WFC
The Abominable Snowdon
[Nik/rab] For me, MC5 seems extremely slow. It's taking up to 30 seconds to respond each time.
Speedster
[Nik/rab] Not really a noticeable difference here, but maybe 5,000 miles of perspective flattens the diffs out.
Perhaps even...
The Harlech Invasion of Earth
[Darren] Given that the server is now routed via a different ISP, the problems you had last year, and the lack of serious complaint from anyone else, I'd still (unhelpfully, I admit) lay the fault at the door of your ISP, or some route near to you. Do you have problems with other sites?
[Nik] No, no problems with other sites, although MC5 seems to be running alright now. It probably is my ISP.
Storiâu Meddyg Pwy
(Uncle K) OK. So I'm sure you can translate the above.:-)
Mae bronnau ardderchog da hi.
And that.
erm...
[Rosie, Darren] I've tried a number of online translation services... with little luck. Can't work out your first word, Rosie, and I'm completely stumped on Darren's!
time and space
[UK] When is Dr Who scheduled for screening? I am looking forward to the series, especially on the special effects. Children's tv drama has a very low budget compared other areas. But if it is being made by the Drama dept the budget will be there but not the expertise to make good children's tv, afterall that should be the target audience not us Big People.
[Rosie] Aha - cracked yours, now. Obvious, really, in retrospect...
[Darren] Yours seems to come out as... He is being breasts excellent good she?!
[Inkspot] No formal announcement has been made as yet, but the smart money's on Easter Saturday. This is, of course, typical. I wait sixteen years - I mean, sixteen years - for a new series of Doctor Who, and I'm going to be out of the country when the first episode airs!
[Darren] Yours seems to come out as... He is being breasts excellent good she?!
[Inkspot] No formal announcement has been made as yet, but the smart money's on Easter Saturday. This is, of course, typical. I wait sixteen years - I mean, sixteen years - for a new series of Doctor Who, and I'm going to be out of the country when the first episode airs!
Designer baggage
I am, perhaps, the only person who ever actually reads the terms and conditions of low-cost air carriers when making a booking. Occasionally it's worth it. I note that one airline says:
We are not liable for the replacement cost of designer baggage which in itself is valuable and inappropriate to be carried by a low cost airlineAmusingly, designer baggage is defined as
baggage which bears a logo of a so-called designer manufacturer and is sold at inflated prices.
bagging
[rab]They sound kind of bitter, don't they?
Cambrian jugs
(Darren) Your example doesn't look grammatical to me and I wonder who put it together. Da means good, but ardderchog means wonderful, excellent etc and you wouldn't use both together. I suspect it should read mae bronnau ardderchog genni hi, literally, "there is (are) breasts wonderful with her". There's no verb "to have" in Welsh. The word genni is a conjugated part of gan, "with", and its ending means you can omit the pronoun it refers to, hi, in this case, and most people would, certainly in conversation.
I wonder what would happen if you checked in luggage in black bin liners - which are presumably appropriate for travel on a low cost carrier....
(rab, pen) It's a bit like a notice on the door of a pub, saying "No suits, ties or dresses - this is a rough house". An amazing admission.
[Rosie] I've shown it to you before. It comes from an old Welsh-English phrase book, the translation for which it claims is "She has excellent breasts." Quite why they thought that would be a useful phrase I'm not sure.
Wow, all this time and nobody posted a response to that.
Welcome back
Thanks, Nik. You can now go and get some sleep.
Sleeping at a time like this
As if!
hello Nik
jolly good work :-)
I think spoken Welsh is a truly beautiful sound
I think spoken Welsh is a truly beautiful sound
General hellos and thanks to Nik
Well, just before I disappear to bed, about time I posted my first hello on MC5. My nanny corporate firewall/websense blocks this site out as it's a "game" site, apparently. Although in which sense of the word, I'm not sure. (And nary a mention of the fact it contains breasts.)
Breasts? Where? Whose?
Bronnau fel bryniau Eryri
er . . . that's "breasts like the hills of Snowdonia". Probably a quotation. (Darren) I remember your phrase-book quote from MCpants days. It would probably be OK conversationally. My father's first language was Welsh and I picked up a lot from him, and from many other people, but I could hardly be called an authority. Part of what I know has been deliberately learnt but quite a lot is instinctive. My English speech is quite London.
Huzzah
Nice to see the old place back. Thanks for your hard work, Nik.
[Botherer] On the "List of Things To Do (Urgent)" is a Stealth Mode where all mentions of the word "game" are obscured. This might be useful in a workplace environment.
'G'morning!
Nice to see everyone here. Coffee, Nik?
Welsh speakers
One of the nuggets from ploughing through LoTR extended remix (and brilliant it was to) was the Elvish languages Sindarin is based on Welsh.
Good to see things back up again. Ace going Nik.
Good to see things back up again. Ace going Nik.
go nik, yaaaay, etc. nice job. mc5 is back in my life! *sighs contentedly*
I agree with whoever said that welsh is a lovely spoken language - my Dad doesn't. so for an april fools I tuned all of the stations on his car radio to BBCymru. they were still there a week later! and then he glued all of my post together. grr.
I agree with whoever said that welsh is a lovely spoken language - my Dad doesn't. so for an april fools I tuned all of the stations on his car radio to BBCymru. they were still there a week later! and then he glued all of my post together. grr.
MC5 back/work
Nik] Thanks for all your work - it's great to see this back. Botherer] These things are utterly random. My work's firewall allows me onto MC5 and MCIOS, but not Orange - anyone have any thoughts on why this might be so? Oh and did you see that the guy who lost £9 million of his company's money gambling was betting online from work up to 30 times a day. He obviously didn't have to worry about NSFW.
[Botherer] I think it's classed as a game because of removed-yonks-ago metatags on (www.)angrycake.com. Most annoying.
[Irouleguy] The filter in place at my work used to block dunx.org, too. It stopped such foul practices some time ago now.
I need sleep bad.
[Irouleguy] The filter in place at my work used to block dunx.org, too. It stopped such foul practices some time ago now.
I need sleep bad.
[Irouleguy] My corporate firewall sound pretty much the same as yours.
Yay, MC5
:]] (big double chin grin. I might have to borrow someone else's face...)
[nik] go sleep! after all that you deserve to sleep for about three years.
Corporate Nanny Sitters
I can get onto both MCiOS and Orange from work, but not here. As I have (until recently) restricted my MCing to work (and what reason, pray, should I need to justify that stance?) this site has been sadly (for me, at any rate) (and I really should stop using so many parenthesis) neglected by me.
The idea of using a proxy server has crossed my mind more than once, but I wonder if that might be classified as a "sackable offence"?
The idea of using a proxy server has crossed my mind more than once, but I wonder if that might be classified as a "sackable offence"?
Penalties
[Botherer] A 'sackable offence'? Is that where you have a barney with your partner and are then allowed to make up?
[Dujon] you were up at the same time as me last night! were you revising too?
Writes and Wrongs
[nights] Indeed. I've been revising my life over the last week or two in order to find out why I've such a wonderful wife. I still haven't found the solution.
Oh dear...
I've got a flashy new computer on my desk, and unusally for work machines it not only has a sound card, but also has realplayer installed which means I can now listen to the radio instead of working.
[rab] Realplayer isn't a very safe piece of software to use. You might want to look at alternatives.
Realplayer
Darren] Really - what's wrong with it?
[Darren] Centrally-managed, only supported configuration blah blah blah. Can't even change the window focus policy.
Realplayer
David Beckham is a Real player, or perhaps marketing feature. Don't go near it.
So the Danish Guy Dies...
[rab] Nonstandard winning move on this game, rab?
Happiness is a Cigar called...
The winning move is in the intro...
[dujon] sounds more interesting than european migratory theory. really. but at least it came up on the exam.
[rab] I can heartily recommend xfm - I get it on my spiffy digital radio and if you like rock it's very good indeed.
[rab] I can heartily recommend xfm - I get it on my spiffy digital radio and if you like rock it's very good indeed.
Get up and boogie
Monday morning << hugs >> to anyone passing. Hope you all had a great weekend, just waiting for the snow which seems to be avoiding this part of the world. If you are still on the post Christmas detox remember exercise can be done anywhere.
Morning all!
[Inkspot] You sound cheerful :o) We've got Sunshine here in NW London for the first time in DAYS... and mild too.
[nights] oooh... Xfm, s'bloody marvellous. I have it on in the car all the time.
[nights] oooh... Xfm, s'bloody marvellous. I have it on in the car all the time.
news and weather
in local news, the gas men have been drilling outside my house since 13h yesterday, and show no signs of stopping now. I'm rather surprised I got any sleep. it's bright but without any direct sunlight in bath this morning, don't know how warm it is though, I haven't been outside yet. it's still a little too early to do anything except watch trisha.
[pen] I hate to admit it but xfm was a major motivator for me asking for the radio for christmas. that and talksport.
[pen] I hate to admit it but xfm was a major motivator for me asking for the radio for christmas. that and talksport.
sunlight
[nights] Of course you won't get direct sunlight in your bath - it's got to get through the water. And if you stay in there too long you'll get all wrinkly, then you'll sprout fins & gills and turn into a fish. You will.
[DAB] I too had a DAB radio for Xmas - they're rather excellent aren't they. Trouble is good ole FM sounds crap by comparison so I want one for my car now !
[DAB] I too had a DAB radio for Xmas - they're rather excellent aren't they. Trouble is good ole FM sounds crap by comparison so I want one for my car now !
DAB
I got a digital radio for xmas too, from my lovely sister and new brother-in-law. I'm a bit miffed at the way they're rolling out the features on this 'new technology' though - only FOUR programmable buttons when digital radio sells itself on the ability to provide hundreds of stations??? And worst of all... there's no jack plug to feed its output through a bigger stereo system, you're constrained to the small original speakers. Pffft. I think we've been bowled a lemon here, or whatever the metaphor is. I suppose a lemon is as good a mixer for metaphors as you can get, heheh
[pen] which radio did you get? I got a hitachi one, which has five presets (which is enough for me - one, xfm, talksport, four, five) and a headphone jack. I had the hardware to run a connection from the radio to the stereo's in socket, so I'm away, if only with a bit too much bass.
[bob] oh hee hee, not heard that before... *rolls eyes and stifles a yawn* :)
[bob] oh hee hee, not heard that before... *rolls eyes and stifles a yawn* :)
RUGBY PILG
News posted in Pilg Game in Orange MC.
Hamlet?
[rab] Doesn't appear to be Hamlet...
Certainly not
I repeat the previous announcment "The winning move is in the intro...". The last two words of it, I believe.
31/01/2005
Message: Yay! Big happy smiles for everyone!! I have plenty of excess pleasedness, so everyone be joyous!
joyousness
[Tuj] I was looking for an excuse! So what's the occasion?
Chocs away
[pen] Today is Chocolate Day. A reason to give into temptation.
oh what, I'm meant to have a reason?
I'm off the starting blocks way before anyone else on that one :o)
[pen] My Panasonic DAB has 10 presets at least (five buttons plus a +5 button - it may allow 15 actually, not sure.) You can store the same number for FM too. Having said that, as there aren't that many stations as yet I just turn the rotary knob till I get to the station I want coz. it simply cycles through stations rather than having to actually tune it in.
[nights] Sorry for the yawnyness - but it was your lack of capitalisation of the fair city of Bath that made me make my comment - but I now see that you appear to eschew capitalisation completely.
[nights] Sorry for the yawnyness - but it was your lack of capitalisation of the fair city of Bath that made me make my comment - but I now see that you appear to eschew capitalisation completely.
eschewing [nights]
... but not on the 'I' word :-)
[Blob] Then my sister and new brother-in-law have been cheapskates and bought me a cheapo one... I only have four... but it does have an 'up' button and a 'down' button to scroll through all the hundreds of stations is knows alphabetically, which is pretty handy, as Xfm isn't that far from BBC Radio 4, and I just go straight past 'Yoof Radio'. heheheh!
Help needed!
I've been asked to design a template email for the place where I work - you know the sort of thing - a header followed by contact details as a signature at the bottom. However, the only way I've found I can do this in Outlook is by saving all graphics into a signature. However, when I do this and click new message the email body appears above the logo. Does any one know how to put a header into an email properly?
[BtD] Abjure the heresy of embedded graphics in email! Tread the straight and narrow path of plain text only! If I received an email with a company logo in it, I'd never see the logo, because my mail program is set up to ignore graphics (and HTML).
Shoptalk, cross-posted too!
Cleanage
[Projoy] Hope you don't mind, I corrected your email link.
pro(ject)joy
Projoy] I do know someone - I will speak to them and let you know.
[blob] no, I rarely use caps. it's just habit really, rest assured when writing properly (essay and such) caps are there in full glory. my aunt has complained that I never capitalise Bath in emails as well, so I'm just a serial offender.
[chalky] pardon?
[pen] down here, we get, and I quote, 'yarr radio' on digital. the amount of chris the ninja pirate gags is innumerable. new favourite station is talkSPORT as it doesn't distract me while revising. until I start shouting at the radio.
[chalky] pardon?
[pen] down here, we get, and I quote, 'yarr radio' on digital. the amount of chris the ninja pirate gags is innumerable. new favourite station is talkSPORT as it doesn't distract me while revising. until I start shouting at the radio.
Email signatures
[BtD] Google for 'email etiquette' and 'internet etiquette' and perhaps also cite some of that info to the people making you do this project. I killfile on HTML as well - companies have lost my custom for sending me HTML in emails after I asked them not to. Costing them five to ten grand in lost business, at a rough guess. (And companies who start out by sending me HTML-in-email never get my custom in the first place.) The fact that most people are ignorant of correct email etiquette - because no modern PC-based mailer I have seen has ever thought to mention the issue - doesn't mean we all are. And I for one do use it as a filtering critereon for who I will do business with.
email
[rab] Much obliged.
Bet you can't do this!
Raise your right foot from the ground and make clockwise circles with it.
While doing that, draw anticlockwise circles in the air with your right hand.
While doing that, draw anticlockwise circles in the air with your right hand.
[raak] how does that work then? I feel an utter fool.
[nights] No idea, it came up on a mailing list on biological control systems. For another surprise, try it with the right foot and left hand.
Whee!
I'm typing this wirelessly from my new broadband connection. I'm amazed that it all works...
All
Raak] Sorry, but I can do it... And the second one really easily (or was that the surprise!?)
pen] No real reason. My happy side came out yesterday, so I ate Twixes and listened to new CDs and thought along the lines of "spread the love". I am getting worryingly dependent on Twix bars now though.
anyone] Nice to see AVMA back on our screens.
pen] No real reason. My happy side came out yesterday, so I ate Twixes and listened to new CDs and thought along the lines of "spread the love". I am getting worryingly dependent on Twix bars now though.
anyone] Nice to see AVMA back on our screens.
[Tuj] Yes, that's the surprise. Opposite foot and hand don't interfere. I wonder if organists would find it easier, having learned to make their hands and feet work independently.
[Raak] Took a bit of effort but I was able to do it after a few tries. I found the trick was to set the hand going until you no longer thought about it, and then concentrated on the foot moving in the opposite direction.
As for organists, I don't think they'd find it much easier, because the movements they make with their feet aren't hugely complicated - as far as I know, no more complicated than those a driver makes in a car with the pedals.
hey I had an exam this morning, and it wasn't the evil colossus of doom I thought it would be. hey!
phew
[nights] s'often the way. You nearly done, exam-wise?
[btw - my comment above which you queried - I was referring to the word 'I' [as in first person] which you always capitalise, even if the rest of the sentence is lower case :-)]
[btw - my comment above which you queried - I was referring to the word 'I' [as in first person] which you always capitalise, even if the rest of the sentence is lower case :-)]
Examination
It disturbs me that the assessment aspect of degree programmes is given so much prominence these days. I say this both from empathy with the students, and as one of the people who has to mark the bloody things.
But how can you evaluate without assessment?
The key words of the last statement were "so much prominence".
[bm] coursework - I have a 2000 word essay to turn in tomorrow which is MUCH better than an exam in that particular unit.
[chalky] one more this afternoon, but that I'm not freaking about too much. and I'm going on holiday saturday night for a week which is something to look forward to. and I cap the I because I was taught at a very young age always to do it. it doesn't excuse not doing it the rest of the time, but... um... er... shut up.
[rab] thanks. lots of people think that students are just stinking lamos, that we don't work, drink ourselves into oblivion every night of the week and then stay up until three the night before an exam/coursework deadline. of course, this is true some of the time, but by no means all. there was a bit in the student guardian (possibly one of my favourite things about university, a free digest of the week's news when I haven't had time to go anywhere near a paper that isn't Metro) about how students are determined to get value for money from degrees, and so are working their collective reproductive organs off trying to get firsts and distinctions and honours.
on an unrelated note, what do you teach/mark?
[chalky] one more this afternoon, but that I'm not freaking about too much. and I'm going on holiday saturday night for a week which is something to look forward to. and I cap the I because I was taught at a very young age always to do it. it doesn't excuse not doing it the rest of the time, but... um... er... shut up.
[rab] thanks. lots of people think that students are just stinking lamos, that we don't work, drink ourselves into oblivion every night of the week and then stay up until three the night before an exam/coursework deadline. of course, this is true some of the time, but by no means all. there was a bit in the student guardian (possibly one of my favourite things about university, a free digest of the week's news when I haven't had time to go anywhere near a paper that isn't Metro) about how students are determined to get value for money from degrees, and so are working their collective reproductive organs off trying to get firsts and distinctions and honours.
on an unrelated note, what do you teach/mark?
I'm a big fan of the notion of continuous assessment (i.e. such that the learner themself is able to input into evaluating the success of their endeavours). The worst forms of assessment IMO are those that have no continuity with the actual learning process, i.e. sit-down "blind" exams.
[projoy] hear, hear. I had the last exam today - despite my bus not showing up and me having to run across campus to be a few minutes late, it wasn't too bad. now all I have left is the 2000 word essay, which is why I shall be on campus from 08h tomorrow. ouch.
[nights] I do tutorials for mid-degree (i.e., round years 2&3, depending on the degree programme and education system) physics students. In practice this means that typically they've been in the game long enough to know what the deal is, and have got into a reasonable routine and habits regarding learning stuff, but still haven't quite reached the point where they'll voluntarily spend the whole day in the library/lab because they like it. (That kicks in around 3rd/4th year). Apparently I'm now a "senior tutor", which doesn't come with any extra money (in fact, I'm lucky it comes with any money at all) but does involve added responsibility. One of these is checking the exam papers, hand-in questions etc. all of which form part and parcel of the "assessment" that's going on. In practice, "checking" means "working through and making sure you can do it in 1/3-1/2 the time we expect the students to spend on it". Which is quite a lot of extra work, cos you have to get 100% as well...
[nights, again] To be honest, I don't think that what you say has ever been true, at least not for the last 15 years or so. I think there's a whole bunch of myths that get irresponsibly perpetuated by ex-students about how all they did was drink, get laid and engage in oh-so-hilarious traffic-furniture relocation exercises. Though now I think about it...
My gripe about assessment, apart from the obvious selfish one, is that for all the foreplay and aftermath that surrounds a formal exam is that, per hour of examination, I estimate you lose about one weeks' worth of time that could be used teaching people something. I'm still "out" on continuous assessment. I hated it as a student, but now I'm on "the other side" I've seen evidence that it can boost the performance of those in the bulk of the distribution. The lower end is always impossible to motivate, and the top end usually looks after itself but I do worry that if things become too prescribed they might get a bit bored. Personally, I advocate oral examinations since they give people the opportunity to reveal what they know, rather than what they don't. However, I realise most people feel quite intimidated by them so my feeling is that a mixture of sit-down, continuous assessment and scary viva would probably be the fairest system of all.
[rab] In other words, try every method of torture to see which one breaks them? :-)
Students
I was a student once and if all they do is get drunk and laid, I missed out on 50% of my education. I'm not telling you which 50%, but you can probably guess...
[botherer] never mind. get involved in sunday league football, that'll help redress the balance.
[rab] I'm second year, and I think I'm at the stage you describe your physics students as being at. I *like* my subject, it interests me (finally), but I wouldn't stay on campus all day working on it because I like it. although I am today, but that's because I'm grossly disorganised. oh well, wish me luck.
[rab] I'm second year, and I think I'm at the stage you describe your physics students as being at. I *like* my subject, it interests me (finally), but I wouldn't stay on campus all day working on it because I like it. although I am today, but that's because I'm grossly disorganised. oh well, wish me luck.
continuous
[rab] That's odd. When I was a student I hated discontinuous assesment (to the extent of picking my courses to avoid exams), but doing education work has led me to like it less, because it normally means continuous alertness to student needs (and a more constant flow of paperwork), which is harder than sitting back and regurgitating a load of stuff at students the same each year.
(That's not an argument against it, btw, just an observation)...
(er, and I meant "...doing education work has led me to like continuous assessment less...")
*goes back to bed*
um
er?
wha?
fuh? essay's done by the way. I think I'm going to explode with joy at the prospect of a week off...
*sandbags against the prospect of nights exploding with joy* i wish...
[nights] Well, assessed coursework is still assessment, I should think. In any case, personally I don't mind exams, although perhaps that's because I'm all right at them (my BA was 100% exams, and all the exams took place within a single fortnight at the end). I'm not convinced by the argument that assessment is an ineffecient use of time because it could be better used teaching students things: I'd say that reinforcing stuff you've already been taught and ensuring that you actually know it properly rather than have just a vague memory of it - in other words, revising - is just as valuable as learning it the first time around, if not more so.
Maximising retention
Best way to maximise the amount you can recall of what you have been taught is to review it after a day, a week, a month, a year, noting errors in your recall at each stage and concentrating on correcting them. I can vouch for the fact that it works, it's just that I for one was always far too lazy to do it properly.
sooooo.....what's happening?
updatey
[ZK] I am feeling delicate after a bloody good wedding yesterday. Recovering with the liberal application of tea and TV.
Hello ZK - good to see you again :-)
Hello pen - good to see you as always :-)
I'm spending a bit of time on here 'googling' for 3 Characters for the quiz tonight. It's my turn in the chair and the last round involves giving information in 3 stages about a person and the scores are 5,3 or 1 depending on when the correct answer is given. I'm trying to be really fair and not choose subjects that the team I belong to will be able to answer straight away and score maximum points. Oh - and I have to cook a roast chicken dinner for 5 for around 5pm.
Hello pen - good to see you as always :-)
I'm spending a bit of time on here 'googling' for 3 Characters for the quiz tonight. It's my turn in the chair and the last round involves giving information in 3 stages about a person and the scores are 5,3 or 1 depending on when the correct answer is given. I'm trying to be really fair and not choose subjects that the team I belong to will be able to answer straight away and score maximum points. Oh - and I have to cook a roast chicken dinner for 5 for around 5pm.
...continuing
Yum. I chose E M Forster, Peter Gabriel and Otto von Bismarck and have aimed for some tantalising first clues ...
Two Bismarck trivia
He had a country house built, called Schloss Kroechlendorff (been there, got the sweatshirt), and he said, "God made Austrians by crossing Bavarians with humans."
[Raak] So how do we tell him apart from Peter Gabriel?
[Darren] Costumes. Gabriel will either be a giant flower or a fox, Bismarck will be a slightly camp military type.
Breaking the silence
[rab] Does being 'darlinged' give you a hangover the next morning? ;o)
Bismarck et al
[Chalky] I seem to remember [from my O-level history (over 25 years ago, eeek)] that OvB introduced Kulturkampf where he sought to reduce the power of the Catholic church in Germany, fairly successfully. He also tried to "kill socialism with kindness" - which was an interesting concept that mirrored Tsar Alexander's ill-fated attempts at liberalisation in Russia. Blimey it all comes flooding back ...
Bismarck was great. He seems to have been prejudiced against more or less everyone apart from upper-class Protestant Prussians - remember he referred to Disraeli as "that old Jew" in a tone of grudging respect! And he had a dodgy tache too.
Break like the wind
[pen] Is it supposed to?
Stations End
[rab] There seems to be a problem with Stations Revenge. There have been a few attempts at killing it so the unmasking can begin. Is it possible for you find out what the problem is and post the cure?
Why kill it?
Why not indeed...
again
[Bismarck trivia contributors - thanks] Yes - it was an enlightening bit of research, however, I still can't find out the proper name for his trademark pointy topped helmet. Or indeed what type of creature nested in his 'tache.
Whoops. The reason why the game won't end is quite amusing, if you know anything about Perl regexps. I'll put the fix in tonight - will need to check it works first, so am nervous about doing it in situ...
hasty revenge
[rab] in situ as opposed to ...?
[Inks] Further to my abrupt 'Why kill it?' - um.. it's still quite new - it's moving along at a steady pace - not every 'move' has been made yet - I just think there's some mileage in it compared to a couple of the other MC games.
and another thing ... ROSIE!!
[Inks] Further to my abrupt 'Why kill it?' - um.. it's still quite new - it's moving along at a steady pace - not every 'move' has been made yet - I just think there's some mileage in it compared to a couple of the other MC games.
and another thing ... ROSIE!!
sweet revenge
[Chalky] I was just curious, but I am more than happy to carry on playing, are you?
[Chalky] I think he means he's deeply worried someone might try winning the game while he's working on it - big bangs, flashing lights, tape spewing on floor, "MALFUNCTION - DOES NOT COMPUTE," sparks, demolition of The Institute, "the reactor's gonna blow," alarms, emergency lighting, "dive! dive! dive!" and so on.
This new Chorkee - is it Chalky without glasses? Or perhaps the bizarre offspring of Chalky and Uncle Korky? Or maybe a very small Cherokee?
[Inks] Yes indeed, which should tell you that it wasn't me trying to end the game .. or SO YOU THINK ...
[Darren] Gosh. Joking apart - is it possible for a computer/server to malfunction to such an extent that it really would explode or even spark and sizzle a bit?
[Darren] Gosh. Joking apart - is it possible for a computer/server to malfunction to such an extent that it really would explode or even spark and sizzle a bit?
[Chalky] If the power supply goes, then yes. If they're overloaded, they will often overheat, and sometimes (like mine did last year) go "pop" and stop working - that's if you're lucky. Some will actually explode when they're overloaded. Some will simply make a loud bang and smoulder. Others may suddenly start pumping out more voltage than your machine can take, which could cause other things to go bang. So if you do a bit of home modification, do take care that you don't overload your PSU.
Oh, and buying a home fire extinguisher suitable for electrical fires won't go amiss either.
Mine, all mine
Stations' Revenge should be winnable now... The downside is that you're no longer able to specify the winning move as a Perl regexp. Not that you were ever supposed to, of course.
non-news is good news
I have tidied my bedroom - the change is amazing! And I just cleaned out my mouse in the office - again, a huge improvement. My coffee this morning was good too. Just needed to share that with you...
How clean is your...
[pen]So just the belly buttoon fluff to tackle next. But where to do it. In private or at the office desk.
[Inkspot] No, do it in public. Sell tickets.
Public hair
Some people already show off their belly button fluff.
BBF
(Boolbar) Tried the link. Amazing. You can find anything on the net, it seems. This rather discreet oldie is perplexed that anyone would want to put their name to such a site. But I did have a belly laugh, you might say.
woo-hoo!!
Today was another First Date Day. And it was good. :o)
*catches up*
*presses wrong key*
I've been on a boat. man it was relaxing. anyway.
[pen] yaaaay!
[ZK] hello! how's lovely birmingham?
[simons mith] I've been told that technique by my director of studies before. problem is I'm fantastically lazy.
[Chalky] when I murdered my old computer (before the lovely laptop, before the faithful mac, there was the evil HP that had to be destroyed) I switched it from 240V to 115V.
*BAANG!!!*
*smoke*
*fuses trip out*
"(nights), WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON UP THERE?"
[pen] yaaaay!
[ZK] hello! how's lovely birmingham?
[simons mith] I've been told that technique by my director of studies before. problem is I'm fantastically lazy.
[Chalky] when I murdered my old computer (before the lovely laptop, before the faithful mac, there was the evil HP that had to be destroyed) I switched it from 240V to 115V.
*BAANG!!!*
*smoke*
*fuses trip out*
"(nights), WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON UP THERE?"
Ah, back again
...but what happened to Reverse 11?
Oh, and
Any ideas for games in the slots? I was trying to think of something new and exciting, though I'm sure something old and exciting would be as good if not better.
New game
Let's have another go at that
(Tuj) I found Clerihews Who (on MCiOS) quite agreeable. Not new and not exciting, I admit.
Rab and I had a funny online chat the other day, and I remember thinking 'This would make an interesting game' but I cannot, for the life of me, remember what it was. It might have been something along the lines of 'Best Excuse' or 'Customer Complaints'.
Uptime
Morning all. From the logs, the reason for the server disappearing is that 'the peer' (ie the ISP) is failing to respond to echo requests. The actual reason I don't know - the ISP not responding, the line dropping, etc. I've extended the interval between echo requests and increased the number of attempts, which may help. It was already set to immediately re-attempt connection up to 25 times, which it appears to not be doing, annoyingly, but I've changed that to 'unlimited' anyway.
Chattiness
[pen] Was it something to do with "Autoglass Mobile" and how they're not, but they know someone who has a mobile?
Uptime
Hm. The outage over the weekend may have been caused by a massive outage in BT's Manchester centre, which it seems is rather a large single point of failure.
is it bad that I didn't notice?
How about a nice game of "imaginary crescent"?
How about a nice game of "imaginary crescent"?
I was myself substantially surprised to find the machines inaccessible and then, upon 'fixing' it, not find a mention on MCiOS.
[Nik] I think it's known as 'polite outage' - much like a silent fart.
oh, but that we should go for a whole day without a fart joke!
(Chalky) I'm not convinced that silent farts are polite. If one is going to pollute, one should own up to it. Not that I would, mind.
[Rosie] Hmmm - see what you mean. I thought I'd added the words '.. when there's no-one around' [which might make more sense of the analogy]
... a bit later on
I've created a game :-)
politeness
Politeness requires that one should try not to make a noise when expelling anal gas. It similarly requires that one should not make a noise upon discovering expelled anal gases. Thus society continues in a mutual agreement to ignore the occurence.
sounds like a lot of heads being buried in sand to me...
Mmmh, what's cooking?
My father used to say "you're like a fart in a colander" to indicate uselessness. I don't know why that has just popped into my head or even why I'm bothering telling you lot, but there it is.
fart, fart, fart
I think it's about time we invented some sort of pants-catalytic-converter. We take pains to minimise every other bad smell our bodies produce, so it would be quite in keeping.
fartish
They have, you know.Click here for odour removal!
Gaseous eruptions
(st d) I think burping noisily is more offensive (in a polite setting) than farting. You can always do it silently and the "product" is inoffensive. No-one need know. But you can't get away with a fart, however discreetly expelled. (Projoy) Now, there's a challenge I can't ignore, as a chemist. The simplest answer would be an appropriately-shaped pellet of activated charcoal taped to the bum in a gastight manner. It would need to be kept dry and be easily removable for obvious reasons. It would eventually (a month or so) become "full", so to speak, but could easily be regenerated by heating in an oven, the only problem being that everything it had absorbed would be driven off. Extractor on full blast, I feel. snorgle has got in while I was writing this and the link says it's been done already. I bet it's activated charcoal, though. Just a question of how you fix it.
charcoal
[Rosie]Ah, maybe it would just be better to get some fresh activated charcoal. How do you activate charcoal anyway? Is there a big red button?
oho!
[snorgle] There's a satisfied customer quote on that site: "The feeling of security!" from one Julie Anderson, which I initially read as Julie Andrews. Now there's an image.
The whole problem with that product is the need to make the underwear airtight. Ewies. I did read once upon a time about tablets you can take (which I believe are also charcoal) to nullify smells. Any health risk?
ohdearohdearohdear
[snorgs] Thanks - it's a fantastic site with a wealth of snigger potential. 'Wear them for the one you love' springs to mind as a suitable phrase for examination, given that possibly the most irritating and in-yer-face flatulence occurs beneath the duvet ...
[Chalky] "In-yer-face" and "beneath the duvet" was probably more information than I strictly needed.
oo-er
[rab] sorry ... didn't realise you were looking in :-)
so, what is everybody doing this friday night? and no I'm not trying to change the subject, just a natural progression in the conversation...
I was supposed to be appearing as part of a work of art at Chelsea Art College for a final-year show. The artist invited me and some friends to be an installation, but it got cancelled due to lack of interest from other quarters. So I'm going to Wales, which I think is an appropriate response.
[PJ] An installation? I love weird art - what would you have been doing?
[nights] Celebrating a friend's birthday.
[nights] Celebrating a friend's birthday.
[nights] With a bit of luck, being seduced over dinner. Failing that, washing and ironing.
[pen] if all else fails, come to Bath and *I'll* seduce you...
[Chalky] It wasn't that weird, really, kind of lazy. She just wanted a couple of groups of people to stand around and get served canapés by waiters and chat. I assume the idea was that by putting me and my friends in a gallery we, and our social interactions would have been decontextualised so we became the subject of the viewer's critical analysis. Something like that.
Which, I have to say, is the oldest trick in the book, only slightly leavened by the fact that standing around eating canapés and chatting is exactly what looks natural in a gallery, so we'd have been decontextualised and contextualised all at once, which may be a bit self-defeating.
[Projoy] But it would make the gallery seem less empty than it might otherwise, especially if the show was in danger of being cancelled for lack of interest. The idea occurs to me of an art show in which it only transpires afterwards that everyone there was an exhibit, no-one actually came to see it.
hoary old chestnut
[Raak] But can it be considered Art if there is no audience?
Well, in that case the art would be its own audience, which saves a lot of mucking about, really.
[Projoy] stop it, you're making a customer-induced headache many times worse. stop it at once. yes I've been to work this evening, no it wasn't fun.
[Projoy] Hasn't someone done something *very* similar to that before? I seem to recall seeing it...
meta-friendatanexhibition
[Projoy] I presume you would have stood around discussing the visitors to the exhibit.
Ars gratia artis
[Darren] I should think about, say, thousands of people have done something very similar to it. [CdM] Indeed. What else to discuss? It might have been quite funny if we'd been submitted as a portfolio piece and allowed to give the examiner a mark out of ten.
art-lark
Has anyone done the "art" of having an empty room, getting hired people to stand around in this room looking at and discussing the pieces of art that aren't really there and then letting the public come in and be slightly bewildered?
Difficult to make plausible, I'd say, because most people move around galleries in silence or talking only in hushed tones. You'd somehow have to have your actors miming that there is art there, either by staring fixedly at particular points on the wall, or taking very obvious detours around things, craning neck etc.
Art for arseache
Probably simpler just to issue a press release saying you've done something where the art and the audience were the same thing. Again, saves a lot of mucking about.
.. as well as the cost of new clothes for the Emperor ..
[Projoy] "The art and the audience being the same thing" is reminiscent of John Cage's 4'33".
quizzonicals
[Chalks] Are you organising another pub quiz? We came across some interesting statistics today in 'Fleet News' - did you know...
- Royal Mail has 25,636 vans in the UK, plus mopeds and lorries
- Its annual mileage forcast is 590 million miles (18,437 miles per vehicle)
- and it operates 115,000 post boxes.
useful for that 'nearest million' tiebreaker question ;o)
- Royal Mail has 25,636 vans in the UK, plus mopeds and lorries
- Its annual mileage forcast is 590 million miles (18,437 miles per vehicle)
- and it operates 115,000 post boxes.
useful for that 'nearest million' tiebreaker question ;o)
it'd be interesting to see how much wandering around campus I do in an academic year. strap an odometer on me, let's do some SCIENCE!
fleeting glimpse
[penny penpenpen] Hey! When I was at EMAP , we 'launched' Fleet News - my mother worked on that publication for years and years :-) Good to hear some stats though, but doubt if I'll get the chance to use them this season, which ends in a few weeks for an Easter break.
Did I really say that word? Easter?
[nights] a pedometer might help :-)
Did I really say that word? Easter?
[nights] a pedometer might help :-)
[Chalky] EMAP, eh? I used to get a magazine they did... almost certainly a computer one (but I can't remember which), and definitely before all computer magazines turned crap.
EMAP
They do er, "Steam Railway". I sent them a load of B&W pics I took in the late fifties as they had expressed an interest. They forgot about them. Then they lost them. Then they found them, and finally they sent them back. This took nearly 3 years. Amazingly, "Steam Railway" is quite a good magazine, if you're into that sort of thing.
That's hardly surprising, considering the vast quantity of royalty-free photography they obviously have access to (a.k.a. to which they obviously have access). Sounds like a tenderfull of fun and I'd order it right away but I can't afford the fee until my subscription to "B&W Steam Photography" expires/evaporates/condenses.
Steam Railway
Rosie] Amazingly? I think "if you're into that sort of thing" means that the magazine would be quite good by definition - does it have much competition?
[Tuj] Oh, I wouldn't be so sure you'd automatically like a magazine just cos you're interested in the topic! I mean, I'm very much into retro games, but many of the magazines devoted to it are truly dreadful.
The Amazing Quality of Steam Railway
(Tuj) Amazing that they produce quite a good magazine despite their apparent administrative incompetence with my photos. There's no competition, strictly speaking, because they are only concerned with preserved railways and are by far the leading magazine for that. There are other steam loco magazines devoted to the real steam era (mainly 50's and 60's), when engines were a bit grubby but really worked hard instead of poncing about at 25 mph with two coaches, and all dolled up with polished brass and gleaming paintwork but emitting vast plumes of black smoke because they're overfired by nervous incompetents. You can't say anything, of course, because tremendous amounts of labour go into the appearance of the engines but to me they look unreal, a bit like brickies at a posh wedding (snobby bugger).
[chalky] bite me, I'm an arts student, I don't know any better
[darren] I'm glad someone else recognises the rubbishness of games magazines. I remember amiga power and CVG with a sort of warm glow.
[darren] I'm glad someone else recognises the rubbishness of games magazines. I remember amiga power and CVG with a sort of warm glow.
[nights] A mate of mine does CDs/DVDs with scans of classic games mags, good quality too (they include all the covertapes and stuff too)... if that sort of thing would interest you! (He spends more time than you would care to contemplate on obtaining and scanning all these mags.) The first ten years of C&VG are on one of these DVDs.
[darren] wooooww... I was reading C&VG around 1997 - 1998 (around when tomb raider II came out, the article reviewing it started my tomb raider obsession) so if your friend has that period I'd be deeply interested...
[nights] Hehehe, C&VG started in November 1981, so the first ten years covers 1981-91, which I suspect may have been a little before your time! In the early days it was largely a type-in listings mag (initially aimed at those who had built computers from kits), and then shifted slightly into an 8-bit games review mag. From then on, it was on its way to being as it is now.
C&VG
So I guess I'm not the only one who used to wait with baited breath for the next issue of C&VG with its BASIC game listing and, more importantly, error corrections from the previous issue's game?
Realtime Pilgomation Service
Just in case anyone was unaware, there is a pilgrimage on 5th March. I for one am greatly looking forward to meeting the estimable Mr Dunx. Meanwhile, the Monday-night e-pilgs seem to have kicked orff again. The 'Easterners' (flerdle, Néa PaulWay) seem to be in by 8pm GMT (long before then, quite probably) with the 'Centralists' dribbling in a little later. If you've not been before, follow the 'Real Time...' link on MCiOS.
games with my floppy
I have become all nostalgic for the simpler games, shareware that small enough to fit on a floppy. One of the first we played in the office (during lunch) was Gods, a great little platform game. Just found it to download - wonderful.
early early
[rab] Waaaaaah, want to pilgy-pilg! I don't know when I'll be returning to those shores, unfortunately - probably not for a long time.
The e-pilgs have been much fun. Yes, I'm usually there earlier -- by 7pm GMT -- and a few others dribble in shortly after that... for me it's that time simply because it's already 11pm by then here and I usually can't stay for more than an hour or two.
The e-pilgs have been much fun. Yes, I'm usually there earlier -- by 7pm GMT -- and a few others dribble in shortly after that... for me it's that time simply because it's already 11pm by then here and I usually can't stay for more than an hour or two.
chatting away
I'll try to make it but will be very late after I've finished being quizmaster in another chat room :(
Gods
[Inkspot] Although "Gods" is still a little too recent to be retro for me, the "Into the Wonderful" theme tune from it is actually one I do love playing on piano. Perhaps if enough people come to the Rugby pilg who are remember such games, I could play you a few classic gaming tunes on Projoy's piano.
Shhh!
[Inkspot] Gods wasn't shareware, it was good old comes-in-a-huge-box-for-£30 commercial software with a demo for magazine coverdisks. I hope it's been "abandoned" (or you got said demo) and you've not been using a works machine/connection to infringe copyright. Or that The Powers That Be don't find out, or care.
[Darren] Can you also perform on your piano the theme tune from the other Bitmap Brothers side-scrolling platformer, Magic Pockets?
I hope I'm remembering my publishers correctly here, and haven't just committed a terrible faux pas.
[Darren] Can you also perform on your piano the theme tune from the other Bitmap Brothers side-scrolling platformer, Magic Pockets?
I hope I'm remembering my publishers correctly here, and haven't just committed a terrible faux pas.
Nope, GODS is definitely not abandonware. It can in fact still be purchased, albeit peculiarly only for the Archimedes (someone ported their games to the Archimedes?! Good Lord!). And hurrah, faux pas avoided! Double points for me! But negative points for starting sentences with 'and' and 'but' in quick succession.
Magic Pockets, music by Richard Joseph (although somewhat originating with Betty Boo). I've met him a few times (and come to think of it I have a photo of him with me on my site). As for playing it, that voice is a bit too high even for me!
Correction: I have a photo I took of Richard on my site. Warren Pilkington has a photo of me with him.
chatties
[chat] unfortunately, the innernet has been particularly unreliable this last five days or so, which has been highly frustrating -- so don't be surprised if I don't make it tonight, or am late, or if I disappear prematurely.
I should be able to epilg from about 19h30 GMT as I'm home... hey, that's NOW! *heads for epilg*
Going back a bit earlier.
[C&VG] I had one of my games printed in C&VG back in 1985-ish. "Oggs' Eggs" Lovingly written in Atari BASIC. I got paid! Yey!
[Boolbar] Found it. Issue 44 (June 1985), pages 56 & 61, with ads for Atari, Dam Busters and Lode Runner in between! Actually says here you wrote it in 1982... took a while to get it published then!
[Darren] Sure did, by the time they published that I was into writing games written in machine code. The Atari is in the attic, I wonder if it still works . . .
Did you get any of your machine code efforts published anywhere? (I mean in boxed form, rather than magazines, of course.)
[Darren] No, they were purely for my own fun, since few games written for the old Atari 400/800 were any good ("Star Raiders" and "Mercenary" aside). I aimed for crude graphics, crude sound but very playable and increasing difficulty the longer you played.
There you have hit the nail on the head, as regards why I still play retro games. They tended to be a lot more playable. You had less in the way of graphics (generally speaking) and sound (also generally), but that made the programmers try all the harder to make games that were fun. I find many modern games extremely tiresome. I had my first computer in 1983 (an Acorn Electron), and that's the one where I first learnt to program. As time went on I moved through the C64, Amiga and now PC (not counting consoles). These days I have got myself a nice little retro collection, having added various other machines to the set (ranging from Atari 2600 to Spectrum to... well, Dreamcast!). I'm sure a part of it is simply nostalgia for childhood, but when it comes down to it, I really do find a lot of older games more entertaining than newer ones - even if the older games are not ones I grew up playing.
(OK, Dreamcast is too recent to be retro, but it is obsolete, which is half the battle!)
Thanks - you've just provided some inspiration for the 'You know when...' game.
[Nik] Yeah, nothing like playing on the Elk. I still have a few. When I was at CGEUK I had the opportunity to fiddle with a heavily souped-up Turbo Electron (a photo is in my Yahoo album), which boasted a 256K RAM-drive among other things.
[Darren] I like your MC sims!
aaaargh
[Boolbar] You obviously don't frequent the Orange MC chatgame.
*switches off*
*switches off*
[Chalky] I just did - I haven't been there for 6 months by the looks of it.
*Goes back to watching the pretty snowflakes*
*Goes back to watching the pretty snowflakes*
Elktastic
Add me to the pile of people who couldn't afford a BBC micro were proud owners of an Acorn Electron.
Acorn computers
I've had an Acorn computer of one sort or another for over 20 years. The latest, if you can call it that, is the A7000. I use it for keeping my weather records, creating my own little games and general mathematical recreations. The BBC Basic is so easy to use I can write programs blindfold, pissed and hanging from the doorway (like the young lady from Norway). (Darren) I used to write machine code stuff on the Spectrum. What a bunch of nerds we all are. :-)
knerds
Me too! Well, sort of. I began my computer career with a Commodore Vic 20. If memory serves me right it had 3.5K of memory and I thought that was somewhat extravagant. How times change. From there I progressed through a C64 an Amstrad 128 (colour!) and then into IBM compatibles - originally the 640K monsters and then the 286 processors and onwards.
I have never coded in machine code but had an absolute ball (and much satisfaction) using the various breeds of BASIC. I feel that I must have had more time on my hands than I now do. I do remember 'inventing' a tree-sort programme in BASIC - it took me ages to get it working properly - only to find that I'd simply reinvented the wheel. Still, it worked well and put the 'bubble' sorts of the day to shame. Whilst I've taken the trouble to learn COBOL - because of where I was working at the time - I really have not progressed much further. I had (long forgotten) a smattering of 'C' and a couple of its later incarnations but was most assuredly not adept at either. All the later stuff seems too verbose to me. Bring back the days of tight code - someone else may not be able to read it but that's their problem!
I have never coded in machine code but had an absolute ball (and much satisfaction) using the various breeds of BASIC. I feel that I must have had more time on my hands than I now do. I do remember 'inventing' a tree-sort programme in BASIC - it took me ages to get it working properly - only to find that I'd simply reinvented the wheel. Still, it worked well and put the 'bubble' sorts of the day to shame. Whilst I've taken the trouble to learn COBOL - because of where I was working at the time - I really have not progressed much further. I had (long forgotten) a smattering of 'C' and a couple of its later incarnations but was most assuredly not adept at either. All the later stuff seems too verbose to me. Bring back the days of tight code - someone else may not be able to read it but that's their problem!
You know, I can still remember some of the POKE and PEEK codes for the Commodore 64. 53280 was to change the border colour, 53281 the screen colour. I felt just like a real programmer!And when I worked out how to do multicoloured sprites (in *four* colours) - well.
Looks like an appropriate place to remind us of Hey Hey, 16k too...
Looks like an appropriate place to remind us of Hey Hey, 16k too...
[preceding few posts] uhm... er... yeah... hey look it's snowing!
[nights] Not 'round our bloody way, it isn't! It's all melted, and it's now raining!
Steam-age computers
(Breadmaster, Darren) Yep, happy days. I always thought POKE a bit rude and if you POKEd the wrong number in it all crashed. (nights, Uncle K) Up here on the Downs at Warlingham, aka Little Siberia, the houses are groaning under the weight of a good inch of snow. We were told to expect 10-15 centimetres (whatever they are) and more on hills (i.e. here). As someone who used to be in the business all I can say is that the forecast was hysterical.
[uncle k] so where are you then?
[nights] I'm currently slaving away in my office in Barking.
[Rosie] BBC BASIC didn't have POKE, per se. It had other indirection operators, $, ? and !, which allowed memory to used rather like variables. For example, ?A=B would be the same as POKE A,B; and A=?B would be the same as A=PEEK(B). ! allowed 32-bit access rather than the 8-bit access provided by ?, and $ allowed string peeks/pokes. Furthermore, you could combine each operator with an offset, so A?2=B?4 would be equivalent to POKE A+2,PEEK(B+4) in other versions of BASIC. Although ? was arguably less clear than PEEK, ! and $ made memory access a lot clearer if you were dealing with larger data than single bytes. It also let you do some tricks which seemed mystifying to the uninitiated, such as CALL !-4 which would have the same effect as pressing the BREAK key!
[Rosie] Actually, since you still have an Acorn machine, you know all that already.
[nights] Luddite! ;-)
[Rosie] I saw in my local paper today a couple of paragraphs indicating that Russian meteoroligsts will be fined should they get 'it' wrong. That'd spark up your whatsits!
(Darren) Certainly do. But I used to POKE my Spectrum unmercifully. :-)
Russian meteorologists
(Dujon) The perfect way of ensuring useless weather forecasts. Russian weathermen will now say there is a risk of everything but everyone will soon learn to ignore them, thus being caught out when there actually is a risk. So it's an absolutely brilliant idea. I think we may have more than a trace of it here. Have a look at my earlier posting.
We had some sort of snow early in the week, which created the lightest of dustings which remained on the ground for almost an entire night. Then it all went wet and unsnowlike. Imagine my surprise to wake up this morning and see *real* snow actually lying on the ground all over the place. It's melting now, though. Somehow, such brief snow is worse than no snow at all, as it's so tantalising.
[dujon] pardon me?
we had a midnight screening of rocky horror last night for rag week. myself and my friend hid in the proj box and drank while the rest of the audience yelled 'ARSEHOLE!', 'SLUT!' and danced in the aisles and also on stage. and there's a couple of people I genuinely never want to see in a basque again. so I'm sleep deprivated but in a rather good mood. and it's FRIDAY!
we had a midnight screening of rocky horror last night for rag week. myself and my friend hid in the proj box and drank while the rest of the audience yelled 'ARSEHOLE!', 'SLUT!' and danced in the aisles and also on stage. and there's a couple of people I genuinely never want to see in a basque again. so I'm sleep deprivated but in a rather good mood. and it's FRIDAY!
But does Friday really make much difference when you're a student...?
Arghhh
Nights - are you from bath uni cos we did that too? and if you are I am very confused............
Oh and breadmaster, friday nights make all the difference when your a student, well to some students anyway.............. Am I supposed to make up a cool name for myself? Do you only write on here at certain times? Where do you actually play this game? I think i would enjoy it if only I could figure out what the hell is going on I guess I am just not cool. Or un-cool. Or mis-cool. Or dis-cool. Or under-cool. Upset.
[Amy G] Hi Amy G. I hope you weren't too put off by the intense moral discussions taking place on Orange at the moment! We're not normally that serious, unless someone splits an infinitive or something.
You don't have to have a cool name. A stupid one will also do, as I demonstrate. You can write here at any time too.
Cool names
(Amy G) Any name will do, provided it isn't 50 letters long. Silly names are welcome. Mine is, for instance, because I'm a bloke, and not a very young one either. There are no rules as such, but just conventions. Never post under someone else's name - that's very bad form. Write any time you like and welcome to the asylum.
Nom de plume &c
Inkers] I've been frequenting the boards for nearly 4 years and it hasn't got any less strange. I like to think I've been able to contribute to that effect.
Oh, and my name's origins involve York, Australians, boredom and archaeology.
Oh, and my name's origins involve York, Australians, boredom and archaeology.
It's very rare that I'm ever accused of being 'cool'... Welcome aboard. I'm not Scottish.
Names
(rab) Of course you're not. You're a one-time liberal Tory Home Secretary. (Tuj) That's an awful lot for 3 letters. I'm baffled. My own monicker is a nickname given to me in about 1967 and has a connection with my real name.
[amy g] wow, yeah I am. weirdness. did you go thursday?
[breadmaster] probably not because I work all day saturday, but you knew that already.
[breadmaster] probably not because I work all day saturday, but you knew that already.
[amy g] Hello dear. Don't mind them, just come in and say what you think. My name is far posher than my rude comments might warrant, but I'm trying not to be too coarse today as you're new.
Just had a rather weird transition - from a National Trust working holiday leader training weekend for conservation projects, talking big ideas, supervision, conservation and green stuff, eating white bread and cheap pink ham because that's all there is to eat in a National Trust basecamp in deepest Sussex, complete silence and darkness at night and midnight walks under a full moon over frozen fields back from the pub to sleeping bags in a dormitory (is that how you spell it? looks weird) with 12 others and one socket between us, no radio or TV... straight home and out again after a quick wash and brush up to a house-warming in the upper end of the Bucks commuter belt where no-one had ANYTHING to talk about but house prices (all above £400K) and football, which is apparently now the new gentelman's pursuit. I'm a bit baffled right now. No doubt work will set me straight in the morning.
Just had a rather weird transition - from a National Trust working holiday leader training weekend for conservation projects, talking big ideas, supervision, conservation and green stuff, eating white bread and cheap pink ham because that's all there is to eat in a National Trust basecamp in deepest Sussex, complete silence and darkness at night and midnight walks under a full moon over frozen fields back from the pub to sleeping bags in a dormitory (is that how you spell it? looks weird) with 12 others and one socket between us, no radio or TV... straight home and out again after a quick wash and brush up to a house-warming in the upper end of the Bucks commuter belt where no-one had ANYTHING to talk about but house prices (all above £400K) and football, which is apparently now the new gentelman's pursuit. I'm a bit baffled right now. No doubt work will set me straight in the morning.
Dormitories
I have a afriend who is normally quite sensible and normal, but occasionally goes a bit edgy. In this state he often says in a slightly Teutonic way "I like dormitories". So yeh, that is how you spell it.
[Amy G] Welcome. I got back Sunday night from a Blake's 7/Babylon 5 convention in Hinckley, so that may give an idea of how silly I am.
[Amy G]Wotcha! As you can no doubt imagine, this is not my real name!
Get-away-from-it-all
[pen] You can't beat a spot of isolation. Helps you get a sense of perspective, I find. Although, unless you're a hermit, it's best if the isolation is of finite duration.
Staying in
For all those playing Celebdaq, the towers have issued a statement. From Friday the holding period for full divi payout is being reduced to three days (midnight Monday to midnight Thursday). This will be a great, treadwater over the weekend then take a leisurely decision on Monday afternoon. Hopefully story on the week should be evident by then.
[Raak] if I had known you were going to be away I would have recorded the rugby for you ;)
[Raak] if I had known you were going to be away I would have recorded the rugby for you ;)
Silliness
(Raak) I thought Blake's 7 was great. Always watched it. But that was then; this is now. Nice to know people are all a bit odd. Quotation from someone-or-other: "Normal people are those you don't know". Carry on. :-)
is cleaning the oven with no gloves on going to make my hands hurt for a while, or will it make the skin fall off totally? I washed them hard afterwards...
"washed" them, eh?
It depends what you washed them with.
[nights] And depends what you cleaned the oven with too.. They'll probably drop off, whatever you used. And why was a student cleaning the oven??? That's incredible.Are you feeling OK?
All sorts
[Amy G] Hello! Yes, we are all a bit eccentric, but sometimes we can be mildly amusing, so stick around.
[pen] Sounds like... fun...
[Raak] Hinkley? ;-)
[pen] Sounds like... fun...
[Raak] Hinkley? ;-)
I think...
...we scared Amy G of. Oops.
I must be dismebowelled!
of/ off/ eff!
On second thoughts, I'm not surprised in the slightest.
[Tuj] well ... apart from you and nights, we're all a bit fogeyish :-)
Oooh, me aching limbs...
[Chalky] Fogeyish? Me? You? Never! Now pass around the Werthers Original and let's have a nice cup of tea and a sit down.
St David's Day
Good morining all. Only scored one in quiz last night and today is looking drab and cold outside. Milk no sugar please.
[Botherer] Actually, just outside Hinckley, at a hotel off Junction 1 of the M69. And speaking of motorway junctions, there was a short film shown at the con, called "Blake's Junction 7", in which Blake's 7 are imagined as a family stopping at a service station at 3 in the morning. Filmed on location at the Newport Pagnell service area.
sounding off
F*cking spam f*lters. We have a new one at work, and not only has it taken out an email from my sister in the US, telling me whether or not the birthday present for my neice arrived, but also a motor industry press bulletin - probably talking about 'sexy cars' - and a load of message failure reports which I need to be able to measure the delivery of press releases I send out. Not only that, but I've found that when I email our IT guy to ask for the messages back, he doesn't f*cking respond. I've sent him a very terse email already this morning, and my ire is still up. I need coffee and cigarettes.
On the plus side, I can now tell you that my other sister (the one who married in October) is expecting a baby, and a chat friend in the US has sent me some over-the-counter wart treatment as a gift.
On the plus side, I can now tell you that my other sister (the one who married in October) is expecting a baby, and a chat friend in the US has sent me some over-the-counter wart treatment as a gift.
[pen] last time I turned the oven on it smoked out the kitchen and set the smoke detectors off. and figuring no-one else would do it, I did it. used mr muscle, and washed hands wih cidal afterwards. the skin is still there this morning so it can't be too bad.
I only just got up. I could do with coffee and cigarettes myself...
I only just got up. I could do with coffee and cigarettes myself...
handy
[nights] Mr Muscle? You wimp. I thought you were talking about caustic soda or sugar soap or something really evil and stinky. If that's all it was, your hands won't drop off, but it might exacerbate that limpness in your wrists.
My oven is "self-cleaning". It doesn't.
[Boolbar] Maybe it just has low standards of cleanliness.
Strangeness
What curious names people have these days. I just received an email from a chap called "Believer F. Management"...
[pen] oh thanks VERY much. just because I don't want to spend the whole evening cleaning... that's it. I'm going to go out tonight, I'll be in a bad mood, have a crap time and it'll be YOUR fault... you keep your implications to yourSELF!
[Raak] Ah, The Hanover International. Used to drive past it regularly. Preferred the Ullesthorpe Court replete with Golf Course me sen. You are excused... ;-)
Fogeyism
Chalky] I do my best to act fogeyish, 'specially if I look at the !York archives and see how awful my posts were back when I first ventured out into this place I know call home. (lies)
Hangover International Hotel
well that's what I read....
[st d] Maybe that's why they changed the name to the Hinckley Island.
is it bad that I needed red bull to get through that lecture? it's one of my OPTIONS for God's sake. I CHOSE to study it. wtf?
on the other hand I was playing tomb raider II till about 01h30... actually that's probably it.
on the other hand I was playing tomb raider II till about 01h30... actually that's probably it.
(nights) What lecture?
Eeeeooo, Red Bull. Is there anything natural in that at all - even water? I'd never touch the stuff but my girlfriend is still capable of using it as a mixer and downing several, which I cannot believe is healthy at all. You're storing up trouble for the future, young nights!
[Breadmaster] Red Bull contains taurine, which was originally extracted from cattle. (Hence the name. The myth that it came from bulls' testicles is just that - a myth. The substance is found all over the body.) These days it's synthetic.
Red Bull?!
Ugh! To me, it has always looked like, and smelled like, urine. I am, naturally, not about to pass any comment on taste...
Red Bull has its uses - ie when you're at the far end of the M6, and home and bed are at the southern end of the M40. But yes, it does taste revolting, and I can almost feel it dissolving my teeth as I drink it
One more question please
What did I do to deserve this? I took a crash course in using QuarkExpress today, and now I have to prepare a page layout with pictures and edit, for the first time. I only had four hours sleep last night (don't ask) and about five hours the night before (again, don't ask but the answer isn't the same as if you'd asked the first time when I told you not to). Plus, fifty per cent of my team is leaving on a three-week holiday to NZ tonight, and I can't leave the office before he finishes off what he has to do and hands over the rest to me... it's already 5.15pm and I am pooped. :o(
For what it's worth, I think Red Bull tastes quite nice.
Red bullocks
Red Bull does nothing for me really. On the other hand Lucozade... (or at a pinch Dr Pepper)
Lucozade is good stuff, and I love Dr Pepper too. I had some tonight.
Darren
Alarmingly phrased, that (edges away)
the lecture was french drama. something I normally enjoy. it tasted bizarre but I no longer had the overwhelming urge to put my head down on my notes and sleeeeeep. there was nothing in it natural, but it did the trick. so all's well.
pen
Can I suggest you stop carping on about it here and get on with it...? ;-)
[Botherer]You can. But I wasn't actually doing anything at work, other than waiting for the NZ-bound colleague to finish what he was doing; I thought I was too knackered to start anything of my own. Anyway, I had a good night's sleep, and it all looks completely different this morning - we've had a good covering of snow here in Sunny Hertfordshire, for one thing. I think this is the first time in six years I've worn a hat to go to work.
Was I carping? Sorry. I usually prefer to whinge.
Was I carping? Sorry. I usually prefer to whinge.
pan
Sounded more like a gripe to me :)
I'd have said it was more like bellyaching.
Cuss-tard
[pen] Have a slice of this delicious pudding that can't stop complaining. It's an Apple Grumble.
pun wars hoorah!
moaning
(pen) Stop going on about your petty work problems. I'll tell you what a problem is. Looking after a partially-demented and hallucinating, partially incontinent, fairly deaf, arthritis-ridden 93-yr-old mother 24/7. I can barely go out these days and have had to give up my Big Band as I cannot leave her for 3 hours in the evening. There is much else, involving doctors, geriatricians, social services, powers of attorney and fuck knows what. I am totally knackered. You've no idea how infuriating the extremely elderly can be or how unnerving it is to have to deal with someone who is having frightening hallucinations. The only peace is the wee small hours, which fortunately agrees with my night-owl nature. It can't go on and she is due for Respite Care, at least I hope. Respite for me, that is. A fortnight's freedom. But then . . .
Jeez Rosie - I didn't realise it'd got so serious.
It's bad enough having your social/recreational freedom restricted, never mind being confined to a space with a loved one who is slowly and inexorably becoming an unpredictable stranger - no wonder you're resentful.
Losing the Big Band thing must be particularly painful. I take it you can't get any cover for those 3 hours? I'm thinking - and this isn't as flippant as it sounds - wouldn't it be wonderful if there existed some sort of benign medication which, when administered, placed the patient in stasis. You could undertake all your filial obligations and when you need a break, pop her a pill, do your thing, and return with no harm done.
It's bad enough having your social/recreational freedom restricted, never mind being confined to a space with a loved one who is slowly and inexorably becoming an unpredictable stranger - no wonder you're resentful.
Losing the Big Band thing must be particularly painful. I take it you can't get any cover for those 3 hours? I'm thinking - and this isn't as flippant as it sounds - wouldn't it be wonderful if there existed some sort of benign medication which, when administered, placed the patient in stasis. You could undertake all your filial obligations and when you need a break, pop her a pill, do your thing, and return with no harm done.
[Chalky] I fear that as soon as someone invented such a pill, some people would spend 23 hours a day in stasis, especially in old folks' homes.
(Chalky) The stasis pill would be a wonderful idea, but there isn't one. The nearest one can get is if she's in bed, and she sleeps well but needs to get up rather a lot for wee-wees. This is not always a reliable process (say no more). Sometimes she goes to bed early and I feel I can pop out for a swift 2 pints and a natter but I don't feel I ought to put pressure on her to do so. She has quite enough brain left to hate her situation and the problems she knows she causes me and the hallucinations are largely but not completely suppressed with medication. I have to be an accurate pill-adminstrator, 8 a day, 3 different types. (Projoy) You're probably right. It would be the easy way out and I'd feel guilty using it.
Ageing
(Projoy) Just seen your contribution to "You know you're getting old . . ." So true. :-)
[Rosie] Your story inspired my comment. :)
[Rosie] I've stopped. And I'm in total (but useless, admittedly) admiration.
(pen) Well, don't stop entirely, but you know what I mean. :-) You may not think me so admirable if you could hear my muttered comments to myself as I go round the house.
[Rosie] In the general scheme of things, it's admirable. And cursing as you go around the house isn't bad, in the general scheme of things. I lost a parent to a long illness a couple of years ago, although my mother did most of the caring and my father was lucid and tolerant throughout. What we said to him, what we said to ourselves in private and what we said to each each other were different things.
(pen) Thanks. In some ways these things bring out the best in people and as few of us are saints we then have to let go a bit. This doesn't matter as long as we don't hurt anyone. The case of your father sounds very like my father's death, too. He was 83 and quite all there but his body had given up. Between me and my mother his impending death was taboo and in many ways still is, even after 25 yrs. He was a lot older than my Mum and born in 1895, would you believe.
No postings since Sunday night. I hope my sorry tale hasn't frightened people off. Come on, this is the banter page. :-)
In Other News...
[Rosie] I said something... then accidentally lost it, and was so frustrated, I didn't try to write it again - although it was along the lines of being amazed at two generations spanning three centuries - that's some feat. :o)
We're out of biscuits in the office :o(
We're out of biscuits in the office :o(
we're out of biscuits at home. lucky I'm not easting them for lent. in other news the work has kicked in again after roughly a month off so I'll be looking for some sympathy later this evening when it doesn't make sense anymore.
crumbs
* looks at stash of biscuits in his drawer - closes drawer - keeps quiet *
[nights] You'll get sympathy from me when I enjoy a month off, my lad! I don't recall that happening even when I was a student.
when I say off, I mean "without any major course-credit-carrying-assigments". I actually only had a week off university, some of which I spent on holiday with my parents.
[penelope, re: generations] My mother's father was born in 1870. She is 58 now.
(Projoy) So your grandfather was 76 when she was born. I'm impressed, not to say incredulous.
incredulity
[Rosie] I know that sounds unlikely, but remember that at the time of conception he was probably only 75. On a different note, can I add one more note of both sympathy and admiration for what you are doing. I freely admit to relief at having been spared that ordeal with either of my parents: my mother died fairly rapidly (and as these things go, relatively painlessly) of cancer, and my father of a heart attack just as it was starting to seem that he was going to need full-time care. I witnessed the alternative -- at a distance -- with both of my grandmothers, and it is obviously very difficult for everyone involved.
[Rosie] When I was at school, there was a boy there whose father was in his 80s. (I know it sounds like one of those silly school rumours, but you'll have to trust me that this one was true. Apparently the dad had plenty of money and the rest is history.)
[Rosie] Yep, your maths is right. It will perhaps ease your incredulity if I note that my grandmother was much younger than my grandfather (to the tune of just under fifty years, b. 1917).
Projoy] I bet he couldn't believe his luck!
[UK] By all accounts, he felt totally entitled to it. :)
(Projoy) Yes, I had to assume that. He must have been some fellow. (CdM) Thanks. One adjusts to each new little deterioration, up to a point.
Re: [15]
My firm has only recently rolled out a Spam Filter to stop us getting dozens of Spam messages inviting us to make money in our spare time, enlarge our organs, take temporary custody of large sums of money etc. These seem to come from people with very strange names. I had one today from "Alphonso T. Integers". I'm sure there's a game in this somewhere, waiting for someone with more imagination than me to institute it.
Alphonso T. Integers
[Kim] I think you've just given us the title of the game. Perhaps we could entertain each other by posting samples of real or imaginary spam messages?
Improbable names
Kim, Raak] I've been being deluged with these for over a year now on an e-mail address I can no longer use. It was quite amusing to start with, seeing the name on the message had been generated from two randomly-picked words from a dictionary, separated with a randon initial. However, the sheer weight of these meant I've had to look elsewhere for e-mail!
it's funny that I receive virtually no spam (well I get messages that people have addressed to the entire department instead of one group), which is either good fortune or the university having a good spam filter.
I was saddened to hear this morning that, as mentioned somewhere else in the Morniverse, that Dave Allen died on Thursday night . Whilst he hadn't performed for some time I have many fond memories of his shows. A great standup (well, sit down) comedian and coffee/beer/wine spluttering skit maker. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing any replays of his shows for far too long; I wonder whether they have dated. I've oft wondered whether his constant haranguing of the R.C. church has anything to do with his shows no longer being shown in this country. I think though that our local A.B.C. had the rights to his shows (though I am open to correction) so I suspect, until they finally shed the ultra-P.C. image which, in my opinion, they seem to exhibit, it will not happen.
Dave Allen
That's what happens when you give up smoking. I'm sure his attitude to the RC Church was that of the subversive insider. It was great stuff, but seems ages ago now.
dave allen
According to many obits I have seen it seems that the non-briadcasting of his old material was due to his having evidently signed off the right contracts and retaining control over them and not wishing them to be broadcast.
[st d] That's what I'd heard too. There has been a bit of speculation that we'll see reruns of his material now he's passed on.
spam-spammity-spam-spam
Hurrah! I have just had permish to dump the spam-and-profanity filter which was applied to our server a couple of weeks ago. So far, it has removed automotive industry press releases, blocked the delivery of commissioned photographs, wiped out a message from my sister in the US telling me that the birthday present to my neice had arrived safely, and finally, today, blocked access to a website belonging to the main Essex newspaper. F*cking filters!
obligatory newbie rubbish
What is the tag I should be using to mark a line through the page when I cap off a limerick or the like?
[Juxtapose] You want <hr>. No closing tag is required.
HTML tags
[Juxtapose] You'll find pretty much all you need at http://mustela.phyast.pitt.edu/basichtml.html. This site was raised by Dr Q+ to assist all us ingorami.
Whoops. Simulposted.
Mater
Mum went into an old people's home last Friday. I could just about cope but she'd become incontinent in the last week and that was just too much. I've visited her each day and she's now chatting to all the other old dears. This stimulus is good because at home she was bored and this tended to bring on the hallucinations. It's only supposed to be for a week, but she's now in the system and if they say she has to go back home (they won't, I'm pretty certain) I'll create an absolute stink. (Maybe not the best way of putting it). Thanks to all those who expressed sympathy. My freedom is more than tinged with sadness as I look around the house and see the various things associated with her. But time is a great healer. Just as well. :-)
Thanks, D+D. [rosie] It's tough to know what the "right" thing is in a situation like that, even when the "best" thing is clear. I've moved in with my grandmother to help her take care of my granddad who is in a similar situation. It's hard when someone you've known and loved all your life doesn't know who you are anymore. I'm glad your situation has resolved itself harmoniously.
[Rosie] Gosh - things have moved along very swiftly. I hope you've got lots of chums [apart from us lot :-)] to chat to.
[Juxtapose] Sounds as though you, too, are an unsung hero.
[Juxtapose] Sounds as though you, too, are an unsung hero.
Blimey. My mum's just bought herself a sporty new car, so I'm hoping it'll be a while before I have to contemplate what Rosie & Juxtapose are faced with. I think Rosie's mum might improvement in her new home - peer contact and a social atmosphere make a huge difference. My grandmother was always more talkative if she was in hospital on a ward full of similar ladies than when she was at home alone.
Can I go back to my normal whinging now? I think I need a holiday - or at least a break from work.
Can I go back to my normal whinging now? I think I need a holiday - or at least a break from work.
[rosie] I never know the appropriate thing to say, so I'll just send you a hug in the hope that it helps somehow.
(((((((((hug)))))))))
(((((((((hug)))))))))
mum's car
Last October was my mum's 70th so all the family gathered at the Old Bell in Malmsbury together with some of her friends from the past. Since then her short term memory has deteriorated. She is no longer able to cook a meal without help, my sisters who live nearby have coped really well as my father will visit with my mother for temporary respite and before the tension between them explodes into another argument. When having a telephone call last night I have to say "You saw Sian today ..." rather than ask, calls are long and repetitive. In January the DVLA wrote that she was no longer to drive and has been diagnosed with Alzheimers. Living nearly 100 miles away I play only a very minor role in the care of my mother, Rosie and Juxtapose I admire you for your care and dedication.
Let's hope that they don't succeed in abolishing NHS prescriptions for those drugs that alleviate Alzheimer's. They only help in around 40% of cases, but when they do they sound remarkably helpful.
The elderly
(Inkspot) That's really desperate and dispiriting, and at only 70. I can hardly imagine it and don't know what to say, it being so different from my own case. (pen) You're right, it's just what she needs, physically and psychologically. Mum drove a Mini up to the age of 88, BTW. (juxtapose) If you're a newbie I ought to tell you I'm a bloke. :-) You will cope more easily with two of you because you can talk about it together in another room. (Chalky) Yes, some good close friends, many acquaintances, good neighbours, the jazz mob, the Big Band players, you lot, and a very supportive family albeit at the end of long telephone wires (Hartlepool, Colwyn Bay, Chepstow, North London). (nights) Ooh, that was nice! er . . you are of the female persuasion, aren't you??
[Rosie] nights is a man.
[Darren] Yes, but he's young and he has long hair. It's hard to tell these days. *ducks*
[pen] why duck? I'd never hit you.
[rosie] yeah, I'm a man, man, but I'm very open with my hugs. hope that hasn't totally put you off me forever...
[rosie] yeah, I'm a man, man, but I'm very open with my hugs. hope that hasn't totally put you off me forever...
[nights] The first time I read that, I thought you said "legs" instead of "hugs." Just for a moment, it painted a very different picture.
[darren] would you STOP thinking about me? (grins)
Hugs
(nights) You may put a manly arm round my shoulder. Dunno why I thought you were female. Incidentally, Hugs, Hug and Huggies have been used as nicknames for me in the past. Indians in callcentres say "Mr Yewjis" or "Mr Hewgs", bless 'em. No prizes, and therefore no points, for guessing my surname.
Hugs 'R Us
I too fell into the trap of imagining nights to be female. Unfortunatley it was in the chat room - and the rotten sod didn't disillusion me! You will never, ever, be forgiven for that, nights. ;-)
[Rosie] I always figured your surname as being Canadian for a lumberjack.
[Rosie] I always figured your surname as being Canadian for a lumberjack.
Hugs 'n stuff
I understand that The Morniverse term for blokeish clasping is 'mabulating'.
CdM] Glad you're available for a round of AVMA :-) Are you mainly Singapore-based nowadays?
Btw - haven't spotted INJ for a while. Hope he and his flag can make it to Rugby again.
Limericks
sorry - me again.
Might it be a neat solution to keep the Furcation Game active by playing the Bifurcating Limericks in there? The current one will be quite a challenge and as I tackled the last one, I shan't be touching it!
The regular Lim Game can then return to quickies.
Might it be a neat solution to keep the Furcation Game active by playing the Bifurcating Limericks in there? The current one will be quite a challenge and as I tackled the last one, I shan't be touching it!
The regular Lim Game can then return to quickies.
[Chalky] Yes -- I am currently based in Singapore, though making occasional side trips to France, the US, and Thailand. We are probably going to be in France all summer though; any chance you will be visiting French relatives? :-)
I haven't been in touch with INJ for a few weeks myself, although I had noted his absence in the morniverse. Often it has to do with his work situation at any given time.
[Limericks] Yes, I hadn't actually meant to open a bifurcating can of worms like that. It was just that I posted an opening line that sounded very British, and so thought I should add the US equivalent and see what happened...
I haven't been in touch with INJ for a few weeks myself, although I had noted his absence in the morniverse. Often it has to do with his work situation at any given time.
[Limericks] Yes, I hadn't actually meant to open a bifurcating can of worms like that. It was just that I posted an opening line that sounded very British, and so thought I should add the US equivalent and see what happened...
Server
I started doing some bits and pieces on the server last night - for instance, I think I've fixed a couple of the 'networking broken after a reboot' faults and I installed an IMAP email server. Things may slow down occasionally (compiling/installing) and I'll need to reboot at times to test shutdown/startup procedures. I'll be doing upgrades to installed software as I go as well. I've no idea when, it certainly won't be tonight and probably not this week, but I thought I'd better warn in advance.
[chalky] good idea, but don't think I'll be trying my hand as I suck at complicated things.
[dujon] sorry.. (grins evilly) no, really I am sorry. I'm just naturally mean. ask my housemates.
[dujon] sorry.. (grins evilly) no, really I am sorry. I'm just naturally mean. ask my housemates.
Worm can-opener
Chalky] Will do
Rosie] Commiserations - I (very briefly) had to care for my mother before she went into hospital, and I supported a friend through a much more protracted caring. One of my conclusions was that you feel guilty whatever you do, simply because you keep feeling that there's more you should be doing. Another (and this is much easier to say than to do) is that you need to look after yourself to be able to look after her. Good luck.
Rosie] Commiserations - I (very briefly) had to care for my mother before she went into hospital, and I supported a friend through a much more protracted caring. One of my conclusions was that you feel guilty whatever you do, simply because you keep feeling that there's more you should be doing. Another (and this is much easier to say than to do) is that you need to look after yourself to be able to look after her. Good luck.
(Irouleguy) She's in the Care Home now, which is by far the best thing for her as she has mental stimulation as well as expert care. There is a slight tinge of guilt that I've "got rid of her" but everybody says that's absurd. Also, when she was at home I always felt a bit selfish about going out and eventually stopped almost entirely. Now, of course, it's a question of getting used to an empty house and re-motivating myself.
[Rosie] It's your job to get the most out of life. You have devoted a hell of a lot of time and care to your mother, and the guilt you feel is testament to the fact that you still have the desire to do that. Now you have organised the best possible care for her, you must have some fun - otherwise, what was the point? The care situation as it was proved to be bringing both of you down in the end, and the new situation is supposed to benefit both of you. Now you just have to do your bit, allow yourself some fun, and not feel guilty about it.
[CdM] yes - we plan to be in SE Paris end of July for my brother's birthday celebrations :-)
[nights] never mind, poppet.
[Irouleguy] I take it you're doing the honours? Good for you - I think mine was easier. Anyway, based on your 2 words, I've taken the liberty of starting a new quickfire limerick.
[Chalky] Hmmmmmm. Maybe we can arrange le premier pilg francais.
[CdM] yes! And if Les Premices isn't feasible - Sunday 17 July, location - a glorious garden in Sucy-en-Brie. I'll email nearer the time :-)
[Chalky] Could you send me a mail at andrewdotjohn@ayadotyaledotedu so that we can take this offline? (That is, unless there are other possible francopilgers.) Thanks.
(pen) Yes, I suppose I'm still in Care Mode even when I go and visit her and I hope it doesn't get up the noses of the excellent Care Staff. Probably not; they're very understanding. They don't see many men in there, which helps. :-) When I adjust to the change of circumstances I think things will be as good as they have ever been, but you can't just switch instantaneously - there's a degree of sadness. Thanks for your thoughts. :-)
[Rosie] Of course - it's not an instant switch. But just remember, it is allowed. Your mother will happy to hear your tales of jolly jazz-making when you visit, won't she?
Self-bifurcating limericks
The multiple-ended limerick has now been reposted in the bifurcation game, and awaits 32 final lines - which we could attempt collectively, rather than leaving them all to one person.
rab] Thank you, thank you for the HTML debugger - I'd never have done it without that.
Rosie] You'll probably stay in care mode for quite some time, but the simple fact that you're not doing it on your own will make it easier for both of you.
rab] Thank you, thank you for the HTML debugger - I'd never have done it without that.
Rosie] You'll probably stay in care mode for quite some time, but the simple fact that you're not doing it on your own will make it easier for both of you.
Furcatin'
I fear that the popularity of spiralling limericks could be the last nail for the Furcation Game as previously known.
still around
Nice to know I've been missed. The situation which led to it (no internet access at work, extra pressure at home sorting out my father's estate) is now easing, so I should soon be back up to speed.
[Chalky] I expect to be in Rugby - probably on the same basis as last year - Sat pm only.
[CdM] If there is a Franco-Pilg I may come and pitch a tent somewhere in your estate.
[Chalky] I expect to be in Rugby - probably on the same basis as last year - Sat pm only.
[CdM] If there is a Franco-Pilg I may come and pitch a tent somewhere in your estate.
most of the last several posts
Please sir (or madame): What's pilg?
[Knobbly] Pilg=short for pilgrimage. Pilgs are basically those times we all get together and meet up.
Pilging
[INJ] Splendid. In both instances :-)
Tert
Ignore
Tert - complete
[Nik] Beefy's seems to be about 10 minutes slow, which is reflected in the posting times displayed here...
... beefy's clock, I mean ...
tilting at windmills
It is fairly clear that goatherds have a systemic aversion to vagarious wanderings. Is this the result of genetic manipulation, I wonder? Perhaps a change of underwear is called for at this late stage
Grand Slam
A change of underwear is always recommended after one has worn them for the usual daily sequence back-to-front/inside out etc. Goats on the other hand are far as I understand leave a relatively sport free life compared to those of say sheep. However many of us feel goats need to be talked to and engaged in conversation. Goats can be receptive and should you meet any today on your wanderings try breaking the ice with by discussing with them Wales wining the Grand Slam, I tried this with the flock last night and stayed with me till morning.
Skew
[rab] Tut, you'd think a modern PC would keep time a little better than that, wouldn't you? Perhaps I should (sigh) include a timeserver daemon to keep it uptodate.
Notice
The server hosting my personal email and website seems to have dropped off the internet. We're investigating, but this could mean that if you've tried to email me in the last day or so, the mail might either take a day or two to get through, or get lost completely.
not for the first time I'm totally lost.
p*ssing into the wind
[rab] .. so all those naughty emails I've sent to you in the last couple of days have vaporised into the etherspherythingyplace? Oh bugger.
nights] never mind poppet
the goats win
I solved the problem this morning by wandering with them to Mornington Crescent. It was a bit crowded on the platform, however.
Being prepared
*starts spreadsheet programme to print out location of every clock in the household, including name rank and serial number, and containing instructions on how to change each come Saturday evening* For me this involves cranking them all forward by 23 hours. Yuk. I might, just might, have one with a plus/minus one hour switch (and if I do, I bet I didn't use it last time).
Just thinking about that.
I have six clocks in my workshop. Three normal clocks (one small one on each bench and one wall clock) plus one on a digital thermometer and two on telephones.
The house has seven normal clocks, two video cassette recorders (the DVD player doesn't have one), three clock radio units, one microwave oven, one on a digital thermometer and an inderminate number of watches - probably only three. I bet I've forgotten one or two as those are from memory.
The computers are set to automatically adjust.
That's over twenty adjustments to make. Eek!
I have six clocks in my workshop. Three normal clocks (one small one on each bench and one wall clock) plus one on a digital thermometer and two on telephones.
The house has seven normal clocks, two video cassette recorders (the DVD player doesn't have one), three clock radio units, one microwave oven, one on a digital thermometer and an inderminate number of watches - probably only three. I bet I've forgotten one or two as those are from memory.
The computers are set to automatically adjust.
That's over twenty adjustments to make. Eek!
Housemate update
Looks like Jerry paid a visit to my kitchen to do a poo last night, so I think I'll be down the shop to buy some bait. F!*k the humane approach...
clocks
[Dujon] Move to the tropics :-)
[Dujon] Stop measuring so much time. Why not use this weekend to get rid of half of them, and see if you actually notice a difference?
[rab] He will have eaten a load of your food AND done a poo. Make sure you keep all your food sealed away until you know you've got rid of him & all his friends. And wash everything down really well too.
This and that
Mum's place in the Residential Home has been confirmed - and it's brilliant. And . . . it won't cost a thing, courtesy of Surrey County Council, except they do take her pension and give her a bit of it back as pocket money. I'm typing this also courtesy of Surrey county Council, i.e. in Warlingham Library, because my computer is f*****. A young in-law decided that Uncle T should upgrade to Windows XP, and he's in the IT business. It doesn't work. Can't get on the Net or use the scanner or printer. Apparently you should put Windows XP in a clean hard drive and then transfer what you need from the old drive. A mate is going to do this and it's going to cost, partly because he too is in the business. Should be done in about a week.
Meece
[pen] Nearly all the food was in mouse-proof cupboards as it happens (i.e., high up off the floor, and with no obvious holes therein). There is a slightly worrying set of holes for the pipework in the cupboard under the sink. I can't cover these up easily, so I expect to find evidence of mouse in there... I intend to wash all the surfaces (and pans) before doing any cooking. As it happens, I think it would be difficult for a mouse to scale the units onto the worktops - but I wouldn't put anything past the bastards. Time to go home and see if the bait has been taken...
The bait's still there - and no poos as far as I can tell. But I think it's a bit soon to expect much yet. I imagine Jerry realises that this is not going to do him much good, and is probably biding his time until he's really hungry. As an aside, I'm quite surprised to discover such a huge range of products devoted to capture and extermination of mice. This I find reassuring and worrying by equal measure. On the one hand, it indicates the problem's a common one (and I feel less hideously unclean now). At the same time, though, it also suggests that few of these treatments actually work. I'll keep you informed.
As a further aside, I'm also amused that even the most painful-looking traps have pictures of cute fluffy little creatures with big eyes and nice round ears on them. It's rather like putting a cartoon pig on the outside of a packet of bacon.
[chalky] could you stop calling me poppet? you're reminding me too much of my mum, who has a habit of calling me poppet, despite me clearing six foot.
Work has destroyed my brain to such an extent that last night I dreamt about trying to print a cheque and products sounding like the animal they were designed for, and I keep on thinking I hear the tannoy go 'ping pong', and I freeze in anticipation of "Staff call, 'Nights', contact 257, 'Nights', 257, thank you", implying I've forgotten what time it is, I'm still in the canteen having a smoke and I was meant to be on the shop floor about ten minutes ago. argh, eh?
Work has destroyed my brain to such an extent that last night I dreamt about trying to print a cheque and products sounding like the animal they were designed for, and I keep on thinking I hear the tannoy go 'ping pong', and I freeze in anticipation of "Staff call, 'Nights', contact 257, 'Nights', 257, thank you", implying I've forgotten what time it is, I'm still in the canteen having a smoke and I was meant to be on the shop floor about ten minutes ago. argh, eh?
It's time
[penelope] Which was sort of my point. Why do I need so many bloddy clocks? Perhaps I'll adjust some of them with a hammer.
Nights dream
nights] Dreaming you're at work... yeeesh horrible horrible. Is it not enough for employers to steal your waking hours?
disclosure
[nights] I AM your mum. I'm just pretending I live in Salisbury.
Settling down
[Rosie] I hypothesise that you won't see this for a bit but I'll post it anyway.
Fantastic news, it really is. The pension/pocket money is a regular thing here but it might be wise to keep a bit of an eye on what she gets. There has been a number of 'shonky' operators of such establishments in this country. Still, if it's a council operated facility then, perhaps, you might not need to worry too much. I mention the last because my mother-in-law, who had a stroke, was confined to a so called 'nursing home' within the precincts of her local hospital. It was truly dreadful. Not the staff - at least not overall - but the facilites and the surroundings. I have the feeling that the only time she could get outside for a bit of sun and fresh air was when my wife or her sister (or me for that matter) visited.
[Chalky] Eee 'eck tha dun arf wurry me times.
Fantastic news, it really is. The pension/pocket money is a regular thing here but it might be wise to keep a bit of an eye on what she gets. There has been a number of 'shonky' operators of such establishments in this country. Still, if it's a council operated facility then, perhaps, you might not need to worry too much. I mention the last because my mother-in-law, who had a stroke, was confined to a so called 'nursing home' within the precincts of her local hospital. It was truly dreadful. Not the staff - at least not overall - but the facilites and the surroundings. I have the feeling that the only time she could get outside for a bit of sun and fresh air was when my wife or her sister (or me for that matter) visited.
[Chalky] Eee 'eck tha dun arf wurry me times.
I've been dreaming about seventeenth-century Russian religious history recently. Now that's grim.
C17 Russian religion
[Bm] Yes, I keep seeing icons too.
I dreamed about being on a narrowboat last night.
Last week I dreamt I married Ruby Wax. I can't explain that.
[Duj] worry not, my friend :-)
[chalky] in that case what are we having thursday night as I'm going to be home about 23h thanks to the M5. home for easter. wooooooo!!!!!!!
half term
Home for half term - don't forget the black bag in the corner full of dirty washing.
I'm told that mice are surprisingly savvy...
[Boolbar] Pshaw. What are they talking about? Intelligent children like me did play it properly. About four times. We even knew the rule that if (A) triggered (O) directly, the mouse automatically escaped!
Kindness
[rab] If you haven't already disposed of the beastie. Do you wish to kill the thing or catch it alive and release it somewhere other than your kitchen rather than zap the poor wee thing and have it die a lingering death with a broken back or neck? If so, I have used a wonderful device which works rather well. It's a commercial trap, quite cheap, which is formed from a square section of tubing, one end sealed the other with a spring loaded door. It is also bent. Bait (in my case a dob of peanut butter!) down the sealed end. Place on floor/shelf/whatever with door latched open beneath the device. Mouse wanders in and heads for the other end. Weight of mouse combined with gravity causes the 'far end' to rock back to level - it's the bent end which is elevated. Front end then rises - obviously - and allows the door to snap shut. Viola! one contained mouse. All that remains is to release the thing in an enviroment of your choosing.
killing by kindness
[Dujon] I have a long story (a shaggy mouse story, if you will) about my experience with those traps. Maybe I will come back and post it sometime...
update on the expedition home - the M5 was hideous, so we thought we'd try a different route, got hideously lost in Gloucestershire and ended up at home about when I thought. but at least I'm here, eating food prepared by someone else and spending good working time playing silly forum-based games. and I can do my laundry, thank you very much. I'm one of a very rare breed of students that know what a washing machine is and how it works.
Viola!
Dujon] Viola! I shall forever use that for "voila!" now. Was it intentional?
[Tuj] Bloody pedants! No, my friend, I just thought it was prettier. ;-(
[CdM] Your heading Killing by kindness suggests that I don't want to know. On the other hand, why not? It's been a bit quiet in here over the weekend.
Dujon] No offence intended. It is prettier!
:-)
[Dujon] I have caught a couple of mice with those see-saw traps, but you stop being nice when they start chewing through your wiring.
strings attached
[Tuj, Duj] Indeed, but there seems to be less scope for jokes about voila players ...
meece
Just make sure that you set them free a good distance from your home, as they tend to make their way back.. at least a couple of miles, in a nice park or field somewhere..
foolishness
I'm sorry I have to say this, because you're all obviously well-meaning - but don't you think that it's cruel to set a HOUSE MOUSE free in a park or field? House mice and field mice are two different animals. One lives in a field or park, the other lives in houses and barns. If you have House Mice, and don't want a re-infestation then just kill it quickly and mercifully, but fer gawd's sake don't set it free in a place that is so different to it's natural habitat... that's ridiculous. *mutters* Animal rights my arse
And don't forget those fluffy little creatures with the big eyes and the cute ears that come into your kitchen and scamper around playfully also PISS and SHIT everywhere. Yum.
[pen] Think of it as kindness to whatever non-house-infesting predator gets them.
Living in comfort
[penelope] Not a natural environment? Are you telling me that the 'house' mouse was suddenly created when the first house was built? I must do some research to fill up the gap in my education. Whilst, at this time, I agree that there are various varieties of the mouse I also believe they are wild creatures and can survive quite happily outside my home. As exhibit number one (well, there is only one): As a teenager I used to breed mice - the cute little white ones - and flog 'em off to provide me with pocket money. Regrettably the wonderful cage which I had custom built to house them and which was designed to fit nicely on my windowsill (my mother refused to let me keep them inside) developed a malfunction and finished eight feet down on the back lawn with the doors sprung. Within weeks mice found in the back garden were piebald.
[Inkspot] On the assumption that Celebdaq is effectively dead and on the understanding that you cannot kill it until each participant has effectively run the ropes to the quay I have removed myself from the crew. Thanks for your time and effort over its lifetime.
[Dujon] OK, then my advice (and always had been, truth to tell) is to slam them all on the head with a garden spade. Smash their little brains out. I was trying to phrase it delicately for the sake of the animal lovers who might read this, but phooey... sod 'em.
[penelope] That's a waste of life. What Dujon should do is shove them in the microwave for about 10 minutes each for a quick snack.
worry
[pen]I don't do that myself, but if someone is going to the trouble of a live-capture trap, I figured they wouldn't then want to send the mouse to its maker. Personally, I get my Jack Russell to worry them. Very quick death, although he growls when I don't let him chew on the body. Mouse guts everywhere? No thanks. AND I'm a vegetarian. But my dog isn't.
yeucch!
Look you lot - all this killing stuff is making me feel a bit queasy. In fact it's completely put me off the crispy fried mice ready meal I was about to microwave for my lunch ..
*groan*
daqing out
[Dujon]Sorry to see you leave the Daq you have been a good player taking your fair share of turns at No1. It could not have been easy being distant from the tabloid tittle tattle that runs Celebdaq. In the next few weeks I will update everything and tidy up some loose ends.
The daq continues to limp on despite the beeb dealing it a couple of knockout blows in the last few months. While it soldiers on, I play out of the MSN group CelebdaqBasements under the guise of Cleddau (Not the Ant Hill Mob)in a couple of Ultimate leagues run by Version 1.0.
The daq continues to limp on despite the beeb dealing it a couple of knockout blows in the last few months. While it soldiers on, I play out of the MSN group CelebdaqBasements under the guise of Cleddau (Not the Ant Hill Mob)in a couple of Ultimate leagues run by Version 1.0.
No mice, but crispy fried woodlice in a thin coat of batter slightly salted.
would you lot be quiet, I'll be afraid to eat from our local takeaway. that is NOT an invitation for a lot of 'do you know what's in takeaway' posts by the way.
good news, I got through work today without nearly bursting into tears.
good news, I got through work today without nearly bursting into tears.
[penelope] Yes, I figured you were taking the **ss. I couldn't resist the temptation to drag out my piebald mice story which, by the way, is quite true. I am averse to killing anything except mosquitoes but must admit that the last mouse caught - it was making a mess of my wife's potting mix of all things in the garden shed - became an uncooked meal for one of my son's pythons.
[nights] Remind me to tell you about the cockroaches in the microwave episode sometime. Mwhaaaaa. *cue music from the Twilight Zone*
[nights] Remind me to tell you about the cockroaches in the microwave episode sometime. Mwhaaaaa. *cue music from the Twilight Zone*
pythons
duj] that reminds me of a little girl who goes in to a pet shop and says, with a bit of a speech defect "hewwo, do you have any likkle bunny wabbits?" - the shopkeeper is charmed and plays up to the little girl saying "Wess we goo. Would woo like an ikkle bunny wabbit wiv bwig fwuffy ears and an ikkle cotton twail nice and fwuffy?" and teh girl looks at him and says "I don't weally sink my Boa Constwictor gives a sthit"
Trivia
[Inkspot] I removed myself feeling that you might wish to clear the decks. If you are going to continue then by all means add me back in. The details are Dujon2774 (User ID: 3256726). Don't break your back, though. There're only a few of us left.
s'not the same without ...
... Rosie :-(
Da-daaaaaaaaaa!
That was remarkably prescient, Chalks, seeing as I only got the 'puter back about 6 this evening and, miraculously, managed to set up Broadband with the minimum of oaths. Great to be back. Now, this Rugby thing; are there any places left? What does it cost? How long does it last? Should I change my underwear? Anything else I should know?
Hello
Good to see you back, Rosie. I was a'feared the enforced break may have made you reasise that M.C. wastes too much valuable time (like all time isn't valuable, it's a bit like saying 'I spent good money on that').
Eh?
I was just looking at the BBC main news site and came across this somewhat worrying juxtapostion of links.
* Pope John Paul II clings to life
* Mother-in-law's killer jailed
What's going on in the Vatican these days?
* Pope John Paul II clings to life
* Mother-in-law's killer jailed
What's going on in the Vatican these days?
Rugby
[Rosie] Yes, you should change your underwear. Other things you should know: Russia has an area of approximately 17,075,200 kmsq.
Juxtaposition of links
RugbyPilg
[Rosie] Yes - you're coming :-) I'll email you tomorrow with all the details.
The size of things
(Projoy) Oh, everybody knows that. And I used to know the area of Surrey, viz. 722 sq mi. But it keeps losing its north-eastern bits to London. Has less of a Fringe on the Top, you could say. (Chalky) OK, thanks.:-)
Surrey to hear that
Rosie] Surely some of the bits that Surrey lost were Morden just a fringe?
hoorah pun wars...
bad timing or what?
I'm off to rome tomorrow on study tour, then on to Pompeii and Herculaneum...in spite of Johnny Paul himself dying at the very thought, there I shall be. I apologise if my hostel in Rome doesn't have the internet - if that is indeed the case, feel free to play on with the AVM game without me, I'll just have more questions to answer when I come back :)
old Surrey
(Irouleguy) Ewell be sorry you said that. Waddon earth are you playing at?
oh hello ZK. send us a postcard, c/o North Wales.
Rugby stuff
[Rosie] email sent.
[Bob the dog] Hope you're around - we have work to do :-)
[Bob the dog] Hope you're around - we have work to do :-)
updates on aches
Monday morning AGAIN... it comes round so quickly! My arms ache from scarifying the grass at home (vigorous raking to remove moss and dead thatch with a sprung rake). I've done about a quarter of the total so far, including re-seeding the bald patches it creates. Further to that, my legs ache for deciding to take yesterday afternoon off from scarifying and wander through London instead. I parked at Dolphin Square in Pimlico and walked, with a friend, up to Covent Garden and back again. We only stopped at two pubs...
My grandfather has just died of a heart attack after a fall. Totally shocked and upset.
[Rab] You have my sympathy. Family deaths are hard enough when it's expected.
Dreadful news, and a huge shock, I would imagine. *hugs*
That was me
How awful, I wrote rab's name instead of mine.
Rab
Really sorry to hear that - condolences and *hug*
[rab] Also sorry to hear that. These sorts of things always take you by surprise. My grandfather just came out of hospital after a fall down his stairs (he'd been lying at the bottom for two days before he was found).
Thanks everyone for your kind words.
rab] Condolences too. Looks like it's shaken up pen too.
[rab] it's been said, but my condolences are with you and your family. *hug*
back in
[rab]Sorry to hear of your sad news.
[Dujon]You are back in the chase.At the moment I'm chasing the Royals as they seem to be in a bit of disarray.
[rab] My sympathy flies o'er the seas to put a hand on your shoulder. Having lost all my antecedents other than my Mum I know only too well that it's never easy. Chin up.
[Inkspot] Ta. Me too, share prices vary wildly but the dividends should be good with the wedding coming up.
[Inkspot] Ta. Me too, share prices vary wildly but the dividends should be good with the wedding coming up.
[Rab] aww - that's very sad news. Sounds as though he was much loved so I hope he had a happy life.
*lights too many joss sticks in one go on the mantelpiece and ponders*
Daq yeild techie talk
[Dujon] Even after all this time I am still learning new things about Celebdaq. Each week I regulaly use JJB’s dividends and returns tools. Last week the guy was Top Trader and reading the interview another penny dropped; yes even after all this time. Up to now I have been looking at Potential Total Gain and Pot Dividend, how wrong have I been. It turns out in his dividend report there is a column “Pot Yeild” this is ratio of price against dividend. This is the column I need to take note of which means buying a low priced celeb not necessarily that with the hightest pot. gain. It would appear that this weeks best buys on Monday were Jamie Oliver (212%) or Vic Reeves (210%) rather than my current holding, Prince William (141%).
I am going to try this out next week just to see, and as long as I buy before midnight on Monday and hold on till Friday there should be a handsome % gain
I am going to try this out next week just to see, and as long as I buy before midnight on Monday and hold on till Friday there should be a handsome % gain
[rab] *adds sympathies to the pile*
professional angst
What can you do with a client who wants you to do lots of press releases for him and his organisation, but when you do get them ready, he's too disorganised to sign anything off in time, then panics about how late everything is and so avoids opening your emails, reading your faxes or taking your phone calls until it's really too late to put out the news? *grinds teeth in frustration*
professional gangsta
Where is 'e, pen? I'll deck 'im.
[pen] seconded. I'm in a violent mood so me and my size twelves will go and see him.
[Nights'n'Chalks] The idea is to keep the account...
OK - keep the account - lose the loser.
Back to plan A. Me and nights'll sort him, like permanently. His staff probably hate him as well so they'll thank us for the deed, as will you when you find he's been replaced by a considerate but not ingratiating, organised but not anal, phonecall answering fax reading email opening, townhouse AND country retreat owning, National Trust member, recently singled so a bit lonely and needs to get back into the dating thingy, gregarious, amusing, clean smelling, looks-don't-matter-but-not-too-smooth-and-oily [the occasional crooked tooth is always a good sign], spontaneous, generous, PR lady-obsessed, 30-something ...
Back to plan A. Me and nights'll sort him, like permanently. His staff probably hate him as well so they'll thank us for the deed, as will you when you find he's been replaced by a considerate but not ingratiating, organised but not anal, phonecall answering fax reading email opening, townhouse AND country retreat owning, National Trust member, recently singled so a bit lonely and needs to get back into the dating thingy, gregarious, amusing, clean smelling, looks-don't-matter-but-not-too-smooth-and-oily [the occasional crooked tooth is always a good sign], spontaneous, generous, PR lady-obsessed, 30-something ...
[Chalks] Sounds perfect. When can you do it? And what should I wear for the first date meeting?
Chalks] Thats me! Apart from the single status and organised bit. Anyway, I'd rather be creatively unsystematic than anal any day...
Bob the creativebutnotsingle dog
... and there I was, singing your praises in the Orange Pilg Game - the youngsters are getting restless ...
Youngsters?
I know, bless them, but things is all under control - in my usual creatively unsystematic way... (casts another surreptitious glance at a passing PR lady and gets rapped on the knuckles by NotmrsBobthedog).
I have decided that this year I am NOT going to panic quite as much as I did last year. Excuse me, a PR lady has just arrived and I must talk to her about something that has been on my mind...
*dishevels*
Yippeee! Friday. Twenty minutes to go. I am sooo gonna big up the snooooze when I get home.
excuse me while i shout excitedly that IT'S SATURDAY AND I DON'T HAVE TO GO TO WORK WOOOOOTTT!!!!
sorry about that. but i'm excited that it's nearly midday and I'm still in bed.
sorry about that. but i'm excited that it's nearly midday and I'm still in bed.
The slack life
nights] You know when it's holiday time when you're woken up by the sound of an ice cream van.
[nights, Tuj] And the dawn chorus stops you from getting to sleep.
It's all so clear now.
I've found out why this site keeps having problems! The truth is here.
[tuj] we have an abnormally large amount of ice cream vans around by us. I keep thinking they play 'tubular bells' but it's actually 'greensleeves'. but an ice cream van playing tubular bells would be excellent. if slightly creepy.
cool sites
their is a hot site called castlesofspirits.com go their if you dare. if u cant sleep at night not ma fault.they show u hot to levitate people and how to play and make ure own quija board. theirs also pics of real spirits.for those who dont believe in ghosts u got to c it to believe it.
i wanna say hi to ma people in elizabeth nj.and ma enemies they can go down to u know where especially KRITZIA. kritzia i cant stand u.
Gosh, I really need a quija board! I've still got all the quija pieces, but of course I lost the board so I can't play the game any more.
Saul's Kites
I went to a seance on Thursday night, as it happens. It was good fun, and we managed to contact the spirits who played around with some objects on the table, banged it a few times and then buggered off. All in the name of scientific research of course.
Meanwhile, my ongoing battle with Jerry continues. I was always suspicious that the bait hadn't been taken and in fact all it did was make him tiptoe more lightly around the kitchen. Confirmation came after I scattered a little flour on the floor, expecting to find ickle paw-prints in it the next morning. Sod that - he came and ate the whole bloody lot! So the snap traps came out, and again he's proved himself to be a canny bugger and has steadfastly avoided them (despite one of them fitting snugly inside his entry channel).
It turns out that the right thing to do is to call the landlord's agents, who have a dedicated mouse man who'll come out, do a thorough investigation and block up all the hole. So this should all be over soon I hope...
Jerry
[rab] Have you not considered Tom ? Have you a friend with a moggy you could borrow ? One night would probably dod the trick.
Dr Mouse is coming to visit at lunchtime, so we'll see what he does.
Dave's squirting stuff in my holes as we speak.
[rab] That's more than I wanted to know.
Dave was fab! Tracked down all the mouse activity, and took the belt and braces approach of sealing their entry points and slapping down not one, not two, but three different types of bait. He does a repeat visit next week to seal up the one remaining hole (which is there to let anyone out who might have been hiding in the airing cupboard) and laugh in the face of dead rodents.
there were little trays of rat poison on the floor when we moved into our house. they're still there. I'm not sure if this is good or bad.
I won't be e-pilging this evening, I'm going to an open mic night because a friend of mine is going to get up and do some damien rice and some of his own stuff. my housemates and I will sit at the back and clap supportively, or get rat-arsed, one of the two. actually probably both.
I won't be e-pilging this evening, I'm going to an open mic night because a friend of mine is going to get up and do some damien rice and some of his own stuff. my housemates and I will sit at the back and clap supportively, or get rat-arsed, one of the two. actually probably both.
richard wiseman
rab ] I am assuming that that isn't the same Richard Wiseman who is head of the Legal Department at Shell ? I met him once - very nice chap, but looked like he had been washing himself in money.
[st d] How does someone look when they have been washing themselves in filthy lucre? Pretty grubby, I'd expect.
[st d] I'm guessing not.
of Mice and Men
(rab) Your "ongoing battle with Jerry" makes me think of those old farts (and not-so-old farts) who cannot accept that WW2 ended some time ago.
It did? Blimey.
I have just accidentally tipped coffee over a particularly hated job bag containing piece of work which I have taken a week and a half longer to complete than I should have done, purely because I don't like doing it. This makes me believe that malevolent forces exist on Wednesday mornings. Unfortunately the coffee also went over my leg.
oops.
[pen] Have you noticed how coffee expands when freed from the constaints of a cup/mug? One knocked over mug of coffee can flood an entire desk, soak into reams of paperwork and fill a couple of drawers.
nassssty coffeeses
.. and possibly does the most damage when deftly tipped over a computer keyboard where it completely disappears!
[pen] a job bag, eh? Reminds me of my student hols when I worked on a geriatric ward ..
sorrysorrysorry - I'm just talking shite, as usual
Washing the desk
And remember that if you do spill coffee on your desk: save the phone and the papers before worrying about the keyboard (keyboard £20, phone £200 if it's a clever one, papers probably several hours of your time).
I think job bags exist to protect their hated contents from coffee. The papers within are only soggy along one edge. The coffee in my keyboard was soaked up by all the crumbs already in there. My phone was protected by a layer of papers. In other news, I was taken out for lunch today by my boss. And no, I'm not about to lose my job :o)
Scientists have observed that coffee is 20-30% more spillable than tea.
[rab] can you quote your source?
R. A. Blythe (2005) Private communication.
Rabbit Sauce
Pen] He lies. Check out so help me God.
bidding frenzy
I am currently in a bidding frenzy on ebay for a batch of whopping great blue, football-sized Agapanthus flowers with which to beautify my garden come the summer, when I'm having a Birthday Garden Party. I also bought some other stuff this morning, and I should win another one this afternoon for violet Surfinias. I just had to tell someone - no-one in the office is interested and it's soooo exciting.
e-Bay-Gum
[pen] It is exciting when it gets to the last minute and you are still the highest bidder. I was outbid twice in the last 3 seconds on one occasion. Selling can be frustrating though. I had 8 people watching one item and I only got one bid in the end.
Hmmm, should I bid on those Surfinias . . . . .
[Boolbar] Don't you dare!!
much, much later...
The blue Surfinias are mine, MINE, ALL MINE!!! mwahahahahahahah!
Blue
Surfinias? Are you sure they aren't the Smurfinias - the little blue characters with bleached hair and a funny hat riding a surf board? I suppose they'd still make cute garden gnomes.
[pen] we're excited for you. interior design is a worryingly popular thing in our house. our favourites list on our cable box runs 'sky one', 'UKTV Gold', 'sky sports news', 'UKTV Style' - whu?
The only interior design I did as a student was pinning up posters and checking down the back of every settee in every house I lived in for loose change and valuables. Only ever found forks stuck about with Nuttalls Mintoes though.
chuckworthy
pen] I read that as ".. and chUcking down the back of every settee in every house ..." :-)
nights] Exterior design, shurely?
'sit Rover
So Rover has come finally to the end of car production. Although I am sad to see an end to 6,000 jobs and all the supporting industry. It has been a slow motion car crash and inevitable as Phoenix tried to maintain the existing levels of mass production. My hope is that the administrators will come to an agreement with someone like Alchemy do build a niche market MG even though this will be with a much reduced workforce.
This weekend will be further decoration of the living room. As background I tune the Freeview box to digital radio, lots of channels but end up listening to 6Music. I tried Q but after hearing The Waterboys for the third time in as many days and accident lawyers, next stop is Kerrang!
Sic transit Rover
You can't imagine the French government allowing Renault or Citroen to go bust or the Germans BMW, Audi or Daimler, can you? So how seriously does the government take manufacturing? Not very, as we all know.
Rover
Why pay them to make what no-one wants to buy?
I don't see what more the government can do. They've offered big injections of cash, they've tried to broker a deal with the Chinese car company... If a private company cannot compete and goes under, it's not the government's responsibility to keep it afloat any more than it is anyone else's. I think it's pretty good that they did as much as they did.
Why should the workforce get screwed over for management's incompetence (and squirreling away of large amounts of cash from the company, from some reports)? And if Rover cars really can't be sold, turn the production lines over to something useful, like public transport.
[Irouleguy] Exploring the possibilities of keeping the business going is precisely the administrators' job. But in the end, if they can't find anyone who wants to run it and has a credible business plan, it goes under. That is unfortunate for the former employees, but losing out when the people you work for fail is one of the risks of any sort of employment.
I have never understood the fetish about manufacturing. I mean, Rover makes a car in the midlands. Fine. But if you want to buy the car in Glasgow, say, then you need someone to transport it, which means a services sector. And then you want to buy it, and you probably don't have several thousands pounds in cash on you, so you need a bank, which again means a services sector.
The point is that the product that interests you is not a car sitting on a lot hundreds of miles from you that can only be purchased for cash on the nail. It is a car available for delivery in Glasgow in exchange for a bank draft. And that requires services every bit as much as it needs manufacturing.
The point is that the product that interests you is not a car sitting on a lot hundreds of miles from you that can only be purchased for cash on the nail. It is a car available for delivery in Glasgow in exchange for a bank draft. And that requires services every bit as much as it needs manufacturing.
That's funny
In Glasgow I thought they just nicked them. Oh well, live and learn.
Raak] Unless the government steps in and does something, like nationalise it. Governments used to do that here, and they still do on the continent and elsewhere. When exactly did it get written that the market has the absolute power to screw us all over?
[Irouleguy] I.e. subsidise it with other people's money. When exactly did it get written that every incompetently run business has the absolute power to put a trowel into my pocket?
(Raak) When the railways were privatised, amongst other instances. The Government subsidy to Train Operators and Rolling Stock Leasing companies is huge, and vastly more than was available to BR. Large amounts of public money disappear into private profit. So the true answer to your question is; "when the current political dogma has to be satisfied". There's a lot of it about, worldwide, and always has been.
jobsworth
Littlewoods is shedding 3000 jobs and closing most of its 'Index' stores. Will there be a march on parliament and hundreds of millions of pounds in government aid?
No work today
Raak] What Rosie said, plus the Common Agricultural Policy (which puts your money and mine into the pockets of the royal family!), the Export Credit Guarantee Department (which ensured that when arms manufacturers flogged stuff to Saddam Hussain and he didn't pay up that you and I paid for it), the 'guarantees' given to PFI contractors....
Easy money
(Irouléguy) I was going to mention all that, so I'm glad you did. Also, many countries practise protectionism. A typical example (the legally-enforceable Buy American policy of many US institutions) cost me my job in 1998.
it's early and I'm tired
Also it doesn't help that the average CEO's salary has risen to a truely incomprehensible sum. Oh, your company is out of money? Mayhaps it's because you were paying yourself thirty million dollars a year for a job consisting largely of assigning yourself more stock options. Fortunately you'll never feel the sting of unemployment because you write yourself off as a personal corporation for tax purposes and you don't need one of those silly retirement accounts because you have more money than King Solomon. Sadly four thousand people have lost their honest, hard-working jobs, but if they're that honest and hard-working I'm sure they'll land on their feet.
...
On a separate note, I want to see someone jump twenty motorcycles with a full size bus.
...
On a separate note, I want to see someone jump twenty motorcycles with a full size bus.
goodbyeee
hello everyone, since university work is building up and building up at an alarming rate, I don't really have time to keep playing MC, sadly. I hope to be back in the summer, but for now I'll say goodnight and hope you all have a LOT of fun in Rugby. (crossposted)
Good prince sweet nights
Take care, even us new fellows will miss you.
[Rosie, Irouléguy] But your examples really just support Raak's point. Raak says "we shouldn't subsidise companies that make stuff that no-one wants to buy". Your response seems to be "we should, because, look, here are lots of other ridiculous cases where the government subsidises companies that make stuff that no-one wants to buy". Raak would respond (I guess) "Absolutely. Scrap the CAP and export guarantees and all of those other stupid policies as well". In other words, in rebutting Raak's rhetorical point ("when exactly did it get written...") you end up buttressing his substantive point.
Which raises the question: is having people out of work "bad" for the wider economy? (It's obviously "bad" for those people who aren't being paid, but the economy doesn't care about people so that's an irrelevant concern). If the answer is "yes", is it right for a government to find ways to get people into employment?
There is a simple (simplistic?) argument that goes that it's cheaper and better for the economy to have a person producing 1000 units of value to the economy and paying them 1500 units to do so if the alternative is to pay them 1000 units to do nothing. This means government intervention and subsidy, because although it's good for the economy it's bad for any individual employer.
I know there are all sorts of arguments about market distortion, structural inefficiencies, impact on long-term competitiveness etc. (I'm sure CdM can come up with plenty of them). And yet it seems to me there's still a fundamental truth in there which those arguments don't eliminate - especially if aid and subsidy is carefully aimed and time-restricted.
Having said that, Rover was dead in the water 5 years ago and the 6000 working there have had 5 years more work and pay out of it than they had any right to expect. It is not a suitable recipient for further aid in its present form or on its present site. All the government can do is help to manage the transition to other jobs for the people concerned.
I know there are all sorts of arguments about market distortion, structural inefficiencies, impact on long-term competitiveness etc. (I'm sure CdM can come up with plenty of them). And yet it seems to me there's still a fundamental truth in there which those arguments don't eliminate - especially if aid and subsidy is carefully aimed and time-restricted.
Having said that, Rover was dead in the water 5 years ago and the 6000 working there have had 5 years more work and pay out of it than they had any right to expect. It is not a suitable recipient for further aid in its present form or on its present site. All the government can do is help to manage the transition to other jobs for the people concerned.
[rab] Every day out of work for someone who is able to work is a day's labour lost forever. Labour is the most perishable commodity there is. The fewer people who work, the less stuff is created. So yes, having people out of work makes us all poorer. Of course, I'm taking the view that the more stuff we have (including intangibles such as art and clean streets) the better; someone who takes the opposite view, that the less stuff we have the better, like some extreme environmentalists, would presumably want to see unemployment rise as high as possible, and will be celebrating that a manufacturer of evil machines has finally gone out of business.
[rab] You also take the view that all jobs result in "stuff being created," which isn't necessarily true.
[Darren] Do I? Or did you mean Raak?
[Darren] Assuming you meant me, yes, there are unproductive jobs, such as, according to the stories, a lot of the management jobs at Rover. Paying people a fat salary to do nothing does nobody any good, including the people paid the fat salary.
Yes, I meant Raak. Sorry about that.
CdM] You're right in that I wasn't defending the practices I listed (and I'm pretty sure Rosie wasn't either). The point we were making was that it's a conscious political choice for the government to let Rover go to the wall, and that this is a bad thing. I'd echo most of INJ's and Raak's answers to rab, as well. I think it is the government's responsibility to do something about employment.
There's a really lovely argument in Peter Singer's The President of Good and Evil against the "it's my money" position re: tax (and by extension re: interventionist economic policy), which I'm now going to have to dig out and mention. There we go, the book was useful for something after all.
[Projoy] That should be interesting. It is my money. By what right does he claim the government gets to take a cut of every business transaction?
[Irouléguy] By that reasoning, pretty much everything is a conscious political choice. Your local newsagent closes down? Conscious political choice -- the government could have paid them two million pounds to stay open. You chose to go onto the internet today? Conscious political choice! -- the government could have bribed you not to.
If you want to make an argument for why the government should intervene in this particular case (and a good argument has to be one that also explains when the government should not intervene), then that's fair enough and I would be interested to hear it. I have to say I think Raak's summary is the appropriate one here, though: Rover were making something that people didn't want to buy. The End.
(On the other hand I disagree with Raak on the 'it's my money' argument, but I think that is a whole different debate.)
If you want to make an argument for why the government should intervene in this particular case (and a good argument has to be one that also explains when the government should not intervene), then that's fair enough and I would be interested to hear it. I have to say I think Raak's summary is the appropriate one here, though: Rover were making something that people didn't want to buy. The End.
(On the other hand I disagree with Raak on the 'it's my money' argument, but I think that is a whole different debate.)
CdM] I don't think the first point follows at all. The closure will cost something like 5,000 jobs at Longbridge, plus up to 15,000 in suppliers - that's up to 20,000 wage packets taken out of the local economy, which will then have a further knock-on effect across the West Midlands. Any government would have to take a position on an economic event of that magnitude. The tens of thousands of people whose lives are blighted is why the government should intervene - and I don't see why a coherent case for that depends on saying that if it were a different set of people the government shouldn't. Obviously I don't think every failed small business is a case for government intervention, but I think that's something of a straw person.
As for Rover making something that no-one wanted to buy, again some exaggeration: Rover couldn't sell enough of what it produced to persuade the people with the money to invest in it, which is a rather different matter. And then there's the little matter of the £500 million hole in Rover's finances (allegedly). Taking the money and running comes to mind.
As for Rover making something that no-one wanted to buy, again some exaggeration: Rover couldn't sell enough of what it produced to persuade the people with the money to invest in it, which is a rather different matter. And then there's the little matter of the £500 million hole in Rover's finances (allegedly). Taking the money and running comes to mind.
I actually think this Government is being quite brave in letting Rover die. 30 years of government subsidies of BL et al has failed to produce a company that comes close to making a profit, let alone a decent product. Whilst I fully accept Irouéleguy's argument is pertinent, that volume of investment would shirley be better placed in other sectors where there was a chance of making it work? And to do this in the run in to a general election is, perhaps, unprecedented. And before the accusations fly, I do not (and have only once) vote(d) Labour.
But I do work for a rival car company...
But I do work for a rival car company...
[Irouléguy] Something like 300,000 businesses close down in the UK each year (the vast majority of them small businesses). Even if those companies are all single-person enterprises, that's 300,000 jobs, plus I don't know how many suppliers, not to mention further knock-on effects across the entire country. Any government would have to take a position on an economic event of that magnitude. The hundreds of thousands of people whose lives are blighted is why the government should intervene.
I don't think small business failure is a straw person at all. Tell me why Rover should be bailed out, as opposed to 5,000 randomly selected small businesses.
I don't think small business failure is a straw person at all. Tell me why Rover should be bailed out, as opposed to 5,000 randomly selected small businesses.
Please accept my humblest apologies for the cross posting. The new Rugby event games have now been posted here - or if the link doesn’t work – in the Orange Pilg Game.
The sleepover event, entitled That Went Off Very Well, looks as if we have a record number of players – but more are always welcome. Kind regards, James the dog.
The sleepover event, entitled That Went Off Very Well, looks as if we have a record number of players – but more are always welcome. Kind regards, James the dog.
Rover
I used to have a P6. It were lovely. I know it isn't "mass production" but we are still (we = uk) making world class cars to wit, the TVRs of Blackpool, and from Kensington, the humble BRISTOL. Check out the "FIGHTER".
Rover
I must say I'm entirely with CdM on this one. And not just because I don't like cars, either. Last time I got made redundant, the government didn't step in with a cash injection to my company so it could keep me on. But it did provide benefits until I found a new job. I'd have thought that the task of the government in cases like this is to try to help people back into work - which this government has done admirably with its various schemes - rather than artificially subsidise a company that clearly isn't going anywhere. If you think that it should do that, then at what point do you call it a day? Would Rover still exist in 50 years' time as a bizarre, quaint hangover from the past, pointlessly making useless things, a kind of manufacturing Sisyphus, paid for by the government simply because it's a grand old institution, like the monarchy? I'd say that if there is a point at which you just can't do any more, and surely there is, then that point has been reached.
Hi all! Sorry about the AVMA débacle. I really rather thought there'd be internet in ONE of the hostels I was staying in. But alas, twas not to be. Looks like it's going at a rollocking pace since I left though so I shan't intefere :)
[Raak] Sorry, I haven't looked it up yet and I can't remember all the details of the argument off the top of my head. I'll try and find it and post it for critical review here, as I found it pretty persuasive I must admit. (BTW, aren't you a hardline utilitarian too? The Rover argument hints that you are.)
Mm. On second thought, maybe it doesn't. I think the gist of the Singer argument on tax is that we all subsist within superstructures of wealth, and that "your" money wouldn't buy you anything without those superstructures, and those superstructures have costs that you don't generally pay directly, but you can, sort of, in a way, if you will, pay them indirectly via tax. But as I say, I don't remember the detail and may have that wrong.
hardlining
[Projoy] I've always thought of Raak as more of a libertarian. But I would be interested to know how he describes himself. As for "whose money is it anyway", variants of that kind of argument certainly predate Singer. Broadly speaking I take the view that our ability to transact is only secured by governments that protect property rights, enforce contracts, jail muggers (unless they are managing large corporations, of course), that kind of thing. The social contract that we agree to is that, in return for these guarantees, we accept that governments have the right to tax us. And once that right is established, there are then good public policy arguments for various kinds of taxing and spending by government. That's pretty loosely articulated, but then it is very late here in Singapore. :-)
[CdM] Libertarian, definitely. And there is a libertarian answer to the question of how things could work without governments, for which see David Friedman's book The Machinery of Freedom (which I haven't read, but I have read a lot of his postings to Usenet). He has a web site with related essays and sample chapters from the book.
The problem with the social contract idea is that it isn't a contract in any reasonable sense of the word. I don't have a choice about it (beyond emigrating to live under someone else's social contract) and its terms are nowhere defined. In practice, they are defined as obligating people and governments to do exactly what the person invoking it thinks they ought to do. It's as empty as religionists explaining how the elephant got its nose by saying God made it that way.
[Projoy] I don't see there (in the "Compassionate Conservatism and Tax Cuts" section) any argument that these things must be done by governments, only the unsupported assertion accompanied by (to borrow an epithet he uses a few sentences later) a simplistic caricature of the idea. So where he says that "it's our money" is a simplistic and indefensible way to think about tax, I would say it's a simplistic and defensible way to think about tax.
Something that might be worth reading alongside Singer's utilitarian writings is C. S. Lewis' The Abolition Of Man.
The problem with the social contract idea is that it isn't a contract in any reasonable sense of the word. I don't have a choice about it (beyond emigrating to live under someone else's social contract) and its terms are nowhere defined. In practice, they are defined as obligating people and governments to do exactly what the person invoking it thinks they ought to do. It's as empty as religionists explaining how the elephant got its nose by saying God made it that way.
[Projoy] I don't see there (in the "Compassionate Conservatism and Tax Cuts" section) any argument that these things must be done by governments, only the unsupported assertion accompanied by (to borrow an epithet he uses a few sentences later) a simplistic caricature of the idea. So where he says that "it's our money" is a simplistic and indefensible way to think about tax, I would say it's a simplistic and defensible way to think about tax.
Something that might be worth reading alongside Singer's utilitarian writings is C. S. Lewis' The Abolition Of Man.
Yes, obviously the argument is worked through a bit better in his book. But regarding the social contract, I'm more with CdM, on the assumption that when he says "we agree" he's using it as shorthand for "we accept perforce as the collective behaviour of our species, appreciate the logic, whether we agree or not, and find a way of functioning within the social contract". As a bleeding-heart liberal, the trouble I always have with libertarian arguments (at least as I've heard them advanced) is they are fundamentally unempathetic and callous. They also tend to massively overestimate the effectiveness of individual choice compared to collective effort and, critically, most people's reasoning ability. I'm not being snobby here, I just mean that there isn't time in a human's life to individually negotiate the details of their relationship, financial or otherwise, to everyone they deal with: hence trade unions, hence law, hence social conventions, hence - in short - collectivisation. Libertarianism to me is fine in smaller, simple communities than our current ones, but personally I'd rather have electricity, free internet infrastructure, safe dwellings and (when necessary) unemployment benefit than a basket of berries and nowt else.
BTW, inasmuch as I have a philosophy, it probably is of the utilitarian greatest-happiness variety...
How things would work without governments
[Raak] We would all have ponies.
er... and hopefully your browser will word wrap that.
Raak recommending C.S. Lewis? There's a thing. For what it's worth, I was under the impression that libertarianism was a political stance, not a moral philosophy.
[CdM] That's right. But what is this blog? Actually, right now I'm mired in indecision, wondering whether going to Singapore would be the right thing to do or not. I'm not certain I want to be an academic, but that's what it would basically channel me into. Plus, of course, being away from my girlfriend for a long time would be a bad thing. I hate making decisions!
[CdM] That's right. But what is this blog? Actually, right now I'm mired in indecision, wondering whether going to Singapore would be the right thing to do or not. I'm not certain I want to be an academic, but that's what it would basically channel me into. Plus, of course, being away from my girlfriend for a long time would be a bad thing. I hate making decisions!
[Projoy] Singer is advocating relativism about property. Property is whatever local custom and law says it is. If local custom and law says the government owns your whole salary, why, that's just how it is. They can own your firstborn, or you yourself. That's the social contract you somehow accepted when you got born, and any silly idea you have about owning things that the government says you can't is just an illusion. The government owns everything it provides, and it owns everything it needs to take from you to provide it. Lest you think I'm exaggerating, I have actually heard someone argue (before the Wall came down) that East Germany was perfectly justified in shooting people attempting to escape, because such people were stealing the upbringing and education that the state had given them, and which therefore gave the state a property interest in their person. Singer even comes straight out and says "A system of government is conceptually prior to property rights." Who's ignoring human nature now? I mean, most larger animals behave like they have some sort of idea of "my stuff", never mind human beings, and they don't have governments to enforce the idea, they do it themselves. In just about any political philosophy but Singer's, governments are instituted to secure pre-existing property rights.
A key concept in discussions of libertarianism is, "Utopia is not an option", so when Belle Waring brings in "libertarian utopia" I pretty much lose interest, even though she's recounting a discussion involving David Friedman. The wishful thinking can be found just as much on the other sides. Look here to see what you can do to Make Poverty History: email the PM, send postcards, sign a petition (of breathtaking fatuity), wear a white ribbon, and "call for change and make it happen"! Let's wish for government to give everyone a pony! At least Singer gives 20% of his income to charity.
[CdM again, re Brad deLong] Go back to those earlier writers and ask them to imagine a world without servants. Go back earlier and ask people to imagine a world without slaves, or (say, in mediaeval Europe) a world without Christianity. You would get the same incredulity as you do at present asking most people to imagine a world without government.
[Bm] I see it as a political stance grounded in the moral philosophy that everyone has a duty to take responsibility for themselves and their actions, and to make the very best of what they're given by fate, nobody else owing them anything but what they freely choose to give. That is not by any means the whole of morality -- it is largely disjoint from the Tao admirably expounded by C.S. Lewis in the book I mentioned -- but I regard it as an essential part of the whole.
A key concept in discussions of libertarianism is, "Utopia is not an option", so when Belle Waring brings in "libertarian utopia" I pretty much lose interest, even though she's recounting a discussion involving David Friedman. The wishful thinking can be found just as much on the other sides. Look here to see what you can do to Make Poverty History: email the PM, send postcards, sign a petition (of breathtaking fatuity), wear a white ribbon, and "call for change and make it happen"! Let's wish for government to give everyone a pony! At least Singer gives 20% of his income to charity.
[CdM again, re Brad deLong] Go back to those earlier writers and ask them to imagine a world without servants. Go back earlier and ask people to imagine a world without slaves, or (say, in mediaeval Europe) a world without Christianity. You would get the same incredulity as you do at present asking most people to imagine a world without government.
[Bm] I see it as a political stance grounded in the moral philosophy that everyone has a duty to take responsibility for themselves and their actions, and to make the very best of what they're given by fate, nobody else owing them anything but what they freely choose to give. That is not by any means the whole of morality -- it is largely disjoint from the Tao admirably expounded by C.S. Lewis in the book I mentioned -- but I regard it as an essential part of the whole.
[Raak] Interesting. When Singer says "a system of government is conceptually prior to property rights" (rather than, say, chronologically prior) surely he doesn't mean that before we had governments we had no property. What he means is that when two people, or indeed other animals come into conflict over property, there immediately emerges some means of deciding priority: strength, guile etc. Out of the two organisms you have a system of government (note that Singer does not say government itself). When 'strength of numbers' becomes the deciding factor in terms of who gets the resources you have something even more recognisable as a system of government. These arrangements are transitory, unstable, inefficient. Surely what we see in our own far more effient and abstract systems of government is the ossification of many iterations of this sort of process? (i.e. Government is inevitable, discuss). Even a world without a nominal government, run, say, by communities of interest or corporations there would be a de facto pecking order, wouldn't there? Assuming this world had such things as property rights, the big corps would be a system of government.
[Raak] How do you react to the following? "Your property is what anybody stronger than you lets you own and that you don't surrender to anybody weaker than you, or vice versa."
[Projoy] Ha! By yielding I overcome! "Property" doesn't exist as a real thing in itself. Neither do "rights". "Property" and "rights" are ways in which people conceptualise how people should relate to each other. So, your hypothetical statement is an accurate description of who actually gets to own stuff, but not a description of most people's various ideas about what constitutes property and who should have it.
[Projoy, your previous message] I don't see two dogs fighting over a bone as a government, nor two tribes fighting over territory. If the word "government" is extended to mean "whatever way people arrange of living together" then even the hypothetical world of David Friedman's book has a government. But that empties the word of usefulness. Governments, that we call governments, have just this in common: that they impose by force a monopoly on the use of force to settle disputes.
Weirder and weirder
I've just been investigating Time Capsules for a PR stunt proposal... and then looked at my horoscope which said: "Consider the long term today." (Cancer, Jonathan Cainer) Ha.
[pen] Do you take time capsules (3 times a day with meals) to give you more time to do things?
Taking my time (three times a day, with food)
[Boolbar] Yup.
Cancer
[pen] That must be me too then. I don't read horoscopes, so I have to take mine second-hand, obviously. Thanks.
I once owned a cook book by Jonathan Cainer. It consisted of recipes like, "Open can. Put beans on plate. Serve." and some strange gubbins about how vegetarianism was an affirmation of life. He's a man of many talents! If only he used some of them.
[Raak] You're dismissing Belle Waring's arguments because she uses "libertarian utopia" as a tongue-in-cheek description of the kind of society that Epstein, Barnett and Friedman are discussing. But leave that phrase aside if you like: I think her one paragraph synopses of their arguments is pretty close to the money.
As an economist, I am sympathetic to the view that we should encourage the value-creating possibilities of private contracting between individuals, and as a social liberal, I am sympathetic to the view that we should limit government intrusion into private decisions. Those are positions that loosely ally with libertarianism. But I am also aware that, in the real world, private transactions frequently have significant consequences beyond the transactors, and libertarian arguments start crumbling rapidly one you take this seriously. (Epstein recognizes this in his contribution, and so ends up advocating a form of state that is not really that different from what we already have; he would simply like to see less government regulation.) The key paragraph from Belle Waring's argument is surely this, though:
Now, everyone close your eyes and try to imagine a private, profit-making rights-enforcement organization which does not resemble the mafia, a street gang, those pesky fire-fighters/arsonists/looters who used to provide such "services" in old New York and Tokyo, medieval tax-farmers, or a Lendu militia. (In general, if thoughts of the Eastern Congo intrude, I suggest waving them away with the invisible hand and repeating "that's anarcho-capitalism" several times.) Nothing's happening but a buzzing noise, right?
I am completely with her here: it is at this point that I think libertarianism utterly loses touch with reality. Private contracting without some institution to enforce contracts is infeasible, and private provision of contract enforcement strikes me as much scarier than enforcement by a democratically elected government. (Perhaps that's what comes of visiting countries where ordinary restaurants are guarded by men with sub-machine guns.)
Oh, and you are completely misreading Brad DeLong. He is not saying that Smith, Hume, Hobbes, et al. couldn't imagine a world without government; he is saying the exact opposite. He is saying that they know it to be a crazy idea because they can imagine it all too well.
As an economist, I am sympathetic to the view that we should encourage the value-creating possibilities of private contracting between individuals, and as a social liberal, I am sympathetic to the view that we should limit government intrusion into private decisions. Those are positions that loosely ally with libertarianism. But I am also aware that, in the real world, private transactions frequently have significant consequences beyond the transactors, and libertarian arguments start crumbling rapidly one you take this seriously. (Epstein recognizes this in his contribution, and so ends up advocating a form of state that is not really that different from what we already have; he would simply like to see less government regulation.) The key paragraph from Belle Waring's argument is surely this, though:
Now, everyone close your eyes and try to imagine a private, profit-making rights-enforcement organization which does not resemble the mafia, a street gang, those pesky fire-fighters/arsonists/looters who used to provide such "services" in old New York and Tokyo, medieval tax-farmers, or a Lendu militia. (In general, if thoughts of the Eastern Congo intrude, I suggest waving them away with the invisible hand and repeating "that's anarcho-capitalism" several times.) Nothing's happening but a buzzing noise, right?
I am completely with her here: it is at this point that I think libertarianism utterly loses touch with reality. Private contracting without some institution to enforce contracts is infeasible, and private provision of contract enforcement strikes me as much scarier than enforcement by a democratically elected government. (Perhaps that's what comes of visiting countries where ordinary restaurants are guarded by men with sub-machine guns.)
Oh, and you are completely misreading Brad DeLong. He is not saying that Smith, Hume, Hobbes, et al. couldn't imagine a world without government; he is saying the exact opposite. He is saying that they know it to be a crazy idea because they can imagine it all too well.
I haven't thought about this too much, or read any of the references (hmmm - pursuing as ever the highest standards of academic rigour...). However my immediate reaction to the concept of "no government" is a feeling that such a thing would in fact be unstable. For without government, it is surely then impossible to have an army. Without an army, you leave yourself open to invasion from a power that does have an army, and you're back to having a government. If there were no governments, as there once weren't, a nucleation event would surely propagate. Or am I being too simplistic?
[CdM] On the last point, I don't think I am misreading: the hypothetical responses of Smith et al are those of people unable to imagine the alternatives. (As a digression, I would not be surprised -- except by my living so long -- to see in a century's time the relationship of "employment" being regarded as as degrading as "keeping a servant" is regarded by many people today.)
Having just read the Reason article that Belle Waring had such fun with, her summary of Friedman is way off. There is no wishful thinking in Friedman. Speculation, certainly. Waring is speculating as well, speculating about a world in which the governmental restraints on people that we see around us are absent, but ignoring all of the proposals for what might replace them. Let's wish for no-one to have a pony!
The fundamental problem of having a government to secure public goods is this: how do you restrict the government to doing only that? Looking around at the world, it seems clear to me that nobody has found a solution to that problem. The thing that governments are most effective at is securing and extending their own power.
[rab] The idea is that there are other institutions instead, ones that do not take the form of a small group of people (elected or otherwise) telling everyone else what to do. As you point out, the original state of institutionless nature was in fact followed by governments.
Having just read the Reason article that Belle Waring had such fun with, her summary of Friedman is way off. There is no wishful thinking in Friedman. Speculation, certainly. Waring is speculating as well, speculating about a world in which the governmental restraints on people that we see around us are absent, but ignoring all of the proposals for what might replace them. Let's wish for no-one to have a pony!
The fundamental problem of having a government to secure public goods is this: how do you restrict the government to doing only that? Looking around at the world, it seems clear to me that nobody has found a solution to that problem. The thing that governments are most effective at is securing and extending their own power.
[rab] The idea is that there are other institutions instead, ones that do not take the form of a small group of people (elected or otherwise) telling everyone else what to do. As you point out, the original state of institutionless nature was in fact followed by governments.
[Raak] How do you restrict anyone to securing public goods? Whether they are government in name or (part of) government by fact? Constitutions, bills of rights, checks and balances all seem like a good start to me.
[Raak] re your previous points about convention determining property... I think you are overstating it in a way that suggests Government is not continuous with us, the people. You could justifiably accuse me of cultural myopia here, I suppose, because I'm thinking mainly about democratic governments of the type I've directly experienced, but there is an extent to which governments may be closer to a genuine contract than the simple fiat of convention or the powerful: democracy, including lobbyism etc. is it. I'd be interesting to know whether your argument is based on a greatest-happiness idea and if so how libertarian mechanisms follow from that. As I mentioned before, my problem with systems based on high personal responsibility is that they do not recognise the moral value of protecting the weak. It strikes me that you have to bite the bullet and say (as you once jokingly put it) "a man who doesn't have enough friends to pull his plough had better starve".
Also, I note you haven't really responded to the argument about social capital.
s/interesting/interested
St George's Day Celebrations
Salisbury is festooned. There's a re-enactment of the mighty battle plus lots of celebrations in the market place tomorrow. I'd happily place a bet that every school age child in our district knows who St George is.
On this subject ...
I could do with some help because I have very little free time ... I have to compile 10 questions for our Sunday Quiz night [coincidentally the pub is the George & Dragon] on the theme of George & The Dragon so I need 5 'George' questions and 5 'Dragon' questions - not just historical ones. 2 easy ones that spring to mind are "what is the name of the actor who played George in George and Mildred" and "the full name please of the lizard that has the word dragon in its name?" That sort of level. Any further ideas would be much appreciated ..
On this subject ...
I could do with some help because I have very little free time ... I have to compile 10 questions for our Sunday Quiz night [coincidentally the pub is the George & Dragon] on the theme of George & The Dragon so I need 5 'George' questions and 5 'Dragon' questions - not just historical ones. 2 easy ones that spring to mind are "what is the name of the actor who played George in George and Mildred" and "the full name please of the lizard that has the word dragon in its name?" That sort of level. Any further ideas would be much appreciated ..
Erm.. name of the Rentaghost dragon.. island to have been awarded the George cross.. origin of the phrase By George!..
thanks rab :-)
You could ask for the translation of the motto of Hogwart's school: "Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus". How many King Georges have we had? (or how many Georges reigned in the eighteenth/twentieth century?). Who wrote "Aida" and what does his name translate into English as? What was George VI's real name? Who wrote "I Got Rhythm"? (or which of the following pieces/novels/whatever were written by a George?)... Who performed "Georgy Girl"?
The name of the Dragon in The Hobbit...
Gosg - thanks Projoy :-) :-)
Gosg?
D&D
(With apologies for cross-post)
My ten-year-old son is very keen to play Dungeons & Dragons (of the take left fork, pick up ring, drink potion type) - can anyone suggest a good site for him to visit that is (a) safe for 10-y-os, (b) interesting but accessible to a 10-y-o novice and (c) free or at least inexpensive ? It doesn't matter whether its MUDD playing other players or simply finding his way through a maze playing only the computer - in fact the latter might be better to start with ... any ideas ?
My ten-year-old son is very keen to play Dungeons & Dragons (of the take left fork, pick up ring, drink potion type) - can anyone suggest a good site for him to visit that is (a) safe for 10-y-os, (b) interesting but accessible to a 10-y-o novice and (c) free or at least inexpensive ? It doesn't matter whether its MUDD playing other players or simply finding his way through a maze playing only the computer - in fact the latter might be better to start with ... any ideas ?
I suppose something like Nethack or Slash'Em would be OK for him, if he didn't find the user interface too complicated.
On the more less-D&D-but-more-maze-with-potions-and-monsters side of things, and at the risk of blowing my own trumpet, why not try Ravenskull, which I programmed for Superior Interactive? (www.superiorinteractive.co.uk)
Nethack can come from http://www.nethack.org/ and Slash'Em can come from http://slashem.sourceforge.net/
Lynx
[Darren] You can do hyperlinks here in the usual way (until I get round to changing the syntax slightly as a spam blockade).
Anyway, did you write the original Ravenskull, or convert it to PC? I vaguely recall owning this for my trusty old Acorn Electron when I were a lad, but there were a number of these types of games it could have been another one... In any case, Kudos!
And there's the original,one and only, Colossal Cave.
[rab] I didn't write the original Ravenskull - I did the PC port. Superior Interactive is of course the descendent of the original publisher of Ravenskull on the BBC/Electron (Superior Software) and is still run by Mr Hanson. I've worked on a number of the PC (and other platform) ports of the old Superior games, and still am for that matter.
Thanks for the info. We'll go and have a look at the suggested sites.
Question for Chalky
There have been five kings of England called George. The latest was George V. Name the other four.
*blush*
[Chalky] Oops, have just realised that the Aida question has no George connection :). You could put it in as a trick one, tho :) An alternative would be to see if people can name any hit by Boy George's Culture Club apart from Karma Chameleon.
I'm pretty sure there are quite a few lizards with the word "dragon" in their name (I can think of two off-hand) so I'd avoid that question!
Personally I don't approve of the celebration of St George's Day: simply a slavish copy of the celebration of St Patrick's Day, which itself is an Americanism. At least St Patrick actually had something to do with Ireland: St George is terribly obscure at best and had nothing whatsoever to do with England in the slightest.
Personally I don't approve of the celebration of St George's Day: simply a slavish copy of the celebration of St Patrick's Day, which itself is an Americanism. At least St Patrick actually had something to do with Ireland: St George is terribly obscure at best and had nothing whatsoever to do with England in the slightest.
*has a queasy feeling of deja vu*
Quiz Qu's
(Chalky) What have George Eliot, George Sand and George of Enid Blyton's Famous Five got in common? (Ans. - All women)
Queues of Queues
As an easy starter, or a tie breaker, how about: From the letters of the name 'George' provide two three letter words which, in essence, have the same meaning. (Ans. Roe and Egg)
[rab] Ah yes, we've had that before, haven't we? Apologies...
[Dujon] I wouldn't call that an easy one, but it's damnably clever. You might also ask what the name "George" actually means (farmer or earthworker).
[Dujon] I wouldn't call that an easy one, but it's damnably clever. You might also ask what the name "George" actually means (farmer or earthworker).
Georgiana
There has to be a suitable question to which the answer would be "Jorja Fox", but I can't quite think of one.
Paddington...er, no that's wrong. I actually meant Wimbledon. No that's wrong too... I've got it! Kings Cross. Ah - that felt good
George
Damn - wish I'd seen Chalky's request earlier, I love setting quiz questions, but have obviously missed the Sunday deadline now. BTW [SM] Five kings called George ?
As a matter of interest :
As a matter of interest :
- George III was what relation of George II ?
- What is the name of the constellation representing the dragon
- George fighting the dragon appeared on the reverse of which British coin ? (two possible answers)
- Where did George play with Zippy & Bungle ?
- Name Hagrid's baby dragon
- If Sid James was George, who was The Dragon ?
- Which George had an affair with Chopin ?
- Which country owns Komodo of Komodo Dragon fame ?
Five kings
It's true. It is also true that there have been two kings of England called George. The latest of which was George II. See?
[Blob] You've got me stumped on the Sid James question.
George and the Dragon
Either Peggy Mount or Hattie Jaques. I'm leaning toward Peggy Mount.
Argent a cross gules
Bif is leaning in the correct direction !
Link
[Pj] A quick Google found this
D&D
blob - I sent you this link anyway, but why not buy your little chaperoo The D&D Player's Handbook. My advice would be encourage him to play it with some friends without a computer. The dice are very cool.
No wonder Bif is leaning. Who has the bigger gravitational pull, Hattie Jacques or Peggy Mount?
AD&D
[Blob / st d] In a recent nostalgic fit, I picked up from Ebay the standard quintet of AD&D manuals that I used to use at the end of the 1980s. Quite makes me want to have another go myself... Now, I just have to rescue my polyhedral dice from the fellow I leant them to about 10 years ago...
Speaking of dragons, does anyone remember the name of the TV programme that was on years ago, a sort of game show like an ancestor of "The Crystal Maze", which was set on a space ship or alien planet in which everything was an anagram of the word "dragon", and which featured a grid on which the player had to move from node to node while being chased by a shimmery thing?
Yes. It was The Adventure Game, and the shimmery thing was "The Vortex" if I recall.
Have just applied for a job online. Which feels wrong somehow. I like putting things into envelopes.
That's it! I knew it was a strangely unexotic title.
[Breadmaster] Yep, it was a wonderful show. I understood they repeated it on some cable channel recently, but since I don't have things like that I couldn't see the repeats. It's a pity cos I'd love to see it again. All I have is the theme music and about 300 screen grabs to keep me company.
Chunky chunks of strudel to all who helped with quizzing :-)
Adventure game feem toon
Oh yes, it's the John Williamsy guitar one, isn't it?
[Botherer] That's right. Ferdinando Carulli's Duo in G, Op. 34, performed by Julian Bream & John Williams.
(Cross-posting) At last! Internet at home! Mwahahahahaha!
he's spreading it about a bit
[UK] You got everywhere!
[penelope] I see you've acquired a new semicolon. It suits you!
Adveture Game
That was a GREAT show. I can still do a very convincing impersonation of The Rangdo Of Arg, aoart from teh looking like an aspidistra part.
colonoscopy
[Darren] You think so? You don't think I should get it surgically removed?
post-semi-colonectomy
That's better. People were avoiding me.
Must go for a slash.
Please excuse my accent. I've lived here for too long I suspect. Whilst the problem's acute it isn't grave at this point in time.
*swipes fly off Dujon's 'o'*
I think someone's taken a shot at my name as well....
Gosh!
It's breaking out all over...
Looks like it's surgery for me, otherwise I'll be in a diacritical condition.
Um-laut-ish behaviour. (Projoy) Your critical condition could have been even more dire if you'd had a wotsit over the "r", like Dvorak. I can't seem to find it.
[penelópe] Ah, so you have. I expect it back you know - it's not a book.
Dvorak keyboards...
The r with a thingy over it doesn't appear to be in the list of HTML entities I can find. Nor indeed the "c" with a... I think it might be called a hacek, but not sure, that is used in Czech words.
č
Háček. Bless you!
ř
ř - That's better.
*installs fly strips on every available surface as everyone but her seems to have flies buzzing around their heads* ;o)
is all I have to say on the matter !
Fls bzzng rnd
Smply mss th vwls nd thn th prblm stps.
o ie o e...
e! I'e o a y ooa!
I evacuate my vowels regularly, I guess that's why I never have that problem
Whereas I'm cons(on)(t)ant in my approach to life. Pick an' mix, kids.
A friend of mine used to pass sentences, penelope. He retired when he felt that in some cases they were becoming too long. (He was a magistrate).
None
Just testing
Did we pass?
I spotted it, but when I came back to recheck, what passes for normality had returned. I just assumed Rab had failed to pay the bills.
(Bthrr) All right for you with all your cnsnnts. :-)
Vote MC5
...in the interests of balance, where are those of us not involved in this vote represented?
Like the look though
...and, totally unrelatedly, I've just realised (thanks to a random poster) that i misspelled the "Maximum" in "Maxuimum High Speed Reverse Obliterate Ruttsborough's Ostrich" [sic]. Drat.
Subtexts
My reading is that Labour is happening and now, LibDem just grabs onto discarded Labour policies for a brief while, while the Tories are the past, only resuscitated now and then out of curiosity.
It is a bit loud isn't it? Don't worry, it'll all be over soon.
This message was brought to you by the "Anti Front-Page Graffiti Coalition (Incorporating the Stop the Dodgy Scansion Alliance)"
[Tuj] I've corrected it for you.
Apparently, I have the same IQ as Goering.
Just imagine if that were repeated all over the country.
[Projoy] IQ is quantitive, not qualitative. Or is it? And stand to attention when I'm talking to you. ;o)
Music notes
At one of the MSN Celebdaq groups I potter around, they have a daily picture quiz and a weekly on line quiz in Chat. As a challenge last night I did a music competition of 10 intros. It went down well so there will be another next week. The only major rules are, one answer per post and no consecutive posts. If you wish to have a go, it is temporarily at MSN Group MC Test Track. If you are doing this in the office - check volume first!
I name that tune in one
Number 6 is A Hard Day's Night by The Beatles.
Ah. That's better.
Late Arrivals. Why don't we have a game of Late Arrivals? Hasn't been done for... ooof.... months! Are there any games getting ready to go off around here?
The Election game could be shortlived. Although the majority's a little shaky on that one.
ITV1 is way ahead than BBC1 on declared results ... I might be pursuaded to stick with it
Yeah - are they geninue results or ITV making it up?
And BBC1 has Boris!
And Peter Snow!
Statistic of the night (so far) the Scottish Socialist Party got 666 votes in Gordon Brown's constituency!
Statistic of the night (so far) the Scottish Socialist Party got 666 votes in Gordon Brown's constituency!
[Chalky] ITV's 'results' are being announced prior to returning officers' confirmations.
Late Arrivals
(pen) Good idea. All those in favour say "aye", say I.
AYE!
psst - free game slot
Clairvoyance
I didn't like the ITV method of 'we have someone on the floor of the count with a mobile phone who's looking over the returning officer's shoulder'. Over the course of the night they got 2 or 3 wrong.
[INJ] I have to say it's not really any different from the way the parties themselves get prior results. I'm never entirely sure why knowing the results a few minutes earlier than anyone else gives you an advantage. It's not as if you can do anything about it.
[Projoy] Yes to No6.
[Darren] The agents anf their supporters are trying to second guess the result from the moment the first box is opened. Part one of the process is that we have to count the papers first into bundles of 25 face up. It is during this that they have markers on the other side of the tables with preprinted list and they watch one of the counters putting a mark against each candidate. As the boxes are in Wards they gauge quickly how it is going. At the count last night there were 13 tables of 5 counters.
During part the guessing is easier. We now take those bundles and this time sort them into four piles (Con/Lab/Lib/other) and then into candidate bundles of 25. It does not take much effort for them to estimate at this stage whether or not it is going to be close.
In Swindon mobile phones were banned from the hall where the count was being held.
[Darren] The agents anf their supporters are trying to second guess the result from the moment the first box is opened. Part one of the process is that we have to count the papers first into bundles of 25 face up. It is during this that they have markers on the other side of the tables with preprinted list and they watch one of the counters putting a mark against each candidate. As the boxes are in Wards they gauge quickly how it is going. At the count last night there were 13 tables of 5 counters.
During part the guessing is easier. We now take those bundles and this time sort them into four piles (Con/Lab/Lib/other) and then into candidate bundles of 25. It does not take much effort for them to estimate at this stage whether or not it is going to be close.
In Swindon mobile phones were banned from the hall where the count was being held.
[Inkspot] But my point was this: why bother trying to find out before it's announced? What's the point?
It gives them something to do, and try to generate a sense of excitement and tension to a very tedious, mind numbing process.
Early call
[Darren] It gives the losers chance to wipe the tears from their eyes and compose themselves.
It would be a lot more fun if they (and their agents) were locked in a sealed room and only led out to hear the result - so we could see their real live reaction.
It would be a lot more fun if they (and their agents) were locked in a sealed room and only led out to hear the result - so we could see their real live reaction.
[Blob] That would be like the Oxford Union elections, which I once made a film about and which, I can assure you, are just as keenly fought and taken just as seriously as "real" election. Ballots are counted in a completely sealed room, rather like Papal elections, with ridiculous hype about the secrecy of it all.
Free game slot again
101 Uses For a B&D Workmate with a Rope Attached?
No, seriously... what now?
No, seriously... what now?
New Game
Rutherford Scattering?
Call me Thrax.
I'm glad the student elections at MY university weren't so beligerent, Breadmaster. They were little more than an excuse for a piss-up. I ran unopposed anyway, since no one else wanted the position of Students with disabilities Secretary. Maybe THAT's why they wouldn't read out my result until after I'd sung a Karaoke of "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred, and lifted several pair drops out of a bowl full of self-raising flour using my teeth. Still, you make your own entertainment in the Midlands, I suppose.
OK
G'day, Thrax. Nice to see you posting. Hope all's well, my friend.
Call me Thrax.
Aye, 'tis well enough. Just hope they've lifted that mobile phone ban on us Swindonians.
And life treating you well down under, sir? By which I mean "in Australia", not "has the pox cleared up?" of course.
And life treating you well down under, sir? By which I mean "in Australia", not "has the pox cleared up?" of course.
As we say in the medical industry, he's doing as well as can be expected. You know what these geriatrics can be like, Mr Thrax. Once we have detoxed him he'll be able to lead a more or less normal life ... well, his normal.
Call me Thrax.
That's a relief, Matron.
I hope no one tries to detox me however. Fags and booze are about my only form of sustenance.
I hope no one tries to detox me however. Fags and booze are about my only form of sustenance.
(Thrax) And mine. Welcome back, young man. Have you defeated those FUCKING LOBSTERS?
... back again
You have a cat nap and the staff take over. Really! When I was admitted 'they' said certain procedures might be intrusive, but this is taking things a little too far. Should you ever be bludgeoned into detox, Thrax, don't believe a word of what 'they' say. For example: Trusted medical staff suggest that and MRI, or similar, could be benefical to their diagnostic appreciation. Fine. My natural suspicions were aroused when 'they' strapped me into a tube, closed a little glass door on the front and activated the control mechanism. Now, I'm fully aware that drying out the patient is one of the aims of this facility, but to con a patient into entering an industrial spin dryer under the pretext of taking care of him is indefensible.
I'm off outside for a dram and a drag. See you later.
I'm off outside for a dram and a drag. See you later.
Intro Number One
Is, of course, Boogie Wonderland by Earth, Wind and Fire.
Intro Number 5
- is "Celia" by Simon and Garfunkel, or did everybody already know that?
numbers up
[Botherer]Earth, Wind and Fire is right
[Kim]Simon and Garfunkel also right
Seeing as it has been up a couple of days since the original post, no consecutive posts rules is waived (1, 5 and 6 have been guessed.)Can you finish it off?
[Kim]Simon and Garfunkel also right
Seeing as it has been up a couple of days since the original post, no consecutive posts rules is waived (1, 5 and 6 have been guessed.)Can you finish it off?
intros
3. The Temptations - Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)
"one answer...
8. Cornershop - Brim Full of Asha
... per post"
9. Prodigy - Firestarter
10. Weather With You - Crowded House
[Juxtpose & Darren]all right ;)
which leaves 2. Little Richard - Good Golly Miss Molly, 4. Nancy and Frank Sinatra - Somethin Stupid, 7. Keane - Everybody's Changing
which leaves 2. Little Richard - Good Golly Miss Molly, 4. Nancy and Frank Sinatra - Somethin Stupid, 7. Keane - Everybody's Changing
...and now back to normal chat.
Thank goodness. I hate all that new-fangled pope music, I think it's called.
too late
[Inkspot] I actually got number 2 but had to run off for a few hours so didn't post. It is a standard (but thumpy) 12 bar blues, however, so I wasn't completely sure. The style pins it down to late 50s though. And of course I recognized number 10 within, oh, a note or two (it was all over the radios in Aus in the early 90s).
Crowded House
[flerdle] They were New Zealanders, though, weren't they? I thought Australians were vehemently 100% absolutely totally opposed to all things which emanate from New Zealand, and then some.
On checking Wikipedia, it seems only 1/3 of Crowded House was from New Zealand. This probably explains why Australians gave them a chance.
it's stereotype time!!!
[Darren] No, not at all. A New Zealander would be far more insulted to be called an Australian than an Australian would a New Zealander - they'd probably just laugh at you; don't be stuuuuupid!
Australians tend to coopt a lot of (originally) NZ stuff, if it/they get famous eg Phar Lap, Fred Hollows, Crowded House, Russell Crowe... In sports, they are 'our' worst enemies, but otherwise are generally just given a hard time because we actually don't mind them - sibling rivalry and all that. New Zealand is even more at the @rse-end of the world than Australia and it's rather small, so they tend to feel like they're in Australia's shadow most of the time and perhaps they have 'something to prove', or at least they need to differentiate themselves from big, bossy, boorish Australia(ns). Australians tend to think New Zealand is cold, wet and just that little bit dull...
When the states of Australia joined to become 'Australia' there were noises made to get New Zealand included too (a reasonable idea) but the New Zealanders would have none of that. In the past the economy was better in Australia so a lot of New Zealanders moved. Migration has recently been tending the other way. About 350,000 New Zealand citizens (out of 4 million or so) live in Australia and around 60,000 Australians (out of 20 million) live in New Zealand. Political and economic ties are very close.
Their accent is a bit weird, though, and they are said to have a thing for sheep.
NZspeak
For example, pigs. These are wooden or plastic spring clips used for hanging out the washing.
[flerdle] I got my impressions of the relationship between Australians and New Zealanders by dating a girl from New Zealand for some time. She was a pathologist and said "cadaver" in a very strange way.
NZ Speak
[Rosie] And bits. Wagers on an event's outcome. There's a game here somewhere.
more daq is back
A little bit of a long time ago some rash young people spurred on by evil edna popped along to a Beeb site Celebdaq and set up some starry eyed accounts and formed the Celebrity Mornington Crescent League. But since its hay day last year many players taken that long stretched limo to secluded island of paradise. We are now down to five.
For those like playing here are a couple of addresses to help
MSN Group Ultimates for information on dividends. It is still guess work but every little helps. This week I chose Gavin Henson for best dividend yeild.
Fancy some competition to spice up your play? The Discworld Leagues are back. One of my accounts (Cleddau) is in the Assasssins Guild.
celebdantiquing
[Inkspot] I got busy. And now my account is lapsed. Sorry. *cackle*
I'm probably being dumb here
But I've just signed up for Celebdaq and can't work out how to join the mini league. Help?
(Darren) I'm a little puzzled. Was it something like "G'day-ver"? Did she have six-appeal? Well, obviously, I suppose. :-)
[Botherer]Good to see you join up, if you leave your ID number here it will be added as soon after.
[Rosie] It was "kerdaaaaver," and she always insisted that everyone in NZ spoke like that.
Celebdaq ID
3859547
Thanks Inkspot!
Thanks Inkspot!
Hiding behind the sofa from evil edna
Botherer you are in, welcome. You should appear there very soon. The other players you may not recognise from their alias are Graham III as ffish and gil as sigmundfreud. Dujon and blamelewis you know from around the boards.
For tips and general chit chat visit MSN Group CelebdaqBasements and Ultimates for the stats. There are plenty of experienced players out there willing to help with any query. Enjoy the game.
For tips and general chit chat visit MSN Group CelebdaqBasements and Ultimates for the stats. There are plenty of experienced players out there willing to help with any query. Enjoy the game.
Call me Thrax
Ah yes, I remember Celebdaq. Had a stab at it, but I was completely utterly hopeless. :( I just don't follow the celebrity-driven media closely enough I fear. I think I'm not in touch with the zeitgeist of modern times, which seems to have an obsessive fascination with the lives of the "great and good". It just passes me by and makes no impression.
Although, Rosie, I - very much like yerself - AM aware that many celebs are known to have succumbed to near-fatal cases of Lobsteriscimusbummakissimus. Thankfully mine has cleared up, after successful treatment involving industrial pliers and dyson vacuum, leaving me feeling refreshed and absolutely fantastic. I trust you are in similarly rude health, my friend?
Although, Rosie, I - very much like yerself - AM aware that many celebs are known to have succumbed to near-fatal cases of Lobsteriscimusbummakissimus. Thankfully mine has cleared up, after successful treatment involving industrial pliers and dyson vacuum, leaving me feeling refreshed and absolutely fantastic. I trust you are in similarly rude health, my friend?
(Thrax) Very rude, as all are aware. The only lobsterish incident in my life occurred in about 1952 when I was unable to read the name of a steam loco across a couple of platforms. The place of course was Charing Crustacean (geddit). Yes, it really was. So four-eyes from an early age, not a great burden.
Sofas
Did you buy your sofa from Sofa King, Inkspot? You know, the firm which advertises as "Sofa King - Good".
I also see, Inkspot, that Dr Q+ is re-entering the fray. With the inclusion of Botherer, my reincarnation and the foibles of the market ... let the battle commence. Not that it ever went away and, anyway, ffish has been on the heavy side of the scales for yonks. I enjoy the play in the Conference but the higher leagues are, at this point in time, a bit beyond me.
Welcome, Botherer, test your skills against idiots like me. It's silly, it's stupid and, to be honest, a waste of cyberspace.
I also see, Inkspot, that Dr Q+ is re-entering the fray. With the inclusion of Botherer, my reincarnation and the foibles of the market ... let the battle commence. Not that it ever went away and, anyway, ffish has been on the heavy side of the scales for yonks. I enjoy the play in the Conference but the higher leagues are, at this point in time, a bit beyond me.
Welcome, Botherer, test your skills against idiots like me. It's silly, it's stupid and, to be honest, a waste of cyberspace.
Call me Thrax
"Charing Crustacean"! *groan* Ouch! A pun like that really aches at this time of morning, Rosie. Ha ha! It's the way ye tell 'em! Which reminds me... anyone else here enjoyed those late night shows on Radio 4 in which Pauline McLynne has been exploring the history of Irish comedy? Some marvellous quotes in it. One of my faves was from Dave Allen, in which he advised that you must never expect a sensible reply if asking for directions in Ireland, as you're likely to be told: "You want to get to there d'ye? Well, ye certainly don't want to start from here! Start from way over there - it's nearer." Ha ha ha. Just brilliant!
*reads Dujon's "Sofa King - Good" quip* That reminds me of a wee gag of my own from my childhood days. I forget who was the recipient, I recall only the gag, but someone invited it by saying to me, "I'm from Suffolk myself," to which, naturally, I replied, "yes, Suffolk yourself." See? I'm pure evil.
I have however just bought a new sofa - well, a sofabed, which I intend to plonk here in my study for when visitors, er, visit. £25 it cost me. The lady upstairs is clearing out a load of unwanted furniture and stuff for next-to-nothing since she won £400,000 on the Lottery and intends to move out at the end of May. Alas however, the lift is broken at the moment and so I can't get the thing down from her floor to mine until an essential component arrives from Deutschland.
I'm sure this is all frightfully dull for you all. Think I'll wind up here for now.
:) Huzzaah!
*reads Dujon's "Sofa King - Good" quip* That reminds me of a wee gag of my own from my childhood days. I forget who was the recipient, I recall only the gag, but someone invited it by saying to me, "I'm from Suffolk myself," to which, naturally, I replied, "yes, Suffolk yourself." See? I'm pure evil.
I have however just bought a new sofa - well, a sofabed, which I intend to plonk here in my study for when visitors, er, visit. £25 it cost me. The lady upstairs is clearing out a load of unwanted furniture and stuff for next-to-nothing since she won £400,000 on the Lottery and intends to move out at the end of May. Alas however, the lift is broken at the moment and so I can't get the thing down from her floor to mine until an essential component arrives from Deutschland.
I'm sure this is all frightfully dull for you all. Think I'll wind up here for now.
:) Huzzaah!
[Inkspot] You are a gentleman and a scholar.
A gentleman and a scholar
Oh, that's 0.67 of a Pink Panther.
That's a Pink Pant, more or less.
[penelope]That's a little brief - and a mental picture that I shall immediately put to on side.
Inkspot] Actually, there was a player between it and the goal, so it was onside anyway.
Offside rule
(Irouléguy) There have to be two players, or at least one and a half.
*mimes*
Hmmmm
[CdM] You're trying to get out of a box?
I thought the penalty box was for hockey... or was that prison?
motorway madness
Legoland is great when you get there the only problem is other drivers on the M4. Yesterday there were three accidents on different sections between Hugerford and Slough adding an hour onto the travelling. I am no saint when it comes to motorway driving, recklesly driving over the limit at an average of just under 75mph, but at I abide by lane discipline, overtake; then back to the inside lane. There were just so mannt middle lane dawdlers. They really are the bane of my driving life. Squatting in the middle lane they are a hazard they can be like their own personal mobile roadblock as other drivers attach themselves closely to the bumper. A further irritation of the most blinkered of these drivers is the way they come to a slow moving vehicle in the middle lane then hypnotized staying behind rather than overtake. When will they get it into their skulls that the second and third lanes are for overtaking it is not, inside lane = slow lane and outside lane = fast lane.
[Inkspot] Abso-bloody-lutely. I undertake middle-land dawdlers if I can do it without speeding. I know it's evil, but they have been told time and time again. Pffft.
Hogging the middle lane is unacceptable, but I have to say I don't think I've ever seen anyone hogging the middle land whilst driving at under 70mph. Given that no-one is allowed to go over 70mph, they are therefore not blocking anybody.
*taps the deja-vuometer - needle rises sharply*
[Breadmaster] Oh I have. How come there is space for me to go at 70mph in Lane 1 if he/she or it is going at 65mph in Lane 2? Because everyone else in Lane One has pulled ahead (at a legal speed) of the sluggish Lane Two-er, that's why. Exactly how much motorway driving do you do?
Well, not so much these days, admittedly. Perhaps there are more slow middle lane hoggers than there used to be!
*resists the temptation to say what speed I routinely cruise at*
In the old Polo I use for work I return via M4 J15/J15 at a steady pace just under 60, the car seems comfortable with this - there being a noise barrier somewhere round 70.
Thankfully I missed this latest offering from ITV Twelve gorgeous celebrity singletons are thrown together on a fantasy island in ITV1’s star studded search for love, Celebrity Love Island. The end of the Dyke era seems to have given the beeb a small kick up the backside. Unfortunately Ofcom seem to want more of this low quality 'entertainment' in allowing ITV to dump anything that is done elsewhere eg news, childrens progs.
Thankfully I missed this latest offering from ITV Twelve gorgeous celebrity singletons are thrown together on a fantasy island in ITV1’s star studded search for love, Celebrity Love Island. The end of the Dyke era seems to have given the beeb a small kick up the backside. Unfortunately Ofcom seem to want more of this low quality 'entertainment' in allowing ITV to dump anything that is done elsewhere eg news, childrens progs.
Middle lane hogs
I find that middle lane hogs are almost invariably travelling at no more than 60, actually. Usually as they pass under gantries which rather expensively dictate 'DON'T HOG THE MIDDLE LANE'. Given my penchant for grotesquely illegal (but not dangerous, dammit; how is 100-120 on a dry, empty road, in a well-maintained car designed for over 145, with a healthy, sober, attentive driver, more dangerous than 70?) speeds, I also regularly experience the upper class of lane hog - those that have ascended to the 'fast' lane; to be fair, they're generally only there because of people in the middle lane and will often move when a quarter of a mile gap (ie the space required to pull over and let me pass without slowing for the next hog) avails itself. (I am aware that my driving habits are both vastly illegal and morally reprehensible to some people. I continue to hold my constantly clean license and undamaged person+car as evidence that I am not the murderer our illustrious government would have everyone believe)
The most hate-inducing section of road for me is the newly re-opened Thelwall Viaduct, though, which often sees three of the four lanes occupied by lorries and hoggers, for some reason. It even expands to five lanes for filtering off, so it's not (well, shouldn't be) that.
I'm going on holiday tomorrow evening, for two weeks. Therefore, my DSL will fall over some time on Thursday.
Apologies for the cross posting.
This is really just a last minute round-up for anyone who may want to become involved in an MC event organised for this weekend (the 21st of May).
Last year, a group of regular MC players got together to organise a live game or two, loosely presented in the format of ISIHAC. 17 folks attended ‘ISIHAC2 – This time it’s Unprofessional’. It was so much fun that an instant decision for the event to be repeated.
This years event has been entitled ‘That Went Off Very Well’ and is to be held at Brownsover Hall in Rugby. Bedrooms cost £35 and I am reliably informed that there are still some available, although we are expecting a bigger crowd this year.
On Saturday evening (from about 7.30pm) we will be playing ISIHAC games such as New Definitions, Sound Charades and Mornington C with suitable breaks for beer and refreshments. Piano is being provided by Colin Sell soundalike, JLE. Silliness will be followed by a cabaret including songs specifically written for the occasion and free-for-all gaming.
It may be too late for you to attend, but all the same I thought I would post this in the hope that if there were any players who suddenly found themselves free this weekend would have the opportunity to have an extravagant sufficiency of fun in pleasurable surroundings amongst exuberant and entertaining company.
If you are interested in attending, email me here for all details. There are some half empty cars coming up from London, and I can give lifts from Rugby Train Station.
If you are unable to attend because you just live too far away or wouldn’t miss Eurovision for the world, you can still contribute. Email me at the address above and I’ll send you a programme of the games we are playing. If you have any suggestions for new definitions, chat-up-lines likely to be heard at Westminster or songs suitable for undertakers and morticians, I’ll be very happy to read out your contribution “here is one sent in by…” style.
Once again, apologies for interrupting programming. Normal Service will now be resumed.
This is really just a last minute round-up for anyone who may want to become involved in an MC event organised for this weekend (the 21st of May).
Last year, a group of regular MC players got together to organise a live game or two, loosely presented in the format of ISIHAC. 17 folks attended ‘ISIHAC2 – This time it’s Unprofessional’. It was so much fun that an instant decision for the event to be repeated.
This years event has been entitled ‘That Went Off Very Well’ and is to be held at Brownsover Hall in Rugby. Bedrooms cost £35 and I am reliably informed that there are still some available, although we are expecting a bigger crowd this year.
On Saturday evening (from about 7.30pm) we will be playing ISIHAC games such as New Definitions, Sound Charades and Mornington C with suitable breaks for beer and refreshments. Piano is being provided by Colin Sell soundalike, JLE. Silliness will be followed by a cabaret including songs specifically written for the occasion and free-for-all gaming.
It may be too late for you to attend, but all the same I thought I would post this in the hope that if there were any players who suddenly found themselves free this weekend would have the opportunity to have an extravagant sufficiency of fun in pleasurable surroundings amongst exuberant and entertaining company.
If you are interested in attending, email me here for all details. There are some half empty cars coming up from London, and I can give lifts from Rugby Train Station.
If you are unable to attend because you just live too far away or wouldn’t miss Eurovision for the world, you can still contribute. Email me at the address above and I’ll send you a programme of the games we are playing. If you have any suggestions for new definitions, chat-up-lines likely to be heard at Westminster or songs suitable for undertakers and morticians, I’ll be very happy to read out your contribution “here is one sent in by…” style.
Once again, apologies for interrupting programming. Normal Service will now be resumed.
Middle Lane Hogs
My favourite tactic with these fools is to drive up reasonably close to them in the inside lane, indicate out and overtake. Once past them I indicate back in to the inside lane and then slow down until they pass me. Repeat until they get the hint or I get bored.
MLH's
(Botherer) Why do they need to get the hint? You've already overtaken him and have no need to concern yourself with him any more. Just drive on, maybe with a brief profanity. All you're doing is raising your blood pressure, not his. He'll just think you're a bit mad, that is if he sees you at all.
Songs for undertakers
Botherer could have a go at Meatloaf's Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are.
- controversial -
Hurrah a road debate ! I like the sound of NIK's driving. I would also say that Inkspot is very correct to travel that section of teh M4 slowly as they have just pout speed cameras calibrated at about 74mph on it (J14-16) - or at least said that on the news, which is a similar effect.....
Anyone who is of teh opinion that anyone driving over 70 is a lunatic or whatever is really the kind of person that I shouldnt really even start talking to about this because, frankly and honestly, I couldn't give a toss about their opinions on this matter and would fervently hope never to have to be a passengger in their car or have them in mine. I drive at about 90 most of teh time, occasionally creeping up to about 110 for brief periods or dropping to 70 if the road is clear. I will generally sit in outside or middle lanes and will always pull over to middle lane if someone is approaching me fast and I can easily - otherwise I will wait until three is a gap I can do this safely then pull out immediately behind them (well, maybe not IMMEDIATELY) If they approach really close and hassle me, especially with an indicator on, or in any way before I have had a chance to let them get past politely then I do not alwyas pull out - sometimes I will sit there just to piss them off, sometimes I will accelerate, somketimes I will touch my brakelights (though not brake) - I will let them past but not necessarily straight away. F*ck em. Similarly when I approach someone from behind I give thme plenty of chance to pull out of my way. If they don't then I will get a bit closer. Sometimes I undertake - I have no problem with doing this at all if there is space. If I am in middle lane I do not always pull aside. If I am in middle lane that normally means that there is no-one in fast lane and so road is quite clear - however I am normally going faster than someone in the 'slow' lane. If someone comes up hard behind me wanting to get past, then my thinking is that they can bloody well overtake me by using the space available on my right. I dont see why anyone has a problem with people not going as fast as them in teh middle lane when there is another lane available. Fast lane slow drivers I accept are a ROYAL PAIN IN THE ASS. Middle lane - so what ? I like botherers circling technique though. :o)
In Italy the other week I LOVE the way they drive on the Mways. Screaming up fast to within inches and then overtaking at last second. Everyone seems happy with it. I just love the sheer recklessness of it.
Anyone who is of teh opinion that anyone driving over 70 is a lunatic or whatever is really the kind of person that I shouldnt really even start talking to about this because, frankly and honestly, I couldn't give a toss about their opinions on this matter and would fervently hope never to have to be a passengger in their car or have them in mine. I drive at about 90 most of teh time, occasionally creeping up to about 110 for brief periods or dropping to 70 if the road is clear. I will generally sit in outside or middle lanes and will always pull over to middle lane if someone is approaching me fast and I can easily - otherwise I will wait until three is a gap I can do this safely then pull out immediately behind them (well, maybe not IMMEDIATELY) If they approach really close and hassle me, especially with an indicator on, or in any way before I have had a chance to let them get past politely then I do not alwyas pull out - sometimes I will sit there just to piss them off, sometimes I will accelerate, somketimes I will touch my brakelights (though not brake) - I will let them past but not necessarily straight away. F*ck em. Similarly when I approach someone from behind I give thme plenty of chance to pull out of my way. If they don't then I will get a bit closer. Sometimes I undertake - I have no problem with doing this at all if there is space. If I am in middle lane I do not always pull aside. If I am in middle lane that normally means that there is no-one in fast lane and so road is quite clear - however I am normally going faster than someone in the 'slow' lane. If someone comes up hard behind me wanting to get past, then my thinking is that they can bloody well overtake me by using the space available on my right. I dont see why anyone has a problem with people not going as fast as them in teh middle lane when there is another lane available. Fast lane slow drivers I accept are a ROYAL PAIN IN THE ASS. Middle lane - so what ? I like botherers circling technique though. :o)
In Italy the other week I LOVE the way they drive on the Mways. Screaming up fast to within inches and then overtaking at last second. Everyone seems happy with it. I just love the sheer recklessness of it.
typos
schmypos - sorry
Roads here are nice. And smooth. And straight, mostly. And fast. Everyone goes fast. Every second time we go to Muscat (approx 240km each way - about once every two weeks) there's at least one rather nasty looking accident. Sometimes it's a bit hard to see what type of car it (formerly) was.
what type of car.....?
flerdle] is that because you are going by so fast ?
[St D] So doesn't the fact that something's illegal bother you at all?
I didn't mean that to sound confrontational, by the way - but I am genuinely puzzled because I'd have thought that most people would at least have some scruples about breaking the law. But in this subject it seems not!
Motoring
As if I didn't hear all this boy-racer bollocks 40 yrs ago. Driving manners and attitudes have improved considerably over the decades but there are clearly some that this welcome cultural change has yet to reach.
Little Sir
[flerdle] My daughter drives an Echo, though the two door hatch rather than the booted four door. I love the optically jiggered read-outs. Whilst I have not driven the little beast, it must make refocussing of the eyes much easier/faster/safer than the conventional system.
Hmm, *thinks*, I hope I haven't said this before somewhere.
Hmm, *thinks*, I hope I haven't said this before somewhere.
Manners
It's really nice to read opinions like "Driving manners and attitudes have improved considerably over the decades" since one the whole people tend only to express their perception of degradation. Thanks Rosie.
[Bm] And there was me thinking the law tends to reacts to the (changing) concensus as what constitutes unscrupulous behaviour, and not the other way round.
[rab] Yes, laws change to reflect what people think is acceptable, but I would still have thought it unusual for people simply to ignore laws that they don't like with, apparently, it not even occurring to them that the fact that something is illegal is in itself a reason not to do it. It seems that motoring laws are the big exception. But why is this? Or alternatively, am I mistaken in thinking that most people are basically law-abiding in the first place? In which case, what's the point of having laws at all?
Ooof. Big questions! And having typed out a long passage, and deleted it again, I realise I need to think about them some more. Hopefully someone else will get there first.
[Bm] Well, no, I don't think the fact of something being illegal has the slightest moral force at all, in any circumstances. Speed limits aren't the only example of laws being ignored. Ask any tradesman if he'll give a discount for cash -- the discount is coming straight out of the VATman's take, and everyone involved knows that.
good viewing
[Dujon] Yes. I found it surprisingly easy to get used to. For those who don't know, the speedo and other instruments aren't directly in front of the driver, they're on top of the middle of the dashboard. Apparently it makes it easier and cheaper to manufacture both left and right hand drive setups. It's also that bit further away, which means less and quicker focussing, and the fact that it is high up and sideways means that you're not looking down so much, preserving more peripheral vision and road awareness. It was actually more difficult and disturbing to get used to the "old way" than this new setup, when I had to switch back last year for a while. Oh, and our car only has cooling, not heating as in the picture :-)
[laws] Of course people ignore laws they don't like - laws mean nothing much if it stops you from doing what you want, or if it's a bit too inconvenient, especially if you're not likely to get caught. Littering, speeding, copyright, tax... Perhaps some people see the speed laws as stupid or irrelevent in certain conditions, and they don't see there being much in the way of consequences if they break them (since they are of course excellent drivers, and they'll never crash or be taken out by other people), so it's ok to go as fast as they feel is necessary, whatever the laws say.
Note, I am NOT saying that all laws are sensible, and this is a GUESS at a reason for some people's behaviour, and it is probably a question that needs careful analysis of the data ;-) -- but I don't have time or energy to look at it now.
[Raak] Well put.
mini-rant.
and of course, those "it"s should be "they"s etc etc in the second paragraph. Yes, I'm a bad girl for constantly getting things like this in my posts in these places wrong, and I'd edit it if I could, but if you want perfect copy, just go somewhere else. It's not through ignorance, just so y'know, just difficulty expressing myself clearly all at once. In person, I can't argue my way out of a wet paper bag, so in print I'm doing remarkably well, considering, even if I take too long :-)
law
BM] It doesn't bother me in the slightest. Not a jot. As to law...well. I paid a Congestion Charge recently and then got a penalty notice. I had put my number plate in wrong by one digit. All teh papers said "Under the law you have no leg to stand on whatsoever in this case" It was made quite clear under what circumstances it was possible to contest the fine under the law. I thought I had a pretty good case really as it was blindingly obvious to anyone looking that I had attempted to pay for my vehicle and made and honest mistake. Under the LAW it was just tough. So I shut up and paid the extra £50 on top of the £5 I had paid that morning. SO......yesterday, in the Guardian, there is a short article about a ruling by Justice Burnton, finding in favour of Lady Walmsley who had undergone EXACTLY the same situation as me and had decided to appeal, even though it was specifically laid out in LAW that she had no redress. "The Law," found his honour, "was an ass." It often is.
As to whether you should worry too much about legality or illegality of speeding or indeed any other thing that is illegal - its an incredibly liberating moment when you realise that you are an adult and capable of making judgements and decisions yourself.
I realise that this case is not in UK but in Dubai there is a british woman in prison for posessing a banned substance on arrival because it was in her bloodstream (I think it was codeine) I mean - sheeeesh. That's illegal...but honestly (or does your legal/illegal comment only apply to laws in UK BM ?)
Rosie] if your boy racer comment was levelled at me in any way I take great exception to it and would point out that you seem to be stepping down into the lowly territory of insults, which I too am quite good at. I am a very polite and considerate driver and do not drive along suburban residential streets spinning my tyres with my radio booming. I just like to drive and when conditions allow I will do so quickly.
As to whether you should worry too much about legality or illegality of speeding or indeed any other thing that is illegal - its an incredibly liberating moment when you realise that you are an adult and capable of making judgements and decisions yourself.
I realise that this case is not in UK but in Dubai there is a british woman in prison for posessing a banned substance on arrival because it was in her bloodstream (I think it was codeine) I mean - sheeeesh. That's illegal...but honestly (or does your legal/illegal comment only apply to laws in UK BM ?)
Rosie] if your boy racer comment was levelled at me in any way I take great exception to it and would point out that you seem to be stepping down into the lowly territory of insults, which I too am quite good at. I am a very polite and considerate driver and do not drive along suburban residential streets spinning my tyres with my radio booming. I just like to drive and when conditions allow I will do so quickly.
baroness walmsley
(and she got her plate wrong by THREE digits. I had ONE out. ONE. My Law Professor is writing a letter to appeal it. :o)
rosie] maybe i can drive you to phil's pub on sunday ? ;o]
Boy racers
(st d) You may well be a polite and considerate driver; I believe you. But the general tone of your contribution doesn't give that impression, I have to say. Hence my reaction. Sorry. (rab, Breadmaster) Generally, laws reflect what society finds unacceptable, e.g. theft, assault etc. But sometimes society needs pushing in a particular direction by the introduction of a regulation, for example the drink-drive laws. When they were introduced in 1967 there was widespread opposition, but today nobody seriously argues that one should be allowed to drive pissed and some people rather proudly state they will not drink at all before driving, which is however just a bit too smug.
Call me Thrax.
*Looks rather nervous* Oooh ah, um. I'm not sure if I can contribute much to this colourful debate. Errr... indeed, I'd fancied to wander in merely and say hi to all and ask what's new and interesting/joyful or tearful in everybody's lives - small talk I suppose - but I confess I think I've trodden in something over my depth here.
I don't drive, y'see. Never have, never will. I stare bemused at Jeremy Clarkson and the lad from Class 4C, of an evening's viewing of Top Gear, thinking: It's only cars, boys. Don't get so worked up and passionate about 'em. If they all vanished in a puff of smoke tomorrow, you could still travel by use of your god-given limbs as far as the lavatory, and I've known many who can't But they do AMUSE me, the way they talk as if cars were somehow more critical to our existence than oxygen, water and sunlight. But - and I suppose I have now thought of some connection - I agree with your point about Drink-driving Law, Rosie. As a child, I went to school with one or two kids who could no longer walk, and never would, because they had been run down by people whose self-inflated reliance upon their automobiles had far outgrown their observance of public responsibility - ie. driving pissed.
It has, I do confess, given me a very coloured perspective on the whole thing - perhaps also because I too am similarly physically impaired as some of my former schoolmates(though for different reasons) - and I've developed quite an extreme intolerance for anyone who doesn't adhere to the very strictest discipline while moving around a few tonnes of solid, reinforced metal at considerable speed in the near vicinity of other sentient life. Maybe that makes me sound self-righteous and pious, but I'd rather be both of those things than sort of person who'd get behind the wheel after a few on the grounds that to walk home or get a taxi would be "inconvenient".
I don't drive, y'see. Never have, never will. I stare bemused at Jeremy Clarkson and the lad from Class 4C, of an evening's viewing of Top Gear, thinking: It's only cars, boys. Don't get so worked up and passionate about 'em. If they all vanished in a puff of smoke tomorrow, you could still travel by use of your god-given limbs as far as the lavatory, and I've known many who can't But they do AMUSE me, the way they talk as if cars were somehow more critical to our existence than oxygen, water and sunlight. But - and I suppose I have now thought of some connection - I agree with your point about Drink-driving Law, Rosie. As a child, I went to school with one or two kids who could no longer walk, and never would, because they had been run down by people whose self-inflated reliance upon their automobiles had far outgrown their observance of public responsibility - ie. driving pissed.
It has, I do confess, given me a very coloured perspective on the whole thing - perhaps also because I too am similarly physically impaired as some of my former schoolmates(though for different reasons) - and I've developed quite an extreme intolerance for anyone who doesn't adhere to the very strictest discipline while moving around a few tonnes of solid, reinforced metal at considerable speed in the near vicinity of other sentient life. Maybe that makes me sound self-righteous and pious, but I'd rather be both of those things than sort of person who'd get behind the wheel after a few on the grounds that to walk home or get a taxi would be "inconvenient".
[Raak and St D] Well, you can't get clearer than that, and I'm not sure what to say to it other than that I'm surprised, and I would have thought such an attitude would have been highly unusual, but perhaps I'm wrong.
[Rosie] I agree with everything you say here. And I'd add that in my view - and, I would have thought, perhaps wrongly, in the view of most people - there are of course many laws that are probably unjust or require altering in some way, but the way to deal with that is to lobby to have the law changed, not simply to ignore the law while it is on the statute books. To take a wildly different example, it is illegal for an RE teacher (or indeed any teacher) to teach their students about Wicca and neo-paganism. In fact it is illegal for a teacher even to mention these religions to pupils. I think that that is a ludicrous law. But in the unlikely (though, horribly, not impossible) situation of my becoming an RE teacher, I would obey that law whilst lobbying to have it changed. That's not to say I think all laws should be mindlessly obeyed all the time, but I do think that there should be some fairly hefty justification for breaking a law, certainly more than the fact that it is inconvenient to obey it.
[Rosie] I agree with everything you say here. And I'd add that in my view - and, I would have thought, perhaps wrongly, in the view of most people - there are of course many laws that are probably unjust or require altering in some way, but the way to deal with that is to lobby to have the law changed, not simply to ignore the law while it is on the statute books. To take a wildly different example, it is illegal for an RE teacher (or indeed any teacher) to teach their students about Wicca and neo-paganism. In fact it is illegal for a teacher even to mention these religions to pupils. I think that that is a ludicrous law. But in the unlikely (though, horribly, not impossible) situation of my becoming an RE teacher, I would obey that law whilst lobbying to have it changed. That's not to say I think all laws should be mindlessly obeyed all the time, but I do think that there should be some fairly hefty justification for breaking a law, certainly more than the fact that it is inconvenient to obey it.
boy racer
Rosie] fair enough - I reread it and it does come across a tad cavalier. But, I stick by it though should maybe apologise for the tone. Maybe I should reexpress it -
I love driving and on teh Motorway will generally drive over the, in my view, archaic, draconian and roundly ignored 70 limit.
I greatly dislike those that I consider to be drivers who do not have good motorway etiquette. For me this generally means not screaming up and hanging on someone's bumper until they move out of the way. Also it means pulling aside to let a car that is evidently wishing to drive faster by, unless of course you (or they) are in a fast moving queue anyway. Of course this should only be expected when there is a suitable gap to pull into. If there is a car in front of me that seesm to be refusing to move for no good reason then after a good time I will creep slowly closer then drop back and repeat. I love driving on motorways and am at all times relaxed and the only time I have ever gotten really annoyed whilst driving is when stuck in a jam and late for a plane. I generally tend towards letting people in to a queue in front of me rather than not. It never ceases to amaze me how petty people will be about not letting you into a queue and how angry they will get that you are actually going in front of them in a merging traffic situation or similar. When I see a motorbike approaching will always try to create space for them. Heck. I love driving. Its great. Its great to get little waves of appreciation from bikes shooting past at 120 or flashes from trucks or whatever. I get very annoyed when people who you have stopped to let past do not smile or nod or wave. This is very ignorant. I like smiling and nodding and waving at people.
BM] in the Wicca/RE situation you would be foolish to break the law because it could easily be used against you - though would provide an inteersting test case for teh law. As to having to have sreally strong justifications to break a law, well I am not exactly a murdere or anything, but I break the speed limit (as does everyone) and will occasionally smoke a joint or something. I don't care that its illegal. I really don't. As for traffic law violations, I guess the blasé attitude most people have is because you don't end up with a criminal record for breaking the speed limit. (And please don't say "ah yes but you do if you end up killing someone" because that would be very boring.)
I love driving and on teh Motorway will generally drive over the, in my view, archaic, draconian and roundly ignored 70 limit.
I greatly dislike those that I consider to be drivers who do not have good motorway etiquette. For me this generally means not screaming up and hanging on someone's bumper until they move out of the way. Also it means pulling aside to let a car that is evidently wishing to drive faster by, unless of course you (or they) are in a fast moving queue anyway. Of course this should only be expected when there is a suitable gap to pull into. If there is a car in front of me that seesm to be refusing to move for no good reason then after a good time I will creep slowly closer then drop back and repeat. I love driving on motorways and am at all times relaxed and the only time I have ever gotten really annoyed whilst driving is when stuck in a jam and late for a plane. I generally tend towards letting people in to a queue in front of me rather than not. It never ceases to amaze me how petty people will be about not letting you into a queue and how angry they will get that you are actually going in front of them in a merging traffic situation or similar. When I see a motorbike approaching will always try to create space for them. Heck. I love driving. Its great. Its great to get little waves of appreciation from bikes shooting past at 120 or flashes from trucks or whatever. I get very annoyed when people who you have stopped to let past do not smile or nod or wave. This is very ignorant. I like smiling and nodding and waving at people.
BM] in the Wicca/RE situation you would be foolish to break the law because it could easily be used against you - though would provide an inteersting test case for teh law. As to having to have sreally strong justifications to break a law, well I am not exactly a murdere or anything, but I break the speed limit (as does everyone) and will occasionally smoke a joint or something. I don't care that its illegal. I really don't. As for traffic law violations, I guess the blasé attitude most people have is because you don't end up with a criminal record for breaking the speed limit. (And please don't say "ah yes but you do if you end up killing someone" because that would be very boring.)
All in the eye of the beholder
[Rosie] Not drinking *at all* before you drive is more or less the expected behaviour in this country, so to me there would be no smugness at all in saying such a thing. Hypocricy, possibly, for I'm sure not all who say it adhere to it, but that's a different matter. (I think the actual limit for how much alcohol you're allowed to have in your blood stream is 0.2 promille.)
[Laws] I used to go to work by bike, when I lived and worked in different places to where I live and work now. The bike lane through town was very heavily used during rush hour, and there would always be a few people who would take short-cuts, on the wrong side of the road or on no-biking lanes. I used to ponder over why that made me so annoyed, and realised that it was because the people who do that obviously think that they are worth more than the rest of us. If *everybody* broke *every* law they didn't feel like keeping, chaos and worse would ensue, and very few people think that would be a good idea (including those who blithely ignore speed limits or bike against the flow of traffic, forcing others out of the way). So obviously, only a few people are allowed to do that, because they, and their time, are worth so much more than those of the rest of us. Sorry, I don't buy that. Breadmaster speaks for me, too. Oh, and I also don't drive and don't expect I ever will (I tried to learn once upon a time, and failed. I did learn to fly a glider though, which is much more fun anyway).
[Laws] I used to go to work by bike, when I lived and worked in different places to where I live and work now. The bike lane through town was very heavily used during rush hour, and there would always be a few people who would take short-cuts, on the wrong side of the road or on no-biking lanes. I used to ponder over why that made me so annoyed, and realised that it was because the people who do that obviously think that they are worth more than the rest of us. If *everybody* broke *every* law they didn't feel like keeping, chaos and worse would ensue, and very few people think that would be a good idea (including those who blithely ignore speed limits or bike against the flow of traffic, forcing others out of the way). So obviously, only a few people are allowed to do that, because they, and their time, are worth so much more than those of the rest of us. Sorry, I don't buy that. Breadmaster speaks for me, too. Oh, and I also don't drive and don't expect I ever will (I tried to learn once upon a time, and failed. I did learn to fly a glider though, which is much more fun anyway).
I'm also a natural born goody-goody, so I tend to side with Breadmaster too.
I speed. Sometimes. But I also shout at school-run mothers who block the road by parking on the yellow zig-zags, then remove their children from their car seats straight into the road instead of onto the pavement.
I have very little respect for the law per se at all. OTOH I make up for this by having a very highly-developed sense of what is right which I am pretty unbending in following. The reason the Law does not spend much of its time making a pleasant tinkling sound as it breaks in my presence is - surprisingly - because AFAICS on the whole, the Law and What Is Right (in my opinion) are very much congruent.
I do think that surprising because I really think English Law is an ass. So it must obviously get more right than I usually credit it for.
School Run Mums
Those poor kids! Strapped into cars and fussed over by Mother Goose as they are transported from one ultra-safe environment to another. I walked to school in all weathers (just over half a mile) from the age of 5 but for a couple of years I had to go with the Big Girl Next Door. She was 7. Kids these days have no chance to climb trees, get a "bootful" from the pond, cope with falling over, learn to cross the road or not talk to that funny-looking man. I am extremely grateful I was born in 1942 and not 1992 (say).
Speed limits
(st d) The 70 limit isn't archaic and certainly not draconian. You are taking things too literally. It's there to stop people doing much over 85. A higher limit would lead to everyone going faster still and there'd be a few more accidents. 70 is fast enough, anyway. 50 miles at 70 mph takes 43 minutes, at 85 mph 35 minutes, but on the M25 several hours. You just like driving fast; so do I. But it's a bit naughty, and a bit pointless. :-)
[st d] I thought you had your tongue well and truly planted in your cheek when you wrote your original motorway exposé. Thanks for your clarification - it was your statement "I drive at about 90 most of teh time, occasionally creeping up to about 110 for brief periods or dropping to 70 if the road is clear." that led to my interpretation. In my judgement there is nothing wrong with speed itself, it's where and how and by whom it is used. These days I tend to treat everyone else on the road as incompetent, the idea being to keep alert to the fact that I am controlling a missile of significant mass and an error made by someone else could lead to an early demise - mine.
Of course we are all good drivers, of course we all have superb reactions and car control skills. Naturally all our cars are all in tip-top condition and handle like an F1 top ten machine. If you believe all that then you're a cylinder short of a block. Some of this comes from bitter experience and these days I stick to the speed limit (I cannot afford to get caught) even though there are places where said limits are really silly. Don't get me wrong, I was no angel in my younger days, I'm just thankful still to be here.
By the way, give me a bullet with wheels that will handle, a winding road and no traffic (ha!) and I'll be in seventh heaven. ;-)
Of course we are all good drivers, of course we all have superb reactions and car control skills. Naturally all our cars are all in tip-top condition and handle like an F1 top ten machine. If you believe all that then you're a cylinder short of a block. Some of this comes from bitter experience and these days I stick to the speed limit (I cannot afford to get caught) even though there are places where said limits are really silly. Don't get me wrong, I was no angel in my younger days, I'm just thankful still to be here.
By the way, give me a bullet with wheels that will handle, a winding road and no traffic (ha!) and I'll be in seventh heaven. ;-)
winding roads and no traffic
[Dujon] That would be Lincolnshire (on England's east coast) then, which has one of the highest rates of road deaths in the country. Everyone who likes going fast, especially the motorcyclists, make that mistake. When I was a reporter, I attended so many inquests into the deaths of people who make exactly the same mistake, and over-cook it on corners just as a tractor, or a pensioner, pulls out of a farm gateway. If you're going to speed, please do it on motorways.
Deathwish
(pen) So it's true, then. They say The Fens are even worse, but all sorts of things are said about The Fens and its inhabitants.
"Always be able to stop within the distance you can see"
There is no such thing as a winding road with no traffic. Even if there is no traffic, you can't see that there's no traffic.
Ah so.
[penelope, Raak] Indeed. Hence my 'ha'. Hill climbing is a great way to scratch that itch, but the inital costs are a bit steep these days with all the safety considerations. So I now confine myself to being an old plodder, ever alert to inebriates and idiots. I got rid of my clubman style machine a few years ago and puddle around in a family hatch at present. Chances are that my reactions are not as good as they used to be anyway and there's no way I'm going to test out that assumption on a public road.
Monaco may be the most glamorous Grand Prix but one of least watchable with very little to no overtaking. But persistance by the two Williams drivers finally paid off, despite the best efforts of Alonso to cheat; and I see team orders still apply at Ferrari.
Dujon reaches the top of Celebrity Mornington Crescent as DrQ returns to make it seven. I am glad ITV pulled the rug from under Celeb Wrestling and hope the the same will happen to their Celeb Love Island. Not long now till Big Brother6. I think it is looking ever increasingly like Greg Dyke leaving was one of the best things to happen to the BBC programming.
[Inkspot] It's a few years since I last watched a Monaco Grand Prix (it's the time difference, even if it is televised here) but even then I thought that the latest F1 machines have so rapid acceleration and deceleration rates that they have effectively outgrown the circuit as a competitive venue. Not that I think it will be taken off the schedule, there's probably too much money involved. Even in the days of Moss, Fangio, Brabham, Clarke and their ilk it wasn't the easiest place to navigate around a rival. It must be terrifying these days.
Greg Dyke
(Inkspot) Agreed. Good result, but wrong reason nevertheless.
Didn't we have a loverly time ...
For those that are remotely interested - Rugby II/Ratby I was a roaring success. there's a taste of some of the happenings in the Pilg Game in Orange MC.
[Rosie] So sorry you couldn't make it. Understandable. I had no idea you had pulled out and was still checking with Reception for your arrival by the time the G&T's were served ... :-)
[Rosie] So sorry you couldn't make it. Understandable. I had no idea you had pulled out and was still checking with Reception for your arrival by the time the G&T's were served ... :-)
all sorts
chalk] lovely to meet you - thanks for organising it all. Hope you got home safely. I did, then had a marvellous power snooze.
Rosie] I am not sure I agree on your "there's no point to driving fast". When I drive up to Wales to see my Mum - normally for teh weekend, the AA site tells me that that journey should take me 4h47minutes. I can do it in under 3h30minutes, including a petrolk stop. This is one hell of a difference.
Dujon] Funnily enough that wasn't tongue in cheek. If the road has cars on it I will generally try to get in front of as many as I can. This may seem like me being an idiot fast driver, but actually its because I feel safer this way - if I am overtaking I tend to just keep going because people rarely drive with a big gap between each other so I will just plow on past until either the traffis clears or there is a big gap on my left to pull over into if I feel like it. If the road is very empty indeed I will generally slow down considerably.
Raak/winding roads] There is actually an incredibly beautiful stretch of road in the alps, east of Grenoble, on the way up to Les 2 Alpes which is wondoing and yet you know is clear or not. I used to go out with a girl from there and remember being absolutely terrified once when she started overtaking all teh tourist traffic on blind corners, where the left hand side of teh road dropped off hundreds of metres as teh road was cvarved into the side of a valley, hence the twists. She assured me it was okay, and the next time we drove it she showed me that there is a point as you come onto that stretch where you can see the entire road on your left carved along the valley side, for a very long stretch, and can see any cars that are on it. There being no roads off this long stretch, when you round teh valley side and can suddenly no lonegr see around the corners, you nonetheless know that there is no traffic coming the other way. Its great if you know it, but must be scary for the tourists being overtaken by teh locals as they edge slowly along gawping at the breathtaking scenery.
Rosie] I am not sure I agree on your "there's no point to driving fast". When I drive up to Wales to see my Mum - normally for teh weekend, the AA site tells me that that journey should take me 4h47minutes. I can do it in under 3h30minutes, including a petrolk stop. This is one hell of a difference.
Dujon] Funnily enough that wasn't tongue in cheek. If the road has cars on it I will generally try to get in front of as many as I can. This may seem like me being an idiot fast driver, but actually its because I feel safer this way - if I am overtaking I tend to just keep going because people rarely drive with a big gap between each other so I will just plow on past until either the traffis clears or there is a big gap on my left to pull over into if I feel like it. If the road is very empty indeed I will generally slow down considerably.
Raak/winding roads] There is actually an incredibly beautiful stretch of road in the alps, east of Grenoble, on the way up to Les 2 Alpes which is wondoing and yet you know is clear or not. I used to go out with a girl from there and remember being absolutely terrified once when she started overtaking all teh tourist traffic on blind corners, where the left hand side of teh road dropped off hundreds of metres as teh road was cvarved into the side of a valley, hence the twists. She assured me it was okay, and the next time we drove it she showed me that there is a point as you come onto that stretch where you can see the entire road on your left carved along the valley side, for a very long stretch, and can see any cars that are on it. There being no roads off this long stretch, when you round teh valley side and can suddenly no lonegr see around the corners, you nonetheless know that there is no traffic coming the other way. Its great if you know it, but must be scary for the tourists being overtaken by teh locals as they edge slowly along gawping at the breathtaking scenery.
Wheeeee
As you might expect of me - I'm on the side of driving as fast as is sensible given the road and conditions, regardless of the speed limit on that stretch of road. This may well mean going considerably slower than the advised limit if conditions dictate. I have no qualms about breaking the law by driving at 90-odd (or more) on a good clear motorway, agreeing with those that think that 70mph on a motorway in reasonable weather conditions is a farcically low limit. Remember that's just 10mph faster than you are allowed to go on a single track winding country lane.
Rugbypilg
(Chalky) OK :-) Wish I'd been there.
pilg
rosie] Samantha told me that she had been looking forward to seeing you playig with your bone , and was most disappointed not top have a chance to blow it herself.
Slide cream
(st d) V. Good. I am tickled. I hope she realises that "Trombonists Do It In Seven Positions", as they say. Fairly routine stuff for her, no doubt. My nextdoor neighbour is called Samantha, precisely 28 years younger than me and at present heavily pregnant, not through any action on my part, which in the long term is probably a good thing.
rab'll love this...
*Cross Posted* - and a day later than usual as I was away from my inbox yesterday.
Dear I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Mailing List Member, We bring you news of a recording of the programme that is taking place at the close of this year's Edinburgh Festival on Monday 29th August (Bank Holiday Monday) at around 6.30pm at the Pleasance Grand. It's a single recording (normally we record two programmes) so the whole event should last around an hour and a half. Tickets go on sale at the Edinburgh Fringe Box Office from Thursday 9th June. They are priced at £7 each. The venue seats 700 so there won't quite as many tickets available as for recent recordings. Again, you'll need to book early to secure a ticket. The Fringe Box Office telephone number is 0131 226 0000 and the website address is www.edfringe.com If this show is of interest, I doubt you'll be able to get through before 9th June, so make a note in the diary to call on Thursday 9th June.
Dear I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Mailing List Member, We bring you news of a recording of the programme that is taking place at the close of this year's Edinburgh Festival on Monday 29th August (Bank Holiday Monday) at around 6.30pm at the Pleasance Grand. It's a single recording (normally we record two programmes) so the whole event should last around an hour and a half. Tickets go on sale at the Edinburgh Fringe Box Office from Thursday 9th June. They are priced at £7 each. The venue seats 700 so there won't quite as many tickets available as for recent recordings. Again, you'll need to book early to secure a ticket. The Fringe Box Office telephone number is 0131 226 0000 and the website address is www.edfringe.com If this show is of interest, I doubt you'll be able to get through before 9th June, so make a note in the diary to call on Thursday 9th June.
Law Abiding
BM] Just to carry on this discussion about law - as it is quite interesting - If the govt brings in ID Cards, and makes it compulsory to carry them, then would you think that people would carry the card only because of "practical" reasons, or do you think that people would feel a moral obligation to do so, as it was law ? Also I would imagine that there would be a large group of people who would feel a moral obligation to NOT carry the new cards, in order to register their opposition to the new law. How would these people figure ?
Living, as I do, 15 minutes walk from the Fringe Box office, I shall attempt to buy them in person on Thursday 9th rather than listen to an engaged tone for 3/4 hour. Wish me luck.
Except that, allegedly, the box office doesn't open until the following Monday. I'll pop into the society office sometime and ask them...
[St D] Well, I would feel a moral obligation to carry them as it would be the law, but clearly I don't know how widespread such a view would be. For example, in New Zealand it is illegal to drive without having your driving licence on you, so I always had it with me even though there was no "practical" advantage to this. As for the conscientious objectors, I personally don't think their position would be defensible. To my mind it is justifiable to break a law if doing so would bring about more good or cause less harm than keeping the law. But in this case, following the ID card law would obviously do no harm - it would not harm anyone if an opponent of the law did carry their card, and it would benefit no-one for them not to carry it, other than to register their protest at the law. But they can register that protest just as effectively whilst obeying it, which surely means that there is no moral argument for breaking the law, and I would like to think that most people would agree that in such a case one should obey the law rather than break it. I hadn't imagined that there would be people who would break such a law purely because they oppose it, but I don't really understand this mentality that some people seem to have that civil disobedience is the best way to change the law. They seem to think that if you personally don't agree with a law then that gives you carte blanche to break it. Often when they are interviewed on TV they make vague references to "democracy", as if that entailed libertarianism.
ID Cards and the law
(Breadmaster) Driving licences are for people who are permitted to drive. ID cards are for people who are permitted to . . . . . . (fill in as appropriate). Why should I have to carry an ID card everywhere. After all, I know who I am. Disobeying the law while harming no-one else is a very good way to get the law changed.
[Bm] What do you propose as a means to change the law? In the case of ID cards, what would appear to be a law which is unproven to fulful its primary stated purpose (combatting terrorism) and which is proposed to have its costs bourne by the unwilling individual?
Sorry, that second thing wasn't a question. I'm not sure it even qualifies as a sentence...
[Rosie] I don't see why disobeying the law, in an example such as this, would be any more effective at changing the law than not disobeying it. Why would this be more effective than writing to your MP, going on a march, and all the other legitimate means that we have? Surely in the absence of any other considerations, one should obey the law, and so if disobeying it would not achieve anything, as I doubt that it would in this case, one should obey it.
[rab] Wouldn't it make more sense to say that if the law is indeed ineffective as well as burdensome, that is an argument for changing it, not for disobeying it, and if it does indeed prove counter-productive, the government would change it themselves irrespective of whether people disobey it or not?
[rab] Wouldn't it make more sense to say that if the law is indeed ineffective as well as burdensome, that is an argument for changing it, not for disobeying it, and if it does indeed prove counter-productive, the government would change it themselves irrespective of whether people disobey it or not?
Yes but the question I asked was "What do you propose as a means to change the law?" which was not intended as an argument to disobey it. It was a question asking, erm, how you would go about getting a law you didn't like changed. I think.
BM] The poll tax comes to mind, as a law which was eventually abolished because so many people broke it.
(BM) The best strategy for someone who doesn't like the idea of ID cards (to the exclusion of all other considerations) would have been to vote for the Tories. Whatever their manifold defects they do not have the authoritarian frame of mind of New Labour. If they'd got in, of course, the taste of power may well have changed that - it happens with all governments and they need to be constantly watched. They'll try to tell you an ID card is for your benefit. It isn't. It's for theirs. Disobey this lousy pointless law if it comes in, even if just for kicks, or self-esteem.
[rab] Well, like I said, write to your MP, or to the relevant government minister, and if you feel strongly enough start a campaign and go on marches. As for the poll tax, surely that was abolished because there was such a tide of feeling against it and such massive protests, not because people disobeyed it. People disobeying it and its revocation were two effects of the one cause, namely the unpopularity of the law, rather than cause and effect, I'd say.
Sorry - I missed that part of your response to Rosie. To be clear I don't advocate disobedience as a means towards change, but I also don't advocate slavishly following ridiculous regulations laid down by someone else "just because". There has to be a good logical reason, and because "someone else said so" doesn't count.
BM] Something like 10 million people got summonsed for not paying the poll tax, though most just got fined. The credit-checking companies stopped including poll tax debts in credit-worthiness checks, because so many people had debts that it would have made their whole system unworkable. That refusal to pay and the campaigns against it were two sides of a coin - I don't see how you can seperate them out.
ID cards
fior me, the challenge will be to carry it but in such a way that it is useless for its intended purpose. Perhaps I'll have it laminated so that it doesn't get damaged. And then won't fit in any of the readers, oh dear.
Having fully identified myself, may I draw your attention to the spare games slot? What shall we have?
How about another limericks game?
More seriously, how about a revival of Carpe Diem?
More seriously, how about a revival of Carpe Diem?
Hmm, not convinced by Carpe Diem, though I can't really think of anything else. Anyone got something fresh and new?
I've got this salad.
I'd still like a game of Gallifrey Crescent.
New game
Bob the dog (or someone posing as him) seems to have seized the day with Sabogy, but the ruleset is unexplained and the opening move is, to say the least, combative.
I'd like a Headlines game... I know Stevie has just started one on Orange, but that's people-based. How have we played them before? Like Cheddar Headlines?
Sabogy
It was possibly a lurker that created the game sometime before half six this morning
[pen]I say go for it, end Sabogy and create the game.
Stop press
[pen] Haven't we got The Cheddar Valley Gazette running on Orange at present?
...more accurately known as Holmes Raided In Mystery Dawn Swoop.
[UK] Oh. I thought that was mystery-based, which is never my thing, so I hadn't looked. Something had to be done to get rid of the sweary thing though - the same game forced me to bed on Saturday night. Feel free to fold the newspaper game if you don't want it. Fold... geddit? ;o)
How about playing the Flower Game, as mooted by Bob in ...so help me God? :)
I don't think we've ever played Commie Crescent, which might be interesting. The winner is the first to redistribute Mornington Crescent to all the other players.
Practicality
BM] Your example of driving in New Zealand illustrates my point. Of course there is a practical advantage to carrying your driving license whilst driving. This practical advantage is that if stopped by the Police, you would nat have to go through the painful process that may arise from your not carrying it. This is my point with ID cards - one might carry it purely for teh "practical" reason that it is law and it is easier just to obey the lwa and thereby avoid any ridiculous consequences that may arise from not carrying it. But there is no MORAL reason why one should carry an ID card. I think what you fail to realise is that although our moral obligations often comply with legal obligations, many people do not believe that something is a moral obligation simply because it is a legal obligation. This is especially true when it comes to minor traffic violations. I must say that I find your blind obedience quite frightening, in a 1984 kind of way.
Yes but
StD] I know this is an argument where no-one will convince anyone else, but I have a problem with individuals deciding what they are and are not morally obliged to do. I'm sure Harold Shipman believed that he was morally right in relieving these old people of their suffering (and I know that's a reductio ad absurdum, but it is the other end of the same continuum). As for minor traffic offences, the roads are provided and maintained by highway authorities/the government for people to use in cars under certain conditions. Thus I would equate asking people to carry their licence with insisting that cars should be taxed and insisting on speed limits with insisting on insurance or insisting that people should not be under the influence.
On identity cards I would take the French view, that they should be provided cheaply and for all, but that it should not be obligatory to carry one (most French people do, but that's for convenience). However, the government shouldn't argue that they will be good for the country and for security and then try to recoup the entire cost of providing them in their cost.
On identity cards I would take the French view, that they should be provided cheaply and for all, but that it should not be obligatory to carry one (most French people do, but that's for convenience). However, the government shouldn't argue that they will be good for the country and for security and then try to recoup the entire cost of providing them in their cost.
[INJ] Individuals do make their own moral decisions, Shipman included. If you're suggesting a moral principle that laws ought to be obeyed, that's your principle and you're welcome to live by it, but it's still up to everyone else whether they decide to adopt that principle or not.
[INJ] "Cheap" identity cards? Whatever the upfront fee, the entire cost of introducing cards will be borne by the taxpayers. That is where governments get their money from.
[INJ] The only real problem with insisting individuals align their morals with the law is how you go about enforcing it. After all, surely that's what the law is intended to do anyway! When it comes down to it, I don't think it's possible to force someone to adopt a belief - and what are moral values if not beliefs?
[Raak] At the risk of hounding you from server to server on the topic of redistribution, they do, but not equally. :) [Darren] I think I'm happy with the law as a means of controlling behaviour more than belief. It then isn't necessary to believe wholly in the moral force of the law, but to simply act expediently or calculatedly in relation to it. If the law is any good (and sometimes it is very good), its drafters will tend to make some rough calculations about the behaviours it will provoke and try to ensure those give the moral outcome desired.
Simulposted - but still
[Raak, Darren] You're right of course, and I think I've said something that I don't really mean. I suppose I have misgivings that people (including myself), have a tendency to advance a 'moral high ground' defence for something that is really much more to do with convenience. This weakens the force of real, more important, moral stands.
[Cost of ID cards] If there are advantages in things like security, reducing benefit fraud and the like, then the cost of ID cards should be at least partly borne by those budgets. If you don't do that then in effect it's an addition to the government tax take - I'm arguing that it should be neutral or that the cost should come out of general, means-based, progressive taxation..
[Cost of ID cards] If there are advantages in things like security, reducing benefit fraud and the like, then the cost of ID cards should be at least partly borne by those budgets. If you don't do that then in effect it's an addition to the government tax take - I'm arguing that it should be neutral or that the cost should come out of general, means-based, progressive taxation..
[Projoy] I wasn't intending to depict the law as a controller of belief, so much as a set of moral values which are supposedly held by the majority of society (or, more accurately, by the government) but not necessarily by individuals. In this sense, the law's connection with belief is that it's a formal statement of the way the government and/or society believes we should behave.
By way of light relief, and with Pen in mind...
heavily UNrelieved
[Btd] What the f ...?
... and by the way
'pen' has a small 'p'
[Chalky] She should see the doctor about that.
Or at least have the decency to use the proper receptacle for it.
moral obligations
I really think its a fascinating discussion. I must say though ImNotJohn, that there si really no-one else at all who can decide what I am morally obliged to do and not do do. They can give an opinion, they can throw me in jail, they can make me a saint or a pariah, but they cannot really decide what I feel morally obliged to do or not do. Anwya - I have to rush off now, but I do think its fascinatiing - and if yo ugoogle "Moral Obligation Obey Law" you find a lot of papers written on teh subject and it appears that great minds in this area have always and no doubt will alwyas disagree on what the answer is....
CdB Btd and WtF etc
[Btd] Blimey. Thank you very much. I know we talked about CdB and LiR, but what the hell did we say? He's a scary-looking man, anyhow.
[pen] He looks very smug, doesn't he? Always very smug. I wonder what on earth he can find to be smug about.
Sabogy
It's not a bad name for a game, but I wonder what it would be?
Sabogy
attempts to bogey a sabotage come to mind, but I don't know what that is either.
[St D] I wasn't advocating "blind obedience"! On the contrary, I said that there may be times when one is morally obliged to break the law if doing so would bring about more good or prevent more harm. But I do think that if this is not the case one is morally obliged to obey the law, simply from the fact that laws are made by the society which we are part of and from which we benefit. Read Plato's Crito for a rather more extreme defence of this (Socrates argues that one should never break the law, even an unjust one, for this reason).
[Darren] I think most philosophers, at least, would say that a moral value is not a belief, because you believe a proposition (eg "There is a God" or "Tony Blair is a jolly nice chap") but moral values are not really propositions. They may look like propositions (eg "It is wrong to murder") but this is simply a linguistic quirk. The reason is that moral statements don't simply express a fact, they prescribe an obligation - they state what you should do, rather than how things are. This is why many people think that expressions of morality are basically the same as expressions of taste, so that "Murder is wrong" is no more a statement of fact - and therefore no more a belief as such - than "This picture is nice". This probably isn't really very relevant to the discussion, though. I'm just feeling pretentious. But is it objectively true that I am?
[Darren] I think most philosophers, at least, would say that a moral value is not a belief, because you believe a proposition (eg "There is a God" or "Tony Blair is a jolly nice chap") but moral values are not really propositions. They may look like propositions (eg "It is wrong to murder") but this is simply a linguistic quirk. The reason is that moral statements don't simply express a fact, they prescribe an obligation - they state what you should do, rather than how things are. This is why many people think that expressions of morality are basically the same as expressions of taste, so that "Murder is wrong" is no more a statement of fact - and therefore no more a belief as such - than "This picture is nice". This probably isn't really very relevant to the discussion, though. I'm just feeling pretentious. But is it objectively true that I am?
Sabogies
's a bogey, innit, like, summin 's up yer nose.
Call my Sabogy
I would agree with Raak in that it is a shortened phrase almost a slang, it really originates from the estates in Glasgow, in their misunderstanding of what a bidet is for. As in
young child, "Wha's tha da?"
Jimmy "Sabogy"
young child, "Wha's tha da?"
Jimmy "Sabogy"
blind obedience
BM] Fair point - sorry I missed that. I still feel that I side with teh school of thought that says we are not morally obliged to do anything really. Especially not simply obey laws because they are laws. I generally do and will obey laws, I hasten to add.
[St D] So if we are not morally obliged to do anything, would you say that if, for example, you found yourself on a desert island with an extremely annoying companion, and if (by hypothesis) there were no way for your actions ever to be discovered or punished, there would be no moral reason for you not to murder him and make kebabs? I should probably add that I'm inclined to agree that there is no such thing, really, as objective moral obligation, so when I talk about the obligation to obey laws I'm really just speaking for myself. But I'd be interested to see how you answer this one.
[BM] I don't agree with you when you say moral values are not beliefs. When they state what you should do, that's just another way of saying they state how you believe you should act. It's a matter of semantics, and at any rate I do agree that it's probably not enormously relevant. Incidentally, are you claiming that beliefs express fact? That's patently false. The difference between a belief and a fact is that, whereas a person may hold both to be true, the former need not be objectively true. Person A believes there is a god. Person B believes there is no god. How can both their beliefs equal objective fact at the same time?
Kebabs
(BreadM) The moral force behind not murdering your extremely irritating (but presumably unthreatening) companion is that you yourself would not like to be kebabbed. That is an absolute but the example you give is easy to evaluate. Not everything is quite so straightforward.
dead meat
BM] No I wouldn't say that at all. What I (think I am) saying is that there is not really, in my view, a moral imperative to obey a law simply because it is a law. I wouldn't kill someone by who was annoying for kebabs, even if I would never be found out, purely because of I suppose, the "moral reason" that you shouldn't kill people. As it so happens, there is no "practical" reason not to kill the annoying person [assuming that you aren't worried about being lonely or whatever], as the fact that there is to be no come back on it at all has removed the practical reason to not kill someone - because it is against the law and you may end up in the nick. What I think is that the moral obligations that a person feels rest pretty much the same irrespective of what laws exist or are being prepared or are being updated.
If a new law is brought in saying "You can't smoke in pubs" for example, I would not smoke in pubs because I was being asked not to by the Landlord, not because it was against the law. If I was in a pub where the landlord and all the customers were smoking, then I would smoke too. This actually happened in California a year or so ago - having slowly got used to not smoking in bars, I was in Lone Pine (nr Death Valley) and was about to light up at the bar. I stopped myself and said "Forgot I was ion California, sorry" and the barmaid laughed, pulled out an ashtray and said "This is Lone Pine, Honey".
If a new law is brought in saying "You can't smoke in pubs" for example, I would not smoke in pubs because I was being asked not to by the Landlord, not because it was against the law. If I was in a pub where the landlord and all the customers were smoking, then I would smoke too. This actually happened in California a year or so ago - having slowly got used to not smoking in bars, I was in Lone Pine (nr Death Valley) and was about to light up at the bar. I stopped myself and said "Forgot I was ion California, sorry" and the barmaid laughed, pulled out an ashtray and said "This is Lone Pine, Honey".
[Darren] I don't think Bm was suggesting that beliefs were facts, more that they are ideas about what is. Ideas about what ought to be are a whole other class. I think it's overoptimistic to hope that any system of law will be an encoding of some sort of consistent moral philosophy. This is not least because there are usually contradictory premises even where the law is set out from first principles, leaving Supreme Courts to scratch their heads and deliver hung verdicts. The law represents just an accretive set of some morals some people had at some points in history (which is not to say it's arbitrary, just tremendously compromised by the practical realities of how it is made). My naive working assumption is usually that whoever made the law did so for the general benefit, so it's better to have obedience as the default position. There are also laws (such as speed limits) where an arbitrary line was drawn which could as easily have been drawn somewhere else (there's nothing intrinsically safer about 70mph over 71mph), but the benefit for all in drawing a line is that it gives a common framework, arbitrary though it may be, that enables drivers to make consistent calculations about risk and behaviour - so the law is worth obeying on a "what if everyone broke it?" sort of basis, I think. [Bm] I'm with you: no objective force for morals. One can easily chip away any moral principle (if you're willing to take an unpopular position) by questioning the source of its authority. You can chip away at facts in this way too, usually by resorting to that undergraduate nuclear option, the epistemological question, but it does strike me as harder.
Epistemology
(Projoy) It's an awful long time since I was an undergraduate, so what is The epistemological question? And, presuming you answer, how do you know that?
The epistomological question is "Ah, but how can you know anything?" and one usually sees it used when its invoker has lost the argument. :)
[Projoy] I doubt anybody really has a consistent moral philosophy. I certainly don't. I'm not entirely sure your view of laws is any different from mine. We just worded it differently. At any rate, I also agree there is no objective force for morals. Oh, and the loser in invoking The epistemological question is probably the highbrow equivalent of Godwin's Law.
I used to think that morality was no more than personal preference, delusionally experienced (as our perceptions usually are) as external to oneself. What else could moral statements be, since they are not demonstrable matters of fact? These days I'm not so sure, mainly due to personal experience that I don't think I can describe. A third possibility is that they are indemonstrable matters of fact, which is C.S. Lewis' position in "The Abolition of Man", which I mentioned here recently. They can be learned only by certain experiences, but the experience cannot be communicated. They cannot even be demonstrated to oneself, only lived by or not.
[Darren] Projoy answered it for me really, but yes, I meant that beliefs are about propositions, which may be true or false. A proposition is the thing that, if it is true, is a fact. And I do think that moral views are not beliefs, because they are not about propositions. It may be linguistically acceptable to say "X is wrong" but I don't think that that expresses a real proposition, because it's not something that can really be true or false. It's a commonplace now that ought cannot be reduced to is, because there is something about a prescription that is not simply a factual statement - it is, in a sense, an order. Quite what that non-factual element is, though, is a matter of debate.
[Rosie] But what has what I would like got to do with it? On the contrary, one might say that my own desire to remain unkebabed is all the more reason to kebabify the other chap, for fear of his doing it to me first (since he finds me just as irritating as I do him, and no wonder). Of course, I don't know if you're supported St D's position as originally expressed that we are not morally obliged to do anything, or aiming to refute it.
[St D] So then in fact you do think we have moral obligations? I thought you meant that we don't at all - presumably you meant only with regard to obeying the law? In which case I apologise for misunderstanding you.
I almost simulposted with Raak, and it's funny because I think I'm increasingly drawn to the view he says he now doesn't share, which is odd because normally you'd think we'd be the other way around!
[Rosie] But what has what I would like got to do with it? On the contrary, one might say that my own desire to remain unkebabed is all the more reason to kebabify the other chap, for fear of his doing it to me first (since he finds me just as irritating as I do him, and no wonder). Of course, I don't know if you're supported St D's position as originally expressed that we are not morally obliged to do anything, or aiming to refute it.
[St D] So then in fact you do think we have moral obligations? I thought you meant that we don't at all - presumably you meant only with regard to obeying the law? In which case I apologise for misunderstanding you.
I almost simulposted with Raak, and it's funny because I think I'm increasingly drawn to the view he says he now doesn't share, which is odd because normally you'd think we'd be the other way around!
[Projoy] My rule of thumb is that when someone questions the possibility of knowing the truth of anything, there is some specific truth they are trying very hard to ignore.
[Bm] What view are you moving away from, if I may ask?
[BM] I understand your argument now. A belief is a proposition which must be objectively true or false, whereas a moral value is based on something subjective... I do see where you're coming from, but I'm still not entirely comfortable with it. It seems almost a logical positivist approach to belief - that something can only be a belief if its accuracy can be objectively determined. So what of the question of whether there is a god? Is there a way of determining if there is a god or not? If not, then belief in a god can't be a belief. If you disagree with this, why is it less acceptable for "X is wrong" to be a proposition than "there is a god"? If you agree with it, then is religion in general a set moral values rather than a set of beliefs?
I meant "a set of moral values" rather than "a set moral values" of course.
Ooh, it's getting gritty now...
[Raak] I didn't really have a view to move away from, to be honest. This is partly because I always found ethics by far the dullest area of philosophy and never formally did it. I suppose the view I'm moving away from is the view that there is any sense in which "X is right/wrong" is objectively true or even objectively anything. It may be possible for it to be objectively something, but I'm not sure what, and if it's not truth then I'm not really interested.
[Darren] Oh no, I'm no logical positivist, a position I think is pretty silly (for the uninitiated, this is the view that something can be true only if it can be shown to be true). I don't say that we can't know the truth value of ethical propositions, therefore they can't be true. Rather, I say that they are not propositions at all. They are not stating facts (or falsehoods) of any kind. Thus they differ from the proposition you give of "There is a God," which I certainly think (a) cannot be shown to be either true or false, but (b) is either true or false. That's an unverifiable proposition, but "X is wrong" isn't really a proposition at all, even though it looks like one. Part of the reason I think this is that I cannot imagine how a world in which "X is wrong" is true differs from a world in which "X is wrong" is false other than that one difference. But I think that if a proposition is true it must express something about actual things actually in the world - that is, facts are, as it were, parasitic upon things. So for "There is a God" to be true there would have to be an actual God, whilst for it to be false there would have to be none. But I don't know what kind of "thing" would have to be different for "X is false" to be a fact or a falsehood. Thus it's not merely that we don't know whether it's true or not, I don't think it means anything at all to say that it is true - that is, it's not the sort of thing that can be true. If you follow me.
[Raak] I didn't really have a view to move away from, to be honest. This is partly because I always found ethics by far the dullest area of philosophy and never formally did it. I suppose the view I'm moving away from is the view that there is any sense in which "X is right/wrong" is objectively true or even objectively anything. It may be possible for it to be objectively something, but I'm not sure what, and if it's not truth then I'm not really interested.
[Darren] Oh no, I'm no logical positivist, a position I think is pretty silly (for the uninitiated, this is the view that something can be true only if it can be shown to be true). I don't say that we can't know the truth value of ethical propositions, therefore they can't be true. Rather, I say that they are not propositions at all. They are not stating facts (or falsehoods) of any kind. Thus they differ from the proposition you give of "There is a God," which I certainly think (a) cannot be shown to be either true or false, but (b) is either true or false. That's an unverifiable proposition, but "X is wrong" isn't really a proposition at all, even though it looks like one. Part of the reason I think this is that I cannot imagine how a world in which "X is wrong" is true differs from a world in which "X is wrong" is false other than that one difference. But I think that if a proposition is true it must express something about actual things actually in the world - that is, facts are, as it were, parasitic upon things. So for "There is a God" to be true there would have to be an actual God, whilst for it to be false there would have to be none. But I don't know what kind of "thing" would have to be different for "X is false" to be a fact or a falsehood. Thus it's not merely that we don't know whether it's true or not, I don't think it means anything at all to say that it is true - that is, it's not the sort of thing that can be true. If you follow me.
[Bm] (I assume that your last "X is false" was a misprint for "X is wrong"?) According to the view I am suggesting without necessarily being committed to, what would be different for "X is wrong" to be a fact or a falsehood would be that those with moral insight would agree that X was or was not wrong. That doesn't advance things much, but moves the question to "How does one acquire moral insight?" And also "How can people claiming different moral insights reach agreement on moral facts?"
I just want to correct "those with moral insight would agree" to "those with moral insight would see".
[Raak] Yes, the typesetters did me wrong. I think you're going to have to elaborate somewhat on your suggestion, though. If the sole difference between "X is wrong" being true and false is whether those with moral insight think it is, then that doesn't seem to me to be a very strong claim. Are you basically saying that things are right/wrong because most people (or most appropriate people) think so? But clearly this is quite different from normal propositions - for example, "Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system" isn't true or false by majority opinion, and neither is "There is a God." Normally we think of propositions being things that people recognise the truth or falsity of, rather than things that they determine the truth or falsity of. Alternatively, if you think that those with moral insight are in fact not determining rightness/wrongness but recognising it, then that begs the question on what grounds these people see that X is right or wrong. Do they just "see" it with Enlightenment-style infallible conscience, with no further explanation? This is quite apart from the problem you suggest yourself, which is how to recognise those with authentic moral insight, and how to deal with the problem of disagreement over morality.
[Raak] I know you're not fully taking the position that there are naturally some people with greater moral authority, but it's interesting to compare with the libertarian worldview which (without knowing much about it) I would have thought would rely on the idea that morality is personal and subjective.
As you say, it doesn't advance things much to suppose there are those with moral insight, since it's basically a deferral of the question about the source of any objective morality. For "God", read "the enlightened". You thus can't move on to asking "how does one acquire moral insight?" without committing to the belief that there is such a thing, so a leap of faith would seem to be required. Definitely not one I'm prepared to make based on my experiences.
As you say, it doesn't advance things much to suppose there are those with moral insight, since it's basically a deferral of the question about the source of any objective morality. For "God", read "the enlightened". You thus can't move on to asking "how does one acquire moral insight?" without committing to the belief that there is such a thing, so a leap of faith would seem to be required. Definitely not one I'm prepared to make based on my experiences.
[Bm] Moral propositions (in the view I'm setting out) aren't true by virtue of being believed, they are true objectively, and those able to see them believe because they see them. How do they do this? Well, how do you (for example) recognise the ordinary physical objects around you? There's no "how" involved that we can say anything useful about (at least not until non-invasive brain scanning technology improves in resolution by many orders of magnitude). The same for moral perception. How people get to be able to have moral perceptions is more answerable in the here and now: upbringing, spontaneous revelation, or learning from enlightened people.
[Projoy] If there is such a thing as moral authority at all, then some people will have more of it than others. I don't know where that "naturally" comes from: if it's an elite, it's one that anyone can join, the same as authority about temporal matters. There is indeed an act of faith involved: the faith that there are objective morals. But there is also an act of faith involved in the perception of physical truths. The main difference between the two is that most people's physical senses function at a high enough level that it is easy for all to agree on simple physical statements, while the same degree of consensus is lacking in the moral realm. One difference, at any rate. Another is that people are much more attached to their moral judgements than their physical ones.
[Projoy] If there is such a thing as moral authority at all, then some people will have more of it than others. I don't know where that "naturally" comes from: if it's an elite, it's one that anyone can join, the same as authority about temporal matters. There is indeed an act of faith involved: the faith that there are objective morals. But there is also an act of faith involved in the perception of physical truths. The main difference between the two is that most people's physical senses function at a high enough level that it is easy for all to agree on simple physical statements, while the same degree of consensus is lacking in the moral realm. One difference, at any rate. Another is that people are much more attached to their moral judgements than their physical ones.
Our three chief weapons are...
Upbringing, spontaneous revelation, learning from enlightened people...or arriving at them by working them out oneself.
fundamental philosophical talk
[Raak] True, there needn't be a "naturally" although of course in the case of perception of reality there are real reasons why some people are naturally better at intuitive perception of reality than others (a minor example is perfect pitch). We don't necessarily know the nuts 'n' bolts reasons for these differences but it is something we can say with some confidence based on the level of agreement about reality and different people's success at perceiving intuitively that which we can independently verify: I sing a note. JLE says it's A, I play an A on the piano and it corroborates his statement. But crucially his doing this does not allow me to learn perfect pitch from him. If accurate perception of some kind of objective morality is a higher order skill of this type, it's then a reasonable speculation there probably is a hierarchy of people's ability to perceive moral absolutes.
In the case of morality this strikes me as considerably wilder speculation than making the same statement about perfect pitch. This might be for anthropic reasons, of course, but if so your line of reasoning becomes rather depressing for those who don't sense an objective morality, since it suggests they are missing something big and are never going to perceive it! (Slartibartfast would say, "Oh, no, that's just paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.")
In the case of morality this strikes me as considerably wilder speculation than making the same statement about perfect pitch. This might be for anthropic reasons, of course, but if so your line of reasoning becomes rather depressing for those who don't sense an objective morality, since it suggests they are missing something big and are never going to perceive it! (Slartibartfast would say, "Oh, no, that's just paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.")
addendum
...and of course something else follows from that line of reasoning, which is that if one is to have the best system of law, there are objectively people who are qualified to legislate and indeed, such a thing as government with objective moral force, whom we lesser mortals are insufficiently equipped to judge!
Absolute pitch
(Projoy) If intuitive means "knowing without thinking" then absolute pitch is intuitive. I have it, and always have had, and I can't quite understand why anybody who's had access to a musical instrument at an early age and is musical hasn't got it. It is, in my view, only a form of memory, motivated by a strong interest in the subject. Maybe its rarity is due to it having little evolutionary or survival advantage, unlike colour recognition. It's not much help, especially these days, to know that ex-GWR steam engines whistle in A flat (1st leger line above the treble).
(Projoy) Just seen your addendum. There are indeed people who are qualified to legislate, not because they have any superior sense of morality but because they understand the nuts and bolts of legislation and its effects (sometimes). Furthermore, we have asked them to do it, this being some sort of democracy.
[Projoy] But there are people who don't sense morality. They're highly exceptional: we call them psychopaths. Not sensing the objectiveness of morality or not believing in its objectiveness are different, and don't disqualify anyone from sensing morality. As for legislation, possessing sound moral judgement does not give anyone a right to order other people around. Indeed, the delusion that "if only everyone acted as I think they ought to the world would run a lot better, therefore they should be made to act like that" is a pretty clear sign of moral immaturity.
pitch black
[Rosie] I think we did this discussion before and established that color recognition isn't really analogous to pitch recognition (because we can point at something and say "yellow", even when it's in shadow in a way that lowers the frequency to something we'd normally call brown). In a similar way, I hear a note in the context of a tune and can say "submedian" even if I can't say "Bb" or whatever it happens to be. Perhaps there is a window of opportunity very early in life to acquire perfect pitch (I'd be interested to know if there's any evidence that people who learn an instrument from, say, 4, are x times more likely to have perfect pitch than those who only start at 7, say), but from my perspective, I certainly don't think it's related to level of interest. An old music teacher of mine used to talk about an academic colleague of hers who was so envious of others' perfect pitch that he tried to learn it. He would play a note on the piano at the top of the college building then walk to the basement, brushing aside all attempts to engage him in conversation, all the while humming the note under his breath until he reached the piano in the basement. I understand he never achieved his goal :). [re: legislators] Yes, but good legislators can do their job in the absence of any moral principles. If someone told them to draft a law that compels everyone to kill their neigbour they could do that just as easily as drafting an obviously moral law. What Raak and Bm and Darren and I are speculating about is whether there are people objectively better qualified to frame the moral basis of legislation.
[Projoy] I don't think that's what I'm speculating about. (For what it's worth, I don't think any one person is more qualified to frame the moral basis of legislation than any other. To err is human, after all, and it strikes me that in order to define morality one must be infallible and therefore above the reach of mere morality. Am I making any sense or just rambling incoherently?) What I'm speculating about is whether morality and belief are the same thing. I suspect I may have to agree to disagree with Bm over that, because I'm still not convinced by his argument. The thing is, I'm reminded of Hofstadter, where he was talking about how a rock smashing a space probe may seem like a waste to us, but to a sufficiently intelligent race it may seem obvious that that's the most appropriate thing that can be done to it. The point I'm making is that just because humanity can't objectively decide whether X is wrong or right morally, it doesn't mean there isn't an absolute answer to the question which could be answered definitively by an intelligence with greater insight than ours, with rock-solid logical backup and an appropriate set of side-effects. Again, maybe that makes no sense at all. Part of the reason for saying all this is to expose the underlying thoughts which are running through my mind as I write these posts just to see if anything falls apart when they're examined more closely.
The connection with logical propositions is that, as it seems to me, Bm's definition of belief as logical proposition implies that something becomes a moral value if it can't be stated as a logical proposition as far as human intelligence is aware, whereas I don't draw any distinction simply on the basis of the limit of human awareness. Perhaps that's the difference between Bm's position and mine. Perhaps I'm being needlessly mystical about the whole thing.
Can someone have a more-well-tuned moral compass than others? Certainly. But was Gandhi's sense of morality "nature", and Siddartha Guatama's sense of morality "nurture"? (That is, a matter of learned experience vs. innate sensibility.) And of course, those who are inclined to seek public office are generally the least suited to holding public office! [Rosie] I would think that perfect pitch cannot be learned, because even though the cochlea can pass along a B flat vibration, the brain still has to define the vibration. [Raak] Psycho/sociopaths are not lacking in a sense of morality. In fact, they can be highly moral people when it applies to actions against themselves. Their issue lies in the fact that they do not understand the concept of "other", as in, there are other people out there who do exist; and this lack of understanding regarding "otherness" evidences itself to the rest of us as a lack of morality. Which I think is a good argument for morality itself being a learned ability (in that it requires an observer to define Moral and Not-moral).
Morality vs Belief
dictionary.com: morality: The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct. belief: Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something Now, having said that, how does it apply? One must BELIEVE that one's MORAL STANDARDS are a TRUTH in order for one to have faith in one's morality. (Because if you don't have believe in the verity of your own morality, everything falls apart. "The center cannot hold!")
I should just explain that I brought Stina here.
[Stina] (Hi.) Isn't that circular? Faith in one's morality is the same thing as believing that it is true. To argue on the other side for the moment, one can lead a perfectly moral life while having no such faith in the existence of any objective standard. I have preferences about the way I want to live, and about the way I would like other people to live. But whether I regard these preferences as no more than preferences, or as perceptions of moral truths, in either case I can't prove to anyone else that they should behave the way I think they ought to. The most I can do is argue that living in such and such a way will benefit them in their terms.
[Stina] Welcome! But no - if anything, you must believe that your moral standards are normative, not that they are true. As I argue, moral standards are not the kind of things that are "true". A moral statement is like an imperative. You wouldn't say that "Go to your room!" is true any more than it is false. It just is. The point is that moral statements ultimately boil down to injunctions of that form, even if they are disguised as statements of fact. So "X is wrong" is really "Don't do X!" in disguise. Why? Because to put it another way, statements of morality are things that you can obey or disobey. You can react to a fact or a proposition in any number of ways, but you can't obey or disobey it. Moral claims aren't like that - they invite - indeed demand - obedience in some way. And an injunction like that is not the kind of thing that can be true or false. The task for the believer in objective morality is to explain in what sense an injunction can be "objective", if it is not in the same sense that a fact can be objective. This is why I disagree with Darren. I'm not saying that moral statements aren't propositions because we don't understand how they can be, and that a greater intelligence than ours could see how they are. I don't think that they are propositions at all, and it doesn't matter how transcendent you are. A hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional being wouldn't ask what the truth-value of a moral statement is, any more than it would ask how heavy a shadow is or what colour 1815 was, because it recognise that to do so is to make a category mistake, that is, to treat something of one category as if it belonged to another. I think that those who ask whether a moral statement is true or false, or assert that it is, are making just such a category mistake.
[Raak] It seems to me that the question of who can recognise moral truth, and how, is something of a distraction from the main question, which is what "moral truth" is in the first place, and how it can exist if the points I've made are valid. If a moral statement does not express a proposition at all, let alone a true one, then what does it express? Taking for granted that there are some people who can recognise it, what are they recognising, quite apart from the question of how?
[Raak] It seems to me that the question of who can recognise moral truth, and how, is something of a distraction from the main question, which is what "moral truth" is in the first place, and how it can exist if the points I've made are valid. If a moral statement does not express a proposition at all, let alone a true one, then what does it express? Taking for granted that there are some people who can recognise it, what are they recognising, quite apart from the question of how?
[Breadmaster] Well, as I said, I suspect we may have to agree to disagree on that. I see no problem with asking what colour 1815 is, or indeed with the proposition "1815 is green." There may not be many ways of reasoning with it, and certainly it might be hard to prove it one way or another (short of formalised synaesthesia!) but I don't happen to believe that those issues prevent it being true or false. If it's a category mistake, then no number/year has a property equivalent to colour, and the statement is false. It's still a proposition.
You said earlier that "ought" does not reduce to "is." Fair enough, but you then say "X is wrong" is really "Don't do X!" in disguise, or, to put it another way, "One ought not X." Surely you're self-contradicting here. At any rate, I fundamentally disagree that just because (if we allow this, which I wouldn't) "X is wrong" may be written "don't do X", that it must always be treated as "don't do X," and that the "X is wrong" form must be disregarded.
[Bm] Well, I'm arguing, or rather exploring the hypothesis, because I think there's some mileage in it, that moral statements are propositions. They are truth claims about the moral universe. The normative consequence -- you should do that which is good, and avoid doing that which is evil -- is a secondary matter. Someone who perceives the moral truth does not have to bludgeon himself with "shoulds" into acting accordingly, he will do so as an inevitable conequence of seeing the truth, the same as he will step out of the way of an onrushing car when he perceives it, and for the same reason.
Pitch and putt
(Projoy) You can't learn absolute pitch, or unlearn it either, which is one reason I play the trombone. All the other blowing instruments in a jazz band are transposing and if I read a C I don't want to hear a Bb, and certainly not an Eb (alto and baritone sax). Trombone is written in bass clef, which results in an impressive stack of leger lines for the high notes. If it's on a space and "in the stratosphere" it's a C (octave above middle C). Otherwise it's a D (hopefully a Db) which I can just about do with a following wind. Why don't they just go into treble clef? Because they don't. Maybe not all trombonists are pianists.
Lost in space....................
Never trust a Vogon when it comes to directions.I've been stuck in the plorii system for the last 8 months!!! But now I'm back...........
To answer my own question re: perfect pitch, I googled a paper which says: "we also observed a significant association between AP and the age at which an individual first began playing music. For the AP group as a whole, the mean age of starting musical activities was 5.4 ± 2.8 years, whereas, for the non-AP group, the mean age was 7.9 ± 3.2 years (P < .0001)."
Also, it says, perfect pitch is far more common in Oriental people.
[Projoy] But -- as they also point out, I'm glad to see -- the causation could easily run the other way.
[Bm, Raak, Darren, et al] This is a *great* discussion; one from which I am really learning.
[Bm, Raak, Darren, et al] This is a *great* discussion; one from which I am really learning.
Perfect pitch
I had perfect pitch as a child, but not being a musician, I've never used it, and the skill seems to have decayed. I just tried whistling a middle C, and it turned out to be a tone flat. But maybe I'm channelling Baroque pitch, concert pitch having been invented to boost the E-string industry.
[widey] But we've been here all the time :o) Good to see you back!
Whistling Middle C
I'm not surprised you can't whistle Middle C; you'd need a head the size of a space hopper to do that. Do you mean an octave higher, or maybe even two? As to baroque pitch, I once heard Handel's Messiah sung to the accompaniment of old instruments, as it turned out. "Why are these buggers in D flat?", I was muttering until the penny dropped. Baroque pitch is about 3/4 of a semitone down on concert. (A = 422 or so).
Questions, questions....
What CdM said, first of all - it's this sort of discussion, as much the games, that keeps me coing back to the Morniverse. I do have a couple of questions- probably daft ones, but I'll lob them in anyway
Raak] If moral statements are propositions - objective truths like gravity or the earth being round - then shouldn't we as a species have discovered some of them by now? And how exact are they? Do you mean general statements like the Ten Commandments, or more specific ones? And if they are objective truths, then surely they admit no exceptions? Which is somewhat problematic - the proposition likely to get the greatest assent is probably "You shall not kill", but if pushed, most people would admit to believing some caveats to even that one (just wars, self-defence, etc).
Darren] There's a convention called Pantone numbers in printing, where you tell a printer the exact shade of green you want by quoting the Pantone number. Inside that convention, the statement that "1815 is green" is objectively true or false. That convention works because everyone who uses it agrees that the rule-set exists, and that the person or people who defined the rule-set have the right to do so. What I'd question about the idea that "1815 is green" in the wider world is - how do we know that the rule-set exists, and who made it?
Lastly (and without stopping this discussion) could I advance the moral proposition that CdM has won the current round of AVMA, and that he should tell us the answer and set another one?
Raak] If moral statements are propositions - objective truths like gravity or the earth being round - then shouldn't we as a species have discovered some of them by now? And how exact are they? Do you mean general statements like the Ten Commandments, or more specific ones? And if they are objective truths, then surely they admit no exceptions? Which is somewhat problematic - the proposition likely to get the greatest assent is probably "You shall not kill", but if pushed, most people would admit to believing some caveats to even that one (just wars, self-defence, etc).
Darren] There's a convention called Pantone numbers in printing, where you tell a printer the exact shade of green you want by quoting the Pantone number. Inside that convention, the statement that "1815 is green" is objectively true or false. That convention works because everyone who uses it agrees that the rule-set exists, and that the person or people who defined the rule-set have the right to do so. What I'd question about the idea that "1815 is green" in the wider world is - how do we know that the rule-set exists, and who made it?
Lastly (and without stopping this discussion) could I advance the moral proposition that CdM has won the current round of AVMA, and that he should tell us the answer and set another one?
[Irouléguy] Here is one account of the moral Way (although I think it leaves out a significant area, one's responsibility towards oneself). Does the law of gravity admit of exceptions? Yet iron ships float, planes fly, and Voyager is escaping the solar system, and for well-understood reasons. Anyone touting a verbal formula as the truth, whether in the scientific realm or the moral realm, has already fallen into error.
[Irouléguy] Even if an objective rule-set exists, it doesn't need a maker, unless you want to be creationist about it, or you want to take the view that all mappings are abstract constructs formed by the human mind, in which case there's no such thing as a natural rule-set, but nor does there have to be a single named maker as such things can be built up over time. At any rate, there is no need for "1815 is green" as a logical proposition to say anything about the wider world (the meaning and nature of which we could debate for many centuries), because, apart from the fact that we could be talking about all kinds of symbolism, the proposition in itself is a kind of proposed mapping between 1815ness and greenness. It doesn't have to be objectively true or false, but what we do have to be able to say is, if we had enough data, we could determine whether it was true or false. In other words, we don't need a rule-set, because the proposition itself, if true, implies the existence of one. If false, however, it says nothing about the existence or non-existence of a rule-set, although if there is no rule-set, the proposition is not a proposition because it cannot be true or false. In the same way, by saying "X is wrong" as a proposed mapping from the concept of X to the concept of wrongness, we don't necessarily say there *is* an objective mapping of actions to moral evaluations, but for "X is wrong" to be objectively true there must be such a mapping. However, just because we can't tell objectively at this stage whether such a rule-set may or may not exist, that doesn't mean that "X is wrong" stops being a proposition. I think Breadmaster's position, in this sense, is that such a rule-set is impossible and so by definition no proposition which purports to use it can have meaning, because it is neither true nor false, and therefore fails to qualify as a proposition. If it can be shown that there is definitively no rule-set, then I agree with Breadmaster that such things aren't propositions. I'm just not entirely convinced that such a rule-set is impossible, even if it is beyond human knowledge. How far this gets us into the question of morality I don't know!
Actually, I said above "There is no objective force for morals," so I've contradicted myself. OK. Let me put it like this, if there is no objective force for morals (as I clearly thought a couple of days ago!) then Breadmaster is correct and my arguments have fallen apart.
The funny thing is, this discussion has made me question in myself whether I really believe there is no such thing as objective morality, and I can't really say for certain one way or the other. Within the human world, I don't think there is anyone who has in themselves, or has determined in some other way, an objective sense or code of morality. So, I suppose I'll have to fall in line with Breadmaster's view that moral values are not logical propositions. Well done Bm! Certainly made me understand my reasoning a bit more.
[CdM] So having perfect pitch makes you Oriental! I always suspected this was the case! :)
[Raak] I understand that you're suggesting your personal insights into this come from experiences which you can't describe here, so you are rather hamstrung in terms of pursuing this hypothesis of objective morality, at least in this forum. But I am inclined to ask you some skeptical, pedantic questions, such as what a "moral universe" is, how you think the whole thing might work (in just the way you can't find here). If a moral intuiter steps out of the way of immoral actions because they perceive risk to themself (as in your car analogy), that is one thing (but implies self-interest being at the heart of morality, which would make it subjective, surely?); if a moral intuiter senses moral danger, what sort of process do you speculate might be going on in their heads that doesn't appear to go on in mine? Further, if you have some experience of this, maybe - without having to talk about the experience - you could tentatively specify an example of an objective moral rule...?
[Projoy] I knew someone was going to say that.
[Darren] Yayy! Thank you. By the way, I inexplicably can't access this page (alone of all in the Morniverse) from work any more, it seems, which is why I fell silent. Bear in mind that even moral statements are not propositions, it does not necessarily follow that they are not universally applicable. "Don't murder!" could be normative for everyone even though it does not express an objective fact. Perhaps there could be "objective commands". But what those could be, and how they could be, I don't know, and explaining them is a task for someone else.
[Raak] You surely know that your gravity analogy doesn't apply! Floating ships and space probes aren't "breaking" the law of gravity any more than I am when I hold my leg in the air before taking a step. Rather, the law of gravity is simply one of many physical laws which are inter-related, or interact. But that's beside the point. More to the point is that even the list you link to contains much that is arguable. I, for example, don't set much stock by "duties to ancestors" even though the average Confucian might regard it as a central moral imperative. There is nothing that has been universally accepted as a moral imperative, and even if there were, it wouldn't prove anything other than that people all thought it was right. The most such things can show is that human beings have evolved - either biologically or socially - to think that certain things are right or wrong, presumably because those who didn't think this didn't develop stable societies. Thus most people think that murder is wrong because if they didn't they wouldn't have survived. We can therefore explain moral imperatives - or at least their basic outlines - quite adequately in a historical or evolutionary way, without needing to posit that moral views express some kind of "truth" about the world. And the sorts of questions that Projoy asks indicate that there are big problems with the view that they do. After all, there are many people who think that there are moral facts, but no-one seems able to agree what they are. Is abortion a fundamental right or is it one of the blackest crimes there is? The fact that people disagree doesn't prove that there isn't a matter of fact at dispute, of course, but it does raise the question - how, even in principle, could the dispute be settled? What "evidence" (even if in practice it could not be collected) would prove it one way or the other?
Another point that might be relevant - the Tao website states that "For those who do not perceive its rationality, even universal consent could not prove it." Well, I'm afraid I don't perceive its rationality. I may perceive its utility or practical application. But David Hume pointed out that morality isn't to do with rationality, and vice versa - he said something like "There is nothing irrational about my preferring the destruction of the entire universe to the scratching of my finger," and he was right - such a preference may be morally wrong in whatever sense you have of the word, or it may be highly unuseful, but it's not, strictly speaking, irrational.
[Raak] You surely know that your gravity analogy doesn't apply! Floating ships and space probes aren't "breaking" the law of gravity any more than I am when I hold my leg in the air before taking a step. Rather, the law of gravity is simply one of many physical laws which are inter-related, or interact. But that's beside the point. More to the point is that even the list you link to contains much that is arguable. I, for example, don't set much stock by "duties to ancestors" even though the average Confucian might regard it as a central moral imperative. There is nothing that has been universally accepted as a moral imperative, and even if there were, it wouldn't prove anything other than that people all thought it was right. The most such things can show is that human beings have evolved - either biologically or socially - to think that certain things are right or wrong, presumably because those who didn't think this didn't develop stable societies. Thus most people think that murder is wrong because if they didn't they wouldn't have survived. We can therefore explain moral imperatives - or at least their basic outlines - quite adequately in a historical or evolutionary way, without needing to posit that moral views express some kind of "truth" about the world. And the sorts of questions that Projoy asks indicate that there are big problems with the view that they do. After all, there are many people who think that there are moral facts, but no-one seems able to agree what they are. Is abortion a fundamental right or is it one of the blackest crimes there is? The fact that people disagree doesn't prove that there isn't a matter of fact at dispute, of course, but it does raise the question - how, even in principle, could the dispute be settled? What "evidence" (even if in practice it could not be collected) would prove it one way or the other?
Another point that might be relevant - the Tao website states that "For those who do not perceive its rationality, even universal consent could not prove it." Well, I'm afraid I don't perceive its rationality. I may perceive its utility or practical application. But David Hume pointed out that morality isn't to do with rationality, and vice versa - he said something like "There is nothing irrational about my preferring the destruction of the entire universe to the scratching of my finger," and he was right - such a preference may be morally wrong in whatever sense you have of the word, or it may be highly unuseful, but it's not, strictly speaking, irrational.
[Projoy] Self-interest is at work in stepping out of the path of a car, but that doesn't make it subjective in any useful sense. Everyone will step out of the way of that car, except only children who have not yet learned that it is dangerous, the drug-addled, and the suicidally depressed. This is only subjective to the degree that every thought we have is subjective. What is objective is that the car will kill you if you don't get out of the way. Opinions and wishes are irrelevant. Reality is like the Terminator: you can't reason with it, you can't argue with it. You only have power to choose your actions, not their consequences.
(Repeat earlier caveat that I'm taking this horse out for a ride to test its legs.)
Thus it is with morality. The enlightened do good and avoid evil, because, from their point of view, the first person that good acts benefit and evil acts harm is oneself, consequences as undeniable as traffic. It applies to everything from not mugging old ladies for their pension money to getting out of bed in the morning. The idea has a long pedigree, e.g. Socrates and the Buddhist canon (and in a debased form in the Religions Of The Book, where all the consequences are deferred to a supposed later life, despite the statement by one of their prophets that "the kingdom of heaven is within you"). It doesn't give instant answers to all questions, any more than the laws of physics will immediately tell you how to build a kilometer-tall skyscraper.
(Repeat earlier caveat that I'm taking this horse out for a ride to test its legs.)
Thus it is with morality. The enlightened do good and avoid evil, because, from their point of view, the first person that good acts benefit and evil acts harm is oneself, consequences as undeniable as traffic. It applies to everything from not mugging old ladies for their pension money to getting out of bed in the morning. The idea has a long pedigree, e.g. Socrates and the Buddhist canon (and in a debased form in the Religions Of The Book, where all the consequences are deferred to a supposed later life, despite the statement by one of their prophets that "the kingdom of heaven is within you"). It doesn't give instant answers to all questions, any more than the laws of physics will immediately tell you how to build a kilometer-tall skyscraper.
[Bm] You give two arguments that undercut each other: that there are no universally accepted moral principles, and that universally accepted moral principles arise for evolutionary reasons. You can't have it both ways, but I'll ride this horse over both of them anyway.
No scientific truth is universally accepted either, if you define "universally" narrowly enough. There are, nonetheless, substantial areas of agreement on moral issues that can be found throughout all civilisations. That doesn't prove they are true (as Lewis himself says), merely that they exist. Perceiving their truth is a separate matter.
I could take the evolutionary explanation as evidence on my side -- the consequences of right and wrong action are exactly your presumed evolutionary pressures. Not getting run over is also evolutionarily adaptive, but that does not mean that personal decisions and the laws of physics have nothing to do with it.
How do you perceive the utility of the Way? If it is useful to follow the Way, what is it useful for? And what in turn is that useful for? Utility offers no foundation. Likewise rationality. Look hard enough, and all attempts to find foundations lead only to an infinite regress. Ideas can only justify ideas in terms of other ideas. Morality is about actions, and actions cannot be deduced from thoughts, any more than an ought from an is.
Hume also claimed not to see causation, but he wouldn't have survived to write his books if he hadn't dodged horse-drawn carts now and then.
[Raak] Maybe Hume was just very, very lucky.
[Raak] Your supposition that evil acts harm the doer is where it all falls down for me. Sort of repeating Bm's point, but a car will run people down according to the laws of physics, which can be reliably shown to operate universally (at least as far as we can observe), but mugging someone for their pension cannot be shown universally to have negative effects for the individual (unless you start invoking some unknowable afterlife or karma or whatever). In other words, some people get away with breaking moral rules, in just the way that a car can't get away with braking the rules of physics in order to save a life. There is merely a certain probability that a system of law exists that will make mugging disadvantageous to the perpetrator. This is not 100% (in fact taking human history as a whole, I'm tempted to speculate it is less than 50%). Is there any real evidence whatsoever to the contrary?
Getting away with murder
You might come back with the argument that the fact people get away with breaking moral rules is irrelevant to the truth of those rules, but if so then the truth of those rules is irrelevant to us if we are searching for objective standards, since the rules cannot be shown to have reliable consequences, and therefore do not admit of predictions.
I also think that rational suicide is a very interesting example in the objective/subjective debate, because it's always struck me as a very interesting example of higher-order thinking successfully overruling all the lower-order evolutionary thinking with which we come pre-installed. If our sense of objective morality rests on self-preservation, why would it admit of contradiction in this way?
I also think that rational suicide is a very interesting example in the objective/subjective debate, because it's always struck me as a very interesting example of higher-order thinking successfully overruling all the lower-order evolutionary thinking with which we come pre-installed. If our sense of objective morality rests on self-preservation, why would it admit of contradiction in this way?
Raak] (Following on from Breadmaster's reply) It's also the case that all of these moral traditions arose in societies whose rulers did not follow them, yet all of these moral traditions preached acceptance of those rulers. "Thou shalt not kill" actually become "Thou shalt not kill unless thou art the state". If these are absolute moralities, shouldn't the rulers obey them? And if the rulers are immoral, shouldn't the moral organise to get rid of them and impose the rule of the moral?
My second objection is that I don't see what makes these an objective rule-set, as opposed to the many other moral precepts you could have instead (for example, sexual equality, environmentalism).
Lastly, illustrating Projoy's point, I'm reminded by the weather of the Belloc (?) poem:
The rain it falleth on the just
And on the unjust fella
But more upon the just, because
The unjust stole the just's umbrella
One of the lessons of experience (both direct and indirect) is that crime or acting immorally very often does pay.
Darren] You're right to pick me up on the creationist implication of my argument (not at all what I think). I was with your argument all the way until "In other words, we don't need a rule-set, because the proposition itself, if true, implies the existence of one." I think that's circular reasoning, because the truth or otherwise of a proposition can only be tested by reference to a rule-set.
My second objection is that I don't see what makes these an objective rule-set, as opposed to the many other moral precepts you could have instead (for example, sexual equality, environmentalism).
Lastly, illustrating Projoy's point, I'm reminded by the weather of the Belloc (?) poem:
The rain it falleth on the just
And on the unjust fella
But more upon the just, because
The unjust stole the just's umbrella
One of the lessons of experience (both direct and indirect) is that crime or acting immorally very often does pay.
Darren] You're right to pick me up on the creationist implication of my argument (not at all what I think). I was with your argument all the way until "In other words, we don't need a rule-set, because the proposition itself, if true, implies the existence of one." I think that's circular reasoning, because the truth or otherwise of a proposition can only be tested by reference to a rule-set.
[Irouléguy] Not circular, but certainly flawed. We don't need, and nor can we infer the existence of, a universal rule-set, however we do need a rule-set which covers at least the special case(s) covered by the proposition we know to be true in order to test it, as you say, but we can say (and this is what I was getting at) that if the proposition is true, then such a special-case rule-set must exist, even if its only rule is the true proposition itself. Bringing in the special-case rule-sets, a proof that there is no universal rule-set doesn't discount the possibility of a special-case one which covers only finitely many possibilities, and therefore it is possible for a proposition to be demonstratively true or false even if there is no universal rule-set.
(At this point I'm no longer talking about objectively moral rule-sets.)
(Er... by that I mean the focus of what I'm talking about has shifted away from morality into how logical propositions [can] be members of larger sets of rules mapping one class of items to another.)
[Irouléguy] The moral organising to remove unjust rulers happens now and then, for example, in Iraq. (I am not joking.) Imposing the rule of the moral, though, is a contradiction in terms. Rule can only be imposed on an unwilling populace by killing enough of them to intimidate the rest. What is moral about that? Re your second point, you see it or you don't. That is the key difference between empirical knowledge and moral knowledge: one is demonstrable and the other is not. On your third point, why didn't the just man thump the unjust when he tried to make off with his umbrella? Sometimes crime pays and sometimes it doesn't.
[Projoy] Indeed, mugging someone cannot be demonstrated to have those negative effects upon the soul that have nothing to do with the courts. The world-view I'm arguing is one that can only be held as a matter of faith. That, it occurs to me, is what religious faith really is. It is not belief in stories about empty tombs or dictating angels; it is the belief that not only are good and evil knowable, but the knowledge is closer than your own heartbeat.
But to return specifically to mugging, muggers are not notably well-off, materially successful people, are they, even if they never go to jail? There are no rich muggers.
But to return specifically to mugging, muggers are not notably well-off, materially successful people, are they, even if they never go to jail? There are no rich muggers.
Not philosophy
ISIHAC is back, and a good one too. Carry on.
Carrying on
The supposed negative consequences of sin are not some sort of consolation for the good -- "he stole my wallet, but he'll burn in hell for all eternity, so that's ok". Morality only has application to oneself. Other people will do whatever they do, whatever one thinks about what they do.
[Raak] *holds his position in the discussion while he looks online for the biography of a mugger who becomes very rich*
Per Capita
Any chance of a recap for someone who's not been able to follow this discussion closely whilst it's been ongoing? From what I can gather my thoughts are
- What's the definition of morality? I've seen a few arguments as to what it's not, but what is it?
- Without knowing what morality is, I can't decide whether there's any sense in talking about an absolute one or not.
- What I do find interesting, though, is why people seem to have converged on having similar feelings about certain things (such as killing other people to be 'bad' [which I am happy to try and define, should that be necessary]) despite having in other ways entirely different social backgrounds and upbringing. I appreciate that there are two possible explanations for this: one, a higher "moral" force. I'm more interested in the other explanation.
(within, I should say, the confines of this discussion. I'm sure this ground has been trodden more generally by many others before. But few of us, presumably, were there, so...)
[Raak] Well, you're a bit unfair to say that the points I made contradict each other - I don't think there are any universally accepted moral mores, but those which are predominantly accepted can be explained in an evolutionary way. But I don't see that this is backing for your position, or as you put it, "the consequences of right and wrong action are exactly your presumed evolutionary pressures". Seems to me more reasonable to say that "right" and "wrong" are simply words that human beings have learned to apply to actions with such consequences. But if that is so, why should we do "right" and avoid "wrong"? I think this is the problem with the position you're defending, that "right" actions help the doer and "wrong" ones harm him/her. That isn't morality, it's prudence. Prudence means doing what is sensible, essentially, from one's own point of view. Many accounts of "ethics" have really been about this, the most famous being Aristotle's, which is all about how to achieve "eudaimonia" or "happiness". But this isn't what most of us understand by "morality", for two reasons. The first is that prudence often conflicts with what most people would understand as morality. For example, a soldier who throws himself on top of a grenade to save his friends is clearly not acting prudently, but most people would want to say he acts morally. Second, prudence does not have the force of imperative that I was talking about earlier. A moral value is, in some sense, a command. "Murder is wrong" means "Don't murder people!" You can ignore it or disobey it if you want, but the command still demands a response (and this, I think, for rab's benefit, must be part of the definition of a moral statement). By contrast, "If you mug people it will redound against you" isn't a command, it's simply a statement. It's not telling you to do something. What I want from a decent account of moral statements is an explanation of that imperative, and it seems to me that appealing to consequences in this way - or indeed in any way, such as that of utilitarianism - does not do this.
To put that point a slightly different way, moral values can be transgressed, whereas ones of prudence cannot. "Do not murder people" can be obeyed or disobeyed - "Murder will ultimately harm yourself" cannot.
The wealth of muggers
[Projoy] Look at it this way: muggers are literally stealing people's pocket money. How is anyone going to get rich doing that?
[Raak] Whyever not? One mugger doesn't just mug one victim. They do it over and over again, as long as they don't get caught (that's probably the only practical limiting clause). There's also always the possibility they'll hit a minor jackpot, too, of someone who's carrying more than just "pocket money." I would imagine, for instance, that some of us going up to Rugby had a fair amount in cash. (As the guy collecting money for T-shirts, this is more than mere speculation!) Once they've got some money, there's no reason they couldn't invest their ill-gotten gains wisely, either, and make it grow a bit. True, I doubt most muggers are smart enough to know how to do that, but I don't think you can say it's inherently impossible to become rich through it.
[Raak] Oh, and I think you're also ignoring the way they tend to take other things the person has on them, such as credit cards, watches, jewellery, etc. The latter two probably aren't worth very much for most people (let's be honest, most people wear crap), but cards can lead to all kinds of nastily profitable shenanigans.
[Breadmaster] How about the sense of guilt? Doing something you know to be wrong makes you feel guilty. So, to put it another way, if something makes you feel guilty, it's something you feel to be immoral (this can be irrationally so, of course, insofar as any morality can be said to have a rational basis). Obviously, this isn't objective because different people feel guilt for different things.
[Darren] Ok, one can imagine how to make a lot of money at street crime, but I seriously doubt if anyone does. It's just not a real career option for anyone wanting to do more than just live hand to mouth.
[Bm] What is a "should"? What are commands? The moral person would no more thrust his hand into another's pocket than into a nest of vipers. Shoulds and commands are for those who lack insight and must be told what to do. I have not (yet) read Aristotle (is this the Nicomachean Ethics?), but morality as enlightened prudence sounds right to me.
[Bm] What is a "should"? What are commands? The moral person would no more thrust his hand into another's pocket than into a nest of vipers. Shoulds and commands are for those who lack insight and must be told what to do. I have not (yet) read Aristotle (is this the Nicomachean Ethics?), but morality as enlightened prudence sounds right to me.
1815 GREEN
You see - you can prove it, with one of these. You just need to know the wavelength of the light which will tell you where it is on teh spectrum which will (in most cases) be able to be proved to be a certain colour (except for those "No it's yellow" "no it's not it's orange" conversations.)
[st d] Whether you can prove it or not wasn't the point - it was whether you needed to prove it, or indeed whether you even needed to know a proof was possible.
of course - silly me.
[st d] Well done though.
You can't step into the same conversation twice...
Wow, this moves fast...
Raak] If by the case of Iraq you mean the resistance against the US/British occupation, then I'd agree that they are morally justified (without necessarily meaning that each and every one of the resitance's actions are morally justified). I suspect that's not what you mean though.
I think the core problem here is where you say "That is the key difference between empirical knowledge and moral knowledge: one is demonstrable and the other is not." If moral knowledge is not demonstrable in some way, then how do we learn it, other than by faith? And given that there are lots of possible belief systems, many of which disagree very strongly with each other, how do we distinguish between right and wrong belief systems?
Darren] I still don't see how you can know whether a proof is possible, without knowing how you are testing it.
Raak] If by the case of Iraq you mean the resistance against the US/British occupation, then I'd agree that they are morally justified (without necessarily meaning that each and every one of the resitance's actions are morally justified). I suspect that's not what you mean though.
I think the core problem here is where you say "That is the key difference between empirical knowledge and moral knowledge: one is demonstrable and the other is not." If moral knowledge is not demonstrable in some way, then how do we learn it, other than by faith? And given that there are lots of possible belief systems, many of which disagree very strongly with each other, how do we distinguish between right and wrong belief systems?
Darren] I still don't see how you can know whether a proof is possible, without knowing how you are testing it.
[Irouléguy] I think we've moved slightly from rulesets to proofs... the thing is, I don't think you need to prove a mapping is anything other then a mapping. It could be totally arbitrary, with no proof possible, but as long as you had a consistent mapping from one category to another, or, as I said above, a subset of one to a subset of the other, then that's sufficient. A ruleset doesn't need to be grounded in the real world to be a ruleset. It can be entirely abstract, but as long as it doesn't contradict itself then that's good enough as far as the logical proposition is concerned.
[Irouléguy] Indeed it wasn't! This may be getting into the stuff of flame wars, but I had in mind (as you no doubt guessed) the removal of Saddam as the moral act, and cannot see any of the resistance "actions" (i.e. suicide bombing, suicide bombing, and suicide bombing) as moral acts, especially given that the resistance is coming from the Sunni minority whose goal is Islamic dictatorship. Which of their actions do you think are morally justified?
How do we learn morality? Upbringing, practical experience, revelation, and reason applied to those. As someone once put it: "If you get it, it will be in spite of any method. You must have a method."
How do we learn morality? Upbringing, practical experience, revelation, and reason applied to those. As someone once put it: "If you get it, it will be in spite of any method. You must have a method."
self-defeating post :-)
[Raak] Hm, I don't think I'll bother continuing with this. Nothing you've suggested as an example needs more explanation than simply that humans enact moral (and legal) consequences upon one another according to the collective effect of shared or accumulated beliefs. This is the main reason muggers (nowadays) can have little success (even ignoring the fact that poverty is probably as much a cause of mugging as vice versa). Sure, all this might be the manifestation of some deeper mechanism, but it could just as easily be a bottom-up emergent phenomenon (rab can correct my terminology if I'm using this expression wrongly) that arises out of our brain chemistry and its interactions with the environment etc. etc. From what we know, this seems to me the most conservative and most available explanation. Why invoke absolute good, absolute evil? It still seems to me that you might as well invoke God. Certainly the notion of absolute good and evil, once you start trying to define them to the letter (in the case of say, the actions of Iraq's invaders and Iraq's resistance), admit of as many conceptual problems as the notion of God. Unless you can tell us more about the reasons for your willingness to entertain your leap of faith (and you've said you can't), I feel we're really just pushing words around.
More word-pushing.
[rab] Good idea re defining morality. We could take our pick from the 11 definitions, some claimed obsolete, offered by the OED. The ones it thinks are current are:
Rather a hazy selection, no?
- Moral virtue; behaviour conforming to moral law or accepted moral standards, esp. in relation to sexual matters; personal qualities judged to be good.
- Moral discourse or instruction; a moral lesson or exhortation. Also: the action or an act of moralizing.
- Conformity of an idea, practice, etc., to moral law; moral goodness or rightness.
- The quality or fact of being morally right or wrong; the goodness or badness of an action.
- The branch of knowledge concerned with right and wrong conduct, duty, responsibility, etc.; moral philosophy, ethics.
- A particular moral system or outlook; moral thought or conduct in relation to a particular form of activity.
Rather a hazy selection, no?
[Projoy] Quite. I had a think about definitions, came up with one and devised a framework for thinking about this whilst queuing in the bank this morning. Then the teller muttered something about ISAs and it all vanished. Oh dear. I also have more pressing things to worry about, in that I have in two weeks an interview for a job I really, really want and for which I expect the competition to be fierce. So I really need to pull out the stops, so if you don't hear from me it's cos I'm doing my homework.
Not posting on MC sites! Is this moral? :)
[rab] Morality: that which does not involve ISAs.
[Projoy] "Emergent phenomenon" isn't an alternative to other explanations -- it exists alongside them. For example, I am of the opinion that the mind is literally a physical process of the brain, which assembles itself by knowable (though currently almost entirely unknown) physical processes, so all the stuff we do is an emergent phenomenon of the molecules. That doesn't mean that that stuff -- thoughts, sensations, consciousness, etc. -- doesn't exist, although discoveries about the physical stuff can call into question our naive ideas about our experiences of our minds.
As a last remark, I don't want to give the impression of hinting at mysterious mystical revelations (and I cynically suspect that a lot of accounts of such are describing nothing more mysterious than a minor stroke). The experiences that I can find no adequate way of communicating are no more than a few personal development courses I've taken, following which some religious language became a lot more comprehensible, and reading in a couple of quasi-religious traditions of disputed provenance (the works of Gurdjieff and Idries Shah).
As a last remark, I don't want to give the impression of hinting at mysterious mystical revelations (and I cynically suspect that a lot of accounts of such are describing nothing more mysterious than a minor stroke). The experiences that I can find no adequate way of communicating are no more than a few personal development courses I've taken, following which some religious language became a lot more comprehensible, and reading in a couple of quasi-religious traditions of disputed provenance (the works of Gurdjieff and Idries Shah).
*sound of penny dropping*
Ahh. So you're saying that objective morality is a high-level description for a de facto emergent phenomenon? Well, we agree, then! It's only if you're insisting it's transcendent of the nuts and bolts of human behaviour and psychology that we have a fundamental disagreement.
I did say I'd shut up, didn't I? I will now shut up.
[Projoy] Actually, I'm agnostic about what it is. It might be that, and it might not be.
[Raak] You're right in a literal sense that "commands" are for those who need to be told what to do, but the point I was trying to make is that morality, if it is real, is normative. That is, it carries an implicit command in itself, irrespective of whether anyone is standing there articulating it. If it is true that there are people with moral insight who can "see" these truths, then they would also be able to "see" this implicit command and respond to it one way or the other (would you, incidentally, accept the existence of people with moral insight who nevertheless act wrongly?). Enlightened prudence (and yes, it's the "Nic Eth" I was thinking of, but any other kind too) doesn't cover it. When people say "Murder is wrong" they don't mean that it's in your interest (or even in the general interest) not to murder people - they mean that it's wrong, that you shouldn't do it, not even in an extraordinary case where it's beneficial. That's what Crime and Punishment is about. I haven't seen any argument explaining why, in the example given before, a soldier should sacrifice himself for his friends. I haven't even seen an argument explaining why I should not murder. I can imagine an argument setting out the undesirable effects of my murdering, but that's not the same thing. Jesus said "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you" - but he meant that happiness comes as a result of doing what's right, that is, as a reward. He didn't mean that happines literally is doing right, and I wouldn't have thought many people would either. Purely from an empirical standpoint, how many people would agree that the happiest people in world are also the most moral?
[Darren] The guilt point is a good one, but you'd have to argue that the guilt of doing something you believe to be bad would always outweigh any happiness you derived from the benefits of the bad act, which I think would be unlikely - people generally rationalise such things eventually. Plus, of course, it's no use when trying to make an objective account of morality, as you point out, because different people feel guilty about different things.
A shame Projoy's bowing out as I think he's been entirely right throughout this. But like him I'm not sure that much headway is being made in any direction, so perhaps I'll do the same!
[Darren] The guilt point is a good one, but you'd have to argue that the guilt of doing something you believe to be bad would always outweigh any happiness you derived from the benefits of the bad act, which I think would be unlikely - people generally rationalise such things eventually. Plus, of course, it's no use when trying to make an objective account of morality, as you point out, because different people feel guilty about different things.
A shame Projoy's bowing out as I think he's been entirely right throughout this. But like him I'm not sure that much headway is being made in any direction, so perhaps I'll do the same!
[Bm] In which case, perhaps it's time to draw the whole question of "what is morality" to a close.
[Bm] Here's a thought: if immoral actions are those which we feel guilty about, then perhaps as guilt wears off the actions become less immoral! Has anyone ever claimed that a given action is (im)moral for perpetuity, or is it allowed for its status to change with time? Note that I'm not putting this idea of transient immorality forward as anything too serious, I'm just playing around with the concept to see what happens.
After all, most people would say (I think) that once you've done a particular immoral action once or twice, it becomes easier to do it later. I'm talking here about personal morality rather than any kind of universal morality, of course.
[Bm] "Command", "normative force", and "should" are just different labels for the same thing, whatever that thing is, if it exists. You can't get an ought from an is, so there are no arguments proving that one should do this or that, except from assumptions about what one should or should not do. There isn't an argument proving that you should get out of the way of a car either, only a description of the consequences, on the basis of which everyone is free to make their own response to the situation. "Enlightened prudence" (with an emphasis on the enlightened) doesn't bridge that gap, but neither does anything else. The only way to get there is to be there.
[Raak] Well, that is precisely one of the key reasons for supposing there is no such thing as objective moral truth!
Coming in during Dinner
Some people don't seem to have quite got the hang of this, you could say.
[Bm] I left moral truth off that list, because although one view is that it's just another name for the same thing, in the view I'm arguing, it isn't. It's...it's moral truth, that's what it is! And one still has a choice about whether to follow it or not.
talking of dinner
Last night I had dinner at a nice restaurant called Baltic, with , among others, Sarah Atkins, who is Head of Legal at London Underground.
[st dogmael] Did you ask her about the meaning of morality?
Yes. She said that it was buried deep in the foundations of the Jubilee Line Extension, somewhere near Canary Wharf, and that LU owned the IP rights to it.
gatsos
got hit with one on the M4 on Friday eveniing - doing 45ish in a temporary roadworks 40mph zone. BATFISH.
Greetings from deepest Vermont, where the speed limit is 25mph and the hire car does almoat 20 mph without complaining. And the weather's pretty bloody hot too.
[st d] Why do I suspect that when you add "-ish" to your speed, you actually mean "+30"? :-)
Well I've just got back from Inverness and a lovely time I had too, despite it being work. It appears the Highlands haven't yet discovered speed cameras if the taxi I got from the airport was anything to go by. Rab might be interested to know the flightpath in takes you directly over Inverness Sewerage Treatment Works.
[Botherer] Did you buy a cape?
speed estimates
CdM] Funnily enough, loud mouthed as I am, I do try to drive safely. The signs were all over saying 40MPH SPEED CAMERAS etc etc so I dropped to about 50, then saw the camera and braked and got flashed so I assume I was doing about 45. To be honest I would have braked a hell of a lot harder and probably been okay if I though it would have been safe but there were cars behind me. (a speeding tikcet, caught on camera, with brake lights showing and a Nissan crashed up my ass and HGVs jackknifing left right and centre would have been a bad look)
Cameras
I was almost caught by a static camera on my way into Liverpool on Sunday; I'd been travelling down the East Lancs road at 40 (the limit), and always forget that it changes to 30 on a ridiculous junction where it's really far more prudent to be looking at the five con/di-verging pieces of road (and persons alongside/between them) than at the signage and the speedometer. It remains a 30 zone, with no real need to be so. I only thought to ask my girlfriend on imminent approach to the camera what the limit was at that point, and I think I managed to take 10mph off before it could see my plate (there were no flashes that I could discern). Thankfully there was no-one close behind. The camera is placed on a flyover between the run-offs to and from one of the tunnels, so again my concentration really would be more use on other aspects of my driving than the speedometer and signage.
I was also pulled over for the first time on the M62 on Friday for (in my eyes, obviously) mostly unjustified reasons, at least partially caused by the officer doing the pulling. Thankfully he was only in the mood to administer a lecture, and then had to extricate me from the far more dangerous situation he'd left me in - he'd pulled me over behind a broken down van in the hard shoulder on a exit filter lane to Warrington. This involved both of us reversing down the hard shoulder(!), then him madly waving people out of the filter lane before pulling out into it at 3mph(!) so that I could get out and 'safely' build speed and pull back out of the filter-off lane. Which I'm fairly sure is an offense, due to the markings on the road, but that was what he'd told me to do(!).
I wrote an overly long-winded explanation. Click here to see it. I pretty much know what's going on around me, even when I haven't been able to see into a spot for a second or two. It's called induction and extrapolation. Well, I think it is, and on that point I think I'm in pretty much the ideal place for correction. Sorry, I needed to vent. My girlfriend got sick of it after about half an hour.
[PJ] Cape and Top Hat, brushed up my tails...
coptastic
nik] he sounds like a cunt of the very first order. You should write a letter of complaint.
If he'd actually booked me for something, then maybe. As it was, he just seemed to be something of a busy-body. I think I've pretty much worked it out of my system now. Only taken a week! :/
(Nik) Dear me, pulled over by a bumptious cop and given a lecture. Get over it FFS.
Er, did I not say I'd gotten over it? In the post before yours? Which was days before your post? In response to st d, posting several days after my original post? Can I direct statements including the word 'fuck' at you too? Can I? It's big and clever.
orders of c....
nik] sounds like he didnt give you a ticket because he knew he wouldnt get away with it. Still ranks pretty highly with me or he wouldn't have pulled you over at all.
(Nik) Try www.upmyownarse/pettymotoringwhinges.com
[Rosie] Careful now, it's been a pleasingly long time since we had a full-blown flamewar.
[Projoy] Don't worry, I've never been good at flamewars. They require far too much effort and a short-term memory capable of remembering that I'm participating in one.
driven up the wall
[pettymotoringwhinges] Yes please! I have loads . . .
flamewars
not sure i ever remember one on here, it does seem that you are spoiling needlessly for a reaction though, rosie.
(Projoy) No flamewar. I've made my point, which stands.
Point standing?
No, I'm sorry, Rosie. A point simply isn't stable; it would tip over.
[SM] It depends which way up you stand it.
(SM, Darren) Points mean prizes. (wearily) What do points mean?
PRIZES!!
hooray. I would like to win a very fast loud car and drive it about extremely fast with music blaring.
[st d] If the exhaust drops off your Peugeot and you point it downhill with Take That turned up to full bifters, that's what you'll have.
Peugeot Exhausts
[pen] Shirley you mean when the exhaust drops off your Peugeot?
[Botherer] Have you seen the amount of string holding St D's Peugeot's exhaust on?
string
that's not string, that's plastic bags wound round lots of times.
Phew wot a humid scorcher
I was up at 0530 this morning (another of my apparently weekly trips to Heathrow to collect/deliver people) and it was 17 degrees. I still think the best summer holiday I had was in the Arctic Circle. I'll bore you with temeperature updates and whinges throughout the day...
[pen] You are joking, right...?
[CDM] Nope. I have the build of an eskimau
Eskimo Nell
(pen) As long as you don't have their washing habits (nil). It's going to get a lot hotter over the weekend but you can avoid it by yet another trip to Heathrow or wherever and flying to "the uttermost part of the earth" (EasyJet, £5). See http://groups-beta.google.com/group/uk.sci.weather Mine is the first post in a thread marked "Cold Stuff". Maybe a bit technical/anorakky.
[pen] To be clear, my disbelief didn't concern the arctic circle vacation (I remember a wonderful trip to Lapland in midsummer) but the idea that 17 degrees is remotely warm, even at 05:30. Even for an eskimo.
[CdM] I sound like a complete marshmallow, but 17 degrees is at the point where I find it difficult to sleep. Flerdle will scoff...
[CdM] 17 degrees is quite warm enough for me, I can tell you. And you know where I'm going to be a month from today! Ha! Oh dear...
hahahahahahahahaha I win.
*scoffs*
[oblig weather report] "Normal" temperature range here now is 30 to 40°C, often about 5 degrees higher, with daytime humidity usually around 60%, higher at night. It was 35°C at midnight one day last week.
Yes, of course we use airconditioners, to bring the inside temperature down to somewhere in the mid to high 20s, and to dry out the air, and to avoid situations like the one on Wednesday night when (presumably) the freezer electrics overheating in the grocery store below our flat caused a fire that almost burnt down the building. I'm not surprised it happened, because they've never bothered to kept the shop cool enough. They're paying for it now.
During the heatwave in Bris at the start of last year, I found my "can't really sleep" point was almost exactly 23°C. Even one degree lower helps.
I don't know how I'm going to cope with Tasmania in early August.
(Re 23°C: things like humidity, fans, etc would vary it, but it was interesting observing my sleeping patterns and correlating it to temperature, at that time. Hey, I was stuck in the wrong country for two months, I needed something to do. I'm not about to redo the "experiment" if I can help it. Also, here we probably have the aircons set a bit lower than I said above. We don't have a thermometer or hygrometer, so I have to go by reported temperatures, but I have no reason to think they fib.)
I have a nice little chart which shows the apparent temperature, given the humidity and environmental temperature. Fascinating reading. For example, the other day when it was 40°C and 50% humidity, for most people that gives an apparent temperature of about 55°C, or 63° if you're in full sun (that's 145°F, if you needed the conversion).
Yum.
Sleep temperatures
(flerdle) No air-conditioning in this house and the temperature in my bedroom now (9.45 pm) is 25. We've had quite a warm day. The next few nights will be warmer still - probably 27 or so in this room but to me that's no problem. You just wake up a bit sweaty, that's all.
That's quite hot
I don't know how I'd cope with 40°C, but I dream of temperatures reaching 30something here! Far too seldom.
Chilling out
[flerdle] You had best put on some weight. Tassie in August is going to be right nippy I would think.
Our snowfields finally received a dump or two over the last few days - about 500mm according to reports - so it looks like the monied classes will have something to play in again this year. Locally the nights are cooling off (4.5°C minimum last night) but the days are fine and, unfortunately, dry. The dam levels for the Sydney area are down to about 38% of capacity - not great when you have 4 million plus people relying on the supply. Water restrictions have been tightened again. Some towns west of the divide are now having to cart water in from afar. I feel for the poor farmers. There are five year old children in some areas who have never seen rain.
Yeah, thought you would be interested. Sorry.
Our snowfields finally received a dump or two over the last few days - about 500mm according to reports - so it looks like the monied classes will have something to play in again this year. Locally the nights are cooling off (4.5°C minimum last night) but the days are fine and, unfortunately, dry. The dam levels for the Sydney area are down to about 38% of capacity - not great when you have 4 million plus people relying on the supply. Water restrictions have been tightened again. Some towns west of the divide are now having to cart water in from afar. I feel for the poor farmers. There are five year old children in some areas who have never seen rain.
Yeah, thought you would be interested. Sorry.
Scepticism
(Dujon) Has there really been a 5-yr absolute drought in parts of Oz that normally receive at least some rain from time to time? Possible, I suppose. The variability is greater than in the UK. It's been dry here too, at least in the south. At Maison Rosie there have been 7 dry months running and the total is under 60% of normal for that spell and there's now a hosepipe ban. Such hardship! But why should people think they can lay water out to dry? It's a finite resource.
Correction
Sorry, Rosie, I should have typed 'four-year-olds'. But, yes, it's true, and I'm not commenting on desert areas. Even where I live it's not particularly good. This calendar year (Jan & Feb tend to be our storm months) we have had 126/144.5/61/20.5/22 and, so far this month, 0.5 mm of precipitation. Some of this arrives in bucketsfull - we had 35mm and 30mm land on different days of Jan., 38.5mm twice in Feb. and another of 54mm (the 22nd; this followed one of the 38.5mm days), 14.5mm, 12mm and 19mm on separate March days. Since then we've had 13 days on which it rained, the maximum being 7mm on May 18th.
Put your scepticism back in the wallet and save it for a rainy day. ;-)
Put your scepticism back in the wallet and save it for a rainy day. ;-)
[Rosie] We really should find a thermometer and see what it is in here; in any case, it's not 18°C. I suspect I've become better able to tolerate heat, including while sleeping, but I still don't like it.
[Dujon] I have been :-(
[Dujon] I have been :-(
Dumper truck
Call me Mr Purile, but I'm always amused when people concerned with snowfall talk about "good dumps".
Drought and sweat
(Dujon) OK. It's just that I'm a natural sceptic, based on the "95% is bollocks" principle, but this forum has a greater percentage of truth-tellers than most, I'd say. Your total comes to 370 mm or so which is a lot less than the 600 mm that Sydney is supposed to have in that period. But are you in Sydeny itself? The figure for Richmond is only 420 mm for the same period. But I suppose any deficit is serious if it's part of a long-term dry spell. (flerdle) Yes, I can't believe 18°C in your tropical paradise. I'd find that decidedly chilly. (rab) Carry on! I am equally caused to giggle when people say they had to evacuate to avoid some imminent weather disaster. Scared the shit out of them, in other words.
I can't see anything amiss with using 'dump' in such a context. One meaning of the word is 'to put down heavily', which sums up heavy falls of rain/snow/whatever. Perhaps it would have been more correct to have said 'was dumped'? My apologies for mangling the language.
I'll have to check my records, Rosie. Unfortunately I took the trouble to transfer my data from notebooks to a computer spreadsheet program and promptly lost it all when a hard drive failed. Naturally gubbins here hadn't got around to backing up the files. There were about fifteen years of it and I've not had the inclination to do it all again. I'd have to find the notebooks, too (no doubt they'll be in a 'safe place'). I'm about the same distance from Sydney as is Richmond - 80 Km/50 miles - but with about 1000' extra elevation and 30 Km south-ish.
I'll have to check my records, Rosie. Unfortunately I took the trouble to transfer my data from notebooks to a computer spreadsheet program and promptly lost it all when a hard drive failed. Naturally gubbins here hadn't got around to backing up the files. There were about fifteen years of it and I've not had the inclination to do it all again. I'd have to find the notebooks, too (no doubt they'll be in a 'safe place'). I'm about the same distance from Sydney as is Richmond - 80 Km/50 miles - but with about 1000' extra elevation and 30 Km south-ish.
Further to that lot, Rosie, if you are interested then look here for information on current Sydney dam levels.
The bit found here includes a small reference to Goulburn (I could drive there in less than an hour and a half - I think). It's not quite up to date as the town has tapped the aquifiers and is using 'grey' and recycled water quite extensively. Strange though it may seem, much of the recycled stuff is used for keeping the sporting fields operational - combined with water carted in to the town (at some considerable expense to the clubs involved).
I won't bore (sorry) others on this site with useless chatter, I'll send an e-mail in the next few days. I noticed that London is expecting well over 30°C today (Sunday) and will ask you a couple of questions about it. That sort of reading is becoming seriously warm.
The bit found here includes a small reference to Goulburn (I could drive there in less than an hour and a half - I think). It's not quite up to date as the town has tapped the aquifiers and is using 'grey' and recycled water quite extensively. Strange though it may seem, much of the recycled stuff is used for keeping the sporting fields operational - combined with water carted in to the town (at some considerable expense to the clubs involved).
I won't bore (sorry) others on this site with useless chatter, I'll send an e-mail in the next few days. I noticed that London is expecting well over 30°C today (Sunday) and will ask you a couple of questions about it. That sort of reading is becoming seriously warm.
[Dujon] There's nothing grammatically wrong with using the word "dump" in that way - it's just highly amusing to those of us with the minds of small boys. Maybe Australians don't use the word in - ah - that sense? I'm most surprised!
generalised dumping
[Bm] I don't think we do, really.
[Breadmaster] Ah, yes! No, it's not common here and so went straight over my head. Rosie's evacuation quip should have alerted me. :-(
Heat
(Dujon) You're up! So am I. It was 30.6 here at Hughes Hall (southern edge of London, 600 ft) but the highest was 32.6 at Heathrow, a bit suspect due to all that concrete. Some tasty thunderstorms in the north but nothing here. Outside it's stuck at 21 and not a breath of wind, and 28 in this room. No bedclothes tonite, Josephine.
tasmania
why are you going to dear old tassie flerlde ? where you going ? have you been before ? tassie is one of my favorite places.
tasmaina
Just visiting a relative, in Hobart; not sure what we'll actually do. Should be a bit different. Second week of August. I've always wanted to visit, but it's been a bit far away ( = expensive to get to) for just a holiday.
AVMA
This game has died. Either that or Gusset Login has. If he's not there later today I'll start it myself and you'll all suffer. :-)
AVMA
You're safe. He's back.
[Rosie] But everyone else has gone. Hellloooo?
I'm lurking!
Lurking
I'd like to play more but as I can't access MC5 from work (apparently Websense thinks it's a game!) I feel reluctant to contribute.
Snow jobs
In exciting news just to hand: It's snowing. Well, not here, but where my wife works, which is a half hour drive to my west in a place called Katoomba. This, I suspect, will mean that PaulWay will be taking anti-chilblain precautions due to his location in cold Canberra. Sorry for the exuberance - most of it stems from the fact that I'm glad I'm not there.
(Dujon) Latest from Canberra is 6°C. BTW how high is Katoomba? I can see why it's a bit cold from the excellent animations from the Bureau of Metorology, which show a series of charts and loads of other data too. The Americans, via NOAA, also provide this kind of thing, and for the whole world. Not a dicky bird from our own UK Met Office, which has now completely abandoned all idea of public service. It sells forecasts to the BBC at a huge price and operates purely on a commercial basis. It is about to shut down all non-military outstations, including weather centres. The archives are not online and its website is minimalist, quite unlike other countries' services. Its attitude to the public is "up yours - you don't pay". It is despised by all its former employees, including this one, and by a good proportion of its present ones, except the accountants, probably. The poison was first injected by Thatcher and further heavy doses have been enthusiastically administered under that prick Blair. A heap of shite and a national disgrace.
[Rosie] Katoomba? About 1000 metres, give or take a few. It's not particularly elevated in world terms but is in those of Australia. I'm approximately 270 m.a.s.l. (which is close to, but not quite, 1000' a.s.l.). Please keep in mind that Mt. Kosciuszko, our highest point, is a mere 2228 metres above sea level and that you can pretty well drive there.
Last night was 'nippy' here - about 2.5°C - and as I write it seems about 11°C (it's approx 13:30 local). That reading comes from an electronic device and one in which I invest little credibility - though it's probably close. Whatever, it most surely is cold for this part of the world.
Last night was 'nippy' here - about 2.5°C - and as I write it seems about 11°C (it's approx 13:30 local). That reading comes from an electronic device and one in which I invest little credibility - though it's probably close. Whatever, it most surely is cold for this part of the world.
prescience
[Dujon] PaulWay is in the Caribbean at the moment, or possibly the west coast of the US.
*is not jealous of the antipodeans' sub-10-degree-centigrade temperatures at all, oh no...* 20 degrees C here (NW London) at 09.00 this morning, with a high of 32C or 90F expected today. Thank goodness I'm working outside for the next couple of days. I think...
(Dujon) Thanks. Along with penelope I could do with a bit of that. Just popped out to the screen - it's 29°, dewpoint 17°, i.e. sweaty. Almost no wind and the sky is full of heavy cirrus, which should stop it getting any hotter but might stop it cooling down much this evening, alas. Tomorrow's forecast is for all hell to be let loose (thunderstorms). It looks rather tasty, but we'll see. Only 6 mm rain here this month. Good, no gardening needed. Concerning my earlier rant my sources in the Met Office seem to have been reliable; see http://northtonight.grampiantv.co.uk/content/default.asp?page=s1_1_1&newsid=6898 You can get UK Met Office charts but only via the University of Karlsruhe.
[Pen] Bah! Luxury. It has topped 32oC every day (Except Weds)this week here in the Avon Valley. 19oC ish at night. I have been sleeping out on the lawn (in my sleeping bag) all week - listening to the hedgehogs fan themselves.
[flerdle] PaulWay must indeed have a sixth sense - good luck to him. Drifting around the east coast or west coast of the U.S. of A. sounds somewhat idyllic - unless there're cyclones or earthquakes.
[Rosie] That does sound a bit, well, short sighted? I can most certainly understand the concerns of local industries - fishing, oil rigs and the like - as I have always felt that local knowledge in these matters is a significant asset. Yesterday Katoomba had a temperature range of -1°C to 3°C. Given my wife's earlier account I thought I'd gird my loins and drive up to bring her home (she often has to walk to the station - a good half hour walk and all up hill). Not having been to her place of employ previously I got flummoxed in the back street up and down dale topography. Enough so as to miss her. I then hurtled up to the railway station and again missed. Most sad. There was, however, a light side to this epic voyage of discovery: Just about everyone I saw in the main street of the town wore a beany, many were wearing fleecy lined jackets (some with Alaskan style fur collars/hoods) whilst little old me was wearing my usual short-sleeved shirt with a cardigan for insurance and no hat. It was most assuredly cold and I would not have liked to wander around for an hour in that garb, but it did make me chuckle.
To make things worth, by the way, thinking that my wife's train was long gone by the time I rediscovered my home territory, I took a cursory glance at the railway station as I passed and, seeing no one of interest, carried on home. I was advised fifteen minutes later - in no uncertain terms - that I'd driven straight past the poor lass. Honestly, you can't win.
[Rosie] That does sound a bit, well, short sighted? I can most certainly understand the concerns of local industries - fishing, oil rigs and the like - as I have always felt that local knowledge in these matters is a significant asset. Yesterday Katoomba had a temperature range of -1°C to 3°C. Given my wife's earlier account I thought I'd gird my loins and drive up to bring her home (she often has to walk to the station - a good half hour walk and all up hill). Not having been to her place of employ previously I got flummoxed in the back street up and down dale topography. Enough so as to miss her. I then hurtled up to the railway station and again missed. Most sad. There was, however, a light side to this epic voyage of discovery: Just about everyone I saw in the main street of the town wore a beany, many were wearing fleecy lined jackets (some with Alaskan style fur collars/hoods) whilst little old me was wearing my usual short-sleeved shirt with a cardigan for insurance and no hat. It was most assuredly cold and I would not have liked to wander around for an hour in that garb, but it did make me chuckle.
To make things worth, by the way, thinking that my wife's train was long gone by the time I rediscovered my home territory, I took a cursory glance at the railway station as I passed and, seeing no one of interest, carried on home. I was advised fifteen minutes later - in no uncertain terms - that I'd driven straight past the poor lass. Honestly, you can't win.
lithping
s/worth/worse.
Blue Mountains
[Dujon] I have to say that I think you have the good fortune to live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world that I have ever seen.
[BtD] Sleeping outside? Is your house better or still falling down?
bool- house is fine, just very hot. please excuse the formatting, this is being posted from a mobile.
[CdM] I had gathered you'd been here, but hadn't realised that you had visited the 'mountains'. Though they are not very high there are some majestic parts of them, for sure. I'm pleased that you enjoyed the place.
[All] I hope that everyone else has had some relief from your oppressive weather - I know from experience that it can be quite ennervating, especially the 'getting to sleep' bit. Urrk. As a matter of interest, Bob the dog, if you were escaping the heat then why the sleeping bag? You have me intrigued.
[All] I hope that everyone else has had some relief from your oppressive weather - I know from experience that it can be quite ennervating, especially the 'getting to sleep' bit. Urrk. As a matter of interest, Bob the dog, if you were escaping the heat then why the sleeping bag? You have me intrigued.
Full moon
Dujon] Its a summerbag - simply for keeping the dew off - not that there has been much. There is also the discretion factor as I sleep in view of neighbours who are very good friends of ours - but who would probably be offended by the sight of my lack of attire. Come to think of it - a topic of conversation here in the UK recently has been the unusally large moon close to the horizon...
the great outdoors
[BtD] So do you hop out the back door in your sleeping bag, sack-race style, or do you tiptoe out once you think they're asleep?
Full Moon
(Btd) The moon, full or otherwise, always looks big when close to the horizon. It's an optical illusion, which nobody can really explain. If you actually measured it you would find it's smaller near the horizon than when high in the sky, other things being equal. This is a simple geometrical effect.
Moon river
[Rosie] No, I think, surely, you would find that the Moon is the same size in the sky no matter whether it's high or low. After all, it only takes a few hours for it to rise or set - it's not going to change in apparent size as it does so. The apparent growth of the Moon when near the horizon is of course some kind of psychological effect.
The reason the Moon has been looking even bigger than usual near the horizon this week is that full moon has coincided (almost) with midsummer. The Moon is full when it is opposite the sun in the sky. The sun is at its highest at midsummer. Therefore, if the Moon is full at midsummer, it will be as close to the horizon as it ever gets whilst being full. Therefore the "Mendex" or Moon Illusion is at its strongest.
The reason the Moon has been looking even bigger than usual near the horizon this week is that full moon has coincided (almost) with midsummer. The Moon is full when it is opposite the sun in the sky. The sun is at its highest at midsummer. Therefore, if the Moon is full at midsummer, it will be as close to the horizon as it ever gets whilst being full. Therefore the "Mendex" or Moon Illusion is at its strongest.
When I say that the Moon doesn't change in apparent size while rising or setting, I mean that the area of sky that it covers surely doesn't change. Obviously its apparent size does change because it looks bigger closer to the horizon, but it extends over the same arc of the sky (and indeed of the retina).
The moon should appear to be smaller when on the horizon than when at the zenith. Reason? It is further away when viewed at a tangent to the Earth's surface than from a perpendicular. This slight change is measurable though unlikely to be noticed by a casual observer.
Why we generally perceive a full moon to be larger on its rising as opposed to when it is high in the sky has often been said to be as a result of it being in proximity to our more normally observed everyday horizon (trees, buildings, horizon line) than when it's clear of such. In other words the sense of scale becomes more evident.
Why we generally perceive a full moon to be larger on its rising as opposed to when it is high in the sky has often been said to be as a result of it being in proximity to our more normally observed everyday horizon (trees, buildings, horizon line) than when it's clear of such. In other words the sense of scale becomes more evident.
Moon size
(Breadmaster) Dujon has explained what I meant by the "geometrical effect". The moon is measurably about 1.7% larger in apparent diameter when overhead than when on the horizon, other things being equal. We're simply closer to it when it's overhead. The same applies to the sun, strictly speaking, but as the distance of the sun is 23500 earth radii the effect is barely measurable even with instruments.
Peter Greenaway
reference is made to: http://petergreenaway.co.uk/games.htm
Many of the films of Peter Greenaway, at least the feature films that I have seen, have the structure of games. The best example is probably Drowning by Numbers. I have only recently discovered MC and I find the similarity to Hangman's Cricket to be striking. Does anyone know whether Greenaway has played MC?
[Rosie] Sorry to steal your thunder, old son, but Breadmaster's comment had been sitting for quite a few hours without response.
[Effable] Hello. I cannot answer your question but, on the law of averages, my guess would be 'yes'. The reason for that is that I believe I'm the only person on Earth who hasn't played a serious game of M.C..
[Effable] Hello. I cannot answer your question but, on the law of averages, my guess would be 'yes'. The reason for that is that I believe I'm the only person on Earth who hasn't played a serious game of M.C..
(Duj) No problem, mate. I've never played MC, either live or on these sites. It is essentially a performance in which the audience and panel enter into a mutual conspiracy about the complexity of the rules. Very few people I know have ever heard of it, which is rather disappointing. You could go up to anyone over the age of about 40 in this country and say "Bal-ham", and the almost instantaneous response would be "Gateway to the South", but say "Mornington Crescent" and you'd get mostly blank looks.
[Breadmaster] I just re-read your earlier post vis-à-vis (sorry!) full moon and the midsummer situation. This is not true. On average there are thirteen full moons per year. As viewed from Earth (the Sun always 'sees' a full moon) such an event can only be seen from one point on Earth and will happen at a specific time. To be technically correct a proper full moon will only occur during a total lunar eclipse, which is when the Sun, Earth and Moon are truly aligned - even then it can only be termed a 'full moon' by a person standing/sitting/lying on the direct line between the Sun, Earth and Moon at the time that this occurs.
Ooh Arr, hello Rosie. Simulpost.
I trust you agree with my little piece on celestial mechanics? Or have I mislead myself?
I trust you agree with my little piece on celestial mechanics? Or have I mislead myself?
conspiracy
[Rosie] Well, I'm very nearly fifty and I only learned of the existence of MC a few days ago. Now I'm hooked. It is as though it had been out there waiting for me to discover it, seems so right, so well suited to my motley talents. It doesn't bother me that it is so obscure. That is part of the appeal. And I am confident that many people have played MC without knowing what it is called. The pattern is a common one in many circles with intellectual pretensions.
Sprung
[Effable]
Your research, Sir or Madam, is exemplary. Welcome to the world of wannabees, couldavebeens and mightwellbees. I suspect that you will fit quite well into this society of misfits and miscreants. As a relative newcomer to the M.C. world myself, I'm quite sure that you will understand the deep and meaningful discussions, the amazing word play and generally unintelligible literary references which pepper this and other M.C. sites. Should I be correct then maybe you could help me out when I get stuck?
| "... The pattern is a common one in many circles with intellectual pretensions." |
Your research, Sir or Madam, is exemplary. Welcome to the world of wannabees, couldavebeens and mightwellbees. I suspect that you will fit quite well into this society of misfits and miscreants. As a relative newcomer to the M.C. world myself, I'm quite sure that you will understand the deep and meaningful discussions, the amazing word play and generally unintelligible literary references which pepper this and other M.C. sites. Should I be correct then maybe you could help me out when I get stuck?
[Dujon] Yes, of course technically you're correct about the full moon - I was using the term in the slightly vernacular sense, meaning the moon when it is as full as it is getting this month, as it were.
Living in Norfolk and often driving through the fens, I have frequently seen "full" moons on the horizion and they never look any bigger than when it is up in the sky. The moon does look huge however when it is a very fine crescent rising just before or setting just after the sun on a red sky.
mooning.
[Boolbar] Do you have only one good eye? The "moon illusion" is much less if you close one eye (or really only see well out of one), or stand on your head. If you don't want to stand on your head, you could bend over and look through your legs. Noone would think you're strange. Honest.
[flerdle] No-one is normal in Norfolk, so such behaviour would be ignored, or even actively encouraged. I have two good eyes last time I looked, although one looked bigger than the other . . . .
[Boolbar] Does the eye look bigger when it's closer to the horizon?
Sprang
[Dujon] I answer to neither Sir nor Madam but will admit to the y chromosome. It is possible that my participation will be of some small benefit to the community.
Full moons and chromosomes
(Duj) Strictly speaking you're correct but the term Full Moon is used, even technically, to mean that the ecliptic longitude of the moon is 180° more (or less) than the sun, whatever its latitude (-5° at the last full moon). (Effable) To save you putting your foot in it, so to speak, I too must admit to the Y-chromosome. There is at least one other person here who does the same. But beware; there are people here with no Y-chromosome whatever, some, moreover, with non-gender-specific monickers. Truly a minefield. :-)
Stale games
This site has had the same games on the front page for an offally long time. Time for a bit of turnover, perhaps?
stereotypes
[Rosie] I really don't mind. I'll watch my step and try to be PC.
[SM] You Know You're Getting Old... is unkillable
[SM] S'true. We've tried everything.
Which, I suppose, is ironic in a way. You know you're getting old when you stop caring about killing games, since you expect even the short ones to outlive you.
Death to...
I have tried to dispose of the Furcation game, but we have another non-standard winning move situation.
I think that one might be protected by administrative fiat. Still, I must admit that the prospect of my ever making the promised move is not getting greater as time goes on.
By Thunder!
Wow - last night in Herts was the most spectacular display of lightning... torrential rain, at least half an inch... whoooo-wee! Marvellous. Anyone else get anything ?
[pen] I got a nice bit of fish for tea.
[pen] I got a squash racket for my birthday.
castrated ram
[pen] I got leaks. The lightning was rather good though, very blue in colour.
Balls
Pen] Notmrsbobthedog claims to have seen ball lightning. She was out making sure the chickens were safe when there was a massive boom. Looking up she saw what she described as a lightbulb-shaped white glow which hung in the air for a few seconds after the strike.
Meanwhile, I was stuck in Brum, attempting to get the train back after a trip to York. I was sat in a metal hanger during the best of the storm. Sadly, the Selfridges building escaped divine judgement. All trains (including mine) were cancelled for two hours due to the weather. I got home very late.
Meanwhile, I was stuck in Brum, attempting to get the train back after a trip to York. I was sat in a metal hanger during the best of the storm. Sadly, the Selfridges building escaped divine judgement. All trains (including mine) were cancelled for two hours due to the weather. I got home very late.
Goodness Gracious etc...
[Btd] woweee.
[Chalks] Good idea. I'd fish the fish out of the freezer if I was going to be in tonight, but Flatmate's mum is taking us out for dinner - local chinese does THE BEST Szechuan Stir-fried green beans with salt and pepper.
[Tuj] Happy Birthday. Are you going to play grown-up squash? ;o) I once got through to the country trials in my younger, squash-playing days, mainly due to my killer serve which I could drop dead in the back corner. Unfortunately the rest of my game let me down. But I enjoyed the acoustics in the squash court - my best friend and I would spend an hour singing songs from The Jam, Duran Duran, The Teardrop Explodes and Gary Numan rather than playing squash.
[Boolbar] Leaks? Oh dear. The husband of one of my colleagues, in the midst of a huge house-improvement project, of which he is very capable, chose yesterday to take off the roofs off their porch and garage. Ooops.
[Chalks] Good idea. I'd fish the fish out of the freezer if I was going to be in tonight, but Flatmate's mum is taking us out for dinner - local chinese does THE BEST Szechuan Stir-fried green beans with salt and pepper.
[Tuj] Happy Birthday. Are you going to play grown-up squash? ;o) I once got through to the country trials in my younger, squash-playing days, mainly due to my killer serve which I could drop dead in the back corner. Unfortunately the rest of my game let me down. But I enjoyed the acoustics in the squash court - my best friend and I would spend an hour singing songs from The Jam, Duran Duran, The Teardrop Explodes and Gary Numan rather than playing squash.
[Boolbar] Leaks? Oh dear. The husband of one of my colleagues, in the midst of a huge house-improvement project, of which he is very capable, chose yesterday to take off the roofs off their porch and garage. Ooops.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Birmingham, here is an image of the Selfridges building on the new Bull Ring.
The term Bimbo architecture has been used in association with this building.
Bimbo Architecture means buildings designed to attract customers but lacking in architectural integrity. RIBA president Maxwell Hutchinson said: “Bimbo architecture has a big smile and a pretty face but nothing between the ears. It is ‘hi-tech’ architecture without the tech and with an exclamation mark after the ‘Hi’ “.
The term Bimbo architecture has been used in association with this building.
Bimbo Architecture means buildings designed to attract customers but lacking in architectural integrity. RIBA president Maxwell Hutchinson said: “Bimbo architecture has a big smile and a pretty face but nothing between the ears. It is ‘hi-tech’ architecture without the tech and with an exclamation mark after the ‘Hi’ “.
Bimbo architecture
Wow, that's ugly. I don't think the lens helped here but still ... are people expected to shop here or is it an office building? It looks like something from a bad SciFi movie. "The Blob That Ate Bull Ring!"
[Effable] I've never been there but I understand it is for shopping and not purely offices. For what it's worth, I quite like it.
speaking from experience
Bull Selfridges Ring - it's much nicer in the flesh.
What a visual insult! Come friendly bombs and fall on Birmingham. It makes Croydon look like a pretty little market town, which it ain't.
At the risk of offending someone, that looks about as attractive as a beached whale.
[Duj and other detractors] Like most things - the edifice needs to be viewed in context.
[pen : hot beans] - how's your digestive system this morning?
[Chalky] But OTOH, I like it just on its own. [Btd] I can't resist asking (in the typical debate-starting manner) why this bit of architecture is less intelligent than, say, St Paul's Cathedral. The best reason I can think of is that while this building looks like a jokily scaled-up sequinned amoeba, St Paul's Cathedral looks like, well, a cathedral - which depending on your POV suggests that Christopher Wren was less decadent than Future Systems. Also, some architecture critics have pointed out that Selfridge's is basically a shell-concept, with little of architectural interest inside it, so not a coherent bit of architecture? Are these your reasons for disliking it?
Architectural integrity
What does Maxwell Hutchinson mean by "architectural integrity"? To me, that would mean "it satisfies the purpose it was built for, keeps out the rain, and doesn't fall down", but he appears to have some moral concept in mind. Googling for some reviews of the place, I didn't see much mention of whether it works in that sense. I did see a lot of photography that one might accuse of lacking in architectural integrity, i.e. shots taken from unusual angles that give no idea of what the thing actually looks like.
St Paul's
[Projoy] Ever seen St Paul's from above? The facade is not part of the structure, so it's a shell just like Selfridges. It gives a nice impression from the street, but it's not what it appears to be.
The Beauty of Hot Beans
[Chalks] Perfect, thank you :o)
Projoy and debate] I'm not that good at debating well because I feel very strongly about some issues and have a tendency to be both self-righteous and politically correct. However, I will present my own reasons for disliking the Selfridges building and why I think that Maxwell Hutchinson quote on Bimbo Architecture is a spot on reference to it. I would not like to think that I have offended anyone (as I have done when I fail to understand why people should play golf, wash their car on a Sunday, get married, get pierced, get tattoos, wear high heels or do any of the other multitude of bizarre things people do unquestioningly in order to comply with a convention.
I have no idea whether St Paul’s is good Architecture. It has stood the test of time in terms of its foundations and stability, it is a huge and well laid out edifice with some stunning work by a range of crafts people, it has a fascinating and well documented history.
My first reaction to the Selfridges building was ‘wow!’ It really is impressive. It is not out of place and it fits the nature of what it contains. My issues are more to do with the nature of consumption to which it is a cathedral. In one respect, I can see that there is some validity in the design. The shallowness of the outside is perfectly complimented by what it contains.
There is no reason for its appearance other than to attract consumers. It is simply a fashion statement. I have no idea how long it will last, but if its predecessor (which was greeted with similar acclaim when it was built) is any reference, it will be pulled down in 2030 amid claims that it is an eyesore. The building materials may be novel, but are not sustainable or easily repaired or updated. There are already worn and grubby areas. Despite this, I hope that it does survive, as an historical reference to the fashion of the age and so that no more hardcore, plastic reinforced concrete and fibreglass is dug into land-fills and left to contaminate the countryside.
I have no issue at all with the look of the building (apart from the fact it will get very mucky very quickly) and I would have welcomed a far more radical design (something by Anish Kapoor would have been perfect) had there been any thought to social and environmental sustainability when it was built.
I have no idea whether St Paul’s is good Architecture. It has stood the test of time in terms of its foundations and stability, it is a huge and well laid out edifice with some stunning work by a range of crafts people, it has a fascinating and well documented history.
My first reaction to the Selfridges building was ‘wow!’ It really is impressive. It is not out of place and it fits the nature of what it contains. My issues are more to do with the nature of consumption to which it is a cathedral. In one respect, I can see that there is some validity in the design. The shallowness of the outside is perfectly complimented by what it contains.
There is no reason for its appearance other than to attract consumers. It is simply a fashion statement. I have no idea how long it will last, but if its predecessor (which was greeted with similar acclaim when it was built) is any reference, it will be pulled down in 2030 amid claims that it is an eyesore. The building materials may be novel, but are not sustainable or easily repaired or updated. There are already worn and grubby areas. Despite this, I hope that it does survive, as an historical reference to the fashion of the age and so that no more hardcore, plastic reinforced concrete and fibreglass is dug into land-fills and left to contaminate the countryside.
I have no issue at all with the look of the building (apart from the fact it will get very mucky very quickly) and I would have welcomed a far more radical design (something by Anish Kapoor would have been perfect) had there been any thought to social and environmental sustainability when it was built.
But (and at the risk of retreading the discussion about value in music) why should such a building have any purpose for its appearance other than to attract customers? And if an architect sits down and asks himself, "How can I make this building attract customers?" then why is that any less of an intellectual challenge than any other building purpose? Similarly, in what sense does it look "shallow"? I'd have thought that if it makes sense to talk about shallowness in building design, you'd apply it to buildings that are unoriginal or that look like everything else. I'd say that this building had an original and unusual appearance. Whether it is an attractive appearance or not, or one that is compatible with the good functioning of what goes on inside, is another matter, but I don't really see what "shallowness" or "integrity" or "bimboness" have to do with it.
[Bm] Well, I don't think Btd is saying a building should have a better reason for its appearance, simply that if it doesn't, he doesn't think much of it. The intelligence of architecture, I would imagine, is in the way it interacts with the intelligence of the people that use it (rather than just whether it's a brain workout for the architect, otherwise a Temple Grandin abbatoir would be great architecture). Thus if all the Selfridge's building does is to drag you in and make you spend some money, then that's not a very intelligent way to be treated. If, on the other hand, it inspires you with thoughts biology or maths, that's rather more intelligent. If it manages to combine intellectual stimulation and its function, and make those two things interrelate, then I guess it's very clever indeed.
[Btd] All seems fair enough, although I must say, I've never worn high heels simply in order to comply with convention.
[Btd] All seems fair enough, although I must say, I've never worn high heels simply in order to comply with convention.
Projoy] Nearly there. I agree whole heartedly with your phrase "If it manages to combine intellectual stimulation and its function, and make those two things interrelate, then I guess it's very clever indeed."
Bread] I agree that an architect may if s/he wishes choose to design a building with the sole purpose of attracting customers. In this case they have and I am led to believe that they glory in that. My issue is that I (personally) find that approach unethical. Regarding shallowness - I did not say that it looked shallow. It doesn't, it looks interesting. The concept is shallow - one dimensional. If Joseph Beuys had piled lard on a chair to sell lard, it may have succeeded for a while but it would have been quickly forgotten. For me, the Selfridges building is just that, only more blingy. And with consumer culture responsible for so many of the environmental and social ills of our time, disposable 'environments' are a trend I would not wish to support.
Bread] I agree that an architect may if s/he wishes choose to design a building with the sole purpose of attracting customers. In this case they have and I am led to believe that they glory in that. My issue is that I (personally) find that approach unethical. Regarding shallowness - I did not say that it looked shallow. It doesn't, it looks interesting. The concept is shallow - one dimensional. If Joseph Beuys had piled lard on a chair to sell lard, it may have succeeded for a while but it would have been quickly forgotten. For me, the Selfridges building is just that, only more blingy. And with consumer culture responsible for so many of the environmental and social ills of our time, disposable 'environments' are a trend I would not wish to support.
[Chalky] Don't take me too seriously, my comment was made from that one image. I'm quite sure that if I happened to be in the area I'd duck in and have a look at the interior.
Still looks like a beached whale though. :-)
Still looks like a beached whale though. :-)
Poo
I learnt today that I didn't get the job I spent ages and ages preparing for. That'll teach me.
commiserations
Awww - I didn't like to ask because I thought it might tempt fate ...
[Rab] but you still have the preparation. Surely it'll be useful the next time something comes up? But sorry to hear it anyway...
Kinda - next job will be in a totally different department with wildly different interests (might even be maths, rather than physics) and so a lot of the application and job talk will have to change accordingly.
At least I'll be a bit more prepared for the ridiculous questions they throw at you in the interview, though.
[Rosie] The drought has not broken, but it's most welcome - see here. I have been loath to say anything less I jinx the weather, but it seems to be clearing and I guess it's now safe to do so. Many farmers are rejoicing but others are forced to wait until they can get their machinery into the paddocks. As far as my local dams go, we'll have to see what run off finally arrives.
[rab] My sympathies, good sir.
[rab] My sympathies, good sir.
Rain
(Duj) That's quite a splash, 150 mm in a week, and should be helpful. Back here the drought is slowly accumulating, the running 12-month total being just short of 600 mm instead of the normal 820 mm. And the two wettest months by far were last August and October. It's not desperate and no-one is going to die because of a hosepipe ban, even if a few plants do. But my raingauge needs some exercise, having got more in the way of seeds, dust and dead insects than water in it at the moment.
I broke my marching virginity today. And great fun it was too, waving placards. Having been exhorted to end capitalism now, all my future posts will be entirely in the lower case.
[Rab]Been There, Done That.
[rab] WHAT? I WON'T BE ABLE TO HEAR YOU.
[Rosie] You are in chalk country are you not? I would have thought that a 25+% drop in rainfall would have affected you more than most. We are still permitted to use hoses for gardening purposes twice per week (I think it's Wednesdays and Sundays - but I'd have to check), within limited hours, and it's breaking my green thumbed wife's heart.
[Rosie] You are in chalk country are you not? I would have thought that a 25+% drop in rainfall would have affected you more than most. We are still permitted to use hoses for gardening purposes twice per week (I think it's Wednesdays and Sundays - but I'd have to check), within limited hours, and it's breaking my green thumbed wife's heart.
It's ridiculously green out here (SW Qld). Green grass in winter, for pete's sake. The weather has really gone mad.
[rab] Marching virginity. Is that like galloping insomnia?
Anhydrous
(Duj) Yes, it's chalk, which is why there are no rivers on it, just hundreds of dry valleys. The water sinks in to become groundwater and is in effect a huge subterranean reservoir from which the water is drawn via boreholes. The problem is that it takes ages to top up again after a dry spell but short-term fluctuations tend to be ironed out. (Projoy) Certainly won't give you a running sore.
Taps hearing-aid battery and fiddles with the dial
I can't hear anyone :o(
[pen] I guess everyone is just too busy. Our phones at work have just failed. Horrah!
I'm on a conference.
pedant mode
[rab] How can you be on a conference? Shurely, you are at a conference? Discuss.
... and by the way
I am ON a chair as I type this, mainly because I'm still in my officey place working and not just lying on a bed with a laptop like sensible people do at this time of night.
[Tuj] Then allow me to make up for your modesty by shouting about my fortieth birthday which is on Sunday. British Grand Prix day, dammit. Garden party planned - Pimms with all the salad, chilled sparkling stuff, iced coffees, canapés etc... all welcome. Bring presents.
[Chalks] I was in bed with a laptop, as it happens, enjoying the BBC's 'Listen Again' features - a Hannay novel, 'Greenmantle' and then the programme about the life of Wellington. Brilliant stuff, and all usually bradcast while I'm at work. Only 25 years until I retire - I'm almost halfway there!
[Chalks] I was in bed with a laptop, as it happens, enjoying the BBC's 'Listen Again' features - a Hannay novel, 'Greenmantle' and then the programme about the life of Wellington. Brilliant stuff, and all usually bradcast while I'm at work. Only 25 years until I retire - I'm almost halfway there!
[pen] Spooky. I was thinking of you when I typed that :-)
Pedantically "on"
Anti-inflammatories, trombone, the right after the road junction, bitter. A useful little word.
Hey Pen! Congrats and all that! Oddly I will be in London on Sunday - at a fourtieth Birthday party.
deja vu
[penelope] Only a couple of years then before you can have your second 21st. ;-(
tempores mutantur
[Pen] If fifty is the new forty, then does that mean forty is the new fifty?
I'll kill a few braincells on Sunday in your honour - have a good one.
I'll kill a few braincells on Sunday in your honour - have a good one.
XL-ent
Yey! for being 40. All the best people are 40. ;o) [pen] Advanced Birthday Greetings from me. Have fun!
Wish I was there
[pen] Happy birthday for Sunday... would bring many exotic gifts, but am sadly geographically indisposed. Down a Pimms (or three) for me, ok?
[Everyone] thank you, thank you. Anyone wanting to drop by, from 1pm for food and drink, to junction 17 of the M25 (assuming the M25 is open) can email me for precise co-ordinates. My AOL.com email address is in my real name, Justine (2), and I'm New(1). Put (1) and (2) very close together in the correct order and add the suffix.
Addendum
Posted 12.45pm 06/07/05 It seems I may have some difficulty getting into London on Sunday. I hope everyone living and working there is safe. God, what an unbelievably callous act.
Addendum Addendum
07/07/05. Daft me.
rab] yes.
rab] yes.
while reflecting on today's news, I am also aware that for me, life is good. I am currently in possession of two cups of hot tea (they're small cups and the kettle is about 30 feet away down the office) and a refrigerated gingernut biscuit. I can heartily recommend the combination.
Pen] Gingernuts are good, but have you tried Traidcraft's 'Extra Spicy' Fairtrade Stem Ginger Cookies? Great big galumphing bits of ginger in a fab cookie. Dunking heaven.
stem ginger... mmmmm. By the way, for those in search of the perfect gingernut, it's not a McVities specimen, nor the Spar shop own label, but Tesco's own which packs the most powerful punch, sufficient to sustain a morning hard at work.
pen] Happy birthday! I remember 40...sort of. And surely the perfect ginger-nut is one that has chocolate on it?
happy birthday
to dear, dear Tuj -
Happy Bithday to Ya (Happy Biiiirthday) Happy Birthday To Ya.
btd] re your 07/07 post - it strikes me, in a kind of gallows humour kind of manner, that the boys with the bombs maybe realised the whole 9/11 11/9 confusion, and did this day for us (oh thank you for your beautiful bombs you stupid stupid men) today of all days so that there would be no confusion either side of the pond........
London is shaken but, from where I sit, fine. Drove through the centre at 11pm and what glorious calm. God help those who were told their sisters and brothers died today, but fuck them that did it and who cares why they did it and lets carry on regardless. 2012 here we come.
Amen.
I'm in an agreeable mood, so I'm agreeing with what all the previous 6 posts said. [BtD] Ta for CD. I was too gloomy to play it yesterday, but it brightened up an otherwise grey and rainy journey to work today. Mon lapin pelucheux est plein de la joie.
Woweeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
The most enormous bouquet of flowers (including ornamental cabbages - that's lunch sorted out then!) has just been delivered to my desk, from the Press Office of the certain french motor manufacturer what I work on behalf of [sic]. Coool... I never had flowers like this before. *grins*
special deliveries
[pen] aww - what a treat.
[I've just posted your card just in case we don't make it on Sunday]
[I've just posted your card just in case we don't make it on Sunday]
Birthdaze
[st d] Almost two weeks late, but thanks, there had to be someone to spoil my anonymity :P
[pen] All the best to you, of course!
[pen] All the best to you, of course!
Happy Birthday whatsits and hugs.
Not sure why but I was Mrs Inkspot bought me the CD, X&Y and it is not mine till September, I wonder what favours she is after!
Not sure why but I was Mrs Inkspot bought me the CD, X&Y and it is not mine till September, I wonder what favours she is after!
[pen] Happy Birthday!
[pen] happy birthdya, late tho it is.
hello everyone, exams are over so I have time for crescenting once more. woo, eh.
hello everyone, exams are over so I have time for crescenting once more. woo, eh.
Thank you for all your greetings. A more elegant birthday I couldn't have wished for. A big bunch of friends all made it down to London from various parts of the country to eat at the Oxo Tower last night, and a bunch more made it over to Rickmansworth for a perfect summer's day garden party this afternoon (The Day Itself). My dress is stained with cava and watermelon... how lovely. *beams*
I wouldn't worry about cava and watermelon. my mum didn't realise until I pointed it out to her hat while she haad been sat in the garden reading, she had sat on a raspberry. nice pink and grey skirt she has now... bet vanish'll do nothing too. hah.
Happy Bidet
Many Happy Returns, young pen.
Hip hap
Happy Birthday, pen.
Cake!
[pen] Yey!
little bit of cake?
[pen] What everyone else said.
*groooooaaaagh*
I was definitely pre-hangover when I made my previous post. I am now post-hangover. I don't want to tell you what went on in between, but suffice to say I just wasted one of my precious days of annual leave on something that could have been soooo easily avoided. And I *still* have washing up to do. Just one glass of Pimms won't hurt....
Welcome back nights!
Lots of celebratory back-slapping around at the minute. Oh, and very restrained of you to avoid MC over exam time...
well, it was waste loads of time on MC and fail my second year, or work and... hopefully not fail my second year. I've booked flights and everything now, so I'd better pass...
bday oxox
pen] sorry not to repond to your text the other `day (at least i dont think i did) my last few days have been a litle weird and i have now finished work and none the wiser about what to do next. I am glad it sounds like you had a nice time. bob..x
next
[st d] no worries... I'll catch up with you soon. What's the email address now?
[pen] Have finished motor sport project [at last!] but feel a tad guilty - I've been thinking about you a lot but don't seem to have got round to pressing any buttons or keys which would have let you know this. I now have a natural break until the next job - email on its way ..
[st dogstar] you're bound to feel rather adrift - even after 5 years of freelancing I still experience those feelings on a regular basis but have learned to go with the flow. Mind you, like Mr Micawber, I always believe that something will turn up.
[Chalks] Don't feel guilty - I seem to have lurched through this summer so far, I can't remember ever being so busy. Of the past two months, I have spent precisely two weekends at home, one of which was the birthday, so not exactly the 'laying-on-the-settee-watching-old-movies' time, but instead 240-mile-round-trips-on-Friday-night to collect parents when the trains weren't working and mad midnight dashes to the 24-hour supermarket to buy party provisions because that's the only time I had. Tonight I am driving another 240 miles from London-ish to North Yorkshire for another race meeting. Last night we, as a company, organised the third of four Mountain Bike race events. If anyone is interested in coming to the next one at Wycombe Summit (the woods alongside the dry ski-slope)in High Wycombe on the evening of Thursday, 28th July, then shout out! We have a small field, but it's increasing. And I only went because I thought I might see some handsome men getting changed in the car park... some hope. By the time I got home, my poor tomatoes were wilting! *blithers on in similar abstract vein for another five minutes*
pen
same as before but with a "d" instead of a "." in my name, and @gmail.com instead of @legal....:o) any confusion try st_dogmael@hotmail but i dont use it much
a ha'porth of pitch
Relating to the discussion a ways up there ^ from a while ago. Arts and Letters Daily just featured an article reviewing a new book that suggests we are all born with perfect pitch.
Perfect pitch
I've got it and always have had. Great Western engines whistle A flat (above the treble stave). My brother hasn't got it. He can play the piano and read and sing a choral score, so he, too is quite musical. We both had exposure to music, and a piano, from birth. From that, a reasonable deduction would be that I was born with it and he wasn't. The reviewer rightly says that perfect pitch (I prefer Absolute Pitch) is of no use except as a rather flashy talent (though I've never pulled a bird with it) but spoils his argument by saying it actually inhibits the understanding of language. I don't see this, and have never thought of speech as having a pitch, more of a continuous modulation from which much can be deduced. Absolute Pitch is only a form of memory and to be perfectly honest I don't quite understand why anyone who plays an instrument hasn't got it.
Er, why don't you understand, given that you've deduced it's something that some people have from birth?
mono-types
BTW, I haven't read the book, but I wonder if part of the argument that it inhibits language acquisition is to do with the subtleties of intonation - where the pitch is contextual rather than absolute. To interpret the same intonation in different people, you'd need to slide up and down the scale depending on who was talking. Which is interesting to consider when you link it with the fact that a common feature of autism (strongly associated with a weakness in interpreting the emotional states of other people) is a monotonous voice with very little subtlety of intonation. I'd better go read the book now, hadn't I?
Deaf as a post
I would have thought that most people have a good sense of frequencies - in that they can tell if a singer or musician is 'off'. The ability to recognise a note and give that note its correct nomenclature is a learned skill and therefore should not be part of a discussion about hearing. I wouldn't know a B flat from an A sharp, by name, unless the difference was demonstrated to me. If a musician (particularly those who play stringed instruments) cannot 'tune' their much beloved device then why (and how) are they playing?
[Rosie] On reviewing my post I think I sort of agree with you.
[Projoy] I'm not sure. Some oriental languages seem to rely on intonation changes for the meaning of various words and phrases - though English does the same to some extent - but I suspect that your comment regarding a 'sliding' scale must be true and would certainly not rely on perfect/absolute pitch, just the variation in such.
[Rosie] On reviewing my post I think I sort of agree with you.
[Projoy] I'm not sure. Some oriental languages seem to rely on intonation changes for the meaning of various words and phrases - though English does the same to some extent - but I suspect that your comment regarding a 'sliding' scale must be true and would certainly not rely on perfect/absolute pitch, just the variation in such.
[Duj] Pianists can't always tune their instrument, and they seem to get on OK. :)
(Projoy) What I can't understand is why everybody hasn't got it from birth. As I said, it's only a form of memory, like remembering colours. (Dujon) Most people can tell if someone is out of tune, but only relative to some other pitch which is assumed correct. Most people who play a guitar can tune it so that the instrument as a whole is in tune. I have a friend who plays a few tunes (only at home), and plays rather well, and his guitar is in tune with itself but at least three semitones flat. He has a good sense of tuning but none whatever of absolute pitch. I tuned it up for him but he said the strings were far too tight so back down it went.
[Rosie] Perhaps I can help. I have played guitar and sung in very amateur choirs. so I'm not totally lacking in the ability to hear pitch. But I hear lots of other things at the same time. For example, when tuning a guitar I'm often not sure if two strings are at the same pitch because of the different texture of the sound caused by the make-up and length of the string.
The same applies with other occasions. If a man and a woman are singing a duet I could tell you if there was a discord (to my ears), but would struggle to say if they were singing the same note (either an octave apart or exactly) because I cannot separate the pitch of a sound easily from the rest of its character.
Also I find it easy to sing a tune (relative pitch), but have no idea whether I'm singing the same notes as on a previous occasion. It seems to me that the ability to keep or hear a tune in your head does not imply that you remember the actual sound (which would imply that perfect pitch should be possible), but rather that you remember a pattern, which you can then apply to the sound when you remember or sing it.
The same applies with other occasions. If a man and a woman are singing a duet I could tell you if there was a discord (to my ears), but would struggle to say if they were singing the same note (either an octave apart or exactly) because I cannot separate the pitch of a sound easily from the rest of its character.
Also I find it easy to sing a tune (relative pitch), but have no idea whether I'm singing the same notes as on a previous occasion. It seems to me that the ability to keep or hear a tune in your head does not imply that you remember the actual sound (which would imply that perfect pitch should be possible), but rather that you remember a pattern, which you can then apply to the sound when you remember or sing it.
[INJ] Perfectly described. It is the same for me, except that I'm usually better at the octave thing. At a weekly music school, I always impressed the teacher by being extremely quick at identifying intervals, and thus have a good memory for melody in the way you describe. I now find I have to make more cognitive effort to recognise intervals, but then I have learned a lot more about the subtleties of language intonation since then (through drama but also through acquiring more social skills). Which is interesting.
To me, anyway.
Musical memory
(INJ) Remembering a whole tune would seem to be much more complex than remembering the pitch of a note yet we seems to do it rather well, just as we remember faces rather than any specific physical feature of them. But to me pitch of a tune is an integral part of it and if I hum a tune to myself in the wrong key (because it's easier, say) I still have to assign a key to it.
Perfect pitch...
...is lobbing an accordion into a skip without touching the sides.
On a more serious note, I've had perfect pitch since I could ever remember, both in the absolute sense and the relative sense. So I have very little trouble transposing at sight, as well as playing at sight, or keeping in tune when singing a song in different keys. I've never known how I do it - I also have a pretty fast learning memory for music too. But, oddly enough, I'm lousy at matching names to faces.
(JLE) Yeah, but you're a f****** genius. Would you lob a soprano sax in the skip while you're about it, just for me? Then the five tons of rubble just to make sure.
[JLE] Hi - I'm Kathy. I was the other [apart from pen] female person at Rugby Pilg in May. I thought your piano playing was particularly fine.
I don't have [or have never tested the possibility of having] perfect pitch. I do, however, have an unerring sense of direction, and can point to North however many times I've been spun round. Is this normal?
controlled experiments
[Chalky] Wow. I, for one, have never heard of that. Out of curiosity, how accurately can you do this (exactly north, or just approximately?), and how rigorously has it been tested (not quite sure what the most rigorous test I can imagine would be -- maybe someone moving you while you were sleeping into a dark room where you have never been before?)? And can you point to any direction just as easily, or, if asked to point southwest, would you still start from north and work from there?
Septentrionation
[Chalky] Can I carry you round with me next time I go orienteering?
I have a pretty good sense of direction and I hang around with a lot of very good navigators, but that's a first for me. I think we need a scan for an overdeveloped pineal gland.
I have a pretty good sense of direction and I hang around with a lot of very good navigators, but that's a first for me. I think we need a scan for an overdeveloped pineal gland.
Prosthetic pineal gland
I can always tell where I am and where North is -- I carry a street map and a compass whenever I travel.
[CdM] Just approximate north - nothing too exact! The other directions I would work out in a more conscious way.
[Dan] Interesting. Makes me wonder how bewildering I would find being placed on the north pole with nowhere to point.
[INJ] I don't think you'd want to be burdened with the load :-)
I'm quite good at finding my way home, no matter what city or how drunk I am. can I claim that as a skill?
[nights] That seems to be a skill that humans have evolved as a species. This is evidence - I am sure - that beer has been around at least as long as humans have.
[nights] Were you born with it?
(nights, rab) There must be serious limits to the ability or we wouldn't have "Show me the way to home".
I'm almost tone deaf, can't remember names, and have to calculate north by looking at the sun and trying to remember what time of day it is. Should I get a new brain? Incidentally, there are languages that accent with pitch rather than stress (such as Japanese and Attic Greek). I wonder what it is like to have perfect pitch and speak those.
where?
[Chalky] How do you go in the Southern Hemisphere, in a place you haven't seen a map of?
I have an excellent sense of direction and hardly ever get lost, but I think that's got more to do with observation of my surroundings and the use of maps, mental and otherwise. I feel slightly unnerved without a map, if I am going to spend a while in a place. I carry a compass sometimes. The problem is that, since I obviously use the sun's position for orientation, this sense is most finely tuned on the southern hemisphere environment, so my location of north flips 180degrees when in the northern hemisphere. This is a *most* unnerving experience. I was convinced that London was t' other way 'round, and had to work very hard to swap to the "correct" directions.
I can do it standing on my head.
[Flerdle] I can relate to that. I find the same problem when I go South of the equator and the sun goes the wrong way.
In the Attic
(Breadmaster) It doesn't make any difference, having perfect pitch. It's the change of pitch that is important. The pitch of speech varies so rapidly, even during one syllable, that it is impossible to assign a pitch to it, other than high or low, say. BTW your method of finding north is quite normal and one I use myself, if that's any comfort.
*goes on holiday*
[flerdle] I wouldn't know - having never ventured into that territory.
upsy-daisy
[INJ] It does, it does!! And the moon's upside down.
I don't think I consciously look for or use the sun's position or movement, it just adds to a general sense of where's where.
[Chalky] You might be in for a surprise then :-)
drinkyfeet
there must be limits, but so far I haven't found one. I even, in my fairly drunken state, remembered the Russian for 'do you mind if I use your toilet', while nipping into a bar in St Petersburg on my merry way back to Ligovskii Prospekt. I may have been born with it, but I don't think I was ever drunk as a child.
*goes to work*
*goes to work*
[flerdle] It would be interesting for sure. I've been fairly close to the equator but never below it [see? I still see north as 'up' and south as 'down'] Can relate to everything you said earlier about observation, map usage, etc. Even as a child I had a compulsion to know where I was placed and was first to a floor plan, street plan or map - it made my day when faced with one of those pictorial street guide display thingies with a big fat arrow saying YOU ARE HERE!
Austroborealism
(Chalky) North is still at the top even in the Southern Hemisphere. Weather charts are a bit difficult to get the hang of because everything goes round backwards but North is still at the top. Everything would still go round backwards even if North were at the bottom. It's fundamental. I'm with you on maps. My father had millions of OS Maps, some dating from the 1930's. I've got them all now and a whole load more. I've made a contour map, six feet by two, of the North Downs from Farnham to the Medway. Wonderful what you can do with tracing paper and a scanner and printer. Needless to say, Maison Rosie (TQ 3516 5955) is bang in the middle.
Moon
[flerdle] Maybe that's why you think the moon is white? :-)
it is!
[Néa] *thwap*
Maps
[Chalky & Rosie] Sign me up to the Cartographile Club !! I love 'em - old ones, new ones, from maps of countries, oceans, volcanic distribution etc. down to the most detailed O.S. map - I can pore over them for ages. I trust you've discover www.old-maps.co.uk which is a superb resource for late C19 O.S. maps of Britain.
Ooops
Sorry, forgot the http ... that should be www.old-maps.co.uk
Old maps
(Blob) Tried that. Excellent. Thanks.
MCiOS unreachable
Hello. Sorry about the downtime. Looks like an upstream provider is having problems.
Now a bunch of semitrained chimpanzees are jumping up and down on the routing tables. Connectivity is coming and going and the routes are changing even as we speak. Whee.
I hope you're filming that!
(Dan) Only properly trained chimpanzees should be employed. Otherwise you might as well use IT consultants.
Ook ook
Should be sorted now.
chimps running about aimlessly running servers, routers and whatnot? users with more knowledge than the IT staff? sounds like a job for Bath University Computer Services!
[nights] judging by that lack of response, your marketing for BU CS didn't go down too well ;o)
*thinks* . o O {I really fancy a biscuit}
[projoy] oooh, don't. I'm staying late at work to make inroads into a pile of work neglected by a colleague and to show him up as a workshy fop. And I'm STARVING.
has just munched a couple of ginger biscuits
[Blob] Thanks :-)
MCIOS?
Has MCIOS gone down again? Anyone able to access it?
I expect the monkeys are on the case again.
Oh, I know this sounds like the beginning of a limerick, but I hate it when subordinates sulk. What can be more pathetic than a man who can't accept the fact that his manager is a woman who has vastly more experience than himself? I'm not pointing out improvements he could make for FUN... I'm f*cking helping him... sheesh. *withers and dissolves into a cup of Earl Grey 'Management' Tea*
*some minutes later*
The sulk has come to a head. He's cross with me for proofreading his work and adding rather a lot of pink pen to it. And he still has a problem with women managers. :-/
[pennylope] a pink pen? Now that's just adding insult to injury :-)
Talking of work - my current project requires that I'm in't office from 4 - 8 pm for 3 weeks supervising a small team of temps who are carrying out a telephone survey. They are all students, immensely grateful for the work and their sheer enthusiasm has transformed a very mundane task, for me anyway, into enormous fun.
Talking of work - my current project requires that I'm in't office from 4 - 8 pm for 3 weeks supervising a small team of temps who are carrying out a telephone survey. They are all students, immensely grateful for the work and their sheer enthusiasm has transformed a very mundane task, for me anyway, into enormous fun.
[Chalks] Pink rather than red - now that's just too teacherish, although after thinking about it this evening, I might start doing it in pencil. And lucky you for having a nice bunch to work with. I bet they're having fun working with you too. :o)
[Chalky] see, this is just the sort of job I WANTED. I like being on the phone. but I don't get it, do I? I get forced back into catering, a sector I gratefully left two years ago promising never to work in again. grumble grumble grumble, sorry. on the other, more important hand, I need the cash, as I leave for canada in 29 days.
[penelope] BUCS are evil, pure evil. they're arrogant, poorly organised and unreliable. the campus network went out on a sunday, in the couple of weeks running up to most people's coursework deadlines. it took them FOUR HOURS to even get to the sodding campus. naturally, this deep sense of satisfaction was expressed in the annual user survey (encouraged quite a lot by me), so the feedback of the users of the computing services of the university of bath will be, uh, buried in someone's drawer and forgotten about. never mind, at least I have my health, and my own computer.
[penelope] BUCS are evil, pure evil. they're arrogant, poorly organised and unreliable. the campus network went out on a sunday, in the couple of weeks running up to most people's coursework deadlines. it took them FOUR HOURS to even get to the sodding campus. naturally, this deep sense of satisfaction was expressed in the annual user survey (encouraged quite a lot by me), so the feedback of the users of the computing services of the university of bath will be, uh, buried in someone's drawer and forgotten about. never mind, at least I have my health, and my own computer.
[nights] Must be frustrating... but it wasn't ever anything I used to deal with. When I graduated (1987) everything - coursework, laboratory practicals with graphs and diagrams and EVERYTHING was hand-written and hand-drawn. My final year project had to be typed - my mum did it for me. There was a computing course as an element, but I never went to any of the tutorials.
[pen] see, I know that writing my essays longhand would be time consuming and thoroughly annoying when I wanted to insert a quote I'd found at the last minute - but I think I'd focus on it more. this has been the case when doing translations into russian (which I can't be bothered to type out because it takes ages) and scored better. so this is something to think about.
BUCS are still evil though. although they were thrilled when I dragged my old iMac down there to see why it wasn't working with the network. I actually rather miss that one.
BUCS are still evil though. although they were thrilled when I dragged my old iMac down there to see why it wasn't working with the network. I actually rather miss that one.
*has fond memories of Microsoft Word completely reformatting, and removing the figures from, our 1st year project one hour before deadline*
*sigh*
It looks like I've now been victim to twatspam, of the 5000-links-to-a-website-in-a-post variety. As it happens I'm currently tweaking the back end of this website, so I'll be making it difficult to post more than a couple of links per move I'm afraid.
well I think we can all appreciate it. and it gives us the opportunity to use the construction "a link not totally unlike..." which is always a positive thing.
And it's happened again. These people are complete arseholes. More anon.
Ignore, mispost, sorry
Right I've disallowed <a> links for the moment. This is only a temporary solution until I come up with something more sophisticated.
Spammage
[Rab] Writing you offline.
Oh, what the hades...
Actually I'll just say it here, since the bumfuques who do this stuff don't read anyway. What I've been thinking of doing is treating any post with an A tag as bad HTML unless it contains a special attribute. For those following this at home, an attribute is like href="url". We could form them in the same way except require an additional or substitute attribute. For example, instead of href we could require the surname of the nice lady who writes letters to Humph. Another thing that occurs to me is to replace the A entirely, with some other nonstandard tag which will get converted to A on output. Thoughts?
On reviewing my own code, and thinking about it from a user-friendliness standpoint, I'm inclined to go for the latter. It's trivial to implement and easy to explain in the error message, in such a way that users will get it and passing spammers will not.
[Dan] Agreed! Would be nice to still be able to post links with a special tag. [rab] Can you get round your a link prohibition in the same way as at Dunx' place?
I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
(sorry if that sounds a little curt - Dan's solution will probably be the workaround that will be offered if the server thinks you're being overly naughty)
On the topic of campus computer people: I have wasted an entire morning trying to get my laptop configured so it can use the university network and internet provider. The goons at the Computer Centre took about an hour and a half trying to do it before declaring that they didn't have the right driver for my make of computer. Assimilating, dubiously, the revelation that this varies according to make rather than OS, I then had to go to the other end of the campus (requiring not one but two bus trips) where, surreally, there is what seems to be a support place for Toshiba. Why this isn't next to the Computer Centre, God only knows. They didn't know what to do, because a look on the Toshiba website revealed that there are lots of possible drivers to download and I hadn't been told what kind to look for. So I had to go all the way back to the Computer Centre (through a monsoon), where a new set of goons had replaced the original ones, but were no more competent. They couldn't find the relevant part of the website and in any case were now talking darkly of the need to open up the laptop and fiddle about with its innards. They wrote down what they needed and told me to take that back to the Toshiba people. Of course, they are all closed now and I have to wait until Monday. All this just to log onto the wretched network! Oh, and the whole thing was conducted in Singlish, which is basically incomprehensible at the best of times but far worse when it's people going on about drivers and networks and suchlike. Really, this place is appallingly disorganised. Thank God I can use the university's own computers for internet purposes or I'd really be in trouble.
Links
As I did on Dunx's page, you can always use Javascript in a tag to get around a restriction on A tags. For example: I'm a link to Orange MC without any A tags. (This works on Firefox at least.)
...and IE, as I just checked.
For those who are curious and don't want to View Source, here's how I did it:-
<u><font color=blue onClick="self.location='http://www.dunx.org/cgi-bin/orange-mc'">I'm a link to Orange MC without any A tags</font></u>
I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
Link without A tabs
Not to be picky, but shouldn't one be able to click on a link? It may just be AOL being incompetent but I can't click on Darren's one above. However, as this topic of conversation goes way over my head (I can just about cope with bold tags), I should probably just let you IT types get on with it.
Linkages
It works for me on Firefox. For Knobbly's info., in my case the cursor does not change (i.e. there is no indication that the text is a link) but is 'clickable'.
Links
I like Dan's simple work-round. The problem with Darren's (otherwise excellent) solution is there are some of us who operate in Firefox with javascript disabled. I have found this is a very effective tool in combatting trojans et al and am loath to change. Just my opinion, obviously.
I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
Impactfulness
Well, I was all set to say something about the use of impact as a verb, but apparently it, like Wagner's music, is not as bad as it sounds:
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0165.html
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0165.html
rab's statements on the A tag issue are starting to sound a little... disturbing.
Sorry - that's what happens when I visit the site when drunk. I really hope to have this sorted out properly sooner rather than later. More anon.
They actually reminded me of government statements. As they pointed out on Yes Prime Minister, you should just keep making the same statement over and over again, no matter what people ask you.
Satire
Paxman: Are you happy for users of the site to find ways around your ban on A tags?
Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
Paxman: But in the meantime, you accept there are workarounds?
Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
Paxman: Prime Minister, are there or are there not loopholes in the ban on A tags?
Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
Paxman: Look, yes or no. Do you accept there are loopholes?
Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
Paxman: So you say, but what Crescenters are asking is, do you realise there are ways around the ban?
Prime Minister: With respect Jeremy, that's not the real question. I assure all genuine Crescenters that I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
Paxman: But Prime Minister...
Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
Paxman: But in the meantime, you accept there are workarounds?
Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
Paxman: Prime Minister, are there or are there not loopholes in the ban on A tags?
Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
Paxman: Look, yes or no. Do you accept there are loopholes?
Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
Paxman: So you say, but what Crescenters are asking is, do you realise there are ways around the ban?
Prime Minister: With respect Jeremy, that's not the real question. I assure all genuine Crescenters that I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
Paxman: But Prime Minister...
Prime Minister: I have plans which hopefully should impact genuine Crescenters minimally. My banning of A tags for now is purely a short-term inconvenience.
etc. etc. etc.
(no offence meant to rab)
links
Good lord, you're right. I should have tried to click on it despite it not looking like I could.
[K] Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Although I recommend not clicking on the '1,000's of free smileys' pop-up.
has the INTaRWeB always been so full of crap, or has it got steadily worse since I got online in the summer of 1997?
[nights] Like everything, it's been mostly full of crap since it started, but it's only been in the last few years that the crap has expressed a desire to leap down everyone's throat.
The big cautionary tale of the net is Usenet, which although some people manage to keep active newsgroups going (using I don't know what antispam measures), is now almost entirely spam. I've been working recently on a little predator/prey population interactives, and I wonder if the cycles of spam-genuine content follow a similar statistical pattern. i.e. the population of predators increases, diminishing the population of prey, which in turn leads to extinction for the predators...
[Projoy] I think part of the problem with Usenet is that most people aren't even aware it exists any more, and those who are aware of it, by and large, consider it too full of spam to be useful. For this reason, I don't think you'd find a cyclical pattern, but rather a gradual tail-off with time.
[Projoy] I see almost no spam at all on Usenet. I read mainly rec.arts.sf.* and a few others. Where do you get the idea that it's mostly spam? (Er, I probably won't see a reply to this for a couple of weeks -- off to Glasgow at the crack of dawn tomorrow.)
[Raak] Well, as you won't see this I can make any claim I like. :) I don't know, but I assume the admin of some newsgroups have anti-spam measures in place, or there are anti-spam measures at the ISP news server level. No idea, really. I also have frequented a rec.arts newsgroup or two (and I believe the drwho one still goes on strong). I used to read a group or two on the alt. hierarchy, but would not attempt it now. They were swamped in spam years ago.
all the usenet groups I ever use (a few music ones and tomb raider, all under alt.) are filled with crap. I looked in on the MC one this morning and that was full of rubbish. a shame really. I'll try other groups though.
Usenet groups
I regularly look at, and contribute to uk.sci.weather. There are rather a lot of gadget nerds and people of the spotty-herbert tendency who seem to use weather as an excuse for computer exercises but there are also professional meteorologists who contribute, necessarily under a pseudonym. There is very little outright junk.
The only one I ever contributed to with any intensity was rec.puzzles.crosswords, in which I even created a long-running competition which still runs.
so, who's going on holiday?
Not I. I wish to remain here and enjoy the delightful British Summer in all its scorching glory.
[nights] Holiday? I seem to remember those. Many years ago . . . .
*comes back from holiday*
welcome back Tuj! have a nice time?
Hello nights et al!
Yep, 2 weeks in and around Boston with my family, pretty good and apparently the weather kicked 7 bells out of the weather back in Britain, so that's OK. I still say their money smells funny though.
[Tuj] I'd forgotten about that. Mm. Dollars.
I wonder if canadian ones also smell. I've heard you can pop the middle of a $2 coin out.
Yes, but I've heard that about the £2 coin too and never managed it...
tv
Great night on tv last night and all 3 hours of it on Channel 4 starting at eight. A combination of Big Brother (Craig evicted ......yes!!!! result) and two opening episdodes of new drama Lost. An ensemble cast is allowing multi storylines and twists it is gripping already with unanswered questions, polar bear? 16 year old mesage still being transmitted? how is the labrador unscathed?
is watching you
[Inks] Glad you mentioned Big Brother. I wonder how many people in the UK Morniverse have seen some or even all of it? I think it's been very watchable this year for two reasons: Big Brother himself has been amusing, unpredictable, capricious and in charge; there has been considerable action, some of it admittedly grotesque, during the 'live' streaming.
As for Lost - unless they repeat the episodes at weird times [which is usually when I watch TV], I doubt if I'll get the opportunity to see it.
As for Lost - unless they repeat the episodes at weird times [which is usually when I watch TV], I doubt if I'll get the opportunity to see it.
isn't watching back
As a militant anti-Big Brother person, I think the current series has been one of the best so far because it has been low key enough to not manage to puncture my consciousness. I couldn't name a single contestant, so I'm happy.
I think last year was better from that point of view. Can't remember anything about that. This year I recall seeing some press stories about Derek Laud, so it managed to sneak its way into my consciousness.
I watched it until I came home from university, and all of a sudden don't have time for it. never mind.
and I'm stuck with dialup at the moment as our broadband is up the chute again. so I won't be around very much at all, no.
and I'm stuck with dialup at the moment as our broadband is up the chute again. so I won't be around very much at all, no.
[Big Brother] I'm with Tuj on that one, I'm afraid. The less I know, the better!
Mock the loonies
I've probably watched an hour all told. What stupid irritating people they are! I've no need to be militantly anti, no-one I know ever having watched any of it, so they claim.
alone.... alone..... completely solitary
Someone, talk to me! Please............. *sniff* Actually, I'm not despondently lonely, just bored and I have a cold. ;o)
Acute nasal coryza
(pen) Hello, pen, I bet your cold isn't as bad as mine! Head feels like lead, i.e. heavy, deformable and the product of radioactive decay.
talking to penelope
I like maps
Maps are great
Scratch my knees with a dinner plate.
Maps are great
Scratch my knees with a dinner plate.
revisiting
[Darren] your javascript works fine in Safari on a Mac... and lovely satire :) [rab] MCiOS is also having a mild spate of spammers. (If two can be called a spate, but it's a sign of the special nature of the Morningverse that just two such spams seems a flood!)
I like the custom tag idea best as outlined by Dan - newcomers will get it wrong once and the error message can put them right, or if we want more security we can always refer to some obliquely crescentish word such as Mrs T's surname and anyone who still doesn't get it just has to ask! Any spammer getting around that clearly has such fine products for sale I for one will be proud to read about them on a website in Russian full of ladies with their nightwear on...
[Pen] Hola!
I like the custom tag idea best as outlined by Dan - newcomers will get it wrong once and the error message can put them right, or if we want more security we can always refer to some obliquely crescentish word such as Mrs T's surname and anyone who still doesn't get it just has to ask! Any spammer getting around that clearly has such fine products for sale I for one will be proud to read about them on a website in Russian full of ladies with their nightwear on...
[Pen] Hola!
Ah yes, I must get back to finishing mc5-and-a-half. That work thing has rather annoyingly got in the way.
back for a few days
[pen] hope you're feeling better.
hello pen, I fixed my ADSL by going to the local exchange and poking it, just for you. here's a mildly offensive rhyme:
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I'm schizophrenic
And so am I.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I'm schizophrenic
And so am I.
Thnaks, thanks all for the good wishes and the rhymes, some of which were more amusing than others, hehehehe. I took the day off yesterday (I take very few days off sick - I think that one is my second this year) to try and get rid of this lurgy, but felt so guilty about it that I spent almost the entire day hoovering and cleaning, washing and ironing. I'm the first one to say that guilt isn't a useful thing to have, but also one of the biggest feelers-of-guilt. *cringe* Any advice?
celebdaq
There only appear to be three of us these days. Where'd'they go?
It's your fault
[Pen] What you need is lots of people blaming you for things. You'll get so indignant about it that you'll stop feeling guilty even when you should. So to help in the process I should like to say that I blame you for all the evils of the modern world, in particular having to go back to work after a holiday.
Thunderstorms
(ImNotJohn)The precipitation (needed for electrification) would be in the cloud and below it but evaporating into the dry air before reaching the ground. These precipitation trails are called virga. This effect is always present in showery or thundery weather even if the stuff reaches the ground. The evaporation absorbs latent heat and cools the air, making it denser and causing a downdraught which appears as a fierce gust of random direction at the surface. It also explains why "April showers" can turn to snow if heavy enough even if the temperature beforehand is as high as 8°C. All this stuff needs rather dry air below the cloud; not too dry, of course or there wouldn't be any cloud in the first place.
*indiginanting*
[INJ] An interesting theory. However, you should know by now that it's your fault for booking the time off in the first place. :o)
[Rosie] Thanks - clear and concise.
post-holiday post
Back from land of coolness. Now in land of heat. *sigh*
[pen] tips for getting rid of that nagging guilty feeling - do anything and everything possible, keep yourself busy. or do something to feel guilty about - go shoplift. apparently clerks is the most shoplifted video cassette in the USA...
and another thing...
I managed to bag a thermometer-hygrometer thingy in Aus. It's been interesting to see what actual readings have been since returning here, especially inside the house. If you ask nicely I'll say, else I'll spare you. Needless to say, my "can't sleep" point is rather different here. It's amazing what you can put up with if you have to.
No problemo
By all means, flerdle - at least from me - I always find others' weather interesting. Of course others may well disagree; privacy laws and all that, I suppose.
ah.
Well, that brought the conversation to a grinding halt, dinnit? Anyone for a mint? *offers*
I think they've all been eating gob-stoppers, flerdle. ;-)
Mints
[flerdle] Does it have a hole in it?
holey
[blamelewis] If you want it to I'm sure we could arrange that. *prepares electric drill*
hey, no playing with drills. play friendly, you lot.
hole hog
[flerdle] Send the hole over - can you attach it to an email?
*drops a pin*
looking down
Ooh, a pin! *picks up pin*
Shaking
At approximately 0642 local time, Monday 29th August, I believe Sydney suffered a mild earth tremor.
(Dujon) So it it didn't wake you up, then? Nothing whatever would awaken me at twenty to seven in the morning. Maybe a full bladder. Maybe even a half-full one. :-(
shakey
[Duj] Was that the moment England won the 4th test match?
Awakening
[Rosie] Néa may awaken me any time. (Sorry, Néa, it's only a bit of joshing - OK?)
[Chalky] What on Earth are you doing at this ungodly time of the morn? In answer to your query, no, see the response above. Still, I might now have a cigarette. Care to join me?
[Chalky] What on Earth are you doing at this ungodly time of the morn? In answer to your query, no, see the response above. Still, I might now have a cigarette. Care to join me?
Awwwww
[Dujon] I bet you say that to all the girls you play MC with.
[Néa] Only the ones who drop pins. Handkerchiefs are so passé. :-)
Handkerchiefs
Also, presumably that wouldn't wake you.
Yet another on back from hols
Brittany was great with a short stroll over the sand dunes to the beach, and come back to home to a scorhing Indian Summer. To make the most of this glorious weather, the ironing board will be set up on the patio this evening. Life is about to settle down into more routine with the schools starting to go back tomorrow.
*message for Chalks*
I'm doing ancient history tomorrow (thursday)... might you be in for a cup of tea later in the day? I'll txt...
not a good reader of handbooks or rules
As things seem to be rather bleak on the matress front since March I have decided to place an ad in the Personals in the London Review of Books. Might be scuppered by a medical indifference to reading. Advice as ever appreciated
*penelope*
*plans to buy bake a cake* :-)
Ah yes. I might not be around for a bit. Keep the place tidy, will you.
at home with Mr Kipling
[rab] you dropping in as well?
just an observation
Funny thing. This Banter Game, although fairly quiet at present, appears to be kept alive by a regular group of MCers. Yet many other long-standing games on this server have a completely different and prolific group of contributors - most of whom never post an entry in here. Why do you suppose that's the case?
maybe an explanation
(Chalky) I suspect many of those who contribute to the games but not to the banter are quite young and lack the confidence to spout off here. Also, older people tend to find their niche and stick with it whereas when you're young you tend to have broader but shallower interests in which contributing a word or two to a game is quite sufficient. There could be other reasons but that'll do for the moment.
The age of garrulity
I thought traditionally it was the young who overconfidently spout off and the older, and wiser, who keep their counsel. Admittedly, seven years here has been enough to disabuse me of this fanciful notion. Some people (such as me) are spouters and some, like Drewsxpa for instance, are containers. :)
Containers
(Projoy) What sort of container is Drewsxpa, then? A 45-gallon drum, rucksack, ladies' purse, breadbin, boxfile, skip, biscuit barrel? I think we should be told.
not a weather report, honest. Oh, ok, perhaps a little.
Just went for the first walk of the season; the temperature's been down a bit these last two or three days, and that plus a nice breeze was enough to prompt us to go for a walk in the evening (last time was some time in May, we think). Amazing. And we didn't even die.
[flerdle] It's been rather uncomfortably humid here in mid-south UK which has made for a very weary sort of day. I've been reading your blog the last few days so I know that what we're experiencing bears no comparison ....
... which helps me understand how going for a walk in a nice breeze is something to celebrate :-)
... which helps me understand how going for a walk in a nice breeze is something to celebrate :-)
*peeks from round the corner, notes an absence of vandalism, disappears again*
Posting Habits
Going back a few posts, if I may comment, the reason I (and possibly others) don't often post here (although I read fairly often) is that it feels a little intrusive, as though butting in to someone else's conversation. I suppose 'eavesdropping' is just as rude, if not worse though! *feels ashamed and shuffles off*
[Rosie] I long to ask him, but I don't know he'd care to tell me.
Intrusion
(Ella) If you've got something to say, say it. And even if you haven't, still say it, be it ever so banal. This place may appear cliquey to the relatively infrequent poster but it isn't. Even if we assume it is, all you have to do is put up a few remarks and you'll be part of the clique anyway. :-)
*sprays "rab is a weneir" on the wall*
graffiti
(Néa) A what? Is it rude?
*intrigued*
[Rosie, above]
Well, that was informative
Curse these fingers! I was going to say that it's also easy to get left behind by an ongoing debate, which if you come in halfway through or just simply aren't interested in, is very difficult to comment upon. Does that sentence look coherent?
* crosses out weneir and replaces with "weiner"*
Exactly
[Projoy] It's nice to be understood :-)
*crosses out weiner and replaces with "Weimar"*
*crosses out Weimar and replaces with 'whiner'*
*crosses out whiner and replaces with 'wino'*
...and nods in agreement with Tuj's comment about getting left behind while welcoming Rosie's invitation to join the clique.
*crosses out 'wino' and replaces with 'window'*
*crosses out "window" and replaces with "willow"*
*crosses out "willow" and replaces with "tara"*
...and is with tuj and Ella on this one.
*crosses out "tera" and replaces with "terror"*
I'm on the bean bags for this one with the break out area through the patio doors just by the swaying palm trees.
In the last couple of days I've killed so many wasps. We have a very low eaves house and they have made a nest behind the bargeboard. There have been too many flying around to spray during the day, but in the dark just after sunset when they are all inside, it’s spay time. In the past 2 two there have been over 200 on the ground outside and another 100 in the lobby as they have found a way from the cavity though the blockwork to come up behind the skirting but the are drowsey even a four year old can kill them – hitting them several times before they stop twitching. The good news is this year we were not plagued by flying ants, it was the neighbours turn to run inside one the summers evening.
Vespicide
(Inkspot) Sounds 'orrible. Where are you?
M4
I'm encamped in the small north Wiltshire town of Wootton Bassett, famed for its black and white timber framed town hall on stilts. The wasp thing could have been worse the house is drylined so they could crawl anywhere behind the plasterboard and find their way between the floor joists.
Spaying the wasps...
[Inkspot] I'm impressed. That must require both great courage and great delicacy.
B269
(Inkspot) Not a single wasp here in snooty Surrey. I didn't know about the Wilts stilts. Was it transplanted from Jakutsk, Siberia, where all buildings are on stilts to avoid melting the permafrost? Probably not.
Wootton Bassett, famed for its black and white timber framed town hall on stilts
[Inkspot] Does it walk around of its own accord?
[Darren] At last we know what happened to Baba Yaga's Hut! By the way, have you given up on the Kingdom of Loathing?
What it says on the can
Tonight it is showdown time with the beasties we have "Wasp Nest Destroyer Foam" it will be put along the bargebord, a little treat for them to take home.
A lovely warm summers evening here in SN4 just right for sitting out with a glass of wine.
A lovely warm summers evening here in SN4 just right for sitting out with a glass of wine.
good evening everyone. as people who frequent orangeMC will have realised, I am now settled in québec (finally) so you can expect me on here a little more.
and the weather, today started out quite warm here in QC but it quickly went cold when I was sat on a hill watching a 'football' game. more clothes were definitely needed. and I have a horrible feeling this is that cold that everyone here keeps on telling me about. oh dear.
and the weather, today started out quite warm here in QC but it quickly went cold when I was sat on a hill watching a 'football' game. more clothes were definitely needed. and I have a horrible feeling this is that cold that everyone here keeps on telling me about. oh dear.
Canadian brass monkeys
(nights) I don't think you've seen anything yet. The mean January temperature in Montreal is -10°C.
[nights] My sister lives about 60 miles from you. Come the Christmas and New Year party season, she can keep bags of ice for cocktails outside the kitchen door for two weeks without them defrosting. One year, her daughters built themselves a skating rink on the drive (battens, polythene sheeting and several hundred gallons of water) which lasted for three months... I'd send out for thermal socks if I was you.
[UK] Pretty much. I suspect they must have deleted my player by now.
[Darren] No, since you have a Mr A. If you don't want to go back and feel like donating anything to another worthy clan member (ahem), I'm sure I could think of a couple of potential beneficiaries... (grovel ends)
Barbie gets married
Last weekend was the celebrity wedding of the year with squillions being paid for the exclusive pictures, to whet your appetite here is the dress and here, are Peter and Kate cutting the cake
(Inkspot) Can't get the links to work, not that I shall lose any sleep over it. :-)
Barbie
(Inkspot) Link works now. Christ, what a pair of 12-volts! I still hope not to lose sleep.
*faints, recovers, looks at second pic and dies*
Inkspot, you are a dirty old man (you too, Rosie). I'm a face man myself. :-)
*sniggers*
Blimey. I'm amazed at how cleverly they get everything to look so plastic, including the smiles.
whoah
I'm kind of glad I have absolutely no idea who they are.
plastic, plastic everywhere
The moment I saw those pics in the office yesterday, I started up a chorus of "I'm a Barbie Girl, in my Barbie world..."
totem
... and there's certainly something about the shape of that cake ...
Come on Barbie, let's go party!
And won't they be proud to show those pictures to their grandchildren some day. Also, not that I don't agree with flerdle... but who are they??
Néa] In this case, ignorance really is bliss.
[thermals] what, you think my mother let me leave Stanstead without thermal socks? I (possibly incorrectly) think I'm ready for whatever winter can throw at me, including a clause in my housing contract saying it's my responsibility to keep the balcony free of snow. it's sort of hard to contemplate sat on my balcony in a pleasant warm breeze on a pleasant evening in québec, smoking godawful canadian cigarettes. I miss L&B.
[pics] and OMFG I'm glad I'm in the land of maple right now...
Jugs
(Dujon) How dare you! I'm a face man also but when presented with these absurdly compressed mountains of flesh one cannot but notice them. But in terms of allure they are neither necessary nor sufficient.
Giggling
Fair dos, Rosie. Sorry, Inkspot.
I thought, like the plastic of penelope, it was just an image until, upon opening my morning paper, there was one of the photographs purporting to be a reproduction from a certain well know celebrity's wedding. Ruddy 'eck. I'll put my glass eye back in now.
I thought, like the plastic of penelope, it was just an image until, upon opening my morning paper, there was one of the photographs purporting to be a reproduction from a certain well know celebrity's wedding. Ruddy 'eck. I'll put my glass eye back in now.
Ohm sweet ohm
It's nice to be home. Such a shame I'll be buggering off to Luxembourg shortly.
The Grand Duchy
I spent an afternoon in Luxembourg once. It's quite nice, fairly eccentric. Better when they had Belgian Francs though.
Letzeburg
We had a weekend in Luxembourg city a few years ago - probably about long enough. Very pleasant, good food (especially patisserie), terrific situation.
Lux
Luxembourg
I used to listen to Radio Luxemburg (sic) many moons ago, for what it's worth.
Old Radio
[Rosie] So did I. Wasn't there a DJ with Motor Neurone Disease whose wife was his sidekick on his evening show?
And, for what it's worth, I once worked for a guy who had been a skipper on Radio Caroline.
And, for what it's worth, I once worked for a guy who had been a skipper on Radio Caroline.
Luxembourg
Went to a conference there three years or so ago. It's, er, really small. They run bus tours of the whole country that leave the main square at noon, and are back by 3.30pm.
Highlight of the trip? I bunked off the main conference dinner to go to a performance of a Handel opera at the Conservatoire (on the other side of town from Euroville, and so about 30 minutes walk ...). A stunning performance space - better than any I can think of in London of its size (about the capacity of the Barbican concert hall, I reckon). The piece was commissioned from Handel for a private occasion, and had never been performed since. A very, very fine performance it was too - only three singers IIRC, so very exposed, and they all coped and performed superbly. Excuse the slippage into anecdotage ... * wanders off, humming to self *
Highlight of the trip? I bunked off the main conference dinner to go to a performance of a Handel opera at the Conservatoire (on the other side of town from Euroville, and so about 30 minutes walk ...). A stunning performance space - better than any I can think of in London of its size (about the capacity of the Barbican concert hall, I reckon). The piece was commissioned from Handel for a private occasion, and had never been performed since. A very, very fine performance it was too - only three singers IIRC, so very exposed, and they all coped and performed superbly. Excuse the slippage into anecdotage ... * wanders off, humming to self *
Radio Lux
(pen) Don't remember that. There were no women on RL when I listened (about 1957-63). It was people like Sam Costa and Jack Jackson. I dusted off my old singles the other day and played some Duane Eddy, Fats Domino and Buddy Holly stuff. A nice lowbrow, nostalgic relaxation.
[Rosie] Wuld've been about 1973 when I listened. Eek. Now, Fats Domino is one of my favourites... excellent driving music!
I had my worst 'Senior Moment' to date this morning. I now have a head full of deodorant rather than hair spray.
I had my worst 'Senior Moment' to date this morning. I now have a head full of deodorant rather than hair spray.
Sticky
Still, better than having your armpits glued together with 'Ellnette' : )
[Ella] Oh, I dunno. At least the world's finest hairspray brushes out. I just won't get a sweaty brow for a day or two. And my hair stinks.:o/
Wrong tube
I once discovered that Savlon is not especially nice toothpaste.
...
(Then again, maybe not quite as bad as spreading Colgate on a burn ...)
Fats Domino
(pen) I can do a boogie-woogie version of Be My Guest (ca 1959) on the piano.
sraddehC
Just been looking back through the Regurgitated Cheddars and my sides are still aching. Long may it continue.
Hello.
Hello, Knobbly. Haven't seen you here before. Is it just your knees?
[Rosie] Is what just his knees? You shouldn't ask questions like that of complete strangers, you know. [Knobbly] Seriously, is it just your knees?
My knees
[Rosie]Well, I'm frankly offended if no-one has noticed my previous presence or recent absence - I haven't popped in much over the holiday, but this is my main procrastination site when I'm meant to be working at university. I missed all the bad puns.[Wol and Rosie]I did shorten my screenname from 'Knobbly Knees' because I couldn't be bothered to keep typing it. But, no I don't think they are really.
wrong products first thing in the morning are always a problem. I tried to brush my teeth with my hosuemate's hair gel once. I don't even USE the damn stuff, my hair is LONG, why did I even pick it up?
Québec is still lovely (smirk).
Québec is still lovely (smirk).
Did you slick them back or tousle them.
(nights) I hope you used a fine tooth-comb. They are definitely the best.
If you ask me...
[Pook] That was one of the funniest comments anyone's posted in ages.
Faux pas
Having only just discovered the joys of mc5 I noticed last night I appear to share my handle with another. I apologise wholeheartedly, and shall henceforth submit as Pooksadaisy.
(Simons Mith) The irony is,toothpaste gives me more style and hold than any other hair product.
Pook honor
[Pook] Are you sure? I don't recall a previous pook on these pages.
Faix pas -cond.
(Projoy) It was quite an old post on ...so help me god, but it's no great shakes to modify my eke-name. On a lighter note however, as I write this the rain is hammering on my window and the river levels are rising, which means that tomorrow I'll go kayaking instead of trawling through old MC games.
(Pooksad) You don't live in Orpington, then?
Orpington
(Rosie) It's funny you should say that. Many is the time, when gambolling over the wind swept fells or careening down a grade three Lakeland river,that I've dreamed of rolling up my flat cap, selling the whippet and moving to Orpington.
Hello
Welcome, Pooksad. I admire your pastime (there's a white water rapid place just down the road from me) although I've never understood the fun to be found in getting oneself withchered.
Getting moist
(Dujon)Skylarking around in skin tight neoprene whilst wearing a silly hat, life just doesn't get better than that!!!
[Pooksad] Do you work in a circus? ;o)
wet dreams
As the alarm clock went off this morning, I was having a dream about explaining how the Thames Barrier works. What the blazes is that all about??!!
Dreams
[pen] I really don't know... but it made me laugh, so thanks, I needed it :)
I had another dream last night about being booked for some museum teaching, but finding I wasn't prepared. Had a lot of those lately.
(which of course is just a variant on the going-on-stage-without-knowing-the-lines nightmare. Not had that particular version for ages, tho).
Freud fest
Which of course is just a variant on the naked in public nightmare. I have that one all the time!
gnashing
I find I lose all my teeth in a lot of dreams lately.
teef
[Chalky] According to wah wah wah dot myjellybean.com/dream/paget.html, "If your teeth fell out or you spit them out, you are anxious about money." Were they grey and rotten? Health problems. Loose? Untrustworthy friends. Broken and worn down? Relationship problems.
Losing my teeth is my recurring nightmare. I have it five or six times a year - they just crumble in my mouth and I spit out the pieces.
ditto spitto
[pen] same. And if [Raak]'s webref is to be taken seriously, I can't say it happens when I'm anxious about money either. P'haps it's fear of old age?
My recurring nightmare involves wandering around an empty house trying all the doors which are locked, but when I get to the last door I know it's unlocked but I'm afraid to open it. I have this dream a couple of times a year.
Somebody help us!!
I'm usually trussed up in a pink tutu amongst a troupe of ballet dancers in perfect step, trying desperately to keep up, but, to the amusement of the audience, always a few steps behind :-)
Frustration dreams
One I used to have occasionally was about football. I was running down the right wing on to a pass but could never, ever, EVER quite reach it, and it all happened in slow motion. And why the right wing? I could no more cross a ball with my right foot than I could speak fluent Basque. It was for standing on. Not a very good footballer.
Pretty in pink
(ella) Never mind all that, what about your dreams?
mooooooo i had dream bout a cow driving a bus, it tried to run me over, guess what im going to marry someone called pook!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh dear
...Rosie's been at the Carlsberg again.
I don't believe in the evils of social drinking, I only ever drink alone and to help me forget.
[Pooksad] forget what?
Aaargghh,must.. resist.. inevitable punchline!!!
dunno, can't remember - (bugger!!)
Impersonation
(Projoy) Never touch the stuff! I'm a bitter man. I'll rephrase that - I drink bitter.
dreams
hey, my funeral dreams have returned. what the hell am I worried about THIS time?
[pooksad] oh yes, very good. actually, I loved it, hungry as I am for british humour on this side of the atlantic.
[pooksad] oh yes, very good. actually, I loved it, hungry as I am for british humour on this side of the atlantic.
Sweet dreams
(nights) I wouldn't worry if I were you, it's probably just an irrational fear of your life slipping away followed by eternity in a cold dark hole in the ground, while the people you knew and loved, move in like jackels to pick over the remains of your life. Personally, I like to bear in mind what Hume said, which goes something like "don't try making sense of it all, just go and play pool instead."
exiting the gene pool
[pook] But did he mean play pool here or in the great pool hall in the sky?
train dreams
I keep dreaming about being on a train, and desperately trying to get somewhere, and it’s always very stressful. In the last one, my mum and I managed to avoid the conductor and didn’t even pay for our tickets by running along the train the whole trip. My cat was in one of the carriages and looked rather surprised as I pelted past her. No-one else was bothered, though.
Oh, I get those too - assorted on-the-wrong-train or missed-the-connection dreams. Mind you that happens often in real life, so no great mystery there.
Missing the train
I don't have train dreams... is that because I don't travel by train? Or am I emotionally disabled in some way? I do have driving dreams from time to time - and my late father is sometimes a passenger, which is nice.
A quick pee
I just read Regurgitated Cheddars, Kim,Chalky,Wymo,Projoy and Blob,very very slick,I laughted that much I nearly bought a round.
Correction
I really mean't the Limerick,and I also mean't laughed without the t.
I used to have loads of train dreams, but they eventually finished. Often I was waiting for a train, or stopping a train that was running, or trying to get off a moving train. Also lots of lift dreams, where they would malfunction or catch fire. I've been stuck in plenty of lifts in real life, but it's never frightened me, I think it's just a mental symbol for feeling stuck in an awkward situation in life. Similar with the trains. (None of that was my recurring nightmare, though, but that's a bit odd even for here.) Still, enough about my insanity.
(Darren) Now I really am curious, odd is good.
Must stop going out in that tutu
(Darren)A problem shared is a problem....that everyone can bring up whenever they need a good chuckle. Carry on though, please.
such stuff as dreams
I've never had a train dream. We don't use them much on the west coast of the States. I've had pen's teeth dream countless times, and the other night I dreamed I was searching for treasure in a lost tomb. I fell through a trap floor and got bit by a snake.
Treasure dreams
Strangely enough I had the treasure dream the other night, but rather than get bitten by a snake I discovered the treasure at the top of a pyramid. It was Gilette razors. Tch, even my dreams are sponsored now.
lilting limericks
[Pooks] thanks :-) - not wishing to tempt fate but the latest few should all have 'bravo' stamped on them. Have you visited the Limerick games in the other two servers yet?
Träumerei
[Darren] Your train dreams - did they stop around the time of the Beeching report? [teeth] Not had that one for a while - used to get it a lot. Incredibly vivid - the dream was that I was lying in bed, trying to get to sleep, with my teeth falling out like toppling dominoes. The segue between the dream and waking to feel in my mouth was imperceptible. I had understood it to mean nothing more specific than insecurity; which I would put my hand up to at the time.
the best medicine
(Chalky) Just spent the last hour in absolute tears, just what I needed. I am currently having too much of a good thing in my neck of the woods. I spent all summer waiting for it to rain so I could go kayaking, guess what, my local river has in the space of a week, gone from a stagnant trickle to a grade 5 raging monster, with holes and stoppers that would eat you alive if you got too near. Hoo hum.
[Wol] No, I wasn't even born then!
Limericks - sorry, seems I DID tempt fate by saying they were going so well
Hopeless
I give up. Men are a complete mystery. Why would anyone approach you, chat you up (yeah, online, I admit), call you when you least expect it, then invite you out on a date, only to stand you up without a word? I sat in the bar of I bet Berkhamstead's Cafe Rouge drinking coke for half an hour, feeling like an idiot. I bet the patron has seen it a thousand times... At least I have the satisfaction of knowing I'm not the one who acted like a jerk.
[Darren] ;-) [pen] We're not all complete prats; I can only apologise for those that are, and are bad enough not to apologise for themselves. The guy in question - he isn't the patron of Cafe Rouge in Berkhamsted, is he?
[Wol] He's not the patron, no... and thanks :o) I think I wrote that in a kind of early-morning rage. *sigh* Onwards and upwards... salsa dancing tonight. At least if anyone does you wrong at salsa dancing, they're right there in front of you and you can kick their shins.
(Pen) There really is no mystery about them, they're just hopeless!!!
one, two, three... five, six, seven...
Anyone want to hear about salsa dancing? I'm going to tell you anyway. It was brilliant! My first time, and the men were still hopeless - they're supposed to lead, and either I'm not listening carefully enough or they're too scared to be firm and lead properly. I suspect it might be my fault... mwahahaha!
(pen) Most men, and especially musicians, can't dance unless they're pissed, and don't actually like it, except as a grope. But some can, and I wish you well. :-)
I can't dance unless it's a really grinding techno beat. at which point it doesn't matter. however I echo Rosie when I say that some men (including me) enjoy dancing 'properly', and I'm sure you will find one. but you can't have me for several reasons, the most important of which being that an ocean separates us. *sigh*.
Two left feet
I'm with Rosie, penelope.
I have not had a dancing lesson in my life to date. I also suspect that I am one of a majority of males in that situation. Years ago, as a teenager, I looked at some books on the subject (well, one) which was full of black and white footprints. I gave up. When I watch accomplished dancers - and I'm not speaking of those 'professionals' who trip the light fantastic with fixed grins on their faces - I can see that many people gain much pleasure from the exercise. You are now allowed to address me as Wallflower.
I have not had a dancing lesson in my life to date. I also suspect that I am one of a majority of males in that situation. Years ago, as a teenager, I looked at some books on the subject (well, one) which was full of black and white footprints. I gave up. When I watch accomplished dancers - and I'm not speaking of those 'professionals' who trip the light fantastic with fixed grins on their faces - I can see that many people gain much pleasure from the exercise. You are now allowed to address me as Wallflower.
to all gentlemen
Please, chaps, don't give up. Dancing with a man leading is one of the nicest things I've done for a long time. They're itching for more men to join in, and if you just take a deep breath and dive in with a beginner's class (which is what I did last night), follow the teacher for an hour - which is all enjoyable - you'll be rewarded with a floor full of ladies to choose from. It's not hard, you just have to count: one, two, three... five, six, seven... and practice. The music is great, they hand out flyers for more events while you're there - I could dance four nights a week without a permanent partner and without driving too far at all if I wanted - and they even sell beer there. What more could you want? My motivations for dancing? To get out of the house, perhaps find a nice man to dance with more than once, and to get a smaller arse!
I'm sorry I can't take your call...
Oh, and the mystery of the date-standing-me-up on Sunday night has been explained. He was locked up in a police cell for the weekend when the officers returning his escaped dog realised there was a warrant for his arrest after previously being charged with being drunk in charge of a vehicle when he slept in the car after a wedding month ago. He got the date of his magistrate's court appearance wrong and failed to attend, so was locked up on Saturday afternoon, and had to wait there until a court appearance on Monday. I don't think you could make it up. I could make a fortune from writing a newspaper column about my experiences as a single woman... or has it already been done?
I'm laughing, actually, but I don't think I'll be talking to him again.
I rest my case!!!
(Pen) Still, it could have been worse, he might have actually turned up for the date. I can't imagine what kind of trouble you would have ended up in, probably something to do with drunken dogs wearing tutu's!!!
1,2,3,5,6,7
[pen] My wife used to go to Salsa in Berkhamsted, but hasn't been for a while. No way I'd go with her - one of the benefits of being married is that I don't feel compelled to dance very often these days. I dare say that if we ever got divorced or separated I'd have to once again suffer the terpsichorean muse - but until then I stay seated and quaff the vino instead.
[penelope] You can also take heart from this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3006130.stm
[penelope] Not that I'm saying you're over 75 (on the contrary, I've always considered you to be something of a pin-up around these parts) but at least you can see there are advantages to dancing.
[Darren] Thank you - the advantage to dancing is you know your dance partner isn't locked up...
*blushs at the pin-up reference, but drains to a deathly pallor when she realises this could mean a dart-board pin-up*
*blushs at the pin-up reference, but drains to a deathly pallor when she realises this could mean a dart-board pin-up*
pin-ups
Everyone under 75 qualifying as a pin-up sounds like an interesting rule. I know that's not what you said, Darren, but it would be.
marriage and dancing
[Blob] Hmmm. Mr Néa's view is that if he hadn't been married, he never would have had to dance - as it is, he had to dance the waltz at his weddings. Personally, I rather enjoy dancing provided it's with a guy who can lead. I don't dance very well, so the man has to be good at it.
is it bad that every time I go dancing, I wake up the following morning with sore feet, shoulders and neck?
Depends if you were breakdancing or not.
Or the type of car in which you slept. penelope might be able to help.
I've noticed in the last few years, a growing tendancy to groan slightly when getting in and out of chairs, regardless of the previous evenings activities. I don't suppose this is something that's going to improve with age! The funny thing is, when I'm out on the river and especially when other people are egging me on, I do all kinds of crazy stunts, but when I get home, I do the old "wait till your my age" routine, so that my flatmate makes me a nice cuppa, Hee Hee.
[Pooksad] You are clearly starting to experience the hypocrisy of old age. This is also manufested in the desire to resort to adages ssuch as: "Don't do as I do, do as I say,", and "When I was young..." Keep a note of the symptoms.
Sigh...
If only I had listened to what my mother told me when I was younger.
[Pooksad] For more symptoms, see the "You know you're getting old when......." game in the archive.
Ooh 'eck
(Raak) Duly noted and alarmingly familiar.
Welcome back
Sorry it's been a while. Check the info page to read about posting links (you get a couple for free, at least until we start getting spammed again), and the HTML rewriter that automatically Goods your Bad HTML. This is a work in progress, so feel free to point out where the dwimmery failed. I ran it on all 47000-odd existing moves, fewer than 100 of which caused big problems. The only thing that might catch you out is that if you put a paragraph in the middle of a bold move, only the first bit appears bold. I'm working on that.
Hidden text
hiding text but not, note, HTML (yet)Enjoy.
enjoying
Ooooh! Funky.
*cheers*
Thanks for all your hard work!
Well - Hello again :-) :-)
Three cheers (as promised)
Hip hip
Hip hip
Hip hip
Hidden text
hooray!Hip hip
Hidden text
hooray!Hip hip
Hidden text
hooray!Virgin
Hello all, I've not been here before in this or a previous guise, so I can't say whether this is better or not.
Congratulations
It looks really good! Adding my podume of thanks to the pile.
Welcome back! Very tasteful reveal buttons! BTW, what's the difference between "silky smooth" and "safe but dull"? I can't see a difference on Safari.
Ah, it's the dotted borders!
Hap hap... hoozah!
Hurrah! I like the fact that everyone is now called Monica. It suits my new latin temperament, apart from the fact that tonight it was a bad lesson. Despite dancing A LOT, I got everything wrong and my deodorant failed. :o(
Hello everyone.
Welcome back
*rabblauds*
Nice to be back in a posh new home. Well done, rab, and thanks.
Oh well done Rab. It looks rather excellent!
Any possibility to reinstall the script for reordering the Jigsaw story? Or perhaps Orange might host it, since it's an Orange game?
Stuff
Thanks.
[Raak] Not just the borders, but also the placing of the corner elements and spacing/padding within the main box. The 'proper' version is able to apply the right styling to all elements based on where they appear; the IE version has to fake a lot of this by hand and is therefore more likely to apply the wrong spacing to the wrong elements. It just looks shit, basically.
[Raak] Bugger, I don't think I kept a copy of that script. Perhaps you could see if Dunx is happy to host, and mail him a copy. If he's unwilling send it along and I'll pop it up somewhere.
And I can get in at work! Double Hoozah!
The Return
Splendid to see mc5's return to the Morniverse from realms unkown and unknowable. I also like the - very smart !
Hidden text
Little hidden thingySmall question
[rab] How does one return to the menu ? I know you can use the browser "back" button, but isn't there usually a pressable button - or am I being dimnthick as usual ?
Aha - it's that faint little "up" down the bottom there isn't it.
Hi folks. Nice colour scheme Rab! I must confess I feel a little underdressed.
Ooooooooooooh
Very very shiny!!
...but suddenly it appears to not like my name.
Hm. This game accepts the é but the Limericks game didn't. Mysteeeerious.
Is it just me?
In the team game, when using IE, I am unable to see the team clours of the persons name wehich could be why some players have confused web colors. Firefox renders them as they should be seen in IE they all the default colour are as in this.
Hallowen is over now to look forward to Bonfire night. We will probably be going to an organised event on Saturday and will be taking along our 4 year old for the first time. Previous years the show has been quite spectacular.
Still don't understand about the magic word thing... well, I'll worry about that if I ever want to post links.
In the mean time, to go off on a tangent; I currently have posession of the email adress a.n.onymous(@hotmail.co.uk) and no longer want it. If anyone can convincingly explain why they need it, perhaps it can be arranged, rather than just let the account time out and go to waste.
In the mean time, to go off on a tangent; I currently have posession of the email adress a.n.onymous(@hotmail.co.uk) and no longer want it. If anyone can convincingly explain why they need it, perhaps it can be arranged, rather than just let the account time out and go to waste.
Magic word
(Knobbly) The magic word is secret (seriously). Send me an email and all will be revealed. My email address is at http://www.geocities.com/pantsmcprofiles/profiles.html#ros
Nöthiñg
[Néa] Dunno why that was. It should cope with füññy chåractérs better now.
[Inkspøt] I've colourised the colour as well as the moniker now.
What time is it?
Checking the time?
Call me a loony but I've always liked the smell of fresh paint
[rab] In the words of a certain fictional television civil servant, "he who would keep a secret must keep it a secret that he hath a secret to keep." One of the reasons I removed the prompt from the enabling field over at that other place and made it unobtrusive is that most of the time no prompt is needed or wanted. When it is, the user will get an explanatory message. As long as people are shown that a special word is wanted (whether it's actually wanted or not for any given post) and without the hint obviating the need to ask, they're going to keep asking about it.
(Dan) My favourite smells are ortho-nitrophenol and tertiary butyl alcohol, each in their own way nasally sumptuous. What that makes me I'd rather not know.
[Dan] True. And here you get a couple of links for free, so there's not even any reason for it to appear under normal circumstances.
[rab] Two comments beyond my earlier wordless praise.
1. The look of the site really is excellent -- very sleek, very clean, very functional.
2. I tried to access the AVMA game on the site by cellphone today and got a "memory full" message. I'm able to access games on Orange and mcios without problem. Any reason that you know of why this site would be more problematic?
1. The look of the site really is excellent -- very sleek, very clean, very functional.
2. I tried to access the AVMA game on the site by cellphone today and got a "memory full" message. I'm able to access games on Orange and mcios without problem. Any reason that you know of why this site would be more problematic?
[CdM] 1. Thanks. 2. No idea. Did any of the other pages work?
Nice one, rab - good to see it back.
MC5
Jolly nice rab, well done! I look forward to wasting the other half of my day here.
And I'd say this is poo
Hidden text
very clever and definitely notCharlie is my darling
I don't manage to see much tv, and period dramas are a real turn off. So it has been a real pleasure to watch Bleak House these last couple of weeks shown as short episodes. The cast has been great and it has been wonderful to see the various plot lines emerge and slowly twist together. I'm hooked.
MC5 and me
We are back! Great work, rab. My apologies for not appearing earlier but a local storm put my ADSL modem to the ulitimate test; it failed. Prior to that my hot water heater began to urinate, my little router seems also to have suffered from the modem's spike syndrome and my blood pressure thingywhatsit decided it had a mind of its own and inflates its cuff at random moments: It's not been a good week financially as that's about £500+ out of the reserve. *sobs and looks with large green eyes for sympathy*
Old green eyes is back.
(Dujon) Sorry to hear about your recent woes, there's been far too much water everywhere it seems,(even for me). And yes the big old green eyes thing works, so stop it already! I've been having some computer issues as well, although nothing as bad as yours. The combination of new firewall and ignorance on my part kept me quiet for a while. The funny thing is, I had never even owned a computer or used the internet until September, but I felt decidely antsy being incommunicado for just a few days, and needless to say I've missed MC5 terribly. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Cheers Rab!
After an initial flurry this has gone very quiet. (Pooksad) No computer until recently? Are you an old git like me? Good.
Well bonfire night was a bit of a wet squib with the display cancelled due to bad weather, but looking out through the window when we returned a couple of displays had braved the rain.
I wonder if they were French, I can hardly believe they ahve gone on for so long (10 or 11 nights now). One MEP on the radio was saying today that discrimination is very much institutionalised in France. I find that hard to believe. Despite the bad press about being politically correct, equal opps is everywhere and is about to be widened. France seems to be very strong about it's image of the Republic and not accept outside influences that may dilute this.
I wonder if they were French, I can hardly believe they ahve gone on for so long (10 or 11 nights now). One MEP on the radio was saying today that discrimination is very much institutionalised in France. I find that hard to believe. Despite the bad press about being politically correct, equal opps is everywhere and is about to be widened. France seems to be very strong about it's image of the Republic and not accept outside influences that may dilute this.
Head says no, knees say yes.
(Rosie) I'm an incredibly late developer. My flatmate thinks I'm probably due for my mid-life crisis, whereas i feel I'm just shaking off my teenage angst. I don't know why, but I seemed to go out of my way to avoid computers for years. It was only after a cycling accident and time spent sat at home nursing broken ribs that I started fiddling with my flatmates computer. I can't leave the bloody things alone now. Ho hum.
Eyes dried
[Pooksad] Thanks for your kind words. Unfortunately Mrs Duj woke up to my wide-and-misty-eyed ploy years and years ago.
[French bonfires] I've been shaking my head in disbelief at the goings on. Maybe I shouldn't, seventeen people have just been arrested in this country for allegedly plotting (and having the materials for) the execution of nefarious deeds. Their lawyer, predictably I suppose, has already pulled out the race/religious persecution card. Before anyone hops on the racist bandwaggon, I'm not. I have worked with and enjoyed the company of many, many who have migrated to this country from parts remote.
[French bonfires] I've been shaking my head in disbelief at the goings on. Maybe I shouldn't, seventeen people have just been arrested in this country for allegedly plotting (and having the materials for) the execution of nefarious deeds. Their lawyer, predictably I suppose, has already pulled out the race/religious persecution card. Before anyone hops on the racist bandwaggon, I'm not. I have worked with and enjoyed the company of many, many who have migrated to this country from parts remote.
Cleverness
I nore that on another page here. one of us posted a link by just writing it out in full, rather than popping it in as an <a href ... >. The latter works, incidentally. Try it! And, in general, there's no need to be clever and try and second guess what is and isn't allowed. Try the obvious thing, and if it doesn't work, the server will tell you (usually).
Voitures Flambés
One of my colleagues is a well qualified business consultant who just so happens to be of Algerian descent. She has recounted many stories of the racism she faces here... apartments suddenly becoming "unavailable", negative attitudes from shopkeepers and so on. Of course, it is clear that while there may be a political or cultural basis to these demonstrations, rioters are in general just that: rioters. A gendarme friend of mine last night arrested a 16 year old boy who set fire to a Renault 25 in Toulouse. Said friend is convinced that the boys actions were not politically motivated.
According to a French colleague, the riots were deliberately provoked by Sarkozy. It started with the two youths who died in an electricity substation while fleeing from the police. It turned out they hadn't committed any theft. They were running because the police were chasing, and the police were chasing because they were running. Then a few nights later, 150 police were sent in at midnight on a Tuesday, before any disturbances had happened, and acted belligerently until there was a riot, whereupon Sarkozy made public statement about "scum", further inflaming the situation. He's a populist right-wing politician, who provoked the riots in order to be seen to be doing something about them. None of which excuses anyone who torched a car, but the rioters are just useful idiots in Sarkozy's cause. None of this would have happened without Sarkozy. Or so my colleague said.
(Raak) Your colleague hasn't looked very deep, has he? People who torch cars are seriously at odds with their world, and maybe with themselves as a consequence. It is impossible to believe that Sarkozy "caused" the riots even though they might be quite useful to him. From what I've read French society is structurally quite racist, much more so than this country.
[Raak] The car-torching was in full swing when Sarkozy made his comment that rioters are "scum" (rough tranlsation). Of course, the minority group interpreted this as "minority groups are scum". Also, what I fail to see, as I failed to see during the LA riots, is how the actions of the police - detestable as they may have been - justifies such behaviour. Some may say that this is the only form of protest that these particular minority groups have. I vehemently disagree thinking rather that a peaceful demonstration on a massive scale would be much more effective in garnering sympathy amongst the larger population. From this I draw my conclusion that rioters do what they do because they get a kick out of rioting.
[Huxley] The actions of the police don't justify the actions of the rioters, but on the other hand, if the police did incite the riot, the riot doesn't justify the incitement.
corrupting influence?
This site used to be steam-powered, but apparently it is no longer! What are you using now? I hope it's environmentally friendly, and doesn't involve grinding up penguins.
Also, please wish me luck for the appointment I have at the dentist in 1 hour to remove a wisdom tooth. It's not causing me any pain, so hopefully the nerve is dead, but it is falling apart. I still expect to be sore as it's quite a fiddly place to extract from, though.
*wishes dental good fortune*
I had a single wisdom tooth removed about two years ago, and it actually wasn't bad at all.
[snorgle] Good luck! Expect some discomfort, but console yourself with the fact that it's not real pain, and you'll never have pain in that tooth, nor the pain of an emerging impacted wisdom tooth, again. Besides, it gives you the excuse to drink medicinal strong spirits over the weekend until it feels better. :o)
*fortune-wishes*
Pssst, râb?
AVMA killed my accent again. (I wish....)
Losing your wisdom
Yes, unlike CdM, I found it did sting rather. Pace pen, be careful not to drink alcohol if they put you on strong antibiotics afterward! Oh, and if it does hurt, a cloth damped with hot water held to the face is a lifesaver, better (although more short-lived) than Ibuprofen.
[Projoy] I don't remember having antibiotics after an extraction about three years ago. You probably don't get them unless the procedure throws up complications. Where's Lib when you need her?
Alcohol & Teeth
One of the poular antibiotics prescribed after dental ops is Metronidazole - do not take alcohol while taking - or for a couple of days after taking - this anti-b otherwise you'll get flushes, palpitations and symptoms like food poisoning.
antibio
[Metronidazole] Yes, that was the one they gave me. The first time I had w/t operation I was put on a course of anti-fungals, the second time it was just salt mouthwashes... until the inevitable infection happened, and they had to give me antibiotics anyway.
extracted
It came out without much trouble, and it's a bit sore, but the 3 pints I drank this afternoon, and the ibuprofen has helped. It wasn't impacted, it had just become quite decayed. All my wisdom teeth came through without much trouble, they're just a little jammed in, and tend to point backwards as they don't have much room. The root on the one I had out today wasn't that long, comparted to what molars normally are, and was a bit of a funny shape, so this made it easier to pull!
I didn't need any antibiotics and it's not been bleeding too much, either. So thanks for all your good wishes!
random thought
*thinks* Chavs and Chav-nots...
It's a bit nippy
A frost on the ground and the car lock is frozen, all the more reason to go back upstairs to start the decorating on of the bedrooms. On the other hand while I have the house to myself I'll do a bit of surfing first and a cup of tea.
Néa's missing accent
[Néa] Does your accent come out both properly and as a splurge when you're using the same browser on the same computer? If so that's very weird... if not, I may be able to concoct a solution.
*notes that the last three games have slowed down* - not that I play them, mind.
Very weird
It works in this game but not in AVMA (I don't think it ever worked there). Same browser (Firefox), same computer. I have started writing my accent as HTML in the AVMA game and that works.
A gleam of understanding?
Well that is very strange, since obviously it's the set of instructions is followed to interpret your input and display it on this page as on AVMA. For the moment, I guess doing the thing with HTML accents is reliable but a pain as it increases the amount of typing threefold.
Hmmm... what's happening I think is that when you just type the character, your browser is sometimes sending it in an ISO-8959-1 encoding (which my script transforms correctly into the appropriate 7-bit clean HTML encoding) whereas other times it decides to go down a two-byte UTF-8 route. It's not clear why it would choose one rather than another. I shall try and see if I can get this server to ask your browser always to use ISO-8959-1 (which will mean people typing in Mandarin will become unstuck); if not I shall investigate PHP's abilities to look at what you send and see if it can do the transformation properly.
Oh dear
[rab] you're going to an awful lot of trouble for the sake of my accent...
Wow, that's the worst one yet!
[Néa] Oh I don't know - it makes you look exotic! ;o)
Öh kæy
If that hasn't fixed it, I've still got two lines of defence.
Oh, and by the way, I meant 8859-1 above, not 8959. Silly me...
Go rab!!
That seems to have done it!
Go me!!
I got the front page picture story on this week's Motor Trader for one of my less highly-visible clients *grins*
Eccles
[pen]Happy clients can only mean two things, a big bonus and cakes all round.
[Inkers] happy clients are clients who give you even more work to do - yay!! But with a bit of luck, I'll be working on next year's London to Brighton run as well as the Goodwood FOS :o)
On this day in history
I do like Goodwood FOS and free tickets from the Sunday Times but not the rain that drenched us from the finish line back to the paddock, though the black bin liner with makeshift arm holes was better than nothing. Sunburnt and drenched all in one fantastic day.
To my emailbox Google sends me news alerts fo my home town. These days it is usually about the new natural gas terminal and pipeline. But today it sent me a suprise item from the US Navy . A little bit of Milford history I never knew before.
To my emailbox Google sends me news alerts fo my home town. These days it is usually about the new natural gas terminal and pipeline. But today it sent me a suprise item from the US Navy . A little bit of Milford history I never knew before.
[Inkers] How do you get the home town stuff from Google then? I'm fed up of writing to complain to the editor of my home town's online local paper when they write things sooo badly and make funadamental mistakes. I used to work on that paper (under a different editor)and it was brilliant.
Weather report: Colleagues report temperatures ranging from -5 last night in the woods, -3 this morning in Uxbridge and -1 at the traffic lights as I was pulling in to the office. Brilliant sunshine, no wind whatsoever (the flags are hanging straight down).
Weather report: Colleagues report temperatures ranging from -5 last night in the woods, -3 this morning in Uxbridge and -1 at the traffic lights as I was pulling in to the office. Brilliant sunshine, no wind whatsoever (the flags are hanging straight down).
(pen) -5°C in the woods? How did they know? Surely they can't be such a dedicated weather nut as I am. I once went for a walk 'round midnite with a thermometer in Slines Oak Valley, near to me. By torchlight I read it at -15°C, better than the paltry -11°C in my back garden up on the hill. -15°C is bloody cold whatever you're doing. This was 6/7 Feb '91.
[Rosie] Because he left his car there while he and a friend were out mountain biking in the dark (yes, they're both nuts) and the temperature sensor said so when he returned to the car two hours later. When I lived in deepest Wiltshire, the yard thermometer registered an overnight low of -11 once or twice... we were on a country estate kind of in a dip at the bottom of the downs close to Sandy Lane/Nine Elms near Calne. This would be December '97/Jan '98. I'd concur with bloody cold but hell, I love it! ;o)
[pen]If you go from the Google home page to About Google to Google Services & Tools in the Services go to Alerts. I put in Milford Haven - News, to be sent once a day.
This frost in the morning is giving some wonderful clear skies these last few evenings it looks like another big chill tonight.
[Inkspot] They do frost forecasts too?
Jimmy Osmond to win!!
Not sure as Google will be picking up from news or entertainment sites. But if you want to know about Jenny and whether or not she will win I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here try William Hills or one of the other bookies for the latest odds.
[Inkers] No, I don't want to know. I'm restricting my viewing to BBC2 for the next 6 weeks.
foggy outside
Can nearly 10 million viewers of the GBP be wrong? Missed it last night as I was playing with my new toys, but I'm starting to warm to Carol Thatcher which surely must be wrong.
I love my new computer... except for the Microsoft Home Suite which is awful it is more like the old Lotus Suite with 1-2-3 and WordPro the writer and spreadsheet are very poor relatives to Excel and Word and the package has no Powerpoint.
[Inkspot] In answer to your question, yes. They were wrong in the General Election too.
I'd go further. Almost all of the GBP are consistently wrong about pretty much anything where they're given the opportunity to voice an opinion. The "Great" is meant sarcastically.
"Reality"
How can anyone possibly care which of a bunch of talentless attention-seeking arseholes "wins"? The only possible source of entertainment could be a punch-up, which is no more edifying than hoping for a pile-up in Formula 1 or a truly "great" foul in football. Lee Bowyer, Roy Keane, where are you? Tickle my jaded palate.
*imagines a punch-up at the hustings and starts to get interested in politics again* Oh, maybe that's the way to civil war. Is there no decent fun to be had these days?
Remember me?
No. *teehee*
[Rosie] I care. There may not be as much difference between the parties as of yore, but... oh, wait, you were talking about the TV programme, weren't you?
(Bigsmith) Yes. You're from Bristol ISTR. (Projoy) Point taken. :-)
Fighting it out.
I've often thought - most particularly with respect to Northern Ireland before the GFA, but it could be applied to almost any bitterly fought dispute - that the way to solve the whole thing would be to get all the people who are so violently interested in their cause, on both sides, all together in one big stadium. An effort should be made to ensure that they had roughly equal numbers. Then supply them all with daggers, pick-axes, baseball bats etc. And let them fight it out between themselves where no-one else gets in the way and becomes "collateral damage". This to my mind would solve several problems at once:
a) You'd get a result - possibly a true "dead heat" I suppose where everyone was killed, but that would only happen occasionally.
b) You'd rid the world of some highly unpleasant people without having to bring back capital punishment.
c) It could be televised as Reality T.V. par excellence, with Ant & Dec commenting wryly on the various gruesome deaths being meted out.
d) If grudges persisted then there could be an agreed re-match, say every five years to allow for the next crop of fanatics to wipe each other out.
Now the funny thing is - if this, rather than being in a stadium was played out in a huge open field, you'd pretty much have the gameplan of a mediæval battle - except that we'd be replacing professional soldiers with volunteer amateurs. It's got to come.
a) You'd get a result - possibly a true "dead heat" I suppose where everyone was killed, but that would only happen occasionally.
b) You'd rid the world of some highly unpleasant people without having to bring back capital punishment.
c) It could be televised as Reality T.V. par excellence, with Ant & Dec commenting wryly on the various gruesome deaths being meted out.
d) If grudges persisted then there could be an agreed re-match, say every five years to allow for the next crop of fanatics to wipe each other out.
Now the funny thing is - if this, rather than being in a stadium was played out in a huge open field, you'd pretty much have the gameplan of a mediæval battle - except that we'd be replacing professional soldiers with volunteer amateurs. It's got to come.
(Rosie) Spot on.
Coming in during dinner
This is not the way to gain popularity but I must say that most of the entries in that game are the most laborious clunking nonsense and show nothing like the form and humour of the original ISIHAC game, which I'm beginning to doubt anyone has ever heard.
ISTR?
What's ISTR? I tried a search and came up with the Institute of Safety in Technology and Research, International Symposium on Trends in Radiopharmaceuticals or the International Society for Third Sector Research, none of which sound very ISIHAC.
ISTR
[Knob] Lol, no not ISIHAC - I Seem To Remember - you may also see IIRC which is If I Remember Correctly.
Odd question
Hello. Slightly odd question, but does anyone know of any cordless landline phones where the base station and charger are separate units? I ask cos I think my current phone (a hand-me-down from the folks) is a bit rubbish, but I don't really need to buy two handsets given that I live in a 1bed flat. However, the phone point is in a really silly place and I don't want to trail a cable for miles so that the phone can be left to charge where I can actually get to it.
goodness gracious, MC5 indeed be back. Hello everyone. =)
Cable confusion
[rab] Yes, though I cannot give you brand(s) or model number(s). It does however involve having two (usually small plug pack) power supplies (unless the 'receiver' has one built in) - one for the receiver - that's the one which connects to the landline - and one for the 'phone handset, which is simply a battery charger. I've just had a look at mine, an el-cheapo Panasonic unit, but it does not have the facility though I'm sure that one of my previous units (Uniden?) did, even though I didn't use it.
portachat
[rab] I've got a BT Quartet system which I bought about 4 years ago [though mine is only the 'duet' version because I didn't see the need to buy 3 handsets]. The base station with aerial plugs into phone point and power socket down here in my kitchen/officy place and the portable handset sits on its own charger which is plugged in upstairs in one of the bedrooms. The phone itself often gets lost in one of the bedrooms but appears to keep its charge for days without sitting it back on its power plinth. Very handy - it's even effective from my friend's house which is a few doors down the road.
Duet
[Chalky] It's more of a 'monet' that I'm after: base station + 1 handset + charger separate from the base station (as the base station has to sit in a place where I don't want to put the phone to charge).
clarification
[rab] That's exactly what I have. Base Station + Handset/Charger in a different place. Perhaps I didn't make myself very clear.
further clarifiaction
ie. the Base Station doesn't have a handset with it.
Cool I'll look into that.
Whee!
My contract's just been extended - only by a year thus far, but it's a start.
[rab] Yay!
Whee!
[rab] Congrats :o)
I've just got the go-ahead for a new pilot scheme which could double the size of my department :o)
I've just got the go-ahead for a new pilot scheme which could double the size of my department :o)
aaah ... nice to be needed :-)
neckless
My polo neck became completely detached from my sweater during the course of today. The stitching unravelled and I'm now wearing a crew neck sweater with a rather neat and separate collar. Watch next year's catwalks...
I thought you meant your actual neck had come off for a minute.
(Darren) That's also how I read it just momentarily, and had visions of pen's out-of-body experience. The mind boggled.
site navigation
Is it just my browser, or do the individual game pages no longer have a 'back to main' button?
[Juxta] Try bottom right - a very discreet pale grey on my browser: It should say "pre - up - next".
weather report
It's vary vary dark - hailstorms and lashing rain. Glad I'm at home.
met check
We've had lashing rain and wind this morning and i expect there'll be more, but as I speak, I'm squinting at my PC screen because the sun is hitting it... we've got a window in the maelstrom of meteorological matter right now :o) It's the most light I've seen for about five days.
Someone here once had a go at me for banging on about the weather. Well, thats's Witshire Wisdom for you. :-) Anyway, half an inch of rain measured at Hughes Hall this morning but still a very dry year overall (about 70%) and the grass isn't yet squelchy. Tap your barometers; you won't see them this low very often especially in the south-west.
[Rosie] I'm fickle, me :-)
[Chalky] thanks. =)
and weather!
Also, had our first (and quite possibly last) snow of the year here in Seattle yesterday. I threw a snowball and everything. =D Usually we don't get any until January or February, if at all.
(Juxtapose) Seattle's climate, as far as I can make out, is as close to British as anywhere in the USA, perhaps just a shade warmer. Of course if you're a displaced Brit, as opposed to a Yank, you won't need telling that.
[Rosie] From Boston, originally, never yet hopped the Atlantic (although I would dearly love to). It's nice to know I'd feel right at home over there. =)
Boston, Mass of snow
(Juxtapose) Seattle looks a deal milder than Boston in the winter, which I'd imagine is also quite windy and raw. The worst thing about the British winter is the light (absence of). If it's cloudy as it usually is then it's pretty well dark by 4 pm, and earlier still in the north.
The darkness
Was in Tallinn (Estonia) the weekend before last. It was dark there by 3pm local time.
MWP
What happened to Wild Pants MC?
[Bigsmith] It died and we all moved to other sites. That's the most detail I think we ever really got. Not that there was a coverup or anything (but now I think of it...).
Yes, I did once criticize nights for ending a post with an ellipsis.
The Death of Pants
(Darren) So it was you, was it? :-)
Yes, I pulled Pants down.
(I bet you'd all thought we'd seen the last of the Pants MC puns, eh?)
[Bigsmith] You didn't happen to take a side trip to Kernu Commune, did you? Just wondering...
Dead Pants
[Bigs] If you're really missing the Pants style, you could always play on Orange in Pants mode
introducing a new theme
I've just put my flat up in Lincolnshire on the market, and have made an offer on a bungalow up there for my mum to live in. Is it unethical to charge her rent until she sells her house and puts the cash in to pay for it?! This is all sooo exciting...
Fog-bound here in Herts. Dead busy here in the office, but all good.
Fog-bound here in Herts. Dead busy here in the office, but all good.
Mist and Fog
[penelope] What a strange question. If you are merely acting as a go-between (meaning you are financing the transaction until such time as your mother raises her own funds), then yes. Depending on your relationship with your mother the amount 'charged' could be commercial rent or simply enough to cover your costs in bringing the deal to a closure. Should you be a rich and grateful daughter then you could, at your discretion, ignore your expenditure and not mention the subject.
I suspect that most of England will be under varying degrees of fog today - the football World Cup draw was finalised last night ... joking ... honest ... joking ... truly, truly.
I suspect that most of England will be under varying degrees of fog today - the football World Cup draw was finalised last night ... joking ... honest ... joking ... truly, truly.
How can anyone live in such temperatures? Minus 34°C for heaven's sake! I am aware that some of our North American friends experience such extremes but I cannot, literally cannot, imagine what it must be like. Add to that the nearly three feet of snow they had in the previous twenty four hours, which would hardly warm one's feet, and I'm ever so pleased I'm not living there.
Brass monkeys
(Dujon) The -34°C is rather mild for Jakutsk in Dec/Jan. The mean is -43°C. There is no wind, or snowfall, but the ground is snow-covered from what fell in Oct/Nov, typically about a foot. The only weather is fog, which can last for a week or more with temperatures down to -51°C, the lowest I've seen in 4 yrs daily monitoring. The short summer is like that of central France and it hardly ever rains. I bet they make the most of it. There is an even colder place, Ojmjakon, where the January mean is -50°C with no weather at all, just brief sunshine while the sun crawls shyly above the horizon for a few hours. Young kids are not allowed out of it goes below -45 because the cold air can damage their lungs. If you were so daft as to put the mouthpiece of a brass instrument to your lips in that degree of cold it would blow more than two semitones flat, the least of your worries, I'd say. Perhaps there's a special short Russian trombone.
Cockup, monickerwise
Why has my name come out wrong? Grr!
Semitones of trombone-flatness
Now there's a metric to trump Degrees Stevie, I do believe.
Flat brass instruments?
What's the science behind that then, Rosie? I would have expected extreme cold weather to reduce the size of the instrument, thus shortening the column of air one needs to vibrate. I would expect this effect to sharpen the instrument.
Flat horns
(Phil) The instrument does get a tiny bit shorter (about 2 mm at -50°C) but the overwhelming effect is the reduction in the speed of sound as the temperature goes down. Since there is a standing wave in the instrument the lower speed causes it to take longer to go down and up the instrument, thus lowering the frequency and therefore the pitch. In effect the instrument becomes longer as far as the standing wave sees it. Of course the player's breath warms it up quite a bit, about halfway beteen ambient and body temperature. Even allowing for this (which I didn't in my original posting), the adjustment is about one inch on the tuning slide for 20 degrees and this is just a bit more than is usually available. So if you're playing outside at 0°C all you could do would be to play "short", as they say. Fortunately I don't do marching bands or Sally Army stuff.
So presumably in old, draughty churches without heating it must be impossible to get accurate tuning for the organ for the same reason.
It's pretty difficult to get accurate tuning on any kind of church organ in any case...
True. Accurate was the wrong word... consistent?
(Darren) That's correct. The whole instrument would be flat and it wouldn't sound wrong but any other instrument accompanying it would have to tune down a bit. Rather difficult with a piano. One way round it would be to have a small bleed of a lighter gas into the air the organ uses. You could use hydrogen, helium, neon, methane, ammonia or hydrogen fluoride. Perhaps I should patent this lunacy.
Wouldn't some of those risk producing the Amazing Exploding Organ? That puts me in mind of the Large Hot Pipe Organ which produces sound by exploding a propane/air mix in its pipes.
The LHPO
(Darren) It's blown itself to pieces and taken the website with it. I drew a blank with your link, alas. Helium would be safe enough and it's much cheaper than it used to be. It would be amusing to use sulphur hexafluoride, totally inert and non-toxic. It would lower the pitch by over an octave. I think I'd better shut up now.
Large Hot Pipe Organ (thanks to google), with MP3s (although the site doesn't seem to have the bandwidth to supply them very well).
Cold Brass
My curiosity is partially because I'm playing carols at the village Christmas tree tomorrow evening with the local brass band. Getting 40 or so of us in tune may be interesting if we get a cold evening.
What instrument do you play again, Phil?
Brass monkeys
(Phil) If all the brass is out of tune by the same amount it won't matter. I suspect there will be enough left on the tuning slide to accomodate an average cold evening.
[Darren] I'm currently reviving my interest in playing B-flat cornet, having not really played it for nearly 3 years.
[Rosie] That was what I thought. I might have to get a bit of practice in tonight, and give the old horn a good clean.
[Rosie] That was what I thought. I might have to get a bit of practice in tonight, and give the old horn a good clean.
(Phil) I hope your lip won't have gone. I wouldn't dare go three days without blowing a few raspberrires down my nine-foot tube. Brass is a treadmill; constant practice just to stand still.
I had that dream again last night - the one where my teeth crumble and fall out. :o(
[Rosie] I was jolly chuffed with my performance as 2nd Cornet. Good news was that my part had nothing above more than an octave above Middle C, so my lip survived with no problems. They've now gone and asked me to join them on Sunday morning to play at various points around the village, traditionally accompanied by hip-flasks. Mr Phil has given permissions, so it looks like I might end up signing up to join permanently in the New Year.
s/Mr/Mrs
Top C
(Phil) Shouldn't be too bad. One is expected to get that note on the 'bone (not too often) but the worst thing about it is reading it, being all in bass clef. The rule is that if it's in the stratosphere and on a space it's a C, otherwise it's a B (usually Bb). If it's a D the composer/arranger is not a trombone player. These high notes are far better played by trumpets and cornets anyway. Power to your embouchure. :-)
[Rosie] I used to feel the same when I played violin, and the music dropped off the bottom of the treble stave. I've never been fond of leger lines.
I always get annoyed when a composer writes a bottom B# for a cello. At first sight, this note appears not to be on the instrument.
[rab] It can't happen too often, can it?
The leger domain
(Darren) Although leger lines are part and parcel of trombone playing (especially 1st and 2nd trombones) I'm very glad they don't go into Tenor Clef which to me would make it unreadable instead of merely difficult. Treble Clef is never used because most 'bonists can't read that either unless like me they're also piano players.
They're dropping like flies
Blimey. Betty Tucker in The Archers AND Nana Moon in East Enders both die in one evening.
[Raak] It happens often enough for you to realise that you shouldn't get caught out by it, if that makes any sense. Depends on what key you're in, you see...
Sharp's the word
(rab) There are B#s all over the place in Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 78, which I am currently murdering. There are few in the Moonlight Sonata too.
dreams
I have that one too, Pen. =/ icky icky
How do you get rid of the smell of a stink bomb? Some little f*cker put one under my front door mat while I was out shopping tonight. I'd like to rub it all over his best Nikes.
Season of goodwill
Hope Rosie doesn't mind me quoting this in here [picked up from Limerick Game] ..
"(Chalky) Cheers. The busiest thing I am doing at this time of the year is firing off apologetic letters to all those who sent a Christmas card to my late Mum. Oh, the sins of omission."
[Rosie] How soon one forgets! This is quite a poignant time for you in some respects, 'though I suspect you will end up doing exactly as you wish, according to your personal bodyclock, and having a rip-roaring time. Have you been deluged by kindly invites so you're 'not on your own at Christmas'?
"(Chalky) Cheers. The busiest thing I am doing at this time of the year is firing off apologetic letters to all those who sent a Christmas card to my late Mum. Oh, the sins of omission."
[Rosie] How soon one forgets! This is quite a poignant time for you in some respects, 'though I suspect you will end up doing exactly as you wish, according to your personal bodyclock, and having a rip-roaring time. Have you been deluged by kindly invites so you're 'not on your own at Christmas'?
xmas preps
I've just stirred 2kg of chocolate truffle mix into a glossy, brandy-infused bowlful of indulgence, now it has to cool off to almost-solid in the utility room (luckily it's bloody cold in there) so I can scoop it out with a melon-baller into about 400 truffles. Yum. And I'm still in my pyjamas :o).
I think I'll have my mum and a friend coming for xmas. The friend was coming over from France to stay between christmas and new year anyway, but brought forward his trip because of a funeral, so I've insisted he should come here. [Rosie] The point I'm getting around to is, the prospect of having someone new and 'not family' at christmas is lovely. If someone offers you an invitation, accept it. They may need to invite you as much as you feel like accepting it. Sometimes, when you dilute a family, it gets better.
I think I'll have my mum and a friend coming for xmas. The friend was coming over from France to stay between christmas and new year anyway, but brought forward his trip because of a funeral, so I've insisted he should come here. [Rosie] The point I'm getting around to is, the prospect of having someone new and 'not family' at christmas is lovely. If someone offers you an invitation, accept it. They may need to invite you as much as you feel like accepting it. Sometimes, when you dilute a family, it gets better.
And another thing
An unseasonal December wasp has died in my salsa dancing shoe. What does it mean?
notes and queries
[pen] .. the inside of your salsa shoe is a more effective as a wasp killer than the minus degree temperatures outside? What does this say about your shoe?
Christmas invites
(Chalky) No invites. I think friends know me well enough not to do that though I wouldn't mind going to my various cousins in N London, an agreeable lot, but maybe they too know that I won't mind being on my own. Or perhaps they're having a tremendous row about what to do at Christmas. You never know. :-) (pen) If a Morniverser turned up on the doorstep they'd be welcomed with open arms. It would be a most original way to spend Christmas. Re - dead wasp. It means you've got hot feet. Of course this should be interpreted metaphorically and with the kindest possible intentions. :-)
Early Christmas present
New laptop. Whee! Thanks, HMG.
*hangs over*
Christmas office do last night *groogh*. About 50% of the company stayed at my house last night, and another 12%, not wanting to be left out, appeared on the doorstep for breakfast this morning.
Ooh! Shiny!
[rab] Snap! New laptop appeared on my desk over lunch.
I think I make the mistake of not leaving my desk at lunchtime. If I did, maybe I would get a new laptop too.
Aah! My eyes!
Something Needs to be Done about high-resolution screens. This laptop has a 1900 by 1200 screen 13 inches wide, but of course all the fonts are exactly the same size in pixels as they were when 640 by 480 was the largest screen you could have. The first thing I had to do to make the laptop usable was to set all the options to get text in a readable size and a mouse pointer I can see. There needs to be a switch at some point from specifying font size in pixels to specifying it in millimetres. (Points won't do, having for better or worse been tied to pixels when a pixel was about the same as a point, and having shrunk along with them. There are probably people nowadays who think that a typographical "point" means a point of light on a screen.) The display would inform the computer of its physical size, and all GUI elements would have their sizes specified in physical distances instead of pixels.
[Raak] That is rather silly...
[pen] We had our works do last Tuesday night. A few of us managed to struggle in the next day... I went home after an hour. That was Very Naughty Indeed.
[rab] you didn't plan to work a whole day? V.N.I. indeed. There's no let-up here... besides which, I got a promotion this morning and am now account Manager :oD. Despite that, I still feel hungover, and very, very tired. There's a queue stalling at the printer right now, and it's making me cry, that's how tired and emotional I am!
[pen] It's not that I didn't plan to skive off a whole day, it's kinda what ended up happening... Off school now though, whee!
one more day
I'm working all day tomorrow... bliss! I might take my laundry to dry on the office radiators as I don't have to have the heating on at home and there's no-one else in. By the way, snow is forecast for the south-east in the middle of next week :o)
Wibble
Strangeness.
Sorry 'bout that. Having server problems but not, it appears, with this website. Play on.
plays
Not that there's much to do. I've been training for the past week, so it's taken me till now to sift through my emails! And I think we're all finishing about 1pm, for some drinks. I'd better get food as well, as I haven't had breakfast and the canteen is way too busy for me to be bothered to go up there.
food on tap?
[snorgle] You have a canteen? Wow. Even though I have the best job in the world, we still have to bring our own lunch in or head out in the car at lunch time to buy it. Today I have pasta and tomatoes left over from last night, mircowaved :oP
Christmas cheer
Don't be surprised if this site falls over during the Christmas period. I think we're being hacked.
point sizes
[Raak] But pixels are quite essential if you're working with a projector and have no idea what the actual size might be!
Merry Christmas everyone!
(Uncle K) You're joking. All my friends have disappeared and my family is 250 miles away. All Christmas does is to exacerbate problems. Why don't we just kill it?
bah humbugness
[Rosie] You could always come to the Middle East. Not much of a Christmas here to complain about... :-D
[Projoy] Ok, there would be some issues of detail to work out in moving to a world of mm-measured font sizes (projectors these days are smart enough to just show the same pixels that are on the laptop screen, however many or few there are), but it would be an improvement on the present situation of fonts getting smaller and smaller as the screens get better. With 150 pixels per inch it's painful already, what will it be like at 300? When you print things out, they don't get smaller and smaller as the printer resolution gets better. The issue has already been addressed there, and things come out, for the most part, at constant physical size.
Happy merries all. Who needs friends and family when there's Bach on the radio 24 hours a day?
Starr quality
What's Mrs Ringo doing on the radio, Raak, I'd have thought her more suitable to the visual media. Then again I've not seen her for years so maybe it's for the best.
[rab] Thanks for dragging the site back. Did it kick and scream?
[rab] Thanks for dragging the site back. Did it kick and scream?
(flerdle) Not a bad idea! Must go abroad next year. Anywhere. Britain around Christmas is a tiresome and silly place. (rab) May I endorse Duj's thanks. It's all smoke and mirrors as far as I'm concerned.
Merry (not-location-related-not-family-related-not-anything-other-than-the-spirit-of-goodwill-related) Christmas. =)
Checking in from Mum and Dad's
Wireless networks are great! Pleased to inform that everything seems fine on the server front. Will check with Andy when I next see him. Trust everyone's Christmas was good (mine was) and that the impending calendar-related novelty is as fun.
filling The Gap
Hang the expense, I'll put the central heating on now.
hny
*drops lump of coal*
[Rab] Ouch!
you couldn't make it up
News story from the Grimsby Evening Telegraph last week begins... 'A Man and a chinchilla were rescued by firefighters after a chip pan caught fire.' I'd say that's better than a kitten up a tree.
(pen) A fireman I know says that more than half his work is not involved with actual fires and they are trained in many other forms of rescue.
[Rosie] As a local news reporter, a long, long time ago, I wrote a report of a chip pan fire which was reported at at 7.30am... deep fried Weetabix, anyone? And I also wrote a story during the run-up to xmas of a brussels sprout harvester catching fire in the field. The pickers extinguished it using wet leaves before the arrival of the fire brigade. I headlined the story: "Sprouts Come in From Field Ready-Cooked!" and it made the front page of my local rag :o)
What's a comma or two between friends?
Version 1
Dear Mother,
In law, there is nothing to make me say thank you, but the quality of your gifts compels me at least to write to tell you how I feel. Thank you so much for the presents! I was expecting nothing more than a token yet, again, you have exceeded even your own incredible standards.
It was a shame you had to stay here for such a short time. I thought I might have coped, but it was unbearable seeing you leave. The relief was immense when I heard we might see you again soon. I wanted to end it all by saying goodbye now. I hope I will not have to say it to you again for a long time. If you have the opportunity to spend Christmas elsewhere next year, please do not.
Much love Matthew
Version 2
Dear Mother-in-Law,
There is nothing to make me say thank you, but the quality of your gifts compels me at least to write to tell you how I feel. Thank you? So much for the presents I was expecting. Nothing more than a token, yet again! You have exceeded even your own incredible standards.
It was a shame you had to stay here. For such a short time, I thought I might have coped, but it was unbearable. Seeing you leave, the relief was immense. When I heard we might see you again soon, I wanted to end it all. By saying goodbye now, I hope I will not have to say it to you again for a long time. If you have the opportunity to spend Christmas elsewhere next year, please do.
Not much love
Matthew
[Kim] Your BBC website plagiarising secret is safe with me :o)
Qualidy control
In the light of recent comments over at Orange, previewing of moves is now mandatory in the Limericks game. (And, for this move only, on this game so I can check it works). Are there any others that might benefit from a similar treatment?
Testing Fred
That'll teach me to read rab's posts properly.
The Fine Art of Limericks
I would be delighted to see a return to quality limericks in which the following maxim were applied by all: "If you can't think of a line that scans, rhymes and fits the context, let someone else write that line."
The Limerick is the only form of poetry I really enjoy, so I'm delighted that some effort is going into restoring their former greatness.
The Limerick is the only form of poetry I really enjoy, so I'm delighted that some effort is going into restoring their former greatness.
(Phil) Agree absolutely. "If you cant't say it nicely, don't say it at all. Your turn will come."
And if you can't spell can't you're pissed.
Speling
I managed to misspell a two-letter word once. And I was stone cold sober at the time. It wasn't a complicated two-letter word either. It was 'do'.
rab's QC
I am pleased by the mandatory preview. When I first came across 5 (although I still feel like a neophyte), the limericks being posted were on average outstanding. Being pedantic is no fun, but the general high standards made me try harder.
We probably should have mandatory preview on all games. I was thinking that after putting the unwanted hr into Regurgitated Cheddars.
Hmm.. Not sure about mandatory preview on chat games, or things like AVMA. But cheddars is certainly one that could benefit, as could poetry games more generally. What do people think?
I think the more you use a mandatory preview, the less notice people will take of it. At the moment, limericks is marked out as special, which I think is probably right.
Previews
(Projoy) This is probably true, but at least there's a chance one will notice an error. I'd be in favour of a mandatory preview, and I nearly always preview anyway. It's little bother.
Are you really really REALLY sure?
Well, clearly we should then have mandatory preview on every game, and double preview on limericks. In fact, why stop there? The number of previews in a given game should be a parameter to be set at the beginning, based on the importance of avoiding error.
Should we even allow anything beyond preview at all?
(Darren) Indeed. Should we shut the whole thing down on Health and Safety grounds?
Maybe I should move over to a probabilistic model: you have a single button which, when clicked, may or may not post the move to the server....
[rab] Good idea. Maybe there could also be a low probability of it picking a random move with no relation to the one you actually intended to place, too.
Why not replace the players with bots, who post moves from a list of past greats? Then it would be very entertaining to read, and a lot less trouble to contribute to.
"replace players with bots"?
And will players without posteriors be allowed to stay? *grabs coat and runs*
Or we could extend the preview facility - pressing the preview button would e-mail the suggested move to all other players, who would then vote on whether or not to allow it.
Yes, and vote on whether the player should be permanently banned or not because of their move.
... until eventually, there will be just the one player left who will descend into a preview hell of their own making.
Joking apart (who says we're joking? Ed.) how about a small variation called, say, Second Post - where we have to post TWO lines at a time. So you'd either cop the first two lines, the second two, the last and first, the second and third or the fourth and fifth. Might make for more cohesion. Or lunacy.
Joking apart (who says we're joking? Ed.) how about a small variation called, say, Second Post - where we have to post TWO lines at a time. So you'd either cop the first two lines, the second two, the last and first, the second and third or the fourth and fifth. Might make for more cohesion. Or lunacy.
Two by two
That sounds fun.
2nd post
(Chalky) Lines that rhyme should not be permitted as a combination, as I have pointed to someone out in Another Place. Makes it too easy. But other combinations might work.
The two posts must also not be allowed to share any letters.
[Rosie] Why not include lines that rhyme? Just makes it a different sort of challenge. In any case, you'd have to sometimes as lims are 5 lines long, so play would go 1+2 / 3+4 / 5+1 / 2+3 / 4+5.
[Rosie] Two lines that rhyme? An absolute necessity for some I'd say. That's why I suggested it. After all, aren't we supposed to be upping the quality?
again ... it will give those fly-in-and-fly-out-and-post-any-old-bollocks merchants [yup - that includes me!] a reason to stop and think.
[Chalks] Surely that's "fly-in-and-post-any-old-bollocks-and-fly-out"? ;)
[re: Lims] If you don't want to let one player enter 2 rhyming lines so frequently, why not alternate between 1 line and 2 (ie 1 / 2+3 / 4 / 5+1 / 2 / 3+4 / 5 / 1+2 / 3 / 4+5)? Maybe we could fill the vacant game spot with experiments along these lines - try some different number of line postings, maybe even posting by a number of words at a time, or even just slipping into Limacres if the going gets tough?
[re: Lims] If you don't want to let one player enter 2 rhyming lines so frequently, why not alternate between 1 line and 2 (ie 1 / 2+3 / 4 / 5+1 / 2 / 3+4 / 5 / 1+2 / 3 / 4+5)? Maybe we could fill the vacant game spot with experiments along these lines - try some different number of line postings, maybe even posting by a number of words at a time, or even just slipping into Limacres if the going gets tough?
I have taken the liberty of opening an experimental game. The rubric doesn't say that it has to be two lines, so I guess it could sometimes be one, sometimes maybe even three or above if there seems a good enough reason. Should be interesting to compare the results of this lim game with the others, on the same sort of principle as Blockbusters (are five heads really better than three?!)
double top
Cracking finish to the World Darts Final.... I can't believe I just watched it all, hehehe! I wish I'd had a bet on him at 100/1...
Tannoy
Would whoever just started the Round Robin thing please let us know how it's supposed to proceed.
I didn't do it...
It wasn't me, but it looks like an example of the game formerly known as Film and Crescent Styles
Guilty as charged
Sorry - a long time away has caused me to forget my logic - and manners. Twas I that started the round robin letter. I'll do my best to set the thing rolling but just in case it proves unpopular, please consign it to MC heaven. By the way - I like the new style Rab!
*waves hello to Bob the dog*
[rab] Any chance of a compulsory Preview in the new Multiple Limericks game?
Chancer
[Bob] Hello again.
[Chalky] In the words of Jim Hacker (or it could have been Sir Humphery) your wish is my cooperation.
Chalky] Shouldn't that be two obligatory Previews?
*thanks rab*
Iroule] aaaarghhh!
[rab] Hello again too!
[Chalky] *waves back*.
My 10 year old daughter has obtained a copy of Vic Reeves Big Night Out on DVD. This morning I was presented with a cocktail stick with a tiny bag on the end and a tab bearing the message "What's on the end of the stick, Vic?". What was on the end of the stick? The tip of a carrot! I like it.
[Chalky] *waves back*.
My 10 year old daughter has obtained a copy of Vic Reeves Big Night Out on DVD. This morning I was presented with a cocktail stick with a tiny bag on the end and a tab bearing the message "What's on the end of the stick, Vic?". What was on the end of the stick? The tip of a carrot! I like it.
I had no idea that was out on DVD. Is it the full set?
Darren] The full set of the first two series on Channel 4 - and it is currently on special offer in HMV. If like I could (highlight) copy them for you...
And that was my idea.
And that was my idea.
Bob the dog
(avoiding over capitalising) Hello!
[Bob]
Hidden text
Thanks, but if you did, you wouldn't know where to send them, though, would you?[Darren]
Hidden text
Email me an address. james at nettlesoupdotcodotuk.[Bob, Darren] That's how we prefer to do things round here.
[rab]
Hidden text
neatrab] HTML ignoramus alert! How do you do that?
[rab]Language!
It is true!
[Tuj]
Hidden text
When your stance is submitted, a thousand fairies raise themselves from a deep slumber and hide your secrets away until brushed upon by passers by.[Tuj]
Hidden text
Hello!Good day
Some good news, at long last... My girlfriend, having finally completed her PhD, moved up to Edinburgh to be closer to me (ahhhh) without a job and very worried about a miserable period of unemployment soaking up what little savings one has after being a student for six years. Having traipsed around Edinburgh in order to visit every company working in her area to drop off her CV, one of them called her back and invited her in yesterday for a "bit of a chat". After an hour-long interview (hmmm, nice "chat") they offered her a permanent job on the spot. She wasn't even asked to leave the room for the panel to discuss it. Now that's what I call a result.
*is very happy for rab and rabfriend*
new jobbers
Wow... good news rab. Talking of new jobbers, we're about to interview the 4th candidate for the open position here at Cock&Bull PR. Out of the three we've interviewed so far, I'd offer it to two of them. We'll see what today's is like.
And I got a new red car today *grins*
And I got a new red car today *grins*
[rab] Congratulations! (Through enviously gritted teeth...)
I'm still resolutely fixed-term, unfortunately. However since "rabfriend" has today received a counter-offer from a rival firm, I think I can look forward to a future as a kept man...
pfffft
[rab] tut tut! It means learning to keep house, y'know...
little buglet
[rab] This may or may not be relevant, but I've noticed that a few of the games, when you load their full form, tend to slip out of their table after a certain number of moves. This is under IE, of course. e.g. The Furcation Game.
[Projoy] Do you mean it runs over the right-hand side?
round robin
Just to let all know - I've started posting some ideas re the Rugby Pilg on the Orange pilg page. For anyone new to all this - the Rugby Pilg is (becoming) an annual event where as many players of these bizzare games as possible congregate at a superb venue at a specially negotiated low price to play silly games live. This year May 27 - all welcome!
[rab] No. The table simply stops after a certain amount of time, and all the remaining text appears underneath it as regular text. I haven't actually looked at the source for more detail than that yet.
There doesn't appear to be anything in the HTML source that does it, AFAICS.
[Projoy] It's possible there's a mismatched quote. But I suspect it's one of IE's idiosyncrasies.
tag, not quote.
It doesn't appear to affect all games in the same way, if that helps. Come to that, it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the affected games, if that helps.
Boris is standing for Rector of Edinburgh Uni. Should I vote for him?
[rab] Don't do it - he won't appreciate that it was an ironic gesture.
Oh, vote Boris, he's harmless. And in case it hadn't been realised I'm back, for the moment. How is everyone?
[nights] Hello again!
[rab] Do you think Boris will bother to turn up when needed?
[rab] Do you think Boris will bother to turn up when needed?
I'd go for John Pilger myself.
*waves from Cambridge*
I've got a whole two-bedroomed house to myself. It's beautifully quiet. And either some rich college, or maybe the taxpayer, is paying for the heating. Woo.
toasty boasty
Good for you, rab. I dont have my central heating on any more, s'too 'xpensive.
Smash Hits is closing down, boo-hoo!
Smash Hits is closing down, boo-hoo!
[Smash Hits] I thought it already had. Shows I'm not a 'youth' anymore.
Rah hey
It's been a long time since I participatoried in a good game of MC....or any game of MC for that matter. I recognise some of the names from years gone by (when I was called 'Pave'). Love, death, marriage and pregnancy (not me - the wife) have kept me from the game, but I'm older, wiser and back...apart from the wiser bit.
That name rings a bell...
[Pave] How goes the equestrian centre?
fugging admin
I'm still at work at 6.20pm on a Friday night. I have a backlog of 80 press releases to write (I'm mid-campaign) and I've spent the whole day doing bloody admin. *gnashes teeth* Saves me spending money, I suppose, which is just as well, as someone has nicked it all out of my bank account anyway.
(Mine the Gap was a daft name anyway!)
[Projoy] Still a dream! The fiancée is now the wife (with mini-pave on the way. Still, when I win the Euro-millions.....
Euro Millions? Does that mean NZ didn't happen either?
Old Zealand
Ah, forget I asked that. Just checked the chat in Another Place.
Dreams
The world likes nothing better than the taste of chewed up dreams! You never fail if you never give up. The world loves a fighter. And all that tosh that makes you feel better when you aren't where you want to be yet....!
Hello!
Ee, lad, 'aven't seen you since the days of t' YAMCS. Welcome back to the Morniverse :)
Tuj!!! I think I owe you an apology...Were we in a championship game when I vanished? Was it YAMCS that had the play window to the bottom right, and games/players to the right?
There was some sort of tournament going on when YAMCS met its maker, though I can't recall if I was playing you at the time... The main thing I remember about the YAMCS layout was the big list of games down the left hand side. And it was a big list - 30 game slots!?
Yup, I recall once having a name on every game. Proud day. I need to get out more don't I....
If you do then I do by extension ;)
Tuj
We'll have to go head to head in the Lockisseum...although I can see you are still a formidable player, with new tricks no doubt.
Something like that ;) Mind you, my Lockisseum match with Darren hasn't exactly been all grace and flair!
Play softly and carry a railway sleeper?
Jeeeepers Tuj
That challenge game with Darren is pushing all new boundaries! I was lost by move yellow!
You know, spending the day with 19 13-year-olds from Ontario has made me somewhat tired. Odd that.
Not as tired as had it been 13 19-year-olds.
At least then they would have made more sense. The whole experience left me feeling rather old.
If it's any consolation, that feeling just gets worse and worse the older you get. :)
Youth is wasted on the young.
...and wisdom is wasted on the old.
And wasps are waisted in the middle. (Sorry!)
Ah well - I'm enjoying the Lockisseum. I don't think it was around when I was last into MC (before the break). Tough game though.
Ah well - I'm enjoying the Lockisseum. I don't think it was around when I was last into MC (before the break). Tough game though.
[Projoy] Oh, thanks, that makes me feel better. At least they're going home today.
Server unavailable
Hello. My network provider seems to have lost their border router. While they have more than one route to the internet this component is common to them. No ETA on when they'll get it fixed.
Okay. Back as of a half hour ago. Pardon me for disturbing you.
Update
[Dan] Thanks for the update. And here's one of my own. I got engaged last night. It was a very pleasant, if emotional, experience. I can highly recommend it.
Wooo-hooooooooo!!!
[rab and rab-darling] Congratulations! Excellent news. :o)
[rab] Congratulatoryay!
[rab] Well done. Who to?
[rab] Good show!!!
rab] Congratulations!
[rab] W000T! Congratulations to the both of you! I'm gonna have to get my suit drycleaned now...
Chiming in
[rab] Congrats!
Thanks for the kind words. I shall pass them on to my lovely darling as she doesn't read any of the MC sites herself.
Rings 'n Things
[rab] It has been said that "I am." is the shortest possible sentence; "I do." can be the longest.
No, joking, my friend. All the very best to both of you.
No, joking, my friend. All the very best to both of you.
"I got engaged" ?
You have much to learn - it's "We got engaged" now that you're engaged :-) Seriously, congrats !
[rab] Well done that man. Happy, contented and in Edinburgh. Life has little better to offer than that combination.
[rab] Congratulations!
[rab] Nice one ! xx
Yeah! Fab, rab!
rab has a girlfriend!
Congratulations!!
[Néa] Now, now. Don't confuse me, I've spent the whole weekend trying to work out the correct number of 'e's and accent placement in the word fiancée...
[rab] The word is "finance".
[Darren] financé surely?
Congrats
[Rab] Slightly slow off the mark, but all the very best to you and the future Mrs Rab.
[penelope] Now you mention it, since rab's finance is female, it should be financée.
If he's lucky, perhaps she is a financiée
[rab] Congrots.
As a French speaker, might I step in? As the word comes from French, I'm assuming that it follows French rules. Therefore Rab has a fiancée, whereas Rab himself is the fiancé, as French takes an extra 'e' to signify femininity. Of course, you might already know this, in which case my apologies. I'll keep my teaching to my job.
*gives nights a little three-legged wooden stool so the jokes no longer waft over his head*
[penelope] snnrk!!!:-)
Assume a spherical robin
The robin is limping a bit.
Rabiancé(e)
[rab] Congrats indeed. I actually think that getting engaged caused me a more dramatic change of lifestyle then either getting married or having children. Now whether that was a change for the better ....
[Rosie] Seems my outgoing won't connect with your incoming. It's taken a few days for me to find out .. I'll try sending from another address :-)
(Chalky) OK. Should I have another address for you?
Clunking Limericks
(Projoy) You're right. I misread Marc's 4th line due to mild inebriation. Can't post the fifth line because I did the first, hence this.
[Raak] After two weeks of non movement the robin continues to limp, my killer blow was not enough.
[Rosie] I have resent from a similar-looking email address [replace hotmaildotcom with gmaildotcom] :-)
emails
(Chalky) Got it. :-) Have stored new address.
[rab] Congratulations. =)
Squeak
Now, what with all the nerves leading up to the big moment it completely slipped my mind that that it would entail planning a wedding. I bought a book at the weekend to help me out, but the first thing I noticed is that most of the wedding literature is aimed pretty much exclusively at the bride. And it also seems there's a whole industry devoted to fleecing couples (or their parents) at the start of their life together. Particularly depressing so far have been some of the menus I've seen on the web, typically wanting to charge you 25quid a head for the most lacklustre three-course meal you've ever seen. To put this into perspective, our engagement meal was at a cosy local restaurant with a reasonably high standard of cuisine and imaginative menu, and with a nice bottle of wine and after-dinner port came to not much more than the above figure. Nice to see the economies of scale being passed on, there. I'm sure with enough perserverence we'll be able to find either a venue with a decent caterer, or one that will let us provide our own, but I can already see that's going to be a lot of work.
Limpin robin
It seems the win detection's a bit screwed. I thought I'd fixed it after Tuj had some trouble with it, but it seems still not to be working. I'll look into it tonight.
wedding
[rab] Given that this meal is traditionally called the "Wedding Breakfast", you could take it literally and get in a job lot of Coco Pops. Sophistication and economy all in one go.
oooh...wedding breaqkfast joke!!!
Sorry in advance...Three friends were all getting married on the same day, and they all decided to use the same hotel and church (staggered, of course). They were all 'innocent' in the way of love, and knew that on their wedding night they would all finally 'do-ooo-ooo it' (As Rik Mayal would say), but as the newly weds would all be having breakfast in the hotel with the families the next day, they knew it was going to be difficult to talk to each other about the experience.
"I know" Says one of them "We'll secretly tell each other over breakfast - by means of a code. Ordering a slice of toast means we did it!!!" They all agree.
Next morning at the table, the first guy orders his breakfast from the waitress...
"I'll have a glass of orange, some cereal and three slices of toast please" he says, winking to his friends.
"I'll have 5 slices of toast" says his smug friend. The last chap orders his...
I'll have a glass of orange, some grapefruite, and 7 slices of toast please..." he says....and then as the waitress walks away, he winks to his friends and calls out to the waitress again...
"Please can you make 3 of those Brown bread..."
"I know" Says one of them "We'll secretly tell each other over breakfast - by means of a code. Ordering a slice of toast means we did it!!!" They all agree.
Next morning at the table, the first guy orders his breakfast from the waitress...
"I'll have a glass of orange, some cereal and three slices of toast please" he says, winking to his friends.
"I'll have 5 slices of toast" says his smug friend. The last chap orders his...
I'll have a glass of orange, some grapefruite, and 7 slices of toast please..." he says....and then as the waitress walks away, he winks to his friends and calls out to the waitress again...
"Please can you make 3 of those Brown bread..."
Up the bum
(Pave) Shurely jokes like that are not still current? It has a nostalgic resonance for anyone over 60 (which I am) because I knew friends who were virgin bridegrooms, (at least I'd have put money on it). Seems incredible these days.
well....
[Rosie] I currently live in Portsmouth (not really by choice), and am in the process of moving. To give you an idea of what the place is like: Virgin = less than teen, Grandma = teen and over. My wife and I joke that we are getting kicked out of town because we waited until we were married before we started a family - and before that we weren't related (and she's way over 15...)...and to top it off...neither of us have ever claimed benefits for our 15 kids...which we don't have either...
In short...I guess not :-). Due date May 2nd for number one...dead excited ;-)
In short...I guess not :-). Due date May 2nd for number one...dead excited ;-)
well....
[Rosie] I currently live in Portsmouth (not really by choice), and am in the process of moving. To give you an idea of what the place is like: Virgin = less than teen, Grandma = teen and over. My wife and I joke that we are getting kicked out of town because we waited until we were married before we started a family - and before that we weren't related (and she's way over 15...)...and to top it off...neither of us have ever claimed benefits for our 15 kids...which we don't have either...
In short...I guess not :-). Due date May 2nd for number one...dead excited ;-)
In short...I guess not :-). Due date May 2nd for number one...dead excited ;-)
oops
Works PC glitch...sorry.
Pompey
[Pave] How far are you going? Just interested as (when not at university) I'm a Hampshire-dweller. Hope the moving process is improving for you, all the best.
15 kids etc....
Dublin woman goes into the social to claim child benfit for her 15 kids. When asked their names she replies "Micko". When pressed for more name she replies "Theyre all called Micko". Social officer then asks "So when you want them to go to bed, what do you say?" "Micko, get to yuz feckin' beds". Officer continues "And to call them all for dinner?" The reply comes "Micko, get yuz in here fer yuz dinner."
The officer thinks a moment, "But, if you just want one of them, what do you do?" Without hesitating, she replies "Janey Mack! That's easy - I just uses the surname"
The officer thinks a moment, "But, if you just want one of them, what do you do?" Without hesitating, she replies "Janey Mack! That's easy - I just uses the surname"
Pompey again
(Pave) Yurss, I've heard that about Portsmouth over a long period and wondered if it were true. Maybe it is.
Tuj - Farnborough area still Hants...You?
What you have heard of Portsmouth, it is true. I can't hold my head up as I walk the streets for fear of what I may tread in. One day...on a side street directly off of the main drag, I had the misfortune to see a woman squating behind a car to relieve herself (lots of open shops and pubs....lots of pubs...many, many pubs ...and all crap, but still she chose a car). I felt safer walking around a rough area of Glasgow (Pollockshaw) at night on my own, than I do during the day in Portsmouth. It is only in existence to give the saying "arse hole end of the world" an actual grid reference...
[Tuj] À propos of current-ish thread in OrangeMC, how old are you?
Nights
Posted it up over there ;)
Mr Fixit
Right. I think I've finally fixed the win-detection bug.
*sigh* I'm bored. And hungry. And still have 2 hours to go before I get home and cook a piece of ham, which promises to be ultra-delicious as it's proper Lincolnshire ham. *sigh*
*Suddenly Hungry*
Hunger
Me three. Eating Dutch tonight, off to the Heineken Holland House which is the Winter Olympic base of one of the country teams, I forget which, but it'll all be orange. Tomorrow night off to the Sponsor Village, got a curling lesson booked.
Well, that was delicious.
Do tell!!! (Only had Pizza ;-( )
*BURP*
Repeating
(pen) You burped a full two hours after your ham. What will happen in another twenty-four God only knows. Keep us posted. :-)
Dutch Kwisine
Well what a gourmet delight that was (not!). I do like the way the Dutch get all exuberant when sporting occasions are involved. A big tent with an ice rink in the middle, bars and and hot dog stands round the outside, and the Winter Olympics AND Ajax-Inter on TV screens everywhere and a live band. Well, the Dutch have medals to celebrate. I wonder where the GB house is...
[IS,P] Look under the doormat. It's great fun being in Canada at the moment, my friends have decided I'm an honourary Canadian for the duration, "as Britian seem to be, well, shit" at the Winter Olympics business.
[Pen] Don't patronise me, I can do that all by myself...
[Pen] Don't patronise me, I can do that all by myself...
[nights] Of course you can. You're a clever boy, aren't you? ;-)
[nights] I am sooo tempted to say: "Yes, dear."
[nights] I suppose you'll want congratulating for that narrow victory over the Finns in the curling final, then?
curling
Tried it last night in the Sponsor Village. Rather fun, actually.
curling?
One slipper, one trainer, a yardbrush and a doorstop? What's that all about then?
(nights) Canada? Where's that, then?
curling
[pen] Have a butchers at the hyperlink game over in Outer Space.
oi oi nights!!!
Hello nights - are you aware of the appeal lodged in your Lock match? Might still be able to fend them off if you're quick...
ice rocks
[IS,P!] Which one is you? ;o)
cakegeek
I have just baked the most blinding carrot-and-banana cake for my own pleasure. It was supposed to be banana and walnut, but I didn't have any walnuts and I was short of a banana so I substituted a carrot. I thought about taking it into work tomorrow, but I'm going to keep it for myself. I love Sunday morning baking.
[curling] Of course, certainly, go Newfoundland- uhm, Canada go.
[lock] Agh, forgotten all about that. I'll be straight over. Thanks for the notice.
[lock] Agh, forgotten all about that. I'll be straight over. Thanks for the notice.
[nights] Darn it.
now hear this... cross post, apols
Dear I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Mailing List Member,
We should be in a position to email you details of the next three I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue recordings within the next few weeks. We are planning recordings in the North of England, the Midlands and the West Country.
However, there is still good news for those in the South East and the Greater London area, as we bring advance notice of two recordings of the hit Radio 4 series 'Hamish & Dougal : You'll Have Had Your Tea' which are to take place in London this March.
Hamish and Dougal (aka Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden) are the two Scottish gentlemen made internationally quite well known from their appearances in the 'Sound Charades' round on ISIHAC. They are accompanied in the series by Mrs Naughtie, a cleaning lady cum housekeeper played by Alison Steadman, a local laird played by Jeremy Hardy, and a 4 piece ceilidh band. The musical director is Graeme's son John, otherwise known as the keyboard player in the internationally renowned pop combo 'Scissor Sisters'. This is Hamish & Dougal's third Radio 4 series.
As usual you are advised to book soon for these recordings as they are extremely popular.
The first recording will take place at 7.30pm (doors open 7pm) on Monday 6th March at The Mermaid Conference & Events Centre (formerly The Mermaid Theatre), Puddle Dock, Blackfriars, London EC4V 3DB.
Tickets cost £6.50 each and are being sold by the Cochrane Theatre box office on 020 7269 1606 (which is open from 10am - 6pm, Monday to Friday). There is no booking fee. Where possible tickets will be sent to the purchaser, but they can be collected on the night if preferred.
The second recording will take place at 7.30pm (doors open 7pm) on Sunday 26th March at The Duchess Theatre, Catherine Street (off The Aldwych), London WC2B 5LA. Tickets cost £6.50 each and are obtainable by calling the box office on 0870 890 1103. (The theatre box office is run by a ticketing agency, and there will be will a handling charge of 60p on these ticket sales. The advantage is that they are open 24 hours a day).
We should be in a position to email you details of the next three I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue recordings within the next few weeks. We are planning recordings in the North of England, the Midlands and the West Country.
However, there is still good news for those in the South East and the Greater London area, as we bring advance notice of two recordings of the hit Radio 4 series 'Hamish & Dougal : You'll Have Had Your Tea' which are to take place in London this March.
Hamish and Dougal (aka Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden) are the two Scottish gentlemen made internationally quite well known from their appearances in the 'Sound Charades' round on ISIHAC. They are accompanied in the series by Mrs Naughtie, a cleaning lady cum housekeeper played by Alison Steadman, a local laird played by Jeremy Hardy, and a 4 piece ceilidh band. The musical director is Graeme's son John, otherwise known as the keyboard player in the internationally renowned pop combo 'Scissor Sisters'. This is Hamish & Dougal's third Radio 4 series.
As usual you are advised to book soon for these recordings as they are extremely popular.
The first recording will take place at 7.30pm (doors open 7pm) on Monday 6th March at The Mermaid Conference & Events Centre (formerly The Mermaid Theatre), Puddle Dock, Blackfriars, London EC4V 3DB.
Tickets cost £6.50 each and are being sold by the Cochrane Theatre box office on 020 7269 1606 (which is open from 10am - 6pm, Monday to Friday). There is no booking fee. Where possible tickets will be sent to the purchaser, but they can be collected on the night if preferred.
The second recording will take place at 7.30pm (doors open 7pm) on Sunday 26th March at The Duchess Theatre, Catherine Street (off The Aldwych), London WC2B 5LA. Tickets cost £6.50 each and are obtainable by calling the box office on 0870 890 1103. (The theatre box office is run by a ticketing agency, and there will be will a handling charge of 60p on these ticket sales. The advantage is that they are open 24 hours a day).
Thanks Pen. Can you keep us posted re the midlands recordings please?
[Btd] Sure, I just post up the emails when I get them in :o)
feeding the troops
Banana & Carrot bread gone down well in the office. Troops all onside. Banana Dictatorship underway.
cake
Banana bread and carrot cake are two of the best things ever. Together, they will indeed conquer the planet.
bucket shop - today's left overs
Dear I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Mailing List Member
This is to advise you that there are still some tickets left for our recording of Hamish & Dougal starring Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden on the evening of Monday 6th March at the Mermaid Theatre in London. They will be advertised to the general public from Friday so you'll need to book tomorrow if you don't wish to miss out.
This was in my inbox this morning - if you want tickets, hurry!
This is to advise you that there are still some tickets left for our recording of Hamish & Dougal starring Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden on the evening of Monday 6th March at the Mermaid Theatre in London. They will be advertised to the general public from Friday so you'll need to book tomorrow if you don't wish to miss out.
This was in my inbox this morning - if you want tickets, hurry!
Full House!
Completed on the bungalow this morning. Going to spill champagne over the doorstep tonight :o)
Bungalow
Congrats, pen!
So that's why there will be no more Dick and Dom on a Saturday morning.
[Botherer] cheers :o)
[Inkspot] Can't afford to have all that creamy muckmuck cleaned off the carpets every weekend!! sorry...
[Inkspot] Can't afford to have all that creamy muckmuck cleaned off the carpets every weekend!! sorry...
<whisper>bogeys</whisper>
Bogeys? I thought pen was talking about something much worse.
[Darren] You've obviously never watched... recommended. BBC1 Saturday mornings, while stocks last.
Paws
Hello. Is anyone else finding these page taking a couple of seconds longer than normal to display?
[penelope] Worse than watched - I know one of the script editors. Yes, I know what you're thinking: they have scripts?!
wheeew Matron!
Fearne Cotton...Creamy muck muck....and this is kids TV...
[rab] Mine's quite zippy today actually.
[as for the rest of you ...] I haven't the foggiest what you're all on about.
[as for the rest of you ...] I haven't the foggiest what you're all on about.
[Chalky] Mine too. Maybe my previous visits happened to synchronise with one of Andy's ultra-paranoid (i.e., frequent) site backups.
Dick and Dom?
The name suggests an animated cartoon whose principal characters are a *cough* certain organ and a PVC-clad woman with a whip.
Wouldn't that be Dick and Domme? I think it suggests a slightly different relationship as is. :)
We're now well adrift of the weekend's discussion of Dick & Dom, so I shall start another topic. I'm having home-made spicy chickpea and cauliflower soup for lunch today. What's everyone else having?
Lunch
[pen] Probably nothing, but I might have something later.
An everything bagel, 2 kabanos, a large spring onion, half a head of chicory, a Russet apple, two fruit Shrewsbury biscuits, a bottle of water, and a couple of Sudoku.
...and a stick of celery.
Had mine at 11.30: All day breakfast sandwich, raspberries and a Cadbury's Twirl. Doing the healthy option today.
yum
Cottage pie and carrots - but I shan't be eating a main meal tonight because I hope to 'Walk The Line'.
I had a slice of flan, a cheese sandwich and a packet of Monster Munch.
...and the hunt continues for a ceremonial and celebratory venue that both happen to be free on the same day next spring. I'm amazed anyone ever manages to get married...
stress-free nuptuals
[rab] hey! Why not hire yourselves a ... Wedding Planner! [for the equivalent of two years'orth of joint salaries].
... should that be 'joint salary'?
ach whatever - I was only being facetious :-)
Seriously though, the wanting to do it and the asking if you can do it and the agreeing that you're going to do it and the telling evryone that you're going to do it - that's the easy part.
Seriously though, the wanting to do it and the asking if you can do it and the agreeing that you're going to do it and the telling evryone that you're going to do it - that's the easy part.
[rab] why not run off and do it? Or slip off and do it... or just do it now? My mum and dad did it, and returned to my home town to tell their parents after the fact. Both sets were fine about it. One of my sisters did it too, got married in the US as none of us could be there. I was never one for running though. Just have a big party when you come back, with none of the weighty responsibility that comes from having the ceremony and the party on the same day. I think I'm a proponent of avoiding unecessary hassles wherever they're avoidable, not buying or paying for stuff that you don't actually NEED to have a good time, and wary of pandering to everyone else's expectations with regard to weddings, whilst forgetting my own and those of my significant other (if ever there is one). I'd quite like to have a new frock to do it in though.
Lunch
Well I had risotto ai frutti di mare, and not very appetising either. I should point out that it was canteen risotto, but the other 'dishes' looked worse. [Raak] Those Sudoku sound tasty!
[Raak] I thought you'd written a program to do them for you, so that you didn'nt need to succumb to the temptation of actually doing the blasted things.
[SM] I did, but it didn't help. :-(
[Raak] Is that why you've started eating them instead?
Oooh!
Ooh no, you shouldn't eat a sudoku! If they're not properly prepared they could be contaminated with deadly toxins! Call me a coward, but I'd never risk trying a puzzle that could poison me if the person setting it made the tiniest mistake.
Sudoku
It's not really poisonous as such - more of a number.
*dons 2006-style F1 goggles*
Champs and Chumps
Bahrain tomorrow with a scarlet front row, with Alonso on the second row. It will be a good test and an exciting afternoon.
Which is more than can be said of the apalling display put on by the Steve Johnson renegades at the Millenium Stadium. Basic handling errors, Wales were lucky to come away with a draw (make that very, very lucky).
Yay! for Renault and Alonso. It was a good race which helped pass the time while doing the ironing.
I missed the GP - was out - and I still have all the ironing to do :o(
Watching things while ironing
[Inks] And can someone please get rid of Brian Moore from the BBC rugby commentating team. He adds nothing to the understanding of what's going on (other than occasionally in scrums) and is so blinkered in his pro-Englishness it's ridiculous. He is the rugby equivalent of Fred Trueman as a commentator. Also, to continue the cricketing thought, the current English rugby team makes me think of the cricketing expression 'flat-track bully' - they only look good against sides they can dominate physically.
[INJ]For a 6N before next years World Cup things are looking dire for the northern hemisphere, the teams of South Africa, Austrailia and New Zealand maintain a high level year on year the rest have occasional years of brilliance. Wales have shot their winning coach to appeal to "player power", they now enjoy the training sessions!!!! England have less of a hill to climb than Wales for the next game.
forward thinking
(INJ) Forward dominance is how England won the world cup, it is how Australia, and to a larger extent the All Blacks play their game. The major difference is, they also have devastating backs and centres. Rugby is played off a forward-dominated platform so to look good against teams you can dominate physically is a pre-requisite of winning rugby. England, at the moment, still have the forward power, but problems abound in the half-backs and particularly at centre. My humble opinion also is that Corry is not the right man as captain. The handling errors on Saturday were abysmal and New Zealand, in particular, will rip them apart. I would also wager that Ireland will beat England next week
sold! (not)
Just had a silly offer on my flat from a guy who has not yet sold his place. Refused it. He's the wrong end of a chain. Awaiting a better offer.
going...
And another offer, only marginally less silly, 20 minutes later. I've given them the lowest acceptable price, and with the condition of exchange of contracts within 4 weeks. Fingers crossed.
*crossing her fingers*
Gone!
Woo-hoo!! Have got the price I (eventually) wanted and the quick exchange :o) Deep joy. Now I can buy myself a pair of salsa shoes.
congrats!
[Phil] Thanks :o)
Hear ye!!!
The Lockisseum Seems a little quiet. We need a few more faces in there I feel. One on one (and the soon to be tried Doubles) is a very different style of play. Sorry if I am acting all unofficial spokesperson like, but I had to 'Big Up' the Lock as a great MC site.
Spring has sprung today here in sunny Rickmansworth. 10 degrees C. That means the grass will start growing - I need to get TWO lawnmowers fixed...
[pen] Ah, Spring. Like Summer, but without the essential quality of warmth. You get what look from indoors like beautiful bright sunny days, then step outside and the slightest puff of wind tells you the air is still coming in from northern Siberia and you have months yet of bundling up like the Michelin man.
[Raak] Don't be so grumpy! Whilst I'll give you that 'Ne'er cast a clout till May be out' (and that's May blossom not the onset of June) holds true, there's nothing to stop you enjoying the feeling of spring. You have to admit it gives your demeanour a filip, doesn't it? And I've noticed my thermals dry much quicker on the washing line in spring :o)
[Raak] Also, it's the traditional time to start reproducing.
[Darren] Well, you get home chilled to the bone and the only thing to do is burrow under a pile of duvets, preferably with a second body to warm each other.
More than "preferably", presumably? Unless there's something I've yet to learn about the progenitive effects of burrowing under duvets.
Vernality
The good thing about Spring is the light. Shedloads of half-micron wavelength photons. The air is slow to respond, but will eventually. (pen) Interesting, not to say revealing, observation. The air has been very dry in the last week or so but not every spring does that happen.
Bad Hair Days
[Rosie] Don't I just know it's been particularly dry - I've had hair problems for most of February and all through March. It goes dead straight when the air's dry - I need a little drizzle.
fortihacker
email:ca920105@gmail.com I just like spam! I'm collocting junk email...
Oooh!!!!!
fortihacker, send me pizza menus, double glazing letters, load applications, free newspapers....I love collecting that rubbish as well. Now make like a Nubbock so we can carry on.
These hackers are running out of ideas for getting our email addresses I reckon....
These hackers are running out of ideas for getting our email addresses I reckon....
load?
Loan...sorry, I have a cold.
topless
I see Wembley Stadium has a new 'cabriolet' top-down look this morning.
hospital visiting
I've visited Salisbury District Hospital 3 times in 20 hours. The first time to install mother for her knee replacement op that was scheduled for this morning, then again to take some books in because the op had been 'postponed' for a day, and then AGAIN to uninstall her because the surgeon is now too ill to do the op. Now she's on 'standby'. Ironic phrasing, given the state of her knee.
What a pain
How frustrating, Chalks, for you and your mother, to endure the anticipation (which probably isn't too pleasant) all over again.
*inserts daily piece of banter*
Orange tea
Is anyone else having problem accessing Orange, I've been having error messages since just before midnight.
*Goes off to kitchen to put the kettle on for helpful cup of tea for Dunx*
*Goes off to kitchen to put the kettle on for helpful cup of tea for Dunx*
Orange fleeeeee
I'm lost!!! Dunx is down...no Lock,no Orange!!! I'm going warm turkey (can't go cold...still have MCiOS and Mc5)....
oh bliey
I've just received notification that the flat I'm in the prcess of selling is now 'listed'... hehehe. Rather them than me, I'm pleased to be out of all the hassle that it entails. I'm not opposed to listing as such - architectural heritage is important - but I need something a bit more uncomplicated right now.
that would be 'oh blimey'
Orange
[Inkspot] Thank you for confirming the timing of the downage.
Orange is back now, though.
Very QUIET in here. You can almost hear Radio 3.
The clock in here is about 5 minutes fast. The sundial needs realigning.
Let's see
Should be fixed now.
hush up
Radio 3's getting good...
heavy breathing
The cold is getting better - I'm taking drugs for it.
I thought women were never the slightest bit affected by colds :)
correction
[rab] I have Man Flu. Lord knows how I caught that, haven't sniffed a man in months.
The essay I'm trying to write
AAAARRGGGHHHHHH!!!!
The essay I'm trying to write
I've just realised is pure shite...
I've just realised is pure shite...
Its utter frivolity
Its sheer lack of quality . . .
Its sheer lack of quality . . .
I think I'll just set it alight.
*sighs*
oh oh owww!!
As an MC player, I hang my head in shame to say up until recently I had hardly ever heard ISIHAC. To make up for it (because the couple of shows that I had caught were jolly good) I bought myself the anniversary edition. I'm shocked to find that it is one year older then me, but we share the same birthday....and that Dame Judi Dench wasn't the only one that had to pull the car over for fear of laughing into a collision!!! I feel like a man who has been blind for the last 33 years, only to find that I was just wearing a hat one size too big!!!
(Pave) A noble admission. Now, who else is going to "come out"?
my sides hurt!!!!
the reason ISIHAC is a half our show, is because anything over that hurts ones sides....I love the anniversary edition quote by Humph...."Nixon became the first US President to visit China in an attempt to repair a Presidential rift. Chairman Mao was thrilled at this, as he was getting fed up using the escerator..."
[pen] I must have a touch of Bird Flu then.
[Raak] I shudder to think how you got that ;o)
http://ravenblack1973.blogspot.com
My cat has just given me a great birthday present....the little bugger. Rather than write it all again, I have posted it on my baby blog. Enjoy.....I hope every one else had a great weekend too!!!
No cake.....no candles......no secret boxes......*sob*
Whilst I'm on missed birthdays: Happy 34th to ISIHAC.
[Pave] Oh! Was it your birthday then? :-)
[Chalky] yeah...but to be honest, I only mentioned it because the chat was very slow. Birthdays aren't a good thing for me.
I'M ON THE TRAIN
Cor. Finally got this wireless internet marlarky to work on the GNER line.
woo-hoo! We have faster broadband in the office. Faster than what, I don't know.
The usual expression is 'faster than a speeding bullet'
[IS,P!] We're not allowed to bring guns into the office, so I can't say.
From under the stairs
[rab]With the last true move in The Furcation Game being back in July 2004 is it worth gently putting it to rest and moving on?
Looking out the window this morning through the drizzle the garden is starting to pick up and look colourful again after the bleak winter. A fine show of daffodils and the Forsythia and spring Jasmin are a real delight. Last weekend over the Bank Holiday even managed to cut the grass.
But the highlight after coming back from Broad Haven was the start of the new series of Dr Who, with New Earth setting the scene and arc for the series. It was so good I forgot to drink my cup of tea brought in by Mrs Inks.
Looking out the window this morning through the drizzle the garden is starting to pick up and look colourful again after the bleak winter. A fine show of daffodils and the Forsythia and spring Jasmin are a real delight. Last weekend over the Bank Holiday even managed to cut the grass.
But the highlight after coming back from Broad Haven was the start of the new series of Dr Who, with New Earth setting the scene and arc for the series. It was so good I forgot to drink my cup of tea brought in by Mrs Inks.
(Inkspot) Smug bastard. :-) I've got three daffs out of a potential two dozen or so, though the Forsythia has come out. It's the cool dry weather (official) that's made everything late. Life's Grim Up North Surrey.
DOWNTIME WARNING
There may be some downtime from about 7pm tonight while we reinstall the OS. Hopefully we'll be back in fine fettle by midnight. Apols for inconv etc.
Nearly working
It\'s nearly working again. Woo.
Yay!
[Inkspot] Yes, maybe it is due for retirement. Oh, and could someone please finish the Dutch game.
De gaam is eended.
Weather
It's reached 15°C for the first time this year at Maison Rosie, the second latest date for this since I started records in 1983. The average date is 22 March but is very variable, standard deviation 24 days. Earliest was 27 Jan 2003 and the latest 25 Apr 1986. Are we going to have a hot summer? HTFSIK.
Backslashes
Don't know where they came from; I didn't put them there, or here.
[Rosei] WTF is HTFSIK?
*gets it*
Better late than never
Unparliamentary Acronyms
(pen) I knew you would. :-) The backslashes seem to accompany apostrophes and increase by one each time you preview. Test: (lots of backslashes removed, rab) 6 previews.
Well, thats (sic) that theory down the pan.
Going Dutch
The game has nine lives, it seems.
Right - I'll investigate the slashing.
It's now "fixed" I believe. Let me know if you notice anything else that's a bit odd.
Do you want me to put the Dutch game out of its misery, or shall I just let you guess how many 'o's after the 'M' in Mornington are required. (It's not very many).
ooooooooooooooo
(rab) How many, FFS? I've tried up to twelve. Thanks for fixing the apostrophe problem, BTW.
[Rosie] It was three. You had a typo with "Crescent."
typooography
(Darren) I have a very red face. It's the monicker effect.
Three.
butterfiles in the Amazon
A story game has been created from the ashes of Dutch.
[Rosie] Today was a perfect day for the garden it was warm enough here in North Wilts to have lunch outside (south facing garden). If the sun shines tomorrow the curtains will be drawn to cut the glare on the tv while the Grand Prix is on.
[Rosie] Today was a perfect day for the garden it was warm enough here in North Wilts to have lunch outside (south facing garden). If the sun shines tomorrow the curtains will be drawn to cut the glare on the tv while the Grand Prix is on.
(Inkspot) Not (gasp) Swindon? Nice here too, max 17.4°C.
raise the drawbidge
Near to Swindon, just south of J16 of the M4. Little old ladies would lie in front of bulldozers than see Wootton Bassett become part of Swindon, and the town of Swindon is never mentioned in polite company.
HTFSIK?
I haven't got it yet :(
Swindon, Profanity
(Inkspot) Swindon must have something going for it even though they don't build steam locos there anymore because my niece's finacé commutes there every day from Chepstow while she herself works in Cardiff. Mad! (Phil) You disappoint me, man. Why? How the fuck should I know?
Not that one should really moan about it, but the clock in here is over an hour fast. At least, I hope it is.
Timezone
The server thought we were in Berlin. I've now told it we're in London. (Although, as it happens, I'm in Croatia so I hadn't noticed the clock-skew).
Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to have fixed the problem. I'll look at this more closely when I return.
[Rosie] Ah, of course. I had the first two words as "Hope the" and couldn't get my head past that.
Ruggerpilg
[Rosie] Having lost your email address, you might want to look into the Pilgrim game... Likewise Simons, Botherer.
Pilgrimage
(Projoy) Just Been There, Done That. My email address is at http://www.geocities.com/pantsmcprofiles/profiles.html
Regarding Chaos on the Line
[CdM] You just had to insert economics, didn't you. *falling around giggling*
Tert
Tick tock
The clock seems to have corrected itself now - I think. I'm confused by being in a different timezone.
update
For those who have an interest...
News on RugbyPilgIII
News on RugbyPilgIII
[Néa, CdM] Seeing that post reminded me of a thought I had in Hong Kong, which is that it appears to be rapidly approaching a phenomenon closely related to the 'Shoe Event Horizon'.
Currently perfectly good 20 storey buildings are being torn down to make space for 40 storey ones. This demolition increases the pressure on commercial space, thus increasing the value of the space in those buildings. Before long, before a building is complete the most advantageous thing to do economically will be to pull it down again and start buiding an even taller one. This process then becomes a self-reinforcing spiral.
Currently perfectly good 20 storey buildings are being torn down to make space for 40 storey ones. This demolition increases the pressure on commercial space, thus increasing the value of the space in those buildings. Before long, before a building is complete the most advantageous thing to do economically will be to pull it down again and start buiding an even taller one. This process then becomes a self-reinforcing spiral.
Orange pipped
Hope it is back up and running soon.
When the Beeb announced the other day that it was going to dipense with Grandstand on Saturdays, part of me jumped with joy at the ent of this leviathan. The coverage of sport on the BBC has gone downhill, it only covers what it feels comfortable with. Take snooker wall to wall at the moment completley at odds with the low viewing figures it achieves. How long does it give to Match of the Day to cover all the days football, they may only have the rights to the Premiership but why not cover the Chamionship as well. And as for the rugby... just don't get me started. Just to say it could be greatly improved, it is final whistle quick chat then stop for the footie results. Motor racing is on the website but nothing on the screen, there is a whole raft of racing outside F1. The propsal is to have specific programmes, on BBC1 to make way for other output mmmmmmmmm? More day time tv as if Mon-Fri was not enough!!
Personally, I like the snooker.
(Inkspot) These days if you want sport you pay for it, and a good deal more than the licence fee.
[Darren] Me too, which is rather a bad thing when one should be cramming all the maths one can into one's head, not wasting time watching things of that ilk...
(Tuj) While watching the snooker, work out in your head the angle of departure of the object ball as a function of the direction of the cue ball and the distance between them in ball radii. Differentiate it with respect to the cue-ball direction. Appreciate the skill of snooker players.
[Rosie] My forays as a very amateurish snooker player suggest to me there's more to be gained from experience and practice than maths skills! I'm told darts is good for one's counting skills also, though I've never found that much of a spectator sport...
angles
Croquet ruined my snooker. Not that either of them are/were much good, but there was a definite detrimental effect.
'Croquet Ruined My Snooker'. Now there's a title for some memoirs!
*snigger*
Apologies
Sorry for thr outburst in Limericks. Am I the only one who is offended by Marc's 'style' of play?
Stylistic boobs
(pen) No you are not. I tried a little irony but it zoomed over his head. Others have dropped hints recently but obviously to no effect.
Embonpoint and all that
(pen) I've had another go.
[pen & Rosie] Am totally with you on this one. I don't know if Marc even bothers to read this game [he certainly never contributes to it - or any other game that I've noted] but if you do [Marc] can we just request, because you seem to contribute so regularly, that you expand your mind a little to matters other than tits and sexist innuendo? Call me old-fashioned, but my humorous streak is more likely to be satisfied when a wider subject matter is brought to bear. Selfish? Maybe. But I have a hunch that others may agree. Thanks :-)
[Chalky] You can count on my support on that matter.
I've already indicated support. Although I disagree that he come across as a dirty old man; I think he comes across as an eleven-year old.
Marc certainly comes across as deeply immature. Personally, if I were rab, I'd consider blocking him because he just seems to annoy people, and appears to revel in doing so.
Well, frankly, I can't be arsed -- which is not to say I don't think the complaint is valid, just that blocking ain't really my style.
... now why doesn't that surprise me?
[Chalky] Is that some kind of complaint?
I assumed it was a comment on your somewhat cavalier approach to the Great Game.
Chalky can speak for herself, but my best guess is that it was a compliment. :-)
FWIW, I think that blocking should only be carried out in extreme circumstances, which are currently not met. Dan and Dunx can also speak for themselves, but I think their general view, suceessfully implemented on their servers, is that we should sort these things out among ourselves if at all possible.
FWIW, I think that blocking should only be carried out in extreme circumstances, which are currently not met. Dan and Dunx can also speak for themselves, but I think their general view, suceessfully implemented on their servers, is that we should sort these things out among ourselves if at all possible.
However, I do suggest that we try to get rab banned on account of his somewhat cavalier approach to the Great Game.
If that last post doesn't get CdM banned, I don't know what will!
*is horribly inspired to start a banning game and becomes convinced that StDogmael is making voodoo spells at her expense*
[Blocking] The penny drops...
Sorry if you've found the server a bit up-and-downy the last couple of days. It should stay up longer now.
*reminds herself not to make ambiguous comments when she isn't going to be around for 12 hours*
[rabsweetums] What CdM said. Barring someone from the site should IMO only occur when threatening/stalking/pronographic activities take place on a regular basis. Marc is just a silly twit sometimes, harmless really; and anyway, WHO would pen and I and others have the opportunity to have a pop at now and then if he wasn't in the firing line ...? :-)
I was going to say , but I remembered, they know where I live. I vote against banning, and for bearing in mind other people's sensibilities.
Hidden text
[Chalky] Glad to see you and pen aren't getting your pretty little heads all worked up over this - now why don't you do some needlework or baking to relax.My worthless 2 pence worth
Blocking's nasty - I'd go with Chalky's assessment. Also, CdM may be right above in his 11-year-old not dirty-old-man surmising - I certainly posted some horrible tosh when I debuted as a 14-y-o (albeit I empathise on bad scansion not lustful obsessions).
(Tuj) Use words like debuted and you really will be banned. No, you won't. :-) It reminds me of the sports commentator's medalled, i.e. won a medal. The Now ShowwwWWW had some fun with this last Friday. That's sport - it hollows out the head. It would be a ludicrous over-reaction to ban Marc. He will get the hang of this place eventually.
Well, at any rate, at least you can see why I still nurse this ambition to set up my own MC server.
*thwacks Phil around the head with her trusty rolling-pin*
*heats biscuit cutter to red-hot heat and leaves interesting corrugated circular imprints all over Phil's thighs*
Barring people
If anyone's going to be barred around here it should be William Shakespeare. ©2001 Peter Kay
(ISP) You're fired. Ed. ©Private Eye passim.
[Chalky & penelope] Thank you for not killing me outright.
Yeah, there's no case for a ban, unfortunately. :) I don't think he's gotten the hang of the place in the two years or so that he's been around, so I'm not sure I hold out a lot of hope that he eventually will, but that's not enough reason to exclude. [Rosie] What's wrong with debuted? What would you say?
[Tuj] You may have been 14 when you first posted, but you were amusing and you took on board people's feedback and adjusted your behaviour to fit in better with how the place worked, rather than assuming (as some others do) that you could do just as you wished, and that any criticism should be rejected out of hand. (Also your scansion wasn't really especially bad when you first showed up, although it certainly did improve).
[Projoy] Try debutted instead.
butt me no butts
Hm. "debutted" produces 10,600 hits on Google, with "debuted" providing 11,500,000...
[Projoy] I wasn't being serious.
(Projoy) There are some nouns that really ought not to be er, verbed. I'd say début is one of them. I'd have phrased it differently or said first started. (Darren) I like "debutted". It sounds like an American whose arse has fallen off.
[Darren] No, but I guess some other people use "debutted" in all seriousness. I guess it's because the 't' is silent, so it feels it needs a second, voiced 't' to enable the "ed" ending to click on. Same problem, of course, with past-tensing any noun or verb that ends on a vowel sound, such as "diminuendo'd" (but for some reason not "précised")
I don't like the word "verbing." I think we should call it "Rosieing" from now on.
I think debuted is singularly infelicitous, mostly because of the pronunciation issue – is it debutted, daybood, debood, daybutted? Made his début’ seems the best way out to me.
Day-byood seems the most obvious pron. to me.
These days, I have lost the "y" in daybyoo, and now pronounce it dayboo, as do the French who don't do that thing with the letter u. I'm sure someone has had a go at me for my resistance to verbing in the past (poss. CdM?) but I still resist it where possible.
Heavens to Murgatroyd, I've been Darrenned! (Phil) Nobody does a proper French 'u' in this country - eg déja vous.
[Rosie] Re: "u" - I quite agree. Re: "Darrenned" - On this occasion I prefer "Darrened" as the double "n" tends to shift stress towards the second syllable. I think Gyles Brandreth should be informed.
Hang on, on re-reading that my logic would make "traveled" more correct than "travelled", which, as every cricket-playing gentleman of Blighty knows, is simply wrong. Therefore I retract my double "n".
Doubling
(Phil) The single consonant is the American way but to my eyes it looks wrong, because it makes the previous vowel long, eg tra-veald, la-beald, unra-vealed, spaymd?, Dar-reaned etc.. How many customers have you bar(r)ed? Don't answer that. :-)
I prefer baning them :-)
Debuing (?)
Alas, whenever I go beyond a couple of sentences I always burst out in flowery essay words... Although in this case it must be from too much sport watching. Meanwhile...
[Projoy] Thank you, I'm very touched by your comments on the time I debuted (daybyooed, for my South UK Estuary tongue). I cringed many a time when I look back in the Yorkives at how I was. However, my scansion I regard as my strong point, and as far as limericks and the like go I more frequently stop myself on account of not enough good material.
[Projoy] Thank you, I'm very touched by your comments on the time I debuted (daybyooed, for my South UK Estuary tongue). I cringed many a time when I look back in the Yorkives at how I was. However, my scansion I regard as my strong point, and as far as limericks and the like go I more frequently stop myself on account of not enough good material.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
And.....
Marc....jeeeeeez! I remember early Tuj, and I remember what I thought of early Tuj...and I am glad Tuj is still here! Marc does seem to, how can I say this..."Lack the light touch required by the game..."
On that bombshell
Anyone for a new game?
After you
[Tuj]New game ... an old fav like When Hillocks Collide but I do like a bit of something different but have no idea what that may be.
[Inkspot] I didn't mean a whole new concept necessarily. I was just pointing out there's been a free game slot sitting there for a bit and it would be nice to create a popular and interesting game - but is anyone interested?
In the meanst...
Good old 11-MC can give us some time to think.
Speak of the Devil!
Hello Tuj! Yes, I am glad you are still round! I'd be up for a new game. I don't know why I remember you....maybe when I saw TUJ I thought of Taj as in Taj Mahal...the blues singer. I was listening to a lot of his stuff back then, so your moniker would have really stuck. Good times :) What was the MC group that had the games down the left, the game in play in the top right and the move/comment box in the bottom right? (I think I asked before..?)
When I was a lad...
[Pave] I'm guessing you're referring to Huxley's fairly short-lived YAMCS (Yet Another MC Server) - which is where I first remember making your MC acquaintance. I'm sure I'd been at !York for a year or two by then however.
Eeeeeee!
YAMSC hmmmm....I recall seeing you at !York, and this other server, so yes, I guess you are correct there - I also recall there was a one on one challenge tourney going on - and I think it was me and you as I vanished.... Who or what was a Huxley, and what happened?
Huxley was a player. Sort of like Stevie but... Hm. No, exactly like Stevie, now I come to think of it.
Old MC sites
Whatever happened to Wildpants MC? It seems that it upped and went, but this site looks very similar, with some very familiar (oo-er) names.
Whilst we are on this subject....
Whilst we are on about "What ever happened to...?" I'd like to know "what ever happened to retro conversations that started with "Whatever happened to white dog poop?""
Whatever happened to all the other people on this site?
Haha. Sorry.
[Pave] Erm... I think I must have missed those...
[Pave] Erm... I think I must have missed those...
:)
Whatever happened to white dog shit
"The only white dog shit you get these days, Leeds United." I forget which comic it was...
[Bigsmith] Pants MC died and MWP (for whatever reason) decided not to bring it back up again, so we all migrated to the other MC sites.
Forgive me for being rude, but wtf is the point of finishing a game if you then just start another one that's exactly the same.
I'm starting to think that we've by now seen pretty much all permutations and combinations, and without sufficient influx of new blood there's a vast oversupply in the mc server market. With its being the newest, I propose we close this site.
Hmmmmm
Much that I would loathe to see it go, you do have a valid point. It is the slowest moving of the MC servers....Is there anything we can do to make it that bit different?
[rab] I did attempt to start something else, but it didn't work, so I sulked. I'm sure we can come up with more excitement to fuel the flow through the server... Kick something splendid and popular in place of the Furcation Game perhaps? However if it is proving to be a burden to you to keep it open, then sadly it would have to go.
[rab]There is obviously an issue with the fact that this server hasn't got many games which aren't found on others. I'm surethat, given time, it could build up it's own distinctive set for which it would be THE place to go (after all, AVMA is one of the fastest-moving games in the Morniverse). But, it's up to you, of course, though maybe we could have a deliberate effort to try a few games not found elsewhere first.
AVMA is one of the things that came to mind as something worth keeping. I'd be quite happy to kill off all the rest (yes, that includes the limericks) with space for about 4 others.
[rab] Sounds drastic but perhaps could lead to a great maelstrom of creativity and ideas and new games! Or calamity of course...
AVMA is one of the greatest games on any of the servers, as it is a genuine competition, and the human instinct is to try to win. Multi-line limericks are nice too. I have preferences for games (e.g. good news/bad news) that others find tiresome, and vice versa. Hence I think a variety of servers, each with a little tweak of individuality is good for the MC world. If I had a bit more about me, I might set up my own, but it would have to be Domino/Notes-driven, and I don't have a copy of Notes designer any more :-(
[Rab] well, personally, I'm gutted that you should even suggest such a thing - but that's your prerogative ....
[Phil] Seconded on the good news/bad news :P... perhaps if others don't want to play that game, for instance, we could try a rhyming version? I'm just thinking part in terms of new combinations of games, and part in terms of some of the game mashing-together encountered in the Furcation Game (qv).
The Morniverse seems to be going through a mid life crisis of its own with I think players dropping out and moving on and with the pool of active players reduced. When visiting the three servers it is noticeable how few play on all three, but concentrate on one either Orange or MCiOS. To me MC5 has been about the originality of the games, it is a challenge and I can safely put up my hand and say that I have created some real distasters, but that's life; kill the game and move on the next one may take off. I have said my piece about Furcation Game before and will say no more.
It is whether MC5 is to be a clone of MCiOS or have its own original flavour, I would go for the latter.
It is whether MC5 is to be a clone of MCiOS or have its own original flavour, I would go for the latter.
Orange is a useful isolation ward for certain types whose extensive and incomprehensible scribblings make me lose the will to live. For that reason, let's keep all three going.
Bacchal scene
When this place started I felt it had a somewhat distinctive feel, what with a few original games and quite a few people (immigrants from Pants, I think) who didn't contribute so much to MCiOS and Orange. As you're no doubt bored with me saying by now, I favour a fast turnover, and would much rather have a dozen try-outs that didn't go very far (don't regard them as disasters, Inkspot) on the offchance that you get the occasional gem (Woo-doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo etc Hitler springs to mind) instead of yet another tired 'The Return of Boardmans Combined Bad-Tempered Cresso' hybrids. My feeling about classics (such as Good News/Bad News) is fine, but they're generally best - at least started - in unadulterated form, with variants just springing up during the game on an ad-hoc basis. I would have hoped that after 3-and-a-half years a distinctive set of games would have built up.
I've banished the Furcation Game to a Better Place; and think that they may be some scope at some point for a Lite version in which mash-ups of classic genres are played for a few rounds and continuously mutated, morphed, juxtaposed and hybridised but without the need to write a whole Shakespearian play cum Wagnerian opera every move. This could also be the proper place for hybrids of the type described above, rather than taking up a game slot to itself.
I would also propose killing the Long Game (on the grounds that, no, there doesn't "have to be one of these", does there?); the ordinary Limericks (but keep the multilines; or merge the two into a freeform jazz version); possibly the cheddars (except I like the concept of a game you can contribute really easily to).
I should say that this place takes almost zero maintenance effort from me nowadays, keeping the machine its hosted on up and running and un-hacked-into notwithstanding, so it's no effort to keep it up and running. But I would like to feel more minded to contribute.
All that said, I suppose I can't really complain about lack of originality given that the site itself is basically a knock-off of Dan's and Dunx's respective endeavors in the first place. I could add some features (like unplayed games automatically expiring, or maybe a death vote system) to encourage a faster turnover but I'm not sure how they would work.
*phew*
[rab] agree with most of what you said. This site has always been my first port of call, particularly because it does have games that are easy to contribute to without venturing into essay-land. Also, it seems to have been the place for guessing games, AVMA being a fine example, Who-Doo-Doo etc another - and who could forget the Cryptic Crossword game? I really enjoyed puzzling over those and learning from others' expertise.
Like Inks, I have noticed a drifting away of certain key and prolific players from say a year or so ago, but that's just human nature I s'pose. Also, I think this server took a bit of a bashing when the Orange 'create as many games as you can festival' occurred and a few of the MC5 favourites found their way over there and remained [OMC now has 21 games!]
Like Inks, I have noticed a drifting away of certain key and prolific players from say a year or so ago, but that's just human nature I s'pose. Also, I think this server took a bit of a bashing when the Orange 'create as many games as you can festival' occurred and a few of the MC5 favourites found their way over there and remained [OMC now has 21 games!]
Blooooooood
We need exciting games to attract new lood! BLOOOOOD yesssss....my precious! Bwahahahaha...erm... I'm not getting any younger, and some of this text speak confusses me - is there an idea of a game in there? I don't know!!!! BWahhahahaha blood etc ad lib and fade.
The Long Game
[rab] Very good points, and thanks for sharing your input - you may claim not to have to do much maintenance but we're still here and able to play thanks to you, so we really should be doing some more things you want to ;)
Personally I think you make a good point about long games - they seem to have passed out of fashion. Perhaps we could replace the long game with a series of "short games" - games of MC people aren't afraid to win after a week and could be encouraged to by experimenting with some lesser-known rulesets.
Personally I think you make a good point about long games - they seem to have passed out of fashion. Perhaps we could replace the long game with a series of "short games" - games of MC people aren't afraid to win after a week and could be encouraged to by experimenting with some lesser-known rulesets.
I wouldn't mind a cryptic game again, though Blob (its finest practitioner) isn't seen around so much these days
[All] Feel empowered: don't be afraid to go forth and cull. I've set the Long Game as winnable with the standard move for a bit; will reverse if people want to keep it.
[rab] Well, I got in first... Am I the first person to win a long game?
I have murdered the regular limericks game.
We demand a MONTY PYTHON game. Nee.
Googling my name
Tuj means "immediately" in Esperanto.
This page is the 69th brought up by Google (UK) if you search for "Tuj".
This page is the 69th brought up by Google (UK) if you search for "Tuj".
Can we please have a 100% ban on all Monty Python comments? The show finished decades ago and comedy has moved on. It's one of the few things that really boils my blood these days.
Hmmm
How about a Monty Python game that skirts around the sketches....but never quite mentions Monty Python....
Admin, spare this site
I think three servers is the right number. More is too many; two is too few. For myself, the orkplace firewall blocks both here and the Dunxatorium, but, curiously, lets Dan's place through. That certainly further distorts my own posting habits. I do visit here more assiduously than I did the WildPants server, and I was sorry to see that go.
Monty
[Pave]Several game slots have been created for player to start games, get in there and see what happens. MP is not for me but may excite others. Whether it fails or succeeds keep coming back with fresh ideas and grab that empty slot.
Seething
(Darren) Shall we also ban The Goon Show? Round the Horne? Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In? Not Only But Also? MPFS may not be your cup of tea but that's no reason to ban it. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
The only thing I'd like to ban is mention of bans. Unless that's some horrible contradiction that's going to cause the internet to implode.
Meanwhile, if there's anyone reading this who's been watching and not playing, and wishes to join in, now would be an excellent time to do so. A few new players would give the place a breath of fresh air methinks.
*walks in out of the rain with soaking wet hair, puts car keys, phone, stethescope and bleep down on the table and sits on the chair*. Aah, that's better.
[Lib] Here, have a mug of hot chocolate.
Sanguinary ebullition
I'm not seething (see above) but was wondering why Darren was. Here's something lighter. During tonight's big football match David 'Spooner' Pleat uttered these words: THE SIGHT IS IN END. It'll be in next week's Colemanballs section of Private Eye with the name of any one of a thousand people who spotted it, possibly mine.
*falls in water*
It is done...Bwaaaaahahahahahaahhcoff coff hack HURGH!!!
Holds up red card
They think its all over - and it is.
Hmmm
At least let it start!!!
Herehereherehere! What's going on here?
Personally I liked "Hampster" which is overdue a resurrection in a different form...
After all, it's seven years since 'One slice of Strawberry Tart'
Hamster
Actually that game died without filling a single page, so I take it all back. Screw the Hamster idea. Ermm. I mean...
is it wrong
To giggle at a mention of "sword" and "pork" in a game? If so, I am a wrong un! ...and I dreamt...
[Pave] I still haven't got over Wymo's move in that game...
{Tuj} I know!!! Fancy slipping like that! :)
Oh, don't go!
Just a quick note to say that although I don't post as much as I used to (due to work commitments, and more), I would be very sad to see you close down!
spring cleaning at mc5
I came for the limericks, but stayed for the Clerihews.
MC5 has a nice comfy feel for me. I like that it's not intimidatingly big. I don't much care for mcios or Orange. I think kill votes or timers would be a nice addition. If the games rotated more swiftly, us newcomers wouldn't feel as shy about trying to create them. *shy shy*
MC5 has a nice comfy feel for me. I like that it's not intimidatingly big. I don't much care for mcios or Orange. I think kill votes or timers would be a nice addition. If the games rotated more swiftly, us newcomers wouldn't feel as shy about trying to create them. *shy shy*
Proffer
As befits my profession, I shall have to do some statistical analysis on the corpus available to me to see if it's possible to devise a heuristic that identifies the 'running out of steam' point.
(rab) You could get a heuristic off an old steam engine but you'll need a big spanner.
sighing
I would post more. But I'm just not amusing enough. *sigh*
"I Woke Up From The Strangest DreamJust something that came to me.
Whence all but I had fled
When I woke up I found out why:
I was already dead."
I woke up from the strangest dream
[Raak] Very nice!
The game in fact shares its title with a song by the band "Liam Frost and the Slowdown Family", who I saw earlier this year supporting the wonderful Elbow. It's not my favourite of their songs, but it inspired the recursive dream game.
The game in fact shares its title with a song by the band "Liam Frost and the Slowdown Family", who I saw earlier this year supporting the wonderful Elbow. It's not my favourite of their songs, but it inspired the recursive dream game.
And on that note
The next game to be started shall be Game 100 here at MC5! Any ideas how we should mark such an occasion?
[Tuj] Sorry, that's what happens when I browse but not visit the Chat Game.
< goes and sits on the norty step >
No worries
[Inkspot] Took me a while to figure out what you meant :P and there was I thinking I was being premature suggesting that!
Flat chested
It looks like we've just bought a flat. The much-vaunted Scottish system is enormously frustrating at the early stages, as each property is essentially sold via blind auction. But now we're in a good position because we can pull out if the survey reveals anything unpleasant, or we can reduce our offer, or whatever, but the seller can't sell to anyone else, or decide they're not selling after all. Whee!
[rab] How exactly does that system work from the seller's point of view, then? Is there something that could stop you from dropping your offer down to £10, for instance?
Yes, they could simply refuse.
...and then the seller has to weigh up the relative pros and cons of accepting a lower offer than the original one, or putting the place back on the market. In our case, I don't anticipate any problems with the survey - but it's nice to know that we can pull out if the surveyor says the place is about to fall down, but they can't suddenly decide they're not selling to us after all.
Missive Trellis
Actually, I now understand we haven't quite reached that stage yet. The seller now has to agree in writing, so until we get that it could all be orrf.
Restricted attendance
Just a (necessarily) brief note to inform that I have broken a couple of bones in my left hand, so I might find myself not posting very much for a few days. I'm always surprised at how typing one-handed reduces one's speed by so much more than 50%, and how sore a broken bone can be.
Eeek
Bad luck Phil. Won't ask how you got it, and hope it heals soon.
[Phil] You do seem to be 'going throught the wars' as we used to say. Poor you. So it's spaghetti for the next fortnight...
time!
Blimey o'trousers! I would never have thought that having a baby would take up quite as much time as it does! I mean yes - they need 24 hour care, but who would have thought that it actually ment 24 hours being awake to look after them!!! He's been a gem up until a couple of days ago when he decided to go on 1 hour gaps between feeds!!! They grow up so fast! Anyway - it's why I have been scarce recently!
All that stuff and everything
Been out of the morniverse for a while due to work commitments (setting up my own business) and generally being hectic, but getting back into it. Delighted to see MC5 overhauled with some fresh games. Yippee!
Oooff
Well, that was more complicated than anticipated. Looks like the surveyor actually did some surveying (contrary to horror stories I've heard elsewhere) and picked up on some things that warranted a closer look, and so we had to send someone up to clamber around on the roof (with most buildings here being three or four storeys, it's more of a skill than it sounds). Turns out it's nothing too serious, although we will need to do a bit of work when moving in. As it happens, the scope for downward offering was limited by virtue of the next offer down being quite close to ours - so we ran the risk of the seller saying "Well, in that case we'll offer it to the next bidder"; turns out that things aren't quite as simplistic as you might first imagine.
I do wonder how much loaves of bread would cost if they were sold by blind auction, though.
They'd go mouldy by the time the auction was completed.
(Darren) Hard, too. A week-old baguette is an effective lightweight version of a baseball bat.
Between teeth
Incidentally, I should probably mention that the place is on a Crescent in Morningside. But not, sadly, Morningside Crescent: you have to go to Aberdeen to find one of those.
Lack Lustre
The current games on mc5 seem a bit slow moving. Perhaps its time for a couple of new ones. Any ideas?
New game
Something easy to join in with please...
But no; no specific ideas. I am part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Incidentally, against all my expectations I just found out I passed all bar one module of the second year of my degree... I just feel like telling people that, 'cos I really wasn't expecting to.
But no; no specific ideas. I am part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Incidentally, against all my expectations I just found out I passed all bar one module of the second year of my degree... I just feel like telling people that, 'cos I really wasn't expecting to.
end games
Yay, well done Knobbly
New games it would be nice to kill off another of the current games but have tried and failed. I do hope Pave has not set the killer move of Around the Python Laugh-in to something cryptic and unwinnable.
New games it would be nice to kill off another of the current games but have tried and failed. I do hope Pave has not set the killer move of Around the Python Laugh-in to something cryptic and unwinnable.
It would appear he did. Shall I set it to the normal, or just quietly shunt it below the line. Slow movement here I think is a side effect of Dunx's festival of crescent.
Not very happy vocabulary
I was trying to send it on its way as I had an idea for a guesssing game but would have a finite life. I can understand the need for a quick game for players to dip into when they are browsing and this game would not in all likelihod not be one of those.
The proposed game is a crossword where players can be either compiler or solver or even both. A 15x15 grid with 1A completed or blank with just the clue, solve the clue give the right answer, next player sets the next clue (cryptic or straightforward). After that the rules become "elusive". Does the crossword have to be symetrical? does it get filled in like a scrabble board with one clue leading off the next till all the blanks are symetrical and agreed upon? If the grid is blank how do we know whether it is 5A or 7A?
The would start something like this
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I. | J | K | L | M | N | O | |
| 1 | 1C | E | L | L | |||||||||||
| 2 | |||||||||||||||
| 3 | |||||||||||||||
| 4 | |||||||||||||||
| 5 | |||||||||||||||
| 6 | |||||||||||||||
| 7 | |||||||||||||||
| 8 | |||||||||||||||
| 9 | |||||||||||||||
| 10 | |||||||||||||||
| 12 | |||||||||||||||
| 13 | |||||||||||||||
| 14 | |||||||||||||||
| 15 |
Would anyone be interested in this type of game and is it worth rab shunting off Around the Python Laugh-in to make room?
[Inkspot] Having to reproduce that grid each time kills the game instantly. It would be an utter pain in the arse to edit that each time a word was added (and when does it get updated? after every guess? each new word?), and the chance of screwing it up would be very high. (Note how many mistakes have been made just counting backwards in the Celerity CDs game! And note how hard it is to get certain participants to realise they've been getting the rules wrong.)
If you want a cryptic crossword clue guessing game, I'd strongly recommend doing it as was done before, with people submitting and guessing clues as they felt like it, with no grid.
I think, incidentally, activity on all three sites was waning even before the Orange festival, although that has made it more obvious. We're just not getting the same number of participants these days.
Apologies, incidentally, if there's an acerbic note in all that, I'm just generally pissed off about a lot of stuff today.
I agree with your points about the problems of updating and my greatest fear of solutions not fitting previuos moves and having to be redone. But I needed feedback like that so as not to make a complete prat of myself by just setting up the game with all of it's woolley thinking. There are other types of cryptic games already played on this server, but I wanted one that had a finite life span.
There is still an empty game slot.
There is still an empty game slot.
Ooh. That's interesting. A new game has appeared in the wrong place...
Right, that's sorted; and the end-game trigger for the Python game has been set to the usual.
[Darren] Someone needs to do a good, solid corpus-based statistical study on activity rates in the Morniverse. I'm sure it would make a good PhD topic. My impression is also that activity has declined, but it was less busy than now when I first joined eight years ago (bloody hell, eight years). In those early days, fresh with the joy of discovery, i can remember having posted the last move in every game on York and MCiOS, and being quite at a loss for what to do next once I'd done it. Especially on weekends. In retrospect this was a bit rude, but I was immature and callow even in those days. :) I find that nowadays I tend only to post in a small subset of games and even when bored am unlikely to stray into the others. Maybe other people have gradually settled into a similar pattern.
[Projoy] I certainly have settled into a similar pattern, though I'd like to think that's because I'm less obnoxious now. I'd say the most concerning trend is the seeming lack of interest in the game of Mornington Crescent itself - our one token game here, for instance, is crawling along quite pitifully, and Long Games all over the Morniverse have slowed to the pace of Jeremiah Snail, the 1956 All-Dorking District Champion.
Mornington navel-gazing
I think that posting only to one's favourite games is quite normal; it's certainly my style, but it depends on how creative I'm feeling at the time, if at all. A good rule of thumb is that if you have nothing interesting, witty etc to add to a game then wait till something more promising turns up. There is increasing verbal incontinence and rule-bending simply for the sake of posting something. The whole thing is beginning to annoy me, and not just me, as I know privately. We could also do without those who post under more than one name, which is deceitful and sad. One has already been outed and I have a very beady pair of eyes on another one.
Meanwhile, I'm rather concerned that a bunch of people who are posting elsewhere seem to have stopped posting here. Was it something I said?
I'm here! I'm here!
Trouble is, the limerick games are no longer and during the short bursts of time that I actually enter these portals, there's nothing else that takes my fancy. Apart from AVMA. Sometimes.
*waves from Praha*
[CdM] Maybe a long verse game? Although admittedly the last few attempts at "hard poetry" didn't seem to attract very many of the current Mornipersons.
Where did pen go?
[Tuj] Maybe you drop it on floor?
Time, time
Lack of time is making me ration the games I follow. If the general turnover was higher, I'd be active in a greater number of games. As it is, I tend to monitor chat, limericks, haiku, glow worms and on the whole that's it. Because they are the games where you can just dip in, make a worthwhile contribution to, and then disappear back into the ether. But of course, if I never find time to visit other games, I don't feel I have the right to kill them even if they are getting long in the tooth, and that reduces game turnover . . .
[Proj] You know what I mean ;)
[SM] That's the vicious cycle, isn't it just? We never did quite foster the quick turnover as even after upheavals we're still too cautious of scrapping games... I'm wondering if Clerihews (and possibly Cheddars) have had their day...
[SM] That's the vicious cycle, isn't it just? We never did quite foster the quick turnover as even after upheavals we're still too cautious of scrapping games... I'm wondering if Clerihews (and possibly Cheddars) have had their day...
Vicious cycle
[Tuj] Yes, indeed. In fact, I will bring up something I've advocated before and failed to convince people about; I think it's worth having a 'rapid turnover' section, a 'slow burner' section and an 'immortal' section. The immortal section would contain chat and possibly a long game. The rapid turnover would tend to be plain MC games, but with a smattering of other quicker-moving experiments. And the slow burners could have the game slots left over. I have long thought that the biggest problem is that the slow burners hog too many game slots. The shorter-lived games really do need their own section otherwise they keep getting crowded out.
[SM] Good, well-thought points. Would perhaps work better with games marked as to which they are rather than with separate sections though? And I'm sure having AVMA rather than a longer game would encourage some excellent short attacking MC games.
[SM] Hmmm... I'll think about this. I can forsee a difficulty in deciding which category things should fall into; though, of course, this can always be tweaked according to demand.
Anyway, just wanted to remark that it's only just got dark here.
It's been dark for about an hour here - I'm home now but have been in the pub with friends - watching the England Game. *sigh*
[Chalky] Dratted England. I spent the evening vociferously cheering Sweden, but sadly now England will be playing on my birthday :( roll on disappointment...
It's getting light here. Time for bed. The solstice will occur at 1226 GMT today after which it's all downhill.
The most wonderful day of the year *happy sigh*
Yeah, the flip-side is that it was fully light again at 4.30am, which woke me up...
I stayed up all night on Saturday night, chatting online... went to bed at 5am, by which time the sun was up and the birds were at full volume. The nights are soooo short in midsummer, it's quite eerie. I remeber camping in Perth (Scotland) reporting on a rally around this time of year, and it still being light at 11-ish, and then of course, there was the great trek north to the North Cape of Norway in midsummer 1995... magical. I always want to head north and be mostly outside every summer now. Instead, I sit behind this bloody desk staring at the screen - although I do have a nice pair of trendy geek-nerd specs now. They make me look like Nana Moouskouri. :o/
Longevity
[Rab] I'd would suggest that should be set up when the game is defined. If a game proves popular as an ephemeral it would have to be explictly killed off and reinstated in the slow burners section when next a slot appears. The important point is that the short-lived games section is explicitly flagged as such, and everyone knows that not only do we have have a licence to kill them off, but that we are expected to do so. Possibly even flag the game's creation date and give it a defined expiry date - three months or so tops, I'd say, pulling a figure out of my hat.
I still quite like the idea of doing it implicitly. If active games were sorted in order of sluggishness or otherwise (a bit like at Orange where you can sort them by most recent post, but based instead on the frequency of the last, say, five posts). Unloved games drop to the bottom, active games fizz to the top. Every week the least active game is automatically culled (unless, say, it started less than a week ago or it has been given some special protection like the Furcation game).
I make this suggestion in the secure knowledge that, as I can't code, I won't implement it, which is probably the worst kind of backseat driving. :)
I make this suggestion in the secure knowledge that, as I can't code, I won't implement it, which is probably the worst kind of backseat driving. :)
time...
What SM said about time (though this is still my first port of call in the Morniverse, and for mostly the same reasons he gave). I don't agree about typing games in advance, though - how would you know in advance whether something is a quick turnover or a slow burner?
I quite like Projoy's idea about automatic culling. Or, and this is completely off the top of my head, how about turning the process on its head? The opportunity to start a new game is always open, but every time someone starts a new game, the least active one gets killed off?
I quite like Projoy's idea about automatic culling. Or, and this is completely off the top of my head, how about turning the process on its head? The opportunity to start a new game is always open, but every time someone starts a new game, the least active one gets killed off?
Hmmm... I can see benefits to both the explicit and implicit approaches; the former is easier to code, but might be a bit onerous on (particularly) game creators. Furthermore, I've noted an increasing tendancy to be over-prescriptive in the game brief, and I think further prescription about how quickly moves are to be made might actually be counterproductive and cause all movement to cease completely. For this reason I think I prefer the implicit approach. As I mentioned before, I want to mine the data of all games played so far to see if I can devise some kind of estimate of a games "flagging" point, in which case it can be put on an endangered list and expire if no further moves are made. One problem with always having a slot open is that, as experience at the Lockisseum showed, you get passers-by just starting things for the hell of it.
[rab] Passers-by just starting things for the hell of it... is that necessarily a bad thing? Some of the most memorable games have started like that ("wigwam" on Orange springs to mind, but there are others). I'm starting to think we'd be better off it all games were treated as fast burners and we encouraged a much faster turnaround for games, to keep people interested and stop us all (me included) getting too caught up in only one or two games and ignoring all the rest. I've heard people say that years ago, the MC servers did have games which were much shorter, only lasting a day or so.
No time
Killing a game is easy creating a game that people want to play is more difficult, something different does not go down well, so players do not feel confident in filling a vacant slot. My worry over a timed game is once it has been timed out it will reappear as ...the Return Again of... which happened only recently. I would like to see more people prepared to start games and not stand on the side lines saying "what shall we do now, what shall we do now". With a regular turnover there will be flops and hits. The reason games hang around is the reluctance to replace them. I would not want to see time limits just more bravery with the sythe. Afterall what is the turnover of games on MCOiS where there are 18 active games.
[Darren] It's not a bad thing if it occurs only once in a while, but on the Lockisseum nuisance games were started on an almost daily basis until Dunx brought in the login system. I neither want the maintenance burden of cleaning up, nor to enforce logins for the starting of new games.
[Inkspot] Well, that would be all well and good if people actually killed games, but they don't so it seems that some form of encouragement is needed.
Kill! Kill! Kill!
There's a lot of it about!
But, but
Please don't kill the Shakespeare game. Yet, I mean, I'm sure it will need to go to its sweet, sweet rest eventually.
Quickfire or slow burner?
[Irouleguy] You don't try to make people predict the future; you have x quickfire slots and y slow burner slots. If a quickfire game ends you can only replace it with another quickfire game; if a slow burner ends, it can only be replaced with another slow burner. If one slot of each type chances to be available at the same time, then you get a choice. After all, an /unsuccessful/ slow burner will still face the chop relatively quickly; it's only the successful slow burners that will hang around.
Next up: the Dream Game...?
Dream Game?
What's a Dream Game then?
BTW I too have a game suggestion: Hide and Seek. This idea was inspired by listening to an old ISIHAC episode where the teams gave it ago. Seemed to work all right.
Nah, I was tongue-in-cheek suggesting the "I Woke Up..." game to be next for the axe! How would your Hide and Seek game go? Or would we work it out as it went along?
Incident room
Incidentally, factoids != lies; there needs to be an air of plausibility about them.
Not aimed at anyone in particular, btw, just covering my own back if someone claims it's a "Return of..." type game that I've been so vocal about in the past...
Simons] I see what you mean, though there also should be a way of converting a quick-fire if it gets really popular.
rab] I'm with Darren on drive-bys - if they're really naff they can be killed off just as quickly.
rab] I'm with Darren on drive-bys - if they're really naff they can be killed off just as quickly.
Game idea pitch
"Each move must consist of precisely eight words" - as it says on the tin. What happens in the game may be debated in the game: perhaps it'll be a conversation, perhaps a word-limited reprise of various games we play, or whatever.
Brain cell
[Iroul, Darren] Right, so if we have a slot permanently open which kills of the "least active" game, we can look forward to random passers-by, the generally click-happy and possibly not even real people starting carp like this and this on a daily basis, displacing things that you might actually want to play (actually, the latter example reveals a curious bug that I should look into, so it's not all bad news...). In order to deal with this I would need to write some additional code that would allow these effects to be reversed, ideally as though they had never happened. My time is quite precious these days, and I really don't think this is worth that investment. Sorry.
[Tuj] Sounds good. Who's going to start it?
rab] I enjoyed the second one... Point taken, though.
Hmmm, they looked different and more annoying from home. yes, the second one looks ok from here - very confused.
[Raak] More to the point, something would have to give way first.
There's about 3 million free slots at Orange.
pure class ...
.... the recent entries in Shakespeare.
[rab] But MC5 is home!
Friday....
There are 101 things to do, deadlines to meeet,check emails but I'd rather check the number of paper clips in my desk holder. Even wading through the mass of paperwork in tray for a couple hours seems appealing. Just so restless, put it down to being only days away from Goodwood and the Bugatti Veyron, another week less to being out sourced yet more bland statements from the employer this morning. Soon be lunchtime.
Monday ... oh, and Tuesday
I've actually got my main bit of work nicely rounded off, and am just picking at the edges of what's left while I wait for a major inventory investigation to start. 'Hurry up and wait' certainly isn't just a miltary weakness . . .
We have internal auditors who pop out of the woodwork every now and then. They tend to see everything in terms of black and white proceedures. To move things along in local government sometimes things become a bit fuzzy round the edges ;)
A big wave to all freinds in the colonies with their 4 July celebrations.
Hey Ho!
I'm still here!!! Hectic, new job....lacking sleep with Alex (who is now a big 9 weeks old), and not having a PC at work, or much time at home. Hence my infrequent "hereness". I hope you're all well.
Also still here
I'm getting a bit more connectivity and time. The netnanny at the new client allows MCiOS and here but not Orange. It also objects to some of the adverts carried by both Multimap & Streetmap, so I can get the map surrounded by bits of red threat screen. I feel like using the sites a lot in the hope of getting a call.
Rambling, and not even dressed for it
I just got a spam with the poetic subject heading: "Your money, pale-souled". It fired thoughts through my head, the image of money as a hollow souled entity... How do such poets reconcile their art with such a degrading way to earn a living? Does it give a spam composer a buzz just to know their words are read? Hmmm
Happy Birthday, pen!
[everyone else] There's a very large cake in the chatroom in MCIOS so please help yourselves ...
[everyone else] There's a very large cake in the chatroom in MCIOS so please help yourselves ...
Wah
I think I killed Shakespeare.
Has Hide & Seek run its course now?
Dreams too?
And Factoids? Perhaps time for a clearout?
Cheddars too?
[Tuj] Why Cheddars? It seems quite active.
[Darren] It's just been fairly low-quality grammatically, bothers me *wink* Anyway, aren't we encouraged to do some purging rather than talking about it?
[Tuj] Well, I don't mind terminating games I've created myself, but I do like to ask first in the case of other people's games, especially where I haven't made many contributions! I've closed Hide and Seek. In the case of Dreams and Factoids, I don't really feel qualified to shut them down myself.
Shall I do the honours for Factoids?
I'm sure you would do so self-referentially, so I look forward to it.
confessional
[rab] I dreamt about you last night. Pen was also in the dream. I think we were in a sort-of Rugby Pilg scenario, only the hotel's layout was rather similar to the house in the current Big Brother. Weird. And a little disturbing.
More free game slots
Hmm... but what?
Erk
[Chalky] Hmmm... I have a vague feeling you were in my dreams too. Telepathy in action no doubt.
I wrote a Very Large Cheque today. It still makes me sweat thinking about it. Should be moving in next Friday, the existence of some building warrants permitting. Saw the deeds yesterday too; one of the clauses I am unable to parse, another one witters on about a "free ish". Hopefully the solicitor will explain to us what this actually means.
[rab] Good luck. Get used to writing big cheques... I'll be writing one next week, and I read through the deeds to the new bungalow this morning - fascinating set of records. Nice to know they've searched me for any record of bankruptcy and found nothing ... yet! :o)
I like the thought of being in someone else's dreams, it means I manage to get out a bit. I had a very weird one last night - dreamed I met a man who liked me (I mean really liked me, but I have no idea who he was) and we were riding polo ponies in South Africa.
I like the thought of being in someone else's dreams, it means I manage to get out a bit. I had a very weird one last night - dreamed I met a man who liked me (I mean really liked me, but I have no idea who he was) and we were riding polo ponies in South Africa.
Hey, MC dudes
I don't know why, but there is something ineffably funny about adding "dude" to a serious quotation. "If I should die, think only this of me, dudes, there is some corner....." etc. Is it worth a short game?
[Kim] Isn't that game already exhausted by the describing of it, dude?
[Raak] Wot, like the Pants game, you mean?
[Kim] I'm not so sure it's all that funny, anyway. It was kind of exhausted by Bill and Ted.
Dudes, Romans and Countrymen
Maybe it's me, but I don't think it's especially amusing.
Might work; after all: There is nothing like a dude
[INJ] I think yours works because of the gender-bending it implies about the rest of the song. I'm gonna wash that dude right outta my hair, not so good. (However, I'm gonna wash that man right outta my dude sounds a little better.)
Doesn't like crap games with barons or earls
Won't go to Harlem in ermine and pearls
Won't dish the dirt with the rest of the girls
That's why the lady is a dude
Won't go to Harlem in ermine and pearls
Won't dish the dirt with the rest of the girls
That's why the lady is a dude
Dudes
Yeah, why not give it a shot? Even if it only makes for a short game. Incidentally, I have a Flash animation somewhere called Star Dudes, which is an accurate reenactment of the first Star Wars film, with 'Dude!' as the only dialogue, yet faithful to the original in every detail. And only about 3 minutes long in its entirety. Hopefully Googling should find it somewhere Out There, if anyone's interested.
begone bane of Beelzebub
Shakespeare has shuffled off to create a new game slot
Today's the big day! We hope... there's talk of retaining some money from the seller on account of missing paperwork, but we hope that won't screw things up too much. These solicitors really like to leave everything to the last minute, it seems.
Good luck with the solicitors and the move.
Well, in the last 24 hours the retention has gone down from 15k to 500quid as the bits of paperwork have mysteriously appeared. Should be getting the keys "in the next hour or so". We'll see about that.
thoughts.....
*hopes rab has got a shiny set of house keys by now*
*thinks Riddle-me-ree is a very satisfying game*
*thinks Riddle-me-ree is a very satisfying game*
*agrees with both thoughts*
party poker
Any number of roulette party poker sports button joker game http://www.ambersells.com gross value bluff four?
party poker
I didn't follow any of that.
[p p] No, you took a wrong turning. Go back the way you came and follow the signs towards dev/null.
Argh! English!
You take a turn, don't you, not a turning. You'd think I might know those things by now.
Wrong turnings
[Nea] Relax. 'A wrong turning' is a commonly-used idiom.
No, changed my mind
It's not an idiom, it's correct. 'Turning' is perfectly OK as a gerund. 'ing' appears in three places in Engish - as a gerund, as a progressive tense - both of which involve adding 'ing' to a verb, and as a noun-forming modifier for which I cannot find the correct terminology. The latter case involves adding 'ling' to a non-verb to produce a commonly-diminutive noun. Examples include underling, sapling, darling, sidling (which produced the verb sidle as a back formation). It used to be side-ling - i.e. someone who stands at your side as opposed to a subordinate under-ling. But of course given a variety of words ending in 'ing' it isn't always apparent that some were fromed from the 'ling'-route rather than the verbal 'ing'-route. The 'l' is a useful indicator, but not 100% reliable.
Simons Mith
That was very interesting, and no sarcasm is intended although it's hard to prove that without the use of tone of voice or facial expression.
Wide aw-ache
Well, it's gone like clockwork so far - all bar the phone line (again) so I may not be able to post much for a bit. Keys arrived, then a van of stuff (including a sofa) which was brought up the stairs by two burly Mancunians. Then a couple of car loads of stuff, followed by a bed, which was brought up the stairs by a burly Edinburgher and further assembled by him. Which was just as well, cos it would have taken us about five hours and we'd have done a really rubbish job of it too. Boxes of stuff still arriving in dribs and drabs, and we're slowly finding places to put all their contents. Nothing's yet come off in our hand or fallen off the wall or ceiling. The heating and shower works, the loo flushes... so pretty smooth so far I would say. I have, however, discovered muscles I never knew I had. Living on the top floor of a tenement block must be good for you, surely.
Oh, and we can't find the stopcock...
hot flushes...
[rab] Good luck an' all in your new home. The loo *might* flush, but just check it. My mother discovered the loo in her new bungalow flushes with water from the hot water system. (Have I mentioned this before?)
(pen) Doesn't this tend to vapourise the ordures, the very thing one tries to avoid?
[Rosie] Quite. Bob the plumber is coming round to fix it.
Game Idea
We don't seem to have any team games on the go at the moment. Anyone up for a - let's say a three way split, he says, trying to second-guess the likely number of players. Puce - Green - Chartreuse are I believe the traditional colours for such a split.
I read the other day that "miniature" (and the "mini-" prefix) comes from "minium", Latin for red. This refers to the small red lettering on a miniature portrait or similar. I'm going to look this up now, just to check. Incidentally, that doesn't pardon 6 quiz teams of staff from our local primary school being unable to spell "minuscule", despite the fact that it was on my son's spelling list 2 years ago (aged 8). Not one team got "manoeuvre" right, either.
mini-
OK, I've looked it up, and: Yes, miniature does derive from miniare (to colour red), from minium (red lead). Mini- is listed, however, as deriving from miniature and minimum, from minimus (least).
I think I need to do more research to ease my troubled mind.
I think I need to do more research to ease my troubled mind.
Dysorthography
WHAT? None of them could spell 'minuscule' or 'manoeuvre'? There a load of idiot's.
Have we ever played 'Shipping Crescent, To The Ends of The Earth', with a winning move, Dogger? Faster play during good visibility, obviously, and headwinds take the LV equivalent down a notch. And watch out for those South East Iceland loops. Shipping areas here.
Idiots
[Rosie] I think you mean 'lode'.
Spelling
[Rosie] Indeed, not one team got those words correct. They did marginally better with "accommodation", "Massachusetts" and "knowledgeable". However, I think only 1 team got "diarrhoea" right. I've done much harder spelling rounds in the past; admittedly that was for quiz addicts, and once was deliberately written to prevent a certain team winning, because I knew they would play their joker on a spelling round. I put in words like "eschscholtzia", "waqf" etc. just to screw them up :-)
(SM) I do. Your right.
[Rosie] Write, shurely?
(Chalky) Surely, surely?
Phil's diarrhoea
A mnemonic a teacher at school taught us several years ago:
Dashing In A Rush, Running Hard, Or Early Accident.
You'll never forget how to spell diarrhoea again!
Dashing In A Rush, Running Hard, Or Early Accident.
You'll never forget how to spell diarrhoea again!
Skwits
'Diarrhoea': S-K-W-I-T-S That's my mum's mneonic, bless her.
Flowthrough
My own Mum's prim version was "Air raid backwards". The opposite was "knobs". It was all "po". (SM) Yes, but what do S-K-W-I-T-S stand for? The SHITS, by the way, is a section of the band of the Irish Guards who call themselves the Society of Harmonious Irish Tunesmiths. This is true.
[Simons] I always thought it was "squits." That's how they spell it in Theme Hospital, too, so it must be right.
[Darren] That's what I thought too. But my mum does tend to take the path less travelled by, when it comes to spelling.
I defnatley have "squits" sometimes have "the trots" but mostly have diarrhoea
[Lib] You really need to see a doctor as soon as possible.
No mention yet of Montezuma's Revenge, The Bombay Trots or Delhi Belly?
*waves from Edinburgh airport*
Wow! rab's new flat is Edinburgh airport!
Waves from Edinburgh
[Darren] No, it's been raining as heavily up there as down south. Never mind a raincoat, yesterday afternoon I wished I'd brought a bucket and spade to work.
Waves from St Petersburg
I'm getting bored of saying this now. I have more free time than I know what to do with, but instead of doing something useful with it, like learn Russian, I'm going to play MC until I vomit. Hoorah!
*points at Shipping Forecast*
OOOOPS. Sorry.
I can say 'Here is my passport' in russian.
... and 'How are your parents' in portuguese.
I'd do well if I was dropped in the middle of Europe wouldn't I?
... and 'How are your parents' in portuguese.
I'd do well if I was dropped in the middle of Europe wouldn't I?
Eight Words game
Following on from the Eight Words Game, did anyone watch the '50 Greatest Comedy Sketches' programme a few days ago, and did it seem to anyone else that the funniest sketches were all 30 or 40 years old (Two Ronnies, Morecambe and Wise, Monty Python etc.)? I don't know who the public were that voted, but they didn't ask ME.
[Knobbly] Are you saying that the older sketches didn't deserve their place there, or not?
myself
Not at all - I'm saying that the older sketches were the funniest ones in it and that I don't think much of Little Britain, which won.
Despite not having seen the comedy sketches show in question, I'd like to back up Knobbly with my concordance of opinion.
Cancel Mansell
What about a game of rhyming or alliterative instructions for disposing of annoying celebrities and public figures?
I'd say by all means. I was also thinking of Cress but couldn't get the game started.
Team Game?
How about a two or three way team game? Puce v Chartreuse or Puce v Green v Chartreuse? I wouldn't advocate more than three teams - we don't really have enough players.
[pen] I was about to ask "How many of those do you think there'll be?" before scanning down see the game made and very well underway.
[SM] Sounds good - it seems like Crescent games aren't taking off at present and perhaps that would make it more interesting.
[SM] Sounds good - it seems like Crescent games aren't taking off at present and perhaps that would make it more interesting.
[nights] Did the Proposal Vetting Panel give you grief?
[rab] They did indeed. Damn bureaucracy. Seriously though, any reason why it didn't go through?
The Panel tends to get a bit shirty if it thinks you're starting a reheat of something old and tired. Placing old wine into new bottles sometimes helps.
Diarisation
I just received an email beginning "Do please diary this year's poster evening" and thought of, hmmm, almost everybody here.
Rab
(Not quite understanding...) Is it something to do with turning nouns into verbs? Or 'verbing' you might say.
who was it who said 'verbing weirds nouns'?
verbing
Are you willing to let me know who sent the email? I'd so love to reply :-)
[pen] It was Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes)
[pen] It was Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes)
[pen, Phil] Indeed, "verbing weirds language" - but a six-year-old or anyone else being silly should be allowed to. Serious usage of something like diary as a verb is definitely something we'll all get flighty about. We should be touched rab thought of us though.
Diarisation
(rab) Bin it.
[Rosie] We were waiting for you. Well said.
Meanwhile, what shall we do with that spare game slot?
Meanwhile, what shall we do with that spare game slot?
[Tuj] Not all of us. :-)
*seconds what CdM said :-)*
mcios
I can't get to mcios this morning. Anyone else having any trouble? (More generally, the internets seem to be very slow here in France, but I can reach most sites.)
(just diaried something, and is proud of it so ner)
[CdM] MCiOS seems to be OK from here, as, indeed, does the net in general.
[CdM] Buy new internets.
Just noticed something about Calvin's quotation
In "verbing weirds language", it's not a noun that has been verbed (as a noun, "weird" means "fate"), but an adjective. Off the top of my head, I can't think of another example of this formation - but I'm sure I'll now be inundated with verbed adjectives that are unbelievably obvious.
I wonder if those arrested for attempting to bomb Lonodn-US flights this morning waited deliberately until Tony Blair was on holiday and John Prescott was in charge?
[pen] I doubt if one blithering idiot is more likely to be of use to the nation than another in an emergency. Thanks for bringing the news to my attention though - I didn't know anything about it till now.
How many boots could a black coot black if a black coot could black boots?
[Phil] One example in standard English occurs to me: to black (a pair of boots, or a place of work).
Similarly, "to right something" and perhaps also (less clear) "to wrong someone"?
[Raak/CdM] However, "black" is also a noun. So is "wrong" and "right." Can an example be found which verbs an adjective which is not also a noun?
I was going to point out that "to up prices" involves verbing a preposition, but "up" can yet again be used as a noun.
Of course, in programming you can talk about "anding" and "oring" two numbers, but that falls more into jargon than standard English.
Loose?
Isn't that just a contraction of 'let loose', in which case 'let' is the verb?
Turpentine can be used to thin oil paint.
The map is ornated with three cartouches.
When the ossibuchi have browned on one side, turn them to brown the other.
(Ok, "brown" can be a noun, but I just like saying "ossibuchi".)
Verbing
[challenge] I actually think instances of verbed nouns-not-usable-as-adjectives are even rarer than instances of verbed adjectives-not-usable-as-nouns. However, I did find an example of a verbing of a non-adjectival noun: You can tree a cat. BTW Calvin's only 12 years younger than I am. He'd be 26 sometime this year. Yeesh!
I like saying "Raak".
Ornate ?
[Raak] I've nevr come across "ornate" used as a verb, and it hurts just to look at your sentence. I like the "thin" example, though.
Tree a cat !
[SM] I live and learn - I'd never seen "tree" as a verb before, other than in the sense that "the copse was heavily treed", but have found now found it in the dictionary. I may have to try and get this sense into normal conversation tomorrow
Treed
(Phil) I hope it doesn't replace "woooded". I agree "ornate" as a verb is monstrous when "ornament" already exists as a verb. (SM) How do you tree a cat? Stick a twig up its bum? You'll be lucky. I can see how you can de-cat a tree, though, even if it might need the Fire Brigade.
[Phil] I never saw it before, until I googled it in a spirit of misunderestimation. The OED has it as an obsolete verb, which I suppose is why an antiquarian map dealer might use it to ornate his prose. But as Caxton writes, "Somtyme ornatynge of wordes maketh the proposycion to be withdrawen fro the trouthe."
It's usually mixed up in some way to even both sides out.
Things have quieted down.
Dual the A11!
So is it in fact the case that "ornament" as a verb was monstrous because "ornate" already existed as a verb?
Is the interesting thing about these words simply that they don't appear to have been verbed in the 'normal' way - i.e. by an apparent change in the spelling? After all, it presumably doesn't count in the noun-to-verb category to include the verb "to shelve" since it isn't "to shelf", whereas "to tree" involves no spelling change (although I think some linguists would argue there is a morphological change by virtue of the change of use). In these non-spelling-change cases, it's presumably for some other reason that they appear the same when verbed... You can verb "thick" by spelling it "thicken", whereas "thin" doesn't lend itself to being spelt "thinnen".
(That said, I don't think it would break any intuitive rules of morphology to have "righten" and "wrongen").
[Non-adjective verbings] Saki has an instance of the verb "to sky", meaning the practice of putting the paintings of lesser artists higher up on the gallery wall, above better-regarded work.
Nounish verbings: beach, ship, dog, horse, house, caravan, cup, motor, earwig. "Some to think of it," he umbrella'd, "there aren't many words you can't slip in as a substitute for 'said'."
horse?
[pen] Ever horsed around?
[horsing] I know I have.
said
(Raak) Or omit it entirely, as in "So I'm like f*** off" and all that edifying stuff.
[Raak] Horse is a strange one... I dog you, you dog her, we dogged them, but do you ever say 'I horse, you horse'? It's usually linked to 'around'. I have no idea what this does to the classification of the nounage/verbage discussion. I'm almost out of my depth!
'Horsing'
Maybe it's like goosing, but on a larger scale. Oo-er.
Horsing
'Horsing' & 'Horsed' have been in common usage in the B&D world for years. So I'm told.
[TMITGS] Meaning what, exactly?
The only other usage than "horsing around" I can find on a (SafeSearch) Google, is the expression "to horse a gentlewoman", which I assume is an historical expression meaning the general assistance of a lady in enabling her to ride out. Then again, maybe I'm being naïve and it has a more Catherine the Great connotation.
Horsing around
I believe it involves a carpenter's sawhorse (suitably reinforced and stabilised), a willing 'victim', a quantity of rope and a good imagination. It might be a good idea to keep a chiropracter on the speed dialer too IMHO.
Earlier today something similar to Projoy's comment on "thicken" occurred to me, although I noted that "enlarge" seems to apply the suffix as a prefix. There are words such as "enliven" which seem to follow the same pattern, except "liven" isn't an adjective (at least now). Anyone know a reason why "enlarge" behaves like that?
[Darren] No idea, but it did make me think of the verb from "bold" is "to embolden", which has both suffix and prefix (though not necessarily in that order).
(Darren) "Enlarge" is from the French enlarger and may just be a copy, so to speak. A more regular formation, reading between the lines of my 1964 COD, would be "largen", (cf thicken) the prefix en- + adjective being rare. En- + noun or verb is common though and explains "enliven" either as "to give life to" or to (intensively) liven.
[Rosie] ...which has both prefix and suffix. As does embolden. But you can't ensticken the affixes on ad lib.
You people scare me a bit sometimes. I love you all, but you scare me mildly.
I am finding what I understand of this interesting, and I do enjoy a bit of linguistics, but perhaps I shouldn't have encouraged it a few pages ago. Carry on though.
(Raak) With "embolden" and "enliven" it would seem that in the past someone has done just that. I don't think the rules are particularly well-defined. (nights) Yep, we're a bunch of swivel-eyed fundamentalists. In the beginning was the Word. AND THE WORD SHALL BE SPELT PROPERLY. :-)
P - R - O - P - E - R - L - Y
Is there an opposite for "enlarge" which has the same pattern? There doesn't seem to be an "ensmall" or "enlittle" (although there is "belittle" but then where's the "belarge"?) - the closest in meaning is probably "shrink," which seems to have no connection with any words meaning "small" whatsoever.
Darren] Well, there's the Simpsons' 'debigulator' machine, which rather implies that there's a verb 'to debigulate'
More seriously, since the 'en-' prefix mostly seems to mean 'more of', or 'increase' you wouldn't really expect a word for making smaller to be made up in that way. There is 'decrease', which is a Latinate construction of 'de-' and crescere, to grow.
More seriously, since the 'en-' prefix mostly seems to mean 'more of', or 'increase' you wouldn't really expect a word for making smaller to be made up in that way. There is 'decrease', which is a Latinate construction of 'de-' and crescere, to grow.
I dog you etc...
[penelope] which sense of "dogging" are you talking about?
he, she or it dogs
[Phil] Perhaps it's best we don't ask.
[Phil] In the 'following someone annoyingly' sense. Why, what other senses are there? ;o)
[Irouléguy] Doesn't the prefix 'en-' mean something closer to 'to make'? (Enlarge - to make sth large).
Actually, the example that made me think that was ennoble - to make noble.
Actually, the example that made me think that was ennoble - to make noble.
What I just said
I have on my lap a big Chambers Dictionary:
en- prefix
1) in words derived from Latin through French (a)used to form verbs with the sense of in, into, upon; (b) used to form verbs with the sense cause to be; (c) used intensively or almost meaninglessly;
(2) in words derived from Greek used to form verbs with the sense of in.
I can't think of any for sense (c)...
en- prefix
1) in words derived from Latin through French (a)used to form verbs with the sense of in, into, upon; (b) used to form verbs with the sense cause to be; (c) used intensively or almost meaninglessly;
(2) in words derived from Greek used to form verbs with the sense of in.
I can't think of any for sense (c)...
(Knobbly) I think enliven could fall into your category (c). Liven would do on its own ( = to make lively).
The Simpsons also introduced "enbiggen", iirc.
[CdM] Wasn't that EMbiggen? As in, "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man" or something to that effect?
dogging
[penelope] "To hold or fasten with a mechanical device", apparently. >-]
It's so nice to see grammaticalisation and form-function reanalysis in progress. Errr... I think.
House news - we now have a phone, the main delay caused by the engineer not knowing where a big pipe of wires came out. Broadband apparently appeared first thing this morning, but since I had to come into work to read my email I didn't know about it then. (Actually, given that we've just had a system "upgrade" here, it might have been better to have stayed at home in any case). First major disaster was the downstairs neighbour complaining of water coming through our ceiling. We had a plumber/odd-job-man come out Saturday morning and spend three hours under the bath fixing the makeshift repair that the previous owner must have done about, oh, three or four days before moving out. Nice welcome present for us, oh yes. Anyway, should be fixed now; no all we need is for someone to plumb the gap that subsequently appeared in my bank account.
+w
Knobbly] I must admit i didn't look it up - I just went off the sense of most of the 'en-' words I could think of. I still can't think of an example for making smaller, though.
Another contender for your sense c) is 'tangle' and 'entangle', though according to Webster-Merriam Online 'tangle' is an Anglo-Saxon shortening of an old French verb 'entangler'.
*waves red rag* Can I argue for 'to Google' as one useful example of verbification? I can't think of an alternative that isn't a clunky noun-phrase - to look up on Google, to research on Google, to scope (out) on Google, etc.
Another contender for your sense c) is 'tangle' and 'entangle', though according to Webster-Merriam Online 'tangle' is an Anglo-Saxon shortening of an old French verb 'entangler'.
*waves red rag* Can I argue for 'to Google' as one useful example of verbification? I can't think of an alternative that isn't a clunky noun-phrase - to look up on Google, to research on Google, to scope (out) on Google, etc.
I think "to Google" as a verb for "to search on Google" is OK, but only informally. I use it myself. However, it has become synonymous with "to search on the Internet, regardless of search engine used" which plays into the hands of those evil corporate types.
It has, of course, an friend in "to hoover."
To be more specific, potentially they could lose their trademark (at least in the US) if it becomes an ordinary word ("google" isn't an English word yet, although "googol" is), as once a word has become a generic term, it becomes impossible to enforce trademark rights on it.
to hoover
Ditto for "to Dyson", which used to be used in my household.
[Irouléguy] It would only become a generic if "to google" meant "to search on the internet on any search engine." As long as it's defined to mean "to use Google" it shouldn't present them with any problems. There are plenty of brand names which have become generic nouns, applied regardless of brand (escalator, tannoy, biro, etc.) but not many verbs ("to rollerblade" is another, though).
[Darren] "Escalate" (he tannoyed, then biroed it in on his list of brandname verbs).
I don't think "escalate" quite counts as it predated "escalator." The thing which makes "escalator" a generic is the way it's use for any moving staircase, with no regard for whether it's an Otis "Escalator" model. If, however, you say, "I'm just going to escalate to the third floor, darling," then yes, "escalate" qualifies as a generic verb. Personally I've never heard it used that way.
"Escalate" no longer reads as a word to me, as a result of the previous paragraph. I just see a bunch of meaningless letters. It's annoying when that happens.
Talking of meaningless letters, I've developed this annoying habit of leaving letters out of my posts: "it's use for" indeed.
(Darren) Stare at any word long enough and it begins to look mis-spelt or foreign. Either way you think you're going slightly barmy. I can assure you you're not unless I am as well.
Excuse me for a second...
Dear I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Mailing List Member,
We are now in a position to reveal the dates of the Autumn series of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.
TICKETS WILL GO ON SALE FROM 10AM ON THE MORNING OF WEDNESDAY 16TH AUGUST.
Tickets to these recordings sell extremely quickly, so you are strongly advised to book early.
The first recording will take place on the evening of Sunday 22nd October 2006 at the Southport Theatre (capacity 1631). Tickets are priced at £10.50, £8.50 and £6.50, with a £2.25 transaction charge. There would normally be a £1.50 per ticket service charge as well, but we have absorbed this for you. You can either book tickets online at www.LiveNation.co.uk/southport , via the telephone by calling Ticketmaster on 0870 6077560, or in person at the theatre between the hours of 10am and 6pm, Monday to Saturday.
The second recording will take place on the evening of Sunday 12th November at the Victoria Palace Theatre (capacity 1525). This is the theatre showing the musical Billy Elliot. Tickets are priced at £11.50, £9.50 and £7.50, with a £2.50 transaction charge. We have absorbed a 6% per ticket service charge. You can book tickets online by calling 0207 834 1317 which will ring at the box office direct and if not answered (either due to being busy, ringing too many times or outside the hours of 10am to 8.30pm Monday to Saturday) it will trip through to Ticketmaster.
The third recording will take place on Sunday 26th November at the Sunderland Empire (capacity 1875). Tickets are priced at £10.50, £8.50 and £6.50, with a £2.25 transaction charge. There would normally be a £1.50 per ticket service charge as well, but we have absorbed this for you. You can either book tickets online at www.LiveNation.co.uk/Sunderland or via the telephone by calling the theatre's box office on 0870 602 1130 (phone trips to Ticketmaster either due to being busy, ringing too many times or outside of hours), or in person at the theatre box office between the hours of 10am and 7.45pm (6pm when there's not a show on), Monday - Saturday.
Doors open to each recording at 7pm, and the recordings will begin at 7.30pm. They are scheduled to finish between 10.15-10.30pm and include a twenty minute interval.
We are very concerned that tickets to these shows (which are already subsidised) are being touted for money, so in an attempt to remedy this, SALE OF TICKETS WILL BE LIMITED TO NO MORE THAN FOUR PER APPLICANT. Should you find yourself unable to use your tickets, please telephone the relevant theatre's box office. They will keep contact details for the first thirty applicants unable to get tickets, and will re-sell the tickets for you. Under no circumstances should you buy or sell tickets on eBay. If a recording has to be cancelled, anyone who has a ticket that has not be purchased legitimately will not get their money refunded, as Ticketmaster and the theatre box offices can only refund the original cardholder.
Dear I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Mailing List Member,
We are now in a position to reveal the dates of the Autumn series of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.
TICKETS WILL GO ON SALE FROM 10AM ON THE MORNING OF WEDNESDAY 16TH AUGUST.
Tickets to these recordings sell extremely quickly, so you are strongly advised to book early.
The first recording will take place on the evening of Sunday 22nd October 2006 at the Southport Theatre (capacity 1631). Tickets are priced at £10.50, £8.50 and £6.50, with a £2.25 transaction charge. There would normally be a £1.50 per ticket service charge as well, but we have absorbed this for you. You can either book tickets online at www.LiveNation.co.uk/southport , via the telephone by calling Ticketmaster on 0870 6077560, or in person at the theatre between the hours of 10am and 6pm, Monday to Saturday.
The second recording will take place on the evening of Sunday 12th November at the Victoria Palace Theatre (capacity 1525). This is the theatre showing the musical Billy Elliot. Tickets are priced at £11.50, £9.50 and £7.50, with a £2.50 transaction charge. We have absorbed a 6% per ticket service charge. You can book tickets online by calling 0207 834 1317 which will ring at the box office direct and if not answered (either due to being busy, ringing too many times or outside the hours of 10am to 8.30pm Monday to Saturday) it will trip through to Ticketmaster.
The third recording will take place on Sunday 26th November at the Sunderland Empire (capacity 1875). Tickets are priced at £10.50, £8.50 and £6.50, with a £2.25 transaction charge. There would normally be a £1.50 per ticket service charge as well, but we have absorbed this for you. You can either book tickets online at www.LiveNation.co.uk/Sunderland or via the telephone by calling the theatre's box office on 0870 602 1130 (phone trips to Ticketmaster either due to being busy, ringing too many times or outside of hours), or in person at the theatre box office between the hours of 10am and 7.45pm (6pm when there's not a show on), Monday - Saturday.
Doors open to each recording at 7pm, and the recordings will begin at 7.30pm. They are scheduled to finish between 10.15-10.30pm and include a twenty minute interval.
We are very concerned that tickets to these shows (which are already subsidised) are being touted for money, so in an attempt to remedy this, SALE OF TICKETS WILL BE LIMITED TO NO MORE THAN FOUR PER APPLICANT. Should you find yourself unable to use your tickets, please telephone the relevant theatre's box office. They will keep contact details for the first thirty applicants unable to get tickets, and will re-sell the tickets for you. Under no circumstances should you buy or sell tickets on eBay. If a recording has to be cancelled, anyone who has a ticket that has not be purchased legitimately will not get their money refunded, as Ticketmaster and the theatre box offices can only refund the original cardholder.
OK
So here's a question: how do you find out a ballpark figure for how much one should be expected to pay for replacement windows? There seems to be a pact between fitters to give no indication of costs whatsoever, presumably so you can be royally ripped off when it comes to ordering them.
[rab] Try calling fitters and replacement window companies in a completly different town to escape the geographical fixed-price cartel. And I'm sure some of the national companies (Everest, Staybrite, Penicuik) have websites that might calculate it for you, once you have the approximate measurements. There's a glaziers' regulatory body I think - is it Fensa? Maybe they have a list of reputable ones.
Thanks. No-one seems to offer an on-line quote; I'm not even after anything as scientific as that, just an estimate of how many thousands of pounds it's likely to be so we can budget for it. Very frustrating.
[Darren] According to the online dictionaries I just consulted, "escalate" is a back-formation from "escalator".
Refenestration
[rab] How many windows do you want replacing? I have a ballpark figure of £5K for my flat, which would be 4 windows replacing, including patio doors. But then I am in the London area.
[Projoy] By that token, anyone outside London should be able to have it done for £1.50, then.
[Raal] Nice to see a new face here. You look a bit like Raak, if I may say so. Anyway, that's interesting because the ones I checked showed the reverse!
Eeek...
[Projoy] We have seven windows in total: three of them quite large (about 2m2), two medium sized (1.25m2) and two wee ones (less than 1m2 apiece). We're not in a listed building, or a conservation area, thank goodness, so they can be made out of anything we like, as long as we respect the astragals etc. 5K was the kind of number that was floating around my mind, for some reason, but from what you say it might be a bit more than that.
D-G
I paid 3.5k a few years ago for a ground floor flat; four large windows (3+m2 and one medium (1.25m2) plus a front door and a back door. It's the doors that add a lot to the expense; several hundred pounds a pop. And of course small windows are disproportionately costly for their size. I'd hope your requirements would be cheaper than Projoy's - I bet patio doors incur a double expense, once for being doors, and once for being large windows. I admit, I'd still anticipate a cost of well over 4k.
dee gee
Do you have to do them all in one go? I know there are 'do the front, get the back for free' offers every now and again... but don't panic, that's the main thing.
All for one
I spose not - but all but two of them really need to be done if not by the winter then next summer at the latest, so we may as well have them all done in one go. We'll try not to panic - I'm just not keen on the whole "salesman" thing...
My regular customers include a window salesman, and a window surveyor (goes round after the salesman has done his bit and actually measure the windows etc). Unfortunately, the latter is on holiday this week, but I'll check with the former this evening if I remember. He's an ex-salesman as of last year, so should be honest about it. From conversations with him, I can advise you to beware of all the "pay for the front, get the back free" deals etc, as those sort of companies will be ripping you off anyway. The salesmen are amongst the most highly-trained, aggressive-style of any trade. You do not get a bargain from them, even though you will think you do. Some of the techniques he explained to me were quite scarily akin to military interrogation. I'll let you know what he says either tonight, or tomorrow morning.
There is another way, though. If they are standard sizes, the window units themselves do not cost much (think 10% od what you get charged) and a pair of competent builders/handymen should be able to fit them.
There is another way, though. If they are standard sizes, the window units themselves do not cost much (think 10% od what you get charged) and a pair of competent builders/handymen should be able to fit them.
[rab] Everest claim to be the best, but are probably the most expensive. They did six floor-to-ceiling windows and a door for me years back for 4k. How long do you plan staying at the address? You don't want something that will need replacing again in less than 20 years.
Windows
I've spoken to my mate, who used to work for StayBrite. He says there's a huge window-making company in Edinburgh that the likes of Staybrite buy their windows from. He'll try and track down the name tonight. He also reckons that, if there are no complex openings required etc, that you "could" get it done for £2K-ish. His advice is find a reputable window-fitter, not a big national company - you get the same windows, a non sales-driven company, and half the price. More to follow when I get more info.
[Phil] I'll bet you 5p and a melon that it's Penicuik.
Gambling?
[pen] I don't accept bets that I might not win ...i.e. I think you're right.
Celebrity MC
Anyone seen Inkspot lately? He and I (as sigmundfreud) seem to be the only two left on Celebdaq. I'm really hanging on so he doesn't feel in solitary splendour. I suspect he's doing the same...
Alternatively, some of you deserters might re-join.
Alternatively, some of you deserters might re-join.
Celebdaq? Oh, puh-lease, that's so 2003. :)
[Phil] Thanks. Any ideas as to how one knows a fitter is reputable?
Isn't it marked on their bottoms?
[rab] Ask to see jobs they've done in the area, would be my best guess, other than local recommendation.
How's the weather?
>> Celebdaq? Oh, puh-lease, that's so 2003. :) Absolutely. For the last 3 years, I just buy Madonna - she's easy, cheap and she gets column inches.
Game slot
...just realised there's been one sitting blank for a while. Any innovative ideas?
digging the daq
[gil] Still doing pottering with the daq, member of Ultimates (MSN group) for investment tips and DDT also peek at http://www.redtide.co.uk/celebdaq/index.html?s=09000901
Every now again like today Mornington_Crescent appears on the front page, sadly I run more than one account. Still not made Top Trader.
Every now again like today Mornington_Crescent appears on the front page, sadly I run more than one account. Still not made Top Trader.
An old standby from my days as a language assistant - "What will you do this weekend?" "Remember, we construct the future tense using the auxiliary 'will' - the clue's in the question!"
le weekend
I'm currently waiting for a friend to make his way out of Town to the boondocks of the tube system, from where we will embark on a voyage of historical discovery. We're going up the M40 to go and look at the paintings in a stately home. I have to choose the CDs for the trip, and he's going to choose the destination. We'll probably argue a bit.
Today I learned something new
I learned why the Knights say "Ni!". Néa must know this already. "Ni" is the Swedish for "you" in the plural, and used to also be the formal singular "you", like the French "vous". However, Swedish added a strange twist to this. If someone was eligible to be addressed as "ni" then, by definition, it was inappropriate to do so. Instead, one referred to them by their title, e.g. "would the professor like another cup of tea?" As the writer concludes, "the world really is coming to a sorry state when people are going about saying "ni" to old ladies."
I suspected the story of being a wind-up, but I happened to have a copy of "Teach Yourself Swedish" dating from 1969, and it agrees. It also said that the awkwardness of having to address people in the third person, while also avoiding the words "he" and "she" (taboo in this situation), had led to efforts to persuade the Swedish public to use "ni" more widely, with some success. However, the success must have been limited, as I understand that the formal "ni" is now all but extinct.
It is not know if the Knights who say "Ni!" are a deliberate reference to this quirk of Swedish grammar.
I suspected the story of being a wind-up, but I happened to have a copy of "Teach Yourself Swedish" dating from 1969, and it agrees. It also said that the awkwardness of having to address people in the third person, while also avoiding the words "he" and "she" (taboo in this situation), had led to efforts to persuade the Swedish public to use "ni" more widely, with some success. However, the success must have been limited, as I understand that the formal "ni" is now all but extinct.
It is not know if the Knights who say "Ni!" are a deliberate reference to this quirk of Swedish grammar.
fun and games
This weekend, which is mostly gone now here? Watched a Hindi film, bought some plants and crushed my right index finger in a car door.
"In Soviet Union, Saturday is START of weekend."
Celebdaq
Ha! Despite the fact that I don't follow the trends in e.g. http://www.redtide.co.uk/celebdaq/index.html?s=09000901 I have been making a good living buying Madonna, which seems to be a profitable move.
Finger in car door
Wow! That hurts. My father-in-law shut the car door on my finger just before Beryl and I drove off on honeymoon... No remarks, please. My style was NOT cramped.
Knights, Madonna
*Delurking*
[Raak] But these knights you speak of are no longer the Knights Who Say 'Ni!' and annecdotal evidence would suggest they ceased to be so some time before 1000 AD, before the age of 'Professors'. Therefore, going by the rules of good Swedish, it would be inappropriate to refer them as 'Neow-wom-peng!' or something close to that. This story would appear to be another urban legend. :)
[gil] Your 'Celebdaq' posting had me in stitches when I read it. Then I looked up 'Celebdaq' and twigged I had the wrong end of the stick. Thanks for the laugh anyway.
[Raak] But these knights you speak of are no longer the Knights Who Say 'Ni!' and annecdotal evidence would suggest they ceased to be so some time before 1000 AD, before the age of 'Professors'. Therefore, going by the rules of good Swedish, it would be inappropriate to refer them as 'Neow-wom-peng!' or something close to that. This story would appear to be another urban legend. :)
[gil] Your 'Celebdaq' posting had me in stitches when I read it. Then I looked up 'Celebdaq' and twigged I had the wrong end of the stick. Thanks for the laugh anyway.
[Sierra Mike] I prefer to interpret the film as a metaphorically expressed history of Swedish grammar.
Celebdaq
[Sierra Mike]re Madonna... I have to confess the wording was chosen with irony in mind.
Irony / Swedish Grammar
[gil] Ah, well, it worked then.
[Raak] You are undoubtedly right. Where do the dismemberment ad absurdum and cannibalism fit in?
[Raak] You are undoubtedly right. Where do the dismemberment ad absurdum and cannibalism fit in?
[Sierra] I think it would take an expert in Scandinavian historical linguistics to fathom out the entirety of the Pythons' subtle code.
Pythons and The Swedish Language
[Raak] Now you come to mention it, there was that whole Scandinavian thread running through the opening credits, wasn't there? Jeepers, you may be onto somthing potentially very rewarding in the accademic sense and not to shabby in the next-year's-beach-book arena too if you can pull a "Dan Brown". The Python Codex is certain to be a blockbuster.
new game
It's ages since we had a Film Club or a Song Book...
[pen] And Sound Charades, as well. Something should really just get rushed thru'.
*stands back in anticipation of the rush*
Yep, I knew that
[Raak] That's it, in essentials, though not quite quite. Quoting my handbook in etiquette from 1933:
"Although the use of the address ni is more common today than ten or fifteen years ago, it is not accepted in ordinary social life. [...] it is however permitted to include a ni here and there in conversation, provided that one also includes the title. Thus, it is possible to say "Oh, so the countess was in Visby last summer, how did ni find it?" or "Is the consul going to Paris, weren't ni there last spring?" But you cannot be too young if you are to use ni to older people [etc etc for 30 more pages about use of titles I kid you not]"
It does say that using "ni" to colleagues is fine, though, as well as some other equal-status situations where it was OK. There's a whole chapter about when to stop using titles -- always a mutual process, you stopped using each other's titles and said du (sing. "you") instead of ni. A lot happened in the decades following with an increase in "ni" and decrease of titles, but the big big revolution was in the late 1960s, when the head of a government office declared that he would say "du" to all his employees and expected "du" back. (Well, that's it in a nutshell anyway -- it was more complicated of course.)
Anyway, the funny thing is that after all that, today Swedish uses virtually no titles at all. We have "Mr", Mrs", "Miss" and "Dr" and various old nobility and royal titles, but apart from royalty nobody uses any titles, ever. (Very young schoolkids tend to call their teacher "miss" or "teacher", but once they hit 10 or so it's strictly first names.) So when buying, say, plane tickets from British Airways, a Swede is struck by the necessity to put a title there -- which feels very very foreign.
"Although the use of the address ni is more common today than ten or fifteen years ago, it is not accepted in ordinary social life. [...] it is however permitted to include a ni here and there in conversation, provided that one also includes the title. Thus, it is possible to say "Oh, so the countess was in Visby last summer, how did ni find it?" or "Is the consul going to Paris, weren't ni there last spring?" But you cannot be too young if you are to use ni to older people [etc etc for 30 more pages about use of titles I kid you not]"
It does say that using "ni" to colleagues is fine, though, as well as some other equal-status situations where it was OK. There's a whole chapter about when to stop using titles -- always a mutual process, you stopped using each other's titles and said du (sing. "you") instead of ni. A lot happened in the decades following with an increase in "ni" and decrease of titles, but the big big revolution was in the late 1960s, when the head of a government office declared that he would say "du" to all his employees and expected "du" back. (Well, that's it in a nutshell anyway -- it was more complicated of course.)
Anyway, the funny thing is that after all that, today Swedish uses virtually no titles at all. We have "Mr", Mrs", "Miss" and "Dr" and various old nobility and royal titles, but apart from royalty nobody uses any titles, ever. (Very young schoolkids tend to call their teacher "miss" or "teacher", but once they hit 10 or so it's strictly first names.) So when buying, say, plane tickets from British Airways, a Swede is struck by the necessity to put a title there -- which feels very very foreign.
Neow-wom-peng!
[Néa] Swedish schoolchildren are presumably too well brought up to say "Ni!" to a teacher. Would that our lot were as aware of the social graces.
My butcher calls me "Sir", and I love it. I'd be delighted to go back to using titles and surnames instead of all this pseudo-familiar first name tosh. If someone repeatedly uses my name, I instinctively remind myself not to buy anything, or co-operate for that matter. Still, it's better than being called "mate" by someone I'm trying to conduct some business with.
Surnames
(Phil) My Indian newsagent always greets me with a smile and "Ah, Mr Hughes" when I go in each week to pay for the papers. This is almost too formal even for someone of my age but charming nevertheless. What I really don't like is name-tags where the surname is omitted. It's either false familiarity or management's way of saying you're not very important.
I'm not keen on letters coming from people with gender-neutral names (like Chris) without a title as you then never know how to write back to them.
[rab] "Dear Chris"? Isn't the point that once they've introduced themselves by a particular name it's quite acceptable to address them by it...?
Chris
My nextdoor neighbours are Chris and Sam. Any guesses?
{Projoy] Actually, I was thinking of emails rather than letters where you have mail from "Chris Jones", and at the bottom a standard sig "Chris Jones, Gender Neutrality Officer". To me, it feels utterly wrong beginning a communication with "Dear Chris" when I've never met the person in question.
Mind you, I once had a letter from Scottish Gas, signed by hand as "Scottish Gas"...
[rab] Did you reply "Dear Scottish" or "Dear Mr Gas"?
I agree with rab about feeling uncomfortable replying to mails like that. I generally duck the issue and just start them with "Hi -" and in fact, I don't often use names at all unless there's ambiguity as I've never been comfortable with using people's names for any purpose whatsoever, even if I've known them for years. Dunno why.
[rab] "Dear Sir or Madam, as the case may be:" Although in email I never use any salutation at all.
OMG
[Raak] Why not? [All others] What about you? Do you use salutations in email?
[Néa] Just the custom I'm accustomed to (and therefore the One True Way).
I use 'Good morning [name] or sometimes just 'Good Morning' (or afternoon), or sometimes 'Dear [name] in an email; if it's a round-robin (which is often is) I just start with an attention-grabbing 'Ladies and Gentlemen' which seems to go down fairly well, apart from with one individual who has been making a fool of herself recently and is not much longer for this corporate world, I feel.
[Rosie] A gay couple. With stupid parents. :oP
[Rosie] A gay couple. With stupid parents. :oP
[Néa, from whom all knowledge springs, from whose navel a lotus springs forth and who encompasses the oceans in three strides] I avoid salutations as unnecessary ornamentation.
[Salutations] For email, even formal email, I find that "Hello," is a perfectly good opening for almost every purpose. So much so that I now find it slightly quaint to receive an email that begins "Dear..." (particularly if the person uses my surname). And it's been many a year since I've seen a "yours faithfully". If forced into a formal signoff, I tend to stick to just "Yours," for fear of writing something I don't in the slightest bit mean, such as "sincerely".
[Dear Mr B-----,] While I am familiar with the feeling whereof you speak re: addressing someone by their first name prior to a formal introduction, which no doubt is deplored in Debrett, I can't say I've experienced a great deal of discomfort in discarding the convention.
Oh no, i fear I'm a fogey (yet again)...
In emails, I use "yours faithfully", "your sincerely", "regards" or "kind regards" depending on the context. I also use "cheers", which I use as a multi-purpose word in spoken coversation anyway. However, at the start of an email, I tend just to use the person's name (surname if we're not acquainted, forename if we are) or "Dear Sir or Madam" if it's to "complaints@????.com" or "service@????.com" (as many of my emails are).
re:
[Phil] Whats the difference between regards and kind regards? I've never really appreciated this subtlety.
Chris and Sam
(pen) Sorry, but it's Christopher and Samantha. 50 yrs ago it would have been Christine and Samuel.
Now I come to look at it, Christine seems such a silly name. It's like the brand name of a sort of mini-Messiah individually wrapped for your comfort and convenience.
"Vicar, do you sell small packs of Christines for the weekend?"
[Projoy] Most names start to look pretty silly if you look at them too closely, like most words.
Salutations
[Néa] I tend to use a first name and a colon. It's my style. For example:
Dear Samantha:
Isn't it about time you got off Humphrey's hand? I should think it was quite uncomfortable.
All the best,
Nights.
I think of an email as being a less formal letter - with an opening, closing and all the rest. Most of my peers think I'm bizarre for this.
Dear Samantha:
Isn't it about time you got off Humphrey's hand? I should think it was quite uncomfortable.
All the best,
Nights.
I think of an email as being a less formal letter - with an opening, closing and all the rest. Most of my peers think I'm bizarre for this.
hi nites i reckn your a yong fogy rosie
Hello, I must be going
In email I don't use valedictions either, just my name at the end or a .sig. Written letters go "Dear Sir/Yours faithfully" or "Dear [name]/Yours".
emailiquette
Hmm, well showing my old-foginess I start with a "signature" saying who I am, website details etc. (Though this is automatically included) Then I use Dear (name) <comma> Dear Humphrey, Then the text - all properly written out and hopefully correctly spelt and punctuated. And I tail it with Regards, Blob (or whatever soubriquet that person knows me by) ........ What's more, I write SMS texts in much the same way !!!
Formality
(Nights) Actually most of my emails are no different from letters except in the greeting if I'm familiar with the person. This means capitals, punctuation and paragraphs. Well, why not? At my age you simply don't give a toss if people think you're bizarre. It's great.
The thing is, I tend to see emails as more closely related to memos than letters. When I receive an email written like a formal letter, it comes across, frankly, as somewhat illiterate.
[darren] How would you receive a letter through your letterbox? Would you feel impatience that they didn't email you about it?
[Projoy] It's a gut feeling thing. Although, if I sit and think about it, my regards tend to be much kinder if I'm selling than buying.
[pen] I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at there.
[pen] Dunno about Darren, but I would feel exactly that (and frequently do). We've too few trees as it is, without wasting them on pointless letters, cards etc.
paper
(Projoy) You really can't be allowed to get away with that. The proportion of paper in actual letters compared with the total amount of paper (newspapers, junk mail etc) that comes through my letterbox is very small. In any case, we're not short of trees; there are many more than there were 40-50 years ago, everywhere. To be honest, I'm not that keen on trees, they spoil the view and at one time threatened to undermine my house. Rather overrated, I feel.
[Rosie] Who says my annoyance is confined to only legitimate letters? As to "more trees", I don't know if that's true, although I guess you're more likely to know than I am, But don't we need even more trees at the moment to do Carbon Dioxide conversion? This is the general impression I have gained.
Trees
I suspect Rosie is right that there are more trees now than in the 50's. I'm pretty sure, however, that there were many more in the 30's and more still before WW1. Also, the tree-planting boom of the 50's 60's & 70's was mostly conifer plantations. Planting more trees as mixed woodland must be a good thing both aesthetically and as carbon sinks.
IIRC, commercial forestry supplies most of the pulp for paper - and that's a planting-and-harvesting operation of fast-growing monoculture conifers; it doesn't use wood from mixed and deciduous woodland.
I'm still not sure what forest conservation and my opinion of email writing style have to do with each other.
Tree abundance
Which would explain the demise of resin/wood particle composite board and the resurgence of quality natural wood at the woodyards. Oh, hang on......
That's a matter of furniturenfashion and the health hazards of the resin fumes, innit?
[Rosie] Well I look forward to being 23 then. And I write text messages just the same way - the joy of predictive text. And a new phone!
In other news, I handed in my dissertation today!
In other news, I handed in my dissertation today!
[nights] Congratulations! Well done! I hate you. No, really, well done.
Trees
(Projoy) It's true that trees fix carbon rather than letting it float free as CO2 but the number needed to make any difference is impractically large particularly considering the rate the Amazon jungle and other areas are being chopped down. Trees are nice but have become sacred, which is just silly. They undermine buildings, obscure the sky and the view, drop leaves on the railway line and are even allowed to obscure signals. The biodiversity of tree-free railway cuttings was incredible. Down with trees! BTW I don't quite understand your aversion to printed paper. I get cards all the time from my nieces in addition to all the emails, which is nice, and far better than when they were young teenagers and sent me electronic Christmas cards. Sod that.
[Rosie] Well, I suppose it's a personal preference, but I just find dealing with paper irritating these days. It becomes clutter very quickly. You can't miniaturise it and file it conveniently in a sensible folder system on a HDD. Cards and the like seldom express sentiments profound enough to be worth keeping, and for the most part are ritualistic and purposeless. Almost anything that could be said in a conventional letter could be said in an email, which is far more keepable these days.
call me old-fashioned
[PJ, Rosie] Being a keen calligrapher - I mostly design and write greetings cards to close friends and family. They seem to appreciate the personal, snail-mail touch because it's evidence that one has made the effort. Far more 'keepable' I'd say.
I loathe "greetings cards", and I've just deleted my justification of that statement because I don't want to feel yet again that I'm the only one singing in tune :-)
[Phil] I'm only mentioning how much I despise commercial greetings cards so you know you're not alone. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't even have botherd to mention it. Profit margins of 60%+?? The sleazy slimeballs.
Me2, as mentioned (and justified) above.
[SM & PJ] I have an equal, but differently justified, loathing for hand-made ones too.
I love cards. I love writing letters. I love recieving post of any form. I send lots of postcards when I go on holiday. I particuarly like hand made cards. I do get a bit pissed off when I get a Christmas card from someone I rarely keep in touch with just signed with their name, as I'd like a little newsbite. I try to lead by example and put a little line or two in each card, something personal to who its addressed to. I also mostly try to make my own Christmas cards, although I was defeated on that one last year (I sent over 85, and recieved a similar number). So, why do I like them. I accept that I do mostly just throw them away (or try to recycle) and it is a fair economic cost, but I like to keep in touch with as many people as I can and I think its a good way to show that you're thinking of someone. Hurrah for cards. That's what I say!
[Lib] If I want to know what someone whom I am otherwise too feckless to stay properly in contact with is up to, I'll usually google them or take a look at their blog or something. If I instead sent a card for the sheer sake of "staying in touch" what pleasure would it afford them to know that I thought of them... but didn't think enough of them to do more than send a card? You might argue that I miss the point, and I suppose I probably do. Obviously, not attacking anyone else's way of staying in touch, but that's how it's always seemed to me.
Apologies if I come across as a crabby bastard, but, well, I am one. :)
[PJ] You didn't seem any more crabby that I am (revising never brings the nice side of me out)... I like to know that someone out there is thinking of me. That's probably something to do with the kind of high-maintainence-centre-of-attention person I am. Getting a card is something concrete that I can see that they've thought of me. Looking at my blog doesn't mean anything as I don't track all the hits. But, each to his own, hey? And I'll remember not to send you any cards a ProjoyTowers.
crabby old so-and-so
[Phil/PJ] Hmm - surely you have aunts, uncles, grandparents [even parents] that may not be quite as netsavvy as you? [or even own a PC]. How do you all stay in touch or send birthday/christmas-type greetings to them? Telephone?
[Chalky] Why stay in touch? Why send greetings? Unless you want to know them as friends, doing either of those two things seems completely pointless - maybe even slightly hypocritical - to me.
[Chalky] I didn't say that I prefer to use the net. I just don't really "stay in touch". I have one uncle, one aunt, one cousin, no grandparents. I do speak to my brothers and parents fairly frequently on the phone. I do send birthday and christmas cards to all family members (including in-laws and 2 nieces) - I also loathe buses, but use them when necessary.
On the other hand, we all use email too for quick messages, e.g. my sister-in-law invited us to her 50th birdthay party by email, and I was able to decline within 30 minutes - job done, no waiting; no having to find a "sorry we can't come" card, write it, find her address, buy a stamp, post it (all of which would take me a day or two).
On the other hand, we all use email too for quick messages, e.g. my sister-in-law invited us to her 50th birdthay party by email, and I was able to decline within 30 minutes - job done, no waiting; no having to find a "sorry we can't come" card, write it, find her address, buy a stamp, post it (all of which would take me a day or two).
[Projoy, Phil] Blimey, I'm now wary of having either of you two as friends... if I left it too long, the friendship lapses and you'd discontinue membership! I've got friends all over the place that I don't see for a couple of years at a time, but I'm extremely pleased that I *can* count them as friends, and still send xmas cards. I really can't see it the way you do.
Stands in the girls corner
Am I sensing a gender divide here?
[Lib] No, I like cards.
speaking literally
[Phil] I see. You seem to use different methods for different folks. Me too. I just prefer to make a greetings card than to buy one [for the reasons already stated by PJ and SM.
[PJ] Why stay in touch? The ones I stay in touch with are the ones I LIKE and respect.
[PJ] Why stay in touch? The ones I stay in touch with are the ones I LIKE and respect.
Well, I know it means more to me when I send a card or letter than an email (partly because of the extra effort). So it means more to me to receive one as well. Also probably more than half the people I communicate with regularly are not regular e-mail users, even if they have an address. I just think it's for different purposes. Quick notes, information-based, SMS or email; communication - letters or cards.
[Proj] You don't think staying in touch with your aged relatives who are not on the Internets is worthwile in itself? Me, I like sending post cards, but not too many or too often. I defaulted out of Postcrossing recently.
In other news, I suck at lecturing. Really and truly.
In other news, I suck at lecturing. Really and truly.
[Néa] *thinks for a moment*. Mm. Not really - for them or me. [pen] I have friends whom I sometimes don't see for a couple of years, or more. It sounds like in your case it's necessary to send a card or something in order to maintain the friendship subscription (whether used or not). In my case I'm very happy for someone I like to show up again after a couple of years of not calling or writing. I don't require them to ping me in the interval, because it would be a waste of both of our time (at least until they or I are ready to re-engage - and also a waste if one of us is no longer really interested).
[Néa] PS. I bet you don't suck at it.
[Néa] I agree, I bet you don't suck.
[penelope] I wonder, do I really have friends, per se, or perhaps I just have pals? I think that could be an interesting bit of self-analysis, perhaps anyone who counts me as a "friend" could contribute. Oh I dunno, I'm just me, and I'm not great at communicating, so I don't bother :-)
for flerdle's eyes only
Here's something flerdle told me:
Hidden text
only kidding!Phil:
Hidden text
:-)*comes back from Leamington Spa, joins the "I bet Néa doesn't suck brigade, and says to flerdle and Phil*
Hidden text
"What?"That's the "I bet Néa doesn't suck" brigade.
[Tuj] Phew.
cards
I'm terrible at sending cards, and I find it a nuisance. What's worse though, is that my mum gets cards and she has NO idea who the people are. She may have met them once, or be related to them, but if they sign the card with their first names only it's hard to guess. She gets a few like that every year.
Cards
I go through the ritual, but only because it's generally done. But awkward situations sometimes come up. Should I send a Christmas or birthday card this year to my lately ex-sister-in-law? At what point should a Christmas card to my brother also be addressed to his new partner?
I donate, instead of sending cards. That, and I usually work extra shifts at Christmas so I don't really have the time.
cards
We did get one christmas card last year that said that they would not be sending cards this year, but would be making a donation to a charity (I think it was for MS) instead. Sounds good to me! We did that in work too - everyone gave a couple of pounds and we gave it all to a charity instead of giving out cards.
Which begs the question ... How does one let people know that one is donating to charity instead of sending them a card?
[Chalky] You send them a charity card.
Cards etc
Why do people have to know one is donating to charity except to inform them what a Wonderful Person one is? Why not send cards as usual and donate to charity? Or send "charity" cards? I normally send cards to people I don't see very often; it just means you've remembered them and value them. Some, but not all, of a group of pub mates have taken to sending (i.e. dishing out in the pub) Christmas cards to each other, which I think is barmy. I don't do it and it's done me no harm whatever.
Nothing in particular
Just thought I'd try and introduce a new subject, but I can't think of one. Anyone care to comment?
[Phil] I'd love to help, but I'm away to Bury to see IQ in concert.
New subject
I've been out all evening - has Blair gone/died/been arrested/resigned/emigrated yet? Can't wait.
I played all 7 of my tiles in one go in a game of Scrabble yesterday - the word was SLEETED.
Maybe changing the subject should be the new subject.
(Tuj) You could have had DELETES or STEELED.
[Rosie] I'd also spotted those (and the D was actually a blank!) but I picked SLEETED over STEELED (DELETES didn't fit on the board).
* waves from Ambleside *
Cards
I was firmly in the anti-card camp, but I've found things have changed since having a kid. Suddenly photos of the littleun are a commodity for relatives - especially the older and less internet savvy kind. So, I've been sending cards using pictures of my son to people where in the past I might have a) sent a crappy off the shelf card and hated the whole process and b) not bothered through apathy.
One thing that kick started it all was finding a program called Comic Life (Mac users - I recommend it heartily) which is great for knocking up comic strip style cards using my own photos. I've also been known to send an occasional e-card as a slightly more colourful way of marking an occasion than just sending email. I think cards for me inhabit a sort of middle zone of contact with someone, and I find it pleasing to think that I can send my offline relatives something tangible with a picture of their grandson/great grandson on it.
One thing that kick started it all was finding a program called Comic Life (Mac users - I recommend it heartily) which is great for knocking up comic strip style cards using my own photos. I've also been known to send an occasional e-card as a slightly more colourful way of marking an occasion than just sending email. I think cards for me inhabit a sort of middle zone of contact with someone, and I find it pleasing to think that I can send my offline relatives something tangible with a picture of their grandson/great grandson on it.
ego tripping
I've made a move in every game in here today, so I may as well mention it here :-)
[Chalky] You should win something... a sort of sedimentary layer award.
[rab] Do html tags work in the titles of games? Actually I was mainly thinking of the hiding tags - a game entirely consisting of hidden moves would be fun. I was also wondering if it might be time for another Lies game.
Tag
[Tuj] No.
Fresh morning
When bringing in the milk this morning at half six, there was a definite sense of the summer being over. A low haze of thick grey cloud, drizzle soaked grass and the street lights still on (not doing much but just quietly announcing that the mornings are getting darker). Inside the lights turned on for breakfast and side lights needed on the car driving in. At least one thing the heating is still off and will hopefully stay that way till October.
I don't want another Lies game.
Here in the deep south (Hants) it is doing the old cats and dogs routine (and to a strong degree at that). Certainly a change having been building sandcastles on Monday!
[Inkers] Well don't start one then.
[Inkers] Well don't start one then.
I'm going to have to get my chimney swept, as it looks like I might be here till the end of October :-(
I can't wait for there to be a nip in the air - it's rainy here, but so warm and muggy. In preparation for autumn and winter, I ordered some new boots yesterday and tested the central heating. But I think the ancient boiler's pump has given up so the central heating doesn't work. I don't need it yet, but I'm hoping this'll prompt the landlords into renewing the boiler. They seem so proud of being to make it limp along for longer than is sensible, dammit. I just want a nice condensing boiler to make only as much hot water as I need, not a hot water tank - it's daft for just one person. In the meantime, I have a warm laptop for personal comfort :o)
We had British Gas round to do the annual service the boiler the other day, its a bit doom and gloom, it is old and parts are hard to replace. They have suggested a new combi boiler.
[pen] Sh. Don't wish it away. There'll be plenty of nip in good time. [Tuj] Lies games are really impossible to play, they're always the least popular games in the Morniverse and usually end up neglected.
[Inkers] Do it. It'll be quieter and more efficient.
Speaking of energy, having just discovered that I'm paying more than twice what I did for electricity a couple of years ago, I looked into other possibilities. Apparently, one can now change electricity suppliers with just a few clicks on a web page, and I stand to save 20%. Is it really that simple? Has anyone here done it? I'm looking at Powergen vs. Atlantic, and I wonder how Powergen can now stay in business except by relying on the inertia of their customers. (Yes, I know it's evil to heat a house with electricity, but I doubt if it's adaptable to gas.)
Electricity slags
Funny thing, electricity pricing - I was involved in the new trading arrangements which came into force in 1998. One of the effects of them is that it's cheaper to buy small quantities of electricity than large most of the time, so the big players like Powergen are somewhat handicapped. The difference is nothing like 20% though. Of course, lots of suppliers have short term or 'new customer only' promotions, hoping to get people in and then rely on inertia. The cheapest thing to do is therefore change often.
Do you have people going door-to-door trying to get people to change their gas/electricity company? For a few months here I was plagued by 'em. Started fantasizing about electricifying the doorbell to give them a shock... rude words were thought, but not said.
[flerdle] I did get a few a while back, very strange. The first one opened by saying "How would you like to save money on your electricity bill?", and wanted me to sign up there and then, without even saying what company he was representing. Then a few months later, two young women doing "a survey" asked if I had switched suppliers, "like most of your neighbours have". Nul points. Probably from the same company, whoever they were, and if I did, I'd make a point of never doing business wth them, ever. Then the first chap came back again and I just said "Not interested" and closed the door.
[INJ] Odd, I'm going by the companies' own published tariffs for an Economy 7 dual meter. All the companies seem to claim to be at least "part of one of the biggest suppliers", although that's rather an elastic expression.
[INJ] Odd, I'm going by the companies' own published tariffs for an Economy 7 dual meter. All the companies seem to claim to be at least "part of one of the biggest suppliers", although that's rather an elastic expression.
Deregulating Utilities = cheaper phone/gas/'lectric
It has been my experience that deregulating state-owned utility services results in a welter of paperwork for the consumer who is bombarded by junk mail exhorting this or that 'cheaper' version of whatever it is. They invariably aren't cheaper in the long run, largely because of the increased costs associated with legislation, litigation and advertising. Service call-outs become a nightmare of humanless voice-mail mazes and all one really gets is a warm feeling when one thinks about the 'good old days'. My gas service was recently split from the monopolistic energy carrier from my area. Costs increased overnight by 10-15% and there are now three phone numbers to report a gas leak with no 24-hour call-out. The joke? that the billing departments, although ostensibly now separate for gas and electricity, still use the same style account numbers and go to the same building. Indeed, I can pay my electricity bill at a window in a gas-company cashier's office. I suspect the bills are made up on the same computer. It's all a game.
I've argued on the doorstep with an electricity account swapper guy before too. I told him I didn't want to discuss it there and then, and he kept asking me 'why not?'. so I shut the door on him. It was quite scary, to be honest, he was becoming vehement. Lord knows what it's like for little old ladies.
This is one of the benefits of having an entryphone system - with a bit of skill (and luck in having the topmost buzzer) you can generally fend these people off before they gain access to the stair.
Also, how do they tell whose electricity it is? It's all the same wires, and the electrons aren't labelled.
'leccy
[Raak] You could spin 'em up with a particular bias though. That way you could discriminate yours from the rest by having a filter installed at the customer's service entrance that let through electrons with a penchant for drinking only gravity fed beer or that preferred a lawn mowed in alternating stripes and kept the others out for example.
Don't you realise you're all geing ripped off. It's AC electricity - that means you're getting the same electrons going in and out of your meter day in day out, yet you get charged as if they were all brand spanking new...bloody nerve these leccy suppliers have got, I reckon.
Privatisation
(SM) Quite so. Competition in itself costs money and furthermore there has to be rake-off for the private company or they wouldn't be interested in the first place. So naturally it costs more, or the service is poorer. Another example is Directory Enquiries, privatised for no good reason whatever except to satisfy the current political dogma. Don't get me going about the railways, about which I know a bit. Truly the country is run by idiots.
(Phil) A very good point. The less fastidious among us would settle for AC/DC but that's up to them, naturally.
I'm glad someone mentioned Directory Enquiries... I remember that once upon a time it was operated by BT for free; then they charged about 10p which could be circumvented by using a phone box; looking at last month's phone bill, I notice that fierce competition has delivered the fantastic bargain of 60p per enquiry. Victory!
Since they started charging, I've not used directory enquiries once. I find 192.com to be very good.
Slightly tangentially, at work, I have had no end of incorrect reservations, e.g. someone books at this Bull's Head, then turns up for dinner at another, because 118118 or whoever has given them the wrong number. One night we had two bookings that didn't show, so I called them the next day saying "Hello, this is the Bull's Head at Ratby; you had a reservation with us last night..." Both people failed to notice the "Ratby" bit, even when I said it so clearly, and said "yes we were there". Then when asked where exactly, one said "Well, we booked at the Bull's Head in Newtown Linford, but when we got there we couldn't find it (I was able to tell them that it changed name 8 years ago), so we went to the Bull's Head at Woodhouse Eaves." The other said "You know, on the A47", which is about 6 miles away in Leicester Forest West. Unfortunately, I think there are 11 Bull's Heads in Leicestershire, and half of them are within a 12 mile radius
Slightly tangentially, at work, I have had no end of incorrect reservations, e.g. someone books at this Bull's Head, then turns up for dinner at another, because 118118 or whoever has given them the wrong number. One night we had two bookings that didn't show, so I called them the next day saying "Hello, this is the Bull's Head at Ratby; you had a reservation with us last night..." Both people failed to notice the "Ratby" bit, even when I said it so clearly, and said "yes we were there". Then when asked where exactly, one said "Well, we booked at the Bull's Head in Newtown Linford, but when we got there we couldn't find it (I was able to tell them that it changed name 8 years ago), so we went to the Bull's Head at Woodhouse Eaves." The other said "You know, on the A47", which is about 6 miles away in Leicester Forest West. Unfortunately, I think there are 11 Bull's Heads in Leicestershire, and half of them are within a 12 mile radius
[Phil] Well, with a bit of creative yet inexpensive sign alterage you could easily become the Bull Shed. That should stop the problem. Alternatively, add a sauna at the back and call your place The Bull's Head of Steam.
[rab] Unfortunately, we were not internet enabled when our water was leaking into the flat below and we didn't know the number for a plumber that had been suggested to us...
Sorry, that should have been directed at [Phil]
Persistent Salesmen
[penelope] We need a new game where the object is to supply a witty, brief and above all final response to "Why not [discuss my proposal now]?"
[Sierra Mike] Perhaps with each person giving an answer to the previous person's salesman's line, then supplying a new salesman's line of their own?
[Raak] That would work too, though I was just thinking about supplying alternatives for penelope to use after the Why not? was delivered. Sort of along the lines of Mad Magazine's old Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions feature. One question, many one-liner responses.
[rab] Commiserations - it's a shame that necessity forces one to be ripped off :-(
end games
To make way for the new game I think it is time for Cancel Mansell to move along, ready for Why Not? or something new.
I dread to use the 'C' word in September but the school sent out the Christmas catalogue yesterday, and the milkman dropped off this morning a leaflet for spring and Christmas flowering bulbs.
Is it proper or just morbid bad taste omn my part for wanting to see how the hamster from Top Gear had a near fatal crash. Hopefully he will recover soon and take his revenge out on a few more caravans.
It's an 'x' word
[Inkers] I have already planted bulbs in pots for next spring and bought xmas cards (from the V&A, online, before they run out, which is what happened last year).
[pen] Very impressed and also quite jealous.
Can I also just say about the two people that heckled John Reid, it was a set up. A member of the cabinet going to an invited audience of muslims, security would have been tight. But two well known radicals simply walk in unnoticed!! pah!! It's a government conspiracy I tell you.
X marks late September
Today I saw a pub advertising Christmas meals today. That is, you could go in today and have a Christmas meal. WIth free bottle of champagne (which I think must mean a one-glass quarter bottle of white fizz).
I'm so happy to be moving to a pub that does not do food. Christmas will not be a word that makes me shake with fear this year :-)
[Phil] As I recall, you didn't do food when I came in anyway! :-)
[phil] A pub that has no food? Not even chicken in the basket! But I presume you will still be working on Christmas Day.
I stopped in at a pub at Kinlochleven that had two entrances; one for walkers and one for... I don't know, everyone else, I suppose. I arrived by car but I as was I scruffy and dressed for walking I went in the former as a courtesy to what I supposed was their intent. Inside I discovered that not only were the two parts of the pub completely separate, with the walker section gulag-spare, but they even served different food! I ordered some manner of pie and got some hideous little prepackaged thing that had been semithawed in the microwave, which I would have regarded as inedible even had it been warmed up properly. The thing is, it appeared to be quite a different thing from what they were serving in what I could see in the remainder of the place. I concluded that they absolutely despised walkers but couldn't exclude them, so they decided to quarantine them and make them miserable in the hopes of developing a reputation that would repel as many of them as possible.
[Inkspot] To take that suggestion perhaps more seriously than it was intended, if it was a setup, it seems to me a quite benign one. After all, it appears the two hecklers were real radical Islamists, not stooges, and if the authorities troubled themselves no further than making sure no bombs got in, well, freedom of speech and all that. It's hardly a dirty trick to let them condemn themselves out of their own mouths in front of the press. What are they going to do, complain that they weren't suppressed?
Come and see the tolerance inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm not bein' repressed!
In letting them in they were certain to go off at anytime, for the speaker it did not matter, he needed a headline otherwise it would have been just another day at the office. Suddenly a small paragraph inside became front page news. It was manipulation by of events for a desired outcome.
[Uncle K] That's just saturday lunchtime :-)
[Inky] Indeed, that is the current status of the place. No children permitted either, and the place is packed! If there is no tradition of that pub opening on Christmas Day, then this year I will have the day off. Next year wil be different. If it does currently open, I'll do it for 2 hours.
[Dan] Is that the pub that overlooks the water, with the Atlas brewery behind it? If so, I was there 2 and a bit years ago, and although we had to leave our packs in the lobby, or outside, they were perfectly welcoming, and had some wonderful beer from the aforementioned brewery. The toasties were smashing !
[Inky] Indeed, that is the current status of the place. No children permitted either, and the place is packed! If there is no tradition of that pub opening on Christmas Day, then this year I will have the day off. Next year wil be different. If it does currently open, I'll do it for 2 hours.
[Dan] Is that the pub that overlooks the water, with the Atlas brewery behind it? If so, I was there 2 and a bit years ago, and although we had to leave our packs in the lobby, or outside, they were perfectly welcoming, and had some wonderful beer from the aforementioned brewery. The toasties were smashing !
[Inkspot] I am, perhaps wrongly, getting the impression that you find something wrong with that. But everything people do is "manipulation of events for a desired outcome". Or in less tendentious language, acting to achieve their goals. Nothing dishonest happened: the hecklers hanged themselves with their own rope (I hope -- but I haven't followed subsequent reports to see what mainstream Muslim reaction has been). If indeed there was a nod and a wink to the security services to flagrantly let the opposition be heard, I don't have a problem with that.
[Phil] I dinna think so. They didn't have a lobby for one thing, and for another, like I said, walkers were shunted into a room that felt like a holding pen for undesirables (which on reflection is what it was), and there was no brewery attached. It was some time ago. In fairness it was one of only two less than delightful pub experiences I had in Scotland, and as for the other, well, I'll frame it in the form of retrospectively self-evident advice: If you're at the Fringe and you find a pub that miraculously isn't jammed with people, it is safe to assume that there's a good reason for it. My own fault in both cases, of course, as it's really not difficult to simply leave places that don't feel right.
[Dan] I have a wonderful memory of walking into Kinlochleven from Glencoe. It was not long after midday and there was only one "PH" marked on the map. As we rounded the corner, the pub hove into view. I believe it was called The Anchor, and a dingier, drabber looking place it would be hard to imagine in such a picturesque location. A youngish bloke (20 or thereabouts) was walking the other way, obviously a local (due to lack or rucksack etc), so I shouted across the street "Is that the only pub in town?". The look of horror on his face will stay with me for many years as he replied "Hell, no! No unless ye like trippin over pushchairs and shit! Carry on to the river, you'll be fine there."
In the phamaceutical product naming stakes I thought it was difficult for anusol to be trumped (so to speak), but it appears to have been done.
And on the topic in hand [Dan] Can you remember which pub in Edinburgh that was?
[rab] Slightly odd thing just now. The site displayed without any CSS (just a bulleted list of games). A reload got it back as normal. I don't know if this was just a momentary glitch or something you'd want to know about.
If it happens again, look at the page source and see if the css is actually being loaded in the html (by a LINK tag).
[rab] Unfortunately not. I'm certain it was in Rose Street, or just off, but that's about it. It had a "locals only" vibe which we were too oblivious to pick up on at first.
pharmaceutical names
[Rab]That stuff has been around for years! Which probably explains the name. Can you see a new product coming out with a name like that? At least you can't have any doubts about what it's for.
[snorgle] Although, oddly, its makers do, referring euphemistically to "feminine itching". That sounds to me like some sort of marital complaint.
[Dan] Oh well, it's probably been overhauled and turned into vertical drinking bar now. Not sure which I prefer really.
[feminine itch] What does this sentence mean: "Every woman shares in the dilemma of those nagging feminine problems."?
(Projoy) Quite. What dilemma? But I can't see much wrong with the product name. It's certainly not in the same league as Anusol. *(creases up)*
[Projoy] I don't care what the sentence means, but I loathe the use of those "those" words in advertising and journalism.
[Phil] You've got to admit, it would be worse with "them" instead.
[Darren] As a Geordie (originally), I think "them" would be much more fun.
Shouldn't it be 'they', to aim at the Glaswegian market?
Done that list yet?
Next from their range of products is Lipusol for "Every man shares in the dilema of those nagging feminine problems". *scarpers quickly to the shed*
*lays a trail of gunpowder from the back door to the shed and puts a match to it*
[INJ] Indeed, for the cowboy market, it should be "them thar"
If you wanted to be really misogynistic, how about "you" instead?
[Phil] Cowboys have nagging feminine problems?
You've not seen Brokeback Mountain? Actually, I haven't, so I've no idea if that joke works or not
[Nea] They became cowboys to escape problems with nagging females. (Mine's the storm cape and stetson hanging by the door, thanks.)
One cape required
[INJ]You'll be in trouble now, I hope you have better blast doors on your shed than I did.
Should you not be needing that cape later , if it could be passed over here with a pair of size wellies as the grey storm clouds in the sky over the Brunel Tower, the car park is already flooded.
Should you not be needing that cape later , if it could be passed over here with a pair of size wellies as the grey storm clouds in the sky over the Brunel Tower, the car park is already flooded.
Finally after all this time reached I have managed to become Top Trader at Celebdaq. The only thing being had to use my BBC login of Cleddau, it is on the banks of that fair waterway that I was raised.
[Inkspot] Ah - that's what you look like!
[Inkers] You credited evil_edna! I'm touched, and you have attained a higher ranking than I ever did - my best was No. 4, by accident, once. *Blushes* You have learned well, glasshopper.
Found out today that I didn't get the new job I'd gone for, but, hey - new car and new flat - two out of three's not bad!
Commiserations once, and congrats twice then, Uncle K.
[Phil] Ta! Of course, the new job would have helped to pay for the other two...
Hurrah for Uncle!
[UK] How did the play go? Bad luck about the job, sure there's another (and hopefully better) one waiting for you.
Reminder
Which reminds me - congrats to Nadia, and thanks for the cheque.
[Lib] Play went astonishingly well, as it happens... no major cock-ups anywhere, and I managed to learn all of my lines in time for the opening night (which helps)! Still a little puzzled about the job, as I felt I gave a cracking interview, I fulfilled the criteria, and I'm a redeployment case, so I get preferential treatment (supposedly). I'm going to take them up on their offer of a feedback interview - I'm hoping that it's because they decided to employ two people who were excellent, rather than not employing me because I was crap.
someone say something!
[UK] Congrats. And the right job will come up at the right time :o)
In other news, I have resumed salsa dancing after a 7 week break during the summer, and I'm pleased to report I haven't lost my mojo. The plan is to do it at least twice a week, sometimes three times a week over the winter. I may need encouragement. I most certainly will need new black leather dancing shoes, as my pale suede ones just look odd in the winter :o)
In other news, I have resumed salsa dancing after a 7 week break during the summer, and I'm pleased to report I haven't lost my mojo. The plan is to do it at least twice a week, sometimes three times a week over the winter. I may need encouragement. I most certainly will need new black leather dancing shoes, as my pale suede ones just look odd in the winter :o)
*is still trying to work out what rab meant in his last post - even tho' it's none of her business*
not saying nuthin'
I should not smile at the misfortune at others but the goings on between the England RFU and Saracens. You have the RFU trying to tell the team which position to play him so he is ready for the national side. Someone payed a kings ransom for Andy Farrell as an instant fix, but is quickly turning into a farce.
Good morning everyone. Good weekend?
[pen] Not bad, thanks, except my team lost twice, including a shut-out on Sunday. re - what you were saying about job prospects... I'm now following up an internal vacancy as a junior press officer.
[pen] Weekend was tolerable considering I had to work from 11am till midnight friday, saturday and sunday. Thankfully have today off to recover/revise. How was yours, pen?
[pen] Owwww, my head hurts - hence, yes I had a great weekend, thanks.
[Lib] Full, thanks! Thursday night = new salsa class (made my legs ache - a good thing); Friday night - party in a bar in Soho to celebrate west end transfer of a play directed by a 'friend' of mine (pay £6 on the door to buy expensive drinks in a room full of people all trying to work out who's famous); Saturday - Tennyson Society service in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, followed by lunch and a visit to the Dickens (yawn) museum on Doughty Street; then out for a chinese meal with the Bloke; Sunday - light shopping in Ealing, and my second parking ticket of the week :o(. I am not going out this week!
[pen] Going out just causes more problems than it solves, in my experience. And oddly, I've just remembered we have nothing defrosted for dinner. Curses.
[nights] I have a blog called : "So What Are you Having For Tea Tonight?" which is meant to address that problem, but I haven't written enough of it yet.
[nights] Can't you just stick something in the microwave? Or get a takeaway.
[penelope] Was the Ealing trip to seek out/purchase a light? Or do you have varying degrees of shopping gravitas? And you should avoid parking illegally, IMHO.
[Phil] We didn't KNOW we were parking illegally! The sign was tiny, high up and camouflaged against adjacent scaffolding. And I have various degrees of shopping gravitas. In fact, I bought a test-piece of cookware - a black Columbian earthenware pot that can be used on the hob or in the oven. I have to 'season' (or do I mean 'temper'?) it tonight by boiling water in it for half an hour in the oven, to stop it being so porous. Lord knows how that works.
[pen] I do sincerely hope you didn't get the two parking tickets at the same place ;-) Seriously though, aren't there yellow lines and so on in your area?
Phil, I'm not daft. I got one last weekend in Notting Hill due to lying naked on a couch still having a very expensive facial at the time the parking ticket ran out, and another in Ealing on Sunday due to parking on a single yellow line on a Sunday afternoon. Anywhere other than London, Sunday afternoons on a single yellow would be OK, wouldn't they?
four
Do I spy candles on the MC5 logo? *brings out a cake *
Since the parking came under the council here the interpretations have become very strict and a lucrative income stream. The FM manager of our office is going to bring in a clamping policy for unauthorised parking in allocated staff areas, I can see trouble ahead. Our council members tend to see themselves above such policies, no smoking in Civic Buildings inc meeting rooms and private offices seems not to apply to them only officers and members of the public.
Since the parking came under the council here the interpretations have become very strict and a lucrative income stream. The FM manager of our office is going to bring in a clamping policy for unauthorised parking in allocated staff areas, I can see trouble ahead. Our council members tend to see themselves above such policies, no smoking in Civic Buildings inc meeting rooms and private offices seems not to apply to them only officers and members of the public.
Fork handles
The number of candles may be misleading - the site doesn't celebrate its 4th birthday until Jan 16th.
I, on the other hand, ...
Candles
I think someone has vandalised your menora rab. :o) MHROTD.
Happy Birthday rab
Drat - just missed saying it on the day itself
Unkempt
[Sierra, Chalky] Thanks.
More flat-based excitement this morning. The electricity went off during Mrs-rab-to-be's shower, which I thought was just a generic power cut since no fuses had tripped in our fusebox. A note of warning was sounded by the fact that our neighbour across the way wasn't experiencing any trouble, nor had anyone else called Scottish Power when I phoned them. The chap's been out and I'm told that the supply cable from the distribution box in the stairwell to our fuse box exploded as a result of too much load imposed on it by our shower (of all things - I would have thought the oven were more power-hungry). We were lucky it didn't cause a fire or disrupt the whole street's supply. Apparently it's all due to the fact that the previous owners (or their electrician) didn't inform Scottish Power that extra capacity would be needed when they did up the bathroom. There's quite a lot of things they didn't seem to do well, humph.
birthday shower
[Rab] Happy Belated Birthday... and commis for your water/electricity woes. You'll just have to boil up a few pans of water and take a bath together :o)
(rab) I think showers take 10 kW, or about 40 amps, which is a lot. With a 10-kW oven you could start a cottage indusry smelting iron ore.
Exploding Cables
[rab] They didn't find the homonculus you made from bits of dead bodies in the cellar or the high-voltage equipment needed to reanimate it then?
Good to see that the legendary Scottish parsimony extends to the current carrying capacity of domestic wiring. "Just enough and nae morrrrrrre, d'ye ken?".
Good to see that the legendary Scottish parsimony extends to the current carrying capacity of domestic wiring. "Just enough and nae morrrrrrre, d'ye ken?".
[Rosie] Yes, 40A would cause quite a glow...
[SMike] Nice theory, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that the electrics probably haven't been upgraded since they were installed. I estimate that this would have been around about the time that electricity was invented, given that the block was erected in 1897.
1897
Presumably the wiring spec was predicated on the widespread use of the household Wimshurst Machine to make up the difference for those high-current spinning wheels and so forth.
High amperage
In America the current per watt would be at least twice what it is here and the said shower would take nearly 90 amps. The wires would need to have four times the cross-sectional area. I suppose they know this. It does have the advantage of being safer, at least in one aspect.
Hi all (and everyone else)
Brief and forced hiatus there. Nothing to worry about, moving up to university for my second year. All very exciting. Now living in the delightful town of Royal Leamington Spa, and after around a month there's finally internet in our household.
[Tuj]Good to see you back, and good luck and enjoy your second year
If I wanted to find out about Nail Fungus, I can't think of a better place to go.
Tuj] Welcome back too. Whereabouts in Leam? I grew up in Warwick and went to school in Leam. One of the first places outside the big cities to have curry houses back in the early 70s, doncherknow.
Names
I hope this won't offend, but I would like to know how to pronounce the names "Tuj" and "Irouléguy" properly. Please excuse if this breaks etiquette in some way.
[Sierra] ih-RULE-eh-GEE (hard G, primary stress on RULE). I'm not sure about Tuj but most people at pilgs say "Tudge" (thus revealing that we talk about you non-attendees behind your backs).
[SM] Yes, I'd go "tudge", though oddly most people I'd talk to who've seen the name have the first instinct "toozh" (vowel like "smooth" consonant like "pleasure". Irouléguy's a good one to learn - daft as I am I initially thought it was a bizarre variation on naming himself "I rule" Guy.
[Darren] Oh dear oh dear. I'd hate to think what.
[Irouléguy] South Leam, Brunswick Street. Lovely part of the world, though I haven't tested any curries yet.
[Inkers] Thanks very much!
[Darren] Oh dear oh dear. I'd hate to think what.
[Irouléguy] South Leam, Brunswick Street. Lovely part of the world, though I haven't tested any curries yet.
[Inkers] Thanks very much!
SM] Mine's from a French appelation controllée.
Tuj] It wasn't daft. A lot of people thought that until I got the chance to explain it at a pilg.
There's a number of decent pubs on the Radford Road, but I don't know south Leam otherwise - I did most of my drinking in town and north Leam. If you get over to Warwick, the Zetland in Church Street is a lovely boozer.
Tuj] It wasn't daft. A lot of people thought that until I got the chance to explain it at a pilg.
There's a number of decent pubs on the Radford Road, but I don't know south Leam otherwise - I did most of my drinking in town and north Leam. If you get over to Warwick, the Zetland in Church Street is a lovely boozer.
[Irouléguy] I may have been the only person to recognize the AC, and guess the pronunciation :-) I'd be interested to know if anyone else did.
BANG!
What I did at the weekend. Recording thanks to Pave's cameraphone.
[Phil, Irouléguy] I didn't spot the appelation controllée; I don't even know what one is.
[Knobbly] It's a system the French use for wines which ensures that only wine made in a particular place (or in a particular way) can bear a particular name. The most famous example is Champagne.
[Tuj] I would automatically say Toozh, although there's a vague sense in my head that it could be a to-eye (but not quite like that, sort of using the Russian "bI" sound, where the "j" implies palatisation.
Er, in fact like the second person in Russian.)
[Phil] I based an AVMA on I's AC quite a while ago. I'm quite sure INJ knows it as well.
[tuj] Toodge, in my head.
[tuj] Toodge, in my head.
jiff
I read 'tuj' as tudge. But then again everyone knows I talk funny.
twee
Iroul's AC I vaguely recognised, though I don't think I've ever drunk it. 'Tuj' is 'tudge' for me (unless it's 'tüy')
(Néa) Real Player comes up but just sits there, doing nothing. Any ideas? (flerdle) No funnier than me because that's how I say it.
Names
[Tuj, Irouléguy] Thanks. Sorry if that seemed dense. I had been hearing them as "Toy" and "I rule a gye". Thank Jod we didn't meet yet.
[Néa] It works for me :-)
Crikey, three arbitrary letters and so many different pronunciations! And is it just me who thinks Néa's sounds like someone spitting?
(Néa) It does. I'm going to play it all night. You are the Scandinavian Charlotte Green. (I hope that means something to you). :-)
(Tuj) Arbitrary? You mean your real name is Herbert?
[Rosie] As in Spotty Herbert? Not Herbert but yes to the arbitrary. If you sift some of the conversations we've had about name anagramming I'm sure you could find what it is.
Charlotte Green is me!
[Rosie] It does, and I'm deeply touched :-)
Herbaceous
(Tuj) There's a difference between being a herbert and being a Herbert. Fain would I suggest you were the former, or now, the latter, even. Where are these conversations? Are they in Another Place, or Mc-Eye-oss, as I call it?
Nice to see MC5 back!
[Darren] Indeed!
[Rosie, belatedly] I believe somewhere far up this very page, though probably on the Scots Ios also.
[Rosie, belatedly] I believe somewhere far up this very page, though probably on the Scots Ios also.
Out(r)age
Sorry for the outages. The server suffers mysterious reboots, up to two a day, and for no reason we can discern. Usually it comes back up again automatically, but sometimes it doesn't - usually when the person with the reboot password is on holiday or something. That's what happened this weekend. We're trying to arrange a test of the hardware (which we don't physically have access to - in fact, I'm not even sure I know where it is) to see what's going on.
Rats!
That was me, by the way.
[rab] I think we knew that - and I had thought to myself rab wouldn't be so careless as to name himself 'rat' so it must be some sort of subtle post-modern ironic thingy equating to that saying 'the first rat to desert the sinking ship' - not that MC5 is, or even was, a sinking ship, I hasten to add, but it just might have seemed like that to you and others who expend their valuable time keeping it all afloat so when it went down, so to speak, you may have imagined that it looked as though you were sort of deserting it, in a manner of speaking ... Is that too too much? Perhaps I ought to shut up now ....
(Chalky) Do you realise that you have just posted the longest sentence in the Morniverse? Would it be indelicate to suggest a degree of insobriety?
[Rosie] I'd venture, before we make any such suggestion regarding Chalky, to suggest that we first need to establish beyond what I can only call a reasonable level of doubt that she has indeed posted what you have called the very longest sentence that has been seen in the Morniverse, or whether, by virtue of an insufficiency of time, you have been unable to research for yourself the quite startlingly good game we played quite some time ago now - but there it is: the history of the great game as played online becomes lengthier by the day - of a variant of MC, which is most commonly referred to as Long-Winded Crescent, having established which, and assuming our conclusion to be the latter, I could do no better, I feel, than to refer you to that most masterly achievement - in particular the contributions made by the much-missed Watty - and perhaps even, were it not for a want of time on my own part, suggest a new round of the same.
[Rosie] Not so m'dear - just a feeble attempt at stream-of-consciousness-posting. Silly stuff really :-)
[Projoy] Excellent idea
[Projoy] Excellent idea
Prolixity
(Projoy) Brilliant Victoriana! L-WC must be before my timeI'll believe you.:-) here - I'll look it up. (Chalky) Mm, no spelling mistakes, so
What happened there? "I'll believe you. :-)" should be at the end, not stuck in the middle. Do you believe me?
Maybe it just jumpsTuj
Make ways
[Projoy]LWMC came to an end before I can across !York but was still much talked about, and would welcome a revival the only black cloud on the horizon is I feel that such a game that requires forethought and patience to create the moves I wonder whether todays players have the stamina. The games that appear to be popular are those that can be played with a quick visit play a short one liner or couple of games then off elsewhere. Games that require thought are few, I hazard the when AVMA clue disappears off the page and goes off the page into the second page involvement drops off to one or two plus the setter. I would very much like to be wrong and for LWMC to be a success played by more than three players after the first week. "MC Works on the Tracks" can be killed off to make way.
Anyone got a link into the archives for it, then?
You can post links on this site, you know.
How curious; Tuj's link didn't work and after I posted mine it did. Anyway, them's the ones.
Hmmm. Might I suggest this game be revived after NaNoWriMo finishes, since some of us will be directing our wordiness in that direction for the month of November?
[flerdle] You must have caught Tuj's link in the few seconds I was converting it from just being written as plain text to a proper link, and getting it wrong in the process...
[rab] ahhhhh, i see...
[rab] You mean you sit there behind my computer checking everything that everyone writes and mending it where necessary? How diligent!
[rab] Hmm, how I forgot to put that as a link I'm not sure. I think I was just excited about visiting the !Yorkives again. Thanks for the fix.
Anyway, I think I was thinking of flerdle's second link primarily. But I'd back Darren's suggestion, as we can also bring games to a more natural end.
Anyway, I think I was thinking of flerdle's second link primarily. But I'd back Darren's suggestion, as we can also bring games to a more natural end.
I saw hundreds of real, live Greengrocer's Apostrophe's in the greengrocer's at lunch time today. There is no danger of extinction there.
Greengrocer's Apostrophe's
[penelope] I understand what you mean by the term, but how did the phenomenon come to be called that? Is it a British phrase?
British phrase's
(SM) As far as I know it is. Are you from the America's or possibly The Antipode's? It arose because greengrocers often advertise their wares with the extraneous apostrophe, thus: Tomato's, potato's, cabbage's etc etc. Simple as that.
Continuing my tour of traditional British establishments this evening, some colleagues and I ventured out to play Bingo at a big Bingo Hall in Slough (not far from Slough Bus Station which features in the opening credits of 'The Office'). We got hostile stares from the regulars... we played two games (£5 very quickly spent, in my opinion, but we could have picked up £15,000 on one national game) and left to go mand find something to eat. But I have to say, the staff who explained how to play before we went in were great, and gracefully accepted our apologies for calling out two false alarms when we thought we'd won, as we made out early exit. It's a bloody complicated game, Bingo. Next office outing is either horse racing, or to the dogs in Walthamstow ;o)
(pen) Bingo? The dogs? Can't fool me - you're posh, really, aren't you? :-)
[Rosie] Coming to that conclusion, yes :o(
Clocking in
Just posting this to see what time the server thinks it is.
mild gloat
I'm very happy and wanted a little gloat. Hope you'll excuse me! I was given a diamond this morning. Necklace, not ring (would be too soon I feel). Very small, but its a diamond! No one has ever given me one before! No occasion. Just cos he loves me. Its nice to be loved. I'll shut up now.
sparkling
How could you be so heartless to accept it, Lib? That's probably the poor bloke's drinking-money-for-a-week now suspended from your neck. Soppy blokes - honestly!
(Dujon) Maybe your drinking money for a week. I wouldn't presume to know. :-)
[Lib] I am not so chauvenistic. Congratulations, your first girl's best friend.
MCIOS down
Can't get anything to go in though Preview works. Anybody know what's happened?
It's down now. I'm not sure what the problem is. Disk error, perhaps. This may be serious. I'm connected but there's not much I can do. I'll let you know.
Curiouser-er
That was really odd. The disk was in a peculiar state and very few commands functioned. Notably, I couldn't reboot it using any of the usual commands. (It's in a locked machine room at a colocation facility three miles from here and it's after 11:00 at night so pushing the button was not an option.) I did manage to force it into a reboot state somewhat more directly, and it came back promptly with everything seemingly fine. I'm doing an unscheduled backup now since today's didn't have a chance to occur at its normal time.
MCIOS
(Dan) Working OK now. Thanks, as ever.
Blue skies
Cold snap this morning with ice on the car, cross my fingers that this will remind the grass to stop growing.
Brrrr
I'm glad there was a frost today too. I'm hoping it'll make the slugs that terrorise my rabbit and eat her food go away. I've tried beertraps but the rabbit knocks them over and drinks the beer!
Cold snap
It's distinctly cold here in sunny Bath too - but then, this is why November is my favourite month!
Dodgy climatology
(nights) Dec, Jan, Feb and March are all colder than Nov, the last two sunnier as well.
ah but ... those particular months aren't adorned with spectacular autumnal colours. I'm with nights on this one.
Early November is my M's birthday... and since my father died, she and I have celebrated it by taking a city holiday to do the galleries and museums - Venice, Florence, Rome - and this year, Paris. On Wednesday for five days. I like November too :oD
Ooh, Paris in November. Sounds amazing. Have a magnificent time. After my exam I'm going to a health spa with my Mum, and she's paying! Hurrah! Send a postcard to the crescent if you can!
Autumn leaves
(Chalky) Yeah, OK, but it's still pretty well all green here ATM. Most leaves have hardly changed colour let alone fallen off the trees, probably due to the very warm and rather wet Sept/Oct. Climatological analysis shows that we should start trying to get used to this sort of thing.
I'm really going to miss Autumn.
Don't worry, nights, you'll get over her. Change your working hours to something a little more sociable and you'll find someone else in no time.
Chortle, chortle.
* hibernates for the next 4 months *
*decides she's done the "I hate the darkness" spiel sufficiently often for people to be as tired of it as she is of the dark*
Darkness
Talking of darkness, there was apparently a major power blackout across Europe last night, centred on Cologne in Germany. Given that's precisely where I was at the time, and furthermore, that I returned on a 10am flight with only 30mins delay, and only found out about it once I'd got back to the UK suggests either that I am, truly, the least observant person the world has ever seen, that the Germans know how to handle a crisis, or that I'm actually going mad. I shudder to think what effect such an event would have had on British transportation.
oh to be migratory
I'd send you the extra daylight I've got from all this daylight saving thing down here, but I think you'd have to come and get it yourselves, as it sort of deteriorates in the post. Only nat has taken up the offer so far, but I'm sure I could find some extra hammocks somewhere if need be. And Pounds (Euros etc) can buy a lot of Ozzie Dollas.
(rab) The power cut was attributed in some places to the cold weather, which is nonsense, and people just jumping on the Global Warming bandwagon. Don't forget that all departures from average of more than one microkelvin are caused by Global Warming and on this account we should be Very Afraid. From what you say the power cut was not as widespread as media reports suggested. Well, I never!
Hot under the collar
[rab] Yes, it was even reported here in a few pars of my local paper. 30 minutes downtime - THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH. Mind you I wouldn't like to have been stuck in a lift for that length of time. Kudos to the bloke/sheila who hit the button to get it all on line again.
[Rosie] I love it when journalist highlight the fact that something is the hottest/coldest since 1912 (or summat). I love it even more when they start averaging averages. Aargh.
[Rosie] I love it when journalist highlight the fact that something is the hottest/coldest since 1912 (or summat). I love it even more when they start averaging averages. Aargh.
(Dujon) Nothing average about November here so far; 6 consecutive sunny days, almost unheard of and well over half the month's normal meagre ration. It's all horizontal, of course, making driving impossible in certain directions and furthermore, shines in my window, waking me up far too early and showing up all the dust. But you can see the sky at night, which is great. Unbelievably (to most) there is still a Drought Order in East Surrey even though it's been pretty wet recently because the water has not yet replenished the aquifers. It won't have done, because the deficit was huge.
Hmmm....
According to the only report I can find that mentions it, the power cut was at about 10pm CET and lasted about half an hour. I think this would have been as I was walking back to my hotel from a concert - but even then I think I would have noticed an absence of street lighting... How very curious,
Greengrocer's Apostrophe's
Not exactly apropos but I thought you might be amused by a notice I saw in the window of my local Costcutters, thus:
"Get your freshly roasted chicken sold here".
"Get your freshly roasted chicken sold here".
Not quite what I meant
(Kim) Similarly, in Whitehorse Road, Croydon, there are notices informing us of the presence of "Traffic Enforcement Cameras" which seem to be saying "There WILL be traffic; we will enforce it; Don't you DARE not drive along this road. If you turn off down Gloucester Road we'll 'ave you." The funny thing is that there are no speed cameras, not that it makes much difference what with the parked cars, buses, traffic lights and pizza delivery boys with their blithe incompetence.
You could ask him over
Apologies
...for spurious entries - am sidegrading some stuff elsewhere on the server and want to make sure this site is unaffected.
Just out of interest, why is there a page that doesn't convey much information about the site on www.rab.org.uk? It's as if you don't want to let people in who don't think to add '/mc' on the end.
Front page
(i) Time; (ii) Googling my real name finds the front page and I'm not keen on advertising to my bosses how much time I spend on such frivolity.
Morning everyone. Lack of chat. What's the state of play?
"today we have stating of play .."
Hi pen :-)
OK here goes:
Banter Game - predict it will burst into activity now you've asked the question
Regurgitated Cheddars - disappearing up its own jacksy [as per usual] although Kim's recent contribution may spawn some interesting responses
AVMA Take 2 - Clever Raak has just slipped in there and beaten Irouléguy to the correct answer. Looks set for a new challenge so a possible frenzy of posting in the next 24 hours?
Cleri Who's Who - trundling along nicely. Time for someone to introduce a new one. That might be me if I get there in time.
Pea & Honey Recipes - is just awaiting a killer last line on the latest ditty.
Each Move Must Consist Of .. - zut alors!
AVMA PART 2 - has had a record number of entries since the First of November. That's because we all love telling lies.
MC Works On The Tracks - has gone very quiet. Perhaps there's a power failure.
The Obligatory Limericks - yay! Is about to launch into a classic cartoons fest. Hope everyone joins in. :-)
Concerning Torments - Pill Weng Lay
OK here goes:
Banter Game - predict it will burst into activity now you've asked the question
Regurgitated Cheddars - disappearing up its own jacksy [as per usual] although Kim's recent contribution may spawn some interesting responses
AVMA Take 2 - Clever Raak has just slipped in there and beaten Irouléguy to the correct answer. Looks set for a new challenge so a possible frenzy of posting in the next 24 hours?
Cleri Who's Who - trundling along nicely. Time for someone to introduce a new one. That might be me if I get there in time.
Pea & Honey Recipes - is just awaiting a killer last line on the latest ditty.
Each Move Must Consist Of .. - zut alors!
AVMA PART 2 - has had a record number of entries since the First of November. That's because we all love telling lies.
MC Works On The Tracks - has gone very quiet. Perhaps there's a power failure.
The Obligatory Limericks - yay! Is about to launch into a classic cartoons fest. Hope everyone joins in. :-)
Concerning Torments - Pill Weng Lay
"Eleven and a half hours later"
Ah well - it seems that all the games are moving along nicely - except this one. Come on you lot! Talk to us.:-)
What do you want me to say?
(Chalky) You OK these days? I get the impression you are. :-)
[Rosie] H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y!
[and yes, thanks, I'm definitely on the mend]
[and yes, thanks, I'm definitely on the mend]
[Chalky] Good to hear.
[Rosie] Happy Birthday, young man :o)
[Chalks] Pleased to hear it - and thank you for doing the run-down. What I actually meant was 'what's the state of play in everyone's lives?' Mine's OK, Paris was great but came back with a rotten cold which has made this week miserable. I'm looking forward to a weekend at home, most of it spent lounging in bed with my laptop, and the rest perhaps grappling with some severe pruning in the garden. I am going to roast a chicken too. All welcome.
[Chalks] Pleased to hear it - and thank you for doing the run-down. What I actually meant was 'what's the state of play in everyone's lives?' Mine's OK, Paris was great but came back with a rotten cold which has made this week miserable. I'm looking forward to a weekend at home, most of it spent lounging in bed with my laptop, and the rest perhaps grappling with some severe pruning in the garden. I am going to roast a chicken too. All welcome.
[pen] Ouch. Hope you have a relaxing, restorative weekend. I'm still doing the study, not always successfully; saw the "Earth from the Air" exhibition last weekend (fabulous), as well as wandered around St Kilda (can anyone say "cake shops"?), bought a hat, looked at Luna Park but didn't go on any rides because it costs $7 a pop; and turned 30 for the sixth time. There were around 7 small hailstorms on Tuesday. I am growing peas, silverbeet and tomatoes. Apart from that, not much is happenning. OH, except that nat arrives on Monday, if she survives Syderney.
[flerdle and pen] Thanks. And sorry pen - I was being a bit facetious mainly because I had nothing of interest to say. Although .. I suppose I could have bored everyone rigid with tales of hospital procedures, ill-behaved sixteen year olds, cars that die on the dual carriageway because the alternator has packed in, etc etc. Am also looking forward to a stress-free weekend.
[Rosie] Happy Birthday! *raises glass*
[Chalks] Glad you're on the mend. Sixteen year olds are quite a handful so good luck with that!
As for me, well, I'm throughly fed up revising for an exam which costs seven hundred quid to take, only 30% of the people pass it, has more content than my finals did and I'm working junior doctor crazy hours. The exams in 18 days or something. And it doesn't get much better if I pass it, cos then the second part is at the end of Jan and is a day trip to London for personal humiliation. Sigh. But on the whole I'm quite happy!
[Chalks] Glad you're on the mend. Sixteen year olds are quite a handful so good luck with that!
As for me, well, I'm throughly fed up revising for an exam which costs seven hundred quid to take, only 30% of the people pass it, has more content than my finals did and I'm working junior doctor crazy hours. The exams in 18 days or something. And it doesn't get much better if I pass it, cos then the second part is at the end of Jan and is a day trip to London for personal humiliation. Sigh. But on the whole I'm quite happy!
Felicitations
(Ladies) Thank you all very much. I too raise a glass. It's embarrassing - I got presents from both my nieces. I hope they don't think I'm now some impoverished old dodderer because that's hardly the case. They're just v. nice and can say things to Uncle T that they couldn't say to Dad. (Lib) Why on earth does it cost £700 to sit an exam? Don't they want qualified people? *scratches head*.
Plonk
[Rosie] Many happies.
We had the window fitter come round to talk astragals and snib fasteners on Wednesday, should have nice new, thermally insulated and (hopefully) draught-free windows fitted at the beginning of December. We're currently trying not to get too carried away with booking our honeymoon, as it looks like it would be very easy to spend a lot of money that we won't have once the windows have been sorted, and we've got round to reversing the damage done to the flat by the previous occupants... But the boiler is fixed, at long last.
I'm also finally getting around to writing a lecture course I'm giving in January. Hopefully all this will still leave me time to do the work for and write and a paper for a suitably high-prestige journal (looking ahead to RAE next autumn). What fun.
Busy and expensive, rab. Good luck with all.
Is anyone able to explain to me why pizzas are so expensive? I've not partaken of one of these overpriced pieces of *&%^$ for years but it still puzzles me. Around my part of the woods a small pizza seems to average out around the AUD20 mark - sans delivery - (that's about £8 in UK money). Heaven only knows what a family size would be. For about AUD5 (£2) I can purchase a hearty steak sandwich including lettuce, beetroot, egg and tomato as a take-away. For the price of a pizza I could have a slap up meal and a schooner of beer at my local club.
Is anyone able to explain to me why pizzas are so expensive? I've not partaken of one of these overpriced pieces of *&%^$ for years but it still puzzles me. Around my part of the woods a small pizza seems to average out around the AUD20 mark - sans delivery - (that's about £8 in UK money). Heaven only knows what a family size would be. For about AUD5 (£2) I can purchase a hearty steak sandwich including lettuce, beetroot, egg and tomato as a take-away. For the price of a pizza I could have a slap up meal and a schooner of beer at my local club.
(Dujon) Could be that they were once fashionable and originally the sellers could charge what they liked. They are maintaining the fiction that they cost a lot to make (simply can't be true) and people fall for it. It's distressing easy to relieve people of money - I've even seen people buying bottles of water but maybe their mains supply has been cut off and dehydration, especially in our climate, is an insidious and dangerous condition to be avoided at all costs.
pizza
They're about $7 or $8 down the road, for "large" (8 slices). Possibly $10 for maximum toppings. Sounds like it's your area, Dujon.
Forgetfulness
*happybirthdays to flerdle and Rosie and then to flerdle again*
The best pizza ever
Best pizza ever was 3 euros, from a scruffy cafe in Herculano, a suburb of Naples. My mother and I had thoroughly examined the Roman ruins in the old town of Herculaneum, which was destroyed by the same volcano that did for Pompeii. However, instead of being covered with hot ash, it was covered with a mudslide, which preserved the internal decorations of the villas - I have some fab photos of the murals and wall decorations, which are still very, very clear. Anyway, we passed this cafe on the way back to the train, argued with the patron to sit inside (I think he thought we looked like we could afford to sit outside, where they add a premium to the price of your meal)and had just the freshest, tastiest, thinnest crusty pizza ever. And paid less than 10 euros for two people, with drinks.
Oooh, flerdle, another gong! Happy Birthday :o)
Oooh, flerdle, another gong! Happy Birthday :o)
(Néa) Don't quite follow that. Has flerdle had two birthdays in quick succession? Tempus fugit, certainly, but surely not that fast.
Don't laugh, these are famous last words
Is there anywhere in the Morniverse where we discuss current series of ISIHAC when they're on?
(Tuj) You naughty boy, you nicked that from Humph in tonight's show, where it had a certain resonance. It doesn't seem we actually discuss the show very much. Maybe it's just bad form to do so rather like middle-aged jazz fans not actually talking about (or even listening to) the music they're hearing but preferring to exchange jazz-related gossip, news, who's good, who's crap, who's playing where etc. The actual raison d'être for the yakking is taken for granted in both cases.
[Tuj] Some of us don't think the show is much good. The fact that I haven't actually listened to the show since before you were born is irrelevant to this observation.
There's a show?
[Rosie] Not stolen, quoted as a preface... Nice to see it wasn't just me listening! Your reasoning is pretty much what I expected... less so CdM, but then one can't argue with the old "before you were born" argument... Might as well start saying "things were better in my day" (which mind you gets by with less justification).
[SM] A popular outlet for the game of Mornington Crescent is the long-running BBC radio prgramme I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue. It's currently available through the BBC's listen again service, which is smashing.
[SM] A popular outlet for the game of Mornington Crescent is the long-running BBC radio prgramme I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue. It's currently available through the BBC's listen again service, which is smashing.
(Tuj) Parts of the show don't always work but I suspend my critical faculties, remembering that the whole thing is a kind of in-joke, like Red Dwarf or Blake's Seven. But other parts have me creased with laughter. How does CdM know how old you are? Is he your Dad or sunnink?
Blimey!
It's 14.45 here, and it's dark already - due to very heavy rainclouds, I suspect, but it's very, very gloomy for this time of day. Incidentally, I drove around the Crescent at around midnight last night. I thought I saw the ghost of Willie Rushton crossing the road in front of me.
[Rosie] Probably working off the fact I mentioned starting my second year of university not long ago. Maybe? As far as I know CdM is not my father... but you never know...
(Tuj) Ah, so you're about 20. Such bliss! (pen) Same here. I put the light on at half two, expecting the end of the world meteorologically but no, bit of rain, bit breezy, mild, boring. It's about time we had an event which I can go on and on about.
[Rosie] A good 7 months 'til I'm that venerable ;)
Terribly gloomy weather today here in the Midlands. Sitting listening to Test Match Special, ah what bliss.
Terribly gloomy weather today here in the Midlands. Sitting listening to Test Match Special, ah what bliss.
Wales Vs New Zealand
Good weather on the 5 day forecast for round here over the weekend, so will probably do a trip to Westonbirt. I'll be avoiding the Ashes and watching the second match between England and South Africa to see whether the win by England was a flash in the pan. World Cup next September and still rebuilding the team.
[Tuj] I knew your approximate age from long before that -- I think you identified yourself as 16 or 17 when you first started posting, didn't you? And I wasn't trying to make a serious "before you were born" argument. I used to listen to the show about 25 years ago, and thought it was only moderately funny. I haven't listened since, since I wasn't in radio range, and haven't bothered since these new-fangled internets came along. So my comment was supposed to be mainly tongue-in-cheek: that it is perhaps ridiculous of me to comment on the quality of the show when it is so long since I have heard it. On the other hand, nothing I have heard quoted at any of these sites actually makes me think it is any better than it used to be.
[CdM] I actually found it genuinely interesting to make such a "before you were born" statement. I have a feeling I identified myself as 14 the first time I posted... 5 years ago come April. How very very peculiar. Anyway... aren't you tempted to give it a listen from time to time?
[CdM] Odd question perhaps, but why did you get involved in the online MC sites if you don't like the show? (For what it's worth, I do like it and listen to it a lot.)
[Tuj] Genuinely interesting how? It was, as I said, meant tongue-in-cheek -- I thought it was pretty funny when I realized that it was indeed before you were born that I last listened to the show, and so I couldn't resist the chance to play the old fogey. And is it really five years since you started posting?? Wow. I definitely remember when you first showed up.
[Darren] I think we are funnier than they are. :-) (The one time I don't like these sites very much is when people simply use them as an excuse to recycle old jokes/monty python skits/etc. I think that the original humor that people create here is, at its best, really impressive.) Also, I prefer the active participation to passive listening.
[Darren] I think we are funnier than they are. :-) (The one time I don't like these sites very much is when people simply use them as an excuse to recycle old jokes/monty python skits/etc. I think that the original humor that people create here is, at its best, really impressive.) Also, I prefer the active participation to passive listening.
Ageing
I'm not trying to think how long I've been pottering around the crescent. I think its about four years.... I don't really listen to the show as I forget its on, and I don't participate much as I'm really not that amusing. But I do appreciate other people's fine wit and wisdom.
[CdM] I don't know, I'm easily pleased I guess! And I apologise profusely for whatever you remember me for, as it's a fairly safe bet it wasn't anything amusing. I'd sum up myself the same way Lib does, except a bit longer time, listen a bit more and am much less amusing.
[Tuj] Gosh Tuj, you are having a bit of a crisis of confidence, with your comments elsewhere and here. Hope you're all right. *hug* I think you're very amusing and witty. But in my opinion that's why the crescent is great. There are a lot of witty people around who all appreciate the finer puns in life, some who realise how witty they are and others who do not. All together it makes a good mix.
Am I being over sentimental today? Hmmm.
[Néa] Thanks. :-)
Off to Sydney for a week. yay, I think.
Off to Sydney for a week. yay, I think.
[Lib] No, you're being a kind sweetie, as always!
[CdM] I tend to think that ISIHAC is funnier on average than these sites, but that these sites achieve far more impressive things (like Stratford-on-Crescent). [Tuj] I remember you as being nascently witty and very mature at fourteen. Certainly more so than I was at that age. I've always been rather grateful that there was no web until I was about nineteen. God knows what gaucheness I should have committed to amber otherwise. :)
Wibble
I always feel that my attitude to the Internet must be similar to that of my grandparents to, say, television, in that since it didn't exist until I was over the age of 18, that its somehow unsuitable for minors.
[Tuj] What Projoy said.
The er, internet thingy
(rab) I think a more prevalent attitude among older people is that the Internet, far from being unsuitable for minors, is in fact suitable only for these youngsters, who are suckers for any new technology. I don't agree with this view and think the Internet has now become something extremely useful for people of all ages and you all know how old I am. One less agreeable feature it has revealed is the large number of people who cannot marshal their thoughts into a coherent written form and are frankly a bit stupid. That's the price we pay for Extreme Democracy, but it's worth it.
ISIHAC
This site is an ISIHAC spin-off and is not meant to be the live show, which is both greater and lesser than the Morniverse, as Projoy implies. For instance, I think The Game Of Mornington Crescent only works live (like Pick-up Song) and attempts to reproduce it here lack the edge of ISIHAC. But other games (and the chat) are great and much more suited to the written word.
Today's news
Saw Casino Royale in Holloway last night. Pretty good - entertaining - which is the least I'd expect. Inexplicably dizzy this morning - I think this long running cold is affecting my ears. Also got an invitation to a N Yorks cocktail party (pint of bitter with a cherry in it) to be held just before Christmas from some friends I haven't seen for months, if not years, which was lovely. And there are still three unopened packets of biscuits in the office, which is good, because I'm flat out this week. :o)
Windows
We're getting our windows installed next week.
*Disdains weak joke about computer software.*
winders
[Rab] Wonderful. Have you thought about venetian blinds?
Just remember, if it wasn't for blinds, it'd be curtains for all of us.
*groans* so you don't have to
Just remember, if it wasn't for blinds, it'd be curtains for all of us.
*groans* so you don't have to
[Rosie] I considered asking them if they'd install MacOS instead...
[pen] We're not keen on venetian blinds - currently that's what we've got in the bedroom and it's horrible. Getting curtains made instead, whee.
Blinds
[rab] Did you consider vertical blinds with a pattern of ducks on them? Then you would have duck blinds.
New windows being fitted right now! At least, I hope the new ones fit in the hole that's just been opened...
Nice new windows, yay! More coming on Monday.
Hurrah!
Although I'm a bit concerned about the weather forecast...
Pardon me for barging in like this, but thought I'd mention that MCiOS is down and will remain down until at least midday today (Sunday 3 Dec). Apologies for the inconvenience.
It aten't dead yet...
Er, ignore that. Imagined this was MCiOS for some reason.
Okay, she ees back. Sorry and all that. Congratulations on the windows. Useful for defenestration purposes windows are, ye carn't defenestrate sans fenêtres y'know. By the way, given that I don't know what your place looks like, will a mental image of the flat from Shallow Grave serve? That's sort of my mental placeholder for Edinburgh dwellings.
(Oh, in case you haven't seen/can't remember it, the flat in that film was super awesome, like. Just in case it sounded like I was saying something negative because, like, I wasn't and stuff.) (Oh, and my wife made the curtains for the back of our house and they're really nice.)
Not quite as grand as the one on Shallow Grave - imagine one scaled down so as to be affordable by a junior academic and environmental consultant. I'll stick some pics up when the windows are done.
*tries the 'If it wasn't for venetian blinds, it'd be curtains for all of us' joke one more time.*
I'd don't get it. I mean, there's roller blinds as well, for one thing.
On the other hand, with a pencil and some paper you can simply draw your curtains.
Desperation
For the sake of keeping this going I hereby announce that I have had 68 mm rain this month, about three-quarters of the normal monthly total, and it's getting a bit squelchy. There's a lot more to come but fortunately up here we're unfloodable (almost).
merci buckets
Thanks Rosie. I *was* actually wondering if this December had been wetter than average or not. And I also wondered if the aquifers were filling up. If they're not, I'm going to give my hosepipe away.
new game?
Sometime just before November and NaNoWriMo, a game of Long Winded Crescent was suggested. There is a slot available ideal for the game and one which I never had the pleasure to play first time round.
The tornado in London shook people up, distance from the smoke being all, the 20 or so properties stuck in mid Wales last week did not register with the headline makers.
The tornado in London shook people up, distance from the smoke being all, the 20 or so properties stuck in mid Wales last week did not register with the headline makers.
Wetter
We're having lots of rain. I haven't measured it, but we're not supposed to have *any* rain in December. :-(
Hmmm
Fairly dry here, though I note Sunday is supposed to be wet and windy. One weather site is suggesting winds of 21mph, another (the BBC) 35mph. I note that 35kph=21mph, so I'm hoping the BBC has made a metric-imperial error...
(pen) If it carries on like this it'll be an extraordinarily wet month, but extrapolation based merely on the first week is always a bit fanciful. It has been quite a bit wetter south of London than to the north this time. The aquifers take a long time to fill up and are still quite low, I believe. When there's a long wet spell our local Bourne flows, the last time being in December 2000 when it shut the A22 at Whyteleafe for 3 weeks. There was sewage in it as well. It's hardly the Mississippi but it seemed quite beyond the local council to do anything about it.
(rab) You're in Edinburgh, are you not? 35 mph (force 7) looks about right from a look at the forecast synoptic chart. (Néa) The latest from GFS (American computer model) suggests that the lowest temperature in Stockholm in the next week will be 3°C and you will have yet more molten snow. I know that this is most unusual. The info comes from a German weather site called wetter3, oxymoronic in English if said in German, if you see what I mean.
la la la
Lovely and warm and dry here. The fruit trees are laden with ripening fruit and the vege patch is loaded. The roma tomatoes look particularly fine. Will have to bribe someone to look after it all over the Christmas-NewYear break (we're heading north, unfortunately). Any takers? Must prepare to be seriously confused about the Orstrayan Chrissie (sunny, hot, lack of snow and log fires, sun in wrong place, moon upside down, etc).
Forecast here for today (Sat.) is warm - around the 30ºC mark. We even had some rain overnight, a whole 0.7mm. It's probably already evaporated. Good luck with the fires down south, flerdle, we had our turn a couple of weeks ago. Most of them were up the mountains from me - probably 20Km or so - but we did have the choppers water bombing an outbreak just a few hundred metres away for a while. Probably an arsonist or carelessness on someone's part as we haven't had any lightning. Sydney's water supply is getting perilously low; last figures I saw indicated around the 38% level. This is not good when 4 to 5 million people rely on it. The long term prognosis for decent rain is not good so I guess we'll have to move to even tighter water restrictions. My wife, who's the gardner in our family, will not be impressed.
s/gardner/gardener.
[Dujon] The fires are a long way from the city (over in the east and northeast of the state), but the smoke is here. The forecast temperature for today in some of those areas is 39°C.
What does she grow, Dujon? I do vegetables because they're interesting and edible, and the fruit trees are just part of the place; the fruit is a bonus. If we're serious about water conservation in Aus, all dwellings should have tanks (like they used to), water-efficient appliances and greywater recycling systems, and as little lawn as possible; until then, I have little patience for complaints about water restrictions. Some of the more basic water restrictions are just common sense, such as not watering in the heat of the day. Unfortunately, renters (about 1/3 of households here) have no say in what their dwelling has, as the owners usually couldn't give a about it.
What does she grow, Dujon? I do vegetables because they're interesting and edible, and the fruit trees are just part of the place; the fruit is a bonus. If we're serious about water conservation in Aus, all dwellings should have tanks (like they used to), water-efficient appliances and greywater recycling systems, and as little lawn as possible; until then, I have little patience for complaints about water restrictions. Some of the more basic water restrictions are just common sense, such as not watering in the heat of the day. Unfortunately, renters (about 1/3 of households here) have no say in what their dwelling has, as the owners usually couldn't give a
Hidden text
fig[flerdle] For ourselves, at least as far as vegetables go, not all that much. A few tomato plants, parsley, beans and the like; no spuds or other root stock (though she's been threatened with such - by me). The only fruit we have is one of each of Lemon, Orange and Grapefruit trees. When we bought the place a few years ago they were dreadful looking excuses for citrus trees but a little TLC and they are now bearing quite well. The rest is shared between her 'garden' stuff and her interest in rearing native plants. 'Tis not unusual to have a couple of thousand tube stock around the place. These vary from seedlings to 'ready to plant' stock. Oh joy, oh joy, carting around a watering can to keep them all satisfied and looking perky. I'd love a water tank, I really would, but cost and the lack of water makes it somewhat unlikely at the moment. Still 'n all I only have a shower once a week so that should make up for some of my infelicity. ;-(
*mutter, mutter* At least they're not going on about the bloody cricket.
What cricket? oh, THAT cricket...
[Rosie] Tough luck :-)
[Dujon] Commiserations. What does she do with it all? My vege patch is only about 3 sq m, possibly extendable by another 2 sq m if I ever get the time and energy (hah!). I'm still working out what grows here and what doesn't, and what the new pests are. Earwigs love silverbeet, it seems.
[Dujon] Commiserations. What does she do with it all? My vege patch is only about 3 sq m, possibly extendable by another 2 sq m if I ever get the time and energy (hah!). I'm still working out what grows here and what doesn't, and what the new pests are. Earwigs love silverbeet, it seems.
Howzat?
[flerdle] It's amazing what can be grown in a relatively small area of a garden so I reckon the extra couple of square metres would be worth cultivating. While a couple of thousand tube stock sounds a lot, they too don't take up all that much space. The tubes sit in trays each of which holds 40 tubes and are about 400mm x 250mm (approx.).
What she does with them is a long story but, in essence, she is custodian of some of the stock of a local (Katoomba) wildplant rescue service.
Earwigs and silverbeet? It sounds an unlikely combination - isn't Mother Nature wonderful?
There you go, Rosie, not a mention of our evening noise makers.
What she does with them is a long story but, in essence, she is custodian of some of the stock of a local (Katoomba) wildplant rescue service.
Earwigs and silverbeet? It sounds an unlikely combination - isn't Mother Nature wonderful?
There you go, Rosie, not a mention of our evening noise makers.
Floating on air
937! Blimey, I see what you mean. I wonder if someone's making a killing shipping in oxygen tanks. Then again choppers may not stay afloat in that low a pressure.
Rosie, winning is only vulgar if you claim to have backed the victor with your local bookie and then refuse to buy a round. :-)
Rosie, winning is only vulgar if you claim to have backed the victor with your local bookie and then refuse to buy a round. :-)
Suck
(Dujon) It's down to 932 now. Won't go any lower though. N. Atlantic record is 915 mb, UK 925. There's a piece about Bourke NSW in today's Observer which says the current drought is on its way to turning the place into a ghost town and it all looks a bit serious. I assume this is the same regional drought that is affecting your area. We have the opposite problem here, especially in Scotland and Wales but floods occur in most winters here somewhere or other.
Saunafridge
Am I right in saying that the correct technical term for "trying to get your living room the same temperature as the bedroom" is "balancing the central heating system"? If so, or indeed, if not, does anyone know how to go about it. (Probably never achieve this completely, as living room is 2x size of said bedroom, is furthest from the boiler, and north-facing, but currently the former is too cold, and the latter too hot...).
[rab] I'm not ignoring you, I don't know the answer.
[Rosie] Yes, Bourke is about 650Km northwest from me (as the crow flies). 93% of NSW is officially drought affected. The remaining 7% would be the northeast - coastal strip - of the state which is always much wetter than the rest (there are some beautiful rainforest areas in that region).
Bourke is a genuine outback town and within that classification is fairly big - pop. around 4500 (though this includes outlying residents in a 40-odd thousand square kilometre shire area). There's a bit about the place, and some very basic weather stats, here.
[Rosie] Yes, Bourke is about 650Km northwest from me (as the crow flies). 93% of NSW is officially drought affected. The remaining 7% would be the northeast - coastal strip - of the state which is always much wetter than the rest (there are some beautiful rainforest areas in that region).
Bourke is a genuine outback town and within that classification is fairly big - pop. around 4500 (though this includes outlying residents in a 40-odd thousand square kilometre shire area). There's a bit about the place, and some very basic weather stats, here.
I have just successfully introduced two groups of friends to each other, both made initially through the net, and both based in Oxford. How satisfying :o)
(rab) If your radiators are individually thermostatically controlled then simply adjust them. If not, and this sounds more likely, they should have two valves, one at each end, one being a normal on-off valve, the other, hidden under a plastic cap, being a control or balancing valve. Prise off the plastic cap and adjust the control valve using a small adjustable spanner or some other tool. This will limit the flow through that radiator. If all this isn't possible simply turn off the rads in the bedroom until you need them. This will boost the flow through those in the living room. All this is based on my own system, which is steam age and installed in 1971. It still works very well.
(Dujon) Thanks for that. Bourke is not as dry as I would have thought, with 300 mm a year average though at those temperatures it would count as less than if the same amount fell in a cool climate. Parts of Essex have only about 520 mm a year but no-one would call it a desert, except culturally maybe. Woo! 'ark at 'im!
Rads
We have a rad that is temperamental and blackish water usually comes out when it is bled. To force the gunk out the whole system is having a power flush in the new year.
Has anyone else seen Casino Royale with Clive Owen? Took along my 12 year ld son and two of his mates last night. Really good (first "adult" film I've seen in ages) but one thing I did not understand was why the sea shell made him look at the messages on the mobile. Otherwise an enjoyable, very gritty, not indestructible bond.
Has anyone else seen Casino Royale with Clive Owen? Took along my 12 year ld son and two of his mates last night. Really good (first "adult" film I've seen in ages) but one thing I did not understand was why the sea shell made him look at the messages on the mobile. Otherwise an enjoyable, very gritty, not indestructible bond.
Things that make me go GRRRRR! I put my hands up to having not to good grammar and punctuation but somethings even take the biscuit for me. There was a trailer far a new film with Will Smith The Pursuit of Happyness !!!Happyness!!! Happyness!! What the....?? perhaps it is a concept thing.
[Inkspot] "Happyness" sounds (or I should say reads) like what the inhabitants of Brave New World have, something you get from a pill. Does that fit with the trailer?
me, procrastinating? never...
[rab] Dunno, heating is ducted here. I kept the house at 18C through the winter; without heating it was usually around 12C inside during the day. You could try using fewer blankets (not trying to be facetious either: the tendency of some people here is to use a giant quilt whatever the weather, which I really don't get). Good luck.
[pen] Well done :)
[Rosie] For very thorough Aus. climate stats go to dubdubdub.bom.gov.au . Evaporation rates out at Burke are very high, though I don't know how they calculate it. It was 42° here yesterday and 22° today. This place is crazy.
[pen] Well done :)
[Rosie] For very thorough Aus. climate stats go to dubdubdub.bom.gov.au . Evaporation rates out at Burke are very high, though I don't know how they calculate it. It was 42° here yesterday and 22° today. This place is crazy.
[flerdle] Wrong bedroom - the boiler and first rad is in the room we use least, and in any case we don't have the heating on at night.
[Rosie] I'll take a look at the valves when the window people have done their last and I've moved all the clutter back from the rad end to the window end of the bedroom. There's no TRV (which I think makes sense, as the boiler thermostat's in the same room) but also no "on-off" tap either as far as I know. There does appear to be something that can be turned with a spanner, so maybe that's the one to look at...
TBH the quick fix is to sit in the spare room when we're feeling chilly, and the longer fix is to get TRVs fitted on the rads that don't have them, an external thermostat put in the hallway and a living flame fire in the hearth in the living room for the occasional extra blast the central heating isn't capable of delivering.
So while the new windows are great (or will be, once the final couple of panes are switched from single to double glazing), they have rather highlighted all the deficiencies in our central heating. Ho hum.
[rab]If there are just valves as described by Rosie our problem at the begining of winter was balancing the system. At the moment the heating is turned off each evening just after eight and an hour in the morning. After B Gas wanting to put up the direct debit again even that amout of heating is looking too much.
[Raak] It looks like the film about a single parent father down on his heels and homeless with a small son. The trailer shows him bumping into a Trader with a Ferrari, then his luck takes a turn for the worse. I have no idea how it ends but it is more than likely an unhealthy dose of Hollywood syrup. The possible moral being you can have hapiness and be poor, but for that extra happy factor ‘happyness’ you need to be successful,rich and fulfill the American dream.
[Raak] It looks like the film about a single parent father down on his heels and homeless with a small son. The trailer shows him bumping into a Trader with a Ferrari, then his luck takes a turn for the worse. I have no idea how it ends but it is more than likely an unhealthy dose of Hollywood syrup. The possible moral being you can have hapiness and be poor, but for that extra happy factor ‘happyness’ you need to be successful,rich and fulfill the American dream.
the old more than one bedroom trick.
[rab] Ahh, ok.
Dryness
[Rosie] Yes, Bourke is after all an agricultural area of sorts and the average rainfall is around the 300mm mark. In the last 12 months (I just did a quick check with the local BOM) they have had roughly 107mm, twenty five of which landed on one day. Since the end of July they have received 11.2mm. That, I think, highlights the current problem - particularly when you relate it to flerdle's evaporation rate comment.
OZBOM
(flerdle, Duj) An excellent site which I have used for some time. I pop in most days to have a quick look at the S Hemisphere circulation and there is a lot else there too. Our own Drought Order has been rescinded at last not that it makes the slightest difference because I never water the garden or wash the car anyway, particularly in December of all months. I've had 86 mm so far this month, equal to my monthly average since I started in 1983.
Windows
They're done at last: see for
yourself! (Pictures are clicky)
rab's views
Oooh - very swish. 'Though the pic of the window that swings open for cleaning made me recoil a little. Take care when weilding the Windolene!
Brighton Snibs
What a wonderful name for a gadget. And lovely windows :D
Incidentally, what is that Christmas ching song that goes "boo-doo-doo-doo-dum dum, boo-doo-doo-doo-dum dum, boo-doo-doo boo-doo-doo boo-di-doo-di-dooo" called? It's stuck in my head and I can't get rid of it.
Windows
[rab] View through: Somewhere in Scotland? Please excuse if you've said. Very nice job.
Who - do -do - doo -doo- doodoo- doodoo- Hitler
[rab] That rhythm brings to mind "Close Every Door To Me" from Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Whatsit ... ... but I know it's not that really - 'cause it's not a Christmas song.
[rab] It's not In Dulci Jubilo, is it? As popularised by Mike Oldfield in the seventies.
[rab] Actually, on further inspection, it isn't.
Could you perhaps mark the barlines?
Irving Barlines
(Projoy) Must be at 1st and 2nd commas and just before first "di", assuming 4/4 swing, i.e. 12/8.
[Rosie, Projoy] 1st and 2nd commas, yes, and before the last "boo-di-dooo-di-dooo". There are some words that follow about "coming home for Christmas" and then "Ching ching ching ching ching | Ching ching chi-chi chung ching".
It's odd the Christmas songs that get played relentlessly in all pubs and shopping centres nationwide. None of them seem to be less than about 20 years old to achieve the right (or wrong) sort of Dickensian nostalgia - but what was in their place 20 years ago?
[SM] Oh yes, Edinburgh. The hills you can see are the Pentlands, and possibly the Braids.
Name That Tune
[rab] There's a Chris Rea song called "Driving Home For Christmas" which is played relentlessly around this time of year.
Stop!
I think that might be the bridge section in Jona Lewie's Stop the Cavalry. If played in C major, would it have this melody (where hyphens/equalses show beams on (semi)quavers): 2/4 | D=C=b=a g-g | D=C=b=a g-a=b | C D E=F-E | E=F=E=D E ?
s/Jona/Jonah
Bingo
That's it. Why on earth is it called "Stop the Cavalry"?
Halt!
Hey, Mr. Churchill comes over here
to say we're doing splendidly
But it's very cold out here in the snow,
marching to win from the enemy
Oh I say it's tough,I have had enough
Can you stop the cavalry?
I have had to fight, almost every night
down throughout these centuries
That is when I say, oh yes yet again
Can you stop the cavalry?
Mary Bradley waits at home
in the nuclear fall-out zone
Wish I could be dancing now
in the arms of the girl I love
to say we're doing splendidly
But it's very cold out here in the snow,
marching to win from the enemy
Oh I say it's tough,I have had enough
Can you stop the cavalry?
I have had to fight, almost every night
down throughout these centuries
That is when I say, oh yes yet again
Can you stop the cavalry?
Mary Bradley waits at home
in the nuclear fall-out zone
Wish I could be dancing now
in the arms of the girl I love
s/Jonah/Jona
woohoo!!
I've just bought a pair of tickets to see Muse playing at the new Wembley Stadium in June :oD
Right
Well I'm off for few days tomorrow, and Andy's on his way to New Zealand so you can fully expect the site to fall over and not get rebooted until sometime next week. Take the opportunity to drink some more wine.
Happy.
Unknown hand
(rab) THe site did fall over last night but got up again. Hooray!
Back
Thanks for keeping an eye open. I guess Andy must have pressed the reset button in LA.
I like the idea of pressing the reset button in LA, turning it back into a civilised and agreeable small town.
Ctrl/Alt/Del
I have visited a number of places over the years where, failing friendly bombs, a Reset button would have been very appropriate. Brighton springs to mind....
Sussex reset
(Kim) On your way down there could you do Crawley? An amorphous blot. Is Brighton really all that bad? I haven't been there for a few years. The prime candidate must be Basingstoke, so they say.
Mornin' all
I have just made a new year resolution. Having just carted a 40Kg package of set-due-to-humidity-premixed-concrete from the workshop to the front of my premises (OK, it's a 1-in-4 slope about 50 or 60' long) and the concrete no doubt now includes a bit of water . . . yes, I'm rationalising . . . ) and dump it into a bin out the front, the lip of which is probablly 4'6" off the ground, I'm embarrassed. I needed the help of my super fit wife.
Exercise is what I need and will do. Probably, perhaps.
Exercise is what I need and will do. Probably, perhaps.
(Dujon) Forty kilos is a lot easier where you are than it is here because you're upside down, which must help.
Floating on air
[Rosie] You are, as usual, correct. That was the problem. I had to get the wife to hang off my ankles. Even though I've lived on the southern hemisphere for 50-odd years I still haven't got the hang of keeping my feet on the ground. Ah well, it's got to be better than living on the equator.
Australity and boreality
(Dujon) And the sun goes round the wrong way, and the weather charts are all arse-about-face and Christmas day's in the height of summer. If you came back here you'd be totally confused. Loads of rain here, BTW, 129 mm in December and some thunder earlier today, most unusual for this time of year here. I see that rather ominously your drought is set to continue due to El Niño.
Sounds like the cricketers can blame the whether, with no rain expected no chance of a draw in the last test, just a white wash.
First day back and up late after a half hour lie in. It all seems funny peculiar the roads in were as clear as a bell and the office is slightly muted.
[Duj] Apols for introducing a note of sense into the conversation, but fit or not, you should get help lifting something that heavy and that awkward to that height. If you got your muscles fit, then did your back in hefting something awkward, you'd really want to kick yourself. (Although again obviously it's better to get someone else to kick you instead.)
Sensibilites
[Rosie] How dare you! Australian bore indeed. ;-)
[SM] Yes, but too late. I did my back in years ago. The doctor's advice? "Give it some exercise". Hmmmm. Sounds like some sort of miracle cure for a broken arm: "Give it a bit of a bend each day". Of course he was right - as far as I know my problem is only muscular and not a spinal disc matter. Right, back to my sit-ups.
[SM] Yes, but too late. I did my back in years ago. The doctor's advice? "Give it some exercise". Hmmmm. Sounds like some sort of miracle cure for a broken arm: "Give it a bit of a bend each day". Of course he was right - as far as I know my problem is only muscular and not a spinal disc matter. Right, back to my sit-ups.
(Duj) Sorry, old bean, it was an occident.
Windows
[rab] Terrific pictures, and it looks like a nice place to... wait a minute... in the earlier picture that man across the road is arguing with his wife... then the sun is lower in the sky and you can see him carrying out a box... wait, he's looking up. He's seen me! He's coming across the road! Damn this wheelchair, if I try to get out he'll just catch me on the landing!
*Wonders if it's possible to go back in time and unkill the conversation*
*hears the conversation rustling a bit and realises it's not quite dead yet*
Just making sure it really is dead
<desperation>Whatever you've read in the papers no-one can possibly know whether 2007 will be the warmest year ever in the UK but globally it might well be so.</desperation>
B.S.F.
[rab] You'll be happy to know that your Windows page is already the number one Google result for a certain three word name for a thing what helps keep windows shut. (Don't want to name it here and skew the results the next time this page is spidered.)
Wow!
I hope that's what they are actually called - it's what it said on the quote, and the chap who measured up referred to them as such (I could hardly keep a straight face).
What on earth possessed you to look, anyway?
I guess I'm just kinky for ironmongery. Or brassmongery. Or whatever they monger to make these things. I thought it was an interesting fastener and I wondered if it was just a UK thing so I went looking around.
BSF
[Dan] Wouldn't it be more accurate to say this is the only site that calls them [the name that must not be mentioned]? Not trolling, but all the other hits I got in Google called them something slightly different (but with the same initials). By the way, I loved your "Rear Window" bit. It provided a moment of cheer in an otherwise lousy Friday.
[SM] It's possible that it's local dialect.
[rab] Good point. I am a long way from where I was brought up and occasionally, when I'm not concentrating or when I'm tired, say something "regional" that has people looking at me weirdly. I told some Canadians that I would "put the snack on" a Yale lock so they could come and go without a key. No-one understood what I was talking about.
I seem to have killed the conversation. Sorry rab.
Turning gently
Your mother is a big hippo.
Sierra Mike] It's always been a "sn*b" for me
media frenzy
There has been a fair amount in the press and tv amout the goings on the the BB house. I feel part of the problem is that swathes society in Britain encouraged by the media has lost respect for itself and civility towards others. The mantra is ‘you are no better thatn me no matter who you are’ whether that is a doctor, priest, police, MP, prince or Queen. It is a matter of bringing everyone down to the tabloid level. Are those we are to look up to the highly paid footballer and their WAGs, the instant celeb or winning pop idol.Is it possible that headlines of cultural intolerance and ignorance really do reflect the essence large sections Britain today.
The behaviour in BB is what you'd expect from forcing pretty stupid, ignorant attention-seeking people together. Naturally they bring out the worst in each other. The racism, though we could certainly do without it, is fairly routine and widespread among certain types and makes one wonder what rarified parts of the atmosphere the media inhabit. There are pages about it today's Guardian, for instance. The more disturbing aspect of BB is that it is broadcast at all and is regarded as entertainment by large numbers. How edifying to watch dimwits getting on each others' tits! The participants abase themselves simply to be on TV but they shouldn't be exploited in this manner.
[Rosie] The first series of BB was interesting, IMHO, as the participants were derived of most luxuries. They never quite had enough alcohol to get drunk. They didn't have pencils or paper. They had no clocks. They really struggled to get by. Hence, it was fascinating to watch how people interacted when derived of so many things that they would normally use to pass the time. These days, it has become more of a circus, with the blame lying on the shoulders of the producers for promoting ratings-grabbers to enter the house, in the knowledge that their behaviour is likley to cause headline-making outrage.
The behaviour that I have (albeit very briefly) witnessed recently on BB is, as you say, the norm in a large sector of British society. That the media causes an outcry over it is utterly hypocritical (as ever); that people are shocked and outraged by it is merely bandwagon-jumping. What needs to be addressed is the fact that, presuming most people in the world are racist to an extent, placing remarkably dim people in an environment where they are going to expose their deepest "instincts" (not sure that's the right word) is irresponsible, particularly considering how sensitively balanced the world is at present with regard to extremism - on all sides. I'd love it if everyone just relaxed a bit, frankly.
The behaviour that I have (albeit very briefly) witnessed recently on BB is, as you say, the norm in a large sector of British society. That the media causes an outcry over it is utterly hypocritical (as ever); that people are shocked and outraged by it is merely bandwagon-jumping. What needs to be addressed is the fact that, presuming most people in the world are racist to an extent, placing remarkably dim people in an environment where they are going to expose their deepest "instincts" (not sure that's the right word) is irresponsible, particularly considering how sensitively balanced the world is at present with regard to extremism - on all sides. I'd love it if everyone just relaxed a bit, frankly.
(Phil) I'll go along with all of that except possibly your last sentence. If you mean we should stop pretending to be shocked by some of the behaviour then I agree wholeheartedly but I don't think we should be relaxed about allowing this stuff on TV, certainly in its present form. It's no better than bear-baiting or cock-fighting, i.e. a distasteful spectator sport. My own instinct is to say to the contestants "You're on telly. Stop behaving like a complete arse, even if you are one" but that's hopelessly old-fashioned.
For Jade Goody-Nude to get on Celebrity BB by having been on BB in the past says something about the show. Probably involving the words "vanishing" and "own *rsehole". How about Religious Big Brother, involving a Protestant, a Catholic, a Shia Moslem, a Sunni Moslem, an Orthodox Jew, a Reform Jew, a Dawkins-esque atheist, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Rastafarian, and a Bahai?
Relax!
[Rosie] No, that's not what I meant at all, although I see how it looks like that. And I agree wholeheartedly with your bear-baiting analogy. What I meant was that if people such as Jade Goody relaxed a bit, she'd probably enjoy her life a lot more, and this whole issue wouldn't have arisen.
[Raak] Throw in a satanist, and you might be onto something :-)
[Raak] Throw in a satanist, and you might be onto something :-)
quoted from BBC News...
"Goody insisted on the show that she 'didn't say Shilpa Poppadom in a racial way'".
So that's all right, then.
So that's all right, then.
(Phil) Jade Goody, despite her wealth, has little to be relaxed about. She's from the bottom of the pile and knows it and this is her chance to get back at the world in general. There are many like her and the problem is exacerbated by our class-consciousness though ironically India, with its caste system, is probably even worse.
Not Goody Two shoes
I actually don't think that Stupid Jade is racist. I think she's just ignorant and a bully. Remember the first time she was on she didn't even know where Cambridge was and thought East Anglia was another country. She's picked on Shilpa cos she's pretty and an unknown quantity. Jade's head got far too big with fame and she wasn't clever enough to cope with it, and when she was insecure she attacked those outside her comfort zone.
Where will they be?
I sometimes wonder, "where will this person be when they're 60?" Jade Goody at 60...
Thinking also of "where are they now?", today I chanced across this picture, which looks like a very ordinary businessman or politician. I was quite startled to realise who it was. The URL gives a small clue.
That is a bit of a surprise. I had to Google for the picture to find out who it was, though!
[Raak, Darren] Was just reading his "dangerous idea" at Edge. Profound knowledge of the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics or windy hallucinogenic rhetoric?
[Projoy] The dangerous idea was asking him the question in the first place.
Well, who is it then?
[Rosie] I'm sorry, but due to the indeterminacy principle it's not possible to know the URL of his picture and his identity simultaneously.
Yeah, that picture startled me when I saw it a few years ago. It's a portrait for a board he sat on. He's always been something of a hero of mine. He's the one who's not Zappa. Or IS HE??? You can see him a little better in this. There's a story about how he turned up for his audition carrying his laundry, the idea being that as long as he was going out he might as well get his laundry done so it wouldn't be a wasted trip either way. The pragmatic insouciance of this apparently impressed the casting director quite a bit.
Oh, just found the "dangerous idea" on Edge. I'm half inclined to believe he's having them on -- it would be very like him -- but there's just enough consistent substance peeking out of it to make me wonder. Which, again, may be the idea.
(Projoy) It is now. This is very disturbing.
[Projoy] I incline towards either "windy rhetoric" or "leg-pull", especially compared with the other contributions there.
In fairness to others, here it is. It made more sense the second time I read it; at least think I saw about two thirds of what he was driving at. Unfortunately he tries to distill it down a little too far and leaves out about 90% of the exposition it would need to lift it out of Time Cube territory, with the result that it does read a bit like somebody trying to drag some subjectively experienced great insight back from an altered mental state by scribbling the key concepts on a notepad on the nightstand before the memory fades. I can't even say he's wrong, just that he doesn't really give you anything to analyze or dispute; he's reduced it to an overly simple set of vague declaratives, so even if you want to give him a hearing you just end up going, "um. Okay."
Scrolling down, I see that Laurence Krauss has a project for Darren:
The ultimate goal of physics, as it is often described, is to have a "theory of everything", in which all the fundamental laws that describe nature can neatly be written down on the front of a T-shirt (even if the T-shirt can only exist in 10 dimensions!).
The ultimate goal of physics, as it is often described, is to have a "theory of everything", in which all the fundamental laws that describe nature can neatly be written down on the front of a T-shirt (even if the T-shirt can only exist in 10 dimensions!).
ONe week later...
I'm mucking out the house today. How does it get so much stuff in it?
Stuff
The naughty stuff fairies cart it in in the middle of the night. If you make a present to them by leaving binbags full of stuff by the edge of the road once a week, you should find the amount of stuff eventually decreases.
(Raak) No, the foxes get it. So the fairies don't get their presents and just keep up the pressure.
[Irouléguy] I thought I'd posted this response immediately after your post, but still... when the physicists fulfil their part of the bargain, I'll do mine.
Darren] T-shirts seem to be real conversation killers.
*mimes t-shirt silence*
(pen) Now do it with the words.
and through the square window
Had a look around the Vista web pages last night and the Vista Advisor. It looks like it will not be a simple upgrade from XP. There are many programmes it highlights that there may be problems or issues with but has big problems with Realtek and Kaspersky virus, both need to be uninstalled then reinstalled after. Some of the things it has problems with came preloaded on the PC suprised there were so many. The promo on the site looks good but that is the top end version not the basic Home version, so will be waiting a bit before taking the plunge.
hmmmm
I think I am being constructively dismissed. I have taken legal advice. More on this later.
Bloody hell!
[pen] You're doing the right thing. Keep us posted, and good luck!
[Pen] Ouch! A horrid situation however it pans out. It's too long since I was a union convenor and kept up with employment law, but make sure you follow all the procedures properly yourself such as following up internal channels even if you know in advance it won't make any difference. You should also keep records of everything, including as verbatim as possible notes of conversations. Best of luck.
[pen] oo-er. Stay strong.
[pen] eek! what Chalky and INJ said.
[pen] EEk! Oh no! Good luck.
[pen] Just been reading around the subject and it sounds pretty f'king horrible. Sympathies.
[pen] Loads of sympathy and good luck.
[pen] What rab said.
pen] Good luck!
[pen]Good luck with the lawyers.
I'm not familiar with the term "Constructive Dismissal" so I looked it up. Am I to understand penelope is being harrassed by her supervisors to the point she will quit?
Regardless, please add my best wishes that things resolve well for you, penelope.
Regardless, please add my best wishes that things resolve well for you, penelope.
At the risk of interrupting something serious with frivolity, I am amused by the fact that on some paperwork we have, the cost of registering a marriage is quoted per person. One wonders how many marriages between one, three or seventeen people take place.
well...
After two conversations with a lawyer and some advice from my brother in law, three meetings, some steely bargaining (on my part) and a little compromise, I have a solution. For now. It's a big relief.
phew
[pen] Glad to hear it.
Here (AU), since last year, businesses with fewer than 100 employees (99% of public sector firms) are exempt from unfair dismissal laws, and those with over 100 employees are able to dismiss anyone any time if they claim that part of the reason for the dismissal was for the "operational requirements" of the business. Being sacked on the basis of race, sex, age, pregnancy or family responsibility is still technically illegal, but pretty easy to get around.
and
(actually, the "operational requirementes/reasons" clause is available for all sizes of employer)
[flerdle] Well thank goodness I live in a country where working for a small firm isn't a discrimination in itself.
[pen] Indeed.
[flerdle] Isn't it the same in some parts of the US? There was an early "King of the Hill" episode where Hank's company had trouble firing an employee for drug use because of a similar law. In the end, Hank resigned and then they were able to fire the addict because they had few enough employees to be exempt from the law.
I have no idea what the USA does, but our PM is the ... nevermind.
Another trick is to make all your employees "contractors", or keep them as a succession of short-term casuals. Then they don't count towards your total, and they aren't covered by the unfair dismissal laws anyway.
own up...
Right. I need to know. Who has stolen the snow I've been promised? On tuesday I defrosted my car four times!!! (00:10 leaving work, 11:00 leaving to get home from sleeping venue, 19:00 leaving for pub and 23:25 leaving cinema). Today I wake up and there's no frost or snow. Are you hoarding it down south? Give it a shove up Manchester way please.
[Lib] You're very welcome to have all mine. Unwanted gift. Buyer collects.
West Midlands weather update
Tons of the white stuff here guys. Enough to keep thousands of students amused, it seems.
I was supposed to be going to a meeting in Birmingham, but cancelled due to a wide range of boring reasons; quite glad I did now, cos I don't think I'd be getting back...
Snow
3" here this morning (Surrey/Gt London border, 600 ft). Rainfall equivalent 6.8 mm and a pain-in-the-arse to measure because some of it sticks in the gauge funnel and has to be melted (saucepan on the gas stove) without evaporating too much of it. It's now raining, making millions of pinholes in what's left of the snow. Tremendous excitement on the uk.sci.weather newsgroup, which has a number of semi-literate snow freaks. Definately. Its the tempreture anomoly. there saddo's.
uk.sci.weather
[Rosie] I read that as uk.ski.weather. Time I was on the piste.
[Projoy] Thanks for the offer, but I was kinda hoping someone would bring it to my.
To my? what am I going on about? To me, I mean.
White stuff
I was wondering how you were all coping, particularly those of you south of Watford Pass. The BBC was reporting that the country was grinding to a standstill. 4" (max) brings the whole country to a shuddering halt? I'm . . . well . . . gobsmacked. Surely that must be journalistic hyperbole?
col
How about Watford Gap then?
(Dujon) Watford Gap is not a gap, pass, col, gorge or anything so dramatic. It's just another dreary motorway service station about 80 miles NW of London, in pretty flat country. It's nowhere near Watford, which is on the NW edge of London. The original phrase used contemptuously by Londoners to denote provinciality was "North of Watford", ie outside London, and in particular to the north of it. When Watford Gap service station on the M1 was built people started talking about "north of Watford Gap" thus changing the meaning, then it became "north of the Watford Gap", which ain't there, as I said. This is how place-names and language in general changes; misunderstanding by stupid people. One reason the country grinds to a halt is that many roads are at full capacity, more or less, which means that the slightest hazard slows everything down and in no time at all the whole thing congeals. Another reason is that we are now the soppiest country in the world.
Watford Gap
Actually, as Herr Bratsche pointed out when this last arose about 5 years ago, there is a geographical significance to Watford Gap as the attached map shows. Within about 400 metres you have a railway line, a roman road (Watling Street - now the A5), and a canal all passing through the same minor low point. The motorway just follows the rest, showing that the romans knew a thing or two about roads. When you drive through on the motorway the surrounding geography is not evident.
The forecast last night was for a dollop of fog, but it is snowing again here in SN4.
What gap?
[INJ] Ah - seem to remember my late father saying as much way back in the 60s when we travelled north regularly, so thanks for that map ref for Watford Gap. I would so hate to be one of Rosie's 'stupid people' who misunderstand the term :-)
Watford Gap
Isn't Watford Gap next door to Watford H&M?
(Chalky) Heaven forbid, m'dear. But somebody started it. (Inkspot) A bit more to come, mostly sleet. Then milder. Nothing here in CR6.
Errors of ways
Thanks for setting me straight, good people, your points have been noted. Any road, I know now that I'm one of them 'stupid people'. It's ever so nice to keep track of your station in life. I'm sure that my to-ing and fro-ing would be easier if I had a good staff but continual ups and downs and constant changes confuse me no end. One of my relatives keeps telling me "get a grip, Dujon". To that end I have bought myself a sand box. If it doesn't work as planned then at least I can stick my head in it.
[Duj the not-so-stupid] So what is the real purpose of a sand box?
Technicalities
[Chalky] 'Morning.
The 'sand box', and I'm sure that Rosie and others can explain it better than I, is a box full of sand or grit of some kind or other. In olden days steam engines used the contents of such, as and when necessary, to increase the friction between wheels and rails. This was effected by dribbling the contents of the sand box onto the rails in front or over the driving wheels. Naturally (and obviously) you are far too young to have seen or heard this highly technological process in action.
The 'sand box', and I'm sure that Rosie and others can explain it better than I, is a box full of sand or grit of some kind or other. In olden days steam engines used the contents of such, as and when necessary, to increase the friction between wheels and rails. This was effected by dribbling the contents of the sand box onto the rails in front or over the driving wheels. Naturally (and obviously) you are far too young to have seen or heard this highly technological process in action.
I'll tell you the real purpose later. As a clue: Have you ever owned a cat?
(Dujon) Ah! Things are now clearer because I didn't know you drove a steam engine. Even I don't do that. Sand is useful and may have prevented this, the slip to end all slips. Click on the bottom recording, marked "60532". The quality is rather poor. The loco slips a bit on starting (quite usual) but the mayhem begins after 1m 50s. After another 15 seconds or so you can hear the water being carried over to the cylinders, which caused the real damage. All 3 connecting rods and the coupling rods and valve gear were bent so that was the end of that little day out. Why didn't the driver just shut off steam? He couldn't. The big handle wouldn't move against the huge volume of steam and water going through the main valve. He had about one second and missed it. No more driving for him, at least of that loco, which cost £80,000 to repair.
Patience
At the risk of seeming insensitive given pen's recent difficulties, I've finally been offered a permanent position at Edinburgh Uni. Woo!
A bit of a long and torturous story this one... back in July, I was offered a similar position in Manchester, but there were various reasons why we didn't want to move back then - not least the fact that we'd bought a flat in Edinburgh exactly one week previously. Turning that offer down was one of the trickiest decisions I'd ever made. Anyway, the gamble paid off in the end, and I'm now very relieved and pleased.
[Rosie] That was an interesting sound recording. I don't really know all that much about steam engines (I had to look up what water being carried over to the cylinders meant) but it's quite an impressive sound. Were you actually present when it happened?
Hurrah!
[rab] excellent - good news, congratualtions. And I'm fine - I got offered less money for working to a higher target, but with bigger bonuses than I was on before once I got beyond the target. And it was done without consultation, that was all... I could have sued, I was told, but I think it would look dreadful on a CV. And I will change, eventually, but I will leap, I will not be pushed. And I have a hot date tonight so frankly, i don't care any more. :o)
Congratulations rab! And to pen, if that's a sufficiently positive outcome to warrant it. Did you get them to make things better than they were trying to?
[Rosie] Thanks for the link. The sounds bring back a few memories. £80,000! The mind boggles. I used to be a keen 'train spotter' as a youngster but the interest waned when girls and cars came along. I had a relative who was a signalman. Occasionally my elder brother and myself would visit him at work in his signal box. Exciting times for a lad.
[rab and penelope] Congratulations on your results. Great news.
[rab and penelope] Congratulations on your results. Great news.
(Darren) There's only about a quarter of an inch clearance when the piston is right at the end of its stroke and any excess water either knocks the cylinder cover off or bends the connecting rod. Major damage. There are drain cocks which are often opened for the first few puffs when an engine starts out and they blow huge quantities of wet steam ahead of the engine, ruining photos but very necessary. I wasn't there for that recording. I've seen loads of engines slipping on starting but quickly brought under control. It's a rather fearsome sound for a small boy a few feet away on the end of a platform, or for anyone, come to that. (pen) If you're happy so am I. Nothing worse than work worries even they are now behind me.
(Dujon) The wheels only stopped spinning because the valve gear got bent and no longer allowed steam into the cylinders at the right time, rather like a car with a bent camshaft. Interesting that right at the end of the recording the safety valves lift. I'm surprised there was any fire left given the tremendous pull of the exhaust on it. What a mess! I gave up collecting numbers very early but have never lost interest, you could say, but as you imply, there is much else in life.
The juice
When is a power cut not a power cut? When they restore the connection at about half the normal voltage. Very dim orangey lights, computer won't start (but monitor OK), TV but no video, kettle wouldn't boil ether let alone water, old Acorn computer OK but not the monitor, strangely. They'd got the full voltage next door but Mrs-next-door-but-one (in her curlers) had the same problem as had an old lady walking her dog. Obviously one of the phases was faulty but I thought you got the full whack or nothing. It seems you may not.
long absence
Hello, all. Some of you may remember me from long ago, on other servers. A strange thing happened recently. I discovered that, having moved from Sydney to Edinburgh, and not having played MC for years on account of a Thesis, I happened by complete accident to end up working down the corridor from rab. What do you know? Well, probably that MC is responsible for effects that are not quite normal, for one.
Oddness
...and when "kt" appeared I had this very odd feeling that we'd met before (although it was only virtually, and - I think - under a different moniker). Anyhoo, welcome back!
I recognize that moniker
[kt] Welcome back.
[kt] Hello, I'd wondered where you'd gotten to (having met you in Sydney, if you're who I think you are!). Enjoy Edinburgh!
[Rosie] It used to happen all the time in India (and probably still does). Just shrug and say "Volt is down" like the locals did.
[Rosie] The phenomenon is referred to as a 'brown out' - at least here it is. The description is obvious when you think about the affect on your light globes. In the last house I owned I had two phases connected and, on a number of occasions, could have full voltage and current available on some internal circuits and not on others. This of course also applied to total power cuts where only one phase was down. The reason for the variation in equipment functions is simply that some items will run on a range of, say, 180 volts to 260 volts while others need the full pressure (usually 230V +).
(flerdle) It's the first time I've ever seen it, and there were power cuts galore when I was a small child (say late 40's). The voltage here is allowed by statute to vary 10% (up 4 and down 6) but this was down 50%, at a guess. (Dujon) Can't be that, because everyone here is on single phase except industrial premises which have all 3. There were 2 more cuts early this evening. When the first (over an hour) ended it came back on (full voltage) for less than a minute, just enough time to put the candles out before going off again for another 40 minutes or so. Loud, pointed and profane were my exclamations to no-one in particular.
ex-kt
[rab] That's right, I'd forgotten that I changed from kt to Kathryn. That's how long ago it was.
Hi, flerdle! Sorry I dropped out of contact for a while there. Are you still in the middle east? Edinburgh's rather nice, actually, with more sun than I had imagined.
And hello Simons Mith also. It's amazing how stable the MC community is...
Hi, flerdle! Sorry I dropped out of contact for a while there. Are you still in the middle east? Edinburgh's rather nice, actually, with more sun than I had imagined.
And hello Simons Mith also. It's amazing how stable the MC community is...
[kathryn] Welcome back - I'm an irregular visitor myself these days.
doin' the continental shuffle
[kathryn] No, am now in Melbourne, and thesising too, fool that I am. But Melbourne is very pleasant.
Thesis mightier than the sword
Incredible the %age of MCers who have done or are doing theses. I have no plans to go within a million miles of one meself, but have a lot of respect for those who have the inclination.
Stability
(kathryn) Collectively, maybe.
[ISP] Ten years after my undergrad degree, I'm doing an MA. Think I might be ready to do the big one in another ten years! :)
Education Education Education
[Projoy] Well, I worked five years between school and Uni, then another eight between BA and MSc, now I'm (avoiding) studying for my Oracle exams. Doing very well - been avoiding studying for two and a half years and counting.
Wibble flib
Stable?? Us?
Hmm... I waited ten years between under-gradding and post-gradding, and have now resolved to study nothing but happy things that interest me, which is mostly food, conservation, art and historical stuff, not science or authoring. If all goes to plan, I'm off to Rotterdam next month to work for a day on a conserved windmill. And also to see a very nice man who happens to be the Miller. :o)
Well then, enjoy your Miller time :-)
[Rosie] Dad was an industrial electronics guru during that period. The reason for the power cuts was to avoid brown outs according to him. The national grid had been so badly compromised during WWII that power was in short supply. It was deemed safer to cut the power altogether than tolerate a severe voltage drop. They used to sound sirens around ten minutes before the power cuts in the local factories apparently, so that the machine shops could shut down gracefully. The good old days.
[blamelewis] hello!
[flerdle] Melbourne is indeed pleasant, despite lacking a proper harbour.
[ISP] There may well be a connection between people who put themselves through a thesis and people who take pleasure in playing a game like MC. An unusual relationship with reality could well be one of them.
[pen] How about the science of food (e.g. courtesy of Harold McGee)? That's definitely a happy thing!
[flerdle] Melbourne is indeed pleasant, despite lacking a proper harbour.
[ISP] There may well be a connection between people who put themselves through a thesis and people who take pleasure in playing a game like MC. An unusual relationship with reality could well be one of them.
[pen] How about the science of food (e.g. courtesy of Harold McGee)? That's definitely a happy thing!
[penelope] Watch out for clog-wearing mice in that windmill. The staircases are infested with them from all accounts.
post-grad? sounds hard to me
I did have a plan last year to take an A-level every year for the next ten years. I think I've missed the deadline to enter for French this year, so maybe I'll start the mission next year and do two (to catch up). The plan is that if someone says to my daughter when she's 18, "oh, I've got 7 A-levels", she can reply, "well, my dad's got 14." The only extra proviso for this is that I don't attend any lessons/lectures in order to gain the qualifications - I'll rely on reading what the syllabus is, and a bit of common sense in terms of background reading. And, yes I've checked, there are still exam boards that do not require coursework :-)
The juice
(SM) Mine must have been a purely local problem due to malfunctioning switches or transformers and not insufficient supply. This was just one phase down or out over about a square mile.
clogged up
[Sierra Mike] I have my own clogs for stamping on said mice - they came as a present from the Miller last weekend. Luckily they were filled with chocolate as a sweetener...
Miller
Hope there's good ventilation, in case he's 
Windy.
Windy.yes, yes, I know...
[IS,P!] Hmmph. He's a Dutch Miller. Have you got a pic of one of those?
[Darren] Still, he does well, considering he died 15 years ago.
I thought he seemed a bit quiet. Just my luck :o(
HELLO MORNIVERSE! I'M NIGHTS BLESSED!
AND I'VE SCARED EVERYONE OFF, IT SEEMS! CHORTLE CHORTLE!
not me
Hello nights. It takes a bit more than emboldened shouting to scare me off! How are you? I've got a post holiday cold. Grump.
Where is everyone today? Not very chatty? Cheer up. Its almost the weekend!
Nothing at all
Hello all. It's a long time since I've been in here. Very smart.
Mouth full
Sorry Lib - I was enjoying a bacon sandwich...
[UK] I'd have thought you'd have a bit of a sore head!
[Lib] Well, fortunately it hadn't been cooked too fiercely. But getting the grease out of my hair is going to be a bind...
It doesn't matter how sh*tty the week has been , Friday always lifts the mood, doesn't it? Anyone know of any nice jobs going for someone bossy, intelligent and good at news writing? CV available on request. And The Dutch Miller is coming over again next weekend, :o)
Oh, and a lovely bit of spamming, which is a natural glow-worm or something: "ON fenugreek do maladroit.."
[pen] I think the next line is "beware the Jabberwock, my son!"
Morniverse seems slow today, or am I just toooooooo bored at work?
(UK) Not just today, either. The place seems infected with a kind of ennui. It'll pass, no doubt.
[Rosie] Well, I was hoping that someone might guess my AVMA before I left the office today, as I may well not be back online until Monday morning.
It's always very slow on Fridays. In fact I recall it being even less busy last Friday. Not that I check in here obsessively the whole time, of course.
Saturday was a non-starter.
There was an article in the paper a day or two ago about how boring and irksome working life has become even for people in well-paid professional jobs, what with vast amounts of form-filling and other pointless paperwork, meetings, meetings about meetings etc, etc. The way this place livens up during working hours shows how true that is.
working time directive
The local authority I (used to) work for transferred our dept to Capita at the begining of Feb. I have had to drastically cut back to a minimum amount of browsing during work time. Before there was a woolly policy about internet use. However, my new employer begins their internet use and email policy with the phrase "You have no right to privacy"
I'm glad that my Brian Blessed impression didn't freak EVERYONE out. I'm well, thanks. Final semester. Argh. And I've been getting some lovely poetry in my spam too. But even better is the amount of recipes I get for Spam, being a GMail user.
Crapita
(Inkspot) In that case don't do any more work than you absolutely have to. I hope at least you've retained your salary level.
MCIOS went down at 2.54 am today.
For about 5 minutes. You'd think a guy could take a server down for maintenance at 3 am in the user base's time zone.
FWIW, the timestamps on old moves from the first half of 1998 are now correct.
(Dan) Thanks for your efforts, as ever. Like Michael Howard, I am a creature of the night.
Harrumph
No problem, I didn't mean it the way it probably sounded. Anyway I've just noticed that this so-called asiago cheese I've been munching on was made in Wisconsin. Now a bit of research shows that asiago is Denominazione di Origine Protetta, so they shouldn't be calling it that and I'd be surprised if they could even sell it in the EU under that name. Still, it's a good cheese, but now I have to go and find the real thing so I know the difference.
BTW, I'm off to New Mexico for a week, so this may be the last you hear from me till next Monday. The server will almost surely fall over in about 2-3 hours time. Expect reboots only during office hours in New Zealand. ttfn.
Read on its own, that last message really really looks like rab's part of some international espionage.
[Tuj] What? You mean you're not... one of us?
SHHH!
It is very dark for the time of year.
Incidentally, I'm staying in room 404 which I'm having difficulty locating, for some reason.
[rab] Have you tried leaving the hotel and then coming back in again?
[rab] or trying an alternative door?
[Rab] Clear out all your cash, I guess in the hotel bar...
8 words game
I tried to translate Nights' post with an online translat-y-thing and it came up with "Ave druse! I ÷óñòâóþ as i no clever"
...although ÷óñòâóþ was actually an untranslated russian word, not nonsense.
That's actually pretty close to the mark. It reads "Hello friends! I rather think I'm not clever."
As indeed I appear not to be. Plans for the weekend, anyone?
I'm going to a masquerade ball! Very exciting. What are you up to?
Doing a workshop with actors, for which the freshly-written script still hasn't arrived from the States as yet! Also, writing a sample song from Lolita! - the musical as a college exercise.
Weekend plans
Working. What else? Not getting enough done, though. :-(
doing absolutely nothing
.. well - nothing worth mentioning. It's kinda nice. :-)
housework until this evening, then I shall be waiting for a certain Dutch Windy Miller to step off the plane :o)
My weekend is taken up with work - beer festival time again, this time only 16 beers, but plent y flive music keeping us entertained. Dunnno how I'm going to get up for 6am delivery tomorrow morning, but i'll cross that bridge later. For now,I need to write a quiz by 9pm.
[rab] New elopement menu?
I spent the weekend in the library, emerging only on Saturday night to get extremely drunk extremely quickly. It's coursework season in sunny Bath, and we are all working hard to meet arbitrary deadlines, smoking for all we're worth and drinking ourselves into the ground every Saturday night in a vain attempt to flee the horrific situation we find ourselves in once again. Also, why does everyone else in this library, all five floors of it, seem to be a complete idiot? Just asking. Is Library Rage something admissible in court?
I think I'm a bit depressed.
I think I'm a bit depressed.
[IS,P!] Yes, that sounds like just the thing that Niall would think of.
Pardon me, unplanned outage at mcios. I called the data center about another issue and they asked me if it was okay to physically move the server, and I told them to go ahead. It will, I hope, be out for less than an hour.
(Dan) It was alright at midnight (GMT). Thanks again.
[Rosie] Who's GMT?
I am.
[GMT] Do you have the time?
As it happens, I may well have ..
Leaning
Well, I've got the inclination...
[GMT] Not for much longer!
It's just struck me that as a Mornington Crescent server, we have no game of MC running. Anyone interested? I'd like to give the new 2007 ruleset a go as it's shortly to be published...
2007beta
[nights] Blimey, that's a bit radical, innit? MC on an MC website? Not sure I can cope. Besides, I've barely got used to HP2000. Do they think they've sorted the new version's DRM issues now, eh?
[SM] Last I heard, most of the national MC bodies had ratified it, with the exceptions of Monaco and East Cornwall. And I think the DRM nightmare will be with us for a while - last I heard, they were trying to make sure you only striled three times, then all your podumes would be deleted without warning. Perhaps better to wait a bit, hm?
Three striles and you're out
All your podume are belong to us.
shiny new things
I'd play the 2007 ruleset. Though my copy hasn't arrived from Amazon so I may make some bad moves (but I'm no stranger to that to be honest!).
Mornington Crescent on the front cover of The Times today (somewhat gratuitously).
Aigh!!
Where is MCiOS?? Or rather, where are all the games? The archive is also empty. I tried to create a new game and got Giant Ant Error. Is it time to panic??
It was there before 9.00AM this morning then it suddenly disappeared in the middle of my move! I guess its been hacked again.
MCiOS
Bloody hell! If anyone's got Dan's e-mail, give him a shout, quick!
MCiOS
It has rather shrunk.. I hope the games haven't been lost!
I've sent Dan a message about it already. 9:30 am in London is 2:30 am in Portland though, so I don't suppose he's up and about.
Yes, the middle of the night problem. We'll just have to wait. Hope it's ok...
MC in The Times
[Tuj] Did you guess the ruleset?
[Kim] No, do tell ;)
Ah. Very odd. I'll take a look.
Well done, Dan - no idea what you did, but you fixed it! :-)
It may be a serious problem. Stay tuned.
It's not behaving very well. I've asked the crew at the facility to cycle the power. I have last night's nightly backup here -- it's automatically fetched on a schedule, so nothing will be lost. But as I say, there may be a hardware problem so things might be iffy for a while.
Okay, it's going to be out of service for a while, as in multiple days, I think. I'm going to need to reconfigure my mail to point somewhere else, too. Very annoying.
(thank you, rab, for allowing me to use your server as a bulletin board.)
[Dan] Nae worries. As you know, I've hardware problems of my own.
BTW if anyone wants to email me -- though I'll be pointing my usual email at another server within a day or so -- there's always my last name at gmail dot com. Normally I don't check it very often but I'm using it now.
Get Well Soon MCiOS!
MCiOS thanks you. It would only take a moment to restart it at my home server and point the domain name at it (though it'd be a day or so before that change propagated through the intarweb), but the site gets a LOT of hits, including various kinds of attacks, and it would be a bad idea to inflict that on my home router for several reasons. Anyway, I'm going to have the machine professionally serviced, which will probably bring us into next week. This feels weird. It hasn't been down for more than a few hours since I launched it. I may give up on this colocation lark and go back to a virtual server of some kind; there are better and easier options for rapid failover when you do it that way.
[Dan] Indeed, there can't have been many days since last century when I didn't at least check in and look around at MCiOS. Still, I'm viewing it as a test of character!
Yeah, I still find myself typing "p" into the address bar as a shortcut to MCiOS. ("d" goes to Orange, "r" goes to here. Obvious reasons. But I'm so used to those shortcuts, if I use another computer it knocks me sideways for a minute.)
[Darren] Same with me! Except I use "pa", "du" and "ra".
shortcuts
How do you do that then? I just got 'em in me favourites.
shortcuts
Sounds like do-re-mi.
Do-re-mi
Nono, do is domaintools.com, re is resource-zone.com and mi is usually nothing, but right now it's mikael.jansson.be/rydis.html.
That's got to be an application for Web 3.0. Opening a webpage by whistling a merry tune.
Sign
Another reboot required this morning. I shall try and move to a different host this week.
I thought I couldn't get in last night.
The Tube
For those who are able to access it - tonight [Sunday] sees a series of programmes on BBC TV 4 beginning at 2100, which are all related to the London Underground. Includes the 'Design Classics' prog about the LU map.
[rab] With server farms you tend to get what you pay for -- decent reliable dedicated servers run at least a hundred a month in dollars and not very much less in pounds. If you want to pay a lot less than that and want top quality hardware and good service, you might consider a Xen host instead. The decent providers use very good hardware and they maintain it with a lot of care because if it goes down, more customers are affected than just you. And you can't tell the difference in terms of availability and performance; if anything it'll be much better than a cheap colo because most of the time the (often very muscular) CPU is way underutilized. You never get less than the share you're paying for and more often than not you get much more when you need it. And it's spectacularly easy to fail over to another machine -- a good provider will be able to switch you to new hardware in a matter of minutes if smoke starts pouring out of the box you're on. Frankly I'm seriously considering going back to that my self, mainly for that last reason.
Some links
xensource's list and hostingfu's. Both list UK providers, though you have to scroll down to find them in the latter.
Oh, for three years I ran mcios and several other sites, both http and https, an SMTP server, a jabber server with several transports, mysql, pop3 and imap, the homebrew chat server of course and a variety of other services that came and went over the years ... all in 64MB instance of User Mode Linux; a poor man's Xen. It was a little swappy but completely responsive and reliable. It was on good hardware though. A 256M Xen host would be an Aston Martin by comparison.
[Dan] Thanks for that - I was considering a 128MB Xen Vps but was slightly concerned it might not be up to the job of serving this site, which gets something like 5k hits a day.
[rab] How about hosting in Edinburgh? Though you'd probably want to traceroute them to find out if it's really close to you in terms of network hops; I'm three miles but 12 hops and 85ms from mine because of a lack of local peering between carriers, but your situation is likely to be different. Very low latency could be handy for maintenance; you could just mount drives remotely.
(Though it's not clear from their site that they offer Xen in their Embra facility, you'd have to phone to find out. And I'm not vouching for them as a provider -- I know nothing about them.)
[Dan] That company was on my shortlist of two. Haven't got round to emailing them yet, but I'll ask if they host Xen in (or, if my hunch as to the actual location is correct, near) Edinburgh.
128 should be fine. I run an identical setup at home on 128MB Xen server, and by far the biggest memory hog is mysql. Here's the memory footprint, 12 days since the last reboot:
dan@flint:~$ free total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 131252 110836 20416 0 4632 38480
-/+ buffers/cache: 67724 63528
Swap: 131064 2228 128836
Those are pretty healthy numbers -- just enough swapping to indicate that it doesn't have more memory than it needs, without being significant.
Yikes, looks like you're discarding newlines. Okay, look in the chat game on mcios.
Whoops, had forgotten there would be instances where white-space would be significant. Hmm, looks like I need a PRE-tag handler.
But thanks for that info - as you (probably) know this thing hangs off a mysql database and although I've tried to minimise the number of queries needed to display any particular page, when it comes down to it you've still got to through a few Mb of tables around.
s/through/throw/. Another thing I want to add is a "whoops" feature that lets you correct typos in your previous move.
Typos
The Banter Page (this page) is wider than the others at the moment, so I have to scroll right to get to the 'up' and 'next' options.
Although it might revert when Dan's post has disappeared offscreen.
Ah, it doesn't do that on Firefox.
I wouldn't object if you modified or replaced it.
BTW, the web host for xtrahost.net appears to be located in the Scotland facility, if node names are anything to go by. I'd be tempted to relocate there myself and damn the exchange rate, but unfortunately I get 160ms ping times to it from my colo and 200ms from my home. That's fine for web stuff but I'd be unhappy with shell access and any other activity involving lots of small round trips.
Not to beat it to death but according to their FAQ the Xen hosting in Scolocate, which according to Google maps is within a reasonable definition of Edinburgh; perhaps 5 miles from the big rock with the funny house on top.
I'll get onto it - work's been a bit crazy today, but this machine just dropped off the internet completely for a bit - was a bit worried cos I'd be poking around with some of the security settings earlier and thought it had been a hack. Ho hum, we all still seem to be here, and the mysql tables are all still up and running.
Geil!
The Gyle, eh? Who'da thought it. A bit closer than Bush, which was guess #1. Definitely worth looking into!
Right
A VPS has been ordered, although I managed to lock myself out of my own online banking service in the process... Anyway, it should be with us over the next few days, so I hope to be able to migrate in the next week or so. Which is just as well, cos this machine needed another reboot last night. And my internet at home has stopped working, which is the next thing to try and sort out.
It's arrived... installing stuff as we speak, but since my internet at home seems to be fubar it'll probably take longer to get sorted than it would normally.
rab's computer woes
VPS? I'm trying to follow this talk of hosting and hardware because I would like to understand how it all goes together, but it's mostly greek to me unfortunately. I read it that the computer that this site is kept on is playing up and so a new one is needed. If you've a mind to explain, rab, I'd love to know whether you own the faulty computer or lease space on someone else's? Please excuse any howlers caused by my ignorance of the technology behind the web.
Also, please excuse howlers caused by my inability to proof read my own punctuation. Sorry.
Tis ok. This should probably all be in 'Let me check my notes' but it seems appropriate here as this will be the last post before shutting down to move elsewhere.
The hosting of this site has a long and chequered history, mostly due to my trying to do it as cheaply as possible. It started off in a user account on a shared linux machine, rented out at 30quid a year. It got hacked into about three times, and the whole thing demolished, which led to downtime and me having to spend a lot of time reconstructing from various "back-ups", including (on one memorable occasion) the Google cache. After the third of these incidents, Nik kindly stepped in and offered - free of charge - disk space and bandwidth on a linux box sitting in his front room and running on his DSL connection, and there things ran happily for a while. But it was not to be forever, and (for various reasons) a new home was needed.
At this time, my good friend Andy informed me he had bought a dedicated server - cheap because it was on old hardware. At the time we thought that old would just mean slow, but the fact that it needs rebooting twice a week indicates that old means crap. We've been trying to get it sorted out, but Andy's been migrating to VPSes, and I was looking into it when Dan gave me the filip I needed to sort it out once and for all.
And with that, I shall begin the process of moving this to there. It should be working in an hour or so - but you may not see it for a couple of days because the DNS will have to propagate. I also won't be on hand over the weekend to sort out any problems because there's a fault on my broadband line and BT are coming round on Monday to look at (and hopefully fix) it.
And here we are...
Who knows if this works or not.
Are we there yet?
good luck - and thanks with all efforts, rab. I shall be migrating to south Holland this weekend, to clean the windows of a windmill and to spend some time with my lovely Dutchman, so I\\\'ll be back on Monday too :o)
Ah, the slassher\'s back
Bani'shed?
Yay! I always forget about that little gotcha. And penelope - congratulations on being the first to see the new place - some people might not get in for a couple of days.
[rab] Thanks, as ever.
[pen] This Dutchman is starting to sound serious...
[pen] This Dutchman is starting to sound serious...
Heard the one about the windmill?
[Cdm] Yes, he is. Do you know any rib-cracking windmill-based jokes that might make him smile a bit more?
Why to windmills make the best shops? Because they've always got a sail on.
[pen] I hope you get a bunch of flours.
(pen) Don't know any windmill jokes but you could try call him clever clogs. Is he called Wim? One scours the place for names like that. ATB, BTW.
Marvellous
This place is still up and running.
rab the genius
A most wonderful migration, one can hardly see the join. Well done, rab!
[Darren, Projoy] Good efforts.
[Rosie] Nope, he's called Jan - equally typical. I think 'Clever Clogs' is a mainly British expression, innit? He actually brought me klompen the first time he visited. They're unfortunately too big, and might go on ebay next week!;o)
[Rosie] Nope, he's called Jan - equally typical. I think 'Clever Clogs' is a mainly British expression, innit? He actually brought me klompen the first time he visited. They're unfortunately too big, and might go on ebay next week!;o)
[rab] Thanks for a quick flit. I can see the new place from this part of .ac.uk now.
[rab] Hadn't even noticed the change! Guess that's good praise.
Wow. It's fewer network hops from my house to here than it is to my server. A lot fewer. Farther in terms of latency though, geography won't be completely ignored. And the fact that the route from my house to my server has to go through Los Angeles and San Francisco for what I'm sure are not very good reasons has a lot to do with it. [rab] Out of curiosity, what sort of ping times are you getting?
(pen) I suspect "clever clogs" is simply light-hearted British alliteration but the Dutch are so good at English he might even geddit. (rab) I'm with Tuj, q.v.
I'm finding the site a lot more responsive now.
[Projoy] There was a slow period this morning but that doesn't seem to have happened again since - suspect someone else on the machine was using the CPU time.
[Dan] Ping time from JANET is about 24ms, not sure if that's good or bad. It's a direct hop from JANET to the xtrahost network, but this seems to take place in London rather than Edinburgh... so there you go.
[rab] pssht. 24ms is less than the distance to my DSLAM from my router. (Which I really, really don't understand.) Good enough for pretty much anything. Though I imagine in the UK low latency is probably fairly normal.
[Dan] I am quoting the right figure: "64 bytes from rab.org.uk: icmp_seq=0 ttl=54 time=24.1ms"? www.google.com comes in at about 21.6ms, and www.bbc.co.uk at 11.0ms by the same measure.
[rab] Yep. Pity you don't have local peering, but that looks more than good enough. You'll have to check from home as well, if that's where you do your maintenance. I'm really jealous. Xtrahost looks great. They even have an SLA, which a lot of consumer-level VPS providers don't.
Anyway, I'm more than persuaded that virtualization is the coming thing. The idea of a server being physically implemented on a corresponding hunk of hardware already seems a little quaint. The amount of versatility and control you get from decoupling those concepts and essentially commoditizing CPU and memory along with bandwidth and storage is almost inarguably compelling. MS is putting up a fight as they always do when a shift occurs that challenges their business model. It's amazing to me that they stay in business when every good thing that happens is a threat to them rather than an opportunity.
(Though it must be said that a 99.9% uptime service level agreement means they're allowed to be down for 8 hours a year, which some categories of business would consider unacceptable. Still, it's much better than you or I have managed lately.) (And god, how I love Google sometimes. I just typed "0.1 % in hours per year" into the search field and up it comes.)
[Dan] I like the fact you can do things like "Current local time in New Zealand" too.
Well, the last place was down for 8 hours a week so 8 hours a year should be at least a 12-fold improvement. I'm not getting too excited about these people yet - all my previous providers (bar Nik) had certain shortcomings. But I was very impressed with the quick set-up (within an hour of my funds hitting their account) and am comforted by the fact that it's not infeasible to pop round and speak to them in person if things go horribly wrong.
rab] Congratulations!
downtime
I was disappointed to read that SABRE (the global airline res. system) is to be taken off mainframes running TPF. They used to quote ridiculous donwtime costs (something like USD1m per minute), due to the fact that they handled up to 9000 transactions per second. They're porting the system to Compaq NonStop, of which I (currently) know nothing, but I'll be looking into it. A few thousand TPF apps and ops programmers could be re-training in a few year, methinks.
Happy BST!
Hmm, PHP doesn't seem to have realised.
Or, indeed,
most of the rest of the system. Pah!
A Technical Quandary
Dear technically minded denziens of the Morniverse:
I am having hard disk space problems. I'm aware that I should get rid of some crap, which I fully intend to do. However, I'd love to be able to see how much space each folder takes up, at a glance, so I know which programs are more space-hungry and therefore which I can stand to lose.
My question is this: is there such a program, freely available, that you know of that might let me do this? I'd be deeply grateful to anyone that might point me in the right direction.
Sincerely,
Disgusted of Tunbridge Wel- I mean, nights. (crossposted to MCiOS and Orange, apologies)
I am having hard disk space problems. I'm aware that I should get rid of some crap, which I fully intend to do. However, I'd love to be able to see how much space each folder takes up, at a glance, so I know which programs are more space-hungry and therefore which I can stand to lose.
My question is this: is there such a program, freely available, that you know of that might let me do this? I'd be deeply grateful to anyone that might point me in the right direction.
Sincerely,
Disgusted of Tunbridge Wel- I mean, nights. (crossposted to MCiOS and Orange, apologies)
Very odd
Last week my modem kept dropping out, so I phoned my ISP and, after I did a basic check of my kit, they arranged for BT to do a test. Then, over the weekend, the line sprang back into action, and has been working fine since. The BT engineer came in this morning, did all his tests, and said "your connection doesn't get any better than this" (it's a 480m round-trip to the exchange!). So I wonder what went wrong in the first place... probably the weather.
down for 8 hours a week so 8 hours a year should be at least a 12-fold improvement
[rab] A twelve week year? I wish I had your job.
[IS,P rab] But it's a 32 day week.
And still only one Saturday and Sunday.
[IS,P!] Just checking you were listening, err.
Let me tell you something...
Well, as no-one has commented for a while, I'll tell you something. I have negotiated with my boss to be made redundant - it has been a little unpleasant through the recent 'difficulties', but I'm relieved to be moving on and am waiting to hear what he can offer me, bearing in mind I still have grounds for a constructive dismissal case. To be honest, trading conditions have changed and he should have spotted this a while ago. And I'm going to go and buy myself a car tomorrow as I'll have to give mine back. I have a second interview for a rather interesting job next Wednesday, the inklings of a few freelance jobs taking shape, and a mild feeling of pure terror about not having more than one paypacket in prospect beyonfd the end of next month. Oh, and The Dutchman and I are still seeing each other :oD
Good news about your miller! Long may it continue. And lots and lots of luck with the job front. Sounds necessary but scary. And for the cars, buy a skoda as they're ace!
the new car
I've bought an '52 plate 1.9TDI Seat Ibiza from Haywards Heath. It's a beautiful colour!
[pen] I'm now speculating on what you rate a beautiful colour. Bright red? Sky blue? Metallic chartreuse with glow-in-the-dark purple go-faster stripes?
... The same colour as Jan Miller's eyes? :-)
Spam heads-up (Crosspost)
I've added the original list of Encyclopaedia Morningtonia contributors, including their email addresses, to the E.M. Wiki. This shouldn't matter because those addresses have already been on-line for years, and many of them are dead anyway. But if you want to censor or update your details, now's a good time.
[Simons] Now you mention it, it's not far off that colour!
Saw Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor on stage last night in The Goodies Still Rule OK at Southend. Good show, although very similar format to the BBC2 documentary at Christmas. Sadly, all but one of the video clips used are from episodes already out on DVD.
Goodie Goodie yum yum!
I am currently sans TV and don't intend to buy another one for a while - I'm getting a hell of a lot more done without it. However, one of my lovely mates brought round the Goodies on DVD for me to watch on my laptop, and I'm saving it for when there is absolutely no more housework to be done. I do miss TimeTeam though :o(
when there is absolutely no more housework to be done
And when would that be? Jo Brand asks, 'How can you tell if it's time to do the washing and ironing? Look in your pants and if you see a penis it's not time'
*gives up on EVER getting to watch The Goodies on DVD*
Hi. MCiOS will be unavailable for most of the day, UK time. Pardon the inconvienence. It should be up by mid-to-late afternoon.
It's baaaaaaaack!
Easter
Everyone enjoying their Easter? I've got some spring cleaning I've been putting off, and some painting I've been putting off, oh, and some other domestic stuff [I've been putting off] - (you get the idea) and I'm waiting to hear whether I've got a job. I would much rather not have been left to stew over the long weekend, truth be told. Hope I get to hear before Thursday . . .
Oh look, there's a robin.
Started sanding down some woodwork to paint it, then realised I'd bought the wrong type of paint. Ho hum. And jerry's back (different flat) so we'll have to get Dave back in to flush him/her out.
When the rob - rob - robin comes ...
[Simons] Stayed at a country pub in Bradford-on-Avon [N Wilts] last night - had an early morning coffee standing out the back and was rewarded with the sight of a plumptious [sp?] robin doing some serious nest-building. In fact, there were plenty of birds scooting back and forth a-laden with twigs and stuff. Call me old-fashioned, but I have to say - it was a sight to gladden my heart.
[Chalks] You're old fashioned.
...
9 su 10! Ottenerlo! Siete buoni! [Spam eliminato -- rab]
Which reminds me, I must write a 'Delete f*@kwit' module.
Hmmm
That was easier than expected. Given me the opportunity to wash off some of the graffitti that's accumulated over the years.
And the flat's just been Daved. I'd forgotten how entertaining he is in his mouse-destroying ways.
Katharine's a little traumatised though. She kind of hoped they would just "go away"....
Delete f*@kwit module
Yikes! looks apprehensive.
The graffiti at the end of the 'So help me God...' game is very weird. It's clearly spam - there's been about one attempt per hour to spam that game (so I've closed it) but it's very odd spam.
And since its whimsy is not entirely contra the spirit of this site, I'm tempted to leave it in...
"Zhili byli"
Having just gone and looked, I think you're right. "Zhili byli" = "Silly billy"?
...
Ich besichtige deinen Aufstellungsort wieder bald fur sicheres! Übrigens, bin ich ein Arschloch
Schön. Looks like the link threshold might have to be reduced if this game is starting to be targetted.
spam
What is the purpose of those links in random websites anyway? Is it supposed to get picked up by search engines or something?
[snorgle] I dunno really. Just presumed its cos they're twats!
spurious links
[snorgle] Yes, but I suspect it may be counter-productive. If link spam is not removed, that suggests the site it's on is moribund. If the link spam is removed, that means the site is live and the spam is unwelcome. And if the search engines score -1000000 page rank points when a link is removed, and only +1 page rank point when a link is added, spam-that-gets-removed very rapidly depresses the original inflated page rank scores. I assume the search engines' page rank algorithm is a bit more sophisticated than that, but I think that captures the gist of what they can do.
So, err, should I remove it then?
Anti-spam
Hell, yes. :-)
Duly dusted.
Cross
Currently contemplating how to vote in the impeding McElection. (Of course, I might completely forget as The Big Day is two days later, and I might have things on my mind). I live in a "battleground" constituency, apparently, but you'd hardly know it - the only people to have been vigorously campaigning are the Conservatives who I think come 4th in our consituency... The basic problem is that I'm not keen on the SNP's attitude towards independence. Although this would appear irrelevant in a Labour/LibBum marginal it's pretty obvious that the LibBums are going to hold the balance of power whatever happens, so losing a seat to Labour might help stave off the SNP threat. But then I'm not that big on Labour either... Quite probably the smartest thing to do is to vote tactically on the FPP half of the coupon, and vote idealistically in the Regional List half. But then, who to chose from this lot...?
[rab] If you vote Labour or LibDem, either could contribute toward the continuation of the Lib/Lab coalition, as the SNP wouldn't win the seat anyway. OTOH, if the SNP look like they're in with a chance, you need to vote for the party most likely to hold them off (which I would guess would be the LDs in Edin South, unless the boundary changes have altered things). Personally, given the state of the planet, I tend to vote Green in regional lists (e.g. GLA and EU elections) as it seems to be the only way for them to ever win a seat. Don't really agree with all their policies but I naively trust that it helps with pushing the environment a little further up the agenda.
(For that matter, I notice that the polls are suggesting the Greens could fall back to 1 MSP this time (from 7 last), so if you want to help shore up their position, Green would be a good way to go in the lists).
upcoming elections
I've just received my polling card for next month's Assembly election, so I've been pondering too. I live in a Labour donkey district, so it can feel a bit pointless, but then there are the regional lists to vote for as well. Libdems would seem to be the most likely to get in on this one, but I'm greatly annoyed at the vast quantity of crappy "newspapers" they keep pushing through my letterbox. One of them wasn't even identified as party political except in teeny-tiny writing at the very bottom of the back page.
Green with MP
[Projoy] A crap reason for voting green would be that I actually know, and like, the third person on the regional list (we currently have 2 on our regional list).
[snorgle] Oh dear! I often hear other people complain that they'll vote for x party because "they were the only one that bothered to send me anything saying what they believed in". Damned if they do, damned if they don't, clearly!
election bumf
[Projoy]The stuff that comes out around election time is pointless, and consists of blatant attempts at rubbishing the opposition, with little talk of their own policies. The libdems do actually send round little circulars even when it's not near an election, but they are such obvious little puff pieces I pay them no mind.
[rab] That's such a content-free candidacy that you almost wonder if it's some cheeky Channel 4 documentary maker trying to demonstrate that you can sell any old crap to the electorate.
Apologies for any inconvenience, but due to the increased rate of spamming you no longer get any 'free' links (except ones to other pages on mc5). You still can post links, but need to enter the code word which should be familiar from a similar set-up at MCiOS. If you need any help, email me.
PS: the codeword box appears when you "Stand' or 'Preview'.
Code Word
Will you be offering a "forgot the code word?" auto e-mailing thing like google does for passwords?
Just kidding. I think I can hazard a guess in the unlikely event I wish to post a link.
Just kidding. I think I can hazard a guess in the unlikely event I wish to post a link.
Password Reminders
I envision a reminder of the form, 'Dear Duncan Goodhew. This letter has some handy hints for how to keep your hair in tip-top condition. I suggest you have it framed and pin it up on your bedroom wall. Yours sincerely, Mrs Trellis.'
It does raise the issue of allowing people to post on the first go -- although arguably if you're posting a link you should be made to preview, so maybe this is a good thing. I've been tempted to make the field an ordinary one with the prompt "Shoe size:" or something in front of it. Regular players will know that most of the time they don't have to put anything there and anyone else can type anything they want and it won't hurt anything.
[Dan] A preview does appear, and since links are often mis-entered, this is probably not a bad idea.
[rab] Sorry, I came across as critical of the idea in that last post. I think it is a splendid way of limiting the unwanted spam without preventing links at all. Sorry for any confusion.
[SM] No criticism was inferred.
Ooh, a free slot.
I think an actual game of MC should go in it.
Yikes!
I leave this job on Friday 27th April after NINE whole years. Plan A is to get another job (another interview on Monday...) Plan B is to copywrite on a freelance basis and otherwise go temping my way towards a living, which I like the sound of. It means I can be more flexible about when I work, and as The Bloke's weekend always starts on a Saturday evening, not a Friday like most people's, this might be useful. But it depends whether or not I can find enough clients. I'm thinking of some sort of business activity doing for myself what I spent the past nine years developing for [a major client]. I would imagine a temping job might come first though - but that's no bad way to collect clients. I've done it that way before. I have friends building me a website as we speak...
More soon
More soon
Just curious
[rab] The odds of it happening are relatively low, but how would the system cope if a spam-bot found the new game link, followed it, and deposited its crap there? [pen] Good luck. I hope to come Simon Smith Tech Writer Limited myself, very shortly.
Hmmm, not sure. The rubric isn't spam checked, but I could add that. Also I should check that the new script doesn't hand out the form when there are no slots available; that way, a spammer's unlikely ever to see the source of the page or have enough opportunities to try it out and see how it works.
Into The Unknown
[pen] have no fears m'dear - you're more than capable of making a success of whatever you end up doing. Fortune really does favour the brave ...
Yikes
[Pen] Going it alone is scary, but rewarding. You may find it hard the first 18 months, but you will never want to be a wage slave again. Make sure to use the tax system to your advantage. Make a fat loss (on paper) for a while, and watch out for IR35 if you get a long contract.
[Pen] Congrats! Knowing just how stupid your employer is, rather than being frequently surprised, is the best bit of being self-employed.
Btw, you heard it here first, but I'm planning that by the end of 2007, I'll have converted my skittle alley into a microbrewery to supply both my own pub and the free trade/festivals. It'll be the only brewery in the City of Leicester. With pub and brewery combined, I could (just about) achieve my ambition and have a £1m turnover by 2010. Thank God only half of it will be cash!
Btw, you heard it here first, but I'm planning that by the end of 2007, I'll have converted my skittle alley into a microbrewery to supply both my own pub and the free trade/festivals. It'll be the only brewery in the City of Leicester. With pub and brewery combined, I could (just about) achieve my ambition and have a £1m turnover by 2010. Thank God only half of it will be cash!
[Phil] Congratulations on your plan - hope it goes well! BTW, how are you settling in? ;-)
[pen] Hooray for freelancing, for all the reasons gil said (actually I'm on staff at the moment, but I behave like a freelancer and they let me, so hooray indeed for that).
Beer Career
Phil - fantastic news! Do you need someone to do your PR? ;o)
what's brewing
...and - do you need a brewer?
Brewing Up
Yes indeed, I fancy 'Trappist' as my next career move...
(Chalky) A brewster, shurely?
penelope
You'll probably never look back. May your previous employer's business go bankrupt in six months.
[penelope] Thanks - I'm getting involved in a bit of PR satuff at the moment, now that you mention it. I'm liable to have my 15 minutes (seconds, to be honest) of fame in video format on the Everards recruitment web site. There may also be a blog on the way - again for my supplier's recruitment purposes.
[Chalky] Sorry, no brew(st)ers required , although I sense a need for a multitude of tasters.
[Chalky] Sorry, no brew(st)ers required , although I sense a need for a multitude of tasters.
I taste therefore I am
[Phil] Me! Me! Me! OOOh! Pick Me!
*is calculating the taxi fare from Leicester to Derby*
[INJ] Well, we're one bus journey (or £5 taxi) from the railway station, meaning you could take in the "sister brewery" at The Brunswick on your way (both ways!).
ok
Time to play the game
not a penguin, not in need of picking up, so don't even mention it
Hi HHH and DX
*is calculating cost of Eurostar from here to London, crossing london, exorbitant rail fare to wherever 'the station' is plus overnight accommodation...*
*is like a pppterodactlyl, with a silent stammer*
Hey, it's rude to spit.
Wait! "Tuj" begins with "P"? The obsession is explained!
[CdM] Haha! Sadly no more than the fact that having typed the question once, my browser then suggested it the next time I started typing in a question beginning with P. And after the first couple of times, I couldn't kick the habit...
By the way, if we ever had a day when everyone had to start their names with P (you know, just in case) you could insert some extra letters and call yourself PaChYdErM.
By the way, if we ever had a day when everyone had to start their names with P (you know, just in case) you could insert some extra letters and call yourself PaChYdErM.
*bites her tongue*
(Ptuj) That should go down well.
Hmm, I was in an odd mood earlier. Ah well. Pachyderm's a funny word.
(Ptuj) Not if you're an elephant.
I've already got a silent letter; I don't think I can pull off two without being highly contrived.
I've already got a silent letter; I don't think I can pull off two without being highly contrived.
[Pnobbly] I hope CdM isn't an elephant. I'm worried it might have been insulting somehow (it certainly wasn't) after Néa's comment.
That was me
(that should have been "ptongue")
[Tuj] I didn't interpret it as insulting, just funny :-)
[Ptuj] For the record [if anyone happens to be keeping one] I chuckled - in fact, I chuckled in a considerably overblown way, but still couldn't think of anything remotely amusing to add. PaChyDerM! yay :-)
How many times have I told you people? DON'T THINK OF AN ELEPHANT!!
[PC Halky] It's dangerous to hypothesise like that... before you know it everyone's names begin with P & there aren't elephants everywhere!
Oh and
[Néa] Thank you :) wasn't sure if you'd meant to bite the tongue as in to hold in some kind of remark.
Oh well...
*waves*
Tries hard not to think about elephants...
*thinks of a giraffe*
What the hell have I started?
[the original ppp] I think you'll find we're all quite easily led.
Hand up
Can I have a pee please, sir? Everyone else has had one.
*spits*
in uniform
'ello 'ello 'ello - what's all this silliness then?
Look out! It's the filth!
*makes rude gesture*
Oh well...
[Phil] BZZZZT! Repetition of 'Oh well...'
[P Please, Bobter!] I'm surprised you're not called Porter, I Say!. Though I think your name's better :)
We're not exactly making poetry.
*feels perturbed*
Only kidding. Just two more days left to work here - and I got my redundancy cheque too - hurrah! The Freelance career starts next week, just as soon as I've signed on.
Good luck with the freelancing, with the cheque I think one of the first things you need to do is line up something cravenly self indulgent and includes lots of pampering.
cheers Pinkpot. (That name is WAY too cute!) Re: pampering - I'm already in the process of acquiring a summer working-from-home wardrobe off Ebay. I just sold some of my clothes on there (the things I really never wear any more) and raised enough cash to get myself a website and pay a friend to set it up for me :o)
Oh my god pppen, your ppp's are expanding. Good luck with being free. New clothes sound fab, I certainly approve of shopping!
[pen] What special clothes do you need for working from home?
[Praak] I suppose it depends on the risk assessment - how dangerous is pppen's abode, I wonder?
[Raak] Special working-from-home clothes? You have to ask? pffft... Actually, just stuff that isn't business suits or officewear, and isn't scruffs or going-out clothes. I don't seenm to have anything in-between.
[penelope] Pyjamas often works for me. :)
I'm a big fan of pyjamas too. But that often leads to naps which can get out of hand. And then I get nothing done.
*is intrigued by the concept of 'naps that get out of hand'*
"They even *sleep* in clothes"
The only reason I have a pair of pajamas is for hopefully rare stays in hospital. Likewise a dressing gown.
[Raak] So what do you wear to hang out the washing and put out the wheeliebin?
[pen] Rollers, I bet. [Raak] Actually, I tend not to wear jim-jams in the Summer, meaning I sometimes 'work' from home nekkid.
Re: I don't seem to have anything in-between
Hidden text
CENSORED - too filthy[pen] My usual at-home wear: t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms.
I've never understood the need for special at-home wear - dinner jackets are so hard wearing you can simply have them on all the time!
Hello everyone. If anyone is near Tunbridge Wells and wants to see the touring ISIHAC on 17 Sep, let me know as I've got an extra ticket. (sorry for crosspost)
That was me.
[Darre] Careful what you start doing.
[Parre] Pu has a a point
We are now chemical symbols, and Pd (CdM?) has a stutter.
oi!
Day One in the Freelance PR house... and I'm just writing the copy for my new website. Going to see my webmaster tonight with a CD full of images and text. Eeeek! But then again, his wife is cooking dinner for us, so that's OK :o)
Web sites
[PRen] I hope it's going to validate OK, otherwise the local pedants will be down on you like a ton of extremely neatly-stacked bricks. :-) PS my site doesn't validate properly ATM so I can talk.
After a few months of lacklustre campaigning, we came home last night to find 22 separate election leaflets on our doorstep.
[Pr] I'm neutral
Hooray. At last I can join in the dysnomenclatural fun!
ope
[Simons] I just bought the domain yesterday, and there's no coding in it yet... so I'm in the clear ATM... phew!
elelctions
I've had loads of the usual bumfy election leaflets (including the delightful BNP, and the UKIP (who have promised to work towards dismantling the Assembly if elected). I had a couple of hand addressed (literally - the wrong number was put on one of the envelopes and then crossed and corrected) ones too from the Lib Dems. In fact, I mistook it for a real letter, as it was hand-written inside (although copied and printed) and not, at first, in the usual style of an election leaftlet. I am so jaded, however, that it really annoys me, because I know it's just a ruse. I don't who to vote for really, out of the main parties(ok, not counting the conservatives, BNP, UKIP and any other wackos).
heavy as lead
I've not had any election leaflets. Or canvassers. I feel quite left out. But the labour party could nominate a red sheep to stand and it'd get in no problems. Pah. Not sure if I'm green, orange or blue this time. Anything but not red or the evil BNP.
Wackos
New Labour not wackos? Where's that then?
The reds have given up around here, so I'm voting for the oranges and hope I don't get a fundamentalist Protestant with an aggressive incomprehensible accent. It's a genuine contest, (start rant) quite unlike the Parliamentiary elections where voting is pointless unless for the Tory, who always wins and always will win. (End rant)
wackos
Just because I didn't *list* New Labour, doesn't mean they're not included. I'm sure the BNP consider everyone else wackos, after all. But I pretty much live in a donkey district for labour too, so I don't know why the other parties try so hard. I suppose it's because there are Lib Dems surrounding us, so they hope that population movement might eventually work in their favour.
Outage
Apologies for the outage this morning - I have received (without asking) an explanation from the hosting company so I'm pretty impressed with the service I'm getting from them.
Anyway, that's me off work now for the wedding on Saturday...
Unusually
Hmmm... well things seem to be on a knife-edge here, and I get the feeling that a few switches from LibDem to Labour in our constituency could make the difference between the SNP coming first and second. Still undecided as to how to vote though - I also feel that as support for Labour has probably generally dropped, the seat is probably not as marginal as it was. And in any case, if there's only a couple of seats in it, either the SNP or Labour will be able to form a majority through a coalition with the LibDems so these few votes are unlikely to be crucial. Labour coming out in front would presumably prevent the LibDems cosying up with the SNP though...
[rab] Well, I hope it wasn't you who tipped over the edge and attacked the ballot boxes, provoked perhaps by the stress of the impending nuptials.
[rab] And the very best of luck for today (altho I doubt you'll see this till after the event!
)
[Projoy] Thank you very much. It went perfectly despite our ludicrously complicated arrangements. And I am very much enjoying having a wife.
.. raising a glass
Congratulations rab and Mrs rab :-)
[rab] "I am very much enjoying having a wife." What? As you type?
It's called "multi-tasking", Projoy
[rab] Hurrah! Congratulations! We want wedding pictures!
"having a wife"
[rab] So long as it's your own wife you're enjoying having, fair play to you old son!
Ladies and gentlemen...
Mrs rab
Well many many many congrats. Mrs rab looks lovely, and your father in law's beard is the stuff of legend. Shame you had to have 'linda sneddon' stamped on your pate for the occasion.
I just think it's so cool we can see previews of the pictures so soon. Can't wait to see the actual prints. We're really pleased - she was a pin in the internet and was absolutely fantastic on the day, and I can't fault the composition even if I am gurning in most of them...
Photographer
Mine did six hundred and put 'em all on the internet, and then gave us the DVD with the high quality and internet quality versions. My wife was asked to choose 50 (and chose 134) which we had printed A4 size - a big mistake as you can't put 'em in an album. I'm sure we'll get round to doing an album, just not yet. The internet quality versions are online but a bit crap.
rab wedding
Scotland, yet not a single kilt, dirk or claymore in view. No doubt there was a hidden piper playing "Haste Ye to the Wedding" behind that large stone wall. Please accept my best wishes for you and your bride, rab. The pictures are very cool.
Congrats rab and mrs rab, it looks lovely. Best wishes and lots of luck to you both
[Rab] Congratulations, although I shall be disappointed in you if you respond to any of these messages in the next few days.
[rab] What they all said.
[rab] Particularly what INJ said...
Stacking
[rab] What CdM said!
supporting cast
[rab] like what he said.
[rab] What Tuj said, but the opposite of what CdM said.
[rab] 'nuff said.
[rab] What Projoy would have said that I would have said, had you asked him if it is true that Tuj never tells the truth.
[CdM] What did you say?
[rab] What CdM said Projoy said Tuj said CdM said and so say all of us.
Right.
*mimes*
the Great British Public
The highlight of the weekend was the Eurovision song contest, there has since been a barrage in the press blaming Scootch for an appaling camp song, have they forgotten that the song was the choice of GBP in a tele-vote. The danger from the press is that they tend to take it all too seriously. However, the political voting was more obvious than ever, before it was just pairing which did not effect the final result and was a bit of an in-joke. Now we have block voting with a split between old and new Europe. The UK should not send its best but maintain but send more of the same next year to Belgrade.
1 Serbia - 268
2 Ukraine - 235
3 Russia - 207
4 Turkey - 163
5 Bulgaria - 157
6 Belarus - 145
7 Greece - 139
8 Armenia - 138
9 Hungary - 128
10 Moldova - 109
11 Bosnia/Herzegovina - 106
12 Georgia - 97
13 Romania - 84
14 Macedonia - 73
15 Slovenia - 66
16 Latvia - 54
17 Finland - 53
18 Sweden - 51
19 Germany - 49
20 Spain - 43
21 Lithuania - 28
22 France - 19
23 United Kingdom - 19
24 Ireland - 5
1 Serbia - 268
2 Ukraine - 235
3 Russia - 207
4 Turkey - 163
5 Bulgaria - 157
6 Belarus - 145
7 Greece - 139
8 Armenia - 138
9 Hungary - 128
10 Moldova - 109
11 Bosnia/Herzegovina - 106
12 Georgia - 97
13 Romania - 84
14 Macedonia - 73
15 Slovenia - 66
16 Latvia - 54
17 Finland - 53
18 Sweden - 51
19 Germany - 49
20 Spain - 43
21 Lithuania - 28
22 France - 19
23 United Kingdom - 19
24 Ireland - 5
Eastern Bloc-voting
Lithuania must have been absolutely atrocious.
As a gentle riposte to all those - including Wogan - bleating about political/neighbourly voting, I'm assured that this would have been the result of the contest had the votes of western European countries only had been counted:
1 Serbia 128 (actually 1st)
2 Turkey 111 (4th)
3 Ukraine 111 (2nd)
4 Russia 84 (3rd)
5 Bulgaria 80 (5th)
6 Hungary 79 (9th)
7 Armenia 76 (8th)
8 Greece 69 (7th)
9 Romania 58 (13th)
10 Bosnia Herzegovina 56 (11th)
11 Sweden 51 (18th)
12 Moldova 50 (10th)
13 Finland 41 (17th)
14 Germany 40 (19th)
15 Belarus 38 (6th)
16 Georgia 31 (12th)
17 Spain 27 (20th)
18 Latvia 24 (16th)
19 United Kingdom 19 (23rd)
20 Lithuania 16 (21st)
21 Slovenia 13 (15th)
22 France 8 (22nd)
23 FR of Macedonia 8 (14th)
24 Ireland 0 (24th)
Very little variation in the top five, meaning that actually the west voted for the same top songs as the east.
1 Serbia 128 (actually 1st)
2 Turkey 111 (4th)
3 Ukraine 111 (2nd)
4 Russia 84 (3rd)
5 Bulgaria 80 (5th)
6 Hungary 79 (9th)
7 Armenia 76 (8th)
8 Greece 69 (7th)
9 Romania 58 (13th)
10 Bosnia Herzegovina 56 (11th)
11 Sweden 51 (18th)
12 Moldova 50 (10th)
13 Finland 41 (17th)
14 Germany 40 (19th)
15 Belarus 38 (6th)
16 Georgia 31 (12th)
17 Spain 27 (20th)
18 Latvia 24 (16th)
19 United Kingdom 19 (23rd)
20 Lithuania 16 (21st)
21 Slovenia 13 (15th)
22 France 8 (22nd)
23 FR of Macedonia 8 (14th)
24 Ireland 0 (24th)
Very little variation in the top five, meaning that actually the west voted for the same top songs as the east.
Surely people don't still watch this ludicrous glitterfest except to mock it? When it started it was regarded as the height of uncool, or "square", as the word was then, by us teenagers and seems since then to have disappeared completely up its own arse in a frenzy of baroque absurdity. Perhaps I'm taking it too seriously, and actually I haven't seen it for a few years, to tell the truth.
[Rosie] Went to my mate's Eurovision party on Saturday night (as I usually do each year) - great fun! We had international food, voted along with the contest, and indulged in much mockery.
[Rosie] I caught it about ten years ago, and Wogan was just taking the piss all the way through. I assume it hasn't got any more serious since then.
[Rosie] It was uncool, then for a while it became cool, but only in an ironic way, then the irony got less ironic. I'm sure it'll become uncool again shortly.
(UK, Raak, Pj) That's all good news, and rather what I had expected. Next year I must watch it, preferably in company, not sober, and learn to be silly again.
If you look more closely at the group shot, you will spot at least one kilt.
The honeymoon was fab, by the way - even if Italy is the only country to have spurned The Contest, so we ended up watching it in our hotel room on German TV with the sound coming through a tinny speaker so it rather lost a lot of its normal impact. However, we developed a taste for Chianti Classico in the process so it's not all bad. Anyway, after a week of olive oil and various gnocci we're off to have a dirty curry.
Hurrah! Nice wedding pictures, though I concur on the subject of the distressing lack of kilts. Also can't believe you watched the Eurovision whatchamacallit on your honeymoon. See you soon, no doubt!
Celtic Kilties
My original observation on kilts and other Scottish accoutrements has been misinterpreted due to my poor choice of phrase. I was trying to congratulate rab on the dearth rather than complaining. I would expect any festive event north of the Cheviots to be infested with man-skirts, basket-handled swords, hollowed-out-rabbit purses and bagpipes. The rab/Mrs rab-to-be wedding appeared to be suitably festive but infestation-free.
Congratulations again, rab, on your union with the delightful Mrs rab. May good luck follow you all your days and occasionally catch you up.
Congratulations again, rab, on your union with the delightful Mrs rab. May good luck follow you all your days and occasionally catch you up.
*waves*
Waves from Holland - the flat bit.
(pen) That's all of it, isn't it? Reminds me of a harmless little joke:-
Nice old lady: Which is the Bloody Tower?
Beefeater: All of it, ma'am.
Going Dutch
[pen] Still going strong with Windy? Cool! Isn't Holland pictures queue.
flat out
[Ispers] I certainly am and it certainly is! And it's so bloody neat!
Game slot
Anyone for Reverse MC? Or any other suggestions?
Honeymoon Photos
[rab] Seems like you spent some time out of doors...
[IS,P!] I tend not to take pics indoors, partly cos it's often Not Allowed, and partly cos they tend to come out badly.
[rab] My point being that it's traditional not to spend much time out of doors whilst honeymooning. Emphasis on the 'mooning'.
Ah yes, well... erm.
Vinyl > CD - advice sought
Seeing as it's been a bit quiet in here and I am aware of some who post on this site are music buffs I hope you don't mind if I ask for a bit of advice.
I have been toying with the idea of transferring audio from some of my vinyl records to C.D.. At this point I have found one program which seems to work well, though I've not explored it fully, and wondered if any of you could recommend or otherwise software that does this task. The program I have to hand (time-limited) is called PolterbitS. Takers?
I have been toying with the idea of transferring audio from some of my vinyl records to C.D.. At this point I have found one program which seems to work well, though I've not explored it fully, and wondered if any of you could recommend or otherwise software that does this task. The program I have to hand (time-limited) is called PolterbitS. Takers?
vinyl and cassettes
[Dujon]I am in the process of converting all my vinyl, it can be a long process, but I am not familiar the programme you mentioned. What I done! and CDs arranged by colour.
Rainbow CDs
Thanks, Inkspot. I'll check out the Audacity prog. The one I have costs money, which is something I am allergic to spending, whereas the one I have been evaluating, whilst reasonable, is around AUD 50.
You are right about the time involved. I've been recording (real time) then 'de-clicking' the audio (faster but still takes a while) and then breaking the recorded stuff into tracks (partially automatic but also involves manual input for confirmation purposes).
The cabling is not a problem. Thanks again, good sir.
You are right about the time involved. I've been recording (real time) then 'de-clicking' the audio (faster but still takes a while) and then breaking the recorded stuff into tracks (partially automatic but also involves manual input for confirmation purposes).
The cabling is not a problem. Thanks again, good sir.
Damn
First par. third sentence doesn't make sense. I think you'll understand the gist of it.
I downloaded Audacity at the weekend. I'm currently using it to make the music rounds in my quizzes a bit harder - e.g. by mixing two songs together, or playing things bakcwards.
Bad English
Glad you were able to sift out some sense Dujon, that's my CSE grade 2 coming to the surface yet again.
Phil, you are very wicked person ;^)
I may well pinch one or two of your brilliantly twisted ideas for the music quiz I run each Monday at the MSN group The Village
Phil, you are very wicked person ;^)
I may well pinch one or two of your brilliantly twisted ideas for the music quiz I run each Monday at the MSN group The Village
So what's the best free stuff to use to rip DVDs, then? I want to rip the DVD of BLOC on Broadway and put my bit on YouTube for everyone to laugh at.
Isn't anyone going to say anything? Hmmm. OK. An announcement. I have just picked the first five strawberries from my patch, and they are perfect whoppers. Yum yum.
Congratulations on your patience in allowing them to grow to that size. I'd've been checking them every day and wolfing them at the first sign of edibility.
Strawberries? There's posh, isn't it? Best I can do is a few blackberries and chives. I also have quince bush, but they're disgusting.
preserves
Quinces - well we did try for quince jam from ours once, but it wasn't really worth the bother. We just grow it for its ornamental value.
quince mince
[Rosie] I'm sure someone from your local WI will be able to make good use of them. It's one of those fruits that needs a bit of a renaissance - it's happened to rhubarb, and I reckon crab apples are in line too. I've got my first ever crop of rhubarb this year too - it was sown THREE YEARS ago, and this is the first time there's been anything to show for it! Strawberries and rhubarb together are a match made in heaven.
Mixed up
Really, penelope? I enjoy both rhubarb and strawberries but have not ever entertained the thought of combining them. Poor me. Is it some sort of sweet-and-sour treat or should the rhubarb (funny name that) be well sugared prior to consumption?
[IS,P] I cannot help you. I don't possess a DVD burner.
[IS,P] I cannot help you. I don't possess a DVD burner.
strawbarb and rhuberries
[Dujon] Yup. Strawberry and rhubarb crumble is food of the gods.
Served with Ambrosia, I assume.
(pen) Can't stand rhubarb. But blackberry and apple crumble, the very thought..... drools...... You're quite a gardener, then? Not I; just keep it tidy, keep the wilderness under control.
Necktie of the Gods
Rhubarb fool with fresh raspberries! Our rhubarb's just about pickable, but the raspberries are still resolutely green at the moment.
foolishness
[INJ] Then make your pre-fool (rhubarb puree) now, freeze it until the raspberries are ripe, then add the cream to make the fool and add the fresh raspberries.
Crumbles!
Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, crumbles are to me similar to shortbread. Should I have some medical condition which involved over salivating then each or either could be a solution. As I do not suffer from such a condition (yet) both species of those concoctions that seem to mimic the absorbent quality of some sort of surgical swab are well and truly off the menu.
[Dujon] Perhaps the crumble was too thick, and the fruit below too dry. A good crumble should not be that dry.
[Rosie] I'm also have a revulsion towards rhubarb. Also, I agree with your blackberry and apple comments - fantastic combination. I'm guessing that there's a decent chance you don't like gooseberries either?
[Rosie] I'm also have a revulsion towards rhubarb. Also, I agree with your blackberry and apple comments - fantastic combination. I'm guessing that there's a decent chance you don't like gooseberries either?
(Phil) No, dead right. I have an overall distaste for fruit and vegetables but like certain ones like bananas, apples, prunes (but not plums) and most berries (not goose-) plus carrots, peas, beans, beetroot and oddly enough, spinach and swedes. That's enough for a reasonable diet as I tend to put away quite large amounts of these things.
Detox
[Phil] You could well be correct, but don't tell the cook (Mrs Duj) that I said that.
[Rosie] I must be lucky as there are few vegetables or fruit that I dislike. Some I enjoy more than others and just a few (asparagus, like oysters, puts me off because of the smell). Others (mango, pawpaw, rock melon) I decline, partly because of their smell and partly their texture . . . slimy). Unlike the stereotypical child I enjoy Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower and will eat potato 'til the cows come home. Generally speaking though it is unusual for me to eat fruit even though I am aware that nutritionists advise eating such on a regular basis; perhaps I get my fill from the grape. Mind you, when in season, a tomato sprinkled lightly with salt and eaten as you would an apple is a delight.
[Rosie] I must be lucky as there are few vegetables or fruit that I dislike. Some I enjoy more than others and just a few (asparagus, like oysters, puts me off because of the smell). Others (mango, pawpaw, rock melon) I decline, partly because of their smell and partly their texture . . . slimy). Unlike the stereotypical child I enjoy Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower and will eat potato 'til the cows come home. Generally speaking though it is unusual for me to eat fruit even though I am aware that nutritionists advise eating such on a regular basis; perhaps I get my fill from the grape. Mind you, when in season, a tomato sprinkled lightly with salt and eaten as you would an apple is a delight.
The grape
(Duj) Do you mean grapes or do you mean "the grape"? Heavens to Murgatroyd, you're not a boozer, are you? Disgraceful.
I choose my words carefully, Rosie. ;-(
Hic!
[Rosie] I've often wondered if I can include malted barley and hops in my "five-a-day"...
olive what he's having
[Phil] Likewise, a dish of olives with a G&T must count for something.
[Pen] You forgot the slice of lemon.
We once had a discussion as to whether the currants in squashed-fly biscuits counted as "a portion".
(Phil) Gawd, not you 'n' all. BTW do you ever do Fuller's London Pride or Young's Ordinary? Good in their own way. (rab) I'd say yes because the recommended five is a ludicrous number. Five apples? With all that fibre you'd never be off the po.
odd fruit
I had some durian ice-cream when I was in Paris the Bank Holiday weekend - wonderful taste, and while it didn't pong as much as the actual fruit, I did get some very odd looks from the neighbouring tables.
[Rosie] I don't like London Pride (althuough ESB and Golden Pride are veryy much my cup of tea). I've nothing against it, I just don't like it. I did have Young's Bitter here a few weeks ago, and it drank very well for a low alcohol beer :-)
Any other questions?
Oooh! I have an interview tomorrow for a six-week job paying Loadsamoney :oD
Booze
Does a glass of white wine fortheladies count less than a glass of red towards the daily fruit allowance, I wonder.
MCiOS unavailable
Well, I took a gamble on a remote distribution upgrade, and lost. It won't be back until late your time tomorrow. Apologies.
MCiOS unavailable
[Dan] Oh no! Whatever shall we do in the meantime?
[ISP] Personally, I'm considering temporary suicide. :)
Wonderful to see the BBC setting the standard for English:
Kylie Minogue is the first woman to be honoured with this year's Music Industry Trusts' Award, in recognition of her 20-year career as a pop star.
(ISP) Can't see much wrong with that unless it's the apostrophe. But it could be the Award of the Music Industry Trusts, it there is more than one of them. Possibly there isn't, in which case it's wrong.
[Rosie] How many awards do they give each year? Presumably she's the only person honoured with this year's award, so it's rather obvious that she's also the first woman to be honoured with this year's award. She's also the last.
[Rosie] I think what's wrong with it is the words "Kylie Minogue".
[Rosie] What Phil said. [Raak] I find Kylie Minogue quite pleasing on the eyes, not so pleasing on the ears.
((Phil) Yes, "This year" should be at the beginning and "this year's" scrapped and replaced by "the". (ISP) I've never found her really attractive and she's now metamorphosing into the all-Australian auntie.
talking of the BBC
I was in fits of giggles today when News24 showed pictures of the prime minister and other politicians in the house of commons with a big red banner beneath saying 'sex offenders'.
Popsicles
[IS,P] While admitting to the fact that I'm a 'face man' I do think that K.M. is not pretty. In fact I think she's downright ugly.
[Rosie] "the all-Australian auntie? Surely the world has had enough of that via the 'art' of Dame Edna? Here, have some glads, I'm off to the bunker for a while.
[Rosie] "the all-Australian auntie? Surely the world has had enough of that via the 'art' of Dame Edna? Here, have some glads, I'm off to the bunker for a while.
(Dujon) I find Dame Edna very amusing. No, really. What I meant was La Minogue (interesting Manx surname) now looks frumpish, apparently deliberately, because she's not that old.
Kylie's Sunday face
[Dujon] It's the bum that does it for me every time.
Minogue again
There are a few jokes based on her deficient embonpoint.
Skinny Minogue
[Rosie] You haven't seen the photos I've seen, then. Or the video with the bucking bronco. MMMMMmmmmh!
[IS,P] Neither have I...
[IS,P!, UK] I have :-) Kylie has been ever-present in my life since the day I saw her arrive in Ramsey Street, as Lennie Mitchell, and deck Scott Robinson. That was about 1986/7-ish, I think.
(Phil) Yerss.
Manx cats
[Rosie] Really? Though I must admit I've never thought of the root of her family moniker. She's got a sister who is also in the entertainment game - Dannii. I wonder whether she's a tailless type as well.
[Phil] You worry me, old son. Next you'll be telling me that you're a Home and Away follower as well. Eeek!
[Phil] You worry me, old son. Next you'll be telling me that you're a Home and Away follower as well. Eeek!
Go to youtube.com/watch?v=7JdfmB7aXb4
[UK] Incredible you haven't seen this. Perhaps NSFW (unless your colleagues go for Kylie as well).
[Dujon] How very dare you! As if I'd watch that tripe! Although, I will confess that many, many moons ago, I used to watch Sons & Daughters and A Country Practice. Mrs Phil and I were reminiscing about them a couple of days ago. She used to watch The Flying Doctors too, but I never got into it, apart from when I wanted to check out the rumour that the actress who played Maria Ramsey had moved there.
Imports
[Phil] Blimey, how much of our trash to you get over there? Mind you A Country Practice did have a homely sort of feel to it and some of the characters were reasonably portrayed. Not that I watched it of course.
The Devil's Lantern
(Dujon) If we haven't flogged you Big Brother yet you don't know what trash is.
Pumpkins alight
Voyeurism at its lowest ebb, Rosie. We have our own version it seems. 'Turkey slapping' for heaven's sake! Yes, I had a look when it first started all those years ago, but not since. You keep yours and we'll keep ours . . . deal?
Not just Aus, but NZ too..
Mrs Phil used to be quite keen on Shortland Street as well. I think that's abuot it for Aus soaps. One Aus program we used to enjoy, but haven't seen in yonks was Murder Call. It was quite good, dedpite being remarkably cheesy and phenomenally fomulaic.
(Dujon) OK - deal. I read in today's paper that the actual audiences for Big Brother are remarkably small and probably mostly under 25 but the popular press and sometimes the serious press treats it as a serious and important programme. The participants are morons; a distillation of stupidity, and you wouldn't touch them with the proverbial 18-foot disinfected bargepole. Most of my friends have never seen any of it.
Big Brother - big deal
(Rosie) I'm under 25 and I've never seen any of it either. I know that doesn't advance the conversation much; I just haven't said anything for a while and I wanted to feel involoved.
(myself) Involoved?
(Knobbly) I'm sure that word can be rearranged to form the name of a Russian city. I'll come back on that one.
Involoved
If you were devoloved you'd have a nice long palindrome.
[Knobbly] I think you wanted to feel both loved and involved and where therefore forced into coining a new portmanteau word. :)
[myself] "where"? Perhaps I meant "were here".
[myself] Yes, but with or without implied apostrophe?
[myself] Bugger. Whatre the chances of that happening?
(Projoy) 100%. It happened, if I've translated whatre correctly. I should have a lie-down.
[Projoy] I went to Portmanteau once. It was a pilgrimage of sorts, as I am a great fan of The Prisoner.
where?
oops
What I meant was... I saw a big posted advertising the arrival of a new Suzuki car showroom, it might have been somewhere in West Sussex yesterday. Unfortunately the chosen font left a very small gap between two of the words, so it looked like it said: NOWHERE SUZUKI. Cracking.
d'oh
poster*
Just having a moan
Why were marks subtracted from one of my last ever essays for poor use of english because I chose to spell "rôle" with a circumflex in its rightful place?
[Knobbly] Because the marker was a muppet?
Flaking out
Yeah! First snow of the season overnight. Not at my place - thankfully.
(Knobbly) Because the examiner's wife had had an affair with Arsène Wenger. I'd say the circumflex is optional as the word becomes more and more part of the English (note capital) language. It's certainly not wrong.
(Dujon) Do you ever get snow? Must be pretty rare, I'd have thought. Good thunderstorm here this evening with one very close strike (guess 150 yd), the type that produces a crack and a ripping sound.
No, Rosie. Well, nearly no. It is indeed very rare indeed for snow at my level (250 metres above sea level) but it has happened. Last night was the first dusting a little farther up the mountains from me, about a half hour drive. My son lives in the area and my wife headed off to work there this fine morn. I have no idea at this stage as to how much settled but, as is usual in this country, roads were closed and general chaos ensued. I'm guessing that less than 5mm landed, though ice could be the more important factor.
I don't envy you the lightning type storm. That sort of thing is not unusual here at my location. There is a number of stains on the carpet to prove it. :-)
I don't envy you the lightning type storm. That sort of thing is not unusual here at my location. There is a number of stains on the carpet to prove it. :-)
(Rosie) Oops. Yes, I think I changed the capital E when I took the capital U away from 'Use'.
(To whom it may concern) We certainly are having a lot of weather at the moment.
(To whom it may concern) We certainly are having a lot of weather at the moment.
Circumflexes
[Rosie] Did you know that the official French orthography abolished most circumflexes over the letters "i" and "u", except where ambiguity and homographs could occur. This has not bee widely adopted by the French, even though the French Academy encourages it. I know this is not really relevant, but I thought it was QI.
Flash git
(Dujon) I love thunderstorms, the louder and closer the better up to but not including my house. I have found over the years that lightning flashes vary considerably in length and intensity. On Fri 28 Aug 1958 at about 9 in the morning there was a tremendous blinding flash and an almost instantaneous deafening boom. I thought it had hit nextdoor's front garden at the very furthest but again it was about 150 yd away and completely destroyed a large tree. I found out later that it was a high-level storm with cloudbase about 7000 ft so the flash must have been that long. Most are less than a third of that. On the other hand I have seen a flash hit the ground about 20 yds outside the window at work but it produced no more than a loud pop, and was probably very short, a few hundred feet. (Knobbly) Oh yes, there's always the bloody weather, as I found out when I became a junior forecaster and had to do shifts. I left eventually for the pleasures of 8.30 to 5 in the chemical industry and meteorolgy is now just a fairly serious hobby.
Meteorology as well.
(Phil) The French take their language quite seriously, which I think is a good thing, even if they slightly overdo it. We could do with a bit of that in this country but the culture is against it. (Knobbly) I suspect your examiner was "following guidelines" but should have used common sense. To actually dock marks for that is quite absurd.
French
EEEK I've got a French exam on Friday. Had the mock test last Friday and got 40 percent. Need 60 to pass. Already booked myself to redo the year. The embarrassing part is that this is a Francophone country.
(ISP) Where's that, then?
Francophone
[Rosie] Belgium. I use my french under sufferance. Italian at home, English (and some French) at work. French when I need something from a shop or artisan. Flemish never.
mc100
X-POSTED REMINDER: Tomorrow (Fri 22 June) is the 100th Anniversary of Mornington Crescent Station. If you would like to mark this momentous occasion, please come to the traffic island opposite the station before 8pm tomorrow. On the signal, at 8pm sharp, we will all turn to the station, kneel and worship for 30 seconds, then rise and go about our business (which could include going to the pub). Be there or be uncrescent. :)
[IS,P] I thought that the last time I looked you were in Italy, you old globe trotter, you. Or have I got the wrong man?
Turin, Brussels, ...?
[Dujon] You need to pay more attention in MCiOS. I've been here since November.
The surviving parachutist link in the 8-word game
Skipping past his father's beatifully inane explanation of how a parachute works ("The parachute is attached to a container on the skydivers back with a load of lines"), you get to his marvellously tactless quote at the end: "Michael is Michael and he will bounce back from it".
by the way
I think I'm going to move to the Netherlands. eeeek.
pendy Miller
Cool! Give my regards to Captain Snort.
I dunno, you give up work to go freelance, you move country, what next?
[ISP] My money's on a move into politics.
*snigger*
Good lord. If I did, the country would be run along the lines of the WI. And that can be no bad thing. Thrift and jam.
[pen] Are congratulations in the offing?
[Raak] In that I've found a bloke who thinks I'll do for now, yes ;o)
*offs congratulations penwards*
(pen) V. good! I'm pleased for you.
[pen] Though my feminist side wants to know why he's not moving his windmill to London...
[CdM] Planning constraints. And the fact that he has masses of freelance work there and I have very little right now. Now all I have to do is find an English-speaking job in the Netherlands...
Nederlands
I was in the Netherlands last week, and very nice it is too. It seems almost everyone is bilingual (minimal), if disconcertingly sarcastic to my in my native tongue, so I suspect you shouldn't have too many worries.
But, to get you started, zeewolf seems to be catfish.
[pen] Jolly good! Sounds wonderful. And good luck with the job hunting too. I believe there's lots of jobs in Amsterdam which don't require any language (except possibly a few groans), but I'm not sure they're to be recommended....
[penelope] Congrats! Be prepared to be much more proud of your home town once you're an ex-pat.
[pen] These days (and given how cheap it is to fly to London) one imagines one could continue to freelance virtually for UK firms. I hope to do that one day when I move somewhere warmer.
penelope
Congratulations. Will you be wearing wooden shoes?
Passing the Dutch on the left hand side
Congrats and felicitations! Just don't get too into the coffee shop mentality...
klompen
I've got the clogs already. And this is rural South Holland, not Amsterdam (which I have not yet visited). But hold on a minute... there's a REALLY good job going, and I just had a good preliminary telephone interview. If that application continures to go well, plans might change for a year or so!
...
[Mike] yeah, I know, it's all me, me, me... I'll shut up now.
pen
Wow - many good things happening! You deserve 'em all :-)
penelope's luck
Well, I'm sure after the run of foul luck you've had of late that you are due some preening in the sun. If you've got it, flaunt it as they say. Are the wooden shoes really called Klompen?
[SM] Yup. I have a pair. They're outside the back door. They were the first present he bought me :oP
[pen] Smashing stuff I'm reading here :) Will email you
There we are, I go away for a few days and all heaven breaks loose. Congrats.
Dutch courage
[pen] Xpatjobs.com and others
Crescenters European migration continues...
So a Brussels or an Amsterdam pilg would be more likely now. Welcome to the Low Countries!
Jobs in South Holland
[pen] Don't mention the war
[pen] Does Windy like Dilbert?
realises how easy Duits really is!
Perhaps it's just 'cos I know all the dilbert strips so well. decides to take a break from hogging the chat.
Doesn't anyone else have anything to banter about?
Current events aren't really the stuff of banter in the UK at least. It's good to have something pleasant to talk about.
Banter
I vote we continue to discuss pen's love life for a bit longer. All those in favour say 'Aye'.
aye!
Well, we could always talk about the weather instead. *doesn't*
[flerdle] It is a-raining-not in Brussels.
We could talk about Wimbledon. I will start the ball rolling by saying that is a pleasant SW London suburb, and in places rather expensive. The common is a useful place for a wee on the way home in the car though you may have to watch your back. The local football club won the FA Cup in 1988, to the delight of many.
Can I add that it has two tube stations and is in the London Borough of Merton.
I once saw Annette Crosbie at Wimbledon station. I can also add that Wimbledon Park is a very pleasant area and popular with dog-walkers.
It is also an excellent safety move if you are half-splined and have nothing but green tokens.
I've been through it on the train but never stopped there. It gave me the impression of looking quite green.
[Rosie] BTW, I trust you actually stop the car.
I'm making him meet the rest of my family this weekend. That means he will have met BOTH sisters (including the one with a pied-a-terre in Wimbledon, to stay on topic) and my mother. And the most ditsy of my nieces.
Old men and their bladders
(Projoy) Not only that but I get out of it. Brentford to Warlingham (22 miles, 50 mins) is just a little too far after the maximum breathalyser-passing dose of Fuller's London Pride (2½ pints).
The local football club
Is that the club which is now local to Milton Keynes?
(ISP) It is. May it fail in all possible ways for having abandoned its (rather modest) south London fanbase.
You drive 22 miles to drink London Pride?
(Phil) Er, well, not really, but it's there so I have it. I play from time to time in a small swing band. The leader is a Croydon Tram nerd but otherwise quite normal and all the group's CDs have a picture of a tram in some part of the country on the front. It makes my interest in steam locos seem positively mainstream, just like my preferred type of jazz.
[Rosie] Ah, I see. I used to walk 25 minutes to my local most days, even though there were about 20 pubs closer. It's a crappy trendy bar now though. But these days I only have to go downstairs for the best pub in town :-)
What does that have to do with Wimbledon?
Wimbledon
When I'm in London, I usually stay with my Wimbledonian friends. It's a very nice area indeed, and quick to get to from Waterloo.
Friends in Wimbledon
[Néa] How is Great Uncle Bulgaria? He must be getting on a bit by now.
(Phil) Pity that town is over 100 miles away. I drive 7 miles to my "local" (Greyhound, Carshalton). This limits the intake but I don't want a skinful these days.
*waves from Genoa*
[rab] The aquarium's quite impressive - but make sure you go to the right one, there are two. Don't go to the one which is so old it still has trilobites swimming around.
Baking cake
Happy Birthday pen!
Genoa
Is it not the fashion there to stand on street corners and say "wubble" to passers-by?
Sorry rab, I'm in the process of going through my "Black Adder" dvds and I couldn't resist it.
Sorry rab, I'm in the process of going through my "Black Adder" dvds and I couldn't resist it.
Genoa? No I've never seen her before in my life.
[SM] Don't forget to pin a live frog to the shoulder blade!
[pen] Happy Birthday!
[pen] Happy Birthday!
Genoa
<pedant> A quick internet search reveals that the fashion is to stand on a bucket...</pedant>
Blackadder DVDs
[Sierra Mike] I shall invest in those same DVDs. I saw the full set for 18 Euros (twelve quid) in MediaMarkt and am kicking myself that I didn't snap them up.
Pretty Genovese
<superpedant>I think it was also the shoulder braid and one says "bibble", not "wubble".</superpedant>
Genova
[Projoy] You wouldn't let it lie, would you.
[Projoy]Personally, I always thought it was "wibble".
older
Thanks for the birthday wishes. Had a lovely time getting lost in Wiltshire and Somerset with the Dutch Miller, who booked us a romantic night away and bought me dinner. He has now gone back, but left his own clogs on my back doorstep, next to mine. I think it's a sign.
or, if not...
Or if not a sign, a new euphemism: 'Leaving ones clogs on the back doorstep'. A new game, perhaps?
Wibble Wobble
[Knobbly] You're confusing your Blackadders. 'Wibble' should be said with your underpants on your head and a couple of pencils up your nose.
(pen) I hope he hasn't been, er, well, sort of Emptying His Raingauge.
[penelope] He popped his clogs on your back doorstep? What a shame, he sounded like such a nice bloke. My sympathy is with you m'dear.
[pen] Has he left a message in them?
cloggery
[Duj] I sniggered at your black joke, and reminded myself to make sure he has plenty of life insurance.
[Darren] No, the message *is* the clogs, i.e. "I'll be back". I've just booked another flight to go over there for ten days later this month :oD
[Rosie] I suppose we could calibrate the empty clogs on the back door step to become raingauges...
Further cloggery
(pen) Have you heard of the Cloggies, a cartoon strip of yesteryear, by Bill Tidy? They were a clog-dancing group from a northern industrial town. They won their competitions by assault which normally consisted of co-ordinated knees to the goolies of their opponents. One of their members was The Blagdon Amateur Rapist, a middle-aged man who wore nothing but shoes, socks and a tie and humped anything that moved. Let none of this distasteful nonsense detract you from your burgeoning romance.
*waves from Erice, Sicily*
[rab] You still on honeymoon? You seem to have been there for ages.
Euphemism Monday
I was going to tell you I'd just cut down a bush, then remembered what a euphemistically-inclined lot you were and decided against it.
Nah, tis conference season.
Conferentation
[rab] Just think of the happy days to come when digital technology will make it possible to meet with colleagues without having to leave Edinburgh, and reduce your carbon footprint considerably. Why, I bet you're dreaming of it as I type.
I'd love a conference right now. It's freezing here.
[Projoy] With the advent of wireless internet access these days, you have this odd situation where everyone gathers together in a room in an exotic location reading their email during the talks. Very odd.
cut-down-a-bush
[pen] Choose your response:
1. Yikes! The Department of Homeland Security might conside that a threat.
2. Bikini line, is it?
1. Yikes! The Department of Homeland Security might conside that a threat.
2. Bikini line, is it?
the lesser of two weevils
[IS,P!] I don't like either !
In other news, I'm just getting ready for a camping trip this weekend, whilst keeping an eye on the torrential rain out there... yikes!
In other news, I'm just getting ready for a camping trip this weekend, whilst keeping an eye on the torrential rain out there... yikes!
camping
[penelope] Will you be taking the klompen? Are you worried this inclement weather will cause dry rot in the instep?
de-camping
Bottled out of camping in the end. Drove home 120 miles after the party. Got home at 4am. It was getting light and STILL RAINING
(pen) V. sensible, but be grateful for small mercies. It didn't get light here until midday on Friday.
more news
Had one (preliminary) interview today, I have another interview tomorrow, then flying to the Netherlands on Saturday with two recruitment agency interviews in Rotterdam next Friday, and possibly another interview back here on Wednesday 8th. This might have something to do with the fact that I still haven't decided where I want to live, or what I want to do.
Gadding About
penelope, you are running around like a teenager. I heartily approve. Luck.
Yeah, it sounds like the same kind of exercise as trying to get a university place through clearing when you don't have quite the right qualifications for the thing you REALLY want to do, but you *could* go to somewhere else to do part of it and work it around a bit. :o(
BTW, does anyone know how Liz got on during her first day in the new job?
BTW, does anyone know how Liz got on during her first day in the new job?
Clearing
I trust that refered to the job hunt and not the Man Waiting in Rotterdam?
Furthermore
[penelope] What is it that you really want to do? If you need a "holdover job" that doesn't fit the bill, keep looking while you work, knowing you can quit when you get the perfect offer (unlike university). I can't belive that for someone as obviously mobile as you are, the right job isn't out there somewhere, or will be soon.
[SM] You're right. The job hunt. I went to see 2 recruitment companies in Rotterdam this morning, and they both seem to think I can find a decent job here, doing PR/Marketing/Editing stuff. I'm sitting at the Man's desk in Rotterdam right now, while he's in a meeting, and inventing a letter of application for one of the vacancies that one of the agencies seemed to think was up my straat.
(pen) Do you need to speak reasonable Dutch to get a job in Rotterdam? I know they can nearly all speak English, but even so it must help.
*waves from Newport News*
Hello, very hot here. We've just been for a swim in the hotel pool. Many prohibitions, as is usual, but one is the bizarrest I've ever seen: "No breath-holding".
Breath
[rab]:o) Good advice, too, if one reads it in the context of "while waiting for income tax to be repealed", I think.
Good News
Please excuse this interruption, but Dunx has had some good news. When you get a chance, you might like to visit the OMC chat game and see what's what.
All very good, though the pool in question was only 90cm deep at the shallow end. And I now have a grazed knee to prove it. Ouch.
(rab) That's three feet, isn't it? Just trying to visualise it. Sod metric.
A sod metric is 1 metre square, usually covered in grass or some other forage plant. In other news, I've got a job offer, less than I wanted, and I have to move house. But I have another interview this afternoon for a BIG job, on an international scale. I have no idea what will happen next.
Interesting developments
[penelope] Luckily time marches on, so you will find out what happens next, precisely as it happens.
30 Sods Metric (about the size of my back garden)
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. I *think* this afternoon's interview went well. The second interviews are next week, which is when they'll give me personality tests to check I'm a loony, and make me do Sudoku maths tests (it's a Japanese company). In the meantime, I am holding off deciding about the other job offer I *do* have, and as all I have is an indication of a verbal offer from the recruitment agency, I think I'm safe so far. Sorry for blurting all of this out at you lot; you can expect more over the next few days.
The Stupid Internet Freebie Culture
I wanted to say "think nothing of it" in Japanese to penelope in order to appear clever, so I put the phrase into Babelfish and got back what was possibly accurate but entirely unuseable chickenscratch kanji (which I cannot read). I then went to the last, best hope for mankind, the Wikipedia, where I was confronted by paragraphs of "how to read kanji" (a bit of a puzzler given the assurances on the same page that kanji was so disorganised it would take years to learn even to a low standard of comprehension) and some phonetically spelled-out phrases, which was what I was after. They didn't include the phrase I was looking for, so I googled on "japanese phrase" and was directed to a couple of different sites. When these things finally loaded, they proved on close inspection to be nothing more than wrappers for the original wikipedia material.
It would appear that significant parts of the internet are actually just wrapping other people's stuff, which in all likelyhood is wrapping other people's stuff and so on and so forth. I wonder how much original material is actually out there? (This posting originally appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Christmas 1954 edition)
It would appear that significant parts of the internet are actually just wrapping other people's stuff, which in all likelyhood is wrapping other people's stuff and so on and so forth. I wonder how much original material is actually out there? (This posting originally appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Christmas 1954 edition)
developments
I've accepted the other job. The fickleness of women, etc etc... Now to move house, Before mid-September. Aaargh.
[pen] Not the big international job then?
International woman of mystery?
Personality tests to check I'm a loony
[pen] shurely to check you're not a loony...?
No, not the big international job. I thought hard about it, and chose the job that I thought would make me happy, rather than the pretigious and glitzy one. It's back in Lincs (closer to my mum etc), working in conservation (I think ten years is long enough in the auto industry) with plenty of chance to progress, and they really want me to work there. The other one would be all hassle, and it would be more difficult to have time with the windy miller.
They check to what degree you are a loony... don't they?
Can I just recommend mint tea with honey? Mint leaves, boiling water and a smidgin of honey. Especially in hot weather. Serve it in a glass, not a mug.
They check to what degree you are a loony... don't they?
Can I just recommend mint tea with honey? Mint leaves, boiling water and a smidgin of honey. Especially in hot weather. Serve it in a glass, not a mug.
just catching up...
[pen] Wow! All the very best in your new job! Ah, moving house, fun for everyone. *sends good wishes*
[penelope] And what better revenge on your previous boss than to be able to target his/her gas-guzzling rustbuckets as part of your new job in a quest for greenness? Congratulations.
I can't be bothered with revenge! Anyway, thanks to flerdle and everyone for the congratulations - I think I've found a tiny (and I mean TINY) bungalow to rent and am just wondering which bits of furniture I have to discard in order to live in it.
Help
Apologies for cross posting: Am I remembering correctly that someone in the Morniverse is involved in, or knows someone who is involved in, dealing with 419 email scams? We have a student who has been taken in and may possibly need some advice?
Congrats
Well done pen! Lincs and Holland both as flat as each other, as far as I remember. What sort of conservation?
flattery
[IS,P!] The Woodland Trust. Woodlands and general boskiness. :o)
Networking?
[Pen] Oooh, you don't happen to know the best way for a biology graduate to find a job in conservation do you? I know it's very popular and rather hard to break into so I'm looking for a handy crowbar (to clumsily extend the 'breaking into' analogy).
and to boldly split infinitives...
[Knobbers] Voluntary work, to start, I guess; at least that way you get some experience, make some connections and get the chance to work in lots of different environments to find out which one you like. Maybe try the National Trust website and look at their working holidays - and those of other conservation trusts too. I started doing the NT ones about six years ago, then I was put forward to do the NT project leader course. In the meantime, find a job not too far off the subject - water, effluent or district councils? I'm a biograduate too - it took me 20 years to get this job, but then I'm going into their press office, not into the muddy end. I did labwork, odd jobs and newspapers for 10 years, then another 10 years or so in the automotive industry doing PR. Good luck!
jobs
I think Society Guardian is probably the best place.
Hmm... ok, thanks; I'll look into them. I hadn't actually thought of the NT.
Whinge about packing up the house
Whinge, whinge whinge... how come I have so much STUFF? Where does it all come from? I'm listing more stuff on Ebay every day, but actually throwing things away is really hard!
bargainous!
Woo-hoo! Just took advantage of a very quiet day on Ebay to bag myself a double-oven, ceramic hob cooker for about 70% of the price they normally go for. Here's to bank holidays at home doing something useful!
[pen] I think your second posting answers the question in your first.
pfffft
I know it *looks* like a cupboard, but otherwise I wouldn't have a cooker...
May I share my joy?
My little beer festival over the weekend was a huge success - so much so that we ran out of the festival beers yesterday at about 3pm. I totted up the empties this morning and we've sold 617 gallons of draught beer in the last 7 days (including lagers, cider and Guinness). That's a pint every 52 seconds of opening hours.
Yes, you may
Excellent news. Beer festivals are always to be celebrated...
drink up!
Well done Phil. When I get to Grantham (which will be on Tuesday, removals men willing), I won't be too far away. so I'll find a free weekend with the windy miller and bring him over so we can try your beers. In the meantime, I am well and truly boxed in. The house is echoing now. Yuk. And I still have to defrost the freezer.
Back to being a yellerbelly
I'm in! I've moved! Now just to get the cooker wired in, the boiler working, the TV connected... and the room full of too much stuff disposed of. Not to mention disposing of the 3-seater settee sitting out under the carport because it won't actually fit into the house :o( Does anyone want a second-hand Ikea 'Karlanda' three-seated sofabed, with paprika-red thick cotton 'Gobo' covers, which have just been laundered?
Setee
[penelope] Won't the back come off the setee? That can help get it through narrow spaces. There is sometimes a release mechanism or little thumb-wheel thingies hidden behind the setee under a velcro-secured fabric flap at the join of the back and seat. Fingers crossed.
I Kan't Envisage Amputation
erm... it's an Ikea one. They expect people to live in loft apartments with industrial lifts, not twee bungalows with narrow corridors :o( I'm going to flog it and buy a smaller one instead.
*waves from Saarbrücken*
Hmmm. I have a feeling I've been here before.
Apologies for my extended absence. I try and make sure that nothing untoward is going on, but if there are any infelicities then please do e-prod me and I'll do my best to help.
Hmm, actually, it's a bit depressing that this hotel's free wireless connection is better than the one I have at home.
(Though, to be fair, it couldn't currently be worse than the wireless connection at home since the wireless box has gone kaputto. One of the things to do when I get back - apart from learn to drive - is to upgrade the broadband which should come free with a new wireless box.)
[Phil] Cheers! I've been looking for them on Ebay to see how much I can expect to get. It's the same settee (different colour), but mine has a full-size double bed cannily concealed within it. And very comfortable it is too.
I'll second that.
Woohoo pen! Moving can be lots of not-fun, so yay that you're (mostly) set up now. *raises glass to new house and new job*
Staying put
[flerdle] Thanks! :o) It just goes on and on - I think I've emptied more than half of it now. But it's a bit miserable doing it on my own - the windy miller has made his way back to the Netherlands already. I would recommend everyone had one of these to help if they were moving house, but I suspect if he was thinking of dumping me, then the disgusting mess I found under the sofa and the fridge would be reason enough to do so. He's gone back now, he says because of his TV appearance on their version of 'Restoration' to campaign for the restoration of a mill, and it was nothing to do with my poor housekeeping. His clogs are still in the hall - I think that's a good sign.
sorry, me again
Day 1 of new job. All well. Phone not yet working.
Incommunicado
(pen) That's the best kind of job - one where you aren't distracted the phone. It's as bad as having customers in the shop or passengers on the train. Bloody nuisance. Keep it that way. :-)
Winter is upon us
[pen] Good luck with the new job. Are all the boxes unpacked from the move?
Yesterday we had calls in our office for the heating to be turned on, then this morning it was so dark had to have the lights on to eat my cornflakes.
Yesterday we had calls in our office for the heating to be turned on, then this morning it was so dark had to have the lights on to eat my cornflakes.
Sofa so good
Cheers, inkers. Boxes - not all unpacked. Sofa - too big to fit in house, but sold successfully on Ebay on Sunday night and collected on Monday. Job - fine. Phone on desk - not working! Winter - a-coming!
Shhhh!
It's a bit quiet in here, innit? Did anyone get 'tornados' this morning? There was a terrifically powerful squall over Grantham, but I'm not sure it could be called a tornado.
[pen] Downpour this morning, bright sunshine midday. Yesterday the 5-day forecast began with 3 days of sun.
The Tempest
(pen) Probably what is technically termed a "line-squall", i.e. a very sharp and active cold front. There may have been some minor tornadoes here and there but the term is bandied about rather too freely these days and you need really good evidence of a twisting motion before you can definitely claim a tornado. It seems that any damage was mostly caused by a straightforward heavy blast from the west as the cold front went through. You don't need a tornado or even a particularly gusty wind to take the roof off a house or blow a large tree down. Sheer wind speed will do it.
[Rosie] I'll settle for the 'line squall' then. And can someone please do something about the icecream van that toots The Liberty Bell (Monty Python's theme tune) every evening so it reverberates around? It's fixing itself into my subconscious, and I don't want it there!
[pen] Here, have a round or two of Greensleeves.
[pen] round here it's Colonel Bogie on the icecream van that tours the council estates. Just as irritating, I keep thinking of inscrutible Japanese and prisoners of war.
Mr Whippy
We usually have "Popeye the sailor man". Could be a lot worse. There is a cheerful trad jazz number called Ice Cream (You scream) but few know it so it wouldn't do. I'd like to hear the first few bars of the allegro con brio from Beethoven's Pathétique sonata. Daaaaaa, da da da da da dat da, da da da da da daa daa daa daa daa daa daa daa . . . . .
The ideal ice cream jingle would be John Cage's 4'33".
ice cream culture
I knew my throw-away remark about ice cream jangles would draw you lot out of the woodwork. Rosie's 'Ice Cream, You Scream' mention reminds me of a scene in Jim Jarmusch's 'Down By Law', which I saw as an Italian import, titled 'Daunbailo' and subtitled in Italian. (It's a phonetic version of the title, spelled as it would be pronounced if an Italian were to read it.)The story of three men in a Louisiana prison who, at one point, start the 'I scream, you scream, we all scream for icecream' chant around the prison. Ho hum.
(pen) The very words of the jazz number, which probably originated in Louisiana, in New Orleans.
[pen] I saw that film late one night, and have been wondering ever since what it was! Thank you!
[Phil] You're welcome. Any other unidentified objects to be named?
And now, Monday. A new week, a new month. I'm currently avoiding my writer's block by posting here.
And now, Monday. A new week, a new month. I'm currently avoiding my writer's block by posting here.
Jolly good
We went on a day trip to Stirling, and the train took us past the building that this is hosted in. Which made me think of checking in to make sure it was still all working.
[rab] You know where your website is physically located? How do you do that?
[pen] Identifying objects: a film I saw a bit of when I was a kid which includes a scene of a man breaking down and crying "choo choo! choo choo!" which I believe referred to some big computer or other. What's it called?
[SM] Mostly cos Dan told me! But the hosting company website also gives this information...
trains of thought
[Darren] no idea. Next!
Waves from East Jerusalem!
How is everyone doing? Welcome to the new place and the new job Pen. Well done Phil on hosting a one-armed beer festival. Most of my MC contact these days has been with JLE through Kingdom of Loathing. Shows where my priorities lie! Oh well, wth. [Darren] Was it "fuctifino"?
[SM] I know where mine's located because I carried it there tucked under my arm. Anyway, it's not that unusual to choose a host at least in part based on location. A lot of people are hosting in Telehouse in the Docklands, so they'd know when they were passing by their server as well.
[Dan] You own the equipment this site is hosted on? I thought hosting companies used banks of their own hardware and we all sort of shared the pool of machines in some way.
[Dan] No sooner did I post that than I realised that you could own the hosting company, or be employed by it. Sorry to miss the obvious.
[SM] No, I just have a colocated machine in a datacenter. Colocation is when you provide the hardware and put it in someone else's facility and let them worry about bandwidth. And it doesn't host this site, it hosts that other one over there somewhere (gestures vaguely in a westerly direction). As far as this (rab's) site is concerned, when he was looking for a provider I just pointed out that there was one in the Edinburgh area that looked suitable.
[Dan] I had no idea that was one of the options available. Thank you for explaining it.
*burp*
OOps. Pardon me. I visited the East Midlands Regional Food Festival today, and watched Jean-Christophe Novelli charming the pants off all the middle-aged ladies in the audience of the demo hall. I tasted my way around three massive halls of food from local producers, and bought some cheese, some potted shrimps and a teatowel for my sister.
Comestibles
[penelope] The shrimp and cheese sound reasonable. I'm not too sure about the teatowel though as it's new to me. What is it and how does it taste - a dry Czech perhaps?
(pen) I hope you re-donned your underwear. *runs away*
Tsk Tsk! Had a Frenchman before. The accent does nothing for me now. Got a Dutchman instead ;o)
[Rosie] L M F A O. I'm not sure pen got it...
getting it...
I chose to ignore it :oP
Glad to hear you're getting it, penelope.
*issues a 'Stop Digging' order*
10/10
Traditionally, this day of the year has been my birthday, but thanks to the sterling efforts of the Royal Mail I can postpone the next tick of the clock to, oh, probably some time towards the end of the month by the look of it.
Actually - I'm going to pretend it's my 17th and will start taking driving lessons soon.
Many Happy Re-deliveries
[Rab]Have a bonzer day, mate.
alive
Hello all, now that I've finished my degree and have a proper job I'm intending to be on here a little more. How long will it last this time? A nation asks.
[rab] MHR's to you :-)
I believe the cost of driving lessons nowadays requires considerable financial planning. How about this sort of thing to get you going?
I believe the cost of driving lessons nowadays requires considerable financial planning. How about this sort of thing to get you going?
(Chalky) Got me going all right 'cos the link don't work. Not on this old tub, any road up.
Try stripping off the bit that goes "rab.org.uk/mc". It still wouldn't load for me, but I'm in a weird location at the moment.
I've fixed it. (Hmm, I thought my auto-link-repairer was supposed to spot things like that).
John Kettley is a Weatherman
So, how's the weather where you are?
wevvah
Beautiful morning in London today - sun rising through the autumnal mist as I crossed Blackfriars bridge, people stopping to take photographs, or just look at it. Positively Turneresque.
So, nothing new there then...
Hot. Humid.
[nights] So where are you now? You said somewhere you have moved countries, right?
[CdM] Strasbourg, France. I was made an offer I couldn't refuse - namely a lecteur's job and a four figure monthly salary. I teach speaking and listening in English to first-year undergraduates, and I rather enjoy it. The weather, on the other hand, can't make up its mind between autumn and a very late Indian Summer.
ahem
(nights) Indian summers, so-called, take place in autumn by definition.
october in hyderabad
[Rosie] Yeess... but I thought it was somewhat late for that. I stand, or rather sit, corrected.
(nights) I'm not totally certain where the term Indian Summer comes from. It may actually be India (from the Raj days) or it may be connected with American Indians. Google has all sorts of theories. Having been a meteorologist, albeit some time ago, I shouldn't have to look it up, of course. It's a bit like a doctor Googling "appendix" and then saying to himself "oh, it's that bit, is it?"
An American Indian summer is very unlikely. The Raj hypothesis is a lot more sensible.. I remember reading the phrase in a PG Wodehouse book, which dates it somewhat, and tends to place it in a Raj-like context rather than an Amercian context.
[Rosie] That's OK. I had a moment in class today where I was explaining about transitive and intransitive verbs, completely forgot which way round they are, and made it up instead. I should know things like that, I'm a bloody linguist.
transitiveness
(nights) Made it up? Hey, that's jazz, as we say after a string of bum notes. There is a tendency, which is currently going a bit too far, to use transitive verbs where an intransitive one should be used, eg "the temperature is reducing". Reducing what? People to perspiring lethargy? On the other hand we chemists have always talked about reacting A and B to produce something, meaning causing A and B to react (by putting them in a flask together and heating them, for example). Do other languages have this flexibility laxity?
(SM) Maybe not an "American Indian" summer but certainly an American "Indian summer" as it seems the phrase is well-established in the US where, according to Wikipaedia, it has the rather precise meaning of an unseasonably warm spell that takes place after the first ground frost of autumn. But it's possible they got it from the Raj, via us.
Linguistic flexibility
[Rosie] In our (italophone) house we just use whichever verb comes to mind and conjugate it appropriately (laziness on my part which my wife has caught). This leads to some hilarity but mainly exasperation of the shit-we-must-cure-ourselves-before-kids-come-along variety.
Rereading that it's not as clear as I had hoped. I mean if I can't be bothered to trawl my mind for the Italian verb I just stick the English one in and slap -are on the end.
[Rosie] "Laxity" is a pretty mild word for you to use in this context, Rosie; most unlike you. :-) I thought you devastated much more about this kind of thing.
I'd always assumed Indian summer was a U.S. phrase, simply because I don't ever remember hearing it before I moved to the U.S. (many summers, Indian and not, have passed since then).
On the other hand, Rosie, I'm not sure you should trust your chosen source too much.
On the other hand, Rosie, I'm not sure you should trust your chosen source too much.
(CdM) Cruvvens, mon, I insult at such a suggestion! Too right I devastate. My Morniverse-cred shreds and my confidence erodes. Needless to say I emote. *throws up*. Phew, that's better. "Indian Summer" was around when I was a small child and I wondered what people were on about. (ISP) You can do that in Welsh. Just stick -io on the end and you've verbed it, or wedi ei berfio as one would say. ( = "after its verbing"). Berf = verb but berfio is not in the dictionary.
[Rosie] I've noticed that as well. Of course, it might be that now that my contact with English is limited, things that seem "wrong" are thrown into sharper relief. Or I might just be being a bit nit picky, as I'm used to weeding through my student's work with a fine toothed comb. Yes, this paragraph is designed to put your teeth on edge.
[IS,P!] I'm glad I'm not the only one that does that. At a party this evening, we had "smoker", "lighter" and "jazzer up" - all standard -er verbs that conjugate as expected. "jazzer up", we decided, takes être in the perfect though.
[IS,P!] I'm glad I'm not the only one that does that. At a party this evening, we had "smoker", "lighter" and "jazzer up" - all standard -er verbs that conjugate as expected. "jazzer up", we decided, takes être in the perfect though.
(nights) Disgraceful. You could have Frenchified it a bit into enjazzer or something, still with être in the perfect of course. Don't forget the past participle is enjazzu. (It's irregular). You couldn't do that in Welsh; no j's, no z's. In fact many North Walians simply can't make the "z" sound, so that precision rhymes with fission. But they can do the double-L, of course. *gloat*.
'double-L' as in Llandrover, Llambs and Llight Rain... ;o)
Ah, memories of Max Boyce pronouncing Dallas with a Welsh double-l sound :-)
[Rosie] Hold on, past participle enjazzU? Not possible, my old chum, even if it is irregular. -er verbs NEVER form pp's that way, it's just not the done thing.
entendu
(nights) I thought not, but it was worth a try. How can we make enjazzer more interesting? Wouldn't enjazzir have some linguistic legitimacy? (pen, Phil) I am always tickled by Llanera, the sponsors of Charlton FC. Google says it's some dismal Spanish holiday-home construction company, but in fact it's a small village in Wales. In English it would be rendered as St Era's, or (more likely) St Gera's.
[nights] if it were jazzre, then jazzu would be logical.
(Phil) You're right, but can you say jazzre without spilling your pint? Difficult.
re - Llanera; I've just re-read my last post and it looks all too plausible. But don't look for Llanera; it ain't there.
re - Llanera; I've just re-read my last post and it looks all too plausible. But don't look for Llanera; it ain't there.
[Phil, Rosie] Indeed it would be. Jazzre is a bit clumsy though, and sticks in the throat. I prefer jazzer, myself, as enjazzir reminds me of a slightly dirty word in French which I'd rather avoid. I promise not to bring up French again.
forrin lingos
(nights) If you stop talking about French I'll have to stop yakking on about Welsh, and that would never do.
bringing up French
Enspew?
[Rosie] Perhaps this is the wrong moment to bring up Russian, then?
(nights) Nice one, Cyril.
Good ol' Cyril. On another topic, who's excited about Christmas?
Oh don't
[nights] I just saw my first xmas ads on telly tonight but I'm not entirely blameless. I've booked a cottage on the west coast of Scotland for xmas, and I was looking for a butcher in Oban so I could order a duck for xmas dinner, to collect on xmas eve :op
(nights) Not these days, the politest response I can find. There will be no snow in this part of the world, something I realised by about 1954. Actually, there was snow on the ground in 1981, but normally it just rains.
I was only asking because the Christmas ads have yet to start here, and it's nice to not approach November with tinsel already becoming a chore rather than a delight. On the other hand, I HAVE just booked my flights back to the UK to see the family, so it's partially just me projecting.
In business terms, I am excited about Christmas this year, especially as I have all my events and entertainment booked and confirmed already. On a personal level, only one Christmas Day stands out as being better than any given Sunday - 2002. That was the year I joined a brass band and we played carols on every ward of the two hospitals in the town on Christmas morning. Everyone else got stressed at home while I was out, and they'd all calmed down again by the time I got back :-)
We're hoping to have our first Christmas a deux. I'm wondering about whether to go out for a curry for lunch. We like curries, and are rather hoping that non-Christian restaurateurs won't think that they have any reason to close on the big day.
Curry for lunch
My brother and his family invariably go out for Xmas lunch, and curry is frequently on the menu. I would not have any worries if I were you as to the willingness of restarauteurs in general to open on Xmas day, but make sure you BOOK FIRST! We're off to Italy again this year 'cos our friends are getting married on 22 Dec and no point doing Bxl-Trn-Man in the space of three days. A sad one this year as my Gran-in-law (if such be possible) snuffed it earlier this year so the famous Xmas agnolotti will be less tasty than memory makes them.
*prays for snow in the mountains*
Frost! We finally had a frost last night! Good job I brought the geraniums in...
No such excitement here. Although it's awfully cold outside.
Great steaming lumps - Christmas talk already? I'm surprised at you all. Still, it's better than Big Brother.
To engender conversation: "How is everyone?"
To engender conversation: "How is everyone?"
I'm well thank you, despite an inner dialogue at 6.30 this morning which ran thusly:
Nights, are you awake?
Yes..urgh...mumble... what time is it?
6.30.
Can't be. I'd be panicking that I'm going to be late if it was 6.30. (rolls over to face alarm clock.
Erm...
OH MY GOD IT'S 6.30 MY BUS LEAVES IN 20 MINUTES! WHERE ARE MY SOCKS?
Nights, are you awake?
Yes..urgh...mumble... what time is it?
6.30.
Can't be. I'd be panicking that I'm going to be late if it was 6.30. (rolls over to face alarm clock.
Erm...
OH MY GOD IT'S 6.30 MY BUS LEAVES IN 20 MINUTES! WHERE ARE MY SOCKS?
wakey uppy
I'm currently experiencing the regular phenomenon of waking up thirty seconds before the first of my three alarm clocks goes off. What's going on there then? (All very prompt, except this morning, I made a cup of tea and took it back to bed).
Tea in Bed
[penelope] Do they still have those "Teasmade" ("Teasmaid"?) machines that compine an alarm clock with a cunning kettle/teapot arrangement? If only they had figured out how to keep the milk cold (other than by making the houses so expensive to heat) at the same time the idea would have been a 10/10 perfect one, but it was pretty good even so.
Premonition
(pen) One of your alarm clocks may make a little click or sound before it actually goes off and it could be this that wakes you. Or you are sleeping-the-sleep-of-the-extremely-desirous-to-get-to-work-in-time because of your new job.
[SM] Actually, I've had one of those "screech in your ear, make you a cuppa" devices for over 10 years now. I call it a "wife".
bedburps
[Rosie] Come to think of it, it might be the central heating that wakes me.
[Phil] *gasp!* although the windy miller does have the same effect, but through a nicer process.
[Phil] *gasp!* although the windy miller does have the same effect, but through a nicer process.
Teasmade
I must get one of those. One of these days I'm going to set the flat on fire putting the kettle on at 6am when I'm not completely awake.
(pen, reply to Phil) That sort of thing usually makes me want to sleep rather soundly.
[Rosie] I mean he makes me tea, but doesn't do the screeching. What were you imagining?
(pen) Well, now . . . .
Has everyone given up playing AVMA, then? I'm off on hols in a couple of days. Hoping someone will guess my clue before that...
I could never get the hang of AVMA. Too complex for me, I think. Similar to how I don't get involved in those difficult poetry games over on Orange.
Morning chaps. Despite it feeling like it's too early to be up on a Saturday, I'm quite cheery. I'm going to help plant 1,500 trees today, then I'll brush off the mud and catch a plane this evening to see the windy miller. The tree-planting could be thought of as carbon offsetting against the flight, but truthfully it's just part of my job now :oD
[Muddy Boots] Sounds like a marvellous way of spending a Saturday to me. I, however, have been running errands in Strasbourg, which has more people in it today than I've ever seen. I'm now killing time waiting for a friend and have a cracking headache. This is a marvellous city - the people that inhabit it, sometimes, are not.
Daylight saving just started here. I don't mind it, really, although it does feel a bit strange to be eating the evening meal in broad daylight. Having spent most of my life in the tropics and subtropics, it just feels wrong.
[nights] I don't know if you like swimming, but if you do you should go to the old swimming pool in Strasbourg some time. Not that it is a great place for serious swimming, but it is quite charming.
Trunks
Funny you should say that, I use the roman baths upstairs on and off. Not been swimming though, mainly because I can't. I do love the building though - very grand, sweeping marble staircases, and it's owned by the council. A far cry from Bath Sports and Leisure Centre.
winning windy millers
One of the Dutch Miller's windmill restoration projects won the Nederlands' version of the 'Restoration' TV programme last night. I've just watched the finale on the web, and have seen my bloke holding a cheque for €1,000,000. Is it the right time to propose?
I'd say so. A fat wad of used oncers, a possible deal to star in the upcoming Pimp My Windmill reality TV show and a reason to wear wooden shoes? Jump!
[penelope] How's the new house working out?
[SM] Cosy but messy. I've been there two months and haven't spent a weekend there yet.
[pen] If you don't propose, I will :)
[nights] That's very sweet of you but I couldn't possibly. I think I'm twice your age.
Weekend plans?
I leave Jerusalem at midday tomorrow for a flight back to Brussels. Fingers crossed security at Ben Gurion isn't too much of a pain and I catch my flight. I have a diplomatic 'laissez-passer' but given that it's written in Hebrew it could say 'your mother does it with you for money' or 'call Shin Bet, this guy's a terrorist'for all I know. If you don't hear from me for a few months, you know where I am.
Brussels
And just taking this opportunity to plug My show in Brussels 22-25 November again. Particularly convenient for all known Dutch windmills. And with a cheque for a million Euros you can afford a couple of 20 Euro tickets... I say "my show" but everyone else has been rehearsing properly, whereas I have just been singing on my own with the CD/iPod, so god alone knows how I'm going to sound at rehearsal on Sunday.
[pen] The lady doth protest too much. Besides how do you know how old I am?
interrupting pennylope and nightses convo
[nights] One can tell by the cut of your jib. Relax. It's a girl thing.
Carbon dating
(Chalky) Not just a girl thing, but I wouldn't deny they're better at it.
Constant flirtation
Very well. I grieve a missed opportunity, but I think Mlle Nights is probably going to kill me if she gets wind of all of this.
[nights] pen & Chalky are certainly the experts. They've been looking after me for years ;)
Quick question: What would you do about over-amorous neighbours? I'm pleased they're having a good time, but they're having it rather loundly.
[nights] Compete.
Trans-mural legovers
(nights) If my experience is anything to go by the activity is self-limiting. I used to briefly hear them nextdoor and sniggered to myself about the rabbit-like duration the process occupied in their case. As a result of this they have two delightful kids whose needs leave them bereft of libido. So the answer is: Nick their French Letters, or whatever they call them over there.
[nights] Record their sessions and set up a web site selling them?
[Pen] That's what Mlle Nights suggested. Plans are afoot.
[Rosie] I believe they're just known as letters here.
[Raak] Erm... probably not a market for it.
[Rosie] I believe they're just known as letters here.
[Raak] Erm... probably not a market for it.
]nights] Break into their apartment and put local anaesthetic in the baby oil?
Break into their apartment and set up the recording equipment. You'll make tens of quid.
[nights] I'd suggest registering loudsex.com, but it's taken already.
[Raak] You're the second person today to direct me there. I might have to start reading it full time.
Breaking the lull, is anyone doing anything good this weekend? I've just had my first *proper* lie-in in my new house. Yum. Now... housework. And maybe shopping for a washing machine.
I'm driving to Canberra, again. It's a three week stint there this time. The rest of the weekend has been filled with trying to get my computer to work. The computer that all my experiments etc have been done on, over the last three years. The one I need in Canberra. The one that didn't turn on on Thursday.
I'm going to rest AND take moderate exercise AND take anti-inflammatories AND just make do with paracetemol AND try not to carry anything AND carry on as normal. That way I'll have followed all the advice for dealing with lower back pain.
How did I do that? In the hotel gym, probably the rowing machine. This exercise is no good for me.
How did I do that? In the hotel gym, probably the rowing machine. This exercise is no good for me.
argh!
[flerdle] argh!
le weekend
Housework, cinema last night, lie in this morning, laundry and now a bit of marking I forgot to do on Friday. I've had worse weekends.
Prudence
Having been feeling that I wasn't using my mobile phone enough to justify the monthly outlay, I called up the operator who offered to reduce the rental fee to £0 a month with still enough minutes and texts included to cover my typical usage. I'll believe this when the first bill comes through...
launderette
The washing machine arrives on Wednesday. No more hand washing, hurrah!
Goodness me!
[rab] How did you manage this, which operator, and what is their number?
Junk
[rab] Get rid of it, you obviously don't need the infernal machine. I have had the dubious pleasure of using one for my business. My experience was that customers were happier to leave a message on my answering device rather than 'phone me on the mobile.
(pen) I hope you still wash your feet.
argh!
[CdM] Indeed. We found that the hard drive was ok, so that was extracted and made to work with a bit of voodoo. I owe frogstar, big time. Now the computer is not only headless (no monitor, etc) but bodyless (no actual "machine"). It works, is the main thing. And a full current backup is now sitting at PaulWay's place (thanks and more thanks!).
Now I have to do actual work. *sigh*
je suis en colère
Well, more strike action on the rails in France. Just as the new, improved Eurostar opens from St Pancreas. The timing is perfect, wouldn't you say?
s'awfully quiet in here
Washing Machine Blues. They delivered it yesterday. Brilliant. I connected it up, and ran it on a 95 degree empty cycle, as recommended. It leaks. The deliverymen scuffed the drainage hose as they brought it in, making a water-sized hole. So I called the shop this morning, they put me onto Hotpoint's customer service, where I spoke to Smug Tony, who offered me an appointment a week on Thursday for a machine I didn't damage, and which I haven't yet been able to use. Not acceptable, I told them. I said I would talk to the shop again and get them to take the machine back. 'But the shop has handed this matter over to us,' said Smug Tony. I pointed out that Hotpoint customer service wasn't proving to be any use to me, so I would reserve the right to talk to the people who sold me the machine.
So I called the shop again, and insisted I was a very unhappy customer, and would they please give me a new washing machine before the weekend, and take the old one away. They're coming tomorrow afternoon. :o)
So I called the shop again, and insisted I was a very unhappy customer, and would they please give me a new washing machine before the weekend, and take the old one away. They're coming tomorrow afternoon. :o)
(pen) So that's what the ex-prime minister is up to these days. Glad you told him what's what.
More on the action - the university I work at was evacuated today because someone set fire to the curtains in the lecture hall where a meeting of students on whether to strike or not was held. I don't think these kids know what they're doing, really.
Goodness, what a long sentence. What is everyone else doing for the weekend?
Goodness, what a long sentence. What is everyone else doing for the weekend?
(nights) I'll tell you tomorrow.
[nights] Thinking about Kalman filters as feedback controllers, control systems as an alternative to utility functions, and artificial intelligence as a doomed enterprise; and on Sunday, attending a memorial service for someone I knew a little and admired a lot, and cursing the railways for not having run a reliable Sunday service from Norwich to London at any time in the last twenty-five years.
Freelance voiceover work tomorrow morning and afternoon. A meal with boyf and friends in evening. Work on show all of Sunday, except for a short break to go see a concert with animations at the Barbican.
[nights] Rosie is celebrating his birthday.
[Rosie] Happy birthday!
[Rosie] Happy birthday!
(CdM) Cheers. There is a remark in MCiOS but you beat me to it.
Work from now to 2.30; watch daughter play in wind band this afternoon; work/karaoke/work from 5pm tonight till 1am-ish. Brass band rehearsal at 8:30am, ready for Leicester Brass Band Festival contest at 11am, then work, write quiz, read quiz at 9pm, work till midnight, get up at 6am for dray, then drop down dead.
bidet
Went to pub, bought beers all round. Fluttered eyelashes at mate's wife who'd said "Gosh, are you really?", tried to pull Polish barmaid by saying "Dobre wieçor" before ordering, as usual. Came home, went Morniversing and will now practise that sodding Beethoven sonata, thanks to Yamaha and headphones. Not a bad life, to be honest.
[Rosie] A belated birthday wish, sounds like it was a rather good one. I'm still not sure if I have a workplace to go to on Monday, so I'm staying near a phone in case anyone makes a decision. They probably won't though.
(nights) Cheers. Hope you find work; unemployment is bad news; I've had spells of it.
[Rosie] Oh, no worries, I'm not unemployed. I was referring to the various student strikes and barricades, and wondering if I could actually get to work today. I could. We'll see what the week brings.
*tumbles*
*grumbles*
*falls over*
*wees*
*wheeze*
*thinks "Not this again"*
t'weekend
I'm planting trees again tomorrow. And the windy miller arrives on Sunday morning. 07.10 at Stansted... so that means an Sunday 05.30 start for me. In other news, my 66-year old mother retires from work today, but has to have a mastectomy on Monday - not quite the glorious start to her retirement she was anticipating. *sigh*
déjà vu
See my entry of 2 weeks ago.
Mrs INJ is just getting over a bout of labyrinthitis, which she described as 'all the unpleasant aspects of being drunk without any of the nice bits'. It had interesting effects, such as falling over in the same direction if she turned her head. So I'll be lending her an arm.
Mrs INJ is just getting over a bout of labyrinthitis, which she described as 'all the unpleasant aspects of being drunk without any of the nice bits'. It had interesting effects, such as falling over in the same direction if she turned her head. So I'll be lending her an arm.
(INJ) Labyrinthitis sounds like a made-up word ("inflammation of the labyrinth" - i.e. setting fire to Hampton Court maze) but I see on Googling it that it is a rather unpleasant affliction so I wish Mrs INJ all the best and hope there are no after-effects.
[Rosie] Thanks - she's a lot better now and will be back at work next week. the first couple of days weren't nice though - could only lie down with eyes closed.
ouch ouch ouch
[INJ] Please pass on my sympathies and best wishes for a hasty and full recovery. I had a severe bout of that after swimming in a waterhole in a national park near Darwin at the start of 1996. It came on the morning of the wedding we were there to attend - nothing like perfect timing, hey? I'd gone for a swim in the pool before breakfast, and things went very strange all of a sudden when I went back upstairs. I found the nystagmus the most fascinating thing (as an Optometrist), even as I was hurling my guts out. I couldn't roll over except at glacial speed for several weeks. I made it - very greenly - to the wedding, but avoided photos. And I was still not happy on the trip by bus back to Brisbane a week later, a total of 2,800 miles due to delays, detours and flooding.
Get well soon, Mrs INJ
[INJ] I had a dose of it about 15 years ago and its exactly like she said - lying down and keeping very still is about all you can manage. Even turing over in my sleep was frightening.
Good Wishes
Thanks to all. She is now much better and functioning nearly as normally as ever. It's one of those things I'd only vaguely heard of, but I now know of dozens of people who have suffered from it. Just one further question. The GP said that there was a chance of a recurrence - is that anyone's experience and, if so, was it as bad the next time?
[INJ] *dons doctors hat* Glad she's better, but sadly second time can be as nasty as the first time. Stupid ears.
medical and milling matters
More meds news - my mother doing well, coming along slowly after surgery on Monday. Windy Miller made a visit last weekend and went down well with everyone he met in my home town. Also toured some local (working) windmills to give him a foot in the door of the local milling brotherhood. And we've been invited out for dinner as a couple. Am officially a Miller's Moll now :oD
Medical news from me - woke up screaming at 4am this morning with horrific cramp in my leg. Mlle Nights nearly had a heart attack, but I'm fine now. I'm told potassium is good for cramp, as this is happening once a week or so. And it's bloody painful.
Cramp
Another two things to try - exercise, particular longer walks than whatever you are currently habituated to - I sometimes need several miles several times a week - and cold legs at night. The latter I acheive by the simple expedient of leaving them outside the covers. Arranging the covers in a shared bed to suit both of you may be a little harder though.
Leaping out of bed
Magnesium tablets have helped me a bit. Rutin (available from all exorbitantly-priced health food shops) was suggested, but for me it doesn't sem to make a difference.
I usually have cold legs at night, as I tend to sleep on the edge of the bed with my legs outside of the duvet. However, I could always get off the bus one stop early. Or two. No, one.
[nights] I think you're bored us all into silence. However, let's bring the conversational temperature up a notch with the general question: What did you have for lunch today?
Lunch
I have just had a cured pork sausage, a chunk of bread, a head of chicory, and half an apple (it wasn't very good, despite being a Cox), and will shortly be having a mug of green tea and mint.
My current assignment is at the headquarters of a large retail organisation, so I don't just get canteen food.....
I had a rather nice salmon, pesto & noodles dish followed by fresh melon. I am now having a proper meal at work and snacking in the evening, which is the reverse of my normal work pattern.
I had a rather nice salmon, pesto & noodles dish followed by fresh melon. I am now having a proper meal at work and snacking in the evening, which is the reverse of my normal work pattern.
Lunch
I had a chicken and stuffing sandwich plus a strawberry and banana smoothie, and, you know what, I think I might have a Toblerone shortly.
Lunch
Two pints of soda water so far, but I might have 3 or four very small samples of beer shortly, in the name of quality control (for once, that's not just an excuse to drink - I'm not well, so a taste is more than I want, really).
Lunch for night owls
Never have lunch. I make up for it about 1.30 a.m. Could be a banana, apple, two crumpets, roll and jam, spoonful of cold baked beans etc (one of the above) plus cup of coffee.
Oh dear. Didn't anyone want to hear about my legs? My lunch was a Filet O'Fish, a salad and iced tea from the McDonalds across the road. Not bad, the dressing was crap though. Fast food today because I had an unusually busy day.
The fastest food is the food foregone.
I'm a no-luncheon type as well. Nor do I have a breakfast. Evening meals tend to be a bit hit and miss so it's not unusual for me to go for a couple of days without eating. Mind you, wine is full of vitamins, so I'm told, and anything that passes one's lips is food, so I don't starve. ;-)
lunch today
Today was pasta - spinach and ricotta tortelloni in a tomato sauce. I made the sauce, but bought the pasta. Yum. And then a mince pie from the Corporate department.
Lunch
Today I managed a few chips nicked while cooking, then a pint of Everards Tiger and a pint of Clarks Burglar Bill, both dispensed a degree (C) too cold, but in clean glassware, and both were in as good condition as you can get with over-chilled ales (in someone else's pub, I hasten to add). A Mars bar followed, and more beer will be along soon - probably a Holden's Black Country Special.
Anyone up to anything exciting/Did anyone do anything exciting this weekend?
A trip out to nearby Wymondham to see the county council's exhibition of their draft vision for future development, which will protect the environment, provide cheap housing and jobs, promote public transport, develop green spaces, improve run-down areas, and give everyone a pony. Gratified to find no plans for building anywhere near where I live. Followed by a fairly desultory attempt at Christmas shopping. Home for coffee and a fig frangipan cake, listening to one of the CDs I bought, Les Élémens - simphonie nouvelle by Jean-Féry Rebel (1666-1747). This may be a present for someone, as may The Maiden's Prayer, and other gems from an old piano stool, a title worthy of Ivor Cutler. It includes Dvorak's Humoresque, Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith, and 22 others I haven't heard of, due no doubt to not having an old piano stool in my home.
This weekend
Tomorrow night I'm playing my soprano cornet in a Christmas three band plus massed-band concert. Alas, due to a quirk of fate, I've been nominated to play one of the pieces dressed as a fairy. I have borrowed a pink fairy frock, massive pink wig, pink & black striped tights and a wand. I'm not looking forward to playing, or anything else for that matter, dressed like that.
[Phil] I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures.
[Raak] Strange as it may seem, I'm not.
[Phil] Quirks of Fate are not to be entertained/trusted or subscribed to. Could you have said "No"?
[Chalky] I did. Several times, but to no avail. Worse things happen at sea, though (not that I can think of one off-hand).
Titanic? Our local Amateur Operatics Society has just completed its run of 'Titanic - The Opera'. For a Christmas show it was hardly the most uplifting of themes, but they sand it awfully well.
sand?
...and their singing wasn't to bad either.
to?
Inappropriate dress
(Phil) Regardless of your apparel please try and play it straight.
[Rosie] No-one will hear me much, thankfully, as I'm mostly echoing the front row cornets - so giggling will not be an issue.
Xmas Shopping
Finished!
[pen] Don't rub it in. I haven't even started, nor have Mlle Nights and I had The Christmas And New Year's And Nights' Birthday conversation...
Dear Mrs. Trellis:
At what point is it appropriate to drop someone from one's Christmas card list, on the grounds of there being no longer a sufficient connection to justify its acknowledgement? For example, one's brother's first wife, from whom he has been divorced long enough to marry again and bring up two more children?
[Raak] I dropped my entire Christmas card list last year, and didn't send a single one - nobody has commented. It only remains to be seen how many I receive this year.
[Phil] I have never maintained a Christmas Card list, nor sent a Christmas card. I still receive cards from some people, none from others, and it has made no difference to my life (that I'm aware of).
Although my general attitude to Christmas is that it is a commercialised stressfest and total absurdity I do actually send quite a lot of cards (a couple of dozen). It seems a useful way of keeping in contact with people you don't see very often but nevertheless have some feeling for. One practice which has developed over they years that I find completely barmy is that of my pub mates exchanging cards. I get quite a few that way but I refuse to reciprocate and it doesn't do me the slightest harm. One of that group is a long-term friend (37 yrs) and we have never sent cards to each other, which speaks for itself. I hope I don't get any from the band members; it seems quite pointless.
I don't mind the Christmas card round because, as Rosie said, it does keep one in touch with friends who live beyond normal visiting distance, even if the 'phone is utilised occasionally. The cards I dread are those whose sender includes some sort of resumé of the past year's doings. I have a relative (distant in both senses) who used to adopt such practice. I decided one Christmas to do the same but outstrip her in the number of pages of inconsequential 'news'. I wasn't sarcastic or rude but simply mirrored her format. We still exchange Christmas greetings but the junk mail has ceased. :-)
Xmas round robins
(Dujon) I get a few of these, some intended for my late mother. The senders know she has died so they are addressed to me. Well, what the hell, it's the same address. She used to say "Oh, poof, who wants to know all their comings and goings every minute of the day". For her, as an essentially sweet-natured person, that is the equivalent of Foul and Abusive Language, and I fully concur. The full horrors of these things are described here. Well worth a look. There's a book as well.
Robins
These people should start blogs. Then their outpourings can be ignored without effort. Come to think of it, I've seen a few blogs like that, words cast into the void with no visible sign that anyone, anywhere, is reading it.
I'm awfully glad that very few people know my address. That, and I keep moving house. It's also nice to not have the Christmas card question, as in France one sends cards at New Year, and so I have a marvellous excuse not to bother.
Boast in the Post
Sorry, but I like receiving them and send one to a selected few on our list. It's better than just a card, but not as good as a proper correspondance over the year(which I'm hopeless at).
I can't belieeeeeve it
No sooner had I put down my cyber-pen than the mail person arrived bearing gifts of inestimable value. This time, thankfully, it was but a card and text which consumes but one and a half pages of A5 paper (replete with Christmas tree adornment). Unfortunately my annual salutation is already winging its way across the many seas 'tween she and I . . . next year then.
[Rosie] Thanks for the link, it made me smile.
[INJ] No, no, no. That is different. In my case (and I'm assuming Rosie's) I'm talking about the 'standard' missive which seems to be sent to everyone on the sender's Christmas list and not a letter or note directed specifically to the recipient.
[Rosie] Thanks for the link, it made me smile.
[INJ] No, no, no. That is different. In my case (and I'm assuming Rosie's) I'm talking about the 'standard' missive which seems to be sent to everyone on the sender's Christmas list and not a letter or note directed specifically to the recipient.
[Dujon] I might still fall foul of your strictures then. I'm talking about a standard newsletter with just a handwritten note at the bottom. However I don't send it to everyone - just the people that we haven't seen recently and feel we should have sent a letter to.
Nyess
We're currently trying to decide whether to send one out or not. Quite a few things have happened this year (jobs, weddings, new curtains in the living room) that a few people might be interested to hear about. Our Christmas card list is very short though.
me me me me me me
[rab] You still have my address? I'd love a rabandmrsrab missive :-)
I can't help but think that I'd like one too. But then I rather like getting post. Sad, isn't it. Of course the people that are meant to be sending me things (health insurance, internet/tv box) aren't.
[Chalky] Indeed I do. I'll stick one in the post.
If there's anyone else who wants one from someone they've actually never met, drop me an email (you should be able to work out the address). On condition you don't forward it to Simon Hoggart.
Doing anything tonight?
I'm just about to get a taxi to the Grainstore brewery tap in Oakham to hear my son playing in the school folk group, who have a gig there tonight. At last I get to drink in someone else's pub - not sure I'm happy about having to pay retail prices for my beer though ;-)
[rab] What pattern do you have on the curtains?
[Projoy] Sumatra brocade.
I left the house at 9am on Friday, and I arrived home at 5pm this afternoon. It's been a very very busy weekend.
I worked all day Friday, picked up my b-in-law from the London train in Grantham, drove him (and me) 50 miles to my home town, and stayed the weekend with my mother (who just had the all clear after surgery for the big C but doesn't yet have full mobility), did all her laundry, ironing, shopping, sweeping, hoovering; made 150 chocolate truffles for xmas presents, packed and wrapped them; wrapped all the xmas presents to leave there for the family as I'm elsewhere for the hols, then made the most delish moussaka, ate it, had a quick cup of coffee and drove home through the moonlit night where it was -2°C on the wolds and -3°C across the fen.
spirit
Yum! I just received three dozen christmas cakes from my Mum.
Similarly, if anyone wants a cheery postcard from orstraya with no christmas content whatsoever, (probably after christmas, knowing postal service times) drop me a line at my moniker at gmail dot com. Ho ho ho.
Yet again, I havce accidentally worked through lunch :o(
[pen] Oh dear. Do tree saviours have desks? If so can't you have a sly munch. I didn't have lunch either because I've just travelled to Chippenham and back for a job interview. Will know more tomorrow afternoon.
[rab] Thanks :-)
[rab] Thanks :-)
slymunchers
[Chalks] Oh yes, I have a sly munch - a food van ('Tiny's') comes round every morning and we now all automatically salivate like Pavlov's dogs at the sound of his airhorn which plays 'La Cucaracha' outside the office window. And there's plenty of chocolate around at this time of year. I just haven't done much standing up or walking around. And I haven't taken a break except 30 seconds every now and again to look in here. My own silly fault...
I'm a bit cross with the transport company here in Freezing Strasbourg. My tram got terminated about five stops from work with no explanation, which meant I got in about ten minutes late. This would all be fine except I was giving an exam to my students this morning, who had less time to complete it. They're not happy, and neither am I.
Disgusted of The Suburbs of Strasbourg
Disgusted of The Suburbs of Strasbourg
Any news, Chalks?
a sort of a job
[pen] Yes. Received a very upbeat phone call from one of the interviewers who told me that they wanted me to join the company. In otherwords, I was the chosen one out of the short list of three - but would I be willing to wait until after the 7th Jan 2008 for official notification of a starting date. I 'think' it's good news. Odd.
It means the secretary (or HR adminstrator) has taken a fortnight off for Christmas and they daren't issue the letter without her say-so. Congratulations!
I used to shop in Sainsbury's in Chippenham. I still have the three plastic coathangers I bought there on the day I left Wiltshire. *sniff*
I used to shop in Sainsbury's in Chippenham. I still have the three plastic coathangers I bought there on the day I left Wiltshire. *sniff*
Update, not that anyone cares: I wrote an email to the company later this morning, asking in polite-ish terms what the hell happened. They emailed me back by the time I got home (around three), saying that the tram I was on had a fault, and they would have been operating outside the law, not to mention putting passengers at risk, if the tram had continued to its destination.
Given the choice between being late and being dead, I'll choose the mild indignation of my colleagues and students over St Peter and his book.
Given the choice between being late and being dead, I'll choose the mild indignation of my colleagues and students over St Peter and his book.
(nights) I bet the fault was some minor infringement of regulations, such as a failed speedometer. They had to say it would put passengers at risk to justify their action. I could be wrong; maybe the brakes had gone. Did they say?
Final afternoon. I'm sorting out my desk out so I have a small pile of easily-identifiable and easy-start jobs to do when I come back to it on January 2nd. And trying to finish off the office chocolates before 5pm. It'd be rude not to.
[Rosie] No I didn't. Call me stupid (You're stupid, nights), but I'd rather not know...
[pen-elope] I have also just finished for the day, and am hanging around waiting to pick up Mlle Nights from work. And then we are going out for cinema and dinner. Never let it be said that I'm an original boyfriend.
[pen-elope] I have also just finished for the day, and am hanging around waiting to pick up Mlle Nights from work. And then we are going out for cinema and dinner. Never let it be said that I'm an original boyfriend.
Every day this week I've been woken up annoyed that it's not Friday. Now it is and I'm watching the clock till we go to the pub at 4.30. A weekend of stocking the larder awaits. mrsrab is working on Monday , but is being sent home at 2pm which is when the fun will really start (with mulled wine, carols from Kings and a curry).
[nights] After work finishes in a matter of minutes, I'm off home to pack the car with everything for a week in Scotland. I'll drive over to my mum's tonight then will set off oop north tomorrow lunchtime for t'Edinburgh airport. The windy miller flies in tomorrow evening. On Sunday, we drive over to the west coast to a cottage by the sea with a real fire - for a week. Yippeeee!
going on a bit ...
Me - tonight going to a Winter Warmer Party [Solcisty-connected]. All our friends will be there. We're all taking our own Winter Warmer Concoctions and there's a 'tasting panel' which includes NotMr Chalky. He'll probably have a blast, the recovery from which might be interesting as he's due to play drums with his band and they have a Christmas gig tomorrow night at a local pub. On Sunday my sister and brother-in-law are hosting their own family Christmas for us all because they're not around on Christmas Day. Oh yes - I have daughter No 1 arriving for a week. Then family and friends Christmas Day then oop north for a few days to Lake District where NotMr Chalky's folks reside.
[rab] when and what station are the carols from Kings on?
Well, Mlle Nights and I, after a brief argument about what film to see, had a thoroughly enjoyable evening of cinematic treats and culinary delights. She's now sodded off back to Paris by train, and I'm waiting for my family to get in here. Although they're staying in a gîte, because I live in a box. But it's a nice one - apparently it, too, has an open fire. It snowed here last night, and there's a Christmas film on TV. I am, as Glenn Miller put it (I think), "In The Mood" now.
CfK
[Phil] On R4 3pm, but we won't be home by then, so will watch it on BBC2 at 5.30pm whilst chinging our way through min spies.
But, as always, do check your own listings guides because here in Scotland programmes are moved by up to four days either way (or dropped entirely) to accommodate the world's worst soap opera (yes, worse even than Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten) and Rupert Bear in Gaelic (which is actually quite good fun).
[rab] thanks
[All] Anyone got any plans for tomorrow?
[All] Anyone got any plans for tomorrow?
[Raak] I think I'm too out of touch to know what that is - I suspect some kind of computer though :) Have fun!
Oh, and may I be the first on this server to say "Happy Christmas Everybody!"
Oh, and may I be the first on this server to say "Happy Chingmas Everybody!", now that the sound of sleigh bells has officially overtaken JC as the dominant Festive icon.
[Phil] 30" display, and a 4-core Mac Pro under the desk. It makes Second Life spectacular.
[rab] There was me thinking it was the sound of tills!
[Projoy] You've hit the nail on the head. In two hours today four of us took x pounds. Our best ever Tuesday was Boxing Day last year, when we took 10% more (over 11 hours). Our 3rd best Tuesday was 44% less than roday's x. Merry Ker-chingmas to you all :-)
Merry Christmas all. The parents bought me a shiny new laptop which I am VERY happy with, as the old one really was on its last legs. However, I've decided to donate the old one to Emmaüs, a charity around here that takes in old stuff, makes it new and gives it to people on low incomes. Rather in the spirit of the season, I thought.
Good on yer, nights. I'm liking your work. A question: Do ageing laptops have 'legs' or even 'last legs'? Answers on a postcard please.
[Chalky] My laptop had legs, but they broke off.
laptop rookie
[Raak] Really? Yousee - I've never actually owned one. In fact have only used a laptop twice - once at work when the desktop blew up and once at penelope's house when she and I posted in the Pilg Game in OMC to announce our return from RugbySuperPilg 2004.
Another laptop rookie
Haven't got one. I've got a wireless, though, and you can get the Radio Luxemburg on it.
back from the frozen nortth
I drove from Dunkeld on the Tay back to Lincolnshire today, and saw SNOW in the Pentland Hills, and again on that bit south of Dunblane to just where the hills end at Gretna on the A74. And what's more, the lovely windy miller was bumped off his flight back to Amsterdam from Edinburgh airport this morning, but got a replacement ticket to fly back at tea time from Humberside airport instead. So I had his lovely company on the long drive home. He also got a 250 euro compensation, which was nice, especially as I was driving home past Humberside airport anyway.
Argyll was lovely, but it ain't half bloody dark in the mornings. And stormy at nights too - the bedroom window looked out over the Atlantic, with Mull just off to the right.
Argyll was lovely, but it ain't half bloody dark in the mornings. And stormy at nights too - the bedroom window looked out over the Atlantic, with Mull just off to the right.
Thank goodness. The family have buggered off again back to the UK - I love them, but they're deeply irritating at times. Now to rub my hands in glee at the prospect of a New Year's Eve in Paris. Fireworks from the Eiffel Tower? Oh yes.
NYE pyrotechnics
Oh, they are pretty and probably bring out the child within but, oh, what a waste of money. I understand that when in Sydney someone lights the blue touchpaper for the NYE bash it is the culmination of efforts expended at the expense of many sponsors. This is all well and good but, to be honest, I can't remember the name of any sponsor of any previous display. I don't think that the people involved were being philanthropic so plebeian level deduction tells me that they wasted their investment.
I suspect that I'll come across as some sort of curmudgeon but I'm not like that really. While the money spent on these exercises of excess is probably small, imagine the difference a few million quid or dollars could make if that were invested in something like rescue services, paramedic equipment or, God forbid, even some sort of research into the whys and wherefores of everyday life. *folds up soapbox and leaves*
I suspect that I'll come across as some sort of curmudgeon but I'm not like that really. While the money spent on these exercises of excess is probably small, imagine the difference a few million quid or dollars could make if that were invested in something like rescue services, paramedic equipment or, God forbid, even some sort of research into the whys and wherefores of everyday life. *folds up soapbox and leaves*
Postscript: The leaves became caught up in the soapbox due to the amount of hot air generated by your correspondent.
[Dujon] "research into the whys and wherefores of everyday life"? Until that point, I was agreeing with you, but that sounds like a bigger waste of money than fireworks to my untrained ear.
I did say "God forbid", Phil. ;(
No. That makes me seem flippant. Surely, though, those who spend money on advancing their public profile (you like that? It's PR speak.) would be better off putting such funds into something that matters. We have a couple of helicopter rescue services in my neck of the woods; everyone knows the NRMA and Westpac choppers and appreciates them.
[Dujon] Yep, so many things do seem to be largely justified by accountants, rather than common sense, or a sense of "what's right If the sponsors of said pyrotechnics provided transport and viewing platforms for those with learning difficulties, say, rather than just paying some money to be associated with a fun event, I think their names and products/services would be better remembered.
When I try to advance my public profile (honest, I do), I spend my money on an event, and organise it myself, and then try to get the advertising for free through media coverage. Even if the event only breaks even, the knock-on effects of repeat trade and wider awareness are worth the effort and expense.
When I try to advance my public profile (honest, I do), I spend my money on an event, and organise it myself, and then try to get the advertising for free through media coverage. Even if the event only breaks even, the knock-on effects of repeat trade and wider awareness are worth the effort and expense.
OK, Phil, you can put away the sarcasm. I admit that I did get a bit carried away and for that I apologise, though I do not resile from my original premiss.
It's been 2008 for a few hours now so I shall wish you all the best for the new year. Peace?
It's been 2008 for a few hours now so I shall wish you all the best for the new year. Peace?
Eeek, I wasn't being sarcastic.
I think those sort of events with forgotten sponsors are part of a much bigger picture - pride in a place, a sense of community, and a general drawing-together of efforts. And no matter how desperate the need for support for a helicopter ambulance service or a hospice, a proper sense of community precedes all. London, or Sydney, or Budapest, or Oban all need to be nice places for people to live in order for businesses and services to prosper there. I think a few fireworks on New Year's Eve are part of that process.
Happy New Year!
I've just done a couple of minutes of googling, so I don't know how accurate these numbers are, but it seems as if the order of magnitudes are that there were around one million spectators in Sydney, and that the fireworks cost about AUD600,000. I think it is a reasonable bet that those spectators would almost all have been willing to give up at least 60 cents for the pleasure of watching the display, and that the average willingness to pay would have been much much higher.* So it sounds to me as if it was actually a very good use of resources, and not a "waste of money" at all. (This is separate from the question of whether the corporate sponsors get a return on investment; I'm simply asking whether the firework display was a worthwhile use of resources, and if the numbers I saw are right -- or even off by a factor of 10 -- I think the answer is clearly yes.)
* I'm using "willingness to pay" in a technical sense here: think of it as meaning that an individual is equally happy having $x and not seeing the fireworks, on not having $x and seeing the fireworks. Other boring economic discussion available on request.
* I'm using "willingness to pay" in a technical sense here: think of it as meaning that an individual is equally happy having $x and not seeing the fireworks, on not having $x and seeing the fireworks. Other boring economic discussion available on request.
also, what pen said.
also, s/order of magnitudes/orders of magnitude :-)
also (and even though I am multiposting, can I point out that this is apparently only because everyone else is too hungover to speak) I want to make it clear that my comments are not intended as criticism of Dujon or Phil. Dujon's comment, and I think Phil's as well, were only addressing the question of corporate sponsorship of public events. I did pick up a more general sense that they were questioning whether firework displays themselves were worthwhile, but that may be my misreading, because it is certainly not explicit in their comments.
I am *not* hungover, merely hard at work writing the first of three features this week. And sneaking a look at this year's holiday diary - I get a long weekend off in two weeks' time!
[CdM] Rest assured, I love public firework displays. My take on the matter was simply from a "what am I getting for my money" point of view for the sponsors. For example, I sponsor a football team, and the benefit for me is that they drink in my pub every Sunday afternoon (as well as when they present trophies, celebrate promotion etc). I more than get my money back from that. I presume an awful lot of corporate sponsorship results in so-called freebies, like a hotel room with champagne reception etc and a fantastic view of the fireworks.
Pretty much
[CdM] Close, old chap. Like Phil, I enjoy the displays when I bother to watch them.
I've been pondering on my original comment and am thinking that maybe I've got things wrong. Before I comment further though a little research is required.
I've been pondering on my original comment and am thinking that maybe I've got things wrong. Before I comment further though a little research is required.
I'm baaak
From: smh
"Peter Hawkins and Linton Besser
December 31, 2007
The city's $4 million New Year's Eve party on the harbour will not be hampered by bad weather this year, with mostly clear conditions forecast for the celebrations."
The same source (possibly CdM's) quotes AUD 600,000 as the cost of the fireworks. I do wonder though if that costing includes the expense involved in siting the beasts, programming and installing the computerised control system and the eventual dismantling of same.
If the quoted figure is correct (i.e. ignoring my comments) it means that the State (or city) expended 3.4 Million AUD in supporting the function. Media comments claim anywhere between 1 and 1.5 million people turned up in the city to watch the spectacle. In effect that's 1 in 3 of the whole population of Sydney. Yeah, right.
I popped onto the official NYE celebration site ( sydney ) to check out who was who. Slide down to the bottom of the page. I wonder if any of those organisations are recompensed or are simply expected to turn up and factor the event into their annual budget?
Right, I'm putting all this rubbish behind me and flying from Cootamundra to Bendigo. Tally-ho!
"Peter Hawkins and Linton Besser
December 31, 2007
The city's $4 million New Year's Eve party on the harbour will not be hampered by bad weather this year, with mostly clear conditions forecast for the celebrations."
The same source (possibly CdM's) quotes AUD 600,000 as the cost of the fireworks. I do wonder though if that costing includes the expense involved in siting the beasts, programming and installing the computerised control system and the eventual dismantling of same.
If the quoted figure is correct (i.e. ignoring my comments) it means that the State (or city) expended 3.4 Million AUD in supporting the function. Media comments claim anywhere between 1 and 1.5 million people turned up in the city to watch the spectacle. In effect that's 1 in 3 of the whole population of Sydney. Yeah, right.
I popped onto the official NYE celebration site ( sydney ) to check out who was who. Slide down to the bottom of the page. I wonder if any of those organisations are recompensed or are simply expected to turn up and factor the event into their annual budget?
Right, I'm putting all this rubbish behind me and flying from Cootamundra to Bendigo. Tally-ho!
Well, even if you went with AUD4 million as the cost and 400,000 spectators, you would have a cost of AUD10 per person, which is less than the cost of a movie ticket. We have a lot of evidence that people were willing to spend a great deal of time getting somewhere to see the display, waiting for it to begin, and traveling home afterwards. Was it worth an additional AUD10 on top to those people? I'd still put my money on yes.
hny
Hello and happy new year to all. Wandering around John Lewis's end-of-year "Clearance" (they're far to posh to have a sale) we notice they're offering a temporaray "special purchase" 300 quid reduction on a sofa we've been lusting after. The bastards.
One difficulty, apart from the possibility of an unexpected major purchase, is that we're also thinking of getting a cat and it's not clear the two will be entirely compatible.
[rab] Better that the cat does damage to the £300-cheaper sofa than the full-price version, shurely? Get both. You know you want to.
Scratching decoys
[rab] Are you already catty? If this is your first mog, the following anti-scratching tips may be useful: Cats are very discerning scratchers. They will start by destroying the most valuable soft furnishing in a room, then working their way through the remainder in descending order of value. You may be able to decoy them by the following options:
one: a toy 'cat pyramid' - very popular with kittens, this is a cardboard pyramid covered in carpet, usually with a hole in the side so the cats can climb into it, and often with a ball on a string or something tied to the apex. This may (not guaranteed, natch) give a young cat hours of pleasure and become their preferred scratching station.
two: a plain old scratching post. These can be quite luxurious, and may also act as a suitable distration.
three: a really nice (small) real wool rug. If this feels nicer on the little cat's paws than the sofa, then there's a good chance they'll scratch that instead. Needs to be the softest, most luxurious rug you can find, of course. These are cats we're talking about here, after all.
four: Declawing. Cruel. Please don't.
five: Claw clipping. Generally just results in the cat making larger holes when it scratches rather than pinpricks, so probably pointless. six: Luck. Some fabrics tolerate scratching without any great visible effects. Once you have got them scratching somewhere acceptable, the battle is largely won, because that spot will become scent-marked and they'll tend to use it in preference to anywhere else. Mostly – so you'll still need to keep half an eye on them. But if they become accustomed to scratching somewhere you don't want, or if they don't have an official scratching location, you have to watch them constantly and it's a war of attrition that you will slowly lose.
one: a toy 'cat pyramid' - very popular with kittens, this is a cardboard pyramid covered in carpet, usually with a hole in the side so the cats can climb into it, and often with a ball on a string or something tied to the apex. This may (not guaranteed, natch) give a young cat hours of pleasure and become their preferred scratching station.
two: a plain old scratching post. These can be quite luxurious, and may also act as a suitable distration.
three: a really nice (small) real wool rug. If this feels nicer on the little cat's paws than the sofa, then there's a good chance they'll scratch that instead. Needs to be the softest, most luxurious rug you can find, of course. These are cats we're talking about here, after all.
four: Declawing. Cruel. Please don't.
five: Claw clipping. Generally just results in the cat making larger holes when it scratches rather than pinpricks, so probably pointless. six: Luck. Some fabrics tolerate scratching without any great visible effects. Once you have got them scratching somewhere acceptable, the battle is largely won, because that spot will become scent-marked and they'll tend to use it in preference to anywhere else. Mostly – so you'll still need to keep half an eye on them. But if they become accustomed to scratching somewhere you don't want, or if they don't have an official scratching location, you have to watch them constantly and it's a war of attrition that you will slowly lose.
[Simulposted with Simons] Such is the contrary nature of felines that we know it will ignore all the IKEA furniture (of which there's lots) and scratch only the legs of the nice chair and (potentially) sofa. On the other hand, if it keeps the mice at bay I'm happy.
We think we'll have to let him/her into the living room only when we're there, have nice moggy scratching posts in the back bedroom (both of our bedrooms are at the back, but the name has stuck...) and let himher out into the garden during the day where there are real trees and bushes and things. And water-pistol aversion therapy has been quite successful I'm told.
We're not yet sure what kind of cat we'll be getting. We're currently researching the options. My preference would be for a toilet-trained kitten going spare from a loving home that we can teach social graces, rather than some rescued hell-cat with a dozen ASBOs to its name. The latter do have a talent for looking particularly cute in the adverts though...
In other news, it's just started snowing in a Hollywood at Christmas kind of way.
[Simons] Thanks for the advice btw.
Ooh, don't count on the animal making a special trip to another room just 'cos it wants to sharpen its claws; remember, they're lazy as well as contrary. A sacrificial rug or toy cat pyramid in the living room is probably still a good idea.
Saw this recently and thought it might amuse:
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will become the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other contender. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and, as a result, has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that will become known as "Euro-English". The 5-year plan will be implemented as follows:
- In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konsiderable konfusion, and keyboards kan be manufactured with one less letter.
- In the second year, growing publik enthusiasm will be anticipated, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
- In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil sertainly agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and should be done away with.
- By the 4th yer, people wil be mor reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
- During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" resulting in a more sensibl riting styl.
By ze end of ze fifz yer, zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis; evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand evrivun els and ze drem of a united Urop vil finali kum tru bekos ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas!
Hello all, back from Paris with only a small hangover. Happy New Year 2008 to all and sundry - hope it's full of laughter, sunshine and cake.
being catty
[rab] I suspect that it's the luck of the draw. I have two moggies and have attempted to get them to use two varieties of scratching devices. Neither of the cats took to either of them. One contraption was a pole (wrapped with rope) the other a flat, foldable, unit covered in a lighter grade of rope. Good luck.
going on a bit - as usual
I have to confess - before I did the sprogging thing, I was a cat obsessive so can fully understand the 'desire to acquire' cat-like ness. All I can advise is .... whatever you wish them to do - they will graciously and very politely do the opposite ... and whatever direction you may want to send them [ with the best possible intentions] they will go the other way with a beguiling manner encompassing charm, purposefulness and intention, which sumply leaves you in a place whre you simply wouldn't even deign to complain. Adorable little hussies, each an every one of 'em.
'sumply' is a fine word - but as you can proberBly guess, was a bit of a misstype.
sumply - in the manner of a sump; L. sumpus, some cat.
Cats are shifty, evil, nasty pieces of work. No-one has ever had one as a pet. Millions of cats have had humans as servants, though.
Well, I've never had much time for dogs - so there you go.
I was wondering if one of the US Presidential Election experts (Projoy, CdM?) could explain if there's any reason why the Republicans and Democrats have their first nomination quasi-election thingy on the same day. Presumably there's nothing in the rules that says that candidates have to be nominated in anything like a similar way, let alone at the same time. Is it simply to try and prevent one party getting more press attention than another?
[rab] You just made me google the answer to that, cos I didn't know, but according to this page, anyway, "there was a mutual decision in 1976 between the parties to hold the event [the Iowa caucuses] on the same day because they understood the need to make it a heightened media bonanza of sorts."
There has been some change this year because the Republicans moved their caucuses in Iowa forward to 3 Jan. It was only after that decision was made that the Democrats decided (presumably for reasons of not handing momentum to the GOP race coverage) to move theirs forward also. The two parties do indeed use separate caucusing methods in Iowa (I think the Republicans do secret ballots, whereas Democrats tend to use the non-secret "go stand in the corner of the room relating to your candidate" solution. There has been quite a bit of shuffling this year of the primary calendar, mostly with different states jostling to put themselves earlier on in the process. I expect this drives up the cost for the candidates.
There has been some change this year because the Republicans moved their caucuses in Iowa forward to 3 Jan. It was only after that decision was made that the Democrats decided (presumably for reasons of not handing momentum to the GOP race coverage) to move theirs forward also. The two parties do indeed use separate caucusing methods in Iowa (I think the Republicans do secret ballots, whereas Democrats tend to use the non-secret "go stand in the corner of the room relating to your candidate" solution. There has been quite a bit of shuffling this year of the primary calendar, mostly with different states jostling to put themselves earlier on in the process. I expect this drives up the cost for the candidates.
+)
*eats curry at her desk and waits for someone to say something*
hmmm, curry
Mmm... absence.
ramblings
My brain was definitely on half-cock yesterday. Today, it seems to be on full-power again, with no discernable reason why.
As an aside, it's mild and windy here today in Grantham. And instead of being the last person on my cul-de-sac road occupied by mostly pensioners to put my bins out onto the roadside this morning, I was the first. Hurrah!
As an aside, it's mild and windy here today in Grantham. And instead of being the last person on my cul-de-sac road occupied by mostly pensioners to put my bins out onto the roadside this morning, I was the first. Hurrah!
Bins
[penelope] The last time I managed that it turned out that I was putting them out on the wrong day. Something about holidays and skip-days, I don't know. Everyone hated me because the bins got knocked over, either by their kids or by the backwash from a passing vehicle. Great neighbourhood. Not.
Communal refuse collection for the building. It's magical.
In it to bin it
[nights] Yes, we have that too, due to the sheer density of people living in the area (4 storey flats). The downside is that it means there are big wheely-skips on the streets, which don't do a huge amount to improve the look of the place. Preferable to bin bags being ripped apart by birds, though, which would be the alternative.
shhhh!
shhhhushes
I was going to say, (before I whacked the wrong key) I'm really busy today...
Reynard
(rab) You can't leave binbags out round here because the foxes just rip them apart leaving the rubbish scattered everywhere. I had thought of splashing a little white spirit around the inside hoping the smell would put them off but the foxes will probably evolve rapidly into actually needing the stuff to stay alive (cf. Warfarin, now a dietary essential for rats).
Yes, but my bit of town looks like shit 93% of the time anyway, so it's not so much of a concern.
On the way back from rehearsals this evening - well actually the pub after rehearsals - I was charmed by the man who got on the bus and was absolutely mystified that he had to buy a ticket. The driver and our interlocuter went back and forth on this one for about three stops, before the gentleman found the 1,30€ needed. And then got off. Marvellous.
On the way back from rehearsals this evening - well actually the pub after rehearsals - I was charmed by the man who got on the bus and was absolutely mystified that he had to buy a ticket. The driver and our interlocuter went back and forth on this one for about three stops, before the gentleman found the 1,30€ needed. And then got off. Marvellous.
[Rosie] So long as you don't use dogs, it's still perfectly legal to hunt and kill foxes.
Tally-ho
(Phil) So it ought to be. I am the least likely huntsman, thinking it distasteful to set one animal against another but I was very much against the ban purely on libertarian grounds and after all it's only bloody foxes, which are pests. I find it staggering that some people in the suburbs actually leave food out for them, which is a bit like leaving food out for the dear little flies and wasps. I do feed the dickybirds but they are a Good Thing.
Extinction
[Rosie] The quantity of species that became extinct long before intelligent bipeds trod this earth is simply staggering. I think our impact is over-rated and, unless we don't believe in evolution, we should stop saving species that obviously don't have the necessary means to survive on their own. Also, I wholeheartedly agree with you on the matter of the naïve townsfolk who put food out for the most wiley of scavengers, so that the cute little feckers don't have to go and find food for themselves. I wouldn't mind getting rid of a few robins at the moment - either that or persuade them somehow to shut the hell up at night.
Thinking about birds
(Phil) Robin problems? Bar them. Employ crows.
Robins calling
They switched to singing at night because modern noise pollution is so bad during the day that they can't hear themselves chirrup. If you want to Do Something about that, you'll probably have to join the Black Ops Arm of the Noise Abatement Society.
Puzzled about Rats & Warfarin
I was aware that rats were growing immune to many poisons, but this is the first I've heard about them needing a blood thinner to survive. Which begs the question: If warfarin is now an essential dietary additive for healthy rats, why don't we simply stop giving it to them?
(S M) I think the story is true though there's a possibility it may be a scientific urban myth. Without Warfarin the rats presumably will rapidly evolve back to what they were before the introduction of this substance although a number will perish in the process. Something more subtle is needed.
Rats
Dad always swore by a cricket bat during the bad old days.
I see idiots have dropped by (see elsewhere)...
Hmmm
Not my day. A casual chat over coffee led me to realise that flights I was booked to take next week have been withdrawn. The service email got swamped by spam, and though they tried to call me, it turns out they did so on my old office number during the Christmas vacation. Ho hum. The original booking was perfect: nice leisurely departure, direct flight out to a meeting; meeting finishes, evening flight back, airport easily makable after the end of the meeting. Then I could go to a course I was enrolled on the next day. Now, the outward is early morning, involves a change at Birmingham. Then I had a choice of either leaving the meeting before the session in which I was scheduled to speak, or missing the course. I went for the latter in the end.
And now these guys show up.
I think I missed it.
rab's Trip
Well where's the fun in that? You are supposed to get the only available flight that puts you in the night before your event, a train ride away from wherever your meeting is to take place. Said train should break down, stranding you overnight somewhere with no accomodation so that you have to sleep on the (open-air) platform where you get molested by stray dogs and policemen. When you get to the meeting you should discover that your powerpoint slides have somehow been erased from your laptop, at which point your wireless connection should pack up. The return journey should see you travel by coach and hovercraft and deliver you into the arms of a UK customs official who is going through a bad patch in his or her personal life. You should return home after 15 hours of point-to-point commuting to discover your pipes burst approximately one hour after you departed.
On the other hand, you are changing at Birmingham.
On the other hand, you are changing at Birmingham.
Actually, crisis averted. Having rescheduled my course, I realised that a different airline could offer me direct flights at better times, and for a few quid less than my original ticket. So, back on the phone to get the original ticket refunded (which I must make sure actually happens), and less cost to the taxpayer.
Flight
[rab] All's well that ends well, then.
Not a criticism of anyone here, or anyone at all really, but I do wonder how many air/car/train/hovercraft(?)/coach miles of unnecessary travel to and from meetings are covered per annum. Also, how much money is spent on travel and accommodation that could be done much more cheaply with minimal discomfort to the person (who is, after all, getting paid to travel in many cases).
Business Travel
[Phil] As a fully paid-up member of the business tralling set I have had those thoughts occasionally, but, if you do it all the time then the level of comfort becomes a significant issue. You'd sleep in a capsule hotel for one night, but not 4 nights a week for 6 months.
Also, speaking for myself and most of my colleagues, my traveling is almost exclusively outside normal office hours, so I dispute that I'm being paid to travel. I think there are a lot of myths around this area.
Also, speaking for myself and most of my colleagues, my traveling is almost exclusively outside normal office hours, so I dispute that I'm being paid to travel. I think there are a lot of myths around this area.
That's 'travelling set' of course.
On the travel theme, how do people commute to and from work/university/knitting lessons?
I personally dislike travelling, particularly on my own. Most of the meetings I go to involve a bunch of people getting together from all over to present talks to an audience. Although this can be done by videoconferencing, much of the most useful time is that spent discussing with individuals in ad-hoc discussions etc. I think that could well get lost without the physical presence. I get paid the same whether I stay put or go somewhere. Also, this all being paid by your (and my) taxes, means that we always have to go the cheapest, most unglamorous way possible.
(INJ) You are being paid to travel, it presumably being a part of your job specification, unless you're self-employed. (nights) Car, once I'd got one (1965). Distances 2, 27, 10 and 6 miles.
[nights] Lots of jobs, several parts of the country involving several house moves. It goes thus: 1. Walked, then car 1.5 miles. 2. Ditto. 3. Car, 10 miles. 4. Car 1.5 miles. 5. Car, 17 miles. 6. Walked 600 yards. 7. Car, 20 miles. 8. Car 11 miles, then 2 miles (I moved). 9. Car 2 miles.
Oh, [nights] Walk, 2 miles.
Shuffling along
[nights] For many years around 50 miles - 80 Km - each way but these days a leisurely stroll of around 10 metres from the kitchen to workshop.
(rab) What, even when it's chucking it down? (everybody) My niece and her hubby commute respectively to Cardiff and Swindon, from Chepstow. This is among the reasons that CO2 emissions are high, and will carry on getting higher. Should I tell her? She claims to be Green-ish, after all. At least they don't fly.
Carbon Footprint
Currently - a quarter of a mile into the city centre. Takes about 6 minutes. *smug green face*
When I was doing a proper job, then that would be a train every day. Now I'm freelance, it's that occasionally plus a lot of lying in bed, thinking.
[Rosie] Well, I don't own a car. There is a bus, so when it's totally dreadful I might get a bus. But for the rest of the time, I have an umbrella.
travel
[Rosie] My job specification says I have to do 5 days of 7.5 hours each (as if!). My base location/normal place of work in tax terms is about 45 minutes away. I am currently working some 3.5 hours away from home, am still expected to do the same number of hours once at the client site and get no extra money. Where's the payment for travel in that?
[INJ] Blimey. No wonder you go walkies whenever you have some time off.
I am currently juggling TV companies' and radio stations' requests for t'interviews. And then I'm off on hols to Holland tomorrow :oD
My commute is even shorter than Dujon's: 6m from kitchen to office. Music lessons are reached by tram. Tram or train to the city, or bicycle are the other ways I usually get around.
[INJ] Do you get paid travel expenses? If not, I'd be having a word with my employer, if I were you. Also, are you really out of the house for 15 hours a day (presuming you take 30 minutes for lunch), 5 days a week? Also (Take 2), do you need to be at the client site for all of those hours/days?
My commute these days is a flight of stairs. In my last few jobs it's been: a flight of stairs; a flight of stairs; 27 miles each way by car; 30 miles each way (1 mile by car, the rest by train); 8 miles each way by bicycle; 20 mins walk; 17 mins walk; 25 mins walk etc.
For several years at one time in my life I had a 60-mile each way commute. Now it is 18 stairs.
(That's 18 stairs each way, mind you.)
[INJ] Please ignore the apparently aggressive style of my previous post to you (which was unintentional). In fact, just ignore the whole thing, as it seems rather silly now. I was NES (Not Entirely Sober) at the time of writing.
[oblig]
[flerdle] Six miles from kitchen to office? How big is your house?
casa del tardis
[Tuj] If I were to tell you, I'd have to kill you.
I should contribute. Bus for ten minutes then tram for twenty, then feet for five. This is why strikes throw me so - I live out in the suburbs, and while it has its advantages - calm, nicer people, very few sirens - if I want a late night, or to go and see Mlle Nights on a whim, it's a touch difficult. I keep on having dark thoughts about buying a car...
[nights] I can understand going to work on a bus, going to work on a tram, but going to see Mlle Nights on a whim is new to me. ;-)
tired old yolk
[Phil] I prefer to go to work on an egg.
[Phil] No bother: I didn't read the first message until after you'd posted the second. To clarify: I get travelling expenses, but not payment for time spent travelling. Also, given the distance, I don't commute, but stay away for the week (and, yes, I do get my hotel bills paid). However, the situation in the past, and with many of my colleagues now is that a couple of hours travelling time is regarded as normal and is unpaid.
Do I need to be at the client site all that time? NO! Does the client agree? NO!
Do I need to be at the client site all that time? NO! Does the client agree? NO!
Vin de pays d'expenses
Regarding payment - one certainly doesn't get paid extra to get up at 4 or 5 in the morning to sit in an airport for three hours.
[rab] Hmmmm....if it's required by your job, and you're not on an hourly rate, then yes you do get paid to do that, but not paid extra. Or perhaps, if your job didn't require you to do that, you wouldn't get paid so much? I'm just arguing for the sake of it really, so don't take any of this to heart :-)
[Phil] Oh you must try it. But I'd rather you visited someone else's girlfriend...
Hello everyone,so lovely to see you're all still here. Last posted a couple of years ago, (then got new job, husband and baby, just about remembering who I am again). Have just had first glass of wine in about 18 months, so apologise now for the possible poor standard of postings!
[Ella] Congrats! And welcome back! I haven't noticed anything untoward yet.
[Penelope] Thank you! And on the horrendous errors front; there's still time :)
[Ella] What pen said!
Ella! How nice to have you back with us :-)
[and Ella] Please come and join my Animal Vegetable Mineral Abstracty thingy - it seems to be taking a bit of time....
*waves from Paris*
[Ella] Nice to see you again.
Good news: just received my first official rejection letter from a major U.S. periodical. I feel like a real writer now. =)
[J] congratulations!
Yawn. Another quiet night.
[nights]
WAKE UP!
shhhhhhhhhhhh!
I am surprised by the intensity of my loathing of Gillian McKeith tonight on telly. She is the most tasteless, boorish and annoying silly moo.
Then why did you persist?
I am quite sure that I have missed some entertaining programmes over the years but, these days, I do tend to pick and choose what I watch (as opposed to sitting in front of the damned thing 'flicking around').
Gillian 'not a real doctor' McKeith
[pen] it was my turn to buy the Sunday newspaper for our usual afternoon crossword get-together in the pub - we generally do the Mail on Sunday general knowledge one because it's quite challenging and good for sharing. Anyway - on the front page was THAT woman who had already stated that "every woman hates their bum" - [er, actually, NO - not true - I quite like mine]. So she's now promoting the Great British Bum Diet. Needless to say I refused to buy the paper and we had to do the Times crossword instead.
Love your bum
(Chalky, pen) Ignore it; it's actually an elbow diet.
un-elbow-like bum
I prefer the advice from here: The Health Institute for Nutrition
[Chalky] Do I detect the presence of a "Millenium Project" reader?
Ouch, me eardrums. Not even been to a gig.
Millenium Project & Eardrums
[Sierra Mike] You mean her?
[nights] Wassup chuck?
[nights] Wassup chuck?
[Chalky] No, you. The author of the MP website used the "Not a Real Doctor" middle name for quacks too. The congruence was striking.
[Sierra Mike] Aaaah. Now I see :-)
Tom & Jerry
Having been accosted by a mouse whilst wiping down the stove on Saturday night - silly thing was hiding behind the recycling and would have gone unnoticed had it not decided to dive for the cover of its bolt hole whilst I was still in the kitchen - we set a trap baited with a peanut butter/Waitrose Biscuit for Cheese canapé. Amazingly the stupid thing didn't notice the suspicious enclosure and #1 has been dispatched. Presumably there will be more. In the fullness of time we still intend to exercise the nuclear option (Codename: Tiddles) but are still building up the necessary kit and looking for someone who'll supply us the goods.
little blighters
[rab] Bait. That's the only way to do it. I had an infestation in my flat (which was a conversion of 'the poor house' - ie the workhouse into six flats) and I caught 11 or 12 in traps, then got fed up of the traps going off while I was relaxing and watching telly. So I called in the council who put down bait everywhere in the building and we got rid of the whole lot. If you have them, the other flats will have them too - am I right in thinking you have a flat in a fairly old building?
Bait
Um, if they take the bait and then die somewhere inaccessible you'll have to put up with the smell while they decay. If you can't cover everywhere they might be, and/or can't access the places where the blighters might go to die, I'd stick with putting traps in the areas you can access and view it as a long-term war of attrition until Project Tiddles comes online.
Best approach depends on your house design. How well-ventilated it is and such. Bait worked badly for us (at my orkplace) because the mice died in inaccessible places and smelt. Plainly pen didn't get that problem, but we did.
Neither poison nor traps will ever get them all, of course; making sure they can't get to any of your food is the most reliable way to make them lose interest.
Squeak
Well, just about everyone in Edinburgh has mice. The majority of the buildings are 3 or 4 storey tenement flats constructed around 1900. Chances are the blighters moved in during building and have been endemic ever since. I'm also sure they can get between buildings if they try hard enough so if you were going for the total obliteration approach, as pen suggests, it might not be enough to restrict it to just one block.
I work on the principle that since they have access to a range of habitats we need to make ours as inhospitable as possible. Unfortunately, the age of the joinery is such that there's gaps and holes everywhere so getting these all mouse-proofed would probably cost more than moving to somewhere that's in a better state from this point of view. On the plus side, the number of poos I've found has been pretty small, which is suggestive we're not getting more than a few visitors. But if we catch more than four or five it'll probably be time to have a chat to the council to see if they have any wholesale slaughter solutions.
Bluebottle season
I dealt with my infestation during spring. The smell lasted about a week, after which I got two hatches of bluebottles every day for a week or so. I used elementary biology to interpret what had happened to the cadavers.
Mice
I got infested once (well, my garage then basement then house did). I tried humane traps to no avail (They came back faster than I could transport them to another place). I tried spring traps to no avail (they proved expert at getting the bait without suffering a crushed skull). Then I reluctantly put down glue traps (which require one to figure out a humane way of ending it for the trrapped animal). When I caught and euthanised my eleventh or twelfth mouse I gave up and called in the pros, who put down some sort of poison with the singular property of making the doomed mouse very thirsty. I was advised to check the bath before showering each morning. That did the trick eventually. I imagine they died in the crawl spaces, but I didn't notice any smell. Perhaps the corpses mummified and now await discovery (whereupon they will doubtless put a curse on their discoverer). I don't think I'd waste time with traps if it happened again.
[SM] That sounds very similar to the situation at my old flat; I tried traps and poisons, none of which worked. But then Dave came round and dispensed the hard stuff, and never a squeak after. But that was a modern flat, and filling the holes with expanding foam was straightforward. After our first visitation we called Dave in straight away, and it took him three attempts to get rid of the first batch; and expressed doubts that given the way the plumbing had been done in the kitchen that he could offer anything like a permanent solution.
SM being Sierra Mike, rather than Simons Mith, in that instance.
I caught one of the little dears in a humane trap some weeks back, also using peanut butter. He died in it anyway, for reasons that aren't clear to me. He was only trapped overnight, perhaps six-eight hours, so it presumably wasn't hunger or thirst. A broken spirit, perhaps?
[Dan] peanut allergy?
Mice
I've dealt with mice in two properties - each time by setting half a dozen traps at a time, baited with cheese. On each occasion they'd given up visiting within a week, and a dozen or so deaths. Perhaps the smell of mouse death lingers in the air?
One bit of information I was given at the time was useful - a mouse can get through a hole the width of a pencil.
One bit of information I was given at the time was useful - a mouse can get through a hole the width of a pencil.
Of Mice and McKeith
Clearly the solution is to stop jabbing those pencils into the walls. Or at least stop pulling them out afterwards. A pencil blimey. I bet those mice don't hate their bums... [Chalky] Maybe she meant that every woman hates her bum? I say why stop there, obnoxious pseudoscientist that she is...
[Phil] I couldn't resist it. Google reveals 65,500 Results for 'Can a mouse squeeze through a hole the width of a pencil?'. (0.44 seconds) Amazing stuff.
[Dan] Murderer! You done for that animal with your inhumane "cholesterol trap". :)
Well, #2 has yet to be caught. I can't believe for one minute there was only ever one of them, so either this one's cleverer or less intrepid. Let's keep on the lookout for those poos.
[Raak] eeek! For a real treat why not try our Speciality Cappuccino flavoured with rodentessence and topped with bright pink froth. Chocolate sprinkles [mouse droppings] optional
[Chalky] I only just spotted your reply to my eardrums complaint and can't for the life of me remember what the problem was.
Hello, Middle Age.
Hello, Middle Age.
[nights] Never mind. Middle Age comes to us all - but I must admit - it's really bloody annoying most of the time.
As some wise person said, growing old sucks, but it is better than the alternative.
Both good points. However I feel especially aggrieved about what this all means for me, as I'm not yet 25.
*ducks flying objects which always seem to materialise every time nights' age is mentioned*
I was interviewed by Jim Naughtie on the Today programme this morning. It was absolutely terrifying. It was at 6.52 in the morning, when all sensible people would have been asleep. I think I was too.
Oh, and #2 has crawled out of the woodwork. A small thing, very actively tried to escape the (humane) trap.
[rab] I just checked it out on Listen Again. The item on New Zealand accents? So, how does a physicist get involved with that? Do I sense the words "spin glass" in the background?
RabRadio
ooh, I must have a listen. All I do is set up these interview thingies... just trying to track down a rogue woodlander right now for one of the regional BBC stations who wants to talk to 'someone'. And firing off feature ideas to BBC programmes...
Early starts
I've often marvelled at the coherency of interviewees on the Today programme, or (particular) Five Live's Wake up to Money, which is at 5.30am. Rather them than me...
[Raak] Yes. That's the one. Involvement via knowing a suitably numerate (or semi-numerate) linguist. No spin glasses as such, though voter models are relevant.
Rising at the crack of Dawn
I get up at 6 on the days I have to be teaching at 8. And those days are rubbish, except when I can watch the sunrise from the tram. That's rather nice. On the other hand, that department is on holiday from next week, so I get a week of lie ins until the following week, which is my department's holiday. Wheee!
Huzzah for our beloved leader!
[rab] as a matter of (professional) interest, how do you alert the media to an interesting academic study? Was it published somewhere?
[pen] Traditionally, you would have a big-bang type discovery published in Nature or something like that, and their press team would do the business.
This case is a bit of an oddity - the work's been going on for years and has been presented in various forms at conferences, referred to in somewhat specialist publications and so on. Our press office got wind of it, I explained the situation, and it was generally felt that cos we were submitting a paper (which could take a couple of years to complete the review/publication process) and presenting it at the same time at the main linguistics conference in the US, it was reasonable to put out a press release. I was expecting it to go unnoticed, but was picked up by Radio New Zealand, the New Zealand Herald (front page), the Telegraph, the Glasgow Herald (page 5, above the fold), BBC Radio Scotland, Today, BBC Radio Wales and the World Service. I'm shattered, and generally want now to crawl under a stone.
[rab] Noooo! You were great. I guess it must be difficult to explain mathematical modelling to laymen, and for a presenter to pick up the gist of a study involving lots of people over several years and squeeze the right questions into a five-minute interview. I guess you're dealing with a lot of variables, but you summed it up pretty well. If I do my job properly, I get to put a lot of Woodland Trust people on the radio, and usually guide the presenter into asking the right questions: "You might like to ask why XXX happens, and what it means in the long term" etc. I didn't realise universities had press offices and the fact that it got picked up by so many publications means yours wrote a good press release and sent it out to the right media, with a view to possibly attracting the interest of potential funders...
[pen] The press officer I spoke to - for about an hour - is an ex-journalist, so he distilled it into a newsy-sounding story. (The version on the BBC website is basically the release verbatim). The presenters' briefs/scripts seemed to be cobbled together through informal chats with researchers/producers a few hours ahead of broadcast. 'Twould have been nice to have seen a copy myself beforehand, but I guess you can't have everything.
You're right about funding though. Probably the most useful thing about all this is that I can stick it all in the case for support to demonstrate interest beyond stuffy academia.
yay rab!
[rab] Cool interview and work - well done, and well explained. New Zealand is nice and small, making it a lot easier to study than its behemoth of a neighbour, even though exactly the same process happened in Australia (albeit some half a century earlier) and it's been developing in interesting ways ever since. I'd be interested in the publications to date, if you've got a list somewhere. I have an interesting documentary about the australian accent, too, if you're interested.
[flerdle] So that Google doesn't link my uni page to this one, perhaps I should suggest you type my name into the venerable search engine, click the first link (at least, the first link in our part of the world), and towards the bottom of the page you can find a link to the relevant preprint. I heartily recommend the books by Gordon and Trudgill if you really want to get into the details of the empirical data, as opposed to our modelling.
Trudgill rings a very faint bell. But well done you - I enjoyed the interview.
[nights] He is one of the more notable names in dialect research, especially in the UK; it would be hard not to have heard of him at some stage if you've looked into this field much.
[rab] Thanks very much.
[rab] Thanks very much.
Ah yes. I did a study of dialect changes amongst adolescents for A Level English Language. It was good fun. Got an A and everything.
Ah, A-level English Language. How long ago it seems now ;)
A level English Language didn't exist when I were a lad. I had to make do with English Literature, and I failed that. So now I don't read much. But I do write for a living. :oD
Pass the flat cap
English Language "A" levels? Comes from having so many furriners in t'country. When I were a lad, everyone just knew 'ow t'speak proper English wiyout paper t'prove it.
[SM] Ah, but at the time it was the perfect complement to A Levels in French and German, enabling me to have a thorough understanding of my own language before I grapple with others. Don't quite know where I went wrong...
(nights) You need Latin. Only with that can one get to grips with the meaning of such terms as fellatio and cunnlingus and begin to enjoy life to the full. You know it makes sense!
Mea culpa
Spot the typo.
Rubble and squeak
Was woken at 1am by the most almighty scratching and clattering noise from behind the skirting board in the bedroom. I had to decamp to the spare room to get away from it. Dave, our friendly neighbourhood pest controller (who will probably be able to retire on our flat), thinks he's worked out what's going on. Next door is having its bathroom renovated, which has probably disturbed a habitat, so they've decided to move in to ours. What we're hearing is probably the removals. The bait has been lain!
Apparently we did a good job of flushing out the ones in the kitchen with our trap - three in the end, and none for nearly a week. Removing the panel under the units, Dave remarked "Missed one" and picked up a cardboard mouse by its tail. At least the source of the slightly musty smell has now been explained.
[rab] Have you been making up all these rodent stories these past weeks, just as an extended set-up for the title of that last post?
Our entire building smells of roasting meat. Great, now I'm hungry.
[CdM] I wish. We plucked up courage to return to our bedroom last night, and it seemed to be a clatter-free experience. Looks like Dave was bang on the money.
It was quite odd - I said: "my wife saw running feet behind the skirting board there", pointing to a wall in the bedroom. Dave immediately went into the bathroom and fumbled around the pipework. I'm sure this guy must have been a mouse in a previous existence...
Finbar Saunders
[rab] Why don't you just ask this "Dave" why, when you mention mice behind your skirting board, his first instinct is to fondle your pipe.
robbin29605
1234567__765432129605
pope findling
[Sierra Mike] Your last three words may have triggered the imagination of the following poster :-0
It's a bit of a shame our main influx of new players these days only play one move and then vanish into the ether again. I mean, where's the stamina?
One hit wonders
Orange MC has had a fair flurry of spamtastic attacks recently too, for those of you who are mornogamous.
Followers
[Tuj] It appears that Chalky is on to you, old chap.
[Duj] I'm trying to figure out what you mean, and I just can't. Have I missed something?
[Tuj] Duj will explain ;-)
[Duj] You know me too well ;-)
In other news - it's my birthday today. All being well - hope to have landed safely in Dublin by 9.20 am. Hope the stalled AVMA has been solved by the time I return later in the week.
[Duj] You know me too well ;-)
In other news - it's my birthday today. All being well - hope to have landed safely in Dublin by 9.20 am. Hope the stalled AVMA has been solved by the time I return later in the week.
[Duj/Chalky] *remains confused*!
[just Chalky] I'm pleased to be the first here to wish you a very happy birthday, and enjoy the Emerald Isle =) I may have to take up the AVMA gauntlet for you, but I'm not that good at it...
[just Chalky] I'm pleased to be the first here to wish you a very happy birthday, and enjoy the Emerald Isle =) I may have to take up the AVMA gauntlet for you, but I'm not that good at it...
Stalking
[Tuj] No harm meant, sir. It is merely my interpretation of Chalky's "the following poster".
Happy birthday, Chalks, a witch with prescience though you be. ;-) I am advised that Dublin is a fair city and worth a visit whether a birthday treat or not. I hope that you find it so.
Happy birthday, Chalks, a witch with prescience though you be. ;-) I am advised that Dublin is a fair city and worth a visit whether a birthday treat or not. I hope that you find it so.
Ah, following not preceding, I see
[Duj] Gosh, I'm easily confused, aren't I!
*waves from Dublin*
Chalky] Happy birthday - have a glass of the black stuff for me!
Parslow puts York on road to Wembley
- Times headline from the football section today. Will there one day be a Wembley MC server then?
Shhhh! We're applying for Lottery funding and everything
Glad I was awake at the time....
[penelope] Next time your miller gets in at 00:58am, ask him not to drop his super-sturdy clogs quite so heavily :-)
[Phil] Right ;-)
Actually, the epicentre was under a village much closer to my mother's house, in Ludford on the Lincolnshire Wolds. It woke me up, though - everything on the dressing table rattled, and I thought someone was at the foot of the bed, shaking it. I think I might have dreamed it was the Dutch miller trying to remove his clogs...
Actually, the epicentre was under a village much closer to my mother's house, in Ludford on the Lincolnshire Wolds. It woke me up, though - everything on the dressing table rattled, and I thought someone was at the foot of the bed, shaking it. I think I might have dreamed it was the Dutch miller trying to remove his clogs...
Upgrade
Just upgraded the server... this site at least still seems to work.
*looks around*
[rab] Oooh, nice :o)
[pen] I was sitting at my computer at the time, conversing with an Australian when it happened - it was rather startling with the doors and windows banging and rattling. In fact, it was hard to tell when it stopped...i couldn't tell if it was me or the earth shaking :-)
Hello there - I'm going to do a little upgrade, so I'll turn posting off for a short while. Hopefully not longer than 10-15 minutes.
Done
Seems to have worked.
p> It doesn\'t mean you can do anything you couldn\'t do before, incidentally...
Oh bollocks.
But if you do notice any oddities be sure to let me know.
Hidden text
I've upgraded php4 to php5 and have found one place where the two seem to behave differently so far.The whole of the internet and computerkind is against me today. It has just taken me four hours to make a media outlets search. The process should take about 20 minutes. Hmmph.
Oddity
[rab] On posting to the Limericks game, the move was posted ok, but this appeared at the top of the page:
array(3) { [0]=> string(3) "" [1]=> string(39) "Wore clogs that war werkelijk te groote" [2]=> string(4) "" } Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /var/www/rab.org.uk/server/STEAM/HtmlRewrite.php:376) in /var/www/rab.org.uk/server/Rou.php on line 122And something similar again on posting this.
Just done the same to me in Limericks. Perhaps it likes not the Dutch?
And here, so not the Dutch.
[Raak] Oh dear...
Wherps
Left in the debugging information...
A pox on Barclays and its unco-operative PinSentry system.
[pen] Hmm yes, it can be frustrating that. Mostly works fine for me, but I don't really want to carry that gizmo between work and home ever day in case I need to do some banking. Still, work is forcing me to ditch Barclays so I won't have to deal with it soon.
Is this some kind of card-reader thing? RBS introduced one of those and it's one of the reasons why I'm switching to the Halifux. (That and I get to spend my wife's shoe fund on beer).
Card-reader thing?
Natwest sent me one of these sometime last year. I am an active on-line banking user, but have never needed to use the thing once. Don't even remember where I put it.
php and your trade secrets
[rab] You drive this site with php? Do you use a framework of any kind or have you done the whole thing from scratch? I'm also impressed with the clever "hide" widget-thing. Presumably done with javascipt? The reformatting on display and hide is very clean on my browser. It must have taken some work to prevent it to screwing up the markup when it opens up. Do you pull it off with clever CSS trickery? Sorry to sound like a kid after consuming a large coke and 99. This stuff is like sweets to me sometimes.
Cardies
[rab] yes - it's a security measure that ensure that you are the right person to access the account as you need the card, its PIN, the gizmo, and the log-in details to get in to the account or set up a new payment. Not a bad idea all in all, but a bit of a pain sometimes.
[SM] As it said at one time on the front page, this site is powered by STEAM which is a few php scripts I threw together over a few wet Sunday afternoons to handle the stuff. It's all basically straightforward stuff, apart from the hide widget which is done by Javascript. The hardest part of that was to get it looking sensible for people who don't have Javascript enabled. Not much CSS trickery - although even then the old version of IE made a pig's ear of it.
[GIII] Whereas I think it's completely over the top. They already ask me for some user name that I can't remember, random characters from a password and a secret code. The card-reading gizmo has removed the one thing that made online banking useful - the fact you could access it anytime, anywhere. (Very handy when you're travelling).
[rab] Barclays at least has removed the requirement to remember passwords and secret codes. I'm inclined to agree with you however on the travelling point.
[GIII] Ah ok - RBS ask you to scan your card in addition to all the other stuff when you want to do something like, oh, pay some money into an account you hold elsewhere. The not-having-to-remember-your-password thing seems pretty sensible; in fact, the worst thing about one of my online accounts is that the password is easy for me to remember (since I chose it) but the username is some 8-digit number I'll never be able to commit to memory.
Meow
Project tiddles has been installed. The instructions said that she would hide behind a sofa, not want to talk to us nor touch her food. She's generally wanting to be where we are and is wolfing down her food. Katharine's just introducing her to the sofa... let's see how it goes.
Ah no, false alarm - just the coat cupboard. It was a bit of a harrowing trip bring her home. We were going to get a taxi, but with the Scotland-England rugby in Murrayfield all taxis were booked up for three hours! So she had to endure the number 16 bus. She did very well...
[rab] Don't expect to have exclusive use of the sofa now.
Name that cat!
Right - the name that came with our cat is, I'm ashamed to say, Cuddles. We're trying to think of something more appropriate but whilst we can think of lots of great names for a male (Armitage, Jeremy, Theodore, Pooch) we're a bit stuck for a girl. Pictures here.
U2
Don't be too embarrassed, rab, we too have had a recent arrival; it's allocated name was 'Bananas'. When the lass at the vet's advised of such I blinked and said something along the lines of "Ey? Do you run through the dictionary, one letter at a time, to pick out names for these poor homeless creatures?" She laughed and said, "Yes, that's exactly what we do". An image of 'ours' will be found here.
As far as naming goes, it's hard. Given the sly eyes of your new master, the fact that she is indeed a she and looks like she'd eat anything put before her on a platter, might I suggest Salome.
As far as naming goes, it's hard. Given the sly eyes of your new master, the fact that she is indeed a she and looks like she'd eat anything put before her on a platter, might I suggest Salome.
Today we have naming of cats
[rab] Pandora - the all-gifted
cat-naming
With those eyes, and those teeth, I'd go for Bowie.
Marilyn. Manson or Monroe, you chose.
choose...
She's quite cute and cuddly really! Anyway, we got through the first night ok - she better than me. I need to learn to delegate the duty of listening out for strange sounds in the middle of the night to her, since she's much better at it than I am. She seems to be bonding better with Katharine than me, and I think both of us together is a bit much for her at the moment.
As far as names go, we've toyed with Beatrice and Felicity but are still open to suggestions.
Oh, and she did a big poo in the litter tray overnight, so I would say she's starting to feel at home...
(rab) A friend has two female cats called Ermintrude and Florence, or "the E-cat" and the "F-cat" respectively. My cousin had a cat called Katya. What about Llewela? Mine have always been "Puss" or "Pussy-cat" and I suspect the next one will be, too.
Janet's a good name for a cat.
South Wiltshire Weather
I been out. Driving. There be plenty of water and debris on roads after 'first wave' of storms. Hatches are now battened down in preparation for 'second wave' later this mornin'.
Weather?
Yeah, it's a little breezy, but the sun is shining - good old boring Leicester :-)
The clouds in those satellite images (BBC) are an interesting curled shape. I am not surprised that it is a little blowy.
It was 37°C here today at 3:30pm, then down to 23 two hours later. This seems to be a regular pattern, and I think I'm getting the hang of it. Step 1: stay indoors...
(flerdle) Is that a sea breeze cooling it off a bit? Bit of a breeze here, too, 35 mph at least. Heavy rain all morning, a peculiarly featureless and leaden sky, thunder and lightning (not in that order) at ten to two and a bit of small hail. Temperature 6°C. Pressure 962 and still going down slowly.
Kitten
Sorry rab, couldn't resist the temptation.
Do any musicians here know any whiz ManuScript programmers (the language for writing plugins for Sibelius (the music notation publishing software))? A friend of a relation is working on a project that is getting rather large for one person to manage and is looking for extra grey cells to draw on. Knowledge of Braille music notation an advantage! I'm not sure how commercial or otherwise it's likely to be.
24 hours later...
I guess not, then.
Sibelius
Er, not off the top of my head, but the Sibelius website technical pages are full of people with a lot of experience and knowledge. A post to the forums there might yield a response.
Cats
The old tradition was to call it 'Trex'. Something to do with Speverend Rooner and looking for the cooking fat... In half the photos it looks like a British Blue. My friend has one called Sybil (Basil died,sadly). What about "Trillian"?
Yes, she's a mog but the rescue centre said she had "some British Blue" in her. Reading descriptions on the web she seems to fit them very well!
We seem to have settled on "Felicity", or "Flisstycat" for short - but we're not sure if she'll get use to it. If she won't shed Cuddles, we might have to make her "Professor Cuddles"...
I think I'm going to be sick :)
My poor old rescued cat is not well, possibly the big C.
do not disturb
I've got a feature to write today. And a press release. Shhhh.
[flerdle] Are you in Melbourne at the moment? I have the school fete this afternoon and it looks like we'll have close to 40° for it. We may only stay for a short while. Adelaide has had 11 straight days of 35°C plus. This looks like it'll be 12 in a row. Poor buggers.
That's Adelaide for you...
[nfras] nah, I cunningly went north yesterday, so I'm hoping it will be back to "normal" (hah!) by the time I return next week. Hope you survive the fete - stay out of the sun!
[Juxtapose] Brilliant!
I'm giggling at players in Each Move Must Consist of Precisely Eight Words who are currently attempting to pick up the game and move it along...
Softers' Cat
[Softers] Oh shit. How old is the cat?
Were you waiting for me?
Has no-one said anything over Easter? I've been away for five days travelling beyond these horizons, climbed more stairs and ladders in more windmills, and become frozen in the process than I care to admit (oh, all right then - three. Two corn mills and a polder (drainage) mill), seen Zuid-Holland covered in snow and had the plane de-iced before taking off to come home, and still you lot are keeping quiet. What's going on?
*spots the ostrich*
[pen] OK, we're back. What?
[penelope] Your elipsis (four moves back) left us thinking you'd simply popped out to take the kettle off the stove. Everyone was afraid of interrupting you and looking rude.
[SM] oops. And I thought we were all quiet waiting for more news of Softer's cat...
I hope it stands a better chance than Schrödinger's.
*peeks*. Why? It looks fine to me.
[ImNotJohn] I'm not so sure.
Belatedly testing that I can actually post via proxy. Don't mind me. Sorry, was that your foot?
That's quite funky, though going a bit around the houses...
Welcome to BST!
*busts out some BST disco moves*
yikes
I've never seen anything like it!
Melbourne temperatures
[flerdle and nfras] Sorry to be slow on the uptake - I have only just returned from my travels afar to catch up with the Morniverse. I was in Melbourne myself at the time of your postings, for the Grand Prix. I thought the Friday (the day of the school fete) and the following Monday were the hottest, both nudging forty degrees C. Mind you I'm not complaining, back in Bristol and freezing my proverbials!
Limericks game
I just thought I'd mention; assuming we want the actual Polish pronunciation of £ódŸ (something approaching "wooj"), as a Southerner with Hertfordshire vowels I have all but been locked out of that limerick.
Goodness me... I typed Lodz with a bar on the L and an accent on the z and it went all funny.
woodgy limerick
Well, I've just taken the only rhyme I can think of for "woodge".
If you're struggling, some people like to pronounce my name to rhyme with that. I don't, but then I'm a Southerner too.
Nah, we've just got to work it around to the winter olympics in lines three and four.
Lodz of trouble
Yes, sorry about that, folks. Too late I realised it would be confined to them as resides north o't' 53rd parallel, except for an Underground station, rather awkwardly. There could be a reference to ursine defaecators, stretching a point.
Wind
[flerdle]Crikey. I visited Mornington briefly on a trip down the peninsula to Arthur's Seat and Cape Schanck. Beautiful part of the world (I was staying with friends in Cheltenham just off Nepean Highway).
OK, so I'm finished stage managing the amateur production and nearly back to normal. I had no Easter to speak of, having spent all of Easter Sunday and Monday saying "No, you don't have time to go out for a smoke". How is everyone then?
great,thanks
Just reaching the slump of the year, when the excitement of new year is over, and warmer weather isn't arriving as fast as I'd like. And the clocks changing forward to BST have done me in... I overselpt this morning :o)
Has anything been heard from Chalky since she called in sick on the AVMA?
Also, [flerdle], I'm glad we missed that...
(flerdle) I see that the train passengers were "forced to evacuate". I think in those circumstances I'd have shit myself without asking.
All out!
[penelope] We still have daylight saving until this weekend, which is stupid because it's so dark in the mornings that the lights go on...
[CdM, Rosie] Indeed.
It was remarkably warm throughout the day, but the light was very strange. I only went out (to the city: frogstar's birthday) when it was mostly over. There are some more details here and some good pictures of the effects of the storm in the photo galleries. I particularly like one of two surfers with a boat in the background. It was all over by evening (apart from the transport disruption, which wasn't too bad in my direction). It's pretty quiet now, but who knows what will happen in 10 minutes.
[flerdle] eep.
[CdM] Yay. Functioning normally again. Thanks for the thought.
[Chalky] Yay! I was getting seriously concerned about you. I figured you had to be very ill to be staying away from here. :-)
...whereas others would express the view one would have to be rather sick to hang around here in the first place...
(Tuj) After looking at uk.sci.weather I come here for intelligence, sanity and humour. Although mostly amateurs they tend to talk about "severe rainfall events" and put their back-garden weather observations into one of the various meterological codes. Thus we see "SHRAGS", which means a shower of rain and hail. It's going to get a lot colder over the weekend so you'd better watch out for them shrags.
Shrags
They sound more like giant hairy beasties that crawl through the countryside at night and pretend to be overgrown boulders by day.
meteorological mayhem
Bloomin' heck. I've got my first free weekend at home for about 6 weeks, and I really should cut the grass - mine is the scruffiest on the entire street at the moment. I was going to do it this weekend. But I'm not doing it if it's snowing.
And in other news, I've joined an organic veg box scheme, and have been very impressed with the contents... except the two heads of swiss chard. Any ideas as to what to do with them?
And in other news, I've joined an organic veg box scheme, and have been very impressed with the contents... except the two heads of swiss chard. Any ideas as to what to do with them?
pen] Two heads are better than one, surely?
[CdM] and [Rosie, Iroulé from AVMA] Gastric flu, dehydration, muscle cramps, hospital, rehydration, home, recovery, still weary but OK.
mucky veg
[pen] Last year, me and several members of our family signed up for a delivery to door organic veg/fruit scheme. Although assured otherwise, we were surprised to discover that the contents weren't grown locally [most came from Wales]. I was also looking forward to the unknown contents element but after three weeks of an occasional amusingly-shaped spud and baggy carrot alongside shedloads of beetroot, I'm afraid we all signed out of it.
easy as pie
[penelope] Treat it like spinach (but don't eat it raw in salads - too much oxalic acid which is not good for you. It's made safe by cooking). It grows really, really well here, being able to cope with the heat much better than English spinach. We call it "silverbeet". You can trim off the white spine, wilt it if you like (pan fry until soft) then cut it up and use it in, say, spinach and feta pie, or triangles. Google for some recipes (an image search might help). To keep it for a couple of days (if it's not already wilted), cut a little off the stem and pop in water (like a bunch of flowers) away from heat. If you want my spinach and feta pie recipe (dinner of champions) drop me a line - my name here at the g mail thingy.
Charred
Swiss Chard makes a pretty tasty soup too in some decent stock, perhaps with crispy streaky bacon lardons sprinkled over the top, or with some stilton melted in.
pretty veg
[Chalks] Oh golly, that sounds dreadful... pleased they took you in and sorted you out - but do keep an eye on it. 8 years ago my M had huge amounts of abdominal surgery for appendicitis leading to peritonitis - which was left for a week because they thought it was food poisoning/stomach upset... we nearly lost her.
Re: veg - Axshully I was impressed - I know some of it isn't local , but a lot of it is (from the South Holland part of South Lincolnshire which is mostly veg-growing land), it's organic, and it looked good - I got purple sprouting broccoli (I'd rather eat this than asparagus any day) and calabrese, some nice-looking potatoes and carrots, onions, and the dreaded swiss chard, which my sister tells me to braise under a piece of spiced pork tenderloin (or budget spareribs in my case as I've just bought the next ticket to the Netherlands in May and my usual airline has pulled out of the route so I have to go with KLM... I get a sandwich and coffee, but it's £40 more.) Anyway... £7 a fortnight is fine, and I need to eat more veg, so I have to plough through it... geddit? veg, plough... ;o)
Re: veg - Axshully I was impressed - I know some of it isn't local , but a lot of it is (from the South Holland part of South Lincolnshire which is mostly veg-growing land), it's organic, and it looked good - I got purple sprouting broccoli (I'd rather eat this than asparagus any day) and calabrese, some nice-looking potatoes and carrots, onions, and the dreaded swiss chard, which my sister tells me to braise under a piece of spiced pork tenderloin (or budget spareribs in my case as I've just bought the next ticket to the Netherlands in May and my usual airline has pulled out of the route so I have to go with KLM... I get a sandwich and coffee, but it's £40 more.) Anyway... £7 a fortnight is fine, and I need to eat more veg, so I have to plough through it... geddit? veg, plough... ;o)
Jolly mowing weather
(pen) Cut your grass NOW (I'm about to) while it's fine and warm. The weekend looks awful, cold and wet, and it doesn't look much better for several days after that. There could even be snow showers.
Lawns
[Rosie] No time, sadly, unlike you lucky retired ones. Anyway, the wife has me scheduled for charity work this evening and over the weekend - again. Bugger! Anyway, she normally mows the lawns ;o). [Chalks] you have my sympathy, similarly afflicted over Xmas.
[Softers, Rosie] Quite. I'm in the office until 5 and have been since 08.30. I didn't even leave my desk at lunchtime. And if it's cold, the grass won't grow anymore anyway - it doesn't get out of bed for less that 10°C.
When I get home, I'm going to kick back and start weekending, thatnkyouverymuch.
When I get home, I'm going to kick back and start weekending, thatnkyouverymuch.
I'm going on HOLIDAY soon! Well, to Britain, to my parents', but I'm looking forward to it. Thank God for congé de printemps - giving us a breather before the exam insanity begins.
Grass-cutting
We've got 0 degrees or lower forecast for 3 of the next 5 nights. I'm not exposing freshly-trimmed lawn to frosts if I can help it.
(pen) You're probably right but the problem is that by the time it's dry enough to cut (a week's time, say) it may well be looking a lot shaggier than just now. (Softers) I trust the phrase "the wife has me scheduled" is not entirely serious. (Phil) The forecasts almost certainly refer to the air temperature at screen level (1.25 metres) but the grass minima (as they are called) are always lower by an amount that depends on the wind speed so I reckon 4 out of 5 is more likely.
cheap mucky veg
[pen] £7 a fortnight sounds good. Mine was £11 a week and there was enough fruit for ONE DAY.
grass procrastination
I've just got a grass-cutting raincheck... unfortunately it also means I can't get the washing dry either. Never mind, it's just nice to be home for a weekend, for a change. And this morning, I am mostly drinking Civet Coffee, or Kopi Luwak, a present from Indonesia.
Chalky] how awful - hope you're recovering and being properly pampered. Are you able to take proper time off to recuperate?
The grass has disappeared under 4 inches of snow but is already reappearing where I've walked on it due to heat from the ground. There'll be a frost tonight, though.
We've had a beautiful day here in south Lincs - cold, but sunny all day. Light frost this morning, but no snow.
Suet crisis
As I make dumpings today for the first time in my life, I can't help but feel that Atora has the suet market pretty much sewn up.
Sewing suet
Two words that go together like "bunch" and "water".
Snow
[Rosie] All we had here was a bit of sleet :O).
(Softers) Today it's all gone except for a little bit of a snowman made by next door's kids.
rab's dumpings
[rab] I think Lactulose might be a good idea if you've just made dumpings for the first time in your life!
Egregious evacuation
(Phil) I missed that. It would have given me an idea for There, there and everywhere but it's too late now. I will drop the matter.
[Rosie] I was surprised that you, Raak and Software hadn't spotted it (or had, but hadn't commented - that would have been more surprising).
Unfunny badgering
Now I'm a press officer for a conservation charity, I don't think badgers are funny. They cause too many awkward questions from the press.
[pen] You weren't implicated in the jam-slapping scandal, were you?
no comment
Badgers
I know from a friend's experience that when driving a Transit Van at 50 mph, a badger up the radiator grill is about as unfunny as it gets.
For the badger, too.
For the badger, too.
Brock
Badgers are the Holy Cows de nos jours. What's so wonderful about them, great lolloping things? They can be vicious and would make mincemeat of the average dog not that that would bother me.
[Rosie] ...unless it showed up in a pie you were eating, no?
(Tuj) Your are confusing mince with mincemeat, for which there is little excuse.
[Rosie] Not as bad as today's BBC news website (the front page story about the re-introduction of Moose to the Scottish Highlands) and their Science reporter confusing 'ungulates' with 'undulates'. Schoolboy error. I've emailed them about it already...
Oooh, and Polly Toynbee has replied in person to my quick email in praise of her column in this morning's Guardian, hehehehe! :o)
Oooh, and Polly Toynbee has replied in person to my quick email in praise of her column in this morning's Guardian, hehehehe! :o)
[Rosie] Both go in varying types of pies, no?
I appear to have developed an annoying peech habit, no?
(Tuj) Not to mention a typo habit, yes? It must be a bad day. :-) (pen) Pah! Small beer! I have received a personally-signed apology from none other than Ian Hislop for a very sick crossword clue in Private Eye, even if it did only consist of two words.
[Rosie] Now you must share the clue, so that we may all be properly shocked and outraged.
Cross Word
[Rosie] I find it hard to imagine you as Outraged of South London".
[Rosie] I should have seen that coming really. Ah well. Do carry on ;)
Happenstance or Serendipity?
End of day, ready to go home, I put "stilletto (misspelt) gerundive" into Google, got a single hit and it was you. Hello. Now I feel I have come home: will you have me?
[MD] Only if you're wearing socks.
(Raak) All right. The answer was spittle and clue involved Hawking. Filth is OK, good even, but don't mock the afflicted. The apology said "Point taken" and my guess is there were more than a few of them to be signed by the splendid Hislop, from which one cam infer that he had a word or two in the crossword setter's ear. (Softers) South London!!!??? That's outrageous! I'm in Surrey (just). (Me Dick) Well, personally, I'd rather not but there must be somebody and we are by nature co-operative.
Mouse of correction
For "cam" read "can". One can get awfully obsessed by Caprotti Valve Gear.
[pen] Yes, that was a good column. [All] I think Stilletto (Misspelt) Gerundive is an excellent game idea. Maybe Simons can get working on the rules.
Stilletto (misspelt) Gerundive
Instinctively I feel this would be a good game but what would be its aim? (CdM, pen) Toynbee's piece made a number of good points but by her standards was a bit ranty.
[Rosie] Yes, I see what you mean.
woohoo!
I've just completed my first bit of freelance writing for about 10 years - successs! And sent out the bill too... The lucky client, with a Monday-morning deadline to meet, found me online yesterday afternoon and got me working on a Saturday evening. We did the final edit this morning. Now I'm going to finish the ironing, which doesn't pay half so well.
Did that work?
Here's hoping everything went smoothly.
Hokay...
You may now find it is sometimes possible to go back and edit your last move. Any oddities, let me know. I think I've closed the loophole which would have allowed an infinite number of new games to have been started.
Rigt then
No, I meant this is a test. It works!
ooerr
[pen] Well done!
[Rab] That 'whoops' thingy made me jump when I posted earlier. It reminded me of that vaguely guilty feeling when one sees a policeman. It compelled me to re-read my post just in case I'd said something a bit wrong.
[pennylope] Me haven't done freelance writing since ooh ... way back when ... so much respect :-)
[Chalky] Hmm... I wonder if that's a desirable side-effect or not. I'm sure we'll get used to it!
Test message
Speaking of side-effects...sorry about that.
Get well soon Humph. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7360347.stm
Are there people in the Morningverse that actually know Humph or know people who know him? Could we get some kind of collective "get well soon" card in the form of a print-out of a game? It could be send via the Beeb.
Mystery Crescent - lame duck? This never looked like the server for it. Perhaps it should be culled for a good hard game of Stilletto (misspelt) Gerundive?
[Tuj] Patience my boy, patience :-)
(Kim) I used to know his trombonist and arranger, the late Pete Strange, not that that's exactly a connection, but I think your idea, or something similar, is a good one.
RIP Humph. All will miss you, I'm sure.
Irreplacable. A joybringer. To be missed by so many.
Very sad news. He was a wonderful man.
The Oyster Card of Fate has finally met the ticket barrier of Mornington Crescent.
The Humph tribute ISIHAC they had on the radio today is the only programme (radio or TV) that the cat has yet paid any attention to.
Humph
His obit in the Grauniad was written by none other than the late George Melly though it had been updated. It was less of a eulogy than some of the instant stuff we have read in the last few days but there's no doubt Melly thought well of him.
Humph
I propose to close the current Mystery game (it's trudging along anyway) and create a book of condolence for Humph in its place for all to place memories, anecdotes, comments, thoughts etc. I will also mention it in MCiOS and Orange. I suggest leaving it open until, say, Friday and then I will print it off and send it to John Naismith c/o the BBC. Agreement?
Alternatively,
I could just open an extra slot.
Ooh. Not been in for a while and just discovered the "Whoops!" feature. Lovely. The times I've needed that in the past (then again, the times I've only just noticed a typo/grammo when reading a comment years after the event). Nice one, rab.
Humph
Maybe now would be the time to send Kim's suggested "Get Well Soon" card? :)
Never mind, there's already something on Orange.
[Proj] One word at a time between us? ;)
... as I speak
There's a Humph BBC R4 programme currently being broadcast. Wonder if Rosie has caught it. I expect it will be on Listen Live for some weeks.
As the programme ended they said that there will be another Humph tribute, by the ISIHAC panellists, on May 11.
Afternoonpreferablyevenington Crescent
(Chalky) At 9.25 in the morning? You cannot be serious! I'll have a look on Listen Again.
[Roseee] we-e-ell - naturellement, I am aware [after all these years :-)] of your posting pattern time-wise - but I wasn't sure if you did the listen to Radio4 in bed of a morning - dozy off - listen again a bit - dozy off, etc etc.
Nocturnal transmissions
(Chalky) Nah, it would activate the neurons, as it's meant to, and I'd never get back to sleep. Maybe 24-hr rolling news would be better. Man Injured In Factory Accident In Solihull = Instant slumber. :-)
Radio 4 activates neurons? Shurely some mistake!
longweekendering
Morning all. Beans planted. Laundry done. Lawn not yet cut but first I must make progress on the feature I was supposed to finish on Friday. Hoo-rah for Citrix and being able to work from home, dammit.
Technically not a holiday for me today - but I'm skiving off on account that it's our first wedding anniversary. And what a glorious day it is! We spent the night at a nearby castle, had a slap-up meal and a sit in the sunshine. Unfortunately back at home now as we've both got work to do :(
Aren't people silly
I've just read my AOL news headline which says that the Postal Service is "not delivering".
We've just had new, energy-saving Dyson Blade hand driers installed in the lavs. They SUCK the water off your hands. Quite amazing. I wonder if they'll also dry socks?
The father of in[ter]vention
[pen] Flippin' Dyson - always poking his nose into other peoples' business. I actually like having damp hands when exiting the facilities. I also really enjoy changing the bag on my vacuum cleaner - and gain particular satisfaction from vacuuming in a straight line ;-)
Another thing, Mr Dyson - how are you supposed to flip the nozzle up to zhuzh up your lank, post-office (not Post Office) hair when there ain't no flippin' nozzle?
[pen] I was just talking to my son about the Dyson hand driers a couple of days ago. Ages ago I had the offer of a 30 day trial - wish I'd taken it up, but I never got round to it.
[pen] but, but ... it would SUCK your hair up. Not nice. Zhuzh by hand would be my advice.
The Dyson airblade is based on a very narrow, high-speed jet of air. I'm not sure that it does suck, but it certainly blows...very hard. It definitely collects the water blown off the hands, and atomises said water periodically into the atmosphere.
I HATE hand-driers. What a noisy waste of time, space, energy, everything. If your hands are damp wipe 'em on your bum. That's what it's for. Even if you don't do that they'll be dry in less than a minute especially if you rub 'em together briefly.
The most impressive drier I ever saw was in a bar in Dresden. It was called the 'AirWolf' and my (German) friend remarked that it appeared to be based on Rommel's desert air-conditioning system.
Air Dryers
Conventional hot-air dryers actually work and work quickly in Alberta. Something to do with the altitude, I've been told. After a few dryings your hands are like lizard skin though.
Well that one well-and-truly dried up, didn't it? In other news, I've killed ALL the ants that were invading my kitchen. Mwahahahahaha!
Formica topped
(pen) What about the army waiting outside?
[Rosie] Beautiful subject line. I was trying to think up something similar myself ;)
[Tuj] Hear hear. [Rosie] I pouffed permethrin into all the brickwork outside too.
Ant fever
[pen] Thanks for the tip. I'm a-watching and a-waiting.
All Ants on Dec
(pen) Pouffed? I can just see you. Only a lady could get away with that. Don't forget the boiling water down the cracks in the concrete. (Tuj) Cheers.
[Rosie] If not pouffed then what is the verb for the application of a powder to a surface (or into a crack or hole - oh dear, this just gets worse) by air-propulsion, generated by squeezing a slightly flexible plastic bottle? And I tried the boiling water first too :o(
[Chalks] I bought Homebase's own brand, about £3 - very happy. Ant free.
[Chalks] I bought Homebase's own brand, about £3 - very happy. Ant free.
Powder me nose and other parts, possibly
(pen) Yeah, OK, pouffed. But it does make me giggle.
[Rosie] You're not supposed to get it on your skin, so wash those affected parts immediately - you know, the ones that are making you giggle. ;o)
Ant Powder
[pen/Rosie] My family has always used the verb "to foof" (or possibly "fouffe" - the spelling has never been established) for what you do to get ant powder out of the bottle. In fact, the verb often gets repeated to become "I'm just going to foofoofoof that ant-hole."
Fizz ant
Possibly cruel, but quite entertaining is pouring bicarbonate of soda solution down the ants' nest - the whole thing fizzes quite satisfyingly and the poor wee ants themselves sometimes exhibit a certain anal effervescence too.
I have emerged, bloody, bruised but alive, from the end of term marking. How are we all?
Same as ever, ta. Do you have a clubcard?
Ants
There was a bloke on TV the other day who pours molten Aluminium down ant's nests. When it all cools down he digs it up and it looks really neat. A three-dee map of the nest. It also solves the ant problem in no small way. Like the powder, it isn't good for your skin.
Ally castings
(SM) I wonder. The ant's nest would have to be very dry or there'd be an explosion of steam, hot metal and pyrolysed ants. Not nice. Where does he get the aluminium from? He could melt down old saucepans, I suppose, but molten aluminimum is hot, 660°C plus, incipient red heat.
[Tuj] No. As a proud shopper at Auchan, though, I have a "Waaouh" card. Because the savings make me say "Waaouh!". Obviously. Yes.
Price floozies
Our local supermarket advertises something it calls a 'Price Commitment'. Since these signs disappear as soon as the so-promoted product increases in price, one has to wonder to what extent this counts as a commitment.
Changing topic...
[rab] With the "Whoops!" button, could one undo a winning move? More pertinantly, could one test several options until finding the winning move, if unknown?
[Tuj] (i) Yes and no. (ii) I think so, but would it really matter?
[rab] Yes and no, eh? There's cards close to the chest. I'm too timid to go test it ;)
And regarding the second, in theory, with patience, one could knock off the likes of Mystery Crescent single-handedly.
And regarding the second, in theory, with patience, one could knock off the likes of Mystery Crescent single-handedly.
Yes, but you could do the same thing, albeit more publicly, without the Whoops feature. If anyone ever suspects foul play I can always look at the logs.
I've just acquired a niece - what's the appropriate Unclely response? (Other than a brief note of congratulation).
[rab] No idea!
[rab] Go make a visit, if plausible, and be friendly towards. No point in sending gifts at present (lol) as too young to appreciate them.
[rab] A congratulations card. If you want to send a present, something for the parents to enjoy, rather than for the child, is better received in my experience. As Projoy says, the sprog is too young to appreciate anything, and it's the parents who will be feeling more in need of TLC, and perhaps a little neglected.
(should you doubt my credentials to offer advice, btw, I speak as one who was en-neiced earlier this year).
Visit no-go; parents live in New Zealand. Point taken vis a vis gift for them.
Family expansion
(rab) Can't remember; my nieces were born in 1974 and 1976. It's about time, therefore, that I became a great-uncle and if I were to I'd have a natter on the phone and send a nice card. I wouldn't visit - they'd have enough to do without me getting in the way.
rab] I became en-great-neiced last year, and while I agree with everyone about a pressie being unnecessary at this stage, gift vouchers were much appreciated. I gave Mothercare, and one possible NZ equivalent would be this lot www.babyfactory.co.nz/giftvouchers.html , assuming the parents live near enough to a store.
[rab] Send a cheque in the name of the new niece, which obliges the parents to open a bank account in her name, which you can then add to for each birthday/xmas, therefore saving yourself time and effort in shopping for presents. Saying that, I've just bought my godson (about to turn 13, mountain-biking, farm-dwelling, paper-round-operating) a set of Super-Duper bike lights (well, as Super-Duper as Asda will allow) and a speedometer for his birthday next week. On the other hand, my 3-year old nephew always gets cheques, and a freebie CD or DVD from the newspapers that I have to ready daily at work.
[rab] Also no idea, as I have no nieces. But something for the parents seems like a capital idea.
When my niece was born my wife and I bought things for the baby aged 6-12 months; the parent received so much newborn baby stuff they were rather grateful for things that wouldn't be useless in a few months time. I would suggest Baby Gap, as they contain really nice things that are a bit too expensive for parents to justify, but perfect for an uncle/aunt to get!
Or alternatively, the Hotel Chocolat New Baby Discovery Box, which is what we'll be getting for my sister who is due to have her second child in the next week...
Or alternatively, the Hotel Chocolat New Baby Discovery Box, which is what we'll be getting for my sister who is due to have her second child in the next week...
Thanks for your suggestion. We've emailed the proud parents with an offer of a sum of money in the form of gifts for baby, gifts for them, or invested into some kind of dullness fund. They'll let us know when mother and daughter come home from hospital.
In other news, we had the degree exam board meeting this morning and results are now posted. Most of the fun of the latter is now removed by exam numbers, rather than names, being posted.
[rab] Well that's no fun at all. I remember clearly the thrill of going to the department, reading my name, and then hearing someone hoot "LOOK WHO GOT A THIRD!"
Laughing stock
[nights] I didn't even have to go to the department - results for all subjects were posted outside on the walls of Senate House in Cambridge for all to see...
[Chalky] Could you drop me an email when you have a moment? [andrewdotjohn@ayadotyaledotedu] I can't seem to put my hands on your email address. Thanks.
[CdM] 'tis done
Aluminium Ant Nest Casting
This took me about a minute to find. There is a lot more about this on the web.
This weekend I am mostly....
learning about ancient woodland in Cheltenham, on a two-day course. Part work, part pleasure. See you Monday, thickets ;o)
Banter for its own sake
Beautiful June afternoon. Heavy sinister-looking cloud, gusty northerly wind, spots of rain, almost dark enough to need the light on, temperature 11°C. This reminds me, as did last summer, of some of the dreadful summers of the 50's. As I write this it's got lighter so no thunder. Not yet.
This weekend I will be mostly...
gardening. Finally, a weekend at home - the first one for a month!
Stormy Weather
[Rosie] It's them left-handed storms of which you must be more careful. Hopefully it turned out to be just a right-handed jobby.
[penelope] You made your new nest and have to accept the consequences. I feel no sorrow for your predicament as I have chosen to work from home. Tee hee!
[penelope] You made your new nest and have to accept the consequences. I feel no sorrow for your predicament as I have chosen to work from home. Tee hee!
[Phil] I saw his show 'Current Puns' a couple of years ago at the Fringe. It was good. Most memorable pun: I'm minded to see this one too, even if it looks like it might be somewhat similar.
Hidden text
I had a friend whose ambition was to be run over by a steam train. When he was, he was chuffed to bits.re cycling
[pen] " ... extra-tough for decades of comfortable, reliable daily service." LOL :-D
From €680? I'd want an engine too for that price! :-)
le météo
Weird at the moment. Huge storm last night, chilly yet sweaty today. Trams full of people. Nights not happy.
turns the volume right down to '0'
It's a bit quiet in here this week! Today I am mostly writing a press release, and this weekend I will mostly be listening to my mum singing in a 'Music for a MidSummer Night' choral concert in Lincoln. And planting more beans.
Home, where's that?
Mrs INJ and I will be spending a weekend at home for the first time since the middle of May. A bit of gardening is on the cards, but I will be helping out at the Derbyshire Schools Orienteering Championships on Saturday and maybe competing in an event on Sunday.
Half a silly van
I'm doing some G&S this weekend, but without the G.
Chinese Earring
[ImNotJohn] I wonder it's still called "orienteering" and hasn't made the jump to "orientationeering" in the twenty five years since I did any.
I miss the old OS maps. I stopped using them about the time they completed the old red-cover One Inch To One Mile series and began redoing the job in pink-cover 1:50 000 metric maps (talk about make-work in government!). They must have done all of the UK in metric by now I would think.
As a teen I salivated over the prospect of a complete collection of OS maps. I think I have six.
I've often wished for the same types of maps with the same degree of coverage in the places I've lived since leaving the UK, but other countries missed that particular boat and are unlikely to go that route now we have "better" GPS systems. It was one of the nastier shocks to find that other western countries didn't have super-accurate maps for the asking. I had to use boat charts and forestry "blueprint" jobs for the most part. Joni Mitchell had it right.
I miss the old OS maps. I stopped using them about the time they completed the old red-cover One Inch To One Mile series and began redoing the job in pink-cover 1:50 000 metric maps (talk about make-work in government!). They must have done all of the UK in metric by now I would think.
As a teen I salivated over the prospect of a complete collection of OS maps. I think I have six.
I've often wished for the same types of maps with the same degree of coverage in the places I've lived since leaving the UK, but other countries missed that particular boat and are unlikely to go that route now we have "better" GPS systems. It was one of the nastier shocks to find that other western countries didn't have super-accurate maps for the asking. I had to use boat charts and forestry "blueprint" jobs for the most part. Joni Mitchell had it right.
for ImNotJohn
Incidentally, it took me about five attempts to type your screen name without automatically inserting spaces (I tried Im Not John, ImNot John, Im NotJohn, then did some of them again before I got my brain to do it right). I've never had that happen before. Did you design for that effect?
Something for the weekend
I'm doing the world premiere of "What happened here - a retelling of Lear" tonite, and the second and final-for-us-but-hopefully-not-for-the-author show tomorrow nite. Sunday is a rest day :oD First Sunday without either rehearsal or show since nehwwonktnodi...
[Sierra Mike] I answer to INJ mostly. In fact elsewhere I tend to be just NotJohn - Im not sure why I've got the 'Im' in the Morniverse.
I'm also a bit of a cartophile - I've got 2 shelves devoted to them at the moment. I have a version of the StevieruleTM which goes 'No Map no Trip'.
OS maps now cover the whole of the UK at 1:25000 and are so much clearer than the 1:50000, which I use mostly for cycling. I still love the 1 inch tourist maps with the colouring & hachuring but you can't beat the large scale for navigating in mist/cloud. Also you get spoilt by the quality of orienteering maps 1:10000 or 1:15000 using specialised software, where you can navigate to the nearest 10 metres.
I'm also a bit of a cartophile - I've got 2 shelves devoted to them at the moment. I have a version of the StevieruleTM which goes 'No Map no Trip'.
OS maps now cover the whole of the UK at 1:25000 and are so much clearer than the 1:50000, which I use mostly for cycling. I still love the 1 inch tourist maps with the colouring & hachuring but you can't beat the large scale for navigating in mist/cloud. Also you get spoilt by the quality of orienteering maps 1:10000 or 1:15000 using specialised software, where you can navigate to the nearest 10 metres.
1:25000 maps
[S M & INJ] These come in an attractive orange cover, far nicer than the 1:50000s' lurid pink.
TQ 3516 5955
I have inherited dozens of OS maps from my cartophilic Dad, mostly 6th Edition but some older than that (pre-war). The expansion of some towns is phenomenal. Crawley, for example, was a compact place with a station and a high street but is now a vast, amorphous sprawl. The new 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 maps are more accurate and detailed than their older counterparts, particularly in regard of contours. There are sad (old meaning) bits such as "Course of old railway" and "Mines (disused)" (Yeah, so's mine). Even though the OS Grid has always been metric I'll never get used to heights in metres. My house is at 557 ft, not 169 metres, so I claim the title of Highest-living Morniverser.
[Non-mappies look away NOW] The OS Grid is a Transverse Mercator projection, prime meridian 2°W, based on a model of the Earth developed by Sir George Airy over 100 years ago. It's a tiny bit different from modern values both in size and degree of flattening. There is a scale reduction of 0.04%, presumably to allow for the expansion of the scale in the projection away from the prime meridian.
[Non-mappies look away NOW] The OS Grid is a Transverse Mercator projection, prime meridian 2°W, based on a model of the Earth developed by Sir George Airy over 100 years ago. It's a tiny bit different from modern values both in size and degree of flattening. There is a scale reduction of 0.04%, presumably to allow for the expansion of the scale in the projection away from the prime meridian.
ST 6370 7585
[Rosie] I cannot claim such a lofty domicile, but two minutes' drive gently uphill takes me to this point, Cossham Hospital, the highest point in Bristol at 369 feet (112 meters). On a clear day the views over the city, the Severn Valley, Forest of Dean and even the Brecons are excellent. Oh, and thanks for the techie stuff!
[ImNotJohn & Bigsmith] Blimey. We used to use the old red cover jobs when I was doing it, though admitedly I was less than serious about orienteering and probably just ran with an amateur crowd. I had no idea there was a 1:25 000 series of maps available commercially. Do they cover the entire UK? The only 1:50 000 OS map I can reliably put my hand on today would be "Land's End and The Lizard", and I can't for the life of me remember why I bought that one. I used a couple of Welsh ones until they fell apart but Land's End? When did I go there? It has some touristy annotations on it, like scenic photography overlooks and so forth, which my Welsh ones didn't. I suspect it was a detail added halfway through the print run or something.
[Rosie] That's a nice legacy you have. I didn't remember that the 1 Inch to 1 Mile series had a metric grid. I do remember that we were taught to read an OS map in Geography class when I was around 11 or 12. That's when I fell in love with the things.
[Rosie] That's a nice legacy you have. I didn't remember that the 1 Inch to 1 Mile series had a metric grid. I do remember that we were taught to read an OS map in Geography class when I was around 11 or 12. That's when I fell in love with the things.
[SM] It's the wonder of satellite technology. Effectively the whole country has been remapped (at least as far as contours are concerned) in a matter of a couple of years whereas before there was a large team of cartographers doing physical surveys. This has got rid of some of the more obvious mistakes that used to exist, although there are still paths shown going over cliff edges in a couple of places that I know.
For orienteering we normally start with a base plot (usually from the OS) with contour intervals down to 2.5 metres where appropriate (5m for very steep ground). There is then a specialised package (OCAD - there were others but this has come out on top) which has all the correct colours and symbols built in and you can build the map from that. There is still a need for fieldwork, but the whole thing is much slicker and maps get changed up to about 2 weeks before an event. Also with cheap high-quality printing most events now have the courses pre-printed - no need to copy from a master, and you can even run off more copies while the event is taking place if you get more than expected on one course. With electronic punching you get a print-out of your final and split times as soon as you finish and results from an event are on the web the same day. Up to about 10 years ago you left an SAE at the event and got the results about 1-2 weeks later.
For orienteering we normally start with a base plot (usually from the OS) with contour intervals down to 2.5 metres where appropriate (5m for very steep ground). There is then a specialised package (OCAD - there were others but this has come out on top) which has all the correct colours and symbols built in and you can build the map from that. There is still a need for fieldwork, but the whole thing is much slicker and maps get changed up to about 2 weeks before an event. Also with cheap high-quality printing most events now have the courses pre-printed - no need to copy from a master, and you can even run off more copies while the event is taking place if you get more than expected on one course. With electronic punching you get a print-out of your final and split times as soon as you finish and results from an event are on the web the same day. Up to about 10 years ago you left an SAE at the event and got the results about 1-2 weeks later.
More map stuff
For mountain walking I like Harvey Maps. They are at 1:40000, often photo-enlarged to 1:25000. They aren't as good in farmland as they don't show field boundaries, but they do show what is actually on the ground - there are different symbols for a right of way which is visible and one which is not visible as well as another for a visible path which is not a r.o.w.. They also change the colour of the contours to show rocky or marshy ground.
yes, I can't sleep
This weekend I will continue recovering.
I like maps but do not own many (only one proper map, really), mainly because we don't have much landscape over here. Or perhaps we have far too much of it. In any case, [INJ] I feel remarkably uneasy when I am in an unfamiliar place without a map, and I really need to know where North is. Changing hemispheres is very disturbing. I came very close to mapping our parts of Oman, at least as far as roads and such things go, because they (maps) either did not exist or were wildly inaccurate. But the cost of GPSrs was too high. I now have a nifty little one, and have been enjoying the occasional geocache, thanks to my sister and brother-in-law's introduction. It definitely helps break up long drives, and is a fun way to explore new places. I haven't done orienteering in at least 20 years.
I like maps but do not own many (only one proper map, really), mainly because we don't have much landscape over here. Or perhaps we have far too much of it. In any case, [INJ] I feel remarkably uneasy when I am in an unfamiliar place without a map, and I really need to know where North is. Changing hemispheres is very disturbing. I came very close to mapping our parts of Oman, at least as far as roads and such things go, because they (maps) either did not exist or were wildly inaccurate. But the cost of GPSrs was too high. I now have a nifty little one, and have been enjoying the occasional geocache, thanks to my sister and brother-in-law's introduction. It definitely helps break up long drives, and is a fun way to explore new places. I haven't done orienteering in at least 20 years.
Paths Off Cliffs
[ImNotJohn] For years I lived in a street that the local "A-Z" type guide showed as having a cross street where there wasn't so much as a kerbstone. When this error survived two reprintings I got clued in. By pure chance I was living next door to a copyright protection scheme. The map publisher had put in a fake street so that they could easily catch competitors who saved the cost of a survey just by copying their maps. I've learned since then that an awful lot of this sort of thing goes on. Dictionaries, thesauri (?) and encyclopediae (??) have fake entries in them to snare copyright infringers. The original pubishers work on the theory that you'd be unlikely to actually read the articles/entries since you can't get to them in any day-to-day use of the dictionary/thesarus/encyclopedia but only by reading through them serially.
I have to admit, sending someone off a cliff seems a bit much though. I hope this gets fixed in GPS sets since judging from recent news items some GPSers are a bit too slavish when it comes to following the directions their boxes give them and I wouldn't be surprised to read of someone stepping out into empty space.
[Bigsmith] Thanks for the map info.
I have to admit, sending someone off a cliff seems a bit much though. I hope this gets fixed in GPS sets since judging from recent news items some GPSers are a bit too slavish when it comes to following the directions their boxes give them and I wouldn't be surprised to read of someone stepping out into empty space.
[Bigsmith] Thanks for the map info.
1:25 000
Now nothing will suffice but that I order a 1:25 000 map of Land's end and The Lizard.
MapsspaM
I have a couple of 1:25000 maps covering my area of residence. A month or so ago I dug out one of them in order to scan part of it and send the resultant image to a cyber-acquaintance. I doubt that I had referred to this publication within the last three or four years. I also forgot to put it back in stowage that evening. The following afternoon my wife came home and plonked down before me a new copy of the very same map. Having given her a puzzled look she explained that the previous evening she had looked for the 'missing' map and, not finding it, thought it best to buy a new one.
midsummary
Hmmph. Raining and cool. The sweetpeas need it.
Paths to oblivion
(INJ) It could be a clifftop path that has disappeared due to coastal erosion if you're anywhere near the east coast.
(Bigsmith) So, Fishponds, Bristol, then. I had heard of it, for some reason, probably to do with the railway, which I see has been ripped up.
Bristols
Hmm, talking of Bristol, I'm going there for the first time shortly - any recommendations for good places to take a 3 year old and 5 month old? We've got the zoo on our (short) list already...
Cliff Paths
I wasn't clear enough. In both the cases I know of the path exists, but the line has been 'smoothed' to an easy curve and so doesn't avoid the feature whereas, on the ground, there is a deviation to miss it.
[SM] Yes, the false street is indeed a standard copyright protection measure.
[Rosie] You may hold the highest living Morniverser right now, but if so I probably held the title for a couple of years when we had a 10th floor apartment here in Singapore. Now we are back at sea level.
[Rosie] You may hold the highest living Morniverser right now, but if so I probably held the title for a couple of years when we had a 10th floor apartment here in Singapore. Now we are back at sea level.
higher, higher
Without having any idea of where everyone lives, I think that Dujon might be the loftiest Morniverser, since he lives on a mountain outside Sydney. The first Antipopilg in 2003 was at Blaxland, (1404 feet, or 427 metres) and I don't think he'd be much lower than that (if not higher up).
up and up
I was kidding about the apartment in Singapore, obviously, but I was living at 265m back in 2003-2004 when we were in Texas. In my pre-Morniverse days I lived at 188m in VIrginia and at about 280m in Ann Arbor Michigan. None of these surpasses Dujon. If I can go back to my childhood, though, I lived for a year at 946m, and INJ was at university at 1250m around the same time.
(I think there is a pretty good chance that INJ is also the person here who has been up the highest (while still staying on the ground) though I might be wrong about that.)
The roof of the world
flerdle) It may well be Dujon, then, for current residence. My feet-on-the-ground record is El Teide in Tenerife, 3717 m or 12,196 ft. The air pressure there is about 64% of sea-level pressure and you noticed it. Quite a lot of puffing and blowing climbing the few hundred feet from the cable car to the summit. Water would boil at 88°C, just about enough to thicken gravy but not enough for a decent cuppa.
I spent most of my first couple of decades at around 1000ft. It didn't seem very high at the time, probably because it isn't.
I lived for a year at about 420m on the Swiss/French border. It didn't feel at all high, because everything around was so much higher, namely the Jura mountains to the west, and the Alps etc to the south-east.
[Rosie] When I typed that about INJ I was vaguely thinking "we already had this conversation not so long ago", and your Tenerife posting reminds me that indeed we did.
Senior moment
(CdM) Probably my fault, then, because stuck on my bedroom wall is a b & w 1978 photo of me and half a dozen other herberts and several herbertesses, all from Croydon Astronomical Society, as we crowd round the summit marker. Where has INJ been? I think I've probably got the record for current UK residents. The modest height does make a difference in that snow, on the rare occasions that it falls, lasts much longer up here than in London and numerous occasions when there's light drizzle and mist whereas London is dry. Some of this is the London Heat-Island effect which on a warm calm summer night can be quite stark, with temperature differences of 8°C.
Walking tall
[flerdle] Thanks for adding a few inches to my height. I am at a mere 250 metres (depending on where on my little plot of paradise you stand) which is around and about 850 feet asl. As it is now approaching, if not past, the noon time I might pop down to my local club for a wee bit of luncheon delight, which should bring me home quite heady. Cheers.
[Dujon] You still win ;-) .
elevated positions
At the risk of blowing my own trumpet (but, hell, I am proud of it), my highest point is the summit of Mera Peak in the Himalaya at 6476 metres (21,247 ft). I now live at about 40m asl.
[Rosie] No, my fault, not yours. I just remembered because my highest is almost identical to yours, but in a completely different part of the world (Colorado Rockies).
(INJ) I'm impressed. Did you need oxygen? It's not warm up there either, is it? (Guess -15°C, if summer, plus a "breeze").
Just a trifle nippy
[Rosie] - No oxygen. I was slowed down by the lack of it, but not reduced to gasping. The main effect was that I lost my appetite completely. I was there in March-April, so pre-monsoon. Overnight it was regularly down to about -20°C. During the day there was a lot of bright sunshine, but I reckon the shade temperature didn't get above freezing; it was fleece jacket, thick gloves & balaclava even when working quite hard and down clothing as soon as the sun set.
Mera is the highest 'trekking peak' in the Himalaya, anything over 6500m is a 'climbing peak' even if there is no technical difficulty. However Aconcagua is higher and presents no technical difficulties and is only about 20km from a good motor road. It's probably the ultimate challenge for the non-climber.
Mera is the highest 'trekking peak' in the Himalaya, anything over 6500m is a 'climbing peak' even if there is no technical difficulty. However Aconcagua is higher and presents no technical difficulties and is only about 20km from a good motor road. It's probably the ultimate challenge for the non-climber.
(INJ) I'm further impressed. The pressure up there is about 42% of sea level pressure. Apparently the lack of oxygen causes considerable problems with cognitive tasks but as I imagine you weren't writing up a PhD up there it probably didn't matter. Well done! I could manage Leith Hill (965 ft) these days but probably not Snowdon (3561 ft) even if I called it Yr Wyddfa.
[Rosie] Acclimatisation helps a lot. We flew in to about 2400m and then walked in for about 10 days, mostly on the ‘walk high, sleep low’ principle, which got us to a camp at about 5300. We then did a short day up to 5800 and then a push to the top. I reckon the last 700m would have taken me a bit over 2 hours from sea level (I was fitter then), and actually took between 4 & 5 hours. We then dropped about 1500m, to below the previous 2 camps. As for cognitive impairment – I ‘lost’ a good part of the next day. I couldn’t remember much of it only a day or two later and have never been able to, even prompted by photos. Another interesting effect was that my tent companion went into a pattern of Cheyne-Stoking while asleep – disturbing when you first hear it, but common at altitude. Of course, one of the effects of the cold and low pressure is that the air is extremely dry – it was hard to drink enough, especially as water bottles exposed to the air froze. It’s the physically hardest thing I’ve ever done and I certainly couldn't do it now.
Result!
The good news is that we've discovered the cat is a mouser (one of the reasons for getting her). The bad news is finding this out obviously entailed a renewed incursion. We look forward to being woken up by her dropping half-dead mice on our faces and being shown how to kill them. Will need to look at the bait trays over the weekend to see where its been taken. Sometime over the next few weeks we're getting our floors repaired which should seal up some of the holes at least.
Revisiting the bait sites I discover the trays in the kitchen are untouched, which is good news, but the one I put under the sink cabinet in the bathroom had disappeared! I have an image of a family of mice living in a red tray marked 'Poison' somewhere down there...
[Rab] I've seen that Tom & Jerry episode...
A week with nothing to say? Yikes!
Perhaps we need a couple of new games, as we've not had any in 8 months (ignoring Mystery Crescent, restarted after running out of steam. Well gosh, it's run out of steam again!)
Mystery Crescent
I'll kill it off if no-one can be bothered to play (and if I can remember the winning move - I don't think I wrote it down anywhere).
I think Tuj is right. This is a great mc site, but we have perhaps let it get a bit stagnant. My vote is for keeping AVMA, since it is almost a defining game of this server, but some of the other games could be given a breather. And with that in mind, I've killed the clerihew game.
imho, pretty much any of the other games could be rested.
[Kim] I think that may be the case - it's suffered from not being quite the right game for the pace of the server.
Meanwhile, could Film Club be due a more meritorious retirement? The thing is, now we need to have some suggestions for new games to spruce up the place!
Meanwhile, could Film Club be due a more meritorious retirement? The thing is, now we need to have some suggestions for new games to spruce up the place!
I know I've not been here much recently, but perhaps Film Club could be retired in favour of a Book Club? Or if anyone was wanting to pretend to be youthful again, how about a video games club? It might test people's Google skills if nothing else!
Of course, at this time of year, Dunx's annual Festival of Crescent means that attention is necessarily (albeit temporarily) diverted elsewhere. But I'm always in favour of a cull.
You know you're getting old when....
[rab] .....two things happen. The first is - you can't remember the winning move of a game that you created and the second is, errrr...., oh yes, you have to ask for help in killing it.
[Kim] Think Richard O'Sullivan.
[Rab] None the wiser. I kept thinking of Gilbert O'Sullivan and it put me off.
Right, er, Chatsworth, or Lanhydrock maybe.
New game idea/request
Can we have a banter game of some kind?
Well, I wouldn't contribute to it.
Oh dear
Having instigated this, I feel responsible - and I certainly don't want blood on my hands if the game slots vanish entirely again =(
However, I've not really got any ideas. Except, well... I've seen an online game called NationStates where one runs a country via its inner workings. So I wondered if perhaps we could invent the continent of Morningtonia, each stake a claim to some land and then see how our national/international diplomacy skills are... and hope that the answer to the question "When does the game end?" isn't necessarily "NUCLEAR WAR!"
However, I've not really got any ideas. Except, well... I've seen an online game called NationStates where one runs a country via its inner workings. So I wondered if perhaps we could invent the continent of Morningtonia, each stake a claim to some land and then see how our national/international diplomacy skills are... and hope that the answer to the question "When does the game end?" isn't necessarily "NUCLEAR WAR!"
On second thoughts:
... I'd like to suggest a game called "Lead Balloon".
New game idea
Cat chess? This rules variant is slightly different from the last one I saw, but looks promising.
[Tuj] A game of Morningtonian Government sounds like fun to me.
New Games
I like both ideas that don't involve cat chess. I don't understand how Cat Chess would work. Bantering would be my vote if it is an ether/ore choice.
New Games
Have you noticed that there isn't a single game of "Mornington Crescent" in play on this server. Why don't we start one of those?
How do you play that then, Kim?
Blasphemy, apostasy, iconoclasm etc.
I dont' think MC itself works very well here. It really has to be played live so that the players can display all the mock-gravity and in-depth knowledge of arcane rules that this involves. It's a performance, really, and needs rather good actors.
Then maybe a game of 'Dress Rehearsal Mornington Crescent' will show what sheer hard work has to go into putting on a slick performance in the Game itself? I'm thinking this might give us an insight into the director's final, fraught instructions, the referee's frantic consultations with the rule book(s) and the performers' last-minute nerves showing through.
and then
Game slot still available, of the suggestions go along with pen.
Dusted the cob webs off the BBQ over the weekend. My only quibble was the sausages, those from the local butcher cooked a treat but the Walls sausages almost went up in flames they were spitting so much fat.
Dusted the cob webs off the BBQ over the weekend. My only quibble was the sausages, those from the local butcher cooked a treat but the Walls sausages almost went up in flames they were spitting so much fat.
[Rosie] A lot of the games are like that -- improv theatre, really. Take a look at the yorkives link on the front page here and contemplate the glories of the past, when MC was the main game played.
Ah, just seen it's CANCELLED - but I guess the question still stands...
(rab) Do you really need to ask that?
[rab] Yep, that's us. All things considered, just as well we cancelled (a couple of months back) as only one song is yet complete, and we keep going back to the synopsis and tweaking. Should show up next year in the form of a reading or full production, hopefully. We're devoting tomorrow to completing a 10 minute extract which will be done this year at Theatre 503 in London, then podcast as an audio-format musical.
Good luck. If you do ever come up to Edinburgh be sure to drop me a line so we can catch up over an IPA or something.
[rab] Coincidentally, I'll be teaching a course on the IPA next semester.
[rab, Néa] aɪd lʌv ə bɪə
Projoy's post
What do all the little squares mean?
(rab, Néa) Isopropyl alcohol is not good for you.
squarelets
[SM] They mean your browser isn't rendering International Phonetic Alphabet symbols
[Rosie] Any chance you can get the rain to stop? It's started leaking into our flat. Roofers have been called but they're a bit busy today.
Rain
(rab) Edinburgh, yes? It'll gradually peter out but Saturday afternoon brings another dollop. Hope you can get it done before then. This used to happen at work rather a lot so we set up an indoor raingauge network.
I suppose if you get 6% (21 days' worth) of your annual average rainfall on one day you can expect problems. Two surprising things about Edinburgh -it's further west than you think (more so than Bristol) and not as wet as you think. Paisley (just to the west of Glasgow) has twice as much rain as Edinburgh.
[Rosie] Rest assured, the men are up there now tying the chimney down. It needs to resurfaced or something, which means we need to get somewhere between 7 and 10 neighbours to contribute to the costs. Oh what fun!
(rab) What fun indeed! Glad it's never happened to me (yet). More rain Saturday but fairly routine stuff.
it is a-raining not in Tokyo
It has been pissing down (scientific term) here in Brussels for as long as memory serves. I drove the new Alfa to Cologne on Friday and visibility in the rain was worse than in a carwash. Don't you just love summer in Northern Europe?
Niederschlage
(ISP) The official term is AFPD. Take heart; this is a bad summer by most standards and least it's better than winter.
Smug
It has been a lot better over here than up north this summer. We have avoided rain for the most part (apart from 72mm in 4 hours the Sunday before last). It's looking a bit iffy for the rest of the week, though.
Deperately trying to think of something other than the weather to talk about
Does anyone here like cold tea? I do.
Cold tea
Yes, especially with ice and a slice of lemon or a sprig of mint.
Iced tea, yes. Hot tea gone cold: URHGURHUGHHUHYYEEAEAUURK.
I generally don't drink tea, but regularly drink hot coffee gone cold, and occasionally iced coffee. I hasten to add that if I had milk in my coffee, I would, in all probability, drink it neither iced nor gone-cold.
(Softers, Graham III) No, I meant tea gone cold. Great! Coffee gone cold is just as good. I make a virtue of necessity because having brewed it I get on with doing something and forget about the drink.
Cold tea
Well, I drink tea and coffee without milk anyway.
Once I have made myself a cup of tea, I'll drink it all, even if it has gone cold. Coffee less so. I love iced tea, and iced coffee, and make both at home in the summer. If I'm at home, I put milk in tea and coffee. If I'm in Holland, I'll drink them without milk.
Milk
Milk! Foul substance that from bovine teats expressed
For infant calves, man steals for ends perverse
Drinking that infant nourishment, whose end
Ends crated in the dark before the knife
Cuts short -- but to pick up the thread again --
Vile stuff for human stomach never meant
That rots i' the open air in scant three days
Else churned to yellow grease; or rotted more
With fungus mingled in ten thousand ways
Until it stinks like to the arse of Hades -- contd. p. 94
Re: Milk
Yeah, what Raak said!
What, no cheese?
Panna cotta, custard, Yorkshire puddings, macaroni cheese, icecream, buttered toast, cappucino, parsley sauce... [Phil, Raak] I don't believe you.
[pen] I was with you all the way until you mentioned parsley sauce, whereupon Raak suddenly started to make more sense.
[CdM] OK. Switch that to 'peppercorn sauce' for your rib-eye steak.
[pen] Well, I don't like milk, custard, panna cotta or cappucino; but the others are nice.
Lait, leche, llaeth etc
(Phil) What do you put on your cornflakes/shredded wheat/weetabix? Not syrup, I hope.
[Rosie] As a result, I very rarely eat breakfast cereals. If I do, the milk needs to be as fresh and cold as possible.
[Rosie] I put canned fruit on my muesli. If I ate porridge, which I don't, I'd make it with water.
Dairy products
I stopped taking milk in tea and coffee as a result of trying to reduce my cholesterol count. I like milk and cheese and all the things pen listed, so tea and coffee without milk keeps the intake down without too much pain.
Anyone who was a child in the late '40's will have had it drummed into them the milk was a Good Thing (free at school, off the ration) and as far as I'm concerned it still is, within limits. Nothing could beat slurping the cream off the top of the bottle, and still can't. Fortunately, at the moment I don't have a cat, which would obviously have first shout.
Showing my age
Free school milk nearly put me off milk for life. In summer it was stacked in the playground in the sun for a couple of hours before we got it, so it was always warm and slightly off.
I now only drink skimmed when I have a choice - full cream just tastes greasy to me. However I still eat too much cheese and use plenty of whole milk & cream in cooking.
I now only drink skimmed when I have a choice - full cream just tastes greasy to me. However I still eat too much cheese and use plenty of whole milk & cream in cooking.
I went off milk somewhere between 14 and 18, I reckon. I used to drink loads of it before then. The thought of the cream off the top of the bottle makes me feel queasy these days. Oh, and please don't even mention the "straight from the cow" option - yuk!
We have a cat but he doesn't like milk, or cheese, strangely. First cat I've known not to like either or both. We had school milk in the 50s, in 1/3 pint bottles, and a choice of orange juice (which I preferred) and then Jersey milk was very creamy (it's not now due to over processing). I can remember the milkman delivering the milk in churns and filling up a jug my mother used to leave on the doorstep. I think they introduced bottles in about 1956. Then bottles were replaced by humbug shaped Tetra Paks in about 1967.
(Software) Cats shouldn't have milk too often but binge-licking every now and again won't do any harm. Cats are also useful for hoovering up bits of chicken off the floor.
[Rosie] There is nothing useful a cat can do that a labrador and a mousetrap can't.
[Phil] Possibly true, but with a cat you don't have to keep careful track of which one you are petting.
[Rosie] Our cat won't eat cooked chicken either. [CdM} Another advantage of cats is that they don't need to be exercised or groomed regularly.
Ours occasionally comes along and licks the milk at the bottom of our muesli bowls. And she's much better at dealing with the mice than the traps. She also spends a lot of time sitting on the internet, acting as some kind of firewall I think.
[Rosie] True. But Phil might point out that the same is true of mousetraps.
We've recently discovered that there are at least two other cats in the building, which could be why we saw a flurry of mouse activity before we got ours.
I have just discovered that our cat likes icecream. As regards chasing mice he is a pacifist. The other day he was seen lying in our garden with a dormouse nibbling a fallen apple about 30cm from his nose.
My cat presented me with a very much alive and wriggling mouse yesterday. It was a great big ferocious critter, probably weighing well over a quarter of an ounce.
moustory
[Simons] And then? What happened next?
Well, I managed to catch it, then popped it in a cardboard box for an hour or so to give it a chance to calm down, then let it go, ready for the cat to catch at some other time.
(SM) The cat is turning into an angler, then?
random, catless
*complains about the cold*
Frigidity
(flerdle) Me too. It's a lousy August here. The temperature is staying mostly below 20 and my home-made sundial is getting very little exercise.
[Rosie] Your sundial doesn't enable you to dial up any sun?
Springy steps
As August fades into the past the promise of a new season is enticing my olfactory senses from their hibernation. A pleasant hour and a half of practice at my local bowling club (after which I was accepted as a member of the Hat-Wearing-Volvo-Driving Geriatric Club) combined with a beautiful and warm day (maximum 18.9ºC) has contrived an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity within the castle known as 'Dujon's Folly'. Oh, happy days.
Dial-up radiaton
(pen) Fat chance. I spent a long time getting all the geometry right (it's on a wall) but little chance of testing it. People on the weather newsgroup with actual sun-measuring equipment say that it the dullest August for a long time and scarcely better than January. That's when they're not hurling miss-spelt abuse at each other and generally acting like ****s, ****s and ****s, even. What gets into people? This is a haven of well-mannered sanity.
Putting a spell on you
[Rosie] Can I assume you misspelled misspell on purpose?
What do we think about that university lecturer's suggestion that the 20 most common spelling mistakes should be accepted as variant spellings? (For examples and the lecturer's argument, see article on Times Higher Education website.)
What do we think about that university lecturer's suggestion that the 20 most common spelling mistakes should be accepted as variant spellings? (For examples and the lecturer's argument, see article on Times Higher Education website.)
(Knobbly) Did you mean the "miss" or the "spelt"? The latter is an approved form in my C.O.D. 1964. Maybe the "miss" ought to have only one "s". As to the university lecturer, he is either playing Devil's Advocate, a posh way of saying "taking the piss", or is pretty comprehensively ignorant of language. His ideas have been well rebutted in the replies on the site. I see he's a professor of criminology. I'd lock him up and throw the key away. Know what I mean, guv?
(Rosie) Yes, I meant the "miss". One s from the prefix mis- and the other which was already on the beginning of the verb.
Meteorological irony
The air above about 3000 feet the last few days is very warm and dry and if the cloud disappeared the temperature would shoot up rapidly to about 28°C. But the lower layer of air is cool and moist and cloud can't penetrate the warm air, being cooler and therefore denser. So if the upper air were cooler there'd be some chance of the cloud being carried upwards and evaporating and we'd have a warm, sunny day. Maybe not 28°C but at least 23°C. BTW the sudden rise of temperature as you go up above about 3000 feet (in this case) is called an inversion and is a common feature. In Siberia in winter it can be as much as 25 degC warmer aloft than at the surface, say -20° compared with -45°.
Bah!
I'm working from home on a Saturday, trying to get stuff done before going on holiday for two weeks in a fortnight's time. But it's an opportunity to go through my CD collection one-by-one as I work. I hadn't unpacked them since I moved here almost a year ago. Right now: CD 3 of the complete collection of Vaughan Williams symphonies.
Blah!
I turned 50 while on holiday last week. I find it oddly liberating. Can anyone tell me why this is?
[Kim] It's because you know that your next birthday won't be your sixtieth :0(.
[Kim] Because you have realised that, despite the trepidation and build-up, you don't actually feel any different?
I ended up working most of Sunday too. And it rained. What a write-off of a weekend. Never mind. All of this will soon be over.
I ended up working most of Sunday too. And it rained. What a write-off of a weekend. Never mind. All of this will soon be over.
*complains about the cold. Again.*
Happy Birthday, Kim. 50 isn't that old. Not a lot you can do about it, anyway, other than walk in front of a bus beforehand (too late now).
Happy Birthday, Kim. 50 isn't that old. Not a lot you can do about it, anyway, other than walk in front of a bus beforehand (too late now).
Silver surfers
(Software) Neither will mine.
Shameless self-promotion, cross-posted at other sites
There's another beer and music festival this weekend at philspub
Re: trumpet blowing
Love to come, but ...
Since it has been so quiet here for so long, may I just say, a propos of nothing except general boasting, that I have just scored 227 in a single scrabble move? Thank you.
[CdM] Wow! How?
(CdM) Is that possible? 227 is a prime number and I thought scores were always multiplied by various factors rather than added. Apart from that, v good.
[Rosie] Presumably it was 59 tripled plus the bonus 50 for using all 7 letter from the rack.
I thought you'd never ask
[Phil, Rosie] The word was EQUISETA, played across two triple word scores on an existing Q, and also making the words ET and SWING. The letters in EQUISETA have a total value of 18 (including the double letter score on the I), which when twice tripled gives 162. ET contributed another 6 points (because it was also on a triple word), and SWING contributed another 9. That plus the 50 point bonus gives 227. (Note, by the way, that the tiles in my hand were worth a grand total of 7 points.)
It was a very high scoring game: my opponent got 417 points and still lost by over 100.
It was a very high scoring game: my opponent got 417 points and still lost by over 100.
I think CdM has stunned us all into silence with that accomplishment. In other news, I'm about to jet off for two weeks with the windy miller, taking in a road trip to Turin to visit a friend. On Monday, I am working 'from home' to finish off a press campaign (look out for Ancient Tree Hunt news about the 'Acorns to Ancients' seed collecting month hitting a local newspaper near you). And also,if anyone fancies a bosky trip to Hainault, there's a forest festival taking place in Hainault Forest from September 21 onwards - Speed Dating walks in the woods, anyone? Alternatively, learn woodland management, take part in forest art sessions, or take a guided 'Silent Walk' to listen to the sounds of the forest. If I wasn't elsewhere,. I'd go myself.
Well, you live and learn.. "Bosky" is definitely a word I'll endeavour to add to my everyday vocabulary.
To the woods!
(Phil) I'm surprised you didn't know it already, man of your calibre. I came across it as a teenager though I admit it's not used much.
[Rosie] When it comes to expanding my vocab, I'm all ears - which explains why I got called Wingnut at school, incidentally.
A propos of nothing...
Doubt if there's a game in this, but things have been quiet in here just lately, but I as wondering how high one could count with film/book names, particularly using just ordinals, rather than cardinals.. Starting with "First Among Equals".
Forty-Second Street?
The Third Man (oblig)
Born on the Fourth of July
The Fifth Element
The Sixth Sense
The Inn of the Seventh Happiness
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
10
Right up to the minute, we have The Eighth Wonder
The Ninth Gate
The Tenth Man (3.33 times more oblig than previously)
The Eleventh Hour
Twelfth Night: Or What You Will.
Apollo 13
Sticking to the ordinals concept
Friday the 13th
That classic: The Fourteenth Man
The Magnificent Seven
going in sequence after all:
15 Minutes
Pay Attention please
[Software] We're looking for ordinal numbers here, so the next one is Fifteenth
Mind you I think we must be getting close to the limit
Mind you I think we must be getting close to the limit
The Fifteenth. (But I admit that I have started cheating now.)
[INJ/CdM] I have cheated this morning and discovered that the lowest ordinal for which there is not a non-TV, feature-length film is 31st!
I have a couple in mind for later on, but I looked up 14th. On the other hand Phil's original suggestion included books, and I don't see why we should exclude made-for-TV films as long as they're feature length (say 80 mins minimum). I'm surprised at 31st not being there though as the last day of 7 months and last day of the year.
Further cheating
And when I do look I discover I actually did know a book with 31st in the title - annoying, that.
Ancient film
Knuckles rapped but - Quartorze Juliette
Then something with 33rd, then Miracle on 34th Street.
[Software] I'll say, I wouldn't stand for that kind of spelling from one of my students.
[nights] Nonono, it's a sort of French Kind Hearts and Coronets, in which Mme Binoche plays fourteen different roles.
[CdM] I see. I'm still not impressed though, Juliette Binoche is bad enough when she's just playing one role, let alone fourteen.
Quiet in here.
For the benefit of Ms Pitstop
I saw my first F1 race last night. It was rather fun in a loud fast car sort of way.
Noisy cars
[CdM] Ah - beat me to it. I was just going to ask if you'd watched it, and if not, if it had had an impact on your night.
[Phil] I saw the race from a slightly unusual vantage point. Because the race went by Singapore's business district, a number of offices with good views hosted parties, and we were invited to one of those. I was a bit sceptical beforehand, but it was actually really cool: an excellent birds-eye view of about one third of the track. A group of us also went downstairs for a while in the middle of the race, where we couldn't see much but could certainly hear it. This way of watching the race also had a couple of other advantages: food and wine; and access to television coverage. Given that I don't really follow F1 that closely, I liked being able to hear commentary while watching. I'm sure that being trackside would be a different experience, but I'm not sure I would have gotten so much out of it. All in all, a fun evening.
[CdM] Ah, but did you see where the race was won and lost: i.e. in the Ferrari Pit?
[CdM] I've heard trackside isn't so great, especially if you don't speak the local lingo. A friend of mine was phoned by someone at Spa to find out who had won the grand prix he'd just been watching, as he couldn't find out at the track.
Trackside at the British Grand Prix a few years ago, we were given little radios with earphones to get the trackside commentary, which was excellent. It's a lot more exciting close up - especially in the wet...
Shame about Dress Rehearsal. Never mind though, eh. Anyone have any ideas for new games?
I've just had one. An idea. Condensed books? Summarise the plot of a book in a particularly glib fashion, much like "So the Danish guy dies".
New games
(nights) Good idea, not that I'd be the star contributor.
New Game
[nights] I think something similar has been done somewhere before - but it could be anywhere in the last 12 years, so I'm certainly up for a new version.
New Game
I am an occasional contributor to, but mostly an amused reader of the "Ridiculously Easy Poetry" game currently being played in another place. Certain opening lines seem to come up quite frequently, sometimes involving fleas. I wonder whether a poetry-based "hillocks" game would be enjoyable for a while ("If I should die and go to Innisfree"). Any thoughts?
[nights] We definitely played that game a couple of years ago -- iirc it involved three-word and then two-word summaries. That doesn't mean we couldn't resurrect it, of course.
[Kim] I like that idea...
[Kim] I like that idea...
[CdM] I think that was "Butler Did It" and it was more than a couple of years ago. :)
Well, as the consensus seems positive, I'll create the game.
Me, too.
Who's a hillock?
I don't understand. Boo hoo hoo. What's the point of the new poetry game?
What a Hillock
Don't cry... "Wuthering Hillocks" is a game which aims to ease the poverty of the TV, film and book industries by suggesting inexpensive remakes of old hits, for example "One walked round the cuckoo's nest" or "Who wants to be a milliner?". I'm guessing that the first lines in the new game should be cheap versions of fine famous poetry. Is that it nights? As for the point of it, well...
Never Mind The Hillocks
[BL] Nothing to do with me, squire. I think Kim is the man (or possibly woman, but I think man) you need.
Oh yes...
I read back as far as "I'll create the game..." above... So - Kim?
Hillocks for the uninitiated
Yes, blamelewis has it right. "When hillocks collide" was an early-ish game on MCiOS and was set in the genre of film. It basically describes the scene of an accident. The film version generated such classics as "The Man Who Wasn't There Who Knew The Man Who Shot The Man Who Fell to Earth in Iron Mask With Two Brains", "One Million Years in Tibet" and "Sink the Titanic!". I mused idly that one could do something like that with well-known lines from poetry, hence "If I should die and go to Innisfree". I hadn't really thought about a ruleset, but perhaps there should be a minimum of two lines and no maximum, the metre of the first line should determine the metre of subsequent lines, rhyme is nice, but not essential. Is that enough to be going on with, folks?
*sigh*
It's a lovely day. I wish I'd got washing out on the line.
Behold!
(pen)
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty. (Wordsworth).
Earth has not anything to show more fair
Any more fares?
Any more fares?(Flanders & Swann)
Any more fares?
Any more fares?(Flanders & Swann)
My wife has been cleverly filtering the (snail) mail the last week so I ended up thinking the only people who had remembered my Birthday were the TV Licensing people.
rabturous
Happy Birthday!!
Happy Birthday to Rab!
Additionally, does anyone have anything fun planned for the weekend?
Habby Pirthday, rab!
[nights] No.
I'm being taken out tonight for a mystery meal. I think.
[rab] Taken all the labels off your tin cans, have you? ;) Slightly belated returns from here too!
[Tuj] Ah, what we used to call The Fabulous Mystery Dining Experience, back when I lived in halls. These days, if I cook out of cans, I'm sneered at by all the French people I know.
(nights) Not surprised; you're supposed to put it in a saucepan. :-)
I planted trees today. And then went dancing. All in all, quite satisfying.
Why on earth would anyone ever want three differently-coloured phones on their desk?
To match their handbag on any particular day, of course. (Well, if Posh can buy cars to match her clothes....)
Phones
If it was good enough for Reginald Perrin...
More Phones
...and a fantastic Pete & Dud sketch...
Seasonal update
It's blissfully cold this morning. Very refreshing.
I'm just glad the wind's dropped. The sign on the front of our local Post Office blew off when we were out yesterday (but, luckily, not right in front of the building).
[rab] It's probably a sign.
[Kim] No, it was a sign.
Just had the following train announcement: "Please note it is illegal to play pre-recorded music of popular music artists on trains or at stations because we do not hold a performing rights licence". Not simply because it annoys the crap out of everyone.
[rab] That leaves you clear to broadcast the back catalogue of any unpopular music artist...
muzak
(rab) I wonder if that applies to shops. I hope so.
Muzak
Unfortunately, most places, including my butcher, fork out for the PRS (aka thieving bastards) licence. The butcher, since you ask, has a radio playing, hence he needs the PRS licence.
The PRS
(Phil) I don't see why musicians shouldn't be paid for any public performance though I don't know the scale of charges. Yes, I am in the MU. I would have thought you would have been more put out by the cost of a music licence from the local council, for which you receive bugger all except a piece of paper and a bill.
"Music Licence from the Council"
No such thing any more. It all comes in the premises licence these days, thankfully.
Pub bore
(Phil) Ah! Didn't know that. But does it cost more if you are licensed for music or are all premises licensed thus?
On a different subject what do you think of the practice of discretionary closing times?, i.e. the pub will stay open the advertised extra half hour if the manager thinks it worth it on any particular evening. To me it's wanting to have your cake and eat it, or less formally, taking the piss. If you're in the pub you don't know how fast to drink or whether to have another half, say, or if arriving late, as I often do, whether the pub will be open or not. To be on the safe side I will be assuming that the place will be closed at all times, as are many of my mates. There's quite a good choice in Carshalton and I wonder if the new manager knows that. He will soon.
[Rosie] Here in Embra there's been 'late' opening for quite some time, which means most pubs close variously between 12 and 1am, and a few staying open to 3 (or 4 during the Festival). It's generally been accepted that if a place is rather quiet, it might close early, but that it's good etiquette for the staff to go round about half-an-hour beforehand to let you know that this is likely to happen, and to suggest venues that are likely to be open later. Seemed to work rather well. (I say 'seemed', as my late-night drinking days are largely behind me now).
I'm bored
I've stopped opening emails today. They've all been boring so far this morning - or have been asking me to do things I don't have time for, so I thought I'd save myself the hassle and stop opening them altogether. People will soon get the point and stop sending them.
pubs
(rab) That's reasonable if the hours are as late as that but my "local" is merely extending from 11 to 1130, and on Sundays from 1030 to 11, each night at the manager's discretion. For a "regular" that won't do because one of the points about a favourite pub is its predictablity. This seems a blundering accountant-driven policy or maybe the manager's just a lazy arsehole. We are taking punitive action.
I don't know why, but when I'm in a different timezone, I feel normal rules don't apply.
Los geht's
Anyone care for a mug of kitten?
[Knobbly] Milk no sugar please.
Black with ginger please.
Variable opening
[Rosie] I believe I've spoken on this matter on another site, but the crux of the matter is that I'm with you on this one. My pub is licensed until 1am on friday and saturday, but I close at 12. Customers need consistency, and they need to know where they stand. On very rare occasions, I will stay open until 1am, but that is for the likes of our football team's annual prizegiving, and they all know in advance. They tend to leave about 12.30 anyway though. If the pub has 50 customers one friday night and you stay open the extra 30 minutes, what happens next week when there are 45 customers. You make yourself an immediate target for bickering. If you going to take punitive action, may I suggest you let the gaffer know before you do so, as he may not notice. He also might be more likely to change his ways in advance of losing custom.
[Rosie] Your other question. No, there is no variation in cost that tallies with what your licensable activities are. You do, though, open yourself up to a much bigger can of worms in the matter of your neighbours and their potential objections.
Chucking-out time
(Phil) I think the manager may have seen sense, though not through customer persuasion AFAIK, because there is now a completely new regime after less than a fortnight of this arbitrary stuff and the pub now has a 24-hr licence all week and is advertised (in the bar) as being open from midday to 11.30 a.m., the half-hour closed being apparently to put a few things in order each day. There is no mention of management discretion on the notice. Does this mean I can stay there drinking, probably alone, until 4 in the morning (say)? What on earth is the point of that because Carshalton is not exactly Soho. I'd like to know what's going on but the barman (not the manager) couldn't help, or wouldn't.
[Rosie] Have you been in the bar since Monday then?
(Phil) Sanity has prevailed with the appearance of yet another regime in which closing time is 1130 (pm) except Friday and Saturday which are midnight and Sundays which are 11 pm. These are modest extensions to the original times. The manager could have kept his itchy fingers off the keyboard and printer until he'd made his mind up but all's well that ends well.
(pen) Shurrup. Wha' if I 'ave? :-)
(pen) Shurrup. Wha' if I 'ave? :-)
Hours and Hours
Over here one has to move pub to get different closing times, it's all according to the type of licence issued, i.e. whether or not the licensee is able to have live music. Very strange but one gets used to it.
Hmm, looks like this site is about to become target for a lorryload of spam. Will need to think about tightening up the security I guess.
In the meantime, you might want to check the status of our latest building project.
[rab] Nice lav ;o)
[pen] That one's on its way out. The new one is sitting in a box in the spare bedroom.
[Rosie] Glad to hear you have stability again.
zbchk bnud
maith fthmri fuqv ktndamcs yetxq latids umgjkyftd
So nice to see we have visitors from another galaxy.
I thought it was one of us posting from a palm raspberry thing straight after emerging from the dentist's surgery.
(pen) :-)
Ching
Nice dusting of snow this morning, oddly, more in front of than out the back of the block.
Noting a slot and the date, does anyone have any inspiration for an advent-themed game of MC?
[Tuj] Done. Can you wait up until midnight to make your move? Sorry if that was a bit rude...
[pen] I knew someone would be able to hatch my half-idea =) thank you!
[Tuj] You're going to have to wait another day for a morsel of chocolate. Softers just got today's.
Odd Problem
Sorry to interrupt, but I need to get a message through to rab and the firewall here is stopping me posting to OMC/N&Q at the moment. I'm seeing a nod problem with the index page here at MC5. The names and moves displayed on it are not the same as those showing last in the games themselves. Is anyone else seeing this, or is this confined to my proxied-by-idiots world? Am I living in pre-cached hell again?
All looks fine here, Stevie.
Looks like a caching problem at your end, but I've resynched the index with the game data anyway.
Chocolate covered cache. Ooh!
[rab] *sighs* Okay. I'll resign myself to never seeing the site in it's real state then.
I could try adding the appropriate http header to try and request a non-cache.
OK
See if that works.
Cache Deals Only
[rab] Seems to have fixed it for now. Clever, you.
It's almost a week since anyone said anything, so I'll break the silence. I think I've moved into the 'finishing off projects' phase at work before my last day in the office on 23 December. How strange this is...
Not at all unusual if you are a proper professional, pen, which I assume you are.
I'm definitely demob happy now. I'm finishing off other people's jobs and bringing mince pies into work. I don't even like mince pies that much.
It gets very quiet in here over the weekend. Does that imply that most of mc5s posts are posted when the poster ought to be working?
[Knobbly] I am shocked, shocked to hear such a suggestion!
[knobbers] How very dare you??!!
I'd really like to express my hurt at the suggestion but, since I'm at work at the moment, I can't.
[Knobbly] Now look what you've done! Everyone is too ashamed to play any more. There has hardly been a move in any game for two days.
Shhh! Some of us have work to do, keep the noise down.
BOO! .....apologises to neighbours.....
Chirp
We've had a lot of dealings with tradesmen recently. None of them too disastrous (although there is still one job outstanding in the bathroom, scheduled for 8am tomorrow). But when something really good happens, I get so pleased. Our roofer was scheduled to check a few things out tomorrow morning in advance of the down-tools period (I had visions of a waterfall coming though the extractor fan on Christmas day). He phoned me up just now saying "I'm in the area, shall I come now?"; leapt onto the roof, found everything that was wrong with it and told me it would be thirty-five quid to fix. It was done in about the time it took me to get to the cashpoint and back.
Oh, and when I told him that one of his rivals told us we needed a whole new roof, he looked at me like I was mad and said, "Nah... this one will last about 20 years".
[rab] Is your bathroom fixed now?
This is my last day at work...
Woken by the telephone at ten o'clock this morning. Augh! The four best hours of the day lost in slumber, never to return! Oh well, I doubt if anyone else is at work today.
[Raak] I'm trying to plan a night off on Jan 2nd. It looks like it might work -)
[Raak] I'm still at work... Can't afford any time off, as I need all my leave for the imminent arrival of a new addition to the family. So I'll take this opportunity to wish a Merry Crimbo to everyone at MC5!
Merries
Happy wotsit. I'm obliged by the cult of Jobs to tell you this comes via my Father's iPhone.
Happinesses
Phew, Christmas successfully accomplished in the traditional manner. The Windy Miller is, this moment, accompanying the AA man in their attempts to get the car started, in anticipation of driving back to the Netherlands tomorrow. I have a chicken curry simmering on the hob, and was until a few moments ago, studying a book of Heath Robinson illustrations. Next, we will play with the new kitchen-windowsill weather monitoring station and see if we can't find out how to turn the outside temperature up a bit.
twelve days of Christmas
Monday, 2 December - the third consecutive day with a visit from the AA man. Today, they are taking the car away to a garage to be fixed. The advantage is that I get to spend extra time with the Windy Miller (we went to the cinema to see Australia last night - our first-ever cinema date. Marvellous cinematography, probably a lot of it CGI, but sh*t writing - maudlin, predictable and worst of all, it had Nicole Kidman in it). The disadvantage is that he is getting impatient as he has work to do back at home.
this year
I'm packing, and moving. Moving and packing. Eek!
[pen] You have my deepest empathy.
[CdM] Ignore Pen, it may not be great, but her way of seeing Australia is a lot less bother than yours.
[pen] It's a new beginning - sounds exciting. I enjoyed my 2 years in the Netherlands and would probably have stayed longer except for my ex.
epjlqroab nfpaub
hajoqpr budr znbq zoaidfeum cbrglknov mtsjiaex bveowfzyt
My heavens he's found me - anyone available to give me a lift to Bletchley?
Very cryptic, Duj :o)
I wonder if epjlqroab nfpaub is the same person as zbchk bnud from back in November?
[Knobbly] Don't be ridiculous, the names are completely different from each other.
Moving day T-3
I have two chairs and one lamp left. Everything else has been sold or is in boxes. Even my bed will sell on Ebay today, and a mate with a garage will sell my car for me. Lummy.
So you weren't joking when you said you were leaving, pen. :o)
Holland
[penelope] Where will you be living? Will you be using only public transport once you move? I've never been to Holland but I understand they have invested heavily in public transportation.
dead game?
Has Film Club run it's course, or does someone else want to suggest a new subject for it?
Public???
[SM] Public transport? Heavens no. I will be riding a stately omafiets, a birthday present from my schatje molenaar.
omafiets
[penelope] Would that be a bicycle, horse, moped or skateboard?
It's a 'granny bike' - big wheels, sprung seat, upright handlebars, luggage rack and shopping panniers, enormously comfortable and particularly suited for flat places.
Fietspads
[pen] In my my experience the wind always blows in you face whichever way you are cycling in Holland, making the traditional bikes hard work.
[Softers] Yup. But mine's aluminium so pretty light. And the wind blows against you wherever you cycle in Lincolnshire too, so that's nothing new.
Velocity vectors
(Softers, pen) The only possible conclusions are that either there is no wind in Holland, Lindsey and Kesteven or that you never cycle at less than about 50 mph. Impressive.
Bike
[penelope] The sprung seat is particularly suited to flat places? :)
Does this bicycle come with one of those teardrop-shaped "Pifo" electric horns that were so popular the last time I rode a bike?
Does this bicycle come with one of those teardrop-shaped "Pifo" electric horns that were so popular the last time I rode a bike?
[flerdle] Nice one. I read the linked article, then took a mouthfull of hot coffee just as I got to the bit about "30 blasts from one pumping-up". I immediately pictured Inspector Clouseau, in disguise, madly pumping as he cycled toward a pedestrian crowd (the parrot-inflation bit in the "Salty Swedish Sea Captain From The Salty Sea" scene is one of my favourite Sellars moments).
I'm probably going to need a new workstation keyboard now.
I'm probably going to need a new workstation keyboard now.
I've been a fan of Matthew Somerville's alternative front-end to the National Rail website for quite some time, traintimes.org.uk, on the grounds that it works better than the real one. He's recently added a live train map, and I particularly like the description of how it works:
Live departure data is fetched from the National Rail website, much like my timetable site, and then it does a bit of maths and magic.
Blowin' in the wind
*blushing* I drove the windy miller to his usual Saturday leading the volunteers and various lads at the mill this morning (practising driving (a) on the wrong side of the road and (b) on the wrong side of the car) but we were a bit later than his normal arrival time. You can see the mill from some way off because of the flat landscape, and when we were about half a mile away, the WM could see the sails were already turning and exclaimed: 'There are flags on the sails!'. As we got closer, we realised what they were. There was a Dutch tricolour on one sail, and a Union flag on the opposite one (bought specially off t'internet). And there were muffins and stroopwafels to have with coffee there this morning. Then I came home, made soup, tidied up a bit, and watched Alec Guinness in Cromwell on BBC 2 which you can get here. Bloody marvellous :o).
Arrivals
[pen] Yay!
*fancies a stroopwafel - all of a sudden*
Welkom
[pen] Nice. Watch out for the speed cameras ;o). The cable channels carry only the BBC (for copyright reasons, apparently) but if you live near the coast you can get all the UK channels (analogue ones, only probably) on an aerial.
[penelope] Happiness to you.
Thanks all :o)
Back to the mill tonight - it's floodlit farming night, so farms and mills on the island of Hoekshe Waard (that's this one) will be floodlit for busloads of sightseers to tour.
This morning's trip to the small supermarket lead me past two market-stall type vans in the main street of this large village/small town. One was a cheesemonger, on whose stall I spotted a small solitary block of English cheddar, bright orange and tightly encased in plastic, amongst the big wheels of Dutch cheese and the small morsels of some of the better-known French cheeses. There are so many good British cheeses, but none of them are known here. Hardly any of them are known behind the counters of Tesco either, but that's a different problem. *goes to chivvy up the British Cheese Marketing people*.
Back to the mill tonight - it's floodlit farming night, so farms and mills on the island of Hoekshe Waard (that's this one) will be floodlit for busloads of sightseers to tour.
This morning's trip to the small supermarket lead me past two market-stall type vans in the main street of this large village/small town. One was a cheesemonger, on whose stall I spotted a small solitary block of English cheddar, bright orange and tightly encased in plastic, amongst the big wheels of Dutch cheese and the small morsels of some of the better-known French cheeses. There are so many good British cheeses, but none of them are known here. Hardly any of them are known behind the counters of Tesco either, but that's a different problem. *goes to chivvy up the British Cheese Marketing people*.
Cheesy lines
[pen] Perhaps if you polish off the advent chocs we could have a game writing slogans for cheese!
mmmm, cheese...
gah
I was putting together my advent chocolate feast when my internet connection broke - actually the wind dropped on the windy miller's wifi network. So if anyone can polish off the chocolates and start on the cheese, they'd be welcome to do it.
Pilgrimage
BTW, there will be a Pilgrimage in London on Feb 14th, if anyone's interested.
[penelope] eat local food - the world will thank you for it much later.
[Phil] I do, mostly - the potatoes here are particularly good, they actually taste of potato. But if they're going to import some cheese from the UK, you'd think they'd cart the good stuff about, not the orange plastic-wrapped-in-plastic stuff, wouldn't you? They seem to manage to bring in some decent French cheese.
Cheese
[Pen] Actually, the Dutch tend to like their plasticky orange cheeses - Edam and Gouda being cases in point - but some of the smoky varieties are very nice, and you should be able to get tastier Boerenkaas and goat cheeses if you look hard enough. I don't know where your windmill is but I assume there isn't an English shop round the corner. Are there no local farmers who make their own? Have you tried whingeing to Windy? On an unrelated note, are you coming to Othello? I can put you up...
Good try
[IS,P!] I'm almost ashamed to admit it, and please don't take it personally, but theatre ain't my bag. I struggle to appreciate drama and hardly watch films - Jan and I went to the cinema for the first time together in December, two years after we met. Sooo I will leave an Othello seat for someone who will appreciate it more.Perhaps we should have a Brussels Sprouting Pilg at some point though.
*has just google-mapped peneloopij's woonplaats*
Pilgrimage
[SM] Is that for people who don't have anything else to do on Valentines Day?
Slogans for cheese?
And now there's a new game slot, shall we start a Cheesy slogans game?
[Kim] What else might one have to do on Valentine's Day?
[Kim] What else might one have to do on Valentine's Day?
Cheese
[pen] I remember being aghast in a supermarket in Perigord (admittedly in a fairly ex-pat-filled town), and seeing Red Leicester amongst the French cheeses. Especially galling was the £11 per kg price tag!
a nice bit of...
[Phil] That's marketing for you! I'd like some jong Lincolnshire Poacher, voor mij.
[Phil] French Cheese. Galling. I get that.
I like all cheeses, but some better than others, obviously.
[Softers] Have left a question for you in AVMA - I assumed you would be looking in there. Perhaps a reply in here might be best, if that's OK with you. [ Then all will be revealed :-)]
[Soft] Ah - I've just seen it. Thanks. The reason I asked - have to go to St Helier to do some work in early Feb and thought it might be nice to connect. But as you're not there ....
:-(
:-(
3rd time lucky
Potty mouth? You ARE in Jersey, then?
St Helier
[Chalks] Yes, I am here, well I work in St Helier and live just outside. When you over?
[Softers] Any chance of you emailing? k/e/davenport/@/// gmail.com [sans hyphens - natch] :)
Well?
We're all dying to know - did Softers email Chalky? Will the Jerseypilg go ahead? Find out in next week's episode of... Chat
*chuckles*
[peneloopij] He did. It may.
In the meantime...
Sunny and very cold today in Zuid Holland. We may even yet go for a bike ride. I have no idea what my windy miller is doing downstairs while I'm upstairs trying to write something, but it sounds like he's reorganisisng something and I'm afraid to go and look.
Windy Miller
[Pen] Please tell me he has a blue coat, a red necktie and a brown upturned-flowerpot hat...
As You Like It
[IS,P!] why certainly. He has a blue coat, red neckerchief and a brown upturned-flowerpot hat. The coat and neckerchief are in the laundry basket waiting to be ironed, but he keeps the hat in the car.
You don't press his hat?
Good grief, woman, what are you thinking about? Everyone from where I came from has a flat hat (they, the wearers, are said to also have whippets and cobblestones and ghosts, but that's just not true). Even I have one! (pictures available at £150 each, on request - and after a full security cheque (price to be negotiated)).
Highly Rural
It seems to me that Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cutherbert, Dibble and Grubb will be getting jealous of all this attention.
Clarification required
[Dujon] You have one what? Ghost? Cobblestone? Whippet?
And anyway we'll have the RSPCA round to you for ironing your whippets.
You don't need to iron a flat hat - the incessant beating of the rain on it will do that for you.
And anyway we'll have the RSPCA round to you for ironing your whippets.
You don't need to iron a flat hat - the incessant beating of the rain on it will do that for you.
Just so you know, reading this conversation is like looking at a Dali painting to me. Every time I think I'm getting the drift of it, one of the pieces flops over and makes a shape like an elephant (or a swan).
hatters
[Duj] it's not a flat hat - we're talking about the traditional attire of windy miller, the hat is upturned-flower-pot shaped. The landscape here in South Holland is flat. I can see how you got confused.
[pen] Wait. You are ironing the landscape?
[CdM] A man knocked at my door and asked if I wanted my garden landscaped. I don't think my neighbours would appreciate me turning my portrait garden sideways.
[Phil] proper lol and in the office too.
Well, well, well
I suppose that the next you lot will tell me is you don't launder your money. Honestly! What are Great Britain and the Nederlands coming to? Whatever, I bet it's a bit warmer here (excluding the Mint investigations) than it is at your picturesque location. Na, Na, Na Na Ner. ;-)
Sweat, y'bugger
(Duj) You're welcome to 39°C with high humidity. 39°F would do me OK at the moment. There was a foot of snow here on Monday morning and still about half that even now.
Life threatening thingiwhatsits
Rosie, that is not funny. ;-) So it was you who peeked at my weather site from an area somewhere near London. You can keep your snow as I'm just hoping my air conditioning unit keeps running. Today (Saturday) should be fine - sort of - but tomorrow I fear. 47ºC is most definitely not going to be fun.
(Dujon) It would seem to be a good day to hang out the washing around here. I doubt if you'll get a true 47°C though Melbourne might. The cool change could be quite something. I'll keep an eye on it.
By contrast
(Duj) To cool off try this rather agreeable city.
Newsflash
I rudely interrupt to bring you the essential news that at 23.09 today I will be exactly* 1/3rd century old. Oh, and it's snowing.
* Subject to how one chooses to define of 'exact'
Optimist
As a special not-birthday treat, my wife took me to the optometrists. He (the optometrist, not my wife) said my prescription had changed "a little bit", but when I compared the two sets of numbers I could detect no correlation between them whatsoever.
[Rab] Were you wearing glasses at the time?
Ageism
(rab) Date of birth 9 Oct 1975 at 5 a.m. then? I have taken a century as 36524.25 days. On 18 July this year at 6 pm I shall be two-thirds of a century old. On 23 July last year I was twice as old as you. I do like faffing about with a calculator.
Rosie old chap, too much time on your hands? Very good though!
Tempus ambulat
(Bigsmith) I see mathematics (or arithmetic, which this is) as a recreation. Time to spare? Work out my date of birth. (Don't forget the leap years, all n of them.)
[Rosie] We seem to disagree by a day and an hour, even though I used the same length of a century as you... bother.
[Rosie] You're not the only one... a good friend of mine (and a Cambridge Maths graduate) recently delighted to inform me I was 7884 days old. Not long 'til the big 8000!
(rab) 10th October then? My mistake. But I don't see how I can be an hour out because 36524.25/3=12174.75 exactly. So we have to subtract 0.75 day (18 hr) from the time you gave initially, making it 5.09 a.m. I called it 5 a.m. because we're not shot from guns exactly. My double-your-age date is wrong, too. It should be 31 Aug 08 at 6 pm, if you were born at 6 a.m. 10/10/75.
Rosie's date of birth
17 November 1942 (n = 17).
[Rosie] Did you take daylight saving time into account?
uohrixg yzrqmefdx
bvkj kqna hojxkmtd uzrltjvx ityksr owucr nxdawbgvc
(rab) No. I will have no truck with such arbitrary adjustments in my sophisticated numerical analyses :-). You are right, of course, provided you were born in Britain, or possibly Spain or some West African countries.
(Bigsmith) And so are you. (6 pm, they tell me).
(Bigsmith) And so are you. (6 pm, they tell me).
Accuracy
[uohrixg yzrqmefdx] That, good sir, was jolly close, as I believe even Rosie would acknowledge. I do think though that you have missed by a bit. Rosie does not live 'south of the border' and nor does he live so far west of the meridian.
I would give you 'bvyk anq.s and ityksr+polar co-ordinates' when related to the orbit of Triton as seen from Earth.
I would give you 'bvyk anq.s and ityksr+polar co-ordinates' when related to the orbit of Triton as seen from Earth.
[Rosie] 6 pm aye? Then by applying the Euclidian theory of longitudinal drift to a trans-Mercator projection I determine that that would have been in Crowborough, Sussex.
(Bigsmith) Correct yet again. Amazing. Would have been Purley (nudge, nudge) but for the war. The OS Grid is a Transverse Mercator projection BTW. Very gudermannian. (Dujon) 0° 03' 36.8" W. Can't be too accurate; don't want to go in the wrong house.
[Rosie] Bugger, I thought I'd made it up! I remember we have discussed things map-wise before. I do enjoy a good OS map so it must have been subconcious. WildpantsMC may be long gone but the player profiles page is still on-line and easy to search.
That's how I know about your London Welsh parents!
That's how I know about your London Welsh parents!
Apologies for my recent absence
I can proudly announce the arrival on planet Earth of Maxwell Theodore Stanley Kirby!
MTSK
Hullo Max.
Maxwell - he'll be a demon at physics. Congratulations. Hope all are well.
(Bigsmith) I thought that's where you must have got it. Still up, is it? I haven't looked for years.
(Bigsmith) I thought that's where you must have got it. Still up, is it? I haven't looked for years.
as per MCiOS
Welcome Max!!
Ex Libri Bardus
Are we done? Does anyone have a good idea with which to replace it?
[SM] Bear in mind there's been an open game slot beneath it for quite some time now. Ideas and energy seem somewhat lacking in the Morniverse lately.
Bent Saws
Don't count your chickens before the fat lady sings.
Unused Games
[Tuj] I was under the impression that there was some sort of inner council that came up with games and were the only ones able to make them. I should add that I don't have any good game ideas with which to replace Ex Libri Bardus, I was just thinking that it was looking a bit threadbare, and that my last few moves in it missed the point so widely that the sooner they were hidden in the archive the better. I don't know what I was thinking when I made them (he said in his best "Kryten" voice).
Bent Saws
[Software] That sounds like something Marlon from The Perishers would say. I like it.
I've done the honours for Ex Libri.
Max
Cheers for the good wishes, folks - pictures are up on my Facebook!
Mad Max
[Uncle Korky] Congratulations and felicitations to all. I haven't gone a-facebooking as a picture does not always tell a thousand words. The question, therefore, is, "is he smart?"
Bent Saws
Where there's muck, there's hope. Let's have a go. [UK] Congratulations to you on the arrival of Maxwell. A silver hammer is in the post.
Bent Saws
A jolly good idea and I like the game name too. Let lightning strike while the iron's hot.
Bent Saws
Raak, I loved your "bank" saw. It's (not) funny because it's true.
Sponsored silence
OK, it's been silent for a week... someone say something!
oblig.
something
Not that I'm proposing any changes, but I wonder if games would become more or less active if they weren't stamped with the date and time of the last move. Less active is my guess.
Max
[Dujon] Can't vouch for smart, yet, but I'd like to think there's potential! [Kim] Ta muchly!
ONe week later
Bright and cold here (can also be said for me as well as the weather) and today I am going to take to the road. Enough of nerves, I've just got to drive. But after 25 years of driving on the other side of the road, and the other side of the car, it's all a bit weird.
Left Hooker
Hi pen, hold your breath and prepare for a few rapped knuckles on you left hand! You'll get used to it quicker than you think. Just watch out for those nasty entry/exit points that the Clogs like so much, you find yourself merging with traffic entering the motorway as you are trying to leave. Very unnerving the first time.
The bit that un-nerves me is the crossroads with no marked priority here in the village - like a US 4-way stop. I struggle to use those to turn left across oncoming traffic and end up lurching about.
Technical writing test
Changing the subject just a little, I've got a job interview tomorrow for a tech writer role. And they've given me a little test document to polish. It contains a clever twist on bad documentation technique I've not seen before: 'Note how Figure 1 does not show the following....'
I just love that. Specially creating a diagram that doesn't show the thing you want to highlight. Hats off to 'em. I'm just hoping this document was intentionally altered to make a harder test. But in these cases there's always the risk that a legitimate document really was genuinely that badly-written. Still, if so, at least I'll have plenty of rewriting work to do.
This page was NOT intentionally left blank, comes to mind :o).
This Page Intentionally Blank
[Software] TPILB has a very good pedigree. It was used extensively in the 1970s when replacement pages for technical manuals had only half the content of the original, resulting in one blank side right where everyone had hitherto been used to finding text. It was a way of avoiding the (then) expensive customer service calls about non-existent missing text that went nowhere. It also meant that the original contents page would still work, mostly, as the page numbering wasn't screwed up by the change. The only alternative would be to reprint the entire chapter from the change onward which would likely prove to be prohibitively expensive. These days, one often sees such material reproduced either electronically, which makes no sense, or on single-sided copies of the original material, which makes sense but is still odd when you come across it.
Tech Speak
[SM] I know, I'm an engineer and at one point in my distant past was responsible for the printing and distribution of technical manual updates (on a subcontract). It still bemuses the uninitiated though.
You Tech the High Road
Ah! Reminds me when I was a technical author myself. I can still take a 20-year-old New World gas cooker to pieces... Just don't ask me to put it together again when I've drawn the pictures.
[Software] Sorry for lecturing the knowledgable.
I think it's spring.
[penelope] Are you loving Holland? Are the tulips growing yet? Have you been overrun by clog-wearing mice?
[SM] Starting to withstand/endure/cope with Holland rather than like it or love it. Still not quite sure what I'm doing here... The tulips are just poking their leaves through in the garden (we're further south than the main tulip-growing areas - there are mostly pear and apple orchards and celeriac fields here), and there are precious few mice, or even rabbits. Apparently the water table is too high for them to dig warrens. But there are lots of hares, herons, some large bird of prey that I have yet to identify, kingfishers (ijsvogels - I've also realised I have a whole new vocabulary of wildlife to learn) and the most interefered-with trees I have ever seen in my life. There is not one tree here that has been allowed to grow accoring to its natural form. Every single tree has been either trimmed, clipped, pollarded, coppiced, brashed or felled. Tree-fiddling is the national obsession.
Clogland
You'll grow to love the place, pen. The south is a bit severe, the Dutch reclaimed most of the land so they do what they like with it. I lived in Nord Holland which is a bit less over-cultivated and the trees are allowed to do tree things, to a degree anyway. I lived in a town called Huizen, my garden used to back on the Ijsselmeer but it is now about 1km away!
[Softers] I take it all back. The invitation to an interview for a promising job which was issued and then witdrawn has been issued again. I'm hopeful once more. More on this later...
Expansionism
[Software] Those Dutch hey? Having given up their world exploits they are now about to invade the Channel by stealth. I shall now make a concerted effort to monitor the Indian and Pacific Oceans; the thought of the whole of Huizen sneaking across to reclaim Van Deimen's Land has my kernees kernocking.
[Dujon] We in Britain have a cunning plan to foil the Dutch takeover by stealth of the North Sea. As they gradually move out to rebuild the land bridge we are simultaneously moving the coast of East Anglia inland. By the time the Dutch catch us up we’ll all be in Dublin.
[penelope] I expect Software is right and that once the fast-relocation shellshock has worn off, the ground turns colours other than brown and you have gainful employment you will wonder why you didn't move years ago.
(INJ) Coastal erosion will see to that anyway, so they say.
Those Darn Dikes
[ImNotJohn] This plan will play merry hell with the old Risk and Diplomacy games. I expect after-market stickers will be available for pre-game coastline reconfiguration.
* waves from Santa Fe *
*twiddles thumbs*
I had an interview yesterday, and did a looong written test today, by email. Now I'm anxiously waiting to hear if I've got a fantastic three-day a week, English speaking/writing job at the university that pays as much as my five-day-a-week not-for-profit job did back in Blighty...
Mmmm. Part-time.
Huisvrouw
I can see you getting used to the lifestyle in Clogland, pen.
Mmmmm....five-day-a-week.
And the rest of the time, I am...
Housework, looking after the windy miller (who does 5 x 12 hour days and all day Saturday at the mill), and some freelance work... Pah!
(pen) 60 hours a week sounds like trubble at mill.
[Rosie] Sounds like a part-time job to me :( *(moan, moan, bleat, whinge etc etc etc ad nauseam until someone points out I chose to do this for a living, and that I get to live in a pub)*
[Phil] Presumably you also have the option to hire someone so that you work fewer hours, but with obvious consequences for your finances.
Welcome to London Heathrow, The World's Most Miserable Airport. I've just been biometrised and hassled at security despite the fact I've been in secure areas for the last twelve hours.
[rab] Yes I could pay someone to some some of the stuff I do. But they wouldn't do it as well as I do. If they did, I wouldn't able to afford them. Also, I enjoy 95% of what I do - especially the quality control :-)
[Phil] I hear you. The windy miller is the same - he takes huge pride in the work that he does (construction project management - and this one is a HUGE project) but being on site to make sure things happen on schedule takes its toll and he's usually too exhausted to do anything on Sunday - which is the only day we have at home together. So much for moving here to spend more time together. Part of my 'job' at the moment is taking care of him, as much as he'll let me. *sigh*
*was in England for three days and thought it was lovely*
* was on Iona and Colonsay for four days and thought they were lovely *
*was in East Grinstead for two hours and thought it was awful*
*is envious of rab*
*was in the Crowne Plaza Buckingham Gate for 2 hours and it was so dull we moved to the Holiday Inn, Oxford Street*
*was at home*
*thought, therefore was*
[CdM] Was what? ;o)
(pen) Cogitavit ergo erat. I dunno.
*just got a phone call telling her she's got the job*
[pen] Congratulations!
*Thought that congratulations were due to Penelope*
*just got a phone call from Job*
belen
Well done.
*Has an idea for a game*
Called "News has come to Harvard": we make up new elements for the periodic table and provide hilarious, surreal or topical explanations of their nature and purpose. Eg:
Excusium: constituent element in whitewash. Frequently used by politicians.
Any support?
rab's phonecall
Is that Job of Old Testament fame?
[Kim] I see! Good title, tidy idea. One on board =)
[Tuj] Thanks. Any against? Where should I slot it?
Luminous silly Kates
(Kim) Go ahead.
Thanks. No slots currently available here or anywhere else. Has "Bent Saws" reached its proverbial, do you think?
Outage
Hello there. I'm going to be taking the site down for a short while for an upgrade.
Outrage
Let's see if that has worked? It seems I've even stopped the galloping slashes this time!
Just saw the Elements game. There is a site that I had bookmarked and only deleted on Friday which is very enjoyable. Apparently now been published as a book - http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/sillymolecules/sillymols.htm - Molecules with Silly Names. Some of them were featured on QI a few years ago.
jdf397dhf
aaaa525zzz
Shh! It's fallen asleep.
shavonda@hotmail.com
suck all the channel on tv sucks badly
Parse the preceding sentence, thoughtfully provided by someone.
Actually, I think the real problem with TV is that most of the channels suck quite well.
Suck all. The channel on TV sucks badly.
It's the voice from the future. When interactive TV is the norm a lonely politician's husband has to get a 'helping hand' when the signal gets a bit fuzzy.
It's the voice from the future. When interactive TV is the norm a lonely politician's husband has to get a 'helping hand' when the signal gets a bit fuzzy.
Suck! All the channel on TV sucks. Badly.
There's usually suck all on TV worth watching anyway.
There's usually suck all on TV worth watching anyway.
Speaking of which, ten days without a move suggests that UK GAZETEER FILM CLUB might have outlived its span. Does anyone have a suggestion for another one?
Six word stories?
"Six word stories?" Simons suggested. Silence.
(No, really, I'd be up for that.)
Six word stories
I was about to suggest that
Six Word Stories
How does it go?
You tell a story in six
Damn! Bad planning on my part
With a short preface (say "Story One", and so on) this could be hatched inside the Eight Moves Game, giving it a kick up the jacksy also.
I love the idea of 'Precisely Eight Words' being bent to stories. I may try that, even if it's not an official diversion... Also, I had an idea the other day for a one-line-at-a-time Gilbert & Sullivan play. Ambitious, but not impossible. Thought I'd run it up the flagpole of the collective.
Good news, bad news.
Hello there. The good news is that the company that provides the disk space and bandwidth this site needs to function is upgrading the capacity of both of them this afternoon, at no charge. The bad news is that this necessitates a change of IP address (the server will be moving from Edinburgh to London).
What this means in practice is that after 4pm BST today, some of you will see the old version, and some of you the new. You'll be able to tell the difference, because you won't be able to post to the old one. It typically takes about 24hours, maybe longer, for the process to complete. Restarting your browser/computer/modem may (or may not) help - it depends on where the old IP addresses are being cached.
Don't be perturbed if the site fails to load for a bit.
Back up
Right, this is back up, but you can only get here if you know how to get here.
First!
Er, second, then
In the medals!
*sour*
Yes, you can tell it's London-hosted now. It just feels so much more... familiar.
(Pj) Aye. Mebbe.
[Projoy] A euphemism for contemptuous?
But is it Sarf of the river, in which case no-one will visit it outside the hours of daylight?
It'll soon be wanting a little cottage in the country for weekends though...
I see the spammers have found the film club - perhaps this is indeed a good point to pull the plug on it.
Eight word stories.
If this is proposed as a new game (perhaps to replace the Film Club) then may I suggest a title?
"A man was born; he lived, then died."
"A man was born; he lived, then died."
A novel in 6 words
If it's going to be eight words, then I'll post my favourite 6-worder here (not mine but can't remember who did write it - though Orson Welles is the name in my head):
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
[INJ] Hemingway.
Another game idea
Tarol Hunt (of goblinscomic.com) has been writing nonsense Twitters, usually of the form 'If I ...' Some of these are worthy of Jack Handy himself: "If I was stung by a bee, it'd better not be a laser bee because those guys are puuuuuure laser." Can we have a go? "If I was a caveman, I probably wouldn't ever say 'Yabba Dabba Doo' unless I was being deeply ironic."
"If I was going to speak, I'd try to be there to hear it. It'd be a pity to miss one after all these years."
this week...
I can't believe no-one has anything to say for a whole weekend! So this week, I'm going to post something in here every day. Monday: Whit Monday public holiday here in the Netherlands, so I'm accompanying the Windy Miller (a veteran of four well-executed restorations of stationary engines - portable and wheelbarrow-sized sources of farmyard power, some of which are almost 100-years old) to the largest exhibition of stationary engines in the country, in Eindhoven. I will come back smelling of kerosene, a bit sunburnt and a bit sooty. In return, I get a day's outing somewhere cultural. I'm lining up the Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and a Tennyson Society thing in England next week.
Eindhoven
[pen] I don't expect that you'll have time to visit the Philips Museum while you are there, but it is worth a shot. No holiday here, that was last week in secular UK. I spent a surprisingly dry and sunny weekend in west Wales, even managed an afternoon on the beach, though the sun failed to hit my Channel Island hardened skin.
Hols
I've been in Scotland for a week, with no access (although I was told that wi-fi at Boat of Garten post office cost 'buttons'). 5 days of mostly showery weather and then a stunning day on Friday, so I left the ladies to go cycling in Abernethy Forest and walked into the heart of the Cairngorms (Loch Avon via the top of Bynack Mor). I now have a nicely-burnt left side to my face - the perils of a circular walk.
Unhols
On the Costa Brava for three days last week, attending a conference held at a hotel on the beach. Wednesday was free, so a colleague and I drove up to see Cadaqués. Came home with a developing cough that took out most of the weekend.
Yet another Game idea - well not really
Some herbert has put something in Carpe Diem - Fish of the Day. It was a good game that ended five years ago and could be worth restarting. Any takers?
[Raak] Not swiney cough, one hopes?
[Rosie] Agree - a cracking game which generated huge chuckleness way back then. I have a hunch that it was the game that spawned Breadmaster's legendary " For pity's sake child ..." and then something about tying down the moons of Jupiter. Anyway, my friend, just thought I'd point out that the same game is currently steaming along in OrangeMC under the title Ubersetzen Sie (add umlaut to first letter) - but if one don't play in there - the information I have imparted is rather irrelevant. :)
[Rosie] Agree - a cracking game which generated huge chuckleness way back then. I have a hunch that it was the game that spawned Breadmaster's legendary " For pity's sake child ..." and then something about tying down the moons of Jupiter. Anyway, my friend, just thought I'd point out that the same game is currently steaming along in OrangeMC under the title Ubersetzen Sie (add umlaut to first letter) - but if one don't play in there - the information I have imparted is rather irrelevant. :)
(Chalky) Let's continue with it on Orange, then, which frankly I'd forgotten about.
[Chalky] No *cough* fever, so *cough* *cough* hopefu*cough*lly not. *cough* *cough* *cough*
Tuesday's events
Tuesday... hmmm... work. Gridlock traffic getting into and out of Rotterdam, too much good coffee trying to stay awake through meetings, and an hour and a half of ironing when I finally got home. Wednesday? Gridlocked traffic again this morning - a 34km drive took an hour and ten minutes, not enough breakfast (have already made a start on my packed lunch an it's only 09.40) but there's the prospect of a proper English haircut with a proper English hairdresser in England on Saturday morning (it means I can actually ask for the haircut I want, rather than have the one the Dutch dameskappers want to give me) so anything is bearable this week. Even another 3mph crawl home this evening.
Saw Holland (well, bits of it) on the TV last night in an advert. It looked frenetic.
(penelope, Re: Ironing) Can't you just feed the clothes through the millstone?
(penelope, Re: Ironing) Can't you just feed the clothes through the millstone?
ironmilling
[SM] Nice idea, but the milling faces of millstones are designed for cutting and shearing the grains, not merely crushing them, so you'd have to piece together the shreds of clothing afterwards. More trouble than it's worth really. The drive home this evening was only 45 minutes - the best time for a week now. Some bits of Holland are frenetic. Luckily, I live in a nice rural bit :o)
freneticism
(pen) I thought the Dutch were sort of stoic.
[Rosie] Yeah, but they drive ruthlessly on the motorways in their Calvinistic rush to be at home being stoic.
Green ironing
What you need is not a grain mill, but an olive press. Of course it would be hard to get the oil stains out afterwards, but you could definitely get a good crease in those underpants. That would have the additional advantage of being drivable by donkey-power, so you could iron on a windless day.
donkeyfarts
[INJ] I don't understand how you can control the donkey's flatulence so accurately.
Donkey Flatulence
(penelope) I think you just have to stop them eating the mashed olives.
* waves from Haifa *
* waves from Rehovot *
mashed olives
All the more for me. *parp* Oh, I beg your pardon.
That small interval has probably cleared the air. Is anyone left standing?
*parp* That's the last one, I promise.
*Has just got the hang of doing that small writing everyone else does, as opposed to this one which isn't quite as small*... Just thought I'd mention.
[Simons Mith] Was Silveo the bloke who fell under a bus whilst wearing clean underpants? ;)
* waves from Aberdeen *
*waves from Hamsey Green*
It's a wonderful little place, full of houses and things.
*waves from West End Live 7 hours ago*
*waves from Zuid Holland*
Flat and slightly rainy this morning, but still very green and pleasant.
* Waves from his office *
Another week begins, nothing particularly pleasant to report.
*Waves from Barking*
...or perhaps he's drowning...
paging Mr Raak, paging Mr Raak
Please proceed to the AVMA game, where a task is waiting for you.
I think CdM broke the tannoy with that announcement. No-one has said anything since.
Quite quiet.
Something for the weekend.
In the tradition of this place, may I announce that I am going to the Derbyshire County Show on Sunday - usually good fun and only 30 minutes' walk away. Tickets already bought, so let's hope the weather holds.
iets voor het weekend
I am doing the usual this weekend; to the mill tomorrow morning, hanging about, drinking coffee, but remarkably there's no laundry to do as I made a sustained affort during the week to get it all out of the way. I have even stowed away the washing line. On Sunday, I'd like to go for a bike ride [destinatioin: ice cream] but it's a bit weather dependent.
phom ja yuu tii meuang thai wan sao wan athit nii
*hanging out in Thailand*
Please take a moment to mourn with me the passing of a true star, a consummate performer, an icon who shot to fame in the 1970's, became a pin-up for a generation and who touched the groins of millions of young boys around the world. Rest in peace, Farrah Fawcett.
(Kim) Was she a tap dancer?
* waves from Bremen *
Very foggy here in Zuid Holland this morning. The splendid view of downtown Rotterdam from my office window is quite obscured.
foggy
[pen] same here and very hot and humid. Promising a nice sunny day later, pity I'm in the office :o(.
Expecting the first thunderstorm (in Nederlands 'onweer' - unweather, like 'onkruid' is un-plant or un-herb, ie a weed) about 4pm this afternoon. I can't wait! It was 22 degrees overnight here, more than I would like to get accustomed to.
muggy
Unpleasant in the Midlands today. 10/10 cloud, humid, occasional spits of rain, but not enough for the plants. It's Mrs INJ's fault, she's going to a barbecue tonight.
humid
Well, a few days ago I was in mid 30s and humid; and now I'm back in Melbourne where it's much the same, except in Fahrenheit.
tithes
(INJ) Ten tenths? When I was in the Met Office in the '60's some of the old farts would occasionally let slip a phrase like that but it's been eighths (oktas) for over 50 years largely because it can be coded as a single digit for transmission. (9 = sky obscured by fog or heavy snow, BTW). Thank You For Making Me Feel Young.
gratitude
Hello, England. Thank you for everything. Love, U.S.A.
Is it fireworks night already even?
Sorry. Cup of tea anyone?
Cordiality
(Juxt) OK. Thanks for giving us jazz. And Tom & Jerry.
(Duj) The only piece of Australiana I have is a home-made boomerang (Specifications in New Scientist 1974.) It's big and doesn't half go but has to be thrown left-handed. They're not symmetrical.
(Duj) The only piece of Australiana I have is a home-made boomerang (Specifications in New Scientist 1974.) It's big and doesn't half go but has to be thrown left-handed. They're not symmetrical.
Charlie Drake
[Rosie] I have found that turning them upside down usually helps. Then again I'm no expert any more than I'm a left handed sort of a bloke. Keep in mind, Rosie, that the heavier boomerangs were not designed to return but to stay in the air long enough to knock the noggins of the target.
* Waves from Ambleside *
[rab] Didn't realize the lakes were so stormy ;o)
*Hail to you all from Surrey*
Not too nice down here either. (Softers) Good science.
Zero degrees here. *throws snowball at morniverse*
(CdM) Where are you at the moment?
[Rosie] -37.15; 146.43
*sends birthday cake to Zuid Holland*
*receives grease-stained envelope containing strange hard lump in the post* ;o)
* blows candle out before putting in envelope addresses to Zuid Holland*
Coordinates
(CdM) Not surprised it's snowy up Mount Buller. An assumption, of course, because you have quite unforgivably omitted the ρ-coordinate, which I take to be 6378137 + 1805 m. Greetings, anyway, from 51.32; -0.06, 6378306 m.
The what now?
So "on the surface of the earth" is not the default, then. :-)
3-dimensionality and further pedantry
(CdM) Yeah, OK. Equally, I have committed the unpardonable sin of assuming the earth's radius is constant at all latitudes, which is not true. The polar radius is 21.4 km less than the equatorial radius. It's uphill to the equator.
was in Newcastle but isn't any more.
[Knobbly] Ditto
*waves from a day off - at long last*
*was in Snowdonia but has now returned home*
*belated wave from Llanberis*
* Future wave from Wiltshire *
I'll be off line for a week.
[Phil] Isn't that odd? I was there to sing in a concert in The Sage. I don't suppose you were too...
[Knobbly] Alas, The Sage wasn't built when I was there. I left in 1977 :-(
[Phil] Ah... I got the wrong end of the thingummy.
[Knobbly] ...which I deliberately proffered to you. Apols for a cheap stunt :-)
(Phil) Cunning, too.
*waves from Strasbourg*
* waves from Stroud *
cross-posted
Impromptu mini-virtual pilg in the MCiOS chat room a little while ago was greatly enjoyed by flerdle, nfras, Néa, nat and, briefly, Phil. These last two days I seem to have been able to "stay alive" in there for hours at a time (not zombie-ify like it used to - losing the connection somehow), so why not drop in, hang around for a while and see who turns up?
nfras mentioned that monday and thursday evenings (our times - about 11am UK time in summer) are likely for him, and I can try that too. UK nights, late, might be a possibility in the winter. Doesn't have to be formal, or lots of people. Suggest-o-matic!
[flerdle] Was that a specific invitation to nights and me? :-)
You probly think this song is about you...
[Uncle Korky] The more the merrier! :-)
[UK] First time I read "UK" in flerdle's post I thought of you rather than the country I'm in - the rampant effect of context I assume!
[Tuj] Similarly, I wondered what flerdle might want with me late, possibly in the winter. Moving swiftly along.
It seems MCiOS is down.
[Rosie] It was probably asleep like everyone else at that time of night ;o)
I went to MC5 today; it was shut.
It's up but I rarely go there anyway.
Is everyone on holiday? Everyone here in NL is on hols - there's no traffic on the motorways and I can leave home for work 20 minutes later than normal. But the weather here has been lovely (if a little hot at times) and the mosquito population is thriving in the dykes :o(
Factory holidays, love 'em. When I lived in Hilversum it was the same. I was required to take only 2 weeks during July/August which meant that trips to the coast were really easy on the weekends.
Back at work
Well - I've been on holiday for 11 days, but nothing's changed. Can I go away again?
[INJ] If when you come back your desk is still there, then it's a result. Quit complaining.
Yes, but
[Softers] I was borrowing a desk when I went on holiday. I came back to find everyone else had moved to a different building, but my monitor and docking station hadn't been moved. I don't know if that's a result or not - given that something usually gets lost if you let 'facilities' move it for you.
And furthermore
(Softers) I always regard it as a result if on returning to my car after the pub I find it is still there. On only one occasion has this not been the case and it was recovered about 6 hours later with a seriously damaged steering lock.
[INJ] That little remark is a great example of life mimicking art - have you seen the film 'Office Space'? Just beware when your desk is moved to the basement.
Or the men's room.
pssst... anyone here?
Not me...
...busy listening to the cricket.
Ah, it's finished now. I'm here then. Anyone else?
I am but I'm just about to go out for a summer evening walk. And maybe a beer on the way back.
Back now. What have I missed?
*Waves from Thun*
[Kim] Don't fall off any Alps.
I haven't been abroad for years and years. Which is green of me, I suppose, but dull.
lPTVUPFN
Hi! RjdBkz
Just back from the North York Moors - staying in a cottage belonging to friends. End of a multiply-gated track a mile from the road, no phone, no TV, nearest pub or shops half an hour away. No choice but to relax.
*down from alps*
This is just to say that, if anyone has any new game ideas, I am not averse to the closure of the Harvard game. A month has passed since any new elements were discovered there. Some clever person might come up with an element that incorporates the winning move.
New Game
"Late For The Ball"? I always enjoyed that on "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue".
North York Moors
[ImNotJohn] Batteries went dead in the old PPS then?
Can I just say that the Tesco's 'Three Bean Salad' represents excellent value for money? The one I just ate contained more like two hundred beans in it rather than just three.
Whereas I just had Thousand Island dressing on my salad and there wasn't a single island in it as far as I could tell.
[SMs] Skim-reading I thought Sierra Mike had quadruple-posted! But you both made me smile.
Server issues
Hello there. I'm occasionally finding that this site doesn't load - I get a 'cannot connect to the website' message (or 'connection refused'), despite the fact that as far as I know, the server is running properly at the remote end. This has happened to me from two different networks, so I'd be interested to know if anyone else is experiencing this before I investigate further. It's quite sporadic, so you may not notice anything amiss.
Connection refused
I'm seeing it. About 15% of the time, at a guess.
Me too.
Right - that points to some kind of server problem.
I've seen it as well, in the last week.
Me too, occasionally, recently.
Support tell me it should now be fixed. Let me know if it happens again.
No problem this morning. I'm here, aren't I?
Not bitter
I've got a bottle of Angostura bitters. With roughly four dashes used so far, which leaves about a millennium's supply remaining. Does anyone actually use this stuff?? If so, what for? And how often? I'm wondering if Mr Angostura and company have a real racket going here, or if they're actually doing themselves a disservice by selling their customers centuries worth of their product in a single hit. Perhaps their sales would be better if they sold it in the same size bottle as, say, Tabasco or something. Just idle speculation as the chat here seems otherwise quiet…
(SM) It's like pepper. Get a jar of it and it lasts for ever. I had a girlfriend who was very keen on the said bitters whereas I preferred bitter. I had a sip of her drink once - it was vile.
[SM] Have you got a bottle of gin handy? Add a couple of dashes to a G & T and you get pink gin. Used to be very popular in the '60s when I used to work behind a bar.
Pink gin
Gin could be arranged, although it's not something I normally drink. But plainly I could buy a couple of crates of gin and the bitters would still outlast them. And a bottle of gin would lakst me 3-6 months. Y'know, I was viewing using up this bottle of bitters as a challenge, but unless I really go for it, which is sort of cheating, I don't think I'm going to manage it in my remaining lifespan.
Pink gin and water is also nice. 2 or 3 drops added to a ginger beer is one of my favourite very, very low alcohol drinks. Oh, and one of the several versions of rock shandy is 50/50 ginger ale and soda water, with a few drops of bitters.
A bit of searching and I've found culinary uses at this site
A bit of searching and I've found culinary uses at this site
Bitters added to lemonade cuts some of the sweetness and makes a nice summer garden drink.
gin clear
Is it any good for cleaning shower heads?
[pen] Only if it can dissolve the dead spiders.
That 'Shakespeare in Crescent' game we've just had brought to our notice was pretty good. We must do that again.
[Simons Mith] When I was a student, one of the drinks of choice at the time was a long vodka which consisted of a few drops of bitters smeared round a highball glass, ice, a shot of vodka, a dash of lime and topped up with soda water. A bit girly but very drinkable.
Poncy booze
(nfras) How does that help achieve the main objective of student drinking which is to get pissed as quickly and cheaply as possible, then as now?
[INJ] I'll second anything in iambic pentameter!
[Rosie] Well, it's a cheap drink. No charge for bitters or soda, normally. When my dad was in the Royal Navy, it was traditional for midshipmen, and some other low-ranking officers, to drink pink gin, as all you paid for was the gin - hence it was the cheapest drink in the Officers' Mess - because midshipmen were so lowly paid.
(Phil) Didn't they have grog? Maybe not often enough. When I was a student we only drank spirits if we were deliberately trying to get as pissed as possible because in those days a shot of spirits was nearly twice the price of a pint of beer. In today's money I'd estimate the prices as £2 and £3.50.
When I was at Uni (mid-late 90s) my University Union used to do a happy hour. 50p a pint (the usual price at the time in a pub was £1-£1.25 depending on the brand). At about quarter to seven you'd see the bar packed with students buying 4 or 6 pints at a time. They would take them back to their table and drink them over the next couple of hours. You might think that the beer tasted awful after sitting in a glass for over an hour, and you'd be right. But it was cheap.
[Rosie] Yes, they did have rum until July 1970 (one eighth of a pint per day), which I think was issued as two-water grog (watered-down 2 parts water to 1 part rum). Pusser's Rum has been made since about 1980 to the old Admiralty recipe and a donation goes to the Royal Navy Sailor's Fund from every bottle sold. I have some of the blue label, bottled at 54%abv, and it's quite a fierce nip if you don't water it down at all.
However, when the officers gathered for a social in their mess, the poor midshipmen (officer cadets, essentially) would have to join in, and behave like an officer, while on a phenomenally meagre wage, hence the most popular cheap, "sophisticated" drink for them (i.e. not neat spirits or beer) was pink gin.
However, when the officers gathered for a social in their mess, the poor midshipmen (officer cadets, essentially) would have to join in, and behave like an officer, while on a phenomenally meagre wage, hence the most popular cheap, "sophisticated" drink for them (i.e. not neat spirits or beer) was pink gin.
Naval drinks
[Phil] You may have just enlightened me. I've heard my father (who was in the Navy), talk about 'Pussers Kai'. I thought, in the context, it was cocoa with a slug of rum. This now looks likely and a quick google supports that. However this was a long time before 1980.
According to a relative, the grog ration, at least for the CPOs, was issued as a mess bar credit in the 60s and 70s.
"Mug of Kye, Sir?"
[INJ] Ah, Kye (the spelling I've grown up with)! I've found some web sites that describe it as thick cocoa made with condensed milk, but according to my RN dad, it was cocoa made with water and no milk at all. As he's a hardy soul, that's still how my dad makes cocoa. It takes some getting used to, but it's OK.
Did the disappearance from the Tube Map of the River Thames pass unnoticed within the Morningverse?
[Kim] Why do you think it was re-instated so quickly? Of course Boris took the credit, but we have our people in the right places.
It is believed that the disappearance was as as a result of a misfiled email from one of CAMREC's more obscure sub-committees which was looking at the possible effects of global warming on the great game. That, together with an excess of zeal in the TfL publications department caused this somewhat embarrassing episode.
No long-term harm done, although there has been an official protest against the result of the Harlesden MCC vs Leytonstone Strilers 3rd Division top of the table clash on Tuesday evening. Rodney (Bridges Up!) Spurlington, lost his board 3 clash against the up-and-coming Shane Clotswold and blamed it on an inability to use the tactic which earned him his nickname. This one could run and run.
It is believed that the disappearance was as as a result of a misfiled email from one of CAMREC's more obscure sub-committees which was looking at the possible effects of global warming on the great game. That, together with an excess of zeal in the TfL publications department caused this somewhat embarrassing episode.
No long-term harm done, although there has been an official protest against the result of the Harlesden MCC vs Leytonstone Strilers 3rd Division top of the table clash on Tuesday evening. Rodney (Bridges Up!) Spurlington, lost his board 3 clash against the up-and-coming Shane Clotswold and blamed it on an inability to use the tactic which earned him his nickname. This one could run and run.
CAMREC?
I googled CAMREC but nothing I got there deciphered the acronym in a meaningful context (which I assume is involved with games of Mornington Crescent). Could someone let me in on what it stands for? I very rarely get to listen to I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, so if I'm asking about something well-known I apologise for not having the faintest. Thanks.
What is CAMREC
[SM] You need the Encylopaedia Morningtonia
*waves from Vancouver*. Where I have been talking about eggs. As one does.
[CdM] Olé
Or, to steal a prior joke of Dan's, perhaps that should have been *huevos from Vancouver*
(CdM) Can't follow that. Nor, it seems, can anyone else as it has now been a week.
To be fair, Rosie, I've been away!! I feels sometimes I chitter incessantly on here...
I was thinking of a new game: Wizards' Duel. You have two teams of wizards. In order to make a move you must change shape into a creature or thing that beats, defeats or otherwise trumps whetever the other side has just changed into. So you might get a sequence like
Wizards: Elephant
Witches: Mouse
Wizards: Cat
Witches: Dog
Wizards: B - A - T - H
Witches: Telephone
at which point I have to admit I'm stumped so presumably the witches win that round. We'd have to kill off news Has Come to Harvard, but I believe that game's only hanging on while we await a replacement anyway.
[SM] Done.
[pen] Anywhere nice/interesting?
Normandie sur mer
[Softers] Down the coast - eating our way around Normandy! Marvellous thank you - perfect weather too.
[pen] Watch out for those dodgy moules ;o)
Am I the only person in the world who doesn't like seafood? I love fish, but if it comes out of the sea it's got to have a backbone if I'm going to eat it. The windy miller is the same. I wish I did like seafood, because so many other people seem to enjoy it so much.
[pen] Shame, the French love their moule et frites and it is standard fare everywhere.
Marine mouthfuls
(pen, Raak) With you on that. I'd rather eat Co-op Fish Fingers, let alone the real thing, than fancy stuff you have to pick at. What other people like doesn't bother me; I'm not a social eater, or a particularly elegant one.
Something fishy
[Raak & penelope & Software] I have tried eating (or swallowing) oysters but, regrettably, have yet to manage ingesting one. The same applies to asparagus. I suspect that it's something to do with the smell of them but have no solid evidence to support the hypothesis.
[Rosie] Whilst I do like fish meals, at least the ones I cook myself, I find they become cold long before I've managed to scoff the lot. When it comes to fine-boned fish I tend to your approach as it really is, unless one is starving, not worth the effort.
[All] Don't get me started on calamari. Maybe it is my aging teeth or the manner in which the samples to which I have been subjected have been cooked, but I'd rather try to eat a standard primary school 'rubber'.
[Rosie] Whilst I do like fish meals, at least the ones I cook myself, I find they become cold long before I've managed to scoff the lot. When it comes to fine-boned fish I tend to your approach as it really is, unless one is starving, not worth the effort.
[All] Don't get me started on calamari. Maybe it is my aging teeth or the manner in which the samples to which I have been subjected have been cooked, but I'd rather try to eat a standard primary school 'rubber'.
Swimmingly
[Duj] Ditto calamari. It's just fried rubber bands, innit? And Aspragus... anything that makes your wee smell so bad can't be good for you, can it? Sadly, the Dutch here go a bundle over it, and I have to eat it to be polite. What's worse, they like the fat, white ones that have lived in the dark (like forced rhubarb), which are bigger than the small green shoots you get in Engeland.
Rhubarb, on the other hand, treated the proper way (plenty of sugar, and paired with either ginger or strawberries) is yummy. Fooled, crumbled or just stewed.
Rhubarb, on the other hand, treated the proper way (plenty of sugar, and paired with either ginger or strawberries) is yummy. Fooled, crumbled or just stewed.
Stinky wee
[pen] Asparagus does have that strange effect but it is delicious. But I am with you all the way with rhubarb as long as there is cream, ice cream (the Belgian/Dutch way) or custard.
I have eaten plenty of asparagus, but I don't sniff my wee, so I've never noticed the oft-claimed effect.
Calamari (or squid, if we're not going to be all precious about it) is blummin' gorgeous in my opinion. Deep fried in a light batter (50/50 self-rasing and cornflour), it should be light and lovely. If it's rubbery it has been over-cooked.
I've had oysters, but I'm not as impressed as I thought I ought to be. Sweetbreads though are another contentious foodstuff that I love.
Calamari (or squid, if we're not going to be all precious about it) is blummin' gorgeous in my opinion. Deep fried in a light batter (50/50 self-rasing and cornflour), it should be light and lovely. If it's rubbery it has been over-cooked.
I've had oysters, but I'm not as impressed as I thought I ought to be. Sweetbreads though are another contentious foodstuff that I love.
I have seen oysters eaten, whole and raw. That's quite enough for me.
Oysters
Are overrated in my opinion. Back in the 19th century they were poor peoples food.
I'm with Phil on this. Asparagus - delicious when fresh and in season (and the after-odour isn't that unpleasant or strong IMO). Calamari - rubbery = overcooked, properly cooked and fresh they almost melt and taste lovely. Oysters - nice - taste of the sea - but too expensive for what they are. In fact I like most molluscs and crustacea (though it's hard to do much with whelks).
We need to take some lessons from the chinese - Sour is as good a flavour as sweet and slimy is as good a mouth sensation as crunchy - just different.
We need to take some lessons from the chinese - Sour is as good a flavour as sweet and slimy is as good a mouth sensation as crunchy - just different.
[INJ] Have you tried sour beers (i.e. Belgian Lambics)? Fantastic once you eradicate the "beer shouldn't be sour" conditioning from your head.
Aerial oxidation
(Phil) How does that differ in principle from eradicating the "butter shouldn't be rancid" conditioning from your head? Sour beer tastes awful, like vinegar, which is what it is, at least partly.
[Rosie] Start with something like Hoegarden which is a wheat beer and has a slightly sour note. It's made with a sort of wheat porridge that gives it a great cloudy appearance and the orange and cardamon notes give it a spicy aroma. Once you have developed a taste for that the leap to things like the Lambics is not so great.
[Phil et al] I am rather partial to Franziskaner on a warm day. This is a wheat beer with an interesting smoky flavour. In fact around Munich there are many microbreweries that offer similar smoky beers.
Purveyors of sour beer
[Phil] I don't think I've tried Lambics. I've had plenty of wheat beers, including Hoegaarden and don't mind the slight sour edge to them. Whether I'd like anything further down that line will have to be determined by experiment.
BTW if you're ever in Derby you might like to visit what used to be a fairly unpleasant and run-down pub called 'The Royal Standard', now taken over by CAMRA and revived as The Brewery Tap. At quiet times they do a 'tasting tray' consisting of 3 or 4 different beers - about 1/3 pint of each.
On which thought, will you be serving in 2/3 pint measures?
BTW if you're ever in Derby you might like to visit what used to be a fairly unpleasant and run-down pub called 'The Royal Standard', now taken over by CAMRA and revived as The Brewery Tap. At quiet times they do a 'tasting tray' consisting of 3 or 4 different beers - about 1/3 pint of each.
On which thought, will you be serving in 2/3 pint measures?
[Rosie] Think of sour sweets, like fizzy-cola-bottle-type things. Or a really crisp granny smith apple. That sort of sour, not vinegar. I have a few bottles of Mort Subite Gueuze (which is a fairly easy entry point to the world of lambics) lying around, and may have one with my dinner tonight, now that my mind is on the subject.
[Software] Have you ever tried the Bamberg-brewed Schlenkerla Rauchbier. "Smoky" would be a massive understatement for it. Again, a shocking flavour and aroma at first, but it is truly wonderful once you get past that.
[CdM] A pub run by CAMRA? I shudder to think. It reminds me of the car that Homer Simpson designed.
More seriously, I hope their tasting tray is exactly a third of a pint of each (unlike the glasses CAMRA provided at the Derby beer festival, and at least one other I know of, where the third-pint line was at 0.3pints, instead of 0.33pints, meaning CAMRA themselves were selling 10% short measures). And I shan't be bothering with stocking 2/3pt glasses, if the legislation ever comes in. I don't do 1/3pt at present anyway, but 2/3 just seems silly to me.
[CdM] A pub run by CAMRA? I shudder to think. It reminds me of the car that Homer Simpson designed.
More seriously, I hope their tasting tray is exactly a third of a pint of each (unlike the glasses CAMRA provided at the Derby beer festival, and at least one other I know of, where the third-pint line was at 0.3pints, instead of 0.33pints, meaning CAMRA themselves were selling 10% short measures). And I shan't be bothering with stocking 2/3pt glasses, if the legislation ever comes in. I don't do 1/3pt at present anyway, but 2/3 just seems silly to me.
(Phil) Aye, mebbe. I've had sour beer once or twice, the difference being it had gone off as opposed to being deliberately sour.
[Phil] I've not tried the Bamberg but it sounds interesting. Why does the government not grasp the bull by the horns and dump all imperial measures for good and just get on with what was started half-heartedly 40 years ago.
[Software] If we abandon the pint, what measures would you permit, or would you allow any size measure to be used?
[Phil] 25cl, 33cl, 50cl 1l
Hello again everybody. Turns out that I'd totally forgotten how to operate a keyboard. How are we all?
[INJ] I can appreciate your thinking, although I think a litre is a bit big for responsible consumption of draught beer. I don't want the law to change for a few reasons. One of which is that I seem resistant to change in general and I "like" pints. Also, I'll (probably) have to re-stock all my beer glasses, which could cost me over 500 quid.
It's currently a little frustrating that I can't sell a pint or half-pint of lemonade. I can sell a "large" or "small" lemonade, in pint and half-pint glasses. Or I can sell "568ml" or "284ml" in the same glasses. As far as I know, only beer, cider and milk can be legally be sold in pints in the UK, although there is no such restriction throughout the rest of Europe, where it is perfectly legal to use Imperial measures for anything.
Curiously "shandy and any other beverage of which beer is a constituent part" counts as beer for the Weights and Measures (Beer and Cider) Act 1998. So anything with a bit of draught beer in it, should be served in thirds or multiples of halves. How odd. I have in mind things like the Irish method of serving a Black Russian (with a Guinness head on it). Sorry, I've started thinking out loud now.
It's currently a little frustrating that I can't sell a pint or half-pint of lemonade. I can sell a "large" or "small" lemonade, in pint and half-pint glasses. Or I can sell "568ml" or "284ml" in the same glasses. As far as I know, only beer, cider and milk can be legally be sold in pints in the UK, although there is no such restriction throughout the rest of Europe, where it is perfectly legal to use Imperial measures for anything.
Curiously "shandy and any other beverage of which beer is a constituent part" counts as beer for the Weights and Measures (Beer and Cider) Act 1998. So anything with a bit of draught beer in it, should be served in thirds or multiples of halves. How odd. I have in mind things like the Irish method of serving a Black Russian (with a Guinness head on it). Sorry, I've started thinking out loud now.
How rude
[nights] Hi ! :-)
[Phil] I did not say abandon the pint glass in pubs, the continentals do use them but you never actually get a pint in them - they do like their froth. What I was alluding to was the indecision of whether we are a metric or imperial nation. At the moment it is a=half cocked with some things sold in imperial and some in metric (metric martyrs in the marketplace for example). There needs to be clear leadership. As for selling liquids in taverns the UK still has a half-cocked approach. Spirits are metric; beer is imperial. While I agree that spirits should be sold in standard sizes (many continentals have a relaxed view on what constitutes a measure) I think that draught beer could be sold in whatever size glass that the licensee chooses - provided that it is priced accordingly and clearly stated.
Softers) Uniformity of units is not necessary except to the tidy-minded. All you need to know is what you're getting and for all users to be familiar with those units. A pub that sold beer in metric units would very likely lose a lot of customers. If it is not necessary to change it is necessary not to change. A pint glass of whatever style is a very familiar object (shut up at the back). This keeps people happier except for the aforesaid tidy-minded commitee members and they are very few in number. Actually we should use cubic attoparsecs (19.34 to the pint).
I've written about this before, but beer sizes in Australia are weird and wonderful.
In Melbourne the standard drink is a pot, which is 285ml. In Sydney this same measure is called a middy, in Hobart a ten and in Darwin a handle, while in Adelaide it is called a schooner (or even an up-sized schooner as the old schooner was 255ml or 9 fl oz), however, asking for a schooner in any other city will get you 425ml. If you want 425ml in Adelaide you will need to ask for a pint, but if you ask for a pint in any other city you get 570ml. To get this size of drink in Adelaide you need to ask for an Imperial Pint. In Darwin and north Queensland (where men are men and sheep are worried) you also get a 7, which is 200ml (probably because a small measure of beer stays cold, while a big beer goes warm over time - not because they like drinking girl sizes).
It makes travelling in Australia more adventurous.
In Melbourne the standard drink is a pot, which is 285ml. In Sydney this same measure is called a middy, in Hobart a ten and in Darwin a handle, while in Adelaide it is called a schooner (or even an up-sized schooner as the old schooner was 255ml or 9 fl oz), however, asking for a schooner in any other city will get you 425ml. If you want 425ml in Adelaide you will need to ask for a pint, but if you ask for a pint in any other city you get 570ml. To get this size of drink in Adelaide you need to ask for an Imperial Pint. In Darwin and north Queensland (where men are men and sheep are worried) you also get a 7, which is 200ml (probably because a small measure of beer stays cold, while a big beer goes warm over time - not because they like drinking girl sizes).
It makes travelling in Australia more adventurous.
Physics
(nfras) How can a small measure stay colder for longer than a large one? It doesn't; you drink it quicker. The small Queensland measures wouldn't go down too well in Carshalton (London Borough of Sutton) where not only are men men but women are as well.
[Rosie] He didn't say it stays colder for longer. He said it "stays cold" -- presumably for the period while you're drinking it. And there's no assumption that you drink it quicker; you drink it at the same rate :-) </outpedanting>
Blinks
[Phil] Is it really true that our friends on the continent can use imperial measures? I'd not heard that before, but I can believe it on the general observation that UK governments tend to believe that they must follow EU rules, whereas other European governments (notably France and Germany) know that nothing bad will happen if they don't.
I saw the moons of Jupiter last night, and very nice they were too - four of them, strung out in a line... didn't appear to be tied down at all...
[rab] It is UK legislation that has specifically outlawed imperial measures. There is no specific EU legislation to the same effect. So it is not the case that France and Germany et al have not applied EU legislation to the same extent as the UK, but that we have created extra legislation to deal with our own indecision.
This is what I have been told by someone I believe. I await correction though :-)
This is what I have been told by someone I believe. I await correction though :-)
Pint
[Rosie] It would make no difference if beer were sold in either provided they were uniform and priced pro rata. Anyway, it would give unscrupulous barmen/maids the opportunity to short measure even more. [Phil/Rosie] my rant was about the indecision of government to go properly metric. Selling beer is pretty small beer (if you excuse the pun) it is the other nonsense that gets to me. Supermarket solids packaged in metric, liquid sold in imperial; Petrol sold in litres; building standards metric, distances measured in miles; temperature still given in Fahrenheit as well as Centigrade; metric taught at school and public weighing machines in imperial (my son was taught metric at school and does not understand pounds and ounces); the list of confusion goes on.
Furlong/elephant/fortnight
(Softers) Internally, railways still use chains and I don't mean the bit joining old loose-coupled goods wagons. I think we should remain Imperial because the words are part of the language and culture. Sixteen tonnes and what do you get? Deserved mockery.
[Software] Deep down, I know that standardisation is right, but I just simply love old Imperial measures (and coinage). A friend of mine who runs a flower wholesale outlet spent an entire day last week quoting all prices in old money, for fun. He didn't restrict himself to pounds, shillings and pence, oh no...tanners, florins, guineas, crowns, half-crowns and farthings were all brought into play. It made his day go by much faster.
There's a wonderful list of unusual units of measurement at one of my favourite websites, Phrontistery, which includes the dalton, the darcy, the footlambert and the face-cord. For sheer frivolity, I try to incorporate some of the words from that site into conversation, so I think it's quite easy to see why I want to cling on to Imperial measures.
There's a wonderful list of unusual units of measurement at one of my favourite websites, Phrontistery, which includes the dalton, the darcy, the footlambert and the face-cord. For sheer frivolity, I try to incorporate some of the words from that site into conversation, so I think it's quite easy to see why I want to cling on to Imperial measures.
My thrupence-worth
My infant school, which was attached to the junior school I also attended (built in the 60s, I think) had a hall shaped like a 'thrupenny bit' and was known locally, for a time as 'The Thrupenny Bit School' to differentiate it from the junior school buildings, although there's no reference to it on Google, as far as I can find. It was Lacey Gardens Infant School, if anyone is interested...
[Rosie/Phil] Despite over two centuries of metrication the French still use old measures if you are worried about their eradication from the culture. They often use puce for inch, livre for pound (weight) and of course the demi for a half (pint).
[Software] Indeed, on a few occasions in France I've forgotten about that and have asked for a demi when I wanted a half-litre of beer.
(Softers) I know. Did you mean pouce? :-)
[Rosie] Oui.
Threp'ny Bit
[penelope] A pre WWII threepenny bit, or a post-blackout one?
Dodecagons
(SM) Few people, even of my age, have seen the silver threepenny bit. I was once given one as change by a bus conductor about 1953 but had to spend it to get home, or walk two miles. I have found another one (1920) in my heap of old coins. They're tiddlers, 5/8" across. The chunky version was around in 1940, as I have one, and two more from the sixties. They're nice. Equivalent in the fifties to about 30p in today's money.
Ag 3d
My mum used to have a few for sprinkling in the Christmas pud; although I can't remember ever seeing them in circulation. Here in the Channel Islands we had our own 3d bits. In Guernsey they were nickel silver with a scalloped edge and in Jersey they were round. The latter reason was why we never had 3d slots on our pay-on-answer paypghones.
Another broken tooth
I can just recall the silver threepenny bit in the Christmas pudding, but I think they'd all been lost by my adolescence. I don't know about the buying power of the dodecagonal version, but I can remember being able to buy a poke of chips for 3d around 1960.
Boose fare? Ye 'ad boose fare?
I'm pretty sure I remember seeing a silver 1.25p piece when I was very young, but I don't think we still had them for the Christmas pudding. I expect INJ had eaten them all.
CdM, you just made milk come out of my nose. I wouldn't have minded so much, but some of the cornflakes I was eating as I read took the same route.
[SM] I'm re-assured that you were eating cornflakes at the time. I'd be worried if this was a phenomenon that could occur spontaneously.
*wanders out into the back garden with a book and a drink*
Finally, we are getting some warm weather. Well, warmish: 21°. Yay sun.
Autumnal evening classes...
My first Dutch lesson tonight, with a new teacher. This batch should be more effective than the first lot, which I did when I was still in England and not hearing Dutch every day.
(pen) How are your gghhhutterals?
gggghhhastly
[Rosie] Loosening up nicely. All I need really is a heavy cold.
A propos something else, I think I just persuaded the global director of Shell to stand in front of my video camera and give me his opinion on ethical management. My job amazes me sometimes.
A propos something else, I think I just persuaded the global director of Shell to stand in front of my video camera and give me his opinion on ethical management. My job amazes me sometimes.
(pen) Do they give you a Welsh primer? If you can pronounce Machynlleth correctly you will have problem with any language anywhere in the known Universe, except possibly Xhosa and Scouse.
Cockup
"problem" = "no problem"
prrrroblems
[Rosie] The trouble with Machynlleth (with the lisping 'L' like Sister Wendy's, is that right?) is there is no R in it. In Dutch, the Gs are gagging, as are the aitches, the Rs are rolled, the emphasis comes just about every other syllable and there are usually at least five syllables per word. Nouns like 'verzekering' (insurance, with the emphasis on the 'zek', pron. 'zay') are compounded from all kinds of words mulched together. It all takes an awful lot of effort for a poor Anglo-Saxon speaking accustomed to putting together one syllable at a time.
cok op
speaking = speaker, toch?
Gegokoop
[pen] When I worked in Hilversum my team leader used to speak Dutch with a Cockney accent. He got by, though - even married a nice Dutch lady.
(pen) Maybe Welsh not the best idea, then, though the gutturals are splendid. Try chwech ( = six). Vowel is "ä." The Welsh "r" and the breathy unvoiced "rh" are rolled but too short and front-of mouth for Dutch, if my hearing is correct. Isn't the Dutch "v" often pronounced "f"? In Welsh the "f" is always pronounced "v". Not much help there, then.
Couldn't hear any double-L in Sister Wendy's speech. It's a non-plosive hiss from the sides of the tongue about halfway back ("voiceless lateral fricative" apparently). Don't spoil it by following it with an ordinary "L". Dead easy. :-)
Couldn't hear any double-L in Sister Wendy's speech. It's a non-plosive hiss from the sides of the tongue about halfway back ("voiceless lateral fricative" apparently). Don't spoil it by following it with an ordinary "L". Dead easy. :-)
*wipes keyboard with damp cloth*
Blimey!
This old place still exists. Horrah!
Hail Boolbar!
[Boolbar] Horrah! You're back!
...as you once said yourself!
...as you once said yourself!
Sailing
I'm sailing over to the UK on Sunday night - hurrah! I love sleeping on ships.
Rotterdam-Harwich? Hope its not rough ;o)
[Softers] Rotterdam-Hull. Some parts of Hull are very rough indeed, but I shall keep the car doors locked when I disembark ;o)
enough silence
I know it was a terrible joke, but three days of silent protest is enough. I'm sorry, OK?
Forgiven
Not your fault I sure, pen ;o)
hasn't thought of anything witty and amusing to add to any games recently.
*waves from England, for a change*
Had a surprisingly calm North Sea crossing last night, despite driving to the port in gales and lashing rain. The geordies complaining this morning that 'the curtains were moving' made me giggle though.
Had a surprisingly calm North Sea crossing last night, despite driving to the port in gales and lashing rain. The geordies complaining this morning that 'the curtains were moving' made me giggle though.
[Knobbly] I know the feeling!
[pen] Welcome back! Hope we've managed to keep it much as you left it.
[pen] Welcome back! Hope we've managed to keep it much as you left it.
Calm Nordsee Crossing?
[pen] Shurely an oxymoron?
Meteorological orthodoxy
(Softers) Can happen, like a dry day in Blaenau Ffestiniog.
Timing
ticker ticker Timex
[Rab] Good, bad or indifferent?
Time
Aren't all the electronics made in the same place now anyway?
[rab] What's the secret of good comedy?
[CdM] Is this a reverse chat game now?
I was wondering earlier what a game of Reverse Reverse MC would look like. Any thoughts?
I was wondering earlier what a game of Reverse Reverse MC would look like. Any thoughts?
Anybody got any new game ideas? Tuj?
[Raak] Good to see you back. i was just thinking today that you hadn't posted for a while (whether that "while" is a few days or longer I didn't check, but I was aware that you were missing...).
[CdM] That's odd, I haven't been away much, although by chance I might not have posted on mc5 for a few days.
[CdM] Nearly as good as your waiting for T comment on the MCiOS chat =D
Which reminds me
Not that anyone will will notice... but there will be a brief outage on Thursday night when the Powers That Be perform a memory upgrade ('bout 9ish or thereabouts).
[Raak] Ah well. I guess your contributions are just always so good that even a few days absence is noteworthy!
game idea?
I'd always wanted to try Cheddar Gorge Haiku... perhaps too similar to what we've got going now. I also thought it'd be good fun to write a play one line / stage direction / light cue at a time.
Obviously still too new... What does Simons Mith mean in the limerick game by 'see comments'? Where do I look for comments?
[Knobbly] If you do 'view source', however that works on your particular browser, nested in amongst all the HTML muck you'll see a hidden line 4 and line 5 that occurred to me. Why I didn't use the HIDE tags is beyond me. I must have thought we were temporarily back in 1998 or something.
backetry
Back. Ferry apparently headed back towards the English coast in the middle of the night so some poor chap with fits could be helicoptered orf. After all the fuss was over, I got up at 6am and went out on deck with a huge cup of tea and a piece of my mum's neighbour's best fruitcake for breakfast expecting to see the lights on Rotterdam and we were still in the middle of the black North Sea. Quelle disappointment. However, all was well. The customs people didn't object to the vintage stationary engine I had stashed in the boot, and the trousers I bought for the windy miller fit like a charm.
Trousers
[penelope] You bribed the customs officers with trousers?
This weekend I will be mostly...
we're leaving the mill on Saturday lunchtime and heading back to Blighty via Dover for a wedding near Bath on Sunday. And then dashing back to NL. This time, the windy miller is coming with me - hurrah!
Huwelijk
Dat is groot. Veilige reis!
OzjYFXdF
Hi! crEgCiaE
Great, now we've got Klingons as well as Dutchmen.
So we have double dutch?
I believe Klingon is actually a 70-30 mix of Polish and 133t-sp33k
Gormless old git
(SM) Can't figure out what 133t-sp33k is. Something to do with teaspoons, 133 of them?
[Rosie] Something along those lines. And good afternoon everybody.
It's a count of the average number of grains of demerara sugar. 133 teaspoons hold 33,000. Obvious really.
That's a mere 225 grains per teaspoon, which doesn't seem quite enough. It all depends on de size of dem grains. Is there an EU standard?
It's a level teaspoonful.
That means about 22 mg per grain, which is probably about right. If it were cyanide or nicotine you be approximately 50% dead.
[Rosie] Interesting coincidence, work today has had a similar effect on me.
*waved from Palma de Mallorca, message delayed in transmission*
It was surprisingly nice there.
I hestitate to mention it...
... but here in sunny Strasbourg, Christmas is upon us, with the opening of the annual Christmas markets. How are things looking elsewhere in the Morniverse?
Bah humbug... or pepernoten
Here in the Netherlands, Sintaklaas (December 5) is more important than Christmas. His arrival from Spain, as documented on national TV, was dogged by bad weather, but he is already out and about with his blacked-out moorish assistants, strangely all called Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) and gathering information about how good the children have been. Children leave their shoes out overnight in the hope of having them filled with sweets (snoepjes) if they've been good, and a lump of coal is they haven't. Traditional sweets are particular to Dutch tastes - pepernoten which looks like earwax and tastes of aniseed, and strange crunchy things that look like dog meal and taste of aniseed. I'm not fond of aniseed...
Pelargonia
I made some pelargonium cuttings earlier in the year - far more than I could ever possibly use. Enough to start a small nursery, in point of fact. And of course, as I didn't really care whether they lived or died, most of the little blighters have survived. So what shall I do with 'em all now? I've got dozens and dozens! Any suggestions? Anyone want a few pot plants?
Oh, they're Mabel Grey. Small, pretty purple flowers, but their main schtick is that their leaves smell of lemon sherbert.
gerania
[Simons] Give them away as Christmas presents or let a a charity market stall sell them? I'd have a few for my purple patch - they sound nice.
OK, it just took me about 45 minutes to cross the city centre on my bike, versus the usual 15. The markets are beginning to annoy me.
(nights) Which city? Truro? Los Angeles?
[Rosie] Strasbourg, capital of overpriced tat - at the moment at least. Oh, the tourists.
Invading markets
[nights] I shouldn't worry too much, at least not just yet. I think the plan is to do England first.
Blue geese
[Simons Mith] I knew it. I knew all that money and time wasn't being expended for the simple reason of spreading holiday cheer and joy.
Surfing archives elsewhere...
Next time there's a slot open, I vote we use the team colours option for a game of "Eamon the Chivalrous".
[Tuj] What's that, then?
Such a ladies' man, so he is.
(nights) Good question. I Think We Should Be Told.
[Eamon the Chivalrous] I like it, a lot.
quietly now... someone might be reading this
*whispers* It's my last official day in the office before Crimbo. I'm only coming in tomorrow (a 70km round trip, btw) to collect my Christmas box! Below freezing all day today in Rotterdam. Nearly -5C this morning as I got into the car - and surprisingly as I reached the campus too.
Brass Monkey
Chilly this morning although no frost, the air was surprisingly dry and pretty well no wind here on the island. I think it felt colder yesterday because of the wind chill. [pen] if you are on yers 'ols you can maybe squeeze in some practice for the canal skating ;0)
More brass monkey
It's been snowing here since 11.30 a.m. and has just about stopped now. Total less than an inch. Temperature zero and last night it went down to -7°. (Top right-hand bit of Surrey).
We had a high of -1 here in Strasbourg, and a few snowflakes. Météo France are promising a lot of snow this weekend, but frankly, I don't trust any organisation that insists its name is written in print in ALL CAPS.
Happiness is
[Rosie] Twenty minutes ago the temperature at my humpy was 40.3ºC. It has now dropped by nearly a degree. I'm ever so happy. ;)
Megathermality
(Dujon) You're welcome to that even though I see from the latest Richmond AFB METAR that the humidity is quite low. Highest ever (i.e. since 1983) at Hughes Hall is 35.9°C, 10 Aug '03. Interesting, but I are a sweaty little f****r and don't want too much of it. 30°C is all right every now and then but we haven't even reached that in the last 3 years.
[Rosie] I assume you'll have got the snowshoes out to ensure that you get snowed in at the pub, rather than at the Hughes residence tonight, what with 20cm forecast for your area.
Bah! Its rain again today here. Still chilly, though.
A light covering of snow here, but a very slow thaw at between 0 and +1C. Grey and overcast though, so useless for taking photos. More snow later!
(INJ) I'm just beginning to think they've overdone it for this particular area because the wind is too northerly whereas it needs to be north-east for us to get a good dumping when the snow is generated by convection over the North Sea, which is still surprisingly warm. East Anglia and north Kent will get it but I'm probably just too far west, even allowing for the altitude (560 ft). Verification time (as they call it) will be tomorrow afternoon. There won't be much after that.
Snow
3 inches so far and not much more to come, I reckon. The newsgroup (uk.sci.weather) are absolutely wetting themselves but many of them seem to have little other life than weather + computers.
No relevance, I just really quite liked this sentence.
The visiting fans were aghast when she blatantly snorted a powdery substance up her nose and nearly cause a large scale riot but although she stopped play and quickly looked in her rule-book, just because an uppity linesman stated that Thomas Cech definitely was offside, an official spokesman snorted and stated sarcastically that such a strange combination of circumstances would hardly explain how the former mistress of the Compte de Bergerac was magnificent but forever embarrassed that her sinuous proboscis protruded into the area.
I thought it was supposed to be summer
I caught the Great Melbourne Run on Sky Sports last night in my hotel room. I'd rather be in Leeds - torrential rain and a grey sky down there, when we'd had mostly cold & clear.
Oh, and about 2 inches of snow in the evening and overnight - roads clear, pavements tricky.
it sneeuwt
-4°C outside the house and -6°C outside the village, plus a couple of inches of snow. It all looks very nice indeed.
After a 20 minute flurry yesterday which left very unrealistic-looking white powder on my garden, which melted a bit, then froze solid, it's snowing again now. It's settling nicely too. Lovely weather for the funeral party who will be arriving in 90 minutes
[Phil] Yes, if one of them were to fall and hurt themselves it would cast a bit of a gloom across the proceedings.
Verification time
3 inches of snow (8 cm). Rainfall equivalent 8.3 mm after I'd melted and measured it. This is just slightly more than the normal amount for such a depth. In February I got 28 cm (11") snow from 21.3 mm rainfall equivalent.
(INJ) You are a very naughty boy.
(INJ) You are a very naughty boy.
[INJ] One of the funeral (cremation) party commented that at least the departed ended the day warmer than they did. He didn't say this to the bereaved family though.
It's snowing again in Leicester, with plenty forecast (or not, depending on whose forecast you believe) overnight.
Here for the duration
6 inches of snow since last night - Coniston in the Southern Lake District.
I haven't brought my power supply for my laptop, so this is probably my last communication for a week. I'll therefore be the first to say Merry Christmas to all of you. Have a really good break and may you all receive what you would have hoped for.
I haven't brought my power supply for my laptop, so this is probably my last communication for a week. I'll therefore be the first to say Merry Christmas to all of you. Have a really good break and may you all receive what you would have hoped for.
Well, the snow didn't arrive. So we have now had the sum total of about half an inch over a period of 3 days. We do have very, very icy roads though, so at least I can have some fun.
(Phil) Handbrake turns at your age? I dunno.
(INJ) Cheers, and may your stocking contain an adaptor.
I sent a card to my newsagent for delivering my paper every day, having all the stuff I want etc etc. But I'd bought the card there. Is there a term for this?
(INJ) Cheers, and may your stocking contain an adaptor.
I sent a card to my newsagent for delivering my paper every day, having all the stuff I want etc etc. But I'd bought the card there. Is there a term for this?
[Rosie] Yes - agedness.
[Rosie] Driving is one of the few pleasures left in my life....
Donuts (or doughnuts)
It appears that many regions of the U.K. are experiencing rather cold weather. As I type there is a cyclone banging around and about the northwestern bit of Australia. Now, just about anyone who lives here would tell you that Marble Bar is hot and could possibly be nominated as the hottest location in the country. The said cyclone has just clipped Marble Bar.
So I had a little bit of a look at Marble Bar. Even though I live here and know its reputation I didn't know this little bit of information relative to the town.
"It is known as 'the hottest town in Australia' a fact which is still recorded by the Guinness Book of Records. For 161 consecutive days to 20 April 1924 the temperature in the town never dropped below 100°F (37.8°C)."
I do so hope that that bit of trivia will make you feel a wee bit warmer. ;(
So I had a little bit of a look at Marble Bar. Even though I live here and know its reputation I didn't know this little bit of information relative to the town.
"It is known as 'the hottest town in Australia' a fact which is still recorded by the Guinness Book of Records. For 161 consecutive days to 20 April 1924 the temperature in the town never dropped below 100°F (37.8°C)."
I do so hope that that bit of trivia will make you feel a wee bit warmer. ;(
(Dujon) Doesn't the record actually say that the maximum temperature each day reached 100°F for 161 consecutive days. I can't believe that it stayed above 100°F all night, every night. That has happened very occasionally in the Sahara (and probably elsewhere) in high summer but is very rare.
At the moment a temperature of 5°C would be nice. It hasn't been that high since last Sunday week and it's been down to -7°. White Christmas? No thank you. That white stuff is cold and stops you getting about.
At the moment a temperature of 5°C would be nice. It hasn't been that high since last Sunday week and it's been down to -7°. White Christmas? No thank you. That white stuff is cold and stops you getting about.
Bing Crosby
[Rosie] As usual here in the channel we have missed the worst of it. A sprinkling last Thursday which caused mayhem on the roads and now the sun is shining and its about 7C.
Yeah. White (near-)Christmases aren't all they're cracked up to be. Though we've had some crunchy goodness here, so I've not been sliding around too much on it.
[Rosie] Possibly so, but I don't really know and thus accept the data. In Dec./Jan. 1988/9 or thereabouts I spent four or five weeks in a place called Hillston. That was a dreadful period. At a guess I'd say that I experienced 14 days of overnight temperature above 100ºF. I shall check and report back should I find any objective observations.
Desert songs
(Dujon) I looked at OZBOM, an excellent site, and it confirmed that it was the maxima that were all over 100°F. I suspect the minima were mostly 25° to 30°. In the last few years Adelaide has had a record high minimum of 34°C. To get a minimum of 100°F (37.8°C) you really need quite a stiff breeze to stop the lowest layers cooling and becoming decoupled from the circulation. You get a sandstorm thrown in for good measure, of course. The only place that doesn't seem to need this condition is Death Valley, where there have been several well-authenticated instances of the night minimum being above 110°F. Glad I'm not the weather observer there, or in Ojmjakon, Siberia, January mean -50°C. Yes, fifty. Wrap up well, as my Mum used to say.
the season
Festive Fun wishes to all x
No sweat
[Rosie] Thank you. I must have missed that information, thanks for the clarification. As far as wrapping up well is concerned your Mum's advice sounds like it should have been originally decreed by one of those pesky Yorkshire men (before they subsisted on gravel, of course). ;)
Happy Christmas, whether you believe in anything or not. I like Dec 25th - probably my happiest day of the year.
Merry Christmas from your friends in the States. Today in Seattle (where it is still the 24th for another few hours) the weather was truly lovely - a Christmas oddity since we usually receive rain every December.
Thanks for inventing MC, and then for letting us with no Tubes play too. =)
Thanks for inventing MC, and then for letting us with no Tubes play too. =)
Ching
Merry Chingmas!
Happy Non-Demominational Generic Winter Season Festival, everyone. (I'm told Hannukah is still on back order.)
Hakunnah? True, there's none in the shops here either, SM. I blame the Buying Department.
Looking back, if that was my happiest day of the year, the rest must be bloody miserable.
Wow!
Well - the finest winter week I've had in Britain for many a year. Most days crisp and clear, some snowfall most nights to top up any thaw and to keep it all looking nice. Plenty of fairly low-level walks with stunning views of the Lake District tops. It was real picture postcards stuff. Temperatures at valley floor level 0-2 during the day going down to -4 or -5 overnight. Got up to about 500m one day but just too much snow - breaking trail and post-holing to mid-thigh has me knackered after about 10 minutes these days.
A recommendation: try the Church House Inn in Torver - 5 locally brewed real ales and a chef who really knows how to cook.
A recommendation: try the Church House Inn in Torver - 5 locally brewed real ales and a chef who really knows how to cook.
[INJ] Sounds wonderful. I've just caught Julia whatserface doing one of Wainwright's walks on the BBC this mrorning - in summer, I presume - and I can imagine it was an uplifting Xmas week for you. Here in Zuid Holland, we're back to the dim, dank 2-degrees-and-withering-damp weather that eats your core. Yuk.
Happy New Year
Farewell the noughties, hail the new and sparkling teens.
(Softers) Well, at least the sun has come out. Well, I presume it's the sun.
I take it all back. Minus 5 degrees, dry, cold and clear-ish, with plenty of snow at ours, much less in the centre of Rotterdam and mostly clear roads. There was a lovely red sunrise this morning as I drove (late) to work because the car needed scraping free of ice a second time after the windy miller did it for me earlier. And a lovely street party last night with the neighbours - pea soup, rokeworst, rum punch and a brazier. And a enlarged version of a board+puck game similar to shove-ha'penny, at which I did not suck. Hurrah!
If anyone's interested - it's not gone above zero here in Strasbourg since I got back, heavy snow and wind shut the trams down for a bit on Friday night, and everyone's just getting on with their lives. It doesn't, however, stop me cursing the security guard at work's name up and down when he won't open the building at 7h45 instead of 8h. Grr.
[nights] Getting on with it? Whatever next!
[nights] Let's all sing together, shall we: "Jobsworth, jobsworth, it's more than me jobsworth". Blimey where did I drag that one up from.
"I don't care, rain or snow,
Whatever you want, the answer's no."
Is that as old as TW3 - I have an image of Lance Percival singing it.
Whatever you want, the answer's no."
Is that as old as TW3 - I have an image of Lance Percival singing it.
I always thought it was a Jeremy Taylor song; certainly I remember him singing it, and I always assumed he wrote it. Now I must go to the google.
Looks like you're right, but that's not the context in which I remember it. It's definitely in black and white in my memory.
[IS,P] Did you spend any time in South Africa?
[IS,P] Did you spend any time in South Africa?
Whoever sang it, I would love to teach it to the people of France. However I've yet to find a good translation for "jobsworth". But yes, people are just dealing with the cold - the phrase "Keep Calm and Carry On" seems apposite.
Jobsworth
Looks like it's probably 'That's Life' I remember it from.
The Jobsworth Song
I don't know that song, but in my head as I read the words they fitted themselves to the tune of christmas carol 'Torches'.
Hellooooo?
It's been very quiet in here for the past week.
Oh sorry. I had the volume turned right down :o(
*speechless*
Warning, sports joke
[pen] You are Daryl Harper and I claim my 5 rand.
*gazes upwards at sports joke flying overhead, out of reach*
Howzat!
I think if you consider, you'll
Find that the game called Wizards' Duel
Has joined the choir invisibule -
In other words, it's dead.
It's not too much to do with me -
I've played but intermittently -
So would anybody mind if we
Played something else instead?
Find that the game called Wizards' Duel
Has joined the choir invisibule -
In other words, it's dead.
It's not too much to do with me -
I've played but intermittently -
So would anybody mind if we
Played something else instead?
Not in the least. And an extra point for rhyming.
I was at a Burns supper on Saturday night at which the songs were accompanied by mandolin and musical saw. Not quite as silly as swanee kazoo but an interesting combination nonetheless.
[rab] There's evidence that it was 'cutting edge' music in the heyday of the mandolin.
Bugger. Missed Burns Night. Always meant to go to one of them.
We hae meat an' we can eat
[Projoy] It's not too late. Burns Night is tonight - Rab is obviously not a true Scotsman if he's prepared to go to a supper on the wrong day just because it's the weekend (unless he's going to another tonight).
We'll be having our regular 'confuse-a-foreigner' night tonight with guests from Spain, Germany and China. This is one of the times when my Scottish blood, through the maternal line, takes precedence over the Welsh, on the paternal side.
We'll be having our regular 'confuse-a-foreigner' night tonight with guests from Spain, Germany and China. This is one of the times when my Scottish blood, through the maternal line, takes precedence over the Welsh, on the paternal side.
Alas, philspub is acting as a neutral venue for a skittles cup semi-final tonight, for which no supper is required. Any other week, and I'd've been able to do haggis for the skittles supper.
I suspect I might cook some tonight anyway, and have a small glass of whisky (Scapa 1993 is looking very inviting) to wash it down.
I suspect I might cook some tonight anyway, and have a small glass of whisky (Scapa 1993 is looking very inviting) to wash it down.
Malt Teasers
I suspect I'll be having a Ledaig 1990 before bedtime.
[INJ] Hate to disappoint you, but I am not in any reasonable sense a Scotsman.
Well, Burns Night was a non-event here. I did however have my birthday party. Involving a cake made of marshmallows, and being spanked for my years in the middle of a rowdy bar at 1am. It was great!
Age-related corporal punishment
They were all oldies, were they? Serves you right, young man. :-)
Worse, they were from the south. They have strange ways, down there.
I'm enjoying the new Cat on a Warm Tin Roof game (being a fan of the various film clubs). However, I was wondering if it was worth having an entry convention to differentiate between films, books, & songs... I was thinking - keep films in bold, books in italics, and songs in quote marks?
[Uncle Korky] I don't see the point in doing that. Am I missing something?
[UK] It's all that most of us can do to even post in the right game most of the time. I think you'd be asking way too much of us. :-)
Eh, if you're posting something unusually obscure, just post a hint as well. Besides, what typographic notation would we use for plays, musicals, etc.?
balloon.a.down.lead.like.goes.idea
[UK] Is your idea based on some local government entry convention/system/policy - ie. why do something once when you can employ three people to do it in triplicate? :)
[On the plus side - at least it blew away the tumbleweed in here]
[On the plus side - at least it blew away the tumbleweed in here]
Everything in its place
I'm sure we can work out a comprehensive notation system. Things like poems in UPPER CASE(unless they're by e e cummings) etc.
Clearly we need to start a notation game to sort out these little stylistic niggles before the new process is formally adopted.
Although, if we do that, we're going to need meta-notation to distinguish between styles proposed, under consideration, accepted and rejected. [Chalks] That's why we need a committee, of course; if you start doing this sort of thing properly it's bound to turn out to be more complicated than one head can contain.
I nominate Chalky to be on the ad hoc search committee charged with finding a steering committee to oversee the establishment of a notation game.
But surely we need to agree on the nomination procedures first?
[rab] Agreed, as long as we don't make things needlessly bureaucratic.
OK then, so I suggest the usual: each candidate will need the backing of twenty (20) signatures. In the event of more than one nomination, we'll need to instigate an election process. Obviously, the most sensible way to do this is a two-round procedure, where we use a single-transferrable vote to whittle down to two candidates, and a second round to decide the final victor. We will of course need to do this for each committee post, but it's a pretty straightforward procedure, so won't be much hassle to implement.
[rab] You start :o)
[pen] No can do - as maintainer of this site, it would open up a massive conflict of interest and leave me open to prosecution by the EU, probably.
*Resolves not to post anything stupid in future*
[Korks] Please do. Post, that is. Not 'not post'.
:):)
:):)
I wish I hadn't said that
[UK] I've made that resolution about once a week since debuting on the morniverse. Hasn't worked yet.
(INJ) Still doesn't work, does it. :-) Debuting??? Go on; it's a wind-up.
Daybooing
[Rosie] It's a tricky one, isn't it? It ought to be OK as a word, but I'm unhappy with all ways of pronouncing it.
verbing weirds nouns
I see what you've done there. Avoid 'debuting' at all costs. You can only 'make a debut'.
(INJ, pen) - I think I'd prefer deb-yewing with the accent on the first syllable. It'll turn up on Five Live now you've let it out of the bag.
While we're on the subject, how do people pronounce "valeting"?
deb-OO-ing
I would not say it, but if pushed, after thinking for a while: val-AY-ing or perhaps VAL-ay-ing.
Ugly.
[Flerdle] The common pronunciation I hear is 'VAL-ett-ing', at least when you're talking about car cleaning. Not heard it for being a gentleman's gentleman.
On a similar basis, I'm looking forward with relish to the challenges of gerunding "ballet", "fracas", "wii", "Playdoh" and "adieu"
(I've often thought the word "Boeing" looked rather awkward for related morphological/phonological tension reasons).
Ah, another good one to add to the list above would be "algebra".
I do have a fondness for the (not terribly prevalent, but permitted) alternative spelling of "queuing" that keeps the "e", resulting in "queueing"; a whopping 5 consecutive vowels.
Semi-tangentially
I seem to recall reading a newspaper article about an RSI-like injury that had been christened "wiiitis".
[INJ] That reminds me that "buffet" is pronounced "boo-fay" except when referring to catering provision on British trains, where it's "buff-it".
[rab] Really? I beg to differ. "Buff-it" would only be used by me as a verb relating to what strong winds can do to a person.
Buff, Eh?
[Rab] Not to mention the notices on the cross-channel ferries which say: 'To the buffet/Au Snack-bar'
aye, buff, ay!
Saying "boof-ay" here would get you strange looks.
(and that's for any pronunciation of "oo")
[flerdle] even "stool"?
I thought girls had "boof ay's" in the '60s.
(Phil) When you've polished your nice brass beer pump don't you then buff it for that extra gleam?
[Phil] Especially!
[Rosie] No. I have staff to do that for me :)
[flerdle] how are you pronouncing the "boof" of "boof-ay"? Like "boo" or "book"?
[flerdle] how are you pronouncing the "boof" of "boof-ay"? Like "boo" or "book"?
actually, it's Smörgåsbord
Either works just as badly - as I said. It's always "buff-ay" here unless you're over 80 and posh or putting it on. Buff as in huff, puff, stuff and, um, buff.
Snoo
I don't think we've had a week without at least a small covering of the white stuff since before Christmas. Most weeks, it has been topped up at least twice, but mostly melts away before the next lot comes. Gah.
(pen) - Are you bemoaning the fact that it doesn't stay or that it's there at all? With me it would be the latter. Cold, messy and stops you getting about. This view doesn't go down well with the weather newsgroups but they're mainly inhabited by 13-yr-olds, it seems to me, even if their actual age is over four thimes that. Roll on summer. Then they'll start throwing their toys about because they haven't got their promised thunderstorms.
[Rosie] That it's *still* coming. It started snowing this morning when I was eating breakfast. By the time I got in the car to drive to work, it was white over again. And then there was a snowstorm for an hour or so at mid-day. I have to concede that the roads have been fine though.
(pen) - Nothing mild in the next week but no ferocious cold either. Just well, crap, really. Haven't seen the sun for ages or much of the night sky.
Zonne
[Rosie] Poor you. Seeing the sun from time to time *does* make a difference. It was sunny this morning, and it was an incredibly cold but incredibly sunny day last Friday, when a friend visiting from England and my sister-in-law drove down to Belgium to see an exhibition of hellebores (surprisingly interesting - and incredibly fragrant) and took two walks - first through an arboretum deep in sunlit snow but full of colourful flowering witch-hazels, and secondly across a brilliantly sunny heath, covered in about 6" of snow, when I nearly froze my face off. And the stars last night were quite incredible too. Minus 3.5C this morning. Light ice on the car. No traffic - school holidays - hurrah!
Oh, and there were two storks sitting in a rudimentary stork's nest on a stork's nest pole alongside the road as I drove into work this morning. Perhaps they can see spring coming from that height.
feeling the need..
To dispel any ugly thoughts about stork baggage, no, I'm not.
[Penlope] Oh, poor you. ;)
Well, that thought certainly shut us all up!
[INJ] Don't let it. As I tried to say on Facebook (for those what do it) I'm much better Professional Uncle material than I am parent material. Besides, kids are so annoying, and so expensive. I just got a fresh bit of freelance work in, and celebrated by buying a new handbag. Now is that responsible parent-like behaviour?
Uncle pen
The mind boggles. BTW My mum had a nice handbag and we were still fed.
A thought of more than 8 words
Somehow, CdM continues to make splendid contributions to the 8-word game despite belligerently flouting the laws. Top Crescenteering.
[Tuj] Thank you. My greater pride, however, is that I just provoked pen into a rules violation.
Well done all of you.
Pride comes...
[CdM] as a fallen dish, left cold. Or something. ;o)
breaking the silence
SIX degrees on the way to work this morning. All the ice has disappeared from the water in the canals. Meanwhile, in Vancouver, NL's golden boy Sven Kramer (one gold medal under his belt already) was mislead by his coach as to when to change lanes in the speed skating, and lost a second gold medal in speed skating last night. The whole country is gutted this morning.
kiddiwinki
[pen] Professional Uncle? Is there something you are not telling us?
Losing a gold medal
[Penolope] How can you lose a gold medal on a skating rink, never mind two? Perhaps he needs a tighter belt or a better piece of string. On a more serious note: How can an experienced competitor get it so wrong and then blame his coach?
Sorry, penelope, it weren't deliberate like. :(
It's amazed me how little the French seem to care about the Olympics. But then we have political problems to worry about - oh, no, wait, that was the Netherlands too!
voting
Yep - a tumultuous week here in the flat country. I get to vote in local elections here next week, which will be interesting. But I've also made sure I can vote in the UK elections. Hurrah!
Jesus HUGHES
(Ping INJ) - One of the answers (correctly given) in last Monday's University Challange was "Anarcho-Syndicalism".
[Mono] Ditto here. It feels a little immoral being registered in two countries, but I wanted so much to vote for our regional council. We're also battening down the hatches because according to Météo-France, "WE'RE ALL DOOOMED!"
Yoo-hoo!
Anyone about?
Bum. The windy miller and I didn't vote - we were sitting drinking coffee in a very genteel Dutch front parlour, looking over a stadhuis and a canal and talking about planning issues and weather lore.
Bum. The windy miller and I didn't vote - we were sitting drinking coffee in a very genteel Dutch front parlour, looking over a stadhuis and a canal and talking about planning issues and weather lore.
Windy
No not the Miller, pen. Just bloody windy. Cold too. Brrr! Bring on Spring.
Coming out of London City Airport the other day, I was intrigued by two large signs instructing pilots to "CAUTION YOUR BLAST". Obviously this was the first thing I typed into Google when I got home, and it brought up many webpages with people asking what it meant. The answer I like best is the one that says it means not to accelerate too rapidly going onto the runway because you run the risk of blowing the ground crew over in the process.
(rab) How do you caution a blast? Do you say "OK, blast, you've committed an offence but we've decided not to prosecute this time provided you admit culpability"? Why don't these buggers speak English?
I think it might be due to limited sign space. I trust the interpretation of the message is part of a pilot's training, as being a native English speaker won't even help you with this one.
[rab] The turning points at LCY are very tight, and I suppose it must be to remind pilots to be wary of where their blast is directed.
This video shows an example of people not cautioning the blast of a Airbus 340, where the pilot has no choice of where to direct his full throttle "blast".
This video shows an example of people not cautioning the blast of a Airbus 340, where the pilot has no choice of where to direct his full throttle "blast".
It'd be interesting to collect signs that don't entirely say what they mean. The only two I can think of are "Blind Summit" in the UK, which means "there's something you need to be ready for beyond the crest of this hill; such as a single-track bridge, an abrupt curve or a yak crossing, but we're not telling"; and one you often see when exiting tunnels in the US, which just says "Lights". It's reminding you that you might have left your headlights on when leaving the tunnel but presumably they don't want to say "Turn your lights off now" for fear people would obey it at night.
(Dan) There was a (maybe apocryphal) example of that at a level crossing in Yorkshire where it said "Wait while red light shows" in case there's another train coming in the opposite direction. But there were cases where motorists stopped at a green light because colloquially the sign means "Wait until the red light shows". There are so many ways of rephrasing it but they missed them all.
[rab] I had exactly the same reaction when I last went through there.
Weather
Foul weather here last night, our coastal roads were closed because of the high tide overspill during the rush hour, resulting chaos. Very windy and torrential rain at times. So much for BST!
(Softers) I see you've still got a nice bracing force 6-7 with a few hail showers. It'll calm down pretty soon, though. And don't forget that but for the clocks you'd have got them an hour earlier. Not everything is bad.
Ten, long days and a lot of chocolate eggs
So has everyone finished their chocolate stash? The windy miller and I have resorted to buying the half-price leftover Easter Eggs in the supermarket - cappucino flavoured mini-eggs for me.
Any plans for the weekend? We'll go out to Willemstad (look it up on google maps - the town's fortifications are shaped like Lisa Simpson's hair) for coffee and appeltaart tonight, and the windy miller will have a trappist beer or two. Other than that... I have no idea.
Any plans for the weekend? We'll go out to Willemstad (look it up on google maps - the town's fortifications are shaped like Lisa Simpson's hair) for coffee and appeltaart tonight, and the windy miller will have a trappist beer or two. Other than that... I have no idea.
chocolate? what chocolate?
I had a Lindt mini egg. As I've all but wiped saturated fat out of my diet since about a month ago, the pleasure of eating it was overwhelmed by the disappointment that I had given in and eaten it. I'm enjoying getting into the jeans that I kept for 2 years in the hope that I'd fit into them again some day though.
[Phil] Now I feel fat and guilty. Cheers. ;o)
Trappist beer?
(pen) If anything loosens the tongue......
[Rosie] I imagine the brewers' taste testing sessions were conducted behind locked doors, and not everything was written down...
[pen] Soz, that wasn't my intention :-(
Html..
Hey guys, don't mean to butt in, or anything, but how do you do all the html thingies for the posts? I can do bold, italics and line spaces, but how do you do the other things. Please can someone help?
all the right moves ..
[FGZstar] Go to main menu page - bottom right you'll see 'settings - info' - press info :)
(FGZstar) Unfortunately, "info" links to a website (Dr Qu+xum, a former Morniverser) that is no longer there. Here are a few you might like:
hr = a page-wide grey underline
sup = superscript, sub = subscript
p = paragraph (adds an extra line space)
font size="x" where x can go from -2 to +2.
strike = a line through the text
href="url"> any message</a> for an external link.
There is loads more which you can Google. Go for the simplest stuff or you'll end up learning the entirety of Hungarian literature when all you want is to ask for the loo.
hr = a page-wide grey underline
sup = superscript, sub = subscript
p = paragraph (adds an extra line space)
font size="x" where x can go from -2 to +2.
strike = a line through the text
href="url"> any message</a> for an external link.
There is loads more which you can Google. Go for the simplest stuff or you'll end up learning the entirety of Hungarian literature when all you want is to ask for the loo.
Cockup
Before "href" insert <a
As an alternative to monkeying with the font size, you can use <small> </small> and <big> </big> tags.
HTML Primer
I have a saved copy of DrQu+xum's helpful primer stashed away somewhere. I'll dig it out and make it available online again.
primed
Might be simplest to host it here if you find it. Whatever, I'll update the link if the source material can be tracked down.
yer tiz
Okay, here goes!
fraser+info2=success!
Thanks, guys! I seem to be cured of my affliction!
Dr Q
(INJ) Bugger me, it's still there. Why couldn't I get it earlier?
hmmm
[FGZstar] Curiously enough - I had a hunch you might demonstrate your new found prowess. All power to you :)
more html queries
Okay, now that I have the basics, I would like some direction in terms of photos. Can i put in the file ref of my memory card or temp storage device and it will upload, or do I need to keep the file in permanent storage on the computer?
[FGZstar] There's no uploading to this site, and unless your computer is running a web server and is online all the time, a picture stored on it won't be visible anywhere else. You would need to upload the picture to somewhere of your own on the web, and link to it from here.
There are sites like Photobucket that will allow you to do that. (Although I think that one's owned by Rupert Murdoch, so you may have philosophical objections to using it). ImageShack is another.
(Raak, rab) Can I do that with Flickr? My God, you're all doomed.
If it's on Flickr, or Zooomr, or anywhere else, you can link it here. Whether you should...
[Raak] Nice panoramic - but a bit sticky-outy to the right. Where be it?
(Chalky) Click on it and you'll find it's probably not far from Naarj.
[Chalky] The view from my office window (carefully zoomed and cropped to avoid the concrete). Doesn't stick out on my screen. :-)
One day, I'll put up a pic from my office window - downtown Rotterdam, skyscrapers, splendid bridges and all. One the other hand, from my home office (the spare room) I can see the sails of a windmill, a thatched barn, and the village hall. And a load of very, very ordinary houses, all very close together.
What about Facebook? I've got some pretty panoramics pics i've taken over my travels, I'll put some up soon, or I'll link to my facebook for any other FB members out there
Yay! It works!
Now the challenge: Name that location
[FGZ*] Bryce3D?
The shape of the bay looks a bit like Rio.
Nope. I'll tell you that it's in Asia.
Hmmm... That looks like a fair-sized city -- and I have been to a lot of cities in Asia but don't recognise this one. I don't think it's Hong Kong. But there are a lot of large cities in China that I've never seen, so I wonder if it might be one of those. I'm also a bit bemused by what is in the left of the picture: a rollercoaster???
Yep, it's the run-away mine train at a theme park which I visited. Sadly this particular roller coaster was closed for maintenance on the day. It looks like fun, too.
Ah, ok. It is HK Disneyland, looking over Discovery Bay. I've never been to that part of HK.
[CdM] You are soooo close, but no cigar. You are certainly right in half of your answer.
All praise to the Google
OK, got it. Ocean Park in Hong Kong. Haven't been to that part of HK either. Things about the Disneyland guess didn't quite seem right, looking at Google maps, but I assumed it was just something odd about the angle of the picture that I couldn't quite work out.
What kind of cigar do I get?
What kind of cigar do I get?
Here you go, it's cuban.
'Cuban'?
[FGZ] No it's not, it's cylindrical.
A week is a long time in politics. It's a long time in a queue for a Bucks Fizz reunion ticket too.
Q
[Phil] About 8 days too long in my view.
Before today there was 9-day hiatus in this very game. Quite inexcusable.
I suppose everyone just cleared out to avoid the cigar smoke...
Do other people agree that "Change Just One Thing" has become a bit stale? It was very fun for a while, but we don't seem to have found any interesting way to develop the game.
I wuld agree with that, when I suggested a sentence change I waited 2 weeks to get no answer, so I changed it anyway. Any suggestions for a new game?
June so soon?
This month's conversation will mostly be... contributuons please
British Airways
Why is it that British Airways can't agree with their crew long enough to avoid strike action? I just hope they don't branch out into brewery tours...
Particle physics?
[pen] Contributuons? Some sort of elementary particle I'm guessing.
Yes.
'Yes' and 'No' are the most basic particles known as contributuons.
'Yes' and 'No' are the most basic particles known as contributuons.
Contributuons are not entirely stable. They are sometimes known to decay into mehons, particularly nowadays when enthusiasm is so often considered passé.
We must all don HAZMAT suits immediately, as prolonged exposure to contributuons can cause long term healf effects.
H & S
(FGZS) Er, no "h" in healf, BTW. Talking of which, why does anyone working outside seem to have to wear a high-vis jacket? Will it be compulsory for everyone? Should I wear one as a pedestrian? At a recent football match it took six big blokes and a woman, all with this ludicrous garb, to carry an injured footballer off the pitch on a stretcher. You could almost feel the self-importance oozing from the telly screen. After all, this was football, a Very Serious Matter. Come on, you Blues! (whoops).
A high-vis jacket makes a very effective Cloak of Invisibility (I am told) if you want to explore somewhere outside that you're not supposed to be.
(Raak) Mm, I hadn't thought of that. Could be useful for committing gross trespass in railway tunnels. (I have actually done that). It's a bit like donning police uniform without the risk of committing the serious offence of impersonating a police officer. One could get a hard hat as well and be pretty well untouchable. The more I think about it the better it gets. You could give one as a Christmas present to someone with low self-esteem but obviously they would find it difficult to adopt the swagger. Let us raise a glass to The Law of Unintended Consequences.
DayGlo
It is now compulsory to carry hi-viz jackets in cars when driving in France. Not just for the driver either, one for each seat and they cannot be stored in the boot.
[Rosie] Are you sure they weren't just wearing your away kit of a couple of seasons ago? ;)
(Softers) That sounds most un-French unless I've misjudged the place. Where are you supposed to store them? When is it compulsory to wear them, and if it isn't, what are they for?
(Tuj) Yes, not good, was it.
(Tuj) Yes, not good, was it.
[SW] Surely that would be almost as effective as the swiss needing compulsory lifejackets in their cars. I think it's just an excuse for the Gendarmerie to nick any english folks who haven't been told yet!
Upon reading some risk assessments once, I was surprised to learn that we were required to carry throwlines when within 1KM of water.
(various) What's the chance of losing the will to live while reading a Risk Assessment? Shouldn't there be a Risk Assessment before one does this kind of thing?
Re: DayGlo
[Rosie] On autoroutes and main roads with hard shoulders. No guidance on storage, sadly. We keep them in the glove box. [FGZs] Not quite; the Swiss do have a few lakes.
On a completely unrelated note...
I am currently in Heathrow T5 awaiting a flight home to Edinburgh as the last leg of my 10 month world tour, and would you beleive it! BA have let me into their lounge. Free internet and free food! OMG!!!!!!!
BA Executive Club
[FGZs] Let you in for free? That can only mean bad news.
BAa baa black sheep
[FGZ] On my last trip via T5 I found I was able to pick up the free BA signal in the Wetherspoons. Don't know if they've noticed since then (or perhaps they simply don't care).
BA Club (not too sure about executive)
[SW] Well, apparently my round the world ticket was changed in nature when the person I spoke to put me on a new flight back to Edinburgh becuase the other one was cancelled (strike). It then became what is called a full fare ticket, which as well as being fully flexible, also lets you into the executive lounge. It was brill. Especially the fully open bar, where the spirits and wine and beers were just sitting for you to help yourself. And the sarnies were lovely too. Especially the cvaviar and foie gras on rye...
cvaviar?
Kevaviar. Yum. ;o)
I'm inburgering - I knew the back roads around the polder to avoid the hold-ups caused by a very slow double-portokabin being carried precariously on a tractor and trailer along the main road into the village last night. Hurrah! That's no mean feat when you consider that all the dyke roads look the same (raised above the fields, lined with alder trees and dotted with houses) and there are no hills or big landmarks to orientate yourself.
I'm inburgering - I knew the back roads around the polder to avoid the hold-ups caused by a very slow double-portokabin being carried precariously on a tractor and trailer along the main road into the village last night. Hurrah! That's no mean feat when you consider that all the dyke roads look the same (raised above the fields, lined with alder trees and dotted with houses) and there are no hills or big landmarks to orientate yourself.
Clogland
[pen] Yes, disorientating isn't it? When I worked in Hilversum we used to play cricket in a field on the way to Utrecht somewhere. I could never find my way to it on my own.
Cvaviar
I will have you know that cvaviar is a russian term, meaning shrimp or prawns. Also, the Foie Gras mentioned was actually foie gras flavoured spread. BA's not that good, or they'd be able to pay their staff a decent wage, and not have a strike.
I'm new to this place, but it looks interesting
Is there an overview of the games?
Games overview
[Kage] Greetings! 'Games overview' - er, sort of. If you click on the 'Bushy Tailed' link you'll see an archive of all the old games played in the past that have now finished. That gives a good selection of the sort of word games and other random improvisational stuff we play here. The live games are the dozen or so displayed on the main page, of which this game, 'The Banter Page' is one. Then there's more silliness at the 'mcios' and 'orange' links lurking in the bottom left portion of the main page.
The idea of these is sites is to post a comment/move in whatever games take your fancy, then come back later to see what others have added. The pace is sedate - you get a few new moves on each site each day. It's a bit like Twitter in that respect, I suppose.
As far as how to play individual games, well that varies. The simplest are games like the limerick or haiku games, where you just post the next line to a limerick or haiku (OK, they're senryu really, usually with a comic tone). In most other games we're just making things up as we go along.
Are you familiar with I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue? This site is a web-based version of this long-running comedy radio show. We try to play most of the games they play on ISIHAC, and invent our own in the same style. That's what this site – and Orange and MCiOS contain.
indeed
Hello new chaps. It's just a case of slotting in and playing a line you think might be funny/constructive/setting up a killer of an ending. I think there's a lot to be said for generous play (eschewing the laughs for one line in order to allow the biggest laugh with the next player's line) and we haven't seen so much of it recently - I guess because Facebook is stealing everyone's attention and the moves don't come as fast as they used to. (Jeez, I've been playing here for 12 years!!!)
In other matters, writing for work is the last thing I feel like doing today. I've been asked to write a news article and there are so many stipulations and limitations in it that the commissioner might as well write it herself. Pah. Grump.
In other matters, writing for work is the last thing I feel like doing today. I've been asked to write a news article and there are so many stipulations and limitations in it that the commissioner might as well write it herself. Pah. Grump.
Article
[Pen] OK, I bet you £5 you can't work the word 'armadillo' into it.
[Simons] You're right. I can't get the word armadillo into it. Can you send the five quid by paypal?
Silly
What do you get if you cross a vibrator with a lizard?
Hidden text
An armadildo.Braaaaiiiinnnnsss
Can I just say that I finding the ongoing MC5 Zombie carnival to be at least as entertaining as the Festival of Crescent at dunx.org? I now have a chance to play in Ex Libri Bardus which I didn't take up at the time.
Bushy Tailed?
Where did all the games in the bushy tailed come from? I've never seen any of them until they turned up there. Am I miising something? All I can see are the bright eyed and the bushy tailed. Are there more?
Yes - click the 'See more' button!
[SM] You think we should all start playing the old games again then? The idea of a Zombie Festival of Crescent does rather tickle me.
So, when is rab's birthday then? Seems like the date for the zombie fest. (Actually, it should probably be his deathday (i.e., pre-anniversaries of his death), but that's tougher to work out.)
NO IT'S NOT.
You do the math!
[CdM] This year, as it happens, on a somewhat numerically pleasing day. Certainly cause for some kind of celebration.
September 8? October 10?
October 20th?
Tennis
[CdM] Second time lucky.
I'm not understanding the attempt at concurrent cheddars in the 8 words room. I think I'll just wait for someone braver than me to work out how to play, and join in later.
[Knobbly] Now I'm with you.
Cheddars in parallel
(Knobbly, Tuj) Eight cheddars run concurrently. The first eight entries are the first lines of eight cheddars on eight different subjects. The next eight entries are the second lines of these eight cheddars and so on until, well, we'll think about that. Ideally it needs eight different contributors or there could be confusion. Thus Softers and I have done our first lines and eagerly await your respective contributions and those of others.
I haven't a clue
Listening to the first episode I've ever heard of "I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue."
[Rosie] Ta. Can't always explain what's going on in eight words I guess! I'll confess my original idea was that the first move would contain eight first words of eight cheddars, the next move the second word of each, and so on. So we'll get round to that when this comes to a natural conclusion, I guess.
(Tuj) I have a feeling this is going to go on a bit; we're still waiting for four first lines. Oh well.
(KagShuk) Few would admit to that. Well done. Pity you never heard Humphrey Lyttleton as chairman but Jack Dee is a good replacement.
(KagShuk) Few would admit to that. Well done. Pity you never heard Humphrey Lyttleton as chairman but Jack Dee is a good replacement.
Cheddars
Interestingly, the first three in the 8 word game can be read together or each could be the start of one.
in case Tuj stumbles in here...
Happy Birthday, Sir
football
wot a load of guff --i would sooner nail my arse to the floor than sit and watch a game.
Nailing one's arse to the floor
[gillo] I like the sentiment, but now I'm wondering about the logistics. I suppose you'd have to sit on the floor with legs out straight and then put the nails in diagonally from each side. Aim from just the middle of the frontmost parts of your rear jeans pockets to come out through the bottom middle of each pocket. You'd need to use at least 6" nails as well, I'd think, and I doubt you'd get a very strong attachment. I did try doing a little ASCII diagram but I couldn't get it to convey what I wanted.
Mon the Germans!!!!
I think we should have a poems parody game - don't think I can start it, can I?
I think that I shall never see
A purple cow that looks like thee
This poem is a pure mess
With lots of regards to Gilet Burgess.
A purple cow that looks like thee
This poem is a pure mess
With lots of regards to Gilet Burgess.
That 70s Game
Took a gander and was appalled, appalled I say, to see no one had posted "Goodieeeeeees! Goody goody yum yum". Words fail me.
Game slot
We havn't played T.L.A. for a while. Any support for a themed version? Eg: M.U.G. - Most Under-achieving Goalkeeper - a World Cup T.L.A.
T.L.A.
W.A.S.I.
(What A Spiffing Idea - bit of a PG Wodehouse one, that.)
(What A Spiffing Idea - bit of a PG Wodehouse one, that.)
buzz! Penelope used four letters.
I think the Cat on a Warm Tin Roof is probably done to a turn by now. Perhaps it would make a good candidate for replacement by T.L.A.
How about a game of Fictional MC, where all the stations played in the game are fictional, and the player have to assign each station a place on the tube map as they give it's name. It may be inspired by a fictional work, or jut completely made up by the player. It could possibly replace Cat on a Warm Tin Roof. Of course, MC would stay as the winner, because it's quite irreplaceable in my mind. Any thoughts?
Morningside Castle
[FGZ] I think that's an excellent idea. Sort of a bit like Boardman's, but hopefully without getting as silly as Boardman's often does.
Actually, have had thoughts of changing the winner to Aldwych, since it's appeared on screen a lot, in various guises.
A week has gone by since...
It's all very well everyone being too polite to say anything, but it does get slightly tedious. Or are you all on summer hols? Next week, the windy miller and I will be mostly noodling around the north of England along Hadrian's wall, and visiting friends that I haven't seen for far too long. Can't wait!
Shhhhh! You'll wake them up
I think it's a matter of momentum and critical mass. The more people there are contributing to a site the more others are prompted to do so. I tend to skim looking for updated games and probably only review the whole morniverse about once a fortnight. We need to start an argument - that's always good for pulling people in.
I'm working in Newcastle this week, but next week I'll probably be in Leeds, so no chance of viewing some of the remarkable sights in the evening on Newcastle Quays together I'm afraid.
I'm working in Newcastle this week, but next week I'll probably be in Leeds, so no chance of viewing some of the remarkable sights in the evening on Newcastle Quays together I'm afraid.
Very well then
[INJ] Really, that's the kind of stupid comment that could only have been made by someone who thinks speed limits should by higher, hates winter, is opposed to summer time, likes vuvuzelas, is a language fascist, supports Manchester United, and thinks Tom Baker was the best Doctor Who.
See petard - hoist by.
Well, your failure to proof-read your entry just demonstrates your lack of intellectual rigour and means I can dismiss your comment as unworthy of response.
Wait a minute! Tom Baker? I'll see you outside!
Wait a minute! Tom Baker? I'll see you outside!
Can't you two boys play nicely?
(CdM) I, er, sort of prefer summer. Don't hit me, please, pretty please. *suddenly remembers who he is* When did you last experience a winter, anyway?
(CdM) I, er, sort of prefer summer. Don't hit me, please, pretty please. *suddenly remembers who he is* When did you last experience a winter, anyway?
That's more like it
Scrap!
Fight, fight, fight!
Come on over here, CdM. Oh, you are? Sorry.
Vuvuzelas are one of modern music's most wonderful inventions and those that play them the musicians of the future. Who could ever forget the marvellous interplay of the long and short horns, the seemingly random effects produced by the instruments' flats, sharps and true tonal quality as exhibited recently in the various cities of the South African Republic? Sit down sir, with an open mind, and listen.
Every orchestra should have at least 1000 in its wind section.
Vuvuzelas are one of modern music's most wonderful inventions and those that play them the musicians of the future. Who could ever forget the marvellous interplay of the long and short horns, the seemingly random effects produced by the instruments' flats, sharps and true tonal quality as exhibited recently in the various cities of the South African Republic? Sit down sir, with an open mind, and listen.
Every orchestra should have at least 1000 in its wind section.
[Rosie] I'm in the middle of winter right now!
Winter, Hah! It's not winter if you can go outside with fewer than three layers on.
Grim op north
[INJ] Dunno what you are talking about. The temperature has rarely dipped below 15C (day and night) for the last two months down here :o).
Grim down south
(CdM) - Yurss.
(Duj) Many big clubs here have already banned them. Health and Safety can occasionally be useful.
(Duj) Many big clubs here have already banned them. Health and Safety can occasionally be useful.
[Rosie] It does get nippy here and there down here. Charlotte Pass recorded -20° C a few days ago. ;)
(Duj) - Well it would; it's 6000 feet up in a valley. According to an admittedly pretty crap source Sydney Airport has never recorded a frost though I imagine things get a little more parky where you are. English record is -26.1° (Harper Adams College, Newport, Salop, 10 Jan 82). The record for SE England is probably -21° at Bodiam, Sussex, Jan 1940. At Maison Rosie it's -12.9° on 10 Feb 86. Feeble! Even sodding Gatwick Airport has done better than that, as it often does. *sobs*.
Sitting on the Fence...
I am native to the UK, but I spent most of the last year in NZ, so missed the worst winter ever (thank god), and got a suntan instead. It was to my dismay, however, that I returned to find my mum had a better tan than me. Bloody global warming.
On a completely unrelated note...
How does one define next day delivery?
One more thing...
Since when did the Circle line become a spiral?
Next Day Delivery
Is an additional charge for the same poor service.
Monotonically decreasing radii vectores
(FGZstar) - Eh? Please explain.
Disappearing into a black hole
It was about 4-6 months ago. I commented on it in another place.
[Rosie] Trains now run from Hammersmith and then effectively transfer from the H&C to the circle. I don't know what proportion do that and whether they can go round a few times and then escape out to Barking. It's been the subject of frantic discussions at CAMREC.
[Rosie] Trains now run from Hammersmith and then effectively transfer from the H&C to the circle. I don't know what proportion do that and whether they can go round a few times and then escape out to Barking. It's been the subject of frantic discussions at CAMREC.
NDD
[Software] Spot on. I bought some shoes and paid for Next day delivery, and had them delivered 5 days later. I was furious.
The Cir- er.. Spiral Line
I think they run from Hammersmith to Edgware Road via the circle, then back the other way. I will be down in London (hopefully) later in the week, so I shall report back when I know more. I only realised when I looked at the tube map the other day.
Next Day
[FGZ] It is never worth it. I bought a TV (using my online trade account) to be delivered to my son. I was offered "Next Day" at £12.99 but went for the free option. It was delivered the next day.
(Softers) Ah! It is all so clear to me now.
(INJ) Oh, that CAMREC.
(INJ) Oh, that CAMREC.
Overground
Has anyone else been on the new Overground trains yet? I think they should make the tube trains with interconnecting carriages too. It would save everyone ending up in the one carriage.
Who has to work to make money
I've got to write tons of articles in August so I can make money. While I like writing, the amount I need to write is not fun. I get page view bonus, too - quite like a salesman gets commission - and I'm also trying to hit a million page views, so if you don't mind, would you view my articles?
Who lives in Lake Charles, LA, USA . . .
*is happy*
Sorry, I've not been around for a while and I must have missed the arrival of KagomeShuko. If I didn't know better I'd think it was spam. But obviously a regular poster who usually makes witty and urbane comments.
who doesn't have to work to get money
The state pays me to be alive, along with a number of other age-related concessions. Also, I get a useful pension from BP.
who lives in Warlingham, Surrey, UK
*is smug*
[FGZStar] In the spirit of shameless self-intoxication, can I direct you to buy me a pint?
Who needs to buy.
[Sierra Mike] I will happily give you this virtual pint of tapwater.
[FGZstar] If you're heading out of Sydney or down to Melbourne or Canberra announce it on the Pilg page on Orange as PaulWay is in Canberra, flerdle, CdM and I are in Melbourne and I think someone's in the Blue Mountains.
Bugger, just realised you're already off in the land of the long white bodies, I mean cloud.
Oh, really?
Strange you should think that, as I'm actually back home in the UK (The blog's a bit out of date, needs updating)
a very pleasant chap.
[nfras] Our mountain man of mystery would be Dujon; he doesn't travel, so PaulWay and I verified he exists by going to Blaxland ourselves in December 2003; one of the first antipopilgs. It might even have been the first antipopilg.
That's flerdle on the right (as you view the image) and me on the left. PaulWay declined the offer of inclusion (he was too busy programming his brand new all-singing all-dancing MP3 player).
As you can see my 'pleasant chap' (thanks flerdle) reputation came from my inability to keep up my head and thus was forced to address my witticisms to the beer drenched table at which we sat. Incidentally, the drink that flerdle had before her at that moment was not coffee. ;)
As you can see my 'pleasant chap' (thanks flerdle) reputation came from my inability to keep up my head and thus was forced to address my witticisms to the beer drenched table at which we sat. Incidentally, the drink that flerdle had before her at that moment was not coffee. ;)
Yes, couldn't recall if it was Dujon or Dunx and didn't want to cause anyone offence.
Really, truly, ridgy didge?
Was it really 2003, flerdle? I suppose it must have been as I have brown hair in that photograph. I now look more like a polar bear rather than the grizzly that I presented as in those days. *sobs*
Proof of existence
(flerdle) Oh, he exists all right - I've spoken to him on the phone, would you believe. A charming fellow but with a poor sense of timing - it was about 3.45 a.m. here but we yakked away for over half an hour. Must've cost him a fortune. One of only three Morniversers I've actually spoken to.
So is anyone but me actually in the UK?
[FGZ*] I was, but I'm not now.
(FGZstar) - Yes, me, hence Duj's phone bill.
[FGZstar) I am, more or less indefinitely.
Who just made a new website with the help of Giertrud
Please, go take a look at www.everlastinglight.tk and let me know what you think!
[KS] I think it needs some extracts and perhaps some sample illustrations, and maybe you should say which age range each book is aimed at. And it also desperately needs a professional portrait picture of you, the author. At first glance (and that's all you get from any web-user visiting your pages for the first time - I think the patience limit is less than 7 seconds, isn't it?) there's not enough information there to make the books appealing and make me want to buy them.
Right now it won't load for me...
You need to lighten up the background, as the text is hard to read, and change the font to being bigger and more interesting, as the current font is a bit dull. May I suggest Verdana or maybe even Arial, although as it's for children's books, maybe Comic Sans would be more appropriate. Also rethink the logo as it doesn't really jump out at you. I'll try and have a go later and if it looks good I'll upload it onto the web and post it here for you.
[FGZStar] I'm in Leicester. At Phil's pub.
I knew that one. What happened to your web page, anyway? It's coming up account suspended
rooly trooly 2003
Sorry, bit late, but [nfras] Don't worry, Dunx and Dan are always getting mixed up Elsewhere. Some people doubt that there are more than about three people actually here at all.
Actually in the photo I linked to above that's Dujon on the left, me wallaby in the middle and PaulWay dressed in a rather fetching shade of blue in the background (sorry about the poor light, you might not have seen him properly). I have met many people in the Morniverse, but not Rosie (or Dan or Dunx).
Closing time
(Phil) - FGZstar is right. I can't get the website. Wotchoobinuptu?
Furry animals
(flerdle) - Erm, all I can see is two wallabies, one central and bright, the other to the left and dark. Am I being a bit slow or has there been a cockup?
The Morniversers I have actually met are Software and Chalky, and v. good company they are.
The Morniversers I have actually met are Software and Chalky, and v. good company they are.
The physical reality
(flerdle) Ah! I'd best say nothing. These, BTW are me, separated by a mere 60 years. Control yourself, woman. :-)
indeed
[Rosie] Awww. By the way, you might like to see the next photo too (no. 9). I only appear in ap12 :-)
High altitude bees
[Rosie] Good Lord. Why is your beehive so high off the ground? ;o)
(flerdle) Only No. 8 comes up. To get the rest I have to alter the address each time.
(pen) Surrey slugs are the most voracious creatures known to man and try to eat the thermometers.
(pen) Surrey slugs are the most voracious creatures known to man and try to eat the thermometers.
everlasting light
[KS] Echoing what the others have said - though I don't have a problem with the logo. It's not really clear whether it's up and running yet - if this is just a mock-up then I think you need to say so. If not then it needs more than 2 books (that's all I found at any rate). The warning around the young adult books looks a bit nannyish without any books to link it to. However the main problem at the moment is the legibility - it's not easy to read and there isn't anything that jumps out to make you want to dig deeper. Best of luck with the venture.
[KS] I still can't get it to load. Not sure if it is a browser compatibility issue; I've tried both safari and firefox on a mac.
pics
[Rosie] That's right, it's just a photo not a html page with arrows and such. There is an index somewhere, but my website is pretty disorganised right now.
still looking for any website suggestions
The site is up and running, but I only have two books published at the moment, so the website is still a work in progress.
still looking for any website suggestions
The site is up and running, but I only have two books published at the moment, so the website is still a work in progress.
Who has just done some updates to the webpage
1) Pictures will have to wait until I can get them done. 2) Books waiting to be added. 3)Besides those two things, does it look better now?
re FGZstar
Can't see the picture. Told me I was not authorized to see it.
re FGZstar
Can't see the picture. Told me I was not authorized to see it.
Should Work Now
with appreciation to FGZstar
Thanks, but the logo at the top is based on the publishing logo on the back of the books. Take a look at the "peek inside" and go to the very last page: Amazon Link Here
[KS] Are you the author, proofreader, publisher, retailer and website designer? If so, to be honest, I don't think you're doing any of those 5 things very well. I just skimmed through the opening pages of Ace's Adventures and, apart from the black dog scenario being rather old hat (and unsound ), the introduction page has at least two errors: comma instead of period at end of first paragraph; "answer" instead of "answered" in paragraph 3. I'd also prefer "different from" to "different than", but I'm English and picky.
Hidden text
if everything was pure black, even in daylight, the dog would not show up against a black backgroundEven with my love of sub-clauses and punctuation, "With this book, you, too, can be a mystery solver!" just seems too much - especially for a back cover that is supposed to grab people's attention.
Sorry to sound harsh, but my suggestion is that you should send your two books to professional publishers, with an open and optimistic mind. Take on board their comments, because they really do know what sells, and how to sell it.
You can afford it.
(INJ) It would be interesting to what his income was, and the formula for calculating his fine.
A mere bagatelle
[Rosie] I read it as 300 x his daily income of £2166 based on a speed of 300kph (but I assume there would be some sort of graduated calculation before you got to 1 days income per kph)
not suspicious at all
I do like the speed camera's cunning disguise.
A fine country
In New Zealand they hide behind trees and around corners with unmarked vans.
Mustn't say 'And why not?'...Mustn't say 'And why not?'...Mustn't say 'And why not?'...Mustn't say 'And why not?'...
[INJ] I agree with your expressed sentiment. In New South Wales, where I live, the R.T.A. (Roads and Traffic Authority) erect huge signs by the roadside announcing that there is a fixed 'speed camera' ahead. People still get caught travelling above the designated speed limit. Really, how stupid can some people be?
There are constant 'Letters to the Editor' in newspapers declaiming speeding fines as 'revenue raisers' and that for some obscure reason the writer feels that a fine for exceeding a speed limit is some form of tax.
There is a simple answer isn't there?
There are constant 'Letters to the Editor' in newspapers declaiming speeding fines as 'revenue raisers' and that for some obscure reason the writer feels that a fine for exceeding a speed limit is some form of tax.
There is a simple answer isn't there?
Whoa!
(INJ) If the fine is proportional to the speed this would mean someone on £100 a day (fairly modest by Swiss standards) who exceeded a limit of (say) 120 kph by 10kph would get a fine of £13,000, which is absurd. Even if the fine is only proportional to the excess it's still £1000 for a fairly minor infringement.
The actual fine is so huge that either his income is much higher than £2166 a day or some other formula is used. Logically, it ought to be proportional to the square of the speed minus the square of the speed limit thus giving the excess braking distance. Doing this, one finds
The actual fine is so huge that either his income is much higher than £2166 a day or some other formula is used. Logically, it ought to be proportional to the square of the speed minus the square of the speed limit thus giving the excess braking distance. Doing this, one finds
fine = 0.004 x daily income x (V2 - V2lim) with V in kph
But applying this to the ordinary geezer on £100 a day doing 130 kph in a 120 kph limit gives, coincidentally, the same £1000 as before. Maybe it's proprtional to the cube of fourth power of the speed or possibly to income above a certain level. But then if you were poor you'd have no fine at all. I can't make sense of it It's all bollocks and obviously quite beyond the innumerates at the Grauniad, a paper I read BTW.
(Duj) Of course there is and they never catch me despite a tendency to leg it. But it depends on the fine. Speeding on a motorway (say 85 mph instead of 70) is hardly arson, rape and bloody murder, except maybe in Switzerland, a very well-ordered country.
Haven't I anything better to do? Well, just tonight, no, alas.
[Rosie] You may not know that you have to pay an annual tax in order to be allowed to drive on motorways in Switzerland at all, even if you are only passing through the country. Also, it's very hard to get in and out of Switzerland without using a stretch of motorway. Cunning, eh!
Swizz swizz
[Phil] Yeah - the payment covers January to December rather than a rolling 12-month period from the date of purchase, so if you buy it in October you've been done out of two-thirds of the benefits already, and the sticker they give you to show you've paid the highway robbery tax doesn't peel off either. Hmmph.
(Phil, pen) What a horrible little place, and in so many other ways as well.
Oh, I quite liked it...once I learnt to love efficiency.
Helvetia
[Phil] Your previous: Even Steve McQueen found out that, and he was only riding a motorcycle.
You have to hand it to the Swiss
Cunning, hiding the speed camera inside a perfectly innocuous six-foot tall, four foot wide block of Emmenthal.
[SM] Speeding cheese???
[Pen] The holes are crafted to give extra downforce.
Cheese
[penelope] You didn't follow the link ImNotJohn posted?
*grooooghyere*
[SM] I know the story, was just trying to paint a different picture. I think English cheeses are faster. At least one English cheese can travel at the speed of sound; Macheddar.
(pen) But only Brie-fly. Now look what you've started.
Maybe I'll sit and watch with a pint of Wensleyd-ale!
[penelope] Gouda you top that!?
I'm a sympathetic listener - camembert your soul to me.
Well, if one can't unburden on a rock like you, Rosie, what's a roquefort?
You can Comté me out.
Come, come, Softers. You could be a little friendleerdammer than that.
Oh Software's all right, providing you approach him caerphilly.
Yes but pen -- manchegoes on a bit.
Yes, but his views are similar to mine; Edamplify them, having grater loquaciousness.
I think we should all just chalk this one down to experience.
Hmmm, you lot are starting to get my goat.
Well, there's stiltons of cheese puns to get through!
Are you sure, because I'm at a complete g-lous-cester
Actually, I've decided I'm enjoying this little vignottes.
Cheese attributes
It needs a game. Biscuits for Cheese, anyone? And then when the cheeseboard is empty, other grocery items. *rubs hands gleefully at the thought of punnage*
That's a gouda Idea, but my cheeseboard is running out of content already
Wendy said pizza retard.
May I remind you that a rolling stone gathers no mozzarella.
Have we processed far enough on this one?
Microsoft would not tolerate further cheese-related punnery - but Applewood.
[Phil] MS were always a bit primula and proper like that.
[Rab] Absolutely, I rang them up to complain, but the lady I spoke to just made fun of me, the laughing cow!
I'll tried to give them a babybel on skype, but the computer gave me a BSoD (Blue Stilton of Death).
[rab] Sorry it took me so long to respond, but I was watching some Danish Blue!
[Phil] Whilst downing a yarg of ale as well, I'd wager.
[rab] Wise words, sir! Wiser than a Derby Sage.
[Phil] Well, a sage should know his Kraft.
I think this is starting to seem a bit cheesy!
[FGZStar] No whey! That same thought occurd to me as well.
who thinks she needs to find a clever Brit who wants to move to America to marry
When I was a little girl, my mom worked with ribbons and I'd wear them in my hair. Surprisingly, my friend would ask, what's the Beaufort.
Who is already married and has no particular wish to move to America
At the risk of getting onto a more serious plane I do remember going into a Delicatessen in Georgetown (a suburb of Washington DC, for non-US readers) and seeing a cheese labelled as Double Gloucester - the English version of Cheddar!
Next to it was one labelled as Low-fat Single Gloucester!
Next to it was one labelled as Low-fat Single Gloucester!
[INJ] That would be a cheese plane, then? They do exist, mainly to take molecule-thin slices of rubbery Dutch cheese of the right size to fit on a piece of bread. BTW, what's a cheese molecule properly called? I genuinely don't know. Cheesium?
(pen) There's every molecule under the sun in cheese (maybe not uranium hexafluoride) and some of them are quite big, like vegetable fats (50-55 carbons). On the other hand some are quite small and volatile like butyric acid, the smelly feet pong.
I want to know if at about 4pm, we can sit down and Havarti.
Thinks ImNotJohn is clever, but didn't say it was him who she wanted to marry
Oh, so we are on to chemistry puns, or cheese and chemistry puns? Cheesemestry?
Mercaptan's Log - Stardate 28810 :- Uhura is still banging them out, the dirty cow.
Ooh, spooky. I think you need to take a look on orange MC, Rosie.
cheeseshop
[INJ] I just saw a cheese here advertised as a "Goats' Milk Chevre".
(FGZs) Point me a little more specifically. I can't find any reference to farting there.
My location has nothing to do with farting.
Easy, easy!
There are no stations, no lines, no key, no river.
Do I win?
Do I win?
Are you having trouble viewing the map? It's definitely there.
[FGZ] I like the idea of leaving it mostly correct with just a few subversive entries.
I suppose I did get a bit carried away, especially with the Jubilee line..
I can see it fine now - don't know what happened before.
Now working on another one, which includes all disused stations and proposed extensions (except fleet line). Any ideas about what to do with the white city area? It's a bit of a mess.
who knows nothing about the London Underground other than the funny black circle sign
Would need to be maps of Lake Charles for me. Then, I don't even know if I'd notice many things. I can get lost in my own city. I know I'm good. Why, thank you!
Tube Map
iirc somewhere in the ether there is a tube map where you have to drag and drop ALL the station names into their correct places. fictifino where...
Drunk Map
I think that I might try putting together a tube map with all the stations replaced with drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic). My thoughts so far is that the overground could be beer, and the circle line could be mixers, with possibly the jubilee as high proof alcohol. All of the connecting stations would be cocktails, and the others brand names. I think maybe the W&C would be just cocktails, and maybe the circle line as whisky.
Who wants to share more fun with people
I think many of you would love the site www.sporcle.com I love playing there and there are some people that complain about a few things being too U.S. Centric . . . so y'all could make a good balance most likely if you make quizzes!
*waves from Vilnius*
[FGZstar] Pictures! Better yet, wear it to a pilg (see Orange game) and I'll try to resist the temptation to superglue the zipper shut.
BQULrfMYJfYgdDG
E93S6T hop hey la la ley http://avtozastivxux.sweb.wankah.cz
I'm not going to that URL, I might end up talking like him.
Don't Be Surly
And a jaunty "hop hey la la ley" to you to, Mr., Mrs. or Ms. XhLFMGIIvYvcLDqucg.
XhLFMGIIvYvcLDqucg
[SM] I did a quick Google search for the name 'XhLFMGIIvYvcLDqucg', and nothing came up. On the other hand, if you remove the 'cg' from the end, you have slightly better luck. This leads me to suspect that Mr, Mrs or Mz XhL FMG IvY vcDqu (whose homepage is here) may be operating under a (frankly, rather transparent) pseudonym.
Now Wash Your Hands Please
[SM] I followed your links and now I feel dirty.
translation
It does read a lot better if you feed it through Google translate.
Gibberish
Well, in most language options at least one recognizable word appears. I have noted sleep, even and Hugo after a few tries.
Ffolineb
Translating into Welsh provides only one phrase I recognised, viz Ysgol gynradd Gymraeg = Welsh primary school, and there is commendable gender agreement. That's what it's all about, then.
Who doesn't want to be a spammer . . .
None of that makes any sense to me . . . I'm just sad that no more people seem to be playing my Literary Rhyme Time quiz (or rating or nominating it . . . hint, hint). I took my time thinking of clever clues for that quiz! See? http://www.sporcle.com/games/kagomeshuko/literaryrhymetime Er, does HTML work . . . Quiz is here
Quiz site
I did look, and got about a third, (and saved a cached copy of the quiz) but I'm not really interested in registering. So I'm an invisible quiz-taker, and I suspect I'm not alone in this. The other thing is, as you said earlier, all the quizzes are mostly US-centric and yes, while it would be nice to make it more international, I feel rather too outnumbered by all the US guys to make any perceptible difference. Sorry.
Haven't got 'John's Stinky White Vegetables', because I can't think of a suitable literary surname, but I suspect you should be ashamed of yourself for that one.
Somewhere on my hard disk I've got a punny work-in-progress quiz a bit like this one of yours. Mine contains entries such as 'many-sized virtue' - 'paragon'. 'King's son publishes' - 'prints'. Some need more work, like that 'paragon' one. The clue doesn't fit the answer very closely.
[SM]
Hidden text
Bunyan[K] I enjoyed the quiz, and got 15, which I thought was not too bad for the time limit .
Hidden text
would have been 16 if I had been able to spell 'Malory' correctly; *hangs head in shame*GQfQKSGtdcrLDjEcxtc
1EEjv2 hi all ?heey ? messus mangle
I think Simons Mith is the one to answer you there, sHEvKENZEyy. I believe he studied that very subject at university.
Have we all been shamed into silence?
who is thoroughly confused by pen's link
What's going on there?
[KS] I believe that is penelope herself in the picture (and a rather good picture it is too).
Another picture, that is, not another picture of penelope.
Posters
[aak] Thangyew. A friend of mine took it, insiting that it was homework for a portrait photography course she was doing. I was leaning inside her old garden shed holding two foil reflectors in outstretched arms. The wonders of photography, eh? But it'll do for my next book jacket, heheh!
Posters
Interesting in that Raak's is actually Raak.
[ISP] Well spotted! I am in fact a 28-year-old woman with a shaved head except for a tightly woven topknot and massively muscled shoulders and arms. Beware my biceps, for they can crack walnuts.
[Raak] I'd always thought you were in your 30s. Strange how things get confused :)
[Phil] It's a hard life as a Balkan mercenary.
This weekend, I am mostly...
catching up with a schoolfriend who is making the trip from Galway. I still find it staggering that I have had some friends for more than 30 years. Tomorrow, I have earmarked picking sloes and making sloe gin as one of our principal activities, and I notice that it's going to piss it down with rain. *rse. On Sunday (when it will also piss it down with rain), we will make an early start to the Vogelmaarkt in Antwerp so we can breakfast on pieces of fried fish known as kibbeling (yum) and waffles as big as our heads covered in chocolate and whipped cream, before watching the live kitchen gadget demonstrations, marvelling at the Moroccan spice stalls and buying trinkets and savouries according to our whim. (Is 'whim' like 'sheep' in that the plural is the same as the singular?)
Colloquial inconsistency
(pen) Shurely if you can say "piss" you can say "arse"? I know I can, and in style. I think the plural of "whim" is boring old "whims" and of "sheep", "sheeps". Just ask a Frenchman.
Old mate
(pen) I have a friend (whom I have seen recently) of 57 years' acquaintance. Is this a greater proportion of my life than 30 years is of yours? Come on, have to hurry you.
Quite so
Like Rosie I have a friend that I first met at primary school, so that is also 57 years, and I am younger than Rosie.
old acquaintance
I am 44 and married the person I sat next to in Infant School.
Fail
[FGZ] Hmm. well done on the typography etc, but really, swearing? Do you really need to?
FGZStar's Poster
That went over my head I'm afraid.
The plurals of words . . .
are sheep for sheep and fish or fishes for fish. Sheeps is only a form of a verb. Sheeps means grazes. Yes, the plural of "whim" is boring old "whims." However,there is "cacti" and "cactuses." Even more fun is that there is "octopi," "octopuses," and "octopodes." More plurals fun: rhinoceroses, rhinoceri, rhinocerotes.
Yes, I'm afraid I also fond FGZstar's poster both meaningless and mildly offensive.
[Plural] I still occasionally come across people who insist "data" can only be a plural. Funny that they don't make the same fuss about "agenda".
[Plural] I still occasionally come across people who insist "data" can only be a plural. Funny that they don't make the same fuss about "agenda".
[INJ/SM] I presume it was intended as the opposite of the magnificent "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters of the Second World War.
Kornfläken
(ISP) I think "data" can be both but I agree that to insist that it is always plural is pretentious and a bit annoying, a bit like government propagandums.
(Phil) Don't quite remember 'em, but if you say so. :-)
(Phil) Don't quite remember 'em, but if you say so. :-)
[Phil] Thanks. I'm not overly conversant with WWII UK memes unfortunately. In fact, Mr. Chad (known elsewhere as Kilroy) is the sum total of my knowledge of the matter. Or was, since I now know something else thanks to you and FGZStar.
I recognised the reference to 'Keep Calm and Carry On' - available on mugs near you - but still don't see what FGZstar means. I'm happy to accept that it's just a generational thing.
About datum and agendum
Datum and agendum are singular. One singular piece of data and one singular thing to do, rather than a list. The minute it is two (or more) they become data and agenda. So, "What's on the agenda?" is correct being people are going to expect more than one item. If I say the only thing on the agenda is the meeting, that's wrong, it's the agendum. Yes, I am just being a grammar nazi. I don't really care that much about those words.
To more interesting topics, like how this forum works
I'm trying to do the hidden words thing.
Hidden text
Is this how I hide words?Wow! I must be smart!
I figured that out! At least, that is not when trying to make text small.
Hidden text
I must be smart![INJ} I am given to understand by today's youth that "to bail" would indicate giving up in a dramatic way. It would appear to come from "bailing out (of an aeroplane)". Incidentally, "Keep Calm and Carry On" is available on a mug in my own kitchen.
agendum?
[Kagome...] If you have a lst of things to be done (from the latin gerundive), or an agenda, and it only contains one item, it is still a list of things to be done. So I disagree, and would say that an agenda for a meeting is always an agenda, regardless of how many items are on it. More specifically, each item on an agenda would be an agendum.
[Kag] And you got the singular of Nazi wrong too; it's Nazus. :-)
[Phil] I have it on very good authority that each thing on an agenda is an itum.
with an upside-down crown
[Phil] I have a "Keep Calm and Carry On" t-shirt. frogstar has one that says "Now Panic and Freak Out". To date I don't think we've worn them at the same time.
[KS] A datum is a data point and so is a count noun with a plural of data. However data meaning information is a mass noun and takes a singular agreement.
Everybody Keep Calm
The whole 'Just Bail' Idea related to something one of the guys I know from my accommodation, who once said 'let's just bail' at a party, and so it stuck, and got written on a large board and put in the window. It was then at a recent poster sale that we saw a 'keep calm' poster, and decided to change it. It was initially going to be 'Just Bail', but this would not fit with the whole idea of an odd number of lines, so the expletive got added. We are now planning on getting the poster printed up at A2 or A1 size, and put on the kitchen wall.
[FGZ] You want to put up that helpful new tube map you've been working on...
bailing
And I thought that bailing, or bailing out, was a nautical term . . .
US Politics
So if Obama bailed out the banks, does that mean he dumped all the water out of them?
Damn Yankees
I believe that in the form stated it is more a metaphor for removing someone from the tender mercies of the law by posting a bond so that they don't have to sit in a cell until they are called to answer for their deeds. Of course, the financial "experts" behind the whole meltdown will never be called to answer for their deeds, so it all metaphorically falls apart. Rather like The Bailout.
Baling out
This is enlightening: bale or bail
Wouldn't "Bale Out" be some sort of harvest-related activity, possibly taking place in WWII and involving steam tractors and Land Girls?
Bale Out
And I thought it would be taking blocks of hay out of the barn.
The Phrase Finder
The phrase finder site is great! It is often a start for my research on the origins of phrases when I write that type of article, and often quoted as the source as many sources are mentioned on the pages.
Keep calm and swear your head off
I was at Liverpool Street station at the weekend, and was mildly shocked (although not, being me, actually offended) to walk past a (shut) kiosk proudly displaying a greetings card with the message "KEEP CALM AND FUCK OFF" to any and all passers by. I suspect that Mary Whitehouse would not have approved...
[jim] I suspect you are right. Nothing good ever came of telling that lady to keep calm.
Acronym
Yes, I believe she formed a campaign originally entitled Clean Up National Television.
Acronyms
TLA has just been closed. Any ideas for a new game?
Anything like a poetry parody game?
I think that I shall never see
A purple cow that looks like thee
This poem is a pure mess
With lots of apologies to Gilet Burgess.
A purple cow that looks like thee
This poem is a pure mess
With lots of apologies to Gilet Burgess.
*controversial* a game of Mornington Crescent perhaps?
MC game
Well, we could... Could someone just go over the rules quickly? It's been so long.
Tongue in Cheek
[KagomeShuko] See: The Obligatory Limericks Game Reincarnated
Though to be fair I saw no problem with your mother's snoring since it followed the same beat as my favourite limerick by Spike Milligan:
Things that go bump in the night
Should really not give one a fright
It's the hole in each ear
Which lets in the fear
That, and the absence of light
If we've got to the point where people would object to Spike if he were to post that, we are in trouble.
Though to be fair I saw no problem with your mother's snoring since it followed the same beat as my favourite limerick by Spike Milligan:
Things that go bump in the night
Should really not give one a fright
It's the hole in each ear
Which lets in the fear
That, and the absence of light
If we've got to the point where people would object to Spike if he were to post that, we are in trouble.
If we've got to the point where Spike posts that, then the dead are walking the earth and we have greater worries than scansion.
True. :/
Post-Hallowe'en
Is it just me who uses the apostrophe there?
[Pen] Surely it should be 'Hallow'e'en'
erm...
Missing S & missing V? Perhaps. But it's deffo not the way Hallmark spell it.
[Pen] I was starting from 'All Hallows Eve' but then had to account for the final 'n' so I've taken Halloween to be an abbreviated form of 'All Hallows Eventide'.
[penelope] You've missed the apostrophe from penelop'
[Phil] I've missed a lot of things in my time. *sigh*
I'd be grateful for more movers and shakers in the limericks game please - to set good examples of rhyming and scansion to those perhaps less accustomed to the sound and feel of a good limerick, and perhaps also to show Marc that there are other subjects apart from sex to be limericked, and repeated references tend to make people drift away from the game.
[Pen] That's unfair to Marc. You have to go back over 20 screens and 50-100 moves to see the last time he tried anything even remotely naughty. And he got told off last time as well. By you...
hmmm
Really? Apologies if it seemed unjust - but I have that impression. I will try to adjust my stance.
I'm with Pen
Though not, perhaps, in singling out Marc. I think there have a few too many somewhat coarse limericks across all the servers recently. We need a few rules of thumb here like:
- First lines ending 'Phuket' (or Nantucket, etc.) are never going to be funny
- Filth is always funnier if it's not signalled in advance.
Add your own.
- First lines ending 'Phuket' (or Nantucket, etc.) are never going to be funny
- Filth is always funnier if it's not signalled in advance.
Add your own.
(INJ) I agree more or less with your filth stance though if someone puts up an obviously dirty first line there is a strong temptation to carry on with the bawdiness. Unexpected filth is much funnier; years ago on PantsMC I put up the innocent first line:
"There was a young fellow from Streatham strettum", which was followed by
"Who chewed off his bollocks and ate 'em"
Aha, I thought, this is good.
The worst thing about too many of the current limericks is the lack of rhythm. I look at them and groan and think "Why bother?"
"There was a young fellow from Streatham strettum", which was followed by
"Who chewed off his bollocks and ate 'em"
Aha, I thought, this is good.
The worst thing about too many of the current limericks is the lack of rhythm. I look at them and groan and think "Why bother?"
Da diddly diddly dum
(INJ, Rosie et al.) Agreeing with the aforementioned points of lax scansion and over-active glands; but I would add that limericks which start with an obvious hope that they'll end up coarsely can be funny when subsequent moves elegantly sidestep it.
However, everything in moderation...
However, everything in moderation...
sidestepping
I like the sidestepping thing. It seems particularly English and I find I use it a lot here - especially as I'm in the lavisicous hotbed of the Netherlands and sometimes pretending to be more archetypally (sp?) English than I actually am seems to be the only way to avoid lowering myself to their standards. Oh. That means I am very English after all, doesn't it?
(And that rumour about the Dutch being liberal and easy-going? Don't believe a word of it. Most of them are Calvinists. It's a more conservative and male-dominated business and academic environment than any I have encountered before.
(And that rumour about the Dutch being liberal and easy-going? Don't believe a word of it. Most of them are Calvinists. It's a more conservative and male-dominated business and academic environment than any I have encountered before.
*waves from Leipzig*
With regards to Nantucket
I do have to say that there is a funny and not at all dirty limerick. If you'll take a look here. (Yes, I know there is a misspelled word. It was posted more than two years ago.
I always want to rhyme bucket and Nantucket with Kirby Puckett.
Guess who's back...
In response to Simon's Mith, who asked for the tube map a while back, It will be posted when I can find that pesky link (I think it's down the back of the sofa somewhere). I am also now working at an anagram Europe map, which may be posted soon.
Jellied Eel
Does anybody eat that? One time I thought I saw somebody write "Jelly Diel." I don't know if they were ignorant or joking.
[KS] I've eaten it - nice taste, slightly odd texture. Eels used to be a very important part of people's diet in the South and East of England. Like oysters it's had a bit of an up and down ride in terms of prestige.
Eels are now endangered in the UK. There's a big tradition of eating them here in the Netherlands too ('paling'), especially smoked, but the flavour is a bit too strong for me. I suppose I'd eat them if I was absolutely starving and there was nothing else.
The Eastenders used to love their jellied eels and mash in the old days. I have eaten it down Petticoat Lane back in the '60s.
My dad loves jellied eels, still eats them. In fact, only last week on the Hairy Bikers show they had jellied eels.
I've had smoked eel, thinly sliced on canapés at a provincial art gallery (which I've just realised sounds a bit like the start of an Alan Bennett monologue). Very nice, IMHO. Also, I seem to remember smoked eel paté, but I can't remember when or where. I don't remember disliking it though.
Never tried 'em
Jellied Eels
They don't sound appetizing to me (of course, I don't/can't eat seafood - most of it, just the smell of it cooking, makes me sick to my stomach). I think the person who used "Jelly diel" thought it was some sort of pastry come to think of it.
Odd News
A rabbi, a priest, and a deer walk into a bar, apparently . . .
Deels
Had eel for lunch today (in Bruges and in a virulent green sauce), partly prompted by this discussion. I enjoyed it. I also really enjoyed Bruges, which I was visiting for the first time - what a gorgeous town!
Kicking up my eels
Best eel I ever had was in Tokyo, many years ago now, at a dedicated unagi restaurant. Very good indeed. (Also, I fell instantly in love with my server, who looked like a young Susan Sarandon.)
*eels over*
I have not tried eel, as far as I know, but given my general dislike of eating animals aquatic, there is a good chance I would not like it. That said, it would very much depend on how it is done.
Eelsprit d'elverscalier
I should have said "Ead over eels" rather than "Kicking up my eels".
Jampanese Language
I am wondering if jellied eels would be "Unagi Zerī" in Japanese, or perhaps they use "Jam" and it'd be "Unagi Jamu." Just don't get in a jam confusing unagi and usagi. Two very different animals!
Prezzies
I didn't get any eels for my birthday, thankfully!
*wears 'igh 'eels*
So has anyone got snow yet?
A few flurries in Leeds yesterday - just cold (about -2) & sunny at the moment.
big fat raindrops though
[penelope] Not here, alas.
Roll on global warming!
Snow yesterday evening and thick snow this morning, but not enough to lie.
[Raak] Oh I dunno. I'll lie at the drop of a hat.
'igh 'eels
Come on pen, you are a girl, you can always wear high heels whether or not there is snow.
It's snowing in Edinburgh! And just in time, as they've just finished building Christmas!
[FGZ] Shedding it down now.
Sunday lunchtime in Zuid Holland
Still below zero, still sunny, still no snow...
Parky
(pen) Same as here. The weather newsgroup are absolutely out of their prams because it's cold and there's NO SNOW. I sometime wonder about the company I keep. There's at least another week of this Siberian NW Russian stuff.
We woke up to an inch or so of snow on Friday morning. A lot of it is still around. Our little back roads are like ice rinks :-(
We must have had about 6-8 inches since last night. The buses continue to run (albeit stopping short of some of the further-flung places). I look forward to one flake falling within the M25 later in the week and the end of the universe being declared by the media, again.
State of Emergency
(rab) Not a whole flake, shurely? We had a little here tonight, well within the noisy racetrack/car park, and I have had a level 16" (39 cm) in the back garden (14 Jan 1987). Your point is well made, though.
*sigh*
Minus 3, overcast, dry. Still no snow in Zuid Holland.
The walk to work was a bit treacherous, mostly cos the road in runs east-west with a hill to the south, so when it snows it doesn't melt. Poor motorist being dug out of a turning into it. Heavy dumpage as we speak.
Unseasonal snow
We even had snow here on the island which caused the usual chaos. I understand that the Isle of Donkies had it worst (being so much further north) and its airport remains closed again today because of frozen snow. We had to do without UK papers this weekend because of the weather. No crossword - bah!
Where are you, Softers? I forget - sorry
[Software] *taps the internet*
Where am I?
A familiar question, especially after a night on the tiles. In the deep south, Jersey.
Mass panic alert
There were 7 inches of Snow in Edinburgh. The capital city of Scotland went completely to shit today because of a little bit of snow. Schools closed, traffic halted, train service gone haywire. Oh, but on a happy note, the deadline for my Art and Design portfolio got moved back a day! Happy times!
There seems to be this curious attitude in Britain that everywhere else handles an unexpected dump of snow better. It's simply not true. Stevie might like to inform you about how badly they seem to handle it in the US and from experience, they don't handle it at all well in Russia. People are just generally less inclined to whine about it in other places, or you just don't hear about it in the UK. It's like me being asked by my family and friends how I handle the heat in Australia. The answer - same as the Aussies: I close the curtains and stay inside with the air-conditioning running full bore.
[FGZ] Respectfully, I beg to differ. This is the most snow I've seen in a major UK urban area, and people seem to be handling it pretty well as far as I can tell. Driving is extremely difficult. A colleague of mine who lives in a cul-de-sac in Newington said that someone drove into it by accident on Sunday, and it took them 45 minutes to get out again (with help from the local residents). Another was unable to drive her car into her garage and has had to abandon it in front of a "Do not park in front of this notice" notice at work, because the car parks on campus are inaccessible. The fact that buses are running at all - albeit sporadically and with some diversions - is pretty impressive in my opinion.
Closing schools seems like a ludicrous overreaction, but actually it's pretty sensible. On the one hand it reduces pressure on the buses and the roads in general. On the other there is also the chance (admittedly more so in rural areas) that conditions could worsen and the kids wouldn't be able to get home and would have to stay at school overnight. This happened at my old school (albeit after I left) and it sounded like a bloody nightmare for all concerned. And, of course, teachers don't always live in the catchment areas of the school (can't afford to if it's a good one) so they'd be short-staffed as well.
But, hey, ho, as long as it allows you to hand in something late without incurring a penalty, then that's ok.
Snow point in whining
[nfras] In the U.S., the degree of coping-with-winter is highly variable. As you'd expect, it depends on what the particular place is used to. I've lived in Michigan, where they handle (normal) snowfall easily and as a matter of course. The salt trucks are out, the plows are out, and the roads are generally cleared pretty easily and efficiently. I've also lived in Virginia, which was a very different story. And of course that makes sense -- a city in Virginia, which gets one major snowfall every couple of years, is not going to have an army of snowplows on hand to cope with that. And neither they should. Same goes for Edinburgh.
Leeds, which is where I'm working at the moment, has about 3cms of snow in the centre and maybe up to 10 in higher, outlying areas. I lived here in the 70s and 80s and this is well within the norms for the city of those days at least. There are a few individual cases of people having problems, but basically the city is coping fine with all public transport running as normal.
Turns out that the Embra experience depends on where you are in the city. I swung into town earlier and was surprised at how little snow there was. You need to head south beyond the railway line to see the real stuff. A colleague who lives a few hundred yards south of me showed me a picture of his house taken earlier today, with about a foot (or more) of snow on his wheelie bin. I guess the closer you get to the sea, the less snow there will be. Take a trip down to Blackford or the Braids if you can as it's really spectacular. A very impressive igloo has been built by the campus bus stop. I've got pictures which I'll share next time I'm near my USB cable.
What campus? I know there's a half finished igloo by the ECA, because it was the architecture students that built it.
KB
Tierra Nevada del Sur
(rab) Too right. Ten inches level depth in my back garden. Nothing moves, especially me, except to measure the bloody stuff. I've no tea and I bet the Co-op hasn't got any either
[Rosie] Given your inordinate mastery of all things meteorological, why didn't you stock up?
(Phil) Your commendation is noted and appreciated but it should not be assumed that such sagacity extends to other areas of life. Actually, I didn't believe it would be anything like as bad because the Met Office has cried wolf on numerous occasions. In this case, they were right but a slight change in the wind direction would have meant the snow would have either landed somewhere else or hardly anywhere. As it turned out it was just right for this area to get a dumping. There's very little in the west of Surrey or north of the Thames. I won't be going out tonight; too many steep hills between here and the pub and I'm far too old for heroics.
tea-mergency
[Rosie] I have stock! There are three boxes of proper English tea in the cellar. I can post one over...
[Rosie] I have friends in Chaldon who will have plenty in store. Do you have a team of trained homing huskies?
The photo in the above link doesn't do justice to the steepness of the hill. To the left of the camera the road is essentially level and the part of the hill shown is about 1 in 5, steepening further down. Approaching it in a car the road seems to go over the edge of a cliff. I think the reason is due to the use of a fairly wide-angle lens, which always has this effect. Using a long lens you can make even a railway gradient look insurmountable.
royal tea
[Rosie] Thanks goodness. I love the Co-op, especially since they revamped themselves. Their 'Indian Prince' tea makes a wonderful, ordinary cuppa and is as good as anything Twinings makes.
'eels or, uh, 'ills
What's a hill? j/k . . . where I live is very flat, but I've seen much steeper!
steep hills
If you ride an adult trike down a really steep hill, you can go really fast.
(KS, G) England is surprisingly hilly, though mostly on a small scale. Wales and Scotland are seriously hilly, mountainous in places, and any level piece of land is occupied by a rugby or football pitch. The hill in the picture drops 250 ft in about 1/3 mile so your trike had better have good brakes.
(pen) Your Cop-op sounds a good deal classier than mine but I can walk there, which gets one off one's bum if nothing else.
(pen) Your Cop-op sounds a good deal classier than mine but I can walk there, which gets one off one's bum if nothing else.
A good cuppa after a walk
[Rosie] Splendid. There's nothing better after a walk to buy teabags - a good cuppa.
Midweekery
So. No news really. Grey and gloomy and only just below freezing here. We could do with a sparkling winter day, I reckon.
'Ot innit?
Above freezing overnight last night. A positively balmy 5° walking in to work. A little sheen of water over the still glassy ice on the pavements.
Scorchio!
5°C here too, and 3°C overnight - feels positively balmy. I didn't even wear gloves this morning! We didn't have as much snow as the UK, so our pavements are now mostly clear. The ditches are still filled with billowing drifts though.
Weather
Our weather is crazy. It's been from -1.6666666666666667C (29F) at the lowest on some days and today the high was around 21.666666666666668C (71F)!
I tried to guess the temperature in Celsius and my guess was a tiny bit high, but I ended up saying that I was a bit high.
She just might be . . . though I don't know on what. Helium, maybe? But most likely, sugar.
It seems that the snow has finally cleared! Shame, because it means there is not chance of my looming examination being postponed. I suppose I should do at least some revision, then!
Recurring nightmares
(KS) Not enough 6's. :-)
Court in the act
I was in court today, and I realized that (with the possible exception of a wedding I once attended), this was a first for me. Let me hasten to add that I was not there for any bad reason. It wasn't even to contest the $60 ticket I got for jaywalking last week.
Balls in court
I've been a number of times; and on each occasion I've been sent away because nothing was actually happening.
Serial offender
Two appearances in magistrates courts (Oxted 1978, Croydon 1987) for Driving with Undue Care and Attention. First one, guilty - quite a big fine, second one - Case Dismissed, cockup on the part of the then-new Crown Prosecution Service. My cousin, a solicitor now retired said that if you saw the shambles that is the back office of most police stations you'd wonder how they ever manage to prosecute anybody.
Young and Offensive
I have never been in court, though that may be likely to change if they ever find out who did poke Camilla with that stick at the student protests.
[Cross-posted in other places] Anybody want a single ticket to the recording of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, this Saturday (18th Dec) in Crawley? Cost price £9. email phil at philspub dot co dot uk. First come first served.
ISIHAC
[Phil] Damn it! That date is my sister's birthday. Sorry, old chap, but the £9 must remain in my wallet.
Numbers
666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666 . . . is that enough, [Rosie]?
I'm too sexy for my math
I found that last post very sixy.
I found it really annoying ;^)
Blind drunk. At 7.30pm. For shame. Bloody students.
Let me correct that
Blind Drunk. At 7.30am. For shame. Bloody lecturers.
Moderation in all things, dammit
Mellow. At 1230 am. For shame. Drink-driving laws.
(KagShuk) Well, not really, but a commendable effort. Try these: 142857 X 7, 25641 X 39, 1369863 X 73.
(KagShuk) Well, not really, but a commendable effort. Try these: 142857 X 7, 25641 X 39, 1369863 X 73.
Rosie surely knows this, but it's fun to multiply 142857 by all sorts of numbers. For the geeks among us.
Court in the act
I've been in court lots of times. I was the court reporter in our local magistrates court for about a year. Wonderful job - like watching a whole day of soap operas. There was the woman fined for keeping Shetland ponies in her kitchen, the father fined for punching the upstart who copped a feel of his teenage daughter at her birthday party, the businessman who bought his way out of a driving ban by paying a huge fine, but wore Tweety-Pie socks under his sober business suit... all recorded in detail.
I haven't had a drink since a glass of red wine last Monday. It's about time... (it's a bad idea to drink when I'm cooking - things tend to go wrong - and I cook every night.)
I haven't had a drink since a glass of red wine last Monday. It's about time... (it's a bad idea to drink when I'm cooking - things tend to go wrong - and I cook every night.)
Who does have a calculator on her computer
I could do those math problems by hand, but it'd take too long before I head off to bed, so the computer calculator is it.
142857x7=999999, 25641x39=999999, 1369863x73=99999999
A bunch of nines . . . how about a bunch of bananas?
142857x7=999999, 25641x39=999999, 1369863x73=99999999
A bunch of nines . . . how about a bunch of bananas?
Quiet
Hello? Anybody there?
Currently trundling through a landscape that looks like an infrared photograph. All the green stuff is completely white. No snow but the thickest frost I've ever seen.
shush - I'm hoovering
Currently blasting through the going-away-for-Christmas-but-bringing-back-friends-for-New-Year cleaning. Veeeerrrryyy slow thaw going on, but it's good to know that it's warm enough for the salt and grit on the roads to work.
Merry Christmas!
HC
Have a good one
[KS] I assume Niblet Woofles is the one in the middle, holding Valerie Bridget and Briana.
no people, two dogs
Santa in middle. White and tan dog (as reindeer) is Niblet. Black and tan dog (as Santa) is Woofles. Valerie, Bridget, and Briana are not in the picture.
I'm back
My absence was enforced by 'the weather'. A couple of weeks ago a small but nasty storm decided to travel across my little bit of territory. In the process of doing so it deposited about 75mm of rain and hailstorms the size of a florin in about half of an hour. Regrettably it also targeted me with lots of high voltage sparkly things. The aftermath was somewhat sobering, even though I was quite sober at the time. At two in the afternoon it became as dark as it was at eight that evening (I checked) and then IT happened. Casualties so far have all been computer related/connected. Computer: fried; hard drives: fried; back ups: fried; UPS: fried; modem: fried; router: fried; weather station: suspect (i.e. yet to be proven).
Oddly enough - and I'm assuming that the telephone line was the ingress for this devilish behaviour - the two telephone lines and the various devices attached survived unscathed. Even the ADSL filters exhibit normal behaviour. The circuit breaker in the 'fuse box' dropped out and, at least to date, no other damage seems to have been inflicted.
I am now using a new bright and shiny computer thingy (I hope that my insurance company will come to the party else I'll be skint).
Circumstance now dictates the use of Windows 7 (although I suppose I could install my original XP) which, despite all the media praise, I find rather odd. Is it possible that I am becoming a Luddite?
Oddly enough - and I'm assuming that the telephone line was the ingress for this devilish behaviour - the two telephone lines and the various devices attached survived unscathed. Even the ADSL filters exhibit normal behaviour. The circuit breaker in the 'fuse box' dropped out and, at least to date, no other damage seems to have been inflicted.
I am now using a new bright and shiny computer thingy (I hope that my insurance company will come to the party else I'll be skint).
Circumstance now dictates the use of Windows 7 (although I suppose I could install my original XP) which, despite all the media praise, I find rather odd. Is it possible that I am becoming a Luddite?
(Dujon) That sounds pretty dreadful and ironically it's the kind of weather that I like. If not the telephone line could it have been caused by an induced current from a nearby bolt of lightning. Was your house nearly struck, for instance? Some people I know disconnect everything computer-related if there's a storm about, something I regard as a bit chicken, like hiding under the table, but it might have worked. I don't know. It wouldn't have made any difference if the damage was caused by induced currents.
Meanwhile, we've had the coldest December for over a century but it's now slowly relenting and it felt positively balmy outside tonight with a temperature of 2°C and light rain. It should get a bit milder still in the next few days but the average will still be below 0°C, over 5° below what it should be. Good riddance to December, as ever. Gloomy, cold and miserable with the steaming dog-turd of Christmas as seasoning. Let's do a restart and have a new year.
Meanwhile, we've had the coldest December for over a century but it's now slowly relenting and it felt positively balmy outside tonight with a temperature of 2°C and light rain. It should get a bit milder still in the next few days but the average will still be below 0°C, over 5° below what it should be. Good riddance to December, as ever. Gloomy, cold and miserable with the steaming dog-turd of Christmas as seasoning. Let's do a restart and have a new year.
Oddly, despite the temperature having risen 10°ree;C in the past week, it actually feels colder in my flat now than it did then. I suspect that a number of people in the other flats are away and we're not getting the benefit of their heating. Also ours was just left on a 'stop the pipes from freezing' setting while we were away, and I think it's taking some time to warm the walls back up. Beautiful old stone buildings - donchalove'em? And we're moving into a bigger one!
Grumbling and bumbling
[Rosie] Induced currents? I would say that that is quite probable. The circuit breaker dropping out also indicates either some imbalance in the power circuit or an outright over-current surge. I suspect both. The weather station seems to be defunct - in the sense that it's not reporting any wind data and will not 'talk' to the computer via its com port. The anemometer is, of course, well above the roof (it is 12 metres above ground level).
[rab] I understand your coolness. When Mrs Duj and I bought the property in which we now reside it had been unoccupied for three or four months. Unlike your own home ours is just a simple brick and timber construction and would not, I assume, have the same heat sink properties as a stone building. In our case the house can still be cool but simply living in the place makes it far more comfortable than it was when it was deserted.
[rab] I understand your coolness. When Mrs Duj and I bought the property in which we now reside it had been unoccupied for three or four months. Unlike your own home ours is just a simple brick and timber construction and would not, I assume, have the same heat sink properties as a stone building. In our case the house can still be cool but simply living in the place makes it far more comfortable than it was when it was deserted.
Happy new year to all!
Happy New Year!!!
It's 1/1/11!!!
That's 1derful!
1-dering in, late as usual
Happy New Year, everyone. So far so good - friends over for dinner on NYE, followed by fireworks just outside the house - as did everyone else in the street. Together, they all made a fantastic display. And last night, an authentic Chinese meal, made by one of our lovely houseguests, who brought a box of cooking kit with her on the ferry over from England so she could cook for us. Five dishes... and all of it scrumptious. I cooked the rice - and made some strawberry ripple icecream with the last of last summer's strawberries from the freezer. Roll on spring...
erm... hullo?
Anyone home? Me again... first day back in the office for me this morning (it means leaving home before the sun is up, but I caught sunrise along the motorway - most spectacularly red for half a minute or so before the partial eclipse which made it all dark again) and apart from my PC forgetting to show me the server where all my work is stored, I think everything is exactly as I left it, almost three weeks ago. So... how was it for you?
yep, everything in my office is exactly as I left it last night :-)
S'allright for you
Not all of us can find a full-time job! (and I had to forego a week's leave in October because of a magazine deadline and add the days off onto my Xmas leave - which did rankle a bit as I was denied an autumn trip to England!)
It's still a Bank Holiday here!
No Uni until next week. Bloody lazy are us students. I decided to take a trip to London. Will be visiting a certain crescent, although will avoid the transport museum, as it is overpriced.
Ice Cream
Do strawberries have nipples? BTW I didn't know banks could go on holiday.
Is there something catching?
If there's something catching, I think I need to stay away from these forums and Gier's posts. They are quite crazy!
Isn't it lovely and warm today! 12.3 degrees already, and it's not even 11am :-)
coatless
I went out on an errand without a coat this morning. 10C here in Zuid Holland - balmy!
Sick
I have been knocked sideways by the 'flu. Lying in bed MCing on my mobile.p
[Software] Is a 'mobile p' the same as a gazunder?
Yes
Saw Spamalot tonight
Software, did you eat any Spam while sick?
Spam
[Giertrud] Never touch the nasty stuff. I saw Spamalot on Broadway in one of the pre-opening shows. Got real cheap tickets and had a great time!
Burns night tonight - hope you're all practising your 'Address to a Haggis'.
I forgot. I was shopping for shoes on Ebay. I haven't yet seen a haggis on sale in the Netherlands.
[Pen] It's OK, there's still time to go out and kill a sheep.
I tried vegetarian haggis last night, which was nicer than I feared. Might try the real thing next year.
Sheepwise
[INJ] They only keep'em as pets here. I can't actually buy lamb in our local supermarket. Fools...
[Pen] Easier to catch one then.
Weekending. Belated Christmas gift giving at sister-in-laws this evening.
Weekendingagain
Has no-one really had anything to say in the past week? Hmmph! Not much to report here and no real plans for the weekend - but a MAHOOSSIVE basket of ironing to do.
Ironing
That's what rugby matches on the TV are for.
What???
And make it more of a chore than it needs to be? I'd prefer a spaghetti western or WW2 film...
Ironing your hand
Nah, sport's more efficient to iron to. You can hear from the commentary whether it's a bit you really want to be watching and if you miss anything significant they'll almost certainly repeat it.
Ironing?
Ironing? What's that? In the states, it's the Super Bowl this weekend. Lots of handegg.
Super Bowl
Mmm . . . sounds like it could hold a lot of pretzels.
Sunnink to say
(pen) I'm building a telescope. It has a 5" lens that someone gave me but of course you have to mount it, as Andy Gray would say.
The weather is lovely here, now that it has stopped raining. For the moment.
summink to say
Im just going to say something so KagomeShuko's portrait of Father Christmas finally disappears off the top of the page.
This may involve gratuitous line breaks
This may involve gratuitous line breaks
or even spurious paragraph breaks
but who cares?
In other news, it's fair in Rotterdam this morning - sunny, blue skies, 8C, and the hellebore in the garden is about to bloom - for the first time in 2 years.
Hooray!
It worked!
Hellebore
Now you can go fishing by crushing the hellebore and throwing into a pool. I am unreliably informed this will 'stun' the fish.
A quick bit of market research. If you went into a cafe/bar at lunchtime for a panini, what filling would you want?
Paninos
If I went in just once then probably something in the Ham & Cheese line - if I went in regularly I'd want a selection. Last Saturday Mrs INJ and I shared a Mushroom and Gorgonzola and a Tuna Melt.
[Phil] Generally, anything containing no cheese and not full of glop. Sweet Chilli Chicken, Ham and Piccalilli and Smoked Mackerel and Salad are the things I've had recently at a cafe I often go to for lunch at the weekend. The Ham (when they have it) is proper ham, of course, not vacuum-packed water-filled slices of reconstituted mechanically recovered meat. The Piccalilli might also have been homemade, not poured from a jar of clonmult.
Toasted Salad?
[Raak] Salad in a panini? I assume that Phil's intending these to be served hot, whereas your suggestions sound like excellent sandwich fillings.
Lifficles
Marvellous Raak. I love the "BECCLES (pl. n.) The small bone buttons placed in bacon sandwiches by unemployed guerrilla dentist." It reminds me of two things about my younger sister. She had a throry that you only get those buttons in bacon when there's a Labour government. She also had a lot of difficulty one weekend evening in the pub (many years ago, of course) when a handsome young man told he he was an 'armydentist'. She tried to fasten the two words together, like 'taxidermist', and couldn't understand what the job was.
Re; panini ham'n'cheese is the default filling, but I'd also go for perhaps hot roast beef with wholegrain mustard, and the smoked mackerel sounds good too. Can you lift the lid afterwards to stuff some watercress in?
Re; panini ham'n'cheese is the default filling, but I'd also go for perhaps hot roast beef with wholegrain mustard, and the smoked mackerel sounds good too. Can you lift the lid afterwards to stuff some watercress in?
Some colleagues of mine had to go on a trip to Flums (a town somewhere in darkest Switzerland) recently. The name seemed horribly familiar for some reason, but I couldn't think why I might ever have heard of the place. Eventually I tracked it down to the Meaning of Liff. FLUMS: Women who only talk to each other at parties.
Panini
Interesting from the responses I've had so far, here and elsewhere, that no-one has suggested anything vaguely Italian (with the exception of funghi con gorgonzola).
[INJ] Now I think of it, the Smoked Mackerel one was an untoasted baguette, but the Sweet Chilli Chicken is a toasted panini, and includes some lettucey things and chopped gherkins.
UN-Italian panini
[Phil] I suspect it's because the Italians would never take cheap bread and squish it between hot plates to make it palatable, let alone consider it a delicacy. It's a rather recent lunch-comestible-vendor's invention.
[pen] Neither would my favorite Norwich café. Only the best ciabatta!
panino
[rab] thank you
[Phil] Brie, bacon and tomato is a personal fave when I'm feeling evil.
[Phil] Brie, bacon and tomato is a personal fave when I'm feeling evil.
[pen] I used to get my lunchtime panino/i in a food court in Dublin, cooked by Italians. They had a choice of 4 each day, and were various combinations of parma ham, bresaola, aubergine, olives, mozzarella, basil, pesto, sundried tomato etc. Always delicious, and great with a large espresso.
in Dublin, cooked by Italians...
[Phil] If I was feeling mean, I'd point out that you may have just described immigrants selling a bastardised version of what Dubliners might consider foreign food. But I'm not. I'm just hungry. It's the last of the proper British pork chops tonight (ie more than 4mm thick), when the windy miller finally gets home.
Anything that doesn't involve potatoes and/or coleslaw counts as foreign food in Ireland :-)
The reason I asked in the first place is that I have a "Panini Grill" which does great toasted sandwiches, but I want to take advantage of the lunchtime panini market. My personal preference for fillings seems to be miles away from what other people want/expect, for which information I'm very grateful.
The reason I asked in the first place is that I have a "Panini Grill" which does great toasted sandwiches, but I want to take advantage of the lunchtime panini market. My personal preference for fillings seems to be miles away from what other people want/expect, for which information I'm very grateful.
Market Research
[Phil] I'd suggest going round a few of your local coffee shops just before lunch time and see what they have most of on their shelves. You can be sure they've done the research. The only difference about your trade is that you could probably go a little dryer and saltier.
Mind you this definitely sounds like 'teaching your grandmother'.
Mind you this definitely sounds like 'teaching your grandmother'.
[INJ] This assumes that supply = demand. There are at least two canteens that I've encountered that would run out of certain things very quickly on a daily basis and never increase their order of those things. You could even ask 'Do you have any more X?' and they would say 'No, they always sell out really quickly'...
Results of Panini Research
[Phil] Geez, Phil, are you running a pub or trying to make your eatery some sort of 'up-market' restaurant with fancy names for ordinary dishes? Surely a panino is just a bread roll into which, like a couple of bread slices, you can insert anything you damn well like? What's wrong with marketing a 'Salad Roll' or an 'Egg and Bacon Roll'?
[Dujon] In order: Yes and no; yes; and nothing. I just found the article interesting
I'm revamping my menu, with an eye on relaunching the food side of the business to create some lunchtime trade in the area. Everyone's feedback has been very useful. We already do sandwiches and toasted sandwiches, but I've found that people charge a bit more for something that doesn't come in traditional English white or brown bread; more importantly, people seem willing to pay a bit more, for something that doesn't really cost any extra to produce if it's in, say, ciabatta rather than two slices of fantastic, locally baked bread.
I'm revamping my menu, with an eye on relaunching the food side of the business to create some lunchtime trade in the area. Everyone's feedback has been very useful. We already do sandwiches and toasted sandwiches, but I've found that people charge a bit more for something that doesn't come in traditional English white or brown bread; more importantly, people seem willing to pay a bit more, for something that doesn't really cost any extra to produce if it's in, say, ciabatta rather than two slices of fantastic, locally baked bread.
Rolling over
[Phil] Sorry if I sounded a bit abrupt.
I do understand your viewpoint and, if that's what your customers want and are prepared to pay for, then I wish you all the best. You wouldn't be a businessman if you didn't explore all avenues in order to satisfy your clients. I like your comment on locally baked bread. Around my neck of the woods we have a plethora of bread varieties marketed in bulk to those of us who see bread as a staple. It's probably a couple of decades ago now, but at that time I noticed a severe decline in the quality of bread on offer. After testing just about every 'brand' available I gave up on bread for a goodly time (they all tasted 'plasticy' to me). I'm a slow learner and not very observant at times, Phil, but then I realised that there is a small local bakery in our small local shopping area which is a mere 400 metres from Maison Dujon. My bread now comes exclusively from that wee shop.
I suppose I'm saying that fresh is good. Do you intend to bake your own stock - or can you coerce one of your local bakeries into doing so? Ullage is always a problem when it comes to perishables so I'd guess you'd have to build in a wastage factor when pricing each product.
I do understand your viewpoint and, if that's what your customers want and are prepared to pay for, then I wish you all the best. You wouldn't be a businessman if you didn't explore all avenues in order to satisfy your clients. I like your comment on locally baked bread. Around my neck of the woods we have a plethora of bread varieties marketed in bulk to those of us who see bread as a staple. It's probably a couple of decades ago now, but at that time I noticed a severe decline in the quality of bread on offer. After testing just about every 'brand' available I gave up on bread for a goodly time (they all tasted 'plasticy' to me). I'm a slow learner and not very observant at times, Phil, but then I realised that there is a small local bakery in our small local shopping area which is a mere 400 metres from Maison Dujon. My bread now comes exclusively from that wee shop.
I suppose I'm saying that fresh is good. Do you intend to bake your own stock - or can you coerce one of your local bakeries into doing so? Ullage is always a problem when it comes to perishables so I'd guess you'd have to build in a wastage factor when pricing each product.
Between them, Greggs and Tesco have all but killed the traditional baker in the UK, so loaves that actually taste of something are now 'premium products' with price tags to match. See, for example, this place that opened round the corner from the flat we just moved out of.
[Dujon] The other issue is price. The large, white tin loaves that I get from the bakery are £1.54, from which I can get about 5 sandwiches per loaf. I can buy frozen ciabatta for approx 30p each. I do like the thought of the local baker making my bread, but I'd need to be doing serious volumes for them to make something specially for me, I'd imagine. Maybe when I've a few minutes on monday I'll have a natter with them.
if only
Don't get me started on bread. There are two sorts of supermarket bread here - the 'baked elsewhere' kind, which is passable, and the 'baked-off in-store', which is good if you eat it within 20 minutes. After that, it doesn't even make good toast - it's way too dry. But we also have two bakers in the village - one of them is excellent, if you like a proper wholemeal loaf - which we do. Sadly our breadmachine is a little under-used, although I do a lot of other baking. If I can stand to have the kitchen full of smoke, home-made naan bread is a real treat.
bread.
I'm not bread's biggest fan. As a student, I find a loaf too big, as I'll buy it when I fancy toast, and then come back to it a few days later to find it completely unusable. I wish they would do mini mini loaves, with 6 slices each.
[FGZstar] If you're only using it for toast then freeze what you dont use - already sliced. Most toasters will toast it ok from frozen. When working away from home I make bread on Friday or Saturday and then slice whatever's left after the weekend and freeze it for Mrs INJ to use, a slice at a time, during the week.
I suppose, but it seems whenever I consider that, I suddenly will find myself wanting a bacon sandwich, and having no unfrozen bread.
You can toast from frozen in less time than it takes to grill bacon - but it would take a little longer to just thaw the bread, unless you use a microwave.
mmmmbacon
Freeze a loaf in pairs of slices? Then you can hammer them (in pairs) into the toaster slot and put it on the 'barely stiffened up' setting to *just* thaw it to the perfect state for wrapping around your bacon sandwich.
I freeze thinly sliced granary loaves from a good local baker, and I generally find I can 'peel off' individual slices whenever I need to, although I do sometimes need to use a knife to split them apart. Individual slices defrost in around 20-30 minutes if you just separate them and lay them out on a plate, and 30 seconds in a toaster does the trick too. The key part of my technique is using thin-sliced brown bread which lets me split slices off while the loaf is still frozen solid - but if you can find bread like that it does save the faff of splitting it into sections before freezing.
Strange bread rituals
I keep bread (from Waitrose, Sainsbury, or the baker up the road) in the fridge, and it stays as fresh as when it was bought. Why are people keepng it in the freezer?
Freezing
1. That way it keeps for weeks if necessary.
2. Not enough spare room in the fridge!
2. Not enough spare room in the fridge!
What INJ said. I/we usually use about 1/3 to 1/2 of a loaf while it's fresh, then after a couple of days freeze the rest and eat it gradually, interspersed with other varieties of bread. We seem to have a reasonable variety of good bread here, although it IS expensive. As long as the loaf wasn't squished, the slices snap apart fine, and can be toasted from frozen or a tiny zap in the microwave if you don't want to wait a few minutes for the slices to thaw naturally. I have a bread machine and make about a loaf a month or two, usually when it can be taken to family sunday lunch, because it does not keep as well as store bought and I find it very difficult to slice a loaf myself, so the slices are too large
In other news, I think our summer might be over already. not that we really had much of one, but still, it was warm for a couple of days there.
I buy a loaf of bread every day, more or less. The hardest problem with making it last is not eating it :-)
I freeze my bread which works fine for us. We buy a toast sliced wholemeal or granary bloomer or raised tin made by a local artisan baker. We mostly use it for toast although I sneak the odd sandwich. I find that this quality product, cost about £1.40, freezes much better than factory bread.
I buy bread about once a week. None of it comes wrapped in plastic. There's only me eating it, but I eat a lot of bread, so it does occupy quite a lot of space in the fridge. I also got a panini press a few months ago, which is excellent for a warm meal when I can't be bothered actually cooking.
All the king's horses...
Went on holiday in December. Had an accident. Broke my back. Spent 2 weeks in Swiss hospital. Came home. Had operation. Back at work now. 'S'life, innit?
[Kim] Ouch! Trust it will all heal completely.
Walls and falls
[Kim] That'll teach you, old egg. I do hope that you're not now wheelchair bound. If not then a couple of months and the surgeons' knives have served you extraordinarily well. Good luck.
[Kim] Yes, ouch. Poor you.
echte grijp
Aye, best wishes Kim. As an aside, I've just seen real flu for the first time - the windy miller is just starting to pick up a little after three days of eating nothing, drinking very little and being unable to move out of bed. He ate half a strawberry this afternoon. It's terrifying.
urgh.
[Kim] oh my. I hope you make a swift and full recovery.
[penelope] Yes, it is; I'm sure you're keeping a close eye on him, and I hope he recovers soon. I've only had it once, and that is more than enough. I lost about three weeks in a haze of coughing, vomiting and other unpleasantness. I had a lot in reserve so wasn't worried about not eating :o) .
[penelope] Yes, it is; I'm sure you're keeping a close eye on him, and I hope he recovers soon. I've only had it once, and that is more than enough. I lost about three weeks in a haze of coughing, vomiting and other unpleasantness. I had a lot in reserve so wasn't worried about not eating :o) .
Seasonal 'flu
[pen] My sympathies to the windy miller. I caught the 'flu for the first time in about 40 years and it completely floored me. I am just beginning to get back to normal now. I have had more days off work sick this year than in the previous 10. On the up side I have lost nearly a stone (6.5kg in netherlandsspeak) which has a beneficial effect on revitalizing my wardrobe!
Thanks all. Today might be the day he actually eats something other than chicken broth or yogurt. Luckily I only work part-time and I can spend some time at home. And the washing machine is now mended... a household of flu and having to wash things by hand for two weeks wasn't much fun.
Happy birthday, Chalky!
:-)
Belated
Hi Chalks, how goes it with you? Any sign of revitalizing your visit?
got a new mobile...
Hurrah! MC5 works on my mobile! Android rocks.
Though it seems the preview makes a full post impossible...it won't go after that...and the whoops button is missing...
aha
Got the previews back...still no whoops.
[pen] However, I advise that he does not eat any chicken yogurt.
Chicken... yoghurt?
Off-hand, I can't think of any circumstances where eating chicken yoghurt would be a good idea.
Mmmm.. Chicken...
I anticipate cooking chicken in yoghurt within the next 3 days. Nicer than just cream in a sort of supreme-ish using up roast chicken leftovers dish.
Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant
Rabbits
Down the pub tonight, Rosie?
Oooh, yeah. Grilled chicken (in cubes, on a wooden skewer) marinaded in spices, yogurt and lime juice, served with a satay sauce... I think that's one for when the windy miller has his appetite back.
(Softers) Of course - life goes on as normal. Not sure where to park the dragon. The former licensee, a young woman from New Romney, is the only purely English person I have met who can pronounce the Welsh "ll" properly. She'd lived in S Wales for a short time. All you need is to have heard it.
I think Uncle Korky has just won the Holiday Anagrams game.
(INJ) Yes, best yet provided it comes from his own head, though the previous one, from Softers, gave me the best guffaw.
Anagrams
Apols for multi-posting. Got carried away.
Downton Crescent
Sorry about the outage there (not that anyone will have noticed) - major system upgrade.
Me again
It's the end of the working week for me, and the beginning of Pig Week. Does anyone have plans for the weekend?
The windy miller is slowly getting back to form, and we will be going to the mill together tomorrow morning - for the first time in three weeks. Not sure what we'll do in the afternoon. The weekend will also include laundry and ironing. And possibly a bastardised version of Robert Carrier's Normandy pheasant, using Dutch cooking pears instead of apples.
The windy miller is slowly getting back to form, and we will be going to the mill together tomorrow morning - for the first time in three weeks. Not sure what we'll do in the afternoon. The weekend will also include laundry and ironing. And possibly a bastardised version of Robert Carrier's Normandy pheasant, using Dutch cooking pears instead of apples.
Off up to Leeds for a friend's birthday party on Saturday and staying over. Unfortunately it's fancy dress, themed on 'Songs from the Shows' (she's keen on amateur operatics). So we're in 'South Pacific' mode, though Mrs INJ insists on wearing another skirt below the grass one and didn't seem at all impressed by my idea of a coconut shell bikini.
coconots
Well, they're not exactly short of food-miles are they? Perhaps Mrs INJ was thinking of something grown a bit more locally. Swedes, perhaps.
[INJ] I'm sure you'd look rather fetching in one.
[pen] Long weekend here, working part of it, mooching around catching up on sleep otherwise, hoorah! And I got a haircut today. Ever so much fun to be had.
[pen] Long weekend here, working part of it, mooching around catching up on sleep otherwise, hoorah! And I got a haircut today. Ever so much fun to be had.
Well, that was nice
Excellent time had by all - reunion with a lot of old (in both senses) walking friends. On the costume front - we looked pretty good, but were upstaged by Sally Bowles.
Meltdown
Anyone got shares in British Energy or EDF?
[pen] What happens in Pig Week?
Pig week
[Tuj] Ask Projoy. It's more a Facebook Thing...
say nothing, do nothing
It's actually a quote from The Specials. But what song, guys and gals?
specialist
Not a challenge these days with Google, pen.
Pieces of eight
Softers, you're mistaking this unlimited chat thingy with the eight words pages! As they said, the lunatics are taking over the asylum.
Asylum seeking
[pen] sorry, didn't realize I had limited it.
slow talking
Anyone got any news? I'm having a slow morning. I might go into the office this afternoon (magazine deadline coming up, profs to interview tomorrow and Monday and I ought to at least try to sound intelligent), am thinking about how to approach a new one-day-a-week role I've been given (which means the windy miller and I can afford to have a cleaner - hurrah!) and am looking forward to visiting Blighty over Easter - a long-overdue visit, postponed because of the windy miller's illness.
no news is good news
[penelope] Not really. The weather is pleasant here and a few weeks ago I planted a vege garden. Tonight is cool and clear, but I'm not away from the city, so I can't see many stars.
Why is it that no-one will believe that I have actually sprained my ankle on April Fool's Day. It's not a joke, and certainly no laughing matter.
Ouch!
I believe you. If it's a proper sprain, not just a bad twist or wrench, then it can be worse than breaking it, as tendon typically won't heal as well or as quickly as bone.
twenty bloody degrees
I object, I object, I object - it's 20C here this afternoon, yet only the 2nd April. That's just not right. My blood's not yet adjusted to warmer temperatures, and I'm all pink in the face.
Thermal responses
(pen) That's because you're a lady. Gentlemen, such as myself, merely perspire without the attendant rubicundity. Only horses sweat.
panic over
[Rosie] Back down to 13 degrees today. And the windy miller and I gambled on the 10% chance of no rain - so went to Antwerp to shop at the Sunday market - and won. And saw English morris dancers holding up very well in proper clogs against some nancy German upstarts who were all wearing white sneakers. Lightweights.
Hot, hot, hot
According to our local met office today is an April record on the rock of 20.7C. It certainly was nice strolling around at lunchtime.
It's warm but very windy here. We had to tape a bit of cardboard over a fireplace to prevent the cat from climbing up the chimney (as an interim measure before we get our hands on a fireguard). The way it's flexing in the wind really does bring home how silly an idea a fireplace is if you care about keeping any warm air in a room!
(Softers) 20.9°C in the grounds of Plas Huws, an approximately once-a-year event (for April). You wanna live somewhere warmer.
(rab) Can't fault your reasoning, even if you had a fire, but there is the trouser-singeing radiation.
(rab) Can't fault your reasoning, even if you had a fire, but there is the trouser-singeing radiation.
27°C in Melbourne yesterday. About the same today. Parents fly out to Perth and thence back to Scotland tomorrow. Sister and family arrive on Tuesday. 2am arrival, bloody inconsiderate if you ask me.
Got sunburn yesterday in London
(G III) As it's only early April you must have been exposing parts of the body on which the sun don't normally shine, and if you got away with it, good for you.
Train clocks (long)
I've no idea where to put this, so here'll do. Perusing the Evening Standard on my way over to my current temporary place of residence, I espied a full-page advertisement for a 'Flying Scotsman clock'. This appeared to be a combined exercise in kitsch, model railways and clockmaking, and all credit to the company concerned for coming up with the idea. For just five low payments of £24.99 this superb work could be yours, or mine, or someone else's.
Now, two things struck me about this edifice. The first thing was that it included a circular track upon which a model Flying Scotsman train would appear at hourly intervals to mark the passage of time. All well and good. But curiously, not only was the track circular, but the model locomotives and carriages that used it were themselves curiously (but clearly necessarily) banana-shaped. I've never seen this in any full-sized item of rolling stock, and I was consequently surprised that such a deviation from reality was considered acceptable in the model. I wondered to myself whether the model was OO-gauge, because I think I'd quite like to own a banana-shaped locomotive, even if it could only go round corners of a tightly-prescribed radius. Impractical even on the smallest layout, but unarguably entertaining. I also wondered whether these remarkable machines were available in right-handed variants too.
The second thing that struck me was that this clock-making company was making (or, at least, expects to make) enough profit from these devices to justify putting a full-page advertisement in a high-circulation newspaper. Now, assuming the cost to manufacture one of these clocks is in the region of 20–30 pounds, that still requires quite a lot of people willing to shell out for one before the cost of a full-page spread (a few grand, I suspect) justifies itself. So who are these train-, clock- and kitsch-loving individuals, and how many of them are out there running loose?? I think we should be told.
Whoops
Went to the shopping centre to buy some stuff for the BoRiS and came back with an iPhone. Had a look at one of those Android jobbies too but was more impressed with the iPhone than I anticipated.
Win!
Picked the National winner and Mrs Software had the second. Celebrations over the weekend.
Friday Friday Friday
Busy busy busy... if I work all day tomorrow from home, I should get through enough work to be able to catch the ferry to Blighty on Wednesday evening to go and have fish and chips with my mum.
Now where pen?
Please tell me...using this map. http://www.anagramtubemap.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
No fair...I had to look of the doddery lady question's answer to post!
(Giertrud) Blighty is a very old affectionate slang term for Britain and has a sense of "home".
oh!
Then...all of that ... and more.
[Simons Mith] Never underestimate the propensity of the great unwashed to spend their money on tat. Take for example this wonderful Priness Diana Porcelain Baby Doll. Surely the work of a demented mind. Or perhaps you'd like to see a Wall Mounted Motorbike Cuckoo clock. This was advertised in my free monthly RACV magazine and gave me a chuckle. It makes me wonder what sort of operation is required to completely remove someone's sense of taste. But it must be cheap.
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gopping
[nfras] *bokes*
Filing from Provence
[Pen] Did you also always read the warning sign as saying 'Thonk Boke'?
[INJ] erm... not that I can remember. Here we have 'Gordels om, ook in achterin'. So belt up.
BTW, what are you doing having a Fling in Provence? Does Mrs INJ know?
BTW, what are you doing having a Fling in Provence? Does Mrs INJ know?
Shrinking violet
I am dieting. Just so you know. Day 2...
Not fade away
Have you bought the dress already?
[Softers] Part 1 is 'one-size-fits-all' and has been reserved at the Posh Frock Shop. (That's a completely unhelpful description - in fact it's a rather fabulous and very expensive Japanese jacket.) My mum is using her pensioner's bus pass to travel to buy it later this week. Part 2 will be made to measure.
it can't be just me, can it?
Isn't it a bit quiet around here? Are you all busy or what?
Writing my CV
'Tis a little on the quiet side this week.
Shhhh! Be vewy, vewy quiet.
Grading exams
F, F, F, F minus, F, F minus, F plus, F, F, F, F, F plus, F minusminus, F minus, F minus, F, F, F minus...
Showing off
(Phil) 105 what?
[CdM] Sounds like you might need to widen your scale a bit...
Yesterday I embarked on a 12 hour round trip to be asked three questions by a US visa official. The good news is that the visa is approved, so I don't have to return with any additional documentation which is a relief, as the train fare to London is not cheap.
Meanwhile we're just waiting for rab Jr to arrive. Some friends of ours were three months early which has put the wind up us...
[Rosie] 105 lies to help me get a job.
The land of the free...
[rab] what's the point of the Edinburgh consulate?
Pointiness
Emergency passports for US citizens. My wife needed one once, so the proximity was very handy.
(Phil) A purveyor of that which cheers? Best of luck, whatever you do. Out-of-work is not good for anyone and it's happened to me three times.
[Rosie, Phil] Out-of-work has been happening to me for 3 years now, and boy is it ever getting the better of my sanity.
Maybe I should try the lying...
Hidden text
WibbleMaybe I should try the lying...
C (Lie) V
[Knobbers] Why not? I'm sure lots of people do.
Statement contrary to reality
I wouldn't. Particularly as anyone who's any good as a wordsmith can use the truth to say what they want without actually needing to lie.
it's on the noticeboard...
I feel fairly confident that no-one will make any objections to the notice of impending marriage between the windy miller and me, which for the next three weeks will be pinned on the noticeboard, almost behind the filing cabinet, in the inner porch of the back door of the British Consulate in Amsterdam. You have to speak through the intercom to the grumpy security guard at the front door, and again at the back door intercom to get in there, so I doubt you'll get in anyway. I took a friend with me to Amsterdam today, and she had to wait on the street until I complained to the consul officer, and he sent the guard out to bring her in.
I would protest in the strongest terms, if I had good reason, and/or could be bothered...so feel free, and go ahead!
Beware of the Leopard
[Pen] Congratulations. Break a leg, as I think they say in Belgium :-)
It should be banned
I trust it's written in English, translated from the Dutch via Estonian, Kurdish, American Sign Language and Xhosa. That sounds like a good excuse for a gin.
chin chin
[INJ] Indeed. Cheers. :o)
(pen) Never tried it - there aren't enough saints to choose from. Works for some and I hope it does for you.
the knot
Congrats is the usual thing. I tried it once, but the wheels fell off after a while, didn't stop me doing it again though, but that was for pension reasons.
[Softers] This is like getting my first car at the age of 46. Although, of course, I actually passed my driving test at 17 and bought my first car at 23. And somewhere halfway through that analogy, it stopped working. I'm marrying the windy miller for his money and for the free flour.
(pen) Not going Dutch, then. :-)
Free flour?
[pen] sounds like a grind...
Impending connubial arrangement
Congratulations. I think our intention to submit appeared on a scrolltext screensaver in the waiting room of the registry office.
New wardrobe
Thanks all. We may even start booking things this week, if the windy miller gets his finger out. In other news, there's a fairly important event at the university today, and I wanted to look a bit smarter than usual. I had to root through the wardrobe to find a suit that wasn't too big this morning... this diet business appears to be working.
[pen] congrats on the gradual "vanishing lady" trick.
Wham spam thank you mam
Looks like this site is currently the victim of an automated spam attack. I may have to temporarily disable posting at short notice while I introduce a countermeasure. Apologies if that's the case.
Mr Fixit?
Let's see if that's worked...
Seems to have
You will understand if I don't reveal precisely what I've done to stem the flow... but as at MCiOS you may be asked a simple question from time to time. Don't take offence if this happens to you.
http://xkcd.com/810/
Having seen the posts before they were wiped I thought they might be taking the first baby steps towards xkcd #810. A good few years to go yet, though.
Looks like I'm encookied already, eh?
Which reminds me...
... I should check that those who aren't can still gain entry if they are legitimate.
Good
That worked!
cookies?
No thanks - I'm on a diet. 7kg lost so far.
Whereas I appear to have put on a stone. I'm holding out a vague hope that it's just my not-very-accurate scales.
stoney ground
[SM] I can heartily recommend Slimming World. It's effective, and it's a very healthy way of eating (and supposed to educate you away from the way of eating that made you fat in the first place). I haven't felt as well as this for yonks. If you can't bear to go to a club meeting (too many echoes of 'The League of Gentlemen' and their sketches of the victimisation at the Fat Club meetings) then do it online, and join the Facebook Group that acts as an online meeting.
Bit of Dust
[penelope] Was it not Little Britain that did the Slimming Club, I though League of Gentlemen was the Dole office meetings.
Fat chance
[FGZa] I stand corrected. Fat, unemployed... the two go together in that kind of world. *ducks*
Why did you duck?
[FGZ*] Avoiding the sail of a windmill.
And the sale of a windmill, one would hope, to say nothing of a funeral. Don't try to be La Doña Quixote, pen.
uncapitalised
Luckily we don't own any windmills - most of them are owned by charitable foundations. There are only a few privately-owned and commerically run mills in NL, and usually they have to diversify to make ends meet - shops, tea rooms and cafes etc. However, there is a large consulation project sponsored by the province to come up with new ideas to make mills less reliant on public money, of which there is less and less available. By the way.
lack of capital
[pen] belt tightening is endemic. Thanks to the banks everybody is now poor while they continue dishing out obscene bonuses.
Something I've never seen explained is what happened to all the money. Bonuses are measured in millions, while the losses are measured in billions, so while one can object to the bonuses for other reasons, that isn't where the money went. It was lost by being lent for mortgages to people who never paid it back, and who spent it on buying houses, so presumably construction firms and property developers got the bulk of it. Who owns those? The banks?
rab jr
Our little boy came kicking and screaming into the world at 3.41 this morning. In honour of MC regular _tim_, we've called him Underscore. Have yet to be given the spec sheet, but from what I remember he's about average in size and weight. Mother and baby (and father, for that matter) all a bit shattered and overwhelmed by the experience, but doing well. Should you feel the need to goo, drop me an email and I'll send a pic once everyone's presentable.
Congratulations!
[Rab] Marvellous news! Best wishes to all involved. Now - get some sleep while you still can. I understand it can be in scarce supply.
(rab) Congratulations to all. I'm sure he'll pass his QA inspection. Investor in People really works, doesn't it?
(Raak) Good question. One answer could be that the money didn't exist in the first place, as your answer sort of implies.
(Raak) Good question. One answer could be that the money didn't exist in the first place, as your answer sort of implies.
_Rablet_
Congratulations. And thanks for an excuse to do some head-wetting.
rabbit
Congrats, rab! Treasure the early years, before he discovers DH loops!
Congratulations!
Er, that says it all, really.
Congratulation, rab! And belatedly to penelope. What is the world coming to? People getting married and popping sprogs and living happily ever after?
Well done, rab and Mrs rab. As pen says, get some sleep now. Lots. When the young one gets home you won't get much. Ever again. Seriously. But very worth it :)
That was an unfortunate typo. I'm sure rab and pen deserve more than one congratulation. Take as many as you like, I have a whole box here.
Well played rab and Mrs rab and a big welcome to Master _Underscore_
(Chalky) Hello. :-)
*waves from Eastern France* I'm still here, although I've forgotten almost all of my HTML skills, so expect really off moves from me for a while as I get my arm in.
[rab] A little late to the party, but congratulations!
[rab] A little late to the party, but congratulations!
[nights] How far east? I'm somewhere in the vicintiy of D*sn*yland this weekend, driving a van, for charity.
[Phil] About as far east as you can get - Strasbourg. What kind of a charity takes a van to D*sn*yland? Sounds like a charity I'd like.
deep freeze frustration.
Good morning campers. For two mornings running, I have pulled out of the freezer the less-than-successful vegetarian curry to defrost (unsuccessful because the broccoli in it didn't behave very well, not because it's vegetarian, and pulled out of the freezer because the tubs are unidentified, but we only find out when we get home from work. D'oh!), disappointing the windy miller, who gets very short-tempered when he's hungry. So I'm trying to get back into his good books with pork chops and mushrooms tonight. The curry has gone on the compost.
broccoli + freezer = difficult. I seem to remember that to freeze anything with broccoli in, you barely need to cook it at all, as it'll get all the cooking it needs when you reheat it.
Food wastage.
[Pen] That'll teach you. Just label it properly. Simples!
I always do, where 'always' has a value that has been known to exceed 50%.
I always do, where 'always' has a value that has been known to exceed 50%.
[pen] Broccoli curry? Not sure I'd be keen on that. I discovered a great YouTube channel some months back that is full of great vegetarian Indian dishes. http://www.manjulaskitchen.com
As we say here in Oz, she's daggy, but the recipes are great.
As we say here in Oz, she's daggy, but the recipes are great.
Bloemkool curry
[nfras] As a brassica, it was OK when freshly cooked - as is cauliflower curry - in fact the two were mixed. But it doesn't like being frozen. I should have known better. Last night's pork chops were great though. And thanks for the curry link - will give it a whizz.
I miss having a freezer. These days I bulk cook on a Sunday when I have time, and eat it for Monday and Tuesday as well. Veggie chilli works really well that way, especially with a slug of bourbon.
[nights] I haven't had a microwave for over 3 months now, and don't miss it. Don't really use our freezer either, for that matter as we tend to cook and eat, and then eat until it's finished :)
[pen] Ahh, that's where you have me. Broccoli I love, could eat it every day and would probably try a broccoli curry (broccoli pakora is very nice). I understand that some people eat cauliflower in the same way that I understand that some people like other people to wee on them. If that floats your boat, fine, just don't expect me to participate. Mrs nfras tries to poison me every now and then by hiding it in mashed potato and hoping I won't notice. I do.
Incidentally, at the last mini-Melbourne Antipopilg we discussed the pronounciation of broccoli, specifically the last vowel sound. I use "brocco-lee" whereas I often hear the locals saying "brocco-lie".
Incidentally, at the last mini-Melbourne Antipopilg we discussed the pronounciation of broccoli, specifically the last vowel sound. I use "brocco-lee" whereas I often hear the locals saying "brocco-lie".
[nfras] Where I live the last syllable is usually, but not universally, pronounced with the short 'i'. By that I mean that the 'li' bit of it agrees with 'bit' and 'it'.
I've often heard it pronounced as if it were this place. Goes with batt'ry, which one hears rather too often.
[Rosie] I've seen it written the same way. By greengrocers.
I can never spell it either. I have no excuses - it's my favourite vegetable also, and it's also spelt the same in French, so I'm pretty much stuck either way.
Spelling? Why not singing?
[nfras], [Dujon], [Rosie],[Raak], and [nights], why spell it when you can sing it? Do you know of this song?
Broc
"Brocco-lie" is a very common pronunciation in Leicester. And it drives me up the wall. That and "straight-the-way" instead of "straightaway". Arrgghh!
brits grits
It's Britons. People from that island are called Britons. Not Brits - that was a word invented by lazy tabloid journalists and it makes me cringe everytime I hear it.
(Kag) V good. I actually LOL'ed.
(pen) I think it's an American invention, not a tabloid one, though the latter (and many others) have picked it up. I'll use it when Americans start to regard it as cool to refer to themselves as Yanks.
(pen) I think it's an American invention, not a tabloid one, though the latter (and many others) have picked it up. I'll use it when Americans start to regard it as cool to refer to themselves as Yanks.
lighten up, guv
[Rosie] Was it light when you posted that at 03.58 on the shortest night?
(pen) Probably, a bit. I've just put up new curtains to eliminate the horrible possibility of knowing. I'm a very naughty boy.
Ah, the days are getting longer...
[CdM] Ah yes, but are the nips getting bigger?
Britophile
[pen] Me, I like the abbreviation. :-)
Well, Midsummer went off without a hitch here, as it coincides with the annual Fête de la Musique. Lots of bands in the street, lots of alcohol consumed, lots of people absent at work the next day. Brilliant.
brile
[CdM] You're an economist. You like everything cut.
Has everyone had a nice weekend?
Something for the weekend
Saturday at a friend's 80th birthday party with excellent food and much music - impromptu and prepared - the majority of the guests were capable of sight-reading so we had a choir of about 40 in his (very large) garden.
Sunday at the Derbyshire County show - walking distance for us. A scorcher - drinks and ice-creams doing a roaring trade, but some pretty hot-looking sheep and bad-tempered cattle.
Sunday at the Derbyshire County show - walking distance for us. A scorcher - drinks and ice-creams doing a roaring trade, but some pretty hot-looking sheep and bad-tempered cattle.
Friday at Hyde Park for great gig. Saturday was a wander around Windsor Castle (blagged a free ticket for daughter as she sang in the chapel there last year and didn't have time to do the tour). Sunday was a day of rest.
Tweaked a few pins and did a little repair work on the piano here. Perspired freely. Replaced lost fluid with a modest quantity of an available product, even at one in the morning. Was informed that the price difference between weak and strong beers as purchased by the pub is much greater than the difference in price at the bar. "Sensible" drinkers are subsidising piss-heads as it makes business sense.
(INJ) Hot-looking sheep? Please do not feed the Welsh jokes.
(INJ) Hot-looking sheep? Please do not feed the Welsh jokes.
We managed a trip to the museum to meet some friends, and a pub lunch. Were very proud to have successfully left the house for an extended period. However, _ has been a bit unsettled since, so perhaps the experience left him in a state of shock.
His first decent excursion and you take him to a place full of dead things and then subject him to a pub? No wonder he's a bit grumpy. Poor _. ;)
Hot
Maximum temperature today (Monday) in the grounds of Maison Rosie was 30.7°C and pretty humid with it. Even more unusual was the previous night's minimum of 19.3°C, a record for June in nearly 30 years and nearly a record for any month. Bit sweaty during band rehearsal. Tuesday cooler and Wednesday cooler still, which is boring, but at least you feel less knackered,
And now, the weather
It depends on who you ask, but here in the European Capital of Traffic Jams that Don't Move At All, it was 36ishC yesterday, and 23 overnight. Sleep is but a distant memory, and I content myself with the fact that today I get to teach in an airconditioned conference room...
(nights) Paris, I presume.
[nights] (Maybe I already knew this, and I have forgotten.) What do you teach?
[Rosie] Actually Strasbourg - like Paris, but smaller and much nicer.
[CdM] English as a Foreign Concept for business - so instead of "Brian is in the kitchen", it's "Mr Smith is in the conference room". And it's finally cooled down...
[CdM] English as a Foreign Concept for business - so instead of "Brian is in the kitchen", it's "Mr Smith is in the conference room". And it's finally cooled down...
Antwarp
I was in Antwerp on Tuesday, here (very, very impressive building) where it was 36 or 37C. To my Former-flatmate-from-Hertfordshire-days-visiting-from-New-Zealand, the heat, after flying in from wintry Wellington, floored her. It almost floored me too. But the thunderstorms that night were spectacular. I've just put her on a train to Amsterdam (I can now drive round Rotterdam without getting lost, hurrah!), and today it's a very fresh and pleasant 20C.
[pen] Same here. Hoorah for continental microclimates!
Whoops, I think I pressed the wrong button and deleted everyone else. Forever alone.
where's the button for the restore point?
Back in the office after a week off. The nice thing is I nowhave the desk next to the window, so I have a view of the Erasmusbrug, the Willemsbrug, the old railway bridge AND the Unilever glass box among the skyscrapers of Rotterdam. Quaite naice.
Rooms with a view
Penelope, that reminds of my office of a few years (too many) ago. The fact that I was a significant contributor to the design layout of the place has nothing to do with this, of course. The department of the organisation in which I worked was situated on the 20th floor of a building which itself was positioned on a relatively high point of the City of Sydney. The windows rose from thigh height to the ceiling. The view took in the top of the Harbour Bridge, the buildings of the main CBD and then a panoramic sweep of Sydney Harbour (Port Jackson) all the way out to the harbour's heads. It really hurt, but I had to turn my back on it else I'd have done sweet nothing in the way of work.
Laundry
What do you lot do while doing laundry? I'm experimenting with brainstorming the week to come in a notebook while my smalls go around and around and around, and it works well.
Well, nights, I find that doing laundry is an exercise in concentration. Firstly it's getting the right temperature of the water in the copper. Then there's the right balance of water to cloth to consider. After that it's what, if any, domestic aids - such as soap - might be required. After those it becomes necessary to move the wooden dowel I use for agitation in such a manner as to effect the most efficient cleaning whirls and swirls. Whilst doing the latter my mind drifts to the mangling and then the efficacy of hanging the final product right-way-up or up-side-down. Laundry, nights, is an art and is not something that should be taken lightly. Anyway, your notebook will get wet.
[nights] I mostly sleep, having put the machine on to run overnight.
(Dujon) Do you have a coal fire under the copper or are you still using eucalyptus logs? Soda is very good, isn't it? I prefer wooden pegs, or pigs as they call them in NZ (and SA, it seems).
[Rosie] Gerroff! The wood of the eucalypti beneath the copper? That's reserved for the hot water heater and bushfires. Blimey, you Britons aren't half backward. Soda? Indeed; a tablespoon of bi-carb goes a long way when washing. Pegs/pigs/pugs around this wee bit of territory are not my responsibility but I do find that the plastic (non gypsy supplied) tend to snap all too often after being subjected to sunlight.
Being serious for a moment: Should I be required to buy a scuttleworth of coal for the fireplace that I don't have I have no idea as to where I might buy it.
Being serious for a moment: Should I be required to buy a scuttleworth of coal for the fireplace that I don't have I have no idea as to where I might buy it.
Ash Google
[Dujon] That's what Google is for. Or, as it used to be called, the Yellow Pages. Or the small ads in the back of your local newspaper. Or ask at any house with a smoking chimney.
I am now virtually convinced that e-technology is ringing the death knell of common sense and 'nouse'
I am now virtually convinced that e-technology is ringing the death knell of common sense and 'nouse'
Trying to raise the pH
(Dujon) Bicarb's no good - you want proper soda, Na2CO3. Alkaline enough to dissolve aluminium. Try it in a saucepan with a bit of heat. It'll fizz nicely. Don't do it for too long or the pan will have a hole in its bottom which is all very well for us humans but not cooking vessels. As for coal, this can be obtained from any of Britain's many preserved steam railways and is of a quality high enough to be burned at the ferocious rate required in a locomotive firebox. Or you could get it direct from Poland as we don't have any mines left. About £80 a ton. With you on pegs. Use wooden dolly pegs; they last for ever.
(pen) esp. satnav. Recently someone was given several column-inches in the Grauniad Technology Section to describe how inadequate the device was because it had got her lost driving from Wolverhampton to Stoke and she nearly landed up in Shrewsbury. If that had happened to me I'd have kept very quiet about it, not wishing to appear a complete tosser, but you know what people are like these days. I won't say any more because I can get really sarky.
(pen) esp. satnav. Recently someone was given several column-inches in the Grauniad Technology Section to describe how inadequate the device was because it had got her lost driving from Wolverhampton to Stoke and she nearly landed up in Shrewsbury. If that had happened to me I'd have kept very quiet about it, not wishing to appear a complete tosser, but you know what people are like these days. I won't say any more because I can get really sarky.
MapNav
Quite. I always like to have a lookie at a map before I set off, so at least I am informed about the route/heading/places en route. People who blindly trust a SatNav are eejuts.
Technology
When I taught engineering at night school I always told students that they had to know the answer before using a calculator. They used to laugh at this but I used to point out that you first had to estimate the decimal place otherwise the calculator answer could be orders of magnitude out. This principle applies to all technology, it is useful for accuracy but you need to know what you are doing before starting.
[penelope] Around my neck of the woods it would be hard to find a house with a chimney, never mind one with a proper coal burning hearth an 'ob and a couple of hunting dogs to keep one's feet warm. A few decades ago oil burners were all the rage but the cost of fuel seems to have put those foul things to rest - even the use of the common wood burning heaters seem to be well and truly on the decline. After your comment (mine was meant to be light hearted) I did look at Google and my local paper's classified advertisements. Unfortunately my common sense and nous came to naught. Should I ever need a scuttleworth of coal I shall be trawling the local railway lines for inadvertent sullage. :)
sullage
[Dujon] Apologies, I didn't mean my comment to sound so brusque, but where on earth do you live, you poor coal-less thing?!?! Next point: I don't think you mean 'sullage', unless you're burning cowpats and horse dung...
*chuckles*
No, penelope, I didn't. It was a slip of the brain or fingers. Please read the word as 'ullage'. On the coal question: Australia exports huge amounts of coal and uses various grades of coal in its power stations but I can quite honestly say that in my fifty-odd year sojourn in this country I have never seen coal being burned domestically. It sounds odd, but it's true, although it's impossible for me to say that it doesn't happen.
Sad about Hershey's practices
I am sad about Hershey's practices. I just found out that they source their cocoa from cacao farms that use slave labor. Children are sold to farmers, never paid, are beaten . . . Mars and Nestle are not great, either. However, they promised to stop these practices by 2020. Cadbury for you brits is fine, but Hershey's distributes it in the United States.
Chocolate is evil
[Kaggers] I suppose this is why it's important to check that Incidentally, we're Britons, not 'brits', pfffft. (And Norwegians, Australians, and residents of just about every country in between those two.)
*has made a move in every game*
Too much maybe?
Yeah.
O-Kaaaaaay
*slopes off*
Yeah.
O-Kaaaaaay
*slopes off*
seldom chalked
[Chalks] It's not as if you do it every day, or even every week. Welcome back, missus!
*waves from Bristol*
"white horses from Westbury"
[ChalkyPhilCdMIrach] Does anyone who contributed a line to the riddle glow-worm know what the answer was? I can only find one word that seems to satisfy all clues, are there others?
Hidden text
I can only find 'nerd'.[Knobbly] That was all I found. I'd been staring at line 1 wanting to make the answer "Néa" but couldn't conjure a line 2 which would squeeze two accented words in.
[Knobbly] So it would seem. . A little apt, I suppose?
Hidden text
"neon" would have been possible, prior to line 4I didn't think of Néa when I posted Line 3 (I should have), so i was aiming for NERD at that point -- because, as Phil said, it seemed fitting.
Missed the riddle
I read the glow worms, but I missed the riddle. All this "line 1" talk is making me think poetry. I think you Britons *rolls eyes at self* might like this poem of mine: Bigfoot's Love Slave.
the KS poem
Gosh. I clicked. Powerful ending.
Making my name show on everything in the first box.
*foils Giertrud's diabolical plan*
T-11
Back in NL. I have been hen-partied. :o/
Girly-do
I do hope you maintained your cool and didn't wear any fairy wings, pen.
more girly goings-on...
[Softers] No way. We had a very sophisticated evening in a Greek restaurant, not even any plate-smashing. And today, my department at work threw a bash for me too - with a water-taxi down the Oude Maas to the Hotel New York in Rotterdam for afternoon tea, and back again. The weather cleared up spectacularly and it was wonderful. The poor old windy miller didn't get supper cooked for him tonight - I was still stuffed! (But I did cycle to the Chinese takeaway for him)
Weekendings
Saw the Staffordshire Hoard (or at least some of the finer pieces) on Saturday at Lichfield Cathedral - remarkable for its quality (gold filigree and cloisonné work, etc.). There's a moment in the video presentation where one of the experts says: "We get asked if this is the largest Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard ever found - it's the ONLY Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard ever found". Also went to Wightwick (pronounced 'wittik') Manor, possibly the best William Morris house in the country. Morris never saw it, but it was entirely furnished from Morris's shop in Oxford Street by the Mander family of Mander's Paints.
Also had a quick look at CdM's childhood home.
Also had a quick look at CdM's childhood home.
Hoardings
[INJ] I'd love to see that. The hoard, not CdM's childhood home - I doubt it even has a blue plaque, does it?
Remove that plaque
[Pen] Not any more, it hasn't.
Week's ages
A week since the last post - anyone got anything interesting to report? This morning, I'm going to take my camera down to the windy miller's (non-functioning) mill at Maasdam, and take photos. One of his apprentices spent four days creating decorations for it for our wedding; buntings, 6ft carved initials painted red, and carved intertwined wedding rings, all strung between the tips of the sails and floodlit. He took us out to see it the night before we got married. *beams*
Long weekend
As usual at this time of year, spent in a friend's cottage in the North York Moors. Almost didn't make it along the track on Friday after torrential rain. After that fine walking in forest and over the largest expanse of heather moorland in the world - all bright purple and with a glorious sweet scent. Cold and windy, mind you.
[INJ] Excellent. A week on Sat, I'm off to Wensleydale, to play in the Hardraw Scaur Brass Band Contest. Also spending a week in Swaledale for half-term. Can't wait to get back up to North Yorkshire :-)
Cheese please
*yearns for a proper bit of Wensleydale* God I miss English cheese.
Cracking cheese Grommit
Ah, yes. The clog stuff is a bit waxy. Great for using one of those cheese slicers that they love, though.
waxy rubber and no taste
Dutch cheese - always highly spoken of, but as far as I can make out (and I may have said this before elsewhere), there are only three varieties. However you can have them at any age you like. But until they get a couple of years old, there's no real taste, and no texture. And you can't grate it - ever. I think it's a bit arse-about-elbow to design the cheese to suit the cheese slicer, isn't it? And the cheese slicer/cheese scraper/cheese plane only works for about 40% of the truckle - it doesn't work once to get towards the edges of the cheese. Surprisingly inefficient for the Dutch. Rant over. Now bring me some proper cheese, please.
Pass the Dutch-cheese on the left-hand side
[pen] At least it's lower in fat than cheddar et al.
alert: not at all posh sense of taste and style
[pen] agreed about the slicer. Mine seem to go mad towards the edge; I'd thought it was just me.
My taste in cheese is not so sophisticated. *prepares for ostracism*. I don't like camembert or brie or veiny or runny or very hard very smelly cheese. I do like what is sold here as "Dutch smoked", whether it has anything to do with the Netherlands I'm not sure. Thinking about it, liking it might, in part, be due to growing up with Kraft processed cheddar (in the blue cardboard box, doesn't need refrigeration), which it does bear a passing resemblance to in texture. Not sure if that product ever got to the UK, i think it was a US thing that turned up here in the 40s or 50s. I haven't eaten the stuff for decades, I found a tin of it in Oman but wasn't game to actually eat more than a small wedge to confirm its identity.
Anyway, crumbly feta (not smooth, yuk) is good. A nice cottage cheese sometimes finds its way into my diet. Cheddar, well, what is sold here as cheddar, no idea if it is or not, is my main cheese, in a lower fat variety, not because I'm a low fat fanatic, but because this particular one just seems to be less greasy, especially when melted or grilled where it turns out beautifully, compared to some others.
And i will fight even my best friends and relations for haloumi. You have been warned :o)
Do me a haloumi
[flerdle] Just buy double the amount. I like mine grilled with a sprinkling of fresh chopped mint and freshly-ground black pepper.
Grilled is obligatory, but you can keep the mint.
Nooooo, it's mine, all mine, i tell you.
feeding frenzy
Damn you. Now I'm checking out sausages punt en el and slavering over my desk. The sausagepalace is only about 7km from the windy miller's office. I can see I'll have to make a visit. (And then probably hate them and end up making my own with the new KitchenAid mixer-with-meat-grinder-attachment-and-sausage-stuffer-thingamebob that is about to be purchased with the wedding present money.)
It pains me...
I love cheese. Almost all varieties (only one I can think of that I don't like is cottage cheese). I like hard, soft, creamy, waxy, crumbly, mild, mature, sharp, sweet, blue, goat's, ewe's, cow's, flavoured and so on. Love 'em all.
However, I am on a self-imposed low saturated fat diet, so the only cheese I eat now (other than for a very rare treat) is low-fat cream cheese. Then again, I loved smoking, but I don't do that any more either.
However, I am on a self-imposed low saturated fat diet, so the only cheese I eat now (other than for a very rare treat) is low-fat cream cheese. Then again, I loved smoking, but I don't do that any more either.
Wearing kilts on ankles is now fashionable
Went to my first pub games last night (Sept. 7 - USA/Central time) so, like um, what 2am Friday for Brits? I forget . . .
Brit Food
It was at a Celtic Pub. I also had Bangers and Mash there. Different.
Fashion advice
[KS] Kilts on ankles is fashionable? That would be one kilt per ankle I assume. That's a new one on me. On the other hand, kilts round ankles......
tartanankles
I'm trying to think of a kilt pun, but I'm failing.
[pen] It's for the best, the community frowns on puns here. Tell a bad one and you might get kilt.
[pen] I think Tuj may try to get a monopoly on the kilt puns, but I'll try to make sure he doesn't hog manay of them.
It's poor 'uns that we really frown upon.
You can make them more presentable by tartan them up.
Yes, kilts on ankles
It was from a game, basically "pin the tail on the donkey." It was "tape the kilt on the Scotsman, though." I ended up putting it on his ankle! I think a kilt on each ankle would be pretty cool - new fashion instead of bell bottoms!
PUNishment
As for puns, I have the BEST pun ever, but you have to know technical terms about the Christan fish and Swedish/Norwegian/ (thus, unfortunately sometimes) Lutheran cuisine.
Puns
I know an absolutely filthy pun in French. Only works in French though.
Does the pun involve a pullover, perchance?
[SM] Indeed :)
Puns and French
My pun does not involve a pullover and is in English. I might be able to read the French one, might not. I need to brush up on my French.
French puns
[Phil] So it's not the one about the vicar, the bicycle and the scouring powder?
Flappy
I don't know if a technical issue with my hosts has affected this site but if you have noticed any outages it's due to "severe flapping of HSRP on customer vlans". I thought I should pass that on.
HSRP?
Huge Sheets of Rubberised Paper.
Surely they shouldn't be sending data around in vans these days.
Highly Spiced Rice Pudding?
streaking by
[CdM] I read that as 'High Speed Rice Pudding'. The pudding-mistakes compound themselves because I read Rab's post thinking of a Dutch dessert called 'vla' (basically cold custard), and a Limburgse tart called 'vlai'. And I'm bloomin' hungry this morning.
[INJ] Do not underestimate the bandwidth of a transit van full of DAT tapes.
(Packet rate's lousy though.)
[Simons] Reminds me of A Fire Upon the Deep, where the protagonists get transport on a spaceship whose "cargo" is a one-third xor of a one-time pad.
Desserts
Oh, come on, I know y'all are just PUDDING on a show of your favorite puns!
I read "vla" as "via" and thought of a company called Viasat and thus, thought of pudding being sent through outer space.
[Kag] And what if I gave a tart response denying that claim? ...Oh, bugger.
Sticky end to pudding puns
Well that ended very messily, didn't it? Is anythinjg nice happening this weekend? I have to admit, I'm bored, bored, bored, this weekend and not even entertained by the thought that I can actually hang washing outside today. Roll on work on Monday.
slow weekend.
[pen] No work for me for quite a while, either domestic or paid; I'll be lucky to know what day it is. But anyway, people visiting, catching up on reading, and finishing decorating my crutches.
Spent Friday to Sunday in the South-West supporting 'The Prince's Trust Wild UK Challenge' sponsored by Capgemini. I took part last year but once was enough. So 3 days of camping, manning checkpoints, lugging gear around and clapping and cheering. A successful event - plenty of money raised and only 2 competitors hospitalised after coming off bikes (neither seriously injured).
[flerdle] Well, that sounds like a plan that takes into account the circumstances. I hope it mends like what it's supposed to.
Well, my weekend improved. Making something always improves my mood, so the construction of seven jars of marmalade before breakfast on Sunday, followed by a couple of hours out on the bikes with the windy miller in the glorious late-summer weather did wonders. Today, I'm not officially at work, so plan to splend some time writing up a review of the one-day course on writing for SEO (last Friday, Utrecht), an hour getting a bit further with writing up a report from the mini-conference/debate on private equity (last Thursday night, Amsterdam), and three hours ironing (my living room, in front of the TV, tonight.)
Well, my weekend improved. Making something always improves my mood, so the construction of seven jars of marmalade before breakfast on Sunday, followed by a couple of hours out on the bikes with the windy miller in the glorious late-summer weather did wonders. Today, I'm not officially at work, so plan to splend some time writing up a review of the one-day course on writing for SEO (last Friday, Utrecht), an hour getting a bit further with writing up a report from the mini-conference/debate on private equity (last Thursday night, Amsterdam), and three hours ironing (my living room, in front of the TV, tonight.)
[pen] Quite right: who'd want a wrinkly living room?
To be filed under "Fire, baptisms thereof"
Well, I just did my first ever TV interview. Live. On national TV.
[CdM] Did it go well? Is there somewhere online one might be able to see it?
[flerdle] Please explain how you will be decorating your crutch? While you were in getting the leg fixed did you have some more intimate operations performed? Perhaps a spot of vagazzling? Oh, sorry, plural, my mistake, carry on. Coat!
[Phil] Thanks for asking. I guess it went OK, given that they have asked me back. On the other hand, I really don't want to become a pundit. On the other other hand, the pen-equivalent at my institution is constantly pushing me to do this sort of stuff. Can it be seen online? I certainly hope not. :-)
penequivalent
I don't do PR anymore! I'm just English Editor.... and I sneak in marketing advice at the same time.
cooking
I want to write a cookbook. Of course, all my measures are American. I wonder if I should find British equivalents and published a British edition, too.
What size are your cups?
[KS] If you want to publish in the UK (and this will probably also be the case for places like Australia), you'll certainly have to change the measurements, but you should also get someone to check over the names of ingredients and their availability as well as possible substitutes unless you want to confine your readership to people who live in the major English cities. For example, I live in a small city of about 250,000 people with all the major supermarket chains but the nearest source of buckwheat flour for me would be a 90 minutes round trip.
It's a source of constant irritation to me that any internet search for a recipe draws you to lists of ingredients in US imperial units, mostly because I can never remember what a cup is. One gotcha to be aware of is that US pints are smaller than UK pints (16floz instead of 20floz).
For ingredient substitutions my procedure is the following. First, look for something in your cupboard that you think tastes like the missing ingredient. If that fails, look for something that looks like the missing ingredient. If even that fails, look for something that sounds like the missing ingredient.
My gelignite-based desserts have made many a dinner party go with a bang. (Although they do have the advantage of being strictly vegetarian).
One size fits all
[KS] don't change the measurements! Just include imperial and metric along with US cup measurements... Lots of recipe books and websites do this. Then you only have to produce one version.
[INJ] Try your local windmill for buckwheat. Alternatively, I can bring you 5kg next Saturday. The buckwheat is free but it'll cost you merely the price of the ferry ticket.
[INJ] Try your local windmill for buckwheat. Alternatively, I can bring you 5kg next Saturday. The buckwheat is free but it'll cost you merely the price of the ferry ticket.
buckwheat
[Pen] That's the distance to the watermill who make the flour I usually use for breadmaking. I can buy the normal white, wholemeal and malted grain from my local butchers, but more specialist stuff is only sold at the mill.
sorry for not looking in here earlier
I meant to add...
[INJ] Doesn't your mill supply any other shops? Poor you. I think even though I complain about the paucity of food here, (no big chunks of meat, for a start - there's nothing to roast in this bit of the Netherlands) I can actually get a lot of local produce, and just have to cut my culinary cloth accordingly.
[INJ] Doesn't your mill supply any other shops? Poor you. I think even though I complain about the paucity of food here, (no big chunks of meat, for a start - there's nothing to roast in this bit of the Netherlands) I can actually get a lot of local produce, and just have to cut my culinary cloth accordingly.
*waves from Beijing*
[Pen] It might do, but I haven't found it yet.
This weekend, I am mostly...
making sandwiches to feed 50 new volunteers at three windmills on the island. I volunteer that I am a complete idiot.
Never volunteer
[pen] You must be using yards of Edam and spek.
[Softers] Metres. There's still several decimetres of it left in the fridge, dammit. Tasteless cheese. But no-one can say I'm not inburgering into my new life here.
MKS
[pen] as an engineer I seriously slipped up there.
Plea
I posted this on MCIOS as well: Anyone in the Morniverse know of a suitable family for an Italian language student in or near Hastings? She is a charming young lady mid 20s and she stayed with Mrs Software and I for a month this summer.
finding ingredients
[rab] finding ingredients that way sounds dangerous. Taste? I can see how that would work. However, looking alike, I think could get really confusing! My sister says I should give this link to show how that could be dangerous. Though, I'm not sure that you'd have a lot of these in your house. Now, I just need to find the metric equivalents to US - I'm sure they're online - just gotta get going in a bit. I'll bother y'all about ingredients over times, maybe ;) I don't think I'll be using too much different, though - baking powder, sugar, flour, salt, pepper, garlic powder, butter . . . things off the top of my head that I'll be using at times.
gelignite
I hope no one had too much of a fire in their belly...
Is it me?
Am I being over-sensitive, or has the tone of the Limerick Game taken a slide down a particularly sexist hill this week? Kagome Shuko provided a dreadful first line, so I *ahem* said something. And now I find the next line refers to 'a prude'. I don't think I'm being a prude, but I do like to see standards maintained, and I think there are plenty of alternatives first lines that don't include referring to women with tits like melons. That's not a limerick I would enjoy contributing to. And I'm sure some of the chaps here similarly would avoid contributing to limericks about everyman's small cocks, erectile dysfunction and disappointing conjugal performance - and all the other male foibles and deficiences. The MC community has never felt the need to scrape the bottom of this particular barrel before (although there are plenty of other barrels that everyone enjoys delving deep into), so why now?
By limerick standards our output is exceptionally clean. I think the occasional dive into the depths of depravity is necessary and indeed unavoidable. Citations:
[1.] The lim'rick packs laughs anatomical
In space that is quite economical,
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean,
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
[2.] Legman, who compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology, held that the true limerick as a folk form is always obscene, and cites similar opinions by Arnold Bennett and George Bernard Shaw, describing the clean limerick as a periodic fad and object of magazine contests, rarely rising above mediocrity.
That said, I don't think an excess of filth, whether or not it's folklorically accurate, is particularly funny either. One, or, perhaps I should say 'the MC community' needs mostly clean stuff to throw the filth into sharper relief. So I think my conclusion is to bring on the odd willy joke, and not to start complaining until we've had several in succession.
[Pen] I was about to agree wholeheartedly (and indeed KS's first line was singularly juvenile), but I went to the game and in fact there aren't any crude limericks currently on the top page. So, although I agree with your sentiment, you may actually be overstating the issue. Actually, I think we went through a dip into the area where saucy starts bordering on filthy a couple of weeks ago and have climbed out again.
continuing
Maybe you're influenced by the output on MCiOS - but I wouldn't class any of the currently visible lot as more than saucy.
Addendum
Also, I don't actually think tits do like melons.
I'm with penelope in this instance. That line was pathetic, and completely out of keeping with the tone of the website.
More generally [SM] I believe your example #1 shows the type of limerick many of us prefer. The form may have its root in ribaldry, but there's a clear market for amusing rhymes and syllabic dexterity rather than innuendo.
More generally [SM] I believe your example #1 shows the type of limerick many of us prefer. The form may have its root in ribaldry, but there's a clear market for amusing rhymes and syllabic dexterity rather than innuendo.
*waves from Strasbourg* Well, I've emerged victorious from my part 1 exams - what are we all up to this weekend?
Weekend
I'll be drumming at this event on Saturday. Have spent this morning sanding down a batch of new bachi.
My son turns 16 tomorrow ("arrrghhh, not more fireworks, Dad!!!!"). Having family & friends round on Sunday to celebrate. Can't do tomorrow as it's the school open day.
Next Friday is more interesting, as I'll be playing The Last Post, alone, at Beaumont Leys Shopping Centre (which covers 7 acres (2.8ha), as I presume you've never been). Never played it in public before, so I'm somewhat "bricking it".
Next Friday is more interesting, as I'll be playing The Last Post, alone, at Beaumont Leys Shopping Centre (which covers 7 acres (2.8ha), as I presume you've never been). Never played it in public before, so I'm somewhat "bricking it".
I'm 6 hours behind...
Happy Guy Fawkes Day/Night!
breaking radio silence
Making an official request for a new round of Clerihew poems. Always liked the metrical freedom they afforded me as a rookie MC'er.
Come rhyme with me
[Juxtapose] Given the glacial pace of game turnover here, I feel obliged to point you gently in the direction of a Clerihew game currently taking place over at Orange.
slow madness
You know you've been in a brace for too long when you reach for the velcro strap to haul your other (unbound, uninjured) leg around too.
Only two more days, i hope.
Fingers crossed for you, flerdle.
Fingers also crossed, flerdle.
Things are incredibly dangerous around here - a thick fog has enveloped the city and driving is an exciting adventure in remembering which is your exit as the signs have disappeared in the mist. Oh well.
Things are incredibly dangerous around here - a thick fog has enveloped the city and driving is an exciting adventure in remembering which is your exit as the signs have disappeared in the mist. Oh well.
run away
I'm free! FREE! Ahahahahahah!
Oh sh!t. I have no muscle now. *crumples*
Good news
[Flerdle] Just get started on going for walks to build it up. When you're no longer walking in a circle, you're better.
lol - genuinely :)
mijn ook. Ik lollt. Oooh... converting txt-speak into Dutch is fun!
[pen] share the joke.
I make that either:
'Me too, I lol'd' or
'My Orang Utan is slumped in his chair'
'Me too, I lol'd' or
'My Orang Utan is slumped in his chair'
[Softers] the Dutch have a fairly regular set of verb endings, and have co-opted quite a few English words, which they adapt by tampering with the verb endings. So, you'll get something like 'Checken' - to check; Ik checkt, u checkd, etc. And 'Springen' - to jump. Although I was disappointed to learn that they hadn't bothered to co-opt 'trampolinen' - to jump on a trampoline. Ik trampolint would be very useful, I thought.
[INJ] Correct.
[INJ] Correct.
[pen] Of course my experience of Dutch predates txtpraat.
French has done the same thing, except worse. They don't just text LOL, and write G instead of j'ai, they say LOL in conversation. No sign of 'j'ai LOLé' for the moment, but it's only a matter of time until I see my nieces again.
it's all gone, gone, gone...
It's sop foggy here in Rotterdam this morning that from the window of my 6th floor office, I can see nothing but mist. But I can hear the pile-driver thud-thud-thudding away on the building site in the middle of campus.
Over to the weather where you are
Getting weathered on near Southampton. Walked from the hotel to the office (through woods) and in half an hour got a sharp shower, mist, a beautiful sunrise and mirky greyness. Plus a couple of roe deer - always a bonus.
Weather eye
It is bright and sunny here, 15C. :o)
Max 14.0°C here and sunny. The sky is still clear (8.15 pm) and it's only gone down to about 9° so no excuse not to get the telescope out, though I'm sure I can find one.
The snowheads on the weather group have gone very sulky and are reduced to looking at charts 16 days ahead which everyone (including the snowfreaks) knows should be labelled "For entertainment only". Ho ho, hee hee.
The snowheads on the weather group have gone very sulky and are reduced to looking at charts 16 days ahead which everyone (including the snowfreaks) knows should be labelled "For entertainment only". Ho ho, hee hee.
33°C and humid is forecast for the day. Currently very sultry (the weather, not me).
Not quite so warm a forecast for Dujon's place. About 30°C today. Tomorrow though is different. 36°C is the current guess. I do hope that the BoM is wrong.
Megathermality
(Dujon) Hmm, 36° is a bit much. It exceeds my record by the smallest possible amount. (10 Aug 03). Last December 36°F (2C) would have been a bonus. (Monthly mean 0.1°C, should be just over 5°).
Yes, when I moved down here I was somewhat unaccustomed to the heat. My first day of 42°C was somewhat of a revelation. When the wind blows it's a bit like living in a hairdryer. Still, it's a fairly dry heat in Melbourne, not like that nasty humid heat you get in the tropics.
[nfras] Indeed. I vividly remember 43+ degrees combined with gale force winds as something I had never encountered before. 43 degrees, been there done that. Gale force winds, likewise. The two together -- a completely new meteorological experience.
[CdM] Presumably you'd have a wind warming factor, so that 43 degrees in a wind feels as hot as 50?
Further megathermality
(Raak, CdM) It's the wet-bulb temperature that counts. This is the temperature of a wet or moist surface, lowered by evaporation of water or in this case sweat. I know that the hot blast from the interior is very dry and the wet-bulb could be as low as 20° if the humidity is about say 10%. So the stronger the wind the cooler you'll feel. My guess is that those conditions are far from intolerable. Was that actually the case?
Sweating
[Rosie] Yes and No. Remember that it's relative humidity that is normally quoted. Then there is the problem of how much an individual sweats and thus the effectiveness of its cooling. Perhaps this is why some people enjoy warm weather whilst others find it uncomfortable.
I cannot speak for others but in my case when it becomes really hot and the relative humidity is high (say, over 20%) my sweat pores open and drench me in my own perspiration but affords no relief.
I cannot speak for others but in my case when it becomes really hot and the relative humidity is high (say, over 20%) my sweat pores open and drench me in my own perspiration but affords no relief.
dry good, wet bad
[Rosie] Yesterday I went for an experimental hop around town and it was fine. Very pleasant in fact. Then again I don't perspire much, and have a famously warped sense of temperature. The wind was strong enough to affect how easy it was for me in my somewhat delicate state to move about (out at Tulla it seems to have measured a constant 40-50km/h all day; in the city it was all over the place). Temp was 34°C with rel hum of 23% and "wet bulb depression" according to the BoM of 14 - so i suppose that made it a nice 20°C day.
[flerdle] Wet Bulb Depression? Sounds like what happens when you have a nurse take your temperature.
Staying out of the kitchen
(flerdle) Those figures all tie up according to my Tables of everything to do with meteorology. It seems to me that the climate of Melbourne is mostly rather bland and pleasant but every now and then someone leaves the oven door open and SE Australia gets scorched but that's probably preferable to the constant high humidity of somehwere near the equator even if the the temperature rarely rises above about 33°. Power to yer lallies, BTW. Kangaroo motion sounds hard work.
Antipodes
In just over a week Mrs Software and I will be landing in Melbourne. We plan a trip along the coast to Narooma to meet an old coleague and then Sydney where we fly to NZ for my daughter's wedding. so lets hope the weather is up to speed by then.
[Software] When do you arrive? And are you staying in Melbourne for any period of time? Because if so we should definitely organise a meeting in your honour. I think flerdle is game to walk just about anywhere now.
[Softers, CdM] I concur.
Will only be in Melbourne briefly as we are heading down the coast to Warrnambool. Sadly we have planned a tight schedule visiting relatives and friends so on this occasion it may not be possible. But as I now have a daughter down under this will not be my last trip!
NZ is not Down Under. It is Under And To The Right of Down Under, but close enough. :)
(nfras) Shurely it's even more Down Under than Australia from a UK point of view.
Uhhh
I am a straight female, just so y'all know.
Rectilinearity
(KagShu) No-one has suspected otherwise, though it must be said that many men, including this one, appreciate a modest degree of curvature.
Okay, I was just confused by some comments I saw earlier while I was MIA - writing for NaNoWriMo.
[KS] Ah, OK. I thought I had missed something. :)
I was pretty sure you were female but admit that sexual orientation hadn't crossed my mind.
Reminds me of an interesting (well it is to me) story. When I was in high school we had a mock exam in English. I was talking to one of the teachers afterwards about the two examples given in one question. Both were travel pieces, neither was attributed. My teacher explained that almost everyone had identified the writer of the first piece as a male and the second as a female. Neither piece had anything that clearly identified the gender of the author. The funny thing was the writer of the first piece was male, and the writer of the second was female, and they were both written by the same person. The journalist had undergone a sex change between writing the two articles (there was a gap of about 5 years between them) but somehow most people had picked up a difference in the way each article was written. Spooky!
I was pretty sure you were female but admit that sexual orientation hadn't crossed my mind.
Reminds me of an interesting (well it is to me) story. When I was in high school we had a mock exam in English. I was talking to one of the teachers afterwards about the two examples given in one question. Both were travel pieces, neither was attributed. My teacher explained that almost everyone had identified the writer of the first piece as a male and the second as a female. Neither piece had anything that clearly identified the gender of the author. The funny thing was the writer of the first piece was male, and the writer of the second was female, and they were both written by the same person. The journalist had undergone a sex change between writing the two articles (there was a gap of about 5 years between them) but somehow most people had picked up a difference in the way each article was written. Spooky!
[KS] Those of us who went to your book website some time ago had guessed at the gender (either that or your parents really didn't like you!). Sexual orientation has never been an issue in the morniverse as far as I can tell.
He, she or it
(KS) It's been obvious to me almost from the word go that you were female, just as I reckon it's equally obvious that I am not. Gay or straight, nobody's bothered here.
No way!
Rosie's a bloke? Well, stone me!
[Phil] we all wondered why you had been flirting with him for so long.
(INJ) Chalky sussed me out immediately, years ago. But like me he's pretty astute.
No way!
Rosie's astute? Well, stone me!
(nfras) Hmm, not quite astute enough to be absolutely certain that you got my joke. Grovelling apols if you did. This is getting so elliptical it's in danger of disappearing up its own latus rectum.
Rosie's a stoat? Blimey, my whole world is crumbling sound me!
Well, there you go Philippa, it just shows you shouldn't jump to conclusions.
What a silly old gal I am. "sound" should have read "around".
[Rosie] The joke was received and understood, as I hope mine was :)
I forget that I've known some of you lot for nearly 13 years, and what might appear plain as day to me is unfathomable to others. (THIRTEEN years???!!!)
Spanning-tree topology change
Those of you who noticed Friday evening's outage (I certainly didn't) will be reassured to know that it was "triggered by a spanning-tree topology change [creating] a broadcast storm". I presume this refers to platform alterations on the Circle Line prompting unladylike outbursts from Samantha.
(nfras) I may have underestimated your sense of humour. The thing is, I have actually met Chalky. (Shut up at the back)
(rab) A spanning-tree is clearly a reference to an old-style wooden railway sleeper. There's been some re-ballasting and realignment of the track and one of the permanent way gang, in defiance of regulations, has put it on Twitter.
(rab) A spanning-tree is clearly a reference to an old-style wooden railway sleeper. There's been some re-ballasting and realignment of the track and one of the permanent way gang, in defiance of regulations, has put it on Twitter.
[pen] only 13 years? Newbie! ;-)
[Rosie] My sense of humour is childish, absurdust and crude. Much like me really. I hope to meet a bunch of you when I am next back in the Old Country, depending on when that is. I tried to get to see Phil last time I was over but the god of the M6 is a cruel and jealous god and sent plagues of cones, jams and Eddie Stobart to confound me.
But seriously, folks...
[pen] It is rather daunting isn't it. I've been doing this online since 1995. It's strange that the number of contributors has stayed fairly stable over the years, as if the world of MC can only sustain a certain number of people. I was looking at the Yorkives the other day, trying to find my first contribution. Brought back many memories, many of which I can't even remember.
[Phil] Didn't you know there's a one-in, one-out policy? Now, if you could start to think about making a move now please, ...
has met quite a few Morniversers . . .
... most of whom might discern the subtle difference between 'quite a lot of' [which I'd originally typed] and 'quite a few'.
[rab] There can't be a one-in, one-out policy. If the gestalt entity that is Uncle Korky/INJ/CdM/Dujon left, it would take time to invent new personae. Stevie would have a fit.
[rab] I think you've terrified everyone into silence, too afraid to stick their heads above the parapet and say anything in case anyone remembers how long they've been here, and 'isn't it time you made room for someone new?'.
I think I must be approaching my 10th anniversary, but I could be out by a couple of years either way.
Very little of the threatened snow in southern England - so no excuse for leaving early for my 4 hour drive home.
Very little of the threatened snow in southern England - so no excuse for leaving early for my 4 hour drive home.
Threatened snow? Haven't seen/read/heard a forecast for two days. Must update myself.
Niviation
An inch of snow here this morning. It settled on the grass and even on the side roads for a time.
Just wind, rain and 2.5C here in Rotterdam. And final day in the office before January - hurrah!
Tauranga
I cane to NZ for my daughter's wedding equipped for sun and sand, however I need an umbrella and gumboots.
Florida
Pleasant and sunny down here in Florida. And I've been here about 14 years I think.
Clarification
Er, when I say "here" I don't mean Florida. I mean here.
Heisenberg
(CdM) Could you move around a bit, preferably completely at random and as fast as possible. Then we will know your location to a greater degree of accuracy than currently specified.
He already does
[Rosie] I don't think that works for molecules of CdM. On the other hand, the speed of a flerdle is highly dependent on slope, being relatively speedy now along a flat, perfectly horizontal surface and very much slower on any inclination or declination, whereas say a rock or a basketball shows very different behaviour.
Oh, and *waves from sunny Brisbane*
(flerdle) Are you saying that cadmium-containg alloys are beyond the laws of physics? Outrageous! Don't tell Uri Geller, whatever you do. May your mobility on inclined planes rapidly approach the norm.
talking of Uri Geller and planes...
Uri Geller sat three seats in front of me and my mother on a flight from Venice to the UK. I watched the rivets and joins of the wings and fuselage very carefully during the entire flight. (Stranegly enough, Jude Law sat in front of us on the flight out. He's much smaller than you think.)
Not the size you thought
I flew with the late lamented Phil Linott on the little 40-seater from Dublin to Leeds once. He was very tall - pushing 2m, I reckon.
Orthography
(pen) Stranegly sounds like a small village in Scotland. Hard luck. :-)
(INJ) Two miles? Yeah, that's big, too big, obviously.
(INJ) Two miles? Yeah, that's big, too big, obviously.
[Rosie] I've just moved rapidly to Tennessee, if that helps. Drove up through an impressive storm, as well. Hearing the tornado sirens wailing as we were driving was a little unnerving.
very tropical
It is pouring rain this evening here (in Brisbane still) but, unusually, there is no lightning/thunder at all.
Vorticity
(CdM) I thought you were somewhere round there. I'm envious of your vigorous local convective activity. All we get here is mist, drizzle and general gloom. It's mild (10°) much to the disgust of the snowfreaks, but they're either weird or bonkers.
[Rosie] Have you seen the W Yorkshire lenticular cloud photos doing the rounds today?
Altocumulus lenticularis
(Phil) I certainly have - brilliant. We don't get 'em round here because the hills aren't high enough. You should see the ones they get in New Zealand and in the USA in the lee of The Rockies. More envy. :-(
Land of the long white cloud
[Rosie] Sadly I have seen many of them though it is midsummer here. Oh, well, now it is Christmas.
Land of extensive featureless stratus giving slight drizzle
(Softers) At least you can see the sides and ends.
Land of - what now?
What ends? We saw no ends on our Christmas eve and day. Very wet, windy, and uncomfortable.
singing
I saw the clouds on Christmas day, their old familiar shades of gray, the raindrops fell and I could tell the weather was so dreary, hey.
[KS, G] Where was that?
lenticular loomers
I saw something approaching lenticular cloudage a couple of days after Christmas, over the Lincolnshire wolds - a splendid sight, but I don't think it would have lenticulated fully. Now, back in, the Netherlands, it's drizzling heavily, grey, it's already getting dark, and sounds like a war zone out there as the village boys have been setting off their Belgian firecrackers all day, and the farm boys have been filling old milk churns with carbide bomblets and shooting the lids off across the fields. One way of seeing out the old year, I suppose. The windy miller and I are planning a quiet night in with a couple of slow-cooked lamb shanks and a bottle of wine.
Cloudage?? Oh, pen, pleeeze! Even the most anorakky weather nut doesn't talk like that. Did it give rainage, which went down the drainage? Or was it snowage, so your car needed towage? <rapper>
Good to hear that Dutch boys are allowed out, unsupervised, to be a little naughty.
clearage
It was a totally clear night here after a hot and almost completely cloud-free day - something of a rarity here. I did not bother going in to town for the fireworks, but watched a very decent display from the back yard. They seemed to be coming from the general direction of a local school and went on for a very long time. A licence is needed to even obtain fireworks here, let alone let them off, though some people manage it anyway.
Apparently the Arts Centre spire caught fire. Whoops.
Happy New Year to the collective mc5ers.
verbage
[Rosie] I'm not playing with words as a weather nut, I'm playing with words as a word nut. So there. *raspberry* *winkage*
BTW
HNY all.
Oh, go on then
[pen] Happy new year, but as a fellow word nut, I wonder why you don't abhor the current lazy vogue for "-age" creations, spewing spurious neologisms all over the place. *winkage continued*
Umbrage
(pen) Ah, "Raspberry". That was the whole family's nickname for my piano teacher when I was a child. Little could she have imagined that I would be blowing the said fruit down a 9-ft tube 30 years later. Real name Doris Austin (Miss). Always going on about my fingerage and phrasage. A bit fierce but good. Not one to indulge in winkage, as you can imagine.
usage
.. not even a spot of badinage?
Carthage
(Carthage?) I remember talking a load of -age badinage with a wordy friend some time around 1998, but don't recall seeing much of it since then. We also had a go at adding '-ster' on the end of evey word. That was fun too. But I don't like Dutch enough to have fun with the national habit of making a diminutive out of everything to informalise it; bier > biertje, jongen >jongetje, bord > bordtje. (Beer, lad and plate, respectivly.)
BTW Chalks, what are you doing up so early? (Or so late?)
BTW Chalks, what are you doing up so early? (Or so late?)
Cobblers!
[pen] is Schoenlappertje a diminutive term for a cobbler? All I know is that it's a blummin' good non-sweet, blackcurrant beer.
I need to set fire to a Manchester suburb
....Wantage of Burnage. Boo-boom!
[Phil] Yus, it is. I took the 'tje' off it and ran it through Googletranslate, then the Brain of Google told me it was cobblers.
[pen] Smashing. If you see a bottle, I'd thoroughly recommend buying and drinking it.
Pilgrimage
Following suggestions at MC in Outerspace, would a Saturday in March be suitable for an MCPilg in London? Do see the discussion in the Pilgrim Game on Orange-age
Location
I live in Lake Charles, LA, USA.
ages and ages . . .
You know, like Ron on Kim Possible would say "snackage." I guess you could say on Friday I got my "concertage" on? Or is that my "nerdage" for the band Lost And Found?
Pilg
[KS] Yes, you'd probably have to make a full weekend of it. Still, I'm sure accommodation could be arranged.
Angels
KS] Yes, feel free to combine it with a longer visit to our fair shores.
Hang on Guys, I've just had this great idea! LAPilg?
(INJ) LA is an awful long way for Ms Shuko.
Geographically challenged
Ah, Yes. Still, it's not a bad idea.
[INJ] I think what you wanted to propose was NOPilg. I might sign up for that one!
Or maybe La Pilg (or should I say le pélérinage)
LAPilg
INJ's idea for a Pilg in Louisiana sounds great for Ms Shuko - a bit far for the rest of us though...
You know you're getting old when...
you're filling out a form online that requires your date of birth and when you click the drop-down box to bring up your year of birth you have to scroll down to find it.....
Kim, you're catching up. When I click on those things I get a depth reading. 6' is becoming uncomfortably close. :)
dob
I was filling in one that offered me the opportunity to say I was born in 1900!
I still love web forms that insist on postcodes for (republic of) Irish addresses. I know of a few parcels that have arrived at Irish houses addressed to, e.g. Mr M O'Donnell, 10 Ardan Bothar an Glas, Drogheda, Co Louth, Sorry Mr Postman, Amazon wouldn't let me order this unless I had a postcode.
[Phil] Even worse are forms that insist on only allowing US Zip Codes. Or only allowing US states, even though you have selected a country other than the US.
(nfras) I've never found that, and I've bought quite a bit of stuff from the USA (music, books). In fact the last order they sent twice. Anybody want a copy of the conductor score for The Chicken, arr. Kriss Berg?
postcode
Phil] I'm surprised that the phrase fitted in the postcode box!
[nfras] which reminds me that many Irish people I know have put 90210 in the postcode section :-)
[Merlyn] Even stupider are the web form designers that don't limit the number of characters.
[Merlyn] Even stupider are the web form designers that don't limit the number of characters.
Yes, if I am ever going to be in the UK, I'd let you know. Though, I don't know if I'll ever be. New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Alexandria, Metairie - all places in LA that are "close enough" for me. Shreveport and Monroe are a little far, but doable. Texas - Houston, Beaumont, Orange. Far, but doable - Seguin, New Braunfels, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Ft. Worth. . .
I've sometimes seen the addresses things that can be irritating toanybody. Yep, even sometimes to us in the US. I tell things that I don't live in the Ukraine. Silly forms. However, it's not usually those for me. It's those CAPTCHAs. I've had one in Greek, one we think was in something like Urdo or Arabic . . . some others with weird symbols.
Did you know there's a country with a name that states a fact about weather? ********************** Ukraine ************************* Get it? UK Rain E (rainy)
Compulsory fields
The field that irks me when compulsory is that of "County", for counties in the sense implied by the form ceased to exist in Scotland in the 70s, and Edinburgh is one of those places (like Manchester) where the city and county are much the same thing. Or, to put it another way, they lie within Unitary Authority Areas of the same name. So in the box I'm often reduced to writing "Scotland", when they let me get away with that, or "Midlothian" when they force a choice. Perhaps in the future I should paste in what I've written here...
I'm sure I've told the story before of how my credit card company managed to have my address as being in "Manchester, Lancashire, Lancashire". When I moved to Edinburgh, it changes to "Edinburgh, Midlothian, Lancashire"...
Pilgrimage
Pilgrimage in London proposed for 24th March. See discussion here: http://www.dunx.org/cgi-bin/forum?forum=game00074&displayStyle=york&tail=40#bottom
Please keep all discussion on the Orange site to avoid cross posting confusion
Please keep all discussion on the Orange site to avoid cross posting confusion
that doesn't mean...
You can all talk about other things here, you know! How was your week?
Hard - preparing documents for government officials :(
Next week, I start my new job though :)
Next week, I start my new job though :)
New Jobber
[Phil] excellent!
My week started in England with shopping and the best fish and chips for lunch in Cleethorpes on Monday, sailed across the North Sea at night (failed to see the Northern Lights despite peering out from the deck at nearly midnight), busy time at work (wrote loads, organised a reception for the sustainability team at the business school). Now: finishing off more loads of writing, and trying to plan ahead.
My week started in England with shopping and the best fish and chips for lunch in Cleethorpes on Monday, sailed across the North Sea at night (failed to see the Northern Lights despite peering out from the deck at nearly midnight), busy time at work (wrote loads, organised a reception for the sustainability team at the business school). Now: finishing off more loads of writing, and trying to plan ahead.
Started a blog. It's under my Second Life identity, though, so no-one need try looking for it.
My week
Very very tough, for reasons that I'm not going to get into. But, on the bright side, not quite as tough as the week before.
[Raak] Is that a slog?
[Phil] Ha ha, yes, a SLog, hopefully not a slog! Just a few snaps of places in SL so far.
Travelogue
Back after a fortnight in Ethiopia, where Mrs INJ and I had wanted to go for years. A fascinating place – the oldest continuously Christian country in the world and the only African country never to be colonised (the Italians never subdued it in the 1930s). It has a fascinating culture with a history mixed with legend. This is the country of the Queen of Sheba, who was seduced by Solomon and whose son Menelik is said to have brought the Ark of the Covenant back from Israel. It is the country of the Axumite civilisation whose trade reached as far away as West Africa, Zanzibar, Sri Lanka and the Caucasus (as well as possibly supplying some of the ‘Nubian’ pharaohs) and who raised huge pillars over their tombs (the great stele in Axum is believed to be the tallest monolith ever made – although it probably fell and broke almost immediately after it had been erected). It is a country with a tradition of building churches and monasteries in the most inaccessible places; culminating in the rock-cut churches of Lalibela, created by cutting down into the solid rock from above – if they had been in Europe they would have been as well-known as Notre Dame.
It is intensely Christian for the most part; you have to have a reasonable knowledge of Christian tradition to get the most from the cultural aspects of the country. We went for Timkat – the major festival, which is at Epiphany in the Coptic/Julian calendar and celebrates both the adoration of the Magi and Christ’s baptism with mass-participation parades, street celebrations and young adult baptism. And yet it is tolerant of other faiths – there is a significant muslim minority (10%+) and a few Rastafarians and others and no obvious conflict.
It also has magnificent and varied scenery with mountains, lakes, rivers with spectacular waterfalls (the Tissisat falls on the Blue Nile share the meaning of their name with the local name for the Victoria Falls – Mosi oa Tunya, or ‘the smoke that thunders’) and vast empty depressions where rivers disappear into salt pans. The birdlife is still abundant and varied, although much of the larger wildlife is under threat from a large population with a tradition of hunting.
The downsides? Tourist infrastructure isn’t great – hotels have irregular water and electricity, roads are mostly poor (and occasionally atrocious), there is poverty, though no famine at the moment after a very good harvest – much earlier famine was caused by difficulties in distributing food rather than an absolute lack of it. The food is OK, especially if you like injira, the staple bread substitute, which bears a certain resemblance to cold wet flannel IMO.
Oh, and as a bonus, we went to a resort owned by Haile Gabreselassie and he was there, so we got to have a chat and a photo-opportunity.
If you aren’t too insistent on comfort, then go if you get the chance.
It is intensely Christian for the most part; you have to have a reasonable knowledge of Christian tradition to get the most from the cultural aspects of the country. We went for Timkat – the major festival, which is at Epiphany in the Coptic/Julian calendar and celebrates both the adoration of the Magi and Christ’s baptism with mass-participation parades, street celebrations and young adult baptism. And yet it is tolerant of other faiths – there is a significant muslim minority (10%+) and a few Rastafarians and others and no obvious conflict.
It also has magnificent and varied scenery with mountains, lakes, rivers with spectacular waterfalls (the Tissisat falls on the Blue Nile share the meaning of their name with the local name for the Victoria Falls – Mosi oa Tunya, or ‘the smoke that thunders’) and vast empty depressions where rivers disappear into salt pans. The birdlife is still abundant and varied, although much of the larger wildlife is under threat from a large population with a tradition of hunting.
The downsides? Tourist infrastructure isn’t great – hotels have irregular water and electricity, roads are mostly poor (and occasionally atrocious), there is poverty, though no famine at the moment after a very good harvest – much earlier famine was caused by difficulties in distributing food rather than an absolute lack of it. The food is OK, especially if you like injira, the staple bread substitute, which bears a certain resemblance to cold wet flannel IMO.
Oh, and as a bonus, we went to a resort owned by Haile Gabreselassie and he was there, so we got to have a chat and a photo-opportunity.
If you aren’t too insistent on comfort, then go if you get the chance.
[INJ] Really interesting, thanks for sharing.
[Tuj]Indeed.
Meteorology
Solid steady snow in Derby now. Started with light and gentle about 3pm - now big wetter flakes - could be interesting if it keeps up overnight.
Had a choir concert last night - everyone got there fine, but I think nearly half the choir couldn't get home.
singing to stay cheerful
[Knobbers] Yikes.
[INJ] it's 'only' -4C here today. (I know Néa will better this statistic). Yesterday was the most startlingly clear, bright, cold chilly day I have seen since I was in Vermont in January 1988. I put some photos on my Facebook page, if you can see that. We had a couple of inches of powdery snow on Friday afternoon, but early yesterday morning it was -12C (according to the ladies in the bakery, who were in at 5am), rising to -10C by the time the windy miller and I headed out to his mill, and brilliantly sunny - one of those winter days when you get a big and welcome dose of sunlight. Random banks of fog drifting around the area added a thick and sparkling rime to the the lines of pollard willows and alders lining the dikes on our route there. The water container inside the mill was frozen - it was -8C in there. It was a truly spectacular weather day.
[INJ] it's 'only' -4C here today. (I know Néa will better this statistic). Yesterday was the most startlingly clear, bright, cold chilly day I have seen since I was in Vermont in January 1988. I put some photos on my Facebook page, if you can see that. We had a couple of inches of powdery snow on Friday afternoon, but early yesterday morning it was -12C (according to the ladies in the bakery, who were in at 5am), rising to -10C by the time the windy miller and I headed out to his mill, and brilliantly sunny - one of those winter days when you get a big and welcome dose of sunlight. Random banks of fog drifting around the area added a thick and sparkling rime to the the lines of pollard willows and alders lining the dikes on our route there. The water container inside the mill was frozen - it was -8C in there. It was a truly spectacular weather day.
Super!
Apologies for writing like Jilly Cooper. I'm having the equivalent of a guilty McDonald's hamburger and reading her latest paperback at the moment.
[pen] yeah :-)
Cold
Just about to go and have a teleconference with our Ukrainian development team. They were reporting -30 last week, but then Kiev does have a bit of a heat island effect.
It's like a clean scene from Alien!
I do hope Raak is not on of those SLers who has to have an SL wife give SL birth! I saw a video of that and the baby came straigh out of the stomach . . . something very disturbing about that!
random
Was that really Raak? Perhaps he's having an out-of-body experience.
[!Raak] 'Ere, oo are you?
[pen] The whole point of SL is to have out-of-body experiences, I think. I suspect that SLRaak has somehow got free and is posting here along with RLRaak. But, in this virtual space (where we can't see the giveaway goatee) how will we be able to tell them apart?
Daaahn-da-dun-dun... Daaahn-da-dun-dun-DAAAAH
SL Raak isn't called Raak, of course. I think of her as an imaginary version of myself.
[Raak] So do I.
Hidden text
Just typing that gave me the creepsShe has a male shape and skin as well, but rarely wears them.
Well, that brought the conversation to a standstill
Going out to bang a few drums shortly, then various errands and home. Snow and ice is still lying here and there but the roads are all clear.
clear roads
The roads are clear here too. It's bluddy cold though. I saw a small car (one of the 'moped cars' with a teeny engine that requires no proper driving licence) driving across the ice on the dog-leg shaped dead-end remnant of river called the Binnenmaas by the mill this morning. And a quad-bike doing power-slides and throwing up powdered snow on the ice too.
Ice and thickness
[Pen] This is a serious question as frozen rivers are a rarity where I live. How do the drivers of such vehicles (or even skaters and skiers for that matter) know that the ice is sufficient to carry their distributed weight? It sound rather fraught to me.
Sluggish
[Duj] The stretch of water I refer to *was* a river but became a lake in the 13th century when the intrepid Dutch diverted the flow of the Maas at this point into another channel to improve its navigability. It could be considered a small lake now, although it also acts as a reservoir for water pumped out of the polder on its way to the river proper. So, all these 'frozen rivers' are actually frozen lakes and canals, where water can stand still for long periods, allowing it to freeze. As to the thickness of the ice, the Dutch are very organised about this kind of thing. Every stretch of water, it seems, has an 'icemaster' who will measure the thickness and deem it fit for skating. The Dutch rarely do things independently; they love to do everything together, so there aren't a lot of daredevils going it alone in defying the icemaster. And they are aware of where the water is deep or not deep - falling through the ice into shallow water is acceptable, it seems. As for me, I discovered the other night that years and years of being warned not to go onto dangerous British ice have left me with a terror of walking on even the safest Dutch ice. That's another activity that the windy miller will have to do without me. :o/
In other news, I have been measured up for sunglasses at the opticians, and have bought a pair of summer shoes on Ebay - ones that I was dithering about in a high street shop last summer, but have found at one-third of the price on Ebay. Now, if the temperature would just lift above freezing for the first time in a fortnight...
In other news, I have been measured up for sunglasses at the opticians, and have bought a pair of summer shoes on Ebay - ones that I was dithering about in a high street shop last summer, but have found at one-third of the price on Ebay. Now, if the temperature would just lift above freezing for the first time in a fortnight...
It's that thing again
It just started snowing again. Arse.
A man of little trust
[Penelope] Thanks. From memory of my short time in England falling through the ice did my shoes and confidence little good. Perhaps I was a sook? I'm off now to my local bottle shop (off licence) to purchase my week's vittles. I might wobble a bit but I'm confident that I will not sink. ;)
6C
Blimey, it's hot.
Nearly a week has passed again. Apparently it's going to be scorchio on Thursday in the UK.
reduced to weather updates
[Phil] Indeed. If it carries on like this, I'll be getting the box of summer clothes out of the attic.
Is spring springing?
It has warmed up to double figures on the rock, hopefully no more hard frosts - which will encourage the bloody grass to grow.
Then you'll be moaning about mowing the stuff! :)
It's more than three years since I was responsible for a lawn. I'm not sure if I miss it or not. The house we currently live in is a bit weird and unfriendly as far as outside space is concerned. The gravelled space in the back yard is designed to be looked at rather than walked on or used; I think the person who designed it wouldn't make the same design again.
I'm sure I don't miss it. We finally took out our front lawn last year and did fun things involving boulders and native plants what have various qualities such as being interesting looking year round. I also dug out swathes of the back yard and planted a soil-improving winter crop and will be attempting some vegetable gardening this year. The purist in me wants to do it without spending as much on soil amendments as the veg would have cost in the market. The neighbor's massive fir tree dropping needles all over doesn't do wonders for the pH, so I will probably have to do something.
[Dan] Stevie probably has a chainsaw you can borrow.
Water, water everywhere
This comment will only interest those of us who live in the land of drought and flooding plains.
Warragamba dam, built to act as a reservoir for Sydney's drinking water rather than a flood mitigation device, is almost at a level that will trigger the spillways to do their job. To the best of my knowledge the last time this happened was in about 1998. Given that I don't live down stream of the dam I really shouldn't start singing 'Oh, happy days', but I will. :)
Warragamba dam, built to act as a reservoir for Sydney's drinking water rather than a flood mitigation device, is almost at a level that will trigger the spillways to do their job. To the best of my knowledge the last time this happened was in about 1998. Given that I don't live down stream of the dam I really shouldn't start singing 'Oh, happy days', but I will. :)
[Dujon] You could sell some to the SE of England.
[INJ] It'd make a change. The spillways have in fact been actuated and the additional water added to the Nepean/Hawkesbury river system has submerged bridges and brought about the expected flooding - minor at this stage.
water water water water water
[Dujon] Hoping you haven't been washed off your mountain up there. Looks dreadful.
Wobblies
[flerdle] No, m'dear, although the world did seem to move yesterday when I was nowhere near the kitchen table! I think though that it was but the garbage truck doing its rounds. ;)
That could have been a summer's day
Shorts and T-shirt today and mowing the lawn for the first time.
A slightly silly pondering
Over any given year where I live there must be thousands of birds fly over, take up temporary digs whilst migrating or live within a territory they have staked out in which my humble plot of land exists. Why do dead birds not litter my land and the local parks? Cockatoos are blessed with long lives whilst the smaller birds such as finches and wrens are supposed to be relatively short lived (they were when I used to breed them.) Over the last ten years I have seen two (2) deceased avians. One was a parrot in the local park and the other a juvenile butcher bird which I witnessed being attacked by other local birds.
Why is it so? Are there places scattered around the world where birds go to die? Is there an ornithologist in the house?
Why is it so? Are there places scattered around the world where birds go to die? Is there an ornithologist in the house?
A couple of thoughts from an ameteur birder (but not an ornithologist, still less a twitcher). The ones flying over are pretty healthy, as are the ones you see staking out territories. Ill and infirm birds will tend to hide where predators can't see them, such as in thick undergrowth. Also dead birds don't tend to last long. Generally predator birds and rodents dispose of them quickly. They also decompose very quickly, bones and all, as the bones are mostly pretty fragile. Having said that, I reckon to find 3 or 4 dead birds a year in my ordinary suburban garden, and that doesn't count the drifts of feathers left when our local sparrowhawk has caught another little bird too intent on one of our feeders to keep a proper look out.
Salient points, INJ, I have no doubt. Ants too can do a very efficient demolition job on a carcass, but I doubt (in fact would reject) the idea that bird feathers are nutriment for scavengers. The reason for that attitude is that individual feathers, presumably resulting from natural 'moulting', are common and most certainly not a part of a drift of feathers produced by either direct attack or the efforts of scavengers. Who hasn't come across a particularly attractive feather from time to time and wondered what type of bird lost it?
[Dujon] Indeed, I'm sure that in your neck of the woods ants will be particularly efficient at cleaning up. I agree feathers are a bit different, but they must be destroyed fairly quickly if only because otherwise we'd be up to our necks in them. Also they are pretty much pure keratin which, despite its toughness, is none the less protein and so crying out to be recycled. I'm now into speculation, but I would suspect insects & bugs are likely to be the cleaning crew and will reprocess the feathers into chitin etc.
Surely there's someone in the morniverse who can add a bit more scientific rigour at this point.
Surely there's someone in the morniverse who can add a bit more scientific rigour at this point.
All I know is...
Big fleas have little fleas,
Upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas,
and so, ad infinitum.
The_Siphonaptera
Upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas,
and so, ad infinitum.
The_Siphonaptera
Back biting
[pen] My old dad used to recite that one to me..
Dad chat
[Softers] Mine too. Is it a dad thing?
When dads recite cute poems
To their children oh so clever
They then recite them to their own
And on and on for ever.
To their children oh so clever
They then recite them to their own
And on and on for ever.
Ditties not deadies
[p,S & P] Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your most edifying contributions. ;)
We didn't rehearse it, honest
[Duj] Graag gedaan. I love the collective brain of this place.
My pleasure, ma'am
So do I, though it's often somewhat of the variety known as scatter.
Poems
Poems I learned when I was little were "Eletelephony," "Ooey Gooey," and "A Peanut Sat on a Rail Road Track." The one my Daddy really liked to recite was "Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts."
My Silly Poem
I enjoy all this doggerel
As much as tasty custard
I like to read the silly words
That [Pen] and [Dujon] mustered.
As much as tasty custard
I like to read the silly words
That [Pen] and [Dujon] mustered.
More dad pomes ...
If all the world were apple pie
And all the sea were ink
And all the trees were bread and cheese
What would we have to drink?
And all the sea were ink
And all the trees were bread and cheese
What would we have to drink?
Pedigree doggerel
I find it all so flattering
That you so like that poem
But this could take a battering
If scoured with fine-toothed comb.
That you so like that poem
But this could take a battering
If scoured with fine-toothed comb.
How about...
how about a new game (to replace the terminally ill holiday anagrams) in which we can record the wonderful aphorisms passed on by our parents (whether in verse or prose). It might make a useful repository of knowledge. Or it might not.
One favourite from my dad is "If we had ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs."
One favourite from my dad is "If we had ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs."
Worth a try.
[Phil] +1 for that.
*approves*
It's a tough job
Just come back from a long weekend in Reims, tasting champagne, partly paid for by Mrs INJ's sister as a joint significant birthday present (late for her, early for me). Just got to arrange the party now!
How awful for you
[INJ] Think of the headaches and the expense...!!
Just got back from a weekend with my mum in England. I did the 'SH' of POSH with a forced upgrade on the ferry to England - I had to take an outside 5-berth cabin with double bed, bigger bathroom and satellite TV as a solo occupant instead of an inside cabin with 2 bunkbeds, no TV and cubicle bathroom. As I'd had a v. busy day at work with no time for lunch, I celebrated with steak, chips and a huge glass of red wine in the brasserie on board, and woke up just as we were sailing into the Humber past Spurn Point lighthouse. *sigh*
Just got back from a weekend with my mum in England. I did the 'SH' of POSH with a forced upgrade on the ferry to England - I had to take an outside 5-berth cabin with double bed, bigger bathroom and satellite TV as a solo occupant instead of an inside cabin with 2 bunkbeds, no TV and cubicle bathroom. As I'd had a v. busy day at work with no time for lunch, I celebrated with steak, chips and a huge glass of red wine in the brasserie on board, and woke up just as we were sailing into the Humber past Spurn Point lighthouse. *sigh*
It's lovely to see that we still have stoics contributing to the site. 8-)
Death of Games wanted
I just tried to end the Holiday Anagrams game, but the usual didn't work.
Chain pulled
[Raak] I've put it out of its misery, which - thanks to the miracles of modern technology - I did from the comfort of the toilet, appropriatly enough.
Anaphorisms
[Phil] Go for it, while there's a slot.
this weekend I will be mostly
Cleaning cupboards, laundrifying (it's a good drying day) and cursing the internet radio as it keeps cutting out during the best bits.
is it just me?
I've just discovered (via AVMA) that there is a good chance that cfm is female. That led me to wonder to myself: why/how do I create mental images of MCers, based purely on their posts on this site (and others)? And why do I oh-so-frequently turn out to be wrong?
[Phil] Absoliutely - Uncle Korky had me fooled for a long time with the name and the false whiskers, and there aren't that many Philippas around either.
Also, if you follow CdM's 'helpful reference' on AVMA you'll see that the question of cfm's gender may not be resolved.
Also, if you follow CdM's 'helpful reference' on AVMA you'll see that the question of cfm's gender may not be resolved.
Gender bending
It is amazing how often first impressions can be wrong. I wonder if some in the Morniverse deliberately conceal their true gender/sex whichever applies?
[INJ] Indeed, hence my "good chance" comment. I don't actually make assumptions, as far as I'm aware, but I do have a "mind's eye" that seems to kick in subconsciously. Call it a woman's intuition if you will.
*smiles androgynously*
*thought irach and cfm were one and the same* :-)
Test
Things seem to be 'working' after an upgrade, but I got enough error messages I'm a bit uncertain. At least I remembered to not have the magic quotes thing turn itself back on.
Oh good.
Things indeed weren't 'working', but now they are. Apologies for any inconvenience etc.
apols not needed
[rab] Grateful thanks that the site is here at all - it's somewhere for me to come when I'm trying to avoid converting a 'stream of consciousness' from the Dean into something approaching an introduction for the latest issue of the alumni mag. Inspiration needed - and I'm sure I'll find it by writing limericks and doggerel.
7 days of silence
Well, that was an interesting couple of days. I may have found a house to move to, 5 miles from work, and a school for the kids to go to, which lies 80% of the way to work. It also happens to have had the 2nd best A-level results in the country for a state school last year. Lots of forms to fill in now :-(
Formation
[Phil] Jolly good. Here in NL, house prices are dropping (9% this year, apparently, but they are grossly over-priced) and the windy miller is getting busier and busier. Also, I get a permanent work contract this summer (after 3 years of one-year contracts) which makes it easier for us to get a mortgage. I may have a new house with a BATH and a DISHWASHER by the end of the year!
[pen] If only I could get a mortgage :( It's rental for us for a while yet.
What I did this weekend
In gratitude for all the tens of thousands of pounds worth of business I've put their way over the years, Marriott Hotels gave me a couple of tickets to the London Sevens Rugby at Twickenham on Sunday. I'd just like to say that the 15 minutes in which Fiji demolished the All-Blacks was the most exciting bit of rugby I've ever watched.
A picking of the collective mornibrain
Is anyone here particularly knowledgeable about Venice? MsCdM, MsCdM junior and I are going to a conference in Florence at the end of next month, and we are then planning also to visit Venice. The only places I have been in Italy are Rome and Turin, so I am interested in any recommendations -- if anyone has specific hotels they could recommend, that would be particularly useful. We're happy to pay for location and comfort (up to a point; we are certainly not looking for recommendations to 5 star hotels).
Travel advisor
I stopped at the Hotel Al Sole on the Fondamenta Minotta which is walking distance from the station. It was some years ago but it was good and relatively cheap (nothing is cheap in Venice). There was a family run restaurant a couple of doors away which was one of the best around we discovered having eaten elsewhere.
tripping
We stayed in a cheap place in San Polo, so no help with accommodation here :-) . We had little idea and didn't mind the adventure so turned up and booked a place at the visitor booth at the station. But I've generally found when planning trips that online accommodation sites are fine to give an idea of what's around, and perhaps get a good deal. Anywhere in Santa Croce, San Polo or San Marco will put you in the thick of things and be easily accessible from the station, especially if you travel light like I do. The train from Florence is very quick and regular, so no problem getting there and back, we stayed for two nights coming from our Florence base and that did not feel too short a time, but it would have been good to stay a little longer since we accidentally turned up during the Biennale! The city is very tiny and easy to get around on foot or by vaporetto.
splish splash
[pen] We just moved (see MCiOS for details) and I am pleased to report it has a good bath - but I'm sure it's easier to get your bath fix by going to the UK than visiting us :-) .
Wet feet
[Flerdle] Thanks for the offer. My nearest alternative is only 20 miles away, so I'm afraid your offer of hot water comes some way down the list at present. Who's to say wherther or not things will change?
[CdM] When my mum and I 'did' Venice, we stayed in Treviso - a pleasant enough town a couple of stops up the railway line, and travelled in to Venice by train (it's a spectacular approach across the water - and stepping out of the 1940s railway station into 16th century venice took our breath away). This gave us the advantage of not having to pay Venice prices for hotels, nor for dinner (if we chose not to). I'd echo Flerdle's advice - read the 'traveller reviews' on TripAdvisor or Expedia.
[CdM] When my mum and I 'did' Venice, we stayed in Treviso - a pleasant enough town a couple of stops up the railway line, and travelled in to Venice by train (it's a spectacular approach across the water - and stepping out of the 1940s railway station into 16th century venice took our breath away). This gave us the advantage of not having to pay Venice prices for hotels, nor for dinner (if we chose not to). I'd echo Flerdle's advice - read the 'traveller reviews' on TripAdvisor or Expedia.
just 7 days...
So much has changed since last friday, not least of which is the weather in the UK, accompanied by about 3 inches of grass growth in my back garden. Also, it looks likely that I shall be taking on the rental of a house "down south" (roughly here) in about 2 weeks. Subject to rustling up a load of money ...
Sarf of the M4
[Phil] It's bloody lovely round there. I worked near Ramsbury for a while, and at Hopgrass Farm on the A4 just outside Hungerford for a bit too. (Used to be owned by Johnny Morris, apparently, and I didn't know at the time, but my dad was friends with his son at Art School in the late 50s-early 60s and stayed with the Morrises at Lambourn. JM also used to own The Pelican, the pub at Froxfield on the A4 (my favourite road ever). The windy miller & I stayed there a couple of years ago. They didn't seem too bothered by the rain coming through the roof.) Anyway - good luck with the move. I hope you like it down there as much as I did.
(Phil, pen) If you go shopping in Hungerford go in the morning because it's murder in the afternoon.
That's awful, Rosie. Literally. I was working in the Savernake Forest that day.
It is amazing how the word "Hungerford" is etched into our minds. We found it hard to consider any houses that were up for rent there, simply because it would remind us of that every single day. turns out that the house we're going for is technically in Little Hungerford, but that was subsumed into Hermitage as house-building filled in the gaps between villages.
Port Arthur was creepy enough already, and then...
How horrible.
I had not heard of that, probably because ten days earlier was Hoddle Street, which is just a short drive from here. He wiles away his time in prison working out ways to continue his career as a vexatious litigant, thereby popping up in the vews often enough to keep the wound from fully healing. Parole in 2014? Somehow I think not.
I had not heard of that, probably because ten days earlier was Hoddle Street, which is just a short drive from here. He wiles away his time in prison working out ways to continue his career as a vexatious litigant, thereby popping up in the vews often enough to keep the wound from fully healing. Parole in 2014? Somehow I think not.
Vhat would be news, vbviously.
(Chalky) You strike me as an unlikely lumberjack. The admittedly awful joke was very current at the time, as these things are.
I cycled 100 miles yesterday. Wall-clock time 8h32, time in motion (what my bike computer records) 6h58m54. Free beer at the end, then collapsed in a heap.
(Raak) V good. How many times round the cathedral was that?
MmmmmMMMmmMMmmmMmmmmm.....free beer :-) Well done, sir!
[Rosie] Just once, via the north Norfolk coast. It's surprising how many hills there are in England's flat bits.
[Raak] The merest mention of N Norfolk always makes me think of Hunstanton and twitch inwardly - the most confusing and disturbing place I've ever been to.
[Raak] Well done! So you'll be out here for Around the Bay, then?
[Phil] Knowing "Sunny Hunny" well, I can see why you think it disturbing, but why confusing? [Raak] Well done! I am exhausted just thinking about it.
[Boolbar] I tend to know more or less which direction I am facing, which my family discovered recently when I stopped in mid-conversation, looked around the room and said "Sorry, I just couldn't work out which way was south for a moment". Hunstanton threw me, as I wasn't concentrating, but knew I was in Norfolk for two days. Therefore I got a bit startle by seeing the sun setting over the sea as I looked out from the shore. It took me a while to get my head round it, but it continued to freak me out for the rest of the day. And still does, to be honest.
East Is East
[Phil] Oh I see. Hunstanton drives you around the bend. :)
that'd be good training, then...
[Raak] If you start soon, you'd easily get here in time for next year's :-)
Peering in
Just received an email from the hosting people. My interpretation of their breathless gobbledygook is that you may discern slightly slower page loading than normal. Can't say I've noticed.
I saw a Google Car today, with the giant golfball of cameras pointing in all directions mounted on top. It drove right into the private parking area behind my house, and out again. So I might at some point see myself on Google Street View. I wonder how slickly automated their process is. Is the Car continuously uploading everything, which is then processed into Street View images in seconds?
Just had a look on Google Maps, and their current picture of the scene is from 2008. So, four years to revisit a tiny private entrance in a suburb of a small town. There must be some interesting estimate to be made from that of how many miles of road there are in the world, or how many Google Cars there are.
For the record, I really like Hunstanton - site of many a good family holiday!
Hunstanton hinders chat
[UK] that really did it, didn't it? More than a week with nowt to say. For the record, I really like Mablethorpe. Sunny here in Rotterdam today, but cool. Or cold.
Norfolk enchants
[pen] I know! What happened there?! Never been to Mablethorpe myself. If we're tipping the nod to UK holiday resorts, I'm going to endorse Barmouth, and see how long this kills the conversation for!
Dorset does it
Rather partial to a long weekend in Lyme Regis myself.
Just come back from a long weekend in Pembrokeshire. I'd put a few votes in for St David's/Whitesands.
Europie (pronounced YORRuhpee) beach on the Isle of Lewis gets a big vote from me - in fact, pretty much any beach on the Outer Hebrides.
Barmouth/Y Bermo
(Uncle K) Got sunburnt there as a small boy on holiday in 1947, so I was told but can't actually remember.
[Phil] I spent a week on Lewis/Harris one June. Glorious white sand beaches with not a soul in sight for miles and a temperature of about 10.
Gecko surprise
Yesterday, Sunday, my wife and I involved ourselves in a clean up of our garage and workshop. This sudden activity was a result of the local council announcing a 'collection' day, which involves the collection of all and any junk which won't fit into the normal bin - at no charge. It also brings out the scavengers among our population (the first five or six articles we took up to the road were gone within five minutes.)
That's the background. One of the later jobs was to move a dilapidated old cupboard/drawer combination from the workshop. My wife did the initial moving of the thing - it was surprisingly heavy for its size - from its position against the brick wall against which it stood. Me, being the lazy sod that I am, was 'having a rest' and a restorative dose of wine. She popped up into my quiet place and informed me that behind the cupboard was living a gecko. Naturally I did the reverse pop and ambled down the stairs to have a dekko. She was right but at the same time wrong. There were three leaf-tailed geckos clinging grimly to the brickwork. Supposedly these wee attractive reptiles are common in this neck of the woods but because of their superb camouflage are rarely noticed. The interesting part of this rather long post is that they were of three different colours. One was grey, one was a mid to dark green and the last a very dark chocolate colour. The latter could have been a very dark green; I'm sure that I'm a bit colour blind in the green/brown range when it comes to the darker shades, particularly in poor light.
I have done a bit of a search on the 'Net but cannot find anything that might indicate that geckos are like chameleons - in the sense of adapting their colouring to the background. Is there a herpetologist in the house?
That's the background. One of the later jobs was to move a dilapidated old cupboard/drawer combination from the workshop. My wife did the initial moving of the thing - it was surprisingly heavy for its size - from its position against the brick wall against which it stood. Me, being the lazy sod that I am, was 'having a rest' and a restorative dose of wine. She popped up into my quiet place and informed me that behind the cupboard was living a gecko. Naturally I did the reverse pop and ambled down the stairs to have a dekko. She was right but at the same time wrong. There were three leaf-tailed geckos clinging grimly to the brickwork. Supposedly these wee attractive reptiles are common in this neck of the woods but because of their superb camouflage are rarely noticed. The interesting part of this rather long post is that they were of three different colours. One was grey, one was a mid to dark green and the last a very dark chocolate colour. The latter could have been a very dark green; I'm sure that I'm a bit colour blind in the green/brown range when it comes to the darker shades, particularly in poor light.
I have done a bit of a search on the 'Net but cannot find anything that might indicate that geckos are like chameleons - in the sense of adapting their colouring to the background. Is there a herpetologist in the house?
Prochain station, Château d'Eau!
Here's the thing. Mlle nights and I were watching television a few nights ago, when she turned to me and said "You know, it's the oddest thing. When I was in Paris last week, there were a load of British people on the métro."
"Of course there were, dear, there's British people everywhere."
"Yes, but it was at Château d'Eau, they all seemed quite over excited, and there's nothing remotely interesting there. Do you think it had anything to do with that silly game you play with the Tube?"
And so, I'm back. How is everyone?
"Of course there were, dear, there's British people everywhere."
"Yes, but it was at Château d'Eau, they all seemed quite over excited, and there's nothing remotely interesting there. Do you think it had anything to do with that silly game you play with the Tube?"
And so, I'm back. How is everyone?
Those long, lonely nights
[nights] Good to see you! I am led to wonder: has anyone really gone on a Château d'Eau Pilg? And what do everyone else's significant others think/know of MCing?
Water Castles
I'll admit to getting off the rame at Château d'Eau and then getting on the next one, just in order to say I'd been there.
Mrs INJ just seems to go along with MCing with a 'well, it means he doesn't go out drinking or womanising'* resignation. However, when driving in France we do mark the water towers on a 0-4 stars scale.
*This is almost always true
Mrs INJ just seems to go along with MCing with a 'well, it means he doesn't go out drinking or womanising'* resignation. However, when driving in France we do mark the water towers on a 0-4 stars scale.
*This is almost always true
Another silent week in MC5-land. What-ho, chaps!
No News = Good news?
Well, the weather is iffy but at least Murray is grinding on at Wimbledon. Is that worth mentioning?
Oh, I say, what a volleh!
(Softers) I suppose so but I prefer to watch the ladies. All that grumble and grunt.
G + G
You can get grunt from engines. And I am willing to grumble for a very small fee, without the bother of travelling to Wimbledon. BTW, My mum has gone to watch the tennis today. C'mon Tim! (oblig.)
Where does all the ruddy dust come from? is a depressing and never-ending task to keep shifting it from places where I don't want it to places where I don't care about it.
so soggy
We had a full sunny day here today. It's almost a shock to the system.
(pen) Where indeed? The answer, I fear is mostly our own bodies. And the Sahara.
(flerdle) Didn't know you were over here. :-)
(flerdle) Didn't know you were over here. :-)
*announces cake break*
Gelukkige Verjaardag Penelopij!
Gelukkige Verjaardag Penelopij!
HBTY HBTY HBDP HBTY
Today is also Teddy Bears' Picnic Day. So two reasons to celebrate!
wringing out the teddy bears
[All] Cheers. I've got a massive craving for cake this week... huge wodges of it (and seconds), mostly chocolate, but the occasional coffee and walnut. I made scones last night (on my birthday) as it was all I had time for (and there was new jam), but I think the baking of a full-blown coffee and walnut cake is called for this weekend. Not sure if I have any cake tins anymore - I remember one lot went rusty and had to be binned, and I can't remember if I bought any more.
late as usual
[pen] Happy Yesterday!
proost!
Een beetje laat.
The cake is a lie.
real cake
It's reality here, Phil. This wet weekend has been officially declared the penelope cake festival extension. I've found my cake tins (thankfully not yet rusty) and will be turning the mixer all the way up to 11.
*originally typed 'cake tines' and wondered if there was a Freudian reason behind my thoughts of the large amount of cake that you'd need a tractor to shift.*
alter-ego
I've just been spooked to see someone using my real name to play a move in the limericks game - and had to check the time stamp to make sure it wasn't me. (It wasn't, unless I was sleep-surfing last night)
Are you sure?
[Pen] When I saw the name on the front screen I assumed it was you in a (very) late night unguarded moment.
(pen) You would never use such clunking scansion. Would you? Not all God's children got rhythm.
me again, given the lack of activity here
Can I have another go at the sodding O'Limp-dicks, or at least the media coverage thereof? Well, I'm going to any way. The first five pages of the Grauniad, supposedly a thinking person's paper, were devoted to the activities of a load over-muscled herberts and herbertines doing stupid boring things. The entirety of BBC1 output is devoted to this nonsense and the drains have overflowed into BBC2 to the extent that University Challenge, an antidote to this brain-numbing bollocks, seems to have been suspended, to be replaced by the displaced EastEnders, an everyday story of thickos buggering up their lives, and which seems to amuse the dimwits. Will we win any medals, gold, silver, bronze, cast iron, medium manganese steel, cupro-nickel, duralumin, bakelite, neoprene, mahogany? Please Do Not Ask This Question As A Hailstorm Of Profanity Often Gives Offence.
[Rosie] I'm one of the people that's delighted to have something worth watching on TV for a change. I'm also starting to enjoy sports I've not really watched before (basketball, volleyball etc) and am rather proud of the improvements the British contestants (I refuse to use the ghastly "Team GB" tag) have made, men's gymnastics being a prime example. I find most sport lacks any thrill these days, but I always really enjoy the Olympics.
I'd compete for a bakelite medal. In ambling, perhaps.
(Phil) But for the media overkill I, like most people I know, would be simply indifferent to the whole thing and just ignore it. But the entire front and subsequent eight pages of the Grauniad, of all papers, plus the Olympic supplement, are devoted to these activities. They are about to receive an abusive email and I imagine it won't be the only one, not by a long chalk. They won't print it, but they'll know what I think.
[Rosie] Ah, I avoid all that kind of annoyance by never buying a newspaper. The radio, the internet, and my lovely internet friends keep me pretty well informed. The last of those providing the most balanced view, especially when averaged out (my Facebook friends range from Radical Stalinist to White Van Man).
The above is untrue
I apologise for my over-generalisation. I do buy local newspapers when I'm on holiday, especially in France.
(Phil) I don't get a newspaper for news but more for views and opinions and to get ideas from. News, I find, is best from Radio 4. I might just about persuade myself to switch on the telly if there are things like floods or other mayhem.
Anyone else feel that the Film Club game may have run its course?
[UK] Fine with me to kill it.
Film Club
And me, for what it's worth, being no good at it.
Wow!
I've been enjoying the Olympics hugely (helped by the fact that I'm between assignments and so have more time). So I would like to record that I feel privileged to have watched arguably the greatest race in the history of athletics. The mens 800m had not only a world record, but also every athlete in the race recorded the fastest ever time for someone finishing in that position in a race. Quite astonishing. Move over Mr Bolt.
And also
In addition, every athlete recorded either a world record, a national record or a personal best.
Film Club
As much as I love Film Club, it has tailed off, and I think we've used virtually every available category over the past few years.
Could we perhaps replace it with a variant...? How about a round of Benefit Gigs, where we select an appropriate topic, and have to suggest the bands / artistes on the line-up?
Could we perhaps replace it with a variant...? How about a round of Benefit Gigs, where we select an appropriate topic, and have to suggest the bands / artistes on the line-up?
...tumbleweed...
Well, this has obviously been another of my infamous conversation-killers! Alternatively, I don't recall seeing a game anywhere where players could showcase whole limericks - any interest in that?
(UK) Not a bad idea. Any subject. Discreet filth allowed. Off you go!
[Rosie] Thanks! At least one supported for Limerick Showcase - anyone care to kill Film Club? (Any last objections, speak now!)
I say kill the film club. But then I don't think I have voting rights any more, as I do tend to forget to pop by.
This time due to moving house - the last flat leaked, from the roof and the bathroom wall. I am fairly handy, as blokes go, but that was beyond my capabilities.
In other news, how's the weather? Strasbourg is melting. Literally melting. Every summer this happens, we get a huge heatwave and everyone panics. IBut I can't hear them from inside this fridge.
This time due to moving house - the last flat leaked, from the roof and the bathroom wall. I am fairly handy, as blokes go, but that was beyond my capabilities.
In other news, how's the weather? Strasbourg is melting. Literally melting. Every summer this happens, we get a huge heatwave and everyone panics. IBut I can't hear them from inside this fridge.
Alsatian quasi-megathermality
(nights) Strasbourg therefore consists of what we chemists call a "low-melting solid". May I be a little less than gobsmacked by your 32°C with low-moderate humidity given that it's been nearly 30°C here in the grounds of Plas Huws?
[Rosie] Oh very well. It just seems hotter because of people's reaction to news of the heatwave. I got text messages saying "Best of luck!" Luck with what? I don't understand.
Another sweaty one here today with some rather feeble apologetic thunder. I see Strasbourg is even hotter and more humid than yesterday. Er, bonne chance.
Lived up to expectations, certainly. But fortunately my client had the air con on. The good news is, it's finally raining! Hooray!
luckily we have our feet in the water here in NL
It was 34.5C on Saturday afternoon here in Zuid Holland; only 32C on Sunday afternoon, and a positively chilly 27C yesterday. No significant rain yet, dammit. We swam in the river on Sunday morning - it was the nicest open-water swim I've ever had.
boing
The first tentative whiffs of spring here today, and a very pleasant change it has been. After 7-10 years of drought, this has been a return to the olden-days of very wet winters. Do not like those. But today was lovely, at least the bits that I ventured outside in.
Mind you it will probably be washed away in more downpours next week, if the gales don't do the job first. *glum*
Differences
[flerdle] Perhaps at your place it's been a normal wet winter. My own castle has found a normal dry winter, although June and July were reasonably damp (75 & 15 mm respectively). So far August has produced not a drip nor a drop of precipitation - our last rain was on 24 July (1.8mm.) Even with the winds we have had the late wattles are flowering nicely making wonderful yellow splotches along the street scape. Spring is just around the corner . . . hurrah!
So what was the last good meal you had at a restaurant?
I'll have the...
A couple of weeks ago, on a very hot Friday evening when the back of the house (and therefore the kitchen) was too hot to be able to do any cooking, the windy miller and I went out to our favourite local restaurant, the Drie Linden. I had a bloody lovely chunk of grilled cod fillet in a mustard sauce. We sat outside on the back terrace, looking north over the fields of our island, Hoeksche Waard. There were half a dozen hares jumping around in the adjacent field, a kids' end-of-summer camp bonfire in the middle distance, and the flaming stacks and chimneys of the Shell Pernis Refinery at Europoort in the far distance. We're going there again tonight, because it's our first wedding anniversary today :oD
This evening, I will be mostly eating...
Last night I had the trout. It was even better than the cod, although I wish the chef had seasoned and buttered the inside of the fish - the part I was going to eat - rather than the skin, which is the part that I didn't eat.
A reasonable creme brulee afterwards - but unremarkable. And a good cup of coffee. The windy miller and I are going to look at a house for sale three doors away from this restaurant. If we buy it, we won't be able to afford to go and eat there any more.
A reasonable creme brulee afterwards - but unremarkable. And a good cup of coffee. The windy miller and I are going to look at a house for sale three doors away from this restaurant. If we buy it, we won't be able to afford to go and eat there any more.
Happy anniversary then, penelope!
[pen] Seconding what nights said, in memory of the passing of the old dating updates posted to the Morniverse =)
Ta v much
I've only just beginning to realise what I have missed out on during my singleton's life. We're going to a 45th anniversary party of some friends on Sunday - if the windy miller and I get to that anniverary, we'll be in our mid-90s.
Couples
[pen] You are forgetting that there is always the spectre of divorce. That can make a big dent in your finances, wreck your social circle, raid your pension and alienate some or all of your children and it may not be your fault. It is always nice to see couples that have made it, though.
spectres?
I don't believe in ghosts. Besides, our social circles are in two different countries, our finances are divisible, our pensions are separate, we don't have kids. And we don't intend to.
Choices
[pen] you have it covered, then. Nevertheless, separate finance and pensions are not immune from vindictive ex-wives (or husbands for that matter) when it gets to court.
T'weather
Bit chillier here today. Supposed to get warmer for the weekend, so that's OK
whither t'weather?
I saw that England had got noticeably cooler over the past couple of days. Temperatures are still holding up on this side of the Narrow Sea. 13C this morning, blustery, showers expected. Must.... buy... thermals....
Plans for t'weekend?
Daughter has first practice with new church choir tonight. Royal Berkshire County Show tomorrow :-)
between friday and monday, showers predicted, predictably.
I will scorekeep at a roller derby bout. The rest of the time I will be ill. *koff, gasp*
I am so sick of the rain here. Just go away.
Friday to Monday
I will sleep, do laundry, and cook a free-range French chicken that is taking up too much space in the freezer.
weekend
I will head down the allotment and see if I can dig over and compost another vegetable bed or two ready for the winter planting. And, weather permitting, cut the grass.
that reminds me
I might try planting some late purple sprouting broccoli. I've been told I may get a small crop in March if I do it now - and they won't be prone to the caterpillars that ate the whole bloody lot that I planted in June.
work tomorrow :(
I am very glad it was a drier weekend than I thought it would be. I managed to plant out some of the seedlings, now that it is warmer and the sun is actually getting to the vege patch (small back yard, high fences). The challenge will be keeping the slugs and snails at bay, I think, and stopping the blackbirds from ploughing up the entire bed.
Yorkshiremen
You're lucky. Last May, we scarified the lawn, hollow-tined it, fertilised it and overseeded it. Then we went for a three week holiday, expecting to find the grass knee deep when we got back. It didn't rain. We returned to find bare earth and a bevy of portly pigeons.
There's Something About West Berkshire
Is anyone else in England feeling like they're heading back towards drought? I think it's only rained twice in the last 3 weeks, since I fed my lawn. I'll probably get the sprinkler out tomorrow, it's getting so bad.
There's also something about north-east Surrey
(Phil) Only 4.7 mm rain this month (average 66). Good - don't have to cut the grass so often. I do nothing to encourage the growth of anything in my garden whatsoever. The only things I apply are shears, secateurs and ripsaws, having a hedge and a number of bushes. The idea of watering the grass is to me as absurd as leaving stuff out for the dear foxes. 2003 was a good summer, hot and dry and everything went straw-like with great cracks in the "lawn". Boo to gardening! My garden is actually quite tidy, believe it or not.
Labouring the point
No danger of drought after the wettest summer for ages. There was a "hosepipe" ban here until the middle of April. What is a hosepipe? Some people got ever so upset but what do they expect if they leave water out to dry on the grass.
[Rosie] I'm not so keen on the rest of the gardening malarkey, but I do like my stripy lawn, cut with a 50 year old mower.
Mom's memorial service
Went out and did stuff with friends today after mom's memorial service...she had died on the 15th...
[Giertrud] I'm very sorry to hear about your mom. Keep doing the stuff with friends. And keep coming here.
ty penelope
(Giertrude) As pen says, keep and value your friends but on the other hand don't pretend nothing has changed. You may find yourself more at home with one or two new people. My mother was widowed for 27 years and had to find a few new activities and friends which she did successfully. We can all do it and I wish you all strength.
to Giertrud
Sincere condolences on the loss of your mother. It is surprising how much we do either for, or because of, or by reference to our mothers and the loss of that key reference point throws our lives off balance for a while. You will recover that equilibrium over time. Until then, focus on what is necessary for you and for those you love, take comfort from the familiar (Glow-worms!) and try not to dwell on the loss.
10 days with no conversation! Time to break the ice.
Is it that cold where you are, Phil?
I feel like a sonnet
We haven't had a general poetry game for a while. At the moment there's just Wretchedly Difficult Poetry and Slightly Less Wretchedly Difficult Poetry, both at Orange, taking about a year per poem. Shall I compare us to a plate of eels?
[Software] It was, until this evening when we got our central heating fixed - oh frabjous day!
fish's off, dear
[Raak] Better that than a surfeit of lampreys.
You look like a sonnet
[Raak] Aren't Glo-worms and Limericks enough for you?
[Kim] Ok, but apart from the glow-worms and limericks...and haiku...
We could come up with a poetry form that combines all three ... the glimmeraiku ...
haikimerworm
[Jim] Now you're being ridiculous.
can't keep me away
[Cross-post] There is a somewhat late notice proposal for pilg-type goodness up at Orange, do drop in and say hello.
I have combined the glow-worm and haiku
The last three lines of this verse
Form a nice haiku
By using five-seven-five
As they always do
Also, it's instructional... :]
Form a nice haiku
By using five-seven-five
As they always do
Also, it's instructional... :]
Season of . . .
Fog, actually. A rather warm and very wet one for the last 24 hours or so. Not terribly thick; I can see about 250 yd. It's low cloud, because places like Heathrow and Gatwick have only got a bit of mist. The air above the fog is even warmer and if it were to clear the temperature would shoot up to over 20°C in no time. It may happen tomorrow.
Clouds of spiders
[Rosie] Still got your head in the clouds? At your age? Really! ;)
[Boolbar] That's a lovely photograph of surface tension at work. I wonder what the author of the article meant by "8cm long". Usually I describe spider size by the distance across the legs with a further comment about the paps to tip of the abdomen dimension if appropriate. Have you come across one yet?
[Boolbar] That's a lovely photograph of surface tension at work. I wonder what the author of the article meant by "8cm long". Usually I describe spider size by the distance across the legs with a further comment about the paps to tip of the abdomen dimension if appropriate. Have you come across one yet?
Apparently there are about 1014 spiders on the earth which is about 20,000 for each and every one of us. That's quite a few decent meals. Well, meals.
[Dujon] Other sources suggest it is 8cm leg span. I haven't measured but I'm sure we get the odd house spider around that size.
[Rosie] 1014. Now that's what I call a world wide web!
[Rosie] 1014. Now that's what I call a world wide web!
[Boolbar] *groan*
Microthermality
Saturday was the coldest October day in 30 years' recording in the grounds of Plas Rhosi. Max temperature 6.0°C with a nice fresh northerly wind and showers. Delightful. Tonight the wind has died down and there's a brilliant night sky and frost. The grass, over the squelchy mud underneath, has that "crisper whisper" as you walk on it. Screen temperature -1.3°C.
Spring forward, fall back
How virtuous I felt this morning, getting up by BST, while gentlemen in England still abed took putting back the clocks as an excuse to stay in bed an hour longer, instead of an opportunity to fill an extra unforgiving hour with sixty minutes worth of noodling on the Internet.
[Rosie] It was certainly parky up on the Ridgeway at 8am. Car's thermometer said zero, but the wind in our faces certainly made it feel much colder. The visibility reminded me of Switzerland though - could see all the way to the horizon :-)
Ridgeway? That's something the cloggies can only dream of
Here, even the motorway run-up to a big bridge slows 'em down. Dutch drivers have no idea what to do in order to climb a hill without causing a traffic jam.
(pen) Are there any words in Dutch for a hill, mountain, slope etc? Probably about one-tenth of the number in Welsh.
Hilly
I parked nose-in on my little parking pull-in last night, which is on something like a 12% slope, leaving the front of the car rather higher than the rear. I had to free-wheel back out and get on the level before the engine would start. Not doing that again with a low petrol tank.
it's all the same to them
[Rosie] Heuvel for hill, helling for slope, and berg for mountain. No mention of bluffs, cliffs, butte, downs. (Although duine for dune). My knowledge of Dutch is not encyclopaedic, but they very rarely get mentioned. Here, the kids go toboganning down the edges of the dijks (they don't all end in water - some have fields/houses/roads on both sides); maximum run = about 15 metres max.
(pen) Houses on both sides? I thought the purpose of a dyke/dijk was to hold back water in emergency so isn't that a bit like building houses on the beach? Have I got his right? As to hilly words, I imagine Afrikaans must have a few because South Africa is pretty steep at the edges.
(Phil) Must have been very low. But how did you get up there in the first place?
(Phil) Must have been very low. But how did you get up there in the first place?
[Rosie] It's just a little pull-in, about 50% longer than my car, but is rather a steep slope up to the garage (which I don't use...for the car). I think that's only about the 5th time I've gone in nose first in the 5 months I've been parking there. It might have been coincidence that the engine wouldn't fire until I was on the level, as the tank still has enough about 3 gallons in (approx)
Anyone in London on saturday?
*Cross-post alert*
Just a nudge that there is a get-together this Saturday afternoon in London. Details on the Pilgrim page at Orange
Just a nudge that there is a get-together this Saturday afternoon in London. Details on the Pilgrim page at Orange
sacrificial houses
[Rosie] There's a concept of sacrificial land - the water is going to come up 'so far' but no further. I think the same is thought of some of the houses. Besides, the flood would only reach the bottom half of your house where the washing machine, bikes and canoes are kept. The living room and kitchen are usually at the same level as the road running along the top of the dyke.
The Cruel Sea
(pen) Ah! The Dutch must be a stoic lot. I'm happy on my hill but ironically a few million years ago it was a beach, which accounts for the deposits of rounded pebbles a couple of miles away, the so-called Blackheath Beds.
back at my desk
There's thick and dull fog obscuring the whole of Rotterdam from my 6th floor office window this morning. Yet as I drove off the ferry which arrived in Rotterdam from Blighty this morning, I was almost blinded by the sun shining into the off-ramp. Oh well. Never mind. The eggs, sausage and bacon on board this morning was very nice.
coincidental food
No fog here, but I do have egg, sausage and bacon on some bread, which I find tastier than a board.
Calling a plate a plate by any other name would taste as tasty
Funnily enough, 'plate' in Dutch is 'bord'.
egging on
Oh come on everyone... don't make the whole front page look like it's 'me, me, me'. Say something!
something (oblig.)
semi thong (anag.)
sunnink, quelquechose, rhywbeth. sorry no Dutch.
Summink in Dutch
iets
qqch in french textspeak.
I made a collection of Christmassy snowglobes over the last week of evenings. But they're virtual ones in an online world, so probably none of you can see them.
No snow
[Raak] I don't believe you.
Snow falls endlessly
On the night before Christmas
In the toy village.
In the snowy fort
No soldiers patrol the walls
Are they all on leave?
Snow on online pines
If no-one logs in to see
Did the snowflake fall?
Haikusnowsterisers
[Raak] They are lovely. Did you get much appreciation for them - virtual or otherwise - in your online world?
[pen] They went down quite well when I presented them at a Show & Tell event last Sunday. There's a couple of these every week in SL, where builders show off the new things they've built.
Presents! All for me?
Take as many as you like
They're copiable.
stunned into silence
I had no idea that sort of stuff went on. Anyway... Any other news from anyone? Or do I have to tell you about my weekend again?
nothing in particular
This year I will not be making plum jam - thank goodness. Moving to a new (old) house has meant there are no fruit trees, other than the ubiquitous lemon, but the vege plot is much better here, even if it is tiny, about 1.5m x 2m. The soil probably has some deficiencies, but without time to check, I simply dug it over, planted a bunch of things and hoped for the best. During winter it gets almost no sun, but the late spring and summer are very good, at least so far. Anyway, I am growing a strawberry (one tiny plant), zucchinis, black cherry tomatoes, three types of beans, chives, spring onions, basil, and capsicum, which is the smallest at the moment, but still looks hopeful. Because it got hot quickly the pak choy and kailaan broccoli didn't survive (they bolted and were eaten by bugs), sadly, but everything else is going completely bonkers. The basil doubled in size overnight and leaving a zucchini overnight before picking meant it was suddenly half a kilo.
oh, I forgot the stuff that was growing there beforehand. There is a lavender bush which sort of hangs over the side of the garden, and a geranium which I'd prefer to pull out since it tends to overshadow the chives and things down one end, but it adds pretty colour in winter so I'm just keeping it trimmed for the time being. And there is mint around some edges and behind the lemon tree, and parsley growing wild in a patch to one side. Oh, and the silverbeet, of course, which came up by itself. That should probably be classified as a weed, but it makes very good "spinach" and cheese pie. Next season I will probably remove that particular plant and replace it with some coloured varieties.
plub jab
[flerdle] another new garden? Gosh. How splendid - ours is as barren as barren can be right now. We're just heading into the really cold season, with frost every night and snowy mornings every now and again. And I'm thinking about what can be easily uprooted and moved as we're seriously house-hunting in January. The only thing I'm bothered about are my roses, my hazel (grown from a nut found in a French hedgerow while picnicking in Normandy), my raspberries...
Plants that get away.
Flerdle, watch that mint! Some varieties (don't ask me which) can escape the confines of an in-ground plot and run rampant around the whole garden. Experience informs me that, should that happen, it's one heck of a task to get rid of it from the areas in which it is not welcome; a bit like some bamboo and cannas.
Fight!
What Dujon said. I am still waiting to see who will win out of the rampaging mint and the roving bamboo.
plotting in the plot
[Dujon] Oh, I'm definitely aware of the potential invasiveness of mint! It was all overr the place here, but now that it has been removed from the vege plot and banished to the bits we don't care about -- behind the lemon tree, over in the corner, and next to some of the border rocks-- it is actually looking a lot happier and healthier, and it's not regrown in the bits we do care about (unlike the grass, which is much more tenacious). frogstar likes to use mint for tea. I think the stuff is vile.
Bamboo, Annerley(Brisbane), circa 1995. The horror.
Containing the menace.
Oh, I like mint, flerdle, although I can't remember ever having mint tea. In the days prior to the realisation that it had designs for the taking over of Maison Dujon - well, its garden - I used to occasionally pluck a leaf and roll it between my hands. Lovely. No more though as there is no mint in the 'new' place. Should we decide to again grow some it will be confined to some sort of box arrangement with no opportunity to hit the ground running.
Am late for you, but not here.
Merry Christmas!
Happy Humbug!
[Giertrud] It wasn't late for me. Where is home for you? I have this vague sense it is in the South...
Festive perineum
Hello. Apols for radio silence. With the little 'un I don't get much time for frivolities, or MC, these days. Had a good Christmas and am now stuck in Southampton airport toilet. Best wishes for the new year.
Calories: 500,000. Windmills: 1
Happy belated Christmas all. One English windmill visited today. Drank tea out of bone china and ate cake. Came away with three kinds of flour, a whole cheese and a jar of jam. We are rich indeed.
Happy new year everyone.
HNY
Happy New Year all.
(UK, pen) Could be, when it finally gets going.
up and at 'em
[Rosie] this is the first work morning of the year. I was up before 7, it's still ruddy dark, and after two and a half weeks off, it is taking a bit of effort! Any road, the year is underway. HNY.
Hangover holiday
North of the border we get today as a holiday too as a means to recover from Hogmanay. Personally I'm glad New Year's Day is over - I always have a really heavy-duty Sunday afternoon back-to-school feeling on 1st jan.
I'm back at work today. Not quite sure what to do.
Ditto
What am I doing here?
Mind the 150-year gap!
[Cross-posted] Next week, 9th January is a rather important date. Any plans?
one more time
Blow. That should have included a link. Sorry this is in its raw form: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/projectsandschemes/25979. aspx
I have just tried describing MC and the Morniverse to my new Dutch/American colleague. She needed to rush out to make tea before I had finished..
Our awful little secret
(pen) I even have trouble explaining it to blokes down the pub, some of whom are highly hedjumacated. I'd say you were very brave.
melting
38°C at 9pm here. Toasty.
first proper hot day, 41.1C at 6:17pm
... and 34.5 at 12:15am. It is dry heat, as usual, so not particularly uncomfortable with a fan. And I have an ice pack on my foot after tripping over the base of some mobile street/shop signage this afternoon too. Ow.
The heat of battle
[flerdle] You have my sympathy. Overnight temperatures like that are terribly enervating. Even here we are facing a few days of 'orrible 'eat. Fortunately we have an air conditioner installed; damn the cost of running it, I'll face that consequence later. As I type it's day time and just turning to 32ºC. Given the forecast I fear for my sanity and worry significantly about arsonists.
Sweat, y'buggas
(Dujon) What you need is this. Somewhat easier are the conditions at Hughes Hall; thin fog (just below cloud base), 6.5°C. Not bad for January. It's never failed to go below 20°C at night here. I noticed Melbourne had a quite dramatic change yesterday but there seems no immediate relief in your area.
If only I could fly
[Rosie] Fortunately I live to the east of the Great Dividing Range. Even so it's often seven or eight degrees warmer here than it is in Sydney itself (taking the BoM site at the airport as a reference). Yesterday produced some high readings in the west but, as flerdle mentioned, it is more often than not a 'dry' heat in those areas.
I have not listened to the news this morning but yesterday Tasmania and Victoria were suffering terribly from bushfires. Given my location I am, so far, happy that apart from re-packing our photographs and important papers into a suitcase for easy evacuation there has been no immediate threat.
[flerdle] Where are you, you world flitting butterfly?
I have not listened to the news this morning but yesterday Tasmania and Victoria were suffering terribly from bushfires. Given my location I am, so far, happy that apart from re-packing our photographs and important papers into a suitcase for easy evacuation there has been no immediate threat.
[flerdle] Where are you, you world flitting butterfly?
[Dujon] Back in Melbourne. The cool change that Rosie mentioned came through here noticeably at about 2-2:30am Saturday, and yesterday was lovely. Today is pleasant too. Tomorrow should be up to 38, then down again to the low 20s. Then up again... This is very normal here, but it plays havoc with my sinuses.
I surmised such was the case, flerdle, but knowing you you could have been just about anywhere it was hot. Fortunately we've been spared extreme temperatures here (I saw that somewhere in the state managed 46ºC the other day. Phew!). Our friendly BoM though is promising 43º tomorrow (Tuesday). We'll see.
Winds from the desert and the Antarctic
[Rosie] Dramatic changes are quite common in Melbourne. In mid-December I was out at 5pm and the temperature was about 34, iirc. As I walked home I noticed a distinctly chilly wind; by 5:45 the temperature was 22. (flerdle may remember the temperatures more accurately than I do!)
an hour pleasantly spent
I spent longer than I had intended reading the Pea and Honey Recipes game last night - right from the beginning. From it, I can trace (in my case) two job moves and two house moves, a new relationship and a marriage. And it's bloody good quality. Some of it is even excellent. *rejoins game with renewed vigour*
Preparing for the next 'event'
Ah, the dear old BoM. I am not denigrating the organisation, in fact if I could give it some sort of collective hug for the information it supplies so freely I would. Whilst the data included in your link are interesting I found the text a little 'non-BoM' style. By the way, Chez Dujon recorded a pretty normal summer temperature of but 37.9ºC yesterday, although some of the more coastal (offical) sites reported around and about the 43º forecast.
Offical is not a new word.
*sighs and blames the heat*
One's extremities
(Duj) I think OZBOM is pretty good, one of the best national services.
37.9°C normal? Hmm, I'd guess your mean max in January is just below 30°C. I shall retaliate with a -9.2°C max on 12 Jan 1987. Sunny all day; it was weird.
37.9°C normal? Hmm, I'd guess your mean max in January is just below 30°C. I shall retaliate with a -9.2°C max on 12 Jan 1987. Sunny all day; it was weird.
Your 30ºC is probably a pretty good estimate. The 37.9ºC I experienced yesterday is, nevertheless, not some sort of extraordinary event - after all it's only just over the old 'ton', a not unexpected event here. Your minus readings you can, like many in North America, Siberia and such high latitude places, keep to yourself.
[To the rest of you] Sorry about the weather stuff.
[To the rest of you] Sorry about the weather stuff.
Look away NOW
(Dujon) Your 37.9 is about the same as me getting 30; it happens about once a year. The UK record is 38.1 (10 Aug 2003) and the RosieRecord a paltry 35.9, same day.
The minus 9.2 was what statisticians may well call a "different population". I've had a number between -5 and -6 but this was lower than I'd thought I'd ever see here.
You wouldn't like this place.
The minus 9.2 was what statisticians may well call a "different population". I've had a number between -5 and -6 but this was lower than I'd thought I'd ever see here.
You wouldn't like this place.
Boy scouts
No more than I'd take a holiday here, Rosie. ;)
Anyway, some time this afternoon or, more probably tomorrow's morn, I shall have to climb yet again on to my roof and clear off all the leaf litter and branches that have been deposited there since the last time I undertook the task. It seems that we are due for another blast of hot and dry air in a couple or three days so to fail to do so could well be construed by some to be a form of criminal negligence.
Anyway, some time this afternoon or, more probably tomorrow's morn, I shall have to climb yet again on to my roof and clear off all the leaf litter and branches that have been deposited there since the last time I undertook the task. It seems that we are due for another blast of hot and dry air in a couple or three days so to fail to do so could well be construed by some to be a form of criminal negligence.
(Duj) You won't be having a bonfire, then. I shouldn't.
Vostok leaves me speechless even as a weather nut. But Jakutsk is a sizeable city and quite a nice one. The current fog has lasted about 10 days, the temperature falling slowly all the time. The city causes the fog.
Vostok leaves me speechless even as a weather nut. But Jakutsk is a sizeable city and quite a nice one. The current fog has lasted about 10 days, the temperature falling slowly all the time. The city causes the fog.
New Year New Games
Can we resolve to kill games off with greater assiduity this year? I think higher turnover would be a good thing.
Indeed. * rushes off with a gleeful glint in her eye.*
Sun rises. Sun sets.
Tuesday already? How did that happen.
Bloody freezing
Fog all day at Plas Huws and a max temp of -1°C. An odd phenomenon and the reverse of what is usually seen is that the hoar frost (possibly rime) deposit is confined to the tops of hedges and bushes and there's none on the grass or on my car. I put this down to heat from the ground. Nothing else would seem to explain it.
(Jakutsk update) They still have fog, as they have had since before the New Year. The temperature is about -46°C and goes up and down a degree or two independently of time of day but more in response (probably) to the presence or absence of high cloud, which you can't see anyway ("sky obscured"). The sun does its best but at this time of year 4 degrees from the Arctic Circle it may as well not bother. No wind to speak of; they're probably breathing the same shitty air they were at Christmas.
(Jakutsk update) They still have fog, as they have had since before the New Year. The temperature is about -46°C and goes up and down a degree or two independently of time of day but more in response (probably) to the presence or absence of high cloud, which you can't see anyway ("sky obscured"). The sun does its best but at this time of year 4 degrees from the Arctic Circle it may as well not bother. No wind to speak of; they're probably breathing the same shitty air they were at Christmas.
Out in the sticks here in Berkshire, I don't think we got above -2C, and didn't witness any of the sunny spells suggested by the BBC's local weather site; just a mid-grey blanket of cloud all day.
-9C driving through patches of fog just before sunrise this morning, brilliant sunshine all day but below freezing because the consistency of snow on the ground is unchanged (although I was indoors all day) and now -8.5C through patchy fog all the way home. A clear view of the newish moon above. Lekker weer. (and a reasonably enjoyable Dutch lesson this evening - bonus!)
That's Rotterdam and the countryside to the south of the city, for dem dat don't know.
Weather report
40.7 at 17:30
In pounds, shilling, and pence
that's over 105
The trees have seen a ghost
-12C this morn, and my car tried to overheat when stuck in a queue.
(Boolbar) They all do. I'm no fan of radiators.
Striking off at a tangent. My daughter would like to know why household radiators are so called, when they should really be "convectors" ?
The Loughborough mega-event
Mrs INJ was woken up by our local earthquake (a whole 2.9 on the Richter scale). I slept through it.
Earthquake
My god, the weight of snow blanketing the country must now be so thick it's beginning to distort the Earth's very crust!
Appreciably less effort has gone into clearing roads of snow in the midlands compared to previous years. I blame the bankers.
Three things I am grateful for, in the snowy conditions.
- I only live 5 miles from work, along gritted roads
- West Berks council are well-funded and efficient
- 5 or 6 young men that were pushing every car out of the village I work in on Friday morning, when the MD decreed we could go home. They were cheerfully jogging down the hill, pushing a car up it until they got some grip near the top, waving them on their way, and jogging back down again. I'd buy them a pint if I knew who they were.
(Phil) Not having to go to work is also very useful. But band rehearsal was cancelled tonite which I thought was feeble.
Jakutsk update - the fog has just cleared for the first time this year and they have a balmy -32° with light snow.
Jakutsk update - the fog has just cleared for the first time this year and they have a balmy -32° with light snow.
[Rosie] I did continue to work from home for most of the rest of the day. In theory I could probably work from home every day, and pop in for the odd meeting - maybe once a week for an hour.
harvest
Just made zucchini chutney. Yum.
[flerdle] And now you've made me crave Brie - yum!
Weather news
Interesting weather day today, with no warming forecast in the daylight hours. The 7am temperature was 27, and the hourly forecasts indicate a monotonically declining temperature until 5am tomorrow, when the temperature is forecast to be 13. I haven't checked over night data, but I suspect there has also been a monotonic decline for the last 12 hours or so, from yesterday's high of around 39. If I'm right and the forecast is right, that suggests we will have eventually have seen declining temperatures for about 36 hours straight.
Down and down
(CdM) Er, where are you? I presume Melbourne or thereabouts. That must be very unusual given that it's summer and the sun tends to come out and ruin the "monotony". In the winter, at least here, the temperature can be very steady, day and night, if it's cloudy. In February 1985 there was a very nearly monotonic decline for 90 hours from 9.8 to -5.7 with just a couple of short spells when it went up 0.1 to 0.2 deg. The wind was ENE throughout and there was cloud, then rain, then sleet then snow.
Helo clouds helo sky
Lots of wonderful weather rushing into Zuid Holland from the North Sea today - hail and snow showers with sun. I have no idea how cold it is out there - have barely moved 30m from my desk all day.
Horseburgers
Thankfully I avoid processed food as far as is possible. I have eaten horse in the past while in France. Tastes much like beef to me. Still, it is fraud if not anything else, passing off food as beef. Bound to bugger up brand image, though. C'est la vie.
Labelling
I might have eaten horse in Malta, where they do. At a café, I had a baguette curiously labelled as "meat and salad". But it could just as easily have been beef. So there's the answer: just label things as "meat (produce of more than one species)", and add disclaimers like "prepared in a facility where horsemeat may be processed". Then the meat wholesalers can do their deals with the Romanian mafia above board. Come to think of it, Indian restaurants in the UK often list their curry options as chicken, prawns, or meat. I'd always assumed it was because there's something of a taboo against eating cows in India, but perhaps their "meat" doesn't come from cows.
Is it lamb?
This all reminds me of this story about the lack of lamb in lamb curries (and kebabs).
(rab) Blimey, there's posh. I didn't understand a word of it. Thanks for your efforts, as ever.
I don't understand it either but I get these hilariously breathless emails from time to time about technical incidents, the impact of which is always minimal.
Don't worry, Rosie, rab, like the Mayans, talks in mysterious ways.
Bright thing in sky
It's been up to over 15° here and very nice too except that I now have no excuse whatever for not doing a bit of gardening. In parts of Yorkshire and near the east coast it's stayed below 3°. That's spring for you. Of course it were always below -20° when ah were a lad.
Wether
Weather or not
We've had a couple of nice sunny days over here on the rock but now it is starting to cloud over again, I suspect that we shall soon get the forecast rain. It has been dry for 10 days - fantastic, even managed to mow the lawn this morning.
After dropping the daughter off in Reading at 7pm tonight, I appear to have no plans for the weekend - for the first time in absolutely yonks. Of course, the watching of rugby on TV will take place. Anyone doing anything interesting?
One more room to paint in the new house, then get the professional in to do hall stairs & landing (not all this weekend!)
Then it's get the current main dwelling ready to sell. That's my weekends for the next month.
Then it's get the current main dwelling ready to sell. That's my weekends for the next month.
Unseasonableness
This is the foulest March day I can remember. Snow showers, strong NE'ly wind, temperature a steady -2°C.
(Softers) I see Jersey Airport is now closed due to snow. You're cut off unless you fancy the ferry with a gale in the Channel. Not too warm either.
(Softers) I see Jersey Airport is now closed due to snow. You're cut off unless you fancy the ferry with a gale in the Channel. Not too warm either.
Your missing degrees? We got 'em
37 here.
Isolation
[Rosie] Yes, a friend is stranded in Portsmouth awaiting the departure of the conventional ferry. The airport is still closed till tomorrow, probably. 0C as I write, still snowing though forecast to stop soon. Hopefully it will warm up in the next 24 hours and normality will resume.
Busy? That's not half of it
Yesterday, I did my first Dutch Reformed Church funeral (my husband's 91-year old aunt - the last of the generation of my parents-in-law. The aunt was the only one of that generation that I ever met). Please make sure that there is wine or whisky at my funeral. A funeral and a burial without cheer is a very sombre and long affair indeed. And for God's sake, don't let that preacher in.
After that, I managed two hours' of frantic work back at the office.
Then I did an hour-and-a-half hour written Dutch exam (Niveau 2.1 - pre-intermediate, apparently). I don't expect 100%, but I do expect a pass.
And then I went to a wedding party, drank two glasses of red wine on an empty stomach and spoke the best Dutch of my life to people that I actually know here now.
Brilliant.
After that, I managed two hours' of frantic work back at the office.
Then I did an hour-and-a-half hour written Dutch exam (Niveau 2.1 - pre-intermediate, apparently). I don't expect 100%, but I do expect a pass.
And then I went to a wedding party, drank two glasses of red wine on an empty stomach and spoke the best Dutch of my life to people that I actually know here now.
Brilliant.
Hollandaise
(pen) Niveau 2.1? Are you sure it was Dutch? :-)
gestolen worden
The Dutch stole a lot of words from French. That's one of them.
Renewed acquaintance
Hello again to the good people of mc5! I return after an absence of several years, as prolonged underemployment has left me eager for intellectually stimulating entertainments. I hope you are all doing well!
Welcome back, Q.
Intellectual? Patronising, paternalistic, priggish, puerile, pathetic (and, no doubt, many other words beginning with Tuj's favorite letter) probably - but intellectual it isn't. Even I am tolerated! Perhaps you are the one to raise the bar? ;)
Thanks, Dujon!
How about "pseudo-intellectual"? That should satisfy your terms and Tuj's preferences simultaneously!
Perfect.
Finally, back . . .
I had to be away from here for a long time. My Mama passed away in September and I just couldn't handle doing many of the things I used to do. I know that my Mama didn't get many of these things (only a few of the Glowworms and Limericks made her laugh at times). However, it was just difficult. Giertrude is my sister and we lost our Daddy back in 2008.
Glad to see all three of you back. It brightened up my day to see an absent name returning, and three back at once is a treat. Sorry to both about the sad personal news.
three?
I had been back briefly before but [ah...accidental alliteration] not recently. And now the third may Quendalon and on...
[kagomeshuko/Giertrud] A bit late to be saying sorry to hear that, but still true. The pain of losing your parents never really gets better, but the bad periods become less frequent over time (at least in my experience).
NotJohn, thanks. Yeah, it has been a difficult time. Missing my Daddy got easier and easier, remembering that he wanted me to have a good life. It was very difficult with my Mama because it turned into me always having to take care of her . . . and the doctors never listening to any of my wants and/or suggestions. It was a terrible experience leading up to her passing and has obviously taken a good deal to get better . . . and there are definitely still issues.
Sorrysorry
Apols for outage. Disk filled up. Deleted a big file for now, but I'm going to have to work out where the biggest offender is.
Shutting down a city for a day in order to catch a dangerous fugitive? Maybe that is justified. Shutting down a city for a day in order to fail to catch a dangerous fugitive? I think that is officially a victory for the terrorists.
Of course, I may have spoken too soon. It wouldn't be the first time. :-) But the post above was written just after the official word was "Lock down is over and we think the suspect is still in Massachusetts".
(CdM) Yes, 1-0 to the bomber. It's a ludicrous and hysterical reaction. I don't remember this country having a collective nervous breakdown when the IRA were killing people with their bombs in the 70's and 80's. This view wouldn't go down too well in Boston, of course, where they are more Irish than the Irish.
[Rosie] I've been having disturbing thoughts along those lines all weekend, and wondering how much Boston collectively donated to Noraid back in the day.
[Phil] I've had thoughts along those lines - the proportion of the Northern Irish population killed in Omagh was greater than the proportion of the US population killed at 9/11 so would Britain have been justified in launching missiles at Boston? (Of course in parallel with that thought I would vote for the unification of Ireland under the right conditions.)
(Phil) Probably quite a lot though to be fair the average donor may not have known what proportion, if any, went to the IRA. But the organisers certainly must have done. Nobody likes to talk about this, do they?
Yank reaction
[Rosie] They were less hysterical this time than after 9/11 though. So progress of a sort.
(SM) Given the respective number of deaths I'd say rather the opposite and it's all a bit dear-old-lady-has-seen-a-spider. At least we haven't seen an arbitrary country bombed yet.
[Rosie] Apart from America itself, bdum tish!
Tacet tutti
Weep, John Cage.
Nearly managed a month.
For those not following the 8 words game, I saw a hoopoe in my garden in Derbyshire last Sunday. I know enough about birds; a. to recognise it instantly and b. to know it was rare. The hoopoe is a frequent visitor to Southern England but that is the extreme limit of its normal range.
I reported it to the County Bird Recorder of the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) – he asked me to fill in a ‘rare bird sighting’ form and told me it was the 35th record in Derbyshire and the first for over 2 years.
So, what constitutes a ‘sighting’? Primarily it needs to be accepted by the rare birds committee who make a decision whether to accept it. The criteria vary depending on the bird and the spotter. In my case, although I’m an RSPB member, they won’t have heard of me and wouldn’t take my word for it. if we were talking about some odd little brown warbler, unless it was confirmed by someone acknowledged as an expert. However a hoopoe is extremely distinctive and I have multiple very good photos, so in this case confirmation should not be required. Similarly a pragmatic view will be taken as to whether a number of sightings some time apart should be taken as being one or more individual birds.
Historically records are based on photos, then before that on birds trapped or shot or reported by acknowledged experts – it can get a bit vague, but they go back to the 18th century.
I reported it to the County Bird Recorder of the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) – he asked me to fill in a ‘rare bird sighting’ form and told me it was the 35th record in Derbyshire and the first for over 2 years.
So, what constitutes a ‘sighting’? Primarily it needs to be accepted by the rare birds committee who make a decision whether to accept it. The criteria vary depending on the bird and the spotter. In my case, although I’m an RSPB member, they won’t have heard of me and wouldn’t take my word for it. if we were talking about some odd little brown warbler, unless it was confirmed by someone acknowledged as an expert. However a hoopoe is extremely distinctive and I have multiple very good photos, so in this case confirmation should not be required. Similarly a pragmatic view will be taken as to whether a number of sightings some time apart should be taken as being one or more individual birds.
Historically records are based on photos, then before that on birds trapped or shot or reported by acknowledged experts – it can get a bit vague, but they go back to the 18th century.
Bring back shooting as the only acceptable form of identification. Everything was better in the old days.
What's hit's history, what's missed's mystery.
[NJ] Thanks. It was the last question I was most interested in. What, in the idealised bird-spotting world, is a sighting supposed to represent? I think you are saying that, ideally, one sighting should equal a particular individual bird -- so if two different individuals spot the same bird on two different days (assuming you could tell, somehow), then that would count as one sighting, not two. Is that right?
Basically, yes. But, of course these records relate to areas; so, if my hoopoe had flown 10 miles East then it might have then also entered the records in Nottinghamshire, even if a series of sightings along its path showed that it was almost certainly the same bird. It's certainly very common for one person to sight a rarity and the next day dozens of twitchers (not birders) will turn up because they want it on their personal tick list. However they wouldn't regard that as a new sighting. It's not clear-cut.
[NJ] That comment took me right back to this classic sequence of Doonesbury.
[CdM] Enjoyed that.
Ignoring Doonesbury, and focussing on the more cerebral Peanuts, surely Woodstock was originally a (snake-eating - hoorah!) Secretary Bird?
Model R-75 raygun
I have just acquired this magnificent objet for a few quid at a flea market. It practically begs to be picked up and fondled, and then pointed at someone. This is a view of the barrel. Any guesses as to what it is? Clue: it is not a toy gun, real gun, or stage prop. A pair of cables running out of the grip attach to a standard 20MW DeLameter powerpack are terminated with alligator clips.
Beth yw hwn?
Windscreen de-icer, paint scorcher for DIY car paint jobs? Bang bang you're hot.
Maybe this should be in AVMA. [Rosie] Not a stripper of ice, paint, or clothes.
My guess, sir, would be a common garden variety of timing light (automotive for the use of).
It is undoubtedly a
Hidden text
stroboscopic gun for timing something. If you hadn't said alligator clips I'd be on firmer ground in saying it's for timing car engines, but the chances are this originally came with other bits and pieces to make it do its job. The side view had me ready to call "Taser", but the lens is a giveaway. I think.[Dujon, Stevie] Exactly so. One cable has two clips that go to the battery, the other has one clip that goes somewhere to pick up the high voltage spark and trigger the xenon flash tube. I'm thinking of pulling the innards out and replacing them with some sort of sound and light generator.
[Raak] So, you misled everyone by lying (by omission) about the cables! Now I'm in two minds whether to tell you that the third lead goes into the cap for sparkplug number 1. In fact, I think I won't. Nor will I mention the long metal electrode you need to attach to the sparkplug so you can connect the dizzy and the raygun of soon to be chewed-up-in-the-fan fingers.
At least this is a conversation . . .
Why is it that men these days don't know what a conversation is? Seriously, I just had this exchange on Plenty of Fish:
averageGiJoe
hi?
KagomeShuko
hi?
averageGiJoe
u have nice tittys
KagomeShuko
That's not a very polite conversation. Do you know the art of conversation at all?
averageGiJoe
yes gimmie ur num ill txt u
KagomeShuko
That's not the art of conversation. You don't understand at all.
averageGiJoe
hi?
KagomeShuko
hi?
averageGiJoe
u have nice tittys
KagomeShuko
That's not a very polite conversation. Do you know the art of conversation at all?
averageGiJoe
yes gimmie ur num ill txt u
KagomeShuko
That's not the art of conversation. You don't understand at all.
[K] How do you know it was a man?
All right, all right, never mind. :-)
All right, all right, never mind. :-)
Been there, done that
[KShuko] hmmm. Sounds horribly familiar. As it turns out, I met my husband in a chatroom - and the first people to come and stay with me when I moved to the Netherlands to live with him were other friends that I also met in that chatroom. There are loons online, same as there are loons in real life.
[penelope] Are you telling me that the secret to your heart was not a box of chocolates delivered at great personal risk directly to your boudoir at dead of night, but a coarse posting to a social website appreciating your chest bumps? I wish I'd known that before climbing on that bloody dirt bike (and up the trellis).
[KagomeShuko] Here, want these chocolates? I've got a warehouse full of 'em.
no message
[TMIB] The boxes of chocolates - each and every one of them - were a huge treat. But you never stayed to chat. I don't know if you realise this but a seductive gift without the accompanying conversation is also doomed to fail. I may even have been as disappointed as KagomeShuko was with the chest-bump conversationalist.
I say this every summer, but...
Hello again all. Nice to see you all! I should like to go on record and state that la famille des nuits (as we are now known) is NEVER EVER MOVING HOUSE AGAIN EVER.
oh, go on...
[Nights] I've moved house (at least 150 miles each time) for the past four job changes; the last time was to the Netherlands (and the real reason was because of moving in with the windy miller). He has never moved house before - ever... we're living in the house where he was born, and we're about to buy a house, probably in the next village. I've been coaching him about it for the past two years, but I still don't know how he'll handle it when we do move. I think I'll just make sure his workshop is set up in the shed and send him in there for an hour or so every day.
moving? doddle!
I only moved 5 miles this time. 12 months ago was 100 miles. 16 months prior to that was 3 miles. 4.5 years prior to that was 7 miles. 2 years prior to that was 6 miles. 6 months prior to that was from Ireland to England, including most stuff going into storage for 3 months - that was the only time we've used a removal company. Each time has been a family of four, plus two dogs. Now I'm half-way through my 5th decade on this orb, I'm starting to see the appeal of e-books.
being a bit chatty for a change
[pen] All fingers crossed that it works out well for you both.
[Phil] Have you moved to *that* place .. y'know .. the house close to the rather fine hostelry that I streetviewed when you mentioned it a while back?
In other news - "we are a grandmother". Or more accurately a Nanna. My second born 22 yr-old and her immensely likeable partner have managed to produce a daughter of such exquisiteness that I'm still choking back the tears of joy.
[Phil] Have you moved to *that* place .. y'know .. the house close to the rather fine hostelry that I streetviewed when you mentioned it a while back?
In other news - "we are a grandmother". Or more accurately a Nanna. My second born 22 yr-old and her immensely likeable partner have managed to produce a daughter of such exquisiteness that I'm still choking back the tears of joy.
[Chalky] Indeed. It is exquisitely peaceful, but only 5 minutes' drive to work. I have sat on the patio at 9pm waiting for dusk, because the birds disturb the peace. Oh, and the hostelry is indeed magnificent. The only downside is that there is much grass. I'm about half-way through the first cut, as it was about 8" long in places.
[Chalky] Congratulations! A new person on the planet is always a wonderful occasion.
*<smug>* Amateurs. I upped stakes and moved to America.
*<glum>* All my Anglotat got broken in transit. Hidden text
I wonder if the NSA computer will start a new index on Anglotat?
Ooh, a new Baby Droolbuckets!
[Chalky] Weight? Height? Eyelash length? Eye colour? Tsk. Women!
Anglotatters
[Stevie] Yours must have been cheap stuff then - mine didn't! And besides, my big sister had already moved to the USA 25 years ago. I thought I'd try moving somewhere *where I didn't speak the language*. Yah boo...
No spikka da lingo
(pen) Glasgow? Newcastle? Caernarfon?
[Rosie] If you hadn't added Caernarfon you were going to get e Geordie Handshake ;)
[penelope] Ask Dunx whether he could speak the language when he moved Stateside.
Well, another week has begun with a crash. Literally in our case - someone fell through the ceiling of our office this morning. Guess who's the designated first aider. I am promised the blood will come out of my shirt, or a gift voucher for a new one.
You are lucky, nights, to have met such a generous burglar.
I should have mentioned that the unexpected guest on Monday morning was a contractor... Apologies for the confusion. Apparently he is in hospital but expected to make a full recovery.
Well, our move (c100 miles) is complete now as we've just found the obligatory last box of stuff that we thought had got left on the van (in this case it was actually a bag, not a box). Really, it's all gone pretty well considering how much of a downsizing it's been. I fully expect to get a car in the garage before winter sets in.
Don't go in there...
As a child, I never knew that garages were meant for keeping cars in. Ours was full of easels and canvases, magazines, fishing rods, gardening equipment and a piano. Glad to hear the move went well, NJ. The windy miller and I have just made the first preliminary pre-process, water-testing approaches to buying our first house together. Basically we've identified one we like, and said we'd like to try and buy it.
Congrats to all the movers and *fingers crossed* for penelope that the process runs smoothly. Mrs Phil and I have decided that even if we won the lottery, we would not leave the village we've moved to. It is the most welcoming and calming place either of us has ever lived. Every day feels like we're on holiday.
Wow
[Phil] That sounds really lovely. Congrats!
I agree with pen - well, when don't I - Phil, that sounds idyllic. The nice part about our neighbourhood is that it's exciting and vibrant. Being the only French speakers in our building is a novelty too - I'm learning to curse in Arabic!
jeez, this is boring
Please, someone, kick me up the arse and tell me to get on with editing this piss-boring brochure, taking out all the management b*ll*cks and ambitious flim-flam couched in management-speak. Page 11 of 17 and it is d-r-a-g-g-i-n-g...
Oh, get on with it Pen! Well, it's Friday evening, so I hope you got in with it.
I did, thanks. Left at 6.15...
Is there ever a correct answer?
What do you do when you like a guy friend? Tell him or don't? Every bit of advice on the Internet seems to be from women. I've heard that guys like the direct approach.
Hidden text
I've known him for over two years, but as far as I knew, he had a girlfriend. He's been coming over on a weekly to mow my lawn, sometimes with one of his friends. We were hanging out afterwards this last time since I offered to buy him something to eat at the place I was going. He thought I knew that he no longer had a girlfriend, but I hadn't heard until he let me know last night during conversation with everyone there (a coffee shop where many people sit and talk together when they end up at that place).[K] You risk it and ask him out. What's the worst that could happen? You'd be no worse off than you are now (less the uncertainty and a lack of someone to mow the grass). Good luck.
[K] Agreed. As a guy who was initially asked out by his now wife, it's appreciated, as men tend to be oafs that don't know the difference between a girl who is interested in them and a four course dinner for two in a fancy restaurant.
nervous
I have to teach him how to make balloon animals. He is so super sweet and awesome. When I asked if we should meet somewhere, his first response was to meet at a church service that I attend! Then, if for some reason, the service didn't happen (like the one week), to go to his church. The whole devotion to Christ, to me, really matters.
The Heaving MAin
After the shittiest night's sleep for ages, I'm sailing overnight to England tonight and looking forward to being tucked up in my bunk, full of lovely steak and red wine,with my bargain gin and sherry bottles clinking in their bags, by around 8.30pm. But first, team meeting, meeting with the zdean and a bunch of writing up that should have been finished last week. Oops.
It's been a day of accomplishment chez Nights. I went to the dentist for a checkup and came out with a quote for a root canal, went to a client meeting without the client (he got his weeks mixed up), found out we didn't get a contract I was the lead for, and spent an hour and a half in traffic on the way home.
And then made my special tomato sauce for dinner, and opened a bottle of wine. And all is well again in the universe.
And then made my special tomato sauce for dinner, and opened a bottle of wine. And all is well again in the universe.
Fortunes may dip and rise; unlike this, good perspective can be depended upon. Long may you continue to be thankful for each thing you do have!
That being said, I hope better news isn't too far away for you =)
That being said, I hope better news isn't too far away for you =)
No balloon animals
Sister and I had a pizza party today. It ended up I didn't have to teach him how to make balloon animals. I didn't end up telling him anything, either. We had a good time talking with the people that came, and then they had to leave, and then he, my sister, and I talked. I learned more about him, anyway. Also, I'm pretty terrible at telling if a guy is flirting. I think we might be flirting with each other, though.
In my experience, flirting is most effectively perceived while one is at the peak of the bell curve of intoxication. Drink too little and your insecurities will interfere with your ability to gauge whether he's flirting; drink too much and you are, well, too drunk to tell.
I second Quendalon's advice. A drink is good to relax you, five is bad because you fall over. If he's flirting with you, great! But you may have to be more direct...
The drinking . . .
I don't drink alcohol. I'm not trying to be a prude about it. I've just never liked the taste of it.
Alcohol
As a large section of my life has been involved in selling alcohol, I must object. Alcohol itself has no flavour or aroma whatsoever (although I would warn that telling a police officer that when they say they can smell alcohol on you through the car window is not a good idea).
I would happily rise to the challenge of finding an alcoholic drink to match any person's taste, scent and aroma preferences.
I would like to add that alcohol is an evil and toxic chemical, and if cannabis had been discovered first, we'd all be sitting around smoking pot in bars, condemning the petty criminals that shoplift to pay back-street dealers to feed their Zinfandel addictions :-)
I would happily rise to the challenge of finding an alcoholic drink to match any person's taste, scent and aroma preferences.
I would like to add that alcohol is an evil and toxic chemical, and if cannabis had been discovered first, we'd all be sitting around smoking pot in bars, condemning the petty criminals that shoplift to pay back-street dealers to feed their Zinfandel addictions :-)
Alcohol
You can object all you want. However, any time there has been alcohol in a drink, I've been able to taste it. I had a friend who was that way, too. I'd imagine we're in that group of people known as "super tasters."
Still, the guy. I know . . . talk to him already!
I didn't think I was going to see him until tonight.
I'm sitting at my computer this morning and Woofles (my little dog) starts barking. I don't think much at first because I'm used to people riding bikes in this neighborhood. It didn't take long, though, to see that it was the guy! He said he thought he'd come by and mow the lawn a day earlier than usual. After mowing the lawn, I gave him his sunglasses that I had that he forgot at a local coffee shop the other night, and then he said he had to go. Of course, I sat and watched him mow the lawn - I'd be crazy not to want to watch that! What to think . . . I still don't know. I just kept praying right then, too.
I know that the guy I dated in college gave the excuse of having to go on a "beer run" for his step-father-to-be to come see me. He didn't have to come into Lake Charles for that because they well beer out in the little town where he lived.
So, the question is "is he busy tomorrow or was he just doing that because he wanted to stop by to see me?" The stuff greatly confuses me.
I'm sitting at my computer this morning and Woofles (my little dog) starts barking. I don't think much at first because I'm used to people riding bikes in this neighborhood. It didn't take long, though, to see that it was the guy! He said he thought he'd come by and mow the lawn a day earlier than usual. After mowing the lawn, I gave him his sunglasses that I had that he forgot at a local coffee shop the other night, and then he said he had to go. Of course, I sat and watched him mow the lawn - I'd be crazy not to want to watch that! What to think . . . I still don't know. I just kept praying right then, too.
I know that the guy I dated in college gave the excuse of having to go on a "beer run" for his step-father-to-be to come see me. He didn't have to come into Lake Charles for that because they well beer out in the little town where he lived.
So, the question is "is he busy tomorrow or was he just doing that because he wanted to stop by to see me?" The stuff greatly confuses me.
The talk . . .
We're just friends. He asked me to go outside and talk with him at the 4th of July party. Sometimes I hate the emotions that come with being a girl because nothing changed between us and yet, it still hurt. It doesn't make sense.
I was okay in a few minutes, though. I just needed to cry and then pray.
My mind keeps wandering and thinking, "Did he say 'not yet' at some point?" I don't think he did, but I kind of stopped completely listening when he said "friends only." I know what whatever is supposed to happen will happen.
He looked snazzy in his tux, though!
Me, Him in a tux
I was okay in a few minutes, though. I just needed to cry and then pray.
My mind keeps wandering and thinking, "Did he say 'not yet' at some point?" I don't think he did, but I kind of stopped completely listening when he said "friends only." I know what whatever is supposed to happen will happen.
He looked snazzy in his tux, though!
Me, Him in a tux
Is this real?
[penelope] Is anything real?
Reality
Yes, this is real. He and I went to a Fourth of July celebration - not together - just at the same place. He's my friend :)
states
Remember, I live in the United States - Louisiana.
[pen] Agreed.
In temembrance
Not sure I can remember, because I didn't know in the first place... anyway. In other (non-non-dating) news, *waves from my sister's new garden furniture*
(nights) You've only got 28°C according to my source. Same as Birmingham. A paltry 27° here. Comment dit-on "phewhatascorcha" en français?
"Zut alors, quelle scorcher"?
Taking it up a notch with Fretch (or perhaps Dunch)
Dieu verdomme, il fait mooi weer, n'est ce toch?
(pen) Ace Belgian indeterminacy.
It's going to be nice and sunny and warm, not too hot, for at least a week. Despite the conditions I'm going to get bored. I want one of these. But, like everything else, it won't be the same second time round.
It's going to be nice and sunny and warm, not too hot, for at least a week. Despite the conditions I'm going to get bored. I want one of these. But, like everything else, it won't be the same second time round.
Computers
What's happened to my link? "These" should lead you to:
Sod it, then
Nice to meet you
So, I feel a little shy about asking. But if I were to make my way to London toward the end of August (exact date TBD), would any of you care to meet me for a cocktail?
Cocktails for Several?
I think that could be feasible. I believe someone else is visiting London in August too. See this bookmark
Beeeeer milkshakes!^W^WCocktails
[cfm] Be delighted to.
(cfm) Lunch for two at the Greasy Spoon, Streatham High Road. Tick. Pints of bitter at the Dyson and Duster, Penge, SE 20. Tick. Brandy and cigars at the embassy. Tick. Just not, please God, cocktails. It would be nice to meet you, BTW. :-)
Lettuce after his name
[Rosie] AFRMS? Nice!
(Phil) It's nothing - we're the riff-raff. You get interviewed by a couple of Fellows, or you did 30 years ago when I joined. It doesn't imply current professional involvement and peer approval but has its uses such as access to information and a slight pull in getting something published in the meteorological literature. I'd rather have an MBE like my brother or like a friend of a friend who jealously owns a restored pannier-tank engine at Didcot.(No. 3650). The actual metal-bashers refer to him as "My Bloody Engine".
I should be seeing family around that time so I might be in for a pilg.
Around here, if you don't speak Elsässich, you say "Nan mais quand même fait un putain de chaleur oh, faut qu'on part à la mer tu sais hein". At least, that is what my colleagues have been saying and who am I to disagree.
Around here, if you don't speak Elsässich, you say "Nan mais quand même fait un putain de chaleur oh, faut qu'on part à la mer tu sais hein". At least, that is what my colleagues have been saying and who am I to disagree.
Langauges
I have no idea what " Elsässich" is. I speak English. I know some French, but haven't truly practiced it in years. I know a few Spanish words and phrases. Then, I know just a tiny bit of German words in phrases. I can speak Pig Latin, does that count?
I had thought that I had mentioned I lived in Louisiana and Giertrud is my sister IRL.
I had thought that I had mentioned I lived in Louisiana and Giertrud is my sister IRL.
Didcot?
[Rosie] Oooh, Didcot's my nearest town now (just). If you're visiting said friend of friend, give me a shout.
Langauges - for measuring your langs
Elsässich - is it something to do with Alsace-style Germch/Frenman?
[nights] I'm guessing they say "parte" :-)
[cfm] Sadly, I am on the wrong side of the world. I have only ever been to one real London-based pilgrimage.
[K] I think you did mention both those things, yes. At least, those were both things I believed to be true, and it seems unlikely that was just by chance. :-)
[cfm] Sadly, I am on the wrong side of the world. I have only ever been to one real London-based pilgrimage.
[K] I think you did mention both those things, yes. At least, those were both things I believed to be true, and it seems unlikely that was just by chance. :-)
[CdM] They do indeed. This is what I get for not having my spellchecker on.
[Kagome/pen] Elsässich, or Alsatian, is a low German dialect spoken in Alsace, generally by the older generations, although it is making a comeback with the support of the region. It's roughly intelligible with Swiss German, and if I concentrate, I can just about understand via my knowledge of German.
In other news, I understand my town is on the news in the UK via some judgement or other being handed down about something in prison? *innocent face
[Kagome/pen] Elsässich, or Alsatian, is a low German dialect spoken in Alsace, generally by the older generations, although it is making a comeback with the support of the region. It's roughly intelligible with Swiss German, and if I concentrate, I can just about understand via my knowledge of German.
In other news, I understand my town is on the news in the UK via some judgement or other being handed down about something in prison? *innocent face
.. is calling the clever brigade
Pleaseplease guess the AVMA
A propos the discussion in Eight Words
... I remember thinking, when the "I'm not wearing any pants" game started, that it would conjure up very different images for Brits (sorry, pen) and Americans. As a Brit who lived a long time in the US, I find myself flipping back and forth, or picturing someone wearing neither pants nor pants.
*excitement plus*
[Nights, Rosie, SM, Phil] Excellent! Presently, all I know is that I have to be in Hamburg on business for a week or so in the second half of August. I'll get back to you when my dates firm up.
[CdM] Sad, indeed. But I am sure whatever side of the world you are on is the right one. :-)
[CdM] Sad, indeed. But I am sure whatever side of the world you are on is the right one. :-)
I can't believe it's not hotter
No weather talk?
(pen) I was taught if you can't say anything nice ... say nothing ;)
[pen/Chalky] I think the weather's lovely. I wouldn't mind a bit of a breeze, but high 20s is fine with me. Actually, the garden is starting to suffer a bit, but it'll live.
Three free weeks
From Friday, I've got three weeks off. I'd like the good weather to last a bit longer, but I don't want our beans and tomatoes to perish while we're away for a week or so of that!
Persistence
(pen) The weather charts show no end to this spell, at least not before the charts themselves become pretty meaningless (10 days or so). Hot, but not record-breakingly so, and no rain at all. There might be the odd thunderstorm in N France. I'm getting rather bored with it.
Tis ok
We have a BBQ planned for Saturday, so no doubt the world will end or somesuch.
Mob of moaners! Get outside and wash your cars. :)
What I mentioned
[CdM] I do remember mentioning those things now because I was joking with y'all when y'all mentioned perhaps a get-together and said to hold it in my town! And, that is funny about the pants! The game works either way for it to be completely silly!
I wish the car wasn't in for servicing. Walking 3km from the nearest bus stop and arriving wreathed in sweat is not a good look.
Ot. Innit?
[Raak] I'll take your word for it. I've only been outdoors for about 1 minute so far today.
Boston vacation
Also very hot. Walks along the breezy Charles and doing my laps in salt water unheated pools also brought some relief.
Back at my desk now. I thought I was going to have the week from hell ahead of me--but it looks like there may be some relief from that, too. YAY!
Back at my desk now. I thought I was going to have the week from hell ahead of me--but it looks like there may be some relief from that, too. YAY!
(Raak) Kinot mate. Hottest day at Plas Huws since 2006. 32.2°C top whack. Humid and sweaty but not equatorial levels, nothing like. There was an interesting interlude late last night at Crystal Palace, S. London with light rain, thunder and lightning but the full moon clearly visible. Just heard a faint rumble of thunder here at home (2.57 a.m.). Full moon still visible, illuminating some rather interesting-looking clouds. Things may happen.
[Rosie] I thought of you as 'interesting' clouds approached us last night. Very little rain actually fell though. 32.2C is the "Great Threshold" in my mind, being 90F.
Nanopilgrimage manqué
[cfm] You were in Boston last week?? I was there (well, technically, Cambridge) for a conference. (And yes, it was definitely hot, though I spent most of my time in airconditioned meeting rooms.)
Cruel fate
[CdM] Heartbroken! How I wish you had *waved from Boston*.
HOTTTT
Hot here, too. 91F at the hottest point of the day, or as Google tells me 32.7778C.
Just back from a wedding in Chamonix. Even at that elevation, it was still 30°C and over. On the plus side, the weather was beautiful and the reception lavish. Go to a French wedding, if you're asked. You will not regret it.
[nights] I was paused, very briefly, in Chamonix in July '96. Simply stunning. I keep meaning to go back - in summer, as I'm no skier.
"With robes that gleam with sunny sheen
Sweet August doth appear.."
Have just added to two poetry games both presenting 'joy' as their last word ... are we having happy summers?
Is everybody happy?
Yus. And I just had to go and Google to find The Scaffold's 'Today's Monday' song, in which is the line 'Is everybody happy? You bet your life we are' which I have remembered vaguely since my childhood. Thanks!
Happiness?
I'm not too bad - work was way better yesterday than Monday. Tonight I play cricket for my current team for the last time, against my own village team, which I shall be joining after tonight. I think post-match beer may be in evidence, both at the pitch and back in the village.
Eudaimonia
I just got my official redundancy letter, which I've seen coming at least a year out. I'll be taking up a half-time post at a nearby research institute, and with my redundancy payment, my late mother's legacy, and collecting my pension in two years this is not actually a bad thing. In fact, I could have had a full-time post at the research institute, but I decided I couldn't face grinding away at that full time for another three years, and look forward to having the time, as they say, to pursue my own interests.
Should be leaving the bitter misery of over 2 years' unemployment behind me come Monday. Can't wait.
[Tuj] Congratulations and best wishes for a rocking good landing!
Sunday night is bath night
[Tuj] Congrats! I didn't realise you'd had such a struggle. Hope it goes well.
{Raak] Also congrats. That's sounds like a nice way to enjoy working. I have to admit I'm starting to see the advantages of a part-time job, timewise, but the windy miller and I would like to buy a house before the end of the year, so we need to keep working.
{Raak] Also congrats. That's sounds like a nice way to enjoy working. I have to admit I'm starting to see the advantages of a part-time job, timewise, but the windy miller and I would like to buy a house before the end of the year, so we need to keep working.
[Tuj] May we ask what sort of job? Does it start with a "P"? I've been unemployed twice in the last 10 years, for about 8 months each time, and it's mind-achingly frustrating, so I'd imagine you must be on quite a high!
[Raak] That sounds like a very painless redundancy - congrats :-)
[Raak] That sounds like a very painless redundancy - congrats :-)
P-rofession
[c,p,P] Ta all =) I did do a course in proof-reading the other year but have yet to make anything of it. The saddle I'm back in is just some customer service, answering emails and phones - but as Phil alluded to, my Monday morning feeling was far from the stereotypical heel-dragging!
[Penelope]
Hidden text
From memory: Sunday is Prayer Day, Saturday is Payday, Friday is Fish'n'Chips, Thursday is Shepherd's Pie, Wednesday is Roast-a-Beef, Tuesday is Soo-oop, Monday is Washing Day IEHYBYLWA. Didn't know it was a Scaffold Song though[Raak] That place has definitely gone to the dogs and does not deserve one of such stellar provenance. I'd blame Global Warming but I'm not sure now if it wasn't all made up by ENV.
[Tuj] Congratulations. May it be rewarding in every sense.
You bet
[Stevie] Correct. Now go and find it on YouTube!
Me again - blessings tally
It's Friday, and the beginning of the weekend of our second wedding anniversary. Nice things that have happened or to happen today: it's payday; a professor has replied to my emailed request for information within 24 hours and with lots of information; I have leftover home-made chicken jalfrezi, lentil dahl and basmati rice for lunch; we're going to Antwerp market for breakfast on Sunday morning (fried fish and then waffles as big as my head), and my lovely god-daughter passed the first batch of her GCSEs.
me again (1 week later)
Weekend plans, you lot? I think I might be cycling around the Zeeland countryside in search of blackberries and stunning landscape phtographs with a couple of friends from work. And dodging showers. First; haircut tonight after work, with the girl with the hairdryer tattoo. I think that means she's committed t her career. What about you?
Household drudgery. Walking dogs, laundry, cleaning, cooking, washing up, gardening. Have been invited to a house-warming, but probably won't go. Oh, I need to get a new tyre, that'll be thrilling...
In other words
[Phil] You could summarise my seemingly bucolic list of delights as 'anything except housework'. We all have to wear clean pants, you know, It's just that some of us wash them during the week. Get out and see something new.
My last day of work today
Actually, that was two weeks ago, as I took the rest of the month off as holiday. Bought an iPad while I'm still eligible for educational discount. I'd buy a new Mac as well, as my current desktop can't run the last two versions of OSX, but there will be new models announced later this year. Apple aren't saying when, but it's unlikely to be this month now.
[pen] Just realised I mentioned Mrs Phil's gastroenteritis in another place, not here. Not really able to go anywhere at the mo. Good news is that I can pick blackberries while walking dogs.
Gastroenteritis in another place
[Phil] I hope she's now recovered, and your weekend was fruitful. I have been cycling round the empty lanes in Zeeland, where Google Streeview hasn't even been yet, and foraging blackberries. Planning to do it for the next couple of Saturdays. (The windy miller's mill is on this map - a village called Zonnemaire, and we also look after the teeny one-third scale mill on the harbourside at Brouwershaven).
[pen] She's getting there - managing to spend four hours out of bed for the first time in 12 days is progress.
Blimey
Jeez, must have been TERRIBLE. She'll feel rubbish. Sending best regards for swift improvement.
thanks, pen. On the (further) downside, I took the dogs for a longer walk than normal at the weekend, on a different route, and completely forgot about the blackberries. Still, we have damsons, apples, loganberries and blackberries in the back garden :)
Who? What?
What happened to Cleri Who's who?
moribundity
[Softers] You killed it. Much like the AVMA game.
Only kidding! If there's no action for 3 days - the game will revert to its Flat Footed status. Just click on 'See More'
As for AVMA - perhaps you can find a way to pique the collective interest of participating crescenters? You're in charge.
Only kidding! If there's no action for 3 days - the game will revert to its Flat Footed status. Just click on 'See More'
As for AVMA - perhaps you can find a way to pique the collective interest of participating crescenters? You're in charge.
(Softers, Chalky) Revived by clerihughes, but only by breaking bending the rules.
Well done Rosie.
the original game reviver
[Rosie, Software] The current game of Cleri Who's Who has been in existence for several years ... but then you knew that, yes?
decision time
Should I, or should I not go with the windy miller to his mill in the wilds of Zeeland tomorrow for Open Monuments Day? (Heritage Open day in the UK tomorrow too... have you checked what's open where you are?) It's going to piss with rain. I could usefully take some work to do (extension lead out of the mill into the car where I sit in comfort with my laptop and without the distraction of the internet) and I'd take some sausages to cook, and probably stuff to make pancakes too. I could go blackberry picking on the bike if there's a break in the weather. The alternative is cleaning the loo and doing the laundry at home alone.
I think I've just answered my own question.
I think I've just answered my own question.
(Chalky) I did indeed, m'dear. Re-reviver, perhaps.
[penelope] Hope you went. Glad we were of help.
[Rosie] Credit where it's due, eh? ;)
[Rosie] Credit where it's due, eh? ;)
on yer bike
[Chalks] I did indeed go. And it was lovely. I put a photo on Facebook - so you can see where I was cycling. The loo got cleaned anyway. The weather's been very showery ever since.
[pen] Yes - saw the photo. 'Bout the time I was in league with the freeway :-)
Heel bon
I'm loving the Franglais limerick that's waiting for a conclusion on another page. The windy miller and I have found that we understand each other very well when we speak a mixture of Dutch and French (my Dutch being terrible and my French being O level circa 1981 and about the same standard as his). Is this Francerlandse? Nederlais? Dutchglais or Frutch?
Ce limérique-là
(pen) Tu l'aimais encore? I dun me best.
Encore, plus le petit dejeuner
Just back from a romantic short séjour in the Ardennes. All languages work there - at least all the ones that I know - English, Dutch and French. Trouble is, you're not supposed to use them all at once, in one sentence, when speaking to other people. Oh well. But the wine was bloody nice (and the foie gras too, if I'm allowed to mention it).
(pen) Course y'are, duck.
Tonight: staying late to sit in on a student mentors' coaching session (for alumni who have volunteered to act as mentors to current students). Will be writing article about it later. Free dinner.
"Free dinner" - a wonderful combination of words! I shall be enjoying free food and drink on Sunday at our village cricket club's season finale, whatever the weather. I might even bowl an over, if my withered achilles will take the strain.
Monday Monday
Morning all. Weekend reports please: Phil, did you get your overs in? Or did your achilles put paid to everything but sitting in the pavilion scarfing sarnies? *ducks*.
'Free dinner' was actuially a sandwich on tough French bread. Ruinous for my teeth as well as my gut. Bleurgh.
'Free dinner' was actuially a sandwich on tough French bread. Ruinous for my teeth as well as my gut. Bleurgh.
The weekend
I didn't bowl, and would have batted, had our previous batsman got out at least one ball earlier. I did consume plenty of ale, and far too much barbecue though :)
Five times the Friday fun
Getting girded up to cover an afternoon-long conference in central Rotterdam. Preparing to take notes to write it up three different ways for various outlets, plus another two other reports to come out of it. Five times the fun from just one afternoon...
Work fun
I have fire extinguisher training this afternoon, in which we will actually get to set off fire extinguishers in the car park! Can I grow up by this afternoon? I doubt it.
[Phil] When I got a keycard to the research institute that I spend some of my time at, there was "fire training". It was "That's a fire extinguisher." That was enough to tick the checkbox on the form.
How'd it go, Phil? Still foaming at the mouth?
I'm a firestarter, a twisted firestarter....
Well, I managed the improbable, and learnt a useful lesson in the process. I managed to restart an extinguished newspaper fire with a water fire extinguisher.
Splendid!
[Phil] You could be onto a winner.
[pen] Just call me Charlie McGee!
Wikipedia, wikipedia...
Had to google that name, Phil! Never read any Stephen King, never go to the cinema either!
So what else is banter-worthy this week? I've been to London for a day and a half (as I have posted in another place) and I've got two big deadlines in the next 10 days. Or possibly three. I have started a new tradition of Saturday afternoon cycle rides around 'our corner' of Zeeland (where the windy miller's mill is) which I'm enjoying more and more. I rarely see a car or anyone else. It's utterly silent and empty - fields, dykes, birds - and that's about it, so I just take my camera. I'm intending to keep it up through the winter (there's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes) so now I have announced it to you lot, you can egg me on.
So what else is banter-worthy this week? I've been to London for a day and a half (as I have posted in another place) and I've got two big deadlines in the next 10 days. Or possibly three. I have started a new tradition of Saturday afternoon cycle rides around 'our corner' of Zeeland (where the windy miller's mill is) which I'm enjoying more and more. I rarely see a car or anyone else. It's utterly silent and empty - fields, dykes, birds - and that's about it, so I just take my camera. I'm intending to keep it up through the winter (there's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes) so now I have announced it to you lot, you can egg me on.
ride, penelope, ride
[pen] I had to google it too, having read the book at least 20 years ago.
I managed to hit one deadline last friday, and look likely to hit another one tomorrow, which is to have two massive catalogues on CD, and get them to the duplicator's shop for midday. If I achieve that, I can have monday off :-)
I managed to hit one deadline last friday, and look likely to hit another one tomorrow, which is to have two massive catalogues on CD, and get them to the duplicator's shop for midday. If I achieve that, I can have monday off :-)
Holidays
I've just booked my remaining vacations days, to use them up before the end of the year. Two short holidays in November, and not one single working Monday in December!
Deadlines
I wish I had the bravado to quote Douglas Adams to my boss . However, my determination to hit this one led to my first all-nighter for a long time. Admittedly, I did sleep from 5am to 6am, but I did have two programs running at the time.
Hidden text
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by"Head desk
Phil! Phil! Wake up!
Last all-nighter I did was at some rally or other in about 1999, in Scotland, in another life. I ate sooo much cake trying to stay awake.
Last all-nighter I did was at some rally or other in about 1999, in Scotland, in another life. I ate sooo much cake trying to stay awake.
grrrrr
Despite my best efforts, I think we're not going to have this ready for midday. Just sitting here watching processes thrashing away in my task manager, wishing my processor was more powerful. Fingers crossed that it saves this time!
I think this definitely needs to be added to my "Murtaugh List", named after Danny Glover's character in the Lethal Weapon films, as in "I'm getting too old for this s**t".
Breathing space
Deadline is now 3.30pm - hurry up, computer!
Dreadlines
*grooogh* Three days until the dreadline for the alumni magazine. Still two features to write - and the letter from the dean. I'm not so much his ghost writer, but more in spiritual possession of his soul.
school, school, school, school . . .
I have three English classes - American Literature, British Literature, and Shakespeare. i've not been thrilled with some of the Brit Lit and others I've loved. However, I LOVED the assignment for Friday! We had to read Edward Lear's "The Jumblies" and some of his Limericks then Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" and Humpty Dumpty's explanation of it.
*waves from Lincolnshire*
*waves back from West Berks*
Distinctly unwell, but hoping to get Brownie points from boss for working from home instead of just phoning in sick.
Distinctly unwell, but hoping to get Brownie points from boss for working from home instead of just phoning in sick.
feeling any better Phil?
I've spent the week off, mooching around my home town, having a lovely time. I've bought a map of the county dated 1796, researched and downloaded a font contemporaneous to the map so I can label it authentically, and taken it to be mounted and framed sympathetically. and I've made my mum a birthday cake. We're off out for Fish and chips in Cleethorpes tonight to celebrate!
I've spent the week off, mooching around my home town, having a lovely time. I've bought a map of the county dated 1796, researched and downloaded a font contemporaneous to the map so I can label it authentically, and taken it to be mounted and framed sympathetically. and I've made my mum a birthday cake. We're off out for Fish and chips in Cleethorpes tonight to celebrate!
(pen) Fish and Chips in Cleethorpes? As I have remarked earlier, I fought you was one o' vem posh birds. However no-one who likes maps (or fish and chips) can be all bad. I have finally put together a contour map of the entire North Downs, 15 m interval, 1: 80,000 scale. 6 ft 6 in by 1 ft 6 in.
maptastic
[Rosie] How did you make it? from noining up exisitng maps, or drawing it yourself?
What's mildly inneresting about the 1796 mapofLincs is the plethora of villages in the wolds, presumably full of sheep farmers and shepherds using the recently-completed louth navigation canal to take wool to Louth's famous carpet factory, and also to the coast and by boat to London and Antwerp, and the relatively sparsely populated fens, barely drained, uninhabitable and uncultivateable at that time. And it's hand coloured. Double mount with green inner, and a bevelled oak frame. Nice.
What's mildly inneresting about the 1796 mapofLincs is the plethora of villages in the wolds, presumably full of sheep farmers and shepherds using the recently-completed louth navigation canal to take wool to Louth's famous carpet factory, and also to the coast and by boat to London and Antwerp, and the relatively sparsely populated fens, barely drained, uninhabitable and uncultivateable at that time. And it's hand coloured. Double mount with green inner, and a bevelled oak frame. Nice.
noining?
I wasn't even quick enough to use the 'Whoops!' function. Joining.
Mapa Downium Borealium
(pen) It took ages. Process: Trace 15 m contours from OS 1:25000 maps. Transfer to A4 sheets, stick them all together and ink in the contours. Scan, sheet by sheet in Photoshop and make sure the lines are continuous. Use Paint Bucket to add contour layer colours. Add place and river names. Print out and butt the edges together. Spray with artist's lacquer. Show it to the blokes down the pub. Take it home and stick it on the wall. I wish I had some way of displaying it.
[Rosie] You can get it framed. You should get it framed. all the work was worth it, wosnit?
(pen) I have framed it. Not exactly a craftsman job but it now decorates my bedroom. My cartophilia comes from my Dad who taught geography among other things and left dozens of old OS maps to which I have added quite a number.
Wensdi rambling
So how is everyone? Anyone care to tell us how they intend to address the remainder of the working week? I'm going to attack it, and use all the determination and spunk I can muster to write TWO BORING THINGS that have been sitting on my to-do list for too long. (And sorry, no apologies for using the word 'spunk'! I'm retreating into the 1930s in several respects, not least with my hankering for bread and dripping).
Bread and dripping? Ee' lass, I scoffed chips in gravy last night.
Bread and dripping? That brings back a few memories, penelope. It were a staple at ours in't late '40s and early '50s. Owt that were scrapeable (greaseproof paper an' such) went inter't chip pan. 'Course we din't call it that as we were posh and had 'fried bread'.
Dunkin fries
(Chalky) Oh, how could you? It ruins them. Chipppps should be crissssp.
How am I?
[penelope] I'm ill, again. 102F temperature, dizzy, headaches, snot and catarrh everywhere. The bonus is that I'm losing weight :)
A doctor recommends...
Phil, m'lad you need beefing up. Get some proper beef dripping inside yer. Hope it goes soon. (Colleague whose father is a GP got the 'flu shot on Tuesday evening. She complained of a sore arm yesterday. Today she's off with 'flu symptoms)
Has everybody taken to their beds with influenza?
It's a bit quiet in here.
*pin drops*
I heard that...
Got back to work on Monday, although I still feel like a mucus production line. Got loads of work on though, as I was off for 7 of the previous 10 days. Unfortunately, my boss is off sick now, and the other third of the IT department is on holiday, so I'm the only person available to fix everything (inc hardware - grrrr).
I ain't touching it
I'm not going near the Glow Worms game again until someone gets rid of the one with the badly-metred line about nipples. *blames Software*
[pen] It seems OK to me. Confused.
Addressing the nipple without even a coma
[Phil] I meant it had a typo: you/your. Alternatively 'To you, nipple, I'd be put'. Still weird. Tell me when it's all over.
(pen) The metre's all right - it's just a typo, and a fairly common one.
[penelope] You can come out now.
[Rosie] A common typo? I would challenge that statement - if only because I'm in the mood to challenge pretty much everything this morning ... (insert winky face)
To put it another way - why do we have the 'preview' function' or indeed the 'whoops' escape if not to eradicate such monstrosities? < mode= really going over the top now >
[Rosie] A common typo? I would challenge that statement - if only because I'm in the mood to challenge pretty much everything this morning ... (insert winky face)
To put it another way - why do we have the 'preview' function' or indeed the 'whoops' escape if not to eradicate such monstrosities? < mode= really going over the top now >
Nobody expects the Monstrous Regiment!
Least of all the Spaniels!
12 minutes, a new record
The time I have just observed a group of three adults, two babies, and a toddler take in a cafe, from their first getting-up-to-go movements to actually getting out of the front door. The previous record was 10 minutes, taken by two women, a baby, and an enormous quantity of shopping.
Today is my Birthday!
thanks to time zones....
...in that case it probably still is for nearly another 10 hours. So Happy Birthday Giertrud :-)
Thanks!!
HBTY Giertrud
Try to keep growing old for as long as possible.
-
%aThis website is great 6cd8212ffc3e2c1f993c2a3d5054d176
Yeah
it is, isn't it?
Hurrah!
Ther evenings will start drawing out in less than a week, at least at this latitude, 51° 19' 06"N. This cannot be too soon.
[Rosie] Spoilsport!
brighter later
[Rosie] Goodie. Ta for that bit of news.
Last time in a long time
A counting date ... 11/12/13 .... It was in November for us who write the month first though...
Dates - USA style
(Giertrude) Surely you have 12/13/14?
Dates . . .
Yes, [Rosie], we had that. We've had a lot of neat dates so far this century. 1/2/3
2/3/4
3/4/5
4/5/6
5/6/7
6/7/8
7/8/9
8/9/10
10/11/12
11/12/13
2/3/4
3/4/5
4/5/6
5/6/7
6/7/8
7/8/9
8/9/10
10/11/12
11/12/13
The Theatre!
Two more performances of "Irving Berlin's White Christmas" for me. The last performance day and cast party will be bittersweet.
about blummin' time too
Only four more working days until the Xmas hols. Next Saturday the windy miller's mill is the starting point for the torchlit midwinterday four-course gastrotour of the tiny village in Zeeland. i'll be serving gluhwijn from the workbench, under a canopy of 200 fairy lights, as they light the torches at sunset (which is about 4pm here). And on Sunday, we're heading over to Blighty for the week.
three more days...
Three more days at work (after this afternoon - although we're halfway through the afternoon so it's mattering less and less) until Friday night's dinner with the windy miller's company (in real life, he runs a construction project management company and employs three people. I have to be the boss's wife...), Saturday's midwinter sunset torch-lit procession around the village on Zonnemaire in Zeeland where the windy miller's mill is. And on Sunday, we depart for Blighty on the ferry to Dover, heading for some friends in Guildford for our first overnight stop. Can't wait.
2.5 more days
After today, I have the aforementioned 2.5 working days this year. Then friday night is the company christmas do, with 63 in attendance - plus these chaps providing entertainment. Plus Mrs Phil & I have been given free B&B at the hotel too. I'm genuinely looking forward to it, which is most out-of-character.
2.5 more days
Haven't posted my Christmas cards yet. And there are some I haven't written yet either. The ones that are ready to go are in a big bag in the car. I'm hoping to get to the post office (stationed in our local village supermarket) tonight.
That's it! I'm leaving!
In an hour or so, I will no longer need to waste so much time in here because I'm heading out for a week-and-a-half off. I'll try and pop in from time to time though. Try and keep up the chatter yourselves, eh?
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas (eve)!
A very Merry Christmas to all at MC5!
Ditto
Ditto
Ditto.
Season's Greetings
Happy Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah Day everyone, and Allah bless us, one and all!
Yes, I'm still here
Hope your Christmases went well and the new year is suitably novel.
Oh, it's you
Indeed. Which novel should we aim to replicate in 2014? HNY, you lot.
Happy New Year!
(Stevie) Thank you for waiting till midnight GMT.
I've started the New Year with bungling and ranting. TYpical.
Pour décourager les autres
(pen) Keep it up. Eliminate the crap. BTW You've made a TYpo. :-)
Watching the defectives
Bungling and rating? Could be ... *wink*
gravity
*drops*
[pen] Burgling and panting?
Dear Scansion Police
Anonymous defamation is simply pathetic. Even if it were justified criticism, which it isn't, posting it anonymously is the behaviour of a half-baked, duplicitous, weak-minded troll.
The chippy misfit
(Phil) He's probably getting at me, for reasons best known to himself, and has hijacked a limerick to do so. Not good. Probably thinks this site cliquey but too dim to realise that firstly, it isn't, and secondly, if he thinks it is then all he needs do to join the clique is simply not be an arsehole. The wit, widsom and wordplay of all is welcomed, as has been proved dozens of times with newcomers.
Wittering, as only I can
Jeez it's tedious doing HTML.in here on an iPhone. *tap tap tappity tap*
East or West Wittering
The capital "P" is no disguise - we know you're in there. Hurry up - I'm dying.
Capital
[Rosie] I laughed out loud. But now I've got to grips with the titchy keyboard on this eyephone, I'm back to my normal self.
foggiest
So... Thursday, eh? And what has the week delivered for you lot? For me: I've finally finished all the satsumas in the house. I'm going to buy some more in a minute from the new supermarket on the university campus. It's a hard habit to break, two per day since November... Exciting times.
I finished up the week by watching penguins emerge from the ocean.
Beat that
[CdM] a penguin automat? I finished the week in the greengrocer's, being reminded that I needed potatoes. I love independent shops.
[CdM] Don't be ridiculous. Amphibians emerged from the oceans, had dinosaur babies who laid penguin eggs. Read a book!
[Dan] I've just reread my bible*, and it says no such thing. In fact it has very little discussion of penguins at all.
[flerdle] I think Coles' and Woolworth's online shopping could probably do that for you as well. And it would save all the pesky hanging around, chatting, making friends and so on.**
*Full disclosure: I do not actually own a bible.
**cf. Sirius Cybercorp.
[flerdle] I think Coles' and Woolworth's online shopping could probably do that for you as well. And it would save all the pesky hanging around, chatting, making friends and so on.**
*Full disclosure: I do not actually own a bible.
**cf. Sirius Cybercorp.
Store names
If you said "Cole's" in the U.S., we'd assume it was Kohl's.
[CdM] It's better in the original Greek anyway.
[CdM] I think the delivery charge to the Netherlands would be a little steep though, wouldn't it?
[pen] For the first time in my life I live walking distance from a greengrocer, and it really changes things. Also many other things, including a fish market and a bakery, most of which are even closer and all of which have appeared since we moved into the neighborhood. I may not have to emigrate after all.
preëmpt-o-matic
*waits for CdM to say "I thought in the U.S. 'walking distance' means it's in your garage"*
Hmmm, the flerdle/pen conflation. Muss less common than Dan/Dunx
"Muss"?
Muss try harder
I need celery, radishes and apples. And onions. Anyone fancy a stroll to the groentenwinkel?
[pen] I'm afraid I'm not able to walk across oceans, nor swim them even if Google says I should be able to do such a thing.
despite staying late at work, the shop was still just open at 7 when i got there. I was probably their last customer of the day. Now to make that celery soup...
I love radishes. Much underrated.
I discovered king oyster mushrooms the other day, on a market stall. Never knew they existed. Truly, the earth continues to bring forth wonders.
Mushrooms
[Raak] Though art indeed brave if though tasteth of that most vile fruit of the ground, harvested by the light of the New Moon by debased and foul Tcho-Tchos, who tear them from the curséd soil of Leng - which lieth not fully in this Universe, but doth straddle other, forbidden dimensions across which stride Those Who Shudde Notte Bee, in whose footprints sprout these fungi thou doth prize so highly.
me too
I'm not a fan of mushrooms either.
No Entry
Can't seem to get anything into MCiOS, any game. Anybody else having problems?
[Rosie] Is working for me.
(Raak) Works OK now.
Curioser and curioser
There seems to be some sort of caching problem. I can post there fine, but when I get to the page I posted to from the main page, the post doesn't appear. But if I post again, all the posts show up. It's like the moves are being made properly, but the front page links are pointing to a stale cache.
catching up
Not fond of mushrooms. Or stale caches.
stale mushrooms
I'm not fond of mushrooms either. I wonder if the cache is a good place to grow them - it seems dark and undisturbed in there.
Mushrooms
I like much-maligned mushrooms. Yumptious!
(Phil) Yeah, they're great. I had some with a couple of lamb chops last night.
(Raak) I've noticed that too.
(Raak) I've noticed that too.
[Phil] When a recipe calls for much-maligned mushrooms, how long should I malign them for?
Mushrooms
[Dan] I generally start with disparaging remarks about the overall quality of their gills, then move on to more targeted insults on the subject of stem length and cap diameter.
That takes from between 2 to four minutes.
Mushrooms
[Dan] With all due respect to Stevie, I'd consider his mushrooms to be simply "maligned", not "much-maligned". I can't repeat here the sort of language I use in their presence, but it makes them sweat like an onion.
F****** mushrooms
(Phil) You don't know how many other people malign mushrooms, or with what intensity. That, of course applies to mushrooms in general, not necessarily Stevie's. On the other hand, Stevie's mushroms may have a flea in their ear from those condemned to pick them.
Not that keen on mushrooms, meself. The taste is OK, but I really don't like the texture.In other news, we don't got flooding yet, nor that much snow. UPdates, Rosie?
(pen) No flooding? Of course not - you take it seriously over there, as you have to. I'd be very surprised if you got any snow but you'll get a load more rain and wind Wednesday and Saturday just as we will and probably worse.
"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass - it's about learning how to dance in the rain"
... one of my favourite mottos brought to life by "Flippin' Floods in Salisbury"
... one of my favourite mottos brought to life by "Flippin' Floods in Salisbury"
It's getting rather breezy here, and the school has sent out an email warning that they might have to close if all three routes into the village get flooded.
Nothing yet
Nothing has happened here yet. I have just waved off my dear colleague as she's flying to City Airport this evening (she gets to go to the London training day tomorrow that I wanted to go to but there's only budget for one of us - even though we both need the skills) and I didn't want to tell her there may be turburence*.
*Turburence is what we have called it in our family ever since my parents were warned about it on a flight back from Japan via Hong Kong in 1993.
*Turburence is what we have called it in our family ever since my parents were warned about it on a flight back from Japan via Hong Kong in 1993.
British Literature is . . . uh???
British Literature is just fine, really. It's the fact that we were in the medieval period that made it so difficult to read. I couldn't understand all that Middle English. The stories were fun when told in modern English. We just had our first test this past Wednesday. I think I did fine.
Chaucer doth tweet
[KS] Do you Twitter? Try following Chaucer on Twitter for a feel of how Middle English works in the modern world. And it's pretty funny too. There's a whole community of Middle English tweeters out there.
Short week
Only four days in the loathsome office this week. Catching the Eurostar to London on Friday morning (Rosendaal>Brussels>London St P) for a wedding on Saturday. Can't wait!
Zzzzz
Awake for 26.5 hours and counting. Probably still at least an hour till I am united with a bed. And it's bloody cold here too (-12C).
Where the hell are you?
Hello Rab! Where are you? Doing the Iditerod race?
Nowt so glamorous
I'm in Denver, at a ridiculously large conference. Just reading the list of session titles makes me want to have a lie down.
Conferences and their ilk.
Unless such things were local I used to delegate our attendance to a staff member. "Here, Fred, there's a do on down in Melbourne. I'd like you to attend (it'll be good experience for you). Knock up a report and get it to me within the week will you?"
I'm afraid that banging around the country with all the bother of transport etc. has never appealed to me. Others seemed to love it. Maybe they saw it as some sort of status thing rather than a tedious chore. That's not a criticism of your winging your way around the world, rab, just a personal opinion of a bloke who could get out of attending the blasted things.
I'm afraid that banging around the country with all the bother of transport etc. has never appealed to me. Others seemed to love it. Maybe they saw it as some sort of status thing rather than a tedious chore. That's not a criticism of your winging your way around the world, rab, just a personal opinion of a bloke who could get out of attending the blasted things.
Not at all
In my line of work, the main reason for these things is so that people remember you still exist. If I could do this without 19hr journeys and leaving my family for a week, I would. People sometimes say "you're being paid to do it so quit your moaning" but my view is that travel is a perk only if it's (a) to places you actually want to go and (b) with people you actually want to go with. Work trips rarely count. (That said I do have some good mates at work and sometimes I get to go to agreeable places like Amsterdam or Vienna with them. I tend to be less fastidious about keeping my receipts on such occasions.)
This is getting silly
The A22 is still closed for 3 miles and a further road off it is now closed as workmen with pumps, pipes and sandbags etc try to contain the stream occupying it. Another few weeks, I reckon. Also the water level at this place is now threatening the roads on both sides.
let me out
Back at work after six days of feeling distinctly under par (and a cancelled trip to London for a wedding, boo hoo). Can anyone persuade me of the benefits of being in the office working through a MASSIVE inbox on a beautiful spring day like today?
Bright side?
Reduced risk of early hayfever?
Annual income......
(pen) Pays the bills.
[penelope] Reduced risk of being mistaken for Lindsey Lohan and being crushed by a mob of crazed paparazzi?
himpressive
[Giertrud] Cool. I went over for a peek, but will leave it for others to download and play.
In other news... it's another warm and sunny day here in NL. If my Fashion Phenology project is to be relied upon as an indicator of seasonal drift and an early spring, then yesterday's spotting of a woman wearing a pair of white jeans, and today's observation of a student in teeshirt, shorts and sneakers on campus must be recorded. And here is as good a place as any. Have any other Crescenters seen spurious signs of spring?
In other news... it's another warm and sunny day here in NL. If my Fashion Phenology project is to be relied upon as an indicator of seasonal drift and an early spring, then yesterday's spotting of a woman wearing a pair of white jeans, and today's observation of a student in teeshirt, shorts and sneakers on campus must be recorded. And here is as good a place as any. Have any other Crescenters seen spurious signs of spring?
As of yesterday afternoon, my lawns have stripes.
There's been a strange yellow ball in the sky a lot of the time in the past few days.
[Phil, Raak] This...means something.
But what could it mean?
Yellow balls cause stripes?
talking of exceptional quality...
The pea & honey recipes have been splendid of late. Witty and clever. And they rhyme and scan too. Coo.
[Phil] Yesyesyes, but were UFOs involved?
[Stevie] No, I identified them all as alien spaceships.
Vernal illusions
(pen, penpenult.) It is spring. Must be - there was a frost here last night but now it's a nice 17°C.
Aww pen :(
http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2014/03/13/the-predictive-results-for-typing-county-into-google/
If we don't shout about it, no-one will come and spoil it.
[Giertrud]
1. Do you always believe what The Poke Says?
2. The only people who type '[county] is ...' into Google are the thickos who don't know anything anyway
3. It's unscientific.
4. Get orf my laaand.
5. Google doesn't cover Wales.
1. Do you always believe what The Poke Says?
2. The only people who type '[county] is ...' into Google are the thickos who don't know anything anyway
3. It's unscientific.
4. Get orf my laaand.
5. Google doesn't cover Wales.
the sprungness of spring
I have stopped wearing bicycle goggles to keep the cold wind out of my eyes, and started wearing them to keep the insects out of my eyes.
(pen) re no. 5 - Thank God for that. (from the Ghetto)
(Giertrud) There y'are - we're the wittiest nation on earth.
(Raak) But does the cold night air know this?
(Giertrud) There y'are - we're the wittiest nation on earth.
(Raak) But does the cold night air know this?
[Pen] Somewhat topically, I had a strange impulse to apply those responses to Tony Benn's five questions to power:
What power have you got?I don't know about you but I think that works perfectly.
Do you always believe what The Poke Says?"Where did you get it from?
The only people who type '[county] is ...' into Google are the thickos who don't know anything anywayIn whose interests do you use it?
It's unscientific.To whom are you accountable?
Get orf my laaand.How do we get rid of you?
Google doesn't cover Wales.
1. Do you always believe what The Poke Says?
no, I just thought it was silly.
2. The only people who type '[county] is ...' into Google are the thickos who don't know anything anyway
It can be fun to see what comes up, especially when the name also applies to something else.
3. It's unscientific.
duh.
4. Get orf my laaand.
whyyyyyyy?
5. Google doesn't cover Wales.
Try telling that to Google The Powers That Be! (If you told me Bing didn't cover Wales, I'd be more likely to believe it.)
no, I just thought it was silly.
2. The only people who type '[county] is ...' into Google are the thickos who don't know anything anyway
It can be fun to see what comes up, especially when the name also applies to something else.
3. It's unscientific.
duh.
4. Get orf my laaand.
whyyyyyyy?
5. Google doesn't cover Wales.
Try telling that to Google The Powers That Be! (If you told me Bing didn't cover Wales, I'd be more likely to believe it.)
Y Gwgl
(Giertrude) Hmm, maybe they aren't such bastards after all. Should be Gŵgl, of course, but the title won't accept the HTML.
Even with an English International Keyboard setting---but copy-paste worked! "Gŵgl"
I still can't get those characters up there! Only copy-paste works.
Time for some more banter
Does no-one have any more banter? Tonight I have served a late curry to the very busy windy miller, made his sandwiches for tomorrow, watched a lot of lambs being born and slapped about on the telly, tried to catch up with the strategies of William and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and washed up. Tomorrow I will try to write some sense, then dine at the university before attending a marketing masterclass, hoping to learn something. And then it's Friday.
Bantering
Should we now start calling you 'Wednesday's Child', penelope?
Being called a child of any description would be nice.Sadly it's not true. But talking of times gone past, I did make contact yesterday with two people that I hadn't spoken to for almost 20 years; both I met during formative experiences. One I worked with very early in my first newspaper job (which I didn't start unti I was 30, having had another kind of career before that) and one who organised a road trip to the Arctic Circle and beyond that made me realise that I can't bear very much heat on a summer holiday. That realisation has saved me weeks, if not months, of expensive uncomfortableness.
Friday banter
I went to a marketing masterclass last night, all about how to make social media go viral. Turns out that it's an art not a science, and that you can measure and analyse it all you like and be none the wiser, except knowing that you must 'light a lot of fires' and then 'use the right seeding nodes' to get anything that spreads. Oh, and before any of that, have a great product and hire GREAT creatives. </ marketing discussion>
In other news, I have just done a phone interview, bought birthday chocolates for my sister in VT, USA and am looking forward to Lincolnshire plum bread and Lincolnshire Red cheese [special imports] for Breakfast #2 at my desk. Happy Friday, crescenters.
In other news, I have just done a phone interview, bought birthday chocolates for my sister in VT, USA and am looking forward to Lincolnshire plum bread and Lincolnshire Red cheese [special imports] for Breakfast #2 at my desk. Happy Friday, crescenters.
Gobbledegook
I'm worried about you, pen, you're showing distinct signs of succumbing to marketing bollockspeak. And don't let anything go viral; let it stay bacterial and be amenable to antibiotics. Boo-boom.
Re : Gobbledook
Hear bl@@dy hear. I wish to G@d that "social media" had never crawled out from under the carpet. My status message on Skype says 'I don't have a "mood message", a "wall", or any other so-called "social networking" nonsense -- I have a life !'.
Mood mode
[Neophyte] Got it, dear. But you don't boycott it? On the other hand, I live in a different country ( with a different language) to all of my family and the vast majority of my friends. I work in an international environment which relies on it. My view is the opposite of yours. Oh, and I also have a life.
Re : Mood mode
[Pen] Yes, I boycott it completely. A binding vow of total lifelong abstinence from Twitter, Facebook, and all of their their ilk, and Linkedln only for professional contacts. I am also extremely intolerant, and shout "f*** Twitter" whenever someone on Radio 4 tells me how to contact the programme through that obscene medium. And a similar reaction whenever I read a newspaper article that cites anything containing commercial-at and hash prefixes.
Alexander Graham Bell refused to have a telephone in his workroom so he would not be interrupted. Disliking a new medium of communication is not new.
Hyperconnectivity
My mobile is permanently switched off and nobody, except my next of kin, knows the number. Speak to the answerphone if it's important. When I'm out I'm not at rhe office. Like McCavity I'm just not there. The mobile is for me to ring the RAC if the car conks out.
As for Twatter and F*ckbook nobody expects me to be there so I'm not. Anything significant from it will in the papers/on the radio. I wouldn't say I would never use them but at the moment I simply can't see the point. Let others spout their banalities or make fools of themselves. (Just going to update my MCiOS status).
As for Twatter and F*ckbook nobody expects me to be there so I'm not. Anything significant from it will in the papers/on the radio. I wouldn't say I would never use them but at the moment I simply can't see the point. Let others spout their banalities or make fools of themselves. (Just going to update my MCiOS status).
I never get calls on my mobile either. I use it if the car breaks down (which it never has, yet, touch wood), to find out who has the keys to the mill (and how far away from home they have driven before they remembered they forgot them) and to find out what time the windy miller will be home for dinner so I can time the rice. Occasionally I also use it for shouting at cold callers.
My mobile is largely an SMS-powered remote control for my daughter, and an alarm clock. It's paid for by work, but doesn't scroll up, due to dilapidation.
[Rosie] Outside the MCverse I've never adopted social networking in any substantial way, for reasons of privacy and compartmentalization; it always comes down to an insuperable dichotomy: nothing I could post to the whole world is worth posting, anything worth posting is something for which I'd trim the recipient list first. I've a number of chats of between three to six participants on the go in Skype, some of years standing, but their membership is kind of arrived at kind of organically -- or perhaps the word I want is empirically: each came to exist because it did and has lasted because it has.
(all) This site (and a couple of associated sites) is the nearest I want to get to social networking.
Asocial
[Rosie] Honoured! Any Saharan sand-related weather details for us? I have the dust on my car in NL (but the countryside is dry and they're working on the fields non-stop at the mo*, so it could be North African dust or it could be Zuid Hollandsche dust)
*it smells of cow poo everywhere
*it smells of cow poo everywhere
(pen) The dust comes down with the rain but you only notice it if the rain is very light as it was here early Monday morning. There was so much dust on my car I actually had to wash it, an event of some rarity. Your car dust must be Saharan. It's been a bit breezy there recently and the atmosphere is highly convective, i.e. it's hot and rises rapidly and the upper winds have brought the dust over Europe. It's a fairly common event but the upper winds have to be right for us to experience it and some light rain helps bring it down.
Cow poo is the least offensive poo smell there is, at least to my nose - I rather like it but then I was an industrial chemist.
Cow poo is the least offensive poo smell there is, at least to my nose - I rather like it but then I was an industrial chemist.
the hidden past
[Rosie] Oh I dunno. I find the rather sweet and cloying smell of human primary sludge as it enters the treatment works brings back good memories. For seven years after graduating, I worked as a laboratory technician analysing effluent of all kinds - from abattoirs, vegetable processing, and over one whole summer primary sludge during a BOC trial at what was then the UK's largest sewage treatment works just outside Norwich. My laboratory that summer was a caravan. My samples were mostly black and stinky.
This country usually smells of either poo or celery. Mostly.
This country usually smells of either poo or celery. Mostly.
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!
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!
What ho, wipers!
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 :)
[Rosie] Oh dear :)
[penelope] You worked at Trowse Beach? Awesome.
Bits 'n' Bobs
[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.
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.
Trowse rings smely bells
[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.
procrastination was ever the thief of time
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.
Faff away
(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?
unalloyed enjoyment
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.
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.
Smugness
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.
raspberries
[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?
shhhhh...
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.
May I?
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.
aspens!?
I'm glad there are no aspens here. They're so damnably noisy! :)
there are some things...
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.
Almost needless to say, I haven't had that breakfast for about 18 years now.
*distressingly
[Phil] Counter with Eggs, Sausage and cheddar on a croissant. Alternatively, four link sausages on a buttered bagel with HP sauce. Dammit, now I'm drooling all down me shirt.
[penelope] Your description of the view cued (unfairly) the following in Mr Brain:
Oh I often take these night-shift walks when the foreman's not around
Turn my back on the cooling stacks and make for open ground
Way out beyond the tank farm fence where the gas flare makes no sound
I forget the stink and I often think back to that eastern town.
Oh I often take these night-shift walks when the foreman's not around
Turn my back on the cooling stacks and make for open ground
Way out beyond the tank farm fence where the gas flare makes no sound
I forget the stink and I often think back to that eastern town.
Stan Rogers.
Which comes from Northwest Passage, his last and best album.
View the music
[Stevie] Ah.
As it happened, the estate agency used a very talented photographer, and the house was disappointing on many levels, not least the many levels (steps up and down into EVERY room, despite being re-built ten years ago or so). And the spiral staircase was wound so tight it could have fitted into a submarine. Imagine carrying laundry baskets up and down that! So we're re-thinking. And looking at another one in similar location (sans view of the refinery), a better aspect to the garden, but which is the current owners' unfinished project. We were hoping not to have to take on a project, but as the windy miller is a construction project manager by trade and we can't find the ready-to-move-into house that we were hoping for, it seems daft not to take advantage of his talents.
In other news, it's raining.
As it happened, the estate agency used a very talented photographer, and the house was disappointing on many levels, not least the many levels (steps up and down into EVERY room, despite being re-built ten years ago or so). And the spiral staircase was wound so tight it could have fitted into a submarine. Imagine carrying laundry baskets up and down that! So we're re-thinking. And looking at another one in similar location (sans view of the refinery), a better aspect to the garden, but which is the current owners' unfinished project. We were hoping not to have to take on a project, but as the windy miller is a construction project manager by trade and we can't find the ready-to-move-into house that we were hoping for, it seems daft not to take advantage of his talents.
In other news, it's raining.
I always wanted a house with a spiral staircase after seeing The Haunting of Hill House, but in real life they are too narrow for my manly frame.
Viral spiral pancake trial
[Phil] Then unwind the DNA a bit - you can have them as shallow and broad as you like. That's why I was so disappointed that the odd couple selling the house we looked at had decided that no-one with feet larger than size three - and certainly no-one ever carrying a basket of laundry - was every going to attempt to go upstairs.
Mill News In other news, it's national mills weekend in the UK and in the Netherlands this weekend. Can I recommend that you make an effort to visit your local mill, take the tour and buy some flour or a tea towel? (And then go home and make scones, obviously - I can send you a very easy recipe in Dutch or English if you like.) The windy miller's mill (De Korenbloem (Cornflower) in Zonnemaire, Zeeland, if anyone's interested) will be open all day, and the chef from the local restaurant (De Ouwe Smisse - a fab place where all the meat, fish and lobsters are cooked on an open fire) will be making pancakes for visitors in the mill. I think I will be washer-up for the day.
Mill News In other news, it's national mills weekend in the UK and in the Netherlands this weekend. Can I recommend that you make an effort to visit your local mill, take the tour and buy some flour or a tea towel? (And then go home and make scones, obviously - I can send you a very easy recipe in Dutch or English if you like.) The windy miller's mill (De Korenbloem (Cornflower) in Zonnemaire, Zeeland, if anyone's interested) will be open all day, and the chef from the local restaurant (De Ouwe Smisse - a fab place where all the meat, fish and lobsters are cooked on an open fire) will be making pancakes for visitors in the mill. I think I will be washer-up for the day.
{Stevie] penelope thinks you should unwind the DNA a bit - you can have them as shallow and broad as you like. That's why she was so disappointed that the odd couple selling the house they looked at had decided that no-one with feet larger than size three - and certainly no-one ever carrying a basket of laundry - was ever going to attempt to go upstairs.
Spiral staircases
As a committed fan of staircases (I was looking at stairporn.org yet again on my lunch break yesterday) and a pedant, I would be much happier if they were called "helical staircases", unless the radius does actually increase or decrease as one climbs.
Mill Day - didn't he write bassoon studies?
Alas, there are no working mills in Berkshire.
I hear voices echoing everything I say
*boggles*
Thanks Phil...
Thanks Phil...
Journalese
(Phil) Nonsense! Didn't you know that when "costs are spiralling" they're going up. :-)
Limerick Day
Apparently it is limerick day . . . well, unless in it no longer May 12 where you live . . . But it is here, so, hmmm . . . I shall create a limerick A woman who knew she was blue Said, " 'ello, how do you do?" The children all ran As fast as a van Making her cry, "Oh, boo hoo." I know, it's not great. But, it was quick and fun.
These stupid made-up holidays
I wish were a long-dead past phase.
Every day a new thing!
What will next Tuesday bring
That will fail to amuse or amaze?
I wish were a long-dead past phase.
Every day a new thing!
What will next Tuesday bring
That will fail to amuse or amaze?
Silly Holidays
May 19th is "Boy's Club Day" May 20th is "Be a Millionaire Day" and "Pick Strawberries Day"
It's also Real Bread Week, Gluten-free Week, and National Doughnut Week in the UK. They need to get co-ordinated.
COMBINE ALL THE THINGS!!!!
It's Real Gluten Free Doughnut-Bread Week!!!
Ack
*acks*
I announce The back door is back on and properly sealed to the house with glue that stinks of vinegar but the wooden frame still needs painting and I need some new aluminium screws before I can rehang the storm-door day.
(Stevie) Acetic acid as a solvent should not be allowed - it pongs.
I think it's used as an inhibitor to the setting process more than a solvent, but I agree with you on the niff. The small screw-cap versions are easier to use, less niffy and they stay useable after opening longer than the big tubes used in caulking guns even though they work out three to four times as expensive.
CH3COOH
You may be right; I thought it was just a diluent for benzoyl peroxide. The neat stuff would be a bit hairy, like most peroxides. Bang, Bang!
Egad! You mean I now have an exploding back door?
Hidden text
7 seconds of recorded laughterMust've been exciting to be developing caulk. And those break'n'shake glowsticks - they use acetic acid as a moderator to prevent catastrophic exothermic excursion.
Real science should occasionally explode violently, as I explained to my chemistry teacher.
Woof
(Stevie) Yeah, but not too often and not too big. A work colleague was severely burnt (20%, months off work) after an ether vapour explosion set off by an open tin of lithium aluminium hydride falling into a bucket of water. I'm glad I was in the office.
DIY cascade in the limerick game
Oh yeah...
In other news, it's raining.
In other news, it's raining.
Funny, that
It's raining again. In the meantime, we've had a splendidly lovely weekend. (But it was too windy on Saturday to ride me bike, dang)
FFS pen, swear properly. Rain here, too, all day. Temperature 12. Stirring stuff and if anything it's going to get worse tomorrow.
40 mile bike ride in the sun yesterday. 100 miles next weekend.
This sounds so wrong . . .
I don't think it is what she meant, but a friend wrote, " Actually, if you look on the agent orange information sheet it does list illnesses is children."
[KS] Quite so. Other peoples' kids make me sick.
Weekending, anyone?
Weather should be nice this weekend - and friends from England might drop by at the mill. And tonight we're going to the DIY store to buy a new nozzle thingy for the kitchen mixer tap, and possible some screenwash for the car too. Can't wait!
Looking forward to having short grass again tomorrow, although it's going to be an long slog getting there, with 14 days' growth to deal with. I might even give he barbecue a spring clean too. Who knows, I may even take the tree cuttings to the tip at last.
[Phil] A trip to the tip? *jealous* It just doesn't happen here the same way - it's so organised and everything gets taken away. When I was a kid, the tip was a landfill site (actually, that sounds - and is - dreadful) in an old chalk quarry a mile or so out of the town. There was salvage and reclaimed stuff to buy from the backs of various containers - my father often came home with bits of fishing rods from which he would create new fishing rods. We were never allowed to buy anything.
Nice tip
Our tip is just outside Wallingford. Well, it's not ours actually, it's Oxfordshire's, but it's the nearest, and is rather cute and scenic.
[penelope] Your last two sentences, on first reading, had me envisioning a family life predicated on wombling. I realized that you meant that you weren't allowed to buy anything from the tip only after that movie had run to conclusion.
Perhaps more damning, I saw the young penelope as a sort of infant version of Edna the Inebriate Woman wombling across a huge pile of rubbish in a mac with a string belt.
That easn't me
[Stevie] that wasn't me, although when I was a kid there was a scary and batty old woman who lived in a caravan at the tip. She had been a well-educated governess who had worked for some grand European families. Didn't stop her from spitting at cars in town though.
[penelope] Millennium hand and shrimp!
Shut up at the back
So ... if no-one has anything better to do this midsummer's weekend, then come to the village of Zonnemaire in Zeeland where my husband (the windy miller) will be running the mill from 10.00 tomorrow morning Saturday, until 16.00 on Sunday afternoon. ('Free running only - the stones are not yet properly fettled for grinding flour) I will endeavour to have coffee on the go at all times, and it may well be possible to partake of a pancake at 03.00 if you so desire. Other than that, I'll be either sitting in the shade with a laptop writing up a wonderful conference over the past 2 days (Look for the Erasmus Energy Forum), or out on a bike ride, or painting my toenails, or asleep in the car.
penelope said 'fettled' *snigger*.
arr, you've got to give the stones a good fettling afore ye can set them to proper milling
I was going to post a URL to an absolutely rivetting account of improving and modernising the fettling of iron castings in Indian foundries, but it seems that mc5 isn't supporting links.
nowt up wi' fettling
I've used the verb 'to fettle' since I was a pony-mad child, and through my career in international motorsport, which spanned more than a decade. I'm now scared of googling for the definition.
Fettling a fine word
Don't worry, Penelope, I understand perfectly. My little sports car sometimes needs a bit of fettling. Some of that I do myself but mostly, because I don't have the equipment, it goes somewhere where it can be fettled by experts. Perhaps there is some sort of salacious meaning in Stevie's world but, like you, I'm not prepared to check. :)
fettling at fifty
It's the windy miller's 50th birthday this October. My plan is to have his replica Lotus Super7 (which has been stored in a potato warehouse somewhere in our village for at least 7 years - I have never seen it) fettled and back on the road so we can drive to his 50th birthday party in it. I think I've just found someone who can do it for us. Now all I need is the key to the potato warehouse.
fettling?
As a Geordie, "fettle" has a different usage for me. For example "what fettle the day?", meaning "how are you doing today?" and "in good fettle" meaning "in good form/condition" (e.g. Alan Shearer was in good fettle the day he scored a 2nd half hat-trick against Leicester, to win 4-3). I suppose it's quite similar, but I'd not realised it could be used as a verb before.
verbing nouns
There are quite a few nouns that can be verbed, but some that should never undergo that treatment ('leverage', for one). In my job (mostly editing/using English written by non-native speakers) I often find myself making changes that insert the verb of a noun - and I guess it's because it's easy to gather a vocabulary of nouns in a foreign language, but less easy to know which of them can be verbed. From my experience anyway.
Some people get bent out of shape about the "modern" habit of "verbing nouns". I have my own list of hates as you all know, but I had a think about this one, concluded the practice was a *lot* older than anyone usually credits and crossed it off my list.
[pen] KAR120C?
KAR120C
What's that then? (I'm asking you before I ask Google)
KAR120C
The number plate on the eponymous Prisoner's Lotus Super7.
A man of good taste
[Pen] Your windy miller has just shot up my list of admirable Hollanders. Seven years in storage, even with all those eyes watching, is rather off-putting so he drops one position. My car is a similar type. Down here they carry the generic name of 'Clubmans'. Mine is a locally built unit marketed as a 'PRB'.
Not as stupid as I look
[Dujon] Why do you think I married him? ;o)
Personalised plates
If I had the money, I'd buy BDR 529
(Phil) Er, don't geddit. 529 is the square of 23 as any fule kno, and txtspk for 8.55. My own very costly favourite would be I TCH, obviously.
Left a bit, right a bit
[Rosie] You'd avoid 1 TCH I presume?
*forgets to wave from Amsterdam*
[Rosie] The Bluesmobile, as driven by Elwood Blues. The number is actually a reference to the Black Diamond Riders, a bike club in Toronto (home town of Dan Aykroyd), whose clubhouse was at 529 Jarvis St.
[Rosie] N 1 TBN is owned by Chris Jeans, who was head of brass at my kids' old school. He was the guy who played the Flight of the Bumblebee for the Lurpak advert (and was principal 'bone for Grimethorpe, and other bands). His number plate actually has "No. 1 Trombone" in small print at the bottom. He's so modest!
Lord Jeans
Indeed, he does rather rate himself on the web site. He's a much nicer chap in person, although a little Hitchcockesque in his appearance these days!
The denim peer
(Phil) He really does call himself Lord Jeans. Errgh! What an arsehole!
York
(With apologies for cross posting) I find myself and the family in York, the city rather than the former server. I wondered what any Crescenters who know the place might recommend for a family of four children ages 6,9,40 and 41...?
Leveraging your existing vocabulary
[pen] Who says? As Stevie observes, the only thing you achieve with that kind of reactionary thinking is to put yourself on the wrong side of history. :-) It's one thing to dislike a usage, or even to shun it in your professional capacity; it is quite another to proscribe it.
A little research suggests that leveraged, at least, has been in established use for more than a century.
A little research suggests that leveraged, at least, has been in established use for more than a century.
(blamelewis) Your parents are scarcely older than my nieces.
Leveraging the ante
[CdM] First, 'levveraging' is so ugly (leeveraging is the lesser of two evils, when uttered) and second, i'm triying to make sure the text is as clear as poss for as many readers of varying fluency (of English and of business jargon, for that's what it is) as poss. There's usually another way to say it. If you want my job, come and try. But for now, I'm in the editor's chair.
Never winter in the Bahamas
[pen] "verbed". You ironied your opening salvo. Well done.
[pen] There is usually another way to say everything. So what? As I said, you're free to make whatever aesthetic judgments you like in your personal or professional capacity. I was merely objecting to your statement that leverage "should never" be used as a verb, even though fluent native English speakers do in fact use it as a verb, and have done so for a long time—in other words, your belief that your particular preference deserves the status of a universal style rule. :-)
Fluent Native English Speakers
Not the Yanks, then.
[CdM] If I wanted to perpetuate the discussion (which I don't - there are much funnier things to talk about), I'd point to the fact that not even Google Chrome's spellchecker recognises 'leveraging'. (Nor does it recognise 'spellchecker' so that's my argument sunked before it's even gottenstarted. So much for trying to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to new languageisms).
Did you hear the first show in the new series of ISIHAC last night? (Now online if you want to catch up)
Did you hear the first show in the new series of ISIHAC last night? (Now online if you want to catch up)
Oblig. Cross-posting apology
I don't suppose any of you fancy a friendly game of cricket this Sunday afternoon, in idyllic West Berkshire (10 mins from M4 junction 12), versus The Observer. If you, or anyone you know, would like to take part, we have a couple of places available, due to a fixture clash with a 6-a-side tournament. email me at philqjones@carbosynth.com, replacing the q with a dot. ASAP. Cheers.
cricket
Aching from an intense match yesterday. The opposition included a former Middlesex U-19 fast bowler. Very fast! And a former Essex seconds team all-rounder, who hit 139 not out! We are a pub team with an average age of about 45 and I don't think any of us had ever faced such a fast bowler. We tried to bat out for a draw, but failed with 6 overs left once they brought the fast bowler back on against our tail. Most unsporting, what-ho!
Holland?
[penelope, or anyone else] The Dutch football supporters on TV last night appeared to be chanting "Holland! Holland!" That confused me as I thought it as just us that called The Netherlands "Holland". Can someone explain?
[Phil] I think Hollanders call the Netherlands "Holland" for the same reason that Englanders call the UK "England".
Hup Holland Hup!
Because it's football. It's allowed in football apparently, according to Twitter last night while that very boring match was on. 'Holland' (as you probably know) is more accurately North Holland and South Holland, two of the 12 provinces in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. North Holland contains Amsterdam, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands used to be run from Amsterdam - possibly that's it. It's an historical reason.
BTW, Nederlanders call the UK 'Engeland'. All of it. Scotland, Wales and NI too. And on TV news programmes too, probably for exactly the same reasons.
BTW, Nederlanders call the UK 'Engeland'. All of it. Scotland, Wales and NI too. And on TV news programmes too, probably for exactly the same reasons.
Nederlanders call the UK 'Engeland'
[penelope] By curious coincidence so do Americans. I like encouraging them to say "Wales, England" or "Scotland, England" in their charming accents.
Oh how we laughed...
[Stevie] It works like a charm right up to the point where you try to buy a train ticket to that destination.
(pen) Do you mean to say the Dutch can't pronounce Machynlleth? Whatever next?
[Rosie] Corris Youth Hostel, 1972ish.
Newly arrived party from Oop North: "We just come over th'ill".
Me: Which "thill" was that?
NAPFON: "Cadder Eye-driss"
Me: " It's pronounced 'Cadder ID-riss'. Where did you come from?"
NAPFOM: "Borth! Dornt gu t'Borth!"
Me: "I certainly won't. Where are you headed next?"
NAPFOM: "Muh KIN lith"
Me: "It's pronounced Muh CHIN lith"
NAPFON: "Oh. Right. Ta."
Me: "Don't mention it"
It occurs to me now, having written this down and read it over, that it is just possible that the NAPFON may have misunderstood that last line as a polite response to their thanks, rather than an earnest instruction not to speak the name "Mu CHIN Lith" aloud. Such misunderstandings have been irritatingly frequent in my life.
Scheveningen
I shan't mention it.
Too easy
(pen) "Ch" is guttural and separate from the "s". First "e" short; the others are schwas. Next up - Dwygyfylchi. Dim gŵglio.
Dwygyfylchi
"Diggy-figgy"?
that town on the coast
[Rosie] No. S-[swallow-the-back-of-your-tongue-noise]-ay-ferni-[swallow-the-G]-en. *wink*
(pen) Well, I was nearly right. Nearly, sort of.
(Raak) Close. In Wikipaedia it gives the correct IPA representation then f***s it up completely with an English version and gives the wrong meaning. I don't know what the meaning is except that it's two something-or-others. Dwy ("Doo-ee", but very "back") is the feminine form of dau = "two".
(Raak) Close. In Wikipaedia it gives the correct IPA representation then f***s it up completely with an English version and gives the wrong meaning. I don't know what the meaning is except that it's two something-or-others. Dwy ("Doo-ee", but very "back") is the feminine form of dau = "two".
What about Wrotham and Meopham?
Or indeed Gotham and Haugham?
Gotham City
(pen) Goat-em. I knew that anyway but Haugham is a guess. Hoff-em?
'Haffem' - hamlet where me mum and dad lived just before I was born.
So: There was a young lady of Haugham..........
Root-em, Mepp-em, BTW.
Root-em, Mepp-em, BTW.
New office sport
Bluebottle Tennis. Open the window in your office, and the door at the opposite end of the room. You and your colleague compete to chase the fly out using copies of the alumni magazine and the Annual Report.
Saturday morning giggles
I've just read Phil's brilliant concluder to the latest limerick and laughed out loud. Despite my best efforts to drag the standard down, he's made a classy ending.
Lower the Standard!
[pen] Don't give up!
per severance.
Right folks, the eight-word game is on its last legs. Your suggestions please for something to fill its place. Perchance a Book Club or a Song Book? Or something entirely new? May I suggest 'The Dead Tractor Game' - a brilliant title, but as yet, no strategy, game-plan, purpose or indeed winning move behind it. But I live in the countryside, you know.
I know a joke about someone run over by a tractor... It's not very good. This will, of course, not stop me.
I listen to ISIHAC online from the BBC iPlayer in bed as I fall asleep giggling. This week, it has taken me three nights to get to the end of the programme. I'm still not sure whether or not I have heard the end.
Just thought I'd say "hi" to everyone. I've had a quiet couple of weeks off work to help get my head together a bit. It's been a difficult year so far, and I reached a point where I hit a wall, mentally. I couldn't have asked for better weather during the last fortnight, which has certainly helped chill me out a bit. Back to work again today, part-time for a bit, and feeling a bit shaky, but should survive.
[Phil] Just be kind to yourself. Then you can do the same for others. Hope everything's moving in the right direction.
HAppy August
Last day of work before three weeks of holiday, followed by one day back in the office, then four days in Edinburgh for a conference. Not back to work 'proper' until September. Easy life.
[Phil] Just to echo pen's words and wish you a smooth return to work.
ONe week later...
So it's all a bit quiet. Does anyone want any green beans? We have far more than we can eat. I'm going to leave a table of them out on the street for passers-by to take. On a positive note, we're managing to keep up with the tomatoes, because we eat them at EVERY MEAL. *pip*
Tachyveg
How fast are these tomatoes going?
Tomato Zoom
We've been away for two weeks and got back this morning, Luckily, it has been SO RAINY at home that the tomato plants are still producing. And so are the courgette plants. Does anyone want a marrow?
Edinburgh-bound
I'm in Edinburgh from Tuesday until Friday afternoon, conferencing. Is anyone about? Rab?
*waves from Edinburgh*
*waves from Rotterdam a week later* I've been travelling for so long now, I can't even remember the way around my own kitchen. I'm looking forward to just being at home for a bit. And BTW, I saw His Maj the King of the Netherlands yesterday at the university's official opening of the academic year. And I had a hand in the speech of the retor magnificus too. He wasn't boo-ed off, which was a relief.
I have just seen the Prints of Whales at the Fitzwilliam Museum. I said to hm, "Still not king?", no that doesn't work unless you read it aloud. Prints. Of Whales. Really.
[Raak] I was going to follow up with a song title to do with Diana worrying about Charles' erectile dysfunction, but thought better of it.
Buggerbuggerbugger
[pen] Sorry. I've been neglecting these parts somewhat recently. For about the last three years in fact. I was vaguely aware a visit was imminent. Annoyed at missing it. Poo.
flying scotsvisit
[Rab] No worries. I'm sure we'll path crosses again before too long.
In other news, there has been a British-registered car parked in the driveway of the recently-sold house on the corner for three days now, and the lights in the house are burning in the evenings. I'm trying to keep the kitchen door open when The Archers' theme tune is playing, to give them 'the signal'. Did any of you lot know that an invasion had been planned? This is *so* exciting.
In other news, there has been a British-registered car parked in the driveway of the recently-sold house on the corner for three days now, and the lights in the house are burning in the evenings. I'm trying to keep the kitchen door open when The Archers' theme tune is playing, to give them 'the signal'. Did any of you lot know that an invasion had been planned? This is *so* exciting.
The British neighbours
They have not responded to the 'Barwick Green' signal yet. I actually dreamt I met them last night - and didn't like them. Do I sound obsessed? What I absolutely mustn't do is go round, knock on the door and introduce myself. That would be so not English - they might take me for a foreigner.
Why not take them a lump of coal? You don't have to treat them as Southern English people?
On the other hand, they might be Dutch expats who have returned home.
The suspense is killing me. There's also a Dutch registered car there now. I think Phil might be right. What's wrong with staying in the UK???!
[pen] pots and kettles spring to mind...
Windmills
Incidentally, I discovered on Sunday that I'm only a 30 minute drive from this windmill
Barrel distortion
(Phil) I thought the earth was flat. Well, you know what I mean.
Putting the sails back on
[Phil] Splendid. Great photos too.
Greetins, ye pasty-faced landlubbers.
And what be it to ye, Stevie, y'old brigand?
Arr, Ahoy Black Phil! An I see ye have a firkin o' rum with ye.
Blast! Me cognomen fell of me postin, so it did! Yarr! Me cognomenclature be awash! To the bilge pumps me hearties!
Seven Days and a a bottle of rum
So do y'reckon he's dead, Cap'n? He's been in the cells for a week now and never shouted for any food nor beer...
In other words, no-one has said owt for a week. I'll break the silence. We've bought a house. It only took us three years to find one. I'm thinking of crowd-funding it.
In other words, no-one has said owt for a week. I'll break the silence. We've bought a house. It only took us three years to find one. I'm thinking of crowd-funding it.
Service announcement
Just to let you know I'm in the process of migrating to a new server, so there will be a short period sometime in the next week or so where you won't be able to post.
Curious...
I seem to have broken the Whoops! button, without having actually done anything. Very odd. Must investigate.
*Shouts down into the cellar where the meter box is* Are you alright in there rab?
Ah, I'd better not post this, then.
Aha
Turns out I just needed to resynch the index. As Neneh Cherry very nearly once sang.
The new server is ready and waiting; I have requested the swap-over to take place on Wednesday. Since this doesn't involve any changes to DNS, everyone should be working with the same copy, but this version will go read-only before this happens so that no moves get lost as the database copy takes place.
Welcome to our new home!
What time is it?
Any better?
Is it properly insulated?
[rab] It looks just the same as the last one. Am I missing something?
No
It's just that all the existing code and database has been moved to a new machine. So it should look exactly the same. Except it's probably about time I did another revamp, if only I had any time to do anything at all, these days.
*is happy that everything looks as it should* I've been out there. It's not pretty. Gawd bless you Morniverse.
Long term parking.
The card-reader car park barriers on campus failed as I was going through them this morning, and I had to wait while they re-booted the system before the barrier lifted and I could get in. When I swiped my card (they charge 1 euro 75 a day for parking, the swines) it showed I had a credit of 9,999 euros on my card. It should be about 37 euros. I wonder...
A week is a long time in Mronington Crescent
Last night in Ikea, the windy miller and I bought two plastic storage boxes, and four new sheets for all the guest beds we're going to have. Looks like the moving process has actually started. *gulp*
[pen] How many self-invited guests will you be able to house?
[Phil] Three standing, two sitting down.
Oops, my mistake - that's the configuration of the gents in the pub. Ummm.. two spare double bedrooms. I aim to have a single in one of those too. Give us a few months to get sorted out, then bring any or all of the Phillettes to sample the beers just over the border in Belgium and see the windy miller's mill in Zeeland.
Oops, my mistake - that's the configuration of the gents in the pub. Ummm.. two spare double bedrooms. I aim to have a single in one of those too. Give us a few months to get sorted out, then bring any or all of the Phillettes to sample the beers just over the border in Belgium and see the windy miller's mill in Zeeland.
I'm going in, I may be some time...
While all you Blighty-bound Crescenters are internetless because of the storm, I'm going to make a move in EVERY game. Watch me...
Storm?
What storm?
Storm
Arghsplutterkoffkoffglug! Up scope!
Did someone lose a storm, 'cos I've got one here I don't need.
So you are to blame for that sneaky redirect in the weather coding. Shame on you!
three weeks to go
We move in three weeks. Eeeek. When should I start packing do you think?
Packing it.
You should already be under way, penelope. Having moved a few times yourself you should be aware of that. First are the non-essentials - the things you can do without for a few weeks. Then there's the bits and pieces you dither over - if you are dithering then pack it. The aim is to have everything bundled up or boxed by two days before the move. Keep a couple of plates and a few pieces of cutlery plus bedding and clothing to get you through; these can be bundled up and tossed into the car boot along with any food you are taking with you when you leave. Remember that unpacking can be as much work (if not more) than stowing your stuff so label clearly what's in the boxes as it'll save you lots of time at the other end. Bon voyage. :)
[pen] ASAP, basically. We've moved in 1998, 2000, 2003 (twice), 2004, 2006, 2011, 2012, 2013. It doesn't get easier, as we have more stuff every time we move, but we are better at it. Twice we've done it at a week's notice, which adds to the fun!
I suspect your move might be harder than most due to it being the Windy Miller's first, so good luck!
I suspect your move might be harder than most due to it being the Windy Miller's first, so good luck!
A moveable feast
[Phil, Duj] I think you're both right. I moved in 1997, 1998 (twice), 1999, 2007 and 2009. I may have forgotten how much I hate it, but I'm so looking forward to the new house. It'll be good in the end. It's perhaps 15 or 16 rungs up the property ladder from our tired old terraced house. Now... how to transplant the sapling hazelnut tree grown from a nut found under a hedge during a picnic while on holiday in Brittany which is hanging onto its leaves. I'm going to start digging a ring around the roots - a bit deeper every few days - so that we can lift it in a couple of weeks.
The tree
Does the new place have more storage space / shed space? if so, you can't go wrong :)
treensplantation
[penelope] good luck with that. Expect the wretched thing to go into shock for two years anyway.
Hard to say about the storage thing. It has fewer cupboards, but more rooms, and it has hidey-holes in the 'berging', the Toblerone-shaped spaces over the eaves created by bedrooms up in the roof. But I'm aware that if I shove box after box into the berging spaces, they might be shuffled so far away from the access hatches that I'll never see them again, and neither will anyone else until the house is eventually demolished. (Oh no. I've just put into words the fear that will become my house-moving nightmare for the next 6 months.) There's also a garage under the house and a big (and properly roofed) space under the massive deck. This morning I gave ALL my money to the solicitor; I don't have a running-away fund any more. Eeek.
[penelope] When facing the same situation (Mrs Stevie packs her ever-growing collection of Xmas Tree Tat into the 'berging' on our hours) I seriously considered installing a small tramway like that used to ferry prisoners through Tom, Dick and Harry.
You could make the rails from wooden 1x1 screwed to plywood bed and run the trucks between them rather in the manner of the Montreal Metro. You make the trucks from plywood or MDF with large non-swivel castors mounted on for wheels. The furthest one away has a stout rope attached to it. To load tat into berging simply add a truck, then pile on tat. When it is full, push the truck down the track and add another. To retrieve tat, pull on the rope to bring trucks back up the line.
Mind you don't make your house fall on its side with all the weight though. You may need to counterbalance the house with lead shot in the gutters.
[penelope] Though you might need to brace the gutters with long poles to prevent them tearing off the house too.
Sounds like a good excuse for flying buttresses to me.
I'm laughing out loud because lead shot has been illegal for years, and we'd only need to weight the house down on one side, because the other side is build off the edge of the dijk. (ie the front door is at road level, but the back door is a floor below, at the bottom of the dijk).
[penelope] *sighs* it is only called lead shot. It is made from less politically harmful materials now to avoid unnecessary hysteria in the unchemist poplace.
Hidden text
The only non-fish lethalities ever sustained by lead shot would appear to involve a delivery system based on gunpowder or nitrocellulose and a stout metal tube through which to guide the said lead shot to the lethalee at high speed. The danger posed by lead in massive form has always been more to the politicians than to the public. The only person to have died from a non-paint lead-involved non-shooting in New York was, I believe, a child killed by a falling sash weight. It is left as an exercise for the reader to calculate the cost benefits involved in this nonsense.I have to say that joining the EC has made of England a land of scaredy-cat weenie runaway sissies. I was lectured last month by someone in the UK offended that I had the audacity to suggest on a forum using acetone as a cleaner for metal, and last year was taken to task for my Hitler-like suggestion that brake fluid would fetch paint off plastic quite effectively.
I clean my glasses with whiteboard cleaner, AKA Isopropyl Alcohol, largely because it's provided free at work. It works a treat. I've been toying with taking it home to try removing some stubborn chewing gum.
Plumbic indiscretions
(Stevie) Yes, metallic lead is not a hazard. My mains water comes through several feet of lead pipe. I've just made a little counterweight for my trombone out of lead from an old car battery which involved melting it and bashing it into shape. It's worth not ingesting lead compunds though and the banning of tetraethyl lead from petrol was a good thing.
I wouldnt't say it was joining the EU that has made us so risk-averse; they have just added an extra layer of absurdity to a process that started about 30 years ago in which we decided to become princesses, or as I prefer it, spoilt wankers. Acetone, BTW is one of the least toxic organic chemicals, comparable with ethanol, i.e you can drink it, preferably diluted.
I wouldnt't say it was joining the EU that has made us so risk-averse; they have just added an extra layer of absurdity to a process that started about 30 years ago in which we decided to become princesses, or as I prefer it, spoilt wankers. Acetone, BTW is one of the least toxic organic chemicals, comparable with ethanol, i.e you can drink it, preferably diluted.
Apologies
Ummm, that last post from Stevie was from me, and was supposed to be addressed to Stevie. I claim tiredness as my excuse.
Apologies
Umm, that last post from Phil was from me, and was supposed to be addressed to Phil. I claim tiredness as my excuse. *wink*
(Phil, aka Stevie) IPA (chemists' term for isopropyl alcohol) won't shift chewing gum. That stuff is little better than an organic version of Blu-Tak, i.e. resistant to almost anything. Try a blowlamp. This post is from penelope, who has broadened her portfolio, as they say.
Broadened her what?
Actually, for choongum, rub with icecubes until cold and brittle, then take a bloody great hammer and chisel to it.
Bubblegum will often yield to a stint in the deep freeze. Oh, penelope already said that. To keep with the theme of chemical application: Try pouring a little liquid nitrogen on the bubblegum (and anything else your scientific interest in catastrophic failure under cryogenic shock lights upon - pens, fruit esp. grapes, and rubber gloves are classic favorites) and carefully prying it off. Use At Own Risk - not responsible for shattered glasses, pullovers, cricket bats, shoe-soles or whatever.
Weak end
Working my last afternoon before a bunch o' weeks off. I'll be packing boxes, chucking stuff out and MOVING HOUSE! I'm back in the office for three days in the middle before we actually get the keys, but I'm not going to tell anyone about that because I don't want any distractions from writing the Annual Report.If they know I'm here, they send me work to do.
Jolly good limerick...
(Phil) Would you mind if I borrowed your limerick (appropriately cited of course)? The one that begins 'The choirmaster asked for staccato'... I think it would amuse people if placed in the members' newsletter of the choir I'm in.
Limerick snaffling...
[Knobbly] Not at all. I'd be honoured :)
No postings from Penelope. I wonder if she is crouched in her new basement hiding from the vengeful revenant of Bonkers the Clown (aka the Straight-Razor Fiend of Chipperfield's) while clouds of flies spell "GET OUT" on the windows?
Not sure what all that was about...
I'm surrounded by boxes. That's all. We get the keys on Friday 14 November. Please don't tell me tales about scary clowns...
Mrs Stevie and I spent a weekend in a hotel recently on account of it being our 27th wedding anniversary. I suggested we mark the Chateau Stevie bathroom mirror with the words "GET OUT" in soap so it would show up when the Stevieling had a shower. We decided that it would be too mean to scare her this way, as she has a very active imagination. We were split over the alternate plan of writing "CLEAN YOUR ROOM" on the mirror though.
Soap for Windows
[Stevie] So what did you write on the mirror in the end? (And congrats on your anniversary)
Nothing, of course. I'd never do anything to scare her without being there to make it all better afterward (or give her someone to yell at, which amounts to the same thing). I just fake being mean.
(pen) And polish for Google Chrome?
Polish/polish?
The language or to make it shiny?
(Giertrud) The shiny stuff. I wouldn't use lower case for a language though I suppose the French do.
We moved house!
It's bloomin lovely! But... we have two wifi networks, neither of which reach into our bedroom, so I can't listen to Radio 4 in bed any more. Boo.
Luxury! I dream of a house so big that two wifi networks still can't reach all of it! I don't know the technicalities, but is there some sort of relay device that would extend the range?
WDS
...is the buzzword. But Dan is probably yer man for this sort of thing as he always seems to come up with the best solution first time.
[rab] What a nice thing to say. [pen] Depends on the character of the problem. If I were in a big old house with thick old building materials I'd consider powerline adapter/access points, which would obviate the wiring problem and the signal-blocking walls problem and let you put wifi whereever you need it. It's also worth looking at whether the access points you have are up-to-date, as powerful/sensitive as they might be and reasonably sited to where you actually want them, and move/replace as appropriate. I just put in this model, originally intending to mount it in the ceiling central to the house -- there are generally fewer things to get in the way and absorb signal higher up -- but as it's a bungalow it's reaching everything quite well just sitting on a desk in the basement. What's nice about this one is that it projects signal in all directions including above and below, so it's ideal for placing in a ground floor ceiling of a two storey house. But again, I don't know what exactly what problem we're solving here.
I should have mentioned that yes, there are range extenders and they're probably fine, I just have no experience with them because they annoy the purist in me - one radio hop to the wired network ought to be enough for anyone. Plain repeaters are inexpensive and you can just stick one in, but effectively halve your wireless bandwidth. WDS by contrast is a relatively expensive technology which would require you to start from scratch and buy all the units from a single vendor. Again, I'd start by looking at the placement and performance of the ones you have.
And congratulations on moving in! When's the NetherPilg?
Ah yes
I'd forgotten about Powerline.
Crossed wires
Yes, the power line systems work, but . . .
Beware if you have two or three phases for the house supply. It'll most likely cause much frustration should each end of the supposed circuit be on different phases.
Beware if you have two or three phases for the house supply. It'll most likely cause much frustration should each end of the supposed circuit be on different phases.
Well, I said I'd consider it, there's quite a bit that can go wrong with them; they work best on the same circuit which might rule them out for a given installation; some stop working while an unshielded motor is running, such as a paper shredder or sink disposal or some below-spec appliance. It's usually good to buy from a business with a 30-day unconditional return policy so you can try these things out.
Before going that way the first thing to try is to just move your existing APs, try different channels, fiddling with the antennae, and then move on to testing out more powerful units. Newer 802.11ac units like the one I linked have multiple antennas and beamforming technology and are pretty good at getting a stable connection through walls. That one's Power over Ethernet as well so you don't to position it near a mains socket, though that raises the cost a little more since you need an injector to supply current. (Note also if you ever buy PoE network gear always use an injector that the manufacturer has tested, not whatever's cheap.)
baffled by the science of it
Erm... it's a new house, and has a concrete structure, so there's at least 2 concrete walls/floors between the router (at dijk/road level) and the bedroom (lower floor). I guess we'll have the same problem when I get my top floor office working too. We've got one of the powerline adapter/access points, but I think it's too far away from the router - I need to use another socket. I'll start moving it about later this week when I get time. I don't need an enormous amount of bandwidth downstairs - I only listen to the radio in headphones in bed, that's all. Thanks for all the thinking.... I'll relay it to my technical consultant (aka the windy miller)
I always think new houses should have some accommodation for adding and updating the wiring. I just added ethernet ports in the bedrooms and it was a real pain doing it in a non-destructive, not-unsightly way in this 1915 house. Still don't have a neat way to do it in the living room but since the lazy slobs who installed cable TV for a previous owner just did it by drilling a hole in the hardwood floor, for now I just repurposed that. It's ugly but it's under a cabinet so I can ignore it.
Speaking as a hardwood floor driller of yore, sometimes it is the only way short of removing an entire wall and who needs the walls out at Christmas? The good thing about hardwood is it also comes in dowel form so a hole is only there until the wall has to come out anyway.
But if you don't take the wall out at Christmas how do you get the tree in? I hope you're not suggesting lowering it through the hole in the roof, as that would entail making the hole needlessly large; normally said hole only has to accommodate the tree's upper span.
There Was I, A-Drillin' This 'Ole
And just to show me, today I was required to drill one(1) hole in the exposed soleplate of the living room wall so I could finally address the "no ground connection" issue in the sockets we plan on plugging the brand-new, Mrs Stevie for the use of, 48 inch wide flat screen "smart" TV into.
Hidden text
I wonder if that was why the old Philips 27 inch CRT had a bendy picture all these years; do TV electric gubbins use the ground as a reference of some sort? I dunno. At least we no longer have a current carrying ground now I got the supply upgraded and a proper ground installed. The old ground strap used to work loose from the water pipes and it looked like we had an arc welder running down there. What?Having made several careful calculations and measurements I sat on the basement stairs, carefully located the groundless cable with Mr Hand and felt the extra-long electrician's drill-bit into place (no line of sight, you see) and by dint of swearing and sheer stick-toitiveness I punched a 5/16ths hole one quarter inch away from the skirting board straight through our hardwood floor. Extra poignancy was lent to this fiasco by my only discovering the fact after feeding four feet of wire through the hole and wondering where it was all going as I couldn't see it in the hole I made in the stairwell wall to do all the wire-fu where no-one would see it. I could hear the wire scratching at the wall but couldn't find it through my access hole (which was perfectly aligned with the junction boxes, so one in the win column even if swamped by the floods of incompetence happening all around me).
The anti-handiman spirits are clearly in your pocket Dan. Well played, sir. Well played.
Now, having run sixty feet of green-clad wire from the socket back to the power distribution center I'm off out dowel shopping.Hidden text
I could have lazed-out and run three feet of wire to the nearest circuit with a ground, but then I'd have disconnected that circuit at some point in the future when I'd long forgotten about the TV socket and that would be a juicing waiting in ambush the next time I fiddled with the TV hookup
'Andy [Mac]Dowel[l]
Clearly the answer is to manufacture flooring with a regular pattern of what appear to be little round inlays but which are in fact pre-installed dowels; when you need a hole you just tap one out.
(Stevie) "Dowel shopping" sounds like a euphemism for some dubious activity. Don't do it.
And the Flat Screen TV c/w HD cable TV hookup and integration into the WiFi has Mrs Stevie smiling and heaping me with compliments and thank-yous in between bouts of binge Netflix-ing.
Next up: re-introducing surround-sound via the miracle of the wireless soundbar and removing to another place of the DVD player that opens only to close before you can load or unload a disc.
[Dan Re: Pre-made knockouts in the floor] Where's the fun in that? More to the point, where's the clear opportunity to deploy The Rule? Admittedly, this time all I got out of it was a couple of new spiral saw bits "needed" to saw out the hole in the sheetrock (actually, I should pull the 66s and 99s on account of me not being able to come up with an alternative method of cutting such a close-fitting hole without serious danger of cutting the cable too. (A lie, I have a small circular saw made out of an angle grinder that would have done almost as good a job while at the same time posing perhaps the greatest hazard to the user I have ever personally seen in a commercially available tool, and that includes the gas-powered chain-saw mounted on a ten foot pole and that never-to-be-sufficiently-damned McCulloch weed-wacker))
If your new TV supports HDMI-CEC it should work well with your Raspberry Pi. I paid more than the price of a Pi just for a CEC dongle for my XBMC box, but boy is it nice, you can use the TV remote for everything and let all the others moulder in a drawer. (You can sort of achieve the same result with a smartphone or tablet, but then you have to use separate apps for the TV and XBMC, the Viera app is pants, and it's really unhandy to slide between screens to get to the various controls.) It helps if your soundbar is also CEC compatible and connected to the ARC port. It means I can turn off the TV and just listen to music streams on the sound bar. (For that I do need to use the tablet or phone.)
Now if only my supposedly fanless HTPC actually ran stably without a fan. Fear to click: my USB fan hack. (The two sticky-up things to the right are external antennas I bodged onto it because the factory wifi was rubbish and if I'm going to have a Linux box next to a window I'll make it an access point so I can listen to streaming radio while snipping things in the garden.)
eh?
Ehndeed.
Sorry, should have prefaced that with "[Stevie]".
[Dan] I was lost at "dowel" ;-)
Integrated System Blues
Well, I need something. The Vizio soundbar has it's own remote (intended to be used to configure it before the Vizio TV remote takes control and of greatest use to turn down the stupid levels of "awesome" factory configured into the sub-woofer) is pathetic and doesn't match the aesthetics of the black-with-colored-buttons of the Sony kit (TV and Disc Player) or the Cablevision (A silver ST:TNG phaser-like affair needed to change the cable channels). I finally got the Sony TV remote to control the soundbar, then realized I needed the cable remote to do that, but in making it recognize the telly (so the on/off button would work) ended up not being able to mute the television sound so it doesn't f*ck-up the surround sound panorama.
It is all very trying and a big argument in favor of buying all one manufacturer's kit (the disc player instantly integrated remote-wise with the telly).
The best picture seems to be with Blu-Ray discs, which look staggeringly good, followed by Netflix and other HD netty content, then HD cable and other signals a distant last place. The picture from all the non-disc sources seems (to me) to have the actors standing like cutouts in front of the backdrop. This is probably a matter of dialing down some factory preset. All the preset "modes" I found were eye-hurtingly bad; too bright (refelcting surfaces flared like Novae), too red, cartoonish sharpness etc. Once I killed the red by about 50%, made the sharpness a tad higher and knocked the shine off it all looked very nice indeed.
Everyone else in the extended family (who are all HD ents veterans) will probably feel the picture isn't colorful enough, but as I said to Mrs Stevie, I can't watch a face that has livid blotches all over it so I'd be grateful if she'd move out of my eye-line so I could see the screen to adjust it.
I was also mizled over the wireless bit of the soundbar, which was only between the sub-woofer and the bar, not to each of the satellite speakers as I had been led to believe.
I imagine watching me trying to buy all this stuff was very like watching the sketch from Not the 9 O'Clock News where Mel Smith tries to buy a gramophone and Rowan Atkinson tries not to sell him one.
What have I started?
Our telly has a "store display mode" which I think just means an obnoxiously bright picture. The thing about this is that, in principle, it is activated by drilling down about eight levels of menus. However there appears to be an undocumented shortcut that is trivial for a three-year old to activate. I wish I knew what it was, and whether this shortcut also deactivates it, because the menus that take you there are all obscurely named and give you the impression you're going to get it to self-destruct.
While we're on the subject...
I'm thinking of getting a new TV to replace my ancient CRT, maybe in the post-pre-Christmas sales. However, my needs are rather specialised. I have no aerial, satellite, cable, or indeed a TV licence, and don't need any of these, as I only use it for watching DVDs. I'd like to also be able to watch video streamed from any of my computers or coming from the internet. What's the simplest way of enabling that, given that the desktop machine is upstairs and the TV is downstairs? Ideally I'd be able to sit downstairs and tap on my iPad or MacBook Pro to make TV stuff happen. Would it just be a matter of having a TV with a wifi connection (do TVs have wifi these days?) and setting it up as a second screen on my laptop (can laptops mount extra displays over wifi?)? Or something else?
In My Recently Experienced Opinion
Smart TV. Switch it on, acquaint it with your network password, wait five minutes while it updates its firmware and Bob's your uncle.
Of course, you'll have to fiddle with the levels to make it look right, but it's pretty much an out of the box and up-and-running experience for something with a computer inside it.
The important thing then becomes how many HDMI holes it has in the back vs. the number of cables you want feeding the thing.
Which in your case is one, but I'd demand two just in case you ever decide you'd like cable TV or whatever.
Cables
The ideal number of cables is zero, but I see there are such things as wifi to HDMI convertors. Presumably these do what the name suggests? A lot of them seem to be tied to specific services.
[Raak] Given that you use OSX and iOS devices I suggest you get the most basic TV that has the picture size and quality you like, and an Apple TV. In addition to having far more and better apps than a 'Smart TV', it will stream pretty much anything from your phone, iPad and Macs.
The trouble with Smart TVs is that they can be pretty poorly maintained when it comes to software updates; a year or two in and they're basically abandonware. The only thing I use mine for (app-wise) is Netflix, because all my servers and things are Linux-based and can't do DRM. And the Netflix app is terrible.
If my home setup were Apple centric (and I didn't develop this sort of thing for fun and profit), the Apple TV would be all I'd get.
[Dan] I've wondered from time to time what the Apple TV is. It looks like the way to go. That will bring to a total of 6 the number of Apple things-with-computers-inside I have.
Having made that endorsement I have to add that every individual option has limitations. Apple TV's is that they have a slightly more old-skool than average walled-garden approach, and their app selection is consequently limited. For example, because they have their own digital video store, they don't support any competing online video rentals like Amazon, for example. But if you want that there's a pretty easy workaround: install the Amazon Instant Video app on your iPad and then stream it to the Apple TV via Airplay.
The reason I recommend it is because you'll be able to access all your content from your various computers -- certainly anything that can be put in iTunes, and that includes movies you rip yourself with third party software like handbrake or source in other ways we won't go into -- and anything that it doesn't provide an app for you can fling at it from one of those devices. And it does have the characteristic Apple virtue that what it does have is less broken than everybody else.
[Dan] I've heard other people talk about Chromecast, and I have even less idea what this does than an Apple TV. Does it play nice with iDevices? Is it any good?and err indeed what does it do? The website is a bit vague
[rab] It's a web streamer you control with an Android device or (to some extent) a chromebook or the chrome browser. Essentially most things you can do on your Android device you can 'cast' to your TV. It's a bit like a dumber Apple TV, one that doesn't have its own onboard apps but just plays what some other device sends it (or tells it to play -- the distinction is blurred).
Depending on whether the app's media type and location is supported by Chromecast, the 'source' device may actually be doing the work of fetching and rendering the material and 'casting' the A/V output to Chromecast, but commonly it's just sending the URL and various tokens and chromecast is doing the actual fetching/decoding.
It's similar to having an Airplay-only device on your TV; bearing in mind that they are similar protocols but not the same nor interchangeable. Its main disadvantage is that it can't play content that's local to your network, so if you have your own movies and things you have to play them on your device and screencast it to chromecast. Which may or may not be well supported and look decent. For several good reasons I'd rather tell the TV-attached gizmo "play this file, which you can find over on that computer", than tie up some other device playing it and throwing the video to the TV. You can do the latter with Apple TV as well, but the thing is you don't have to, at least for any content that's supported by iTunes.
For balance
There's a metric shedload of other ways to do this sort of thing, with various amounts of overlap and wheel reinvention. The Apple TV approach is one I recommend for someone who's already pretty invested in the Apple ecosystem. It's probably the quickest route to maximum versatility without going to a lot of expense or trouble. If you don't have least one iDevice and/or don't want to use iTunes for your local media, getting as complete a solution can be a little more complicated, though not necessarily more expensive and there are a few reasons why it might be worth the trouble.
[Raak] Sorry, I could have sworn I read your post as saying you intended to connect a disc player. Ignore HDMI cabling entirely.
[Stevie] I thought TVs all ran over HDMI these days? I do have a DVD player (other than my computers), but it and the TV are both so old they use SCART.
[Raak] You said you were going with a network-to-TV model. A smart TV will hunt for your network, ask for a password and then present you with whatever app-based interface it uses so you can start consuming content. No wires other than the power cable. You want to push a signal in over a wire, HDMI is the best way (but not usually the only way on a decent TV). You want to take the sound to somewhere it sounds decent (thin tellies mean small speakers, no resonant cavity and crappy sound) use an optical link (over a cable) to a soundbar for the most compact solution. You can buy a receiver later if you decide you need better sound.
I use wired ethernet for my smugsmart TV; no point in saturating the wireless network on a fixed device if you already have an ethernet drop nearby. It came with a separate WiFi USB dongle, which I repurposed on another machine after discovering it was a rather nice dual-band device based on the Atheros chipset. Netflix is all I use the TV's 'smart'ness for; I have played round with using it as a DLNA client but it's not nearly as nice as using the XBMC box.
I ended up buying a matched soundbar from the same vendor (Panasonic Viera), one that uses HDMI and connects to the ARC-enabled port on the TV, which means basically all three gizmos (HTPC+CEC running XBMC, TV and soundbar) can be controlled with just the TV remote. It also means if I turn off the TV and just use the HTPC/XBMC + soundbar for music, the xbmc mobile app can control the speaker volume.
It's all basically as straightforward and usable as it can get. If I were going to buy a Smart TV again I might get a Samsung or Vizio, as there's a Plex app available for both. Which is a whole nother topic. (I don't use Plex myself but it's what I'd recommend to pretty much anyone I didn't recommend Apple TV to, i.e. someone who doesn't have a houseful of predominantly Apple goodies already.)
[Dan] Yeah, but you are clever.
I avoided the price-attractive Vizio after reading a large number of reviews of later models that suffer from persistent random reboot issues. No point in a smart TV that can't be a TV reliably IMO. The picture on my Father-in-Law's Samsung (dumb) TV is outstanding.
I went Sony only because I have a good experience with Sony products, their tech support was rated higher than everyone else's and they offer four HDMI inputs to everyone else's two. It seemed to me that I'd be bunging wires into it from all over the place and better to find I had too many sockets than too few. I'm also familiar with the Sony video family "quirks" and it seemed likely I would have a better time getting the clown out of the picture.
[Stevie] FWIW I think the Plex client is available for Sony TVs as well. What I'm thinking there is that if a chap wanted to get by with just his smart tv plus whatever PC or file server somewhere in the house had all his own perfectly legal, honest media, putting the Plex server software on that PC or NAS would spackle over the crevices. Notably by providing a transcoding DLNA server, because smart TVs usually only handle certain formats and packages.
I think it's better to go with the direct-connected HTPC because transcode-network-decode-display is a lot more bother than just decode-display; but not having a HTPC would be attractive if your Smart TV was actually smart enough to do everything you want, and playing local media in whatever format is a major sticking point.
A New Era In TV Ents
I've been binge-watching the US version of House of Cards and although I loved the original I can't for the life of me understand the vitriolic hate for this one I've heard and read. It is gripping, reasonably faithful in it's plot elements while moving the story believably into the quite different American political model. Kevin Stacy is a very worthy Francis Underwood. Sorry non-lovers, I think the show is well written, well cast and gripping even though I've seen the story once (or thrice) before.
I started a game. If it doesn't seem like a winner, please kill it with my blessing.
Do not feed hallucinogens to the alligators
I just did a Google search for 'do not feed', and got '...hallucinogens to the alligators' as the third result. Now I naturally want to know, why not?
(SM) 'Cos they'll snap your hand off as they go for it. They'll pop anything, those buggers. Helps them alligate, I'm told.
I'm not a big fan of alligation while under the influence of mind-altering drugs.
John Cleese is currently pushing his memoir here and, being the darling of everyone in the media, is popping up all over the place.
Yesterday he was being interviewed on NPR as I was driving home and the interviewer asked about the difference between what people, upon recognizing him, were likely to shout to him in America as opposed to the UK.
His answer was interesting but too long to go into here. It did, however, include a snippet that might allow for much japing should one of us encounter the great man in the future.
He said that often, people would make reference to sketches that he couldn't remember participating in, and he would just smile and nod and say something neutrally agreeable to fake it.
So the next time you see John Cleese, get close, make yourself known (this may involve acting as I know none of you would never slip into nudge-nudge, wink-wink territory normally, being too cool for that nonsense, but the payoff for doing so will, er, pay off) and say something like: "What about that time you were the astronaut lost among the vikings, who all turned out to be women? Talk about funny! I only saw it on DVD, and they blanked the punchline. What was it you said right at the end there, when "Mrs" Eric the Viking Idle showed you "her" buttocks and demanded an autograph?"
I forgot to mention that Cleese claims that the central theme to his work, his personal vision of what makes things funny, is the exasperated lack of understanding of the person trapped in a farcical situation. The parrot shop sketch was his illustration of the point. This is your chance to bring this home.
The hour by hour BBC weather forecast today shows the temperature due to rise from 8º at 11am steadily upwards to 12º at 5am tomorrow. Similar trend for Cambridge and London. How does the temperature keep on rising overnight?
The sun catches fire sometime in the early hours of the morning and rises in the sky, heating the earth. This was explained over at MCiOS I think, a few years ago. At around noon the sun goes "off the boil", the cooling air around it ceases to support its weight and it slowly crashes into the sea for the night. Can't remember who originally explained this. Might have been CdM or Breadmaster. Whoever it was clarified in one paragraph something that so-called "scientists" have failed to explain clearly during my entire life.
Christmas stuff
Don't worry, Raak, it's just Santa breaking in a couple of new reindeer for the Christmas Eve run. :)
Hot nights
(Raak) It happens quite a lot in the UK and higher latutudes. Warm air is being wafted in and its warmth easily obliterates the feeble solar effect at this time of year. There is also no heat loss by radiation with this sort of thing because these airstreams are always cloudy.
I once read something to the effect that the apparent diameter of the sun's disk is just about the same as the light curvature due atmospheric refraction (or is it gravity-bending? that sounds unlikely) when it reaches you at a tangent; with the net effect being that when the sun's disk just touches the horizon it's "really" entirely below it. And it's by this means we know that, like the light in your refrigerator when you close the door, the sun doesn't go out when it falls below the world's edge and everything you've been told otherwise is a damned lie.
[Dan] Take it up with CdM or Breadmaster. But before you do, consider: wouldn't your "width" theory mean that you'd be forever smashing the fridge light bulb in the door? Something about that doesn't ring true.
Can't help I'm afraid but do have a very Happy Christmas wherever you are. _, who is now 3, is already as manic as can be. Not sure how to burn off his energy...
(Dan) True. If you see the sun on the horizon it is geometrically just below it. It adds a few minutes to daylight at each end. It's refraction (strictly, differential refraction) not gravity-bending which would need a mind-bogglingly dense earth. On Venus the refraction is so large the horizon is above horizontal and it looks as if you're living in a bowl. A hot one, 460°C. No oxygen. Occasional showers of sulphuric acid.
(rab) See MCIOS, FUQs.
(rab) See MCIOS, FUQs.
(Dan, Stevie) Nor the light in the boot of your car.
wearing him out
[rab] Isn't there a version of those ball-throwing arm extensions for dogs that you can get for kids? Alternatively, send him off to an aunt and uncle for the afternoon.
Merry Xmas, all.
Merry Xmas, all.
Unfortunately the only aunt-uncle combo is based in NZ, so it'd be more than an afternoon...
energetic child
AFAIR playgrounds are good. Choose one with a convenient bench from which to watch. Or join in if you're not self conscious. Something requiring concentration, like Lego can be surprisingly tiring. The best thing is to forget your boring adult lifestyle and simply play all day.
[penelope] I looked everywhere but found no trace of these canine-oriented ball-atlatls you steered rab toward. How would the dog wield such a thing anyway, absent opposable thumbs? What rab needs is a keen, ankle-nipping bull terrier. Half an hour of being chased around the park by the dog will tire the child out nicely, and give him or her a healthy respect for vicious dogs.
Of course, if the dog is too keen there is a chance the plan will backfire as the dog chases you instead of the child.
To help prevent this possibility, soak the child's shoes in bacon grease before releasing the terrier.
Also, to minimize the risk of vigorous shoe-licking instead of ankle-nipping, thrash the dog soundly for five minutes a day with a side of bacon.
This sort of preparation escalation is why children should be avoided in the first place, of course.
kidavoidance
[Stevie] We have managed to do that. We are, however, expert in Unclage and Auntage, with the proviso that the assorted nephews, nieces, godchildren and fledged apprentices repay us by taking us for interesting outings when we are elderly.
monotonic temperatures
[Raak, a while back] Here in Melbourne a couple of years ago we had something like 40 hours (maybe more) of declining temperatures. I forget the details, but it was in the high 30s in the afternoon of Day 1, fell through the night, through all of Day 2, and through the following night. Only in the morning of Day 3 did the temperature start to rise again.
Colder and colder
(CdM) Interesting and unusual that the temperature fell throughout day 2. The wind must have gone from northerly round to south-westerly, but rather gradually.
(pen) Pah! I'm a great-uncle three times over. Avunculissimus!
(pen) Pah! I'm a great-uncle three times over. Avunculissimus!
Inconvenience Snow
Started snowing this morning, around 8-ish. Stopped now (10:20 local time). About 2-3 inches of annoyance scattered all over the place.
(Stevie) I find snow meteorologically interesting but in all other respects a pain in the arse. The roads round here are at full capacity anyway and the slightest disruption (a couple of inches) causes vehicular constipation of a high order. Nothing moves.
Banteration
I say, I say, I say. How about a new game to chivvy things up? A doggerel rhyming doodah? One of those complicated-johnnies that followed a limping pattern? Or maybe a songbook? Ferchrissakes, something, please! I'm really bored in the office this week.
From Dunx's Game Ideas Game
I had a squiz through the Game Ideas Game at Orange-MC, and quite liked this one:
From an idea by one of the Minecraft crew at Mojang:
Epic Job Titles: Fireman, policeman, accountant. These are bland job titles. Why not be an BATTLER OF THE INFERNO instead?
Shall we give that a go?
From an idea by one of the Minecraft crew at Mojang:
Epic Job Titles: Fireman, policeman, accountant. These are bland job titles. Why not be an BATTLER OF THE INFERNO instead?
Shall we give that a go?
Truth Director & Exposer (editor & proofreader)
[Simons] Yep.
I have just been out to see Comet Lovejoy.
(Raak) Did you see it? Optical aid? They've never interested me much - I prefer looking at the planets.
Yes, with binoculars. No chance of naked eye with the Moon so close. Even with binoculars, it was just a faint fuzzy blob, no tail visible. I'm assuming it was Lovejoy and not some boring nebula, as it was in the right general area.
(Raak) Not a sky in the cloud, as they say, here at the moment. We've had a bit of snow, not much.
sky
I'm pleasd to report the new house has great potential for skywatching. It's clear tonight and the sky is full of stars. But it's too bloomin' cold to stand out there and look. We have snow every two days and it's been hovering around freezing all week, but sunny, which is nice.
[penelope] That should have gone: "I'm pleased to report that the new house has great potential for skywatching ... on account of there being no roof to speak of on it. Handyman Special indeed."
great potential for skywatching suggests a real estate agent dictionary game.
Seconded
[Stevie] Yes!
Wish me luck.
I've got my annual appraisal in 10 minutes. The process is appalingly oblique and I think I'm supposed to want a promotion. Actually, I'd just like to get more skilled at the job I already do. I don't want to manage anyone. HR stinks.
I hope you came out feeling better than when you went in, penelope.
Managing your staff is fun. All the really difficult problems end up in your lap; lots of coffee (black two sugars) maintains your energy and keeps your brain sharp as well as causing palpitations; sleepless nights and constant worrying about everything and anything prepare you for the worst the world can throw at you; 80% of your time will be spent on trivial staff problems and internecine politics; 10% will involve pointless meetings - internal and external; that leaves 10% for 'proper' work, the stuff that matters. But wait, there's more. Managers don't get paid overtime so are expected to take work home for their attention at night and weekends.
Yes, penelope, I've lived in that world and it's not one which I would like to re-visit. Don't get me wrong though as it was exciting at the time. :)
Managing your staff is fun. All the really difficult problems end up in your lap; lots of coffee (black two sugars) maintains your energy and keeps your brain sharp as well as causing palpitations; sleepless nights and constant worrying about everything and anything prepare you for the worst the world can throw at you; 80% of your time will be spent on trivial staff problems and internecine politics; 10% will involve pointless meetings - internal and external; that leaves 10% for 'proper' work, the stuff that matters. But wait, there's more. Managers don't get paid overtime so are expected to take work home for their attention at night and weekends.
Yes, penelope, I've lived in that world and it's not one which I would like to re-visit. Don't get me wrong though as it was exciting at the time. :)
management schmanagement
[Duj] Thanks for that. In fact it went OK. He's 'pleased'. But it's just such a time-consuming process, and most of it seems to be to give the HR department something to do. (It was only last year that they gave us an online system for booking holiday time - until then we were crossing out squares on big sheets of brown card.)
On the plus side, I'm just about to send in a nomination for our alumni magazine (for what I am editor - not managing editor, mind - but editor - finding the pictures, making sure there's enough news to fill the empty pages left when one of the big star interviews pulls out etc) in the university marketing world's 'academy awards' (Oh how I laughed). I've written most of it already - quite impressed that I only have to add our names to it and get it in the post. Fingers crossed.
On the plus side, I'm just about to send in a nomination for our alumni magazine (for what I am editor - not managing editor, mind - but editor - finding the pictures, making sure there's enough news to fill the empty pages left when one of the big star interviews pulls out etc) in the university marketing world's 'academy awards' (Oh how I laughed). I've written most of it already - quite impressed that I only have to add our names to it and get it in the post. Fingers crossed.
Is it spring yet?
I'm still wearing thermal socks.
Not here it ain't
[penelope] Six inches of inconvenience all over the place again this morning. We went out to a friend's house for dinner yesterday and drove back through the snowstorm. I thought that was bad. Almost hit a car when the Steviemobile refused to stop and the car was accelerating between brake pulses - dunno why, could have been a mat caught on the gas pedal or I could have had my foot partially on it I guess, didn't feel like it but it has happened once before that my shoe has hung up on the velocitator and caused imminent trouser spoilage. Luckily I managed to shift into neutral so the brakes could stand a fighting chance of stopping us, which they did. Fortunately the Stevieling had shoveled out the drive before we got home, which is why you have kids in New York.
But all that paled into insignificance next to the drive to work, when I was caught behind two count-em two Toyota RAV4 4x4 Osamamobiles which were such a great option for the snow the drivers wouldn't assay more than 18 miles an hour the entire trip. The Steviemobile is front wheel drive and has traction control and is - yesterday's little moment of terror notwithstanding - great in the snow. I honestly wonder why anyone would buy one of those ugly 4x4 gas-guzzling monstrosities when there is such a better option available that costs about half the price and comes with a SULEV engine to boot.
Bright sunshine here, when it isn't raining. 60 mile bike ride last Sunday. The crosswinds were murder, though.
Snowing. Again.
Scorcher
It's sunny, and 10C (50F). We might have to cut the grass soon.
Gardening
I looked out of the window today and thought "time to get mowing again". It's come round so quickly, but on the plus side: stripes :-)
Griped publicly on Twitter about all the ridiculous Friday the 13th twaddle on official Dutch motoring and weather Twitter accounts today. Then colleague shunts car on the way to work. I put it down to the Dutch being really shitty and impatient drivers who do not understand the wave mechanics of a column of slow-moving traffic. Science wins.
Crash course in quantum mechanics
(pen) If Dutch cars are governed by the laws of wave mechanics they must equally be subject to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and if they know where they are they've simply no idea how fast they're going. An accurate speedo though simply means the satnav won't work and they could be anywhere, Rotterdam, Novosibirsk, Betws-y-coed etc. Science doesn't just win, it tramples you to death.
Where am I, SatNav?
If the answer is 'I don't know', then you're still in the multi-storey carpark. Don't expect any clues about which exit to use to get out to get on the way to your destination. (By the way, don't call it a SatNav in the Netherlands. They have no idea what you're talking about. You have to call it a Tomtom.)
My starter for 10
SO how was everyone's weekend? And what does the week ahead have in store? (Me: deadlines, uncontrolled deadlines, and scheduled ones too)
I attended an online conference about virtual worlds, in a virtual world. I also filed a return for Corporation Tax, for a company that probably shouldn't be set up as the sort of company that pays CT.
There was lots of rugby excitement on Saturday. Three decent walks in the last 3 days (5, 7 and 5 miles respectively). I was given a deadline yesterday morning of "today", which I managed to push back to "tomorrow", which is now today. This is the first time the deadline has been mentioned for work I started 3 or 4 weeks ago. I still have probably 10-16 hours' processing time to complete this morning. Bloody stupid way to communicate deadlines, IMHO.
deaderlings
[Phi;] We've got something similar. We know they knew about it 10 days ago, but only approached us yesterday with incomplete information and a very short deadline during a week when we're trying to finish the alumni magazine. And it's for a commercially valuable product... that they have known about for 10 days. *headdesk*
I'd love the time to walk in the evenings. I managed it a lot last year (only half an hour three times a week and a bike ride on Saturdays) but haven't done it since we moved. Do you take a torch and the dog?
I'd love the time to walk in the evenings. I managed it a lot last year (only half an hour three times a week and a bike ride on Saturdays) but haven't done it since we moved. Do you take a torch and the dog?
Work Idiocy
Monday So this guy at work ccs me on an E-Mail about how he has gotten permission from one of my 3 bosses to task me to write a script to clean up a filesystem based on some XML that arrives in-theater. Easy-peasy, done.
Tuesday He ccs me on the tail end of an E-Mail chain, the bit where he volunteers me to start programming some ill-defined event-driven horseshirt fired up by a piece of software everyone hates. I point out that the script to be run from the time-based scheduler is simple and moreover, done, although I haven't actually been asked by the aforementioned boss to do the job, that I have no wish to become entwined in the ongoing trainwreck of the software he wants me to start looking at and perhaps I'll just hand off he script to the user department and let them worry the details.
Wednesday another e-mail claiming that whhat is equired is much more complex than a simple script. We do the pantomime "Oh yes/no it is/isn't" thing for a bit. He tells me that he wants a different filesystem cleaning than the one he asked for, and that since it is part of a system I help manage I should just do it.
I refer him to the original mail, point out that the filesystem he's now talking about *is* auto-managed by the software and that the filesystem that keeps filling up with crap and that the users cannot keep down to a managable size is external to our software, was set up by the user for some arcane purpose that even they don't really understand or have any sort of plan for and that's what I was asked to fix and what I have actually, indeed, fixed.
I tell him if he really wants to do what he's asking for today (as opposed to what he wanted on Monday) that the lead time will likely be months and moreover I'll need a proper requirements document stating definitively what needs doing to what for which reason. However, if he really needs his disk to stop overflowing because Irving cannot clean up the crap his team creates, I have a script to do that which has been running in emulation since Monday and even incorporates a bullshirt mail requirement that was snuck in Tuesday.
I'm out tomorrow so a doctor can electrocute me in the name of science. I wonder what Friday will bring?
[pen] I hear all your lights went out in a collapse of civilization in a World Gone Mad. Hope you are unaffected by the imminent breakdown of society and outbreak of cannibalism.
[penelop:] Walking in the dark is wonderful. Last night I went out at 8:50, got back at 10:10 after a 4 mile stroll. I should add that public roads do not a good night-time walk make. I do take a torch and dogs, but there was enough moonlight to render the torch unnecessary for half the walk. I am lucky that I live in the middle of a 'dark-sky' area, which makes night-time wandering more pleasant.
IN the dark
[Stevie] It was Amsterdam where the lights went out - we were fine in Rotterdam and the restaurant menus are still without human flesh.
[Phil] I've been planning my routes. I want some flashy lights for my sleeves, but there's a nice square route around the back of the house - around a complete polder, on dijks all the way - for long summer evenings, and a route around the village for winter ones. It comes back past the chip shop.
[Phil] I've been planning my routes. I want some flashy lights for my sleeves, but there's a nice square route around the back of the house - around a complete polder, on dijks all the way - for long summer evenings, and a route around the village for winter ones. It comes back past the chip shop.
[pen] "Chjip shop", surely?
(Stevie) You've got the i and j the wrong way round. You'd better hide from pen - she is mightier than the sword. I'm a bit pissed, actually, and had better go to bed before the bloody sun comes up.
Vampire beer, I presume?
[Rosie] How's the head? And what was the occasions?
[Stevie] Chips is patat in the Netherlands. Not a drop of malt vinegar to be seen anywhere near them, though (nor in the supermarket, come to think of it). But the chip shop is on the dijk, if that makes you happy to have the i-j-k all together in a word. And our address has 'dijk' in it - ours is the first house (a new one, on an old plot) on an old dijk.
[Stevie] Chips is patat in the Netherlands. Not a drop of malt vinegar to be seen anywhere near them, though (nor in the supermarket, come to think of it). But the chip shop is on the dijk, if that makes you happy to have the i-j-k all together in a word. And our address has 'dijk' in it - ours is the first house (a new one, on an old plot) on an old dijk.
The J
[pen, Rosie] No, I was riffing on the apparent fact that in Dutch the letter "j" is pronounced like a "y" (as in Esperanto) and on pen's use of the Dutch spelling of "dyke". In my head the pronunciation "chyip shop" (which is how most English speakers actually say the word in my hearing) became rendered as chjip shop for the 'Allo 'Allo Win.
Putting the j after the i would make the word "chiyp shop", which I can't pronounce yet after five minutes trying without it going "cheep shop", which would be right for Italy but not Holland.
By pure coincidence, I am less than an hour from departing to "The Chip Shop", a UK-style pub on Atlantic Avenue.
The Chip Shop
Which, since it is the heart of Brooklyn, should be spelled "da chip shop". If it were on Lon Gylund it would be "da chip shawp".
Sodding Chipbury
(Stevie) Ah, most erudite. In Scotland, of course, it would be "chups", possibly wuth a wee bi' a "fush" though more likely a Mars Bar.
Incipient alcoholism
(pen) Not really pissed, just a bit loose. Occasion? Hadn't been to the pub for three days, Boozing at home on your own is not actually all that fun.
Chups
Fush and chups in Scotland, or 'feesh and cheeps' according to an Iranian family friend many years ago. We still call them that now. Jeez, I miss feesh and cheeps.
You wanna da fresh an cheep?
When I first came to the usa I lived in Westbury and often ate in The Harvest Diner. I noticed that during the summer all the waiters spoke with Brummie accents and asked one about it. He told me they were all relatives of the owner, who had started his life in the food service trade in a place I wouldn't have I heard of.
Which turned out to be a fish and chip shop less than a mile from my parent's house in Coventry.
Chips
[Stevie] Not Earlsdon, by any chance?
[Phil] No. We lived in Whitmore Park. About here. Track down Chesholme Road (north-wards, downhill) from Rotherham Road to that first cross, which is the rear access entry. We lived on the bottom right corner.
I think it's something to do with age and the approach of a milestone birthday (I was in my thirties when I started in here, y'know). I've sent more critical emails, tweets and FB messages this week than ever before in my life, and some of them were not received well. Too bad. You put it out there on social media , so don't be surprised when it gets a response. I ain't stopping now. That's why the fact that I'm consistently pissed off at someone who is relentlessly unfunny, unskilled and unrhyming and relentlessly sexist in the Limericks game has finally surfaced. I'm not sorry.
Big hug for penelope...
...because I know it will irk you to know that you mistyped "misogynistic".
never irked
[Phil] I'm merely pleased that I allowed you to exercise your inner pedant. :o)
[pen] Bit early in your span for a mid-life crisis innit? Carry on at this rate and you'll either be on serious medication or be in politics by the time you are 35. Nothing on the web is worth a ventricle or major blood-vessel in your head.
Phil has an inner pedant as well??
[CdM] Hahahahaaa! :)
Something that tickled me
I discovered this sentence in a discussion on ending sentences with prepositions. I hope to use it some day.
"What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of up for? "
"What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of up for? "
Can be improved on
(Phil) The book is about Australia, so between up and for insert about Down Under.
[Rosie] Applause.
correction?
[Rosie] shouldn't that go between of and up?
Erratum
(Phil) Yes.
Very nice, but...
...expect Phil's inner pedant to show up any day now to point out that, technically, "Down Under" is a noun phrase rather than a pair of prepositions.
Well, at first I was going to suggest that "down" isn't a preposition, but changed my mind. Both my inner and outer pedants are happily turning a blind eye to the capital letters of "Down" and "Under" too :)
(Phil) I didn't want to arouse the Wrath of Dujon or that of any other Strines.
(CdM) Course it's a noun phrase, my exopedant tells me. The medial- and endo- backups needed no invoking.
(CdM) Course it's a noun phrase, my exopedant tells me. The medial- and endo- backups needed no invoking.
The Wrath of Dujon sounds like a title of a Doctor Who from the early Pertwee era. :-)
The Wrath of Dujon
[CdM] I like it, hope they recover the tapes one day. Or it might have been a working title for the second Star Trek movie...
Kirk: "Duuuuuuuujonnnnnn!"
Kirk: "Duuuuuuuujonnnnnn!"
peers around the door
Anyone home?
Quick, while no-one's here...
Palindromes
Oh dear, thanks to the 8 word game, I have a new hobby. I didn't need another one. This morning's effort doesn't make a lot of sense, but I think it could, with a bit of work....
Re-vent some racist sin at a Syria hero. My latino gets EU quest, e.g. on Italy. More hairy satanists. I care most? Never!
Re-vent some racist sin at a Syria hero. My latino gets EU quest, e.g. on Italy. More hairy satanists. I care most? Never!
more....
I heard a tale recently that Drew Barrymore was asking Johnny Depp about the rumours that Nick Saban, the Alabama football coach, was a fully inducted member of the Mafia, and was operating under an assumed name.
"Drat! Saban a made man, eh? Depp? Answer!" Drew snapped.
He named a man. A bastard!
"Drat! Saban a made man, eh? Depp? Answer!" Drew snapped.
He named a man. A bastard!
Anyone rising to the challenge?
I may create a new game on another server in which to write palindromes, but in the meantime, here's another:
Pist now. It's a free beer. Fasting is a sign it's a free beer fast. I won't sip.
Pist now. It's a free beer. Fasting is a sign it's a free beer fast. I won't sip.
Sorry, Phil. Not clever enough for that sort of thing. Well done, btw.
[Phil] O no. O no. O no. O no. Not on. O no. O no. O no. O no.
Sorry, CdM
Conversation between secret agent and Q, when the agent refuses to sign for his new vehicle:
"One man sub? Autogyro?"
"Mr Armory got u a bus. Name?"
"No!"
"One man sub? Autogyro?"
"Mr Armory got u a bus. Name?"
"No!"
Q now briefs by SMS?
[Stevie] Yes, m8.
Sorry
As I appear to have killed the chat with palindromes, I take them all back.
[Phil] That last one didn't work. It was gibberish when read backwards.
Scheming bitch
I've just bought a calculator, a rather posh quasi-vintage Hewlett-Packard with RPN, and along with a guide in English is one in French. A calculator in French is une calculatrice which makes the noun obviously feminine but makes the object itself sound feminine as well. To English ears the word sounds like "calculatress" cognate with words like actress, manageress, temptress, goddess etc. A computer though, is un ordinateur not une ordinatrice. Maybe that reflects its attraction for nerds, almost exclusively male.
A calculatrice suggests an intelligent cockatrice to me. Beware the hidden key combination that unleashes its deadly stare.
Briana is Giertrud
Briana: Once there was a sailor Who sailed the seven seas On a ship called the limburger Me: It was stinky cheese! (beat) What do you expect when you say something like that?
The deadly stare
(Raak) It already has one - the display. It's horrible, characters far too narrow and they've re-inserted the crossbar in the noughts which is simply taking retro too far. A bit like fitting coupling rods to an electric locomotive.
Shall we dance?
(Kagome Shuko) Looking at the Games list I'd say we were the only two people in the building.
*drops pin*
Oooooh! Something shiny!
Theatre, Theatre . . .
I have lots of stuff coming up . . . been busy with my theatre stuff mainly, BUT on Tuesday night (Central time) Giertrud and I will be seeing Weird Al in concert!!!
Here, though, game in here, why not?
Add, please . . . Inappropriate Audition Songs . . . Hi, I'll be auditioning for the part of Bruce the Shark in Finding Nemo and I'll be singing "Blood in the Water" from Legally Blonde: The Musical. Annnnd . . . go!!!
Procrastination was ever the thief of time
I am procrastinating like a pro this afternoon, even with a full list of tasks to complete at work. I think I blew all my brain's synapses this morning on a four-hour proof-reading blitz (which needed 10 hours but didn't get it. I guessed that if my eagle eyes didn't spot it on a speed-read, then Joe Average's eyes wouldn't spot it on a normal read-through either.)
Didn't I once read somewhere that fatty food is essential for brain function? Does that mean I can legitimately have cake and chips as part of my recovery?
(pen) You can have chips. Then you can have cake and a cuppa. But not cake and chips. Even I wouldn't do that.
I used to do proof-reading in the Met Office and quite often this would involve reading it out, with punctuation marks, font styles etc, to a colleague who would have another copy. You could put deliberate mistakes in to see if he was still awake. It was technical stuff, published by HMSO and had to be spot on.
I used to do proof-reading in the Met Office and quite often this would involve reading it out, with punctuation marks, font styles etc, to a colleague who would have another copy. You could put deliberate mistakes in to see if he was still awake. It was technical stuff, published by HMSO and had to be spot on.
Limericks
When I first found this place, everybody was so good at limericks. Have we really forgotten the rhyming pattern and rhythm of limericks? These are the general rules of limericks.
Limerick rules
[KS] That's a rather restrictive definition of Limericks, IMHO. One is not restricted to anapests. Iambs can also be used within a line, as well as in the first foot of each line.
I think it's nice, but not a necessity, that lines 1, 2 and 5 should match. Ditto for 3 and 4.
Also, their 2nd example ("the LIMerick packs LAUGHS anaTOmical") is appalling, as most people I know pronounce "Limerick" as three syllables.
I think it's nice, but not a necessity, that lines 1, 2 and 5 should match. Ditto for 3 and 4.
Also, their 2nd example ("the LIMerick packs LAUGHS anaTOmical") is appalling, as most people I know pronounce "Limerick" as three syllables.
It's worse than that
If you accept that site's made-up rule that 1, 2, and 5 must match in structure, then you have to read the first line of that first limerick as "The LiMErick packs LAUGHS anaTOmical". The second limerick they quote also violates the rule that same rule, while the third limerick rhymes details with emails and females, thus revealing that they don't understand feminine rhymes. All in all, that page is a total fail.
And now...
So does anyone have any news? I've got a university friend + partner coming for the weekend. From England to the Netherlands. On motorbikes. We met in 1985. :o)
News? You want news?!
Ummm, not a lot really, other than what has been declared in "another place". A friend of mine is very p***ed off that today's Tilehurst Festival has been cancelled, due to bad weather. He found out today, despite the decision being made yesterday. He had taken on extra staff to run his cider bar there, and had loaded all the cider on his van at 6am. It's not even raining here, 10 miles away.
Rainy Day Decider.
Bummer, Phil. Here, it's getting clammier and more overcast as we anticipate another humdinger of a belt of thunderstorms passing over at about 4 o'clock (which reminds me - I need to get the washing in). Last night's four-hour lightning and thunder display was incredible - flashes every second or so from all around, torrential rain and hailstorms (although no golf-ball-sized hailstones here to damage the cars as there were in other places in NL). I'm working from home today. It's sluggish, frankly.
three weeks later...
Morning all. Was that heat really three weeks ago? I'm waiting for the thermostat to ping the central heating into action - and making a mental note to get some warmer clothes out of storage. Anyone doing anything interesting this weekend?
[pen] Mrs Phil is planning to watch Dr Who with our grandson on Saturday - which depends on him being permitted to come home from the neonatal unit tomorrow! *fingers crossed*
[pen] After spending today driving a quad bike around Paros, I'll be travelling home over the weekend after a week and a half in the Cyclades. I had a round-numbered birthday in the process.
[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!
You need pluck
(pen) Music for strings is occasionally marked pizzacato = cheesily.
His syncopation's a pizza work.
[Raak] Why do you need a 40x40 drum? Are you taking up Taiko or planning to serenade the neighbours with the Dies Irae of the Verdi Requiem? (I ask out of professional curiosity as a percussionist)
[Raak] Will the drum be lit from inside?
[Pablo] I've been playing taiko for about 8 years, and right now I'm in the Swiss mountains at a taiko festival. [Stevie] I will see if I can persuade our Benevolent Leader.
[Raak] That explains that then. Taiko in the Swiss mountains? Bit like gamelan in Siberia innit?
This just in: Swiss budget for avalanche precipitation mortars exausted before winter season starts! Government said to be considering alternative approaches to clearing the ski slopes. Film at eleven.
Apologies
Hello. Just performing a server upgrade.
*taps on the glass*
Rab! Good to see you.
Taps on the glass? How big is it FFS?
Screening visitors
[Rosie] Screen. I mean screen.
The Number of the Beast
Do we need a Prime Minister? I don't see why. A Composite one would be far more multi-faceted.
(pen) You take me far too seriously.
(pen) You take me far too seriously.
[Rosie] Oh no I don't. ;o)
Keraunophilia
Only a feeble one-rumble-and-a-bit-of-rain here last night. Other places not far away have had exuberant electrical displays, crashing thunder and joyously roaring downpours leading to surface water flooding and hazardous driving conditions south of the M4 corridor. So why not the B269? Come on.
(pen) Thank God for that.
(pen) Thank God for that.
Still no rain.
It's cooled down a bit - now 21C or so and 16 at night (which is nice) but we haven't had any decent rain for about 3-4 weeks. even the promised donder en blixem didn't amount to very much, it seemed to swirl around us but dumped very little rain on us.
And I've got new shoes and a new coat and everything, ready for rain and inclement weather.
And I've got new shoes and a new coat and everything, ready for rain and inclement weather.
The obligatory pirate chat
Thar be not much rain in Beds either me hearties!
Heartiness
Arrr, Cap'n, if it be rainin' in yer bed, yer mun ha' left the porthole open again!
Thunder etc
[Rosie] Yes, it was rather damp in Newbury last Thursday evening. I avoided it by 12 miles or so, but watched the lightning from a distance while nervously walking the dog.
The very slow-moving storm finally reached us about 4am, and continued till nearly 6am. The closest lightning strikes were just under a mile away, but were some of the most powerful I've heard. Fortunately, we live on top of a chalk and flint hill, so it drains very rapidly down to the Thames, so the roads were largely OK by 7.30am.
The very slow-moving storm finally reached us about 4am, and continued till nearly 6am. The closest lightning strikes were just under a mile away, but were some of the most powerful I've heard. Fortunately, we live on top of a chalk and flint hill, so it drains very rapidly down to the Thames, so the roads were largely OK by 7.30am.
Storms
[Rosie] A couple of weeks ago there was a "gully washer" in Florida the likes of which the world hasn't seen since Mrs Noah smashed a bottle of Manischewitz across the bow of the ark. It only lasted for about 15 minutes but dumped inches of wet. This isn't super-rare in that neck of the woods, but it has been years since I was caught in such sheer amounts of ruined holiday.
The last time was on the causeway connecting Kennedy Spaceport with the mainland. Sea on both sides and lightning poking it periodically. I turned to Mrs Stevie and said "I know you won't like this, what with the Stevieling being in the car, but we have to let those two people on the motorcycle in or they could be killed". I looked over at the bike to see it laid-down and no sign of the riders. They had taken refuge in the ditch. The alligator-infested ditch, which we had been warned many times to keep clear of on account of hungry alligators of a particularly grumpy disposition. Now that is rain.
The last time was on the causeway connecting Kennedy Spaceport with the mainland. Sea on both sides and lightning poking it periodically. I turned to Mrs Stevie and said "I know you won't like this, what with the Stevieling being in the car, but we have to let those two people on the motorcycle in or they could be killed". I looked over at the bike to see it laid-down and no sign of the riders. They had taken refuge in the ditch. The alligator-infested ditch, which we had been warned many times to keep clear of on account of hungry alligators of a particularly grumpy disposition. Now that is rain.
Civilised weather
I have a soft spot for the rain in Singapore, which turns up for thirty minutes at carefully defined times of the day. Allows one to plan, don'tcherknow.
[Bism] my recollection was of a rainy season that deserved its name. When were you there?
[Sup] You've unmasked me there, only been there once in February, weather was as I described though.
Having a go on the starting handle
Muttering while observing from some convenient bushes
... fine figure of a woman, fine figure ...
Sputters
Are you all looking at my arse?
The windy miller and I are off to the 24-hour Citroen 2CV race at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday. What fun. Ages since I've been to any motorsport-related (I use the term advisedly) events. It's been nothing but windmills for the past eight years.
Emerging from posteriororitily-induced hypnosis
(pen) For a short period I drove one of those. They can do 60 on the flat. Handling characteristics of a London bus; power of a Sinclair C5.
Trez Veet Duh Say Vays
I think the ones on the track last week had been pimped. Quite a lot. Great fun, free entry, free grandstand seats, disgusting toilets.
The 2CV has an integral toilet?
2WC
[Stevie] IN the Netherlands they are affectionately known as the Citroen Eend or 'duck'. There's also a brand of toilet cleaner in NL and in the UK called 'Toilet Duck' or 'Toilet Eend'. We are truly going round in circles.
Clogbogs
(pen) I get the impression the Dutch are cheerfully lavatorial. Is that a fair assessment?
[Stevie] Not really, not as much as the British. It's a coincidence about the Duck thing - it's a Europe-wide name for the toilet cleaner because of the shape of the neck of the bottle. Now I'm trying to identify the Dutch sense of humour...
[pen] The boy with his finger in the dike points* the way to the Dutch sense of humour, I think.
* Ahahahahaha
* Ahahahahaha
2CV
Not seeing the connection between the bottle-bank on wheels and a duck, myself.
Automotive
Depends on your stance. The Ka was nicknamed "Flea" in Germany (they seem to have an insect fixation), the Multipla was the "coffee pot" in France (probably could be exchanged for one after ten thou miles), not too sure about the resemblance either.
NL-humor
[pen] My recollection of Dutch humour was that they gave you very fair warning of an imminent joke, often some days in advance, allowing one to take cover. Is it still like that?
2CV
Our Finnish friends, who owned an underpowered 2CV, used to refer to it as the 'un cheval'.
appearances can be deceptive
[Superman] I get the 'flea' moniker and the coffee-pot (I'm thinking of a Bialetti stove-top espresso maker - does that make me one of the 'liberal elite'?) but it does take time for objects to earn an affectionate nickname, doesn't it?
And as for slow-simmering Dutch jokes, I haven't actually noticed any, probably because I don't work with enough Dutch people for the technique to gain critical mass. They're not without a sense of humour, but because mine relies on wordplay (most often) then there's a gap that isn't often bridged.
And as for slow-simmering Dutch jokes, I haven't actually noticed any, probably because I don't work with enough Dutch people for the technique to gain critical mass. They're not without a sense of humour, but because mine relies on wordplay (most often) then there's a gap that isn't often bridged.
Venereal apparition
Translunary apophthegm
As before
I had asked if anyone had seen Venus low in the SW around sunset but for some reason the question didn't appear. Well? The moon's there now as well.
Venus in Firs
[Rosie] I have seen it peeping through the trees the last few chilly nights.
Armless pursuit
(Boolbar) Bright, innit. You can see it in broad daylight with binocs and even with the naked eye under the most favourable conditions.
Venusian lunacy
Is it the thing shining diretly under the new moon right now? I can see it from the sofa. It's going to be a chilly one tonight.
(pen) It is, or was. The moon moves on, unlike Ars?ne Wenger. Venus gets higher and higher until mid February. Cue UFO reports.
Why has my carefully crafted grave accent come out as a question mark?
Jupiter beaming at me this morning. Still visible as the sun was lurking just over the horizon. [Rosie] Try using the html string è
[Rosie] I dunno, but I wish you'd stop ending every question with an 'e' sporting a jaunty grave accent.
(Boolbar) Normally alt0232 works but not this time. Something is slightly amiss because on doing "Preview" the text disappeared from the box and after several severe blows with a club hammer this is what came up. ??? lad.
It's done it again. I dunno.
alt0232
[Rosie] I never use that because absent a numeric key pad I have to use the numbers up top and it dun't wurk. Boolbar's suggestion should work as it is broswer rendering character set immune (a quick test: è).
It could be the preview is furging it all up. (quick test with preview: è).
So preview can't bugger up the HTML entity. Let's try with the number (quick test:
Egad!
? j?? ??p? th? ?h?r?ct?r? İ ⱳā?ẗ.
è é ë
These characters created via è é ë, as recommended by Boolbar.
These characters created via è é ë, as recommended by Boolbar.
Lacking content
Testing, testing.
Well, that works, as does the Preview. Let's try this: Tèsting, tèsting. That previews OK but only by using Boolbar's method. On MCIOS both systems work. Why dat den?
MCiOS v mc5
[Rosie] Differences in how the moves are stored I guess. Unicode and code pages are a bugger.
Free lunches
Yesterday's free lunch came with a Christmas box (containing wine and cashew nuts) plus a step-counter that counts randomly but no food because the queues were too long, full of people queuing for their free lunch, and I decided it was a better idea to eat lunch at my desk.
Today's free lunch is hosted by the research institute and is on the 17th floor so at least there'll be a fabulous view while queueing. University life, eh?
Today's free lunch is hosted by the research institute and is on the 17th floor so at least there'll be a fabulous view while queueing. University life, eh?
Just my view.
Your comment takes me back a bit, penelope. The pinnacle of my banking career was working on the twentieth floor as manager of the customer services department. My office was on the north side of the building - which was situated on one of the high points of Sydney's CBD - and had an absolutely gorgeous outlook across and along Sydney Harbour (Port Jackson) from The Bridge and The Opera House out to the heads. Unfortunately, other than the odd glimpse of the view, it was impossible to properly enjoy it as I was just too busy. :(
Lunch with a view
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.
[Duj] Wow.
Viewlessness
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.
forced smile day
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.
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).
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!
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.
(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.
(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.
(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?
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.
(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.
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.
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.)
(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!
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.
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.
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. :)
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.
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!)
trombonists unite
[And Rosie again] That sounds reasonable. I hope you find a way to deal with the side-effects of the treatment. When you get to be [more than 40] and have done lots of things, it's inevitable that people you know or have known pop up on telly, radio or in print from time to time - the delight is never knowing where or when.
The Beyer-Garratt trombonists
(pen, 1st) I should hope not. Dreadful dirty things. Beyer-Garratts are huge. I wouldn't want to fire one.
(pen, 2nd) It's all been postponed until early September because the prostate has not yet shrunk quite enough with the hormone treatment for it to be bombed with short-wave X-rays. The smaller the better because it lessens harming healthy tissue which causes the side effects. So a quiet life for a bit.
More than 40? Yes, keep going.....
(pen, 2nd) It's all been postponed until early September because the prostate has not yet shrunk quite enough with the hormone treatment for it to be bombed with short-wave X-rays. The smaller the better because it lessens harming healthy tissue which causes the side effects. So a quiet life for a bit.
More than 40? Yes, keep going.....
I fully intend to
Spent Sunday (30C in the shade outside, slightly less inside due to judicious management of shade and through draughts) in the biggest of our two attic guest bedrooms, installing bargainous bookcase and linen cupboard (42 euros and 50 euros from the Dutch equivalent of eBay respectively) and emptying (OK, binning the contents of) boxes from the house move two and a half tears ago. I threw out my collected payslips from my last jobs in the UK - one collection going back to 1998, which is about the time I started contributing to the predecessors of this site. Blimey. It was a long, long time ago.
Dear Ms penelope
pursuant to the new post-Brexit changes to the tax code to be enacted next year, all residents of the UK who were employed between the years of 1970 to 2016 must supply proof of adequate withholding during the relevant working years.
Please forward copies of your payslips for the last five years in the UK to HM Ministry of Monetary Annoyance, 10 Nosuch Circle, London W1 ...
pursuant to the new post-Brexit changes to the tax code to be enacted next year, all residents of the UK who were employed between the years of 1970 to 2016 must supply proof of adequate withholding during the relevant working years.
Please forward copies of your payslips for the last five years in the UK to HM Ministry of Monetary Annoyance, 10 Nosuch Circle, London W1 ...
That sounds a bit laborious.
Tax-driven
[pen] Still got mine all the way back to year dot. I'm going to keep hold of them, too, as I've lived and worked on local contracts in various countries, so come pension time I have the proof incontrovertible, or at least enough to allow me to litigate from my shack.
BTW, if anyone thinks of saving through one of those Irish life insurance jobs, don't. My one has the same book value as the contributions, and the redemption value exactly two months after the official valuation in April is somehow only 65% of said contributions. Easily the worst investment I have ever made.
BTW, if anyone thinks of saving through one of those Irish life insurance jobs, don't. My one has the same book value as the contributions, and the redemption value exactly two months after the official valuation in April is somehow only 65% of said contributions. Easily the worst investment I have ever made.
Dear Jeremy Taxman
Naff off. I earn euros now, you numpty.
Love
penelope
Naff off. I earn euros now, you numpty.
Love
penelope
And following my earlier post...
Friday AND pay day AND temperatures below 25C... happy, happy, happy.
Ex-Pats Hiding Out In Holland Give Inland Revenue The Two Finger Salute!
Dutch Tax Cheats Refuse To Pay Their Share!
"Let Them Eat Chocolate and Tulip Bulbs" Sneer Callous Brexit-Dodgers!
Story on page 5.
You won't want to miss our Page 3 Bird, former Miss Windmill Acet Aldehyde (22).
Dutch Tax Cheats Refuse To Pay Their Share!
"Let Them Eat Chocolate and Tulip Bulbs" Sneer Callous Brexit-Dodgers!
Story on page 5.
You won't want to miss our Page 3 Bird, former Miss Windmill Acet Aldehyde (22).
CH3CHO
Subtle stuff.
nauseous
A surfeit of chocolate-covered tulip bulb fritters, probably.
We've been DUPed - again.
(Softers) Nice one, but I don't think many will be fooled.
Well, you can fool all of the people ......
Outage
Hello. Looks like there was an outage last night. Not entirely sure of the cause - could be as benign as a simple kernel panic but I'll investigate further to check it's nothing more malign.
Are we back yet?
'Kernel panic' sounds like a Face Pyjama. Is it a real thing?
Nope, nothing like that.
Punctuation
I think "expats" is better without a hyphen otherwise it sounds as if the person has somehow metamorphosed from copros bovis and this will simply not do as a chatup line at all, will it, pen?
What do you get if you stand under a cow? A pat on the head.
[Rosie] I have no idea, I'm an immigrant. 'Expats' is a name people give themselves when they're in a state of denial, not really believing the place they have chosen to live is actually 'foreign'.
[pen] Entirely agree.
[penelope, Software] And gifted by others to imply contempt based on the assumption of that very behavior. It's interesting that an Englishman here is often called an "ex-pat" but Hispanic ex-pats are universally "immigrants".
Exile
[penelope et al] Penelope and I are both immigrants and expatriates. I was expatriated forcefully (in the sense of having no choice in the matter) and penelope voluntarily (unless finding a husband in another country is considered an hormonal dictate). Of course the use of the term expat (or ex-pat) is just silly idiomatic waffling. I have heard the term used to describe someone who is working in this country but will, in all likelihood, return 'home' after a time - which is quite the opposite of its true meaning.
[Duj] I'll have you know I tried out lots of potential husbands in the UK, but none of them met the required standard.
Didn't try me!
[pen] or height?
Possessing a windmill could be a criterion, I guess?
Work, Work, Work . . .
Grad school is NOT for the faint of heart . . .
Just popping in to say h'lo
Yes, it's me, sans plus sign (which I dropped ages ago). Good to see MC5 is still alive and well. ????????
Now there's a blast from the past. G'day.
dr q
You're not fooling anyone Raak, which is of course to say "Dunx" impersonating "Software" in his "Dan"-pretending-to-be-"flerdle" persona.
Welcome "back".
Welcome "back".
Doctor Q! Wotcher, mate. Still at Pittsburgh Uni? Great to hear from you.
So yeah, a few of you know, but not everyone does, so here goes…
My real name is now Gracie Jane; pronouns are she/her. But I'm still in Pittsburgh, and people still call me Quuxum, even IRL.
[Duj] You might be on one of the meds I'm on as well :)
My real name is now Gracie Jane; pronouns are she/her. But I'm still in Pittsburgh, and people still call me Quuxum, even IRL.
[Duj] You might be on one of the meds I'm on as well :)
[drgj] Good for you! =) Out of interest, how long do people usually pronounce the "u" sound in "qu...um" for?
[drquuxum] Pleased to meet you, Gracie Jane. Great good luck in your new life.
[drq] Glad to see you back here. The more the merrier. And following on from Tuj, how do you pronounce "quuxum" (in my head it is kw-uck-zum)?
And thinking about it, how is Tuj pronounced?
And thinking about it, how is Tuj pronounced?
[Bool] Yup; I usually spell it out as Kwucks-um, or even K????-?m.
Yes, how is Tuj pronounced? Tudge? or as in French "touge"?
"Tuy". That or "Mangrove-Stoat Frog Warbler" depending on where one is pronouncing "Tuj".
The entity known as Tuj
Unpronounceable in this solar system, I have always thought, existing only as a symbolic representation in ASCII of a different existence. 1945166590+22554-171, if your Gödelising is up to it.
Alas, your instantaneous translator is on the blink. "Bismarck" is easily pronounceable in almost every language on Earth.
Hello again
Been tweaking. Hopefully nothing broken...
Rhymes with "smudge" in my head, but YMMV. On this line, there aren't any truly unpronounceables among us, a la Drewsxpa, at present are there?
[rab] You'll ruin your teeth.
Pronunciation
[Tuj] But what would you know.
Mornin' all. Comment ally voos?
Trebonski, as my Dad would have said. Bilingual but French wasn't one of 'em.
dokodo don, dokodo don, dokodo don, dokodo don
Our taiko group played for a friend's wedding yesterday. At the party afterwards, that is, not the ceremony itself. The bride is one of the group, so she was playing with us, with a shoulder-slung drum over her full white wedding rig. Later today I expect to be very happy when the restoration of my Mac from backup completes (touch wood). The disc failed last weekend and I've been poking at the Internet through a variety of letterboxes since. Or maybe I shall be happy in a couple of days. It has just announced, "About 37 hours and 2 minutes remaining."
Happiness is restored, along with the backup.
Backups
37 hours? How much were you recovering?
About 1.75 TB. I got the machine back from Apple yesterday with a new disc, the current OS, and nothing else. I booted it, it saw my Time Capsule, and in just a few clicks and 18 hours, it's back to normal. It reported a transfer rate varying between 8 and 25 MB/second, I'm not sure why it would be that low. My broadband is faster. Maybe I should have remembered to plug in the Ethernet before it started over Wifi.
Was it a Time Machine backup? These are very slow, for some reason.
Having said that I had a backup that ran for a comparable time over USB2 last week. I had resized my hard drive from 3/4 TB to 1TB and told windows to do a backup to the same drive I had used to do the restore from the smaller image. Part of the problem was I forgot to disable Malwarebytes until 24 hours had passed uneventfully (as in the "end of backup" event hadn't fired), but I think that there was some sort of messing around comparing block usage with bit maps too. I should have used a clean USB drive from the get-go.
[rab] The backup was made with Time Machine, but the restore process was handled by the Migration Assistant. Apart from whatever speed issues there may be, it seems to me that Time Machine works the way that all backups should, ever since disks superseded magnetic tape. You aren't limited to just doing a full restore, you can look at the backup and see all the individual files and access them just like they're ordinary files on a disc, which of course they are, not hidden in some opaque archive format. Automatic hourly backups meant that without having to think about it, when the disk failed I lost no data. Do modern backup solutions for other systems provide this level of does-it-right-ness?
Discs haven't superseded mag tape. The cost factor is with the disc, but in streaming mode tape can beat a spinning disc in speed of writes. Not only that, you might be surprised at how robust the tape market has become since defense in depth backup strategies were developed in the wake of cheap,reliable discs. Of course, it is all about to change again as Flash becomes cheaper and more reliable.
Tape me up
If your tape breaks, you can splice it, losing only certain files. Solid state memory and optical disks do not have that option.
[Bismarck] Don't they splice themselves?
Light Show
Spectacular thunderstorm here. Some of the lightning made the scene look like daylight. Not all that much rain, surprisingly.
Electric Light Pourchestra
What Rosie said, but with a very hefty downpour of rain followed by a few hours of drizzle.
[Rakk] My understanding is that discs can recover lost blocks if they are in the right sort of configuration, and Flash has hardware redundancy built-in for its peculiar fail modes, so I guess the answer is "Yesnabe".
But in order to get the sort of speed and reliability from spinning discs that tape offers (in streaming mode - important specific there) you have to "waste" a lot of discs. Personally I think tape is neat just because of the robot silos. Technology should have moving parts to provide visual interest. Today's tech is all solid state in boring boxes. Some years ago I toyed with the idea of using tiny motors like the ones in toy helicopters to drive lightweight gear trains, the whole on an appliqué that could be stuck to a tower casing to make it look like it was doing useful stuff. Might still try that.
[Stevie] So it was you that invented the fidget spinner?
Cumulonimbi
Made it over here late morning, flood-like and loud as anything. Which was fun as I was having a job interview, to which it added some useful absurdity. Didn't manage to use it as a proof of divine support, though.
Thunderstruck
[Bis] I got one of my loveliest-ever jobs during a day or so of deluges and flooding. I even had a refugee friend staying over because his street was flooded - I was reluctant to take him in because I wanted to read-read-read before the interview, but humanity prevailed, and the job was a good fit.
Where's 'over here'?
Where's 'over here'?
Fidgit Spinner
No. If I had, it would glow green and spark as it span.
Job Interview With Weather
You should have calmly placed your smartphone on the table between you and the interviewer and had it play Ride of the Valkyries as the weather crescendoed. If it had been me I would also have thought to wear 15 inch cymbals attached to the inside leg of my trousers at knee-level so I could join in the fun as I interviewed, but that's just me and my over-preparation thing at work.
AS the weather glooms, looms, flashes and crashes about outside, two people sit opposite each other at a table while tinny Wagner belts out of one of the glass slabs on the table..
"What would you say your biggest faults are?"
"WHAT?" syncopated metallic crashes are heard coming from from under the table
"I SAID: WHAT WOULD YOU SAY YOUR BIGGEST FAULTS ARE?"
"MY INCONVENIENT INTROVERSION. ARE WE GOING TO DO THE ONE ABOUT WHICH TREE I WOULD BE NEXT, BECAUSE IF WE ARE THE ANSWER IS THAT ONE OVER THERE."
AS the weather glooms, looms, flashes and crashes about outside, two people sit opposite each other at a table while tinny Wagner belts out of one of the glass slabs on the table..
"What would you say your biggest faults are?"
"WHAT?" syncopated metallic crashes are heard coming from from under the table
"I SAID: WHAT WOULD YOU SAY YOUR BIGGEST FAULTS ARE?"
"MY INCONVENIENT INTROVERSION. ARE WE GOING TO DO THE ONE ABOUT WHICH TREE I WOULD BE NEXT, BECAUSE IF WE ARE THE ANSWER IS THAT ONE OVER THERE."
[Stevie] I've downloaded RotV for future reference, you never know. Didn't get asked what my faults are (there's a Pandora's box...), did you ever support Communism and would you rather plant a tree, cut one down or cut one down and lie about it.
[pen] One linguistic border to the south of you.
[pen] One linguistic border to the south of you.
Wagnerian Aids To Interviewing During Thunderstorms
and the knee-cymbals?
[Stevie] Still in two minds... Wagner didn't score for knee-cymbals, so it lacks authenticity for the purist, which might count against me if the interviewer knows their stuff.
Answering Rosie, earlier
It was Wednesday, I think, we had very hot thundery weather, torrential storms all around us but only a few hot drops of rain chez windy miller. Thursday - I think the neighbour's weather station recorded more than an inch of rain. It was spectacular.
[Bis] Bonjour. (Not 'ow-do' - hoedoe - as the Brabantsers confusingly say instead of 'bye'.)
(pen) Ah, those weather charts were right, then, though I'm not sure exactly where you are in The Netherlands.
In a thunderous voice
I looked at central Europe on, I think, my Friday. There was a spectacular string of storms in an elbow, almost a right-angle, from north of Hamburg curving down to southwest of Saltzburg then a bit of a gap to western France (SE from Paris) where a smaller but significant area was also producing much electrical activity.
Given that the lightning markers are coloured from white to yellow to orange to three shades of red depending on six 20-minute periods it was a most colourful sight.
Given that the lightning markers are coloured from white to yellow to orange to three shades of red depending on six 20-minute periods it was a most colourful sight.
[Rosie] South of the Netherlands; the big islands of Zeeland just to the west of us, and to the North, via the big Haringvliet bridge, Rotterdam. We would be able to see the lights of the bridge if it wasn't for our neighbours' house.
Whoops
Saltzburg sb Stuttgart.
Wagner Not Having The Foresight To Score For Knee Cymbals
I see your point, but it would be difficult to answer the interviewer's questions while playing a trombone or french horn. Perhaps you could join in one of the brass parts by playing it on those Irish Armpit-Actuated Bagpipes. Now I think on it, the vigorous Clouseau parrot-inflation arm movements would augment any interview process, thunderstorm or no thunderstorm.
Nowt since July?
So what's everyone been up to? I've had three weeks off - spent 8 days in the UK. Ate fish and chips by the seaside watching the rain and visited the Mary Rose at Portsmouth's Historic Naval Dockyard - the best museum I have ever visited.
re: Nowt since July?
[pen] I just got back from a road trip across the north of Pennsylvania (and a small bit of Western New York). Quite lovely, and I'll be uploading some pictures soon-ish.
Chewing my own leg off so I can escape work and go to Florida for a week.
Legless in Florida
[Stevie] Splendid. I have worked so bloomin' hard this year on supporting my department with all of its projects (*ahem*) that I have been unable to use up my vacation days at the correct rate. So I've had a bit of a session in the working hours part of the SAP platform, which fell over only twice as I tried to use it. As a result I'm having at least a week off per month between now and the end of the year.(Smug, I know, but this is a benefit of being a Dutch university employee).
Hey, August is cool
Warmest day of the month here, 24.5°, which frankly is crap for a highest-in-August and the second worst ever, i.e. post-1983.
[Rosie] It's that time of year. Time to fire up the genny and clean it's pipes out. Hopefully it either blows itself out or goes someplace else before I have to drive through it in a week and a bit.
Gulf of... Mexico?
I can't help feeling that building a wall in Texas would help stop these foreign storms.
(Bismarck) Some wall.
Officially autumn
So how was everyone's week? And what's planned for the weekend? If I apply myself, I could be making jam for the fourth Sunday in a row - it requires a foraging expedition by cycle from the windy miller's mill tomorrow (but first, the bicycle must be retrieved from another windmill where the apprentice left it a couple of weeks ago). Pffft.
Domestics
My week was good, thanks pen. I'll be making crabapple jelly this weekend
My week sucked balls but tomorrow I plan to vent my spleen by putting three intrepid investigators into the middle of a den of vile cultists doing things so unspeakable to anyone falling into their clutches that the very minds of all will be torn asunder by the mere contemplation of the foul ... but I've said too much. Delta Green day. My favorite day of the month. Crippling SAN loss all round if it all plays out properly.
Jammy jam
Blackberry-picking expedition very successful. I bled only twice. Jamming tomoorow then. And I got a tax rebate. A good weekend so far.
Hmmmm
Sun blacked out; Texas flooded; Los Angeles on fire; N Korea about to launch nuclear missiles. You'd think God was upset with America about something.....
.
.
.
The Russians have planted a flag in this forum. What will you do about it?Ave Maria.
You've probably spotted by now that I tend only to drop by whenever I fiddle with the server config. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that I'm now running mariadb instead of mysql.
Hello rab
How's tings?
Backatcha
Fine, although it would be nice to create around another 20 hours in the day. Although if that was 20 more hours of being shouted at by the world's loudest six-year old, I might well revise that opinion.
Surely there's a use for loud six-year olds?
Can we not usefully employ the six year old to shout over Nigel Farage or Trump or something?
Fortissimamente
Hexamegaphone.
Portents of Doom
[Phil] Paraphrasing something I just saw on Facebook: If Irma destroys Mar-a-Lago while leaving the rest of Florida unscathed, I will hand in my atheist card.
Urasdfghsfgfk
OS upgraded... is this 'thing' still on?
Another test
Another test
(rab) So you speak Czech?
The Phone Book
For the first time in I don't know how many years, BT have sent me a "phone book". How quaint!
Yeah, we just got one too. Had no idea where to put it.
I put mine in the bin.
When I'm cleaning windows
After three years in this house, I FINALLY found a window cleaner to do the ones I can't reach. You cannot imagine how happy this makes me.
*puzzled* Can't you just tie squeegees and sponges to the windmill blades?
squindmilleegee
[Stevie] We don't live in a windmill. They're too full of machinery - and drafty gaps to ventilate the dust out - for anyone to live in. However, I have often considered how convenient it would be to attached the wet laundry to the sails and have them dried and straightened at the same time. Less ironing to do is always a good thing.
[penelope] *puzzled* But don't all the houses in Holland have windmill sails on them? I'm beginning to think the Junior Boys Bumper Book of Foreign Places (1962 ed) was perhaps less authoritative than I was led to believe by the Raptnuckle Infants School librarian. You'll be telling me next that the skies over Berlin are not darkened by fleets of dirigible warships, waiting for the Next Big One.
I've been about 2/3rds of everywhere, and it was in Utrecht that I realized that Holland is almost certainly a better place to be a human being in than anywhere else I've ever been. One day perhaps I'll even find the words to explain why. I think the words exist but I'm pretty sure they're Dutch.
A belief in the power of gezeligheid and the 'keeping our feet dry' polder model of discussing everything to the nth degree before making a decision (and the ability to have a proper discussion that this necessitates - missing in 'other places' where political point-scoring is seen as winning), probs. Actually, it is pretty organised here. Lots of red tape and regulation, and plenty of tax to pay, but the roads don't have holes, the water stays out, and I can get a next-day appointment with my GP.
If only I could speak better Dutch.
If only I could speak better Dutch.
Holland == Heaven On Earth
Notwithstanding the heartbreak of dry-rot in the klompen of course.
Party time
Woo-hoo! Did my usual application for a TV license and was told I now get it free as I was very close to a certain age.
Gratis
It's a good feeling is it not, Rosie. I had the same sensation when I fronted up at the local traffic authority to renew my drivers' licence (5-years and a few bob) and was told that as I had reached 'a certain age' they declined to take my money. I would like to thank the taxpayers of this blessed country for your magnanimity.
We don't have TV taxes here, by the way, although we used to. I think someone in the public service did some number-crunching and found that enforcement didn't really work and that it cost more to try to enforce licensing than the income garnered.
We don't have TV taxes here, by the way, although we used to. I think someone in the public service did some number-crunching and found that enforcement didn't really work and that it cost more to try to enforce licensing than the income garnered.
[Rosie] Good News: Free TV. Bad News: TV Programming.
[Stevie] Good News: Everyone can have free TV by not watching TV.
Bad News: If you have one of those globe chairs in the room, the tendency to fill the time by plotting World Domination can consume one.
(Stevie, Raak) All I watch regularly is Match of the Day 1 & 2, HIGNFY and University Challenge. I never watch anything live but record it and play it back about 2 in the morning with a strong cup of coffee or a stiff brandy. That way you can fast-forward through the interviews, which tell you nothing, and the sages on the panel. I reckon that on ITV could watch the entire World Cup in about 20 minutes.
(Dujon) The driving licence for over 70's here is only for 3 years and you have to self-certify that you're fit to drive.
(Stevie) Can't even dominate the sodding back garden.
(Dujon) The driving licence for over 70's here is only for 3 years and you have to self-certify that you're fit to drive.
(Stevie) Can't even dominate the sodding back garden.
Self certify
"Are you fit to drive?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
Good News: Plotting world domination can make you an international bestselling novelist.
Bad News. Being an international best-selling novelist didn't do Solzhenitsyn an awful lot of good.
Chain poem
'Twas Brexit, and the slimy Gove / Did gyre and gibber in the halls / All mimsy was that Johnson cove / And the "OUT" maths was balls.
Someone do the next stanza...
[Superman] Nah. This is the chat thread, and you're just wanting to rant poetically. Who knows where it will end? Start a game for it if you really want to. (I do an awful lot of it on Twitter - in fact I troll 'Brexit Central' daily.)
In other news, I have successfully used my Dutch network *smug* to get new tyres installed on the windy miller's 70-year old Fergie tractor, as a birthday present. And the local GP surgery has offered me a Vitamin D shot to counter the winter gloom.
In other news, I have successfully used my Dutch network *smug* to get new tyres installed on the windy miller's 70-year old Fergie tractor, as a birthday present. And the local GP surgery has offered me a Vitamin D shot to counter the winter gloom.
(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.
This Weekend
Eat. Sleep. Archery. Repeat.
Some alcohol may be involved as well.
Some alcohol may be involved as well.
[Blob] Archery? I dint no you did that. At targets I presume, rather than rabbits and edibles.
Middle-class darts
[pen] Yes targets. Although I have done field archery shooting at pictures of rabbits and other game.
Oops
Ah. Soz.
The Archers
[Blob] So you and your friends basically spent the entire weekend on your butts?
Buttering up
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.
No butts but...
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.
Kerrrrching!!
[Boolb] I think I've done all the shopping instead of you.
What the Hallibut?
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
Get thee to a fish punnery
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.
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.
sentient websites
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.
miscellaneous
[Tuj] I am shocked!
[Stevie] Who? Was he hurt?
[Stevie] Who? Was he hurt?
Eel be ok.
Decemberation
Things seemed to have slowed down a bit in here. Are you all sitting on your Christmas puddings, waiting for them to hatch?
Satin tights.
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.
T minus three
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.
Party pooping
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.
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.
Radioactive
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.
Cheering you on
[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.
Prostate power
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.
RIP Heinz Wolff
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.
Rosie - what to look forward to ...
(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.
Highlights
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!
Highlight
Nearly being beaten at Triv Purs by my 12-year old nephew. In the end my brother in law beat both of us.
Gasping for air
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.
TrivPurs
[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.
Happy New Year
I really should give this place a spring clean...
The rabling has discovered Monopoly and invented a variety of quantitative easing schemes, including mortgaging his socks.
HNY
[Rab] How old is the rabling now? 35? 36?
In other news, I'm back at work after two and a half weeks off and having a stab at pretending to be an editor. What the heck do I know about copywriting?
Is it lunchtime yet?
In other news, I'm back at work after two and a half weeks off and having a stab at pretending to be an editor. What the heck do I know about copywriting?
Is it lunchtime yet?
Editation
Don't editors just have to dress badly, wear an eyeshade, chew rope cigars and yell at everybody?
Dream job then.
Bonce bashing
Most satisfying. Don't overdo it.
Radiation
[Rosie] It just occurred to me, after watching another Dr Who Xmas special, that there is a slight possibility of not developing mutant super-powers, instead devolving into a revolting blob, retiring inside a giant pimply salt shaker and going homicidal on everyone & his dog.
No sudden urges to hide in a dustbin and kill everyone on the street I hope?
Editation
Dessed badly? Check (I'm still getting dressed in the dark here in the Januarial low countries); wearing eye shadow (not eyeshade, but close enough) - check; chew rope cigars? Eeeuuuuwww. Yelling at everybody - check.
I think I qualify.
I think I qualify.
[penelope] Do you still get to rip open your office door, wave a fistful of paper in your hand and scream "Stop the Press!", or throw people out of your office, yelling "Either bring me the straight dope on the Mayor and the actress or find another job Kilcullen!"?
Fluorescent naughty bits
(Stevie) No, none of that but don't get too close.
pen is mightier than the sword
[pen] Sounds fun. Maybe before Britain completes economic suicide I should be begging you for a job =)
Apparently my 'serious' demeanour prevents people from calling into the office and asking me to do things for them. I'd call that a result.
[Stevie] I'm not a newspaper or publication editor - I'm an in-house editor, so work on webpages, internal messages, brochures, our own news items. I miss the days of real newspaper work though - two decades ago now, when the most fun was finding puns to put into the reports of garden shed burglaries from the weekly CID briefing at the police station, and deciphering the spidery handwriting on the back of an envelope that had been shoved through our market place office letterbox, describing the weekly meeting of a village branch of the WI. *sigh*
The pay was utter rubbish though.
[Stevie] I'm not a newspaper or publication editor - I'm an in-house editor, so work on webpages, internal messages, brochures, our own news items. I miss the days of real newspaper work though - two decades ago now, when the most fun was finding puns to put into the reports of garden shed burglaries from the weekly CID briefing at the police station, and deciphering the spidery handwriting on the back of an envelope that had been shoved through our market place office letterbox, describing the weekly meeting of a village branch of the WI. *sigh*
The pay was utter rubbish though.
[pen] I fail to see why any of your description of your actual editing duties precludes the stuff I brought up.
His Girl Friday
That last entry sounds like Stevie calling pen into his office and telling her what's what.
fake news
[Bism] I can assure you that didn't happen. Stevie was too busy shovelling snow back into his neighbour's yard. Or should that be 'neighbor's yard'?
[pen] It should, the gardens in question being in New York.
[Bismarck] I've never warranted more than a cube in my life, and I haven't been in charge of anyone else since 1995, when my pig-headedness when it came to repeatedly requesting training for my staff and in giving them glowing reviews when the richly deserved it ensured I'd never be put into management again.
Never being in charge
[Stevie] Quite. I've never wanted to be a manager - it's just trouble. However, I do want to become more expert at what I do (editing and copywriting). Trouble is, the career progression of most places, including this one, is set up assuming that everyone wants to be a manager. Therefore, I am unable to move up to the next pay grade unless I change my job and move to another department, no matter that I am nine years and umpteen training courses into becoming better at this one. Folly.
I have to take this semester off for financial aid reasons and I should concentrate on my class proposal, but then I get distracted . . . I need to treat this like it is a class and have some self-discipline.
May we know your subject?
Prostrate on the carpet
31 down, 6 to go. I think I'm actually going to miss this routine.
Of course . . .
I'm getting my Master's Degree in Theatre.
Job vacancy
Anyone looking for a job? I'm recruiting for an IT assistant to join me. Need to have good knowledge of databases (Oracle and/or SQL) and programming skills in e.g. VB/C/C++/C# and ideally .NET environment. Salary negotiable, but think along the £50k lines
...
Ah, should mention location - Potters Bar, Herts, UK
February innit
I’m just procrastinating - I should be hoovering.
Sad to be driving New Yorkwards from Florida, where I’ve been lounging around and playing in Diagon Alley in my Slytherin drag.
Note to the LIRR
There is a small group of Confederate flag waving reptiles heading your way. Please, please, prepare - if only for the sake of Stevie, who likes to arrive at work on time and then arrive home in time for his evening meal.
Yours etc.,
Duj
Yours etc.,
Duj
LIRR
59 “we suck” advisory emails from the LIRR since Jan 29th. That’s just the Ronkonkoma branch suckage. 59. Only the LIRR could send “normal service restored” emails and think they were achieving greatness by doing so.
[Stevie] by those statistics, the advisory notes constitute normal service. I have submitted a petition to the MTA that the East Side Access should be opened by you and renamed the "Carpal Tunnel" in your honour, as of the pain and anguish caused by years of commuting.
East Side Access
Another example of wonderful planning. A tunnel between Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal. This will solve ... what exactly? I mean, the choke point in the whole sorry mess is the fact that of the four tunnels under the East River, only two are signaled in both directions allowing for bi-directional travel without the need for time-consuming emergency train orders. One of the two is permanently assigned to Amtrak traffic. The other two tunnels are signaled in one direction only. One is signaled into Manhattan, the other out of it. Thus traffic will be disrupted in 3/4 of the possible tunnel signal outages (since if Amtrak's tunnel is lost, they immediately take possession of the other bi-directional tunnel (which means effectively that the bi-directional tunnel is twice as likely to fail as any of the others from the LIRR point of view.
So the extra Grand Central traffic will not only add to the system congestion, it will be f*cked-up by the same tunnel idiocy from which the existing network suffers.
Hidden text
The utterly stupid part of all this is that the tunnels flooded during superstorm Sandy and the signals had to be replaced using "Obama Dollars". Instead of wiring them properly (as had been known to be needed for at least the 33 years I've been travelling on the LIRR) They put them back the same retarded way they were before the flood happened.So the extra Grand Central traffic will not only add to the system congestion, it will be f*cked-up by the same tunnel idiocy from which the existing network suffers.
Bring back the staff.
Talking of staff
I'm interviewing a domestic cleaner tomorrow. I'll get my weekends back (but will of course pay for the privilege).
Staffing
[pen] Do they need special qualifications to tackle a windmill?
[pen] I thought y' had ter pay miller fer privilege.
[Bismarck] Just a long squeegee for the sails, I think.
'Squeegee for the sails'
That's a song. Or part of a limerick. Or a concept. Not sure.
[pen] It should be a band name.
[pen] Will the staff have to call you "mill-mistress" or is the proper term of servile respect "madame miller"?
Paying for a clean house is next to godliness
I was 49 when I got my first-ever dishwasher. I am now 52, and have just engaged a cleaner. Why the hell didn't I do this years ago when I could barely afford it? It's unbloomingbelievable what a difference it makes. Now I have time at weekends to go and hoover the windmill.
I used to be a dishwasher, but now I'm single.
Weekenderations.
Weekends are filling up. I can blame the windy miller for most of this. Next weekend is a late Valentine's Day stay at our favourite aubergey kind of place in the Ardennes to eat beautifully prepared wild things and drink a lot of wine before sleeping it off; then the weekend after it's a hotel dinner, bed and breakfast en masse to celebrate my husband's business partner's 10 years in business (with a few other of his colleagues and their wives, who are all a great deal more fastidious about saying grace before and after a meal than we are because most of them come from the Dutch bible belt - this one will be interesting rather than fun), followed by, the next weekend, a few days in Blighty to celebrate Mothers' Day with Mater.
But this next one is empty. And the forecast says it won't rain,. Suggestions?
But this next one is empty. And the forecast says it won't rain,. Suggestions?
For the dinner appear in ceremonial garb appropriate for summoning Dagon on the dank shores of Innsmouth. As the others say grace murmer your own favourite lip-sync ("lobster thermidor") until they are done and then "ritualistically" sacrifice a king prawn, scattering the bits onto a side plate before pouring a ring of salt around the rim of the plate. If anyone asks, look startled and murmur "best not talk about it openly under this moon".
Spare time
Hey pen, give me the name of that Ardennes place will you, since it's in my area and I'm looking for a place to take Mrs Bismarck.
For the weekend, take the train first class from Rotterdam to Marseilles.
For the weekend, take the train first class from Rotterdam to Marseilles.
Ardennes inforrmation
[BIsmarck] It’s here www.lamaisondemaitre.com/english. On me ipad thus no fancy html stuff, sorry. Food excellent, one sitting for dinner, no telly in rooms, excellent walking/hiking country. Will report back after next weekend.
Amused.
[Bismarck] Blooming excellent, it was. Lovely B & B (we got a room with a four poster bed & bathtub), plus aperitifs, amuse bouches, delish three-course dinner (proper cooking innit - posh sauces and all) including wine for each course (they’ll top up your glass if you’re swigging it), came to just over 170 euros. Lovely scenery, lots of snow on the hills up there (it was -5C and bright, bright sunshine when we left there about 10 this morning) and less than half an hour’s drive to the shopping centre just over the border in Luxembourg where there’s dead cheap fags and booze. A litre of Ricard for 14 euros... (we pay 20-ish here in the Netherlands, and no doubt even more in Blighty.)
That was our fourth stay there. Highly recommended.
That was our fourth stay there. Highly recommended.
Pilgrimage
Hello all, on the off chance there's anyone posting here who doesn't visit MCiOS - there's a tentative plan for a Pilgrimage on Sunday 8th April to celebrate the 20th anniversary of that server... This may take the form of a drink in a pub somewhere in the vicinity of the Great Station itself, and general chat and playing of silly games in person... Head to MCiOS for details...
(blamelewis) I really hope to make this one.
[Rosie] It'd be a pleasure to meet you after all this time!
(blamelewis) Reciprocated. You are very kind man. I'll have to get the Choob from Morden. I am transpontine-located, just in snooty Surrey.
Pilgimage
I will have to send a cardboard cut-out. So many of you I haven't met... (I think I first actually pilged in 1999...)
Image of the Pilgr
Anyone got Skype? Pen, Gil and I could maybe make that place in the Ardennes...
I’ve only just seen Bismarck’s post. Hmmm... Where is Gil? I met him at a Euston pilg once and thought he was Blighty-based, but that was nearly 20 years ago, obvs.
in other news, I’m currently making a scarecrow prototype for a village festival in July. It’s my own fault. I came up with the idea and wrote the plan.
in other news, I’m currently making a scarecrow prototype for a village festival in July. It’s my own fault. I came up with the idea and wrote the plan.
*snicker* Total trolling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGzp-s-xyw4
Pilgrimage
You were missed Rosie... and then commemorated in absentia in the MCiOS limerick game.* Fun was had, we had five ultimately, the perfect Limerick team... Links to photos at MCiOS chat. Two games of MC were played, the first won by Projoy, the second by Simons Mith, with a bit of help from Peter Pan. The second game truly was Mornington Crescent in Outer Space, with moves like "Sea of Tranquility" resulting in an sharp increase of the importance of spin to the plays thereafter... Nice to have seen the folks there, and let's do another one sooner!
*By commemorated, I may mean ribbed...
*By commemorated, I may mean ribbed...
(blamelewis) See latest in MCiOS Limerick game.
[Rosie] Can you dial up some better weather please?
(pen) I tried but was put on hold. After some Vivaldi a voice advised me to ring in about eight weeks.
[Rosie on hold]
But was your call important to The Voice?
S'OK, we've had a couple of days of hot weather and I have decided I don't like it. You can take it away now.
Michael Fish Replacement Service
(Stevie) Oh, vital, a veritable sine qua non. Without my call the whole organisation would have folded. I wish.
(pen) Hot weather removals are not as straightforward as you might imagine. The First Law of Thermodynamics ensures that. Give me a decent oven cloth and I'll dump it in the sea off Cape Horn.
(pen) Hot weather removals are not as straightforward as you might imagine. The First Law of Thermodynamics ensures that. Give me a decent oven cloth and I'll dump it in the sea off Cape Horn.
More weather
Moderately feeble thunderstorm at Plas Huws about 1.15 a.m. It means that ghastly gnome-like little creep Matt Taylor with his weird hybrid accent was right.
Diversion
Three days of thunderstorms have drifted over the country, watering every garden except chez nous. The thundeheads have neatly parted before they reach our house, leaving us dry but giving out tantalising rumbles and flashes audible and visible from the deck.
But this evening might be different...
But this evening might be different...
Even more weather
Good thunderstorm Saturday nite. Nearly continuous lightning (cloud-to-cloud most of it) and a good downpour. More!
Aridicity
I wish, Rosie. Zero precipitation so far this calendar month at Chateau Dujon even though we experienced a couple of dry periods of electrical activity. Perhaps this little note will help in remedying that rather sad situation. Mind you, May is normally dry(ish).
Aqueous perceptions
(Duj) Yeah, I suppose for Aussies rain is generally a Good Thing whereas for us lot it is not. I've never had a rainless month though actually come quite close to it with about 2 mm in a few months in the past. The thing about this May is the warmth and sunshine. Some May days can be 'orrible; I've had two May days in the past when the temperature has failed to reach 7°C and there was a bit of sleet as well.
Up Periscope here at Chez Stevie.
Well, Rosie, my jinx worked. 7.5mm overnight (29/30) put the kybosh on a clean sheet.
(Duj) My sheet has been thoroughly cleaned by yesterday's downpour. Intermittent rain, heavy rain, light rain all day from an utterly featureless sky. It came to 32.2 mm, a May record for Plas Huws.
Weathermen
Eight straight days with a thunderstorm, this is the first without rain. Filled a plant pot to three inches, though uncalibrated. Nice warm weather and I've never seen strawberries so cheap.
(Bismarck) Wherzat den? Netherlands, N Germany?
Belgium, southerly of Pen. It did rain again overnight and then solidly the next day. The weather where I am at the moment shows no sign of rain.
Belgium, southerly of Pen. It did rain again overnight and then solidly the next day. The weather where I am at the moment shows no sign of rain.
Crossposted
Merlyn, are you sending out mails from a yahoo account? Because I got one consisting of a short link. If really sent it and really want me to open the link please resend with a subject and your MC name in the body.
[Bismarck] I've been watching the weather radar and seeing the intense storms drifting northwards from you to us over the past week, but either petering out before they arrive or slipping off course as they cross the rivers. It was mostly hot, or hot and and muggy last week, but there was lots of rain on Friday and much cooler and fresher Saturday/Sunday. Back to 20C and murk today, Monday, first day back after a week off work. *shrugs*
Winders
[Rosie] Oooh. I also use www.buienradar.nl, plus the weather station belonging to the neighbour over the road, which has its own website and tweets - telling me if my washing is getting rained on while I’m 40km away at work.
(pen) And if it is?
[Rosie] This morning, yes. No rain on the rain radar but I forgot to check the drizzle radar.
Back to autumn
This morning's weather, according to Dutch parlance, is 'sour apples' - autumnal weather when it should be summery.
(pen) It will very soon be sunny like it is here, 24°C and a bit of a breeze. Nice.
I expect it is warm in Nice.
Just come back from thereabouts and had rain most of the time, but it was warm rain.
Hot stuff
It got up to 30.2° today in the grounds of Plas Huws. Just after 5 pm a southerly breeze sprang up and the temperature dropped an almost instant 4 degrees. This must be the sea breeze - unusual because it doesn't normally reach this far north.
Non-weatherishness
On the (delayed) Paris train, with eight Dutch people in the carriage making enough conversation to invade my noise-cancelling headphones. Jajaja!
It never rains but it drizzles
(Duj) Your annual average in the parched Australian outback is higher than mine in the Elevated Surrey Wetlands, which is 822 mm. (35 yr). But your rain-days are less than 2/3rds of mine. I've never had a rainless month but this June came closest (1.2 mm) which by UK standards is the square root of a mouse's ear'ole. Good; the "lawn" stops growing so less work. Heat Is Work and Work Is Heat and it's quite warm enough.
Wet and dry
True, Rosie, but here it tends to come down in lumps. This, as you well know, results in run-off which is good for the creeks and rivers, but not for much else. Here will be found records for three consecutive years each of which is different. It also, though not deliberately, includes the heaviest rainfall I have recorded over an Australian Meteorological day (0900 to 0900).
Quite lumpy
I see 188 mm in a day. I bet that caused some mayhem. The best I've done is 68 mm but before I started recording there was a case of 175 mm over 2 days (1968) which put half of Surrey under water. We get a different kind of lumpiness, of course, solid cold lumpiness. Biggest level depth here 16" or 39 cm. (1987). Those were the days.
AVMA
I will try to keep up with the AVMA this week. However, I have to write my comp exams for grad school this week, so I may fall behind a bit. I'll make sure to come back after they are all submitted to check on it and that I've answered the questions!
Never liked hosepipes anyway
Last three days minimum 28°C, clouds and even cumulonimbi scudding across the sky, not a drop of rain. Late fruit and veg harvest going to pot.
Hosepipe broken. Send buckets.
32C as I drove home from work yesterday afternoon. Black clouds approached, squally winds sprang up and blew all the windws shut, yet there was only the slightest wetting from rain. What a bleedin' let-down.
Dry windows
Those European cars must be a little different to those we drive over here, penelope. What I find with the storm bit of your comment is that my wife and I, or one of us, race out to bring in the washing - quite unnecessarily. Still, one cannot ignore the lumps - as mentioned to Rosie - so the odds are 'bring it in', regardless.
Blowing hot
[Duj] When it's 31C and bowing a hooley, the washing dries in about 20 minutes.
And yeah - I nonned sequitured on the windows shutting thing - I meant the house windows blew shut.
And yeah - I nonned sequitured on the windows shutting thing - I meant the house windows blew shut.
Just waiting . . .
Just waiting to hear results of my comp exams now. I've still got school work, but it's back to "normal" . . . for grad school.
[K] Hope they went well. What are you studying?
Too darned hot
The temperature in the grounds of Plas Huws has now risen to 33.7°C, no less. I'm not sure why it's nearly 4 degrees warmer than yesterday but I suppose I ought to. Last night on Radio 4 that blithering twat Schaffernaker offered no help, not that he ever does.
To darn dot
I was at the barbers who had the BBC news channel on silent with the subtitles switched on. Apparently it was "the hottest day of beer so far." Oh, and they said "not to leave God in your car."
two barn dot
The car's temp readout yesterday (not up to Rosie's demands for scientific accuracy but it's the best I have on the move) as I drove past Ikea in Rotterdam said 37.5C.
An hour and a half later, we had a squally thunderstorm and it said 20C. Turns out that only the raindrops were cold because the temperature was back up around 30C when the rain stopped. It's currently at [checks neighbour's weather station - Meteo Heijningen' if you're curious] 36C. I'm working at home in front of a big fan. (No, not the windy miller, he's in his air-conditioned office).
Change is coming tomorrow - and we're doing a 24-hour marathon at the mill until Sunday lunchtime. [Molen de Korenbloem on FB if you're curious].
An hour and a half later, we had a squally thunderstorm and it said 20C. Turns out that only the raindrops were cold because the temperature was back up around 30C when the rain stopped. It's currently at [checks neighbour's weather station - Meteo Heijningen' if you're curious] 36C. I'm working at home in front of a big fan. (No, not the windy miller, he's in his air-conditioned office).
Change is coming tomorrow - and we're doing a 24-hour marathon at the mill until Sunday lunchtime. [Molen de Korenbloem on FB if you're curious].
It is 37ºC in my sun-trap of a computer room. I have not ventured out into the furnace the last two days, but thunderstorms are promised for this evening. As is (rather more reliably, I think) a total lunar eclipse. Moonrise 20:48 where I am, during totality, which continues until 22:13, followed by the partial phase until 23:19, which is effectively the end of the show. Astronomers also define the penumbral phase (when the Earth blocks at least one point on the Moon from seeing at least one point on the Sun), which ends at 00:28. More information here.
Still too darned hot
(pen) Was IKEA on fire then? Good. Awful place. There's one in Croydon to which I've been once but never again. Just weird. Your car thermometer's probably not far out. It got up to 37° at Schipol.
We've just had a big thunderstorm. Nice bit of rain (about 10 mm) and the temperature is 18°. That's my drought f*****d, then. Goodbye, drought - 39 days no measurable rain.
(Raak) Thirty seven? Would it be indelicate to enquire as to how you are attired? It's cooler outside y'know. I don't think I'll see the eclipse because there's a skyful of residual medium cloud from the thunderstorms and this sort of stuff takes ages to clear.
(Boolbar) God should be able to withstand the inferno.
We've just had a big thunderstorm. Nice bit of rain (about 10 mm) and the temperature is 18°. That's my drought f*****d, then. Goodbye, drought - 39 days no measurable rain.
(Raak) Thirty seven? Would it be indelicate to enquire as to how you are attired? It's cooler outside y'know. I don't think I'll see the eclipse because there's a skyful of residual medium cloud from the thunderstorms and this sort of stuff takes ages to clear.
(Boolbar) God should be able to withstand the inferno.
[Rosie] Thong and nipple rings. Running shorts. It looks like I won't be able to see the eclipse either, too much cloud. There was the briefest flurry of rain as I went out to hopefully look at the horizon, but no more. The forecast on the BBC is currently saying 100% chance of rain around 11pm. If it does rain properly I shall go out for a cold shower.
(11:57 pm) Well, call that rain? The lightning was quite impressive though, bright flashes diffused by the screen of cloud.
Can't be too careful
(Raak) So you didn't suffer "localised surface water flooding issues" then? Lucky man.
There's another lunar eclipse in 6 months on 21 Jan 2019. 4.41 to 5.43 a.m. 25° altitude in the west. We won't see that one either.
There's another lunar eclipse in 6 months on 21 Jan 2019. 4.41 to 5.43 a.m. 25° altitude in the west. We won't see that one either.
Not even puddles. It's noticeably cooler outside this morning, although my cold water supply is a degree up from yesterday, 23ºC.
Raining moons and thermometers
[moon] We should have had a decent view of the lunar eclipse but, as one of my nieces commented later that morning, "weeks of almost cloudless skies and suddenly the roof of the world is &#@%*! clouded over".
[Rain] It's a problem here as well - lack of rain that is - much of western New South Wales and, thus, most of the state's farmers have received less than 50mm precipitation thus far in 2018. Farms are or have already turning into dust bowls. Livestock is being destroyed by bullet as transport to market cost more than the price available (for those who survive the trip) and the farmers cannot afford the cost of bringing in fodder. It's all very sad.
[ºF/ºC] There is many a million people around the world who welcome you to the world of HEAT. It must have been a terrible shock to many an individual's internal ecosystem, particularly the young, old and frail. I fervently hope that no deaths occurred directly attributed to the heat-wave.
(Raak) Do you make regular readings of your cold water temperature, or is it a built in monitor designed to warn you of freezing water-in-pipes?
[Rain] It's a problem here as well - lack of rain that is - much of western New South Wales and, thus, most of the state's farmers have received less than 50mm precipitation thus far in 2018. Farms are or have already turning into dust bowls. Livestock is being destroyed by bullet as transport to market cost more than the price available (for those who survive the trip) and the farmers cannot afford the cost of bringing in fodder. It's all very sad.
[ºF/ºC] There is many a million people around the world who welcome you to the world of HEAT. It must have been a terrible shock to many an individual's internal ecosystem, particularly the young, old and frail. I fervently hope that no deaths occurred directly attributed to the heat-wave.
(Raak) Do you make regular readings of your cold water temperature, or is it a built in monitor designed to warn you of freezing water-in-pipes?
[Dujon] I finish every shower by turning the water to cold, and measure the temperature. In winter it was 5ºC, and I could only manage about 40 seconds, but above 20º I can stand in it indefinitely. This is part of following the Wim Hof Method for improving cold resistance.
(Raak) That sounds more like a course in masochism to my mind. Brrr!
studies
I'm studying theatre. As long as I pass my comp exams, I should have my Masters in Theatre sometime in August.
theatre
[KagomeShuko] Seconding the good wishes for the exams - what areas of theatre are you studying? I work in the industry (I design video for shows), and long ago did an MA in Theatre Studies at Glasgow Uni - can't say I was very academically successful but loved the industry enough to forge a career in it! :) (Twenty-five years on no one has *yet* noticed it's a forgery...)
When I am near ter...
[Blamelewis] Isn't ALL of theatre a forgery?
Quote Unquote
Far from it, pen..
In other news, July was the hottest recorded at Plas Huws (since 1983) but only beat July 2006 and July 1983 by the teeniest margin.
In other news, July was the hottest recorded at Plas Huws (since 1983) but only beat July 2006 and July 1983 by the teeniest margin.
Big Data Weather
Looking at this snazzy app that my power company provided me with showing the output of my solar panels, I am wondering if it is possible to extract useful stuff like "it was a nice day" and "this month was hotter than normal". Any suggestions?
I wonder if it is possible to use the app to hack your home network, unlock your IoT front door and stealz your neat stuffs.
Did the panels come with a hideously deformed hunchback assistant to turn them on and off?
Henchhunch
[Stevie] No, you have to provide that yourself - there's a job ad out if you'd like to apply.
HDHBA
I shall have to dig out an email exchange I had in 1999 or thereabouts that revolved around the hiring of HDHBAs to work automatic generator cutover switches enfeebled by Y2K upgrades. I could get a worthwhile TOS post out of it.
Automation alert
(Bismarck) Don't tell the Met Office - they'll get ideas. Nearly all weather observations are now automated; the numbers go automatically into a computer and a forecast is produced. A sort of human may then intervene and tell the awaiting masses it will feel warmer/colder or whatever, this idiot savant having access to the thermal responses of the entire population, ranging from 6-yr-old boys to old dears of 92.
Serendipitous reporting
There's probably been a game like this, but I'd like to suggest a re-run after reading here this comment about Boris Johnson: "It looks to me like he's digging his political grave. It's one to deploy humour and charm and intellect and all these things he has in spades". Anyone interested?
Time is an illusion, summer time doubly so...
Europe is thinking of getting rid of the hour change. It looks like being one of those weird decisions - if voted on before end October, Europe remains on summer time; if after, winter time. Which should we vote for?
Serendipidous
[Bismarck] When Robert Maxwell had disappeared from his yacht, before his body was found, one of his friends was interviewed on the TV and said - utterly without inflection - that "He seemed in a buoyant mood the last time I saw him." I was somewhat delighted...
Totally tropical
At 2 o'clock this morning the temperature in the grounds of Plas Huws was 19.0°C. It's October FFS. About 10 degC above what it should be.
Credence
It can't be global warming because Trump says it's not.
Ad hominem
I read him as saying that it is OK to believe in climate change, as long as you are willing to be blamed for it. To show his acceptance, he is looking for volunteers.
25°C two weeks ago, now it's snowing. Is it going to be a hard winter or a mild winter?
25°C two weeks ago, now it's snowing. Is it going to be a hard winter or a mild winter?
(Bis) I suppose I ought to say something, being ex-Met Office. Well, mild or cold, FIIK.
Come on Rosie, you can do better than that. Where's your experience from previous years, observation of migration patterns of sparrows, wind direction causing bunion growth, modern glaciation etc etc to say nothing of the advanced abacus climate models?
The Met Office's Abba Cuss has been given over to accountancy. Helen Willetts will continue to suppress giggles on Radio 4. Tomasz Schaffernaker will say "cunt" on air and become "A" list. An inch of snow will cause widespread points failures. Points mean derailments. What do points mean?
Belated MHR for Sat. last, Rosie.
(Duj) Many thanks mate. Trombones abundant.
non-sensical riddle
I have a riddle: If you're going down a river at 2MPH and your canoe loses a wheel, how much pancake mix would you need to re-shingle your roof?
3.
[KagomeShuko] *Holds hands about 3 feet apart* This colour.
(KS) At least 5 foot 8.
[KS] Fish
[KS] If it's the roof of your mouth we're talking about, the answer is to change your brand of pancake mix pronto.
Merry Christmas everyone at MC5
Happy Christmas and especial thanks be unto Rab, Rob, Dan, Dunx, Jim, Rich, Wild Pants, Yoz and all the other hosters of international silliness.
Gratitude
(SM) Hear, hear.
What SM said
Also, what Rosie said.
Christmas isn't over yet!
Merry Christmas, all!!!
I bought this CD by U2, but I want my money back. It never told me how to dismantle an atomic bomb!
Not me
Ha well you'd have thought that a spy plane would know something about it. But on further investigation it's written by a bunch of Irishmen, a nation not known for their atomic status nor for spying prowess.
2019 A day or so ago I wished a friend a happy new year to which he answered "You too."
So I echo his sentiments, late as they are, to all participants in this world of oddness.
Can't stand the pressure
(Dujon) I don't know if this sort of thing happens in Oz but the barometric pressure in the last few days in the UK has been up to 1045 mb but the weather associated with it has been some of the most boring I can remember. Saw the sun today for the first time since Christmas.
It might, Rosie, but an hPa/mb reading above 1040 at Maison Dujon is unusual, although not unheard of. High pressure systems generally produce settled weather and clear skies, but that's not always the case.
Locally we have been having a short spell of hot weather. Rather than fill this space with data, I refer you to this (rather rough) image.
You jammy git
(Duj) Those curves are quite unlike anything I get, quite apart from the warmth. On a fine day here the temperature rises very rapidly to start with then the rate tails off to a fairly smooth maximum apart from the jagged short-period variations of about one degree. What's the "apparent temperature"? It seems to be about 2° above the actual temperature, day and night. I see something rather dramatic happened in the afternoon of the last day. Cool southerlies taking over? I bet you're relieved.
Just a bit of melting chocolate
[Rosie] Apparent Temperature? It's a "feels like" approximation relating to how the human body reacts to current conditions. If you pop off to one of my web sites here and open the INFO section of the menu bar you will find a few other methods of calculating that in the middle "Bio Indexes" [sic] choice.
If you bang around the site you will find other data showing local conditions, current and historical. As far as the temperature curves, yes, it tends to trend to maximum and then descend to minimum readings at a fairly rapid rate, although the falling temperature is generally somewhat slower than the the rising one.
After two days of relatively cool maxima as I type the outside temperature is a little over 31ºC with a projected maximum of or about 35ºC.
If you bang around the site you will find other data showing local conditions, current and historical. As far as the temperature curves, yes, it tends to trend to maximum and then descend to minimum readings at a fairly rapid rate, although the falling temperature is generally somewhat slower than the the rising one.
After two days of relatively cool maxima as I type the outside temperature is a little over 31ºC with a projected maximum of or about 35ºC.
Yeah but you're used to it
(Dujon) I've only had two 35's in 36 years, 3 Aug 90 and 10 Aug 03. Highest minimum was 20.0°C, lowest max was something I didn't think was possible, viz -9.2°C and on this day in 1987.
Used and abused via frigidity
(Rosie) -9ºC maximum? Blimey, that is a bit on the parky side. Since I've lived in this part of the country we haven't had a minimum that approaches that level of coolness. I have three Canadian cyberfriends who would giggle at that - one is in Quebec (Montreal) and the other two out west in B.C. where a maximum of -20ºC is apparently a balmy winter's day.
Warlingham, coldest place on the planet
(Duj) It was a sunny day with snow on the ground and a light easterly wind and it just wouldn't warm up. The reason lay in the air above, an import from north-west Russia. Even the high June sun falling on dry ground would have made little impression on that column of frigidity so the January sun slanting in on a snow surface had no chance. AFAIK my recording was the lowest in the country (unofficial) but if there'd been a weather station at the top of the North Downs, nearly 900 ft, it would have been colder still, the opposite of what normally happens when it gets very cold. The temperature was below freezing continuously for 11 days and stayed below -5°C for 3 days. The UK record for a low max is -19°C (Braemar, Scottish Highlands, 10/1/82). Nothing could move; all the diesel had waxed out.
Weather
[Rosie] Extremes like that don't happen here on the rock. Currently 9.6C, forecast minimum 6C. And my wife says it's cold.
La Bête de l'Est
(Softers) I'm sure there have been a few occasions when Jersey has been the hottest place in "Britain", being affected by a hot blast from France.
It's not getting much better *perspires*
(Rosie) Don't expect any short term communication. The BoM forecast for our Penrith. As a rule of thumb knock off 2ºC for Chateau Duj. Image here
As I type it's just after 1430hrs and 38.0ºC outside in the shade.
As I type it's just after 1430hrs and 38.0ºC outside in the shade.
(Duj) It's about 38°F (3°C) here. The scene is brightened by a couple of inches of snow on the ground and brilliant low sunshine.
Weather
[Rosie] Hottest? Only once or twice ISTR.
[Dujon] I’m in Lithuania for a few days. A concert of Armenian music on folk instruments last night, now seeing the sights of Vilnius before coming home Sunday.
More weather, I'm afraid
Another warm, still, sunny day - up to 16°C in the grounds of Plas Huws and it's still only February. Knowing that March and early April can be utterly foul I'm not looking forward to the end of this spell.
I believe I am having a touch of hay fever. In February! 13°C here, bright sunshine, and promising so for the next few days.
(Temperature estimate from the BBC weather site, not an actual thermometer in my garden.)
(Raak) Assuming you're in Naarj I'd say the temperature was a little higher than that - possibly 15-16°C. Max 15.9° here in the Elevated Surrey Desert.
Even more weather, alas
It's been 18.8°C in the grounds of Plas Huws today, a February record (for here) by some distance, the previous best being 17.0°C in Feb 98. I even had the back door open, unheard of in Feb.
It's summer, that's what it is.
Summer what, Raak?
[Dujon] It's icumen in.
(Duj) It's already come in. 20.8°C here this afternoon. This is higher than the average max for June. You may laugh.
Same in Glasgow, where Gorbals' warming is now obvious.
Why would I laugh, Rosie? If you thought that I might, then I suspect you would break into loud guffaws should I reveal how often the minimum temperature at Castille Duwhan dropped below the freezing point (of water). ;)
If it will make you feel any better it's 11:00 on Wednesday as I type; The outside shade temperature is 22.1ºC. As we use the meteorological seasons in this country, this coming Friday is the first day of our Autumn (as opposed to the equinox on 2019-03-21 08.59 my summer time *bring out George Gershwin or it'll be too late*).
If it will make you feel any better it's 11:00 on Wednesday as I type; The outside shade temperature is 22.1ºC. As we use the meteorological seasons in this country, this coming Friday is the first day of our Autumn (as opposed to the equinox on 2019-03-21 08.59 my summer time *bring out George Gershwin or it'll be too late*).
It's grim up north
(Dujon) It freezes overnight here on an average of 39 days a year and stays below freezing all day on 3 days.
Ourhot very mild spell has ended. March will probably be 'orrible, wet and cold with an average temperature about 6°C with sleet and floods. (That's not a forecast, it's a miserablism).
Our
Water, water everywhere
I came across this today:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190310-why-britains-rain-cant-sustain-its-thirst
Is it that serous? It must be admitted that more people means more use of water. Ergo, reduce the population? Stop all immigration? One child per couple? A shower per person per month? Desalinate the Atlantic and the North Sea?
To save you from a cut-and-paste exercise, the link is: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190310-why-britains-rain-cant-sustain-its-thirst
My apologies for the carelessness.
My apologies for the carelessness.
Dehydration
(Duj) The average annual rainfall here at Hughes Hall since 1983 is 822 mm, considerably more that the 500-600 mentioned in the link for SE England and there is no significant trend over the period. It's not enough partly because a huge amount leaks from the mains and partly because people are extravagant with it, laying it out to dry in the garden for instance. Metering ought to be compulsory.
Metering, leeks etc ;)
Yes, Rosie, metering here is compulsory. In other words you pay for what you use. Then again, my son who lives about a half-hour drive to my west does not have reticulated water - he has a 50,000 litre storage tank system (i.e. water collected from his roof). Many households have the same, regardless of reticulation.
As an aside, I have a solar panel array on my roof, even though I have electricity 'piped' to my residence. It will take some years to pay off the initial investment, but it sure as heck saves me and the grid many KiloWatt hours of usage.
This just in: Solar panels designed to secretly suck power out of the grid during night hours. Power companies implicated in complex billing scam. Film at eleven.
Orlando area Florida fields were awash in solar panels last summer. Everywhere here wasn't an amusement park or timeshare complex, there was a few acres of solar panelage. I even saw an enormous solar panel installation to one side of a development that had yet to break ground as far as housing went.
It's all those condominiums, Stevie. Are you not aware that they soak up all the infrared radiation during the day and, come evening, release the stored energy to heat the beaches?
Pythons
(Duj) penult. Here, we just call it the mains. Quite harmless.
Slithering and Winding
(Rosie) Not to my wallet it isn't.
Prayers, please
I know I've not been here in a long time. Right now, the main reason being my sister Briana (Giertrud here) is in the hospital. I brought her to the doctor on March 25 afraid of signs of concussion and her doctor sent her to the ER. She was sent to a room and a night later went into respiratory distress. She was on a ventilator and sedated for a few days because she had a rare form of pneumonia. The doctor thinks that is gone, but she still can't seem to breathe on her own, her temperature keeps going down and they don't know why, and now, she can't seem to swallow either. We need prayers for the doctors to be able to figure out what is going wrong and know how to fix it and also for Briana to get better.
Oh, when she went into respiratory distress, they sent her to the ICU. They tried sending her to a floor, but her temperature was staying low and she still couldn't breathe. Hopefully things will be better this time, but she does have a nasal cannula and she also has an NG tube feeding her right now.
Ok, we're on it.
[KagomeShuko] That is distressing news. I do hope there is a positive outcome for you both.
(KagomeShuko) I hope they can discover the problem and can fix it not just for her sake but for yours and everyone here.
Giertrud
[KagomeShuko] any updates?
Water, water everywhere
Since about 3 a.m. Monday we've had 3.8 inches of rain here. My gauge nearly overfloweth but not quite. This afternoon it took me over 10 minutes to drive 0.7 mile locally, all in bottom gear, along the mighty B269 which like every other road round here has blocked drains, Surrey CC being too impoverished to clear them.
Pluvation
[Rosie] Tsk. Brexit fever has robbed you of your hard-learned Metric abilities. No longer able to measure things in milli-hogsheads per pascal-coulomb you revert to the anachronistic inches. Good for you. Like putting on an old pair of slippers. Pleasant once you get past the two-bob bit in the lining of the right one.
I shall attempt to have someone record the amount of wet that will fall on us during the Stevielings Open-Air Nuptials in Florida at the end of June. Fearing the worst I have arranged for the congregation to lurk within tent. A tent with no sides so that they will be lured into a false sense of weatherproofing until the winds pick up. Bwa-ha and I might venture an additional "ha" into the bargain.
Heatwave a-coming
Midday 18°C, evening 27°C. Tomorrow and the rest of the week forecast 35°C, and this is only Belgium. Cat dehydrated, am attempting dripfeed with milk.
Heatwave abandoned
(Bismarck) We will miss the heatwave by about two hundred miles (i.e. a meteorological hair's breadth). Shame - I was looking for a genuine excuse not to do much except gawp at thunderstorms.
Is milk the best thing for cats? A lot of people don't seem to think so. Put a dirty old frying pan out in the garden with some water in it - he'll go for it.
[Rosie] The essence of experimentation has the subject's welfare only tangentially in mind.
The milk of human kindness
For cats, Rosie, it is not. I have been advised so over the years by various veterinarians. The cats over those years who deigned to live with us have been offered only water. They drink very little of it. Perhaps they collect enough of the stuff from the food that they eat - or maybe the few shallow trays we keep topped up in the garden for the use of our avian friends.
Beware of the cat
(Dujon) A cat's paw moves faster than light if it means business. Are the little dickies aware of this?
[Dujon] Perhaps they drink very little of it because they keep waiting for the milk!
The defeat of Einstein
[Rosie] Yes they are. In all my time here I have not come across a bundle of feathers in my gardens. Nor has my wife, the gardener of the Dujon Estate. I put down that to the calls some birds make when danger is imminent, particularly from the colloquially named 'Noisy Miner'.
[CdM] Given that most of them there cats lived to seventeen years on average, I have to doubt that supposition. :)
AFPD
Hidden text
absolutely fucking pissing downHappy birthday, "A Sticky End". It is exactly one year since you last had a move played.
[Raak] With good reason, it must be said.
Annual checkin
Hello. Apologies once again for my continuing absence. Yes, there's a been a server upgrade. So you will see some ‘tésting’.
Hmmm... seems to be going a bit too smoothly...
Still here?
It's surprising how much stuff you can delete...
Checking in
*Beep*
Unexpected item in the bagging area
Itemised
[Electronic Voice] Expect the unexpected.
Sticky End
dah dah de dah de dah de dah, da da da da da tissue???
Blank look
[blamelewis] Musical sneezing?
Din B Denby
[blamelewis] Delius with a cold?
Hello, I still exist
[blamelewis] MAP, 0 in Morse code?
(Kn) That's good, but how are your knees?
Hmmm
At first I had no memory of what the hell I was talking about. Troubling. It was a suggested move/rhyme for the moribund Sticky End game.
Hipster
Just been back to Paris, and saw a shop selling quinoa vodka. How hipsterish is that?
Nipster
Just been back to sunny Lincolnshire to visit family and friends and for a project meeting for a new annual festival for which I volunteer my comms expertise (Louth Pie Day, in case you're hungry). As part of that, I met up with the wife of a guy I worked for 7 years after I graduated. Their son and daughter (mere dots when I worked there) are about to set up a VERY Lincolnshire flavoured business.
Potato vodka.
I'm interested to konw what that entails - I hestitated to write 'artisan potato vodka' because I knew some clever bottom would ask me what an artisan potato is.
Potato vodka.
I'm interested to konw what that entails - I hestitated to write 'artisan potato vodka' because I knew some clever bottom would ask me what an artisan potato is.
Slavic booze
(pen) Ferment spuds in a freshly cleaned dustbin. Transfer, using a bucket, to a 50-litre flask and fractionate carefully by distillation. You can make it as strong as you like. No additives allowed. Potatoes are intrinsically artisan as are dustbins and buckets. Note - I have done a fair amount of "bucket chemistry" as it is termed.
Vespula vulgaris
55 years and 4 days on this planet without being stung by bees or wasps, until now. A pesky wasp was hiding in my top.
Wodka
[pen] I thought that *all* vodka is made from potatoes. You use grains, you get whisk(e)y. You use grapes you get brandy. You use spuds you get vodka. You use old tea bags, banana peels or beetroot*, you get what you deserve.
* - As per a bloke on the same corridor in Waveny Terrace as me in my 2nd year at UEA. If it stopped moving, he fermented it and drank the results. Heart of gold. Nerves of steel. Bowels of water.
Manic fermenter
(Stevie) A choleric personality, then?
Not much you can't make booze from if you try hard enough. Elderflower champagne? Actually rather nice if you can do it without exploding bottles everywhere
potato peelings
My first taste of poteen was during the beginning of my second career (in comms) sitting at my desk, offered by my boss. Sadly all I could smell were rotting potato peelings, an odour I'd had a professional interest in since my first career as a lab technician, analysing waste water from veg processing plants.
I guess if you're desperate for a drink then it'll do the job. or you could put it in tea or coffee.
I guess if you're desperate for a drink then it'll do the job. or you could put it in tea or coffee.
Strange idea of your PR boss coming around with something a) homebrewed b) alcoholic c) of uncertain content and expecting you to drink it - was he an Irishman trying to pick you up?
Sorry, I've been amiss
Sorry that I've been amiss. Things with Briana (Giertrude) haven't been great and I've been job searching. Briana has gone back and forth. They had her eating, but things were getting beyond difficult for me with being a caretaker. I've needed space for years, but I love my sister, so I wouldn't NOT take care of her. They got her into a group home and she's had to be transferred to a different one that is not as close to me as the first one. She was at the first one and eating and she started having problems breathing, so they sent her to the hospital. She had aspiration pneumonia. They did some swallow tests on her and they found that her epiglottis (the part that closes off in your throat so you can swallow without choking on or breathing in your food) isn't working. She has a PEG tube (feeding tube) inserted into her stomach so she can be fed. She needs 24/7 nursing care, so that's why she is now in a different group home, but it's a two hour drive from where I live. She's had to have her dogs given to a foster who is looking for a new home for them. And I'm still job searching. I can't get out to see her if i don't have money.
[KS] Sympathy. You're going through something terrible. I am sorry. Got a fund page we could chip in to?
Sympathy
[KS] 8o(
[KS] So sorry to hear that. I do hope things improve soon for you and your sister, and offer a hug if you are ever in my vicinity.
Funds . . . blech
[Superman] I don't have a fund page. Whenever I have one, people don't tend to chip in - I may get a few dollars here or there, but it's never enough. I hate fund pages by now, partly because of that, but then I learned that they basically run by taking money that is donated because they all take a percentage from what is donated that could be going to the person or people who really do need that money. It's not like a hope thing with Kickstarter. Sadly, things are not going well. She's been admitted to the hospital out where she was. Then she's been released. I've not been given updates like the group home organization promised. I only found out that she had been admitted to the hospital because a nurse called me when Briana (Giertrud) was asking to talk to me.
Weather - others need not read
(Rosie) Rain December 2019 - 0.3mm: Rain 2019 - 500.2mm: Rain Days 2019 - 78. Yesterday 2019-12-31 max temp 43.6ºC (110.5ºF). Phew!
Good day to hang out the washing
(Dujon) Forty-three? Faaaakinell. 8.3° here - rather mild, a bit misty, hardly any wind, boring really. Rainfall 141 mm this month so garden a bit sodden. Swapsies? I hope the inferno is nowhere near you.
The new normal
[Rosie] Temperatures in the mid 40s are rapidly becoming commonplace here. At this point the amount of Australia that has burned is about 44,000 km2. That's more than the area of Switzerland. Or more than two Waleses, if you prefer. Here in Melbourne we have so far been spared any serious impact, but I suspect things are much scarier in Dujon's neck of the woods.
[KS] Sorry to hear that things are so tough for you. Hang in there.
Wrung out?
(Rosie) We're fine at the moment, thanks, other than some pretty severe smoke being intermittently in evidence. That doesn't mean that we are not alert to what is going on around us; the 'local' fires are not all that far from us, and we are practised in packing suitcases and shoving the cat into its carry basket.
(CdM) I don't think your comment regarding the mid-forties becoming more common is true - not here anyway. In fact it's not common to have max. temps. at 40ºC. I shall have to dig into my data base to check that, but I am sure that I am correct.
(CdM) I don't think your comment regarding the mid-forties becoming more common is true - not here anyway. In fact it's not common to have max. temps. at 40ºC. I shall have to dig into my data base to check that, but I am sure that I am correct.
Degrees of hotth
[Dujon] I'm glad that you are OK (at least for now); I do always keep a particular eye out when fires seem to be approaching your neighbourhood. I should know better than to present to you and Rosie a vague impressionistic generalisation about the weather in the form of a fact-checkable statement! Guilty as charged. I suppose it all depends on your definition of "mid" and "commonplace". :) We do know that Australia has just experienced its hottest year on record and in December experienced the two hottest days on record. We had two days above 40 here in Melbourne last month, and while that's certainly not unprecedented, it's definitely unusual for December.
How warm has it been recently?
(CdM) Fires are more caused by extreme dryness and the density and type of vegetation than by heat alone though of course heat and dryness are often associated. There have been fires in Britain, nearly always in early spring after a very dry winter. This is the problem of using proxies - some are very sensitive to environmental change whereas others have a multitude of causes and may tell you very little. By far the safest assessment is to use measured and quality-controlled data and proper analysis will tell you if anything's happening. (It is. It's getting warmer)
Where have the archives gone?
I clicked the "See More" button on the front page, and only got games up to February 2016.
Fake Views
[Raak] I can see back to 2003. Oh look, The Beige Allegro!
Old games, yes, but it seems recently we've been getting too shy about killing games off. I think all the sites might benefit from greater turnover.
[SM] 'sbeen that way for years, they just tend to dwindle into total inertia. Presumably because no-one feels like sufficiently involved in a given game enough to be the person to end it. I fear there aren't many budding ideas waiting to be started though (I'd love to be wrong).
Not just involvement, it's respect for the denizens of this universe in following their lead. Make it clear that anyone has the right to kill off a game, and that running a new version of an old game us not a problem. Also rules for the bloody ostrich game and Wigwam would be useful.
Can't stand the pressure
Barometers - tap! Mine reads the highest I have ever seen it - 1048 mb. (Dujon) This is one meteorological element in which we beat you hands down. The other one is low pressure. UK record is 925 mb (Scotland of course). I don't think it was caused by global warming, not in 1884, part of a cool stormy decade.
Pressure? What pressure?
Pressure at ours: max was about 1044mb according to my neighbour's weather station. I can see it on the roof opposite from my kitchen window.
Synoptic situations wait for no man or woman
(pen) Too late - you've missed it. There was a 1050 centre over Belgium. A paltry 1047 now.
[Rosie] In NY in the last four days it has been roast city, intolerable heat, sweatbox weather, then snow. It would seem that the weather system hereabouts now functions the same way the pop-o-matic does for certain board games; three numbers the same then one properly random one.
(Stevie) That's North America for you. What you need is an ocean round you - moderation in all things.
[Rosie] I'll have you know I have the same ocean round my part of North America as you do in Standalone Great (Again) Britain. The Long Island Sound is part of the Atlantic doncher know.
I don't mind snow, I just want it to be proper snow, not "here's an inconvenience to bugger up Saturday" snow. There wasn't even enough to make firing up Troll (the Snowblower of Supreme Spiffiness) worthwhile. Too much to shovel manually, though. I used the Toro electric snow broom I had for years before I got serious about snow removal.
Crystalline water substance
(Stevie) Shurely proper snow is not just going to bugger up Saturday but the whole weekend and very likely the LIRR to boot.
a) I use Troll, the Snowblower of Supreme Spiffiness to get rid of it once it stops falling. Two hours tops.
2) Snow on Saturday = shopping trips replaced by marathon Netflix sessions.
þ) LIRR broken? Stay-at-home day!
♣) Monday was a holiday anyway.
(Stevie) Excellent attitude. Similar to my Rain = Don't have to do any gardening.
[Rosie] Florida is cooler than it sometimes is this time of year, but still shirt-sleeve weather to this son o' the Midlands. No rain (yet - like cockroaches, it's always there waiting to make a pleasant time less so). This year we are infested with a band of thoughtless pricks all driving the same model of humongous pick-up (and all bearing New York plates wouldn'tcha know) and parking so inconsiderately that we've had to park several spaces away from our villa. Plenty of space if they'd stop being gits. I saw one of them wander out on Saturday night and almost hurled. Grossly obese with folds of fat tumbling down, it was wearing only a pair of jeans and *they* were at half-mast. Jesus! I've describe things that should not be in my Call of Cthulhu game that were less vomit-inducing.
On the plus side, the Stevieling and Mr Stevieling are thriving as a married couple, so somewhere the balance is in, er, balance. I brought some trains with me this time. British trains! Bit o' cork-faced foamcore, some old set-track from 30 years ago and the Minitrix Britannia will steam again! As will the Farish 97xx, the Dapol 57xx and 14xx and sundry BR diesels in intercity livery. Going to experiment with Peco's uncoupling gadget. It isn't as clever as Kaydee knuckles but the rolling stock is so light I dunno that knuckles would work properly anyway. When working right they allow some eye-popping shunting moves with only one uncoupling magnet. I'll have to seed a yard with Peco uncoupling magnets for a similar flexibility. On the plus side, the Peco device is supposed to work with the dreadful Rapido couplings fitted to the stock.
(Stevie) Magnetic couplings? Blimey, there's posh. Wouldn't last long if a big 28xx got hold of them. BTW I have seen 97xx's at Paddongton. They used to go down the Tube to Moorgate, condensing their exhaust. Horrible to drive; no draught, no steam.
I used to know a barman whose surname was Barrett. Trousers at half-mast I thought of him as Bumcrack Barrett. One of the things about being old is you never need be a fashion victim.
Cockup
That big station I mentioned is Paddington, not Paddongton, which sounds a bit phallic and not something the starchy old GWR would approve of.
[Rosie] Well the results have been mixed. I won't have time to construct the test bed needed for the uncoupling magnet thing. The new Dapol 57xx and the new-then-stored-for-years Dapol 14xx run super smoothly over set-track including a dead-frog point. Astounding for an N scale 0-4-2. The two Dapol prairie tanks run slightly less smoothly, but are still impressive. The Farish 97xx I bought to replace the warping and hideously manufactured one I bought when I was 17 runs impressively smoothly too (and for some reason looks prettier on hte track than any of the other locos, even though the others are manufactured to a finer finish), as does the $20 from eBay class 08. The one I bought for just over 20 quid in '91 will sometimes not run in reverse, so I took the body off to diagnose the issue. During the testing, which did not uncover the problem, the spring from the rear coupler launched itself into oblivion and it seems they are impossible to replace these days. Another success there, then. And the Britannia runs very roughly. I think I will have to strip it down to clean the wiper contacts. It is all very annoying.
I want to do shunting operations with this kit, so I need a reliable coupler that can be remotely uncoupled. I think the kaydee knucles that work so well on US pattern stock won't work on the UK 10ft wheelbase stock because the action is one of lateral force applied by magnets and I think the lightweight UK wagons will simply derail. The Peco device is a metal strip that attaches to the rapido coupler, lifting it when the magnet is energised. Only thing is, they are only guaranteed to work with Peco unsprung couplers. Most of my rolling stock is fitted with sprung couplers.
Oh well.
Pressure
(Rosie) I've not been ignoring you; my Internet connection went walkabout for a couple of weeks. That's 'phone, e-mail - the lot.
As far as pressure is concerned you are quite correct for readings at my humble abode.
As far as pressure is concerned you are quite correct for readings at my humble abode.
Being boring
(Rosie) It's 15:55 as I type - temp = 44.4ºC. Perhaps CdM is right.
(Dujon) Well, it's over 44.4 here. Wait a minute; that's Fahrenheit.
It's been a mild and rather boring January here - mean temperature 6.2, 1.9 above average. BTW the pressure reached 1050 for a few hours in S. Wales on the 19th. (World record is 1084, NW Russia, 31 Dec 1968).
It's been a mild and rather boring January here - mean temperature 6.2, 1.9 above average. BTW the pressure reached 1050 for a few hours in S. Wales on the 19th. (World record is 1084, NW Russia, 31 Dec 1968).
need a job, need a job, need a job . . .
*sigh* I'm so busy job searching. I am a teach on VIPkid, but I can't do the overnights that are required. I tried and it just didn't work for me. I MIGHT be able to do them sometimes, but I definitely couldn't support myself with that job. I really need a job, so prayers, good wishes, good vibes, etc, are definitely appreciated because I need something in my time zone . . . or at least in a U.S. time zone that might just make things a little off. Or a decently paying independent contractor job. The problem is that many of those don't pay decently.
online presence . . . or is that presents?
Does anybody here use Facebook or Instagram? Just curious . ..
[KagomeShuko] Facebook, I've left my account to rot, and I find it increasingly creepy how much it continues to 'follow' me about. A pox on Zuckerberg and all his spawn. Instagram, no. I've got a Nerdica account I've never used and a slight Pluspora presence.
(SM) This (and the Other Place)is the nearest I get to Social Media, though I've had some useful interactions on YouTube comment threads.
Ciara the Storm
Other than the strange name for the storm, most of the footie in B and NL got called off. So far a bit blowy here, but hardly a storm.
Getting quite windy here now. From the Met Office there is what is referred to on my weather group as a "Custard Warning", i.e. areas affected are coloured yellow. On the 0030 Radio 4 forecast Helen Willetts said the storm would be "impactful". Helen, you're a poet. Now sod off and speak English.
Naming storms like this, apart from being cheesy, is meteorologically unsound as they have much less of a singular identity than a tropical hurricane and can split up and do all sorts of funny things.
Naming storms like this, apart from being cheesy, is meteorologically unsound as they have much less of a singular identity than a tropical hurricane and can split up and do all sorts of funny things.
Gusts over 60 mph here, so far no trees damaged in the area, though elsewhere there has been quite some damage.
From flames to floods
It seems as though your weather is as barmy as ours. After all the hot temperatures and bushfires we have now inundation. Yesteryear we had a total of 500.2mm of rainfall. Less than six weeks into the new year we have already had 534mm of drips and drops on our roof tops.
(Dujon) I had a look at OZBOM, excellent as usual, but it seems I've just missed the action. I find it more difficult to interpret synoptic charts for semi-tropical latitudes than for areas like Britain. Maybe just a case of what you're used to.
Your rainfall of 534 mm in 6 weeks is phenomenal. That's about 13 mm a day,every day. The "best" I've done in that style is 574 mm in three months, winter 2013-14.
Your rainfall of 534 mm in 6 weeks is phenomenal. That's about 13 mm a day,every day. The "best" I've done in that style is 574 mm in three months, winter 2013-14.
Monthly anniversary
(Rosie) Just an update for you. Jan - 95.8mm; Feb - 552.4mm; Mar ro date - 69.5mm; Total for year-to-date 717.7mm.
Stop boasting
(Dujon) February 552 mm. No answer to that. What were temperatures like during your monsoon?
Deflated
Not being boastful, Rosie, just celebrating. To answer your question re February, rain in mm and max temp in brackets ºC:
7th - 73.2 (32.4) ; 8th - 107.6 (35.6) ; 9th - 203.0 (36.7} ; 10th - 49.5 (42.2) ; 13th - 36.4 (31.9)
There were 16 rain days in the 29-day month, so the balance was scattered around the remaining 24 days.
7th - 73.2 (32.4) ; 8th - 107.6 (35.6) ; 9th - 203.0 (36.7} ; 10th - 49.5 (42.2) ; 13th - 36.4 (31.9)
There were 16 rain days in the 29-day month, so the balance was scattered around the remaining 24 days.
Hot showers
(Dujon) Presumably the temperature was a lot below the maximum each day while the rain was actually falling. Looking at the figures I'd say they were all pretty violent thunderstorms. I'm extremely envious.
Nilpresent
Sorry I keep dipping in and out of this place. I had hoped to join in a bit more after creating a more mobile-friendly skin. You can find it here but be warned. It’s somewhat experimental and plays fast and loose with flex-based layouts, which seem to be supported idiosyncratically across browsers. (My css was never that great anyway). I know for a fact it doesn’t work on Internet Explorer, if anyone actually still uses that, but it seems ok on Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc, as well whatever the latest stock Android browser is (I think).
Give it a whirl, tell me what you think, and if it works for enough people I might make it the default.
Skins
Not exactly the colour scheme I would have chosen, and what is that enormous decorative font? But it works (Samsung phone with Chrome browser). The automatic bold & italic is a major step into the Century of the Fruitbat, thanks!
Technicolor
Not sure it's the colour scheme I would have chosen either :) Being colour blind I always have difficulty choosing colour palettes. Most of the colours came with Bootstrap (which does the responsive mobile goodness), but there are a few that are specific to this site. If you have a css editor extension in your browser, the relevant attributes are the background in the .rab-bg-head, .rab-bg-flip and .rab-bg-flop classes. These cover the bluey tones that appear on the front page, and the top of the game page. The color attribute of .rab-bg-head a, .rab-bg-flip a and .rab-bg-flop a classes controls the colour that the links on the front page appear. If you come up with some better numbers than the ones I did, feel free to share!
The enormous decorative font is called Merienda. Again I can tone down the size if it's too much. (And if it's too much, you should have seen the first one I played with for a while...)
Weirdness
There's something going on here that I don't understand...
Weirditude
Is it to do with having very few cars running, local deliveries available and very few aircraft flying? Yes, as you suspected, you're in a time warp - this is the 1970's again, but this time you're old!
Don't talk to me about old. For blokes, it's the time that every bit of your body starts going stiff except the one bit you actually want to. Call that fair?
Have any of ever you become dog owners for the first time in your 50s? The windy miller and I are both now working at home for the foreseeable, and I anticipate that even after September I'll be working from home quite a bit. We're thinking seriously about it.
A friendly, middle-aged, middle-sized rescue dog of indeterminate breed would do us fine.
Any thoughts?
A friendly, middle-aged, middle-sized rescue dog of indeterminate breed would do us fine.
Any thoughts?
Who let the dogs in?
[pen] I'd say go for it. The dog will soon have you quickly trained. Alas, I am no longer a dog owner in my 50s, which has set me down the road of possibly looking for another.
Well I'd volunteer for the position myself, but I don't have a waggy enough tail. Go for it.
Aging
[Pablo] I know what you mean. My upper lip is not what it used to be.
Stiffness
(Pablo) Fair? Depends how much you spread your seed earlier. That doesn't include the bedroom floor BTW. Try being 77 and hoping for some gloriously horny old bat to turn up. It can happen.
I'm beginning to notice that the lockdown is having an effect (on me at least) similar to large quantities of alcohol in that inhibition is disappearing. Do other morniversers notice this? Who wants a fuck?
[Rosie] As I understand the Human Condition, everyone wants a fuck, but no-one is willing to give one.
Inhibitions, lack of in Castle Rosie
Pwy eisio ffwc
(Stevie) Shurely I at least have indicated my willingness to attempt the required act. Success, of course, cannot be guaranteed.
Still ROFLMAO at your second item. Top drawer.
Still ROFLMAO at your second item. Top drawer.
[Rosie] Er, something about alcohol increasing the desire but decreasing the performance? I believe you can get good beer goggles online these days ;-)
(Pablo) Androgen Deprivation Therapy Is even more effective but I've just come off it after 3 years. Hooray!
[Rosie] Ow! that sounds diabolical
Bollocks, irrelevance of
(Pablo) Doesn't hurt, just reduces the libido (to about zero). Some men sprout tits but fortunately I didn't. A prostate cancer needs male hormone in order to grow. Deprive it and it goes "to sleep" and can then be zapped with radiotherapy. It seems to have worked. Well done the Royal Marsden.
Irrelevant bollocks or not, [Rosie], that's excellent news.
(pen) Tiz, innit. I look forward to putting the improvement into practice.
[Rosie] Good news indeed. Sometimes libido reduction just happens, no drugs needed. Wish it didn't. Or maybe red wine counts as a drug?
(Pablo) I don't expect at my age to go round shafting anything that moves (and certain things that don't) but it's nice to have a bit more energy, you could say.
Prayers if you pray, please
First, Giertrud is in the ICU in the hospital in the city with the nearest hospital to the group home where she has been. Same issues that she's been having and is on oxygen. Was so sick that they thought she was non-verbal when she was admitted.
Second, that I do well with my new job. I REALLY need and am very thankful for it. I pray I do well and I hope it leads into me being able to do something that I really WANT to do. I have a few things and it might just be the company that I need to be with in order to get things going.
Second, that I do well with my new job. I REALLY need and am very thankful for it. I pray I do well and I hope it leads into me being able to do something that I really WANT to do. I have a few things and it might just be the company that I need to be with in order to get things going.
[Rosie]
Hidden text
Riiiight. So will the pornhub servers be featuring a "Hot'n'Horny Retired Chemist Action" category soon? Will "checking the raingauge" become a Rule-34 meme?Found my old Mammod traction engine in the basement and decided to fire the old girl up to check she was in good repair after years sitting in a box.
The burns are healing nicely, thank you.
The burns are healing nicely, thank you.
(Stevie) Not quite yet. You see, most people think I look about 6O but I know better. Rain-gauge? No activity all month ym Mhlas Huws. Forgotten how to do it. That's another thing.
(KagomeShuko) Best wishes for your new job and for your poor sister.
(KagomeShuko) Best wishes for your new job and for your poor sister.
Decided to use the new Air Fryer to make a hamburger while Mrs Stevie was looking after her mother.
The burns are healing nicely, thank you.
[KagomeShuko] we're on the case.
Burnt hamburgers
Ah, the airfryer. It’s our patriotic duty right now to eat our bodyweight in potatoes every week to save the Dutch potato farmers whose produce is no longer being made into chips and eaten by hordes of diners and visitors. Airfryer chips/frites/frieten/patat every other night, innit?
Chips should be deep fried in beef dripping. There is no argument that can be effective against doing so.
The Flood
Bugger! My May drought has been ruined by a brief shower Saturday lunchtime, amounting to 0.2 mm and therefore counting as a rain day. It still might be my driest month EVER, as people say, the Universe having been created in 1983.
Deadly dripping
[Stevie] I’d like to live a long time AND eat chips. Beef dripping is summingelse, although I’m not too keen on the lingering greasy sensation around the chops afterwards. As my dear daddy used to recite - and humour me here because we grew up 15 miles from Grimsby which had its own fishing port town reputation at the time - :
Little girls from Grimsby
Blue eyes and cherry lips
Every time you kiss them
They taste of fish and chips.
Little girls from Grimsby
Blue eyes and cherry lips
Every time you kiss them
They taste of fish and chips.
(pen) Nothing wrong with that. Award yourself an LLB, Lincolnshire Lip Balm. Sooooo much nicer than garlicky breath.
[penelope] And your point is? I agree wholeheartedly and unreservedly with Rosie. Watch out for avian pigs.
Lincs Lip Balm
[Rosie] I guffawed! (which looks like it might be a Welsh word but I bet it isn't and now I have to go google its etymology.)
Linguistic indeterminacy
(pen) It does rather, doesn't it, but it's not in my copy of Y Geiriadur Mawr, ("The Big Wordery"). It can join my other favourite warthog. Incidentally arthog literally means bear-like and as in English the sub-text is "grumpy". BTW can't wait to hear you guffaw.
It's awfully quiet in here. Is everyone well?
[pen] The usual ta. My Chambers Dictionary says guffawed is onomatopoeic, disappointingly.
(pen) I'm very well, thanks, but bored stiff. Could do with a bit of conversation.
[pen] Well, how's Project Dog coming along?
Doggone
[Simons] Had two hot leads this week (see what I did there?) but one (Stanbijhoun/Collie cross) was withdrawn from sale and the other (wire-haired fox terrier) was sold before we could go over to see it. We keep searching, and some friends are putting the word out for us too - which might prove more fruitful.
Projects Foo.
Well I have just enacted Project Beer and Project Less Hair, but I really ought to get on with Project Barstools, Project Chair and Project Plates. I have been having a smashing time recently. I should also enact Project Washing Up, but I particularly hate that one. But no space for a dishwasher, unfortunately.
Project Star Wars Rulebook is in the home straight, but that's a marathon, and there's still weeks at least before I'll finish it. Especially as there's content I'd like to farm out into a couple of other books which are barely into draft stage.
thankful for job, but it is very tiring
I am so thankful that I have a job and that I can work from home with this virus being so rampant, and especially now, that the area where I live has one of the highest rates of people infected with the virus (I don't go out and do all that much as it is - I prefer small gathers, but even those are happening much). Anyway, though, this job is tiring. I worked 50+ hours last week. I need to spend some time putting out job proposals when I happen to have time. I'm praying that I can start teaching theatre online somehow - and be paid for it, not just independently.
[KS] How is Giertrud?
Not well
Thanks for asking. She's not doing well. She's still about a three hour drive away from where I am. They want to move her into a nursing home because they said her medical issues are too much for her to go back to the group home. In a way, I think she will be happier, but I also worry about her. She's not supposed to eat anything by mouth, and she is very hard headed about what she wants to do and I worry she'll get a hold of food or the nursing home will make a mistake and give her food and then she'll eventually not make it because somebody won't catch her pneumonia. I'm quite angry at the medical community in Louisiana right now since nobody had actually tried to find what is wrong now and they just keep tossing her from place to place.
Giertrud
8o(
Giertrud
What Stevie emojied.
System update
My usual "system update" check 'post' also for funny stuff
Giertrud
Giertrud called me recently. She is now at the nursing home Legacy in Plaquemine, Louisiana. She sounded much better and much happier than she has been for a long time. She told me that they did a swallow test and that this time it was different as they put a camera up her nose and watched her eat live. She said that they give her a medicine to break up secretions and that it tastes bitter. However, it seems to help. She said that when she eats, they saw that secretions seem to pool in her throat. She told me that they are going to soon try to allow her to eat soft foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She's been going to speech and physical therapy and there is somebody who helps her remember how to brush her brush her teeth. She also said that she sleeps sitting up. That might help with the secretions.
We actually talked for over a half hour. I could mainly understand her. The conversation didn't get too repetitive. She's in room 421 and she loves her 420 jokes, so of course she had to say it was a minute past time to smoke marijuana. We mainly talked about the dogs and dogs that we've had. She didn't dwell too much on Krueger and Nala and agreed if she is ever able to come home, small dogs like chihuahuas are much better for her. They at least have to be calmer.
So, I'm praying that she is finally in a place that can help her get better. Who knows what will happen if she gets better, but right now, not much really matters with this virus.
I'm sure the nursing home environment is better for her than the group home. She was actually out in a public area and able to call me.
We actually talked for over a half hour. I could mainly understand her. The conversation didn't get too repetitive. She's in room 421 and she loves her 420 jokes, so of course she had to say it was a minute past time to smoke marijuana. We mainly talked about the dogs and dogs that we've had. She didn't dwell too much on Krueger and Nala and agreed if she is ever able to come home, small dogs like chihuahuas are much better for her. They at least have to be calmer.
So, I'm praying that she is finally in a place that can help her get better. Who knows what will happen if she gets better, but right now, not much really matters with this virus.
I'm sure the nursing home environment is better for her than the group home. She was actually out in a public area and able to call me.
Giertrud
(KagomeShuko) I wish her the best and I'm sure the whole Morniverse does too. Maybe things are on the up. We all hope so.
(KagomeShuko) That does sound like a positive improvement. My best wishes to you both.
Maybe not so positive, maybe okay
So, it seems like the issue with Giertrud isn't going away. I got a call from the nursing home/rehab facility and they said they were sending Briana to the hospital because it seemed like she aspirated. I don't know what that will mean for her eating. I know she was thrilled to be eating again.
Hurricane Laura
Hey all. So, when they called for the mandatory evacuation from Lake Charles, I picked up a few things and got out. I didn't take time to pack up tons of things. I didn't want to get stuck at home or in traffic. I went north and found myself in West Monroe, Louisiana. I found one single hotel room. It was literally THE hotel with a room vacancy that I could find. Somebody had ended up cancelling that night. So, I had my service dogs, no change of clothes, and my laptop, basically. I had a few other things, but I couldn't pack up everything because of my back problems and not wanting to get stuck in the traffic or in heavy rain. Lake Charles is in awful condition. My house had a tree fall through the roof of the back of my rooms. So, the roof and ceiling is all ruined in two main rooms, maybe a little bathroom, and a little area where a file cabinet can fit. Some people have helped me with donating some money so I could get some clothes and eat and should be able to travel when I check out of the hotel on September 4th. My job is one that I do from home as it is. At first, I thought I wasn't happy with the company, but they have really stepped up. They payed for the hotel from the day Ii checked in and then checking out on the 4th. I will have a host up in Tennessee while Lake Charles and my house are all being repaired. Lake Charles does not have any running water or any electricity. I think it was only one life that the storm, itself, took. I know another one was taken when somebody fell off of a ladder. Most of them seem to end up being because people will get a generator, they won't get a CO alarm, and they will run the generator and they will place it somewhere they think it safe and it may seem so, but CO gas seeps into their house. That's sad and it is sad seeing all of the destruction in my hometown. I know we will rebuild, but it certainly hurts my heart.
Slings and arrows
(KagomeShuko) Life is dealing you some lousy cards just now. At least you have somewhere to stay and don't forget you will always have friends here.
Made it but sad for my city
I made it up to Tennessee. My host will be home this evening. I'm sad for Lake Charles. There are people who rode out the storm. There are people who were only able to leave for a bit while the storm hit and had to go back. They say it will be at least three weeks before electricity is restored to the city. Water is iffy and if people can get water, it is under a boil advisory . . . which, if people have electric stoves, is basically impossible for them . . .
[KagomeShuko] Let's hope this brings out the best in neighbours so they can help each other until things start to get back to normal. A colleague was with her family in Florida and was caught in the storms there a couple of years ago - she blogged in detail and very movingly about the incredible neighbourliness she experienced. I hope that happens for your community.
And don't forget to take good care of yourself too - without feeling guilty. Without that, you can't look after anyone else either.
And don't forget to take good care of yourself too - without feeling guilty. Without that, you can't look after anyone else either.
Across the seas.
Another fortnight, another two weeks working at home, and still no closer to being able to return to the UK for a visit. (Complicated by my UK family's bubble to protect my sister who's about to start chemotherapy to complete her treatment for ovarian cancer - thankfully she should make a full recovery.)
Feeling a bit exiled TBH. Distracting myself by walking the dog loads and have raised 200 quid for Cancer Research as a result - and have lost weight - so it's not all bad.
Feeling a bit exiled TBH. Distracting myself by walking the dog loads and have raised 200 quid for Cancer Research as a result - and have lost weight - so it's not all bad.
Sad News
Giertrud passed away today.
[KS] So so sorry to hear that. You're in our thoughts.
[KS] Sad news indeed. I'm sorry for your loss.
[KS] So sorry to hear of your loss. I have just been re-reading some of her contributions here: she will be missed.
[KS] Sincere condolences.
Sorry for your loss. Very sad to hear.
Vale Giertrud.
Chin up, KS, time does heal - as I can verify (my daughter was killed earlier this year in a MVA.) You seem to have had a bad trot of late, so it's time to think positive and take care of the future. Good luck.
Chin up, KS, time does heal - as I can verify (my daughter was killed earlier this year in a MVA.) You seem to have had a bad trot of late, so it's time to think positive and take care of the future. Good luck.
[Dujon] Please also accept my deep sympathy; that is just awful to hear.
Thanks, CdM, but I should not have let that slip. Grief is very personal thing, so, please, no more messages, everyone.
That is not to criticise KS as Giertrud was a contributor to the MC community.
That is not to criticise KS as Giertrud was a contributor to the MC community.
After such a period of respectful silence, I propose that we now resume doing what made us all come here in the first place - to celebrate life, intelligence, being funny, and being too-bloody-clever-by-half with words.
You go first.
You go first.
As the World Turns
I shall, penelope.
See, I've done it.
See, I've done it.
As the World turns nasty
This is the one place that keeps me sane. That and the piano.
Sanity
For me it's my collection of singing potatoes.
[SM] Are they accompanied by a Maris Piper?
Well they are now...
(Boolbar) V good. But can he do the theme from MASH?
I did wonder what Rosie was doing in the piano.
(Dan) Poking around with a screwdriver, as ever. Got a Yamaha keyboard - no strings attached, and you can play it with the headphones at two in the morning, fortified with a good slug of brandy. Some aspects of life are not bad.
[Rosie] Being able to use headphones is incredibly liberating, isn't it? To say nothing of being able to select from a wide range of voices. Since getting my Yamaha wind midi synth about 15 years ago, my sax has sat in its case, its leather pads slowly turning to stone. Every now and then I think about getting it serviced...
[Rosie] I look forward to the time you will tell us of the triumphant performance of "The Ride of the Valkyries" at 2am, the removing of the headphones to discover the blue flashing lights and banging on the door and the dawning realization that the headphone plug was not pushed all the way into the socket.
Mrs Stevie is an expert at doing this with her iPad so I get to listen to her dreadful musical theatre stuff at full blast because she did not realize that the reduced volume in the headset was due to half the signal still going to the external speakers.
Turn that bloody racket down
(Dan) Play your sax, man. It's not an instrument I can play but picking up the 'bone and giving it a whirl is most satisfying especially if you find something to play along with (stuff on YouTube usually).
(Stevie) I've occasionally forgotten to plug in and muttered to myself "this doesn't sound right" followed by "plug it in, twatface". The neighbours are upstairs, sleeping the sleep of the just, and are not disturbed, so I have ascertained.
(Stevie) I've occasionally forgotten to plug in and muttered to myself "this doesn't sound right" followed by "plug it in, twatface". The neighbours are upstairs, sleeping the sleep of the just, and are not disturbed, so I have ascertained.
[Simons] Do you dance the mashed potato to their tunes? Are they called the Tuber Tunes or Tater Tunes?
Has anyone gained a new skill during enforced home-staying? I've been at home for 7 months now, but worked 40 hours a week throughout.
[pen] I learned the front crawl. Actually, I had a series of lessons before lockdown, and then the pool closed, but since it opened a couple of months ago I've been practising. I can just about do a 25 metre length without stopping. The skill of breathing air and not water is the difficult part.
I've improved my typesetting and CSS skills. And finished (bar user feedback) a writing project that's been lingering for years.
I have had more work to do since I've been working from home. I'm sure my boss thinks I'll go idle otherwise.
Other than that I've learned how to play a few modern board games and apply liquid eyeliner without looking like a ham-fisted goth.
Other than that I've learned how to play a few modern board games and apply liquid eyeliner without looking like a ham-fisted goth.
Resonance
I can now reliably get a top D on the 'bone and as a result all the windows in the house are broken.
[Boolbar] Are you interested in roleplaying games? My project was a rewrite of Star Wars 1st Edition D6.
[KagomeShuko] I'm trying to work something round 'Spud-u-kelele' but I haven't managed anything yet
As travel and eating out has been off the table for the past few months I have expanded my cooking horizons by doing a different cuisine each weekend. My youngest is fairly fussy but I've managed to do French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Israeli, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Brazilian, Jamaican, Southern US. I've learned some new techniques and discovered some great recipes. But the waistline has taken a hammering so the adventurous cooking has stopped for a while.
New Skills?
Nothing thrilling, but I did finally get a job in May. I don't like it, but I've learned how to do the job.
Wait... that's a lot to take in...
Broken windows, liquid eyeliner, breathing water...
I wear far less make-up now BTW. I used to wear it six days a week, now only on Saturdays. I'm saving a ruddy fortune.
I wear far less make-up now BTW. I used to wear it six days a week, now only on Saturdays. I'm saving a ruddy fortune.
Glorious food
[nfras] When you start up again I've got a recommendation for a chicken recipe so simple even I can make it: a Fillipino staple called Chicken Adobo. I do have to admit, there's only about six data points on the entire graph of Things Simons Mith Has Successfully Cooked, but that's one of 'em. It's a really everyday dish, so there are many variant recipes to choose from.
[Simons] I'd love it, thanks. I like to try new foods, even if the youngest can be a pain in the bum when deciding she doesn't like it before she has tasted it.
[KS] Doing a job you don't like is really hard, so I definitely feel for you.
Mrs Nfras decided to try crocheting. She bought the wool and hooks and stuff. Anyone want some second hand wool and crochet hooks?
[KS] Doing a job you don't like is really hard, so I definitely feel for you.
Mrs Nfras decided to try crocheting. She bought the wool and hooks and stuff. Anyone want some second hand wool and crochet hooks?
Chicken Adobo. I think that's the recipe I used, but there's dozens of variants readily findable online. If I did it again I'd try one of the variants that uses ground pepper rather than peppercorns. But the overnight marinade is definitely a bit to keep in. I got the recipe from a Fillipino Google plusser I used to follow, for whom adobo was a much-loved childhood dish.
Hopeless Gardeners' Corner
The past year has allowed me to ignore the garden to a great extent, but being out of work has forced me at least to plan stuff and mow the grass. The Bismarckette decided that this year's project would be tomatoes, and bought a bunch of grow-stuff necessary for the production of the red veggies-fruit-whatever. They were supposed to grow into big, fat tomatoes, but stubbornly refused to get above the smallish size, and the plants tended to brown, apparently due to a lack of calcium in the soil. This was addressed by decorating the soil with crushed eggshells (Bismarckette, success 0/10) and mixing gardeners chalk into the soil (yours truly, success 10/10). The final crop ended up with a unit price of about three quid, which is about par for the course with the Bismarckette's projects.She was then miffed to see that tomato seeds that Mrs Bismarck had thrown around the side of the house had actually grown into two full-scale tomato plants with absolutely no effort.
We've been here for fifteen years and have finally found out what the tree at the bottom of the garden is. The previous owners planted it, but it was in the shade of a massive Leylandii hedge and grew hardly at all. When we chopped the hedge down a couple of years back (as a result of The Neighbour Who Does Not Like Trees invoking a local by-law that no hedge can be more than one metre 50 tall), the tree took off and this year produced eight fruits which on inspection by the health authorities were pronounced to be quinces. Quinces are massive fruits and have a very strong pear-like perfume. Mrs Bismarck has Plans for them, though what remains to be seen.
Funnily enough, The Neighbour Who Does Not Like Trees was hoist by his own petard this year, when the inheritance of the next-door house was sorted out. The old Italian Neighbour Who Grows All His Own Food died at an advanced age last year, and his son of 75 years turned up with wife and dog. It seemed that the laurel hedge forming the border between their gardens was a matter of inches inside the wrong garden (I was called out to verify the position of the boundary markers and swear on oath that the small fence between us was mine, and not his), and he was forced to dig the lot up. They don't joke about property limits around here, I can tell you.
Now I have to research in depth the pruning of quince trees, nut trees, and figs, and also think of something to do with The Shady Patch Where Nothing Grows under The Neighbour Who Doesn't Like Christmas's hedge. Which I did not pay to have trimmed, that did NOT happen.
We've been here for fifteen years and have finally found out what the tree at the bottom of the garden is. The previous owners planted it, but it was in the shade of a massive Leylandii hedge and grew hardly at all. When we chopped the hedge down a couple of years back (as a result of The Neighbour Who Does Not Like Trees invoking a local by-law that no hedge can be more than one metre 50 tall), the tree took off and this year produced eight fruits which on inspection by the health authorities were pronounced to be quinces. Quinces are massive fruits and have a very strong pear-like perfume. Mrs Bismarck has Plans for them, though what remains to be seen.
Funnily enough, The Neighbour Who Does Not Like Trees was hoist by his own petard this year, when the inheritance of the next-door house was sorted out. The old Italian Neighbour Who Grows All His Own Food died at an advanced age last year, and his son of 75 years turned up with wife and dog. It seemed that the laurel hedge forming the border between their gardens was a matter of inches inside the wrong garden (I was called out to verify the position of the boundary markers and swear on oath that the small fence between us was mine, and not his), and he was forced to dig the lot up. They don't joke about property limits around here, I can tell you.
Now I have to research in depth the pruning of quince trees, nut trees, and figs, and also think of something to do with The Shady Patch Where Nothing Grows under The Neighbour Who Doesn't Like Christmas's hedge. Which I did not pay to have trimmed, that did NOT happen.
Skills
I'm one of the lucky ones who (a) still has a secure job and (b) can work from home. But the downside is that the WFH has been much harder work than NWFH, as I have had to adapt a lot of materials and plans for distance/online learning. My video editing skills are improving, but that's about it. Though I have welcomed the opportunity to cook and bake more: those are not new skills for me, but in recent years I had been doing less and less due to being time-poor and having lots of good restaurants and cafés nearby.
Quince Luck
[Bis] wow - a Quince! That's quite a thing to have. They are rare.
A couple or four years ago I did a fruit-tree pruning course with the local protected landscape foundation (in Dutch - I was v proud of myself) and did a few volunteer January pruning sessions in a heritage orchard. The point was to get myself out of the house on January Saturdays and get more involved in Dutch stuff. Anyway. I've successfully pruned our baby fruit trees (they all came from Aldi) and the neighbour's pear tree (which is much bigger and gave a bumper crop as a result - phew). I imagine quinces are similar in that fruit-bearing wood is last summer's growth so you only cut off enough twigs to make sure that every fruit-bearing stick is strong enough to carry the weight and that every twig can see the sun. The Dutch are pretty good at growing fruit, so maybe I've learned the high-production method, but there you go. There'll be videos on YouTube I'm sure. And it's coming up to tree-pruning season - when the trees are dormant and you really don't feel like going outside and stretching up so that your vest becomes untucked, baring your midriff flesh to the elements. Or maybe that's just me. Good luck!
A couple or four years ago I did a fruit-tree pruning course with the local protected landscape foundation (in Dutch - I was v proud of myself) and did a few volunteer January pruning sessions in a heritage orchard. The point was to get myself out of the house on January Saturdays and get more involved in Dutch stuff. Anyway. I've successfully pruned our baby fruit trees (they all came from Aldi) and the neighbour's pear tree (which is much bigger and gave a bumper crop as a result - phew). I imagine quinces are similar in that fruit-bearing wood is last summer's growth so you only cut off enough twigs to make sure that every fruit-bearing stick is strong enough to carry the weight and that every twig can see the sun. The Dutch are pretty good at growing fruit, so maybe I've learned the high-production method, but there you go. There'll be videos on YouTube I'm sure. And it's coming up to tree-pruning season - when the trees are dormant and you really don't feel like going outside and stretching up so that your vest becomes untucked, baring your midriff flesh to the elements. Or maybe that's just me. Good luck!
Jobs are unfortunately required
[nfras] I'm at least blessed that I can do thejob as long as I have my laptop, headphones, and WiFi and that it can be done from anywhere with those things.
I work Customer Support or Restaruant Support for Bite Squad - which is a third party food delivery service like Postmates or Dash.
Restaurant support is better than Customer support, but both can get irritating. Customers complaining are the worst, though. There are some that are fine, but plenty that are very rude.
I work Customer Support or Restaruant Support for Bite Squad - which is a third party food delivery service like Postmates or Dash.
Restaurant support is better than Customer support, but both can get irritating. Customers complaining are the worst, though. There are some that are fine, but plenty that are very rude.
I am in sales, so working from home is not a new habit for me, and for the first time in months I have all of the kids and Mrs Nfras back at school.
My previous company decided to shut down all of APAC on the 1st of April but I was lucky to pick up another job pretty quickly. My previous manager is still not working so things are pretty tough in the job market.
My previous company decided to shut down all of APAC on the 1st of April but I was lucky to pick up another job pretty quickly. My previous manager is still not working so things are pretty tough in the job market.
Quince
I thought quince was a made-up thing eaten in medieval banquets like hippogriff or capon. Learn summat every day. Is your tree now a listed structure? Some years ago The Neighbor from Hell broke another of our fences so we decided to replace the lot, had the land re-surveyed and it turned out we owned about 12" of one corner that had been on the other side of the broken fence. Then, he put up chainlink alongside our stockade fence. Why, I'll never know since by code we had to show him the pretty side. Now TNFH periodically trims the honeysuckle that grows between our fences and throws the debris over into our yard, presumably because he has forgotten that we fenced to the property line so the vines are growing on *his* land. Total git.
Quincey moans
(Stevie) I have two quince bushes in my garden and at this time of year they drop their fruit which are yellow and somewhat smaller than a cricket ball. One year I thought I'd have a look at them. They're as hard as nails and if you really chucked one at someone it wouldn't do them a lot of good. Heavy equipment is needed to open one then you find a large cavity full of seeds and a tooth-breaking outer part with a pH of about 0 like conc. sulphuric. I would have more success making jam out of boiled-up breeze blocks than I would out of these buggers.
Man up you blokes
Have any of you participated in the delightful sport of cracking macadamia nuts? This a tough game involving plenty of hilarity for spectators, loads of frustration for the nominated cracker and much exuberance exhibited by all when the aim is achieved.
(Dujon) Macadamia? Isn't that what road surfaces are made from? Not surprising they're hard to crack. Maybe that's a British joke.
Appropriate apparel for the discerning player.
Yeah, Rab! :)
November?
How the hell did that happen? Here I am, sitting in my home office (the top bedroom) eating instant noodles at my desk and working through lunch again as if it was perfectly normal and I had been doing it for for nearly nine months.
Which I have.
Which I have.
Lunch?
Oh, is that why everyone else disappears for an hour and leave me to take all the phone calls...
Instant noodles
[Boolbar] Phone calls? I don't talk to anyone anymore.
[penelope] Good policy. You wouldn't believe how much bollocks people are talking these days.
The Stevieling and Mr Stevieling celebrated their first anniversary in lockdown.
That'll be one to tell the grandchildren, assuming there are still human beans on the planet by then.
Lockdown . . .
I can hardly wait until this pandemimc is over. I know, we can't have a timeline because who knows when it will be over. I still hate this and REALLY want to be able to hug people again.
An Election
People on my street are now out on the walkways in front of their houses making noise with whatever's to hand: pan lids and ladles are popular. Many still in their pyjamas. In the rain, I might add.
(Dan) Glad you live in a civilised place but what about Banjo Crossing, S. Dakota? ©P G Wodehouse.
Wodehouse really is timeless, isn't he? Effortfully, I will be brief: Nothing has changed about the Dakotas.
Boring up here
I'm still in Knoxville and have to head down towards Lake Charles later this week - slowly. There wasn't any celebrating that I know. I wouldn't get into any of the comments on my local news's Facebook post as I heard from others that the crazies were at it again in the comments. They never care about good things and fair things that happen.
positive check-ins
So, peeps, how are you all doing? Same-old here, but still healthy.
My taiko group was just about to restart when the second lockdown came.
I have also been attending life drawing classes online. The classes have been online because of Covid.
Writing, programming badly, cooking slightly more, going out much less (I'm trying to be good). finished a Star Wars ebook a few weeks back, and am waiting for feedback. But it's well over 300 pages so I can't expect instant responses, and I do actually want the feedback before I send it on to someone else who's never seen it before. Stevie's and nfras' comments have been incorporated, but the players from my past Star Wars games haven't come back to me yet.
Personally, I find this *is* a development.
I've got two 'personal development days' to use up this year. They are today and tomorrow. So far today, I have had a bacon sarnie for breakfast, ironed my hair so I don't look like I've given up on my coiffure, arranged the windy miller's and my pyjamas into a comical pose on the bed so it'll make him giggle when he gets home this evening, rearranged the fairy lights in my office, done the crossword, looked at the MOOC I'm supposed to be starting, and lit an incense stick in my home office.
And then I thought 'Oooh, I'll have a look in the Morniverse and remember old times!' So here I am.
And then I thought 'Oooh, I'll have a look in the Morniverse and remember old times!' So here I am.
Old Times
(pen) I've been visiting some MC Archives in MCiOS and MC5. The early Limerick games, particularly in here, reduced me to tearful laughter - some of it out loud. Mr Chalky was very envious. And I was reminded of Humph's words back in the day: "As we journey through life, discarding baggage along the way, we should keep an iron grip, to the very end, on the capacity for silliness. It preserves the soul from desiccation."
Old Timers
[Chalks] Silliness and procrastination. I am ace at the latter and refining my skills as we speak. Have just hunted for and found the uncorrupted recording of a lecture my father gave at the Boston Athaneum in 1998. I thought I'd lost it forever.
And silliness? I seriously need to exercise that muscle. Might have to join you back in the archives. Shall we take gin in teacups and crisps with us?
And silliness? I seriously need to exercise that muscle. Might have to join you back in the archives. Shall we take gin in teacups and crisps with us?
Don't forget your pith helmets, and maps of the Sea of Memes.
(pen and SM) Just lead and I'll follow ..
A pith helmet on a plinth
I just wanted to write a phrase that sounds like it's got lisping in it but that does not actuually contain the potential for lisping.
What time do the archives doors lock tonight? I don't really want to be in there for the whole weekend.
What time do the archives doors lock tonight? I don't really want to be in there for the whole weekend.
[Raak] Sorry to hear about your taiko class. Nothing like doing some drumming to relieve pent up frustrations, unless you're a professional percussionist, in which case it will be the cause of your frustrations. And especially taiko drumming, which is VERY VERY LOUD. (do not try this at home)
reply to pen's check-in
My sympathy to all of you dealing with new lockdowns. The news here in Melbourne (thus for nfras and myself) is good. We have now officially eliminated the virus in the state of Victoria: we have no active cases and have had no new cases for 30 days. Which is not to say that it won't pop up again, but right now things are starting to feel almost normal here. We paid our dues to get here—two months of one of the strictest lockdowns in the world—but right now I think pretty much all of Melbourne would say it was worth it. South Australia is dealing with a somewhat worrying cluster, but looks like it is getting on top of it.
Ah feck
[CdM] Sounds marvellous. Something to look forward to here. we’re still knuckling down here in the Netherlands and the rate of growth in the second wave is slowing but it’s still growth so there’s no room for complacency. I’m worried by and despairing at the number of nutters and deniers in the comment sections of local newspapers in the UK. I have an ageing and bored mother, and a sister waiting to start a course of chemotherapy there. My sister knows what to do but has a 15-year old son in school . Half measures don’t work.
Swear properly!
(pen) Best wishes for your sister. As for the 15-denier nutters, they are indulging in British exceptionalism, i.e. they are exceptionally bone-headed. This goes a long way to explain why we have Brexit which these dopey muppets will find will do them no good at all.
The Century of the Nutter
The internet is a wonderful tool. It allows speed of communication, opens up a world of possibilities, but has sadly seen the growth of the Dunning-Kruger Effect on a scale unimagined. There is now so much information available to the average person, that many people can now pick their truth and live in ideological echo chambers, untouched by reason and fact.
If the first half of the 20th century was defined by the rise of dictators (Hitler, Mussolini, Tito, Franco, Stalin etc) then the 21st century seems to be the rise of the nutter. Fact-free, self-aggrandising nut jobs who seem to be able to get all the air-time they need to influence the uneducated and angry of the world (Trump, Farage, Johnson etc). As much as they have made life miserable for a whole swathe of people, how much worse would it be if any of them were even vaguely competent?
If the first half of the 20th century was defined by the rise of dictators (Hitler, Mussolini, Tito, Franco, Stalin etc) then the 21st century seems to be the rise of the nutter. Fact-free, self-aggrandising nut jobs who seem to be able to get all the air-time they need to influence the uneducated and angry of the world (Trump, Farage, Johnson etc). As much as they have made life miserable for a whole swathe of people, how much worse would it be if any of them were even vaguely competent?
@#&%***!
[Rosie] I'm pretty good at swearing. I got an award for it in the end-of-year awards when I worked at the Woodland Trust in the UK. The incident involved the PR manager, the HR manager and the head of IT (who apologised to me for his team's office-wide Xmas prank which caused me to swear at the entire IT team by email in the first place.
My sis should make a full recovery after her clean-up chemo, thanks. She had successful surgery for ovarian cancer in August and is waiting to finish the treatment.
[nfras] Exactamundo. Believing consipracy theories that someone is out to get you is much easier than admitting that things are actually shit and are being handled badly by people who should either know better or resign and let someone competent get on with it.
Has that photo of Jennifer Aniston disappeared into the Last 100 Moves yet?
My sis should make a full recovery after her clean-up chemo, thanks. She had successful surgery for ovarian cancer in August and is waiting to finish the treatment.
[nfras] Exactamundo. Believing consipracy theories that someone is out to get you is much easier than admitting that things are actually shit and are being handled badly by people who should either know better or resign and let someone competent get on with it.
Has that photo of Jennifer Aniston disappeared into the Last 100 Moves yet?
bar stewards
(pen) Nah.
Cake for breakfast here. Walnut actually.
Cake for breakfast here. Walnut actually.
Cakeism
[Chalks] Flippin' heck. I had a poached egg. I plan a fish finger sandwich for lunch though - after the lunchtime half-hour dog walk in gloomy windy misty 2C I'll need it.
Upwardly mobile
[pen] Any particular reason we need to send Jen up the page?
Below the Line
[Tuj] Just sick of seeing her! (And secretly jealous because I could never work out how to post a photo in here).
nudge nudge wink wink
(Tuj) Jen will be in 'Expose More' or 'Expose All' in 10 or so moves ...
posting pictures
It's similar to a hyperlink, but you use <img src="http://website.com/imageurl.jpg" alt="A picture from the internet" width="640" height="480" />
You can get away without the width, height, alt text and trailing slash but they're nice to have, and watch out for accidentally posting a page-filler sized image. If the file you want to link to doesn't end in gif, jpg, jpeg, png or possibly webp it may not work. And some dumb web sites will occasionally post a jpg file but name it as png or something, which is another rake in the grass to be aware of. It usually works anyway, but it's kinda rude, and always makes me question the competence of whoever put the image up in the first place. And it's easy to get caught out in turn because one usually trusts file extensions to be correct. The concept of a file extension isn't that difficult to grasp, although MS have been valiantly trying to obfuscate it for everybody for years.
If you post a file link (.zip, .jpg, .md, anything) inside an <a href="...> you get a clickable download instead of a web page opening.
Finding the right URL for the image tends to be fiddlier these days. Right-clicking and choosing 'open image in new window', or 'copy link to image' may be needed. And some image links will will broken by the remote server if you attempt to reshare them. It was simple, once upon a time. Then techies, marketing, sales, the bean-counters - people, basically - got to it, and we ended up with the current mess.
(SM) Thanks for that - I, like pen, have no idea how to get a pic in here. Do I take it that the pic must come from the Internet? What if I want to post one of my own from say, My Pictures?
(pen) I am heartened to hear of your Profanity Award.
(pen) I am heartened to hear of your Profanity Award.
Pictures from da intarwebz
[Rosie] No, needs to be a publicly accessible location, somewhere available even when your computer is switched off. Somewhere that begins http, basically. Linking to third parties is unreliable - look at one of the old caption competition games to see how many links still survive. The ideal is some area of the web that you control. Most reliable is your own web site, or at least your own blog, image-sharing site or whatever, even if hosted by a third party.
Archive hole! Attn, rab: help!
Oh no, the malign influence of the Podume of Infinite Darkness is spreading!! After taking a big chunk out of the middle of the Dunx archive, it's spread here, and has eaten everything from early 2106 onwards.
You say that, but...
[SM] I think... I think there just haven't been any games created here since 2016 :(
[pen] Ah yeah, it can be irksome to notice something travelling slowly up a chat page! I must have forgotten that since starting to use the 'End' key. I only asked to help nudge her along, and now we learned some HTML, which is nice.
[pen] Ah yeah, it can be irksome to notice something travelling slowly up a chat page! I must have forgotten that since starting to use the 'End' key. I only asked to help nudge her along, and now we learned some HTML, which is nice.
I have a few photos on Flickr and Dropbox but how do you get to them? No idea. I'd like to shut down both accounts but how do you do that? No idea. Fuck these sites, fuck them. No pics from me - too fucking complicated.
Catch 22
Well if you could post a link to them, I could use one as an example. But if you can get that far you probably wouldn't need the help any more.
[pen] Or you can just view the source code and copy it. Like this:
Creating games . . .
I somehow got that "I'm wearing no pants" game started years ago. I am not sure how it was able to be created, but I had ideas for other things we could play if I knew how to create games if that is possible.
How to post a picture
.
__/ \__
\ /
/.'o'.\
.o.'.
.'.'o'.
o'.o.'.o.
.'.o.'.'.o.
.o.'.o.'.o.'.
[_____]
\___/
I'll stick to being good at commas and colons
All those little symbols just look like typos to me! I think I'm code-blind. In fact I'm still using copy-paste from DrQu+xum's Basic HTML primer to appear clever at work and have been doing for the past 20 years in at least three different jobs.
Let's have a new game then
This does require killing off an old one. Once there's a vacancy, KagomeShuko can have a go
Read My Lips: No New Pants!
Why not just wake up the old one?
We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
Not wearing your pants.
Boolbarian Values
Clapclapclap!
(Boolbar) That must have taken you ages. Gwych - deg allan o ddeg.
Hidden text
Brilliant - 10 out of 10Plagiarism
I confess I copied and pasted it. But I'll take the praise for having to carefully handstuff it with non-breaking spaces to make it line up properly, and the cunning use of the <pre> html tag.
Gamey game game
(Simons Mith) I have no idea how a vacancy even happens, I just happened to see that it was open and was surprised, but happy, I could start a game.
(Stevie) I've got some other ideas . . .
(Stevie) I've got some other ideas . . .
When a mummy game and a daddy game love each other very much...
Well actually the MC sites operate on a one in one out basis. So you have to end a current game before a new one can start.
Glottal stops, from the limerick
(Rosie) This is the query ? whilst the glottal stop is ʔ
Should you really desire to use it, then use the decimal & # 6 6 0 ; without the spaces between characters. Do not ignore the semicolon.
Should you really desire to use it, then use the decimal & # 6 6 0 ; without the spaces between characters. Do not ignore the semicolon.
IPA
(Duj) Thanks for that - you hear it quite a lot in this country as you probably know. The thing is, will people merely regard it as a typo. In these august surroundings, probably not.
This sucks . . .
I need prayers and good vibes, etc. On Friday, I was terminated from my job and I need to be able to find a new one. I hated the job, but I need the money.
blech . .
These are what scones are in the U.S. and I find that they are just hard and icky and being covered in sugar crystals just makes it worse. U.S. Scones
[KagomeShuko] Sorry to hear about the job, and the scones. I bet they don't pronounce "scone" correctly either.
pronunciation
Oh I know that one: it's 'jif', isn't it?
Or perhaps ..
Basil?
those aren't scones!
[Kagome S] Sorry about the job. That's a bummer. Does it mean you're free to move wherever you need to be for the next job?
American scones sound a bit over-sweet and over-rich. British scones are just an 8:1 ratio of flour (+ raising agent) to butter, perhaps some sugar, and milk to bind the dough. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingers, add a dot of sugar, add milk to bind, pat out dough to 1.5cm thick (do not roll it), cut into rounds (I use a gin/hi-ball glass), bake at 200C for 12 minutes. I can have emergency scones on the table in less than half an hour, and I've been experimenting with baking them in the AirFryer too. Done. Hot, light, fluffy and not too sweet (so you can pile them with jam).
American scones sound a bit over-sweet and over-rich. British scones are just an 8:1 ratio of flour (+ raising agent) to butter, perhaps some sugar, and milk to bind the dough. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingers, add a dot of sugar, add milk to bind, pat out dough to 1.5cm thick (do not roll it), cut into rounds (I use a gin/hi-ball glass), bake at 200C for 12 minutes. I can have emergency scones on the table in less than half an hour, and I've been experimenting with baking them in the AirFryer too. Done. Hot, light, fluffy and not too sweet (so you can pile them with jam).
One can't really complain that American scones have too much sugar if one eats the alternative "piled" with what amounts to fruit polymerized with sugar. I have a sweet tooth but I cannot tolerate the sweetness of the average jam, marmalade or compote with or without a scone substrate. My teeth ache just looking at the jars.
So, did you festoon the sails of the mill with fairy lights for Xmas?
KS
Here's hoping that other door opens as quickly as possible.
Merry Christmas everyone at MC5
gotta stay . . .
[pen] No. I own my house where I live and it needs to be repaired from Hurricane Laura as is . . . and with my disabilities, it's best to have an online job because that way employers can't complain about having to use my transport chair or my service dogs.
[KS] Sorry to hear about the job. Hopefully something comes your way soon.
[Stevie] I agree. My preference is a sharp jam like raspberry or rhubarb. We spent Christmas Day with friends who have a plum tree. As they don't eat them, I came away with about 8kg of fruit. First batch of plum jam is now in the jars.
[Stevie] I agree. My preference is a sharp jam like raspberry or rhubarb. We spent Christmas Day with friends who have a plum tree. As they don't eat them, I came away with about 8kg of fruit. First batch of plum jam is now in the jars.
If you are eating sharp jam it is a good sign that the jam owner dropped the jar and scraped the contents into a new one.
Happy New Year!
Well things are a bit odd this week innit.
Oddity
Which is unusual for week 2.
Er.......
I really can't think of much to say at the moment.
Neither can I, but we might as well keep la Aniston's upward progress going.
Default weather chat.
It is foggy here, and chuffin' cold.
Ideal weather for a bike ride.
Clear and sunny, 4°C when I set out, -2°C when I got back.
Currently 31; supposed to reach 36 today.
(CdM) A pretty accurate description of what it's like here, but in Fahrenheit.
Cool is cool
(Rosie) Heh - but I'd still rather be here. Can't do heat.
Cool is cooler
I can't do heat either. Just been out for lunchtime dogwalk; 4C and strong winds is a bit brutal but if you keep moving it's OK. I was so bundled up as to be unrecognisable walking into the wind but had to take off me hat walking back with the wind behind me
What gets me is the freaking gloom here. It was midday and gloomier than a gloomy thing. Awful.
What gets me is the freaking gloom here. It was midday and gloomier than a gloomy thing. Awful.
Shiny orb
It is sunny here, but still a tad chilly. I also have toothache, and an expensive looking sheet of dental treatment. Pliers and DIY wooden teeth might be an alternative.
Thermophobic ladies
(Chalky, pen) As part of my weather-nut activities I have just discovered that in Jakutsk, Siberia, the current temperature is -50°C. Minus fifty. Not a breath of wind but a thin fog. Wrap up well.
(Rosie) So what they say about Siberia is true.
(Chalky) Parts of it, yes. Jakutsk is a large and quite agreeable city. All the buildings are on stilts about six feet high so the heat from them doesn't melt the permafrost. In the brief peaky summer it's warmer than London and very sunny.
Snowy Beds
Ooh! It is snowing!
And JA has almost gone.
And JA has almost gone.
(Rosie) Googled. Mammoth Museum!
(Boolbar)Where?
Gone.
(Boolbar)Where?
Gone.
[Chalky] In Bedfordshire: hence "Snowy Beds". And it only lasted a few minutes. The bulk of the snow is probably held up at customs along with all the lorry drivers' sandwiches, so it won't go hungry.
Frostbite
Currently in the wilds of Zeeland at the mill. 2C and windy. Cannot move for thick layers of clothing and ski socks, yet fingers frozen. Waiting for snow (due in about 20 minutes). The neighbours have a big shed/workshop with a wood burner in it and have invited us for chicken soup for lunch. I made 2 dozen mince pies last night to contribute and warm up in the stove’s oven. It’s not all bad.
Keep wrapped up
(Chalky) Jakutsk is now down to -53°C. This is the "best" fog I have seen in years of monitoring this place. So far it's lasted well over a fortnight.
[Rosie] I have to wonder how many people die of the cold there every year. The temperature, that is, not the mostly harmless virus.
Hypothermia
(Raak) I don't have any figures but I would guess the answer is none. Every winter it goes down to at least -45° so the cold is part of the environment and everybody knows it, even pissed teenagers at a guess. Sudden blizzards and storminess are pretty well unknown. There is actually very little weather in winter except a persistent thin fog, largely produced, it seems, by the city itself (people breathing, car exhausts, hot cups of tea etc).
What the...?
How can I be staying late at work when I work from home?
[Pen] Maybe those rioting people in your neck of the woods are simply marking the end of the workday by leaving home and finding something else to do.
[Bism] Could be.
Staying late
[pen] I often did that before I was terminated from my job. We still had to keep hours and I would have to finish up dealing with customers. I HATED customer service. What good does having an MA do if nobody cares that you have it?
staying true
[KS] You care. And it shows something about your intelligence and diligence that you have it. All of that feeds into what you do and how you do it and none of the experience is wasted. I have one in technical writing but nobody cares about that when they ask me to write a series of tweets about a conference. In fact, that isn't even the real me - the real me happens at evenings and weekends when I cook and do experimental baking and get outside.
[KS] What pen said.
[pen] Do you have to get outside because of the experimental baking?
Hidden text
Well, except for the bit about having a degree in technical writing. I don't have one of those.[pen] Do you have to get outside because of the experimental baking?
vinaigrette regret
[CdM] The only time my cooking upset the household was when I made chutney. The smell of boiling vinegar permeated the entire house and I was forbidden from making it again. The windy miller is Dutch and I think they're all allergic to vinegar (except that they're very keen on using it as a cleaning agent and a weedkiller - maybe that's why they think it shouldn't be in food or even on chips/fries *shudders*).
The Whole House is a Fume Cupboard
[penelope] Wot, no extractor hood?
What is it with women and not turning on the extractor hood when preparing to generate large volumes of offensive and/or corrosive gas under the guise of home economics? Mrs Stevie did some pork chops in the air fryer last night and by dint of adding some sort of powdered seasoning with onion to the meat she tear gassed the house. She was quite put out when I rushed into the kitchen, eyes streaming, mucus membranes all-but corroded away, and turned on the extractor hood.
Jeez - those pesky women and their questionable extractor hood methodology
Hoodies
[Stevie] Nope - not in that house. We'd only just moved on from having only a gas hob sitting atop the tiny refrigerator to having a cooker with an oven underneath it. Until recently, many Dutch kitchens were not designed for cooking in.
Perhaps Mrs Stevie has her own way of making you pay for having your dinner prepared for you.
Perhaps Mrs Stevie has her own way of making you pay for having your dinner prepared for you.
[penelope, Chalky] Her choice to cook . Why does the entire house have to reek? I don't use spray paint in the kitchen ffs.
Hidden text
I am amused by the assumption that in our marriage the woman has the traditional role given the amount of feminist sentiment espoused here over the years[Chalky] Well, given the choice, would you really rather the dilute acetic acid vapour were caught by the extractor hood filter or by your lungs? There's a reason your senses are offended by the stink. That is nature's way of telling you WARNING WILL ROBINSON!
[penelope] Begs the question, what were Dutch kitchens designed for?
Nasal unreliability
(Stevie) Your senses would not be in the least offended by the smell of cyanide (nice almond-like pong) but get too much and you'd quite quickly be seriously dead.
[nfras] There'd be room to boil a pan of potatoes, carrots and onions and mash them together for stamppot, and to fry a pan of fat bacon. Or open a bag of pre-washed salad leaves. Loads of families keep a deep-fat fryer in the shed and use it there when they want to cook something 'fancy'. I think that's the entire Dutch cuisine of the 20th century summed up. There was much more variety in the days of the VOC apparently.
what's cooking
(pen) When I lived on the W Germany/Netherlands border we had Dutch TV - I can't remember their cuisine featuring on either regular shopping trips to Roermond or on TV celebrity chef-style zoals Fanny Cradock :^)
(Stevie) For clarification - my other half is the guilty party when it comes to cooker extraction methodology or lack of. He's a chap.
(Stevie) For clarification - my other half is the guilty party when it comes to cooker extraction methodology or lack of. He's a chap.
Cyanide
[Rosie] I'm told the exact nature of the smell depends on the concentration.
Abraham Lincoln
Met with a tragic death, it's his birthday today and mine as it happens. Hope i don't succumb to the same fate.
The real me
(qua Rosie) I've smelt HCN several times, never in large quantities obviously, and it always has that nice bitter-almond smell. Apparently about 25% of the population are unable to smell it at all.
Lincoln
[Softers] Hope you don't, as the memorial for your birthday is already taken by the eponymous president, so you'd die in obscurity. He also had a biscuit named after him, maybe that would be an acceptable alternative?
Rules of origin
I thought Lincoln biscuits were named after the city. Also Nice biscuits. Or maybe I'm just dough-minded. I've taken up baking again - in the past fortnight I've made a massive batch of Belgian buns (not Belgian at all, apparently) and chocolate chip cookies. This week, it'll be lemon cookies and an apple-topped yogurt cake. (Most of this stuff gets shared with neighbours and millers at the windmill on Saturdays when we have shed coffee).
Coooookie!!!!
[pen] I'm always on a search for good chocolate chip cookies!
Yum
[pen] I like the sound of the apple-topped yogurt cake myself. Are there any vacancies for being your neighbour at the moment? :)
crumbles
[KagShuk] This is why I have stocks of butter in the freezer for when I get the urge to put the oven on and create something. It's now a exactly a year since I have seen any of my family IRL, and I've come to realise it's therapeutic to create something delicious from time to time [every week]. I'd never made US-style soft cookies before. Sooo easy. Impossible to get wrong. Soooo easy to eat too.
[Boolb] A friend (a profesh cook) put the recipe on Instagram. She made it sound easy - let's see.
[Boolb] A friend (a profesh cook) put the recipe on Instagram. She made it sound easy - let's see.
[Rosie the Original] I heard that in certain concentrations cyanide has a tang of garlic.
In any event: Women! Stop stinking out the house/windmill with your experiments in chemical weaponry!
[Stevie] Is food (and specifically patisserie) considered chemical weaponry now?
(the real Stevie, probably) I've never smelt it as garlic, always almonds. A bottle of potassium cyanide has got this smell due to hydrolysis. It's true that some smells can change with concentration. H2S is bad eggs when dilute but The Full Monty is odourless and dangerously toxic.
[penelope] Weaponry for sure, and not just chemical! Haven't you heard of dwarven battle-bread? I think it highly likely that the late Sir Terry got the idea when he cut his lip open on a bit of stale baguette or something.
[penlope] Depends on the stench produced.
I've been out
This week's outing: got my tyres and windscreen wipers changed this morning. Left my thermal cup where I was working on my laptop in the waiting area. *rse. I'm not fit to be allowed out any more.
Never again
I'm definitely not fit to be allowed out. The thermal cup was at home but I have absolutely no recollection of bringing it in from the car nor of putting it in the sink.
In other news, the Netherlands' non-essential shops are now allowed to open for shopping-by-appointment. I have booked a 10-minute slot at the hardware and household goods shop in the village for Friday at 17:15. I need new baking pans, a mop and bucket, and a dog brush. This is going to be like Supermarket Sweep.
In other news, the Netherlands' non-essential shops are now allowed to open for shopping-by-appointment. I have booked a 10-minute slot at the hardware and household goods shop in the village for Friday at 17:15. I need new baking pans, a mop and bucket, and a dog brush. This is going to be like Supermarket Sweep.
Losing your marbles
(pen) Wait till you get to my age. "Now, what did I come up here for?"
Hairdressers open? I'm beginning to look a bit 70's-ish, instead of 70-ish.
Hairdressers open? I'm beginning to look a bit 70's-ish, instead of 70-ish.
In short, yes.
Hairdressers open. My favourite hairdresser now does it from home in Rotterdam but her husband is a Covid denier so I'm not going to go back there yet. I don't know where he's been. And the nearest village hairdresser made a hack of it when I went there in November so I'm not going back there (although it's had plenty of time to grow out). I might have to try the next town over - the historic one with a marina and a few posh shops. They're probably only any good at the windswept-been-out-sailing-all-day look though, and I can manage that all by myself.
DIY
Keep it short enough, and you can keep it short enough yourself.
(Raak) Logical enough but having a good thick mop at my age is something you tend to hang on to and it needs a bit of professional attention.
Anything else, Sir?
I'm never having short hair again. I was mistaken for a boy too many times in my teens when I had short hair and it left scars.
[Pen] Could be worse. When I think of some of the boys who were mistaken for girls (shudder)
yummy, yum,y!
[pen] Yep, I'm always on the lookout for a good soft chocoate chip cookie that has gooey chocolate chips when warm. I';; eat other ones to try, but I'm never satisfied with those. So many places in the U.S. sell some version.
Also good to try different chips when baking. I don't know what all you have over in the U.K., but in the U.S., they have peanut butter chips and butterscotch chips. It can be fun to substitute or mix the chip types.
Also good to try different chips when baking. I don't know what all you have over in the U.K., but in the U.S., they have peanut butter chips and butterscotch chips. It can be fun to substitute or mix the chip types.
chip butty
[KagomeShuko] I used odd bits of chocolate I found in the cupboard, chopped it up, and in it went. Chocolate is a staple on my shopping list, but I buy it in odd places and keep trying out the new combinations. Some I like better than others for eating on their own. The remainders of bars of chcocolate that I don't like so much go into cooking.
And yes, I buy discount supermarket own brands...
And yes, I buy discount supermarket own brands...
And I thought I was a bit of a chocoholic.
[Rosie] I think I eat it every day, although only during the week as compensations for having to work!
[Rosie] You not only approve of the term "chocoholic", you use it yourself? I'm amazed. Does that mean I have to be the one to rant about "chocohol"? 8o)
Chocolate is the one thing that mankind has invented that is worthwhile.
Apart from all the other stuff like antibiotics and heart valves and electronics and like that.
(Stevie, penult) Don't forget that despite a basically intellectual approach to life I can be a bit common. When you've disembowelled "chocohol" have a go at "workohol" - dreadul stuff, ought to be banned.
Well the Pope's noted for being a catholic, so if that word's okay for him...
Well!
[SM] Fittingly, your observation has given me an epiphany. His followers must be behind cats being so popular on the internet!
chocolate, chocolate, chocolate
I always try to have chocolate on hand!
I have Girl Scout Thin Mints right now!
I have Girl Scout Thin Mints right now!
(KagShu) Stop it! You exacerbate my cravings!
[KS] Surely any chocolate on hand would melt? It would be better in the mouth. Also, what Rosie said!
mmmm chocolate
I take your random chocolate and raise you one banana toastie. I spent a whole dog walk in the rain thinking about it, and made one for lunch when I got in. (Also made a cheese and onion toastie too - it was cold out.)
I don’t actually like chocolate.
There speaks a brave man. Respect, bruv. Er, can I have your bit, then?
Not a cliché
I'm not that excited by it either
[Rosie] Considering I live in Belgium, there’s quite a lot to go around, so be my guest.
Heresy
I have to admit, I prefer a nice fruity pudding or cake to a chocolate one.
Any pudding, any cake.
Except Battenburg. Marzipan is the Devil's earwax.
Emetic
In that case, pen, how would you describe spinach purée?
[Rosie] Green. Best stirred into a good, strong curry until it disappears.
Desserts
I have all kinds of desserts right now. I have Girl Scout Cookies - thin mints, toast yay! (which taste like French toast), Lemonades (lemon shortbread), and shortbread cookies. I always like to buy Girl Scout cookies if I see them being sold by troops or by somebody that I know selling them.
For my snackage, I've got Fritos and Bugles and then some Frito's Bean Dip and Anthony's Cheddar Cheese Powder (mix some in with some of the bean dip).
I also got some pomegranate juice and cherry coke. Put some ice in a glass, a tiny bit of pomegranate juice, and then fill the glass up with cherry coke and that is extremely relaxing. If you put too much pomegranate juice, it becomes too bitter.
For my snackage, I've got Fritos and Bugles and then some Frito's Bean Dip and Anthony's Cheddar Cheese Powder (mix some in with some of the bean dip).
I also got some pomegranate juice and cherry coke. Put some ice in a glass, a tiny bit of pomegranate juice, and then fill the glass up with cherry coke and that is extremely relaxing. If you put too much pomegranate juice, it becomes too bitter.
snackchat
[KS] You sound like my granddaughter
A Sticky End Game
My interjection back in December 2020 appears to have stalled Bin Laden's moribund progress (or was that Software's buxom lass?) - so I've returned to apply CPR - to the game not the corpse
[Chalky] I just got my first interjection yesterday. I get my second one on April 12th, and then I am free! Free to ride the Long Island Rail Road and sit in an office of miserable ingrates while I listen their snarky comments.
Interjection
(Stevie) Stop interrupting. BTW I get my second jab before you, on April 8, so there. I shall then be free to sit at home and wait for the pubs to open properly and the barbers because I am now quite hirsute, you could say. 70's-ish even.
Ha! My hair is now at Epic Back To The Future Amateur Scientist levels. When I was 17 this length of hair would tumble over my shoulders in tight ringlets a-la '70s Jimmy Page. These days, what there is of it sticks out a-la Van der Graff generator.
I'm getting a haircut tonight - the first since November. Salons here were allowed to open up a couple of weeks ago, but I thought I'd let them practice on a few other heads first and get their hands back in before letting them loose on mine. I haven't had hair as long as this since 1993.
jabby jabby
[Stevie], [Rosie] I get my second shot on April 9. It's at 11am Central time, I think, so late morning for me, but I think that makes it somewhere around 4pm ove in England . . .
Chronometric dislocation
(KagShu) I noticed you posted that at 8.28 a.m. GMT which is (I assume) 2.28 a.m. CST. You're as bad as me nocturnality-wise. Maybe not quite as bad.
I am absolutely using "interjection" instead of "vacillation" from now on.
We should have some sort of poll on what flavour of interjection everyone was subjected to. I had a Pfizer interjection.
Ouch!
I'm jabsolutely with you, Stevie.
(Dujon, Stevie) You're a couple of pricks.
[jab] I had that one that sounds like a type of car owned by bad drivers who like to change lanes for no good reason and have lots of children who gawp at you through the rear window.
[hair] on Tuesday they decided to close all the hairdressers again for an indefinite period, so I managed to squeeze myself in immediately before the shutdown. Prior to that I had looked after my own hair, which didn't work too badly, although the barber did spend his time sniggering when he saw me.
[Jab] the government in Belgium reckons that it will have finished with all the interjections by about 2025, so I am wondering whether I should make a definite attempt to become one of the people at risk, maybe go for obesity or a small heart murmur or if the whole thing will take so long that in any case age catches up with me. Although there is always the free version...
[Jab] the government in Belgium reckons that it will have finished with all the interjections by about 2025, so I am wondering whether I should make a definite attempt to become one of the people at risk, maybe go for obesity or a small heart murmur or if the whole thing will take so long that in any case age catches up with me. Although there is always the free version...
Lots of stuff . .
[Rosie} Yes, I am terrible about going to bed on time unless I make myself like I did last night so I could get up and go to church.
I got the Pfizer vaccine. I'll be so glad once it is two weeks after my 2nd injection. It won't change much for me, but still ready to get back to some semblance of normalcy.
Had some little kids add to my art car today, so that was fun.
I am not sure if these are good cat names or bad cat names . . . Dreaming last night, lots of things where I was talking to somebody and don't remember, but I do remember that in my dream, somebody had two cats. One was named Four Face and the other was named Garbage Can Corners.
I got the Pfizer vaccine. I'll be so glad once it is two weeks after my 2nd injection. It won't change much for me, but still ready to get back to some semblance of normalcy.
Had some little kids add to my art car today, so that was fun.
I am not sure if these are good cat names or bad cat names . . . Dreaming last night, lots of things where I was talking to somebody and don't remember, but I do remember that in my dream, somebody had two cats. One was named Four Face and the other was named Garbage Can Corners.
(KagShu) There was man who had two cats
And these two cats were brothers
Four Face was the name of one
And Garbage Can Corners the other.
And these two cats were brothers
Four Face was the name of one
And Garbage Can Corners the other.
There's just nothing to say to that.
Hardly any vacillations or interjections happening here yet, Dujon notwithstanding. On the plus side, we also have no COVID, so there's that.
Jabberwocky
We two - that's me and Mrs Dujon, not me and the cat - a few days ago booked in for our treatment at the local clinic. The first available date? May 12th.
(Duj) Makes me think of the Fire Brigade joke - "Keep it going; we'll be along in about an hour".
Winter is coming
Minus 2 °C, a bit more than an inch of snow overnight.
Back in boots
Hovering around 1°C here (I'm a few dozen km NW of Bismarck, I reckon) so the wet snow and sleet that's being hurled along by the stiff wind doesn't settle. It's grey. It's darker than it should be. I'm in the top room in the house working and the wind outside is howling mournfully around the corners.
Last Wednesday - only a week ago - I took an afternoon off and was walking along one of the big rivers with the dog and picking tulips under blue skies and in 22°C.
Ruddy weather.
Last Wednesday - only a week ago - I took an afternoon off and was walking along one of the big rivers with the dog and picking tulips under blue skies and in 22°C.
Ruddy weather.
Chilled out
Still -3° here - feels like -5° my phone app tells me. Not going out to find out for myself.
I may be some time
I went out just now. Back to full winter dogwalking gear (three layers minimum on every body part except knees). Could not hear a thing due to fleece band over my ears, flapping hood and roaring wind.
Not really much fun at all but the fish finger sandwich I made when I got home was excellent.
Not really much fun at all but the fish finger sandwich I made when I got home was excellent.
So, how's the dog?
Now where did I leave my fingers?
(pen) Him indoors loves fish finger sandwiches. Puts my teeth on edge - the double breadness eek
Dog fingers
[Duj] Dog was fine. If we keep moving he keeps warm enough, and he sleeps afterwards for most of the afternoon on the spare bed in my home office.
[Fish] where did you last have them?
[Chalks] I'll make an exception for a FFS, but I cannot do lasagne and chips. Double carbs, noooo!
[Fish] where did you last have them?
[Chalks] I'll make an exception for a FFS, but I cannot do lasagne and chips. Double carbs, noooo!
Vroom!
(pen) Double carbs? You got an old Mini Cooper?
always more stuff . . .
Things have been a bit crazy for me, still.
Things worked out as I had some friends from the Methodist church where I am an associate member come "resuce" me. I was able to get my 2nd vaccination and get my taxes done.
My problem was my car is in the shop and everywhere that used to rent a car or a vehicle to me now wouldn't because I don't have a major credit card. I keep getting declined when I apply for one. Some stupid law went into affect in March that makes it difficult for anybody that needs to rent any type of transportation.
My key broke out of my key fob and since I and the secretary from my Lutheran church were having trouble with it, with it sometimes seeming to run the radio and lights, the battery might also be dead.
And this was after actually finding a mechanic open on Good Friday because my car was "stuttering" and jerking when I would try to accelerate and it wouldn't go over 40mph (64.3738 KPH) most of the time unless I was going downhill.
Mechanic found that the VVT solenoid needed replacing and actually had the part right then and fixed up the car!
This time, though, it had to be towed to the closest Honda Dealership since the key was broken out of the fob
Things worked out as I had some friends from the Methodist church where I am an associate member come "resuce" me. I was able to get my 2nd vaccination and get my taxes done.
My problem was my car is in the shop and everywhere that used to rent a car or a vehicle to me now wouldn't because I don't have a major credit card. I keep getting declined when I apply for one. Some stupid law went into affect in March that makes it difficult for anybody that needs to rent any type of transportation.
My key broke out of my key fob and since I and the secretary from my Lutheran church were having trouble with it, with it sometimes seeming to run the radio and lights, the battery might also be dead.
And this was after actually finding a mechanic open on Good Friday because my car was "stuttering" and jerking when I would try to accelerate and it wouldn't go over 40mph (64.3738 KPH) most of the time unless I was going downhill.
Mechanic found that the VVT solenoid needed replacing and actually had the part right then and fixed up the car!
This time, though, it had to be towed to the closest Honda Dealership since the key was broken out of the fob
What a mess
(KagShuk) In the UK, where we are a bit sweary, there's an old joke that goes like this:
"Have you given your car a name"
"Yeah, f****** car".
Hope you get it all sorted. Are you back in Lake Charles?
"Have you given your car a name"
"Yeah, f****** car".
Hope you get it all sorted. Are you back in Lake Charles?
[KS] No credit card in the Land of the Free? Life must be super difficult. The trick to getting round the first card bck in the mid 80s used to be to apply for American Express, as they would give a card to anyone with a flat credit report. With the Stevieling we started with store charge cards and worked up. What a colossal pain in the rear.
credit where credit's due
Hmmm. Credit cards are hardly a Thing in the Netherlands. I don't think I have used mine here for more than a year - although I do use it to order flowers and stuff for my mum over the phone with businesses in the UK.
Keys on the other hand are deffo a thing. I am proud to announce that I have been allowed to put the keys to the windy miller's windmill on my keyring - after 12 years here.
Keys on the other hand are deffo a thing. I am proud to announce that I have been allowed to put the keys to the windy miller's windmill on my keyring - after 12 years here.
Cards
[penelope] So how does one hire a Dutch car without a credit card?
(Stevie) Halve the cost by going Dutch.
[Stevie] Companies expecting furriners as customers will accept them, but in general supermarkets don't.
But how do you hire a car without a credit card? The first thing Avis/Hertz/Budget/Whothehellknows want to do when you start signing paperwork is a valid credit card. If credit cards are "hardly a thing" what replaces that process?
As an aside, I've never understood why UK people prefer to use *debit* cards to credit cards. The issue being spending one's own money over spending the bank's. The whole fraud impact shifts to the individual with debit cards. With a credit card a fraudulent transaction *never* puts one out of pocket. Someone takes your card to Las Vegas, with a debit card you are in the position of arguing to get your money back, as opposed to contesting the spending of the bank's money with a credit card.
[Stevie] On the other hand, when a disute arises, cancelling a direct debit arrangement is easier than cancelling a recurring charge to a credit card. A direct debit is an instruction from me to my bank, that I can revoke at will, without the involvement of the party I am paying. If they think I still owe them money, it's up to them to chase me for it. The same thing on a credit card is an agreement with the person I am paying, and I have to chase them to stop presenting their bills to my card issuer. This caused me some hassle years ago when I was trying to sever my relationship with an ISP that I could see was about to go out of business.
[pen] Do they use debit cards over there, or is it wads of cash only?
[pen] Do they use debit cards over there, or is it wads of cash only?
I hope it's not tulip bulbs again. That went badly wrong last time.
[Raak] Well, I honestly don’t know why anyone would set up recurring payments for anything. My memory of cancelling standing orders on UK bank accounts matches what you describe for credit cards. Innever set up recurring payments if there are any other options available. I think I had one annual one with Malwarebytes, but it expired with the card (replaced due to fraud).
Not only am I unconvinced on the preferability of debit cards, I still don’t understand how one hires a car without a credit card. Or reserves a hotel room. When I went to Canada I used a debit card, but it only worked because my US debit card could be processed as a credit card. The Canadians at the hotel and airline were adamant a Canadian debit card would not process that way and therefore would not be accepted for payment. I had to insist they tried each time I needed to do it as they didn’t think it would work.
So I ask again, how do you rent a car without a credit card?
Also, although you are right that an agreement tompay is with the seller, itbis negotiated via the bank who (with my credit record) guarantee good faith of the seller. I’ve disputed a few charges in my time with this bank, always resolved in my favor with a phone call to a toll-free number. I’ve executed three “charge backs” in my credit life too. That’s where the vendor does something sneaky and takes the cash, I argue with them for a bit and then ask the credit card company to get a refund for me. A single phone call, a discussion to demonstrate I’ve exhausted all other avenues, and a credit.
Just did one last week. I ordered a tool case before xmas. Never arrived. Each month I checked and the order was marked “open”. I sent three emails, one a month asking for an update, and pointing out how many emails I had previously sent. Instead of sending a fourth I made a call to the CC company and bang, that was the business. I got an email this week from the cheeky buggers I placed the order with, cancelling the order and telling me how sorry they were ... that I had cancelled the order. Not word one about how I'd made them an interest free loan for four months.
Pinning
Hardly any cash any more - contactless payment is encouraged now, especially since Covid-19 made cash so filthy (I was a cash carrier by habit - always preferred to feel real money before I spent it). You don't even have to put your PIN in for anything under 50 euros. But the automatic egg-and-potato shop machine near the windy miller's windmill (the BEST eggs - you can wave to the chickens in the orchard as you drive past) still takes only cash. If I need small change (for example to leave the right amount of cash for my cleaner) I feed my bank notes from the ATM into the egg machine and get eggs and coins in exchange.
Don't ask me about ApplePay - that's beyond my knowledge. Probably more common in the cities but I don't go there any more.
And as I think I've said, you can hire a car with a credit card - I would imagine. Never tried it here.
Don't ask me about ApplePay - that's beyond my knowledge. Probably more common in the cities but I don't go there any more.
And as I think I've said, you can hire a car with a credit card - I would imagine. Never tried it here.
But that won't put a lien on future responsibilities like a trashed hotel room or a dinged-up car. That's why Avis etc want to run a card here. And I wouldn't be caught dead using a phone to pull my cash out of my bank account. Two whole levels of potential screwery in one transaction - that could be the bank's problem instead. Matbe I'm super-sensitized from reading all the uckfups in the trade papers, but phone payments against a bank account? Madness.
According to This web site "Hiring a car in Netherlands is a must in order to get around. Debit card car rental can be tricky to find as it’s rare that you come across a company that will let you hire a car without a credit card in Holland. "
Which suggests that Holland is like anywhere else in that the norm is you need a credit card to hire a car (but that this company might let you do so with a debit card; restrictions apply). I knew Steve Martin couldn't be that wrong.
*lets Stevie ask questions and ignore suggestions while answering them himself*
It's like watching someone's Googling process in real-time.
It's like watching someone's Googling process in real-time.
[pen] Never mind that, tell us more about this amazing egg machine! Is it transparent-fronted? Does it have a many-lettered Dutch name?
Speaking of the Netherlands, that's where this was ordered . . .
Praying that everything goes well with the international payment and shipment for my laptop with linux. I'm having it sent to a friend's address because of this constant moving around. I'm excited as I have needed a good laptop and I like Linux. I have a much better time with it than Windows (and I have a much better time with Windows than I do with Macs/Apple products, but it seems both always want to just take your money). My tax return is paying for this. Here's what I ordered.
Clevo NV41MZ 14-inch Linux laptop
Processor: i7-1165G7 (2.80 tot 4.70 GHz – 4 Cores – 8 Threads – 12MB Intel® Smart Cache)
Grafisch: NVIDIA GeForce GTX-1650Ti - 4GB DDR5 - 120Hz display - NV41ME
Memory: 64 GB DDR4 @ 3200MHz CL22 (2 x 32 GB)
Operating system: Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon (64-bit)
OS Drive: 2 TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD (Seq. Lees: 7000 MB/s, Schrijf: 5000 MB/s) Fastest choice
Full-Disk Encryption: No full-disk encryption (LUKS)
Language of Linux: English (default)
Notes: Can Zoom and OpenShot Video Editor be pre-installed on this, too?
Additional Software: Firefox, LibreOffice, Gimp, Skype, VLC, Audacity, Steam, Spotify, PuTTY, Calibre, digiKam, Inkscape, Kodi, LibreCAD
Wireless: Intel AX200 WiFi tot 2400 Mbps + Bluetooth 5.1
Keyboard: United States International QWERTY (with super-key)
Cooling Paste: Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut 73 W/mK
Power Plug: US power plug
Accessories: Additional 90W Charger (with selected plug), Free install/recovery USB with selected OS (32GB USB 3.2 gen1), External USB DVD-RW Drive
Warranty: 36 Months (3 years) Warranty + Free Pick-up & Return (EU countries only)
Clevo NV41MZ 14-inch Linux laptop
Processor: i7-1165G7 (2.80 tot 4.70 GHz – 4 Cores – 8 Threads – 12MB Intel® Smart Cache)
Grafisch: NVIDIA GeForce GTX-1650Ti - 4GB DDR5 - 120Hz display - NV41ME
Memory: 64 GB DDR4 @ 3200MHz CL22 (2 x 32 GB)
Operating system: Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon (64-bit)
OS Drive: 2 TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD (Seq. Lees: 7000 MB/s, Schrijf: 5000 MB/s) Fastest choice
Full-Disk Encryption: No full-disk encryption (LUKS)
Language of Linux: English (default)
Notes: Can Zoom and OpenShot Video Editor be pre-installed on this, too?
Additional Software: Firefox, LibreOffice, Gimp, Skype, VLC, Audacity, Steam, Spotify, PuTTY, Calibre, digiKam, Inkscape, Kodi, LibreCAD
Wireless: Intel AX200 WiFi tot 2400 Mbps + Bluetooth 5.1
Keyboard: United States International QWERTY (with super-key)
Cooling Paste: Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut 73 W/mK
Power Plug: US power plug
Accessories: Additional 90W Charger (with selected plug), Free install/recovery USB with selected OS (32GB USB 3.2 gen1), External USB DVD-RW Drive
Warranty: 36 Months (3 years) Warranty + Free Pick-up & Return (EU countries only)
Not in Lake Charles, car finally fixed, I think . . . and it's an art car becaues I wanted it that way
I'm not back in Lake Charles. My insurance on the side of getting my house repaired is being difficult. I'm in a hotel in Port Arthur, TX and on Friday, I have to move to a different hotel in that city.
The hotel where I am was very rude and let somebody come into my hotel room while I was gone when I didn't ask for housekeeping service (and I was in Lake Charles/Sulphur for a night because I had to take care of some things - and one thing was getting decent laundry bags so I could clean and do laundry) and they complained about "the condition of the room" because I have clothes on the floor and dog food out for my dogs.
Even after getting my key for my car, it was having the same problem again and I want to say it was "juttering" with starting/stopping and stuttering and kinda jutting here and there. I took it back to the mechanic that fixed the VVT solenoid and it needed a new air intake hose.
I have lots of fun with it being an art car and it makes me smile when I see it. I named it Hodge Podge (but it's a Honda and not a Dodge). I've got things all over it - things that are cute and inspirational - and there are a couple of little boys at my church in Bridge City, TX and their mother talks t them about the car and they put new things on it. I want it that way, where different people add things to my car.
There's hardly anywhere to stay in Lake Charles. There aren't apartments with places and there aren't hotel ready for any long term guests. I sure wish my insuranace would get on the ball.
The hotel where I am was very rude and let somebody come into my hotel room while I was gone when I didn't ask for housekeeping service (and I was in Lake Charles/Sulphur for a night because I had to take care of some things - and one thing was getting decent laundry bags so I could clean and do laundry) and they complained about "the condition of the room" because I have clothes on the floor and dog food out for my dogs.
Even after getting my key for my car, it was having the same problem again and I want to say it was "juttering" with starting/stopping and stuttering and kinda jutting here and there. I took it back to the mechanic that fixed the VVT solenoid and it needed a new air intake hose.
I have lots of fun with it being an art car and it makes me smile when I see it. I named it Hodge Podge (but it's a Honda and not a Dodge). I've got things all over it - things that are cute and inspirational - and there are a couple of little boys at my church in Bridge City, TX and their mother talks t them about the car and they put new things on it. I want it that way, where different people add things to my car.
There's hardly anywhere to stay in Lake Charles. There aren't apartments with places and there aren't hotel ready for any long term guests. I sure wish my insuranace would get on the ball.
[penelope] I remind the member from Windmill-on-the-Dyke that *she* was the one that said "Credit cards are hardly a Thing in the Netherlands" then prevaricated around the bush when asked an honest question about how that society handled fairly common stuff that absolutely requires a credit card Chez New York. Extraordinary claims and all that. I hardly think that having made a blanket statement about credit card usage in the Netherlands then forcing the audience to go and check for themselves qualifies one for the moral high ground and implied "let me google that for you" smugness harrumph harrumph.
Vending machine love
[Tuj] Have you come across the Car Vending Machine?
Credit
In the days when currencies were multifarious, credit cards were a great way of avoiding having to carry various denominations around Europe with you. Except that some countries didn't believe in them, like Germany, where if you couldn't bite it wasn't money. My father-in-law drove down once and tried to fill up his car at the local petrol station, but they didn't accept credit cards, and pumped out of the exact quantity from his tank and told him to get lost. Later, when credit cards started to exist there, the company that I was working for there decided that everybody should have company credit cards, which they being American decided would be American Express. Unfortunately nobody within 100 miles accepted it, and they were all on the other side of a border.
Yes, I remember distrust of credit cards when I was young. However, I wasn't evangelizing their use to anyone else, just pondering the seeming national UK preference for debit cards and wondering about how some US-centric "credit card or on yer bike" stuff gets done in places where credit cards are not favoured.
So how is Brexit playing out in the UK? We only get the gleeful schadenfreude write-ups of the things that are reportedly falling apart. Is it still seen as the Last Best Hope for Peace ?
Hidden text
in our timeNot looking to start a fight I hasten to add. Just not getting the real story from the various sources I use. I don't care if you are pro or aginnit. The huge bloopers that the press love (fish, NI) must be masking other "smaller" wins no-one is writing about.
(Stevie) Brexit is off the agenda for the moment as it is now slowly dawning on people that maybe Boris is not quite the wholesome jolly fellow they thought he was, or, if they didn't but thought it didn't matter, they think it does now, a bit more at least. The front of Private Eye invites us to enjoy the carnage as Johnson and Cummings beat the shit out of each other. No wonder Boris didn't sack Cummings after the latter's optical quest in County Durham. Cummings probably knows a lot and is nasty enough to use it. Come on, Dom, do 'im over. BTW I hope you know over there pondwise what I'm on about.
Gunboats
WTF? I knew Brexit was going to be bad but didn't think it would get to this point after just 4 months.
You are a mere slip of a gel and do not remember the Iceland debacle.
(Stevie) That wasn't a proper war, just a cod one. BTW you won' 'arf get it from pen.
[Rosie] Gunboats in the water, trawler nets cut. Isn't this the way the current contretemps is heading? Reads that way over here.
is lost . . .
I know some of that was poly-ticks. Still, I am lost. I know there was an ostrich war and the ostriches won . . .
And then the dragoons arrived.
Let them eat sweeties.
I'd much rather have dragees than dragoons.
Anti Rrhinums
Prefer a Snapdragon to all the above. Beautiful prolific garden stalwart.
A plague of greenfly upon all gardens! AaaaAAAAAAAHCHOOO!
I like dragonflies . . .
(KS) I hope you cook them first.
Just had lovely text message from my sis (who has undergone almost a year of surgery and recovery followed by shitty chemotherapy) and was having a follow-up with her oncologist this afternoon. "It's all gone!!!!!" Phew.
(pen) Great news. Your sister may take some time to recover from the treatment. I'm very glad I didn't need chemo - radio- and hormone therapy rather knocks you about a bit anyway but is much better than being dead. Much better.
[pen] good to hear :^)
Great to hear good news.
Thanks folks. Today is her birthday so she's giddy with excitement (even at the age of 53) and I've just eaten a LOT of cake (because, why not? I haven't seen any of them for almost a year and a half and still can't visit but we can have family solidarity through the medium of cake).
Does cake work better than Zoom?
pen's sis
Great news.
[pen] Great news about your sister, and also about the cake :)
[pan] Good stuff for both you and sis. All hail the power of cake. {see old Chris Morris videos}
[Rosie] Not like that! But you made me curious and I found out they are edible. I still have zero desire to eat them. They are pretty to see, though!
Is it just me?
I'm pretty sure that it's exacerbated by enforced staying-stillness right now, but I have seriously itchy feet, so much so that I constantly have the marine traffic app window open as I work, and I watch the progress of ships through the day. Does anyone else get a massive feeling of wanderlust when the days get so long that it's still light at 10pm? I feel like buying a campervan and taking four or five months off work to mooch about this corner of the world seeing the people I've missed over the past year and a half. I've always got this feeling around now - particularly since a road trip into the Arctic Circle in midsummer 1995, then working on motor rallies with night stages in the north of Scotland, or driving through the night down the M4 to go camping in Cornwall... Midsummer (even though it's flipping chilly right now) is not meant for staying in. That is all.
Waltzing Matilda
[penelope] Not so much that I yearn to join the Merchant Navy. I do have genuinely itchy skin right now, which ius driving me nuts.
Always dark by 10pm
Where I live, it's never light at 10pm. Sunset MIGHT happen as late as 8pm . . .
[Stevie] But one can buy a passage on cargo ships as a non-working passenger. There used to be a website that listed the ships offering it and their destinations. I now know how I'm going to spend my next break from writing this dull thing today.
[KagomeS] If you ever get the opportunity to make a road trip, drive north (a long way north) in midsummer. It's fabulous.
[KagomeS] If you ever get the opportunity to make a road trip, drive north (a long way north) in midsummer. It's fabulous.
I like summer morning walks over the meadows before 5am. I saw a deer last week, which I never saw there before in many years of living here.
[Raak] Impressed. I thought 6:30am is an early time for a walk. The lack of people at that time allows a lot of wildlife to be spotted. I often see muntjac deer and hares.
Views from windows
I’m lucky. I saw hares in the field behind the house from bed this morning, and watched buzzards riding the thermals from the kitchen window as I was making pizza last night.
[pen] that must be one hot pizza oven to produce buzzard bearing thermals via your windows!
(Boolbar) ROFLMAO. This is why we have Global Warming.
penelope
Traveling the world by tramp steamer is a staple of my secret vice - the Call of Cthulhu RPG. Pre-website, one had to use a shipping agent.
Hidden text
Of course, inevitably the ship would be becalmed in dense fog or lost in the Bermuda Triangle or fetch up on the rocky shore of an island newly risen from the stygian depths and then the screaming would generally start and only I would survive bwahahaBoat-cars?
[pen] Unless there are some MAJOR upgrades to cars, it's goig to take a lot more than driving to get to where it is light past 10pm for me!
Buzzards
[Boolbar] *<nods>* Were I to observe thermal-riding buzzards o'erhead I might suspect a roof fire. I was once driven from Mrs Stevie's gas barbecue by a very threatening praying mantis, all of 1 inch long.
How it reached the pedals with its tiny legs remains a mystery.
Light nights
(KagShuk) Even here in the south of England there is quite a lot of light at 10 pm BST (9 pm GMT) and in the north of Scotland it barely gets dark in June, given a clear sky.
Ay, why wud ye want the dark anyhoo, tis only fer miscreants ter get oop ter evil deeds in (Playing Calvinist card kept from my NZ upbringing)
Raised vowels
Shurely the dark is the bist time to have six.
I lived up near Sunderland for a while, and what the summer days lacked in warmth, they made up in length.
Mr Logic
That, I'm afraid, is a false equivalence. The same could be said for winter at the North Pole or even southern England.
Do that have water cars?
[Rosie] Well, that's nice, but I live in the United States. I find that it even gets dark fairly early in the northern states. I don't know about Canada, but I've heard that it's around 8pm or 9pm at the latest when it gets dark there.
(KS) The 49th parallel misses us by some way. The latitude of my place is 51.318 and Edinburgh and Glasgow are not far of 56°N. The clocks are an hour ahead of the Greenwich meridian in summer but not in winter. There are few things more gloomy than a cloudy December afternoon in Britain. Pretty well dark at 4 pm.
Back-endish
From 30-odd degrees last week to 18-odd degrees this week. Honestly, I am struggling to know what to wear [to sit at my desk at home alone all day except for a dog walk but I do know that those comfy old shorts are going in the bin - I caught sight of my reflection and recoiled I tell you. ]
changing weather and inside temperature
[pen] I often feel like I need three to four different sets of clothes to bring along with me everywhere, each day, when out and about in Southwest Louisiana or Southeast Texas.
a closed-toe shoe day.
So, any plans for this weekend, peeps?
no rest ..
[pen] Worked. Took a break to watch a football game so it wasn't quite all work and no play.
(Chalky) Fair enough. But what are you doing up at quarter past six in the morning? 0615 hrs simply does not exist in any way, shape or form.
[Rosie] awake but not up.
(Chalky) Ah! Unlike me before midday then - up but not awake.
Weather
[Rosie] that anomaly in Canada/US seems to have seen record temperatures increase locally not by the odd degree C, but by ten or so. Ever seen that elsewhere?
The weather in the U.S. had definitely been strange.
(Bismarck) Well, five, actually but even that is quite something and I'm not aware of anywhere in the world whose record has been busted by such a large margin. Having said that, one needs to be extremely rigorous in investigating the circumstances of any weather record. How long has the site been operating? Is the site representative of the area? Has it become built-up? Are the instruments reliable? Is the observer honest? That may all sound a bit dampening but it's absolutely necessary if the figures are to be put into historical context. I'd like to read some scientific articles about the heatwave; they should be appearing pretty soon. Certainly ignore the media who all have their agendas, one of which is to attract readers.
Waiting for enormous amounts of water to come gushing down the Rhine/Rijn through the Netherlands in the next couple of days. They're estimating record flows.
Belgium is under water. It's been raining for weeks. Aaaand it's St Swithin's Day.
40 days of . . . .
(Bis) Well, it was here, yesterday. Isn't the Belgian equivalent St Godelieve, whose day was 6 July. It's bollocks, I tell you, like all weatherlore.
[Rosie] Wet bollocks innit? 'Ash before oak' and all that. (I didn't notice which was first this year, despite walking out every day past both kinds of trees...)
That's a safe assumption for any 'wise' saying that you can reverse engineer from just a couple of words. I wondered if the word 'soak' was going to show up in the rest of the rhyme before even looking it up. Imagine my amazement when I discovered it did.
Water, water everywhere
(pen, Bismarck) This is quite a big one but European summer floods occur every now and then. Technical explanation here.. (V heavy going - don't bother). The world's a warmer place but whether that had anything to do with it is the subject of great debate. After all, Lynmouth was swept into the sea in 1604, 1769 and 1952 and it'll certainly happen again. The first two dates were in the Little Ice Age, when it was cooler and stormier.
Pi Approximation Day
Worth celebrating?
Water, water in a very specific place
We sold our house in France earlier this year, which broke my heart, because I loved the place. BUT I am relieved not to have to worry any more about it being underwater. In 2016, we came within about 50cm of having the Seine fill our basement rooms floor to ceiling.
To have kept such a house would have been in-seine.
[Oblig]
[RTG] Almost.
(CdM) That's a bit too close.
(RTG) No good. Pi=355/113. Even better pi = the fourth root of 2143/22.
(RTG) No good. Pi=355/113. Even better pi = the fourth root of 2143/22.
early here
It may be 2:42 in the morning where I am, but I need dark chocolate and am going to eat some and I don't care if anybody cares.
Nocturnal indulgence
(KagShu) Very gratifying to note that I am not the only nutcase here though I must say I prefer brandy at that time of night.
Nocolate
[KS] Whatever gets you through the night. For me, it's not usually chocolate (that would involve climbing stairs and I usually eat it before bed anyway) but quite often another half-hour episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot is in order.
Three in the morning
In the dead space of the night
Bach and Pachelbel.
In the dead space of the night
Bach and Pachelbel.
Sleeplessness
Couldn’t sleep last night at all. Blamed on the Covid jab for want of anything else, and on the anti-apnoea device. It’s a real bugger to be a light sleeper like me.
I usually have no problems getting off to sleep, it is the waking up at sparrow's fart and not being able to get back off to sleep that is wearing. Perhaps I ought to accept 4 to 5 hours at night plus one after a nice lunch is enough at my age. My eyes disagree.
The siesta is definitely a good idea. Those Spanish are on to something.
Mrs Tuj has had this week off work specifically to watch the Olympics, and has been roughly living on Tokyo time. It's been a wee bit disruptive!
Raak's insomnia cure
Canon to his left
Canon to his right. Into
The valley of sleep
Insomnia, Raak?
Allow me to read to you
From this C text book
Allow me to read to you
From this C text book
Stuff sucks
So, now on top of everything else, I fell in the shower at a hotel because it was THAT slippery (I had turned the water on from outside of the shower, took one step in and fell . . . hit my elbow and it was hard enough that it caused something to go wrong with my shoulder. It's now EARLY Thursday morning where I am and it happened on Saturday. It popped and became worse Wednesday morning as I was getting ready. I have an MRI they are going to do. I've been seen by a doctor at an Urgent Care and they set me up with an orthopedist that saw me who wants me to get an MRI to see if I'll need surgery. It HURTS badly.
Ouch
In sympathy. Did you happen to push on that arm Wednesday? If so, reckon you've broken your radius. Had something similar. More sympathy.
Oh no! That sucks mightily. So sorry to hear you're in the wars. I've just triple-checked my voodoo doll collection and you're definitely not in it. Let me offer you a big virtual hug. Virtual hugs may be intangible, but they're also guaranteed not to hurt.
[KS]- what an arse. Sympathies, but you seem to be getting good treatment. I won't bother you with my story of 5 hours in outpatients because of a poisoned hand. That bloody hurt but not as much as a popped arm I'll bet. May the depopping come soon.
Does anyone know how to start a new game?
Yes, but I'm not one of them, being older than Methuselah, totally computer-illiterate and ethnically Welsh. Someone will help you, I'm sure, but it would be good form to announce what sort of a game you intend.
New Game
New game slot unavailable here.
New fish to fry
[Fish-Monger] There are a limited number of game slots. Win one of the existing games with a move of pure genius to close that one and open up space for a new one. What kind of game were you thinking of?
[KS] I hope you have managed to stay safe and dry.
[Stevie] I hope you have also managed to stay safe and dry.
Taps mic
My annual visit to check that the system upgrade didn't kill anything.
Testing...
Gosh!
*waves at rab*
Blimey!
[rab] Oooh! But it appears that you are late this year. It was July in 2020 and August in 2019. Perhaps your orbit is being perturbed.
Waves back
Yeah sorry I don’t drop by as much as I used to. But I’m doing well thanks yeah.
Possibly. The debian release schedule is of the “it’s done when it’s done” type, and also it requires me to go and check their website to see if there has been a major release since last time I looked. This was one of the few upgrades that didn’t break anything, apart from forcibly deleting PHP for reasons I still don’t fully understand.
Weekend plans
None. Phew.
[pen] I'm sure your doggy will have things for you to do.
My ouchie . . .
Turns out I broke my collarbone. It's not been fun, but at least it was getting better. The first six weeks are miserable.
Happy Punctuation Day! Site does't want to let me add my examples of lesser known punctuation marks.
https://www.facebook.com/kagomeshuko/posts/10159851060059529
https://www.facebook.com/kagomeshuko/posts/10159851060059529
That's a bummm*r
failed cook
I managed to burn two pans of stuff yesterday. And the container I got out of the freezer to defrost for dinner wasn't goulash, as I thought, but chicken curry. I think we'll have beans on toast today.
That's another bummer. I'm always doing it. Most of my stuff is overcooked.
Here's a thought - learn to not live out of the freezer! (Pablo ducks as various rock-solid tupperware containers of unidentifiable foodish products are hurled at him, but stands firm in his unwavering belief in fresh food. Unless it's all run out, of course)
[Pablo] You're an urban dweller, I take it?
Learn ...
Excellent advice Pablo. Also, everyone stop whining about pollution, just learn to breathe only healthy O2/N2 mixture.
Something very weird is happening with AVMA. I keep trying to post to the game, and it won't accept my post. Meanwhile the front page now describes it as a "Brand spanking new event"
Never mind. I think I broke it by trying to include some Japanese characters. I took those out and normal service appears to have been restored.
I don't seem able to load the home page of that wily Scotsman McIos today.
Seems ok from here... http://mcios.pathetech.com/
[Micky Os] I had a problem after a recent Windows "update". My browser then claimed Mcios had a wonky certificate. I found tipping my laptop to one side helped.
(Bools) Did your browser actually use the word wonky?. If so, there is hope for the world.
[Pen]Yes, very urban, but if I were rural I'd be into stealing vegetables, strangling chickens, eating grass (both sorts), foraging for mind-bending mushrooms, punching cows and generally making a bloody nuisance of myself. Only way to have an interesting life as far as I can see.
hullo clouds hullo sky
[Pabbers] No need for stealing vegetables - they drop off the harvest wagons as they turn the corner in front of our house. And once the harvesting machines have been through the fields, gleaning is tolerated, so you could easily get 50-60kg of potatoes for nowt if you put your back into it. Other aspects - such as the peace and quiet (ignoring loads of tractors, obvs), open views and panoramic skies - make it worthwhile. I'm hating cities more and more, to be honest, but then I'm in the lucky position of being able to do that from a distance.
Free Veg
[penelope] So did you go for the speed bump or water-filled pothole to enact your nefarious-yet-brilliant veg "acquisitions"?
Desperate measures
We already have the water-filled pothole - everyone knows it's there. I feign reversing out of our parking bit in front of tractors to make them brake suddenly*.
*Seriously, I don't need to - there are enough idiot drivers causing tractors to take avoiding action and there are spuds all over the roads.
All round penelope's windmill for some chips done in beef dripping then!
<*drools*>
Chips in dripping
There's still one chip shop around here that does them like that.
Nothing in particular
And,um, where ... exactly ... is "around here"? Asking for, er, a friend.
Aaaaarrrghgurglethrobflutter
Hogs y sglods!
Hidden text
properly Hogia sglodion (chip lads)Sling this into Google Maps and you'll see it.
F67M+5C Morlanwelz
F67M+5C Morlanwelz
Chips
I just found that it has a website, too. The name is Friterie de Mariemont.
For the anecdote: A few years back, Belgian law changed because the chip shops were semi-mobile affairs with propane stoves which tended to explode. The majority of the shops were classed as "mobile" - that is temporary construction by the side of a road on public land, and prohibited. The idea was that anyone who wanted to remain open had to construct a proper building, but most got around it by putting a veranda up in front. This one was moved fifteen metres from the road on to private ground, and then they put the veranda up.
For the anecdote: A few years back, Belgian law changed because the chip shops were semi-mobile affairs with propane stoves which tended to explode. The majority of the shops were classed as "mobile" - that is temporary construction by the side of a road on public land, and prohibited. The idea was that anyone who wanted to remain open had to construct a proper building, but most got around it by putting a veranda up in front. This one was moved fifteen metres from the road on to private ground, and then they put the veranda up.
Patat, Pataje, Friet, Frites, Chips met mayonnaise.
[Bismarck] I see it - tucked into the back of the car park. We used to occaisionally drive the 15km over the border into Belgium to have chips for dinner at something similar They're everywhere. Our dog is called 'Chip' (or 'Chippie') after the food, BTW.
[pen] I expect he has a 'chippie tea' at feeding time
[Chalks] We call it a 'Chippie dinner' (but the windy miller doesn't get the allusion to the colloquial chippy at all).
(pen) How do you know what carpenters have for din-dins?
[Rosie] Dunno, but they probably eat it with a wooden chip fork.
While digging around in an old bookmark file...
... I found my MC bookmarks! I'm so pleased to see everyone still here!
Greetings, nights!
resurrections and aging
(nights) Good to see you.
(Rosie) MHR OM.
(Rosie) MHR OM.
[nights] Pleased to see you too! (And to have more than 8 words to say so)
I honestly can't remember the last time I played. But (to put on my serious hat for a moment) I find that with the world being so grim, some light hearted fun is all the more precious. It's also nice to see that community online is still a thing.
With that said, doffing my serious hat with a flourish and putting my balaclava of fun back on, I return to trying to find my rhyming dictionary...
With that said, doffing my serious hat with a flourish and putting my balaclava of fun back on, I return to trying to find my rhyming dictionary...
Anyone else having trouble reaching MCiOS?
(Proj) No problem here.
Belated Birthday Greetings Rosie!
MCiOS
Yes, Projoy.
MClostiOS
Yes - me too.
I'm not seeing any problems at MCiOS.
(Chalky) Cheers, m'dear.
Anniversaries
(Rosie) It's got to be 20 years since WildPants? I know other MC servers existed in the last century but vaguely recall I didn't venture into them until Rab fashioned this one.
[nights] Welcome back! Do stick around for a while.
Wildpants
(Chalky) I remember posting something in WildPants which for some reason mentioned my age, a mere 58. So yes, over 20 years ago. I seem to remember there was a Rogues' Gallery associated with it. Maybe we could have one here.
MCiOLOSS
[Projoy et al] I'm also having problems getting to MCiOS...
MCiOS
I too cannot access MCiOS. I seem to remember something recently about changing its domain or IP or some such techobabble?
Finding MCiOS...
It appears to be accessible again. It's always in the last place you look, isn't it?
Mr Logic
(nights) Sorry to be a clever c*** but can I cautiously point out that it must be in the last place you looked because once you've found it you stop looking.
Censorship
Wow, who knew rab hates Dutch shoes?!
Another string to my bow is theatre tech. I've just spent ten hours plugging things in, unplugging them, bonking myself on the head with them, turning them around the right way, programming them, and that was just the actors.
So. Decision made. We're not going back to England for Xmas for a second year. Luckily I managed three trips between September and November (the latter for my mother's 80th birthday) before it all went loopy again. We've had half a shutdown in the Netherlands for the past 3 weeks (all evening stuff is closed, except supermarkets and petrol stations). The rate of booster vaccinations is speeding up so it might be before or just after Xmas for me and the windy miller.
But folks, I'm curious. Who is still stupid enough to spread it after nearly two years of this shit? Come ON.
But folks, I'm curious. Who is still stupid enough to spread it after nearly two years of this shit? Come ON.
My sister, apparently. I'm told she thinks 'healthy people don't need vaccines'.
[pen] Students. "I'm young, I won't get sick even if I do get it." It's getting to the point that I dread going to work, which is a new and sad feeling.
(pen) Not just that, but practically all patients in Intensive Care Units are unvaccinated. They are brainless, selfish and completely up their own arses.
I despair, I really do. Looks like the Dutch government is also going to eschew closing schools early for a firebreak over Xmas and the new year holidays so as 'not to interupt education'. Seems to me it would be the obvious thing to do at this stage. Co-worker's husband is a maths teacher and yesterday he tested positive. She's pregnant with twins. They are both vaccinated.
This sucks.
This sucks.
Gathering rosebuds
Off to London this Sunday for some culture. I wonder if this is the last time it will be possible for a while.
Glub glub...
Off to the UK via the tunnel on Saturday in my little COVID-safe Clio. Haven't driven on a British motorway in a good ten years. This is going to be entertaining!
Traffic report
Apart from a minor contretemps near Heathrow, I have safely arrived in the Midlands. My little car behaved admirably and is going to be valeted as a reward.
Clio capers
[nights] Have a wonderful time with your nearest and dearest.
Do motorways have a Clio Lane specially for samll Italian cars?
[Rosie] It's probably the same lane that a Mini Driver would use.
(Boolbar) V good. ROFLMAO. I've had five of the little buggers and if you're not careful I'll give you all their numbers.
1000kms later...
Despite all the extra protocols, checks, tests, paperwork, swimsuit competitions and tie-breaker round ("In ten words or less, explain why you should be allowed to enter France"), the drive back home was excellent and I have brought back more PG Tips and Club biscuits than is strictly necessary.
Le premier thé Anglais!
2022
And may I be the first to wish my lovely friends a happy, properous and cheerful 2022! The evening was spent with a small group of friends, LFTs in hand, playing Mysterium, and drinking a reasonable quantity of beer.
[Nights] Good to hear you were allowed back - and you successfully managed to drive on the wrong side of the road for a bit! Apparently tea and chocolate bars are OK (vegetable origin) but filled chocolates (truffles, bonbons) are not - they contain something more closely related to dairy - so the Dutch Marechaussee told me. And if you can't eat the whole box of chocolates in the car at Customs, then just order them all from Amazon in France or Germany. That's where I get my Yorkshire Tea and Fry's Chocolate Cream bars from.
(pen) I get Yorkshire Tea from Waitrose. Good stuff is that.
[Rosie] Waitrose? There’s posh.
(CdM) Not really. Not ridiculously expensive either. Nicer people than the Co-op.
(CdM) and wider aisles. Better loos too.
The radio in the car on the way to work told me that there are signs that the pandemic may be slowing down. I then get into the office, open my inbox, and reel at the number of students off with COVID. It's almost as if... the media... has some kind of interest... in getting people... to worry about something else...
[nights] It may well be slowing down, but only after it got up to a fairly high speed to begin with.
Oh FFS. Vax-refusing neighbour over the road was ill last week but won't even take a home test - she's convinced there's something on the cotton swabs. There's no helping some people.
(pen) What's her name? Mrs Djokovic?
Can you hear me now?
Well, back to doing some classes online, which pleases absolutely nobody.
[nights] Least of all those of us who have to teach the bloody things
Can you turn your cameras on please?
[Pablo] Tell me about it. I had fourteen in my Friday morning class, not a face amongst them. Feels like I'm teaching my houseplants.
[nights] So, much the same as teaching in the classroom then?
[Raak] Somewhat, yes, although I do find that it is frowned upon if I take things to their logical conclusion and teach in my pyjamas.
I have started telling my team that they have to turn up in the video conferences with the most interesting background they can make.
[nights] Have an on-screen hat day. Also, have you tried the 'hold up something green if you agree' or 'hold up something red if you disagree' rapid-fire quizzy-type thing instead of relying on mentimeter or other electronic gizmotrickery?
IT mischief for pedagogical amusement
[pen] Nope and that is absolutely happening in my next online thing.
In my last in-person thing, in the IT lab, I was practising using the software that allows me to look at the screens of my students from my desk. Not only does it nip any potential misuse of university facilities in the bud, but it allows me to send messages to all terminals in the session.
My favourite message I sent ended, for a lark, "Please stand up and sit down again briefly to acknowledge receipt of this message." Within moments, there was a gentle wave of students gently bobbing up and down. Absolutely splendid.
In my last in-person thing, in the IT lab, I was practising using the software that allows me to look at the screens of my students from my desk. Not only does it nip any potential misuse of university facilities in the bud, but it allows me to send messages to all terminals in the session.
My favourite message I sent ended, for a lark, "Please stand up and sit down again briefly to acknowledge receipt of this message." Within moments, there was a gentle wave of students gently bobbing up and down. Absolutely splendid.
[pen][nights] Loving all this, only wish I had the wit to think of this stuff. As I teach music, perhaps I could declare that everyone must turn up with a sousaphone?
[Pablo] Surely you'd insist on a kazoo or Swannee whistle? Let battle commence.
Well, off work for a week. I've celebrated this fact by getting up just as early as ever on a Saturday morning to have a cotton bud inserted into what felt like my frontal lobe. Anyone else had particularly sadistic COVID tests?
Sadism
(nights) Not a COVID test but can I bid One Prostate Biopsy?
[Rosie] Oh that doesn't sound nice. Hope the results are good!
(nights) It was nearly 5 years ago, very painful but brief and the results were not good. Extensive treatment has cured it - it can be done. The Gland Of My Fathers, a naughty boy. Bachgen drwg!
[Rosie] Glad to hear that things are better now. I went for an endoscopy at our local public-private-partnership hospital on Monday, and while I was impressed at how well everything went (it being my first time under general), I'm now slightly dreading the bill.
(nights) That's one thing I don't have to worry about - I even got a free car park pass as a regular patient. Radiotherapy, i.e. 37 consecutive zappings with high-energy X-rays but at least you get the weekends off.
Are you dreading the bill more than the result? I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad one. Whichever it is I hope they didn't find anything nasty.
Are you dreading the bill more than the result? I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad one. Whichever it is I hope they didn't find anything nasty.
[Rosie] There aren't many things I miss about the UK, but the NHS is one of them. Something of a stereotype I know. Anyway, went in for the followup visit today and all is well. Have also paid the bill, and informed the children that Christmas is cancelled.
[nights] They gave me the best drugs for the drainpipe-up-the-rear session I underwent. Much better than the carpal tunnel general. Needle went in after the usual faffing about trying to find a vein under the layers of manly blubber relaxed muscle I cultivate in my arms, turned on the faucet and the sitar music began almost straight away.
After a fractious meeting or two and some very colourful emails, I have now made sure that the right ticks are in the right boxes for all of our students will be able to do their external English exams (rhymes with STOIC) at no cost to them. It's the small victories, eh.
Ticks
Not ... the dread Brotherhood of Luxor Death Ticks?
Death Tick
Death ticks are clockwork menaces resembling ticks, but about the size of a man’s hand. They are programmed to seek out a living target, jump onto that target, and siphon the victim’s life fluids. Once the enemy is a dry husk, the tick returns to its sender. Any tick failing to reach the sender in 10 hours releases a corrosive acid and destroys itself.
Ticks
And you surely can't mean ... the foul Prairie Tick?
Prairie Tick
Prairie ticks are the scourge of the High Plains. These horrid bloodsuckers live in underground burrows and are controlled by a single, giant queen that rules over each nest.
Ticks
[Stevie] The only ticks I am experiencing are those of the clock marking off the seconds of the exam that I spend thinking of all the ways I could be using this time more productively if I wasn't required to be here watching students do an exam.
Never mind, at least Saturday is open day, an entirely DIFFERENT way of wasting time...
Never mind, at least Saturday is open day, an entirely DIFFERENT way of wasting time...
This Saturday
I'm running another episode of the increasingly hysterical Planet Mercenary RPG. You could join us if you weren't doing something else.
Last Saturday
[Stevie] Ta verymuchly for the invitation, but I'm already part of two RPGs that never have the time to meet up - three would be an extravagance, I fear. That being said, I can confirm that D&D in French is hilarious when you don't know the right vocab.
Well, May 7th we're back on Mars for some Space 1889. Dead easy Savage Worlds rules. Offer stands. Noon EST. Well, DST I guess.
D&D off-planet
[Stevie], how easy is it to learn?
Space 1889
[Superman] So easy I can do it. Very, very easy. But don't take my word for it, come and join us and see for yourself. We can fold new players in without breaking a sweat. If they don't want to stay the course, that's OK too. Characters are easy to build. The Savage Worlds core (which is the "engine" under the bonnet) I usually describe as designed to reproduce Indiana Jones movies as a role-playing game. We use the same engine for my friend Craig's Dealands Reloaded weird west game, though I'm using an older version of the rules with some of the really neat new ideas bolted on for Space 1889.
Here is the campaign blog though the last two entries were rushed due to Xmas and Vacations from Hell and pipes bursting and ceilings falling in and life generally sucking.
Well that's a month gone by in a flash. How is everyone doing? Anyone seen a swallow yet?
Bird Brained
No swallows, not even a gulp. However, seen on the bird feeder today: sparrow, pigeon, great tit, blue tit, dunnock, nuthatch, squirrel, jackdaw, mouse.
...and having just popped to the kitchen I can add a female blackbird and a magpie to that list. It is all go today!
Oh look, I've got a special 4-legged furry bird that goes miaow.
I'll go out and talk to it
I've spent the day interpreting for a meeting where everyone's second language was English, and I now have a headache the size of a zepplin. Good lunch though!
Dwyieithrwydd
(nights) My Dad's second language was English. I take your point, though.
I sympathise, used to do the same thing very regularly. Have you tried doing both sides of a German-French conversation? Imagine so, given you location. There's a reason interpreters only do twenty-minute shifts...
Talking of second languages, I need to practice using my Dutch in shouted conversations with farmers across fields. Either that or just shut up and wave when I'm on lunchtime dog walks.
(pen) Could depend rather crucially on what you say, or what they thought you said.
Outages
Dunx.org has dropped off the web. And we have not heard from Dunx for quite a long time. I hope this is just because he is too busy to participate in the Morniverse. Is anyone in regular touch with him? MCiOS seems to have a problem also: when I tried to post this there, I got “An error occurred while reading CGI reply (no response received)”.
Can't see anything wrong from here...
~: ping dunx.org
ping: cannot resolve dunx.org: Unknown host
~: ping www.dunx.org
ping: cannot resolve www.dunx.org: Unknown host
And I'm still having the MCiOS problem in the chat game, but not in Room 101.
ping: cannot resolve dunx.org: Unknown host
~: ping www.dunx.org
ping: cannot resolve www.dunx.org: Unknown host
And I'm still having the MCiOS problem in the chat game, but not in Room 101.
dunx.org
It took some hours for the error to propagate, but now I see the same as Raak.
dunx.org is back in working order.
Look away NOW
Rather feeble thunderstorm this afternoon ym Mhlas Huws. House still standing.
Quiet in here, isn't it?
Y tawelwch
YMA O HYD!
That's Welsh for "The Saints go marching in", isn't it...
Dropping by
Howdy, folks!
(Phil) Iawn, cont! mode=<cofi>
Howdy Phil! Are you recovered? And aren't you about to move house?
[Pen] That's a disguised threat if ever I heard one.
Ummm....
[penelope] I can't remember what I was recovering from, but other than my right shoulder (my bowling arm) responding well to physio after seizing up a bit over the winter, I'm very well thank you.
I do plan to move house later this year (even closer to Rosie, I fear), although it seems to be a safe bet at any time in the last 25 years to ask me if I'm about to move house :)
I do plan to move house later this year (even closer to Rosie, I fear), although it seems to be a safe bet at any time in the last 25 years to ask me if I'm about to move house :)
Ohhhh
[Phil] Good to hear. I'm asking because I thought you had Covid the last time I saw you in here
[Bismarck] If you hear a threat, that's entirely your interpretation, mwahahaahaha! It would be worse if the threat was to make sure you moved into a bungalow - no stairs. Euphemism for knee-breaking perhaps.
I have no idea where I get these ideas.
[Bismarck] If you hear a threat, that's entirely your interpretation, mwahahaahaha! It would be worse if the threat was to make sure you moved into a bungalow - no stairs. Euphemism for knee-breaking perhaps.
I have no idea where I get these ideas.
[pen] That must have been the week before Christmas. I had a fun time in solitary with food and drinks being dropped off at the door. I genuinely enjoyed it :)
A random late-night thought
I was just thinking about an annoying recurring dream I keep having - you know the one, where you're back at school/college/uni and you have a load of work to hand in that you haven't done because your darn brain only invented it a few minutes ago. I think one of the reasons it annoys me is that I'd started to notice this no-win part of the problem even while asleep. I begin to wonder if I might start metagaming about that in the actual dream before too long.
And then, thinking back, I noticed other things - such as the fact that you rarely have conversations with other people in dreams, and that most people, if they can find a dream-book to open, find nothing useful or intelligible inside.
And then I thought, these kinds of limitations are quite understandable - after all, your brain is literally inventing an entire fantasy environment around you in real time. Looking at it like that, it's staggering how realistic dreams are, in spite of their shortcomings. On the Crescent sites, a lot of us are creatives of some kind - including writers - so we know how hard is is to produce something halfway realistic in real life. In fact, it suddenly struck me to ask, 'Looking at the sheer amount of creativity that goes into a dream, and knowing how much mental effort it takes to do anything similar when up and about, how come dreaming isn't more mental effort than being awake??'
(SM) I'm not convinced about creativity in dreams. I think most of the stuff is already there from previous life experiences, even the most trivial things, and they just get mis-associated. I have had rather vivid dreams but they are based on an enhancement or exaggeration of a reality I have experienced plus some imagination. They wake you up which can be briefly disturbing but whatever you do you cannot recreate that dream, be it nice or nasty, and it fades remarkably quickly. Alcohol has little effect - it's a small molecule that fits anywhere. A work colleague (a chemist) said it goes round the brain pulling out a few plugs.
[Creativity - yebbut stitching material together in new and unexpected ways is what creativity is. The amount of creativity in different people's dreams may vary, but from what I can tell it easily matches and frequently exceeds the degree of creativity the same person can achieve when awake. Although I will concede a Captain Scarlet level of plot holes, for sure.]
Creativitiness
The idea that creativity is a matter of becoming unshackled, freed from restraint, when we would all be massively creative if only we could let go, is bollocks. Discuss.
No art without craft, but try saying that in an art college these days.
I never said dreaming was unshackled creativity. It has at least one inescapable limit - the highly-connected blob of meat in charge of the whole mess.
Or in the words of Humph, "The teams can say any word they want, limited only by their own imaginations.
... It's stiff, that rule."
Isn't "meatbrain", as implied by your metaphor, something of an oxymoron?
Brains can be made out of meat! [Archive link to www.terrybisson.com]
Agreed that dreams are mostly mashups of one's past life (at least mine are, and it can be confusing to be in 3 countries at once). "An infinite capacity for taking pains" is a lousy definition of genius - that's just control freakery. Much better is "the ability to make connections where none were seen before". Whether those connections are made awake, asleep, or somewhere between really doesn't matter. That begets creativity.
Genius
Genius
(Pablo) Your second definition is by far the better. And of course these connections are made in effect instantaneously. There just has to be some loose software flopping about in there. Use it well.
If I may make a slight amendment
I would suggest "the ability to make fruitful connections where none were seen before"
Dreams
I don't think that I have any real life experience of anyone inserting an inboard marine engine into a golden retriever's arse and setting it off around the dock in a wide loop, saying "Watch this bugger go!"
My dreams baffle me.
My dreams baffle me.
(Phil) Got just about enough energy to ROFLMAO.
[Phil] Yeah, that is unusual. Only about 8% of people have that dream.
This place is dead, or at best dormant.
[Rosie] I guess the pandemic disrupted the regular supply of banter and the import of witty discourse into the UK is being held up due to the extra paperwork required post-Brexit.
(Boolbar) But we have no need to import banter - we already have a unique top-class product that, given some loose translation, would sell like hot cakes throughout Europe. Alas, we are governed by cretins and the newly-erected barriers and associated bureaucracy make it just too much hassle. What a silly country we are.
Gas go bang
[Rosie] I hope you weren't affected by the explosion in your locale!
Down go house
(Phil) Are you insinuating that my abode is in Forneaf? How dare you! I'm a good six miles SSE. In any case it's not really Forneaf, more like Norbury/Mitcham Common. That shows you how much the media 12-yr-olds know about south London.
Hidden text
Thornton HeathApols
[Rosie] I knew I'd heard you mention it. My sincerest apologies for such a slur. My daughter now lives in Surrey, but about as far from you as it's possible to be, while still in the county. She assures me it's not deliberate.
(Phil) So she's in Haslemere, is she? Well, there's posh. I don't think I could afford a garden shed there.
I'm looking for a way to represent a glottal stop without resorting to IPA. There is a distinct glottal stop after the "r" in Forneaf, to say nothing of the "th fronting".
I'm looking for a way to represent a glottal stop without resorting to IPA. There is a distinct glottal stop after the "r" in Forneaf, to say nothing of the "th fronting".
MCiOS
Hi folks - what's happened to MCiOS???
[Blob] I was wondering that, although I have a feeling that it was mentioned that the domain name was meant to be changing at some point.
[Boolbar] That rings a very muffled bell for me, but my browser autofills the whole name as soon as I type "m", so if there was a new domain coming in, I never trained it to use it.
(B,B,R) This is ridiculous. What is the new domain name? It's like changing your address or phone number without telling anybody.
MCiOS
[B,R,R] Hmm, it doesn't seem that long ago that it changed from parslow.com to mcios.pathetech
Does anybody have Dan's email address?
Does anybody have Dan's email address?
If anyone feels like having a rant give me a bell on 020 8657 4109
MCiOS is back.
MCiOS is gone again.
Back again!
Gone again. I don't understand this. Someone is taking the piss.
Dial M for moaning
[Rosie] I reversed-searched the number (seeing as I have nothing better to do this morning - or at least nothing I'd like better to do. Haha!
(pen) Couldn't you have just dialled the number? No need now - Dan has explained how a singularity in the Universal Force Field led to temporary withdrawal of the source of our addiction. Better have a fag - ah, that's better. Popeth yn iawn rŵan
Daughter location
[Rosie] Farnham. My daarn saarf geography is woeful. I still get Woking and Wokingham mixed up. Ditto for Maidenhead/Maidstone.
Do try to keep up!
No-one's said anything for a couple of weeks. Are you all OK?
Last day of summery weather today, and aside from useing it to dry blankets and quilts today, I have no further use for it. Throughly fed up of being sweaty. Next Saturday is forecast to be 16C ALL DAY. Can't wait!
Last day of summery weather today, and aside from useing it to dry blankets and quilts today, I have no further use for it. Throughly fed up of being sweaty. Next Saturday is forecast to be 16C ALL DAY. Can't wait!
(pen) 16°C all day? That means total cloud cover, probably a strong breeze and quite possibly continuous rain.
(Phil) Farnham. That's very nearly Hampshire. I'm at Hamsey Green, a part of Warlingham.
(Phil) Farnham. That's very nearly Hampshire. I'm at Hamsey Green, a part of Warlingham.
rainy days are here again
[Rosie] Yup! Every excuse to either sit in the car at the mill listening to the rain on the roof while drinking tea and reading books while the windy miller does his thing, or sit at home reading books and drinking tea while the windy miller does his thing at the mill.
Nope, the continent refuses to play sensibly and it's 27°C for some reason.
1
1
1
1
1<b><i><p><hr></i></b>
I think it might be time to turn the North Wales connection on for all games by default...
Y cysylltiad gogleddol
Ti 'di'n meddwl Mrs T?
Howdy
How are things with y'all? Over here the school holidays got changed to two-week half terms and I am wondering if becoming a teacher is still on at my age. Currently jobseeking, so you never know.
Demused
I flogged my writing muse yesterday to great effect and today she's gone AWOL just when I need her to help me write a webpage and a bunch of campaign emails. And the windy miller is having a day-long snooze after overdoing it (not Covid - we've tested). On the plus side I've booked a trip to England in late Nov instead of at Xmas. At least I'll get a decent break in December instead of dashing all over the place.
I have no idea how people do teaching. My pa was a teacher for 35 years.
I have no idea how people do teaching. My pa was a teacher for 35 years.
Wot my old man did
(pen) Mine too. He taught English, a language he couldn't speak until he was about 8.
[Rosie] That's impressive. Mine was an art teacher.
(pen) Have you inherited his talent? I can only draw steam engines.
scribbler
[Rosie] I did Art O-level in one year and got an A (I did the still life and calligraphy papers) but that's as far as I took it. I thought I could 'always do art at home' so I studied science instead. I think I might have a bit of talent but it's completely untrained and I get frustrated that my lack of training doesn't let me produce the things I want to produce. But I've got all the kit should I ever feel the urge to practice...
Art
[penelope]I have no talent for art whatsoever. I’ve tried, but lack the whatever-it-is to convert what I imagine to what I can draw. The Stevieling is *extremely* talented, but refuses to work at it. She draws manga-style for fun, but is capable of much more - we persuaded her to take a class in college and she claimed she enjoyed it but she dropped it next year. Very frustrating for me. She has fantastic ideas and a great imagination. I’ve tried to get her to draw comics or illustrated stories but to no great success. Aaaaargh.
[Stevie] Bad luck. I bet she's not going to fall for reverse psychology any more either
I can't art either, but I can script and I can program. Not well, but I can. So I use PoVRay and/or Blender, and that lets me program a computer to do what I want. Yes, this is easily as difficult as just drawing the stuff, and in many respects it's much more work, but it's something I can do, whereas I cannot draw
End Times
The barometer has fallen to 982 and it's gone dark outside.
Was it the End?
[Rosie] You still 'ere mate? I've been across the North Sea and back since you posted that and I can confirm both sides are still here. (the crossing last night was very smooth, by the way)
(pen) Yma o hyd, to use a well-known phrase or saying.. Extensive research has revealed that the darkness was due to the well-attested rotation of the earth and it was twenty past four. It's going to get cold - you'll be able to skate here soon. I'll be there with my camera.
Hidden text
Still 'ereBaltic
[Rosie] Indeed. I watched a few of the models this morning. Mentally making a list of my thickest socks and their likely locations.
Kin-taters
(pen) Went down to -3.5°C last night ym Mhlas Huws. First frost of the winter (v. late) but I think it's now going to seriously rectify this happy anomaly.
Degrees
Frost here also, and the thermometer didn't make it above 0°C all day. Another thermometer is showing 38°C, as I've managed to get Covid again.
I went out for a bicycle ride this afternoon, but I had to turn back in half a mile. It was too dangerous, with patches of frozen ice everywhere, unmelted frost from last night that was still frozen, even where the sun was shining and some traffic had passed.
[Bismarck] Bummer. Hope you start to feel better soon.
Just above freezing outside in N Brabant but clear blue skies and sun (warming up the living room to 21C but my home office is on the north side of the house so still cold in 'ere - and no heating on in the house today...)
Just above freezing outside in N Brabant but clear blue skies and sun (warming up the living room to 21C but my home office is on the north side of the house so still cold in 'ere - and no heating on in the house today...)
A tad of snow here in Bedfordshire. Just enough for the seasonal crop of cars in ditches.
Brr
–7°C in my NE-facing front porch this morning. The lowest I've seen it since putting a thermometer there some years back, so I can assess the cryotesticular potential without stepping out of doors.
I would imagine the repair of the copper/zinc primate, now meteorologically appropriate, is a matter of some delicacy.
BMW
[Raak] Got very cold over the weekend here too. So cold, in fact, that the brass shut-off I have on the sillcock at the back of the house split because I shut the valve in the brass part but stupidly did not remember to turn off the sillcock itself, so a column of water about the size of the end joint of my thumb was residing in the brass manifold, which was enough to fracture it.
To maximize the fun I did not realize this had happened until the thaw, when I went down to the basement and discovered a nice new paddling pool.
The water had sprayed up the side of the house for about a day and a half and frozen in many interesting patterns, but had also soaked into the ground and waterlogged it, causing many leakes through the basement wall and seepage through the floor itself. I took over 40 gallons of water out using the wet-vac, a submersible pump and a stream of class four Words of Power.
Class IV Words of Power
[Stevie] Are those adult words?
Power Words?
Like Kinell or Effeffess?
Word of Power
Words of Power are the way one forces out the anti-handyman demons infesting whatever it is one is attempting, in this case, keeping my machine tools dry and unrusted. I went directly to class fours as I had only just solved a similar crisis brought on by my having new gutters installed on the house and the gutter guy not understanding that if he dumped the rainfall on umptytump square feet of roof next to the basement wall, the water would soon be inside the house. I have to come up with a proper solution to that one. right now I just have an 8 foot pipe running to the edge of the property where a nice new pool forms every time we get a storm.
Does "edge of the property" = "neighbour's basement wall"?
[CdM] 8oD
Anyone had enough of 2023 yet? Gripe warning!
Among other hindrances and irritations (including starting the year with Covid) the windy miller has a case of the burnout from his real-life job and is taking at least two weeks off to sleep, and I have eczema on my effing eyelids (that's a new and unusual place, even for me).
Still to look forward to: three months of my route to work in Rotterdam being absolutely shut during June, July and August because of repairs to the massive Haringvliet bridge and a tunnel under the river a bit further north. I don't fancy joining everyone else on the road coming from Antwerp and Zeeland heading to Rotterdam taking two and a half hours to drive 40km. Hmmph.
Still to look forward to: three months of my route to work in Rotterdam being absolutely shut during June, July and August because of repairs to the massive Haringvliet bridge and a tunnel under the river a bit further north. I don't fancy joining everyone else on the road coming from Antwerp and Zeeland heading to Rotterdam taking two and a half hours to drive 40km. Hmmph.
Feel your pain with the eczema. I get it inside my ear tubing sometimes. As far as bridges and tunnels over a river, time to buy an army surplus DUKW. You could run a bus service to recoup fuel costs. It seats about twenty .
Hidden text
so c'mon and bring your juke-box money[Pen] trying saying you have COVID (Congenital Objection to Vehicular Ingress by Dams) and say you have to isolate at home.
And thirdly...
The dishwasher is broken. All it can manage is a 10 minute rinse. Aaargh.
Eyelid eczema is clearing up - I already had some evil cream but I didn't know if I'd be allowed to use it on my eyelids. Apparently I can use it for a couple of days. Last day today then. Let's see how it goes from here. (If anyone needs a recommendation, I've found that Aveeno oat-based cream is the best for keeping eczema at bay once you've swatted it with steroid creams.)
Eyelid eczema is clearing up - I already had some evil cream but I didn't know if I'd be allowed to use it on my eyelids. Apparently I can use it for a couple of days. Last day today then. Let's see how it goes from here. (If anyone needs a recommendation, I've found that Aveeno oat-based cream is the best for keeping eczema at bay once you've swatted it with steroid creams.)
That oat-based cream puts you at risk of being kissed by a horse, I'm sure.
Oatmeal
Yep. Oat-based products were always thought to be a palliative when I were a lad, and I use Aveeno hand cream myself on my hands and in my ears. That said, I also use Mometasome cream and lotion, and on a recent re-occurrence of the odd leg-scurvy, some ointment made of what looks like petroleum jelly mixed with coal tar. I feel like the bloke from Going Postal who had the explosive socks sometimes.
Eeep, not been here in a long time!
Eeep, I've not been here in a long time! It's crazy. My hurricane lawyer now HAS my funds for repairing my house and how I'll have to take $9000 out to be able to keep staying at this hotel and pay my bills while my house is being repaired, but they are taking FOREVER in getting it to me! I'm definitely not happy with this lawyer. I'm struggling and have pulled some funds together for one more week right now . . . some of which I probably shouldn't have used, but I need to be able to extend and hopefully will have funds back . . . I will NEVER recommend this lawyer to anybody.
Getting blood out of a stone
(KS) Welcome back
[KagomeShuko] Very welcome back. Was worried!
[KS] You've been having a rough time over the last 2 years also. Will your settlement or other relief funds also pay for all your accommodation costs since the hurricane?
No auroras on Belgium, but a cracking conjunction this evening of Venus and Jupiter.
Ugh, it's awful!
[Simons Mith] [Bismarck] It's so awful! The settlement will get my house fixed, but I've already been depending on donations to stay the hotel! I told my contractor that I'll need to take out funds to stay. It won't get my house to the way she was going to make it all accessible for me, which isn't great, but I'll have my house back. Hopefully I'll get the last bit of money from a car accident settlement (different lawyer) and maybe that'll pay for my house to be more the way that I want.
Project Tiddles (South)
Following in the footsteps of Rab, I'm starting my own Project Tiddles.
Phase 1: gotta get a cat flap, or no one will even consider me for entiddlification. That's due for this Thursday.
I had never really considered getting a cat at this address before, because I'm right on a main road and I'm not really willing to accept even a low probability of a poor mog getting squished.
But then I belatedly realised (belated by $%&^$% years) that if I got a cat that was elderly, defective or otherwise unable to go out, then the road wouldn't matter nearly so much. So that's the plan. Find an old slow animal that can't be bothered to move much and spoil it rotten for its retirement
I've laid on Bird TV for it already, so we'll both have something to look at out of the window
Pets, slow
[Simons Mith] have you considered taxidermy?
[Radox] That's... not a bad idea except that a taxidermied cat would need at least occasional dusting. I consider that a step backwards from the live versions, which are self-cleaning.
Playing the Rosie Card.
When did "taxidermied" (which MS Edge doesn't even think is a word) replace "stuffed" in the discourse concerning dead, straw-filled roadkill?
I asked this in another forum recently and was assured it was to spare the sensibilities of those who would confuse a once-live but now stuffed animal cadaver with a build-a-bear.
Rebuild-A-Bear
[Stevie] You've just given me the most marvellous business idea.
Mister Flopsy, TriColour Dutch: a rabbit dead as a doornail
Gentlemen we can rebuild him
We have the technology
We have the capability to make the world's first bionic rabbit
Mister Flopsy will be that rabbit
Better than he was before
Better, Smarter, Fluffier
Gentlemen we can rebuild him
We have the technology
We have the capability to make the world's first bionic rabbit
Mister Flopsy will be that rabbit
Better than he was before
Better, Smarter, Fluffier
Taxidermiing
[Stevie] If you can't verb taxidermy, you can't have taxidermiing as a gerund. That alone should be reason enough.
(SM) Good thinking. You can't verb anything because verb is not a verb except when it is. I have now fulfilmentized my role as a member of the grammar and style police (fel aelod yr heddlu gramadeg ac arddull in Welsh BTW FWIW).
I'm half-Welsh, but I'm struggling with how to pronounce Btwfwiw.
(CdM) Try half of it then. The bigger half.
Since nouns are too often verbed, can we balance the trend by nominalizing verbs (other than the speaking entirely in gerunds)?
What's the verb form of 'nutrition'? Nutritioned? Nutritised?
nutrit, nutritted, nutriting
It's not a popular word. In use, it sounds a bit too much like something else.
(SM, pen) Nutrify. Sgoddaby.
Nourish, surely.
You can't fool us
The adjectival -ish suffix means like, or somewhat, so 'nourish' clearly means something that's a bit noury.
(SM) I have a cousin-in-law who I wouldn't be so ungallant as to describe her as a large dog but she is nevertheless Danish.
Does that imply "dish" means "like the letter D" then?
Yes, and the same for 'fish' and 'wish' too. One of the great benefits of having a highly consistent language like English is that these rules are 100% reliable.
Langur ages
Ah, but you speak of Engl, not the debased English!
Oh yeah. That is a good point.
So, if some town planner decides to make a location vaguely resemble a Birmingham suburb, would that be astonishing?
Why should I watch The Villa? They never cum to see me when I was bad.
'Astonishing' was actually a deliberate policy of post-war governments, and formed part of the overall strategy known as 'maudling'. The Thatcher government, of course, declared that 'astonishing' was old hat and Britain was now in the 'Steven age'. Thus the Villa knell was sounded.
[Super] And all this time I thought 'Stevenage' was named thus becuase it was on the River Steve.
Stevenage sounds like a statutory payment. "Stevenage Shall Be Levied At Three Shillings And Fourpence In The Pound."