(pen) I like the idea of you trolling the rabid loonies. I hope you're not too rude.

Plans fr the weekend, anyone? I actually don't have any. Which is nice.

Eat. Sleep. Archery. Repeat.
Some alcohol may be involved as well.

[Blob] Archery? I dint no you did that. At targets I presume, rather than rabbits and edibles.

[pen] Yes targets. Although I have done field archery shooting at pictures of rabbits and other game.

Ah. Soz.

[Blob] So you and your friends basically spent the entire weekend on your butts?

It's not too early to start discussing plans for the weekend, is it? it's the English Editors' association dinner in Utrecht on Sunday. We'll all be minding our Ps and Qs, obvs.

We tend to call our butts bosses 'round these parts. So after a bad week at work I can enjoy filling my boss full of arrows. As for this weekend I shall be avoiding shopping and will continue to do so until it is safe to venture out in 2018.

[Boolb] I think I've done all the shopping instead of you.

I doubt Britain will run out of fish puns . . . http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2017/11/18/britains-fish-pun-stocks-critically-endangered/

(KS) There is no Cod but Halibut. I nicked this from the great Steve Bell

OK, save it for a spare game slot, chaps. Or kill one of the slow moving games and raise your fish stocks in there.
In other news, I usually order the fish if I'm eating out. Best dish is mackerel or trout or John Dory grilled over a fire in this restaurant (which although tiny is in the top 500 in the Netherlands). If you plan to go, the windy miller's mill is 500 yards away and is open every Saturday.

The MC5 website just complained that my last post smelled fishy. Incredible.

[pen] It must have been the mention of an open game slot - this isn't the site for that!

Last weekend, at LI Whocon 5, I ran into the son of Patrick Trouton.

[Tuj] I am shocked!
[Stevie] Who? Was he hurt?

Eel be ok.

Things seemed to have slowed down a bit in here. Are you all sitting on your Christmas puddings, waiting for them to hatch?

I've had a 2 day cold. Gave me a chance to watch my Wonder Woman box set though. Watching Lynda Carter throwing Nazis around is a strange but delightful pleasure.

If all goes to plan, I will lock my office door on Friday afternoon and won't go back until NEXT YEAR. Have just about had it up to here *points to gullet* with ridiculous requests for work, and I found a couple of days holiday going spare. I'm going to take them.

Thursday - Today I am mostly doing parties three and four.
The first party (6th floor potluck on Tues) I managed to avoid although not without being interrogated about my reasons for not wanting to go (umm... you're colleagues, not friends. My time is my own).
Yesterday's lunch party (#2) was actually worth doing - the research institute's awards and nice food.
This lunchtime? Not so good. Quarterly staff update meeting for the whole business school, masquerading as Xmas Lunch. There are never enough dining spaces for everyone (so you have to stand for the whole meeting before they open the buffet) and the queues are enormous. Cannot avoid this one but won't bother with queuing for food. Will head back to my office and buy a sandwich.
Party Four this evening - the windy miller's company do. The company is growing fast, and seems to attract the reformed protestant type, although the WM, like me, doesn't do religion. It's their habit to invite all wives and children, and the Xmas party is now up to about 50 people. Most of them have at least four children each and dress traditionally (you can spot 'em a mile off). I'm usually the only childless woman there, and the only one wearing trousers.
Bah humbug.

9 down, 28 to go. Prostate cancer radiotherapy sessions. Side effects - say no more. But it will work.

Chin up, Rosie. There's a few of us 'old blokes' cheering you on. Your doctor(s) seem, from your past comments, to believe that you have a very good chance of full remission; now that's something for which to look forward.

[Rosie] Keep up the good work, sir. Let's think laterally. What fun or usefulness can you have with your radioactive (*ahem*) parts? And can we write limericks about them? (The adventures, not the parts).

[Rosie] Canonically, when exposed to radiation, human beings are reported to develop mutant super-powers somehow related to the circumstances and body part that got zapped. I look forward to tales of a mysterious new masked vigilante stalking the streets of London and the incredulous stories told by those foolish enough to cross your path as you flit through the foggy night, fighting crime by means of your awesome new powers.

Thanks, people. (Duj) "Cure" is aimed for and will very likely be achieved. If not the thing will be kept quiet and maybe given another radiative bashing. I won't die of it, but maybe with it. Once a cancer patient of course, always a cancer patient and there'll be regular monitorings every few months. (pen) Let your pen (sic) flourish. Keep it clean. (Stevie) Cum, cum, sir, your imagination is in overdrive. :-)

I'd like to give a word of praise to the hospital which is The Marsden, Sutton. The staff are brilliant. Both patients and staff have a smile for each other. In addition, transport has been arranged which saves shuffling/barging/swearing through heavy suburban traffic.

Much regretted. I hope the funeral directors will challenge well-wishers to find a way of transferring the coffin to the grave from a distance, using only a piece of wood, some cloth, an eggbeater and a long pole.

(Blob) I get through too many fags as it is but that can't be the source of my current problem simply because I don't smoke them through my membrum virile, or membrum pretty fucking useless as it is currently. I have discovered yet another recovered prostate cancer survivor, total now four. This was someone I haven't seen since 1963, a very good mate at University.

Merry Christmas

(Giertrud) And to you m'dear. Actually it bores me silly so I'm just going to stew and scoff one choccy after another. There's not even any football - I dunno.

High spot of the day: The soundtrack of my mother in law (deaf as a post) on the phone to my mother (also deaf as a post). Neither could understand what the other was yelling about even when they weren't yelling at the same time and making their phones decide who to give priority to and for how long.

Highlight of my day was finding that my sausage rolls were pretty darn good. First time for me, but you can say this for Delia Smith recipes - They work!

Nearly being beaten at Triv Purs by my 12-year old nephew. In the end my brother in law beat both of us.

The barometer here is down to 978 mb, the most interesting thing to have happened round Christmas apart from Mount Mourinho erupting yet again. Ho, ho, ho.

[pen] Mrs Stevie and I used to be challenged regularly to TP by friends of hers, who gloried in our lack of any sort of knowledge of sports (in which they excelled). In two consecutive games we were first to the middle (me on point with science, geography and history, Mrs Stevie on Arts and Ents) and they chose "sports and leisure" as our game-breaker. Game one the question was "How many men on a cricket team?"

This was doubly funny because all game there had been questions on English history, Science done in England and the Geography of England. Every other question was asked and appended with howls of "Another English question!"

The second game went much like the first, with us romping home and being asked a Sports and Leisure question again: "How many holes in a bowling ball". I laughed so hard I thought I'd pass out.

The next time we got together with that pair we'd been to the UK for a visit and acquired a UK set of TP. We smuggled one box of cards into their American set and they didn't twig why the apparent quota of English questions had doubled until we both cracked up and confessed.