I *almost* got to go in an ambulance with a blue flashy light all the way to Liverpool today!

Can I wish everyone a very happy notyourbirthday (and if it is your birthday, wait 'til tomorrow) as I am so bad at remembering peoples birthdays (including my own) that I am more likely to succeed in remembering to wish everyone a notyourbithday greeting.
[Lib] What, you mean you where clinging to the outside?

Late congratulations snorgle on being ay No1 . [Dujon]Thank you for the screen shot, yes it was for last week, how good are you at maths? The thing is, knowing the £ worth this week and the % gain, is it possible to calculate backwards to last weeks worth and gain . The table I have posted is from Saturday so the results are slightly wrong. If any passing mathematician is passing could they post a simple equation, I tried to do various transpositions but failed dismally.

...and another thing Dujon who do Bolton Wanderers think they are doing signing the Brazilian Rivaldo!

You leave my lads alone, Inkspot. :-) You should know by now that we buy has-beens and rejuvinate their careers - then they nick off for more money! At the risk of incurring the wrath of everyone else - we're tenth on the table, who'd a'thought it.
I've never followed the percentage calculations on the 'Daq. They certainly don't look right at times. I've noticed that sometimes after kneecapping (when it's easy to do a quick mental calc.) the numbers don't always compute. Then again, it could be the wine. ;-)

Is it there for a limited time only? I'd been thinking of porposing a game of Boardo, but then one sprung up over at MCiOS. Any suggestions?

I made one a coupla days ago .. Inky agreed ... no-one else said anything

I've been considering using a game as a venue for ISIHAC pilg chat and news. Any takers?

[Boolbar] Thankfully not, I had to stay at work as I was deemed to junior by Liverpool hosptial to be a medical escort. So I stayed at Macclesfield hospital and had promotion while my senior was out on the ambulance.
[BtD]Yes, yes, yes, yes!

*thinks* hmmm .. I would hate to marginalise those who aren't going to be involved. I think most interested parties now go to the Pilg Game in Orange. There are of course, some people who are coming to Rugby who don't post in here, so whether they would start *looking* in here is anyone's guess. Then again, if we do do it it would only be for a month or so. [How about that? consecutive double 'do's' and 'it's'. Grammatically sound?]

Valid idea, BtD, but splitting discussions and arrangements in two, in my experience, is inevitably a Bad Arrangement. So I would recommend everyone just look in The Pilgrim Game on Orange for Rugbypilg arrangments regularly, and someone involved keep posting the link to it here, or bookmark it yourself if you don't usually visit Orange.

Apologies for the cross posting, but details of the ISIHAC2 party in Rugby have now been posted on the Orange Pilg board. Jon Naismith, eat your heart out.

junior once took his cat to skool and was asked by the teacher; teacher:junior why did u bring your cat to skool? junior:uncle,coz i heard my elders sister's boyfriend telling her that i will eat up ur pussy......hahahaahaahhh.o boy no be lie.

o boy na 4 sizzlers o warri se wan woman carry small dog.after d dog don run entre nain d woman ask d security,have u seen enough?meanwhile she wear small microscopic skirt.nain security se we never see enouggh oo ur small dog?guy d babi bend down well well so tey every con dey show.nain she ask ve u seen enough?nain security answer yes we have seen more than enough........o boy no be lie.

Nice.

What the hell is that about?

snorgs] e be de babi story bendi down for to look at me dog man yo no unnerstan? yo be crezi momma. o boy no be lie.

I got the sense of it, but I'm stuck on the word "nain".

PJ] it means DWARF in french. See the poular song:-
Je voudrais etre un nain,
Pour avoir une grosse bîte,
Mais je ne suis qu'un géant,
Et la mienne est petite.

Just realised that attendance at the RugbyPilg will mean missing my mate's annual Eurovision party!

UK] And your mates will be missing the Rugbypilg. Unless you invite them :o)

Btd] After swift negotiations, managed to book myself in 'round my mate's for Saturday 22nd, where we can watch the qualifiers and the contest itself (which he'll be taping), and pretend it's all happening live.

I really am a sad case...

DIdn't realise the RugbyPilg clashed with Eurovision... What shall we do?

We could perhaps have a Eurovision Break? The results of the voting are always really late - perhaps the scheduled entertainment will have finished by then, so those that need to will be clear to watch it. And I reckon we should have a sweepstake organised for the Eurovision result too... so there'll be a cash prize!!

I'm sure you'll get over it, rab!

oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear

I'll make sure there's a TV in The Study, eh?

I'm afraid that e-pilg transcriber was in a horrible browser crash last night. He sadly has no recollection of the goings-on last night.

what a relief :-)

Loobyloo] Darn shame I'd say ;o)
Dr Q] Nice to see you back, we missed you. Would you like to contribute long-distance to the Pilg? I'd like to have a "and this one was sent in by... "section for Mcers who can not attend. Cast your beady eye over the Orange pilg game and email me with contributions.

I read a rather funny news story about a man dressed as a moomin being run over by a truck in Norway and I was going to post it, but I can't find it anywhere!

The tetchy game seems to be going quite well, I thought.

Ok, ok, the "cool" weather (22 to 32°C or thereabouts) is officially OVER, here. Just in the last three days, it's all changed. Yesterday was a stinker of a humid day. Today, it was measured at 44°C (but very very dry) at 4pm.
I wanna icecream.

flerdle] I had two today, feeling rather gluttonous!

Did anyone else catch the incredible rainstorm in London yesterday? I did - indeed, I was caught by it. I don't think I've ever been out in such heavy rain - I didn't even know it was possible. Thoroughly enjoyable stuff all round.

When you've had enough, post the left overs to me would you, please? What was it like? It must have been some drop to elicit comment.

Saying 'bye-bye' for a few days ... speak soon

:'(

[BM, Dujon] I was sheltering under the portico of St Martin in the Fields at the time and it was of tropical intensity – streets and pavements were a continuous flow of water. The worst bit lasted about 15 minutes, but my guess would be that it amounted to 1-2cms in that time. I was the slightly embarrassed-looking person in the business suit carrying his wife’s yellow umbrella with the duck’s head handle!
BTW I went to SMITF to see 'ZUM' a band that plays an eclectic mixture of E. European gypsy music, jazz and Argentinian tango. Very enjoyable.

The rain continues to rain here in the north of Wiltshire, I only hope it is dry in Youlbury, Oxfordshire as Little O' is going camping with the Cubs over the weekend.

I live in Manchester and even when its dry its raining, now figure that one out!!!

[widey] fancy that, where I am it's the exact opposite, at least so far. Two "showers", not enough to actually wet the ground.
[INJ] Ah, those tropical downpours - several every summer in Bris. Be thankful there was no hail? *pines*

[widey] I didn't realise we had another Nor'westerner in our midst! I agree with you about the moistness, though.

Manchester isn't all that wet. The average rainfall at Manchester Airport (1971-2000) is 807 mm per year. That's less than I get here in the sunny south (Surrey), with 828 mm. (1983-2003). Cardiff gets 1112 mm and Swansea over 1200 mm, the wettest large city in Britain. The driest would seem to be Cambridge, average 554 mm. Cherrapunji (Assam) has about 11,000 mm, the total for July alone being about 1800 mm. 60 mm a day - every day. Over most of lowland Britain (i.e. where we all live) you get that amount about once every 25 years.

There have been one or two comments about my punctuation, but I know what I mean and it ends up legible (more or less). Today I have picked up a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves from the library, hopefully some of the pedants round here will see some slight improvement in the next three weeks.
As a designer and Planning Supervisor, I wade through documents from the HSE on the Building Industry, anyway today I've been reading mostly Peer review of analysis of specialist group reports on causes of construction accidents Research Report 218.
I should not make light of other peoples misfortunes but on page 98 the Description of the Incident:-

A building was being refurbished and in the course of this staircase balustrade and handrails had been removed and plastic warning tape placed around the stair well. Upholsters were working on the upper floor in the neighbourhood of the stairs and one fell down the stair. well.

Rather than falling badly?

[Rosie] Ah yes, but in Manchester it does it all the time - a constant drizzle, rather than a few huge downpours. And even when it's not raining, it feels like it's raining. The rare clear, sunny day sees industry and traffic (well, moreso than usual, for the latter) grind to a halt, with crowds of people stumbling around, faces uplifted, blinking in slightly worried confusion at the big yellow ball in the sky. Hence, it's grim oop norf.

(Nik) A good point. Figures for rainfall duration are remarkably hard to come by but I strongly suspect Manchester has more hours of rain per year than my back garden, despite the lower rainfall total. Sunshine figures give some clue - Manchester has 1395 hrs annually (same as Sheffield, incidentally) compared to typically 1500-1600 hrs for inland southern England and the Midlands. Eastbourne gets 1848 hrs, making the retired gentlefolk even more prune-like than ever. Places like Oldham and Burnley are a lot wetter than M/C, and have even less sun. Manchester is not uniquely awful, weatherwise, not by a long chalk.

[flerdle] There was some hail in the rainstorm, amazingly. I know because it was hitting me. The whole thing was like running through a lake with a few bubbles in it.

My location has had this rain since the start of 2004:
January - 61.5mm
February - 108mm - 80mm of which arrived on one day.
March - 44.25mm
April - 31mm

My wife's lovely garden may be about to get the chop. There seems to be no doubt that existing water restrictions (use thereof) are about to be tightened. Urk!

(Dujon) That's 245 mm, against my 281 mm. Seems quite a lot to me, though your higher temperatures make it less "useful" hydrologically. But laying water out to dry is a bit of an indulgence in Australia, isn't it?

I'm writing this from my lovely back yard, powered by my clever new phone. [dr q] I got to keep one of the buggies featured on my house website, yay! If only i was small enough to fit in it!

[BM] It's not really hail till it's the size of giant golfballs ;-)
[Dujon] Urk, indeed. What has she been growing? I think lawn can be a bit of an extravagance, but a lot of other things can be made pretty water-sparing, but that depends on what they are. My own experiments in gardening had to be stopped a couple of years ago when I could no longer get the lucerne hay I needed, because of drought (no-dig style, lucerne hay topped with spent mushroom compost. Amazingly productive). I only ever grew veges, though.

I think I mentioned before, average rainfall here is around 100mm annually. This is a slightly old (1995) but still informative report on agricultural resources. Ironically, the largest crop here, other than dates? Alfalfa (lucerne).

[flerdle] That's a bit on the dry side! Where does water come from (and don't say the sky) - dams, next door's river? [Rosie] It does sound odd does it not. That's supposed to be our wet season though. Winter - at least where my castle is situated - tends to be the dryest time of year. We shall see. Sydney's main dam (Warragamba, about five miles from me as the crow flies) is said to be down just under the 50% capacity level which does not auger well.

[Dujon] Next door is at least as bad, if not worse - they have to resort to desalination of sea water. Along the Batinah coastal plain there are aquifers. The water itself is very high in calcium/lime but very safe, however because of the taste and the effect on kettles etc most drinking water is bottled springwater. There is a large mountain range about 30km inland, parallel to the coast, which gets the same to three times the rain that the plain does. There is continuous replenishment of the aquifers by seepage from the mountains, and from the flash floods that race down the wadis (dry gullies) when it does manage to rain. The rain, when it happens, is in the winter. The other main source of water close to the mountains are the Aflaj (sing: falaj), which are ancient and very reliable.

Anyone else having trouble accessing MCiOS? Another website I use was down yesterday, apparently due to Mayday hacker attacks on their server. I wonder if the same thing has happened to Parslow?

[snorgle] I can't see it either.

Well, as it's down, I'll put this link here, because otherwise I'll forget. Just a cute ferret story, although I recently saw a cat living in a garden centre, I just assumed it belonged to the shop, maybe it was a stray.

Has Dr Q been visiting Mrs Trellis? [flerdle] Thanks for the info.

Was in mediocre-smelling but still decent-looking New Wilmington, Pennsylvania this weekend eating Schweinflesch and getting heavily pissed. Kinda obvious considering the event is called "Hog & Grog". ;)

(Dr Q) Where's that, then? Couldn't find it on my atlas. Hope you enjoyed your Pork and Paralysis. :-)

Latest news in from the daq; in Celebrity MC moreteaplease has taken back the top from snorgle, but what is this!!!! blamelewis at No2?! a stunning performance after being kneeecaped just pipping ffiish.

It's hailing cows and chickens out there...