Happy new year everyone... and, just to show how long it's been since I last sat at a keyboard - I hope everyone has a merry Christmas too.

Trying to find reasonably priced accomodation with a piano is not as easy as I'd expected. JLE - anyone - do you have an electric piano we could plug in?

*distraught* so...Bob...is your name not actually Bob? Now I don't know what to believe!

Oh yes, and my exam period *is* over May, so I doubt I can make it to the pilg-type-thing. Sorry! :*(

It's awful when your illusions are shattered, isn't it? Still, I'm quite good at baking, you'll be pleased to know.

My initials, sadly, are neither Z nor K. I should really go and do some work... :)

As previously discussed, I'm not even a man!

I picked up a print of Simon Patterson's The Great Bear for Christmas (see here: http://www.dareonline.org/artwork/patterson/patterson3.html), which would form the basis of a wonderfully surreal game of MC.

Sorry - still can't get the tags right for a hyperlink!

I wouldn't panic, Korkers. I can't unfathom morethan about three HTML tags here. Even though the good Doctor Q enlightened me several months ago. I lost the list. Bummer.

UK]I like the idea, have a peek at "All Games", back in the early days of MC⁵ there was a game of the Great Bear unfortunately it took a while to find a map, and the link from Boolbar is still active.

[BtD] I'm hoping to purchase an electric piano soon, but need to buy the house to put it in first!

ZK] Aw, and I thought you really believed I was a dog too! The likely dates are 22nd and 29th May. Will your exams over by then?

No, not a Shania Twain string starting, but a reminder there's an e-pilg tonight in the MCiOS chatroom. All welcome. No responsibility can be accepted etc etc

For those who missed the MCiOS chatroom cyber pilg, you missed a corker. As my ex-wife will testify, eh Pen?

[Inkspot] Cheers! Well, another supposedly original idea bites the dust!

[BobTD] *wink*

Missed that - was at the cinema. Was this a Britney-style union?

I definitely think a bottle of vladivar was involved...

UK] Look in Orange MC - new game started yesterday :-)

rab] Yes. I was married Las Vegas style to Pen and she divorced me within seconds. Chalky narrowly missed me on the rebound. Dr Q got hitched to a chicken, had kids and was haunted by the spirit of his undead hen bride seeking vengence for leaving him with the odd-looking kids. I hope your film was worth it...

In the past week I've managed to embarrass myself in public twice. The first time I shoplifted by accident (but in the end paid for my error) and I fell asleep in the cinema last night and started making strange noises.... I think I need a therapist!

[Chalky] Wahoo!

MC ad other ISIHaC games are the best therapy. Everyone knows that.

I had to laugh a couple of evenings ago; my good wife was leafing through some of the junk mail which had been 'posted' into the letter box since the start of the new year. Honestly, I couldn't believe it - one food based company was advertising hot cross buns!

Better than some of the garbage the Labour party sends me through the post every Christmas. I get these lists of "useful numbers" - ie. services provided locally. It's all drugs helplines, domestic violence support groups, local police contacts, child abuse support services etc. etc. I was left thinking, "oh thanks, guys! And a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you too." Never had anything like that at any previous address in which I've resided. Believe me, the first Christmas I spent here (in 2001) I wondered where the bloody hell I'd moved to. "For heaven's sake!" thought I, imagining I was in one of the safer and more stable parts of Swindon, but silly me, I had in fact failed to notice I'd moved to Harlem. Funny how one makes these little mistakes.

[Duj] Wandering around Tesco at the weekend, I spotted shelves recently filled with chocolate creme eggs and ickle easter bunny things.
Chicken update: She's gone back home to the farm :-)

Awww, I'm glad there was a heartwarming end to the chicken's adventure, Chalky. :)

Looks like Lord Hamilton's doing the rounds, so if you'll excuse me for a moment...

Normality, I think.

It looks as though the ball has reached some sort of lull, so there could be an opening for something new...

We haven't had a Daily Mail Headlines game in a while...except it'd look a lot like Mini Cheddars, tho.

[DrQ] I'm up for that.
An alternative suggestion ... as both the other MC sites each have a pair of 'poetry' games - why not a Haiku game?

I second Chalky's idea.

Unfortunately, the late arrivals won't stop coming in!

My recent 'upgrade' seems to have killed the win-detect code. How embarrassing...

Should be fixed now.

...and in the event of winning a game, it might even be possible to start a new one again now.

I want a big shed, at least 12'x 9'. Does such a beast exsist? I wonder? Then I could spend my days there, drinking home brew from a chipped enamel mug and view the world through rose tinted Stadium Mk 4's...........sigh........

[Widey] I believe such a thing does exist, although it is usually described as a "house".

Seriously, though, (and this is probably not much help) the US company Tuff Shed manufacturers a bewildering variety of sheds (which they call "storage buildings"). Some very silly styles, though... 10'x30 loafing shed, anyone?

Sounds good to me. I shall have to check them out. As you may have gatherd folks I have no life!!.........

Indeed, widey. I possess one around that size myself. It's a steel construct erected on a concrete slab, so if you are looking for a rustic appearance I cannot help. Mine is about 7½ feet high, has a door (which helps) and a single window, half of which will slide to allow air into the thing, at the opposite end (covered in spider webs and their makers - both of which, by the way, are extras.)

[dunx] perhaps a shed for loafing in. with a pint of loafing juice? strongbow anyone? just me then.

Hello we're drinking.
Greetings from (left to right) rab, pen, JLE, Norma, Pip, LOtUS, Merlyn, Lib, jim, Si, Raak and Watty. (That's enough pilgrims - Ed)

HELLO EVERYBODY! *hugs and mabulations* as appropriate. Can you connect to the MCiOS Chat Server?

hello all, hope you had a good time. I had a marvelous time in Bristol. No drinking though, although Temple Meads station is a sight to behold.

The Bristolian kids' version of the Lord's Prayer contains the line "and lead me not into Temple Meads Station", so I'm told.

I like the bit that goes "and deliver us from Ebbw vale"...

Our Father, who art in heaven, Holloway be thy Name.

There is a version of the Lord's Prayer using tube station names already in existence, and a schoolfriend's father (who was Irish) used to recite it. But that was a long, long time ago, and now I must go to Google to have a good look. I do remember one line, which happens to be the next-but-one following st d's, come to think of it;
Thy Wimbledon.

Is this it?

[rab] Yes! But buses? Yeeeeughhh!! Perhaps we should re-write with proper station names!

Many thanks to Britney Spears there has been a change at the top of Celebrity Mornington Crescent is that me!

oh nuts, I've fallen again

ZK] I was lucky with both Britney and Greg Rusedski in buying just as the shares started to rise. It looks like this week I'll have to fight off x_sugarbabe_x and evil_edna. Which reminds me the new series of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here starts soon will the celebs be as famous last time . Which means not only has the league been going for nearly a year, so has this site, early felicitations rab, when was mc⁵ launched?

According to the database, my first move on this game was made at Thu Jan 16 21:07:52 2003, so it looks like we should have some sort of celebration on Friday.

Here's an example of those word-disassociation emails I keep receiving:
purcell newline scheme trudge coral lip partook poodle sportswear cartwheel blowup hid nabla scurry chicano twig perpendicular chariot locomotion alabaster granny machiavelli quizzical clod smooth mcclain bryan solve knives smithson fomalhaut repetitive gardenia bimetallism absentee swishy betsey centaur adenoma shoreline cobb atropos helmut pendulum poliomyelitis concourse purchasable calm macho cromwell ambiguous take autosuggestible

Who do I follow that?

Or, indeed, how?

[rab] Have you invited the word disser to mail you, or is it just very eloquent spam? I feel perhaps there is no resonse needed as they appear to have put all their eggs in one basket but making one very long move. If you feel the need to make a move then I would recommend short but sweet, with a word like priapism.

MC5 is one this year,
This is a time to share.
To celebrate this great event,
I've gone and bought a tent.

[Lib] I think it's a device to try and get the emails through the spam filters. I had considered your move, but sadly I've just received dishwasher boletus elkhart skullduggery klein phonic alloy m's bicep puffery veneto art prepare coddle coriander manor corsage forswear haplology negroes denature exhibitor there'll blueberry bituminous sus hymn kaolin stalk dreary sorption oppressive harrisburg askance argive beresford dexterity embower ywca duplex stableman pickett barfly sophistry shoji put pursuer howl style shuddery curate porch.

I can't keep up!

Meanwhile a celebration game might be appropriate. Any ideas? Maybe a verse game??

Mm. I think spammers are trying to get so much/many combinations of the English language blacklisted by Bayesian filters that they have to be reset or abandoned completely.

[rab] oh yes please. I liked Inky's sort of clerihew and I know there are several takers for a Haiku game. How's about a free-for-all 'Anni-Verse-Ary Game'? Those who are inclined [or like me, just enjoy showing off] can post a poem in whatever form/style they choose, beginning with the subject of your server's birthday and then leading ... well .. who knows where? Is that a flexible enough format for most?

Chalky] I must admit to being unable to do any form of poetry in a format, I wouldn't know who Miss Hews was if she came up and slapped my face, and as for a Haiku, why a game based on that chant thing the Kiwi's do before a game of rugby.
However I have enjoyed greatly resdaing the "He thought..." series over at Orange.

s/resdaing/reading