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.

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.

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.

I've just discovered they had photo points set up, taking pictures of everyone. [flerdle] There's a small matter of a 10,000 mile ride to get there.

[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.

[Phil] Oh I see. Hunstanton drives you around the bend. :)

[Raak] If you start soon, you'd easily get here in time for next year's :-)

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!

[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.

[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!

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.

(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.

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?

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?

[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?

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

Another silent week in MC5-land. What-ho, chaps!

Well, the weather is iffy but at least Murray is grinding on at Wimbledon. Is that worth mentioning?

(Softers) I suppose so but I prefer to watch the ladies. All that grumble and grunt.

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.

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. :-)

*announces cake break*
Gelukkige Verjaardag Penelopij!

Today is also Teddy Bears' Picnic Day. So two reasons to celebrate!

[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.

[pen] Happy Yesterday!

Een beetje laat.

The cake is a lie.

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.*

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)

[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.

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).

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.

And me, for what it's worth, being no good at it.

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.

In addition, every athlete recorded either a world record, a national record or a personal best.

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?

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.

(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?