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.
[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.
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.
Addendum
Also, I don't actually think tits do like melons.
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.
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.
*waves from Strasbourg* Well, I've emerged victorious from my part 1 exams - what are we all up to this weekend?
Weekend
I'll be drumming at this event on Saturday. Have spent this morning sanding down a batch of new bachi.
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".
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".
I'm 6 hours behind...
Happy Guy Fawkes Day/Night!
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.
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.
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.
Fingers crossed for you, flerdle.
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.
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.
run away
I'm free! FREE! Ahahahahahah!
Oh sh!t. I have no muscle now. *crumples*
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.
lol - genuinely :)
mijn ook. Ik lollt. Oooh... converting txt-speak into Dutch is fun!
[pen] share the joke.
I make that either:
'Me too, I lol'd' or
'My Orang Utan is slumped in his chair'
'Me too, I lol'd' or
'My Orang Utan is slumped in his chair'
[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.
[INJ] Correct.
[pen] Of course my experience of Dutch predates txtpraat.
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.
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.
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.
Weather eye
It is bright and sunny here, 15C. :o)
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.
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.
33°C and humid is forecast for the day. Currently very sultry (the weather, not me).
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.
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°).
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.
[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.
[CdM] Presumably you'd have a wind warming factor, so that 43 degrees in a wind feels as hot as 50?
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?
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.
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.
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.
[flerdle] Wet Bulb Depression? Sounds like what happens when you have a nurse take your temperature.
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.
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.
[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.
[Softers, CdM] I concur.
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!
NZ is not Down Under. It is Under And To The Right of Down Under, but close enough. :)
(nfras) Shurely it's even more Down Under than Australia from a UK point of view.
Uhhh
I am a straight female, just so y'all know.
Rectilinearity
(KagShu) No-one has suspected otherwise, though it must be said that many men, including this one, appreciate a modest degree of curvature.
Okay, I was just confused by some comments I saw earlier while I was MIA - writing for NaNoWriMo.
[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!
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!
[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.
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.
No way!
Rosie's a bloke? Well, stone me!
[Phil] we all wondered why you had been flirting with him for so long.
(INJ) Chalky sussed me out immediately, years ago. But like me he's pretty astute.
No way!
Rosie's astute? Well, stone me!
(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.
Rosie's a stoat? Blimey, my whole world is crumbling sound me!
Well, there you go Philippa, it just shows you shouldn't jump to conclusions.
What a silly old gal I am. "sound" should have read "around".
[Rosie] The joke was received and understood, as I hope mine was :)
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???!!!)
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.
(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.
(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.
[pen] only 13 years? Newbie! ;-)
[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.
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.
[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, ...
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'.
[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.
[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?'.
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.
Very little of the threatened snow in southern England - so no excuse for leaving early for my 4 hour drive home.
Threatened snow? Haven't seen/read/heard a forecast for two days. Must update myself.
Niviation
An inch of snow here this morning. It settled on the grass and even on the side roads for a time.
Just wind, rain and 2.5C here in Rotterdam. And final day in the office before January - hurrah!
Tauranga
I cane to NZ for my daughter's wedding equipped for sun and sand, however I need an umbrella and gumboots.
Florida
Pleasant and sunny down here in Florida. And I've been here about 14 years I think.
Clarification
Er, when I say "here" I don't mean Florida. I mean here.
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.
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*
(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.
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.)
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.
Orthography
(pen) Stranegly sounds like a small village in Scotland. Hard luck. :-)
(INJ) Two miles? Yeah, that's big, too big, obviously.
(INJ) Two miles? Yeah, that's big, too big, obviously.
[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.
very tropical
It is pouring rain this evening here (in Brisbane still) but, unusually, there is no lightning/thunder at all.
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.
[Rosie] Have you seen the W Yorkshire lenticular cloud photos doing the rounds today?
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. :-(
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.
Land of extensive featureless stratus giving slight drizzle
(Softers) At least you can see the sides and ends.
Land of - what now?
What ends? We saw no ends on our Christmas eve and day. Very wet, windy, and uncomfortable.
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.
[KS, G] Where was that?
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.
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.
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.
Happy New Year to the collective mc5ers.
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*
BTW
HNY all.
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*
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.
usage
.. not even a spot of badinage?
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?)
BTW Chalks, what are you doing up so early? (Or so late?)
Cobblers!
[pen] is Schoenlappertje a diminutive term for a cobbler? All I know is that it's a blummin' good non-sweet, blackcurrant beer.
I need to set fire to a Manchester suburb
....Wantage of Burnage. Boo-boom!
[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.
[pen] Smashing. If you see a bottle, I'd thoroughly recommend buying and drinking it.
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
Location
I live in Lake Charles, LA, USA.
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?
Pilg
[KS] Yes, you'd probably have to make a full weekend of it. Still, I'm sure accommodation could be arranged.
Angels
KS] Yes, feel free to combine it with a longer visit to our fair shores.
Hang on Guys, I've just had this great idea! LAPilg?
(INJ) LA is an awful long way for Ms Shuko.
Geographically challenged
Ah, Yes. Still, it's not a bad idea.
[INJ] I think what you wanted to propose was NOPilg. I might sign up for that one!
Or maybe La Pilg (or should I say le pélérinage)
LAPilg
INJ's idea for a Pilg in Louisiana sounds great for Ms Shuko - a bit far for the rest of us though...
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.....
Kim, you're catching up. When I click on those things I get a depth reading. 6' is becoming uncomfortably close. :)
dob
I was filling in one that offered me the opportunity to say I was born in 1900!
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.
[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.
(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?
postcode
Phil] I'm surprised that the phrase fitted in the postcode box!
[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.
[Merlyn] Even stupider are the web form designers that don't limit the number of characters.
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. . .
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.
Did you know there's a country with a name that states a fact about weather? ********************** Ukraine ************************* Get it? UK Rain E (rainy)
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"...
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
Please keep all discussion on the Orange site to avoid cross posting confusion
that doesn't mean...
You can all talk about other things here, you know! How was your week?
Hard - preparing documents for government officials :(
Next week, I start my new job though :)
Next week, I start my new job though :)
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.
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.
Started a blog. It's under my Second Life identity, though, so no-one need try looking for it.
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.
[Raak] Is that a slog?
[Phil] Ha ha, yes, a SLog, hopefully not a slog! Just a few snaps of places in SL so far.
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.
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.
[INJ] Really interesting, thanks for sharing.
[Tuj]Indeed.
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.
Had a choir concert last night - everyone got there fine, but I think nearly half the choir couldn't get home.
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.
[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.
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.
[pen] yeah :-)
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.
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!
random
Was that really Raak? Perhaps he's having an out-of-body experience.
[!Raak] 'Ere, oo are you?
[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?
Daaahn-da-dun-dun... Daaahn-da-dun-dun-DAAAAH
SL Raak isn't called Raak, of course. I think of her as an imaginary version of myself.
[Raak] So do I.
Hidden text
Just typing that gave me the creepsShe has a male shape and skin as well, but rarely wears them.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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...
It's that thing again
It just started snowing again. Arse.
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. ;)
6C
Blimey, it's hot.
Nearly a week has passed again. Apparently it's going to be scorchio on Thursday in the UK.
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.
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.
Then you'll be moaning about mowing the stuff! :)
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.
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.
[Dan] Stevie probably has a chainsaw you can borrow.
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. :)
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. :)
[Dujon] You could sell some to the SE of England.
[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.
water water water water water
[Dujon] Hoping you haven't been washed off your mountain up there. Looks dreadful.
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. ;)
That could have been a summer's day
Shorts and T-shirt today and mowing the lawn for the first time.
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?
Why is it so? Are there places scattered around the world where birds go to die? Is there an ornithologist in the house?
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.
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?
[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.
Surely there's someone in the morniverse who can add a bit more scientific rigour at this point.
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
Upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas,
and so, ad infinitum.
The_Siphonaptera
Back biting
[pen] My old dad used to recite that one to me..
Dad chat
[Softers] Mine too. Is it a dad thing?
When dads recite cute poems
To their children oh so clever
They then recite them to their own
And on and on for ever.
To their children oh so clever
They then recite them to their own
And on and on for ever.
Ditties not deadies
[p,S & P] Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your most edifying contributions. ;)
We didn't rehearse it, honest
[Duj] Graag gedaan. I love the collective brain of this place.
My pleasure, ma'am
So do I, though it's often somewhat of the variety known as scatter.
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."
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.
As much as tasty custard
I like to read the silly words
That [Pen] and [Dujon] mustered.
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?
And all the sea were ink
And all the trees were bread and cheese
What would we have to drink?
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.
That you so like that poem
But this could take a battering
If scoured with fine-toothed comb.
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."
One favourite from my dad is "If we had ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs."
Worth a try.
[Phil] +1 for that.
*approves*
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!
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*
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*
It's lovely to see that we still have stoics contributing to the site. 8-)
Death of Games wanted
I just tried to end the Holiday Anagrams game, but the usual didn't work.
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.
Anaphorisms
[Phil] Go for it, while there's a slot.
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.
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?
[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.
Also, if you follow CdM's 'helpful reference' on AVMA you'll see that the question of cfm's gender may not be resolved.
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?
[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.
*smiles androgynously*
*thought irach and cfm were one and the same* :-)
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.
Oh good.
Things indeed weren't 'working', but now they are. Apologies for any inconvenience etc.
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.
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 :-(
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!
[pen] If only I could get a mortgage :( It's rental for us for a while yet.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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 :-) .
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.
[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.
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 ...
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.
(Phil, pen) If you go shopping in Hungerford go in the morning because it's murder in the afternoon.
That's awful, Rosie. Literally. I was working in the Savernake Forest that day.
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.
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.
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.
Vhat would be news, vbviously.
(Chalky) You strike me as an unlikely lumberjack. The admittedly awful joke was very current at the time, as these things are.
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.
(Raak) V good. How many times round the cathedral was that?
MmmmmMMMmmMMmmmMmmmmm.....free beer :-) Well done, sir!
[Rosie] Just once, via the north Norfolk coast. It's surprising how many hills there are in England's flat bits.
[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.
[Raak] Well done! So you'll be out here for Around the Bay, then?
[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.
[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.
East Is East
[Phil] Oh I see. Hunstanton drives you around the bend. :)
that'd be good training, then...
[Raak] If you start soon, you'd easily get here in time for next year's :-)
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.
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?
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.
For the record, I really like Hunstanton - site of many a good family holiday!
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.
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!
Dorset does it
Rather partial to a long weekend in Lyme Regis myself.
Just come back from a long weekend in Pembrokeshire. I'd put a few votes in for St David's/Whitesands.
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.
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.
[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.
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?
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?
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?
"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?
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?
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
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
Another silent week in MC5-land. What-ho, chaps!
No News = Good news?
Well, the weather is iffy but at least Murray is grinding on at Wimbledon. Is that worth mentioning?
Oh, I say, what a volleh!
(Softers) I suppose so but I prefer to watch the ladies. All that grumble and grunt.
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.)
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.
so soggy
We had a full sunny day here today. It's almost a shock to the system.
(pen) Where indeed? The answer, I fear is mostly our own bodies. And the Sahara.
(flerdle) Didn't know you were over here. :-)
(flerdle) Didn't know you were over here. :-)
*announces cake break*
Gelukkige Verjaardag Penelopij!
Gelukkige Verjaardag Penelopij!
HBTY HBTY HBDP HBTY
Today is also Teddy Bears' Picnic Day. So two reasons to celebrate!
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.
late as usual
[pen] Happy Yesterday!
proost!
Een beetje laat.
The cake is a lie.
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.
*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.*
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)
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.
(pen) You would never use such clunking scansion. Would you? Not all God's children got rhythm.
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.
[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.
I'd compete for a bakelite medal. In ambling, perhaps.
(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.
[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).
The above is untrue
I apologise for my over-generalisation. I do buy local newspapers when I'm on holiday, especially in France.
(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.
Anyone else feel that the Film Club game may have run its course?
[UK] Fine with me to kill it.
Film Club
And me, for what it's worth, being no good at it.
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.
And also
In addition, every athlete recorded either a world record, a national record or a personal best.
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?
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?
...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?
(UK) Not a bad idea. Any subject. Discreet filth allowed. Off you go!
[Rosie] Thanks! At least one supported for Limerick Showcase - anyone care to kill Film Club? (Any last objections, speak now!)
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.
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.
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?
[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.
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.
Lived up to expectations, certainly. But fortunately my client had the air con on. The good news is, it's finally raining! Hooray!
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.
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*
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!
So what was the last good meal you had at a restaurant?
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
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.
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.
Happy anniversary then, penelope!
[pen] Seconding what nights said, in memory of the passing of the old dating updates posted to the Morniverse =)
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.
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.
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.
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.
T'weather
Bit chillier here today. Supposed to get warmer for the weekend, so that's OK
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....
Plans for t'weekend?
Daughter has first practice with new church choir tonight. Royal Berkshire County Show tomorrow :-)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[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.
Mom's memorial service
Went out and did stuff with friends today after mom's memorial service...she had died on the 15th...
[Giertrud] I'm very sorry to hear about your mom. Keep doing the stuff with friends. And keep coming here.
ty penelope
(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.
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.
10 days with no conversation! Time to break the ice.
Is it that cold where you are, Phil?
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?
[Software] It was, until this evening when we got our central heating fixed - oh frabjous day!
fish's off, dear
[Raak] Better that than a surfeit of lampreys.
You look like a sonnet
[Raak] Aren't Glo-worms and Limericks enough for you?
[Kim] Ok, but apart from the glow-worms and limericks...and haiku...
We could come up with a poetry form that combines all three ... the glimmeraiku ...
haikimerworm
[Jim] Now you're being ridiculous.
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.
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... :]
Form a nice haiku
By using five-seven-five
As they always do
Also, it's instructional... :]
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.
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?
[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?
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.
[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!
[Rosie] 1014. Now that's what I call a world wide web!
[Boolbar] *groan*
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.
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.
[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 :-)
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.
(pen) Are there any words in Dutch for a hill, mountain, slope etc? Probably about one-tenth of the number in Welsh.
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.
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.
(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) Must have been very low. But how did you get up there in the first place?
[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)
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
Just a nudge that there is a get-together this Saturday afternoon in London. Details on the Pilgrim page at Orange
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.
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.
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.
coincidental food
No fog here, but I do have egg, sausage and bacon on some bread, which I find tastier than a board.
Calling a plate a plate by any other name would taste as tasty
Funnily enough, 'plate' in Dutch is 'bord'.
egging on
Oh come on everyone... don't make the whole front page look like it's 'me, me, me'. Say something!
something (oblig.)
semi thong (anag.)
sunnink, quelquechose, rhywbeth. sorry no Dutch.
Summink in Dutch
iets
qqch in french textspeak.
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.
No snow
[Raak] I don't believe you.
Snow falls endlessly
On the night before Christmas
In the toy village.
In the snowy fort
No soldiers patrol the walls
Are they all on leave?
Snow on online pines
If no-one logs in to see
Did the snowflake fall?
Haikusnowsterisers
[Raak] They are lovely. Did you get much appreciation for them - virtual or otherwise - in your online world?
[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.
Presents! All for me?
Take as many as you like
They're copiable.
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?
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.
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.
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...
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.
Fight!
What Dujon said. I am still waiting to see who will win out of the rampaging mint and the roving bamboo.
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.
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.
Am late for you, but not here.
Merry Christmas!
Happy Humbug!
[Giertrud] It wasn't late for me. Where is home for you? I have this vague sense it is in the South...
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.
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.
Happy new year everyone.
HNY
Happy New Year all.
(UK, pen) Could be, when it finally gets going.
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.
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.
I'm back at work today. Not quite sure what to do.
Ditto
What am I doing here?
Mind the 150-year gap!
[Cross-posted] Next week, 9th January is a rather important date. Any plans?
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
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..
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.
melting
38°C at 9pm here. Toasty.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
[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.
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.
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!)
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*
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.
Offical is not a new word.
*sighs and blames the heat*
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.
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.
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.
[To the rest of you] Sorry about the weather stuff.
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.
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.
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.
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.
(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.
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.
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.
Indeed. * rushes off with a gleeful glint in her eye.*
Sun rises. Sun sets.
Tuesday already? How did that happen.
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.
(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.
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.
-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!)
That's Rotterdam and the countryside to the south of the city, for dem dat don't know.
Weather report
40.7 at 17:30
In pounds, shilling, and pence
that's over 105
The trees have seen a ghost
-12C this morn, and my car tried to overheat when stuck in a queue.
(Boolbar) They all do. I'm no fan of radiators.
Striking off at a tangent. My daughter would like to know why household radiators are so called, when they should really be "convectors" ?
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.
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!
Appreciably less effort has gone into clearing roads of snow in the midlands compared to previous years. I blame the bankers.
Three things I am grateful for, in the snowy conditions.
- I only live 5 miles from work, along gritted roads
- West Berks council are well-funded and efficient
- 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.
(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.
Jakutsk update - the fog has just cleared for the first time this year and they have a balmy -32° with light snow.
[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.
harvest
Just made zucchini chutney. Yum.
[flerdle] And now you've made me crave Brie - yum!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Is it lamb?
This all reminds me of this story about the lack of lamb in lamb curries (and kebabs).
(rab) Blimey, there's posh. I didn't understand a word of it. Thanks for your efforts, as ever.
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.
Don't worry, Rosie, rab, like the Mayans, talks in mysterious ways.
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.
Wether
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.
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?
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.
Then it's get the current main dwelling ready to sell. That's my weekends for the next month.
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.
(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.
Your missing degrees? We got 'em
37 here.
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.
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.
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.
Hollandaise
(pen) Niveau 2.1? Are you sure it was Dutch? :-)
gestolen worden
The Dutch stole a lot of words from French. That's one of them.
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!
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? ;)
Thanks, Dujon!
How about "pseudo-intellectual"? That should satisfy your terms and Tuj's preferences simultaneously!
Perfect.
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.
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.
three?
I had been back briefly before but [ah...accidental alliteration] not recently. And now the third may Quendalon and on...
[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).
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.
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.
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.
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".
(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.
[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.
[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.)
(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?
Yank reaction
[Rosie] They were less hysterical this time than after 9/11 though. So progress of a sort.
(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.
[Rosie] Apart from America itself, bdum tish!
Tacet tutti
Weep, John Cage.
Nearly managed a month.
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.
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.
Bring back shooting as the only acceptable form of identification. Everything was better in the old days.
What's hit's history, what's missed's mystery.
[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?
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.
[NJ] That comment took me right back to this classic sequence of Doonesbury.
[CdM] Enjoyed that.
Ignoring Doonesbury, and focussing on the more cerebral Peanuts, surely Woodstock was originally a (snake-eating - hoorah!) Secretary Bird?
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.
Beth yw hwn?
Windscreen de-icer, paint scorcher for DIY car paint jobs? Bang bang you're hot.
Maybe this should be in AVMA. [Rosie] Not a stripper of ice, paint, or clothes.
My guess, sir, would be a common garden variety of timing light (automotive for the use of).
It is undoubtedly a
Hidden text
stroboscopic gun for timing something. If you hadn't said alligator clips I'd be on firmer ground in saying it's for timing car engines, but the chances are this originally came with other bits and pieces to make it do its job. The side view had me ready to call "Taser", but the lens is a giveaway. I think.[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.
[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.
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.
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.
[K] How do you know it was a man?
All right, all right, never mind. :-)
All right, all right, never mind. :-)
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.
[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).
[KagomeShuko] Here, want these chocolates? I've got a warehouse full of 'em.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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] 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.
[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.
[Chalky] Congratulations! A new person on the planet is always a wonderful occasion.
*<smug>* Amateurs. I upped stakes and moved to America.
*<glum>* All my Anglotat got broken in transit. Hidden text
I wonder if the NSA computer will start a new index on Anglotat?
Ooh, a new Baby Droolbuckets!
[Chalky] Weight? Height? Eyelash length? Eye colour? Tsk. Women!
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...
No spikka da lingo
(pen) Glasgow? Newcastle? Caernarfon?
[Rosie] If you hadn't added Caernarfon you were going to get e Geordie Handshake ;)
[penelope] Ask Dunx whether he could speak the language when he moved Stateside.
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.
You are lucky, nights, to have met such a generous burglar.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wow
[Phil] That sounds really lovely. Congrats!
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!
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...
Oh, get on with it Pen! Well, it's Friday evening, so I hope you got in with it.
I did, thanks. Left at 6.15...
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.
Hidden text
I've known him for over two years, but as far as I knew, he had a girlfriend. He's been coming over on a weekly to mow my lawn, sometimes with one of his friends. We were hanging out afterwards this last time since I offered to buy him something to eat at the place I was going. He thought I knew that he no longer had a girlfriend, but I hadn't heard until he let me know last night during conversation with everyone there (a coffee shop where many people sit and talk together when they end up at that place).[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.
[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.
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.
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.
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.
And then made my special tomato sauce for dinner, and opened a bottle of wine. And all is well again in the universe.
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 =)
That being said, I hope better news isn't too far away for you =)
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.
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.
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...
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.
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 :-)
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 :-)
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."
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.
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.