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!

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 :)

[penelope] You worked at Trowse Beach? Awesome.

[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.

[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.

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.

(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?

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.

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.

[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?

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.

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.

I'm glad there are no aspens here. They're so damnably noisy! :)

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.

*distressingly