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Forced jollity
[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).
Free lunch anomaly
[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.
Today's free lunch
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.
Open season
[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.
Secret Santa
<*mutters*> Yellow toe socks for Bismark. Filled with coal.
whineless
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.
Yazoooooo
[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.
 Merry Christmas everyone at MC5 
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.
Happy New Year
Hmmm... odd. Sorry I keep dipping out, I've only just noticed Rosie's comment about accents, and am investigating.
Test
Tést.
T?st.
Aha! Right, I know what to work with...
Tert
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."

Gonna try a tert
In this room it's 21°C. The Welsh for Snowdon is Yr Ŵyddfa. Good enough. You're an excellent programmer, rab.
Terting terting
I could do with a holiday. I'm fed up of being on the road to work before the sun even comes up!
Things that are like other things
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.
Getting things moving
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.
Terminology
don't you mean 30km/h, pen?
Pedantry
32 km/h (approximately).
I mean too bloody slow
Whatevs.
Commuting questions
[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?
A car-share from nowhere
Whlle the Netherlands is pretty well set up with lots of carpool parking spaces adjacent to nearly every motorway junction, we've chosen to live just out of the usual commuting range for Rotterdam - south of the river, mate. (That's the Haringvliet). Our rural idyll means there's no-one nearby who works where I do, nor the hours I do. In fact, very few people live outside of the city. They think I'm weird.
(Bismarck) Car-sharing is a form of torture. I'd rather travel in a packed rush-hour train where anonymity rules and talking is taboo anyway. But in your own car that cannot hold. Anyone who spoke would be immediately shot. Of course this only applies to work journeys. Anything else - well, jump in.
Well f*ck y** and *v*ry*ne els* on th* ro*d.
I think my swearing at other drivers would quickly put anyone else off car sharing with me. Sometimes even I'm shocked at the foulness of it. The weekly offer in Aldi this week is a dashcam, and I considered buying one for a moment, before realising that it would mean my expletive-laden judgements would be there for all to hear.
Sweary Mary
(pen) My oaths are briefer than yours and I find myself thinking "you use that word too much."
My briefs are oather than yours.
[Rosie] Pants to that.
Dashcam
Why not use a dashcam but speak in mock Russian? Youtoob fail videos are twice as funny with someone shrieking "Smirnoff spetznatz gorky!" just as the four articulated trucks up ahead disintegrate into their component parts and show you that while you thought the traffic was doing around 50mph from the footage it is actually moving somewhere in the region of 110. In deep snow. In a near blizzard.

You could publish the footage as The Perils of Penelope Somewhere In Europe.

Pay per view
[Stevie] What a spiffing idea. I just need some friends to cause distractions along the route to work, thus causing a regular supply of accidents, as you suggest.
Log off
(Stevie) I like the ones where a colossally overloaded trailer of timber starts swinging from side to side then over it goes and the whole f****** issue lands in the ditch. Yes, I too am a time-waster.
(pen - ult) Oather than mine? Shurely not.
Dashing Cam
[pen] I don't see the need to contrive accidents. Annecdotal evidence suggests that the minute you turn on your dashcam some idiot will drive a tank across the highway narrowly missing you, or swerve in front of you with an unfeasible load of matresses and haybales lashed to his roof with lamentably poor knotwork.

Put in a rear dashcam and enjoy the immediate onslaught of cyclclists and motorbikers so caught up in the moment they have forgotten how perspective works.

For a few tens of pounds outlay I can visualize a time when your Yootoob channel brings in six figures from advertising, more than paying for the inevitable dent-knocking-outery and door replacement. Just remember to yell "Kremlin matryoshka gorbachev!" as you weave around the haybales and collide with one of those tricycle ice-cream things and it will all be gravy.

I've been working on an idea to lighten the mood when traffic accidents occur. Nothing sours the situation more than getting punched by an angry person with whom you have just collided at speed. I think the whole mood can be de-escalated by the addition of a proximity-triggered klaxon fitted behind the front grill that can scream "YeeeeeeeeeHaaaaaaaa!" as you swan into a Smart car or someone's BMW and give everyone's airbags and seat-belts a good work-out. I got the idea after listening to I Want My Baby Back from Kenny Everett's World's Worst Record.
Time Wasting
[Rosie] Time spent watching overloaded cranes falling over or trucks drive under an overhead obstruction with the bed raised is not deducted form one's life span. In fact, I encourage such behaviour if only to counter those times spent trying to get a human being to intervene 'twixt you and the government (eg to sell you a new road tax disc) after which one tends to sag against the nearest bar and utter such truisms as "there's four hours I'll never get back".
Accidentally on purpose
Hook up your reversing camera to a large screen attached to the rear windscreen. Should cause endless fun.
Screen test
I'm confused - facing out or facing in?
TWTWTW
What a bloody week. I don't want to look back at it.
Sadism
(Stevie) Is there any life deduction for watching leopards strangle warthogs prior to enjoying a tasty meal or watching hyenas ripping chunks out of a buffalo which only gives up when a considerable part of its inside has been removed. Incidentally, the word warthog looks Welsh to me and I always mutter it to myself as if it were. After all there is a genuine Welsh word arthog (short open "a", lightly trilled "r", "th" as in English) meaning bear-like and with the same figurative meaning as in English, i.e. bad-tempered. The plural of warthog would probably be warthogion though warthogoedd or warthogydd are possibilities. It's unlikely to be regular (warthogau).
Grizzly stuff.
There was nothing banging about Arthog last time I visited (probably early '50s) even vaguely resembling a bear. Perhaps a hill or the (very few) local residents presented a somewhat ursine appearance.
Wouldn't a Warthogion be a collection of Warthog folktales?
Alight here if you can bear it
(Dujon) You must have missed the station which only existed because of the nearby touristy Arthog Hall. There is a steam engine named after it (No. 6993 if you must know) and I suspect the big brass nameplate is hanging up somewhere in the building.
(Stevie) Yeah, I like that.
Station staff
No, I didn't miss the station, Rosie, as that is where I stayed for a week. Well, in the siding, in a camping coach. A staff-controlled single line that wended its way up the valley to who-knows-where, the whistle echoing off and around the hills, a mist hiding the already hidden places; a child's paradise. Geez I'm getting old. ;)
Rosie - how deep'n' desperate is this freezing easterly going to be? Wind is picking up here, and temp is dropping... (according to the neightbour over the road, whose weather station Tweets every couple of hours).
(Dujon) The line went to Dolgellau then up the hill and down again to Bala, Llangollen and joined the main line at Ruabon. Ten-coach holiday trains with two smallish engines laboured mightily up the bank. The line closed in 1965 but parts of it have been reopened under preservation with unrealistically clean shiny engines and a dismal speed restriction (25 mph).
(pen) Deep'n' desperate? Not very. Not for an easterly in February but it'll probably last a week. Not much snow if any. I'm not looking forward to it either.
It couldn't get more miserable here, weatherwise. Deep grey gloom, and temperatures hovering just under freezing. And I think I've just witnessed the stripping of my UK pension by a bunch of unprincipled Westminster turncoats. Bastards the lot of them.
Inclemency, poverty
(pen) Same weather here only one degree warmer. Light drizzle, mist and gloom. Lovely! Bad about your pension. Stay where you are though because 29% of Britons support Trump, further evidence of our widespread knuckle-scraping ignorance. If I were younger I'd seriously consider moving somewhere a little more at ease with itself.
Snow
And lots of it. Stayed home sick. Really sick, but no-one will believe me.
Weather
Howling winds making everyone in the house nervous. Outside the house the wind is picking up too. Still snowing. 7 inches or so so far, but it has drifted halfway up the front door.
Doris
Yesterday's storm was interesting. I took a trip there and back across the Oude Maas river by water taxi at the height of her gustiness. Our original choice of dock was too exposed to wind and waves for it to pick us up safely, so we had to walk a bit further up to a calmer one. Exhilarating.
Nomenclature
How can they call a storm Doris? It's a genteel upper middle-class name from the 20's. My piano teacher as a kid was called Doris, Doris Austin (pron. Awstin). My parents knew a few Dorises - they were awfully nice. The Crystal Palace full-back in the '60's was Martin Hinshelwood, nicknamed Doris. It was not a compliment.
Dorises
I heard they were alphabetically naming them after people in the Met Office. I shall Google.
I've said for years that Doris is a name to strike fear and terror into people, and that it should be moved into rotation in the hurricane name stack soonest. I also disagree vehemently with the practice of naming hurricanes or tropical storms using male names. Male names do not convey the same "get out of Dodge now" subtext that female ones do.
How about using the names of demons? "Storm Demogorgon" has a fine ring to it. Next up will be Eligor, Focalor, and Glasyalabolas.
Demonised
Thing is, [Raak] I'm not familiar with the names of demons (shame on me). Perhaps we could just name them after nasty people? We've missed the opportunity for 'Bannon' but we're in time for storms 'Farage', 'Gove' and 'Hopkins'.
I know that last year's storms were named from suggestions tweeted to the Met Office and Met Eireann, and that they alternated male and female, as do this year's.
Also, does anyone else remember hearing on QI many years ago that Herod's wife was called Doris?
[pen] What on earth do you have against Mary Hopkins?
Up the bum
I've just had a prostate biopsy. Briefly quite painful but better than not having one. It's probably cancerous but can easily be treated. The consultant said that all men of 90 have prostate cancer but they die of something else. I seem to have started a little early, perhaps (74). The treatment was brilliant and prompt, at Mayday Hospital in Croydon. Why don't they get a proper car park? Bastards!
[Rosie] Well... it's absolutely fabulous that they've got you under effective and early surveillance. But I'm so sorry about the car parking, you're probably going to have to use it a few times over the next couple of months. Hope it's bearable.
(pen) I've used the car park twice already; I got a taxi this time because the procedure might have left me feeling a bit vulnerable but the feeling of having been whacked up the bum with a heavy blunt instrument soon wore off. I'm fine today.
No sunshine?
All the best, Rosie, I hope that the biopsy test result comes back with a good prognosis.
(Duj) The consultant said it was actually win-win in that any cancer can be treated and reduction in size quite routine anyway. Having now accepted there's a problem I'm looking forward to the beneficial effects. Less urgency and less getting up in the night. My Dad had his removed in 1968 and it was quite an operation but techniques these days are so much better.
Hello again, all. All the best, Rosie.
Wotcha, nights. Fast path to remission, Rosie.
[Rosie] May your treatment be effective and discomfort-free, and may your parking be abundant. Good luck.
(nights, Stevie, CdM) Thanks very much. It seems that prostate cancer among older men is, if not quite routine, at least quite common and the least harmful of all cancers unless it spreads, which is pretty rare. My cousin had it and died of a stroke, aged 84. The cancer was quite irrelevant.
(CdM) I don't think the treatment will be discomfort-free - may involve a catheter. Parking anywhere in the Greater London area is like the biopsy, a complete pain in the arse.
Best wishes
[Rosie] You have an admirably pragmatic attitude towards illness. I always do the man thing of ignoring a grumble, then eventually get off my arse* to see my GP, who then says "Oh, it's just a virus". Though, of course, one day, it won't be...

*apologies for any insensitive wording...

Has spring sprung?
Is it spring yet? I haven't really noticed a change in temperature - I'm still vested.
Sproing
[pen] Here it's bright as summer, cold as winter. It's spring.
(rab) Tell your GP that rabies is a virus, as are many other lethal lurgies. I know what he means, though.
rabsody
Oh thank goodness this site is back. It was apparently down yesterday, and I thought Scotland had independented without telling anyone.
*Aprils*
Soooo close to finishing writing the twice-yearly alumni magazine and sooo happy about it. On the other hand, I just had to cancel a trip to the UK because of an attack of the you-know-whats.
You-don't-know-whats
Irate tractor drivers? Poisonous micro-bats? Cheesed-off Dutchmen?
Whatever it was, hope they're gone now with no lasting damage.
Shut of the shots
Shot of the shits? Almost, but not quite. Bloody hell. I've lost a few kilos. Am I sure this isn't amoebic dysentery or some Dutch marshland parasitic invasion? No.
Diseasedly
Low-lying coastal delta? Dengue fever for sure. Survival rate is quite good, though.
Which is worse, Dengue fever, or constant campaigning and voting?
Let's vote on that...
Depends on how much pain you have in your cam, I suppose. It also seems to provoke a form of sleeping sickness that makes one have déjà vu nightmares.
Orangery
It's King's Day tomorrow in the Netherlands; a national holiday in every sense of the word. For most Dutch people, it means a feverish plague of orange tat - to wear, eat and wave in the air, a lot of beer, and an all-pervasive soundtrack of oompah bands and bouncy pop tunes played through bad loudspeakers from every village street. (This is my experience of it in the previous 8 years of village life - it may be different elsewhere in the country).
But the windy miller and I will be heading to the windmill in Zeeland. I will take a pile of books, a warm blanket, and a big packet of sausages to cook.
It's cold where you are? So you and the Miller are going to have an under-the-blanket sausage festival up at 'mill? That sounds very sensible under the circumstances.
[Stevie[ I am too shocked to speak.
(As it happens, I made coffee for everyone, sat out in the sun drinking coffee and eating cake, cleaned the lav thoroughly - spider footprints all over the seat - and after a lunch of sausage sarnies, I went to sit in the car to read, and got through two-thirds of Jessica Mitford's autobiography 'Hons and Rebels', including an hour's doze. Lovely.)
Exactly a week later...
My life seems to be all outings and jollies. It isn't - but as it happens I'm catching the ferry back to England tonight, the first time I've been back since last December.
The Crab
Hooray - I will not die of prostate cancer. Just seen a specialist and they have a treatment plan all worked out (catheter not involved). It'll take a couple of years at least but there is a very high probability of then being totally cancer-free. Even if not, it can be monitored and re-treated and represents no danger.
[Rosie] Thank God for that. My grandfather died of it, so I am glad to hear the news. Even if I have never met you in my life, your absence would be more than a passing thing.
Maleness
Good oh, Rosie. Great news, indeed. I hope the treatment isn't too onerous. I'll also have a drink for you this evening. :)
(Bismarck) That's very kind. I'll be quite happy to live another 15 years, being 74, and the doctor I saw earlier today implied very strongly that this business won't affect my longevity. Now, about your smoking, Mr Hughes.

(Dujon) The treatment may involve side-effects (chemo) and later possibly radiotherapy to give it a final bashing on the head. This is a bit more than taking paracetamol but I've found over the years that I seem immune to side effects, never having had any from anything. Let's hope it continues. There is already an improvement from the hormone therapy I'm undergoing - less "urgency" and less getting up during the night and no side effects such as hot flushes or sprouting boobs, which apparently can happen. And how much libido can you lose at my age? Well, a bit, actually, but it must be a serious problem for younger men, whom I do not envy.

Glad to hear that Rosie. These MC sites do come alive due to their inhabitants, so I look forward to many more years of wit 'n' wisdom from yourself (and steam locomotives).

P.S. Why do I still get libido and albedo mixed up?

Rosie
Luck, and no side effects. If you'll take some well-meant advice, keep a few bottles of the otherwise disgusting gatorade at hand during your regimen. I hope you won't need them, but better a couple of bottles you never used than not having none when dehydration hits. There's also something called pedialite over here, used for babies but essentially the same dilute cocktail of electrolytes. Can't get that at the supermarket though.
(Boolbar) Thanks for your concern. re libido/albedo - have you been trying to shag the planet Venus? Bright, isn't it.

(Stevie) I was told about possible dehydration but I think water will do. BTW, what's gatorade? Sounds like something distilled from a bayou.

Nice news
[Rosie] That's the nicest news all week. Lucozade will do the same job as Gatorade, I think, but it won't be so snappy. Ginger ale is marvellous stuff too, especially if the treatment robs you of your appetite.
[Rosie] Very glad to hear that; good luck with the treatments.
(CdM) They will be worse than the disease, which is little more than a nuisance, though not ultimately, needless to say. Thanks for your concern.
Gatorade
Sports drink. Rich in electrolytes. Water may not do, as it is the chemical imbalance that is the problem rather than lack of water. Orange juice is my usual rehydrator of choice but once you are on chemo you may find the taste becomes unpalatable. Hope I'm overstating the case. Speedy recovery at any rate. My Dad underwent the same regimen and he's free umpteen years down the road.
It's the bloody 15th of May!
Morning all. This weekend I have been mostly shouting above the din of a noisy restaurant to translate an entire Dutch menu (a very nice menu actually) to an old schoolfriend and her chap who visited for the weekend (Mauritz in Willemstad) that mader me lose some of my voice, and exploring the Napoleonic fort at the end of our dijk, which is a couple of miles away, but still on the same dijk. Exploring Fort Sabina was like one of those dreams in which you discover another staircase leading to rooms in your house that you never knew were there; it's so close to our house and has such a massive sense of history; it's now given over to nature, wind and water (and a decent cafe selling nice beer).
And what I really meant to say was... it's already halfway through May!
[pen] Halfway? I have a feeling we have another 5 years of May left.
Neighbourliness
The neighbours opposite (overbuurmensen) are gradually removing their kitchen in preparation for a new one going in in a couple of weeks. Today they'll rip out the floor and sloosh in the self-levelling goop, so they're coming over to eat at ours tonight. Salmon and new potatoes.
Can I come too?
[pen] Perhaps a self-levelling chocolate goop for desert?
Self-leveling underfloor goop. Hah. Once they are done they will lay their floor and never be able to get any of their appliances to mate the plumbing without a healthy reservoir of Class Four Words of Power.

The house settles and goes out of square, taking walls and plumbing with it (ironically, the plumbing will be out of plumb). Wheel in new washing machine on nice new level floor and the fun starts. Also, once floor laid, skirting boards may not fit under door frame. I wish everyone the best and as you value your sanity, don't get too close. I'm currently facing a bathroom wall that is now so far away from the frame of the house, the tap stems no longer poke through enough for the taps to be fitted. Oh how I laughed.

tapping
[Stevie] Your house sounds like the spire of that Chesterfield church.
The neighbours' house is a dijk-house; split level with a front door at road level, and storeys above and a storey below which is semi-underground, built into the dyke. Theirs also has constructions built out from the back of the house, on legs.
Ours is a dijkhuis too, but ours is new and built on pilings. Theirs is a hundred years old in parts and not built on pilings. Their front door doesn't fit, they have corridors that run in U-shapes around the building, and there are at least two routes to every room in the house. I'm very fond of them but they have too much stuff and cannot help but buy more.
Thank you for the warning about sanity. I fear you are right.
My internal picture was the spire of Ely Cathedral which was reportedly three feet off the vertical at the tip. Speaking of good intentions gone all tilty while no-one was looking, tomorrow Mrs Stevie leaves for DC and I begin fixing the perambulating fence of not-all-that-windproofness-when-you-get-down-to-it.
Epeeing into the wind
[Stevie] Isn't that fencing the recurring theme of your DIY posts on this website? I remember it from years ago. Perhaps it's time it went - is not even as if you have to keep the Steveling confined any more.
Nope. I value my privacy, such as it is.
Didn't get to fix the fence because of rain and bleeping work.
It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it
[Stevie] A noble task! Those swearwords won't censor themselves.
No, that's the noise my computer makes when the remote connection is timing out.
[Stevie] Mark your boundary with a row of nails.  It is said that a tack is the best form of the fence.
Argh! No court in the world would convict me, Boolbar.
Hooray! Them and their clever machines have had a closer look and I have no cancer whatever outside the prostate and so don't need chemo. A very good day. A very good day indeed.
Very good news Rosie.
I bet you feel about twenty years younger, Rosie. Marvellous, marvellous, old chap.
(Stevie,Dujon) Cheers. Thanks. The prostate itself is still cancerous but it's completely under control and the hormone therapy is working, i.e. the wee-wees are faster, less urgent and there's less getting up in the night. Pints of beer are less likely to cause "spillage". This is important, obviously. This treatment is going to have to last some time but has no side-effects apart from the obvious one of loss of libido which is not the worst thing in the world for someone of my age (74) but a slight loss nevertheless. I was told, quite seriously, that every man of 90 has prostate cancer (but dies of something else). Can I hang on to it for 16 years? Some people with more threatening cancer give it a name. Any suggestions? Trump? Ibrahimovic?
Rosie's complaint
Why not call yours a "Corbyn"? After all, although it has dangerous principles it's pacific, looks like it's quite happy in its own allotment, was around for ages before coming to your notice, and you'd be better if once it's gone.
Have a beer from me, for medical reasons.
(Bismarck) It doesn't make much sense to name a malignant growth after something benign, does it?
Chuffed
[Rosie] Glad to hear your good news!
Thanks to all who have wished me well
Weather news - look away NOW
Super thunderstorm at 4.30 pm. AFPD for a few minutes, visibility down to a couple of hundred yards, then some large hail. Large by Met Office definition, i.e >5 mm; this was over twice that. I measured the rain - 12.7 mm in about 7 minutes. Still quite warm and stuffy, and no wind. Some action at last.
The Rosie Prostate Saga
[Rosie] I've been absent from this site for some time. Good Lord, you must've been through the brambles mentally, but very glad to hear that chemo has been dodged. Having lived alongside someone who had every side-effect short of death 3 summers ago, I can assure you that every chemo case avoided is a tremendous bonus!
Best wishes for future beer consumption, although I too side with the quack on the "Now, about the smoking, Mr Hughes...." front. :)
(Phil) Thanks for your thoughts. Beer consumption continues, the only problem ever having been elimination of the processed material and that is a lot better than it was. Apparently I have responded very well to hormone therapy and can now have radiotherapy which should knock it on the head once and for all. This, though, may not be all fun.
Glad to hear things are going well and that it hasn't affected the beer glands. All the best, mate.
In other news
So what's everyone doing tomorrow? An ordinary Wednesday - or is it?
(pen) Not exactly. Another trip to the Marsden, this time for a pre-radiotherapy scan. The treatment proper involves 37 visits. It's about half an hour's drive, depending on traffic but I can pick and choose the time of day which is very useful. The treatment is far worse than the symptoms which are now no more than slight and lends the whole process an air of unreality. But you have to go through with it or things may happen later, you could say. The hospital is brilliant and are confident the treatment will be successful. You're rarely absolutely cured of cancer, of course and checkups will be needed from time to time.
I have been given a booklet about dealing with this particular form of cancer. It's a useful read and there are photos of various smiling late middle-aged and elderly fellows, sometimes with their soulful-looking wives. One of the men is someone I instantly recognised and know quite well, as I do his wife. In the Big Band I used to play in before it packed up he and I were the trombone section. Also, he is a Chelsea supporter. I had no idea he'd had prostate cancer because even though he must now be about 80 he's pretty vigorous and healthy. A good omen, and a small world.
steaming
[Roie] Re: your comment to me in the Pea & Honey game - I've only ridden on two steam trains, one on the NY railway, and one on exhibition on the preserved part of the Louth-Grimsby line. And I have no idea what either of them were. (Didn't comment in the game because it makes the stanzas messy - tidy, tidy, tidy!)
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