[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!