Today's free lunch had no view (windowless hall), a short speech and very long queues. But an interesting walk there and back that included some of the busy Nieuwe Maas river and the old water tower from 1873. I'm really not in the mood for any more free lunches.
[Duj] Wow.

Ey up pen, so Dutch architects can deliberately design a building with no windows on the seventeenth floor?

[Bismarck] I think she is cramming in more free lunches than you realise, even though there is no such thing.

So, our Secret santa presents get dished out later today, while we munch on mince pies. Apparently we're supposed to wear Christmas jumpers too. I feel like Marvin today.

[Phil] I hear you. Ugh. Forced jollity brings out the obstreperous teenager in me.
Lunch Update - There is no free lunch today. I made corned beef and brinjal pickle sandwiches, and I've already eaten half of them (it's 10.30am).

[Boolbar] I suspect the quantum representation of free lunches permits the improbable occasionally, given the number of lunches consumed daily. Though according to pen normality was restored today.

Not so much a free lunch as the promise of cake and coffee during an open afternoon - a 'come and have a look' kind of affair - at the windy miller's business' new offices. Next door to Ikea...

Can I guess where the office furniture came from?

[pen] A flat-packed lunch?

Listening to everyone bitch about unacceptably something free lunches and having to endure the unspeakable horrors of Christmas jollity at work for one day reminds me why I got out while the going was good back in '84. What a bunch of whining whiny whiners.

[Phil], Secret Santas are agents of the devil. It's OK to impale them, or just any random person if you can't work out who bought you that pair of yellow socks.

<*mutters*> Yellow toe socks for Bismark. Filled with coal.

The only problem is all these lunches take time that I don't have. They break my thinking when I could be usefully engaged writing webpages or brochures or news ot other stuff. Luckily it was back to just half an hour today.
OOoh yellow socks filled with coal! Great idea!

[penelope] So don't go. I'm not seeing the problem here.

[Stevie] Unthinkable. Awards, year summaries, need to be seen to be joining in, stuff like that.

[penelope] I never do. I've opted out of three "official" parties (all that required cashmoney up front, admittedly - in the USA There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) this week alone so I can go across town to an English-style boozer instead. If I'm going to spend money it's going on booze'n'pie'n'chips, not soft drinks, canapes and a variety of ethnic foods that I can't bear to even smell let alone eat. And why pretend to like people who have trouble sharing a conference room with one without snarling three hundred and sixty four days of the year?

Damn near missed my "Ten Years In, Congrats You're Vested" certificate ceremony too. Only went to say thanks to and shake the hand of the outgoing deputy commish who got me the gig.

Almost every present I had is either red wine or chocolate. Merry Christmas to you all (hic) and a yummy New Year.

Merry Christmas, though for your time zone I am a bit late.

(Giertrud) Central Standard Time? 6 hours then. The thing about Britain in December, you may or may not know, is the sheer gloom of a cloudy afternoon, i.e. most of them. It can be pretty well dark at 4 pm.

[Rosie] I took it that Giertrude was in fact undead, possibly a Zombie but one shouldn't discount the vampire option just because the fad has faded, and is now ravaging the living in your area.

(Stevie) Nothing ravages Warlingham, not even the Lib Dems.

Hmmm... odd. Sorry I keep dipping out, I've only just noticed Rosie's comment about accents, and am investigating.

Tést.

T?st.

Aha! Right, I know what to work with...

Tért

Ok, that looks a little better now. It looks like you can enter fünn¥ chårac†ers right at the kéybøard... although I don't know quite why.

[Rosie] Your question "Why does it work at MCiOS and not here?" has the very simple answer: "Dan is a much better programmer than me."

In this room it's 21°C. The Welsh for Snowdon is Yr Ŵyddfa. Good enough. You're an excellent programmer, rab.

I could do with a holiday. I'm fed up of being on the road to work before the sun even comes up!

I have unblocked a drain. The satisfaction of seeing the washbasin suddenly empty freely is curiously alike to that of a really satisfying bowel movement.

I'm having a clear-out... of the cupboard in my office, which I have never used, but lots of other people have, aince 2007, apparently. It's all going in the bin. My to-do list is limited this week (everyone seems to have taken an extra week off work, and as I'm the one they ask to work on their documents at the final stage then there's a lull until they all come back to work - which, judging by this morning's traffic jams and 20mph average speed on the all-motorway route to work, was this morning. Pffft.

don't you mean 30km/h, pen?

32 km/h (approximately).

Whatevs.

[pen] Do you car-share? Are you aware of its benefits? Driver or passenger? Would you prefer [Software]or [Rosie]? Are you going my way?