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.
The talk . . .
We're just friends. He asked me to go outside and talk with him at the 4th of July party. Sometimes I hate the emotions that come with being a girl because nothing changed between us and yet, it still hurt. It doesn't make sense.
I was okay in a few minutes, though. I just needed to cry and then pray.
My mind keeps wandering and thinking, "Did he say 'not yet' at some point?" I don't think he did, but I kind of stopped completely listening when he said "friends only." I know what whatever is supposed to happen will happen.
He looked snazzy in his tux, though!
Me, Him in a tux
I was okay in a few minutes, though. I just needed to cry and then pray.
My mind keeps wandering and thinking, "Did he say 'not yet' at some point?" I don't think he did, but I kind of stopped completely listening when he said "friends only." I know what whatever is supposed to happen will happen.
He looked snazzy in his tux, though!
Me, Him in a tux
Is this real?
[penelope] Is anything real?
Reality
Yes, this is real. He and I went to a Fourth of July celebration - not together - just at the same place. He's my friend :)
states
Remember, I live in the United States - Louisiana.
[pen] Agreed.
In temembrance
Not sure I can remember, because I didn't know in the first place... anyway. In other (non-non-dating) news, *waves from my sister's new garden furniture*
(nights) You've only got 28°C according to my source. Same as Birmingham. A paltry 27° here. Comment dit-on "phewhatascorcha" en français?
"Zut alors, quelle scorcher"?
Taking it up a notch with Fretch (or perhaps Dunch)
Dieu verdomme, il fait mooi weer, n'est ce toch?
(pen) Ace Belgian indeterminacy.
It's going to be nice and sunny and warm, not too hot, for at least a week. Despite the conditions I'm going to get bored. I want one of these. But, like everything else, it won't be the same second time round.
It's going to be nice and sunny and warm, not too hot, for at least a week. Despite the conditions I'm going to get bored. I want one of these. But, like everything else, it won't be the same second time round.
Computers
What's happened to my link? "These" should lead you to:
Sod it, then
Nice to meet you
So, I feel a little shy about asking. But if I were to make my way to London toward the end of August (exact date TBD), would any of you care to meet me for a cocktail?
Cocktails for Several?
I think that could be feasible. I believe someone else is visiting London in August too. See this bookmark
Beeeeer milkshakes!^W^WCocktails
[cfm] Be delighted to.
(cfm) Lunch for two at the Greasy Spoon, Streatham High Road. Tick. Pints of bitter at the Dyson and Duster, Penge, SE 20. Tick. Brandy and cigars at the embassy. Tick. Just not, please God, cocktails. It would be nice to meet you, BTW. :-)
Lettuce after his name
[Rosie] AFRMS? Nice!
(Phil) It's nothing - we're the riff-raff. You get interviewed by a couple of Fellows, or you did 30 years ago when I joined. It doesn't imply current professional involvement and peer approval but has its uses such as access to information and a slight pull in getting something published in the meteorological literature. I'd rather have an MBE like my brother or like a friend of a friend who jealously owns a restored pannier-tank engine at Didcot.(No. 3650). The actual metal-bashers refer to him as "My Bloody Engine".
I should be seeing family around that time so I might be in for a pilg.
Around here, if you don't speak Elsässich, you say "Nan mais quand même fait un putain de chaleur oh, faut qu'on part à la mer tu sais hein". At least, that is what my colleagues have been saying and who am I to disagree.
Around here, if you don't speak Elsässich, you say "Nan mais quand même fait un putain de chaleur oh, faut qu'on part à la mer tu sais hein". At least, that is what my colleagues have been saying and who am I to disagree.
Langauges
I have no idea what " Elsässich" is. I speak English. I know some French, but haven't truly practiced it in years. I know a few Spanish words and phrases. Then, I know just a tiny bit of German words in phrases. I can speak Pig Latin, does that count?
I had thought that I had mentioned I lived in Louisiana and Giertrud is my sister IRL.
I had thought that I had mentioned I lived in Louisiana and Giertrud is my sister IRL.
Didcot?
[Rosie] Oooh, Didcot's my nearest town now (just). If you're visiting said friend of friend, give me a shout.
Langauges - for measuring your langs
Elsässich - is it something to do with Alsace-style Germch/Frenman?
[nights] I'm guessing they say "parte" :-)
[cfm] Sadly, I am on the wrong side of the world. I have only ever been to one real London-based pilgrimage.
[K] I think you did mention both those things, yes. At least, those were both things I believed to be true, and it seems unlikely that was just by chance. :-)
[cfm] Sadly, I am on the wrong side of the world. I have only ever been to one real London-based pilgrimage.
[K] I think you did mention both those things, yes. At least, those were both things I believed to be true, and it seems unlikely that was just by chance. :-)
[CdM] They do indeed. This is what I get for not having my spellchecker on.
[Kagome/pen] Elsässich, or Alsatian, is a low German dialect spoken in Alsace, generally by the older generations, although it is making a comeback with the support of the region. It's roughly intelligible with Swiss German, and if I concentrate, I can just about understand via my knowledge of German.
In other news, I understand my town is on the news in the UK via some judgement or other being handed down about something in prison? *innocent face
[Kagome/pen] Elsässich, or Alsatian, is a low German dialect spoken in Alsace, generally by the older generations, although it is making a comeback with the support of the region. It's roughly intelligible with Swiss German, and if I concentrate, I can just about understand via my knowledge of German.
In other news, I understand my town is on the news in the UK via some judgement or other being handed down about something in prison? *innocent face
.. is calling the clever brigade
Pleaseplease guess the AVMA
A propos the discussion in Eight Words
... I remember thinking, when the "I'm not wearing any pants" game started, that it would conjure up very different images for Brits (sorry, pen) and Americans. As a Brit who lived a long time in the US, I find myself flipping back and forth, or picturing someone wearing neither pants nor pants.
*excitement plus*
[Nights, Rosie, SM, Phil] Excellent! Presently, all I know is that I have to be in Hamburg on business for a week or so in the second half of August. I'll get back to you when my dates firm up.
[CdM] Sad, indeed. But I am sure whatever side of the world you are on is the right one. :-)
[CdM] Sad, indeed. But I am sure whatever side of the world you are on is the right one. :-)
I can't believe it's not hotter
No weather talk?
(pen) I was taught if you can't say anything nice ... say nothing ;)
[pen/Chalky] I think the weather's lovely. I wouldn't mind a bit of a breeze, but high 20s is fine with me. Actually, the garden is starting to suffer a bit, but it'll live.
Three free weeks
From Friday, I've got three weeks off. I'd like the good weather to last a bit longer, but I don't want our beans and tomatoes to perish while we're away for a week or so of that!
Persistence
(pen) The weather charts show no end to this spell, at least not before the charts themselves become pretty meaningless (10 days or so). Hot, but not record-breakingly so, and no rain at all. There might be the odd thunderstorm in N France. I'm getting rather bored with it.
Tis ok
We have a BBQ planned for Saturday, so no doubt the world will end or somesuch.
Mob of moaners! Get outside and wash your cars. :)
What I mentioned
[CdM] I do remember mentioning those things now because I was joking with y'all when y'all mentioned perhaps a get-together and said to hold it in my town! And, that is funny about the pants! The game works either way for it to be completely silly!
I wish the car wasn't in for servicing. Walking 3km from the nearest bus stop and arriving wreathed in sweat is not a good look.
Ot. Innit?
[Raak] I'll take your word for it. I've only been outdoors for about 1 minute so far today.
Boston vacation
Also very hot. Walks along the breezy Charles and doing my laps in salt water unheated pools also brought some relief.
Back at my desk now. I thought I was going to have the week from hell ahead of me--but it looks like there may be some relief from that, too. YAY!
Back at my desk now. I thought I was going to have the week from hell ahead of me--but it looks like there may be some relief from that, too. YAY!
(Raak) Kinot mate. Hottest day at Plas Huws since 2006. 32.2°C top whack. Humid and sweaty but not equatorial levels, nothing like. There was an interesting interlude late last night at Crystal Palace, S. London with light rain, thunder and lightning but the full moon clearly visible. Just heard a faint rumble of thunder here at home (2.57 a.m.). Full moon still visible, illuminating some rather interesting-looking clouds. Things may happen.
[Rosie] I thought of you as 'interesting' clouds approached us last night. Very little rain actually fell though. 32.2C is the "Great Threshold" in my mind, being 90F.
Nanopilgrimage manqué
[cfm] You were in Boston last week?? I was there (well, technically, Cambridge) for a conference. (And yes, it was definitely hot, though I spent most of my time in airconditioned meeting rooms.)
Cruel fate
[CdM] Heartbroken! How I wish you had *waved from Boston*.
HOTTTT
Hot here, too. 91F at the hottest point of the day, or as Google tells me 32.7778C.
Just back from a wedding in Chamonix. Even at that elevation, it was still 30°C and over. On the plus side, the weather was beautiful and the reception lavish. Go to a French wedding, if you're asked. You will not regret it.
[nights] I was paused, very briefly, in Chamonix in July '96. Simply stunning. I keep meaning to go back - in summer, as I'm no skier.
"With robes that gleam with sunny sheen
Sweet August doth appear.."
Have just added to two poetry games both presenting 'joy' as their last word ... are we having happy summers?
Is everybody happy?
Yus. And I just had to go and Google to find The Scaffold's 'Today's Monday' song, in which is the line 'Is everybody happy? You bet your life we are' which I have remembered vaguely since my childhood. Thanks!
Happiness?
I'm not too bad - work was way better yesterday than Monday. Tonight I play cricket for my current team for the last time, against my own village team, which I shall be joining after tonight. I think post-match beer may be in evidence, both at the pitch and back in the village.
Eudaimonia
I just got my official redundancy letter, which I've seen coming at least a year out. I'll be taking up a half-time post at a nearby research institute, and with my redundancy payment, my late mother's legacy, and collecting my pension in two years this is not actually a bad thing. In fact, I could have had a full-time post at the research institute, but I decided I couldn't face grinding away at that full time for another three years, and look forward to having the time, as they say, to pursue my own interests.
Should be leaving the bitter misery of over 2 years' unemployment behind me come Monday. Can't wait.
[Tuj] Congratulations and best wishes for a rocking good landing!
Sunday night is bath night
[Tuj] Congrats! I didn't realise you'd had such a struggle. Hope it goes well.
{Raak] Also congrats. That's sounds like a nice way to enjoy working. I have to admit I'm starting to see the advantages of a part-time job, timewise, but the windy miller and I would like to buy a house before the end of the year, so we need to keep working.
{Raak] Also congrats. That's sounds like a nice way to enjoy working. I have to admit I'm starting to see the advantages of a part-time job, timewise, but the windy miller and I would like to buy a house before the end of the year, so we need to keep working.
[Tuj] May we ask what sort of job? Does it start with a "P"? I've been unemployed twice in the last 10 years, for about 8 months each time, and it's mind-achingly frustrating, so I'd imagine you must be on quite a high!
[Raak] That sounds like a very painless redundancy - congrats :-)
[Raak] That sounds like a very painless redundancy - congrats :-)
P-rofession
[c,p,P] Ta all =) I did do a course in proof-reading the other year but have yet to make anything of it. The saddle I'm back in is just some customer service, answering emails and phones - but as Phil alluded to, my Monday morning feeling was far from the stereotypical heel-dragging!
[Penelope]
Hidden text
From memory: Sunday is Prayer Day, Saturday is Payday, Friday is Fish'n'Chips, Thursday is Shepherd's Pie, Wednesday is Roast-a-Beef, Tuesday is Soo-oop, Monday is Washing Day IEHYBYLWA. Didn't know it was a Scaffold Song though[Raak] That place has definitely gone to the dogs and does not deserve one of such stellar provenance. I'd blame Global Warming but I'm not sure now if it wasn't all made up by ENV.
[Tuj] Congratulations. May it be rewarding in every sense.
You bet
[Stevie] Correct. Now go and find it on YouTube!
Me again - blessings tally
It's Friday, and the beginning of the weekend of our second wedding anniversary. Nice things that have happened or to happen today: it's payday; a professor has replied to my emailed request for information within 24 hours and with lots of information; I have leftover home-made chicken jalfrezi, lentil dahl and basmati rice for lunch; we're going to Antwerp market for breakfast on Sunday morning (fried fish and then waffles as big as my head), and my lovely god-daughter passed the first batch of her GCSEs.
me again (1 week later)
Weekend plans, you lot? I think I might be cycling around the Zeeland countryside in search of blackberries and stunning landscape phtographs with a couple of friends from work. And dodging showers. First; haircut tonight after work, with the girl with the hairdryer tattoo. I think that means she's committed t her career. What about you?
Household drudgery. Walking dogs, laundry, cleaning, cooking, washing up, gardening. Have been invited to a house-warming, but probably won't go. Oh, I need to get a new tyre, that'll be thrilling...
In other words
[Phil] You could summarise my seemingly bucolic list of delights as 'anything except housework'. We all have to wear clean pants, you know, It's just that some of us wash them during the week. Get out and see something new.
My last day of work today
Actually, that was two weeks ago, as I took the rest of the month off as holiday. Bought an iPad while I'm still eligible for educational discount. I'd buy a new Mac as well, as my current desktop can't run the last two versions of OSX, but there will be new models announced later this year. Apple aren't saying when, but it's unlikely to be this month now.
[pen] Just realised I mentioned Mrs Phil's gastroenteritis in another place, not here. Not really able to go anywhere at the mo. Good news is that I can pick blackberries while walking dogs.
Gastroenteritis in another place
[Phil] I hope she's now recovered, and your weekend was fruitful. I have been cycling round the empty lanes in Zeeland, where Google Streeview hasn't even been yet, and foraging blackberries. Planning to do it for the next couple of Saturdays. (The windy miller's mill is on this map - a village called Zonnemaire, and we also look after the teeny one-third scale mill on the harbourside at Brouwershaven).
[pen] She's getting there - managing to spend four hours out of bed for the first time in 12 days is progress.
Blimey
Jeez, must have been TERRIBLE. She'll feel rubbish. Sending best regards for swift improvement.
thanks, pen. On the (further) downside, I took the dogs for a longer walk than normal at the weekend, on a different route, and completely forgot about the blackberries. Still, we have damsons, apples, loganberries and blackberries in the back garden :)
Who? What?
What happened to Cleri Who's who?
moribundity
[Softers] You killed it. Much like the AVMA game.
Only kidding! If there's no action for 3 days - the game will revert to its Flat Footed status. Just click on 'See More'
As for AVMA - perhaps you can find a way to pique the collective interest of participating crescenters? You're in charge.
Only kidding! If there's no action for 3 days - the game will revert to its Flat Footed status. Just click on 'See More'
As for AVMA - perhaps you can find a way to pique the collective interest of participating crescenters? You're in charge.
(Softers, Chalky) Revived by clerihughes, but only by breaking bending the rules.
Well done Rosie.
the original game reviver
[Rosie, Software] The current game of Cleri Who's Who has been in existence for several years ... but then you knew that, yes?
decision time
Should I, or should I not go with the windy miller to his mill in the wilds of Zeeland tomorrow for Open Monuments Day? (Heritage Open day in the UK tomorrow too... have you checked what's open where you are?) It's going to piss with rain. I could usefully take some work to do (extension lead out of the mill into the car where I sit in comfort with my laptop and without the distraction of the internet) and I'd take some sausages to cook, and probably stuff to make pancakes too. I could go blackberry picking on the bike if there's a break in the weather. The alternative is cleaning the loo and doing the laundry at home alone.
I think I've just answered my own question.
I think I've just answered my own question.
(Chalky) I did indeed, m'dear. Re-reviver, perhaps.
[penelope] Hope you went. Glad we were of help.
[Rosie] Credit where it's due, eh? ;)
[Rosie] Credit where it's due, eh? ;)
on yer bike
[Chalks] I did indeed go. And it was lovely. I put a photo on Facebook - so you can see where I was cycling. The loo got cleaned anyway. The weather's been very showery ever since.
[pen] Yes - saw the photo. 'Bout the time I was in league with the freeway :-)
Heel bon
I'm loving the Franglais limerick that's waiting for a conclusion on another page. The windy miller and I have found that we understand each other very well when we speak a mixture of Dutch and French (my Dutch being terrible and my French being O level circa 1981 and about the same standard as his). Is this Francerlandse? Nederlais? Dutchglais or Frutch?
Ce limérique-là
(pen) Tu l'aimais encore? I dun me best.
Encore, plus le petit dejeuner
Just back from a romantic short séjour in the Ardennes. All languages work there - at least all the ones that I know - English, Dutch and French. Trouble is, you're not supposed to use them all at once, in one sentence, when speaking to other people. Oh well. But the wine was bloody nice (and the foie gras too, if I'm allowed to mention it).
(pen) Course y'are, duck.
Tonight: staying late to sit in on a student mentors' coaching session (for alumni who have volunteered to act as mentors to current students). Will be writing article about it later. Free dinner.
"Free dinner" - a wonderful combination of words! I shall be enjoying free food and drink on Sunday at our village cricket club's season finale, whatever the weather. I might even bowl an over, if my withered achilles will take the strain.
Monday Monday
Morning all. Weekend reports please: Phil, did you get your overs in? Or did your achilles put paid to everything but sitting in the pavilion scarfing sarnies? *ducks*.
'Free dinner' was actuially a sandwich on tough French bread. Ruinous for my teeth as well as my gut. Bleurgh.
'Free dinner' was actuially a sandwich on tough French bread. Ruinous for my teeth as well as my gut. Bleurgh.
The weekend
I didn't bowl, and would have batted, had our previous batsman got out at least one ball earlier. I did consume plenty of ale, and far too much barbecue though :)
Five times the Friday fun
Getting girded up to cover an afternoon-long conference in central Rotterdam. Preparing to take notes to write it up three different ways for various outlets, plus another two other reports to come out of it. Five times the fun from just one afternoon...
Work fun
I have fire extinguisher training this afternoon, in which we will actually get to set off fire extinguishers in the car park! Can I grow up by this afternoon? I doubt it.
[Phil] When I got a keycard to the research institute that I spend some of my time at, there was "fire training". It was "That's a fire extinguisher." That was enough to tick the checkbox on the form.
How'd it go, Phil? Still foaming at the mouth?
I'm a firestarter, a twisted firestarter....
Well, I managed the improbable, and learnt a useful lesson in the process. I managed to restart an extinguished newspaper fire with a water fire extinguisher.
Splendid!
[Phil] You could be onto a winner.
[pen] Just call me Charlie McGee!
Wikipedia, wikipedia...
Had to google that name, Phil! Never read any Stephen King, never go to the cinema either!
So what else is banter-worthy this week? I've been to London for a day and a half (as I have posted in another place) and I've got two big deadlines in the next 10 days. Or possibly three. I have started a new tradition of Saturday afternoon cycle rides around 'our corner' of Zeeland (where the windy miller's mill is) which I'm enjoying more and more. I rarely see a car or anyone else. It's utterly silent and empty - fields, dykes, birds - and that's about it, so I just take my camera. I'm intending to keep it up through the winter (there's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes) so now I have announced it to you lot, you can egg me on.
So what else is banter-worthy this week? I've been to London for a day and a half (as I have posted in another place) and I've got two big deadlines in the next 10 days. Or possibly three. I have started a new tradition of Saturday afternoon cycle rides around 'our corner' of Zeeland (where the windy miller's mill is) which I'm enjoying more and more. I rarely see a car or anyone else. It's utterly silent and empty - fields, dykes, birds - and that's about it, so I just take my camera. I'm intending to keep it up through the winter (there's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes) so now I have announced it to you lot, you can egg me on.
ride, penelope, ride
[pen] I had to google it too, having read the book at least 20 years ago.
I managed to hit one deadline last friday, and look likely to hit another one tomorrow, which is to have two massive catalogues on CD, and get them to the duplicator's shop for midday. If I achieve that, I can have monday off :-)
I managed to hit one deadline last friday, and look likely to hit another one tomorrow, which is to have two massive catalogues on CD, and get them to the duplicator's shop for midday. If I achieve that, I can have monday off :-)
Holidays
I've just booked my remaining vacations days, to use them up before the end of the year. Two short holidays in November, and not one single working Monday in December!
Deadlines
I wish I had the bravado to quote Douglas Adams to my boss . However, my determination to hit this one led to my first all-nighter for a long time. Admittedly, I did sleep from 5am to 6am, but I did have two programs running at the time.
Hidden text
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by"Head desk
Phil! Phil! Wake up!
Last all-nighter I did was at some rally or other in about 1999, in Scotland, in another life. I ate sooo much cake trying to stay awake.
Last all-nighter I did was at some rally or other in about 1999, in Scotland, in another life. I ate sooo much cake trying to stay awake.
grrrrr
Despite my best efforts, I think we're not going to have this ready for midday. Just sitting here watching processes thrashing away in my task manager, wishing my processor was more powerful. Fingers crossed that it saves this time!
I think this definitely needs to be added to my "Murtaugh List", named after Danny Glover's character in the Lethal Weapon films, as in "I'm getting too old for this s**t".
Breathing space
Deadline is now 3.30pm - hurry up, computer!
Dreadlines
*grooogh* Three days until the dreadline for the alumni magazine. Still two features to write - and the letter from the dean. I'm not so much his ghost writer, but more in spiritual possession of his soul.
school, school, school, school . . .
I have three English classes - American Literature, British Literature, and Shakespeare. i've not been thrilled with some of the Brit Lit and others I've loved. However, I LOVED the assignment for Friday! We had to read Edward Lear's "The Jumblies" and some of his Limericks then Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" and Humpty Dumpty's explanation of it.
*waves from Lincolnshire*
*waves back from West Berks*
Distinctly unwell, but hoping to get Brownie points from boss for working from home instead of just phoning in sick.
Distinctly unwell, but hoping to get Brownie points from boss for working from home instead of just phoning in sick.
feeling any better Phil?
I've spent the week off, mooching around my home town, having a lovely time. I've bought a map of the county dated 1796, researched and downloaded a font contemporaneous to the map so I can label it authentically, and taken it to be mounted and framed sympathetically. and I've made my mum a birthday cake. We're off out for Fish and chips in Cleethorpes tonight to celebrate!
I've spent the week off, mooching around my home town, having a lovely time. I've bought a map of the county dated 1796, researched and downloaded a font contemporaneous to the map so I can label it authentically, and taken it to be mounted and framed sympathetically. and I've made my mum a birthday cake. We're off out for Fish and chips in Cleethorpes tonight to celebrate!
(pen) Fish and Chips in Cleethorpes? As I have remarked earlier, I fought you was one o' vem posh birds. However no-one who likes maps (or fish and chips) can be all bad. I have finally put together a contour map of the entire North Downs, 15 m interval, 1: 80,000 scale. 6 ft 6 in by 1 ft 6 in.
maptastic
[Rosie] How did you make it? from noining up exisitng maps, or drawing it yourself?
What's mildly inneresting about the 1796 mapofLincs is the plethora of villages in the wolds, presumably full of sheep farmers and shepherds using the recently-completed louth navigation canal to take wool to Louth's famous carpet factory, and also to the coast and by boat to London and Antwerp, and the relatively sparsely populated fens, barely drained, uninhabitable and uncultivateable at that time. And it's hand coloured. Double mount with green inner, and a bevelled oak frame. Nice.
What's mildly inneresting about the 1796 mapofLincs is the plethora of villages in the wolds, presumably full of sheep farmers and shepherds using the recently-completed louth navigation canal to take wool to Louth's famous carpet factory, and also to the coast and by boat to London and Antwerp, and the relatively sparsely populated fens, barely drained, uninhabitable and uncultivateable at that time. And it's hand coloured. Double mount with green inner, and a bevelled oak frame. Nice.
noining?
I wasn't even quick enough to use the 'Whoops!' function. Joining.
Mapa Downium Borealium
(pen) It took ages. Process: Trace 15 m contours from OS 1:25000 maps. Transfer to A4 sheets, stick them all together and ink in the contours. Scan, sheet by sheet in Photoshop and make sure the lines are continuous. Use Paint Bucket to add contour layer colours. Add place and river names. Print out and butt the edges together. Spray with artist's lacquer. Show it to the blokes down the pub. Take it home and stick it on the wall. I wish I had some way of displaying it.
[Rosie] You can get it framed. You should get it framed. all the work was worth it, wosnit?
(pen) I have framed it. Not exactly a craftsman job but it now decorates my bedroom. My cartophilia comes from my Dad who taught geography among other things and left dozens of old OS maps to which I have added quite a number.
Wensdi rambling
So how is everyone? Anyone care to tell us how they intend to address the remainder of the working week? I'm going to attack it, and use all the determination and spunk I can muster to write TWO BORING THINGS that have been sitting on my to-do list for too long. (And sorry, no apologies for using the word 'spunk'! I'm retreating into the 1930s in several respects, not least with my hankering for bread and dripping).
Bread and dripping? Ee' lass, I scoffed chips in gravy last night.
Bread and dripping? That brings back a few memories, penelope. It were a staple at ours in't late '40s and early '50s. Owt that were scrapeable (greaseproof paper an' such) went inter't chip pan. 'Course we din't call it that as we were posh and had 'fried bread'.
Dunkin fries
(Chalky) Oh, how could you? It ruins them. Chipppps should be crissssp.
How am I?
[penelope] I'm ill, again. 102F temperature, dizzy, headaches, snot and catarrh everywhere. The bonus is that I'm losing weight :)
A doctor recommends...
Phil, m'lad you need beefing up. Get some proper beef dripping inside yer. Hope it goes soon. (Colleague whose father is a GP got the 'flu shot on Tuesday evening. She complained of a sore arm yesterday. Today she's off with 'flu symptoms)
Has everybody taken to their beds with influenza?
It's a bit quiet in here.
*pin drops*
I heard that...
Got back to work on Monday, although I still feel like a mucus production line. Got loads of work on though, as I was off for 7 of the previous 10 days. Unfortunately, my boss is off sick now, and the other third of the IT department is on holiday, so I'm the only person available to fix everything (inc hardware - grrrr).
I ain't touching it
I'm not going near the Glow Worms game again until someone gets rid of the one with the badly-metred line about nipples. *blames Software*
[pen] It seems OK to me. Confused.
Addressing the nipple without even a coma
[Phil] I meant it had a typo: you/your. Alternatively 'To you, nipple, I'd be put'. Still weird. Tell me when it's all over.
(pen) The metre's all right - it's just a typo, and a fairly common one.
[penelope] You can come out now.
[Rosie] A common typo? I would challenge that statement - if only because I'm in the mood to challenge pretty much everything this morning ... (insert winky face)
To put it another way - why do we have the 'preview' function' or indeed the 'whoops' escape if not to eradicate such monstrosities? < mode= really going over the top now >
[Rosie] A common typo? I would challenge that statement - if only because I'm in the mood to challenge pretty much everything this morning ... (insert winky face)
To put it another way - why do we have the 'preview' function' or indeed the 'whoops' escape if not to eradicate such monstrosities? < mode= really going over the top now >
Nobody expects the Monstrous Regiment!
Least of all the Spaniels!
12 minutes, a new record
The time I have just observed a group of three adults, two babies, and a toddler take in a cafe, from their first getting-up-to-go movements to actually getting out of the front door. The previous record was 10 minutes, taken by two women, a baby, and an enormous quantity of shopping.
Today is my Birthday!
thanks to time zones....
...in that case it probably still is for nearly another 10 hours. So Happy Birthday Giertrud :-)
Thanks!!
HBTY Giertrud
Try to keep growing old for as long as possible.
-
%aThis website is great 6cd8212ffc3e2c1f993c2a3d5054d176
Yeah
it is, isn't it?
Hurrah!
Ther evenings will start drawing out in less than a week, at least at this latitude, 51° 19' 06"N. This cannot be too soon.
[Rosie] Spoilsport!
brighter later
[Rosie] Goodie. Ta for that bit of news.
Last time in a long time
A counting date ... 11/12/13 .... It was in November for us who write the month first though...
Dates - USA style
(Giertrude) Surely you have 12/13/14?
Dates . . .
Yes, [Rosie], we had that. We've had a lot of neat dates so far this century. 1/2/3
2/3/4
3/4/5
4/5/6
5/6/7
6/7/8
7/8/9
8/9/10
10/11/12
11/12/13
2/3/4
3/4/5
4/5/6
5/6/7
6/7/8
7/8/9
8/9/10
10/11/12
11/12/13
The Theatre!
Two more performances of "Irving Berlin's White Christmas" for me. The last performance day and cast party will be bittersweet.
about blummin' time too
Only four more working days until the Xmas hols. Next Saturday the windy miller's mill is the starting point for the torchlit midwinterday four-course gastrotour of the tiny village in Zeeland. i'll be serving gluhwijn from the workbench, under a canopy of 200 fairy lights, as they light the torches at sunset (which is about 4pm here). And on Sunday, we're heading over to Blighty for the week.
three more days...
Three more days at work (after this afternoon - although we're halfway through the afternoon so it's mattering less and less) until Friday night's dinner with the windy miller's company (in real life, he runs a construction project management company and employs three people. I have to be the boss's wife...), Saturday's midwinter sunset torch-lit procession around the village on Zonnemaire in Zeeland where the windy miller's mill is. And on Sunday, we depart for Blighty on the ferry to Dover, heading for some friends in Guildford for our first overnight stop. Can't wait.
2.5 more days
After today, I have the aforementioned 2.5 working days this year. Then friday night is the company christmas do, with 63 in attendance - plus these chaps providing entertainment. Plus Mrs Phil & I have been given free B&B at the hotel too. I'm genuinely looking forward to it, which is most out-of-character.
2.5 more days
Haven't posted my Christmas cards yet. And there are some I haven't written yet either. The ones that are ready to go are in a big bag in the car. I'm hoping to get to the post office (stationed in our local village supermarket) tonight.
That's it! I'm leaving!
In an hour or so, I will no longer need to waste so much time in here because I'm heading out for a week-and-a-half off. I'll try and pop in from time to time though. Try and keep up the chatter yourselves, eh?
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas (eve)!
A very Merry Christmas to all at MC5!
Ditto
Ditto
Ditto.
Season's Greetings
Happy Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah Day everyone, and Allah bless us, one and all!
Yes, I'm still here
Hope your Christmases went well and the new year is suitably novel.
Oh, it's you
Indeed. Which novel should we aim to replicate in 2014? HNY, you lot.
Happy New Year!
(Stevie) Thank you for waiting till midnight GMT.
I've started the New Year with bungling and ranting. TYpical.
Pour décourager les autres
(pen) Keep it up. Eliminate the crap. BTW You've made a TYpo. :-)
Watching the defectives
Bungling and rating? Could be ... *wink*
gravity
*drops*
[pen] Burgling and panting?
Dear Scansion Police
Anonymous defamation is simply pathetic. Even if it were justified criticism, which it isn't, posting it anonymously is the behaviour of a half-baked, duplicitous, weak-minded troll.
The chippy misfit
(Phil) He's probably getting at me, for reasons best known to himself, and has hijacked a limerick to do so. Not good. Probably thinks this site cliquey but too dim to realise that firstly, it isn't, and secondly, if he thinks it is then all he needs do to join the clique is simply not be an arsehole. The wit, widsom and wordplay of all is welcomed, as has been proved dozens of times with newcomers.
Wittering, as only I can
Jeez it's tedious doing HTML.in here on an iPhone. *tap tap tappity tap*
East or West Wittering
The capital "P" is no disguise - we know you're in there. Hurry up - I'm dying.
Capital
[Rosie] I laughed out loud. But now I've got to grips with the titchy keyboard on this eyephone, I'm back to my normal self.
foggiest
So... Thursday, eh? And what has the week delivered for you lot? For me: I've finally finished all the satsumas in the house. I'm going to buy some more in a minute from the new supermarket on the university campus. It's a hard habit to break, two per day since November... Exciting times.
I finished up the week by watching penguins emerge from the ocean.
Beat that
[CdM] a penguin automat? I finished the week in the greengrocer's, being reminded that I needed potatoes. I love independent shops.
[CdM] Don't be ridiculous. Amphibians emerged from the oceans, had dinosaur babies who laid penguin eggs. Read a book!
[Dan] I've just reread my bible*, and it says no such thing. In fact it has very little discussion of penguins at all.
[flerdle] I think Coles' and Woolworth's online shopping could probably do that for you as well. And it would save all the pesky hanging around, chatting, making friends and so on.**
*Full disclosure: I do not actually own a bible.
**cf. Sirius Cybercorp.
[flerdle] I think Coles' and Woolworth's online shopping could probably do that for you as well. And it would save all the pesky hanging around, chatting, making friends and so on.**
*Full disclosure: I do not actually own a bible.
**cf. Sirius Cybercorp.
Store names
If you said "Cole's" in the U.S., we'd assume it was Kohl's.
[CdM] It's better in the original Greek anyway.
[CdM] I think the delivery charge to the Netherlands would be a little steep though, wouldn't it?
[pen] For the first time in my life I live walking distance from a greengrocer, and it really changes things. Also many other things, including a fish market and a bakery, most of which are even closer and all of which have appeared since we moved into the neighborhood. I may not have to emigrate after all.
preëmpt-o-matic
*waits for CdM to say "I thought in the U.S. 'walking distance' means it's in your garage"*
Hmmm, the flerdle/pen conflation. Muss less common than Dan/Dunx
"Muss"?
Muss try harder
I need celery, radishes and apples. And onions. Anyone fancy a stroll to the groentenwinkel?
[pen] I'm afraid I'm not able to walk across oceans, nor swim them even if Google says I should be able to do such a thing.
despite staying late at work, the shop was still just open at 7 when i got there. I was probably their last customer of the day. Now to make that celery soup...
I love radishes. Much underrated.
I discovered king oyster mushrooms the other day, on a market stall. Never knew they existed. Truly, the earth continues to bring forth wonders.
Mushrooms
[Raak] Though art indeed brave if though tasteth of that most vile fruit of the ground, harvested by the light of the New Moon by debased and foul Tcho-Tchos, who tear them from the curséd soil of Leng - which lieth not fully in this Universe, but doth straddle other, forbidden dimensions across which stride Those Who Shudde Notte Bee, in whose footprints sprout these fungi thou doth prize so highly.
me too
I'm not a fan of mushrooms either.
No Entry
Can't seem to get anything into MCiOS, any game. Anybody else having problems?
[Rosie] Is working for me.
(Raak) Works OK now.
Curioser and curioser
There seems to be some sort of caching problem. I can post there fine, but when I get to the page I posted to from the main page, the post doesn't appear. But if I post again, all the posts show up. It's like the moves are being made properly, but the front page links are pointing to a stale cache.
catching up
Not fond of mushrooms. Or stale caches.
stale mushrooms
I'm not fond of mushrooms either. I wonder if the cache is a good place to grow them - it seems dark and undisturbed in there.
Mushrooms
I like much-maligned mushrooms. Yumptious!
(Phil) Yeah, they're great. I had some with a couple of lamb chops last night.
(Raak) I've noticed that too.
(Raak) I've noticed that too.
[Phil] When a recipe calls for much-maligned mushrooms, how long should I malign them for?
Mushrooms
[Dan] I generally start with disparaging remarks about the overall quality of their gills, then move on to more targeted insults on the subject of stem length and cap diameter.
That takes from between 2 to four minutes.
Mushrooms
[Dan] With all due respect to Stevie, I'd consider his mushrooms to be simply "maligned", not "much-maligned". I can't repeat here the sort of language I use in their presence, but it makes them sweat like an onion.
F****** mushrooms
(Phil) You don't know how many other people malign mushrooms, or with what intensity. That, of course applies to mushrooms in general, not necessarily Stevie's. On the other hand, Stevie's mushroms may have a flea in their ear from those condemned to pick them.
Not that keen on mushrooms, meself. The taste is OK, but I really don't like the texture.In other news, we don't got flooding yet, nor that much snow. UPdates, Rosie?
(pen) No flooding? Of course not - you take it seriously over there, as you have to. I'd be very surprised if you got any snow but you'll get a load more rain and wind Wednesday and Saturday just as we will and probably worse.
"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass - it's about learning how to dance in the rain"
... one of my favourite mottos brought to life by "Flippin' Floods in Salisbury"
... one of my favourite mottos brought to life by "Flippin' Floods in Salisbury"
It's getting rather breezy here, and the school has sent out an email warning that they might have to close if all three routes into the village get flooded.
Nothing yet
Nothing has happened here yet. I have just waved off my dear colleague as she's flying to City Airport this evening (she gets to go to the London training day tomorrow that I wanted to go to but there's only budget for one of us - even though we both need the skills) and I didn't want to tell her there may be turburence*.
*Turburence is what we have called it in our family ever since my parents were warned about it on a flight back from Japan via Hong Kong in 1993.
*Turburence is what we have called it in our family ever since my parents were warned about it on a flight back from Japan via Hong Kong in 1993.
British Literature is . . . uh???
British Literature is just fine, really. It's the fact that we were in the medieval period that made it so difficult to read. I couldn't understand all that Middle English. The stories were fun when told in modern English. We just had our first test this past Wednesday. I think I did fine.
Chaucer doth tweet
[KS] Do you Twitter? Try following Chaucer on Twitter for a feel of how Middle English works in the modern world. And it's pretty funny too. There's a whole community of Middle English tweeters out there.
Short week
Only four days in the loathsome office this week. Catching the Eurostar to London on Friday morning (Rosendaal>Brussels>London St P) for a wedding on Saturday. Can't wait!
Zzzzz
Awake for 26.5 hours and counting. Probably still at least an hour till I am united with a bed. And it's bloody cold here too (-12C).
Where the hell are you?
Hello Rab! Where are you? Doing the Iditerod race?
Nowt so glamorous
I'm in Denver, at a ridiculously large conference. Just reading the list of session titles makes me want to have a lie down.
Conferences and their ilk.
Unless such things were local I used to delegate our attendance to a staff member. "Here, Fred, there's a do on down in Melbourne. I'd like you to attend (it'll be good experience for you). Knock up a report and get it to me within the week will you?"
I'm afraid that banging around the country with all the bother of transport etc. has never appealed to me. Others seemed to love it. Maybe they saw it as some sort of status thing rather than a tedious chore. That's not a criticism of your winging your way around the world, rab, just a personal opinion of a bloke who could get out of attending the blasted things.
I'm afraid that banging around the country with all the bother of transport etc. has never appealed to me. Others seemed to love it. Maybe they saw it as some sort of status thing rather than a tedious chore. That's not a criticism of your winging your way around the world, rab, just a personal opinion of a bloke who could get out of attending the blasted things.
Not at all
In my line of work, the main reason for these things is so that people remember you still exist. If I could do this without 19hr journeys and leaving my family for a week, I would. People sometimes say "you're being paid to do it so quit your moaning" but my view is that travel is a perk only if it's (a) to places you actually want to go and (b) with people you actually want to go with. Work trips rarely count. (That said I do have some good mates at work and sometimes I get to go to agreeable places like Amsterdam or Vienna with them. I tend to be less fastidious about keeping my receipts on such occasions.)
This is getting silly
The A22 is still closed for 3 miles and a further road off it is now closed as workmen with pumps, pipes and sandbags etc try to contain the stream occupying it. Another few weeks, I reckon. Also the water level at this place is now threatening the roads on both sides.
let me out
Back at work after six days of feeling distinctly under par (and a cancelled trip to London for a wedding, boo hoo). Can anyone persuade me of the benefits of being in the office working through a MASSIVE inbox on a beautiful spring day like today?
Bright side?
Reduced risk of early hayfever?
Annual income......
(pen) Pays the bills.
[penelope] Reduced risk of being mistaken for Lindsey Lohan and being crushed by a mob of crazed paparazzi?
himpressive
[Giertrud] Cool. I went over for a peek, but will leave it for others to download and play.
In other news... it's another warm and sunny day here in NL. If my Fashion Phenology project is to be relied upon as an indicator of seasonal drift and an early spring, then yesterday's spotting of a woman wearing a pair of white jeans, and today's observation of a student in teeshirt, shorts and sneakers on campus must be recorded. And here is as good a place as any. Have any other Crescenters seen spurious signs of spring?
In other news... it's another warm and sunny day here in NL. If my Fashion Phenology project is to be relied upon as an indicator of seasonal drift and an early spring, then yesterday's spotting of a woman wearing a pair of white jeans, and today's observation of a student in teeshirt, shorts and sneakers on campus must be recorded. And here is as good a place as any. Have any other Crescenters seen spurious signs of spring?
As of yesterday afternoon, my lawns have stripes.
There's been a strange yellow ball in the sky a lot of the time in the past few days.
[Phil, Raak] This...means something.
But what could it mean?
Yellow balls cause stripes?
talking of exceptional quality...
The pea & honey recipes have been splendid of late. Witty and clever. And they rhyme and scan too. Coo.
[Phil] Yesyesyes, but were UFOs involved?
[Stevie] No, I identified them all as alien spaceships.
Vernal illusions
(pen, penpenult.) It is spring. Must be - there was a frost here last night but now it's a nice 17°C.
Aww pen :(
http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2014/03/13/the-predictive-results-for-typing-county-into-google/
If we don't shout about it, no-one will come and spoil it.
[Giertrud]
1. Do you always believe what The Poke Says?
2. The only people who type '[county] is ...' into Google are the thickos who don't know anything anyway
3. It's unscientific.
4. Get orf my laaand.
5. Google doesn't cover Wales.
1. Do you always believe what The Poke Says?
2. The only people who type '[county] is ...' into Google are the thickos who don't know anything anyway
3. It's unscientific.
4. Get orf my laaand.
5. Google doesn't cover Wales.
the sprungness of spring
I have stopped wearing bicycle goggles to keep the cold wind out of my eyes, and started wearing them to keep the insects out of my eyes.
(pen) re no. 5 - Thank God for that. (from the Ghetto)
(Giertrud) There y'are - we're the wittiest nation on earth.
(Raak) But does the cold night air know this?
(Giertrud) There y'are - we're the wittiest nation on earth.
(Raak) But does the cold night air know this?
[Pen] Somewhat topically, I had a strange impulse to apply those responses to Tony Benn's five questions to power:
What power have you got?I don't know about you but I think that works perfectly.
Do you always believe what The Poke Says?"Where did you get it from?
The only people who type '[county] is ...' into Google are the thickos who don't know anything anywayIn whose interests do you use it?
It's unscientific.To whom are you accountable?
Get orf my laaand.How do we get rid of you?
Google doesn't cover Wales.
1. Do you always believe what The Poke Says?
no, I just thought it was silly.
2. The only people who type '[county] is ...' into Google are the thickos who don't know anything anyway
It can be fun to see what comes up, especially when the name also applies to something else.
3. It's unscientific.
duh.
4. Get orf my laaand.
whyyyyyyy?
5. Google doesn't cover Wales.
Try telling that to Google The Powers That Be! (If you told me Bing didn't cover Wales, I'd be more likely to believe it.)
no, I just thought it was silly.
2. The only people who type '[county] is ...' into Google are the thickos who don't know anything anyway
It can be fun to see what comes up, especially when the name also applies to something else.
3. It's unscientific.
duh.
4. Get orf my laaand.
whyyyyyyy?
5. Google doesn't cover Wales.
Try telling that to Google The Powers That Be! (If you told me Bing didn't cover Wales, I'd be more likely to believe it.)
Y Gwgl
(Giertrude) Hmm, maybe they aren't such bastards after all. Should be Gŵgl, of course, but the title won't accept the HTML.
Even with an English International Keyboard setting---but copy-paste worked! "Gŵgl"
I still can't get those characters up there! Only copy-paste works.
Time for some more banter
Does no-one have any more banter? Tonight I have served a late curry to the very busy windy miller, made his sandwiches for tomorrow, watched a lot of lambs being born and slapped about on the telly, tried to catch up with the strategies of William and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and washed up. Tomorrow I will try to write some sense, then dine at the university before attending a marketing masterclass, hoping to learn something. And then it's Friday.
Bantering
Should we now start calling you 'Wednesday's Child', penelope?
Being called a child of any description would be nice.Sadly it's not true. But talking of times gone past, I did make contact yesterday with two people that I hadn't spoken to for almost 20 years; both I met during formative experiences. One I worked with very early in my first newspaper job (which I didn't start unti I was 30, having had another kind of career before that) and one who organised a road trip to the Arctic Circle and beyond that made me realise that I can't bear very much heat on a summer holiday. That realisation has saved me weeks, if not months, of expensive uncomfortableness.
Friday banter
I went to a marketing masterclass last night, all about how to make social media go viral. Turns out that it's an art not a science, and that you can measure and analyse it all you like and be none the wiser, except knowing that you must 'light a lot of fires' and then 'use the right seeding nodes' to get anything that spreads. Oh, and before any of that, have a great product and hire GREAT creatives. </ marketing discussion>
In other news, I have just done a phone interview, bought birthday chocolates for my sister in VT, USA and am looking forward to Lincolnshire plum bread and Lincolnshire Red cheese [special imports] for Breakfast #2 at my desk. Happy Friday, crescenters.
In other news, I have just done a phone interview, bought birthday chocolates for my sister in VT, USA and am looking forward to Lincolnshire plum bread and Lincolnshire Red cheese [special imports] for Breakfast #2 at my desk. Happy Friday, crescenters.
Gobbledegook
I'm worried about you, pen, you're showing distinct signs of succumbing to marketing bollockspeak. And don't let anything go viral; let it stay bacterial and be amenable to antibiotics. Boo-boom.
Re : Gobbledook
Hear bl@@dy hear. I wish to G@d that "social media" had never crawled out from under the carpet. My status message on Skype says 'I don't have a "mood message", a "wall", or any other so-called "social networking" nonsense -- I have a life !'.
Mood mode
[Neophyte] Got it, dear. But you don't boycott it? On the other hand, I live in a different country ( with a different language) to all of my family and the vast majority of my friends. I work in an international environment which relies on it. My view is the opposite of yours. Oh, and I also have a life.
Re : Mood mode
[Pen] Yes, I boycott it completely. A binding vow of total lifelong abstinence from Twitter, Facebook, and all of their their ilk, and Linkedln only for professional contacts. I am also extremely intolerant, and shout "f*** Twitter" whenever someone on Radio 4 tells me how to contact the programme through that obscene medium. And a similar reaction whenever I read a newspaper article that cites anything containing commercial-at and hash prefixes.
Alexander Graham Bell refused to have a telephone in his workroom so he would not be interrupted. Disliking a new medium of communication is not new.
Hyperconnectivity
My mobile is permanently switched off and nobody, except my next of kin, knows the number. Speak to the answerphone if it's important. When I'm out I'm not at rhe office. Like McCavity I'm just not there. The mobile is for me to ring the RAC if the car conks out.
As for Twatter and F*ckbook nobody expects me to be there so I'm not. Anything significant from it will in the papers/on the radio. I wouldn't say I would never use them but at the moment I simply can't see the point. Let others spout their banalities or make fools of themselves. (Just going to update my MCiOS status).
As for Twatter and F*ckbook nobody expects me to be there so I'm not. Anything significant from it will in the papers/on the radio. I wouldn't say I would never use them but at the moment I simply can't see the point. Let others spout their banalities or make fools of themselves. (Just going to update my MCiOS status).
I never get calls on my mobile either. I use it if the car breaks down (which it never has, yet, touch wood), to find out who has the keys to the mill (and how far away from home they have driven before they remembered they forgot them) and to find out what time the windy miller will be home for dinner so I can time the rice. Occasionally I also use it for shouting at cold callers.
My mobile is largely an SMS-powered remote control for my daughter, and an alarm clock. It's paid for by work, but doesn't scroll up, due to dilapidation.
[Rosie] Outside the MCverse I've never adopted social networking in any substantial way, for reasons of privacy and compartmentalization; it always comes down to an insuperable dichotomy: nothing I could post to the whole world is worth posting, anything worth posting is something for which I'd trim the recipient list first. I've a number of chats of between three to six participants on the go in Skype, some of years standing, but their membership is kind of arrived at kind of organically -- or perhaps the word I want is empirically: each came to exist because it did and has lasted because it has.
(all) This site (and a couple of associated sites) is the nearest I want to get to social networking.
Asocial
[Rosie] Honoured! Any Saharan sand-related weather details for us? I have the dust on my car in NL (but the countryside is dry and they're working on the fields non-stop at the mo*, so it could be North African dust or it could be Zuid Hollandsche dust)
*it smells of cow poo everywhere
*it smells of cow poo everywhere
(pen) The dust comes down with the rain but you only notice it if the rain is very light as it was here early Monday morning. There was so much dust on my car I actually had to wash it, an event of some rarity. Your car dust must be Saharan. It's been a bit breezy there recently and the atmosphere is highly convective, i.e. it's hot and rises rapidly and the upper winds have brought the dust over Europe. It's a fairly common event but the upper winds have to be right for us to experience it and some light rain helps bring it down.
Cow poo is the least offensive poo smell there is, at least to my nose - I rather like it but then I was an industrial chemist.
Cow poo is the least offensive poo smell there is, at least to my nose - I rather like it but then I was an industrial chemist.
the hidden past
[Rosie] Oh I dunno. I find the rather sweet and cloying smell of human primary sludge as it enters the treatment works brings back good memories. For seven years after graduating, I worked as a laboratory technician analysing effluent of all kinds - from abattoirs, vegetable processing, and over one whole summer primary sludge during a BOC trial at what was then the UK's largest sewage treatment works just outside Norwich. My laboratory that summer was a caravan. My samples were mostly black and stinky.
This country usually smells of either poo or celery. Mostly.
This country usually smells of either poo or celery. Mostly.
I was noticeably hazy yesterday, and people have been mentioning itchy throats etc. I a totally unrelated development, I put new wiper blades on my car yesterday, and the difference in visibility is remarkable!
PS, the own brand sets from Halfords would have been £30 for all three. Ordered Bosch wipers from Euro Car Parts, with free 3 day delivery - £17 the lot. Hence, or otherwise, Halfords is a rip-off!
PS, the own brand sets from Halfords would have been £30 for all three. Ordered Bosch wipers from Euro Car Parts, with free 3 day delivery - £17 the lot. Hence, or otherwise, Halfords is a rip-off!
What ho, wipers!
How are the wipers doing, Phil?
(pen, Phil) Belgium's the place for Wipers. Boo-boom
[pen] Oh, the wipers are glorious. It's like wearing reading glasses for he first time!
[Rosie] Oh dear :)
[Rosie] Oh dear :)
[penelope] You worked at Trowse Beach? Awesome.
Bits 'n' Bobs
[Phil) Your comment re wipers:
Some many years ago I owned a A.H.Sprite. It was modified. It had a habit of breaking half-shafts every now and then. Fortunately a fellow car club member alerted me to the fact that the half-shaft for the Sprite was the same as that for the A30 (well, I think it was the A30 - memory is a tenuous thing). Anyway, I rang the local supplier and checked the price and obtained the BMC part number for the A30 item. A day or two later I attended the parts place and asked for the price of a Sprite half-shaft and, for future reference, its part number. The two part numbers were identical. The Sprite part was nigh on twice that of that for the A30. Caveat Emptor.
Some many years ago I owned a A.H.Sprite. It was modified. It had a habit of breaking half-shafts every now and then. Fortunately a fellow car club member alerted me to the fact that the half-shaft for the Sprite was the same as that for the A30 (well, I think it was the A30 - memory is a tenuous thing). Anyway, I rang the local supplier and checked the price and obtained the BMC part number for the A30 item. A day or two later I attended the parts place and asked for the price of a Sprite half-shaft and, for future reference, its part number. The two part numbers were identical. The Sprite part was nigh on twice that of that for the A30. Caveat Emptor.
Trowse rings smely bells
[Stevie] That's it.Trowse. And stayed for a couple of months during the week in a lovely ivy-covered and tiny hotel somewhere near Loddon that I can't find on Google Earth. Monsieur le Patron was a Cypriot who used to bring me tea in bed in the mornings.
procrastination was ever the thief of time
I'm trying to write a new standfirst for my article in the next issue of the alumni magazine. It's tough. So I'm faffing about in here instead.
Faff away
(pen) We should be flattered that you have considered deriving inspiration from our musings. Er, what's a standfirst? Is it the head of the queue at a bus-stop or sunnink?
[penelope] And why do the Dutch have a magazine just for aluminium formulations?
unalloyed enjoyment
Standfirst = the meaty chunk of text at the top of the page that gets you salivating to read the whole article.
It's a magazine for all the alumnuses/alumnas/alumni (I try very hard to stop people calling them 'alums') that I hoik together twice a year. Some very clever freelancers write the three or four tricky articles, under the direction of our managing editor, but I write one or two, and pull together all the news pages, and the message from the Dean (in my guise of professorial ventriloquist). It takes bloody ages.
It's a magazine for all the alumnuses/alumnas/alumni (I try very hard to stop people calling them 'alums') that I hoik together twice a year. Some very clever freelancers write the three or four tricky articles, under the direction of our managing editor, but I write one or two, and pull together all the news pages, and the message from the Dean (in my guise of professorial ventriloquist). It takes bloody ages.
Smugness
Now using my wireless raspberry Pi to make posts. It's triffic. A linux computer no bigger than a packet of fags. The cables take up more room.
The GUI is still flaky though.
raspberries
[Stevie] Impressive. I've never even seen one.
[pen] Are you hinting that the "message from the Dean" is — gasp! — not all his own work?
shhhhh...
I did actually get a list of bullet points to compose into a message this time.
This week, I am mostly writing parts of a booklet to accompany a new professor's inaugural lecture in June. It helps that I find the subject interesting.
May I?
Going to view a house this afternoon. I'd buy it if only for the delphiniums in the garden and the uninterupted view out of the kitchen window across fields, rows of aspens, willows and alders, countryside and rivers to Europoort and the Pernis oil refinery and its flare stacks on the south bank of the Maas/Rijn (Meuse/Rhine), but the windy miller might take a bit more persuading. As many of you know, every time I moved jobs, I moved house (and usually at least 150 miles). He has never moved. Ever. This might be an interesting experience.
aspens!?
I'm glad there are no aspens here. They're so damnably noisy! :)
there are some things...
Blimey I love bacon sandwiches and tea. Sunday breakfast.
I am distressing un-British in my concept of the perfect breakfast. Coffee, really good bread, cold meat/dry sausage, cheese/cream cheese. Optional glass of red wine if it's a late breakfast.
Almost needless to say, I haven't had that breakfast for about 18 years now.
Almost needless to say, I haven't had that breakfast for about 18 years now.
*distressingly
[Phil] Counter with Eggs, Sausage and cheddar on a croissant. Alternatively, four link sausages on a buttered bagel with HP sauce. Dammit, now I'm drooling all down me shirt.
[penelope] Your description of the view cued (unfairly) the following in Mr Brain:
Oh I often take these night-shift walks when the foreman's not around
Turn my back on the cooling stacks and make for open ground
Way out beyond the tank farm fence where the gas flare makes no sound
I forget the stink and I often think back to that eastern town.
Oh I often take these night-shift walks when the foreman's not around
Turn my back on the cooling stacks and make for open ground
Way out beyond the tank farm fence where the gas flare makes no sound
I forget the stink and I often think back to that eastern town.
Stan Rogers.
Which comes from Northwest Passage, his last and best album.
View the music
[Stevie] Ah.
As it happened, the estate agency used a very talented photographer, and the house was disappointing on many levels, not least the many levels (steps up and down into EVERY room, despite being re-built ten years ago or so). And the spiral staircase was wound so tight it could have fitted into a submarine. Imagine carrying laundry baskets up and down that! So we're re-thinking. And looking at another one in similar location (sans view of the refinery), a better aspect to the garden, but which is the current owners' unfinished project. We were hoping not to have to take on a project, but as the windy miller is a construction project manager by trade and we can't find the ready-to-move-into house that we were hoping for, it seems daft not to take advantage of his talents.
In other news, it's raining.
As it happened, the estate agency used a very talented photographer, and the house was disappointing on many levels, not least the many levels (steps up and down into EVERY room, despite being re-built ten years ago or so). And the spiral staircase was wound so tight it could have fitted into a submarine. Imagine carrying laundry baskets up and down that! So we're re-thinking. And looking at another one in similar location (sans view of the refinery), a better aspect to the garden, but which is the current owners' unfinished project. We were hoping not to have to take on a project, but as the windy miller is a construction project manager by trade and we can't find the ready-to-move-into house that we were hoping for, it seems daft not to take advantage of his talents.
In other news, it's raining.
I always wanted a house with a spiral staircase after seeing The Haunting of Hill House, but in real life they are too narrow for my manly frame.
Viral spiral pancake trial
[Phil] Then unwind the DNA a bit - you can have them as shallow and broad as you like. That's why I was so disappointed that the odd couple selling the house we looked at had decided that no-one with feet larger than size three - and certainly no-one ever carrying a basket of laundry - was every going to attempt to go upstairs.
Mill News In other news, it's national mills weekend in the UK and in the Netherlands this weekend. Can I recommend that you make an effort to visit your local mill, take the tour and buy some flour or a tea towel? (And then go home and make scones, obviously - I can send you a very easy recipe in Dutch or English if you like.) The windy miller's mill (De Korenbloem (Cornflower) in Zonnemaire, Zeeland, if anyone's interested) will be open all day, and the chef from the local restaurant (De Ouwe Smisse - a fab place where all the meat, fish and lobsters are cooked on an open fire) will be making pancakes for visitors in the mill. I think I will be washer-up for the day.
Mill News In other news, it's national mills weekend in the UK and in the Netherlands this weekend. Can I recommend that you make an effort to visit your local mill, take the tour and buy some flour or a tea towel? (And then go home and make scones, obviously - I can send you a very easy recipe in Dutch or English if you like.) The windy miller's mill (De Korenbloem (Cornflower) in Zonnemaire, Zeeland, if anyone's interested) will be open all day, and the chef from the local restaurant (De Ouwe Smisse - a fab place where all the meat, fish and lobsters are cooked on an open fire) will be making pancakes for visitors in the mill. I think I will be washer-up for the day.
{Stevie] penelope thinks you should unwind the DNA a bit - you can have them as shallow and broad as you like. That's why she was so disappointed that the odd couple selling the house they looked at had decided that no-one with feet larger than size three - and certainly no-one ever carrying a basket of laundry - was ever going to attempt to go upstairs.
Spiral staircases
As a committed fan of staircases (I was looking at stairporn.org yet again on my lunch break yesterday) and a pedant, I would be much happier if they were called "helical staircases", unless the radius does actually increase or decrease as one climbs.
Mill Day - didn't he write bassoon studies?
Alas, there are no working mills in Berkshire.
I hear voices echoing everything I say
*boggles*
Thanks Phil...
Thanks Phil...
Journalese
(Phil) Nonsense! Didn't you know that when "costs are spiralling" they're going up. :-)
Limerick Day
Apparently it is limerick day . . . well, unless in it no longer May 12 where you live . . . But it is here, so, hmmm . . . I shall create a limerick A woman who knew she was blue Said, " 'ello, how do you do?" The children all ran As fast as a van Making her cry, "Oh, boo hoo." I know, it's not great. But, it was quick and fun.
These stupid made-up holidays
I wish were a long-dead past phase.
Every day a new thing!
What will next Tuesday bring
That will fail to amuse or amaze?
I wish were a long-dead past phase.
Every day a new thing!
What will next Tuesday bring
That will fail to amuse or amaze?
Silly Holidays
May 19th is "Boy's Club Day" May 20th is "Be a Millionaire Day" and "Pick Strawberries Day"
It's also Real Bread Week, Gluten-free Week, and National Doughnut Week in the UK. They need to get co-ordinated.
COMBINE ALL THE THINGS!!!!
It's Real Gluten Free Doughnut-Bread Week!!!
Ack
*acks*
I announce The back door is back on and properly sealed to the house with glue that stinks of vinegar but the wooden frame still needs painting and I need some new aluminium screws before I can rehang the storm-door day.
(Stevie) Acetic acid as a solvent should not be allowed - it pongs.
I think it's used as an inhibitor to the setting process more than a solvent, but I agree with you on the niff. The small screw-cap versions are easier to use, less niffy and they stay useable after opening longer than the big tubes used in caulking guns even though they work out three to four times as expensive.
CH3COOH
You may be right; I thought it was just a diluent for benzoyl peroxide. The neat stuff would be a bit hairy, like most peroxides. Bang, Bang!
Egad! You mean I now have an exploding back door?
Hidden text
7 seconds of recorded laughterMust've been exciting to be developing caulk. And those break'n'shake glowsticks - they use acetic acid as a moderator to prevent catastrophic exothermic excursion.
Real science should occasionally explode violently, as I explained to my chemistry teacher.
Woof
(Stevie) Yeah, but not too often and not too big. A work colleague was severely burnt (20%, months off work) after an ether vapour explosion set off by an open tin of lithium aluminium hydride falling into a bucket of water. I'm glad I was in the office.
DIY cascade in the limerick game
Oh yeah...
In other news, it's raining.
In other news, it's raining.
Funny, that
It's raining again. In the meantime, we've had a splendidly lovely weekend. (But it was too windy on Saturday to ride me bike, dang)
FFS pen, swear properly. Rain here, too, all day. Temperature 12. Stirring stuff and if anything it's going to get worse tomorrow.
40 mile bike ride in the sun yesterday. 100 miles next weekend.
This sounds so wrong . . .
I don't think it is what she meant, but a friend wrote, " Actually, if you look on the agent orange information sheet it does list illnesses is children."
[KS] Quite so. Other peoples' kids make me sick.
Weekending, anyone?
Weather should be nice this weekend - and friends from England might drop by at the mill. And tonight we're going to the DIY store to buy a new nozzle thingy for the kitchen mixer tap, and possible some screenwash for the car too. Can't wait!
Looking forward to having short grass again tomorrow, although it's going to be an long slog getting there, with 14 days' growth to deal with. I might even give he barbecue a spring clean too. Who knows, I may even take the tree cuttings to the tip at last.
[Phil] A trip to the tip? *jealous* It just doesn't happen here the same way - it's so organised and everything gets taken away. When I was a kid, the tip was a landfill site (actually, that sounds - and is - dreadful) in an old chalk quarry a mile or so out of the town. There was salvage and reclaimed stuff to buy from the backs of various containers - my father often came home with bits of fishing rods from which he would create new fishing rods. We were never allowed to buy anything.
Nice tip
Our tip is just outside Wallingford. Well, it's not ours actually, it's Oxfordshire's, but it's the nearest, and is rather cute and scenic.
[penelope] Your last two sentences, on first reading, had me envisioning a family life predicated on wombling. I realized that you meant that you weren't allowed to buy anything from the tip only after that movie had run to conclusion.
Perhaps more damning, I saw the young penelope as a sort of infant version of Edna the Inebriate Woman wombling across a huge pile of rubbish in a mac with a string belt.
That easn't me
[Stevie] that wasn't me, although when I was a kid there was a scary and batty old woman who lived in a caravan at the tip. She had been a well-educated governess who had worked for some grand European families. Didn't stop her from spitting at cars in town though.
[penelope] Millennium hand and shrimp!
Shut up at the back
So ... if no-one has anything better to do this midsummer's weekend, then come to the village of Zonnemaire in Zeeland where my husband (the windy miller) will be running the mill from 10.00 tomorrow morning Saturday, until 16.00 on Sunday afternoon. ('Free running only - the stones are not yet properly fettled for grinding flour) I will endeavour to have coffee on the go at all times, and it may well be possible to partake of a pancake at 03.00 if you so desire. Other than that, I'll be either sitting in the shade with a laptop writing up a wonderful conference over the past 2 days (Look for the Erasmus Energy Forum), or out on a bike ride, or painting my toenails, or asleep in the car.
penelope said 'fettled' *snigger*.
arr, you've got to give the stones a good fettling afore ye can set them to proper milling
I was going to post a URL to an absolutely rivetting account of improving and modernising the fettling of iron castings in Indian foundries, but it seems that mc5 isn't supporting links.
nowt up wi' fettling
I've used the verb 'to fettle' since I was a pony-mad child, and through my career in international motorsport, which spanned more than a decade. I'm now scared of googling for the definition.
Fettling a fine word
Don't worry, Penelope, I understand perfectly. My little sports car sometimes needs a bit of fettling. Some of that I do myself but mostly, because I don't have the equipment, it goes somewhere where it can be fettled by experts. Perhaps there is some sort of salacious meaning in Stevie's world but, like you, I'm not prepared to check. :)
fettling at fifty
It's the windy miller's 50th birthday this October. My plan is to have his replica Lotus Super7 (which has been stored in a potato warehouse somewhere in our village for at least 7 years - I have never seen it) fettled and back on the road so we can drive to his 50th birthday party in it. I think I've just found someone who can do it for us. Now all I need is the key to the potato warehouse.
fettling?
As a Geordie, "fettle" has a different usage for me. For example "what fettle the day?", meaning "how are you doing today?" and "in good fettle" meaning "in good form/condition" (e.g. Alan Shearer was in good fettle the day he scored a 2nd half hat-trick against Leicester, to win 4-3). I suppose it's quite similar, but I'd not realised it could be used as a verb before.
verbing nouns
There are quite a few nouns that can be verbed, but some that should never undergo that treatment ('leverage', for one). In my job (mostly editing/using English written by non-native speakers) I often find myself making changes that insert the verb of a noun - and I guess it's because it's easy to gather a vocabulary of nouns in a foreign language, but less easy to know which of them can be verbed. From my experience anyway.
Some people get bent out of shape about the "modern" habit of "verbing nouns". I have my own list of hates as you all know, but I had a think about this one, concluded the practice was a *lot* older than anyone usually credits and crossed it off my list.
[pen] KAR120C?
KAR120C
What's that then? (I'm asking you before I ask Google)
KAR120C
The number plate on the eponymous Prisoner's Lotus Super7.
A man of good taste
[Pen] Your windy miller has just shot up my list of admirable Hollanders. Seven years in storage, even with all those eyes watching, is rather off-putting so he drops one position. My car is a similar type. Down here they carry the generic name of 'Clubmans'. Mine is a locally built unit marketed as a 'PRB'.
Not as stupid as I look
[Dujon] Why do you think I married him? ;o)
Personalised plates
If I had the money, I'd buy BDR 529
(Phil) Er, don't geddit. 529 is the square of 23 as any fule kno, and txtspk for 8.55. My own very costly favourite would be I TCH, obviously.
Left a bit, right a bit
[Rosie] You'd avoid 1 TCH I presume?
*forgets to wave from Amsterdam*
[Rosie] The Bluesmobile, as driven by Elwood Blues. The number is actually a reference to the Black Diamond Riders, a bike club in Toronto (home town of Dan Aykroyd), whose clubhouse was at 529 Jarvis St.
[Rosie] N 1 TBN is owned by Chris Jeans, who was head of brass at my kids' old school. He was the guy who played the Flight of the Bumblebee for the Lurpak advert (and was principal 'bone for Grimethorpe, and other bands). His number plate actually has "No. 1 Trombone" in small print at the bottom. He's so modest!
Lord Jeans
Indeed, he does rather rate himself on the web site. He's a much nicer chap in person, although a little Hitchcockesque in his appearance these days!
The denim peer
(Phil) He really does call himself Lord Jeans. Errgh! What an arsehole!
York
(With apologies for cross posting) I find myself and the family in York, the city rather than the former server. I wondered what any Crescenters who know the place might recommend for a family of four children ages 6,9,40 and 41...?
Leveraging your existing vocabulary
[pen] Who says? As Stevie observes, the only thing you achieve with that kind of reactionary thinking is to put yourself on the wrong side of history. :-) It's one thing to dislike a usage, or even to shun it in your professional capacity; it is quite another to proscribe it.
A little research suggests that leveraged, at least, has been in established use for more than a century.
A little research suggests that leveraged, at least, has been in established use for more than a century.
(blamelewis) Your parents are scarcely older than my nieces.
Leveraging the ante
[CdM] First, 'levveraging' is so ugly (leeveraging is the lesser of two evils, when uttered) and second, i'm triying to make sure the text is as clear as poss for as many readers of varying fluency (of English and of business jargon, for that's what it is) as poss. There's usually another way to say it. If you want my job, come and try. But for now, I'm in the editor's chair.
Never winter in the Bahamas
[pen] "verbed". You ironied your opening salvo. Well done.
[pen] There is usually another way to say everything. So what? As I said, you're free to make whatever aesthetic judgments you like in your personal or professional capacity. I was merely objecting to your statement that leverage "should never" be used as a verb, even though fluent native English speakers do in fact use it as a verb, and have done so for a long time—in other words, your belief that your particular preference deserves the status of a universal style rule. :-)
Fluent Native English Speakers
Not the Yanks, then.
[CdM] If I wanted to perpetuate the discussion (which I don't - there are much funnier things to talk about), I'd point to the fact that not even Google Chrome's spellchecker recognises 'leveraging'. (Nor does it recognise 'spellchecker' so that's my argument sunked before it's even gottenstarted. So much for trying to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to new languageisms).
Did you hear the first show in the new series of ISIHAC last night? (Now online if you want to catch up)
Did you hear the first show in the new series of ISIHAC last night? (Now online if you want to catch up)
Oblig. Cross-posting apology
I don't suppose any of you fancy a friendly game of cricket this Sunday afternoon, in idyllic West Berkshire (10 mins from M4 junction 12), versus The Observer. If you, or anyone you know, would like to take part, we have a couple of places available, due to a fixture clash with a 6-a-side tournament. email me at philqjones@carbosynth.com, replacing the q with a dot. ASAP. Cheers.
cricket
Aching from an intense match yesterday. The opposition included a former Middlesex U-19 fast bowler. Very fast! And a former Essex seconds team all-rounder, who hit 139 not out! We are a pub team with an average age of about 45 and I don't think any of us had ever faced such a fast bowler. We tried to bat out for a draw, but failed with 6 overs left once they brought the fast bowler back on against our tail. Most unsporting, what-ho!
Holland?
[penelope, or anyone else] The Dutch football supporters on TV last night appeared to be chanting "Holland! Holland!" That confused me as I thought it as just us that called The Netherlands "Holland". Can someone explain?
[Phil] I think Hollanders call the Netherlands "Holland" for the same reason that Englanders call the UK "England".
Hup Holland Hup!
Because it's football. It's allowed in football apparently, according to Twitter last night while that very boring match was on. 'Holland' (as you probably know) is more accurately North Holland and South Holland, two of the 12 provinces in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. North Holland contains Amsterdam, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands used to be run from Amsterdam - possibly that's it. It's an historical reason.
BTW, Nederlanders call the UK 'Engeland'. All of it. Scotland, Wales and NI too. And on TV news programmes too, probably for exactly the same reasons.
BTW, Nederlanders call the UK 'Engeland'. All of it. Scotland, Wales and NI too. And on TV news programmes too, probably for exactly the same reasons.
Nederlanders call the UK 'Engeland'
[penelope] By curious coincidence so do Americans. I like encouraging them to say "Wales, England" or "Scotland, England" in their charming accents.
Oh how we laughed...
[Stevie] It works like a charm right up to the point where you try to buy a train ticket to that destination.
(pen) Do you mean to say the Dutch can't pronounce Machynlleth? Whatever next?
[Rosie] Corris Youth Hostel, 1972ish.
Newly arrived party from Oop North: "We just come over th'ill".
Me: Which "thill" was that?
NAPFON: "Cadder Eye-driss"
Me: " It's pronounced 'Cadder ID-riss'. Where did you come from?"
NAPFOM: "Borth! Dornt gu t'Borth!"
Me: "I certainly won't. Where are you headed next?"
NAPFOM: "Muh KIN lith"
Me: "It's pronounced Muh CHIN lith"
NAPFON: "Oh. Right. Ta."
Me: "Don't mention it"
It occurs to me now, having written this down and read it over, that it is just possible that the NAPFON may have misunderstood that last line as a polite response to their thanks, rather than an earnest instruction not to speak the name "Mu CHIN Lith" aloud. Such misunderstandings have been irritatingly frequent in my life.
Scheveningen
I shan't mention it.
Too easy
(pen) "Ch" is guttural and separate from the "s". First "e" short; the others are schwas. Next up - Dwygyfylchi. Dim gŵglio.
Dwygyfylchi
"Diggy-figgy"?
that town on the coast
[Rosie] No. S-[swallow-the-back-of-your-tongue-noise]-ay-ferni-[swallow-the-G]-en. *wink*
(pen) Well, I was nearly right. Nearly, sort of.
(Raak) Close. In Wikipaedia it gives the correct IPA representation then f***s it up completely with an English version and gives the wrong meaning. I don't know what the meaning is except that it's two something-or-others. Dwy ("Doo-ee", but very "back") is the feminine form of dau = "two".
(Raak) Close. In Wikipaedia it gives the correct IPA representation then f***s it up completely with an English version and gives the wrong meaning. I don't know what the meaning is except that it's two something-or-others. Dwy ("Doo-ee", but very "back") is the feminine form of dau = "two".
What about Wrotham and Meopham?
Or indeed Gotham and Haugham?
Gotham City
(pen) Goat-em. I knew that anyway but Haugham is a guess. Hoff-em?
'Haffem' - hamlet where me mum and dad lived just before I was born.
So: There was a young lady of Haugham..........
Root-em, Mepp-em, BTW.
Root-em, Mepp-em, BTW.
New office sport
Bluebottle Tennis. Open the window in your office, and the door at the opposite end of the room. You and your colleague compete to chase the fly out using copies of the alumni magazine and the Annual Report.
Saturday morning giggles
I've just read Phil's brilliant concluder to the latest limerick and laughed out loud. Despite my best efforts to drag the standard down, he's made a classy ending.
Lower the Standard!
[pen] Don't give up!
per severance.
Right folks, the eight-word game is on its last legs. Your suggestions please for something to fill its place. Perchance a Book Club or a Song Book? Or something entirely new? May I suggest 'The Dead Tractor Game' - a brilliant title, but as yet, no strategy, game-plan, purpose or indeed winning move behind it. But I live in the countryside, you know.
I know a joke about someone run over by a tractor... It's not very good. This will, of course, not stop me.
I listen to ISIHAC online from the BBC iPlayer in bed as I fall asleep giggling. This week, it has taken me three nights to get to the end of the programme. I'm still not sure whether or not I have heard the end.
Just thought I'd say "hi" to everyone. I've had a quiet couple of weeks off work to help get my head together a bit. It's been a difficult year so far, and I reached a point where I hit a wall, mentally. I couldn't have asked for better weather during the last fortnight, which has certainly helped chill me out a bit. Back to work again today, part-time for a bit, and feeling a bit shaky, but should survive.
[Phil] Just be kind to yourself. Then you can do the same for others. Hope everything's moving in the right direction.
HAppy August
Last day of work before three weeks of holiday, followed by one day back in the office, then four days in Edinburgh for a conference. Not back to work 'proper' until September. Easy life.
[Phil] Just to echo pen's words and wish you a smooth return to work.
ONe week later...
So it's all a bit quiet. Does anyone want any green beans? We have far more than we can eat. I'm going to leave a table of them out on the street for passers-by to take. On a positive note, we're managing to keep up with the tomatoes, because we eat them at EVERY MEAL. *pip*
Tachyveg
How fast are these tomatoes going?
Tomato Zoom
We've been away for two weeks and got back this morning, Luckily, it has been SO RAINY at home that the tomato plants are still producing. And so are the courgette plants. Does anyone want a marrow?
Edinburgh-bound
I'm in Edinburgh from Tuesday until Friday afternoon, conferencing. Is anyone about? Rab?
*waves from Edinburgh*
*waves from Rotterdam a week later* I've been travelling for so long now, I can't even remember the way around my own kitchen. I'm looking forward to just being at home for a bit. And BTW, I saw His Maj the King of the Netherlands yesterday at the university's official opening of the academic year. And I had a hand in the speech of the retor magnificus too. He wasn't boo-ed off, which was a relief.
I have just seen the Prints of Whales at the Fitzwilliam Museum. I said to hm, "Still not king?", no that doesn't work unless you read it aloud. Prints. Of Whales. Really.
[Raak] I was going to follow up with a song title to do with Diana worrying about Charles' erectile dysfunction, but thought better of it.
Buggerbuggerbugger
[pen] Sorry. I've been neglecting these parts somewhat recently. For about the last three years in fact. I was vaguely aware a visit was imminent. Annoyed at missing it. Poo.
flying scotsvisit
[Rab] No worries. I'm sure we'll path crosses again before too long.
In other news, there has been a British-registered car parked in the driveway of the recently-sold house on the corner for three days now, and the lights in the house are burning in the evenings. I'm trying to keep the kitchen door open when The Archers' theme tune is playing, to give them 'the signal'. Did any of you lot know that an invasion had been planned? This is *so* exciting.
In other news, there has been a British-registered car parked in the driveway of the recently-sold house on the corner for three days now, and the lights in the house are burning in the evenings. I'm trying to keep the kitchen door open when The Archers' theme tune is playing, to give them 'the signal'. Did any of you lot know that an invasion had been planned? This is *so* exciting.
The British neighbours
They have not responded to the 'Barwick Green' signal yet. I actually dreamt I met them last night - and didn't like them. Do I sound obsessed? What I absolutely mustn't do is go round, knock on the door and introduce myself. That would be so not English - they might take me for a foreigner.
Why not take them a lump of coal? You don't have to treat them as Southern English people?
On the other hand, they might be Dutch expats who have returned home.
The suspense is killing me. There's also a Dutch registered car there now. I think Phil might be right. What's wrong with staying in the UK???!
[pen] pots and kettles spring to mind...
Windmills
Incidentally, I discovered on Sunday that I'm only a 30 minute drive from this windmill
Barrel distortion
(Phil) I thought the earth was flat. Well, you know what I mean.
Putting the sails back on
[Phil] Splendid. Great photos too.
Greetins, ye pasty-faced landlubbers.
And what be it to ye, Stevie, y'old brigand?
Arr, Ahoy Black Phil! An I see ye have a firkin o' rum with ye.
Blast! Me cognomen fell of me postin, so it did! Yarr! Me cognomenclature be awash! To the bilge pumps me hearties!
Seven Days and a a bottle of rum
So do y'reckon he's dead, Cap'n? He's been in the cells for a week now and never shouted for any food nor beer...
In other words, no-one has said owt for a week. I'll break the silence. We've bought a house. It only took us three years to find one. I'm thinking of crowd-funding it.
In other words, no-one has said owt for a week. I'll break the silence. We've bought a house. It only took us three years to find one. I'm thinking of crowd-funding it.
Service announcement
Just to let you know I'm in the process of migrating to a new server, so there will be a short period sometime in the next week or so where you won't be able to post.
Curious...
I seem to have broken the Whoops! button, without having actually done anything. Very odd. Must investigate.
*Shouts down into the cellar where the meter box is* Are you alright in there rab?
Ah, I'd better not post this, then.
Aha
Turns out I just needed to resynch the index. As Neneh Cherry very nearly once sang.
The new server is ready and waiting; I have requested the swap-over to take place on Wednesday. Since this doesn't involve any changes to DNS, everyone should be working with the same copy, but this version will go read-only before this happens so that no moves get lost as the database copy takes place.
Welcome to our new home!
What time is it?
Any better?
Is it properly insulated?
[rab] It looks just the same as the last one. Am I missing something?
No
It's just that all the existing code and database has been moved to a new machine. So it should look exactly the same. Except it's probably about time I did another revamp, if only I had any time to do anything at all, these days.
*is happy that everything looks as it should* I've been out there. It's not pretty. Gawd bless you Morniverse.
Long term parking.
The card-reader car park barriers on campus failed as I was going through them this morning, and I had to wait while they re-booted the system before the barrier lifted and I could get in. When I swiped my card (they charge 1 euro 75 a day for parking, the swines) it showed I had a credit of 9,999 euros on my card. It should be about 37 euros. I wonder...
A week is a long time in Mronington Crescent
Last night in Ikea, the windy miller and I bought two plastic storage boxes, and four new sheets for all the guest beds we're going to have. Looks like the moving process has actually started. *gulp*
[pen] How many self-invited guests will you be able to house?
[Phil] Three standing, two sitting down.
Oops, my mistake - that's the configuration of the gents in the pub. Ummm.. two spare double bedrooms. I aim to have a single in one of those too. Give us a few months to get sorted out, then bring any or all of the Phillettes to sample the beers just over the border in Belgium and see the windy miller's mill in Zeeland.
Oops, my mistake - that's the configuration of the gents in the pub. Ummm.. two spare double bedrooms. I aim to have a single in one of those too. Give us a few months to get sorted out, then bring any or all of the Phillettes to sample the beers just over the border in Belgium and see the windy miller's mill in Zeeland.
I'm going in, I may be some time...
While all you Blighty-bound Crescenters are internetless because of the storm, I'm going to make a move in EVERY game. Watch me...
Storm?
What storm?
Storm
Arghsplutterkoffkoffglug! Up scope!
Did someone lose a storm, 'cos I've got one here I don't need.
So you are to blame for that sneaky redirect in the weather coding. Shame on you!
three weeks to go
We move in three weeks. Eeeek. When should I start packing do you think?
Packing it.
You should already be under way, penelope. Having moved a few times yourself you should be aware of that. First are the non-essentials - the things you can do without for a few weeks. Then there's the bits and pieces you dither over - if you are dithering then pack it. The aim is to have everything bundled up or boxed by two days before the move. Keep a couple of plates and a few pieces of cutlery plus bedding and clothing to get you through; these can be bundled up and tossed into the car boot along with any food you are taking with you when you leave. Remember that unpacking can be as much work (if not more) than stowing your stuff so label clearly what's in the boxes as it'll save you lots of time at the other end. Bon voyage. :)
[pen] ASAP, basically. We've moved in 1998, 2000, 2003 (twice), 2004, 2006, 2011, 2012, 2013. It doesn't get easier, as we have more stuff every time we move, but we are better at it. Twice we've done it at a week's notice, which adds to the fun!
I suspect your move might be harder than most due to it being the Windy Miller's first, so good luck!
I suspect your move might be harder than most due to it being the Windy Miller's first, so good luck!
A moveable feast
[Phil, Duj] I think you're both right. I moved in 1997, 1998 (twice), 1999, 2007 and 2009. I may have forgotten how much I hate it, but I'm so looking forward to the new house. It'll be good in the end. It's perhaps 15 or 16 rungs up the property ladder from our tired old terraced house. Now... how to transplant the sapling hazelnut tree grown from a nut found under a hedge during a picnic while on holiday in Brittany which is hanging onto its leaves. I'm going to start digging a ring around the roots - a bit deeper every few days - so that we can lift it in a couple of weeks.
The tree
Does the new place have more storage space / shed space? if so, you can't go wrong :)
treensplantation
[penelope] good luck with that. Expect the wretched thing to go into shock for two years anyway.
Hard to say about the storage thing. It has fewer cupboards, but more rooms, and it has hidey-holes in the 'berging', the Toblerone-shaped spaces over the eaves created by bedrooms up in the roof. But I'm aware that if I shove box after box into the berging spaces, they might be shuffled so far away from the access hatches that I'll never see them again, and neither will anyone else until the house is eventually demolished. (Oh no. I've just put into words the fear that will become my house-moving nightmare for the next 6 months.) There's also a garage under the house and a big (and properly roofed) space under the massive deck. This morning I gave ALL my money to the solicitor; I don't have a running-away fund any more. Eeek.
[penelope] When facing the same situation (Mrs Stevie packs her ever-growing collection of Xmas Tree Tat into the 'berging' on our hours) I seriously considered installing a small tramway like that used to ferry prisoners through Tom, Dick and Harry.
You could make the rails from wooden 1x1 screwed to plywood bed and run the trucks between them rather in the manner of the Montreal Metro. You make the trucks from plywood or MDF with large non-swivel castors mounted on for wheels. The furthest one away has a stout rope attached to it. To load tat into berging simply add a truck, then pile on tat. When it is full, push the truck down the track and add another. To retrieve tat, pull on the rope to bring trucks back up the line.
Mind you don't make your house fall on its side with all the weight though. You may need to counterbalance the house with lead shot in the gutters.
[penelope] Though you might need to brace the gutters with long poles to prevent them tearing off the house too.
Sounds like a good excuse for flying buttresses to me.
I'm laughing out loud because lead shot has been illegal for years, and we'd only need to weight the house down on one side, because the other side is build off the edge of the dijk. (ie the front door is at road level, but the back door is a floor below, at the bottom of the dijk).
[penelope] *sighs* it is only called lead shot. It is made from less politically harmful materials now to avoid unnecessary hysteria in the unchemist poplace.
Hidden text
The only non-fish lethalities ever sustained by lead shot would appear to involve a delivery system based on gunpowder or nitrocellulose and a stout metal tube through which to guide the said lead shot to the lethalee at high speed. The danger posed by lead in massive form has always been more to the politicians than to the public. The only person to have died from a non-paint lead-involved non-shooting in New York was, I believe, a child killed by a falling sash weight. It is left as an exercise for the reader to calculate the cost benefits involved in this nonsense.I have to say that joining the EC has made of England a land of scaredy-cat weenie runaway sissies. I was lectured last month by someone in the UK offended that I had the audacity to suggest on a forum using acetone as a cleaner for metal, and last year was taken to task for my Hitler-like suggestion that brake fluid would fetch paint off plastic quite effectively.
I clean my glasses with whiteboard cleaner, AKA Isopropyl Alcohol, largely because it's provided free at work. It works a treat. I've been toying with taking it home to try removing some stubborn chewing gum.
Plumbic indiscretions
(Stevie) Yes, metallic lead is not a hazard. My mains water comes through several feet of lead pipe. I've just made a little counterweight for my trombone out of lead from an old car battery which involved melting it and bashing it into shape. It's worth not ingesting lead compunds though and the banning of tetraethyl lead from petrol was a good thing.
I wouldnt't say it was joining the EU that has made us so risk-averse; they have just added an extra layer of absurdity to a process that started about 30 years ago in which we decided to become princesses, or as I prefer it, spoilt wankers. Acetone, BTW is one of the least toxic organic chemicals, comparable with ethanol, i.e you can drink it, preferably diluted.
I wouldnt't say it was joining the EU that has made us so risk-averse; they have just added an extra layer of absurdity to a process that started about 30 years ago in which we decided to become princesses, or as I prefer it, spoilt wankers. Acetone, BTW is one of the least toxic organic chemicals, comparable with ethanol, i.e you can drink it, preferably diluted.
Apologies
Ummm, that last post from Stevie was from me, and was supposed to be addressed to Stevie. I claim tiredness as my excuse.
Apologies
Umm, that last post from Phil was from me, and was supposed to be addressed to Phil. I claim tiredness as my excuse. *wink*
(Phil, aka Stevie) IPA (chemists' term for isopropyl alcohol) won't shift chewing gum. That stuff is little better than an organic version of Blu-Tak, i.e. resistant to almost anything. Try a blowlamp. This post is from penelope, who has broadened her portfolio, as they say.
Broadened her what?
Actually, for choongum, rub with icecubes until cold and brittle, then take a bloody great hammer and chisel to it.
Bubblegum will often yield to a stint in the deep freeze. Oh, penelope already said that. To keep with the theme of chemical application: Try pouring a little liquid nitrogen on the bubblegum (and anything else your scientific interest in catastrophic failure under cryogenic shock lights upon - pens, fruit esp. grapes, and rubber gloves are classic favorites) and carefully prying it off. Use At Own Risk - not responsible for shattered glasses, pullovers, cricket bats, shoe-soles or whatever.
Weak end
Working my last afternoon before a bunch o' weeks off. I'll be packing boxes, chucking stuff out and MOVING HOUSE! I'm back in the office for three days in the middle before we actually get the keys, but I'm not going to tell anyone about that because I don't want any distractions from writing the Annual Report.If they know I'm here, they send me work to do.
Jolly good limerick...
(Phil) Would you mind if I borrowed your limerick (appropriately cited of course)? The one that begins 'The choirmaster asked for staccato'... I think it would amuse people if placed in the members' newsletter of the choir I'm in.
Limerick snaffling...
[Knobbly] Not at all. I'd be honoured :)
No postings from Penelope. I wonder if she is crouched in her new basement hiding from the vengeful revenant of Bonkers the Clown (aka the Straight-Razor Fiend of Chipperfield's) while clouds of flies spell "GET OUT" on the windows?
Not sure what all that was about...
I'm surrounded by boxes. That's all. We get the keys on Friday 14 November. Please don't tell me tales about scary clowns...
Mrs Stevie and I spent a weekend in a hotel recently on account of it being our 27th wedding anniversary. I suggested we mark the Chateau Stevie bathroom mirror with the words "GET OUT" in soap so it would show up when the Stevieling had a shower. We decided that it would be too mean to scare her this way, as she has a very active imagination. We were split over the alternate plan of writing "CLEAN YOUR ROOM" on the mirror though.
Soap for Windows
[Stevie] So what did you write on the mirror in the end? (And congrats on your anniversary)
Nothing, of course. I'd never do anything to scare her without being there to make it all better afterward (or give her someone to yell at, which amounts to the same thing). I just fake being mean.
(pen) And polish for Google Chrome?
Polish/polish?
The language or to make it shiny?
(Giertrud) The shiny stuff. I wouldn't use lower case for a language though I suppose the French do.
We moved house!
It's bloomin lovely! But... we have two wifi networks, neither of which reach into our bedroom, so I can't listen to Radio 4 in bed any more. Boo.
Luxury! I dream of a house so big that two wifi networks still can't reach all of it! I don't know the technicalities, but is there some sort of relay device that would extend the range?
WDS
...is the buzzword. But Dan is probably yer man for this sort of thing as he always seems to come up with the best solution first time.
[rab] What a nice thing to say. [pen] Depends on the character of the problem. If I were in a big old house with thick old building materials I'd consider powerline adapter/access points, which would obviate the wiring problem and the signal-blocking walls problem and let you put wifi whereever you need it. It's also worth looking at whether the access points you have are up-to-date, as powerful/sensitive as they might be and reasonably sited to where you actually want them, and move/replace as appropriate. I just put in this model, originally intending to mount it in the ceiling central to the house -- there are generally fewer things to get in the way and absorb signal higher up -- but as it's a bungalow it's reaching everything quite well just sitting on a desk in the basement. What's nice about this one is that it projects signal in all directions including above and below, so it's ideal for placing in a ground floor ceiling of a two storey house. But again, I don't know what exactly what problem we're solving here.
I should have mentioned that yes, there are range extenders and they're probably fine, I just have no experience with them because they annoy the purist in me - one radio hop to the wired network ought to be enough for anyone. Plain repeaters are inexpensive and you can just stick one in, but effectively halve your wireless bandwidth. WDS by contrast is a relatively expensive technology which would require you to start from scratch and buy all the units from a single vendor. Again, I'd start by looking at the placement and performance of the ones you have.
And congratulations on moving in! When's the NetherPilg?
Ah yes
I'd forgotten about Powerline.
Crossed wires
Yes, the power line systems work, but . . .
Beware if you have two or three phases for the house supply. It'll most likely cause much frustration should each end of the supposed circuit be on different phases.
Beware if you have two or three phases for the house supply. It'll most likely cause much frustration should each end of the supposed circuit be on different phases.
Well, I said I'd consider it, there's quite a bit that can go wrong with them; they work best on the same circuit which might rule them out for a given installation; some stop working while an unshielded motor is running, such as a paper shredder or sink disposal or some below-spec appliance. It's usually good to buy from a business with a 30-day unconditional return policy so you can try these things out.
Before going that way the first thing to try is to just move your existing APs, try different channels, fiddling with the antennae, and then move on to testing out more powerful units. Newer 802.11ac units like the one I linked have multiple antennas and beamforming technology and are pretty good at getting a stable connection through walls. That one's Power over Ethernet as well so you don't to position it near a mains socket, though that raises the cost a little more since you need an injector to supply current. (Note also if you ever buy PoE network gear always use an injector that the manufacturer has tested, not whatever's cheap.)
baffled by the science of it
Erm... it's a new house, and has a concrete structure, so there's at least 2 concrete walls/floors between the router (at dijk/road level) and the bedroom (lower floor). I guess we'll have the same problem when I get my top floor office working too. We've got one of the powerline adapter/access points, but I think it's too far away from the router - I need to use another socket. I'll start moving it about later this week when I get time. I don't need an enormous amount of bandwidth downstairs - I only listen to the radio in headphones in bed, that's all. Thanks for all the thinking.... I'll relay it to my technical consultant (aka the windy miller)
I always think new houses should have some accommodation for adding and updating the wiring. I just added ethernet ports in the bedrooms and it was a real pain doing it in a non-destructive, not-unsightly way in this 1915 house. Still don't have a neat way to do it in the living room but since the lazy slobs who installed cable TV for a previous owner just did it by drilling a hole in the hardwood floor, for now I just repurposed that. It's ugly but it's under a cabinet so I can ignore it.
Speaking as a hardwood floor driller of yore, sometimes it is the only way short of removing an entire wall and who needs the walls out at Christmas? The good thing about hardwood is it also comes in dowel form so a hole is only there until the wall has to come out anyway.
But if you don't take the wall out at Christmas how do you get the tree in? I hope you're not suggesting lowering it through the hole in the roof, as that would entail making the hole needlessly large; normally said hole only has to accommodate the tree's upper span.
There Was I, A-Drillin' This 'Ole
And just to show me, today I was required to drill one(1) hole in the exposed soleplate of the living room wall so I could finally address the "no ground connection" issue in the sockets we plan on plugging the brand-new, Mrs Stevie for the use of, 48 inch wide flat screen "smart" TV into.
Hidden text
I wonder if that was why the old Philips 27 inch CRT had a bendy picture all these years; do TV electric gubbins use the ground as a reference of some sort? I dunno. At least we no longer have a current carrying ground now I got the supply upgraded and a proper ground installed. The old ground strap used to work loose from the water pipes and it looked like we had an arc welder running down there. What?Having made several careful calculations and measurements I sat on the basement stairs, carefully located the groundless cable with Mr Hand and felt the extra-long electrician's drill-bit into place (no line of sight, you see) and by dint of swearing and sheer stick-toitiveness I punched a 5/16ths hole one quarter inch away from the skirting board straight through our hardwood floor. Extra poignancy was lent to this fiasco by my only discovering the fact after feeding four feet of wire through the hole and wondering where it was all going as I couldn't see it in the hole I made in the stairwell wall to do all the wire-fu where no-one would see it. I could hear the wire scratching at the wall but couldn't find it through my access hole (which was perfectly aligned with the junction boxes, so one in the win column even if swamped by the floods of incompetence happening all around me).
The anti-handiman spirits are clearly in your pocket Dan. Well played, sir. Well played.
Now, having run sixty feet of green-clad wire from the socket back to the power distribution center I'm off out dowel shopping.Hidden text
I could have lazed-out and run three feet of wire to the nearest circuit with a ground, but then I'd have disconnected that circuit at some point in the future when I'd long forgotten about the TV socket and that would be a juicing waiting in ambush the next time I fiddled with the TV hookup
'Andy [Mac]Dowel[l]
Clearly the answer is to manufacture flooring with a regular pattern of what appear to be little round inlays but which are in fact pre-installed dowels; when you need a hole you just tap one out.
(Stevie) "Dowel shopping" sounds like a euphemism for some dubious activity. Don't do it.
And the Flat Screen TV c/w HD cable TV hookup and integration into the WiFi has Mrs Stevie smiling and heaping me with compliments and thank-yous in between bouts of binge Netflix-ing.
Next up: re-introducing surround-sound via the miracle of the wireless soundbar and removing to another place of the DVD player that opens only to close before you can load or unload a disc.
[Dan Re: Pre-made knockouts in the floor] Where's the fun in that? More to the point, where's the clear opportunity to deploy The Rule? Admittedly, this time all I got out of it was a couple of new spiral saw bits "needed" to saw out the hole in the sheetrock (actually, I should pull the 66s and 99s on account of me not being able to come up with an alternative method of cutting such a close-fitting hole without serious danger of cutting the cable too. (A lie, I have a small circular saw made out of an angle grinder that would have done almost as good a job while at the same time posing perhaps the greatest hazard to the user I have ever personally seen in a commercially available tool, and that includes the gas-powered chain-saw mounted on a ten foot pole and that never-to-be-sufficiently-damned McCulloch weed-wacker))
If your new TV supports HDMI-CEC it should work well with your Raspberry Pi. I paid more than the price of a Pi just for a CEC dongle for my XBMC box, but boy is it nice, you can use the TV remote for everything and let all the others moulder in a drawer. (You can sort of achieve the same result with a smartphone or tablet, but then you have to use separate apps for the TV and XBMC, the Viera app is pants, and it's really unhandy to slide between screens to get to the various controls.) It helps if your soundbar is also CEC compatible and connected to the ARC port. It means I can turn off the TV and just listen to music streams on the sound bar. (For that I do need to use the tablet or phone.)
Now if only my supposedly fanless HTPC actually ran stably without a fan. Fear to click: my USB fan hack. (The two sticky-up things to the right are external antennas I bodged onto it because the factory wifi was rubbish and if I'm going to have a Linux box next to a window I'll make it an access point so I can listen to streaming radio while snipping things in the garden.)
eh?
Ehndeed.
Sorry, should have prefaced that with "[Stevie]".
[Dan] I was lost at "dowel" ;-)
Integrated System Blues
Well, I need something. The Vizio soundbar has it's own remote (intended to be used to configure it before the Vizio TV remote takes control and of greatest use to turn down the stupid levels of "awesome" factory configured into the sub-woofer) is pathetic and doesn't match the aesthetics of the black-with-colored-buttons of the Sony kit (TV and Disc Player) or the Cablevision (A silver ST:TNG phaser-like affair needed to change the cable channels). I finally got the Sony TV remote to control the soundbar, then realized I needed the cable remote to do that, but in making it recognize the telly (so the on/off button would work) ended up not being able to mute the television sound so it doesn't f*ck-up the surround sound panorama.
It is all very trying and a big argument in favor of buying all one manufacturer's kit (the disc player instantly integrated remote-wise with the telly).
The best picture seems to be with Blu-Ray discs, which look staggeringly good, followed by Netflix and other HD netty content, then HD cable and other signals a distant last place. The picture from all the non-disc sources seems (to me) to have the actors standing like cutouts in front of the backdrop. This is probably a matter of dialing down some factory preset. All the preset "modes" I found were eye-hurtingly bad; too bright (refelcting surfaces flared like Novae), too red, cartoonish sharpness etc. Once I killed the red by about 50%, made the sharpness a tad higher and knocked the shine off it all looked very nice indeed.
Everyone else in the extended family (who are all HD ents veterans) will probably feel the picture isn't colorful enough, but as I said to Mrs Stevie, I can't watch a face that has livid blotches all over it so I'd be grateful if she'd move out of my eye-line so I could see the screen to adjust it.
I was also mizled over the wireless bit of the soundbar, which was only between the sub-woofer and the bar, not to each of the satellite speakers as I had been led to believe.
I imagine watching me trying to buy all this stuff was very like watching the sketch from Not the 9 O'Clock News where Mel Smith tries to buy a gramophone and Rowan Atkinson tries not to sell him one.
What have I started?
Our telly has a "store display mode" which I think just means an obnoxiously bright picture. The thing about this is that, in principle, it is activated by drilling down about eight levels of menus. However there appears to be an undocumented shortcut that is trivial for a three-year old to activate. I wish I knew what it was, and whether this shortcut also deactivates it, because the menus that take you there are all obscurely named and give you the impression you're going to get it to self-destruct.
While we're on the subject...
I'm thinking of getting a new TV to replace my ancient CRT, maybe in the post-pre-Christmas sales. However, my needs are rather specialised. I have no aerial, satellite, cable, or indeed a TV licence, and don't need any of these, as I only use it for watching DVDs. I'd like to also be able to watch video streamed from any of my computers or coming from the internet. What's the simplest way of enabling that, given that the desktop machine is upstairs and the TV is downstairs? Ideally I'd be able to sit downstairs and tap on my iPad or MacBook Pro to make TV stuff happen. Would it just be a matter of having a TV with a wifi connection (do TVs have wifi these days?) and setting it up as a second screen on my laptop (can laptops mount extra displays over wifi?)? Or something else?
In My Recently Experienced Opinion
Smart TV. Switch it on, acquaint it with your network password, wait five minutes while it updates its firmware and Bob's your uncle.
Of course, you'll have to fiddle with the levels to make it look right, but it's pretty much an out of the box and up-and-running experience for something with a computer inside it.
The important thing then becomes how many HDMI holes it has in the back vs. the number of cables you want feeding the thing.
Which in your case is one, but I'd demand two just in case you ever decide you'd like cable TV or whatever.
Cables
The ideal number of cables is zero, but I see there are such things as wifi to HDMI convertors. Presumably these do what the name suggests? A lot of them seem to be tied to specific services.
[Raak] Given that you use OSX and iOS devices I suggest you get the most basic TV that has the picture size and quality you like, and an Apple TV. In addition to having far more and better apps than a 'Smart TV', it will stream pretty much anything from your phone, iPad and Macs.
The trouble with Smart TVs is that they can be pretty poorly maintained when it comes to software updates; a year or two in and they're basically abandonware. The only thing I use mine for (app-wise) is Netflix, because all my servers and things are Linux-based and can't do DRM. And the Netflix app is terrible.
If my home setup were Apple centric (and I didn't develop this sort of thing for fun and profit), the Apple TV would be all I'd get.
[Dan] I've wondered from time to time what the Apple TV is. It looks like the way to go. That will bring to a total of 6 the number of Apple things-with-computers-inside I have.
Having made that endorsement I have to add that every individual option has limitations. Apple TV's is that they have a slightly more old-skool than average walled-garden approach, and their app selection is consequently limited. For example, because they have their own digital video store, they don't support any competing online video rentals like Amazon, for example. But if you want that there's a pretty easy workaround: install the Amazon Instant Video app on your iPad and then stream it to the Apple TV via Airplay.
The reason I recommend it is because you'll be able to access all your content from your various computers -- certainly anything that can be put in iTunes, and that includes movies you rip yourself with third party software like handbrake or source in other ways we won't go into -- and anything that it doesn't provide an app for you can fling at it from one of those devices. And it does have the characteristic Apple virtue that what it does have is less broken than everybody else.
[Dan] I've heard other people talk about Chromecast, and I have even less idea what this does than an Apple TV. Does it play nice with iDevices? Is it any good?and err indeed what does it do? The website is a bit vague
[rab] It's a web streamer you control with an Android device or (to some extent) a chromebook or the chrome browser. Essentially most things you can do on your Android device you can 'cast' to your TV. It's a bit like a dumber Apple TV, one that doesn't have its own onboard apps but just plays what some other device sends it (or tells it to play -- the distinction is blurred).
Depending on whether the app's media type and location is supported by Chromecast, the 'source' device may actually be doing the work of fetching and rendering the material and 'casting' the A/V output to Chromecast, but commonly it's just sending the URL and various tokens and chromecast is doing the actual fetching/decoding.
It's similar to having an Airplay-only device on your TV; bearing in mind that they are similar protocols but not the same nor interchangeable. Its main disadvantage is that it can't play content that's local to your network, so if you have your own movies and things you have to play them on your device and screencast it to chromecast. Which may or may not be well supported and look decent. For several good reasons I'd rather tell the TV-attached gizmo "play this file, which you can find over on that computer", than tie up some other device playing it and throwing the video to the TV. You can do the latter with Apple TV as well, but the thing is you don't have to, at least for any content that's supported by iTunes.
For balance
There's a metric shedload of other ways to do this sort of thing, with various amounts of overlap and wheel reinvention. The Apple TV approach is one I recommend for someone who's already pretty invested in the Apple ecosystem. It's probably the quickest route to maximum versatility without going to a lot of expense or trouble. If you don't have least one iDevice and/or don't want to use iTunes for your local media, getting as complete a solution can be a little more complicated, though not necessarily more expensive and there are a few reasons why it might be worth the trouble.
[Raak] Sorry, I could have sworn I read your post as saying you intended to connect a disc player. Ignore HDMI cabling entirely.
[Stevie] I thought TVs all ran over HDMI these days? I do have a DVD player (other than my computers), but it and the TV are both so old they use SCART.
[Raak] You said you were going with a network-to-TV model. A smart TV will hunt for your network, ask for a password and then present you with whatever app-based interface it uses so you can start consuming content. No wires other than the power cable. You want to push a signal in over a wire, HDMI is the best way (but not usually the only way on a decent TV). You want to take the sound to somewhere it sounds decent (thin tellies mean small speakers, no resonant cavity and crappy sound) use an optical link (over a cable) to a soundbar for the most compact solution. You can buy a receiver later if you decide you need better sound.
I use wired ethernet for my smugsmart TV; no point in saturating the wireless network on a fixed device if you already have an ethernet drop nearby. It came with a separate WiFi USB dongle, which I repurposed on another machine after discovering it was a rather nice dual-band device based on the Atheros chipset. Netflix is all I use the TV's 'smart'ness for; I have played round with using it as a DLNA client but it's not nearly as nice as using the XBMC box.
I ended up buying a matched soundbar from the same vendor (Panasonic Viera), one that uses HDMI and connects to the ARC-enabled port on the TV, which means basically all three gizmos (HTPC+CEC running XBMC, TV and soundbar) can be controlled with just the TV remote. It also means if I turn off the TV and just use the HTPC/XBMC + soundbar for music, the xbmc mobile app can control the speaker volume.
It's all basically as straightforward and usable as it can get. If I were going to buy a Smart TV again I might get a Samsung or Vizio, as there's a Plex app available for both. Which is a whole nother topic. (I don't use Plex myself but it's what I'd recommend to pretty much anyone I didn't recommend Apple TV to, i.e. someone who doesn't have a houseful of predominantly Apple goodies already.)
[Dan] Yeah, but you are clever.
I avoided the price-attractive Vizio after reading a large number of reviews of later models that suffer from persistent random reboot issues. No point in a smart TV that can't be a TV reliably IMO. The picture on my Father-in-Law's Samsung (dumb) TV is outstanding.
I went Sony only because I have a good experience with Sony products, their tech support was rated higher than everyone else's and they offer four HDMI inputs to everyone else's two. It seemed to me that I'd be bunging wires into it from all over the place and better to find I had too many sockets than too few. I'm also familiar with the Sony video family "quirks" and it seemed likely I would have a better time getting the clown out of the picture.
[Stevie] FWIW I think the Plex client is available for Sony TVs as well. What I'm thinking there is that if a chap wanted to get by with just his smart tv plus whatever PC or file server somewhere in the house had all his own perfectly legal, honest media, putting the Plex server software on that PC or NAS would spackle over the crevices. Notably by providing a transcoding DLNA server, because smart TVs usually only handle certain formats and packages.
I think it's better to go with the direct-connected HTPC because transcode-network-decode-display is a lot more bother than just decode-display; but not having a HTPC would be attractive if your Smart TV was actually smart enough to do everything you want, and playing local media in whatever format is a major sticking point.
A New Era In TV Ents
I've been binge-watching the US version of House of Cards and although I loved the original I can't for the life of me understand the vitriolic hate for this one I've heard and read. It is gripping, reasonably faithful in it's plot elements while moving the story believably into the quite different American political model. Kevin Stacy is a very worthy Francis Underwood. Sorry non-lovers, I think the show is well written, well cast and gripping even though I've seen the story once (or thrice) before.
I started a game. If it doesn't seem like a winner, please kill it with my blessing.
Do not feed hallucinogens to the alligators
I just did a Google search for 'do not feed', and got '...hallucinogens to the alligators' as the third result. Now I naturally want to know, why not?
(SM) 'Cos they'll snap your hand off as they go for it. They'll pop anything, those buggers. Helps them alligate, I'm told.
I'm not a big fan of alligation while under the influence of mind-altering drugs.
John Cleese is currently pushing his memoir here and, being the darling of everyone in the media, is popping up all over the place.
Yesterday he was being interviewed on NPR as I was driving home and the interviewer asked about the difference between what people, upon recognizing him, were likely to shout to him in America as opposed to the UK.
His answer was interesting but too long to go into here. It did, however, include a snippet that might allow for much japing should one of us encounter the great man in the future.
He said that often, people would make reference to sketches that he couldn't remember participating in, and he would just smile and nod and say something neutrally agreeable to fake it.
So the next time you see John Cleese, get close, make yourself known (this may involve acting as I know none of you would never slip into nudge-nudge, wink-wink territory normally, being too cool for that nonsense, but the payoff for doing so will, er, pay off) and say something like: "What about that time you were the astronaut lost among the vikings, who all turned out to be women? Talk about funny! I only saw it on DVD, and they blanked the punchline. What was it you said right at the end there, when "Mrs" Eric the Viking Idle showed you "her" buttocks and demanded an autograph?"
I forgot to mention that Cleese claims that the central theme to his work, his personal vision of what makes things funny, is the exasperated lack of understanding of the person trapped in a farcical situation. The parrot shop sketch was his illustration of the point. This is your chance to bring this home.
The hour by hour BBC weather forecast today shows the temperature due to rise from 8º at 11am steadily upwards to 12º at 5am tomorrow. Similar trend for Cambridge and London. How does the temperature keep on rising overnight?
The sun catches fire sometime in the early hours of the morning and rises in the sky, heating the earth. This was explained over at MCiOS I think, a few years ago. At around noon the sun goes "off the boil", the cooling air around it ceases to support its weight and it slowly crashes into the sea for the night. Can't remember who originally explained this. Might have been CdM or Breadmaster. Whoever it was clarified in one paragraph something that so-called "scientists" have failed to explain clearly during my entire life.
Christmas stuff
Don't worry, Raak, it's just Santa breaking in a couple of new reindeer for the Christmas Eve run. :)
Hot nights
(Raak) It happens quite a lot in the UK and higher latutudes. Warm air is being wafted in and its warmth easily obliterates the feeble solar effect at this time of year. There is also no heat loss by radiation with this sort of thing because these airstreams are always cloudy.
I once read something to the effect that the apparent diameter of the sun's disk is just about the same as the light curvature due atmospheric refraction (or is it gravity-bending? that sounds unlikely) when it reaches you at a tangent; with the net effect being that when the sun's disk just touches the horizon it's "really" entirely below it. And it's by this means we know that, like the light in your refrigerator when you close the door, the sun doesn't go out when it falls below the world's edge and everything you've been told otherwise is a damned lie.
[Dan] Take it up with CdM or Breadmaster. But before you do, consider: wouldn't your "width" theory mean that you'd be forever smashing the fridge light bulb in the door? Something about that doesn't ring true.
Can't help I'm afraid but do have a very Happy Christmas wherever you are. _, who is now 3, is already as manic as can be. Not sure how to burn off his energy...
(Dan) True. If you see the sun on the horizon it is geometrically just below it. It adds a few minutes to daylight at each end. It's refraction (strictly, differential refraction) not gravity-bending which would need a mind-bogglingly dense earth. On Venus the refraction is so large the horizon is above horizontal and it looks as if you're living in a bowl. A hot one, 460°C. No oxygen. Occasional showers of sulphuric acid.
(rab) See MCIOS, FUQs.
(rab) See MCIOS, FUQs.
(Dan, Stevie) Nor the light in the boot of your car.
wearing him out
[rab] Isn't there a version of those ball-throwing arm extensions for dogs that you can get for kids? Alternatively, send him off to an aunt and uncle for the afternoon.
Merry Xmas, all.
Merry Xmas, all.
Unfortunately the only aunt-uncle combo is based in NZ, so it'd be more than an afternoon...
energetic child
AFAIR playgrounds are good. Choose one with a convenient bench from which to watch. Or join in if you're not self conscious. Something requiring concentration, like Lego can be surprisingly tiring. The best thing is to forget your boring adult lifestyle and simply play all day.
[penelope] I looked everywhere but found no trace of these canine-oriented ball-atlatls you steered rab toward. How would the dog wield such a thing anyway, absent opposable thumbs? What rab needs is a keen, ankle-nipping bull terrier. Half an hour of being chased around the park by the dog will tire the child out nicely, and give him or her a healthy respect for vicious dogs.
Of course, if the dog is too keen there is a chance the plan will backfire as the dog chases you instead of the child.
To help prevent this possibility, soak the child's shoes in bacon grease before releasing the terrier.
Also, to minimize the risk of vigorous shoe-licking instead of ankle-nipping, thrash the dog soundly for five minutes a day with a side of bacon.
This sort of preparation escalation is why children should be avoided in the first place, of course.
kidavoidance
[Stevie] We have managed to do that. We are, however, expert in Unclage and Auntage, with the proviso that the assorted nephews, nieces, godchildren and fledged apprentices repay us by taking us for interesting outings when we are elderly.
monotonic temperatures
[Raak, a while back] Here in Melbourne a couple of years ago we had something like 40 hours (maybe more) of declining temperatures. I forget the details, but it was in the high 30s in the afternoon of Day 1, fell through the night, through all of Day 2, and through the following night. Only in the morning of Day 3 did the temperature start to rise again.
Colder and colder
(CdM) Interesting and unusual that the temperature fell throughout day 2. The wind must have gone from northerly round to south-westerly, but rather gradually.
(pen) Pah! I'm a great-uncle three times over. Avunculissimus!
(pen) Pah! I'm a great-uncle three times over. Avunculissimus!
Inconvenience Snow
Started snowing this morning, around 8-ish. Stopped now (10:20 local time). About 2-3 inches of annoyance scattered all over the place.
(Stevie) I find snow meteorologically interesting but in all other respects a pain in the arse. The roads round here are at full capacity anyway and the slightest disruption (a couple of inches) causes vehicular constipation of a high order. Nothing moves.
Banteration
I say, I say, I say. How about a new game to chivvy things up? A doggerel rhyming doodah? One of those complicated-johnnies that followed a limping pattern? Or maybe a songbook? Ferchrissakes, something, please! I'm really bored in the office this week.
From Dunx's Game Ideas Game
I had a squiz through the Game Ideas Game at Orange-MC, and quite liked this one:
From an idea by one of the Minecraft crew at Mojang:
Epic Job Titles: Fireman, policeman, accountant. These are bland job titles. Why not be an BATTLER OF THE INFERNO instead?
Shall we give that a go?
From an idea by one of the Minecraft crew at Mojang:
Epic Job Titles: Fireman, policeman, accountant. These are bland job titles. Why not be an BATTLER OF THE INFERNO instead?
Shall we give that a go?
Truth Director & Exposer (editor & proofreader)
[Simons] Yep.
I have just been out to see Comet Lovejoy.
(Raak) Did you see it? Optical aid? They've never interested me much - I prefer looking at the planets.
Yes, with binoculars. No chance of naked eye with the Moon so close. Even with binoculars, it was just a faint fuzzy blob, no tail visible. I'm assuming it was Lovejoy and not some boring nebula, as it was in the right general area.
(Raak) Not a sky in the cloud, as they say, here at the moment. We've had a bit of snow, not much.
sky
I'm pleasd to report the new house has great potential for skywatching. It's clear tonight and the sky is full of stars. But it's too bloomin' cold to stand out there and look. We have snow every two days and it's been hovering around freezing all week, but sunny, which is nice.
[penelope] That should have gone: "I'm pleased to report that the new house has great potential for skywatching ... on account of there being no roof to speak of on it. Handyman Special indeed."
great potential for skywatching suggests a real estate agent dictionary game.
Seconded
[Stevie] Yes!
Wish me luck.
I've got my annual appraisal in 10 minutes. The process is appalingly oblique and I think I'm supposed to want a promotion. Actually, I'd just like to get more skilled at the job I already do. I don't want to manage anyone. HR stinks.
I hope you came out feeling better than when you went in, penelope.
Managing your staff is fun. All the really difficult problems end up in your lap; lots of coffee (black two sugars) maintains your energy and keeps your brain sharp as well as causing palpitations; sleepless nights and constant worrying about everything and anything prepare you for the worst the world can throw at you; 80% of your time will be spent on trivial staff problems and internecine politics; 10% will involve pointless meetings - internal and external; that leaves 10% for 'proper' work, the stuff that matters. But wait, there's more. Managers don't get paid overtime so are expected to take work home for their attention at night and weekends.
Yes, penelope, I've lived in that world and it's not one which I would like to re-visit. Don't get me wrong though as it was exciting at the time. :)
Managing your staff is fun. All the really difficult problems end up in your lap; lots of coffee (black two sugars) maintains your energy and keeps your brain sharp as well as causing palpitations; sleepless nights and constant worrying about everything and anything prepare you for the worst the world can throw at you; 80% of your time will be spent on trivial staff problems and internecine politics; 10% will involve pointless meetings - internal and external; that leaves 10% for 'proper' work, the stuff that matters. But wait, there's more. Managers don't get paid overtime so are expected to take work home for their attention at night and weekends.
Yes, penelope, I've lived in that world and it's not one which I would like to re-visit. Don't get me wrong though as it was exciting at the time. :)
management schmanagement
[Duj] Thanks for that. In fact it went OK. He's 'pleased'. But it's just such a time-consuming process, and most of it seems to be to give the HR department something to do. (It was only last year that they gave us an online system for booking holiday time - until then we were crossing out squares on big sheets of brown card.)
On the plus side, I'm just about to send in a nomination for our alumni magazine (for what I am editor - not managing editor, mind - but editor - finding the pictures, making sure there's enough news to fill the empty pages left when one of the big star interviews pulls out etc) in the university marketing world's 'academy awards' (Oh how I laughed). I've written most of it already - quite impressed that I only have to add our names to it and get it in the post. Fingers crossed.
On the plus side, I'm just about to send in a nomination for our alumni magazine (for what I am editor - not managing editor, mind - but editor - finding the pictures, making sure there's enough news to fill the empty pages left when one of the big star interviews pulls out etc) in the university marketing world's 'academy awards' (Oh how I laughed). I've written most of it already - quite impressed that I only have to add our names to it and get it in the post. Fingers crossed.
Is it spring yet?
I'm still wearing thermal socks.
Not here it ain't
[penelope] Six inches of inconvenience all over the place again this morning. We went out to a friend's house for dinner yesterday and drove back through the snowstorm. I thought that was bad. Almost hit a car when the Steviemobile refused to stop and the car was accelerating between brake pulses - dunno why, could have been a mat caught on the gas pedal or I could have had my foot partially on it I guess, didn't feel like it but it has happened once before that my shoe has hung up on the velocitator and caused imminent trouser spoilage. Luckily I managed to shift into neutral so the brakes could stand a fighting chance of stopping us, which they did. Fortunately the Stevieling had shoveled out the drive before we got home, which is why you have kids in New York.
But all that paled into insignificance next to the drive to work, when I was caught behind two count-em two Toyota RAV4 4x4 Osamamobiles which were such a great option for the snow the drivers wouldn't assay more than 18 miles an hour the entire trip. The Steviemobile is front wheel drive and has traction control and is - yesterday's little moment of terror notwithstanding - great in the snow. I honestly wonder why anyone would buy one of those ugly 4x4 gas-guzzling monstrosities when there is such a better option available that costs about half the price and comes with a SULEV engine to boot.
Bright sunshine here, when it isn't raining. 60 mile bike ride last Sunday. The crosswinds were murder, though.
Snowing. Again.
Scorcher
It's sunny, and 10C (50F). We might have to cut the grass soon.
Gardening
I looked out of the window today and thought "time to get mowing again". It's come round so quickly, but on the plus side: stripes :-)
Griped publicly on Twitter about all the ridiculous Friday the 13th twaddle on official Dutch motoring and weather Twitter accounts today. Then colleague shunts car on the way to work. I put it down to the Dutch being really shitty and impatient drivers who do not understand the wave mechanics of a column of slow-moving traffic. Science wins.
Crash course in quantum mechanics
(pen) If Dutch cars are governed by the laws of wave mechanics they must equally be subject to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and if they know where they are they've simply no idea how fast they're going. An accurate speedo though simply means the satnav won't work and they could be anywhere, Rotterdam, Novosibirsk, Betws-y-coed etc. Science doesn't just win, it tramples you to death.
Where am I, SatNav?
If the answer is 'I don't know', then you're still in the multi-storey carpark. Don't expect any clues about which exit to use to get out to get on the way to your destination. (By the way, don't call it a SatNav in the Netherlands. They have no idea what you're talking about. You have to call it a Tomtom.)
My starter for 10
SO how was everyone's weekend? And what does the week ahead have in store? (Me: deadlines, uncontrolled deadlines, and scheduled ones too)
I attended an online conference about virtual worlds, in a virtual world. I also filed a return for Corporation Tax, for a company that probably shouldn't be set up as the sort of company that pays CT.
There was lots of rugby excitement on Saturday. Three decent walks in the last 3 days (5, 7 and 5 miles respectively). I was given a deadline yesterday morning of "today", which I managed to push back to "tomorrow", which is now today. This is the first time the deadline has been mentioned for work I started 3 or 4 weeks ago. I still have probably 10-16 hours' processing time to complete this morning. Bloody stupid way to communicate deadlines, IMHO.
deaderlings
[Phi;] We've got something similar. We know they knew about it 10 days ago, but only approached us yesterday with incomplete information and a very short deadline during a week when we're trying to finish the alumni magazine. And it's for a commercially valuable product... that they have known about for 10 days. *headdesk*
I'd love the time to walk in the evenings. I managed it a lot last year (only half an hour three times a week and a bike ride on Saturdays) but haven't done it since we moved. Do you take a torch and the dog?
I'd love the time to walk in the evenings. I managed it a lot last year (only half an hour three times a week and a bike ride on Saturdays) but haven't done it since we moved. Do you take a torch and the dog?
Work Idiocy
Monday So this guy at work ccs me on an E-Mail about how he has gotten permission from one of my 3 bosses to task me to write a script to clean up a filesystem based on some XML that arrives in-theater. Easy-peasy, done.
Tuesday He ccs me on the tail end of an E-Mail chain, the bit where he volunteers me to start programming some ill-defined event-driven horseshirt fired up by a piece of software everyone hates. I point out that the script to be run from the time-based scheduler is simple and moreover, done, although I haven't actually been asked by the aforementioned boss to do the job, that I have no wish to become entwined in the ongoing trainwreck of the software he wants me to start looking at and perhaps I'll just hand off he script to the user department and let them worry the details.
Wednesday another e-mail claiming that whhat is equired is much more complex than a simple script. We do the pantomime "Oh yes/no it is/isn't" thing for a bit. He tells me that he wants a different filesystem cleaning than the one he asked for, and that since it is part of a system I help manage I should just do it.
I refer him to the original mail, point out that the filesystem he's now talking about *is* auto-managed by the software and that the filesystem that keeps filling up with crap and that the users cannot keep down to a managable size is external to our software, was set up by the user for some arcane purpose that even they don't really understand or have any sort of plan for and that's what I was asked to fix and what I have actually, indeed, fixed.
I tell him if he really wants to do what he's asking for today (as opposed to what he wanted on Monday) that the lead time will likely be months and moreover I'll need a proper requirements document stating definitively what needs doing to what for which reason. However, if he really needs his disk to stop overflowing because Irving cannot clean up the crap his team creates, I have a script to do that which has been running in emulation since Monday and even incorporates a bullshirt mail requirement that was snuck in Tuesday.
I'm out tomorrow so a doctor can electrocute me in the name of science. I wonder what Friday will bring?
[pen] I hear all your lights went out in a collapse of civilization in a World Gone Mad. Hope you are unaffected by the imminent breakdown of society and outbreak of cannibalism.
[penelop:] Walking in the dark is wonderful. Last night I went out at 8:50, got back at 10:10 after a 4 mile stroll. I should add that public roads do not a good night-time walk make. I do take a torch and dogs, but there was enough moonlight to render the torch unnecessary for half the walk. I am lucky that I live in the middle of a 'dark-sky' area, which makes night-time wandering more pleasant.
IN the dark
[Stevie] It was Amsterdam where the lights went out - we were fine in Rotterdam and the restaurant menus are still without human flesh.
[Phil] I've been planning my routes. I want some flashy lights for my sleeves, but there's a nice square route around the back of the house - around a complete polder, on dijks all the way - for long summer evenings, and a route around the village for winter ones. It comes back past the chip shop.
[Phil] I've been planning my routes. I want some flashy lights for my sleeves, but there's a nice square route around the back of the house - around a complete polder, on dijks all the way - for long summer evenings, and a route around the village for winter ones. It comes back past the chip shop.
[pen] "Chjip shop", surely?
(Stevie) You've got the i and j the wrong way round. You'd better hide from pen - she is mightier than the sword. I'm a bit pissed, actually, and had better go to bed before the bloody sun comes up.
Vampire beer, I presume?
[Rosie] How's the head? And what was the occasions?
[Stevie] Chips is patat in the Netherlands. Not a drop of malt vinegar to be seen anywhere near them, though (nor in the supermarket, come to think of it). But the chip shop is on the dijk, if that makes you happy to have the i-j-k all together in a word. And our address has 'dijk' in it - ours is the first house (a new one, on an old plot) on an old dijk.
[Stevie] Chips is patat in the Netherlands. Not a drop of malt vinegar to be seen anywhere near them, though (nor in the supermarket, come to think of it). But the chip shop is on the dijk, if that makes you happy to have the i-j-k all together in a word. And our address has 'dijk' in it - ours is the first house (a new one, on an old plot) on an old dijk.
The J
[pen, Rosie] No, I was riffing on the apparent fact that in Dutch the letter "j" is pronounced like a "y" (as in Esperanto) and on pen's use of the Dutch spelling of "dyke". In my head the pronunciation "chyip shop" (which is how most English speakers actually say the word in my hearing) became rendered as chjip shop for the 'Allo 'Allo Win.
Putting the j after the i would make the word "chiyp shop", which I can't pronounce yet after five minutes trying without it going "cheep shop", which would be right for Italy but not Holland.
By pure coincidence, I am less than an hour from departing to "The Chip Shop", a UK-style pub on Atlantic Avenue.
The Chip Shop
Which, since it is the heart of Brooklyn, should be spelled "da chip shop". If it were on Lon Gylund it would be "da chip shawp".
Sodding Chipbury
(Stevie) Ah, most erudite. In Scotland, of course, it would be "chups", possibly wuth a wee bi' a "fush" though more likely a Mars Bar.
Incipient alcoholism
(pen) Not really pissed, just a bit loose. Occasion? Hadn't been to the pub for three days, Boozing at home on your own is not actually all that fun.
Chups
Fush and chups in Scotland, or 'feesh and cheeps' according to an Iranian family friend many years ago. We still call them that now. Jeez, I miss feesh and cheeps.
You wanna da fresh an cheep?
When I first came to the usa I lived in Westbury and often ate in The Harvest Diner. I noticed that during the summer all the waiters spoke with Brummie accents and asked one about it. He told me they were all relatives of the owner, who had started his life in the food service trade in a place I wouldn't have I heard of.
Which turned out to be a fish and chip shop less than a mile from my parent's house in Coventry.
Chips
[Stevie] Not Earlsdon, by any chance?
[Phil] No. We lived in Whitmore Park. About here. Track down Chesholme Road (north-wards, downhill) from Rotherham Road to that first cross, which is the rear access entry. We lived on the bottom right corner.
I think it's something to do with age and the approach of a milestone birthday (I was in my thirties when I started in here, y'know). I've sent more critical emails, tweets and FB messages this week than ever before in my life, and some of them were not received well. Too bad. You put it out there on social media , so don't be surprised when it gets a response. I ain't stopping now. That's why the fact that I'm consistently pissed off at someone who is relentlessly unfunny, unskilled and unrhyming and relentlessly sexist in the Limericks game has finally surfaced. I'm not sorry.
Big hug for penelope...
...because I know it will irk you to know that you mistyped "misogynistic".
never irked
[Phil] I'm merely pleased that I allowed you to exercise your inner pedant. :o)
[pen] Bit early in your span for a mid-life crisis innit? Carry on at this rate and you'll either be on serious medication or be in politics by the time you are 35. Nothing on the web is worth a ventricle or major blood-vessel in your head.
Phil has an inner pedant as well??
[CdM] Hahahahaaa! :)
Something that tickled me
I discovered this sentence in a discussion on ending sentences with prepositions. I hope to use it some day.
"What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of up for? "
"What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of up for? "
Can be improved on
(Phil) The book is about Australia, so between up and for insert about Down Under.
[Rosie] Applause.
correction?
[Rosie] shouldn't that go between of and up?
Erratum
(Phil) Yes.
Very nice, but...
...expect Phil's inner pedant to show up any day now to point out that, technically, "Down Under" is a noun phrase rather than a pair of prepositions.
Well, at first I was going to suggest that "down" isn't a preposition, but changed my mind. Both my inner and outer pedants are happily turning a blind eye to the capital letters of "Down" and "Under" too :)
(Phil) I didn't want to arouse the Wrath of Dujon or that of any other Strines.
(CdM) Course it's a noun phrase, my exopedant tells me. The medial- and endo- backups needed no invoking.
(CdM) Course it's a noun phrase, my exopedant tells me. The medial- and endo- backups needed no invoking.
The Wrath of Dujon sounds like a title of a Doctor Who from the early Pertwee era. :-)
The Wrath of Dujon
[CdM] I like it, hope they recover the tapes one day. Or it might have been a working title for the second Star Trek movie...
Kirk: "Duuuuuuuujonnnnnn!"
Kirk: "Duuuuuuuujonnnnnn!"
peers around the door
Anyone home?
Quick, while no-one's here...
Palindromes
Oh dear, thanks to the 8 word game, I have a new hobby. I didn't need another one. This morning's effort doesn't make a lot of sense, but I think it could, with a bit of work....
Re-vent some racist sin at a Syria hero. My latino gets EU quest, e.g. on Italy. More hairy satanists. I care most? Never!
Re-vent some racist sin at a Syria hero. My latino gets EU quest, e.g. on Italy. More hairy satanists. I care most? Never!
more....
I heard a tale recently that Drew Barrymore was asking Johnny Depp about the rumours that Nick Saban, the Alabama football coach, was a fully inducted member of the Mafia, and was operating under an assumed name.
"Drat! Saban a made man, eh? Depp? Answer!" Drew snapped.
He named a man. A bastard!
"Drat! Saban a made man, eh? Depp? Answer!" Drew snapped.
He named a man. A bastard!
Anyone rising to the challenge?
I may create a new game on another server in which to write palindromes, but in the meantime, here's another:
Pist now. It's a free beer. Fasting is a sign it's a free beer fast. I won't sip.
Pist now. It's a free beer. Fasting is a sign it's a free beer fast. I won't sip.
Sorry, Phil. Not clever enough for that sort of thing. Well done, btw.
[Phil] O no. O no. O no. O no. Not on. O no. O no. O no. O no.
Sorry, CdM
Conversation between secret agent and Q, when the agent refuses to sign for his new vehicle:
"One man sub? Autogyro?"
"Mr Armory got u a bus. Name?"
"No!"
"One man sub? Autogyro?"
"Mr Armory got u a bus. Name?"
"No!"
Q now briefs by SMS?
[Stevie] Yes, m8.
Sorry
As I appear to have killed the chat with palindromes, I take them all back.
[Phil] That last one didn't work. It was gibberish when read backwards.
Scheming bitch
I've just bought a calculator, a rather posh quasi-vintage Hewlett-Packard with RPN, and along with a guide in English is one in French. A calculator in French is une calculatrice which makes the noun obviously feminine but makes the object itself sound feminine as well. To English ears the word sounds like "calculatress" cognate with words like actress, manageress, temptress, goddess etc. A computer though, is un ordinateur not une ordinatrice. Maybe that reflects its attraction for nerds, almost exclusively male.
A calculatrice suggests an intelligent cockatrice to me. Beware the hidden key combination that unleashes its deadly stare.
Briana is Giertrud
Briana: Once there was a sailor Who sailed the seven seas On a ship called the limburger Me: It was stinky cheese! (beat) What do you expect when you say something like that?
The deadly stare
(Raak) It already has one - the display. It's horrible, characters far too narrow and they've re-inserted the crossbar in the noughts which is simply taking retro too far. A bit like fitting coupling rods to an electric locomotive.
Shall we dance?
(Kagome Shuko) Looking at the Games list I'd say we were the only two people in the building.
*drops pin*
Oooooh! Something shiny!
Theatre, Theatre . . .
I have lots of stuff coming up . . . been busy with my theatre stuff mainly, BUT on Tuesday night (Central time) Giertrud and I will be seeing Weird Al in concert!!!
Here, though, game in here, why not?
Add, please . . . Inappropriate Audition Songs . . . Hi, I'll be auditioning for the part of Bruce the Shark in Finding Nemo and I'll be singing "Blood in the Water" from Legally Blonde: The Musical. Annnnd . . . go!!!
Procrastination was ever the thief of time
I am procrastinating like a pro this afternoon, even with a full list of tasks to complete at work. I think I blew all my brain's synapses this morning on a four-hour proof-reading blitz (which needed 10 hours but didn't get it. I guessed that if my eagle eyes didn't spot it on a speed-read, then Joe Average's eyes wouldn't spot it on a normal read-through either.)
Didn't I once read somewhere that fatty food is essential for brain function? Does that mean I can legitimately have cake and chips as part of my recovery?
(pen) You can have chips. Then you can have cake and a cuppa. But not cake and chips. Even I wouldn't do that.
I used to do proof-reading in the Met Office and quite often this would involve reading it out, with punctuation marks, font styles etc, to a colleague who would have another copy. You could put deliberate mistakes in to see if he was still awake. It was technical stuff, published by HMSO and had to be spot on.
I used to do proof-reading in the Met Office and quite often this would involve reading it out, with punctuation marks, font styles etc, to a colleague who would have another copy. You could put deliberate mistakes in to see if he was still awake. It was technical stuff, published by HMSO and had to be spot on.
Limericks
When I first found this place, everybody was so good at limericks. Have we really forgotten the rhyming pattern and rhythm of limericks? These are the general rules of limericks.
Limerick rules
[KS] That's a rather restrictive definition of Limericks, IMHO. One is not restricted to anapests. Iambs can also be used within a line, as well as in the first foot of each line.
I think it's nice, but not a necessity, that lines 1, 2 and 5 should match. Ditto for 3 and 4.
Also, their 2nd example ("the LIMerick packs LAUGHS anaTOmical") is appalling, as most people I know pronounce "Limerick" as three syllables.
I think it's nice, but not a necessity, that lines 1, 2 and 5 should match. Ditto for 3 and 4.
Also, their 2nd example ("the LIMerick packs LAUGHS anaTOmical") is appalling, as most people I know pronounce "Limerick" as three syllables.
It's worse than that
If you accept that site's made-up rule that 1, 2, and 5 must match in structure, then you have to read the first line of that first limerick as "The LiMErick packs LAUGHS anaTOmical". The second limerick they quote also violates the rule that same rule, while the third limerick rhymes details with emails and females, thus revealing that they don't understand feminine rhymes. All in all, that page is a total fail.
And now...
So does anyone have any news? I've got a university friend + partner coming for the weekend. From England to the Netherlands. On motorbikes. We met in 1985. :o)
News? You want news?!
Ummm, not a lot really, other than what has been declared in "another place". A friend of mine is very p***ed off that today's Tilehurst Festival has been cancelled, due to bad weather. He found out today, despite the decision being made yesterday. He had taken on extra staff to run his cider bar there, and had loaded all the cider on his van at 6am. It's not even raining here, 10 miles away.
Rainy Day Decider.
Bummer, Phil. Here, it's getting clammier and more overcast as we anticipate another humdinger of a belt of thunderstorms passing over at about 4 o'clock (which reminds me - I need to get the washing in). Last night's four-hour lightning and thunder display was incredible - flashes every second or so from all around, torrential rain and hailstorms (although no golf-ball-sized hailstones here to damage the cars as there were in other places in NL). I'm working from home today. It's sluggish, frankly.
three weeks later...
Morning all. Was that heat really three weeks ago? I'm waiting for the thermostat to ping the central heating into action - and making a mental note to get some warmer clothes out of storage. Anyone doing anything interesting this weekend?
[pen] Mrs Phil is planning to watch Dr Who with our grandson on Saturday - which depends on him being permitted to come home from the neonatal unit tomorrow! *fingers crossed*
[pen] After spending today driving a quad bike around Paros, I'll be travelling home over the weekend after a week and a half in the Cyclades. I had a round-numbered birthday in the process.
[Raak] A good friend of mine is in Paros right now. Did you see her?
[CdM] That is quite possible. How would I tell? In the next twenty minutes, before my ferry leaves.
My weekenderation is galleryficating the new house
After 10 months in the new house, we finally put up the first picture rail last night. Today, I'm going to unpack the prints, maps, photographs and paintings I have been collecting over the past 6+ years (some of them were secret purchases and I have spent a ruddy fortune on mounting and framing) in anticipation of having a nice house to hang them in, and the time has come!
Identification problem
[Raak] Well, I assume that she would have been wearing a locket containing a photograph of me, because I assume that is true of all of my female acquaintances.* You know, something along these lines.
*
*
Hidden text
(Actually, I suppose that should be more like 98% of my female acquaintances and 5% of my male acquaintances.)I must be back in England
I have just seen a gentleman wearing a tweed jacket and a deerstalker cycle past my house. Santorini and Paros were wonderful.
I must be in the Netherlands
A truck pulled into the university just in front of me this morning, but stopped in advance of the car-park barrier. I drove around him, and in my rear view mirror I saw the driver's legs emerge as he jumped down from the cab - he was wearing yellow wooden clogs.
I must be Bill Tidy
(pen) Did he then do a dance?
Do you think it's time to choose a vice-winner in AVMA?
How I spent last night
Photographing this:
Click for bigger.
(Raak) V good. What instrument did you use and at what point in the eclipse was it?
Pentax K-50, with a Russian-made 1000mm catadioptric lens. This was at 03:27, shortly before the most total coverage. I have a few more pics on Facebook. I bought the camera in rather a hurry for this — on Sunday, in fact. It was the only one in the shop that would attach to the Pentax mount on the lens without an adaptor. The body is pillar box red. At least I'll always know which camera is mine. I previously used the lens with a Ricoh film camera for the total eclipse in 1999.
This is what I saw
[Raak] This was precisely the time I woke up and went for a pee and peered out through the bedroom curtains (although it was 04.27 here). I saw this! I stared long and hard, fixing the image in my mind's eye. Over the farmland at the back of our house, it was so still, so starry, so other-worldly. Beautiful photo.
The photo looks markedly different from what I saw at the time through 12 x 40 binocs and with the naked eye. The contrast in the photo is much greater and the moon far redder. I saw a dull yellow-orange moon that was just a little brighter on one side. The eclipse was some way off symmetrical.
It would be interesting to know the exposure, f-number and ISO setting. It would be even more interesting to be on the moon and see the earth with its bright ring.
It would be interesting to know the exposure, f-number and ISO setting. It would be even more interesting to be on the moon and see the earth with its bright ring.
[Rosie] 1 second exposure, ISO 800. The exif data reports the f-number as 0, which probably means it doesn't know. There's no aperture adjustment or designation on the lens. The lens is 1000mm, but the image is substantially larger on this camera than on my Ricoh KR-10, so the effective focal length may be longer. The original picture is very dim, and the above was derived from the RAW+ file by level correction. The exif reports that auto white balance was on, but I'm not sure if that applies to RAW data or just the JPG, which was too noisy to be useful. Also, the eye doesn't see colours so intensely in the dark, so even a perfectly accurate photograph may look more intense than the reality in the light of day. What would you have seen through binoculars of the same magnification but much larger aperture?
Optical aids
I've looked at a lunar eclipse through my telescope in the past and the moon looks a gloomy translucent orange. The focal length of this home-made contraption is 1276 mm (50.24 in.) and the mirror diameter is 8.3 in. so it's about f/6. With a one-inch eyepiece the magnification is about 50. The moon's diameter was 1776 arcsec which would give an image at the prime focus of 0.43" or 11 mm but it's not adapted for photography so I didn't get it out this time.
If the aperture of the binocs were greatly increased there would be little improvement because then the size of the exit pupil would exceed that of the eye pupil and light would be wasted. You can't increase the surface brightness (per unit area) of any extended object whatever telescope you use visually, but photgraphically that's obviously not the case. The binocs make the moon bigger and easier to study but the surface light variations are the same as with the naked eye.
If the aperture of the binocs were greatly increased there would be little improvement because then the size of the exit pupil would exceed that of the eye pupil and light would be wasted. You can't increase the surface brightness (per unit area) of any extended object whatever telescope you use visually, but photgraphically that's obviously not the case. The binocs make the moon bigger and easier to study but the surface light variations are the same as with the naked eye.
moonstruck
Innit autumnal?
Autumnatic response.
(pen) Yeah. Trouble is, it's autumn.
[Raak] Dropping in here for the first time in a few weeks, so only just saw your picture. That's stunning.
Anyone about?
Very quiet, innit? Weekend a mere two days away - so what's everyone doing?
Somnolence
(pen) Good question. Both MCiOS and this place seem to have gone to sleep. Where's Gusset Login? I reckon I've won AVMA.
I've just remembered I have a three day weekend. I booked Monday off to use up my annual leave allowance. I'll probably just catch up on toilet cleaning.
(Pen) You sure know how to enjoy yourself...
[Knobbers] Actually it wasn't so bad. The toilets still need cleaning, because instead I went for a long bike ride in the still and sunny weather. We live in the countryside and there are no hills here in the Netherlands so it was lovely.
Cherrapunji Schmerrapunji
Some place in the Lake District has had 358 mm (just over 14") of rain in the last 24 hrs. Provisionally this is a British record. More later!
Floods etc.
Record confirmed. It was at Honister Pass or thereabouts, an Environment Agency gauge.
Sogginess
[Rosie] Cripes. *moves clothes upstairs from below-dijk-level-bedroom*
Happy Parsnips
So it turns out that a risotto is quite a common solution to the post-Christmas veg surplus problem.
Hello, everyone, by the way. Glad to see this place is still going, and that nothing's broken. I've had to do some behind-the-scenes tweaking as it turns out the venerable database library that this whole thing sits on will disappear when I come to upgrade the server OS, so perhaps things will break now. I'm a bit scared when I discover files that haven't been touched for nearly 10 years...
Merry Christmas rab. I hope all is well with Mrs rab and the rabling.
Happy 28th December from me too. BTW, a pilgrimage has been mooted - see the Dunxatorium for the proposed dates.
Happy New Year all. Hope you all have a happy, healthy and peaceful 2016. Got a houseful just settling into the first of the 'Back to the Future' trilogy (I won the box set and a hoodie from the University of Lincoln Facebook page - the big imposter that I am). Hoping for volunteer potato peelers in an hour or so - they will be rewarded with garlic bread, because it's a long time until dinner.
Astonishment
(pen) You won a hoodie? New toyboy then. :-)
Happy New Year, even though I am some hours behind!
Hoodie you think you are?
[Rosie] Nah, just the garment. I don't think the yobbish type wear university hoodies do they?
Depends. Red or blue brick?
Here at the university where where I work, they have made a feature of grey concrete tower blocks. Two buildings of 17 floors and a bunch of others averaging 10 floors clad in concrete biscuit, concrete flaps and concrete-and-glass. It makes looking out nice. Looking in, it looks horrid.
Made it to Thursday
Only more sodding morning 40km commute on wet and windy Dutch motorways bothered by tailgating idiots (which have been Belgian over the past two mornings) and hindered by crashes between those who are too selfish to use indicators or too self-absorbed to keep a packed column of traffic moving by driving SLOWLY and steadily (not by speeding to the back of the queue and stopping dead) or to realise that to join a column of traffic you have to match its speed - it doesn't have to let you in. Out of the seven drives either to or from work this week, only one has been smooth and approximately on time. Every other journey has been held up by stupid accidents. *whinge whinge whinge*
Traffic
[penelope] The moronic desire to get up to highway speed after merging into heavy traffic rates as my number one road rage inducer. I was, of course, spoiled by learning to do high speed merges on the excellently provisioned motorway entrance ramps, and vaguely remember public information commercials on how to merge on motorways. I firmly belive that whatever good road habits my generation have were inculcated by such ubiquitous repetitive TV-served indoctrination.
Dip, don't dazzle. Wear something white at night. Remember to use the Green Cross Code. Regginald Molehusband.
Breaking news
I live south of Rotterdam. One of two motorways heading south from Rotterdam (to Breda and Antwerp, respectively) is, this afternoon, sodding closed again because of a sodding accident. Therefore everyone uses the other sodding motorway. Therefore I can't get on either route south at all, therefore I can't go home until about 7pm when the road is opened again and the jams have dispersed. That makes 87% of journeys this week hindered by idiot drivers crashing into one another. My rage levels are approaching critical.
All white on the night
We had snow here Saturday night, not a lot, an inch and a half and all gone by Sunday afternoon. In beautiful downtown Carshalton it was rain because of the altitude difference, about 450 ft.
Is it okay if I write things like this?
Is it okay
to write like
this?
to write like
this?
[Rosie] Ditto. Our village had a sprinkling of snow. Next village east had none, but they're on the Thames, and we're 340ft above them.
@Gietrud
If rtl text works (doesn't here, I admit), that's probably easier.
[Giertrud] I cracked my head on the wall behind the monitor trying to read that. What are you trying to say, dear?
siht ekil gnitirw
!t'nia ti ylreporp pu ti kram nac uoy sselnu toN .oN
Well thank goodness January is nearly over. We've* had miserable news, miserable things have happened, and the weather's been miserable. February is a change, a lot shorter, and comes immediately before March. And I'm heading back to England at the end of Feb for a week with my mum. We're going to explore for grave goods, old things, shopping, good food and wine in Gloucestershire & Monmouthshire. Any recommendations?
* I mean 'we the public of whatever country you're in'
recommendations
[pen] When exploring for grave goods, you need to make sure there is not too much moonlight, that you have good shovels, and the cemetery does not have CCTV security.
(Also, my January was excellent. Perhaps that's the Southern Hemisphere for you. Doing almost no work definitely helped as well.)
(Also, my January was excellent. Perhaps that's the Southern Hemisphere for you. Doing almost no work definitely helped as well.)
a bag marked 'swag'
[CdM] How many cemeteries do you know that have CCTV?
[pen] I thought everywhere in Britain was now blanketed by multiple CCTV cameras.
[CdM] You ain't seen me, right?
(Actually, you won't have seen me on British CCTV. I don't live there.)
Breaking the silence
We're going tractor shopping this weekend. The windy miller wants a vintage tractor to use to power the millstones when there's no wind. Probably a Fergie. Cool huh?
Tractorated.
Got it. A 70-year old tractor in working order. I've never part-owned a tractor before.
Strange attractor
(pen) Pardon my utter ignorance and lack of imagination but how can a tractor power the millstones? Are you going to heave the sails round with it? I'm trying to visualise the setup. You/he could use a diesel generator.
Tractor-assisted Milling
Tsk! It's very simple: You position the tractor appropriately, chock the front wheels securely, and lash it firmly to the windmill superstructure as a backup. Then you jack up the tractor on one side, remove the elevated large rear wheel and fit a tyreless rim in its place.
Once that's done you run a special canvas belt around the hub of the windmill's blades and over the rimless wheel, now doing duty as a pulley. You start the tractor and place a block of concrete or a spare anvil on the brake for the wheel still on the ground, stick the tractor in gear and engage the clutch.
It's then a simple matter of slowly unjacking the tractor until adequate tension on the belt is achieved for the windmill's vanes to begin turning.
(Stevie) Ah!
*drops by with some birthday biscotti*
[Stevie] very close. But you put the sails out of gear and just use the PTO to drive the millstones using the mill's external driveshaft - you know, that thing at incovenient head-height with head-dents in it that sticks out of the outside wall. I can actually drive under it when I do a circuit of the mill to park because I don't have a Land Rover Discovery. The windy miller is currently saving up old socks to tie together to make the drive belt.
[cfm] I hope there's coffee too - you can break your teeth on those things and we're all getting on a bit in here.
Is it someone's birthday?
[cfm] I hope there's coffee too - you can break your teeth on those things and we're all getting on a bit in here.
Is it someone's birthday?
Gobachev Sings Tractor! Turnip! Buttocks!
Well, one could do it that way I suppose.
Look!
http://mentalfloss.com/article/76561/massive-bouncy-castle-grownups-opened-london
A novel experience
I am being headhunted, for the first time. It would mean a doubling of salary (quadrupling if you take into account that it's full-time and I currently work half time), and a move to civilisation. I won't mention the company, but their top people include several eminent mathematicians and scientists. I'm uncertain about exactly what the job involves, though, and whatever it is, whether I can do it, and well enough to justify the salary. It's also a startup, so I'd have to think about the chances of actually seeing that salary. On the other hand, my accumulated pile of cash plus pension is probably enough to see me out, so I can afford to take risks.
It's the "move to civilisation" part that I'm most attracted by. Let's just say, an intellectually renowned location about half way between where I am and that great metropolis of which it is said that he who tires of it is tired of life.
[Raak] You scored a job in Thetford? Sweet!
Go for it!
[Raak] Congratulations. And go for it!*
*Acceptance of Liability: The foregoing advice is offered without knowledge of (a) the recpient's personal circumstances or preferences or (b) the full and detailed terms of the employment opportunity. The Recipient acknowledges that, should he choose to follow said advice, he does so entirely at his own risk, and absolves the Profferer of any legal responsibility for resultant bankruptcy, misery, and homelessness.
*Acceptance of Liability: The foregoing advice is offered without knowledge of (a) the recpient's personal circumstances or preferences or (b) the full and detailed terms of the employment opportunity. The Recipient acknowledges that, should he choose to follow said advice, he does so entirely at his own risk, and absolves the Profferer of any legal responsibility for resultant bankruptcy, misery, and homelessness.
(Raak) So Cambridge United are looking yet again for a manager. Don't touch it. Er, congrats BTW.
Just to clarify, it's just been an initial contact so far. I'm still researching whatever I can find out about the company and what I would actually be doing.
The successful candidate will be tasked with defending company assets in "Awesomeville", our corporate Minecraft world. Must have own pixelated sword.
perishing
Morning folks. Monday morning, wall-to-wall blue skies, a brisk breeze and less than 2C. Two cups of coffee on my desk. Invigorating.
invigorating
A veil of thin stuff high up that I think Rosie would identify as cirrus, but the sun is blazing through it, for a summery 6°C best contemplated from indoors. Still waiting to hear from the city of perspiring dreams whether they're still interested, now they've had time to look up all my papers (and everything else I've ever done online).
[Raak] exciting! But how will you still listen to Alan Partridge on Radio Norwich if you move away?
[pen] There are four radio stations in the world: Radio 3, Radio 4, World Service, and Popular Music. I only listen to the first three.
If you're into canapes that are on the turn, then we've hit the motherlode.*
[Raak] In my house (where it has taken some dedication to find BBC radio stations what with being in another country and everything) Radio 4 as default, Radio 4 Extra sometimes, Radio 3 in headphones at work when I'm not getting on well with writing and also when I'm working at home alone in the house, it's on in the kitchen. I had a short wave radio and used to get the World Service sometimes, but it has even disappeared from that too, hasn't it?
Oh, and Radio 4 on Long Wave in the car on the 40km commute to and from work. It reaches as far as Rotterdam.
*Quote from the Alan Partridge film, Alpha Papa, which I know I will enjoy watching several more times.
Oh, and Radio 4 on Long Wave in the car on the 40km commute to and from work. It reaches as far as Rotterdam.
*Quote from the Alan Partridge film, Alpha Papa, which I know I will enjoy watching several more times.
I've never been able to get much of anything on shortwave. I remember in my teens listening to World Service on 648 kHz on a home-built radio (Philips Electronic Engineer kit). I could only get the signal in the evenings. The 648 kHz frequency stopped some years back, so I get it on digital now, and online, 24 hours a day. But have you noticed how everything sounds so much more authoritative on medium wave? I remember once listening to the World Service in the early morning, and then turning over to Radio 4 on FM, and thinking how much more solid and reliable the World Service newsreaders sounded. Then I realised I was listening to the same programme on both channels.
Only ever listen to NPR these days. They pimp the BBC World Service sometimes, usually late at night and for a tiny bit each morning.
Confessions of a pleb
(Raak) There's Five Live, on which I listen to a lot of footy but you'd have to threaten me with waterboarding to get me to listen to anything else on that ghastly down-market crap-hole. Otherwise it's 4 or 3. Has to be. BTW it was cirrus - you could see it on satellite pics.
I can also get BBC RAdio Kent on Medium Wave in the car. I'm about to change my car - and I'm dreading getting a car with a radio that doesn't have Long Wave, which is probably going to be the case. If so I'll have to find R4 on t'internet 3G on me phone and plug it into the car's Aux socket
(pen) Unlikely it won't have Long Wave. My banger, a 2002 Peugeot 206, has got it.
Longer
[Rosie] The tendency is for them not to have it now. They have FM, MW and DAB, but no LW. The windy miller's car radio is like that. (for me, it would be reason enough not to buy it...)
Oh well
The company I mentioned earlier has decided to proceed with other candidates, as the recruiter diplomatically put it. Well, it was pleasant to daydream about for a couple of weeks.
[Raak] Their loss. Time to retire to your secret base at the centre of the Earth to plot world domination and vengeance.
Wait for them to topple
[Raak] Wait for the candidate-in-front-of-you's spouse to declare they are moving to another country because he/she has just won a new post there, and then expect the (only slightly apologetic) call back. That's what happened to me.
Cross-posting) Breaking silence to announce that I have finally secured a ticket for a recording of ISIHAC! If anyone else is going to Southend on July 4th, I'll see you there!
May Day
Well, a week after May Day to be precise. We have a lovely burst of late spring heat here in the Netherlands - It's 26C, full sun, light breezes.... And excitement of excitements, the new antique tractor arrives tomorrow.
Enjoy it while you can, penelope, you never know what's about to come over the horizon..
(Dujon) Great shot. Is that in Oz?
owd cloud
[Dujon] Splendid!
[Rosie] Yes. It's a cell approaching from the west - which most storms here do. The shot was taken by my son earlier this year from farther up the mountains from me at around and about the 3,000ft level.
[penelope] I'm glad you liked it. I shall pass on your comment.
[penelope] I'm glad you liked it. I shall pass on your comment.
Oz
What is it about photos from dahn ander that makes them look so good? A friend just emigrated with family to Sydney and keeps posting pics of wonderful landscapes, exotic wildfowl etc. I've only ever done two days in Melbourne which according to Sydneyites is a near-death experience, so I can't comment.
Green cast
[Bismarck] It's envy.
(Bismarck) Probably the fact that the sun is "always" out and the air is very clean except when there's desert dust.
Ooh err
Summat happened. My finely penned post previewed but disappeared on submission. I'll post again when I have time.
[Phil] I am now imagining cosplaying as one of the Babymetal girls.
Thanks, Rosie! Another 45 minutes 'wasted'. ;)
All things bright and beautiful
[Bismarck] Many visitors and photographers remark on Australia's "light". The country on three sides is surrounded by lots and lots of water and much of the 'centre' is desert, so Rosie could be right about the clean air.
Exotic flora and fauna? They are to you, but badgers and squirrels are to Australian residents. I used to live about 3Km from my current residence where, particularly in dry periods, kangaroos (probably wallabies) would come out of the bushland next door and wander the streets; you won't find that in all places, though. Likewise with our avian population. Flocks of &$)@&! very noisy sulphur crested cockatoos; parrots; wrens; finches; kookaburras; butcher birds; bower birds (we have a bower in our front garden); whip birds - and quite a few more are regular visitors.
Landscapes are there and it's a largish country so subjects are there for the taking in all their variety. I love this place - I have lived here now for nigh on 61 years so am probably biassed - but make no claims as to its being better than any other country. After all this is a wonderful world (thanks, Louis) and beauty is everywhere if you look, even in England, the country of my birth.;)
Exotic flora and fauna? They are to you, but badgers and squirrels are to Australian residents. I used to live about 3Km from my current residence where, particularly in dry periods, kangaroos (probably wallabies) would come out of the bushland next door and wander the streets; you won't find that in all places, though. Likewise with our avian population. Flocks of &$)@&! very noisy sulphur crested cockatoos; parrots; wrens; finches; kookaburras; butcher birds; bower birds (we have a bower in our front garden); whip birds - and quite a few more are regular visitors.
Landscapes are there and it's a largish country so subjects are there for the taking in all their variety. I love this place - I have lived here now for nigh on 61 years so am probably biassed - but make no claims as to its being better than any other country. After all this is a wonderful world (thanks, Louis) and beauty is everywhere if you look, even in England, the country of my birth.;)
Big band etc
[Rosie] Re: your suggestion. Fun to play I'd imagine, but I find it rather dull to listen to these days. Ditto for jazz in general, and anything in which soloists get applauded during the piece. I also don't like most opera; lots of choral music; most "rock" music; especially prog rock; Bon Jovi et al; most musicals.... Actually, I hadn't realised how long the list is, given the amount of music I do like.
[follow-up] All that said, I only like about 6 of the current Top 40 singles.
[Phil] I don't know anything in the top 40 any more. Even I'm surprised by the speed at which this descent into fogeydom has happened. Or perhaps I'm perceiving it the wrong way - perhaps it's the music in the charts that's rubbish and not worth listening to any more. What exacerbates this is
a) Dutch pop music is utterly dire - plaintive autotuned adolescents singing formulaic songs written by someone else. So I don't listen to any lowland stations (except sometimes a Belgian one called 'Nostalgie')
b) I can receive only a very small number of UK radio stations in the car. Absolute Radio plays the same sings as it did in 2004 (when indie-type guitar-based pop music was quite good). Otherwise it's music-free BBC Radio Kent, BBC Five Live or Smooth - which plays almost exclusively music from the US - and I don't understand why.
c) I'm an old fogey.
a) Dutch pop music is utterly dire - plaintive autotuned adolescents singing formulaic songs written by someone else. So I don't listen to any lowland stations (except sometimes a Belgian one called 'Nostalgie')
b) I can receive only a very small number of UK radio stations in the car. Absolute Radio plays the same sings as it did in 2004 (when indie-type guitar-based pop music was quite good). Otherwise it's music-free BBC Radio Kent, BBC Five Live or Smooth - which plays almost exclusively music from the US - and I don't understand why.
c) I'm an old fogey.
[pen] If that's the definiton of fogeydom, I ascended to it at about the age of 20... but in fariness I suppose one person's 'formulaic' is another's 'inspired'.
Has anyone been through the full thought experiment of selecting one's own 8 tracks to be stranded on a desert island with?
Has anyone been through the full thought experiment of selecting one's own 8 tracks to be stranded on a desert island with?
Fogeydom
(Tuj) 25 in my case. As for Desert Island Discs I'd put a little late 50's pop, a little folk, quite a bit of mainstream jazz and Big Band and some piano pieces by Beethoven and Chopin. Is one allowed non-musical items? If so, I'd include Derek and Clive, top-notch taboo-busting filth. Luxury items a piano and and endless supply of fags.
!fogey
Mrs Phil & I had a moment a year or two ago when we suddenly realised that we might be embarrassing our children (now aged 20 & 18) by knowing about (and critiquing) the likes of Tinie Tempah, Skepta, Clean Bandit, Royal Blood, Slaves etc etc etc, and also listening to R1 in the car while carrying them and their friends. So we asked them. It turns out we couldn't be further from the truth. We are the envy of their friends, who are sick of their parents listening to Heart / Smooth / Classic FM and saying "all modern pop music sounds the same" etc. Which was nice.
I'm very proud to have introduced my children to Clean Bandit, Fidlar, Slaves and Mumford & Sons. I've also fleshed out their musical knowledge with Art of Noise, Bowie, Prince, James Brown, The Colourfield, Coldplay, Faithless and a load of others beyond and between.
I'm very proud to have introduced my children to Clean Bandit, Fidlar, Slaves and Mumford & Sons. I've also fleshed out their musical knowledge with Art of Noise, Bowie, Prince, James Brown, The Colourfield, Coldplay, Faithless and a load of others beyond and between.
I don't go much for all this modern music by the likes of Beethoven and Brahms. Music reached its peak 400 years ago.
Just rediscovering Jethro Tull and filling in the holes in the collection. That follows an intense two and a half month voyage of discovery with Glass Hammer that cost me deep in t' purse. Before Xmas I was collecting and discovering Muse after catching a performance on TV. Before that it was Tangerine Dream on account of all the advice to do so I got. In 1974. And interlaced through it all was an increasing interest in movie soundtracks. The one for The Way is a particularly good find.
Musing
[Stevie] I liked Muse - thinking of them as a 'Queen for the noughties' and went as far as forking out for a ticket to see them at Wembley in 2007 when I still lived close by. And now? I can't tell which song is which. They play fabulously at live shows though. Great performances.
Agree about the Muse comments. The last album was derailed by the absurd drill sergeant ranting parts. But when they are good they are excellent. Glass Hammer are a bit of a puzzler. Chronometree is absolutely hysterical and musically brilliant (a prog-rock concept album about a guy who detects messages in his favorite prog-rock albums teling him to form a cult and await the aliens in a field at which point ... ) and they have a rabid following of prog-crazed "real Glass Hammer" fans, yet of the, what, fifteen albums they put out the first half dozen were completely different to each other and ran the gamut of concept story rock albums drawn from the Mabinogion to a live folk concert recorded in The Prancing Pony. I love that. But the rabids want them to sound like Yes 2.0 all the time.
I never had a Radio 1 period, and it's been largely Radio 3 and my own MP3 collection for the last decade or so. There's the annual pantomime as a quick reference guide to the year's most popular bubblegum songs, and Eurovision for... god knows what.
Muse-ic
The whole Phil clan are Muse fans. We saw their previous tour (about 4 years ago?) at the Arsenal stadium, and it was phenomenal. I know people who made it to this year's O2 show who say it was even better. We pretty much permanently have at least one Muse CD in the car at any one time, and I spent the whole of SUnday's cricket match with various snippets from Origin of Symmetry running around inside my head. It's hard to play a safe forward defensive with Megalomania on the brain.
*stumbles upon an old bookmark*
Hello, world!
Hello, world!
Hello, nights! Haven't seen you for days.
[Muse] I've seen Muse four times live. The first was just after the first album release and was without any mega-screens, UFOs, mass crowds etc. To be honest I got bored of them, but the first few albums remain great. [Modern Music] Although I buy modern albums I suspect that they won't be popular with the kids. The latest by Joanna Newsom, Swans, 7shades, PJ Harvey and Katzenjammer have all been making my Mini vibrate recently.
Muse? I've moved on. Star Trek and The Martian soundtracks at work, Van der Graaf Generator on the trains.
(Stevie) Actually it's a dynamo. It's for the lights, or used to be.
[Rosie] Spelled differently, though I didn't really know that until I looked it up. Perhaps there was one of those shifts in reality where I wake up and find the world is pronouncing a word completely differently than they were the night before.
Don't stand under a tree
Nice thunderstorm tonight as I was driving to the pub. Plenty of cloud-cloud lightning and some forky stuff as well. From an elevated point looking NW I could just see clear sky near the horizon at about 1035 pm. Most unusual and only possible with a high cloud-base, which these storms had. And they were shifting, about 50 mph. All over rather quickly.
Lightning over Antwerp
I stood on our back deck late last night watching the lightning flashes illuminate the clouds towering over Antwerp, about 40km to the south of us. We didn't get a lot of weather action last night, but my colleagues are all suffering from lack of sleep caused by constant thunder and lightning last night. And it's awfully black out today, but still about 22-23C.
So, the Queen introduced a new variety of tea, in honour of today's historic vote. It is, of course, called, "English Brexit". Oh... you ask what ingredients? Leaves. Just Leaves.
(Giertrud) Shaddap. We have just made complete arses of ourselves.
(pen) More thunder yesterday. 9 days this month, a record for Hughes Hall (34 years).
(pen) More thunder yesterday. 9 days this month, a record for Hughes Hall (34 years).
thundering
[Rosie] Probably similar here. I'm getting fitter dashing in and out to rescue the washing on the line.
I am still here
Just about
Better than being incomplete ones, I supposie, Rosie!
Sightings of Rab
[Rab] Hello! Do we all need to renew our Mornington Passports? Will there be restricted access to Crescent markets? Will podumes lose value?
[Pen] Will you decide to be English/Welsh or Dutch?
The behaviour of the Head Brexiteers in the aftermath has suggested an ... interesting (in the Chinese sense) scenario: Trump wins the Presidency (of the USA), decides to resign and walk away leaving us in the hands of whoever his running mate is.
I get the strong impression that all the top politicians who were belly-to-belly shouting "Oh yeah?" at each other a few weeks ago were caught like a young boy telling a teacher his term-long project is well under way when in fact he hasn't actually done any work. By the sixth week the lies can't stop because there is now a malfunctioning mental imperative preventing truth yet the do-no-work stance can't be rejected in favour of a work-like-mad-to-make-up-for-lost-time because the same malfunctioning brain is in charge. Lies and laziness are being rewarded in the short term and lightning might burn down the school before the end of term.
Lies
Continuing to lie until it becomes impossible to back out led to this rather odd, and rather gruesome, news story I spotted a few weeks ago.
Brexiteers
Well, now we have a real need for the HHGttG term "beljam".
Helo clouds helo ski
Yeah, I'm feeling a bit lazy. I'm in the middle of a fortnight off, the windy miller and I noodled around the Ardennes and Luxumbourg for a couple of days (ate and drank too much), and we're expecting The American Niece and her boyf in a couple of days, but I'm still doing the same amount of cooking and cleaning as normal. Have I forgotten how to holiday?
Holidays
[pen] Know what you mean, there's always the idea of doing it better yourself, just not at home, which equates to a holiday. This year went B&B&restauranting with Frau Bismarck, the brother in law and the kids in Brittany, just to make sure that no-one had housework. Normally it's a rental as we have several sprogs and that gets expensive. It cost an arm and a leg but achieved the aim. There had been a plan for an invasion of Prague in rental accommodation for the same price, but wife plus sprogs 1 and 2 refused.
Would you be one of the few Dutch families without a camping car?
Would you be one of the few Dutch families without a camping car?
pas de camping/geen camping
[Bism] The windy miller refuses to camp. I think he did it wrong (ordinary field, earth closet, insects) when he was about 18 and it put him off for life. I love it, have slept in the car and camped and caravanned everywhere (including the arctic circle) but even though I tell him the secret is air mattresses, a campsite with loos and showers, and a good pub for food nearby, he won't listen. And we don't have kids, so we do hotels.
So today, mid-way through our holiday, I am taking pleasure in jam-making (double batch - he keeps buying plums and strawberries from stalls at the side of the road and not eating them, so they get stashed in the freezer), ironing, and hoovering. I would get bored on a beach or watching the world go by at a pavement cafe, wouldn't I?
So today, mid-way through our holiday, I am taking pleasure in jam-making (double batch - he keeps buying plums and strawberries from stalls at the side of the road and not eating them, so they get stashed in the freezer), ironing, and hoovering. I would get bored on a beach or watching the world go by at a pavement cafe, wouldn't I?
Luxuryemburg
[pen] You wouldn't be around Larochette, would you? I remember 2 days there in the main hotel with a bunch of grill/barbecue kiosks along the road which did great meals.
I think it's broken
Or you're all asleep. So what's everyone up to?
Helping to make a drum head about 40 inches across. Another will be made in a few weeks to go on the other side of the drum, which itself is about 40 inches deep.
Casts a critical musician's eye over this project
Never seen a pizza used for this purpose before. Woodna fought ittaby terribly resonant.
pizza punnery
Can't think of a drumming/pizza pun at all. There must be one!
You need pluck
(pen) Music for strings is occasionally marked pizzacato = cheesily.
His syncopation's a pizza work.
[Raak] Why do you need a 40x40 drum? Are you taking up Taiko or planning to serenade the neighbours with the Dies Irae of the Verdi Requiem? (I ask out of professional curiosity as a percussionist)
[Raak] Will the drum be lit from inside?
[Pablo] I've been playing taiko for about 8 years, and right now I'm in the Swiss mountains at a taiko festival. [Stevie] I will see if I can persuade our Benevolent Leader.
[Raak] That explains that then. Taiko in the Swiss mountains? Bit like gamelan in Siberia innit?
This just in: Swiss budget for avalanche precipitation mortars exausted before winter season starts! Government said to be considering alternative approaches to clearing the ski slopes. Film at eleven.
Apologies
Hello. Just performing a server upgrade.
*taps on the glass*
Rab! Good to see you.
Taps on the glass? How big is it FFS?
Screening visitors
[Rosie] Screen. I mean screen.
The Number of the Beast
Do we need a Prime Minister? I don't see why. A Composite one would be far more multi-faceted.
(pen) You take me far too seriously.
(pen) You take me far too seriously.
[Rosie] Oh no I don't. ;o)
Keraunophilia
Only a feeble one-rumble-and-a-bit-of-rain here last night. Other places not far away have had exuberant electrical displays, crashing thunder and joyously roaring downpours leading to surface water flooding and hazardous driving conditions south of the M4 corridor. So why not the B269? Come on.
(pen) Thank God for that.
(pen) Thank God for that.
Still no rain.
It's cooled down a bit - now 21C or so and 16 at night (which is nice) but we haven't had any decent rain for about 3-4 weeks. even the promised donder en blixem didn't amount to very much, it seemed to swirl around us but dumped very little rain on us.
And I've got new shoes and a new coat and everything, ready for rain and inclement weather.
And I've got new shoes and a new coat and everything, ready for rain and inclement weather.