, not for disobeying it, and if it does indeed prove counter-productive, the government would change it themselves irrespective of whether people disobey it or not?
• rab
  Yes but the question I asked was "What do you propose as a means to change the law?" which was not intended as an argument to disobey it. It was a question asking, erm, how you would go about getting a law you didn't like changed. I think.
• Irouléguy
  BM] The poll tax comes to mind, as a law which was eventually abolished because so many people broke it.
• Rosie
  (BM) The best strategy for someone who doesn't like the idea of ID cards (to the exclusion of all other considerations) would have been to vote for the Tories. Whatever their manifold defects they do not have the authoritarian frame of mind of New Labour. If they'd got in, of course, the taste of power may well have changed that - it happens with all governments and they need to be constantly watched. They'll try to tell you an ID card is for your benefit. It isn't. It's for theirs. Disobey this lousy pointless law if it comes in, even if just for kicks, or self-esteem.
• Breadmaster
  [rab] Well, like I said, write to your MP, or to the relevant government minister, and if you feel strongly enough start a campaign and go on marches. As for the poll tax, surely that was abolished because there was such a tide of feeling against it and such massive protests, not because people disobeyed it. People disobeying it and its revocation were two effects of the one cause, namely the unpopularity of the law, rather than cause and effect, I'd say.
• rab
  Sorry - I missed that part of your response to Rosie. To be clear I don't advocate disobedience as a means towards change, but I also don't advocate slavishly following ridiculous regulations laid down by someone else "just because". There has to be a good logical reason, and because "someone else said so" doesn't count.
• Irouléguy
  BM] Something like 10 million people got summonsed for not paying the poll tax, though most just got fined. The credit-checking companies stopped including poll tax debts in credit-worthiness checks, because so many people had debts that it would have made their whole system unworkable. That refusal to pay and the campaigns against it were two sides of a coin - I don't see how you can seperate them out.
• Simons Mith - ID cards
  fior me, the challenge will be to carry it but in such a way that it is useless for its intended purpose. Perhaps I'll have it laminated so that it doesn't get damaged. And then won't fit in any of the readers, oh dear.
• penelope8529520895930972-8TF
  Having fully identified myself, may I draw your attention to the spare games slot? What shall we have?
• Darren
  How about another limericks game?
  More seriously, how about a revival of Carpe Diem?
• Tuj
  Hmm, not convinced by Carpe Diem, though I can't really think of anything else. Anyone got something fresh and new?
• Projoy
  I've got this salad.
• Uncle Korky
  I'd still like a game of Gallifrey Crescent.
• Kim - New game
  Bob the dog (or someone posing as him) seems to have seized the day with Sabogy, but the ruleset is unexplained and the opening move is, to say the least, combative.
• penelope
  I'd like a Headlines game... I know Stevie has just started one on Orange, but that's people-based. How have we played them before? Like Cheddar Headlines?
• Inkspot - Sabogy
  It was possibly a lurker that created the game sometime before half six this morning

  [pen]I say go for it, end Sabogy and create the game.

• Uncle Korky - Stop press
  [pen] Haven't we got The Cheddar Valley Gazette running on Orange at present?
• Uncle Korky
  ...more accurately known as Holmes Raided In Mystery Dawn Swoop.
• penelope
  [UK] Oh. I thought that was mystery-based, which is never my thing, so I hadn't looked. Something had to be done to get rid of the sweary thing though - the same game forced me to bed on Saturday night. Feel free to fold the newspaper game if you don't want it. Fold... geddit? ;o)
• Projoy
  How about playing the Flower Game, as mooted by Bob in ...so help me God? :)
• Projoy
  I don't think we've ever played Commie Crescent, which might be interesting. The winner is the first to redistribute Mornington Crescent to all the other players.
• st dogmael - Practicality
  BM] Your example of driving in New Zealand illustrates my point. Of course there is a practical advantage to carrying your driving license whilst driving. This practical advantage is that if stopped by the Police, you would nat have to go through the painful process that may arise from your not carrying it. This is my point with ID cards - one might carry it purely for teh "practical" reason that it is law and it is easier just to obey the lwa and thereby avoid any ridiculous consequences that may arise from not carrying it. But there is no MORAL reason why one should carry an ID card. I think what you fail to realise is that although our moral obligations often comply with legal obligations, many people do not believe that something is a moral obligation simply because it is a legal obligation. This is especially true when it comes to minor traffic violations. I must say that I find your blind obedience quite frightening, in a 1984 kind of way.
• ImNotJohn - Yes but
  StD] I know this is an argument where no-one will convince anyone else, but I have a problem with individuals deciding what they are and are not morally obliged to do. I'm sure Harold Shipman believed that he was morally right in relieving these old people of their suffering (and I know that's a reductio ad absurdum, but it is the other end of the same continuum). As for minor traffic offences, the roads are provided and maintained by highway authorities/the government for people to use in cars under certain conditions. Thus I would equate asking people to carry their licence with insisting that cars should be taxed and insisting on speed limits with insisting on insurance or insisting that people should not be under the influence.
  On identity cards I would take the French view, that they should be provided cheaply and for all, but that it should not be obligatory to carry one (most French people do, but that's for convenience). However, the government shouldn't argue that they will be good for the country and for security and then try to recoup the entire cost of providing them in their cost.
• Raak
  [INJ] Individuals do make their own moral decisions, Shipman included. If you're suggesting a moral principle that laws ought to be obeyed, that's your principle and you're welcome to live by it, but it's still up to everyone else whether they decide to adopt that principle or not.
• Raak
  [INJ] "Cheap" identity cards? Whatever the upfront fee, the entire cost of introducing cards will be borne by the taxpayers. That is where governments get their money from.
• Darren
  [INJ] The only real problem with insisting individuals align their morals with the law is how you go about enforcing it. After all, surely that's what the law is intended to do anyway! When it comes down to it, I don't think it's possible to force someone to adopt a belief - and what are moral values if not beliefs?
• Projoy
  [Raak] At the risk of hounding you from server to server on the topic of redistribution, they do, but not equally. :) [Darren] I think I'm happy with the law as a means of controlling behaviour more than belief. It then isn't necessary to believe wholly in the moral force of the law, but to simply act expediently or calculatedly in relation to it. If the law is any good (and sometimes it is very good), its drafters will tend to make some rough calculations about the behaviours it will provoke and try to ensure those give the moral outcome desired.
• ImNotJohn - Simulposted - but still
  [Raak, Darren] You're right of course, and I think I've said something that I don't really mean. I suppose I have misgivings that people (including myself), have a tendency to advance a 'moral high ground' defence for something that is really much more to do with convenience. This weakens the force of real, more important, moral stands.
  [Cost of ID cards] If there are advantages in things like security, reducing benefit fraud and the like, then the cost of ID cards should be at least partly borne by those budgets. If you don't do that then in effect it's an addition to the government tax take - I'm arguing that it should be neutral or that the cost should come out of general, means-based, progressive taxation..
• Darren
  [Projoy] I wasn't intending to depict the law as a controller of belief, so much as a set of moral values which are supposedly held by the majority of society (or, more accurately, by the government) but not necessarily by individuals. In this sense, the law's connection with belief is that it's a formal statement of the way the government and/or society believes we should behave.
• Bob the dog
  By way of light relief, and with Pen in mind...
  
  
• Chalky - heavily UNrelieved
  [Btd] What the f ...?
• Chalky - ... and by the way
  'pen' has a small 'p'
• Boolbar
  [Chalky] She should see the doctor about that.
• Darren
  Or at least have the decency to use the proper receptacle for it.
• st d - moral obligations
  I really think its a fascinating discussion. I must say though ImNotJohn, that there si really no-one else at all who can decide what I am morally obliged to do and not do do. They can give an opinion, they can throw me in jail, they can make me a saint or a pariah, but they cannot really decide what I feel morally obliged to do or not do. Anwya - I have to rush off now, but I do think its fascinatiing - and if yo ugoogle "Moral Obligation Obey Law" you find a lot of papers written on teh subject and it appears that great minds in this area have always and no doubt will alwyas disagree on what the answer is....
• penelope - CdB Btd and WtF etc
  [Btd] Blimey. Thank you very much. I know we talked about CdB and LiR, but what the hell did we say? He's a scary-looking man, anyhow.
• Darren
  [pen] He looks very smug, doesn't he? Always very smug. I wonder what on earth he can find to be smug about.
• Juxtapose - Sabogy
  It's not a bad name for a game, but I wonder what it would be?
• penelope - Sabogy
  attempts to bogey a sabotage come to mind, but I don't know what that is either.
• Breadmaster
  [St D] I wasn't advocating "blind obedience"! On the contrary, I said that there may be times when one is morally obliged to break the law if doing so would bring about more good or prevent more harm. But I do think that if this is not the case one is morally obliged to obey the law, simply from the fact that laws are made by the society which we are part of and from which we benefit. Read Plato's Crito for a rather more extreme defence of this (Socrates argues that one should never break the law, even an unjust one, for this reason).
  [Darren] I think most philosophers, at least, would say that a moral value is not a belief, because you believe a proposition (eg "There is a God" or "Tony Blair is a jolly nice chap") but moral values are not really propositions. They may look like propositions (eg "It is wrong to murder") but this is simply a linguistic quirk. The reason is that moral statements don't simply express a fact, they prescribe an obligation - they state what you should do, rather than how things are. This is why many people think that expressions of morality are basically the same as expressions of taste, so that "Murder is wrong" is no more a statement of fact - and therefore no more a belief as such - than "This picture is nice". This probably isn't really very relevant to the discussion, though. I'm just feeling pretentious. But is it objectively true that I am?
• Raak - Sabogies
  's a bogey, innit, like, summin 's up yer nose.
• Inkspot - Call my Sabogy
  I would agree with Raak in that it is a shortened phrase almost a slang, it really originates from the estates in Glasgow, in their misunderstanding of what a bidet is for. As in
  young child, "Wha's tha da?"
  Jimmy "Sabogy"
• st dogmael - blind obedience
  BM] Fair point - sorry I missed that. I still feel that I side with teh school of thought that says we are not morally obliged to do anything really. Especially not simply obey laws because they are laws. I generally do and will obey laws, I hasten to add.
• Breadmaster
  [St D] So if we are not morally obliged to do anything, would you say that if, for example, you found yourself on a desert island with an extremely annoying companion, and if (by hypothesis) there were no way for your actions ever to be discovered or punished, there would be no moral reason for you not to murder him and make kebabs? I should probably add that I'm inclined to agree that there is no such thing, really, as objective moral obligation, so when I talk about the obligation to obey laws I'm really just speaking for myself. But I'd be interested to see how you answer this one.
• Darren
  [BM] I don't agree with you when you say moral values are not beliefs. When they state what you should do, that's just another way of saying they state how you believe you should act. It's a matter of semantics, and at any rate I do agree that it's probably not enormously relevant. Incidentally, are you claiming that beliefs express fact? That's patently false. The difference between a belief and a fact is that, whereas a person may hold both to be true, the former need not be objectively true. Person A believes there is a god. Person B believes there is no god. How can both their beliefs equal objective fact at the same time?
• Rosie - Kebabs
  (BreadM) The moral force behind not murdering your extremely irritating (but presumably unthreatening) companion is that you yourself would not like to be kebabbed. That is an absolute but the example you give is easy to evaluate. Not everything is quite so straightforward.
• st dogmael - dead meat
  BM] No I wouldn't say that at all. What I (think I am) saying is that there is not really, in my view, a moral imperative to obey a law simply because it is a law. I wouldn't kill someone by who was annoying for kebabs, even if I would never be found out, purely because of I suppose, the "moral reason" that you shouldn't kill people. As it so happens, there is no "practical" reason not to kill the annoying person [assuming that you aren't worried about being lonely or whatever], as the fact that there is to be no come back on it at all has removed the practical reason to not kill someone - because it is against the law and you may end up in the nick. What I think is that the moral obligations that a person feels rest pretty much the same irrespective of what laws exist or are being prepared or are being updated.
  If a new law is brought in saying "You can't smoke in pubs" for example, I would not smoke in pubs because I was being asked not to by the Landlord, not because it was against the law. If I was in a pub where the landlord and all the customers were smoking, then I would smoke too. This actually happened in California a year or so ago - having slowly got used to not smoking in bars, I was in Lone Pine (nr Death Valley) and was about to light up at the bar. I stopped myself and said "Forgot I was ion California, sorry" and the barmaid laughed, pulled out an ashtray and said "This is Lone Pine, Honey".
• Projoy
  [Darren] I don't think Bm was suggesting that beliefs were facts, more that they are ideas about what is. Ideas about what ought to be are a whole other class. I think it's overoptimistic to hope that any system of law will be an encoding of some sort of consistent moral philosophy. This is not least because there are usually contradictory premises even where the law is set out from first principles, leaving Supreme Courts to scratch their heads and deliver hung verdicts. The law represents just an accretive set of some morals some people had at some points in history (which is not to say it's arbitrary, just tremendously compromised by the practical realities of how it is made). My naive working assumption is usually that whoever made the law did so for the general benefit, so it's better to have obedience as the default position. There are also laws (such as speed limits) where an arbitrary line was drawn which could as easily have been drawn somewhere else (there's nothing intrinsically safer about 70mph over 71mph), but the benefit for all in drawing a line is that it gives a common framework, arbitrary though it may be, that enables drivers to make consistent calculations about risk and behaviour - so the law is worth obeying on a "what if everyone broke it?" sort of basis, I think. [Bm] I'm with you: no objective force for morals. One can easily chip away any moral principle (if you're willing to take an unpopular position) by questioning the source of its authority. You can chip away at facts in this way too, usually by resorting to that undergraduate nuclear option, the epistemological question, but it does strike me as harder.
• Rosie - Epistemology
  (Projoy) It's an awful long time since I was an undergraduate, so what is The epistemological question? And, presuming you answer, how do you know that?
• Projoy
  The epistomological question is "Ah, but how can you know anything?" and one usually sees it used when its invoker has lost the argument. :)
• Darren
  [Projoy] I doubt anybody really has a consistent moral philosophy. I certainly don't. I'm not entirely sure your view of laws is any different from mine. We just worded it differently. At any rate, I also agree there is no objective force for morals. Oh, and the loser in invoking The epistemological question is probably the highbrow equivalent of Godwin's Law.
• Raak
  I used to think that morality was no more than personal preference, delusionally experienced (as our perceptions usually are) as external to oneself. What else could moral statements be, since they are not demonstrable matters of fact? These days I'm not so sure, mainly due to personal experience that I don't think I can describe. A third possibility is that they are indemonstrable matters of fact, which is C.S. Lewis' position in "The Abolition of Man", which I mentioned here recently. They can be learned only by certain experiences, but the experience cannot be communicated. They cannot even be demonstrated to oneself, only lived by or not.
• Breadmaster
  [Darren] Projoy answered it for me really, but yes, I meant that beliefs are about propositions, which may be true or false. A proposition is the thing that, if it is true, is a fact. And I do think that moral views are not beliefs, because they are not about propositions. It may be linguistically acceptable to say "X is wrong" but I don't think that that expresses a real proposition, because it's not something that can really be true or false. It's a commonplace now that ought cannot be reduced to is, because there is something about a prescription that is not simply a factual statement - it is, in a sense, an order. Quite what that non-factual element is, though, is a matter of debate.
  [Rosie] But what has what I would like got to do with it? On the contrary, one might say that my own desire to remain unkebabed is all the more reason to kebabify the other chap, for fear of his doing it to me first (since he finds me just as irritating as I do him, and no wonder). Of course, I don't know if you're supported St D's position as originally expressed that we are not morally obliged to do anything, or aiming to refute it.
  [St D] So then in fact you do think we have moral obligations? I thought you meant that we don't at all - presumably you meant only with regard to obeying the law? In which case I apologise for misunderstanding you.
  I almost simulposted with Raak, and it's funny because I think I'm increasingly drawn to the view he says he now doesn't share, which is odd because normally you'd think we'd be the other way around!
• Raak
  [Projoy] My rule of thumb is that when someone questions the possibility of knowing the truth of anything, there is some specific truth they are trying very hard to ignore.
• Raak
  [Bm] What view are you moving away from, if I may ask?
• Darren
  [BM] I understand your argument now. A belief is a proposition which must be objectively true or false, whereas a moral value is based on something subjective... I do see where you're coming from, but I'm still not entirely comfortable with it. It seems almost a logical positivist approach to belief - that something can only be a belief if its accuracy can be objectively determined. So what of the question of whether there is a god? Is there a way of determining if there is a god or not? If not, then belief in a god can't be a belief. If you disagree with this, why is it less acceptable for "X is wrong" to be a proposition than "there is a god"? If you agree with it, then is religion in general a set moral values rather than a set of beliefs?
• Darren
  I meant "a set of moral values" rather than "a set moral values" of course.
• Breadmaster
  Ooh, it's getting gritty now...
  [Raak] I didn't really have a view to move away from, to be honest. This is partly because I always found ethics by far the dullest area of philosophy and never formally did it. I suppose the view I'm moving away from is the view that there is any sense in which "X is right/wrong" is objectively true or even objectively anything. It may be possible for it to be objectively something, but I'm not sure what, and if it's not truth then I'm not really interested.
  [Darren] Oh no, I'm no logical positivist, a position I think is pretty silly (for the uninitiated, this is the view that something can be true only if it can be shown to be true). I don't say that we can't know the truth value of ethical propositions, therefore they can't be true. Rather, I say that they are not propositions at all. They are not stating facts (or falsehoods) of any kind. Thus they differ from the proposition you give of "There is a God," which I certainly think (a) cannot be shown to be either true or false, but (b) is either true or false. That's an unverifiable proposition, but "X is wrong" isn't really a proposition at all, even though it looks like one. Part of the reason I think this is that I cannot imagine how a world in which "X is wrong" is true differs from a world in which "X is wrong" is false other than that one difference. But I think that if a proposition is true it must express something about actual things actually in the world - that is, facts are, as it were, parasitic upon things. So for "There is a God" to be true there would have to be an actual God, whilst for it to be false there would have to be none. But I don't know what kind of "thing" would have to be different for "X is false" to be a fact or a falsehood. Thus it's not merely that we don't know whether it's true or not, I don't think it means anything at all to say that it is true - that is, it's not the sort of thing that can be true. If you follow me.
• Raak
  [Bm] (I assume that your last "X is false" was a misprint for "X is wrong"?) According to the view I am suggesting without necessarily being committed to, what would be different for "X is wrong" to be a fact or a falsehood would be that those with moral insight would agree that X was or was not wrong. That doesn't advance things much, but moves the question to "How does one acquire moral insight?" And also "How can people claiming different moral insights reach agreement on moral facts?"
• Raak
  I just want to correct "those with moral insight would agree" to "those with moral insight would see".
• Breadmaster
  [Raak] Yes, the typesetters did me wrong. I think you're going to have to elaborate somewhat on your suggestion, though. If the sole difference between "X is wrong" being true and false is whether those with moral insight think it is, then that doesn't seem to me to be a very strong claim. Are you basically saying that things are right/wrong because most people (or most appropriate people) think so? But clearly this is quite different from normal propositions - for example, "Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system" isn't true or false by majority opinion, and neither is "There is a God." Normally we think of propositions being things that people recognise the truth or falsity of, rather than things that they determine the truth or falsity of. Alternatively, if you think that those with moral insight are in fact not determining rightness/wrongness but recognising it, then that begs the question on what grounds these people see that X is right or wrong. Do they just "see" it with Enlightenment-style infallible conscience, with no further explanation? This is quite apart from the problem you suggest yourself, which is how to recognise those with authentic moral insight, and how to deal with the problem of disagreement over morality.
• Projoy
  [Raak] I know you're not fully taking the position that there are naturally some people with greater moral authority, but it's interesting to compare with the libertarian worldview which (without knowing much about it) I would have thought would rely on the idea that morality is personal and subjective.
  
  As you say, it doesn't advance things much to suppose there are those with moral insight, since it's basically a deferral of the question about the source of any objective morality. For "God", read "the enlightened". You thus can't move on to asking "how does one acquire moral insight?" without committing to the belief that there is such a thing, so a leap of faith would seem to be required. Definitely not one I'm prepared to make based on my experiences.
• Raak
  [Bm] Moral propositions (in the view I'm setting out) aren't true by virtue of being believed, they are true objectively, and those able to see them believe because they see them. How do they do this? Well, how do you (for example) recognise the ordinary physical objects around you? There's no "how" involved that we can say anything useful about (at least not until non-invasive brain scanning technology improves in resolution by many orders of magnitude). The same for moral perception. How people get to be able to have moral perceptions is more answerable in the here and now: upbringing, spontaneous revelation, or learning from enlightened people.
  [Projoy] If there is such a thing as moral authority at all, then some people will have more of it than others. I don't know where that "naturally" comes from: if it's an elite, it's one that anyone can join, the same as authority about temporal matters. There is indeed an act of faith involved: the faith that there are objective morals. But there is also an act of faith involved in the perception of physical truths. The main difference between the two is that most people's physical senses function at a high enough level that it is easy for all to agree on simple physical statements, while the same degree of consensus is lacking in the moral realm. One difference, at any rate. Another is that people are much more attached to their moral judgements than their physical ones.
• Raak - Our three chief weapons are...
  Upbringing, spontaneous revelation, learning from enlightened people...or arriving at them by working them out oneself.
• Projoy - fundamental philosophical talk
  [Raak] True, there needn't be a "naturally" although of course in the case of perception of reality there are real reasons why some people are naturally better at intuitive perception of reality than others (a minor example is perfect pitch). We don't necessarily know the nuts 'n' bolts reasons for these differences but it is something we can say with some confidence based on the level of agreement about reality and different people's success at perceiving intuitively that which we can independently verify: I sing a note. JLE says it's A, I play an A on the piano and it corroborates his statement. But crucially his doing this does not allow me to learn perfect pitch from him. If accurate perception of some kind of objective morality is a higher order skill of this type, it's then a reasonable speculation there probably is a hierarchy of people's ability to perceive moral absolutes.
  
  In the case of morality this strikes me as considerably wilder speculation than making the same statement about perfect pitch. This might be for anthropic reasons, of course, but if so your line of reasoning becomes rather depressing for those who don't sense an objective morality, since it suggests they are missing something big and are never going to perceive it! (Slartibartfast would say, "Oh, no, that's just paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.")
• Projoy - addendum
  ...and of course something else follows from that line of reasoning, which is that if one is to have the best system of law, there are objectively people who are qualified to legislate and indeed, such a thing as government with objective moral force, whom we lesser mortals are insufficiently equipped to judge!
• Rosie - Absolute pitch
  (Projoy) If intuitive means "knowing without thinking" then absolute pitch is intuitive. I have it, and always have had, and I can't quite understand why anybody who's had access to a musical instrument at an early age and is musical hasn't got it. It is, in my view, only a form of memory, motivated by a strong interest in the subject. Maybe its rarity is due to it having little evolutionary or survival advantage, unlike colour recognition. It's not much help, especially these days, to know that ex-GWR steam engines whistle in A flat (1st leger line above the treble).
• Rosie
  (Projoy) Just seen your addendum. There are indeed people who are qualified to legislate, not because they have any superior sense of morality but because they understand the nuts and bolts of legislation and its effects (sometimes). Furthermore, we have asked them to do it, this being some sort of democracy.
• Raak
  [Projoy] But there are people who don't sense morality. They're highly exceptional: we call them psychopaths. Not sensing the objectiveness of morality or not believing in its objectiveness are different, and don't disqualify anyone from sensing morality. As for legislation, possessing sound moral judgement does not give anyone a right to order other people around. Indeed, the delusion that "if only everyone acted as I think they ought to the world would run a lot better, therefore they should be made to act like that" is a pretty clear sign of moral immaturity.
• Projoy - pitch black
  [Rosie] I think we did this discussion before and established that color recognition isn't really analogous to pitch recognition (because we can point at something and say "yellow", even when it's in shadow in a way that lowers the frequency to something we'd normally call brown). In a similar way, I hear a note in the context of a tune and can say "submedian" even if I can't say "Bb" or whatever it happens to be. Perhaps there is a window of opportunity very early in life to acquire perfect pitch (I'd be interested to know if there's any evidence that people who learn an instrument from, say, 4, are x times more likely to have perfect pitch than those who only start at 7, say), but from my perspective, I certainly don't think it's related to level of interest. An old music teacher of mine used to talk about an academic colleague of hers who was so envious of others' perfect pitch that he tried to learn it. He would play a note on the piano at the top of the college building then walk to the basement, brushing aside all attempts to engage him in conversation, all the while humming the note under his breath until he reached the piano in the basement. I understand he never achieved his goal :). [re: legislators] Yes, but good legislators can do their job in the absence of any moral principles. If someone told them to draft a law that compels everyone to kill their neigbour they could do that just as easily as drafting an obviously moral law. What Raak and Bm and Darren and I are speculating about is whether there are people objectively better qualified to frame the moral basis of legislation.
• Darren
  [Projoy] I don't think that's what I'm speculating about. (For what it's worth, I don't think any one person is more qualified to frame the moral basis of legislation than any other. To err is human, after all, and it strikes me that in order to define morality one must be infallible and therefore above the reach of mere morality. Am I making any sense or just rambling incoherently?) What I'm speculating about is whether morality and belief are the same thing. I suspect I may have to agree to disagree with Bm over that, because I'm still not convinced by his argument. The thing is, I'm reminded of Hofstadter, where he was talking about how a rock smashing a space probe may seem like a waste to us, but to a sufficiently intelligent race it may seem obvious that that's the most appropriate thing that can be done to it. The point I'm making is that just because humanity can't objectively decide whether X is wrong or right morally, it doesn't mean there isn't an absolute answer to the question which could be answered definitively by an intelligence with greater insight than ours, with rock-solid logical backup and an appropriate set of side-effects. Again, maybe that makes no sense at all. Part of the reason for saying all this is to expose the underlying thoughts which are running through my mind as I write these posts just to see if anything falls apart when they're examined more closely.
• Darren
  The connection with logical propositions is that, as it seems to me, Bm's definition of belief as logical proposition implies that something becomes a moral value if it can't be stated as a logical proposition as far as human intelligence is aware, whereas I don't draw any distinction simply on the basis of the limit of human awareness. Perhaps that's the difference between Bm's position and mine. Perhaps I'm being needlessly mystical about the whole thing.
• Stina
  Can someone have a more-well-tuned moral compass than others? Certainly. But was Gandhi's sense of morality "nature", and Siddartha Guatama's sense of morality "nurture"? (That is, a matter of learned experience vs. innate sensibility.) And of course, those who are inclined to seek public office are generally the least suited to holding public office! [Rosie] I would think that perfect pitch cannot be learned, because even though the cochlea can pass along a B flat vibration, the brain still has to define the vibration. [Raak] Psycho/sociopaths are not lacking in a sense of morality. In fact, they can be highly moral people when it applies to actions against themselves. Their issue lies in the fact that they do not understand the concept of "other", as in, there are other people out there who do exist; and this lack of understanding regarding "otherness" evidences itself to the rest of us as a lack of morality. Which I think is a good argument for morality itself being a learned ability (in that it requires an observer to define Moral and Not-moral).
• Stina - Morality vs Belief
  dictionary.com: morality: The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct. belief: Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something Now, having said that, how does it apply? One must BELIEVE that one's MORAL STANDARDS are a TRUTH in order for one to have faith in one's morality. (Because if you don't have believe in the verity of your own morality, everything falls apart. "The center cannot hold!")
• Darren
  I should just explain that I brought Stina here.
• Raak
  [Stina] (Hi.) Isn't that circular? Faith in one's morality is the same thing as believing that it is true. To argue on the other side for the moment, one can lead a perfectly moral life while having no such faith in the existence of any objective standard. I have preferences about the way I want to live, and about the way I would like other people to live. But whether I regard these preferences as no more than preferences, or as perceptions of moral truths, in either case I can't prove to anyone else that they should behave the way I think they ought to. The most I can do is argue that living in such and such a way will benefit them in their terms.
• Breadmaster
  [Stina] Welcome! But no - if anything, you must believe that your moral standards are normative, not that they are true. As I argue, moral standards are not the kind of things that are "true". A moral statement is like an imperative. You wouldn't say that "Go to your room!" is true any more than it is false. It just is. The point is that moral statements ultimately boil down to injunctions of that form, even if they are disguised as statements of fact. So "X is wrong" is really "Don't do X!" in disguise. Why? Because to put it another way, statements of morality are things that you can obey or disobey. You can react to a fact or a proposition in any number of ways, but you can't obey or disobey it. Moral claims aren't like that - they invite - indeed demand - obedience in some way. And an injunction like that is not the kind of thing that can be true or false. The task for the believer in objective morality is to explain in what sense an injunction can be "objective", if it is not in the same sense that a fact can be objective. This is why I disagree with Darren. I'm not saying that moral statements aren't propositions because we don't understand how they can be, and that a greater intelligence than ours could see how they are. I don't think that they are propositions at all, and it doesn't matter how transcendent you are. A hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional being wouldn't ask what the truth-value of a moral statement is, any more than it would ask how heavy a shadow is or what colour 1815 was, because it recognise that to do so is to make a category mistake, that is, to treat something of one category as if it belonged to another. I think that those who ask whether a moral statement is true or false, or assert that it is, are making just such a category mistake.
  [Raak] It seems to me that the question of who can recognise moral truth, and how, is something of a distraction from the main question, which is what "moral truth" is in the first place, and how it can exist if the points I've made are valid. If a moral statement does not express a proposition at all, let alone a true one, then what does it express? Taking for granted that there are some people who can recognise it, what are they recognising, quite apart from the question of how?
• Darren
  [Breadmaster] Well, as I said, I suspect we may have to agree to disagree on that. I see no problem with asking what colour 1815 is, or indeed with the proposition "1815 is green." There may not be many ways of reasoning with it, and certainly it might be hard to prove it one way or another (short of formalised synaesthesia!) but I don't happen to believe that those issues prevent it being true or false. If it's a category mistake, then no number/year has a property equivalent to colour, and the statement is false. It's still a proposition.

  You said earlier that "ought" does not reduce to "is." Fair enough, but you then say "X is wrong" is really "Don't do X!" in disguise, or, to put it another way, "One ought not X." Surely you're self-contradicting here. At any rate, I fundamentally disagree that just because (if we allow this, which I wouldn't) "X is wrong" may be written "don't do X", that it must always be treated as "don't do X," and that the "X is wrong" form must be disregarded.

• Raak
  [Bm] Well, I'm arguing, or rather exploring the hypothesis, because I think there's some mileage in it, that moral statements are propositions. They are truth claims about the moral universe. The normative consequence -- you should do that which is good, and avoid doing that which is evil -- is a secondary matter. Someone who perceives the moral truth does not have to bludgeon himself with "shoulds" into acting accordingly, he will do so as an inevitable conequence of seeing the truth, the same as he will step out of the way of an onrushing car when he perceives it, and for the same reason.
• Rosie - Pitch and putt
  (Projoy) You can't learn absolute pitch, or unlearn it either, which is one reason I play the trombone. All the other blowing instruments in a jazz band are transposing and if I read a C I don't want to hear a Bb, and certainly not an Eb (alto and baritone sax). Trombone is written in bass clef, which results in an impressive stack of leger lines for the high notes. If it's on a space and "in the stratosphere" it's a C (octave above middle C). Otherwise it's a D (hopefully a Db) which I can just about do with a following wind. Why don't they just go into treble clef? Because they don't. Maybe not all trombonists are pianists.
• widey - Lost in space....................
  Never trust a Vogon when it comes to directions.I've been stuck in the plorii system for the last 8 months!!! But now I'm back...........
• Projoy
  To answer my own question re: perfect pitch, I googled a paper which says: "we also observed a significant association between AP and the age at which an individual first began playing music. For the AP group as a whole, the mean age of starting musical activities was 5.4 ± 2.8 years, whereas, for the non-AP group, the mean age was 7.9 ± 3.2 years (P < .0001)."
• Projoy
  Also, it says, perfect pitch is far more common in Oriental people.
• CdM
  [Projoy] But -- as they also point out, I'm glad to see -- the causation could easily run the other way.
  [Bm, Raak, Darren, et al] This is a *great* discussion; one from which I am really learning.
• Raak - Perfect pitch
  I had perfect pitch as a child, but not being a musician, I've never used it, and the skill seems to have decayed. I just tried whistling a middle C, and it turned out to be a tone flat. But maybe I'm channelling Baroque pitch, concert pitch having been invented to boost the E-string industry.
• penelope
  [widey] But we've been here all the time :o) Good to see you back!
• Rosie - Whistling Middle C
  I'm not surprised you can't whistle Middle C; you'd need a head the size of a space hopper to do that. Do you mean an octave higher, or maybe even two? As to baroque pitch, I once heard Handel's Messiah sung to the accompaniment of old instruments, as it turned out. "Why are these buggers in D flat?", I was muttering until the penny dropped. Baroque pitch is about 3/4 of a semitone down on concert. (A = 422 or so).
• Irouléguy - Questions, questions....
  What CdM said, first of all - it's this sort of discussion, as much the games, that keeps me coing back to the Morniverse. I do have a couple of questions- probably daft ones, but I'll lob them in anyway
  
  Raak] If moral statements are propositions - objective truths like gravity or the earth being round - then shouldn't we as a species have discovered some of them by now? And how exact are they? Do you mean general statements like the Ten Commandments, or more specific ones? And if they are objective truths, then surely they admit no exceptions? Which is somewhat problematic - the proposition likely to get the greatest assent is probably "You shall not kill", but if pushed, most people would admit to believing some caveats to even that one (just wars, self-defence, etc).
  
  Darren] There's a convention called Pantone numbers in printing, where you tell a printer the exact shade of green you want by quoting the Pantone number. Inside that convention, the statement that "1815 is green" is objectively true or false. That convention works because everyone who uses it agrees that the rule-set exists, and that the person or people who defined the rule-set have the right to do so. What I'd question about the idea that "1815 is green" in the wider world is - how do we know that the rule-set exists, and who made it?
  
  Lastly (and without stopping this discussion) could I advance the moral proposition that CdM has won the current round of AVMA, and that he should tell us the answer and set another one?
• Raak
  [Irouléguy] Here is one account of the moral Way (although I think it leaves out a significant area, one's responsibility towards oneself). Does the law of gravity admit of exceptions? Yet iron ships float, planes fly, and Voyager is escaping the solar system, and for well-understood reasons. Anyone touting a verbal formula as the truth, whether in the scientific realm or the moral realm, has already fallen into error.
• Darren
  [Irouléguy] Even if an objective rule-set exists, it doesn't need a maker, unless you want to be creationist about it, or you want to take the view that all mappings are abstract constructs formed by the human mind, in which case there's no such thing as a natural rule-set, but nor does there have to be a single named maker as such things can be built up over time. At any rate, there is no need for "1815 is green" as a logical proposition to say anything about the wider world (the meaning and nature of which we could debate for many centuries), because, apart from the fact that we could be talking about all kinds of symbolism, the proposition in itself is a kind of proposed mapping between 1815ness and greenness. It doesn't have to be objectively true or false, but what we do have to be able to say is, if we had enough data, we could determine whether it was true or false. In other words, we don't need a rule-set, because the proposition itself, if true, implies the existence of one. If false, however, it says nothing about the existence or non-existence of a rule-set, although if there is no rule-set, the proposition is not a proposition because it cannot be true or false. In the same way, by saying "X is wrong" as a proposed mapping from the concept of X to the concept of wrongness, we don't necessarily say there *is* an objective mapping of actions to moral evaluations, but for "X is wrong" to be objectively true there must be such a mapping. However, just because we can't tell objectively at this stage whether such a rule-set may or may not exist, that doesn't mean that "X is wrong" stops being a proposition. I think Breadmaster's position, in this sense, is that such a rule-set is impossible and so by definition no proposition which purports to use it can have meaning, because it is neither true nor false, and therefore fails to qualify as a proposition. If it can be shown that there is definitively no rule-set, then I agree with Breadmaster that such things aren't propositions. I'm just not entirely convinced that such a rule-set is impossible, even if it is beyond human knowledge. How far this gets us into the question of morality I don't know!
• Darren
  Actually, I said above "There is no objective force for morals," so I've contradicted myself. OK. Let me put it like this, if there is no objective force for morals (as I clearly thought a couple of days ago!) then Breadmaster is correct and my arguments have fallen apart.

  The funny thing is, this discussion has made me question in myself whether I really believe there is no such thing as objective morality, and I can't really say for certain one way or the other. Within the human world, I don't think there is anyone who has in themselves, or has determined in some other way, an objective sense or code of morality. So, I suppose I'll have to fall in line with Breadmaster's view that moral values are not logical propositions. Well done Bm! Certainly made me understand my reasoning a bit more.

• Projoy
  [CdM] So having perfect pitch makes you Oriental! I always suspected this was the case! :)
• Projoy
  [Raak] I understand that you're suggesting your personal insights into this come from experiences which you can't describe here, so you are rather hamstrung in terms of pursuing this hypothesis of objective morality, at least in this forum. But I am inclined to ask you some skeptical, pedantic questions, such as what a "moral universe" is, how you think the whole thing might work (in just the way you can't find here). If a moral intuiter steps out of the way of immoral actions because they perceive risk to themself (as in your car analogy), that is one thing (but implies self-interest being at the heart of morality, which would make it subjective, surely?); if a moral intuiter senses moral danger, what sort of process do you speculate might be going on in their heads that doesn't appear to go on in mine? Further, if you have some experience of this, maybe - without having to talk about the experience - you could tentatively specify an example of an objective moral rule...?
• CdM
  [Projoy] I knew someone was going to say that.
• Breadmaster
  [Darren] Yayy! Thank you. By the way, I inexplicably can't access this page (alone of all in the Morniverse) from work any more, it seems, which is why I fell silent. Bear in mind that even moral statements are not propositions, it does not necessarily follow that they are not universally applicable. "Don't murder!" could be normative for everyone even though it does not express an objective fact. Perhaps there could be "objective commands". But what those could be, and how they could be, I don't know, and explaining them is a task for someone else.
  [Raak] You surely know that your gravity analogy doesn't apply! Floating ships and space probes aren't "breaking" the law of gravity any more than I am when I hold my leg in the air before taking a step. Rather, the law of gravity is simply one of many physical laws which are inter-related, or interact. But that's beside the point. More to the point is that even the list you link to contains much that is arguable. I, for example, don't set much stock by "duties to ancestors" even though the average Confucian might regard it as a central moral imperative. There is nothing that has been universally accepted as a moral imperative, and even if there were, it wouldn't prove anything other than that people all thought it was right. The most such things can show is that human beings have evolved - either biologically or socially - to think that certain things are right or wrong, presumably because those who didn't think this didn't develop stable societies. Thus most people think that murder is wrong because if they didn't they wouldn't have survived. We can therefore explain moral imperatives - or at least their basic outlines - quite adequately in a historical or evolutionary way, without needing to posit that moral views express some kind of "truth" about the world. And the sorts of questions that Projoy asks indicate that there are big problems with the view that they do. After all, there are many people who think that there are moral facts, but no-one seems able to agree what they are. Is abortion a fundamental right or is it one of the blackest crimes there is? The fact that people disagree doesn't prove that there isn't a matter of fact at dispute, of course, but it does raise the question - how, even in principle, could the dispute be settled? What "evidence" (even if in practice it could not be collected) would prove it one way or the other?
  Another point that might be relevant - the Tao website states that "For those who do not perceive its rationality, even universal consent could not prove it." Well, I'm afraid I don't perceive its rationality. I may perceive its utility or practical application. But David Hume pointed out that morality isn't to do with rationality, and vice versa - he said something like "There is nothing irrational about my preferring the destruction of the entire universe to the scratching of my finger," and he was right - such a preference may be morally wrong in whatever sense you have of the word, or it may be highly unuseful, but it's not, strictly speaking, irrational.
• Raak
  [Projoy] Self-interest is at work in stepping out of the path of a car, but that doesn't make it subjective in any useful sense. Everyone will step out of the way of that car, except only children who have not yet learned that it is dangerous, the drug-addled, and the suicidally depressed. This is only subjective to the degree that every thought we have is subjective. What is objective is that the car will kill you if you don't get out of the way. Opinions and wishes are irrelevant. Reality is like the Terminator: you can't reason with it, you can't argue with it. You only have power to choose your actions, not their consequences.
         (Repeat earlier caveat that I'm taking this horse out for a ride to test its legs.)
         Thus it is with morality. The enlightened do good and avoid evil, because, from their point of view, the first person that good acts benefit and evil acts harm is oneself, consequences as undeniable as traffic. It applies to everything from not mugging old ladies for their pension money to getting out of bed in the morning. The idea has a long pedigree, e.g. Socrates and the Buddhist canon (and in a debased form in the Religions Of The Book, where all the consequences are deferred to a supposed later life, despite the statement by one of their prophets that "the kingdom of heaven is within you"). It doesn't give instant answers to all questions, any more than the laws of physics will immediately tell you how to build a kilometer-tall skyscraper.

  [Bm] You give two arguments that undercut each other: that there are no universally accepted moral principles, and that universally accepted moral principles arise for evolutionary reasons. You can't have it both ways, but I'll ride this horse over both of them anyway.
         No scientific truth is universally accepted either, if you define "universally" narrowly enough. There are, nonetheless, substantial areas of agreement on moral issues that can be found throughout all civilisations. That doesn't prove they are true (as Lewis himself says), merely that they exist. Perceiving their truth is a separate matter.
         I could take the evolutionary explanation as evidence on my side -- the consequences of right and wrong action are exactly your presumed evolutionary pressures. Not getting run over is also evolutionarily adaptive, but that does not mean that personal decisions and the laws of physics have nothing to do with it.
         How do you perceive the utility of the Way? If it is useful to follow the Way, what is it useful for? And what in turn is that useful for? Utility offers no foundation. Likewise rationality. Look hard enough, and all attempts to find foundations lead only to an infinite regress. Ideas can only justify ideas in terms of other ideas. Morality is about actions, and actions cannot be deduced from thoughts, any more than an ought from an is.
         Hume also claimed not to see causation, but he wouldn't have survived to write his books if he hadn't dodged horse-drawn carts now and then.

• Darren
  [Raak] Maybe Hume was just very, very lucky.
• Projoy
  [Raak] Your supposition that evil acts harm the doer is where it all falls down for me. Sort of repeating Bm's point, but a car will run people down according to the laws of physics, which can be reliably shown to operate universally (at least as far as we can observe), but mugging someone for their pension cannot be shown universally to have negative effects for the individual (unless you start invoking some unknowable afterlife or karma or whatever). In other words, some people get away with breaking moral rules, in just the way that a car can't get away with braking the rules of physics in order to save a life. There is merely a certain probability that a system of law exists that will make mugging disadvantageous to the perpetrator. This is not 100% (in fact taking human history as a whole, I'm tempted to speculate it is less than 50%). Is there any real evidence whatsoever to the contrary?
• Projoy - Getting away with murder
  You might come back with the argument that the fact people get away with breaking moral rules is irrelevant to the truth of those rules, but if so then the truth of those rules is irrelevant to us if we are searching for objective standards, since the rules cannot be shown to have reliable consequences, and therefore do not admit of predictions.
  
  I also think that rational suicide is a very interesting example in the objective/subjective debate, because it's always struck me as a very interesting example of higher-order thinking successfully overruling all the lower-order evolutionary thinking with which we come pre-installed. If our sense of objective morality rests on self-preservation, why would it admit of contradiction in this way?
• Irouléguy
  Raak] (Following on from Breadmaster's reply) It's also the case that all of these moral traditions arose in societies whose rulers did not follow them, yet all of these moral traditions preached acceptance of those rulers. "Thou shalt not kill" actually become "Thou shalt not kill unless thou art the state". If these are absolute moralities, shouldn't the rulers obey them? And if the rulers are immoral, shouldn't the moral organise to get rid of them and impose the rule of the moral?
  My second objection is that I don't see what makes these an objective rule-set, as opposed to the many other moral precepts you could have instead (for example, sexual equality, environmentalism).
  Lastly, illustrating Projoy's point, I'm reminded by the weather of the Belloc (?) poem:
  The rain it falleth on the just
  And on the unjust fella
  But more upon the just, because
  The unjust stole the just's umbrella
  One of the lessons of experience (both direct and indirect) is that crime or acting immorally very often does pay.
  
  Darren] You're right to pick me up on the creationist implication of my argument (not at all what I think). I was with your argument all the way until "In other words, we don't need a rule-set, because the proposition itself, if true, implies the existence of one." I think that's circular reasoning, because the truth or otherwise of a proposition can only be tested by reference to a rule-set.
• Darren
  [Irouléguy] Not circular, but certainly flawed. We don't need, and nor can we infer the existence of, a universal rule-set, however we do need a rule-set which covers at least the special case(s) covered by the proposition we know to be true in order to test it, as you say, but we can say (and this is what I was getting at) that if the proposition is true, then such a special-case rule-set must exist, even if its only rule is the true proposition itself. Bringing in the special-case rule-sets, a proof that there is no universal rule-set doesn't discount the possibility of a special-case one which covers only finitely many possibilities, and therefore it is possible for a proposition to be demonstratively true or false even if there is no universal rule-set.
• Darren
  (At this point I'm no longer talking about objectively moral rule-sets.)
• Darren
  (Er... by that I mean the focus of what I'm talking about has shifted away from morality into how logical propositions [can] be members of larger sets of rules mapping one class of items to another.)
• Raak
  [Irouléguy] The moral organising to remove unjust rulers happens now and then, for example, in Iraq. (I am not joking.) Imposing the rule of the moral, though, is a contradiction in terms. Rule can only be imposed on an unwilling populace by killing enough of them to intimidate the rest. What is moral about that? Re your second point, you see it or you don't. That is the key difference between empirical knowledge and moral knowledge: one is demonstrable and the other is not. On your third point, why didn't the just man thump the unjust when he tried to make off with his umbrella? Sometimes crime pays and sometimes it doesn't.
• Raak
  [Projoy] Indeed, mugging someone cannot be demonstrated to have those negative effects upon the soul that have nothing to do with the courts. The world-view I'm arguing is one that can only be held as a matter of faith. That, it occurs to me, is what religious faith really is. It is not belief in stories about empty tombs or dictating angels; it is the belief that not only are good and evil knowable, but the knowledge is closer than your own heartbeat.
         But to return specifically to mugging, muggers are not notably well-off, materially successful people, are they, even if they never go to jail? There are no rich muggers.
• Rosie - Not philosophy
  ISIHAC is back, and a good one too. Carry on.
• Raak - Carrying on
  The supposed negative consequences of sin are not some sort of consolation for the good -- "he stole my wallet, but he'll burn in hell for all eternity, so that's ok". Morality only has application to oneself. Other people will do whatever they do, whatever one thinks about what they do.
• Projoy
  [Raak] *holds his position in the discussion while he looks online for the biography of a mugger who becomes very rich*
• rab - Per Capita
  Any chance of a recap for someone who's not been able to follow this discussion closely whilst it's been ongoing? From what I can gather my thoughts are

  • What's the definition of morality? I've seen a few arguments as to what it's not, but what is it?
  • Without knowing what morality is, I can't decide whether there's any sense in talking about an absolute one or not.
  • What I do find interesting, though, is why people seem to have converged on having similar feelings about certain things (such as killing other people to be 'bad' [which I am happy to try and define, should that be necessary]) despite having in other ways entirely different social backgrounds and upbringing. I appreciate that there are two possible explanations for this: one, a higher "moral" force. I'm more interested in the other explanation.

  But I don't want to say any of these aloud without being sure I'm not just retreading old ground.
• rab
  (within, I should say, the confines of this discussion. I'm sure this ground has been trodden more generally by many others before. But few of us, presumably, were there, so...)
• Breadmaster
  [Raak] Well, you're a bit unfair to say that the points I made contradict each other - I don't think there are any universally accepted moral mores, but those which are predominantly accepted can be explained in an evolutionary way. But I don't see that this is backing for your position, or as you put it, "the consequences of right and wrong action are exactly your presumed evolutionary pressures". Seems to me more reasonable to say that "right" and "wrong" are simply words that human beings have learned to apply to actions with such consequences. But if that is so, why should we do "right" and avoid "wrong"? I think this is the problem with the position you're defending, that "right" actions help the doer and "wrong" ones harm him/her. That isn't morality, it's prudence. Prudence means doing what is sensible, essentially, from one's own point of view. Many accounts of "ethics" have really been about this, the most famous being Aristotle's, which is all about how to achieve "eudaimonia" or "happiness". But this isn't what most of us understand by "morality", for two reasons. The first is that prudence often conflicts with what most people would understand as morality. For example, a soldier who throws himself on top of a grenade to save his friends is clearly not acting prudently, but most people would want to say he acts morally. Second, prudence does not have the force of imperative that I was talking about earlier. A moral value is, in some sense, a command. "Murder is wrong" means "Don't murder people!" You can ignore it or disobey it if you want, but the command still demands a response (and this, I think, for rab's benefit, must be part of the definition of a moral statement). By contrast, "If you mug people it will redound against you" isn't a command, it's simply a statement. It's not telling you to do something. What I want from a decent account of moral statements is an explanation of that imperative, and it seems to me that appealing to consequences in this way - or indeed in any way, such as that of utilitarianism - does not do this.
• Breadmaster
  To put that point a slightly different way, moral values can be transgressed, whereas ones of prudence cannot. "Do not murder people" can be obeyed or disobeyed - "Murder will ultimately harm yourself" cannot.
• Raak - The wealth of muggers
  [Projoy] Look at it this way: muggers are literally stealing people's pocket money. How is anyone going to get rich doing that?
• Darren
  [Raak] Whyever not? One mugger doesn't just mug one victim. They do it over and over again, as long as they don't get caught (that's probably the only practical limiting clause). There's also always the possibility they'll hit a minor jackpot, too, of someone who's carrying more than just "pocket money." I would imagine, for instance, that some of us going up to Rugby had a fair amount in cash. (As the guy collecting money for T-shirts, this is more than mere speculation!) Once they've got some money, there's no reason they couldn't invest their ill-gotten gains wisely, either, and make it grow a bit. True, I doubt most muggers are smart enough to know how to do that, but I don't think you can say it's inherently impossible to become rich through it.
• Darren
  [Raak] Oh, and I think you're also ignoring the way they tend to take other things the person has on them, such as credit cards, watches, jewellery, etc. The latter two probably aren't worth very much for most people (let's be honest, most people wear crap), but cards can lead to all kinds of nastily profitable shenanigans.
• Darren
  [Breadmaster] How about the sense of guilt? Doing something you know to be wrong makes you feel guilty. So, to put it another way, if something makes you feel guilty, it's something you feel to be immoral (this can be irrationally so, of course, insofar as any morality can be said to have a rational basis). Obviously, this isn't objective because different people feel guilt for different things.
• Raak
  [Darren] Ok, one can imagine how to make a lot of money at street crime, but I seriously doubt if anyone does. It's just not a real career option for anyone wanting to do more than just live hand to mouth.
  [Bm] What is a "should"? What are commands? The moral person would no more thrust his hand into another's pocket than into a nest of vipers. Shoulds and commands are for those who lack insight and must be told what to do. I have not (yet) read Aristotle (is this the Nicomachean Ethics?), but morality as enlightened prudence sounds right to me.
• st d - 1815 GREEN
  You see - you can prove it, with one of these. You just need to know the wavelength of the light which will tell you where it is on teh spectrum which will (in most cases) be able to be proved to be a certain colour (except for those "No it's yellow" "no it's not it's orange" conversations.)
• Darren
  [st d] Whether you can prove it or not wasn't the point - it was whether you needed to prove it, or indeed whether you even needed to know a proof was possible.
• st d
  of course - silly me.
• Darren
  [st d] Well done though.
• Irouléguy - You can't step into the same conversation twice...
  Wow, this moves fast...
  Raak] If by the case of Iraq you mean the resistance against the US/British occupation, then I'd agree that they are morally justified (without necessarily meaning that each and every one of the resitance's actions are morally justified). I suspect that's not what you mean though.
  I think the core problem here is where you say "That is the key difference between empirical knowledge and moral knowledge: one is demonstrable and the other is not." If moral knowledge is not demonstrable in some way, then how do we learn it, other than by faith? And given that there are lots of possible belief systems, many of which disagree very strongly with each other, how do we distinguish between right and wrong belief systems?
  
  Darren] I still don't see how you can know whether a proof is possible, without knowing how you are testing it.
• Darren
  [Irouléguy] I think we've moved slightly from rulesets to proofs... the thing is, I don't think you need to prove a mapping is anything other then a mapping. It could be totally arbitrary, with no proof possible, but as long as you had a consistent mapping from one category to another, or, as I said above, a subset of one to a subset of the other, then that's sufficient. A ruleset doesn't need to be grounded in the real world to be a ruleset. It can be entirely abstract, but as long as it doesn't contradict itself then that's good enough as far as the logical proposition is concerned.
• Raak
  [Irouléguy] Indeed it wasn't! This may be getting into the stuff of flame wars, but I had in mind (as you no doubt guessed) the removal of Saddam as the moral act, and cannot see any of the resistance "actions" (i.e. suicide bombing, suicide bombing, and suicide bombing) as moral acts, especially given that the resistance is coming from the Sunni minority whose goal is Islamic dictatorship. Which of their actions do you think are morally justified?
         How do we learn morality? Upbringing, practical experience, revelation, and reason applied to those. As someone once put it: "If you get it, it will be in spite of any method. You must have a method."
• Projoy - self-defeating post :-)
  [Raak] Hm, I don't think I'll bother continuing with this. Nothing you've suggested as an example needs more explanation than simply that humans enact moral (and legal) consequences upon one another according to the collective effect of shared or accumulated beliefs. This is the main reason muggers (nowadays) can have little success (even ignoring the fact that poverty is probably as much a cause of mugging as vice versa). Sure, all this might be the manifestation of some deeper mechanism, but it could just as easily be a bottom-up emergent phenomenon (rab can correct my terminology if I'm using this expression wrongly) that arises out of our brain chemistry and its interactions with the environment etc. etc. From what we know, this seems to me the most conservative and most available explanation. Why invoke absolute good, absolute evil? It still seems to me that you might as well invoke God. Certainly the notion of absolute good and evil, once you start trying to define them to the letter (in the case of say, the actions of Iraq's invaders and Iraq's resistance), admit of as many conceptual problems as the notion of God. Unless you can tell us more about the reasons for your willingness to entertain your leap of faith (and you've said you can't), I feel we're really just pushing words around.
• Projoy - More word-pushing.
  [rab] Good idea re defining morality. We could take our pick from the 11 definitions, some claimed obsolete, offered by the OED. The ones it thinks are current are:

  • Moral virtue; behaviour conforming to moral law or accepted moral standards, esp. in relation to sexual matters; personal qualities judged to be good.
  • Moral discourse or instruction; a moral lesson or exhortation. Also: the action or an act of moralizing.
  • Conformity of an idea, practice, etc., to moral law; moral goodness or rightness.
  • The quality or fact of being morally right or wrong; the goodness or badness of an action.
  • The branch of knowledge concerned with right and wrong conduct, duty, responsibility, etc.; moral philosophy, ethics.
  • A particular moral system or outlook; moral thought or conduct in relation to a particular form of activity.

  
  Rather a hazy selection, no?
• rab
  [Projoy] Quite. I had a think about definitions, came up with one and devised a framework for thinking about this whilst queuing in the bank this morning. Then the teller muttered something about ISAs and it all vanished. Oh dear. I also have more pressing things to worry about, in that I have in two weeks an interview for a job I really, really want and for which I expect the competition to be fierce. So I really need to pull out the stops, so if you don't hear from me it's cos I'm doing my homework.
• Projoy
  Not posting on MC sites! Is this moral? :)
• Darren
  [rab] Morality: that which does not involve ISAs.
• Raak
  [Projoy] "Emergent phenomenon" isn't an alternative to other explanations -- it exists alongside them. For example, I am of the opinion that the mind is literally a physical process of the brain, which assembles itself by knowable (though currently almost entirely unknown) physical processes, so all the stuff we do is an emergent phenomenon of the molecules. That doesn't mean that that stuff -- thoughts, sensations, consciousness, etc. -- doesn't exist, although discoveries about the physical stuff can call into question our naive ideas about our experiences of our minds.
         As a last remark, I don't want to give the impression of hinting at mysterious mystical revelations (and I cynically suspect that a lot of accounts of such are describing nothing more mysterious than a minor stroke). The experiences that I can find no adequate way of communicating are no more than a few personal development courses I've taken, following which some religious language became a lot more comprehensible, and reading in a couple of quasi-religious traditions of disputed provenance (the works of Gurdjieff and Idries Shah).
• Projoy - *sound of penny dropping*
  Ahh. So you're saying that objective morality is a high-level description for a de facto emergent phenomenon? Well, we agree, then! It's only if you're insisting it's transcendent of the nuts and bolts of human behaviour and psychology that we have a fundamental disagreement.
• Projoy
  I did say I'd shut up, didn't I? I will now shut up.
• Raak
  [Projoy] Actually, I'm agnostic about what it is. It might be that, and it might not be.
• Breadmaster
  [Raak] You're right in a literal sense that "commands" are for those who need to be told what to do, but the point I was trying to make is that morality, if it is real, is normative. That is, it carries an implicit command in itself, irrespective of whether anyone is standing there articulating it. If it is true that there are people with moral insight who can "see" these truths, then they would also be able to "see" this implicit command and respond to it one way or the other (would you, incidentally, accept the existence of people with moral insight who nevertheless act wrongly?). Enlightened prudence (and yes, it's the "Nic Eth" I was thinking of, but any other kind too) doesn't cover it. When people say "Murder is wrong" they don't mean that it's in your interest (or even in the general interest) not to murder people - they mean that it's wrong, that you shouldn't do it, not even in an extraordinary case where it's beneficial. That's what Crime and Punishment is about. I haven't seen any argument explaining why, in the example given before, a soldier should sacrifice himself for his friends. I haven't even seen an argument explaining why I should not murder. I can imagine an argument setting out the undesirable effects of my murdering, but that's not the same thing. Jesus said "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you" - but he meant that happiness comes as a result of doing what's right, that is, as a reward. He didn't mean that happines literally is doing right, and I wouldn't have thought many people would either. Purely from an empirical standpoint, how many people would agree that the happiest people in world are also the most moral?
  [Darren] The guilt point is a good one, but you'd have to argue that the guilt of doing something you believe to be bad would always outweigh any happiness you derived from the benefits of the bad act, which I think would be unlikely - people generally rationalise such things eventually. Plus, of course, it's no use when trying to make an objective account of morality, as you point out, because different people feel guilty about different things.
  A shame Projoy's bowing out as I think he's been entirely right throughout this. But like him I'm not sure that much headway is being made in any direction, so perhaps I'll do the same!
• Darren
  [Bm] In which case, perhaps it's time to draw the whole question of "what is morality" to a close.
• Darren
  [Bm] Here's a thought: if immoral actions are those which we feel guilty about, then perhaps as guilt wears off the actions become less immoral! Has anyone ever claimed that a given action is (im)moral for perpetuity, or is it allowed for its status to change with time? Note that I'm not putting this idea of transient immorality forward as anything too serious, I'm just playing around with the concept to see what happens.
• Darren
  After all, most people would say (I think) that once you've done a particular immoral action once or twice, it becomes easier to do it later. I'm talking here about personal morality rather than any kind of universal morality, of course.
• Raak
  [Bm] "Command", "normative force", and "should" are just different labels for the same thing, whatever that thing is, if it exists. You can't get an ought from an is, so there are no arguments proving that one should do this or that, except from assumptions about what one should or should not do. There isn't an argument proving that you should get out of the way of a car either, only a description of the consequences, on the basis of which everyone is free to make their own response to the situation. "Enlightened prudence" (with an emphasis on the enlightened) doesn't bridge that gap, but neither does anything else. The only way to get there is to be there.
• Breadmaster
  [Raak] Well, that is precisely one of the key reasons for supposing there is no such thing as objective moral truth!
• Rosie - Coming in during Dinner
  Some people don't seem to have quite got the hang of this, you could say.
• Raak
  [Bm] I left moral truth off that list, because although one view is that it's just another name for the same thing, in the view I'm arguing, it isn't. It's...it's moral truth, that's what it is! And one still has a choice about whether to follow it or not.
• st dogmael - talking of dinner
  Last night I had dinner at a nice restaurant called Baltic, with , among others, Sarah Atkins, who is Head of Legal at London Underground.
• Darren
  [st dogmael] Did you ask her about the meaning of morality?
• st dogmael
  Yes. She said that it was buried deep in the foundations of the Jubilee Line Extension, somewhere near Canary Wharf, and that LU owned the IP rights to it.
• st dogmael - gatsos
  got hit with one on the M4 on Friday eveniing - doing 45ish in a temporary roadworks 40mph zone. BATFISH.
• penelope
  Greetings from deepest Vermont, where the speed limit is 25mph and the hire car does almoat 20 mph without complaining. And the weather's pretty bloody hot too.
• CdM
  [st d] Why do I suspect that when you add "-ish" to your speed, you actually mean "+30"? :-)
• Botherer
  Well I've just got back from Inverness and a lovely time I had too, despite it being work. It appears the Highlands haven't yet discovered speed cameras if the taxi I got from the airport was anything to go by. Rab might be interested to know the flightpath in takes you directly over Inverness Sewerage Treatment Works.
• Projoy
  [Botherer] Did you buy a cape?
• st d - speed estimates
  CdM] Funnily enough, loud mouthed as I am, I do try to drive safely. The signs were all over saying 40MPH SPEED CAMERAS etc etc so I dropped to about 50, then saw the camera and braked and got flashed so I assume I was doing about 45. To be honest I would have braked a hell of a lot harder and probably been okay if I though it would have been safe but there were cars behind me. (a speeding tikcet, caught on camera, with brake lights showing and a Nissan crashed up my ass and HGVs jackknifing left right and centre would have been a bad look)
• Nik - Cameras
  I was almost caught by a static camera on my way into Liverpool on Sunday; I'd been travelling down the East Lancs road at 40 (the limit), and always forget that it changes to 30 on a ridiculous junction where it's really far more prudent to be looking at the five con/di-verging pieces of road (and persons alongside/between them) than at the signage and the speedometer. It remains a 30 zone, with no real need to be so. I only thought to ask my girlfriend on imminent approach to the camera what the limit was at that point, and I think I managed to take 10mph off before it could see my plate (there were no flashes that I could discern). Thankfully there was no-one close behind. The camera is placed on a flyover between the run-offs to and from one of the tunnels, so again my concentration really would be more use on other aspects of my driving than the speedometer and signage.

  I was also pulled over for the first time on the M62 on Friday for (in my eyes, obviously) mostly unjustified reasons, at least partially caused by the officer doing the pulling. Thankfully he was only in the mood to administer a lecture, and then had to extricate me from the far more dangerous situation he'd left me in - he'd pulled me over behind a broken down van in the hard shoulder on a exit filter lane to Warrington. This involved both of us reversing down the hard shoulder(!), then him madly waving people out of the filter lane before pulling out into it at 3mph(!) so that I could get out and 'safely' build speed and pull back out of the filter-off lane. Which I'm fairly sure is an offense, due to the markings on the road, but that was what he'd told me to do(!).

  I wrote an overly long-winded explanation. Click here to see it.My girlfriend was the one to suggest that he'd actually engineered the second point he laboured over - both vehicles joined the M62 from the M6, he got into the middle lane, I was stuck behind a lorry doing 60 (remember, in a lane that almost immediately filters off the motorway to Warrington, so it's necessary to get out of it quickly). In effect, he was blocking me moving out, so I indicated. He slowed down, and when I was sure he was letting me out and it was as safe as it would get I moved out smoothly (who does anything unnecessarily boistrous in the presence of a traffic car?). I turned off the indicator, raised a hand in thanks and started accelerating only to get the pretty flashy lights. Apparently I was 'nipping in and out' of traffic (yes, by changing lane once, legally, at 60, and in front of a traffic officer who'd just moved back to give me space). From his vantage point of somewhere else entirely he could tell that I couldn't see what was going on next to the lorry; apparently there could've been a crash happening or anything. Except, of course, *that he had gently slowed on the engine in response to my indication*. According to him, I was taking undue risks. If you don't want risk, don't go anywhere near a car! I pretty much know what's going on around me, even when I haven't been able to see into a spot for a second or two. It's called induction and extrapolation. Well, I think it is, and on that point I think I'm in pretty much the ideal place for correction. Sorry, I needed to vent. My girlfriend got sick of it after about half an hour.

• Botherer
  [PJ] Cape and Top Hat, brushed up my tails...
• st dogmael - coptastic
  nik] he sounds like a cunt of the very first order. You should write a letter of complaint.
• Nik
  If he'd actually booked me for something, then maybe. As it was, he just seemed to be something of a busy-body. I think I've pretty much worked it out of my system now. Only taken a week! :/
• Rosie
  (Nik) Dear me, pulled over by a bumptious cop and given a lecture. Get over it FFS.
• Nik
  Er, did I not say I'd gotten over it? In the post before yours? Which was days before your post? In response to st d, posting several days after my original post? Can I direct statements including the word 'fuck' at you too? Can I? It's big and clever.
• st d - orders of c....
  nik] sounds like he didnt give you a ticket because he knew he wouldnt get away with it. Still ranks pretty highly with me or he wouldn't have pulled you over at all.
• Rosie
  (Nik) Try www.upmyownarse/pettymotoringwhinges.com
• Projoy
  [Rosie] Careful now, it's been a pleasingly long time since we had a full-blown flamewar.
• Nik
  [Projoy] Don't worry, I've never been good at flamewars. They require far too much effort and a short-term memory capable of remembering that I'm participating in one.
• Boolbar - driven up the wall
  [pettymotoringwhinges] Yes please! I have loads . . .
• st d - flamewars
  not sure i ever remember one on here, it does seem that you are spoiling needlessly for a reaction though, rosie.
• Rosie
  (Projoy) No flamewar. I've made my point, which stands.
• Simons Mith - Point standing?
  No, I'm sorry, Rosie. A point simply isn't stable; it would tip over.
• Darren
  [SM] It depends which way up you stand it.
• Rosie
  (SM, Darren) Points mean prizes. (wearily) What do points mean?
• Overexcited Audience
  PRIZES!!
• st d
  hooray. I would like to win a very fast loud car and drive it about extremely fast with music blaring.
• penelope
  [st d] If the exhaust drops off your Peugeot and you point it downhill with Take That turned up to full bifters, that's what you'll have.
• Botherer - Peugeot Exhausts
  [pen] Shirley you mean when the exhaust drops off your Peugeot?
• penelope
  [Botherer] Have you seen the amount of string holding St D's Peugeot's exhaust on?
• st dogmael - string
  that's not string, that's plastic bags wound round lots of times.
• penelope - Phew wot a humid scorcher
  I was up at 0530 this morning (another of my apparently weekly trips to Heathrow to collect/deliver people) and it was 17 degrees. I still think the best summer holiday I had was in the Arctic Circle. I'll bore you with temeperature updates and whinges throughout the day...
• CdM
  [pen] You are joking, right...?
• penelope
  [CDM] Nope. I have the build of an eskimau
• Rosie - Eskimo Nell
  (pen) As long as you don't have their washing habits (nil). It's going to get a lot hotter over the weekend but you can avoid it by yet another trip to Heathrow or wherever and flying to "the uttermost part of the earth" (EasyJet, £5). See http://groups-beta.google.com/group/uk.sci.weather Mine is the first post in a thread marked "Cold Stuff". Maybe a bit technical/anorakky.
• CdM
  [pen] To be clear, my disbelief didn't concern the arctic circle vacation (I remember a wonderful trip to Lapland in midsummer) but the idea that 17 degrees is remotely warm, even at 05:30. Even for an eskimo.
• penelope
  [CdM] I sound like a complete marshmallow, but 17 degrees is at the point where I find it difficult to sleep. Flerdle will scoff...
• Breadmaster
  [CdM] 17 degrees is quite warm enough for me, I can tell you. And you know where I'm going to be a month from today! Ha! Oh dear...
• flerdle - hahahahahahahahaha I win.

  *scoffs*

  [oblig weather report] "Normal" temperature range here now is 30 to 40°C, often about 5 degrees higher, with daytime humidity usually around 60%, higher at night. It was 35°C at midnight one day last week.

  Yes, of course we use airconditioners, to bring the inside temperature down to somewhere in the mid to high 20s, and to dry out the air, and to avoid situations like the one on Wednesday night when (presumably) the freezer electrics overheating in the grocery store below our flat caused a fire that almost burnt down the building. I'm not surprised it happened, because they've never bothered to kept the shop cool enough. They're paying for it now.

  During the heatwave in Bris at the start of last year, I found my "can't really sleep" point was almost exactly 23°C. Even one degree lower helps.

  I don't know how I'm going to cope with Tasmania in early August.

• flerdle
  (Re 23°C: things like humidity, fans, etc would vary it, but it was interesting observing my sleeping patterns and correlating it to temperature, at that time. Hey, I was stuck in the wrong country for two months, I needed something to do. I'm not about to redo the "experiment" if I can help it. Also, here we probably have the aircons set a bit lower than I said above. We don't have a thermometer or hygrometer, so I have to go by reported temperatures, but I have no reason to think they fib.)

  I have a nice little chart which shows the apparent temperature, given the humidity and environmental temperature. Fascinating reading. For example, the other day when it was 40°C and 50% humidity, for most people that gives an apparent temperature of about 55°C, or 63° if you're in full sun (that's 145°F, if you needed the conversion).

  Yum.

• Rosie - Sleep temperatures
  (flerdle) No air-conditioning in this house and the temperature in my bedroom now (9.45 pm) is 25. We've had quite a warm day. The next few nights will be warmer still - probably 27 or so in this room but to me that's no problem. You just wake up a bit sweaty, that's all.
• Projoy - That's quite hot
  I don't know how I'd cope with 40°C, but I dream of temperatures reaching 30something here! Far too seldom.
• Dujon - Chilling out
  [flerdle] You had best put on some weight. Tassie in August is going to be right nippy I would think.
  Our snowfields finally received a dump or two over the last few days - about 500mm according to reports - so it looks like the monied classes will have something to play in again this year. Locally the nights are cooling off (4.5°C minimum last night) but the days are fine and, unfortunately, dry. The dam levels for the Sydney area are down to about 38% of capacity - not great when you have 4 million plus people relying on the supply. Water restrictions have been tightened again. Some towns west of the divide are now having to cart water in from afar. I feel for the poor farmers. There are five year old children in some areas who have never seen rain.
  Yeah, thought you would be interested. Sorry.
• Rosie - Scepticism
  (Dujon) Has there really been a 5-yr absolute drought in parts of Oz that normally receive at least some rain from time to time? Possible, I suppose. The variability is greater than in the UK. It's been dry here too, at least in the south. At Maison Rosie there have been 7 dry months running and the total is under 60% of normal for that spell and there's now a hosepipe ban. Such hardship! But why should people think they can lay water out to dry? It's a finite resource.
• Dujon - Correction
  Sorry, Rosie, I should have typed 'four-year-olds'. But, yes, it's true, and I'm not commenting on desert areas. Even where I live it's not particularly good. This calendar year (Jan & Feb tend to be our storm months) we have had 126/144.5/61/20.5/22 and, so far this month, 0.5 mm of precipitation. Some of this arrives in bucketsfull - we had 35mm and 30mm land on different days of Jan., 38.5mm twice in Feb. and another of 54mm (the 22nd; this followed one of the 38.5mm days), 14.5mm, 12mm and 19mm on separate March days. Since then we've had 13 days on which it rained, the maximum being 7mm on May 18th.
  Put your scepticism back in the wallet and save it for a rainy day. ;-)
• flerdle
  [Rosie] We really should find a thermometer and see what it is in here; in any case, it's not 18°C. I suspect I've become better able to tolerate heat, including while sleeping, but I still don't like it.
  [Dujon] I have been :-(
• rab - Dumper truck
  Call me Mr Purile, but I'm always amused when people concerned with snowfall talk about "good dumps".
• Rosie - Drought and sweat
  (Dujon) OK. It's just that I'm a natural sceptic, based on the "95% is bollocks" principle, but this forum has a greater percentage of truth-tellers than most, I'd say. Your total comes to 370 mm or so which is a lot less than the 600 mm that Sydney is supposed to have in that period. But are you in Sydeny itself? The figure for Richmond is only 420 mm for the same period. But I suppose any deficit is serious if it's part of a long-term dry spell. (flerdle) Yes, I can't believe 18°C in your tropical paradise. I'd find that decidedly chilly. (rab) Carry on! I am equally caused to giggle when people say they had to evacuate to avoid some imminent weather disaster. Scared the shit out of them, in other words.
• Dujon
  I can't see anything amiss with using 'dump' in such a context. One meaning of the word is 'to put down heavily', which sums up heavy falls of rain/snow/whatever. Perhaps it would have been more correct to have said 'was dumped'? My apologies for mangling the language.
  I'll have to check my records, Rosie. Unfortunately I took the trouble to transfer my data from notebooks to a computer spreadsheet program and promptly lost it all when a hard drive failed. Naturally gubbins here hadn't got around to backing up the files. There were about fifteen years of it and I've not had the inclination to do it all again. I'd have to find the notebooks, too (no doubt they'll be in a 'safe place'). I'm about the same distance from Sydney as is Richmond - 80 Km/50 miles - but with about 1000' extra elevation and 30 Km south-ish.
• Dujon
  Further to that lot, Rosie, if you are interested then look here for information on current Sydney dam levels.
  The bit found here includes a small reference to Goulburn (I could drive there in less than an hour and a half - I think). It's not quite up to date as the town has tapped the aquifiers and is using 'grey' and recycled water quite extensively. Strange though it may seem, much of the recycled stuff is used for keeping the sporting fields operational - combined with water carted in to the town (at some considerable expense to the clubs involved).
  I won't bore (sorry) others on this site with useless chatter, I'll send an e-mail in the next few days. I noticed that London is expecting well over 30°C today (Sunday) and will ask you a couple of questions about it. That sort of reading is becoming seriously warm.
• Breadmaster
  [Dujon] There's nothing grammatically wrong with using the word "dump" in that way - it's just highly amusing to those of us with the minds of small boys. Maybe Australians don't use the word in - ah - that sense? I'm most surprised!
• flerdle - generalised dumping
  [Bm] I don't think we do, really.
• Dujon
  [Breadmaster] Ah, yes! No, it's not common here and so went straight over my head. Rosie's evacuation quip should have alerted me. :-(
• Rosie - Heat
  (Dujon) You're up! So am I. It was 30.6 here at Hughes Hall (southern edge of London, 600 ft) but the highest was 32.6 at Heathrow, a bit suspect due to all that concrete. Some tasty thunderstorms in the north but nothing here. Outside it's stuck at 21 and not a breath of wind, and 28 in this room. No bedclothes tonite, Josephine.
• st dogmael - tasmania
  why are you going to dear old tassie flerlde ? where you going ? have you been before ? tassie is one of my favorite places.
• flerdle - tasmaina
  Just visiting a relative, in Hobart; not sure what we'll actually do. Should be a bit different. Second week of August. I've always wanted to visit, but it's been a bit far away ( = expensive to get to) for just a holiday.
• Rosie - AVMA
  This game has died. Either that or Gusset Login has. If he's not there later today I'll start it myself and you'll all suffer. :-)
• Rosie - AVMA
  You're safe. He's back.
• penelope
  [Rosie] But everyone else has gone. Hellloooo?
• Chalky
  I'm lurking!
• Botherer - Lurking
  I'd like to play more but as I can't access MC5 from work (apparently Websense thinks it's a game!) I feel reluctant to contribute.
• Dujon - Snow jobs
  In exciting news just to hand: It's snowing. Well, not here, but where my wife works, which is a half hour drive to my west in a place called Katoomba. This, I suspect, will mean that PaulWay will be taking anti-chilblain precautions due to his location in cold Canberra. Sorry for the exuberance - most of it stems from the fact that I'm glad I'm not there.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Latest from Canberra is 6°C. BTW how high is Katoomba? I can see why it's a bit cold from the excellent animations from the Bureau of Metorology, which show a series of charts and loads of other data too. The Americans, via NOAA, also provide this kind of thing, and for the whole world. Not a dicky bird from our own UK Met Office, which has now completely abandoned all idea of public service. It sells forecasts to the BBC at a huge price and operates purely on a commercial basis. It is about to shut down all non-military outstations, including weather centres. The archives are not online and its website is minimalist, quite unlike other countries' services. Its attitude to the public is "up yours - you don't pay". It is despised by all its former employees, including this one, and by a good proportion of its present ones, except the accountants, probably. The poison was first injected by Thatcher and further heavy doses have been enthusiastically administered under that prick Blair. A heap of shite and a national disgrace.
• Dujon
  [Rosie] Katoomba? About 1000 metres, give or take a few. It's not particularly elevated in world terms but is in those of Australia. I'm approximately 270 m.a.s.l. (which is close to, but not quite, 1000' a.s.l.). Please keep in mind that Mt. Kosciuszko, our highest point, is a mere 2228 metres above sea level and that you can pretty well drive there.
  Last night was 'nippy' here - about 2.5°C - and as I write it seems about 11°C (it's approx 13:30 local). That reading comes from an electronic device and one in which I invest little credibility - though it's probably close. Whatever, it most surely is cold for this part of the world.
• flerdle - prescience
  [Dujon] PaulWay is in the Caribbean at the moment, or possibly the west coast of the US.
• penelope
  *is not jealous of the antipodeans' sub-10-degree-centigrade temperatures at all, oh no...* 20 degrees C here (NW London) at 09.00 this morning, with a high of 32C or 90F expected today. Thank goodness I'm working outside for the next couple of days. I think...
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Thanks. Along with penelope I could do with a bit of that. Just popped out to the screen - it's 29°, dewpoint 17°, i.e. sweaty. Almost no wind and the sky is full of heavy cirrus, which should stop it getting any hotter but might stop it cooling down much this evening, alas. Tomorrow's forecast is for all hell to be let loose (thunderstorms). It looks rather tasty, but we'll see. Only 6 mm rain here this month. Good, no gardening needed. Concerning my earlier rant my sources in the Met Office seem to have been reliable; see http://northtonight.grampiantv.co.uk/content/default.asp?page=s1_1_1&newsid=6898 You can get UK Met Office charts but only via the University of Karlsruhe.
• Bob the dog
  [Pen] Bah! Luxury. It has topped 32^oC every day (Except Weds)this week here in the Avon Valley. 19^oC ish at night. I have been sleeping out on the lawn (in my sleeping bag) all week - listening to the hedgehogs fan themselves.
• Dujon
  [flerdle] PaulWay must indeed have a sixth sense - good luck to him. Drifting around the east coast or west coast of the U.S. of A. sounds somewhat idyllic - unless there're cyclones or earthquakes.
  [Rosie] That does sound a bit, well, short sighted? I can most certainly understand the concerns of local industries - fishing, oil rigs and the like - as I have always felt that local knowledge in these matters is a significant asset. Yesterday Katoomba had a temperature range of -1°C to 3°C. Given my wife's earlier account I thought I'd gird my loins and drive up to bring her home (she often has to walk to the station - a good half hour walk and all up hill). Not having been to her place of employ previously I got flummoxed in the back street up and down dale topography. Enough so as to miss her. I then hurtled up to the railway station and again missed. Most sad. There was, however, a light side to this epic voyage of discovery: Just about everyone I saw in the main street of the town wore a beany, many were wearing fleecy lined jackets (some with Alaskan style fur collars/hoods) whilst little old me was wearing my usual short-sleeved shirt with a cardigan for insurance and no hat. It was most assuredly cold and I would not have liked to wander around for an hour in that garb, but it did make me chuckle.
  To make things worth, by the way, thinking that my wife's train was long gone by the time I rediscovered my home territory, I took a cursory glance at the railway station as I passed and, seeing no one of interest, carried on home. I was advised fifteen minutes later - in no uncertain terms - that I'd driven straight past the poor lass. Honestly, you can't win.
• Dujon - lithping
  s/worth/worse.
• CdM - Blue Mountains
  [Dujon] I have to say that I think you have the good fortune to live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world that I have ever seen.
• Boolbar
  [BtD] Sleeping outside? Is your house better or still falling down?
• bob the dog
  bool- house is fine, just very hot. please excuse the formatting, this is being posted from a mobile.
• Dujon
  [CdM] I had gathered you'd been here, but hadn't realised that you had visited the 'mountains'. Though they are not very high there are some majestic parts of them, for sure. I'm pleased that you enjoyed the place.
  [All] I hope that everyone else has had some relief from your oppressive weather - I know from experience that it can be quite ennervating, especially the 'getting to sleep' bit. Urrk. As a matter of interest, Bob the dog, if you were escaping the heat then why the sleeping bag? You have me intrigued.
• Bob the dog - Full moon
  Dujon] Its a summerbag - simply for keeping the dew off - not that there has been much. There is also the discretion factor as I sleep in view of neighbours who are very good friends of ours - but who would probably be offended by the sight of my lack of attire. Come to think of it - a topic of conversation here in the UK recently has been the unusally large moon close to the horizon...
• flerdle - the great outdoors
  [BtD] So do you hop out the back door in your sleeping bag, sack-race style, or do you tiptoe out once you think they're asleep?
• Rosie - Full Moon
  (Btd) The moon, full or otherwise, always looks big when close to the horizon. It's an optical illusion, which nobody can really explain. If you actually measured it you would find it's smaller near the horizon than when high in the sky, other things being equal. This is a simple geometrical effect.
• Breadmaster - Moon river
  [Rosie] No, I think, surely, you would find that the Moon is the same size in the sky no matter whether it's high or low. After all, it only takes a few hours for it to rise or set - it's not going to change in apparent size as it does so. The apparent growth of the Moon when near the horizon is of course some kind of psychological effect.
  
  The reason the Moon has been looking even bigger than usual near the horizon this week is that full moon has coincided (almost) with midsummer. The Moon is full when it is opposite the sun in the sky. The sun is at its highest at midsummer. Therefore, if the Moon is full at midsummer, it will be as close to the horizon as it ever gets whilst being full. Therefore the "Mendex" or Moon Illusion is at its strongest.
• Breadmaster
  When I say that the Moon doesn't change in apparent size while rising or setting, I mean that the area of sky that it covers surely doesn't change. Obviously its apparent size does change because it looks bigger closer to the horizon, but it extends over the same arc of the sky (and indeed of the retina).
• Dujon
  The moon should appear to be smaller when on the horizon than when at the zenith. Reason? It is further away when viewed at a tangent to the Earth's surface than from a perpendicular. This slight change is measurable though unlikely to be noticed by a casual observer.
  Why we generally perceive a full moon to be larger on its rising as opposed to when it is high in the sky has often been said to be as a result of it being in proximity to our more normally observed everyday horizon (trees, buildings, horizon line) than when it's clear of such. In other words the sense of scale becomes more evident.
• Rosie - Moon size
  (Breadmaster) Dujon has explained what I meant by the "geometrical effect". The moon is measurably about 1.7% larger in apparent diameter when overhead than when on the horizon, other things being equal. We're simply closer to it when it's overhead. The same applies to the sun, strictly speaking, but as the distance of the sun is 23500 earth radii the effect is barely measurable even with instruments.
• Effable - Peter Greenaway
  reference is made to: http://petergreenaway.co.uk/games.htm

  Many of the films of Peter Greenaway, at least the feature films that I have seen, have the structure of games. The best example is probably Drowning by Numbers. I have only recently discovered MC and I find the similarity to Hangman's Cricket to be striking. Does anyone know whether Greenaway has played MC?

• Dujon
  [Rosie] Sorry to steal your thunder, old son, but Breadmaster's comment had been sitting for quite a few hours without response.
  [Effable] Hello. I cannot answer your question but, on the law of averages, my guess would be 'yes'. The reason for that is that I believe I'm the only person on Earth who hasn't played a serious game of M.C..
• Rosie
  (Duj) No problem, mate. I've never played MC, either live or on these sites. It is essentially a performance in which the audience and panel enter into a mutual conspiracy about the complexity of the rules. Very few people I know have ever heard of it, which is rather disappointing. You could go up to anyone over the age of about 40 in this country and say "Bal-ham", and the almost instantaneous response would be "Gateway to the South", but say "Mornington Crescent" and you'd get mostly blank looks.
• Dujon
  [Breadmaster] I just re-read your earlier post vis-à-vis (sorry!) full moon and the midsummer situation. This is not true. On average there are thirteen full moons per year. As viewed from Earth (the Sun always 'sees' a full moon) such an event can only be seen from one point on Earth and will happen at a specific time. To be technically correct a proper full moon will only occur during a total lunar eclipse, which is when the Sun, Earth and Moon are truly aligned - even then it can only be termed a 'full moon' by a person standing/sitting/lying on the direct line between the Sun, Earth and Moon at the time that this occurs.
• Dujon
  Ooh Arr, hello Rosie. Simulpost.
  I trust you agree with my little piece on celestial mechanics? Or have I mislead myself?
• Effable - conspiracy
  [Rosie] Well, I'm very nearly fifty and I only learned of the existence of MC a few days ago. Now I'm hooked. It is as though it had been out there waiting for me to discover it, seems so right, so well suited to my motley talents. It doesn't bother me that it is so obscure. That is part of the appeal. And I am confident that many people have played MC without knowing what it is called. The pattern is a common one in many circles with intellectual pretensions.
• Dujon - Sprung
  [Effable]

  "... The pattern is a common one in many circles with intellectual pretensions."

  
  Your research, Sir or Madam, is exemplary. Welcome to the world of wannabees, couldavebeens and mightwellbees. I suspect that you will fit quite well into this society of misfits and miscreants. As a relative newcomer to the M.C. world myself, I'm quite sure that you will understand the deep and meaningful discussions, the amazing word play and generally unintelligible literary references which pepper this and other M.C. sites. Should I be correct then maybe you could help me out when I get stuck?
• Breadmaster
  [Dujon] Yes, of course technically you're correct about the full moon - I was using the term in the slightly vernacular sense, meaning the moon when it is as full as it is getting this month, as it were.
• Boolbar
  Living in Norfolk and often driving through the fens, I have frequently seen "full" moons on the horizion and they never look any bigger than when it is up in the sky. The moon does look huge however when it is a very fine crescent rising just before or setting just after the sun on a red sky.
• flerdle - mooning.
  [Boolbar] Do you have only one good eye? The "moon illusion" is much less if you close one eye (or really only see well out of one), or stand on your head. If you don't want to stand on your head, you could bend over and look through your legs. Noone would think you're strange. Honest.
• Boolbar
  [flerdle] No-one is normal in Norfolk, so such behaviour would be ignored, or even actively encouraged. I have two good eyes last time I looked, although one looked bigger than the other . . . .
• Darren
  [Boolbar] Does the eye look bigger when it's closer to the horizon?
• Effable - Sprang
  [Dujon] I answer to neither Sir nor Madam but will admit to the y chromosome. It is possible that my participation will be of some small benefit to the community.
• Rosie - Full moons and chromosomes
  (Duj) Strictly speaking you're correct but the term Full Moon is used, even technically, to mean that the ecliptic longitude of the moon is 180° more (or less) than the sun, whatever its latitude (-5° at the last full moon). (Effable) To save you putting your foot in it, so to speak, I too must admit to the Y-chromosome. There is at least one other person here who does the same. But beware; there are people here with no Y-chromosome whatever, some, moreover, with non-gender-specific monickers. Truly a minefield. :-)
• Simons Mith - Stale games
  This site has had the same games on the front page for an offally long time. Time for a bit of turnover, perhaps?
• Effable - stereotypes
  [Rosie] I really don't mind. I'll watch my step and try to be PC.
• Projoy
  [SM] You Know You're Getting Old... is unkillable
• penelope
  [SM] S'true. We've tried everything.
• Projoy
  Which, I suppose, is ironic in a way. You know you're getting old when you stop caring about killing games, since you expect even the short ones to outlive you.
• Irouléguy - Death to...
  I have tried to dispose of the Furcation game, but we have another non-standard winning move situation.
• Projoy
  I think that one might be protected by administrative fiat. Still, I must admit that the prospect of my ever making the promised move is not getting greater as time goes on.
• penelope - By Thunder!
  Wow - last night in Herts was the most spectacular display of lightning... torrential rain, at least half an inch... whoooo-wee! Marvellous. Anyone else get anything ?
• Chalky
  [pen] I got a nice bit of fish for tea.
• Tuj
  [pen] I got a squash racket for my birthday.
• Boolbar - castrated ram
  [pen] I got leaks. The lightning was rather good though, very blue in colour.
• Bob the dog - Balls
  Pen] Notmrsbobthedog claims to have seen ball lightning. She was out making sure the chickens were safe when there was a massive boom. Looking up she saw what she described as a lightbulb-shaped white glow which hung in the air for a few seconds after the strike.
  
  Meanwhile, I was stuck in Brum, attempting to get the train back after a trip to York. I was sat in a metal hanger during the best of the storm. Sadly, the Selfridges building escaped divine judgement. All trains (including mine) were cancelled for two hours due to the weather. I got home very late.
• penelope - Goodness Gracious etc...
  [Btd] woweee.
  [Chalks] Good idea. I'd fish the fish out of the freezer if I was going to be in tonight, but Flatmate's mum is taking us out for dinner - local chinese does THE BEST Szechuan Stir-fried green beans with salt and pepper.
  [Tuj] Happy Birthday. Are you going to play grown-up squash? ;o) I once got through to the country trials in my younger, squash-playing days, mainly due to my killer serve which I could drop dead in the back corner. Unfortunately the rest of my game let me down. But I enjoyed the acoustics in the squash court - my best friend and I would spend an hour singing songs from The Jam, Duran Duran, The Teardrop Explodes and Gary Numan rather than playing squash.
  [Boolbar] Leaks? Oh dear. The husband of one of my colleagues, in the midst of a huge house-improvement project, of which he is very capable, chose yesterday to take off the roofs off their porch and garage. Ooops.
• Bob the dog
  For those of you who are unfamiliar with Birmingham, here is an image of the Selfridges building on the new Bull Ring.
  
  The term Bimbo architecture has been used in association with this building.
  Bimbo Architecture means buildings designed to attract customers but lacking in architectural integrity. RIBA president Maxwell Hutchinson said: “Bimbo architecture has a big smile and a pretty face but nothing between the ears. It is ‘hi-tech’ architecture without the tech and with an exclamation mark after the ‘Hi’ “.
• Effable - Bimbo architecture
  Wow, that's ugly. I don't think the lens helped here but still ... are people expected to shop here or is it an office building? It looks like something from a bad SciFi movie. "The Blob That Ate Bull Ring!"
• Darren
  [Effable] I've never been there but I understand it is for shopping and not purely offices. For what it's worth, I quite like it.
• Chalky - speaking from experience
  Bull Selfridges Ring - it's much nicer in the flesh.
• Rosie
  What a visual insult! Come friendly bombs and fall on Birmingham. It makes Croydon look like a pretty little market town, which it ain't.
• Dujon
  At the risk of offending someone, that looks about as attractive as a beached whale.
• Chalky
  [Duj and other detractors] Like most things - the edifice needs to be viewed in context.

  [pen : hot beans] - how's your digestive system this morning?

• Projoy
  [Chalky] But OTOH, I like it just on its own. [Btd] I can't resist asking (in the typical debate-starting manner) why this bit of architecture is less intelligent than, say, St Paul's Cathedral. The best reason I can think of is that while this building looks like a jokily scaled-up sequinned amoeba, St Paul's Cathedral looks like, well, a cathedral - which depending on your POV suggests that Christopher Wren was less decadent than Future Systems. Also, some architecture critics have pointed out that Selfridge's is basically a shell-concept, with little of architectural interest inside it, so not a coherent bit of architecture? Are these your reasons for disliking it?
• Raak - Architectural integrity
  What does Maxwell Hutchinson mean by "architectural integrity"? To me, that would mean "it satisfies the purpose it was built for, keeps out the rain, and doesn't fall down", but he appears to have some moral concept in mind. Googling for some reviews of the place, I didn't see much mention of whether it works in that sense. I did see a lot of photography that one might accuse of lacking in architectural integrity, i.e. shots taken from unusual angles that give no idea of what the thing actually looks like.
• Effable - St Paul's
  [Projoy] Ever seen St Paul's from above? The facade is not part of the structure, so it's a shell just like Selfridges. It gives a nice impression from the street, but it's not what it appears to be.
• penelope - The Beauty of Hot Beans
  [Chalks] Perfect, thank you :o)
• Bob the dog
  Projoy and debate] I'm not that good at debating well because I feel very strongly about some issues and have a tendency to be both self-righteous and politically correct. However, I will present my own reasons for disliking the Selfridges building and why I think that Maxwell Hutchinson quote on Bimbo Architecture is a spot on reference to it. I would not like to think that I have offended anyone (as I have done when I fail to understand why people should play golf, wash their car on a Sunday, get married, get pierced, get tattoos, wear high heels or do any of the other multitude of bizarre things people do unquestioningly in order to comply with a convention.
  
  I have no idea whether St Paul’s is good Architecture. It has stood the test of time in terms of its foundations and stability, it is a huge and well laid out edifice with some stunning work by a range of crafts people, it has a fascinating and well documented history.
  
  My first reaction to the Selfridges building was ‘wow!’ It really is impressive. It is not out of place and it fits the nature of what it contains. My issues are more to do with the nature of consumption to which it is a cathedral. In one respect, I can see that there is some validity in the design. The shallowness of the outside is perfectly complimented by what it contains.
  
  There is no reason for its appearance other than to attract consumers. It is simply a fashion statement. I have no idea how long it will last, but if its predecessor (which was greeted with similar acclaim when it was built) is any reference, it will be pulled down in 2030 amid claims that it is an eyesore. The building materials may be novel, but are not sustainable or easily repaired or updated. There are already worn and grubby areas. Despite this, I hope that it does survive, as an historical reference to the fashion of the age and so that no more hardcore, plastic reinforced concrete and fibreglass is dug into land-fills and left to contaminate the countryside.
  
  I have no issue at all with the look of the building (apart from the fact it will get very mucky very quickly) and I would have welcomed a far more radical design (something by Anish Kapoor would have been perfect) had there been any thought to social and environmental sustainability when it was built.
• Breadmaster
  But (and at the risk of retreading the discussion about value in music) why should such a building have any purpose for its appearance other than to attract customers? And if an architect sits down and asks himself, "How can I make this building attract customers?" then why is that any less of an intellectual challenge than any other building purpose? Similarly, in what sense does it look "shallow"? I'd have thought that if it makes sense to talk about shallowness in building design, you'd apply it to buildings that are unoriginal or that look like everything else. I'd say that this building had an original and unusual appearance. Whether it is an attractive appearance or not, or one that is compatible with the good functioning of what goes on inside, is another matter, but I don't really see what "shallowness" or "integrity" or "bimboness" have to do with it.
• Projoy
  [Bm] Well, I don't think Btd is saying a building should have a better reason for its appearance, simply that if it doesn't, he doesn't think much of it. The intelligence of architecture, I would imagine, is in the way it interacts with the intelligence of the people that use it (rather than just whether it's a brain workout for the architect, otherwise a Temple Grandin abbatoir would be great architecture). Thus if all the Selfridge's building does is to drag you in and make you spend some money, then that's not a very intelligent way to be treated. If, on the other hand, it inspires you with thoughts biology or maths, that's rather more intelligent. If it manages to combine intellectual stimulation and its function, and make those two things interrelate, then I guess it's very clever indeed.
  
  [Btd] All seems fair enough, although I must say, I've never worn high heels simply in order to comply with convention.
• Bob the dog
  Projoy] Nearly there. I agree whole heartedly with your phrase "If it manages to combine intellectual stimulation and its function, and make those two things interrelate, then I guess it's very clever indeed."
  Bread] I agree that an architect may if s/he wishes choose to design a building with the sole purpose of attracting customers. In this case they have and I am led to believe that they glory in that. My issue is that I (personally) find that approach unethical. Regarding shallowness - I did not say that it looked shallow. It doesn't, it looks interesting. The concept is shallow - one dimensional. If Joseph Beuys had piled lard on a chair to sell lard, it may have succeeded for a while but it would have been quickly forgotten. For me, the Selfridges building is just that, only more blingy. And with consumer culture responsible for so many of the environmental and social ills of our time, disposable 'environments' are a trend I would not wish to support.
• Dujon
  [Chalky] Don't take me too seriously, my comment was made from that one image. I'm quite sure that if I happened to be in the area I'd duck in and have a look at the interior.
  Still looks like a beached whale though. :-)
• rab - Poo
  I learnt today that I didn't get the job I spent ages and ages preparing for. That'll teach me.
• Chalky - commiserations
  Awww - I didn't like to ask because I thought it might tempt fate ...
• penelope
  [Rab] but you still have the preparation. Surely it'll be useful the next time something comes up? But sorry to hear it anyway...
• rab
  Kinda - next job will be in a totally different department with wildly different interests (might even be maths, rather than physics) and so a lot of the application and job talk will have to change accordingly.
• rab
  At least I'll be a bit more prepared for the ridiculous questions they throw at you in the interview, though.
• Dujon
  [Rosie] The drought has not broken, but it's most welcome - see here. I have been loath to say anything less I jinx the weather, but it seems to be clearing and I guess it's now safe to do so. Many farmers are rejoicing but others are forced to wait until they can get their machinery into the paddocks. As far as my local dams go, we'll have to see what run off finally arrives.
  [rab] My sympathies, good sir.
• Rosie - Rain
  (Duj) That's quite a splash, 150 mm in a week, and should be helpful. Back here the drought is slowly accumulating, the running 12-month total being just short of 600 mm instead of the normal 820 mm. And the two wettest months by far were last August and October. It's not desperate and no-one is going to die because of a hosepipe ban, even if a few plants do. But my raingauge needs some exercise, having got more in the way of seeds, dust and dead insects than water in it at the moment.
• rab
  I broke my marching virginity today. And great fun it was too, waving placards. Having been exhorted to end capitalism now, all my future posts will be entirely in the lower case.
• penelope
  [Rab]Been There, Done That.
• Dujon
  [rab] WHAT? I WON'T BE ABLE TO HEAR YOU.
  [Rosie] You are in chalk country are you not? I would have thought that a 25+% drop in rainfall would have affected you more than most. We are still permitted to use hoses for gardening purposes twice per week (I think it's Wednesdays and Sundays - but I'd have to check), within limited hours, and it's breaking my green thumbed wife's heart.
• flerdle
  It's ridiculously green out here (SW Qld). Green grass in winter, for pete's sake. The weather has really gone mad.
• Projoy
  [rab] Marching virginity. Is that like galloping insomnia?
• Rosie - Anhydrous
  (Duj) Yes, it's chalk, which is why there are no rivers on it, just hundreds of dry valleys. The water sinks in to become groundwater and is in effect a huge subterranean reservoir from which the water is drawn via boreholes. The problem is that it takes ages to top up again after a dry spell but short-term fluctuations tend to be ironed out. (Projoy) Certainly won't give you a running sore.
• penelope - Taps hearing-aid battery and fiddles with the dial
  I can't hear anyone :o(
• Boolbar
  [pen] I guess everyone is just too busy. Our phones at work have just failed. Horrah!
• Tuj - Busyness
  I'm here, just more quietly. Even managed to slip past my birthday without anyone noticing, hahaha.
• rab
  I'm on a conference.
• Chalky - pedant mode
  [rab] How can you be on a conference? Shurely, you are at a conference? Discuss.
• Chalky - ... and by the way
  I am ON a chair as I type this, mainly because I'm still in my officey place working and not just lying on a bed with a laptop like sensible people do at this time of night.
• penelope
  [Tuj] Then allow me to make up for your modesty by shouting about my fortieth birthday which is on Sunday. British Grand Prix day, dammit. Garden party planned - Pimms with all the salad, chilled sparkling stuff, iced coffees, canapés etc... all welcome. Bring presents.
  [Chalks] I was in bed with a laptop, as it happens, enjoying the BBC's 'Listen Again' features - a Hannay novel, 'Greenmantle' and then the programme about the life of Wellington. Brilliant stuff, and all usually bradcast while I'm at work. Only 25 years until I retire - I'm almost halfway there!
• Chalky
  [pen] Spooky. I was thinking of you when I typed that :-)
• Rosie - Pedantically "on"
  Anti-inflammatories, trombone, the right after the road junction, bitter. A useful little word.
• Bob the dog
  Hey Pen! Congrats and all that! Oddly I will be in London on Sunday - at a fourtieth Birthday party.
• Dujon - deja vu
  [penelope] Only a couple of years then before you can have your second 21^st. ;-(
• ImNotJohn - tempores mutantur
  [Pen] If fifty is the new forty, then does that mean forty is the new fifty?
  I'll kill a few braincells on Sunday in your honour - have a good one.
• Boolbar - XL-ent
  Yey! for being 40. All the best people are 40. ;o) [pen] Advanced Birthday Greetings from me. Have fun!
• flerdle - Wish I was there
  [pen] Happy birthday for Sunday... would bring many exotic gifts, but am sadly geographically indisposed. Down a Pimms (or three) for me, ok?
• penelope
  [Everyone] thank you, thank you. Anyone wanting to drop by, from 1pm for food and drink, to junction 17 of the M25 (assuming the M25 is open) can email me for precise co-ordinates. My AOL.com email address is in my real name, Justine (2), and I'm New(1). Put (1) and (2) very close together in the correct order and add the suffix.
• Bob the dog - Addendum
  Posted 12.45pm 06/07/05 It seems I may have some difficulty getting into London on Sunday. I hope everyone living and working there is safe. God, what an unbelievably callous act.
• rab
  A blast-related discussion is taking place at MCiOS. Probably best if it's all kept in one place.
• Bob the dog - Addendum Addendum
  07/07/05. Daft me.
  
  rab] yes.
• penelope
  while reflecting on today's news, I am also aware that for me, life is good. I am currently in possession of two cups of hot tea (they're small cups and the kettle is about 30 feet away down the office) and a refrigerated gingernut biscuit. I can heartily recommend the combination.
• Bob the dog
  Pen] Gingernuts are good, but have you tried Traidcraft's 'Extra Spicy' Fairtrade Stem Ginger Cookies? Great big galumphing bits of ginger in a fab cookie. Dunking heaven.
• penelope
  stem ginger... mmmmm. By the way, for those in search of the perfect gingernut, it's not a McVities specimen, nor the Spar shop own label, but Tesco's own which packs the most powerful punch, sufficient to sustain a morning hard at work.
• Irouléguy
  pen] Happy birthday! I remember 40...sort of. And surely the perfect ginger-nut is one that has chocolate on it?
• st d - happy birthday
  to dear, dear Tuj -

  Happy Bithday to Ya (Happy Biiiirthday) Happy Birthday To Ya.

  btd] re your 07/07 post - it strikes me, in a kind of gallows humour kind of manner, that the boys with the bombs maybe realised the whole 9/11 11/9 confusion, and did this day for us (oh thank you for your beautiful bombs you stupid stupid men) today of all days so that there would be no confusion either side of the pond........
  London is shaken but, from where I sit, fine. Drove through the centre at 11pm and what glorious calm. God help those who were told their sisters and brothers died today, but fuck them that did it and who cares why they did it and lets carry on regardless. 2012 here we come.

• Bob the dog
  Amen.
• Boolbar
  I'm in an agreeable mood, so I'm agreeing with what all the previous 6 posts said. [BtD] Ta for CD. I was too gloomy to play it yesterday, but it brightened up an otherwise grey and rainy journey to work today. Mon lapin pelucheux est plein de la joie.
• penelope - Woweeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
  The most enormous bouquet of flowers (including ornamental cabbages - that's lunch sorted out then!) has just been delivered to my desk, from the Press Office of the certain french motor manufacturer what I work on behalf of [sic]. Coool... I never had flowers like this before. *grins*
• Chalky - special deliveries
  [pen] aww - what a treat.
  [I've just posted your card just in case we don't make it on Sunday]
• Tuj - Birthdaze
  [st d] Almost two weeks late, but thanks, there had to be someone to spoil my anonymity :P
  [pen] All the best to you, of course!
• Inkspot
  Happy Birthday whatsits and hugs.
  Not sure why but I was Mrs Inkspot bought me the CD, X&Y and it is not mine till September, I wonder what favours she is after!
• CdM
  [pen] Happy Birthday!
• nights
  [pen] happy birthdya, late tho it is.
  
  hello everyone, exams are over so I have time for crescenting once more. woo, eh.
• penelope
  Thank you for all your greetings. A more elegant birthday I couldn't have wished for. A big bunch of friends all made it down to London from various parts of the country to eat at the Oxo Tower last night, and a bunch more made it over to Rickmansworth for a perfect summer's day garden party this afternoon (The Day Itself). My dress is stained with cava and watermelon... how lovely. *beams*
• nights
  I wouldn't worry about cava and watermelon. my mum didn't realise until I pointed it out to her hat while she haad been sat in the garden reading, she had sat on a raspberry. nice pink and grey skirt she has now... bet vanish'll do nothing too. hah.
• Blob - Happy Bidet
  Many Happy Returns, young pen.
• rab - Hip hap
  Happy Birthday, pen.
• Boolbar - Cake!
  [pen] Yey!
• nights
  little bit of cake?
• Botherer
  [pen] What everyone else said.
• penelope - *groooooaaaagh*
  I was definitely pre-hangover when I made my previous post. I am now post-hangover. I don't want to tell you what went on in between, but suffice to say I just wasted one of my precious days of annual leave on something that could have been soooo easily avoided. And I *still* have washing up to do. Just one glass of Pimms won't hurt....
• Tuj - Welcome back nights!
  Lots of celebratory back-slapping around at the minute. Oh, and very restrained of you to avoid MC over exam time...
• nights
  well, it was waste loads of time on MC and fail my second year, or work and... hopefully not fail my second year. I've booked flights and everything now, so I'd better pass...
• st d - bday oxox
  pen] sorry not to repond to your text the other `day (at least i dont think i did) my last few days have been a litle weird and i have now finished work and none the wiser about what to do next. I am glad it sounds like you had a nice time. bob..x
• penelope - next
  [st d] no worries... I'll catch up with you soon. What's the email address now?
• Chalky
  [pen] Have finished motor sport project [at last!] but feel a tad guilty - I've been thinking about you a lot but don't seem to have got round to pressing any buttons or keys which would have let you know this. I now have a natural break until the next job - email on its way ..

  [st dogstar] you're bound to feel rather adrift - even after 5 years of freelancing I still experience those feelings on a regular basis but have learned to go with the flow. Mind you, like Mr Micawber, I always believe that something will turn up.

• penelope
  [Chalks] Don't feel guilty - I seem to have lurched through this summer so far, I can't remember ever being so busy. Of the past two months, I have spent precisely two weekends at home, one of which was the birthday, so not exactly the 'laying-on-the-settee-watching-old-movies' time, but instead 240-mile-round-trips-on-Friday-night to collect parents when the trains weren't working and mad midnight dashes to the 24-hour supermarket to buy party provisions because that's the only time I had. Tonight I am driving another 240 miles from London-ish to North Yorkshire for another race meeting. Last night we, as a company, organised the third of four Mountain Bike race events. If anyone is interested in coming to the next one at Wycombe Summit (the woods alongside the dry ski-slope)in High Wycombe on the evening of Thursday, 28th July, then shout out! We have a small field, but it's increasing. And I only went because I thought I might see some handsome men getting changed in the car park... some hope. By the time I got home, my poor tomatoes were wilting! *blithers on in similar abstract vein for another five minutes*
• st d - pen
  same as before but with a "d" instead of a "." in my name, and @gmail.com instead of @legal....:o) any confusion try st_dogmael@hotmail but i dont use it much
• Projoy - a ha'porth of pitch
  Relating to the discussion a ways up there ^ from a while ago. Arts and Letters Daily just featured an article reviewing a new book that suggests we are all born with perfect pitch.
• Rosie - Perfect pitch
  I've got it and always have had. Great Western engines whistle A flat (above the treble stave). My brother hasn't got it. He can play the piano and read and sing a choral score, so he, too is quite musical. We both had exposure to music, and a piano, from birth. From that, a reasonable deduction would be that I was born with it and he wasn't. The reviewer rightly says that perfect pitch (I prefer Absolute Pitch) is of no use except as a rather flashy talent (though I've never pulled a bird with it) but spoils his argument by saying it actually inhibits the understanding of language. I don't see this, and have never thought of speech as having a pitch, more of a continuous modulation from which much can be deduced. Absolute Pitch is only a form of memory and to be perfectly honest I don't quite understand why anyone who plays an instrument hasn't got it.
• Projoy
  Er, why don't you understand, given that you've deduced it's something that some people have from birth?
• Projoy - mono-types
  BTW, I haven't read the book, but I wonder if part of the argument that it inhibits language acquisition is to do with the subtleties of intonation - where the pitch is contextual rather than absolute. To interpret the same intonation in different people, you'd need to slide up and down the scale depending on who was talking. Which is interesting to consider when you link it with the fact that a common feature of autism (strongly associated with a weakness in interpreting the emotional states of other people) is a monotonous voice with very little subtlety of intonation. I'd better go read the book now, hadn't I?
• Dujon - Deaf as a post
  I would have thought that most people have a good sense of frequencies - in that they can tell if a singer or musician is 'off'. The ability to recognise a note and give that note its correct nomenclature is a learned skill and therefore should not be part of a discussion about hearing. I wouldn't know a B flat from an A sharp, by name, unless the difference was demonstrated to me. If a musician (particularly those who play stringed instruments) cannot 'tune' their much beloved device then why (and how) are they playing?
  [Rosie] On reviewing my post I think I sort of agree with you.
  [Projoy] I'm not sure. Some oriental languages seem to rely on intonation changes for the meaning of various words and phrases - though English does the same to some extent - but I suspect that your comment regarding a 'sliding' scale must be true and would certainly not rely on perfect/absolute pitch, just the variation in such.
• Projoy
  [Duj] Pianists can't always tune their instrument, and they seem to get on OK. :)
• Rosie
  (Projoy) What I can't understand is why everybody hasn't got it from birth. As I said, it's only a form of memory, like remembering colours. (Dujon) Most people can tell if someone is out of tune, but only relative to some other pitch which is assumed correct. Most people who play a guitar can tune it so that the instrument as a whole is in tune. I have a friend who plays a few tunes (only at home), and plays rather well, and his guitar is in tune with itself but at least three semitones flat. He has a good sense of tuning but none whatever of absolute pitch. I tuned it up for him but he said the strings were far too tight so back down it went.
• Projoy - chromatics
  [Rosie] OK. Why can't you understand that? (PS. I hate to point it out for a third time, but we've already discussed twice why it isn't like remembering colors! Perhaps you remain unpersuaded?)
• ImNotJohn
  [Rosie] Perhaps I can help. I have played guitar and sung in very amateur choirs. so I'm not totally lacking in the ability to hear pitch. But I hear lots of other things at the same time. For example, when tuning a guitar I'm often not sure if two strings are at the same pitch because of the different texture of the sound caused by the make-up and length of the string.
  The same applies with other occasions. If a man and a woman are singing a duet I could tell you if there was a discord (to my ears), but would struggle to say if they were singing the same note (either an octave apart or exactly) because I cannot separate the pitch of a sound easily from the rest of its character.
  Also I find it easy to sing a tune (relative pitch), but have no idea whether I'm singing the same notes as on a previous occasion. It seems to me that the ability to keep or hear a tune in your head does not imply that you remember the actual sound (which would imply that perfect pitch should be possible), but rather that you remember a pattern, which you can then apply to the sound when you remember or sing it.
• Projoy
  [INJ] Perfectly described. It is the same for me, except that I'm usually better at the octave thing. At a weekly music school, I always impressed the teacher by being extremely quick at identifying intervals, and thus have a good memory for melody in the way you describe. I now find I have to make more cognitive effort to recognise intervals, but then I have learned a lot more about the subtleties of language intonation since then (through drama but also through acquiring more social skills). Which is interesting.
• Projoy
  To me, anyway.
• Rosie - Musical memory
  (INJ) Remembering a whole tune would seem to be much more complex than remembering the pitch of a note yet we seems to do it rather well, just as we remember faces rather than any specific physical feature of them. But to me pitch of a tune is an integral part of it and if I hum a tune to myself in the wrong key (because it's easier, say) I still have to assign a key to it.
• JLE - Perfect pitch...
  ...is lobbing an accordion into a skip without touching the sides.

  On a more serious note, I've had perfect pitch since I could ever remember, both in the absolute sense and the relative sense. So I have very little trouble transposing at sight, as well as playing at sight, or keeping in tune when singing a song in different keys. I've never known how I do it - I also have a pretty fast learning memory for music too. But, oddly enough, I'm lousy at matching names to faces.

• Rosie
  (JLE) Yeah, but you're a f****** genius. Would you lob a soprano sax in the skip while you're about it, just for me? Then the five tons of rubble just to make sure.
• Chalky
  [JLE] Hi - I'm Kathy. I was the other [apart from pen] female person at Rugby Pilg in May. I thought your piano playing was particularly fine.

  I don't have [or have never tested the possibility of having] perfect pitch. I do, however, have an unerring sense of direction, and can point to North however many times I've been spun round. Is this normal?

• CdM - controlled experiments
  [Chalky] Wow. I, for one, have never heard of that. Out of curiosity, how accurately can you do this (exactly north, or just approximately?), and how rigorously has it been tested (not quite sure what the most rigorous test I can imagine would be -- maybe someone moving you while you were sleeping into a dark room where you have never been before?)? And can you point to any direction just as easily, or, if asked to point southwest, would you still start from north and work from there?
• Dan
  And do you have to be here to do it?
• ImNotJohn - Septentrionation
  [Chalky] Can I carry you round with me next time I go orienteering?
  I have a pretty good sense of direction and I hang around with a lot of very good navigators, but that's a first for me. I think we need a scan for an overdeveloped pineal gland.
• Raak - Prosthetic pineal gland
  I can always tell where I am and where North is -- I carry a street map and a compass whenever I travel.
• Chalky
  [CdM] Just approximate north - nothing too exact! The other directions I would work out in a more conscious way.

  [Dan] Interesting. Makes me wonder how bewildering I would find being placed on the north pole with nowhere to point.

  [INJ] I don't think you'd want to be burdened with the load :-)

• nights
  I'm quite good at finding my way home, no matter what city or how drunk I am. can I claim that as a skill?
• rab
  [nights] That seems to be a skill that humans have evolved as a species. This is evidence - I am sure - that beer has been around at least as long as humans have.
• Projoy
  [nights] Were you born with it?
• Rosie
  (nights, rab) There must be serious limits to the ability or we wouldn't have "Show me the way to home".
• Breadmaster
  I'm almost tone deaf, can't remember names, and have to calculate north by looking at the sun and trying to remember what time of day it is. Should I get a new brain? Incidentally, there are languages that accent with pitch rather than stress (such as Japanese and Attic Greek). I wonder what it is like to have perfect pitch and speak those.
• flerdle - where?
  [Chalky] How do you go in the Southern Hemisphere, in a place you haven't seen a map of?

  I have an excellent sense of direction and hardly ever get lost, but I think that's got more to do with observation of my surroundings and the use of maps, mental and otherwise. I feel slightly unnerved without a map, if I am going to spend a while in a place. I carry a compass sometimes. The problem is that, since I obviously use the sun's position for orientation, this sense is most finely tuned on the southern hemisphere environment, so my location of north flips 180degrees when in the northern hemisphere. This is a *most* unnerving experience. I was convinced that London was t' other way 'round, and had to work very hard to swap to the "correct" directions.

• ImNotJohn - I can do it standing on my head.
  [Flerdle] I can relate to that. I find the same problem when I go South of the equator and the sun goes the wrong way.
• Rosie - In the Attic
  (Breadmaster) It doesn't make any difference, having perfect pitch. It's the change of pitch that is important. The pitch of speech varies so rapidly, even during one syllable, that it is impossible to assign a pitch to it, other than high or low, say. BTW your method of finding north is quite normal and one I use myself, if that's any comfort.
• Tuj - *goes on holiday*
• Chalky
  [flerdle] I wouldn't know - having never ventured into that territory.
• flerdle - upsy-daisy
  [INJ] It does, it does!! And the moon's upside down.

  I don't think I consciously look for or use the sun's position or movement, it just adds to a general sense of where's where.

  [Chalky] You might be in for a surprise then :-)

• nights - drinkyfeet
  there must be limits, but so far I haven't found one. I even, in my fairly drunken state, remembered the Russian for 'do you mind if I use your toilet', while nipping into a bar in St Petersburg on my merry way back to Ligovskii Prospekt. I may have been born with it, but I don't think I was ever drunk as a child.
  
  *goes to work*
• Chalky
  [flerdle] It would be interesting for sure. I've been fairly close to the equator but never below it [see? I still see north as 'up' and south as 'down'] Can relate to everything you said earlier about observation, map usage, etc. Even as a child I had a compulsion to know where I was placed and was first to a floor plan, street plan or map - it made my day when faced with one of those pictorial street guide display thingies with a big fat arrow saying YOU ARE HERE!
• Rosie - Austroborealism
  (Chalky) North is still at the top even in the Southern Hemisphere. Weather charts are a bit difficult to get the hang of because everything goes round backwards but North is still at the top. Everything would still go round backwards even if North were at the bottom. It's fundamental. I'm with you on maps. My father had millions of OS Maps, some dating from the 1930's. I've got them all now and a whole load more. I've made a contour map, six feet by two, of the North Downs from Farnham to the Medway. Wonderful what you can do with tracing paper and a scanner and printer. Needless to say, Maison Rosie (TQ 3516 5955) is bang in the middle.
• Néa - Moon
  [flerdle] Maybe that's why you think the moon is white? :-)
• flerdle - it is!
  [Néa] *thwap*
• Blob - Maps
  [Chalky & Rosie] Sign me up to the Cartographile Club !! I love 'em - old ones, new ones, from maps of countries, oceans, volcanic distribution etc. down to the most detailed O.S. map - I can pore over them for ages. I trust you've discover www.old-maps.co.uk which is a superb resource for late C19 O.S. maps of Britain.
• Blob - Ooops
  Sorry, forgot the http ... that should be www.old-maps.co.uk
• Rosie - Old maps
  (Blob) Tried that. Excellent. Thanks.
• Dan - MCiOS unreachable
  Hello. Sorry about the downtime. Looks like an upstream provider is having problems.
• Dan
  Now a bunch of semitrained chimpanzees are jumping up and down on the routing tables. Connectivity is coming and going and the routes are changing even as we speak. Whee.
• snorgle
  I hope you're filming that!
• Rosie
  (Dan) Only properly trained chimpanzees should be employed. Otherwise you might as well use IT consultants.
• Dan - Ook ook
  Should be sorted now.
• nights
  chimps running about aimlessly running servers, routers and whatnot? users with more knowledge than the IT staff? sounds like a job for Bath University Computer Services!
• penelope
  [nights] judging by that lack of response, your marketing for BU CS didn't go down too well ;o)
• Projoy
  *thinks* . o O {I really fancy a biscuit}
• penelope
  [projoy] oooh, don't. I'm staying late at work to make inroads into a pile of work neglected by a colleague and to show him up as a workshy fop. And I'm STARVING.
• Chalky - has just munched a couple of ginger biscuits
  [Blob] Thanks :-)
• Irouléguy - MCIOS?
  Has MCIOS gone down again? Anyone able to access it?
• Simons Mith
  I expect the monkeys are on the case again.
• penelope
  Oh, I know this sounds like the beginning of a limerick, but I hate it when subordinates sulk. What can be more pathetic than a man who can't accept the fact that his manager is a woman who has vastly more experience than himself? I'm not pointing out improvements he could make for FUN... I'm f*cking helping him... sheesh. *withers and dissolves into a cup of Earl Grey 'Management' Tea*
• penelope - *some minutes later*
  The sulk has come to a head. He's cross with me for proofreading his work and adding rather a lot of pink pen to it. And he still has a problem with women managers. :-/
• Chalky
  [pennylope] a pink pen? Now that's just adding insult to injury :-)
  Talking of work - my current project requires that I'm in't office from 4 - 8 pm for 3 weeks supervising a small team of temps who are carrying out a telephone survey. They are all students, immensely grateful for the work and their sheer enthusiasm has transformed a very mundane task, for me anyway, into enormous fun.
• penelope
  [Chalks] Pink rather than red - now that's just too teacherish, although after thinking about it this evening, I might start doing it in pencil. And lucky you for having a nice bunch to work with. I bet they're having fun working with you too. :o)
• nights
  [Chalky] see, this is just the sort of job I WANTED. I like being on the phone. but I don't get it, do I? I get forced back into catering, a sector I gratefully left two years ago promising never to work in again. grumble grumble grumble, sorry. on the other, more important hand, I need the cash, as I leave for canada in 29 days.
  
  [penelope] BUCS are evil, pure evil. they're arrogant, poorly organised and unreliable. the campus network went out on a sunday, in the couple of weeks running up to most people's coursework deadlines. it took them FOUR HOURS to even get to the sodding campus. naturally, this deep sense of satisfaction was expressed in the annual user survey (encouraged quite a lot by me), so the feedback of the users of the computing services of the university of bath will be, uh, buried in someone's drawer and forgotten about. never mind, at least I have my health, and my own computer.
• penelope
  [nights] Must be frustrating... but it wasn't ever anything I used to deal with. When I graduated (1987) everything - coursework, laboratory practicals with graphs and diagrams and EVERYTHING was hand-written and hand-drawn. My final year project had to be typed - my mum did it for me. There was a computing course as an element, but I never went to any of the tutorials.
• nights
  [pen] see, I know that writing my essays longhand would be time consuming and thoroughly annoying when I wanted to insert a quote I'd found at the last minute - but I think I'd focus on it more. this has been the case when doing translations into russian (which I can't be bothered to type out because it takes ages) and scored better. so this is something to think about.
  
  BUCS are still evil though. although they were thrilled when I dragged my old iMac down there to see why it wasn't working with the network. I actually rather miss that one.
• rab
  *has fond memories of Microsoft Word completely reformatting, and removing the figures from, our 1st year project one hour before deadline*
• rab - *sigh*
  It looks like I've now been victim to twatspam, of the 5000-links-to-a-website-in-a-post variety. As it happens I'm currently tweaking the back end of this website, so I'll be making it difficult to post more than a couple of links per move I'm afraid.
• nights
  well I think we can all appreciate it. and it gives us the opportunity to use the construction "a link not totally unlike..." which is always a positive thing.
• rab
  And it's happened again. These people are complete arseholes. More anon.
• rab - Ignore, mispost, sorry
• rab
  Right I've disallowed <a> links for the moment. This is only a temporary solution until I come up with something more sophisticated.
• Dan - Spammage
  [Rab] Writing you offline.
• Dan - Oh, what the hades...
  Actually I'll just say it here, since the bumfuques who do this stuff don't read anyway. What I've been thinking of doing is treating any post with an A tag as bad HTML unless it contains a special attribute. For those following this at home, an attribute is like href="url". We could form them in the same way except require an additional or substitute attribute. For example, instead of href we could require the surname of the nice lady who writes letters to Humph. Another thing that occurs to me is to replace the A entirely, with some other nonstandard tag which will get converted to A on output. Thoughts?
• Dan
  On reviewing my own code, and thinking about it from a user-friendliness standpoint, I'm inclined to go for the latter. It's trivial to implement and easy to explain in the error message, in such a way that users will get it and passing spammers will not.
• Projoy
  [Dan] Agreed! Would be nice to still be able to post links with a special tag. [rab] Can you get round your a link prohibition in the same way as at Dunx' place?
• rab
  I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
• rab
  (sorry if that sounds a little curt - Dan's solution will probably be the workaround that will be offered if the server thinks you're being overly naughty)
• Breadmaster
  On the topic of campus computer people: I have wasted an entire morning trying to get my laptop configured so it can use the university network and internet provider. The goons at the Computer Centre took about an hour and a half trying to do it before declaring that they didn't have the right driver for my make of computer. Assimilating, dubiously, the revelation that this varies according to make rather than OS, I then had to go to the other end of the campus (requiring not one but two bus trips) where, surreally, there is what seems to be a support place for Toshiba. Why this isn't next to the Computer Centre, God only knows. They didn't know what to do, because a look on the Toshiba website revealed that there are lots of possible drivers to download and I hadn't been told what kind to look for. So I had to go all the way back to the Computer Centre (through a monsoon), where a new set of goons had replaced the original ones, but were no more competent. They couldn't find the relevant part of the website and in any case were now talking darkly of the need to open up the laptop and fiddle about with its innards. They wrote down what they needed and told me to take that back to the Toshiba people. Of course, they are all closed now and I have to wait until Monday. All this just to log onto the wretched network! Oh, and the whole thing was conducted in Singlish, which is basically incomprehensible at the best of times but far worse when it's people going on about drivers and networks and suchlike. Really, this place is appallingly disorganised. Thank God I can use the university's own computers for internet purposes or I'd really be in trouble.
• Darren - Links
  As I did on Dunx's page, you can always use Javascript in a tag to get around a restriction on A tags. For example: I'm a link to Orange MC without any A tags. (This works on Firefox at least.)
• Darren
  ...and IE, as I just checked.
• Darren
  For those who are curious and don't want to View Source, here's how I did it:-

  <u><font color=blue onClick="self.location='http://www.dunx.org/cgi-bin/orange-mc'">I'm a link to Orange MC without any A tags</font></u>

• rab
  I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
• Knobbly - Link without A tabs
  Not to be picky, but shouldn't one be able to click on a link? It may just be AOL being incompetent but I can't click on Darren's one above. However, as this topic of conversation goes way over my head (I can just about cope with bold tags), I should probably just let you IT types get on with it.
• Dujon - Linkages
  It works for me on Firefox. For Knobbly's info., in my case the cursor does not change (i.e. there is no indication that the text is a link) but is 'clickable'.
• Botherer - Links
  I like Dan's simple work-round. The problem with Darren's (otherwise excellent) solution is there are some of us who operate in Firefox with javascript disabled. I have found this is a very effective tool in combatting trojans et al and am loath to change. Just my opinion, obviously.
• rab
  I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
• Dan - Impactfulness
  Well, I was all set to say something about the use of impact as a verb, but apparently it, like Wagner's music, is not as bad as it sounds:
  http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0165.html
• Darren
  rab's statements on the A tag issue are starting to sound a little... disturbing.
• rab
  Sorry - that's what happens when I visit the site when drunk. I really hope to have this sorted out properly sooner rather than later. More anon.
• Darren
  They actually reminded me of government statements. As they pointed out on Yes Prime Minister, you should just keep making the same statement over and over again, no matter what people ask you.
• Darren - Satire
  Paxman: Are you happy for users of the site to find ways around your ban on A tags?
  Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
  Paxman: But in the meantime, you accept there are workarounds?
  Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
  Paxman: Prime Minister, are there or are there not loopholes in the ban on A tags?
  Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
  Paxman: Look, yes or no. Do you accept there are loopholes?
  Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
  Paxman: So you say, but what Crescenters are asking is, do you realise there are ways around the ban?
  Prime Minister: With respect Jeremy, that's not the real question. I assure all genuine Crescenters that I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
  Paxman: But Prime Minister...
  Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.

  etc. etc. etc.

• Darren
  (no offence meant to rab)
• Knobbly - links
  Good lord, you're right. I should have tried to click on it despite it not looking like I could.
• penelope
  [K] Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Although I recommend not clicking on the '1,000's of free smileys' pop-up.
• nights
  has the INTaRWeB always been so full of crap, or has it got steadily worse since I got online in the summer of 1997?
• Darren
  [nights] Like everything, it's been mostly full of crap since it started, but it's only been in the last few years that the crap has expressed a desire to leap down everyone's throat.
• Projoy
  The big cautionary tale of the net is Usenet, which although some people manage to keep active newsgroups going (using I don't know what antispam measures), is now almost entirely spam. I've been working recently on a little predator/prey population interactives, and I wonder if the cycles of spam-genuine content follow a similar statistical pattern. i.e. the population of predators increases, diminishing the population of prey, which in turn leads to extinction for the predators...
• Darren
  [Projoy] I think part of the problem with Usenet is that most people aren't even aware it exists any more, and those who are aware of it, by and large, consider it too full of spam to be useful. For this reason, I don't think you'd find a cyclical pattern, but rather a gradual tail-off with time.
• Raak
  [Projoy] I see almost no spam at all on Usenet. I read mainly rec.arts.sf.* and a few others. Where do you get the idea that it's mostly spam? (Er, I probably won't see a reply to this for a couple of weeks -- off to Glasgow at the crack of dawn tomorrow.)
• Projoy
  [Raak] Well, as you won't see this I can make any claim I like. :) I don't know, but I assume the admin of some newsgroups have anti-spam measures in place, or there are anti-spam measures at the ISP news server level. No idea, really. I also have frequented a rec.arts newsgroup or two (and I believe the drwho one still goes on strong). I used to read a group or two on the alt. hierarchy, but would not attempt it now. They were swamped in spam years ago.
• nights
  all the usenet groups I ever use (a few music ones and tomb raider, all under alt.) are filled with crap. I looked in on the MC one this morning and that was full of rubbish. a shame really. I'll try other groups though.
• Rosie - Usenet groups
  I regularly look at, and contribute to uk.sci.weather. There are rather a lot of gadget nerds and people of the spotty-herbert tendency who seem to use weather as an excuse for computer exercises but there are also professional meteorologists who contribute, necessarily under a pseudonym. There is very little outright junk.
• Darren
  The only one I ever contributed to with any intensity was rec.puzzles.crosswords, in which I even created a long-running competition which still runs.
• nights
  so, who's going on holiday?
• Projoy
  Not I. I wish to remain here and enjoy the delightful British Summer in all its scorching glory.
• Boolbar
  [nights] Holiday? I seem to remember those. Many years ago . . . .
• Tuj - *comes back from holiday*
• nights
  welcome back Tuj! have a nice time?
• Tuj - Hello nights et al!
  Yep, 2 weeks in and around Boston with my family, pretty good and apparently the weather kicked 7 bells out of the weather back in Britain, so that's OK. I still say their money smells funny though.
• Projoy
  [Tuj] I'd forgotten about that. Mm. Dollars.
• nights
  I wonder if canadian ones also smell. I've heard you can pop the middle of a $2 coin out.
• Tuj
  Yes, but I've heard that about the £2 coin too and never managed it...
• Inkspot - tv
  Great night on tv last night and all 3 hours of it on Channel 4 starting at eight. A combination of Big Brother (Craig evicted ......yes!!!! result) and two opening episdodes of new drama Lost. An ensemble cast is allowing multi storylines and twists it is gripping already with unanswered questions, polar bear? 16 year old mesage still being transmitted? how is the labrador unscathed?
• Chalky - is watching you
  [Inks] Glad you mentioned Big Brother. I wonder how many people in the UK Morniverse have seen some or even all of it? I think it's been very watchable this year for two reasons: Big Brother himself has been amusing, unpredictable, capricious and in charge; there has been considerable action, some of it admittedly grotesque, during the 'live' streaming.
  As for Lost - unless they repeat the episodes at weird times [which is usually when I watch TV], I doubt if I'll get the opportunity to see it.
• Tuj - isn't watching back
  As a militant anti-Big Brother person, I think the current series has been one of the best so far because it has been low key enough to not manage to puncture my consciousness. I couldn't name a single contestant, so I'm happy.
• Projoy
  I think last year was better from that point of view. Can't remember anything about that. This year I recall seeing some press stories about Derek Laud, so it managed to sneak its way into my consciousness.
• nights
  I watched it until I came home from university, and all of a sudden don't have time for it. never mind.
  
  and I'm stuck with dialup at the moment as our broadband is up the chute again. so I won't be around very much at all, no.
• Breadmaster
  [Big Brother] I'm with Tuj on that one, I'm afraid. The less I know, the better!
• Rosie - Mock the loonies
  I've probably watched an hour all told. What stupid irritating people they are! I've no need to be militantly anti, no-one I know ever having watched any of it, so they claim.
• penelope - alone.... alone..... completely solitary
  Someone, talk to me! Please............. *sniff* Actually, I'm not despondently lonely, just bored and I have a cold. ;o)
• Rosie - Acute nasal coryza
  (pen) Hello, pen, I bet your cold isn't as bad as mine! Head feels like lead, i.e. heavy, deformable and the product of radioactive decay.
• Tuj - talking to penelope
  I like maps
  Maps are great
  Scratch my knees with a dinner plate.
• blamelewis - revisiting
  [Darren] your javascript works fine in Safari on a Mac... and lovely satire :) [rab] MCiOS is also having a mild spate of spammers. (If two can be called a spate, but it's a sign of the special nature of the Morningverse that just two such spams seems a flood!)
  I like the custom tag idea best as outlined by Dan - newcomers will get it wrong once and the error message can put them right, or if we want more security we can always refer to some obliquely crescentish word such as Mrs T's surname and anyone who still doesn't get it just has to ask! Any spammer getting around that clearly has such fine products for sale I for one will be proud to read about them on a website in Russian full of ladies with their nightwear on...
  
  [Pen] Hola!
• rab
  Ah yes, I must get back to finishing mc5-and-a-half. That work thing has rather annoyingly got in the way.
• Chalky - back for a few days
  [pen] hope you're feeling better.
• nights
  hello pen, I fixed my ADSL by going to the local exchange and poking it, just for you. here's a mildly offensive rhyme:
  Roses are red,
  Violets are blue,
  I'm schizophrenic
  And so am I.
• penelope
  Thnaks, thanks all for the good wishes and the rhymes, some of which were more amusing than others, hehehehe. I took the day off yesterday (I take very few days off sick - I think that one is my second this year) to try and get rid of this lurgy, but felt so guilty about it that I spent almost the entire day hoovering and cleaning, washing and ironing. I'm the first one to say that guilt isn't a useful thing to have, but also one of the biggest feelers-of-guilt. *cringe* Any advice?
• gil - celebdaq
  There only appear to be three of us these days. Where'd'they go?
• ImNotJohn - It's your fault
  [Pen] What you need is lots of people blaming you for things. You'll get so indignant about it that you'll stop feeling guilty even when you should. So to help in the process I should like to say that I blame you for all the evils of the modern world, in particular having to go back to work after a holiday.
• Rosie - Thunderstorms
  (ImNotJohn)The precipitation (needed for electrification) would be in the cloud and below it but evaporating into the dry air before reaching the ground. These precipitation trails are called virga. This effect is always present in showery or thundery weather even if the stuff reaches the ground. The evaporation absorbs latent heat and cools the air, making it denser and causing a downdraught which appears as a fierce gust of random direction at the surface. It also explains why "April showers" can turn to snow if heavy enough even if the temperature beforehand is as high as 8°C. All this stuff needs rather dry air below the cloud; not too dry, of course or there wouldn't be any cloud in the first place.
• penelope - *indiginanting*
  [INJ] An interesting theory. However, you should know by now that it's your fault for booking the time off in the first place. :o)
• ImNotJohn
  [Rosie] Thanks - clear and concise.
• flerdle - post-holiday post
  Back from land of coolness. Now in land of heat.                 *sigh*
• nights
  [pen] tips for getting rid of that nagging guilty feeling - do anything and everything possible, keep yourself busy. or do something to feel guilty about - go shoplift. apparently clerks is the most shoplifted video cassette in the USA...
• flerdle - and another thing...
  I managed to bag a thermometer-hygrometer thingy in Aus. It's been interesting to see what actual readings have been since returning here, especially inside the house. If you ask nicely I'll say, else I'll spare you. Needless to say, my "can't sleep" point is rather different here. It's amazing what you can put up with if you have to.
• Dujon - No problemo
  By all means, flerdle - at least from me - I always find others' weather interesting. Of course others may well disagree; privacy laws and all that, I suppose.
• flerdle - ah.
  Well, that brought the conversation to a grinding halt, dinnit? Anyone for a mint? *offers*
• Dujon
  I think they've all been eating gob-stoppers, flerdle. ;-)
• blamelewis - Mints
  [flerdle] Does it have a hole in it?
• flerdle - holey
  [blamelewis] If you want it to I'm sure we could arrange that. *prepares electric drill*
• nights
  hey, no playing with drills. play friendly, you lot.
• blamelewis - hole hog
  [flerdle] Send the hole over - can you attach it to an email?
• Néa - *drops a pin*
• Tuj - looking down
  Ooh, a pin! *picks up pin*
• Dujon - Shaking
  At approximately 0642 local time, Monday 29th August, I believe Sydney suffered a mild earth tremor.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) So it it didn't wake you up, then? Nothing whatever would awaken me at twenty to seven in the morning. Maybe a full bladder. Maybe even a half-full one. :-(
• Chalky - shakey
  [Duj] Was that the moment England won the 4th test match?
• Dujon - Awakening
  [Rosie] Néa may awaken me any time. (Sorry, Néa, it's only a bit of joshing - OK?)
  [Chalky] What on Earth are you doing at this ungodly time of the morn? In answer to your query, no, see the response above. Still, I might now have a cigarette. Care to join me?
• Néa - Awwwww
  [Dujon] I bet you say that to all the girls you play MC with.
• Dujon
  [Néa] Only the ones who drop pins. Handkerchiefs are so passé. :-)
• Néa - Handkerchiefs
  Also, presumably that wouldn't wake you.
• Inkspot - Yet another on back from hols
  Brittany was great with a short stroll over the sand dunes to the beach, and come back to home to a scorhing Indian Summer. To make the most of this glorious weather, the ironing board will be set up on the patio this evening. Life is about to settle down into more routine with the schools starting to go back tomorrow.
• penelope - *message for Chalks*
  I'm doing ancient history tomorrow (thursday)... might you be in for a cup of tea later in the day? I'll txt...
• momus - not a good reader of handbooks or rules
  As things seem to be rather bleak on the matress front since March I have decided to place an ad in the Personals in the London Review of Books. Might be scuppered by a medical indifference to reading. Advice as ever appreciated
• Chalky - *penelope*
  *plans to buy bake a cake* :-)
• rab
  Ah yes. I might not be around for a bit. Keep the place tidy, will you.
• Chalky - at home with Mr Kipling
  [rab] you dropping in as well?
• Chalky - just an observation
  Funny thing. This Banter Game, although fairly quiet at present, appears to be kept alive by a regular group of MCers. Yet many other long-standing games on this server have a completely different and prolific group of contributors - most of whom never post an entry in here. Why do you suppose that's the case?
• Rosie - maybe an explanation
  (Chalky) I suspect many of those who contribute to the games but not to the banter are quite young and lack the confidence to spout off here. Also, older people tend to find their niche and stick with it whereas when you're young you tend to have broader but shallower interests in which contributing a word or two to a game is quite sufficient. There could be other reasons but that'll do for the moment.
• Projoy - The age of garrulity
  I thought traditionally it was the young who overconfidently spout off and the older, and wiser, who keep their counsel. Admittedly, seven years here has been enough to disabuse me of this fanciful notion. Some people (such as me) are spouters and some, like Drewsxpa for instance, are containers. :)
• Rosie - Containers
  (Projoy) What sort of container is Drewsxpa, then? A 45-gallon drum, rucksack, ladies' purse, breadbin, boxfile, skip, biscuit barrel? I think we should be told.
• flerdle - not a weather report, honest. Oh, ok, perhaps a little.
  Just went for the first walk of the season; the temperature's been down a bit these last two or three days, and that plus a nice breeze was enough to prompt us to go for a walk in the evening (last time was some time in May, we think). Amazing. And we didn't even die.
• Chalky
  [flerdle] It's been rather uncomfortably humid here in mid-south UK which has made for a very weary sort of day. I've been reading your blog the last few days so I know that what we're experiencing bears no comparison ....
  ... which helps me understand how going for a walk in a nice breeze is something to celebrate :-)
• rab
  *peeks from round the corner, notes an absence of vandalism, disappears again*
• Ella - Posting Habits
  Going back a few posts, if I may comment, the reason I (and possibly others) don't often post here (although I read fairly often) is that it feels a little intrusive, as though butting in to someone else's conversation. I suppose 'eavesdropping' is just as rude, if not worse though! *feels ashamed and shuffles off*
• Projoy
  [Rosie] I long to ask him, but I don't know he'd care to tell me.
• Rosie - Intrusion
  (Ella) If you've got something to say, say it. And even if you haven't, still say it, be it ever so banal. This place may appear cliquey to the relatively infrequent poster but it isn't. Even if we assume it is, all you have to do is put up a few remarks and you'll be part of the clique anyway. :-)
• Néa - *sprays "rab is a weneir" on the wall*
• Rosie - graffiti
  (Néa) A what? Is it rude?
• Chalky - *intrigued*
• Tuj
  [Rosie, above]
• Tuj - Well, that was informative
  Curse these fingers! I was going to say that it's also easy to get left behind by an ongoing debate, which if you come in halfway through or just simply aren't interested in, is very difficult to comment upon. Does that sentence look coherent?
• Projoy - * crosses out weneir and replaces with "weiner"*
• Néa - Exactly
  [Projoy] It's nice to be understood :-)
• flerdle - *crosses out weiner and replaces with "Weimar"*
• ImNotJohn - *crosses out Weimar and replaces with 'whiner'*
• Ella - *crosses out whiner and replaces with 'wino'*
  ...and nods in agreement with Tuj's comment about getting left behind while welcoming Rosie's invitation to join the clique.
• Darren - *crosses out 'wino' and replaces with 'window'*
• Tuj - *crosses out "window" and replaces with "willow"*
• Irouléguy - *crosses out "willow" and replaces with "tara"*
  ...and is with tuj and Ella on this one.
• Inkspot - *crosses out "tera" and replaces with "terror"*
  I'm on the bean bags for this one with the break out area through the patio doors just by the swaying palm trees.

  In the last couple of days I've killed so many wasps. We have a very low eaves house and they have made a nest behind the bargeboard. There have been too many flying around to spray during the day, but in the dark just after sunset when they are all inside, it’s spay time. In the past 2 two there have been over 200 on the ground outside and another 100 in the lobby as they have found a way from the cavity though the blockwork to come up behind the skirting but the are drowsey even a four year old can kill them – hitting them several times before they stop twitching. The good news is this year we were not plagued by flying ants, it was the neighbours turn to run inside one the summers evening.

• Rosie - Vespicide
  (Inkspot) Sounds 'orrible. Where are you?
• Inkspot - M4
  I'm encamped in the small north Wiltshire town of Wootton Bassett, famed for its black and white timber framed town hall on stilts. The wasp thing could have been worse the house is drylined so they could crawl anywhere behind the plasterboard and find their way between the floor joists.
• CdM - Spaying the wasps...
  [Inkspot] I'm impressed. That must require both great courage and great delicacy.
• Rosie - B269
  (Inkspot) Not a single wasp here in snooty Surrey. I didn't know about the Wilts stilts. Was it transplanted from Jakutsk, Siberia, where all buildings are on stilts to avoid melting the permafrost? Probably not.
• Darren - Wootton Bassett, famed for its black and white timber framed town hall on stilts
  [Inkspot] Does it walk around of its own accord?
• Uncle Korky
  [Darren] At last we know what happened to Baba Yaga's Hut! By the way, have you given up on the Kingdom of Loathing?
• Inkspot - What it says on the can
  Tonight it is showdown time with the beasties we have "Wasp Nest Destroyer Foam" it will be put along the bargebord, a little treat for them to take home.
  A lovely warm summers evening here in SN4 just right for sitting out with a glass of wine.
• nights
  good evening everyone. as people who frequent orangeMC will have realised, I am now settled in québec (finally) so you can expect me on here a little more.
  
  and the weather, today started out quite warm here in QC but it quickly went cold when I was sat on a hill watching a 'football' game. more clothes were definitely needed. and I have a horrible feeling this is that cold that everyone here keeps on telling me about. oh dear.
• Rosie - Canadian brass monkeys
  (nights) I don't think you've seen anything yet. The mean January temperature in Montreal is -10°C.
• penelope
  [nights] My sister lives about 60 miles from you. Come the Christmas and New Year party season, she can keep bags of ice for cocktails outside the kitchen door for two weeks without them defrosting. One year, her daughters built themselves a skating rink on the drive (battens, polythene sheeting and several hundred gallons of water) which lasted for three months... I'd send out for thermal socks if I was you.
• Darren
  [UK] Pretty much. I suspect they must have deleted my player by now.
• Uncle Korky
  [Darren] No, since you have a Mr A. If you don't want to go back and feel like donating anything to another worthy clan member (ahem), I'm sure I could think of a couple of potential beneficiaries... (grovel ends)
• Inkspot - Barbie gets married
  Last weekend was the celebrity wedding of the year with squillions being paid for the exclusive pictures, to whet your appetite here is the dress and here, are Peter and Kate cutting the cake
• Rosie
  (Inkspot) Can't get the links to work, not that I shall lose any sleep over it. :-)
• Rosie - Barbie
  (Inkspot) Link works now. Christ, what a pair of 12-volts! I still hope not to lose sleep.
• Dujon - *faints, recovers, looks at second pic and dies*
  Inkspot, you are a dirty old man (you too, Rosie). I'm a face man myself. :-)
• penelope - *sniggers*
  Blimey. I'm amazed at how cleverly they get everything to look so plastic, including the smiles.
• flerdle - whoah
  I'm kind of glad I have absolutely no idea who they are.
• Projoy - plastic, plastic everywhere
  The moment I saw those pics in the office yesterday, I started up a chorus of "I'm a Barbie Girl, in my Barbie world..."
• Chalky - totem
  ... and there's certainly something about the shape of that cake ...
• Néa - Come on Barbie, let's go party!
  And won't they be proud to show those pictures to their grandchildren some day. Also, not that I don't agree with flerdle... but who are they??
• Irouléguy
  Néa] In this case, ignorance really is bliss.
• nights
  [thermals] what, you think my mother let me leave Stanstead without thermal socks? I (possibly incorrectly) think I'm ready for whatever winter can throw at me, including a clause in my housing contract saying it's my responsibility to keep the balcony free of snow. it's sort of hard to contemplate sat on my balcony in a pleasant warm breeze on a pleasant evening in québec, smoking godawful canadian cigarettes. I miss L&B.
• nights
  [pics] and OMFG I'm glad I'm in the land of maple right now...
• Rosie - Jugs
  (Dujon) How dare you! I'm a face man also but when presented with these absurdly compressed mountains of flesh one cannot but notice them. But in terms of allure they are neither necessary nor sufficient.
• Dujon - Giggling
  Fair dos, Rosie. Sorry, Inkspot.
  I thought, like the plastic of penelope, it was just an image until, upon opening my morning paper, there was one of the photographs purporting to be a reproduction from a certain well know celebrity's wedding. Ruddy 'eck. I'll put my glass eye back in now.
• rab - Ohm sweet ohm
  It's nice to be home. Such a shame I'll be buggering off to Luxembourg shortly.
• Tuj - The Grand Duchy
  I spent an afternoon in Luxembourg once. It's quite nice, fairly eccentric. Better when they had Belgian Francs though.
• ImNotJohn - Letzeburg
  We had a weekend in Luxembourg city a few years ago - probably about long enough. Very pleasant, good food (especially patisserie), terrific situation.
• Rosie - Lux
• Rosie - Luxembourg
  I used to listen to Radio Luxemburg (sic) many moons ago, for what it's worth.
• penelope - Old Radio
  [Rosie] So did I. Wasn't there a DJ with Motor Neurone Disease whose wife was his sidekick on his evening show?
  And, for what it's worth, I once worked for a guy who had been a skipper on Radio Caroline.
• Wol - Luxembourg
  Went to a conference there three years or so ago. It's, er, really small. They run bus tours of the whole country that leave the main square at noon, and are back by 3.30pm.
  Highlight of the trip? I bunked off the main conference dinner to go to a performance of a Handel opera at the Conservatoire (on the other side of town from Euroville, and so about 30 minutes walk ...). A stunning performance space - better than any I can think of in London of its size (about the capacity of the Barbican concert hall, I reckon). The piece was commissioned from Handel for a private occasion, and had never been performed since. A very, very fine performance it was too - only three singers IIRC, so very exposed, and they all coped and performed superbly. Excuse the slippage into anecdotage ... * wanders off, humming to self *
• Rosie - Radio Lux
  (pen) Don't remember that. There were no women on RL when I listened (about 1957-63). It was people like Sam Costa and Jack Jackson. I dusted off my old singles the other day and played some Duane Eddy, Fats Domino and Buddy Holly stuff. A nice lowbrow, nostalgic relaxation.
• penelope
  [Rosie] Wuld've been about 1973 when I listened. Eek. Now, Fats Domino is one of my favourites... excellent driving music!
  I had my worst 'Senior Moment' to date this morning. I now have a head full of deodorant rather than hair spray.
• Ella - Sticky
  Still, better than having your armpits glued together with 'Ellnette' : )
• penelope
  [Ella] Oh, I dunno. At least the world's finest hairspray brushes out. I just won't get a sweaty brow for a day or two. And my hair stinks.:o/
• Blob - Wrong tube
  I once discovered that Savlon is not especially nice toothpaste.
• Blob - ...
  (Then again, maybe not quite as bad as spreading Colgate on a burn ...)
• Rosie - Fats Domino
  (pen) I can do a boogie-woogie version of Be My Guest (ca 1959) on the piano.
• Rosie - sraddehC
  Just been looking back through the Regurgitated Cheddars and my sides are still aching. Long may it continue.
• Knobbly
  Hello.
• Rosie
  Hello, Knobbly. Haven't seen you here before. Is it just your knees?
• Wol
  [Rosie] Is what just his knees? You shouldn't ask questions like that of complete strangers, you know. [Knobbly] Seriously, is it just your knees?
• Knobbly - My knees
  [Rosie]Well, I'm frankly offended if no-one has noticed my previous presence or recent absence - I haven't popped in much over the holiday, but this is my main procrastination site when I'm meant to be working at university. I missed all the bad puns.[Wol and Rosie]I did shorten my screenname from 'Knobbly Knees' because I couldn't be bothered to keep typing it. But, no I don't think they are really.
• nights
  wrong products first thing in the morning are always a problem. I tried to brush my teeth with my hosuemate's hair gel once. I don't even USE the damn stuff, my hair is LONG, why did I even pick it up?
  
  Québec is still lovely (smirk).
• Pook
  Did you slick them back or tousle them.
• Rosie
  (nights) I hope you used a fine tooth-comb. They are definitely the best.
• Simons Mith - If you ask me...
  [Pook] That was one of the funniest comments anyone's posted in ages.
• Pook - Faux pas
  Having only just discovered the joys of mc5 I noticed last night I appear to share my handle with another. I apologise wholeheartedly, and shall henceforth submit as Pooksadaisy.

  (Simons Mith) The irony is,toothpaste gives me more style and hold than any other hair product.

• Projoy - Pook honor
  [Pook] Are you sure? I don't recall a previous pook on these pages.
• Pooksad - Faix pas -cond.
  (Projoy) It was quite an old post on ...so help me god, but it's no great shakes to modify my eke-name. On a lighter note however, as I write this the rain is hammering on my window and the river levels are rising, which means that tomorrow I'll go kayaking instead of trawling through old MC games.
• Rosie
  (Pooksad) You don't live in Orpington, then?
• Pooksad - Orpington
  (Rosie) It's funny you should say that. Many is the time, when gambolling over the wind swept fells or careening down a grade three Lakeland river,that I've dreamed of rolling up my flat cap, selling the whippet and moving to Orpington.
• Dujon - Hello
  Welcome, Pooksad. I admire your pastime (there's a white water rapid place just down the road from me) although I've never understood the fun to be found in getting oneself withchered.
• Pooksad - Getting moist
  (Dujon)Skylarking around in skin tight neoprene whilst wearing a silly hat, life just doesn't get better than that!!!
• penelope
  [Pooksad] Do you work in a circus? ;o)
• penelope - wet dreams
  As the alarm clock went off this morning, I was having a dream about explaining how the Thames Barrier works. What the blazes is that all about??!!
• Tuj - Dreams
  [pen] I really don't know... but it made me laugh, so thanks, I needed it :)
• Projoy
  I had another dream last night about being booked for some museum teaching, but finding I wasn't prepared. Had a lot of those lately.
• Projoy
  (which of course is just a variant on the going-on-stage-without-knowing-the-lines nightmare. Not had that particular version for ages, tho).
• Pooksad - Freud fest
  Which of course is just a variant on the naked in public nightmare. I have that one all the time!
• Chalky - gnashing
  I find I lose all my teeth in a lot of dreams lately.
• Raak - teef
  [Chalky] According to wah wah wah dot myjellybean.com/dream/paget.html, "If your teeth fell out or you spit them out, you are anxious about money." Were they grey and rotten? Health problems. Loose? Untrustworthy friends. Broken and worn down? Relationship problems.
• penelope
  Losing my teeth is my recurring nightmare. I have it five or six times a year - they just crumble in my mouth and I spit out the pieces.
• Chalky - ditto spitto
  [pen] same. And if [Raak]'s webref is to be taken seriously, I can't say it happens when I'm anxious about money either. P'haps it's fear of old age?
• Pooksad
  My recurring nightmare involves wandering around an empty house trying all the doors which are locked, but when I get to the last door I know it's unlocked but I'm afraid to open it. I have this dream a couple of times a year.
• Ella - Somebody help us!!
  I'm usually trussed up in a pink tutu amongst a troupe of ballet dancers in perfect step, trying desperately to keep up, but, to the amusement of the audience, always a few steps behind :-)
• Rosie - Frustration dreams
  One I used to have occasionally was about football. I was running down the right wing on to a pass but could never, ever, EVER quite reach it, and it all happened in slow motion. And why the right wing? I could no more cross a ball with my right foot than I could speak fluent Basque. It was for standing on. Not a very good footballer.
• Pooksad - Pretty in pink
  (ella) Never mind all that, what about your dreams?
• rosie
  mooooooo i had dream bout a cow driving a bus, it tried to run me over, guess what im going to marry someone called pook!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Projoy - Oh dear
  ...Rosie's been at the Carlsberg again.
• Pooksad
  I don't believe in the evils of social drinking, I only ever drink alone and to help me forget.
• penelope
  [Pooksad] forget what?
• Pooksad
  Aaargghh,must.. resist.. inevitable punchline!!!
• Pooksad
  dunno, can't remember - (bugger!!)
• Rosie - Impersonation
  (Projoy) Never touch the stuff! I'm a bitter man. I'll rephrase that - I drink bitter.
• nights - dreams
  hey, my funeral dreams have returned. what the hell am I worried about THIS time?
  
  [pooksad] oh yes, very good. actually, I loved it, hungry as I am for british humour on this side of the atlantic.
• Pooksad - Sweet dreams
  (nights) I wouldn't worry if I were you, it's probably just an irrational fear of your life slipping away followed by eternity in a cold dark hole in the ground, while the people you knew and loved, move in like jackels to pick over the remains of your life. Personally, I like to bear in mind what Hume said, which goes something like "don't try making sense of it all, just go and play pool instead."
• Projoy - exiting the gene pool
  [pook] But did he mean play pool here or in the great pool hall in the sky?
• snorgle - train dreams
  I keep dreaming about being on a train, and desperately trying to get somewhere, and it’s always very stressful. In the last one, my mum and I managed to avoid the conductor and didn’t even pay for our tickets by running along the train the whole trip. My cat was in one of the carriages and looked rather surprised as I pelted past her. No-one else was bothered, though.
• Projoy
  Oh, I get those too - assorted on-the-wrong-train or missed-the-connection dreams. Mind you that happens often in real life, so no great mystery there.
• penelope - Missing the train
  I don't have train dreams... is that because I don't travel by train? Or am I emotionally disabled in some way? I do have driving dreams from time to time - and my late father is sometimes a passenger, which is nice.
• Pooksad - A quick pee
  I just read Regurgitated Cheddars, Kim,Chalky,Wymo,Projoy and Blob,very very slick,I laughted that much I nearly bought a round.
• Pooksad - Correction
  I really mean't the Limerick,and I also mean't laughed without the t.
• Darren
  I used to have loads of train dreams, but they eventually finished. Often I was waiting for a train, or stopping a train that was running, or trying to get off a moving train. Also lots of lift dreams, where they would malfunction or catch fire. I've been stuck in plenty of lifts in real life, but it's never frightened me, I think it's just a mental symbol for feeling stuck in an awkward situation in life. Similar with the trains. (None of that was my recurring nightmare, though, but that's a bit odd even for here.) Still, enough about my insanity.
• Pooksad
  (Darren) Now I really am curious, odd is good.
• Ella - Must stop going out in that tutu
  (Darren)A problem shared is a problem....that everyone can bring up whenever they need a good chuckle. Carry on though, please.
• Juxtapose - such stuff as dreams
  I've never had a train dream. We don't use them much on the west coast of the States. I've had pen's teeth dream countless times, and the other night I dreamed I was searching for treasure in a lost tomb. I fell through a trap floor and got bit by a snake.
• Wymo - Treasure dreams
  Strangely enough I had the treasure dream the other night, but rather than get bitten by a snake I discovered the treasure at the top of a pyramid. It was Gilette razors. Tch, even my dreams are sponsored now.
• Chalky - lilting limericks
  [Pooks] thanks :-) - not wishing to tempt fate but the latest few should all have 'bravo' stamped on them. Have you visited the Limerick games in the other two servers yet?
• Wol - Träumerei
  [Darren] Your train dreams - did they stop around the time of the Beeching report? [teeth] Not had that one for a while - used to get it a lot. Incredibly vivid - the dream was that I was lying in bed, trying to get to sleep, with my teeth falling out like toppling dominoes. The segue between the dream and waking to feel in my mouth was imperceptible. I had understood it to mean nothing more specific than insecurity; which I would put my hand up to at the time.
• Pooksad - the best medicine
  (Chalky) Just spent the last hour in absolute tears, just what I needed. I am currently having too much of a good thing in my neck of the woods. I spent all summer waiting for it to rain so I could go kayaking, guess what, my local river has in the space of a week, gone from a stagnant trickle to a grade 5 raging monster, with holes and stoppers that would eat you alive if you got too near. Hoo hum.
• Darren
  [Wol] No, I wasn't even born then!
• Chalky
  Limericks - sorry, seems I DID tempt fate by saying they were going so well
• penelope - Hopeless
  I give up. Men are a complete mystery. Why would anyone approach you, chat you up (yeah, online, I admit), call you when you least expect it, then invite you out on a date, only to stand you up without a word? I sat in the bar of I bet Berkhamstead's Cafe Rouge drinking coke for half an hour, feeling like an idiot. I bet the patron has seen it a thousand times... At least I have the satisfaction of knowing I'm not the one who acted like a jerk.
• Wol
  [Darren] ;-) [pen] We're not all complete prats; I can only apologise for those that are, and are bad enough not to apologise for themselves. The guy in question - he isn't the patron of Cafe Rouge in Berkhamsted, is he?
• penelope
  [Wol] He's not the patron, no... and thanks :o) I think I wrote that in a kind of early-morning rage. *sigh* Onwards and upwards... salsa dancing tonight. At least if anyone does you wrong at salsa dancing, they're right there in front of you and you can kick their shins.
• Pooksad
  (Pen) There really is no mystery about them, they're just hopeless!!!
• penelope - one, two, three... five, six, seven...
  Anyone want to hear about salsa dancing? I'm going to tell you anyway. It was brilliant! My first time, and the men were still hopeless - they're supposed to lead, and either I'm not listening carefully enough or they're too scared to be firm and lead properly. I suspect it might be my fault... mwahahaha!
• Rosie
  (pen) Most men, and especially musicians, can't dance unless they're pissed, and don't actually like it, except as a grope. But some can, and I wish you well. :-)
• nights
  I can't dance unless it's a really grinding techno beat. at which point it doesn't matter. however I echo Rosie when I say that some men (including me) enjoy dancing 'properly', and I'm sure you will find one. but you can't have me for several reasons, the most important of which being that an ocean separates us. *sigh*.
• Dujon - Two left feet
  I'm with Rosie, penelope.
  I have not had a dancing lesson in my life to date. I also suspect that I am one of a majority of males in that situation. Years ago, as a teenager, I looked at some books on the subject (well, one) which was full of black and white footprints. I gave up. When I watch accomplished dancers - and I'm not speaking of those 'professionals' who trip the light fantastic with fixed grins on their faces - I can see that many people gain much pleasure from the exercise. You are now allowed to address me as Wallflower.
• penelope - to all gentlemen
  Please, chaps, don't give up. Dancing with a man leading is one of the nicest things I've done for a long time. They're itching for more men to join in, and if you just take a deep breath and dive in with a beginner's class (which is what I did last night), follow the teacher for an hour - which is all enjoyable - you'll be rewarded with a floor full of ladies to choose from. It's not hard, you just have to count: one, two, three... five, six, seven... and practice. The music is great, they hand out flyers for more events while you're there - I could dance four nights a week without a permanent partner and without driving too far at all if I wanted - and they even sell beer there. What more could you want? My motivations for dancing? To get out of the house, perhaps find a nice man to dance with more than once, and to get a smaller arse!
• penelope - I'm sorry I can't take your call...
  Oh, and the mystery of the date-standing-me-up on Sunday night has been explained. He was locked up in a police cell for the weekend when the officers returning his escaped dog realised there was a warrant for his arrest after previously being charged with being drunk in charge of a vehicle when he slept in the car after a wedding month ago. He got the date of his magistrate's court appearance wrong and failed to attend, so was locked up on Saturday afternoon, and had to wait there until a court appearance on Monday. I don't think you could make it up. I could make a fortune from writing a newspaper column about my experiences as a single woman... or has it already been done?
• penelope
  I'm laughing, actually, but I don't think I'll be talking to him again.
• Pooksad
  I rest my case!!!
• Pooksad
  (Pen) Still, it could have been worse, he might have actually turned up for the date. I can't imagine what kind of trouble you would have ended up in, probably something to do with drunken dogs wearing tutu's!!!
• Blob - 1,2,3,5,6,7
  [pen] My wife used to go to Salsa in Berkhamsted, but hasn't been for a while. No way I'd go with her - one of the benefits of being married is that I don't feel compelled to dance very often these days. I dare say that if we ever got divorced or separated I'd have to once again suffer the terpsichorean muse - but until then I stay seated and quaff the vino instead.
• Darren
  [penelope] You can also take heart from this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3006130.stm
• Darren
  [penelope] Not that I'm saying you're over 75 (on the contrary, I've always considered you to be something of a pin-up around these parts) but at least you can see there are advantages to dancing.
• penelope
  [Darren] Thank you - the advantage to dancing is you know your dance partner isn't locked up...
  *blushs at the pin-up reference, but drains to a deathly pallor when she realises this could mean a dart-board pin-up*
• Tuj - pin-ups
  Everyone under 75 qualifying as a pin-up sounds like an interesting rule. I know that's not what you said, Darren, but it would be.
• Néa - marriage and dancing
  [Blob] Hmmm. Mr Néa's view is that if he hadn't been married, he never would have had to dance - as it is, he had to dance the waltz at his weddings. Personally, I rather enjoy dancing provided it's with a guy who can lead. I don't dance very well, so the man has to be good at it.
• nights
  is it bad that every time I go dancing, I wake up the following morning with sore feet, shoulders and neck?
• Projoy
  Depends if you were breakdancing or not.
• Dujon
  Or the type of car in which you slept. penelope might be able to help.
• Pooksad
  I've noticed in the last few years, a growing tendancy to groan slightly when getting in and out of chairs, regardless of the previous evenings activities. I don't suppose this is something that's going to improve with age! The funny thing is, when I'm out on the river and especially when other people are egging me on, I do all kinds of crazy stunts, but when I get home, I do the old "wait till your my age" routine, so that my flatmate makes me a nice cuppa, Hee Hee.
• penelope
  [Pooksad] You are clearly starting to experience the hypocrisy of old age. This is also manufested in the desire to resort to adages ssuch as: "Don't do as I do, do as I say,", and "When I was young..." Keep a note of the symptoms.
• Pooksad - Sigh...
  If only I had listened to what my mother told me when I was younger.
• Raak
  [Pooksad] For more symptoms, see the "You know you're getting old when......." game in the archive.
• Pooksad - Ooh 'eck
  (Raak) Duly noted and alarmingly familiar.
• rab - Welcome back
  Sorry it's been a while. Check the info page to read about posting links (you get a couple for free, at least until we start getting spammed again), (View the source to read the hidden text) and the HTML rewriter that automatically Goods your Bad HTML. This is a work in progress, so feel free to point out where the dwimmery failed. I ran it on all 47000-odd existing moves, fewer than 100 of which caused big problems. The only thing that might catch you out is that if you put a paragraph in the middle of a bold move, only the first bit appears bold. I'm working on that.

  Enjoy.

• snorgle - enjoying
  Ooooh! Funky.
• flerdle
  *cheers*

  Thanks for all your hard work!

• Chalky
  Well - Hello again :-) :-)
• Tuj - Three cheers (as promised)
  Hip hip (View the source to read the hidden text)
  Hip hip (View the source to read the hidden text)
  Hip hip (View the source to read the hidden text)
• Phil - Virgin
  Hello all, I've not been here before in this or a previous guise, so I can't say whether this is better or not.
• Irouléguy - Congratulations
  It looks really good! Adding my podume of thanks to the pile.
• Raak
  Welcome back! Very tasteful reveal buttons! BTW, what's the difference between "silky smooth" and "safe but dull"? I can't see a difference on Safari.
• Raak
  Ah, it's the dotted borders!
• Botherer
  Hap hap... hoozah!
• penelope Monica
  Hurrah! I like the fact that everyone is now called Monica. It suits my new latin temperament, apart from the fact that tonight it was a bad lesson. Despite dancing A LOT, I got everything wrong and my deodorant failed. :o(
• Darren
  Hello everyone.
• Inkspot
  Welcome back
• CdM - *rabblauds*
• Rosie
  Nice to be back in a posh new home. Well done, rab, and thanks.
• nights
  Oh well done Rab. It looks rather excellent!
• Raak
  Any possibility to reinstall the script for reordering the Jigsaw story? Or perhaps Orange might host it, since it's an Orange game?
• rab - Stuff
  Thanks.

  [Raak] Not just the borders, but also the placing of the corner elements and spacing/padding within the main box. The 'proper' version is able to apply the right styling to all elements based on where they appear; the IE version has to fake a lot of this by hand and is therefore more likely to apply the wrong spacing to the wrong elements. It just looks shit, basically.

  [Raak] Bugger, I don't think I kept a copy of that script. Perhaps you could see if Dunx is happy to host, and mail him a copy. If he's unwilling send it along and I'll pop it up somewhere.

• Botherer
  And I can get in at work! Double Hoozah!
• Blob - The Return
  Splendid to see mc⁵'s return to the Morniverse from realms unkown and unknowable. I also like the (View the source to read the hidden text) - very smart !
• Blob - Small question
  [rab] How does one return to the menu ? I know you can use the browser "back" button, but isn't there usually a pressable button - or am I being dimnthick as usual ?
• Dimnthick
  Aha - it's that faint little "up" down the bottom there isn't it.
• Pooksad
  Hi folks. Nice colour scheme Rab! I must confess I feel a little underdressed.
• Néa - Ooooooooooooh
  Very very shiny!!
• Néa
  ...but suddenly it appears to not like my name.
• Néa
  Hm. This game accepts the é but the Limericks game didn't. Mysteeeerious.
• Inkspot - Is it just me?
  In the team game, when using IE, I am unable to see the team clours of the persons name wehich could be why some players have confused web colors. Firefox renders them as they should be seen in IE they all the default colour are as in this.

  Hallowen is over now to look forward to Bonfire night. We will probably be going to an organised event on Saturday and will be taking along our 4 year old for the first time. Previous years the show has been quite spectacular.

• Knobbly
  Still don't understand about the magic word thing... well, I'll worry about that if I ever want to post links.
  In the mean time, to go off on a tangent; I currently have posession of the email adress a.n.onymous(@hotmail.co.uk) and no longer want it. If anyone can convincingly explain why they need it, perhaps it can be arranged, rather than just let the account time out and go to waste.
• Rosie - Magic word
  (Knobbly) The magic word is secret (seriously). Send me an email and all will be revealed. My email address is at http://www.geocities.com/pantsmcprofiles/profiles.html#ros
• ràb - Nöthiñg
  [Néa] Dunno why that was. It should cope with füññy chåractérs better now.

  [Inkspøt] I've colourised the colour as well as the moniker now.

• rab - What time is it?
  Checking the time?
• Dan - Call me a loony but I've always liked the smell of fresh paint
  [rab] In the words of a certain fictional television civil servant, "he who would keep a secret must keep it a secret that he hath a secret to keep." One of the reasons I removed the prompt from the enabling field over at that other place and made it unobtrusive is that most of the time no prompt is needed or wanted. When it is, the user will get an explanatory message. As long as people are shown that a special word is wanted (whether it's actually wanted or not for any given post) and without the hint obviating the need to ask, they're going to keep asking about it.
• Rosie
  (Dan) My favourite smells are ortho-nitrophenol and tertiary butyl alcohol, each in their own way nasally sumptuous. What that makes me I'd rather not know.
• rab
  [Dan] True. And here you get a couple of links for free, so there's not even any reason for it to appear under normal circumstances.
• CdM
  [rab] Two comments beyond my earlier wordless praise.
  1. The look of the site really is excellent -- very sleek, very clean, very functional.
  2. I tried to access the AVMA game on the site by cellphone today and got a "memory full" message. I'm able to access games on Orange and mcios without problem. Any reason that you know of why this site would be more problematic?
• rab
  [CdM] 1. Thanks. 2. No idea. Did any of the other pages work?
• Uncle Korky
  Nice one, rab - good to see it back.
• Huxley - MC5
  Jolly nice rab, well done! I look forward to wasting the other half of my day here.
• Huxley
  And I'd say this is (View the source to read the hidden text) poo
• Inkspot - Charlie is my darling
  I don't manage to see much tv, and period dramas are a real turn off. So it has been a real pleasure to watch Bleak House these last couple of weeks shown as short episodes. The cast has been great and it has been wonderful to see the various plot lines emerge and slowly twist together. I'm hooked.
• Dujon - MC5 and me
  We are back! Great work, rab. My apologies for not appearing earlier but a local storm put my ADSL modem to the ulitimate test; it failed. Prior to that my hot water heater began to urinate, my little router seems also to have suffered from the modem's spike syndrome and my blood pressure thingywhatsit decided it had a mind of its own and inflates its cuff at random moments: It's not been a good week financially as that's about £500+ out of the reserve. *sobs and looks with large green eyes for sympathy*
• Pooksad - Old green eyes is back.
  (Dujon) Sorry to hear about your recent woes, there's been far too much water everywhere it seems,(even for me). And yes the big old green eyes thing works, so stop it already! I've been having some computer issues as well, although nothing as bad as yours. The combination of new firewall and ignorance on my part kept me quiet for a while. The funny thing is, I had never even owned a computer or used the internet until September, but I felt decidely antsy being incommunicado for just a few days, and needless to say I've missed MC5 terribly. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Cheers Rab!
• Rosie
  After an initial flurry this has gone very quiet. (Pooksad) No computer until recently? Are you an old git like me? Good.
• Inkspot
  Well bonfire night was a bit of a wet squib with the display cancelled due to bad weather, but looking out through the window when we returned a couple of displays had braved the rain.
  I wonder if they were French, I can hardly believe they ahve gone on for so long (10 or 11 nights now). One MEP on the radio was saying today that discrimination is very much institutionalised in France. I find that hard to believe. Despite the bad press about being politically correct, equal opps is everywhere and is about to be widened. France seems to be very strong about it's image of the Republic and not accept outside influences that may dilute this.
• Pooksad - Head says no, knees say yes.
  (Rosie) I'm an incredibly late developer. My flatmate thinks I'm probably due for my mid-life crisis, whereas i feel I'm just shaking off my teenage angst. I don't know why, but I seemed to go out of my way to avoid computers for years. It was only after a cycling accident and time spent sat at home nursing broken ribs that I started fiddling with my flatmates computer. I can't leave the bloody things alone now. Ho hum.
• Dujon - Eyes dried
  [Pooksad] Thanks for your kind words. Unfortunately Mrs Duj woke up to my wide-and-misty-eyed ploy years and years ago.
  [French bonfires] I've been shaking my head in disbelief at the goings on. Maybe I shouldn't, seventeen people have just been arrested in this country for allegedly plotting (and having the materials for) the execution of nefarious deeds. Their lawyer, predictably I suppose, has already pulled out the race/religious persecution card. Before anyone hops on the racist bandwaggon, I'm not. I have worked with and enjoyed the company of many, many who have migrated to this country from parts remote.
• rab - Cleverness
  I nore that on another page here. one of us posted a link by just writing it out in full, rather than popping it in as an <a href ... >. The latter works, incidentally. Try it! And, in general, there's no need to be clever and try and second guess what is and isn't allowed. Try the obvious thing, and if it doesn't work, the server will tell you (usually).
• Huxley - Voitures Flambés
  One of my colleagues is a well qualified business consultant who just so happens to be of Algerian descent. She has recounted many stories of the racism she faces here... apartments suddenly becoming "unavailable", negative attitudes from shopkeepers and so on. Of course, it is clear that while there may be a political or cultural basis to these demonstrations, rioters are in general just that: rioters. A gendarme friend of mine last night arrested a 16 year old boy who set fire to a Renault 25 in Toulouse. Said friend is convinced that the boys actions were not politically motivated.
• Raak
  According to a French colleague, the riots were deliberately provoked by Sarkozy. It started with the two youths who died in an electricity substation while fleeing from the police. It turned out they hadn't committed any theft. They were running because the police were chasing, and the police were chasing because they were running. Then a few nights later, 150 police were sent in at midnight on a Tuesday, before any disturbances had happened, and acted belligerently until there was a riot, whereupon Sarkozy made public statement about "scum", further inflaming the situation. He's a populist right-wing politician, who provoked the riots in order to be seen to be doing something about them. None of which excuses anyone who torched a car, but the rioters are just useful idiots in Sarkozy's cause. None of this would have happened without Sarkozy. Or so my colleague said.
• Rosie
  (Raak) Your colleague hasn't looked very deep, has he? People who torch cars are seriously at odds with their world, and maybe with themselves as a consequence. It is impossible to believe that Sarkozy "caused" the riots even though they might be quite useful to him. From what I've read French society is structurally quite racist, much more so than this country.
• Huxley
  [Raak] The car-torching was in full swing when Sarkozy made his comment that rioters are "scum" (rough tranlsation). Of course, the minority group interpreted this as "minority groups are scum". Also, what I fail to see, as I failed to see during the LA riots, is how the actions of the police - detestable as they may have been - justifies such behaviour. Some may say that this is the only form of protest that these particular minority groups have. I vehemently disagree thinking rather that a peaceful demonstration on a massive scale would be much more effective in garnering sympathy amongst the larger population. From this I draw my conclusion that rioters do what they do because they get a kick out of rioting.
• Raak
  [Huxley] The actions of the police don't justify the actions of the rioters, but on the other hand, if the police did incite the riot, the riot doesn't justify the incitement.
• snorgle - corrupting influence?
  This site used to be steam-powered, but apparently it is no longer! What are you using now? I hope it's environmentally friendly, and doesn't involve grinding up penguins.

  Also, please wish me luck for the appointment I have at the dentist in 1 hour to remove a wisdom tooth. It's not causing me any pain, so hopefully the nerve is dead, but it is falling apart. I still expect to be sore as it's quite a fiddly place to extract from, though.

• CdM - *wishes dental good fortune*
  I had a single wisdom tooth removed about two years ago, and it actually wasn't bad at all.
• penelope
  [snorgle] Good luck! Expect some discomfort, but console yourself with the fact that it's not real pain, and you'll never have pain in that tooth, nor the pain of an emerging impacted wisdom tooth, again. Besides, it gives you the excuse to drink medicinal strong spirits over the weekend until it feels better. :o)
• Néa - *fortune-wishes*
• Néa - Pssst, râb?
  AVMA killed my accent again. (I wish....)
• Projoy - Losing your wisdom
  Yes, unlike CdM, I found it did sting rather. Pace pen, be careful not to drink alcohol if they put you on strong antibiotics afterward! Oh, and if it does hurt, a cloth damped with hot water held to the face is a lifesaver, better (although more short-lived) than Ibuprofen.
• penelope
  [Projoy] I don't remember having antibiotics after an extraction about three years ago. You probably don't get them unless the procedure throws up complications. Where's Lib when you need her?
• Blob - Alcohol & Teeth
  One of the poular antibiotics prescribed after dental ops is Metronidazole - do not take alcohol while taking - or for a couple of days after taking - this anti-b otherwise you'll get flushes, palpitations and symptoms like food poisoning.
• Projoy - antibio
  [Metronidazole] Yes, that was the one they gave me. The first time I had w/t operation I was put on a course of anti-fungals, the second time it was just salt mouthwashes... until the inevitable infection happened, and they had to give me antibiotics anyway.
• snorgle - extracted
  It came out without much trouble, and it's a bit sore, but the 3 pints I drank this afternoon, and the ibuprofen has helped. It wasn't impacted, it had just become quite decayed. All my wisdom teeth came through without much trouble, they're just a little jammed in, and tend to point backwards as they don't have much room. The root on the one I had out today wasn't that long, comparted to what molars normally are, and was a bit of a funny shape, so this made it easier to pull!

  I didn't need any antibiotics and it's not been bleeding too much, either. So thanks for all your good wishes!

• pemelope - random thought
  *thinks* Chavs and Chav-nots...
• Inkspot - It's a bit nippy
  A frost on the ground and the car lock is frozen, all the more reason to go back upstairs to start the decorating on of the bedrooms. On the other hand while I have the house to myself I'll do a bit of surfing first and a cup of tea.
• rab - Néa's missing accent
  [Néa] Does your accent come out both properly and as a splurge when you're using the same browser on the same computer? If so that's very weird... if not, I may be able to concoct a solution.
• Chalky
  *notes that the last three games have slowed down* - not that I play them, mind.
• Néa - Very weird
  It works in this game but not in AVMA (I don't think it ever worked there). Same browser (Firefox), same computer. I have started writing my accent as HTML in the AVMA game and that works.
• rab - A gleam of understanding?
  Well that is very strange, since obviously it's the set of instructions is followed to interpret your input and display it on this page as on AVMA. For the moment, I guess doing the thing with HTML accents is reliable but a pain as it increases the amount of typing threefold.

  Hmmm... what's happening I think is that when you just type the character, your browser is sometimes sending it in an ISO-8959-1 encoding (which my script transforms correctly into the appropriate 7-bit clean HTML encoding) whereas other times it decides to go down a two-byte UTF-8 route. It's not clear why it would choose one rather than another. I shall try and see if I can get this server to ask your browser always to use ISO-8959-1 (which will mean people typing in Mandarin will become unstuck); if not I shall investigate PHP's abilities to look at what you send and see if it can do the transformation properly.

• Néa - Oh dear
  [rab] you're going to an awful lot of trouble for the sake of my accent...
• Néa
  Wow, that's the worst one yet!
• penelope
  [Néa] Oh I don't know - it makes you look exotic! ;o)
• rab - Öh kæy
  If that hasn't fixed it, I've still got two lines of defence.
• rab
  Oh, and by the way, I meant 8859-1 above, not 8959. Silly me...
• Néa - Go rab!!
  That seems to have done it!
• penelope - Go me!!
  I got the front page picture story on this week's Motor Trader for one of my less highly-visible clients *grins*
• Inkspot - Eccles
  [pen]Happy clients can only mean two things, a big bonus and cakes all round.
• penelope
  [Inkers] happy clients are clients who give you even more work to do - yay!! But with a bit of luck, I'll be working on next year's London to Brighton run as well as the Goodwood FOS :o)
• Inkspot - On this day in history
  I do like Goodwood FOS and free tickets from the Sunday Times but not the rain that drenched us from the finish line back to the paddock, though the black bin liner with makeshift arm holes was better than nothing. Sunburnt and drenched all in one fantastic day.
  To my emailbox Google sends me news alerts fo my home town. These days it is usually about the new natural gas terminal and pipeline. But today it sent me a suprise item from the US Navy . A little bit of Milford history I never knew before.
• penelope
  [Inkers] How do you get the home town stuff from Google then? I'm fed up of writing to complain to the editor of my home town's online local paper when they write things sooo badly and make funadamental mistakes. I used to work on that paper (under a different editor)and it was brilliant.
  Weather report: Colleagues report temperatures ranging from -5 last night in the woods, -3 this morning in Uxbridge and -1 at the traffic lights as I was pulling in to the office. Brilliant sunshine, no wind whatsoever (the flags are hanging straight down).
• Rosie
  (pen) -5°C in the woods? How did they know? Surely they can't be such a dedicated weather nut as I am. I once went for a walk 'round midnite with a thermometer in Slines Oak Valley, near to me. By torchlight I read it at -15°C, better than the paltry -11°C in my back garden up on the hill. -15°C is bloody cold whatever you're doing. This was 6/7 Feb '91.
• penelope
  [Rosie] Because he left his car there while he and a friend were out mountain biking in the dark (yes, they're both nuts) and the temperature sensor said so when he returned to the car two hours later. When I lived in deepest Wiltshire, the yard thermometer registered an overnight low of -11 once or twice... we were on a country estate kind of in a dip at the bottom of the downs close to Sandy Lane/Nine Elms near Calne. This would be December '97/Jan '98. I'd concur with bloody cold but hell, I love it! ;o)
• Inkspot
  [pen]If you go from the Google home page to About Google to Google Services & Tools in the Services go to Alerts. I put in Milford Haven - News, to be sent once a day.

  This frost in the morning is giving some wonderful clear skies these last few evenings it looks like another big chill tonight.

• Darren
  [Inkspot] They do frost forecasts too?
• Inkspot - Jimmy Osmond to win!!
  Not sure as Google will be picking up from news or entertainment sites. But if you want to know about Jenny and whether or not she will win I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here try William Hills or one of the other bookies for the latest odds.
• penelope
  [Inkers] No, I don't want to know. I'm restricting my viewing to BBC2 for the next 6 weeks.
• Inkspot - foggy outside
  Can nearly 10 million viewers of the GBP be wrong? Missed it last night as I was playing with my new toys, but I'm starting to warm to Carol Thatcher which surely must be wrong.

  I love my new computer... except for the Microsoft Home Suite which is awful it is more like the old Lotus Suite with 1-2-3 and WordPro the writer and spreadsheet are very poor relatives to Excel and Word and the package has no Powerpoint.

• penelope
  [Inkspot] In answer to your question, yes. They were wrong in the General Election too.
• Darren
  I'd go further. Almost all of the GBP are consistently wrong about pretty much anything where they're given the opportunity to voice an opinion. The "Great" is meant sarcastically.
• Rosie - "Reality"
  How can anyone possibly care which of a bunch of talentless attention-seeking arseholes "wins"? The only possible source of entertainment could be a punch-up, which is no more edifying than hoping for a pile-up in Formula 1 or a truly "great" foul in football. Lee Bowyer, Roy Keane, where are you? Tickle my jaded palate.
• penelope
  *imagines a punch-up at the hustings and starts to get interested in politics again* Oh, maybe that's the way to civil war. Is there no decent fun to be had these days?
• Bigsmith
  Remember me?
• Chalky
  No. *teehee*
• Projoy
  [Rosie] I care. There may not be as much difference between the parties as of yore, but... oh, wait, you were talking about the TV programme, weren't you?
• Rosie
  (Bigsmith) Yes. You're from Bristol ISTR. (Projoy) Point taken. :-)
• Blob - Fighting it out.
  I've often thought - most particularly with respect to Northern Ireland before the GFA, but it could be applied to almost any bitterly fought dispute - that the way to solve the whole thing would be to get all the people who are so violently interested in their cause, on both sides, all together in one big stadium. An effort should be made to ensure that they had roughly equal numbers. Then supply them all with daggers, pick-axes, baseball bats etc. And let them fight it out between themselves where no-one else gets in the way and becomes "collateral damage". This to my mind would solve several problems at once:
  a) You'd get a result - possibly a true "dead heat" I suppose where everyone was killed, but that would only happen occasionally.
  b) You'd rid the world of some highly unpleasant people without having to bring back capital punishment.
  c) It could be televised as Reality T.V. par excellence, with Ant & Dec commenting wryly on the various gruesome deaths being meted out.
  d) If grudges persisted then there could be an agreed re-match, say every five years to allow for the next crop of fanatics to wipe each other out.
  Now the funny thing is - if this, rather than being in a stadium was played out in a huge open field, you'd pretty much have the gameplan of a mediæval battle - except that we'd be replacing professional soldiers with volunteer amateurs. It's got to come.
• Bigsmith
  (Rosie) Spot on.
• Rosie - Coming in during dinner
  This is not the way to gain popularity but I must say that most of the entries in that game are the most laborious clunking nonsense and show nothing like the form and humour of the original ISIHAC game, which I'm beginning to doubt anyone has ever heard.
• Knobbly - ISTR?
  What's ISTR? I tried a search and came up with the Institute of Safety in Technology and Research, International Symposium on Trends in Radiopharmaceuticals or the International Society for Third Sector Research, none of which sound very ISIHAC.
• Blob - ISTR
  [Knob] Lol, no not ISIHAC - I Seem To Remember - you may also see IIRC which is If I Remember Correctly.
• Blob - etc.
  [Knob] This game may prove of interest - if of no help whatsoever.
• rab - Odd question
  Hello. Slightly odd question, but does anyone know of any cordless landline phones where the base station and charger are separate units? I ask cos I think my current phone (a hand-me-down from the folks) is a bit rubbish, but I don't really need to buy two handsets given that I live in a 1bed flat. However, the phone point is in a really silly place and I don't want to trail a cable for miles so that the phone can be left to charge where I can actually get to it.
• Juxtapose
  goodness gracious, MC5 indeed be back. Hello everyone. =)
• Dujon - Cable confusion
  [rab] Yes, though I cannot give you brand(s) or model number(s). It does however involve having two (usually small plug pack) power supplies (unless the 'receiver' has one built in) - one for the receiver - that's the one which connects to the landline - and one for the 'phone handset, which is simply a battery charger. I've just had a look at mine, an el-cheapo Panasonic unit, but it does not have the facility though I'm sure that one of my previous units (Uniden?) did, even though I didn't use it.
• Chalky - portachat
  [rab] I've got a BT Quartet system which I bought about 4 years ago [though mine is only the 'duet' version because I didn't see the need to buy 3 handsets]. The base station with aerial plugs into phone point and power socket down here in my kitchen/officy place and the portable handset sits on its own charger which is plugged in upstairs in one of the bedrooms. The phone itself often gets lost in one of the bedrooms but appears to keep its charge for days without sitting it back on its power plinth. Very handy - it's even effective from my friend's house which is a few doors down the road.
• rab - Duet
  [Chalky] It's more of a 'monet' that I'm after: base station + 1 handset + charger separate from the base station (as the base station has to sit in a place where I don't want to put the phone to charge).
• Chalky - clarification
  [rab] That's exactly what I have. Base Station + Handset/Charger in a different place. Perhaps I didn't make myself very clear.
• Chalky - further clarifiaction
  ie. the Base Station doesn't have a handset with it.
• rab
  Cool I'll look into that.
• rab - Whee!
  My contract's just been extended - only by a year thus far, but it's a start.
• CdM
  [rab] Yay!
• penelope - Whee!
  [rab] Congrats :o)
  I've just got the go-ahead for a new pilot scheme which could double the size of my department :o)
• Chalky
  aaah ... nice to be needed :-)
• penelope - neckless
  My polo neck became completely detached from my sweater during the course of today. The stitching unravelled and I'm now wearing a crew neck sweater with a rather neat and separate collar. Watch next year's catwalks...
• Darren
  I thought you meant your actual neck had come off for a minute.
• Rosie
  (Darren) That's also how I read it just momentarily, and had visions of pen's out-of-body experience. The mind boggled.
• Juxtapose - site navigation
  Is it just my browser, or do the individual game pages no longer have a 'back to main' button?
• Chalky
  [Juxta] Try bottom right - a very discreet pale grey on my browser: It should say "pre - up - next".
• Chalky - weather report
  It's vary vary dark - hailstorms and lashing rain. Glad I'm at home.
• penelope - met check
  We've had lashing rain and wind this morning and i expect there'll be more, but as I speak, I'm squinting at my PC screen because the sun is hitting it... we've got a window in the maelstrom of meteorological matter right now :o) It's the most light I've seen for about five days.
• Rosie
  Someone here once had a go at me for banging on about the weather. Well, thats's Witshire Wisdom for you. :-) Anyway, half an inch of rain measured at Hughes Hall this morning but still a very dry year overall (about 70%) and the grass isn't yet squelchy. Tap your barometers; you won't see them this low very often especially in the south-west.
• Chalky
  [Rosie] I'm fickle, me :-)
• Juxtapose
  [Chalky] thanks. =)
• Juxtapose - and weather!
  Also, had our first (and quite possibly last) snow of the year here in Seattle yesterday. I threw a snowball and everything. =D Usually we don't get any until January or February, if at all.
• Rosie
  (Juxtapose) Seattle's climate, as far as I can make out, is as close to British as anywhere in the USA, perhaps just a shade warmer. Of course if you're a displaced Brit, as opposed to a Yank, you won't need telling that.
• Juxtapose
  [Rosie] From Boston, originally, never yet hopped the Atlantic (although I would dearly love to). It's nice to know I'd feel right at home over there. =)
• Rosie - Boston, Mass of snow
  (Juxtapose) Seattle looks a deal milder than Boston in the winter, which I'd imagine is also quite windy and raw. The worst thing about the British winter is the light (absence of). If it's cloudy as it usually is then it's pretty well dark by 4 pm, and earlier still in the north.
• Bigsmith - The darkness
  Was in Tallinn (Estonia) the weekend before last. It was dark there by 3pm local time.
• Bigsmith - MWP
  What happened to Wild Pants MC?
• Darren
  [Bigsmith] It died and we all moved to other sites. That's the most detail I think we ever really got. Not that there was a coverup or anything (but now I think of it...).
• Darren
  Yes, I did once criticize nights for ending a post with an ellipsis.
• Rosie - The Death of Pants
  (Darren) So it was you, was it? :-)
• Darren
  Yes, I pulled Pants down.
• Darren
  (I bet you'd all thought we'd seen the last of the Pants MC puns, eh?)
• CdM
  [Bigsmith] You didn't happen to take a side trip to Kernu Commune, did you? Just wondering...
• Blob - Dead Pants
  [Bigs] If you're really missing the Pants style, you could always play on Orange in Pants mode
• penelope - introducing a new theme
  I've just put my flat up in Lincolnshire on the market, and have made an offer on a bungalow up there for my mum to live in. Is it unethical to charge her rent until she sells her house and puts the cash in to pay for it?! This is all sooo exciting...
  Fog-bound here in Herts. Dead busy here in the office, but all good.
• Dujon - Mist and Fog
  [penelope] What a strange question. If you are merely acting as a go-between (meaning you are financing the transaction until such time as your mother raises her own funds), then yes. Depending on your relationship with your mother the amount 'charged' could be commercial rent or simply enough to cover your costs in bringing the deal to a closure. Should you be a rich and grateful daughter then you could, at your discretion, ignore your expenditure and not mention the subject.
  I suspect that most of England will be under varying degrees of fog today - the football World Cup draw was finalised last night ... joking ... honest ... joking ... truly, truly.
• Rosie - Fog
  (Dujon) Widespread fog today in low lying areas but none here up on the Downs. Both Gatwick and Heathrow have had fog all day as you will see from this and this and if you really fancy some cold stuff try this.
• Dujon
  How can anyone live in such temperatures? Minus 34°C for heaven's sake! I am aware that some of our North American friends experience such extremes but I cannot, literally cannot, imagine what it must be like. Add to that the nearly three feet of snow they had in the previous twenty four hours, which would hardly warm one's feet, and I'm ever so pleased I'm not living there.
• Ro/sie - Brass monkeys
  (Dujon) The -34°C is rather mild for Jakutsk in Dec/Jan. The mean is -43°C. There is no wind, or snowfall, but the ground is snow-covered from what fell in Oct/Nov, typically about a foot. The only weather is fog, which can last for a week or more with temperatures down to -51°C, the lowest I've seen in 4 yrs daily monitoring. The short summer is like that of central France and it hardly ever rains. I bet they make the most of it. There is an even colder place, Ojmjakon, where the January mean is -50°C with no weather at all, just brief sunshine while the sun crawls shyly above the horizon for a few hours. Young kids are not allowed out of it goes below -45 because the cold air can damage their lungs. If you were so daft as to put the mouthpiece of a brass instrument to your lips in that degree of cold it would blow more than two semitones flat, the least of your worries, I'd say. Perhaps there's a special short Russian trombone.
• Rosie - Cockup, monickerwise
  Why has my name come out wrong? Grr!
• Simons Mith - Semitones of trombone-flatness
  Now there's a metric to trump Degrees Stevie, I do believe.
• Phil - Flat brass instruments?
  What's the science behind that then, Rosie? I would have expected extreme cold weather to reduce the size of the instrument, thus shortening the column of air one needs to vibrate. I would expect this effect to sharpen the instrument.
• Rosie - Flat horns
  (Phil) The instrument does get a tiny bit shorter (about 2 mm at -50°C) but the overwhelming effect is the reduction in the speed of sound as the temperature goes down. Since there is a standing wave in the instrument the lower speed causes it to take longer to go down and up the instrument, thus lowering the frequency and therefore the pitch. In effect the instrument becomes longer as far as the standing wave sees it. Of course the player's breath warms it up quite a bit, about halfway beteen ambient and body temperature. Even allowing for this (which I didn't in my original posting), the adjustment is about one inch on the tuning slide for 20 degrees and this is just a bit more than is usually available. So if you're playing outside at 0°C all you could do would be to play "short", as they say. Fortunately I don't do marching bands or Sally Army stuff.
• Darren
  So presumably in old, draughty churches without heating it must be impossible to get accurate tuning for the organ for the same reason.
• rab
  It's pretty difficult to get accurate tuning on any kind of church organ in any case...
• Darren
  True. Accurate was the wrong word... consistent?
• Rosie
  (Darren) That's correct. The whole instrument would be flat and it wouldn't sound wrong but any other instrument accompanying it would have to tune down a bit. Rather difficult with a piano. One way round it would be to have a small bleed of a lighter gas into the air the organ uses. You could use hydrogen, helium, neon, methane, ammonia or hydrogen fluoride. Perhaps I should patent this lunacy.
• Darren
  Wouldn't some of those risk producing the Amazing Exploding Organ? That puts me in mind of the Large Hot Pipe Organ which produces sound by exploding a propane/air mix in its pipes.
• Rosie - The LHPO
  (Darren) It's blown itself to pieces and taken the website with it. I drew a blank with your link, alas. Helium would be safe enough and it's much cheaper than it used to be. It would be amusing to use sulphur hexafluoride, totally inert and non-toxic. It would lower the pitch by over an octave. I think I'd better shut up now.
• Raak
  Large Hot Pipe Organ (thanks to google), with MP3s (although the site doesn't seem to have the bandwidth to supply them very well).
• Phil - Cold Brass
  My curiosity is partially because I'm playing carols at the village Christmas tree tomorrow evening with the local brass band. Getting 40 or so of us in tune may be interesting if we get a cold evening.
• Darren
  What instrument do you play again, Phil?
• Rosie - Brass monkeys
  (Phil) If all the brass is out of tune by the same amount it won't matter. I suspect there will be enough left on the tuning slide to accomodate an average cold evening.
• Phil
  [Darren] I'm currently reviving my interest in playing B-flat cornet, having not really played it for nearly 3 years.
  [Rosie] That was what I thought. I might have to get a bit of practice in tonight, and give the old horn a good clean.
• Rosie
  (Phil) I hope your lip won't have gone. I wouldn't dare go three days without blowing a few raspberrires down my nine-foot tube. Brass is a treadmill; constant practice just to stand still.
• penelope
  I had that dream again last night - the one where my teeth crumble and fall out. :o(
• Phil
  [Rosie] I was jolly chuffed with my performance as 2nd Cornet. Good news was that my part had nothing above more than an octave above Middle C, so my lip survived with no problems. They've now gone and asked me to join them on Sunday morning to play at various points around the village, traditionally accompanied by hip-flasks. Mr Phil has given permissions, so it looks like I might end up signing up to join permanently in the New Year.
• Phil
  s/Mr/Mrs
• Rosie - Top C
  (Phil) Shouldn't be too bad. One is expected to get that note on the 'bone (not too often) but the worst thing about it is reading it, being all in bass clef. The rule is that if it's in the stratosphere and on a space it's a C, otherwise it's a B (usually Bb). If it's a D the composer/arranger is not a trombone player. These high notes are far better played by trumpets and cornets anyway. Power to your embouchure. :-)
• Darren
  [Rosie] I used to feel the same when I played violin, and the music dropped off the bottom of the treble stave. I've never been fond of leger lines.
• rab
  I always get annoyed when a composer writes a bottom B# for a cello. At first sight, this note appears not to be on the instrument.
• Raak
  [rab] It can't happen too often, can it?
• Rosie - The leger domain
  (Darren) Although leger lines are part and parcel of trombone playing (especially 1st and 2nd trombones) I'm very glad they don't go into Tenor Clef which to me would make it unreadable instead of merely difficult. Treble Clef is never used because most 'bonists can't read that either unless like me they're also piano players.
• penelope - They're dropping like flies
  Blimey. Betty Tucker in The Archers AND Nana Moon in East Enders both die in one evening.
• rab
  [Raak] It happens often enough for you to realise that you shouldn't get caught out by it, if that makes any sense. Depends on what key you're in, you see...
• Rosie - Sharp's the word
  (rab) There are B#s all over the place in Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 78, which I am currently murdering. There are few in the Moonlight Sonata too.
• Juxtapose - dreams
  I have that one too, Pen. =/ icky icky
• penelope
  How do you get rid of the smell of a stink bomb? Some little f*cker put one under my front door mat while I was out shopping tonight. I'd like to rub it all over his best Nikes.
• Chalky - Season of goodwill
  Hope Rosie doesn't mind me quoting this in here [picked up from Limerick Game] ..
  "(Chalky) Cheers. The busiest thing I am doing at this time of the year is firing off apologetic letters to all those who sent a Christmas card to my late Mum. Oh, the sins of omission."
  [Rosie] How soon one forgets! This is quite a poignant time for you in some respects, 'though I suspect you will end up doing exactly as you wish, according to your personal bodyclock, and having a rip-roaring time. Have you been deluged by kindly invites so you're 'not on your own at Christmas'?
• penelope - xmas preps
  I've just stirred 2kg of chocolate truffle mix into a glossy, brandy-infused bowlful of indulgence, now it has to cool off to almost-solid in the utility room (luckily it's bloody cold in there) so I can scoop it out with a melon-baller into about 400 truffles. Yum. And I'm still in my pyjamas :o).
  I think I'll have my mum and a friend coming for xmas. The friend was coming over from France to stay between christmas and new year anyway, but brought forward his trip because of a funeral, so I've insisted he should come here. [Rosie] The point I'm getting around to is, the prospect of having someone new and 'not family' at christmas is lovely. If someone offers you an invitation, accept it. They may need to invite you as much as you feel like accepting it. Sometimes, when you dilute a family, it gets better.
• penelope - And another thing
  An unseasonal December wasp has died in my salsa dancing shoe. What does it mean?
• Chalky - notes and queries
  [pen] .. the inside of your salsa shoe is a more effective as a wasp killer than the minus degree temperatures outside? What does this say about your shoe?
• Rosie - Christmas invites
  (Chalky) No invites. I think friends know me well enough not to do that though I wouldn't mind going to my various cousins in N London, an agreeable lot, but maybe they too know that I won't mind being on my own. Or perhaps they're having a tremendous row about what to do at Christmas. You never know. :-) (pen) If a Morniverser turned up on the doorstep they'd be welcomed with open arms. It would be a most original way to spend Christmas. Re - dead wasp. It means you've got hot feet. Of course this should be interpreted metaphorically and with the kindest possible intentions. :-)
• rab - Early Christmas present
  New laptop. Whee! Thanks, HMG.
• penelope - *hangs over*
  Christmas office do last night *groogh*. About 50% of the company stayed at my house last night, and another 12%, not wanting to be left out, appeared on the doorstep for breakfast this morning.
• Raak - Ooh! Shiny!
  [rab] Snap! New laptop appeared on my desk over lunch.
• penelope
  I think I make the mistake of not leaving my desk at lunchtime. If I did, maybe I would get a new laptop too.
• Raak - Aah! My eyes!
  Something Needs to be Done about high-resolution screens. This laptop has a 1900 by 1200 screen 13 inches wide, but of course all the fonts are exactly the same size in pixels as they were when 640 by 480 was the largest screen you could have. The first thing I had to do to make the laptop usable was to set all the options to get text in a readable size and a mouse pointer I can see. There needs to be a switch at some point from specifying font size in pixels to specifying it in millimetres. (Points won't do, having for better or worse been tied to pixels when a pixel was about the same as a point, and having shrunk along with them. There are probably people nowadays who think that a typographical "point" means a point of light on a screen.) The display would inform the computer of its physical size, and all GUI elements would have their sizes specified in physical distances instead of pixels.
• rab
  [Raak] That is rather silly...

  [pen] We had our works do last Tuesday night. A few of us managed to struggle in the next day... I went home after an hour. That was Very Naughty Indeed.

• penelope
  [rab] you didn't plan to work a whole day? V.N.I. indeed. There's no let-up here... besides which, I got a promotion this morning and am now account Manager :oD. Despite that, I still feel hungover, and very, very tired. There's a queue stalling at the printer right now, and it's making me cry, that's how tired and emotional I am!
• rab
  [pen] It's not that I didn't plan to skive off a whole day, it's kinda what ended up happening... Off school now though, whee!
• penelope - one more day
  I'm working all day tomorrow... bliss! I might take my laundry to dry on the office radiators as I don't have to have the heating on at home and there's no-one else in. By the way, snow is forecast for the south-east in the middle of next week :o)
• rab - Wibble
  Strangeness.
• rab
  Sorry 'bout that. Having server problems but not, it appears, with this website. Play on.
• snorgle - plays
  Not that there's much to do. I've been training for the past week, so it's taken me till now to sift through my emails! And I think we're all finishing about 1pm, for some drinks. I'd better get food as well, as I haven't had breakfast and the canteen is way too busy for me to be bothered to go up there.
• penelope - food on tap?
  [snorgle] You have a canteen? Wow. Even though I have the best job in the world, we still have to bring our own lunch in or head out in the car at lunch time to buy it. Today I have pasta and tomatoes left over from last night, mircowaved :oP
• rab - Christmas cheer
  Don't be surprised if this site falls over during the Christmas period. I think we're being hacked.
• Projoy - point sizes
  [Raak] But pixels are quite essential if you're working with a projector and have no idea what the actual size might be!
• Uncle Korky
  Merry Christmas everyone!
• Rosie
  (Uncle K) You're joking. All my friends have disappeared and my family is 250 miles away. All Christmas does is to exacerbate problems. Why don't we just kill it?
• flerdle - bah humbugness
  [Rosie] You could always come to the Middle East. Not much of a Christmas here to complain about... :-D
• Raak
  [Projoy] Ok, there would be some issues of detail to work out in moving to a world of mm-measured font sizes (projectors these days are smart enough to just show the same pixels that are on the laptop screen, however many or few there are), but it would be an improvement on the present situation of fonts getting smaller and smaller as the screens get better. With 150 pixels per inch it's painful already, what will it be like at 300? When you print things out, they don't get smaller and smaller as the printer resolution gets better. The issue has already been addressed there, and things come out, for the most part, at constant physical size.

  Happy merries all. Who needs friends and family when there's Bach on the radio 24 hours a day?

• Dujon - Starr quality
  What's Mrs Ringo doing on the radio, Raak, I'd have thought her more suitable to the visual media. Then again I've not seen her for years so maybe it's for the best.
  [rab] Thanks for dragging the site back. Did it kick and scream?
• Rosie
  (flerdle) Not a bad idea! Must go abroad next year. Anywhere. Britain around Christmas is a tiresome and silly place. (rab) May I endorse Duj's thanks. It's all smoke and mirrors as far as I'm concerned.
• Juxtapose
  Merry (not-location-related-not-family-related-not-anything-other-than-the-spirit-of-goodwill-related) Christmas. =)
• rab - Checking in from Mum and Dad's
  Wireless networks are great! Pleased to inform that everything seems fine on the server front. Will check with Andy when I next see him. Trust everyone's Christmas was good (mine was) and that the impending calendar-related novelty is as fun.
• penelope - filling The Gap
  Hang the expense, I'll put the central heating on now.
• rab - hny
  *drops lump of coal*
• penelope
  [Rab] Ouch!
• penelope - you couldn't make it up
  News story from the Grimsby Evening Telegraph last week begins... 'A Man and a chinchilla were rescued by firefighters after a chip pan caught fire.' I'd say that's better than a kitten up a tree.
• Rosie
  (pen) A fireman I know says that more than half his work is not involved with actual fires and they are trained in many other forms of rescue.
• penelope
  [Rosie] As a local news reporter, a long, long time ago, I wrote a report of a chip pan fire which was reported at at 7.30am... deep fried Weetabix, anyone? And I also wrote a story during the run-up to xmas of a brussels sprout harvester catching fire in the field. The pickers extinguished it using wet leaves before the arrival of the fire brigade. I headlined the story: "Sprouts Come in From Field Ready-Cooked!" and it made the front page of my local rag :o)
• Kim - What's a comma or two between friends?
  Version 1

  Dear Mother,

  In law, there is nothing to make me say thank you, but the quality of your gifts compels me at least to write to tell you how I feel. Thank you so much for the presents! I was expecting nothing more than a token yet, again, you have exceeded even your own incredible standards.

  It was a shame you had to stay here for such a short time. I thought I might have coped, but it was unbearable seeing you leave. The relief was immense when I heard we might see you again soon. I wanted to end it all by saying goodbye now. I hope I will not have to say it to you again for a long time. If you have the opportunity to spend Christmas elsewhere next year, please do not.

  Much love Matthew

  Version 2

  Dear Mother-in-Law,

  There is nothing to make me say thank you, but the quality of your gifts compels me at least to write to tell you how I feel. Thank you? So much for the presents I was expecting. Nothing more than a token, yet again! You have exceeded even your own incredible standards.

  It was a shame you had to stay here. For such a short time, I thought I might have coped, but it was unbearable. Seeing you leave, the relief was immense. When I heard we might see you again soon, I wanted to end it all. By saying goodbye now, I hope I will not have to say it to you again for a long time. If you have the opportunity to spend Christmas elsewhere next year, please do.

  Not much love
  Matthew

• penelope
  [Kim] Your BBC website plagiarising secret is safe with me :o)
• rab - Qualidy control
  In the light of recent comments over at Orange, previewing of moves is now mandatory in the Limericks game. (And, for this move only, on this game so I can check it works). Are there any others that might benefit from a similar treatment?
• Dujon - Testing Fred
• Dujon - That'll teach me to read rab's posts properly.
• Phil - The Fine Art of Limericks
  I would be delighted to see a return to quality limericks in which the following maxim were applied by all: "If you can't think of a line that scans, rhymes and fits the context, let someone else write that line."
  The Limerick is the only form of poetry I really enjoy, so I'm delighted that some effort is going into restoring their former greatness.
• Rosie
  (Phil) Agree absolutely. "If you cant't say it nicely, don't say it at all. Your turn will come."
• Rosie
  And if you can't spell can't you're pissed.
• Simons Mith - Speling
  I managed to misspell a two-letter word once. And I was stone cold sober at the time. It wasn't a complicated two-letter word either. It was 'do'.
• Juxtapose - rab's QC
  I am pleased by the mandatory preview. When I first came across 5 (although I still feel like a neophyte), the limericks being posted were on average outstanding. Being pedantic is no fun, but the general high standards made me try harder.
• Darren
  We probably should have mandatory preview on all games. I was thinking that after putting the unwanted hr into Regurgitated Cheddars.
• rab
  Hmm.. Not sure about mandatory preview on chat games, or things like AVMA. But cheddars is certainly one that could benefit, as could poetry games more generally. What do people think?
• Projoy
  I think the more you use a mandatory preview, the less notice people will take of it. At the moment, limericks is marked out as special, which I think is probably right.
• Rosie - Previews
  (Projoy) This is probably true, but at least there's a chance one will notice an error. I'd be in favour of a mandatory preview, and I nearly always preview anyway. It's little bother.
• CdM - Are you really really REALLY sure?
  Well, clearly we should then have mandatory preview on every game, and double preview on limericks. In fact, why stop there? The number of previews in a given game should be a parameter to be set at the beginning, based on the importance of avoiding error.
• Darren
  Should we even allow anything beyond preview at all?
• Rosie
  (Darren) Indeed. Should we shut the whole thing down on Health and Safety grounds?
• rab
  Maybe I should move over to a probabilistic model: you have a single button which, when clicked, may or may not post the move to the server....
• Darren
  [rab] Good idea. Maybe there could also be a low probability of it picking a random move with no relation to the one you actually intended to place, too.
• Projoy
  Why not replace the players with bots, who post moves from a list of past greats? Then it would be very entertaining to read, and a lot less trouble to contribute to.
• Phil - "replace players with bots"?
  And will players without posteriors be allowed to stay? *grabs coat and runs*
• Irouléguy
  Or we could extend the preview facility - pressing the preview button would e-mail the suggested move to all other players, who would then vote on whether or not to allow it.
• Darren
  Yes, and vote on whether the player should be permanently banned or not because of their move.
• Chalky
  ... until eventually, there will be just the one player left who will descend into a preview hell of their own making.
  
  Joking apart (who says we're joking? Ed.) how about a small variation called, say, Second Post - where we have to post TWO lines at a time. So you'd either cop the first two lines, the second two, the last and first, the second and third or the fourth and fifth. Might make for more cohesion. Or lunacy.
• Projoy - Two by two
  That sounds fun.
• Rosie - 2nd post
  (Chalky) Lines that rhyme should not be permitted as a combination, as I have pointed to someone out in Another Place. Makes it too easy. But other combinations might work.
• Darren
  The two posts must also not be allowed to share any letters.
• Projoy
  [Rosie] Why not include lines that rhyme? Just makes it a different sort of challenge. In any case, you'd have to sometimes as lims are 5 lines long, so play would go 1+2 / 3+4 / 5+1 / 2+3 / 4+5.
• Chalky
  [Rosie] Two lines that rhyme? An absolute necessity for some I'd say. That's why I suggested it. After all, aren't we supposed to be upping the quality?
• Chalky
  again ... it will give those fly-in-and-fly-out-and-post-any-old-bollocks merchants [yup - that includes me!] a reason to stop and think.
• Tuj
  [Chalks] Surely that's "fly-in-and-post-any-old-bollocks-and-fly-out"? ;)
  [re: Lims] If you don't want to let one player enter 2 rhyming lines so frequently, why not alternate between 1 line and 2 (ie 1 / 2+3 / 4 / 5+1 / 2 / 3+4 / 5 / 1+2 / 3 / 4+5)? Maybe we could fill the vacant game spot with experiments along these lines - try some different number of line postings, maybe even posting by a number of words at a time, or even just slipping into Limacres if the going gets tough?
• Projoy
  I have taken the liberty of opening an experimental game. The rubric doesn't say that it has to be two lines, so I guess it could sometimes be one, sometimes maybe even three or above if there seems a good enough reason. Should be interesting to compare the results of this lim game with the others, on the same sort of principle as Blockbusters (are five heads really better than three?!)
• penelope - double top
  Cracking finish to the World Darts Final.... I can't believe I just watched it all, hehehe! I wish I'd had a bet on him at 100/1...
• rab - Tannoy
  Would whoever just started the Round Robin thing please let us know how it's supposed to proceed.
• Projoy - I didn't do it...
  It wasn't me, but it looks like an example of the game formerly known as Film and Crescent Styles
• Bob the dog - Guilty as charged
  Sorry - a long time away has caused me to forget my logic - and manners. Twas I that started the round robin letter. I'll do my best to set the thing rolling but just in case it proves unpopular, please consign it to MC heaven. By the way - I like the new style Rab!
• Chalky - *waves hello to Bob the dog*
  [rab] Any chance of a compulsory Preview in the new Multiple Limericks game?
• rab - Chancer
  [Bob] Hello again.

  [Chalky] In the words of Jim Hacker (or it could have been Sir Humphery) your wish is my cooperation.

• Irouléguy
  Chalky] Shouldn't that be two obligatory Previews?
• Chalky - *thanks rab*
  Iroule] aaaarghhh!
• Bob the dog
  [rab] Hello again too!
  [Chalky] *waves back*.
  My 10 year old daughter has obtained a copy of Vic Reeves Big Night Out on DVD. This morning I was presented with a cocktail stick with a tiny bag on the end and a tab bearing the message "What's on the end of the stick, Vic?". What was on the end of the stick? The tip of a carrot! I like it.
• Darren
  I had no idea that was out on DVD. Is it the full set?
• Bob the dog
  Darren] The full set of the first two series on Channel 4 - and it is currently on special offer in HMV. If like I could (highlight) copy them for you...
  
  And that was my idea.
• Tuj - Bob the dog
  (avoiding over capitalising) Hello!
• Darren
  [Bob] (View the source to read the hidden text)
• Bob the dog
  [Darren] (View the source to read the hidden text)
• rab
  [Bob, Darren] That's how we prefer to do things round here.
• Chalky
  [rab] (View the source to read the hidden text)
• Bob the dog
  rab] HTML ignoramus alert! How do you do that?
• rab
  rtfm
• penelope
  [rab]Language!
• Bob the dog
  It is true! (View the source to read the hidden text)
  [Tuj] (View the source to read the hidden text)
• rab - Good day
  Some good news, at long last... My girlfriend, having finally completed her PhD, moved up to Edinburgh to be closer to me (ahhhh) without a job and very worried about a miserable period of unemployment soaking up what little savings one has after being a student for six years. Having traipsed around Edinburgh in order to visit every company working in her area to drop off her CV, one of them called her back and invited her in yesterday for a "bit of a chat". After an hour-long interview (hmmm, nice "chat") they offered her a permanent job on the spot. She wasn't even asked to leave the room for the panel to discuss it. Now that's what I call a result.
• Chalky - *is very happy for rab and rabfriend*
• penelope - new jobbers
  Wow... good news rab. Talking of new jobbers, we're about to interview the 4th candidate for the open position here at Cock&Bull PR. Out of the three we've interviewed so far, I'd offer it to two of them. We'll see what today's is like.
  And I got a new red car today *grins*
• Raak
  [rab] Congratulations! (Through enviously gritted teeth...)
• rab
  I'm still resolutely fixed-term, unfortunately. However since "rabfriend" has today received a counter-offer from a rival firm, I think I can look forward to a future as a kept man...
• penelope - pfffft
  [rab] tut tut! It means learning to keep house, y'know...
• Projoy - little buglet
  [rab] This may or may not be relevant, but I've noticed that a few of the games, when you load their full form, tend to slip out of their table after a certain number of moves. This is under IE, of course. e.g. The Furcation Game.
• rab
  [Projoy] Do you mean it runs over the right-hand side?
• Bob the dog - round robin
  Just to let all know - I've started posting some ideas re the Rugby Pilg on the Orange pilg page. For anyone new to all this - the Rugby Pilg is (becoming) an annual event where as many players of these bizzare games as possible congregate at a superb venue at a specially negotiated low price to play silly games live. This year May 27 - all welcome!
• Projoy
  [rab] No. The table simply stops after a certain amount of time, and all the remaining text appears underneath it as regular text. I haven't actually looked at the source for more detail than that yet.
• Projoy
  There doesn't appear to be anything in the HTML source that does it, AFAICS.
• rab
  [Projoy] It's possible there's a mismatched quote. But I suspect it's one of IE's idiosyncrasies.
• rab
  tag, not quote.
• Projoy
  It doesn't appear to affect all games in the same way, if that helps. Come to that, it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the affected games, if that helps.
• rab
  Boris is standing for Rector of Edinburgh Uni. Should I vote for him?
• ImNotJohn
  [rab] Don't do it - he won't appreciate that it was an ironic gesture.
• nights
  Oh, vote Boris, he's harmless. And in case it hadn't been realised I'm back, for the moment. How is everyone?
• Chalky
  [nights] Hello again!
  [rab] Do you think Boris will bother to turn up when needed?
• Projoy
  I'd go for John Pilger myself.
• rab - *waves from Cambridge*
  I've got a whole two-bedroomed house to myself. It's beautifully quiet. And either some rich college, or maybe the taxpayer, is paying for the heating. Woo.
• penelope - toasty boasty
  Good for you, rab. I dont have my central heating on any more, s'too 'xpensive.
  Smash Hits is closing down, boo-hoo!
• nights
  [Smash Hits] I thought it already had. Shows I'm not a 'youth' anymore.
• Mine the Gap - Rah hey
  It's been a long time since I participatoried in a good game of MC....or any game of MC for that matter. I recognise some of the names from years gone by (when I was called 'Pave'). Love, death, marriage and pregnancy (not me - the wife) have kept me from the game, but I'm older, wiser and back...apart from the wiser bit.
• Projoy - That name rings a bell...
  [Pave] How goes the equestrian centre?
• penelope - fugging admin
  I'm still at work at 6.20pm on a Friday night. I have a backlog of 80 press releases to write (I'm mid-campaign) and I've spent the whole day doing bloody admin. *gnashes teeth* Saves me spending money, I suppose, which is just as well, as someone has nicked it all out of my bank account anyway.
• Pave - (Mine the Gap was a daft name anyway!)
  [Projoy] Still a dream! The fiancée is now the wife (with mini-pave on the way. Still, when I win the Euro-millions.....
• Projoy
  Euro Millions? Does that mean NZ didn't happen either?
• Projoy - Old Zealand
  Ah, forget I asked that. Just checked the chat in Another Place.
• Pave - Dreams
  The world likes nothing better than the taste of chewed up dreams! You never fail if you never give up. The world loves a fighter. And all that tosh that makes you feel better when you aren't where you want to be yet....!
• Tuj - Hello!
  Ee, lad, 'aven't seen you since the days of t' YAMCS. Welcome back to the Morniverse :)
• Pave
  Tuj!!! I think I owe you an apology...Were we in a championship game when I vanished? Was it YAMCS that had the play window to the bottom right, and games/players to the right?
• Tuj
  There was some sort of tournament going on when YAMCS met its maker, though I can't recall if I was playing you at the time... The main thing I remember about the YAMCS layout was the big list of games down the left hand side. And it was a big list - 30 game slots!?
• Pave
  Yup, I recall once having a name on every game. Proud day. I need to get out more don't I....
• Tuj
  If you do then I do by extension ;)
• Pave - Tuj
  We'll have to go head to head in the Lockisseum...although I can see you are still a formidable player, with new tricks no doubt.
• Tuj
  Something like that ;) Mind you, my Lockisseum match with Darren hasn't exactly been all grace and flair!
• Pave
  Play softly and carry a railway sleeper?
• Pave - Jeeeepers Tuj
  That challenge game with Darren is pushing all new boundaries! I was lost by move yellow!
• nights
  You know, spending the day with 19 13-year-olds from Ontario has made me somewhat tired. Odd that.
• rab
  Not as tired as had it been 13 19-year-olds.
• nights
  At least then they would have made more sense. The whole experience left me feeling rather old.
• Projoy
  If it's any consolation, that feeling just gets worse and worse the older you get. :)
• Pave
  Youth is wasted on the young.
• Raak
  ...and wisdom is wasted on the old.
• Pave
  And wasps are waisted in the middle. (Sorry!)
  Ah well - I'm enjoying the Lockisseum. I don't think it was around when I was last into MC (before the break). Tough game though.
• nights
  [Projoy] Oh, thanks, that makes me feel better. At least they're going home today.
• Dan - Server unavailable
  Hello. My network provider seems to have lost their border router. While they have more than one route to the internet this component is common to them. No ETA on when they'll get it fixed.
• Dan
  Okay. Back as of a half hour ago. Pardon me for disturbing you.
• rab - Update
  [Dan] Thanks for the update. And here's one of my own. I got engaged last night. It was a very pleasant, if emotional, experience. I can highly recommend it.
• penelope - Wooo-hooooooooo!!!
  [rab and rab-darling] Congratulations! Excellent news. :o)
• CdM
  [rab] Congratulatoryay!
• Darren
  [rab] Well done. Who to?
• Pave
  [rab] Good show!!!
• Irouléguy
  rab] Congratulations!
• nights
  [rab] W000T! Congratulations to the both of you! I'm gonna have to get my suit drycleaned now...
• Tuj - Chiming in
  [rab] Congrats!
• rab
  Thanks for the kind words. I shall pass them on to my lovely darling as she doesn't read any of the MC sites herself.
• Dujon - Rings 'n Things
  [rab] It has been said that "I am." is the shortest possible sentence; "I do." can be the longest.
  No, joking, my friend. All the very best to both of you.
• Phil - "I got engaged" ?
  You have much to learn - it's "We got engaged" now that you're engaged :-) Seriously, congrats !
• Dan
  [rab] Well done that man. Happy, contented and in Edinburgh. Life has little better to offer than that combination.
• Raak
  [rab] Congratulations!
• Chalky
  [rab] Nice one ! xx
• Bob the dog
  Yeah! Fab, rab!
• Néa - rab has a girlfriend!
  Congratulations!!
• rab
  [Néa] Now, now. Don't confuse me, I've spent the whole weekend trying to work out the correct number of 'e's and accent placement in the word fiancée...
• Darren
  [rab] The word is "finance".
• penelope
  [Darren] financé surely?
• ImNotJohn - Congrats
  [Rab] Slightly slow off the mark, but all the very best to you and the future Mrs Rab.
• Darren
  [penelope] Now you mention it, since rab's finance is female, it should be financée.
• CdM
  If he's lucky, perhaps she is a financiée
• Projoy
  [rab] Congrots.
• nights
  As a French speaker, might I step in? As the word comes from French, I'm assuming that it follows French rules. Therefore Rab has a fiancée, whereas Rab himself is the fiancé, as French takes an extra 'e' to signify femininity. Of course, you might already know this, in which case my apologies. I'll keep my teaching to my job.
• penelope
  *gives nights a little three-legged wooden stool so the jokes no longer waft over his head*
• Pave
  [penelope] snnrk!!!:-)
• Raak - Assume a spherical robin
  The robin is limping a bit.
• Blob-Blob-Blobin - Rabiancé(e)
  [rab] Congrats indeed. I actually think that getting engaged caused me a more dramatic change of lifestyle then either getting married or having children. Now whether that was a change for the better ....
• Chalky
  [Rosie] Seems my outgoing won't connect with your incoming. It's taken a few days for me to find out .. I'll try sending from another address :-)
• Rosie
  (Chalky) OK. Should I have another address for you?
• Rosie - Clunking Limericks
  (Projoy) You're right. I misread Marc's 4th line due to mild inebriation. Can't post the fifth line because I did the first, hence this.
• Inkspot
  [Raak] After two weeks of non movement the robin continues to limp, my killer blow was not enough.
• Chalky
  [Rosie] I have resent from a similar-looking email address [replace hotmaildotcom with gmaildotcom] :-)
• Rosie - emails
  (Chalky) Got it. :-) Have stored new address.
• Juxtapose
  [rab] Congratulations. =)
• rab - Squeak
  Now, what with all the nerves leading up to the big moment it completely slipped my mind that that it would entail planning a wedding. I bought a book at the weekend to help me out, but the first thing I noticed is that most of the wedding literature is aimed pretty much exclusively at the bride. And it also seems there's a whole industry devoted to fleecing couples (or their parents) at the start of their life together. Particularly depressing so far have been some of the menus I've seen on the web, typically wanting to charge you 25quid a head for the most lacklustre three-course meal you've ever seen. To put this into perspective, our engagement meal was at a cosy local restaurant with a reasonably high standard of cuisine and imaginative menu, and with a nice bottle of wine and after-dinner port came to not much more than the above figure. Nice to see the economies of scale being passed on, there. I'm sure with enough perserverence we'll be able to find either a venue with a decent caterer, or one that will let us provide our own, but I can already see that's going to be a lot of work.
• rab - Limpin robin
  It seems the win detection's a bit screwed. I thought I'd fixed it after Tuj had some trouble with it, but it seems still not to be working. I'll look into it tonight.
• Projoy - wedding
  [rab] Given that this meal is traditionally called the "Wedding Breakfast", you could take it literally and get in a job lot of Coco Pops. Sophistication and economy all in one go.
• Pave - oooh...wedding breaqkfast joke!!!
  Sorry in advance...Three friends were all getting married on the same day, and they all decided to use the same hotel and church (staggered, of course). They were all 'innocent' in the way of love, and knew that on their wedding night they would all finally 'do-ooo-ooo it' (As Rik Mayal would say), but as the newly weds would all be having breakfast in the hotel with the families the next day, they knew it was going to be difficult to talk to each other about the experience.
  
  "I know" Says one of them "We'll secretly tell each other over breakfast - by means of a code. Ordering a slice of toast means we did it!!!" They all agree.
  
  Next morning at the table, the first guy orders his breakfast from the waitress...
  
  "I'll have a glass of orange, some cereal and three slices of toast please" he says, winking to his friends.
  
  "I'll have 5 slices of toast" says his smug friend. The last chap orders his...
  
  I'll have a glass of orange, some grapefruite, and 7 slices of toast please..." he says....and then as the waitress walks away, he winks to his friends and calls out to the waitress again...
  
  "Please can you make 3 of those Brown bread..."
• Rosie - Up the bum
  (Pave) Shurely jokes like that are not still current? It has a nostalgic resonance for anyone over 60 (which I am) because I knew friends who were virgin bridegrooms, (at least I'd have put money on it). Seems incredible these days.
• Pave - well....
  [Rosie] I currently live in Portsmouth (not really by choice), and am in the process of moving. To give you an idea of what the place is like: Virgin = less than teen, Grandma = teen and over. My wife and I joke that we are getting kicked out of town because we waited until we were married before we started a family - and before that we weren't related (and she's way over 15...)...and to top it off...neither of us have ever claimed benefits for our 15 kids...which we don't have either...
  In short...I guess not :-). Due date May 2nd for number one...dead excited ;-)
• Pave - well....
  [Rosie] I currently live in Portsmouth (not really by choice), and am in the process of moving. To give you an idea of what the place is like: Virgin = less than teen, Grandma = teen and over. My wife and I joke that we are getting kicked out of town because we waited until we were married before we started a family - and before that we weren't related (and she's way over 15...)...and to top it off...neither of us have ever claimed benefits for our 15 kids...which we don't have either...
  In short...I guess not :-). Due date May 2nd for number one...dead excited ;-)
• Pave - oops
  Works PC glitch...sorry.
• Tuj - Pompey
  [Pave] How far are you going? Just interested as (when not at university) I'm a Hampshire-dweller. Hope the moving process is improving for you, all the best.
• Phil - 15 kids etc....
  Dublin woman goes into the social to claim child benfit for her 15 kids. When asked their names she replies "Micko". When pressed for more name she replies "Theyre all called Micko". Social officer then asks "So when you want them to go to bed, what do you say?" "Micko, get to yuz feckin' beds". Officer continues "And to call them all for dinner?" The reply comes "Micko, get yuz in here fer yuz dinner."
  The officer thinks a moment, "But, if you just want one of them, what do you do?" Without hesitating, she replies "Janey Mack! That's easy - I just uses the surname"
• Rosie - Pompey again
  (Pave) Yurss, I've heard that about Portsmouth over a long period and wondered if it were true. Maybe it is.
• Pave - Tuj - Farnborough area still Hants...You?
  What you have heard of Portsmouth, it is true. I can't hold my head up as I walk the streets for fear of what I may tread in. One day...on a side street directly off of the main drag, I had the misfortune to see a woman squating behind a car to relieve herself (lots of open shops and pubs....lots of pubs...many, many pubs ...and all crap, but still she chose a car). I felt safer walking around a rough area of Glasgow (Pollockshaw) at night on my own, than I do during the day in Portsmouth. It is only in existence to give the saying "arse hole end of the world" an actual grid reference...
• nights
  [Tuj] À propos of current-ish thread in OrangeMC, how old are you?
• Tuj - Nights
  Posted it up over there ;)
• rab - Mr Fixit
  Right. I think I've finally fixed the win-detection bug.
• penelope
  *sigh* I'm bored. And hungry. And still have 2 hours to go before I get home and cook a piece of ham, which promises to be ultra-delicious as it's proper Lincolnshire ham. *sigh*
• Pave
  *Suddenly Hungry*
• I Say, Porter! - Hunger
  Me three. Eating Dutch tonight, off to the Heineken Holland House which is the Winter Olympic base of one of the country teams, I forget which, but it'll all be orange. Tomorrow night off to the Sponsor Village, got a curling lesson booked.
• penelope
  Well, that was delicious.
• Pave
  Do tell!!! (Only had Pizza ;-( )
• penelope - *BURP*
• Rosie - Repeating
  (pen) You burped a full two hours after your ham. What will happen in another twenty-four God only knows. Keep us posted. :-)
• I Say, Porter! - Dutch Kwisine
  Well what a gourmet delight that was (not!). I do like the way the Dutch get all exuberant when sporting occasions are involved. A big tent with an ice rink in the middle, bars and and hot dog stands round the outside, and the Winter Olympics AND Ajax-Inter on TV screens everywhere and a live band. Well, the Dutch have medals to celebrate. I wonder where the GB house is...
• nights
  [IS,P] Look under the doormat. It's great fun being in Canada at the moment, my friends have decided I'm an honourary Canadian for the duration, "as Britian seem to be, well, shit" at the Winter Olympics business.
  
  [Pen] Don't patronise me, I can do that all by myself...
• Projoy
  [nights] Of course you can. You're a clever boy, aren't you? ;-)
• penelope
  [nights] I am sooo tempted to say: "Yes, dear."
• I Say, Porter!
  [nights] I suppose you'll want congratulating for that narrow victory over the Finns in the curling final, then?
• I Say, Porter! - curling
  Tried it last night in the Sponsor Village. Rather fun, actually.
• penelope - curling?
  One slipper, one trainer, a yardbrush and a doorstop? What's that all about then?
• Rosie
  (nights) Canada? Where's that, then?
• I Say, Porter! - curling
  [pen] Have a butchers at the hyperlink game over in Outer Space.
• Pave - oi oi nights!!!
  Hello nights - are you aware of the appeal lodged in your Lock match? Might still be able to fend them off if you're quick...
• penelope - ice rocks
  [IS,P!] Which one is you? ;o)
• penelope - cakegeek
  I have just baked the most blinding carrot-and-banana cake for my own pleasure. It was supposed to be banana and walnut, but I didn't have any walnuts and I was short of a banana so I substituted a carrot. I thought about taking it into work tomorrow, but I'm going to keep it for myself. I love Sunday morning baking.
• nights
  [curling] Of course, certainly, go Newfoundland- uhm, Canada go.
  
  [lock] Agh, forgotten all about that. I'll be straight over. Thanks for the notice.
• Pave
  [nights] Darn it.
• penelope - now hear this... cross post, apols
  Dear I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Mailing List Member,
  We should be in a position to email you details of the next three I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue recordings within the next few weeks. We are planning recordings in the North of England, the Midlands and the West Country.
  However, there is still good news for those in the South East and the Greater London area, as we bring advance notice of two recordings of the hit Radio 4 series 'Hamish & Dougal : You'll Have Had Your Tea' which are to take place in London this March.
  Hamish and Dougal (aka Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden) are the two Scottish gentlemen made internationally quite well known from their appearances in the 'Sound Charades' round on ISIHAC. They are accompanied in the series by Mrs Naughtie, a cleaning lady cum housekeeper played by Alison Steadman, a local laird played by Jeremy Hardy, and a 4 piece ceilidh band. The musical director is Graeme's son John, otherwise known as the keyboard player in the internationally renowned pop combo 'Scissor Sisters'. This is Hamish & Dougal's third Radio 4 series.
  As usual you are advised to book soon for these recordings as they are extremely popular.
  The first recording will take place at 7.30pm (doors open 7pm) on Monday 6th March at The Mermaid Conference & Events Centre (formerly The Mermaid Theatre), Puddle Dock, Blackfriars, London EC4V 3DB.
  Tickets cost £6.50 each and are being sold by the Cochrane Theatre box office on 020 7269 1606 (which is open from 10am - 6pm, Monday to Friday). There is no booking fee. Where possible tickets will be sent to the purchaser, but they can be collected on the night if preferred.
  The second recording will take place at 7.30pm (doors open 7pm) on Sunday 26th March at The Duchess Theatre, Catherine Street (off The Aldwych), London WC2B 5LA. Tickets cost £6.50 each and are obtainable by calling the box office on 0870 890 1103. (The theatre box office is run by a ticketing agency, and there will be will a handling charge of 60p on these ticket sales. The advantage is that they are open 24 hours a day).
• Bob the dog
  Thanks Pen. Can you keep us posted re the midlands recordings please?
• penelope
  [Btd] Sure, I just post up the emails when I get them in :o)
• penelope - feeding the troops
  Banana & Carrot bread gone down well in the office. Troops all onside. Banana Dictatorship underway.
• snorgle - cake
  Banana bread and carrot cake are two of the best things ever. Together, they will indeed conquer the planet.
• penelope - bucket shop - today's left overs
  Dear I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Mailing List Member
  This is to advise you that there are still some tickets left for our recording of Hamish & Dougal starring Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden on the evening of Monday 6th March at the Mermaid Theatre in London. They will be advertised to the general public from Friday so you'll need to book tomorrow if you don't wish to miss out.
  This was in my inbox this morning - if you want tickets, hurry!
• penelope - Full House!
  Completed on the bungalow this morning. Going to spill champagne over the doorstep tonight :o)
• Botherer - Bungalow
  Congrats, pen!
• Inkspot
  So that's why there will be no more Dick and Dom on a Saturday morning.
• penelope
  [Botherer] cheers :o)
  [Inkspot] Can't afford to have all that creamy muckmuck cleaned off the carpets every weekend!! sorry...
• Phil
  <whisper>bogeys</whisper>
• Darren
  Bogeys? I thought pen was talking about something much worse.
• penelope
  [Darren] You've obviously never watched... recommended. BBC1 Saturday mornings, while stocks last.
• rab - Paws
  Hello. Is anyone else finding these page taking a couple of seconds longer than normal to display?
• Darren
  [penelope] Worse than watched - I know one of the script editors. Yes, I know what you're thinking: they have scripts?!
• Pave - wheeew Matron!
  Fearne Cotton...Creamy muck muck....and this is kids TV...
• Chalky
  [rab] Mine's quite zippy today actually.
  
  [as for the rest of you ...] I haven't the foggiest what you're all on about.
• rab
  [Chalky] Mine too. Maybe my previous visits happened to synchronise with one of Andy's ultra-paranoid (i.e., frequent) site backups.
• Raak - Dick and Dom?
  The name suggests an animated cartoon whose principal characters are a *cough* certain organ and a PVC-clad woman with a whip.
• Projoy
  Wouldn't that be Dick and Domme? I think it suggests a slightly different relationship as is. :)
• penelope
  We're now well adrift of the weekend's discussion of Dick & Dom, so I shall start another topic. I'm having home-made spicy chickpea and cauliflower soup for lunch today. What's everyone else having?
• Phil - Lunch
  [pen] Probably nothing, but I might have something later.
• Raak
  An everything bagel, 2 kabanos, a large spring onion, half a head of chicory, a Russet apple, two fruit Shrewsbury biscuits, a bottle of water, and a couple of Sudoku.
• Raak
  ...and a stick of celery.
• Projoy
  Had mine at 11.30: All day breakfast sandwich, raspberries and a Cadbury's Twirl. Doing the healthy option today.
• Chalky - yum
  Cottage pie and carrots - but I shan't be eating a main meal tonight because I hope to 'Walk The Line'.
• Darren
  I had a slice of flan, a cheese sandwich and a packet of Monster Munch.
• rab
  ...and the hunt continues for a ceremonial and celebratory venue that both happen to be free on the same day next spring. I'm amazed anyone ever manages to get married...
• Chalky - stress-free nuptuals
  [rab] hey! Why not hire yourselves a ... Wedding Planner! [for the equivalent of two years'orth of joint salaries].
• Chalky
  ... should that be 'joint salary'?
• Chalky
  ach whatever - I was only being facetious :-)
  
  Seriously though, the wanting to do it and the asking if you can do it and the agreeing that you're going to do it and the telling evryone that you're going to do it - that's the easy part.
• penelope
  [rab] why not run off and do it? Or slip off and do it... or just do it now? My mum and dad did it, and returned to my home town to tell their parents after the fact. Both sets were fine about it. One of my sisters did it too, got married in the US as none of us could be there. I was never one for running though. Just have a big party when you come back, with none of the weighty responsibility that comes from having the ceremony and the party on the same day. I think I'm a proponent of avoiding unecessary hassles wherever they're avoidable, not buying or paying for stuff that you don't actually NEED to have a good time, and wary of pandering to everyone else's expectations with regard to weddings, whilst forgetting my own and those of my significant other (if ever there is one). I'd quite like to have a new frock to do it in though.
• I Say, Porter! - Lunch
  Well I had risotto ai frutti di mare, and not very appetising either. I should point out that it was canteen risotto, but the other 'dishes' looked worse. [Raak] Those Sudoku sound tasty!
• Simons Mith
  [Raak] I thought you'd written a program to do them for you, so that you didn'nt need to succumb to the temptation of actually doing the blasted things.
• Raak
  [SM] I did, but it didn't help. :-(
• Darren
  [Raak] Is that why you've started eating them instead?
• Simons Mith - Oooh!
  Ooh no, you shouldn't eat a sudoku! If they're not properly prepared they could be contaminated with deadly toxins! Call me a coward, but I'd never risk trying a puzzle that could poison me if the person setting it made the tiniest mistake.
• Irouléguy - Sudoku
  It's not really poisonous as such - more of a number.
• penelope
  *dons 2006-style F1 goggles*
• Inkspot - Champs and Chumps
  Bahrain tomorrow with a scarlet front row, with Alonso on the second row. It will be a good test and an exciting afternoon.

  Which is more than can be said of the apalling display put on by the Steve Johnson renegades at the Millenium Stadium. Basic handling errors, Wales were lucky to come away with a draw (make that very, very lucky).

• Inkspot
  Yay! for Renault and Alonso. It was a good race which helped pass the time while doing the ironing.
• penelope
  I missed the GP - was out - and I still have all the ironing to do :o(
• ImNotJohn - Watching things while ironing
  [Inks] And can someone please get rid of Brian Moore from the BBC rugby commentating team. He adds nothing to the understanding of what's going on (other than occasionally in scrums) and is so blinkered in his pro-Englishness it's ridiculous. He is the rugby equivalent of Fred Trueman as a commentator. Also, to continue the cricketing thought, the current English rugby team makes me think of the cricketing expression 'flat-track bully' - they only look good against sides they can dominate physically.
• Inkspot
  [INJ]For a 6N before next years World Cup things are looking dire for the northern hemisphere, the teams of South Africa, Austrailia and New Zealand maintain a high level year on year the rest have occasional years of brilliance. Wales have shot their winning coach to appeal to "player power", they now enjoy the training sessions!!!! England have less of a hill to climb than Wales for the next game.
• carew - forward thinking
  (INJ) Forward dominance is how England won the world cup, it is how Australia, and to a larger extent the All Blacks play their game. The major difference is, they also have devastating backs and centres. Rugby is played off a forward-dominated platform so to look good against teams you can dominate physically is a pre-requisite of winning rugby. England, at the moment, still have the forward power, but problems abound in the half-backs and particularly at centre. My humble opinion also is that Corry is not the right man as captain. The handling errors on Saturday were abysmal and New Zealand, in particular, will rip them apart. I would also wager that Ireland will beat England next week
• penelope - sold! (not)
  Just had a silly offer on my flat from a guy who has not yet sold his place. Refused it. He's the wrong end of a chain. Awaiting a better offer.
• penelope - going...
  And another offer, only marginally less silly, 20 minutes later. I've given them the lowest acceptable price, and with the condition of exchange of contracts within 4 weeks. Fingers crossed.
• Chalky - *crossing her fingers*
• penelope - Gone!
  Woo-hoo!! Have got the price I (eventually) wanted and the quick exchange :o) Deep joy. Now I can buy myself a pair of salsa shoes.
• Phil
  congrats!
• penelope
  [Phil] Thanks :o)
• Pave - Hear ye!!!
  The Lockisseum Seems a little quiet. We need a few more faces in there I feel. One on one (and the soon to be tried Doubles) is a very different style of play. Sorry if I am acting all unofficial spokesperson like, but I had to 'Big Up' the Lock as a great MC site.
• penelope
  Spring has sprung today here in sunny Rickmansworth. 10 degrees C. That means the grass will start growing - I need to get TWO lawnmowers fixed...
• Raak
  [pen] Ah, Spring. Like Summer, but without the essential quality of warmth. You get what look from indoors like beautiful bright sunny days, then step outside and the slightest puff of wind tells you the air is still coming in from northern Siberia and you have months yet of bundling up like the Michelin man.
• penelope
  [Raak] Don't be so grumpy! Whilst I'll give you that 'Ne'er cast a clout till May be out' (and that's May blossom not the onset of June) holds true, there's nothing to stop you enjoying the feeling of spring. You have to admit it gives your demeanour a filip, doesn't it? And I've noticed my thermals dry much quicker on the washing line in spring :o)
• Darren
  [Raak] Also, it's the traditional time to start reproducing.
• Raak
  [Darren] Well, you get home chilled to the bone and the only thing to do is burrow under a pile of duvets, preferably with a second body to warm each other.
• Projoy
  More than "preferably", presumably? Unless there's something I've yet to learn about the progenitive effects of burrowing under duvets.
• Rosie - Vernality
  The good thing about Spring is the light. Shedloads of half-micron wavelength photons. The air is slow to respond, but will eventually. (pen) Interesting, not to say revealing, observation. The air has been very dry in the last week or so but not every spring does that happen.
• penelope - Bad Hair Days
  [Rosie] Don't I just know it's been particularly dry - I've had hair problems for most of February and all through March. It goes dead straight when the air's dry - I need a little drizzle.
• fortihacker - fortihacker
  email:ca920105@gmail.com I just like spam! I'm collocting junk email...
• Pave - Oooh!!!!!
  fortihacker, send me pizza menus, double glazing letters, load applications, free newspapers....I love collecting that rubbish as well. Now make like a Nubbock so we can carry on.
  
  These hackers are running out of ideas for getting our email addresses I reckon....
• Pave - load?
  Loan...sorry, I have a cold.
• penelope - topless
  I see Wembley Stadium has a new 'cabriolet' top-down look this morning.
• Chalky - hospital visiting
  I've visited Salisbury District Hospital 3 times in 20 hours. The first time to install mother for her knee replacement op that was scheduled for this morning, then again to take some books in because the op had been 'postponed' for a day, and then AGAIN to uninstall her because the surgeon is now too ill to do the op. Now she's on 'standby'. Ironic phrasing, given the state of her knee.
• penelope - What a pain
  How frustrating, Chalks, for you and your mother, to endure the anticipation (which probably isn't too pleasant) all over again.
• penelope - *inserts daily piece of banter*
• Inkspot - Orange tea
  Is anyone else having problem accessing Orange, I've been having error messages since just before midnight.
  *Goes off to kitchen to put the kettle on for helpful cup of tea for Dunx*
• Pave - Orange fleeeeee
  I'm lost!!! Dunx is down...no Lock,no Orange!!! I'm going warm turkey (can't go cold...still have MCiOS and Mc5)....
• penelope - oh bliey
  I've just received notification that the flat I'm in the prcess of selling is now 'listed'... hehehe. Rather them than me, I'm pleased to be out of all the hassle that it entails. I'm not opposed to listing as such - architectural heritage is important - but I need something a bit more uncomplicated right now.
• penelope - that would be 'oh blimey'
• Dunx - Orange
  [Inkspot] Thank you for confirming the timing of the downage.

  Orange is back now, though.

• Rosie
  Very QUIET in here. You can almost hear Radio 3.
• Rosie
  The clock in here is about 5 minutes fast. The sundial needs realigning.
• rab - Let's see
  Should be fixed now.
• Pave - hush up
  Radio 3's getting good...
• penelope - heavy breathing
  The cold is getting better - I'm taking drugs for it.
• rab
  I thought women were never the slightest bit affected by colds :)
• penelope - correction
  [rab] I have Man Flu. Lord knows how I caught that, haven't sniffed a man in months.
• Knobbly - The essay I'm trying to write
  AAAARRGGGHHHHHH!!!!
• Raak
  The essay I'm trying to write
  I've just realised is pure shite...
• Rosie
  Its utter frivolity
  Its sheer lack of quality . . .
• Darren
  I think I'll just set it alight.
• penelope - *sighs*
• Pave - oh oh owww!!
  As an MC player, I hang my head in shame to say up until recently I had hardly ever heard ISIHAC. To make up for it (because the couple of shows that I had caught were jolly good) I bought myself the anniversary edition. I'm shocked to find that it is one year older then me, but we share the same birthday....and that Dame Judi Dench wasn't the only one that had to pull the car over for fear of laughing into a collision!!! I feel like a man who has been blind for the last 33 years, only to find that I was just wearing a hat one size too big!!!
• Rosie
  (Pave) A noble admission. Now, who else is going to "come out"?
• Pave - my sides hurt!!!!
  the reason ISIHAC is a half our show, is because anything over that hurts ones sides....I love the anniversary edition quote by Humph...."Nixon became the first US President to visit China in an attempt to repair a Presidential rift. Chairman Mao was thrilled at this, as he was getting fed up using the escerator..."
• Raak
  [pen] I must have a touch of Bird Flu then.
• penelope
  [Raak] I shudder to think how you got that ;o)
• Pave - http://ravenblack1973.blogspot.com
  My cat has just given me a great birthday present....the little bugger. Rather than write it all again, I have posted it on my baby blog. Enjoy.....I hope every one else had a great weekend too!!!
• Pave
  No cake.....no candles......no secret boxes......*sob*
• Pave
  Whilst I'm on missed birthdays: Happy 34th to ISIHAC.
• Chalky
  [Pave] Oh! Was it your birthday then? :-)
• Pave
  [Chalky] yeah...but to be honest, I only mentioned it because the chat was very slow. Birthdays aren't a good thing for me.
• rab - I'M ON THE TRAIN
  Cor. Finally got this wireless internet marlarky to work on the GNER line.
• Pave - Grand National
  The bet is down. In memory. Here we go.
• penelope
  woo-hoo! We have faster broadband in the office. Faster than what, I don't know.
• I Say, Porter!
  The usual expression is 'faster than a speeding bullet'
• penelope
  [IS,P!] We're not allowed to bring guns into the office, so I can't say.
• Phil
  My news - cross-posted
• Inkspot - From under the stairs
  [rab]With the last true move in The Furcation Game being back in July 2004 is it worth gently putting it to rest and moving on?
  Looking out the window this morning through the drizzle the garden is starting to pick up and look colourful again after the bleak winter. A fine show of daffodils and the Forsythia and spring Jasmin are a real delight. Last weekend over the Bank Holiday even managed to cut the grass.
  But the highlight after coming back from Broad Haven was the start of the new series of Dr Who, with New Earth setting the scene and arc for the series. It was so good I forgot to drink my cup of tea brought in by Mrs Inks.
• Rosie
  (Inkspot) Smug bastard. :-) I've got three daffs out of a potential two dozen or so, though the Forsythia has come out. It's the cool dry weather (official) that's made everything late. Life's Grim Up North Surrey.
• rab - DOWNTIME WARNING
  There may be some downtime from about 7pm tonight while we reinstall the OS. Hopefully we'll be back in fine fettle by midnight. Apols for inconv etc.
• rab - Nearly working
  It\'s nearly working again. Woo.
• rab - Yay!
  [Inkspot] Yes, maybe it is due for retirement. Oh, and could someone please finish the Dutch game.
• Roosij
  De gaam is eended.
• Rosie - Weather
  It's reached 15°C for the first time this year at Maison Rosie, the second latest date for this since I started records in 1983. The average date is 22 March but is very variable, standard deviation 24 days. Earliest was 27 Jan 2003 and the latest 25 Apr 1986. Are we going to have a hot summer? HTFSIK.
• Rosie - Backslashes
  Don't know where they came from; I didn't put them there, or here.
• penelope
  [Rosei] WTF is HTFSIK?
• penelope - *gets it*
  Better late than never
• Rosie - Unparliamentary Acronyms
  (pen) I knew you would. :-) The backslashes seem to accompany apostrophes and increase by one each time you preview. Test: (lots of backslashes removed, rab) 6 previews.
• Rosie
  Well, thats (sic) that theory down the pan.
• Rosie - Going Dutch
  The game has nine lives, it seems.
• rab
  Right - I'll investigate the slashing.
• rab
  It's now "fixed" I believe. Let me know if you notice anything else that's a bit odd.
• rab
  Do you want me to put the Dutch game out of its misery, or shall I just let you guess how many 'o's after the 'M' in Mornington are required. (It's not very many).
• Rosie - ooooooooooooooo
  (rab) How many, FFS? I've tried up to twelve. Thanks for fixing the apostrophe problem, BTW.
• Darren
  [Rosie] It was three. You had a typo with "Crescent."
• Rosie - typooography
  (Darren) I have a very red face. It's the monicker effect.
• rab
  Three.
• Inkspot - butterfiles in the Amazon
  A story game has been created from the ashes of Dutch.
  [Rosie] Today was a perfect day for the garden it was warm enough here in North Wilts to have lunch outside (south facing garden). If the sun shines tomorrow the curtains will be drawn to cut the glare on the tv while the Grand Prix is on.
• Rosie
  (Inkspot) Not (gasp) Swindon? Nice here too, max 17.4°C.
• Inkspot - raise the drawbidge
  Near to Swindon, just south of J16 of the M4. Little old ladies would lie in front of bulldozers than see Wootton Bassett become part of Swindon, and the town of Swindon is never mentioned in polite company.
• Phil - HTFSIK?
  I haven't got it yet :(
• Rosie - Swindon, Profanity
  (Inkspot) Swindon must have something going for it even though they don't build steam locos there anymore because my niece's finacé commutes there every day from Chepstow while she herself works in Cardiff. Mad! (Phil) You disappoint me, man. Why? How the fuck should I know?
• Rosie
  Not that one should really moan about it, but the clock in here is over an hour fast. At least, I hope it is.
• rab - Timezone
  The server thought we were in Berlin. I've now told it we're in London. (Although, as it happens, I'm in Croatia so I hadn't noticed the clock-skew).
• rab
  Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to have fixed the problem. I'll look at this more closely when I return.
• Phil
  [Rosie] Ah, of course. I had the first two words as "Hope the" and couldn't get my head past that.
• Projoy - Ruggerpilg
  [Rosie] Having lost your email address, you might want to look into the Pilgrim game... Likewise Simons, Botherer.
• Rosie - Pilgrimage
  (Projoy) Just Been There, Done That. My email address is at http://www.geocities.com/pantsmcprofiles/profiles.html
• Néa - Regarding Chaos on the Line
  [CdM] You just had to insert economics, didn't you. *falling around giggling*
• rab - Tert
• rab - Tick tock
  The clock seems to have corrected itself now - I think. I'm confused by being in a different timezone.
• Chalky - update
  For those who have an interest...
  News on RugbyPilgIII
• ImNotJohn
  [Néa, CdM] Seeing that post reminded me of a thought I had in Hong Kong, which is that it appears to be rapidly approaching a phenomenon closely related to the 'Shoe Event Horizon'.
  Currently perfectly good 20 storey buildings are being torn down to make space for 40 storey ones. This demolition increases the pressure on commercial space, thus increasing the value of the space in those buildings. Before long, before a building is complete the most advantageous thing to do economically will be to pull it down again and start buiding an even taller one. This process then becomes a self-reinforcing spiral.
• Inkspot - Orange pipped
  Hope it is back up and running soon.

  When the Beeb announced the other day that it was going to dipense with Grandstand on Saturdays, part of me jumped with joy at the ent of this leviathan. The coverage of sport on the BBC has gone downhill, it only covers what it feels comfortable with. Take snooker wall to wall at the moment completley at odds with the low viewing figures it achieves. How long does it give to Match of the Day to cover all the days football, they may only have the rights to the Premiership but why not cover the Chamionship as well. And as for the rugby... just don't get me started. Just to say it could be greatly improved, it is final whistle quick chat then stop for the footie results. Motor racing is on the website but nothing on the screen, there is a whole raft of racing outside F1. The propsal is to have specific programmes, on BBC1 to make way for other output mmmmmmmmm? More day time tv as if Mon-Fri was not enough!!

• Darren
  Personally, I like the snooker.
• Rosie
  (Inkspot) These days if you want sport you pay for it, and a good deal more than the licence fee.
• Tuj
  [Darren] Me too, which is rather a bad thing when one should be cramming all the maths one can into one's head, not wasting time watching things of that ilk...
• Rosie
  (Tuj) While watching the snooker, work out in your head the angle of departure of the object ball as a function of the direction of the cue ball and the distance between them in ball radii. Differentiate it with respect to the cue-ball direction. Appreciate the skill of snooker players.
• Tuj
  [Rosie] My forays as a very amateurish snooker player suggest to me there's more to be gained from experience and practice than maths skills! I'm told darts is good for one's counting skills also, though I've never found that much of a spectator sport...
• flerdle - angles
  Croquet ruined my snooker. Not that either of them are/were much good, but there was a definite detrimental effect.
• penelope
  'Croquet Ruined My Snooker'. Now there's a title for some memoirs!
• Tuj - *snigger*
• penelope - Apologies
  Sorry for thr outburst in Limericks. Am I the only one who is offended by Marc's 'style' of play?
• Rosie - Stylistic boobs
  (pen) No you are not. I tried a little irony but it zoomed over his head. Others have dropped hints recently but obviously to no effect.
• Rosie - Embonpoint and all that
  (pen) I've had another go.
• Chalky
  [pen & Rosie] Am totally with you on this one. I don't know if Marc even bothers to read this game [he certainly never contributes to it - or any other game that I've noted] but if you do [Marc] can we just request, because you seem to contribute so regularly, that you expand your mind a little to matters other than tits and sexist innuendo? Call me old-fashioned, but my humorous streak is more likely to be satisfied when a wider subject matter is brought to bear. Selfish? Maybe. But I have a hunch that others may agree. Thanks :-)
• Phil
  [Chalky] You can count on my support on that matter.
• CdM
  I've already indicated support. Although I disagree that he come across as a dirty old man; I think he comes across as an eleven-year old.
• Darren
  Marc certainly comes across as deeply immature. Personally, if I were rab, I'd consider blocking him because he just seems to annoy people, and appears to revel in doing so.
• rab
  Well, frankly, I can't be arsed -- which is not to say I don't think the complaint is valid, just that blocking ain't really my style.
• Chalky
  ... now why doesn't that surprise me?
• rab
  [Chalky] Is that some kind of complaint?
• ImNotJohn
  I assumed it was a comment on your somewhat cavalier approach to the Great Game.
• CdM
  Chalky can speak for herself, but my best guess is that it was a compliment. :-)
  
  FWIW, I think that blocking should only be carried out in extreme circumstances, which are currently not met. Dan and Dunx can also speak for themselves, but I think their general view, suceessfully implemented on their servers, is that we should sort these things out among ourselves if at all possible.
• CdM
  However, I do suggest that we try to get rab banned on account of his somewhat cavalier approach to the Great Game.
• Darren
  If that last post doesn't get CdM banned, I don't know what will!
• penelope - *is horribly inspired to start a banning game and becomes convinced that StDogmael is making voodoo spells at her expense*
• rab
  [Blocking] The penny drops...

  Sorry if you've found the server a bit up-and-downy the last couple of days. It should stay up longer now.

• Chalky - *reminds herself not to make ambiguous comments when she isn't going to be around for 12 hours*
  [rabsweetums] What CdM said. Barring someone from the site should IMO only occur when threatening/stalking/pronographic activities take place on a regular basis. Marc is just a silly twit sometimes, harmless really; and anyway, WHO would pen and I and others have the opportunity to have a pop at now and then if he wasn't in the firing line ...? :-)
• Phil
  I was going to say (View the source to read the hidden text) , but I remembered, they know where I live. I vote against banning, and for bearing in mind other people's sensibilities.
• Tuj - My worthless 2 pence worth
  Blocking's nasty - I'd go with Chalky's assessment. Also, CdM may be right above in his 11-year-old not dirty-old-man surmising - I certainly posted some horrible tosh when I debuted as a 14-y-o (albeit I empathise on bad scansion not lustful obsessions).
• Rosie
  (Tuj) Use words like debuted and you really will be banned. No, you won't. :-) It reminds me of the sports commentator's medalled, i.e. won a medal. The Now ShowwwWWW had some fun with this last Friday. That's sport - it hollows out the head. It would be a ludicrous over-reaction to ban Marc. He will get the hang of this place eventually.
• Darren
  Well, at any rate, at least you can see why I still nurse this ambition to set up my own MC server.
• Chalky - *thwacks Phil around the head with her trusty rolling-pin*
• penelope
  *heats biscuit cutter to red-hot heat and leaves interesting corrugated circular imprints all over Phil's thighs*
• I Say, Porter! - Barring people
  If anyone's going to be barred around here it should be William Shakespeare. ©2001 Peter Kay
• Rosie
  (ISP) You're fired. Ed. ©Private Eye passim.
• Phil
  [Chalky & penelope] Thank you for not killing me outright.
• Projoy
  Yeah, there's no case for a ban, unfortunately. :) I don't think he's gotten the hang of the place in the two years or so that he's been around, so I'm not sure I hold out a lot of hope that he eventually will, but that's not enough reason to exclude. [Rosie] What's wrong with debuted? What would you say?
• Projoy
  [Tuj] You may have been 14 when you first posted, but you were amusing and you took on board people's feedback and adjusted your behaviour to fit in better with how the place worked, rather than assuming (as some others do) that you could do just as you wished, and that any criticism should be rejected out of hand. (Also your scansion wasn't really especially bad when you first showed up, although it certainly did improve).
• Darren
  [Projoy] Try debutted instead.
• Projoy - butt me no butts
  Hm. "debutted" produces 10,600 hits on Google, with "debuted" providing 11,500,000...
• Darren
  [Projoy] I wasn't being serious.
• Rosie
  (Projoy) There are some nouns that really ought not to be er, verbed. I'd say début is one of them. I'd have phrased it differently or said first started. (Darren) I like "debutted". It sounds like an American whose arse has fallen off.
• Projoy
  [Darren] No, but I guess some other people use "debutted" in all seriousness. I guess it's because the 't' is silent, so it feels it needs a second, voiced 't' to enable the "ed" ending to click on. Same problem, of course, with past-tensing any noun or verb that ends on a vowel sound, such as "diminuendo'd" (but for some reason not "précised")
• Darren
  I don't like the word "verbing." I think we should call it "Rosieing" from now on.
• ImNotJohn
  I think debuted is singularly infelicitous, mostly because of the pronunciation issue – is it debutted, daybood, debood, daybutted? Made his début’ seems the best way out to me.
• Projoy
  Day-byood seems the most obvious pron. to me.
• Phil
  These days, I have lost the "y" in daybyoo, and now pronounce it dayboo, as do the French who don't do that thing with the letter u. I'm sure someone has had a go at me for my resistance to verbing in the past (poss. CdM?) but I still resist it where possible.
• Rosie
  Heavens to Murgatroyd, I've been Darrenned! (Phil) Nobody does a proper French 'u' in this country - eg déja vous.
• Phil
  [Rosie] Re: "u" - I quite agree. Re: "Darrenned" - On this occasion I prefer "Darrened" as the double "n" tends to shift stress towards the second syllable. I think Gyles Brandreth should be informed.
• Phil
  Hang on, on re-reading that my logic would make "traveled" more correct than "travelled", which, as every cricket-playing gentleman of Blighty knows, is simply wrong. Therefore I retract my double "n".
• Rosie - Doubling
  (Phil) The single consonant is the American way but to my eyes it looks wrong, because it makes the previous vowel long, eg tra-veald, la-beald, unra-vealed, spaymd?, Dar-reaned etc.. How many customers have you bar(r)ed? Don't answer that. :-)
• Phil
  I prefer baning them :-)
• Tuj - Debuing (?)
  Alas, whenever I go beyond a couple of sentences I always burst out in flowery essay words... Although in this case it must be from too much sport watching. Meanwhile...
  [Projoy] Thank you, I'm very touched by your comments on the time I debuted (daybyooed, for my South UK Estuary tongue). I cringed many a time when I look back in the Yorkives at how I was. However, my scansion I regard as my strong point, and as far as limericks and the like go I more frequently stop myself on account of not enough good material.
• Pave - YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
  My first Mornington Crescent book"
  
  Baby Alexander Henry "Pave jnr" Black. Huzzah!
• Pave - And.....
  Marc....jeeeeeez! I remember early Tuj, and I remember what I thought of early Tuj...and I am glad Tuj is still here! Marc does seem to, how can I say this..."Lack the light touch required by the game..."
• Tuj - On that bombshell
  Anyone for a new game?
• Inkspot - After you
  [Tuj]New game ... an old fav like When Hillocks Collide but I do like a bit of something different but have no idea what that may be.
• Tuj
  [Inkspot] I didn't mean a whole new concept necessarily. I was just pointing out there's been a free game slot sitting there for a bit and it would be nice to create a popular and interesting game - but is anyone interested?
• Tuj - In the meanst...
  Good old 11-MC can give us some time to think.
• Pave - Speak of the Devil!
  Hello Tuj! Yes, I am glad you are still round! I'd be up for a new game. I don't know why I remember you....maybe when I saw TUJ I thought of Taj as in Taj Mahal...the blues singer. I was listening to a lot of his stuff back then, so your moniker would have really stuck. Good times :) What was the MC group that had the games down the left, the game in play in the top right and the move/comment box in the bottom right? (I think I asked before..?)
• Tuj - When I was a lad...
  [Pave] I'm guessing you're referring to Huxley's fairly short-lived YAMCS (Yet Another MC Server) - which is where I first remember making your MC acquaintance. I'm sure I'd been at !York for a year or two by then however.
• Pave - Eeeeeee!
  YAMSC hmmmm....I recall seeing you at !York, and this other server, so yes, I guess you are correct there - I also recall there was a one on one challenge tourney going on - and I think it was me and you as I vanished.... Who or what was a Huxley, and what happened?
• Projoy
  Huxley was a player. Sort of like Stevie but... Hm. No, exactly like Stevie, now I come to think of it.
• Bigsmith - Old MC sites
  Whatever happened to Wildpants MC? It seems that it upped and went, but this site looks very similar, with some very familiar (oo-er) names.
• Pave - Whilst we are on this subject....
  Whilst we are on about "What ever happened to...?" I'd like to know "what ever happened to retro conversations that started with "Whatever happened to white dog poop?""
• Tuj - Whatever happened to all the other people on this site?
  Haha. Sorry.
  [Pave] Erm... I think I must have missed those...
• Pave
  :)
• I Say, Porter! - Whatever happened to white dog shit
  "The only white dog shit you get these days, Leeds United." I forget which comic it was...
• Darren
  [Bigsmith] Pants MC died and MWP (for whatever reason) decided not to bring it back up again, so we all migrated to the other MC sites.
• rab
  Forgive me for being rude, but wtf is the point of finishing a game if you then just start another one that's exactly the same.

  I'm starting to think that we've by now seen pretty much all permutations and combinations, and without sufficient influx of new blood there's a vast oversupply in the mc server market. With its being the newest, I propose we close this site.

• Pave - Hmmmmm
  Much that I would loathe to see it go, you do have a valid point. It is the slowest moving of the MC servers....Is there anything we can do to make it that bit different?
• Tuj
  [rab] I did attempt to start something else, but it didn't work, so I sulked. I'm sure we can come up with more excitement to fuel the flow through the server... Kick something splendid and popular in place of the Furcation Game perhaps? However if it is proving to be a burden to you to keep it open, then sadly it would have to go.
• ImNotJohn
  [rab]There is obviously an issue with the fact that this server hasn't got many games which aren't found on others. I'm surethat, given time, it could build up it's own distinctive set for which it would be THE place to go (after all, AVMA is one of the fastest-moving games in the Morniverse). But, it's up to you, of course, though maybe we could have a deliberate effort to try a few games not found elsewhere first.
• rab
  AVMA is one of the things that came to mind as something worth keeping. I'd be quite happy to kill off all the rest (yes, that includes the limericks) with space for about 4 others.
• Tuj
  [rab] Sounds drastic but perhaps could lead to a great maelstrom of creativity and ideas and new games! Or calamity of course...
• Phil
  AVMA is one of the greatest games on any of the servers, as it is a genuine competition, and the human instinct is to try to win. Multi-line limericks are nice too. I have preferences for games (e.g. good news/bad news) that others find tiresome, and vice versa. Hence I think a variety of servers, each with a little tweak of individuality is good for the MC world. If I had a bit more about me, I might set up my own, but it would have to be Domino/Notes-driven, and I don't have a copy of Notes designer any more :-(
• Chalky
  [Rab] well, personally, I'm gutted that you should even suggest such a thing - but that's your prerogative ....
• Tuj
  [Phil] Seconded on the good news/bad news :P... perhaps if others don't want to play that game, for instance, we could try a rhyming version? I'm just thinking part in terms of new combinations of games, and part in terms of some of the game mashing-together encountered in the Furcation Game (qv).
• Inkspot
  The Morniverse seems to be going through a mid life crisis of its own with I think players dropping out and moving on and with the pool of active players reduced. When visiting the three servers it is noticeable how few play on all three, but concentrate on one either Orange or MCiOS. To me MC⁵ has been about the originality of the games, it is a challenge and I can safely put up my hand and say that I have created some real distasters, but that's life; kill the game and move on the next one may take off. I have said my piece about Furcation Game before and will say no more.
  It is whether MC⁵ is to be a clone of MCiOS or have its own original flavour, I would go for the latter.
• Rosie
  Orange is a useful isolation ward for certain types whose extensive and incomprehensible scribblings make me lose the will to live. For that reason, let's keep all three going.
• rab - Bacchal scene
  When this place started I felt it had a somewhat distinctive feel, what with a few original games and quite a few people (immigrants from Pants, I think) who didn't contribute so much to MCiOS and Orange. As you're no doubt bored with me saying by now, I favour a fast turnover, and would much rather have a dozen try-outs that didn't go very far (don't regard them as disasters, Inkspot) on the offchance that you get the occasional gem (Woo-doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo etc Hitler springs to mind) instead of yet another tired 'The Return of Boardmans Combined Bad-Tempered Cresso' hybrids. My feeling about classics (such as Good News/Bad News) is fine, but they're generally best - at least started - in unadulterated form, with variants just springing up during the game on an ad-hoc basis. I would have hoped that after 3-and-a-half years a distinctive set of games would have built up.

  I've banished the Furcation Game to a Better Place; and think that they may be some scope at some point for a Lite version in which mash-ups of classic genres are played for a few rounds and continuously mutated, morphed, juxtaposed and hybridised but without the need to write a whole Shakespearian play cum Wagnerian opera every move. This could also be the proper place for hybrids of the type described above, rather than taking up a game slot to itself.

  I would also propose killing the Long Game (on the grounds that, no, there doesn't "have to be one of these", does there?); the ordinary Limericks (but keep the multilines; or merge the two into a freeform jazz version); possibly the cheddars (except I like the concept of a game you can contribute really easily to).

  I should say that this place takes almost zero maintenance effort from me nowadays, keeping the machine its hosted on up and running and un-hacked-into notwithstanding, so it's no effort to keep it up and running. But I would like to feel more minded to contribute.

  All that said, I suppose I can't really complain about lack of originality given that the site itself is basically a knock-off of Dan's and Dunx's respective endeavors in the first place. I could add some features (like unplayed games automatically expiring, or maybe a death vote system) to encourage a faster turnover but I'm not sure how they would work.

• Chalky - *phew*
  [rab] agree with most of what you said. This site has always been my first port of call, particularly because it does have games that are easy to contribute to without venturing into essay-land. Also, it seems to have been the place for guessing games, AVMA being a fine example, Who-Doo-Doo etc another - and who could forget the Cryptic Crossword game? I really enjoyed puzzling over those and learning from others' expertise.
  Like Inks, I have noticed a drifting away of certain key and prolific players from say a year or so ago, but that's just human nature I s'pose. Also, I think this server took a bit of a bashing when the Orange 'create as many games as you can festival' occurred and a few of the MC5 favourites found their way over there and remained [OMC now has 21 games!]
• Pave - Blooooooood
  We need exciting games to attract new lood! BLOOOOOD yesssss....my precious! Bwahahahaha...erm... I'm not getting any younger, and some of this text speak confusses me - is there an idea of a game in there? I don't know!!!! BWahhahahaha blood etc ad lib and fade.
• Tuj - The Long Game
  [rab] Very good points, and thanks for sharing your input - you may claim not to have to do much maintenance but we're still here and able to play thanks to you, so we really should be doing some more things you want to ;)
  Personally I think you make a good point about long games - they seem to have passed out of fashion. Perhaps we could replace the long game with a series of "short games" - games of MC people aren't afraid to win after a week and could be encouraged to by experimenting with some lesser-known rulesets.
• ImNotJohn
  I wouldn't mind a cryptic game again, though Blob (its finest practitioner) isn't seen around so much these days
• rab
  [All] Feel empowered: don't be afraid to go forth and cull. I've set the Long Game as winnable with the standard move for a bit; will reverse if people want to keep it.
• Tuj
  [rab] Well, I got in first... Am I the first person to win a long game?
• Projoy
  I have murdered the regular limericks game.
• Pave
  We demand a MONTY PYTHON game. Nee.
• Tuj - Googling my name
  Tuj means "immediately" in Esperanto.
  
  This page is the 69th brought up by Google (UK) if you search for "Tuj".
• Darren
  Can we please have a 100% ban on all Monty Python comments? The show finished decades ago and comedy has moved on. It's one of the few things that really boils my blood these days.
• Pave - Hmmm
  How about a Monty Python game that skirts around the sketches....but never quite mentions Monty Python....
• Simons Mith - Admin, spare this site
  I think three servers is the right number. More is too many; two is too few. For myself, the orkplace firewall blocks both here and the Dunxatorium, but, curiously, lets Dan's place through. That certainly further distorts my own posting habits. I do visit here more assiduously than I did the WildPants server, and I was sorry to see that go.
• Inkspot - Monty
  [Pave]Several game slots have been created for player to start games, get in there and see what happens. MP is not for me but may excite others. Whether it fails or succeeds keep coming back with fresh ideas and grab that empty slot.
• Rosie - Seething
  (Darren) Shall we also ban The Goon Show? Round the Horne? Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In? Not Only But Also? MPFS may not be your cup of tea but that's no reason to ban it. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
• rab
  The only thing I'd like to ban is mention of bans. Unless that's some horrible contradiction that's going to cause the internet to implode.

  Meanwhile, if there's anyone reading this who's been watching and not playing, and wishes to join in, now would be an excellent time to do so. A few new players would give the place a breath of fresh air methinks.

• Lib
  *walks in out of the rain with soaking wet hair, puts car keys, phone, stethescope and bleep down on the table and sits on the chair*. Aah, that's better.
• Phil
  [Lib] Here, have a mug of hot chocolate.
• Rosie - Sanguinary ebullition
  I'm not seething (see above) but was wondering why Darren was. Here's something lighter. During tonight's big football match David 'Spooner' Pleat uttered these words: THE SIGHT IS IN END. It'll be in next week's Colemanballs section of Private Eye with the name of any one of a thousand people who spotted it, possibly mine.
• Pave - *falls in water*
  It is done...Bwaaaaahahahahahaahhcoff coff hack HURGH!!!
• Software - Holds up red card
  They think its all over - and it is.
• Pave - Hmmm
  At least let it start!!!
• I Say, Porter! - Herehereherehere! What's going on here?
  Personally I liked "Hampster" which is overdue a resurrection in a different form...
• I Say, Porter! - After all, it's seven years since 'One slice of Strawberry Tart'
• I Say, Porter! - Hamster
  Actually that game died without filling a single page, so I take it all back. Screw the Hamster idea. Ermm. I mean...
• Pave - is it wrong
  To giggle at a mention of "sword" and "pork" in a game? If so, I am a wrong un! ...and I dreamt...
• Tuj
  [Pave] I still haven't got over Wymo's move in that game...
• Pave
  {Tuj} I know!!! Fancy slipping like that! :)
• snorgle - Oh, don't go!
  Just a quick note to say that although I don't post as much as I used to (due to work commitments, and more), I would be very sad to see you close down!
• Juxtapose - spring cleaning at mc5
  I came for the limericks, but stayed for the Clerihews.
  MC5 has a nice comfy feel for me. I like that it's not intimidatingly big. I don't much care for mcios or Orange. I think kill votes or timers would be a nice addition. If the games rotated more swiftly, us newcomers wouldn't feel as shy about trying to create them. *shy shy*
• rab - Proffer
  As befits my profession, I shall have to do some statistical analysis on the corpus available to me to see if it's possible to devise a heuristic that identifies the 'running out of steam' point.
• Rosie
  (rab) You could get a heuristic off an old steam engine but you'll need a big spanner.
• Lib - sighing
  I would post more. But I'm just not amusing enough. *sigh*
• Raak

  "I Woke Up From The Strangest Dream
  Whence all but I had fled
  When I woke up I found out why:
  I was already dead."

  Just something that came to me.
• Tuj - I woke up from the strangest dream
  [Raak] Very nice!
  The game in fact shares its title with a song by the band "Liam Frost and the Slowdown Family", who I saw earlier this year supporting the wonderful Elbow. It's not my favourite of their songs, but it inspired the recursive dream game.
• Tuj - And on that note
  The next game to be started shall be Game 100 here at MC5! Any ideas how we should mark such an occasion?
• Inkspot
  [Tuj] Sorry, that's what happens when I browse but not visit the Chat Game.

  < goes and sits on the norty step >

• Tuj - No worries
  [Inkspot] Took me a while to figure out what you meant :P and there was I thinking I was being premature suggesting that!
• rab - Flat chested
  It looks like we've just bought a flat. The much-vaunted Scottish system is enormously frustrating at the early stages, as each property is essentially sold via blind auction. But now we're in a good position because we can pull out if the survey reveals anything unpleasant, or we can reduce our offer, or whatever, but the seller can't sell to anyone else, or decide they're not selling after all. Whee!
• Darren
  [rab] How exactly does that system work from the seller's point of view, then? Is there something that could stop you from dropping your offer down to £10, for instance?
• rab
  Yes, they could simply refuse.
• rab
  ...and then the seller has to weigh up the relative pros and cons of accepting a lower offer than the original one, or putting the place back on the market. In our case, I don't anticipate any problems with the survey - but it's nice to know that we can pull out if the surveyor says the place is about to fall down, but they can't suddenly decide they're not selling to us after all.
• rab - Missive Trellis
  Actually, I now understand we haven't quite reached that stage yet. The seller now has to agree in writing, so until we get that it could all be orrf.
• Phil - Restricted attendance
  Just a (necessarily) brief note to inform that I have broken a couple of bones in my left hand, so I might find myself not posting very much for a few days. I'm always surprised at how typing one-handed reduces one's speed by so much more than 50%, and how sore a broken bone can be.
• rab - Eeek
  Bad luck Phil. Won't ask how you got it, and hope it heals soon.
• penelope
  [Phil] You do seem to be 'going throught the wars' as we used to say. Poor you. So it's spaghetti for the next fortnight...
• Pave - time!
  Blimey o'trousers! I would never have thought that having a baby would take up quite as much time as it does! I mean yes - they need 24 hour care, but who would have thought that it actually ment 24 hours being awake to look after them!!! He's been a gem up until a couple of days ago when he decided to go on 1 hour gaps between feeds!!! They grow up so fast! Anyway - it's why I have been scarce recently!
• Botherer - All that stuff and everything
  Been out of the morniverse for a while due to work commitments (setting up my own business) and generally being hectic, but getting back into it. Delighted to see MC5 overhauled with some fresh games. Yippee!
• rab - Oooff
  Well, that was more complicated than anticipated. Looks like the surveyor actually did some surveying (contrary to horror stories I've heard elsewhere) and picked up on some things that warranted a closer look, and so we had to send someone up to clamber around on the roof (with most buildings here being three or four storeys, it's more of a skill than it sounds). Turns out it's nothing too serious, although we will need to do a bit of work when moving in. As it happens, the scope for downward offering was limited by virtue of the next offer down being quite close to ours - so we ran the risk of the seller saying "Well, in that case we'll offer it to the next bidder"; turns out that things aren't quite as simplistic as you might first imagine.

  I do wonder how much loaves of bread would cost if they were sold by blind auction, though.

• Darren
  They'd go mouldy by the time the auction was completed.
• Rosie
  (Darren) Hard, too. A week-old baguette is an effective lightweight version of a baseball bat.
• rab - Between teeth
  Incidentally, I should probably mention that the place is on a Crescent in Morningside. But not, sadly, Morningside Crescent: you have to go to Aberdeen to find one of those.
• Software - Lack Lustre
  The current games on mc5 seem a bit slow moving. Perhaps its time for a couple of new ones. Any ideas?
• Knobbly - New game
  Something easy to join in with please...
  But no; no specific ideas. I am part of the problem, not part of the solution.
  Incidentally, against all my expectations I just found out I passed all bar one module of the second year of my degree... I just feel like telling people that, 'cos I really wasn't expecting to.
• Inkspot - end games
  Yay, well done Knobbly
  New games it would be nice to kill off another of the current games but have tried and failed. I do hope Pave has not set the killer move of Around the Python Laugh-in to something cryptic and unwinnable.
• rab
  It would appear he did. Shall I set it to the normal, or just quietly shunt it below the line. Slow movement here I think is a side effect of Dunx's festival of crescent.
• Inkspot - Not very happy vocabulary
  I was trying to send it on its way as I had an idea for a guesssing game but would have a finite life. I can understand the need for a quick game for players to dip into when they are browsing and this game would not in all likelihod not be one of those.

  The proposed game is a crossword where players can be either compiler or solver or even both. A 15x15 grid with 1A completed or blank with just the clue, solve the clue give the right answer, next player sets the next clue (cryptic or straightforward). After that the rules become "elusive". Does the crossword have to be symetrical? does it get filled in like a scrabble board with one clue leading off the next till all the blanks are symetrical and agreed upon? If the grid is blank how do we know whether it is 5A or 7A?

  The would start something like this

  	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I.	J	K	L	M	N	O
  1	1C	E	L	L
  2
  3
  4
  5
  6
  7
  8
  9
  10
  12
  13
  14
  15

  Would anyone be interested in this type of game and is it worth rab shunting off Around the Python Laugh-in to make room?

• Darren
  [Inkspot] Having to reproduce that grid each time kills the game instantly. It would be an utter pain in the arse to edit that each time a word was added (and when does it get updated? after every guess? each new word?), and the chance of screwing it up would be very high. (Note how many mistakes have been made just counting backwards in the Celerity CDs game! And note how hard it is to get certain participants to realise they've been getting the rules wrong.)

  If you want a cryptic crossword clue guessing game, I'd strongly recommend doing it as was done before, with people submitting and guessing clues as they felt like it, with no grid.

• Darren
  I think, incidentally, activity on all three sites was waning even before the Orange festival, although that has made it more obvious. We're just not getting the same number of participants these days.
• Darren
  Apologies, incidentally, if there's an acerbic note in all that, I'm just generally pissed off about a lot of stuff today.
• Inkspot
  I agree with your points about the problems of updating and my greatest fear of solutions not fitting previuos moves and having to be redone. But I needed feedback like that so as not to make a complete prat of myself by just setting up the game with all of it's woolley thinking. There are other types of cryptic games already played on this server, but I wanted one that had a finite life span.
  There is still an empty game slot.
• rab
  Ooh. That's interesting. A new game has appeared in the wrong place...
• rab
  Right, that's sorted; and the end-game trigger for the Python game has been set to the usual.
• Projoy
  [Darren] Someone needs to do a good, solid corpus-based statistical study on activity rates in the Morniverse. I'm sure it would make a good PhD topic. My impression is also that activity has declined, but it was less busy than now when I first joined eight years ago (bloody hell, eight years). In those early days, fresh with the joy of discovery, i can remember having posted the last move in every game on York and MCiOS, and being quite at a loss for what to do next once I'd done it. Especially on weekends. In retrospect this was a bit rude, but I was immature and callow even in those days. :) I find that nowadays I tend only to post in a small subset of games and even when bored am unlikely to stray into the others. Maybe other people have gradually settled into a similar pattern.
• Tuj
  [Projoy] I certainly have settled into a similar pattern, though I'd like to think that's because I'm less obnoxious now. I'd say the most concerning trend is the seeming lack of interest in the game of Mornington Crescent itself - our one token game here, for instance, is crawling along quite pitifully, and Long Games all over the Morniverse have slowed to the pace of Jeremiah Snail, the 1956 All-Dorking District Champion.
• Rosie - Mornington navel-gazing
  I think that posting only to one's favourite games is quite normal; it's certainly my style, but it depends on how creative I'm feeling at the time, if at all. A good rule of thumb is that if you have nothing interesting, witty etc to add to a game then wait till something more promising turns up. There is increasing verbal incontinence and rule-bending simply for the sake of posting something. The whole thing is beginning to annoy me, and not just me, as I know privately. We could also do without those who post under more than one name, which is deceitful and sad. One has already been outed and I have a very beady pair of eyes on another one.
• rab
  Meanwhile, I'm rather concerned that a bunch of people who are posting elsewhere seem to have stopped posting here. Was it something I said?
• Chalky - I'm here! I'm here!
  Trouble is, the limerick games are no longer and during the short bursts of time that I actually enter these portals, there's nothing else that takes my fancy. Apart from AVMA. Sometimes.
• CdM - *waves from Praha*
• Projoy
  [CdM] Maybe a long verse game? Although admittedly the last few attempts at "hard poetry" didn't seem to attract very many of the current Mornipersons.
• Tuj
  Where did pen go?
• Projoy
  [Tuj] Maybe you drop it on floor?
• Simons Mith - Time, time
  Lack of time is making me ration the games I follow. If the general turnover was higher, I'd be active in a greater number of games. As it is, I tend to monitor chat, limericks, haiku, glow worms and on the whole that's it. Because they are the games where you can just dip in, make a worthwhile contribution to, and then disappear back into the ether. But of course, if I never find time to visit other games, I don't feel I have the right to kill them even if they are getting long in the tooth, and that reduces game turnover . . .
• Tuj
  [Proj] You know what I mean ;)
  [SM] That's the vicious cycle, isn't it just? We never did quite foster the quick turnover as even after upheavals we're still too cautious of scrapping games... I'm wondering if Clerihews (and possibly Cheddars) have had their day...
• Simons Mith - Vicious cycle
  [Tuj] Yes, indeed. In fact, I will bring up something I've advocated before and failed to convince people about; I think it's worth having a 'rapid turnover' section, a 'slow burner' section and an 'immortal' section. The immortal section would contain chat and possibly a long game. The rapid turnover would tend to be plain MC games, but with a smattering of other quicker-moving experiments. And the slow burners could have the game slots left over. I have long thought that the biggest problem is that the slow burners hog too many game slots. The shorter-lived games really do need their own section otherwise they keep getting crowded out.
• Tuj
  [SM] Good, well-thought points. Would perhaps work better with games marked as to which they are rather than with separate sections though? And I'm sure having AVMA rather than a longer game would encourage some excellent short attacking MC games.
• rab
  [SM] Hmmm... I'll think about this. I can forsee a difficulty in deciding which category things should fall into; though, of course, this can always be tweaked according to demand.

  Anyway, just wanted to remark that it's only just got dark here.

• Chalky
  It's been dark for about an hour here - I'm home now but have been in the pub with friends - watching the England Game. *sigh*
• Tuj
  [Chalky] Dratted England. I spent the evening vociferously cheering Sweden, but sadly now England will be playing on my birthday :( roll on disappointment...
• Rosie
  It's getting light here. Time for bed. The solstice will occur at 1226 GMT today after which it's all downhill.
• Projoy
  The most wonderful day of the year *happy sigh*
• rab
  Yeah, the flip-side is that it was fully light again at 4.30am, which woke me up...
• penelope
  I stayed up all night on Saturday night, chatting online... went to bed at 5am, by which time the sun was up and the birds were at full volume. The nights are soooo short in midsummer, it's quite eerie. I remeber camping in Perth (Scotland) reporting on a rally around this time of year, and it still being light at 11-ish, and then of course, there was the great trek north to the North Cape of Norway in midsummer 1995... magical. I always want to head north and be mostly outside every summer now. Instead, I sit behind this bloody desk staring at the screen - although I do have a nice pair of trendy geek-nerd specs now. They make me look like Nana Moouskouri. :o/
• Simons Mith - Longevity
  [Rab] I'd would suggest that should be set up when the game is defined. If a game proves popular as an ephemeral it would have to be explictly killed off and reinstated in the slow burners section when next a slot appears. The important point is that the short-lived games section is explicitly flagged as such, and everyone knows that not only do we have have a licence to kill them off, but that we are expected to do so. Possibly even flag the game's creation date and give it a defined expiry date - three months or so tops, I'd say, pulling a figure out of my hat.
• Projoy
  I still quite like the idea of doing it implicitly. If active games were sorted in order of sluggishness or otherwise (a bit like at Orange where you can sort them by most recent post, but based instead on the frequency of the last, say, five posts). Unloved games drop to the bottom, active games fizz to the top. Every week the least active game is automatically culled (unless, say, it started less than a week ago or it has been given some special protection like the Furcation game).
  
  I make this suggestion in the secure knowledge that, as I can't code, I won't implement it, which is probably the worst kind of backseat driving. :)
• Irouléguy - time...
  What SM said about time (though this is still my first port of call in the Morniverse, and for mostly the same reasons he gave). I don't agree about typing games in advance, though - how would you know in advance whether something is a quick turnover or a slow burner?
  
  I quite like Projoy's idea about automatic culling. Or, and this is completely off the top of my head, how about turning the process on its head? The opportunity to start a new game is always open, but every time someone starts a new game, the least active one gets killed off?
• rab
  Hmmm... I can see benefits to both the explicit and implicit approaches; the former is easier to code, but might be a bit onerous on (particularly) game creators. Furthermore, I've noted an increasing tendancy to be over-prescriptive in the game brief, and I think further prescription about how quickly moves are to be made might actually be counterproductive and cause all movement to cease completely. For this reason I think I prefer the implicit approach. As I mentioned before, I want to mine the data of all games played so far to see if I can devise some kind of estimate of a games "flagging" point, in which case it can be put on an endangered list and expire if no further moves are made. One problem with always having a slot open is that, as experience at the Lockisseum showed, you get passers-by just starting things for the hell of it.
• Darren
  [rab] Passers-by just starting things for the hell of it... is that necessarily a bad thing? Some of the most memorable games have started like that ("wigwam" on Orange springs to mind, but there are others). I'm starting to think we'd be better off it all games were treated as fast burners and we encouraged a much faster turnaround for games, to keep people interested and stop us all (me included) getting too caught up in only one or two games and ignoring all the rest. I've heard people say that years ago, the MC servers did have games which were much shorter, only lasting a day or so.
• Inkspot - No time
  Killing a game is easy creating a game that people want to play is more difficult, something different does not go down well, so players do not feel confident in filling a vacant slot. My worry over a timed game is once it has been timed out it will reappear as ...the Return Again of... which happened only recently. I would like to see more people prepared to start games and not stand on the side lines saying "what shall we do now, what shall we do now". With a regular turnover there will be flops and hits. The reason games hang around is the reluctance to replace them. I would not want to see time limits just more bravery with the sythe. Afterall what is the turnover of games on MCOiS where there are 18 active games.
• rab
  [Darren] It's not a bad thing if it occurs only once in a while, but on the Lockisseum nuisance games were started on an almost daily basis until Dunx brought in the login system. I neither want the maintenance burden of cleaning up, nor to enforce logins for the starting of new games.

  [Inkspot] Well, that would be all well and good if people actually killed games, but they don't so it seems that some form of encouragement is needed.

• penexterminatorlope - Kill! Kill! Kill!
  There's a lot of it about!
• Néa - But, but
  Please don't kill the Shakespeare game. Yet, I mean, I'm sure it will need to go to its sweet, sweet rest eventually.
• Simons Mith - Quickfire or slow burner?
  [Irouleguy] You don't try to make people predict the future; you have x quickfire slots and y slow burner slots. If a quickfire game ends you can only replace it with another quickfire game; if a slow burner ends, it can only be replaced with another slow burner. If one slot of each type chances to be available at the same time, then you get a choice. After all, an /unsuccessful/ slow burner will still face the chop relatively quickly; it's only the successful slow burners that will hang around.
• Darren
  Next up: the Dream Game...?
• Simons Mith - Dream Game?
  What's a Dream Game then?

  BTW I too have a game suggestion: Hide and Seek. This idea was inspired by listening to an old ISIHAC episode where the teams gave it ago. Seemed to work all right.

• Darren
  Nah, I was tongue-in-cheek suggesting the "I Woke Up..." game to be next for the axe! How would your Hide and Seek game go? Or would we work it out as it went along?
• rab - Incident room
  Incidentally, factoids != lies; there needs to be an air of plausibility about them.
• rab
  Not aimed at anyone in particular, btw, just covering my own back if someone claims it's a "Return of..." type game that I've been so vocal about in the past...
• Irouléguy
  Simons] I see what you mean, though there also should be a way of converting a quick-fire if it gets really popular.
  
  rab] I'm with Darren on drive-bys - if they're really naff they can be killed off just as quickly.
• Tuj - Game idea pitch
  "Each move must consist of precisely eight words" - as it says on the tin. What happens in the game may be debated in the game: perhaps it'll be a conversation, perhaps a word-limited reprise of various games we play, or whatever.
• rab - Brain cell
  [Iroul, Darren] Right, so if we have a slot permanently open which kills of the "least active" game, we can look forward to random passers-by, the generally click-happy and possibly not even real people starting carp like this and this on a daily basis, displacing things that you might actually want to play (actually, the latter example reveals a curious bug that I should look into, so it's not all bad news...). In order to deal with this I would need to write some additional code that would allow these effects to be reversed, ideally as though they had never happened. My time is quite precious these days, and I really don't think this is worth that investment. Sorry.
• Raak
  [Tuj] Sounds good. Who's going to start it?
• Irouléguy
  rab] I enjoyed the second one... Point taken, though.
• rab
  Hmmm, they looked different and more annoying from home. yes, the second one looks ok from here - very confused.
• Tuj
  [Raak] More to the point, something would have to give way first.
• rab
  There's about 3 million free slots at Orange.
• Chalky - pure class ...
  .... the recent entries in Shakespeare.
• Tuj
  [rab] But MC5 is home!
• Inkspot - Friday....
  There are 101 things to do, deadlines to meeet,check emails but I'd rather check the number of paper clips in my desk holder. Even wading through the mass of paperwork in tray for a couple hours seems appealing. Just so restless, put it down to being only days away from Goodwood and the Bugatti Veyron, another week less to being out sourced yet more bland statements from the employer this morning. Soon be lunchtime.
• Simons Mith - Monday ... oh, and Tuesday
  I've actually got my main bit of work nicely rounded off, and am just picking at the edges of what's left while I wait for a major inventory investigation to start. 'Hurry up and wait' certainly isn't just a miltary weakness . . .
• Inkspot
  We have internal auditors who pop out of the woodwork every now and then. They tend to see everything in terms of black and white proceedures. To move things along in local government sometimes things become a bit fuzzy round the edges ;)

  A big wave to all freinds in the colonies with their 4 July celebrations.

• Pave - Hey Ho!
  I'm still here!!! Hectic, new job....lacking sleep with Alex (who is now a big 9 weeks old), and not having a PC at work, or much time at home. Hence my infrequent "hereness". I hope you're all well.
• ImNotJohn - Also still here
  I'm getting a bit more connectivity and time. The netnanny at the new client allows MCiOS and here but not Orange. It also objects to some of the adverts carried by both Multimap & Streetmap, so I can get the map surrounded by bits of red threat screen. I feel like using the sites a lot in the hope of getting a call.
• penelope - Rambling, and not even dressed for it
  I just got a spam with the poetic subject heading: "Your money, pale-souled". It fired thoughts through my head, the image of money as a hollow souled entity... How do such poets reconcile their art with such a degrading way to earn a living? Does it give a spam composer a buzz just to know their words are read? Hmmm
• Chalky
  Happy Birthday, pen!
  [everyone else] There's a very large cake in the chatroom in MCIOS so please help yourselves ...
• Néa - Wah
  I think I killed Shakespeare.
• Darren
  Has Hide & Seek run its course now?
• Tuj
  Dreams too?
• Darren
  And Factoids? Perhaps time for a clearout?
• Tuj
  Cheddars too?
• Darren
  [Tuj] Why Cheddars? It seems quite active.
• Tuj
  [Darren] It's just been fairly low-quality grammatically, bothers me *wink* Anyway, aren't we encouraged to do some purging rather than talking about it?
• Darren
  [Tuj] Well, I don't mind terminating games I've created myself, but I do like to ask first in the case of other people's games, especially where I haven't made many contributions! I've closed Hide and Seek. In the case of Dreams and Factoids, I don't really feel qualified to shut them down myself.
• Raak
  Shall I do the honours for Factoids?
• rab
  I'm sure you would do so self-referentially, so I look forward to it.
• Chalky - confessional
  [rab] I dreamt about you last night. Pen was also in the dream. I think we were in a sort-of Rugby Pilg scenario, only the hotel's layout was rather similar to the house in the current Big Brother. Weird. And a little disturbing.
• Tuj - More free game slots
  Hmm... but what?
• rab - Erk
  [Chalky] Hmmm... I have a vague feeling you were in my dreams too. Telepathy in action no doubt.

  I wrote a Very Large Cheque today. It still makes me sweat thinking about it. Should be moving in next Friday, the existence of some building warrants permitting. Saw the deeds yesterday too; one of the clauses I am unable to parse, another one witters on about a "free ish". Hopefully the solicitor will explain to us what this actually means.

• penelope
  [rab] Good luck. Get used to writing big cheques... I'll be writing one next week, and I read through the deeds to the new bungalow this morning - fascinating set of records. Nice to know they've searched me for any record of bankruptcy and found nothing ... yet! :o)
  I like the thought of being in someone else's dreams, it means I manage to get out a bit. I had a very weird one last night - dreamed I met a man who liked me (I mean really liked me, but I have no idea who he was) and we were riding polo ponies in South Africa.
• Kim - Hey, MC dudes
  I don't know why, but there is something ineffably funny about adding "dude" to a serious quotation. "If I should die, think only this of me, dudes, there is some corner....." etc. Is it worth a short game?
• Raak
  [Kim] Isn't that game already exhausted by the describing of it, dude?
• Kim
  [Raak] Wot, like the Pants game, you mean?
• Darren
  [Kim] I'm not so sure it's all that funny, anyway. It was kind of exhausted by Bill and Ted.
• Projoy - Dudes, Romans and Countrymen
  Maybe it's me, but I don't think it's especially amusing.
• ImNotJohn
  Might work; after all: There is nothing like a dude
• Darren
  [INJ] I think yours works because of the gender-bending it implies about the rest of the song. I'm gonna wash that dude right outta my hair, not so good. (However, I'm gonna wash that man right outta my dude sounds a little better.)
• Darren
  Doesn't like crap games with barons or earls
  Won't go to Harlem in ermine and pearls
  Won't dish the dirt with the rest of the girls
  That's why the lady is a dude
• Simons Mith - Dudes
  Yeah, why not give it a shot? Even if it only makes for a short game. Incidentally, I have a Flash animation somewhere called Star Dudes, which is an accurate reenactment of the first Star Wars film, with 'Dude!' as the only dialogue, yet faithful to the original in every detail. And only about 3 minutes long in its entirety. Hopefully Googling should find it somewhere Out There, if anyone's interested.
• Inkspot - begone bane of Beelzebub
  Shakespeare has shuffled off to create a new game slot
• rab
  Today's the big day! We hope... there's talk of retaining some money from the seller on account of missing paperwork, but we hope that won't screw things up too much. These solicitors really like to leave everything to the last minute, it seems.
• Inkspot
  Good luck with the solicitors and the move.
• rab
  Well, in the last 24 hours the retention has gone down from 15k to 500quid as the bits of paperwork have mysteriously appeared. Should be getting the keys "in the next hour or so". We'll see about that.
• Chalky - thoughts.....
  *hopes rab has got a shiny set of house keys by now*
  
  *thinks Riddle-me-ree is a very satisfying game*
• Néa
  *agrees with both thoughts*
• party poker - party poker
  Any number of roulette party poker sports button joker game http://www.ambersells.com gross value bluff four?
• Knobbly - party poker
  I didn't follow any of that.
• Néa
  [p p] No, you took a wrong turning. Go back the way you came and follow the signs towards dev/null.
• Néa - Argh! English!
  You take a turn, don't you, not a turning. You'd think I might know those things by now.
• Simons Mith - Wrong turnings
  [Nea] Relax. 'A wrong turning' is a commonly-used idiom.
• Simons Mith - No, changed my mind
  It's not an idiom, it's correct. 'Turning' is perfectly OK as a gerund. 'ing' appears in three places in Engish - as a gerund, as a progressive tense - both of which involve adding 'ing' to a verb, and as a noun-forming modifier for which I cannot find the correct terminology. The latter case involves adding 'ling' to a non-verb to produce a commonly-diminutive noun. Examples include underling, sapling, darling, sidling (which produced the verb sidle as a back formation). It used to be side-ling - i.e. someone who stands at your side as opposed to a subordinate under-ling. But of course given a variety of words ending in 'ing' it isn't always apparent that some were fromed from the 'ling'-route rather than the verbal 'ing'-route. The 'l' is a useful indicator, but not 100% reliable.
• Knobbly - Simons Mith
  That was very interesting, and no sarcasm is intended although it's hard to prove that without the use of tone of voice or facial expression.
• rab - Wide aw-ache
  Well, it's gone like clockwork so far - all bar the phone line (again) so I may not be able to post much for a bit. Keys arrived, then a van of stuff (including a sofa) which was brought up the stairs by two burly Mancunians. Then a couple of car loads of stuff, followed by a bed, which was brought up the stairs by a burly Edinburgher and further assembled by him. Which was just as well, cos it would have taken us about five hours and we'd have done a really rubbish job of it too. Boxes of stuff still arriving in dribs and drabs, and we're slowly finding places to put all their contents. Nothing's yet come off in our hand or fallen off the wall or ceiling. The heating and shower works, the loo flushes... so pretty smooth so far I would say. I have, however, discovered muscles I never knew I had. Living on the top floor of a tenement block must be good for you, surely.

  Oh, and we can't find the stopcock...

• penelope - hot flushes...
  [rab] Good luck an' all in your new home. The loo *might* flush, but just check it. My mother discovered the loo in her new bungalow flushes with water from the hot water system. (Have I mentioned this before?)
• Rosie
  (pen) Doesn't this tend to vapourise the ordures, the very thing one tries to avoid?
• penelope
  [Rosie] Quite. Bob the plumber is coming round to fix it.
• Simons Mith - Game Idea
  We don't seem to have any team games on the go at the moment. Anyone up for a - let's say a three way split, he says, trying to second-guess the likely number of players. Puce - Green - Chartreuse are I believe the traditional colours for such a split.
• Phil
  I read the other day that "miniature" (and the "mini-" prefix) comes from "minium", Latin for red. This refers to the small red lettering on a miniature portrait or similar. I'm going to look this up now, just to check. Incidentally, that doesn't pardon 6 quiz teams of staff from our local primary school being unable to spell "minuscule", despite the fact that it was on my son's spelling list 2 years ago (aged 8). Not one team got "manoeuvre" right, either.
• Phil - mini-
  OK, I've looked it up, and: Yes, miniature does derive from miniare (to colour red), from minium (red lead). Mini- is listed, however, as deriving from miniature and minimum, from minimus (least).
  I think I need to do more research to ease my troubled mind.
• Rosie - Dysorthography
  WHAT? None of them could spell 'minuscule' or 'manoeuvre'? There a load of idiot's.
• penelope
  Have we ever played 'Shipping Crescent, To The Ends of The Earth', with a winning move, Dogger? Faster play during good visibility, obviously, and headwinds take the LV equivalent down a notch. And watch out for those South East Iceland loops. Shipping areas here.
• Simons Mith - Idiots
  [Rosie] I think you mean 'lode'.
• Phil - Spelling
  [Rosie] Indeed, not one team got those words correct. They did marginally better with "accommodation", "Massachusetts" and "knowledgeable". However, I think only 1 team got "diarrhoea" right. I've done much harder spelling rounds in the past; admittedly that was for quiz addicts, and once was deliberately written to prevent a certain team winning, because I knew they would play their joker on a spelling round. I put in words like "eschscholtzia", "waqf" etc. just to screw them up :-)
• Rosie
  (SM) I do. Your right.
• Chalky
  [Rosie] Write, shurely?
• Rosie
  (Chalky) Surely, surely?
• Knobbly - Phil's diarrhoea
  A mnemonic a teacher at school taught us several years ago:
  Dashing In A Rush, Running Hard, Or Early Accident.
  You'll never forget how to spell diarrhoea again!
• Simons Mith - Skwits
  'Diarrhoea': S-K-W-I-T-S That's my mum's mneonic, bless her.
• Rosie - Flowthrough
  My own Mum's prim version was "Air raid backwards". The opposite was "knobs". It was all "po". (SM) Yes, but what do S-K-W-I-T-S stand for? The SHITS, by the way, is a section of the band of the Irish Guards who call themselves the Society of Harmonious Irish Tunesmiths. This is true.
• Darren
  [Simons] I always thought it was "squits." That's how they spell it in Theme Hospital, too, so it must be right.
• Simons Mith
  [Darren] That's what I thought too. But my mum does tend to take the path less travelled by, when it comes to spelling.
• Lib
  I defnatley have "squits" sometimes have "the trots" but mostly have diarrhoea
• Darren
  [Lib] You really need to see a doctor as soon as possible.
• Phil
  No mention yet of Montezuma's Revenge, The Bombay Trots or Delhi Belly?
• rab
  *waves from Edinburgh airport*
• Darren
  Wow! rab's new flat is Edinburgh airport!
• Simons Mith - Waves from Edinburgh
  [Darren] No, it's been raining as heavily up there as down south. Never mind a raincoat, yesterday afternoon I wished I'd brought a bucket and spade to work.
• nights - Waves from St Petersburg
  I'm getting bored of saying this now. I have more free time than I know what to do with, but instead of doing something useful with it, like learn Russian, I'm going to play MC until I vomit. Hoorah!
• nights - *points at Shipping Forecast*
  OOOOPS. Sorry.
• Knobbly
  I can say 'Here is my passport' in russian.
  ... and 'How are your parents' in portuguese.
  I'd do well if I was dropped in the middle of Europe wouldn't I?
• Knobbly continued - Eight Words game
  Following on from the Eight Words Game, did anyone watch the '50 Greatest Comedy Sketches' programme a few days ago, and did it seem to anyone else that the funniest sketches were all 30 or 40 years old (Two Ronnies, Morecambe and Wise, Monty Python etc.)? I don't know who the public were that voted, but they didn't ask ME.
• Phil
  [Knobbly] Are you saying that the older sketches didn't deserve their place there, or not?
• Knobbly - myself
  Not at all - I'm saying that the older sketches were the funniest ones in it and that I don't think much of Little Britain, which won.
• Tuj
  Despite not having seen the comedy sketches show in question, I'd like to back up Knobbly with my concordance of opinion.
• penelope - Cancel Mansell
  What about a game of rhyming or alliterative instructions for disposing of annoying celebrities and public figures?
• nights
  I'd say by all means. I was also thinking of Cress but couldn't get the game started.
• Simons Mith - Team Game?
  How about a two or three way team game? Puce v Chartreuse or Puce v Green v Chartreuse? I wouldn't advocate more than three teams - we don't really have enough players.
• Tuj
  [pen] I was about to ask "How many of those do you think there'll be?" before scanning down see the game made and very well underway.
  [SM] Sounds good - it seems like Crescent games aren't taking off at present and perhaps that would make it more interesting.
• rab
  [nights] Did the Proposal Vetting Panel give you grief?
• nights
  [rab] They did indeed. Damn bureaucracy. Seriously though, any reason why it didn't go through?
• rab
  The Panel tends to get a bit shirty if it thinks you're starting a reheat of something old and tired. Placing old wine into new bottles sometimes helps.
• rab - Diarisation
  I just received an email beginning "Do please diary this year's poster evening" and thought of, hmmm, almost everybody here.
• Knobbly - Rab
  (Not quite understanding...) Is it something to do with turning nouns into verbs? Or 'verbing' you might say.
• penelope
  who was it who said 'verbing weirds nouns'?
• Phil - verbing
  Are you willing to let me know who sent the email? I'd so love to reply :-)
  [pen] It was Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes)
• Tuj
  [pen, Phil] Indeed, "verbing weirds language" - but a six-year-old or anyone else being silly should be allowed to. Serious usage of something like diary as a verb is definitely something we'll all get flighty about. We should be touched rab thought of us though.
• Rosie - Diarisation
  (rab) Bin it.
• Tuj
  [Rosie] We were waiting for you. Well said.
  Meanwhile, what shall we do with that spare game slot?
• CdM
  [Tuj] Not all of us. :-)
• Chalky
  *seconds what CdM said :-)*
• CdM - mcios
  I can't get to mcios this morning. Anyone else having any trouble? (More generally, the internets seem to be very slow here in France, but I can reach most sites.)
• Projoy - (just diaried something, and is proud of it so ner)
  [CdM] MCiOS seems to be OK from here, as, indeed, does the net in general.
• Néa
  [CdM] Buy new internets.
• Phil - Just noticed something about Calvin's quotation
  In "verbing weirds language", it's not a noun that has been verbed (as a noun, "weird" means "fate"), but an adjective. Off the top of my head, I can't think of another example of this formation - but I'm sure I'll now be inundated with verbed adjectives that are unbelievably obvious.
• penelope
  I wonder if those arrested for attempting to bomb Lonodn-US flights this morning waited deliberately until Tony Blair was on holiday and John Prescott was in charge?
• Phil
  [pen] I doubt if one blithering idiot is more likely to be of use to the nation than another in an emergency. Thanks for bringing the news to my attention though - I didn't know anything about it till now.
• Raak - How many boots could a black coot black if a black coot could black boots?
  [Phil] One example in standard English occurs to me: to black (a pair of boots, or a place of work).
• CdM
  Similarly, "to right something" and perhaps also (less clear) "to wrong someone"?
• Darren
  [Raak/CdM] However, "black" is also a noun. So is "wrong" and "right." Can an example be found which verbs an adjective which is not also a noun?
• Darren
  I was going to point out that "to up prices" involves verbing a preposition, but "up" can yet again be used as a noun.
• Darren
  Of course, in programming you can talk about "anding" and "oring" two numbers, but that falls more into jargon than standard English.
• gil
  Loose?
• penelope
  Isn't that just a contraction of 'let loose', in which case 'let' is the verb?
• Raak
  Turpentine can be used to thin oil paint.
• Raak
  The map is ornated with three cartouches.
• Raak
  When the ossibuchi have browned on one side, turn them to brown the other.
• Raak
  (Ok, "brown" can be a noun, but I just like saying "ossibuchi".)
• Simon Mith - Verbing
  [challenge] I actually think instances of verbed nouns-not-usable-as-adjectives are even rarer than instances of verbed adjectives-not-usable-as-nouns. However, I did find an example of a verbing of a non-adjectival noun: You can tree a cat. BTW Calvin's only 12 years younger than I am. He'd be 26 sometime this year. Yeesh!
• Ossibuchi
  I like saying "Raak".
• Phil - Ornate ?
  [Raak] I've nevr come across "ornate" used as a verb, and it hurts just to look at your sentence. I like the "thin" example, though.
• Phil - Tree a cat !
  [SM] I live and learn - I'd never seen "tree" as a verb before, other than in the sense that "the copse was heavily treed", but have found now found it in the dictionary. I may have to try and get this sense into normal conversation tomorrow
• Rosie - Treed
  (Phil) I hope it doesn't replace "woooded". I agree "ornate" as a verb is monstrous when "ornament" already exists as a verb. (SM) How do you tree a cat? Stick a twig up its bum? You'll be lucky. I can see how you can de-cat a tree, though, even if it might need the Fire Brigade.
• Raak
  [Phil] I never saw it before, until I googled it in a spirit of misunderestimation. The OED has it as an obsolete verb, which I suppose is why an antiquarian map dealer might use it to ornate his prose. But as Caxton writes, "Somtyme ornatynge of wordes maketh the proposycion to be withdrawen fro the trouthe."

  It's usually mixed up in some way to even both sides out.
  Things have quieted down.
  Dual the A11!

• CdM
  So is it in fact the case that "ornament" as a verb was monstrous because "ornate" already existed as a verb?
• Projoy
  Is the interesting thing about these words simply that they don't appear to have been verbed in the 'normal' way - i.e. by an apparent change in the spelling? After all, it presumably doesn't count in the noun-to-verb category to include the verb "to shelve" since it isn't "to shelf", whereas "to tree" involves no spelling change (although I think some linguists would argue there is a morphological change by virtue of the change of use). In these non-spelling-change cases, it's presumably for some other reason that they appear the same when verbed... You can verb "thick" by spelling it "thicken", whereas "thin" doesn't lend itself to being spelt "thinnen".
• Projoy
  (That said, I don't think it would break any intuitive rules of morphology to have "righten" and "wrongen").
• Projoy
  [Non-adjective verbings] Saki has an instance of the verb "to sky", meaning the practice of putting the paintings of lesser artists higher up on the gallery wall, above better-regarded work.
• Raak
  Nounish verbings: beach, ship, dog, horse, house, caravan, cup, motor, earwig. "Some to think of it," he umbrella'd, "there aren't many words you can't slip in as a substitute for 'said'."
• Raak
  S C
• penelope
  horse?
• Raak
  [pen] Ever horsed around?
• nights
  [horsing] I know I have.
• Rosie - said
  (Raak) Or omit it entirely, as in "So I'm like f*** off" and all that edifying stuff.
• penelope
  [Raak] Horse is a strange one... I dog you, you dog her, we dogged them, but do you ever say 'I horse, you horse'? It's usually linked to 'around'. I have no idea what this does to the classification of the nounage/verbage discussion. I'm almost out of my depth!
• Simons Mith - 'Horsing'
  Maybe it's like goosing, but on a larger scale. Oo-er.
• The Man In The Gimp Suit - Horsing
  'Horsing' & 'Horsed' have been in common usage in the B&D world for years. So I'm told.
• Projoy
  [TMITGS] Meaning what, exactly?
• Projoy
  The only other usage than "horsing around" I can find on a (SafeSearch) Google, is the expression "to horse a gentlewoman", which I assume is an historical expression meaning the general assistance of a lady in enabling her to ride out. Then again, maybe I'm being naïve and it has a more Catherine the Great connotation.
• TMITGS - Horsing around
  I believe it involves a carpenter's sawhorse (suitably reinforced and stabilised), a willing 'victim', a quantity of rope and a good imagination. It might be a good idea to keep a chiropracter on the speed dialer too IMHO.
• Darren
  Earlier today something similar to Projoy's comment on "thicken" occurred to me, although I noted that "enlarge" seems to apply the suffix as a prefix. There are words such as "enliven" which seem to follow the same pattern, except "liven" isn't an adjective (at least now). Anyone know a reason why "enlarge" behaves like that?
• Phil
  [Darren] No idea, but it did make me think of the verb from "bold" is "to embolden", which has both suffix and prefix (though not necessarily in that order).
• Rosie
  (Darren) "Enlarge" is from the French enlarger and may just be a copy, so to speak. A more regular formation, reading between the lines of my 1964 COD, would be "largen", (cf thicken) the prefix en- + adjective being rare. En- + noun or verb is common though and explains "enliven" either as "to give life to" or to (intensively) liven.
• Raak
  [Rosie] ...which has both prefix and suffix. As does embolden. But you can't ensticken the affixes on ad lib.
• nights
  You people scare me a bit sometimes. I love you all, but you scare me mildly.
• Knobbly
  I am finding what I understand of this interesting, and I do enjoy a bit of linguistics, but perhaps I shouldn't have encouraged it a few pages ago. Carry on though.
• Rosie
  (Raak) With "embolden" and "enliven" it would seem that in the past someone has done just that. I don't think the rules are particularly well-defined. (nights) Yep, we're a bunch of swivel-eyed fundamentalists. In the beginning was the Word. AND THE WORD SHALL BE SPELT PROPERLY. :-)
• CdM
  P - R - O - P - E - R - L - Y
• Darren
  Is there an opposite for "enlarge" which has the same pattern? There doesn't seem to be an "ensmall" or "enlittle" (although there is "belittle" but then where's the "belarge"?) - the closest in meaning is probably "shrink," which seems to have no connection with any words meaning "small" whatsoever.
• Irouléguy
  Darren] Well, there's the Simpsons' 'debigulator' machine, which rather implies that there's a verb 'to debigulate'
  
  More seriously, since the 'en-' prefix mostly seems to mean 'more of', or 'increase' you wouldn't really expect a word for making smaller to be made up in that way. There is 'decrease', which is a Latinate construction of 'de-' and crescere, to grow.
• Phil - I dog you etc...
  [penelope] which sense of "dogging" are you talking about?
• nights - he, she or it dogs
  [Phil] Perhaps it's best we don't ask.
• penelope
  [Phil] In the 'following someone annoyingly' sense. Why, what other senses are there? ;o)
• Knobbly
  [Irouléguy] Doesn't the prefix 'en-' mean something closer to 'to make'? (Enlarge - to make sth large).
  Actually, the example that made me think that was ennoble - to make noble.
• Knobbly - What I just said
  I have on my lap a big Chambers Dictionary:
  
  en- prefix
  1) in words derived from Latin through French (a)used to form verbs with the sense of in, into, upon; (b) used to form verbs with the sense cause to be; (c) used intensively or almost meaninglessly;
  (2) in words derived from Greek used to form verbs with the sense of in.
  
  I can't think of any for sense (c)...
• Rosie
  (Knobbly) I think enliven could fall into your category (c). Liven would do on its own ( = to make lively).
• CdM
  The Simpsons also introduced "enbiggen", iirc.
• nights
  [CdM] Wasn't that EMbiggen? As in, "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man" or something to that effect?
• Phil - dogging
  [penelope] "To hold or fasten with a mechanical device", apparently. >-]
• rab
  It's so nice to see grammaticalisation and form-function reanalysis in progress. Errr... I think.

  House news - we now have a phone, the main delay caused by the engineer not knowing where a big pipe of wires came out. Broadband apparently appeared first thing this morning, but since I had to come into work to read my email I didn't know about it then. (Actually, given that we've just had a system "upgrade" here, it might have been better to have stayed at home in any case). First major disaster was the downstairs neighbour complaining of water coming through our ceiling. We had a plumber/odd-job-man come out Saturday morning and spend three hours under the bath fixing the makeshift repair that the previous owner must have done about, oh, three or four days before moving out. Nice welcome present for us, oh yes. Anyway, should be fixed now; no all we need is for someone to plumb the gap that subsequently appeared in my bank account.

• rab
  +w
• Irouléguy
  Knobbly] I must admit i didn't look it up - I just went off the sense of most of the 'en-' words I could think of. I still can't think of an example for making smaller, though.
  Another contender for your sense c) is 'tangle' and 'entangle', though according to Webster-Merriam Online 'tangle' is an Anglo-Saxon shortening of an old French verb 'entangler'.
  
  *waves red rag* Can I argue for 'to Google' as one useful example of verbification? I can't think of an alternative that isn't a clunky noun-phrase - to look up on Google, to research on Google, to scope (out) on Google, etc.
• Darren
  I think "to Google" as a verb for "to search on Google" is OK, but only informally. I use it myself. However, it has become synonymous with "to search on the Internet, regardless of search engine used" which plays into the hands of those evil corporate types.
• Darren
  It has, of course, an friend in "to hoover."
• Darren
  Right on cue, Slashdot reports that "Google Sends Legal Threats to Media Organizations" over the use of its name as a verb for internet searces. See here.
• Irouléguy
  ...and in case you didn't scroll all the way down, here for some wonderful derivations from the Japanese verb 'guguru'.
  
  That story suggests that 'to Google' becoming a generic verb doesn't necessarily benefit them, though, because they lose their exclusivity.
• Darren
  To be more specific, potentially they could lose their trademark (at least in the US) if it becomes an ordinary word ("google" isn't an English word yet, although "googol" is), as once a word has become a generic term, it becomes impossible to enforce trademark rights on it.
• Phil - to hoover
  Ditto for "to Dyson", which used to be used in my household.
• Irouléguy
  Darren] The OED listed it as a verb in June - see here - which surely counts as a word becoming 'officially' English.
  
  Are there other brand-name verbs? I can only think of 'to Xerox' (American for photocopying), which I don't think is current any more.
• Darren
  [Irouléguy] It would only become a generic if "to google" meant "to search on the internet on any search engine." As long as it's defined to mean "to use Google" it shouldn't present them with any problems. There are plenty of brand names which have become generic nouns, applied regardless of brand (escalator, tannoy, biro, etc.) but not many verbs ("to rollerblade" is another, though).
• Raak
  [Darren] "Escalate" (he tannoyed, then biroed it in on his list of brandname verbs).
• Darren
  I don't think "escalate" quite counts as it predated "escalator." The thing which makes "escalator" a generic is the way it's use for any moving staircase, with no regard for whether it's an Otis "Escalator" model. If, however, you say, "I'm just going to escalate to the third floor, darling," then yes, "escalate" qualifies as a generic verb. Personally I've never heard it used that way.
• Darren
  "Escalate" no longer reads as a word to me, as a result of the previous paragraph. I just see a bunch of meaningless letters. It's annoying when that happens.
• Darren
  Talking of meaningless letters, I've developed this annoying habit of leaving letters out of my posts: "it's use for" indeed.
• Rosie
  (Darren) Stare at any word long enough and it begins to look mis-spelt or foreign. Either way you think you're going slightly barmy. I can assure you you're not unless I am as well.
• penelope
  Excuse me for a second...
  Dear I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Mailing List Member,
  We are now in a position to reveal the dates of the Autumn series of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.
  TICKETS WILL GO ON SALE FROM 10AM ON THE MORNING OF WEDNESDAY 16TH AUGUST.
  Tickets to these recordings sell extremely quickly, so you are strongly advised to book early.
  The first recording will take place on the evening of Sunday 22nd October 2006 at the Southport Theatre (capacity 1631). Tickets are priced at £10.50, £8.50 and £6.50, with a £2.25 transaction charge. There would normally be a £1.50 per ticket service charge as well, but we have absorbed this for you. You can either book tickets online at www.LiveNation.co.uk/southport , via the telephone by calling Ticketmaster on 0870 6077560, or in person at the theatre between the hours of 10am and 6pm, Monday to Saturday.
  The second recording will take place on the evening of Sunday 12th November at the Victoria Palace Theatre (capacity 1525). This is the theatre showing the musical Billy Elliot. Tickets are priced at £11.50, £9.50 and £7.50, with a £2.50 transaction charge. We have absorbed a 6% per ticket service charge. You can book tickets online by calling 0207 834 1317 which will ring at the box office direct and if not answered (either due to being busy, ringing too many times or outside the hours of 10am to 8.30pm Monday to Saturday) it will trip through to Ticketmaster.
  The third recording will take place on Sunday 26th November at the Sunderland Empire (capacity 1875). Tickets are priced at £10.50, £8.50 and £6.50, with a £2.25 transaction charge. There would normally be a £1.50 per ticket service charge as well, but we have absorbed this for you. You can either book tickets online at www.LiveNation.co.uk/Sunderland or via the telephone by calling the theatre's box office on 0870 602 1130 (phone trips to Ticketmaster either due to being busy, ringing too many times or outside of hours), or in person at the theatre box office between the hours of 10am and 7.45pm (6pm when there's not a show on), Monday - Saturday.
  Doors open to each recording at 7pm, and the recordings will begin at 7.30pm. They are scheduled to finish between 10.15-10.30pm and include a twenty minute interval.
  We are very concerned that tickets to these shows (which are already subsidised) are being touted for money, so in an attempt to remedy this, SALE OF TICKETS WILL BE LIMITED TO NO MORE THAN FOUR PER APPLICANT. Should you find yourself unable to use your tickets, please telephone the relevant theatre's box office. They will keep contact details for the first thirty applicants unable to get tickets, and will re-sell the tickets for you. Under no circumstances should you buy or sell tickets on eBay. If a recording has to be cancelled, anyone who has a ticket that has not be purchased legitimately will not get their money refunded, as Ticketmaster and the theatre box offices can only refund the original cardholder.
  
• rab - OK
  So here's a question: how do you find out a ballpark figure for how much one should be expected to pay for replacement windows? There seems to be a pact between fitters to give no indication of costs whatsoever, presumably so you can be royally ripped off when it comes to ordering them.
• penelope
  [rab] Try calling fitters and replacement window companies in a completly different town to escape the geographical fixed-price cartel. And I'm sure some of the national companies (Everest, Staybrite, Penicuik) have websites that might calculate it for you, once you have the approximate measurements. There's a glaziers' regulatory body I think - is it Fensa? Maybe they have a list of reputable ones.
• rab
  Thanks. No-one seems to offer an on-line quote; I'm not even after anything as scientific as that, just an estimate of how many thousands of pounds it's likely to be so we can budget for it. Very frustrating.
• Raal
  [Darren] According to the online dictionaries I just consulted, "escalate" is a back-formation from "escalator".
• Projoy - Refenestration
  [rab] How many windows do you want replacing? I have a ballpark figure of £5K for my flat, which would be 4 windows replacing, including patio doors. But then I am in the London area.
• Darren
  [Projoy] By that token, anyone outside London should be able to have it done for £1.50, then.
• Darren
  [Raal] Nice to see a new face here. You look a bit like Raak, if I may say so. Anyway, that's interesting because the ones I checked showed the reverse!
• rab - Eeek...
  [Projoy] We have seven windows in total: three of them quite large (about 2m²), two medium sized (1.25m²) and two wee ones (less than 1m² apiece). We're not in a listed building, or a conservation area, thank goodness, so they can be made out of anything we like, as long as we respect the astragals etc. 5K was the kind of number that was floating around my mind, for some reason, but from what you say it might be a bit more than that.
• Simons Mith - D-G
  I paid 3.5k a few years ago for a ground floor flat; four large windows (3+m² and one medium (1.25m²) plus a front door and a back door. It's the doors that add a lot to the expense; several hundred pounds a pop. And of course small windows are disproportionately costly for their size. I'd hope your requirements would be cheaper than Projoy's - I bet patio doors incur a double expense, once for being doors, and once for being large windows. I admit, I'd still anticipate a cost of well over 4k.
• penelope - dee gee
  Do you have to do them all in one go? I know there are 'do the front, get the back for free' offers every now and again... but don't panic, that's the main thing.
• rab - All for one
  I spose not - but all but two of them really need to be done if not by the winter then next summer at the latest, so we may as well have them all done in one go. We'll try not to panic - I'm just not keen on the whole "salesman" thing...
• Phil
  My regular customers include a window salesman, and a window surveyor (goes round after the salesman has done his bit and actually measure the windows etc). Unfortunately, the latter is on holiday this week, but I'll check with the former this evening if I remember. He's an ex-salesman as of last year, so should be honest about it. From conversations with him, I can advise you to beware of all the "pay for the front, get the back free" deals etc, as those sort of companies will be ripping you off anyway. The salesmen are amongst the most highly-trained, aggressive-style of any trade. You do not get a bargain from them, even though you will think you do. Some of the techniques he explained to me were quite scarily akin to military interrogation. I'll let you know what he says either tonight, or tomorrow morning.
  There is another way, though. If they are standard sizes, the window units themselves do not cost much (think 10% od what you get charged) and a pair of competent builders/handymen should be able to fit them.
• Raak
  [rab] Everest claim to be the best, but are probably the most expensive. They did six floor-to-ceiling windows and a door for me years back for 4k. How long do you plan staying at the address? You don't want something that will need replacing again in less than 20 years.
• Phil - Windows
  I've spoken to my mate, who used to work for StayBrite. He says there's a huge window-making company in Edinburgh that the likes of Staybrite buy their windows from. He'll try and track down the name tonight. He also reckons that, if there are no complex openings required etc, that you "could" get it done for £2K-ish. His advice is find a reputable window-fitter, not a big national company - you get the same windows, a non sales-driven company, and half the price. More to follow when I get more info.
• penelope
  [Phil] I'll bet you 5p and a melon that it's Penicuik.
• Phil - Gambling?
  [pen] I don't accept bets that I might not win ...i.e. I think you're right.
• gil - Celebrity MC
  Anyone seen Inkspot lately? He and I (as sigmundfreud) seem to be the only two left on Celebdaq. I'm really hanging on so he doesn't feel in solitary splendour. I suspect he's doing the same...
  Alternatively, some of you deserters might re-join.
• Projoy
  Celebdaq? Oh, puh-lease, that's so 2003. :)
• rab
  [Phil] Thanks. Any ideas as to how one knows a fitter is reputable?
• Projoy
  Isn't it marked on their bottoms?
• Phil
  [rab] Ask to see jobs they've done in the area, would be my best guess, other than local recommendation.
• nights
  How's the weather?
• gil
  >> Celebdaq? Oh, puh-lease, that's so 2003. :) Absolutely. For the last 3 years, I just buy Madonna - she's easy, cheap and she gets column inches.
• Tuj - Game slot
  ...just realised there's been one sitting blank for a while. Any innovative ideas?
• Inkspot - digging the daq
  [gil] Still doing pottering with the daq, member of Ultimates (MSN group) for investment tips and DDT also peek at http://www.redtide.co.uk/celebdaq/index.html?s=09000901
  Every now again like today Mornington_Crescent appears on the front page, sadly I run more than one account. Still not made Top Trader.
• nights
  An old standby from my days as a language assistant - "What will you do this weekend?" "Remember, we construct the future tense using the auxiliary 'will' - the clue's in the question!"
• penelope - le weekend
  I'm currently waiting for a friend to make his way out of Town to the boondocks of the tube system, from where we will embark on a voyage of historical discovery. We're going up the M40 to go and look at the paintings in a stately home. I have to choose the CDs for the trip, and he's going to choose the destination. We'll probably argue a bit.
• Raak - Today I learned something new
  I learned why the Knights say "Ni!". Néa must know this already. "Ni" is the Swedish for "you" in the plural, and used to also be the formal singular "you", like the French "vous". However, Swedish added a strange twist to this. If someone was eligible to be addressed as "ni" then, by definition, it was inappropriate to do so. Instead, one referred to them by their title, e.g. "would the professor like another cup of tea?" As the writer concludes, "the world really is coming to a sorry state when people are going about saying "ni" to old ladies."
         I suspected the story of being a wind-up, but I happened to have a copy of "Teach Yourself Swedish" dating from 1969, and it agrees. It also said that the awkwardness of having to address people in the third person, while also avoiding the words "he" and "she" (taboo in this situation), had led to efforts to persuade the Swedish public to use "ni" more widely, with some success. However, the success must have been limited, as I understand that the formal "ni" is now all but extinct.
         It is not know if the Knights who say "Ni!" are a deliberate reference to this quirk of Swedish grammar.
• flerdle - fun and games
  This weekend, which is mostly gone now here? Watched a Hindi film, bought some plants and crushed my right index finger in a car door.
• nights
  "In Soviet Union, Saturday is START of weekend."
• gil - Celebdaq
  Ha! Despite the fact that I don't follow the trends in e.g. http://www.redtide.co.uk/celebdaq/index.html?s=09000901 I have been making a good living buying Madonna, which seems to be a profitable move.
• gil - Finger in car door
  Wow! That hurts. My father-in-law shut the car door on my finger just before Beryl and I drove off on honeymoon... No remarks, please. My style was NOT cramped.
• Sierra Mike - Knights, Madonna
  *Delurking*
  [Raak] But these knights you speak of are no longer the Knights Who Say 'Ni!' and annecdotal evidence would suggest they ceased to be so some time before 1000 AD, before the age of 'Professors'. Therefore, going by the rules of good Swedish, it would be inappropriate to refer them as 'Neow-wom-peng!' or something close to that. This story would appear to be another urban legend. :)
  [gil] Your 'Celebdaq' posting had me in stitches when I read it. Then I looked up 'Celebdaq' and twigged I had the wrong end of the stick. Thanks for the laugh anyway.
• Raak
  [Sierra Mike] I prefer to interpret the film as a metaphorically expressed history of Swedish grammar.
• gil - Celebdaq
  [Sierra Mike]re Madonna... I have to confess the wording was chosen with irony in mind.
• Sierra Mike - Irony / Swedish Grammar
  [gil] Ah, well, it worked then.
  [Raak] You are undoubtedly right. Where do the dismemberment ad absurdum and cannibalism fit in?
• Raak
  [Sierra] I think it would take an expert in Scandinavian historical linguistics to fathom out the entirety of the Pythons' subtle code.
• Sierra Mike - Pythons and The Swedish Language
  [Raak] Now you come to mention it, there was that whole Scandinavian thread running through the opening credits, wasn't there? Jeepers, you may be onto somthing potentially very rewarding in the accademic sense and not to shabby in the next-year's-beach-book arena too if you can pull a "Dan Brown". The Python Codex is certain to be a blockbuster.
• penelope - new game
  It's ages since we had a Film Club or a Song Book...
• Tuj
  [pen] And Sound Charades, as well. Something should really just get rushed thru'.
• penelope - *stands back in anticipation of the rush*
• Néa - Yep, I knew that
  [Raak] That's it, in essentials, though not quite quite. Quoting my handbook in etiquette from 1933:
  
  "Although the use of the address ni is more common today than ten or fifteen years ago, it is not accepted in ordinary social life. [...] it is however permitted to include a ni here and there in conversation, provided that one also includes the title. Thus, it is possible to say "Oh, so the countess was in Visby last summer, how did ni find it?" or "Is the consul going to Paris, weren't ni there last spring?" But you cannot be too young if you are to use ni to older people [etc etc for 30 more pages about use of titles I kid you not]"
  
  It does say that using "ni" to colleagues is fine, though, as well as some other equal-status situations where it was OK. There's a whole chapter about when to stop using titles -- always a mutual process, you stopped using each other's titles and said du (sing. "you") instead of ni. A lot happened in the decades following with an increase in "ni" and decrease of titles, but the big big revolution was in the late 1960s, when the head of a government office declared that he would say "du" to all his employees and expected "du" back. (Well, that's it in a nutshell anyway -- it was more complicated of course.)
  Anyway, the funny thing is that after all that, today Swedish uses virtually no titles at all. We have "Mr", Mrs", "Miss" and "Dr" and various old nobility and royal titles, but apart from royalty nobody uses any titles, ever. (Very young schoolkids tend to call their teacher "miss" or "teacher", but once they hit 10 or so it's strictly first names.) So when buying, say, plane tickets from British Airways, a Swede is struck by the necessity to put a title there -- which feels very very foreign.
• Sierra Mike - Neow-wom-peng!
  [Néa] Swedish schoolchildren are presumably too well brought up to say "Ni!" to a teacher. Would that our lot were as aware of the social graces.
• Phil
  My butcher calls me "Sir", and I love it. I'd be delighted to go back to using titles and surnames instead of all this pseudo-familiar first name tosh. If someone repeatedly uses my name, I instinctively remind myself not to buy anything, or co-operate for that matter. Still, it's better than being called "mate" by someone I'm trying to conduct some business with.
• Rosie - Surnames
  (Phil) My Indian newsagent always greets me with a smile and "Ah, Mr Hughes" when I go in each week to pay for the papers. This is almost too formal even for someone of my age but charming nevertheless. What I really don't like is name-tags where the surname is omitted. It's either false familiarity or management's way of saying you're not very important.
• rab
  I'm not keen on letters coming from people with gender-neutral names (like Chris) without a title as you then never know how to write back to them.
• Projoy
  [rab] "Dear Chris"? Isn't the point that once they've introduced themselves by a particular name it's quite acceptable to address them by it...?
• Rosie - Chris
  My nextdoor neighbours are Chris and Sam. Any guesses?
• rab
  {Projoy] Actually, I was thinking of emails rather than letters where you have mail from "Chris Jones", and at the bottom a standard sig "Chris Jones, Gender Neutrality Officer". To me, it feels utterly wrong beginning a communication with "Dear Chris" when I've never met the person in question.
• rab
  Mind you, I once had a letter from Scottish Gas, signed by hand as "Scottish Gas"...
• Darren
  [rab] Did you reply "Dear Scottish" or "Dear Mr Gas"?

  I agree with rab about feeling uncomfortable replying to mails like that. I generally duck the issue and just start them with "Hi -" and in fact, I don't often use names at all unless there's ambiguity as I've never been comfortable with using people's names for any purpose whatsoever, even if I've known them for years. Dunno why.

• Raak
  [rab] "Dear Sir or Madam, as the case may be:" Although in email I never use any salutation at all.
• Néa - OMG
  [Raak] Why not? [All others] What about you? Do you use salutations in email?
• Raak
  [Néa] Just the custom I'm accustomed to (and therefore the One True Way).
• penelope
  I use 'Good morning [name] or sometimes just 'Good Morning' (or afternoon), or sometimes 'Dear [name] in an email; if it's a round-robin (which is often is) I just start with an attention-grabbing 'Ladies and Gentlemen' which seems to go down fairly well, apart from with one individual who has been making a fool of herself recently and is not much longer for this corporate world, I feel.
  [Rosie] A gay couple. With stupid parents. :oP
• Sierra Mike
  [Néa, from whom all knowledge springs, from whose navel a lotus springs forth and who encompasses the oceans in three strides] I avoid salutations as unnecessary ornamentation.
• Projoy
  [Salutations] For email, even formal email, I find that "Hello," is a perfectly good opening for almost every purpose. So much so that I now find it slightly quaint to receive an email that begins "Dear..." (particularly if the person uses my surname). And it's been many a year since I've seen a "yours faithfully". If forced into a formal signoff, I tend to stick to just "Yours," for fear of writing something I don't in the slightest bit mean, such as "sincerely".
• Projoy
  [Dear Mr B-----,] While I am familiar with the feeling whereof you speak re: addressing someone by their first name prior to a formal introduction, which no doubt is deplored in Debrett, I can't say I've experienced a great deal of discomfort in discarding the convention.
• Phil - Oh no, i fear I'm a fogey (yet again)...
  In emails, I use "yours faithfully", "your sincerely", "regards" or "kind regards" depending on the context. I also use "cheers", which I use as a multi-purpose word in spoken coversation anyway. However, at the start of an email, I tend just to use the person's name (surname if we're not acquainted, forename if we are) or "Dear Sir or Madam" if it's to "complaints@????.com" or "service@????.com" (as many of my emails are).
• Projoy - re:
  [Phil] Whats the difference between regards and kind regards? I've never really appreciated this subtlety.
• Rosie - Chris and Sam
  (pen) Sorry, but it's Christopher and Samantha. 50 yrs ago it would have been Christine and Samuel.
• Projoy
  Now I come to look at it, Christine seems such a silly name. It's like the brand name of a sort of mini-Messiah individually wrapped for your comfort and convenience.
• Projoy
  "Vicar, do you sell small packs of Christines for the weekend?"
• Darren
  [Projoy] Most names start to look pretty silly if you look at them too closely, like most words.
• nights - Salutations
  [Néa] I tend to use a first name and a colon. It's my style. For example:
  
  Dear Samantha:
  
  Isn't it about time you got off Humphrey's hand? I should think it was quite uncomfortable.
  
  All the best,
  
  Nights.
  
  I think of an email as being a less formal letter - with an opening, closing and all the rest. Most of my peers think I'm bizarre for this.
• Rosie
  hi nites i reckn your a yong fogy rosie
• Raak - Hello, I must be going
  In email I don't use valedictions either, just my name at the end or a .sig. Written letters go "Dear Sir/Yours faithfully" or "Dear [name]/Yours".
• Blob - emailiquette
  Hmm, well showing my old-foginess I start with a "signature" saying who I am, website details etc. (Though this is automatically included) Then I use Dear (name) <comma> Dear Humphrey, Then the text - all properly written out and hopefully correctly spelt and punctuated. And I tail it with Regards, Blob (or whatever soubriquet that person knows me by) ........ What's more, I write SMS texts in much the same way !!!
• Rosie - Formality
  (Nights) Actually most of my emails are no different from letters except in the greeting if I'm familiar with the person. This means capitals, punctuation and paragraphs. Well, why not? At my age you simply don't give a toss if people think you're bizarre. It's great.
• Darren
  The thing is, I tend to see emails as more closely related to memos than letters. When I receive an email written like a formal letter, it comes across, frankly, as somewhat illiterate.
• penelope
  [darren] How would you receive a letter through your letterbox? Would you feel impatience that they didn't email you about it?
• Phil
  [Projoy] It's a gut feeling thing. Although, if I sit and think about it, my regards tend to be much kinder if I'm selling than buying.
• Darren
  [pen] I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at there.
• Projoy
  [pen] Dunno about Darren, but I would feel exactly that (and frequently do). We've too few trees as it is, without wasting them on pointless letters, cards etc.
• Rosie - paper
  (Projoy) You really can't be allowed to get away with that. The proportion of paper in actual letters compared with the total amount of paper (newspapers, junk mail etc) that comes through my letterbox is very small. In any case, we're not short of trees; there are many more than there were 40-50 years ago, everywhere. To be honest, I'm not that keen on trees, they spoil the view and at one time threatened to undermine my house. Rather overrated, I feel.
• Projoy
  [Rosie] Who says my annoyance is confined to only legitimate letters? As to "more trees", I don't know if that's true, although I guess you're more likely to know than I am, But don't we need even more trees at the moment to do Carbon Dioxide conversion? This is the general impression I have gained.
• ImNotJohn - Trees
  I suspect Rosie is right that there are more trees now than in the 50's. I'm pretty sure, however, that there were many more in the 30's and more still before WW1. Also, the tree-planting boom of the 50's 60's & 70's was mostly conifer plantations. Planting more trees as mixed woodland must be a good thing both aesthetically and as carbon sinks.
• penelope
  IIRC, commercial forestry supplies most of the pulp for paper - and that's a planting-and-harvesting operation of fast-growing monoculture conifers; it doesn't use wood from mixed and deciduous woodland.
• Darren
  I'm still not sure what forest conservation and my opinion of email writing style have to do with each other.
• Sierra Mike - Tree abundance
  Which would explain the demise of resin/wood particle composite board and the resurgence of quality natural wood at the woodyards. Oh, hang on......
• penelope
  That's a matter of furniturenfashion and the health hazards of the resin fumes, innit?
• nights
  [Rosie] Well I look forward to being 23 then. And I write text messages just the same way - the joy of predictive text. And a new phone!
  
  In other news, I handed in my dissertation today!
• Néa
  [nights] Congratulations! Well done! I hate you. No, really, well done.
• Rosie - Trees
  (Projoy) It's true that trees fix carbon rather than letting it float free as CO₂ but the number needed to make any difference is impractically large particularly considering the rate the Amazon jungle and other areas are being chopped down. Trees are nice but have become sacred, which is just silly. They undermine buildings, obscure the sky and the view, drop leaves on the railway line and are even allowed to obscure signals. The biodiversity of tree-free railway cuttings was incredible. Down with trees! BTW I don't quite understand your aversion to printed paper. I get cards all the time from my nieces in addition to all the emails, which is nice, and far better than when they were young teenagers and sent me electronic Christmas cards. Sod that.
• Projoy
  [Rosie] Well, I suppose it's a personal preference, but I just find dealing with paper irritating these days. It becomes clutter very quickly. You can't miniaturise it and file it conveniently in a sensible folder system on a HDD. Cards and the like seldom express sentiments profound enough to be worth keeping, and for the most part are ritualistic and purposeless. Almost anything that could be said in a conventional letter could be said in an email, which is far more keepable these days.
• Chalky - call me old-fashioned
  [PJ, Rosie] Being a keen calligrapher - I mostly design and write greetings cards to close friends and family. They seem to appreciate the personal, snail-mail touch because it's evidence that one has made the effort. Far more 'keepable' I'd say.
• Phil
  I loathe "greetings cards", and I've just deleted my justification of that statement because I don't want to feel yet again that I'm the only one singing in tune :-)
• Simons Mith
  [Phil] I'm only mentioning how much I despise commercial greetings cards so you know you're not alone. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't even have botherd to mention it. Profit margins of 60%+?? The sleazy slimeballs.
• Projoy
  Me2, as mentioned (and justified) above.
• Phil
  [SM & PJ] I have an equal, but differently justified, loathing for hand-made ones too.
• Lib
  I love cards. I love writing letters. I love recieving post of any form. I send lots of postcards when I go on holiday. I particuarly like hand made cards. I do get a bit pissed off when I get a Christmas card from someone I rarely keep in touch with just signed with their name, as I'd like a little newsbite. I try to lead by example and put a little line or two in each card, something personal to who its addressed to. I also mostly try to make my own Christmas cards, although I was defeated on that one last year (I sent over 85, and recieved a similar number). So, why do I like them. I accept that I do mostly just throw them away (or try to recycle) and it is a fair economic cost, but I like to keep in touch with as many people as I can and I think its a good way to show that you're thinking of someone. Hurrah for cards. That's what I say!
• Projoy
  [Lib] If I want to know what someone whom I am otherwise too feckless to stay properly in contact with is up to, I'll usually google them or take a look at their blog or something. If I instead sent a card for the sheer sake of "staying in touch" what pleasure would it afford them to know that I thought of them... but didn't think enough of them to do more than send a card? You might argue that I miss the point, and I suppose I probably do. Obviously, not attacking anyone else's way of staying in touch, but that's how it's always seemed to me.
• Projoy
  Apologies if I come across as a crabby bastard, but, well, I am one. :)
• Lib
  [PJ] You didn't seem any more crabby that I am (revising never brings the nice side of me out)... I like to know that someone out there is thinking of me. That's probably something to do with the kind of high-maintainence-centre-of-attention person I am. Getting a card is something concrete that I can see that they've thought of me. Looking at my blog doesn't mean anything as I don't track all the hits. But, each to his own, hey? And I'll remember not to send you any cards a ProjoyTowers.
• Chalky - crabby old so-and-so
  [Phil/PJ] Hmm - surely you have aunts, uncles, grandparents [even parents] that may not be quite as netsavvy as you? [or even own a PC]. How do you all stay in touch or send birthday/christmas-type greetings to them? Telephone?
• Projoy
  [Chalky] Why stay in touch? Why send greetings? Unless you want to know them as friends, doing either of those two things seems completely pointless - maybe even slightly hypocritical - to me.
• Phil
  [Chalky] I didn't say that I prefer to use the net. I just don't really "stay in touch". I have one uncle, one aunt, one cousin, no grandparents. I do speak to my brothers and parents fairly frequently on the phone. I do send birthday and christmas cards to all family members (including in-laws and 2 nieces) - I also loathe buses, but use them when necessary.
  On the other hand, we all use email too for quick messages, e.g. my sister-in-law invited us to her 50th birdthay party by email, and I was able to decline within 30 minutes - job done, no waiting; no having to find a "sorry we can't come" card, write it, find her address, buy a stamp, post it (all of which would take me a day or two).
• penelope
  [Projoy, Phil] Blimey, I'm now wary of having either of you two as friends... if I left it too long, the friendship lapses and you'd discontinue membership! I've got friends all over the place that I don't see for a couple of years at a time, but I'm extremely pleased that I *can* count them as friends, and still send xmas cards. I really can't see it the way you do.
• Lib - Stands in the girls corner
  Am I sensing a gender divide here?
• Darren
  [Lib] No, I like cards.
• Chalky - speaking literally
  [Phil] I see. You seem to use different methods for different folks. Me too. I just prefer to make a greetings card than to buy one [for the reasons already stated by PJ and SM.
  
  [PJ] Why stay in touch? The ones I stay in touch with are the ones I LIKE and respect.
• ImNotJohn
  Well, I know it means more to me when I send a card or letter than an email (partly because of the extra effort). So it means more to me to receive one as well. Also probably more than half the people I communicate with regularly are not regular e-mail users, even if they have an address. I just think it's for different purposes. Quick notes, information-based, SMS or email; communication - letters or cards.
• Néa
  [Proj] You don't think staying in touch with your aged relatives who are not on the Internets is worthwile in itself? Me, I like sending post cards, but not too many or too often. I defaulted out of Postcrossing recently.
  In other news, I suck at lecturing. Really and truly.
• Projoy
  [Néa] *thinks for a moment*. Mm. Not really - for them or me. [pen] I have friends whom I sometimes don't see for a couple of years, or more. It sounds like in your case it's necessary to send a card or something in order to maintain the friendship subscription (whether used or not). In my case I'm very happy for someone I like to show up again after a couple of years of not calling or writing. I don't require them to ping me in the interval, because it would be a waste of both of our time (at least until they or I are ready to re-engage - and also a waste if one of us is no longer really interested).
• Projoy
  [Néa] PS. I bet you don't suck at it.
• nights
  [Néa] I agree, I bet you don't suck.
• Phil
  [penelope] I wonder, do I really have friends, per se, or perhaps I just have pals? I think that could be an interesting bit of self-analysis, perhaps anyone who counts me as a "friend" could contribute. Oh I dunno, I'm just me, and I'm not great at communicating, so I don't bother :-)
• Phil - for flerdle's eyes only
  Here's something flerdle told me: (View the source to read the hidden text)
• flerdle
  Phil: (View the source to read the hidden text)
• Tuj
  *comes back from Leamington Spa, joins the "I bet Néa doesn't suck brigade, and says (View the source to read the hidden text) to flerdle and Phil*
• Tuj
  That's the "I bet Néa doesn't suck" brigade.
• Projoy
  [Tuj] Phew.
• snorgle - cards
  I'm terrible at sending cards, and I find it a nuisance. What's worse though, is that my mum gets cards and she has NO idea who the people are. She may have met them once, or be related to them, but if they sign the card with their first names only it's hard to guess. She gets a few like that every year.
• Raak - Cards
  I go through the ritual, but only because it's generally done. But awkward situations sometimes come up. Should I send a Christmas or birthday card this year to my lately ex-sister-in-law? At what point should a Christmas card to my brother also be addressed to his new partner?
• nights
  I donate, instead of sending cards. That, and I usually work extra shifts at Christmas so I don't really have the time.
• snorgle - cards
  We did get one christmas card last year that said that they would not be sending cards this year, but would be making a donation to a charity (I think it was for MS) instead. Sounds good to me! We did that in work too - everyone gave a couple of pounds and we gave it all to a charity instead of giving out cards.
• Chalky
  Which begs the question ... How does one let people know that one is donating to charity instead of sending them a card?
• Raak
  [Chalky] You send them a charity card.
• Rosie - Cards etc
  Why do people have to know one is donating to charity except to inform them what a Wonderful Person one is? Why not send cards as usual and donate to charity? Or send "charity" cards? I normally send cards to people I don't see very often; it just means you've remembered them and value them. Some, but not all, of a group of pub mates have taken to sending (i.e. dishing out in the pub) Christmas cards to each other, which I think is barmy. I don't do it and it's done me no harm whatever.
• Phil - Nothing in particular
  Just thought I'd try and introduce a new subject, but I can't think of one. Anyone care to comment?
• Uncle Korky
  [Phil] I'd love to help, but I'm away to Bury to see IQ in concert.
• Rosie - New subject
  I've been out all evening - has Blair gone/died/been arrested/resigned/emigrated yet? Can't wait.
• Tuj - I played all 7 of my tiles in one go in a game of Scrabble yesterday - the word was SLEETED.
  Maybe changing the subject should be the new subject.
• Rosie
  (Tuj) You could have had DELETES or STEELED.
• Tuj
  [Rosie] I'd also spotted those (and the D was actually a blank!) but I picked SLEETED over STEELED (DELETES didn't fit on the board).
• rab - * waves from Ambleside *
• blamelewis - Cards
  I was firmly in the anti-card camp, but I've found things have changed since having a kid. Suddenly photos of the littleun are a commodity for relatives - especially the older and less internet savvy kind. So, I've been sending cards using pictures of my son to people where in the past I might have a) sent a crappy off the shelf card and hated the whole process and b) not bothered through apathy.
  
  One thing that kick started it all was finding a program called Comic Life (Mac users - I recommend it heartily) which is great for knocking up comic strip style cards using my own photos. I've also been known to send an occasional e-card as a slightly more colourful way of marking an occasion than just sending email. I think cards for me inhabit a sort of middle zone of contact with someone, and I find it pleasing to think that I can send my offline relatives something tangible with a picture of their grandson/great grandson on it.
• Chalky - ego tripping
  I've made a move in every game in here today, so I may as well mention it here :-)
• blamelewis
  [Chalky] You should win something... a sort of sedimentary layer award.
• Tuj
  [rab] Do html tags work in the titles of games? Actually I was mainly thinking of the hiding tags - a game entirely consisting of hidden moves would be fun. I was also wondering if it might be time for another Lies game.
• rab - Tag
  [Tuj] No.
• Inkspot - Fresh morning
  When bringing in the milk this morning at half six, there was a definite sense of the summer being over. A low haze of thick grey cloud, drizzle soaked grass and the street lights still on (not doing much but just quietly announcing that the mornings are getting darker). Inside the lights turned on for breakfast and side lights needed on the car driving in. At least one thing the heating is still off and will hopefully stay that way till October.
  

  I don't want another Lies game.

• Tuj
  Here in the deep south (Hants) it is doing the old cats and dogs routine (and to a strong degree at that). Certainly a change having been building sandcastles on Monday!
  [Inkers] Well don't start one then.
• Phil
  I'm going to have to get my chimney swept, as it looks like I might be here till the end of October :-(
• penelope
  I can't wait for there to be a nip in the air - it's rainy here, but so warm and muggy. In preparation for autumn and winter, I ordered some new boots yesterday and tested the central heating. But I think the ancient boiler's pump has given up so the central heating doesn't work. I don't need it yet, but I'm hoping this'll prompt the landlords into renewing the boiler. They seem so proud of being to make it limp along for longer than is sensible, dammit. I just want a nice condensing boiler to make only as much hot water as I need, not a hot water tank - it's daft for just one person. In the meantime, I have a warm laptop for personal comfort :o)
• Inkspot
  We had British Gas round to do the annual service the boiler the other day, its a bit doom and gloom, it is old and parts are hard to replace. They have suggested a new combi boiler.
• Projoy
  [pen] Sh. Don't wish it away. There'll be plenty of nip in good time. [Tuj] Lies games are really impossible to play, they're always the least popular games in the Morniverse and usually end up neglected.
• penelope
  [Inkers] Do it. It'll be quieter and more efficient.
• Raak
  Speaking of energy, having just discovered that I'm paying more than twice what I did for electricity a couple of years ago, I looked into other possibilities. Apparently, one can now change electricity suppliers with just a few clicks on a web page, and I stand to save 20%. Is it really that simple? Has anyone here done it? I'm looking at Powergen vs. Atlantic, and I wonder how Powergen can now stay in business except by relying on the inertia of their customers. (Yes, I know it's evil to heat a house with electricity, but I doubt if it's adaptable to gas.)
• ImNotJohn - Electricity slags
  Funny thing, electricity pricing - I was involved in the new trading arrangements which came into force in 1998. One of the effects of them is that it's cheaper to buy small quantities of electricity than large most of the time, so the big players like Powergen are somewhat handicapped. The difference is nothing like 20% though. Of course, lots of suppliers have short term or 'new customer only' promotions, hoping to get people in and then rely on inertia. The cheapest thing to do is therefore change often.
• flerdle
  Do you have people going door-to-door trying to get people to change their gas/electricity company? For a few months here I was plagued by 'em. Started fantasizing about electricifying the doorbell to give them a shock... rude words were thought, but not said.
• Raak
  [flerdle] I did get a few a while back, very strange. The first one opened by saying "How would you like to save money on your electricity bill?", and wanted me to sign up there and then, without even saying what company he was representing. Then a few months later, two young women doing "a survey" asked if I had switched suppliers, "like most of your neighbours have". Nul points. Probably from the same company, whoever they were, and if I did, I'd make a point of never doing business wth them, ever. Then the first chap came back again and I just said "Not interested" and closed the door.
  [INJ] Odd, I'm going by the companies' own published tariffs for an Economy 7 dual meter. All the companies seem to claim to be at least "part of one of the biggest suppliers", although that's rather an elastic expression.
• Sierra Mike - Deregulating Utilities = cheaper phone/gas/'lectric
  It has been my experience that deregulating state-owned utility services results in a welter of paperwork for the consumer who is bombarded by junk mail exhorting this or that 'cheaper' version of whatever it is. They invariably aren't cheaper in the long run, largely because of the increased costs associated with legislation, litigation and advertising. Service call-outs become a nightmare of humanless voice-mail mazes and all one really gets is a warm feeling when one thinks about the 'good old days'. My gas service was recently split from the monopolistic energy carrier from my area. Costs increased overnight by 10-15% and there are now three phone numbers to report a gas leak with no 24-hour call-out. The joke? that the billing departments, although ostensibly now separate for gas and electricity, still use the same style account numbers and go to the same building. Indeed, I can pay my electricity bill at a window in a gas-company cashier's office. I suspect the bills are made up on the same computer. It's all a game.
• penelope
  I've argued on the doorstep with an electricity account swapper guy before too. I told him I didn't want to discuss it there and then, and he kept asking me 'why not?'. so I shut the door on him. It was quite scary, to be honest, he was becoming vehement. Lord knows what it's like for little old ladies.
• rab
  This is one of the benefits of having an entryphone system - with a bit of skill (and luck in having the topmost buzzer) you can generally fend these people off before they gain access to the stair.
• Raak
  Also, how do they tell whose electricity it is? It's all the same wires, and the electrons aren't labelled.
• Sierra Mike - 'leccy
  [Raak] You could spin 'em up with a particular bias though. That way you could discriminate yours from the rest by having a filter installed at the customer's service entrance that let through electrons with a penchant for drinking only gravity fed beer or that preferred a lawn mowed in alternating stripes and kept the others out for example.
• Phil
  Don't you realise you're all geing ripped off. It's AC electricity - that means you're getting the same electrons going in and out of your meter day in day out, yet you get charged as if they were all brand spanking new...bloody nerve these leccy suppliers have got, I reckon.
• Rosie - Privatisation
  (SM) Quite so. Competition in itself costs money and furthermore there has to be rake-off for the private company or they wouldn't be interested in the first place. So naturally it costs more, or the service is poorer. Another example is Directory Enquiries, privatised for no good reason whatever except to satisfy the current political dogma. Don't get me going about the railways, about which I know a bit. Truly the country is run by idiots.
• Rosie
  (Phil) A very good point. The less fastidious among us would settle for AC/DC but that's up to them, naturally.
• rab
  I'm glad someone mentioned Directory Enquiries... I remember that once upon a time it was operated by BT for free; then they charged about 10p which could be circumvented by using a phone box; looking at last month's phone bill, I notice that fierce competition has delivered the fantastic bargain of 60p per enquiry. Victory!
• Phil
  Since they started charging, I've not used directory enquiries once. I find 192.com to be very good.
  Slightly tangentially, at work, I have had no end of incorrect reservations, e.g. someone books at this Bull's Head, then turns up for dinner at another, because 118118 or whoever has given them the wrong number. One night we had two bookings that didn't show, so I called them the next day saying "Hello, this is the Bull's Head at Ratby; you had a reservation with us last night..." Both people failed to notice the "Ratby" bit, even when I said it so clearly, and said "yes we were there". Then when asked where exactly, one said "Well, we booked at the Bull's Head in Newtown Linford, but when we got there we couldn't find it (I was able to tell them that it changed name 8 years ago), so we went to the Bull's Head at Woodhouse Eaves." The other said "You know, on the A47", which is about 6 miles away in Leicester Forest West. Unfortunately, I think there are 11 Bull's Heads in Leicestershire, and half of them are within a 12 mile radius
• Sierra Mike
  [Phil] Well, with a bit of creative yet inexpensive sign alterage you could easily become the Bull Shed. That should stop the problem. Alternatively, add a sauna at the back and call your place The Bull's Head of Steam.
• rab
  [rab] Unfortunately, we were not internet enabled when our water was leaking into the flat below and we didn't know the number for a plumber that had been suggested to us...
• rab
  Sorry, that should have been directed at [Phil]
• Sierra Mike - Persistent Salesmen
  [penelope] We need a new game where the object is to supply a witty, brief and above all final response to "Why not [discuss my proposal now]?"
• Raak
  [Sierra Mike] Perhaps with each person giving an answer to the previous person's salesman's line, then supplying a new salesman's line of their own?
• Sierra Mike
  [Raak] That would work too, though I was just thinking about supplying alternatives for penelope to use after the Why not? was delivered. Sort of along the lines of Mad Magazine's old Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions feature. One question, many one-liner responses.
• Phil
  [rab] Commiserations - it's a shame that necessity forces one to be ripped off :-(
• Inkspot - end games
  To make way for the new game I think it is time for Cancel Mansell to move along, ready for Why Not? or something new.

  I dread to use the 'C' word in September but the school sent out the Christmas catalogue yesterday, and the milkman dropped off this morning a leaflet for spring and Christmas flowering bulbs.

  Is it proper or just morbid bad taste omn my part for wanting to see how the hamster from Top Gear had a near fatal crash. Hopefully he will recover soon and take his revenge out on a few more caravans.

• penelope - It's an 'x' word
  [Inkers] I have already planted bulbs in pots for next spring and bought xmas cards (from the V&A, online, before they run out, which is what happened last year).
• Inkspot
  [pen] Very impressed and also quite jealous.

  Can I also just say about the two people that heckled John Reid, it was a set up. A member of the cabinet going to an invited audience of muslims, security would have been tight. But two well known radicals simply walk in unnoticed!! pah!! It's a government conspiracy I tell you.

• Raak - X marks late September
  Today I saw a pub advertising Christmas meals today. That is, you could go in today and have a Christmas meal. WIth free bottle of champagne (which I think must mean a one-glass quarter bottle of white fizz).
• Phil
  I'm so happy to be moving to a pub that does not do food. Christmas will not be a word that makes me shake with fear this year :-)
• Uncle Korky
  [Phil] As I recall, you didn't do food when I came in anyway! :-)
• Inkspot
  [phil] A pub that has no food? Not even chicken in the basket! But I presume you will still be working on Christmas Day.
• Dan
  I stopped in at a pub at Kinlochleven that had two entrances; one for walkers and one for... I don't know, everyone else, I suppose. I arrived by car but I as was I scruffy and dressed for walking I went in the former as a courtesy to what I supposed was their intent. Inside I discovered that not only were the two parts of the pub completely separate, with the walker section gulag-spare, but they even served different food! I ordered some manner of pie and got some hideous little prepackaged thing that had been semithawed in the microwave, which I would have regarded as inedible even had it been warmed up properly. The thing is, it appeared to be quite a different thing from what they were serving in what I could see in the remainder of the place. I concluded that they absolutely despised walkers but couldn't exclude them, so they decided to quarantine them and make them miserable in the hopes of developing a reputation that would repel as many of them as possible.
• Raak
  [Inkspot] To take that suggestion perhaps more seriously than it was intended, if it was a setup, it seems to me a quite benign one. After all, it appears the two hecklers were real radical Islamists, not stooges, and if the authorities troubled themselves no further than making sure no bombs got in, well, freedom of speech and all that. It's hardly a dirty trick to let them condemn themselves out of their own mouths in front of the press. What are they going to do, complain that they weren't suppressed?
• Dan
  Come and see the tolerance inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm not bein' repressed!
• Inkspot
  In letting them in they were certain to go off at anytime, for the speaker it did not matter, he needed a headline otherwise it would have been just another day at the office. Suddenly a small paragraph inside became front page news. It was manipulation by of events for a desired outcome.
• Phil
  [Uncle K] That's just saturday lunchtime :-)
  [Inky] Indeed, that is the current status of the place. No children permitted either, and the place is packed! If there is no tradition of that pub opening on Christmas Day, then this year I will have the day off. Next year wil be different. If it does currently open, I'll do it for 2 hours.
  [Dan] Is that the pub that overlooks the water, with the Atlas brewery behind it? If so, I was there 2 and a bit years ago, and although we had to leave our packs in the lobby, or outside, they were perfectly welcoming, and had some wonderful beer from the aforementioned brewery. The toasties were smashing !
• Raak
  [Inkspot] I am, perhaps wrongly, getting the impression that you find something wrong with that. But everything people do is "manipulation of events for a desired outcome". Or in less tendentious language, acting to achieve their goals. Nothing dishonest happened: the hecklers hanged themselves with their own rope (I hope -- but I haven't followed subsequent reports to see what mainstream Muslim reaction has been). If indeed there was a nod and a wink to the security services to flagrantly let the opposition be heard, I don't have a problem with that.
• Dan
  [Phil] I dinna think so. They didn't have a lobby for one thing, and for another, like I said, walkers were shunted into a room that felt like a holding pen for undesirables (which on reflection is what it was), and there was no brewery attached. It was some time ago. In fairness it was one of only two less than delightful pub experiences I had in Scotland, and as for the other, well, I'll frame it in the form of retrospectively self-evident advice: If you're at the Fringe and you find a pub that miraculously isn't jammed with people, it is safe to assume that there's a good reason for it. My own fault in both cases, of course, as it's really not difficult to simply leave places that don't feel right.
• Phil
  [Dan] I have a wonderful memory of walking into Kinlochleven from Glencoe. It was not long after midday and there was only one "PH" marked on the map. As we rounded the corner, the pub hove into view. I believe it was called The Anchor, and a dingier, drabber looking place it would be hard to imagine in such a picturesque location. A youngish bloke (20 or thereabouts) was walking the other way, obviously a local (due to lack or rucksack etc), so I shouted across the street "Is that the only pub in town?". The look of horror on his face will stay with me for many years as he replied "Hell, no! No unless ye like trippin over pushchairs and shit! Carry on to the river, you'll be fine there."
• rab
  In the phamaceutical product naming stakes I thought it was difficult for anusol to be trumped (so to speak), but it appears to have been done.
• rab
  And on the topic in hand [Dan] Can you remember which pub in Edinburgh that was?
• Darren
  [rab] Slightly odd thing just now. The site displayed without any CSS (just a bulleted list of games). A reload got it back as normal. I don't know if this was just a momentary glitch or something you'd want to know about.
• rab
  If it happens again, look at the page source and see if the css is actually being loaded in the html (by a LINK tag).
• Dan
  [rab] Unfortunately not. I'm certain it was in Rose Street, or just off, but that's about it. It had a "locals only" vibe which we were too oblivious to pick up on at first.
• snorgle - pharmaceutical names
  [Rab]That stuff has been around for years! Which probably explains the name. Can you see a new product coming out with a name like that? At least you can't have any doubts about what it's for.
• rab
  [snorgle] Although, oddly, its makers do, referring euphemistically to "feminine itching". That sounds to me like some sort of marital complaint.

  [Dan] Oh well, it's probably been overhauled and turned into vertical drinking bar now. Not sure which I prefer really.

• Projoy
  [feminine itch] What does this sentence mean: "Every woman shares in the dilemma of those nagging feminine problems."?
• Rosie
  (Projoy) Quite. What dilemma? But I can't see much wrong with the product name. It's certainly not in the same league as Anusol. *(creases up)*
• Phil
  [Projoy] I don't care what the sentence means, but I loathe the use of those "those" words in advertising and journalism.
• Darren
  [Phil] You've got to admit, it would be worse with "them" instead.
• Phil
  [Darren] As a Geordie (originally), I think "them" would be much more fun.
• ImNotJohn
  Shouldn't it be 'they', to aim at the Glaswegian market?
• Inkspot - Done that list yet?
  Next from their range of products is Lipusol for "Every man shares in the dilema of those nagging feminine problems". *scarpers quickly to the shed*
• penelope
  *lays a trail of gunpowder from the back door to the shed and puts a match to it*
• Phil
  [INJ] Indeed, for the cowboy market, it should be "them thar"
• Darren
  If you wanted to be really misogynistic, how about "you" instead?
• Néa
  [Phil] Cowboys have nagging feminine problems?
• Phil
  You've not seen Brokeback Mountain? Actually, I haven't, so I've no idea if that joke works or not
• ImNotJohn
  [Nea] They became cowboys to escape problems with nagging females. (Mine's the storm cape and stetson hanging by the door, thanks.)
• Inkspot - One cape required
  [INJ]You'll be in trouble now, I hope you have better blast doors on your shed than I did.
  Should you not be needing that cape later , if it could be passed over here with a pair of size wellies as the grey storm clouds in the sky over the Brunel Tower, the car park is already flooded.

  Finally after all this time reached I have managed to become Top Trader at Celebdaq. The only thing being had to use my BBC login of Cleddau, it is on the banks of that fair waterway that I was raised.

• Uncle Korky
  [Inkspot] Ah - that's what you look like!
• penelope
  [Inkers] You credited evil_edna! I'm touched, and you have attained a higher ranking than I ever did - my best was No. 4, by accident, once. *Blushes* You have learned well, glasshopper.
• Uncle Korky
  Found out today that I didn't get the new job I'd gone for, but, hey - new car and new flat - two out of three's not bad!
• Phil
  Commiserations once, and congrats twice then, Uncle K.
• Uncle Korky
  [Phil] Ta! Of course, the new job would have helped to pay for the other two...
• Lib - Hurrah for Uncle!
  [UK] How did the play go? Bad luck about the job, sure there's another (and hopefully better) one waiting for you.
• rab - Reminder
  Which reminds me - congrats to Nadia, and thanks for the cheque.
• Uncle Korky
  [Lib] Play went astonishingly well, as it happens... no major cock-ups anywhere, and I managed to learn all of my lines in time for the opening night (which helps)! Still a little puzzled about the job, as I felt I gave a cracking interview, I fulfilled the criteria, and I'm a redeployment case, so I get preferential treatment (supposedly). I'm going to take them up on their offer of a feedback interview - I'm hoping that it's because they decided to employ two people who were excellent, rather than not employing me because I was crap.
• penelope - someone say something!
  [UK] Congrats. And the right job will come up at the right time :o)
  In other news, I have resumed salsa dancing after a 7 week break during the summer, and I'm pleased to report I haven't lost my mojo. The plan is to do it at least twice a week, sometimes three times a week over the winter. I may need encouragement. I most certainly will need new black leather dancing shoes, as my pale suede ones just look odd in the winter :o)
• Chalky - *is still trying to work out what rab meant in his last post - even tho' it's none of her business*
• Inkspot - not saying nuthin'
  I should not smile at the misfortune at others but the goings on between the England RFU and Saracens. You have the RFU trying to tell the team which position to play him so he is ready for the national side. Someone payed a kings ransom for Andy Farrell as an instant fix, but is quickly turning into a farce.
• penelope
  Good morning everyone. Good weekend?
• Uncle Korky
  [pen] Not bad, thanks, except my team lost twice, including a shut-out on Sunday. re - what you were saying about job prospects... I'm now following up an internal vacancy as a junior press officer.
• Lib
  [pen] Weekend was tolerable considering I had to work from 11am till midnight friday, saturday and sunday. Thankfully have today off to recover/revise. How was yours, pen?
• Phil
  [pen] Owwww, my head hurts - hence, yes I had a great weekend, thanks.
• penelope
  [Lib] Full, thanks! Thursday night = new salsa class (made my legs ache - a good thing); Friday night - party in a bar in Soho to celebrate west end transfer of a play directed by a 'friend' of mine (pay £6 on the door to buy expensive drinks in a room full of people all trying to work out who's famous); Saturday - Tennyson Society service in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, followed by lunch and a visit to the Dickens (yawn) museum on Doughty Street; then out for a chinese meal with the Bloke; Sunday - light shopping in Ealing, and my second parking ticket of the week :o(. I am not going out this week!
• nights
  [pen] Going out just causes more problems than it solves, in my experience. And oddly, I've just remembered we have nothing defrosted for dinner. Curses.
• penelope
  [nights] I have a blog called : "So What Are you Having For Tea Tonight?" which is meant to address that problem, but I haven't written enough of it yet.
• Lib
  [nights] Can't you just stick something in the microwave? Or get a takeaway.
• Phil
  [penelope] Was the Ealing trip to seek out/purchase a light? Or do you have varying degrees of shopping gravitas? And you should avoid parking illegally, IMHO.
• penelope
  [Phil] We didn't KNOW we were parking illegally! The sign was tiny, high up and camouflaged against adjacent scaffolding. And I have various degrees of shopping gravitas. In fact, I bought a test-piece of cookware - a black Columbian earthenware pot that can be used on the hob or in the oven. I have to 'season' (or do I mean 'temper'?) it tonight by boiling water in it for half an hour in the oven, to stop it being so porous. Lord knows how that works.
• Phil
  [pen] I do sincerely hope you didn't get the two parking tickets at the same place ;-) Seriously though, aren't there yellow lines and so on in your area?
• penelope
  Phil, I'm not daft. I got one last weekend in Notting Hill due to lying naked on a couch still having a very expensive facial at the time the parking ticket ran out, and another in Ealing on Sunday due to parking on a single yellow line on a Sunday afternoon. Anywhere other than London, Sunday afternoons on a single yellow would be OK, wouldn't they?
• Inkspot - four
  Do I spy candles on the MC⁵ logo? *brings out a cake *
  
  Since the parking came under the council here the interpretations have become very strict and a lucrative income stream. The FM manager of our office is going to bring in a clamping policy for unauthorised parking in allocated staff areas, I can see trouble ahead. Our council members tend to see themselves above such policies, no smoking in Civic Buildings inc meeting rooms and private offices seems not to apply to them only officers and members of the public.
• rab - Fork handles
  The number of candles may be misleading - the site doesn't celebrate its 4th birthday until Jan 16th.

  I, on the other hand, ...

• Sierra Mike - Candles
  I think someone has vandalised your menora rab. :o) MHROTD.
• Chalky - Happy Birthday rab
  Drat - just missed saying it on the day itself
• rab - Unkempt
  [Sierra, Chalky] Thanks.

  More flat-based excitement this morning. The electricity went off during Mrs-rab-to-be's shower, which I thought was just a generic power cut since no fuses had tripped in our fusebox. A note of warning was sounded by the fact that our neighbour across the way wasn't experiencing any trouble, nor had anyone else called Scottish Power when I phoned them. The chap's been out and I'm told that the supply cable from the distribution box in the stairwell to our fuse box exploded as a result of too much load imposed on it by our shower (of all things - I would have thought the oven were more power-hungry). We were lucky it didn't cause a fire or disrupt the whole street's supply. Apparently it's all due to the fact that the previous owners (or their electrician) didn't inform Scottish Power that extra capacity would be needed when they did up the bathroom. There's quite a lot of things they didn't seem to do well, humph.

• penelope - birthday shower
  [Rab] Happy Belated Birthday... and commis for your water/electricity woes. You'll just have to boil up a few pans of water and take a bath together :o)
• Rosie
  (rab) I think showers take 10 kW, or about 40 amps, which is a lot. With a 10-kW oven you could start a cottage indusry smelting iron ore.
• Sierra Mike - Exploding Cables
  [rab] They didn't find the homonculus you made from bits of dead bodies in the cellar or the high-voltage equipment needed to reanimate it then?
  Good to see that the legendary Scottish parsimony extends to the current carrying capacity of domestic wiring. "Just enough and nae morrrrrrre, d'ye ken?".
• rab
  [Rosie] Yes, 40A would cause quite a glow...

  [SMike] Nice theory, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that the electrics probably haven't been upgraded since they were installed. I estimate that this would have been around about the time that electricity was invented, given that the block was erected in 1897.

• Sierra Mike - 1897
  Presumably the wiring spec was predicated on the widespread use of the household Wimshurst Machine to make up the difference for those high-current spinning wheels and so forth.
• Rosie - High amperage
  In America the current per watt would be at least twice what it is here and the said shower would take nearly 90 amps. The wires would need to have four times the cross-sectional area. I suppose they know this. It does have the advantage of being safer, at least in one aspect.
• Tuj - Hi all (and everyone else)
  Brief and forced hiatus there. Nothing to worry about, moving up to university for my second year. All very exciting. Now living in the delightful town of Royal Leamington Spa, and after around a month there's finally internet in our household.
• Inkspot
  [Tuj]Good to see you back, and good luck and enjoy your second year
• rab - Best bit of spam yet
  I'm emailing you today to request a link exchange between our website and yours. I found your website by searching Google for Nail Fungus. I think our websites have a similar theme to your's, so I am interested in exchanging links.
• ImNotJohn
  If I wanted to find out about Nail Fungus, I can't think of a better place to go.
• Irouléguy
  Tuj] Welcome back too. Whereabouts in Leam? I grew up in Warwick and went to school in Leam. One of the first places outside the big cities to have curry houses back in the early 70s, doncherknow.
• Sierra Mike - Names
  I hope this won't offend, but I would like to know how to pronounce the names "Tuj" and "Irouléguy" properly. Please excuse if this breaks etiquette in some way.
• Darren
  [Sierra] ih-RULE-eh-GEE (hard G, primary stress on RULE). I'm not sure about Tuj but most people at pilgs say "Tudge" (thus revealing that we talk about you non-attendees behind your backs).
• Tuj
  [SM] Yes, I'd go "tudge", though oddly most people I'd talk to who've seen the name have the first instinct "toozh" (vowel like "smooth" consonant like "pleasure". Irouléguy's a good one to learn - daft as I am I initially thought it was a bizarre variation on naming himself "I rule" Guy.
  [Darren] Oh dear oh dear. I'd hate to think what.
  [Irouléguy] South Leam, Brunswick Street. Lovely part of the world, though I haven't tested any curries yet.
  [Inkers] Thanks very much!
• Irouléguy
  SM] Mine's from a French appelation controllée.
  Tuj] It wasn't daft. A lot of people thought that until I got the chance to explain it at a pilg.
  There's a number of decent pubs on the Radford Road, but I don't know south Leam otherwise - I did most of my drinking in town and north Leam. If you get over to Warwick, the Zetland in Church Street is a lovely boozer.
• Phil
  [Irouléguy] I may have been the only person to recognize the AC, and guess the pronunciation :-) I'd be interested to know if anyone else did.
• Raak - BANG!
  What I did at the weekend. Recording thanks to Pave's cameraphone.
• Knobbly
  [Phil, Irouléguy] I didn't spot the appelation controllée; I don't even know what one is.
• Darren
  [Knobbly] It's a system the French use for wines which ensures that only wine made in a particular place (or in a particular way) can bear a particular name. The most famous example is Champagne.
• Projoy
  [Tuj] I would automatically say Toozh, although there's a vague sense in my head that it could be a to-eye (but not quite like that, sort of using the Russian "bI" sound, where the "j" implies palatisation.
• Projoy
  Er, in fact like the second person in Russian.)
• CdM
  [Phil] I based an AVMA on I's AC quite a while ago. I'm quite sure INJ knows it as well.
  
  [tuj] Toodge, in my head.
• flerdle - jiff
  I read 'tuj' as tudge. But then again everyone knows I talk funny.
• ImNotJohn - twee
  Iroul's AC I vaguely recognised, though I don't think I've ever drunk it. 'Tuj' is 'tudge' for me (unless it's 'tüy')
• Néa - I'm the funniest, sothere
  [flerdle] You talk funny? This is how I pronounce "Tuj". (Sorry about the format. I tried converting it to mp3 but then it turned into scratchy silence.)
• Rosie
  (Néa) Real Player comes up but just sits there, doing nothing. Any ideas? (flerdle) No funnier than me because that's how I say it.
• Sierra Mike - Names
  [Tuj, Irouléguy] Thanks. Sorry if that seemed dense. I had been hearing them as "Toy" and "I rule a gye". Thank Jod we didn't meet yet.
• Néa
  [Rosie] No, I don't know - I opened that file in Quicktime. Does this work?
• Chalky
  [Néa] It works for me :-)
• Tuj
  Crikey, three arbitrary letters and so many different pronunciations! And is it just me who thinks Néa's sounds like someone spitting?
• Rosie
  (Néa) It does. I'm going to play it all night. You are the Scandinavian Charlotte Green. (I hope that means something to you). :-)
• Rosie
  (Tuj) Arbitrary? You mean your real name is Herbert?
• Tuj
  [Rosie] As in Spotty Herbert? Not Herbert but yes to the arbitrary. If you sift some of the conversations we've had about name anagramming I'm sure you could find what it is.
• Néa - Charlotte Green is me!
  [Rosie] It does, and I'm deeply touched :-)
• Rosie - Herbaceous
  (Tuj) There's a difference between being a herbert and being a Herbert. Fain would I suggest you were the former, or now, the latter, even. Where are these conversations? Are they in Another Place, or Mc-Eye-oss, as I call it?
• Darren
  Nice to see MC5 back!
• Tuj
  [Darren] Indeed!
  [Rosie, belatedly] I believe somewhere far up this very page, though probably on the Scots Ios also.
• rat - Out(r)age
  Sorry for the outages. The server suffers mysterious reboots, up to two a day, and for no reason we can discern. Usually it comes back up again automatically, but sometimes it doesn't - usually when the person with the reboot password is on holiday or something. That's what happened this weekend. We're trying to arrange a test of the hardware (which we don't physically have access to - in fact, I'm not even sure I know where it is) to see what's going on.
• rab - Rats!
  That was me, by the way.
• Chalky
  [rab] I think we knew that - and I had thought to myself rab wouldn't be so careless as to name himself 'rat' so it must be some sort of subtle post-modern ironic thingy equating to that saying 'the first rat to desert the sinking ship' - not that MC5 is, or even was, a sinking ship, I hasten to add, but it just might have seemed like that to you and others who expend their valuable time keeping it all afloat so when it went down, so to speak, you may have imagined that it looked as though you were sort of deserting it, in a manner of speaking ... Is that too too much? Perhaps I ought to shut up now ....
• Rosie
  (Chalky) Do you realise that you have just posted the longest sentence in the Morniverse? Would it be indelicate to suggest a degree of insobriety?
• Projoy
  [Rosie] I'd venture, before we make any such suggestion regarding Chalky, to suggest that we first need to establish beyond what I can only call a reasonable level of doubt that she has indeed posted what you have called the very longest sentence that has been seen in the Morniverse, or whether, by virtue of an insufficiency of time, you have been unable to research for yourself the quite startlingly good game we played quite some time ago now - but there it is: the history of the great game as played online becomes lengthier by the day - of a variant of MC, which is most commonly referred to as Long-Winded Crescent, having established which, and assuming our conclusion to be the latter, I could do no better, I feel, than to refer you to that most masterly achievement - in particular the contributions made by the much-missed Watty - and perhaps even, were it not for a want of time on my own part, suggest a new round of the same.
• Chalky
  [Rosie] Not so m'dear - just a feeble attempt at stream-of-consciousness-posting. Silly stuff really :-)
  [Projoy] Excellent idea
• Rosie - Prolixity
  (Projoy) Brilliant Victoriana! L-WC must be before my timeI'll believe you.:-) here - I'll look it up. (Chalky) Mm, no spelling mistakes, so
• Rosie
  What happened there? "I'll believe you. :-)" should be at the end, not stuck in the middle. Do you believe me?
• I'll believe you
  Maybe it just jumpsTuj
• Inkspot - Make ways
  [Projoy]LWMC came to an end before I can across !York but was still much talked about, and would welcome a revival the only black cloud on the horizon is I feel that such a game that requires forethought and patience to create the moves I wonder whether todays players have the stamina. The games that appear to be popular are those that can be played with a quick visit play a short one liner or couple of games then off elsewhere. Games that require thought are few, I hazard the when AVMA clue disappears off the page and goes off the page into the second page involvement drops off to one or two plus the setter. I would very much like to be wrong and for LWMC to be a success played by more than three players after the first week. "MC Works on the Tracks" can be killed off to make way.
• Darren
  Anyone got a link into the archives for it, then?
• Tuj
  here
  Yes? Looking at it reminded me of the DaveK Massacre. Dark days.
• rab
  You can post links on this site, you know.
• flerdle - let's see if this works...
  You meant here and its continuation here, I think. Or go to the Yorkives from the front page of mc5, sort by game names, and go to L. They're the ones with the obvious titles. I think there were only the two bits, but am happy to be corrected on that.
• flerdle
  How curious; Tuj's link didn't work and after I posted mine it did. Anyway, them's the ones.
• Darren
  Hmmm. Might I suggest this game be revived after NaNoWriMo finishes, since some of us will be directing our wordiness in that direction for the month of November?
• rab
  [flerdle] You must have caught Tuj's link in the few seconds I was converting it from just being written as plain text to a proper link, and getting it wrong in the process...
• flerdle
  [rab] ahhhhh, i see...
• penelope
  [rab] You mean you sit there behind my computer checking everything that everyone writes and mending it where necessary? How diligent!
• Tuj
  [rab] Hmm, how I forgot to put that as a link I'm not sure. I think I was just excited about visiting the !Yorkives again. Thanks for the fix.
  Anyway, I think I was thinking of flerdle's second link primarily. But I'd back Darren's suggestion, as we can also bring games to a more natural end.
• penelope
  I saw hundreds of real, live Greengrocer's Apostrophe's in the greengrocer's at lunch time today. There is no danger of extinction there.
• Sierra Mike - Greengrocer's Apostrophe's
  [penelope] I understand what you mean by the term, but how did the phenomenon come to be called that? Is it a British phrase?
• Rosie - British phrase's
  (SM) As far as I know it is. Are you from the America's or possibly The Antipode's? It arose because greengrocers often advertise their wares with the extraneous apostrophe, thus: Tomato's, potato's, cabbage's etc etc. Simple as that.
• penelope
  Continuing my tour of traditional British establishments this evening, some colleagues and I ventured out to play Bingo at a big Bingo Hall in Slough (not far from Slough Bus Station which features in the opening credits of 'The Office'). We got hostile stares from the regulars... we played two games (£5 very quickly spent, in my opinion, but we could have picked up £15,000 on one national game) and left to go mand find something to eat. But I have to say, the staff who explained how to play before we went in were great, and gracefully accepted our apologies for calling out two false alarms when we thought we'd won, as we made out early exit. It's a bloody complicated game, Bingo. Next office outing is either horse racing, or to the dogs in Walthamstow ;o)
• Rosie
  (pen) Bingo? The dogs? Can't fool me - you're posh, really, aren't you? :-)
• penelope
  [Rosie] Coming to that conclusion, yes :o(
• Irouléguy
  Tuj, flerdle] There's also this .
• rab - Clocking in
  Just posting this to see what time the server thinks it is.
• Lib - mild gloat
  I'm very happy and wanted a little gloat. Hope you'll excuse me! I was given a diamond this morning. Necklace, not ring (would be too soon I feel). Very small, but its a diamond! No one has ever given me one before! No occasion. Just cos he loves me. Its nice to be loved. I'll shut up now.
• Dujon - sparkling
  How could you be so heartless to accept it, Lib? That's probably the poor bloke's drinking-money-for-a-week now suspended from your neck. Soppy blokes - honestly!
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Maybe your drinking money for a week. I wouldn't presume to know. :-)
• Software
  [Lib] I am not so chauvenistic. Congratulations, your first girl's best friend.
• Rosie - MCIOS down
  Can't get anything to go in though Preview works. Anybody know what's happened?
• Dan
  It's down now. I'm not sure what the problem is. Disk error, perhaps. This may be serious. I'm connected but there's not much I can do. I'll let you know.
• Dan - Curiouser-er
  That was really odd. The disk was in a peculiar state and very few commands functioned. Notably, I couldn't reboot it using any of the usual commands. (It's in a locked machine room at a colocation facility three miles from here and it's after 11:00 at night so pushing the button was not an option.) I did manage to force it into a reboot state somewhat more directly, and it came back promptly with everything seemingly fine. I'm doing an unscheduled backup now since today's didn't have a chance to occur at its normal time.
• Rosie - MCIOS
  (Dan) Working OK now. Thanks, as ever.
• Inkspot - Blue skies
  Cold snap this morning with ice on the car, cross my fingers that this will remind the grass to stop growing.
• Lib - Brrrr
  I'm glad there was a frost today too. I'm hoping it'll make the slugs that terrorise my rabbit and eat her food go away. I've tried beertraps but the rabbit knocks them over and drinks the beer!
• nights - Cold snap
  It's distinctly cold here in sunny Bath too - but then, this is why November is my favourite month!
• Rosie - Dodgy climatology
  (nights) Dec, Jan, Feb and March are all colder than Nov, the last two sunnier as well.
• Chalky
  ah but ... those particular months aren't adorned with spectacular autumnal colours. I'm with nights on this one.
• penelope
  Early November is my M's birthday... and since my father died, she and I have celebrated it by taking a city holiday to do the galleries and museums - Venice, Florence, Rome - and this year, Paris. On Wednesday for five days. I like November too :oD
• Lib
  Ooh, Paris in November. Sounds amazing. Have a magnificent time. After my exam I'm going to a health spa with my Mum, and she's paying! Hurrah! Send a postcard to the crescent if you can!
• Rosie - Autumn leaves
  (Chalky) Yeah, OK, but it's still pretty well all green here ATM. Most leaves have hardly changed colour let alone fallen off the trees, probably due to the very warm and rather wet Sept/Oct. Climatological analysis shows that we should start trying to get used to this sort of thing.
• nights
  I'm really going to miss Autumn.
• Dujon (aka Dorothy Dix)
  Don't worry, nights, you'll get over her. Change your working hours to something a little more sociable and you'll find someone else in no time.
• nights
  Chortle, chortle.
• Projoy - * hibernates for the next 4 months *
• Néa
  *decides she's done the "I hate the darkness" spiel sufficiently often for people to be as tired of it as she is of the dark*
• rab - Darkness
  Talking of darkness, there was apparently a major power blackout across Europe last night, centred on Cologne in Germany. Given that's precisely where I was at the time, and furthermore, that I returned on a 10am flight with only 30mins delay, and only found out about it once I'd got back to the UK suggests either that I am, truly, the least observant person the world has ever seen, that the Germans know how to handle a crisis, or that I'm actually going mad. I shudder to think what effect such an event would have had on British transportation.
• flerdle - oh to be migratory
  I'd send you the extra daylight I've got from all this daylight saving thing down here, but I think you'd have to come and get it yourselves, as it sort of deteriorates in the post. Only nat has taken up the offer so far, but I'm sure I could find some extra hammocks somewhere if need be. And Pounds (Euros etc) can buy a lot of Ozzie Dollas.
• Rosie
  (rab) The power cut was attributed in some places to the cold weather, which is nonsense, and people just jumping on the Global Warming bandwagon. Don't forget that all departures from average of more than one microkelvin are caused by Global Warming and on this account we should be Very Afraid. From what you say the power cut was not as widespread as media reports suggested. Well, I never!
• Dujon - Hot under the collar
  [rab] Yes, it was even reported here in a few pars of my local paper. 30 minutes downtime - THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH. Mind you I wouldn't like to have been stuck in a lift for that length of time. Kudos to the bloke/sheila who hit the button to get it all on line again.
  [Rosie] I love it when journalist highlight the fact that something is the hottest/coldest since 1912 (or summat). I love it even more when they start averaging averages. Aargh.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Nothing average about November here so far; 6 consecutive sunny days, almost unheard of and well over half the month's normal meagre ration. It's all horizontal, of course, making driving impossible in certain directions and furthermore, shines in my window, waking me up far too early and showing up all the dust. But you can see the sky at night, which is great. Unbelievably (to most) there is still a Drought Order in East Surrey even though it's been pretty wet recently because the water has not yet replenished the aquifers. It won't have done, because the deficit was huge.
• rab - Hmmm....
  According to the only report I can find that mentions it, the power cut was at about 10pm CET and lasted about half an hour. I think this would have been as I was walking back to my hotel from a concert - but even then I think I would have noticed an absence of street lighting... How very curious,
• Kim - Greengrocer's Apostrophe's
  Not exactly apropos but I thought you might be amused by a notice I saw in the window of my local Costcutters, thus:
  "Get your freshly roasted chicken sold here".
• Rosie - Not quite what I meant
  (Kim) Similarly, in Whitehorse Road, Croydon, there are notices informing us of the presence of "Traffic Enforcement Cameras" which seem to be saying "There WILL be traffic; we will enforce it; Don't you DARE not drive along this road. If you turn off down Gloucester Road we'll 'ave you." The funny thing is that there are no speed cameras, not that it makes much difference what with the parked cars, buses, traffic lights and pizza delivery boys with their blithe incompetence.
• rab - You could ask him over
• rab - Apologies
  ...for spurious entries - am sidegrading some stuff elsewhere on the server and want to make sure this site is unaffected.
• Knobbly
  Just out of interest, why is there a page that doesn't convey much information about the site on www.rab.org.uk? It's as if you don't want to let people in who don't think to add '/mc' on the end.
• rab - Front page
  (i) Time; (ii) Googling my real name finds the front page and I'm not keen on advertising to my bosses how much time I spend on such frivolity.
• penelope
  Morning everyone. Lack of chat. What's the state of play?
• Chalky - "today we have stating of play .."
  Hi pen :-)
  
  OK here goes:
  
  Banter Game - predict it will burst into activity now you've asked the question
  
  Regurgitated Cheddars - disappearing up its own jacksy [as per usual] although Kim's recent contribution may spawn some interesting responses
  
  AVMA Take 2 - Clever Raak has just slipped in there and beaten Irouléguy to the correct answer. Looks set for a new challenge so a possible frenzy of posting in the next 24 hours?
  
  Cleri Who's Who - trundling along nicely. Time for someone to introduce a new one. That might be me if I get there in time.
  
  Pea & Honey Recipes - is just awaiting a killer last line on the latest ditty.
  
  Each Move Must Consist Of .. - zut alors!
  
  AVMA PART 2 - has had a record number of entries since the First of November. That's because we all love telling lies.
  
  MC Works On The Tracks - has gone very quiet. Perhaps there's a power failure.
  
  The Obligatory Limericks - yay! Is about to launch into a classic cartoons fest. Hope everyone joins in. :-)
  
  Concerning Torments - Pill Weng Lay
• Chalky - "Eleven and a half hours later"
  Ah well - it seems that all the games are moving along nicely - except this one. Come on you lot! Talk to us.:-)
• Lib
  What do you want me to say?
• Rosie
  (Chalky) You OK these days? I get the impression you are. :-)
• Chalky
  [Rosie] H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y!
  [and yes, thanks, I'm definitely on the mend]
• flerdle
  [Chalky] Good to hear.
• penelope
  [Rosie] Happy Birthday, young man :o)
  [Chalks] Pleased to hear it - and thank you for doing the run-down. What I actually meant was 'what's the state of play in everyone's lives?' Mine's OK, Paris was great but came back with a rotten cold which has made this week miserable. I'm looking forward to a weekend at home, most of it spent lounging in bed with my laptop, and the rest perhaps grappling with some severe pruning in the garden. I am going to roast a chicken too. All welcome.
• flerdle
  [pen] Ouch. Hope you have a relaxing, restorative weekend. I'm still doing the study, not always successfully; saw the "Earth from the Air" exhibition last weekend (fabulous), as well as wandered around St Kilda (can anyone say "cake shops"?), bought a hat, looked at Luna Park but didn't go on any rides because it costs $7 a pop; and turned 30 for the sixth time. There were around 7 small hailstorms on Tuesday. I am growing peas, silverbeet and tomatoes. Apart from that, not much is happenning. OH, except that nat arrives on Monday, if she survives Syderney.
• Chalky
  [flerdle and pen] Thanks. And sorry pen - I was being a bit facetious mainly because I had nothing of interest to say. Although .. I suppose I could have bored everyone rigid with tales of hospital procedures, ill-behaved sixteen year olds, cars that die on the dual carriageway because the alternator has packed in, etc etc. Am also looking forward to a stress-free weekend.
• Lib
  [Rosie] Happy Birthday! *raises glass*
  [Chalks] Glad you're on the mend. Sixteen year olds are quite a handful so good luck with that!
  As for me, well, I'm throughly fed up revising for an exam which costs seven hundred quid to take, only 30% of the people pass it, has more content than my finals did and I'm working junior doctor crazy hours. The exams in 18 days or something. And it doesn't get much better if I pass it, cos then the second part is at the end of Jan and is a day trip to London for personal humiliation. Sigh. But on the whole I'm quite happy!
• Rosie - Felicitations
  (Ladies) Thank you all very much. I too raise a glass. It's embarrassing - I got presents from both my nieces. I hope they don't think I'm now some impoverished old dodderer because that's hardly the case. They're just v. nice and can say things to Uncle T that they couldn't say to Dad. (Lib) Why on earth does it cost £700 to sit an exam? Don't they want qualified people? *scratches head*.
• rab - Plonk
  [Rosie] Many happies.

  We had the window fitter come round to talk astragals and snib fasteners on Wednesday, should have nice new, thermally insulated and (hopefully) draught-free windows fitted at the beginning of December. We're currently trying not to get too carried away with booking our honeymoon, as it looks like it would be very easy to spend a lot of money that we won't have once the windows have been sorted, and we've got round to reversing the damage done to the flat by the previous occupants... But the boiler is fixed, at long last.

  I'm also finally getting around to writing a lecture course I'm giving in January. Hopefully all this will still leave me time to do the work for and write and a paper for a suitably high-prestige journal (looking ahead to RAE next autumn). What fun.

• Dujon
  Busy and expensive, rab. Good luck with all.
  
  Is anyone able to explain to me why pizzas are so expensive? I've not partaken of one of these overpriced pieces of *&%^$ for years but it still puzzles me. Around my part of the woods a small pizza seems to average out around the AUD20 mark - sans delivery - (that's about £8 in UK money). Heaven only knows what a family size would be. For about AUD5 (£2) I can purchase a hearty steak sandwich including lettuce, beetroot, egg and tomato as a take-away. For the price of a pizza I could have a slap up meal and a schooner of beer at my local club.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Could be that they were once fashionable and originally the sellers could charge what they liked. They are maintaining the fiction that they cost a lot to make (simply can't be true) and people fall for it. It's distressing easy to relieve people of money - I've even seen people buying bottles of water but maybe their mains supply has been cut off and dehydration, especially in our climate, is an insidious and dangerous condition to be avoided at all costs.
• flerdle - pizza
  They're about $7 or $8 down the road, for "large" (8 slices). Possibly $10 for maximum toppings. Sounds like it's your area, Dujon.
• Néa - Forgetfulness
  *happybirthdays to flerdle and Rosie and then to flerdle again*
• penelope - The best pizza ever
  Best pizza ever was 3 euros, from a scruffy cafe in Herculano, a suburb of Naples. My mother and I had thoroughly examined the Roman ruins in the old town of Herculaneum, which was destroyed by the same volcano that did for Pompeii. However, instead of being covered with hot ash, it was covered with a mudslide, which preserved the internal decorations of the villas - I have some fab photos of the murals and wall decorations, which are still very, very clear. Anyway, we passed this cafe on the way back to the train, argued with the patron to sit inside (I think he thought we looked like we could afford to sit outside, where they add a premium to the price of your meal)and had just the freshest, tastiest, thinnest crusty pizza ever. And paid less than 10 euros for two people, with drinks.
  Oooh, flerdle, another gong! Happy Birthday :o)
• Rosie
  (Néa) Don't quite follow that. Has flerdle had two birthdays in quick succession? Tempus fugit, certainly, but surely not that fast.
• Tuj - Don't laugh, these are famous last words
  Is there anywhere in the Morniverse where we discuss current series of ISIHAC when they're on?
• Rosie
  (Tuj) You naughty boy, you nicked that from Humph in tonight's show, where it had a certain resonance. It doesn't seem we actually discuss the show very much. Maybe it's just bad form to do so rather like middle-aged jazz fans not actually talking about (or even listening to) the music they're hearing but preferring to exchange jazz-related gossip, news, who's good, who's crap, who's playing where etc. The actual raison d'être for the yakking is taken for granted in both cases.
• CdM
  [Tuj] Some of us don't think the show is much good. The fact that I haven't actually listened to the show since before you were born is irrelevant to this observation.
• Sierra Mike
  There's a show?
• Tuj
  [Rosie] Not stolen, quoted as a preface... Nice to see it wasn't just me listening! Your reasoning is pretty much what I expected... less so CdM, but then one can't argue with the old "before you were born" argument... Might as well start saying "things were better in my day" (which mind you gets by with less justification).
  [SM] A popular outlet for the game of Mornington Crescent is the long-running BBC radio prgramme I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue. It's currently available through the BBC's listen again service, which is smashing.
• Rosie
  (Tuj) Parts of the show don't always work but I suspend my critical faculties, remembering that the whole thing is a kind of in-joke, like Red Dwarf or Blake's Seven. But other parts have me creased with laughter. How does CdM know how old you are? Is he your Dad or sunnink?
• penelope - Blimey!
  It's 14.45 here, and it's dark already - due to very heavy rainclouds, I suspect, but it's very, very gloomy for this time of day. Incidentally, I drove around the Crescent at around midnight last night. I thought I saw the ghost of Willie Rushton crossing the road in front of me.
• Tuj
  [Rosie] Probably working off the fact I mentioned starting my second year of university not long ago. Maybe? As far as I know CdM is not my father... but you never know...
• Rosie
  (Tuj) Ah, so you're about 20. Such bliss! (pen) Same here. I put the light on at half two, expecting the end of the world meteorologically but no, bit of rain, bit breezy, mild, boring. It's about time we had an event which I can go on and on about.
• Tuj
  [Rosie] A good 7 months 'til I'm that venerable ;)
  Terribly gloomy weather today here in the Midlands. Sitting listening to Test Match Special, ah what bliss.
• Inkspot - Wales Vs New Zealand
  Good weather on the 5 day forecast for round here over the weekend, so will probably do a trip to Westonbirt. I'll be avoiding the Ashes and watching the second match between England and South Africa to see whether the win by England was a flash in the pan. World Cup next September and still rebuilding the team.
• CdM
  [Tuj] I knew your approximate age from long before that -- I think you identified yourself as 16 or 17 when you first started posting, didn't you? And I wasn't trying to make a serious "before you were born" argument. I used to listen to the show about 25 years ago, and thought it was only moderately funny. I haven't listened since, since I wasn't in radio range, and haven't bothered since these new-fangled internets came along. So my comment was supposed to be mainly tongue-in-cheek: that it is perhaps ridiculous of me to comment on the quality of the show when it is so long since I have heard it. On the other hand, nothing I have heard quoted at any of these sites actually makes me think it is any better than it used to be.
• Tuj
  [CdM] I actually found it genuinely interesting to make such a "before you were born" statement. I have a feeling I identified myself as 14 the first time I posted... 5 years ago come April. How very very peculiar. Anyway... aren't you tempted to give it a listen from time to time?
• Darren
  [CdM] Odd question perhaps, but why did you get involved in the online MC sites if you don't like the show? (For what it's worth, I do like it and listen to it a lot.)
• CdM
  [Tuj] Genuinely interesting how? It was, as I said, meant tongue-in-cheek -- I thought it was pretty funny when I realized that it was indeed before you were born that I last listened to the show, and so I couldn't resist the chance to play the old fogey. And is it really five years since you started posting?? Wow. I definitely remember when you first showed up.
  
  [Darren] I think we are funnier than they are. :-) (The one time I don't like these sites very much is when people simply use them as an excuse to recycle old jokes/monty python skits/etc. I think that the original humor that people create here is, at its best, really impressive.) Also, I prefer the active participation to passive listening.
• Lib - Ageing
  I'm not trying to think how long I've been pottering around the crescent. I think its about four years.... I don't really listen to the show as I forget its on, and I don't participate much as I'm really not that amusing. But I do appreciate other people's fine wit and wisdom.
• Tuj
  [CdM] I don't know, I'm easily pleased I guess! And I apologise profusely for whatever you remember me for, as it's a fairly safe bet it wasn't anything amusing. I'd sum up myself the same way Lib does, except a bit longer time, listen a bit more and am much less amusing.
• Lib
  [Tuj] Gosh Tuj, you are having a bit of a crisis of confidence, with your comments elsewhere and here. Hope you're all right. *hug* I think you're very amusing and witty. But in my opinion that's why the crescent is great. There are a lot of witty people around who all appreciate the finer puns in life, some who realise how witty they are and others who do not. All together it makes a good mix.
• Lib
  Am I being over sentimental today? Hmmm.
• flerdle
  [Néa] Thanks. :-)
  Off to Sydney for a week. yay, I think.
• Uncle Korky
  [Lib] No, you're being a kind sweetie, as always!
• Projoy
  [CdM] I tend to think that ISIHAC is funnier on average than these sites, but that these sites achieve far more impressive things (like Stratford-on-Crescent). [Tuj] I remember you as being nascently witty and very mature at fourteen. Certainly more so than I was at that age. I've always been rather grateful that there was no web until I was about nineteen. God knows what gaucheness I should have committed to amber otherwise. :)
• rab - Wibble
  I always feel that my attitude to the Internet must be similar to that of my grandparents to, say, television, in that since it didn't exist until I was over the age of 18, that its somehow unsuitable for minors.
• CdM
  [Tuj] What Projoy said.
• Rosie - The er, internet thingy
  (rab) I think a more prevalent attitude among older people is that the Internet, far from being unsuitable for minors, is in fact suitable only for these youngsters, who are suckers for any new technology. I don't agree with this view and think the Internet has now become something extremely useful for people of all ages and you all know how old I am. One less agreeable feature it has revealed is the large number of people who cannot marshal their thoughts into a coherent written form and are frankly a bit stupid. That's the price we pay for Extreme Democracy, but it's worth it.
• Rosie - ISIHAC
  This site is an ISIHAC spin-off and is not meant to be the live show, which is both greater and lesser than the Morniverse, as Projoy implies. For instance, I think The Game Of Mornington Crescent only works live (like Pick-up Song) and attempts to reproduce it here lack the edge of ISIHAC. But other games (and the chat) are great and much more suited to the written word.
• penelope - Today's news
  Saw Casino Royale in Holloway last night. Pretty good - entertaining - which is the least I'd expect. Inexplicably dizzy this morning - I think this long running cold is affecting my ears. Also got an invitation to a N Yorks cocktail party (pint of bitter with a cherry in it) to be held just before Christmas from some friends I haven't seen for months, if not years, which was lovely. And there are still three unopened packets of biscuits in the office, which is good, because I'm flat out this week. :o)
• rab - Windows
  We're getting our windows installed next week.
• Rosie
  *Disdains weak joke about computer software.*
• penelope - winders
  [Rab] Wonderful. Have you thought about venetian blinds?
  Just remember, if it wasn't for blinds, it'd be curtains for all of us.
  *groans* so you don't have to
• rab
  [Rosie] I considered asking them if they'd install MacOS instead...

  [pen] We're not keen on venetian blinds - currently that's what we've got in the bedroom and it's horrible. Getting curtains made instead, whee.

• Sierra Mike - Blinds
  [rab] Did you consider vertical blinds with a pattern of ducks on them? Then you would have duck blinds.
• rab
  New windows being fitted right now! At least, I hope the new ones fit in the hole that's just been opened...
• rab
  Nice new windows, yay! More coming on Monday.
• penelope - Hurrah!
• rab
  Although I'm a bit concerned about the weather forecast...
• Dan
  Pardon me for barging in like this, but thought I'd mention that MCiOS is down and will remain down until at least midday today (Sunday 3 Dec). Apologies for the inconvenience.
• Raak
  It aten't dead yet...
• Raak
  Er, ignore that. Imagined this was MCiOS for some reason.
• Dan
  Okay, she ees back. Sorry and all that. Congratulations on the windows. Useful for defenestration purposes windows are, ye carn't defenestrate sans fenêtres y'know. By the way, given that I don't know what your place looks like, will a mental image of the flat from Shallow Grave serve? That's sort of my mental placeholder for Edinburgh dwellings.
• Dan
  (Oh, in case you haven't seen/can't remember it, the flat in that film was super awesome, like. Just in case it sounded like I was saying something negative because, like, I wasn't and stuff.) (Oh, and my wife made the curtains for the back of our house and they're really nice.)
• rab
  Not quite as grand as the one on Shallow Grave - imagine one scaled down so as to be affordable by a junior academic and environmental consultant. I'll stick some pics up when the windows are done.
• penelope
  *tries the 'If it wasn't for venetian blinds, it'd be curtains for all of us' joke one more time.*
• CdM
  I'd don't get it. I mean, there's roller blinds as well, for one thing.
• Sierra Mike
  On the other hand, with a pencil and some paper you can simply draw your curtains.
• Rosie - Desperation
  For the sake of keeping this going I hereby announce that I have had 68 mm rain this month, about three-quarters of the normal monthly total, and it's getting a bit squelchy. There's a lot more to come but fortunately up here we're unfloodable (almost).
• penelope - merci buckets
  Thanks Rosie. I *was* actually wondering if this December had been wetter than average or not. And I also wondered if the aquifers were filling up. If they're not, I'm going to give my hosepipe away.
• Inkspot - new game?
  Sometime just before November and NaNoWriMo, a game of Long Winded Crescent was suggested. There is a slot available ideal for the game and one which I never had the pleasure to play first time round.
  The tornado in London shook people up, distance from the smoke being all, the 20 or so properties stuck in mid Wales last week did not register with the headline makers.
• Néa - Wetter
  We're having lots of rain. I haven't measured it, but we're not supposed to have *any* rain in December. :-(
• rab - Hmmm
  Fairly dry here, though I note Sunday is supposed to be wet and windy. One weather site is suggesting winds of 21mph, another (the BBC) 35mph. I note that 35kph=21mph, so I'm hoping the BBC has made a metric-imperial error...
• Rosie
  (pen) If it carries on like this it'll be an extraordinarily wet month, but extrapolation based merely on the first week is always a bit fanciful. It has been quite a bit wetter south of London than to the north this time. The aquifers take a long time to fill up and are still quite low, I believe. When there's a long wet spell our local Bourne flows, the last time being in December 2000 when it shut the A22 at Whyteleafe for 3 weeks. There was sewage in it as well. It's hardly the Mississippi but it seemed quite beyond the local council to do anything about it.
• Rosie
  (rab) You're in Edinburgh, are you not? 35 mph (force 7) looks about right from a look at the forecast synoptic chart. (Néa) The latest from GFS (American computer model) suggests that the lowest temperature in Stockholm in the next week will be 3°C and you will have yet more molten snow. I know that this is most unusual. The info comes from a German weather site called wetter3, oxymoronic in English if said in German, if you see what I mean.
• flerdle - la la la
  Lovely and warm and dry here. The fruit trees are laden with ripening fruit and the vege patch is loaded. The roma tomatoes look particularly fine. Will have to bribe someone to look after it all over the Christmas-NewYear break (we're heading north, unfortunately). Any takers? Must prepare to be seriously confused about the Orstrayan Chrissie (sunny, hot, lack of snow and log fires, sun in wrong place, moon upside down, etc).
• Dujon
  Forecast here for today (Sat.) is warm - around the 30ºC mark. We even had some rain overnight, a whole 0.7mm. It's probably already evaporated. Good luck with the fires down south, flerdle, we had our turn a couple of weeks ago. Most of them were up the mountains from me - probably 20Km or so - but we did have the choppers water bombing an outbreak just a few hundred metres away for a while. Probably an arsonist or carelessness on someone's part as we haven't had any lightning. Sydney's water supply is getting perilously low; last figures I saw indicated around the 38% level. This is not good when 4 to 5 million people rely on it. The long term prognosis for decent rain is not good so I guess we'll have to move to even tighter water restrictions. My wife, who's the gardner in our family, will not be impressed.
• Dujon
  s/gardner/gardener.
• flerdle
  [Dujon] The fires are a long way from the city (over in the east and northeast of the state), but the smoke is here. The forecast temperature for today in some of those areas is 39°C.
  What does she grow, Dujon? I do vegetables because they're interesting and edible, and the fruit trees are just part of the place; the fruit is a bonus. If we're serious about water conservation in Aus, all dwellings should have tanks (like they used to), water-efficient appliances and greywater recycling systems, and as little lawn as possible; until then, I have little patience for complaints about water restrictions. Some of the more basic water restrictions are just common sense, such as not watering in the heat of the day. Unfortunately, renters (about 1/3 of households here) have no say in what their dwelling has, as the owners usually couldn't give a (View the source to read the hidden text) about it.
• Dujon
  [flerdle] For ourselves, at least as far as vegetables go, not all that much. A few tomato plants, parsley, beans and the like; no spuds or other root stock (though she's been threatened with such - by me). The only fruit we have is one of each of Lemon, Orange and Grapefruit trees. When we bought the place a few years ago they were dreadful looking excuses for citrus trees but a little TLC and they are now bearing quite well. The rest is shared between her 'garden' stuff and her interest in rearing native plants. 'Tis not unusual to have a couple of thousand tube stock around the place. These vary from seedlings to 'ready to plant' stock. Oh joy, oh joy, carting around a watering can to keep them all satisfied and looking perky. I'd love a water tank, I really would, but cost and the lack of water makes it somewhat unlikely at the moment. Still 'n all I only have a shower once a week so that should make up for some of my infelicity. ;-(
• Rosie
  *mutter, mutter* At least they're not going on about the bloody cricket.
• flerdle - What cricket? oh, THAT cricket...
  [Rosie] Tough luck :-)
  [Dujon] Commiserations. What does she do with it all? My vege patch is only about 3 sq m, possibly extendable by another 2 sq m if I ever get the time and energy (hah!). I'm still working out what grows here and what doesn't, and what the new pests are. Earwigs love silverbeet, it seems.
• Dujon - Howzat?
  [flerdle] It's amazing what can be grown in a relatively small area of a garden so I reckon the extra couple of square metres would be worth cultivating. While a couple of thousand tube stock sounds a lot, they too don't take up all that much space. The tubes sit in trays each of which holds 40 tubes and are about 400mm x 250mm (approx.).
  What she does with them is a long story but, in essence, she is custodian of some of the stock of a local (Katoomba) wildplant rescue service.
  Earwigs and silverbeet? It sounds an unlikely combination - isn't Mother Nature wonderful?
  There you go, Rosie, not a mention of our evening noise makers.
• Rosie
  (Duj, flerdle) Very gentlemanly and ladylike respectively. In any case winning is rather vulgar, doncha think? (Duj) Iceland is running out of air - have a look at this.
• Dujon - Floating on air
  937! Blimey, I see what you mean. I wonder if someone's making a killing shipping in oxygen tanks. Then again choppers may not stay afloat in that low a pressure.
  Rosie, winning is only vulgar if you claim to have backed the victor with your local bookie and then refuse to buy a round. :-)
• Rosie - Suck
  (Dujon) It's down to 932 now. Won't go any lower though. N. Atlantic record is 915 mb, UK 925. There's a piece about Bourke NSW in today's Observer which says the current drought is on its way to turning the place into a ghost town and it all looks a bit serious. I assume this is the same regional drought that is affecting your area. We have the opposite problem here, especially in Scotland and Wales but floods occur in most winters here somewhere or other.
• rab - Saunafridge
  Am I right in saying that the correct technical term for "trying to get your living room the same temperature as the bedroom" is "balancing the central heating system"? If so, or indeed, if not, does anyone know how to go about it. (Probably never achieve this completely, as living room is 2x size of said bedroom, is furthest from the boiler, and north-facing, but currently the former is too cold, and the latter too hot...).
• Dujon
  [rab] I'm not ignoring you, I don't know the answer.
  [Rosie] Yes, Bourke is about 650Km northwest from me (as the crow flies). 93% of NSW is officially drought affected. The remaining 7% would be the northeast - coastal strip - of the state which is always much wetter than the rest (there are some beautiful rainforest areas in that region).
  Bourke is a genuine outback town and within that classification is fairly big - pop. around 4500 (though this includes outlying residents in a 40-odd thousand square kilometre shire area). There's a bit about the place, and some very basic weather stats, here.
• penelope
  I have just successfully introduced two groups of friends to each other, both made initially through the net, and both based in Oxford. How satisfying :o)
• Rosie
  (rab) If your radiators are individually thermostatically controlled then simply adjust them. If not, and this sounds more likely, they should have two valves, one at each end, one being a normal on-off valve, the other, hidden under a plastic cap, being a control or balancing valve. Prise off the plastic cap and adjust the control valve using a small adjustable spanner or some other tool. This will limit the flow through that radiator. If all this isn't possible simply turn off the rads in the bedroom until you need them. This will boost the flow through those in the living room. All this is based on my own system, which is steam age and installed in 1971. It still works very well.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Thanks for that. Bourke is not as dry as I would have thought, with 300 mm a year average though at those temperatures it would count as less than if the same amount fell in a cool climate. Parts of Essex have only about 520 mm a year but no-one would call it a desert, except culturally maybe. Woo! 'ark at 'im!
• Inkspot - Rads
  We have a rad that is temperamental and blackish water usually comes out when it is bled. To force the gunk out the whole system is having a power flush in the new year.
  Has anyone else seen Casino Royale with Clive Owen? Took along my 12 year ld son and two of his mates last night. Really good (first "adult" film I've seen in ages) but one thing I did not understand was why the sea shell made him look at the messages on the mobile. Otherwise an enjoyable, very gritty, not indestructible bond.

  Things that make me go GRRRRR! I put my hands up to having not to good grammar and punctuation but somethings even take the biscuit for me. There was a trailer far a new film with Will Smith The Pursuit of Happyness !!!Happyness!!! Happyness!! What the....?? perhaps it is a concept thing.

• Raak
  [Inkspot] "Happyness" sounds (or I should say reads) like what the inhabitants of Brave New World have, something you get from a pill. Does that fit with the trailer?
• flerdle - me, procrastinating? never...
  [rab] Dunno, heating is ducted here. I kept the house at 18C through the winter; without heating it was usually around 12C inside during the day. You could try using fewer blankets (not trying to be facetious either: the tendency of some people here is to use a giant quilt whatever the weather, which I really don't get). Good luck.
  [pen] Well done :)
  [Rosie] For very thorough Aus. climate stats go to dubdubdub.bom.gov.au . Evaporation rates out at Burke are very high, though I don't know how they calculate it. It was 42° here yesterday and 22° today. This place is crazy.
• rab
  [flerdle] Wrong bedroom - the boiler and first rad is in the room we use least, and in any case we don't have the heating on at night.

  [Rosie] I'll take a look at the valves when the window people have done their last and I've moved all the clutter back from the rad end to the window end of the bedroom. There's no TRV (which I think makes sense, as the boiler thermostat's in the same room) but also no "on-off" tap either as far as I know. There does appear to be something that can be turned with a spanner, so maybe that's the one to look at...

• rab
  TBH the quick fix is to sit in the spare room when we're feeling chilly, and the longer fix is to get TRVs fitted on the rads that don't have them, an external thermostat put in the hallway and a living flame fire in the hearth in the living room for the occasional extra blast the central heating isn't capable of delivering.

  So while the new windows are great (or will be, once the final couple of panes are switched from single to double glazing), they have rather highlighted all the deficiencies in our central heating. Ho hum.

• Inkspot
  [rab]If there are just valves as described by Rosie our problem at the begining of winter was balancing the system. At the moment the heating is turned off each evening just after eight and an hour in the morning. After B Gas wanting to put up the direct debit again even that amout of heating is looking too much.
  [Raak] It looks like the film about a single parent father down on his heels and homeless with a small son. The trailer shows him bumping into a Trader with a Ferrari, then his luck takes a turn for the worse. I have no idea how it ends but it is more than likely an unhealthy dose of Hollywood syrup. The possible moral being you can have hapiness and be poor, but for that extra happy factor ‘happyness’ you need to be successful,rich and fulfill the American dream.
• flerdle - the old more than one bedroom trick.
  [rab] Ahh, ok.
• Dujon - Dryness
  [Rosie] Yes, Bourke is after all an agricultural area of sorts and the average rainfall is around the 300mm mark. In the last 12 months (I just did a quick check with the local BOM) they have had roughly 107mm, twenty five of which landed on one day. Since the end of July they have received 11.2mm. That, I think, highlights the current problem - particularly when you relate it to flerdle's evaporation rate comment.
• Rosie - OZBOM
  (flerdle, Duj) An excellent site which I have used for some time. I pop in most days to have a quick look at the S Hemisphere circulation and there is a lot else there too. Our own Drought Order has been rescinded at last not that it makes the slightest difference because I never water the garden or wash the car anyway, particularly in December of all months. I've had 86 mm so far this month, equal to my monthly average since I started in 1983.
• rab - Windows
  They're done at last: see for yourself! (Pictures are clicky)
• Chalky - rab's views
  Oooh - very swish. 'Though the pic of the window that swings open for cleaning made me recoil a little. Take care when weilding the Windolene!
• penelope - Brighton Snibs
  What a wonderful name for a gadget. And lovely windows :D
• rab
  Incidentally, what is that Christmas ching song that goes "boo-doo-doo-doo-dum dum, boo-doo-doo-doo-dum dum, boo-doo-doo boo-doo-doo boo-di-doo-di-dooo" called? It's stuck in my head and I can't get rid of it.
• Sierra Mike - Windows
  [rab] View through: Somewhere in Scotland? Please excuse if you've said. Very nice job.
• Chalky - Who - do -do - doo -doo- doodoo- doodoo- Hitler
  [rab] That rhythm brings to mind "Close Every Door To Me" from Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Whatsit ... ... but I know it's not that really - 'cause it's not a Christmas song.
• Projoy
  [rab] It's not In Dulci Jubilo, is it? As popularised by Mike Oldfield in the seventies.
• Projoy
  [rab] Actually, on further inspection, it isn't.
• Projoy
  Could you perhaps mark the barlines?
• Rosie - Irving Barlines
  (Projoy) Must be at 1st and 2nd commas and just before first "di", assuming 4/4 swing, i.e. 12/8.
• rab
  [Rosie, Projoy] 1st and 2nd commas, yes, and before the last "boo-di-dooo-di-dooo". There are some words that follow about "coming home for Christmas" and then "Ching ching ching ching ching | Ching ching chi-chi chung ching".

  It's odd the Christmas songs that get played relentlessly in all pubs and shopping centres nationwide. None of them seem to be less than about 20 years old to achieve the right (or wrong) sort of Dickensian nostalgia - but what was in their place 20 years ago?

• rab
  [SM] Oh yes, Edinburgh. The hills you can see are the Pentlands, and possibly the Braids.
• Chalky - Name That Tune
  [rab] There's a Chris Rea song called "Driving Home For Christmas" which is played relentlessly around this time of year.
• Projoy - Stop!
  I think that might be the bridge section in Jona Lewie's Stop the Cavalry. If played in C major, would it have this melody (where hyphens/equalses show beams on (semi)quavers): 2/4 | D=C=b=a g-g | D=C=b=a g-a=b | C D E=F-E | E=F=E=D E ?
• Projoy - s/Jona/Jonah
• rab - Bingo
  That's it. Why on earth is it called "Stop the Cavalry"?
• penelope - Halt!
  Hey, Mr. Churchill comes over here
  to say we're doing splendidly
  But it's very cold out here in the snow,
  marching to win from the enemy
  Oh I say it's tough,I have had enough
  Can you stop the cavalry?
  I have had to fight, almost every night
  down throughout these centuries
  That is when I say, oh yes yet again
  Can you stop the cavalry?
  Mary Bradley waits at home
  in the nuclear fall-out zone
  Wish I could be dancing now
  in the arms of the girl I love
  
• Projoy - s/Jonah/Jona
• penelope - woohoo!!
  I've just bought a pair of tickets to see Muse playing at the new Wembley Stadium in June :oD
• rab - Right
  Well I'm off for few days tomorrow, and Andy's on his way to New Zealand so you can fully expect the site to fall over and not get rebooted until sometime next week. Take the opportunity to drink some more wine.

  Happy.

• Rosie - Unknown hand
  (rab) THe site did fall over last night but got up again. Hooray!
• rab - Back
  Thanks for keeping an eye open. I guess Andy must have pressed the reset button in LA.
• Rosie
  I like the idea of pressing the reset button in LA, turning it back into a civilised and agreeable small town.
• Kim - Ctrl/Alt/Del
  I have visited a number of places over the years where, failing friendly bombs, a Reset button would have been very appropriate. Brighton springs to mind....
• Rosie - Sussex reset
  (Kim) On your way down there could you do Crawley? An amorphous blot. Is Brighton really all that bad? I haven't been there for a few years. The prime candidate must be Basingstoke, so they say.
• Dujon - Mornin' all
  I have just made a new year resolution. Having just carted a 40Kg package of set-due-to-humidity-premixed-concrete from the workshop to the front of my premises (OK, it's a 1-in-4 slope about 50 or 60' long) and the concrete no doubt now includes a bit of water . . . yes, I'm rationalising . . . ) and dump it into a bin out the front, the lip of which is probablly 4'6" off the ground, I'm embarrassed. I needed the help of my super fit wife.
  Exercise is what I need and will do. Probably, perhaps.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Forty kilos is a lot easier where you are than it is here because you're upside down, which must help.
• Dujon - Floating on air
  [Rosie] You are, as usual, correct. That was the problem. I had to get the wife to hang off my ankles. Even though I've lived on the southern hemisphere for 50-odd years I still haven't got the hang of keeping my feet on the ground. Ah well, it's got to be better than living on the equator.
• Rosie - Australity and boreality
  (Dujon) And the sun goes round the wrong way, and the weather charts are all arse-about-face and Christmas day's in the height of summer. If you came back here you'd be totally confused. Loads of rain here, BTW, 129 mm in December and some thunder earlier today, most unusual for this time of year here. I see that rather ominously your drought is set to continue due to El Niño.
• Inkspot
  Sounds like the cricketers can blame the whether, with no rain expected no chance of a draw in the last test, just a white wash.

  First day back and up late after a half hour lie in. It all seems funny peculiar the roads in were as clear as a bell and the office is slightly muted.

• Simons Mith
  [Duj] Apols for introducing a note of sense into the conversation, but fit or not, you should get help lifting something that heavy and that awkward to that height. If you got your muscles fit, then did your back in hefting something awkward, you'd really want to kick yourself. (Although again obviously it's better to get someone else to kick you instead.)
• Dujon - Sensibilites
  [Rosie] How dare you! Australian bore indeed. ;-)
  [SM] Yes, but too late. I did my back in years ago. The doctor's advice? "Give it some exercise". Hmmmm. Sounds like some sort of miracle cure for a broken arm: "Give it a bit of a bend each day". Of course he was right - as far as I know my problem is only muscular and not a spinal disc matter. Right, back to my sit-ups.
• Rosie
  (Duj) Sorry, old bean, it was an occident.
• Dan - Windows
  [rab] Terrific pictures, and it looks like a nice place to... wait a minute... in the earlier picture that man across the road is arguing with his wife... then the sun is lower in the sky and you can see him carrying out a box... wait, he's looking up. He's seen me! He's coming across the road! Damn this wheelchair, if I try to get out he'll just catch me on the landing!
• Dan - *Wonders if it's possible to go back in time and unkill the conversation*
• penelope - *hears the conversation rustling a bit and realises it's not quite dead yet*
• Rosie - Just making sure it really is dead
  <desperation>Whatever you've read in the papers no-one can possibly know whether 2007 will be the warmest year ever in the UK but globally it might well be so.</desperation>
• Dan - B.S.F.
  [rab] You'll be happy to know that your Windows page is already the number one Google result for a certain three word name for a thing what helps keep windows shut. (Don't want to name it here and skew the results the next time this page is spidered.)
• rab - Wow!
  I hope that's what they are actually called - it's what it said on the quote, and the chap who measured up referred to them as such (I could hardly keep a straight face).

  What on earth possessed you to look, anyway?

• Dan
  I guess I'm just kinky for ironmongery. Or brassmongery. Or whatever they monger to make these things. I thought it was an interesting fastener and I wondered if it was just a UK thing so I went looking around.
• Sierra Mike - BSF
  [Dan] Wouldn't it be more accurate to say this is the only site that calls them [the name that must not be mentioned]? Not trolling, but all the other hits I got in Google called them something slightly different (but with the same initials). By the way, I loved your "Rear Window" bit. It provided a moment of cheer in an otherwise lousy Friday.
• rab
  [SM] It's possible that it's local dialect.
• Sierra Mike
  [rab] Good point. I am a long way from where I was brought up and occasionally, when I'm not concentrating or when I'm tired, say something "regional" that has people looking at me weirdly. I told some Canadians that I would "put the snack on" a Yale lock so they could come and go without a key. No-one understood what I was talking about.
• Sierra Mike
  I seem to have killed the conversation. Sorry rab.
• Simons Mith - Turning gently
  Your mother is a big hippo.
• Phil
  Sierra Mike] It's always been a "sn*b" for me
• ImNotJohn - Snacking on Snobs
  I use 'sneck' or 'snyb'. Sneck is fairly normal Northern English as evidenced by this.
• Inkspot - media frenzy
  There has been a fair amount in the press and tv amout the goings on the the BB house. I feel part of the problem is that swathes society in Britain encouraged by the media has lost respect for itself and civility towards others. The mantra is ‘you are no better thatn me no matter who you are’ whether that is a doctor, priest, police, MP, prince or Queen. It is a matter of bringing everyone down to the tabloid level. Are those we are to look up to the highly paid footballer and their WAGs, the instant celeb or winning pop idol.Is it possible that headlines of cultural intolerance and ignorance really do reflect the essence large sections Britain today.
• Rosie
  The behaviour in BB is what you'd expect from forcing pretty stupid, ignorant attention-seeking people together. Naturally they bring out the worst in each other. The racism, though we could certainly do without it, is fairly routine and widespread among certain types and makes one wonder what rarified parts of the atmosphere the media inhabit. There are pages about it today's Guardian, for instance. The more disturbing aspect of BB is that it is broadcast at all and is regarded as entertainment by large numbers. How edifying to watch dimwits getting on each others' tits! The participants abase themselves simply to be on TV but they shouldn't be exploited in this manner.
• Phil
  [Rosie] The first series of BB was interesting, IMHO, as the participants were derived of most luxuries. They never quite had enough alcohol to get drunk. They didn't have pencils or paper. They had no clocks. They really struggled to get by. Hence, it was fascinating to watch how people interacted when derived of so many things that they would normally use to pass the time. These days, it has become more of a circus, with the blame lying on the shoulders of the producers for promoting ratings-grabbers to enter the house, in the knowledge that their behaviour is likley to cause headline-making outrage.
  The behaviour that I have (albeit very briefly) witnessed recently on BB is, as you say, the norm in a large sector of British society. That the media causes an outcry over it is utterly hypocritical (as ever); that people are shocked and outraged by it is merely bandwagon-jumping. What needs to be addressed is the fact that, presuming most people in the world are racist to an extent, placing remarkably dim people in an environment where they are going to expose their deepest "instincts" (not sure that's the right word) is irresponsible, particularly considering how sensitively balanced the world is at present with regard to extremism - on all sides. I'd love it if everyone just relaxed a bit, frankly.
• Rosie
  (Phil) I'll go along with all of that except possibly your last sentence. If you mean we should stop pretending to be shocked by some of the behaviour then I agree wholeheartedly but I don't think we should be relaxed about allowing this stuff on TV, certainly in its present form. It's no better than bear-baiting or cock-fighting, i.e. a distasteful spectator sport. My own instinct is to say to the contestants "You're on telly. Stop behaving like a complete arse, even if you are one" but that's hopelessly old-fashioned.
• Raak
  For Jade Goody-Nude to get on Celebrity BB by having been on BB in the past says something about the show. Probably involving the words "vanishing" and "own *rsehole". How about Religious Big Brother, involving a Protestant, a Catholic, a Shia Moslem, a Sunni Moslem, an Orthodox Jew, a Reform Jew, a Dawkins-esque atheist, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Rastafarian, and a Bahai?
• Phil - Relax!
  [Rosie] No, that's not what I meant at all, although I see how it looks like that. And I agree wholeheartedly with your bear-baiting analogy. What I meant was that if people such as Jade Goody relaxed a bit, she'd probably enjoy her life a lot more, and this whole issue wouldn't have arisen.
  [Raak] Throw in a satanist, and you might be onto something :-)
• Projoy - quoted from BBC News...
  "Goody insisted on the show that she 'didn't say Shilpa Poppadom in a racial way'".
  
  So that's all right, then.
• Rosie
  (Phil) Jade Goody, despite her wealth, has little to be relaxed about. She's from the bottom of the pile and knows it and this is her chance to get back at the world in general. There are many like her and the problem is exacerbated by our class-consciousness though ironically India, with its caste system, is probably even worse.
• Lib - Not Goody Two shoes
  I actually don't think that Stupid Jade is racist. I think she's just ignorant and a bully. Remember the first time she was on she didn't even know where Cambridge was and thought East Anglia was another country. She's picked on Shilpa cos she's pretty and an unknown quantity. Jade's head got far too big with fame and she wasn't clever enough to cope with it, and when she was insecure she attacked those outside her comfort zone.
• Raak - Where will they be?
  I sometimes wonder, "where will this person be when they're 60?" Jade Goody at 60...
• Raak
  Thinking also of "where are they now?", today I chanced across this picture, which looks like a very ordinary businessman or politician. I was quite startled to realise who it was. The URL gives a small clue.
• Darren
  That is a bit of a surprise. I had to Google for the picture to find out who it was, though!
• Projoy
  [Raak, Darren] Was just reading his "dangerous idea" at Edge. Profound knowledge of the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics or windy hallucinogenic rhetoric?
• Darren
  [Projoy] The dangerous idea was asking him the question in the first place.
• Rosie
  Well, who is it then?
• Projoy
  [Rosie] I'm sorry, but due to the indeterminacy principle it's not possible to know the URL of his picture and his identity simultaneously.
• Dan
  Yeah, that picture startled me when I saw it a few years ago. It's a portrait for a board he sat on. He's always been something of a hero of mine. He's the one who's not Zappa. Or IS HE??? You can see him a little better in this. There's a story about how he turned up for his audition carrying his laundry, the idea being that as long as he was going out he might as well get his laundry done so it wouldn't be a wasted trip either way. The pragmatic insouciance of this apparently impressed the casting director quite a bit.
• Dan
  Oh, just found the "dangerous idea" on Edge. I'm half inclined to believe he's having them on -- it would be very like him -- but there's just enough consistent substance peeking out of it to make me wonder. Which, again, may be the idea.
• Rosie
  (Projoy) It is now. This is very disturbing.
• Raak
  [Projoy] I incline towards either "windy rhetoric" or "leg-pull", especially compared with the other contributions there.
• Dan
  In fairness to others, here it is. It made more sense the second time I read it; at least think I saw about two thirds of what he was driving at. Unfortunately he tries to distill it down a little too far and leaves out about 90% of the exposition it would need to lift it out of Time Cube territory, with the result that it does read a bit like somebody trying to drag some subjectively experienced great insight back from an altered mental state by scribbling the key concepts on a notepad on the nightstand before the memory fades. I can't even say he's wrong, just that he doesn't really give you anything to analyze or dispute; he's reduced it to an overly simple set of vague declaratives, so even if you want to give him a hearing you just end up going, "um. Okay."
• Irouléguy
  Scrolling down, I see that Laurence Krauss has a project for Darren:
  The ultimate goal of physics, as it is often described, is to have a "theory of everything", in which all the fundamental laws that describe nature can neatly be written down on the front of a T-shirt (even if the T-shirt can only exist in 10 dimensions!).
• penelope - ONe week later...
  I'm mucking out the house today. How does it get so much stuff in it?
• Raak - Stuff
  The naughty stuff fairies cart it in in the middle of the night. If you make a present to them by leaving binbags full of stuff by the edge of the road once a week, you should find the amount of stuff eventually decreases.
• Rosie
  (Raak) No, the foxes get it. So the fairies don't get their presents and just keep up the pressure.
• Darren
  [Irouléguy] I thought I'd posted this response immediately after your post, but still... when the physicists fulfil their part of the bargain, I'll do mine.
• Irouléguy
  Darren] T-shirts seem to be real conversation killers.
• penelope - *mimes t-shirt silence*
• Rosie
  (pen) Now do it with the words.
• Inkspot - and through the square window
  Had a look around the Vista web pages last night and the Vista Advisor. It looks like it will not be a simple upgrade from XP. There are many programmes it highlights that there may be problems or issues with but has big problems with Realtek and Kaspersky virus, both need to be uninstalled then reinstalled after. Some of the things it has problems with came preloaded on the PC suprised there were so many. The promo on the site looks good but that is the top end version not the basic Home version, so will be waiting a bit before taking the plunge.
• penelope - hmmmm
  I think I am being constructively dismissed. I have taken legal advice. More on this later.
• Uncle Korky - Bloody hell!
  [pen] You're doing the right thing. Keep us posted, and good luck!
• ImNotJohn
  [Pen] Ouch! A horrid situation however it pans out. It's too long since I was a union convenor and kept up with employment law, but make sure you follow all the procedures properly yourself such as following up internal channels even if you know in advance it won't make any difference. You should also keep records of everything, including as verbatim as possible notes of conversations. Best of luck.
• Chalky
  [pen] oo-er. Stay strong.
• flerdle
  [pen] eek! what Chalky and INJ said.
• Lib
  [pen] EEk! Oh no! Good luck.
• rab
  [pen] Just been reading around the subject and it sounds pretty f'king horrible. Sympathies.
• Néa
  [pen] Loads of sympathy and good luck.
• CdM
  [pen] What rab said.
• Irouléguy
  pen] Good luck!
• Inkspot
  [pen]Good luck with the lawyers.
• Sierra Mike
  I'm not familiar with the term "Constructive Dismissal" so I looked it up. Am I to understand penelope is being harrassed by her supervisors to the point she will quit?
  
  Regardless, please add my best wishes that things resolve well for you, penelope.
• rab
  At the risk of interrupting something serious with frivolity, I am amused by the fact that on some paperwork we have, the cost of registering a marriage is quoted per person. One wonders how many marriages between one, three or seventeen people take place.
• penelope - well...
  After two conversations with a lawyer and some advice from my brother in law, three meetings, some steely bargaining (on my part) and a little compromise, I have a solution. For now. It's a big relief.
• flerdle - phew
  [pen] Glad to hear it.

  Here (AU), since last year, businesses with fewer than 100 employees (99% of public sector firms) are exempt from unfair dismissal laws, and those with over 100 employees are able to dismiss anyone any time if they claim that part of the reason for the dismissal was for the "operational requirements" of the business. Being sacked on the basis of race, sex, age, pregnancy or family responsibility is still technically illegal, but pretty easy to get around.

• flerdle - and
  (actually, the "operational requirementes/reasons" clause is available for all sizes of employer)
• penelope
  [flerdle] Well thank goodness I live in a country where working for a small firm isn't a discrimination in itself.
• flerdle
  [pen] Indeed.
• Darren
  [flerdle] Isn't it the same in some parts of the US? There was an early "King of the Hill" episode where Hank's company had trouble firing an employee for drug use because of a similar law. In the end, Hank resigned and then they were able to fire the addict because they had few enough employees to be exempt from the law.
• flerdle
  I have no idea what the USA does, but our PM is the ... nevermind.

  Another trick is to make all your employees "contractors", or keep them as a succession of short-term casuals. Then they don't count towards your total, and they aren't covered by the unfair dismissal laws anyway.

• Lib - own up...
  Right. I need to know. Who has stolen the snow I've been promised? On tuesday I defrosted my car four times!!! (00:10 leaving work, 11:00 leaving to get home from sleeping venue, 19:00 leaving for pub and 23:25 leaving cinema). Today I wake up and there's no frost or snow. Are you hoarding it down south? Give it a shove up Manchester way please.
• Projoy
  [Lib] You're very welcome to have all mine. Unwanted gift. Buyer collects.
• Tuj - West Midlands weather update
  Tons of the white stuff here guys. Enough to keep thousands of students amused, it seems.
• rab
  I was supposed to be going to a meeting in Birmingham, but cancelled due to a wide range of boring reasons; quite glad I did now, cos I don't think I'd be getting back...
• Rosie - Snow
  3" here this morning (Surrey/Gt London border, 600 ft). Rainfall equivalent 6.8 mm and a pain-in-the-arse to measure because some of it sticks in the gauge funnel and has to be melted (saucepan on the gas stove) without evaporating too much of it. It's now raining, making millions of pinholes in what's left of the snow. Tremendous excitement on the uk.sci.weather newsgroup, which has a number of semi-literate snow freaks. Definately. Its the tempreture anomoly. there saddo's.
• I Say, Porter! - uk.sci.weather
  [Rosie] I read that as uk.ski.weather. Time I was on the piste.
• Lib
  [Projoy] Thanks for the offer, but I was kinda hoping someone would bring it to my.
• Lib
  To my? what am I going on about? To me, I mean.
• Dujon - White stuff
  I was wondering how you were all coping, particularly those of you south of Watford Pass. The BBC was reporting that the country was grinding to a standstill. 4" (max) brings the whole country to a shuddering halt? I'm . . . well . . . gobsmacked. Surely that must be journalistic hyperbole?
• Dujon - col
  How about Watford Gap then?
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Watford Gap is not a gap, pass, col, gorge or anything so dramatic. It's just another dreary motorway service station about 80 miles NW of London, in pretty flat country. It's nowhere near Watford, which is on the NW edge of London. The original phrase used contemptuously by Londoners to denote provinciality was "North of Watford", ie outside London, and in particular to the north of it. When Watford Gap service station on the M1 was built people started talking about "north of Watford Gap" thus changing the meaning, then it became "north of the Watford Gap", which ain't there, as I said. This is how place-names and language in general changes; misunderstanding by stupid people. One reason the country grinds to a halt is that many roads are at full capacity, more or less, which means that the slightest hazard slows everything down and in no time at all the whole thing congeals. Another reason is that we are now the soppiest country in the world.
• ImNotJohn - Watford Gap
  Actually, as Herr Bratsche pointed out when this last arose about 5 years ago, there is a geographical significance to Watford Gap as the attached map shows. Within about 400 metres you have a railway line, a roman road (Watling Street - now the A5), and a canal all passing through the same minor low point. The motorway just follows the rest, showing that the romans knew a thing or two about roads. When you drive through on the motorway the surrounding geography is not evident.
• Inkspot
  The forecast last night was for a dollop of fog, but it is snowing again here in SN4.
• Chalky - What gap?
  [INJ] Ah - seem to remember my late father saying as much way back in the 60s when we travelled north regularly, so thanks for that map ref for Watford Gap. I would so hate to be one of Rosie's 'stupid people' who misunderstand the term :-)
• I Say, Porter! - Watford Gap
  Isn't Watford Gap next door to Watford H&M?
• Rosie
  (Chalky) Heaven forbid, m'dear. But somebody started it. (Inkspot) A bit more to come, mostly sleet. Then milder. Nothing here in CR6.
• Dujon - Errors of ways
  Thanks for setting me straight, good people, your points have been noted. Any road, I know now that I'm one of them 'stupid people'. It's ever so nice to keep track of your station in life. I'm sure that my to-ing and fro-ing would be easier if I had a good staff but continual ups and downs and constant changes confuse me no end. One of my relatives keeps telling me "get a grip, Dujon". To that end I have bought myself a sand box. If it doesn't work as planned then at least I can stick my head in it.
• Chalky
  [Duj the not-so-stupid] So what is the real purpose of a sand box?
• Dujon - Technicalities
  [Chalky] 'Morning.
  The 'sand box', and I'm sure that Rosie and others can explain it better than I, is a box full of sand or grit of some kind or other. In olden days steam engines used the contents of such, as and when necessary, to increase the friction between wheels and rails. This was effected by dribbling the contents of the sand box onto the rails in front or over the driving wheels. Naturally (and obviously) you are far too young to have seen or heard this highly technological process in action.
• Dujon
  I'll tell you the real purpose later. As a clue: Have you ever owned a cat?
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Ah! Things are now clearer because I didn't know you drove a steam engine. Even I don't do that. Sand is useful and may have prevented this, the slip to end all slips. Click on the bottom recording, marked "60532". The quality is rather poor. The loco slips a bit on starting (quite usual) but the mayhem begins after 1m 50s. After another 15 seconds or so you can hear the water being carried over to the cylinders, which caused the real damage. All 3 connecting rods and the coupling rods and valve gear were bent so that was the end of that little day out. Why didn't the driver just shut off steam? He couldn't. The big handle wouldn't move against the huge volume of steam and water going through the main valve. He had about one second and missed it. No more driving for him, at least of that loco, which cost £80,000 to repair.
• rab - Patience
  At the risk of seeming insensitive given pen's recent difficulties, I've finally been offered a permanent position at Edinburgh Uni. Woo!

  A bit of a long and torturous story this one... back in July, I was offered a similar position in Manchester, but there were various reasons why we didn't want to move back then - not least the fact that we'd bought a flat in Edinburgh exactly one week previously. Turning that offer down was one of the trickiest decisions I'd ever made. Anyway, the gamble paid off in the end, and I'm now very relieved and pleased.

• Darren
  [Rosie] That was an interesting sound recording. I don't really know all that much about steam engines (I had to look up what water being carried over to the cylinders meant) but it's quite an impressive sound. Were you actually present when it happened?
• penelope - Hurrah!
  [rab] excellent - good news, congratualtions. And I'm fine - I got offered less money for working to a higher target, but with bigger bonuses than I was on before once I got beyond the target. And it was done without consultation, that was all... I could have sued, I was told, but I think it would look dreadful on a CV. And I will change, eventually, but I will leap, I will not be pushed. And I have a hot date tonight so frankly, i don't care any more. :o)
• Raak
  Congratulations rab! And to pen, if that's a sufficiently positive outcome to warrant it. Did you get them to make things better than they were trying to?
• Dujon
  [Rosie] Thanks for the link. The sounds bring back a few memories. £80,000! The mind boggles. I used to be a keen 'train spotter' as a youngster but the interest waned when girls and cars came along. I had a relative who was a signalman. Occasionally my elder brother and myself would visit him at work in his signal box. Exciting times for a lad.
  [rab and penelope] Congratulations on your results. Great news.
• Rosie
  (Darren) There's only about a quarter of an inch clearance when the piston is right at the end of its stroke and any excess water either knocks the cylinder cover off or bends the connecting rod. Major damage. There are drain cocks which are often opened for the first few puffs when an engine starts out and they blow huge quantities of wet steam ahead of the engine, ruining photos but very necessary. I wasn't there for that recording. I've seen loads of engines slipping on starting but quickly brought under control. It's a rather fearsome sound for a small boy a few feet away on the end of a platform, or for anyone, come to that. (pen) If you're happy so am I. Nothing worse than work worries even they are now behind me.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) The wheels only stopped spinning because the valve gear got bent and no longer allowed steam into the cylinders at the right time, rather like a car with a bent camshaft. Interesting that right at the end of the recording the safety valves lift. I'm surprised there was any fire left given the tremendous pull of the exhaust on it. What a mess! I gave up collecting numbers very early but have never lost interest, you could say, but as you imply, there is much else in life.
• Rosie - The juice
  When is a power cut not a power cut? When they restore the connection at about half the normal voltage. Very dim orangey lights, computer won't start (but monitor OK), TV but no video, kettle wouldn't boil ether let alone water, old Acorn computer OK but not the monitor, strangely. They'd got the full voltage next door but Mrs-next-door-but-one (in her curlers) had the same problem as had an old lady walking her dog. Obviously one of the phases was faulty but I thought you got the full whack or nothing. It seems you may not.
• kt - long absence
  Hello, all. Some of you may remember me from long ago, on other servers. A strange thing happened recently. I discovered that, having moved from Sydney to Edinburgh, and not having played MC for years on account of a Thesis, I happened by complete accident to end up working down the corridor from rab. What do you know? Well, probably that MC is responsible for effects that are not quite normal, for one.
• rab - Oddness
  ...and when "kt" appeared I had this very odd feeling that we'd met before (although it was only virtually, and - I think - under a different moniker). Anyhoo, welcome back!
• Simons Mith - I recognize that moniker
  [kt] Welcome back.
• flerdle
  [kt] Hello, I'd wondered where you'd gotten to (having met you in Sydney, if you're who I think you are!). Enjoy Edinburgh!

  [Rosie] It used to happen all the time in India (and probably still does). Just shrug and say "Volt is down" like the locals did.

• Dujon
  [Rosie] The phenomenon is referred to as a 'brown out' - at least here it is. The description is obvious when you think about the affect on your light globes. In the last house I owned I had two phases connected and, on a number of occasions, could have full voltage and current available on some internal circuits and not on others. This of course also applied to total power cuts where only one phase was down. The reason for the variation in equipment functions is simply that some items will run on a range of, say, 180 volts to 260 volts while others need the full pressure (usually 230V +).
• Rosie
  (flerdle) It's the first time I've ever seen it, and there were power cuts galore when I was a small child (say late 40's). The voltage here is allowed by statute to vary 10% (up 4 and down 6) but this was down 50%, at a guess. (Dujon) Can't be that, because everyone here is on single phase except industrial premises which have all 3. There were 2 more cuts early this evening. When the first (over an hour) ended it came back on (full voltage) for less than a minute, just enough time to put the candles out before going off again for another 40 minutes or so. Loud, pointed and profane were my exclamations to no-one in particular.
• kathryn - ex-kt
  [rab] That's right, I'd forgotten that I changed from kt to Kathryn. That's how long ago it was.
  Hi, flerdle! Sorry I dropped out of contact for a while there. Are you still in the middle east? Edinburgh's rather nice, actually, with more sun than I had imagined.
  And hello Simons Mith also. It's amazing how stable the MC community is...
• blamelewis
  [kathryn] Welcome back - I'm an irregular visitor myself these days.
• flerdle - doin' the continental shuffle
  [kathryn] No, am now in Melbourne, and thesising too, fool that I am. But Melbourne is very pleasant.
• I Say, Porter! - Thesis mightier than the sword
  Incredible the %age of MCers who have done or are doing theses. I have no plans to go within a million miles of one meself, but have a lot of respect for those who have the inclination.
• Rosie - Stability
  (kathryn) Collectively, maybe.
• Projoy
  [ISP] Ten years after my undergrad degree, I'm doing an MA. Think I might be ready to do the big one in another ten years! :)
• I Say, Porter! - Education Education Education
  [Projoy] Well, I worked five years between school and Uni, then another eight between BA and MSc, now I'm (avoiding) studying for my Oracle exams. Doing very well - been avoiding studying for two and a half years and counting.
• Simons Mith - Wibble flib
  Stable?? Us?
• penelope
  Hmm... I waited ten years between under-gradding and post-gradding, and have now resolved to study nothing but happy things that interest me, which is mostly food, conservation, art and historical stuff, not science or authoring. If all goes to plan, I'm off to Rotterdam next month to work for a day on a conserved windmill. And also to see a very nice man who happens to be the Miller. :o)
• Simons Mith
  Well then, enjoy your Miller time :-)
• Sierra Mike
  [Rosie] Dad was an industrial electronics guru during that period. The reason for the power cuts was to avoid brown outs according to him. The national grid had been so badly compromised during WWII that power was in short supply. It was deemed safer to cut the power altogether than tolerate a severe voltage drop. They used to sound sirens around ten minutes before the power cuts in the local factories apparently, so that the machine shops could shut down gracefully. The good old days.
• kathryn
  [blamelewis] hello!
  [flerdle] Melbourne is indeed pleasant, despite lacking a proper harbour.
  [ISP] There may well be a connection between people who put themselves through a thesis and people who take pleasure in playing a game like MC. An unusual relationship with reality could well be one of them.
  [pen] How about the science of food (e.g. courtesy of Harold McGee)? That's definitely a happy thing!
• Sierra Mike
  [penelope] Watch out for clog-wearing mice in that windmill. The staircases are infested with them from all accounts.
• Phil - post-grad? sounds hard to me
  I did have a plan last year to take an A-level every year for the next ten years. I think I've missed the deadline to enter for French this year, so maybe I'll start the mission next year and do two (to catch up). The plan is that if someone says to my daughter when she's 18, "oh, I've got 7 A-levels", she can reply, "well, my dad's got 14." The only extra proviso for this is that I don't attend any lessons/lectures in order to gain the qualifications - I'll rely on reading what the syllabus is, and a bit of common sense in terms of background reading. And, yes I've checked, there are still exam boards that do not require coursework :-)
• Rosie - The juice
  (SM) Mine must have been a purely local problem due to malfunctioning switches or transformers and not insufficient supply. This was just one phase down or out over about a square mile.
• penelope - clogged up
  [Sierra Mike] I have my own clogs for stamping on said mice - they came as a present from the Miller last weekend. Luckily they were filled with chocolate as a sweetener...
• I Say, Porter! - Miller
  Hope there's good ventilation, in case he's Windy.
• penelope - yes, yes, I know...
  [IS,P!] Hmmph. He's a Dutch Miller. Have you got a pic of one of those?
• Darren
  [pen] He's a film star? Seems a little on the old side for you, mind.
• Projoy
  [Darren] Still, he does well, considering he died 15 years ago.
• penelope
  I thought he seemed a bit quiet. Just my luck :o(
• nights
  HELLO MORNIVERSE! I'M NIGHTS BLESSED!
• nights
  AND I'VE SCARED EVERYONE OFF, IT SEEMS! CHORTLE CHORTLE!
• Lib - not me
  Hello nights. It takes a bit more than emboldened shouting to scare me off! How are you? I've got a post holiday cold. Grump.
• Lib
  Where is everyone today? Not very chatty? Cheer up. Its almost the weekend!
• Graham III - Nothing at all
  Hello all. It's a long time since I've been in here. Very smart.
• Uncle Korky - Mouth full
  Sorry Lib - I was enjoying a bacon sandwich...
• Lib
  [UK] I'd have thought you'd have a bit of a sore head!
• Uncle Korky
  [Lib] Well, fortunately it hadn't been cooked too fiercely. But getting the grease out of my hair is going to be a bind...
• penelope
  It doesn't matter how sh*tty the week has been , Friday always lifts the mood, doesn't it? Anyone know of any nice jobs going for someone bossy, intelligent and good at news writing? CV available on request. And The Dutch Miller is coming over again next weekend, :o)
• penelope
  Oh, and a lovely bit of spamming, which is a natural glow-worm or something: "ON fenugreek do maladroit.."
• I Say, Porter!
  [pen] I think the next line is "beware the Jabberwock, my son!"
• Uncle Korky
  Morniverse seems slow today, or am I just toooooooo bored at work?
• Rosie
  (UK) Not just today, either. The place seems infected with a kind of ennui. It'll pass, no doubt.
• Uncle Korky
  [Rosie] Well, I was hoping that someone might guess my AVMA before I left the office today, as I may well not be back online until Monday morning.
• Projoy
  It's always very slow on Fridays. In fact I recall it being even less busy last Friday. Not that I check in here obsessively the whole time, of course.
• Phil
  Saturday was a non-starter.
• Rosie
  There was an article in the paper a day or two ago about how boring and irksome working life has become even for people in well-paid professional jobs, what with vast amounts of form-filling and other pointless paperwork, meetings, meetings about meetings etc, etc. The way this place livens up during working hours shows how true that is.
• Inkspot - working time directive
  The local authority I (used to) work for transferred our dept to Capita at the begining of Feb. I have had to drastically cut back to a minimum amount of browsing during work time. Before there was a woolly policy about internet use. However, my new employer begins their internet use and email policy with the phrase "You have no right to privacy"
• nights
  I'm glad that my Brian Blessed impression didn't freak EVERYONE out. I'm well, thanks. Final semester. Argh. And I've been getting some lovely poetry in my spam too. But even better is the amount of recipes I get for Spam, being a GMail user.
• Rosie - Crapita
  (Inkspot) In that case don't do any more work than you absolutely have to. I hope at least you've retained your salary level.
• Rosie
  MCIOS went down at 2.54 am today.
• Dan
  For about 5 minutes. You'd think a guy could take a server down for maintenance at 3 am in the user base's time zone.
• Dan
  FWIW, the timestamps on old moves from the first half of 1998 are now correct.
• Rosie
  (Dan) Thanks for your efforts, as ever. Like Michael Howard, I am a creature of the night.
• Dan - Harrumph
  No problem, I didn't mean it the way it probably sounded. Anyway I've just noticed that this so-called asiago cheese I've been munching on was made in Wisconsin. Now a bit of research shows that asiago is Denominazione di Origine Protetta, so they shouldn't be calling it that and I'd be surprised if they could even sell it in the EU under that name. Still, it's a good cheese, but now I have to go and find the real thing so I know the difference.
• rab
  BTW, I'm off to New Mexico for a week, so this may be the last you hear from me till next Monday. The server will almost surely fall over in about 2-3 hours time. Expect reboots only during office hours in New Zealand. ttfn.
• Tuj
  Read on its own, that last message really really looks like rab's part of some international espionage.
• Darren
  [Tuj] What? You mean you're not... one of us?
• nights
  SHHH!
• rab
  It is very dark for the time of year.
• rab
  Incidentally, I'm staying in room 404 which I'm having difficulty locating, for some reason.
• penelope
  [rab] Have you tried leaving the hotel and then coming back in again?
• Graham III
  [rab] or trying an alternative door?
• blamelewis
  [Rab] Clear out all your cash, I guess in the hotel bar...
• Knobbly - 8 words game
  I tried to translate Nights' post with an online translat-y-thing and it came up with "Ave druse! I ÷óñòâóþ as i no clever"
• Knobbly
  ...although ÷óñòâóþ was actually an untranslated russian word, not nonsense.
• nights
  That's actually pretty close to the mark. It reads "Hello friends! I rather think I'm not clever."
• nights
  As indeed I appear not to be. Plans for the weekend, anyone?
• Lib
  I'm going to a masquerade ball! Very exciting. What are you up to?
• Projoy
  Doing a workshop with actors, for which the freshly-written script still hasn't arrived from the States as yet! Also, writing a sample song from Lolita! - the musical as a college exercise.
• Néa - Weekend plans
  Working. What else? Not getting enough done, though. :-(
• Chalky - doing absolutely nothing
  .. well - nothing worth mentioning. It's kinda nice. :-)
• penelope
  housework until this evening, then I shall be waiting for a certain Dutch Windy Miller to step off the plane :o)
• Phil
  My weekend is taken up with work - beer festival time again, this time only 16 beers, but plent y flive music keeping us entertained. Dunnno how I'm going to get up for 6am delivery tomorrow morning, but i'll cross that bridge later. For now,I need to write a quiz by 9pm.
• rab
  I spent most of the weekend travelling. Have no idea what timezone I'm in again. However I'm not really complaining. Did I tell you about the place they put us up?
• I Say, Porter!
  [rab] New elopement menu?
• nights
  I spent the weekend in the library, emerging only on Saturday night to get extremely drunk extremely quickly. It's coursework season in sunny Bath, and we are all working hard to meet arbitrary deadlines, smoking for all we're worth and drinking ourselves into the ground every Saturday night in a vain attempt to flee the horrific situation we find ourselves in once again. Also, why does everyone else in this library, all five floors of it, seem to be a complete idiot? Just asking. Is Library Rage something admissible in court?
  
  I think I'm a bit depressed.
• rab
  [IS,P!] Yes, that sounds like just the thing that Niall would think of.
• Dan
  Pardon me, unplanned outage at mcios. I called the data center about another issue and they asked me if it was okay to physically move the server, and I told them to go ahead. It will, I hope, be out for less than an hour.
• Rosie
  (Dan) It was alright at midnight (GMT). Thanks again.
• I Say, Porter!
  [Rosie] Who's GMT?
• GMT
  I am.
• Raak
  [GMT] Do you have the time?
• GMT
  As it happens, I may well have ..
• Tower of Pisa - Leaning
  Well, I've got the inclination...
• BST
  [GMT] Not for much longer!
• nights
  It's just struck me that as a Mornington Crescent server, we have no game of MC running. Anyone interested? I'd like to give the new 2007 ruleset a go as it's shortly to be published...
• Simons Mith - 2007beta
  [nights] Blimey, that's a bit radical, innit? MC on an MC website? Not sure I can cope. Besides, I've barely got used to HP2000. Do they think they've sorted the new version's DRM issues now, eh?
• nights
  [SM] Last I heard, most of the national MC bodies had ratified it, with the exceptions of Monaco and East Cornwall. And I think the DRM nightmare will be with us for a while - last I heard, they were trying to make sure you only striled three times, then all your podumes would be deleted without warning. Perhaps better to wait a bit, hm?
• I Say, Porter! - Three striles and you're out
  All your podume are belong to us.
• Lib - shiny new things
  I'd play the 2007 ruleset. Though my copy hasn't arrived from Amazon so I may make some bad moves (but I'm no stranger to that to be honest!).
• Tuj
  Mornington Crescent on the front cover of The Times today (somewhat gratuitously).
• Néa - Aigh!!
  Where is MCiOS?? Or rather, where are all the games? The archive is also empty. I tried to create a new game and got Giant Ant Error. Is it time to panic??
• Software
  It was there before 9.00AM this morning then it suddenly disappeared in the middle of my move! I guess its been hacked again.
• Uncle Korky - MCiOS
  Bloody hell! If anyone's got Dan's e-mail, give him a shout, quick!
• snorgle - MCiOS
  It has rather shrunk.. I hope the games haven't been lost!
• Néa
  I've sent Dan a message about it already. 9:30 am in London is 2:30 am in Portland though, so I don't suppose he's up and about.
• flerdle
  Yes, the middle of the night problem. We'll just have to wait. Hope it's ok...
• Kim - MC in The Times
  [Tuj] Did you guess the ruleset?
• Tuj
  [Kim] No, do tell ;)
• Dan
  Ah. Very odd. I'll take a look.
• Uncle Korky
  Well done, Dan - no idea what you did, but you fixed it! :-)
• Dan
  It may be a serious problem. Stay tuned.
• Dan
  It's not behaving very well. I've asked the crew at the facility to cycle the power. I have last night's nightly backup here -- it's automatically fetched on a schedule, so nothing will be lost. But as I say, there may be a hardware problem so things might be iffy for a while.
• Dan
  Okay, it's going to be out of service for a while, as in multiple days, I think. I'm going to need to reconfigure my mail to point somewhere else, too. Very annoying.
• Dan
  (thank you, rab, for allowing me to use your server as a bulletin board.)
• rab
  [Dan] Nae worries. As you know, I've hardware problems of my own.
• Dan
  BTW if anyone wants to email me -- though I'll be pointing my usual email at another server within a day or so -- there's always my last name at gmail dot com. Normally I don't check it very often but I'm using it now.
• Lib
  Get Well Soon MCiOS!
• Dan
  MCiOS thanks you. It would only take a moment to restart it at my home server and point the domain name at it (though it'd be a day or so before that change propagated through the intarweb), but the site gets a LOT of hits, including various kinds of attacks, and it would be a bad idea to inflict that on my home router for several reasons. Anyway, I'm going to have the machine professionally serviced, which will probably bring us into next week. This feels weird. It hasn't been down for more than a few hours since I launched it. I may give up on this colocation lark and go back to a virtual server of some kind; there are better and easier options for rapid failover when you do it that way.
• Projoy
  [Dan] Indeed, there can't have been many days since last century when I didn't at least check in and look around at MCiOS. Still, I'm viewing it as a test of character!
• Darren
  Yeah, I still find myself typing "p" into the address bar as a shortcut to MCiOS. ("d" goes to Orange, "r" goes to here. Obvious reasons. But I'm so used to those shortcuts, if I use another computer it knocks me sideways for a minute.)
• Tuj
  [Darren] Same with me! Except I use "pa", "du" and "ra".
• I Say, Porter! - shortcuts
  How do you do that then? I just got 'em in me favourites.
• snorgle - shortcuts
  Sounds like do-re-mi.
• Néa - Do-re-mi
  Nono, do is domaintools.com, re is resource-zone.com and mi is usually nothing, but right now it's mikael.jansson.be/rydis.html.
• nights
  That's got to be an application for Web 3.0. Opening a webpage by whistling a merry tune.
• rab - Sign
  Another reboot required this morning. I shall try and move to a different host this week.
• nights
  I thought I couldn't get in last night.
• Chalky - The Tube
  For those who are able to access it - tonight [Sunday] sees a series of programmes on BBC TV 4 beginning at 2100, which are all related to the London Underground. Includes the 'Design Classics' prog about the LU map.
• Dan
  [rab] With server farms you tend to get what you pay for -- decent reliable dedicated servers run at least a hundred a month in dollars and not very much less in pounds. If you want to pay a lot less than that and want top quality hardware and good service, you might consider a Xen host instead. The decent providers use very good hardware and they maintain it with a lot of care because if it goes down, more customers are affected than just you. And you can't tell the difference in terms of availability and performance; if anything it'll be much better than a cheap colo because most of the time the (often very muscular) CPU is way underutilized. You never get less than the share you're paying for and more often than not you get much more when you need it. And it's spectacularly easy to fail over to another machine -- a good provider will be able to switch you to new hardware in a matter of minutes if smoke starts pouring out of the box you're on. Frankly I'm seriously considering going back to that my self, mainly for that last reason.
• Dan - Some links
  xensource's list and hostingfu's. Both list UK providers, though you have to scroll down to find them in the latter.
• Dan
  Oh, for three years I ran mcios and several other sites, both http and https, an SMTP server, a jabber server with several transports, mysql, pop3 and imap, the homebrew chat server of course and a variety of other services that came and went over the years ... all in 64MB instance of User Mode Linux; a poor man's Xen. It was a little swappy but completely responsive and reliable. It was on good hardware though. A 256M Xen host would be an Aston Martin by comparison.
• rab
  [Dan] Thanks for that - I was considering a 128MB Xen Vps but was slightly concerned it might not be up to the job of serving this site, which gets something like 5k hits a day.
• Dan
  [rab] How about hosting in Edinburgh? Though you'd probably want to traceroute them to find out if it's really close to you in terms of network hops; I'm three miles but 12 hops and 85ms from mine because of a lack of local peering between carriers, but your situation is likely to be different. Very low latency could be handy for maintenance; you could just mount drives remotely.
• Dan
  (Though it's not clear from their site that they offer Xen in their Embra facility, you'd have to phone to find out. And I'm not vouching for them as a provider -- I know nothing about them.)
• rab
  [Dan] That company was on my shortlist of two. Haven't got round to emailing them yet, but I'll ask if they host Xen in (or, if my hunch as to the actual location is correct, near) Edinburgh.
• Dan
  128 should be fine. I run an identical setup at home on 128MB Xen server, and by far the biggest memory hog is mysql. Here's the memory footprint, 12 days since the last reboot:
  

  dan@flint:~$ free total used free shared buffers cached
  Mem: 131252 110836 20416 0 4632 38480
  -/+ buffers/cache: 67724 63528
  Swap: 131064 2228 128836

  Those are pretty healthy numbers -- just enough swapping to indicate that it doesn't have more memory than it needs, without being significant.

• Dan
  Yikes, looks like you're discarding newlines. Okay, look in the chat game on mcios.
• rab
  Whoops, had forgotten there would be instances where white-space would be significant. Hmm, looks like I need a PRE-tag handler.
• rab
  But thanks for that info - as you (probably) know this thing hangs off a mysql database and although I've tried to minimise the number of queries needed to display any particular page, when it comes down to it you've still got to through a few Mb of tables around.
• rab
  s/through/throw/. Another thing I want to add is a "whoops" feature that lets you correct typos in your previous move.
• I Say, Porter! - Typos
  The Banter Page (this page) is wider than the others at the moment, so I have to scroll right to get to the 'up' and 'next' options.
• I Say, Porter!
  Although it might revert when Dan's post has disappeared offscreen.
• rab
  Ah, it doesn't do that on Firefox.
• Dan
  I wouldn't object if you modified or replaced it.
• Dan
  BTW, the web host for xtrahost.net appears to be located in the Scotland facility, if node names are anything to go by. I'd be tempted to relocate there myself and damn the exchange rate, but unfortunately I get 160ms ping times to it from my colo and 200ms from my home. That's fine for web stuff but I'd be unhappy with shell access and any other activity involving lots of small round trips.
• Dan
  Not to beat it to death but according to their FAQ the Xen hosting in Scolocate, which according to Google maps is within a reasonable definition of Edinburgh; perhaps 5 miles from the big rock with the funny house on top.
• rab
  I'll get onto it - work's been a bit crazy today, but this machine just dropped off the internet completely for a bit - was a bit worried cos I'd be poking around with some of the security settings earlier and thought it had been a hack. Ho hum, we all still seem to be here, and the mysql tables are all still up and running.
• rab - Geil!
  The Gyle, eh? Who'da thought it. A bit closer than Bush, which was guess #1. Definitely worth looking into!
• rab - Right
  A VPS has been ordered, although I managed to lock myself out of my own online banking service in the process... Anyway, it should be with us over the next few days, so I hope to be able to migrate in the next week or so. Which is just as well, cos this machine needed another reboot last night. And my internet at home has stopped working, which is the next thing to try and sort out.
• rab
  It's arrived... installing stuff as we speak, but since my internet at home seems to be fubar it'll probably take longer to get sorted than it would normally.
• Sierra Mike - rab's computer woes
  VPS? I'm trying to follow this talk of hosting and hardware because I would like to understand how it all goes together, but it's mostly greek to me unfortunately. I read it that the computer that this site is kept on is playing up and so a new one is needed. If you've a mind to explain, rab, I'd love to know whether you own the faulty computer or lease space on someone else's? Please excuse any howlers caused by my ignorance of the technology behind the web.
• Sierra Mike
  Also, please excuse howlers caused by my inability to proof read my own punctuation. Sorry.
• rab
  Tis ok. This should probably all be in 'Let me check my notes' but it seems appropriate here as this will be the last post before shutting down to move elsewhere.

  The hosting of this site has a long and chequered history, mostly due to my trying to do it as cheaply as possible. It started off in a user account on a shared linux machine, rented out at 30quid a year. It got hacked into about three times, and the whole thing demolished, which led to downtime and me having to spend a lot of time reconstructing from various "back-ups", including (on one memorable occasion) the Google cache. After the third of these incidents, Nik kindly stepped in and offered - free of charge - disk space and bandwidth on a linux box sitting in his front room and running on his DSL connection, and there things ran happily for a while. But it was not to be forever, and (for various reasons) a new home was needed.

  At this time, my good friend Andy informed me he had bought a dedicated server - cheap because it was on old hardware. At the time we thought that old would just mean slow, but the fact that it needs rebooting twice a week indicates that old means crap. We've been trying to get it sorted out, but Andy's been migrating to VPSes, and I was looking into it when Dan gave me the filip I needed to sort it out once and for all.

  And with that, I shall begin the process of moving this to there. It should be working in an hour or so - but you may not see it for a couple of days because the DNS will have to propagate. I also won't be on hand over the weekend to sort out any problems because there's a fault on my broadband line and BT are coming round on Monday to look at (and hopefully fix) it.

• rab - And here we are...
  Who knows if this works or not.
• penelope - Are we there yet?
  good luck - and thanks with all efforts, rab. I shall be migrating to south Holland this weekend, to clean the windows of a windmill and to spend some time with my lovely Dutchman, so I\\\'ll be back on Monday too :o)
• rab - Ah, the slassher\'s back
• rab
  Bani'shed?
• rab
  Yay! I always forget about that little gotcha. And penelope - congratulations on being the first to see the new place - some people might not get in for a couple of days.
• CdM
  [rab] Thanks, as ever.
  [pen] This Dutchman is starting to sound serious...
• penelope - Heard the one about the windmill?
  [Cdm] Yes, he is. Do you know any rib-cracking windmill-based jokes that might make him smile a bit more?
• Darren
  Why to windmills make the best shops? Because they've always got a sail on.
• Projoy
  [pen] I hope you get a bunch of flours.
• Rosie
  (pen) Don't know any windmill jokes but you could try call him clever clogs. Is he called Wim? One scours the place for names like that. ATB, BTW.
• rab - Marvellous
  This place is still up and running.
• Software - rab the genius
  A most wonderful migration, one can hardly see the join. Well done, rab!
• penelope
  [Darren, Projoy] Good efforts.
  [Rosie] Nope, he's called Jan - equally typical. I think 'Clever Clogs' is a mainly British expression, innit? He actually brought me klompen the first time he visited. They're unfortunately too big, and might go on ebay next week!;o)
• Raak
  [rab] Thanks for a quick flit. I can see the new place from this part of .ac.uk now.
• Tuj
  [rab] Hadn't even noticed the change! Guess that's good praise.
• Dan
  Wow. It's fewer network hops from my house to here than it is to my server. A lot fewer. Farther in terms of latency though, geography won't be completely ignored. And the fact that the route from my house to my server has to go through Los Angeles and San Francisco for what I'm sure are not very good reasons has a lot to do with it. [rab] Out of curiosity, what sort of ping times are you getting?
• Rosie
  (pen) I suspect "clever clogs" is simply light-hearted British alliteration but the Dutch are so good at English he might even geddit. (rab) I'm with Tuj, q.v.
• Projoy
  I'm finding the site a lot more responsive now.
• rab
  [Projoy] There was a slow period this morning but that doesn't seem to have happened again since - suspect someone else on the machine was using the CPU time.

  [Dan] Ping time from JANET is about 24ms, not sure if that's good or bad. It's a direct hop from JANET to the xtrahost network, but this seems to take place in London rather than Edinburgh... so there you go.

• Dan
  [rab] pssht. 24ms is less than the distance to my DSLAM from my router. (Which I really, really don't understand.) Good enough for pretty much anything. Though I imagine in the UK low latency is probably fairly normal.
• rab
  [Dan] I am quoting the right figure: "64 bytes from rab.org.uk: icmp_seq=0 ttl=54 time=24.1ms"? www.google.com comes in at about 21.6ms, and www.bbc.co.uk at 11.0ms by the same measure.
• Dan
  [rab] Yep. Pity you don't have local peering, but that looks more than good enough. You'll have to check from home as well, if that's where you do your maintenance. I'm really jealous. Xtrahost looks great. They even have an SLA, which a lot of consumer-level VPS providers don't.

  Anyway, I'm more than persuaded that virtualization is the coming thing. The idea of a server being physically implemented on a corresponding hunk of hardware already seems a little quaint. The amount of versatility and control you get from decoupling those concepts and essentially commoditizing CPU and memory along with bandwidth and storage is almost inarguably compelling. MS is putting up a fight as they always do when a shift occurs that challenges their business model. It's amazing to me that they stay in business when every good thing that happens is a threat to them rather than an opportunity.

• Dan
  (Though it must be said that a 99.9% uptime service level agreement means they're allowed to be down for 8 hours a year, which some categories of business would consider unacceptable. Still, it's much better than you or I have managed lately.) (And god, how I love Google sometimes. I just typed "0.1 % in hours per year" into the search field and up it comes.)
• rab
  [Dan] I like the fact you can do things like "Current local time in New Zealand" too.
• rab
  Well, the last place was down for 8 hours a week so 8 hours a year should be at least a 12-fold improvement. I'm not getting too excited about these people yet - all my previous providers (bar Nik) had certain shortcomings. But I was very impressed with the quick set-up (within an hour of my funds hitting their account) and am comforted by the fact that it's not infeasible to pop round and speak to them in person if things go horribly wrong.
• Irouléguy
  rab] Congratulations!
• Phil - downtime
  I was disappointed to read that SABRE (the global airline res. system) is to be taken off mainframes running TPF. They used to quote ridiculous donwtime costs (something like USD1m per minute), due to the fact that they handled up to 9000 transactions per second. They're porting the system to Compaq NonStop, of which I (currently) know nothing, but I'll be looking into it. A few thousand TPF apps and ops programmers could be re-training in a few year, methinks.
• rab - Happy BST!
• rab
  Hmm, PHP doesn't seem to have realised.
• rab - Or, indeed,
  most of the rest of the system. Pah!
• nights - A Technical Quandary
  Dear technically minded denziens of the Morniverse:
  
  I am having hard disk space problems. I'm aware that I should get rid of some crap, which I fully intend to do. However, I'd love to be able to see how much space each folder takes up, at a glance, so I know which programs are more space-hungry and therefore which I can stand to lose.
  
  My question is this: is there such a program, freely available, that you know of that might let me do this? I'd be deeply grateful to anyone that might point me in the right direction.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  Disgusted of Tunbridge Wel- I mean, nights. (crossposted to MCiOS and Orange, apologies)
• rab - Very odd
  Last week my modem kept dropping out, so I phoned my ISP and, after I did a basic check of my kit, they arranged for BT to do a test. Then, over the weekend, the line sprang back into action, and has been working fine since. The BT engineer came in this morning, did all his tests, and said "your connection doesn't get any better than this" (it's a 480m round-trip to the exchange!). So I wonder what went wrong in the first place... probably the weather.
• I Say, Porter! - down for 8 hours a week so 8 hours a year should be at least a 12-fold improvement
  [rab] A twelve week year? I wish I had your job.
• ImNotJohn
  [IS,P rab] But it's a 32 day week.

  And still only one Saturday and Sunday.

• rab
  [IS,P!] Just checking you were listening, err.
• penelope - Let me tell you something...
  Well, as no-one has commented for a while, I'll tell you something. I have negotiated with my boss to be made redundant - it has been a little unpleasant through the recent 'difficulties', but I'm relieved to be moving on and am waiting to hear what he can offer me, bearing in mind I still have grounds for a constructive dismissal case. To be honest, trading conditions have changed and he should have spotted this a while ago. And I'm going to go and buy myself a car tomorrow as I'll have to give mine back. I have a second interview for a rather interesting job next Wednesday, the inklings of a few freelance jobs taking shape, and a mild feeling of pure terror about not having more than one paypacket in prospect beyonfd the end of next month. Oh, and The Dutchman and I are still seeing each other :oD
• Lib
  Good news about your miller! Long may it continue. And lots and lots of luck with the job front. Sounds necessary but scary. And for the cars, buy a skoda as they're ace!
• penelope - the new car
  I've bought an '52 plate 1.9TDI Seat Ibiza from Haywards Heath. It's a beautiful colour!
• Raak
  [pen] I'm now speculating on what you rate a beautiful colour. Bright red? Sky blue? Metallic chartreuse with glow-in-the-dark purple go-faster stripes?
• Simons Mith
  ... The same colour as Jan Miller's eyes? :-)
• Simons Mith - Spam heads-up (Crosspost)
  I've added the original list of Encyclopaedia Morningtonia contributors, including their email addresses, to the E.M. Wiki. This shouldn't matter because those addresses have already been on-line for years, and many of them are dead anyway. But if you want to censor or update your details, now's a good time.
• penelope
  [Simons] Now you mention it, it's not far off that colour!
• Uncle Korky
  Saw Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor on stage last night in The Goodies Still Rule OK at Southend. Good show, although very similar format to the BBC2 documentary at Christmas. Sadly, all but one of the video clips used are from episodes already out on DVD.
• penelope - Goodie Goodie yum yum!
  I am currently sans TV and don't intend to buy another one for a while - I'm getting a hell of a lot more done without it. However, one of my lovely mates brought round the Goodies on DVD for me to watch on my laptop, and I'm saving it for when there is absolutely no more housework to be done. I do miss TimeTeam though :o(
• I Say, Porter! - when there is absolutely no more housework to be done
  And when would that be? Jo Brand asks, 'How can you tell if it's time to do the washing and ironing? Look in your pants and if you see a penis it's not time'
• penelope - *gives up on EVER getting to watch The Goodies on DVD*
• Dan
  Hi. MCiOS will be unavailable for most of the day, UK time. Pardon the inconvienence. It should be up by mid-to-late afternoon.
• Néa - It's baaaaaaaack!
• Simons Mith - Easter
  Everyone enjoying their Easter? I've got some spring cleaning I've been putting off, and some painting I've been putting off, oh, and some other domestic stuff [I've been putting off] - (you get the idea) and I'm waiting to hear whether I've got a job. I would much rather not have been left to stew over the long weekend, truth be told. Hope I get to hear before Thursday . . .
• Simons Mith
  Oh look, there's a robin.
• rab
  Started sanding down some woodwork to paint it, then realised I'd bought the wrong type of paint. Ho hum. And jerry's back (different flat) so we'll have to get Dave back in to flush him/her out.
• Chalky - When the rob - rob - robin comes ...
  [Simons] Stayed at a country pub in Bradford-on-Avon [N Wilts] last night - had an early morning coffee standing out the back and was rewarded with the sight of a plumptious [sp?] robin doing some serious nest-building. In fact, there were plenty of birds scooting back and forth a-laden with twigs and stuff. Call me old-fashioned, but I have to say - it was a sight to gladden my heart.
• I Say, Porter!
  [Chalks] You're old fashioned.
• naked - ...
  9 su 10! Ottenerlo! Siete buoni! [Spam eliminato -- rab]
• rab
  Which reminds me, I must write a 'Delete f*@kwit' module.
• rab - Hmmm
  That was easier than expected. Given me the opportunity to wash off some of the graffitti that's accumulated over the years.
• rab
  And the flat's just been Daved. I'd forgotten how entertaining he is in his mouse-destroying ways.
• rab
  Katharine's a little traumatised though. She kind of hoped they would just "go away"....
• I Say, Porter! - Delete f*@kwit module
  Yikes! looks apprehensive.
• rab
  The graffiti at the end of the 'So help me God...' game is very weird. It's clearly spam - there's been about one attempt per hour to spam that game (so I've closed it) but it's very odd spam.
• rab
  And since its whimsy is not entirely contra the spirit of this site, I'm tempted to leave it in...
• Simons Mith - "Zhili byli"
  Having just gone and looked, I think you're right. "Zhili byli" = "Silly billy"?
• scarpe - ...
  Ich besichtige deinen Aufstellungsort wieder bald fur sicheres! Übrigens, bin ich ein Arschloch
• rab
  Schön. Looks like the link threshold might have to be reduced if this game is starting to be targetted.
• snorgle - spam
  What is the purpose of those links in random websites anyway? Is it supposed to get picked up by search engines or something?
• Lib
  [snorgle] I dunno really. Just presumed its cos they're twats!
• Simons Mith - spurious links
  [snorgle] Yes, but I suspect it may be counter-productive. If link spam is not removed, that suggests the site it's on is moribund. If the link spam is removed, that means the site is live and the spam is unwelcome. And if the search engines score -1000000 page rank points when a link is removed, and only +1 page rank point when a link is added, spam-that-gets-removed very rapidly depresses the original inflated page rank scores. I assume the search engines' page rank algorithm is a bit more sophisticated than that, but I think that captures the gist of what they can do.
• rab
  So, err, should I remove it then?
• Simons Mith - Anti-spam
  Hell, yes. :-)
• rab
  Duly dusted.
• rab - Cross
  Currently contemplating how to vote in the impeding McElection. (Of course, I might completely forget as The Big Day is two days later, and I might have things on my mind). I live in a "battleground" constituency, apparently, but you'd hardly know it - the only people to have been vigorously campaigning are the Conservatives who I think come 4th in our consituency... The basic problem is that I'm not keen on the SNP's attitude towards independence. Although this would appear irrelevant in a Labour/LibBum marginal it's pretty obvious that the LibBums are going to hold the balance of power whatever happens, so losing a seat to Labour might help stave off the SNP threat. But then I'm not that big on Labour either... Quite probably the smartest thing to do is to vote tactically on the FPP half of the coupon, and vote idealistically in the Regional List half. But then, who to chose from this lot...?
• Projoy
  [rab] If you vote Labour or LibDem, either could contribute toward the continuation of the Lib/Lab coalition, as the SNP wouldn't win the seat anyway. OTOH, if the SNP look like they're in with a chance, you need to vote for the party most likely to hold them off (which I would guess would be the LDs in Edin South, unless the boundary changes have altered things). Personally, given the state of the planet, I tend to vote Green in regional lists (e.g. GLA and EU elections) as it seems to be the only way for them to ever win a seat. Don't really agree with all their policies but I naively trust that it helps with pushing the environment a little further up the agenda.
• Projoy
  (For that matter, I notice that the polls are suggesting the Greens could fall back to 1 MSP this time (from 7 last), so if you want to help shore up their position, Green would be a good way to go in the lists).
• snorgle - upcoming elections
  I've just received my polling card for next month's Assembly election, so I've been pondering too. I live in a Labour donkey district, so it can feel a bit pointless, but then there are the regional lists to vote for as well. Libdems would seem to be the most likely to get in on this one, but I'm greatly annoyed at the vast quantity of crappy "newspapers" they keep pushing through my letterbox. One of them wasn't even identified as party political except in teeny-tiny writing at the very bottom of the back page.
• rab - Green with MP
  [Projoy] A crap reason for voting green would be that I actually know, and like, the third person on the regional list (we currently have 2 on our regional list).
• Projoy
  [snorgle] Oh dear! I often hear other people complain that they'll vote for x party because "they were the only one that bothered to send me anything saying what they believed in". Damned if they do, damned if they don't, clearly!
• rab
  This chap is impressively policy-free.
• snorgle - election bumf
  [Projoy]The stuff that comes out around election time is pointless, and consists of blatant attempts at rubbishing the opposition, with little talk of their own policies. The libdems do actually send round little circulars even when it's not near an election, but they are such obvious little puff pieces I pay them no mind.
• Projoy
  [rab] That's such a content-free candidacy that you almost wonder if it's some cheeky Channel 4 documentary maker trying to demonstrate that you can sell any old crap to the electorate.
• rab
  Apologies for any inconvenience, but due to the increased rate of spamming you no longer get any 'free' links (except ones to other pages on mc5). You still can post links, but need to enter the code word which should be familiar from a similar set-up at MCiOS. If you need any help, email me.
• rab
  PS: the codeword box appears when you "Stand' or 'Preview'.
• Sierra Mike - Code Word
  Will you be offering a "forgot the code word?" auto e-mailing thing like google does for passwords?
  
  Just kidding. I think I can hazard a guess in the unlikely event I wish to post a link.
• Simons Mith - Password Reminders
  I envision a reminder of the form, 'Dear Duncan Goodhew. This letter has some handy hints for how to keep your hair in tip-top condition. I suggest you have it framed and pin it up on your bedroom wall. Yours sincerely, Mrs Trellis.'
• Dan
  It does raise the issue of allowing people to post on the first go -- although arguably if you're posting a link you should be made to preview, so maybe this is a good thing. I've been tempted to make the field an ordinary one with the prompt "Shoe size:" or something in front of it. Regular players will know that most of the time they don't have to put anything there and anyone else can type anything they want and it won't hurt anything.
• rab
  [Dan] A preview does appear, and since links are often mis-entered, this is probably not a bad idea.
• Sierra Mike
  [rab] Sorry, I came across as critical of the idea in that last post. I think it is a splendid way of limiting the unwanted spam without preventing links at all. Sorry for any confusion.
• rab
  [SM] No criticism was inferred.
• Simons Mith - Ooh, a free slot.
  I think an actual game of MC should go in it.
• penelope - Yikes!
  I leave this job on Friday 27th April after NINE whole years. Plan A is to get another job (another interview on Monday...) Plan B is to copywrite on a freelance basis and otherwise go temping my way towards a living, which I like the sound of. It means I can be more flexible about when I work, and as The Bloke's weekend always starts on a Saturday evening, not a Friday like most people's, this might be useful. But it depends whether or not I can find enough clients. I'm thinking of some sort of business activity doing for myself what I spent the past nine years developing for [a major client]. I would imagine a temping job might come first though - but that's no bad way to collect clients. I've done it that way before. I have friends building me a website as we speak...
  More soon
• Simons Mith - Just curious
  [rab] The odds of it happening are relatively low, but how would the system cope if a spam-bot found the new game link, followed it, and deposited its crap there? [pen] Good luck. I hope to come Simon Smith Tech Writer Limited myself, very shortly.
• rab
  Hmmm, not sure. The rubric isn't spam checked, but I could add that. Also I should check that the new script doesn't hand out the form when there are no slots available; that way, a spammer's unlikely ever to see the source of the page or have enough opportunities to try it out and see how it works.
• Chalky - Into The Unknown
  [pen] have no fears m'dear - you're more than capable of making a success of whatever you end up doing. Fortune really does favour the brave ...
• gil - Yikes
  [Pen] Going it alone is scary, but rewarding. You may find it hard the first 18 months, but you will never want to be a wage slave again. Make sure to use the tax system to your advantage. Make a fat loss (on paper) for a while, and watch out for IR35 if you get a long contract.
• Phil
  [Pen] Congrats! Knowing just how stupid your employer is, rather than being frequently surprised, is the best bit of being self-employed.
  Btw, you heard it here first, but I'm planning that by the end of 2007, I'll have converted my skittle alley into a microbrewery to supply both my own pub and the free trade/festivals. It'll be the only brewery in the City of Leicester. With pub and brewery combined, I could (just about) achieve my ambition and have a £1m turnover by 2010. Thank God only half of it will be cash!
• Uncle Korky
  [Phil] Congratulations on your plan - hope it goes well! BTW, how are you settling in? ;-)
• Projoy
  [pen] Hooray for freelancing, for all the reasons gil said (actually I'm on staff at the moment, but I behave like a freelancer and they let me, so hooray indeed for that).
• penelope - Beer Career
  Phil - fantastic news! Do you need someone to do your PR? ;o)
• Chalky - what's brewing
  ...and - do you need a brewer?
• I Say, Porter! - Brewing Up
  Yes indeed, I fancy 'Trappist' as my next career move...
• Rosie
  (Chalky) A brewster, shurely?
• Sierra Mike - penelope
  You'll probably never look back. May your previous employer's business go bankrupt in six months.
• Phil
  [penelope] Thanks - I'm getting involved in a bit of PR satuff at the moment, now that you mention it. I'm liable to have my 15 minutes (seconds, to be honest) of fame in video format on the Everards recruitment web site. There may also be a blog on the way - again for my supplier's recruitment purposes.
  [Chalky] Sorry, no brew(st)ers required , although I sense a need for a multitude of tasters.
• I Say, Porter! - I taste therefore I am
  [Phil] Me! Me! Me! OOOh! Pick Me!
• ImNotJohn - *is calculating the taxi fare from Leicester to Derby*
• Phil
  [INJ] Well, we're one bus journey (or £5 taxi) from the railway station, meaning you could take in the "sister brewery" at The Brunswick on your way (both ways!).
• HHH
  ok
• DX
  Time to play the game
• pppenelope - not a penguin, not in need of picking up, so don't even mention it
  Hi HHH and DX
• I Say, Ppporter! - *is calculating cost of Eurostar from here to London, crossing london, exorbitant rail fare to wherever 'the station' is plus overnight accommodation...*
• Pptuj - *is like a pppterodactlyl, with a silent stammer*
• Simons Mith
  Hey, it's rude to spit.
• CdM
  Wait! "Tuj" begins with "P"? The obsession is explained!
• Ptuj
  [CdM] Haha! Sadly no more than the fact that having typed the question once, my browser then suggested it the next time I started typing in a question beginning with P. And after the first couple of times, I couldn't kick the habit...
  By the way, if we ever had a day when everyone had to start their names with P (you know, just in case) you could insert some extra letters and call yourself PaChYdErM.
• Néa - *bites her tongue*
• Primrosie
  (Ptuj) That should go down well.
• Ptuj
  Hmm, I was in an odd mood earlier. Ah well. Pachyderm's a funny word.
• Panoply? (aka Knobbly)
  (Ptuj) Not if you're an elephant.
  I've already got a silent letter; I don't think I can pull off two without being highly contrived.
• Tuj
  [Pnobbly] I hope CdM isn't an elephant. I'm worried it might have been insulting somehow (it certainly wasn't) after Néa's comment.
• Ptuj - That was me
• Néa - (that should have been "ptongue")
  [Tuj] I didn't interpret it as insulting, just funny :-)
• PC Halky
  [Ptuj] For the record [if anyone happens to be keeping one] I chuckled - in fact, I chuckled in a considerably overblown way, but still couldn't think of anything remotely amusing to add. PaChyDerM! yay :-)
• P Rojoy
  How many times have I told you people? DON'T THINK OF AN ELEPHANT!!
• Ptuj
  [PC Halky] It's dangerous to hypothesise like that... before you know it everyone's names begin with P & there aren't elephants everywhere!
• Ptuj - Oh and
  [Néa] Thank you :) wasn't sure if you'd meant to bite the tongue as in to hold in some kind of remark.
• Phil
  Oh well...
• phlerdle
  *waves*
• P Please, Bobter! - Tries hard not to think about elephants...
• Plib
  *thinks of a giraffe*
• pppenelope
  What the hell have I started?
• Plib
  [the original ppp] I think you'll find we're all quite easily led.
• Achyderm - Hand up
  Can I have a pee please, sir? Everyone else has had one.
• Punk Le Korky
  *spits*
• PC Halky - in uniform
  'ello 'ello 'ello - what's all this silliness then?
• P Please, Bobter!
  Look out! It's the filth!
• Punk Le Korky
  *makes rude gesture*
• Phil
  Oh well...
• P Please, Bobter!
  [Phil] BZZZZT! Repetition of 'Oh well...'
• Ptuj
  [P Please, Bobter!] I'm surprised you're not called Porter, I Say!. Though I think your name's better :)
• Prosie
  We're not exactly making poetry.
• pppenelope - *feels perturbed*
  Only kidding. Just two more days left to work here - and I got my redundancy cheque too - hurrah! The Freelance career starts next week, just as soon as I've signed on.
• Pinkpot
  Good luck with the freelancing, with the cheque I think one of the first things you need to do is line up something cravenly self indulgent and includes lots of pampering.
• pppenelopeppp
  cheers Pinkpot. (That name is WAY too cute!) Re: pampering - I'm already in the process of acquiring a summer working-from-home wardrobe off Ebay. I just sold some of my clothes on there (the things I really never wear any more) and raised enough cash to get myself a website and pay a friend to set it up for me :o)
• Plib
  Oh my god pppen, your ppp's are expanding. Good luck with being free. New clothes sound fab, I certainly approve of shopping!
• Raak
  [pen] What special clothes do you need for working from home?
• Punk Le Korky
  [Praak] I suppose it depends on the risk assessment - how dangerous is pppen's abode, I wonder?
• penelopreppy
  [Raak] Special working-from-home clothes? You have to ask? pffft... Actually, just stuff that isn't business suits or officewear, and isn't scruffs or going-out clothes. I don't seenm to have anything in-between.
• Projoy
  [penelope] Pyjamas often works for me. :)
• Plib
  I'm a big fan of pyjamas too. But that often leads to naps which can get out of hand. And then I get nothing done.
• Punk Le Korky
  *is intrigued by the concept of 'naps that get out of hand'*
• Raak - "They even *sleep* in clothes"
  The only reason I have a pair of pajamas is for hopefully rare stays in hospital. Likewise a dressing gown.
• penelope
  [Raak] So what do you wear to hang out the washing and put out the wheeliebin?
• Projoy
  [pen] Rollers, I bet. [Raak] Actually, I tend not to wear jim-jams in the Summer, meaning I sometimes 'work' from home nekkid.
• I Say, Porter! - Re: I don't seem to have anything in-between
  (View the source to read the hidden text) .
• Raak
  [pen] My usual at-home wear: t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms.
• rab
  I've never understood the need for special at-home wear - dinner jackets are so hard wearing you can simply have them on all the time!
• Darre
  Hello everyone. If anyone is near Tunbridge Wells and wants to see the touring ISIHAC on 17 Sep, let me know as I've got an extra ticket. (sorry for crosspost)
• Darren
  That was me.
• Tu
  [Darre] Careful what you start doing.
• Pd
  [Parre] Pu has a a point
• Pr
  We are now chemical symbols, and Pd (CdM?) has a stutter.
• PRenelop - oi!
  Day One in the Freelance PR house... and I'm just writing the copy for my new website. Going to see my webmaster tonight with a CD full of images and text. Eeeek! But then again, his wife is cooking dinner for us, so that's OK :o)
• Simons Mith - Web sites
  [PRen] I hope it's going to validate OK, otherwise the local pedants will be down on you like a ton of extremely neatly-stacked bricks. :-) PS my site doesn't validate properly ATM so I can talk.
• rab
  After a few months of lacklustre campaigning, we came home last night to find 22 separate election leaflets on our doorstep.
• pH
  [Pr] I'm neutral
• Projo
  Hooray. At last I can join in the dysnomenclatural fun!
• prenel - ope
  [Simons] I just bought the domain yesterday, and there's no coding in it yet... so I'm in the clear ATM... phew!
• snorgl - elelctions
  I've had loads of the usual bumfy election leaflets (including the delightful BNP, and the UKIP (who have promised to work towards dismantling the Assembly if elected). I had a couple of hand addressed (literally - the wrong number was put on one of the envelopes and then crossed and corrected) ones too from the Lib Dems. In fact, I mistook it for a real letter, as it was hand-written inside (although copied and printed) and not, at first, in the usual style of an election leaftlet. I am so jaded, however, that it really annoys me, because I know it's just a ruse. I don't who to vote for really, out of the main parties(ok, not counting the conservatives, BNP, UKIP and any other wackos).
• Pl - heavy as lead
  I've not had any election leaflets. Or canvassers. I feel quite left out. But the labour party could nominate a red sheep to stand and it'd get in no problems. Pah. Not sure if I'm green, orange or blue this time. Anything but not red or the evil BNP.
• I Say, Porter! - Wackos
  New Labour not wackos? Where's that then?
• Rossi
  The reds have given up around here, so I'm voting for the oranges and hope I don't get a fundamentalist Protestant with an aggressive incomprehensible accent. It's a genuine contest, (start rant) quite unlike the Parliamentiary elections where voting is pointless unless for the Tory, who always wins and always will win. (End rant)
• snorgl - wackos
  Just because I didn't *list* New Labour, doesn't mean they're not included. I'm sure the BNP consider everyone else wackos, after all. But I pretty much live in a donkey district for labour too, so I don't know why the other parties try so hard. I suppose it's because there are Lib Dems surrounding us, so they hope that population movement might eventually work in their favour.
• rab - Outage
  Apologies for the outage this morning - I have received (without asking) an explanation from the hosting company so I'm pretty impressed with the service I'm getting from them.

  Anyway, that's me off work now for the wedding on Saturday...

• rab - Unusually
  Hmmm... well things seem to be on a knife-edge here, and I get the feeling that a few switches from LibDem to Labour in our constituency could make the difference between the SNP coming first and second. Still undecided as to how to vote though - I also feel that as support for Labour has probably generally dropped, the seat is probably not as marginal as it was. And in any case, if there's only a couple of seats in it, either the SNP or Labour will be able to form a majority through a coalition with the LibDems so these few votes are unlikely to be crucial. Labour coming out in front would presumably prevent the LibDems cosying up with the SNP though...
• Projoy
  [rab] Well, I hope it wasn't you who tipped over the edge and attacked the ballot boxes, provoked perhaps by the stress of the impending nuptials.
• Projoy
  [rab] And the very best of luck for today (altho I doubt you'll see this till after the event!
• Projoy
  )
• rab
  [Projoy] Thank you very much. It went perfectly despite our ludicrously complicated arrangements. And I am very much enjoying having a wife.
• Chalky - .. raising a glass
  Congratulations rab and Mrs rab :-)
• Projoy
  [rab] "I am very much enjoying having a wife." What? As you type?
• Néa - It's called "multi-tasking", Projoy
  [rab] Hurrah! Congratulations! We want wedding pictures!
• Phil - "having a wife"
  [rab] So long as it's your own wife you're enjoying having, fair play to you old son!
• rab - Ladies and gentlemen...
  I give you my wife
• I Say, Porter! - Mrs rab
  Well many many many congrats. Mrs rab looks lovely, and your father in law's beard is the stuff of legend. Shame you had to have 'linda sneddon' stamped on your pate for the occasion.
• rab
  I just think it's so cool we can see previews of the pictures so soon. Can't wait to see the actual prints. We're really pleased - she was a pin in the internet and was absolutely fantastic on the day, and I can't fault the composition even if I am gurning in most of them...
• I Say, Porter! - Photographer
  Mine did six hundred and put 'em all on the internet, and then gave us the DVD with the high quality and internet quality versions. My wife was asked to choose 50 (and chose 134) which we had printed A4 size - a big mistake as you can't put 'em in an album. I'm sure we'll get round to doing an album, just not yet. The internet quality versions are online but a bit crap.
• Sierra Mike - rab wedding
  Scotland, yet not a single kilt, dirk or claymore in view. No doubt there was a hidden piper playing "Haste Ye to the Wedding" behind that large stone wall. Please accept my best wishes for you and your bride, rab. The pictures are very cool.
• penelope
  Congrats rab and mrs rab, it looks lovely. Best wishes and lots of luck to you both
• ImNotJohn
  [Rab] Congratulations, although I shall be disappointed in you if you respond to any of these messages in the next few days.
• CdM
  [rab] What they all said.
• I Say, Porter!
  [rab] Particularly what INJ said...
• Tuj - Stacking
  [rab] What CdM said!
• Inkspot - supporting cast
  [rab] like what he said.
• Projoy
  [rab] What Tuj said, but the opposite of what CdM said.
• I Say, Porter!
  [rab] 'nuff said.
• CdM
  [rab] What Projoy would have said that I would have said, had you asked him if it is true that Tuj never tells the truth.
• Raak
  [CdM] What did you say?
• Kim
  [rab] What CdM said Projoy said Tuj said CdM said and so say all of us.
• A Trappist Monk
  ""
• Fred
  Right.
• flerdle
  *mimes*
• I Say, Porter!
  
• Inkspot - the Great British Public
  The highlight of the weekend was the Eurovision song contest, there has since been a barrage in the press blaming Scootch for an appaling camp song, have they forgotten that the song was the choice of GBP in a tele-vote. The danger from the press is that they tend to take it all too seriously. However, the political voting was more obvious than ever, before it was just pairing which did not effect the final result and was a bit of an in-joke. Now we have block voting with a split between old and new Europe. The UK should not send its best but maintain but send more of the same next year to Belgrade.
  1 Serbia - 268
  2 Ukraine - 235
  3 Russia - 207
  4 Turkey - 163
  5 Bulgaria - 157
  6 Belarus - 145
  7 Greece - 139
  8 Armenia - 138
  9 Hungary - 128
  10 Moldova - 109
  11 Bosnia/Herzegovina - 106
  12 Georgia - 97
  13 Romania - 84
  14 Macedonia - 73
  15 Slovenia - 66
  16 Latvia - 54
  17 Finland - 53
  18 Sweden - 51
  19 Germany - 49
  20 Spain - 43
  21 Lithuania - 28
  22 France - 19
  23 United Kingdom - 19
  24 Ireland - 5
  
• Phil - Eastern Bloc-voting
  Lithuania must have been absolutely atrocious.
• Chalky
  As a gentle riposte to all those - including Wogan - bleating about political/neighbourly voting, I'm assured that this would have been the result of the contest had the votes of western European countries only had been counted:
  
  1 Serbia 128 (actually 1st)
  2 Turkey 111 (4th)
  3 Ukraine 111 (2nd)
  4 Russia 84 (3rd)
  5 Bulgaria 80 (5th)
  6 Hungary 79 (9th)
  7 Armenia 76 (8th)
  8 Greece 69 (7th)
  9 Romania 58 (13th)
  10 Bosnia Herzegovina 56 (11th)
  11 Sweden 51 (18th)
  12 Moldova 50 (10th)
  13 Finland 41 (17th)
  14 Germany 40 (19th)
  15 Belarus 38 (6th)
  16 Georgia 31 (12th)
  17 Spain 27 (20th)
  18 Latvia 24 (16th)
  19 United Kingdom 19 (23rd)
  20 Lithuania 16 (21st)
  21 Slovenia 13 (15th)
  22 France 8 (22nd)
  23 FR of Macedonia 8 (14th)
  24 Ireland 0 (24th)
  
  Very little variation in the top five, meaning that actually the west voted for the same top songs as the east.
• Rosie
  Surely people don't still watch this ludicrous glitterfest except to mock it? When it started it was regarded as the height of uncool, or "square", as the word was then, by us teenagers and seems since then to have disappeared completely up its own arse in a frenzy of baroque absurdity. Perhaps I'm taking it too seriously, and actually I haven't seen it for a few years, to tell the truth.
• Uncle Korky
  [Rosie] Went to my mate's Eurovision party on Saturday night (as I usually do each year) - great fun! We had international food, voted along with the contest, and indulged in much mockery.
• Raak
  [Rosie] I caught it about ten years ago, and Wogan was just taking the piss all the way through. I assume it hasn't got any more serious since then.
• Projoy
  [Rosie] It was uncool, then for a while it became cool, but only in an ironic way, then the irony got less ironic. I'm sure it'll become uncool again shortly.
• Rosie
  (UK, Raak, Pj) That's all good news, and rather what I had expected. Next year I must watch it, preferably in company, not sober, and learn to be silly again.
• rab
  If you look more closely at the group shot, you will spot at least one kilt.

  The honeymoon was fab, by the way - even if Italy is the only country to have spurned The Contest, so we ended up watching it in our hotel room on German TV with the sound coming through a tinny speaker so it rather lost a lot of its normal impact. However, we developed a taste for Chianti Classico in the process so it's not all bad. Anyway, after a week of olive oil and various gnocci we're off to have a dirty curry.

• Kathryn
  Hurrah! Nice wedding pictures, though I concur on the subject of the distressing lack of kilts. Also can't believe you watched the Eurovision whatchamacallit on your honeymoon. See you soon, no doubt!
• Sierra Mike - Celtic Kilties
  My original observation on kilts and other Scottish accoutrements has been misinterpreted due to my poor choice of phrase. I was trying to congratulate rab on the dearth rather than complaining. I would expect any festive event north of the Cheviots to be infested with man-skirts, basket-handled swords, hollowed-out-rabbit purses and bagpipes. The rab/Mrs rab-to-be wedding appeared to be suitably festive but infestation-free.
  
  Congratulations again, rab, on your union with the delightful Mrs rab. May good luck follow you all your days and occasionally catch you up.
• penelope - *waves*
  Waves from Holland - the flat bit.
• Rosie
  (pen) That's all of it, isn't it? Reminds me of a harmless little joke:-

  
  Nice old lady: Which is the Bloody Tower?
  Beefeater: All of it, ma'am.

• I Say, Porter! - Going Dutch
  [pen] Still going strong with Windy? Cool! Isn't Holland pictures queue.
• penelope - flat out
  [Ispers] I certainly am and it certainly is! And it's so bloody neat!
• rab - Scot-free
  More pictures, with added Scottishness, available here, at least for the time being.
• Tuj - Game slot
  Anyone for Reverse MC? Or any other suggestions?
• I Say, Porter! - Honeymoon Photos
  [rab] Seems like you spent some time out of doors...
• rab
  [IS,P!] I tend not to take pics indoors, partly cos it's often Not Allowed, and partly cos they tend to come out badly.
• I Say, Porter!
  [rab] My point being that it's traditional not to spend much time out of doors whilst honeymooning. Emphasis on the 'mooning'.
• rab
  Ah yes, well... erm.
• Dujon - Vinyl > CD - advice sought
  Seeing as it's been a bit quiet in here and I am aware of some who post on this site are music buffs I hope you don't mind if I ask for a bit of advice.
  I have been toying with the idea of transferring audio from some of my vinyl records to C.D.. At this point I have found one program which seems to work well, though I've not explored it fully, and wondered if any of you could recommend or otherwise software that does this task. The program I have to hand (time-limited) is called PolterbitS. Takers?
• Inkspot - vinyl and cassettes
  [Dujon]I am in the process of converting all my vinyl, it can be a long process, but I am not familiar the programme you mentioned. What I done! and CDs arranged by colour.
• Dujon - Rainbow CDs
  Thanks, Inkspot. I'll check out the Audacity prog. The one I have costs money, which is something I am allergic to spending, whereas the one I have been evaluating, whilst reasonable, is around AUD 50.
  You are right about the time involved. I've been recording (real time) then 'de-clicking' the audio (faster but still takes a while) and then breaking the recorded stuff into tracks (partially automatic but also involves manual input for confirmation purposes).
  The cabling is not a problem. Thanks again, good sir.
• Dujon - Damn
  First par. third sentence doesn't make sense. I think you'll understand the gist of it.
• Phil
  I downloaded Audacity at the weekend. I'm currently using it to make the music rounds in my quizzes a bit harder - e.g. by mixing two songs together, or playing things bakcwards.
• Inkspot - Bad English
  Glad you were able to sift out some sense Dujon, that's my CSE grade 2 coming to the surface yet again.
  Phil, you are very wicked person ;^)
  I may well pinch one or two of your brilliantly twisted ideas for the music quiz I run each Monday at the MSN group The Village
• I Say, Porter!
  So what's the best free stuff to use to rip DVDs, then? I want to rip the DVD of BLOC on Broadway and put my bit on YouTube for everyone to laugh at.
• penelope
  Isn't anyone going to say anything? Hmmm. OK. An announcement. I have just picked the first five strawberries from my patch, and they are perfect whoppers. Yum yum.
• Projoy
  Congratulations on your patience in allowing them to grow to that size. I'd've been checking them every day and wolfing them at the first sign of edibility.
• Rosie
  Strawberries? There's posh, isn't it? Best I can do is a few blackberries and chives. I also have quince bush, but they're disgusting.
• ImNotJohn - preserves
  Quinces - well we did try for quince jam from ours once, but it wasn't really worth the bother. We just grow it for its ornamental value.
• penelope - quince mince
  [Rosie] I'm sure someone from your local WI will be able to make good use of them. It's one of those fruits that needs a bit of a renaissance - it's happened to rhubarb, and I reckon crab apples are in line too. I've got my first ever crop of rhubarb this year too - it was sown THREE YEARS ago, and this is the first time there's been anything to show for it! Strawberries and rhubarb together are a match made in heaven.
• Dujon - Mixed up
  Really, penelope? I enjoy both rhubarb and strawberries but have not ever entertained the thought of combining them. Poor me. Is it some sort of sweet-and-sour treat or should the rhubarb (funny name that) be well sugared prior to consumption?
  [IS,P] I cannot help you. I don't possess a DVD burner.
• penelope - strawbarb and rhuberries
  [Dujon] Yup. Strawberry and rhubarb crumble is food of the gods.
• ImNotJohn
  Served with Ambrosia, I assume.
• Rosie
  (pen) Can't stand rhubarb. But blackberry and apple crumble, the very thought..... drools...... You're quite a gardener, then? Not I; just keep it tidy, keep the wilderness under control.
• ImNotJohn - Necktie of the Gods
  Rhubarb fool with fresh raspberries! Our rhubarb's just about pickable, but the raspberries are still resolutely green at the moment.
• penelope - foolishness
  [INJ] Then make your pre-fool (rhubarb puree) now, freeze it until the raspberries are ripe, then add the cream to make the fool and add the fresh raspberries.
• Dujon - Crumbles!
  Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, crumbles are to me similar to shortbread. Should I have some medical condition which involved over salivating then each or either could be a solution. As I do not suffer from such a condition (yet) both species of those concoctions that seem to mimic the absorbent quality of some sort of surgical swab are well and truly off the menu.
• Phil
  [Dujon] Perhaps the crumble was too thick, and the fruit below too dry. A good crumble should not be that dry.
  [Rosie] I'm also have a revulsion towards rhubarb. Also, I agree with your blackberry and apple comments - fantastic combination. I'm guessing that there's a decent chance you don't like gooseberries either?
• Rosie
  (Phil) No, dead right. I have an overall distaste for fruit and vegetables but like certain ones like bananas, apples, prunes (but not plums) and most berries (not goose-) plus carrots, peas, beans, beetroot and oddly enough, spinach and swedes. That's enough for a reasonable diet as I tend to put away quite large amounts of these things.
• Dujon - Detox
  [Phil] You could well be correct, but don't tell the cook (Mrs Duj) that I said that.
  [Rosie] I must be lucky as there are few vegetables or fruit that I dislike. Some I enjoy more than others and just a few (asparagus, like oysters, puts me off because of the smell). Others (mango, pawpaw, rock melon) I decline, partly because of their smell and partly their texture . . . slimy). Unlike the stereotypical child I enjoy Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower and will eat potato 'til the cows come home. Generally speaking though it is unusual for me to eat fruit even though I am aware that nutritionists advise eating such on a regular basis; perhaps I get my fill from the grape. Mind you, when in season, a tomato sprinkled lightly with salt and eaten as you would an apple is a delight.
• Rosie - The grape
  (Duj) Do you mean grapes or do you mean "the grape"? Heavens to Murgatroyd, you're not a boozer, are you? Disgraceful.
• Dujon
  I choose my words carefully, Rosie. ;-(
• Dujon
  Hic!
• Phil
  [Rosie] I've often wondered if I can include malted barley and hops in my "five-a-day"...
• penelope - olive what he's having
  [Phil] Likewise, a dish of olives with a G&T must count for something.
• ImNotJohn
  [Pen] You forgot the slice of lemon.
• rab
  We once had a discussion as to whether the currants in squashed-fly biscuits counted as "a portion".
• Rosie
  (Phil) Gawd, not you 'n' all. BTW do you ever do Fuller's London Pride or Young's Ordinary? Good in their own way. (rab) I'd say yes because the recommended five is a ludicrous number. Five apples? With all that fibre you'd never be off the po.
• Irouléguy - odd fruit
  I had some durian ice-cream when I was in Paris the Bank Holiday weekend - wonderful taste, and while it didn't pong as much as the actual fruit, I did get some very odd looks from the neighbouring tables.
  
• Phil
  [Rosie] I don't like London Pride (althuough ESB and Golden Pride are veryy much my cup of tea). I've nothing against it, I just don't like it. I did have Young's Bitter here a few weeks ago, and it drank very well for a low alcohol beer :-)
• penelope - Any other questions?
  Oooh! I have an interview tomorrow for a six-week job paying Loadsamoney :oD
• I Say, Porter! - Booze
  Does a glass of white wine fortheladies count less than a glass of red towards the daily fruit allowance, I wonder.
• Dan - MCiOS unavailable
  Well, I took a gamble on a remote distribution upgrade, and lost. It won't be back until late your time tomorrow. Apologies.
• I Say, Porter! - MCiOS unavailable
  [Dan] Oh no! Whatever shall we do in the meantime?
• Projoy
  [ISP] Personally, I'm considering temporary suicide. :)
• I Say, Porter! - Wonderful to see the BBC setting the standard for English:
  Kylie Minogue is the first woman to be honoured with this year's Music Industry Trusts' Award, in recognition of her 20-year career as a pop star.
• Rosie
  (ISP) Can't see much wrong with that unless it's the apostrophe. But it could be the Award of the Music Industry Trusts, it there is more than one of them. Possibly there isn't, in which case it's wrong.
• Phil
  [Rosie] How many awards do they give each year? Presumably she's the only person honoured with this year's award, so it's rather obvious that she's also the first woman to be honoured with this year's award. She's also the last.
• Raak
  [Rosie] I think what's wrong with it is the words "Kylie Minogue".
• I Say, Porter!
  [Rosie] What Phil said. [Raak] I find Kylie Minogue quite pleasing on the eyes, not so pleasing on the ears.
• Rosie
  ((Phil) Yes, "This year" should be at the beginning and "this year's" scrapped and replaced by "the". (ISP) I've never found her really attractive and she's now metamorphosing into the all-Australian auntie.
• Lib - talking of the BBC
  I was in fits of giggles today when News24 showed pictures of the prime minister and other politicians in the house of commons with a big red banner beneath saying 'sex offenders'.
• Dujon - Popsicles
  [IS,P] While admitting to the fact that I'm a 'face man' I do think that K.M. is not pretty. In fact I think she's downright ugly.
  [Rosie] "the all-Australian auntie? Surely the world has had enough of that via the 'art' of Dame Edna? Here, have some glads, I'm off to the bunker for a while.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) I find Dame Edna very amusing. No, really. What I meant was La Minogue (interesting Manx surname) now looks frumpish, apparently deliberately, because she's not that old.
• I Say, Porter! - Kylie's Sunday face
  [Dujon] It's the bum that does it for me every time.
• Rosie - Minogue again
  There are a few jokes based on her deficient embonpoint.
• I Say, Porter! - Skinny Minogue
  [Rosie] You haven't seen the photos I've seen, then. Or the video with the bucking bronco. MMMMMmmmmh!
• Uncle Korky
  [IS,P] Neither have I...
• Phil
  [IS,P!, UK] I have :-) Kylie has been ever-present in my life since the day I saw her arrive in Ramsey Street, as Lennie Mitchell, and deck Scott Robinson. That was about 1986/7-ish, I think.
• Rosie
  (Phil) Yerss.
• Dujon - Manx cats
  [Rosie] Really? Though I must admit I've never thought of the root of her family moniker. She's got a sister who is also in the entertainment game - Dannii. I wonder whether she's a tailless type as well.
  [Phil] You worry me, old son. Next you'll be telling me that you're a Home and Away follower as well. Eeek!
• I Say, Porter! - Go to youtube.com/watch?v=7JdfmB7aXb4
  [UK] Incredible you haven't seen this. Perhaps NSFW (unless your colleagues go for Kylie as well).
• Phil
  [Dujon] How very dare you! As if I'd watch that tripe! Although, I will confess that many, many moons ago, I used to watch Sons & Daughters and A Country Practice. Mrs Phil and I were reminiscing about them a couple of days ago. She used to watch The Flying Doctors too, but I never got into it, apart from when I wanted to check out the rumour that the actress who played Maria Ramsey had moved there.
• Dujon - Imports
  [Phil] Blimey, how much of our trash to you get over there? Mind you A Country Practice did have a homely sort of feel to it and some of the characters were reasonably portrayed. Not that I watched it of course.
• Rosie - The Devil's Lantern
  (Dujon) If we haven't flogged you Big Brother yet you don't know what trash is.
• Dujon - Pumpkins alight
  Voyeurism at its lowest ebb, Rosie. We have our own version it seems. 'Turkey slapping' for heaven's sake! Yes, I had a look when it first started all those years ago, but not since. You keep yours and we'll keep ours . . . deal?
• Phil - Not just Aus, but NZ too..
  Mrs Phil used to be quite keen on Shortland Street as well. I think that's abuot it for Aus soaps. One Aus program we used to enjoy, but haven't seen in yonks was Murder Call. It was quite good, dedpite being remarkably cheesy and phenomenally fomulaic.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) OK - deal. I read in today's paper that the actual audiences for Big Brother are remarkably small and probably mostly under 25 but the popular press and sometimes the serious press treats it as a serious and important programme. The participants are morons; a distillation of stupidity, and you wouldn't touch them with the proverbial 18-foot disinfected bargepole. Most of my friends have never seen any of it.
• Knobbly - Big Brother - big deal
  (Rosie) I'm under 25 and I've never seen any of it either. I know that doesn't advance the conversation much; I just haven't said anything for a while and I wanted to feel involoved.
• Knobbly
  (myself) Involoved?
• Rosie
  (Knobbly) I'm sure that word can be rearranged to form the name of a Russian city. I'll come back on that one.
• Phil - Involoved
  If you were devoloved you'd have a nice long palindrome.
• Projoy
  [Knobbly] I think you wanted to feel both loved and involved and where therefore forced into coining a new portmanteau word. :)
• Projoy
  [myself] "where"? Perhaps I meant "were here".
• Projoy
  [myself] Yes, but with or without implied apostrophe?
• Projoy
  [myself] Bugger. Whatre the chances of that happening?
• Rosie
  (Projoy) 100%. It happened, if I've translated whatre correctly. I should have a lie-down.
• I Say, Porter!
  [Projoy] I went to Portmanteau once. It was a pilgrimage of sorts, as I am a great fan of The Prisoner.
• penelope - where?
• penelope - oops
  What I meant was... I saw a big posted advertising the arrival of a new Suzuki car showroom, it might have been somewhere in West Sussex yesterday. Unfortunately the chosen font left a very small gap between two of the words, so it looked like it said: NOWHERE SUZUKI. Cracking.
• penelope - d'oh
  poster*
• Knobbly - Just having a moan
  Why were marks subtracted from one of my last ever essays for poor use of english because I chose to spell "rôle" with a circumflex in its rightful place?
• Phil
  [Knobbly] Because the marker was a muppet?
• Dujon - Flaking out
  Yeah! First snow of the season overnight. Not at my place - thankfully.
• Rosie
  (Knobbly) Because the examiner's wife had had an affair with Arsène Wenger. I'd say the circumflex is optional as the word becomes more and more part of the English (note capital) language. It's certainly not wrong.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Do you ever get snow? Must be pretty rare, I'd have thought. Good thunderstorm here this evening with one very close strike (guess 150 yd), the type that produces a crack and a ripping sound.
• Dujon
  No, Rosie. Well, nearly no. It is indeed very rare indeed for snow at my level (250 metres above sea level) but it has happened. Last night was the first dusting a little farther up the mountains from me, about a half hour drive. My son lives in the area and my wife headed off to work there this fine morn. I have no idea at this stage as to how much settled but, as is usual in this country, roads were closed and general chaos ensued. I'm guessing that less than 5mm landed, though ice could be the more important factor.
  I don't envy you the lightning type storm. That sort of thing is not unusual here at my location. There is a number of stains on the carpet to prove it. :-)
• Knobbly
  (Rosie) Oops. Yes, I think I changed the capital E when I took the capital U away from 'Use'.
  (To whom it may concern) We certainly are having a lot of weather at the moment.
• Phil - Circumflexes
  [Rosie] Did you know that the official French orthography abolished most circumflexes over the letters "i" and "u", except where ambiguity and homographs could occur. This has not bee widely adopted by the French, even though the French Academy encourages it. I know this is not really relevant, but I thought it was QI.
• Rosie - Flash git
  (Dujon) I love thunderstorms, the louder and closer the better up to but not including my house. I have found over the years that lightning flashes vary considerably in length and intensity. On Fri 28 Aug 1958 at about 9 in the morning there was a tremendous blinding flash and an almost instantaneous deafening boom. I thought it had hit nextdoor's front garden at the very furthest but again it was about 150 yd away and completely destroyed a large tree. I found out later that it was a high-level storm with cloudbase about 7000 ft so the flash must have been that long. Most are less than a third of that. On the other hand I have seen a flash hit the ground about 20 yds outside the window at work but it produced no more than a loud pop, and was probably very short, a few hundred feet. (Knobbly) Oh yes, there's always the bloody weather, as I found out when I became a junior forecaster and had to do shifts. I left eventually for the pleasures of 8.30 to 5 in the chemical industry and meteorolgy is now just a fairly serious hobby.
• Rosie
  Meteorology as well.
• Rosie
  (Phil) The French take their language quite seriously, which I think is a good thing, even if they slightly overdo it. We could do with a bit of that in this country but the culture is against it. (Knobbly) I suspect your examiner was "following guidelines" but should have used common sense. To actually dock marks for that is quite absurd.
• I Say, Porter! - French
  EEEK I've got a French exam on Friday. Had the mock test last Friday and got 40 percent. Need 60 to pass. Already booked myself to redo the year. The embarrassing part is that this is a Francophone country.
• Rosie
  (ISP) Where's that, then?
• I Say, Porter! - Francophone
  [Rosie] Belgium. I use my french under sufferance. Italian at home, English (and some French) at work. French when I need something from a shop or artisan. Flemish never.
• Projoy - mc100
  X-POSTED REMINDER: Tomorrow (Fri 22 June) is the 100th Anniversary of Mornington Crescent Station. If you would like to mark this momentous occasion, please come to the traffic island opposite the station before 8pm tomorrow. On the signal, at 8pm sharp, we will all turn to the station, kneel and worship for 30 seconds, then rise and go about our business (which could include going to the pub). Be there or be uncrescent. :)
• Dujon
  [IS,P] I thought that the last time I looked you were in Italy, you old globe trotter, you. Or have I got the wrong man?
• I Say, Porter! - Turin, Brussels, ...?
  [Dujon] You need to pay more attention in MCiOS. I've been here since November.
• Phil - The surviving parachutist link in the 8-word game
  Skipping past his father's beatifully inane explanation of how a parachute works ("The parachute is attached to a container on the skydivers back with a load of lines"), you get to his marvellously tactless quote at the end: "Michael is Michael and he will bounce back from it".
• penelope - by the way
  I think I'm going to move to the Netherlands. eeeek.
• I Say, Porter! - pendy Miller
  Cool! Give my regards to Captain Snort.
• I Say, Porter!
  I dunno, you give up work to go freelance, you move country, what next?
• Projoy
  [ISP] My money's on a move into politics.
• pendy miller - *snigger*
  Good lord. If I did, the country would be run along the lines of the WI. And that can be no bad thing. Thrift and jam.
• Raak
  [pen] Are congratulations in the offing?
• penelope
  [Raak] In that I've found a bloke who thinks I'll do for now, yes ;o)
• CdM
  *offs congratulations penwards*
• Rosie
  (pen) V. good! I'm pleased for you.
• CdM
  [pen] Though my feminist side wants to know why he's not moving his windmill to London...
• penelope
  [CdM] Planning constraints. And the fact that he has masses of freelance work there and I have very little right now. Now all I have to do is find an English-speaking job in the Netherlands...
• rab - Nederlands
  I was in the Netherlands last week, and very nice it is too. It seems almost everyone is bilingual (minimal), if disconcertingly sarcastic to my in my native tongue, so I suspect you shouldn't have too many worries.

  But, to get you started, zeewolf seems to be catfish.

• Lib
  [pen] Jolly good! Sounds wonderful. And good luck with the job hunting too. I believe there's lots of jobs in Amsterdam which don't require any language (except possibly a few groans), but I'm not sure they're to be recommended....
• Phil
  [penelope] Congrats! Be prepared to be much more proud of your home town once you're an ex-pat.
• Projoy
  [pen] These days (and given how cheap it is to fly to London) one imagines one could continue to freelance virtually for UK firms. I hope to do that one day when I move somewhere warmer.
• Sierra Mike - penelope
  Congratulations. Will you be wearing wooden shoes?
• Botherer - Passing the Dutch on the left hand side
  Congrats and felicitations! Just don't get too into the coffee shop mentality...
• penelope - klompen
  I've got the clogs already. And this is rural South Holland, not Amsterdam (which I have not yet visited). But hold on a minute... there's a REALLY good job going, and I just had a good preliminary telephone interview. If that application continures to go well, plans might change for a year or so!
• Mike - ...
• penelope
  [Mike] yeah, I know, it's all me, me, me... I'll shut up now.
• Néa - pen
  Wow - many good things happening! You deserve 'em all :-)
• Sierra Mike - penelope's luck
  Well, I'm sure after the run of foul luck you've had of late that you are due some preening in the sun. If you've got it, flaunt it as they say. Are the wooden shoes really called Klompen?
• penelope
  [SM] Yup. I have a pair. They're outside the back door. They were the first present he bought me :oP
• Chalky
  [pen] Smashing stuff I'm reading here :) Will email you
• ImNotJohn
  There we are, I go away for a few days and all heaven breaks loose. Congrats.
• I Say, Porter! - Dutch courage
  [pen] Xpatjobs.com and others
• I Say, Porter! - Crescenters European migration continues...
  So a Brussels or an Amsterdam pilg would be more likely now. Welcome to the Low Countries!
• I Say, Porter! - Jobs in South Holland
  [pen] Don't mention the war
• I Say, Porter!
  [pen] Does Windy like Dilbert?
• I Say, Porter! - realises how easy Duits really is!
  Perhaps it's just 'cos I know all the dilbert strips so well. decides to take a break from hogging the chat.
• penelope
  Doesn't anyone else have anything to banter about?
• ImNotJohn
  Current events aren't really the stuff of banter in the UK at least. It's good to have something pleasant to talk about.
• I Say, Porter! - Banter
  I vote we continue to discuss pen's love life for a bit longer. All those in favour say 'Aye'.
• flerdle - aye!
  Well, we could always talk about the weather instead. *doesn't*
• I Say, Porter!
  [flerdle] It is a-raining-not in Brussels.
• Rosie
  We could talk about Wimbledon. I will start the ball rolling by saying that is a pleasant SW London suburb, and in places rather expensive. The common is a useful place for a wee on the way home in the car though you may have to watch your back. The local football club won the FA Cup in 1988, to the delight of many.
• Projoy
  Can I add that it has two tube stations and is in the London Borough of Merton.
• ImNotJohn
  I once saw Annette Crosbie at Wimbledon station. I can also add that Wimbledon Park is a very pleasant area and popular with dog-walkers.
• CdM
  It is also an excellent safety move if you are half-splined and have nothing but green tokens.
• Darren
  I've been through it on the train but never stopped there. It gave me the impression of looking quite green.
• Projoy
  [Rosie] BTW, I trust you actually stop the car.
• penelope
  I'm making him meet the rest of my family this weekend. That means he will have met BOTH sisters (including the one with a pied-a-terre in Wimbledon, to stay on topic) and my mother. And the most ditsy of my nieces.
• Rosie - Old men and their bladders
  (Projoy) Not only that but I get out of it. Brentford to Warlingham (22 miles, 50 mins) is just a little too far after the maximum breathalyser-passing dose of Fuller's London Pride (2½ pints).
• I Say, Porter! - The local football club
  Is that the club which is now local to Milton Keynes?
• Rosie
  (ISP) It is. May it fail in all possible ways for having abandoned its (rather modest) south London fanbase.
• Phil
  You drive 22 miles to drink London Pride?
• Rosie
  (Phil) Er, well, not really, but it's there so I have it. I play from time to time in a small swing band. The leader is a Croydon Tram nerd but otherwise quite normal and all the group's CDs have a picture of a tram in some part of the country on the front. It makes my interest in steam locos seem positively mainstream, just like my preferred type of jazz.
• Phil
  [Rosie] Ah, I see. I used to walk 25 minutes to my local most days, even though there were about 20 pubs closer. It's a crappy trendy bar now though. But these days I only have to go downstairs for the best pub in town :-)
• Projoy
  What does that have to do with Wimbledon?
• Néa - Wimbledon
  When I'm in London, I usually stay with my Wimbledonian friends. It's a very nice area indeed, and quick to get to from Waterloo.
• I Say, Porter! - Friends in Wimbledon
  [Néa] How is Great Uncle Bulgaria? He must be getting on a bit by now.
• Rosie
  (Phil) Pity that town is over 100 miles away. I drive 7 miles to my "local" (Greyhound, Carshalton). This limits the intake but I don't want a skinful these days.
• rab
  *waves from Genoa*
• I Say, Porter!
  [rab] The aquarium's quite impressive - but make sure you go to the right one, there are two. Don't go to the one which is so old it still has trilobites swimming around.
• Lib - Baking cake
  Happy Birthday pen!
• Sierra Mike - Genoa
  Is it not the fashion there to stand on street corners and say "wubble" to passers-by?
  
  Sorry rab, I'm in the process of going through my "Black Adder" dvds and I couldn't resist it.
• I Say, Porter! - Genoa? No I've never seen her before in my life.
  [SM] Don't forget to pin a live frog to the shoulder blade!
  [pen] Happy Birthday!
• I Say, Porter! - Genoa
  <pedant> A quick internet search reveals that the fashion is to stand on a bucket...</pedant>
• I Say, Porter! - Blackadder DVDs
  [Sierra Mike] I shall invest in those same DVDs. I saw the full set for 18 Euros (twelve quid) in MediaMarkt and am kicking myself that I didn't snap them up.
• Projoy - Pretty Genovese
  <superpedant>I think it was also the shoulder braid and one says "bibble", not "wubble".</superpedant>
• I Say, Porter! - Genova
  [Projoy] You wouldn't let it lie, would you.
• Knobbly
  [Projoy]Personally, I always thought it was "wibble".
• penelope - older
  Thanks for the birthday wishes. Had a lovely time getting lost in Wiltshire and Somerset with the Dutch Miller, who booked us a romantic night away and bought me dinner. He has now gone back, but left his own clogs on my back doorstep, next to mine. I think it's a sign.
• penelope - or, if not...
  Or if not a sign, a new euphemism: 'Leaving ones clogs on the back doorstep'. A new game, perhaps?
• I Say, Porter! - Wibble Wobble
  [Knobbly] You're confusing your Blackadders. 'Wibble' should be said with your underpants on your head and a couple of pencils up your nose.
• Rosie
  (pen) I hope he hasn't been, er, well, sort of Emptying His Raingauge.
• Dujon
  [penelope] He popped his clogs on your back doorstep? What a shame, he sounded like such a nice bloke. My sympathy is with you m'dear.
• Darren
  [pen] Has he left a message in them?
• penelope - cloggery
  [Duj] I sniggered at your black joke, and reminded myself to make sure he has plenty of life insurance.

  [Darren] No, the message *is* the clogs, i.e. "I'll be back". I've just booked another flight to go over there for ten days later this month :oD

  [Rosie] I suppose we could calibrate the empty clogs on the back door step to become raingauges...

• Rosie - Further cloggery
  (pen) Have you heard of the Cloggies, a cartoon strip of yesteryear, by Bill Tidy? They were a clog-dancing group from a northern industrial town. They won their competitions by assault which normally consisted of co-ordinated knees to the goolies of their opponents. One of their members was The Blagdon Amateur Rapist, a middle-aged man who wore nothing but shoes, socks and a tie and humped anything that moved. Let none of this distasteful nonsense detract you from your burgeoning romance.
• rab
  *waves from Erice, Sicily*
• I Say, Porter!
  [rab] You still on honeymoon? You seem to have been there for ages.
• penelope - Euphemism Monday
  I was going to tell you I'd just cut down a bush, then remembered what a euphemistically-inclined lot you were and decided against it.
• rab
  Nah, tis conference season.
• Projoy - Conferentation
  [rab] Just think of the happy days to come when digital technology will make it possible to meet with colleagues without having to leave Edinburgh, and reduce your carbon footprint considerably. Why, I bet you're dreaming of it as I type.
• flerdle
  I'd love a conference right now. It's freezing here.
• rab
  [Projoy] With the advent of wireless internet access these days, you have this odd situation where everyone gathers together in a room in an exotic location reading their email during the talks. Very odd.
• I Say, Porter! - cut-down-a-bush
  [pen] Choose your response:
  1. Yikes! The Department of Homeland Security might conside that a threat.
  2. Bikini line, is it?
• penelope - the lesser of two weevils
  [IS,P!] I don't like either !
  In other news, I'm just getting ready for a camping trip this weekend, whilst keeping an eye on the torrential rain out there... yikes!
• Sierra Mike - camping
  [penelope] Will you be taking the klompen? Are you worried this inclement weather will cause dry rot in the instep?
• penelope - de-camping
  Bottled out of camping in the end. Drove home 120 miles after the party. Got home at 4am. It was getting light and STILL RAINING
• Rosie
  (pen) V. sensible, but be grateful for small mercies. It didn't get light here until midday on Friday.
• penelope - more news
  Had one (preliminary) interview today, I have another interview tomorrow, then flying to the Netherlands on Saturday with two recruitment agency interviews in Rotterdam next Friday, and possibly another interview back here on Wednesday 8th. This might have something to do with the fact that I still haven't decided where I want to live, or what I want to do.
• Sierra Mike - Gadding About
  penelope, you are running around like a teenager. I heartily approve. Luck.
• penelope
  Yeah, it sounds like the same kind of exercise as trying to get a university place through clearing when you don't have quite the right qualifications for the thing you REALLY want to do, but you *could* go to somewhere else to do part of it and work it around a bit. :o(
  BTW, does anyone know how Liz got on during her first day in the new job?
• Sierra Mike - Clearing
  I trust that refered to the job hunt and not the Man Waiting in Rotterdam?
• Sierra Mike - Furthermore
  [penelope] What is it that you really want to do? If you need a "holdover job" that doesn't fit the bill, keep looking while you work, knowing you can quit when you get the perfect offer (unlike university). I can't belive that for someone as obviously mobile as you are, the right job isn't out there somewhere, or will be soon.
• penelope
  [SM] You're right. The job hunt. I went to see 2 recruitment companies in Rotterdam this morning, and they both seem to think I can find a decent job here, doing PR/Marketing/Editing stuff. I'm sitting at the Man's desk in Rotterdam right now, while he's in a meeting, and inventing a letter of application for one of the vacancies that one of the agencies seemed to think was up my straat.
• Rosie
  (pen) Do you need to speak reasonable Dutch to get a job in Rotterdam? I know they can nearly all speak English, but even so it must help.
• rab - *waves from Newport News*
  Hello, very hot here. We've just been for a swim in the hotel pool. Many prohibitions, as is usual, but one is the bizarrest I've ever seen: "No breath-holding".
• Sierra Mike - Breath
  [rab]:o) Good advice, too, if one reads it in the context of "while waiting for income tax to be repealed", I think.
• Stevie - Good News
  Please excuse this interruption, but Dunx has had some good news. When you get a chance, you might like to visit the OMC chat game and see what's what.
• CdM
  [rab] As you perhaps know, the sign probably means that you are not allowed to do this.
• rab
  All very good, though the pool in question was only 90cm deep at the shallow end. And I now have a grazed knee to prove it. Ouch.
• Rosie
  (rab) That's three feet, isn't it? Just trying to visualise it. Sod metric.
• penelope
  A sod metric is 1 metre square, usually covered in grass or some other forage plant. In other news, I've got a job offer, less than I wanted, and I have to move house. But I have another interview this afternoon for a BIG job, on an international scale. I have no idea what will happen next.
• Phil - Interesting developments
  [penelope] Luckily time marches on, so you will find out what happens next, precisely as it happens.
• penelope - 30 Sods Metric (about the size of my back garden)
  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. I *think* this afternoon's interview went well. The second interviews are next week, which is when they'll give me personality tests to check I'm a loony, and make me do Sudoku maths tests (it's a Japanese company). In the meantime, I am holding off deciding about the other job offer I *do* have, and as all I have is an indication of a verbal offer from the recruitment agency, I think I'm safe so far. Sorry for blurting all of this out at you lot; you can expect more over the next few days.
• Sierra Mike - The Stupid Internet Freebie Culture
  I wanted to say "think nothing of it" in Japanese to penelope in order to appear clever, so I put the phrase into Babelfish and got back what was possibly accurate but entirely unuseable chickenscratch kanji (which I cannot read). I then went to the last, best hope for mankind, the Wikipedia, where I was confronted by paragraphs of "how to read kanji" (a bit of a puzzler given the assurances on the same page that kanji was so disorganised it would take years to learn even to a low standard of comprehension) and some phonetically spelled-out phrases, which was what I was after. They didn't include the phrase I was looking for, so I googled on "japanese phrase" and was directed to a couple of different sites. When these things finally loaded, they proved on close inspection to be nothing more than wrappers for the original wikipedia material.
  
  It would appear that significant parts of the internet are actually just wrapping other people's stuff, which in all likelyhood is wrapping other people's stuff and so on and so forth. I wonder how much original material is actually out there? (This posting originally appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Christmas 1954 edition)
• penelope - developments
  I've accepted the other job. The fickleness of women, etc etc... Now to move house, Before mid-September. Aaargh.
• Raak
  [pen] Not the big international job then?
• rab
  International woman of mystery?
• I Say, Porter! - Personality tests to check I'm a loony
  [pen] shurely to check you're not a loony...?
• penelope
  No, not the big international job. I thought hard about it, and chose the job that I thought would make me happy, rather than the pretigious and glitzy one. It's back in Lincs (closer to my mum etc), working in conservation (I think ten years is long enough in the auto industry) with plenty of chance to progress, and they really want me to work there. The other one would be all hassle, and it would be more difficult to have time with the windy miller.
  They check to what degree you are a loony... don't they?
  Can I just recommend mint tea with honey? Mint leaves, boiling water and a smidgin of honey. Especially in hot weather. Serve it in a glass, not a mug.
• flerdle - just catching up...
  [pen] Wow! All the very best in your new job! Ah, moving house, fun for everyone. *sends good wishes*
• Sierra Mike
  [penelope] And what better revenge on your previous boss than to be able to target his/her gas-guzzling rustbuckets as part of your new job in a quest for greenness? Congratulations.
• penelope
  I can't be bothered with revenge! Anyway, thanks to flerdle and everyone for the congratulations - I think I've found a tiny (and I mean TINY) bungalow to rent and am just wondering which bits of furniture I have to discard in order to live in it.
• Merlyn - Help
  Apologies for cross posting: Am I remembering correctly that someone in the Morniverse is involved in, or knows someone who is involved in, dealing with 419 email scams? We have a student who has been taken in and may possibly need some advice?
• I Say, Porter! - Congrats
  Well done pen! Lincs and Holland both as flat as each other, as far as I remember. What sort of conservation?
• penelope - flattery
  [IS,P!] The Woodland Trust. Woodlands and general boskiness. :o)
• Knobbly - Networking?
  [Pen] Oooh, you don't happen to know the best way for a biology graduate to find a job in conservation do you? I know it's very popular and rather hard to break into so I'm looking for a handy crowbar (to clumsily extend the 'breaking into' analogy).
• Knobbly
  and to boldly split infinitives...
• penelope
  [Knobbers] Voluntary work, to start, I guess; at least that way you get some experience, make some connections and get the chance to work in lots of different environments to find out which one you like. Maybe try the National Trust website and look at their working holidays - and those of other conservation trusts too. I started doing the NT ones about six years ago, then I was put forward to do the NT project leader course. In the meantime, find a job not too far off the subject - water, effluent or district councils? I'm a biograduate too - it took me 20 years to get this job, but then I'm going into their press office, not into the muddy end. I did labwork, odd jobs and newspapers for 10 years, then another 10 years or so in the automotive industry doing PR. Good luck!
• Merlyn - jobs
  I think Society Guardian is probably the best place.
• Knobbly
  Hmm... ok, thanks; I'll look into them. I hadn't actually thought of the NT.
• penelope - Whinge about packing up the house
  Whinge, whinge whinge... how come I have so much STUFF? Where does it all come from? I'm listing more stuff on Ebay every day, but actually throwing things away is really hard!
• penelope - bargainous!
  Woo-hoo! Just took advantage of a very quiet day on Ebay to bag myself a double-oven, ceramic hob cooker for about 70% of the price they normally go for. Here's to bank holidays at home doing something useful!
• Raak
  [pen] I think your second posting answers the question in your first.
• penelope - pfffft
  I know it *looks* like a cupboard, but otherwise I wouldn't have a cooker...
• Phi - May I share my joy?
  My little beer festival over the weekend was a huge success - so much so that we ran out of the festival beers yesterday at about 3pm. I totted up the empties this morning and we've sold 617 gallons of draught beer in the last 7 days (including lagers, cider and Guinness). That's a pint every 52 seconds of opening hours.
• Gamma III - Yes, you may
  Excellent news. Beer festivals are always to be celebrated...
• penelope - drink up!
  Well done Phil. When I get to Grantham (which will be on Tuesday, removals men willing), I won't be too far away. so I'll find a free weekend with the windy miller and bring him over so we can try your beers. In the meantime, I am well and truly boxed in. The house is echoing now. Yuk. And I still have to defrost the freezer.
• penelope - Back to being a yellerbelly
  I'm in! I've moved! Now just to get the cooker wired in, the boiler working, the TV connected... and the room full of too much stuff disposed of. Not to mention disposing of the 3-seater settee sitting out under the carport because it won't actually fit into the house :o( Does anyone want a second-hand Ikea 'Karlanda' three-seated sofabed, with paprika-red thick cotton 'Gobo' covers, which have just been laundered?
• Sierra Mike - Setee
  [penelope] Won't the back come off the setee? That can help get it through narrow spaces. There is sometimes a release mechanism or little thumb-wheel thingies hidden behind the setee under a velcro-secured fabric flap at the join of the back and seat. Fingers crossed.
• penelope - I Kan't Envisage Amputation
  erm... it's an Ikea one. They expect people to live in loft apartments with industrial lifts, not twee bungalows with narrow corridors :o( I'm going to flog it and buy a smaller one instead.
• Phil
  Smaller bungalow or sofabed? ;-)
  More helpfully, one like yours (I think) went for £84 on eBay yesterday - link
• rab - *waves from Saarbrücken*
  Hmmm. I have a feeling I've been here before.

  Apologies for my extended absence. I try and make sure that nothing untoward is going on, but if there are any infelicities then please do e-prod me and I'll do my best to help.

• rab
  Hmm, actually, it's a bit depressing that this hotel's free wireless connection is better than the one I have at home.

  (Though, to be fair, it couldn't currently be worse than the wireless connection at home since the wireless box has gone kaputto. One of the things to do when I get back - apart from learn to drive - is to upgrade the broadband which should come free with a new wireless box.)

• penelope
  [Phil] Cheers! I've been looking for them on Ebay to see how much I can expect to get. It's the same settee (different colour), but mine has a full-size double bed cannily concealed within it. And very comfortable it is too.
• flerdle - I'll second that.
  Woohoo pen! Moving can be lots of not-fun, so yay that you're (mostly) set up now. *raises glass to new house and new job*
• penelope - Staying put
  [flerdle] Thanks! :o) It just goes on and on - I think I've emptied more than half of it now. But it's a bit miserable doing it on my own - the windy miller has made his way back to the Netherlands already. I would recommend everyone had one of these to help if they were moving house, but I suspect if he was thinking of dumping me, then the disgusting mess I found under the sofa and the fridge would be reason enough to do so. He's gone back now, he says because of his TV appearance on their version of 'Restoration' to campaign for the restoration of a mill, and it was nothing to do with my poor housekeeping. His clogs are still in the hall - I think that's a good sign.
• penelope - sorry, me again
  Day 1 of new job. All well. Phone not yet working.
• Rosie - Incommunicado
  (pen) That's the best kind of job - one where you aren't distracted the phone. It's as bad as having customers in the shop or passengers on the train. Bloody nuisance. Keep it that way. :-)
• Inkspot - Winter is upon us
  [pen] Good luck with the new job. Are all the boxes unpacked from the move?
  Yesterday we had calls in our office for the heating to be turned on, then this morning it was so dark had to have the lights on to eat my cornflakes.
• penelope - Sofa so good
  Cheers, inkers. Boxes - not all unpacked. Sofa - too big to fit in house, but sold successfully on Ebay on Sunday night and collected on Monday. Job - fine. Phone on desk - not working! Winter - a-coming!
• penelope - Shhhh!
  It's a bit quiet in here, innit? Did anyone get 'tornados' this morning? There was a terrifically powerful squall over Grantham, but I'm not sure it could be called a tornado.
• Raak
  [pen] Downpour this morning, bright sunshine midday. Yesterday the 5-day forecast began with 3 days of sun.
• Rosie - The Tempest
  (pen) Probably what is technically termed a "line-squall", i.e. a very sharp and active cold front. There may have been some minor tornadoes here and there but the term is bandied about rather too freely these days and you need really good evidence of a twisting motion before you can definitely claim a tornado. It seems that any damage was mostly caused by a straightforward heavy blast from the west as the cold front went through. You don't need a tornado or even a particularly gusty wind to take the roof off a house or blow a large tree down. Sheer wind speed will do it.
• penelope
  [Rosie] I'll settle for the 'line squall' then. And can someone please do something about the icecream van that toots The Liberty Bell (Monty Python's theme tune) every evening so it reverberates around? It's fixing itself into my subconscious, and I don't want it there!
• flerdle
  [pen] Here, have a round or two of Greensleeves.
• Software
  [pen] round here it's Colonel Bogie on the icecream van that tours the council estates. Just as irritating, I keep thinking of inscrutible Japanese and prisoners of war.
• Rosie - Mr Whippy
  We usually have "Popeye the sailor man". Could be a lot worse. There is a cheerful trad jazz number called Ice Cream (You scream) but few know it so it wouldn't do. I'd like to hear the first few bars of the allegro con brio from Beethoven's Pathétique sonata. Daaaaaa, da da da da da dat da, da da da da da daa daa daa daa daa daa daa daa . . . . .
• Raak
  The ideal ice cream jingle would be John Cage's 4'33".
• penelope - ice cream culture
  I knew my throw-away remark about ice cream jangles would draw you lot out of the woodwork. Rosie's 'Ice Cream, You Scream' mention reminds me of a scene in Jim Jarmusch's 'Down By Law', which I saw as an Italian import, titled 'Daunbailo' and subtitled in Italian. (It's a phonetic version of the title, spelled as it would be pronounced if an Italian were to read it.)The story of three men in a Louisiana prison who, at one point, start the 'I scream, you scream, we all scream for icecream' chant around the prison. Ho hum.
• Rosie
  (pen) The very words of the jazz number, which probably originated in Louisiana, in New Orleans.
• Phil
  [pen] I saw that film late one night, and have been wondering ever since what it was! Thank you!
• penelope
  [Phil] You're welcome. Any other unidentified objects to be named?
  And now, Monday. A new week, a new month. I'm currently avoiding my writer's block by posting here.
• rab - Jolly good
  We went on a day trip to Stirling, and the train took us past the building that this is hosted in. Which made me think of checking in to make sure it was still all working.
• SIerra Mike
  [rab] You know where your website is physically located? How do you do that?
• Darren
  [pen] Identifying objects: a film I saw a bit of when I was a kid which includes a scene of a man breaking down and crying "choo choo! choo choo!" which I believe referred to some big computer or other. What's it called?
• rab
  [SM] Mostly cos Dan told me! But the hosting company website also gives this information...
• penelope - trains of thought
  [Darren] no idea. Next!
• I Say, Porter! - Waves from East Jerusalem!
  How is everyone doing? Welcome to the new place and the new job Pen. Well done Phil on hosting a one-armed beer festival. Most of my MC contact these days has been with JLE through Kingdom of Loathing. Shows where my priorities lie! Oh well, wth. [Darren] Was it "fuctifino"?
• Dan
  [SM] I know where mine's located because I carried it there tucked under my arm. Anyway, it's not that unusual to choose a host at least in part based on location. A lot of people are hosting in Telehouse in the Docklands, so they'd know when they were passing by their server as well.
• Sierra Mike
  [Dan] You own the equipment this site is hosted on? I thought hosting companies used banks of their own hardware and we all sort of shared the pool of machines in some way.
• Sierra Mike
  [Dan] No sooner did I post that than I realised that you could own the hosting company, or be employed by it. Sorry to miss the obvious.
• Dan
  [SM] No, I just have a colocated machine in a datacenter. Colocation is when you provide the hardware and put it in someone else's facility and let them worry about bandwidth. And it doesn't host this site, it hosts that other one over there somewhere (gestures vaguely in a westerly direction). As far as this (rab's) site is concerned, when he was looking for a provider I just pointed out that there was one in the Edinburgh area that looked suitable.
• Sierra Mike
  [Dan] I had no idea that was one of the options available. Thank you for explaining it.
• penelope - *burp*
• penelope
  OOps. Pardon me. I visited the East Midlands Regional Food Festival today, and watched Jean-Christophe Novelli charming the pants off all the middle-aged ladies in the audience of the demo hall. I tasted my way around three massive halls of food from local producers, and bought some cheese, some potted shrimps and a teatowel for my sister.
• Dujon - Comestibles
  [penelope] The shrimp and cheese sound reasonable. I'm not too sure about the teatowel though as it's new to me. What is it and how does it taste - a dry Czech perhaps?
• Rosie
  (pen) I hope you re-donned your underwear. *runs away*
• penelope
  Tsk Tsk! Had a Frenchman before. The accent does nothing for me now. Got a Dutchman instead ;o)
• I Say, Porter!
  [Rosie] L M F A O. I'm not sure pen got it...
• penelope - getting it...
  I chose to ignore it :oP
• Phil
  Glad to hear you're getting it, penelope.
• penelope - *issues a 'Stop Digging' order*
• rab - 10/10
  Traditionally, this day of the year has been my birthday, but thanks to the sterling efforts of the Royal Mail I can postpone the next tick of the clock to, oh, probably some time towards the end of the month by the look of it.
• rab
  Actually - I'm going to pretend it's my 17th and will start taking driving lessons soon.
• penelope - Many Happy Re-deliveries
  [Rab]Have a bonzer day, mate.
• nights - alive
  Hello all, now that I've finished my degree and have a proper job I'm intending to be on here a little more. How long will it last this time? A nation asks.
• Chalky
  [rab] MHR's to you :-)
  I believe the cost of driving lessons nowadays requires considerable financial planning. How about this sort of thing to get you going?
• Rosie
  (Chalky) Got me going all right 'cos the link don't work. Not on this old tub, any road up.
• Sierra Mike
  Try stripping off the bit that goes "rab.org.uk/mc". It still wouldn't load for me, but I'm in a weird location at the moment.
• rab
  I've fixed it. (Hmm, I thought my auto-link-repairer was supposed to spot things like that).
• nights - John Kettley is a Weatherman
  So, how's the weather where you are?
• ImNotJohn - wevvah
  Beautiful morning in London today - sun rising through the autumnal mist as I crossed Blackfriars bridge, people stopping to take photographs, or just look at it. Positively Turneresque.
• CdM - So, nothing new there then...
  Hot. Humid.
• CdM
  [nights] So where are you now? You said somewhere you have moved countries, right?
• nights
  [CdM] Strasbourg, France. I was made an offer I couldn't refuse - namely a lecteur's job and a four figure monthly salary. I teach speaking and listening in English to first-year undergraduates, and I rather enjoy it. The weather, on the other hand, can't make up its mind between autumn and a very late Indian Summer.
• Rosie - ahem
  (nights) Indian summers, so-called, take place in autumn by definition.
• nights - october in hyderabad
  [Rosie] Yeess... but I thought it was somewhat late for that. I stand, or rather sit, corrected.
• Rosie
  (nights) I'm not totally certain where the term Indian Summer comes from. It may actually be India (from the Raj days) or it may be connected with American Indians. Google has all sorts of theories. Having been a meteorologist, albeit some time ago, I shouldn't have to look it up, of course. It's a bit like a doctor Googling "appendix" and then saying to himself "oh, it's that bit, is it?"
• Simons Mith
  An American Indian summer is very unlikely. The Raj hypothesis is a lot more sensible.. I remember reading the phrase in a PG Wodehouse book, which dates it somewhat, and tends to place it in a Raj-like context rather than an Amercian context.
• nights
  [Rosie] That's OK. I had a moment in class today where I was explaining about transitive and intransitive verbs, completely forgot which way round they are, and made it up instead. I should know things like that, I'm a bloody linguist.
• Rosie - transitiveness
  (nights) Made it up? Hey, that's jazz, as we say after a string of bum notes. There is a tendency, which is currently going a bit too far, to use transitive verbs where an intransitive one should be used, eg "the temperature is reducing". Reducing what? People to perspiring lethargy? On the other hand we chemists have always talked about reacting A and B to produce something, meaning causing A and B to react (by putting them in a flask together and heating them, for example). Do other languages have this flexibility laxity?
• Rosie
  (SM) Maybe not an "American Indian" summer but certainly an American "Indian summer" as it seems the phrase is well-established in the US where, according to Wikipaedia, it has the rather precise meaning of an unseasonably warm spell that takes place after the first ground frost of autumn. But it's possible they got it from the Raj, via us.
• I Say, Porter! - Linguistic flexibility
  [Rosie] In our (italophone) house we just use whichever verb comes to mind and conjugate it appropriately (laziness on my part which my wife has caught). This leads to some hilarity but mainly exasperation of the shit-we-must-cure-ourselves-before-kids-come-along variety.
• I Say, Porter!
  Rereading that it's not as clear as I had hoped. I mean if I can't be bothered to trawl my mind for the Italian verb I just stick the English one in and slap -are on the end.
• CdM
  [Rosie] "Laxity" is a pretty mild word for you to use in this context, Rosie; most unlike you. :-) I thought you devastated much more about this kind of thing.
• CdM
  I'd always assumed Indian summer was a U.S. phrase, simply because I don't ever remember hearing it before I moved to the U.S. (many summers, Indian and not, have passed since then).
  
  On the other hand, Rosie, I'm not sure you should trust your chosen source too much.
• Rosie
  (CdM) Cruvvens, mon, I insult at such a suggestion! Too right I devastate. My Morniverse-cred shreds and my confidence erodes. Needless to say I emote. *throws up*. Phew, that's better. "Indian Summer" was around when I was a small child and I wondered what people were on about. (ISP) You can do that in Welsh. Just stick -io on the end and you've verbed it, or wedi ei berfio as one would say. ( = "after its verbing"). Berf = verb but berfio is not in the dictionary.
• nights
  [Rosie] I've noticed that as well. Of course, it might be that now that my contact with English is limited, things that seem "wrong" are thrown into sharper relief. Or I might just be being a bit nit picky, as I'm used to weeding through my student's work with a fine toothed comb. Yes, this paragraph is designed to put your teeth on edge.
  
  [IS,P!] I'm glad I'm not the only one that does that. At a party this evening, we had "smoker", "lighter" and "jazzer up" - all standard -er verbs that conjugate as expected. "jazzer up", we decided, takes être in the perfect though.
• Rosie
  (nights) Disgraceful. You could have Frenchified it a bit into enjazzer or something, still with être in the perfect of course. Don't forget the past participle is enjazzu. (It's irregular). You couldn't do that in Welsh; no j's, no z's. In fact many North Walians simply can't make the "z" sound, so that precision rhymes with fission. But they can do the double-L, of course. *gloat*.
• penelope
  'double-L' as in Llandrover, Llambs and Llight Rain... ;o)
• Phil
  Ah, memories of Max Boyce pronouncing Dallas with a Welsh double-l sound :-)
• nights
  [Rosie] Hold on, past participle enjazzU? Not possible, my old chum, even if it is irregular. -er verbs NEVER form pp's that way, it's just not the done thing.
• Rosie - entendu
  (nights) I thought not, but it was worth a try. How can we make enjazzer more interesting? Wouldn't enjazzir have some linguistic legitimacy? (pen, Phil) I am always tickled by Llanera, the sponsors of Charlton FC. Google says it's some dismal Spanish holiday-home construction company, but in fact it's a small village in Wales. In English it would be rendered as St Era's, or (more likely) St Gera's.
• Phil
  [nights] if it were jazzre, then jazzu would be logical.
• Rosie
  (Phil) You're right, but can you say jazzre without spilling your pint? Difficult.
  re - Llanera; I've just re-read my last post and it looks all too plausible. But don't look for Llanera; it ain't there.
• nights
  [Phil, Rosie] Indeed it would be. Jazzre is a bit clumsy though, and sticks in the throat. I prefer jazzer, myself, as enjazzir reminds me of a slightly dirty word in French which I'd rather avoid. I promise not to bring up French again.
• Rosie - forrin lingos
  (nights) If you stop talking about French I'll have to stop yakking on about Welsh, and that would never do.
• penelope - bringing up French
  Enspew?
• nights
  [Rosie] Perhaps this is the wrong moment to bring up Russian, then?
• Rosie
  (nights) Nice one, Cyril.
• nights
  Good ol' Cyril. On another topic, who's excited about Christmas?
• penelope - Oh don't
  [nights] I just saw my first xmas ads on telly tonight but I'm not entirely blameless. I've booked a cottage on the west coast of Scotland for xmas, and I was looking for a butcher in Oban so I could order a duck for xmas dinner, to collect on xmas eve :op
• Rosie
  (nights) Not these days, the politest response I can find. There will be no snow in this part of the world, something I realised by about 1954. Actually, there was snow on the ground in 1981, but normally it just rains.
• nights
  I was only asking because the Christmas ads have yet to start here, and it's nice to not approach November with tinsel already becoming a chore rather than a delight. On the other hand, I HAVE just booked my flights back to the UK to see the family, so it's partially just me projecting.
• Phil
  In business terms, I am excited about Christmas this year, especially as I have all my events and entertainment booked and confirmed already. On a personal level, only one Christmas Day stands out as being better than any given Sunday - 2002. That was the year I joined a brass band and we played carols on every ward of the two hospitals in the town on Christmas morning. Everyone else got stressed at home while I was out, and they'd all calmed down again by the time I got back :-)
• rab
  We're hoping to have our first Christmas a deux. I'm wondering about whether to go out for a curry for lunch. We like curries, and are rather hoping that non-Christian restaurateurs won't think that they have any reason to close on the big day.
• I Say, Porter! - Curry for lunch
  My brother and his family invariably go out for Xmas lunch, and curry is frequently on the menu. I would not have any worries if I were you as to the willingness of restarauteurs in general to open on Xmas day, but make sure you BOOK FIRST! We're off to Italy again this year 'cos our friends are getting married on 22 Dec and no point doing Bxl-Trn-Man in the space of three days. A sad one this year as my Gran-in-law (if such be possible) snuffed it earlier this year so the famous Xmas agnolotti will be less tasty than memory makes them.
• I Say, Porter! - *prays for snow in the mountains*
• penelope
  Frost! We finally had a frost last night! Good job I brought the geraniums in...
• nights
  No such excitement here. Although it's awfully cold outside.
• Tuj
  Great steaming lumps - Christmas talk already? I'm surprised at you all. Still, it's better than Big Brother.
  To engender conversation: "How is everyone?"
• nights
  I'm well thank you, despite an inner dialogue at 6.30 this morning which ran thusly:
  Nights, are you awake?
  Yes..urgh...mumble... what time is it?
  6.30.
  Can't be. I'd be panicking that I'm going to be late if it was 6.30. (rolls over to face alarm clock.
  Erm...
  OH MY GOD IT'S 6.30 MY BUS LEAVES IN 20 MINUTES! WHERE ARE MY SOCKS?
• penelope - wakey uppy
  I'm currently experiencing the regular phenomenon of waking up thirty seconds before the first of my three alarm clocks goes off. What's going on there then? (All very prompt, except this morning, I made a cup of tea and took it back to bed).
• Sierra Mike - Tea in Bed
  [penelope] Do they still have those "Teasmade" ("Teasmaid"?) machines that compine an alarm clock with a cunning kettle/teapot arrangement? If only they had figured out how to keep the milk cold (other than by making the houses so expensive to heat) at the same time the idea would have been a 10/10 perfect one, but it was pretty good even so.
• Rosie - Premonition
  (pen) One of your alarm clocks may make a little click or sound before it actually goes off and it could be this that wakes you. Or you are sleeping-the-sleep-of-the-extremely-desirous-to-get-to-work-in-time because of your new job.
• Phil
  [SM] Actually, I've had one of those "screech in your ear, make you a cuppa" devices for over 10 years now. I call it a "wife".
• penelope - bedburps
  [Rosie] Come to think of it, it might be the central heating that wakes me.
  [Phil] *gasp!* although the windy miller does have the same effect, but through a nicer process.
• nights - Teasmade
  I must get one of those. One of these days I'm going to set the flat on fire putting the kettle on at 6am when I'm not completely awake.
• Rosie
  (pen, reply to Phil) That sort of thing usually makes me want to sleep rather soundly.
• penelope
  [Rosie] I mean he makes me tea, but doesn't do the screeching. What were you imagining?
• Rosie
  (pen) Well, now . . . .
• Projoy
  Has everyone given up playing AVMA, then? I'm off on hols in a couple of days. Hoping someone will guess my clue before that...
• nights
  I could never get the hang of AVMA. Too complex for me, I think. Similar to how I don't get involved in those difficult poetry games over on Orange.
• penelope
  Morning chaps. Despite it feeling like it's too early to be up on a Saturday, I'm quite cheery. I'm going to help plant 1,500 trees today, then I'll brush off the mud and catch a plane this evening to see the windy miller. The tree-planting could be thought of as carbon offsetting against the flight, but truthfully it's just part of my job now :oD
• nights
  [Muddy Boots] Sounds like a marvellous way of spending a Saturday to me. I, however, have been running errands in Strasbourg, which has more people in it today than I've ever seen. I'm now killing time waiting for a friend and have a cracking headache. This is a marvellous city - the people that inhabit it, sometimes, are not.
• flerdle
  Daylight saving just started here. I don't mind it, really, although it does feel a bit strange to be eating the evening meal in broad daylight. Having spent most of my life in the tropics and subtropics, it just feels wrong.
• CdM
  [nights] I don't know if you like swimming, but if you do you should go to the old swimming pool in Strasbourg some time. Not that it is a great place for serious swimming, but it is quite charming.
• nights - Trunks
  Funny you should say that, I use the roman baths upstairs on and off. Not been swimming though, mainly because I can't. I do love the building though - very grand, sweeping marble staircases, and it's owned by the council. A far cry from Bath Sports and Leisure Centre.
• penelope - winning windy millers
  One of the Dutch Miller's windmill restoration projects won the Nederlands' version of the 'Restoration' TV programme last night. I've just watched the finale on the web, and have seen my bloke holding a cheque for €1,000,000. Is it the right time to propose?
• Sierra Mike
  I'd say so. A fat wad of used oncers, a possible deal to star in the upcoming Pimp My Windmill reality TV show and a reason to wear wooden shoes? Jump!
• Sierra Mike
  [penelope] How's the new house working out?
• penelope
  [SM] Cosy but messy. I've been there two months and haven't spent a weekend there yet.
• nights
  [pen] If you don't propose, I will :)
• penelope
  [nights] That's very sweet of you but I couldn't possibly. I think I'm twice your age.
• I Say, Porter! - Weekend plans?
  I leave Jerusalem at midday tomorrow for a flight back to Brussels. Fingers crossed security at Ben Gurion isn't too much of a pain and I catch my flight. I have a diplomatic 'laissez-passer' but given that it's written in Hebrew it could say 'your mother does it with you for money' or 'call Shin Bet, this guy's a terrorist'for all I know. If you don't hear from me for a few months, you know where I am.
• I Say, Porter! - Brussels
  And just taking this opportunity to plug My show in Brussels 22-25 November again. Particularly convenient for all known Dutch windmills. And with a cheque for a million Euros you can afford a couple of 20 Euro tickets... I say "my show" but everyone else has been rehearsing properly, whereas I have just been singing on my own with the CD/iPod, so god alone knows how I'm going to sound at rehearsal on Sunday.
• nights
  [pen] The lady doth protest too much. Besides how do you know how old I am?
• Chalky - interrupting pennylope and nightses convo
  [nights] One can tell by the cut of your jib. Relax. It's a girl thing.
• Rosie - Carbon dating
  (Chalky) Not just a girl thing, but I wouldn't deny they're better at it.
• nights - Constant flirtation
  Very well. I grieve a missed opportunity, but I think Mlle Nights is probably going to kill me if she gets wind of all of this.
• Tuj
  [nights] pen & Chalky are certainly the experts. They've been looking after me for years ;)
• nights
  Quick question: What would you do about over-amorous neighbours? I'm pleased they're having a good time, but they're having it rather loundly.
• penelope
  [nights] Compete.
• Rosie - Trans-mural legovers
  (nights) If my experience is anything to go by the activity is self-limiting. I used to briefly hear them nextdoor and sniggered to myself about the rabbit-like duration the process occupied in their case. As a result of this they have two delightful kids whose needs leave them bereft of libido. So the answer is: Nick their French Letters, or whatever they call them over there.
• Raak
  [nights] Record their sessions and set up a web site selling them?
• nights
  [Pen] That's what Mlle Nights suggested. Plans are afoot.
  [Rosie] I believe they're just known as letters here.
  [Raak] Erm... probably not a market for it.
• Phil
  ]nights] Break into their apartment and put local anaesthetic in the baby oil?
• I Say, Porter!
  Break into their apartment and set up the recording equipment. You'll make tens of quid.
• Raak
  [nights] I'd suggest registering loudsex.com, but it's taken already.
• nights
  [Raak] You're the second person today to direct me there. I might have to start reading it full time.
• penelope
  Breaking the lull, is anyone doing anything good this weekend? I've just had my first *proper* lie-in in my new house. Yum. Now... housework. And maybe shopping for a washing machine.
• flerdle
  I'm driving to Canberra, again. It's a three week stint there this time. The rest of the weekend has been filled with trying to get my computer to work. The computer that all my experiments etc have been done on, over the last three years. The one I need in Canberra. The one that didn't turn on on Thursday.
• ImNotJohn
  I'm going to rest AND take moderate exercise AND take anti-inflammatories AND just make do with paracetemol AND try not to carry anything AND carry on as normal. That way I'll have followed all the advice for dealing with lower back pain.
  How did I do that? In the hotel gym, probably the rowing machine. This exercise is no good for me.
• CdM - argh!
  [flerdle] argh!
• nights - le weekend
  Housework, cinema last night, lie in this morning, laundry and now a bit of marking I forgot to do on Friday. I've had worse weekends.
• rab - Prudence
  Having been feeling that I wasn't using my mobile phone enough to justify the monthly outlay, I called up the operator who offered to reduce the rental fee to £0 a month with still enough minutes and texts included to cover my typical usage. I'll believe this when the first bill comes through...
• penelope - launderette
  The washing machine arrives on Wednesday. No more hand washing, hurrah!
• nights - Goodness me!
  [rab] How did you manage this, which operator, and what is their number?
• Dujon - Junk
  [rab] Get rid of it, you obviously don't need the infernal machine. I have had the dubious pleasure of using one for my business. My experience was that customers were happier to leave a message on my answering device rather than 'phone me on the mobile.
• Rosie
  (pen) I hope you still wash your feet.
• flerdle - argh!
  [CdM] Indeed. We found that the hard drive was ok, so that was extracted and made to work with a bit of voodoo. I owe frogstar, big time. Now the computer is not only headless (no monitor, etc) but bodyless (no actual "machine"). It works, is the main thing. And a full current backup is now sitting at PaulWay's place (thanks and more thanks!).

  Now I have to do actual work. *sigh*

• nights - je suis en colère
  Well, more strike action on the rails in France. Just as the new, improved Eurostar opens from St Pancreas. The timing is perfect, wouldn't you say?
• penelope - s'awfully quiet in here
  Washing Machine Blues. They delivered it yesterday. Brilliant. I connected it up, and ran it on a 95 degree empty cycle, as recommended. It leaks. The deliverymen scuffed the drainage hose as they brought it in, making a water-sized hole. So I called the shop this morning, they put me onto Hotpoint's customer service, where I spoke to Smug Tony, who offered me an appointment a week on Thursday for a machine I didn't damage, and which I haven't yet been able to use. Not acceptable, I told them. I said I would talk to the shop again and get them to take the machine back. 'But the shop has handed this matter over to us,' said Smug Tony. I pointed out that Hotpoint customer service wasn't proving to be any use to me, so I would reserve the right to talk to the people who sold me the machine.
  So I called the shop again, and insisted I was a very unhappy customer, and would they please give me a new washing machine before the weekend, and take the old one away. They're coming tomorrow afternoon. :o)
• Rosie
  (pen) So that's what the ex-prime minister is up to these days. Glad you told him what's what.
• nights
  More on the action - the university I work at was evacuated today because someone set fire to the curtains in the lecture hall where a meeting of students on whether to strike or not was held. I don't think these kids know what they're doing, really.
  
  Goodness, what a long sentence. What is everyone else doing for the weekend?
• Rosie
  (nights) I'll tell you tomorrow.
• Raak
  [nights] Thinking about Kalman filters as feedback controllers, control systems as an alternative to utility functions, and artificial intelligence as a doomed enterprise; and on Sunday, attending a memorial service for someone I knew a little and admired a lot, and cursing the railways for not having run a reliable Sunday service from Norwich to London at any time in the last twenty-five years.
• Projoy
  Freelance voiceover work tomorrow morning and afternoon. A meal with boyf and friends in evening. Work on show all of Sunday, except for a short break to go see a concert with animations at the Barbican.
• CdM
  [nights] Rosie is celebrating his birthday.
  [Rosie] Happy birthday!
• Rosie
  (CdM) Cheers. There is a remark in MCiOS but you beat me to it.
• Phil
  Work from now to 2.30; watch daughter play in wind band this afternoon; work/karaoke/work from 5pm tonight till 1am-ish. Brass band rehearsal at 8:30am, ready for Leicester Brass Band Festival contest at 11am, then work, write quiz, read quiz at 9pm, work till midnight, get up at 6am for dray, then drop down dead.
• Rosie - bidet
  Went to pub, bought beers all round. Fluttered eyelashes at mate's wife who'd said "Gosh, are you really?", tried to pull Polish barmaid by saying "Dobre wieçor" before ordering, as usual. Came home, went Morniversing and will now practise that sodding Beethoven sonata, thanks to Yamaha and headphones. Not a bad life, to be honest.
• nights
  [Rosie] A belated birthday wish, sounds like it was a rather good one. I'm still not sure if I have a workplace to go to on Monday, so I'm staying near a phone in case anyone makes a decision. They probably won't though.
• Rosie
  (nights) Cheers. Hope you find work; unemployment is bad news; I've had spells of it.
• nights
  [Rosie] Oh, no worries, I'm not unemployed. I was referring to the various student strikes and barricades, and wondering if I could actually get to work today. I could. We'll see what the week brings.
• Tumbleweed
  *tumbles*
• Grumbleweed
  *grumbles*
• Crumble Kneed
  *falls over*
• Weed
  *wees*
• Grampus
  *wheeze*
• Tuj
  *thinks "Not this again"*
• penelope - t'weekend
  I'm planting trees again tomorrow. And the windy miller arrives on Sunday morning. 07.10 at Stansted... so that means an Sunday 05.30 start for me. In other news, my 66-year old mother retires from work today, but has to have a mastectomy on Monday - not quite the glorious start to her retirement she was anticipating. *sigh*
• ImNotJohn - déjà vu
  See my entry of 2 weeks ago.
  Mrs INJ is just getting over a bout of labyrinthitis, which she described as 'all the unpleasant aspects of being drunk without any of the nice bits'. It had interesting effects, such as falling over in the same direction if she turned her head. So I'll be lending her an arm.
• Rosie
  (INJ) Labyrinthitis sounds like a made-up word ("inflammation of the labyrinth" - i.e. setting fire to Hampton Court maze) but I see on Googling it that it is a rather unpleasant affliction so I wish Mrs INJ all the best and hope there are no after-effects.
• ImNotJohn
  [Rosie] Thanks - she's a lot better now and will be back at work next week. the first couple of days weren't nice though - could only lie down with eyes closed.
• flerdle - ouch ouch ouch
  [INJ] Please pass on my sympathies and best wishes for a hasty and full recovery. I had a severe bout of that after swimming in a waterhole in a national park near Darwin at the start of 1996. It came on the morning of the wedding we were there to attend - nothing like perfect timing, hey? I'd gone for a swim in the pool before breakfast, and things went very strange all of a sudden when I went back upstairs. I found the nystagmus the most fascinating thing (as an Optometrist), even as I was hurling my guts out. I couldn't roll over except at glacial speed for several weeks. I made it - very greenly - to the wedding, but avoided photos. And I was still not happy on the trip by bus back to Brisbane a week later, a total of 2,800 miles due to delays, detours and flooding.
• Kim - Get well soon, Mrs INJ
  [INJ] I had a dose of it about 15 years ago and its exactly like she said - lying down and keeping very still is about all you can manage. Even turing over in my sleep was frightening.
• ImNotJohn - Good Wishes
  Thanks to all. She is now much better and functioning nearly as normally as ever. It's one of those things I'd only vaguely heard of, but I now know of dozens of people who have suffered from it. Just one further question. The GP said that there was a chance of a recurrence - is that anyone's experience and, if so, was it as bad the next time?
• Lib
  [INJ] *dons doctors hat* Glad she's better, but sadly second time can be as nasty as the first time. Stupid ears.
• penelope - medical and milling matters
  More meds news - my mother doing well, coming along slowly after surgery on Monday. Windy Miller made a visit last weekend and went down well with everyone he met in my home town. Also toured some local (working) windmills to give him a foot in the door of the local milling brotherhood. And we've been invited out for dinner as a couple. Am officially a Miller's Moll now :oD
• nights
  Medical news from me - woke up screaming at 4am this morning with horrific cramp in my leg. Mlle Nights nearly had a heart attack, but I'm fine now. I'm told potassium is good for cramp, as this is happening once a week or so. And it's bloody painful.
• Simon Mith - Cramp
  Another two things to try - exercise, particular longer walks than whatever you are currently habituated to - I sometimes need several miles several times a week - and cold legs at night. The latter I acheive by the simple expedient of leaving them outside the covers. Arranging the covers in a shared bed to suit both of you may be a little harder though.
• ImNotJohn - Leaping out of bed
  Magnesium tablets have helped me a bit. Rutin (available from all exorbitantly-priced health food shops) was suggested, but for me it doesn't sem to make a difference.
• nights
  I usually have cold legs at night, as I tend to sleep on the edge of the bed with my legs outside of the duvet. However, I could always get off the bus one stop early. Or two. No, one.
• penelope
  [nights] I think you're bored us all into silence. However, let's bring the conversational temperature up a notch with the general question: What did you have for lunch today?
• Raak - Lunch
  I have just had a cured pork sausage, a chunk of bread, a head of chicory, and half an apple (it wasn't very good, despite being a Cox), and will shortly be having a mug of green tea and mint.
• ImNotJohn
  My current assignment is at the headquarters of a large retail organisation, so I don't just get canteen food.....
  I had a rather nice salmon, pesto & noodles dish followed by fresh melon. I am now having a proper meal at work and snacking in the evening, which is the reverse of my normal work pattern.
• Projoy - Lunch
  I had a chicken and stuffing sandwich plus a strawberry and banana smoothie, and, you know what, I think I might have a Toblerone shortly.
• Phil - Lunch
  Two pints of soda water so far, but I might have 3 or four very small samples of beer shortly, in the name of quality control (for once, that's not just an excuse to drink - I'm not well, so a taste is more than I want, really).
• Rosie - Lunch for night owls
  Never have lunch. I make up for it about 1.30 a.m. Could be a banana, apple, two crumpets, roll and jam, spoonful of cold baked beans etc (one of the above) plus cup of coffee.
• nights
  Oh dear. Didn't anyone want to hear about my legs? My lunch was a Filet O'Fish, a salad and iced tea from the McDonalds across the road. Not bad, the dressing was crap though. Fast food today because I had an unusually busy day.
• Raak
  The fastest food is the food foregone.
• Dujon
  I'm a no-luncheon type as well. Nor do I have a breakfast. Evening meals tend to be a bit hit and miss so it's not unusual for me to go for a couple of days without eating. Mind you, wine is full of vitamins, so I'm told, and anything that passes one's lips is food, so I don't starve. ;-)
• penelope - lunch today
  Today was pasta - spinach and ricotta tortelloni in a tomato sauce. I made the sauce, but bought the pasta. Yum. And then a mince pie from the Corporate department.
• Phil - Lunch
  Today I managed a few chips nicked while cooking, then a pint of Everards Tiger and a pint of Clarks Burglar Bill, both dispensed a degree (C) too cold, but in clean glassware, and both were in as good condition as you can get with over-chilled ales (in someone else's pub, I hasten to add). A Mars bar followed, and more beer will be along soon - probably a Holden's Black Country Special.
• nights
  Anyone up to anything exciting/Did anyone do anything exciting this weekend?
• Raak
  A trip out to nearby Wymondham to see the county council's exhibition of their draft vision for future development, which will protect the environment, provide cheap housing and jobs, promote public transport, develop green spaces, improve run-down areas, and give everyone a pony. Gratified to find no plans for building anywhere near where I live. Followed by a fairly desultory attempt at Christmas shopping. Home for coffee and a fig frangipan cake, listening to one of the CDs I bought, Les Élémens - simphonie nouvelle by Jean-Féry Rebel (1666-1747). This may be a present for someone, as may The Maiden's Prayer, and other gems from an old piano stool, a title worthy of Ivor Cutler. It includes Dvorak's Humoresque, Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith, and 22 others I haven't heard of, due no doubt to not having an old piano stool in my home.
• Phil - This weekend
  Tomorrow night I'm playing my soprano cornet in a Christmas three band plus massed-band concert. Alas, due to a quirk of fate, I've been nominated to play one of the pieces dressed as a fairy. I have borrowed a pink fairy frock, massive pink wig, pink & black striped tights and a wand. I'm not looking forward to playing, or anything else for that matter, dressed like that.
• Raak
  [Phil] I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures.
• Phil
  [Raak] Strange as it may seem, I'm not.
• Chalky
  [Phil] Quirks of Fate are not to be entertained/trusted or subscribed to. Could you have said "No"?
• Phil
  [Chalky] I did. Several times, but to no avail. Worse things happen at sea, though (not that I can think of one off-hand).
• Chalky
  Titanic? Our local Amateur Operatics Society has just completed its run of 'Titanic - The Opera'. For a Christmas show it was hardly the most uplifting of themes, but they sand it awfully well.
• Chalky - sand?
  ...and their singing wasn't to bad either.
• Chalky - to?
• Rosie - Inappropriate dress
  (Phil) Regardless of your apparel please try and play it straight.
• Phil
  [Rosie] No-one will hear me much, thankfully, as I'm mostly echoing the front row cornets - so giggling will not be an issue.
• penelope - Xmas Shopping
  Finished!
• nights
  [pen] Don't rub it in. I haven't even started, nor have Mlle Nights and I had The Christmas And New Year's And Nights' Birthday conversation...
• Raak - Dear Mrs. Trellis:
  At what point is it appropriate to drop someone from one's Christmas card list, on the grounds of there being no longer a sufficient connection to justify its acknowledgement? For example, one's brother's first wife, from whom he has been divorced long enough to marry again and bring up two more children?
• Phil
  [Raak] I dropped my entire Christmas card list last year, and didn't send a single one - nobody has commented. It only remains to be seen how many I receive this year.
• Projoy
  [Phil] I have never maintained a Christmas Card list, nor sent a Christmas card. I still receive cards from some people, none from others, and it has made no difference to my life (that I'm aware of).
• Rosie
  Although my general attitude to Christmas is that it is a commercialised stressfest and total absurdity I do actually send quite a lot of cards (a couple of dozen). It seems a useful way of keeping in contact with people you don't see very often but nevertheless have some feeling for. One practice which has developed over they years that I find completely barmy is that of my pub mates exchanging cards. I get quite a few that way but I refuse to reciprocate and it doesn't do me the slightest harm. One of that group is a long-term friend (37 yrs) and we have never sent cards to each other, which speaks for itself. I hope I don't get any from the band members; it seems quite pointless.
• Dujon
  I don't mind the Christmas card round because, as Rosie said, it does keep one in touch with friends who live beyond normal visiting distance, even if the 'phone is utilised occasionally. The cards I dread are those whose sender includes some sort of resumé of the past year's doings. I have a relative (distant in both senses) who used to adopt such practice. I decided one Christmas to do the same but outstrip her in the number of pages of inconsequential 'news'. I wasn't sarcastic or rude but simply mirrored her format. We still exchange Christmas greetings but the junk mail has ceased. :-)
• Rosie - Xmas round robins
  (Dujon) I get a few of these, some intended for my late mother. The senders know she has died so they are addressed to me. Well, what the hell, it's the same address. She used to say "Oh, poof, who wants to know all their comings and goings every minute of the day". For her, as an essentially sweet-natured person, that is the equivalent of Foul and Abusive Language, and I fully concur. The full horrors of these things are described here. Well worth a look. There's a book as well.
• Raak - Robins
  These people should start blogs. Then their outpourings can be ignored without effort. Come to think of it, I've seen a few blogs like that, words cast into the void with no visible sign that anyone, anywhere, is reading it.
• nights
  I'm awfully glad that very few people know my address. That, and I keep moving house. It's also nice to not have the Christmas card question, as in France one sends cards at New Year, and so I have a marvellous excuse not to bother.
• ImNotJohn - Boast in the Post
  Sorry, but I like receiving them and send one to a selected few on our list. It's better than just a card, but not as good as a proper correspondance over the year(which I'm hopeless at).
• Dujon - I can't belieeeeeve it
  No sooner had I put down my cyber-pen than the mail person arrived bearing gifts of inestimable value. This time, thankfully, it was but a card and text which consumes but one and a half pages of A5 paper (replete with Christmas tree adornment). Unfortunately my annual salutation is already winging its way across the many seas 'tween she and I . . . next year then.
  [Rosie] Thanks for the link, it made me smile.
  [INJ] No, no, no. That is different. In my case (and I'm assuming Rosie's) I'm talking about the 'standard' missive which seems to be sent to everyone on the sender's Christmas list and not a letter or note directed specifically to the recipient.
• ImNotJohn
  [Dujon] I might still fall foul of your strictures then. I'm talking about a standard newsletter with just a handwritten note at the bottom. However I don't send it to everyone - just the people that we haven't seen recently and feel we should have sent a letter to.
• rab - Nyess
  We're currently trying to decide whether to send one out or not. Quite a few things have happened this year (jobs, weddings, new curtains in the living room) that a few people might be interested to hear about. Our Christmas card list is very short though.
• Chalky - me me me me me me
  [rab] You still have my address? I'd love a rabandmrsrab missive :-)
• nights
  I can't help but think that I'd like one too. But then I rather like getting post. Sad, isn't it. Of course the people that are meant to be sending me things (health insurance, internet/tv box) aren't.
• rab
  [Chalky] Indeed I do. I'll stick one in the post.

  If there's anyone else who wants one from someone they've actually never met, drop me an email (you should be able to work out the address). On condition you don't forward it to Simon Hoggart.

• Phil - Doing anything tonight?
  I'm just about to get a taxi to the Grainstore brewery tap in Oakham to hear my son playing in the school folk group, who have a gig there tonight. At last I get to drink in someone else's pub - not sure I'm happy about having to pay retail prices for my beer though ;-)
• Projoy
  [rab] What pattern do you have on the curtains?
• rab
  [Projoy] Sumatra brocade.
• nights
  I left the house at 9am on Friday, and I arrived home at 5pm this afternoon. It's been a very very busy weekend.
• penelope
  I worked all day Friday, picked up my b-in-law from the London train in Grantham, drove him (and me) 50 miles to my home town, and stayed the weekend with my mother (who just had the all clear after surgery for the big C but doesn't yet have full mobility), did all her laundry, ironing, shopping, sweeping, hoovering; made 150 chocolate truffles for xmas presents, packed and wrapped them; wrapped all the xmas presents to leave there for the family as I'm elsewhere for the hols, then made the most delish moussaka, ate it, had a quick cup of coffee and drove home through the moonlit night where it was -2°C on the wolds and -3°C across the fen.
• flerdle - spirit
  Yum! I just received three dozen christmas cakes from my Mum.

  Similarly, if anyone wants a cheery postcard from orstraya with no christmas content whatsoever, (probably after christmas, knowing postal service times) drop me a line at my moniker at gmail dot com. Ho ho ho.

• penelope
  Yet again, I havce accidentally worked through lunch :o(
• Chalky
  [pen] Oh dear. Do tree saviours have desks? If so can't you have a sly munch. I didn't have lunch either because I've just travelled to Chippenham and back for a job interview. Will know more tomorrow afternoon.
  
  [rab] Thanks :-)
• penelope - slymunchers
  [Chalks] Oh yes, I have a sly munch - a food van ('Tiny's') comes round every morning and we now all automatically salivate like Pavlov's dogs at the sound of his airhorn which plays 'La Cucaracha' outside the office window. And there's plenty of chocolate around at this time of year. I just haven't done much standing up or walking around. And I haven't taken a break except 30 seconds every now and again to look in here. My own silly fault...
• nights
  I'm a bit cross with the transport company here in Freezing Strasbourg. My tram got terminated about five stops from work with no explanation, which meant I got in about ten minutes late. This would all be fine except I was giving an exam to my students this morning, who had less time to complete it. They're not happy, and neither am I.
  
  Disgusted of The Suburbs of Strasbourg
• penelope
  Any news, Chalks?
• Chalky - a sort of a job
  [pen] Yes. Received a very upbeat phone call from one of the interviewers who told me that they wanted me to join the company. In otherwords, I was the chosen one out of the short list of three - but would I be willing to wait until after the 7th Jan 2008 for official notification of a starting date. I 'think' it's good news. Odd.
• penelope
  It means the secretary (or HR adminstrator) has taken a fortnight off for Christmas and they daren't issue the letter without her say-so. Congratulations!
  I used to shop in Sainsbury's in Chippenham. I still have the three plastic coathangers I bought there on the day I left Wiltshire. *sniff*
• nights
  Update, not that anyone cares: I wrote an email to the company later this morning, asking in polite-ish terms what the hell happened. They emailed me back by the time I got home (around three), saying that the tram I was on had a fault, and they would have been operating outside the law, not to mention putting passengers at risk, if the tram had continued to its destination.
  
  Given the choice between being late and being dead, I'll choose the mild indignation of my colleagues and students over St Peter and his book.
• Rosie
  (nights) I bet the fault was some minor infringement of regulations, such as a failed speedometer. They had to say it would put passengers at risk to justify their action. I could be wrong; maybe the brakes had gone. Did they say?
• penelope
  Final afternoon. I'm sorting out my desk out so I have a small pile of easily-identifiable and easy-start jobs to do when I come back to it on January 2nd. And trying to finish off the office chocolates before 5pm. It'd be rude not to.
• nights
  [Rosie] No I didn't. Call me stupid (You're stupid, nights), but I'd rather not know...
  
  [pen-elope] I have also just finished for the day, and am hanging around waiting to pick up Mlle Nights from work. And then we are going out for cinema and dinner. Never let it be said that I'm an original boyfriend.
• rab
  Every day this week I've been woken up annoyed that it's not Friday. Now it is and I'm watching the clock till we go to the pub at 4.30. A weekend of stocking the larder awaits. mrsrab is working on Monday , but is being sent home at 2pm which is when the fun will really start (with mulled wine, carols from Kings and a curry).
• penelope
  [nights] After work finishes in a matter of minutes, I'm off home to pack the car with everything for a week in Scotland. I'll drive over to my mum's tonight then will set off oop north tomorrow lunchtime for t'Edinburgh airport. The windy miller flies in tomorrow evening. On Sunday, we drive over to the west coast to a cottage by the sea with a real fire - for a week. Yippeeee!
• Chalky - going on a bit ...
  Me - tonight going to a Winter Warmer Party [Solcisty-connected]. All our friends will be there. We're all taking our own Winter Warmer Concoctions and there's a 'tasting panel' which includes NotMr Chalky. He'll probably have a blast, the recovery from which might be interesting as he's due to play drums with his band and they have a Christmas gig tomorrow night at a local pub. On Sunday my sister and brother-in-law are hosting their own family Christmas for us all because they're not around on Christmas Day. Oh yes - I have daughter No 1 arriving for a week. Then family and friends Christmas Day then oop north for a few days to Lake District where NotMr Chalky's folks reside.
• Phil
  [rab] when and what station are the carols from Kings on?
• nights
  Well, Mlle Nights and I, after a brief argument about what film to see, had a thoroughly enjoyable evening of cinematic treats and culinary delights. She's now sodded off back to Paris by train, and I'm waiting for my family to get in here. Although they're staying in a gîte, because I live in a box. But it's a nice one - apparently it, too, has an open fire. It snowed here last night, and there's a Christmas film on TV. I am, as Glenn Miller put it (I think), "In The Mood" now.
• rab - CfK
  [Phil] On R4 3pm, but we won't be home by then, so will watch it on BBC2 at 5.30pm whilst chinging our way through min spies.
• rab
  But, as always, do check your own listings guides because here in Scotland programmes are moved by up to four days either way (or dropped entirely) to accommodate the world's worst soap opera (yes, worse even than Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten) and Rupert Bear in Gaelic (which is actually quite good fun).
• Phil
  [rab] thanks
  [All] Anyone got any plans for tomorrow?
• Raak
  [Phil] Playing with my new toy.
• Phil
  [Raak] I think I'm too out of touch to know what that is - I suspect some kind of computer though :) Have fun!
• Phil
  Oh, and may I be the first on this server to say "Happy Christmas Everybody!"
• rab
  Oh, and may I be the first on this server to say "Happy Chingmas Everybody!", now that the sound of sleigh bells has officially overtaken JC as the dominant Festive icon.
• Raak
  [Phil] 30" display, and a 4-core Mac Pro under the desk. It makes Second Life spectacular.
• Projoy
  [rab] There was me thinking it was the sound of tills!
• Phil
  [Projoy] You've hit the nail on the head. In two hours today four of us took x pounds. Our best ever Tuesday was Boxing Day last year, when we took 10% more (over 11 hours). Our 3rd best Tuesday was 44% less than roday's x. Merry Ker-chingmas to you all :-)
• nights
  Merry Christmas all. The parents bought me a shiny new laptop which I am VERY happy with, as the old one really was on its last legs. However, I've decided to donate the old one to Emmaüs, a charity around here that takes in old stuff, makes it new and gives it to people on low incomes. Rather in the spirit of the season, I thought.
• Chalky
  Good on yer, nights. I'm liking your work. A question: Do ageing laptops have 'legs' or even 'last legs'? Answers on a postcard please.
• Raak
  [Chalky] My laptop had legs, but they broke off.
• Chalky - laptop rookie
  [Raak] Really? Yousee - I've never actually owned one. In fact have only used a laptop twice - once at work when the desktop blew up and once at penelope's house when she and I posted in the Pilg Game in OMC to announce our return from RugbySuperPilg 2004.
• Rosie - Another laptop rookie
  Haven't got one. I've got a wireless, though, and you can get the Radio Luxemburg on it.
• penelope - back from the frozen nortth
  I drove from Dunkeld on the Tay back to Lincolnshire today, and saw SNOW in the Pentland Hills, and again on that bit south of Dunblane to just where the hills end at Gretna on the A74. And what's more, the lovely windy miller was bumped off his flight back to Amsterdam from Edinburgh airport this morning, but got a replacement ticket to fly back at tea time from Humberside airport instead. So I had his lovely company on the long drive home. He also got a 250 euro compensation, which was nice, especially as I was driving home past Humberside airport anyway.
  Argyll was lovely, but it ain't half bloody dark in the mornings. And stormy at nights too - the bedroom window looked out over the Atlantic, with Mull just off to the right.
• nights
  Thank goodness. The family have buggered off again back to the UK - I love them, but they're deeply irritating at times. Now to rub my hands in glee at the prospect of a New Year's Eve in Paris. Fireworks from the Eiffel Tower? Oh yes.
• Dujon - NYE pyrotechnics
  Oh, they are pretty and probably bring out the child within but, oh, what a waste of money. I understand that when in Sydney someone lights the blue touchpaper for the NYE bash it is the culmination of efforts expended at the expense of many sponsors. This is all well and good but, to be honest, I can't remember the name of any sponsor of any previous display. I don't think that the people involved were being philanthropic so plebeian level deduction tells me that they wasted their investment.
  I suspect that I'll come across as some sort of curmudgeon but I'm not like that really. While the money spent on these exercises of excess is probably small, imagine the difference a few million quid or dollars could make if that were invested in something like rescue services, paramedic equipment or, God forbid, even some sort of research into the whys and wherefores of everyday life. *folds up soapbox and leaves*
• Dujon
  Postscript: The leaves became caught up in the soapbox due to the amount of hot air generated by your correspondent.
• Phil
  [Dujon] "research into the whys and wherefores of everyday life"? Until that point, I was agreeing with you, but that sounds like a bigger waste of money than fireworks to my untrained ear.
• Dujon
  I did say "God forbid", Phil. ;(
• Dujon
  No. That makes me seem flippant. Surely, though, those who spend money on advancing their public profile (you like that? It's PR speak.) would be better off putting such funds into something that matters. We have a couple of helicopter rescue services in my neck of the woods; everyone knows the NRMA and Westpac choppers and appreciates them.
• Phil
  [Dujon] Yep, so many things do seem to be largely justified by accountants, rather than common sense, or a sense of "what's right If the sponsors of said pyrotechnics provided transport and viewing platforms for those with learning difficulties, say, rather than just paying some money to be associated with a fun event, I think their names and products/services would be better remembered.
  When I try to advance my public profile (honest, I do), I spend my money on an event, and organise it myself, and then try to get the advertising for free through media coverage. Even if the event only breaks even, the knock-on effects of repeat trade and wider awareness are worth the effort and expense.
• Dujon
  OK, Phil, you can put away the sarcasm. I admit that I did get a bit carried away and for that I apologise, though I do not resile from my original premiss.
  It's been 2008 for a few hours now so I shall wish you all the best for the new year. Peace?
• Phil
  Eeek, I wasn't being sarcastic.
• penelope
  I think those sort of events with forgotten sponsors are part of a much bigger picture - pride in a place, a sense of community, and a general drawing-together of efforts. And no matter how desperate the need for support for a helicopter ambulance service or a hospice, a proper sense of community precedes all. London, or Sydney, or Budapest, or Oban all need to be nice places for people to live in order for businesses and services to prosper there. I think a few fireworks on New Year's Eve are part of that process.
• CdM - Happy New Year!
  I've just done a couple of minutes of googling, so I don't know how accurate these numbers are, but it seems as if the order of magnitudes are that there were around one million spectators in Sydney, and that the fireworks cost about AUD600,000. I think it is a reasonable bet that those spectators would almost all have been willing to give up at least 60 cents for the pleasure of watching the display, and that the average willingness to pay would have been much much higher.* So it sounds to me as if it was actually a very good use of resources, and not a "waste of money" at all. (This is separate from the question of whether the corporate sponsors get a return on investment; I'm simply asking whether the firework display was a worthwhile use of resources, and if the numbers I saw are right -- or even off by a factor of 10 -- I think the answer is clearly yes.)
  
  * I'm using "willingness to pay" in a technical sense here: think of it as meaning that an individual is equally happy having $x and not seeing the fireworks, on not having $x and seeing the fireworks. Other boring economic discussion available on request.
• CdM
  also, what pen said.
• CdM
  also, s/order of magnitudes/orders of magnitude :-)
• CdM
  also (and even though I am multiposting, can I point out that this is apparently only because everyone else is too hungover to speak) I want to make it clear that my comments are not intended as criticism of Dujon or Phil. Dujon's comment, and I think Phil's as well, were only addressing the question of corporate sponsorship of public events. I did pick up a more general sense that they were questioning whether firework displays themselves were worthwhile, but that may be my misreading, because it is certainly not explicit in their comments.
• penelope
  I am *not* hungover, merely hard at work writing the first of three features this week. And sneaking a look at this year's holiday diary - I get a long weekend off in two weeks' time!
• Phil
  [CdM] Rest assured, I love public firework displays. My take on the matter was simply from a "what am I getting for my money" point of view for the sponsors. For example, I sponsor a football team, and the benefit for me is that they drink in my pub every Sunday afternoon (as well as when they present trophies, celebrate promotion etc). I more than get my money back from that. I presume an awful lot of corporate sponsorship results in so-called freebies, like a hotel room with champagne reception etc and a fantastic view of the fireworks.
• Dujon - Pretty much
  [CdM] Close, old chap. Like Phil, I enjoy the displays when I bother to watch them.
  I've been pondering on my original comment and am thinking that maybe I've got things wrong. Before I comment further though a little research is required.
• Dujon - I'm baaak
  From: smh
  
  "Peter Hawkins and Linton Besser
  December 31, 2007
  
  The city's $4 million New Year's Eve party on the harbour will not be hampered by bad weather this year, with mostly clear conditions forecast for the celebrations."
  
  The same source (possibly CdM's) quotes AUD 600,000 as the cost of the fireworks. I do wonder though if that costing includes the expense involved in siting the beasts, programming and installing the computerised control system and the eventual dismantling of same.
  
  If the quoted figure is correct (i.e. ignoring my comments) it means that the State (or city) expended 3.4 Million AUD in supporting the function. Media comments claim anywhere between 1 and 1.5 million people turned up in the city to watch the spectacle. In effect that's 1 in 3 of the whole population of Sydney. Yeah, right.
  
  I popped onto the official NYE celebration site ( sydney ) to check out who was who. Slide down to the bottom of the page. I wonder if any of those organisations are recompensed or are simply expected to turn up and factor the event into their annual budget?
  
  Right, I'm putting all this rubbish behind me and flying from Cootamundra to Bendigo. Tally-ho!
• CdM
  Well, even if you went with AUD4 million as the cost and 400,000 spectators, you would have a cost of AUD10 per person, which is less than the cost of a movie ticket. We have a lot of evidence that people were willing to spend a great deal of time getting somewhere to see the display, waiting for it to begin, and traveling home afterwards. Was it worth an additional AUD10 on top to those people? I'd still put my money on yes.
• rab - hny
  Hello and happy new year to all. Wandering around John Lewis's end-of-year "Clearance" (they're far to posh to have a sale) we notice they're offering a temporaray "special purchase" 300 quid reduction on a sofa we've been lusting after. The bastards.
• rab
  One difficulty, apart from the possibility of an unexpected major purchase, is that we're also thinking of getting a cat and it's not clear the two will be entirely compatible.
• penelope
  [rab] Better that the cat does damage to the £300-cheaper sofa than the full-price version, shurely? Get both. You know you want to.
• Simons Mith - Scratching decoys
  [rab] Are you already catty? If this is your first mog, the following anti-scratching tips may be useful: Cats are very discerning scratchers. They will start by destroying the most valuable soft furnishing in a room, then working their way through the remainder in descending order of value. You may be able to decoy them by the following options:
  one: a toy 'cat pyramid' - very popular with kittens, this is a cardboard pyramid covered in carpet, usually with a hole in the side so the cats can climb into it, and often with a ball on a string or something tied to the apex. This may (not guaranteed, natch) give a young cat hours of pleasure and become their preferred scratching station.
  two: a plain old scratching post. These can be quite luxurious, and may also act as a suitable distration.
  three: a really nice (small) real wool rug. If this feels nicer on the little cat's paws than the sofa, then there's a good chance they'll scratch that instead. Needs to be the softest, most luxurious rug you can find, of course. These are cats we're talking about here, after all.
  four: Declawing. Cruel. Please don't.
  five: Claw clipping. Generally just results in the cat making larger holes when it scratches rather than pinpricks, so probably pointless. six: Luck. Some fabrics tolerate scratching without any great visible effects. Once you have got them scratching somewhere acceptable, the battle is largely won, because that spot will become scent-marked and they'll tend to use it in preference to anywhere else. Mostly – so you'll still need to keep half an eye on them. But if they become accustomed to scratching somewhere you don't want, or if they don't have an official scratching location, you have to watch them constantly and it's a war of attrition that you will slowly lose.
• rab
  [Simulposted with Simons] Such is the contrary nature of felines that we know it will ignore all the IKEA furniture (of which there's lots) and scratch only the legs of the nice chair and (potentially) sofa. On the other hand, if it keeps the mice at bay I'm happy.

  We think we'll have to let him/her into the living room only when we're there, have nice moggy scratching posts in the back bedroom (both of our bedrooms are at the back, but the name has stuck...) and let himher out into the garden during the day where there are real trees and bushes and things. And water-pistol aversion therapy has been quite successful I'm told.

  We're not yet sure what kind of cat we'll be getting. We're currently researching the options. My preference would be for a toilet-trained kitten going spare from a loving home that we can teach social graces, rather than some rescued hell-cat with a dozen ASBOs to its name. The latter do have a talent for looking particularly cute in the adverts though...

  In other news, it's just started snowing in a Hollywood at Christmas kind of way.

• rab
  [Simons] Thanks for the advice btw.
• Simons Mith
  Ooh, don't count on the animal making a special trip to another room just 'cos it wants to sharpen its claws; remember, they're lazy as well as contrary. A sacrificial rug or toy cat pyramid in the living room is probably still a good idea.
• Kim - Saw this recently and thought it might amuse:
  The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will become the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other contender. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and, as a result, has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that will become known as "Euro-English". The 5-year plan will be implemented as follows:

  - In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konsiderable konfusion, and keyboards kan be manufactured with one less letter.
  - In the second year, growing publik enthusiasm will be anticipated, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
  - In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil sertainly agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and should be done away with.
  - By the 4th yer, people wil be mor reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
  - During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" resulting in a more sensibl riting styl.

  By ze end of ze fifz yer, zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis; evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand evrivun els and ze drem of a united Urop vil finali kum tru bekos ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas!

• nights
  Hello all, back from Paris with only a small hangover. Happy New Year 2008 to all and sundry - hope it's full of laughter, sunshine and cake.
• Dujon - being catty
  [rab] I suspect that it's the luck of the draw. I have two moggies and have attempted to get them to use two varieties of scratching devices. Neither of the cats took to either of them. One contraption was a pole (wrapped with rope) the other a flat, foldable, unit covered in a lighter grade of rope. Good luck.
• Chalky - going on a bit - as usual
  I have to confess - before I did the sprogging thing, I was a cat obsessive so can fully understand the 'desire to acquire' cat-like ness. All I can advise is .... whatever you wish them to do - they will graciously and very politely do the opposite ... and whatever direction you may want to send them [ with the best possible intentions] they will go the other way with a beguiling manner encompassing charm, purposefulness and intention, which sumply leaves you in a place whre you simply wouldn't even deign to complain. Adorable little hussies, each an every one of 'em.
• Chalky
  'sumply' is a fine word - but as you can proberBly guess, was a bit of a misstype.
• Rosie
  sumply - in the manner of a sump; L. sumpus, some cat.
• Phil
  Cats are shifty, evil, nasty pieces of work. No-one has ever had one as a pet. Millions of cats have had humans as servants, though.
• rab
  Well, I've never had much time for dogs - so there you go.

  I was wondering if one of the US Presidential Election experts (Projoy, CdM?) could explain if there's any reason why the Republicans and Democrats have their first nomination quasi-election thingy on the same day. Presumably there's nothing in the rules that says that candidates have to be nominated in anything like a similar way, let alone at the same time. Is it simply to try and prevent one party getting more press attention than another?

• Projoy
  [rab] You just made me google the answer to that, cos I didn't know, but according to this page, anyway, "there was a mutual decision in 1976 between the parties to hold the event [the Iowa caucuses] on the same day because they understood the need to make it a heightened media bonanza of sorts."
  
  There has been some change this year because the Republicans moved their caucuses in Iowa forward to 3 Jan. It was only after that decision was made that the Democrats decided (presumably for reasons of not handing momentum to the GOP race coverage) to move theirs forward also. The two parties do indeed use separate caucusing methods in Iowa (I think the Republicans do secret ballots, whereas Democrats tend to use the non-secret "go stand in the corner of the room relating to your candidate" solution. There has been quite a bit of shuffling this year of the primary calendar, mostly with different states jostling to put themselves earlier on in the process. I expect this drives up the cost for the candidates.
• Projoy
  +)
• penelope
  *eats curry at her desk and waits for someone to say something*
• rab - hmmm, curry
• Simons Mith
  Mmm, keyboards
• nights
  Mmm... absence.
• penelope - ramblings
  My brain was definitely on half-cock yesterday. Today, it seems to be on full-power again, with no discernable reason why.
  As an aside, it's mild and windy here today in Grantham. And instead of being the last person on my cul-de-sac road occupied by mostly pensioners to put my bins out onto the roadside this morning, I was the first. Hurrah!
• Sierra Mike - Bins
  [penelope] The last time I managed that it turned out that I was putting them out on the wrong day. Something about holidays and skip-days, I don't know. Everyone hated me because the bins got knocked over, either by their kids or by the backwash from a passing vehicle. Great neighbourhood. Not.
• nights
  Communal refuse collection for the building. It's magical.
• rab - In it to bin it
  [nights] Yes, we have that too, due to the sheer density of people living in the area (4 storey flats). The downside is that it means there are big wheely-skips on the streets, which don't do a huge amount to improve the look of the place. Preferable to bin bags being ripped apart by birds, though, which would be the alternative.
• penelope - shhhh!
• penelope - shhhhushes
  I was going to say, (before I whacked the wrong key) I'm really busy today...
• Rosie - Reynard
  (rab) You can't leave binbags out round here because the foxes just rip them apart leaving the rubbish scattered everywhere. I had thought of splashing a little white spirit around the inside hoping the smell would put them off but the foxes will probably evolve rapidly into actually needing the stuff to stay alive (cf. Warfarin, now a dietary essential for rats).
• nights
  Yes, but my bit of town looks like shit 93% of the time anyway, so it's not so much of a concern.
  
  On the way back from rehearsals this evening - well actually the pub after rehearsals - I was charmed by the man who got on the bus and was absolutely mystified that he had to buy a ticket. The driver and our interlocuter went back and forth on this one for about three stops, before the gentleman found the 1,30€ needed. And then got off. Marvellous.
• Phil
  [Rosie] So long as you don't use dogs, it's still perfectly legal to hunt and kill foxes.
• Rosie - Tally-ho
  (Phil) So it ought to be. I am the least likely huntsman, thinking it distasteful to set one animal against another but I was very much against the ban purely on libertarian grounds and after all it's only bloody foxes, which are pests. I find it staggering that some people in the suburbs actually leave food out for them, which is a bit like leaving food out for the dear little flies and wasps. I do feed the dickybirds but they are a Good Thing.
• Phil - Extinction
  [Rosie] The quantity of species that became extinct long before intelligent bipeds trod this earth is simply staggering. I think our impact is over-rated and, unless we don't believe in evolution, we should stop saving species that obviously don't have the necessary means to survive on their own. Also, I wholeheartedly agree with you on the matter of the naïve townsfolk who put food out for the most wiley of scavengers, so that the cute little feckers don't have to go and find food for themselves. I wouldn't mind getting rid of a few robins at the moment - either that or persuade them somehow to shut the hell up at night.
• Rosie - Thinking about birds
  (Phil) Robin problems? Bar them. Employ crows.
• Simons Mith - Robins calling
  They switched to singing at night because modern noise pollution is so bad during the day that they can't hear themselves chirrup. If you want to Do Something about that, you'll probably have to join the Black Ops Arm of the Noise Abatement Society.
• Sierra Mike - Puzzled about Rats & Warfarin
  I was aware that rats were growing immune to many poisons, but this is the first I've heard about them needing a blood thinner to survive. Which begs the question: If warfarin is now an essential dietary additive for healthy rats, why don't we simply stop giving it to them?
• Rosie
  (S M) I think the story is true though there's a possibility it may be a scientific urban myth. Without Warfarin the rats presumably will rapidly evolve back to what they were before the introduction of this substance although a number will perish in the process. Something more subtle is needed.
• Sierra Mike - Rats
  Dad always swore by a cricket bat during the bad old days.
• Uncle Korky
  I see idiots have dropped by (see elsewhere)...
• rab - Hmmm
  Not my day. A casual chat over coffee led me to realise that flights I was booked to take next week have been withdrawn. The service email got swamped by spam, and though they tried to call me, it turns out they did so on my old office number during the Christmas vacation. Ho hum. The original booking was perfect: nice leisurely departure, direct flight out to a meeting; meeting finishes, evening flight back, airport easily makable after the end of the meeting. Then I could go to a course I was enrolled on the next day. Now, the outward is early morning, involves a change at Birmingham. Then I had a choice of either leaving the meeting before the session in which I was scheduled to speak, or missing the course. I went for the latter in the end.

  And now these guys show up.

• nights
  I think I missed it.
• Sierra Mike - rab's Trip
  Well where's the fun in that? You are supposed to get the only available flight that puts you in the night before your event, a train ride away from wherever your meeting is to take place. Said train should break down, stranding you overnight somewhere with no accomodation so that you have to sleep on the (open-air) platform where you get molested by stray dogs and policemen. When you get to the meeting you should discover that your powerpoint slides have somehow been erased from your laptop, at which point your wireless connection should pack up. The return journey should see you travel by coach and hovercraft and deliver you into the arms of a UK customs official who is going through a bad patch in his or her personal life. You should return home after 15 hours of point-to-point commuting to discover your pipes burst approximately one hour after you departed.
  
  On the other hand, you are changing at Birmingham.
• rab
  Actually, crisis averted. Having rescheduled my course, I realised that a different airline could offer me direct flights at better times, and for a few quid less than my original ticket. So, back on the phone to get the original ticket refunded (which I must make sure actually happens), and less cost to the taxpayer.
• Sierra Mike - Flight
  [rab] All's well that ends well, then.
• Phil
  Not a criticism of anyone here, or anyone at all really, but I do wonder how many air/car/train/hovercraft(?)/coach miles of unnecessary travel to and from meetings are covered per annum. Also, how much money is spent on travel and accommodation that could be done much more cheaply with minimal discomfort to the person (who is, after all, getting paid to travel in many cases).
• ImnotJohn - Business Travel
  [Phil] As a fully paid-up member of the business tralling set I have had those thoughts occasionally, but, if you do it all the time then the level of comfort becomes a significant issue. You'd sleep in a capsule hotel for one night, but not 4 nights a week for 6 months.
  Also, speaking for myself and most of my colleagues, my traveling is almost exclusively outside normal office hours, so I dispute that I'm being paid to travel. I think there are a lot of myths around this area.
• ImnotJohn
  That's 'travelling set' of course.
• nights
  On the travel theme, how do people commute to and from work/university/knitting lessons?
• rab
  I personally dislike travelling, particularly on my own. Most of the meetings I go to involve a bunch of people getting together from all over to present talks to an audience. Although this can be done by videoconferencing, much of the most useful time is that spent discussing with individuals in ad-hoc discussions etc. I think that could well get lost without the physical presence. I get paid the same whether I stay put or go somewhere. Also, this all being paid by your (and my) taxes, means that we always have to go the cheapest, most unglamorous way possible.
• Rosie
  (INJ) You are being paid to travel, it presumably being a part of your job specification, unless you're self-employed. (nights) Car, once I'd got one (1965). Distances 2, 27, 10 and 6 miles.
• penelope
  [nights] Lots of jobs, several parts of the country involving several house moves. It goes thus: 1. Walked, then car 1.5 miles. 2. Ditto. 3. Car, 10 miles. 4. Car 1.5 miles. 5. Car, 17 miles. 6. Walked 600 yards. 7. Car, 20 miles. 8. Car 11 miles, then 2 miles (I moved). 9. Car 2 miles.
• rab
  Oh, [nights] Walk, 2 miles.
• Dujon - Shuffling along
  [nights] For many years around 50 miles - 80 Km - each way but these days a leisurely stroll of around 10 metres from the kitchen to workshop.
• Rosie
  (rab) What, even when it's chucking it down? (everybody) My niece and her hubby commute respectively to Cardiff and Swindon, from Chepstow. This is among the reasons that CO₂ emissions are high, and will carry on getting higher. Should I tell her? She claims to be Green-ish, after all. At least they don't fly.
• Chalky's - Carbon Footprint
  Currently - a quarter of a mile into the city centre. Takes about 6 minutes. *smug green face*
• Projoy
  When I was doing a proper job, then that would be a train every day. Now I'm freelance, it's that occasionally plus a lot of lying in bed, thinking.
• rab
  [Rosie] Well, I don't own a car. There is a bus, so when it's totally dreadful I might get a bus. But for the rest of the time, I have an umbrella.
• ImNotJohn - travel
  [Rosie] My job specification says I have to do 5 days of 7.5 hours each (as if!). My base location/normal place of work in tax terms is about 45 minutes away. I am currently working some 3.5 hours away from home, am still expected to do the same number of hours once at the client site and get no extra money. Where's the payment for travel in that?
• Chalky
  [INJ] Blimey. No wonder you go walkies whenever you have some time off.
• penelope
  I am currently juggling TV companies' and radio stations' requests for t'interviews. And then I'm off on hols to Holland tomorrow :oD
• flerdle
  My commute is even shorter than Dujon's: 6m from kitchen to office. Music lessons are reached by tram. Tram or train to the city, or bicycle are the other ways I usually get around.
• Phil
  [INJ] Do you get paid travel expenses? If not, I'd be having a word with my employer, if I were you. Also, are you really out of the house for 15 hours a day (presuming you take 30 minutes for lunch), 5 days a week? Also (Take 2), do you need to be at the client site for all of those hours/days?
• Phil
  My commute these days is a flight of stairs. In my last few jobs it's been: a flight of stairs; a flight of stairs; 27 miles each way by car; 30 miles each way (1 mile by car, the rest by train); 8 miles each way by bicycle; 20 mins walk; 17 mins walk; 25 mins walk etc.
• CdM
  For several years at one time in my life I had a 60-mile each way commute. Now it is 18 stairs.
• CdM
  (That's 18 stairs each way, mind you.)
• Phil
  [INJ] Please ignore the apparently aggressive style of my previous post to you (which was unintentional). In fact, just ignore the whole thing, as it seems rather silly now. I was NES (Not Entirely Sober) at the time of writing.
• Tuj - [oblig]
  [flerdle] Six miles from kitchen to office? How big is your house?
• flerdle - casa del tardis
  [Tuj] If I were to tell you, I'd have to kill you.
• nights
  I should contribute. Bus for ten minutes then tram for twenty, then feet for five. This is why strikes throw me so - I live out in the suburbs, and while it has its advantages - calm, nicer people, very few sirens - if I want a late night, or to go and see Mlle Nights on a whim, it's a touch difficult. I keep on having dark thoughts about buying a car...
• Phil
  [nights] I can understand going to work on a bus, going to work on a tram, but going to see Mlle Nights on a whim is new to me. ;-)
• Projoy - tired old yolk
  [Phil] I prefer to go to work on an egg.
• ImNotJohn
  [Phil] No bother: I didn't read the first message until after you'd posted the second. To clarify: I get travelling expenses, but not payment for time spent travelling. Also, given the distance, I don't commute, but stay away for the week (and, yes, I do get my hotel bills paid). However, the situation in the past, and with many of my colleagues now is that a couple of hours travelling time is regarded as normal and is unpaid.
  Do I need to be at the client site all that time? NO! Does the client agree? NO!
• rab - Vin de pays d'expenses
  Regarding payment - one certainly doesn't get paid extra to get up at 4 or 5 in the morning to sit in an airport for three hours.
• Phil
  [rab] Hmmmm....if it's required by your job, and you're not on an hourly rate, then yes you do get paid to do that, but not paid extra. Or perhaps, if your job didn't require you to do that, you wouldn't get paid so much? I'm just arguing for the sake of it really, so don't take any of this to heart :-)
• nights
  [Phil] Oh you must try it. But I'd rather you visited someone else's girlfriend...
• Ella
  Hello everyone,so lovely to see you're all still here. Last posted a couple of years ago, (then got new job, husband and baby, just about remembering who I am again). Have just had first glass of wine in about 18 months, so apologise now for the possible poor standard of postings!
• penelope
  [Ella] Congrats! And welcome back! I haven't noticed anything untoward yet.
• Ella
  [Penelope] Thank you! And on the horrendous errors front; there's still time :)
• CdM
  [Ella] What pen said!
• Chalky
  Ella! How nice to have you back with us :-)
• Chalky
  [and Ella] Please come and join my Animal Vegetable Mineral Abstracty thingy - it seems to be taking a bit of time....
• rab - *waves from Paris*
  [Ella] Nice to see you again.
• Juxtapose
  Good news: just received my first official rejection letter from a major U.S. periodical. I feel like a real writer now. =)
• penelope
  [J] congratulations!
• nights
  Yawn. Another quiet night.
• Tuj - [nights]

  WAKE UP!

• penelope - shhhhhhhhhhhh!
• penelope
  I am surprised by the intensity of my loathing of Gillian McKeith tonight on telly. She is the most tasteless, boorish and annoying silly moo.
• Dujon - Then why did you persist?
  I am quite sure that I have missed some entertaining programmes over the years but, these days, I do tend to pick and choose what I watch (as opposed to sitting in front of the damned thing 'flicking around').
• Chalky - Gillian 'not a real doctor' McKeith
  [pen] it was my turn to buy the Sunday newspaper for our usual afternoon crossword get-together in the pub - we generally do the Mail on Sunday general knowledge one because it's quite challenging and good for sharing. Anyway - on the front page was THAT woman who had already stated that "every woman hates their bum" - [er, actually, NO - not true - I quite like mine]. So she's now promoting the Great British Bum Diet. Needless to say I refused to buy the paper and we had to do the Times crossword instead.
• Rosie - Love your bum
  (Chalky, pen) Ignore it; it's actually an elbow diet.
• flerdle - un-elbow-like bum
  I prefer the advice from here: The Health Institute for Nutrition
• Sierra Mike
  [Chalky] Do I detect the presence of a "Millenium Project" reader?
• nights
  Ouch, me eardrums. Not even been to a gig.
• Chalky - Millenium Project & Eardrums
  [Sierra Mike] You mean her?
  [nights] Wassup chuck?
• Sierra Mike
  [Chalky] No, you. The author of the MP website used the "Not a Real Doctor" middle name for quacks too. The congruence was striking.
• Chalky
  [Sierra Mike] Aaaah. Now I see :-)
• rab - Tom & Jerry
  Having been accosted by a mouse whilst wiping down the stove on Saturday night - silly thing was hiding behind the recycling and would have gone unnoticed had it not decided to dive for the cover of its bolt hole whilst I was still in the kitchen - we set a trap baited with a peanut butter/Waitrose Biscuit for Cheese canapé. Amazingly the stupid thing didn't notice the suspicious enclosure and ^#1 has been dispatched. Presumably there will be more. In the fullness of time we still intend to exercise the nuclear option (Codename: Tiddles) but are still building up the necessary kit and looking for someone who'll supply us the goods.
• penelope - little blighters
  [rab] Bait. That's the only way to do it. I had an infestation in my flat (which was a conversion of 'the poor house' - ie the workhouse into six flats) and I caught 11 or 12 in traps, then got fed up of the traps going off while I was relaxing and watching telly. So I called in the council who put down bait everywhere in the building and we got rid of the whole lot. If you have them, the other flats will have them too - am I right in thinking you have a flat in a fairly old building?
• Simons Mith - Bait
  Um, if they take the bait and then die somewhere inaccessible you'll have to put up with the smell while they decay. If you can't cover everywhere they might be, and/or can't access the places where the blighters might go to die, I'd stick with putting traps in the areas you can access and view it as a long-term war of attrition until Project Tiddles comes online.

  Best approach depends on your house design. How well-ventilated it is and such. Bait worked badly for us (at my orkplace) because the mice died in inaccessible places and smelt. Plainly pen didn't get that problem, but we did.

  Neither poison nor traps will ever get them all, of course; making sure they can't get to any of your food is the most reliable way to make them lose interest.

• rab - Squeak
  Well, just about everyone in Edinburgh has mice. The majority of the buildings are 3 or 4 storey tenement flats constructed around 1900. Chances are the blighters moved in during building and have been endemic ever since. I'm also sure they can get between buildings if they try hard enough so if you were going for the total obliteration approach, as pen suggests, it might not be enough to restrict it to just one block.

  I work on the principle that since they have access to a range of habitats we need to make ours as inhospitable as possible. Unfortunately, the age of the joinery is such that there's gaps and holes everywhere so getting these all mouse-proofed would probably cost more than moving to somewhere that's in a better state from this point of view. On the plus side, the number of poos I've found has been pretty small, which is suggestive we're not getting more than a few visitors. But if we catch more than four or five it'll probably be time to have a chat to the council to see if they have any wholesale slaughter solutions.

• penelope - Bluebottle season
  I dealt with my infestation during spring. The smell lasted about a week, after which I got two hatches of bluebottles every day for a week or so. I used elementary biology to interpret what had happened to the cadavers.
• Sierra Mike - Mice
  I got infested once (well, my garage then basement then house did). I tried humane traps to no avail (They came back faster than I could transport them to another place). I tried spring traps to no avail (they proved expert at getting the bait without suffering a crushed skull). Then I reluctantly put down glue traps (which require one to figure out a humane way of ending it for the trrapped animal). When I caught and euthanised my eleventh or twelfth mouse I gave up and called in the pros, who put down some sort of poison with the singular property of making the doomed mouse very thirsty. I was advised to check the bath before showering each morning. That did the trick eventually. I imagine they died in the crawl spaces, but I didn't notice any smell. Perhaps the corpses mummified and now await discovery (whereupon they will doubtless put a curse on their discoverer). I don't think I'd waste time with traps if it happened again.
• rab
  [SM] That sounds very similar to the situation at my old flat; I tried traps and poisons, none of which worked. But then Dave came round and dispensed the hard stuff, and never a squeak after. But that was a modern flat, and filling the holes with expanding foam was straightforward. After our first visitation we called Dave in straight away, and it took him three attempts to get rid of the first batch; and expressed doubts that given the way the plumbing had been done in the kitchen that he could offer anything like a permanent solution.
• rab
  SM being Sierra Mike, rather than Simons Mith, in that instance.
• Dan
  I caught one of the little dears in a humane trap some weeks back, also using peanut butter. He died in it anyway, for reasons that aren't clear to me. He was only trapped overnight, perhaps six-eight hours, so it presumably wasn't hunger or thirst. A broken spirit, perhaps?
• penelope
  [Dan] peanut allergy?
• Phil - Mice
  I've dealt with mice in two properties - each time by setting half a dozen traps at a time, baited with cheese. On each occasion they'd given up visiting within a week, and a dozen or so deaths. Perhaps the smell of mouse death lingers in the air?
  One bit of information I was given at the time was useful - a mouse can get through a hole the width of a pencil.
• blamelewis - Of Mice and McKeith
  Clearly the solution is to stop jabbing those pencils into the walls. Or at least stop pulling them out afterwards. A pencil blimey. I bet those mice don't hate their bums... [Chalky] Maybe she meant that every woman hates her bum? I say why stop there, obnoxious pseudoscientist that she is...
• Chalky
  [Phil] I couldn't resist it. Google reveals 65,500 Results for 'Can a mouse squeeze through a hole the width of a pencil?'. (0.44 seconds) Amazing stuff.
• Raak
  [Chalky] It's worse than that!
  Clicky
• Sierra Mike
  [Dan] Murderer! You done for that animal with your inhumane "cholesterol trap". :)
• rab
  Well, ^#2 has yet to be caught. I can't believe for one minute there was only ever one of them, so either this one's cleverer or less intrepid. Let's keep on the lookout for those poos.
• Chalky
  [Raak] eeek! For a real treat why not try our Speciality Cappuccino flavoured with rodentessence and topped with bright pink froth. Chocolate sprinkles [mouse droppings] optional
• nights
  [Chalky] I only just spotted your reply to my eardrums complaint and can't for the life of me remember what the problem was.
  
  Hello, Middle Age.
• Chalky
  [nights] Never mind. Middle Age comes to us all - but I must admit - it's really bloody annoying most of the time.
• CdM
  As some wise person said, growing old sucks, but it is better than the alternative.
• nights
  Both good points. However I feel especially aggrieved about what this all means for me, as I'm not yet 25.
• nights
  *ducks flying objects which always seem to materialise every time nights' age is mentioned*
• rab
  I was interviewed by Jim Naughtie on the Today programme this morning. It was absolutely terrifying. It was at 6.52 in the morning, when all sensible people would have been asleep. I think I was too.
• rab
  Oh, and ^#2 has crawled out of the woodwork. A small thing, very actively tried to escape the (humane) trap.
• Raak
  [rab] I just checked it out on Listen Again. The item on New Zealand accents? So, how does a physicist get involved with that? Do I sense the words "spin glass" in the background?
• penelope - RabRadio
  ooh, I must have a listen. All I do is set up these interview thingies... just trying to track down a rogue woodlander right now for one of the regional BBC stations who wants to talk to 'someone'. And firing off feature ideas to BBC programmes...
• Graham III - Early starts
  I've often marvelled at the coherency of interviewees on the Today programme, or (particular) Five Live's Wake up to Money, which is at 5.30am. Rather them than me...
• rab
  [Raak] Yes. That's the one. Involvement via knowing a suitably numerate (or semi-numerate) linguist. No spin glasses as such, though voter models are relevant.
• nights - Rising at the crack of Dawn
  I get up at 6 on the days I have to be teaching at 8. And those days are rubbish, except when I can watch the sunrise from the tram. That's rather nice. On the other hand, that department is on holiday from next week, so I get a week of lie ins until the following week, which is my department's holiday. Wheee!
• CdM
  Huzzah for our beloved leader!
• penelope
  [rab] as a matter of (professional) interest, how do you alert the media to an interesting academic study? Was it published somewhere?
• rab
  [pen] Traditionally, you would have a big-bang type discovery published in Nature or something like that, and their press team would do the business.

  This case is a bit of an oddity - the work's been going on for years and has been presented in various forms at conferences, referred to in somewhat specialist publications and so on. Our press office got wind of it, I explained the situation, and it was generally felt that cos we were submitting a paper (which could take a couple of years to complete the review/publication process) and presenting it at the same time at the main linguistics conference in the US, it was reasonable to put out a press release. I was expecting it to go unnoticed, but was picked up by Radio New Zealand, the New Zealand Herald (front page), the Telegraph, the Glasgow Herald (page 5, above the fold), BBC Radio Scotland, Today, BBC Radio Wales and the World Service. I'm shattered, and generally want now to crawl under a stone.

• penelope
  [rab] Noooo! You were great. I guess it must be difficult to explain mathematical modelling to laymen, and for a presenter to pick up the gist of a study involving lots of people over several years and squeeze the right questions into a five-minute interview. I guess you're dealing with a lot of variables, but you summed it up pretty well. If I do my job properly, I get to put a lot of Woodland Trust people on the radio, and usually guide the presenter into asking the right questions: "You might like to ask why XXX happens, and what it means in the long term" etc. I didn't realise universities had press offices and the fact that it got picked up by so many publications means yours wrote a good press release and sent it out to the right media, with a view to possibly attracting the interest of potential funders...
• rab
  [pen] The press officer I spoke to - for about an hour - is an ex-journalist, so he distilled it into a newsy-sounding story. (The version on the BBC website is basically the release verbatim). The presenters' briefs/scripts seemed to be cobbled together through informal chats with researchers/producers a few hours ahead of broadcast. 'Twould have been nice to have seen a copy myself beforehand, but I guess you can't have everything.
• rab
  You're right about funding though. Probably the most useful thing about all this is that I can stick it all in the case for support to demonstrate interest beyond stuffy academia.
• flerdle - yay rab!
  [rab] Cool interview and work - well done, and well explained. New Zealand is nice and small, making it a lot easier to study than its behemoth of a neighbour, even though exactly the same process happened in Australia (albeit some half a century earlier) and it's been developing in interesting ways ever since. I'd be interested in the publications to date, if you've got a list somewhere. I have an interesting documentary about the australian accent, too, if you're interested.
• rab
  [flerdle] So that Google doesn't link my uni page to this one, perhaps I should suggest you type my name into the venerable search engine, click the first link (at least, the first link in our part of the world), and towards the bottom of the page you can find a link to the relevant preprint. I heartily recommend the books by Gordon and Trudgill if you really want to get into the details of the empirical data, as opposed to our modelling.
• nights
  Trudgill rings a very faint bell. But well done you - I enjoyed the interview.
• flerdle
  [nights] He is one of the more notable names in dialect research, especially in the UK; it would be hard not to have heard of him at some stage if you've looked into this field much.
  [rab] Thanks very much.
• nights
  Ah yes. I did a study of dialect changes amongst adolescents for A Level English Language. It was good fun. Got an A and everything.
• Tuj
  Ah, A-level English Language. How long ago it seems now ;)
• penelope
  A level English Language didn't exist when I were a lad. I had to make do with English Literature, and I failed that. So now I don't read much. But I do write for a living. :oD
• Sierra Mike - Pass the flat cap
  English Language "A" levels? Comes from having so many furriners in t'country. When I were a lad, everyone just knew 'ow t'speak proper English wiyout paper t'prove it.
• nights
  [SM] Ah, but at the time it was the perfect complement to A Levels in French and German, enabling me to have a thorough understanding of my own language before I grapple with others. Don't quite know where I went wrong...
• Rosie
  (nights) You need Latin. Only with that can one get to grips with the meaning of such terms as fellatio and cunnlingus and begin to enjoy life to the full. You know it makes sense!
• Rosie - Mea culpa
  Spot the typo.
• rab - Rubble and squeak
  Was woken at 1am by the most almighty scratching and clattering noise from behind the skirting board in the bedroom. I had to decamp to the spare room to get away from it. Dave, our friendly neighbourhood pest controller (who will probably be able to retire on our flat), thinks he's worked out what's going on. Next door is having its bathroom renovated, which has probably disturbed a habitat, so they've decided to move in to ours. What we're hearing is probably the removals. The bait has been lain!

  Apparently we did a good job of flushing out the ones in the kitchen with our trap - three in the end, and none for nearly a week. Removing the panel under the units, Dave remarked "Missed one" and picked up a cardboard mouse by its tail. At least the source of the slightly musty smell has now been explained.

• CdM
  [rab] Have you been making up all these rodent stories these past weeks, just as an extended set-up for the title of that last post?
• nights
  Our entire building smells of roasting meat. Great, now I'm hungry.
• rab
  [CdM] I wish. We plucked up courage to return to our bedroom last night, and it seemed to be a clatter-free experience. Looks like Dave was bang on the money.

  It was quite odd - I said: "my wife saw running feet behind the skirting board there", pointing to a wall in the bedroom. Dave immediately went into the bathroom and fumbled around the pipework. I'm sure this guy must have been a mouse in a previous existence...

• Sierra Mike - Finbar Saunders
  [rab] Why don't you just ask this "Dave" why, when you mention mice behind your skirting board, his first instinct is to fondle your pipe.
• robbin29605@hotmail.com - robbin29605
  1234567__765432129605
• Chalky - pope findling
  [Sierra Mike] Your last three words may have triggered the imagination of the following poster :-0
• Tuj
  It's a bit of a shame our main influx of new players these days only play one move and then vanish into the ether again. I mean, where's the stamina?
• blamelewis - One hit wonders
  Orange MC has had a fair flurry of spamtastic attacks recently too, for those of you who are mornogamous.
• Dujon - Followers
  [Tuj] It appears that Chalky is on to you, old chap.
• Tuj
  [Duj] I'm trying to figure out what you mean, and I just can't. Have I missed something?
• Chalky
  [Tuj] Duj will explain ;-)
  [Duj] You know me too well ;-)
  In other news - it's my birthday today. All being well - hope to have landed safely in Dublin by 9.20 am. Hope the stalled AVMA has been solved by the time I return later in the week.
• Tuj
  [Duj/Chalky] *remains confused*!
  [just Chalky] I'm pleased to be the first here to wish you a very happy birthday, and enjoy the Emerald Isle =) I may have to take up the AVMA gauntlet for you, but I'm not that good at it...
• Dujon - Stalking
  [Tuj] No harm meant, sir. It is merely my interpretation of Chalky's "the following poster".
  Happy birthday, Chalks, a witch with prescience though you be. ;-) I am advised that Dublin is a fair city and worth a visit whether a birthday treat or not. I hope that you find it so.
• Tuj - Ah, following not preceding, I see
  [Duj] Gosh, I'm easily confused, aren't I!
• Chalky - *waves from Dublin*
• Irouléguy
  Chalky] Happy birthday - have a glass of the black stuff for me!
• Tuj - Parslow puts York on road to Wembley
  - Times headline from the football section today. Will there one day be a Wembley MC server then?
• penelope
  Shhhh! We're applying for Lottery funding and everything
• Phil - Glad I was awake at the time....
  [penelope] Next time your miller gets in at 00:58am, ask him not to drop his super-sturdy clogs quite so heavily :-)
• penelope
  [Phil] Right ;-)
  Actually, the epicentre was under a village much closer to my mother's house, in Ludford on the Lincolnshire Wolds. It woke me up, though - everything on the dressing table rattled, and I thought someone was at the foot of the bed, shaking it. I think I might have dreamed it was the Dutch miller trying to remove his clogs...
• rab - Upgrade
  Just upgraded the server... this site at least still seems to work.
• penelope - *looks around*
  [rab] Oooh, nice :o)
• Phil
  [pen] I was sitting at my computer at the time, conversing with an Australian when it happened - it was rather startling with the doors and windows banging and rattling. In fact, it was hard to tell when it stopped...i couldn't tell if it was me or the earth shaking :-)
• rab
  Hello there - I'm going to do a little upgrade, so I'll turn posting off for a short while. Hopefully not longer than 10-15 minutes.
• rab - Done
  Seems to have worked.

  p> It doesn\'t mean you can do anything you couldn\'t do before, incidentally...

• rab
  Oh bollocks.
• rab - I'm sorry I'll read that again
  Seems to have worked.

  It doesn't mean you can do anything you couldn't do before, incidentally...

• rab
  But if you do notice any oddities be sure to let me know. (View the source to read the hidden text)
• penelope
  The whole of the internet and computerkind is against me today. It has just taken me four hours to make a media outlets search. The process should take about 20 minutes. Hmmph.
• Raak - Oddity
  [rab] On posting to the Limericks game, the move was posted ok, but this appeared at the top of the page:

  array(3) { [0]=> string(3) "" [1]=> string(39) "Wore clogs that war werkelijk te groote" [2]=> string(4) "" } Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /var/www/rab.org.uk/server/STEAM/HtmlRewrite.php:376) in /var/www/rab.org.uk/server/Rou.php on line 122

  And something similar again on posting this.
• Bigsmith
  Just done the same to me in Limericks. Perhaps it likes not the Dutch?
• Bigsmith
  And here, so not the Dutch.
• rab
  [Raak] Oh dear...
• rab - Wherps
  Left in the debugging information...
• penelope
  A pox on Barclays and its unco-operative PinSentry system.
• Graham III
  [pen] Hmm yes, it can be frustrating that. Mostly works fine for me, but I don't really want to carry that gizmo between work and home ever day in case I need to do some banking. Still, work is forcing me to ditch Barclays so I won't have to deal with it soon.
• rab
  Is this some kind of card-reader thing? RBS introduced one of those and it's one of the reasons why I'm switching to the Halifux. (That and I get to spend my wife's shoe fund on beer).
• Bigsmith - Card-reader thing?
  Natwest sent me one of these sometime last year. I am an active on-line banking user, but have never needed to use the thing once. Don't even remember where I put it.
• Sierra Mike - php and your trade secrets
  [rab] You drive this site with php? Do you use a framework of any kind or have you done the whole thing from scratch? I'm also impressed with the clever "hide" widget-thing. Presumably done with javascipt? The reformatting on display and hide is very clean on my browser. It must have taken some work to prevent it to screwing up the markup when it opens up. Do you pull it off with clever CSS trickery? Sorry to sound like a kid after consuming a large coke and 99. This stuff is like sweets to me sometimes.
• Graham III - Cardies
  [rab] yes - it's a security measure that ensure that you are the right person to access the account as you need the card, its PIN, the gizmo, and the log-in details to get in to the account or set up a new payment. Not a bad idea all in all, but a bit of a pain sometimes.
• rab
  [SM] As it said at one time on the front page, this site is powered by STEAM which is a few php scripts I threw together over a few wet Sunday afternoons to handle the stuff. It's all basically straightforward stuff, apart from the hide widget which is done by Javascript. The hardest part of that was to get it looking sensible for people who don't have Javascript enabled. Not much CSS trickery - although even then the old version of IE made a pig's ear of it.

  [GIII] Whereas I think it's completely over the top. They already ask me for some user name that I can't remember, random characters from a password and a secret code. The card-reading gizmo has removed the one thing that made online banking useful - the fact you could access it anytime, anywhere. (Very handy when you're travelling).

• Graham III
  [rab] Barclays at least has removed the requirement to remember passwords and secret codes. I'm inclined to agree with you however on the travelling point.
• rab
  [GIII] Ah ok - RBS ask you to scan your card in addition to all the other stuff when you want to do something like, oh, pay some money into an account you hold elsewhere. The not-having-to-remember-your-password thing seems pretty sensible; in fact, the worst thing about one of my online accounts is that the password is easy for me to remember (since I chose it) but the username is some 8-digit number I'll never be able to commit to memory.
• rab - Meow
  Project tiddles has been installed. The instructions said that she would hide behind a sofa, not want to talk to us nor touch her food. She's generally wanting to be where we are and is wolfing down her food. Katharine's just introducing her to the sofa... let's see how it goes.
• rab
  Ah no, false alarm - just the coat cupboard. It was a bit of a harrowing trip bring her home. We were going to get a taxi, but with the Scotland-England rugby in Murrayfield all taxis were booked up for three hours! So she had to endure the number 16 bus. She did very well...
• penelope
  [rab] Don't expect to have exclusive use of the sofa now.
• rab - Name that cat!
  Right - the name that came with our cat is, I'm ashamed to say, Cuddles. We're trying to think of something more appropriate but whilst we can think of lots of great names for a male (Armitage, Jeremy, Theodore, Pooch) we're a bit stuck for a girl. Pictures here.
• Dujon - U2
  Don't be too embarrassed, rab, we too have had a recent arrival; it's allocated name was 'Bananas'. When the lass at the vet's advised of such I blinked and said something along the lines of "Ey? Do you run through the dictionary, one letter at a time, to pick out names for these poor homeless creatures?" She laughed and said, "Yes, that's exactly what we do". An image of 'ours' will be found here.
  As far as naming goes, it's hard. Given the sly eyes of your new master, the fact that she is indeed a she and looks like she'd eat anything put before her on a platter, might I suggest Salome.
• Dujon - Lousy link, sorry
  Try here.
• Chalky - Today we have naming of cats
  [rab] Pandora - the all-gifted
• Phil - cat-naming
  With those eyes, and those teeth, I'd go for Bowie.
• penelope
  Marilyn. Manson or Monroe, you chose.
• penelope - choose...
• rab
  She's quite cute and cuddly really! Anyway, we got through the first night ok - she better than me. I need to learn to delegate the duty of listening out for strange sounds in the middle of the night to her, since she's much better at it than I am. She seems to be bonding better with Katharine than me, and I think both of us together is a bit much for her at the moment.

  As far as names go, we've toyed with Beatrice and Felicity but are still open to suggestions.

• rab
  Oh, and she did a big poo in the litter tray overnight, so I would say she's starting to feel at home...
• Rosie
  (rab) A friend has two female cats called Ermintrude and Florence, or "the E-cat" and the "F-cat" respectively. My cousin had a cat called Katya. What about Llewela? Mine have always been "Puss" or "Pussy-cat" and I suspect the next one will be, too.
• Tuj
  Janet's a good name for a cat.
• Chalky - South Wiltshire Weather
  I been out. Driving. There be plenty of water and debris on roads after 'first wave' of storms. Hatches are now battened down in preparation for 'second wave' later this mornin'.
• Phil - Weather?
  Yeah, it's a little breezy, but the sun is shining - good old boring Leicester :-)
• flerdle
  The clouds in those satellite images (BBC) are an interesting curled shape. I am not surprised that it is a little blowy.

  It was 37°C here today at 3:30pm, then down to 23 two hours later. This seems to be a regular pattern, and I think I'm getting the hang of it. Step 1: stay indoors...

• Rosie
  (flerdle) Is that a sea breeze cooling it off a bit? Bit of a breeze here, too, 35 mph at least. Heavy rain all morning, a peculiarly featureless and leaden sky, thunder and lightning (not in that order) at ten to two and a bit of small hail. Temperature 6°C. Pressure 962 and still going down slowly.
• Stevie - Kitten
  Sorry rab, couldn't resist the temptation.
• flerdle
  [Rosie] No, cold front coming through. They sail along the southern Indian Ocean from west to east and flick us with their tails. Animation here
• Raak
  Do any musicians here know any whiz ManuScript programmers (the language for writing plugins for Sibelius (the music notation publishing software))? A friend of a relation is working on a project that is getting rather large for one person to manage and is looking for extra grey cells to draw on. Knowledge of Braille music notation an advantage! I'm not sure how commercial or otherwise it's likely to be.
• Raak - 24 hours later...
  I guess not, then.
• Graham III - Sibelius
  Er, not off the top of my head, but the Sibelius website technical pages are full of people with a lot of experience and knowledge. A post to the forums there might yield a response.
• I Say, Porter! - Cats
  The old tradition was to call it 'Trex'. Something to do with Speverend Rooner and looking for the cooking fat... In half the photos it looks like a British Blue. My friend has one called Sybil (Basil died,sadly). What about "Trillian"?
• rab
  Yes, she's a mog but the rescue centre said she had "some British Blue" in her. Reading descriptions on the web she seems to fit them very well!

  We seem to have settled on "Felicity", or "Flisstycat" for short - but we're not sure if she'll get use to it. If she won't shed Cuddles, we might have to make her "Professor Cuddles"...

• Phil
  I think I'm going to be sick :)
• Software
  My poor old rescued cat is not well, possibly the big C.
• penelope - do not disturb
  I've got a feature to write today. And a press release. Shhhh.
• nfras
  [flerdle] Are you in Melbourne at the moment? I have the school fete this afternoon and it looks like we'll have close to 40° for it. We may only stay for a short while. Adelaide has had 11 straight days of 35°C plus. This looks like it'll be 12 in a row. Poor buggers.
• flerdle - That's Adelaide for you...
  [nfras] nah, I cunningly went north yesterday, so I'm hoping it will be back to "normal" (hah!) by the time I return next week. Hope you survive the fete - stay out of the sun!
• Juxtapose - How adorable
  I thought it might interest you - a cute little game of MC broke out today on Fark.com. The link.
• Raak
  [Juxtapose] Brilliant!
• penelope
  I'm giggling at players in Each Move Must Consist of Precisely Eight Words who are currently attempting to pick up the game and move it along...
• I Say, Porter! - Softers' Cat
  [Softers] Oh shit. How old is the cat?
• penelope - Were you waiting for me?
  Has no-one said anything over Easter? I've been away for five days travelling beyond these horizons, climbed more stairs and ladders in more windmills, and become frozen in the process than I care to admit (oh, all right then - three. Two corn mills and a polder (drainage) mill), seen Zuid-Holland covered in snow and had the plane de-iced before taking off to come home, and still you lot are keeping quiet. What's going on?
• Tuj - *spots the ostrich*
  [pen] OK, we're back. What?
• Sierra Mike
  [penelope] Your elipsis (four moves back) left us thinking you'd simply popped out to take the kettle off the stove. Everyone was afraid of interrupting you and looking rude.
• penelope
  [SM] oops. And I thought we were all quiet waiting for more news of Softer's cat...
• Rosie
  I hope it stands a better chance than Schrödinger's.
• ImNotJohn
  *peeks*. Why? It looks fine to me.
• Heisenberg
  [ImNotJohn] I'm not so sure.
• Dan
  Belatedly testing that I can actually post via proxy. Don't mind me. Sorry, was that your foot?
• rab
  That's quite funky, though going a bit around the houses...
• rab - Welcome to BST!
• Tuj - *busts out some BST disco moves*
• penelope - yikes
  I've never seen anything like it!
• Bigsmith - Melbourne temperatures
  [flerdle and nfras] Sorry to be slow on the uptake - I have only just returned from my travels afar to catch up with the Morniverse. I was in Melbourne myself at the time of your postings, for the Grand Prix. I thought the Friday (the day of the school fete) and the following Monday were the hottest, both nudging forty degrees C. Mind you I'm not complaining, back in Bristol and freezing my proverbials!
• Knobbly - Limericks game
  I just thought I'd mention; assuming we want the actual Polish pronunciation of £ódŸ (something approaching "wooj"), as a Southerner with Hertfordshire vowels I have all but been locked out of that limerick.
• Knobbly
  Goodness me... I typed Lodz with a bar on the L and an accent on the z and it went all funny.
• Raak - woodgy limerick
  Well, I've just taken the only rhyme I can think of for "woodge".
• Tuj
  If you're struggling, some people like to pronounce my name to rhyme with that. I don't, but then I'm a Southerner too.
• CdM
  Nah, we've just got to work it around to the winter olympics in lines three and four.
• Rosie - Lodz of trouble
  Yes, sorry about that, folks. Too late I realised it would be confined to them as resides north o't' 53rd parallel, except for an Underground station, rather awkwardly. There could be a reference to ursine defaecators, stretching a point.
• flerdle - lodz of wind
  [Bigsmith] Be glad you're not here now
• Bigsmith - Wind
  [flerdle]Crikey. I visited Mornington briefly on a trip down the peninsula to Arthur's Seat and Cape Schanck. Beautiful part of the world (I was staying with friends in Cheltenham just off Nepean Highway).
• nights
  OK, so I'm finished stage managing the amateur production and nearly back to normal. I had no Easter to speak of, having spent all of Easter Sunday and Monday saying "No, you don't have time to go out for a smoke". How is everyone then?
• penelope - great,thanks
  Just reaching the slump of the year, when the excitement of new year is over, and warmer weather isn't arriving as fast as I'd like. And the clocks changing forward to BST have done me in... I overselpt this morning :o)
• CdM
  Has anything been heard from Chalky since she called in sick on the AVMA?
• CdM
  Also, [flerdle], I'm glad we missed that...
• Rosie
  (flerdle) I see that the train passengers were "forced to evacuate". I think in those circumstances I'd have shit myself without asking.
• flerdle - All out!
  [penelope] We still have daylight saving until this weekend, which is stupid because it's so dark in the mornings that the lights go on...

  [CdM, Rosie] Indeed.

  It was remarkably warm throughout the day, but the light was very strange. I only went out (to the city: frogstar's birthday) when it was mostly over. There are some more details here and some good pictures of the effects of the storm in the photo galleries. I particularly like one of two surfers with a boat in the background. It was all over by evening (apart from the transport disruption, which wasn't too bad in my direction). It's pretty quiet now, but who knows what will happen in 10 minutes.

• Néa
  [flerdle] eep.
• Chalky
  [CdM] Yay. Functioning normally again. Thanks for the thought.
• CdM
  [Chalky] Yay! I was getting seriously concerned about you. I figured you had to be very ill to be staying away from here. :-)
• Tuj
  ...whereas others would express the view one would have to be rather sick to hang around here in the first place...
• Rosie
  (Tuj) After looking at uk.sci.weather I come here for intelligence, sanity and humour. Although mostly amateurs they tend to talk about "severe rainfall events" and put their back-garden weather observations into one of the various meterological codes. Thus we see "SHRAGS", which means a shower of rain and hail. It's going to get a lot colder over the weekend so you'd better watch out for them shrags.
• Raak - Shrags
  They sound more like giant hairy beasties that crawl through the countryside at night and pretend to be overgrown boulders by day.
• penelope - meteorological mayhem
  Bloomin' heck. I've got my first free weekend at home for about 6 weeks, and I really should cut the grass - mine is the scruffiest on the entire street at the moment. I was going to do it this weekend. But I'm not doing it if it's snowing.
  And in other news, I've joined an organic veg box scheme, and have been very impressed with the contents... except the two heads of swiss chard. Any ideas as to what to do with them?
• Irouléguy
  pen] Two heads are better than one, surely?
• Chalky
  [CdM] and [Rosie, Iroulé from AVMA] Gastric flu, dehydration, muscle cramps, hospital, rehydration, home, recovery, still weary but OK.
• Chalky - mucky veg
  [pen] Last year, me and several members of our family signed up for a delivery to door organic veg/fruit scheme. Although assured otherwise, we were surprised to discover that the contents weren't grown locally [most came from Wales]. I was also looking forward to the unknown contents element but after three weeks of an occasional amusingly-shaped spud and baggy carrot alongside shedloads of beetroot, I'm afraid we all signed out of it.
• flerdle - easy as pie
  [penelope] Treat it like spinach (but don't eat it raw in salads - too much oxalic acid which is not good for you. It's made safe by cooking). It grows really, really well here, being able to cope with the heat much better than English spinach. We call it "silverbeet". You can trim off the white spine, wilt it if you like (pan fry until soft) then cut it up and use it in, say, spinach and feta pie, or triangles. Google for some recipes (an image search might help). To keep it for a couple of days (if it's not already wilted), cut a little off the stem and pop in water (like a bunch of flowers) away from heat. If you want my spinach and feta pie recipe (dinner of champions) drop me a line - my name here at the g mail thingy.
• Graham III - Charred
  Swiss Chard makes a pretty tasty soup too in some decent stock, perhaps with crispy streaky bacon lardons sprinkled over the top, or with some stilton melted in.
• penelope - pretty veg
  [Chalks] Oh golly, that sounds dreadful... pleased they took you in and sorted you out - but do keep an eye on it. 8 years ago my M had huge amounts of abdominal surgery for appendicitis leading to peritonitis - which was left for a week because they thought it was food poisoning/stomach upset... we nearly lost her.
  Re: veg - Axshully I was impressed - I know some of it isn't local , but a lot of it is (from the South Holland part of South Lincolnshire which is mostly veg-growing land), it's organic, and it looked good - I got purple sprouting broccoli (I'd rather eat this than asparagus any day) and calabrese, some nice-looking potatoes and carrots, onions, and the dreaded swiss chard, which my sister tells me to braise under a piece of spiced pork tenderloin (or budget spareribs in my case as I've just bought the next ticket to the Netherlands in May and my usual airline has pulled out of the route so I have to go with KLM... I get a sandwich and coffee, but it's £40 more.) Anyway... £7 a fortnight is fine, and I need to eat more veg, so I have to plough through it... geddit? veg, plough... ;o)
• Rosie - Jolly mowing weather
  (pen) Cut your grass NOW (I'm about to) while it's fine and warm. The weekend looks awful, cold and wet, and it doesn't look much better for several days after that. There could even be snow showers.
• Software - Lawns
  [Rosie] No time, sadly, unlike you lucky retired ones. Anyway, the wife has me scheduled for charity work this evening and over the weekend - again. Bugger! Anyway, she normally mows the lawns ;o). [Chalks] you have my sympathy, similarly afflicted over Xmas.
• penelope
  [Softers, Rosie] Quite. I'm in the office until 5 and have been since 08.30. I didn't even leave my desk at lunchtime. And if it's cold, the grass won't grow anymore anyway - it doesn't get out of bed for less that 10°C.
  When I get home, I'm going to kick back and start weekending, thatnkyouverymuch.
• nights
  I'm going on HOLIDAY soon! Well, to Britain, to my parents', but I'm looking forward to it. Thank God for congé de printemps - giving us a breather before the exam insanity begins.
• Phil - Grass-cutting
  We've got 0 degrees or lower forecast for 3 of the next 5 nights. I'm not exposing freshly-trimmed lawn to frosts if I can help it.
• Rosie
  (pen) You're probably right but the problem is that by the time it's dry enough to cut (a week's time, say) it may well be looking a lot shaggier than just now. (Softers) I trust the phrase "the wife has me scheduled" is not entirely serious. (Phil) The forecasts almost certainly refer to the air temperature at screen level (1.25 metres) but the grass minima (as they are called) are always lower by an amount that depends on the wind speed so I reckon 4 out of 5 is more likely.
• Chalky - cheap mucky veg
  [pen] £7 a fortnight sounds good. Mine was £11 a week and there was enough fruit for ONE DAY.
• penelope - grass procrastination
  I've just got a grass-cutting raincheck... unfortunately it also means I can't get the washing dry either. Never mind, it's just nice to be home for a weekend, for a change. And this morning, I am mostly drinking Civet Coffee, or Kopi Luwak, a present from Indonesia.
• Irouléguy
  Chalky] how awful - hope you're recovering and being properly pampered. Are you able to take proper time off to recuperate?
• Rosie
  The grass has disappeared under 4 inches of snow but is already reappearing where I've walked on it due to heat from the ground. There'll be a frost tonight, though.
• penelope
  We've had a beautiful day here in south Lincs - cold, but sunny all day. Light frost this morning, but no snow.
• rab - Suet crisis
  As I make dumpings today for the first time in my life, I can't help but feel that Atora has the suet market pretty much sewn up.
• Raak - Sewing suet
  Two words that go together like "bunch" and "water".
• Software - Snow
  [Rosie] All we had here was a bit of sleet :O).
• Rosie
  (Softers) Today it's all gone except for a little bit of a snowman made by next door's kids.
• Phil - rab's dumpings
  [rab] I think Lactulose might be a good idea if you've just made dumpings for the first time in your life!
• Rosie - Egregious evacuation
  (Phil) I missed that. It would have given me an idea for There, there and everywhere but it's too late now. I will drop the matter.
• Phil
  [Rosie] I was surprised that you, Raak and Software hadn't spotted it (or had, but hadn't commented - that would have been more surprising).
• penelope - Unfunny badgering
  Now I'm a press officer for a conservation charity, I don't think badgers are funny. They cause too many awkward questions from the press.
• Tuj
  [pen] You weren't implicated in the jam-slapping scandal, were you?
• penelope - no comment
• Sierra Mike - Badgers
  I know from a friend's experience that when driving a Transit Van at 50 mph, a badger up the radiator grill is about as unfunny as it gets.
  
  For the badger, too.
• Rosie - Brock
  Badgers are the Holy Cows de nos jours. What's so wonderful about them, great lolloping things? They can be vicious and would make mincemeat of the average dog not that that would bother me.
• Tuj
  [Rosie] ...unless it showed up in a pie you were eating, no?
• Rosie
  (Tuj) Your are confusing mince with mincemeat, for which there is little excuse.
• penelope
  [Rosie] Not as bad as today's BBC news website (the front page story about the re-introduction of Moose to the Scottish Highlands) and their Science reporter confusing 'ungulates' with 'undulates'. Schoolboy error. I've emailed them about it already...
  Oooh, and Polly Toynbee has replied in person to my quick email in praise of her column in this morning's Guardian, hehehehe! :o)
• Tuj
  [Rosie] Both go in varying types of pies, no?
• Tuj
  I appear to have developed an annoying peech habit, no?
• Rosie
  (Tuj) Not to mention a typo habit, yes? It must be a bad day. :-) (pen) Pah! Small beer! I have received a personally-signed apology from none other than Ian Hislop for a very sick crossword clue in Private Eye, even if it did only consist of two words.
• Raak
  [Rosie] Now you must share the clue, so that we may all be properly shocked and outraged.
• Software - Cross Word
  [Rosie] I find it hard to imagine you as Outraged of South London".
• Tuj
  [Rosie] I should have seen that coming really. Ah well. Do carry on ;)
• Me Dick - Happenstance or Serendipity?
  End of day, ready to go home, I put "stilletto (misspelt) gerundive" into Google, got a single hit and it was you. Hello. Now I feel I have come home: will you have me?
• Simons Mith
  [MD] Only if you're wearing socks.
• Rosie
  (Raak) All right. The answer was spittle and clue involved Hawking. Filth is OK, good even, but don't mock the afflicted. The apology said "Point taken" and my guess is there were more than a few of them to be signed by the splendid Hislop, from which one cam infer that he had a word or two in the crossword setter's ear. (Softers) South London!!!??? That's outrageous! I'm in Surrey (just). (Me Dick) Well, personally, I'd rather not but there must be somebody and we are by nature co-operative.
• Rosie - Mouse of correction
  For "cam" read "can". One can get awfully obsessed by Caprotti Valve Gear.
• CdM
  [pen] Yes, that was a good column. [All] I think Stilletto (Misspelt) Gerundive is an excellent game idea. Maybe Simons can get working on the rules.
• Rosie - Stilletto (misspelt) Gerundive
  Instinctively I feel this would be a good game but what would be its aim? (CdM, pen) Toynbee's piece made a number of good points but by her standards was a bit ranty.
• Raak
  [Rosie] Yes, I see what you mean.
• penelope - woohoo!
  I've just completed my first bit of freelance writing for about 10 years - successs! And sent out the bill too... The lucky client, with a Monday-morning deadline to meet, found me online yesterday afternoon and got me working on a Saturday evening. We did the final edit this morning. Now I'm going to finish the ironing, which doesn't pay half so well.
• rab - Did that work?
  Here's hoping everything went smoothly.
• rab - Hokay...
  You may now find it is sometimes possible to go back and edit your last move. Any oddities, let me know. I think I've closed the loophole which would have allowed an infinite number of new games to have been started.
• CdM - Rigt then
  No, I meant this is a test. It works!
• flerdle - ooerr
  [pen] Well done!
• Chalky
  [Rab] That 'whoops' thingy made me jump when I posted earlier. It reminded me of that vaguely guilty feeling when one sees a policeman. It compelled me to re-read my post just in case I'd said something a bit wrong.
• Chalky
  [pennylope] Me haven't done freelance writing since ooh ... way back when ... so much respect :-)
• rab
  [Chalky] Hmm... I wonder if that's a desirable side-effect or not. I'm sure we'll get used to it!
• Irouléguy
  Test message
• Irouléguy
  Speaking of side-effects...sorry about that.
• Bigsmith
  Get well soon Humph. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7360347.stm
• Kim
  Are there people in the Morningverse that actually know Humph or know people who know him? Could we get some kind of collective "get well soon" card in the form of a print-out of a game? It could be send via the Beeb.
• Tuj
  Mystery Crescent - lame duck? This never looked like the server for it. Perhaps it should be culled for a good hard game of Stilletto (misspelt) Gerundive?
• Chalky
  [Tuj] Patience my boy, patience :-)
• Rosie
  (Kim) I used to know his trombonist and arranger, the late Pete Strange, not that that's exactly a connection, but I think your idea, or something similar, is a good one.
• Darren
  RIP Humph. All will miss you, I'm sure.
• Tuj
  Irreplacable. A joybringer. To be missed by so many.
• Bob the dog
  Very sad news. He was a wonderful man.
• Chalky
  The Oyster Card of Fate has finally met the ticket barrier of Mornington Crescent.
• rab
  The Humph tribute ISIHAC they had on the radio today is the only programme (radio or TV) that the cat has yet paid any attention to.
• Rosie - Humph
  His obit in the Grauniad was written by none other than the late George Melly though it had been updated. It was less of a eulogy than some of the instant stuff we have read in the last few days but there's no doubt Melly thought well of him.
• Kim - Humph
  I propose to close the current Mystery game (it's trudging along anyway) and create a book of condolence for Humph in its place for all to place memories, anecdotes, comments, thoughts etc. I will also mention it in MCiOS and Orange. I suggest leaving it open until, say, Friday and then I will print it off and send it to John Naismith c/o the BBC. Agreement?
• rab - Alternatively,
  I could just open an extra slot.
• Projoy
  Ooh. Not been in for a while and just discovered the "Whoops!" feature. Lovely. The times I've needed that in the past (then again, the times I've only just noticed a typo/grammo when reading a comment years after the event). Nice one, rab.
• Projoy - Humph
  Maybe now would be the time to send Kim's suggested "Get Well Soon" card? :)
• Kim
  Never mind, there's already something on Orange.
• Tuj
  [Proj] One word at a time between us? ;)
• Chalky - ... as I speak
  There's a Humph BBC R4 programme currently being broadcast. Wonder if Rosie has caught it. I expect it will be on Listen Live for some weeks.
• Néa
  As the programme ended they said that there will be another Humph tribute, by the ISIHAC panellists, on May 11.
• Rosie - Afternoonpreferablyevenington Crescent
  (Chalky) At 9.25 in the morning? You cannot be serious! I'll have a look on Listen Again.
• Chalky
  [Roseee] we-e-ell - naturellement, I am aware [after all these years :-)] of your posting pattern time-wise - but I wasn't sure if you did the listen to Radio4 in bed of a morning - dozy off - listen again a bit - dozy off, etc etc.
• Rosie - Nocturnal transmissions
  (Chalky) Nah, it would activate the neurons, as it's meant to, and I'd never get back to sleep. Maybe 24-hr rolling news would be better. Man Injured In Factory Accident In Solihull = Instant slumber. :-)
• Projoy
  Radio 4 activates neurons? Shurely some mistake!
• penelope - longweekendering
  Morning all. Beans planted. Laundry done. Lawn not yet cut but first I must make progress on the feature I was supposed to finish on Friday. Hoo-rah for Citrix and being able to work from home, dammit.
• rab
  Technically not a holiday for me today - but I'm skiving off on account that it's our first wedding anniversary. And what a glorious day it is! We spent the night at a nearby castle, had a slap-up meal and a sit in the sunshine. Unfortunately back at home now as we've both got work to do :(
• Rosie - Aren't people silly
  I've just read my AOL news headline which says that the Postal Service is "not delivering".
• penelope
  We've just had new, energy-saving Dyson Blade hand driers installed in the lavs. They SUCK the water off your hands. Quite amazing. I wonder if they'll also dry socks?
• Chalky - The father of in[ter]vention
  [pen] Flippin' Dyson - always poking his nose into other peoples' business. I actually like having damp hands when exiting the facilities. I also really enjoy changing the bag on my vacuum cleaner - and gain particular satisfaction from vacuuming in a straight line ;-)
• penelope
  Another thing, Mr Dyson - how are you supposed to flip the nozzle up to zhuzh up your lank, post-office (not Post Office) hair when there ain't no flippin' nozzle?
• Phil
  [pen] I was just talking to my son about the Dyson hand driers a couple of days ago. Ages ago I had the offer of a 30 day trial - wish I'd taken it up, but I never got round to it.
• Chalky
  [pen] but, but ... it would SUCK your hair up. Not nice. Zhuzh by hand would be my advice.
• Phil
  The Dyson airblade is based on a very narrow, high-speed jet of air. I'm not sure that it does suck, but it certainly blows...very hard. It definitely collects the water blown off the hands, and atomises said water periodically into the atmosphere.
• Rosie
  I HATE hand-driers. What a noisy waste of time, space, energy, everything. If your hands are damp wipe 'em on your bum. That's what it's for. Even if you don't do that they'll be dry in less than a minute especially if you rub 'em together briefly.
• rab
  The most impressive drier I ever saw was in a bar in Dresden. It was called the 'AirWolf' and my (German) friend remarked that it appeared to be based on Rommel's desert air-conditioning system.
• Sierra Mike - Air Dryers
  Conventional hot-air dryers actually work and work quickly in Alberta. Something to do with the altitude, I've been told. After a few dryings your hands are like lizard skin though.
• penelope
  Well that one well-and-truly dried up, didn't it? In other news, I've killed ALL the ants that were invading my kitchen. Mwahahahahaha!
• Rosie - Formica topped
  (pen) What about the army waiting outside?
• Tuj
  [Rosie] Beautiful subject line. I was trying to think up something similar myself ;)
• penelope
  [Tuj] Hear hear. [Rosie] I pouffed permethrin into all the brickwork outside too.
• Chalky - Ant fever
  [pen] Thanks for the tip. I'm a-watching and a-waiting.
• Rosie - All Ants on Dec
  (pen) Pouffed? I can just see you. Only a lady could get away with that. Don't forget the boiling water down the cracks in the concrete. (Tuj) Cheers.
• penelope
  [Rosie] If not pouffed then what is the verb for the application of a powder to a surface (or into a crack or hole - oh dear, this just gets worse) by air-propulsion, generated by squeezing a slightly flexible plastic bottle? And I tried the boiling water first too :o(
  [Chalks] I bought Homebase's own brand, about £3 - very happy. Ant free.
• Rosie - Powder me nose and other parts, possibly
  (pen) Yeah, OK, pouffed. But it does make me giggle.
• penelope
  [Rosie] You're not supposed to get it on your skin, so wash those affected parts immediately - you know, the ones that are making you giggle. ;o)
• Phil - Ant Powder
  [pen/Rosie] My family has always used the verb "to foof" (or possibly "fouffe" - the spelling has never been established) for what you do to get ant powder out of the bottle. In fact, the verb often gets repeated to become "I'm just going to foofoofoof that ant-hole."
• Blob - Fizz ant
  Possibly cruel, but quite entertaining is pouring bicarbonate of soda solution down the ants' nest - the whole thing fizzes quite satisfyingly and the poor wee ants themselves sometimes exhibit a certain anal effervescence too.
• nights
  I have emerged, bloody, bruised but alive, from the end of term marking. How are we all?
• Tuj
  Same as ever, ta. Do you have a clubcard?
• Sierra Mike - Ants
  There was a bloke on TV the other day who pours molten Aluminium down ant's nests. When it all cools down he digs it up and it looks really neat. A three-dee map of the nest. It also solves the ant problem in no small way. Like the powder, it isn't good for your skin.
• Rosie - Ally castings
  (SM) I wonder. The ant's nest would have to be very dry or there'd be an explosion of steam, hot metal and pyrolysed ants. Not nice. Where does he get the aluminium from? He could melt down old saucepans, I suppose, but molten aluminimum is hot, 660°C plus, incipient red heat.
• nights
  [Tuj] No. As a proud shopper at Auchan, though, I have a "Waaouh" card. Because the savings make me say "Waaouh!". Obviously. Yes.
• rab - Price floozies
  Our local supermarket advertises something it calls a 'Price Commitment'. Since these signs disappear as soon as the so-promoted product increases in price, one has to wonder to what extent this counts as a commitment.
• Tuj - Changing topic...
  [rab] With the "Whoops!" button, could one undo a winning move? More pertinantly, could one test several options until finding the winning move, if unknown?
• rab
  [Tuj] (i) Yes and no. (ii) I think so, but would it really matter?
• Tuj
  [rab] Yes and no, eh? There's cards close to the chest. I'm too timid to go test it ;)
  And regarding the second, in theory, with patience, one could knock off the likes of Mystery Crescent single-handedly.
• rab
  Yes, but you could do the same thing, albeit more publicly, without the Whoops feature. If anyone ever suspects foul play I can always look at the logs.
• rab
  I've just acquired a niece - what's the appropriate Unclely response? (Other than a brief note of congratulation).
• Uncle Korky
  [rab] No idea!
• Projoy
  [rab] Go make a visit, if plausible, and be friendly towards. No point in sending gifts at present (lol) as too young to appreciate them.
• Phil
  [rab] A congratulations card. If you want to send a present, something for the parents to enjoy, rather than for the child, is better received in my experience. As Projoy says, the sprog is too young to appreciate anything, and it's the parents who will be feeling more in need of TLC, and perhaps a little neglected.
• Projoy
  (should you doubt my credentials to offer advice, btw, I speak as one who was en-neiced earlier this year).
• rab
  Visit no-go; parents live in New Zealand. Point taken vis a vis gift for them.
• Rosie - Family expansion
  (rab) Can't remember; my nieces were born in 1974 and 1976. It's about time, therefore, that I became a great-uncle and if I were to I'd have a natter on the phone and send a nice card. I wouldn't visit - they'd have enough to do without me getting in the way.
• Irouléguy
  rab] I became en-great-neiced last year, and while I agree with everyone about a pressie being unnecessary at this stage, gift vouchers were much appreciated. I gave Mothercare, and one possible NZ equivalent would be this lot www.babyfactory.co.nz/giftvouchers.html , assuming the parents live near enough to a store.
• penelope
  [rab] Send a cheque in the name of the new niece, which obliges the parents to open a bank account in her name, which you can then add to for each birthday/xmas, therefore saving yourself time and effort in shopping for presents. Saying that, I've just bought my godson (about to turn 13, mountain-biking, farm-dwelling, paper-round-operating) a set of Super-Duper bike lights (well, as Super-Duper as Asda will allow) and a speedometer for his birthday next week. On the other hand, my 3-year old nephew always gets cheques, and a freebie CD or DVD from the newspapers that I have to ready daily at work.
• nights
  [rab] Also no idea, as I have no nieces. But something for the parents seems like a capital idea.
• Graham III
  When my niece was born my wife and I bought things for the baby aged 6-12 months; the parent received so much newborn baby stuff they were rather grateful for things that wouldn't be useless in a few months time. I would suggest Baby Gap, as they contain really nice things that are a bit too expensive for parents to justify, but perfect for an uncle/aunt to get!
  
  Or alternatively, the Hotel Chocolat New Baby Discovery Box, which is what we'll be getting for my sister who is due to have her second child in the next week...
• rab
  Thanks for your suggestion. We've emailed the proud parents with an offer of a sum of money in the form of gifts for baby, gifts for them, or invested into some kind of dullness fund. They'll let us know when mother and daughter come home from hospital.

  In other news, we had the degree exam board meeting this morning and results are now posted. Most of the fun of the latter is now removed by exam numbers, rather than names, being posted.

• nights
  [rab] Well that's no fun at all. I remember clearly the thrill of going to the department, reading my name, and then hearing someone hoot "LOOK WHO GOT A THIRD!"
• Graham III - Laughing stock
  [nights] I didn't even have to go to the department - results for all subjects were posted outside on the walls of Senate House in Cambridge for all to see...
• CdM
  [Chalky] Could you drop me an email when you have a moment? [andrewdotjohn@ayadotyaledotedu] I can't seem to put my hands on your email address. Thanks.
• Chalky - [CdM] 'tis done
• Sierra Mike - Aluminium Ant Nest Casting
  This took me about a minute to find. There is a lot more about this on the web.
• penelope - This weekend I am mostly....
  learning about ancient woodland in Cheltenham, on a two-day course. Part work, part pleasure. See you Monday, thickets ;o)
• Rosie - Banter for its own sake
  Beautiful June afternoon. Heavy sinister-looking cloud, gusty northerly wind, spots of rain, almost dark enough to need the light on, temperature 11°C. This reminds me, as did last summer, of some of the dreadful summers of the 50's. As I write this it's got lighter so no thunder. Not yet.
• penelope - This weekend I will be mostly...
  gardening. Finally, a weekend at home - the first one for a month!
• Dujon - Stormy Weather
  [Rosie] It's them left-handed storms of which you must be more careful. Hopefully it turned out to be just a right-handed jobby.
  [penelope] You made your new nest and have to accept the consequences. I feel no sorrow for your predicament as I have chosen to work from home. Tee hee!
• Phil
  I bought a bicycle yesterday, so I plan to spend some time on that this weekend. Also, I'm going to see Tim Vine at Leicester's Y Theatre.
• rab
  [Phil] I saw his show 'Current Puns' a couple of years ago at the Fringe. It was good. Most memorable pun: (View the source to read the hidden text) I'm minded to see this one too, even if it looks like it might be somewhat similar.
• penelope - bicycling coincidences
  [Phil] Funnily enough, the windy miller and I were perusing the online shops last night for a new omafiets for me so we can go cycling together on our matching steeds. I think it's a birthday present.
• Chalky - re cycling
  [pen] " ... extra-tough for decades of comfortable, reliable daily service." LOL :-D
• Phil
  From €680? I'd want an engine too for that price! :-)
• nights - le météo
  Weird at the moment. Huge storm last night, chilly yet sweaty today. Trams full of people. Nights not happy.
• penelope - turns the volume right down to '0'
  It's a bit quiet in here this week! Today I am mostly writing a press release, and this weekend I will mostly be listening to my mum singing in a 'Music for a MidSummer Night' choral concert in Lincoln. And planting more beans.
• ImNotJohn - Home, where's that?
  Mrs INJ and I will be spending a weekend at home for the first time since the middle of May. A bit of gardening is on the cards, but I will be helping out at the Derbyshire Schools Orienteering Championships on Saturday and maybe competing in an event on Sunday.
• rab - Half a silly van
  I'm doing some G&S this weekend, but without the G.
• Sierra Mike - Chinese Earring
  [ImNotJohn] I wonder it's still called "orienteering" and hasn't made the jump to "orientationeering" in the twenty five years since I did any.
  I miss the old OS maps. I stopped using them about the time they completed the old red-cover One Inch To One Mile series and began redoing the job in pink-cover 1:50 000 metric maps (talk about make-work in government!). They must have done all of the UK in metric by now I would think.
  As a teen I salivated over the prospect of a complete collection of OS maps. I think I have six.
  I've often wished for the same types of maps with the same degree of coverage in the places I've lived since leaving the UK, but other countries missed that particular boat and are unlikely to go that route now we have "better" GPS systems. It was one of the nastier shocks to find that other western countries didn't have super-accurate maps for the asking. I had to use boat charts and forestry "blueprint" jobs for the most part. Joni Mitchell had it right.
• Sierra Mike - for ImNotJohn
  Incidentally, it took me about five attempts to type your screen name without automatically inserting spaces (I tried Im Not John, ImNot John, Im NotJohn, then did some of them again before I got my brain to do it right). I've never had that happen before. Did you design for that effect?
• I Say, Porter! - Something for the weekend
  I'm doing the world premiere of "What happened here - a retelling of Lear" tonite, and the second and final-for-us-but-hopefully-not-for-the-author show tomorrow nite. Sunday is a rest day :oD First Sunday without either rehearsal or show since nehwwonktnodi...
• ImNotJohn
  [Sierra Mike] I answer to INJ mostly. In fact elsewhere I tend to be just NotJohn - Im not sure why I've got the 'Im' in the Morniverse.
  I'm also a bit of a cartophile - I've got 2 shelves devoted to them at the moment. I have a version of the Stevierule^TM which goes 'No Map no Trip'.
  OS maps now cover the whole of the UK at 1:25000 and are so much clearer than the 1:50000, which I use mostly for cycling. I still love the 1 inch tourist maps with the colouring & hachuring but you can't beat the large scale for navigating in mist/cloud. Also you get spoilt by the quality of orienteering maps 1:10000 or 1:15000 using specialised software, where you can navigate to the nearest 10 metres.
• Bigsmith - 1:25000 maps
  [S M & INJ] These come in an attractive orange cover, far nicer than the 1:50000s' lurid pink.
• Rosie - TQ 3516 5955
  I have inherited dozens of OS maps from my cartophilic Dad, mostly 6th Edition but some older than that (pre-war). The expansion of some towns is phenomenal. Crawley, for example, was a compact place with a station and a high street but is now a vast, amorphous sprawl. The new 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 maps are more accurate and detailed than their older counterparts, particularly in regard of contours. There are sad (old meaning) bits such as "Course of old railway" and "Mines (disused)" (Yeah, so's mine). Even though the OS Grid has always been metric I'll never get used to heights in metres. My house is at 557 ft, not 169 metres, so I claim the title of Highest-living Morniverser.
  [Non-mappies look away NOW] The OS Grid is a Transverse Mercator projection, prime meridian 2°W, based on a model of the Earth developed by Sir George Airy over 100 years ago. It's a tiny bit different from modern values both in size and degree of flattening. There is a scale reduction of 0.04%, presumably to allow for the expansion of the scale in the projection away from the prime meridian.
• Bigsmith - ST 6370 7585
  [Rosie] I cannot claim such a lofty domicile, but two minutes' drive gently uphill takes me to this point, Cossham Hospital, the highest point in Bristol at 369 feet (112 meters). On a clear day the views over the city, the Severn Valley, Forest of Dean and even the Brecons are excellent. Oh, and thanks for the techie stuff!
• Sierra Mike
  [ImNotJohn & Bigsmith] Blimey. We used to use the old red cover jobs when I was doing it, though admitedly I was less than serious about orienteering and probably just ran with an amateur crowd. I had no idea there was a 1:25 000 series of maps available commercially. Do they cover the entire UK? The only 1:50 000 OS map I can reliably put my hand on today would be "Land's End and The Lizard", and I can't for the life of me remember why I bought that one. I used a couple of Welsh ones until they fell apart but Land's End? When did I go there? It has some touristy annotations on it, like scenic photography overlooks and so forth, which my Welsh ones didn't. I suspect it was a detail added halfway through the print run or something.
  [Rosie] That's a nice legacy you have. I didn't remember that the 1 Inch to 1 Mile series had a metric grid. I do remember that we were taught to read an OS map in Geography class when I was around 11 or 12. That's when I fell in love with the things.
• Bigsmith
  [Sierra Mike] Have a look here for the answer to your question.
• ImNotJohn
  [SM] It's the wonder of satellite technology. Effectively the whole country has been remapped (at least as far as contours are concerned) in a matter of a couple of years whereas before there was a large team of cartographers doing physical surveys. This has got rid of some of the more obvious mistakes that used to exist, although there are still paths shown going over cliff edges in a couple of places that I know.
  For orienteering we normally start with a base plot (usually from the OS) with contour intervals down to 2.5 metres where appropriate (5m for very steep ground). There is then a specialised package (OCAD - there were others but this has come out on top) which has all the correct colours and symbols built in and you can build the map from that. There is still a need for fieldwork, but the whole thing is much slicker and maps get changed up to about 2 weeks before an event. Also with cheap high-quality printing most events now have the courses pre-printed - no need to copy from a master, and you can even run off more copies while the event is taking place if you get more than expected on one course. With electronic punching you get a print-out of your final and split times as soon as you finish and results from an event are on the web the same day. Up to about 10 years ago you left an SAE at the event and got the results about 1-2 weeks later.
• ImNotJohn - More map stuff
  For mountain walking I like Harvey Maps. They are at 1:40000, often photo-enlarged to 1:25000. They aren't as good in farmland as they don't show field boundaries, but they do show what is actually on the ground - there are different symbols for a right of way which is visible and one which is not visible as well as another for a visible path which is not a r.o.w.. They also change the colour of the contours to show rocky or marshy ground.
• flerdle - yes, I can't sleep
  This weekend I will continue recovering.
  I like maps but do not own many (only one proper map, really), mainly because we don't have much landscape over here. Or perhaps we have far too much of it. In any case, [INJ] I feel remarkably uneasy when I am in an unfamiliar place without a map, and I really need to know where North is. Changing hemispheres is very disturbing. I came very close to mapping our parts of Oman, at least as far as roads and such things go, because they (maps) either did not exist or were wildly inaccurate. But the cost of GPSrs was too high. I now have a nifty little one, and have been enjoying the occasional geocache, thanks to my sister and brother-in-law's introduction. It definitely helps break up long drives, and is a fun way to explore new places. I haven't done orienteering in at least 20 years.
• Sierra Mike - Paths Off Cliffs
  [ImNotJohn] For years I lived in a street that the local "A-Z" type guide showed as having a cross street where there wasn't so much as a kerbstone. When this error survived two reprintings I got clued in. By pure chance I was living next door to a copyright protection scheme. The map publisher had put in a fake street so that they could easily catch competitors who saved the cost of a survey just by copying their maps. I've learned since then that an awful lot of this sort of thing goes on. Dictionaries, thesauri (?) and encyclopediae (??) have fake entries in them to snare copyright infringers. The original pubishers work on the theory that you'd be unlikely to actually read the articles/entries since you can't get to them in any day-to-day use of the dictionary/thesarus/encyclopedia but only by reading through them serially.
  
  I have to admit, sending someone off a cliff seems a bit much though. I hope this gets fixed in GPS sets since judging from recent news items some GPSers are a bit too slavish when it comes to following the directions their boxes give them and I wouldn't be surprised to read of someone stepping out into empty space.
  
  [Bigsmith] Thanks for the map info.
• Sierra Mike - 1:25 000
  Now nothing will suffice but that I order a 1:25 000 map of Land's end and The Lizard.
• Dujon - MapsspaM
  I have a couple of 1:25000 maps covering my area of residence. A month or so ago I dug out one of them in order to scan part of it and send the resultant image to a cyber-acquaintance. I doubt that I had referred to this publication within the last three or four years. I also forgot to put it back in stowage that evening. The following afternoon my wife came home and plonked down before me a new copy of the very same map. Having given her a puzzled look she explained that the previous evening she had looked for the 'missing' map and, not finding it, thought it best to buy a new one.
• penelope - midsummary
  Hmmph. Raining and cool. The sweetpeas need it.
• Rosie - Paths to oblivion
  (INJ) It could be a clifftop path that has disappeared due to coastal erosion if you're anywhere near the east coast.
• Rosie
  (Bigsmith) So, Fishponds, Bristol, then. I had heard of it, for some reason, probably to do with the railway, which I see has been ripped up.
• blamelewis - Bristols
  Hmm, talking of Bristol, I'm going there for the first time shortly - any recommendations for good places to take a 3 year old and 5 month old? We've got the zoo on our (short) list already...
• ImNotJohn - Cliff Paths
  I wasn't clear enough. In both the cases I know of the path exists, but the line has been 'smoothed' to an easy curve and so doesn't avoid the feature whereas, on the ground, there is a deviation to miss it.
• CdM
  [SM] Yes, the false street is indeed a standard copyright protection measure.
  [Rosie] You may hold the highest living Morniverser right now, but if so I probably held the title for a couple of years when we had a 10th floor apartment here in Singapore. Now we are back at sea level.
• flerdle - higher, higher
  Without having any idea of where everyone lives, I think that Dujon might be the loftiest Morniverser, since he lives on a mountain outside Sydney. The first Antipopilg in 2003 was at Blaxland, (1404 feet, or 427 metres) and I don't think he'd be much lower than that (if not higher up).
• CdM - up and up
  I was kidding about the apartment in Singapore, obviously, but I was living at 265m back in 2003-2004 when we were in Texas. In my pre-Morniverse days I lived at 188m in VIrginia and at about 280m in Ann Arbor Michigan. None of these surpasses Dujon. If I can go back to my childhood, though, I lived for a year at 946m, and INJ was at university at 1250m around the same time.
• CdM
  (I think there is a pretty good chance that INJ is also the person here who has been up the highest (while still staying on the ground) though I might be wrong about that.)
• Rosie - The roof of the world
  flerdle) It may well be Dujon, then, for current residence. My feet-on-the-ground record is El Teide in Tenerife, 3717 m or 12,196 ft. The air pressure there is about 64% of sea-level pressure and you noticed it. Quite a lot of puffing and blowing climbing the few hundred feet from the cable car to the summit. Water would boil at 88°C, just about enough to thicken gravy but not enough for a decent cuppa.
• flerdle
  I spent most of my first couple of decades at around 1000ft. It didn't seem very high at the time, probably because it isn't.
• Phil
  I lived for a year at about 420m on the Swiss/French border. It didn't feel at all high, because everything around was so much higher, namely the Jura mountains to the west, and the Alps etc to the south-east.
• CdM
  [Rosie] When I typed that about INJ I was vaguely thinking "we already had this conversation not so long ago", and your Tenerife posting reminds me that indeed we did.
• Rosie - Senior moment
  (CdM) Probably my fault, then, because stuck on my bedroom wall is a b & w 1978 photo of me and half a dozen other herberts and several herbertesses, all from Croydon Astronomical Society, as we crowd round the summit marker. Where has INJ been? I think I've probably got the record for current UK residents. The modest height does make a difference in that snow, on the rare occasions that it falls, lasts much longer up here than in London and numerous occasions when there's light drizzle and mist whereas London is dry. Some of this is the London Heat-Island effect which on a warm calm summer night can be quite stark, with temperature differences of 8°C.
• Dujon - Walking tall
  [flerdle] Thanks for adding a few inches to my height. I am at a mere 250 metres (depending on where on my little plot of paradise you stand) which is around and about 850 feet asl. As it is now approaching, if not past, the noon time I might pop down to my local club for a wee bit of luncheon delight, which should bring me home quite heady. Cheers.
• flerdle
  [Dujon] You still win ;-) .
• ImNotJohn - elevated positions
  At the risk of blowing my own trumpet (but, hell, I am proud of it), my highest point is the summit of Mera Peak in the Himalaya at 6476 metres (21,247 ft). I now live at about 40m asl.
• CdM
  [Rosie] No, my fault, not yours. I just remembered because my highest is almost identical to yours, but in a completely different part of the world (Colorado Rockies).
• Rosie
  (INJ) I'm impressed. Did you need oxygen? It's not warm up there either, is it? (Guess -15°C, if summer, plus a "breeze").
• ImNotJohn - Just a trifle nippy
  [Rosie] - No oxygen. I was slowed down by the lack of it, but not reduced to gasping. The main effect was that I lost my appetite completely. I was there in March-April, so pre-monsoon. Overnight it was regularly down to about -20°C. During the day there was a lot of bright sunshine, but I reckon the shade temperature didn't get above freezing; it was fleece jacket, thick gloves & balaclava even when working quite hard and down clothing as soon as the sun set.
  Mera is the highest 'trekking peak' in the Himalaya, anything over 6500m is a 'climbing peak' even if there is no technical difficulty. However Aconcagua is higher and presents no technical difficulties and is only about 20km from a good motor road. It's probably the ultimate challenge for the non-climber.
• Rosie
  (INJ) I'm further impressed. The pressure up there is about 42% of sea level pressure. Apparently the lack of oxygen causes considerable problems with cognitive tasks but as I imagine you weren't writing up a PhD up there it probably didn't matter. Well done! I could manage Leith Hill (965 ft) these days but probably not Snowdon (3561 ft) even if I called it Yr Wyddfa.
• ImNotJohn
  [Rosie] Acclimatisation helps a lot. We flew in to about 2400m and then walked in for about 10 days, mostly on the ‘walk high, sleep low’ principle, which got us to a camp at about 5300. We then did a short day up to 5800 and then a push to the top. I reckon the last 700m would have taken me a bit over 2 hours from sea level (I was fitter then), and actually took between 4 & 5 hours. We then dropped about 1500m, to below the previous 2 camps. As for cognitive impairment – I ‘lost’ a good part of the next day. I couldn’t remember much of it only a day or two later and have never been able to, even prompted by photos. Another interesting effect was that my tent companion went into a pattern of Cheyne-Stoking while asleep – disturbing when you first hear it, but common at altitude. Of course, one of the effects of the cold and low pressure is that the air is extremely dry – it was hard to drink enough, especially as water bottles exposed to the air froze. It’s the physically hardest thing I’ve ever done and I certainly couldn't do it now.
• rab - Result!
  The good news is that we've discovered the cat is a mouser (one of the reasons for getting her). The bad news is finding this out obviously entailed a renewed incursion. We look forward to being woken up by her dropping half-dead mice on our faces and being shown how to kill them. Will need to look at the bait trays over the weekend to see where its been taken. Sometime over the next few weeks we're getting our floors repaired which should seal up some of the holes at least.
• rab
  Revisiting the bait sites I discover the trays in the kitchen are untouched, which is good news, but the one I put under the sink cabinet in the bathroom had disappeared! I have an image of a family of mice living in a red tray marked 'Poison' somewhere down there...
• I Say, Porter!
  [Rab] I've seen that Tom & Jerry episode...
• Phil
  A week with nothing to say? Yikes!
• Tuj
  Perhaps we need a couple of new games, as we've not had any in 8 months (ignoring Mystery Crescent, restarted after running out of steam. Well gosh, it's run out of steam again!)
• Kim - Mystery Crescent
  I'll kill it off if no-one can be bothered to play (and if I can remember the winning move - I don't think I wrote it down anywhere).
• CdM
  I think Tuj is right. This is a great mc site, but we have perhaps let it get a bit stagnant. My vote is for keeping AVMA, since it is almost a defining game of this server, but some of the other games could be given a breather. And with that in mind, I've killed the clerihew game.
• CdM
  imho, pretty much any of the other games could be rested.
• Tuj
  [Kim] I think that may be the case - it's suffered from not being quite the right game for the pace of the server.
  Meanwhile, could Film Club be due a more meritorious retirement? The thing is, now we need to have some suggestions for new games to spruce up the place!
• Botherer
  I know I've not been here much recently, but perhaps Film Club could be retired in favour of a Book Club? Or if anyone was wanting to pretend to be youthful again, how about a video games club? It might test people's Google skills if nothing else!
• rab
  Of course, at this time of year, Dunx's annual Festival of Crescent means that attention is necessarily (albeit temporarily) diverted elsewhere. But I'm always in favour of a cull.
• Kim - You know you're getting old when....
  [rab] .....two things happen. The first is - you can't remember the winning move of a game that you created and the second is, errrr...., oh yes, you have to ask for help in killing it.
• rab
  [Kim] Think Richard O'Sullivan.
• Kim
  [Rab] None the wiser. I kept thinking of Gilbert O'Sullivan and it put me off.
• rab
  Right, er, Chatsworth, or Lanhydrock maybe.
• Simons Mith - New game idea/request
  Can we have a banter game of some kind?
• ImNotJohn
  Well, I wouldn't contribute to it.
• Tuj - Oh dear
  Having instigated this, I feel responsible - and I certainly don't want blood on my hands if the game slots vanish entirely again =(
  However, I've not really got any ideas. Except, well... I've seen an online game called NationStates where one runs a country via its inner workings. So I wondered if perhaps we could invent the continent of Morningtonia, each stake a claim to some land and then see how our national/international diplomacy skills are... and hope that the answer to the question "When does the game end?" isn't necessarily "NUCLEAR WAR!"
• Tuj - On second thoughts:
  ... I'd like to suggest a game called "Lead Balloon".
• Simons Mith - New game idea
  Cat chess? This rules variant is slightly different from the last one I saw, but looks promising.
• Quendalon
  [Tuj] A game of Morningtonian Government sounds like fun to me.
• Sierra Mike - New Games
  I like both ideas that don't involve cat chess. I don't understand how Cat Chess would work. Bantering would be my vote if it is an ether/ore choice.
• Kim - New Games
  Have you noticed that there isn't a single game of "Mornington Crescent" in play on this server. Why don't we start one of those?
• penelope
  How do you play that then, Kim?
• Rosie - Blasphemy, apostasy, iconoclasm etc.
  I dont' think MC itself works very well here. It really has to be played live so that the players can display all the mock-gravity and in-depth knowledge of arcane rules that this involves. It's a performance, really, and needs rather good actors.
• penelope
  Then maybe a game of 'Dress Rehearsal Mornington Crescent' will show what sheer hard work has to go into putting on a slick performance in the Game itself? I'm thinking this might give us an insight into the director's final, fraught instructions, the referee's frantic consultations with the rule book(s) and the performers' last-minute nerves showing through.
• Inkspot - and then
  Game slot still available, of the suggestions go along with pen.
  Dusted the cob webs off the BBQ over the weekend. My only quibble was the sausages, those from the local butcher cooked a treat but the Walls sausages almost went up in flames they were spitting so much fat.
• Raak
  [Rosie] A lot of the games are like that -- improv theatre, really. Take a look at the yorkives link on the front page here and contemplate the glories of the past, when MC was the main game played.
• rab
  Talking of which. Is this someone we know?
• rab
  Ah, just seen it's CANCELLED - but I guess the question still stands...
• Rosie
  (rab) Do you really need to ask that?
• Projoy
  [rab] Yep, that's us. All things considered, just as well we cancelled (a couple of months back) as only one song is yet complete, and we keep going back to the synopsis and tweaking. Should show up next year in the form of a reading or full production, hopefully. We're devoting tomorrow to completing a 10 minute extract which will be done this year at Theatre 503 in London, then podcast as an audio-format musical.
• rab
  Good luck. If you do ever come up to Edinburgh be sure to drop me a line so we can catch up over an IPA or something.
• Néa
  [rab] Coincidentally, I'll be teaching a course on the IPA next semester.
• Projoy
  [rab, Néa] aɪd lʌv ə bɪə
• Sierra Mike - Projoy's post
  What do all the little squares mean?
• Rosie
  (rab, Néa) Isopropyl alcohol is not good for you.
• ImNotJohn - squarelets
  [SM] They mean your browser isn't rendering International Phonetic Alphabet symbols
• rab
  [Rosie] Any chance you can get the rain to stop? It's started leaking into our flat. Roofers have been called but they're a bit busy today.
• Rosie - Rain
  (rab) Edinburgh, yes? It'll gradually peter out but Saturday afternoon brings another dollop. Hope you can get it done before then. This used to happen at work rather a lot so we set up an indoor raingauge network.
• Rosie - More rain
  (rab) It was wet day even for Scotland with 40 mm in parts of Edinburgh, according to this. Edinburgh's mean annual rainfall is actually considerably less than mine in the dripping wet Surrey uplands. (680 mm vs 815 mm)
• rab
  I suppose if you get 6% (21 days' worth) of your annual average rainfall on one day you can expect problems. Two surprising things about Edinburgh -it's further west than you think (more so than Bristol) and not as wet as you think. Paisley (just to the west of Glasgow) has twice as much rain as Edinburgh.
• rab
  [Rosie] Rest assured, the men are up there now tying the chimney down. It needs to resurfaced or something, which means we need to get somewhere between 7 and 10 neighbours to contribute to the costs. Oh what fun!
• Rosie
  (rab) What fun indeed! Glad it's never happened to me (yet). More rain Saturday but fairly routine stuff.
• I Say, Porter! - it is a-raining not in Tokyo
  It has been pissing down (scientific term) here in Brussels for as long as memory serves. I drove the new Alfa to Cologne on Friday and visibility in the rain was worse than in a carwash. Don't you just love summer in Northern Europe?
• Rosie - Niederschlage
  (ISP) The official term is AFPD. Take heart; this is a bad summer by most standards and least it's better than winter.
• Software - Smug
  It has been a lot better over here than up north this summer. We have avoided rain for the most part (apart from 72mm in 4 hours the Sunday before last). It's looking a bit iffy for the rest of the week, though.
• Rosie - Deperately trying to think of something other than the weather to talk about
  Does anyone here like cold tea? I do.
• Software - Cold tea
  Yes, especially with ice and a slice of lemon or a sprig of mint.
• Graham III
  Iced tea, yes. Hot tea gone cold: URHGURHUGHHUHYYEEAEAUURK.
• Phil
  I generally don't drink tea, but regularly drink hot coffee gone cold, and occasionally iced coffee. I hasten to add that if I had milk in my coffee, I would, in all probability, drink it neither iced nor gone-cold.
• Rosie
  (Softers, Graham III) No, I meant tea gone cold. Great! Coffee gone cold is just as good. I make a virtue of necessity because having brewed it I get on with doing something and forget about the drink.
• Software - Cold tea
  Well, I drink tea and coffee without milk anyway.
• penelepe
  Once I have made myself a cup of tea, I'll drink it all, even if it has gone cold. Coffee less so. I love iced tea, and iced coffee, and make both at home in the summer. If I'm at home, I put milk in tea and coffee. If I'm in Holland, I'll drink them without milk.
• Raak - Milk

  Milk! Foul substance that from bovine teats expressed
  For infant calves, man steals for ends perverse
  Drinking that infant nourishment, whose end
  Ends crated in the dark before the knife
  Cuts short -- but to pick up the thread again --
  Vile stuff for human stomach never meant
  That rots i' the open air in scant three days
  Else churned to yellow grease; or rotted more
  With fungus mingled in ten thousand ways
  Until it stinks like to the arse of Hades    -- contd. p. 94

• Phil - Re: Milk
  Yeah, what Raak said!
• penelope - What, no cheese?
  Panna cotta, custard, Yorkshire puddings, macaroni cheese, icecream, buttered toast, cappucino, parsley sauce... [Phil, Raak] I don't believe you.
• CdM
  [pen] I was with you all the way until you mentioned parsley sauce, whereupon Raak suddenly started to make more sense.
• penelope
  [CdM] OK. Switch that to 'peppercorn sauce' for your rib-eye steak.
• Phil
  [pen] Well, I don't like milk, custard, panna cotta or cappucino; but the others are nice.
• Rosie - Lait, leche, llaeth etc
  (Phil) What do you put on your cornflakes/shredded wheat/weetabix? Not syrup, I hope.
• Phil
  [Rosie] As a result, I very rarely eat breakfast cereals. If I do, the milk needs to be as fresh and cold as possible.
• Raak
  [Rosie] I put canned fruit on my muesli. If I ate porridge, which I don't, I'd make it with water.
• Software - Dairy products
  I stopped taking milk in tea and coffee as a result of trying to reduce my cholesterol count. I like milk and cheese and all the things pen listed, so tea and coffee without milk keeps the intake down without too much pain.
• Rosie
  Anyone who was a child in the late '40's will have had it drummed into them the milk was a Good Thing (free at school, off the ration) and as far as I'm concerned it still is, within limits. Nothing could beat slurping the cream off the top of the bottle, and still can't. Fortunately, at the moment I don't have a cat, which would obviously have first shout.
• ImNotJohn - Showing my age
  Free school milk nearly put me off milk for life. In summer it was stacked in the playground in the sun for a couple of hours before we got it, so it was always warm and slightly off.
  I now only drink skimmed when I have a choice - full cream just tastes greasy to me. However I still eat too much cheese and use plenty of whole milk & cream in cooking.
• Phil
  I went off milk somewhere between 14 and 18, I reckon. I used to drink loads of it before then. The thought of the cream off the top of the bottle makes me feel queasy these days. Oh, and please don't even mention the "straight from the cow" option - yuk!
• Software
  We have a cat but he doesn't like milk, or cheese, strangely. First cat I've known not to like either or both. We had school milk in the 50s, in 1/3 pint bottles, and a choice of orange juice (which I preferred) and then Jersey milk was very creamy (it's not now due to over processing). I can remember the milkman delivering the milk in churns and filling up a jug my mother used to leave on the doorstep. I think they introduced bottles in about 1956. Then bottles were replaced by humbug shaped Tetra Paks in about 1967.
• Rosie
  (Software) Cats shouldn't have milk too often but binge-licking every now and again won't do any harm. Cats are also useful for hoovering up bits of chicken off the floor.
• Phil
  [Rosie] There is nothing useful a cat can do that a labrador and a mousetrap can't.
• CdM
  [Phil] Possibly true, but with a cat you don't have to keep careful track of which one you are petting.
• Software
  [Rosie] Our cat won't eat cooked chicken either. [CdM} Another advantage of cats is that they don't need to be exercised or groomed regularly.
• rab
  Ours occasionally comes along and licks the milk at the bottom of our muesli bowls. And she's much better at dealing with the mice than the traps. She also spends a lot of time sitting on the internet, acting as some kind of firewall I think.
• CdM
  [Rosie] True. But Phil might point out that the same is true of mousetraps.
• rab
  We've recently discovered that there are at least two other cats in the building, which could be why we saw a flurry of mouse activity before we got ours.
• Software
  I have just discovered that our cat likes icecream. As regards chasing mice he is a pacifist. The other day he was seen lying in our garden with a dormouse nibbling a fallen apple about 30cm from his nose.
• Simons Mith
  My cat presented me with a very much alive and wriggling mouse yesterday. It was a great big ferocious critter, probably weighing well over a quarter of an ounce.
• penelope - moustory
  [Simons] And then? What happened next?
• Simons Mith
  Well, I managed to catch it, then popped it in a cardboard box for an hour or so to give it a chance to calm down, then let it go, ready for the cat to catch at some other time.
• Rosie
  (SM) The cat is turning into an angler, then?
• flerdle - random, catless
  *complains about the cold*
• Rosie - Frigidity
  (flerdle) Me too. It's a lousy August here. The temperature is staying mostly below 20 and my home-made sundial is getting very little exercise.
• penelope
  [Rosie] Your sundial doesn't enable you to dial up any sun?
• Dujon - Springy steps
  As August fades into the past the promise of a new season is enticing my olfactory senses from their hibernation. A pleasant hour and a half of practice at my local bowling club (after which I was accepted as a member of the Hat-Wearing-Volvo-Driving Geriatric Club) combined with a beautiful and warm day (maximum 18.9ºC) has contrived an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity within the castle known as 'Dujon's Folly'. Oh, happy days.
• Rosie - Dial-up radiaton
  (pen) Fat chance. I spent a long time getting all the geometry right (it's on a wall) but little chance of testing it. People on the weather newsgroup with actual sun-measuring equipment say that it the dullest August for a long time and scarcely better than January. That's when they're not hurling miss-spelt abuse at each other and generally acting like ****s, ****s and ****s, even. What gets into people? This is a haven of well-mannered sanity.
• Knobbly - Putting a spell on you
  [Rosie] Can I assume you misspelled misspell on purpose?
  What do we think about that university lecturer's suggestion that the 20 most common spelling mistakes should be accepted as variant spellings? (For examples and the lecturer's argument, see article on Times Higher Education website.)
• Rosie
  (Knobbly) Did you mean the "miss" or the "spelt"? The latter is an approved form in my C.O.D. 1964. Maybe the "miss" ought to have only one "s". As to the university lecturer, he is either playing Devil's Advocate, a posh way of saying "taking the piss", or is pretty comprehensively ignorant of language. His ideas have been well rebutted in the replies on the site. I see he's a professor of criminology. I'd lock him up and throw the key away. Know what I mean, guv?
• Knobbly
  (Rosie) Yes, I meant the "miss". One s from the prefix mis- and the other which was already on the beginning of the verb.
• Rosie - Meteorological irony
  The air above about 3000 feet the last few days is very warm and dry and if the cloud disappeared the temperature would shoot up rapidly to about 28°C. But the lower layer of air is cool and moist and cloud can't penetrate the warm air, being cooler and therefore denser. So if the upper air were cooler there'd be some chance of the cloud being carried upwards and evaporating and we'd have a warm, sunny day. Maybe not 28°C but at least 23°C. BTW the sudden rise of temperature as you go up above about 3000 feet (in this case) is called an inversion and is a common feature. In Siberia in winter it can be as much as 25 degC warmer aloft than at the surface, say -20° compared with -45°.
• penelope - Bah!
  I'm working from home on a Saturday, trying to get stuff done before going on holiday for two weeks in a fortnight's time. But it's an opportunity to go through my CD collection one-by-one as I work. I hadn't unpacked them since I moved here almost a year ago. Right now: CD 3 of the complete collection of Vaughan Williams symphonies.
• Kim - Blah!
  I turned 50 while on holiday last week. I find it oddly liberating. Can anyone tell me why this is?
• Software
  [Kim] It's because you know that your next birthday won't be your sixtieth :0(.
• penelope
  [Kim] Because you have realised that, despite the trepidation and build-up, you don't actually feel any different?
  I ended up working most of Sunday too. And it rained. What a write-off of a weekend. Never mind. All of this will soon be over.
• flerdle
  *complains about the cold. Again.*
  Happy Birthday, Kim. 50 isn't that old. Not a lot you can do about it, anyway, other than walk in front of a bus beforehand (too late now).
• Rosie - Silver surfers
  (Software) Neither will mine.
• Phil - Shameless self-promotion, cross-posted at other sites
  There's another beer and music festival this weekend at philspub
• Software - Re: trumpet blowing
  Love to come, but ...
• CdM
  Since it has been so quiet here for so long, may I just say, a propos of nothing except general boasting, that I have just scored 227 in a single scrabble move? Thank you.
• Phil
  [CdM] Wow! How?
• Rosie
  (CdM) Is that possible? 227 is a prime number and I thought scores were always multiplied by various factors rather than added. Apart from that, v good.
• Phil
  [Rosie] Presumably it was 59 tripled plus the bonus 50 for using all 7 letter from the rack.
• CdM - I thought you'd never ask
  [Phil, Rosie] The word was EQUISETA, played across two triple word scores on an existing Q, and also making the words ET and SWING. The letters in EQUISETA have a total value of 18 (including the double letter score on the I), which when twice tripled gives 162. ET contributed another 6 points (because it was also on a triple word), and SWING contributed another 9. That plus the 50 point bonus gives 227. (Note, by the way, that the tiles in my hand were worth a grand total of 7 points.)
  
  It was a very high scoring game: my opponent got 417 points and still lost by over 100.
• penelope
  I think CdM has stunned us all into silence with that accomplishment. In other news, I'm about to jet off for two weeks with the windy miller, taking in a road trip to Turin to visit a friend. On Monday, I am working 'from home' to finish off a press campaign (look out for Ancient Tree Hunt news about the 'Acorns to Ancients' seed collecting month hitting a local newspaper near you). And also,if anyone fancies a bosky trip to Hainault, there's a forest festival taking place in Hainault Forest from September 21 onwards - Speed Dating walks in the woods, anyone? Alternatively, learn woodland management, take part in forest art sessions, or take a guided 'Silent Walk' to listen to the sounds of the forest. If I wasn't elsewhere,. I'd go myself.
• Phil
  Well, you live and learn.. "Bosky" is definitely a word I'll endeavour to add to my everyday vocabulary.
• Rosie - To the woods!
  (Phil) I'm surprised you didn't know it already, man of your calibre. I came across it as a teenager though I admit it's not used much.
• Phil
  [Rosie] When it comes to expanding my vocab, I'm all ears - which explains why I got called Wingnut at school, incidentally.
• Phil - A propos of nothing...
  Doubt if there's a game in this, but things have been quiet in here just lately, but I as wondering how high one could count with film/book names, particularly using just ordinals, rather than cardinals.. Starting with "First Among Equals".
• Uncle Korky
  Forty-Second Street?
• ImNotJohn
  The Third Man (oblig)
• CdM
  Born on the Fourth of July
• Phil
  The Fifth Element
• Irouléguy
  The Sixth Sense
• ImNotJohn - The Inn of the Seventh Happiness
• Software
  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• Software
  10
• CdM
  Right up to the minute, we have The Eighth Wonder
• ImNotJohn
  The Ninth Gate
• CdM
  The Tenth Man (3.33 times more oblig than previously)
• ImNotJohn
  The Eleventh Hour
• Phil
  Twelfth Night: Or What You Will.
• Sierra Mike
  Apollo 13
• Phil - Sticking to the ordinals concept
  Friday the 13th
• ImNotJohn
  That classic: The Fourteenth Man
• Software
  The Magnificent Seven
• Software - going in sequence after all:
  15 Minutes
• ImNotJohn - Pay Attention please
  [Software] We're looking for ordinal numbers here, so the next one is Fifteenth
  Mind you I think we must be getting close to the limit
• CdM
  The Fifteenth. (But I admit that I have started cheating now.)
• Phil
  [INJ/CdM] I have cheated this morning and discovered that the lowest ordinal for which there is not a non-TV, feature-length film is 31st!
• ImNotJohn
  I have a couple in mind for later on, but I looked up 14th. On the other hand Phil's original suggestion included books, and I don't see why we should exclude made-for-TV films as long as they're feature length (say 80 mins minimum). I'm surprised at 31st not being there though as the last day of 7 months and last day of the year.
• ImNotJohn - Further cheating
  And when I do look I discover I actually did know a book with 31st in the title - annoying, that.
• Software - Ancient film
  Knuckles rapped but - Quartorze Juliette
• CdM
  Ok, so Phil needs to fill in the blanks from 16th to 30th, then we have INJ's, then this.
• Projoy
  Then something with 33rd, then Miracle on 34th Street.
• CdM
  [Projoy] Done
• nights
  [Software] I'll say, I wouldn't stand for that kind of spelling from one of my students.
• CdM
  [nights] Nonono, it's a sort of French Kind Hearts and Coronets, in which Mme Binoche plays fourteen different roles.
• nights
  [CdM] I see. I'm still not impressed though, Juliette Binoche is bad enough when she's just playing one role, let alone fourteen.
• nights
  Quiet in here.
• CdM - For the benefit of Ms Pitstop
  I saw my first F1 race last night. It was rather fun in a loud fast car sort of way.
• Phil - Noisy cars
  [CdM] Ah - beat me to it. I was just going to ask if you'd watched it, and if not, if it had had an impact on your night.
• CdM
  [Phil] I saw the race from a slightly unusual vantage point. Because the race went by Singapore's business district, a number of offices with good views hosted parties, and we were invited to one of those. I was a bit sceptical beforehand, but it was actually really cool: an excellent birds-eye view of about one third of the track. A group of us also went downstairs for a while in the middle of the race, where we couldn't see much but could certainly hear it. This way of watching the race also had a couple of other advantages: food and wine; and access to television coverage. Given that I don't really follow F1 that closely, I liked being able to hear commentary while watching. I'm sure that being trackside would be a different experience, but I'm not sure I would have gotten so much out of it. All in all, a fun evening.
• ImNotJohn
  [CdM] Ah, but did you see where the race was won and lost: i.e. in the Ferrari Pit?
• Phil
  [CdM] I've heard trackside isn't so great, especially if you don't speak the local lingo. A friend of mine was phoned by someone at Spa to find out who had won the grand prix he'd just been watching, as he couldn't find out at the track.
• penelope
  Trackside at the British Grand Prix a few years ago, we were given little radios with earphones to get the trackside commentary, which was excellent. It's a lot more exciting close up - especially in the wet...
• nights
  Shame about Dress Rehearsal. Never mind though, eh. Anyone have any ideas for new games?
• nights
  I've just had one. An idea. Condensed books? Summarise the plot of a book in a particularly glib fashion, much like "So the Danish guy dies".
• Rosie - New games
  (nights) Good idea, not that I'd be the star contributor.
• Phil - New Game
  [nights] I think something similar has been done somewhere before - but it could be anywhere in the last 12 years, so I'm certainly up for a new version.
• Kim - New Game
  I am an occasional contributor to, but mostly an amused reader of the "Ridiculously Easy Poetry" game currently being played in another place. Certain opening lines seem to come up quite frequently, sometimes involving fleas. I wonder whether a poetry-based "hillocks" game would be enjoyable for a while ("If I should die and go to Innisfree"). Any thoughts?
• CdM
  [nights] We definitely played that game a couple of years ago -- iirc it involved three-word and then two-word summaries. That doesn't mean we couldn't resurrect it, of course.
  [Kim] I like that idea...
• Projoy
  [CdM] I think that was "Butler Did It" and it was more than a couple of years ago. :)
• nights
  Well, as the consensus seems positive, I'll create the game.
• Kim
  Me, too.
• Knobbly - Who's a hillock?
  I don't understand. Boo hoo hoo. What's the point of the new poetry game?
• blamelewis - What a Hillock
  Don't cry... "Wuthering Hillocks" is a game which aims to ease the poverty of the TV, film and book industries by suggesting inexpensive remakes of old hits, for example "One walked round the cuckoo's nest" or "Who wants to be a milliner?". I'm guessing that the first lines in the new game should be cheap versions of fine famous poetry. Is that it nights? As for the point of it, well...
• nights - Never Mind The Hillocks
  [BL] Nothing to do with me, squire. I think Kim is the man (or possibly woman, but I think man) you need.
• blamelewis - Oh yes...
  I read back as far as "I'll create the game..." above... So - Kim?
• Kim - Hillocks for the uninitiated
  Yes, blamelewis has it right. "When hillocks collide" was an early-ish game on MCiOS and was set in the genre of film. It basically describes the scene of an accident. The film version generated such classics as "The Man Who Wasn't There Who Knew The Man Who Shot The Man Who Fell to Earth in Iron Mask With Two Brains", "One Million Years in Tibet" and "Sink the Titanic!". I mused idly that one could do something like that with well-known lines from poetry, hence "If I should die and go to Innisfree". I hadn't really thought about a ruleset, but perhaps there should be a minimum of two lines and no maximum, the metre of the first line should determine the metre of subsequent lines, rhyme is nice, but not essential. Is that enough to be going on with, folks?
• penelope - *sigh*
  It's a lovely day. I wish I'd got washing out on the line.
• Rosie - Behold!
  (pen)

  Earth has not anything to show more fair:
  Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
  A sight so touching in its majesty. (Wordsworth).

• ImNotJohn
  Earth has not anything to show more fair
  Any more fares?
  Any more fares?(Flanders & Swann)
• rab
  My wife has been cleverly filtering the (snail) mail the last week so I ended up thinking the only people who had remembered my Birthday were the TV Licensing people.
• penelope - rabturous
  Happy Birthday!!
• nights
  Happy Birthday to Rab!
• nights
  Additionally, does anyone have anything fun planned for the weekend?
• Phil - Habby Pirthday, rab!
  [nights] No.
• rab
  I'm being taken out tonight for a mystery meal. I think.
• Tuj
  [rab] Taken all the labels off your tin cans, have you? ;) Slightly belated returns from here too!
• nights
  [Tuj] Ah, what we used to call The Fabulous Mystery Dining Experience, back when I lived in halls. These days, if I cook out of cans, I'm sneered at by all the French people I know.
• Rosie
  (nights) Not surprised; you're supposed to put it in a saucepan. :-)
• penelope
  I planted trees today. And then went dancing. All in all, quite satisfying.
• rab
  Why on earth would anyone ever want three differently-coloured phones on their desk?
• ImNotJohn
  To match their handbag on any particular day, of course. (Well, if Posh can buy cars to match her clothes....)
• Sierra Mike - Phones
  If it was good enough for Reginald Perrin...
• Phil - More Phones
  ...and a fantastic Pete & Dud sketch...
• penelope - Seasonal update
  It's blissfully cold this morning. Very refreshing.
• rab
  I'm just glad the wind's dropped. The sign on the front of our local Post Office blew off when we were out yesterday (but, luckily, not right in front of the building).
• Kim
  [rab] It's probably a sign.
• Software
  [Kim] No, it was a sign.
• rab
  Just had the following train announcement: "Please note it is illegal to play pre-recorded music of popular music artists on trains or at stations because we do not hold a performing rights licence". Not simply because it annoys the crap out of everyone.
• Uncle Korky
  [rab] That leaves you clear to broadcast the back catalogue of any unpopular music artist...
• Rosie - muzak
  (rab) I wonder if that applies to shops. I hope so.
• Phil - Muzak
  Unfortunately, most places, including my butcher, fork out for the PRS (aka thieving bastards) licence. The butcher, since you ask, has a radio playing, hence he needs the PRS licence.
• Rosie - The PRS
  (Phil) I don't see why musicians shouldn't be paid for any public performance though I don't know the scale of charges. Yes, I am in the MU. I would have thought you would have been more put out by the cost of a music licence from the local council, for which you receive bugger all except a piece of paper and a bill.
• Phil - "Music Licence from the Council"
  No such thing any more. It all comes in the premises licence these days, thankfully.
• Rosie - Pub bore
  (Phil) Ah! Didn't know that. But does it cost more if you are licensed for music or are all premises licensed thus?

  On a different subject what do you think of the practice of discretionary closing times?, i.e. the pub will stay open the advertised extra half hour if the manager thinks it worth it on any particular evening. To me it's wanting to have your cake and eat it, or less formally, taking the piss. If you're in the pub you don't know how fast to drink or whether to have another half, say, or if arriving late, as I often do, whether the pub will be open or not. To be on the safe side I will be assuming that the place will be closed at all times, as are many of my mates. There's quite a good choice in Carshalton and I wonder if the new manager knows that. He will soon.

• rab
  [Rosie] Here in Embra there's been 'late' opening for quite some time, which means most pubs close variously between 12 and 1am, and a few staying open to 3 (or 4 during the Festival). It's generally been accepted that if a place is rather quiet, it might close early, but that it's good etiquette for the staff to go round about half-an-hour beforehand to let you know that this is likely to happen, and to suggest venues that are likely to be open later. Seemed to work rather well. (I say 'seemed', as my late-night drinking days are largely behind me now).
• penelope - I'm bored
  I've stopped opening emails today. They've all been boring so far this morning - or have been asking me to do things I don't have time for, so I thought I'd save myself the hassle and stop opening them altogether. People will soon get the point and stop sending them.
• Rosie - pubs
  (rab) That's reasonable if the hours are as late as that but my "local" is merely extending from 11 to 1130, and on Sundays from 1030 to 11, each night at the manager's discretion. For a "regular" that won't do because one of the points about a favourite pub is its predictablity. This seems a blundering accountant-driven policy or maybe the manager's just a lazy arsehole. We are taking punitive action.
• rab
  I don't know why, but when I'm in a different timezone, I feel normal rules don't apply.

  

  Los geht's

• Knobbly
  Anyone care for a mug of kitten?
• Tuj
  [Knobbly] Milk no sugar please.
• Raak
  Black with ginger please.
• Phil - Variable opening
  [Rosie] I believe I've spoken on this matter on another site, but the crux of the matter is that I'm with you on this one. My pub is licensed until 1am on friday and saturday, but I close at 12. Customers need consistency, and they need to know where they stand. On very rare occasions, I will stay open until 1am, but that is for the likes of our football team's annual prizegiving, and they all know in advance. They tend to leave about 12.30 anyway though. If the pub has 50 customers one friday night and you stay open the extra 30 minutes, what happens next week when there are 45 customers. You make yourself an immediate target for bickering. If you going to take punitive action, may I suggest you let the gaffer know before you do so, as he may not notice. He also might be more likely to change his ways in advance of losing custom.
• Phil
  [Rosie] Your other question. No, there is no variation in cost that tallies with what your licensable activities are. You do, though, open yourself up to a much bigger can of worms in the matter of your neighbours and their potential objections.
• Rosie - Chucking-out time
  (Phil) I think the manager may have seen sense, though not through customer persuasion AFAIK, because there is now a completely new regime after less than a fortnight of this arbitrary stuff and the pub now has a 24-hr licence all week and is advertised (in the bar) as being open from midday to 11.30 a.m., the half-hour closed being apparently to put a few things in order each day. There is no mention of management discretion on the notice. Does this mean I can stay there drinking, probably alone, until 4 in the morning (say)? What on earth is the point of that because Carshalton is not exactly Soho. I'd like to know what's going on but the barman (not the manager) couldn't help, or wouldn't.
• penelope
  [Rosie] Have you been in the bar since Monday then?
• Rosie
  (Phil) Sanity has prevailed with the appearance of yet another regime in which closing time is 1130 (pm) except Friday and Saturday which are midnight and Sundays which are 11 pm. These are modest extensions to the original times. The manager could have kept his itchy fingers off the keyboard and printer until he'd made his mind up but all's well that ends well.
  (pen) Shurrup. Wha' if I 'ave? :-)
• Software - Hours and Hours
  Over here one has to move pub to get different closing times, it's all according to the type of licence issued, i.e. whether or not the licensee is able to have live music. Very strange but one gets used to it.
• rab
  Hmm, looks like this site is about to become target for a lorryload of spam. Will need to think about tightening up the security I guess.
• rab
  In the meantime, you might want to check the status of our latest building project.
• penelope
  [rab] Nice lav ;o)
• rab
  [pen] That one's on its way out. The new one is sitting in a box in the spare bedroom.
• Phil
  [Rosie] Glad to hear you have stability again.
• zbchk bnud - zbchk bnud
  maith fthmri fuqv ktndamcs yetxq latids umgjkyftd
• Software
  So nice to see we have visitors from another galaxy.
• penelope
  I thought it was one of us posting from a palm raspberry thing straight after emerging from the dentist's surgery.
• Rosie
  (pen) :-)
• rab - Ching
  Nice dusting of snow this morning, oddly, more in front of than out the back of the block.
• Tuj
  Noting a slot and the date, does anyone have any inspiration for an advent-themed game of MC?
• penelope
  [Tuj] Done. Can you wait up until midnight to make your move? Sorry if that was a bit rude...
• Tuj
  [pen] I knew someone would be able to hatch my half-idea =) thank you!
• penelope
  [Tuj] You're going to have to wait another day for a morsel of chocolate. Softers just got today's.
• Stevie - Odd Problem
  Sorry to interrupt, but I need to get a message through to rab and the firewall here is stopping me posting to OMC/N&Q at the moment. I'm seeing a nod problem with the index page here at MC5. The names and moves displayed on it are not the same as those showing last in the games themselves. Is anyone else seeing this, or is this confined to my proxied-by-idiots world? Am I living in pre-cached hell again?
• Dujon
  All looks fine here, Stevie.
• rab
  Looks like a caching problem at your end, but I've resynched the index with the game data anyway.
• Stevie - Chocolate covered cache. Ooh!
  [rab] *sighs* Okay. I'll resign myself to never seeing the site in it's real state then.
• rab
  I could try adding the appropriate http header to try and request a non-cache.
• rab - OK
  See if that works.
• Stevie - Cache Deals Only
  [rab] Seems to have fixed it for now. Clever, you.
• penelope
  It's almost a week since anyone said anything, so I'll break the silence. I think I've moved into the 'finishing off projects' phase at work before my last day in the office on 23 December. How strange this is...
• Software
  Not at all unusual if you are a proper professional, pen, which I assume you are.
• penelope
  I'm definitely demob happy now. I'm finishing off other people's jobs and bringing mince pies into work. I don't even like mince pies that much.
• Knobbly
  It gets very quiet in here over the weekend. Does that imply that most of mc5s posts are posted when the poster ought to be working?
• Raak
  [Knobbly] I am shocked, shocked to hear such a suggestion!
• penelope
  [knobbers] How very dare you??!!
• ImNotJohn
  I'd really like to express my hurt at the suggestion but, since I'm at work at the moment, I can't.
• CdM
  [Knobbly] Now look what you've done! Everyone is too ashamed to play any more. There has hardly been a move in any game for two days.
• nfras
  Shhh! Some of us have work to do, keep the noise down.
• Rosie
  BOO! .....apologises to neighbours.....
• rab - Chirp
  We've had a lot of dealings with tradesmen recently. None of them too disastrous (although there is still one job outstanding in the bathroom, scheduled for 8am tomorrow). But when something really good happens, I get so pleased. Our roofer was scheduled to check a few things out tomorrow morning in advance of the down-tools period (I had visions of a waterfall coming though the extractor fan on Christmas day). He phoned me up just now saying "I'm in the area, shall I come now?"; leapt onto the roof, found everything that was wrong with it and told me it would be thirty-five quid to fix. It was done in about the time it took me to get to the cashpoint and back.

  Oh, and when I told him that one of his rivals told us we needed a whole new roof, he looked at me like I was mad and said, "Nah... this one will last about 20 years".

• penelope
  [rab] Is your bathroom fixed now?
• penelope
  This is my last day at work...
• Raak
  Woken by the telephone at ten o'clock this morning. Augh! The four best hours of the day lost in slumber, never to return! Oh well, I doubt if anyone else is at work today.
• Phil
  [Raak] I'm trying to plan a night off on Jan 2nd. It looks like it might work -)
• Uncle Korky
  [Raak] I'm still at work... Can't afford any time off, as I need all my leave for the imminent arrival of a new addition to the family. So I'll take this opportunity to wish a Merry Crimbo to everyone at MC5!
• rab - Merries
  Happy wotsit. I'm obliged by the cult of Jobs to tell you this comes via my Father's iPhone.
• penelope - Happinesses
  Phew, Christmas successfully accomplished in the traditional manner. The Windy Miller is, this moment, accompanying the AA man in their attempts to get the car started, in anticipation of driving back to the Netherlands tomorrow. I have a chicken curry simmering on the hob, and was until a few moments ago, studying a book of Heath Robinson illustrations. Next, we will play with the new kitchen-windowsill weather monitoring station and see if we can't find out how to turn the outside temperature up a bit.
• Rosie
  (pen) Move here. You may "glow" a little.
• penelope - twelve days of Christmas
  Monday, 2 December - the third consecutive day with a visit from the AA man. Today, they are taking the car away to a garage to be fixed. The advantage is that I get to spend extra time with the Windy Miller (we went to the cinema to see Australia last night - our first-ever cinema date. Marvellous cinematography, probably a lot of it CGI, but sh*t writing - maudlin, predictable and worst of all, it had Nicole Kidman in it). The disadvantage is that he is getting impatient as he has work to do back at home.
• penelope - this year
  I'm packing, and moving. Moving and packing. Eek!
• CdM
  [pen] You have my deepest empathy.
• ImNotJohn
  [CdM] Ignore Pen, it may not be great, but her way of seeing Australia is a lot less bother than yours.
• Software
  [pen] It's a new beginning - sounds exciting. I enjoyed my 2 years in the Netherlands and would probably have stayed longer except for my ex.
• epjlqroab nfpaub - epjlqroab nfpaub
  hajoqpr budr znbq zoaidfeum cbrglknov mtsjiaex bveowfzyt
• Dujon - My heavens he's found me - anyone available to give me a lift to Bletchley?
• Software
  Very cryptic, Duj :o)
• Knobbly
  I wonder if epjlqroab nfpaub is the same person as zbchk bnud from back in November?
• Simons Mith
  [Knobbly] Don't be ridiculous, the names are completely different from each other.
• penelope - Moving day T-3
  I have two chairs and one lamp left. Everything else has been sold or is in boxes. Even my bed will sell on Ebay today, and a mate with a garage will sell my car for me. Lummy.
• Software
  So you weren't joking when you said you were leaving, pen. :o)
• Sierra Mike - Holland
  [penelope] Where will you be living? Will you be using only public transport once you move? I've never been to Holland but I understand they have invested heavily in public transportation.
• Sierra Mike - dead game?
  Has Film Club run it's course, or does someone else want to suggest a new subject for it?
• penelope - Public???
  [SM] Public transport? Heavens no. I will be riding a stately omafiets, a birthday present from my schatje molenaar.
• Sierra Mike - omafiets
  [penelope] Would that be a bicycle, horse, moped or skateboard?
• penelope
  It's a 'granny bike' - big wheels, sprung seat, upright handlebars, luggage rack and shopping panniers, enormously comfortable and particularly suited for flat places.
• Software - Fietspads
  [pen] In my my experience the wind always blows in you face whichever way you are cycling in Holland, making the traditional bikes hard work.
• penelope
  [Softers] Yup. But mine's aluminium so pretty light. And the wind blows against you wherever you cycle in Lincolnshire too, so that's nothing new.
• Rosie - Velocity vectors
  (Softers, pen) The only possible conclusions are that either there is no wind in Holland, Lindsey and Kesteven or that you never cycle at less than about 50 mph. Impressive.
• Sierra Mike - Bike
  [penelope] The sprung seat is particularly suited to flat places? :)
  
  Does this bicycle come with one of those teardrop-shaped "Pifo" electric horns that were so popular the last time I rode a bike?
• flerdle - biiiii-cycle
  [Sierra Mike] I like this. It works very, very well.
• Sierra Mike
  [flerdle] Nice one. I read the linked article, then took a mouthfull of hot coffee just as I got to the bit about "30 blasts from one pumping-up". I immediately pictured Inspector Clouseau, in disguise, madly pumping as he cycled toward a pedestrian crowd (the parrot-inflation bit in the "Salty Swedish Sea Captain From The Salty Sea" scene is one of my favourite Sellars moments).
  
  I'm probably going to need a new workstation keyboard now.
• rab
  I've been a fan of Matthew Somerville's alternative front-end to the National Rail website for quite some time, traintimes.org.uk, on the grounds that it works better than the real one. He's recently added a live train map, and I particularly like the description of how it works:

  Live departure data is fetched from the National Rail website, much like my timetable site, and then it does a bit of maths and magic.

• penelope - Blowin' in the wind
  *blushing* I drove the windy miller to his usual Saturday leading the volunteers and various lads at the mill this morning (practising driving (a) on the wrong side of the road and (b) on the wrong side of the car) but we were a bit later than his normal arrival time. You can see the mill from some way off because of the flat landscape, and when we were about half a mile away, the WM could see the sails were already turning and exclaimed: 'There are flags on the sails!'. As we got closer, we realised what they were. There was a Dutch tricolour on one sail, and a Union flag on the opposite one (bought specially off t'internet). And there were muffins and stroopwafels to have with coffee there this morning. Then I came home, made soup, tidied up a bit, and watched Alec Guinness in Cromwell on BBC 2 which you can get here. Bloody marvellous :o).
• flerdle - Arrivals
  [pen] Yay!
• Chalky - *fancies a stroopwafel - all of a sudden*
• Software - Welkom
  [pen] Nice. Watch out for the speed cameras ;o). The cable channels carry only the BBC (for copyright reasons, apparently) but if you live near the coast you can get all the UK channels (analogue ones, only probably) on an aerial.
• Sierra Mike
  [penelope] Happiness to you.
• penelope
  Thanks all :o)
  Back to the mill tonight - it's floodlit farming night, so farms and mills on the island of Hoekshe Waard (that's this one) will be floodlit for busloads of sightseers to tour.
  This morning's trip to the small supermarket lead me past two market-stall type vans in the main street of this large village/small town. One was a cheesemonger, on whose stall I spotted a small solitary block of English cheddar, bright orange and tightly encased in plastic, amongst the big wheels of Dutch cheese and the small morsels of some of the better-known French cheeses. There are so many good British cheeses, but none of them are known here. Hardly any of them are known behind the counters of Tesco either, but that's a different problem. *goes to chivvy up the British Cheese Marketing people*.
• Tuj - Cheesy lines
  [pen] Perhaps if you polish off the advent chocs we could have a game writing slogans for cheese!
• Bigsmith
  mmmm, cheese...
• penelope - gah
  I was putting together my advent chocolate feast when my internet connection broke - actually the wind dropped on the windy miller's wifi network. So if anyone can polish off the chocolates and start on the cheese, they'd be welcome to do it.
• Simons Mith - Pilgrimage
  BTW, there will be a Pilgrimage in London on Feb 14th, if anyone's interested.
• Phil
  [penelope] eat local food - the world will thank you for it much later.
• penelope
  [Phil] I do, mostly - the potatoes here are particularly good, they actually taste of potato. But if they're going to import some cheese from the UK, you'd think they'd cart the good stuff about, not the orange plastic-wrapped-in-plastic stuff, wouldn't you? They seem to manage to bring in some decent French cheese.
• I Say, Porter! - Cheese
  [Pen] Actually, the Dutch tend to like their plasticky orange cheeses - Edam and Gouda being cases in point - but some of the smoky varieties are very nice, and you should be able to get tastier Boerenkaas and goat cheeses if you look hard enough. I don't know where your windmill is but I assume there isn't an English shop round the corner. Are there no local farmers who make their own? Have you tried whingeing to Windy? On an unrelated note, are you coming to Othello? I can put you up...
• penelope - Good try
  [IS,P!] I'm almost ashamed to admit it, and please don't take it personally, but theatre ain't my bag. I struggle to appreciate drama and hardly watch films - Jan and I went to the cinema for the first time together in December, two years after we met. Sooo I will leave an Othello seat for someone who will appreciate it more.Perhaps we should have a Brussels Sprouting Pilg at some point though.
• Chalky - *has just google-mapped peneloopij's woonplaats*
• Kim - Pilgrimage
  [SM] Is that for people who don't have anything else to do on Valentines Day?
• Simons Mith - Slogans for cheese?
  And now there's a new game slot, shall we start a Cheesy slogans game?
  [Kim] What else might one have to do on Valentine's Day?
• Phil - Cheese
  [pen] I remember being aghast in a supermarket in Perigord (admittedly in a fairly ex-pat-filled town), and seeing Red Leicester amongst the French cheeses. Especially galling was the £11 per kg price tag!
• penelopij - a nice bit of...
  [Phil] That's marketing for you! I'd like some jong Lincolnshire Poacher, voor mij.
• Sierra Mike
  [Phil] French Cheese. Galling. I get that.
• Software
  I like all cheeses, but some better than others, obviously.
• Chalky
  [Softers] Have left a question for you in AVMA - I assumed you would be looking in there. Perhaps a reply in here might be best, if that's OK with you. [ Then all will be revealed :-)]
• Chalky
  [Soft] Ah - I've just seen it. Thanks. The reason I asked - have to go to St Helier to do some work in early Feb and thought it might be nice to connect. But as you're not there ....
  :-(
• Chalky - 3rd time lucky
  Potty mouth? You ARE in Jersey, then?
• Software - St Helier
  [Chalks] Yes, I am here, well I work in St Helier and live just outside. When you over?
• Chalky
  [Softers] Any chance of you emailing? k/e/davenport/@/// gmail.com [sans hyphens - natch] :)
• penelope - Well?
• penelope
  We're all dying to know - did Softers email Chalky? Will the Jerseypilg go ahead? Find out in next week's episode of... Chat
• Chalky - *chuckles*
  [peneloopij] He did. It may.
• penelope - In the meantime...
  Sunny and very cold today in Zuid Holland. We may even yet go for a bike ride. I have no idea what my windy miller is doing downstairs while I'm upstairs trying to write something, but it sounds like he's reorganisisng something and I'm afraid to go and look.
• I Say, Porter! - Windy Miller
  [Pen] Please tell me he has a blue coat, a red necktie and a brown upturned-flowerpot hat...
• penelope - As You Like It
  [IS,P!] why certainly. He has a blue coat, red neckerchief and a brown upturned-flowerpot hat. The coat and neckerchief are in the laundry basket waiting to be ironed, but he keeps the hat in the car.
• Dujon - You don't press his hat?
  Good grief, woman, what are you thinking about? Everyone from where I came from has a flat hat (they, the wearers, are said to also have whippets and cobblestones and ghosts, but that's just not true). Even I have one! (pictures available at £150 each, on request - and after a full security cheque (price to be negotiated)).
• Software - Highly Rural
  It seems to me that Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cutherbert, Dibble and Grubb will be getting jealous of all this attention.
• ImNotJohn - Clarification required
  [Dujon] You have one what? Ghost? Cobblestone? Whippet?
  And anyway we'll have the RSPCA round to you for ironing your whippets.
  You don't need to iron a flat hat - the incessant beating of the rain on it will do that for you.
• Sierra Mike
  Just so you know, reading this conversation is like looking at a Dali painting to me. Every time I think I'm getting the drift of it, one of the pieces flops over and makes a shape like an elephant (or a swan).
• penelope - hatters
  [Duj] it's not a flat hat - we're talking about the traditional attire of windy miller, the hat is upturned-flower-pot shaped. The landscape here in South Holland is flat. I can see how you got confused.
• CdM
  [pen] Wait. You are ironing the landscape?
• Phil
  [CdM] A man knocked at my door and asked if I wanted my garden landscaped. I don't think my neighbours would appreciate me turning my portrait garden sideways.
• nfras
  [Phil] proper lol and in the office too.
• Dujon - Well, well, well
  I suppose that the next you lot will tell me is you don't launder your money. Honestly! What are Great Britain and the Nederlands coming to? Whatever, I bet it's a bit warmer here (excluding the Mint investigations) than it is at your picturesque location. Na, Na, Na Na Ner.       ;-)
• Rosie - Sweat, y'bugger
  (Duj) You're welcome to 39°C with high humidity. 39°F would do me OK at the moment. There was a foot of snow here on Monday morning and still about half that even now.
• Dujon - Life threatening thingiwhatsits
  Rosie, that is not funny. ;-) So it was you who peeked at my weather site from an area somewhere near London. You can keep your snow as I'm just hoping my air conditioning unit keeps running. Today (Saturday) should be fine - sort of - but tomorrow I fear. 47ºC is most definitely not going to be fun.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) It would seem to be a good day to hang out the washing around here. I doubt if you'll get a true 47°C though Melbourne might. The cool change could be quite something. I'll keep an eye on it.
• Rosie - By contrast
  (Duj) To cool off try this rather agreeable city.
• rab - Newsflash
  I rudely interrupt to bring you the essential news that at 23.09 today I will be exactly* 1/3rd century old. Oh, and it's snowing.

  * Subject to how one chooses to define of 'exact'

• rab - Optimist
  As a special not-birthday treat, my wife took me to the optometrists. He (the optometrist, not my wife) said my prescription had changed "a little bit", but when I compared the two sets of numbers I could detect no correlation between them whatsoever.
• penelope
  [Rab] Were you wearing glasses at the time?
• Rosie - Ageism
  (rab) Date of birth 9 Oct 1975 at 5 a.m. then? I have taken a century as 36524.25 days. On 18 July this year at 6 pm I shall be two-thirds of a century old. On 23 July last year I was twice as old as you. I do like faffing about with a calculator.
• Bigsmith
  Rosie old chap, too much time on your hands? Very good though!
• Rosie - Tempus ambulat
  (Bigsmith) I see mathematics (or arithmetic, which this is) as a recreation. Time to spare? Work out my date of birth. (Don't forget the leap years, all n of them.)
• rab
  [Rosie] We seem to disagree by a day and an hour, even though I used the same length of a century as you... bother.
• Tuj
  [Rosie] You're not the only one... a good friend of mine (and a Cambridge Maths graduate) recently delighted to inform me I was 7884 days old. Not long 'til the big 8000!
• Rosie
  (rab) 10th October then? My mistake. But I don't see how I can be an hour out because 36524.25/3=12174.75 exactly. So we have to subtract 0.75 day (18 hr) from the time you gave initially, making it 5.09 a.m. I called it 5 a.m. because we're not shot from guns exactly. My double-your-age date is wrong, too. It should be 31 Aug 08 at 6 pm, if you were born at 6 a.m. 10/10/75.
• Bigsmith - Rosie's date of birth
  17 November 1942 (n = 17).
• rab
  [Rosie] Did you take daylight saving time into account?
• uohrixg yzrqmefdx - uohrixg yzrqmefdx
  bvkj kqna hojxkmtd uzrltjvx ityksr owucr nxdawbgvc
• Rosie
  (rab) No. I will have no truck with such arbitrary adjustments in my sophisticated numerical analyses :-). You are right, of course, provided you were born in Britain, or possibly Spain or some West African countries.
  (Bigsmith) And so are you. (6 pm, they tell me).
• Dujon - Accuracy
  [uohrixg yzrqmefdx] That, good sir, was jolly close, as I believe even Rosie would acknowledge. I do think though that you have missed by a bit. Rosie does not live 'south of the border' and nor does he live so far west of the meridian.
  I would give you 'bvyk anq.s and ityksr+polar co-ordinates' when related to the orbit of Triton as seen from Earth.
• Bigsmith
  [Rosie] 6 pm aye? Then by applying the Euclidian theory of longitudinal drift to a trans-Mercator projection I determine that that would have been in Crowborough, Sussex.
• Rosie
  (Bigsmith) Correct yet again. Amazing. Would have been Purley (nudge, nudge) but for the war. The OS Grid is a Transverse Mercator projection BTW. Very gudermannian. (Dujon) 0° 03' 36.8" W. Can't be too accurate; don't want to go in the wrong house.
• Bigsmith
  [Rosie] Bugger, I thought I'd made it up! I remember we have discussed things map-wise before. I do enjoy a good OS map so it must have been subconcious. WildpantsMC may be long gone but the player profiles page is still on-line and easy to search.
  
  That's how I know about your London Welsh parents!
• Uncle Korky - Apologies for my recent absence
  I can proudly announce the arrival on planet Earth of Maxwell Theodore Stanley Kirby!
• Sierra Mike - MTSK
  Hullo Max.
• Rosie
  Maxwell - he'll be a demon at physics. Congratulations. Hope all are well.
  (Bigsmith) I thought that's where you must have got it. Still up, is it? I haven't looked for years.
• Bob the dog - as per MCiOS
  Welcome Max!!
• Sierra Mike - Ex Libri Bardus
  Are we done? Does anyone have a good idea with which to replace it?
• Tuj
  [SM] Bear in mind there's been an open game slot beneath it for quite some time now. Ideas and energy seem somewhat lacking in the Morniverse lately.
• Software - Bent Saws
  Don't count your chickens before the fat lady sings.
• Sierra Mike - Unused Games
  [Tuj] I was under the impression that there was some sort of inner council that came up with games and were the only ones able to make them. I should add that I don't have any good game ideas with which to replace Ex Libri Bardus, I was just thinking that it was looking a bit threadbare, and that my last few moves in it missed the point so widely that the sooner they were hidden in the archive the better. I don't know what I was thinking when I made them (he said in his best "Kryten" voice).
• Sierra Mike - Bent Saws
  [Software] That sounds like something Marlon from The Perishers would say. I like it.
• Raak
  I've done the honours for Ex Libri.
• Uncle Korky - Max
  Cheers for the good wishes, folks - pictures are up on my Facebook!
• Dujon - Mad Max
  [Uncle Korky] Congratulations and felicitations to all. I haven't gone a-facebooking as a picture does not always tell a thousand words. The question, therefore, is, "is he smart?"
• Kim` - Bent Saws
  Where there's muck, there's hope. Let's have a go. [UK] Congratulations to you on the arrival of Maxwell. A silver hammer is in the post.
• Simons Mith - Bent Saws
  A jolly good idea and I like the game name too. Let lightning strike while the iron's hot.
• Sierra Mike - Bent Saws
  Raak, I loved your "bank" saw. It's (not) funny because it's true.
• penelope - Sponsored silence
  OK, it's been silent for a week... someone say something!
• Phil - oblig.
  something
• Simons Mith
  Not that I'm proposing any changes, but I wonder if games would become more or less active if they weren't stamped with the date and time of the last move. Less active is my guess.
• Uncle Korky - Max
  [Dujon] Can't vouch for smart, yet, but I'd like to think there's potential! [Kim] Ta muchly!
• penelope - ONe week later
  Bright and cold here (can also be said for me as well as the weather) and today I am going to take to the road. Enough of nerves, I've just got to drive. But after 25 years of driving on the other side of the road, and the other side of the car, it's all a bit weird.
• Software - Left Hooker
  Hi pen, hold your breath and prepare for a few rapped knuckles on you left hand! You'll get used to it quicker than you think. Just watch out for those nasty entry/exit points that the Clogs like so much, you find yourself merging with traffic entering the motorway as you are trying to leave. Very unnerving the first time.
• penelope
  The bit that un-nerves me is the crossroads with no marked priority here in the village - like a US 4-way stop. I struggle to use those to turn left across oncoming traffic and end up lurching about.
• Simons Mith - Technical writing test
  Changing the subject just a little, I've got a job interview tomorrow for a tech writer role. And they've given me a little test document to polish. It contains a clever twist on bad documentation technique I've not seen before: 'Note how Figure 1 does not show the following....'

  I just love that. Specially creating a diagram that doesn't show the thing you want to highlight. Hats off to 'em. I'm just hoping this document was intentionally altered to make a harder test. But in these cases there's always the risk that a legitimate document really was genuinely that badly-written. Still, if so, at least I'll have plenty of rewriting work to do.

• Software
  This page was NOT intentionally left blank, comes to mind :o).
• Sierra Mike - This Page Intentionally Blank
  [Software] TPILB has a very good pedigree. It was used extensively in the 1970s when replacement pages for technical manuals had only half the content of the original, resulting in one blank side right where everyone had hitherto been used to finding text. It was a way of avoiding the (then) expensive customer service calls about non-existent missing text that went nowhere. It also meant that the original contents page would still work, mostly, as the page numbering wasn't screwed up by the change. The only alternative would be to reprint the entire chapter from the change onward which would likely prove to be prohibitively expensive. These days, one often sees such material reproduced either electronically, which makes no sense, or on single-sided copies of the original material, which makes sense but is still odd when you come across it.
• Software - Tech Speak
  [SM] I know, I'm an engineer and at one point in my distant past was responsible for the printing and distribution of technical manual updates (on a subcontract). It still bemuses the uninitiated though.
• I Say, Porter! - You Tech the High Road
  Ah! Reminds me when I was a technical author myself. I can still take a 20-year-old New World gas cooker to pieces... Just don't ask me to put it together again when I've drawn the pictures.
• Sierra Mike
  [Software] Sorry for lecturing the knowledgable.
• penelope
  I think it's spring.
• Sierra Mike
  [penelope] Are you loving Holland? Are the tulips growing yet? Have you been overrun by clog-wearing mice?
• penelope
  [SM] Starting to withstand/endure/cope with Holland rather than like it or love it. Still not quite sure what I'm doing here... The tulips are just poking their leaves through in the garden (we're further south than the main tulip-growing areas - there are mostly pear and apple orchards and celeriac fields here), and there are precious few mice, or even rabbits. Apparently the water table is too high for them to dig warrens. But there are lots of hares, herons, some large bird of prey that I have yet to identify, kingfishers (ijsvogels - I've also realised I have a whole new vocabulary of wildlife to learn) and the most interefered-with trees I have ever seen in my life. There is not one tree here that has been allowed to grow accoring to its natural form. Every single tree has been either trimmed, clipped, pollarded, coppiced, brashed or felled. Tree-fiddling is the national obsession.
• Software - Clogland
  You'll grow to love the place, pen. The south is a bit severe, the Dutch reclaimed most of the land so they do what they like with it. I lived in Nord Holland which is a bit less over-cultivated and the trees are allowed to do tree things, to a degree anyway. I lived in a town called Huizen, my garden used to back on the Ijsselmeer but it is now about 1km away!
• penelope
  [Softers] I take it all back. The invitation to an interview for a promising job which was issued and then witdrawn has been issued again. I'm hopeful once more. More on this later...
• Dujon - Expansionism
  [Software] Those Dutch hey? Having given up their world exploits they are now about to invade the Channel by stealth. I shall now make a concerted effort to monitor the Indian and Pacific Oceans; the thought of the whole of Huizen sneaking across to reclaim Van Deimen's Land has my kernees kernocking.
• ImNotJohn
  [Dujon] We in Britain have a cunning plan to foil the Dutch takeover by stealth of the North Sea. As they gradually move out to rebuild the land bridge we are simultaneously moving the coast of East Anglia inland. By the time the Dutch catch us up we’ll all be in Dublin.
• Sierra Mike
  [penelope] I expect Software is right and that once the fast-relocation shellshock has worn off, the ground turns colours other than brown and you have gainful employment you will wonder why you didn't move years ago.
• Rosie
  (INJ) Coastal erosion will see to that anyway, so they say.
• Sierra Mike - Those Darn Dikes
  [ImNotJohn] This plan will play merry hell with the old Risk and Diplomacy games. I expect after-market stickers will be available for pre-game coastline reconfiguration.
• rab - * waves from Santa Fe *
• penelope - *twiddles thumbs*
  I had an interview yesterday, and did a looong written test today, by email. Now I'm anxiously waiting to hear if I've got a fantastic three-day a week, English speaking/writing job at the university that pays as much as my five-day-a-week not-for-profit job did back in Blighty...
• Projoy
  Mmmm. Part-time.
• Software - Huisvrouw
  I can see you getting used to the lifestyle in Clogland, pen.
• Phil
  Mmmmm....five-day-a-week.
• penelope - And the rest of the time, I am...
  Housework, looking after the windy miller (who does 5 x 12 hour days and all day Saturday at the mill), and some freelance work... Pah!
• Rosie
  (pen) 60 hours a week sounds like trubble at mill.
• Phil
  [Rosie] Sounds like a part-time job to me :( *(moan, moan, bleat, whinge etc etc etc ad nauseam until someone points out I chose to do this for a living, and that I get to live in a pub)*
• rab
  [Phil] Presumably you also have the option to hire someone so that you work fewer hours, but with obvious consequences for your finances.
• rab
  Welcome to London Heathrow, The World's Most Miserable Airport. I've just been biometrised and hassled at security despite the fact I've been in secure areas for the last twelve hours.
• Phil
  [rab] Yes I could pay someone to some some of the stuff I do. But they wouldn't do it as well as I do. If they did, I wouldn't able to afford them. Also, I enjoy 95% of what I do - especially the quality control :-)
• penelope
  [Phil] I hear you. The windy miller is the same - he takes huge pride in the work that he does (construction project management - and this one is a HUGE project) but being on site to make sure things happen on schedule takes its toll and he's usually too exhausted to do anything on Sunday - which is the only day we have at home together. So much for moving here to spend more time together. Part of my 'job' at the moment is taking care of him, as much as he'll let me. *sigh*
• penelope - *was in England for three days and thought it was lovely*
• rab - * was on Iona and Colonsay for four days and thought they were lovely *
• Rosie - *was in East Grinstead for two hours and thought it was awful*
• Phil - *is envious of rab*
• Software - *was in the Crowne Plaza Buckingham Gate for 2 hours and it was so dull we moved to the Holiday Inn, Oxford Street*
• Knobbly - *was at home*
• CdM
  *thought, therefore was*
• penelope
  [CdM] Was what? ;o)
• Rosie
  (pen) Cogitavit ergo erat. I dunno.
• penelope - *just got a phone call telling her she's got the job*
• Raak
  [pen] Congratulations!
• ImNotJohn - *Thought that congratulations were due to Penelope*
• rab - *just got a phone call from Job*
• Software - belen
  Well done.
• Kim - *Has an idea for a game*
  Called "News has come to Harvard": we make up new elements for the periodic table and provide hilarious, surreal or topical explanations of their nature and purpose. Eg:

  Excusium: constituent element in whitewash. Frequently used by politicians.

  Any support?

• Knobbly - rab's phonecall
  Is that Job of Old Testament fame?
• Tuj
  [Kim] I see! Good title, tidy idea. One on board =)
• Kim
  [Tuj] Thanks. Any against? Where should I slot it?
• Rosie - Luminous silly Kates
  (Kim) Go ahead.
• Kim
  Thanks. No slots currently available here or anywhere else. Has "Bent Saws" reached its proverbial, do you think?
• rab - Outage
  Hello there. I'm going to be taking the site down for a short while for an upgrade.
• rab - Outrage
  Let's see if that has worked? It seems I've even stopped the galloping slashes this time!
• nfras
  Just saw the Elements game. There is a site that I had bookmarked and only deleted on Friday which is very enjoyable. Apparently now been published as a book - http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/sillymolecules/sillymols.htm - Molecules with Silly Names. Some of them were featured on QI a few years ago.
• jdf397dhf - jdf397dhf
  aaaa525zzz
• Sierra Mike
  Shh! It's fallen asleep.
• shavonda - shavonda@hotmail.com
  suck all the channel on tv sucks badly
• Knobbly
  Parse the preceding sentence, thoughtfully provided by someone.
• Darren
  Actually, I think the real problem with TV is that most of the channels suck quite well.
• nfras
  Suck all. The channel on TV sucks badly.
  It's the voice from the future. When interactive TV is the norm a lonely politician's husband has to get a 'helping hand' when the signal gets a bit fuzzy.
• Sierra Mike
  Suck! All the channel on TV sucks. Badly.
  
  There's usually suck all on TV worth watching anyway.
• Sierra Mike
  Speaking of which, ten days without a move suggests that UK GAZETEER FILM CLUB might have outlived its span. Does anyone have a suggestion for another one?
• Simons Mith
  Six word stories?
• Raak
  "Six word stories?" Simons suggested. Silence.

  (No, really, I'd be up for that.)

• Phil - Six word stories
  I was about to suggest that
• Sierra Mike - Six Word Stories
  How does it go?
• ImNotJohn
  You tell a story in six
• ImNotJohn
  Damn! Bad planning on my part
• Tuj
  With a short preface (say "Story One", and so on) this could be hatched inside the Eight Moves Game, giving it a kick up the jacksy also.
• Juxtapose
  I love the idea of 'Precisely Eight Words' being bent to stories. I may try that, even if it's not an official diversion... Also, I had an idea the other day for a one-line-at-a-time Gilbert & Sullivan play. Ambitious, but not impossible. Thought I'd run it up the flagpole of the collective.
• rab - Good news, bad news.
  Hello there. The good news is that the company that provides the disk space and bandwidth this site needs to function is upgrading the capacity of both of them this afternoon, at no charge. The bad news is that this necessitates a change of IP address (the server will be moving from Edinburgh to London).

  What this means in practice is that after 4pm BST today, some of you will see the old version, and some of you the new. You'll be able to tell the difference, because you won't be able to post to the old one. It typically takes about 24hours, maybe longer, for the process to complete. Restarting your browser/computer/modem may (or may not) help - it depends on where the old IP addresses are being cached.

• rab
  Don't be perturbed if the site fails to load for a bit.
• rab - Back up
  Right, this is back up, but you can only get here if you know how to get here.
• Raak - First!
• Rosie - Er, second, then
• CdM - In the medals!
• penelope
  *sour*
• Projoy
  Yes, you can tell it's London-hosted now. It just feels so much more... familiar.
• Rosie
  (Pj) Aye. Mebbe.
• nfras
  [Projoy] A euphemism for contemptuous?
• ImNotJohn
  But is it Sarf of the river, in which case no-one will visit it outside the hours of daylight?
• Phil
  It'll soon be wanting a little cottage in the country for weekends though...
• Uncle Korky
  I see the spammers have found the film club - perhaps this is indeed a good point to pull the plug on it.
• Kim - Eight word stories.
  If this is proposed as a new game (perhaps to replace the Film Club) then may I suggest a title?
  "A man was born; he lived, then died."
• ImNotJohn - A novel in 6 words
  If it's going to be eight words, then I'll post my favourite 6-worder here (not mine but can't remember who did write it - though Orson Welles is the name in my head):
  For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
• Raak
  [INJ] Hemingway.
• Simons Mith - Another game idea
  Tarol Hunt (of goblinscomic.com) has been writing nonsense Twitters, usually of the form 'If I ...' Some of these are worthy of Jack Handy himself: "If I was stung by a bee, it'd better not be a laser bee because those guys are puuuuuure laser." Can we have a go? "If I was a caveman, I probably wouldn't ever say 'Yabba Dabba Doo' unless I was being deeply ironic."
• Darren
  "If I was going to speak, I'd try to be there to hear it. It'd be a pity to miss one after all these years."
• penelope - this week...
  I can't believe no-one has anything to say for a whole weekend! So this week, I'm going to post something in here every day. Monday: Whit Monday public holiday here in the Netherlands, so I'm accompanying the Windy Miller (a veteran of four well-executed restorations of stationary engines - portable and wheelbarrow-sized sources of farmyard power, some of which are almost 100-years old) to the largest exhibition of stationary engines in the country, in Eindhoven. I will come back smelling of kerosene, a bit sunburnt and a bit sooty. In return, I get a day's outing somewhere cultural. I'm lining up the Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and a Tennyson Society thing in England next week.
• Software - Eindhoven
  [pen] I don't expect that you'll have time to visit the Philips Museum while you are there, but it is worth a shot. No holiday here, that was last week in secular UK. I spent a surprisingly dry and sunny weekend in west Wales, even managed an afternoon on the beach, though the sun failed to hit my Channel Island hardened skin.
• ImNotJohn - Hols
  I've been in Scotland for a week, with no access (although I was told that wi-fi at Boat of Garten post office cost 'buttons'). 5 days of mostly showery weather and then a stunning day on Friday, so I left the ladies to go cycling in Abernethy Forest and walked into the heart of the Cairngorms (Loch Avon via the top of Bynack Mor). I now have a nicely-burnt left side to my face - the perils of a circular walk.
• Raak - Unhols
  On the Costa Brava for three days last week, attending a conference held at a hotel on the beach. Wednesday was free, so a colleague and I drove up to see Cadaqués. Came home with a developing cough that took out most of the weekend.
• Rosie - Yet another Game idea - well not really
  Some herbert has put something in Carpe Diem - Fish of the Day. It was a good game that ended five years ago and could be worth restarting. Any takers?
• Chalky
  [Raak] Not swiney cough, one hopes?
  [Rosie] Agree - a cracking game which generated huge chuckleness way back then. I have a hunch that it was the game that spawned Breadmaster's legendary " For pity's sake child ..." and then something about tying down the moons of Jupiter. Anyway, my friend, just thought I'd point out that the same game is currently steaming along in OrangeMC under the title Ubersetzen Sie (add umlaut to first letter) - but if one don't play in there - the information I have imparted is rather irrelevant. :)
• Rosie
  (Chalky) Let's continue with it on Orange, then, which frankly I'd forgotten about.
• Raak
  [Chalky] No *cough* fever, so *cough* *cough* hopefu*cough*lly not. *cough* *cough* *cough*
• penelope - Tuesday's events
  Tuesday... hmmm... work. Gridlock traffic getting into and out of Rotterdam, too much good coffee trying to stay awake through meetings, and an hour and a half of ironing when I finally got home. Wednesday? Gridlocked traffic again this morning - a 34km drive took an hour and ten minutes, not enough breakfast (have already made a start on my packed lunch an it's only 09.40) but there's the prospect of a proper English haircut with a proper English hairdresser in England on Saturday morning (it means I can actually ask for the haircut I want, rather than have the one the Dutch dameskappers want to give me) so anything is bearable this week. Even another 3mph crawl home this evening.
• Sierra Mike
  Saw Holland (well, bits of it) on the TV last night in an advert. It looked frenetic.
  
  (penelope, Re: Ironing) Can't you just feed the clothes through the millstone?
• penelope - ironmilling
  [SM] Nice idea, but the milling faces of millstones are designed for cutting and shearing the grains, not merely crushing them, so you'd have to piece together the shreds of clothing afterwards. More trouble than it's worth really. The drive home this evening was only 45 minutes - the best time for a week now. Some bits of Holland are frenetic. Luckily, I live in a nice rural bit :o)
• Rosie - freneticism
  (pen) I thought the Dutch were sort of stoic.
• penelope
  [Rosie] Yeah, but they drive ruthlessly on the motorways in their Calvinistic rush to be at home being stoic.
• ImNotJohn - Green ironing
  What you need is not a grain mill, but an olive press. Of course it would be hard to get the oil stains out afterwards, but you could definitely get a good crease in those underpants. That would have the additional advantage of being drivable by donkey-power, so you could iron on a windless day.
• penelope - donkeyfarts
  [INJ] I don't understand how you can control the donkey's flatulence so accurately.
• Sierra Mike - Donkey Flatulence
  (penelope) I think you just have to stop them eating the mashed olives.
• rab - * waves from Haifa *
• rab - * waves from Rehovot *
• Simons Mith - mashed olives
  All the more for me. *parp* Oh, I beg your pardon.
• penelope
  That small interval has probably cleared the air. Is anyone left standing?
• Simons Mith
  *parp* That's the last one, I promise.
• Knobbly
  *Has just got the hang of doing that small writing everyone else does, as opposed to this one which isn't quite as small*... Just thought I'd mention.
• Dujon
  [Simons Mith] Was Silveo the bloke who fell under a bus whilst wearing clean underpants? ;)
• Rosie - HTML stuff
  (Knobbly, and any others) This is still standing, courtesy of Dr Qu+xum at the University of Pittsburgh, and is the fount of all knowledge.
• rab - * waves from Aberdeen *
• Rosie - *waves from Hamsey Green*
  It's a wonderful little place, full of houses and things.
• Knobbly - *waves from West End Live 7 hours ago*
• penelope - *waves from Zuid Holland*
  Flat and slightly rainy this morning, but still very green and pleasant.
• Software - * Waves from his office *
  Another week begins, nothing particularly pleasant to report.
• Uncle Korky - *Waves from Barking*
  ...or perhaps he's drowning...
• CdM - paging Mr Raak, paging Mr Raak
  Please proceed to the AVMA game, where a task is waiting for you.
• penelope
  I think CdM broke the tannoy with that announcement. No-one has said anything since.
• Software
  Quite quiet.
• ImNotJohn - Something for the weekend.
  In the tradition of this place, may I announce that I am going to the Derbyshire County Show on Sunday - usually good fun and only 30 minutes' walk away. Tickets already bought, so let's hope the weather holds.
• penelope - iets voor het weekend
  I am doing the usual this weekend; to the mill tomorrow morning, hanging about, drinking coffee, but remarkably there's no laundry to do as I made a sustained affort during the week to get it all out of the way. I have even stowed away the washing line. On Sunday, I'd like to go for a bike ride [destinatioin: ice cream] but it's a bit weather dependent.
• CdM - phom ja yuu tii meuang thai wan sao wan athit nii
  *hanging out in Thailand*
• Kim
  Please take a moment to mourn with me the passing of a true star, a consummate performer, an icon who shot to fame in the 1970's, became a pin-up for a generation and who touched the groins of millions of young boys around the world. Rest in peace, Farrah Fawcett.
• Rosie
  (Kim) Was she a tap dancer?
• rab - * waves from Bremen *
• penelope
  Very foggy here in Zuid Holland this morning. The splendid view of downtown Rotterdam from my office window is quite obscured.
• Software - foggy
  [pen] same here and very hot and humid. Promising a nice sunny day later, pity I'm in the office :o(.
• penelope
  Expecting the first thunderstorm (in Nederlands 'onweer' - unweather, like 'onkruid' is un-plant or un-herb, ie a weed) about 4pm this afternoon. I can't wait! It was 22 degrees overnight here, more than I would like to get accustomed to.
• ImNotJohn - muggy
  Unpleasant in the Midlands today. 10/10 cloud, humid, occasional spits of rain, but not enough for the plants. It's Mrs INJ's fault, she's going to a barbecue tonight.
• CdM - humid
  Well, a few days ago I was in mid 30s and humid; and now I'm back in Melbourne where it's much the same, except in Fahrenheit.
• Rosie - tithes
  (INJ) Ten tenths? When I was in the Met Office in the '60's some of the old farts would occasionally let slip a phrase like that but it's been eighths (oktas) for over 50 years largely because it can be coded as a single digit for transmission. (9 = sky obscured by fog or heavy snow, BTW). Thank You For Making Me Feel Young.
• Juxtapose - gratitude
  Hello, England. Thank you for everything. Love, U.S.A.
• Dujon - Is it fireworks night already even?
• Dujon
  Sorry. Cup of tea anyone?
• Rosie - Cordiality
  (Juxt) OK. Thanks for giving us jazz. And Tom & Jerry.
  (Duj) The only piece of Australiana I have is a home-made boomerang (Specifications in New Scientist 1974.) It's big and doesn't half go but has to be thrown left-handed. They're not symmetrical.
• Dujon - Charlie Drake
  [Rosie] I have found that turning them upside down usually helps. Then again I'm no expert any more than I'm a left handed sort of a bloke. Keep in mind, Rosie, that the heavier boomerangs were not designed to return but to stay in the air long enough to knock the noggins of the target.
• rab - * Waves from Ambleside *
• Software
  [rab] Didn't realize the lakes were so stormy ;o)
• Rosie - *Hail to you all from Surrey*
  Not too nice down here either. (Softers) Good science.
• CdM
  Zero degrees here. *throws snowball at morniverse*
• Rosie
  (CdM) Where are you at the moment?
• CdM
  [Rosie] -37.15; 146.43
• flerdle
  *sends birthday cake to Zuid Holland*
• penelope
  *receives grease-stained envelope containing strange hard lump in the post* ;o)
• Software
  * blows candle out before putting in envelope addresses to Zuid Holland*
• Rosie - Coordinates
  (CdM) Not surprised it's snowy up Mount Buller. An assumption, of course, because you have quite unforgivably omitted the ρ-coordinate, which I take to be 6378137 + 1805 m. Greetings, anyway, from 51.32; -0.06, 6378306 m.
• CdM - The what now?
  So "on the surface of the earth" is not the default, then. :-)
• Rosie - 3-dimensionality and further pedantry
  (CdM) Yeah, OK. Equally, I have committed the unpardonable sin of assuming the earth's radius is constant at all latitudes, which is not true. The polar radius is 21.4 km less than the equatorial radius. It's uphill to the equator.
• Knobbly - was in Newcastle but isn't any more.
• Phil - [Knobbly] Ditto
• nfras
  *waves from a day off - at long last*
• Chalky - *was in Snowdonia but has now returned home*
  *belated wave from Llanberis*
• Software - * Future wave from Wiltshire *
  I'll be off line for a week.
• Knobbly
  [Phil] Isn't that odd? I was there to sing in a concert in The Sage. I don't suppose you were too...
• Phil
  [Knobbly] Alas, The Sage wasn't built when I was there. I left in 1977 :-(
• Knobbly
  [Phil] Ah... I got the wrong end of the thingummy.
• Phil
  [Knobbly] ...which I deliberately proffered to you. Apols for a cheap stunt :-)
• Rosie
  (Phil) Cunning, too.
• nights
  *waves from Strasbourg*
• Software - * waves from Stroud *
• flerdle - cross-posted
  Impromptu mini-virtual pilg in the MCiOS chat room a little while ago was greatly enjoyed by flerdle, nfras, Néa, nat and, briefly, Phil. These last two days I seem to have been able to "stay alive" in there for hours at a time (not zombie-ify like it used to - losing the connection somehow), so why not drop in, hang around for a while and see who turns up?

  nfras mentioned that monday and thursday evenings (our times - about 11am UK time in summer) are likely for him, and I can try that too. UK nights, late, might be a possibility in the winter. Doesn't have to be formal, or lots of people. Suggest-o-matic!

• Uncle Korky
  [flerdle] Was that a specific invitation to nights and me? :-)
• flerdle - You probly think this song is about you...
  [Uncle Korky] The more the merrier! :-)
• Tuj
  [UK] First time I read "UK" in flerdle's post I thought of you rather than the country I'm in - the rampant effect of context I assume!
• nights
  [Tuj] Similarly, I wondered what flerdle might want with me late, possibly in the winter. Moving swiftly along.
• Rosie
  It seems MCiOS is down.
• Software
  [Rosie] It was probably asleep like everyone else at that time of night ;o)
• Kim
  I went to MC⁵ today; it was shut.
• Sierra Mike
  It's up but I rarely go there anyway.
• penelope
  Is everyone on holiday? Everyone here in NL is on hols - there's no traffic on the motorways and I can leave home for work 20 minutes later than normal. But the weather here has been lovely (if a little hot at times) and the mosquito population is thriving in the dykes :o(
• Software
  Factory holidays, love 'em. When I lived in Hilversum it was the same. I was required to take only 2 weeks during July/August which meant that trips to the coast were really easy on the weekends.
• ImNotJohn - Back at work
  Well - I've been on holiday for 11 days, but nothing's changed. Can I go away again?
• Software
  [INJ] If when you come back your desk is still there, then it's a result. Quit complaining.
• ImNotJohn - Yes, but
  [Softers] I was borrowing a desk when I went on holiday. I came back to find everyone else had moved to a different building, but my monitor and docking station hadn't been moved. I don't know if that's a result or not - given that something usually gets lost if you let 'facilities' move it for you.
• Rosie - And furthermore
  (Softers) I always regard it as a result if on returning to my car after the pub I find it is still there. On only one occasion has this not been the case and it was recovered about 6 hours later with a seriously damaged steering lock.
• penelope
  [INJ] That little remark is a great example of life mimicking art - have you seen the film 'Office Space'? Just beware when your desk is moved to the basement.
• Sierra Mike
  Or the men's room.
• Knobbly
  pssst... anyone here?
• Tuj - Not me...
  ...busy listening to the cricket.
• Tuj
  Ah, it's finished now. I'm here then. Anyone else?
• Simons Mith
  I am but I'm just about to go out for a summer evening walk. And maybe a beer on the way back.
• Simons Mith
  Back now. What have I missed?
• Kim - *Waves from Thun*
• Simons Mith
  [Kim] Don't fall off any Alps.

  I haven't been abroad for years and years. Which is green of me, I suppose, but dull.

• xUjQfARW - lPTVUPFN
  Hi! RjdBkz
• ImNotJohn
  Just back from the North York Moors - staying in a cottage belonging to friends. End of a multiply-gated track a mile from the road, no phone, no TV, nearest pub or shops half an hour away. No choice but to relax.
• Kim - *down from alps*
  This is just to say that, if anyone has any new game ideas, I am not averse to the closure of the Harvard game. A month has passed since any new elements were discovered there. Some clever person might come up with an element that incorporates the winning move.
• Sierra Mike - New Game
  "Late For The Ball"? I always enjoyed that on "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue".
• Sierra Mike - North York Moors
  [ImNotJohn] Batteries went dead in the old PPS then?
• Simons Mith
  Can I just say that the Tesco's 'Three Bean Salad' represents excellent value for money? The one I just ate contained more like two hundred beans in it rather than just three.
• Sierra Mike
  Whereas I just had Thousand Island dressing on my salad and there wasn't a single island in it as far as I could tell.
• Tuj
  [SMs] Skim-reading I thought Sierra Mike had quadruple-posted! But you both made me smile.
• rab - Server issues
  Hello there. I'm occasionally finding that this site doesn't load - I get a 'cannot connect to the website' message (or 'connection refused'), despite the fact that as far as I know, the server is running properly at the remote end. This has happened to me from two different networks, so I'd be interested to know if anyone else is experiencing this before I investigate further. It's quite sporadic, so you may not notice anything amiss.
• Simons Mith - Connection refused
  I'm seeing it. About 15% of the time, at a guess.
• ImNotJohn
  Me too.
• rab
  Right - that points to some kind of server problem.
• Raak
  I've seen it as well, in the last week.
• Rosie
  Me too, occasionally, recently.
• rab
  Support tell me it should now be fixed. Let me know if it happens again.
• penelope
  No problem this morning. I'm here, aren't I?
• Simons Mith - Not bitter
  I've got a bottle of Angostura bitters. With roughly four dashes used so far, which leaves about a millennium's supply remaining. Does anyone actually use this stuff?? If so, what for? And how often? I'm wondering if Mr Angostura and company have a real racket going here, or if they're actually doing themselves a disservice by selling their customers centuries worth of their product in a single hit. Perhaps their sales would be better if they sold it in the same size bottle as, say, Tabasco or something. Just idle speculation as the chat here seems otherwise quiet…
• Rosie
  (SM) It's like pepper. Get a jar of it and it lasts for ever. I had a girlfriend who was very keen on the said bitters whereas I preferred bitter. I had a sip of her drink once - it was vile.
• Software
  [SM] Have you got a bottle of gin handy? Add a couple of dashes to a G & T and you get pink gin. Used to be very popular in the '60s when I used to work behind a bar.
• Simons Mith - Pink gin
  Gin could be arranged, although it's not something I normally drink. But plainly I could buy a couple of crates of gin and the bitters would still outlast them. And a bottle of gin would lakst me 3-6 months. Y'know, I was viewing using up this bottle of bitters as a challenge, but unless I really go for it, which is sort of cheating, I don't think I'm going to manage it in my remaining lifespan.
• Phil
  Pink gin and water is also nice. 2 or 3 drops added to a ginger beer is one of my favourite very, very low alcohol drinks. Oh, and one of the several versions of rock shandy is 50/50 ginger ale and soda water, with a few drops of bitters.
  A bit of searching and I've found culinary uses at this site
• ImNotJohn
  Bitters added to lemonade cuts some of the sweetness and makes a nice summer garden drink.
• penelope - gin clear
  Is it any good for cleaning shower heads?
• Raak
  [pen] Only if it can dissolve the dead spiders.
• ImNotJohn
  That 'Shakespeare in Crescent' game we've just had brought to our notice was pretty good. We must do that again.
• nfras
  [Simons Mith] When I was a student, one of the drinks of choice at the time was a long vodka which consisted of a few drops of bitters smeared round a highball glass, ice, a shot of vodka, a dash of lime and topped up with soda water. A bit girly but very drinkable.
• Rosie - Poncy booze
  (nfras) How does that help achieve the main objective of student drinking which is to get pissed as quickly and cheaply as possible, then as now?
• Tuj
  [INJ] I'll second anything in iambic pentameter!
• Phil
  [Rosie] Well, it's a cheap drink. No charge for bitters or soda, normally. When my dad was in the Royal Navy, it was traditional for midshipmen, and some other low-ranking officers, to drink pink gin, as all you paid for was the gin - hence it was the cheapest drink in the Officers' Mess - because midshipmen were so lowly paid.
• Rosie
  (Phil) Didn't they have grog? Maybe not often enough. When I was a student we only drank spirits if we were deliberately trying to get as pissed as possible because in those days a shot of spirits was nearly twice the price of a pint of beer. In today's money I'd estimate the prices as £2 and £3.50.
• nfras
  When I was at Uni (mid-late 90s) my University Union used to do a happy hour. 50p a pint (the usual price at the time in a pub was £1-£1.25 depending on the brand). At about quarter to seven you'd see the bar packed with students buying 4 or 6 pints at a time. They would take them back to their table and drink them over the next couple of hours. You might think that the beer tasted awful after sitting in a glass for over an hour, and you'd be right. But it was cheap.
• Phil
  [Rosie] Yes, they did have rum until July 1970 (one eighth of a pint per day), which I think was issued as two-water grog (watered-down 2 parts water to 1 part rum). Pusser's Rum has been made since about 1980 to the old Admiralty recipe and a donation goes to the Royal Navy Sailor's Fund from every bottle sold. I have some of the blue label, bottled at 54%abv, and it's quite a fierce nip if you don't water it down at all.
  However, when the officers gathered for a social in their mess, the poor midshipmen (officer cadets, essentially) would have to join in, and behave like an officer, while on a phenomenally meagre wage, hence the most popular cheap, "sophisticated" drink for them (i.e. not neat spirits or beer) was pink gin.
• ImNotJohn - Naval drinks
  [Phil] You may have just enlightened me. I've heard my father (who was in the Navy), talk about 'Pussers Kai'. I thought, in the context, it was cocoa with a slug of rum. This now looks likely and a quick google supports that. However this was a long time before 1980.
• Sierra Mike
  According to a relative, the grog ration, at least for the CPOs, was issued as a mess bar credit in the 60s and 70s.
• Phil - "Mug of Kye, Sir?"
  [INJ] Ah, Kye (the spelling I've grown up with)! I've found some web sites that describe it as thick cocoa made with condensed milk, but according to my RN dad, it was cocoa made with water and no milk at all. As he's a hardy soul, that's still how my dad makes cocoa. It takes some getting used to, but it's OK.
• Kim
  Did the disappearance from the Tube Map of the River Thames pass unnoticed within the Morningverse?
• ImnotJohn
  [Kim] Why do you think it was re-instated so quickly? Of course Boris took the credit, but we have our people in the right places.
  It is believed that the disappearance was as as a result of a misfiled email from one of CAMREC's more obscure sub-committees which was looking at the possible effects of global warming on the great game. That, together with an excess of zeal in the TfL publications department caused this somewhat embarrassing episode.
  No long-term harm done, although there has been an official protest against the result of the Harlesden MCC vs Leytonstone Strilers 3rd Division top of the table clash on Tuesday evening. Rodney (Bridges Up!) Spurlington, lost his board 3 clash against the up-and-coming Shane Clotswold and blamed it on an inability to use the tactic which earned him his nickname. This one could run and run.
• Sierra Mike - CAMREC?
  I googled CAMREC but nothing I got there deciphered the acronym in a meaningful context (which I assume is involved with games of Mornington Crescent). Could someone let me in on what it stands for? I very rarely get to listen to I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, so if I'm asking about something well-known I apologise for not having the faintest. Thanks.
• Simons Mith - What is CAMREC
  [SM] You need the Encylopaedia Morningtonia
• CdM
  *waves from Vancouver*. Where I have been talking about eggs. As one does.
• Dujon
  [CdM] Olé
• CdM
  Or, to steal a prior joke of Dan's, perhaps that should have been *huevos from Vancouver*
• Rosie
  (CdM) Can't follow that. Nor, it seems, can anyone else as it has now been a week.
• penelope
  To be fair, Rosie, I've been away!! I feels sometimes I chitter incessantly on here...
• Simons Mith
  I was thinking of a new game: Wizards' Duel. You have two teams of wizards. In order to make a move you must change shape into a creature or thing that beats, defeats or otherwise trumps whetever the other side has just changed into. So you might get a sequence like

  Wizards: Elephant
  Witches: Mouse
  Wizards: Cat
  Witches: Dog
  Wizards: B - A - T - H
  Witches: Telephone

  at which point I have to admit I'm stumped so presumably the witches win that round. We'd have to kill off news Has Come to Harvard, but I believe that game's only hanging on while we await a replacement anyway.

• Raak
  [SM] Done.
• Software
  [pen] Anywhere nice/interesting?
• penelope - Normandie sur mer
  [Softers] Down the coast - eating our way around Normandy! Marvellous thank you - perfect weather too.
• Software
  [pen] Watch out for those dodgy moules ;o)
• penelope
  Am I the only person in the world who doesn't like seafood? I love fish, but if it comes out of the sea it's got to have a backbone if I'm going to eat it. The windy miller is the same. I wish I did like seafood, because so many other people seem to enjoy it so much.
• Raak
  [pen] My reaction to mussels is a reboot of the digestive system from both ends. Fish that looks like fish is fine, and prawns and shrimps are ok, but I'm wary of anything else from the sea. I wonder what these are like to eat?
• Software
  [pen] Shame, the French love their moule et frites and it is standard fare everywhere.
• Rosie - Marine mouthfuls
  (pen, Raak) With you on that. I'd rather eat Co-op Fish Fingers, let alone the real thing, than fancy stuff you have to pick at. What other people like doesn't bother me; I'm not a social eater, or a particularly elegant one.
• Dujon - Something fishy
  [Raak & penelope & Software] I have tried eating (or swallowing) oysters but, regrettably, have yet to manage ingesting one. The same applies to asparagus. I suspect that it's something to do with the smell of them but have no solid evidence to support the hypothesis.
  [Rosie] Whilst I do like fish meals, at least the ones I cook myself, I find they become cold long before I've managed to scoff the lot. When it comes to fine-boned fish I tend to your approach as it really is, unless one is starving, not worth the effort.
  [All] Don't get me started on calamari. Maybe it is my aging teeth or the manner in which the samples to which I have been subjected have been cooked, but I'd rather try to eat a standard primary school 'rubber'.
• penelope - Swimmingly
  [Duj] Ditto calamari. It's just fried rubber bands, innit? And Aspragus... anything that makes your wee smell so bad can't be good for you, can it? Sadly, the Dutch here go a bundle over it, and I have to eat it to be polite. What's worse, they like the fat, white ones that have lived in the dark (like forced rhubarb), which are bigger than the small green shoots you get in Engeland.
  Rhubarb, on the other hand, treated the proper way (plenty of sugar, and paired with either ginger or strawberries) is yummy. Fooled, crumbled or just stewed.
• Software - Stinky wee
  [pen] Asparagus does have that strange effect but it is delicious. But I am with you all the way with rhubarb as long as there is cream, ice cream (the Belgian/Dutch way) or custard.
• Phil
  I have eaten plenty of asparagus, but I don't sniff my wee, so I've never noticed the oft-claimed effect.
  Calamari (or squid, if we're not going to be all precious about it) is blummin' gorgeous in my opinion. Deep fried in a light batter (50/50 self-rasing and cornflour), it should be light and lovely. If it's rubbery it has been over-cooked.
  I've had oysters, but I'm not as impressed as I thought I ought to be. Sweetbreads though are another contentious foodstuff that I love.
• Raak
  I have seen oysters eaten, whole and raw. That's quite enough for me.
• Software - Oysters
  Are overrated in my opinion. Back in the 19th century they were poor peoples food.
• ImNotJohn
  I'm with Phil on this. Asparagus - delicious when fresh and in season (and the after-odour isn't that unpleasant or strong IMO). Calamari - rubbery = overcooked, properly cooked and fresh they almost melt and taste lovely. Oysters - nice - taste of the sea - but too expensive for what they are. In fact I like most molluscs and crustacea (though it's hard to do much with whelks).
  We need to take some lessons from the chinese - Sour is as good a flavour as sweet and slimy is as good a mouth sensation as crunchy - just different.
• Phil
  [INJ] Have you tried sour beers (i.e. Belgian Lambics)? Fantastic once you eradicate the "beer shouldn't be sour" conditioning from your head.
• Rosie - Aerial oxidation
  (Phil) How does that differ in principle from eradicating the "butter shouldn't be rancid" conditioning from your head? Sour beer tastes awful, like vinegar, which is what it is, at least partly.
• nfras
  [Rosie] Start with something like Hoegarden which is a wheat beer and has a slightly sour note. It's made with a sort of wheat porridge that gives it a great cloudy appearance and the orange and cardamon notes give it a spicy aroma. Once you have developed a taste for that the leap to things like the Lambics is not so great.
• Software
  [Phil et al] I am rather partial to Franziskaner on a warm day. This is a wheat beer with an interesting smoky flavour. In fact around Munich there are many microbreweries that offer similar smoky beers.
• ImNotJohn - Purveyors of sour beer
  [Phil] I don't think I've tried Lambics. I've had plenty of wheat beers, including Hoegaarden and don't mind the slight sour edge to them. Whether I'd like anything further down that line will have to be determined by experiment.
  BTW if you're ever in Derby you might like to visit what used to be a fairly unpleasant and run-down pub called 'The Royal Standard', now taken over by CAMRA and revived as The Brewery Tap. At quiet times they do a 'tasting tray' consisting of 3 or 4 different beers - about 1/3 pint of each.
  On which thought, will you be serving in 2/3 pint measures?
• Phil
  [Rosie] Think of sour sweets, like fizzy-cola-bottle-type things. Or a really crisp granny smith apple. That sort of sour, not vinegar. I have a few bottles of Mort Subite Gueuze (which is a fairly easy entry point to the world of lambics) lying around, and may have one with my dinner tonight, now that my mind is on the subject.
• Phil
  [Software] Have you ever tried the Bamberg-brewed Schlenkerla Rauchbier. "Smoky" would be a massive understatement for it. Again, a shocking flavour and aroma at first, but it is truly wonderful once you get past that.
  [CdM] A pub run by CAMRA? I shudder to think. It reminds me of the car that Homer Simpson designed.
  More seriously, I hope their tasting tray is exactly a third of a pint of each (unlike the glasses CAMRA provided at the Derby beer festival, and at least one other I know of, where the third-pint line was at 0.3pints, instead of 0.33pints, meaning CAMRA themselves were selling 10% short measures). And I shan't be bothering with stocking 2/3pt glasses, if the legislation ever comes in. I don't do 1/3pt at present anyway, but 2/3 just seems silly to me.
• Rosie
  (Phil) Aye, mebbe. I've had sour beer once or twice, the difference being it had gone off as opposed to being deliberately sour.
• Software
  [Phil] I've not tried the Bamberg but it sounds interesting. Why does the government not grasp the bull by the horns and dump all imperial measures for good and just get on with what was started half-heartedly 40 years ago.
• Phil
  [Software] If we abandon the pint, what measures would you permit, or would you allow any size measure to be used?
• ImNotJohn
  [Phil] 25cl, 33cl, 50cl 1l
• nights
  Hello again everybody. Turns out that I'd totally forgotten how to operate a keyboard. How are we all?
• Phil
  [INJ] I can appreciate your thinking, although I think a litre is a bit big for responsible consumption of draught beer. I don't want the law to change for a few reasons. One of which is that I seem resistant to change in general and I "like" pints. Also, I'll (probably) have to re-stock all my beer glasses, which could cost me over 500 quid.
  It's currently a little frustrating that I can't sell a pint or half-pint of lemonade. I can sell a "large" or "small" lemonade, in pint and half-pint glasses. Or I can sell "568ml" or "284ml" in the same glasses. As far as I know, only beer, cider and milk can be legally be sold in pints in the UK, although there is no such restriction throughout the rest of Europe, where it is perfectly legal to use Imperial measures for anything.
  Curiously "shandy and any other beverage of which beer is a constituent part" counts as beer for the Weights and Measures (Beer and Cider) Act 1998. So anything with a bit of draught beer in it, should be served in thirds or multiples of halves. How odd. I have in mind things like the Irish method of serving a Black Russian (with a Guinness head on it). Sorry, I've started thinking out loud now.
• Phil - How rude
  [nights] Hi ! :-)
• Software
  [Phil] I did not say abandon the pint glass in pubs, the continentals do use them but you never actually get a pint in them - they do like their froth. What I was alluding to was the indecision of whether we are a metric or imperial nation. At the moment it is a=half cocked with some things sold in imperial and some in metric (metric martyrs in the marketplace for example). There needs to be clear leadership. As for selling liquids in taverns the UK still has a half-cocked approach. Spirits are metric; beer is imperial. While I agree that spirits should be sold in standard sizes (many continentals have a relaxed view on what constitutes a measure) I think that draught beer could be sold in whatever size glass that the licensee chooses - provided that it is priced accordingly and clearly stated.
• Rosie
  Softers) Uniformity of units is not necessary except to the tidy-minded. All you need to know is what you're getting and for all users to be familiar with those units. A pub that sold beer in metric units would very likely lose a lot of customers. If it is not necessary to change it is necessary not to change. A pint glass of whatever style is a very familiar object (shut up at the back). This keeps people happier except for the aforesaid tidy-minded commitee members and they are very few in number. Actually we should use cubic attoparsecs (19.34 to the pint).
• nfras
  I've written about this before, but beer sizes in Australia are weird and wonderful.
  In Melbourne the standard drink is a pot, which is 285ml. In Sydney this same measure is called a middy, in Hobart a ten and in Darwin a handle, while in Adelaide it is called a schooner (or even an up-sized schooner as the old schooner was 255ml or 9 fl oz), however, asking for a schooner in any other city will get you 425ml. If you want 425ml in Adelaide you will need to ask for a pint, but if you ask for a pint in any other city you get 570ml. To get this size of drink in Adelaide you need to ask for an Imperial Pint. In Darwin and north Queensland (where men are men and sheep are worried) you also get a 7, which is 200ml (probably because a small measure of beer stays cold, while a big beer goes warm over time - not because they like drinking girl sizes).
  It makes travelling in Australia more adventurous.
• Rosie - Physics
  (nfras) How can a small measure stay colder for longer than a large one? It doesn't; you drink it quicker. The small Queensland measures wouldn't go down too well in Carshalton (London Borough of Sutton) where not only are men men but women are as well.
• CdM
  [Rosie] He didn't say it stays colder for longer. He said it "stays cold" -- presumably for the period while you're drinking it. And there's no assumption that you drink it quicker; you drink it at the same rate :-) </outpedanting>
• rab - Blinks
  [Phil] Is it really true that our friends on the continent can use imperial measures? I'd not heard that before, but I can believe it on the general observation that UK governments tend to believe that they must follow EU rules, whereas other European governments (notably France and Germany) know that nothing bad will happen if they don't.
• Uncle Korky
  I saw the moons of Jupiter last night, and very nice they were too - four of them, strung out in a line... didn't appear to be tied down at all...
• Phil
  [rab] It is UK legislation that has specifically outlawed imperial measures. There is no specific EU legislation to the same effect. So it is not the case that France and Germany et al have not applied EU legislation to the same extent as the UK, but that we have created extra legislation to deal with our own indecision.
  This is what I have been told by someone I believe. I await correction though :-)
• Software - Pint
  [Rosie] It would make no difference if beer were sold in either provided they were uniform and priced pro rata. Anyway, it would give unscrupulous barmen/maids the opportunity to short measure even more. [Phil/Rosie] my rant was about the indecision of government to go properly metric. Selling beer is pretty small beer (if you excuse the pun) it is the other nonsense that gets to me. Supermarket solids packaged in metric, liquid sold in imperial; Petrol sold in litres; building standards metric, distances measured in miles; temperature still given in Fahrenheit as well as Centigrade; metric taught at school and public weighing machines in imperial (my son was taught metric at school and does not understand pounds and ounces); the list of confusion goes on.
• Rosie - Furlong/elephant/fortnight
  (Softers) Internally, railways still use chains and I don't mean the bit joining old loose-coupled goods wagons. I think we should remain Imperial because the words are part of the language and culture. Sixteen tonnes and what do you get? Deserved mockery.
• Phil
  [Software] Deep down, I know that standardisation is right, but I just simply love old Imperial measures (and coinage). A friend of mine who runs a flower wholesale outlet spent an entire day last week quoting all prices in old money, for fun. He didn't restrict himself to pounds, shillings and pence, oh no...tanners, florins, guineas, crowns, half-crowns and farthings were all brought into play. It made his day go by much faster.
  There's a wonderful list of unusual units of measurement at one of my favourite websites, Phrontistery, which includes the dalton, the darcy, the footlambert and the face-cord. For sheer frivolity, I try to incorporate some of the words from that site into conversation, so I think it's quite easy to see why I want to cling on to Imperial measures.
• Rosie - The sins of omission
  (Phil) What about the threepenny bit, everyone's favourite coin in those days? There's even a building named after it.
• penelope - My thrupence-worth
  My infant school, which was attached to the junior school I also attended (built in the 60s, I think) had a hall shaped like a 'thrupenny bit' and was known locally, for a time as 'The Thrupenny Bit School' to differentiate it from the junior school buildings, although there's no reference to it on Google, as far as I can find. It was Lacey Gardens Infant School, if anyone is interested...
• Software
  [Rosie/Phil] Despite over two centuries of metrication the French still use old measures if you are worried about their eradication from the culture. They often use puce for inch, livre for pound (weight) and of course the demi for a half (pint).
• Phil
  [Software] Indeed, on a few occasions in France I've forgotten about that and have asked for a demi when I wanted a half-litre of beer.
• Rosie
  (Softers) I know. Did you mean pouce? :-)
• Software
  [Rosie] Oui.
• Sierra Mike - Threp'ny Bit
  [penelope] A pre WWII threepenny bit, or a post-blackout one?
• Rosie - Dodecagons
  (SM) Few people, even of my age, have seen the silver threepenny bit. I was once given one as change by a bus conductor about 1953 but had to spend it to get home, or walk two miles. I have found another one (1920) in my heap of old coins. They're tiddlers, 5/8" across. The chunky version was around in 1940, as I have one, and two more from the sixties. They're nice. Equivalent in the fifties to about 30p in today's money.
• Software - Ag 3d
  My mum used to have a few for sprinkling in the Christmas pud; although I can't remember ever seeing them in circulation. Here in the Channel Islands we had our own 3d bits. In Guernsey they were nickel silver with a scalloped edge and in Jersey they were round. The latter reason was why we never had 3d slots on our pay-on-answer paypghones.
• ImNotJohn - Another broken tooth
  I can just recall the silver threepenny bit in the Christmas pudding, but I think they'd all been lost by my adolescence. I don't know about the buying power of the dodecagonal version, but I can remember being able to buy a poke of chips for 3d around 1960.
• Raak - In my young days...
  In 1960, 3d was the standard child fare on an Edinburgh bus, 6d for adults. I remember my grandmother once showed me a silver thruppence, but I don't remember what it looked like. But here's a site with more info.
• CdM - Boose fare? Ye 'ad boose fare?
  I'm pretty sure I remember seeing a silver 1.25p piece when I was very young, but I don't think we still had them for the Christmas pudding. I expect INJ had eaten them all.
• Sierra Mike
  CdM, you just made milk come out of my nose. I wouldn't have minded so much, but some of the cornflakes I was eating as I read took the same route.
• Uncle Korky
  [SM] I'm re-assured that you were eating cornflakes at the time. I'd be worried if this was a phenomenon that could occur spontaneously.
• flerdle - *wanders out into the back garden with a book and a drink*
  Finally, we are getting some warm weather. Well, warmish: 21°. Yay sun.
• penelope - Autumnal evening classes...
  My first Dutch lesson tonight, with a new teacher. This batch should be more effective than the first lot, which I did when I was still in England and not hearing Dutch every day.
• Rosie
  (pen) How are your gghhhutterals?
• penelope - gggghhhastly
  [Rosie] Loosening up nicely. All I need really is a heavy cold.
  A propos something else, I think I just persuaded the global director of Shell to stand in front of my video camera and give me his opinion on ethical management. My job amazes me sometimes.
• Rosie
  (pen) Do they give you a Welsh primer? If you can pronounce Machynlleth correctly you will have problem with any language anywhere in the known Universe, except possibly Xhosa and Scouse.
• Rosie - Cockup
  "problem" = "no problem"
• penelope - prrrroblems
  [Rosie] The trouble with Machynlleth (with the lisping 'L' like Sister Wendy's, is that right?) is there is no R in it. In Dutch, the Gs are gagging, as are the aitches, the Rs are rolled, the emphasis comes just about every other syllable and there are usually at least five syllables per word. Nouns like 'verzekering' (insurance, with the emphasis on the 'zek', pron. 'zay') are compounded from all kinds of words mulched together. It all takes an awful lot of effort for a poor Anglo-Saxon speaking accustomed to putting together one syllable at a time.
• penelope - cok op
  speaking = speaker, toch?
• Software - Gegokoop
  [pen] When I worked in Hilversum my team leader used to speak Dutch with a Cockney accent. He got by, though - even married a nice Dutch lady.
• Rosie
  (pen) Maybe Welsh not the best idea, then, though the gutturals are splendid. Try chwech ( = six). Vowel is "ä." The Welsh "r" and the breathy unvoiced "rh" are rolled but too short and front-of mouth for Dutch, if my hearing is correct. Isn't the Dutch "v" often pronounced "f"? In Welsh the "f" is always pronounced "v". Not much help there, then.
  Couldn't hear any double-L in Sister Wendy's speech. It's a non-plosive hiss from the sides of the tongue about halfway back ("voiceless lateral fricative" apparently). Don't spoil it by following it with an ordinary "L". Dead easy. :-)
• penelope - *wipes keyboard with damp cloth*
• Boolbar - Blimey!
  This old place still exists. Horrah!
• Tuj - Hail Boolbar!
  [Boolbar] Horrah! You're back!
  ...as you once said yourself!
• penelope - Sailing
  I'm sailing over to the UK on Sunday night - hurrah! I love sleeping on ships.
• Software
  Rotterdam-Harwich? Hope its not rough ;o)
• penelope
  [Softers] Rotterdam-Hull. Some parts of Hull are very rough indeed, but I shall keep the car doors locked when I disembark ;o)
• penelope - enough silence
  I know it was a terrible joke, but three days of silent protest is enough. I'm sorry, OK?
• Software - Forgiven
  Not your fault I sure, pen ;o)
• Knobbly - hasn't thought of anything witty and amusing to add to any games recently.
• penelope
  *waves from England, for a change*
  Had a surprisingly calm North Sea crossing last night, despite driving to the port in gales and lashing rain. The geordies complaining this morning that 'the curtains were moving' made me giggle though.
• Tuj
  [Knobbly] I know the feeling!
  [pen] Welcome back! Hope we've managed to keep it much as you left it.
• Software - Calm Nordsee Crossing?
  [pen] Shurely an oxymoron?
• Rosie - Meteorological orthodoxy
  (Softers) Can happen, like a dry day in Blaenau Ffestiniog.
• rab - Timing
• penelope - ticker ticker Timex
  [Rab] Good, bad or indifferent?
• Software - Time
  Aren't all the electronics made in the same place now anyway?
• CdM
  [rab] What's the secret of good comedy?
• Tuj
  [CdM] Is this a reverse chat game now?
  I was wondering earlier what a game of Reverse Reverse MC would look like. Any thoughts?
• CdM
  Anybody got any new game ideas? Tuj?
• CdM
  [Raak] Good to see you back. i was just thinking today that you hadn't posted for a while (whether that "while" is a few days or longer I didn't check, but I was aware that you were missing...).
• Raak
  [CdM] That's odd, I haven't been away much, although by chance I might not have posted on mc5 for a few days.
• Tuj
  [CdM] Nearly as good as your waiting for T comment on the MCiOS chat =D
• rab - Which reminds me
  Not that anyone will will notice... but there will be a brief outage on Thursday night when the Powers That Be perform a memory upgrade ('bout 9ish or thereabouts).
• CdM
  [Raak] Ah well. I guess your contributions are just always so good that even a few days absence is noteworthy!
• Juxtapose - game idea?
  I'd always wanted to try Cheddar Gorge Haiku... perhaps too similar to what we've got going now. I also thought it'd be good fun to write a play one line / stage direction / light cue at a time.
• Knobbly
  Obviously still too new... What does Simons Mith mean in the limerick game by 'see comments'? Where do I look for comments?
• Simons Mith
  [Knobbly] If you do 'view source', however that works on your particular browser, nested in amongst all the HTML muck you'll see a hidden line 4 and line 5 that occurred to me. Why I didn't use the HIDE tags is beyond me. I must have thought we were temporarily back in 1998 or something.
• penelope - backetry
  Back. Ferry apparently headed back towards the English coast in the middle of the night so some poor chap with fits could be helicoptered orf. After all the fuss was over, I got up at 6am and went out on deck with a huge cup of tea and a piece of my mum's neighbour's best fruitcake for breakfast expecting to see the lights on Rotterdam and we were still in the middle of the black North Sea. Quelle disappointment. However, all was well. The customs people didn't object to the vintage stationary engine I had stashed in the boot, and the trousers I bought for the windy miller fit like a charm.
• Sierra Mike - Trousers
  [penelope] You bribed the customs officers with trousers?
• penelope - This weekend I will be mostly...
  we're leaving the mill on Saturday lunchtime and heading back to Blighty via Dover for a wedding near Bath on Sunday. And then dashing back to NL. This time, the windy miller is coming with me - hurrah!
• Software - Huwelijk
  Dat is groot. Veilige reis!
• HQcSHWag - OzjYFXdF
  Hi! crEgCiaE
• Simons Mith
  Great, now we've got Klingons as well as Dutchmen.
• Dujon - So we have double dutch?
• Simons Mith
  I believe Klingon is actually a 70-30 mix of Polish and 133t-sp33k
• Rosie - Gormless old git
  (SM) Can't figure out what 133t-sp33k is. Something to do with teaspoons, 133 of them?
• nights
  [Rosie] Something along those lines. And good afternoon everybody.
• ImNotJohn
  It's a count of the average number of grains of demerara sugar. 133 teaspoons hold 33,000. Obvious really.
• Rosie
  That's a mere 225 grains per teaspoon, which doesn't seem quite enough. It all depends on de size of dem grains. Is there an EU standard?
• ImNotJohn
  It's a level teaspoonful.
• Rosie
  That means about 22 mg per grain, which is probably about right. If it were cyanide or nicotine you be approximately 50% dead.
• nights
  [Rosie] Interesting coincidence, work today has had a similar effect on me.
• rab - *waved from Palma de Mallorca, message delayed in transmission*
  It was surprisingly nice there.
• nights - I hestitate to mention it...
  ... but here in sunny Strasbourg, Christmas is upon us, with the opening of the annual Christmas markets. How are things looking elsewhere in the Morniverse?
• penelope - Bah humbug... or pepernoten
  Here in the Netherlands, Sintaklaas (December 5) is more important than Christmas. His arrival from Spain, as documented on national TV, was dogged by bad weather, but he is already out and about with his blacked-out moorish assistants, strangely all called Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) and gathering information about how good the children have been. Children leave their shoes out overnight in the hope of having them filled with sweets (snoepjes) if they've been good, and a lump of coal is they haven't. Traditional sweets are particular to Dutch tastes - pepernoten which looks like earwax and tastes of aniseed, and strange crunchy things that look like dog meal and taste of aniseed. I'm not fond of aniseed...
• Simons Mith - Pelargonia
  I made some pelargonium cuttings earlier in the year - far more than I could ever possibly use. Enough to start a small nursery, in point of fact. And of course, as I didn't really care whether they lived or died, most of the little blighters have survived. So what shall I do with 'em all now? I've got dozens and dozens! Any suggestions? Anyone want a few pot plants?
• Simons Mith
  Oh, they're Mabel Grey. Small, pretty purple flowers, but their main schtick is that their leaves smell of lemon sherbert.
• penelope - gerania
  [Simons] Give them away as Christmas presents or let a a charity market stall sell them? I'd have a few for my purple patch - they sound nice.
• nights
  OK, it just took me about 45 minutes to cross the city centre on my bike, versus the usual 15. The markets are beginning to annoy me.
• Rosie
  (nights) Which city? Truro? Los Angeles?
• nights
  [Rosie] Strasbourg, capital of overpriced tat - at the moment at least. Oh, the tourists.
• Simons Mith - Invading markets
  [nights] I shouldn't worry too much, at least not just yet. I think the plan is to do England first.
• nights - Blue geese
  [Simons Mith] I knew it. I knew all that money and time wasn't being expended for the simple reason of spreading holiday cheer and joy.
• Tuj - Surfing archives elsewhere...
  Next time there's a slot open, I vote we use the team colours option for a game of "Eamon the Chivalrous".
• nights
  [Tuj] What's that, then?
• Rosie - Such a ladies' man, so he is.
  (nights) Good question. I Think We Should Be Told.
• Tuj
  A rather schizophrenic MC variant I noticed high up the lists in the archives at MCiOS and Orange. And I'm very much a fan of the team colour options rab gave us.
• nights
  [Eamon the Chivalrous] I like it, a lot.
• penelope - quietly now... someone might be reading this
  *whispers* It's my last official day in the office before Crimbo. I'm only coming in tomorrow (a 70km round trip, btw) to collect my Christmas box! Below freezing all day today in Rotterdam. Nearly -5C this morning as I got into the car - and surprisingly as I reached the campus too.
• Software - Brass Monkey
  Chilly this morning although no frost, the air was surprisingly dry and pretty well no wind here on the island. I think it felt colder yesterday because of the wind chill. [pen] if you are on yers 'ols you can maybe squeeze in some practice for the canal skating ;0)
• Rosie - More brass monkey
  It's been snowing here since 11.30 a.m. and has just about stopped now. Total less than an inch. Temperature zero and last night it went down to -7°. (Top right-hand bit of Surrey).
• nights
  We had a high of -1 here in Strasbourg, and a few snowflakes. Météo France are promising a lot of snow this weekend, but frankly, I don't trust any organisation that insists its name is written in print in ALL CAPS.
• Dujon - Happiness is
  [Rosie] Twenty minutes ago the temperature at my humpy was 40.3ºC. It has now dropped by nearly a degree. I'm ever so happy. ;)
• Rosie - Megathermality
  (Dujon) You're welcome to that even though I see from the latest Richmond AFB METAR that the humidity is quite low. Highest ever (i.e. since 1983) at Hughes Hall is 35.9°C, 10 Aug '03. Interesting, but I are a sweaty little f****r and don't want too much of it. 30°C is all right every now and then but we haven't even reached that in the last 3 years.
• ImNotJohn
  [Rosie] I assume you'll have got the snowshoes out to ensure that you get snowed in at the pub, rather than at the Hughes residence tonight, what with 20cm forecast for your area.
• Software
  Bah! Its rain again today here. Still chilly, though.
• penelope
  A light covering of snow here, but a very slow thaw at between 0 and +1C. Grey and overcast though, so useless for taking photos. More snow later!
• flerdle - variable
  It was 39°C here yesterday. I did not sweat, but many others on the trams looked very hot and bothered. Now it is 15°C and raining.

  The last few days can be seen here (it refreshes and will scroll off in a couple of days).

• Rosie
  (INJ) I'm just beginning to think they've overdone it for this particular area because the wind is too northerly whereas it needs to be north-east for us to get a good dumping when the snow is generated by convection over the North Sea, which is still surprisingly warm. East Anglia and north Kent will get it but I'm probably just too far west, even allowing for the altitude (560 ft). Verification time (as they call it) will be tomorrow afternoon. There won't be much after that.
• Rosie - Snow
  3 inches so far and not much more to come, I reckon. The newsgroup (uk.sci.weather) are absolutely wetting themselves but many of them seem to have little other life than weather + computers.
• Juxtapose - No relevance, I just really quite liked this sentence.
  The visiting fans were aghast when she blatantly snorted a powdery substance up her nose and nearly cause a large scale riot but although she stopped play and quickly looked in her rule-book, just because an uppity linesman stated that Thomas Cech definitely was offside, an official spokesman snorted and stated sarcastically that such a strange combination of circumstances would hardly explain how the former mistress of the Compte de Bergerac was magnificent but forever embarrassed that her sinuous proboscis protruded into the area.
• ImNotJohn - I thought it was supposed to be summer
  I caught the Great Melbourne Run on Sky Sports last night in my hotel room. I'd rather be in Leeds - torrential rain and a grey sky down there, when we'd had mostly cold & clear.
• ImNotJohn
  Oh, and about 2 inches of snow in the evening and overnight - roads clear, pavements tricky.
• penelope - it sneeuwt
  -4°C outside the house and -6°C outside the village, plus a couple of inches of snow. It all looks very nice indeed.
• Phil
  After a 20 minute flurry yesterday which left very unrealistic-looking white powder on my garden, which melted a bit, then froze solid, it's snowing again now. It's settling nicely too. Lovely weather for the funeral party who will be arriving in 90 minutes
• ImNotJohn
  [Phil] Yes, if one of them were to fall and hurt themselves it would cast a bit of a gloom across the proceedings.
• Rosie - Verification time
  3 inches of snow (8 cm). Rainfall equivalent 8.3 mm after I'd melted and measured it. This is just slightly more than the normal amount for such a depth. In February I got 28 cm (11") snow from 21.3 mm rainfall equivalent.
  (INJ) You are a very naughty boy.
• Phil
  [INJ] One of the funeral (cremation) party commented that at least the departed ended the day warmer than they did. He didn't say this to the bereaved family though.
• Phil
  It's snowing again in Leicester, with plenty forecast (or not, depending on whose forecast you believe) overnight.
• ImNotJohn - Here for the duration
  6 inches of snow since last night - Coniston in the Southern Lake District.
  I haven't brought my power supply for my laptop, so this is probably my last communication for a week. I'll therefore be the first to say Merry Christmas to all of you. Have a really good break and may you all receive what you would have hoped for.
• Phil
  Well, the snow didn't arrive. So we have now had the sum total of about half an inch over a period of 3 days. We do have very, very icy roads though, so at least I can have some fun.
• Rosie
  (Phil) Handbrake turns at your age? I dunno.
  (INJ) Cheers, and may your stocking contain an adaptor.
  I sent a card to my newsagent for delivering my paper every day, having all the stuff I want etc etc. But I'd bought the card there. Is there a term for this?
• Software
  [Rosie] Yes - agedness.
• Phil
  [Rosie] Driving is one of the few pleasures left in my life....
• Dujon - Donuts (or doughnuts)
  It appears that many regions of the U.K. are experiencing rather cold weather. As I type there is a cyclone banging around and about the northwestern bit of Australia. Now, just about anyone who lives here would tell you that Marble Bar is hot and could possibly be nominated as the hottest location in the country. The said cyclone has just clipped Marble Bar.
  So I had a little bit of a look at Marble Bar. Even though I live here and know its reputation I didn't know this little bit of information relative to the town.
  "It is known as 'the hottest town in Australia' a fact which is still recorded by the Guinness Book of Records. For 161 consecutive days to 20 April 1924 the temperature in the town never dropped below 100°F (37.8°C)."
  I do so hope that that bit of trivia will make you feel a wee bit warmer. ;(
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Doesn't the record actually say that the maximum temperature each day reached 100°F for 161 consecutive days. I can't believe that it stayed above 100°F all night, every night. That has happened very occasionally in the Sahara (and probably elsewhere) in high summer but is very rare.
  At the moment a temperature of 5°C would be nice. It hasn't been that high since last Sunday week and it's been down to -7°. White Christmas? No thank you. That white stuff is cold and stops you getting about.
• Software - Bing Crosby
  [Rosie] As usual here in the channel we have missed the worst of it. A sprinkling last Thursday which caused mayhem on the roads and now the sun is shining and its about 7C.
• rab
  Yeah. White (near-)Christmases aren't all they're cracked up to be. Though we've had some crunchy goodness here, so I've not been sliding around too much on it.
• Dujon
  [Rosie] Possibly so, but I don't really know and thus accept the data. In Dec./Jan. 1988/9 or thereabouts I spent four or five weeks in a place called Hillston. That was a dreadful period. At a guess I'd say that I experienced 14 days of overnight temperature above 100ºF. I shall check and report back should I find any objective observations.
• Rosie - Desert songs
  (Dujon) I looked at OZBOM, an excellent site, and it confirmed that it was the maxima that were all over 100°F. I suspect the minima were mostly 25° to 30°. In the last few years Adelaide has had a record high minimum of 34°C. To get a minimum of 100°F (37.8°C) you really need quite a stiff breeze to stop the lowest layers cooling and becoming decoupled from the circulation. You get a sandstorm thrown in for good measure, of course. The only place that doesn't seem to need this condition is Death Valley, where there have been several well-authenticated instances of the night minimum being above 110°F. Glad I'm not the weather observer there, or in Ojmjakon, Siberia, January mean -50°C. Yes, fifty. Wrap up well, as my Mum used to say.
• Chalky - the season
  Festive Fun wishes to all x
• Dujon - No sweat
  [Rosie] Thank you. I must have missed that information, thanks for the clarification. As far as wrapping up well is concerned your Mum's advice sounds like it should have been originally decreed by one of those pesky Yorkshire men (before they subsisted on gravel, of course). ;)
• Phil
  Happy Christmas, whether you believe in anything or not. I like Dec 25th - probably my happiest day of the year.
• Juxtapose
  Merry Christmas from your friends in the States. Today in Seattle (where it is still the 24th for another few hours) the weather was truly lovely - a Christmas oddity since we usually receive rain every December.
  Thanks for inventing MC, and then for letting us with no Tubes play too. =)
• rab - Ching
  Merry Chingmas!
• Simons Mith
  Happy Non-Demominational Generic Winter Season Festival, everyone. (I'm told Hannukah is still on back order.)
• Dujon
  Hakunnah? True, there's none in the shops here either, SM. I blame the Buying Department.
• Phil
  Looking back, if that was my happiest day of the year, the rest must be bloody miserable.
• ImNotJohn - Wow!
  Well - the finest winter week I've had in Britain for many a year. Most days crisp and clear, some snowfall most nights to top up any thaw and to keep it all looking nice. Plenty of fairly low-level walks with stunning views of the Lake District tops. It was real picture postcards stuff. Temperatures at valley floor level 0-2 during the day going down to -4 or -5 overnight. Got up to about 500m one day but just too much snow - breaking trail and post-holing to mid-thigh has me knackered after about 10 minutes these days.
  A recommendation: try the Church House Inn in Torver - 5 locally brewed real ales and a chef who really knows how to cook.
• penelope
  [INJ] Sounds wonderful. I've just caught Julia whatserface doing one of Wainwright's walks on the BBC this mrorning - in summer, I presume - and I can imagine it was an uplifting Xmas week for you. Here in Zuid Holland, we're back to the dim, dank 2-degrees-and-withering-damp weather that eats your core. Yuk.
• Software - Happy New Year
  Farewell the noughties, hail the new and sparkling teens.
• Rosie
  (Softers) Well, at least the sun has come out. Well, I presume it's the sun.
• penelope
  I take it all back. Minus 5 degrees, dry, cold and clear-ish, with plenty of snow at ours, much less in the centre of Rotterdam and mostly clear roads. There was a lovely red sunrise this morning as I drove (late) to work because the car needed scraping free of ice a second time after the windy miller did it for me earlier. And a lovely street party last night with the neighbours - pea soup, rokeworst, rum punch and a brazier. And a enlarged version of a board+puck game similar to shove-ha'penny, at which I did not suck. Hurrah!
• nights
  If anyone's interested - it's not gone above zero here in Strasbourg since I got back, heavy snow and wind shut the trams down for a bit on Friday night, and everyone's just getting on with their lives. It doesn't, however, stop me cursing the security guard at work's name up and down when he won't open the building at 7h45 instead of 8h. Grr.
• Tuj
  [nights] Getting on with it? Whatever next!
• I Say, Porter!
  [nights] Let's all sing together, shall we: "Jobsworth, jobsworth, it's more than me jobsworth". Blimey where did I drag that one up from.
• ImNotJohn
  "I don't care, rain or snow,
  Whatever you want, the answer's no."
  Is that as old as TW3 - I have an image of Lance Percival singing it.
• CdM
  I always thought it was a Jeremy Taylor song; certainly I remember him singing it, and I always assumed he wrote it. Now I must go to the google.
• ImNotJohn
  Looks like you're right, but that's not the context in which I remember it. It's definitely in black and white in my memory.
  [IS,P] Did you spend any time in South Africa?
• nights
  Whoever sang it, I would love to teach it to the people of France. However I've yet to find a good translation for "jobsworth". But yes, people are just dealing with the cold - the phrase "Keep Calm and Carry On" seems apposite.
• ImNotJohn - Jobsworth
  Looks like it's probably 'That's Life' I remember it from.
• Knobbly - The Jobsworth Song
  I don't know that song, but in my head as I read the words they fitted themselves to the tune of christmas carol 'Torches'.
• Software - Hellooooo?
  It's been very quiet in here for the past week.
• penelope
  Oh sorry. I had the volume turned right down :o(
• Chalky - *speechless*
• Tuj - Warning, sports joke
  [pen] You are Daryl Harper and I claim my 5 rand.
• penelope - *gazes upwards at sports joke flying overhead, out of reach*
• Software
  Howzat!
• Tuj
  I think if you consider, you'll
  Find that the game called Wizards' Duel
  Has joined the choir invisibule -
  In other words, it's dead.
  
  It's not too much to do with me -
  I've played but intermittently -
  So would anybody mind if we
  Played something else instead?
• nights
  Not in the least. And an extra point for rhyming.
• rab
  I was at a Burns supper on Saturday night at which the songs were accompanied by mandolin and musical saw. Not quite as silly as swanee kazoo but an interesting combination nonetheless.
• penelope
  [rab] There's evidence that it was 'cutting edge' music in the heyday of the mandolin.
• Projoy
  Bugger. Missed Burns Night. Always meant to go to one of them.
• ImNotJohn - We hae meat an' we can eat
  [Projoy] It's not too late. Burns Night is tonight - Rab is obviously not a true Scotsman if he's prepared to go to a supper on the wrong day just because it's the weekend (unless he's going to another tonight).
  We'll be having our regular 'confuse-a-foreigner' night tonight with guests from Spain, Germany and China. This is one of the times when my Scottish blood, through the maternal line, takes precedence over the Welsh, on the paternal side.
• Phil
  Alas, philspub is acting as a neutral venue for a skittles cup semi-final tonight, for which no supper is required. Any other week, and I'd've been able to do haggis for the skittles supper.
  I suspect I might cook some tonight anyway, and have a small glass of whisky (Scapa 1993 is looking very inviting) to wash it down.
• ImNotJohn - Malt Teasers
  I suspect I'll be having a Ledaig 1990 before bedtime.
• rab
  [INJ] Hate to disappoint you, but I am not in any reasonable sense a Scotsman.
• nights
  Well, Burns Night was a non-event here. I did however have my birthday party. Involving a cake made of marshmallows, and being spanked for my years in the middle of a rowdy bar at 1am. It was great!
• Rosie - Age-related corporal punishment
  They were all oldies, were they? Serves you right, young man. :-)
• nights
  Worse, they were from the south. They have strange ways, down there.
• Uncle Korky
  I'm enjoying the new Cat on a Warm Tin Roof game (being a fan of the various film clubs). However, I was wondering if it was worth having an entry convention to differentiate between films, books, & songs... I was thinking - keep films in bold, books in italics, and songs in quote marks?
• Sierra Mike
  [Uncle Korky] I don't see the point in doing that. Am I missing something?
• CdM
  [UK] It's all that most of us can do to even post in the right game most of the time. I think you'd be asking way too much of us. :-)
• Simons Mith
  Eh, if you're posting something unusually obscure, just post a hint as well. Besides, what typographic notation would we use for plays, musicals, etc.?
• Chalky - balloon.a.down.lead.like.goes.idea
  [UK] Is your idea based on some local government entry convention/system/policy - ie. why do something once when you can employ three people to do it in triplicate? :)
  
  
  [On the plus side - at least it blew away the tumbleweed in here]
• ImNotJohn - Everything in its place
  I'm sure we can work out a comprehensive notation system. Things like poems in UPPER CASE(unless they're by e e cummings) etc.
• Simons Mith
  Clearly we need to start a notation game to sort out these little stylistic niggles before the new process is formally adopted.
• Simons Mith
  Although, if we do that, we're going to need meta-notation to distinguish between styles proposed, under consideration, accepted and rejected. [Chalks] That's why we need a committee, of course; if you start doing this sort of thing properly it's bound to turn out to be more complicated than one head can contain.
• CdM
  I nominate Chalky to be on the ad hoc search committee charged with finding a steering committee to oversee the establishment of a notation game.
• rab
  But surely we need to agree on the nomination procedures first?
• Simons Mith
  [rab] Agreed, as long as we don't make things needlessly bureaucratic.
• rab
  OK then, so I suggest the usual: each candidate will need the backing of twenty (20) signatures. In the event of more than one nomination, we'll need to instigate an election process. Obviously, the most sensible way to do this is a two-round procedure, where we use a single-transferrable vote to whittle down to two candidates, and a second round to decide the final victor. We will of course need to do this for each committee post, but it's a pretty straightforward procedure, so won't be much hassle to implement.
• penelope
  [rab] You start :o)
• rab
  [pen] No can do - as maintainer of this site, it would open up a massive conflict of interest and leave me open to prosecution by the EU, probably.
• Uncle Korky
  *Resolves not to post anything stupid in future*
• Chalky
  [Korks] Please do. Post, that is. Not 'not post'.
  :):)
• ImNotJohn - I wish I hadn't said that
  [UK] I've made that resolution about once a week since debuting on the morniverse. Hasn't worked yet.
• Rosie
  (INJ) Still doesn't work, does it. :-) Debuting??? Go on; it's a wind-up.
• ImNotJohn - Daybooing
  [Rosie] It's a tricky one, isn't it? It ought to be OK as a word, but I'm unhappy with all ways of pronouncing it.
• penelope - verbing weirds nouns
  I see what you've done there. Avoid 'debuting' at all costs. You can only 'make a debut'.
• Rosie
  (INJ, pen) - I think I'd prefer deb-yewing with the accent on the first syllable. It'll turn up on Five Live now you've let it out of the bag.
• Phil
  While we're on the subject, how do people pronounce "valeting"?
• flerdle - deb-OO-ing
  I would not say it, but if pushed, after thinking for a while: val-AY-ing or perhaps VAL-ay-ing.

  Ugly.

• ImNotJohn
  [Flerdle] The common pronunciation I hear is 'VAL-ett-ing', at least when you're talking about car cleaning. Not heard it for being a gentleman's gentleman.
• Projoy
  On a similar basis, I'm looking forward with relish to the challenges of gerunding "ballet", "fracas", "wii", "Playdoh" and "adieu"
• Projoy
  (I've often thought the word "Boeing" looked rather awkward for related morphological/phonological tension reasons).
• Projoy
  Ah, another good one to add to the list above would be "algebra".
• Phil
  I do have a fondness for the (not terribly prevalent, but permitted) alternative spelling of "queuing" that keeps the "e", resulting in "queueing"; a whopping 5 consecutive vowels.
• Tuj - Semi-tangentially
  I seem to recall reading a newspaper article about an RSI-like injury that had been christened "wiiitis".
• rab
  [INJ] That reminds me that "buffet" is pronounced "boo-fay" except when referring to catering provision on British trains, where it's "buff-it".
• Phil
  [rab] Really? I beg to differ. "Buff-it" would only be used by me as a verb relating to what strong winds can do to a person.
• ImNotJohn - Buff, Eh?
  [Rab] Not to mention the notices on the cross-channel ferries which say: 'To the buffet/Au Snack-bar'
• flerdle - aye, buff, ay!
  Saying "boof-ay" here would get you strange looks.
• flerdle
  (and that's for any pronunciation of "oo")
• Phil
  [flerdle] even "stool"?
• Software
  I thought girls had "boof ay's" in the '60s.
• Rosie
  (Phil) When you've polished your nice brass beer pump don't you then buff it for that extra gleam?
• flerdle
  [Phil] Especially!
• Phil
  [Rosie] No. I have staff to do that for me :)
  [flerdle] how are you pronouncing the "boof" of "boof-ay"? Like "boo" or "book"?
• flerdle - actually, it's Smörgåsbord
  Either works just as badly - as I said. It's always "buff-ay" here unless you're over 80 and posh or putting it on. Buff as in huff, puff, stuff and, um, buff.
• penelope - Snoo
  I don't think we've had a week without at least a small covering of the white stuff since before Christmas. Most weeks, it has been topped up at least twice, but mostly melts away before the next lot comes. Gah.
• Rosie
  (pen) - Are you bemoaning the fact that it doesn't stay or that it's there at all? With me it would be the latter. Cold, messy and stops you getting about. This view doesn't go down well with the weather newsgroups but they're mainly inhabited by 13-yr-olds, it seems to me, even if their actual age is over four thimes that. Roll on summer. Then they'll start throwing their toys about because they haven't got their promised thunderstorms.
• penelope
  [Rosie] That it's *still* coming. It started snowing this morning when I was eating breakfast. By the time I got in the car to drive to work, it was white over again. And then there was a snowstorm for an hour or so at mid-day. I have to concede that the roads have been fine though.
• Rosie
  (pen) - Nothing mild in the next week but no ferocious cold either. Just well, crap, really. Haven't seen the sun for ages or much of the night sky.
• penelope - Zonne
  [Rosie] Poor you. Seeing the sun from time to time *does* make a difference. It was sunny this morning, and it was an incredibly cold but incredibly sunny day last Friday, when a friend visiting from England and my sister-in-law drove down to Belgium to see an exhibition of hellebores (surprisingly interesting - and incredibly fragrant) and took two walks - first through an arboretum deep in sunlit snow but full of colourful flowering witch-hazels, and secondly across a brilliantly sunny heath, covered in about 6" of snow, when I nearly froze my face off. And the stars last night were quite incredible too. Minus 3.5C this morning. Light ice on the car. No traffic - school holidays - hurrah!
• penelope
  Oh, and there were two storks sitting in a rudimentary stork's nest on a stork's nest pole alongside the road as I drove into work this morning. Perhaps they can see spring coming from that height.
• penelope - feeling the need..
  To dispel any ugly thoughts about stork baggage, no, I'm not.
• Claire
  [Penlope] Oh, poor you. ;)
• ImNotJohn
  Well, that thought certainly shut us all up!
• penelope
  [INJ] Don't let it. As I tried to say on Facebook (for those what do it) I'm much better Professional Uncle material than I am parent material. Besides, kids are so annoying, and so expensive. I just got a fresh bit of freelance work in, and celebrated by buying a new handbag. Now is that responsible parent-like behaviour?
  
• Rosie - Uncle pen
  The mind boggles. BTW My mum had a nice handbag and we were still fed.
• Tuj - A thought of more than 8 words
  Somehow, CdM continues to make splendid contributions to the 8-word game despite belligerently flouting the laws. Top Crescenteering.
• CdM
  [Tuj] Thank you. My greater pride, however, is that I just provoked pen into a rules violation.
• nights
  Well done all of you.
• penelope - Pride comes...
  [CdM] as a fallen dish, left cold. Or something. ;o)
• penelope - breaking the silence
  SIX degrees on the way to work this morning. All the ice has disappeared from the water in the canals. Meanwhile, in Vancouver, NL's golden boy Sven Kramer (one gold medal under his belt already) was mislead by his coach as to when to change lanes in the speed skating, and lost a second gold medal in speed skating last night. The whole country is gutted this morning.
• Software - kiddiwinki
  [pen] Professional Uncle? Is there something you are not telling us?
• Dujon - Losing a gold medal
  [Penolope] How can you lose a gold medal on a skating rink, never mind two? Perhaps he needs a tighter belt or a better piece of string. On a more serious note: How can an experienced competitor get it so wrong and then blame his coach?
• Dujon
  Sorry, penelope, it weren't deliberate like. :(
• nights
  It's amazed me how little the French seem to care about the Olympics. But then we have political problems to worry about - oh, no, wait, that was the Netherlands too!
• Monolope - voting
  Yep - a tumultuous week here in the flat country. I get to vote in local elections here next week, which will be interesting. But I've also made sure I can vote in the UK elections. Hurrah!
• Rosie - Jesus HUGHES
  (Ping INJ) - One of the answers (correctly given) in last Monday's University Challange was "Anarcho-Syndicalism".
• nights
  [Mono] Ditto here. It feels a little immoral being registered in two countries, but I wanted so much to vote for our regional council. We're also battening down the hatches because according to Météo-France, "WE'RE ALL DOOOMED!"
• penelope - Yoo-hoo!
  Anyone about?
  Bum. The windy miller and I didn't vote - we were sitting drinking coffee in a very genteel Dutch front parlour, looking over a stadhuis and a canal and talking about planning issues and weather lore.
• Software - Windy
  No not the Miller, pen. Just bloody windy. Cold too. Brrr! Bring on Spring.
• rab
  Coming out of London City Airport the other day, I was intrigued by two large signs instructing pilots to "CAUTION YOUR BLAST". Obviously this was the first thing I typed into Google when I got home, and it brought up many webpages with people asking what it meant. The answer I like best is the one that says it means not to accelerate too rapidly going onto the runway because you run the risk of blowing the ground crew over in the process.
• Rosie
  (rab) How do you caution a blast? Do you say "OK, blast, you've committed an offence but we've decided not to prosecute this time provided you admit culpability"? Why don't these buggers speak English?
• rab
  I think it might be due to limited sign space. I trust the interpretation of the message is part of a pilot's training, as being a native English speaker won't even help you with this one.
• Phil
  [rab] The turning points at LCY are very tight, and I suppose it must be to remind pilots to be wary of where their blast is directed.
  This video shows an example of people not cautioning the blast of a Airbus 340, where the pilot has no choice of where to direct his full throttle "blast".
• Dan
  It'd be interesting to collect signs that don't entirely say what they mean. The only two I can think of are "Blind Summit" in the UK, which means "there's something you need to be ready for beyond the crest of this hill; such as a single-track bridge, an abrupt curve or a yak crossing, but we're not telling"; and one you often see when exiting tunnels in the US, which just says "Lights". It's reminding you that you might have left your headlights on when leaving the tunnel but presumably they don't want to say "Turn your lights off now" for fear people would obey it at night.
• Rosie
  (Dan) There was a (maybe apocryphal) example of that at a level crossing in Yorkshire where it said "Wait while red light shows" in case there's another train coming in the opposite direction. But there were cases where motorists stopped at a green light because colloquially the sign means "Wait until the red light shows". There are so many ways of rephrasing it but they missed them all.
• Graham III
  [rab] I had exactly the same reaction when I last went through there.
• Software - Weather
  Foul weather here last night, our coastal roads were closed because of the high tide overspill during the rush hour, resulting chaos. Very windy and torrential rain at times. So much for BST!
• Rosie
  (Softers) I see you've still got a nice bracing force 6-7 with a few hail showers. It'll calm down pretty soon, though. And don't forget that but for the clocks you'd have got them an hour earlier. Not everything is bad.
• penelope - Ten, long days and a lot of chocolate eggs
  So has everyone finished their chocolate stash? The windy miller and I have resorted to buying the half-price leftover Easter Eggs in the supermarket - cappucino flavoured mini-eggs for me.
  Any plans for the weekend? We'll go out to Willemstad (look it up on google maps - the town's fortifications are shaped like Lisa Simpson's hair) for coffee and appeltaart tonight, and the windy miller will have a trappist beer or two. Other than that... I have no idea.
• Phil - chocolate? what chocolate?
  I had a Lindt mini egg. As I've all but wiped saturated fat out of my diet since about a month ago, the pleasure of eating it was overwhelmed by the disappointment that I had given in and eaten it. I'm enjoying getting into the jeans that I kept for 2 years in the hope that I'd fit into them again some day though.
• penelope
  [Phil] Now I feel fat and guilty. Cheers. ;o)
• Rosie - Trappist beer?
  (pen) If anything loosens the tongue......
• penelope
  [Rosie] I imagine the brewers' taste testing sessions were conducted behind locked doors, and not everything was written down...
• Phil
  [pen] Soz, that wasn't my intention :-(
• FGZstar - Html..
  Hey guys, don't mean to butt in, or anything, but how do you do all the html thingies for the posts? I can do bold, italics and line spaces, but how do you do the other things. Please can someone help?
• Chalky - all the right moves ..
  [FGZstar] Go to main menu page - bottom right you'll see 'settings - info' - press info :)
• Rosie
  (FGZstar) Unfortunately, "info" links to a website (Dr Qu+xum, a former Morniverser) that is no longer there. Here are a few you might like:
  hr = a page-wide grey underline
  sup = superscript, sub = subscript
  p = paragraph (adds an extra line space)
  font size="x" where x can go from -2 to +2.
  strike = a line through the text
  href="url"> any message</a> for an external link.
  There is loads more which you can Google. Go for the simplest stuff or you'll end up learning the entirety of Hungarian literature when all you want is to ask for the loo.
  
• Rosie - Cockup
  Before "href" insert <a
• Projoy
  As an alternative to monkeying with the font size, you can use <small> </small> and <big> </big> tags.
• Simons Mith - HTML Primer
  I have a saved copy of DrQu+xum's helpful primer stashed away somewhere. I'll dig it out and make it available online again.
• rab - primed
  Might be simplest to host it here if you find it. Whatever, I'll update the link if the source material can be tracked down.
• ImNotJohn - yer tiz
  It's at http://www.pitt.edu/~greg4/basichtml.html
• FGZstar
  Okay, here goes!

  fraser+info²=success!

  Thanks, guys! I seem to be cured of my affliction!

• Rosie - Dr Q
  (INJ) Bugger me, it's still there. Why couldn't I get it earlier?
• Chalky - hmmm
  [FGZstar] Curiously enough - I had a hunch you might demonstrate your new found prowess. All power to you :)
• FGZstar - more html queries
  Okay, now that I have the basics, I would like some direction in terms of photos. Can i put in the file ref of my memory card or temp storage device and it will upload, or do I need to keep the file in permanent storage on the computer?
• Raak
  [FGZstar] There's no uploading to this site, and unless your computer is running a web server and is online all the time, a picture stored on it won't be visible anywhere else. You would need to upload the picture to somewhere of your own on the web, and link to it from here.
• rab
  There are sites like Photobucket that will allow you to do that. (Although I think that one's owned by Rupert Murdoch, so you may have philosophical objections to using it). ImageShack is another.
• Rosie
  (Raak, rab) Can I do that with Flickr? My God, you're all doomed.
• Raak
  If it's on Flickr, or Zooomr, or anywhere else, you can link it here. Whether you should...
• Raak
  
• Chalky
  [Raak] Nice panoramic - but a bit sticky-outy to the right. Where be it?
• Rosie
  (Chalky) Click on it and you'll find it's probably not far from Naarj.
• Raak
  [Chalky] The view from my office window (carefully zoomed and cropped to avoid the concrete). Doesn't stick out on my screen. :-)
• penelope
  One day, I'll put up a pic from my office window - downtown Rotterdam, skyscrapers, splendid bridges and all. One the other hand, from my home office (the spare room) I can see the sails of a windmill, a thatched barn, and the village hall. And a load of very, very ordinary houses, all very close together.
• FGZstar
  What about Facebook? I've got some pretty panoramics pics i've taken over my travels, I'll put some up soon, or I'll link to my facebook for any other FB members out there
• FGZstar - Yay! It works!
  
  Now the challenge: Name that location
• Raak
  [FGZ*] Bryce3D?
• ImNotJohn
  The shape of the bay looks a bit like Rio.
• FGZstar
  Nope. I'll tell you that it's in Asia.
• CdM
  Hmmm... That looks like a fair-sized city -- and I have been to a lot of cities in Asia but don't recognise this one. I don't think it's Hong Kong. But there are a lot of large cities in China that I've never seen, so I wonder if it might be one of those. I'm also a bit bemused by what is in the left of the picture: a rollercoaster???
• FGZstar
  Yep, it's the run-away mine train at a theme park which I visited. Sadly this particular roller coaster was closed for maintenance on the day. It looks like fun, too.
• CdM
  Ah, ok. It is HK Disneyland, looking over Discovery Bay. I've never been to that part of HK.
• FGZstar
  [CdM] You are soooo close, but no cigar. You are certainly right in half of your answer.
• CdM - All praise to the Google
  OK, got it. Ocean Park in Hong Kong. Haven't been to that part of HK either. Things about the Disneyland guess didn't quite seem right, looking at Google maps, but I assumed it was just something odd about the angle of the picture that I couldn't quite work out.
  
  What kind of cigar do I get?
• FGZstar - Here you go, it's cuban.
  
• Simons Mith - 'Cuban'?
  [FGZ] No it's not, it's cylindrical.
• Phil
  A week is a long time in politics. It's a long time in a queue for a Bucks Fizz reunion ticket too.
• Software - Q
  [Phil] About 8 days too long in my view.
• Rosie
  Before today there was 9-day hiatus in this very game. Quite inexcusable.
• FGZstar
  I suppose everyone just cleared out to avoid the cigar smoke...
• CdM
  Do other people agree that "Change Just One Thing" has become a bit stale? It was very fun for a while, but we don't seem to have found any interesting way to develop the game.
• FGZstar
  I wuld agree with that, when I suggested a sentence change I waited 2 weeks to get no answer, so I changed it anyway. Any suggestions for a new game?
• penelope - June so soon?
  This month's conversation will mostly be... contributuons please
• FGZstar - British Airways
  Why is it that British Airways can't agree with their crew long enough to avoid strike action? I just hope they don't branch out into brewery tours...
• Knobbly - Particle physics?
  [pen] Contributuons? Some sort of elementary particle I'm guessing.
• penelope
  Yes.
  'Yes' and 'No' are the most basic particles known as contributuons.
• Simons Mith
  Contributuons are not entirely stable. They are sometimes known to decay into mehons, particularly nowadays when enthusiasm is so often considered passé.
• FGZstar
  We must all don HAZMAT suits immediately, as prolonged exposure to contributuons can cause long term healf effects.
• Rosie - H & S
  (FGZS) Er, no "h" in healf, BTW. Talking of which, why does anyone working outside seem to have to wear a high-vis jacket? Will it be compulsory for everyone? Should I wear one as a pedestrian? At a recent football match it took six big blokes and a woman, all with this ludicrous garb, to carry an injured footballer off the pitch on a stretcher. You could almost feel the self-importance oozing from the telly screen. After all, this was football, a Very Serious Matter. Come on, you Blues! (whoops).
• Raak
  A high-vis jacket makes a very effective Cloak of Invisibility (I am told) if you want to explore somewhere outside that you're not supposed to be.
• Rosie
  (Raak) Mm, I hadn't thought of that. Could be useful for committing gross trespass in railway tunnels. (I have actually done that). It's a bit like donning police uniform without the risk of committing the serious offence of impersonating a police officer. One could get a hard hat as well and be pretty well untouchable. The more I think about it the better it gets. You could give one as a Christmas present to someone with low self-esteem but obviously they would find it difficult to adopt the swagger. Let us raise a glass to The Law of Unintended Consequences.
• Software - DayGlo
  It is now compulsory to carry hi-viz jackets in cars when driving in France. Not just for the driver either, one for each seat and they cannot be stored in the boot.
• Tuj
  [Rosie] Are you sure they weren't just wearing your away kit of a couple of seasons ago? ;)
• Rosie
  (Softers) That sounds most un-French unless I've misjudged the place. Where are you supposed to store them? When is it compulsory to wear them, and if it isn't, what are they for?
  (Tuj) Yes, not good, was it.
• FGZstar
  [SW] Surely that would be almost as effective as the swiss needing compulsory lifejackets in their cars. I think it's just an excuse for the Gendarmerie to nick any english folks who haven't been told yet!
• Knobbly
  Upon reading some risk assessments once, I was surprised to learn that we were required to carry throwlines when within 1KM of water.
• Rosie
  (various) What's the chance of losing the will to live while reading a Risk Assessment? Shouldn't there be a Risk Assessment before one does this kind of thing?
• Software - Re: DayGlo
  [Rosie] On autoroutes and main roads with hard shoulders. No guidance on storage, sadly. We keep them in the glove box. [FGZs] Not quite; the Swiss do have a few lakes.
• FGZstar - On a completely unrelated note...
  I am currently in Heathrow T5 awaiting a flight home to Edinburgh as the last leg of my 10 month world tour, and would you beleive it! BA have let me into their lounge. Free internet and free food! OMG!!!!!!!
• Software - BA Executive Club
  [FGZs] Let you in for free? That can only mean bad news.
• rab - BAa baa black sheep
  [FGZ] On my last trip via T5 I found I was able to pick up the free BA signal in the Wetherspoons. Don't know if they've noticed since then (or perhaps they simply don't care).
• FGZstar - BA Club (not too sure about executive)
  [SW] Well, apparently my round the world ticket was changed in nature when the person I spoke to put me on a new flight back to Edinburgh becuase the other one was cancelled (strike). It then became what is called a full fare ticket, which as well as being fully flexible, also lets you into the executive lounge. It was brill. Especially the fully open bar, where the spirits and wine and beers were just sitting for you to help yourself. And the sarnies were lovely too. Especially the cvaviar and foie gras on rye...
• penelope - cvaviar?
  Kevaviar. Yum. ;o)
  I'm inburgering - I knew the back roads around the polder to avoid the hold-ups caused by a very slow double-portokabin being carried precariously on a tractor and trailer along the main road into the village last night. Hurrah! That's no mean feat when you consider that all the dyke roads look the same (raised above the fields, lined with alder trees and dotted with houses) and there are no hills or big landmarks to orientate yourself.
• Software - Clogland
  [pen] Yes, disorientating isn't it? When I worked in Hilversum we used to play cricket in a field on the way to Utrecht somewhere. I could never find my way to it on my own.
• FGZstar - Cvaviar
  I will have you know that cvaviar is a russian term, meaning shrimp or prawns. Also, the Foie Gras mentioned was actually foie gras flavoured spread. BA's not that good, or they'd be able to pay their staff a decent wage, and not have a strike.
• KagomeShuko - I'm new to this place, but it looks interesting
  Is there an overview of the games?
• Simons Mith - Games overview
  [Kage] Greetings! 'Games overview' - er, sort of. If you click on the 'Bushy Tailed' link you'll see an archive of all the old games played in the past that have now finished. That gives a good selection of the sort of word games and other random improvisational stuff we play here. The live games are the dozen or so displayed on the main page, of which this game, 'The Banter Page' is one. Then there's more silliness at the 'mcios' and 'orange' links lurking in the bottom left portion of the main page.

  The idea of these is sites is to post a comment/move in whatever games take your fancy, then come back later to see what others have added. The pace is sedate - you get a few new moves on each site each day. It's a bit like Twitter in that respect, I suppose.

  As far as how to play individual games, well that varies. The simplest are games like the limerick or haiku games, where you just post the next line to a limerick or haiku (OK, they're senryu really, usually with a comic tone). In most other games we're just making things up as we go along.

  Are you familiar with I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue? This site is a web-based version of this long-running comedy radio show. We try to play most of the games they play on ISIHAC, and invent our own in the same style. That's what this site – and Orange and MCiOS contain.

• penelope - indeed
  Hello new chaps. It's just a case of slotting in and playing a line you think might be funny/constructive/setting up a killer of an ending. I think there's a lot to be said for generous play (eschewing the laughs for one line in order to allow the biggest laugh with the next player's line) and we haven't seen so much of it recently - I guess because Facebook is stealing everyone's attention and the moves don't come as fast as they used to. (Jeez, I've been playing here for 12 years!!!)
  In other matters, writing for work is the last thing I feel like doing today. I've been asked to write a news article and there are so many stipulations and limitations in it that the commissioner might as well write it herself. Pah. Grump.
• Simons Mith - Article
  [Pen] OK, I bet you £5 you can't work the word 'armadillo' into it.
• penelope
  [Simons] You're right. I can't get the word armadillo into it. Can you send the five quid by paypal?
• Rosie - Silly
  What do you get if you cross a vibrator with a lizard? (View the source to read the hidden text)
• Simons Mith - Braaaaiiiinnnnsss
  Can I just say that I finding the ongoing MC5 Zombie carnival to be at least as entertaining as the Festival of Crescent at dunx.org? I now have a chance to play in Ex Libri Bardus which I didn't take up at the time.
• FGZstar - Bushy Tailed?
  Where did all the games in the bushy tailed come from? I've never seen any of them until they turned up there. Am I miising something? All I can see are the bright eyed and the bushy tailed. Are there more?
• rab
  Yes - click the 'See more' button!
• Tuj
  [SM] You think we should all start playing the old games again then? The idea of a Zombie Festival of Crescent does rather tickle me.
• CdM
  So, when is rab's birthday then? Seems like the date for the zombie fest. (Actually, it should probably be his deathday (i.e., pre-anniversaries of his death), but that's tougher to work out.)
• MORT
  NO IT'S NOT.
• rab - You do the math!
  [CdM] This year, as it happens, on a somewhat numerically pleasing day. Certainly cause for some kind of celebration.
• CdM
  September 8? October 10?
• Simons Mith
  October 20th?
• rab - Tennis
  [CdM] Second time lucky.
• Knobbly
  I'm not understanding the attempt at concurrent cheddars in the 8 words room. I think I'll just wait for someone braver than me to work out how to play, and join in later.
• Tuj
  [Knobbly] Now I'm with you.
• Rosie - Cheddars in parallel
  (Knobbly, Tuj) Eight cheddars run concurrently. The first eight entries are the first lines of eight cheddars on eight different subjects. The next eight entries are the second lines of these eight cheddars and so on until, well, we'll think about that. Ideally it needs eight different contributors or there could be confusion. Thus Softers and I have done our first lines and eagerly await your respective contributions and those of others.
• KagomeShuko - I haven't a clue
  Listening to the first episode I've ever heard of "I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue."
• Tuj
  [Rosie] Ta. Can't always explain what's going on in eight words I guess! I'll confess my original idea was that the first move would contain eight first words of eight cheddars, the next move the second word of each, and so on. So we'll get round to that when this comes to a natural conclusion, I guess.
• Rosie
  (Tuj) I have a feeling this is going to go on a bit; we're still waiting for four first lines. Oh well.
  (KagShuk) Few would admit to that. Well done. Pity you never heard Humphrey Lyttleton as chairman but Jack Dee is a good replacement.
• Software - Cheddars
  Interestingly, the first three in the 8 word game can be read together or each could be the start of one.
• penelope - in case Tuj stumbles in here...
  Happy Birthday, Sir
• gillo - football
  wot a load of guff --i would sooner nail my arse to the floor than sit and watch a game.
• Simons Mith - Nailing one's arse to the floor
  [gillo] I like the sentiment, but now I'm wondering about the logistics. I suppose you'd have to sit on the floor with legs out straight and then put the nails in diagonally from each side. Aim from just the middle of the frontmost parts of your rear jeans pockets to come out through the bottom middle of each pocket. You'd need to use at least 6" nails as well, I'd think, and I doubt you'd get a very strong attachment. I did try doing a little ASCII diagram but I couldn't get it to convey what I wanted.
• FGZstar
  Mon the Germans!!!!
• KagomeShuko - I think we should have a poems parody game - don't think I can start it, can I?
  I think that I shall never see
  A purple cow that looks like thee
  This poem is a pure mess
  With lots of regards to Gilet Burgess.
• Sierra Mike - That 70s Game
  Took a gander and was appalled, appalled I say, to see no one had posted "Goodieeeeeees! Goody goody yum yum". Words fail me.
• Kim - Game slot
  We havn't played T.L.A. for a while. Any support for a themed version? Eg: M.U.G. - Most Under-achieving Goalkeeper - a World Cup T.L.A.
• penelope - T.L.A.
  W.A.S.I.
  (What A Spiffing Idea - bit of a PG Wodehouse one, that.)
• Sierra Mike
  buzz! Penelope used four letters.
• Sierra Mike
  I think the Cat on a Warm Tin Roof is probably done to a turn by now. Perhaps it would make a good candidate for replacement by T.L.A.
• FGZstar
  How about a game of Fictional MC, where all the stations played in the game are fictional, and the player have to assign each station a place on the tube map as they give it's name. It may be inspired by a fictional work, or jut completely made up by the player. It could possibly replace Cat on a Warm Tin Roof. Of course, MC would stay as the winner, because it's quite irreplaceable in my mind. Any thoughts?
• Simons Mith - Morningside Castle
  [FGZ] I think that's an excellent idea. Sort of a bit like Boardman's, but hopefully without getting as silly as Boardman's often does.
• FGZstar
  Actually, have had thoughts of changing the winner to Aldwych, since it's appeared on screen a lot, in various guises.
• penelope - A week has gone by since...
  It's all very well everyone being too polite to say anything, but it does get slightly tedious. Or are you all on summer hols? Next week, the windy miller and I will be mostly noodling around the north of England along Hadrian's wall, and visiting friends that I haven't seen for far too long. Can't wait!
• ImNotJohn - Shhhhh! You'll wake them up
  I think it's a matter of momentum and critical mass. The more people there are contributing to a site the more others are prompted to do so. I tend to skim looking for updated games and probably only review the whole morniverse about once a fortnight. We need to start an argument - that's always good for pulling people in.
  I'm working in Newcastle this week, but next week I'll probably be in Leeds, so no chance of viewing some of the remarkable sights in the evening on Newcastle Quays together I'm afraid.
• CdM - Very well then
  [INJ] Really, that's the kind of stupid comment that could only have been made by someone who thinks speed limits should by higher, hates winter, is opposed to summer time, likes vuvuzelas, is a language fascist, supports Manchester United, and thinks Tom Baker was the best Doctor Who.
• ImNotJohn - See petard - hoist by.
  Well, your failure to proof-read your entry just demonstrates your lack of intellectual rigour and means I can dismiss your comment as unworthy of response.
  Wait a minute! Tom Baker? I'll see you outside!
• Rosie
  Can't you two boys play nicely?
  (CdM) I, er, sort of prefer summer. Don't hit me, please, pretty please. *suddenly remembers who he is* When did you last experience a winter, anyway?
• penelope - That's more like it
  Scrap!
• Dujon - Fight, fight, fight!
  Come on over here, CdM. Oh, you are? Sorry.
  Vuvuzelas are one of modern music's most wonderful inventions and those that play them the musicians of the future. Who could ever forget the marvellous interplay of the long and short horns, the seemingly random effects produced by the instruments' flats, sharps and true tonal quality as exhibited recently in the various cities of the South African Republic? Sit down sir, with an open mind, and listen.
  Every orchestra should have at least 1000 in its wind section.
• CdM
  [Rosie] I'm in the middle of winter right now!
• ImNotJohn
  Winter, Hah! It's not winter if you can go outside with fewer than three layers on.
• Software - Grim op north
  [INJ] Dunno what you are talking about. The temperature has rarely dipped below 15C (day and night) for the last two months down here :o).
• Rosie - Grim down south
  (CdM) - Yurss.
  (Duj) Many big clubs here have already banned them. Health and Safety can occasionally be useful.
• Dujon
  [Rosie] It does get nippy here and there down here. Charlotte Pass recorded -20° C a few days ago.       ;)
• Rosie
  (Duj) - Well it would; it's 6000 feet up in a valley. According to an admittedly pretty crap source Sydney Airport has never recorded a frost though I imagine things get a little more parky where you are. English record is -26.1° (Harper Adams College, Newport, Salop, 10 Jan 82). The record for SE England is probably -21° at Bodiam, Sussex, Jan 1940. At Maison Rosie it's -12.9° on 10 Feb 86. Feeble! Even sodding Gatwick Airport has done better than that, as it often does. *sobs*.
• FGZstar - Sitting on the Fence...
  I am native to the UK, but I spent most of the last year in NZ, so missed the worst winter ever (thank god), and got a suntan instead. It was to my dismay, however, that I returned to find my mum had a better tan than me. Bloody global warming.
• FGZstar - On a completely unrelated note...
  How does one define next day delivery?
• FGZstar - One more thing...
  Since when did the Circle line become a spiral?
• Software - Next Day Delivery
  Is an additional charge for the same poor service.
• Rosie - Monotonically decreasing radii vectores
  (FGZstar) - Eh? Please explain.
• ImNotJohn - Disappearing into a black hole
  It was about 4-6 months ago. I commented on it in another place.
  [Rosie] Trains now run from Hammersmith and then effectively transfer from the H&C to the circle. I don't know what proportion do that and whether they can go round a few times and then escape out to Barking. It's been the subject of frantic discussions at CAMREC.
• FGZstar - NDD
  [Software] Spot on. I bought some shoes and paid for Next day delivery, and had them delivered 5 days later. I was furious.
• FGZstar - The Cir- er.. Spiral Line
  I think they run from Hammersmith to Edgware Road via the circle, then back the other way. I will be down in London (hopefully) later in the week, so I shall report back when I know more. I only realised when I looked at the tube map the other day.
• Software - The 'Lasso Line'
  It is all explained here.
• Software - Next Day
  [FGZ] It is never worth it. I bought a TV (using my online trade account) to be delivered to my son. I was offered "Next Day" at £12.99 but went for the free option. It was delivered the next day.
• Rosie
  (Softers) Ah! It is all so clear to me now.
  (INJ) Oh, that CAMREC.
• FGZstar - Overground
  Has anyone else been on the new Overground trains yet? I think they should make the tube trains with interconnecting carriages too. It would save everyone ending up in the one carriage.
• KagomeShuko - Who has to work to make money
  I've got to write tons of articles in August so I can make money. While I like writing, the amount I need to write is not fun. I get page view bonus, too - quite like a salesman gets commission - and I'm also trying to hit a million page views, so if you don't mind, would you view my articles?
• KagomeShuko - Who lives in Lake Charles, LA, USA . . .
  *is happy*
• nfras
  Sorry, I've not been around for a while and I must have missed the arrival of KagomeShuko. If I didn't know better I'd think it was spam. But obviously a regular poster who usually makes witty and urbane comments.
• FGZstar
  In the spirit of shameless self promotion, can I maybe try to direct you to my blog?
• Rosie - who doesn't have to work to get money
  The state pays me to be alive, along with a number of other age-related concessions. Also, I get a useful pension from BP.
• Rosie - who lives in Warlingham, Surrey, UK
  *is smug*
• Sierra Mike
  [FGZStar] In the spirit of shameless self-intoxication, can I direct you to buy me a pint?
• FGZstar - Who needs to buy.
  [Sierra Mike] I will happily give you this virtual pint of tapwater.
• nfras
  [FGZstar] If you're heading out of Sydney or down to Melbourne or Canberra announce it on the Pilg page on Orange as PaulWay is in Canberra, flerdle, CdM and I are in Melbourne and I think someone's in the Blue Mountains.
• nfras
  Bugger, just realised you're already off in the land of the long white bodies, I mean cloud.
• FGZstar - Oh, really?
  Strange you should think that, as I'm actually back home in the UK (The blog's a bit out of date, needs updating)
• flerdle - a very pleasant chap.
  [nfras] Our mountain man of mystery would be Dujon; he doesn't travel, so PaulWay and I verified he exists by going to Blaxland ourselves in December 2003; one of the first antipopilgs. It might even have been the first antipopilg.
• Dujon
  That's flerdle on the right (as you view the image) and me on the left. PaulWay declined the offer of inclusion (he was too busy programming his brand new all-singing all-dancing MP3 player).
  As you can see my 'pleasant chap' (thanks flerdle) reputation came from my inability to keep up my head and thus was forced to address my witticisms to the beer drenched table at which we sat. Incidentally, the drink that flerdle had before her at that moment was not coffee. ;)
• nfras
  Yes, couldn't recall if it was Dujon or Dunx and didn't want to cause anyone offence.
• Dujon - Really, truly, ridgy didge?
  Was it really 2003, flerdle? I suppose it must have been as I have brown hair in that photograph. I now look more like a polar bear rather than the grizzly that I presented as in those days. *sobs*
• Rosie - Proof of existence
  (flerdle) Oh, he exists all right - I've spoken to him on the phone, would you believe. A charming fellow but with a poor sense of timing - it was about 3.45 a.m. here but we yakked away for over half an hour. Must've cost him a fortune. One of only three Morniversers I've actually spoken to.
• FGZstar - So is anyone but me actually in the UK?
• penelope
  [FGZ*] I was, but I'm not now.
• Rosie
  (FGZstar) - Yes, me, hence Duj's phone bill.
• Knobbly
  [FGZstar) I am, more or less indefinitely.
• KagomeShuko - Who just made a new website with the help of Giertrud
  Please, go take a look at www.everlastinglight.tk and let me know what you think!
• penelope
  [KS] I think it needs some extracts and perhaps some sample illustrations, and maybe you should say which age range each book is aimed at. And it also desperately needs a professional portrait picture of you, the author. At first glance (and that's all you get from any web-user visiting your pages for the first time - I think the patience limit is less than 7 seconds, isn't it?) there's not enough information there to make the books appealing and make me want to buy them.
• CdM
  Right now it won't load for me...
• FGZstar
  You need to lighten up the background, as the text is hard to read, and change the font to being bigger and more interesting, as the current font is a bit dull. May I suggest Verdana or maybe even Arial, although as it's for children's books, maybe Comic Sans would be more appropriate. Also rethink the logo as it doesn't really jump out at you. I'll try and have a go later and if it looks good I'll upload it onto the web and post it here for you.
• Phil
  [FGZStar] I'm in Leicester. At Phil's pub.
• FGZstar
  I knew that one. What happened to your web page, anyway? It's coming up account suspended
• flerdle - rooly trooly 2003
  Sorry, bit late, but [nfras] Don't worry, Dunx and Dan are always getting mixed up Elsewhere. Some people doubt that there are more than about three people actually here at all.

  Actually in the photo I linked to above that's Dujon on the left, me wallaby in the middle and PaulWay dressed in a rather fetching shade of blue in the background (sorry about the poor light, you might not have seen him properly). I have met many people in the Morniverse, but not Rosie (or Dan or Dunx).

• Rosie - Closing time
  (Phil) - FGZstar is right. I can't get the website. Wotchoobinuptu?
• Rosie - Furry animals
  (flerdle) - Erm, all I can see is two wallabies, one central and bright, the other to the left and dark. Am I being a bit slow or has there been a cockup?
  The Morniversers I have actually met are Software and Chalky, and v. good company they are.
• flerdle
  [Rosie] The one on the left is, I was assured, a bear, albeit with a pointy nose. PaulWay is rather tall and rectangular, with a slight metallic undercoat.
  it's his car's Empeg player
• Rosie - The physical reality
  (flerdle) Ah! I'd best say nothing. These, BTW are me, separated by a mere 60 years. Control yourself, woman. :-)
• flerdle - indeed
  [Rosie] Awww. By the way, you might like to see the next photo too (no. 9). I only appear in ap12 :-)
• penelope - High altitude bees
  [Rosie] Good Lord. Why is your beehive so high off the ground? ;o)
• Rosie
  (flerdle) Only No. 8 comes up. To get the rest I have to alter the address each time.
  (pen) Surrey slugs are the most voracious creatures known to man and try to eat the thermometers.
• ImNotJohn - everlasting light
  [KS] Echoing what the others have said - though I don't have a problem with the logo. It's not really clear whether it's up and running yet - if this is just a mock-up then I think you need to say so. If not then it needs more than 2 books (that's all I found at any rate). The warning around the young adult books looks a bit nannyish without any books to link it to. However the main problem at the moment is the legibility - it's not easy to read and there isn't anything that jumps out to make you want to dig deeper. Best of luck with the venture.
• FGZstar - Logo
  Here is a basic mock-up for the Logo
• CdM
  [KS] I still can't get it to load. Not sure if it is a browser compatibility issue; I've tried both safari and firefox on a mac.
• flerdle - pics
  [Rosie] That's right, it's just a photo not a html page with arrows and such. There is an index somewhere, but my website is pretty disorganised right now.
• KagomeShuko - still looking for any website suggestions
  The site is up and running, but I only have two books published at the moment, so the website is still a work in progress.
• KagomeShuko - still looking for any website suggestions
  The site is up and running, but I only have two books published at the moment, so the website is still a work in progress.
• KagomeShuko - Who has just done some updates to the webpage
  1) Pictures will have to wait until I can get them done. 2) Books waiting to be added. 3)Besides those two things, does it look better now?
• KagomeShuko - re FGZstar
  Can't see the picture. Told me I was not authorized to see it.
• KagomeShuko - re FGZstar
  Can't see the picture. Told me I was not authorized to see it.
• FGZstar
  Should Work Now
• KagomeShuko - with appreciation to FGZstar
  Thanks, but the logo at the top is based on the publishing logo on the back of the books. Take a look at the "peek inside" and go to the very last page: Amazon Link Here
• Phil
  [KS] Are you the author, proofreader, publisher, retailer and website designer? If so, to be honest, I don't think you're doing any of those 5 things very well. I just skimmed through the opening pages of Ace's Adventures and, apart from the black dog scenario being rather old hat (and unsound (View the source to read the hidden text) ), the introduction page has at least two errors: comma instead of period at end of first paragraph; "answer" instead of "answered" in paragraph 3. I'd also prefer "different from" to "different than", but I'm English and picky.

  Even with my love of sub-clauses and punctuation, "With this book, you, too, can be a mystery solver!" just seems too much - especially for a back cover that is supposed to grab people's attention.

  Sorry to sound harsh, but my suggestion is that you should send your two books to professional publishers, with an open and optimistic mind. Take on board their comments, because they really do know what sells, and how to sell it.

• ImNotJohn
  Now that's what I call a speeding fine.
• Rosie - You can afford it.
  (INJ) It would be interesting to what his income was, and the formula for calculating his fine.
• ImNotJohn - A mere bagatelle
  [Rosie] I read it as 300 x his daily income of £2166 based on a speed of 300kph (but I assume there would be some sort of graduated calculation before you got to 1 days income per kph)
• flerdle - not suspicious at all
  I do like the speed camera's cunning disguise.
• FGZstar - A fine country
  In New Zealand they hide behind trees and around corners with unmarked vans.
• ImNotJohn
  Mustn't say 'And why not?'...Mustn't say 'And why not?'...Mustn't say 'And why not?'...Mustn't say 'And why not?'...
• Dujon
  [INJ] I agree with your expressed sentiment. In New South Wales, where I live, the R.T.A. (Roads and Traffic Authority) erect huge signs by the roadside announcing that there is a fixed 'speed camera' ahead. People still get caught travelling above the designated speed limit. Really, how stupid can some people be?
  There are constant 'Letters to the Editor' in newspapers declaiming speeding fines as 'revenue raisers' and that for some obscure reason the writer feels that a fine for exceeding a speed limit is some form of tax.
  There is a simple answer isn't there?
• Rosie - Whoa!
  (INJ) If the fine is proportional to the speed this would mean someone on £100 a day (fairly modest by Swiss standards) who exceeded a limit of (say) 120 kph by 10kph would get a fine of £13,000, which is absurd. Even if the fine is only proportional to the excess it's still £1000 for a fairly minor infringement.
  The actual fine is so huge that either his income is much higher than £2166 a day or some other formula is used. Logically, it ought to be proportional to the square of the speed minus the square of the speed limit thus giving the excess braking distance. Doing this, one finds

  fine = 0.004 x daily income x (V² - V²_lim) with V in kph

  But applying this to the ordinary geezer on £100 a day doing 130 kph in a 120 kph limit gives, coincidentally, the same £1000 as before. Maybe it's proprtional to the cube of fourth power of the speed or possibly to income above a certain level. But then if you were poor you'd have no fine at all. I can't make sense of it It's all bollocks and obviously quite beyond the innumerates at the Grauniad, a paper I read BTW.
  (Duj) Of course there is and they never catch me despite a tendency to leg it. But it depends on the fine. Speeding on a motorway (say 85 mph instead of 70) is hardly arson, rape and bloody murder, except maybe in Switzerland, a very well-ordered country.

  Haven't I anything better to do? Well, just tonight, no, alas.

• Phil
  [Rosie] You may not know that you have to pay an annual tax in order to be allowed to drive on motorways in Switzerland at all, even if you are only passing through the country. Also, it's very hard to get in and out of Switzerland without using a stretch of motorway. Cunning, eh!
• penelope - Swizz swizz
  [Phil] Yeah - the payment covers January to December rather than a rolling 12-month period from the date of purchase, so if you buy it in October you've been done out of two-thirds of the benefits already, and the sticker they give you to show you've paid the highway robbery tax doesn't peel off either. Hmmph.
• Rosie
  (Phil, pen) What a horrible little place, and in so many other ways as well.
• Phil
  Oh, I quite liked it...once I learnt to love efficiency.
• Dujon - Helvetia
  [Phil] Your previous: Even Steve McQueen found out that, and he was only riding a motorcycle.
• Sierra Mike - You have to hand it to the Swiss
  Cunning, hiding the speed camera inside a perfectly innocuous six-foot tall, four foot wide block of Emmenthal.
• penelope
  [SM] Speeding cheese???
• ImNotJohn
  [Pen] The holes are crafted to give extra downforce.
• Sierra Mike - Cheese
  [penelope] You didn't follow the link ImNotJohn posted?
• penelope - *grooooghyere*
  [SM] I know the story, was just trying to paint a different picture. I think English cheeses are faster. At least one English cheese can travel at the speed of sound; Macheddar.
• Rosie
  (pen) But only Brie-fly. Now look what you've started.
• FGZstar
  Maybe I'll sit and watch with a pint of Wensleyd-ale!
• Phil
  [penelope] Gouda you top that!?
• Rosie
  I'm a sympathetic listener - camembert your soul to me.
• Phil
  Well, if one can't unburden on a rock like you, Rosie, what's a roquefort?
• Software
  You can Comté me out.
• penelope
  Come, come, Softers. You could be a little friendleerdammer than that.
• ImNotJohn
  Oh Software's all right, providing you approach him caerphilly.
• CdM
  Yes but pen -- manchegoes on a bit.
• Rosie
  Yes, but his views are similar to mine; Edamplify them, having grater loquaciousness.
• FGZstar
  I think we should all just chalk this one down to experience.
• rab
  Hmmm, you lot are starting to get my goat.
• Phil
  Well, there's stiltons of cheese puns to get through!
• FGZstar
  Are you sure, because I'm at a complete g-lous-cester
• rab
  Actually, I've decided I'm enjoying this little vignottes.
• penelope - Cheese attributes
  It needs a game. Biscuits for Cheese, anyone? And then when the cheeseboard is empty, other grocery items. *rubs hands gleefully at the thought of punnage*
• FGZstar
  That's a gouda Idea, but my cheeseboard is running out of content already
• Rosie
  Wendy said pizza retard.
• FGZstar
  May I remind you that a rolling stone gathers no mozzarella.
• Software
  Have we processed far enough on this one?
• Phil
  Microsoft would not tolerate further cheese-related punnery - but Applewood.
• rab
  [Phil] MS were always a bit primula and proper like that.
• ImNotJohn
  [Rab] Absolutely, I rang them up to complain, but the lady I spoke to just made fun of me, the laughing cow!
• FGZstar
  I'll tried to give them a babybel on skype, but the computer gave me a BSoD (Blue Stilton of Death).
• Phil
  [rab] Sorry it took me so long to respond, but I was watching some Danish Blue!
• rab
  [Phil] Whilst downing a yarg of ale as well, I'd wager.
• Phil
  [rab] Wise words, sir! Wiser than a Derby Sage.
• Software
  [Phil] Well, a sage should know his Kraft.
• FGZstar
  I think this is starting to seem a bit cheesy!
• CdM
  [FGZStar] No whey! That same thought occurd to me as well.
• KagomeShuko - who thinks she needs to find a clever Brit who wants to move to America to marry
  When I was a little girl, my mom worked with ribbons and I'd wear them in my hair. Surprisingly, my friend would ask, what's the Beaufort.
• ImNotJohn - Who is already married and has no particular wish to move to America
  At the risk of getting onto a more serious plane I do remember going into a Delicatessen in Georgetown (a suburb of Washington DC, for non-US readers) and seeing a cheese labelled as Double Gloucester - the English version of Cheddar!
  Next to it was one labelled as Low-fat Single Gloucester!
• penelope
  [INJ] That would be a cheese plane, then? They do exist, mainly to take molecule-thin slices of rubbery Dutch cheese of the right size to fit on a piece of bread. BTW, what's a cheese molecule properly called? I genuinely don't know. Cheesium?
• Rosie
  (pen) There's every molecule under the sun in cheese (maybe not uranium hexafluoride) and some of them are quite big, like vegetable fats (50-55 carbons). On the other hand some are quite small and volatile like butyric acid, the smelly feet pong.
• Giertrud
  I want to know if at about 4pm, we can sit down and Havarti.
• KagomeShuko - Thinks ImNotJohn is clever, but didn't say it was him who she wanted to marry
  Oh, so we are on to chemistry puns, or cheese and chemistry puns? Cheesemestry?
• Rosie
  Mercaptan's Log - Stardate 28810 :- Uhura is still banging them out, the dirty cow.
• FGZstar
  Ooh, spooky. I think you need to take a look on orange MC, Rosie.
• CdM - cheeseshop
  [INJ] I just saw a cheese here advertised as a "Goats' Milk Chevre".
• Rosie
  (FGZs) Point me a little more specifically. I can't find any reference to farting there.
• FGZstar
  My location has nothing to do with farting.
• FGZstar - Spot the difference...
  Well, I wouldn't want to try getting around London with this. How many changes can you spot? (Comparison with the real one is cheating)
• ImNotJohn - Easy, easy!
  There are no stations, no lines, no key, no river.
  Do I win?
• FGZstar
  Are you having trouble viewing the map? It's definitely there.
• Simons Mith
  [FGZ] I like the idea of leaving it mostly correct with just a few subversive entries.
• FGZstar
  I suppose I did get a bit carried away, especially with the Jubilee line..
• ImNotJohn
  I can see it fine now - don't know what happened before.
• FGZstar
  Now working on another one, which includes all disused stations and proposed extensions (except fleet line). Any ideas about what to do with the white city area? It's a bit of a mess.
• KagomeShuko - who knows nothing about the London Underground other than the funny black circle sign
  Would need to be maps of Lake Charles for me. Then, I don't even know if I'd notice many things. I can get lost in my own city. I know I'm good. Why, thank you!
• I Say, Porter! - Tube Map
  iirc somewhere in the ether there is a tube map where you have to drag and drop ALL the station names into their correct places. fictifino where...
• FGZstar - Drunk Map
  I think that I might try putting together a tube map with all the stations replaced with drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic). My thoughts so far is that the overground could be beer, and the circle line could be mixers, with possibly the jubilee as high proof alcohol. All of the connecting stations would be cocktails, and the others brand names. I think maybe the W&C would be just cocktails, and maybe the circle line as whisky.
• KagomeShuko - Who wants to share more fun with people
  I think many of you would love the site www.sporcle.com I love playing there and there are some people that complain about a few things being too U.S. Centric . . . so y'all could make a good balance most likely if you make quizzes!
• rab - *waves from Vilnius*
• FGZstar
  Yay! My Morphsuit has arrived!
• Raak
  [FGZstar] Pictures! Better yet, wear it to a pilg (see Orange game) and I'll try to resist the temptation to superglue the zipper shut.
• XhLFMGIIvYvcLDqucg - BQULrfMYJfYgdDG
  E93S6T hop hey la la ley http://avtozastivxux.sweb.wankah.cz
• Knobbly
  I'm not going to that URL, I might end up talking like him.
• Sierra Mike - Don't Be Surly
  And a jaunty "hop hey la la ley" to you to, Mr., Mrs. or Ms. XhLFMGIIvYvcLDqucg.
• Simons Mith - XhLFMGIIvYvcLDqucg
  [SM] I did a quick Google search for the name 'XhLFMGIIvYvcLDqucg', and nothing came up. On the other hand, if you remove the 'cg' from the end, you have slightly better luck. This leads me to suspect that Mr, Mrs or Mz XhL FMG IvY vcDqu (whose homepage is here) may be operating under a (frankly, rather transparent) pseudonym.
• penelope - Now Wash Your Hands Please
  [SM] I followed your links and now I feel dirty.
• Simons Mith - translation
  It does read a lot better if you feed it through Google translate.
• Software - Gibberish
  Well, in most language options at least one recognizable word appears. I have noted sleep, even and Hugo after a few tries.
• Rosie - Ffolineb
  Translating into Welsh provides only one phrase I recognised, viz Ysgol gynradd Gymraeg = Welsh primary school, and there is commendable gender agreement. That's what it's all about, then.
• KagomeShuko - Who doesn't want to be a spammer . . .
  None of that makes any sense to me . . . I'm just sad that no more people seem to be playing my Literary Rhyme Time quiz (or rating or nominating it . . . hint, hint). I took my time thinking of clever clues for that quiz! See? http://www.sporcle.com/games/kagomeshuko/literaryrhymetime Er, does HTML work . . . Quiz is here
• Simons Mith - Quiz site
  I did look, and got about a third, (and saved a cached copy of the quiz) but I'm not really interested in registering. So I'm an invisible quiz-taker, and I suspect I'm not alone in this. The other thing is, as you said earlier, all the quizzes are mostly US-centric and yes, while it would be nice to make it more international, I feel rather too outnumbered by all the US guys to make any perceptible difference. Sorry.

  Haven't got 'John's Stinky White Vegetables', because I can't think of a suitable literary surname, but I suspect you should be ashamed of yourself for that one.

  Somewhere on my hard disk I've got a punny work-in-progress quiz a bit like this one of yours. Mine contains entries such as 'many-sized virtue' - 'paragon'. 'King's son publishes' - 'prints'. Some need more work, like that 'paragon' one. The clue doesn't fit the answer very closely.

• CdM
  [SM] (View the source to read the hidden text)
• CdM
  [K] I enjoyed the quiz, and got 15, which I thought was not too bad for the time limit (View the source to read the hidden text) .
• sHEvKENZEyy - GQfQKSGtdcrLDjEcxtc
  1EEjv2 hi all ?heey ? messus mangle
• Sierra Mike
  I think Simons Mith is the one to answer you there, sHEvKENZEyy. I believe he studied that very subject at university.
• penelope - Have we all been shamed into silence?
  I think another one will be along in a minute.
• Raak
  [pen] Excellent! I don't have any good pics of myself to hand to try, but here's something appropriate.
• KagomeShuko - who is thoroughly confused by pen's link
  What's going on there?
• Raak
  [KS] I believe that is penelope herself in the picture (and a rather good picture it is too).
• Raak
  Here's another.
• Raak
  Another picture, that is, not another picture of penelope.
• Rosie
  Next train....
• Rosie
  Oh, my God, another busker.
• penelope - Posters
  [aak] Thangyew. A friend of mine took it, insiting that it was homework for a portrait photography course she was doing. I was leaning inside her old garden shed holding two foil reflectors in outstretched arms. The wonders of photography, eh? But it'll do for my next book jacket, heheh!
  
• I Say, Porter! - Posters
  Interesting in that Raak's is actually Raak.
• Raak
  [ISP] Well spotted! I am in fact a 28-year-old woman with a shaved head except for a tightly woven topknot and massively muscled shoulders and arms. Beware my biceps, for they can crack walnuts.
• Phil
  [Raak] I'd always thought you were in your 30s. Strange how things get confused :)
• Raak
  [Phil] It's a hard life as a Balkan mercenary.
• penelope - This weekend, I am mostly...
  catching up with a schoolfriend who is making the trip from Galway. I still find it staggering that I have had some friends for more than 30 years. Tomorrow, I have earmarked picking sloes and making sloe gin as one of our principal activities, and I notice that it's going to piss it down with rain. *rse. On Sunday (when it will also piss it down with rain), we will make an early start to the Vogelmaarkt in Antwerp so we can breakfast on pieces of fried fish known as kibbeling (yum) and waffles as big as our heads covered in chocolate and whipped cream, before watching the live kitchen gadget demonstrations, marvelling at the Moroccan spice stalls and buying trinkets and savouries according to our whim. (Is 'whim' like 'sheep' in that the plural is the same as the singular?)
• Rosie - Colloquial inconsistency
  (pen) Shurely if you can say "piss" you can say "arse"? I know I can, and in style. I think the plural of "whim" is boring old "whims" and of "sheep", "sheeps". Just ask a Frenchman.
• Rosie - Old mate
  (pen) I have a friend (whom I have seen recently) of 57 years' acquaintance. Is this a greater proportion of my life than 30 years is of yours? Come on, have to hurry you.
• Software - Quite so
  Like Rosie I have a friend that I first met at primary school, so that is also 57 years, and I am younger than Rosie.
• Spangle - old acquaintance
  I am 44 and married the person I sat next to in Infant School.
• FGZstar - posters
  I seem to have missed the boat a bit, but I've stil created an advert
• penelope - Fail
  [FGZ] Hmm. well done on the typography etc, but really, swearing? Do you really need to?
• Sierra Mike - FGZStar's Poster
  That went over my head I'm afraid.
• KagomeShuko - The plurals of words . . .
  are sheep for sheep and fish or fishes for fish. Sheeps is only a form of a verb. Sheeps means grazes. Yes, the plural of "whim" is boring old "whims." However,there is "cacti" and "cactuses." Even more fun is that there is "octopi," "octopuses," and "octopodes." More plurals fun: rhinoceroses, rhinoceri, rhinocerotes.
• ImNotJohn
  Yes, I'm afraid I also fond FGZstar's poster both meaningless and mildly offensive.
  [Plural] I still occasionally come across people who insist "data" can only be a plural. Funny that they don't make the same fuss about "agenda".
• Phil
  [INJ/SM] I presume it was intended as the opposite of the magnificent "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters of the Second World War.
• Rosie - Kornfläken
  (ISP) I think "data" can be both but I agree that to insist that it is always plural is pretentious and a bit annoying, a bit like government propagandums.
  (Phil) Don't quite remember 'em, but if you say so. :-)
• Sierra Mike
  [Phil] Thanks. I'm not overly conversant with WWII UK memes unfortunately. In fact, Mr. Chad (known elsewhere as Kilroy) is the sum total of my knowledge of the matter. Or was, since I now know something else thanks to you and FGZStar.
• ImNotJohn
  I recognised the reference to 'Keep Calm and Carry On' - available on mugs near you - but still don't see what FGZstar means. I'm happy to accept that it's just a generational thing.
• KagomeShuko - About datum and agendum
  Datum and agendum are singular. One singular piece of data and one singular thing to do, rather than a list. The minute it is two (or more) they become data and agenda. So, "What's on the agenda?" is correct being people are going to expect more than one item. If I say the only thing on the agenda is the meeting, that's wrong, it's the agendum. Yes, I am just being a grammar nazi. I don't really care that much about those words.
• KagomeShuko - To more interesting topics, like how this forum works
  I'm trying to do the hidden words thing. (View the source to read the hidden text)
• KagomeShuko - Wow! I must be smart!
  I figured that out! (View the source to read the hidden text) At least, that is not when trying to make text small.
• Phil
  [INJ} I am given to understand by today's youth that "to bail" would indicate giving up in a dramatic way. It would appear to come from "bailing out (of an aeroplane)". Incidentally, "Keep Calm and Carry On" is available on a mug in my own kitchen.
• Phil - agendum?
  [Kagome...] If you have a lst of things to be done (from the latin gerundive), or an agenda, and it only contains one item, it is still a list of things to be done. So I disagree, and would say that an agenda for a meeting is always an agenda, regardless of how many items are on it. More specifically, each item on an agenda would be an agendum.
• Simons Mith
  [Kag] And you got the singular of Nazi wrong too; it's Nazus. :-)
• Sierra Mike
  [Phil] I have it on very good authority that each thing on an agenda is an itum.
• flerdle - with an upside-down crown
  [Phil] I have a "Keep Calm and Carry On" t-shirt. frogstar has one that says "Now Panic and Freak Out". To date I don't think we've worn them at the same time.
• ImNotJohn
  [KS] A datum is a data point and so is a count noun with a plural of data. However data meaning information is a mass noun and takes a singular agreement.
• FGZstar - Everybody Keep Calm
  The whole 'Just Bail' Idea related to something one of the guys I know from my accommodation, who once said 'let's just bail' at a party, and so it stuck, and got written on a large board and put in the window. It was then at a recent poster sale that we saw a 'keep calm' poster, and decided to change it. It was initially going to be 'Just Bail', but this would not fit with the whole idea of an odd number of lines, so the expletive got added. We are now planning on getting the poster printed up at A2 or A1 size, and put on the kitchen wall.
• FGZstar - Now Carry On...
  I have now had a tinker with the old photoshop, and have made something else. Hopefully you'll all find this one more to your liking.
• FGZstar - Whoops!
  Ignore the above. This is actually the link.
• Simons Mith
  [FGZ] You want to put up that helpful new tube map you've been working on...
• KagomeShuko - bailing
  And I thought that bailing, or bailing out, was a nautical term . . .
• Giertrud - US Politics
  So if Obama bailed out the banks, does that mean he dumped all the water out of them?
• Sierra Mike - Damn Yankees
  I believe that in the form stated it is more a metaphor for removing someone from the tender mercies of the law by posting a bond so that they don't have to sit in a cell until they are called to answer for their deeds. Of course, the financial "experts" behind the whole meltdown will never be called to answer for their deeds, so it all metaphorically falls apart. Rather like The Bailout.
• Simons Mith - Baling out
  This is enlightening: bale or bail
• Sierra Mike
  Wouldn't "Bale Out" be some sort of harvest-related activity, possibly taking place in WWII and involving steam tractors and Land Girls?
• Giertrud - Bale Out
  And I thought it would be taking blocks of hay out of the barn.
• KagomeShuko - The Phrase Finder
  The phrase finder site is great! It is often a start for my research on the origins of phrases when I write that type of article, and often quoted as the source as many sources are mentioned on the pages.
• jim - Keep calm and swear your head off
  I was at Liverpool Street station at the weekend, and was mildly shocked (although not, being me, actually offended) to walk past a (shut) kiosk proudly displaying a greetings card with the message "KEEP CALM AND FUCK OFF" to any and all passers by. I suspect that Mary Whitehouse would not have approved...
• Sierra Mike
  [jim] I suspect you are right. Nothing good ever came of telling that lady to keep calm.
• Software - Acronym
  Yes, I believe she formed a campaign originally entitled Clean Up National Television.
• Kim - Acronyms
  TLA has just been closed. Any ideas for a new game?
• KagomeShuko - Anything like a poetry parody game?
  I think that I shall never see
  A purple cow that looks like thee
  This poem is a pure mess
  With lots of apologies to Gilet Burgess.
• Spangle - *controversial* a game of Mornington Crescent perhaps?
• Knobbly - MC game
  Well, we could... Could someone just go over the rules quickly? It's been so long.
• Sierra Mike - Tongue in Cheek
  [KagomeShuko] See: The Obligatory Limericks Game Reincarnated
  
  Though to be fair I saw no problem with your mother's snoring since it followed the same beat as my favourite limerick by Spike Milligan:
  Things that go bump in the night
  Should really not give one a fright
  It's the hole in each ear
  Which lets in the fear
  That, and the absence of light
  
  If we've got to the point where people would object to Spike if he were to post that, we are in trouble.
• jim
  If we've got to the point where Spike posts that, then the dead are walking the earth and we have greater worries than scansion.
• Sierra Mike
  True. :/
• penelope - Post-Hallowe'en
  Is it just me who uses the apostrophe there?
• I'mNotJohn
  [Pen] Surely it should be 'Hallow'e'en'
• penelop - erm...
  Missing S & missing V? Perhaps. But it's deffo not the way Hallmark spell it.
• ImNotJohn
  [Pen] I was starting from 'All Hallows Eve' but then had to account for the final 'n' so I've taken Halloween to be an abbreviated form of 'All Hallows Eventide'.
• Phil
  [penelope] You've missed the apostrophe from penelop'
• penelope
  [Phil] I've missed a lot of things in my time. *sigh*
• penelope
  I'd be grateful for more movers and shakers in the limericks game please - to set good examples of rhyming and scansion to those perhaps less accustomed to the sound and feel of a good limerick, and perhaps also to show Marc that there are other subjects apart from sex to be limericked, and repeated references tend to make people drift away from the game.
• Simons Mith
  [Pen] That's unfair to Marc. You have to go back over 20 screens and 50-100 moves to see the last time he tried anything even remotely naughty. And he got told off last time as well. By you...
• penelope - hmmm
  Really? Apologies if it seemed unjust - but I have that impression. I will try to adjust my stance.
• ImNotJohn - I'm with Pen
  Though not, perhaps, in singling out Marc. I think there have a few too many somewhat coarse limericks across all the servers recently. We need a few rules of thumb here like:
  - First lines ending 'Phuket' (or Nantucket, etc.) are never going to be funny
  - Filth is always funnier if it's not signalled in advance.
  Add your own.
• Rosie
  (INJ) I agree more or less with your filth stance though if someone puts up an obviously dirty first line there is a strong temptation to carry on with the bawdiness. Unexpected filth is much funnier; years ago on PantsMC I put up the innocent first line:
  "There was a young fellow from Streatham strettum", which was followed by
  "Who chewed off his bollocks and ate 'em"
  Aha, I thought, this is good.
  The worst thing about too many of the current limericks is the lack of rhythm. I look at them and groan and think "Why bother?"
• Knobbly - Da diddly diddly dum
  (INJ, Rosie et al.) Agreeing with the aforementioned points of lax scansion and over-active glands; but I would add that limericks which start with an obvious hope that they'll end up coarsely can be funny when subsequent moves elegantly sidestep it.
  However, everything in moderation...
• penelope - sidestepping
  I like the sidestepping thing. It seems particularly English and I find I use it a lot here - especially as I'm in the lavisicous hotbed of the Netherlands and sometimes pretending to be more archetypally (sp?) English than I actually am seems to be the only way to avoid lowering myself to their standards. Oh. That means I am very English after all, doesn't it?
  (And that rumour about the Dutch being liberal and easy-going? Don't believe a word of it. Most of them are Calvinists. It's a more conservative and male-dominated business and academic environment than any I have encountered before.
• rab - *waves from Leipzig*
• KagomeShuko - With regards to Nantucket
  I do have to say that there is a funny and not at all dirty limerick. If you'll take a look here. (Yes, I know there is a misspelled word. It was posted more than two years ago.
• Giertrud
  I always want to rhyme bucket and Nantucket with Kirby Puckett.
• FGZstar - Guess who's back...
  In response to Simon's Mith, who asked for the tube map a while back, It will be posted when I can find that pesky link (I think it's down the back of the sofa somewhere). I am also now working at an anagram Europe map, which may be posted soon.
• KagomeShuko - Jellied Eel
  Does anybody eat that? One time I thought I saw somebody write "Jelly Diel." I don't know if they were ignorant or joking.
• ImNotJohn
  [KS] I've eaten it - nice taste, slightly odd texture. Eels used to be a very important part of people's diet in the South and East of England. Like oysters it's had a bit of an up and down ride in terms of prestige.
• penelope
  Eels are now endangered in the UK. There's a big tradition of eating them here in the Netherlands too ('paling'), especially smoked, but the flavour is a bit too strong for me. I suppose I'd eat them if I was absolutely starving and there was nothing else.
• Software
  The Eastenders used to love their jellied eels and mash in the old days. I have eaten it down Petticoat Lane back in the '60s.
• Darren
  My dad loves jellied eels, still eats them. In fact, only last week on the Hairy Bikers show they had jellied eels.
• Phil
  I've had smoked eel, thinly sliced on canapés at a provincial art gallery (which I've just realised sounds a bit like the start of an Alan Bennett monologue). Very nice, IMHO. Also, I seem to remember smoked eel paté, but I can't remember when or where. I don't remember disliking it though.
• FGZstar
  Never tried 'em
• KagomeShuko - Jellied Eels
  They don't sound appetizing to me (of course, I don't/can't eat seafood - most of it, just the smell of it cooking, makes me sick to my stomach). I think the person who used "Jelly diel" thought it was some sort of pastry come to think of it.
• KagomeShuko - Odd News
  A rabbi, a priest, and a deer walk into a bar, apparently . . .
• ImNotJohn - Deels
  Had eel for lunch today (in Bruges and in a virulent green sauce), partly prompted by this discussion. I enjoyed it. I also really enjoyed Bruges, which I was visiting for the first time - what a gorgeous town!
• CdM - Kicking up my eels
  Best eel I ever had was in Tokyo, many years ago now, at a dedicated unagi restaurant. Very good indeed. (Also, I fell instantly in love with my server, who looked like a young Susan Sarandon.)
• flerdle - *eels over*
  I have not tried eel, as far as I know, but given my general dislike of eating animals aquatic, there is a good chance I would not like it. That said, it would very much depend on how it is done.
• CdM - Eelsprit d'elverscalier
  I should have said "Ead over eels" rather than "Kicking up my eels".
• KagomeShuko - Jampanese Language
  I am wondering if jellied eels would be "Unagi Zerī" in Japanese, or perhaps they use "Jam" and it'd be "Unagi Jamu." Just don't get in a jam confusing unagi and usagi. Two very different animals!
• Giertrud - Prezzies
  I didn't get any eels for my birthday, thankfully!
• penelope - *wears 'igh 'eels*
  So has anyone got snow yet?
• ImNotJohn
  A few flurries in Leeds yesterday - just cold (about -2) & sunny at the moment.
• flerdle - big fat raindrops though
  [penelope] Not here, alas.
• Raak - Roll on global warming!
  Snow yesterday evening and thick snow this morning, but not enough to lie.
• penelope
  [Raak] Oh I dunno. I'll lie at the drop of a hat.
• Software - 'igh 'eels
  Come on pen, you are a girl, you can always wear high heels whether or not there is snow.
• FGZstar
  It's snowing in Edinburgh! And just in time, as they've just finished building Christmas!
• rab
  [FGZ] Shedding it down now.
• penelope - Sunday lunchtime in Zuid Holland
  Still below zero, still sunny, still no snow...
• Rosie - Parky
  (pen) Same as here. The weather newsgroup are absolutely out of their prams because it's cold and there's NO SNOW. I sometime wonder about the company I keep. There's at least another week of this Siberian NW Russian stuff.
• Phil
  We woke up to an inch or so of snow on Friday morning. A lot of it is still around. Our little back roads are like ice rinks :-(
• rab
  We must have had about 6-8 inches since last night. The buses continue to run (albeit stopping short of some of the further-flung places). I look forward to one flake falling within the M25 later in the week and the end of the universe being declared by the media, again.
• Rosie - State of Emergency
  (rab) Not a whole flake, shurely? We had a little here tonight, well within the noisy racetrack/car park, and I have had a level 16" (39 cm) in the back garden (14 Jan 1987). Your point is well made, though.
• penelope - *sigh*
  Minus 3, overcast, dry. Still no snow in Zuid Holland.
• rab
  The walk to work was a bit treacherous, mostly cos the road in runs east-west with a hill to the south, so when it snows it doesn't melt. Poor motorist being dug out of a turning into it. Heavy dumpage as we speak.
• Software - Unseasonal snow
  We even had snow here on the island which caused the usual chaos. I understand that the Isle of Donkies had it worst (being so much further north) and its airport remains closed again today because of frozen snow. We had to do without UK papers this weekend because of the weather. No crossword - bah!
• penelope
  Where are you, Softers? I forget - sorry
• rab
  [Software] *taps the internet*
• Software - Where am I?
  A familiar question, especially after a night on the tiles. In the deep south, Jersey.
• FGZstar - Mass panic alert
  There were 7 inches of Snow in Edinburgh. The capital city of Scotland went completely to shit today because of a little bit of snow. Schools closed, traffic halted, train service gone haywire. Oh, but on a happy note, the deadline for my Art and Design portfolio got moved back a day! Happy times!
• nfras
  There seems to be this curious attitude in Britain that everywhere else handles an unexpected dump of snow better. It's simply not true. Stevie might like to inform you about how badly they seem to handle it in the US and from experience, they don't handle it at all well in Russia. People are just generally less inclined to whine about it in other places, or you just don't hear about it in the UK. It's like me being asked by my family and friends how I handle the heat in Australia. The answer - same as the Aussies: I close the curtains and stay inside with the air-conditioning running full bore.
• rab
  [FGZ] Respectfully, I beg to differ. This is the most snow I've seen in a major UK urban area, and people seem to be handling it pretty well as far as I can tell. Driving is extremely difficult. A colleague of mine who lives in a cul-de-sac in Newington said that someone drove into it by accident on Sunday, and it took them 45 minutes to get out again (with help from the local residents). Another was unable to drive her car into her garage and has had to abandon it in front of a "Do not park in front of this notice" notice at work, because the car parks on campus are inaccessible. The fact that buses are running at all - albeit sporadically and with some diversions - is pretty impressive in my opinion.

  Closing schools seems like a ludicrous overreaction, but actually it's pretty sensible. On the one hand it reduces pressure on the buses and the roads in general. On the other there is also the chance (admittedly more so in rural areas) that conditions could worsen and the kids wouldn't be able to get home and would have to stay at school overnight. This happened at my old school (albeit after I left) and it sounded like a bloody nightmare for all concerned. And, of course, teachers don't always live in the catchment areas of the school (can't afford to if it's a good one) so they'd be short-staffed as well.

  But, hey, ho, as long as it allows you to hand in something late without incurring a penalty, then that's ok.

• CdM - Snow point in whining
  [nfras] In the U.S., the degree of coping-with-winter is highly variable. As you'd expect, it depends on what the particular place is used to. I've lived in Michigan, where they handle (normal) snowfall easily and as a matter of course. The salt trucks are out, the plows are out, and the roads are generally cleared pretty easily and efficiently. I've also lived in Virginia, which was a very different story. And of course that makes sense -- a city in Virginia, which gets one major snowfall every couple of years, is not going to have an army of snowplows on hand to cope with that. And neither they should. Same goes for Edinburgh.
• ImNotJohn
  Leeds, which is where I'm working at the moment, has about 3cms of snow in the centre and maybe up to 10 in higher, outlying areas. I lived here in the 70s and 80s and this is well within the norms for the city of those days at least. There are a few individual cases of people having problems, but basically the city is coping fine with all public transport running as normal.
• rab
  Turns out that the Embra experience depends on where you are in the city. I swung into town earlier and was surprised at how little snow there was. You need to head south beyond the railway line to see the real stuff. A colleague who lives a few hundred yards south of me showed me a picture of his house taken earlier today, with about a foot (or more) of snow on his wheelie bin. I guess the closer you get to the sea, the less snow there will be. Take a trip down to Blackford or the Braids if you can as it's really spectacular. A very impressive igloo has been built by the campus bus stop. I've got pictures which I'll share next time I'm near my USB cable.
• FGZstar
  What campus? I know there's a half finished igloo by the ECA, because it was the architecture students that built it.
• rab
  KB
• rab - Here's an igloo, agnother igloo
  Here's what it looks like in the Deep South if you can't get there.
• Rosie - Tierra Nevada del Sur
  (rab) Too right. Ten inches level depth in my back garden. Nothing moves, especially me, except to measure the bloody stuff. I've no tea and I bet the Co-op hasn't got any either
• Phil
  [Rosie] Given your inordinate mastery of all things meteorological, why didn't you stock up?
• Rosie
  (Phil) Your commendation is noted and appreciated but it should not be assumed that such sagacity extends to other areas of life. Actually, I didn't believe it would be anything like as bad because the Met Office has cried wolf on numerous occasions. In this case, they were right but a slight change in the wind direction would have meant the snow would have either landed somewhere else or hardly anywhere. As it turned out it was just right for this area to get a dumping. There's very little in the west of Surrey or north of the Thames. I won't be going out tonight; too many steep hills between here and the pub and I'm far too old for heroics.
• penelope - tea-mergency
  [Rosie] I have stock! There are three boxes of proper English tea in the cellar. I can post one over...
• ImNotJohn
  [Rosie] I have friends in Chaldon who will have plenty in store. Do you have a team of trained homing huskies?
• Rosie
  (pen) The Co-op had oodles of their routine non-posh tea. All is well.
  (INJ) This road, the quickest route, would probably be closed even to huskies.
• Rosie
  The photo in the above link doesn't do justice to the steepness of the hill. To the left of the camera the road is essentially level and the part of the hill shown is about 1 in 5, steepening further down. Approaching it in a car the road seems to go over the edge of a cliff. I think the reason is due to the use of a fairly wide-angle lens, which always has this effect. Using a long lens you can make even a railway gradient look insurmountable.
• penelope - royal tea
  [Rosie] Thanks goodness. I love the Co-op, especially since they revamped themselves. Their 'Indian Prince' tea makes a wonderful, ordinary cuppa and is as good as anything Twinings makes.
• KagomeShuko - 'eels or, uh, 'ills
  What's a hill? j/k . . . where I live is very flat, but I've seen much steeper!
• Giertrud - steep hills
  If you ride an adult trike down a really steep hill, you can go really fast.
• Rosie
  (KS, G) England is surprisingly hilly, though mostly on a small scale. Wales and Scotland are seriously hilly, mountainous in places, and any level piece of land is occupied by a rugby or football pitch. The hill in the picture drops 250 ft in about 1/3 mile so your trike had better have good brakes.
  (pen) Your Cop-op sounds a good deal classier than mine but I can walk there, which gets one off one's bum if nothing else.
• penelope - A good cuppa after a walk
  [Rosie] Splendid. There's nothing better after a walk to buy teabags - a good cuppa.
• penelope - Midweekery
  So. No news really. Grey and gloomy and only just below freezing here. We could do with a sparkling winter day, I reckon.
• ImNotJohn - 'Ot innit?
  Above freezing overnight last night. A positively balmy 5° walking in to work. A little sheen of water over the still glassy ice on the pavements.
• penelope - Scorchio!
  5°C here too, and 3°C overnight - feels positively balmy. I didn't even wear gloves this morning! We didn't have as much snow as the UK, so our pavements are now mostly clear. The ditches are still filled with billowing drifts though.
• KagomeShuko - Weather
  Our weather is crazy. It's been from -1.6666666666666667C (29F) at the lowest on some days and today the high was around 21.666666666666668C (71F)!
• Giertrud
  I tried to guess the temperature in Celsius and my guess was a tiny bit high, but I ended up saying that I was a bit high.
• KagomeShuko
  She just might be . . . though I don't know on what. Helium, maybe? But most likely, sugar.
• FGZstar
  It seems that the snow has finally cleared! Shame, because it means there is not chance of my looming examination being postponed. I suppose I should do at least some revision, then!
• Rosie - Recurring nightmares
  (KS) Not enough 6's. :-)
• CdM - Court in the act
  I was in court today, and I realized that (with the possible exception of a wedding I once attended), this was a first for me. Let me hasten to add that I was not there for any bad reason. It wasn't even to contest the $60 ticket I got for jaywalking last week.
• rab - Balls in court
  I've been a number of times; and on each occasion I've been sent away because nothing was actually happening.
• Rosie - Serial offender
  Two appearances in magistrates courts (Oxted 1978, Croydon 1987) for Driving with Undue Care and Attention. First one, guilty - quite a big fine, second one - Case Dismissed, cockup on the part of the then-new Crown Prosecution Service. My cousin, a solicitor now retired said that if you saw the shambles that is the back office of most police stations you'd wonder how they ever manage to prosecute anybody.
• FGZstar - Young and Offensive
  I have never been in court, though that may be likely to change if they ever find out who did poke Camilla with that stick at the student protests.
• Phil
  [Cross-posted in other places] Anybody want a single ticket to the recording of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, this Saturday (18th Dec) in Crawley? Cost price £9. email phil at philspub dot co dot uk. First come first served.
• Dujon - ISIHAC
  [Phil] Damn it! That date is my sister's birthday. Sorry, old chap, but the £9 must remain in my wallet.
• KagomeShuko - Numbers
  666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666 . . . is that enough, [Rosie]?
• Giertrud - I'm too sexy for my math
  I found that last post very sixy.
• Spangle
  I found it really annoying ;^)
• FGZstar
  Blind drunk. At 7.30pm. For shame. Bloody students.
• nfras - Let me correct that
  Blind Drunk. At 7.30am. For shame. Bloody lecturers.
• Rosie - Moderation in all things, dammit
  Mellow. At 1230 am. For shame. Drink-driving laws.
  (KagShuk) Well, not really, but a commendable effort. Try these: 142857 X 7, 25641 X 39, 1369863 X 73.
• CdM
  Rosie surely knows this, but it's fun to multiply 142857 by all sorts of numbers. For the geeks among us.
• penelope - Court in the act
  I've been in court lots of times. I was the court reporter in our local magistrates court for about a year. Wonderful job - like watching a whole day of soap operas. There was the woman fined for keeping Shetland ponies in her kitchen, the father fined for punching the upstart who copped a feel of his teenage daughter at her birthday party, the businessman who bought his way out of a driving ban by paying a huge fine, but wore Tweety-Pie socks under his sober business suit... all recorded in detail.
  I haven't had a drink since a glass of red wine last Monday. It's about time... (it's a bad idea to drink when I'm cooking - things tend to go wrong - and I cook every night.)
• KagomeShuko - Who does have a calculator on her computer
  I could do those math problems by hand, but it'd take too long before I head off to bed, so the computer calculator is it.
  142857x7=999999, 25641x39=999999, 1369863x73=99999999
  
  A bunch of nines . . . how about a bunch of bananas?
• Software - Quiet
  Hello? Anybody there?
• Raak
  Currently trundling through a landscape that looks like an infrared photograph. All the green stuff is completely white. No snow but the thickest frost I've ever seen.
• penelope - shush - I'm hoovering
  Currently blasting through the going-away-for-Christmas-but-bringing-back-friends-for-New-Year cleaning. Veeeerrrryyy slow thaw going on, but it's good to know that it's warm enough for the salt and grit on the roads to work.
• KagomeShuko - Merry Christmas!
  
• rab - HC
• ImNotJohn - Have a good one
  [KS] I assume Niblet Woofles is the one in the middle, holding Valerie Bridget and Briana.
• KagomeShuko - no people, two dogs
  Santa in middle. White and tan dog (as reindeer) is Niblet. Black and tan dog (as Santa) is Woofles. Valerie, Bridget, and Briana are not in the picture.
• Dujon - I'm back
  My absence was enforced by 'the weather'. A couple of weeks ago a small but nasty storm decided to travel across my little bit of territory. In the process of doing so it deposited about 75mm of rain and hailstorms the size of a florin in about half of an hour. Regrettably it also targeted me with lots of high voltage sparkly things. The aftermath was somewhat sobering, even though I was quite sober at the time. At two in the afternoon it became as dark as it was at eight that evening (I checked) and then IT happened. Casualties so far have all been computer related/connected. Computer: fried; hard drives: fried; back ups: fried; UPS: fried; modem: fried; router: fried; weather station: suspect (i.e. yet to be proven).
  Oddly enough - and I'm assuming that the telephone line was the ingress for this devilish behaviour - the two telephone lines and the various devices attached survived unscathed. Even the ADSL filters exhibit normal behaviour. The circuit breaker in the 'fuse box' dropped out and, at least to date, no other damage seems to have been inflicted.
  I am now using a new bright and shiny computer thingy (I hope that my insurance company will come to the party else I'll be skint).
  Circumstance now dictates the use of Windows 7 (although I suppose I could install my original XP) which, despite all the media praise, I find rather odd. Is it possible that I am becoming a Luddite?
• Rosie
  (Dujon) That sounds pretty dreadful and ironically it's the kind of weather that I like. If not the telephone line could it have been caused by an induced current from a nearby bolt of lightning. Was your house nearly struck, for instance? Some people I know disconnect everything computer-related if there's a storm about, something I regard as a bit chicken, like hiding under the table, but it might have worked. I don't know. It wouldn't have made any difference if the damage was caused by induced currents.
  Meanwhile, we've had the coldest December for over a century but it's now slowly relenting and it felt positively balmy outside tonight with a temperature of 2°C and light rain. It should get a bit milder still in the next few days but the average will still be below 0°C, over 5° below what it should be. Good riddance to December, as ever. Gloomy, cold and miserable with the steaming dog-turd of Christmas as seasoning. Let's do a restart and have a new year.
• rab
  Oddly, despite the temperature having risen 10°ree;C in the past week, it actually feels colder in my flat now than it did then. I suspect that a number of people in the other flats are away and we're not getting the benefit of their heating. Also ours was just left on a 'stop the pipes from freezing' setting while we were away, and I think it's taking some time to warm the walls back up. Beautiful old stone buildings - donchalove'em? And we're moving into a bigger one!
• Dujon - Grumbling and bumbling
  [Rosie] Induced currents? I would say that that is quite probable. The circuit breaker dropping out also indicates either some imbalance in the power circuit or an outright over-current surge. I suspect both. The weather station seems to be defunct - in the sense that it's not reporting any wind data and will not 'talk' to the computer via its com port. The anemometer is, of course, well above the roof (it is 12 metres above ground level).
  [rab] I understand your coolness. When Mrs Duj and I bought the property in which we now reside it had been unoccupied for three or four months. Unlike your own home ours is just a simple brick and timber construction and would not, I assume, have the same heat sink properties as a stone building. In our case the house can still be cool but simply living in the place makes it far more comfortable than it was when it was deserted.
• FGZstar
  Happy new year to all!
• KagomeShuko - Happy New Year!!!
  It's 1/1/11!!!
• Giertrud
  That's 1derful!
• penelope - 1-dering in, late as usual
  Happy New Year, everyone. So far so good - friends over for dinner on NYE, followed by fireworks just outside the house - as did everyone else in the street. Together, they all made a fantastic display. And last night, an authentic Chinese meal, made by one of our lovely houseguests, who brought a box of cooking kit with her on the ferry over from England so she could cook for us. Five dishes... and all of it scrumptious. I cooked the rice - and made some strawberry ripple icecream with the last of last summer's strawberries from the freezer. Roll on spring...
• penelope - erm... hullo?
  Anyone home? Me again... first day back in the office for me this morning (it means leaving home before the sun is up, but I caught sunrise along the motorway - most spectacularly red for half a minute or so before the partial eclipse which made it all dark again) and apart from my PC forgetting to show me the server where all my work is stored, I think everything is exactly as I left it, almost three weeks ago. So... how was it for you?
• Phil
  yep, everything in my office is exactly as I left it last night :-)
• penelope - S'allright for you
  Not all of us can find a full-time job! (and I had to forego a week's leave in October because of a magazine deadline and add the days off onto my Xmas leave - which did rankle a bit as I was denied an autumn trip to England!)
• rab
  It's still a Bank Holiday here!
• FGZstar
  No Uni until next week. Bloody lazy are us students. I decided to take a trip to London. Will be visiting a certain crescent, although will avoid the transport museum, as it is overpriced.
• Giertrud - Ice Cream
  Do strawberries have nipples? BTW I didn't know banks could go on holiday.
• KagomeShuko - Is there something catching?
  If there's something catching, I think I need to stay away from these forums and Gier's posts. They are quite crazy!
• Phil
  Isn't it lovely and warm today! 12.3 degrees already, and it's not even 11am :-)
• penelope - coatless
  I went out on an errand without a coat this morning. 10C here in Zuid Holland - balmy!
• Software - Sick
  I have been knocked sideways by the 'flu. Lying in bed MCing on my mobile.p
• ImNotJohn
  [Software] Is a 'mobile p' the same as a gazunder?
• Software - Yes
• Giertrud - Saw Spamalot tonight
  Software, did you eat any Spam while sick?
• Software - Spam
  [Giertrud] Never touch the nasty stuff. I saw Spamalot on Broadway in one of the pre-opening shows. Got real cheap tickets and had a great time!
• ImNotJohn
  Burns night tonight - hope you're all practising your 'Address to a Haggis'.
• penelope
  I forgot. I was shopping for shoes on Ebay. I haven't yet seen a haggis on sale in the Netherlands.
• ImNotJohn
  [Pen] It's OK, there's still time to go out and kill a sheep.
• Projoy
  I tried vegetarian haggis last night, which was nicer than I feared. Might try the real thing next year.
• penelope - Sheepwise
  [INJ] They only keep'em as pets here. I can't actually buy lamb in our local supermarket. Fools...
• ImNotJohn
  [Pen] Easier to catch one then.
• penelope
  Weekending. Belated Christmas gift giving at sister-in-laws this evening.
• penelope - Weekendingagain
  Has no-one really had anything to say in the past week? Hmmph! Not much to report here and no real plans for the weekend - but a MAHOOSSIVE basket of ironing to do.
• ImNotJohn - Ironing
  That's what rugby matches on the TV are for.
• penelope - What???
  And make it more of a chore than it needs to be? I'd prefer a spaghetti western or WW2 film...
• ImNotJohn - Ironing your hand
  Nah, sport's more efficient to iron to. You can hear from the commentary whether it's a bit you really want to be watching and if you miss anything significant they'll almost certainly repeat it.
• KagomeShuko - Ironing?
  Ironing? What's that? In the states, it's the Super Bowl this weekend. Lots of handegg.
• Giertrud - Super Bowl
  Mmm . . . sounds like it could hold a lot of pretzels.
• Rosie - Sunnink to say
  (pen) I'm building a telescope. It has a 5" lens that someone gave me but of course you have to mount it, as Andy Gray would say.
• flerdle
  The weather is lovely here, now that it has stopped raining. For the moment.
• penelope - summink to say
  Im just going to say something so KagomeShuko's portrait of Father Christmas finally disappears off the top of the page.
  This may involve gratuitous line breaks

  or even spurious paragraph breaks
  but who cares?
  In other news, it's fair in Rotterdam this morning - sunny, blue skies, 8C, and the hellebore in the garden is about to bloom - for the first time in 2 years.

• penelope - Hooray!
  It worked!
• ImNotJohn - Hellebore
  Now you can go fishing by crushing the hellebore and throwing into a pool. I am unreliably informed this will 'stun' the fish.
• Phil
  A quick bit of market research. If you went into a cafe/bar at lunchtime for a panini, what filling would you want?
• ImNotJohn - Paninos
  If I went in just once then probably something in the Ham & Cheese line - if I went in regularly I'd want a selection. Last Saturday Mrs INJ and I shared a Mushroom and Gorgonzola and a Tuna Melt.
• Raak
  [Phil] Generally, anything containing no cheese and not full of glop. Sweet Chilli Chicken, Ham and Piccalilli and Smoked Mackerel and Salad are the things I've had recently at a cafe I often go to for lunch at the weekend. The Ham (when they have it) is proper ham, of course, not vacuum-packed water-filled slices of reconstituted mechanically recovered meat. The Piccalilli might also have been homemade, not poured from a jar of clonmult.
• ImNotJohn - Toasted Salad?
  [Raak] Salad in a panini? I assume that Phil's intending these to be served hot, whereas your suggestions sound like excellent sandwich fillings.
• penelope - Lifficles
  Marvellous Raak. I love the "BECCLES (pl. n.) The small bone buttons placed in bacon sandwiches by unemployed guerrilla dentist." It reminds me of two things about my younger sister. She had a throry that you only get those buttons in bacon when there's a Labour government. She also had a lot of difficulty one weekend evening in the pub (many years ago, of course) when a handsome young man told he he was an 'armydentist'. She tried to fasten the two words together, like 'taxidermist', and couldn't understand what the job was.
  Re; panini ham'n'cheese is the default filling, but I'd also go for perhaps hot roast beef with wholegrain mustard, and the smoked mackerel sounds good too. Can you lift the lid afterwards to stuff some watercress in?
• jim
  Some colleagues of mine had to go on a trip to Flums (a town somewhere in darkest Switzerland) recently. The name seemed horribly familiar for some reason, but I couldn't think why I might ever have heard of the place. Eventually I tracked it down to the Meaning of Liff. FLUMS: Women who only talk to each other at parties.
• Phil - Panini
  Interesting from the responses I've had so far, here and elsewhere, that no-one has suggested anything vaguely Italian (with the exception of funghi con gorgonzola).
• Raak
  [INJ] Now I think of it, the Smoked Mackerel one was an untoasted baguette, but the Sweet Chilli Chicken is a toasted panini, and includes some lettucey things and chopped gherkins.
• penelope - UN-Italian panini
  [Phil] I suspect it's because the Italians would never take cheap bread and squish it between hot plates to make it palatable, let alone consider it a delicacy. It's a rather recent lunch-comestible-vendor's invention.
• Raak
  [pen] Neither would my favorite Norwich café. Only the best ciabatta!
• rab
  panino
• Graham III
  [rab] thank you
  
  [Phil] Brie, bacon and tomato is a personal fave when I'm feeling evil.
• Phil
  [pen] I used to get my lunchtime panino/i in a food court in Dublin, cooked by Italians. They had a choice of 4 each day, and were various combinations of parma ham, bresaola, aubergine, olives, mozzarella, basil, pesto, sundried tomato etc. Always delicious, and great with a large espresso.
• penelope - in Dublin, cooked by Italians...
  [Phil] If I was feeling mean, I'd point out that you may have just described immigrants selling a bastardised version of what Dubliners might consider foreign food. But I'm not. I'm just hungry. It's the last of the proper British pork chops tonight (ie more than 4mm thick), when the windy miller finally gets home.
• Phil
  Anything that doesn't involve potatoes and/or coleslaw counts as foreign food in Ireland :-)
  The reason I asked in the first place is that I have a "Panini Grill" which does great toasted sandwiches, but I want to take advantage of the lunchtime panini market. My personal preference for fillings seems to be miles away from what other people want/expect, for which information I'm very grateful.
• ImNotJohn - Market Research
  [Phil] I'd suggest going round a few of your local coffee shops just before lunch time and see what they have most of on their shelves. You can be sure they've done the research. The only difference about your trade is that you could probably go a little dryer and saltier.
  Mind you this definitely sounds like 'teaching your grandmother'.
• rab
  [INJ] This assumes that supply = demand. There are at least two canteens that I've encountered that would run out of certain things very quickly on a daily basis and never increase their order of those things. You could even ask 'Do you have any more X?' and they would say 'No, they always sell out really quickly'...
• Phil - Results of Panini Research
  Interesting article
• Dujon
  [Phil] Geez, Phil, are you running a pub or trying to make your eatery some sort of 'up-market' restaurant with fancy names for ordinary dishes? Surely a panino is just a bread roll into which, like a couple of bread slices, you can insert anything you damn well like? What's wrong with marketing a 'Salad Roll' or an 'Egg and Bacon Roll'?
• Phil
  [Dujon] In order: Yes and no; yes; and nothing. I just found the article interesting
  I'm revamping my menu, with an eye on relaunching the food side of the business to create some lunchtime trade in the area. Everyone's feedback has been very useful. We already do sandwiches and toasted sandwiches, but I've found that people charge a bit more for something that doesn't come in traditional English white or brown bread; more importantly, people seem willing to pay a bit more, for something that doesn't really cost any extra to produce if it's in, say, ciabatta rather than two slices of fantastic, locally baked bread.
• Dujon - Rolling over
  [Phil] Sorry if I sounded a bit abrupt.
  I do understand your viewpoint and, if that's what your customers want and are prepared to pay for, then I wish you all the best. You wouldn't be a businessman if you didn't explore all avenues in order to satisfy your clients. I like your comment on locally baked bread. Around my neck of the woods we have a plethora of bread varieties marketed in bulk to those of us who see bread as a staple. It's probably a couple of decades ago now, but at that time I noticed a severe decline in the quality of bread on offer. After testing just about every 'brand' available I gave up on bread for a goodly time (they all tasted 'plasticy' to me). I'm a slow learner and not very observant at times, Phil, but then I realised that there is a small local bakery in our small local shopping area which is a mere 400 metres from Maison Dujon. My bread now comes exclusively from that wee shop.
  I suppose I'm saying that fresh is good. Do you intend to bake your own stock - or can you coerce one of your local bakeries into doing so? Ullage is always a problem when it comes to perishables so I'd guess you'd have to build in a wastage factor when pricing each product.
• rab
  Between them, Greggs and Tesco have all but killed the traditional baker in the UK, so loaves that actually taste of something are now 'premium products' with price tags to match. See, for example, this place that opened round the corner from the flat we just moved out of.
• Phil
  [Dujon] The other issue is price. The large, white tin loaves that I get from the bakery are £1.54, from which I can get about 5 sandwiches per loaf. I can buy frozen ciabatta for approx 30p each. I do like the thought of the local baker making my bread, but I'd need to be doing serious volumes for them to make something specially for me, I'd imagine. Maybe when I've a few minutes on monday I'll have a natter with them.
• penelope - if only
  Don't get me started on bread. There are two sorts of supermarket bread here - the 'baked elsewhere' kind, which is passable, and the 'baked-off in-store', which is good if you eat it within 20 minutes. After that, it doesn't even make good toast - it's way too dry. But we also have two bakers in the village - one of them is excellent, if you like a proper wholemeal loaf - which we do. Sadly our breadmachine is a little under-used, although I do a lot of other baking. If I can stand to have the kitchen full of smoke, home-made naan bread is a real treat.
• FGZstar - bread.
  I'm not bread's biggest fan. As a student, I find a loaf too big, as I'll buy it when I fancy toast, and then come back to it a few days later to find it completely unusable. I wish they would do mini mini loaves, with 6 slices each.
• ImNotJohn
  [FGZstar] If you're only using it for toast then freeze what you dont use - already sliced. Most toasters will toast it ok from frozen. When working away from home I make bread on Friday or Saturday and then slice whatever's left after the weekend and freeze it for Mrs INJ to use, a slice at a time, during the week.
• FGZstar
  I suppose, but it seems whenever I consider that, I suddenly will find myself wanting a bacon sandwich, and having no unfrozen bread.
• ImNotJohn
  You can toast from frozen in less time than it takes to grill bacon - but it would take a little longer to just thaw the bread, unless you use a microwave.
• penelope - mmmmbacon
  Freeze a loaf in pairs of slices? Then you can hammer them (in pairs) into the toaster slot and put it on the 'barely stiffened up' setting to *just* thaw it to the perfect state for wrapping around your bacon sandwich.
• Simons Mith
  I freeze thinly sliced granary loaves from a good local baker, and I generally find I can 'peel off' individual slices whenever I need to, although I do sometimes need to use a knife to split them apart. Individual slices defrost in around 20-30 minutes if you just separate them and lay them out on a plate, and 30 seconds in a toaster does the trick too. The key part of my technique is using thin-sliced brown bread which lets me split slices off while the loaf is still frozen solid - but if you can find bread like that it does save the faff of splitting it into sections before freezing.
• Raak - Strange bread rituals
  I keep bread (from Waitrose, Sainsbury, or the baker up the road) in the fridge, and it stays as fresh as when it was bought. Why are people keepng it in the freezer?
• ImNotJohn - Freezing
  1. That way it keeps for weeks if necessary.
  2. Not enough spare room in the fridge!
• flerdle
  What INJ said. I/we usually use about 1/3 to 1/2 of a loaf while it's fresh, then after a couple of days freeze the rest and eat it gradually, interspersed with other varieties of bread. We seem to have a reasonable variety of good bread here, although it IS expensive. As long as the loaf wasn't squished, the slices snap apart fine, and can be toasted from frozen or a tiny zap in the microwave if you don't want to wait a few minutes for the slices to thaw naturally. I have a bread machine and make about a loaf a month or two, usually when it can be taken to family sunday lunch, because it does not keep as well as store bought and I find it very difficult to slice a loaf myself, so the slices are too large

  In other news, I think our summer might be over already. not that we really had much of one, but still, it was warm for a couple of days there.

• Phil
  I buy a loaf of bread every day, more or less. The hardest problem with making it last is not eating it :-)
• Software
  I freeze my bread which works fine for us. We buy a toast sliced wholemeal or granary bloomer or raised tin made by a local artisan baker. We mostly use it for toast although I sneak the odd sandwich. I find that this quality product, cost about £1.40, freezes much better than factory bread.
• Raak
  I buy bread about once a week. None of it comes wrapped in plastic. There's only me eating it, but I eat a lot of bread, so it does occupy quite a lot of space in the fridge. I also got a panini press a few months ago, which is excellent for a warm meal when I can't be bothered actually cooking.
• Kim - All the king's horses...
  Went on holiday in December. Had an accident. Broke my back. Spent 2 weeks in Swiss hospital. Came home. Had operation. Back at work now. 'S'life, innit?
• ImNotJohn
  [Kim] Ouch! Trust it will all heal completely.
• Dujon - Walls and falls
  [Kim] That'll teach you, old egg. I do hope that you're not now wheelchair bound. If not then a couple of months and the surgeons' knives have served you extraordinarily well. Good luck.
  
• Simons Mith
  [Kim] Yes, ouch. Poor you.
• penelope - echte grijp
  Aye, best wishes Kim. As an aside, I've just seen real flu for the first time - the windy miller is just starting to pick up a little after three days of eating nothing, drinking very little and being unable to move out of bed. He ate half a strawberry this afternoon. It's terrifying.
• flerdle - urgh.
  [Kim] oh my. I hope you make a swift and full recovery.
  [penelope] Yes, it is; I'm sure you're keeping a close eye on him, and I hope he recovers soon. I've only had it once, and that is more than enough. I lost about three weeks in a haze of coughing, vomiting and other unpleasantness. I had a lot in reserve so wasn't worried about not eating :o) .
• Software - Seasonal 'flu
  [pen] My sympathies to the windy miller. I caught the 'flu for the first time in about 40 years and it completely floored me. I am just beginning to get back to normal now. I have had more days off work sick this year than in the previous 10. On the up side I have lost nearly a stone (6.5kg in netherlandsspeak) which has a beneficial effect on revitalizing my wardrobe!
• penelope
  Thanks all. Today might be the day he actually eats something other than chicken broth or yogurt. Luckily I only work part-time and I can spend some time at home. And the washing machine is now mended... a household of flu and having to wash things by hand for two weeks wasn't much fun.
• Uncle Korky
  Happy birthday, Chalky!
• Chalky - :-)
• Software - Belated
  Hi Chalks, how goes it with you? Any sign of revitalizing your visit?
• Giertrud - got a new mobile...
  Hurrah! MC5 works on my mobile! Android rocks.
• Giertrud
  Though it seems the preview makes a full post impossible...it won't go after that...and the whoops button is missing...
• Giertrud - aha
  Got the previews back...still no whoops.
• KagomeShuko
  [pen] However, I advise that he does not eat any chicken yogurt.
• Simons Mith - Chicken... yoghurt?
  Off-hand, I can't think of any circumstances where eating chicken yoghurt would be a good idea.
• ImNotJohn - Mmmm.. Chicken...
  I anticipate cooking chicken in yoghurt within the next 3 days. Nicer than just cream in a sort of supreme-ish using up roast chicken leftovers dish.
• Chalky
  Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant
• Software - Rabbits
  Down the pub tonight, Rosie?
• penelope
  Oooh, yeah. Grilled chicken (in cubes, on a wooden skewer) marinaded in spices, yogurt and lime juice, served with a satay sauce... I think that's one for when the windy miller has his appetite back.
• Rosie
  (Softers) Of course - life goes on as normal. Not sure where to park the dragon. The former licensee, a young woman from New Romney, is the only purely English person I have met who can pronounce the Welsh "ll" properly. She'd lived in S Wales for a short time. All you need is to have heard it.
• ImNotJohn
  I think Uncle Korky has just won the Holiday Anagrams game.
• Rosie
  (INJ) Yes, best yet provided it comes from his own head, though the previous one, from Softers, gave me the best guffaw.
• Graham III - Anagrams
  Apols for multi-posting. Got carried away.
• rab - Downton Crescent
  Sorry about the outage there (not that anyone will have noticed) - major system upgrade.
• penelope - Me again
  It's the end of the working week for me, and the beginning of Pig Week. Does anyone have plans for the weekend?
  The windy miller is slowly getting back to form, and we will be going to the mill together tomorrow morning - for the first time in three weeks. Not sure what we'll do in the afternoon. The weekend will also include laundry and ironing. And possibly a bastardised version of Robert Carrier's Normandy pheasant, using Dutch cooking pears instead of apples.
• ImNotJohn
  Off up to Leeds for a friend's birthday party on Saturday and staying over. Unfortunately it's fancy dress, themed on 'Songs from the Shows' (she's keen on amateur operatics). So we're in 'South Pacific' mode, though Mrs INJ insists on wearing another skirt below the grass one and didn't seem at all impressed by my idea of a coconut shell bikini.
• penlope - coconots
  Well, they're not exactly short of food-miles are they? Perhaps Mrs INJ was thinking of something grown a bit more locally. Swedes, perhaps.
• flerdle
  [INJ] I'm sure you'd look rather fetching in one.
  [pen] Long weekend here, working part of it, mooching around catching up on sleep otherwise, hoorah! And I got a haircut today. Ever so much fun to be had.
• ImNotJohn - Well, that was nice
  Excellent time had by all - reunion with a lot of old (in both senses) walking friends. On the costume front - we looked pretty good, but were upstaged by Sally Bowles.
• Software - Meltdown
  Anyone got shares in British Energy or EDF?
• Tuj
  [pen] What happens in Pig Week?
• penelope - Pig week
  [Tuj] Ask Projoy. It's more a Facebook Thing...
• penelope - say nothing, do nothing
  It's actually a quote from The Specials. But what song, guys and gals?
• Software - specialist
  Not a challenge these days with Google, pen.
• penelope - Pieces of eight
  Softers, you're mistaking this unlimited chat thingy with the eight words pages! As they said, the lunatics are taking over the asylum.
• Software - Asylum seeking
  [pen] sorry, didn't realize I had limited it.
• penelope - slow talking
  Anyone got any news? I'm having a slow morning. I might go into the office this afternoon (magazine deadline coming up, profs to interview tomorrow and Monday and I ought to at least try to sound intelligent), am thinking about how to approach a new one-day-a-week role I've been given (which means the windy miller and I can afford to have a cleaner - hurrah!) and am looking forward to visiting Blighty over Easter - a long-overdue visit, postponed because of the windy miller's illness.
• flerdle - no news is good news
  [penelope] Not really. The weather is pleasant here and a few weeks ago I planted a vege garden. Tonight is cool and clear, but I'm not away from the city, so I can't see many stars.
• FGZstar
  Why is it that no-one will believe that I have actually sprained my ankle on April Fool's Day. It's not a joke, and certainly no laughing matter.
• ImNotJohn - Ouch!
  I believe you. If it's a proper sprain, not just a bad twist or wrench, then it can be worse than breaking it, as tendon typically won't heal as well or as quickly as bone.
• penelope - twenty bloody degrees
  I object, I object, I object - it's 20C here this afternoon, yet only the 2nd April. That's just not right. My blood's not yet adjusted to warmer temperatures, and I'm all pink in the face.
• Rosie - Thermal responses
  (pen) That's because you're a lady. Gentlemen, such as myself, merely perspire without the attendant rubicundity. Only horses sweat.
• penelope - panic over
  [Rosie] Back down to 13 degrees today. And the windy miller and I gambled on the 10% chance of no rain - so went to Antwerp to shop at the Sunday market - and won. And saw English morris dancers holding up very well in proper clogs against some nancy German upstarts who were all wearing white sneakers. Lightweights.
• Software - Hot, hot, hot
  According to our local met office today is an April record on the rock of 20.7C. It certainly was nice strolling around at lunchtime.
• rab
  It's warm but very windy here. We had to tape a bit of cardboard over a fireplace to prevent the cat from climbing up the chimney (as an interim measure before we get our hands on a fireguard). The way it's flexing in the wind really does bring home how silly an idea a fireplace is if you care about keeping any warm air in a room!
• Rosie
  (Softers) 20.9°C in the grounds of Plas Huws, an approximately once-a-year event (for April). You wanna live somewhere warmer.
  (rab) Can't fault your reasoning, even if you had a fire, but there is the trouser-singeing radiation.
• nfras
  27°C in Melbourne yesterday. About the same today. Parents fly out to Perth and thence back to Scotland tomorrow. Sister and family arrive on Tuesday. 2am arrival, bloody inconsiderate if you ask me.
• Software - Upstage
  [Rosie] The late news reported a peak of 22.8C.
• Graham III
  Got sunburn yesterday in London
• Rosie
  (G III) As it's only early April you must have been exposing parts of the body on which the sun don't normally shine, and if you got away with it, good for you.
• Simons Mith - Train clocks (long)
  I've no idea where to put this, so here'll do. Perusing the Evening Standard on my way over to my current temporary place of residence, I espied a full-page advertisement for a 'Flying Scotsman clock'. This appeared to be a combined exercise in kitsch, model railways and clockmaking, and all credit to the company concerned for coming up with the idea. For just five low payments of £24.99 this superb work could be yours, or mine, or someone else's.

  Now, two things struck me about this edifice. The first thing was that it included a circular track upon which a model Flying Scotsman train would appear at hourly intervals to mark the passage of time. All well and good. But curiously, not only was the track circular, but the model locomotives and carriages that used it were themselves curiously (but clearly necessarily) banana-shaped. I've never seen this in any full-sized item of rolling stock, and I was consequently surprised that such a deviation from reality was considered acceptable in the model. I wondered to myself whether the model was OO-gauge, because I think I'd quite like to own a banana-shaped locomotive, even if it could only go round corners of a tightly-prescribed radius. Impractical even on the smallest layout, but unarguably entertaining. I also wondered whether these remarkable machines were available in right-handed variants too.

  The second thing that struck me was that this clock-making company was making (or, at least, expects to make) enough profit from these devices to justify putting a full-page advertisement in a high-circulation newspaper. Now, assuming the cost to manufacture one of these clocks is in the region of 20–30 pounds, that still requires quite a lot of people willing to shell out for one before the cost of a full-page spread (a few grand, I suspect) justifies itself. So who are these train-, clock- and kitsch-loving individuals, and how many of them are out there running loose?? I think we should be told.

• rab - Whoops
  Went to the shopping centre to buy some stuff for the BoRiS and came back with an iPhone. Had a look at one of those Android jobbies too but was more impressed with the iPhone than I anticipated.
• Software - Win!
  Picked the National winner and Mrs Software had the second. Celebrations over the weekend.
• penelope - Friday Friday Friday
  Busy busy busy... if I work all day tomorrow from home, I should get through enough work to be able to catch the ferry to Blighty on Wednesday evening to go and have fish and chips with my mum.
• Giertrud - Now where pen?
  Please tell me...using this map. http://www.anagramtubemap.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
• Giertrud
  No fair...I had to look of the doddery lady question's answer to post!
• Rosie
  (Giertrud) Blighty is a very old affectionate slang term for Britain and has a sense of "home".
• Giertrud - oh!
  Then...all of that ... and more.
• nfras
  [Simons Mith] Never underestimate the propensity of the great unwashed to spend their money on tat. Take for example this wonderful Priness Diana Porcelain Baby Doll. Surely the work of a demented mind. Or perhaps you'd like to see a Wall Mounted Motorbike Cuckoo clock. This was advertised in my free monthly RACV magazine and gave me a chuckle. It makes me wonder what sort of operation is required to completely remove someone's sense of taste. But it must be cheap.
• penelope - gopping
  [nfras] *bokes*
• ImNotJohn - Filing from Provence
  [Pen] Did you also always read the warning sign as saying 'Thonk Boke'?
• penelope
  [INJ] erm... not that I can remember. Here we have 'Gordels om, ook in achterin'. So belt up.
  BTW, what are you doing having a Fling in Provence? Does Mrs INJ know?
• penelope - Shrinking violet
  I am dieting. Just so you know. Day 2...
• Software - Not fade away
  Have you bought the dress already?
• penelope
  [Softers] Part 1 is 'one-size-fits-all' and has been reserved at the Posh Frock Shop. (That's a completely unhelpful description - in fact it's a rather fabulous and very expensive Japanese jacket.) My mum is using her pensioner's bus pass to travel to buy it later this week. Part 2 will be made to measure.
• penelope - it can't be just me, can it?
  Isn't it a bit quiet around here? Are you all busy or what?
• Phil - Writing my CV
  'Tis a little on the quiet side this week.
• nfras
  Shhhh! Be vewy, vewy quiet.
• CdM - Grading exams
  F, F, F, F minus, F, F minus, F plus, F, F, F, F, F plus, F minusminus, F minus, F minus, F, F, F minus...
• Rosie - Showing off
  (Phil) 105 what?
• rab
  [CdM] Sounds like you might need to widen your scale a bit...

  Yesterday I embarked on a 12 hour round trip to be asked three questions by a US visa official. The good news is that the visa is approved, so I don't have to return with any additional documentation which is a relief, as the train fare to London is not cheap.

  Meanwhile we're just waiting for rab Jr to arrive. Some friends of ours were three months early which has put the wind up us...

• Phil
  [Rosie] 105 lies to help me get a job.
• Graham III - The land of the free...
  [rab] what's the point of the Edinburgh consulate?
• rab - Pointiness
  Emergency passports for US citizens. My wife needed one once, so the proximity was very handy.
• Rosie
  (Phil) A purveyor of that which cheers? Best of luck, whatever you do. Out-of-work is not good for anyone and it's happened to me three times.
• Knobbly
  [Rosie, Phil] Out-of-work has been happening to me for 3 years now, and boy is it ever getting the better of my sanity. (View the source to read the hidden text)
  Maybe I should try the lying...
• penelope - C (Lie) V
  [Knobbers] Why not? I'm sure lots of people do.
• Simons Mith - Statement contrary to reality
  I wouldn't. Particularly as anyone who's any good as a wordsmith can use the truth to say what they want without actually needing to lie.
• penelope - it's on the noticeboard...
  I feel fairly confident that no-one will make any objections to the notice of impending marriage between the windy miller and me, which for the next three weeks will be pinned on the noticeboard, almost behind the filing cabinet, in the inner porch of the back door of the British Consulate in Amsterdam. You have to speak through the intercom to the grumpy security guard at the front door, and again at the back door intercom to get in there, so I doubt you'll get in anyway. I took a friend with me to Amsterdam today, and she had to wait on the street until I complained to the consul officer, and he sent the guard out to bring her in.
• Phil
  I would protest in the strongest terms, if I had good reason, and/or could be bothered...so feel free, and go ahead!
• Simons Mith - Beware of the Leopard
  [Pen] Congratulations. Break a leg, as I think they say in Belgium :-)
• ImNotJohn - It should be banned
  I trust it's written in English, translated from the Dutch via Estonian, Kurdish, American Sign Language and Xhosa. That sounds like a good excuse for a gin.
• penelope - chin chin
  [INJ] Indeed. Cheers. :o)
• Rosie
  (pen) Never tried it - there aren't enough saints to choose from. Works for some and I hope it does for you.
• Software - the knot
  Congrats is the usual thing. I tried it once, but the wheels fell off after a while, didn't stop me doing it again though, but that was for pension reasons.
• penelope
  [Softers] This is like getting my first car at the age of 46. Although, of course, I actually passed my driving test at 17 and bought my first car at 23. And somewhere halfway through that analogy, it stopped working. I'm marrying the windy miller for his money and for the free flour.
• Rosie
  (pen) Not going Dutch, then. :-)
• Phil - Free flour?
  [pen] sounds like a grind...
• rab - Impending connubial arrangement
  Congratulations. I think our intention to submit appeared on a scrolltext screensaver in the waiting room of the registry office.
• penelope - New wardrobe
  Thanks all. We may even start booking things this week, if the windy miller gets his finger out. In other news, there's a fairly important event at the university today, and I wanted to look a bit smarter than usual. I had to root through the wardrobe to find a suit that wasn't too big this morning... this diet business appears to be working.
• Phil
  [pen] congrats on the gradual "vanishing lady" trick.
• rab - Wham spam thank you mam
  Looks like this site is currently the victim of an automated spam attack. I may have to temporarily disable posting at short notice while I introduce a countermeasure. Apologies if that's the case.
• rab - Mr Fixit?
  Let's see if that's worked...
• rab - Seems to have
  You will understand if I don't reveal precisely what I've done to stem the flow... but as at MCiOS you may be asked a simple question from time to time. Don't take offence if this happens to you.
• Simons Mith - http://xkcd.com/810/
  Having seen the posts before they were wiped I thought they might be taking the first baby steps towards xkcd #810. A good few years to go yet, though.
• Simons Mith
  Looks like I'm encookied already, eh?
• Michael J Test - Which reminds me...
  ... I should check that those who aren't can still gain entry if they are legitimate.
• rab - Good
  That worked!
• penelope - cookies?
  No thanks - I'm on a diet. 7kg lost so far.
• Simons Mith
  Whereas I appear to have put on a stone. I'm holding out a vague hope that it's just my not-very-accurate scales.
• penelope - stoney ground
  [SM] I can heartily recommend Slimming World. It's effective, and it's a very healthy way of eating (and supposed to educate you away from the way of eating that made you fat in the first place). I haven't felt as well as this for yonks. If you can't bear to go to a club meeting (too many echoes of 'The League of Gentlemen' and their sketches of the victimisation at the Fat Club meetings) then do it online, and join the Facebook Group that acts as an online meeting.
• FGZstar - Bit of Dust
  [penelope] Was it not Little Britain that did the Slimming Club, I though League of Gentlemen was the Dole office meetings.
• penelope - Fat chance
  [FGZa] I stand corrected. Fat, unemployed... the two go together in that kind of world. *ducks*
• FGZstar
  Why did you duck?
• Tuj
  [FGZ*] Avoiding the sail of a windmill.
• Rosie
  And the sale of a windmill, one would hope, to say nothing of a funeral. Don't try to be La Doña Quixote, pen.
• penelope - uncapitalised
  Luckily we don't own any windmills - most of them are owned by charitable foundations. There are only a few privately-owned and commerically run mills in NL, and usually they have to diversify to make ends meet - shops, tea rooms and cafes etc. However, there is a large consulation project sponsored by the province to come up with new ideas to make mills less reliant on public money, of which there is less and less available. By the way.
• Software - lack of capital
  [pen] belt tightening is endemic. Thanks to the banks everybody is now poor while they continue dishing out obscene bonuses.
• Raak
  Something I've never seen explained is what happened to all the money. Bonuses are measured in millions, while the losses are measured in billions, so while one can object to the bonuses for other reasons, that isn't where the money went. It was lost by being lent for mortgages to people who never paid it back, and who spent it on buying houses, so presumably construction firms and property developers got the bulk of it. Who owns those? The banks?
• rab - rab jr
  Our little boy came kicking and screaming into the world at 3.41 this morning. In honour of MC regular _tim_, we've called him Underscore. Have yet to be given the spec sheet, but from what I remember he's about average in size and weight. Mother and baby (and father, for that matter) all a bit shattered and overwhelmed by the experience, but doing well. Should you feel the need to goo, drop me an email and I'll send a pic once everyone's presentable.
• penelope - Congratulations!
  [Rab] Marvellous news! Best wishes to all involved. Now - get some sleep while you still can. I understand it can be in scarce supply.
• Rosie
  (rab) Congratulations to all. I'm sure he'll pass his QA inspection. Investor in People really works, doesn't it?
  (Raak) Good question. One answer could be that the money didn't exist in the first place, as your answer sort of implies.
• ImNotJohn - _Rablet_
  Congratulations. And thanks for an excuse to do some head-wetting.
• Phil - rabbit
  Congrats, rab! Treasure the early years, before he discovers DH loops!
• CdM - Congratulations!
  Er, that says it all, really.
• Raak
  Congratulation, rab! And belatedly to penelope. What is the world coming to? People getting married and popping sprogs and living happily ever after?
• nfras
  Well done, rab and Mrs rab. As pen says, get some sleep now. Lots. When the young one gets home you won't get much. Ever again. Seriously. But very worth it :)
• Raak
  That was an unfortunate typo. I'm sure rab and pen deserve more than one congratulation. Take as many as you like, I have a whole box here.
• Chalky
  Well played rab and Mrs rab and a big welcome to Master _Underscore_
• Rosie
  (Chalky) Hello. :-)
• nights
  *waves from Eastern France* I'm still here, although I've forgotten almost all of my HTML skills, so expect really off moves from me for a while as I get my arm in.
  [rab] A little late to the party, but congratulations!
• Phil
  [nights] How far east? I'm somewhere in the vicintiy of D*sn*yland this weekend, driving a van, for charity.
• nights
  [Phil] About as far east as you can get - Strasbourg. What kind of a charity takes a van to D*sn*yland? Sounds like a charity I'd like.
• penelope - deep freeze frustration.
  Good morning campers. For two mornings running, I have pulled out of the freezer the less-than-successful vegetarian curry to defrost (unsuccessful because the broccoli in it didn't behave very well, not because it's vegetarian, and pulled out of the freezer because the tubs are unidentified, but we only find out when we get home from work. D'oh!), disappointing the windy miller, who gets very short-tempered when he's hungry. So I'm trying to get back into his good books with pork chops and mushrooms tonight. The curry has gone on the compost.
• Phil
  broccoli + freezer = difficult. I seem to remember that to freeze anything with broccoli in, you barely need to cook it at all, as it'll get all the cooking it needs when you reheat it.
• ImNotJohn - Food wastage.
  [Pen] That'll teach you. Just label it properly. Simples!
  I always do, where 'always' has a value that has been known to exceed 50%.
• nfras
  [pen] Broccoli curry? Not sure I'd be keen on that. I discovered a great YouTube channel some months back that is full of great vegetarian Indian dishes. http://www.manjulaskitchen.com
  As we say here in Oz, she's daggy, but the recipes are great.
• penelope - Bloemkool curry
  [nfras] As a brassica, it was OK when freshly cooked - as is cauliflower curry - in fact the two were mixed. But it doesn't like being frozen. I should have known better. Last night's pork chops were great though. And thanks for the curry link - will give it a whizz.
• nights
  I miss having a freezer. These days I bulk cook on a Sunday when I have time, and eat it for Monday and Tuesday as well. Veggie chilli works really well that way, especially with a slug of bourbon.
• Phil
  [nights] I haven't had a microwave for over 3 months now, and don't miss it. Don't really use our freezer either, for that matter as we tend to cook and eat, and then eat until it's finished :)
• nfras
  [pen] Ahh, that's where you have me. Broccoli I love, could eat it every day and would probably try a broccoli curry (broccoli pakora is very nice). I understand that some people eat cauliflower in the same way that I understand that some people like other people to wee on them. If that floats your boat, fine, just don't expect me to participate. Mrs nfras tries to poison me every now and then by hiding it in mashed potato and hoping I won't notice. I do.
  Incidentally, at the last mini-Melbourne Antipopilg we discussed the pronounciation of broccoli, specifically the last vowel sound. I use "brocco-lee" whereas I often hear the locals saying "brocco-lie".
• Dujon
  [nfras] Where I live the last syllable is usually, but not universally, pronounced with the short 'i'. By that I mean that the 'li' bit of it agrees with 'bit' and 'it'.
• Rosie
  I've often heard it pronounced as if it were this place. Goes with batt'ry, which one hears rather too often.
• Raak
  [Rosie] I've seen it written the same way. By greengrocers.
• nights
  I can never spell it either. I have no excuses - it's my favourite vegetable also, and it's also spelt the same in French, so I'm pretty much stuck either way.
• KagomeShuko - Spelling? Why not singing?
  [nfras], [Dujon], [Rosie],[Raak], and [nights], why spell it when you can sing it? Do you know of this song?
• Giertrud - Just remember. . .
  Brits readily occupy cable cars on London's island. And you need this song, too.
• Phil - Broc
  "Brocco-lie" is a very common pronunciation in Leicester. And it drives me up the wall. That and "straight-the-way" instead of "straightaway". Arrgghh!
• penelope - brits grits
  It's Britons. People from that island are called Britons. Not Brits - that was a word invented by lazy tabloid journalists and it makes me cringe everytime I hear it.
• Rosie
  (Kag) V good. I actually LOL'ed.
  (pen) I think it's an American invention, not a tabloid one, though the latter (and many others) have picked it up. I'll use it when Americans start to regard it as cool to refer to themselves as Yanks.
• penelope - lighten up, guv
  [Rosie] Was it light when you posted that at 03.58 on the shortest night?
• Rosie
  (pen) Probably, a bit. I've just put up new curtains to eliminate the horrible possibility of knowing. I'm a very naughty boy.
• CdM
  Ah, the days are getting longer...
• nfras
  [CdM] Ah yes, but are the nips getting bigger?
• CdM - Britophile
  [pen] Me, I like the abbreviation. :-)
• nights
  Well, Midsummer went off without a hitch here, as it coincides with the annual Fête de la Musique. Lots of bands in the street, lots of alcohol consumed, lots of people absent at work the next day. Brilliant.
• penelope - brile
  [CdM] You're an economist. You like everything cut.
• nights
  Has everyone had a nice weekend?
• ImNotJohn - Something for the weekend
  Saturday at a friend's 80th birthday party with excellent food and much music - impromptu and prepared - the majority of the guests were capable of sight-reading so we had a choir of about 40 in his (very large) garden.
  Sunday at the Derbyshire County show - walking distance for us. A scorcher - drinks and ice-creams doing a roaring trade, but some pretty hot-looking sheep and bad-tempered cattle.
• Phil
  Friday at Hyde Park for great gig. Saturday was a wander around Windsor Castle (blagged a free ticket for daughter as she sang in the chapel there last year and didn't have time to do the tour). Sunday was a day of rest.
• Rosie
  Tweaked a few pins and did a little repair work on the piano here. Perspired freely. Replaced lost fluid with a modest quantity of an available product, even at one in the morning. Was informed that the price difference between weak and strong beers as purchased by the pub is much greater than the difference in price at the bar. "Sensible" drinkers are subsidising piss-heads as it makes business sense.
  (INJ) Hot-looking sheep? Please do not feed the Welsh jokes.
• rab
  We managed a trip to the museum to meet some friends, and a pub lunch. Were very proud to have successfully left the house for an extended period. However, _ has been a bit unsettled since, so perhaps the experience left him in a state of shock.
• Dujon
  His first decent excursion and you take him to a place full of dead things and then subject him to a pub? No wonder he's a bit grumpy. Poor _. ;)
• Rosie - Hot
  Maximum temperature today (Monday) in the grounds of Maison Rosie was 30.7°C and pretty humid with it. Even more unusual was the previous night's minimum of 19.3°C, a record for June in nearly 30 years and nearly a record for any month. Bit sweaty during band rehearsal. Tuesday cooler and Wednesday cooler still, which is boring, but at least you feel less knackered,
• nights - And now, the weather
  It depends on who you ask, but here in the European Capital of Traffic Jams that Don't Move At All, it was 36ishC yesterday, and 23 overnight. Sleep is but a distant memory, and I content myself with the fact that today I get to teach in an airconditioned conference room...
• Rosie
  (nights) Paris, I presume.
• CdM
  [nights] (Maybe I already knew this, and I have forgotten.) What do you teach?
• flerdle - weather or not
  [Rosie et al] We had this yesterday afternoon; it was quite spectacular.
• nights
  [Rosie] Actually Strasbourg - like Paris, but smaller and much nicer.
  
  [CdM] English as a Foreign Concept for business - so instead of "Brian is in the kitchen", it's "Mr Smith is in the conference room". And it's finally cooled down...
• penelope - Antwarp
  I was in Antwerp on Tuesday, here (very, very impressive building) where it was 36 or 37C. To my Former-flatmate-from-Hertfordshire-days-visiting-from-New-Zealand, the heat, after flying in from wintry Wellington, floored her. It almost floored me too. But the thunderstorms that night were spectacular. I've just put her on a train to Amsterdam (I can now drive round Rotterdam without getting lost, hurrah!), and today it's a very fresh and pleasant 20C.
• nights
  [pen] Same here. Hoorah for continental microclimates!
• nights
  Whoops, I think I pressed the wrong button and deleted everyone else. Forever alone.
• Everyone else
  !
• penelope - where's the button for the restore point?
  Back in the office after a week off. The nice thing is I nowhave the desk next to the window, so I have a view of the Erasmusbrug, the Willemsbrug, the old railway bridge AND the Unilever glass box among the skyscrapers of Rotterdam. Quaite naice.
• Dujon - Rooms with a view
  Penelope, that reminds of my office of a few years (too many) ago. The fact that I was a significant contributor to the design layout of the place has nothing to do with this, of course. The department of the organisation in which I worked was situated on the 20th floor of a building which itself was positioned on a relatively high point of the City of Sydney. The windows rose from thigh height to the ceiling. The view took in the top of the Harbour Bridge, the buildings of the main CBD and then a panoramic sweep of Sydney Harbour (Port Jackson) all the way out to the harbour's heads. It really hurt, but I had to turn my back on it else I'd have done sweet nothing in the way of work.
• nights - Laundry
  What do you lot do while doing laundry? I'm experimenting with brainstorming the week to come in a notebook while my smalls go around and around and around, and it works well.
• Dujon
  Well, nights, I find that doing laundry is an exercise in concentration. Firstly it's getting the right temperature of the water in the copper. Then there's the right balance of water to cloth to consider. After that it's what, if any, domestic aids - such as soap - might be required. After those it becomes necessary to move the wooden dowel I use for agitation in such a manner as to effect the most efficient cleaning whirls and swirls. Whilst doing the latter my mind drifts to the mangling and then the efficacy of hanging the final product right-way-up or up-side-down. Laundry, nights, is an art and is not something that should be taken lightly. Anyway, your notebook will get wet.
• ImNotJohn
  [nights] I mostly sleep, having put the machine on to run overnight.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Do you have a coal fire under the copper or are you still using eucalyptus logs? Soda is very good, isn't it? I prefer wooden pegs, or pigs as they call them in NZ (and SA, it seems).
• Dujon
  [Rosie] Gerroff! The wood of the eucalypti beneath the copper? That's reserved for the hot water heater and bushfires. Blimey, you Britons aren't half backward. Soda? Indeed; a tablespoon of bi-carb goes a long way when washing. Pegs/pigs/pugs around this wee bit of territory are not my responsibility but I do find that the plastic (non gypsy supplied) tend to snap all too often after being subjected to sunlight.
  Being serious for a moment: Should I be required to buy a scuttleworth of coal for the fireplace that I don't have I have no idea as to where I might buy it.
• penelope - Ash Google
  [Dujon] That's what Google is for. Or, as it used to be called, the Yellow Pages. Or the small ads in the back of your local newspaper. Or ask at any house with a smoking chimney.
  I am now virtually convinced that e-technology is ringing the death knell of common sense and 'nouse'
• Rosie - Trying to raise the pH
  (Dujon) Bicarb's no good - you want proper soda, Na₂CO₃. Alkaline enough to dissolve aluminium. Try it in a saucepan with a bit of heat. It'll fizz nicely. Don't do it for too long or the pan will have a hole in its bottom which is all very well for us humans but not cooking vessels. As for coal, this can be obtained from any of Britain's many preserved steam railways and is of a quality high enough to be burned at the ferocious rate required in a locomotive firebox. Or you could get it direct from Poland as we don't have any mines left. About £80 a ton. With you on pegs. Use wooden dolly pegs; they last for ever.
  (pen) esp. satnav. Recently someone was given several column-inches in the Grauniad Technology Section to describe how inadequate the device was because it had got her lost driving from Wolverhampton to Stoke and she nearly landed up in Shrewsbury. If that had happened to me I'd have kept very quiet about it, not wishing to appear a complete tosser, but you know what people are like these days. I won't say any more because I can get really sarky.
• penelope - MapNav
  Quite. I always like to have a lookie at a map before I set off, so at least I am informed about the route/heading/places en route. People who blindly trust a SatNav are eejuts.
• Software - Technology
  When I taught engineering at night school I always told students that they had to know the answer before using a calculator. They used to laugh at this but I used to point out that you first had to estimate the decimal place otherwise the calculator answer could be orders of magnitude out. This principle applies to all technology, it is useful for accuracy but you need to know what you are doing before starting.
• Dujon
  [penelope] Around my neck of the woods it would be hard to find a house with a chimney, never mind one with a proper coal burning hearth an 'ob and a couple of hunting dogs to keep one's feet warm. A few decades ago oil burners were all the rage but the cost of fuel seems to have put those foul things to rest - even the use of the common wood burning heaters seem to be well and truly on the decline. After your comment (mine was meant to be light hearted) I did look at Google and my local paper's classified advertisements. Unfortunately my common sense and nous came to naught. Should I ever need a scuttleworth of coal I shall be trawling the local railway lines for inadvertent sullage. :)
• penelope - sullage
  [Dujon] Apologies, I didn't mean my comment to sound so brusque, but where on earth do you live, you poor coal-less thing?!?! Next point: I don't think you mean 'sullage', unless you're burning cowpats and horse dung...
• Dujon - *chuckles*
  No, penelope, I didn't. It was a slip of the brain or fingers. Please read the word as 'ullage'. On the coal question: Australia exports huge amounts of coal and uses various grades of coal in its power stations but I can quite honestly say that in my fifty-odd year sojourn in this country I have never seen coal being burned domestically. It sounds odd, but it's true, although it's impossible for me to say that it doesn't happen.
• KagomeShuko - Sad about Hershey's practices
  I am sad about Hershey's practices. I just found out that they source their cocoa from cacao farms that use slave labor. Children are sold to farmers, never paid, are beaten . . . Mars and Nestle are not great, either. However, they promised to stop these practices by 2020. Cadbury for you brits is fine, but Hershey's distributes it in the United States.
• penelope - Chocolate is evil
  [Kaggers] I suppose this is why it's important to check that Incidentally, we're Britons, not 'brits', pfffft. (And Norwegians, Australians, and residents of just about every country in between those two.)
• Chalky - *has made a move in every game*
  Too much maybe?
  Yeah.
  O-Kaaaaaay
  
  *slopes off*
• penelope - seldom chalked
  [Chalks] It's not as if you do it every day, or even every week. Welcome back, missus!
• nights - *waves from Bristol*
• Rosie - "white horses from Westbury"
• Knobbly
  [ChalkyPhilCdMIrach] Does anyone who contributed a line to the riddle glow-worm know what the answer was? I can only find one word that seems to satisfy all clues, are there others? (View the source to read the hidden text)
• Tuj
  [Knobbly] That was all I found. I'd been staring at line 1 wanting to make the answer "Néa" but couldn't conjure a line 2 which would squeeze two accented words in.
• Phil
  [Knobbly] So it would seem. (View the source to read the hidden text) . A little apt, I suppose?
• CdM
  I didn't think of Néa when I posted Line 3 (I should have), so i was aiming for NERD at that point -- because, as Phil said, it seemed fitting.
• KagomeShuko - Missed the riddle
  I read the glow worms, but I missed the riddle. All this "line 1" talk is making me think poetry. I think you Britons *rolls eyes at self* might like this poem of mine: Bigfoot's Love Slave.
• Chalky - the KS poem
  Gosh. I clicked. Powerful ending.
• Giertrud
  Making my name show on everything in the first box.
• CdM - *foils Giertrud's diabolical plan*
• penelope - T-11
  Back in NL. I have been hen-partied. :o/
• Software - Girly-do
  I do hope you maintained your cool and didn't wear any fairy wings, pen.
• penelope - more girly goings-on...
  [Softers] No way. We had a very sophisticated evening in a Greek restaurant, not even any plate-smashing. And today, my department at work threw a bash for me too - with a water-taxi down the Oude Maas to the Hotel New York in Rotterdam for afternoon tea, and back again. The weather cleared up spectacularly and it was wonderful. The poor old windy miller didn't get supper cooked for him tonight - I was still stuffed! (But I did cycle to the Chinese takeaway for him)
• ImNotJohn - Weekendings
  Saw the Staffordshire Hoard (or at least some of the finer pieces) on Saturday at Lichfield Cathedral - remarkable for its quality (gold filigree and cloisonné work, etc.). There's a moment in the video presentation where one of the experts says: "We get asked if this is the largest Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard ever found - it's the ONLY Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard ever found". Also went to Wightwick (pronounced 'wittik') Manor, possibly the best William Morris house in the country. Morris never saw it, but it was entirely furnished from Morris's shop in Oxford Street by the Mander family of Mander's Paints.
  Also had a quick look at CdM's childhood home.
• penelope - Hoardings
  [INJ] I'd love to see that. The hoard, not CdM's childhood home - I doubt it even has a blue plaque, does it?
• ImNotJohn - Remove that plaque
  [Pen] Not any more, it hasn't.
• penelope - Week's ages
  A week since the last post - anyone got anything interesting to report? This morning, I'm going to take my camera down to the windy miller's (non-functioning) mill at Maasdam, and take photos. One of his apprentices spent four days creating decorations for it for our wedding; buntings, 6ft carved initials painted red, and carved intertwined wedding rings, all strung between the tips of the sails and floodlit. He took us out to see it the night before we got married. *beams*
• ImNotJohn - Long weekend
  As usual at this time of year, spent in a friend's cottage in the North York Moors. Almost didn't make it along the track on Friday after torrential rain. After that fine walking in forest and over the largest expanse of heather moorland in the world - all bright purple and with a glorious sweet scent. Cold and windy, mind you.
• Phil
  [INJ] Excellent. A week on Sat, I'm off to Wensleydale, to play in the Hardraw Scaur Brass Band Contest. Also spending a week in Swaledale for half-term. Can't wait to get back up to North Yorkshire :-)
• penelope - Cheese please
  *yearns for a proper bit of Wensleydale* God I miss English cheese.
• Software - Cracking cheese Grommit
  Ah, yes. The clog stuff is a bit waxy. Great for using one of those cheese slicers that they love, though.
• penelope - waxy rubber and no taste
  Dutch cheese - always highly spoken of, but as far as I can make out (and I may have said this before elsewhere), there are only three varieties. However you can have them at any age you like. But until they get a couple of years old, there's no real taste, and no texture. And you can't grate it - ever. I think it's a bit arse-about-elbow to design the cheese to suit the cheese slicer, isn't it? And the cheese slicer/cheese scraper/cheese plane only works for about 40% of the truckle - it doesn't work once to get towards the edges of the cheese. Surprisingly inefficient for the Dutch. Rant over. Now bring me some proper cheese, please.
• Phil - Pass the Dutch-cheese on the left-hand side
  [pen] At least it's lower in fat than cheddar et al.
• flerdle - alert: not at all posh sense of taste and style
  [pen] agreed about the slicer. Mine seem to go mad towards the edge; I'd thought it was just me.

  My taste in cheese is not so sophisticated. *prepares for ostracism*. I don't like camembert or brie or veiny or runny or very hard very smelly cheese. I do like what is sold here as "Dutch smoked", whether it has anything to do with the Netherlands I'm not sure. Thinking about it, liking it might, in part, be due to growing up with Kraft processed cheddar (in the blue cardboard box, doesn't need refrigeration), which it does bear a passing resemblance to in texture. Not sure if that product ever got to the UK, i think it was a US thing that turned up here in the 40s or 50s. I haven't eaten the stuff for decades, I found a tin of it in Oman but wasn't game to actually eat more than a small wedge to confirm its identity.

  Anyway, crumbly feta (not smooth, yuk) is good. A nice cottage cheese sometimes finds its way into my diet. Cheddar, well, what is sold here as cheddar, no idea if it is or not, is my main cheese, in a lower fat variety, not because I'm a low fat fanatic, but because this particular one just seems to be less greasy, especially when melted or grilled where it turns out beautifully, compared to some others.

  And i will fight even my best friends and relations for haloumi. You have been warned :o)

• penelope - Do me a haloumi
  [flerdle] Just buy double the amount. I like mine grilled with a sprinkling of fresh chopped mint and freshly-ground black pepper.
• flerdle - Grilled is obligatory, but you can keep the mint.
  Nooooo, it's mine, all mine, i tell you.
• penelope - feeding frenzy
  Damn you. Now I'm checking out sausages punt en el and slavering over my desk. The sausagepalace is only about 7km from the windy miller's office. I can see I'll have to make a visit. (And then probably hate them and end up making my own with the new KitchenAid mixer-with-meat-grinder-attachment-and-sausage-stuffer-thingamebob that is about to be purchased with the wedding present money.)
• Phil - It pains me...
  I love cheese. Almost all varieties (only one I can think of that I don't like is cottage cheese). I like hard, soft, creamy, waxy, crumbly, mild, mature, sharp, sweet, blue, goat's, ewe's, cow's, flavoured and so on. Love 'em all.
  However, I am on a self-imposed low saturated fat diet, so the only cheese I eat now (other than for a very rare treat) is low-fat cream cheese. Then again, I loved smoking, but I don't do that any more either.
• KagomeShuko - Wearing kilts on ankles is now fashionable
  Went to my first pub games last night (Sept. 7 - USA/Central time) so, like um, what 2am Friday for Brits? I forget . . .
• KagomeShuko - Brit Food
  It was at a Celtic Pub. I also had Bangers and Mash there. Different.
• ImNotJohn - Fashion advice
  [KS] Kilts on ankles is fashionable? That would be one kilt per ankle I assume. That's a new one on me. On the other hand, kilts round ankles......
• penelope - tartanankles
  I'm trying to think of a kilt pun, but I'm failing.
• Tuj
  [pen] It's for the best, the community frowns on puns here. Tell a bad one and you might get kilt.
• Phil
  [pen] I think Tuj may try to get a monopoly on the kilt puns, but I'll try to make sure he doesn't hog manay of them.
• CdM
  It's poor 'uns that we really frown upon.
• Dan
  You can make them more presentable by tartan them up.
• KagomeShuko - Yes, kilts on ankles
  It was from a game, basically "pin the tail on the donkey." It was "tape the kilt on the Scotsman, though." I ended up putting it on his ankle! I think a kilt on each ankle would be pretty cool - new fashion instead of bell bottoms!
• KagomeShuko - PUNishment
  As for puns, I have the BEST pun ever, but you have to know technical terms about the Christan fish and Swedish/Norwegian/ (thus, unfortunately sometimes) Lutheran cuisine.
• Phil - Puns
  I know an absolutely filthy pun in French. Only works in French though.
• Simons Mith
  Does the pun involve a pullover, perchance?
• Phil
  [SM] Indeed :)
• KagomeShuko - Puns and French
  My pun does not involve a pullover and is in English. I might be able to read the French one, might not. I need to brush up on my French.
• ImNotJohn - French puns
  [Phil] So it's not the one about the vicar, the bicycle and the scouring powder?
• rab - Flappy
  I don't know if a technical issue with my hosts has affected this site but if you have noticed any outages it's due to "severe flapping of HSRP on customer vlans". I thought I should pass that on.
• Knobbly - HSRP?
  Huge Sheets of Rubberised Paper.
• ImNotJohn
  Surely they shouldn't be sending data around in vans these days.
• CdM
  Highly Spiced Rice Pudding?
• penelope - streaking by
  [CdM] I read that as 'High Speed Rice Pudding'. The pudding-mistakes compound themselves because I read Rab's post thinking of a Dutch dessert called 'vla' (basically cold custard), and a Limburgse tart called 'vlai'. And I'm bloomin' hungry this morning.
• Simons Mith
  [INJ] Do not underestimate the bandwidth of a transit van full of DAT tapes.
• Simons Mith
  (Packet rate's lousy though.)
• jim
  [Simons] Reminds me of A Fire Upon the Deep, where the protagonists get transport on a spaceship whose "cargo" is a one-third xor of a one-time pad.
• KagomeShuko - Desserts
  Oh, come on, I know y'all are just PUDDING on a show of your favorite puns!
• Giertrud
  I read "vla" as "via" and thought of a company called Viasat and thus, thought of pudding being sent through outer space.
• Simons Mith
  [Kag] And what if I gave a tart response denying that claim? ...Oh, bugger.
• penelope - Sticky end to pudding puns
  Well that ended very messily, didn't it? Is anythinjg nice happening this weekend? I have to admit, I'm bored, bored, bored, this weekend and not even entertained by the thought that I can actually hang washing outside today. Roll on work on Monday.
• flerdle - slow weekend.
  [pen] No work for me for quite a while, either domestic or paid; I'll be lucky to know what day it is. But anyway, people visiting, catching up on reading, and finishing decorating my crutches.
• ImNotJohn
  Spent Friday to Sunday in the South-West supporting 'The Prince's Trust Wild UK Challenge' sponsored by Capgemini. I took part last year but once was enough. So 3 days of camping, manning checkpoints, lugging gear around and clapping and cheering. A successful event - plenty of money raised and only 2 competitors hospitalised after coming off bikes (neither seriously injured).
• penelope
  [flerdle] Well, that sounds like a plan that takes into account the circumstances. I hope it mends like what it's supposed to.
  Well, my weekend improved. Making something always improves my mood, so the construction of seven jars of marmalade before breakfast on Sunday, followed by a couple of hours out on the bikes with the windy miller in the glorious late-summer weather did wonders. Today, I'm not officially at work, so plan to splend some time writing up a review of the one-day course on writing for SEO (last Friday, Utrecht), an hour getting a bit further with writing up a report from the mini-conference/debate on private equity (last Thursday night, Amsterdam), and three hours ironing (my living room, in front of the TV, tonight.)
• Simons Mith
  [pen] Quite right: who'd want a wrinkly living room?
• CdM - To be filed under "Fire, baptisms thereof"
  Well, I just did my first ever TV interview. Live. On national TV.
• Phil
  [CdM] Did it go well? Is there somewhere online one might be able to see it?
• nfras
  [flerdle] Please explain how you will be decorating your crutch? While you were in getting the leg fixed did you have some more intimate operations performed? Perhaps a spot of vagazzling? Oh, sorry, plural, my mistake, carry on. Coat!
• CdM
  [Phil] Thanks for asking. I guess it went OK, given that they have asked me back. On the other hand, I really don't want to become a pundit. On the other other hand, the pen-equivalent at my institution is constantly pushing me to do this sort of stuff. Can it be seen online? I certainly hope not. :-)
• penelope - penequivalent
  I don't do PR anymore! I'm just English Editor.... and I sneak in marketing advice at the same time.
• KagomeShuko - cooking
  I want to write a cookbook. Of course, all my measures are American. I wonder if I should find British equivalents and published a British edition, too.
• ImNotJohn - What size are your cups?
  [KS] If you want to publish in the UK (and this will probably also be the case for places like Australia), you'll certainly have to change the measurements, but you should also get someone to check over the names of ingredients and their availability as well as possible substitutes unless you want to confine your readership to people who live in the major English cities. For example, I live in a small city of about 250,000 people with all the major supermarket chains but the nearest source of buckwheat flour for me would be a 90 minutes round trip.
• rab
  It's a source of constant irritation to me that any internet search for a recipe draws you to lists of ingredients in US imperial units, mostly because I can never remember what a cup is. One gotcha to be aware of is that US pints are smaller than UK pints (16floz instead of 20floz).

  For ingredient substitutions my procedure is the following. First, look for something in your cupboard that you think tastes like the missing ingredient. If that fails, look for something that looks like the missing ingredient. If even that fails, look for something that sounds like the missing ingredient.

  My gelignite-based desserts have made many a dinner party go with a bang. (Although they do have the advantage of being strictly vegetarian).

• penelope - One size fits all
  [KS] don't change the measurements! Just include imperial and metric along with US cup measurements... Lots of recipe books and websites do this. Then you only have to produce one version.
  [INJ] Try your local windmill for buckwheat. Alternatively, I can bring you 5kg next Saturday. The buckwheat is free but it'll cost you merely the price of the ferry ticket.
• ImNotJohn - buckwheat
  [Pen] That's the distance to the watermill who make the flour I usually use for breadmaking. I can buy the normal white, wholemeal and malted grain from my local butchers, but more specialist stuff is only sold at the mill.
• penelope - sorry for not looking in here earlier
• penelope
  I meant to add...
  [INJ] Doesn't your mill supply any other shops? Poor you. I think even though I complain about the paucity of food here, (no big chunks of meat, for a start - there's nothing to roast in this bit of the Netherlands) I can actually get a lot of local produce, and just have to cut my culinary cloth accordingly.
• ImNotJohn - *waves from Beijing*
  [Pen] It might do, but I haven't found it yet.
• penelope - This weekend, I am mostly...
  making sandwiches to feed 50 new volunteers at three windmills on the island. I volunteer that I am a complete idiot.
• Software - Never volunteer
  [pen] You must be using yards of Edam and spek.
• penelope
  [Softers] Metres. There's still several decimetres of it left in the fridge, dammit. Tasteless cheese. But no-one can say I'm not inburgering into my new life here.
• Software - MKS
  [pen] as an engineer I seriously slipped up there.
• Software - Plea
  I posted this on MCIOS as well: Anyone in the Morniverse know of a suitable family for an Italian language student in or near Hastings? She is a charming young lady mid 20s and she stayed with Mrs Software and I for a month this summer.
• KagomeShuko - finding ingredients
  [rab] finding ingredients that way sounds dangerous. Taste? I can see how that would work. However, looking alike, I think could get really confusing! My sister says I should give this link to show how that could be dangerous. Though, I'm not sure that you'd have a lot of these in your house. Now, I just need to find the metric equivalents to US - I'm sure they're online - just gotta get going in a bit. I'll bother y'all about ingredients over times, maybe ;) I don't think I'll be using too much different, though - baking powder, sugar, flour, salt, pepper, garlic powder, butter . . . things off the top of my head that I'll be using at times.
• Giertrud - gelignite
  I hope no one had too much of a fire in their belly...
• penelope - Is it me?
  Am I being over-sensitive, or has the tone of the Limerick Game taken a slide down a particularly sexist hill this week? Kagome Shuko provided a dreadful first line, so I *ahem* said something. And now I find the next line refers to 'a prude'. I don't think I'm being a prude, but I do like to see standards maintained, and I think there are plenty of alternatives first lines that don't include referring to women with tits like melons. That's not a limerick I would enjoy contributing to. And I'm sure some of the chaps here similarly would avoid contributing to limericks about everyman's small cocks, erectile dysfunction and disappointing conjugal performance - and all the other male foibles and deficiences. The MC community has never felt the need to scrape the bottom of this particular barrel before (although there are plenty of other barrels that everyone enjoys delving deep into), so why now?
• Simons Mith
  By limerick standards our output is exceptionally clean. I think the occasional dive into the depths of depravity is necessary and indeed unavoidable. Citations:

  [1.] The lim'rick packs laughs anatomical
  In space that is quite economical,
  But the good ones I've seen
  So seldom are clean,
  And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

  [2.] Legman, who compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology, held that the true limerick as a folk form is always obscene, and cites similar opinions by Arnold Bennett and George Bernard Shaw, describing the clean limerick as a periodic fad and object of magazine contests, rarely rising above mediocrity.

  That said, I don't think an excess of filth, whether or not it's folklorically accurate, is particularly funny either. One, or, perhaps I should say 'the MC community' needs mostly clean stuff to throw the filth into sharper relief. So I think my conclusion is to bring on the odd willy joke, and not to start complaining until we've had several in succession.

• ImNotJohn
  [Pen] I was about to agree wholeheartedly (and indeed KS's first line was singularly juvenile), but I went to the game and in fact there aren't any crude limericks currently on the top page. So, although I agree with your sentiment, you may actually be overstating the issue. Actually, I think we went through a dip into the area where saucy starts bordering on filthy a couple of weeks ago and have climbed out again.
• ImNotJohn - continuing
  Maybe you're influenced by the output on MCiOS - but I wouldn't class any of the currently visible lot as more than saucy.
• Simons Mith - Addendum
  Also, I don't actually think tits do like melons.
• Tuj
  I'm with penelope in this instance. That line was pathetic, and completely out of keeping with the tone of the website.
  More generally [SM] I believe your example #1 shows the type of limerick many of us prefer. The form may have its root in ribaldry, but there's a clear market for amusing rhymes and syllabic dexterity rather than innuendo.
• nights
  *waves from Strasbourg* Well, I've emerged victorious from my part 1 exams - what are we all up to this weekend?
• Raak - Weekend
  I'll be drumming at this event on Saturday. Have spent this morning sanding down a batch of new bachi.
• Phil
  My son turns 16 tomorrow ("arrrghhh, not more fireworks, Dad!!!!"). Having family & friends round on Sunday to celebrate. Can't do tomorrow as it's the school open day.
  Next Friday is more interesting, as I'll be playing The Last Post, alone, at Beaumont Leys Shopping Centre (which covers 7 acres (2.8ha), as I presume you've never been). Never played it in public before, so I'm somewhat "bricking it".
• Giertrud - I'm 6 hours behind...
  Happy Guy Fawkes Day/Night!
• Juxtapose - breaking radio silence
  Making an official request for a new round of Clerihew poems. Always liked the metrical freedom they afforded me as a rookie MC'er.
• Tuj - Come rhyme with me
  [Juxtapose] Given the glacial pace of game turnover here, I feel obliged to point you gently in the direction of a Clerihew game currently taking place over at Orange.
• flerdle - slow madness
  You know you've been in a brace for too long when you reach for the velcro strap to haul your other (unbound, uninjured) leg around too.

  Only two more days, i hope.

• Phil
  Fingers crossed for you, flerdle.
• nights
  Fingers also crossed, flerdle.
  
  Things are incredibly dangerous around here - a thick fog has enveloped the city and driving is an exciting adventure in remembering which is your exit as the signs have disappeared in the mist. Oh well.
• flerdle's leg - run away
  I'm free! FREE! Ahahahahahah!

  Oh sh!t. I have no muscle now. *crumples*

• ImNotJohn - Good news
  [Flerdle] Just get started on going for walks to build it up. When you're no longer walking in a circle, you're better.
• Phil
  lol - genuinely :)
• penelope
  mijn ook. Ik lollt. Oooh... converting txt-speak into Dutch is fun!
• Software
  [pen] share the joke.
• ImNotJohn
  I make that either:
  'Me too, I lol'd' or
  'My Orang Utan is slumped in his chair'
• penelope
  [Softers] the Dutch have a fairly regular set of verb endings, and have co-opted quite a few English words, which they adapt by tampering with the verb endings. So, you'll get something like 'Checken' - to check; Ik checkt, u checkd, etc. And 'Springen' - to jump. Although I was disappointed to learn that they hadn't bothered to co-opt 'trampolinen' - to jump on a trampoline. Ik trampolint would be very useful, I thought.
  [INJ] Correct.
• Software
  [pen] Of course my experience of Dutch predates txtpraat.
• nights
  French has done the same thing, except worse. They don't just text LOL, and write G instead of j'ai, they say LOL in conversation. No sign of 'j'ai LOLé' for the moment, but it's only a matter of time until I see my nieces again.
• penelope - it's all gone, gone, gone...
  It's sop foggy here in Rotterdam this morning that from the window of my 6th floor office, I can see nothing but mist. But I can hear the pile-driver thud-thud-thudding away on the building site in the middle of campus.
• ImNotJohn - Over to the weather where you are
  Getting weathered on near Southampton. Walked from the hotel to the office (through woods) and in half an hour got a sharp shower, mist, a beautiful sunrise and mirky greyness. Plus a couple of roe deer - always a bonus.
• Software - Weather eye
  It is bright and sunny here, 15C. :o)
• Rosie
  Max 14.0°C here and sunny. The sky is still clear (8.15 pm) and it's only gone down to about 9° so no excuse not to get the telescope out, though I'm sure I can find one.
  The snowheads on the weather group have gone very sulky and are reduced to looking at charts 16 days ahead which everyone (including the snowfreaks) knows should be labelled "For entertainment only". Ho ho, hee hee.
• nfras
  33°C and humid is forecast for the day. Currently very sultry (the weather, not me).
• Dujon
  Not quite so warm a forecast for Dujon's place. About 30°C today. Tomorrow though is different. 36°C is the current guess. I do hope that the BoM is wrong.
• Rosie - Megathermality
  (Dujon) Hmm, 36° is a bit much. It exceeds my record by the smallest possible amount. (10 Aug 03). Last December 36°F (2C) would have been a bonus. (Monthly mean 0.1°C, should be just over 5°).
• nfras
  Yes, when I moved down here I was somewhat unaccustomed to the heat. My first day of 42°C was somewhat of a revelation. When the wind blows it's a bit like living in a hairdryer. Still, it's a fairly dry heat in Melbourne, not like that nasty humid heat you get in the tropics.
• CdM
  [nfras] Indeed. I vividly remember 43+ degrees combined with gale force winds as something I had never encountered before. 43 degrees, been there done that. Gale force winds, likewise. The two together -- a completely new meteorological experience.
• Raak
  [CdM] Presumably you'd have a wind warming factor, so that 43 degrees in a wind feels as hot as 50?
• Rosie - Further megathermality
  (Raak, CdM) It's the wet-bulb temperature that counts. This is the temperature of a wet or moist surface, lowered by evaporation of water or in this case sweat. I know that the hot blast from the interior is very dry and the wet-bulb could be as low as 20° if the humidity is about say 10%. So the stronger the wind the cooler you'll feel. My guess is that those conditions are far from intolerable. Was that actually the case?
• Dujon - Sweating
  [Rosie] Yes and No. Remember that it's relative humidity that is normally quoted. Then there is the problem of how much an individual sweats and thus the effectiveness of its cooling. Perhaps this is why some people enjoy warm weather whilst others find it uncomfortable.
  I cannot speak for others but in my case when it becomes really hot and the relative humidity is high (say, over 20%) my sweat pores open and drench me in my own perspiration but affords no relief.
• flerdle - dry good, wet bad
  [Rosie] Yesterday I went for an experimental hop around town and it was fine. Very pleasant in fact. Then again I don't perspire much, and have a famously warped sense of temperature. The wind was strong enough to affect how easy it was for me in my somewhat delicate state to move about (out at Tulla it seems to have measured a constant 40-50km/h all day; in the city it was all over the place). Temp was 34°C with rel hum of 23% and "wet bulb depression" according to the BoM of 14 - so i suppose that made it a nice 20°C day.
• nfras
  [flerdle] Wet Bulb Depression? Sounds like what happens when you have a nurse take your temperature.
• Rosie - Staying out of the kitchen
  (flerdle) Those figures all tie up according to my Tables of everything to do with meteorology. It seems to me that the climate of Melbourne is mostly rather bland and pleasant but every now and then someone leaves the oven door open and SE Australia gets scorched but that's probably preferable to the constant high humidity of somehwere near the equator even if the the temperature rarely rises above about 33°. Power to yer lallies, BTW. Kangaroo motion sounds hard work.
• Software - Antipodes
  In just over a week Mrs Software and I will be landing in Melbourne. We plan a trip along the coast to Narooma to meet an old coleague and then Sydney where we fly to NZ for my daughter's wedding. so lets hope the weather is up to speed by then.
• CdM
  [Software] When do you arrive? And are you staying in Melbourne for any period of time? Because if so we should definitely organise a meeting in your honour. I think flerdle is game to walk just about anywhere now.
• nfras
  [Softers, CdM] I concur.
• Software
  Will only be in Melbourne briefly as we are heading down the coast to Warrnambool. Sadly we have planned a tight schedule visiting relatives and friends so on this occasion it may not be possible. But as I now have a daughter down under this will not be my last trip!
• nfras
  NZ is not Down Under. It is Under And To The Right of Down Under, but close enough. :)
• Rosie
  (nfras) Shurely it's even more Down Under than Australia from a UK point of view.
• KagomeShuko - Uhhh
  I am a straight female, just so y'all know.
• Rosie - Rectilinearity
  (KagShu) No-one has suspected otherwise, though it must be said that many men, including this one, appreciate a modest degree of curvature.
• KagomeShuko
  Okay, I was just confused by some comments I saw earlier while I was MIA - writing for NaNoWriMo.
• nfras
  [KS] Ah, OK. I thought I had missed something. :)
  I was pretty sure you were female but admit that sexual orientation hadn't crossed my mind.
  Reminds me of an interesting (well it is to me) story. When I was in high school we had a mock exam in English. I was talking to one of the teachers afterwards about the two examples given in one question. Both were travel pieces, neither was attributed. My teacher explained that almost everyone had identified the writer of the first piece as a male and the second as a female. Neither piece had anything that clearly identified the gender of the author. The funny thing was the writer of the first piece was male, and the writer of the second was female, and they were both written by the same person. The journalist had undergone a sex change between writing the two articles (there was a gap of about 5 years between them) but somehow most people had picked up a difference in the way each article was written. Spooky!
• ImNotJohn
  [KS] Those of us who went to your book website some time ago had guessed at the gender (either that or your parents really didn't like you!). Sexual orientation has never been an issue in the morniverse as far as I can tell.
• Rosie - He, she or it
  (KS) It's been obvious to me almost from the word go that you were female, just as I reckon it's equally obvious that I am not. Gay or straight, nobody's bothered here.
• Phil - No way!
  Rosie's a bloke? Well, stone me!
• ImNotJohn
  [Phil] we all wondered why you had been flirting with him for so long.
• Rosie
  (INJ) Chalky sussed me out immediately, years ago. But like me he's pretty astute.
• nfras - No way!
  Rosie's astute? Well, stone me!
• Rosie
  (nfras) Hmm, not quite astute enough to be absolutely certain that you got my joke. Grovelling apols if you did. This is getting so elliptical it's in danger of disappearing up its own latus rectum.
• Phil
  Rosie's a stoat? Blimey, my whole world is crumbling sound me!
• ImNotJoan
  Well, there you go Philippa, it just shows you shouldn't jump to conclusions.
• Phil
  What a silly old gal I am. "sound" should have read "around".
• nfras
  [Rosie] The joke was received and understood, as I hope mine was :)
• penelope
  I forget that I've known some of you lot for nearly 13 years, and what might appear plain as day to me is unfathomable to others. (THIRTEEN years???!!!)
  
• rab - Spanning-tree topology change
  Those of you who noticed Friday evening's outage (I certainly didn't) will be reassured to know that it was "triggered by a spanning-tree topology change [creating] a broadcast storm". I presume this refers to platform alterations on the Circle Line prompting unladylike outbursts from Samantha.
• Rosie
  (nfras) I may have underestimated your sense of humour. The thing is, I have actually met Chalky. (Shut up at the back)
  (rab) A spanning-tree is clearly a reference to an old-style wooden railway sleeper. There's been some re-ballasting and realignment of the track and one of the permanent way gang, in defiance of regulations, has put it on Twitter.
• Phil
  [pen] only 13 years? Newbie! ;-)
• nfras
  [Rosie] My sense of humour is childish, absurdust and crude. Much like me really. I hope to meet a bunch of you when I am next back in the Old Country, depending on when that is. I tried to get to see Phil last time I was over but the god of the M6 is a cruel and jealous god and sent plagues of cones, jams and Eddie Stobart to confound me.
• Rosie
  (nfras) Well, that's the M6 for you. The deity of the B269 is much more benign, and I live just off it.
• Phil - But seriously, folks...
  [pen] It is rather daunting isn't it. I've been doing this online since 1995. It's strange that the number of contributors has stayed fairly stable over the years, as if the world of MC can only sustain a certain number of people. I was looking at the Yorkives the other day, trying to find my first contribution. Brought back many memories, many of which I can't even remember.
• rab
  [Phil] Didn't you know there's a one-in, one-out policy? Now, if you could start to think about making a move now please, ...
• Chalky - has met quite a few Morniversers . . .
  ... most of whom might discern the subtle difference between 'quite a lot of' [which I'd originally typed] and 'quite a few'.
• nfras
  [rab] There can't be a one-in, one-out policy. If the gestalt entity that is Uncle Korky/INJ/CdM/Dujon left, it would take time to invent new personae. Stevie would have a fit.
• penelope
  [rab] I think you've terrified everyone into silence, too afraid to stick their heads above the parapet and say anything in case anyone remembers how long they've been here, and 'isn't it time you made room for someone new?'.
• ImNotJohn
  I think I must be approaching my 10th anniversary, but I could be out by a couple of years either way.
  Very little of the threatened snow in southern England - so no excuse for leaving early for my 4 hour drive home.
• Phil
  Threatened snow? Haven't seen/read/heard a forecast for two days. Must update myself.
• Rosie - Niviation
  An inch of snow here this morning. It settled on the grass and even on the side roads for a time.
• penelope
  Just wind, rain and 2.5C here in Rotterdam. And final day in the office before January - hurrah!
• Software - Tauranga
  I cane to NZ for my daughter's wedding equipped for sun and sand, however I need an umbrella and gumboots.
• CdM - Florida
  Pleasant and sunny down here in Florida. And I've been here about 14 years I think.
• CdM - Clarification
  Er, when I say "here" I don't mean Florida. I mean here.
• Rosie - Heisenberg
  (CdM) Could you move around a bit, preferably completely at random and as fast as possible. Then we will know your location to a greater degree of accuracy than currently specified.
• flerdle - He already does
  [Rosie] I don't think that works for molecules of CdM. On the other hand, the speed of a flerdle is highly dependent on slope, being relatively speedy now along a flat, perfectly horizontal surface and very much slower on any inclination or declination, whereas say a rock or a basketball shows very different behaviour.

  Oh, and *waves from sunny Brisbane*

• Rosie
  (flerdle) Are you saying that cadmium-containg alloys are beyond the laws of physics? Outrageous! Don't tell Uri Geller, whatever you do. May your mobility on inclined planes rapidly approach the norm.
• penelope - talking of Uri Geller and planes...
  Uri Geller sat three seats in front of me and my mother on a flight from Venice to the UK. I watched the rivets and joins of the wings and fuselage very carefully during the entire flight. (Stranegly enough, Jude Law sat in front of us on the flight out. He's much smaller than you think.)
• ImNotJohn - Not the size you thought
  I flew with the late lamented Phil Linott on the little 40-seater from Dublin to Leeds once. He was very tall - pushing 2m, I reckon.
• Rosie - Orthography
  (pen) Stranegly sounds like a small village in Scotland. Hard luck. :-)
  (INJ) Two miles? Yeah, that's big, too big, obviously.
• CdM
  [Rosie] I've just moved rapidly to Tennessee, if that helps. Drove up through an impressive storm, as well. Hearing the tornado sirens wailing as we were driving was a little unnerving.
• flerdle - very tropical
  It is pouring rain this evening here (in Brisbane still) but, unusually, there is no lightning/thunder at all.
• Rosie - Vorticity
  (CdM) I thought you were somewhere round there. I'm envious of your vigorous local convective activity. All we get here is mist, drizzle and general gloom. It's mild (10°) much to the disgust of the snowfreaks, but they're either weird or bonkers.
• Phil
  [Rosie] Have you seen the W Yorkshire lenticular cloud photos doing the rounds today?
• Rosie - Altocumulus lenticularis
  (Phil) I certainly have - brilliant. We don't get 'em round here because the hills aren't high enough. You should see the ones they get in New Zealand and in the USA in the lee of The Rockies. More envy. :-(
• Soiftware - Land of the long white cloud
  [Rosie] Sadly I have seen many of them though it is midsummer here. Oh, well, now it is Christmas.
• Rosie - Land of extensive featureless stratus giving slight drizzle
  (Softers) At least you can see the sides and ends.
• KagomeShuko - Land of - what now?
  What ends? We saw no ends on our Christmas eve and day. Very wet, windy, and uncomfortable.
• Giertrud - singing
  I saw the clouds on Christmas day, their old familiar shades of gray, the raindrops fell and I could tell the weather was so dreary, hey.
• CdM
  [KS, G] Where was that?
• penelope - lenticular loomers
  I saw something approaching lenticular cloudage a couple of days after Christmas, over the Lincolnshire wolds - a splendid sight, but I don't think it would have lenticulated fully. Now, back in, the Netherlands, it's drizzling heavily, grey, it's already getting dark, and sounds like a war zone out there as the village boys have been setting off their Belgian firecrackers all day, and the farm boys have been filling old milk churns with carbide bomblets and shooting the lids off across the fields. One way of seeing out the old year, I suppose. The windy miller and I are planning a quiet night in with a couple of slow-cooked lamb shanks and a bottle of wine.
• Rosie
  Cloudage?? Oh, pen, pleeeze! Even the most anorakky weather nut doesn't talk like that. Did it give rainage, which went down the drainage? Or was it snowage, so your car needed towage? <rapper>

  Good to hear that Dutch boys are allowed out, unsupervised, to be a little naughty.

• flerdle - clearage
  It was a totally clear night here after a hot and almost completely cloud-free day - something of a rarity here. I did not bother going in to town for the fireworks, but watched a very decent display from the back yard. They seemed to be coming from the general direction of a local school and went on for a very long time. A licence is needed to even obtain fireworks here, let alone let them off, though some people manage it anyway.

  Apparently the Arts Centre spire caught fire. Whoops.

• Phil
  Happy New Year to the collective mc5ers.
• penelope - verbage
  [Rosie] I'm not playing with words as a weather nut, I'm playing with words as a word nut. So there. *raspberry* *winkage*
• penelope - BTW
  HNY all.
• Tuj - Oh, go on then
  [pen] Happy new year, but as a fellow word nut, I wonder why you don't abhor the current lazy vogue for "-age" creations, spewing spurious neologisms all over the place. *winkage continued*
• Rosie - Umbrage
  (pen) Ah, "Raspberry". That was the whole family's nickname for my piano teacher when I was a child. Little could she have imagined that I would be blowing the said fruit down a 9-ft tube 30 years later. Real name Doris Austin (Miss). Always going on about my fingerage and phrasage. A bit fierce but good. Not one to indulge in winkage, as you can imagine.
• Chalky - usage
  .. not even a spot of badinage?
• penelope - Carthage
  (Carthage?) I remember talking a load of -age badinage with a wordy friend some time around 1998, but don't recall seeing much of it since then. We also had a go at adding '-ster' on the end of evey word. That was fun too. But I don't like Dutch enough to have fun with the national habit of making a diminutive out of everything to informalise it; bier > biertje, jongen >jongetje, bord > bordtje. (Beer, lad and plate, respectivly.)
  BTW Chalks, what are you doing up so early? (Or so late?)
• Phil - Cobblers!
  [pen] is Schoenlappertje a diminutive term for a cobbler? All I know is that it's a blummin' good non-sweet, blackcurrant beer.
• Rosie - I need to set fire to a Manchester suburb
  ....Wantage of Burnage. Boo-boom!
• penelope
  [Phil] Yus, it is. I took the 'tje' off it and ran it through Googletranslate, then the Brain of Google told me it was cobblers.
• Phil
  [pen] Smashing. If you see a bottle, I'd thoroughly recommend buying and drinking it.
• Merlyn - Pilgrimage
  Following suggestions at MC in Outerspace, would a Saturday in March be suitable for an MCPilg in London? Do see the discussion in the Pilgrim Game on Orange-age
• KagomeShuko - Location
  I live in Lake Charles, LA, USA.
• KagomeShuko - ages and ages . . .
  You know, like Ron on Kim Possible would say "snackage." I guess you could say on Friday I got my "concertage" on? Or is that my "nerdage" for the band Lost And Found?
• ImNotJohn - Pilg
  [KS] Yes, you'd probably have to make a full weekend of it. Still, I'm sure accommodation could be arranged.
• Merlyn - Angels
  KS] Yes, feel free to combine it with a longer visit to our fair shores.
• ImNotJohn
  Hang on Guys, I've just had this great idea! LAPilg?
• Rosie
  (INJ) LA is an awful long way for Ms Shuko.
• ImNotJohn - Geographically challenged
  Ah, Yes. Still, it's not a bad idea.
• CdM
  [INJ] I think what you wanted to propose was NOPilg. I might sign up for that one!
• ImNotJohn
  Or maybe La Pilg (or should I say le pélérinage)
• Merlyn - LAPilg
  INJ's idea for a Pilg in Louisiana sounds great for Ms Shuko - a bit far for the rest of us though...
• Kim - You know you're getting old when...
  you're filling out a form online that requires your date of birth and when you click the drop-down box to bring up your year of birth you have to scroll down to find it.....
• Dujon
  Kim, you're catching up. When I click on those things I get a depth reading. 6' is becoming uncomfortably close. :)
• Merlyn - dob
  I was filling in one that offered me the opportunity to say I was born in 1900!
• Phil
  I still love web forms that insist on postcodes for (republic of) Irish addresses. I know of a few parcels that have arrived at Irish houses addressed to, e.g. Mr M O'Donnell, 10 Ardan Bothar an Glas, Drogheda, Co Louth, Sorry Mr Postman, Amazon wouldn't let me order this unless I had a postcode.
• nfras
  [Phil] Even worse are forms that insist on only allowing US Zip Codes. Or only allowing US states, even though you have selected a country other than the US.
• Rosie
  (nfras) I've never found that, and I've bought quite a bit of stuff from the USA (music, books). In fact the last order they sent twice. Anybody want a copy of the conductor score for The Chicken, arr. Kriss Berg?
• Merlyn - postcode
  Phil] I'm surprised that the phrase fitted in the postcode box!
• Phil
  [nfras] which reminds me that many Irish people I know have put 90210 in the postcode section :-)
  [Merlyn] Even stupider are the web form designers that don't limit the number of characters.
• KagomeShuko
  Yes, if I am ever going to be in the UK, I'd let you know. Though, I don't know if I'll ever be. New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Alexandria, Metairie - all places in LA that are "close enough" for me. Shreveport and Monroe are a little far, but doable. Texas - Houston, Beaumont, Orange. Far, but doable - Seguin, New Braunfels, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Ft. Worth. . .
• KagomeShuko
  I've sometimes seen the addresses things that can be irritating toanybody. Yep, even sometimes to us in the US. I tell things that I don't live in the Ukraine. Silly forms. However, it's not usually those for me. It's those CAPTCHAs. I've had one in Greek, one we think was in something like Urdo or Arabic . . . some others with weird symbols.
• Giertrud
  Did you know there's a country with a name that states a fact about weather? ********************** Ukraine ************************* Get it? UK Rain E (rainy)
• rab - Compulsory fields
  The field that irks me when compulsory is that of "County", for counties in the sense implied by the form ceased to exist in Scotland in the 70s, and Edinburgh is one of those places (like Manchester) where the city and county are much the same thing. Or, to put it another way, they lie within Unitary Authority Areas of the same name. So in the box I'm often reduced to writing "Scotland", when they let me get away with that, or "Midlothian" when they force a choice. Perhaps in the future I should paste in what I've written here...

  I'm sure I've told the story before of how my credit card company managed to have my address as being in "Manchester, Lancashire, Lancashire". When I moved to Edinburgh, it changes to "Edinburgh, Midlothian, Lancashire"...

• Merlyn - Pilgrimage
  Pilgrimage in London proposed for 24th March. See discussion here: http://www.dunx.org/cgi-bin/forum?forum=game00074&displayStyle=york&tail=40#bottom
  Please keep all discussion on the Orange site to avoid cross posting confusion
• penelope - that doesn't mean...
  You can all talk about other things here, you know! How was your week?
• Phil
  Hard - preparing documents for government officials :(
  Next week, I start my new job though :)
• penelope - New Jobber
  [Phil] excellent!
  My week started in England with shopping and the best fish and chips for lunch in Cleethorpes on Monday, sailed across the North Sea at night (failed to see the Northern Lights despite peering out from the deck at nearly midnight), busy time at work (wrote loads, organised a reception for the sustainability team at the business school). Now: finishing off more loads of writing, and trying to plan ahead.
• Raak
  Started a blog. It's under my Second Life identity, though, so no-one need try looking for it.
• CdM - My week
  Very very tough, for reasons that I'm not going to get into. But, on the bright side, not quite as tough as the week before.
• Phil
  [Raak] Is that a slog?
• Raak
  [Phil] Ha ha, yes, a SLog, hopefully not a slog! Just a few snaps of places in SL so far.
• ImNotJohn - Travelogue
  Back after a fortnight in Ethiopia, where Mrs INJ and I had wanted to go for years. A fascinating place – the oldest continuously Christian country in the world and the only African country never to be colonised (the Italians never subdued it in the 1930s). It has a fascinating culture with a history mixed with legend. This is the country of the Queen of Sheba, who was seduced by Solomon and whose son Menelik is said to have brought the Ark of the Covenant back from Israel. It is the country of the Axumite civilisation whose trade reached as far away as West Africa, Zanzibar, Sri Lanka and the Caucasus (as well as possibly supplying some of the ‘Nubian’ pharaohs) and who raised huge pillars over their tombs (the great stele in Axum is believed to be the tallest monolith ever made – although it probably fell and broke almost immediately after it had been erected). It is a country with a tradition of building churches and monasteries in the most inaccessible places; culminating in the rock-cut churches of Lalibela, created by cutting down into the solid rock from above – if they had been in Europe they would have been as well-known as Notre Dame.
  It is intensely Christian for the most part; you have to have a reasonable knowledge of Christian tradition to get the most from the cultural aspects of the country. We went for Timkat – the major festival, which is at Epiphany in the Coptic/Julian calendar and celebrates both the adoration of the Magi and Christ’s baptism with mass-participation parades, street celebrations and young adult baptism. And yet it is tolerant of other faiths – there is a significant muslim minority (10%+) and a few Rastafarians and others and no obvious conflict.
  It also has magnificent and varied scenery with mountains, lakes, rivers with spectacular waterfalls (the Tissisat falls on the Blue Nile share the meaning of their name with the local name for the Victoria Falls – Mosi oa Tunya, or ‘the smoke that thunders’) and vast empty depressions where rivers disappear into salt pans. The birdlife is still abundant and varied, although much of the larger wildlife is under threat from a large population with a tradition of hunting.
  The downsides? Tourist infrastructure isn’t great – hotels have irregular water and electricity, roads are mostly poor (and occasionally atrocious), there is poverty, though no famine at the moment after a very good harvest – much earlier famine was caused by difficulties in distributing food rather than an absolute lack of it. The food is OK, especially if you like injira, the staple bread substitute, which bears a certain resemblance to cold wet flannel IMO.
  Oh, and as a bonus, we went to a resort owned by Haile Gabreselassie and he was there, so we got to have a chat and a photo-opportunity.
  If you aren’t too insistent on comfort, then go if you get the chance.
• Tuj
  [INJ] Really interesting, thanks for sharing.
• penelope
  [Tuj]Indeed.
• ImNotJohn - Meteorology
  Solid steady snow in Derby now. Started with light and gentle about 3pm - now big wetter flakes - could be interesting if it keeps up overnight.
• Knobbly
  Had a choir concert last night - everyone got there fine, but I think nearly half the choir couldn't get home.
• penelope - singing to stay cheerful
  [Knobbers] Yikes.
  [INJ] it's 'only' -4C here today. (I know Néa will better this statistic). Yesterday was the most startlingly clear, bright, cold chilly day I have seen since I was in Vermont in January 1988. I put some photos on my Facebook page, if you can see that. We had a couple of inches of powdery snow on Friday afternoon, but early yesterday morning it was -12C (according to the ladies in the bakery, who were in at 5am), rising to -10C by the time the windy miller and I headed out to his mill, and brilliantly sunny - one of those winter days when you get a big and welcome dose of sunlight. Random banks of fog drifting around the area added a thick and sparkling rime to the the lines of pollard willows and alders lining the dikes on our route there. The water container inside the mill was frozen - it was -8C in there. It was a truly spectacular weather day.
• penelope - Super!
  Apologies for writing like Jilly Cooper. I'm having the equivalent of a guilty McDonald's hamburger and reading her latest paperback at the moment.
• Chalky
  [pen] yeah :-)
• ImNotJohn - Cold
  Just about to go and have a teleconference with our Ukrainian development team. They were reporting -30 last week, but then Kiev does have a bit of a heat island effect.
• Raak - It's like a clean scene from Alien!
  I do hope Raak is not on of those SLers who has to have an SL wife give SL birth! I saw a video of that and the baby came straigh out of the stomach . . . something very disturbing about that!
• penelope - random
  Was that really Raak? Perhaps he's having an out-of-body experience.
• Raak (the real one)
  [!Raak] 'Ere, oo are you?
• CdM
  [pen] The whole point of SL is to have out-of-body experiences, I think. I suspect that SLRaak has somehow got free and is posting here along with RLRaak. But, in this virtual space (where we can't see the giveaway goatee) how will we be able to tell them apart?
• Tuj - Daaahn-da-dun-dun... Daaahn-da-dun-dun-DAAAAH
• Raak
  SL Raak isn't called Raak, of course. I think of her as an imaginary version of myself.
• Phil
  [Raak] So do I. (View the source to read the hidden text)
• Raak
  She has a male shape and skin as well, but rarely wears them.
• Raak - Well, that brought the conversation to a standstill
  Going out to bang a few drums shortly, then various errands and home. Snow and ice is still lying here and there but the roads are all clear.
• penelope - clear roads
  The roads are clear here too. It's bluddy cold though. I saw a small car (one of the 'moped cars' with a teeny engine that requires no proper driving licence) driving across the ice on the dog-leg shaped dead-end remnant of river called the Binnenmaas by the mill this morning. And a quad-bike doing power-slides and throwing up powdered snow on the ice too.
• Dujon - Ice and thickness
  [Pen] This is a serious question as frozen rivers are a rarity where I live. How do the drivers of such vehicles (or even skaters and skiers for that matter) know that the ice is sufficient to carry their distributed weight? It sound rather fraught to me.
• penelope - Sluggish
  [Duj] The stretch of water I refer to *was* a river but became a lake in the 13th century when the intrepid Dutch diverted the flow of the Maas at this point into another channel to improve its navigability. It could be considered a small lake now, although it also acts as a reservoir for water pumped out of the polder on its way to the river proper. So, all these 'frozen rivers' are actually frozen lakes and canals, where water can stand still for long periods, allowing it to freeze. As to the thickness of the ice, the Dutch are very organised about this kind of thing. Every stretch of water, it seems, has an 'icemaster' who will measure the thickness and deem it fit for skating. The Dutch rarely do things independently; they love to do everything together, so there aren't a lot of daredevils going it alone in defying the icemaster. And they are aware of where the water is deep or not deep - falling through the ice into shallow water is acceptable, it seems. As for me, I discovered the other night that years and years of being warned not to go onto dangerous British ice have left me with a terror of walking on even the safest Dutch ice. That's another activity that the windy miller will have to do without me. :o/
  In other news, I have been measured up for sunglasses at the opticians, and have bought a pair of summer shoes on Ebay - ones that I was dithering about in a high street shop last summer, but have found at one-third of the price on Ebay. Now, if the temperature would just lift above freezing for the first time in a fortnight...
• penelope - It's that thing again
  It just started snowing again. Arse.
• Dujon - A man of little trust
  [Penelope] Thanks. From memory of my short time in England falling through the ice did my shoes and confidence little good. Perhaps I was a sook? I'm off now to my local bottle shop (off licence) to purchase my week's vittles. I might wobble a bit but I'm confident that I will not sink. ;)
• penelope - 6C
  Blimey, it's hot.
• Phil
  Nearly a week has passed again. Apparently it's going to be scorchio on Thursday in the UK.
• penelope - reduced to weather updates
  [Phil] Indeed. If it carries on like this, I'll be getting the box of summer clothes out of the attic.
• Software - Is spring springing?
  It has warmed up to double figures on the rock, hopefully no more hard frosts - which will encourage the bloody grass to grow.
• Dujon
  Then you'll be moaning about mowing the stuff! :)
• penelope
  It's more than three years since I was responsible for a lawn. I'm not sure if I miss it or not. The house we currently live in is a bit weird and unfriendly as far as outside space is concerned. The gravelled space in the back yard is designed to be looked at rather than walked on or used; I think the person who designed it wouldn't make the same design again.
• Dan
  I'm sure I don't miss it. We finally took out our front lawn last year and did fun things involving boulders and native plants what have various qualities such as being interesting looking year round. I also dug out swathes of the back yard and planted a soil-improving winter crop and will be attempting some vegetable gardening this year. The purist in me wants to do it without spending as much on soil amendments as the veg would have cost in the market. The neighbor's massive fir tree dropping needles all over doesn't do wonders for the pH, so I will probably have to do something.
• CdM
  [Dan] Stevie probably has a chainsaw you can borrow.
• Dujon - Water, water everywhere
  This comment will only interest those of us who live in the land of drought and flooding plains.
  Warragamba dam, built to act as a reservoir for Sydney's drinking water rather than a flood mitigation device, is almost at a level that will trigger the spillways to do their job. To the best of my knowledge the last time this happened was in about 1998. Given that I don't live down stream of the dam I really shouldn't start singing 'Oh, happy days', but I will. :)
• ImNotJohn
  [Dujon] You could sell some to the SE of England.
• Dujon
  [INJ] It'd make a change. The spillways have in fact been actuated and the additional water added to the Nepean/Hawkesbury river system has submerged bridges and brought about the expected flooding - minor at this stage.
• flerdle - water water water water water
  [Dujon] Hoping you haven't been washed off your mountain up there. Looks dreadful.
• Dujon - Wobblies
  [flerdle] No, m'dear, although the world did seem to move yesterday when I was nowhere near the kitchen table! I think though that it was but the garbage truck doing its rounds. ;)
• ImNotJohn - That could have been a summer's day
  Shorts and T-shirt today and mowing the lawn for the first time.
• Dujon - A slightly silly pondering
  Over any given year where I live there must be thousands of birds fly over, take up temporary digs whilst migrating or live within a territory they have staked out in which my humble plot of land exists. Why do dead birds not litter my land and the local parks? Cockatoos are blessed with long lives whilst the smaller birds such as finches and wrens are supposed to be relatively short lived (they were when I used to breed them.) Over the last ten years I have seen two (2) deceased avians. One was a parrot in the local park and the other a juvenile butcher bird which I witnessed being attacked by other local birds.
  Why is it so? Are there places scattered around the world where birds go to die? Is there an ornithologist in the house?
• ImNotJohn
  A couple of thoughts from an ameteur birder (but not an ornithologist, still less a twitcher). The ones flying over are pretty healthy, as are the ones you see staking out territories. Ill and infirm birds will tend to hide where predators can't see them, such as in thick undergrowth. Also dead birds don't tend to last long. Generally predator birds and rodents dispose of them quickly. They also decompose very quickly, bones and all, as the bones are mostly pretty fragile. Having said that, I reckon to find 3 or 4 dead birds a year in my ordinary suburban garden, and that doesn't count the drifts of feathers left when our local sparrowhawk has caught another little bird too intent on one of our feeders to keep a proper look out.
• Dujon
  Salient points, INJ, I have no doubt. Ants too can do a very efficient demolition job on a carcass, but I doubt (in fact would reject) the idea that bird feathers are nutriment for scavengers. The reason for that attitude is that individual feathers, presumably resulting from natural 'moulting', are common and most certainly not a part of a drift of feathers produced by either direct attack or the efforts of scavengers. Who hasn't come across a particularly attractive feather from time to time and wondered what type of bird lost it?
• ImNotJohn
  [Dujon] Indeed, I'm sure that in your neck of the woods ants will be particularly efficient at cleaning up. I agree feathers are a bit different, but they must be destroyed fairly quickly if only because otherwise we'd be up to our necks in them. Also they are pretty much pure keratin which, despite its toughness, is none the less protein and so crying out to be recycled. I'm now into speculation, but I would suspect insects & bugs are likely to be the cleaning crew and will reprocess the feathers into chitin etc.
  Surely there's someone in the morniverse who can add a bit more scientific rigour at this point.
• penelope - All I know is...
  Big fleas have little fleas,
  Upon their backs to bite 'em,
  And little fleas have lesser fleas,
  and so, ad infinitum.
  The_Siphonaptera
• Software - Back biting
  [pen] My old dad used to recite that one to me..
• penelope - Dad chat
  [Softers] Mine too. Is it a dad thing?
• Phil
  When dads recite cute poems
  To their children oh so clever
  They then recite them to their own
  And on and on for ever.
• Dujon - Ditties not deadies
  [p,S & P] Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your most edifying contributions. ;)
• penelope - We didn't rehearse it, honest
  [Duj] Graag gedaan. I love the collective brain of this place.
• Dujon - My pleasure, ma'am
  So do I, though it's often somewhat of the variety known as scatter.
• KagomeShuko - Poems
  Poems I learned when I was little were "Eletelephony," "Ooey Gooey," and "A Peanut Sat on a Rail Road Track." The one my Daddy really liked to recite was "Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts."
• Giertrud - My Silly Poem
  I enjoy all this doggerel
  As much as tasty custard
  I like to read the silly words
  That [Pen] and [Dujon] mustered.
• Software - More dad pomes ...
  If all the world were apple pie
  And all the sea were ink
  And all the trees were bread and cheese
  What would we have to drink?
• penelope - Pedigree doggerel
  I find it all so flattering
  That you so like that poem
  But this could take a battering
  If scoured with fine-toothed comb.
• Phil - How about...
  how about a new game (to replace the terminally ill holiday anagrams) in which we can record the wonderful aphorisms passed on by our parents (whether in verse or prose). It might make a useful repository of knowledge. Or it might not.
  One favourite from my dad is "If we had ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs."
• ImNotJohn - Worth a try.
  [Phil] +1 for that.
• cfm - *approves*
• ImNotJohn - It's a tough job
  Just come back from a long weekend in Reims, tasting champagne, partly paid for by Mrs INJ's sister as a joint significant birthday present (late for her, early for me). Just got to arrange the party now!
• penelope - How awful for you
  [INJ] Think of the headaches and the expense...!!
  Just got back from a weekend with my mum in England. I did the 'SH' of POSH with a forced upgrade on the ferry to England - I had to take an outside 5-berth cabin with double bed, bigger bathroom and satellite TV as a solo occupant instead of an inside cabin with 2 bunkbeds, no TV and cubicle bathroom. As I'd had a v. busy day at work with no time for lunch, I celebrated with steak, chips and a huge glass of red wine in the brasserie on board, and woke up just as we were sailing into the Humber past Spurn Point lighthouse. *sigh*
• Dujon
  It's lovely to see that we still have stoics contributing to the site. 8-)
• Raak - Death of Games wanted
  I just tried to end the Holiday Anagrams game, but the usual didn't work.
• rab - Chain pulled
  [Raak] I've put it out of its misery, which - thanks to the miracles of modern technology - I did from the comfort of the toilet, appropriatly enough.
• Kim - Anaphorisms
  [Phil] Go for it, while there's a slot.
• penelope - this weekend I will be mostly
  Cleaning cupboards, laundrifying (it's a good drying day) and cursing the internet radio as it keeps cutting out during the best bits.
• Phil - is it just me?
  I've just discovered (via AVMA) that there is a good chance that cfm is female. That led me to wonder to myself: why/how do I create mental images of MCers, based purely on their posts on this site (and others)? And why do I oh-so-frequently turn out to be wrong?
• ImNotJohn
  [Phil] Absoliutely - Uncle Korky had me fooled for a long time with the name and the false whiskers, and there aren't that many Philippas around either.
  Also, if you follow CdM's 'helpful reference' on AVMA you'll see that the question of cfm's gender may not be resolved.
• Software - Gender bending
  It is amazing how often first impressions can be wrong. I wonder if some in the Morniverse deliberately conceal their true gender/sex whichever applies?
• Phil
  [INJ] Indeed, hence my "good chance" comment. I don't actually make assumptions, as far as I'm aware, but I do have a "mind's eye" that seems to kick in subconsciously. Call it a woman's intuition if you will.
• cfm - *smiles androgynously*
• Chalky - *thought irach and cfm were one and the same* :-)
• rab - Test
  Things seem to be 'working' after an upgrade, but I got enough error messages I'm a bit uncertain. At least I remembered to not have the magic quotes thing turn itself back on.
• rab - Oh good.
  Things indeed weren't 'working', but now they are. Apologies for any inconvenience etc.
• penelope - apols not needed
  [rab] Grateful thanks that the site is here at all - it's somewhere for me to come when I'm trying to avoid converting a 'stream of consciousness' from the Dean into something approaching an introduction for the latest issue of the alumni mag. Inspiration needed - and I'm sure I'll find it by writing limericks and doggerel.
• Phil - 7 days of silence
  Well, that was an interesting couple of days. I may have found a house to move to, 5 miles from work, and a school for the kids to go to, which lies 80% of the way to work. It also happens to have had the 2nd best A-level results in the country for a state school last year. Lots of forms to fill in now :-(
• penelope - Formation
  [Phil] Jolly good. Here in NL, house prices are dropping (9% this year, apparently, but they are grossly over-priced) and the windy miller is getting busier and busier. Also, I get a permanent work contract this summer (after 3 years of one-year contracts) which makes it easier for us to get a mortgage. I may have a new house with a BATH and a DISHWASHER by the end of the year!
• Phil
  [pen] If only I could get a mortgage :( It's rental for us for a while yet.
• ImNotJohn - What I did this weekend
  In gratitude for all the tens of thousands of pounds worth of business I've put their way over the years, Marriott Hotels gave me a couple of tickets to the London Sevens Rugby at Twickenham on Sunday. I'd just like to say that the 15 minutes in which Fiji demolished the All-Blacks was the most exciting bit of rugby I've ever watched.
• CdM - A picking of the collective mornibrain
  Is anyone here particularly knowledgeable about Venice? MsCdM, MsCdM junior and I are going to a conference in Florence at the end of next month, and we are then planning also to visit Venice. The only places I have been in Italy are Rome and Turin, so I am interested in any recommendations -- if anyone has specific hotels they could recommend, that would be particularly useful. We're happy to pay for location and comfort (up to a point; we are certainly not looking for recommendations to 5 star hotels).
• Software - Travel advisor
  I stopped at the Hotel Al Sole on the Fondamenta Minotta which is walking distance from the station. It was some years ago but it was good and relatively cheap (nothing is cheap in Venice). There was a family run restaurant a couple of doors away which was one of the best around we discovered having eaten elsewhere.
• flerdle - tripping
  We stayed in a cheap place in San Polo, so no help with accommodation here :-) . We had little idea and didn't mind the adventure so turned up and booked a place at the visitor booth at the station. But I've generally found when planning trips that online accommodation sites are fine to give an idea of what's around, and perhaps get a good deal. Anywhere in Santa Croce, San Polo or San Marco will put you in the thick of things and be easily accessible from the station, especially if you travel light like I do. The train from Florence is very quick and regular, so no problem getting there and back, we stayed for two nights coming from our Florence base and that did not feel too short a time, but it would have been good to stay a little longer since we accidentally turned up during the Biennale! The city is very tiny and easy to get around on foot or by vaporetto.
• flerdle - splish splash
  [pen] We just moved (see MCiOS for details) and I am pleased to report it has a good bath - but I'm sure it's easier to get your bath fix by going to the UK than visiting us :-) .
• penelope - Wet feet
  [Flerdle] Thanks for the offer. My nearest alternative is only 20 miles away, so I'm afraid your offer of hot water comes some way down the list at present. Who's to say wherther or not things will change?
  [CdM] When my mum and I 'did' Venice, we stayed in Treviso - a pleasant enough town a couple of stops up the railway line, and travelled in to Venice by train (it's a spectacular approach across the water - and stepping out of the 1940s railway station into 16th century venice took our breath away). This gave us the advantage of not having to pay Venice prices for hotels, nor for dinner (if we chose not to). I'd echo Flerdle's advice - read the 'traveller reviews' on TripAdvisor or Expedia.
• Phil - just 7 days...
  So much has changed since last friday, not least of which is the weather in the UK, accompanied by about 3 inches of grass growth in my back garden. Also, it looks likely that I shall be taking on the rental of a house "down south" (roughly here) in about 2 weeks. Subject to rustling up a load of money ...
• penelope - Sarf of the M4
  [Phil] It's bloody lovely round there. I worked near Ramsbury for a while, and at Hopgrass Farm on the A4 just outside Hungerford for a bit too. (Used to be owned by Johnny Morris, apparently, and I didn't know at the time, but my dad was friends with his son at Art School in the late 50s-early 60s and stayed with the Morrises at Lambourn. JM also used to own The Pelican, the pub at Froxfield on the A4 (my favourite road ever). The windy miller & I stayed there a couple of years ago. They didn't seem too bothered by the rain coming through the roof.) Anyway - good luck with the move. I hope you like it down there as much as I did.
• Rosie
  (Phil, pen) If you go shopping in Hungerford go in the morning because it's murder in the afternoon.
• Chalky
  That's awful, Rosie. Literally. I was working in the Savernake Forest that day.
• Phil
  It is amazing how the word "Hungerford" is etched into our minds. We found it hard to consider any houses that were up for rent there, simply because it would remind us of that every single day. turns out that the house we're going for is technically in Little Hungerford, but that was subsumed into Hermitage as house-building filled in the gaps between villages.
• flerdle - Port Arthur was creepy enough already, and then...
  How horrible.
  I had not heard of that, probably because ten days earlier was Hoddle Street, which is just a short drive from here. He wiles away his time in prison working out ways to continue his career as a vexatious litigant, thereby popping up in the vews often enough to keep the wound from fully healing. Parole in 2014? Somehow I think not.
• vlerdle
  Vhat would be news, vbviously.
• Rosie
  (Chalky) You strike me as an unlikely lumberjack. The admittedly awful joke was very current at the time, as these things are.
• Raak
  I cycled 100 miles yesterday. Wall-clock time 8h32, time in motion (what my bike computer records) 6h58m54. Free beer at the end, then collapsed in a heap.
• Rosie
  (Raak) V good. How many times round the cathedral was that?
• Phil
  MmmmmMMMmmMMmmmMmmmmm.....free beer :-) Well done, sir!
• Raak
  [Rosie] Just once, via the north Norfolk coast. It's surprising how many hills there are in England's flat bits.
• Phil
  [Raak] The merest mention of N Norfolk always makes me think of Hunstanton and twitch inwardly - the most confusing and disturbing place I've ever been to.
• flerdle
  [Raak] Well done! So you'll be out here for Around the Bay, then?
• Boolbar
  [Phil] Knowing "Sunny Hunny" well, I can see why you think it disturbing, but why confusing? [Raak] Well done! I am exhausted just thinking about it.
• Raak
  I've just discovered they had photo points set up, taking pictures of everyone. [flerdle] There's a small matter of a 10,000 mile ride to get there.
• Phil
  [Boolbar] I tend to know more or less which direction I am facing, which my family discovered recently when I stopped in mid-conversation, looked around the room and said "Sorry, I just couldn't work out which way was south for a moment". Hunstanton threw me, as I wasn't concentrating, but knew I was in Norfolk for two days. Therefore I got a bit startle by seeing the sun setting over the sea as I looked out from the shore. It took me a while to get my head round it, but it continued to freak me out for the rest of the day. And still does, to be honest.
• Boolbar - East Is East
  [Phil] Oh I see. Hunstanton drives you around the bend. :)
• flerdle - that'd be good training, then...
  [Raak] If you start soon, you'd easily get here in time for next year's :-)
• rab - Peering in
  Just received an email from the hosting people. My interpretation of their breathless gobbledygook is that you may discern slightly slower page loading than normal. Can't say I've noticed.
• Raak
  I saw a Google Car today, with the giant golfball of cameras pointing in all directions mounted on top. It drove right into the private parking area behind my house, and out again. So I might at some point see myself on Google Street View. I wonder how slickly automated their process is. Is the Car continuously uploading everything, which is then processed into Street View images in seconds?
• Raak
  Just had a look on Google Maps, and their current picture of the scene is from 2008. So, four years to revisit a tiny private entrance in a suburb of a small town. There must be some interesting estimate to be made from that of how many miles of road there are in the world, or how many Google Cars there are.
• Uncle Korky
  For the record, I really like Hunstanton - site of many a good family holiday!
• penelope - Hunstanton hinders chat
  [UK] that really did it, didn't it? More than a week with nowt to say. For the record, I really like Mablethorpe. Sunny here in Rotterdam today, but cool. Or cold.
• Uncle Korky - Norfolk enchants
  [pen] I know! What happened there?! Never been to Mablethorpe myself. If we're tipping the nod to UK holiday resorts, I'm going to endorse Barmouth, and see how long this kills the conversation for!
• Chalky - Dorset does it
  Rather partial to a long weekend in Lyme Regis myself.
• ImNotJohn
  Just come back from a long weekend in Pembrokeshire. I'd put a few votes in for St David's/Whitesands.
• Phil
  Europie (pronounced YORRuhpee) beach on the Isle of Lewis gets a big vote from me - in fact, pretty much any beach on the Outer Hebrides.
• Rosie - Barmouth/Y Bermo
  (Uncle K) Got sunburnt there as a small boy on holiday in 1947, so I was told but can't actually remember.
• ImNotJohn
  [Phil] I spent a week on Lewis/Harris one June. Glorious white sand beaches with not a soul in sight for miles and a temperature of about 10.
• Dujon - Gecko surprise
  Yesterday, Sunday, my wife and I involved ourselves in a clean up of our garage and workshop. This sudden activity was a result of the local council announcing a 'collection' day, which involves the collection of all and any junk which won't fit into the normal bin - at no charge. It also brings out the scavengers among our population (the first five or six articles we took up to the road were gone within five minutes.)
  That's the background. One of the later jobs was to move a dilapidated old cupboard/drawer combination from the workshop. My wife did the initial moving of the thing - it was surprisingly heavy for its size - from its position against the brick wall against which it stood. Me, being the lazy sod that I am, was 'having a rest' and a restorative dose of wine. She popped up into my quiet place and informed me that behind the cupboard was living a gecko. Naturally I did the reverse pop and ambled down the stairs to have a dekko. She was right but at the same time wrong. There were three leaf-tailed geckos clinging grimly to the brickwork. Supposedly these wee attractive reptiles are common in this neck of the woods but because of their superb camouflage are rarely noticed. The interesting part of this rather long post is that they were of three different colours. One was grey, one was a mid to dark green and the last a very dark chocolate colour. The latter could have been a very dark green; I'm sure that I'm a bit colour blind in the green/brown range when it comes to the darker shades, particularly in poor light.
  I have done a bit of a search on the 'Net but cannot find anything that might indicate that geckos are like chameleons - in the sense of adapting their colouring to the background. Is there a herpetologist in the house?
• nights - Prochain station, Château d'Eau!
  Here's the thing. Mlle nights and I were watching television a few nights ago, when she turned to me and said "You know, it's the oddest thing. When I was in Paris last week, there were a load of British people on the métro."
  
  "Of course there were, dear, there's British people everywhere."
  
  "Yes, but it was at Château d'Eau, they all seemed quite over excited, and there's nothing remotely interesting there. Do you think it had anything to do with that silly game you play with the Tube?"
  
  And so, I'm back. How is everyone?
• Tuj - Those long, lonely nights
  [nights] Good to see you! I am led to wonder: has anyone really gone on a Château d'Eau Pilg? And what do everyone else's significant others think/know of MCing?
• ImNotJohn - Water Castles
  I'll admit to getting off the rame at Château d'Eau and then getting on the next one, just in order to say I'd been there.
  Mrs INJ just seems to go along with MCing with a 'well, it means he doesn't go out drinking or womanising'* resignation. However, when driving in France we do mark the water towers on a 0-4 stars scale.
  *This is almost always true
• Phil
  Another silent week in MC5-land. What-ho, chaps!
• Software - No News = Good news?
  Well, the weather is iffy but at least Murray is grinding on at Wimbledon. Is that worth mentioning?
• Rosie - Oh, I say, what a volleh!
  (Softers) I suppose so but I prefer to watch the ladies. All that grumble and grunt.
• penelope - G + G
  You can get grunt from engines. And I am willing to grumble for a very small fee, without the bother of travelling to Wimbledon. BTW, My mum has gone to watch the tennis today. C'mon Tim! (oblig.)
• penelope
  Where does all the ruddy dust come from? is a depressing and never-ending task to keep shifting it from places where I don't want it to places where I don't care about it.
• flerdle - so soggy
  We had a full sunny day here today. It's almost a shock to the system.
• Rosie
  (pen) Where indeed? The answer, I fear is mostly our own bodies. And the Sahara.
  (flerdle) Didn't know you were over here. :-)
• Chalky
  *announces cake break*
  Gelukkige Verjaardag Penelopij!
• Simons Mith - HBTY HBTY HBDP HBTY
  Today is also Teddy Bears' Picnic Day. So two reasons to celebrate!
• penelope - wringing out the teddy bears
  [All] Cheers. I've got a massive craving for cake this week... huge wodges of it (and seconds), mostly chocolate, but the occasional coffee and walnut. I made scones last night (on my birthday) as it was all I had time for (and there was new jam), but I think the baking of a full-blown coffee and walnut cake is called for this weekend. Not sure if I have any cake tins anymore - I remember one lot went rusty and had to be binned, and I can't remember if I bought any more.
• Boolbar - late as usual
  [pen] Happy Yesterday!
• Software - proost!
  Een beetje laat.
• Phil
  The cake is a lie.
• penelope - real cake
  It's reality here, Phil. This wet weekend has been officially declared the penelope cake festival extension. I've found my cake tins (thankfully not yet rusty) and will be turning the mixer all the way up to 11.
• penelope
  *originally typed 'cake tines' and wondered if there was a Freudian reason behind my thoughts of the large amount of cake that you'd need a tractor to shift.*
• penelope - alter-ego
  I've just been spooked to see someone using my real name to play a move in the limericks game - and had to check the time stamp to make sure it wasn't me. (It wasn't, unless I was sleep-surfing last night)
• ImNotJohn - Are you sure?
  [Pen] When I saw the name on the front screen I assumed it was you in a (very) late night unguarded moment.
• Rosie
  (pen) You would never use such clunking scansion. Would you? Not all God's children got rhythm.
• Rosie - me again, given the lack of activity here
  Can I have another go at the sodding O'Limp-dicks, or at least the media coverage thereof? Well, I'm going to any way. The first five pages of the Grauniad, supposedly a thinking person's paper, were devoted to the activities of a load over-muscled herberts and herbertines doing stupid boring things. The entirety of BBC1 output is devoted to this nonsense and the drains have overflowed into BBC2 to the extent that University Challenge, an antidote to this brain-numbing bollocks, seems to have been suspended, to be replaced by the displaced EastEnders, an everyday story of thickos buggering up their lives, and which seems to amuse the dimwits. Will we win any medals, gold, silver, bronze, cast iron, medium manganese steel, cupro-nickel, duralumin, bakelite, neoprene, mahogany? Please Do Not Ask This Question As A Hailstorm Of Profanity Often Gives Offence.
• Phil
  [Rosie] I'm one of the people that's delighted to have something worth watching on TV for a change. I'm also starting to enjoy sports I've not really watched before (basketball, volleyball etc) and am rather proud of the improvements the British contestants (I refuse to use the ghastly "Team GB" tag) have made, men's gymnastics being a prime example. I find most sport lacks any thrill these days, but I always really enjoy the Olympics.
• flerdle
  I'd compete for a bakelite medal. In ambling, perhaps.
• Rosie
  (Phil) But for the media overkill I, like most people I know, would be simply indifferent to the whole thing and just ignore it. But the entire front and subsequent eight pages of the Grauniad, of all papers, plus the Olympic supplement, are devoted to these activities. They are about to receive an abusive email and I imagine it won't be the only one, not by a long chalk. They won't print it, but they'll know what I think.
• Phil
  [Rosie] Ah, I avoid all that kind of annoyance by never buying a newspaper. The radio, the internet, and my lovely internet friends keep me pretty well informed. The last of those providing the most balanced view, especially when averaged out (my Facebook friends range from Radical Stalinist to White Van Man).
• Phil - The above is untrue
  I apologise for my over-generalisation. I do buy local newspapers when I'm on holiday, especially in France.
• Rosie
  (Phil) I don't get a newspaper for news but more for views and opinions and to get ideas from. News, I find, is best from Radio 4. I might just about persuade myself to switch on the telly if there are things like floods or other mayhem.
• Uncle Korky
  Anyone else feel that the Film Club game may have run its course?
• Raak
  [UK] Fine with me to kill it.
• Rosie - Film Club
  And me, for what it's worth, being no good at it.
• ImNotJohn - Wow!
  I've been enjoying the Olympics hugely (helped by the fact that I'm between assignments and so have more time). So I would like to record that I feel privileged to have watched arguably the greatest race in the history of athletics. The mens 800m had not only a world record, but also every athlete in the race recorded the fastest ever time for someone finishing in that position in a race. Quite astonishing. Move over Mr Bolt.
• ImNotJohn - And also
  In addition, every athlete recorded either a world record, a national record or a personal best.
• Uncle Korky - Film Club
  As much as I love Film Club, it has tailed off, and I think we've used virtually every available category over the past few years.
  
  Could we perhaps replace it with a variant...? How about a round of Benefit Gigs, where we select an appropriate topic, and have to suggest the bands / artistes on the line-up?
• Uncle Korky - ...tumbleweed...
  Well, this has obviously been another of my infamous conversation-killers! Alternatively, I don't recall seeing a game anywhere where players could showcase whole limericks - any interest in that?
• Rosie
  (UK) Not a bad idea. Any subject. Discreet filth allowed. Off you go!
• Uncle Korky
  [Rosie] Thanks! At least one supported for Limerick Showcase - anyone care to kill Film Club? (Any last objections, speak now!)
• nights
  I say kill the film club. But then I don't think I have voting rights any more, as I do tend to forget to pop by.
  
  This time due to moving house - the last flat leaked, from the roof and the bathroom wall. I am fairly handy, as blokes go, but that was beyond my capabilities.
  
  In other news, how's the weather? Strasbourg is melting. Literally melting. Every summer this happens, we get a huge heatwave and everyone panics. IBut I can't hear them from inside this fridge.
• Rosie - Alsatian quasi-megathermality
  (nights) Strasbourg therefore consists of what we chemists call a "low-melting solid". May I be a little less than gobsmacked by your 32°C with low-moderate humidity given that it's been nearly 30°C here in the grounds of Plas Huws?
• nights
  [Rosie] Oh very well. It just seems hotter because of people's reaction to news of the heatwave. I got text messages saying "Best of luck!" Luck with what? I don't understand.
• Rosie
  Another sweaty one here today with some rather feeble apologetic thunder. I see Strasbourg is even hotter and more humid than yesterday. Er, bonne chance.
• nights
  Lived up to expectations, certainly. But fortunately my client had the air con on. The good news is, it's finally raining! Hooray!
• penelope - luckily we have our feet in the water here in NL
  It was 34.5C on Saturday afternoon here in Zuid Holland; only 32C on Sunday afternoon, and a positively chilly 27C yesterday. No significant rain yet, dammit. We swam in the river on Sunday morning - it was the nicest open-water swim I've ever had.
• flerdle - boing
  The first tentative whiffs of spring here today, and a very pleasant change it has been. After 7-10 years of drought, this has been a return to the olden-days of very wet winters. Do not like those. But today was lovely, at least the bits that I ventured outside in.

  Mind you it will probably be washed away in more downpours next week, if the gales don't do the job first. *glum*

• Dujon - Differences
  [flerdle] Perhaps at your place it's been a normal wet winter. My own castle has found a normal dry winter, although June and July were reasonably damp (75 & 15 mm respectively). So far August has produced not a drip nor a drop of precipitation - our last rain was on 24 July (1.8mm.) Even with the winds we have had the late wattles are flowering nicely making wonderful yellow splotches along the street scape. Spring is just around the corner . . . hurrah!
• nights
  So what was the last good meal you had at a restaurant?
• penelope - I'll have the...
  A couple of weeks ago, on a very hot Friday evening when the back of the house (and therefore the kitchen) was too hot to be able to do any cooking, the windy miller and I went out to our favourite local restaurant, the Drie Linden. I had a bloody lovely chunk of grilled cod fillet in a mustard sauce. We sat outside on the back terrace, looking north over the fields of our island, Hoeksche Waard. There were half a dozen hares jumping around in the adjacent field, a kids' end-of-summer camp bonfire in the middle distance, and the flaming stacks and chimneys of the Shell Pernis Refinery at Europoort in the far distance. We're going there again tonight, because it's our first wedding anniversary today :oD
• penelope - This evening, I will be mostly eating...
  Last night I had the trout. It was even better than the cod, although I wish the chef had seasoned and buttered the inside of the fish - the part I was going to eat - rather than the skin, which is the part that I didn't eat.
  A reasonable creme brulee afterwards - but unremarkable. And a good cup of coffee. The windy miller and I are going to look at a house for sale three doors away from this restaurant. If we buy it, we won't be able to afford to go and eat there any more.
• nights
  Happy anniversary then, penelope!
• Tuj
  [pen] Seconding what nights said, in memory of the passing of the old dating updates posted to the Morniverse =)
• penelope - Ta v much
  I've only just beginning to realise what I have missed out on during my singleton's life. We're going to a 45th anniversary party of some friends on Sunday - if the windy miller and I get to that anniverary, we'll be in our mid-90s.
• Software - Couples
  [pen] You are forgetting that there is always the spectre of divorce. That can make a big dent in your finances, wreck your social circle, raid your pension and alienate some or all of your children and it may not be your fault. It is always nice to see couples that have made it, though.
• penelope - spectres?
  I don't believe in ghosts. Besides, our social circles are in two different countries, our finances are divisible, our pensions are separate, we don't have kids. And we don't intend to.
• Software - Choices
  [pen] you have it covered, then. Nevertheless, separate finance and pensions are not immune from vindictive ex-wives (or husbands for that matter) when it gets to court.
• Phil - T'weather
  Bit chillier here today. Supposed to get warmer for the weekend, so that's OK
• penelope - whither t'weather?
  I saw that England had got noticeably cooler over the past couple of days. Temperatures are still holding up on this side of the Narrow Sea. 13C this morning, blustery, showers expected. Must.... buy... thermals....
• Phil - Plans for t'weekend?
  Daughter has first practice with new church choir tonight. Royal Berkshire County Show tomorrow :-)
• flerdle - between friday and monday, showers predicted, predictably.
  I will scorekeep at a roller derby bout. The rest of the time I will be ill. *koff, gasp*

  I am so sick of the rain here. Just go away.

• penelope - Friday to Monday
  I will sleep, do laundry, and cook a free-range French chicken that is taking up too much space in the freezer.
• jim - weekend
  I will head down the allotment and see if I can dig over and compost another vegetable bed or two ready for the winter planting. And, weather permitting, cut the grass.
• penelope - that reminds me
  I might try planting some late purple sprouting broccoli. I've been told I may get a small crop in March if I do it now - and they won't be prone to the caterpillars that ate the whole bloody lot that I planted in June.
• flerdle - work tomorrow :(
  I am very glad it was a drier weekend than I thought it would be. I managed to plant out some of the seedlings, now that it is warmer and the sun is actually getting to the vege patch (small back yard, high fences). The challenge will be keeping the slugs and snails at bay, I think, and stopping the blackbirds from ploughing up the entire bed.
• gil - Yorkshiremen
  You're lucky. Last May, we scarified the lawn, hollow-tined it, fertilised it and overseeded it. Then we went for a three week holiday, expecting to find the grass knee deep when we got back. It didn't rain. We returned to find bare earth and a bevy of portly pigeons.
• Phil - There's Something About West Berkshire
  Is anyone else in England feeling like they're heading back towards drought? I think it's only rained twice in the last 3 weeks, since I fed my lawn. I'll probably get the sprinkler out tomorrow, it's getting so bad.
• Rosie - There's also something about north-east Surrey
  (Phil) Only 4.7 mm rain this month (average 66). Good - don't have to cut the grass so often. I do nothing to encourage the growth of anything in my garden whatsoever. The only things I apply are shears, secateurs and ripsaws, having a hedge and a number of bushes. The idea of watering the grass is to me as absurd as leaving stuff out for the dear foxes. 2003 was a good summer, hot and dry and everything went straw-like with great cracks in the "lawn". Boo to gardening! My garden is actually quite tidy, believe it or not.
• Rosie - Labouring the point
  No danger of drought after the wettest summer for ages. There was a "hosepipe" ban here until the middle of April. What is a hosepipe? Some people got ever so upset but what do they expect if they leave water out to dry on the grass.
• Phil
  [Rosie] I'm not so keen on the rest of the gardening malarkey, but I do like my stripy lawn, cut with a 50 year old mower.
• Giertrud - Mom's memorial service
  Went out and did stuff with friends today after mom's memorial service...she had died on the 15th...
• penelope
  [Giertrud] I'm very sorry to hear about your mom. Keep doing the stuff with friends. And keep coming here.
• Giertrud
  ty penelope
• Rosie
  (Giertrude) As pen says, keep and value your friends but on the other hand don't pretend nothing has changed. You may find yourself more at home with one or two new people. My mother was widowed for 27 years and had to find a few new activities and friends which she did successfully. We can all do it and I wish you all strength.
• Kim - to Giertrud
  Sincere condolences on the loss of your mother. It is surprising how much we do either for, or because of, or by reference to our mothers and the loss of that key reference point throws our lives off balance for a while. You will recover that equilibrium over time. Until then, focus on what is necessary for you and for those you love, take comfort from the familiar (Glow-worms!) and try not to dwell on the loss.
• Phil
  10 days with no conversation! Time to break the ice.
• Software
  Is it that cold where you are, Phil?
• Raak - I feel like a sonnet
  We haven't had a general poetry game for a while. At the moment there's just Wretchedly Difficult Poetry and Slightly Less Wretchedly Difficult Poetry, both at Orange, taking about a year per poem. Shall I compare us to a plate of eels?
• Phil
  [Software] It was, until this evening when we got our central heating fixed - oh frabjous day!
• penelope - fish's off, dear
  [Raak] Better that than a surfeit of lampreys.
• Kim - You look like a sonnet
  [Raak] Aren't Glo-worms and Limericks enough for you?
• Raak
  [Kim] Ok, but apart from the glow-worms and limericks...and haiku...
• jim
  We could come up with a poetry form that combines all three ... the glimmeraiku ...
• penelope - haikimerworm
  [Jim] Now you're being ridiculous.
• flerdle - can't keep me away
  [Cross-post] There is a somewhat late notice proposal for pilg-type goodness up at Orange, do drop in and say hello.
• Giertrud - I have combined the glow-worm and haiku
  The last three lines of this verse
  Form a nice haiku
  By using five-seven-five
  As they always do
  
  Also, it's instructional... :]

  ---

• Rosie - Season of . . .
  Fog, actually. A rather warm and very wet one for the last 24 hours or so. Not terribly thick; I can see about 250 yd. It's low cloud, because places like Heathrow and Gatwick have only got a bit of mist. The air above the fog is even warmer and if it were to clear the temperature would shoot up to over 20°C in no time. It may happen tomorrow.
• Rosie - Fog
  It didn't. It was just more fog, not terribly thick but we've now had 52 hours of it and everything is dripping. Previously invisible cobwebs are everywhere. Down at the pub, being 400 ft lower, they wonder what I'm on about. They always wonder what I'm on about.
• Boolbar - Webs
  I've noticed all the cobwebs as well. Usually I notice them when they wrap around my face and a spider clings to my nose. Now I can duck. Speaking of spiders, they have released these nearby.
• Dujon - Clouds of spiders
  [Rosie] Still got your head in the clouds? At your age? Really! ;)
  [Boolbar] That's a lovely photograph of surface tension at work. I wonder what the author of the article meant by "8cm long". Usually I describe spider size by the distance across the legs with a further comment about the paps to tip of the abdomen dimension if appropriate. Have you come across one yet?
• Rosie
  Apparently there are about 10¹⁴ spiders on the earth which is about 20,000 for each and every one of us. That's quite a few decent meals. Well, meals.
• Boolbar
  [Dujon] Other sources suggest it is 8cm leg span. I haven't measured but I'm sure we get the odd house spider around that size.
  [Rosie] 10¹⁴. Now that's what I call a world wide web!
• Phil
  [Boolbar] *groan*
• Rosie - Microthermality
  Saturday was the coldest October day in 30 years' recording in the grounds of Plas Rhosi. Max temperature 6.0°C with a nice fresh northerly wind and showers. Delightful. Tonight the wind has died down and there's a brilliant night sky and frost. The grass, over the squelchy mud underneath, has that "crisper whisper" as you walk on it. Screen temperature -1.3°C.
• Raak - Spring forward, fall back
  How virtuous I felt this morning, getting up by BST, while gentlemen in England still abed took putting back the clocks as an excuse to stay in bed an hour longer, instead of an opportunity to fill an extra unforgiving hour with sixty minutes worth of noodling on the Internet.
• Phil
  [Rosie] It was certainly parky up on the Ridgeway at 8am. Car's thermometer said zero, but the wind in our faces certainly made it feel much colder. The visibility reminded me of Switzerland though - could see all the way to the horizon :-)
• penelope - Ridgeway? That's something the cloggies can only dream of
  Here, even the motorway run-up to a big bridge slows 'em down. Dutch drivers have no idea what to do in order to climb a hill without causing a traffic jam.
• Rosie
  (pen) Are there any words in Dutch for a hill, mountain, slope etc? Probably about one-tenth of the number in Welsh.
• Phil - Hilly
  I parked nose-in on my little parking pull-in last night, which is on something like a 12% slope, leaving the front of the car rather higher than the rear. I had to free-wheel back out and get on the level before the engine would start. Not doing that again with a low petrol tank.
• penelope - it's all the same to them
  [Rosie] Heuvel for hill, helling for slope, and berg for mountain. No mention of bluffs, cliffs, butte, downs. (Although duine for dune). My knowledge of Dutch is not encyclopaedic, but they very rarely get mentioned. Here, the kids go toboganning down the edges of the dijks (they don't all end in water - some have fields/houses/roads on both sides); maximum run = about 15 metres max.
• Rosie
  (pen) Houses on both sides? I thought the purpose of a dyke/dijk was to hold back water in emergency so isn't that a bit like building houses on the beach? Have I got his right? As to hilly words, I imagine Afrikaans must have a few because South Africa is pretty steep at the edges.
  (Phil) Must have been very low. But how did you get up there in the first place?
• Phil
  [Rosie] It's just a little pull-in, about 50% longer than my car, but is rather a steep slope up to the garage (which I don't use...for the car). I think that's only about the 5th time I've gone in nose first in the 5 months I've been parking there. It might have been coincidence that the engine wouldn't fire until I was on the level, as the tank still has enough about 3 gallons in (approx)
• Phil - Anyone in London on saturday?
  *Cross-post alert*
  Just a nudge that there is a get-together this Saturday afternoon in London. Details on the Pilgrim page at Orange
• penelope - sacrificial houses
  [Rosie] There's a concept of sacrificial land - the water is going to come up 'so far' but no further. I think the same is thought of some of the houses. Besides, the flood would only reach the bottom half of your house where the washing machine, bikes and canoes are kept. The living room and kitchen are usually at the same level as the road running along the top of the dyke.
• Rosie - The Cruel Sea
  (pen) Ah! The Dutch must be a stoic lot. I'm happy on my hill but ironically a few million years ago it was a beach, which accounts for the deposits of rounded pebbles a couple of miles away, the so-called Blackheath Beds.
• penelope - back at my desk
  There's thick and dull fog obscuring the whole of Rotterdam from my 6th floor office window this morning. Yet as I drove off the ferry which arrived in Rotterdam from Blighty this morning, I was almost blinded by the sun shining into the off-ramp. Oh well. Never mind. The eggs, sausage and bacon on board this morning was very nice.
• Boolbar - coincidental food
  No fog here, but I do have egg, sausage and bacon on some bread, which I find tastier than a board.
• penelope - Calling a plate a plate by any other name would taste as tasty
  Funnily enough, 'plate' in Dutch is 'bord'.
• penelope - egging on
  Oh come on everyone... don't make the whole front page look like it's 'me, me, me'. Say something!
• Phil
  something (oblig.)
• Boolbar
  semi thong (anag.)
• Rosie
  sunnink, quelquechose, rhywbeth. sorry no Dutch.
• penelope - Summink in Dutch
  iets
• Phil
  qqch in french textspeak.
• Raak
  I made a collection of Christmassy snowglobes over the last week of evenings. But they're virtual ones in an online world, so probably none of you can see them.
• penelope - No snow
  [Raak] I don't believe you.
• Raak
  
  Snow falls endlessly
  On the night before Christmas
  In the toy village.
• Raak
  
  In the snowy fort
  No soldiers patrol the walls
  Are they all on leave?
• Raak
  
  Snow on online pines
  If no-one logs in to see
  Did the snowflake fall?
• penelope - Haikusnowsterisers
  [Raak] They are lovely. Did you get much appreciation for them - virtual or otherwise - in your online world?
• Raak
  [pen] They went down quite well when I presented them at a Show & Tell event last Sunday. There's a couple of these every week in SL, where builders show off the new things they've built.
• Raak
  
  Presents! All for me?
  Take as many as you like
  They're copiable.
• penelope - stunned into silence
  I had no idea that sort of stuff went on. Anyway... Any other news from anyone? Or do I have to tell you about my weekend again?
• flerdle - nothing in particular
  This year I will not be making plum jam - thank goodness. Moving to a new (old) house has meant there are no fruit trees, other than the ubiquitous lemon, but the vege plot is much better here, even if it is tiny, about 1.5m x 2m. The soil probably has some deficiencies, but without time to check, I simply dug it over, planted a bunch of things and hoped for the best. During winter it gets almost no sun, but the late spring and summer are very good, at least so far. Anyway, I am growing a strawberry (one tiny plant), zucchinis, black cherry tomatoes, three types of beans, chives, spring onions, basil, and capsicum, which is the smallest at the moment, but still looks hopeful. Because it got hot quickly the pak choy and kailaan broccoli didn't survive (they bolted and were eaten by bugs), sadly, but everything else is going completely bonkers. The basil doubled in size overnight and leaving a zucchini overnight before picking meant it was suddenly half a kilo.
• flerdle
  oh, I forgot the stuff that was growing there beforehand. There is a lavender bush which sort of hangs over the side of the garden, and a geranium which I'd prefer to pull out since it tends to overshadow the chives and things down one end, but it adds pretty colour in winter so I'm just keeping it trimmed for the time being. And there is mint around some edges and behind the lemon tree, and parsley growing wild in a patch to one side. Oh, and the silverbeet, of course, which came up by itself. That should probably be classified as a weed, but it makes very good "spinach" and cheese pie. Next season I will probably remove that particular plant and replace it with some coloured varieties.
• penelope - plub jab
  [flerdle] another new garden? Gosh. How splendid - ours is as barren as barren can be right now. We're just heading into the really cold season, with frost every night and snowy mornings every now and again. And I'm thinking about what can be easily uprooted and moved as we're seriously house-hunting in January. The only thing I'm bothered about are my roses, my hazel (grown from a nut found in a French hedgerow while picnicking in Normandy), my raspberries...
• Dujon - Plants that get away.
  Flerdle, watch that mint! Some varieties (don't ask me which) can escape the confines of an in-ground plot and run rampant around the whole garden. Experience informs me that, should that happen, it's one heck of a task to get rid of it from the areas in which it is not welcome; a bit like some bamboo and cannas.
• Boolbar - Fight!
  What Dujon said. I am still waiting to see who will win out of the rampaging mint and the roving bamboo.
• flerdle - plotting in the plot
  [Dujon] Oh, I'm definitely aware of the potential invasiveness of mint! It was all overr the place here, but now that it has been removed from the vege plot and banished to the bits we don't care about -- behind the lemon tree, over in the corner, and next to some of the border rocks-- it is actually looking a lot happier and healthier, and it's not regrown in the bits we do care about (unlike the grass, which is much more tenacious). frogstar likes to use mint for tea. I think the stuff is vile.

  Bamboo, Annerley(Brisbane), circa 1995. The horror.

• Dujon - Containing the menace.
  Oh, I like mint, flerdle, although I can't remember ever having mint tea. In the days prior to the realisation that it had designs for the taking over of Maison Dujon - well, its garden - I used to occasionally pluck a leaf and roll it between my hands. Lovely. No more though as there is no mint in the 'new' place. Should we decide to again grow some it will be confined to some sort of box arrangement with no opportunity to hit the ground running.
• Giertrud - Am late for you, but not here.
  Merry Christmas!
• Simons Mith
  Happy Humbug!
• CdM
  [Giertrud] It wasn't late for me. Where is home for you? I have this vague sense it is in the South...
• rab - Festive perineum
  Hello. Apols for radio silence. With the little 'un I don't get much time for frivolities, or MC, these days. Had a good Christmas and am now stuck in Southampton airport toilet. Best wishes for the new year.
• penelope - Calories: 500,000. Windmills: 1
  Happy belated Christmas all. One English windmill visited today. Drank tea out of bone china and ate cake. Came away with three kinds of flour, a whole cheese and a jar of jam. We are rich indeed.
• Uncle Korky
  Happy new year everyone.
• penelope - HNY
  Happy New Year all.
• Rosie
  (UK, pen) Could be, when it finally gets going.
• penelope - up and at 'em
  [Rosie] this is the first work morning of the year. I was up before 7, it's still ruddy dark, and after two and a half weeks off, it is taking a bit of effort! Any road, the year is underway. HNY.
• rab - Hangover holiday
  North of the border we get today as a holiday too as a means to recover from Hogmanay. Personally I'm glad New Year's Day is over - I always have a really heavy-duty Sunday afternoon back-to-school feeling on 1st jan.
• Phil
  I'm back at work today. Not quite sure what to do.
• Boolbar - Ditto
  What am I doing here?
• penelope - Mind the 150-year gap!
  [Cross-posted] Next week, 9th January is a rather important date. Any plans?
• penelope - one more time
  Blow. That should have included a link. Sorry this is in its raw form: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/projectsandschemes/25979. aspx
• penelope
  I have just tried describing MC and the Morniverse to my new Dutch/American colleague. She needed to rush out to make tea before I had finished..
• Rosie - Our awful little secret
  (pen) I even have trouble explaining it to blokes down the pub, some of whom are highly hedjumacated. I'd say you were very brave.
• flerdle - melting
  38°C at 9pm here. Toasty.
• flerdle - first proper hot day, 41.1C at 6:17pm
  ... and 34.5 at 12:15am. It is dry heat, as usual, so not particularly uncomfortable with a fan. And I have an ice pack on my foot after tripping over the base of some mobile street/shop signage this afternoon too. Ow.
• Dujon - The heat of battle
  [flerdle] You have my sympathy. Overnight temperatures like that are terribly enervating. Even here we are facing a few days of 'orrible 'eat. Fortunately we have an air conditioner installed; damn the cost of running it, I'll face that consequence later. As I type it's day time and just turning to 32ºC. Given the forecast I fear for my sanity and worry significantly about arsonists.
• Rosie - Sweat, y'buggas
  (Dujon) What you need is this. Somewhat easier are the conditions at Hughes Hall; thin fog (just below cloud base), 6.5°C. Not bad for January. It's never failed to go below 20°C at night here. I noticed Melbourne had a quite dramatic change yesterday but there seems no immediate relief in your area.
• Dujon - If only I could fly
  [Rosie] Fortunately I live to the east of the Great Dividing Range. Even so it's often seven or eight degrees warmer here than it is in Sydney itself (taking the BoM site at the airport as a reference). Yesterday produced some high readings in the west but, as flerdle mentioned, it is more often than not a 'dry' heat in those areas.
  I have not listened to the news this morning but yesterday Tasmania and Victoria were suffering terribly from bushfires. Given my location I am, so far, happy that apart from re-packing our photographs and important papers into a suitcase for easy evacuation there has been no immediate threat.
  [flerdle] Where are you, you world flitting butterfly?
• flerdle
  [Dujon] Back in Melbourne. The cool change that Rosie mentioned came through here noticeably at about 2-2:30am Saturday, and yesterday was lovely. Today is pleasant too. Tomorrow should be up to 38, then down again to the low 20s. Then up again... This is very normal here, but it plays havoc with my sinuses.
• Dujon
  I surmised such was the case, flerdle, but knowing you you could have been just about anywhere it was hot. Fortunately we've been spared extreme temperatures here (I saw that somewhere in the state managed 46ºC the other day. Phew!). Our friendly BoM though is promising 43º tomorrow (Tuesday). We'll see.
• CdM - Winds from the desert and the Antarctic
  [Rosie] Dramatic changes are quite common in Melbourne. In mid-December I was out at 5pm and the temperature was about 34, iirc. As I walked home I noticed a distinctly chilly wind; by 5:45 the temperature was 22. (flerdle may remember the temperatures more accurately than I do!)
• penelope - an hour pleasantly spent
  I spent longer than I had intended reading the Pea and Honey Recipes game last night - right from the beginning. From it, I can trace (in my case) two job moves and two house moves, a new relationship and a marriage. And it's bloody good quality. Some of it is even excellent. *rejoins game with renewed vigour*
• Rosie - Hot
  (Duj, flerdle, CdM) The heatwave is noteworthy enough to have a summary here. It's not a heatwave, of course; it's a heatwave event.
• Dujon - Preparing for the next 'event'
  Ah, the dear old BoM. I am not denigrating the organisation, in fact if I could give it some sort of collective hug for the information it supplies so freely I would. Whilst the data included in your link are interesting I found the text a little 'non-BoM' style. By the way, Chez Dujon recorded a pretty normal summer temperature of but 37.9ºC yesterday, although some of the more coastal (offical) sites reported around and about the 43º forecast.
• Dujon - Offical is not a new word.
  *sighs and blames the heat*
• Rosie - One's extremities
  (Duj) I think OZBOM is pretty good, one of the best national services.
  37.9°C normal? Hmm, I'd guess your mean max in January is just below 30°C. I shall retaliate with a -9.2°C max on 12 Jan 1987. Sunny all day; it was weird.
• Dujon
  Your 30ºC is probably a pretty good estimate. The 37.9ºC I experienced yesterday is, nevertheless, not some sort of extraordinary event - after all it's only just over the old 'ton', a not unexpected event here. Your minus readings you can, like many in North America, Siberia and such high latitude places, keep to yourself.
  [To the rest of you] Sorry about the weather stuff.
• Rosie - Look away NOW
  (Dujon) Your 37.9 is about the same as me getting 30; it happens about once a year. The UK record is 38.1 (10 Aug 2003) and the RosieRecord a paltry 35.9, same day.
  The minus 9.2 was what statisticians may well call a "different population". I've had a number between -5 and -6 but this was lower than I'd thought I'd ever see here.
  You wouldn't like this place.
• Dujon - Boy scouts
  No more than I'd take a holiday here, Rosie. ;)
  Anyway, some time this afternoon or, more probably tomorrow's morn, I shall have to climb yet again on to my roof and clear off all the leaf litter and branches that have been deposited there since the last time I undertook the task. It seems that we are due for another blast of hot and dry air in a couple or three days so to fail to do so could well be construed by some to be a form of criminal negligence.
• Rosie
  (Duj) You won't be having a bonfire, then. I shouldn't.
  Vostok leaves me speechless even as a weather nut. But Jakutsk is a sizeable city and quite a nice one. The current fog has lasted about 10 days, the temperature falling slowly all the time. The city causes the fog.
• Simons Mith - New Year New Games
  Can we resolve to kill games off with greater assiduity this year? I think higher turnover would be a good thing.
• penelope
  Indeed. * rushes off with a gleeful glint in her eye.*
• Boolbar - Sun rises. Sun sets.
  Tuesday already? How did that happen.
• Rosie - Bloody freezing
  Fog all day at Plas Huws and a max temp of -1°C. An odd phenomenon and the reverse of what is usually seen is that the hoar frost (possibly rime) deposit is confined to the tops of hedges and bushes and there's none on the grass or on my car. I put this down to heat from the ground. Nothing else would seem to explain it.
  (Jakutsk update) They still have fog, as they have had since before the New Year. The temperature is about -46°C and goes up and down a degree or two independently of time of day but more in response (probably) to the presence or absence of high cloud, which you can't see anyway ("sky obscured"). The sun does its best but at this time of year 4 degrees from the Arctic Circle it may as well not bother. No wind to speak of; they're probably breathing the same shitty air they were at Christmas.
• Phil
  Out in the sticks here in Berkshire, I don't think we got above -2C, and didn't witness any of the sunny spells suggested by the BBC's local weather site; just a mid-grey blanket of cloud all day.
• penelope
  -9C driving through patches of fog just before sunrise this morning, brilliant sunshine all day but below freezing because the consistency of snow on the ground is unchanged (although I was indoors all day) and now -8.5C through patchy fog all the way home. A clear view of the newish moon above. Lekker weer. (and a reasonably enjoyable Dutch lesson this evening - bonus!)
• penelope
  That's Rotterdam and the countryside to the south of the city, for dem dat don't know.
• CdM - Weather report
  40.7 at 17:30
• CdM - In pounds, shilling, and pence
  that's over 105
• Boolbar - The trees have seen a ghost
  -12C this morn, and my car tried to overheat when stuck in a queue.
• Rosie
  (Boolbar) They all do. I'm no fan of radiators.
• Phil
  Striking off at a tangent. My daughter would like to know why household radiators are so called, when they should really be "convectors" ?
• ImNotJohn - The Loughborough mega-event
  Mrs INJ was woken up by our local earthquake (a whole 2.9 on the Richter scale). I slept through it.
• Simons Mith - Earthquake
  My god, the weight of snow blanketing the country must now be so thick it's beginning to distort the Earth's very crust!
• ImNotJohn
  Appreciably less effort has gone into clearing roads of snow in the midlands compared to previous years. I blame the bankers.
• Phil
  Three things I am grateful for, in the snowy conditions.

  1. I only live 5 miles from work, along gritted roads
  2. West Berks council are well-funded and efficient
  3. 5 or 6 young men that were pushing every car out of the village I work in on Friday morning, when the MD decreed we could go home. They were cheerfully jogging down the hill, pushing a car up it until they got some grip near the top, waving them on their way, and jogging back down again. I'd buy them a pint if I knew who they were.
• Rosie
  (Phil) Not having to go to work is also very useful. But band rehearsal was cancelled tonite which I thought was feeble.
  Jakutsk update - the fog has just cleared for the first time this year and they have a balmy -32° with light snow.
• Phil
  [Rosie] I did continue to work from home for most of the rest of the day. In theory I could probably work from home every day, and pop in for the odd meeting - maybe once a week for an hour.
• flerdle - harvest
  Just made zucchini chutney. Yum.
• Phil
  [flerdle] And now you've made me crave Brie - yum!
• CdM - Weather news
  Interesting weather day today, with no warming forecast in the daylight hours. The 7am temperature was 27, and the hourly forecasts indicate a monotonically declining temperature until 5am tomorrow, when the temperature is forecast to be 13. I haven't checked over night data, but I suspect there has also been a monotonic decline for the last 12 hours or so, from yesterday's high of around 39. If I'm right and the forecast is right, that suggests we will have eventually have seen declining temperatures for about 36 hours straight.
• Rosie - Down and down
  (CdM) Er, where are you? I presume Melbourne or thereabouts. That must be very unusual given that it's summer and the sun tends to come out and ruin the "monotony". In the winter, at least here, the temperature can be very steady, day and night, if it's cloudy. In February 1985 there was a very nearly monotonic decline for 90 hours from 9.8 to -5.7 with just a couple of short spells when it went up 0.1 to 0.2 deg. The wind was ENE throughout and there was cloud, then rain, then sleet then snow.
• penelope - Helo clouds helo sky
  Lots of wonderful weather rushing into Zuid Holland from the North Sea today - hail and snow showers with sun. I have no idea how cold it is out there - have barely moved 30m from my desk all day.
• Software - Horseburgers
  Thankfully I avoid processed food as far as is possible. I have eaten horse in the past while in France. Tastes much like beef to me. Still, it is fraud if not anything else, passing off food as beef. Bound to bugger up brand image, though. C'est la vie.
• Raak - Labelling
  I might have eaten horse in Malta, where they do. At a café, I had a baguette curiously labelled as "meat and salad". But it could just as easily have been beef. So there's the answer: just label things as "meat (produce of more than one species)", and add disclaimers like "prepared in a facility where horsemeat may be processed". Then the meat wholesalers can do their deals with the Romanian mafia above board. Come to think of it, Indian restaurants in the UK often list their curry options as chicken, prawns, or meat. I'd always assumed it was because there's something of a taboo against eating cows in India, but perhaps their "meat" doesn't come from cows.
• Phil - Is it lamb?
  This all reminds me of this story about the lack of lamb in lamb curries (and kebabs).
• rab - Service
  Hello. Just a heads-up that this site will go down for an hour or two on the night of the 1st March, as the physical hardware is moving to a new home. Not that anyone will notice, but I just thought I'd mention it.
• Rosie
  (rab) Blimey, there's posh. I didn't understand a word of it. Thanks for your efforts, as ever.
• rab
  I don't understand it either but I get these hilariously breathless emails from time to time about technical incidents, the impact of which is always minimal.
• Dujon
  Don't worry, Rosie, rab, like the Mayans, talks in mysterious ways.
• Rosie - Bright thing in sky
  It's been up to over 15° here and very nice too except that I now have no excuse whatever for not doing a bit of gardening. In parts of Yorkshire and near the east coast it's stayed below 3°. That's spring for you. Of course it were always below -20° when ah were a lad.
• Software - Wether
• Software - Weather or not
  We've had a couple of nice sunny days over here on the rock but now it is starting to cloud over again, I suspect that we shall soon get the forecast rain. It has been dry for 10 days - fantastic, even managed to mow the lawn this morning.
• Phil
  After dropping the daughter off in Reading at 7pm tonight, I appear to have no plans for the weekend - for the first time in absolutely yonks. Of course, the watching of rugby on TV will take place. Anyone doing anything interesting?
• NotJohn
  One more room to paint in the new house, then get the professional in to do hall stairs & landing (not all this weekend!)
  Then it's get the current main dwelling ready to sell. That's my weekends for the next month.
• Rosie - Unseasonableness
  This is the foulest March day I can remember. Snow showers, strong NE'ly wind, temperature a steady -2°C.
  (Softers) I see Jersey Airport is now closed due to snow. You're cut off unless you fancy the ferry with a gale in the Channel. Not too warm either.
• CdM - Your missing degrees? We got 'em
  37 here.
• Software - Isolation
  [Rosie] Yes, a friend is stranded in Portsmouth awaiting the departure of the conventional ferry. The airport is still closed till tomorrow, probably. 0C as I write, still snowing though forecast to stop soon. Hopefully it will warm up in the next 24 hours and normality will resume.
• penelope - Busy? That's not half of it
  Yesterday, I did my first Dutch Reformed Church funeral (my husband's 91-year old aunt - the last of the generation of my parents-in-law. The aunt was the only one of that generation that I ever met). Please make sure that there is wine or whisky at my funeral. A funeral and a burial without cheer is a very sombre and long affair indeed. And for God's sake, don't let that preacher in.
  After that, I managed two hours' of frantic work back at the office.
  Then I did an hour-and-a-half hour written Dutch exam (Niveau 2.1 - pre-intermediate, apparently). I don't expect 100%, but I do expect a pass.
  And then I went to a wedding party, drank two glasses of red wine on an empty stomach and spoke the best Dutch of my life to people that I actually know here now.
  Brilliant.
• Rosie - Hollandaise
  (pen) Niveau 2.1? Are you sure it was Dutch? :-)
• penelope - gestolen worden
  The Dutch stole a lot of words from French. That's one of them.
• Quendalon - Renewed acquaintance
  Hello again to the good people of mc5! I return after an absence of several years, as prolonged underemployment has left me eager for intellectually stimulating entertainments. I hope you are all doing well!
• Dujon - Welcome back, Q.
  Intellectual? Patronising, paternalistic, priggish, puerile, pathetic (and, no doubt, many other words beginning with Tuj's favorite letter) probably - but intellectual it isn't. Even I am tolerated! Perhaps you are the one to raise the bar?       ;)
• Quendalon - Thanks, Dujon!
  How about "pseudo-intellectual"? That should satisfy your terms and Tuj's preferences simultaneously!
• Dujon
  Perfect.
• kagomeshuko - Finally, back . . .
  I had to be away from here for a long time. My Mama passed away in September and I just couldn't handle doing many of the things I used to do. I know that my Mama didn't get many of these things (only a few of the Glowworms and Limericks made her laugh at times). However, it was just difficult. Giertrude is my sister and we lost our Daddy back in 2008.
• Simons Mith
  Glad to see all three of you back. It brightened up my day to see an absent name returning, and three back at once is a treat. Sorry to both about the sad personal news.
• Giertrud - three?
  I had been back briefly before but [ah...accidental alliteration] not recently. And now the third may Quendalon and on...
• NotJohn
  [kagomeshuko/Giertrud] A bit late to be saying sorry to hear that, but still true. The pain of losing your parents never really gets better, but the bad periods become less frequent over time (at least in my experience).
• kagomeshuko
  NotJohn, thanks. Yeah, it has been a difficult time. Missing my Daddy got easier and easier, remembering that he wanted me to have a good life. It was very difficult with my Mama because it turned into me always having to take care of her . . . and the doctors never listening to any of my wants and/or suggestions. It was a terrible experience leading up to her passing and has obviously taken a good deal to get better . . . and there are definitely still issues.
• rab - Sorrysorry
  Apols for outage. Disk filled up. Deleted a big file for now, but I'm going to have to work out where the biggest offender is.
• CdM
  Shutting down a city for a day in order to catch a dangerous fugitive? Maybe that is justified. Shutting down a city for a day in order to fail to catch a dangerous fugitive? I think that is officially a victory for the terrorists.
• CdM
  Of course, I may have spoken too soon. It wouldn't be the first time. :-) But the post above was written just after the official word was "Lock down is over and we think the suspect is still in Massachusetts".
• Rosie
  (CdM) Yes, 1-0 to the bomber. It's a ludicrous and hysterical reaction. I don't remember this country having a collective nervous breakdown when the IRA were killing people with their bombs in the 70's and 80's. This view wouldn't go down too well in Boston, of course, where they are more Irish than the Irish.
• Phil
  [Rosie] I've been having disturbing thoughts along those lines all weekend, and wondering how much Boston collectively donated to Noraid back in the day.
• NotJohn
  [Phil] I've had thoughts along those lines - the proportion of the Northern Irish population killed in Omagh was greater than the proportion of the US population killed at 9/11 so would Britain have been justified in launching missiles at Boston? (Of course in parallel with that thought I would vote for the unification of Ireland under the right conditions.)
• Rosie
  (Phil) Probably quite a lot though to be fair the average donor may not have known what proportion, if any, went to the IRA. But the organisers certainly must have done. Nobody likes to talk about this, do they?
• Simons Mith - Yank reaction
  [Rosie] They were less hysterical this time than after 9/11 though. So progress of a sort.
• Rosie
  (SM) Given the respective number of deaths I'd say rather the opposite and it's all a bit dear-old-lady-has-seen-a-spider. At least we haven't seen an arbitrary country bombed yet.
• Simons Mith
  [Rosie] Apart from America itself, bdum tish!
• Rosie - Tacet tutti
  Weep, John Cage.
• Phil
  Nearly managed a month.
• NotJohn
  For those not following the 8 words game, I saw a hoopoe in my garden in Derbyshire last Sunday. I know enough about birds; a. to recognise it instantly and b. to know it was rare. The hoopoe is a frequent visitor to Southern England but that is the extreme limit of its normal range.
  I reported it to the County Bird Recorder of the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) – he asked me to fill in a ‘rare bird sighting’ form and told me it was the 35th record in Derbyshire and the first for over 2 years.
  So, what constitutes a ‘sighting’? Primarily it needs to be accepted by the rare birds committee who make a decision whether to accept it. The criteria vary depending on the bird and the spotter. In my case, although I’m an RSPB member, they won’t have heard of me and wouldn’t take my word for it. if we were talking about some odd little brown warbler, unless it was confirmed by someone acknowledged as an expert. However a hoopoe is extremely distinctive and I have multiple very good photos, so in this case confirmation should not be required. Similarly a pragmatic view will be taken as to whether a number of sightings some time apart should be taken as being one or more individual birds.
  Historically records are based on photos, then before that on birds trapped or shot or reported by acknowledged experts – it can get a bit vague, but they go back to the 18th century.
• Phil
  Bring back shooting as the only acceptable form of identification. Everything was better in the old days.
• NotJohn
  What's hit's history, what's missed's mystery.
• CdM
  [NJ] Thanks. It was the last question I was most interested in. What, in the idealised bird-spotting world, is a sighting supposed to represent? I think you are saying that, ideally, one sighting should equal a particular individual bird -- so if two different individuals spot the same bird on two different days (assuming you could tell, somehow), then that would count as one sighting, not two. Is that right?
• NotJohn
  Basically, yes. But, of course these records relate to areas; so, if my hoopoe had flown 10 miles East then it might have then also entered the records in Nottinghamshire, even if a series of sightings along its path showed that it was almost certainly the same bird. It's certainly very common for one person to sight a rarity and the next day dozens of twitchers (not birders) will turn up because they want it on their personal tick list. However they wouldn't regard that as a new sighting. It's not clear-cut.
• CdM
  [NJ] That comment took me right back to this classic sequence of Doonesbury.
• Chalky
  [CdM] Enjoyed that.
• Phil
  Ignoring Doonesbury, and focussing on the more cerebral Peanuts, surely Woodstock was originally a (snake-eating - hoorah!) Secretary Bird?
• Raak - Model R-75 raygun
  

  I have just acquired this magnificent objet for a few quid at a flea market. It practically begs to be picked up and fondled, and then pointed at someone. This is a view of the barrel. Any guesses as to what it is? Clue: it is not a toy gun, real gun, or stage prop. A pair of cables running out of the grip attach to a standard 20MW DeLameter powerpack are terminated with alligator clips.

• Rosie - Beth yw hwn?
  Windscreen de-icer, paint scorcher for DIY car paint jobs? Bang bang you're hot.
• Raak
  Maybe this should be in AVMA. [Rosie] Not a stripper of ice, paint, or clothes.
• Dujon
  My guess, sir, would be a common garden variety of timing light (automotive for the use of).
• Stevie
  It is undoubtedly a (View the source to read the hidden text)
• Raak
  [Dujon, Stevie] Exactly so. One cable has two clips that go to the battery, the other has one clip that goes somewhere to pick up the high voltage spark and trigger the xenon flash tube. I'm thinking of pulling the innards out and replacing them with some sort of sound and light generator.
• Stevie
  [Raak] So, you misled everyone by lying (by omission) about the cables! Now I'm in two minds whether to tell you that the third lead goes into the cap for sparkplug number 1. In fact, I think I won't. Nor will I mention the long metal electrode you need to attach to the sparkplug so you can connect the dizzy and the raygun of soon to be chewed-up-in-the-fan fingers.
• KagomeShuko - At least this is a conversation . . .
  Why is it that men these days don't know what a conversation is? Seriously, I just had this exchange on Plenty of Fish:
  
  averageGiJoe
  hi?
  
  KagomeShuko
  hi?
  
  averageGiJoe
  u have nice tittys
  
  KagomeShuko
  That's not a very polite conversation. Do you know the art of conversation at all?
  
  averageGiJoe
  yes gimmie ur num ill txt u
  
  KagomeShuko
  That's not the art of conversation. You don't understand at all.
• CdM
  [K] How do you know it was a man?
  
  All right, all right, never mind. :-)
• penelope - Been there, done that
  [KShuko] hmmm. Sounds horribly familiar. As it turns out, I met my husband in a chatroom - and the first people to come and stay with me when I moved to the Netherlands to live with him were other friends that I also met in that chatroom. There are loons online, same as there are loons in real life.
• Man in Black
  [penelope] Are you telling me that the secret to your heart was not a box of chocolates delivered at great personal risk directly to your boudoir at dead of night, but a coarse posting to a social website appreciating your chest bumps? I wish I'd known that before climbing on that bloody dirt bike (and up the trellis).
• Man in Black
  [KagomeShuko] Here, want these chocolates? I've got a warehouse full of 'em.
• penelope - no message
  [TMIB] The boxes of chocolates - each and every one of them - were a huge treat. But you never stayed to chat. I don't know if you realise this but a seductive gift without the accompanying conversation is also doomed to fail. I may even have been as disappointed as KagomeShuko was with the chest-bump conversationalist.
• nights - I say this every summer, but...
  Hello again all. Nice to see you all! I should like to go on record and state that la famille des nuits (as we are now known) is NEVER EVER MOVING HOUSE AGAIN EVER.
• penelope - oh, go on...
  [Nights] I've moved house (at least 150 miles each time) for the past four job changes; the last time was to the Netherlands (and the real reason was because of moving in with the windy miller). He has never moved house before - ever... we're living in the house where he was born, and we're about to buy a house, probably in the next village. I've been coaching him about it for the past two years, but I still don't know how he'll handle it when we do move. I think I'll just make sure his workshop is set up in the shed and send him in there for an hour or so every day.
• Phil - moving? doddle!
  I only moved 5 miles this time. 12 months ago was 100 miles. 16 months prior to that was 3 miles. 4.5 years prior to that was 7 miles. 2 years prior to that was 6 miles. 6 months prior to that was from Ireland to England, including most stuff going into storage for 3 months - that was the only time we've used a removal company. Each time has been a family of four, plus two dogs. Now I'm half-way through my 5th decade on this orb, I'm starting to see the appeal of e-books.
• Chalky - being a bit chatty for a change
  [pen] All fingers crossed that it works out well for you both.
  [Phil] Have you moved to *that* place .. y'know .. the house close to the rather fine hostelry that I streetviewed when you mentioned it a while back?
  
  In other news - "we are a grandmother". Or more accurately a Nanna. My second born 22 yr-old and her immensely likeable partner have managed to produce a daughter of such exquisiteness that I'm still choking back the tears of joy.
• Phil
  [Chalky] Indeed. It is exquisitely peaceful, but only 5 minutes' drive to work. I have sat on the patio at 9pm waiting for dusk, because the birds disturb the peace. Oh, and the hostelry is indeed magnificent. The only downside is that there is much grass. I'm about half-way through the first cut, as it was about 8" long in places.
• nights
  [Chalky] Congratulations! A new person on the planet is always a wonderful occasion.
• Stevie
  *<smug>* Amateurs. I upped stakes and moved to America.

  *<glum>* All my Anglotat got broken in transit. (View the source to read the hidden text)

• Stevie - Ooh, a new Baby Droolbuckets!
  [Chalky] Weight? Height? Eyelash length? Eye colour? Tsk. Women!
• penelope - Anglotatters
  [Stevie] Yours must have been cheap stuff then - mine didn't! And besides, my big sister had already moved to the USA 25 years ago. I thought I'd try moving somewhere *where I didn't speak the language*. Yah boo...
• Rosie - No spikka da lingo
  (pen) Glasgow? Newcastle? Caernarfon?
• Phil
  [Rosie] If you hadn't added Caernarfon you were going to get e Geordie Handshake ;)
• Stevie
  [penelope] Ask Dunx whether he could speak the language when he moved Stateside.
• nights
  Well, another week has begun with a crash. Literally in our case - someone fell through the ceiling of our office this morning. Guess who's the designated first aider. I am promised the blood will come out of my shirt, or a gift voucher for a new one.
• Dujon
  You are lucky, nights, to have met such a generous burglar.
• nights
  I should have mentioned that the unexpected guest on Monday morning was a contractor... Apologies for the confusion. Apparently he is in hospital but expected to make a full recovery.
• NotJohn
  Well, our move (c100 miles) is complete now as we've just found the obligatory last box of stuff that we thought had got left on the van (in this case it was actually a bag, not a box). Really, it's all gone pretty well considering how much of a downsizing it's been. I fully expect to get a car in the garage before winter sets in.
• penelope - Don't go in there...
  As a child, I never knew that garages were meant for keeping cars in. Ours was full of easels and canvases, magazines, fishing rods, gardening equipment and a piano. Glad to hear the move went well, NJ. The windy miller and I have just made the first preliminary pre-process, water-testing approaches to buying our first house together. Basically we've identified one we like, and said we'd like to try and buy it.
• Phil
  Congrats to all the movers and *fingers crossed* for penelope that the process runs smoothly. Mrs Phil and I have decided that even if we won the lottery, we would not leave the village we've moved to. It is the most welcoming and calming place either of us has ever lived. Every day feels like we're on holiday.
• penelope - Wow
  [Phil] That sounds really lovely. Congrats!
• nights
  I agree with pen - well, when don't I - Phil, that sounds idyllic. The nice part about our neighbourhood is that it's exciting and vibrant. Being the only French speakers in our building is a novelty too - I'm learning to curse in Arabic!
• penelope - jeez, this is boring
  Please, someone, kick me up the arse and tell me to get on with editing this piss-boring brochure, taking out all the management b*ll*cks and ambitious flim-flam couched in management-speak. Page 11 of 17 and it is d-r-a-g-g-i-n-g...
• nights
  Oh, get on with it Pen! Well, it's Friday evening, so I hope you got in with it.
• penelope
  I did, thanks. Left at 6.15...
• KagomeShuko - Is there ever a correct answer?
  What do you do when you like a guy friend? Tell him or don't? Every bit of advice on the Internet seems to be from women. I've heard that guys like the direct approach. (View the source to read the hidden text)
• penelope
  [K] You risk it and ask him out. What's the worst that could happen? You'd be no worse off than you are now (less the uncertainty and a lack of someone to mow the grass). Good luck.
• nights
  [K] Agreed. As a guy who was initially asked out by his now wife, it's appreciated, as men tend to be oafs that don't know the difference between a girl who is interested in them and a four course dinner for two in a fancy restaurant.
• KagomeShuko - nervous
  I have to teach him how to make balloon animals. He is so super sweet and awesome. When I asked if we should meet somewhere, his first response was to meet at a church service that I attend! Then, if for some reason, the service didn't happen (like the one week), to go to his church. The whole devotion to Christ, to me, really matters.
• Penelope - The Heaving MAin
  After the shittiest night's sleep for ages, I'm sailing overnight to England tonight and looking forward to being tucked up in my bunk, full of lovely steak and red wine,with my bargain gin and sherry bottles clinking in their bags, by around 8.30pm. But first, team meeting, meeting with the zdean and a bunch of writing up that should have been finished last week. Oops.
• nights
  It's been a day of accomplishment chez Nights. I went to the dentist for a checkup and came out with a quote for a root canal, went to a client meeting without the client (he got his weeks mixed up), found out we didn't get a contract I was the lead for, and spent an hour and a half in traffic on the way home.
  
  And then made my special tomato sauce for dinner, and opened a bottle of wine. And all is well again in the universe.
• Tuj
  Fortunes may dip and rise; unlike this, good perspective can be depended upon. Long may you continue to be thankful for each thing you do have!
  That being said, I hope better news isn't too far away for you =)
• KagomeShuko - No balloon animals
  Sister and I had a pizza party today. It ended up I didn't have to teach him how to make balloon animals. I didn't end up telling him anything, either. We had a good time talking with the people that came, and then they had to leave, and then he, my sister, and I talked. I learned more about him, anyway. Also, I'm pretty terrible at telling if a guy is flirting. I think we might be flirting with each other, though.
• Quendalon
  In my experience, flirting is most effectively perceived while one is at the peak of the bell curve of intoxication. Drink too little and your insecurities will interfere with your ability to gauge whether he's flirting; drink too much and you are, well, too drunk to tell.
• nights
  I second Quendalon's advice. A drink is good to relax you, five is bad because you fall over. If he's flirting with you, great! But you may have to be more direct...
• KagomeShuko - The drinking . . .
  I don't drink alcohol. I'm not trying to be a prude about it. I've just never liked the taste of it.
• Phil - Alcohol
  As a large section of my life has been involved in selling alcohol, I must object. Alcohol itself has no flavour or aroma whatsoever (although I would warn that telling a police officer that when they say they can smell alcohol on you through the car window is not a good idea).
  I would happily rise to the challenge of finding an alcoholic drink to match any person's taste, scent and aroma preferences.
  I would like to add that alcohol is an evil and toxic chemical, and if cannabis had been discovered first, we'd all be sitting around smoking pot in bars, condemning the petty criminals that shoplift to pay back-street dealers to feed their Zinfandel addictions :-)
• KagomeShuko - Alcohol
  You can object all you want. However, any time there has been alcohol in a drink, I've been able to taste it. I had a friend who was that way, too. I'd imagine we're in that group of people known as "super tasters."
• KagomeShuko - Still, the guy. I know . . . talk to him already!
  I didn't think I was going to see him until tonight.

  ---

  I'm sitting at my computer this morning and Woofles (my little dog) starts barking. I don't think much at first because I'm used to people riding bikes in this neighborhood. It didn't take long, though, to see that it was the guy! He said he thought he'd come by and mow the lawn a day earlier than usual. After mowing the lawn, I gave him his sunglasses that I had that he forgot at a local coffee shop the other night, and then he said he had to go. Of course, I sat and watched him mow the lawn - I'd be crazy not to want to watch that! What to think . . . I still don't know. I just kept praying right then, too.

  ---

  I know that the guy I dated in college gave the excuse of having to go on a "beer run" for his step-father-to-be to come see me. He didn't have to come into Lake Charles for that because they well beer out in the little town where he lived.

  ---

  So, the question is "is he busy tomorrow or was he just doing that because he wanted to stop by to see me?" The stuff greatly confuses me.
• KagomeShuko - The talk . . .
  We're just friends. He asked me to go outside and talk with him at the 4th of July party. Sometimes I hate the emotions that come with being a girl because nothing changed between us and yet, it still hurt. It doesn't make sense.

  ---

  I was okay in a few minutes, though. I just needed to cry and then pray.

  ---

  My mind keeps wandering and thinking, "Did he say 'not yet' at some point?" I don't think he did, but I kind of stopped completely listening when he said "friends only." I know what whatever is supposed to happen will happen.

  ---

  He looked snazzy in his tux, though!
  Me, Him in a tux
• penelope
  Is this real?
• Phil
  [penelope] Is anything real?
• KagomeShuko - Reality
  Yes, this is real. He and I went to a Fourth of July celebration - not together - just at the same place. He's my friend :)
• KagomeShuko - states
  Remember, I live in the United States - Louisiana.
• nights
  [pen] Agreed.
• penelope - In temembrance
  Not sure I can remember, because I didn't know in the first place... anyway. In other (non-non-dating) news, *waves from my sister's new garden furniture*
• nights
  Well it's another scorcher here in Europaradise. At least that's what the radio would have me believe. In reality, it's quite lovely, and I'm going to sit in the garden with a beer and a book and a little radio playing FIP, possibly the best radio station in the history of all things.
• Rosie
  (nights) You've only got 28°C according to my source. Same as Birmingham. A paltry 27° here. Comment dit-on "phewhatascorcha" en français?
• Raak
  "Zut alors, quelle scorcher"?
• penelope - Taking it up a notch with Fretch (or perhaps Dunch)
  Dieu verdomme, il fait mooi weer, n'est ce toch?
• Rosie
  (pen) Ace Belgian indeterminacy.
  It's going to be nice and sunny and warm, not too hot, for at least a week. Despite the conditions I'm going to get bored. I want one of these. But, like everything else, it won't be the same second time round.
• Rosie - Computers
  What's happened to my link? "These" should lead you to:
• Rosie - Sod it, then
• cfm - Nice to meet you
  So, I feel a little shy about asking. But if I were to make my way to London toward the end of August (exact date TBD), would any of you care to meet me for a cocktail?
• Phil - Cocktails for Several?
  I think that could be feasible. I believe someone else is visiting London in August too. See this bookmark
• Rosie - Another go
  *shameless self-puffery alert* One of these is what I wanted.
• Simons Mith - Beeeeer milkshakes!^W^WCocktails
  [cfm] Be delighted to.
• Rosie
  (cfm) Lunch for two at the Greasy Spoon, Streatham High Road. Tick. Pints of bitter at the Dyson and Duster, Penge, SE 20. Tick. Brandy and cigars at the embassy. Tick. Just not, please God, cocktails. It would be nice to meet you, BTW. :-)
• Phil - Lettuce after his name
  [Rosie] AFRMS? Nice!
• Rosie
  (Phil) It's nothing - we're the riff-raff. You get interviewed by a couple of Fellows, or you did 30 years ago when I joined. It doesn't imply current professional involvement and peer approval but has its uses such as access to information and a slight pull in getting something published in the meteorological literature. I'd rather have an MBE like my brother or like a friend of a friend who jealously owns a restored pannier-tank engine at Didcot.(No. 3650). The actual metal-bashers refer to him as "My Bloody Engine".

• nights
  I should be seeing family around that time so I might be in for a pilg.
  
  Around here, if you don't speak Elsässich, you say "Nan mais quand même fait un putain de chaleur oh, faut qu'on part à la mer tu sais hein". At least, that is what my colleagues have been saying and who am I to disagree.
• KagomeShuko - Langauges
  I have no idea what " Elsässich" is. I speak English. I know some French, but haven't truly practiced it in years. I know a few Spanish words and phrases. Then, I know just a tiny bit of German words in phrases. I can speak Pig Latin, does that count?
  I had thought that I had mentioned I lived in Louisiana and Giertrud is my sister IRL.
• Phil - Didcot?
  [Rosie] Oooh, Didcot's my nearest town now (just). If you're visiting said friend of friend, give me a shout.
• penelope - Langauges - for measuring your langs
  Elsässich - is it something to do with Alsace-style Germch/Frenman?
• CdM
  [nights] I'm guessing they say "parte" :-)
  [cfm] Sadly, I am on the wrong side of the world. I have only ever been to one real London-based pilgrimage.
  [K] I think you did mention both those things, yes. At least, those were both things I believed to be true, and it seems unlikely that was just by chance. :-)
• nights
  [CdM] They do indeed. This is what I get for not having my spellchecker on.
  [Kagome/pen] Elsässich, or Alsatian, is a low German dialect spoken in Alsace, generally by the older generations, although it is making a comeback with the support of the region. It's roughly intelligible with Swiss German, and if I concentrate, I can just about understand via my knowledge of German.
  
  In other news, I understand my town is on the news in the UK via some judgement or other being handed down about something in prison? *innocent face
• Chalky - .. is calling the clever brigade
  Pleaseplease guess the AVMA
• CdM - A propos the discussion in Eight Words
  ... I remember thinking, when the "I'm not wearing any pants" game started, that it would conjure up very different images for Brits (sorry, pen) and Americans. As a Brit who lived a long time in the US, I find myself flipping back and forth, or picturing someone wearing neither pants nor pants.
• cfm - *excitement plus*
  [Nights, Rosie, SM, Phil] Excellent! Presently, all I know is that I have to be in Hamburg on business for a week or so in the second half of August. I'll get back to you when my dates firm up.
  [CdM] Sad, indeed. But I am sure whatever side of the world you are on is the right one. :-)
• penelope - I can't believe it's not hotter
  No weather talk?
• Chalky
  (pen) I was taught if you can't say anything nice ... say nothing ;)
• Phil
  [pen/Chalky] I think the weather's lovely. I wouldn't mind a bit of a breeze, but high 20s is fine with me. Actually, the garden is starting to suffer a bit, but it'll live.
• penelope - Three free weeks
  From Friday, I've got three weeks off. I'd like the good weather to last a bit longer, but I don't want our beans and tomatoes to perish while we're away for a week or so of that!
• Rosie - Persistence
  (pen) The weather charts show no end to this spell, at least not before the charts themselves become pretty meaningless (10 days or so). Hot, but not record-breakingly so, and no rain at all. There might be the odd thunderstorm in N France. I'm getting rather bored with it.
• rab - Tis ok
  We have a BBQ planned for Saturday, so no doubt the world will end or somesuch.
• Dujon
  Mob of moaners! Get outside and wash your cars. :)
• KagomeShuko - What I mentioned
  [CdM] I do remember mentioning those things now because I was joking with y'all when y'all mentioned perhaps a get-together and said to hold it in my town! And, that is funny about the pants! The game works either way for it to be completely silly!
• nights
  I wish the car wasn't in for servicing. Walking 3km from the nearest bus stop and arriving wreathed in sweat is not a good look.
• Raak
  Ot. Innit?
• Phil
  [Raak] I'll take your word for it. I've only been outdoors for about 1 minute so far today.
• cfm - Boston vacation
  Also very hot. Walks along the breezy Charles and doing my laps in salt water unheated pools also brought some relief.
  Back at my desk now. I thought I was going to have the week from hell ahead of me--but it looks like there may be some relief from that, too. YAY!
• Rosie
  (Raak) Kinot mate. Hottest day at Plas Huws since 2006. 32.2°C top whack. Humid and sweaty but not equatorial levels, nothing like. There was an interesting interlude late last night at Crystal Palace, S. London with light rain, thunder and lightning but the full moon clearly visible. Just heard a faint rumble of thunder here at home (2.57 a.m.). Full moon still visible, illuminating some rather interesting-looking clouds. Things may happen.
• Phil
  [Rosie] I thought of you as 'interesting' clouds approached us last night. Very little rain actually fell though. 32.2C is the "Great Threshold" in my mind, being 90F.
• CdM - Nanopilgrimage manqué
  [cfm] You were in Boston last week?? I was there (well, technically, Cambridge) for a conference. (And yes, it was definitely hot, though I spent most of my time in airconditioned meeting rooms.)
• cfm - Cruel fate
  [CdM] Heartbroken! How I wish you had *waved from Boston*.
• KagomeShuko - HOTTTT
  Hot here, too. 91F at the hottest point of the day, or as Google tells me 32.7778C.
• nights
  Just back from a wedding in Chamonix. Even at that elevation, it was still 30°C and over. On the plus side, the weather was beautiful and the reception lavish. Go to a French wedding, if you're asked. You will not regret it.
• Phil
  [nights] I was paused, very briefly, in Chamonix in July '96. Simply stunning. I keep meaning to go back - in summer, as I'm no skier.
• Phil - Full route
  [nights] In fact, this is the route I took for a day out with my (then) fiancée and 8 month old son in a rented Twingo. The views on the road down to Martigny were phenomenal.
• Chalky - "With robes that gleam with sunny sheen Sweet August doth appear.."
  Have just added to two poetry games both presenting 'joy' as their last word ... are we having happy summers?
• penelope - Is everybody happy?
  Yus. And I just had to go and Google to find The Scaffold's 'Today's Monday' song, in which is the line 'Is everybody happy? You bet your life we are' which I have remembered vaguely since my childhood. Thanks!
• Phil - Happiness?
  I'm not too bad - work was way better yesterday than Monday. Tonight I play cricket for my current team for the last time, against my own village team, which I shall be joining after tonight. I think post-match beer may be in evidence, both at the pitch and back in the village.
• Raak - Eudaimonia
  I just got my official redundancy letter, which I've seen coming at least a year out. I'll be taking up a half-time post at a nearby research institute, and with my redundancy payment, my late mother's legacy, and collecting my pension in two years this is not actually a bad thing. In fact, I could have had a full-time post at the research institute, but I decided I couldn't face grinding away at that full time for another three years, and look forward to having the time, as they say, to pursue my own interests.
• Tuj
  Should be leaving the bitter misery of over 2 years' unemployment behind me come Monday. Can't wait.
• cfm
  [Tuj] Congratulations and best wishes for a rocking good landing!
• penelope - Sunday night is bath night
  [Tuj] Congrats! I didn't realise you'd had such a struggle. Hope it goes well.
  {Raak] Also congrats. That's sounds like a nice way to enjoy working. I have to admit I'm starting to see the advantages of a part-time job, timewise, but the windy miller and I would like to buy a house before the end of the year, so we need to keep working.
• Phil
  [Tuj] May we ask what sort of job? Does it start with a "P"? I've been unemployed twice in the last 10 years, for about 8 months each time, and it's mind-achingly frustrating, so I'd imagine you must be on quite a high!
  [Raak] That sounds like a very painless redundancy - congrats :-)
• Tuj - P-rofession
  [c,p,P] Ta all =) I did do a course in proof-reading the other year but have yet to make anything of it. The saddle I'm back in is just some customer service, answering emails and phones - but as Phil alluded to, my Monday morning feeling was far from the stereotypical heel-dragging!
• Stevie
  [Penelope] (View the source to read the hidden text)

  [Raak] That place has definitely gone to the dogs and does not deserve one of such stellar provenance. I'd blame Global Warming but I'm not sure now if it wasn't all made up by ENV.

  [Tuj] Congratulations. May it be rewarding in every sense.

• penelope - You bet
  [Stevie] Correct. Now go and find it on YouTube!
• penelope - Me again - blessings tally
  It's Friday, and the beginning of the weekend of our second wedding anniversary. Nice things that have happened or to happen today: it's payday; a professor has replied to my emailed request for information within 24 hours and with lots of information; I have leftover home-made chicken jalfrezi, lentil dahl and basmati rice for lunch; we're going to Antwerp market for breakfast on Sunday morning (fried fish and then waffles as big as my head), and my lovely god-daughter passed the first batch of her GCSEs.
• penelope - me again (1 week later)
  Weekend plans, you lot? I think I might be cycling around the Zeeland countryside in search of blackberries and stunning landscape phtographs with a couple of friends from work. And dodging showers. First; haircut tonight after work, with the girl with the hairdryer tattoo. I think that means she's committed t her career. What about you?
• Phil
  Household drudgery. Walking dogs, laundry, cleaning, cooking, washing up, gardening. Have been invited to a house-warming, but probably won't go. Oh, I need to get a new tyre, that'll be thrilling...
• penelope - In other words
  [Phil] You could summarise my seemingly bucolic list of delights as 'anything except housework'. We all have to wear clean pants, you know, It's just that some of us wash them during the week. Get out and see something new.
• Raak - My last day of work today
  Actually, that was two weeks ago, as I took the rest of the month off as holiday. Bought an iPad while I'm still eligible for educational discount. I'd buy a new Mac as well, as my current desktop can't run the last two versions of OSX, but there will be new models announced later this year. Apple aren't saying when, but it's unlikely to be this month now.
• Phil
  [pen] Just realised I mentioned Mrs Phil's gastroenteritis in another place, not here. Not really able to go anywhere at the mo. Good news is that I can pick blackberries while walking dogs.
• penelope - Gastroenteritis in another place
  [Phil] I hope she's now recovered, and your weekend was fruitful. I have been cycling round the empty lanes in Zeeland, where Google Streeview hasn't even been yet, and foraging blackberries. Planning to do it for the next couple of Saturdays. (The windy miller's mill is on this map - a village called Zonnemaire, and we also look after the teeny one-third scale mill on the harbourside at Brouwershaven).
• Phil
  [pen] She's getting there - managing to spend four hours out of bed for the first time in 12 days is progress.
• penelope - Blimey
  Jeez, must have been TERRIBLE. She'll feel rubbish. Sending best regards for swift improvement.
• Phil
  thanks, pen. On the (further) downside, I took the dogs for a longer walk than normal at the weekend, on a different route, and completely forgot about the blackberries. Still, we have damsons, apples, loganberries and blackberries in the back garden :)
• Software - Who? What?
  What happened to Cleri Who's who?
• Chalky - moribundity
  [Softers] You killed it. Much like the AVMA game.
  
  
  Only kidding! If there's no action for 3 days - the game will revert to its Flat Footed status. Just click on 'See More'
  As for AVMA - perhaps you can find a way to pique the collective interest of participating crescenters? You're in charge.
• Rosie
  (Softers, Chalky) Revived by clerihughes, but only by breaking bending the rules.
• Software
  Well done Rosie.
• Chalky - the original game reviver
  [Rosie, Software] The current game of Cleri Who's Who has been in existence for several years ... but then you knew that, yes?
• penelope - decision time
  Should I, or should I not go with the windy miller to his mill in the wilds of Zeeland tomorrow for Open Monuments Day? (Heritage Open day in the UK tomorrow too... have you checked what's open where you are?) It's going to piss with rain. I could usefully take some work to do (extension lead out of the mill into the car where I sit in comfort with my laptop and without the distraction of the internet) and I'd take some sausages to cook, and probably stuff to make pancakes too. I could go blackberry picking on the bike if there's a break in the weather. The alternative is cleaning the loo and doing the laundry at home alone.
  I think I've just answered my own question.
• Rosie
  (Chalky) I did indeed, m'dear. Re-reviver, perhaps.
• Chalky
  [penelope] Hope you went. Glad we were of help.
  [Rosie] Credit where it's due, eh? ;)
• penelope - on yer bike
  [Chalks] I did indeed go. And it was lovely. I put a photo on Facebook - so you can see where I was cycling. The loo got cleaned anyway. The weather's been very showery ever since.
• Chalky
  [pen] Yes - saw the photo. 'Bout the time I was in league with the freeway :-)
• penelope - Heel bon
  I'm loving the Franglais limerick that's waiting for a conclusion on another page. The windy miller and I have found that we understand each other very well when we speak a mixture of Dutch and French (my Dutch being terrible and my French being O level circa 1981 and about the same standard as his). Is this Francerlandse? Nederlais? Dutchglais or Frutch?
• Rosie - Ce limérique-là
  (pen) Tu l'aimais encore? I dun me best.
• penelope - Encore, plus le petit dejeuner
  Just back from a romantic short séjour in the Ardennes. All languages work there - at least all the ones that I know - English, Dutch and French. Trouble is, you're not supposed to use them all at once, in one sentence, when speaking to other people. Oh well. But the wine was bloody nice (and the foie gras too, if I'm allowed to mention it).
• Rosie
  (pen) Course y'are, duck.
• penelope
  Tonight: staying late to sit in on a student mentors' coaching session (for alumni who have volunteered to act as mentors to current students). Will be writing article about it later. Free dinner.
• Phil
  "Free dinner" - a wonderful combination of words! I shall be enjoying free food and drink on Sunday at our village cricket club's season finale, whatever the weather. I might even bowl an over, if my withered achilles will take the strain.
• penelope - Monday Monday
  Morning all. Weekend reports please: Phil, did you get your overs in? Or did your achilles put paid to everything but sitting in the pavilion scarfing sarnies? *ducks*.
  'Free dinner' was actuially a sandwich on tough French bread. Ruinous for my teeth as well as my gut. Bleurgh.
• Phil - The weekend
  I didn't bowl, and would have batted, had our previous batsman got out at least one ball earlier. I did consume plenty of ale, and far too much barbecue though :)
• Rosie
  Today's the day.
• penelope - Five times the Friday fun
  Getting girded up to cover an afternoon-long conference in central Rotterdam. Preparing to take notes to write it up three different ways for various outlets, plus another two other reports to come out of it. Five times the fun from just one afternoon...
• Phil - Work fun
  I have fire extinguisher training this afternoon, in which we will actually get to set off fire extinguishers in the car park! Can I grow up by this afternoon? I doubt it.
• Raak
  [Phil] When I got a keycard to the research institute that I spend some of my time at, there was "fire training". It was "That's a fire extinguisher." That was enough to tick the checkbox on the form.
• Dujon
  How'd it go, Phil? Still foaming at the mouth?
• Phil - I'm a firestarter, a twisted firestarter....
  Well, I managed the improbable, and learnt a useful lesson in the process. I managed to restart an extinguished newspaper fire with a water fire extinguisher.
• penelope - Splendid!
  [Phil] You could be onto a winner.
• Phil
  [pen] Just call me Charlie McGee!
• penelope - Wikipedia, wikipedia...
  Had to google that name, Phil! Never read any Stephen King, never go to the cinema either!
  So what else is banter-worthy this week? I've been to London for a day and a half (as I have posted in another place) and I've got two big deadlines in the next 10 days. Or possibly three. I have started a new tradition of Saturday afternoon cycle rides around 'our corner' of Zeeland (where the windy miller's mill is) which I'm enjoying more and more. I rarely see a car or anyone else. It's utterly silent and empty - fields, dykes, birds - and that's about it, so I just take my camera. I'm intending to keep it up through the winter (there's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes) so now I have announced it to you lot, you can egg me on.
• Phil - ride, penelope, ride
  [pen] I had to google it too, having read the book at least 20 years ago.
  I managed to hit one deadline last friday, and look likely to hit another one tomorrow, which is to have two massive catalogues on CD, and get them to the duplicator's shop for midday. If I achieve that, I can have monday off :-)
• penelope - Holidays
  I've just booked my remaining vacations days, to use them up before the end of the year. Two short holidays in November, and not one single working Monday in December!
• Phil - Deadlines
  I wish I had the bravado to quote Douglas Adams to my boss (View the source to read the hidden text) . However, my determination to hit this one led to my first all-nighter for a long time. Admittedly, I did sleep from 5am to 6am, but I did have two programs running at the time.
• penelope - Head desk
  Phil! Phil! Wake up!
  Last all-nighter I did was at some rally or other in about 1999, in Scotland, in another life. I ate sooo much cake trying to stay awake.
• Phil - grrrrr
  Despite my best efforts, I think we're not going to have this ready for midday. Just sitting here watching processes thrashing away in my task manager, wishing my processor was more powerful. Fingers crossed that it saves this time!
• Phil
  I think this definitely needs to be added to my "Murtaugh List", named after Danny Glover's character in the Lethal Weapon films, as in "I'm getting too old for this s**t".
• Phil - Breathing space
  Deadline is now 3.30pm - hurry up, computer!
• penelope - Dreadlines
  *grooogh* Three days until the dreadline for the alumni magazine. Still two features to write - and the letter from the dean. I'm not so much his ghost writer, but more in spiritual possession of his soul.
• kagomeshuko - school, school, school, school . . .
  I have three English classes - American Literature, British Literature, and Shakespeare. i've not been thrilled with some of the Brit Lit and others I've loved. However, I LOVED the assignment for Friday! We had to read Edward Lear's "The Jumblies" and some of his Limericks then Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" and Humpty Dumpty's explanation of it.
• penelope
  *waves from Lincolnshire*
• Phil
  *waves back from West Berks*
  Distinctly unwell, but hoping to get Brownie points from boss for working from home instead of just phoning in sick.
• penelope
  feeling any better Phil?
  I've spent the week off, mooching around my home town, having a lovely time. I've bought a map of the county dated 1796, researched and downloaded a font contemporaneous to the map so I can label it authentically, and taken it to be mounted and framed sympathetically. and I've made my mum a birthday cake. We're off out for Fish and chips in Cleethorpes tonight to celebrate!
• Rosie
  (pen) Fish and Chips in Cleethorpes? As I have remarked earlier, I fought you was one o' vem posh birds. However no-one who likes maps (or fish and chips) can be all bad. I have finally put together a contour map of the entire North Downs, 15 m interval, 1: 80,000 scale. 6 ft 6 in by 1 ft 6 in.
• penelope - maptastic
  [Rosie] How did you make it? from noining up exisitng maps, or drawing it yourself?
  What's mildly inneresting about the 1796 mapofLincs is the plethora of villages in the wolds, presumably full of sheep farmers and shepherds using the recently-completed louth navigation canal to take wool to Louth's famous carpet factory, and also to the coast and by boat to London and Antwerp, and the relatively sparsely populated fens, barely drained, uninhabitable and uncultivateable at that time. And it's hand coloured. Double mount with green inner, and a bevelled oak frame. Nice.
• penelope - noining?
  I wasn't even quick enough to use the 'Whoops!' function. Joining.
• Rosie - Mapa Downium Borealium
  (pen) It took ages. Process: Trace 15 m contours from OS 1:25000 maps. Transfer to A4 sheets, stick them all together and ink in the contours. Scan, sheet by sheet in Photoshop and make sure the lines are continuous. Use Paint Bucket to add contour layer colours. Add place and river names. Print out and butt the edges together. Spray with artist's lacquer. Show it to the blokes down the pub. Take it home and stick it on the wall. I wish I had some way of displaying it.
• penelope
  [Rosie] You can get it framed. You should get it framed. all the work was worth it, wosnit?
• Rosie
  (pen) I have framed it. Not exactly a craftsman job but it now decorates my bedroom. My cartophilia comes from my Dad who taught geography among other things and left dozens of old OS maps to which I have added quite a number.
• penelope - Wensdi rambling
  So how is everyone? Anyone care to tell us how they intend to address the remainder of the working week? I'm going to attack it, and use all the determination and spunk I can muster to write TWO BORING THINGS that have been sitting on my to-do list for too long. (And sorry, no apologies for using the word 'spunk'! I'm retreating into the 1930s in several respects, not least with my hankering for bread and dripping).
• Chalky
  Bread and dripping? Ee' lass, I scoffed chips in gravy last night.
• Dujon
  Bread and dripping? That brings back a few memories, penelope. It were a staple at ours in't late '40s and early '50s. Owt that were scrapeable (greaseproof paper an' such) went inter't chip pan. 'Course we din't call it that as we were posh and had 'fried bread'.
• Rosie - Dunkin fries
  (Chalky) Oh, how could you? It ruins them. Chipppps should be crissssp.
• Phil - How am I?
  [penelope] I'm ill, again. 102F temperature, dizzy, headaches, snot and catarrh everywhere. The bonus is that I'm losing weight :)
• penelope - A doctor recommends...
  Phil, m'lad you need beefing up. Get some proper beef dripping inside yer. Hope it goes soon. (Colleague whose father is a GP got the 'flu shot on Tuesday evening. She complained of a sore arm yesterday. Today she's off with 'flu symptoms)
• penelope - Has everybody taken to their beds with influenza?
  It's a bit quiet in here.

  *pin drops*

• Phil - I heard that...
  Got back to work on Monday, although I still feel like a mucus production line. Got loads of work on though, as I was off for 7 of the previous 10 days. Unfortunately, my boss is off sick now, and the other third of the IT department is on holiday, so I'm the only person available to fix everything (inc hardware - grrrr).
• penelope - I ain't touching it
  I'm not going near the Glow Worms game again until someone gets rid of the one with the badly-metred line about nipples. *blames Software*
• Phil
  [pen] It seems OK to me. Confused.
• penelope - Addressing the nipple without even a coma
  [Phil] I meant it had a typo: you/your. Alternatively 'To you, nipple, I'd be put'. Still weird. Tell me when it's all over.
• Rosie
  (pen) The metre's all right - it's just a typo, and a fairly common one.
• Chalky
  [penelope] You can come out now.
  
  [Rosie] A common typo? I would challenge that statement - if only because I'm in the mood to challenge pretty much everything this morning ... (insert winky face)
  To put it another way - why do we have the 'preview' function' or indeed the 'whoops' escape if not to eradicate such monstrosities? < mode= really going over the top now >
• Rosie
  Nobody expects the Monstrous Regiment!
• Chalky
  Least of all the Spaniels!
• Raak - 12 minutes, a new record
  The time I have just observed a group of three adults, two babies, and a toddler take in a cafe, from their first getting-up-to-go movements to actually getting out of the front door. The previous record was 10 minutes, taken by two women, a baby, and an enormous quantity of shopping.
• Giertrud
  Today is my Birthday!
• Phil - thanks to time zones....
  ...in that case it probably still is for nearly another 10 hours. So Happy Birthday Giertrud :-)
• Giertrud
  Thanks!!
• Simons Mith - HBTY Giertrud
  Try to keep growing old for as long as possible.
• - - -
  %aThis website is great 6cd8212ffc3e2c1f993c2a3d5054d176
• penelope - Yeah
  it is, isn't it?
• Rosie - Hurrah!
  Ther evenings will start drawing out in less than a week, at least at this latitude, 51° 19' 06"N. This cannot be too soon.
• Dujon
  [Rosie] Spoilsport!
• penelope - brighter later
  [Rosie] Goodie. Ta for that bit of news.
• Giertrud - Last time in a long time
  A counting date ... 11/12/13 .... It was in November for us who write the month first though...
• Rosie - Dates - USA style
  (Giertrude) Surely you have 12/13/14?
• KagomeShuko - Dates . . .
  Yes, [Rosie], we had that. We've had a lot of neat dates so far this century. 1/2/3
  2/3/4
  3/4/5
  4/5/6
  5/6/7
  6/7/8
  7/8/9
  8/9/10
  10/11/12
  11/12/13
• KagomeShuko - The Theatre!
  Two more performances of "Irving Berlin's White Christmas" for me. The last performance day and cast party will be bittersweet.
• penelope - about blummin' time too
  Only four more working days until the Xmas hols. Next Saturday the windy miller's mill is the starting point for the torchlit midwinterday four-course gastrotour of the tiny village in Zeeland. i'll be serving gluhwijn from the workbench, under a canopy of 200 fairy lights, as they light the torches at sunset (which is about 4pm here). And on Sunday, we're heading over to Blighty for the week.
• penelope - three more days...
  Three more days at work (after this afternoon - although we're halfway through the afternoon so it's mattering less and less) until Friday night's dinner with the windy miller's company (in real life, he runs a construction project management company and employs three people. I have to be the boss's wife...), Saturday's midwinter sunset torch-lit procession around the village on Zonnemaire in Zeeland where the windy miller's mill is. And on Sunday, we depart for Blighty on the ferry to Dover, heading for some friends in Guildford for our first overnight stop. Can't wait.
• Phil - 2.5 more days
  After today, I have the aforementioned 2.5 working days this year. Then friday night is the company christmas do, with 63 in attendance - plus these chaps providing entertainment. Plus Mrs Phil & I have been given free B&B at the hotel too. I'm genuinely looking forward to it, which is most out-of-character.
• penelope - 2.5 more days
  Haven't posted my Christmas cards yet. And there are some I haven't written yet either. The ones that are ready to go are in a big bag in the car. I'm hoping to get to the post office (stationed in our local village supermarket) tonight.
• penelope - That's it! I'm leaving!
  In an hour or so, I will no longer need to waste so much time in here because I'm heading out for a week-and-a-half off. I'll try and pop in from time to time though. Try and keep up the chatter yourselves, eh?
• Giertrud - Merry Christmas!
  Merry Christmas (eve)!
• Stevie
  A very Merry Christmas to all at MC5!
• Phil
  Ditto
• penelope - Ditto
  Ditto.
• Simons Mith - Season's Greetings
  Happy Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah Day everyone, and Allah bless us, one and all!
• rab - Yes, I'm still here
  Hope your Christmases went well and the new year is suitably novel.
• penelope - Oh, it's you
  Indeed. Which novel should we aim to replicate in 2014? HNY, you lot.
• Stevie
  Happy New Year!
• Rosie
  (Stevie) Thank you for waiting till midnight GMT.
• penelope
  I've started the New Year with bungling and ranting. TYpical.
• Rosie - Pour décourager les autres
  (pen) Keep it up. Eliminate the crap. BTW You've made a TYpo. :-)
• penelope - Watching the defectives
  Bungling and rating? Could be ... *wink*
• pin - gravity
  *drops*
• CdM
  [pen] Burgling and panting?
• Phil - Dear Scansion Police
  Anonymous defamation is simply pathetic. Even if it were justified criticism, which it isn't, posting it anonymously is the behaviour of a half-baked, duplicitous, weak-minded troll.
• Rosie - The chippy misfit
  (Phil) He's probably getting at me, for reasons best known to himself, and has hijacked a limerick to do so. Not good. Probably thinks this site cliquey but too dim to realise that firstly, it isn't, and secondly, if he thinks it is then all he needs do to join the clique is simply not be an arsehole. The wit, widsom and wordplay of all is welcomed, as has been proved dozens of times with newcomers.
• Penelope - Wittering, as only I can
  Jeez it's tedious doing HTML.in here on an iPhone. *tap tap tappity tap*
• Rosie - East or West Wittering
  The capital "P" is no disguise - we know you're in there. Hurry up - I'm dying.
• penelope - Capital
  [Rosie] I laughed out loud. But now I've got to grips with the titchy keyboard on this eyephone, I'm back to my normal self.
• penelope - foggiest
  So... Thursday, eh? And what has the week delivered for you lot? For me: I've finally finished all the satsumas in the house. I'm going to buy some more in a minute from the new supermarket on the university campus. It's a hard habit to break, two per day since November... Exciting times.
• CdM
  I finished up the week by watching penguins emerge from the ocean.
• penelope - Beat that
  [CdM] a penguin automat? I finished the week in the greengrocer's, being reminded that I needed potatoes. I love independent shops.
• Dan
  [CdM] Don't be ridiculous. Amphibians emerged from the oceans, had dinosaur babies who laid penguin eggs. Read a book!
• CdM
  [Dan] I've just reread my bible*, and it says no such thing. In fact it has very little discussion of penguins at all.
  
  [flerdle] I think Coles' and Woolworth's online shopping could probably do that for you as well. And it would save all the pesky hanging around, chatting, making friends and so on.**
  
  *Full disclosure: I do not actually own a bible.
  **cf. Sirius Cybercorp.
• KagomeShuko - Store names
  If you said "Cole's" in the U.S., we'd assume it was Kohl's.
• Dan
  [CdM] It's better in the original Greek anyway.
• flerdle
  [CdM] I think the delivery charge to the Netherlands would be a little steep though, wouldn't it?
• Dan
  [pen] For the first time in my life I live walking distance from a greengrocer, and it really changes things. Also many other things, including a fish market and a bakery, most of which are even closer and all of which have appeared since we moved into the neighborhood. I may not have to emigrate after all.
• Dan - preëmpt-o-matic
  *waits for CdM to say "I thought in the U.S. 'walking distance' means it's in your garage"*
• CdM
  Hmmm, the flerdle/pen conflation. Muss less common than Dan/Dunx
• CdM
  "Muss"?
• penelope - Muss try harder
  I need celery, radishes and apples. And onions. Anyone fancy a stroll to the groentenwinkel?
• KagomeShuko
  [pen] I'm afraid I'm not able to walk across oceans, nor swim them even if Google says I should be able to do such a thing.
• penelope
  despite staying late at work, the shop was still just open at 7 when i got there. I was probably their last customer of the day. Now to make that celery soup...
• Chalky
  I love radishes. Much underrated.
• Raak
  I discovered king oyster mushrooms the other day, on a market stall. Never knew they existed. Truly, the earth continues to bring forth wonders.
• Stevie - Mushrooms
  [Raak] Though art indeed brave if though tasteth of that most vile fruit of the ground, harvested by the light of the New Moon by debased and foul Tcho-Tchos, who tear them from the curséd soil of Leng - which lieth not fully in this Universe, but doth straddle other, forbidden dimensions across which stride Those Who Shudde Notte Bee, in whose footprints sprout these fungi thou doth prize so highly.
• penelope - me too
  I'm not a fan of mushrooms either.
• Rosie - No Entry
  Can't seem to get anything into MCiOS, any game. Anybody else having problems?
• Raak
  [Rosie] Is working for me.
• Rosie
  (Raak) Works OK now.
• Raak - Curioser and curioser
  There seems to be some sort of caching problem. I can post there fine, but when I get to the page I posted to from the main page, the post doesn't appear. But if I post again, all the posts show up. It's like the moves are being made properly, but the front page links are pointing to a stale cache.
• Chalky - catching up
  Not fond of mushrooms. Or stale caches.
• penelope - stale mushrooms
  I'm not fond of mushrooms either. I wonder if the cache is a good place to grow them - it seems dark and undisturbed in there.
• Phil - Mushrooms
  I like much-maligned mushrooms. Yumptious!
• Rosie
  (Phil) Yeah, they're great. I had some with a couple of lamb chops last night.
  (Raak) I've noticed that too.
• Dan
  [Phil] When a recipe calls for much-maligned mushrooms, how long should I malign them for?
• Stevie - Mushrooms
  [Dan] I generally start with disparaging remarks about the overall quality of their gills, then move on to more targeted insults on the subject of stem length and cap diameter.
• Stevie
  That takes from between 2 to four minutes.
• Phil - Mushrooms
  [Dan] With all due respect to Stevie, I'd consider his mushrooms to be simply "maligned", not "much-maligned". I can't repeat here the sort of language I use in their presence, but it makes them sweat like an onion.
• Rosie - F****** mushrooms
  (Phil) You don't know how many other people malign mushrooms, or with what intensity. That, of course applies to mushrooms in general, not necessarily Stevie's. On the other hand, Stevie's mushroms may have a flea in their ear from those condemned to pick them.
• penelope
  Not that keen on mushrooms, meself. The taste is OK, but I really don't like the texture.In other news, we don't got flooding yet, nor that much snow. UPdates, Rosie?
• Rosie
  (pen) No flooding? Of course not - you take it seriously over there, as you have to. I'd be very surprised if you got any snow but you'll get a load more rain and wind Wednesday and Saturday just as we will and probably worse.
• Chalky
  "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass - it's about learning how to dance in the rain"
  ... one of my favourite mottos brought to life by "Flippin' Floods in Salisbury"
• Phil
  It's getting rather breezy here, and the school has sent out an email warning that they might have to close if all three routes into the village get flooded.
• penelope - Nothing yet
  Nothing has happened here yet. I have just waved off my dear colleague as she's flying to City Airport this evening (she gets to go to the London training day tomorrow that I wanted to go to but there's only budget for one of us - even though we both need the skills) and I didn't want to tell her there may be turburence*.
  *Turburence is what we have called it in our family ever since my parents were warned about it on a flight back from Japan via Hong Kong in 1993.
• KagomeShuko - British Literature is . . . uh???
  British Literature is just fine, really. It's the fact that we were in the medieval period that made it so difficult to read. I couldn't understand all that Middle English. The stories were fun when told in modern English. We just had our first test this past Wednesday. I think I did fine.
• penelope - Chaucer doth tweet
  [KS] Do you Twitter? Try following Chaucer on Twitter for a feel of how Middle English works in the modern world. And it's pretty funny too. There's a whole community of Middle English tweeters out there.
• penelope - Short week
  Only four days in the loathsome office this week. Catching the Eurostar to London on Friday morning (Rosendaal>Brussels>London St P) for a wedding on Saturday. Can't wait!
• rab - Zzzzz
  Awake for 26.5 hours and counting. Probably still at least an hour till I am united with a bed. And it's bloody cold here too (-12C).
• penelope - Where the hell are you?
  Hello Rab! Where are you? Doing the Iditerod race?
• rab - Nowt so glamorous
  I'm in Denver, at a ridiculously large conference. Just reading the list of session titles makes me want to have a lie down.
• Dujon - Conferences and their ilk.
  Unless such things were local I used to delegate our attendance to a staff member. "Here, Fred, there's a do on down in Melbourne. I'd like you to attend (it'll be good experience for you). Knock up a report and get it to me within the week will you?"
  I'm afraid that banging around the country with all the bother of transport etc. has never appealed to me. Others seemed to love it. Maybe they saw it as some sort of status thing rather than a tedious chore. That's not a criticism of your winging your way around the world, rab, just a personal opinion of a bloke who could get out of attending the blasted things.
• rab - Not at all
  In my line of work, the main reason for these things is so that people remember you still exist. If I could do this without 19hr journeys and leaving my family for a week, I would. People sometimes say "you're being paid to do it so quit your moaning" but my view is that travel is a perk only if it's (a) to places you actually want to go and (b) with people you actually want to go with. Work trips rarely count. (That said I do have some good mates at work and sometimes I get to go to agreeable places like Amsterdam or Vienna with them. I tend to be less fastidious about keeping my receipts on such occasions.)
• Rosie - This is getting silly
  The A22 is still closed for 3 miles and a further road off it is now closed as workmen with pumps, pipes and sandbags etc try to contain the stream occupying it. Another few weeks, I reckon. Also the water level at this place is now threatening the roads on both sides.
• penelope - let me out
  Back at work after six days of feeling distinctly under par (and a cancelled trip to London for a wedding, boo hoo). Can anyone persuade me of the benefits of being in the office working through a MASSIVE inbox on a beautiful spring day like today?
• Phil - Bright side?
  Reduced risk of early hayfever?
• Rosie - Annual income......
  (pen) Pays the bills.
• Stevie
  [penelope] Reduced risk of being mistaken for Lindsey Lohan and being crushed by a mob of crazed paparazzi?
• Giertrud - Yay!
  I have a game in the Google Play store, and it's ad-supported so it's FREE!

  Floored!

• penelope - himpressive
  [Giertrud] Cool. I went over for a peek, but will leave it for others to download and play.
  In other news... it's another warm and sunny day here in NL. If my Fashion Phenology project is to be relied upon as an indicator of seasonal drift and an early spring, then yesterday's spotting of a woman wearing a pair of white jeans, and today's observation of a student in teeshirt, shorts and sneakers on campus must be recorded. And here is as good a place as any. Have any other Crescenters seen spurious signs of spring?
• Phil
  As of yesterday afternoon, my lawns have stripes.
• Raak
  There's been a strange yellow ball in the sky a lot of the time in the past few days.
• Stevie
  [Phil, Raak] This...means something.
• Phil - But what could it mean?
  Yellow balls cause stripes?
• penelope - talking of exceptional quality...
  The pea & honey recipes have been splendid of late. Witty and clever. And they rhyme and scan too. Coo.
• Stevie
  [Phil] Yesyesyes, but were UFOs involved?
• Phil
  [Stevie] No, I identified them all as alien spaceships.
• Rosie - Vernal illusions
  (pen, penpenult.) It is spring. Must be - there was a frost here last night but now it's a nice 17°C.
• Giertrud - Aww pen :(
  http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2014/03/13/the-predictive-results-for-typing-county-into-google/
• penelope - If we don't shout about it, no-one will come and spoil it.
  [Giertrud]
  1. Do you always believe what The Poke Says?
  2. The only people who type '[county] is ...' into Google are the thickos who don't know anything anyway
  3. It's unscientific.
  4. Get orf my laaand.
  5. Google doesn't cover Wales.
• Raak - the sprungness of spring
  I have stopped wearing bicycle goggles to keep the cold wind out of my eyes, and started wearing them to keep the insects out of my eyes.
• Rosie
  (pen) re no. 5 - Thank God for that. (from the Ghetto)
  (Giertrud) There y'are - we're the wittiest nation on earth.
  (Raak) But does the cold night air know this?
• Dan
  [Pen] Somewhat topically, I had a strange impulse to apply those responses to Tony Benn's five questions to power:

  What power have you got?
  Do you always believe what The Poke Says?

  "Where did you get it from?
  The only people who type '[county] is ...' into Google are the thickos who don't know anything anyway

  In whose interests do you use it?
  It's unscientific.

  To whom are you accountable?
  Get orf my laaand.

  How do we get rid of you?
  Google doesn't cover Wales.

  I don't know about you but I think that works perfectly.
• Giertrud
  1. Do you always believe what The Poke Says?
  no, I just thought it was silly.
  2. The only people who type '[county] is ...' into Google are the thickos who don't know anything anyway
  It can be fun to see what comes up, especially when the name also applies to something else.
  3. It's unscientific.
  duh.
  4. Get orf my laaand.
  whyyyyyyy?
  5. Google doesn't cover Wales.
  Try telling that to Google The Powers That Be! (If you told me Bing didn't cover Wales, I'd be more likely to believe it.)
• Rosie - Y Gwgl
  (Giertrude) Hmm, maybe they aren't such bastards after all. Should be Gŵgl, of course, but the title won't accept the HTML.
• Giertrud - Even with an English International Keyboard setting---but copy-paste worked! "Gŵgl"
  I still can't get those characters up there! Only copy-paste works.
• penelope - Time for some more banter
  Does no-one have any more banter? Tonight I have served a late curry to the very busy windy miller, made his sandwiches for tomorrow, watched a lot of lambs being born and slapped about on the telly, tried to catch up with the strategies of William and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and washed up. Tomorrow I will try to write some sense, then dine at the university before attending a marketing masterclass, hoping to learn something. And then it's Friday.
• Dujon - Bantering
  Should we now start calling you 'Wednesday's Child', penelope?
• penelope
  Being called a child of any description would be nice.Sadly it's not true. But talking of times gone past, I did make contact yesterday with two people that I hadn't spoken to for almost 20 years; both I met during formative experiences. One I worked with very early in my first newspaper job (which I didn't start unti I was 30, having had another kind of career before that) and one who organised a road trip to the Arctic Circle and beyond that made me realise that I can't bear very much heat on a summer holiday. That realisation has saved me weeks, if not months, of expensive uncomfortableness.
• penelope - Friday banter
  I went to a marketing masterclass last night, all about how to make social media go viral. Turns out that it's an art not a science, and that you can measure and analyse it all you like and be none the wiser, except knowing that you must 'light a lot of fires' and then 'use the right seeding nodes' to get anything that spreads. Oh, and before any of that, have a great product and hire GREAT creatives. </ marketing discussion>
  In other news, I have just done a phone interview, bought birthday chocolates for my sister in VT, USA and am looking forward to Lincolnshire plum bread and Lincolnshire Red cheese [special imports] for Breakfast #2 at my desk. Happy Friday, crescenters.
• Rosie - Gobbledegook
  I'm worried about you, pen, you're showing distinct signs of succumbing to marketing bollockspeak. And don't let anything go viral; let it stay bacterial and be amenable to antibiotics. Boo-boom.
• Neophyte - Re : Gobbledook
  Hear bl@@dy hear. I wish to G@d that "social media" had never crawled out from under the carpet.  My status message on Skype says 'I don't have a "mood message", a "wall", or any other so-called "social networking" nonsense -- I have a life !'.
• Penelope - Mood mode
  [Neophyte] Got it, dear. But you don't boycott it? On the other hand, I live in a different country ( with a different language) to all of my family and the vast majority of my friends. I work in an international environment which relies on it. My view is the opposite of yours. Oh, and I also have a life.
• Neophyte - Re : Mood mode
  [Pen] Yes, I boycott it completely. A binding vow of total lifelong abstinence from Twitter, Facebook, and all of their their ilk, and Linkedln only for professional contacts. I am also extremely intolerant, and shout "f*** Twitter" whenever someone on Radio 4 tells me how to contact the programme through that obscene medium. And a similar reaction whenever I read a newspaper article that cites anything containing commercial-at and hash prefixes.
• Phil
  Alexander Graham Bell refused to have a telephone in his workroom so he would not be interrupted. Disliking a new medium of communication is not new.
• Rosie - Hyperconnectivity
  My mobile is permanently switched off and nobody, except my next of kin, knows the number. Speak to the answerphone if it's important. When I'm out I'm not at rhe office. Like McCavity I'm just not there. The mobile is for me to ring the RAC if the car conks out.
  As for Twatter and F*ckbook nobody expects me to be there so I'm not. Anything significant from it will in the papers/on the radio. I wouldn't say I would never use them but at the moment I simply can't see the point. Let others spout their banalities or make fools of themselves. (Just going to update my MCiOS status).
• penelope
  I never get calls on my mobile either. I use it if the car breaks down (which it never has, yet, touch wood), to find out who has the keys to the mill (and how far away from home they have driven before they remembered they forgot them) and to find out what time the windy miller will be home for dinner so I can time the rice. Occasionally I also use it for shouting at cold callers.
• Phil
  My mobile is largely an SMS-powered remote control for my daughter, and an alarm clock. It's paid for by work, but doesn't scroll up, due to dilapidation.
• Dan
  [Rosie] Outside the MCverse I've never adopted social networking in any substantial way, for reasons of privacy and compartmentalization; it always comes down to an insuperable dichotomy: nothing I could post to the whole world is worth posting, anything worth posting is something for which I'd trim the recipient list first. I've a number of chats of between three to six participants on the go in Skype, some of years standing, but their membership is kind of arrived at kind of organically -- or perhaps the word I want is empirically: each came to exist because it did and has lasted because it has.
• Rosie
  (all) This site (and a couple of associated sites) is the nearest I want to get to social networking.
• penelope - Asocial
  [Rosie] Honoured! Any Saharan sand-related weather details for us? I have the dust on my car in NL (but the countryside is dry and they're working on the fields non-stop at the mo*, so it could be North African dust or it could be Zuid Hollandsche dust)
  *it smells of cow poo everywhere
• Rosie
  (pen) The dust comes down with the rain but you only notice it if the rain is very light as it was here early Monday morning. There was so much dust on my car I actually had to wash it, an event of some rarity. Your car dust must be Saharan. It's been a bit breezy there recently and the atmosphere is highly convective, i.e. it's hot and rises rapidly and the upper winds have brought the dust over Europe. It's a fairly common event but the upper winds have to be right for us to experience it and some light rain helps bring it down.
  Cow poo is the least offensive poo smell there is, at least to my nose - I rather like it but then I was an industrial chemist.
• penelope - the hidden past
  [Rosie] Oh I dunno. I find the rather sweet and cloying smell of human primary sludge as it enters the treatment works brings back good memories. For seven years after graduating, I worked as a laboratory technician analysing effluent of all kinds - from abattoirs, vegetable processing, and over one whole summer primary sludge during a BOC trial at what was then the UK's largest sewage treatment works just outside Norwich. My laboratory that summer was a caravan. My samples were mostly black and stinky.
  This country usually smells of either poo or celery. Mostly.
• Phil
  I was noticeably hazy yesterday, and people have been mentioning itchy throats etc. I a totally unrelated development, I put new wiper blades on my car yesterday, and the difference in visibility is remarkable!
  PS, the own brand sets from Halfords would have been £30 for all three. Ordered Bosch wipers from Euro Car Parts, with free 3 day delivery - £17 the lot. Hence, or otherwise, Halfords is a rip-off!
• penelope - What ho, wipers!
  How are the wipers doing, Phil?
• Rosie
  (pen, Phil) Belgium's the place for Wipers. Boo-boom
• Phil
  [pen] Oh, the wipers are glorious. It's like wearing reading glasses for he first time!
  [Rosie] Oh dear :)
• Stevie
  [penelope] You worked at Trowse Beach? Awesome.
• Dujon - Bits 'n' Bobs
  [Phil) Your comment re wipers:
  Some many years ago I owned a A.H.Sprite. It was modified. It had a habit of breaking half-shafts every now and then. Fortunately a fellow car club member alerted me to the fact that the half-shaft for the Sprite was the same as that for the A30 (well, I think it was the A30 - memory is a tenuous thing). Anyway, I rang the local supplier and checked the price and obtained the BMC part number for the A30 item. A day or two later I attended the parts place and asked for the price of a Sprite half-shaft and, for future reference, its part number. The two part numbers were identical. The Sprite part was nigh on twice that of that for the A30. Caveat Emptor.
• penelope - Trowse rings smely bells
  [Stevie] That's it.Trowse. And stayed for a couple of months during the week in a lovely ivy-covered and tiny hotel somewhere near Loddon that I can't find on Google Earth. Monsieur le Patron was a Cypriot who used to bring me tea in bed in the mornings.
• penelope - procrastination was ever the thief of time
  I'm trying to write a new standfirst for my article in the next issue of the alumni magazine. It's tough. So I'm faffing about in here instead.
• Rosie - Faff away
  (pen) We should be flattered that you have considered deriving inspiration from our musings. Er, what's a standfirst? Is it the head of the queue at a bus-stop or sunnink?
• Stevie
  [penelope] And why do the Dutch have a magazine just for aluminium formulations?
• penelope - unalloyed enjoyment
  Standfirst = the meaty chunk of text at the top of the page that gets you salivating to read the whole article.
  It's a magazine for all the alumnuses/alumnas/alumni (I try very hard to stop people calling them 'alums') that I hoik together twice a year. Some very clever freelancers write the three or four tricky articles, under the direction of our managing editor, but I write one or two, and pull together all the news pages, and the message from the Dean (in my guise of professorial ventriloquist). It takes bloody ages.
• Stevie - Smugness
  Now using my wireless raspberry Pi to make posts. It's triffic. A linux computer no bigger than a packet of fags. The cables take up more room.

  The GUI is still flaky though.

• penelope - raspberries
  [Stevie] Impressive. I've never even seen one.
• Raak
  [pen] Are you hinting that the "message from the Dean" is — gasp! — not all his own work?
• penelope - shhhhh...
  I did actually get a list of bullet points to compose into a message this time.
• penelope
  This week, I am mostly writing parts of a booklet to accompany a new professor's inaugural lecture in June. It helps that I find the subject interesting.
• penelope - May I?
  Going to view a house this afternoon. I'd buy it if only for the delphiniums in the garden and the uninterupted view out of the kitchen window across fields, rows of aspens, willows and alders, countryside and rivers to Europoort and the Pernis oil refinery and its flare stacks on the south bank of the Maas/Rijn (Meuse/Rhine), but the windy miller might take a bit more persuading. As many of you know, every time I moved jobs, I moved house (and usually at least 150 miles). He has never moved. Ever. This might be an interesting experience.
• Phil - aspens!?
  I'm glad there are no aspens here. They're so damnably noisy! :)
• penelope - there are some things...
  Blimey I love bacon sandwiches and tea. Sunday breakfast.
• Phil
  I am distressing un-British in my concept of the perfect breakfast. Coffee, really good bread, cold meat/dry sausage, cheese/cream cheese. Optional glass of red wine if it's a late breakfast.
  Almost needless to say, I haven't had that breakfast for about 18 years now.
• Phil
  *distressingly
• Stevie
  [Phil] Counter with Eggs, Sausage and cheddar on a croissant. Alternatively, four link sausages on a buttered bagel with HP sauce. Dammit, now I'm drooling all down me shirt.
• Stevie
  [penelope] Your description of the view cued (unfairly) the following in Mr Brain:
  Oh I often take these night-shift walks when the foreman's not around
  Turn my back on the cooling stacks and make for open ground
  Way out beyond the tank farm fence where the gas flare makes no sound
  I forget the stink and I often think back to that eastern town.

  Stan Rogers.

• Stevie
  Which comes from Northwest Passage, his last and best album.
• penelope - View the music
  [Stevie] Ah.
  As it happened, the estate agency used a very talented photographer, and the house was disappointing on many levels, not least the many levels (steps up and down into EVERY room, despite being re-built ten years ago or so). And the spiral staircase was wound so tight it could have fitted into a submarine. Imagine carrying laundry baskets up and down that! So we're re-thinking. And looking at another one in similar location (sans view of the refinery), a better aspect to the garden, but which is the current owners' unfinished project. We were hoping not to have to take on a project, but as the windy miller is a construction project manager by trade and we can't find the ready-to-move-into house that we were hoping for, it seems daft not to take advantage of his talents.
  In other news, it's raining.
• Stevie
  I always wanted a house with a spiral staircase after seeing The Haunting of Hill House, but in real life they are too narrow for my manly frame.
• penelope - Viral spiral pancake trial
  [Phil] Then unwind the DNA a bit - you can have them as shallow and broad as you like. That's why I was so disappointed that the odd couple selling the house we looked at had decided that no-one with feet larger than size three - and certainly no-one ever carrying a basket of laundry - was every going to attempt to go upstairs.
  Mill News In other news, it's national mills weekend in the UK and in the Netherlands this weekend. Can I recommend that you make an effort to visit your local mill, take the tour and buy some flour or a tea towel? (And then go home and make scones, obviously - I can send you a very easy recipe in Dutch or English if you like.) The windy miller's mill (De Korenbloem (Cornflower) in Zonnemaire, Zeeland, if anyone's interested) will be open all day, and the chef from the local restaurant (De Ouwe Smisse - a fab place where all the meat, fish and lobsters are cooked on an open fire) will be making pancakes for visitors in the mill. I think I will be washer-up for the day.
• Phil
  {Stevie] penelope thinks you should unwind the DNA a bit - you can have them as shallow and broad as you like. That's why she was so disappointed that the odd couple selling the house they looked at had decided that no-one with feet larger than size three - and certainly no-one ever carrying a basket of laundry - was ever going to attempt to go upstairs.
• Phil - Spiral staircases
  As a committed fan of staircases (I was looking at stairporn.org yet again on my lunch break yesterday) and a pedant, I would be much happier if they were called "helical staircases", unless the radius does actually increase or decrease as one climbs.
• Phil - Mill Day - didn't he write bassoon studies?
  Alas, there are no working mills in Berkshire.
• penelope - I hear voices echoing everything I say
  *boggles*
  Thanks Phil...
• Rosie - Journalese
  (Phil) Nonsense! Didn't you know that when "costs are spiralling" they're going up. :-)
• KagomeShuko - Limerick Day
  Apparently it is limerick day . . . well, unless in it no longer May 12 where you live . . . But it is here, so, hmmm . . . I shall create a limerick A woman who knew she was blue Said, " 'ello, how do you do?" The children all ran As fast as a van Making her cry, "Oh, boo hoo." I know, it's not great. But, it was quick and fun.
• Stevie
  These stupid made-up holidays
  I wish were a long-dead past phase.
  Every day a new thing!
  What will next Tuesday bring
  That will fail to amuse or amaze?
• KagomeShuko - Silly Holidays
  May 19th is "Boy's Club Day" May 20th is "Be a Millionaire Day" and "Pick Strawberries Day"
• penelope
  It's also Real Bread Week, Gluten-free Week, and National Doughnut Week in the UK. They need to get co-ordinated.
• KagomeShuko - COMBINE ALL THE THINGS!!!!
  It's Real Gluten Free Doughnut-Bread Week!!!
• penelope - Ack
  *acks*
• Stevie
  I announce The back door is back on and properly sealed to the house with glue that stinks of vinegar but the wooden frame still needs painting and I need some new aluminium screws before I can rehang the storm-door day.
• Rosie
  (Stevie) Acetic acid as a solvent should not be allowed - it pongs.
• Stevie
  I think it's used as an inhibitor to the setting process more than a solvent, but I agree with you on the niff. The small screw-cap versions are easier to use, less niffy and they stay useable after opening longer than the big tubes used in caulking guns even though they work out three to four times as expensive.
• Rosie - CH3COOH
  You may be right; I thought it was just a diluent for benzoyl peroxide. The neat stuff would be a bit hairy, like most peroxides. Bang, Bang!
• Stevie
  Egad! You mean I now have an exploding back door? (View the source to read the hidden text)
• Stevie
  Must've been exciting to be developing caulk. And those break'n'shake glowsticks - they use acetic acid as a moderator to prevent catastrophic exothermic excursion.

  Real science should occasionally explode violently, as I explained to my chemistry teacher.

• Rosie - Woof
  (Stevie) Yeah, but not too often and not too big. A work colleague was severely burnt (20%, months off work) after an ether vapour explosion set off by an open tin of lithium aluminium hydride falling into a bucket of water. I'm glad I was in the office.
• penelope - DIY cascade in the limerick game
  Oh yeah...
  In other news, it's raining.
• penelope - Funny, that
  It's raining again. In the meantime, we've had a splendidly lovely weekend. (But it was too windy on Saturday to ride me bike, dang)
• Rosie
  FFS pen, swear properly. Rain here, too, all day. Temperature 12. Stirring stuff and if anything it's going to get worse tomorrow.
• Raak
  40 mile bike ride in the sun yesterday. 100 miles next weekend.
• KagomeShuko - This sounds so wrong . . .
  I don't think it is what she meant, but a friend wrote, " Actually, if you look on the agent orange information sheet it does list illnesses is children."
• penelope
  [KS] Quite so. Other peoples' kids make me sick.
• penelope - Weekending, anyone?
  Weather should be nice this weekend - and friends from England might drop by at the mill. And tonight we're going to the DIY store to buy a new nozzle thingy for the kitchen mixer tap, and possible some screenwash for the car too. Can't wait!
• Phil
  Looking forward to having short grass again tomorrow, although it's going to be an long slog getting there, with 14 days' growth to deal with. I might even give he barbecue a spring clean too. Who knows, I may even take the tree cuttings to the tip at last.
• pneleope
  [Phil] A trip to the tip? *jealous* It just doesn't happen here the same way - it's so organised and everything gets taken away. When I was a kid, the tip was a landfill site (actually, that sounds - and is - dreadful) in an old chalk quarry a mile or so out of the town. There was salvage and reclaimed stuff to buy from the backs of various containers - my father often came home with bits of fishing rods from which he would create new fishing rods. We were never allowed to buy anything.
• Phil - Nice tip
  Our tip is just outside Wallingford. Well, it's not ours actually, it's Oxfordshire's, but it's the nearest, and is rather cute and scenic.
• Stevie
  [penelope] Your last two sentences, on first reading, had me envisioning a family life predicated on wombling. I realized that you meant that you weren't allowed to buy anything from the tip only after that movie had run to conclusion.
• Stevie
  Perhaps more damning, I saw the young penelope as a sort of infant version of Edna the Inebriate Woman wombling across a huge pile of rubbish in a mac with a string belt.
• penelope - That easn't me
  [Stevie] that wasn't me, although when I was a kid there was a scary and batty old woman who lived in a caravan at the tip. She had been a well-educated governess who had worked for some grand European families. Didn't stop her from spitting at cars in town though.
• Stevie
  [penelope] Millennium hand and shrimp!
• penelope - Shut up at the back
  So ... if no-one has anything better to do this midsummer's weekend, then come to the village of Zonnemaire in Zeeland where my husband (the windy miller) will be running the mill from 10.00 tomorrow morning Saturday, until 16.00 on Sunday afternoon. ('Free running only - the stones are not yet properly fettled for grinding flour) I will endeavour to have coffee on the go at all times, and it may well be possible to partake of a pancake at 03.00 if you so desire. Other than that, I'll be either sitting in the shade with a laptop writing up a wonderful conference over the past 2 days (Look for the Erasmus Energy Forum), or out on a bike ride, or painting my toenails, or asleep in the car.
• Stevie
  penelope said 'fettled' *snigger*.
• Raak - arr, you've got to give the stones a good fettling afore ye can set them to proper milling
  I was going to post a URL to an absolutely rivetting account of improving and modernising the fettling of iron castings in Indian foundries, but it seems that mc5 isn't supporting links.
• penelope - nowt up wi' fettling
  I've used the verb 'to fettle' since I was a pony-mad child, and through my career in international motorsport, which spanned more than a decade. I'm now scared of googling for the definition.
• Dujon - Fettling a fine word
  Don't worry, Penelope, I understand perfectly. My little sports car sometimes needs a bit of fettling. Some of that I do myself but mostly, because I don't have the equipment, it goes somewhere where it can be fettled by experts. Perhaps there is some sort of salacious meaning in Stevie's world but, like you, I'm not prepared to check. :)
• penelope - fettling at fifty
  It's the windy miller's 50th birthday this October. My plan is to have his replica Lotus Super7 (which has been stored in a potato warehouse somewhere in our village for at least 7 years - I have never seen it) fettled and back on the road so we can drive to his 50th birthday party in it. I think I've just found someone who can do it for us. Now all I need is the key to the potato warehouse.
• Phil - fettling?
  As a Geordie, "fettle" has a different usage for me. For example "what fettle the day?", meaning "how are you doing today?" and "in good fettle" meaning "in good form/condition" (e.g. Alan Shearer was in good fettle the day he scored a 2nd half hat-trick against Leicester, to win 4-3). I suppose it's quite similar, but I'd not realised it could be used as a verb before.
• penelope - verbing nouns
  There are quite a few nouns that can be verbed, but some that should never undergo that treatment ('leverage', for one). In my job (mostly editing/using English written by non-native speakers) I often find myself making changes that insert the verb of a noun - and I guess it's because it's easy to gather a vocabulary of nouns in a foreign language, but less easy to know which of them can be verbed. From my experience anyway.
• Stevie
  Some people get bent out of shape about the "modern" habit of "verbing nouns". I have my own list of hates as you all know, but I had a think about this one, concluded the practice was a *lot* older than anyone usually credits and crossed it off my list.
• Stevie
  [pen] KAR120C?
• penelope - KAR120C
  What's that then? (I'm asking you before I ask Google)
• Raak - KAR120C
  The number plate on the eponymous Prisoner's Lotus Super7.
• Dujon - A man of good taste
  [Pen] Your windy miller has just shot up my list of admirable Hollanders. Seven years in storage, even with all those eyes watching, is rather off-putting so he drops one position. My car is a similar type. Down here they carry the generic name of 'Clubmans'. Mine is a locally built unit marketed as a 'PRB'.
• Penelope - Not as stupid as I look
  [Dujon] Why do you think I married him? ;o)
• Phil - Personalised plates
  If I had the money, I'd buy BDR 529
• Rosie
  (Phil) Er, don't geddit. 529 is the square of 23 as any fule kno, and txtspk for 8.55. My own very costly favourite would be I TCH, obviously.
• Penelope - Left a bit, right a bit
  [Rosie] You'd avoid 1 TCH I presume?
• penelope
  *forgets to wave from Amsterdam*
• Stevie - NCC-1701
  I always wanted a 3rd gen Hiace registered as "Galileo".
• Phil
  [Rosie] The Bluesmobile, as driven by Elwood Blues. The number is actually a reference to the Black Diamond Riders, a bike club in Toronto (home town of Dan Aykroyd), whose clubhouse was at 529 Jarvis St.
• Phil
  [Rosie] N 1 TBN is owned by Chris Jeans, who was head of brass at my kids' old school. He was the guy who played the Flight of the Bumblebee for the Lurpak advert (and was principal 'bone for Grimethorpe, and other bands). His number plate actually has "No. 1 Trombone" in small print at the bottom. He's so modest!
• Rosie
  (Phil) I've no doubt he's v good but God, what an egotist. Does someone that good really need to shout so loud?
  (pen) I hope you avoided this.
• Phil - Lord Jeans
  Indeed, he does rather rate himself on the web site. He's a much nicer chap in person, although a little Hitchcockesque in his appearance these days!
• Rosie - The denim peer
  (Phil) He really does call himself Lord Jeans. Errgh! What an arsehole!
• blamelewis - York
  (With apologies for cross posting) I find myself and the family in York, the city rather than the former server. I wondered what any Crescenters who know the place might recommend for a family of four children ages 6,9,40 and 41...?
• CdM - Leveraging your existing vocabulary
  [pen] Who says? As Stevie observes, the only thing you achieve with that kind of reactionary thinking is to put yourself on the wrong side of history.   :-)    It's one thing to dislike a usage, or even to shun it in your professional capacity; it is quite another to proscribe it.
  
  A little research suggests that leveraged, at least, has been in established use for more than a century.
• Rosie
  (blamelewis) Your parents are scarcely older than my nieces.
• Penelope - Leveraging the ante
  [CdM] First, 'levveraging' is so ugly (leeveraging is the lesser of two evils, when uttered) and second, i'm triying to make sure the text is as clear as poss for as many readers of varying fluency (of English and of business jargon, for that's what it is) as poss. There's usually another way to say it. If you want my job, come and try. But for now, I'm in the editor's chair.
• Stevie - Never winter in the Bahamas
  [pen] "verbed". You ironied your opening salvo. Well done.
• CdM
  [pen] There is usually another way to say everything. So what? As I said, you're free to make whatever aesthetic judgments you like in your personal or professional capacity. I was merely objecting to your statement that leverage "should never" be used as a verb, even though fluent native English speakers do in fact use it as a verb, and have done so for a long time—in other words, your belief that your particular preference deserves the status of a universal style rule. :-)
• Rosie - Fluent Native English Speakers
  Not the Yanks, then.
• penelope
  [CdM] If I wanted to perpetuate the discussion (which I don't - there are much funnier things to talk about), I'd point to the fact that not even Google Chrome's spellchecker recognises 'leveraging'. (Nor does it recognise 'spellchecker' so that's my argument sunked before it's even gottenstarted. So much for trying to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to new languageisms).
  Did you hear the first show in the new series of ISIHAC last night? (Now online if you want to catch up)
• Phil - Oblig. Cross-posting apology
  I don't suppose any of you fancy a friendly game of cricket this Sunday afternoon, in idyllic West Berkshire (10 mins from M4 junction 12), versus The Observer. If you, or anyone you know, would like to take part, we have a couple of places available, due to a fixture clash with a 6-a-side tournament. email me at philqjones@carbosynth.com, replacing the q with a dot. ASAP. Cheers.
• Phil - cricket
  Aching from an intense match yesterday. The opposition included a former Middlesex U-19 fast bowler. Very fast! And a former Essex seconds team all-rounder, who hit 139 not out! We are a pub team with an average age of about 45 and I don't think any of us had ever faced such a fast bowler. We tried to bat out for a draw, but failed with 6 overs left once they brought the fast bowler back on against our tail. Most unsporting, what-ho!
• Phil - Holland?
  [penelope, or anyone else] The Dutch football supporters on TV last night appeared to be chanting "Holland! Holland!" That confused me as I thought it as just us that called The Netherlands "Holland". Can someone explain?
• Raak
  [Phil] I think Hollanders call the Netherlands "Holland" for the same reason that Englanders call the UK "England".
• penelope - Hup Holland Hup!
  Because it's football. It's allowed in football apparently, according to Twitter last night while that very boring match was on. 'Holland' (as you probably know) is more accurately North Holland and South Holland, two of the 12 provinces in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. North Holland contains Amsterdam, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands used to be run from Amsterdam - possibly that's it. It's an historical reason.
  BTW, Nederlanders call the UK 'Engeland'. All of it. Scotland, Wales and NI too. And on TV news programmes too, probably for exactly the same reasons.
• Stevie - Nederlanders call the UK 'Engeland'
  [penelope] By curious coincidence so do Americans. I like encouraging them to say "Wales, England" or "Scotland, England" in their charming accents.
• penelope - Oh how we laughed...
  [Stevie] It works like a charm right up to the point where you try to buy a train ticket to that destination.
• Rosie
  (pen) Do you mean to say the Dutch can't pronounce Machynlleth? Whatever next?
• Stevie
  [Rosie] Corris Youth Hostel, 1972ish.

  Newly arrived party from Oop North: "We just come over th'ill".
  Me: Which "thill" was that?
  NAPFON: "Cadder Eye-driss"
  Me: " It's pronounced 'Cadder ID-riss'. Where did you come from?"
  NAPFOM: "Borth! Dornt gu t'Borth!"
  Me: "I certainly won't. Where are you headed next?"
  NAPFOM: "Muh KIN lith"
  Me: "It's pronounced Muh CHIN lith"
  NAPFON: "Oh. Right. Ta."
  Me: "Don't mention it"

  It occurs to me now, having written this down and read it over, that it is just possible that the NAPFON may have misunderstood that last line as a polite response to their thanks, rather than an earnest instruction not to speak the name "Mu CHIN Lith" aloud. Such misunderstandings have been irritatingly frequent in my life.

• penelope - Scheveningen
  I shan't mention it.
• Rosie - Too easy
  (pen) "Ch" is guttural and separate from the "s". First "e" short; the others are schwas. Next up - Dwygyfylchi. Dim gŵglio.
• Raak - Dwygyfylchi
  "Diggy-figgy"?
• penelope - that town on the coast
  [Rosie] No. S-[swallow-the-back-of-your-tongue-noise]-ay-ferni-[swallow-the-G]-en. *wink*
• Rosie
  (pen) Well, I was nearly right. Nearly, sort of.
  (Raak) Close. In Wikipaedia it gives the correct IPA representation then f***s it up completely with an English version and gives the wrong meaning. I don't know what the meaning is except that it's two something-or-others. Dwy ("Doo-ee", but very "back") is the feminine form of dau = "two".

  What about Wrotham and Meopham?

• penelope
  Or indeed Gotham and Haugham?
• Rosie - Gotham City
  (pen) Goat-em. I knew that anyway but Haugham is a guess. Hoff-em?
• penelope
  'Haffem' - hamlet where me mum and dad lived just before I was born.
• Rosie
  So: There was a young lady of Haugham..........
  Root-em, Mepp-em, BTW.
• penelope - New office sport
  Bluebottle Tennis. Open the window in your office, and the door at the opposite end of the room. You and your colleague compete to chase the fly out using copies of the alumni magazine and the Annual Report.
• penelope - Saturday morning giggles
  I've just read Phil's brilliant concluder to the latest limerick and laughed out loud. Despite my best efforts to drag the standard down, he's made a classy ending.
• blamelewis - Lower the Standard!
  [pen] Don't give up!
• penelope - per severance.
  Right folks, the eight-word game is on its last legs. Your suggestions please for something to fill its place. Perchance a Book Club or a Song Book? Or something entirely new? May I suggest 'The Dead Tractor Game' - a brilliant title, but as yet, no strategy, game-plan, purpose or indeed winning move behind it. But I live in the countryside, you know.
• blamelewis
  I know a joke about someone run over by a tractor... It's not very good. This will, of course, not stop me.
• penelope
  I listen to ISIHAC online from the BBC iPlayer in bed as I fall asleep giggling. This week, it has taken me three nights to get to the end of the programme. I'm still not sure whether or not I have heard the end.
• Phil
  Just thought I'd say "hi" to everyone. I've had a quiet couple of weeks off work to help get my head together a bit. It's been a difficult year so far, and I reached a point where I hit a wall, mentally. I couldn't have asked for better weather during the last fortnight, which has certainly helped chill me out a bit. Back to work again today, part-time for a bit, and feeling a bit shaky, but should survive.
• penelope
  [Phil] Just be kind to yourself. Then you can do the same for others. Hope everything's moving in the right direction.
• penelope - HAppy August
  Last day of work before three weeks of holiday, followed by one day back in the office, then four days in Edinburgh for a conference. Not back to work 'proper' until September. Easy life.
• blamelewis
  [Phil] Just to echo pen's words and wish you a smooth return to work.
  
• penelope - ONe week later...
  So it's all a bit quiet. Does anyone want any green beans? We have far more than we can eat. I'm going to leave a table of them out on the street for passers-by to take. On a positive note, we're managing to keep up with the tomatoes, because we eat them at EVERY MEAL. *pip*
• Rosie - Tachyveg
  How fast are these tomatoes going?
• penelope - Tomato Zoom
  We've been away for two weeks and got back this morning, Luckily, it has been SO RAINY at home that the tomato plants are still producing. And so are the courgette plants. Does anyone want a marrow?
• penelope - Edinburgh-bound
  I'm in Edinburgh from Tuesday until Friday afternoon, conferencing. Is anyone about? Rab?
• penelope
  *waves from Edinburgh*
• penelope
  *waves from Rotterdam a week later* I've been travelling for so long now, I can't even remember the way around my own kitchen. I'm looking forward to just being at home for a bit. And BTW, I saw His Maj the King of the Netherlands yesterday at the university's official opening of the academic year. And I had a hand in the speech of the retor magnificus too. He wasn't boo-ed off, which was a relief.
• Raak
  I have just seen the Prints of Whales at the Fitzwilliam Museum. I said to hm, "Still not king?", no that doesn't work unless you read it aloud. Prints. Of Whales. Really.
• Phil
  [Raak] I was going to follow up with a song title to do with Diana worrying about Charles' erectile dysfunction, but thought better of it.
• rab - Buggerbuggerbugger
  [pen] Sorry. I've been neglecting these parts somewhat recently. For about the last three years in fact. I was vaguely aware a visit was imminent. Annoyed at missing it. Poo.
• penelope - flying scotsvisit
  [Rab] No worries. I'm sure we'll path crosses again before too long.
  In other news, there has been a British-registered car parked in the driveway of the recently-sold house on the corner for three days now, and the lights in the house are burning in the evenings. I'm trying to keep the kitchen door open when The Archers' theme tune is playing, to give them 'the signal'. Did any of you lot know that an invasion had been planned? This is *so* exciting.
• penelope - The British neighbours
  They have not responded to the 'Barwick Green' signal yet. I actually dreamt I met them last night - and didn't like them. Do I sound obsessed? What I absolutely mustn't do is go round, knock on the door and introduce myself. That would be so not English - they might take me for a foreigner.
• Stevie
  Why not take them a lump of coal? You don't have to treat them as Southern English people?
• Phil
  On the other hand, they might be Dutch expats who have returned home.
• penelope
  The suspense is killing me. There's also a Dutch registered car there now. I think Phil might be right. What's wrong with staying in the UK???!
• Phil
  [pen] pots and kettles spring to mind...
• Phil - Windmills
  Incidentally, I discovered on Sunday that I'm only a 30 minute drive from this windmill
• Rosie - Barrel distortion
  (Phil) I thought the earth was flat. Well, you know what I mean.
• penelope - Putting the sails back on
  [Phil] Splendid. Great photos too.
• Six Fathom Stevie
  Greetins, ye pasty-faced landlubbers.
• Black Phil
  And what be it to ye, Stevie, y'old brigand?
• Stevie
  Arr, Ahoy Black Phil! An I see ye have a firkin o' rum with ye.
• Six Fathom Stevie
  Blast! Me cognomen fell of me postin, so it did! Yarr! Me cognomenclature be awash! To the bilge pumps me hearties!
• penelope - Seven Days and a a bottle of rum
  So do y'reckon he's dead, Cap'n? He's been in the cells for a week now and never shouted for any food nor beer...
  In other words, no-one has said owt for a week. I'll break the silence. We've bought a house. It only took us three years to find one. I'm thinking of crowd-funding it.
• rab - Service announcement
  Just to let you know I'm in the process of migrating to a new server, so there will be a short period sometime in the next week or so where you won't be able to post.
• rab - Curious...
  I seem to have broken the Whoops! button, without having actually done anything. Very odd. Must investigate.
• penelope
  *Shouts down into the cellar where the meter box is* Are you alright in there rab?
• Rosie
  Ah, I'd better not post this, then.
• rab - Aha
  Turns out I just needed to resynch the index. As Neneh Cherry very nearly once sang.
• rab
  The new server is ready and waiting; I have requested the swap-over to take place on Wednesday. Since this doesn't involve any changes to DNS, everyone should be working with the same copy, but this version will go read-only before this happens so that no moves get lost as the database copy takes place.
• rab - Welcome to our new home!
• rab - What time is it?
• rab - Any better?
• penelope - Is it properly insulated?
  [rab] It looks just the same as the last one. Am I missing something?
• rab - No
  It's just that all the existing code and database has been moved to a new machine. So it should look exactly the same. Except it's probably about time I did another revamp, if only I had any time to do anything at all, these days.
• Chalky
  *is happy that everything looks as it should* I've been out there. It's not pretty. Gawd bless you Morniverse.
• penelope - Long term parking.
  The card-reader car park barriers on campus failed as I was going through them this morning, and I had to wait while they re-booted the system before the barrier lifted and I could get in. When I swiped my card (they charge 1 euro 75 a day for parking, the swines) it showed I had a credit of 9,999 euros on my card. It should be about 37 euros. I wonder...
• penelope - A week is a long time in Mronington Crescent
  Last night in Ikea, the windy miller and I bought two plastic storage boxes, and four new sheets for all the guest beds we're going to have. Looks like the moving process has actually started. *gulp*
• Phil
  [pen] How many self-invited guests will you be able to house?
• penelope
  [Phil] Three standing, two sitting down.
  Oops, my mistake - that's the configuration of the gents in the pub. Ummm.. two spare double bedrooms. I aim to have a single in one of those too. Give us a few months to get sorted out, then bring any or all of the Phillettes to sample the beers just over the border in Belgium and see the windy miller's mill in Zeeland.
• penelope - I'm going in, I may be some time...
  While all you Blighty-bound Crescenters are internetless because of the storm, I'm going to make a move in EVERY game. Watch me...
• Phil - Storm?
  What storm?
• Stevie - Storm
  Arghsplutterkoffkoffglug! Up scope!

  Did someone lose a storm, 'cos I've got one here I don't need.

• Dujon
  So you are to blame for that sneaky redirect in the weather coding. Shame on you!
• penelope - three weeks to go
  We move in three weeks. Eeeek. When should I start packing do you think?
• Dujon - Packing it.
  You should already be under way, penelope. Having moved a few times yourself you should be aware of that. First are the non-essentials - the things you can do without for a few weeks. Then there's the bits and pieces you dither over - if you are dithering then pack it. The aim is to have everything bundled up or boxed by two days before the move. Keep a couple of plates and a few pieces of cutlery plus bedding and clothing to get you through; these can be bundled up and tossed into the car boot along with any food you are taking with you when you leave. Remember that unpacking can be as much work (if not more) than stowing your stuff so label clearly what's in the boxes as it'll save you lots of time at the other end. Bon voyage. :)
• Phil
  [pen] ASAP, basically. We've moved in 1998, 2000, 2003 (twice), 2004, 2006, 2011, 2012, 2013. It doesn't get easier, as we have more stuff every time we move, but we are better at it. Twice we've done it at a week's notice, which adds to the fun!
  I suspect your move might be harder than most due to it being the Windy Miller's first, so good luck!
• penelope - A moveable feast
  [Phil, Duj] I think you're both right. I moved in 1997, 1998 (twice), 1999, 2007 and 2009. I may have forgotten how much I hate it, but I'm so looking forward to the new house. It'll be good in the end. It's perhaps 15 or 16 rungs up the property ladder from our tired old terraced house. Now... how to transplant the sapling hazelnut tree grown from a nut found under a hedge during a picnic while on holiday in Brittany which is hanging onto its leaves. I'm going to start digging a ring around the roots - a bit deeper every few days - so that we can lift it in a couple of weeks.
• Phil - The tree
  Does the new place have more storage space / shed space? if so, you can't go wrong :)
• Stevie - treensplantation
  [penelope] good luck with that. Expect the wretched thing to go into shock for two years anyway.
• penelope
  Hard to say about the storage thing. It has fewer cupboards, but more rooms, and it has hidey-holes in the 'berging', the Toblerone-shaped spaces over the eaves created by bedrooms up in the roof. But I'm aware that if I shove box after box into the berging spaces, they might be shuffled so far away from the access hatches that I'll never see them again, and neither will anyone else until the house is eventually demolished. (Oh no. I've just put into words the fear that will become my house-moving nightmare for the next 6 months.) There's also a garage under the house and a big (and properly roofed) space under the massive deck. This morning I gave ALL my money to the solicitor; I don't have a running-away fund any more. Eeek.
• Stevie
  [penelope] When facing the same situation (Mrs Stevie packs her ever-growing collection of Xmas Tree Tat into the 'berging' on our hours) I seriously considered installing a small tramway like that used to ferry prisoners through Tom, Dick and Harry.

  You could make the rails from wooden 1x1 screwed to plywood bed and run the trucks between them rather in the manner of the Montreal Metro. You make the trucks from plywood or MDF with large non-swivel castors mounted on for wheels. The furthest one away has a stout rope attached to it. To load tat into berging simply add a truck, then pile on tat. When it is full, push the truck down the track and add another. To retrieve tat, pull on the rope to bring trucks back up the line.

  Mind you don't make your house fall on its side with all the weight though. You may need to counterbalance the house with lead shot in the gutters.

• Stevie
  [penelope] Though you might need to brace the gutters with long poles to prevent them tearing off the house too.
• Phil
  Sounds like a good excuse for flying buttresses to me.
• penelope
  I'm laughing out loud because lead shot has been illegal for years, and we'd only need to weight the house down on one side, because the other side is build off the edge of the dijk. (ie the front door is at road level, but the back door is a floor below, at the bottom of the dijk).
• Stevie
  [penelope] *sighs* it is only called lead shot. It is made from less politically harmful materials now to avoid unnecessary hysteria in the unchemist poplace. (View the source to read the hidden text)
• Stevie
  I have to say that joining the EC has made of England a land of scaredy-cat weenie runaway sissies. I was lectured last month by someone in the UK offended that I had the audacity to suggest on a forum using acetone as a cleaner for metal, and last year was taken to task for my Hitler-like suggestion that brake fluid would fetch paint off plastic quite effectively.
• Stevie
  I clean my glasses with whiteboard cleaner, AKA Isopropyl Alcohol, largely because it's provided free at work. It works a treat. I've been toying with taking it home to try removing some stubborn chewing gum.
• Rosie - Plumbic indiscretions
  (Stevie) Yes, metallic lead is not a hazard. My mains water comes through several feet of lead pipe. I've just made a little counterweight for my trombone out of lead from an old car battery which involved melting it and bashing it into shape. It's worth not ingesting lead compunds though and the banning of tetraethyl lead from petrol was a good thing.
  I wouldnt't say it was joining the EU that has made us so risk-averse; they have just added an extra layer of absurdity to a process that started about 30 years ago in which we decided to become princesses, or as I prefer it, spoilt wankers. Acetone, BTW is one of the least toxic organic chemicals, comparable with ethanol, i.e you can drink it, preferably diluted.
• Phil - Apologies
  Ummm, that last post from Stevie was from me, and was supposed to be addressed to Stevie. I claim tiredness as my excuse.
• penelope - Apologies
  Umm, that last post from Phil was from me, and was supposed to be addressed to Phil. I claim tiredness as my excuse. *wink*
• Rosie
  (Phil, aka Stevie) IPA (chemists' term for isopropyl alcohol) won't shift chewing gum. That stuff is little better than an organic version of Blu-Tak, i.e. resistant to almost anything. Try a blowlamp. This post is from penelope, who has broadened her portfolio, as they say.
• penelope - Broadened her what?
  Actually, for choongum, rub with icecubes until cold and brittle, then take a bloody great hammer and chisel to it.
• Stevie
  Bubblegum will often yield to a stint in the deep freeze. Oh, penelope already said that. To keep with the theme of chemical application: Try pouring a little liquid nitrogen on the bubblegum (and anything else your scientific interest in catastrophic failure under cryogenic shock lights upon - pens, fruit esp. grapes, and rubber gloves are classic favorites) and carefully prying it off. Use At Own Risk - not responsible for shattered glasses, pullovers, cricket bats, shoe-soles or whatever.
• penelope - Weak end
  Working my last afternoon before a bunch o' weeks off. I'll be packing boxes, chucking stuff out and MOVING HOUSE! I'm back in the office for three days in the middle before we actually get the keys, but I'm not going to tell anyone about that because I don't want any distractions from writing the Annual Report.If they know I'm here, they send me work to do.
• Knobbly - Jolly good limerick...
  (Phil) Would you mind if I borrowed your limerick (appropriately cited of course)? The one that begins 'The choirmaster asked for staccato'... I think it would amuse people if placed in the members' newsletter of the choir I'm in.
• Phil - Limerick snaffling...
  [Knobbly] Not at all. I'd be honoured :)
• Stevie
  No postings from Penelope. I wonder if she is crouched in her new basement hiding from the vengeful revenant of Bonkers the Clown (aka the Straight-Razor Fiend of Chipperfield's) while clouds of flies spell "GET OUT" on the windows?
• Penelope - Not sure what all that was about...
  I'm surrounded by boxes. That's all. We get the keys on Friday 14 November. Please don't tell me tales about scary clowns...
• Stevie
  Mrs Stevie and I spent a weekend in a hotel recently on account of it being our 27th wedding anniversary. I suggested we mark the Chateau Stevie bathroom mirror with the words "GET OUT" in soap so it would show up when the Stevieling had a shower. We decided that it would be too mean to scare her this way, as she has a very active imagination. We were split over the alternate plan of writing "CLEAN YOUR ROOM" on the mirror though.
• penelope - Soap for Windows
  [Stevie] So what did you write on the mirror in the end? (And congrats on your anniversary)
• Stevie
  Nothing, of course. I'd never do anything to scare her without being there to make it all better afterward (or give her someone to yell at, which amounts to the same thing). I just fake being mean.
• Rosie
  (pen) And polish for Google Chrome?
• Giertrud - Polish/polish?
  The language or to make it shiny?
• Rosie
  (Giertrud) The shiny stuff. I wouldn't use lower case for a language though I suppose the French do.
• penelope - We moved house!
  It's bloomin lovely! But... we have two wifi networks, neither of which reach into our bedroom, so I can't listen to Radio 4 in bed any more. Boo.
• Raak
  Luxury! I dream of a house so big that two wifi networks still can't reach all of it! I don't know the technicalities, but is there some sort of relay device that would extend the range?
• rab - WDS
  ...is the buzzword. But Dan is probably yer man for this sort of thing as he always seems to come up with the best solution first time.
• Dan
  [rab] What a nice thing to say. [pen] Depends on the character of the problem. If I were in a big old house with thick old building materials I'd consider powerline adapter/access points, which would obviate the wiring problem and the signal-blocking walls problem and let you put wifi whereever you need it. It's also worth looking at whether the access points you have are up-to-date, as powerful/sensitive as they might be and reasonably sited to where you actually want them, and move/replace as appropriate. I just put in this model, originally intending to mount it in the ceiling central to the house -- there are generally fewer things to get in the way and absorb signal higher up -- but as it's a bungalow it's reaching everything quite well just sitting on a desk in the basement. What's nice about this one is that it projects signal in all directions including above and below, so it's ideal for placing in a ground floor ceiling of a two storey house. But again, I don't know what exactly what problem we're solving here.
• Dan
  I should have mentioned that yes, there are range extenders and they're probably fine, I just have no experience with them because they annoy the purist in me - one radio hop to the wired network ought to be enough for anyone. Plain repeaters are inexpensive and you can just stick one in, but effectively halve your wireless bandwidth. WDS by contrast is a relatively expensive technology which would require you to start from scratch and buy all the units from a single vendor. Again, I'd start by looking at the placement and performance of the ones you have.

  And congratulations on moving in! When's the NetherPilg?

• rab - Ah yes
  I'd forgotten about Powerline.
• Dujon - Crossed wires
  Yes, the power line systems work, but . . .
  Beware if you have two or three phases for the house supply. It'll most likely cause much frustration should each end of the supposed circuit be on different phases.
• Dan
  Well, I said I'd consider it, there's quite a bit that can go wrong with them; they work best on the same circuit which might rule them out for a given installation; some stop working while an unshielded motor is running, such as a paper shredder or sink disposal or some below-spec appliance. It's usually good to buy from a business with a 30-day unconditional return policy so you can try these things out.

  Before going that way the first thing to try is to just move your existing APs, try different channels, fiddling with the antennae, and then move on to testing out more powerful units. Newer 802.11ac units like the one I linked have multiple antennas and beamforming technology and are pretty good at getting a stable connection through walls. That one's Power over Ethernet as well so you don't to position it near a mains socket, though that raises the cost a little more since you need an injector to supply current. (Note also if you ever buy PoE network gear always use an injector that the manufacturer has tested, not whatever's cheap.)

• penelope - baffled by the science of it
  Erm... it's a new house, and has a concrete structure, so there's at least 2 concrete walls/floors between the router (at dijk/road level) and the bedroom (lower floor). I guess we'll have the same problem when I get my top floor office working too. We've got one of the powerline adapter/access points, but I think it's too far away from the router - I need to use another socket. I'll start moving it about later this week when I get time. I don't need an enormous amount of bandwidth downstairs - I only listen to the radio in headphones in bed, that's all. Thanks for all the thinking.... I'll relay it to my technical consultant (aka the windy miller)
• Dan
  I always think new houses should have some accommodation for adding and updating the wiring. I just added ethernet ports in the bedrooms and it was a real pain doing it in a non-destructive, not-unsightly way in this 1915 house. Still don't have a neat way to do it in the living room but since the lazy slobs who installed cable TV for a previous owner just did it by drilling a hole in the hardwood floor, for now I just repurposed that. It's ugly but it's under a cabinet so I can ignore it.
• Stevie
  Speaking as a hardwood floor driller of yore, sometimes it is the only way short of removing an entire wall and who needs the walls out at Christmas? The good thing about hardwood is it also comes in dowel form so a hole is only there until the wall has to come out anyway.
• Dan
  But if you don't take the wall out at Christmas how do you get the tree in? I hope you're not suggesting lowering it through the hole in the roof, as that would entail making the hole needlessly large; normally said hole only has to accommodate the tree's upper span.
• Stevie - There Was I, A-Drillin' This 'Ole
  And just to show me, today I was required to drill one(1) hole in the exposed soleplate of the living room wall so I could finally address the "no ground connection" issue in the sockets we plan on plugging the brand-new, Mrs Stevie for the use of, 48 inch wide flat screen "smart" TV into. (View the source to read the hidden text)

  Having made several careful calculations and measurements I sat on the basement stairs, carefully located the groundless cable with Mr Hand and felt the extra-long electrician's drill-bit into place (no line of sight, you see) and by dint of swearing and sheer stick-toitiveness I punched a 5/16ths hole one quarter inch away from the skirting board straight through our hardwood floor. Extra poignancy was lent to this fiasco by my only discovering the fact after feeding four feet of wire through the hole and wondering where it was all going as I couldn't see it in the hole I made in the stairwell wall to do all the wire-fu where no-one would see it. I could hear the wire scratching at the wall but couldn't find it through my access hole (which was perfectly aligned with the junction boxes, so one in the win column even if swamped by the floods of incompetence happening all around me).

  The anti-handiman spirits are clearly in your pocket Dan. Well played, sir. Well played.

  Now, having run sixty feet of green-clad wire from the socket back to the power distribution center (View the source to read the hidden text) I'm off out dowel shopping.

• Dan - 'Andy [Mac]Dowel[l]
  Clearly the answer is to manufacture flooring with a regular pattern of what appear to be little round inlays but which are in fact pre-installed dowels; when you need a hole you just tap one out.
• Rosie
  (Stevie) "Dowel shopping" sounds like a euphemism for some dubious activity. Don't do it.
• Stevie
  And the Flat Screen TV c/w HD cable TV hookup and integration into the WiFi has Mrs Stevie smiling and heaping me with compliments and thank-yous in between bouts of binge Netflix-ing.
• Stevie
  Next up: re-introducing surround-sound via the miracle of the wireless soundbar and removing to another place of the DVD player that opens only to close before you can load or unload a disc.
• Stevie
  [Dan Re: Pre-made knockouts in the floor] Where's the fun in that? More to the point, where's the clear opportunity to deploy The Rule? Admittedly, this time all I got out of it was a couple of new spiral saw bits "needed" to saw out the hole in the sheetrock (actually, I should pull the 66s and 99s on account of me not being able to come up with an alternative method of cutting such a close-fitting hole without serious danger of cutting the cable too. (A lie, I have a small circular saw made out of an angle grinder that would have done almost as good a job while at the same time posing perhaps the greatest hazard to the user I have ever personally seen in a commercially available tool, and that includes the gas-powered chain-saw mounted on a ten foot pole and that never-to-be-sufficiently-damned McCulloch weed-wacker))
• Dan
  If your new TV supports HDMI-CEC it should work well with your Raspberry Pi. I paid more than the price of a Pi just for a CEC dongle for my XBMC box, but boy is it nice, you can use the TV remote for everything and let all the others moulder in a drawer. (You can sort of achieve the same result with a smartphone or tablet, but then you have to use separate apps for the TV and XBMC, the Viera app is pants, and it's really unhandy to slide between screens to get to the various controls.) It helps if your soundbar is also CEC compatible and connected to the ARC port. It means I can turn off the TV and just listen to music streams on the sound bar. (For that I do need to use the tablet or phone.)

  Now if only my supposedly fanless HTPC actually ran stably without a fan. Fear to click: my USB fan hack. (The two sticky-up things to the right are external antennas I bodged onto it because the factory wifi was rubbish and if I'm going to have a Linux box next to a window I'll make it an access point so I can listen to streaming radio while snipping things in the garden.)

• Phil
  eh?
• Dan - Ehndeed.
  Sorry, should have prefaced that with "[Stevie]".
• Phil
  [Dan] I was lost at "dowel" ;-)
• Stevie - Integrated System Blues
  Well, I need something. The Vizio soundbar has it's own remote (intended to be used to configure it before the Vizio TV remote takes control and of greatest use to turn down the stupid levels of "awesome" factory configured into the sub-woofer) is pathetic and doesn't match the aesthetics of the black-with-colored-buttons of the Sony kit (TV and Disc Player) or the Cablevision (A silver ST:TNG phaser-like affair needed to change the cable channels). I finally got the Sony TV remote to control the soundbar, then realized I needed the cable remote to do that, but in making it recognize the telly (so the on/off button would work) ended up not being able to mute the television sound so it doesn't f*ck-up the surround sound panorama.

  It is all very trying and a big argument in favor of buying all one manufacturer's kit (the disc player instantly integrated remote-wise with the telly).

  The best picture seems to be with Blu-Ray discs, which look staggeringly good, followed by Netflix and other HD netty content, then HD cable and other signals a distant last place. The picture from all the non-disc sources seems (to me) to have the actors standing like cutouts in front of the backdrop. This is probably a matter of dialing down some factory preset. All the preset "modes" I found were eye-hurtingly bad; too bright (refelcting surfaces flared like Novae), too red, cartoonish sharpness etc. Once I killed the red by about 50%, made the sharpness a tad higher and knocked the shine off it all looked very nice indeed.

  Everyone else in the extended family (who are all HD ents veterans) will probably feel the picture isn't colorful enough, but as I said to Mrs Stevie, I can't watch a face that has livid blotches all over it so I'd be grateful if she'd move out of my eye-line so I could see the screen to adjust it.

  I was also mizled over the wireless bit of the soundbar, which was only between the sub-woofer and the bar, not to each of the satellite speakers as I had been led to believe.

  I imagine watching me trying to buy all this stuff was very like watching the sketch from Not the 9 O'Clock News where Mel Smith tries to buy a gramophone and Rowan Atkinson tries not to sell him one.

• rab - What have I started?
  Our telly has a "store display mode" which I think just means an obnoxiously bright picture. The thing about this is that, in principle, it is activated by drilling down about eight levels of menus. However there appears to be an undocumented shortcut that is trivial for a three-year old to activate. I wish I knew what it was, and whether this shortcut also deactivates it, because the menus that take you there are all obscurely named and give you the impression you're going to get it to self-destruct.
• Raak - While we're on the subject...
  I'm thinking of getting a new TV to replace my ancient CRT, maybe in the post-pre-Christmas sales. However, my needs are rather specialised. I have no aerial, satellite, cable, or indeed a TV licence, and don't need any of these, as I only use it for watching DVDs. I'd like to also be able to watch video streamed from any of my computers or coming from the internet. What's the simplest way of enabling that, given that the desktop machine is upstairs and the TV is downstairs? Ideally I'd be able to sit downstairs and tap on my iPad or MacBook Pro to make TV stuff happen. Would it just be a matter of having a TV with a wifi connection (do TVs have wifi these days?) and setting it up as a second screen on my laptop (can laptops mount extra displays over wifi?)? Or something else?
• Stevie - In My Recently Experienced Opinion
  Smart TV. Switch it on, acquaint it with your network password, wait five minutes while it updates its firmware and Bob's your uncle.

  Of course, you'll have to fiddle with the levels to make it look right, but it's pretty much an out of the box and up-and-running experience for something with a computer inside it.

  The important thing then becomes how many HDMI holes it has in the back vs. the number of cables you want feeding the thing.

  Which in your case is one, but I'd demand two just in case you ever decide you'd like cable TV or whatever.

• Raak - Cables
  The ideal number of cables is zero, but I see there are such things as wifi to HDMI convertors. Presumably these do what the name suggests? A lot of them seem to be tied to specific services.
• Dan
  [Raak] Given that you use OSX and iOS devices I suggest you get the most basic TV that has the picture size and quality you like, and an Apple TV. In addition to having far more and better apps than a 'Smart TV', it will stream pretty much anything from your phone, iPad and Macs.

  The trouble with Smart TVs is that they can be pretty poorly maintained when it comes to software updates; a year or two in and they're basically abandonware. The only thing I use mine for (app-wise) is Netflix, because all my servers and things are Linux-based and can't do DRM. And the Netflix app is terrible.

  If my home setup were Apple centric (and I didn't develop this sort of thing for fun and profit), the Apple TV would be all I'd get.

• Raak
  [Dan] I've wondered from time to time what the Apple TV is. It looks like the way to go. That will bring to a total of 6 the number of Apple things-with-computers-inside I have.
• Dan
  Having made that endorsement I have to add that every individual option has limitations. Apple TV's is that they have a slightly more old-skool than average walled-garden approach, and their app selection is consequently limited. For example, because they have their own digital video store, they don't support any competing online video rentals like Amazon, for example. But if you want that there's a pretty easy workaround: install the Amazon Instant Video app on your iPad and then stream it to the Apple TV via Airplay.

  The reason I recommend it is because you'll be able to access all your content from your various computers -- certainly anything that can be put in iTunes, and that includes movies you rip yourself with third party software like handbrake or source in other ways we won't go into -- and anything that it doesn't provide an app for you can fling at it from one of those devices. And it does have the characteristic Apple virtue that what it does have is less broken than everybody else.

• rab
  [Dan] I've heard other people talk about Chromecast, and I have even less idea what this does than an Apple TV. Does it play nice with iDevices? Is it any good?and err indeed what does it do? The website is a bit vague
• Dan
  [rab] It's a web streamer you control with an Android device or (to some extent) a chromebook or the chrome browser. Essentially most things you can do on your Android device you can 'cast' to your TV. It's a bit like a dumber Apple TV, one that doesn't have its own onboard apps but just plays what some other device sends it (or tells it to play -- the distinction is blurred).

  Depending on whether the app's media type and location is supported by Chromecast, the 'source' device may actually be doing the work of fetching and rendering the material and 'casting' the A/V output to Chromecast, but commonly it's just sending the URL and various tokens and chromecast is doing the actual fetching/decoding.

  It's similar to having an Airplay-only device on your TV; bearing in mind that they are similar protocols but not the same nor interchangeable. Its main disadvantage is that it can't play content that's local to your network, so if you have your own movies and things you have to play them on your device and screencast it to chromecast. Which may or may not be well supported and look decent. For several good reasons I'd rather tell the TV-attached gizmo "play this file, which you can find over on that computer", than tie up some other device playing it and throwing the video to the TV. You can do the latter with Apple TV as well, but the thing is you don't have to, at least for any content that's supported by iTunes.

• Dan - For balance
  There's a metric shedload of other ways to do this sort of thing, with various amounts of overlap and wheel reinvention. The Apple TV approach is one I recommend for someone who's already pretty invested in the Apple ecosystem. It's probably the quickest route to maximum versatility without going to a lot of expense or trouble. If you don't have least one iDevice and/or don't want to use iTunes for your local media, getting as complete a solution can be a little more complicated, though not necessarily more expensive and there are a few reasons why it might be worth the trouble.
• Stevie
  [Raak] Sorry, I could have sworn I read your post as saying you intended to connect a disc player. Ignore HDMI cabling entirely.
• Raak
  [Stevie] I thought TVs all ran over HDMI these days? I do have a DVD player (other than my computers), but it and the TV are both so old they use SCART.
• Stevie
  [Raak] You said you were going with a network-to-TV model. A smart TV will hunt for your network, ask for a password and then present you with whatever app-based interface it uses so you can start consuming content. No wires other than the power cable. You want to push a signal in over a wire, HDMI is the best way (but not usually the only way on a decent TV). You want to take the sound to somewhere it sounds decent (thin tellies mean small speakers, no resonant cavity and crappy sound) use an optical link (over a cable) to a soundbar for the most compact solution. You can buy a receiver later if you decide you need better sound.
• Dan
  I use wired ethernet for my smugsmart TV; no point in saturating the wireless network on a fixed device if you already have an ethernet drop nearby. It came with a separate WiFi USB dongle, which I repurposed on another machine after discovering it was a rather nice dual-band device based on the Atheros chipset. Netflix is all I use the TV's 'smart'ness for; I have played round with using it as a DLNA client but it's not nearly as nice as using the XBMC box.

  I ended up buying a matched soundbar from the same vendor (Panasonic Viera), one that uses HDMI and connects to the ARC-enabled port on the TV, which means basically all three gizmos (HTPC+CEC running XBMC, TV and soundbar) can be controlled with just the TV remote. It also means if I turn off the TV and just use the HTPC/XBMC + soundbar for music, the xbmc mobile app can control the speaker volume.

  It's all basically as straightforward and usable as it can get. If I were going to buy a Smart TV again I might get a Samsung or Vizio, as there's a Plex app available for both. Which is a whole nother topic. (I don't use Plex myself but it's what I'd recommend to pretty much anyone I didn't recommend Apple TV to, i.e. someone who doesn't have a houseful of predominantly Apple goodies already.)

• Stevie
  [Dan] Yeah, but you are clever.

  I avoided the price-attractive Vizio after reading a large number of reviews of later models that suffer from persistent random reboot issues. No point in a smart TV that can't be a TV reliably IMO. The picture on my Father-in-Law's Samsung (dumb) TV is outstanding.

  I went Sony only because I have a good experience with Sony products, their tech support was rated higher than everyone else's and they offer four HDMI inputs to everyone else's two. It seemed to me that I'd be bunging wires into it from all over the place and better to find I had too many sockets than too few. I'm also familiar with the Sony video family "quirks" and it seemed likely I would have a better time getting the clown out of the picture.

• Dan
  [Stevie] FWIW I think the Plex client is available for Sony TVs as well. What I'm thinking there is that if a chap wanted to get by with just his smart tv plus whatever PC or file server somewhere in the house had all his own perfectly legal, honest media, putting the Plex server software on that PC or NAS would spackle over the crevices. Notably by providing a transcoding DLNA server, because smart TVs usually only handle certain formats and packages.

  I think it's better to go with the direct-connected HTPC because transcode-network-decode-display is a lot more bother than just decode-display; but not having a HTPC would be attractive if your Smart TV was actually smart enough to do everything you want, and playing local media in whatever format is a major sticking point.

• Stevie - A New Era In TV Ents
  I've been binge-watching the US version of House of Cards and although I loved the original I can't for the life of me understand the vitriolic hate for this one I've heard and read. It is gripping, reasonably faithful in it's plot elements while moving the story believably into the quite different American political model. Kevin Stacy is a very worthy Francis Underwood. Sorry non-lovers, I think the show is well written, well cast and gripping even though I've seen the story once (or thrice) before.
• Stevie
  I started a game. If it doesn't seem like a winner, please kill it with my blessing.
• Simons Mith - Do not feed hallucinogens to the alligators
  I just did a Google search for 'do not feed', and got '...hallucinogens to the alligators' as the third result. Now I naturally want to know, why not?
• Rosie
  (SM) 'Cos they'll snap your hand off as they go for it. They'll pop anything, those buggers. Helps them alligate, I'm told.
• Stevie
  I'm not a big fan of alligation while under the influence of mind-altering drugs.
• Stevie
  John Cleese is currently pushing his memoir here and, being the darling of everyone in the media, is popping up all over the place.

  Yesterday he was being interviewed on NPR as I was driving home and the interviewer asked about the difference between what people, upon recognizing him, were likely to shout to him in America as opposed to the UK.

  His answer was interesting but too long to go into here. It did, however, include a snippet that might allow for much japing should one of us encounter the great man in the future.

  He said that often, people would make reference to sketches that he couldn't remember participating in, and he would just smile and nod and say something neutrally agreeable to fake it.

  So the next time you see John Cleese, get close, make yourself known (this may involve acting as I know none of you would never slip into nudge-nudge, wink-wink territory normally, being too cool for that nonsense, but the payoff for doing so will, er, pay off) and say something like: "What about that time you were the astronaut lost among the vikings, who all turned out to be women? Talk about funny! I only saw it on DVD, and they blanked the punchline. What was it you said right at the end there, when "Mrs" Eric the Viking Idle showed you "her" buttocks and demanded an autograph?"

• Stevie
  I forgot to mention that Cleese claims that the central theme to his work, his personal vision of what makes things funny, is the exasperated lack of understanding of the person trapped in a farcical situation. The parrot shop sketch was his illustration of the point. This is your chance to bring this home.
• Raak
  The hour by hour BBC weather forecast today shows the temperature due to rise from 8º at 11am steadily upwards to 12º at 5am tomorrow. Similar trend for Cambridge and London. How does the temperature keep on rising overnight?
• Stevie
  The sun catches fire sometime in the early hours of the morning and rises in the sky, heating the earth. This was explained over at MCiOS I think, a few years ago. At around noon the sun goes "off the boil", the cooling air around it ceases to support its weight and it slowly crashes into the sea for the night. Can't remember who originally explained this. Might have been CdM or Breadmaster. Whoever it was clarified in one paragraph something that so-called "scientists" have failed to explain clearly during my entire life.
• Dujon - Christmas stuff
  Don't worry, Raak, it's just Santa breaking in a couple of new reindeer for the Christmas Eve run. :)
• Rosie - Hot nights
  (Raak) It happens quite a lot in the UK and higher latutudes. Warm air is being wafted in and its warmth easily obliterates the feeble solar effect at this time of year. There is also no heat loss by radiation with this sort of thing because these airstreams are always cloudy.
• Dan
  I once read something to the effect that the apparent diameter of the sun's disk is just about the same as the light curvature due atmospheric refraction (or is it gravity-bending? that sounds unlikely) when it reaches you at a tangent; with the net effect being that when the sun's disk just touches the horizon it's "really" entirely below it. And it's by this means we know that, like the light in your refrigerator when you close the door, the sun doesn't go out when it falls below the world's edge and everything you've been told otherwise is a damned lie.
• Stevie
  [Dan] Take it up with CdM or Breadmaster. But before you do, consider: wouldn't your "width" theory mean that you'd be forever smashing the fridge light bulb in the door? Something about that doesn't ring true.
• rab
  Can't help I'm afraid but do have a very Happy Christmas wherever you are. _, who is now 3, is already as manic as can be. Not sure how to burn off his energy...
• Rosie
  (Dan) True. If you see the sun on the horizon it is geometrically just below it. It adds a few minutes to daylight at each end. It's refraction (strictly, differential refraction) not gravity-bending which would need a mind-bogglingly dense earth. On Venus the refraction is so large the horizon is above horizontal and it looks as if you're living in a bowl. A hot one, 460°C. No oxygen. Occasional showers of sulphuric acid.
  (rab) See MCIOS, FUQs.
• Rosie
  (Dan, Stevie) Nor the light in the boot of your car.
• penelope - wearing him out
  [rab] Isn't there a version of those ball-throwing arm extensions for dogs that you can get for kids? Alternatively, send him off to an aunt and uncle for the afternoon.
  Merry Xmas, all.
• rab
  Unfortunately the only aunt-uncle combo is based in NZ, so it'd be more than an afternoon...
• Phil - energetic child
  AFAIR playgrounds are good. Choose one with a convenient bench from which to watch. Or join in if you're not self conscious. Something requiring concentration, like Lego can be surprisingly tiring. The best thing is to forget your boring adult lifestyle and simply play all day.
• Stevie
  [penelope] I looked everywhere but found no trace of these canine-oriented ball-atlatls you steered rab toward. How would the dog wield such a thing anyway, absent opposable thumbs? What rab needs is a keen, ankle-nipping bull terrier. Half an hour of being chased around the park by the dog will tire the child out nicely, and give him or her a healthy respect for vicious dogs.
• Stevie
  Of course, if the dog is too keen there is a chance the plan will backfire as the dog chases you instead of the child.
• Stevie
  To help prevent this possibility, soak the child's shoes in bacon grease before releasing the terrier.

  Also, to minimize the risk of vigorous shoe-licking instead of ankle-nipping, thrash the dog soundly for five minutes a day with a side of bacon.

• Stevie
  This sort of preparation escalation is why children should be avoided in the first place, of course.
• penelope - kidavoidance
  [Stevie] We have managed to do that. We are, however, expert in Unclage and Auntage, with the proviso that the assorted nephews, nieces, godchildren and fledged apprentices repay us by taking us for interesting outings when we are elderly.
• CdM - monotonic temperatures
  [Raak, a while back] Here in Melbourne a couple of years ago we had something like 40 hours (maybe more) of declining temperatures. I forget the details, but it was in the high 30s in the afternoon of Day 1, fell through the night, through all of Day 2, and through the following night. Only in the morning of Day 3 did the temperature start to rise again.
• Rosie - Colder and colder
  (CdM) Interesting and unusual that the temperature fell throughout day 2. The wind must have gone from northerly round to south-westerly, but rather gradually.
  (pen) Pah! I'm a great-uncle three times over. Avunculissimus!
• Stevie - Inconvenience Snow
  Started snowing this morning, around 8-ish. Stopped now (10:20 local time). About 2-3 inches of annoyance scattered all over the place.
• Rosie
  (Stevie) I find snow meteorologically interesting but in all other respects a pain in the arse. The roads round here are at full capacity anyway and the slightest disruption (a couple of inches) causes vehicular constipation of a high order. Nothing moves.
• penelope - Banteration
  I say, I say, I say. How about a new game to chivvy things up? A doggerel rhyming doodah? One of those complicated-johnnies that followed a limping pattern? Or maybe a songbook? Ferchrissakes, something, please! I'm really bored in the office this week.
• Simons Mith - From Dunx's Game Ideas Game
  I had a squiz through the Game Ideas Game at Orange-MC, and quite liked this one:
  From an idea by one of the Minecraft crew at Mojang:
  Epic Job Titles: Fireman, policeman, accountant. These are bland job titles. Why not be an BATTLER OF THE INFERNO instead?
  Shall we give that a go?
• penelope - Truth Director & Exposer (editor & proofreader)
  [Simons] Yep.
• Raak
  I have just been out to see Comet Lovejoy.
• Rosie
  (Raak) Did you see it? Optical aid? They've never interested me much - I prefer looking at the planets.
• Raak
  Yes, with binoculars. No chance of naked eye with the Moon so close. Even with binoculars, it was just a faint fuzzy blob, no tail visible. I'm assuming it was Lovejoy and not some boring nebula, as it was in the right general area.
• Rosie
  (Raak) Not a sky in the cloud, as they say, here at the moment. We've had a bit of snow, not much.
• penelope - sky
  I'm pleasd to report the new house has great potential for skywatching. It's clear tonight and the sky is full of stars. But it's too bloomin' cold to stand out there and look. We have snow every two days and it's been hovering around freezing all week, but sunny, which is nice.
• Stevie
  [penelope] That should have gone: "I'm pleased to report that the new house has great potential for skywatching ... on account of there being no roof to speak of on it. Handyman Special indeed."
• Stevie
  great potential for skywatching suggests a real estate agent dictionary game.
• penelope - Seconded
  [Stevie] Yes!
• penelope - Wish me luck.
  I've got my annual appraisal in 10 minutes. The process is appalingly oblique and I think I'm supposed to want a promotion. Actually, I'd just like to get more skilled at the job I already do. I don't want to manage anyone. HR stinks.
• Dujon
  I hope you came out feeling better than when you went in, penelope.
  Managing your staff is fun. All the really difficult problems end up in your lap; lots of coffee (black two sugars) maintains your energy and keeps your brain sharp as well as causing palpitations; sleepless nights and constant worrying about everything and anything prepare you for the worst the world can throw at you; 80% of your time will be spent on trivial staff problems and internecine politics; 10% will involve pointless meetings - internal and external; that leaves 10% for 'proper' work, the stuff that matters. But wait, there's more. Managers don't get paid overtime so are expected to take work home for their attention at night and weekends.
  Yes, penelope, I've lived in that world and it's not one which I would like to re-visit. Don't get me wrong though as it was exciting at the time. :)
• penelope - management schmanagement
  [Duj] Thanks for that. In fact it went OK. He's 'pleased'. But it's just such a time-consuming process, and most of it seems to be to give the HR department something to do. (It was only last year that they gave us an online system for booking holiday time - until then we were crossing out squares on big sheets of brown card.)
  On the plus side, I'm just about to send in a nomination for our alumni magazine (for what I am editor - not managing editor, mind - but editor - finding the pictures, making sure there's enough news to fill the empty pages left when one of the big star interviews pulls out etc) in the university marketing world's 'academy awards' (Oh how I laughed). I've written most of it already - quite impressed that I only have to add our names to it and get it in the post. Fingers crossed.
• penelope - Is it spring yet?
  I'm still wearing thermal socks.
• Stevie - Not here it ain't
  [penelope] Six inches of inconvenience all over the place again this morning. We went out to a friend's house for dinner yesterday and drove back through the snowstorm. I thought that was bad. Almost hit a car when the Steviemobile refused to stop and the car was accelerating between brake pulses - dunno why, could have been a mat caught on the gas pedal or I could have had my foot partially on it I guess, didn't feel like it but it has happened once before that my shoe has hung up on the velocitator and caused imminent trouser spoilage. Luckily I managed to shift into neutral so the brakes could stand a fighting chance of stopping us, which they did. Fortunately the Stevieling had shoveled out the drive before we got home, which is why you have kids in New York.

  But all that paled into insignificance next to the drive to work, when I was caught behind two count-em two Toyota RAV4 4x4 Osamamobiles which were such a great option for the snow the drivers wouldn't assay more than 18 miles an hour the entire trip. The Steviemobile is front wheel drive and has traction control and is - yesterday's little moment of terror notwithstanding - great in the snow. I honestly wonder why anyone would buy one of those ugly 4x4 gas-guzzling monstrosities when there is such a better option available that costs about half the price and comes with a SULEV engine to boot.

• Raak
  Bright sunshine here, when it isn't raining. 60 mile bike ride last Sunday. The crosswinds were murder, though.
• Stevie
  Snowing. Again.
• penelope - Scorcher
  It's sunny, and 10C (50F). We might have to cut the grass soon.
• Phil - Gardening
  I looked out of the window today and thought "time to get mowing again". It's come round so quickly, but on the plus side: stripes :-)
• penelope
  Griped publicly on Twitter about all the ridiculous Friday the 13th twaddle on official Dutch motoring and weather Twitter accounts today. Then colleague shunts car on the way to work. I put it down to the Dutch being really shitty and impatient drivers who do not understand the wave mechanics of a column of slow-moving traffic. Science wins.
• Rosie - Crash course in quantum mechanics
  (pen) If Dutch cars are governed by the laws of wave mechanics they must equally be subject to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and if they know where they are they've simply no idea how fast they're going. An accurate speedo though simply means the satnav won't work and they could be anywhere, Rotterdam, Novosibirsk, Betws-y-coed etc. Science doesn't just win, it tramples you to death.
• penelope - Where am I, SatNav?
  If the answer is 'I don't know', then you're still in the multi-storey carpark. Don't expect any clues about which exit to use to get out to get on the way to your destination. (By the way, don't call it a SatNav in the Netherlands. They have no idea what you're talking about. You have to call it a Tomtom.)
• penelope - My starter for 10
  SO how was everyone's weekend? And what does the week ahead have in store? (Me: deadlines, uncontrolled deadlines, and scheduled ones too)
• Raak
  I attended an online conference about virtual worlds, in a virtual world. I also filed a return for Corporation Tax, for a company that probably shouldn't be set up as the sort of company that pays CT.
• Phil
  There was lots of rugby excitement on Saturday. Three decent walks in the last 3 days (5, 7 and 5 miles respectively). I was given a deadline yesterday morning of "today", which I managed to push back to "tomorrow", which is now today. This is the first time the deadline has been mentioned for work I started 3 or 4 weeks ago. I still have probably 10-16 hours' processing time to complete this morning. Bloody stupid way to communicate deadlines, IMHO.
• penelope - deaderlings
  [Phi;] We've got something similar. We know they knew about it 10 days ago, but only approached us yesterday with incomplete information and a very short deadline during a week when we're trying to finish the alumni magazine. And it's for a commercially valuable product... that they have known about for 10 days. *headdesk*
  I'd love the time to walk in the evenings. I managed it a lot last year (only half an hour three times a week and a bike ride on Saturdays) but haven't done it since we moved. Do you take a torch and the dog?
• Stevie - Work Idiocy
  Monday So this guy at work ccs me on an E-Mail about how he has gotten permission from one of my 3 bosses to task me to write a script to clean up a filesystem based on some XML that arrives in-theater. Easy-peasy, done.

  Tuesday He ccs me on the tail end of an E-Mail chain, the bit where he volunteers me to start programming some ill-defined event-driven horseshirt fired up by a piece of software everyone hates. I point out that the script to be run from the time-based scheduler is simple and moreover, done, although I haven't actually been asked by the aforementioned boss to do the job, that I have no wish to become entwined in the ongoing trainwreck of the software he wants me to start looking at and perhaps I'll just hand off he script to the user department and let them worry the details.

  Wednesday another e-mail claiming that whhat is equired is much more complex than a simple script. We do the pantomime "Oh yes/no it is/isn't" thing for a bit. He tells me that he wants a different filesystem cleaning than the one he asked for, and that since it is part of a system I help manage I should just do it.

  I refer him to the original mail, point out that the filesystem he's now talking about *is* auto-managed by the software and that the filesystem that keeps filling up with crap and that the users cannot keep down to a managable size is external to our software, was set up by the user for some arcane purpose that even they don't really understand or have any sort of plan for and that's what I was asked to fix and what I have actually, indeed, fixed.

  I tell him if he really wants to do what he's asking for today (as opposed to what he wanted on Monday) that the lead time will likely be months and moreover I'll need a proper requirements document stating definitively what needs doing to what for which reason. However, if he really needs his disk to stop overflowing because Irving cannot clean up the crap his team creates, I have a script to do that which has been running in emulation since Monday and even incorporates a bullshirt mail requirement that was snuck in Tuesday.

  I'm out tomorrow so a doctor can electrocute me in the name of science. I wonder what Friday will bring?

• Stevie
  [pen] I hear all your lights went out in a collapse of civilization in a World Gone Mad. Hope you are unaffected by the imminent breakdown of society and outbreak of cannibalism.
• Phil
  [penelop:] Walking in the dark is wonderful. Last night I went out at 8:50, got back at 10:10 after a 4 mile stroll. I should add that public roads do not a good night-time walk make. I do take a torch and dogs, but there was enough moonlight to render the torch unnecessary for half the walk. I am lucky that I live in the middle of a 'dark-sky' area, which makes night-time wandering more pleasant.
• penelope - IN the dark
  [Stevie] It was Amsterdam where the lights went out - we were fine in Rotterdam and the restaurant menus are still without human flesh.
  [Phil] I've been planning my routes. I want some flashy lights for my sleeves, but there's a nice square route around the back of the house - around a complete polder, on dijks all the way - for long summer evenings, and a route around the village for winter ones. It comes back past the chip shop.
• Stevie
  [pen] "Chjip shop", surely?
• Rosie
  (Stevie) You've got the i and j the wrong way round. You'd better hide from pen - she is mightier than the sword. I'm a bit pissed, actually, and had better go to bed before the bloody sun comes up.
• penelope - Vampire beer, I presume?
  [Rosie] How's the head? And what was the occasions?
  [Stevie] Chips is patat in the Netherlands. Not a drop of malt vinegar to be seen anywhere near them, though (nor in the supermarket, come to think of it). But the chip shop is on the dijk, if that makes you happy to have the i-j-k all together in a word. And our address has 'dijk' in it - ours is the first house (a new one, on an old plot) on an old dijk.
• Stevie - The J
  [pen, Rosie] No, I was riffing on the apparent fact that in Dutch the letter "j" is pronounced like a "y" (as in Esperanto) and on pen's use of the Dutch spelling of "dyke". In my head the pronunciation "chyip shop" (which is how most English speakers actually say the word in my hearing) became rendered as chjip shop for the 'Allo 'Allo Win.

  Putting the j after the i would make the word "chiyp shop", which I can't pronounce yet after five minutes trying without it going "cheep shop", which would be right for Italy but not Holland.

  By pure coincidence, I am less than an hour from departing to "The Chip Shop", a UK-style pub on Atlantic Avenue.

• Stevie - The Chip Shop
  Which, since it is the heart of Brooklyn, should be spelled "da chip shop". If it were on Lon Gylund it would be "da chip shawp".
• Rosie - Sodding Chipbury
  (Stevie) Ah, most erudite. In Scotland, of course, it would be "chups", possibly wuth a wee bi' a "fush" though more likely a Mars Bar.
• Rosie - Incipient alcoholism
  (pen) Not really pissed, just a bit loose. Occasion? Hadn't been to the pub for three days, Boozing at home on your own is not actually all that fun.
• penelope - Chups
  Fush and chups in Scotland, or 'feesh and cheeps' according to an Iranian family friend many years ago. We still call them that now. Jeez, I miss feesh and cheeps.
• Stevie - You wanna da fresh an cheep?
  When I first came to the usa I lived in Westbury and often ate in The Harvest Diner. I noticed that during the summer all the waiters spoke with Brummie accents and asked one about it. He told me they were all relatives of the owner, who had started his life in the food service trade in a place I wouldn't have I heard of.

  Which turned out to be a fish and chip shop less than a mile from my parent's house in Coventry.

• Phil - Chips
  [Stevie] Not Earlsdon, by any chance?
• Stevie
  [Phil] No. We lived in Whitmore Park. About here. Track down Chesholme Road (north-wards, downhill) from Rotherham Road to that first cross, which is the rear access entry. We lived on the bottom right corner.
• penelope
  I think it's something to do with age and the approach of a milestone birthday (I was in my thirties when I started in here, y'know). I've sent more critical emails, tweets and FB messages this week than ever before in my life, and some of them were not received well. Too bad. You put it out there on social media , so don't be surprised when it gets a response. I ain't stopping now. That's why the fact that I'm consistently pissed off at someone who is relentlessly unfunny, unskilled and unrhyming and relentlessly sexist in the Limericks game has finally surfaced. I'm not sorry.
• Phil - Big hug for penelope...
  ...because I know it will irk you to know that you mistyped "misogynistic".
• penelope - never irked
  [Phil] I'm merely pleased that I allowed you to exercise your inner pedant. :o)
• Stevie
  [pen] Bit early in your span for a mid-life crisis innit? Carry on at this rate and you'll either be on serious medication or be in politics by the time you are 35. Nothing on the web is worth a ventricle or major blood-vessel in your head.
• CdM
  Phil has an inner pedant as well??
• Phil
  [CdM] Hahahahaaa! :)
• Phil - Something that tickled me
  I discovered this sentence in a discussion on ending sentences with prepositions. I hope to use it some day.
  "What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of up for? "
• Rosie - Can be improved on
  (Phil) The book is about Australia, so between up and for insert about Down Under.
• gil
  [Rosie] Applause.
• Phil - correction?
  [Rosie] shouldn't that go between of and up?
• Rosie - Erratum
  (Phil) Yes.
• CdM - Very nice, but...
  ...expect Phil's inner pedant to show up any day now to point out that, technically, "Down Under" is a noun phrase rather than a pair of prepositions.
• Phil
  Well, at first I was going to suggest that "down" isn't a preposition, but changed my mind. Both my inner and outer pedants are happily turning a blind eye to the capital letters of "Down" and "Under" too :)
• Rosie
  (Phil) I didn't want to arouse the Wrath of Dujon or that of any other Strines.
  (CdM) Course it's a noun phrase, my exopedant tells me. The medial- and endo- backups needed no invoking.
• CdM
  The Wrath of Dujon sounds like a title of a Doctor Who from the early Pertwee era. :-)
• blamelewis - The Wrath of Dujon
  [CdM] I like it, hope they recover the tapes one day. Or it might have been a working title for the second Star Trek movie...
  Kirk: "Duuuuuuuujonnnnnn!"
• penelope - peers around the door
  Anyone home?
• Knobbly
  Quick, while no-one's here...
• Phil - Palindromes
  Oh dear, thanks to the 8 word game, I have a new hobby. I didn't need another one. This morning's effort doesn't make a lot of sense, but I think it could, with a bit of work....
  Re-vent some racist sin at a Syria hero. My latino gets EU quest, e.g. on Italy. More hairy satanists. I care most? Never!
• Phil - more....
  I heard a tale recently that Drew Barrymore was asking Johnny Depp about the rumours that Nick Saban, the Alabama football coach, was a fully inducted member of the Mafia, and was operating under an assumed name.
  "Drat! Saban a made man, eh? Depp? Answer!" Drew snapped.
  He named a man. A bastard!
• Phil - Anyone rising to the challenge?
  I may create a new game on another server in which to write palindromes, but in the meantime, here's another:
  Pist now. It's a free beer. Fasting is a sign it's a free beer fast. I won't sip.
• Stevie
  Sorry, Phil. Not clever enough for that sort of thing. Well done, btw.
• CdM
  [Phil] O no. O no. O no. O no. Not on. O no. O no. O no. O no.
• Phil - Sorry, CdM
  Conversation between secret agent and Q, when the agent refuses to sign for his new vehicle:
  "One man sub? Autogyro?"
  "Mr Armory got u a bus. Name?"
  "No!"
• Stevie
  Q now briefs by SMS?
• Phil
  [Stevie] Yes, m8.
• Phil - Sorry
  As I appear to have killed the chat with palindromes, I take them all back.
• Stevie
  [Phil] That last one didn't work. It was gibberish when read backwards.
• Rosie - Scheming bitch
  I've just bought a calculator, a rather posh quasi-vintage Hewlett-Packard with RPN, and along with a guide in English is one in French. A calculator in French is une calculatrice which makes the noun obviously feminine but makes the object itself sound feminine as well. To English ears the word sounds like "calculatress" cognate with words like actress, manageress, temptress, goddess etc. A computer though, is un ordinateur not une ordinatrice. Maybe that reflects its attraction for nerds, almost exclusively male.
• Raak
  A calculatrice suggests an intelligent cockatrice to me. Beware the hidden key combination that unleashes its deadly stare.
• KagomeShuko - Briana is Giertrud
  Briana: Once there was a sailor Who sailed the seven seas On a ship called the limburger Me: It was stinky cheese! (beat) What do you expect when you say something like that?
• Rosie - The deadly stare
  (Raak) It already has one - the display. It's horrible, characters far too narrow and they've re-inserted the crossbar in the noughts which is simply taking retro too far. A bit like fitting coupling rods to an electric locomotive.
• Rosie - Shall we dance?
  (Kagome Shuko) Looking at the Games list I'd say we were the only two people in the building.
• Tuj - *drops pin*
• CdM - Oooooh! Something shiny!
• KagomeShuko - Theatre, Theatre . . .
  I have lots of stuff coming up . . . been busy with my theatre stuff mainly, BUT on Tuesday night (Central time) Giertrud and I will be seeing Weird Al in concert!!!
• KagomeShuko - Here, though, game in here, why not?
  Add, please . . . Inappropriate Audition Songs . . . Hi, I'll be auditioning for the part of Bruce the Shark in Finding Nemo and I'll be singing "Blood in the Water" from Legally Blonde: The Musical. Annnnd . . . go!!!
• penelope - Procrastination was ever the thief of time
  I am procrastinating like a pro this afternoon, even with a full list of tasks to complete at work. I think I blew all my brain's synapses this morning on a four-hour proof-reading blitz (which needed 10 hours but didn't get it. I guessed that if my eagle eyes didn't spot it on a speed-read, then Joe Average's eyes wouldn't spot it on a normal read-through either.)

  Didn't I once read somewhere that fatty food is essential for brain function? Does that mean I can legitimately have cake and chips as part of my recovery?

• Rosie
  (pen) You can have chips. Then you can have cake and a cuppa. But not cake and chips. Even I wouldn't do that.
  I used to do proof-reading in the Met Office and quite often this would involve reading it out, with punctuation marks, font styles etc, to a colleague who would have another copy. You could put deliberate mistakes in to see if he was still awake. It was technical stuff, published by HMSO and had to be spot on.
• KagomeShuko - Limericks
  When I first found this place, everybody was so good at limericks. Have we really forgotten the rhyming pattern and rhythm of limericks? These are the general rules of limericks.
• Phil - Limerick rules
  [KS] That's a rather restrictive definition of Limericks, IMHO. One is not restricted to anapests. Iambs can also be used within a line, as well as in the first foot of each line.
  I think it's nice, but not a necessity, that lines 1, 2 and 5 should match. Ditto for 3 and 4.
  Also, their 2nd example ("the LIMerick packs LAUGHS anaTOmical") is appalling, as most people I know pronounce "Limerick" as three syllables.
• CdM - It's worse than that
  If you accept that site's made-up rule that 1, 2, and 5 must match in structure, then you have to read the first line of that first limerick as "The LiMErick packs LAUGHS anaTOmical". The second limerick they quote also violates the rule that same rule, while the third limerick rhymes details with emails and females, thus revealing that they don't understand feminine rhymes. All in all, that page is a total fail.
• penelope - And now...
  So does anyone have any news? I've got a university friend + partner coming for the weekend. From England to the Netherlands. On motorbikes. We met in 1985. :o)
• Phil - News? You want news?!
  Ummm, not a lot really, other than what has been declared in "another place". A friend of mine is very p***ed off that today's Tilehurst Festival has been cancelled, due to bad weather. He found out today, despite the decision being made yesterday. He had taken on extra staff to run his cider bar there, and had loaded all the cider on his van at 6am. It's not even raining here, 10 miles away.
• penelope - Rainy Day Decider.
  Bummer, Phil. Here, it's getting clammier and more overcast as we anticipate another humdinger of a belt of thunderstorms passing over at about 4 o'clock (which reminds me - I need to get the washing in). Last night's four-hour lightning and thunder display was incredible - flashes every second or so from all around, torrential rain and hailstorms (although no golf-ball-sized hailstones here to damage the cars as there were in other places in NL). I'm working from home today. It's sluggish, frankly.
• penelope - three weeks later...
  Morning all. Was that heat really three weeks ago? I'm waiting for the thermostat to ping the central heating into action - and making a mental note to get some warmer clothes out of storage. Anyone doing anything interesting this weekend?
• Phil
  [pen] Mrs Phil is planning to watch Dr Who with our grandson on Saturday - which depends on him being permitted to come home from the neonatal unit tomorrow! *fingers crossed*
• Raak
  [pen] After spending today driving a quad bike around Paros, I'll be travelling home over the weekend after a week and a half in the Cyclades. I had a round-numbered birthday in the process.
• CdM
  [Raak] A good friend of mine is in Paros right now. Did you see her?
• Raak
  [CdM] That is quite possible. How would I tell? In the next twenty minutes, before my ferry leaves.
• penelope - My weekenderation is galleryficating the new house
  After 10 months in the new house, we finally put up the first picture rail last night. Today, I'm going to unpack the prints, maps, photographs and paintings I have been collecting over the past 6+ years (some of them were secret purchases and I have spent a ruddy fortune on mounting and framing) in anticipation of having a nice house to hang them in, and the time has come!
• CdM - Identification problem
  [Raak] Well, I assume that she would have been wearing a locket containing a photograph of me, because I assume that is true of all of my female acquaintances.* You know, something along these lines.
  
  * (View the source to read the hidden text)
• Raak - I must be back in England
  I have just seen a gentleman wearing a tweed jacket and a deerstalker cycle past my house. Santorini and Paros were wonderful.
• penelope - I must be in the Netherlands
  A truck pulled into the university just in front of me this morning, but stopped in advance of the car-park barrier. I drove around him, and in my rear view mirror I saw the driver's legs emerge as he jumped down from the cab - he was wearing yellow wooden clogs.
• Rosie - I must be Bill Tidy
  (pen) Did he then do a dance?
• Knobbly
  Do you think it's time to choose a vice-winner in AVMA?
• Raak - How I spent last night
  Photographing this:

  
  Click for bigger.

• Rosie
  (Raak) V good. What instrument did you use and at what point in the eclipse was it?
• Raak
  Pentax K-50, with a Russian-made 1000mm catadioptric lens. This was at 03:27, shortly before the most total coverage. I have a few more pics on Facebook. I bought the camera in rather a hurry for this — on Sunday, in fact. It was the only one in the shop that would attach to the Pentax mount on the lens without an adaptor. The body is pillar box red. At least I'll always know which camera is mine. I previously used the lens with a Ricoh film camera for the total eclipse in 1999.
• penelope - This is what I saw
  [Raak] This was precisely the time I woke up and went for a pee and peered out through the bedroom curtains (although it was 04.27 here). I saw this! I stared long and hard, fixing the image in my mind's eye. Over the farmland at the back of our house, it was so still, so starry, so other-worldly. Beautiful photo.
• Rosie
  The photo looks markedly different from what I saw at the time through 12 x 40 binocs and with the naked eye. The contrast in the photo is much greater and the moon far redder. I saw a dull yellow-orange moon that was just a little brighter on one side. The eclipse was some way off symmetrical.
  It would be interesting to know the exposure, f-number and ISO setting. It would be even more interesting to be on the moon and see the earth with its bright ring.
• Raak
  [Rosie] 1 second exposure, ISO 800. The exif data reports the f-number as 0, which probably means it doesn't know. There's no aperture adjustment or designation on the lens. The lens is 1000mm, but the image is substantially larger on this camera than on my Ricoh KR-10, so the effective focal length may be longer. The original picture is very dim, and the above was derived from the RAW+ file by level correction. The exif reports that auto white balance was on, but I'm not sure if that applies to RAW data or just the JPG, which was too noisy to be useful. Also, the eye doesn't see colours so intensely in the dark, so even a perfectly accurate photograph may look more intense than the reality in the light of day. What would you have seen through binoculars of the same magnification but much larger aperture?
• Rosie - Optical aids
  I've looked at a lunar eclipse through my telescope in the past and the moon looks a gloomy translucent orange. The focal length of this home-made contraption is 1276 mm (50.24 in.) and the mirror diameter is 8.3 in. so it's about f/6. With a one-inch eyepiece the magnification is about 50. The moon's diameter was 1776 arcsec which would give an image at the prime focus of 0.43" or 11 mm but it's not adapted for photography so I didn't get it out this time.
  If the aperture of the binocs were greatly increased there would be little improvement because then the size of the exit pupil would exceed that of the eye pupil and light would be wasted. You can't increase the surface brightness (per unit area) of any extended object whatever telescope you use visually, but photgraphically that's obviously not the case. The binocs make the moon bigger and easier to study but the surface light variations are the same as with the naked eye.
• penelope - moonstruck
  Innit autumnal?
• Rosie - Autumnatic response.
  (pen) Yeah. Trouble is, it's autumn.
• CdM
  [Raak] Dropping in here for the first time in a few weeks, so only just saw your picture. That's stunning.
• penelope - Anyone about?
  Very quiet, innit? Weekend a mere two days away - so what's everyone doing?
• Rosie - Somnolence
  (pen) Good question. Both MCiOS and this place seem to have gone to sleep. Where's Gusset Login? I reckon I've won AVMA.
• penelope
  I've just remembered I have a three day weekend. I booked Monday off to use up my annual leave allowance. I'll probably just catch up on toilet cleaning.
• Knobbly
  (Pen) You sure know how to enjoy yourself...
• penelope
  [Knobbers] Actually it wasn't so bad. The toilets still need cleaning, because instead I went for a long bike ride in the still and sunny weather. We live in the countryside and there are no hills here in the Netherlands so it was lovely.
• Rosie - Cherrapunji Schmerrapunji
  Some place in the Lake District has had 358 mm (just over 14") of rain in the last 24 hrs. Provisionally this is a British record. More later!
• Rosie - Floods etc.
  Record confirmed. It was at Honister Pass or thereabouts, an Environment Agency gauge.
• penelope - Sogginess
  [Rosie] Cripes. *moves clothes upstairs from below-dijk-level-bedroom*
• rab - Happy Parsnips
  So it turns out that a risotto is quite a common solution to the post-Christmas veg surplus problem.

  Hello, everyone, by the way. Glad to see this place is still going, and that nothing's broken. I've had to do some behind-the-scenes tweaking as it turns out the venerable database library that this whole thing sits on will disappear when I come to upgrade the server OS, so perhaps things will break now. I'm a bit scared when I discover files that haven't been touched for nearly 10 years...

• Stevie
  Merry Christmas rab. I hope all is well with Mrs rab and the rabling.
• Simons Mith
  Happy 28th December from me too. BTW, a pilgrimage has been mooted - see the Dunxatorium for the proposed dates.
• penelope
  Happy New Year all. Hope you all have a happy, healthy and peaceful 2016. Got a houseful just settling into the first of the 'Back to the Future' trilogy (I won the box set and a hoodie from the University of Lincoln Facebook page - the big imposter that I am). Hoping for volunteer potato peelers in an hour or so - they will be rewarded with garlic bread, because it's a long time until dinner.
• Rosie - Astonishment
  (pen) You won a hoodie? New toyboy then. :-)
• Giertrud
  Happy New Year, even though I am some hours behind!
• penelope - Hoodie you think you are?
  [Rosie] Nah, just the garment. I don't think the yobbish type wear university hoodies do they?
• Stevie
  Depends. Red or blue brick?
• penelope
  Here at the university where where I work, they have made a feature of grey concrete tower blocks. Two buildings of 17 floors and a bunch of others averaging 10 floors clad in concrete biscuit, concrete flaps and concrete-and-glass. It makes looking out nice. Looking in, it looks horrid.
• penelope - Made it to Thursday
  Only more sodding morning 40km commute on wet and windy Dutch motorways bothered by tailgating idiots (which have been Belgian over the past two mornings) and hindered by crashes between those who are too selfish to use indicators or too self-absorbed to keep a packed column of traffic moving by driving SLOWLY and steadily (not by speeding to the back of the queue and stopping dead) or to realise that to join a column of traffic you have to match its speed - it doesn't have to let you in. Out of the seven drives either to or from work this week, only one has been smooth and approximately on time. Every other journey has been held up by stupid accidents. *whinge whinge whinge*
• Stevie - Traffic
  [penelope] The moronic desire to get up to highway speed after merging into heavy traffic rates as my number one road rage inducer. I was, of course, spoiled by learning to do high speed merges on the excellently provisioned motorway entrance ramps, and vaguely remember public information commercials on how to merge on motorways. I firmly belive that whatever good road habits my generation have were inculcated by such ubiquitous repetitive TV-served indoctrination.

  Dip, don't dazzle. Wear something white at night. Remember to use the Green Cross Code. Regginald Molehusband.

• penelope - Breaking news
  I live south of Rotterdam. One of two motorways heading south from Rotterdam (to Breda and Antwerp, respectively) is, this afternoon, sodding closed again because of a sodding accident. Therefore everyone uses the other sodding motorway. Therefore I can't get on either route south at all, therefore I can't go home until about 7pm when the road is opened again and the jams have dispersed. That makes 87% of journeys this week hindered by idiot drivers crashing into one another. My rage levels are approaching critical.
• Rosie - All white on the night
  We had snow here Saturday night, not a lot, an inch and a half and all gone by Sunday afternoon. In beautiful downtown Carshalton it was rain because of the altitude difference, about 450 ft.
• Giertrud
  Is it okay if I write things like this?
• Giertrud
  Is it okay
  to write like
  this?
• Phil
  [Rosie] Ditto. Our village had a sprinkling of snow. Next village east had none, but they're on the Thames, and we're 340ft above them.
• Simons Mith
  @Gietrud

  If rtl text works (doesn't here, I admit), that's probably easier.

• penelope
  [Giertrud] I cracked my head on the wall behind the monitor trying to read that. What are you trying to say, dear?
• Stevie - siht ekil gnitirw
  !t'nia ti ylreporp pu ti kram nac uoy sselnu toN .oN
• penelope
  Well thank goodness January is nearly over. We've* had miserable news, miserable things have happened, and the weather's been miserable. February is a change, a lot shorter, and comes immediately before March. And I'm heading back to England at the end of Feb for a week with my mum. We're going to explore for grave goods, old things, shopping, good food and wine in Gloucestershire & Monmouthshire. Any recommendations?

  * I mean 'we the public of whatever country you're in'

• CdM - recommendations
  [pen] When exploring for grave goods, you need to make sure there is not too much moonlight, that you have good shovels, and the cemetery does not have CCTV security.
  
  (Also, my January was excellent. Perhaps that's the Southern Hemisphere for you. Doing almost no work definitely helped as well.)
• penelope - a bag marked 'swag'
  [CdM] How many cemeteries do you know that have CCTV?
• CdM
  [pen] I thought everywhere in Britain was now blanketed by multiple CCTV cameras.
• penelope
  [CdM] You ain't seen me, right?

  (Actually, you won't have seen me on British CCTV. I don't live there.)

• penelope - Breaking the silence
  We're going tractor shopping this weekend. The windy miller wants a vintage tractor to use to power the millstones when there's no wind. Probably a Fergie. Cool huh?
• penelope - Tractorated.
  Got it. A 70-year old tractor in working order. I've never part-owned a tractor before.
• Rosie - Strange attractor
  (pen) Pardon my utter ignorance and lack of imagination but how can a tractor power the millstones? Are you going to heave the sails round with it? I'm trying to visualise the setup. You/he could use a diesel generator.
• Stevie - Tractor-assisted Milling
  Tsk! It's very simple: You position the tractor appropriately, chock the front wheels securely, and lash it firmly to the windmill superstructure as a backup. Then you jack up the tractor on one side, remove the elevated large rear wheel and fit a tyreless rim in its place.

  Once that's done you run a special canvas belt around the hub of the windmill's blades and over the rimless wheel, now doing duty as a pulley. You start the tractor and place a block of concrete or a spare anvil on the brake for the wheel still on the ground, stick the tractor in gear and engage the clutch.

  It's then a simple matter of slowly unjacking the tractor until adequate tension on the belt is achieved for the windmill's vanes to begin turning.

• Rosie
  (Stevie) Ah!
• cfm
  *drops by with some birthday biscotti*
• penelope
  [Stevie] very close. But you put the sails out of gear and just use the PTO to drive the millstones using the mill's external driveshaft - you know, that thing at incovenient head-height with head-dents in it that sticks out of the outside wall. I can actually drive under it when I do a circuit of the mill to park because I don't have a Land Rover Discovery. The windy miller is currently saving up old socks to tie together to make the drive belt.
  [cfm] I hope there's coffee too - you can break your teeth on those things and we're all getting on a bit in here.
  Is it someone's birthday?
• Stevie - Gobachev Sings Tractor! Turnip! Buttocks!
  Well, one could do it that way I suppose.
• Giertrud - Look!
  http://mentalfloss.com/article/76561/massive-bouncy-castle-grownups-opened-london
• Raak - A novel experience
  I am being headhunted, for the first time. It would mean a doubling of salary (quadrupling if you take into account that it's full-time and I currently work half time), and a move to civilisation. I won't mention the company, but their top people include several eminent mathematicians and scientists. I'm uncertain about exactly what the job involves, though, and whatever it is, whether I can do it, and well enough to justify the salary. It's also a startup, so I'd have to think about the chances of actually seeing that salary. On the other hand, my accumulated pile of cash plus pension is probably enough to see me out, so I can afford to take risks.

  It's the "move to civilisation" part that I'm most attracted by. Let's just say, an intellectually renowned location about half way between where I am and that great metropolis of which it is said that he who tires of it is tired of life.

• Stevie
  [Raak] You scored a job in Thetford? Sweet!
• CdM - Go for it!
  [Raak] Congratulations. And go for it!*
  
  
  *Acceptance of Liability: The foregoing advice is offered without knowledge of (a) the recpient's personal circumstances or preferences or (b) the full and detailed terms of the employment opportunity. The Recipient acknowledges that, should he choose to follow said advice, he does so entirely at his own risk, and absolves the Profferer of any legal responsibility for resultant bankruptcy, misery, and homelessness.
• Rosie
  (Raak) So Cambridge United are looking yet again for a manager. Don't touch it. Er, congrats BTW.
• Raak
  Just to clarify, it's just been an initial contact so far. I'm still researching whatever I can find out about the company and what I would actually be doing.
• Stevie
  The successful candidate will be tasked with defending company assets in "Awesomeville", our corporate Minecraft world. Must have own pixelated sword.
• penelope - perishing
  Morning folks. Monday morning, wall-to-wall blue skies, a brisk breeze and less than 2C. Two cups of coffee on my desk. Invigorating.
• Raak - invigorating
  A veil of thin stuff high up that I think Rosie would identify as cirrus, but the sun is blazing through it, for a summery 6°C best contemplated from indoors. Still waiting to hear from the city of perspiring dreams whether they're still interested, now they've had time to look up all my papers (and everything else I've ever done online).
• penelope
  [Raak] exciting! But how will you still listen to Alan Partridge on Radio Norwich if you move away?
• Raak
  [pen] There are four radio stations in the world: Radio 3, Radio 4, World Service, and Popular Music. I only listen to the first three.
• penelope - If you're into canapes that are on the turn, then we've hit the motherlode.*
  [Raak] In my house (where it has taken some dedication to find BBC radio stations what with being in another country and everything) Radio 4 as default, Radio 4 Extra sometimes, Radio 3 in headphones at work when I'm not getting on well with writing and also when I'm working at home alone in the house, it's on in the kitchen. I had a short wave radio and used to get the World Service sometimes, but it has even disappeared from that too, hasn't it?
  Oh, and Radio 4 on Long Wave in the car on the 40km commute to and from work. It reaches as far as Rotterdam.
  *Quote from the Alan Partridge film, Alpha Papa, which I know I will enjoy watching several more times.
• Raak
  I've never been able to get much of anything on shortwave. I remember in my teens listening to World Service on 648 kHz on a home-built radio (Philips Electronic Engineer kit). I could only get the signal in the evenings. The 648 kHz frequency stopped some years back, so I get it on digital now, and online, 24 hours a day. But have you noticed how everything sounds so much more authoritative on medium wave? I remember once listening to the World Service in the early morning, and then turning over to Radio 4 on FM, and thinking how much more solid and reliable the World Service newsreaders sounded. Then I realised I was listening to the same programme on both channels.
• Stevie
  Only ever listen to NPR these days. They pimp the BBC World Service sometimes, usually late at night and for a tiny bit each morning.
• Rosie - Confessions of a pleb
  (Raak) There's Five Live, on which I listen to a lot of footy but you'd have to threaten me with waterboarding to get me to listen to anything else on that ghastly down-market crap-hole. Otherwise it's 4 or 3. Has to be. BTW it was cirrus - you could see it on satellite pics.
• penelope
  I can also get BBC RAdio Kent on Medium Wave in the car. I'm about to change my car - and I'm dreading getting a car with a radio that doesn't have Long Wave, which is probably going to be the case. If so I'll have to find R4 on t'internet 3G on me phone and plug it into the car's Aux socket
• Rosie
  (pen) Unlikely it won't have Long Wave. My banger, a 2002 Peugeot 206, has got it.
• penelope - Longer
  [Rosie] The tendency is for them not to have it now. They have FM, MW and DAB, but no LW. The windy miller's car radio is like that. (for me, it would be reason enough not to buy it...)
• Raak - Oh well
  The company I mentioned earlier has decided to proceed with other candidates, as the recruiter diplomatically put it. Well, it was pleasant to daydream about for a couple of weeks.
• Stevie
  [Raak] Their loss. Time to retire to your secret base at the centre of the Earth to plot world domination and vengeance.
• penelope - Wait for them to topple
  [Raak] Wait for the candidate-in-front-of-you's spouse to declare they are moving to another country because he/she has just won a new post there, and then expect the (only slightly apologetic) call back. That's what happened to me.
• Uncle Korky
  Cross-posting) Breaking silence to announce that I have finally secured a ticket for a recording of ISIHAC! If anyone else is going to Southend on July 4th, I'll see you there!
• penelope - May Day
  Well, a week after May Day to be precise. We have a lovely burst of late spring heat here in the Netherlands - It's 26C, full sun, light breezes.... And excitement of excitements, the new antique tractor arrives tomorrow.
• Dujon
  Enjoy it while you can, penelope, you never know what's about to come over the horizon..
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Great shot. Is that in Oz?
• penelope - owd cloud
  [Dujon] Splendid!
• Dujon
  [Rosie] Yes. It's a cell approaching from the west - which most storms here do. The shot was taken by my son earlier this year from farther up the mountains from me at around and about the 3,000ft level.
  [penelope] I'm glad you liked it. I shall pass on your comment.
• Bismarck - Oz
  What is it about photos from dahn ander that makes them look so good? A friend just emigrated with family to Sydney and keeps posting pics of wonderful landscapes, exotic wildfowl etc. I've only ever done two days in Melbourne which according to Sydneyites is a near-death experience, so I can't comment.
• penelope - Green cast
  [Bismarck] It's envy.
• Rosie
  (Bismarck) Probably the fact that the sun is "always" out and the air is very clean except when there's desert dust.
• Dujon - Ooh err
  Summat happened. My finely penned post previewed but disappeared on submission. I'll post again when I have time.
• Phil - Living dangerously
  I have to confess, or brag, that I still listen almost exclusively to Radio 1. Some songs I don't like (e.g. the current number 1), but I'm forever finding new bands and new sounds/styles that I really like. Anyone for Babymetal, the foremost J-Pop/Death metal crossover?
• Rosie - What?
  (Phil) How could you? This is what you want.
• Raak
  [Phil] I am now imagining cosplaying as one of the Babymetal girls.
• Dujon
  Thanks, Rosie! Another 45 minutes 'wasted'. ;)
• Dujon - All things bright and beautiful
  [Bismarck] Many visitors and photographers remark on Australia's "light". The country on three sides is surrounded by lots and lots of water and much of the 'centre' is desert, so Rosie could be right about the clean air.
  Exotic flora and fauna? They are to you, but badgers and squirrels are to Australian residents. I used to live about 3Km from my current residence where, particularly in dry periods, kangaroos (probably wallabies) would come out of the bushland next door and wander the streets; you won't find that in all places, though. Likewise with our avian population. Flocks of &$)@&! very noisy sulphur crested cockatoos; parrots; wrens; finches; kookaburras; butcher birds; bower birds (we have a bower in our front garden); whip birds - and quite a few more are regular visitors.
  Landscapes are there and it's a largish country so subjects are there for the taking in all their variety. I love this place - I have lived here now for nigh on 61 years so am probably biassed - but make no claims as to its being better than any other country. After all this is a wonderful world (thanks, Louis) and beauty is everywhere if you look, even in England, the country of my birth.;)
• Phil - Big band etc
  [Rosie] Re: your suggestion. Fun to play I'd imagine, but I find it rather dull to listen to these days. Ditto for jazz in general, and anything in which soloists get applauded during the piece. I also don't like most opera; lots of choral music; most "rock" music; especially prog rock; Bon Jovi et al; most musicals.... Actually, I hadn't realised how long the list is, given the amount of music I do like.
• Phil
  [follow-up] All that said, I only like about 6 of the current Top 40 singles.
• penelope
  [Phil] I don't know anything in the top 40 any more. Even I'm surprised by the speed at which this descent into fogeydom has happened. Or perhaps I'm perceiving it the wrong way - perhaps it's the music in the charts that's rubbish and not worth listening to any more. What exacerbates this is
  a) Dutch pop music is utterly dire - plaintive autotuned adolescents singing formulaic songs written by someone else. So I don't listen to any lowland stations (except sometimes a Belgian one called 'Nostalgie')
  b) I can receive only a very small number of UK radio stations in the car. Absolute Radio plays the same sings as it did in 2004 (when indie-type guitar-based pop music was quite good). Otherwise it's music-free BBC Radio Kent, BBC Five Live or Smooth - which plays almost exclusively music from the US - and I don't understand why.
  c) I'm an old fogey.
• Tuj
  [pen] If that's the definiton of fogeydom, I ascended to it at about the age of 20... but in fariness I suppose one person's 'formulaic' is another's 'inspired'.
  Has anyone been through the full thought experiment of selecting one's own 8 tracks to be stranded on a desert island with?
• Rosie - Fogeydom
  (Tuj) 25 in my case. As for Desert Island Discs I'd put a little late 50's pop, a little folk, quite a bit of mainstream jazz and Big Band and some piano pieces by Beethoven and Chopin. Is one allowed non-musical items? If so, I'd include Derek and Clive, top-notch taboo-busting filth. Luxury items a piano and and endless supply of fags.
• Phil - !fogey
  Mrs Phil & I had a moment a year or two ago when we suddenly realised that we might be embarrassing our children (now aged 20 & 18) by knowing about (and critiquing) the likes of Tinie Tempah, Skepta, Clean Bandit, Royal Blood, Slaves etc etc etc, and also listening to R1 in the car while carrying them and their friends. So we asked them. It turns out we couldn't be further from the truth. We are the envy of their friends, who are sick of their parents listening to Heart / Smooth / Classic FM and saying "all modern pop music sounds the same" etc. Which was nice.
  I'm very proud to have introduced my children to Clean Bandit, Fidlar, Slaves and Mumford & Sons. I've also fleshed out their musical knowledge with Art of Noise, Bowie, Prince, James Brown, The Colourfield, Coldplay, Faithless and a load of others beyond and between.
• Raak
  I don't go much for all this modern music by the likes of Beethoven and Brahms. Music reached its peak 400 years ago.
• Stevie
  Just rediscovering Jethro Tull and filling in the holes in the collection. That follows an intense two and a half month voyage of discovery with Glass Hammer that cost me deep in t' purse. Before Xmas I was collecting and discovering Muse after catching a performance on TV. Before that it was Tangerine Dream on account of all the advice to do so I got. In 1974. And interlaced through it all was an increasing interest in movie soundtracks. The one for The Way is a particularly good find.
• penelope - Musing
  [Stevie] I liked Muse - thinking of them as a 'Queen for the noughties' and went as far as forking out for a ticket to see them at Wembley in 2007 when I still lived close by. And now? I can't tell which song is which. They play fabulously at live shows though. Great performances.
• Stevie
  Agree about the Muse comments. The last album was derailed by the absurd drill sergeant ranting parts. But when they are good they are excellent. Glass Hammer are a bit of a puzzler. Chronometree is absolutely hysterical and musically brilliant (a prog-rock concept album about a guy who detects messages in his favorite prog-rock albums teling him to form a cult and await the aliens in a field at which point ... ) and they have a rabid following of prog-crazed "real Glass Hammer" fans, yet of the, what, fifteen albums they put out the first half dozen were completely different to each other and ran the gamut of concept story rock albums drawn from the Mabinogion to a live folk concert recorded in The Prancing Pony. I love that. But the rabids want them to sound like Yes 2.0 all the time.
• Projoy
  I never had a Radio 1 period, and it's been largely Radio 3 and my own MP3 collection for the last decade or so. There's the annual pantomime as a quick reference guide to the year's most popular bubblegum songs, and Eurovision for... god knows what.
• Phil - Muse-ic
  The whole Phil clan are Muse fans. We saw their previous tour (about 4 years ago?) at the Arsenal stadium, and it was phenomenal. I know people who made it to this year's O2 show who say it was even better. We pretty much permanently have at least one Muse CD in the car at any one time, and I spent the whole of SUnday's cricket match with various snippets from Origin of Symmetry running around inside my head. It's hard to play a safe forward defensive with Megalomania on the brain.
• nights
  *stumbles upon an old bookmark*
  
  Hello, world!
• world
  Hello, nights! Haven't seen you for days.
• Boolbar
  [Muse] I've seen Muse four times live. The first was just after the first album release and was without any mega-screens, UFOs, mass crowds etc. To be honest I got bored of them, but the first few albums remain great. [Modern Music] Although I buy modern albums I suspect that they won't be popular with the kids. The latest by Joanna Newsom, Swans, 7shades, PJ Harvey and Katzenjammer have all been making my Mini vibrate recently.
• Stevie
  Muse? I've moved on. Star Trek and The Martian soundtracks at work, Van der Graaf Generator on the trains.
• Rosie
  (Stevie) Actually it's a dynamo. It's for the lights, or used to be.
• Stevie
  [Rosie] Spelled differently, though I didn't really know that until I looked it up. Perhaps there was one of those shifts in reality where I wake up and find the world is pronouncing a word completely differently than they were the night before.
• Rosie - Don't stand under a tree
  Nice thunderstorm tonight as I was driving to the pub. Plenty of cloud-cloud lightning and some forky stuff as well. From an elevated point looking NW I could just see clear sky near the horizon at about 1035 pm. Most unusual and only possible with a high cloud-base, which these storms had. And they were shifting, about 50 mph. All over rather quickly.
• penelope - Lightning over Antwerp
  I stood on our back deck late last night watching the lightning flashes illuminate the clouds towering over Antwerp, about 40km to the south of us. We didn't get a lot of weather action last night, but my colleagues are all suffering from lack of sleep caused by constant thunder and lightning last night. And it's awfully black out today, but still about 22-23C.
• Giertrud
  So, the Queen introduced a new variety of tea, in honour of today's historic vote. It is, of course, called, "English Brexit". Oh... you ask what ingredients? Leaves. Just Leaves.
• Rosie
  (Giertrud) Shaddap. We have just made complete arses of ourselves.
  (pen) More thunder yesterday. 9 days this month, a record for Hughes Hall (34 years).
• penelope - thundering
  [Rosie] Probably similar here. I'm getting fitter dashing in and out to rescue the washing on the line.
• rab - I am still here
  Just about
• Giertrud
  Better than being incomplete ones, I supposie, Rosie!
• Rosie
  (Giertrud) One buttock is OK, two is really good, but three!
• penelope - Sightings of Rab
  [Rab] Hello! Do we all need to renew our Mornington Passports? Will there be restricted access to Crescent markets? Will podumes lose value?
• Stevie
  [Pen] Will you decide to be English/Welsh or Dutch?
• Stevie
  The behaviour of the Head Brexiteers in the aftermath has suggested an ... interesting (in the Chinese sense) scenario: Trump wins the Presidency (of the USA), decides to resign and walk away leaving us in the hands of whoever his running mate is.

  I get the strong impression that all the top politicians who were belly-to-belly shouting "Oh yeah?" at each other a few weeks ago were caught like a young boy telling a teacher his term-long project is well under way when in fact he hasn't actually done any work. By the sixth week the lies can't stop because there is now a malfunctioning mental imperative preventing truth yet the do-no-work stance can't be rejected in favour of a work-like-mad-to-make-up-for-lost-time because the same malfunctioning brain is in charge. Lies and laziness are being rewarded in the short term and lightning might burn down the school before the end of term.

• Phil - Lies
  Continuing to lie until it becomes impossible to back out led to this rather odd, and rather gruesome, news story I spotted a few weeks ago.
• Stevie - Brexiteers
  Well, now we have a real need for the HHGttG term "beljam".
• penelope - Helo clouds helo ski
  Yeah, I'm feeling a bit lazy. I'm in the middle of a fortnight off, the windy miller and I noodled around the Ardennes and Luxumbourg for a couple of days (ate and drank too much), and we're expecting The American Niece and her boyf in a couple of days, but I'm still doing the same amount of cooking and cleaning as normal. Have I forgotten how to holiday?
• Bismarck - Holidays
  [pen] Know what you mean, there's always the idea of doing it better yourself, just not at home, which equates to a holiday. This year went B&B&restauranting with Frau Bismarck, the brother in law and the kids in Brittany, just to make sure that no-one had housework. Normally it's a rental as we have several sprogs and that gets expensive. It cost an arm and a leg but achieved the aim. There had been a plan for an invasion of Prague in rental accommodation for the same price, but wife plus sprogs 1 and 2 refused.
  Would you be one of the few Dutch families without a camping car?
• penelope - pas de camping/geen camping
  [Bism] The windy miller refuses to camp. I think he did it wrong (ordinary field, earth closet, insects) when he was about 18 and it put him off for life. I love it, have slept in the car and camped and caravanned everywhere (including the arctic circle) but even though I tell him the secret is air mattresses, a campsite with loos and showers, and a good pub for food nearby, he won't listen. And we don't have kids, so we do hotels.
  So today, mid-way through our holiday, I am taking pleasure in jam-making (double batch - he keeps buying plums and strawberries from stalls at the side of the road and not eating them, so they get stashed in the freezer), ironing, and hoovering. I would get bored on a beach or watching the world go by at a pavement cafe, wouldn't I?
• Bismarck - Luxuryemburg
  [pen] You wouldn't be around Larochette, would you? I remember 2 days there in the main hotel with a bunch of grill/barbecue kiosks along the road which did great meals.
• penelope - I think it's broken
  Or you're all asleep. So what's everyone up to?
• Raak
  Helping to make a drum head about 40 inches across. Another will be made in a few weeks to go on the other side of the drum, which itself is about 40 inches deep.
  

  
• Rosie - Casts a critical musician's eye over this project
  Never seen a pizza used for this purpose before. Woodna fought ittaby terribly resonant.
• penelope - pizza punnery
  Can't think of a drumming/pizza pun at all. There must be one!
• Rosie - You need pluck
  (pen) Music for strings is occasionally marked pizzacato = cheesily.
• Stevie
  His syncopation's a pizza work.
• Pablo
  [Raak] Why do you need a 40x40 drum? Are you taking up Taiko or planning to serenade the neighbours with the Dies Irae of the Verdi Requiem? (I ask out of professional curiosity as a percussionist)
• Stevie
  [Raak] Will the drum be lit from inside?
• Raak
  [Pablo] I've been playing taiko for about 8 years, and right now I'm in the Swiss mountains at a taiko festival. [Stevie] I will see if I can persuade our Benevolent Leader.
• Pablo
  [Raak] That explains that then. Taiko in the Swiss mountains? Bit like gamelan in Siberia innit?
• Stevie
  This just in: Swiss budget for avalanche precipitation mortars exausted before winter season starts! Government said to be considering alternative approaches to clearing the ski slopes. Film at eleven.
• rab - Apologies
  Hello. Just performing a server upgrade.
• penelope - *taps on the glass*
  Rab! Good to see you.
• Rosie
  Taps on the glass? How big is it FFS?
• penelope - Screening visitors
  [Rosie] Screen. I mean screen.
• Rosie - The Number of the Beast
  Do we need a Prime Minister? I don't see why. A Composite one would be far more multi-faceted.
  (pen) You take me far too seriously.
• penelope
  [Rosie] Oh no I don't. ;o)
• Rosie - Keraunophilia
  Only a feeble one-rumble-and-a-bit-of-rain here last night. Other places not far away have had exuberant electrical displays, crashing thunder and joyously roaring downpours leading to surface water flooding and hazardous driving conditions south of the M4 corridor. So why not the B269? Come on.
  (pen) Thank God for that.
• penelope - Still no rain.
  It's cooled down a bit - now 21C or so and 16 at night (which is nice) but we haven't had any decent rain for about 3-4 weeks. even the promised donder en blixem didn't amount to very much, it seemed to swirl around us but dumped very little rain on us.
  And I've got new shoes and a new coat and everything, ready for rain and inclement weather.
• Boolbarrr - The obligatory pirate chat
  Thar be not much rain in Beds either me hearties!
• Bismarrrck - Heartiness
  Arrr, Cap'n, if it be rainin' in yer bed, yer mun ha' left the porthole open again!
• Phil - Thunder etc
  [Rosie] Yes, it was rather damp in Newbury last Thursday evening. I avoided it by 12 miles or so, but watched the lightning from a distance while nervously walking the dog.
  The very slow-moving storm finally reached us about 4am, and continued till nearly 6am. The closest lightning strikes were just under a mile away, but were some of the most powerful I've heard. Fortunately, we live on top of a chalk and flint hill, so it drains very rapidly down to the Thames, so the roads were largely OK by 7.30am.
• Stevie - Storms
  [Rosie] A couple of weeks ago there was a "gully washer" in Florida the likes of which the world hasn't seen since Mrs Noah smashed a bottle of Manischewitz across the bow of the ark. It only lasted for about 15 minutes but dumped inches of wet. This isn't super-rare in that neck of the woods, but it has been years since I was caught in such sheer amounts of ruined holiday.
  
  The last time was on the causeway connecting Kennedy Spaceport with the mainland. Sea on both sides and lightning poking it periodically. I turned to Mrs Stevie and said "I know you won't like this, what with the Stevieling being in the car, but we have to let those two people on the motorcycle in or they could be killed". I looked over at the bike to see it laid-down and no sign of the riders. They had taken refuge in the ditch. The alligator-infested ditch, which we had been warned many times to keep clear of on account of hungry alligators of a particularly grumpy disposition. Now that is rain.
• Bismarck - Civilised weather
  I have a soft spot for the rain in Singapore, which turns up for thirty minutes at carefully defined times of the day. Allows one to plan, don'tcherknow.
• Superman
  [Bism] my recollection was of a rainy season that deserved its name. When were you there?
• Bismarck
  [Sup] You've unmasked me there, only been there once in February, weather was as I described though.
• penelope - Having a go on the starting handle
• A Man In Black - Muttering while observing from some convenient bushes
  ... fine figure of a woman, fine figure ...
• engine - Sputters
• penelope - Are you all looking at my arse?
  The windy miller and I are off to the 24-hour Citroen 2CV race at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday. What fun. Ages since I've been to any motorsport-related (I use the term advisedly) events. It's been nothing but windmills for the past eight years.
• Rosie - Emerging from posteriororitily-induced hypnosis
  (pen) For a short period I drove one of those. They can do 60 on the flat. Handling characteristics of a London bus; power of a Sinclair C5.
• penelope - Trez Veet Duh Say Vays
  I think the ones on the track last week had been pimped. Quite a lot. Great fun, free entry, free grandstand seats, disgusting toilets.
• Stevie
  The 2CV has an integral toilet?
• penelope - 2WC
  [Stevie] IN the Netherlands they are affectionately known as the Citroen Eend or 'duck'. There's also a brand of toilet cleaner in NL and in the UK called 'Toilet Duck' or 'Toilet Eend'. We are truly going round in circles.
• Rosie - Clogbogs
  (pen) I get the impression the Dutch are cheerfully lavatorial. Is that a fair assessment?
• penelope
  [Stevie] Not really, not as much as the British. It's a coincidence about the Duck thing - it's a Europe-wide name for the toilet cleaner because of the shape of the neck of the bottle. Now I'm trying to identify the Dutch sense of humour...
• Stevie
  [pen] The boy with his finger in the dike points* the way to the Dutch sense of humour, I think.
  
  * Ahahahahaha
• Stevie - 2CV
  Not seeing the connection between the bottle-bank on wheels and a duck, myself.
• Superman - Automotive
  Depends on your stance. The Ka was nicknamed "Flea" in Germany (they seem to have an insect fixation), the Multipla was the "coffee pot" in France (probably could be exchanged for one after ten thou miles), not too sure about the resemblance either.
• Superman - NL-humor
  [pen] My recollection of Dutch humour was that they gave you very fair warning of an imminent joke, often some days in advance, allowing one to take cover. Is it still like that?
• gil - 2CV
  Our Finnish friends, who owned an underpowered 2CV, used to refer to it as the 'un cheval'.
• penelope - appearances can be deceptive
  [Superman] I get the 'flea' moniker and the coffee-pot (I'm thinking of a Bialetti stove-top espresso maker - does that make me one of the 'liberal elite'?) but it does take time for objects to earn an affectionate nickname, doesn't it?
  And as for slow-simmering Dutch jokes, I haven't actually noticed any, probably because I don't work with enough Dutch people for the technique to gain critical mass. They're not without a sense of humour, but because mine relies on wordplay (most often) then there's a gap that isn't often bridged.
• Rosie - Venereal apparition
• Raak - Translunary apophthegm
• Rosie - As before
  I had asked if anyone had seen Venus low in the SW around sunset but for some reason the question didn't appear. Well? The moon's there now as well.
• Boolbar - Venus in Firs
  [Rosie] I have seen it peeping through the trees the last few chilly nights.
• Rosie - Armless pursuit
  (Boolbar) Bright, innit. You can see it in broad daylight with binocs and even with the naked eye under the most favourable conditions.
• penelope - Venusian lunacy
  Is it the thing shining diretly under the new moon right now? I can see it from the sofa. It's going to be a chilly one tonight.
• Rosie
  (pen) It is, or was. The moon moves on, unlike Ars?ne Wenger. Venus gets higher and higher until mid February. Cue UFO reports.
• Rosie
  Why has my carefully crafted grave accent come out as a question mark?
• Boolbar
  Jupiter beaming at me this morning. Still visible as the sun was lurking just over the horizon. [Rosie] Try using the html string &egrave;
• Stevie
  [Rosie] I dunno, but I wish you'd stop ending every question with an 'e' sporting a jaunty grave accent.
• Rosie
  (Boolbar) Normally alt0232 works but not this time. Something is slightly amiss because on doing "Preview" the text disappeared from the box and after several severe blows with a club hammer this is what came up. ??? lad.
• Rosie
  It's done it again. I dunno.
• Stevie - alt0232
  [Rosie] I never use that because absent a numeric key pad I have to use the numbers up top and it dun't wurk. Boolbar's suggestion should work as it is broswer rendering character set immune (a quick test: è).
• Stevie
  It could be the preview is furging it all up. (quick test with preview: è).
• Stevie
  So preview can't bugger up the HTML entity. Let's try with the number (quick test:
• Stevie
  Egad!
• Raak
  ? j?? ??p? th? ?h?r?ct?r? İ ⱳā?ẗ.
• gil
  è é ë
  These characters created via &egrave; &eacute; &euml;, as recommended by Boolbar.
• Rosie - Lacking content
  Testing, testing.
• Rosie
  Well, that works, as does the Preview. Let's try this: Tèsting, tèsting. That previews OK but only by using Boolbar's method. On MCIOS both systems work. Why dat den?
• Simons Mith - MCiOS v mc5
  [Rosie] Differences in how the moves are stored I guess. Unicode and code pages are a bugger.
• penelope - Free lunches
  Yesterday's free lunch came with a Christmas box (containing wine and cashew nuts) plus a step-counter that counts randomly but no food because the queues were too long, full of people queuing for their free lunch, and I decided it was a better idea to eat lunch at my desk.
  Today's free lunch is hosted by the research institute and is on the 17th floor so at least there'll be a fabulous view while queueing. University life, eh?
• Dujon - Just my view.
  Your comment takes me back a bit, penelope. The pinnacle of my banking career was working on the twentieth floor as manager of the customer services department. My office was on the north side of the building - which was situated on one of the high points of Sydney's CBD - and had an absolutely gorgeous outlook across and along Sydney Harbour (Port Jackson) from The Bridge and The Opera House out to the heads. Unfortunately, other than the odd glimpse of the view, it was impossible to properly enjoy it as I was just too busy. :(
• penelope - Lunch with a view
  Today's free lunch had no view (windowless hall), a short speech and very long queues. But an interesting walk there and back that included some of the busy Nieuwe Maas river and the old water tower from 1873. I'm really not in the mood for any more free lunches.
  [Duj] Wow.
• Bismarck - Viewlessness
  Ey up pen, so Dutch architects can deliberately design a building with no windows on the seventeenth floor?
• Boolbar
  [Bismarck] I think she is cramming in more free lunches than you realise, even though there is no such thing.
• Phil - forced smile day
  So, our Secret santa presents get dished out later today, while we munch on mince pies. Apparently we're supposed to wear Christmas jumpers too. I feel like Marvin today.
• penelope - Forced jollity
  [Phil] I hear you. Ugh. Forced jollity brings out the obstreperous teenager in me.
  Lunch Update - There is no free lunch today. I made corned beef and brinjal pickle sandwiches, and I've already eaten half of them (it's 10.30am).
• Bismarck - Free lunch anomaly
  [Boolbar] I suspect the quantum representation of free lunches permits the improbable occasionally, given the number of lunches consumed daily. Though according to pen normality was restored today.
• penelope - Today's free lunch
  Not so much a free lunch as the promise of cake and coffee during an open afternoon - a 'come and have a look' kind of affair - at the windy miller's business' new offices. Next door to Ikea...
• Software
  Can I guess where the office furniture came from?
• Boolbar
  [pen] A flat-packed lunch?
• Stevie
  Listening to everyone bitch about unacceptably something free lunches and having to endure the unspeakable horrors of Christmas jollity at work for one day reminds me why I got out while the going was good back in '84. What a bunch of whining whiny whiners.
• Bismarck - Open season
  [Phil], Secret Santas are agents of the devil. It's OK to impale them, or just any random person if you can't work out who bought you that pair of yellow socks.
• Stevie - Secret Santa
  <*mutters*> Yellow toe socks for Bismark. Filled with coal.
• penelope - whineless
  The only problem is all these lunches take time that I don't have. They break my thinking when I could be usefully engaged writing webpages or brochures or news ot other stuff. Luckily it was back to just half an hour today.
  OOoh yellow socks filled with coal! Great idea!
• Stevie
  [penelope] So don't go. I'm not seeing the problem here.
• penelope - Yazoooooo
  [Stevie] Unthinkable. Awards, year summaries, need to be seen to be joining in, stuff like that.
• Stevie
  [penelope] I never do. I've opted out of three "official" parties (all that required cashmoney up front, admittedly - in the USA There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) this week alone so I can go across town to an English-style boozer instead. If I'm going to spend money it's going on booze'n'pie'n'chips, not soft drinks, canapes and a variety of ethnic foods that I can't bear to even smell let alone eat. And why pretend to like people who have trouble sharing a conference room with one without snarling three hundred and sixty four days of the year?
• Stevie
  Damn near missed my "Ten Years In, Congrats You're Vested" certificate ceremony too. Only went to say thanks to and shake the hand of the outgoing deputy commish who got me the gig.
• Stevie
   Merry Christmas everyone at MC5 
• Boolbar
  Almost every present I had is either red wine or chocolate. Merry Christmas to you all (hic) and a yummy New Year.
• Giertrud
  Merry Christmas, though for your time zone I am a bit late.
• Rosie
  (Giertrud) Central Standard Time? 6 hours then. The thing about Britain in December, you may or may not know, is the sheer gloom of a cloudy afternoon, i.e. most of them. It can be pretty well dark at 4 pm.
• Stevie
  [Rosie] I took it that Giertrude was in fact undead, possibly a Zombie but one shouldn't discount the vampire option just because the fad has faded, and is now ravaging the living in your area.
• Rosie
  (Stevie) Nothing ravages Warlingham, not even the Lib Dems.
• rab - Happy New Year
  Hmmm... odd. Sorry I keep dipping out, I've only just noticed Rosie's comment about accents, and am investigating.
• rab - Test
  Tést.
• rab
  T?st.
• rab
  Aha! Right, I know what to work with...
• rab - Tert
  Tért
• rab
  Ok, that looks a little better now. It looks like you can enter fünn¥ chårac†ers right at the kéybøard... although I don't know quite why.

  [Rosie] Your question "Why does it work at MCiOS and not here?" has the very simple answer: "Dan is a much better programmer than me."

• Rosie - Gonna try a tert
  In this room it's 21°C. The Welsh for Snowdon is Yr Ŵyddfa. Good enough. You're an excellent programmer, rab.
• penelope - Terting terting
  I could do with a holiday. I'm fed up of being on the road to work before the sun even comes up!
• Raak - Things that are like other things
  I have unblocked a drain. The satisfaction of seeing the washbasin suddenly empty freely is curiously alike to that of a really satisfying bowel movement.
• penelope - Getting things moving
  I'm having a clear-out... of the cupboard in my office, which I have never used, but lots of other people have, aince 2007, apparently. It's all going in the bin. My to-do list is limited this week (everyone seems to have taken an extra week off work, and as I'm the one they ask to work on their documents at the final stage then there's a lull until they all come back to work - which, judging by this morning's traffic jams and 20mph average speed on the all-motorway route to work, was this morning. Pffft.
• Software - Terminology
  don't you mean 30km/h, pen?
• Rosie - Pedantry
  32 km/h (approximately).
• penelope - I mean too bloody slow
  Whatevs.
• Bismarck - Commuting questions
  [pen] Do you car-share? Are you aware of its benefits? Driver or passenger? Would you prefer [Software]or [Rosie]? Are you going my way?
• penelope - A car-share from nowhere
  Whlle the Netherlands is pretty well set up with lots of carpool parking spaces adjacent to nearly every motorway junction, we've chosen to live just out of the usual commuting range for Rotterdam - south of the river, mate. (That's the Haringvliet). Our rural idyll means there's no-one nearby who works where I do, nor the hours I do. In fact, very few people live outside of the city. They think I'm weird.
• Rosie
  (Bismarck) Car-sharing is a form of torture. I'd rather travel in a packed rush-hour train where anonymity rules and talking is taboo anyway. But in your own car that cannot hold. Anyone who spoke would be immediately shot. Of course this only applies to work journeys. Anything else - well, jump in.
• penelope - Well f*ck y** and *v*ry*ne els* on th* ro*d.
  I think my swearing at other drivers would quickly put anyone else off car sharing with me. Sometimes even I'm shocked at the foulness of it. The weekly offer in Aldi this week is a dashcam, and I considered buying one for a moment, before realising that it would mean my expletive-laden judgements would be there for all to hear.
• Rosie - Sweary Mary
  (pen) My oaths are briefer than yours and I find myself thinking "you use that word too much."
• penelope - My briefs are oather than yours.
  [Rosie] Pants to that.
• Stevie - Dashcam
  Why not use a dashcam but speak in mock Russian? Youtoob fail videos are twice as funny with someone shrieking "Smirnoff spetznatz gorky!" just as the four articulated trucks up ahead disintegrate into their component parts and show you that while you thought the traffic was doing around 50mph from the footage it is actually moving somewhere in the region of 110. In deep snow. In a near blizzard.

  You could publish the footage as The Perils of Penelope Somewhere In Europe.

• pejnelopeff - Pay per view
  [Stevie] What a spiffing idea. I just need some friends to cause distractions along the route to work, thus causing a regular supply of accidents, as you suggest.
• Rosie - Log off
  (Stevie) I like the ones where a colossally overloaded trailer of timber starts swinging from side to side then over it goes and the whole f****** issue lands in the ditch. Yes, I too am a time-waster.
  (pen - ult) Oather than mine? Shurely not.
• Stevie - Dashing Cam
  [pen] I don't see the need to contrive accidents. Annecdotal evidence suggests that the minute you turn on your dashcam some idiot will drive a tank across the highway narrowly missing you, or swerve in front of you with an unfeasible load of matresses and haybales lashed to his roof with lamentably poor knotwork.

  Put in a rear dashcam and enjoy the immediate onslaught of cyclclists and motorbikers so caught up in the moment they have forgotten how perspective works.

  For a few tens of pounds outlay I can visualize a time when your Yootoob channel brings in six figures from advertising, more than paying for the inevitable dent-knocking-outery and door replacement. Just remember to yell "Kremlin matryoshka gorbachev!" as you weave around the haybales and collide with one of those tricycle ice-cream things and it will all be gravy.

• Stevie
  I've been working on an idea to lighten the mood when traffic accidents occur. Nothing sours the situation more than getting punched by an angry person with whom you have just collided at speed. I think the whole mood can be de-escalated by the addition of a proximity-triggered klaxon fitted behind the front grill that can scream "YeeeeeeeeeHaaaaaaaa!" as you swan into a Smart car or someone's BMW and give everyone's airbags and seat-belts a good work-out. I got the idea after listening to I Want My Baby Back from Kenny Everett's World's Worst Record.
• Stevie - Time Wasting
  [Rosie] Time spent watching overloaded cranes falling over or trucks drive under an overhead obstruction with the bed raised is not deducted form one's life span. In fact, I encourage such behaviour if only to counter those times spent trying to get a human being to intervene 'twixt you and the government (eg to sell you a new road tax disc) after which one tends to sag against the nearest bar and utter such truisms as "there's four hours I'll never get back".
• Bismarck - Accidentally on purpose
  Hook up your reversing camera to a large screen attached to the rear windscreen. Should cause endless fun.
• Knobbly - Screen test
  I'm confused - facing out or facing in?
• penelope - TWTWTW
  What a bloody week. I don't want to look back at it.
• Rosie - Sadism
  (Stevie) Is there any life deduction for watching leopards strangle warthogs prior to enjoying a tasty meal or watching hyenas ripping chunks out of a buffalo which only gives up when a considerable part of its inside has been removed. Incidentally, the word warthog looks Welsh to me and I always mutter it to myself as if it were. After all there is a genuine Welsh word arthog (short open "a", lightly trilled "r", "th" as in English) meaning bear-like and with the same figurative meaning as in English, i.e. bad-tempered. The plural of warthog would probably be warthogion though warthogoedd or warthogydd are possibilities. It's unlikely to be regular (warthogau).
• Dujon - Grizzly stuff.
  There was nothing banging about Arthog last time I visited (probably early '50s) even vaguely resembling a bear. Perhaps a hill or the (very few) local residents presented a somewhat ursine appearance.
• Stevie
  Wouldn't a Warthogion be a collection of Warthog folktales?
• Rosie - Alight here if you can bear it
  (Dujon) You must have missed the station which only existed because of the nearby touristy Arthog Hall. There is a steam engine named after it (No. 6993 if you must know) and I suspect the big brass nameplate is hanging up somewhere in the building.
  (Stevie) Yeah, I like that.
• Dujon - Station staff
  No, I didn't miss the station, Rosie, as that is where I stayed for a week. Well, in the siding, in a camping coach. A staff-controlled single line that wended its way up the valley to who-knows-where, the whistle echoing off and around the hills, a mist hiding the already hidden places; a child's paradise. Geez I'm getting old. ;)
• penelope
  Rosie - how deep'n' desperate is this freezing easterly going to be? Wind is picking up here, and temp is dropping... (according to the neightbour over the road, whose weather station Tweets every couple of hours).
• Rosie
  (Dujon) The line went to Dolgellau then up the hill and down again to Bala, Llangollen and joined the main line at Ruabon. Ten-coach holiday trains with two smallish engines laboured mightily up the bank. The line closed in 1965 but parts of it have been reopened under preservation with unrealistically clean shiny engines and a dismal speed restriction (25 mph).
  (pen) Deep'n' desperate? Not very. Not for an easterly in February but it'll probably last a week. Not much snow if any. I'm not looking forward to it either.
• penelope
  It couldn't get more miserable here, weatherwise. Deep grey gloom, and temperatures hovering just under freezing. And I think I've just witnessed the stripping of my UK pension by a bunch of unprincipled Westminster turncoats. Bastards the lot of them.
• Rosie - Inclemency, poverty
  (pen) Same weather here only one degree warmer. Light drizzle, mist and gloom. Lovely! Bad about your pension. Stay where you are though because 29% of Britons support Trump, further evidence of our widespread knuckle-scraping ignorance. If I were younger I'd seriously consider moving somewhere a little more at ease with itself.
• Stevie - Snow
  And lots of it. Stayed home sick. Really sick, but no-one will believe me.
• Stevie - Weather
  Howling winds making everyone in the house nervous. Outside the house the wind is picking up too. Still snowing. 7 inches or so so far, but it has drifted halfway up the front door.
• penelope - Doris
  Yesterday's storm was interesting. I took a trip there and back across the Oude Maas river by water taxi at the height of her gustiness. Our original choice of dock was too exposed to wind and waves for it to pick us up safely, so we had to walk a bit further up to a calmer one. Exhilarating.
• Rosie - Nomenclature
  How can they call a storm Doris? It's a genteel upper middle-class name from the 20's. My piano teacher as a kid was called Doris, Doris Austin (pron. Awstin). My parents knew a few Dorises - they were awfully nice. The Crystal Palace full-back in the '60's was Martin Hinshelwood, nicknamed Doris. It was not a compliment.
• penelope - Dorises
  I heard they were alphabetically naming them after people in the Met Office. I shall Google.
• Stevie
  I've said for years that Doris is a name to strike fear and terror into people, and that it should be moved into rotation in the hurricane name stack soonest. I also disagree vehemently with the practice of naming hurricanes or tropical storms using male names. Male names do not convey the same "get out of Dodge now" subtext that female ones do.
• Raak
  How about using the names of demons? "Storm Demogorgon" has a fine ring to it. Next up will be Eligor, Focalor, and Glasyalabolas.
• penelope - Demonised
  Thing is, [Raak] I'm not familiar with the names of demons (shame on me). Perhaps we could just name them after nasty people? We've missed the opportunity for 'Bannon' but we're in time for storms 'Farage', 'Gove' and 'Hopkins'.
• Phil
  I know that last year's storms were named from suggestions tweeted to the Met Office and Met Eireann, and that they alternated male and female, as do this year's.
  Also, does anyone else remember hearing on QI many years ago that Herod's wife was called Doris?
• Stevie
  [pen] What on earth do you have against Mary Hopkins?
• Rosie - Up the bum
  I've just had a prostate biopsy. Briefly quite painful but better than not having one. It's probably cancerous but can easily be treated. The consultant said that all men of 90 have prostate cancer but they die of something else. I seem to have started a little early, perhaps (74). The treatment was brilliant and prompt, at Mayday Hospital in Croydon. Why don't they get a proper car park? Bastards!
• penelope
  [Rosie] Well... it's absolutely fabulous that they've got you under effective and early surveillance. But I'm so sorry about the car parking, you're probably going to have to use it a few times over the next couple of months. Hope it's bearable.
• Rosie
  (pen) I've used the car park twice already; I got a taxi this time because the procedure might have left me feeling a bit vulnerable but the feeling of having been whacked up the bum with a heavy blunt instrument soon wore off. I'm fine today.
• Dujon - No sunshine?
  All the best, Rosie, I hope that the biopsy test result comes back with a good prognosis.
• Rosie
  (Duj) The consultant said it was actually win-win in that any cancer can be treated and reduction in size quite routine anyway. Having now accepted there's a problem I'm looking forward to the beneficial effects. Less urgency and less getting up in the night. My Dad had his removed in 1968 and it was quite an operation but techniques these days are so much better.
• nights
  Hello again, all. All the best, Rosie.
• Stevie
  Wotcha, nights. Fast path to remission, Rosie.
• CdM
  [Rosie] May your treatment be effective and discomfort-free, and may your parking be abundant. Good luck.
• Rosie
  (nights, Stevie, CdM) Thanks very much. It seems that prostate cancer among older men is, if not quite routine, at least quite common and the least harmful of all cancers unless it spreads, which is pretty rare. My cousin had it and died of a stroke, aged 84. The cancer was quite irrelevant.
  (CdM) I don't think the treatment will be discomfort-free - may involve a catheter. Parking anywhere in the Greater London area is like the biopsy, a complete pain in the arse.
• rab - Best wishes
  [Rosie] You have an admirably pragmatic attitude towards illness. I always do the man thing of ignoring a grumble, then eventually get off my arse* to see my GP, who then says "Oh, it's just a virus". Though, of course, one day, it won't be...

  *apologies for any insensitive wording...

• penelope - Has spring sprung?
  Is it spring yet? I haven't really noticed a change in temperature - I'm still vested.
• Raak - Sproing
  [pen] Here it's bright as summer, cold as winter. It's spring.
• Rosie
  (rab) Tell your GP that rabies is a virus, as are many other lethal lurgies. I know what he means, though.
• penelope - rabsody
  Oh thank goodness this site is back. It was apparently down yesterday, and I thought Scotland had independented without telling anyone.
• penelope - *Aprils*
  Soooo close to finishing writing the twice-yearly alumni magazine and sooo happy about it. On the other hand, I just had to cancel a trip to the UK because of an attack of the you-know-whats.
• Superman - You-don't-know-whats
  Irate tractor drivers? Poisonous micro-bats? Cheesed-off Dutchmen?
  Whatever it was, hope they're gone now with no lasting damage.
• penelope - Shut of the shots
  Shot of the shits? Almost, but not quite. Bloody hell. I've lost a few kilos. Am I sure this isn't amoebic dysentery or some Dutch marshland parasitic invasion? No.
• Superman - Diseasedly
  Low-lying coastal delta? Dengue fever for sure. Survival rate is quite good, though.
• penelope
  Which is worse, Dengue fever, or constant campaigning and voting?
• Bismarck - Let's vote on that...
  Depends on how much pain you have in your cam, I suppose. It also seems to provoke a form of sleeping sickness that makes one have déjà vu nightmares.
• penelope - Orangery
  It's King's Day tomorrow in the Netherlands; a national holiday in every sense of the word. For most Dutch people, it means a feverish plague of orange tat - to wear, eat and wave in the air, a lot of beer, and an all-pervasive soundtrack of oompah bands and bouncy pop tunes played through bad loudspeakers from every village street. (This is my experience of it in the previous 8 years of village life - it may be different elsewhere in the country).
  But the windy miller and I will be heading to the windmill in Zeeland. I will take a pile of books, a warm blanket, and a big packet of sausages to cook.
• Stevie
  It's cold where you are? So you and the Miller are going to have an under-the-blanket sausage festival up at 'mill? That sounds very sensible under the circumstances.
• penelope
  [Stevie[ I am too shocked to speak.
  (As it happens, I made coffee for everyone, sat out in the sun drinking coffee and eating cake, cleaned the lav thoroughly - spider footprints all over the seat - and after a lunch of sausage sarnies, I went to sit in the car to read, and got through two-thirds of Jessica Mitford's autobiography 'Hons and Rebels', including an hour's doze. Lovely.)
• penelope - Exactly a week later...
  My life seems to be all outings and jollies. It isn't - but as it happens I'm catching the ferry back to England tonight, the first time I've been back since last December.
• Rosie - The Crab
  Hooray - I will not die of prostate cancer. Just seen a specialist and they have a treatment plan all worked out (catheter not involved). It'll take a couple of years at least but there is a very high probability of then being totally cancer-free. Even if not, it can be monitored and re-treated and represents no danger.
• Bismarck
  [Rosie] Thank God for that. My grandfather died of it, so I am glad to hear the news. Even if I have never met you in my life, your absence would be more than a passing thing.
• Dujon - Maleness
  Good oh, Rosie. Great news, indeed. I hope the treatment isn't too onerous. I'll also have a drink for you this evening. :)
• Rosie
  (Bismarck) That's very kind. I'll be quite happy to live another 15 years, being 74, and the doctor I saw earlier today implied very strongly that this business won't affect my longevity. Now, about your smoking, Mr Hughes.

  (Dujon) The treatment may involve side-effects (chemo) and later possibly radiotherapy to give it a final bashing on the head. This is a bit more than taking paracetamol but I've found over the years that I seem immune to side effects, never having had any from anything. Let's hope it continues. There is already an improvement from the hormone therapy I'm undergoing - less "urgency" and less getting up during the night and no side effects such as hot flushes or sprouting boobs, which apparently can happen. And how much libido can you lose at my age? Well, a bit, actually, but it must be a serious problem for younger men, whom I do not envy.

• Boolbar
  Glad to hear that Rosie. These MC sites do come alive due to their inhabitants, so I look forward to many more years of wit 'n' wisdom from yourself (and steam locomotives).

  P.S. Why do I still get libido and albedo mixed up?

• Stevie - Rosie
  Luck, and no side effects. If you'll take some well-meant advice, keep a few bottles of the otherwise disgusting gatorade at hand during your regimen. I hope you won't need them, but better a couple of bottles you never used than not having none when dehydration hits. There's also something called pedialite over here, used for babies but essentially the same dilute cocktail of electrolytes. Can't get that at the supermarket though.
• Rosie
  (Boolbar) Thanks for your concern. re libido/albedo - have you been trying to shag the planet Venus? Bright, isn't it.

  (Stevie) I was told about possible dehydration but I think water will do. BTW, what's gatorade? Sounds like something distilled from a bayou.

• penelope - Nice news
  [Rosie] That's the nicest news all week. Lucozade will do the same job as Gatorade, I think, but it won't be so snappy. Ginger ale is marvellous stuff too, especially if the treatment robs you of your appetite.
• CdM
  [Rosie] Very glad to hear that; good luck with the treatments.
• Rosie
  (CdM) They will be worse than the disease, which is little more than a nuisance, though not ultimately, needless to say. Thanks for your concern.
• Stevie - Gatorade
  Sports drink. Rich in electrolytes. Water may not do, as it is the chemical imbalance that is the problem rather than lack of water. Orange juice is my usual rehydrator of choice but once you are on chemo you may find the taste becomes unpalatable. Hope I'm overstating the case. Speedy recovery at any rate. My Dad underwent the same regimen and he's free umpteen years down the road.
• penelope - It's the bloody 15th of May!
  Morning all. This weekend I have been mostly shouting above the din of a noisy restaurant to translate an entire Dutch menu (a very nice menu actually) to an old schoolfriend and her chap who visited for the weekend (Mauritz in Willemstad) that mader me lose some of my voice, and exploring the Napoleonic fort at the end of our dijk, which is a couple of miles away, but still on the same dijk. Exploring Fort Sabina was like one of those dreams in which you discover another staircase leading to rooms in your house that you never knew were there; it's so close to our house and has such a massive sense of history; it's now given over to nature, wind and water (and a decent cafe selling nice beer).
  And what I really meant to say was... it's already halfway through May!
• Boolbar
  [pen] Halfway? I have a feeling we have another 5 years of May left.
• penelope - Neighbourliness
  The neighbours opposite (overbuurmensen) are gradually removing their kitchen in preparation for a new one going in in a couple of weeks. Today they'll rip out the floor and sloosh in the self-levelling goop, so they're coming over to eat at ours tonight. Salmon and new potatoes.
• Software
  Can I come too?
• Boolbar
  [pen] Perhaps a self-levelling chocolate goop for desert?
• Stevie
  Self-leveling underfloor goop. Hah. Once they are done they will lay their floor and never be able to get any of their appliances to mate the plumbing without a healthy reservoir of Class Four Words of Power.

  The house settles and goes out of square, taking walls and plumbing with it (ironically, the plumbing will be out of plumb). Wheel in new washing machine on nice new level floor and the fun starts. Also, once floor laid, skirting boards may not fit under door frame. I wish everyone the best and as you value your sanity, don't get too close. I'm currently facing a bathroom wall that is now so far away from the frame of the house, the tap stems no longer poke through enough for the taps to be fitted. Oh how I laughed.

• penelope - tapping
  [Stevie] Your house sounds like the spire of that Chesterfield church.
  The neighbours' house is a dijk-house; split level with a front door at road level, and storeys above and a storey below which is semi-underground, built into the dyke. Theirs also has constructions built out from the back of the house, on legs.
  Ours is a dijkhuis too, but ours is new and built on pilings. Theirs is a hundred years old in parts and not built on pilings. Their front door doesn't fit, they have corridors that run in U-shapes around the building, and there are at least two routes to every room in the house. I'm very fond of them but they have too much stuff and cannot help but buy more.
  Thank you for the warning about sanity. I fear you are right.
• Stevie
  My internal picture was the spire of Ely Cathedral which was reportedly three feet off the vertical at the tip. Speaking of good intentions gone all tilty while no-one was looking, tomorrow Mrs Stevie leaves for DC and I begin fixing the perambulating fence of not-all-that-windproofness-when-you-get-down-to-it.
• penelope - Epeeing into the wind
  [Stevie] Isn't that fencing the recurring theme of your DIY posts on this website? I remember it from years ago. Perhaps it's time it went - is not even as if you have to keep the Steveling confined any more.
• Stevie
  Nope. I value my privacy, such as it is.
• Stevie
  Didn't get to fix the fence because of rain and bleeping work.
• Tuj - It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it
  [Stevie] A noble task! Those swearwords won't censor themselves.
• Stevie
  No, that's the noise my computer makes when the remote connection is timing out.
• Boolbar
  [Stevie] Mark your boundary with a row of nails.  It is said that a tack is the best form of the fence.
• Stevie
  Argh! No court in the world would convict me, Boolbar.
• Rosie
  Hooray! Them and their clever machines have had a closer look and I have no cancer whatever outside the prostate and so don't need chemo. A very good day. A very good day indeed.
• Stevie
  Very good news Rosie.
• Dujon
  I bet you feel about twenty years younger, Rosie. Marvellous, marvellous, old chap.
• Rosie
  (Stevie,Dujon) Cheers. Thanks. The prostate itself is still cancerous but it's completely under control and the hormone therapy is working, i.e. the wee-wees are faster, less urgent and there's less getting up in the night. Pints of beer are less likely to cause "spillage". This is important, obviously. This treatment is going to have to last some time but has no side-effects apart from the obvious one of loss of libido which is not the worst thing in the world for someone of my age (74) but a slight loss nevertheless. I was told, quite seriously, that every man of 90 has prostate cancer (but dies of something else). Can I hang on to it for 16 years? Some people with more threatening cancer give it a name. Any suggestions? Trump? Ibrahimovic?
• Bismarck - Rosie's complaint
  Why not call yours a "Corbyn"? After all, although it has dangerous principles it's pacific, looks like it's quite happy in its own allotment, was around for ages before coming to your notice, and you'd be better if once it's gone.
  Have a beer from me, for medical reasons.
• Rosie
  (Bismarck) It doesn't make much sense to name a malignant growth after something benign, does it?
• Boolbar - Chuffed
  [Rosie] Glad to hear your good news!
• Rosie
  Thanks to all who have wished me well
• Rosie - Weather news - look away NOW
  Super thunderstorm at 4.30 pm. AFPD for a few minutes, visibility down to a couple of hundred yards, then some large hail. Large by Met Office definition, i.e >5 mm; this was over twice that. I measured the rain - 12.7 mm in about 7 minutes. Still quite warm and stuffy, and no wind. Some action at last.
• Phil - The Rosie Prostate Saga
  [Rosie] I've been absent from this site for some time. Good Lord, you must've been through the brambles mentally, but very glad to hear that chemo has been dodged. Having lived alongside someone who had every side-effect short of death 3 summers ago, I can assure you that every chemo case avoided is a tremendous bonus!
  Best wishes for future beer consumption, although I too side with the quack on the "Now, about the smoking, Mr Hughes...." front. :)
• Rosie
  (Phil) Thanks for your thoughts. Beer consumption continues, the only problem ever having been elimination of the processed material and that is a lot better than it was. Apparently I have responded very well to hormone therapy and can now have radiotherapy which should knock it on the head once and for all. This, though, may not be all fun.
• Software
  Glad to hear things are going well and that it hasn't affected the beer glands. All the best, mate.
• penelope - In other news
  So what's everyone doing tomorrow? An ordinary Wednesday - or is it?
• Rosie
  (pen) Not exactly. Another trip to the Marsden, this time for a pre-radiotherapy scan. The treatment proper involves 37 visits. It's about half an hour's drive, depending on traffic but I can pick and choose the time of day which is very useful. The treatment is far worse than the symptoms which are now no more than slight and lends the whole process an air of unreality. But you have to go through with it or things may happen later, you could say. The hospital is brilliant and are confident the treatment will be successful. You're rarely absolutely cured of cancer, of course and checkups will be needed from time to time.
  I have been given a booklet about dealing with this particular form of cancer. It's a useful read and there are photos of various smiling late middle-aged and elderly fellows, sometimes with their soulful-looking wives. One of the men is someone I instantly recognised and know quite well, as I do his wife. In the Big Band I used to play in before it packed up he and I were the trombone section. Also, he is a Chelsea supporter. I had no idea he'd had prostate cancer because even though he must now be about 80 he's pretty vigorous and healthy. A good omen, and a small world.
• penelope - steaming
  [Roie] Re: your comment to me in the Pea & Honey game - I've only ridden on two steam trains, one on the NY railway, and one on exhibition on the preserved part of the Louth-Grimsby line. And I have no idea what either of them were. (Didn't comment in the game because it makes the stanzas messy - tidy, tidy, tidy!)
• penelope - trombonists unite
  [And Rosie again] That sounds reasonable. I hope you find a way to deal with the side-effects of the treatment. When you get to be [more than 40] and have done lots of things, it's inevitable that people you know or have known pop up on telly, radio or in print from time to time - the delight is never knowing where or when.
• Rosie - The Beyer-Garratt trombonists
  (pen, 1st) I should hope not. Dreadful dirty things. Beyer-Garratts are huge. I wouldn't want to fire one.
  (pen, 2nd) It's all been postponed until early September because the prostate has not yet shrunk quite enough with the hormone treatment for it to be bombed with short-wave X-rays. The smaller the better because it lessens harming healthy tissue which causes the side effects. So a quiet life for a bit.
  More than 40? Yes, keep going.....
• penelope - I fully intend to
  Spent Sunday (30C in the shade outside, slightly less inside due to judicious management of shade and through draughts) in the biggest of our two attic guest bedrooms, installing bargainous bookcase and linen cupboard (42 euros and 50 euros from the Dutch equivalent of eBay respectively) and emptying (OK, binning the contents of) boxes from the house move two and a half tears ago. I threw out my collected payslips from my last jobs in the UK - one collection going back to 1998, which is about the time I started contributing to the predecessors of this site. Blimey. It was a long, long time ago.
• Jeremy Taxman
  Dear Ms penelope
  pursuant to the new post-Brexit changes to the tax code to be enacted next year, all residents of the UK who were employed between the years of 1970 to 2016 must supply proof of adequate withholding during the relevant working years.
  Please forward copies of your payslips for the last five years in the UK to HM Ministry of Monetary Annoyance, 10 Nosuch Circle, London W1 ...
• Rosie
  That sounds a bit laborious.
• Bismarck - Tax-driven
  [pen] Still got mine all the way back to year dot. I'm going to keep hold of them, too, as I've lived and worked on local contracts in various countries, so come pension time I have the proof incontrovertible, or at least enough to allow me to litigate from my shack.
  BTW, if anyone thinks of saving through one of those Irish life insurance jobs, don't. My one has the same book value as the contributions, and the redemption value exactly two months after the official valuation in April is somehow only 65% of said contributions. Easily the worst investment I have ever made.
• penelope
  Dear Jeremy Taxman
  Naff off. I earn euros now, you numpty.
  Love
  penelope
• penelope - And following my earlier post...
  Friday AND pay day AND temperatures below 25C... happy, happy, happy.
• Daily Murdoch
  Ex-Pats Hiding Out In Holland Give Inland Revenue The Two Finger Salute!
  Dutch Tax Cheats Refuse To Pay Their Share!
  "Let Them Eat Chocolate and Tulip Bulbs" Sneer Callous Brexit-Dodgers!
  Story on page 5.
  You won't want to miss our Page 3 Bird, former Miss Windmill Acet Aldehyde (22).
• Rosie - CH3CHO
  Subtle stuff.
• penelopje - nauseous
  A surfeit of chocolate-covered tulip bulb fritters, probably.
• Software
  We've been DUPed - again.
• Rosie
  (Softers) Nice one, but I don't think many will be fooled.
• Software
  Well, you can fool all of the people ......
• rab - Outage
  Hello. Looks like there was an outage last night. Not entirely sure of the cause - could be as benign as a simple kernel panic but I'll investigate further to check it's nothing more malign.
• penelope - Are we back yet?
  'Kernel panic' sounds like a Face Pyjama. Is it a real thing?
• Private Krisis
  Nope, nothing like that.
• Rosie - Punctuation
  I think "expats" is better without a hyphen otherwise it sounds as if the person has somehow metamorphosed from copros bovis and this will simply not do as a chatup line at all, will it, pen?
• penelope - What do you get if you stand under a cow? A pat on the head.
  [Rosie] I have no idea, I'm an immigrant. 'Expats' is a name people give themselves when they're in a state of denial, not really believing the place they have chosen to live is actually 'foreign'.
• Software
  [pen] Entirely agree.
• Stevie
  [penelope, Software] And gifted by others to imply contempt based on the assumption of that very behavior. It's interesting that an Englishman here is often called an "ex-pat" but Hispanic ex-pats are universally "immigrants".
• Dujon - Exile
  [penelope et al] Penelope and I are both immigrants and expatriates. I was expatriated forcefully (in the sense of having no choice in the matter) and penelope voluntarily (unless finding a husband in another country is considered an hormonal dictate). Of course the use of the term expat (or ex-pat) is just silly idiomatic waffling. I have heard the term used to describe someone who is working in this country but will, in all likelihood, return 'home' after a time - which is quite the opposite of its true meaning.
• penelope
  [Duj] I'll have you know I tried out lots of potential husbands in the UK, but none of them met the required standard.
• The Man in Black
  Didn't try me!
• Software
  [pen] or height?
• Superman
  Possessing a windmill could be a criterion, I guess?
• KagomeShuko - Work, Work, Work . . .
  Grad school is NOT for the faint of heart . . .
• drquuxum - Just popping in to say h'lo
  Yes, it's me, sans plus sign (which I dropped ages ago). Good to see MC5 is still alive and well. ????????
• Dujon
  Now there's a blast from the past. G'day.
• Stevie - dr q
  You're not fooling anyone Raak, which is of course to say "Dunx" impersonating "Software" in his "Dan"-pretending-to-be-"flerdle" persona.
  
  Welcome "back".
• Rosie
  Doctor Q! Wotcher, mate. Still at Pittsburgh Uni? Great to hear from you.
• drquuxum
  So yeah, a few of you know, but not everyone does, so here goes…
  My real name is now Gracie Jane; pronouns are she/her. But I'm still in Pittsburgh, and people still call me Quuxum, even IRL.
  [Duj] You might be on one of the meds I'm on as well :)
• Tuj
  [drgj] Good for you! =) Out of interest, how long do people usually pronounce the "u" sound in "qu...um" for?
• Stevie
  [drquuxum] Pleased to meet you, Gracie Jane. Great good luck in your new life.
• Boolbar
  [drq] Glad to see you back here. The more the merrier. And following on from Tuj, how do you pronounce "quuxum" (in my head it is kw-uck-zum)?
  And thinking about it, how is Tuj pronounced?
• drquuxum
  [Bool] Yup; I usually spell it out as Kwucks-um, or even K????-?m.
• Rosie
  Yes, how is Tuj pronounced? Tudge? or as in French "touge"?
• Stevie
  "Tuy". That or "Mangrove-Stoat Frog Warbler" depending on where one is pronouncing "Tuj".
• Bismarck - The entity known as Tuj
  Unpronounceable in this solar system, I have always thought, existing only as a symbolic representation in ASCII of a different existence. 19451⁶⁶⁵⁹⁰+22⁵⁵⁴-171, if your Gödelising is up to it.
• Stevie
  Alas, your instantaneous translator is on the blink. "Bismarck" is easily pronounceable in almost every language on Earth.
• rab - Hello again
  Been tweaking. Hopefully nothing broken...
• Tuj
  Rhymes with "smudge" in my head, but YMMV. On this line, there aren't any truly unpronounceables among us, a la Drewsxpa, at present are there?
• Stevie
  [rab] You'll ruin your teeth.
• Stevie - Pronunciation
  [Tuj] But what would you know.
• Stevie
  Mornin' all. Comment ally voos?
• Rosie
  Trebonski, as my Dad would have said. Bilingual but French wasn't one of 'em.
• Raak - dokodo don, dokodo don, dokodo don, dokodo don
  Our taiko group played for a friend's wedding yesterday. At the party afterwards, that is, not the ceremony itself. The bride is one of the group, so she was playing with us, with a shoulder-slung drum over her full white wedding rig. Later today I expect to be very happy when the restoration of my Mac from backup completes (touch wood). The disc failed last weekend and I've been poking at the Internet through a variety of letterboxes since. Or maybe I shall be happy in a couple of days. It has just announced, "About 37 hours and 2 minutes remaining."
• Raak
  Happiness is restored, along with the backup.
• Stevie - Backups
  37 hours? How much were you recovering?
• Raak
  About 1.75 TB. I got the machine back from Apple yesterday with a new disc, the current OS, and nothing else. I booted it, it saw my Time Capsule, and in just a few clicks and 18 hours, it's back to normal. It reported a transfer rate varying between 8 and 25 MB/second, I'm not sure why it would be that low. My broadband is faster. Maybe I should have remembered to plug in the Ethernet before it started over Wifi.
• rab
  Was it a Time Machine backup? These are very slow, for some reason.
• Stevie
  Having said that I had a backup that ran for a comparable time over USB2 last week. I had resized my hard drive from 3/4 TB to 1TB and told windows to do a backup to the same drive I had used to do the restore from the smaller image. Part of the problem was I forgot to disable Malwarebytes until 24 hours had passed uneventfully (as in the "end of backup" event hadn't fired), but I think that there was some sort of messing around comparing block usage with bit maps too. I should have used a clean USB drive from the get-go.
• Raak
  [rab] The backup was made with Time Machine, but the restore process was handled by the Migration Assistant. Apart from whatever speed issues there may be, it seems to me that Time Machine works the way that all backups should, ever since disks superseded magnetic tape. You aren't limited to just doing a full restore, you can look at the backup and see all the individual files and access them just like they're ordinary files on a disc, which of course they are, not hidden in some opaque archive format. Automatic hourly backups meant that without having to think about it, when the disk failed I lost no data. Do modern backup solutions for other systems provide this level of does-it-right-ness?
• Stevie
  Discs haven't superseded mag tape. The cost factor is with the disc, but in streaming mode tape can beat a spinning disc in speed of writes. Not only that, you might be surprised at how robust the tape market has become since defense in depth backup strategies were developed in the wake of cheap,reliable discs. Of course, it is all about to change again as Flash becomes cheaper and more reliable.
• Bismarck - Tape me up
  If your tape breaks, you can splice it, losing only certain files. Solid state memory and optical disks do not have that option.
• Raak
  [Bismarck] Don't they splice themselves?
• Rosie - Light Show
  Spectacular thunderstorm here. Some of the lightning made the scene look like daylight. Not all that much rain, surprisingly.
• Boolbar - Electric Light Pourchestra
  What Rosie said, but with a very hefty downpour of rain followed by a few hours of drizzle.
• Stevie
  [Rakk] My understanding is that discs can recover lost blocks if they are in the right sort of configuration, and Flash has hardware redundancy built-in for its peculiar fail modes, so I guess the answer is "Yesnabe".
• Stevie
  But in order to get the sort of speed and reliability from spinning discs that tape offers (in streaming mode - important specific there) you have to "waste" a lot of discs. Personally I think tape is neat just because of the robot silos. Technology should have moving parts to provide visual interest. Today's tech is all solid state in boring boxes. Some years ago I toyed with the idea of using tiny motors like the ones in toy helicopters to drive lightweight gear trains, the whole on an appliqué that could be stuck to a tower casing to make it look like it was doing useful stuff. Might still try that.
• Bismarck
  [Stevie] So it was you that invented the fidget spinner?
• Bismarck - Cumulonimbi
  Made it over here late morning, flood-like and loud as anything. Which was fun as I was having a job interview, to which it added some useful absurdity. Didn't manage to use it as a proof of divine support, though.
• penelope - Thunderstruck
  [Bis] I got one of my loveliest-ever jobs during a day or so of deluges and flooding. I even had a refugee friend staying over because his street was flooded - I was reluctant to take him in because I wanted to read-read-read before the interview, but humanity prevailed, and the job was a good fit.
  Where's 'over here'?
• Rosie
  (pen) Didn't you get any thunder earlier this morning? I know parts of The Netherlands got some tasty stuff. Have a look here to see it as it happens.
• Stevie - Fidgit Spinner
  No. If I had, it would glow green and spark as it span.
• Stevie - Job Interview With Weather
  You should have calmly placed your smartphone on the table between you and the interviewer and had it play Ride of the Valkyries as the weather crescendoed. If it had been me I would also have thought to wear 15 inch cymbals attached to the inside leg of my trousers at knee-level so I could join in the fun as I interviewed, but that's just me and my over-preparation thing at work.
  
  AS the weather glooms, looms, flashes and crashes about outside, two people sit opposite each other at a table while tinny Wagner belts out of one of the glass slabs on the table..
  
  "What would you say your biggest faults are?"
  
  "WHAT?" syncopated metallic crashes are heard coming from from under the table
  
  "I SAID: WHAT WOULD YOU SAY YOUR BIGGEST FAULTS ARE?"
  
  "MY INCONVENIENT INTROVERSION. ARE WE GOING TO DO THE ONE ABOUT WHICH TREE I WOULD BE NEXT, BECAUSE IF WE ARE THE ANSWER IS THAT ONE OVER THERE."
• Bismarck
  [Stevie] I've downloaded RotV for future reference, you never know. Didn't get asked what my faults are (there's a Pandora's box...), did you ever support Communism and would you rather plant a tree, cut one down or cut one down and lie about it.
  [pen] One linguistic border to the south of you.
• Stevie - Wagnerian Aids To Interviewing During Thunderstorms
  and the knee-cymbals?
• Bismarck
  [Stevie] Still in two minds... Wagner didn't score for knee-cymbals, so it lacks authenticity for the purist, which might count against me if the interviewer knows their stuff.
• penelope - Answering Rosie, earlier
  It was Wednesday, I think, we had very hot thundery weather, torrential storms all around us but only a few hot drops of rain chez windy miller. Thursday - I think the neighbour's weather station recorded more than an inch of rain. It was spectacular.
• penelope
  [Bis] Bonjour. (Not 'ow-do' - hoedoe - as the Brabantsers confusingly say instead of 'bye'.)
• Rosie
  (pen) Ah, those weather charts were right, then, though I'm not sure exactly where you are in The Netherlands.
• Dujon - In a thunderous voice
  I looked at central Europe on, I think, my Friday. There was a spectacular string of storms in an elbow, almost a right-angle, from north of Hamburg curving down to southwest of Saltzburg then a bit of a gap to western France (SE from Paris) where a smaller but significant area was also producing much electrical activity.
  Given that the lightning markers are coloured from white to yellow to orange to three shades of red depending on six 20-minute periods it was a most colourful sight.
• penelope
  [Rosie] South of the Netherlands; the big islands of Zeeland just to the west of us, and to the North, via the big Haringvliet bridge, Rotterdam. We would be able to see the lights of the bridge if it wasn't for our neighbours' house.
• Dujon - Whoops
  Saltzburg sb Stuttgart.
• Stevie - Wagner Not Having The Foresight To Score For Knee Cymbals
  I see your point, but it would be difficult to answer the interviewer's questions while playing a trombone or french horn. Perhaps you could join in one of the brass parts by playing it on those Irish Armpit-Actuated Bagpipes. Now I think on it, the vigorous Clouseau parrot-inflation arm movements would augment any interview process, thunderstorm or no thunderstorm.
• penelope - Nowt since July?
  So what's everyone been up to? I've had three weeks off - spent 8 days in the UK. Ate fish and chips by the seaside watching the rain and visited the Mary Rose at Portsmouth's Historic Naval Dockyard - the best museum I have ever visited.
• drquuxum - re: Nowt since July?
  [pen] I just got back from a road trip across the north of Pennsylvania (and a small bit of Western New York). Quite lovely, and I'll be uploading some pictures soon-ish.
• Stevie
  Chewing my own leg off so I can escape work and go to Florida for a week.
• penelope - Legless in Florida
  [Stevie] Splendid. I have worked so bloomin' hard this year on supporting my department with all of its projects (*ahem*) that I have been unable to use up my vacation days at the correct rate. So I've had a bit of a session in the working hours part of the SAP platform, which fell over only twice as I tried to use it. As a result I'm having at least a week off per month between now and the end of the year.(Smug, I know, but this is a benefit of being a Dutch university employee).
• Rosie - Hey, August is cool
  Warmest day of the month here, 24.5°, which frankly is crap for a highest-in-August and the second worst ever, i.e. post-1983.
• Rosie
  (Stevie) Whoa! Have you seen this?
• Stevie
  [Rosie] It's that time of year. Time to fire up the genny and clean it's pipes out. Hopefully it either blows itself out or goes someplace else before I have to drive through it in a week and a bit.
• Bismarck - Gulf of... Mexico?
  I can't help feeling that building a wall in Texas would help stop these foreign storms.
• Rosie
  (Bismarck) Some wall.
• penelope - Officially autumn
  So how was everyone's week? And what's planned for the weekend? If I apply myself, I could be making jam for the fourth Sunday in a row - it requires a foraging expedition by cycle from the windy miller's mill tomorrow (but first, the bicycle must be retrieved from another windmill where the apprentice left it a couple of weeks ago). Pffft.
• Software - Domestics
  My week was good, thanks pen. I'll be making crabapple jelly this weekend
• Stevie
  My week sucked balls but tomorrow I plan to vent my spleen by putting three intrepid investigators into the middle of a den of vile cultists doing things so unspeakable to anyone falling into their clutches that the very minds of all will be torn asunder by the mere contemplation of the foul ... but I've said too much. Delta Green day. My favorite day of the month. Crippling SAN loss all round if it all plays out properly.
• penelope - Jammy jam
  Blackberry-picking expedition very successful. I bled only twice. Jamming tomoorow then. And I got a tax rebate. A good weekend so far.
• Phil - Hmmmm
  Sun blacked out; Texas flooded; Los Angeles on fire; N Korea about to launch nuclear missiles. You'd think God was upset with America about something.....
• Giertrud
  .

  .

  .

  The Russians have planted a flag in this forum. What will you do about it?
• rab - Ave Maria.
  You've probably spotted by now that I tend only to drop by whenever I fiddle with the server config. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that I'm now running mariadb instead of mysql.
• penelope - Hello rab
  How's tings?
• rab - Backatcha
  Fine, although it would be nice to create around another 20 hours in the day. Although if that was 20 more hours of being shouted at by the world's loudest six-year old, I might well revise that opinion.
• penelope - Surely there's a use for loud six-year olds?
  Can we not usefully employ the six year old to shout over Nigel Farage or Trump or something?
• Rosie - Fortissimamente
  Hexamegaphone.
• CdM - Portents of Doom
  [Phil] Paraphrasing something I just saw on Facebook: If Irma destroys Mar-a-Lago while leaving the rest of Florida unscathed, I will hand in my atheist card.
• rab - Urasdfghsfgfk
  OS upgraded... is this 'thing' still on?
• rab - Another test
  Another test
• Rosie
  (rab) So you speak Czech?
• Raak - The Phone Book
  For the first time in I don't know how many years, BT have sent me a "phone book". How quaint!
• rab
  Yeah, we just got one too. Had no idea where to put it.
• Raak
  I put mine in the bin.
• penelope - When I'm cleaning windows
  After three years in this house, I FINALLY found a window cleaner to do the ones I can't reach. You cannot imagine how happy this makes me.
• Stevie
  *puzzled* Can't you just tie squeegees and sponges to the windmill blades?
• penelope - squindmilleegee
  [Stevie] We don't live in a windmill. They're too full of machinery - and drafty gaps to ventilate the dust out - for anyone to live in. However, I have often considered how convenient it would be to attached the wet laundry to the sails and have them dried and straightened at the same time. Less ironing to do is always a good thing.
• Stevie
  [penelope] *puzzled* But don't all the houses in Holland have windmill sails on them? I'm beginning to think the Junior Boys Bumper Book of Foreign Places (1962 ed) was perhaps less authoritative than I was led to believe by the Raptnuckle Infants School librarian. You'll be telling me next that the skies over Berlin are not darkened by fleets of dirigible warships, waiting for the Next Big One.
• Dan
  I've been about 2/3rds of everywhere, and it was in Utrecht that I realized that Holland is almost certainly a better place to be a human being in than anywhere else I've ever been. One day perhaps I'll even find the words to explain why. I think the words exist but I'm pretty sure they're Dutch.
• penelope
  A belief in the power of gezeligheid and the 'keeping our feet dry' polder model of discussing everything to the nth degree before making a decision (and the ability to have a proper discussion that this necessitates - missing in 'other places' where political point-scoring is seen as winning), probs. Actually, it is pretty organised here. Lots of red tape and regulation, and plenty of tax to pay, but the roads don't have holes, the water stays out, and I can get a next-day appointment with my GP.
  If only I could speak better Dutch.
• Stevie - Holland == Heaven On Earth
  Notwithstanding the heartbreak of dry-rot in the klompen of course.
• Rosie - Party time
  Woo-hoo! Did my usual application for a TV license and was told I now get it free as I was very close to a certain age.
• Dujon - Gratis
  It's a good feeling is it not, Rosie. I had the same sensation when I fronted up at the local traffic authority to renew my drivers' licence (5-years and a few bob) and was told that as I had reached 'a certain age' they declined to take my money. I would like to thank the taxpayers of this blessed country for your magnanimity.
  We don't have TV taxes here, by the way, although we used to. I think someone in the public service did some number-crunching and found that enforcement didn't really work and that it cost more to try to enforce licensing than the income garnered.
• Stevie
  [Rosie] Good News: Free TV. Bad News: TV Programming.
• Raak
  [Stevie] Good News: Everyone can have free TV by not watching TV.
• Stevie
  Bad News: If you have one of those globe chairs in the room, the tendency to fill the time by plotting World Domination can consume one.
• Rosie
  (Stevie, Raak) All I watch regularly is Match of the Day 1 & 2, HIGNFY and University Challenge. I never watch anything live but record it and play it back about 2 in the morning with a strong cup of coffee or a stiff brandy. That way you can fast-forward through the interviews, which tell you nothing, and the sages on the panel. I reckon that on ITV could watch the entire World Cup in about 20 minutes.
  (Dujon) The driving licence for over 70's here is only for 3 years and you have to self-certify that you're fit to drive.
  (Stevie) Can't even dominate the sodding back garden.
• Stevie - Self certify
  "Are you fit to drive?"
  "Yes."
• Dan
  Good News: Plotting world domination can make you an international bestselling novelist.
• Rosie
  Bad News. Being an international best-selling novelist didn't do Solzhenitsyn an awful lot of good.
• Superman - Chain poem
  'Twas Brexit, and the slimy Gove / Did gyre and gibber in the halls / All mimsy was that Johnson cove / And the "OUT" maths was balls.

  Someone do the next stanza...

• penelope
  [Superman] Nah. This is the chat thread, and you're just wanting to rant poetically. Who knows where it will end? Start a game for it if you really want to. (I do an awful lot of it on Twitter - in fact I troll 'Brexit Central' daily.)
  In other news, I have successfully used my Dutch network *smug* to get new tyres installed on the windy miller's 70-year old Fergie tractor, as a birthday present. And the local GP surgery has offered me a Vitamin D shot to counter the winter gloom.
• Rosie
  (pen) I like the idea of you trolling the rabid loonies. I hope you're not too rude.
• penelope
  Plans fr the weekend, anyone? I actually don't have any. Which is nice.
• Boolbar - This Weekend
  Eat. Sleep. Archery. Repeat.
  Some alcohol may be involved as well.
• penelope
  [Blob] Archery? I dint no you did that. At targets I presume, rather than rabbits and edibles.
• Boolbar [not Blob] - Middle-class darts
  [pen] Yes targets. Although I have done field archery shooting at pictures of rabbits and other game.
• penelope - Oops
  Ah. Soz.
• Stevie - The Archers
  [Blob] So you and your friends basically spent the entire weekend on your butts?
• penelope - Buttering up
  It's not too early to start discussing plans for the weekend, is it? it's the English Editors' association dinner in Utrecht on Sunday. We'll all be minding our Ps and Qs, obvs.
• Boolbar - No butts but...
  We tend to call our butts bosses 'round these parts. So after a bad week at work I can enjoy filling my boss full of arrows. As for this weekend I shall be avoiding shopping and will continue to do so until it is safe to venture out in 2018.
• penelope - Kerrrrching!!
  [Boolb] I think I've done all the shopping instead of you.
• KagomeShuko - What the Hallibut?
  I doubt Britain will run out of fish puns . . . http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2017/11/18/britains-fish-pun-stocks-critically-endangered/
• Rosie
  (KS) There is no Cod but Halibut. I nicked this from the great Steve Bell
• penelope - Get thee to a fish punnery
  OK, save it for a spare game slot, chaps. Or kill one of the slow moving games and raise your fish stocks in there.
  In other news, I usually order the fish if I'm eating out. Best dish is mackerel or trout or John Dory grilled over a fire in this restaurant (which although tiny is in the top 500 in the Netherlands). If you plan to go, the windy miller's mill is 500 yards away and is open every Saturday.
• penelope - sentient websites
  The MC5 website just complained that my last post smelled fishy. Incredible.
• Tuj
  [pen] It must have been the mention of an open game slot - this isn't the site for that!
• Stevie
  Last weekend, at LI Whocon 5, I ran into the son of Patrick Trouton.
• penelope - miscellaneous
  [Tuj] I am shocked!
  [Stevie] Who? Was he hurt?
• Stevie
  Eel be ok.
• penelope - Decemberation
  Things seemed to have slowed down a bit in here. Are you all sitting on your Christmas puddings, waiting for them to hatch?
• Boolbar - Satin tights.
  I've had a 2 day cold. Gave me a chance to watch my Wonder Woman box set though. Watching Lynda Carter throwing Nazis around is a strange but delightful pleasure.
• penelope - T minus three
  If all goes to plan, I will lock my office door on Friday afternoon and won't go back until NEXT YEAR. Have just about had it up to here *points to gullet* with ridiculous requests for work, and I found a couple of days holiday going spare. I'm going to take them.
• penelope - Party pooping
  Thursday - Today I am mostly doing parties three and four.
  The first party (6th floor potluck on Tues) I managed to avoid although not without being interrogated about my reasons for not wanting to go (umm... you're colleagues, not friends. My time is my own).
  Yesterday's lunch party (#2) was actually worth doing - the research institute's awards and nice food.
  This lunchtime? Not so good. Quarterly staff update meeting for the whole business school, masquerading as Xmas Lunch. There are never enough dining spaces for everyone (so you have to stand for the whole meeting before they open the buffet) and the queues are enormous. Cannot avoid this one but won't bother with queuing for food. Will head back to my office and buy a sandwich.
  Party Four this evening - the windy miller's company do. The company is growing fast, and seems to attract the reformed protestant type, although the WM, like me, doesn't do religion. It's their habit to invite all wives and children, and the Xmas party is now up to about 50 people. Most of them have at least four children each and dress traditionally (you can spot 'em a mile off). I'm usually the only childless woman there, and the only one wearing trousers.
  Bah humbug.
• Rosie - Radioactive
  9 down, 28 to go. Prostate cancer radiotherapy sessions. Side effects - say no more. But it will work.
• Dujon
  Chin up, Rosie. There's a few of us 'old blokes' cheering you on. Your doctor(s) seem, from your past comments, to believe that you have a very good chance of full remission; now that's something for which to look forward.
• penelope - Cheering you on
  [Rosie] Keep up the good work, sir. Let's think laterally. What fun or usefulness can you have with your radioactive (*ahem*) parts? And can we write limericks about them? (The adventures, not the parts).
• Stevie
  [Rosie] Canonically, when exposed to radiation, human beings are reported to develop mutant super-powers somehow related to the circumstances and body part that got zapped. I look forward to tales of a mysterious new masked vigilante stalking the streets of London and the incredulous stories told by those foolish enough to cross your path as you flit through the foggy night, fighting crime by means of your awesome new powers.
• Rosie - Prostate power
  Thanks, people. (Duj) "Cure" is aimed for and will very likely be achieved. If not the thing will be kept quiet and maybe given another radiative bashing. I won't die of it, but maybe with it. Once a cancer patient of course, always a cancer patient and there'll be regular monitorings every few months. (pen) Let your pen (sic) flourish. Keep it clean. (Stevie) Cum, cum, sir, your imagination is in overdrive. :-)

  I'd like to give a word of praise to the hospital which is The Marsden, Sutton. The staff are brilliant. Both patients and staff have a smile for each other. In addition, transport has been arranged which saves shuffling/barging/swearing through heavy suburban traffic.

• Bismarck - RIP Heinz Wolff
  Much regretted. I hope the funeral directors will challenge well-wishers to find a way of transferring the coffin to the grave from a distance, using only a piece of wood, some cloth, an eggbeater and a long pole.
• Blob - Rosie - what to look forward to ...
  Have a cigar ...
• Rosie
  (Blob) I get through too many fags as it is but that can't be the source of my current problem simply because I don't smoke them through my membrum virile, or membrum pretty fucking useless as it is currently. I have discovered yet another recovered prostate cancer survivor, total now four. This was someone I haven't seen since 1963, a very good mate at University.
• Giertrud
  Merry Christmas
• Rosie
  (Giertrud) And to you m'dear. Actually it bores me silly so I'm just going to stew and scoff one choccy after another. There's not even any football - I dunno.
• Stevie
  High spot of the day: The soundtrack of my mother in law (deaf as a post) on the phone to my mother (also deaf as a post). Neither could understand what the other was yelling about even when they weren't yelling at the same time and making their phones decide who to give priority to and for how long.
• Bismarck - Highlights
  Highlight of my day was finding that my sausage rolls were pretty darn good. First time for me, but you can say this for Delia Smith recipes - They work!
• penelope - Highlight
  Nearly being beaten at Triv Purs by my 12-year old nephew. In the end my brother in law beat both of us.
• Rosie - Gasping for air
  The barometer here is down to 978 mb, the most interesting thing to have happened round Christmas apart from Mount Mourinho erupting yet again. Ho, ho, ho.
• Stevie - TrivPurs
  [pen] Mrs Stevie and I used to be challenged regularly to TP by friends of hers, who gloried in our lack of any sort of knowledge of sports (in which they excelled). In two consecutive games we were first to the middle (me on point with science, geography and history, Mrs Stevie on Arts and Ents) and they chose "sports and leisure" as our game-breaker. Game one the question was "How many men on a cricket team?"

  This was doubly funny because all game there had been questions on English history, Science done in England and the Geography of England. Every other question was asked and appended with howls of "Another English question!"

  The second game went much like the first, with us romping home and being asked a Sports and Leisure question again: "How many holes in a bowling ball". I laughed so hard I thought I'd pass out.

  The next time we got together with that pair we'd been to the UK for a visit and acquired a UK set of TP. We smuggled one box of cards into their American set and they didn't twig why the apparent quota of English questions had doubled until we both cracked up and confessed.

• rab - Happy New Year
  I really should give this place a spring clean...

  The rabling has discovered Monopoly and invented a variety of quantitative easing schemes, including mortgaging his socks.

• penelope - HNY
  [Rab] How old is the rabling now? 35? 36?
  In other news, I'm back at work after two and a half weeks off and having a stab at pretending to be an editor. What the heck do I know about copywriting?
  Is it lunchtime yet?
• Stevie - Editation
  Don't editors just have to dress badly, wear an eyeshade, chew rope cigars and yell at everybody?

  Dream job then.

• Rosie - Bonce bashing
  Most satisfying. Don't overdo it.
• Stevie - Radiation
  [Rosie] It just occurred to me, after watching another Dr Who Xmas special, that there is a slight possibility of not developing mutant super-powers, instead devolving into a revolting blob, retiring inside a giant pimply salt shaker and going homicidal on everyone & his dog.

  No sudden urges to hide in a dustbin and kill everyone on the street I hope?

• penelope - Editation
  Dessed badly? Check (I'm still getting dressed in the dark here in the Januarial low countries); wearing eye shadow (not eyeshade, but close enough) - check; chew rope cigars? Eeeuuuuwww. Yelling at everybody - check.
  I think I qualify.
• Stevie
  [penelope] Do you still get to rip open your office door, wave a fistful of paper in your hand and scream "Stop the Press!", or throw people out of your office, yelling "Either bring me the straight dope on the Mayor and the actress or find another job Kilcullen!"?
• Rosie - Fluorescent naughty bits
  (Stevie) No, none of that but don't get too close.
• Tuj - pen is mightier than the sword
  [pen] Sounds fun. Maybe before Britain completes economic suicide I should be begging you for a job =)
• penelope
  Apparently my 'serious' demeanour prevents people from calling into the office and asking me to do things for them. I'd call that a result.
  [Stevie] I'm not a newspaper or publication editor - I'm an in-house editor, so work on webpages, internal messages, brochures, our own news items. I miss the days of real newspaper work though - two decades ago now, when the most fun was finding puns to put into the reports of garden shed burglaries from the weekly CID briefing at the police station, and deciphering the spidery handwriting on the back of an envelope that had been shoved through our market place office letterbox, describing the weekly meeting of a village branch of the WI. *sigh*
  The pay was utter rubbish though.
• Stevie
  [pen] I fail to see why any of your description of your actual editing duties precludes the stuff I brought up.
• Bismarck - His Girl Friday
  That last entry sounds like Stevie calling pen into his office and telling her what's what.
• penelope - fake news
  [Bism] I can assure you that didn't happen. Stevie was too busy shovelling snow back into his neighbour's yard. Or should that be 'neighbor's yard'?
• Stevie
  [pen] It should, the gardens in question being in New York.

  [Bismarck] I've never warranted more than a cube in my life, and I haven't been in charge of anyone else since 1995, when my pig-headedness when it came to repeatedly requesting training for my staff and in giving them glowing reviews when the richly deserved it ensured I'd never be put into management again.

• penelope - Never being in charge
  [Stevie] Quite. I've never wanted to be a manager - it's just trouble. However, I do want to become more expert at what I do (editing and copywriting). Trouble is, the career progression of most places, including this one, is set up assuming that everyone wants to be a manager. Therefore, I am unable to move up to the next pay grade unless I change my job and move to another department, no matter that I am nine years and umpteen training courses into becoming better at this one. Folly.
• KagomeShuko
  I have to take this semester off for financial aid reasons and I should concentrate on my class proposal, but then I get distracted . . . I need to treat this like it is a class and have some self-discipline.
• Bismarck
  May we know your subject?
• Rosie - Prostrate on the carpet
  31 down, 6 to go. I think I'm actually going to miss this routine.
• KagomeShuko - Of course . . .
  I'm getting my Master's Degree in Theatre.
• Blob - Job vacancy
  Anyone looking for a job? I'm recruiting for an IT assistant to join me. Need to have good knowledge of databases (Oracle and/or SQL) and programming skills in e.g. VB/C/C++/C# and ideally .NET environment. Salary negotiable, but think along the £50k lines
• Blob - ...
  Ah, should mention location - Potters Bar, Herts, UK
• penelope - February innit
  I’m just procrastinating - I should be hoovering.
• Stevie
  Sad to be driving New Yorkwards from Florida, where I’ve been lounging around and playing in Diagon Alley in my Slytherin drag.
• Dujon - Note to the LIRR
  There is a small group of Confederate flag waving reptiles heading your way. Please, please, prepare - if only for the sake of Stevie, who likes to arrive at work on time and then arrive home in time for his evening meal.
  Yours etc.,
  Duj
• Stevie - LIRR
  59 “we suck” advisory emails from the LIRR since Jan 29th. That’s just the Ronkonkoma branch suckage. 59. Only the LIRR could send “normal service restored” emails and think they were achieving greatness by doing so.
• Bismarck
  [Stevie] by those statistics, the advisory notes constitute normal service. I have submitted a petition to the MTA that the East Side Access should be opened by you and renamed the "Carpal Tunnel" in your honour, as of the pain and anguish caused by years of commuting.
• Stevie - East Side Access
  Another example of wonderful planning. A tunnel between Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal. This will solve ... what exactly? I mean, the choke point in the whole sorry mess is the fact that of the four tunnels under the East River, only two are signaled in both directions allowing for bi-directional travel without the need for time-consuming emergency train orders. One of the two is permanently assigned to Amtrak traffic. The other two tunnels are signaled in one direction only. One is signaled into Manhattan, the other out of it. Thus traffic will be disrupted in 3/4 of the possible tunnel signal outages (since if Amtrak's tunnel is lost, they immediately take possession of the other bi-directional tunnel (which means effectively that the bi-directional tunnel is twice as likely to fail as any of the others from the LIRR point of view.
  (View the source to read the hidden text)
  So the extra Grand Central traffic will not only add to the system congestion, it will be f*cked-up by the same tunnel idiocy from which the existing network suffers.
• Dujon - Bring back the staff.
• penelope - Talking of staff
  I'm interviewing a domestic cleaner tomorrow. I'll get my weekends back (but will of course pay for the privilege).
• Bismarck - Staffing
  [pen] Do they need special qualifications to tackle a windmill?
• Stevie
  [pen] I thought y' had ter pay miller fer privilege.
• Stevie
  [Bismarck] Just a long squeegee for the sails, I think.
• penelope - 'Squeegee for the sails'
  That's a song. Or part of a limerick. Or a concept. Not sure.
• Boolbar
  [pen] It should be a band name.
• Stevie
  [pen] Will the staff have to call you "mill-mistress" or is the proper term of servile respect "madame miller"?
• penelope - Paying for a clean house is next to godliness
  I was 49 when I got my first-ever dishwasher. I am now 52, and have just engaged a cleaner. Why the hell didn't I do this years ago when I could barely afford it? It's unbloomingbelievable what a difference it makes. Now I have time at weekends to go and hoover the windmill.
• Boolbar
  I used to be a dishwasher, but now I'm single.
• penelope - Weekenderations.
  Weekends are filling up. I can blame the windy miller for most of this. Next weekend is a late Valentine's Day stay at our favourite aubergey kind of place in the Ardennes to eat beautifully prepared wild things and drink a lot of wine before sleeping it off; then the weekend after it's a hotel dinner, bed and breakfast en masse to celebrate my husband's business partner's 10 years in business (with a few other of his colleagues and their wives, who are all a great deal more fastidious about saying grace before and after a meal than we are because most of them come from the Dutch bible belt - this one will be interesting rather than fun), followed by, the next weekend, a few days in Blighty to celebrate Mothers' Day with Mater.
  But this next one is empty. And the forecast says it won't rain,. Suggestions?
• Stevie
  For the dinner appear in ceremonial garb appropriate for summoning Dagon on the dank shores of Innsmouth. As the others say grace murmer your own favourite lip-sync ("lobster thermidor") until they are done and then "ritualistically" sacrifice a king prawn, scattering the bits onto a side plate before pouring a ring of salt around the rim of the plate. If anyone asks, look startled and murmur "best not talk about it openly under this moon".
• Bismarck - Spare time
  Hey pen, give me the name of that Ardennes place will you, since it's in my area and I'm looking for a place to take Mrs Bismarck.
  For the weekend, take the train first class from Rotterdam to Marseilles.
• penelope - Ardennes inforrmation
  [BIsmarck] It’s here www.lamaisondemaitre.com/english. On me ipad thus no fancy html stuff, sorry. Food excellent, one sitting for dinner, no telly in rooms, excellent walking/hiking country. Will report back after next weekend.
• penelope - Amused.
  [Bismarck] Blooming excellent, it was. Lovely B & B (we got a room with a four poster bed & bathtub), plus aperitifs, amuse bouches, delish three-course dinner (proper cooking innit - posh sauces and all) including wine for each course (they’ll top up your glass if you’re swigging it), came to just over 170 euros. Lovely scenery, lots of snow on the hills up there (it was -5C and bright, bright sunshine when we left there about 10 this morning) and less than half an hour’s drive to the shopping centre just over the border in Luxembourg where there’s dead cheap fags and booze. A litre of Ricard for 14 euros... (we pay 20-ish here in the Netherlands, and no doubt even more in Blighty.)
  That was our fourth stay there. Highly recommended.
• blamelewis - Pilgrimage
  Hello all, on the off chance there's anyone posting here who doesn't visit MCiOS - there's a tentative plan for a Pilgrimage on Sunday 8th April to celebrate the 20th anniversary of that server... This may take the form of a drink in a pub somewhere in the vicinity of the Great Station itself, and general chat and playing of silly games in person... Head to MCiOS for details...
• Rosie
  (blamelewis) I really hope to make this one.
• blamelewis
  [Rosie] It'd be a pleasure to meet you after all this time!
• Rosie
  (blamelewis) Reciprocated. You are very kind man. I'll have to get the Choob from Morden. I am transpontine-located, just in snooty Surrey.
• penelope - Pilgimage
  I will have to send a cardboard cut-out. So many of you I haven't met... (I think I first actually pilged in 1999...)
• Bismarck - Image of the Pilgr
  Anyone got Skype? Pen, Gil and I could maybe make that place in the Ardennes...
• penelope
  I’ve only just seen Bismarck’s post. Hmmm... Where is Gil? I met him at a Euston pilg once and thought he was Blighty-based, but that was nearly 20 years ago, obvs.
  in other news, I’m currently making a scarecrow prototype for a village festival in July. It’s my own fault. I came up with the idea and wrote the plan.
• KagomeShuko - *snicker* Total trolling
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGzp-s-xyw4
• blamelewis - Pilgrimage
  You were missed Rosie... and then commemorated in absentia in the MCiOS limerick game.* Fun was had, we had five ultimately, the perfect Limerick team... Links to photos at MCiOS chat. Two games of MC were played, the first won by Projoy, the second by Simons Mith, with a bit of help from Peter Pan. The second game truly was Mornington Crescent in Outer Space, with moves like "Sea of Tranquility" resulting in an sharp increase of the importance of spin to the plays thereafter... Nice to have seen the folks there, and let's do another one sooner!
  *By commemorated, I may mean ribbed...
• Rosie
  (blamelewis) See latest in MCiOS Limerick game.
• penelope
  [Rosie] Can you dial up some better weather please?
• Rosie
  (pen) I tried but was put on hold. After some Vivaldi a voice advised me to ring in about eight weeks.
• Stevie - [Rosie on hold]
  But was your call important to The Voice?
• penelope
  S'OK, we've had a couple of days of hot weather and I have decided I don't like it. You can take it away now.
• Rosie - Michael Fish Replacement Service
  (Stevie) Oh, vital, a veritable sine qua non. Without my call the whole organisation would have folded. I wish.
  (pen) Hot weather removals are not as straightforward as you might imagine. The First Law of Thermodynamics ensures that. Give me a decent oven cloth and I'll dump it in the sea off Cape Horn.
• Rosie - More weather
  Moderately feeble thunderstorm at Plas Huws about 1.15 a.m. It means that ghastly gnome-like little creep Matt Taylor with his weird hybrid accent was right.
• penelope - Diversion
  Three days of thunderstorms have drifted over the country, watering every garden except chez nous. The thundeheads have neatly parted before they reach our house, leaving us dry but giving out tantalising rumbles and flashes audible and visible from the deck.
  But this evening might be different...
• Rosie - Even more weather
  Good thunderstorm Saturday nite. Nearly continuous lightning (cloud-to-cloud most of it) and a good downpour. More!
• Dujon - Aridicity
  I wish, Rosie. Zero precipitation so far this calendar month at Chateau Dujon even though we experienced a couple of dry periods of electrical activity. Perhaps this little note will help in remedying that rather sad situation. Mind you, May is normally dry(ish).
• Rosie - Aqueous perceptions
  (Duj) Yeah, I suppose for Aussies rain is generally a Good Thing whereas for us lot it is not. I've never had a rainless month though actually come quite close to it with about 2 mm in a few months in the past. The thing about this May is the warmth and sunshine. Some May days can be 'orrible; I've had two May days in the past when the temperature has failed to reach 7°C and there was a bit of sleet as well.
• Stevie
  Up Periscope here at Chez Stevie.
• Dujon
  Well, Rosie, my jinx worked. 7.5mm overnight (29/30) put the kybosh on a clean sheet.
• Rosie
  (Duj) My sheet has been thoroughly cleaned by yesterday's downpour. Intermittent rain, heavy rain, light rain all day from an utterly featureless sky. It came to 32.2 mm, a May record for Plas Huws.
• Bismarck - Weathermen
  Eight straight days with a thunderstorm, this is the first without rain. Filled a plant pot to three inches, though uncalibrated. Nice warm weather and I've never seen strawberries so cheap.
• Rosie
  (Bismarck) Wherzat den? Netherlands, N Germany?
• Bismarck
  Belgium, southerly of Pen. It did rain again overnight and then solidly the next day. The weather where I am at the moment shows no sign of rain.
• Bismarck
  Belgium, southerly of Pen. It did rain again overnight and then solidly the next day. The weather where I am at the moment shows no sign of rain.
• Stevie - Crossposted
  Merlyn, are you sending out mails from a yahoo account? Because I got one consisting of a short link. If really sent it and really want me to open the link please resend with a subject and your MC name in the body.
• penelope
  [Bismarck] I've been watching the weather radar and seeing the intense storms drifting northwards from you to us over the past week, but either petering out before they arrive or slipping off course as they cross the rivers. It was mostly hot, or hot and and muggy last week, but there was lots of rain on Friday and much cooler and fresher Saturday/Sunday. Back to 20C and murk today, Monday, first day back after a week off work. *shrugs*
• Rosie - Sparky
  (pen) See lightning strokes in real time. Try this
• penelope - Winders
  [Rosie] Oooh. I also use www.buienradar.nl, plus the weather station belonging to the neighbour over the road, which has its own website and tweets - telling me if my washing is getting rained on while I’m 40km away at work.
• Rosie
  (pen) And if it is?
• penelope
  [Rosie] This morning, yes. No rain on the rain radar but I forgot to check the drizzle radar.
• penelope - Back to autumn
  This morning's weather, according to Dutch parlance, is 'sour apples' - autumnal weather when it should be summery.
• Rosie
  (pen) It will very soon be sunny like it is here, 24°C and a bit of a breeze. Nice.
• Software - I expect it is warm in Nice.
  Just come back from thereabouts and had rain most of the time, but it was warm rain.
• Rosie - Hot stuff
  It got up to 30.2° today in the grounds of Plas Huws. Just after 5 pm a southerly breeze sprang up and the temperature dropped an almost instant 4 degrees. This must be the sea breeze - unusual because it doesn't normally reach this far north.
• Dujon - Here and there and round about
  (Rosie) A wee bit different here in my humpy.
  If you are interested I've posted a very broad but hardly usable short resume of the last 30-years from my location here
• Bismarck - Non-weatherishness
  On the (delayed) Paris train, with eight Dutch people in the carriage making enough conversation to invade my noise-cancelling headphones. Jajaja!
• Rosie - It never rains but it drizzles
  (Duj) Your annual average in the parched Australian outback is higher than mine in the Elevated Surrey Wetlands, which is 822 mm. (35 yr). But your rain-days are less than 2/3rds of mine. I've never had a rainless month but this June came closest (1.2 mm) which by UK standards is the square root of a mouse's ear'ole. Good; the "lawn" stops growing so less work. Heat Is Work and Work Is Heat and it's quite warm enough.
• Dujon - Wet and dry
  True, Rosie, but here it tends to come down in lumps. This, as you well know, results in run-off which is good for the creeks and rivers, but not for much else. Here will be found records for three consecutive years each of which is different. It also, though not deliberately, includes the heaviest rainfall I have recorded over an Australian Meteorological day (0900 to 0900).
• Rosie - Quite lumpy
  I see 188 mm in a day. I bet that caused some mayhem. The best I've done is 68 mm but before I started recording there was a case of 175 mm over 2 days (1968) which put half of Surrey under water. We get a different kind of lumpiness, of course, solid cold lumpiness. Biggest level depth here 16" or 39 cm. (1987). Those were the days.
• KagomeShuko - AVMA
  I will try to keep up with the AVMA this week. However, I have to write my comp exams for grad school this week, so I may fall behind a bit. I'll make sure to come back after they are all submitted to check on it and that I've answered the questions!
• Bismarck - Never liked hosepipes anyway
  Last three days minimum 28°C, clouds and even cumulonimbi scudding across the sky, not a drop of rain. Late fruit and veg harvest going to pot.
• penelope - Hosepipe broken. Send buckets.
  32C as I drove home from work yesterday afternoon. Black clouds approached, squally winds sprang up and blew all the windws shut, yet there was only the slightest wetting from rain. What a bleedin' let-down.
• Dujon - Dry windows
  Those European cars must be a little different to those we drive over here, penelope. What I find with the storm bit of your comment is that my wife and I, or one of us, race out to bring in the washing - quite unnecessarily. Still, one cannot ignore the lumps - as mentioned to Rosie - so the odds are 'bring it in', regardless.
• penelope - Blowing hot
  [Duj] When it's 31C and bowing a hooley, the washing dries in about 20 minutes.
  And yeah - I nonned sequitured on the windows shutting thing - I meant the house windows blew shut.
• KagomeShuko - Just waiting . . .
  Just waiting to hear results of my comp exams now. I've still got school work, but it's back to "normal" . . . for grad school.
• CdM
  [K] Hope they went well. What are you studying?
• Rosie - Too darned hot
  The temperature in the grounds of Plas Huws has now risen to 33.7°C, no less. I'm not sure why it's nearly 4 degrees warmer than yesterday but I suppose I ought to. Last night on Radio 4 that blithering twat Schaffernaker offered no help, not that he ever does.
• Boolbar - To darn dot
  I was at the barbers who had the BBC news channel on silent with the subtitles switched on. Apparently it was "the hottest day of beer so far." Oh, and they said "not to leave God in your car."
• penelope - two barn dot
  The car's temp readout yesterday (not up to Rosie's demands for scientific accuracy but it's the best I have on the move) as I drove past Ikea in Rotterdam said 37.5C.
  An hour and a half later, we had a squally thunderstorm and it said 20C. Turns out that only the raindrops were cold because the temperature was back up around 30C when the rain stopped. It's currently at [checks neighbour's weather station - Meteo Heijningen' if you're curious] 36C. I'm working at home in front of a big fan. (No, not the windy miller, he's in his air-conditioned office).
  Change is coming tomorrow - and we're doing a 24-hour marathon at the mill until Sunday lunchtime. [Molen de Korenbloem on FB if you're curious].
• Raak
  It is 37ºC in my sun-trap of a computer room. I have not ventured out into the furnace the last two days, but thunderstorms are promised for this evening. As is (rather more reliably, I think) a total lunar eclipse. Moonrise 20:48 where I am, during totality, which continues until 22:13, followed by the partial phase until 23:19, which is effectively the end of the show. Astronomers also define the penumbral phase (when the Earth blocks at least one point on the Moon from seeing at least one point on the Sun), which ends at 00:28. More information here.
• Rosie - Still too darned hot
  (pen) Was IKEA on fire then? Good. Awful place. There's one in Croydon to which I've been once but never again. Just weird. Your car thermometer's probably not far out. It got up to 37° at Schipol.
  We've just had a big thunderstorm. Nice bit of rain (about 10 mm) and the temperature is 18°. That's my drought f*****d, then. Goodbye, drought - 39 days no measurable rain.
  (Raak) Thirty seven? Would it be indelicate to enquire as to how you are attired? It's cooler outside y'know. I don't think I'll see the eclipse because there's a skyful of residual medium cloud from the thunderstorms and this sort of stuff takes ages to clear.
  (Boolbar) God should be able to withstand the inferno.
• Raak
  [Rosie] Thong and nipple rings. Running shorts. It looks like I won't be able to see the eclipse either, too much cloud. There was the briefest flurry of rain as I went out to hopefully look at the horizon, but no more. The forecast on the BBC is currently saying 100% chance of rain around 11pm. If it does rain properly I shall go out for a cold shower.
• Raak
  (11:57 pm) Well, call that rain? The lightning was quite impressive though, bright flashes diffused by the screen of cloud.
• Rosie - Can't be too careful
  (Raak) So you didn't suffer "localised surface water flooding issues" then? Lucky man.
  There's another lunar eclipse in 6 months on 21 Jan 2019. 4.41 to 5.43 a.m. 25° altitude in the west. We won't see that one either.
• Raak
  Not even puddles. It's noticeably cooler outside this morning, although my cold water supply is a degree up from yesterday, 23ºC.
• Dujon - Raining moons and thermometers
  [moon] We should have had a decent view of the lunar eclipse but, as one of my nieces commented later that morning, "weeks of almost cloudless skies and suddenly the roof of the world is &#@%*! clouded over".
  [Rain] It's a problem here as well - lack of rain that is - much of western New South Wales and, thus, most of the state's farmers have received less than 50mm precipitation thus far in 2018. Farms are or have already turning into dust bowls. Livestock is being destroyed by bullet as transport to market cost more than the price available (for those who survive the trip) and the farmers cannot afford the cost of bringing in fodder. It's all very sad.
  [ºF/ºC] There is many a million people around the world who welcome you to the world of HEAT. It must have been a terrible shock to many an individual's internal ecosystem, particularly the young, old and frail. I fervently hope that no deaths occurred directly attributed to the heat-wave.
  (Raak) Do you make regular readings of your cold water temperature, or is it a built in monitor designed to warn you of freezing water-in-pipes?
• Raak
  [Dujon] I finish every shower by turning the water to cold, and measure the temperature. In winter it was 5ºC, and I could only manage about 40 seconds, but above 20º I can stand in it indefinitely. This is part of following the Wim Hof Method for improving cold resistance.
• Dujon
  (Raak) That sounds more like a course in masochism to my mind. Brrr!
• KagomeShuko - studies
  I'm studying theatre. As long as I pass my comp exams, I should have my Masters in Theatre sometime in August.
• blamelewis - theatre
  [KagomeShuko] Seconding the good wishes for the exams - what areas of theatre are you studying? I work in the industry (I design video for shows), and long ago did an MA in Theatre Studies at Glasgow Uni - can't say I was very academically successful but loved the industry enough to forge a career in it! :) (Twenty-five years on no one has *yet* noticed it's a forgery...)
• penelope - When I am near ter...
  [Blamelewis] Isn't ALL of theatre a forgery?
• Rosie - Quote Unquote
  Far from it, pen..
  In other news, July was the hottest recorded at Plas Huws (since 1983) but only beat July 2006 and July 1983 by the teeniest margin.
• Bismarck - Big Data Weather
  Looking at this snazzy app that my power company provided me with showing the output of my solar panels, I am wondering if it is possible to extract useful stuff like "it was a nice day" and "this month was hotter than normal". Any suggestions?
• Stevie
  I wonder if it is possible to use the app to hack your home network, unlock your IoT front door and stealz your neat stuffs.

  Did the panels come with a hideously deformed hunchback assistant to turn them on and off?

• Bismarck - Henchhunch
  [Stevie] No, you have to provide that yourself - there's a job ad out if you'd like to apply.
• Stevie - HDHBA
  I shall have to dig out an email exchange I had in 1999 or thereabouts that revolved around the hiring of HDHBAs to work automatic generator cutover switches enfeebled by Y2K upgrades. I could get a worthwhile TOS post out of it.
• Rosie - Automation alert
  (Bismarck) Don't tell the Met Office - they'll get ideas. Nearly all weather observations are now automated; the numbers go automatically into a computer and a forecast is produced. A sort of human may then intervene and tell the awaiting masses it will feel warmer/colder or whatever, this idiot savant having access to the thermal responses of the entire population, ranging from 6-yr-old boys to old dears of 92.
• Bismarck - Serendipitous reporting
  There's probably been a game like this, but I'd like to suggest a re-run after reading here this comment about Boris Johnson: "It looks to me like he's digging his political grave. It's one to deploy humour and charm and intellect and all these things he has in spades". Anyone interested?
• Bismarck - Time is an illusion, summer time doubly so...
  Europe is thinking of getting rid of the hour change. It looks like being one of those weird decisions - if voted on before end October, Europe remains on summer time; if after, winter time. Which should we vote for?
• blamelewis - Serendipidous
  [Bismarck] When Robert Maxwell had disappeared from his yacht, before his body was found, one of his friends was interviewed on the TV and said - utterly without inflection - that "He seemed in a buoyant mood the last time I saw him." I was somewhat delighted...
• Rosie - Totally tropical
  At 2 o'clock this morning the temperature in the grounds of Plas Huws was 19.0°C. It's October FFS. About 10 degC above what it should be.
• Software - Credence
  It can't be global warming because Trump says it's not.
• Bismarck - Ad hominem
  I read him as saying that it is OK to believe in climate change, as long as you are willing to be blamed for it. To show his acceptance, he is looking for volunteers.
• Bismarck
  25°C two weeks ago, now it's snowing. Is it going to be a hard winter or a mild winter?
• Bismarck
  25°C two weeks ago, now it's snowing. Is it going to be a hard winter or a mild winter?
• Rosie
  (Bis) I suppose I ought to say something, being ex-Met Office. Well, mild or cold, FIIK.
• Bismarck
  Come on Rosie, you can do better than that. Where's your experience from previous years, observation of migration patterns of sparrows, wind direction causing bunion growth, modern glaciation etc etc to say nothing of the advanced abacus climate models?
• Rosie
  The Met Office's Abba Cuss has been given over to accountancy. Helen Willetts will continue to suppress giggles on Radio 4. Tomasz Schaffernaker will say "cunt" on air and become "A" list. An inch of snow will cause widespread points failures. Points mean derailments. What do points mean?
• Dujon
  Belated MHR for Sat. last, Rosie.
• Rosie
  (Duj) Many thanks mate. Trombones abundant.
• KagomeShuko - non-sensical riddle
  I have a riddle: If you're going down a river at 2MPH and your canoe loses a wheel, how much pancake mix would you need to re-shingle your roof?
• Stevie
  3.
• Boolbar
  [KagomeShuko] *Holds hands about 3 feet apart* This colour.
• Rosie
  (KS) At least 5 foot 8.
• Salvador Dali
  [KS] Fish
• Dan
  [KS] If it's the roof of your mouth we're talking about, the answer is to change your brand of pancake mix pronto.
• Stevie
  Merry Christmas everyone at MC5
• Simons Mith
  Happy Christmas and especial thanks be unto Rab, Rob, Dan, Dunx, Jim, Rich, Wild Pants, Yoz and all the other hosters of international silliness.
• Rosie - Gratitude
  (SM) Hear, hear.
• CdM - What SM said
  Also, what Rosie said.
• KagomeShuko - Christmas isn't over yet!
  Merry Christmas, all!!!
• KagomeShuko
  I bought this CD by U2, but I want my money back. It never told me how to dismantle an atomic bomb!
• Bismarck - Not me
  Ha well you'd have thought that a spy plane would know something about it. But on further investigation it's written by a bunch of Irishmen, a nation not known for their atomic status nor for spying prowess.
• Dujon
  2019 A day or so ago I wished a friend a happy new year to which he answered "You too."

  So I echo his sentiments, late as they are, to all participants in this world of oddness.

• Rosie - Can't stand the pressure
  (Dujon) I don't know if this sort of thing happens in Oz but the barometric pressure in the last few days in the UK has been up to 1045 mb but the weather associated with it has been some of the most boring I can remember. Saw the sun today for the first time since Christmas.
• Dujon hPa, Milli and bar
  It might, Rosie, but an hPa/mb reading above 1040 at Maison Dujon is unusual, although not unheard of. High pressure systems generally produce settled weather and clear skies, but that's not always the case.

  Locally we have been having a short spell of hot weather. Rather than fill this space with data, I refer you to this (rather rough) image.

• Rosie - You jammy git
  (Duj) Those curves are quite unlike anything I get, quite apart from the warmth. On a fine day here the temperature rises very rapidly to start with then the rate tails off to a fairly smooth maximum apart from the jagged short-period variations of about one degree. What's the "apparent temperature"? It seems to be about 2° above the actual temperature, day and night. I see something rather dramatic happened in the afternoon of the last day. Cool southerlies taking over? I bet you're relieved.
• Dujon - Just a bit of melting chocolate
  [Rosie] Apparent Temperature? It's a "feels like" approximation relating to how the human body reacts to current conditions. If you pop off to one of my web sites here and open the INFO section of the menu bar you will find a few other methods of calculating that in the middle "Bio Indexes" [sic] choice.
  If you bang around the site you will find other data showing local conditions, current and historical. As far as the temperature curves, yes, it tends to trend to maximum and then descend to minimum readings at a fairly rapid rate, although the falling temperature is generally somewhat slower than the the rising one.
  After two days of relatively cool maxima as I type the outside temperature is a little over 31ºC with a projected maximum of or about 35ºC.
• Rosie - Yeah but you're used to it
  (Dujon) I've only had two 35's in 36 years, 3 Aug 90 and 10 Aug 03. Highest minimum was 20.0°C, lowest max was something I didn't think was possible, viz -9.2°C and on this day in 1987.
• Dujon - Used and abused via frigidity
  (Rosie) -9ºC maximum? Blimey, that is a bit on the parky side. Since I've lived in this part of the country we haven't had a minimum that approaches that level of coolness. I have three Canadian cyberfriends who would giggle at that - one is in Quebec (Montreal) and the other two out west in B.C. where a maximum of -20ºC is apparently a balmy winter's day.
• Rosie - Warlingham, coldest place on the planet
  (Duj) It was a sunny day with snow on the ground and a light easterly wind and it just wouldn't warm up. The reason lay in the air above, an import from north-west Russia. Even the high June sun falling on dry ground would have made little impression on that column of frigidity so the January sun slanting in on a snow surface had no chance. AFAIK my recording was the lowest in the country (unofficial) but if there'd been a weather station at the top of the North Downs, nearly 900 ft, it would have been colder still, the opposite of what normally happens when it gets very cold. The temperature was below freezing continuously for 11 days and stayed below -5°C for 3 days. The UK record for a low max is -19°C (Braemar, Scottish Highlands, 10/1/82). Nothing could move; all the diesel had waxed out.
• Software - Weather
  [Rosie] Extremes like that don't happen here on the rock. Currently 9.6C, forecast minimum 6C. And my wife says it's cold.
• Rosie - La Bête de l'Est
  (Softers) I'm sure there have been a few occasions when Jersey has been the hottest place in "Britain", being affected by a hot blast from France.
• Dujon - It's not getting much better *perspires*
  (Rosie) Don't expect any short term communication. The BoM forecast for our Penrith. As a rule of thumb knock off 2ºC for Chateau Duj. Image here
  As I type it's just after 1430hrs and 38.0ºC outside in the shade.
• Rosie
  (Duj) It's about 38°F (3°C) here. The scene is brightened by a couple of inches of snow on the ground and brilliant low sunshine.
• Software - Weather
  [Rosie] Hottest? Only once or twice ISTR.
• Dujon - Wx the second
  (Rosie) For you, sir. Here. It is only January - from Christmas on to the new year it was much the same.
  Where is everyone? This is not the weather channel.
• Raak
  [Dujon] I’m in Lithuania for a few days. A concert of Armenian music on folk instruments last night, now seeing the sights of Vilnius before coming home Sunday.
• Rosie - More weather, I'm afraid
  Another warm, still, sunny day - up to 16°C in the grounds of Plas Huws and it's still only February. Knowing that March and early April can be utterly foul I'm not looking forward to the end of this spell.
• Raak
  I believe I am having a touch of hay fever. In February! 13°C here, bright sunshine, and promising so for the next few days.
• Raak
  (Temperature estimate from the BBC weather site, not an actual thermometer in my garden.)
• Rosie
  (Raak) Assuming you're in Naarj I'd say the temperature was a little higher than that - possibly 15-16°C. Max 15.9° here in the Elevated Surrey Desert.
• Rosie - Even more weather, alas
  It's been 18.8°C in the grounds of Plas Huws today, a February record (for here) by some distance, the previous best being 17.0°C in Feb 98. I even had the back door open, unheard of in Feb.
• Raak
  It's summer, that's what it is.
• Dujon
  Summer what, Raak?
• Raak
  [Dujon] It's icumen in.
• Rosie
  (Duj) It's already come in. 20.8°C here this afternoon. This is higher than the average max for June. You may laugh.
• Superman
  Same in Glasgow, where Gorbals' warming is now obvious.
• Dujon
  Why would I laugh, Rosie? If you thought that I might, then I suspect you would break into loud guffaws should I reveal how often the minimum temperature at Castille Duwhan dropped below the freezing point (of water). ;)
  If it will make you feel any better it's 11:00 on Wednesday as I type; The outside shade temperature is 22.1ºC. As we use the meteorological seasons in this country, this coming Friday is the first day of our Autumn (as opposed to the equinox on 2019-03-21 08.59 my summer time *bring out George Gershwin or it'll be too late*).
• Rosie - It's grim up north
  (Dujon) It freezes overnight here on an average of 39 days a year and stays below freezing all day on 3 days.
  Our hot very mild spell has ended. March will probably be 'orrible, wet and cold with an average temperature about 6°C with sleet and floods. (That's not a forecast, it's a miserablism).
• Dujon - Water, water everywhere
  I came across this today:

  http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190310-why-britains-rain-cant-sustain-its-thirst

  Is it that serous? It must be admitted that more people means more use of water. Ergo, reduce the population? Stop all immigration? One child per couple? A shower per person per month? Desalinate the Atlantic and the North Sea?

• Dujon
  To save you from a cut-and-paste exercise, the link is: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190310-why-britains-rain-cant-sustain-its-thirst
  My apologies for the carelessness.
• Rosie - Dehydration
  (Duj) The average annual rainfall here at Hughes Hall since 1983 is 822 mm, considerably more that the 500-600 mentioned in the link for SE England and there is no significant trend over the period. It's not enough partly because a huge amount leaks from the mains and partly because people are extravagant with it, laying it out to dry in the garden for instance. Metering ought to be compulsory.
• Dujon - Metering, leeks etc ;)
  Yes, Rosie, metering here is compulsory. In other words you pay for what you use. Then again, my son who lives about a half-hour drive to my west does not have reticulated water - he has a 50,000 litre storage tank system (i.e. water collected from his roof). Many households have the same, regardless of reticulation.

  As an aside, I have a solar panel array on my roof, even though I have electricity 'piped' to my residence. It will take some years to pay off the initial investment, but it sure as heck saves me and the grid many KiloWatt hours of usage.

• Stevie
  This just in: Solar panels designed to secretly suck power out of the grid during night hours. Power companies implicated in complex billing scam. Film at eleven.
• Stevie
  Orlando area Florida fields were awash in solar panels last summer. Everywhere here wasn't an amusement park or timeshare complex, there was a few acres of solar panelage. I even saw an enormous solar panel installation to one side of a development that had yet to break ground as far as housing went.
• Dujon
  It's all those condominiums, Stevie. Are you not aware that they soak up all the infrared radiation during the day and, come evening, release the stored energy to heat the beaches?
• Rosie - Pythons
  (Duj) penult. Here, we just call it the mains. Quite harmless.
• Dujon - Slithering and Winding
  (Rosie) Not to my wallet it isn't.
• KagomeShuko - Prayers, please
  I know I've not been here in a long time. Right now, the main reason being my sister Briana (Giertrud here) is in the hospital. I brought her to the doctor on March 25 afraid of signs of concussion and her doctor sent her to the ER. She was sent to a room and a night later went into respiratory distress. She was on a ventilator and sedated for a few days because she had a rare form of pneumonia. The doctor thinks that is gone, but she still can't seem to breathe on her own, her temperature keeps going down and they don't know why, and now, she can't seem to swallow either. We need prayers for the doctors to be able to figure out what is going wrong and know how to fix it and also for Briana to get better.
• KagomeShuko
  Oh, when she went into respiratory distress, they sent her to the ICU. They tried sending her to a floor, but her temperature was staying low and she still couldn't breathe. Hopefully things will be better this time, but she does have a nasal cannula and she also has an NG tube feeding her right now.
• Bismarck
  Ok, we're on it.
• Boolbar
  [KagomeShuko] That is distressing news. I do hope there is a positive outcome for you both.
• Rosie
  (KagomeShuko) I hope they can discover the problem and can fix it not just for her sake but for yours and everyone here.
• Bismarck - Giertrud
  [KagomeShuko] any updates?
• Rosie - Water, water everywhere
  Since about 3 a.m. Monday we've had 3.8 inches of rain here. My gauge nearly overfloweth but not quite. This afternoon it took me over 10 minutes to drive 0.7 mile locally, all in bottom gear, along the mighty B269 which like every other road round here has blocked drains, Surrey CC being too impoverished to clear them.
• Stevie - Pluvation
  [Rosie] Tsk. Brexit fever has robbed you of your hard-learned Metric abilities. No longer able to measure things in milli-hogsheads per pascal-coulomb you revert to the anachronistic inches. Good for you. Like putting on an old pair of slippers. Pleasant once you get past the two-bob bit in the lining of the right one.
• Stevie
  I shall attempt to have someone record the amount of wet that will fall on us during the Stevielings Open-Air Nuptials in Florida at the end of June. Fearing the worst I have arranged for the congregation to lurk within tent. A tent with no sides so that they will be lured into a false sense of weatherproofing until the winds pick up. Bwa-ha and I might venture an additional "ha" into the bargain.
• Bismarck - Heatwave a-coming
  Midday 18°C, evening 27°C. Tomorrow and the rest of the week forecast 35°C, and this is only Belgium. Cat dehydrated, am attempting dripfeed with milk.
• Rosie - Heatwave abandoned
  (Bismarck) We will miss the heatwave by about two hundred miles (i.e. a meteorological hair's breadth). Shame - I was looking for a genuine excuse not to do much except gawp at thunderstorms.

  Is milk the best thing for cats? A lot of people don't seem to think so. Put a dirty old frying pan out in the garden with some water in it - he'll go for it.

• Bismarck
  [Rosie] The essence of experimentation has the subject's welfare only tangentially in mind.
• Dujon - The milk of human kindness
  For cats, Rosie, it is not. I have been advised so over the years by various veterinarians. The cats over those years who deigned to live with us have been offered only water. They drink very little of it. Perhaps they collect enough of the stuff from the food that they eat - or maybe the few shallow trays we keep topped up in the garden for the use of our avian friends.
• Rosie - Beware of the cat
  (Dujon) A cat's paw moves faster than light if it means business. Are the little dickies aware of this?
• CdM
  [Dujon] Perhaps they drink very little of it because they keep waiting for the milk!
• Dujon - The defeat of Einstein
  [Rosie] Yes they are. In all my time here I have not come across a bundle of feathers in my gardens. Nor has my wife, the gardener of the Dujon Estate. I put down that to the calls some birds make when danger is imminent, particularly from the colloquially named 'Noisy Miner'.

  [CdM] Given that most of them there cats lived to seventeen years on average, I have to doubt that supposition. :)

• Rosie - AFPD
  (View the source to read the hidden text) at Plas Huws 'round midnite. We seem to be under a line of heavy showers. "Hazardous driving conditions" for those who have never driven in rain before.
• Raak
  Happy birthday, "A Sticky End". It is exactly one year since you last had a move played.
• CdM
  [Raak] With good reason, it must be said.
• rab - Annual checkin
  Hello. Apologies once again for my continuing absence. Yes, there's a been a server upgrade. So you will see some ‘tésting’.

  Hmmm... seems to be going a bit too smoothly...

• rab - Still here?
  It's surprising how much stuff you can delete...
• penelope - Checking in
  *Beep*
• Electronic Voice - Unexpected item in the bagging area
• penelope - Itemised
  [Electronic Voice] Expect the unexpected.
• blamelewis - Sticky End
  dah dah de dah de dah de dah, da da da da da tissue???
• penelope - Blank look
  [blamelewis] Musical sneezing?
• Boolbar - Din B Denby
  [blamelewis] Delius with a cold?
• Knobbly - Hello, I still exist
  [blamelewis] MAP, 0 in Morse code?
• Rosie
  (Kn) That's good, but how are your knees?
• blamelewis - Hmmm
  At first I had no memory of what the hell I was talking about. Troubling. It was a suggested move/rhyme for the moribund Sticky End game.
• Bismarck - Hipster
  Just been back to Paris, and saw a shop selling quinoa vodka. How hipsterish is that?
• penelope - Nipster
  Just been back to sunny Lincolnshire to visit family and friends and for a project meeting for a new annual festival for which I volunteer my comms expertise (Louth Pie Day, in case you're hungry). As part of that, I met up with the wife of a guy I worked for 7 years after I graduated. Their son and daughter (mere dots when I worked there) are about to set up a VERY Lincolnshire flavoured business.
  Potato vodka.
  I'm interested to konw what that entails - I hestitated to write 'artisan potato vodka' because I knew some clever bottom would ask me what an artisan potato is.
• Rosie - Slavic booze
  (pen) Ferment spuds in a freshly cleaned dustbin. Transfer, using a bucket, to a 50-litre flask and fractionate carefully by distillation. You can make it as strong as you like. No additives allowed. Potatoes are intrinsically artisan as are dustbins and buckets. Note - I have done a fair amount of "bucket chemistry" as it is termed.
• Boolbar - Vespula vulgaris
  55 years and 4 days on this planet without being stung by bees or wasps, until now. A pesky wasp was hiding in my top.
• Stevie - Wodka
  [pen] I thought that *all* vodka is made from potatoes. You use grains, you get whisk(e)y. You use grapes you get brandy. You use spuds you get vodka. You use old tea bags, banana peels or beetroot*, you get what you deserve.

  * - As per a bloke on the same corridor in Waveny Terrace as me in my 2nd year at UEA. If it stopped moving, he fermented it and drank the results. Heart of gold. Nerves of steel. Bowels of water.

• Rosie - Manic fermenter
  (Stevie) A choleric personality, then?
• Pablo
  Not much you can't make booze from if you try hard enough. Elderflower champagne? Actually rather nice if you can do it without exploding bottles everywhere
• penelope - potato peelings
  My first taste of poteen was during the beginning of my second career (in comms) sitting at my desk, offered by my boss. Sadly all I could smell were rotting potato peelings, an odour I'd had a professional interest in since my first career as a lab technician, analysing waste water from veg processing plants.
  I guess if you're desperate for a drink then it'll do the job. or you could put it in tea or coffee.
• Bismarck
  Strange idea of your PR boss coming around with something a) homebrewed b) alcoholic c) of uncertain content and expecting you to drink it - was he an Irishman trying to pick you up?
• KagomeShuko - Sorry, I've been amiss
  Sorry that I've been amiss. Things with Briana (Giertrude) haven't been great and I've been job searching. Briana has gone back and forth. They had her eating, but things were getting beyond difficult for me with being a caretaker. I've needed space for years, but I love my sister, so I wouldn't NOT take care of her. They got her into a group home and she's had to be transferred to a different one that is not as close to me as the first one. She was at the first one and eating and she started having problems breathing, so they sent her to the hospital. She had aspiration pneumonia. They did some swallow tests on her and they found that her epiglottis (the part that closes off in your throat so you can swallow without choking on or breathing in your food) isn't working. She has a PEG tube (feeding tube) inserted into her stomach so she can be fed. She needs 24/7 nursing care, so that's why she is now in a different group home, but it's a two hour drive from where I live. She's had to have her dogs given to a foster who is looking for a new home for them. And I'm still job searching. I can't get out to see her if i don't have money.
• Superman
  [KS] Sympathy. You're going through something terrible. I am sorry. Got a fund page we could chip in to?
• Stevie - Sympathy
  [KS] 8o(
• Boolbar
  [KS] So sorry to hear that. I do hope things improve soon for you and your sister, and offer a hug if you are ever in my vicinity.
• KagomeShuko - Funds . . . blech
  [Superman] I don't have a fund page. Whenever I have one, people don't tend to chip in - I may get a few dollars here or there, but it's never enough. I hate fund pages by now, partly because of that, but then I learned that they basically run by taking money that is donated because they all take a percentage from what is donated that could be going to the person or people who really do need that money. It's not like a hope thing with Kickstarter. Sadly, things are not going well. She's been admitted to the hospital out where she was. Then she's been released. I've not been given updates like the group home organization promised. I only found out that she had been admitted to the hospital because a nurse called me when Briana (Giertrud) was asking to talk to me.
• Dujon - Weather - others need not read
  (Rosie) Rain December 2019 - 0.3mm: Rain 2019 - 500.2mm: Rain Days 2019 - 78. Yesterday 2019-12-31 max temp 43.6ºC (110.5ºF). Phew!
• Rosie - Good day to hang out the washing
  (Dujon) Forty-three? Faaaakinell. 8.3° here - rather mild, a bit misty, hardly any wind, boring really. Rainfall 141 mm this month so garden a bit sodden. Swapsies? I hope the inferno is nowhere near you.
• CdM - The new normal
  [Rosie] Temperatures in the mid 40s are rapidly becoming commonplace here. At this point the amount of Australia that has burned is about 44,000 km². That's more than the area of Switzerland. Or more than two Waleses, if you prefer. Here in Melbourne we have so far been spared any serious impact, but I suspect things are much scarier in Dujon's neck of the woods.
• CdM
  [KS] Sorry to hear that things are so tough for you. Hang in there.
• Dujon - Wrung out?
  (Rosie) We're fine at the moment, thanks, other than some pretty severe smoke being intermittently in evidence. That doesn't mean that we are not alert to what is going on around us; the 'local' fires are not all that far from us, and we are practised in packing suitcases and shoving the cat into its carry basket.
  (CdM) I don't think your comment regarding the mid-forties becoming more common is true - not here anyway. In fact it's not common to have max. temps. at 40ºC. I shall have to dig into my data base to check that, but I am sure that I am correct.
• CdM - Degrees of hotth
  [Dujon] I'm glad that you are OK (at least for now); I do always keep a particular eye out when fires seem to be approaching your neighbourhood. I should know better than to present to you and Rosie a vague impressionistic generalisation about the weather in the form of a fact-checkable statement! Guilty as charged. I suppose it all depends on your definition of "mid" and "commonplace". :) We do know that Australia has just experienced its hottest year on record and in December experienced the two hottest days on record. We had two days above 40 here in Melbourne last month, and while that's certainly not unprecedented, it's definitely unusual for December.
• Rosie - How warm has it been recently?
  (CdM) Fires are more caused by extreme dryness and the density and type of vegetation than by heat alone though of course heat and dryness are often associated. There have been fires in Britain, nearly always in early spring after a very dry winter. This is the problem of using proxies - some are very sensitive to environmental change whereas others have a multitude of causes and may tell you very little. By far the safest assessment is to use measured and quality-controlled data and proper analysis will tell you if anything's happening. (It is. It's getting warmer)
• Raak - Where have the archives gone?
  I clicked the "See More" button on the front page, and only got games up to February 2016.
• Boolbar - Fake Views
  [Raak] I can see back to 2003. Oh look, The Beige Allegro!
• Simons Mith
  Old games, yes, but it seems recently we've been getting too shy about killing games off. I think all the sites might benefit from greater turnover.
• Tuj
  [SM] 'sbeen that way for years, they just tend to dwindle into total inertia. Presumably because no-one feels like sufficiently involved in a given game enough to be the person to end it. I fear there aren't many budding ideas waiting to be started though (I'd love to be wrong).
• Superman
  Not just involvement, it's respect for the denizens of this universe in following their lead. Make it clear that anyone has the right to kill off a game, and that running a new version of an old game us not a problem. Also rules for the bloody ostrich game and Wigwam would be useful.
• Rosie - Can't stand the pressure
  Barometers - tap! Mine reads the highest I have ever seen it - 1048 mb. (Dujon) This is one meteorological element in which we beat you hands down. The other one is low pressure. UK record is 925 mb (Scotland of course). I don't think it was caused by global warming, not in 1884, part of a cool stormy decade.
• penelope - Pressure? What pressure?
  Pressure at ours: max was about 1044mb according to my neighbour's weather station. I can see it on the roof opposite from my kitchen window.
  
• Rosie
  (pen) Try the first full page chart here.
• Rosie - Synoptic situations wait for no man or woman
  (pen) Too late - you've missed it. There was a 1050 centre over Belgium. A paltry 1047 now.
• Stevie
  [Rosie] In NY in the last four days it has been roast city, intolerable heat, sweatbox weather, then snow. It would seem that the weather system hereabouts now functions the same way the pop-o-matic does for certain board games; three numbers the same then one properly random one.
• Rosie
  (Stevie) That's North America for you. What you need is an ocean round you - moderation in all things.
• Stevie
  [Rosie] I'll have you know I have the same ocean round my part of North America as you do in Standalone Great (Again) Britain. The Long Island Sound is part of the Atlantic doncher know.

  I don't mind snow, I just want it to be proper snow, not "here's an inconvenience to bugger up Saturday" snow. There wasn't even enough to make firing up Troll (the Snowblower of Supreme Spiffiness) worthwhile. Too much to shovel manually, though. I used the Toro electric snow broom I had for years before I got serious about snow removal.

• Rosie - Crystalline water substance
  (Stevie) Shurely proper snow is not just going to bugger up Saturday but the whole weekend and very likely the LIRR to boot.
• Stevie
  a) I use Troll, the Snowblower of Supreme Spiffiness to get rid of it once it stops falling. Two hours tops.

  2) Snow on Saturday = shopping trips replaced by marathon Netflix sessions.

  þ) LIRR broken? Stay-at-home day!

  ♣) Monday was a holiday anyway.

• Rosie
  (Stevie) Excellent attitude. Similar to my Rain = Don't have to do any gardening.
• Stevie
  [Rosie] Florida is cooler than it sometimes is this time of year, but still shirt-sleeve weather to this son o' the Midlands. No rain (yet - like cockroaches, it's always there waiting to make a pleasant time less so). This year we are infested with a band of thoughtless pricks all driving the same model of humongous pick-up (and all bearing New York plates wouldn'tcha know) and parking so inconsiderately that we've had to park several spaces away from our villa. Plenty of space if they'd stop being gits. I saw one of them wander out on Saturday night and almost hurled. Grossly obese with folds of fat tumbling down, it was wearing only a pair of jeans and *they* were at half-mast. Jesus! I've describe things that should not be in my Call of Cthulhu game that were less vomit-inducing.

  On the plus side, the Stevieling and Mr Stevieling are thriving as a married couple, so somewhere the balance is in, er, balance. I brought some trains with me this time. British trains! Bit o' cork-faced foamcore, some old set-track from 30 years ago and the Minitrix Britannia will steam again! As will the Farish 97xx, the Dapol 57xx and 14xx and sundry BR diesels in intercity livery. Going to experiment with Peco's uncoupling gadget. It isn't as clever as Kaydee knuckles but the rolling stock is so light I dunno that knuckles would work properly anyway. When working right they allow some eye-popping shunting moves with only one uncoupling magnet. I'll have to seed a yard with Peco uncoupling magnets for a similar flexibility. On the plus side, the Peco device is supposed to work with the dreadful Rapido couplings fitted to the stock.

• Rosie
  (Stevie) Magnetic couplings? Blimey, there's posh. Wouldn't last long if a big 28xx got hold of them. BTW I have seen 97xx's at Paddongton. They used to go down the Tube to Moorgate, condensing their exhaust. Horrible to drive; no draught, no steam.

  I used to know a barman whose surname was Barrett. Trousers at half-mast I thought of him as Bumcrack Barrett. One of the things about being old is you never need be a fashion victim.

• Rosie - Cockup
  That big station I mentioned is Paddington, not Paddongton, which sounds a bit phallic and not something the starchy old GWR would approve of.
• Stevie
  [Rosie] Well the results have been mixed. I won't have time to construct the test bed needed for the uncoupling magnet thing. The new Dapol 57xx and the new-then-stored-for-years Dapol 14xx run super smoothly over set-track including a dead-frog point. Astounding for an N scale 0-4-2. The two Dapol prairie tanks run slightly less smoothly, but are still impressive. The Farish 97xx I bought to replace the warping and hideously manufactured one I bought when I was 17 runs impressively smoothly too (and for some reason looks prettier on hte track than any of the other locos, even though the others are manufactured to a finer finish), as does the $20 from eBay class 08. The one I bought for just over 20 quid in '91 will sometimes not run in reverse, so I took the body off to diagnose the issue. During the testing, which did not uncover the problem, the spring from the rear coupler launched itself into oblivion and it seems they are impossible to replace these days. Another success there, then. And the Britannia runs very roughly. I think I will have to strip it down to clean the wiper contacts. It is all very annoying.

  I want to do shunting operations with this kit, so I need a reliable coupler that can be remotely uncoupled. I think the kaydee knucles that work so well on US pattern stock won't work on the UK 10ft wheelbase stock because the action is one of lateral force applied by magnets and I think the lightweight UK wagons will simply derail. The Peco device is a metal strip that attaches to the rapido coupler, lifting it when the magnet is energised. Only thing is, they are only guaranteed to work with Peco unsprung couplers. Most of my rolling stock is fitted with sprung couplers.

  Oh well.

• Dujon - Pressure
  (Rosie) I've not been ignoring you; my Internet connection went walkabout for a couple of weeks. That's 'phone, e-mail - the lot.
  As far as pressure is concerned you are quite correct for readings at my humble abode.
• Dujon - Being boring
  (Rosie) It's 15:55 as I type - temp = 44.4ºC. Perhaps CdM is right.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Well, it's over 44.4 here. Wait a minute; that's Fahrenheit.
  It's been a mild and rather boring January here - mean temperature 6.2, 1.9 above average. BTW the pressure reached 1050 for a few hours in S. Wales on the 19th. (World record is 1084, NW Russia, 31 Dec 1968).
• KagomeShuko - need a job, need a job, need a job . . .
  *sigh* I'm so busy job searching. I am a teach on VIPkid, but I can't do the overnights that are required. I tried and it just didn't work for me. I MIGHT be able to do them sometimes, but I definitely couldn't support myself with that job. I really need a job, so prayers, good wishes, good vibes, etc, are definitely appreciated because I need something in my time zone . . . or at least in a U.S. time zone that might just make things a little off. Or a decently paying independent contractor job. The problem is that many of those don't pay decently.
• KagomeShuko - online presence . . . or is that presents?
  Does anybody here use Facebook or Instagram? Just curious . ..
• Simons Mith
  [KagomeShuko] Facebook, I've left my account to rot, and I find it increasingly creepy how much it continues to 'follow' me about. A pox on Zuckerberg and all his spawn. Instagram, no. I've got a Nerdica account I've never used and a slight Pluspora presence.
• Rosie
  (SM) This (and the Other Place)is the nearest I get to Social Media, though I've had some useful interactions on YouTube comment threads.
• Bismarck - Ciara the Storm
  Other than the strange name for the storm, most of the footie in B and NL got called off. So far a bit blowy here, but hardly a storm.
• Rosie
  Getting quite windy here now. From the Met Office there is what is referred to on my weather group as a "Custard Warning", i.e. areas affected are coloured yellow. On the 0030 Radio 4 forecast Helen Willetts said the storm would be "impactful". Helen, you're a poet. Now sod off and speak English.
  Naming storms like this, apart from being cheesy, is meteorologically unsound as they have much less of a singular identity than a tropical hurricane and can split up and do all sorts of funny things.
• Bismarck
  Gusts over 60 mph here, so far no trees damaged in the area, though elsewhere there has been quite some damage.
• Dujon - From flames to floods
  It seems as though your weather is as barmy as ours. After all the hot temperatures and bushfires we have now inundation. Yesteryear we had a total of 500.2mm of rainfall. Less than six weeks into the new year we have already had 534mm of drips and drops on our roof tops.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) I had a look at OZBOM, excellent as usual, but it seems I've just missed the action. I find it more difficult to interpret synoptic charts for semi-tropical latitudes than for areas like Britain. Maybe just a case of what you're used to.
  Your rainfall of 534 mm in 6 weeks is phenomenal. That's about 13 mm a day,every day. The "best" I've done in that style is 574 mm in three months, winter 2013-14.
• Dujon - Monthly anniversary
  (Rosie) Just an update for you. Jan - 95.8mm; Feb - 552.4mm; Mar ro date - 69.5mm; Total for year-to-date 717.7mm.
• Rosie - Stop boasting
  (Dujon) February 552 mm. No answer to that. What were temperatures like during your monsoon?
• Dujon - Deflated
  Not being boastful, Rosie, just celebrating. To answer your question re February, rain in mm and max temp in brackets ºC:
  7th - 73.2 (32.4) ; 8th - 107.6 (35.6) ; 9th - 203.0 (36.7} ; 10th - 49.5 (42.2) ; 13th - 36.4 (31.9)
  There were 16 rain days in the 29-day month, so the balance was scattered around the remaining 24 days.
• Rosie - Hot showers
  (Dujon) Presumably the temperature was a lot below the maximum each day while the rain was actually falling. Looking at the figures I'd say they were all pretty violent thunderstorms. I'm extremely envious.
• rab - Nilpresent
  Sorry I keep dipping in and out of this place. I had hoped to join in a bit more after creating a more mobile-friendly skin. You can find it here but be warned. It’s somewhat experimental and plays fast and loose with flex-based layouts, which seem to be supported idiosyncratically across browsers. (My css was never that great anyway). I know for a fact it doesn’t work on Internet Explorer, if anyone actually still uses that, but it seems ok on Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc, as well whatever the latest stock Android browser is (I think).

  Give it a whirl, tell me what you think, and if it works for enough people I might make it the default.

• Superman - Skins
  Not exactly the colour scheme I would have chosen, and what is that enormous decorative font? But it works (Samsung phone with Chrome browser). The automatic bold & italic is a major step into the Century of the Fruitbat, thanks!
• rab - Technicolor
  Not sure it's the colour scheme I would have chosen either :) Being colour blind I always have difficulty choosing colour palettes. Most of the colours came with Bootstrap (which does the responsive mobile goodness), but there are a few that are specific to this site. If you have a css editor extension in your browser, the relevant attributes are the background in the .rab-bg-head, .rab-bg-flip and .rab-bg-flop classes. These cover the bluey tones that appear on the front page, and the top of the game page. The color attribute of .rab-bg-head a, .rab-bg-flip a and .rab-bg-flop a classes controls the colour that the links on the front page appear. If you come up with some better numbers than the ones I did, feel free to share!

  The enormous decorative font is called Merienda. Again I can tone down the size if it's too much. (And if it's too much, you should have seen the first one I played with for a while...)

• rab - Weirdness
  There's something going on here that I don't understand...
• Bismarck - Weirditude
  Is it to do with having very few cars running, local deliveries available and very few aircraft flying? Yes, as you suspected, you're in a time warp - this is the 1970's again, but this time you're old!
• Pablo
  Don't talk to me about old. For blokes, it's the time that every bit of your body starts going stiff except the one bit you actually want to. Call that fair?
• penelope
  Have any of ever you become dog owners for the first time in your 50s? The windy miller and I are both now working at home for the foreseeable, and I anticipate that even after September I'll be working from home quite a bit. We're thinking seriously about it.
  A friendly, middle-aged, middle-sized rescue dog of indeterminate breed would do us fine.
  Any thoughts?
• Boolbar - Who let the dogs in?
  [pen] I'd say go for it. The dog will soon have you quickly trained. Alas, I am no longer a dog owner in my 50s, which has set me down the road of possibly looking for another.
• Simons Mith
  Well I'd volunteer for the position myself, but I don't have a waggy enough tail. Go for it.
• CdM - Aging
  [Pablo] I know what you mean. My upper lip is not what it used to be.
• Rosie - Stiffness
  (Pablo) Fair? Depends how much you spread your seed earlier. That doesn't include the bedroom floor BTW. Try being 77 and hoping for some gloriously horny old bat to turn up. It can happen.

  I'm beginning to notice that the lockdown is having an effect (on me at least) similar to large quantities of alcohol in that inhibition is disappearing. Do other morniversers notice this? Who wants a fuck?

• Stevie
  [Rosie] As I understand the Human Condition, everyone wants a fuck, but no-one is willing to give one.
• Stevie - Inhibitions, lack of in Castle Rosie
  I refer my learnéd correspondent to this prescient item wot I penned about 6 years ago.
• Rosie - Pwy eisio ffwc
  (Stevie) Shurely I at least have indicated my willingness to attempt the required act. Success, of course, cannot be guaranteed.
  Still ROFLMAO at your second item. Top drawer.
• Pablo
  [Rosie] Er, something about alcohol increasing the desire but decreasing the performance? I believe you can get good beer goggles online these days ;-)
• Rosie
  (Pablo) Androgen Deprivation Therapy Is even more effective but I've just come off it after 3 years. Hooray!
• Pablo
  [Rosie] Ow! that sounds diabolical
• Rosie - Bollocks, irrelevance of
  (Pablo) Doesn't hurt, just reduces the libido (to about zero). Some men sprout tits but fortunately I didn't. A prostate cancer needs male hormone in order to grow. Deprive it and it goes "to sleep" and can then be zapped with radiotherapy. It seems to have worked. Well done the Royal Marsden.
• penelope
  Irrelevant bollocks or not, [Rosie], that's excellent news.
• Rosie
  (pen) Tiz, innit. I look forward to putting the improvement into practice.
• Pablo
  [Rosie] Good news indeed. Sometimes libido reduction just happens, no drugs needed. Wish it didn't. Or maybe red wine counts as a drug?
• Rosie
  (Pablo) I don't expect at my age to go round shafting anything that moves (and certain things that don't) but it's nice to have a bit more energy, you could say.
• KagomeShuko - Prayers if you pray, please
  First, Giertrud is in the ICU in the hospital in the city with the nearest hospital to the group home where she has been. Same issues that she's been having and is on oxygen. Was so sick that they thought she was non-verbal when she was admitted.
  
  Second, that I do well with my new job. I REALLY need and am very thankful for it. I pray I do well and I hope it leads into me being able to do something that I really WANT to do. I have a few things and it might just be the company that I need to be with in order to get things going.
• Stevie
  [Rosie] (View the source to read the hidden text)
• Stevie
  Found my old Mammod traction engine in the basement and decided to fire the old girl up to check she was in good repair after years sitting in a box.
  
  The burns are healing nicely, thank you.
• Rosie
  (Stevie) Not quite yet. You see, most people think I look about 6O but I know better. Rain-gauge? No activity all month ym Mhlas Huws. Forgotten how to do it. That's another thing.
  (KagomeShuko) Best wishes for your new job and for your poor sister.
• Stevie
  Decided to use the new Air Fryer to make a hamburger while Mrs Stevie was looking after her mother.

  The burns are healing nicely, thank you.

• Bismarck
  [KagomeShuko] we're on the case.
• penelope - Burnt hamburgers
  Ah, the airfryer. It’s our patriotic duty right now to eat our bodyweight in potatoes every week to save the Dutch potato farmers whose produce is no longer being made into chips and eaten by hordes of diners and visitors. Airfryer chips/frites/frieten/patat every other night, innit?
• Stevie
  Chips should be deep fried in beef dripping. There is no argument that can be effective against doing so.
• Rosie - The Flood
  Bugger! My May drought has been ruined by a brief shower Saturday lunchtime, amounting to 0.2 mm and therefore counting as a rain day. It still might be my driest month EVER, as people say, the Universe having been created in 1983.
• penelope - Deadly dripping
  [Stevie] I’d like to live a long time AND eat chips. Beef dripping is summingelse, although I’m not too keen on the lingering greasy sensation around the chops afterwards. As my dear daddy used to recite - and humour me here because we grew up 15 miles from Grimsby which had its own fishing port town reputation at the time - :
  Little girls from Grimsby
  Blue eyes and cherry lips
  Every time you kiss them
  They taste of fish and chips.
• Rosie
  (pen) Nothing wrong with that. Award yourself an LLB, Lincolnshire Lip Balm. Sooooo much nicer than garlicky breath.
• Stevie
  [penelope] And your point is? I agree wholeheartedly and unreservedly with Rosie. Watch out for avian pigs.
• penelope - Lincs Lip Balm
  [Rosie] I guffawed! (which looks like it might be a Welsh word but I bet it isn't and now I have to go google its etymology.)
• Rosie - Linguistic indeterminacy
  (pen) It does rather, doesn't it, but it's not in my copy of Y Geiriadur Mawr, ("The Big Wordery"). It can join my other favourite warthog. Incidentally arthog literally means bear-like and as in English the sub-text is "grumpy". BTW can't wait to hear you guffaw.
• penelope
  It's awfully quiet in here. Is everyone well?
• Tuj
  [pen] The usual ta. My Chambers Dictionary says guffawed is onomatopoeic, disappointingly.
• Rosie
  (pen) I'm very well, thanks, but bored stiff. Could do with a bit of conversation.
• Simons Mith
  [pen] Well, how's Project Dog coming along?
• penelope - Doggone
  [Simons] Had two hot leads this week (see what I did there?) but one (Stanbijhoun/Collie cross) was withdrawn from sale and the other (wire-haired fox terrier) was sold before we could go over to see it. We keep searching, and some friends are putting the word out for us too - which might prove more fruitful.
• Simons Mith - Projects Foo.
  Well I have just enacted Project Beer and Project Less Hair, but I really ought to get on with Project Barstools, Project Chair and Project Plates. I have been having a smashing time recently. I should also enact Project Washing Up, but I particularly hate that one. But no space for a dishwasher, unfortunately.

  Project Star Wars Rulebook is in the home straight, but that's a marathon, and there's still weeks at least before I'll finish it. Especially as there's content I'd like to farm out into a couple of other books which are barely into draft stage.

• KagomeShuko - thankful for job, but it is very tiring
  I am so thankful that I have a job and that I can work from home with this virus being so rampant, and especially now, that the area where I live has one of the highest rates of people infected with the virus (I don't go out and do all that much as it is - I prefer small gathers, but even those are happening much). Anyway, though, this job is tiring. I worked 50+ hours last week. I need to spend some time putting out job proposals when I happen to have time. I'm praying that I can start teaching theatre online somehow - and be paid for it, not just independently.
• CdM
  [KS] How is Giertrud?
• KagomeShuko - Not well
  Thanks for asking. She's not doing well. She's still about a three hour drive away from where I am. They want to move her into a nursing home because they said her medical issues are too much for her to go back to the group home. In a way, I think she will be happier, but I also worry about her. She's not supposed to eat anything by mouth, and she is very hard headed about what she wants to do and I worry she'll get a hold of food or the nursing home will make a mistake and give her food and then she'll eventually not make it because somebody won't catch her pneumonia. I'm quite angry at the medical community in Louisiana right now since nobody had actually tried to find what is wrong now and they just keep tossing her from place to place.
• Stevie - Giertrud
  8o(
• CdM - Giertrud
  What Stevie emojied.
• rab - System update
  My usual "system update" check 'post' also for funny stuff
• KagomeShuko - Giertrud
  Giertrud called me recently. She is now at the nursing home Legacy in Plaquemine, Louisiana. She sounded much better and much happier than she has been for a long time. She told me that they did a swallow test and that this time it was different as they put a camera up her nose and watched her eat live. She said that they give her a medicine to break up secretions and that it tastes bitter. However, it seems to help. She said that when she eats, they saw that secretions seem to pool in her throat. She told me that they are going to soon try to allow her to eat soft foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She's been going to speech and physical therapy and there is somebody who helps her remember how to brush her brush her teeth. She also said that she sleeps sitting up. That might help with the secretions.
  
  We actually talked for over a half hour. I could mainly understand her. The conversation didn't get too repetitive. She's in room 421 and she loves her 420 jokes, so of course she had to say it was a minute past time to smoke marijuana. We mainly talked about the dogs and dogs that we've had. She didn't dwell too much on Krueger and Nala and agreed if she is ever able to come home, small dogs like chihuahuas are much better for her. They at least have to be calmer.
  
  So, I'm praying that she is finally in a place that can help her get better. Who knows what will happen if she gets better, but right now, not much really matters with this virus.
  
  I'm sure the nursing home environment is better for her than the group home. She was actually out in a public area and able to call me.
• Rosie - Giertrud
  (KagomeShuko) I wish her the best and I'm sure the whole Morniverse does too. Maybe things are on the up. We all hope so.
• Boolbar
  (KagomeShuko) That does sound like a positive improvement. My best wishes to you both.
• KagomeShuko - Maybe not so positive, maybe okay
  So, it seems like the issue with Giertrud isn't going away. I got a call from the nursing home/rehab facility and they said they were sending Briana to the hospital because it seemed like she aspirated. I don't know what that will mean for her eating. I know she was thrilled to be eating again.
• KagomeShuko - Hurricane Laura
  Hey all. So, when they called for the mandatory evacuation from Lake Charles, I picked up a few things and got out. I didn't take time to pack up tons of things. I didn't want to get stuck at home or in traffic. I went north and found myself in West Monroe, Louisiana. I found one single hotel room. It was literally THE hotel with a room vacancy that I could find. Somebody had ended up cancelling that night. So, I had my service dogs, no change of clothes, and my laptop, basically. I had a few other things, but I couldn't pack up everything because of my back problems and not wanting to get stuck in the traffic or in heavy rain. Lake Charles is in awful condition. My house had a tree fall through the roof of the back of my rooms. So, the roof and ceiling is all ruined in two main rooms, maybe a little bathroom, and a little area where a file cabinet can fit. Some people have helped me with donating some money so I could get some clothes and eat and should be able to travel when I check out of the hotel on September 4th. My job is one that I do from home as it is. At first, I thought I wasn't happy with the company, but they have really stepped up. They payed for the hotel from the day Ii checked in and then checking out on the 4th. I will have a host up in Tennessee while Lake Charles and my house are all being repaired. Lake Charles does not have any running water or any electricity. I think it was only one life that the storm, itself, took. I know another one was taken when somebody fell off of a ladder. Most of them seem to end up being because people will get a generator, they won't get a CO alarm, and they will run the generator and they will place it somewhere they think it safe and it may seem so, but CO gas seeps into their house. That's sad and it is sad seeing all of the destruction in my hometown. I know we will rebuild, but it certainly hurts my heart.
• Rosie - Slings and arrows
  (KagomeShuko) Life is dealing you some lousy cards just now. At least you have somewhere to stay and don't forget you will always have friends here.
• KagomeShuko - Made it but sad for my city
  I made it up to Tennessee. My host will be home this evening. I'm sad for Lake Charles. There are people who rode out the storm. There are people who were only able to leave for a bit while the storm hit and had to go back. They say it will be at least three weeks before electricity is restored to the city. Water is iffy and if people can get water, it is under a boil advisory . . . which, if people have electric stoves, is basically impossible for them . . .
• penelope
  [KagomeShuko] Let's hope this brings out the best in neighbours so they can help each other until things start to get back to normal. A colleague was with her family in Florida and was caught in the storms there a couple of years ago - she blogged in detail and very movingly about the incredible neighbourliness she experienced. I hope that happens for your community.
  And don't forget to take good care of yourself too - without feeling guilty. Without that, you can't look after anyone else either.
• penelope - Across the seas.
  Another fortnight, another two weeks working at home, and still no closer to being able to return to the UK for a visit. (Complicated by my UK family's bubble to protect my sister who's about to start chemotherapy to complete her treatment for ovarian cancer - thankfully she should make a full recovery.)
  Feeling a bit exiled TBH. Distracting myself by walking the dog loads and have raised 200 quid for Cancer Research as a result - and have lost weight - so it's not all bad.
• KagomeShuko - Sad News
  Giertrud passed away today.
• CdM
  [KS] So so sorry to hear that. You're in our thoughts.
• penelope
  [KS] Sad news indeed. I'm sorry for your loss.
• Boolbar
  [KS] So sorry to hear of your loss. I have just been re-reading some of her contributions here: she will be missed.
• Stevie
  [KS] Sincere condolences.
• nfras
  Sorry for your loss. Very sad to hear.
• Dujon
  Vale Giertrud.
  Chin up, KS, time does heal - as I can verify (my daughter was killed earlier this year in a MVA.) You seem to have had a bad trot of late, so it's time to think positive and take care of the future. Good luck.
• CdM
  [Dujon] Please also accept my deep sympathy; that is just awful to hear.
• Dujon
  Thanks, CdM, but I should not have let that slip. Grief is very personal thing, so, please, no more messages, everyone.
  That is not to criticise KS as Giertrud was a contributor to the MC community.
• penelope
  After such a period of respectful silence, I propose that we now resume doing what made us all come here in the first place - to celebrate life, intelligence, being funny, and being too-bloody-clever-by-half with words.
  You go first.
• Dujon - As the World Turns
  I shall, penelope.
  See, I've done it.
• Rosie - As the World turns nasty
  This is the one place that keeps me sane. That and the piano.
• Simons Mith - Sanity
  For me it's my collection of singing potatoes.
• Boolbar
  [SM] Are they accompanied by a Maris Piper?
• Simons Mith
  Well they are now...
• Rosie
  (Boolbar) V good. But can he do the theme from MASH?
• Dan
  I did wonder what Rosie was doing in the piano.
• Rosie
  (Dan) Poking around with a screwdriver, as ever. Got a Yamaha keyboard - no strings attached, and you can play it with the headphones at two in the morning, fortified with a good slug of brandy. Some aspects of life are not bad.
• Dan
  [Rosie] Being able to use headphones is incredibly liberating, isn't it? To say nothing of being able to select from a wide range of voices. Since getting my Yamaha wind midi synth about 15 years ago, my sax has sat in its case, its leather pads slowly turning to stone. Every now and then I think about getting it serviced...
• Stevie
  [Rosie] I look forward to the time you will tell us of the triumphant performance of "The Ride of the Valkyries" at 2am, the removing of the headphones to discover the blue flashing lights and banging on the door and the dawning realization that the headphone plug was not pushed all the way into the socket.

  Mrs Stevie is an expert at doing this with her iPad so I get to listen to her dreadful musical theatre stuff at full blast because she did not realize that the reduced volume in the headset was due to half the signal still going to the external speakers.

• Rosie - Turn that bloody racket down
  (Dan) Play your sax, man. It's not an instrument I can play but picking up the 'bone and giving it a whirl is most satisfying especially if you find something to play along with (stuff on YouTube usually).
  (Stevie) I've occasionally forgotten to plug in and muttered to myself "this doesn't sound right" followed by "plug it in, twatface". The neighbours are upstairs, sleeping the sleep of the just, and are not disturbed, so I have ascertained.
• KagomeShuko
  [Simons] Do you dance the mashed potato to their tunes? Are they called the Tuber Tunes or Tater Tunes?
• penelope
  Has anyone gained a new skill during enforced home-staying? I've been at home for 7 months now, but worked 40 hours a week throughout.
• Raak
  [pen] I learned the front crawl. Actually, I had a series of lessons before lockdown, and then the pool closed, but since it opened a couple of months ago I've been practising. I can just about do a 25 metre length without stopping. The skill of breathing air and not water is the difficult part.
• Simons Mith
  I've improved my typesetting and CSS skills. And finished (bar user feedback) a writing project that's been lingering for years.
• Boolbar
  I have had more work to do since I've been working from home. I'm sure my boss thinks I'll go idle otherwise.
  Other than that I've learned how to play a few modern board games and apply liquid eyeliner without looking like a ham-fisted goth.
• Rosie - Resonance
  I can now reliably get a top D on the 'bone and as a result all the windows in the house are broken.
• Simons Mith
  [Boolbar] Are you interested in roleplaying games? My project was a rewrite of Star Wars 1st Edition D6.
• Boolbar
  [Simons] I've never tried. As I now live alone I needed something to do in the Covid evenings other than stare at a screen. I've been pitting my wits against various board games' solo modes.
• Simons Mith
  [KagomeShuko] I'm trying to work something round 'Spud-u-kelele' but I haven't managed anything yet
• nfras
  As travel and eating out has been off the table for the past few months I have expanded my cooking horizons by doing a different cuisine each weekend. My youngest is fairly fussy but I've managed to do French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Israeli, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Brazilian, Jamaican, Southern US. I've learned some new techniques and discovered some great recipes. But the waistline has taken a hammering so the adventurous cooking has stopped for a while.
• KagomeShuko - New Skills?
  Nothing thrilling, but I did finally get a job in May. I don't like it, but I've learned how to do the job.
• penelope - Wait... that's a lot to take in...
  Broken windows, liquid eyeliner, breathing water...
  I wear far less make-up now BTW. I used to wear it six days a week, now only on Saturdays. I'm saving a ruddy fortune.
  
• Simons Mith - Glorious food
  [nfras] When you start up again I've got a recommendation for a chicken recipe so simple even I can make it: a Fillipino staple called Chicken Adobo. I do have to admit, there's only about six data points on the entire graph of Things Simons Mith Has Successfully Cooked, but that's one of 'em. It's a really everyday dish, so there are many variant recipes to choose from.
• nfras
  [Simons] I'd love it, thanks. I like to try new foods, even if the youngest can be a pain in the bum when deciding she doesn't like it before she has tasted it.
  [KS] Doing a job you don't like is really hard, so I definitely feel for you.
  Mrs Nfras decided to try crocheting. She bought the wool and hooks and stuff. Anyone want some second hand wool and crochet hooks?
• Simons Mith
  Chicken Adobo. I think that's the recipe I used, but there's dozens of variants readily findable online. If I did it again I'd try one of the variants that uses ground pepper rather than peppercorns. But the overnight marinade is definitely a bit to keep in. I got the recipe from a Fillipino Google plusser I used to follow, for whom adobo was a much-loved childhood dish.
• Bismarck - Hopeless Gardeners' Corner
  The past year has allowed me to ignore the garden to a great extent, but being out of work has forced me at least to plan stuff and mow the grass. The Bismarckette decided that this year's project would be tomatoes, and bought a bunch of grow-stuff necessary for the production of the red veggies-fruit-whatever. They were supposed to grow into big, fat tomatoes, but stubbornly refused to get above the smallish size, and the plants tended to brown, apparently due to a lack of calcium in the soil. This was addressed by decorating the soil with crushed eggshells (Bismarckette, success 0/10) and mixing gardeners chalk into the soil (yours truly, success 10/10). The final crop ended up with a unit price of about three quid, which is about par for the course with the Bismarckette's projects.She was then miffed to see that tomato seeds that Mrs Bismarck had thrown around the side of the house had actually grown into two full-scale tomato plants with absolutely no effort.
  We've been here for fifteen years and have finally found out what the tree at the bottom of the garden is. The previous owners planted it, but it was in the shade of a massive Leylandii hedge and grew hardly at all. When we chopped the hedge down a couple of years back (as a result of The Neighbour Who Does Not Like Trees invoking a local by-law that no hedge can be more than one metre 50 tall), the tree took off and this year produced eight fruits which on inspection by the health authorities were pronounced to be quinces. Quinces are massive fruits and have a very strong pear-like perfume. Mrs Bismarck has Plans for them, though what remains to be seen.
  Funnily enough, The Neighbour Who Does Not Like Trees was hoist by his own petard this year, when the inheritance of the next-door house was sorted out. The old Italian Neighbour Who Grows All His Own Food died at an advanced age last year, and his son of 75 years turned up with wife and dog. It seemed that the laurel hedge forming the border between their gardens was a matter of inches inside the wrong garden (I was called out to verify the position of the boundary markers and swear on oath that the small fence between us was mine, and not his), and he was forced to dig the lot up. They don't joke about property limits around here, I can tell you.
  Now I have to research in depth the pruning of quince trees, nut trees, and figs, and also think of something to do with The Shady Patch Where Nothing Grows under The Neighbour Who Doesn't Like Christmas's hedge. Which I did not pay to have trimmed, that did NOT happen.
• CdM - Skills
  I'm one of the lucky ones who (a) still has a secure job and (b) can work from home. But the downside is that the WFH has been much harder work than NWFH, as I have had to adapt a lot of materials and plans for distance/online learning. My video editing skills are improving, but that's about it. Though I have welcomed the opportunity to cook and bake more: those are not new skills for me, but in recent years I had been doing less and less due to being time-poor and having lots of good restaurants and cafés nearby.
• penelope - Quince Luck
  [Bis] wow - a Quince! That's quite a thing to have. They are rare.
  A couple or four years ago I did a fruit-tree pruning course with the local protected landscape foundation (in Dutch - I was v proud of myself) and did a few volunteer January pruning sessions in a heritage orchard. The point was to get myself out of the house on January Saturdays and get more involved in Dutch stuff. Anyway. I've successfully pruned our baby fruit trees (they all came from Aldi) and the neighbour's pear tree (which is much bigger and gave a bumper crop as a result - phew). I imagine quinces are similar in that fruit-bearing wood is last summer's growth so you only cut off enough twigs to make sure that every fruit-bearing stick is strong enough to carry the weight and that every twig can see the sun. The Dutch are pretty good at growing fruit, so maybe I've learned the high-production method, but there you go. There'll be videos on YouTube I'm sure. And it's coming up to tree-pruning season - when the trees are dormant and you really don't feel like going outside and stretching up so that your vest becomes untucked, baring your midriff flesh to the elements. Or maybe that's just me. Good luck!
• KagomeShuko - Jobs are unfortunately required
  [nfras] I'm at least blessed that I can do thejob as long as I have my laptop, headphones, and WiFi and that it can be done from anywhere with those things.
  
  I work Customer Support or Restaruant Support for Bite Squad - which is a third party food delivery service like Postmates or Dash.
  
  Restaurant support is better than Customer support, but both can get irritating. Customers complaining are the worst, though. There are some that are fine, but plenty that are very rude.
• nfras
  I am in sales, so working from home is not a new habit for me, and for the first time in months I have all of the kids and Mrs Nfras back at school.
  My previous company decided to shut down all of APAC on the 1st of April but I was lucky to pick up another job pretty quickly. My previous manager is still not working so things are pretty tough in the job market.
• Stevie - Quince
  I thought quince was a made-up thing eaten in medieval banquets like hippogriff or capon. Learn summat every day. Is your tree now a listed structure? Some years ago The Neighbor from Hell broke another of our fences so we decided to replace the lot, had the land re-surveyed and it turned out we owned about 12" of one corner that had been on the other side of the broken fence. Then, he put up chainlink alongside our stockade fence. Why, I'll never know since by code we had to show him the pretty side. Now TNFH periodically trims the honeysuckle that grows between our fences and throws the debris over into our yard, presumably because he has forgotten that we fenced to the property line so the vines are growing on *his* land. Total git.
• Rosie - Quincey moans
  (Stevie) I have two quince bushes in my garden and at this time of year they drop their fruit which are yellow and somewhat smaller than a cricket ball. One year I thought I'd have a look at them. They're as hard as nails and if you really chucked one at someone it wouldn't do them a lot of good. Heavy equipment is needed to open one then you find a large cavity full of seeds and a tooth-breaking outer part with a pH of about 0 like conc. sulphuric. I would have more success making jam out of boiled-up breeze blocks than I would out of these buggers.
• Dujon - Man up you blokes
  Have any of you participated in the delightful sport of cracking macadamia nuts? This a tough game involving plenty of hilarity for spectators, loads of frustration for the nominated cracker and much exuberance exhibited by all when the aim is achieved.
• Rosie
  (Dujon) Macadamia? Isn't that what road surfaces are made from? Not surprising they're hard to crack. Maybe that's a British joke.
• Raak - Appropriate apparel for the discerning player.
  
• Dujon - Yeah, Rab! :)
• penelope - November?
  How the hell did that happen? Here I am, sitting in my home office (the top bedroom) eating instant noodles at my desk and working through lunch again as if it was perfectly normal and I had been doing it for for nearly nine months.
  Which I have.
• Boolbar - Lunch?
  Oh, is that why everyone else disappears for an hour and leave me to take all the phone calls...
• penelope - Instant noodles
  [Boolbar] Phone calls? I don't talk to anyone anymore.
• Pablo
  [penelope] Good policy. You wouldn't believe how much bollocks people are talking these days.
• Stevie
  The Stevieling and Mr Stevieling celebrated their first anniversary in lockdown.

  That'll be one to tell the grandchildren, assuming there are still human beans on the planet by then.

• KagomeShuko - Lockdown . . .
  I can hardly wait until this pandemimc is over. I know, we can't have a timeline because who knows when it will be over. I still hate this and REALLY want to be able to hug people again.
• Dan - An Election
  People on my street are now out on the walkways in front of their houses making noise with whatever's to hand: pan lids and ladles are popular. Many still in their pyjamas. In the rain, I might add.
• Rosie
  (Dan) Glad you live in a civilised place but what about Banjo Crossing, S. Dakota? ©P G Wodehouse.
• Dan
  Wodehouse really is timeless, isn't he? Effortfully, I will be brief: Nothing has changed about the Dakotas.
• KagomeShuko - Boring up here
  I'm still in Knoxville and have to head down towards Lake Charles later this week - slowly. There wasn't any celebrating that I know. I wouldn't get into any of the comments on my local news's Facebook post as I heard from others that the crazies were at it again in the comments. They never care about good things and fair things that happen.
• penelope - positive check-ins
  So, peeps, how are you all doing? Same-old here, but still healthy.
• Raak
  My taiko group was just about to restart when the second lockdown came.
• Raak
  I have also been attending life drawing classes online. The classes have been online because of Covid.
• Simons Mith
  Writing, programming badly, cooking slightly more, going out much less (I'm trying to be good). finished a Star Wars ebook a few weeks back, and am waiting for feedback. But it's well over 300 pages so I can't expect instant responses, and I do actually want the feedback before I send it on to someone else who's never seen it before. Stevie's and nfras' comments have been incorporated, but the players from my past Star Wars games haven't come back to me yet.
• penelope - Personally, I find this *is* a development.
  I've got two 'personal development days' to use up this year. They are today and tomorrow. So far today, I have had a bacon sarnie for breakfast, ironed my hair so I don't look like I've given up on my coiffure, arranged the windy miller's and my pyjamas into a comical pose on the bed so it'll make him giggle when he gets home this evening, rearranged the fairy lights in my office, done the crossword, looked at the MOOC I'm supposed to be starting, and lit an incense stick in my home office.
  And then I thought 'Oooh, I'll have a look in the Morniverse and remember old times!' So here I am.
• Chalky - Old Times
  (pen) I've been visiting some MC Archives in MCiOS and MC5. The early Limerick games, particularly in here, reduced me to tearful laughter - some of it out loud. Mr Chalky was very envious. And I was reminded of Humph's words back in the day: "As we journey through life, discarding baggage along the way, we should keep an iron grip, to the very end, on the capacity for silliness. It preserves the soul from desiccation."
• penelope - Old Timers
  [Chalks] Silliness and procrastination. I am ace at the latter and refining my skills as we speak. Have just hunted for and found the uncorrupted recording of a lecture my father gave at the Boston Athaneum in 1998. I thought I'd lost it forever.
  And silliness? I seriously need to exercise that muscle. Might have to join you back in the archives. Shall we take gin in teacups and crisps with us?
• Simons Mith
  Don't forget your pith helmets, and maps of the Sea of Memes.
• Chalky
  (pen and SM) Just lead and I'll follow ..
• penelope - A pith helmet on a plinth
  I just wanted to write a phrase that sounds like it's got lisping in it but that does not actuually contain the potential for lisping.
  What time do the archives doors lock tonight? I don't really want to be in there for the whole weekend.
• Pablo
  [Raak] Sorry to hear about your taiko class. Nothing like doing some drumming to relieve pent up frustrations, unless you're a professional percussionist, in which case it will be the cause of your frustrations. And especially taiko drumming, which is VERY VERY LOUD. (do not try this at home)
• CdM - reply to pen's check-in
  My sympathy to all of you dealing with new lockdowns. The news here in Melbourne (thus for nfras and myself) is good. We have now officially eliminated the virus in the state of Victoria: we have no active cases and have had no new cases for 30 days. Which is not to say that it won't pop up again, but right now things are starting to feel almost normal here. We paid our dues to get here—two months of one of the strictest lockdowns in the world—but right now I think pretty much all of Melbourne would say it was worth it. South Australia is dealing with a somewhat worrying cluster, but looks like it is getting on top of it.
• penelope - Ah feck
  [CdM] Sounds marvellous. Something to look forward to here. we’re still knuckling down here in the Netherlands and the rate of growth in the second wave is slowing but it’s still growth so there’s no room for complacency. I’m worried by and despairing at the number of nutters and deniers in the comment sections of local newspapers in the UK. I have an ageing and bored mother, and a sister waiting to start a course of chemotherapy there. My sister knows what to do but has a 15-year old son in school . Half measures don’t work.
• Rosie - Swear properly!
  (pen) Best wishes for your sister. As for the 15-denier nutters, they are indulging in British exceptionalism, i.e. they are exceptionally bone-headed. This goes a long way to explain why we have Brexit which these dopey muppets will find will do them no good at all.
• nfras - The Century of the Nutter
  The internet is a wonderful tool. It allows speed of communication, opens up a world of possibilities, but has sadly seen the growth of the Dunning-Kruger Effect on a scale unimagined. There is now so much information available to the average person, that many people can now pick their truth and live in ideological echo chambers, untouched by reason and fact.
  If the first half of the 20th century was defined by the rise of dictators (Hitler, Mussolini, Tito, Franco, Stalin etc) then the 21st century seems to be the rise of the nutter. Fact-free, self-aggrandising nut jobs who seem to be able to get all the air-time they need to influence the uneducated and angry of the world (Trump, Farage, Johnson etc). As much as they have made life miserable for a whole swathe of people, how much worse would it be if any of them were even vaguely competent?
• penelope - @#&%***!
  [Rosie] I'm pretty good at swearing. I got an award for it in the end-of-year awards when I worked at the Woodland Trust in the UK. The incident involved the PR manager, the HR manager and the head of IT (who apologised to me for his team's office-wide Xmas prank which caused me to swear at the entire IT team by email in the first place.
  My sis should make a full recovery after her clean-up chemo, thanks. She had successful surgery for ovarian cancer in August and is waiting to finish the treatment.
  [nfras] Exactamundo. Believing consipracy theories that someone is out to get you is much easier than admitting that things are actually shit and are being handled badly by people who should either know better or resign and let someone competent get on with it.
  Has that photo of Jennifer Aniston disappeared into the Last 100 Moves yet?
• Chalky - bar stewards
  (pen) Nah.
  Cake for breakfast here. Walnut actually.
• penelope - Cakeism
  [Chalks] Flippin' heck. I had a poached egg. I plan a fish finger sandwich for lunch though - after the lunchtime half-hour dog walk in gloomy windy misty 2C I'll need it.
• Tuj - Upwardly mobile
  [pen] Any particular reason we need to send Jen up the page?
• penelope - Below the Line
  [Tuj] Just sick of seeing her! (And secretly jealous because I could never work out how to post a photo in here).
• Chalky - nudge nudge wink wink
  (Tuj) Jen will be in 'Expose More' or 'Expose All' in 10 or so moves ...
• Simons Mith - posting pictures
  It's similar to a hyperlink, but you use <img src="http://website.com/imageurl.jpg" alt="A picture from the internet" width="640" height="480" />

  You can get away without the width, height, alt text and trailing slash but they're nice to have, and watch out for accidentally posting a page-filler sized image. If the file you want to link to doesn't end in gif, jpg, jpeg, png or possibly webp it may not work. And some dumb web sites will occasionally post a jpg file but name it as png or something, which is another rake in the grass to be aware of. It usually works anyway, but it's kinda rude, and always makes me question the competence of whoever put the image up in the first place. And it's easy to get caught out in turn because one usually trusts file extensions to be correct. The concept of a file extension isn't that difficult to grasp, although MS have been valiantly trying to obfuscate it for everybody for years.

  If you post a file link (.zip, .jpg, .md, anything) inside an <a href="...> you get a clickable download instead of a web page opening.

  Finding the right URL for the image tends to be fiddlier these days. Right-clicking and choosing 'open image in new window', or 'copy link to image' may be needed. And some image links will will broken by the remote server if you attempt to reshare them. It was simple, once upon a time. Then techies, marketing, sales, the bean-counters - people, basically - got to it, and we ended up with the current mess.

• Rosie
  (SM) Thanks for that - I, like pen, have no idea how to get a pic in here. Do I take it that the pic must come from the Internet? What if I want to post one of my own from say, My Pictures?
  (pen) I am heartened to hear of your Profanity Award.
• Simons Mith - Pictures from da intarwebz
  [Rosie] No, needs to be a publicly accessible location, somewhere available even when your computer is switched off. Somewhere that begins http, basically. Linking to third parties is unreliable - look at one of the old caption competition games to see how many links still survive. The ideal is some area of the web that you control. Most reliable is your own web site, or at least your own blog, image-sharing site or whatever, even if hosted by a third party.
• Simons Mith - Archive hole! Attn, rab: help!
  Oh no, the malign influence of the Podume of Infinite Darkness is spreading!! After taking a big chunk out of the middle of the Dunx archive, it's spread here, and has eaten everything from early 2106 onwards.
• Tuj - You say that, but...
  [SM] I think... I think there just haven't been any games created here since 2016 :(
  [pen] Ah yeah, it can be irksome to notice something travelling slowly up a chat page! I must have forgotten that since starting to use the 'End' key. I only asked to help nudge her along, and now we learned some HTML, which is nice.
• Rosie
  I have a few photos on Flickr and Dropbox but how do you get to them? No idea. I'd like to shut down both accounts but how do you do that? No idea. Fuck these sites, fuck them. No pics from me - too fucking complicated.
• Simons Mith - Catch 22
  Well if you could post a link to them, I could use one as an example. But if you can get that far you probably wouldn't need the help any more.
• CdM
  [pen] Or you can just view the source code and copy it. Like this:
  
• KagomeShuko - Creating games . . .
  I somehow got that "I'm wearing no pants" game started years ago. I am not sure how it was able to be created, but I had ideas for other things we could play if I knew how to create games if that is possible.
• Boolbar - How to post a picture

         .
      __/ \__
      \     /
      /.'o'.\
       .o.'.
      .'.'o'.
     o'.o.'.o.
    .'.o.'.'.o.
   .o.'.o.'.o.'.
      [_____]
       \___/

• penelope - I'll stick to being good at commas and colons
  All those little symbols just look like typos to me! I think I'm code-blind. In fact I'm still using copy-paste from DrQu+xum's Basic HTML primer to appear clever at work and have been doing for the past 20 years in at least three different jobs.
• Simons Mith - Let's have a new game then
  This does require killing off an old one. Once there's a vacancy, KagomeShuko can have a go
• Stevie - Read My Lips: No New Pants!
  Why not just wake up the old one?

  We wish you a merry Christmas
  We wish you a merry Christmas
  We wish you a merry Christmas
  Not wearing your pants.

• Stevie - Boolbarian Values
  Clapclapclap!
• Rosie
  (Boolbar) That must have taken you ages. Gwych - deg allan o ddeg. (View the source to read the hidden text)
• Boolbar - Plagiarism
  I confess I copied and pasted it. But I'll take the praise for having to carefully handstuff it with non-breaking spaces to make it line up properly, and the cunning use of the <pre> html tag.
• KagomeShuko - Gamey game game
  (Simons Mith) I have no idea how a vacancy even happens, I just happened to see that it was open and was surprised, but happy, I could start a game.
  
  (Stevie) I've got some other ideas . . .
• Simons Mith - When a mummy game and a daddy game love each other very much...
  Well actually the MC sites operate on a one in one out basis. So you have to end a current game before a new one can start.
• Dujon - Glottal stops, from the limerick
  (Rosie) This is the query ? whilst the glottal stop is ʔ
  Should you really desire to use it, then use the decimal & # 6 6 0 ; without the spaces between characters. Do not ignore the semicolon.
• Rosie - IPA
  (Duj) Thanks for that - you hear it quite a lot in this country as you probably know. The thing is, will people merely regard it as a typo. In these august surroundings, probably not.
• KagomeShuko - This sucks . . .
  I need prayers and good vibes, etc. On Friday, I was terminated from my job and I need to be able to find a new one. I hated the job, but I need the money.
• KagomeShuko - blech . .
  These are what scones are in the U.S. and I find that they are just hard and icky and being covered in sugar crystals just makes it worse. U.S. Scones
• Boolbar
  [KagomeShuko] Sorry to hear about the job, and the scones. I bet they don't pronounce "scone" correctly either.
• Simons Mith - pronunciation
  Oh I know that one: it's 'jif', isn't it?
• Chalky - Or perhaps ..
  Basil?
• penelope - those aren't scones!
  [Kagome S] Sorry about the job. That's a bummer. Does it mean you're free to move wherever you need to be for the next job?
  American scones sound a bit over-sweet and over-rich. British scones are just an 8:1 ratio of flour (+ raising agent) to butter, perhaps some sugar, and milk to bind the dough. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingers, add a dot of sugar, add milk to bind, pat out dough to 1.5cm thick (do not roll it), cut into rounds (I use a gin/hi-ball glass), bake at 200C for 12 minutes. I can have emergency scones on the table in less than half an hour, and I've been experimenting with baking them in the AirFryer too. Done. Hot, light, fluffy and not too sweet (so you can pile them with jam).
• Stevie
  One can't really complain that American scones have too much sugar if one eats the alternative "piled" with what amounts to fruit polymerized with sugar. I have a sweet tooth but I cannot tolerate the sweetness of the average jam, marmalade or compote with or without a scone substrate. My teeth ache just looking at the jars.

  So, did you festoon the sails of the mill with fairy lights for Xmas?

• Stevie - KS
  Here's hoping that other door opens as quickly as possible.
• Stevie
  Merry Christmas everyone at MC5
• KagomeShuko - gotta stay . . .
  [pen] No. I own my house where I live and it needs to be repaired from Hurricane Laura as is . . . and with my disabilities, it's best to have an online job because that way employers can't complain about having to use my transport chair or my service dogs.
• nfras
  [KS] Sorry to hear about the job. Hopefully something comes your way soon.
  [Stevie] I agree. My preference is a sharp jam like raspberry or rhubarb. We spent Christmas Day with friends who have a plum tree. As they don't eat them, I came away with about 8kg of fruit. First batch of plum jam is now in the jars.
• Stevie
  If you are eating sharp jam it is a good sign that the jam owner dropped the jar and scraped the contents into a new one.
• Stevie
  Happy New Year!
• penelope
  Well things are a bit odd this week innit.
• Bismarck - Oddity
  Which is unusual for week 2.
• Rosie - Er.......
  I really can't think of much to say at the moment.
• Tuj
  Neither can I, but we might as well keep la Aniston's upward progress going.
• Boolbar - Default weather chat.
  It is foggy here, and chuffin' cold.
• Raak - Ideal weather for a bike ride.
  Clear and sunny, 4°C when I set out, -2°C when I got back.
• CdM
  Currently 31; supposed to reach 36 today.
• Rosie
  (CdM) A pretty accurate description of what it's like here, but in Fahrenheit.
• Chalky - Cool is cool
  (Rosie) Heh - but I'd still rather be here. Can't do heat.
• penelope - Cool is cooler
  I can't do heat either. Just been out for lunchtime dogwalk; 4C and strong winds is a bit brutal but if you keep moving it's OK. I was so bundled up as to be unrecognisable walking into the wind but had to take off me hat walking back with the wind behind me
  What gets me is the freaking gloom here. It was midday and gloomier than a gloomy thing. Awful.
• Boolbar - Shiny orb
  It is sunny here, but still a tad chilly. I also have toothache, and an expensive looking sheet of dental treatment. Pliers and DIY wooden teeth might be an alternative.
• Rosie - Thermophobic ladies
  (Chalky, pen) As part of my weather-nut activities I have just discovered that in Jakutsk, Siberia, the current temperature is -50°C. Minus fifty. Not a breath of wind but a thin fog. Wrap up well.
• Chalky
  (Rosie) So what they say about Siberia is true.
• Rosie
  (Chalky) Parts of it, yes. Jakutsk is a large and quite agreeable city. All the buildings are on stilts about six feet high so the heat from them doesn't melt the permafrost. In the brief peaky summer it's warmer than London and very sunny.
• Boolbar - Snowy Beds
  Ooh! It is snowing!
  And JA has almost gone.
• Chalky
  (Rosie) Googled. Mammoth Museum!
  (Boolbar)Where?
  Gone.
• Boolbar
  [Chalky] In Bedfordshire: hence "Snowy Beds". And it only lasted a few minutes. The bulk of the snow is probably held up at customs along with all the lorry drivers' sandwiches, so it won't go hungry.
• penelope - Frostbite
  Currently in the wilds of Zeeland at the mill. 2C and windy. Cannot move for thick layers of clothing and ski socks, yet fingers frozen. Waiting for snow (due in about 20 minutes). The neighbours have a big shed/workshop with a wood burner in it and have invited us for chicken soup for lunch. I made 2 dozen mince pies last night to contribute and warm up in the stove’s oven. It’s not all bad.
• Rosie - Keep wrapped up
  (Chalky) Jakutsk is now down to -53°C. This is the "best" fog I have seen in years of monitoring this place. So far it's lasted well over a fortnight.
• Raak
  [Rosie] I have to wonder how many people die of the cold there every year. The temperature, that is, not the mostly harmless virus.
• Rosie - Hypothermia
  (Raak) I don't have any figures but I would guess the answer is none. Every winter it goes down to at least -45° so the cold is part of the environment and everybody knows it, even pissed teenagers at a guess. Sudden blizzards and storminess are pretty well unknown. There is actually very little weather in winter except a persistent thin fog, largely produced, it seems, by the city itself (people breathing, car exhausts, hot cups of tea etc).
• penelope - What the...?
  How can I be staying late at work when I work from home?
• Bismarck
  [Pen] Maybe those rioting people in your neck of the woods are simply marking the end of the workday by leaving home and finding something else to do.
• penelope
  [Bism] Could be.
• KagomeShuko - Staying late
  [pen] I often did that before I was terminated from my job. We still had to keep hours and I would have to finish up dealing with customers. I HATED customer service. What good does having an MA do if nobody cares that you have it?
• penelope - staying true
  [KS] You care. And it shows something about your intelligence and diligence that you have it. All of that feeds into what you do and how you do it and none of the experience is wasted. I have one in technical writing but nobody cares about that when they ask me to write a series of tweets about a conference. In fact, that isn't even the real me - the real me happens at evenings and weekends when I cook and do experimental baking and get outside.
• CdM
  [KS] What pen said. (View the source to read the hidden text)
  [pen] Do you have to get outside because of the experimental baking?
• penelope - vinaigrette regret
  [CdM] The only time my cooking upset the household was when I made chutney. The smell of boiling vinegar permeated the entire house and I was forbidden from making it again. The windy miller is Dutch and I think they're all allergic to vinegar (except that they're very keen on using it as a cleaning agent and a weedkiller - maybe that's why they think it shouldn't be in food or even on chips/fries *shudders*).
• Stevie - The Whole House is a Fume Cupboard
  [penelope] Wot, no extractor hood?
• Stevie
  What is it with women and not turning on the extractor hood when preparing to generate large volumes of offensive and/or corrosive gas under the guise of home economics? Mrs Stevie did some pork chops in the air fryer last night and by dint of adding some sort of powdered seasoning with onion to the meat she tear gassed the house. She was quite put out when I rushed into the kitchen, eyes streaming, mucus membranes all-but corroded away, and turned on the extractor hood.
• Chalky
  Jeez - those pesky women and their questionable extractor hood methodology
• penelope - Hoodies
  [Stevie] Nope - not in that house. We'd only just moved on from having only a gas hob sitting atop the tiny refrigerator to having a cooker with an oven underneath it. Until recently, many Dutch kitchens were not designed for cooking in.
  Perhaps Mrs Stevie has her own way of making you pay for having your dinner prepared for you.
• Stevie
  [penelope, Chalky] Her choice to cook (View the source to read the hidden text) . Why does the entire house have to reek? I don't use spray paint in the kitchen ffs.
• Stevie
  [Chalky] Well, given the choice, would you really rather the dilute acetic acid vapour were caught by the extractor hood filter or by your lungs? There's a reason your senses are offended by the stink. That is nature's way of telling you WARNING WILL ROBINSON!
• nfras
  [penelope] Begs the question, what were Dutch kitchens designed for?
• Rosie - Nasal unreliability
  (Stevie) Your senses would not be in the least offended by the smell of cyanide (nice almond-like pong) but get too much and you'd quite quickly be seriously dead.
• penelope
  [nfras] There'd be room to boil a pan of potatoes, carrots and onions and mash them together for stamppot, and to fry a pan of fat bacon. Or open a bag of pre-washed salad leaves. Loads of families keep a deep-fat fryer in the shed and use it there when they want to cook something 'fancy'. I think that's the entire Dutch cuisine of the 20th century summed up. There was much more variety in the days of the VOC apparently.
• Chalky - what's cooking
  (pen) When I lived on the W Germany/Netherlands border we had Dutch TV - I can't remember their cuisine featuring on either regular shopping trips to Roermond or on TV celebrity chef-style zoals Fanny Cradock :^)
  (Stevie) For clarification - my other half is the guilty party when it comes to cooker extraction methodology or lack of. He's a chap.
• Rosie - Cyanide
  [Rosie] I'm told the exact nature of the smell depends on the concentration.
• Software - Abraham Lincoln
  Met with a tragic death, it's his birthday today and mine as it happens. Hope i don't succumb to the same fate.
• Rosie - The real me
  (qua Rosie) I've smelt HCN several times, never in large quantities obviously, and it always has that nice bitter-almond smell. Apparently about 25% of the population are unable to smell it at all.
• Superman - Lincoln
  [Softers] Hope you don't, as the memorial for your birthday is already taken by the eponymous president, so you'd die in obscurity. He also had a biscuit named after him, maybe that would be an acceptable alternative?
• penelope - Rules of origin
  I thought Lincoln biscuits were named after the city. Also Nice biscuits. Or maybe I'm just dough-minded. I've taken up baking again - in the past fortnight I've made a massive batch of Belgian buns (not Belgian at all, apparently) and chocolate chip cookies. This week, it'll be lemon cookies and an apple-topped yogurt cake. (Most of this stuff gets shared with neighbours and millers at the windmill on Saturdays when we have shed coffee).
• KagomeShuko - Coooookie!!!!
  [pen] I'm always on a search for good chocolate chip cookies!
• Boolbar - Yum
  [pen] I like the sound of the apple-topped yogurt cake myself. Are there any vacancies for being your neighbour at the moment? :)
• penelope - crumbles
  [KagShuk] This is why I have stocks of butter in the freezer for when I get the urge to put the oven on and create something. It's now a exactly a year since I have seen any of my family IRL, and I've come to realise it's therapeutic to create something delicious from time to time [every week]. I'd never made US-style soft cookies before. Sooo easy. Impossible to get wrong. Soooo easy to eat too.
  [Boolb] A friend (a profesh cook) put the recipe on Instagram. She made it sound easy - let's see.
• Stevie not Rosie
  [Rosie the Original] I heard that in certain concentrations cyanide has a tang of garlic.
• Stevie
  In any event: Women! Stop stinking out the house/windmill with your experiments in chemical weaponry!
• penelope
  [Stevie] Is food (and specifically patisserie) considered chemical weaponry now?
• Rosie
  (the real Stevie, probably) I've never smelt it as garlic, always almonds. A bottle of potassium cyanide has got this smell due to hydrolysis. It's true that some smells can change with concentration. H₂S is bad eggs when dilute but The Full Monty is odourless and dangerously toxic.
• Simons Mith
  [penelope] Weaponry for sure, and not just chemical! Haven't you heard of dwarven battle-bread? I think it highly likely that the late Sir Terry got the idea when he cut his lip open on a bit of stale baguette or something.
• Stevie
  [penlope] Depends on the stench produced.
• penelope - I've been out
  This week's outing: got my tyres and windscreen wipers changed this morning. Left my thermal cup where I was working on my laptop in the waiting area. *rse. I'm not fit to be allowed out any more.
• penelope - Never again
  I'm definitely not fit to be allowed out. The thermal cup was at home but I have absolutely no recollection of bringing it in from the car nor of putting it in the sink.
  In other news, the Netherlands' non-essential shops are now allowed to open for shopping-by-appointment. I have booked a 10-minute slot at the hardware and household goods shop in the village for Friday at 17:15. I need new baking pans, a mop and bucket, and a dog brush. This is going to be like Supermarket Sweep.
• Rosie - Losing your marbles
  (pen) Wait till you get to my age. "Now, what did I come up here for?"
  Hairdressers open? I'm beginning to look a bit 70's-ish, instead of 70-ish.
• penelope - In short, yes.
  Hairdressers open. My favourite hairdresser now does it from home in Rotterdam but her husband is a Covid denier so I'm not going to go back there yet. I don't know where he's been. And the nearest village hairdresser made a hack of it when I went there in November so I'm not going back there (although it's had plenty of time to grow out). I might have to try the next town over - the historic one with a marina and a few posh shops. They're probably only any good at the windswept-been-out-sailing-all-day look though, and I can manage that all by myself.
• Raak - DIY
  Keep it short enough, and you can keep it short enough yourself.
• Rosie
  (Raak) Logical enough but having a good thick mop at my age is something you tend to hang on to and it needs a bit of professional attention.
• penelope - Anything else, Sir?
  I'm never having short hair again. I was mistaken for a boy too many times in my teens when I had short hair and it left scars.
• Pablo
  [Pen] Could be worse. When I think of some of the boys who were mistaken for girls (shudder)
• KagomeShuko - yummy, yum,y!
  [pen] Yep, I'm always on the lookout for a good soft chocoate chip cookie that has gooey chocolate chips when warm. I';; eat other ones to try, but I'm never satisfied with those. So many places in the U.S. sell some version.
  
  Also good to try different chips when baking. I don't know what all you have over in the U.K., but in the U.S., they have peanut butter chips and butterscotch chips. It can be fun to substitute or mix the chip types.
• penelope - chip butty
  [KagomeShuko] I used odd bits of chocolate I found in the cupboard, chopped it up, and in it went. Chocolate is a staple on my shopping list, but I buy it in odd places and keep trying out the new combinations. Some I like better than others for eating on their own. The remainders of bars of chcocolate that I don't like so much go into cooking.
  And yes, I buy discount supermarket own brands...
• Rosie
  And I thought I was a bit of a chocoholic.
• penelope
  [Rosie] I think I eat it every day, although only during the week as compensations for having to work!
• Stevie
  [Rosie] You not only approve of the term "chocoholic", you use it yourself? I'm amazed. Does that mean I have to be the one to rant about "chocohol"? 8o)
• Stevie
  Chocolate is the one thing that mankind has invented that is worthwhile.

  Apart from all the other stuff like antibiotics and heart valves and electronics and like that.

• Rosie
  (Stevie, penult) Don't forget that despite a basically intellectual approach to life I can be a bit common. When you've disembowelled "chocohol" have a go at "workohol" - dreadul stuff, ought to be banned.
• Simons Mith
  Well the Pope's noted for being a catholic, so if that word's okay for him...
• Tuj - Well!
  [SM] Fittingly, your observation has given me an epiphany. His followers must be behind cats being so popular on the internet!
• KagomeShuko - chocolate, chocolate, chocolate
  I always try to have chocolate on hand!
  
  I have Girl Scout Thin Mints right now!
• Rosie
  (KagShu) Stop it! You exacerbate my cravings!
• Boolbar
  [KS] Surely any chocolate on hand would melt? It would be better in the mouth. Also, what Rosie said!
• penelope - mmmm chocolate
  I take your random chocolate and raise you one banana toastie. I spent a whole dog walk in the rain thinking about it, and made one for lunch when I got in. (Also made a cheese and onion toastie too - it was cold out.)
• Bismarck
  I don’t actually like chocolate.
• Rosie
  There speaks a brave man. Respect, bruv. Er, can I have your bit, then?
• Chalky - Not a cliché
  I'm not that excited by it either
• Bismarck
  [Rosie] Considering I live in Belgium, there’s quite a lot to go around, so be my guest.
• Boolbar - Heresy
  I have to admit, I prefer a nice fruity pudding or cake to a chocolate one.
• penelope - Any pudding, any cake.
  Except Battenburg. Marzipan is the Devil's earwax.
• Rosie - Emetic
  In that case, pen, how would you describe spinach purée?
• penelope
  [Rosie] Green. Best stirred into a good, strong curry until it disappears.
• KagomeShuko - Desserts
  I have all kinds of desserts right now. I have Girl Scout Cookies - thin mints, toast yay! (which taste like French toast), Lemonades (lemon shortbread), and shortbread cookies. I always like to buy Girl Scout cookies if I see them being sold by troops or by somebody that I know selling them.
  
  For my snackage, I've got Fritos and Bugles and then some Frito's Bean Dip and Anthony's Cheddar Cheese Powder (mix some in with some of the bean dip).
  
  I also got some pomegranate juice and cherry coke. Put some ice in a glass, a tiny bit of pomegranate juice, and then fill the glass up with cherry coke and that is extremely relaxing. If you put too much pomegranate juice, it becomes too bitter.
• Chalky - snackchat
  [KS] You sound like my granddaughter
• Chalky - A Sticky End Game
  My interjection back in December 2020 appears to have stalled Bin Laden's moribund progress (or was that Software's buxom lass?) - so I've returned to apply CPR - to the game not the corpse
• Stevie
  [Chalky] I just got my first interjection yesterday. I get my second one on April 12th, and then I am free! Free to ride the Long Island Rail Road and sit in an office of miserable ingrates while I listen their snarky comments.
• Rosie - Interjection
  (Stevie) Stop interrupting. BTW I get my second jab before you, on April 8, so there. I shall then be free to sit at home and wait for the pubs to open properly and the barbers because I am now quite hirsute, you could say. 70's-ish even.
• Stevie
  Ha! My hair is now at Epic Back To The Future Amateur Scientist levels. When I was 17 this length of hair would tumble over my shoulders in tight ringlets a-la '70s Jimmy Page. These days, what there is of it sticks out a-la Van der Graff generator.
• penelope
  I'm getting a haircut tonight - the first since November. Salons here were allowed to open up a couple of weeks ago, but I thought I'd let them practice on a few other heads first and get their hands back in before letting them loose on mine. I haven't had hair as long as this since 1993.
• KagomeShuko - jabby jabby
  [Stevie], [Rosie] I get my second shot on April 9. It's at 11am Central time, I think, so late morning for me, but I think that makes it somewhere around 4pm ove in England . . .
• Rosie - Chronometric dislocation
  (KagShu) I noticed you posted that at 8.28 a.m. GMT which is (I assume) 2.28 a.m. CST. You're as bad as me nocturnality-wise. Maybe not quite as bad.
• Stevie - I am absolutely using "interjection" instead of "vacillation" from now on.
  We should have some sort of poll on what flavour of interjection everyone was subjected to. I had a Pfizer interjection.
• Dujon - Ouch!
  I'm jabsolutely with you, Stevie.
• Rosie
  (Dujon, Stevie) You're a couple of pricks.
• Boolbar
  [jab] I had that one that sounds like a type of car owned by bad drivers who like to change lanes for no good reason and have lots of children who gawp at you through the rear window.
• Bismarck
  [hair] on Tuesday they decided to close all the hairdressers again for an indefinite period, so I managed to squeeze myself in immediately before the shutdown. Prior to that I had looked after my own hair, which didn't work too badly, although the barber did spend his time sniggering when he saw me.
  [Jab] the government in Belgium reckons that it will have finished with all the interjections by about 2025, so I am wondering whether I should make a definite attempt to become one of the people at risk, maybe go for obesity or a small heart murmur or if the whole thing will take so long that in any case age catches up with me. Although there is always the free version...
• KagomeShuko - Lots of stuff . .
  [Rosie} Yes, I am terrible about going to bed on time unless I make myself like I did last night so I could get up and go to church.
  
  I got the Pfizer vaccine. I'll be so glad once it is two weeks after my 2nd injection. It won't change much for me, but still ready to get back to some semblance of normalcy.
  
  Had some little kids add to my art car today, so that was fun.
  
  I am not sure if these are good cat names or bad cat names . . . Dreaming last night, lots of things where I was talking to somebody and don't remember, but I do remember that in my dream, somebody had two cats. One was named Four Face and the other was named Garbage Can Corners.
• Rosie
  (KagShu) There was man who had two cats
  And these two cats were brothers
  Four Face was the name of one
  And Garbage Can Corners the other.

  There's just nothing to say to that.

• CdM
  Hardly any vacillations or interjections happening here yet, Dujon notwithstanding. On the plus side, we also have no COVID, so there's that.
• Dujon - Jabberwocky
  We two - that's me and Mrs Dujon, not me and the cat - a few days ago booked in for our treatment at the local clinic. The first available date? May 12th.
• Rosie
  (Duj) Makes me think of the Fire Brigade joke - "Keep it going; we'll be along in about an hour".
• Bismarck - Winter is coming
  Minus 2 °C, a bit more than an inch of snow overnight.
• penelope - Back in boots
  Hovering around 1°C here (I'm a few dozen km NW of Bismarck, I reckon) so the wet snow and sleet that's being hurled along by the stiff wind doesn't settle. It's grey. It's darker than it should be. I'm in the top room in the house working and the wind outside is howling mournfully around the corners.
  Last Wednesday - only a week ago - I took an afternoon off and was walking along one of the big rivers with the dog and picking tulips under blue skies and in 22°C.
  Ruddy weather.
• Chalky - Chilled out
  Still -3° here - feels like -5° my phone app tells me. Not going out to find out for myself.
• penelope - I may be some time
  I went out just now. Back to full winter dogwalking gear (three layers minimum on every body part except knees). Could not hear a thing due to fleece band over my ears, flapping hood and roaring wind.
  Not really much fun at all but the fish finger sandwich I made when I got home was excellent.
• Dujon
  So, how's the dog?
• Fish
  Now where did I leave my fingers?
• Chalky
  (pen) Him indoors loves fish finger sandwiches. Puts my teeth on edge - the double breadness eek
• penelope - Dog fingers
  [Duj] Dog was fine. If we keep moving he keeps warm enough, and he sleeps afterwards for most of the afternoon on the spare bed in my home office.
  [Fish] where did you last have them?
  [Chalks] I'll make an exception for a FFS, but I cannot do lasagne and chips. Double carbs, noooo!
• Rosie - Vroom!
  (pen) Double carbs? You got an old Mini Cooper?
• KagomeShuko - always more stuff . . .
  Things have been a bit crazy for me, still.
  
  Things worked out as I had some friends from the Methodist church where I am an associate member come "resuce" me. I was able to get my 2nd vaccination and get my taxes done.
  
  My problem was my car is in the shop and everywhere that used to rent a car or a vehicle to me now wouldn't because I don't have a major credit card. I keep getting declined when I apply for one. Some stupid law went into affect in March that makes it difficult for anybody that needs to rent any type of transportation.
  
  My key broke out of my key fob and since I and the secretary from my Lutheran church were having trouble with it, with it sometimes seeming to run the radio and lights, the battery might also be dead.
  
  And this was after actually finding a mechanic open on Good Friday because my car was "stuttering" and jerking when I would try to accelerate and it wouldn't go over 40mph (64.3738 KPH) most of the time unless I was going downhill.
  
  Mechanic found that the VVT solenoid needed replacing and actually had the part right then and fixed up the car!
  
  This time, though, it had to be towed to the closest Honda Dealership since the key was broken out of the fob
• Rosie - What a mess
  (KagShuk) In the UK, where we are a bit sweary, there's an old joke that goes like this:
  "Have you given your car a name"
  "Yeah, f****** car".
  Hope you get it all sorted. Are you back in Lake Charles?
• Stevie
  [KS] No credit card in the Land of the Free? Life must be super difficult. The trick to getting round the first card bck in the mid 80s used to be to apply for American Express, as they would give a card to anyone with a flat credit report. With the Stevieling we started with store charge cards and worked up. What a colossal pain in the rear.
• penelope - credit where credit's due
  Hmmm. Credit cards are hardly a Thing in the Netherlands. I don't think I have used mine here for more than a year - although I do use it to order flowers and stuff for my mum over the phone with businesses in the UK.
  Keys on the other hand are deffo a thing. I am proud to announce that I have been allowed to put the keys to the windy miller's windmill on my keyring - after 12 years here.
• Stevie - Cards
  [penelope] So how does one hire a Dutch car without a credit card?
• Rosie
  (Stevie) Halve the cost by going Dutch.
• penelope
  [Stevie] Companies expecting furriners as customers will accept them, but in general supermarkets don't.
• Stevie
  But how do you hire a car without a credit card? The first thing Avis/Hertz/Budget/Whothehellknows want to do when you start signing paperwork is a valid credit card. If credit cards are "hardly a thing" what replaces that process?
• Stevie
  As an aside, I've never understood why UK people prefer to use *debit* cards to credit cards. The issue being spending one's own money over spending the bank's. The whole fraud impact shifts to the individual with debit cards. With a credit card a fraudulent transaction *never* puts one out of pocket. Someone takes your card to Las Vegas, with a debit card you are in the position of arguing to get your money back, as opposed to contesting the spending of the bank's money with a credit card.
• Raak
  [Stevie] On the other hand, when a disute arises, cancelling a direct debit arrangement is easier than cancelling a recurring charge to a credit card. A direct debit is an instruction from me to my bank, that I can revoke at will, without the involvement of the party I am paying. If they think I still owe them money, it's up to them to chase me for it. The same thing on a credit card is an agreement with the person I am paying, and I have to chase them to stop presenting their bills to my card issuer. This caused me some hassle years ago when I was trying to sever my relationship with an ISP that I could see was about to go out of business.
  
  [pen] Do they use debit cards over there, or is it wads of cash only?
• Simons Mith
  I hope it's not tulip bulbs again. That went badly wrong last time.
• Stevie
  [Raak] Well, I honestly don’t know why anyone would set up recurring payments for anything. My memory of cancelling standing orders on UK bank accounts matches what you describe for credit cards. Innever set up recurring payments if there are any other options available. I think I had one annual one with Malwarebytes, but it expired with the card (replaced due to fraud).

  Not only am I unconvinced on the preferability of debit cards, I still don’t understand how one hires a car without a credit card. Or reserves a hotel room. When I went to Canada I used a debit card, but it only worked because my US debit card could be processed as a credit card. The Canadians at the hotel and airline were adamant a Canadian debit card would not process that way and therefore would not be accepted for payment. I had to insist they tried each time I needed to do it as they didn’t think it would work.

  So I ask again, how do you rent a car without a credit card?

• Stevie
  Also, although you are right that an agreement tompay is with the seller, itbis negotiated via the bank who (with my credit record) guarantee good faith of the seller. I’ve disputed a few charges in my time with this bank, always resolved in my favor with a phone call to a toll-free number. I’ve executed three “charge backs” in my credit life too. That’s where the vendor does something sneaky and takes the cash, I argue with them for a bit and then ask the credit card company to get a refund for me. A single phone call, a discussion to demonstrate I’ve exhausted all other avenues, and a credit.
• Stevie
  Just did one last week. I ordered a tool case before xmas. Never arrived. Each month I checked and the order was marked “open”. I sent three emails, one a month asking for an update, and pointing out how many emails I had previously sent. Instead of sending a fourth I made a call to the CC company and bang, that was the business. I got an email this week from the cheeky buggers I placed the order with, cancelling the order and telling me how sorry they were ... that I had cancelled the order. Not word one about how I'd made them an interest free loan for four months.
• penelope - Pinning
  Hardly any cash any more - contactless payment is encouraged now, especially since Covid-19 made cash so filthy (I was a cash carrier by habit - always preferred to feel real money before I spent it). You don't even have to put your PIN in for anything under 50 euros. But the automatic egg-and-potato shop machine near the windy miller's windmill (the BEST eggs - you can wave to the chickens in the orchard as you drive past) still takes only cash. If I need small change (for example to leave the right amount of cash for my cleaner) I feed my bank notes from the ATM into the egg machine and get eggs and coins in exchange.
  Don't ask me about ApplePay - that's beyond my knowledge. Probably more common in the cities but I don't go there any more.
  And as I think I've said, you can hire a car with a credit card - I would imagine. Never tried it here.
• Stevie
  But that won't put a lien on future responsibilities like a trashed hotel room or a dinged-up car. That's why Avis etc want to run a card here. And I wouldn't be caught dead using a phone to pull my cash out of my bank account. Two whole levels of potential screwery in one transaction - that could be the bank's problem instead. Matbe I'm super-sensitized from reading all the uckfups in the trade papers, but phone payments against a bank account? Madness.
• Stevie
  According to This web site "Hiring a car in Netherlands is a must in order to get around. Debit card car rental can be tricky to find as it’s rare that you come across a company that will let you hire a car without a credit card in Holland. "

  Which suggests that Holland is like anywhere else in that the norm is you need a credit card to hire a car (but that this company might let you do so with a debit card; restrictions apply). I knew Steve Martin couldn't be that wrong.

• penelope
  *lets Stevie ask questions and ignore suggestions while answering them himself*
  It's like watching someone's Googling process in real-time.
• Tuj
  [pen] Never mind that, tell us more about this amazing egg machine! Is it transparent-fronted? Does it have a many-lettered Dutch name?
• KagomeShuko - Speaking of the Netherlands, that's where this was ordered . . .
  Praying that everything goes well with the international payment and shipment for my laptop with linux. I'm having it sent to a friend's address because of this constant moving around. I'm excited as I have needed a good laptop and I like Linux. I have a much better time with it than Windows (and I have a much better time with Windows than I do with Macs/Apple products, but it seems both always want to just take your money). My tax return is paying for this. Here's what I ordered.
  Clevo NV41MZ 14-inch Linux laptop
  Processor: i7-1165G7 (2.80 tot 4.70 GHz – 4 Cores – 8 Threads – 12MB Intel® Smart Cache)
  Grafisch: NVIDIA GeForce GTX-1650Ti - 4GB DDR5 - 120Hz display - NV41ME
  Memory: 64 GB DDR4 @ 3200MHz CL22 (2 x 32 GB)
  Operating system: Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon (64-bit)
  OS Drive: 2 TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD (Seq. Lees: 7000 MB/s, Schrijf: 5000 MB/s) Fastest choice
  Full-Disk Encryption: No full-disk encryption (LUKS)
  Language of Linux: English (default)
  Notes: Can Zoom and OpenShot Video Editor be pre-installed on this, too?
  Additional Software: Firefox, LibreOffice, Gimp, Skype, VLC, Audacity, Steam, Spotify, PuTTY, Calibre, digiKam, Inkscape, Kodi, LibreCAD
  Wireless: Intel AX200 WiFi tot 2400 Mbps + Bluetooth 5.1
  Keyboard: United States International QWERTY (with super-key)
  Cooling Paste: Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut 73 W/mK
  Power Plug: US power plug
  Accessories: Additional 90W Charger (with selected plug), Free install/recovery USB with selected OS (32GB USB 3.2 gen1), External USB DVD-RW Drive
  Warranty: 36 Months (3 years) Warranty + Free Pick-up & Return (EU countries only)
• KagomeShuko - Not in Lake Charles, car finally fixed, I think . . . and it's an art car becaues I wanted it that way
  I'm not back in Lake Charles. My insurance on the side of getting my house repaired is being difficult. I'm in a hotel in Port Arthur, TX and on Friday, I have to move to a different hotel in that city.
  
  The hotel where I am was very rude and let somebody come into my hotel room while I was gone when I didn't ask for housekeeping service (and I was in Lake Charles/Sulphur for a night because I had to take care of some things - and one thing was getting decent laundry bags so I could clean and do laundry) and they complained about "the condition of the room" because I have clothes on the floor and dog food out for my dogs.
  
  Even after getting my key for my car, it was having the same problem again and I want to say it was "juttering" with starting/stopping and stuttering and kinda jutting here and there. I took it back to the mechanic that fixed the VVT solenoid and it needed a new air intake hose.
  
  I have lots of fun with it being an art car and it makes me smile when I see it. I named it Hodge Podge (but it's a Honda and not a Dodge). I've got things all over it - things that are cute and inspirational - and there are a couple of little boys at my church in Bridge City, TX and their mother talks t them about the car and they put new things on it. I want it that way, where different people add things to my car.
  
  There's hardly anywhere to stay in Lake Charles. There aren't apartments with places and there aren't hotel ready for any long term guests. I sure wish my insuranace would get on the ball.
• Stevie
  [penelope] I remind the member from Windmill-on-the-Dyke that *she* was the one that said "Credit cards are hardly a Thing in the Netherlands" then prevaricated around the bush when asked an honest question about how that society handled fairly common stuff that absolutely requires a credit card Chez New York. Extraordinary claims and all that. I hardly think that having made a blanket statement about credit card usage in the Netherlands then forcing the audience to go and check for themselves qualifies one for the moral high ground and implied "let me google that for you" smugness harrumph harrumph.
• Stevie - Vending machine love
  [Tuj] Have you come across the Car Vending Machine?
• Bismarck - Credit
  In the days when currencies were multifarious, credit cards were a great way of avoiding having to carry various denominations around Europe with you. Except that some countries didn't believe in them, like Germany, where if you couldn't bite it wasn't money. My father-in-law drove down once and tried to fill up his car at the local petrol station, but they didn't accept credit cards, and pumped out of the exact quantity from his tank and told him to get lost. Later, when credit cards started to exist there, the company that I was working for there decided that everybody should have company credit cards, which they being American decided would be American Express. Unfortunately nobody within 100 miles accepted it, and they were all on the other side of a border.
• Stevie
  Yes, I remember distrust of credit cards when I was young. However, I wasn't evangelizing their use to anyone else, just pondering the seeming national UK preference for debit cards and wondering about how some US-centric "credit card or on yer bike" stuff gets done in places where credit cards are not favoured.
• Stevie
  So how is Brexit playing out in the UK? We only get the gleeful schadenfreude write-ups of the things that are reportedly falling apart. Is it still seen as the Last Best Hope for Peace (View the source to read the hidden text) ?
• Stevie
  Not looking to start a fight I hasten to add. Just not getting the real story from the various sources I use. I don't care if you are pro or aginnit. The huge bloopers that the press love (fish, NI) must be masking other "smaller" wins no-one is writing about.
• Rosie
  (Stevie) Brexit is off the agenda for the moment as it is now slowly dawning on people that maybe Boris is not quite the wholesome jolly fellow they thought he was, or, if they didn't but thought it didn't matter, they think it does now, a bit more at least. The front of Private Eye invites us to enjoy the carnage as Johnson and Cummings beat the shit out of each other. No wonder Boris didn't sack Cummings after the latter's optical quest in County Durham. Cummings probably knows a lot and is nasty enough to use it. Come on, Dom, do 'im over. BTW I hope you know over there pondwise what I'm on about.
• penelope - Gunboats
  WTF? I knew Brexit was going to be bad but didn't think it would get to this point after just 4 months.
• Stevie
  You are a mere slip of a gel and do not remember the Iceland debacle.
• Rosie
  (Stevie) That wasn't a proper war, just a cod one. BTW you won' 'arf get it from pen.
• Stevie
  [Rosie] Gunboats in the water, trawler nets cut. Isn't this the way the current contretemps is heading? Reads that way over here.
• KagomeShuko - is lost . . .
  I know some of that was poly-ticks. Still, I am lost. I know there was an ostrich war and the ostriches won . . .
• Dujon - And then the dragoons arrived.
• penelope - Let them eat sweeties.
  I'd much rather have dragees than dragoons.
• Chalky - Anti Rrhinums
  Prefer a Snapdragon to all the above. Beautiful prolific garden stalwart.
• Stevie
  A plague of greenfly upon all gardens! AaaaAAAAAAAHCHOOO!
• KagomeShuko
  I like dragonflies . . .
• Rosie
  (KS) I hope you cook them first.
• penelope
  Just had lovely text message from my sis (who has undergone almost a year of surgery and recovery followed by shitty chemotherapy) and was having a follow-up with her oncologist this afternoon. "It's all gone!!!!!" Phew.
• Rosie
  (pen) Great news. Your sister may take some time to recover from the treatment. I'm very glad I didn't need chemo - radio- and hormone therapy rather knocks you about a bit anyway but is much better than being dead. Much better.
• Chalky
  [pen] good to hear :^)
• Software
  Great to hear good news.
• penelope
  Thanks folks. Today is her birthday so she's giddy with excitement (even at the age of 53) and I've just eaten a LOT of cake (because, why not? I haven't seen any of them for almost a year and a half and still can't visit but we can have family solidarity through the medium of cake).
• Superman
  Does cake work better than Zoom?
• Stevie - pen's sis
  Great news.
• Boolbar
  [pen] Great news about your sister, and also about the cake :)
• Pablo
  [pan] Good stuff for both you and sis. All hail the power of cake. {see old Chris Morris videos}
• KagomeShuko
  [Rosie] Not like that! But you made me curious and I found out they are edible. I still have zero desire to eat them. They are pretty to see, though!
• penelope - Is it just me?
  I'm pretty sure that it's exacerbated by enforced staying-stillness right now, but I have seriously itchy feet, so much so that I constantly have the marine traffic app window open as I work, and I watch the progress of ships through the day. Does anyone else get a massive feeling of wanderlust when the days get so long that it's still light at 10pm? I feel like buying a campervan and taking four or five months off work to mooch about this corner of the world seeing the people I've missed over the past year and a half. I've always got this feeling around now - particularly since a road trip into the Arctic Circle in midsummer 1995, then working on motor rallies with night stages in the north of Scotland, or driving through the night down the M4 to go camping in Cornwall... Midsummer (even though it's flipping chilly right now) is not meant for staying in. That is all.
• Stevie - Waltzing Matilda
  [penelope] Not so much that I yearn to join the Merchant Navy. I do have genuinely itchy skin right now, which ius driving me nuts.
• KagomeShuko - Always dark by 10pm
  Where I live, it's never light at 10pm. Sunset MIGHT happen as late as 8pm . . .
• penelope
  [Stevie] But one can buy a passage on cargo ships as a non-working passenger. There used to be a website that listed the ships offering it and their destinations. I now know how I'm going to spend my next break from writing this dull thing today.
  [KagomeS] If you ever get the opportunity to make a road trip, drive north (a long way north) in midsummer. It's fabulous.
• Raak
  I like summer morning walks over the meadows before 5am. I saw a deer last week, which I never saw there before in many years of living here.
• Boolbar
  [Raak] Impressed. I thought 6:30am is an early time for a walk. The lack of people at that time allows a lot of wildlife to be spotted. I often see muntjac deer and hares.
• penelope - Views from windows
  I’m lucky. I saw hares in the field behind the house from bed this morning, and watched buzzards riding the thermals from the kitchen window as I was making pizza last night.
• Boolbar
  [pen] that must be one hot pizza oven to produce buzzard bearing thermals via your windows!
• Rosie
  (Boolbar) ROFLMAO. This is why we have Global Warming.
• Stevie - penelope
  Traveling the world by tramp steamer is a staple of my secret vice - the Call of Cthulhu RPG. Pre-website, one had to use a shipping agent. (View the source to read the hidden text)
• KagomeShuko - Boat-cars?
  [pen] Unless there are some MAJOR upgrades to cars, it's goig to take a lot more than driving to get to where it is light past 10pm for me!
• Stevie - Buzzards
  [Boolbar] *<nods>* Were I to observe thermal-riding buzzards o'erhead I might suspect a roof fire. I was once driven from Mrs Stevie's gas barbecue by a very threatening praying mantis, all of 1 inch long.
• Stevie
  How it reached the pedals with its tiny legs remains a mystery.
• Rosie - Light nights
  (KagShuk) Even here in the south of England there is quite a lot of light at 10 pm BST (9 pm GMT) and in the north of Scotland it barely gets dark in June, given a clear sky.
• McPablo
  Ay, why wud ye want the dark anyhoo, tis only fer miscreants ter get oop ter evil deeds in (Playing Calvinist card kept from my NZ upbringing)
• Rosie - Raised vowels
  Shurely the dark is the bist time to have six.
• Radox The Green
  I lived up near Sunderland for a while, and what the summer days lacked in warmth, they made up in length.
• Rosie - Mr Logic
  That, I'm afraid, is a false equivalence. The same could be said for winter at the North Pole or even southern England.
• KagomeShuko - Do that have water cars?
  [Rosie] Well, that's nice, but I live in the United States. I find that it even gets dark fairly early in the northern states. I don't know about Canada, but I've heard that it's around 8pm or 9pm at the latest when it gets dark there.
• Rosie
  (KS) The 49th parallel misses us by some way. The latitude of my place is 51.318 and Edinburgh and Glasgow are not far of 56°N. The clocks are an hour ahead of the Greenwich meridian in summer but not in winter. There are few things more gloomy than a cloudy December afternoon in Britain. Pretty well dark at 4 pm.
• penelope - Back-endish
  From 30-odd degrees last week to 18-odd degrees this week. Honestly, I am struggling to know what to wear [to sit at my desk at home alone all day except for a dog walk but I do know that those comfy old shorts are going in the bin - I caught sight of my reflection and recoiled I tell you. ]
• KagomeShuko - changing weather and inside temperature
  [pen] I often feel like I need three to four different sets of clothes to bring along with me everywhere, each day, when out and about in Southwest Louisiana or Southeast Texas.
• penelope - a closed-toe shoe day.
  So, any plans for this weekend, peeps?
• Chalky - no rest ..
  [pen] Worked. Took a break to watch a football game so it wasn't quite all work and no play.
• Rosie
  (Chalky) Fair enough. But what are you doing up at quarter past six in the morning? 0615 hrs simply does not exist in any way, shape or form.
• Chalky
  [Rosie] awake but not up.
• Rosie
  (Chalky) Ah! Unlike me before midday then - up but not awake.
• Bismarck - Weather
  [Rosie] that anomaly in Canada/US seems to have seen record temperatures increase locally not by the odd degree C, but by ten or so. Ever seen that elsewhere?
• KagomeShuko
  The weather in the U.S. had definitely been strange.
• Rosie
  (Bismarck) Well, five, actually but even that is quite something and I'm not aware of anywhere in the world whose record has been busted by such a large margin. Having said that, one needs to be extremely rigorous in investigating the circumstances of any weather record. How long has the site been operating? Is the site representative of the area? Has it become built-up? Are the instruments reliable? Is the observer honest? That may all sound a bit dampening but it's absolutely necessary if the figures are to be put into historical context. I'd like to read some scientific articles about the heatwave; they should be appearing pretty soon. Certainly ignore the media who all have their agendas, one of which is to attract readers.
• penelope
  Waiting for enormous amounts of water to come gushing down the Rhine/Rijn through the Netherlands in the next couple of days. They're estimating record flows.
• Bismarck
  Belgium is under water. It's been raining for weeks. Aaaand it's St Swithin's Day.
• Rosie - 40 days of . . . .
  (Bis) Well, it was here, yesterday. Isn't the Belgian equivalent St Godelieve, whose day was 6 July. It's bollocks, I tell you, like all weatherlore.
• penelope
  [Rosie] Wet bollocks innit? 'Ash before oak' and all that. (I didn't notice which was first this year, despite walking out every day past both kinds of trees...)
• Simons Mith
  That's a safe assumption for any 'wise' saying that you can reverse engineer from just a couple of words. I wondered if the word 'soak' was going to show up in the rest of the rhyme before even looking it up. Imagine my amazement when I discovered it did.
• Rosie - Water, water everywhere
  (pen, Bismarck) This is quite a big one but European summer floods occur every now and then. Technical explanation here.. (V heavy going - don't bother). The world's a warmer place but whether that had anything to do with it is the subject of great debate. After all, Lynmouth was swept into the sea in 1604, 1769 and 1952 and it'll certainly happen again. The first two dates were in the Little Ice Age, when it was cooler and stormier.
• Radox The Green - Pi Approximation Day
  Worth celebrating?
• CdM - Water, water in a very specific place
  We sold our house in France earlier this year, which broke my heart, because I loved the place. BUT I am relieved not to have to worry any more about it being underwater. In 2016, we came within about 50cm of having the Seine fill our basement rooms floor to ceiling.
• Stevie
  To have kept such a house would have been in-seine.
• Tuj - [Oblig]
  [RTG] Almost.
• Rosie
  (CdM) That's a bit too close.
  (RTG) No good. Pi=355/113. Even better pi = the fourth root of 2143/22.
• KagomeShuko - early here
  It may be 2:42 in the morning where I am, but I need dark chocolate and am going to eat some and I don't care if anybody cares.
• Rosie - Nocturnal indulgence
  (KagShu) Very gratifying to note that I am not the only nutcase here though I must say I prefer brandy at that time of night.
• penelope - Nocolate
  [KS] Whatever gets you through the night. For me, it's not usually chocolate (that would involve climbing stairs and I usually eat it before bed anyway) but quite often another half-hour episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot is in order.
• Raak
      Three in the morning
      In the dead space of the night
      Bach and Pachelbel.
• Bismarck - Sleeplessness
  Couldn’t sleep last night at all. Blamed on the Covid jab for want of anything else, and on the anti-apnoea device. It’s a real bugger to be a light sleeper like me.
• Boolbar
  I usually have no problems getting off to sleep, it is the waking up at sparrow's fart and not being able to get back off to sleep that is wearing. Perhaps I ought to accept 4 to 5 hours at night plus one after a nice lunch is enough at my age. My eyes disagree.
• Radox The Green
  The siesta is definitely a good idea. Those Spanish are on to something.
• Tuj
  Mrs Tuj has had this week off work specifically to watch the Olympics, and has been roughly living on Tokyo time. It's been a wee bit disruptive!
• CdM - Raak's insomnia cure
  
  Canon to his left
  Canon to his right. Into
  The valley of sleep
  
• Stevie
  Insomnia, Raak?
  Allow me to read to you
  From this C text book
• KagomeShuko - Stuff sucks
  So, now on top of everything else, I fell in the shower at a hotel because it was THAT slippery (I had turned the water on from outside of the shower, took one step in and fell . . . hit my elbow and it was hard enough that it caused something to go wrong with my shoulder. It's now EARLY Thursday morning where I am and it happened on Saturday. It popped and became worse Wednesday morning as I was getting ready. I have an MRI they are going to do. I've been seen by a doctor at an Urgent Care and they set me up with an orthopedist that saw me who wants me to get an MRI to see if I'll need surgery. It HURTS badly.
• Superman - Ouch
  In sympathy. Did you happen to push on that arm Wednesday? If so, reckon you've broken your radius. Had something similar. More sympathy.
• Simons Mith
  Oh no! That sucks mightily. So sorry to hear you're in the wars. I've just triple-checked my voodoo doll collection and you're definitely not in it. Let me offer you a big virtual hug. Virtual hugs may be intangible, but they're also guaranteed not to hurt.
• Pablo
  [KS]- what an arse. Sympathies, but you seem to be getting good treatment. I won't bother you with my story of 5 hours in outpatients because of a poisoned hand. That bloody hurt but not as much as a popped arm I'll bet. May the depopping come soon.
• A fish-monger
  Does anyone know how to start a new game?
• Rosie
  Yes, but I'm not one of them, being older than Methuselah, totally computer-illiterate and ethnically Welsh. Someone will help you, I'm sure, but it would be good form to announce what sort of a game you intend.
• Stevie - New Game
  New game slot unavailable here.
• penelope - New fish to fry
  [Fish-Monger] There are a limited number of game slots. Win one of the existing games with a move of pure genius to close that one and open up space for a new one. What kind of game were you thinking of?
• CdM
  [KS] I hope you have managed to stay safe and dry.
• CdM
  [Stevie] I hope you have also managed to stay safe and dry.
• rab - Taps mic
  My annual visit to check that the system upgrade didn't kill anything.

  Testing...

• Chalky - Gosh!
  *waves at rab*
• Boolbar - Blimey!
  [rab] Oooh!   But it appears that you are late this year. It was July in 2020 and August in 2019. Perhaps your orbit is being perturbed.
• rab - Waves back
  Yeah sorry I don’t drop by as much as I used to. But I’m doing well thanks yeah.

  Possibly. The debian release schedule is of the “it’s done when it’s done” type, and also it requires me to go and check their website to see if there has been a major release since last time I looked. This was one of the few upgrades that didn’t break anything, apart from forcibly deleting PHP for reasons I still don’t fully understand.

• penelope - Weekend plans
  None. Phew.
• Boolbar
  [pen] I'm sure your doggy will have things for you to do.
• KagomeShuko - My ouchie . . .
  Turns out I broke my collarbone. It's not been fun, but at least it was getting better. The first six weeks are miserable.
• KagomeShuko
  Happy Punctuation Day! Site does't want to let me add my examples of lesser known punctuation marks.
  
  https://www.facebook.com/kagomeshuko/posts/10159851060059529
• Chalky
  That's a bummm*r
• penelope - failed cook
  I managed to burn two pans of stuff yesterday. And the container I got out of the freezer to defrost for dinner wasn't goulash, as I thought, but chicken curry. I think we'll have beans on toast today.
• Rosie
  That's another bummer. I'm always doing it. Most of my stuff is overcooked.
• Pablo
  Here's a thought - learn to not live out of the freezer! (Pablo ducks as various rock-solid tupperware containers of unidentifiable foodish products are hurled at him, but stands firm in his unwavering belief in fresh food. Unless it's all run out, of course)
• penelope
  [Pablo] You're an urban dweller, I take it?
• Stevie - Learn ...
  Excellent advice Pablo. Also, everyone stop whining about pollution, just learn to breathe only healthy O₂/N₂ mixture.
• CdM
  Something very weird is happening with AVMA. I keep trying to post to the game, and it won't accept my post. Meanwhile the front page now describes it as a "Brand spanking new event"
• CdM
  Never mind. I think I broke it by trying to include some Japanese characters. I took those out and normal service appears to have been restored.
• Stevie
  I don't seem able to load the home page of that wily Scotsman McIos today.
• Simons Mith
  Seems ok from here... http://mcios.pathetech.com/
• Boolbar
  [Micky Os] I had a problem after a recent Windows "update". My browser then claimed Mcios had a wonky certificate. I found tipping my laptop to one side helped.
• Rosie
  (Bools) Did your browser actually use the word wonky?. If so, there is hope for the world.
• Pablo
  [Pen]Yes, very urban, but if I were rural I'd be into stealing vegetables, strangling chickens, eating grass (both sorts), foraging for mind-bending mushrooms, punching cows and generally making a bloody nuisance of myself. Only way to have an interesting life as far as I can see.
• penelope - hullo clouds hullo sky
  [Pabbers] No need for stealing vegetables - they drop off the harvest wagons as they turn the corner in front of our house. And once the harvesting machines have been through the fields, gleaning is tolerated, so you could easily get 50-60kg of potatoes for nowt if you put your back into it. Other aspects - such as the peace and quiet (ignoring loads of tractors, obvs), open views and panoramic skies - make it worthwhile. I'm hating cities more and more, to be honest, but then I'm in the lucky position of being able to do that from a distance.
• Stevie - Free Veg
  [penelope] So did you go for the speed bump or water-filled pothole to enact your nefarious-yet-brilliant veg "acquisitions"?
• penelope - Desperate measures
  We already have the water-filled pothole - everyone knows it's there. I feign reversing out of our parking bit in front of tractors to make them brake suddenly*.

  *Seriously, I don't need to - there are enough idiot drivers causing tractors to take avoiding action and there are spuds all over the roads.

• Stevie
  All round penelope's windmill for some chips done in beef dripping then!
• Stevie
  <*drools*>
• Bismarck - Chips in dripping
  There's still one chip shop around here that does them like that.
• Stevie - Nothing in particular
  And,um, where ... exactly ... is "around here"? Asking for, er, a friend.
• Stevie' Heart
  Aaaaarrrghgurglethrobflutter
• Rosie
  Hogs y sglods! (View the source to read the hidden text)
• Bismarck
  Sling this into Google Maps and you'll see it.
  F67M+5C Morlanwelz
• Bismarck - Chips
  I just found that it has a website, too. The name is Friterie de Mariemont.
  For the anecdote: A few years back, Belgian law changed because the chip shops were semi-mobile affairs with propane stoves which tended to explode. The majority of the shops were classed as "mobile" - that is temporary construction by the side of a road on public land, and prohibited. The idea was that anyone who wanted to remain open had to construct a proper building, but most got around it by putting a veranda up in front. This one was moved fifteen metres from the road on to private ground, and then they put the veranda up.
• penelope - Patat, Pataje, Friet, Frites, Chips met mayonnaise.
  [Bismarck] I see it - tucked into the back of the car park. We used to occaisionally drive the 15km over the border into Belgium to have chips for dinner at something similar They're everywhere. Our dog is called 'Chip' (or 'Chippie') after the food, BTW.
• Chalky
  [pen] I expect he has a 'chippie tea' at feeding time
• penelope
  [Chalks] We call it a 'Chippie dinner' (but the windy miller doesn't get the allusion to the colloquial chippy at all).
• Rosie
  (pen) How do you know what carpenters have for din-dins?
• penelope
  [Rosie] Dunno, but they probably eat it with a wooden chip fork.
• nights - While digging around in an old bookmark file...
  ... I found my MC bookmarks! I'm so pleased to see everyone still here!
• Raak
  Greetings, nights!
• Dujon - resurrections and aging
  (nights) Good to see you.
  (Rosie) MHR OM.
• Tuj
  [nights] Pleased to see you too! (And to have more than 8 words to say so)
• nights
  I honestly can't remember the last time I played. But (to put on my serious hat for a moment) I find that with the world being so grim, some light hearted fun is all the more precious. It's also nice to see that community online is still a thing.
  
  With that said, doffing my serious hat with a flourish and putting my balaclava of fun back on, I return to trying to find my rhyming dictionary...
• Projoy
  Anyone else having trouble reaching MCiOS?
• Rosie
  (Proj) No problem here.
• Chalky
  Belated Birthday Greetings Rosie!
• Dujon - MCiOS
  Yes, Projoy.
• blamelewis - MClostiOS
  Yes - me too.
• Raak
  I'm not seeing any problems at MCiOS.
• Rosie
  (Chalky) Cheers, m'dear.
• Chalky - Anniversaries
  (Rosie) It's got to be 20 years since WildPants? I know other MC servers existed in the last century but vaguely recall I didn't venture into them until Rab fashioned this one.
• CdM
  [nights] Welcome back! Do stick around for a while.
• Rosie - Wildpants
  (Chalky) I remember posting something in WildPants which for some reason mentioned my age, a mere 58. So yes, over 20 years ago. I seem to remember there was a Rogues' Gallery associated with it. Maybe we could have one here.
• nights - MCiOLOSS
  [Projoy et al] I'm also having problems getting to MCiOS...
• Boolbar - MCiOS
  I too cannot access MCiOS. I seem to remember something recently about changing its domain or IP or some such techobabble?
• nights - Finding MCiOS...
  It appears to be accessible again. It's always in the last place you look, isn't it?
• Rosie - Mr Logic
  (nights) Sorry to be a clever c*** but can I cautiously point out that it must be in the last place you looked because once you've found it you stop looking.
• Tuj - Censorship
  Wow, who knew rab hates Dutch shoes?!
• nights
  Another string to my bow is theatre tech. I've just spent ten hours plugging things in, unplugging them, bonking myself on the head with them, turning them around the right way, programming them, and that was just the actors.
• penelope
  So. Decision made. We're not going back to England for Xmas for a second year. Luckily I managed three trips between September and November (the latter for my mother's 80th birthday) before it all went loopy again. We've had half a shutdown in the Netherlands for the past 3 weeks (all evening stuff is closed, except supermarkets and petrol stations). The rate of booster vaccinations is speeding up so it might be before or just after Xmas for me and the windy miller.
  But folks, I'm curious. Who is still stupid enough to spread it after nearly two years of this shit? Come ON.
• Simons Mith
  My sister, apparently. I'm told she thinks 'healthy people don't need vaccines'.
• nights
  [pen] Students. "I'm young, I won't get sick even if I do get it." It's getting to the point that I dread going to work, which is a new and sad feeling.
• Rosie
  (pen) Not just that, but practically all patients in Intensive Care Units are unvaccinated. They are brainless, selfish and completely up their own arses.
• penelope
  I despair, I really do. Looks like the Dutch government is also going to eschew closing schools early for a firebreak over Xmas and the new year holidays so as 'not to interupt education'. Seems to me it would be the obvious thing to do at this stage. Co-worker's husband is a maths teacher and yesterday he tested positive. She's pregnant with twins. They are both vaccinated.
  This sucks.
• Raak - Gathering rosebuds
  Off to London this Sunday for some culture. I wonder if this is the last time it will be possible for a while.
• nights - Glub glub...
  Off to the UK via the tunnel on Saturday in my little COVID-safe Clio. Haven't driven on a British motorway in a good ten years. This is going to be entertaining!
• nights - Traffic report
  Apart from a minor contretemps near Heathrow, I have safely arrived in the Midlands. My little car behaved admirably and is going to be valeted as a reward.
• penelope - Clio capers
  [nights] Have a wonderful time with your nearest and dearest.
• Rosie
  Do motorways have a Clio Lane specially for samll Italian cars?
• Boolbar
  [Rosie] It's probably the same lane that a Mini Driver would use.
• Rosie
  (Boolbar) V good. ROFLMAO. I've had five of the little buggers and if you're not careful I'll give you all their numbers.
• nights - 1000kms later...
  Despite all the extra protocols, checks, tests, paperwork, swimsuit competitions and tie-breaker round ("In ten words or less, explain why you should be allowed to enter France"), the drive back home was excellent and I have brought back more PG Tips and Club biscuits than is strictly necessary.
• Stevie
  Le premier thé Anglais!
• nights - 2022
  And may I be the first to wish my lovely friends a happy, properous and cheerful 2022! The evening was spent with a small group of friends, LFTs in hand, playing Mysterium, and drinking a reasonable quantity of beer.
• penelope
  [Nights] Good to hear you were allowed back - and you successfully managed to drive on the wrong side of the road for a bit! Apparently tea and chocolate bars are OK (vegetable origin) but filled chocolates (truffles, bonbons) are not - they contain something more closely related to dairy - so the Dutch Marechaussee told me. And if you can't eat the whole box of chocolates in the car at Customs, then just order them all from Amazon in France or Germany. That's where I get my Yorkshire Tea and Fry's Chocolate Cream bars from.
• Rosie
  (pen) I get Yorkshire Tea from Waitrose. Good stuff is that.
• CdM
  [Rosie] Waitrose? There’s posh.
• Rosie
  (CdM) Not really. Not ridiculously expensive either. Nicer people than the Co-op.
• Boolbar
  (CdM) and wider aisles. Better loos too.
• nights
  The radio in the car on the way to work told me that there are signs that the pandemic may be slowing down. I then get into the office, open my inbox, and reel at the number of students off with COVID. It's almost as if... the media... has some kind of interest... in getting people... to worry about something else...
• Boolbar
  [nights] It may well be slowing down, but only after it got up to a fairly high speed to begin with.
• penelope
  Oh FFS. Vax-refusing neighbour over the road was ill last week but won't even take a home test - she's convinced there's something on the cotton swabs. There's no helping some people.
• Rosie
  (pen) What's her name? Mrs Djokovic?
• nights - Can you hear me now?
  Well, back to doing some classes online, which pleases absolutely nobody.
• Pablo
  [nights] Least of all those of us who have to teach the bloody things
• nights - Can you turn your cameras on please?
  [Pablo] Tell me about it. I had fourteen in my Friday morning class, not a face amongst them. Feels like I'm teaching my houseplants.
• Raak
  [nights] So, much the same as teaching in the classroom then?
• nights
  [Raak] Somewhat, yes, although I do find that it is frowned upon if I take things to their logical conclusion and teach in my pyjamas.
• Bismarck
  I have started telling my team that they have to turn up in the video conferences with the most interesting background they can make.
• penelope
  [nights] Have an on-screen hat day. Also, have you tried the 'hold up something green if you agree' or 'hold up something red if you disagree' rapid-fire quizzy-type thing instead of relying on mentimeter or other electronic gizmotrickery?
• nights - IT mischief for pedagogical amusement
  [pen] Nope and that is absolutely happening in my next online thing.
  
  In my last in-person thing, in the IT lab, I was practising using the software that allows me to look at the screens of my students from my desk. Not only does it nip any potential misuse of university facilities in the bud, but it allows me to send messages to all terminals in the session.
  
  My favourite message I sent ended, for a lark, "Please stand up and sit down again briefly to acknowledge receipt of this message." Within moments, there was a gentle wave of students gently bobbing up and down. Absolutely splendid.
• Pablo
  [pen][nights] Loving all this, only wish I had the wit to think of this stuff. As I teach music, perhaps I could declare that everyone must turn up with a sousaphone?
• Bismarck
  [Pablo] Surely you'd insist on a kazoo or Swannee whistle? Let battle commence.
• nights
  Well, off work for a week. I've celebrated this fact by getting up just as early as ever on a Saturday morning to have a cotton bud inserted into what felt like my frontal lobe. Anyone else had particularly sadistic COVID tests?
• Rosie - Sadism
  (nights) Not a COVID test but can I bid One Prostate Biopsy?
• nights
  [Rosie] Oh that doesn't sound nice. Hope the results are good!
• Rosie
  (nights) It was nearly 5 years ago, very painful but brief and the results were not good. Extensive treatment has cured it - it can be done. The Gland Of My Fathers, a naughty boy. Bachgen drwg!
• nights
  [Rosie] Glad to hear that things are better now. I went for an endoscopy at our local public-private-partnership hospital on Monday, and while I was impressed at how well everything went (it being my first time under general), I'm now slightly dreading the bill.
• Rosie
  (nights) That's one thing I don't have to worry about - I even got a free car park pass as a regular patient. Radiotherapy, i.e. 37 consecutive zappings with high-energy X-rays but at least you get the weekends off.
  Are you dreading the bill more than the result? I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad one. Whichever it is I hope they didn't find anything nasty.
• nights
  [Rosie] There aren't many things I miss about the UK, but the NHS is one of them. Something of a stereotype I know. Anyway, went in for the followup visit today and all is well. Have also paid the bill, and informed the children that Christmas is cancelled.
• Stevie
  [nights] They gave me the best drugs for the drainpipe-up-the-rear session I underwent. Much better than the carpal tunnel general. Needle went in after the usual faffing about trying to find a vein under the layers of manly blubber relaxed muscle I cultivate in my arms, turned on the faucet and the sitar music began almost straight away.
• nights
  After a fractious meeting or two and some very colourful emails, I have now made sure that the right ticks are in the right boxes for all of our students will be able to do their external English exams (rhymes with STOIC) at no cost to them. It's the small victories, eh.
• Stevie - Ticks
  Not ... the dread Brotherhood of Luxor Death Ticks?

  Death Tick
  Death ticks are clockwork menaces resembling ticks, but about the size of a man’s hand. They are programmed to seek out a living target, jump onto that target, and siphon the victim’s life fluids. Once the enemy is a dry husk, the tick returns to its sender. Any tick failing to reach the sender in 10 hours releases a corrosive acid and destroys itself.

• Stevie - Ticks
  And you surely can't mean ... the foul Prairie Tick?

  Prairie Tick
  Prairie ticks are the scourge of the High Plains. These horrid bloodsuckers live in underground burrows and are controlled by a single, giant queen that rules over each nest.

• nights - Ticks
  [Stevie] The only ticks I am experiencing are those of the clock marking off the seconds of the exam that I spend thinking of all the ways I could be using this time more productively if I wasn't required to be here watching students do an exam.
  
  Never mind, at least Saturday is open day, an entirely DIFFERENT way of wasting time...
• Stevie - This Saturday
  I'm running another episode of the increasingly hysterical Planet Mercenary RPG. You could join us if you weren't doing something else.
• nights - Last Saturday
  [Stevie] Ta verymuchly for the invitation, but I'm already part of two RPGs that never have the time to meet up - three would be an extravagance, I fear. That being said, I can confirm that D&D in French is hilarious when you don't know the right vocab.
• Stevie
  Well, May 7th we're back on Mars for some Space 1889. Dead easy Savage Worlds rules. Offer stands. Noon EST. Well, DST I guess.
• Superman - D&D off-planet
  [Stevie], how easy is it to learn?
• Stevie - Space 1889
  [Superman] So easy I can do it. Very, very easy. But don't take my word for it, come and join us and see for yourself. We can fold new players in without breaking a sweat. If they don't want to stay the course, that's OK too. Characters are easy to build. The Savage Worlds core (which is the "engine" under the bonnet) I usually describe as designed to reproduce Indiana Jones movies as a role-playing game. We use the same engine for my friend Craig's Dealands Reloaded weird west game, though I'm using an older version of the rules with some of the really neat new ideas bolted on for Space 1889.
• Stevie
  Here is the campaign blog though the last two entries were rushed due to Xmas and Vacations from Hell and pipes bursting and ceilings falling in and life generally sucking.
• penelope
  Well that's a month gone by in a flash. How is everyone doing? Anyone seen a swallow yet?
• Boolbar - Bird Brained
  No swallows, not even a gulp. However, seen on the bird feeder today: sparrow, pigeon, great tit, blue tit, dunnock, nuthatch, squirrel, jackdaw, mouse.
• Boolbar
  ...and having just popped to the kitchen I can add a female blackbird and a magpie to that list. It is all go today!
• Simons Mith
  Oh look, I've got a special 4-legged furry bird that goes miaow.
• Simons Mith
  I'll go out and talk to it
• nights
  I've spent the day interpreting for a meeting where everyone's second language was English, and I now have a headache the size of a zepplin. Good lunch though!
• Rosie - Dwyieithrwydd
  (nights) My Dad's second language was English. I take your point, though.
• Bismarck
  I sympathise, used to do the same thing very regularly. Have you tried doing both sides of a German-French conversation? Imagine so, given you location. There's a reason interpreters only do twenty-minute shifts...
• penelope
  Talking of second languages, I need to practice using my Dutch in shouted conversations with farmers across fields. Either that or just shut up and wave when I'm on lunchtime dog walks.
• Rosie
  (pen) Could depend rather crucially on what you say, or what they thought you said.
• Raak - Outages
  Dunx.org has dropped off the web. And we have not heard from Dunx for quite a long time. I hope this is just because he is too busy to participate in the Morniverse. Is anyone in regular touch with him? MCiOS seems to have a problem also: when I tried to post this there, I got “An error occurred while reading CGI reply (no response received)”.
• Simons Mith
  Can't see anything wrong from here...
• Raak
  ~: ping dunx.org
  ping: cannot resolve dunx.org: Unknown host
  ~: ping www.dunx.org
  ping: cannot resolve www.dunx.org: Unknown host
  And I'm still having the MCiOS problem in the chat game, but not in Room 101.
• Simons Mith - dunx.org
  It took some hours for the error to propagate, but now I see the same as Raak.
• Raak
  dunx.org is back in working order.
• Rosie - Look away NOW
  Rather feeble thunderstorm this afternoon ym Mhlas Huws. House still standing.
• Simons Mith - Quiet in here, isn't it?
• Rosie - Y tawelwch
  YMA O HYD!
• Radox The Green
  That's Welsh for "The Saints go marching in", isn't it...
• Rosie
  (RtG) Nope, not even this lot..
• Phil - Dropping by
  Howdy, folks!
• Rosie
  (Phil) Iawn, cont! mode=<cofi>
• penelope
  Howdy Phil! Are you recovered? And aren't you about to move house?
• Bismarck
  [Pen] That's a disguised threat if ever I heard one.
• Phil - Ummm....
  [penelope] I can't remember what I was recovering from, but other than my right shoulder (my bowling arm) responding well to physio after seizing up a bit over the winter, I'm very well thank you.
  I do plan to move house later this year (even closer to Rosie, I fear), although it seems to be a safe bet at any time in the last 25 years to ask me if I'm about to move house :)
• penelope - Ohhhh
  [Phil] Good to hear. I'm asking because I thought you had Covid the last time I saw you in here
  [Bismarck] If you hear a threat, that's entirely your interpretation, mwahahaahaha! It would be worse if the threat was to make sure you moved into a bungalow - no stairs. Euphemism for knee-breaking perhaps.
  I have no idea where I get these ideas.
• Phil
  [pen] That must have been the week before Christmas. I had a fun time in solitary with food and drinks being dropped off at the door. I genuinely enjoyed it :)
• Simons Mith - A random late-night thought
  I was just thinking about an annoying recurring dream I keep having - you know the one, where you're back at school/college/uni and you have a load of work to hand in that you haven't done because your darn brain only invented it a few minutes ago. I think one of the reasons it annoys me is that I'd started to notice this no-win part of the problem even while asleep. I begin to wonder if I might start metagaming about that in the actual dream before too long.

  And then, thinking back, I noticed other things - such as the fact that you rarely have conversations with other people in dreams, and that most people, if they can find a dream-book to open, find nothing useful or intelligible inside.

  And then I thought, these kinds of limitations are quite understandable - after all, your brain is literally inventing an entire fantasy environment around you in real time. Looking at it like that, it's staggering how realistic dreams are, in spite of their shortcomings. On the Crescent sites, a lot of us are creatives of some kind - including writers - so we know how hard is is to produce something halfway realistic in real life. In fact, it suddenly struck me to ask, 'Looking at the sheer amount of creativity that goes into a dream, and knowing how much mental effort it takes to do anything similar when up and about, how come dreaming isn't more mental effort than being awake??'

• Rosie
  (SM) I'm not convinced about creativity in dreams. I think most of the stuff is already there from previous life experiences, even the most trivial things, and they just get mis-associated. I have had rather vivid dreams but they are based on an enhancement or exaggeration of a reality I have experienced plus some imagination. They wake you up which can be briefly disturbing but whatever you do you cannot recreate that dream, be it nice or nasty, and it fades remarkably quickly. Alcohol has little effect - it's a small molecule that fits anywhere. A work colleague (a chemist) said it goes round the brain pulling out a few plugs.
• Simons Mith
  [Creativity - yebbut stitching material together in new and unexpected ways is what creativity is. The amount of creativity in different people's dreams may vary, but from what I can tell it easily matches and frequently exceeds the degree of creativity the same person can achieve when awake. Although I will concede a Captain Scarlet level of plot holes, for sure.]
• Superman - Creativitiness
  The idea that creativity is a matter of becoming unshackled, freed from restraint, when we would all be massively creative if only we could let go, is bollocks. Discuss.
• Raak
  No art without craft, but try saying that in an art college these days.
• Simons Mith
  I never said dreaming was unshackled creativity. It has at least one inescapable limit - the highly-connected blob of meat in charge of the whole mess.

  Or in the words of Humph, "The teams can say any word they want, limited only by their own imaginations.
  ... It's stiff, that rule."

• Rosie
  Isn't "meatbrain", as implied by your metaphor, something of an oxymoron?
• Simons Mith
  Brains can be made out of meat! [Archive link to www.terrybisson.com]
• Pablo
  Agreed that dreams are mostly mashups of one's past life (at least mine are, and it can be confusing to be in 3 countries at once). "An infinite capacity for taking pains" is a lousy definition of genius - that's just control freakery. Much better is "the ability to make connections where none were seen before". Whether those connections are made awake, asleep, or somewhere between really doesn't matter. That begets creativity.
• Rosie - Genius
• Rosie - Genius
  (Pablo) Your second definition is by far the better. And of course these connections are made in effect instantaneously. There just has to be some loose software flopping about in there. Use it well.
• Simons Mith - If I may make a slight amendment
  I would suggest "the ability to make fruitful connections where none were seen before"
• Phil - Dreams
  I don't think that I have any real life experience of anyone inserting an inboard marine engine into a golden retriever's arse and setting it off around the dock in a wide loop, saying "Watch this bugger go!"
  My dreams baffle me.
• Rosie
  (Phil) Got just about enough energy to ROFLMAO.
• Simons Mith
  [Phil] Yeah, that is unusual. Only about 8% of people have that dream.
• Rosie
  This place is dead, or at best dormant.
• Boolbar
  [Rosie] I guess the pandemic disrupted the regular supply of banter and the import of witty discourse into the UK is being held up due to the extra paperwork required post-Brexit.
• Rosie
  (Boolbar) But we have no need to import banter - we already have a unique top-class product that, given some loose translation, would sell like hot cakes throughout Europe. Alas, we are governed by cretins and the newly-erected barriers and associated bureaucracy make it just too much hassle. What a silly country we are.
• Phil - Gas go bang
  [Rosie] I hope you weren't affected by the explosion in your locale!
• Rosie - Down go house
  (Phil) Are you insinuating that my abode is in Forneaf? (View the source to read the hidden text) How dare you! I'm a good six miles SSE. In any case it's not really Forneaf, more like Norbury/Mitcham Common. That shows you how much the media 12-yr-olds know about south London.
• Phil - Apols
  [Rosie] I knew I'd heard you mention it. My sincerest apologies for such a slur. My daughter now lives in Surrey, but about as far from you as it's possible to be, while still in the county. She assures me it's not deliberate.
• Rosie
  (Phil) So she's in Haslemere, is she? Well, there's posh. I don't think I could afford a garden shed there.
  I'm looking for a way to represent a glottal stop without resorting to IPA. There is a distinct glottal stop after the "r" in Forneaf, to say nothing of the "th fronting".
• Blob - MCiOS
  Hi folks - what's happened to MCiOS???
• Boolbar
  [Blob] I was wondering that, although I have a feeling that it was mentioned that the domain name was meant to be changing at some point.
• Raak
  [Boolbar] That rings a very muffled bell for me, but my browser autofills the whole name as soon as I type "m", so if there was a new domain coming in, I never trained it to use it.
• Rosie
  (B,B,R) This is ridiculous. What is the new domain name? It's like changing your address or phone number without telling anybody.
• Blob - MCiOS
  [B,R,R] Hmm, it doesn't seem that long ago that it changed from parslow.com to mcios.pathetech
  Does anybody have Dan's email address?
• Rosie
  If anyone feels like having a rant give me a bell on 020 8657 4109
• Raak
  MCiOS is back.
• Raak
  MCiOS is gone again.
• Raak
  Back again!
• Rosie
  Gone again. I don't understand this. Someone is taking the piss.
• penelope - Dial M for moaning
  [Rosie] I reversed-searched the number (seeing as I have nothing better to do this morning - or at least nothing I'd like better to do. Haha!
• Rosie
  (pen) Couldn't you have just dialled the number? No need now - Dan has explained how a singularity in the Universal Force Field led to temporary withdrawal of the source of our addiction. Better have a fag - ah, that's better. Popeth yn iawn rŵan
• Phil - Daughter location
  [Rosie] Farnham. My daarn saarf geography is woeful. I still get Woking and Wokingham mixed up. Ditto for Maidenhead/Maidstone.
• penelope - Do try to keep up!
  No-one's said anything for a couple of weeks. Are you all OK?
  Last day of summery weather today, and aside from useing it to dry blankets and quilts today, I have no further use for it. Throughly fed up of being sweaty. Next Saturday is forecast to be 16C ALL DAY. Can't wait!
• Rosie
  (pen) 16°C all day? That means total cloud cover, probably a strong breeze and quite possibly continuous rain.
  (Phil) Farnham. That's very nearly Hampshire. I'm at Hamsey Green, a part of Warlingham.
• penelope - rainy days are here again
  [Rosie] Yup! Every excuse to either sit in the car at the mill listening to the rain on the roof while drinking tea and reading books while the windy miller does his thing, or sit at home reading books and drinking tea while the windy miller does his thing at the mill.
• nights
  Nope, the continent refuses to play sensibly and it's 27°C for some reason.
• 1 - 1
• 1 - 1
• 1 - 1
• 1 - 1
  1&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;hr&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;
• Simons Mith
  I think it might be time to turn the North Wales connection on for all games by default...
• Rosie - Y cysylltiad gogleddol
  Ti 'di'n meddwl Mrs T?
• Bismarck - Howdy
  How are things with y'all? Over here the school holidays got changed to two-week half terms and I am wondering if becoming a teacher is still on at my age. Currently jobseeking, so you never know.
• penelope - Demused
  I flogged my writing muse yesterday to great effect and today she's gone AWOL just when I need her to help me write a webpage and a bunch of campaign emails. And the windy miller is having a day-long snooze after overdoing it (not Covid - we've tested). On the plus side I've booked a trip to England in late Nov instead of at Xmas. At least I'll get a decent break in December instead of dashing all over the place.
  I have no idea how people do teaching. My pa was a teacher for 35 years.
• Rosie - Wot my old man did
  (pen) Mine too. He taught English, a language he couldn't speak until he was about 8.
• penelope
  [Rosie] That's impressive. Mine was an art teacher.
• Rosie
  (pen) Have you inherited his talent? I can only draw steam engines.
• penelope - scribbler
  [Rosie] I did Art O-level in one year and got an A (I did the still life and calligraphy papers) but that's as far as I took it. I thought I could 'always do art at home' so I studied science instead. I think I might have a bit of talent but it's completely untrained and I get frustrated that my lack of training doesn't let me produce the things I want to produce. But I've got all the kit should I ever feel the urge to practice...
• Stevie - Art
  [penelope]I have no talent for art whatsoever. I’ve tried, but lack the whatever-it-is to convert what I imagine to what I can draw. The Stevieling is *extremely* talented, but refuses to work at it. She draws manga-style for fun, but is capable of much more - we persuaded her to take a class in college and she claimed she enjoyed it but she dropped it next year. Very frustrating for me. She has fantastic ideas and a great imagination. I’ve tried to get her to draw comics or illustrated stories but to no great success. Aaaaargh.
• Simons Mith
  [Stevie] Bad luck. I bet she's not going to fall for reverse psychology any more either
• Simons Mith
  I can't art either, but I can script and I can program. Not well, but I can. So I use PoVRay and/or Blender, and that lets me program a computer to do what I want. Yes, this is easily as difficult as just drawing the stuff, and in many respects it's much more work, but it's something I can do, whereas I cannot draw
• Rosie - End Times
  The barometer has fallen to 982 and it's gone dark outside.
• penelope - Was it the End?
  [Rosie] You still 'ere mate? I've been across the North Sea and back since you posted that and I can confirm both sides are still here. (the crossing last night was very smooth, by the way)
• Rosie
  (pen) Yma o hyd, to use a well-known phrase or saying. (View the source to read the hidden text) . Extensive research has revealed that the darkness was due to the well-attested rotation of the earth and it was twenty past four. It's going to get cold - you'll be able to skate here soon. I'll be there with my camera.
• penelope - Baltic
  [Rosie] Indeed. I watched a few of the models this morning. Mentally making a list of my thickest socks and their likely locations.
• Rosie - Kin-taters
  (pen) Went down to -3.5°C last night ym Mhlas Huws. First frost of the winter (v. late) but I think it's now going to seriously rectify this happy anomaly.
• Bismarck - Degrees
  Frost here also, and the thermometer didn't make it above 0°C all day. Another thermometer is showing 38°C, as I've managed to get Covid again.
• Raak
  I went out for a bicycle ride this afternoon, but I had to turn back in half a mile. It was too dangerous, with patches of frozen ice everywhere, unmelted frost from last night that was still frozen, even where the sun was shining and some traffic had passed.
• penelope
  [Bismarck] Bummer. Hope you start to feel better soon.
  Just above freezing outside in N Brabant but clear blue skies and sun (warming up the living room to 21C but my home office is on the north side of the house so still cold in 'ere - and no heating on in the house today...)
• Boolbar
  A tad of snow here in Bedfordshire. Just enough for the seasonal crop of cars in ditches.
• Raak - Brr
  –7°C in my NE-facing front porch this morning. The lowest I've seen it since putting a thermometer there some years back, so I can assess the cryotesticular potential without stepping out of doors.
• Rosie
  I would imagine the repair of the copper/zinc primate, now meteorologically appropriate, is a matter of some delicacy.
• Stevie - BMW
  [Raak] Got very cold over the weekend here too. So cold, in fact, that the brass shut-off I have on the sillcock at the back of the house split because I shut the valve in the brass part but stupidly did not remember to turn off the sillcock itself, so a column of water about the size of the end joint of my thumb was residing in the brass manifold, which was enough to fracture it.

  To maximize the fun I did not realize this had happened until the thaw, when I went down to the basement and discovered a nice new paddling pool.

  The water had sprayed up the side of the house for about a day and a half and frozen in many interesting patterns, but had also soaked into the ground and waterlogged it, causing many leakes through the basement wall and seepage through the floor itself. I took over 40 gallons of water out using the wet-vac, a submersible pump and a stream of class four Words of Power.

• penelope - Class IV Words of Power
  [Stevie] Are those adult words?
• Chalky - Power Words?
  Like Kinell or Effeffess?
• Stevie - Word of Power
  Words of Power are the way one forces out the anti-handyman demons infesting whatever it is one is attempting, in this case, keeping my machine tools dry and unrusted. I went directly to class fours as I had only just solved a similar crisis brought on by my having new gutters installed on the house and the gutter guy not understanding that if he dumped the rainfall on umptytump square feet of roof next to the basement wall, the water would soon be inside the house. I have to come up with a proper solution to that one. right now I just have an 8 foot pipe running to the edge of the property where a nice new pool forms every time we get a storm.
• CdM
  Does "edge of the property" = "neighbour's basement wall"?
• Stevie
  [CdM] 8oD
• penelope - Anyone had enough of 2023 yet? Gripe warning!
  Among other hindrances and irritations (including starting the year with Covid) the windy miller has a case of the burnout from his real-life job and is taking at least two weeks off to sleep, and I have eczema on my effing eyelids (that's a new and unusual place, even for me).
  Still to look forward to: three months of my route to work in Rotterdam being absolutely shut during June, July and August because of repairs to the massive Haringvliet bridge and a tunnel under the river a bit further north. I don't fancy joining everyone else on the road coming from Antwerp and Zeeland heading to Rotterdam taking two and a half hours to drive 40km. Hmmph.
• Stevie
  Feel your pain with the eczema. I get it inside my ear tubing sometimes. As far as bridges and tunnels over a river, time to buy an army surplus DUKW. You could run a bus service to recoup fuel costs. It seats about twenty (View the source to read the hidden text) .
• Bismarck
  [Pen] trying saying you have COVID (Congenital Objection to Vehicular Ingress by Dams) and say you have to isolate at home.
• penelope - And thirdly...
  The dishwasher is broken. All it can manage is a 10 minute rinse. Aaargh.
  Eyelid eczema is clearing up - I already had some evil cream but I didn't know if I'd be allowed to use it on my eyelids. Apparently I can use it for a couple of days. Last day today then. Let's see how it goes from here. (If anyone needs a recommendation, I've found that Aveeno oat-based cream is the best for keeping eczema at bay once you've swatted it with steroid creams.)
• Superman
  That oat-based cream puts you at risk of being kissed by a horse, I'm sure.
• Stevie - Oatmeal
  Yep. Oat-based products were always thought to be a palliative when I were a lad, and I use Aveeno hand cream myself on my hands and in my ears. That said, I also use Mometasome cream and lotion, and on a recent re-occurrence of the odd leg-scurvy, some ointment made of what looks like petroleum jelly mixed with coal tar. I feel like the bloke from Going Postal who had the explosive socks sometimes.
• KagomeShuko - Eeep, not been here in a long time!
  Eeep, I've not been here in a long time! It's crazy. My hurricane lawyer now HAS my funds for repairing my house and how I'll have to take $9000 out to be able to keep staying at this hotel and pay my bills while my house is being repaired, but they are taking FOREVER in getting it to me! I'm definitely not happy with this lawyer. I'm struggling and have pulled some funds together for one more week right now . . . some of which I probably shouldn't have used, but I need to be able to extend and hopefully will have funds back . . . I will NEVER recommend this lawyer to anybody.
• Rosie - Getting blood out of a stone
  (KS) Welcome back
• Simons Mith
  [KagomeShuko] Very welcome back. Was worried!
• Bismarck
  [KS] You've been having a rough time over the last 2 years also. Will your settlement or other relief funds also pay for all your accommodation costs since the hurricane?
• Bismarck
  No auroras on Belgium, but a cracking conjunction this evening of Venus and Jupiter.
• KagomeShuko - Ugh, it's awful!
  [Simons Mith] [Bismarck] It's so awful! The settlement will get my house fixed, but I've already been depending on donations to stay the hotel! I told my contractor that I'll need to take out funds to stay. It won't get my house to the way she was going to make it all accessible for me, which isn't great, but I'll have my house back. Hopefully I'll get the last bit of money from a car accident settlement (different lawyer) and maybe that'll pay for my house to be more the way that I want.
• Simons Mith - Project Tiddles (South)
  Following in the footsteps of Rab, I'm starting my own Project Tiddles.

  Phase 1: gotta get a cat flap, or no one will even consider me for entiddlification. That's due for this Thursday.

  I had never really considered getting a cat at this address before, because I'm right on a main road and I'm not really willing to accept even a low probability of a poor mog getting squished.

  But then I belatedly realised (belated by $%&^$% years) that if I got a cat that was elderly, defective or otherwise unable to go out, then the road wouldn't matter nearly so much. So that's the plan. Find an old slow animal that can't be bothered to move much and spoil it rotten for its retirement

  I've laid on Bird TV for it already, so we'll both have something to look at out of the window

• Radox The Green - Pets, slow
  [Simons Mith] have you considered taxidermy?
• Simons Mith
  [Radox] That's... not a bad idea except that a taxidermied cat would need at least occasional dusting. I consider that a step backwards from the live versions, which are self-cleaning.
• Stevie - Playing the Rosie Card.
  When did "taxidermied" (which MS Edge doesn't even think is a word) replace "stuffed" in the discourse concerning dead, straw-filled roadkill?
• Stevie
  I asked this in another forum recently and was assured it was to spare the sensibilities of those who would confuse a once-live but now stuffed animal cadaver with a build-a-bear.
• penelope - Rebuild-A-Bear
  [Stevie] You've just given me the most marvellous business idea.
• Simons Mith
  Mister Flopsy, TriColour Dutch: a rabbit dead as a doornail
  Gentlemen we can rebuild him
  We have the technology
  We have the capability to make the world's first bionic rabbit
  Mister Flopsy will be that rabbit
  Better than he was before
  Better, Smarter, Fluffier
  
• Simons Mith - Taxidermiing
  [Stevie] If you can't verb taxidermy, you can't have taxidermiing as a gerund. That alone should be reason enough.
• Rosie
  (SM) Good thinking. You can't verb anything because verb is not a verb except when it is. I have now fulfilmentized my role as a member of the grammar and style police (fel aelod yr heddlu gramadeg ac arddull in Welsh BTW FWIW).
• CdM
  I'm half-Welsh, but I'm struggling with how to pronounce Btwfwiw.
• Rosie
  (CdM) Try half of it then. The bigger half.
• Radox The Green
  Since nouns are too often verbed, can we balance the trend by nominalizing verbs (other than the speaking entirely in gerunds)?
• penelope
  What's the verb form of 'nutrition'? Nutritioned? Nutritised?
• Simons Mith
  nutrit, nutritted, nutriting
• Simons Mith
  It's not a popular word. In use, it sounds a bit too much like something else.
• Rosie
  (SM, pen) Nutrify. Sgoddaby.
• Radox
  Nourish, surely.
• Simons Mith - You can't fool us
  The adjectival -ish suffix means like, or somewhat, so 'nourish' clearly means something that's a bit noury.
• Rosie
  (SM) I have a cousin-in-law who I wouldn't be so ungallant as to describe her as a large dog but she is nevertheless Danish.
• Pablo
  Does that imply "dish" means "like the letter D" then?
• Simons Mith
  Yes, and the same for 'fish' and 'wish' too. One of the great benefits of having a highly consistent language like English is that these rules are 100% reliable.
• Radox The Green - Langur ages
  Ah, but you speak of Engl, not the debased English!
• Simons Mith
  Oh yeah. That is a good point.
• CdM
  So, if some town planner decides to make a location vaguely resemble a Birmingham suburb, would that be astonishing?
• Rosie
  Why should I watch The Villa? They never cum to see me when I was bad.
• Superman
  'Astonishing' was actually a deliberate policy of post-war governments, and formed part of the overall strategy known as 'maudling'. The Thatcher government, of course, declared that 'astonishing' was old hat and Britain was now in the 'Steven age'. Thus the Villa knell was sounded.
• penelope
  [Super] And all this time I thought 'Stevenage' was named thus becuase it was on the River Steve.
• Rosie
  Stevenage sounds like a statutory payment. "Stevenage Shall Be Levied At Three Shillings And Fourpence In The Pound."
• Boolbar
  [Stevenage] Surely named after the patron saint of alternating birthdays?
• KagomeShuko - Something strange is going on . . .
  I have two people claiming that I've posted things on Facebook that I've not posted at all. One guy claims that I keep posting about him. The only post I have is a prayer asking for prayers for somebody with his first name. The other guy claims that I have a post revealing the last name of somebody. I have a total of ZERO Facebook posts with that last name. Things have been weird for years, but they started getting much weirder lately. I have a TikTok musician who thinks I'm stalking him over me just trying to help him by doing a simple Google search of his name because he said he wanted to create a boundary between his real name and social media, so I was trying to help him and when I let him know how easily his name could be found and that he could be found on social media, he freaked out and said he he told me that he wasn't comfortable with how deeply I searched him when he said he wasn't comfortable with that (which he never said). It's so very confusing for me.
• Rosie
  (KS) Stick to the Morniverse. We're a bit mad but we're not weird.
• Simons Mith
  I had a beer delivery today. Came in three boxes. I've already got dozens of boxes. Fortunately, boxes make good cat fortresses. And these days I've got enough boxes for the most epic cat fortress ever. In fact, as I joked to the delivery driver, I could do the whole Maginot Line.

  Although I suppose strictly speaking it would be a Moginot Line.

• Boolbar - Farcebroke
  [KagomeShuko] There are people/bots who replicate your fb account (photo, bio etc.) then "friend" all you know claiming your original account was hacked, then spam/phish them.
• Stevie - Moginot Line
  [Simons Mith] Watch out for German Shepherds sneaking round the side.
• Bismarck
  Standing in Cologne railway station lookat a train with "National Express" on the side, and wondering if I have travelled in time as well as space.
• Rosie
  (Bis) Was it a steam train?
• Bismarck
  [Rosie] Nope, just an emu. Though there was a preserved steam train in Hanover.
• Rosie - Tractive effort
  Emus can't even fly, let alone pull trains.
• KagomeShuko - Emus???
  When I was in middle school, I had a student teacher who had gone to Australia. She said that emus weren't smart at all and would run straight into fences, not even TRYING to miss them.
• Bismarck - EMUs
  Electric Multiple Units, like their Diesel Multiple Units counterparts, are trains with no locomotive and localised (one or more motorised carriages pull one or more non-motorised carriages) or distributed (all carriages have motors), all controlled from a driving position at either end of the train.
• Rosie - Down with electrics
  I did my initial trainspotting on the Oxted line. Bloody Fairburn 2-6-4T's but their exhaust could blow your ears off.
• Bismarck - Ear-MUs
  [Rosie] I think we all need some proof of this aural sectioning that you experienced...
• nights
  *waves from war-torn Paris*
• Rosie
  (Bis) The interior of Riddlesdown Tunnel is littered with severed, now largely decomposed, auditory appendages. They are, or were, mine.
• Bismarck
  [nights] on holiday in the City of Light burning cars?
• Bismarck
  Yesterday was apparently the warmest day globally since records began. Here in B it was colder than normal, but amazingly windy.
• Rosie
  (Bis) Ackshully it was the month of June that was the warmest month in a rather precisely defined area known as Central England. It was also the warmest, unsurprisingly, that I have personally recorded here at Plas Huws (= Hughes Hall) over the 40 years I have been an amateur weather nut and before that a professional one. Gotta be precise.
• KagomeShuko - So tired of this . . .
  I wish I could be back in my home, but it's not ready yet. It's not even ready for living in one room. My contractor is trying to get it so I have a room and a bathroom and there's air conditioning and the outside is all okay. My vinyl siding was shipped, but delayed the last I heard.
• Bismarck
  [KS] oh my... we should bake a cake for the third(?) anniversary of the demise of your house. What's taking so long?
• nights
  [Bis] Just passing through, back home now in lovely Strasbourg where no-one cares enough to set fire to anything...
• rab
  Eek, they don't!
• rab - Annual review...
  Another year, another OS upgrade, things sort of work, but also sort of don't... I seem to have broken the Whoops! feature.
• rab - Nope
• rab - Yet another test
  It probably hasn't worked for ages, knowing me
• rab - Indeed
  There's nothing like working on a live site... staging, we've heard of it. Seems to work now, of a fashion
• Simons Mith - Whoops?
  I think I've used it quite recently. Within the last couple of weeks, surely?
• Stevie - Moi Aussie
  I am an Australian. Last week. Saturday, in fact.
• Bismarck
  What'd you do, Stevie? What'd you do?
• rab - Whoops!
  It worked on some games, not others. Somehow, an index had got out-of-synch with the actual gameplay, which caused the de-whoopsing to fail. This is a brittle misfeature of the server code, motivated by a desire to keep the number of SQL queries to a minimum, which is probably a somewhat redundant optimisation given the tiny amount of data involved.

  Glad to hear that the feature is used by people, though, as going backwards in time is not so straightforward.

• penelope - Three more hours
  Last day of working before two weeks off. It'll be a staycation mostly (we've both had a lot going on this year and we need some space to just be), but we might nip to France for a night to eat the food and stock up in a French hypermarche. On my shopping list: French washing-up liquid, which comes in lots of flavours that are way less boring than the Dutch ones, and a dozen of those glass jars of pates and rilletes that last forever. I'm hungry now.
• Bismarck
  Where are you going?
• penelope
  [Bis] Wherever it isn't going to be raining in Nord Pas de Calais or Normandy - a comfortable few hours' drive from home in the Netherlands. We're watching the weather radar like a hawk now...
• Dan - Flaming appliances
  I suggest you bring your ironing with you. Many hotels have a steam iron in the room.
• Bismarck
  [Pen] say hello to the hydrangeas from me. And it's been non-stop rain in Belgium. The choice seems to be drowning in the North and burning in the South.
• KagomeShuko - Found an old forum game . . .
  I found an old forum game and it was simply, "Things You Don't Want to See in Your Living Room." But, the point was to be brief, but outlandish. I had put, "A really hairy gorilla shaving his armpits while he sings Handel's Hallelujah chorus."
• penelope - The game you don't want to see in your living room
  [KS] Sounds... interesting! Give it a go - is there a free slot or do we need to make one?
• Simons Mith
  Well, we could put it on Orange if we want guaranteed fast turnover.
• KagomeShuko - House and game
  [Bis] August 20 was third anniversary of my house being destroyed. Insurance quit paying everything and had to hire a lawyer and only FINALLY got settlement back in March! I used up ALL of my funds as the lawyer didn't provide any advances for living expenses, so things are always tight for me right now, though trying to get online theatre classes started once I get all of my lessons made.
  
  [pen] Last I saw, a new slot needed to be made.
• Bismarck
  [Kagome] much sympathy.
• Rosie - Flash - bang
  Gotta put this in even though I wrote it in 2010. It's the 65th anniversary of the best thunderstorm I have ever seen, even allowing for distance lending enchantment and teenage impressability. Spoilt for life at the age of 15.
• rab - Online Safety Bill
  Important service announcement: You may or may not be aware that the UK government has recently passed the Online Safety Bill. This applies to all sites with 'user-generated content', with only a handful of exemptions. (Witless below-the-line comments and fake product reviews will still be allowed.) So this site will be in scope.

  OFCOM guidance is apparently forthcoming, but from reading around the Bill, my understanding is that I will be required to ensure all users are of age and further to act proactively to prevent any harmful content appearing on the pages. The consequences of not doing so could result in bankruptcy-inducing fines and/or imprisonment.

  Now, obviously, this is ridiculous. This site has been running for just over twenty years (slightly miffed to have missed the anniversary in January, but there we go) in the spirit in which it is intended (notwithstanding the ever-present risk of the Morden spiral and the harm that can come from falling into one of those). So thank you all for being responsible and permitting the existence of a site that is clean, fun and requires zero moderation.

  However, unfortunately, unless the guidance this is forthcoming allows the legal obligations to be performed in a light-touch and quasi-autonomous way, I don't see any alternative to pulling down the shutters and saying goodbye to this place. It's not even obvious to me that an archive of the pages can be maintained without verifying the age of anyone wanting to look at it. So archivists might want to get archiving.

• Dan
  In the most sweeping interpretation of this bill, the UK government will have the choice of either fully providing and even externally imposing the verification system -- a stupefying technical undertaking of something like wartime scale -- or forcing nearly every web forum, wiki, etc., that's hosted in the UK out of business or at least offshore and under non-UK proprietorship. I do not see this going well.
• rab
  Yeah, maybe I'm being melodramatic. I guess we'll have to see how it shakes out with OFCOM. In the meantime, I've make a few twerks which means that the shutters will fall on any finished game that goes uncommented on for three days. If things pan out as badly as we expect, I'll disable new game creation, and we'll just play everything out...
• Superman
  Three days is a bit optimistic, no?
• Superman
  It's slightly ironic that Orange MC, which is being spammed to death, is the one site which won't be subject to these new rules as it seems to be hosted abroad.
• rab - Glass half what?
  [Superman] Yes and no. When a game finishes (which hasn't happened for a while), it hangs around on the front page for three days, then you have to delve into the bran bucket of eternity to find it again. Until now, it's been possible to resuscitate games from there, but now it won't be. I don't recall that last time that happened for a reason other than spamming activity, so I don't think anyone will be too put out.
• rab
  MCiOS is located in outer space, so will also duck the legislation. It's possible that OFCOM will set a threshold of as to what constitutes a 'significant' number of users, which I am sure we'll fall well below, so maybe we'll not be affected after all. On the other hand, the fact that each and every word we post is visible to the entire universe, maybe we will.
• Dan
  Well, given that every participant passes an exam (aka Cymraeg Epistolariat) and can create and close forums at will, one can only conclude that everyone is an approved moderator and thus exempt. As for exposing the tender masses to the awful, pornographic reality of wordplay and transit stations, well; I've been at some pains to discourage spidering. I don't see how someone with the brains of a modern UK cabinet minister is even going to find the place.
• CdM
  "In the meantime, I've make a few twerks..."
  
  No wonder they want to shut you down.
• blamelewis - The Drugs Don't Twerk
  Could be a pun game in this... "Britain isn't twerking" or somesuch... "Twerking 9 to 5"
• Radox The Green
  Go to twerk on an egg (the title of almost least four TikTok videos)
• Chalky - Twerking In A Coalmine .. going down, down, down
• Rosie - Adopt boreal speech
  Pay's good but t'werk's 'ard.
• Dan
  Hi ho, hi ho...Here's an approximation of what the associated dance number in Disney's live-action remake of Snow White will look like.
• KagomeShuko - Grieving
  I'm so sad and crying at times. I had to make that terrible choice of saying goodbye to one of my dogs, Niblet, on November 27. I talked to him and asked him if he wanted to go to heaven or stay o earth. I always had a way of communicating with him by showing him the fingers and he could nose or lick the choice.
  
  His kidney enzymes were so high that the computer coulndn't read them. He could no longer walk correctly. I tried to feed him a tiny piece of ham and he wasn't able to eat it even though he tried. His tongue was so dry because he was dehydrated.
  
  He was my Mama's dog first. When she was really bad in a nursing home, all she would write was "take care of Niblet." I loved and still love that little baby so much. I truly believe he is in heaven, but it is difficult.
  
  Thankfully, my little service dog, Radar, is just fine and is with me.
• KagomeShuko - Brainstorming
  Also,
  
  I was wondering if y'all could help me brainstorm. I'm trying to figure out ways to promote my online theatre classes. As a friend of mine said, it just takes the one right person to get the ball rolling. I've told a few local connections about the classes and that they'll let people know if they know of anybody.
  
  Also, perhaps on how to get more followers on TikTok. I'm VERY SLOWLY gaining followers. If I get to over 1,000 followers, then I can be a guest on the LateTok show (I'm pretty sure the reason for that is simply because that's what you need to go live on TikTok) and obviously, I could also go live on TikTok to answer questions about theatre - like I see vocal coaches go live to answer questions about the voice and singing. So, if you have ideas, please let me know!
  
  And if you are interested, you can find more info at https://theatregeekery.neocities.org
• penelope - Storm approaching.
  [KagomeS] I'm sorry about your dog - they have such short lives compared to the amount of life they bring to ours. We just have to make sure that those short lives are the best.
  And this theatre thing... maybe - maybe - the way to bring TikTokkers to your theatre skills is ... to make TikTok content that tells people how to put theatre skills into their TikToks, or identify the theatrical techniques that TikTokkers are already using? I'm thinking of something in parallel with the linguists and etymologists who keep appearing on my Instagram reels. They make post after post by digging deep into language and introduce their mini-lectures with a trending TT reel or something newsworthy or a factoid, give a burst of proper intelleckshual linformation in very ordinary and usuable context, and then encouage viewers at the end to 'Follow along if you feel like it. I'm thinking in particular of https://www.threads.net/@abraham.piper with 600,000 followers.
• Simons Mith
  Ooh, I think Pen's is a great idea. "How to stage a play in 180 seconds"
• Simons Mith
  From my own experience slowly building a followership on Google plus (I worked up from a couple of dozen up to the high hundreds), consistent posting is overwhelmingly the most important thing. Doesn't matter what the frequency is, but you gotta stick to it. I wasn't really trying, but I did make a point of ensuring some activity 'every few days'. If you were a regular weekly visitor you would have seen something new every week. Vital to pace yourself and allow a good amount of slack. Also mentioning and cross-recommending other good posters is a great idea; even if they don't reciprocate (and they probably will), becoming a good 'hub' is highly valuable.
• Simons Mith
  Once things start getting serious, which I hope they will, then it becomes worth setting up automatically scheduled posts and building up a buffer. I never got to that point and as it was only vanity posting I probably wouldn't have worried about it. Even so, if I'd ended up with a really big followership I might have decided they deserved more care and set things up properly.
• KagomeShuko - Google Plus?
  [Simons] I'm not really sure how to use Google Plus. I have a Google One account. I bought that back when I thought I was going to be home a few months back and had a bit of money.
  
  [pen] I'll have to look for videos that could go with my stuff. That's a good idea.
• Simons Mith
  [KagomeShuko] Google plus is long dead. I strongly recommend doing everything you can to limit your exposure to Google products. They're notorious for killing them off. YouTube and Gmail look all right for now, but I wouldn't count on even them long term. See https://killedbygoogle.com/ for what I mean.
• blamelewis - Seasoned Greetings
  A merry foodmas to you all, hope it's a restful one and that you're all safe, warm and have some treats.
• Radox The Green
  Happy Christmas!
• Simons Mith
  Merry, and Happy, everyone
  And thanks as always to the Rabs, the Dans, the Dunxen, and all the other past hosters of international silliness.
• penelope - Is it safe to post something this year yet?
  HNY all. First snow of the year here in NL - a decent dusting of big wet snowflakes, enough to white everything out and make a mess with slushy tracks holding ice cold water along all the paths. (And a flash of lightning and a big clap of thunder this morning at 7am too).
• Simons Mith
  [penelope] HNY2U2! I got snow here too, but it only just reached the point where you could no longer keep count of individual flakes. Pathetic.
  But it's freezing out there now. And the garden is lightly scattered with older unmelted ice chunks cracked out of the bird bath. I am worried about the sparrows. I still have my regular starling visitors but haven't seen any of the sparrows since before Christmas. They had to go a few days without mealworms because I was away; I hope they didn't all starve when their worm supply was interrupted. They did have fallback fatballs but they're barely touched.
• Bismarck - Snow
  We had 11 cm of snow here in Belgium (between 4 and 5 inches). It's still around as the temperature hasn't got above freezing. We're having a real winter for once.
  Looking for animal tracks in snow-time is fun - last night we got some strange ones that I'd almost swear are rabbits, and our red squirrel is still there. We're in a typical suburban area with gardens.
• rab - What a mess!
  Woke up to a crashed mail server this morning. Closer inspection revealed that it had found the disk full... which was due to this site generating reams of warnings in the webserver logs, due to what used to be bona fide PHP convenience shortcuts now being considered bad programming. The easy way out was to stop the warnings being emitted. But I never take the easy way out, so have tried to track down all uses of the shortcuts and replaced with their more explicit counterparts. It's been a game of whack-a-mole so far... but I'll keep monitoring the logs and keep whacking as you (or, more likely, search engines) find cases I've missed.
• rab - Mobility hooter
  Looking good so far.
• rab - Now in Colo(u)r
  Nicely does it.
• Bismarck - Snow
  Got some fox tracks the day after the rabbits. Was most pleased. Yesterday the temperature went from -2 to +9 and the snow simply disappeared as a front came through.
• penelope - apres snow
  It was quite a front, though - a bit blowy! The snow didn't completely disappear until Sunday afternoon, and there was still some ice on little stretches of water. Today was the best lunchtime dog walk for ages: no nasty weather to contend with (I had to take off me hat and gloves after half of it) and the dog set up a pheasant, which has made his day.
• Projoy
  [rab] Thanks for the hard work to ensure at least two MC servers stay up :)
• Bismarck - Server demise
  The appendix to Stovold, hidden these many ages long in the CAMREC library, include the prophecies relating to the demise of the universe, in which those who may reach Mornington Crescent will be announced as the late arrivals, while all others will be put in spoon, to be knidded by ostriches throughout all eternity to the sound of the trombone. There's something about Felicity Kendal as well, but it's disputed.
• KagomeShuko
  still taking into account everything said here. Also, looking for contractor fraud lawyers in Louisiana. The contractor that I hire is threatening to sue me if I go public with the information of how she hasn't done the work she's been paid to do.
• Bismarck
  [KS] Sheesh... Sorry you're going through this over such a long time. is there a contract clause that states "we can do what we like and you aren't allowed to complain, same to you and no returns"? How do they deal with people giving them negative reviews on social media?
• Bismarck
  Happy Easter!
• Rosie
  Happy? You're not a Chelsea supporter, are you.
• Bismarck - Stamford Bridge is falling down?
  Nope, Chelsea is not important to me. I do follow another blue-clad side, but they're not even as high up in the leagues as Chelsea.
• Tuj - Blue is the colour, football is the game
  So coy, Bismarck!
  It's a very good time to be a fan of blue-clad Ipswich Town at the moment. And I've just stuck my cricket fixture calendars up, so am hoping for some dry weather to enable more sporting joy!
• Rosie - Blue is the colour, money is the game
  The man from The Grauniad reckoned that hard as Chelsea tried to lose the game, as usual, they nevertheless won it 4-3. They were playing Man U, after all.
• KagomeShuko - Technically back in my house . . .
  [Bis] Pretty much. Like, they don't require them to have contracts and they don't require them to follow the contracts if they have them. Then lawyers don't take contractor fraud cases.
  
  I'm technically back in my house as I am in the house, but it's not great. There's no heat, but there is air. Thankfully temps seem to be 60F and up. I certainly hope it stays that way. I can then bundle up.
  
  I don't have hot water. I don't have a kitchen. The tiny passageway of a hall makes it so I can JUST get trhough using a rollator, not even my transport chair. This contractor is a hue jerk. I'd have much stronger words, but I'm not putting them here.
  
  In February, when the place I was staying was shut down by the fire marshal, we had one night in another hotel and then I was literally TOLD that I was going to be at her house. She said that I would be there for one week and she wouldn't let me have my little service dog. There was only one day where she wasn't trying to break my spirit with all of her yelling at me and insults.
  
  I was so distressed that one day, I called the police to help get me out of that situation. They didn't help. Instead, they call her and talk to her, despite my protesting. I didn't give them her information. A guy that was living in her guest house called her. She's claiming to be traumatized by that. She wasn't even at the house. I was outside waiting for the police. She's just a huge jerk. Only reasons she would be traumatized are that she already has a record and if she doesn't, she absolutely knows that she's done wrong.
• Radox The Green
  [Kagome] Anything I can do to help?
• blamelewis - Hide tags and punctuation
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