Just a suggestion (and I know it won't appeal to everyone) for a short game... The gauntlet has been thrown down in the latest Doctor Who Magazine, inviting readers to contribute to a sort of 'Welsh Film Club' (only using existing Doctor Who story titles as source material), to celebrate the filming of the new series in the valleys. Now, this is the sort of thing that I know we can do well. Anyone interested? The two examples provided were The Swansea Devils and Powys of the Daleks.

Is it just me, or is MC5 (and angrycake.com in general) responding more quickly with this new ISP? The time to move had apparently arrived a long time ago - everything about this new ISP is an improvement. And look, the old one has just charged me for the coming month! Gah!

Yes, it does seem faster. The Furcation Game seems to appear almost immediately, whereas I'm sure it was always a bit sluggish before.

(Uncle K) I think it's been done on ISIHAC. But anyway, there's Bridge over the River Wye.

I forgot. It stars Gwynedd Paltrow.

[Rosie] The drawback, though, is that you can't use general film / TV title as your source material - it's Doctor Who stories only.

[Nik/rab] For me, MC5 seems extremely slow. It's taking up to 30 seconds to respond each time.

[Nik/rab] Not really a noticeable difference here, but maybe 5,000 miles of perspective flattens the diffs out.

[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.

(Uncle K) OK. So I'm sure you can translate the above.:-)

And that.

[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!

[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!

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 airline

Amusingly, designer baggage is defined as

baggage which bears a logo of a so-called designer manufacturer and is sold at inflated prices.

[rab]They sound kind of bitter, don't they?

(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.

Thanks, Nik. You can now go and get some sleep.

As if!

jolly good work :-)
I think spoken Welsh is a truly beautiful sound

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?

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.

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.

Nice to see everyone here. Coffee, Nik?

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.

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.

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.