[pen] Right. Well, I'll probably try and get some tickets for the Lowry show (if I remember to call on Monday). Anyone else interested? (In fact, won't that be around the time of the Bobpilg?)

[rab] Subject to confirmation, ISIHACThemeNightRugby is happening on the 15th May. More news to follow :-)

CROSS-POSTING
[rab, Projoy, Thos, JLE, Nik, Lib, Boolbar, Merlyn, I'm not John, LotUS, Herr Bratsche, blamelewis, Martha Farquar, Uncle Korky, ZK, st dogmael] plus all interested parties:
Just to confirm that I am assisting Bob the dog with accommodation arrangements for the ISIHACPilg. A provisional block booking for twin rooms has been made at Brownsover Hall, Rugby for Saturday 15 May at the rate of £35 per head to include full English breakfast. As Bob is close to the venue, he will be checking out the size of the private function room, after which we can firm up on numbers, etc. I have email addresses of all except JLE, Thos, ZK & Nik. I will use my hotmail address exclusively for co-ordinating these arrangements, so just begin with kedavenport@ if you wish to confirm, deny, join in, etc. Needless to say [but I'll say it anyway] Bob the dog will continue to co-ordinate the Artistic & Creative Content of the event.

Excellent news, Chalks. I'll pencil it in me diary immediately!

Ooooh Daahling! You make me feel so Artistic & Creative!

Mini Cheddars has been hijacked. I think someone's trying to spoil our fun - especially mine....

[Bobluvvie] Yeah - because I was cross-posting [whilst in a very non-cross mood] it seemed best to reassure the Establishmentors [who probably haven't the foggiest who I am] that as a relative newcomer, I wasn't attempting to influence that side of the event.

[Kim] I didn't believe a word of it .... :-)

If you are still about, flerdle, what's the weather doing to you 'up there'?
It's just after midday here and sitting on 40°C (104°F to you plebs!) Dry as a bone - humidity around the 10 to 12% mark. I note that DrQ and Pittsburgh are enjoying around 8 to 10°C - perhaps all our Nth American friends can go outside and blow south westwards?

Latrobe reported 15 today. That'll change in a hurry -- it'll be back to a maximum 0 by Sunday. Snow returns, just as that f**king groundhog said. :)

Hey Dujon, am still in Bris. It's currently at least 40°C with about 40% humidity. According to a table I can't find the reference for, this feels similar to about 50°C at your humidity level. Add 8°C if you're in the sun. I'm not.

Just happy to know that I'm not the only one, flerdle! My temp has reduced and the humidity increased ... another horrible night ahead I think. (sorry, nights.)
[Dr Q} Groundhog, groundhog... where do I remember that from?

Yeah, if it doesn't cool off at night time, it's not much fun -- we've had 26-27°C minimum for most of the week.

flerdle/Dujon] We had frost last night. I'll email you some as an attachment.

[BtD] I'd like that; today was warmer.

(flerdle) Don't know how you stand it. I record weather (accurately, I used to be in the Met Office, now an amateur) and highest I've had in 21 yrs (and probably a lot more) here on the southern edge of London is 35.9°C on 10th Aug last. The minima at the time were typically 18°C. That was quite enough, for I are rather a sweaty little bugger.

[flerdle, Rosie] After my big whinge the other day we finished up with a reasonable temperature by late afternoon, but the humidity (naturally) went up accordingly, so it was an uncomfortable night. Sunday was reasonable temperature wise and the humidity - it actually rained late afternoon and most of the night - therefore quite acceptable. I did however see reports on the news about the continuing heat in the Brisbane area so, flerdle, you have my sympathy. It really must have been quite severe as the report was mainly about the elderly and the young having problems and the incidence of ambulance/hospital attendances.

Yes, I heard (unverified) that at least four people died - I think they would have all been elderly or sick. Reports are that the heat is over, and we'll be down under 30 soon.
But, by then I will hopefully be in another country. Unfortunately, it is even worse there. Sources say that it doesn't get much worse than this, there, except the few weeks in the middle of summer when it gets into the high 40s. With high humidity, of course.

Great.

[Rosie] For Australian weather, you might be interested in the Bureau's site: www.bom.gov.au. I've been following this handy page there; for data from the last three days click on the appropriate weather station. It samples approx 10 minutely, but maxima or minima are sometimes between those times, such as yesterday's 41.7°C at a bit before 2pm.

Latrobe, Pennsylvania (at Arnold Palmer Airport) currently reports -5 with broken clouds.

jeeeez - that's colder than Antarctica.

[DrQ] Ah, but that's American. Are they using some weird temperature scale that only Americans understand?

[Bm] Are you suggesting that Gdansk was under American occupation during the 18th Century?

[Bm] It could be Fahrenheit, which seems to be ubiquitous in the USA apart from within scientific communities. IIRC, -5F is pretty damn cold, that is (does a quick calculation) -20.5 recurring. Brrrrrrr.

[st d] It's late summer in Antarctica.

Funny thing, this differing scales of temperature malarkey. Last night, in the quiz - one of the questions was "At what temperature do both Centigrade and Fahrenheit read the same?" Could I get my head around that? Could I b*ggery.

Gusset - I'm SO pleased you like my name for you. I'm equally gratified that you haven't transposed the two words :-)

I meant -5 C, but it did hit -4 F last month....now that was Too Damn Cold™.

[Chalky] -40.

It's Monday night and the e-pilg transcriber's awake! :)

I know I have mentioned this before on one of these sites, but I was in Finland just over a year ago, and the first ten minutes of the Finnish evening news was all about how cold it was. They were interviewing people from Siberia who were complaining about the cold. I remember calculating at the time that we were down in the range where it didn't make much difference whether we were talking F or C. (It was down to at least -31C.)

[rab] Indeed I am, sir! I wouldn't put anything past them!

Nice one in the 50 Ways, Guest Login! Should've been fiftieth, that one. Any ideas for the next lot?

Ladies and gentlemen... just to conduct a straw poll, if the top-left-hand corner of this page doesn't look (roughly) like this:

Could you inform. Obliged.

Well, mine looks like that little mc5 symbol in a white square on a grey background.

rab]Running IE6 I see the logo is on white background.

Not on my IE or Firbird browsers, rab. I confirm Inkspot's comment regarding the IE6 background.

There's so many people who aren't getting the full smoothness of this site...

I must be going bonkers. The Firebird browser shows a smooth and 'highlighted' mc⁵ logo, whereas the IE shows the same image but with the white rectangular background; sorry for any confusion.

It's a (fairly) specific (range of) version(s) of IE that don't render transparencies in pngs. I don't like gifs and I don't know how to set the default background colour of a png. Yet.

rab]Running IE6 I see the logo is on white background too. What was clever was your screen capture insert!

[Chalky] I don't even want to think about doing that

I discover a shiny new magazine in my pigeonhole tomorrow, in which the new university logo' (for some reason, it has a trailing apostrophe in the article) was unveiled. Sadly, I can't track down a website with it on, but it looks a bit like this MANCHESTER with the number "1824" under the gold lettering. Vertically upwards and below to the left we have (on two lines) "The University" and "of Manchester" in a sort of matt grey sans-serif. In case we needed any explanation, here it is:

It features a simple, but distinctive, typographical treatment of the word "Manchester" that acknowledges the key feature of our brand and the way in which colloquially people talk about universities. ... The positioning of the full university title alongside the word "Manchester" is also a crucial element of the overall logotype, achieving a contemporary and consistent look whilst reinfocing the University's official name.

Later, we learn that "more detailed information about the reputation-building project and how to use the visual identity will be explained in a special leaflet and website". I will of course let you know when this happens.