Zhooomph!!

Or, to be more substantive, any HTML in the 'Name' box is stripped to avoid forking up the front page.

NOT IN COLOUR!

[rab] Natch. I see the Apropos Box has also been stripped unless I'm missing a trick there aswell :-)

How about a game of tag-wrestling? Not seen that in a while.

[Chalky] Also true - but that's given me an idea... howsabout I set it up so that if you type 'Red', 'Blue', 'Hampster', 'PeachPuff' or whatever into the 'apropos' box, that word is then colourised, so it would look like:

rab

Red

Maida Vale

That'd be fairly easy to do without requiring too much cluttering up of the interface. Would take me about half-an-hour or so tonight to do.

[Projoy] I never understood what Tag Wrestling is all about - can you explain to me please.

Guten Tag!

You have two teams. The object is to tell a story collaboratively, alternating between teams. Each team has a closing phrase with which they must end the story in order to win the game (e.g. "and then they all moved to Mexico because of the cheap tagliatelle."), but obviously the story must steer naturally to that closing phrase, so it becomes a literary tug of war. It might be especially interesting to try it in rhyming verse, come to think of it.

Here is an example from the Yorkives. Other than an outing on Orange last year(?), I don't think we've played this game "straight" for many years.

Sounds good - would rather do it straight than get versical.

tagging along

So everyone, regardless of team colour, tells the same story but each team has its own 'finishing post'; the teams move in strict rotation [?]; perhaps limited words per entry to curtail the more verbose amongst us?

Phone Boorishness

[Rosie] :o) When AT&T was forced to share its lines with MCI and Sprint, there had to be some way of figuring out the tarrifs. MCI and Sprint addressed this in 1984/5 by issuing cards to subscribers with a convenient account number and pin that had to be prepended to the number you were calling. Titus A. Crab, one of my highly-paid consultant co-workers (same contract as me so I know), fell for the spiel and I had the great joy for about two months of watching him dial England from New York. The account numbers were 10/12 numbers long. The PIN was another 4. Then there was the 5 digit 01144 to get the transatlantic cable link. Then the brand new four digit area code. Then the (even newer) six digit phone number (and we all forgot to add the leading zero at least once). Titus would invariably suffer from mis-directed digit syndrom 15-20 numbers in and have to start over. Word would get around he was phoning and everyone in the vicinity would begin loud conversations involving numbers in order to precipitate more of these humorous mistakes. On a good day it could take him 30 minutes or more to establish that all the lines to England were busy.

All this so he could save a few cents on his calls. >:o)

Taggin'

So one team might have the line about tagliatelle, and keep steering the story towards Mexico, whilst the other team might be trying to steer it back to fit their closing line, which is about the Emperor Hirohito? Could be interesting...

I'd love a team game, but they generally do work better on MCiOS because of the colourised names.

Another game suggestion

OK, a third idea: Cat Chess. This charming feline pastime is actually quite a tactical game. Each player plays one cat, usually in a village setting. The object is to move to a point where you can see all the other cat-players and none of them can see you.

Ah! Now that sounds interesting. Do any archived examples exist?

Tagging along

Why not both? Considering this server is streamlined down to 10 games (ft. this one, and the Furcation Game, which no-one seems interested *cue mournful violin: give money now!*), could we not petition to expand? I often think a couple more would widen the appeal to more players, resulting in burgeoning popularity, and, of course, votes in key areas.
And yes, I've realised I'm waffling, but at least I'm stopping now. Let's tag!

Cat Chess

[BM] Er, not as yet...

zK

*votes for tagging wotsit*

Tag

Can whoever sets this up also start with some sample code for the colours? That way the team members will look alike and those of us with rudimentary HTML skills will be able to join in without ruining the game's patina.

Ragbag

If you'll give me about 10-15 minutes to check my upgrades and put them online, you won't have to learn any HTML at all!

Right!

Well, that seems to work. There's now a new style of game, called the 'Team' game which eschews Apropos for a Team colour. Enter a colour in the box and hey presto - it might be recognised. I suggest we give it a whirl in the 'Team Talk' game to see how it works, and then when we're bored kill that and play a team game proper.

BURN FM

Oh dear. I read out the studio e-mail tonight and my co-presenter suggested it was a sexy phone voice. I then put on a different one and proceeded to suggest that that one might work better. I then spent the rest of the show taking e-mails from my flatmates demanding I read out sentences of a dubious nature in said voice...which I did, of course, after making them promise to pledge money to charity.

Apparently we're meant to play music on the show at one point or another...

Titus A. Crab

(Stevie) The things people will do to save a few pence or cents (or pents or cence) never cease to amaze me. They put a very low price on their time and temper, obviously. What was his real name, BTW?

Radio

[ZK] Aha, so you're either Lottie or Laura, then. I see your show is classified as "specialist", which sounds about right from your descriptions...

ZK's radio voice

I'm clearly at the wrong university. where are you?
and I'm back in case noone noticed/cared. check orange for more.

Names

[Rosie] Real name???? Are there those among us who espouse the use of pseudonyms then? Titus certainly made his Mark though.

[nights] Well, I noticed. Nice to see you back.

[Breadmaster] thank you. really, you've made me grin in a public place on a wet and dreary evening in darkest somerset.

ZK -

[Breadmaster] I am indeed. And it was the only way we could get a show where we could play what we wanted (asking for a specialist show, not doing a silly voice). It also meant they stuck us on at 10pm, but there are advantages to that. Like being able to run over 20 minutes because you feel like it and you're the last show on :) I listened to the tape of the show with my flatmates when I got home - ah, how we laughed :) I apparently took them by surprise...and there was a very silly message for me in the fridge magnets this morning.

[nights] Your return is welcomed and makes me finally beg the question I've been longing to ask: why are you called nights?
I'm in Birmingham (hence BURN FM: Birmingham University Radio Network) - and I feel for you. We had our 2 weeks summer holiday last year in Somerset during a massive heatwave...well, it was a heatwave everywhere else except in Somerset, where it pissed it down for 2 solid weeks ...so I know the feeling. *sends sympathy vibes to nights*

[nights] Now, let's not talk about that particular wet and dreary evening in Zummerzet - at least not in public...

[ZK] cheers. ah, birmingham. home of huge pigeons if I remember. Somerset is nice in the summer, but it's rubbish in the winter. So why am I here all winter but not in the summer? makes no sense. I asked about BURN because it's a popular shout around here. (person falls off something or something else bad happens:) "buuuurn." I don't understand it either.

and I'm called nights because a) when I chose it I was living mainly at night, and b) bernard seemed inappropriate. so thanks for your interest. I might have asked this already but what does ZK stand for?

[Breadmaster] come on, you're going to have to admit it sooner or later. Avon and Somerset's finest have already been at my little door...

winterland

[nights] Would you consider anywhere in the UK to be 'nice' in the winter?
I ask that because I'm a bit weird and I actually prefer autumn and winter, seasonal/scenery-wise.
btw - welcome back :-)

[Chalky] I'm weird in that way too - I think I have reverse SAD. However, let's not start the perennial "winter or summer?" debate. People have lost friends and indeed limbs over that one in the past.

Ta-ra!

Off to sunny Wales for a week - see you all later!

perennial?

You mean we only have the debate every other Winter?

Eh?

Perennial means every year.

er?

I rather thought it meant lasting throughout the year in a perpetual sort of way. Also, in a botanical sense - lasting more than two years. Not that it really matters :-)

Perennialitude (© G W Bush)

(Chalky) Yeah, it does really. But certainly not every other year.

[nights] Zooological Keeper, after a line from the Goon Show.

Zooologicality ((c))

ZK] Which one? You wouldn't make me go and listen to all of them just to find out, would you?

ZKism

oh yes I remember now. all I need to know now is - does BURN stream online? I'll have to have a listen.

[Projoy] You're thinking of biannual, surely? I must admit to not being entirely sure of the meaning of "perennial", now I come to think of it. It's one of those words that one uses without really thinking about it. I think it means persisting from year to year, or possibly appearing at least once a year. Perhaps.

Biennial = every two years, bi-annual = twice a year. According to my mother who is a gardener and deals with these terms regularly.

[BM] I've already explained the meaning of perennial - back up there ^ ^ ^ ^

oooh - that looks a bit schoolmarmish. Sorry. Anyway, to get away from the semantics, I'd like to announce that for a change I stayed in tonight and watched loads of crap TV and REALLY enjoyed it.

[nights] I haven't recommended it any other way. My flatmates were listening about a mile down the road and had to hold onto the aerial to get a decent signal. If you go to www.burnfm.com you should get automatically redirected to whatever the real URL is, given a few seconds. I warn in advance that the show is mostly total gubbins, but we do have fun. If I knew how to get the sound onto a form of software I'd put some soundbites on here, but sadly I only have it on tape and don't own a minidisc player or anything similarly hi-tech. I played The Voice at a house party tonight and apparently I could make a fair amount of money that way. Speaking of which, does anyone know how a 19-year-old with no skills or previous experience can get a job that doesn't involve doing the unspeakable?! No-one wants to hire me!

paying attention

[Tuj] "Ah, good morning, Zooological Keeper!"

Inspired, eh?

ooh yes

And I believe it's from an episode called "Insurance - the White Man's burden"

randomly

What is the correct spelling of Hamster? I always thought that was it until I nipped into Mcios, and now I'm not sure.

spelling bee

[ZK] As it happens, both spellings are acceptable :-)
As for the employment - are you seeking permanent full-time or temporary full-time or perhaps part-time, or just holiday work or support-yourself-through-your-studies work; days, evenings, nights, weekends or all four? C'mon gal, we need details!

"Hamster" is the correct spelling for the animal, yes. "Hampster" is a misspelling that caught on rather well and is therefore the de facto standard here ;-)

tsk!

[JLE] I refer you to my previous reply. BOTH are acceptable. Curiously enough, there IS life outside the Morniverse.

... speaking of which, another branch of my family are doing the Sunday lunch thing at their house today so I don't have to cook. Whoopee!

And ... bye bye you lovely people ... I shan't be around for quite a long time but hope to have lots of news when I get back :-)

Puzzled from London

But if "Zooological Keeper" is from a radio programme, why the extra "o"? This story doesn't add up, inspector. As for jobs, assuming this is something part-time now, I think it makes sense to think about what you want to do later in life and try to work towards it. However, I am the last person anyone should seek career advice from.

Come back soon, Chalky!

Chalk face

[Chalky] Where'reyou offto?

Should also point out that I'll be in an Manchester-Edinburgh limbo for the next week, and net access may be rather more patchy as I haven't got round even to arranging old-fashioned telephone communications technology at the new abode yet.

perennial

Ah, just shows how much I know about horticulture. [Chalky] Also curious about what takes you away.

[Chalky] Part-time work to fit in around studies and volunteering (which I cleverly picked for 10.30am-1pm on an otherwise free saturday...what a silly cow!!!)
[Breadmaster] I spelt it as I heard it, which seemed to be Zoo-ological, but I couldn't be bothered to put a dash in. I thought 3 os looked better...And I haven't the faintest idea what I want to do later in life. But I know it doesn't involve picking up glasses after boozy students.

Ahhh... Well, it is actually spelled with two Os, even though there are two syllables there. Perhaps it should be spelled "zoölogical", although that would look a bit silly. But of course, since it's your name - kind of - it's up to you how to spell it.

Sorry, I feel a rant coming on.
Last week (Saturday night to Saturday morning) I was on a week of nights. This involves me working seven 13 hour shifts in a row, thats a working week of 91 hours. In my penultimate hour I was taking blood from a IV drug abuser, I take blood every day and an IV drug abuser is nothing special. Anyway, the needle slipped after coming out of her and ended scratching my skin and it drew blood. I washed it under the tap and told the necessary people and booked in as a patient to my own A and E department.
Then the faffing began. Nobody knew what to do, and the right policy couldn't be found. I was finding it all a bit much (partly because I was feeling such a spanner and partly because I was so TIRED) so hid myself away in the staff room and cried. My consultant arrived and she took control. All I wanted to do was go home and go to bed, however they didn't seem to understand that all I wanted to do was sleep or let me leave ( it was deemed that I wasn't safe to drive, due to all the tears and I live half an hour away from the hospital) so I was sent to a colleagues house to wait.
The drug user’s blood was sent to Manchester for emergency tests and special strings were pulled so the tests only took two hours. Finally the phone call came through and all her tests were negative (for scary things like HIV, Hepatitis B and C), so I was finally allowed to go home 4 hours late.
I know that accidents happen and these unlucky things are relatively common and I've been fortunate to have a clear result so soon, but I don't think it was a coincidence that it happened at the end of a 91 hour working week.

*goes humbly to pick up glasses after boozy students*

Knackered doctors

(Lib) There are dozens of occupations where hours are strictly limited and have been for a long time. Train driver, bus driver, for example. So why not doctors? I can think of a few answers, none of which reflect well on the administrators. Is my cynicism justified? Your rant certainly is.

My dad has the same problem. Of course, how many MPs do you know who are or have ever been doctors and therefore care?

[Lib] (((hug))) I'll never complain about my job again.

[ZK] I do happen to know that a certain supermarket chain recently bought by Morrisons is hiring down here so they might well be in the jolly Midlands. If you can put up with eight hours of beep... beep... and can ask "would you like cashback?" with sincerety, then apply! It's fun! Really!

Offski

Disappointed that I've managed to only half-fill the van. Well, looks like we're off...

I've just realised that I was in fact complaining about my job opnly about a minute after promising not to do it. *sigh*. I need a drink. I know it's not even midday.

Needle Stick

:o( Remote hug sent. Feel better.

Normality

Cheers everyone. Thanks for the support. Have been some kind of distorted celebrity at work today. Hoping tommorow I can have some normality, and put the whole nasty experience behind me.

[Lib] Well good. I'd like to publicly mark the passing of one of the greats of music, John Peel. He played an important part in helping me see past mainstream music and start listening to other things. He'll be sadly missed. Rest in Peace, Peely.

John Peel can't be dead!!!!!!!!!!!

He's not, is he?

Is he?

a quick trip to BBC news later

disbelief declared He is, as well. They say bad things happen in threes - who else are we going to lose in October?! I add my sentiments to those of nights.

Now, I don't wish for one moment to cast disrespect at Mr Peel, whom I have never heard speak and thought was simply a whimsical article-writer for the Radio Times - although I did read an article of his in which he described the guitar work of Hubert Sumlin as miraculous, and I also know that he possessed more records by Lightnin' Hopkins than any other artist, so I approve of him. But in what way can someone who wasn't a musician be regarded as one of the greats of music? Isn't that rather like calling Brian Sewell one of the greats of art?

Interesting point. One might say that John Peel was a great aide to development within the music industry, by introducing a lot of new and diverse material that might not otherwise have been publicised. I don't know precisely in what capacity Brian Sewell works within the art sphere - I presume he's an art critic *prepares to get shot down in flames* which isn't quite the same thing. So you might rephrase it as "one of the greats of music journalism", or something.

None of my business really.

JP

If you want to understand something of Peel's influence in popular music you could do worse than to spend a couple of minutes reading through some news articles, tributes and the various obits that have appeared. It's not like they're hard to find or anything.

Let me however try to give me a feel for why Peel was a much-loved figure in music. First, he's been on the modern (Beatles onwards) pop music scene for as long as that scene existed - in fact he used his Liverpudlian connection to get himself a job in the States on the back of the Beatles' success at the start of his career. He genuinely seemed to love all music that had been created with a passion, right from Belgian nosebleed noisethrash mp3s through to jazz standards recorded on crackly 78's. His Radio 1 programme would typically showcase both of these and everything inbetweeen. His links were usually extremely witty and peppered with little anecdotes about the band whose music he'd played, or some little story about how he came about purchasing that particular bit of green vinyl from a backstreet record shop in Groningen. Even as he was starting to draw a pension, he was still producing two hour shows three times a week. The consequences are severalfold: (i) he gave people who tired of the formulaic easy-listening pap that makes up most of a radio station's playlist a refuge where something more challenging could be found (but without taking it too seriously like what more eclectic programmes on R3 do); (ii) this exposure to a wider range of music (such as, I understand the DIY ethos of the punk movement) inspired many people to start making music themselves (see the tributes passim); (iii) it also gave budding musicians something to aspire to, viz getting Peel to give them a session and help get them noticed (if they were any good); (iv) it also created the impression that he would always be there, one of the reasons why he is sorely missed.

It's impossible to know how different the pop music tapestry would be without him; but I think it's wholly appropriate that he should be saluted for having made a huge contribution to the particular way it came to be woven. I think that's what people mean when they say he's a 'great of music'.

John Peel also played a mean Jaws Harp on the Third Ear Band's album Alchemy.

missed

[Peel] Wish we'd had one of him in Australia. :-(

JP was also seen on TOTP beside Rod Stewart, playing the mandolin on Maggie May.
It was well known that if you sent him a demo he would listen to it - for fear of missing something. Thus Blur, the Undertones and many more got a play on his show before any record companies had heard of them.
I also admired him for 'Home Truths', although it wasn't really my sort of show - the way he could get ordinary people to talk about extraordinary and/or very painful things was an example of the interviewer's art that most others could learn much from.

[Breadmaster] I think you could say "one of the greats of music" in the same way that Jean Cocteau was.

Do You Ken John Peel?

[Breadmaster] Alternately, one could simply troll through an on-line CD store for "John Peel" and see how many now-famous bands owe their early exposure to the man. Shameless marketing can sometimes have an unexpected benefit to the consumer and these "John Peel" CDs are some of the best in my collection (although I don't collect them as such, I do add them to my exsisting collections of material by bands I like).

Knobbly knees et al.

How is everyone writing in bold and italic and normal? (At least on the other forums).

.

[Knobbly knees] try following this link to DrQu+xum's Basic HTML.

knobbly HTML

I love that page. It's taught me a lot... and in real life too.

To start a new topic, what are we all listening to as we post?

[nights] The cooling fan.

Silence

As I take worshipping the almighty Crescent very seriously I always post in complete silence, while sitting in the lotus position.

hummmmmmm

The hum of the server, the toot of the sandwich van pulling up in the car park, intermittent Tourette-like outbursts of frustration and the clattering of keyboards as my colleagues - nay, UNDERLINGS get on with their proper work while I skive.

Whiiiiiiiiiiine

[nights] My tinitus.

For some reason, the latest CD I've bought is one of chamber music - trios, quartets and quintets - by Schumann. So that's what I'm listening to.

oh gosh you're all funny. I'm listening to one of my legendary mix tapes on headphones while sat in the library.

[nights] You think a background whistle that cannot be silenced no matter what you do is funny? You are one sick puppy.

My ears are alive with the sound of music

I'm listening to the music of a band called Elbow. Somewhere between Schumann and tinnitis.

The beat coming from the morons downstairs.

It's gone very quiet in here. You don't all live beneath me, do you? Only that would be a sure sign the cyanide cake we sent them worked.

Oh, have I said to much? *prepares to destroy the evidence*

*too much

Ear, Ear

I've been listening to various radio shows today, and will start to listen to the last HHGTG episode in a bit. Probably. Other than that, it's the whirr of three or four computer fans and the occasional whine from the cats.

But what I'm really listening to is the sound of my going up the wall as the local anaesthetic from my dentist's visit wears off and my gums itch and my teeth hurt. Aargh!

Local anaesthetic, climbing up the walls

I was watching TV with my flatmates the other week and they switched onto something about cosmetic surgery. Squeamish enough as I am at the best of times, I started busying myself with the fridge when they started describing how one woman was going to have reshaping surgery on her genitalia. When they proceeded to mention that she was having the operation under local anaesthetic, I decided it was time for me to leave the room.

whining noises

[Bif] No, I'm not sick. I was just too tired to read entries properly. Bad nights. In your basket.

[ZK] Oh isn't shared housing lovely? Still, I got up at 06h45 this morning to make sure I actually got a shower today before gettingthe 08h bus. Worked as well.

33s and 45s

Got my first ever P45 today. Whee!

really? first ever? I'm 19 and I've had two... and I made it home again despite the best efforts of First Avon and Somerset Buses.

[ZK] I assume this woman had some ghastly deformity which was being corrected, but my mind is now fillinh unavoidably with the concept of cosmetic genital reshaping, like a bizarre form of topiary. What will they think of next?

I am currently listening to nothing. However, I will shortly be listening to - and indeed watching - the nice new DVD I just got, which is vol. 3 of the American Folk Blues Festival 1962-69. It looks like it's probably not as good as vols. 1 and 2 (especially the latter, which featured among others Lightnin' Hopkins, T-Bone Walker and Howlin' Wolf, bringing the coolness factor dangerously close to critical mass - as well as the apostrophe quotient), but this one does apparently feature a young and hip Buddy Guy. I saw Buddy Guy a couple of months ago and he was old and hip, and kindly let us have our picture taken with him once we'd beaten our way through the frenzied fans. Never have I seen such adulation of any performer - you'd think Jesus had got onto stage to unleash a few funky licks. So I approve of him.

Anyway, I should, hopefully, be listening to a lot less of unwanted noise now that I've moved in with my young lady friend for a bit. This is a much quieter area and the walls are thicker. In my old flat, I could hear my next-door neighbour snoring as clearly as if he were in the room with me - a ghastly thought. He apparently went to bed at about 8pm and stayed there for at least 12 hours, as far as I could tell. Fortunately I have a large and versatile collection of ear plugs - but I'll be glad to use them less for a bit.

I'll be quiet now before this starts to turn into a blog. Whatever that is.

seriously

cosmetic. i kid ye not.

uuuuurgh that's just bizarre. when are you on BURN again ZK?

[ZK] Before: Wayne Rooney or possibly Jesus, if Google is anything to go by. After: Chilly Gonzales ??

feel the BURN

10-11pm on wednesdays, except this wednesday is our last show as the station's license has run out until march. daft.

Mondaypilg

ah. yes. Hmm. I wil be unable to join you for the chat on Monday as I will be in Italy. For the whole week. Hurrah!! (And as for the date situation, we just had date four - brunch in Chelsea - and it's still lovely.) :o)

dates, figs etc

I just got asked out and said yes...what do I do now?! *hasn't been on a date in 2 years and the other ones all sucked*

ooh MC love. go for it, be witty, be charming... be yourself.

Prunes

I'm not sure I've ever been on a formal 'date' so I don't know what the protocol is. Hello from Edinburgh - I also won't be at the chat tonight as I don't have a phone line yet. BT claims it doesn't exist, but I can see it, and if I plug a phone in, there's a continuous tone which I believe is the 'you need to phone up BT to make this work' noise, but BT claims the phone line doesn't exist so, erm, ...

passion fruit

[ZK] I think "turn up" is the first step, but after that I'm not sure.

[ZK] You're asking people online what to do on a date? I think by definition we're the last bunch to ask such a thing!

BT hates me, you, all of us.

[rab] when I moved into my house down here the first thing I did was test the phone line, got the same result you did, called BT from my mobile and they turned it on and set up my account the same day. however they're now making it very difficult for me to cancel as we've now got telewest, so swings and roundabouts.

sorry to comment twice, but I've had an awfully good idea for a game. so first dibs on any new slots that come up...

Date

[ZK] I have said this before, but it bears repeating. While on your date, do not under any circumstances bite your datee on the buttocks no matter how firm and round they look and no matter how opportune the moment seems.

[nights] Weren't we about to do the whole tag team thing? Or did that happen really quickly and I missed it?

[Stevie] I've just spent the afternoon having worse suggestions than that put to me by my friends. In front of my date. But I have to ask; are you speaking from experience or common sense? If the former, please give details.

on tenterhooks

[ZK] So, how did it go? Need to know! Hope your friends didn't put the cat amongst the pigeons too much!

im too horny for my own good

no doctors out there then!?

b laine

im a nurse think iv got same simptoms as you

im a guy! how so the same

b laine

oh yea. well i know your gagging for it now yea??

MY DICK IS HUGE RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

before we were so rudely interrupted

[Lib] Allow me to clarify my own scrambled english. I referred to the lad in question as "the date" although the date is fact not until thursday. Although they were taking the mick so much he had to wait until I left and follow me to sort out precisely when we'd be going, as we couldn't talk sense with the rest of them around! Ah, stupid gits, though I love them all. So I'll let you all know, probably at about 3 in the morning on Friday.

[ZK] good luck, I'm sure it'll be fine. Just be yourself. Worked for me, and never mind the fact that I have been single for exactly one year today. Sob.

[Tuj] I think you missed it dude. I think. I might be thinking of MCiOS.

[travis, b laine] get the hell off this server.

Hello

No, we were going to have the tag game. The team-test game was there to test the team colours out, and the intention was for someone to start the tag game in its place. But no-one did, and some passer-by started something else instead. Your bad.

nothing at all

I'd just like to say how lovely it is not to have to use the airconditioners now that the weather's cooled off over the last fortnight. Most readers here would be used to the opposite problem, but let me assure you it's not been at all nice. And it's great to be able to walk outside without fainting from the heat and humidity. 18 to 30°C is pretty good, really.

Back to your regularly scheduled programme.

Buttock Biting

[ZK] Oh, very much from experience I am sad to say. And when Mrs Stevie found out it went very badly for me, I can tell you. She drinks far too much coffee and as a result can be a tad excitable over the most trivial things.

hampster

Strangely, I was speaking to a work colleague today, and realised that his breath smelt of hampster! I was a bit distracted, as you might imagine.

dates, figs etc

Well! Remember my radio show? The station's licence is up till march, so last night was our last show for the forseeable future. I couldn't figure out why Lottie was so jittery....until my date for this evening (now I boyfriend, I'm given to understand) turned up in the second half of the show with a bunch of red roses. I think I may be onto a winner here....
[snorgle] Said date also kissed me, an experience I tried to make as brief as possiible as I'd been eating crisps all evening, and then, later, cheese sandwiches. Breath is indeed a tricky business.

[ZK] Well, you must tell us when it's back on the air. The show, I mean, not the snogging. We wouldn't want to listen to that. Well, not most of us, anyway.

March - if we get another time slot. Though if Drinky backs us up (which I think he will) we should be alright.

I sincerely hope so. I missed the show as I was busily eating chinese food at the best chinese in the world, the hong bistro, southgate street, bath. go there, eat yourself pear shaped.

We now return you to "The Banter Page". As we left, ZK was telling us all about her love life...

Date Breath

[ZK] What flavour of crisps? Be explicit.

snorge

Well...

hampster flavour,

obviously!

Crisps

[Snorgle] You call that explicit??? Where are the long descriptive passages on the sensual texture of the comestibles and the overwhelming tide of passion they aroused in your young, inexperienced bossom, or the desire they sparked in you to dress in tight, shiny, man-made fabrics?

Now I'm hungry again.

Ready Salted

[Stevie] Here, have a crisp.

Kim

Overactive and underemployed

I'd just like to announce that I have played a move in every MC5 game today.

If you're feeling at a loose end, howsabout you expand that in the Furcation Game? It could use a bit of a kickstart, that one.

The Furcation Game

I think this game needs an advertising campaign, because I love it. I've devoted small chunks of my life to it twice now, and yes it's a behemoth, but things just seem right with the world once you've moved. Go on someone, please!

Once you've moved

(Tuj) Absolutely! I am never so agreeable as after a good shit. Ooh, wonderful! (Stevie) Wossa bossom, then? Have I got one? Have you?

crisps

[Stevie] Ready Salted, I seem to recall. Still, we had a good smooch after donuts on Thursday. Heck, he'd been eating onions and I didn't even notice.

Not that we were randomly eating onions, mind you. That would just be silly.

Furc

[Tuj] I desperately wanted to, but after about six months of not posting a move it became apparent that I don't have quite the spare time I once did. Which is a pity, because I long ago thought of a particularly devastating move which would have given new meaning to the words "it's hard to play Acre Street variants".

Proj]

Ooh... No, must remember curiosity killed the cat. Mind you, I'd imagine it's an easier task to play a move now that the dramatic strands have been conbined to some extent. Anyway, to a player of your character, surely 18 moves is nothing... ;]

18 moves?

Yes, but if I wanted to play it competitively, I'd have to do a lot more than 18 moves in order to raise the bar. :)

Benevolence

Maybe to promote other people to join in you could play a few less - after all, it is The Furcation Game rather than Acre Street. Wouldn't that be nice for the community?

Then when they're in you can get 'em...

I would participate in the Furcation Game, but I have absolutely no idea about HTML. Bit of a handicap.

[ZK] Hooray! You seeing him again?

Cross posted from MCiOS

[theatre folk] Sorry for being a bit spammy, but if you know any folks in London who are theatrically minded, Thos and I are in the early stages of planning for Jekyll and Hyde - the panto, and we're looking for a production team. If you know people who'd like to add something unpaid to their CV (but done in a proper theatre, like), please could you ask them to peek at the vacancies halfway down this page? Spam ends.

Furcating

nights, and anyone else] The HTML isn't that tricky, and as I discovered on my first move you can generally just steal other peoples' tables and the like and repaint them. Then there's that excellent basic guide people regularly post links to which I can't remember the address of...

Here, here

It is a site created by our own Dr Q+ (who seems to have disappeared) and can be found here.

[nights] Well I hope so, seeing as he's my boyfriend now. Hurrah!

Of nothing

There's a sticker on my door proclaiming "Blood donors love life" which somehow feels like the opposite of a grocer's apo'strophe.

[rab] careful, you're drifting into grammar pedant territory, and I know enough of them by fortune of being a languages student.

[ZK] Oh I am pleased. Good for you!

Acquiring boyfriends..

[ZK] I think I might have one too... how many dates does it take to qualify?

Amorous taxonomy

[pen] Based on negligible experience, I think "boyfriend" is what you call it when:

...you stop counting dates.
...the next date is "when", not "if".
...you start counting days/weeks/months since the first date.
...you stop calling it "dating" and start calling it "seeing".

Nononono

The state of boy/girlfriendshipness must be formally announced, ideally through a public advertisment in The Times, but these days more commonly on the official web-based boards set up for this purpose.

Cultural differences

I always understood the situation to become officially acknowledged when, and only when, you were finally caught out behind the bike shed. Or adult equivalent, I suppose, in this case.

I think that it's when engaging in romantic liaisons with a third party would be frowned upon by the other person. Unless they're involved as well, of course. That's an entirely different matter.

Announcement

Penelope is proud to announce that after many years of searching, she has found a man with sufficiently low standards to happily accompany her for cocktails, noodles, full English breakfasts and participate in the odd snog.
[Rab] will that do?

aw it's all going off around here. let's hope nights is next, eh?

Yey Penelope!

Yey yey Penelope!

I just hope I haven't spoken too soon

I just hope he is good enough for you.

Penelope's New Love

I too enjoy "odd" snogging. It has been a cause of much friction between Mrs Stevie and me, but only when she's asleep as she finds the whole thing a little strange (or as she would jokingly put it "Get the hell away from me you twisted goon").

hmm..

What's odd about your snogging then?

Go Pen, GO!

*Dances round with a multitude of glee at Pen's excitement and sings 'Hurrah, Hurrah, Hurrah!* Well Done hon! Also keeping fingers crossed, just incase!

Well done Penelope! I thought you put "participate in the odd song" at first.

Goodness! It must be - er - something to do with autumn. I'm very pleased for you all, and kind of jealous, which is odd given my non-single status. There's something thoroughly pleasant about starting going out with someone that is intrinsically better than actually going out with them, however nice and fulfilling the latter may be. I'm sure Aristotle had something wise to say on the subject.

Inamorata di Pen

(Lib) Better than keeping your legs crossed.

that's enough of that please, ladies. hoorah for you, pen! hope it works out.

(nights) I'm not a lady, and possibly not even a gentleman. :-)

I knew I'd get a comment like that. gaaaaah.

[penelope] Er, I don't know. People asked us if we were boyfriend/girlfriend before we went on our first date, and we agreed that we were. I don't think it's supposed to be done that way. However, I hope you've got one. A boyfriend, that is. Yay! All my friends hate me now, even the taken ones. It's quite amusing.

[ZK] If your friends hate you now it must be because they nurse a secret and all-consuming love for you, and cannot stand to see you attached. This can be a problem if it leads them to murder your beau horrifically and attempt to win your love by sending you his heart through the post, but you can turn it to your advantage by cynically playing on their feelings and promising them affection in exchange for obeying your whims. Correctly done, this can result in your having a small army of emotionally warped zombies at your beck and call. Then you're the one who decides who gets horribly murdered.

Studento della lingua

Rosie] Inamorato, I'd say...
Breadmaster] When's the film version out? Sounds great!

emotionally warped zombies

[BM]I've got a friend who does that..

Gender confusion

(Tuj) And you'd be right - clever c***. :-)

ruling the world via a personal league of zombies

tempting, tempting...

I think it might be time to emigrate. goodnight everybody!

Standing ovation

Does anyone know where I can buy a hatstand?

if you want to get ahead

[Rab] cheap option - junkshop. I bet IKEA do one too...
TITFER - beech veneer bentwood hatstand, with room for three trilbys, or one beret plus a Homburg.
How smart though, to be be wearing so many hats that you actually need a hatstand!.

standing hats

[Pen] Surely if he was wearing them he wouldn't need the hatstand?

Hatstand

[Rab] By drilling a 3/4" hole in your hardwood floor and gluing a length of broomhadle into it one can fashion a hatstand in minutes.

Buy a moose. That way, you can take a selection of hats with you wherever you go without worrying about them being flattened in a suitcase.

Rosie] Charming... I almost take that as a compliment! Mind you, I'm only 300 points away from getting my PedantGold Reward Card...

Hatstand

AT a fraction of the cost of Penelope's Ikea "TITFER" (assembles in two or three evenings) and Stevie's daft "broom" lash-up one could buy a pound of ten-penny nails and pound them into the walls all over the house, providing instant access to a low-cost hatstand wherever one was when the urge or need to de-chapeauinate overcame one.

A sterling idea

Bif] Pounding takes effort though; even persuading someone else to do pounding takes effort. Now, you may think Stevie's idea takes effort, but it's effort for something seemingly pointless, bizarre and/or amusing, so that doesn't count.
These are the rules upon which society should be based. Well, they work for me.

An Objection

At the risk of incurring the Wrath of Stevie^TM, a not inconsiderable factor given the fearful doings of same in a strikingly diverse range of arenas, the biggest problem with the broom handle idea is that it will make an excellent hatstand for exactly one hat, notwithstanding the possibilities of stacking. There may need to be pounding of nails in order to provide sufficient hat affixation devices upon the broom handle for it to be a practical proposition.

There is the additional worry that if this broom handle pounding is performed that you will be providing a readily accessible spiked club with which one might be, how shall I put it, persuaded of the error of one's ways by an irate spouse, partner, or owner of said hardwood floor, so maybe we should just be content with the one hat after all.

Objecting

Dunx] If you've been beheaded you don't need any hats at all... My lies, my beautiful lies!

Further thoughts

I suspect that Stevie is, in his utilitarian and no-frills manner, thinking of a situation where one has only one hat, and a broom handle would therefore provide adequate hat-storage capacity. After all, you can't wear more than one hat at a time, can you? So there's no need for more. Although, to be fair, my parsimonious attempts to "slim down" all the contents of the wardrobe along this principle drew stern wrath from my own irate partner. I tried to argue that one only wears one set of underwear at at time, but this had little positive effect. So perhaps the broom handle idea would prove equally unpopular.

No, no, no...

It's actually a hatstand for two hats. Hang one, wear the other. The minor inconvenience of having to wear a hat to bed is more than made up for by the elegant and unfussy look of the stand.

*makes her way to IKEA just off the A720 in Edinburgh*

"One TITFER please. Can you deliver it to Rab in town this afternoon?? Thank you."

On line

Hello again from an infrequent visitor. I'm now PC'd and broadbanded-up at home, so might be about a bit more. (Not immediately though, I'm off for a pint to celebrate getting this thing working!) Is everyone enjoying their weekend?

P.S.

Before I depart for that pint.....

Can anyone point me in the direction of Dr Q's handy guide to HTML?

Here it is.

After more than just one pint

Thanks Darren, you are a wonderful person.

splooge

bladderd still and lost

Bring back missiv trellis

[splooge] We've got a Missive Trellis game running on Orange MC at the moment ("The Epistle of Mrs Trellis").

[Bigsmith] yes I am thanks, I've got a week off from lectures. hooray for reading week!

[nights] Enjoy!

tales from the front line

[everybody] you'll like this. while working at *a certain well-known UK supermarket chain* on saturday, I had a woman refuse to pay for her shopping, because the total was £6.66. she had to buy some chewing gum, mainly out of fright, before she would cough up. honestly. just a number.

Man trouble

I spoke too soon. :o(. I'd pay for the £6.66 shopping - everything else I do appears to be jinxed, what more could go wrong? Double :o(

uh-oh

Poo.

neighbour

[nights] Couldn't you offer her 1p cashback and charge her £6.67?
[pen] :o(

no.

[bool] long story, but no. cashback of 1p would be more trouble than it's worth, in many varied and frightening ways.
[pen] he's not worth it...

[pen] what? nooo! why?

Foolishness

[nights] More proof, were any needed, that the entire human race is totally beyond help and needs to be culled urgently before more stupidity is committed. You should have told her that "666" is only one possible reading of the verse, and that variants exist, notably "646", and I don't see anyone worrying about that. It's just about Nero anyway.
Further to this, consider the exceptionally annoying experience I had today. I went to the bank to draw a bank draft in foreign currency that I urgently need to send abroad. They told me that they can write a bank draft in pounds on the spot, but one in foreign currency has to be done by the head office, and takes a week to arrive. I asked why they can't do one on the spot. They told me they didn't have the equipment. I asked what equipment they required for this that wasn't required to write one in pounds. They looked shifty and muttered something about printing and exchange rates. I decided to give up on the argument rather than start asking them how a bank was unable to determine an exchange rate - I mean, if only head office can do it, why can't they ring them up and ask? I also decided not to press the matter of its taking a week to arrive from head office - do they send it by donkey? This is the kind of ridiculous rubbish we have to put up all the time. Insane, arbitrary rules that make no sense whatsoever, and for which no explanation is offered. For God's sake, how much harder is it to write a draft in Singapore dollars than it is to write one in pounds? I also restrained myself from correcting the bank person's execrable English ("They can send it to us or to yourself..." - "yourself" is reflexive, you mouth-breathing moron!). Why can't anyone in London talk properly?
I'm going to go and simmer down now. This is how I get after night shifts...

Yourself

'Yourself' as misused by e.g. hapless bank tellers is usually a sort of attempt to sound professional or formal by someone who is not sufficiently in command of the language to be able to do so properly. I find it grates too, but telling myself that does reduce the irritation quotient - a bit.

I do my 'bear with a sore head' impressions in the mornings, such as today, when I was woken up by the Jehovah's Witnesses Q: 'Did I disturb you?' A: 'Yes.' The fellow should have withdrawn gracefully then, rather than trying to run through his spiel. It was not appreciated.

Door knockers

I sympathise, Simons Mith. Some years ago I seem to have stumbled across a method of reducing/eliminating nuisance calls from the Mormon bretheren. I had a shop at the time. A couple of their 'missionaries' came a-knocking in an endeavour to sell me their wares. In a shop, for heaven's sake! Anyway it was a quiet day so I took them on. An hour or so later, with only a few short interruptions for customer attention, they left - leaving me with a copy of The Book of the Mormon (interestingly sub-titled Another Testament of Jesus Christ) and a promise to pop back in a few days to give me time to have a look through it. They did not return. Disappointing in one way, most pleasing in another.

J.W.s

Luckily for me Bigsmith Towers is equiped with a large forward facing bay window, so (during the hours of daylight at least) i can see the buggers coming. This gives me the time to dust off and cue up a bit of good old death metal - something like Venom or Cradle of Filth - strip to my underpants and answer the door with can of Stella in hand. They don't stay long....

Door-to-door religion salesmen

What's their success rate like, I wonder? It strikes me that anyone vulnerable to this sort of thing would have succumbed years ago, and then would sell out to the Mormons and so on as each came round in turn. If their success rate truly is zero, WHY DO THEY WASTE EVERYBODY'S TIME DOING IT!?

Another testament of Jesus Christ...

...from the author that brought you "Blessed Are The Meek", "Render Unto Caesar" and "Oooh, this Cross Stings A Bit".

Dim Wits

I've often wondered about that myself, Simons Mith. After all, if my forebears are to be believed, even the tramps used have a 'secret' code which they scribed before someone's dwelling to indicate 'Probable', 'Possible', 'Unlikely' and 'Don't go in there the dog will eat your balls and dump your remains in the bin'. Then again, most tramps are probably better organised (and intelligent?) than those of whom we speak.

I can just imagine it, Projoy: Bible IV The Ultimate Experience - Includes the Creator's Cuts.

annoying door people

I live in a student house, and it was a student house for many years previous. I think they've learnt that we have absolutely NO surplus money - it all goes to tescos or over the bar. and I generally tell jehovah's witnesses I'm jewish. gets rid of them.

I love it when Jehovah's Witnesses come round. I engage them in discussion and refute them. Unfortunately, they tend to be a bit thick and not realise they've been refuted. Eventually they try to get away but I don't let them. It helps if you have a Bible to hand, since their Bibles are subtly rewritten, for some peculiar reason. They're obsessed with the bit about the sea in Revelation.

seeing them off the premises

An acquaintance of mine found they left pretty sharpish when he fired a shotgun into his own living room ceiling.

Try to reason with Jehovah's Witnesses. Score 1 point for each time they try to prove something by saying "but it says so in the Bible". Score 5 points if they agree that something in their manual isn't as accurate as it should be. Score 10 points if they want to leave plus get a bonus 5 points for getting a free Watchtower. I got 26 points once.

I live in a flat now, with an entryphone, so I never get them anymore. I did used to enjoy arguing with them, but if I am in that mood nowadays, I can simply come on here and say something that I know will get Breadmaster going :).

I wonder that the JWs haven't yet thought of email spam as a method of disseminating the good news.

witnessing

They don't try very hard around here - a couple came to my door, quite elderly and passed over 2 free Watchtowers without saying much more than hello. The lady asked me if I thought Jesus was born on Xmas Day, so I just said "I dunno" and shut the door.

Kim

Unwanted callers

I have learned from experience that a little politeness goes a long way: for example:

Double-glazing salesperson: "I just want to ask you - if you could have any room in your house double-glazed for free, which would it be?
Self: "None of them, but thanks for calling." [Click]

Financial services salesperson: "Do you have a couple of minutes to take part in a customer survey?
Self: "No, but thanks for calling." [Click]

Door to door religious salesperson: "Can I interest you in the word of the Lord?
Self: "No, but thanks for stopping by." [Click]

I find that the little gesture of politeness catches them momentarily off their guard and enables you to put the phone down or close the door with a clear conscience and without leaving an opportunity for comeback.

[Projoy] I hope you're not lumping me together with Jehovah's Witnesses! Reminds me, for some reason, of the old and rather silly joke, according to which a man sees someone about to jump off a high building and attempts to talk him down. He tries, "Do you believe in God?" "Why, yes," replies the would-be suicide. "What a coincidence!" says the rescuer. "So do I! Are you a Christian, Jew, or Muslim?"
"I'm a Christian."
"What a coincidence, so am I! Are you Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Coptic, Persian?"
"I'm a Protestant."
"Why, so am I! Are you Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, Evangelical Free, Pentecostalist, Quaker, or Anabaptist?"
"Reformed."
"Me too! Are you Remonstrant or Non-Remonstrant?"
"I'm Non-Remonstrant."
"So am I! Are you Prelapsarian or Supralapsarian?"
"Supralapsarian."
At which the would-be rescuer pushes him off the ledge, shouting, "Die, you heretic!"

[Kim] on the one hand, you're right, and I should probably make the effort to be pleasant. on the other hand, being forced to say "thanks for shopping at *a certain well-known UK based supermarket chain* " really gets on my nads, so I feel like all my politeness has been used up.

however, I DO manage to say "cheers drive" to every bus driver I meet, and on a good (or possibly bad) week, that's at least 20. thank goodness I've got a bus pass.

Drivers

[nights] I know two people with bus driving experience, both of whom detest with a vengeance being addressed as "Drive". Unlucky, I say.

Slightly more Celebdaq

Just interupt and barge in for one moment, one of my other Celebdaq accounts Not the Ant Hill Mob is on the front page at No5. *jumps up and runs round the room again*

celebbing

I got to No. 4 on the front page once *sigh*. Now, I think both my accounts have lapsed - both newjustine and evil_edna. :o(

trumpet blowing

I'm pleased that I'm currently second here.

There is nothing like a dame ....

Gosh. We currently have no less than 3 Knights Of The Realm/Garter/RoundTable gracing the Home Page - Sir Henry, Sir Joseph Ba'guette and Sir George the er .. hesitant.
They're becomin' orflay commonplace nowadays ..

Gravelly voice

Hello, Chorlkey... nice to see you pop in for a bit.

deep velvet voice

Why thank you, kind rabster. Why so gravelly?
Acksherly, I did a bit of popping last week but have now fully completed my peregrinations abroad so should get the chance to pop in for lots of bits from now on :-)

Just had some aggregate delivered, you see...

Meanwhile, I wish the person calling the phone in the next office would get used to the idea there's nobody there...

Aggregate

(rab) And what did it come to, in total?

[Bigsmith] on the other hand, half of the bus drivers in Bath are Polish, so they probably don't get it.

driving

I usually thank the bus driver, just with a "Thanks". Mind you, in Cardiff, they come in for a lot of abuse including being stoned and shot, so I feel sorry for them.

Bus drivers

I have more contact with bus drivers than is good... too much public transport usage! And a "cheers" or "thanks" usually suffices, 'cause generally they're very moody. I've only ever met one nice one, and he was actually a scheduler/office worker or summat who'd been drafted in to drive the last bus of the day. Still, he gave me a lift about 8 miles off-route and didn't crash into anything, so I'm not complaining.

round the bend

I once got on a local bus in Pontypridd, driven by the usual driver, who was very nice ordinarily. Unfortunately he had just broken up with his girlfriend and seemed to have a deathwish - as we drove along some roads with very steep drops without stopping the whole trip it was a wee bit scary..

Bussage

In Edinburgh the whole 'to-thank-or-not-to-thank' dilemma is solved by having exit doors in the middle of the bus. Communication with the drivers seems to be strictly discouraged, in fact, by virtue of them sitting in a perspex isobooth. Your fare is poured into a slot, whereupon the driver presses a button to signal its descent down the chute of destiny into the locked safe of eternity (they don't, famously, give change). The ticket appears from a hole in the wall. The whole thing works so that even eye contact with the driver is a near impossibility... I quite like it that way.

Bus drivers

In a more civilised and less cost-conscious world we'd have bus conductors and the driver could get on with his job undistracted, and undelayed.

I had the eerie experience last night of travelling on a coach whose driver had the exact same name as me. I'd never met anyone else with my name before. It's decidedly creepy.

My colleagues googled me and discovered someone with my name that they claim also looks exactly like me. I dispute this (not only because he's over 50 and American). But I'm still slightly disturbed.

Someone with my name draws Harry Potter fan art. Someone else is a pop star. And another one is head of a Meat Board (?) or something, if I remember correctly. But I'm the best one. :)

LotUS

Whereas I (as could a great many people I suspect) can be fairly sure that my name is unique, even if we discount my middle name. Anybody with my surname is a member of my father's-side family and due to cultural/ethnic reasons, the probability of any of them sharing my first name is extremely low.

According to google, I have one phonetic namesake (ie her name is spelled wrong) who's a successful college runner in the US. Anyone who knows me will know she's not me as I'm crap at running, whereas I am rather brilliant at writing - she doesn't have any google-indexed articles published on the Institute of Biology's website.

[LotUS] Are they all Lords of the Under-Stairs?

[auto-googling] - I'm a professor in Vermont. What's slightly more surprising is that I'm female.

Namesakes

I'm not going to bother googling - there are at least three more of me who work for the same company as I do (and the bastards never forward me messages or post they get by mistake). On another subject I've started this last week or so re-playing my old collection of CD singles in alphabetical order. The batch in hand currently are by Claytown Troupe, Close to the Hype, a couple by Marc Cohn, and Tommy Conwell & the Young Rumblers. Happy memories....

Namesakes

One of my old piano teachers claimed to have *another* student also called Jonathan Ellis...

However, he lacked (1) the same middle name as me, and more importantly (2) the ability to learn something such as Chopin's Polonaise in A flat in less than a week, be able to hack the second half of Rachmaninov's cello sonata in four days or - as happened today - when accompanying a baroque-music oboe class in which the student was playing on a modern instrument and the teacher on a Baroque instrument which was tuned a semitone flatter - to sight-read the same piece both in the original A minor and transposed into A flat minor, switching between them every two minutes depending on which one of the two was playing which instrument at the time.

Which is why I make a reasonably survivable living that pays the bills and mortgage working freelance at the RNCM: whereas he gave up the piano completely, went to study law, and had two houses and no mortgages within the first four years after completing his studies... *sigh*

I'm pretty good at some things as well.

Robin

Hern

Especially creating confusion in the Mini Cheddars game.

actually I think I had a hand in that. ooops.

[JLE] *empathetic sigh*
well, I'm hopeless at handstands but quite good at Guinness casseroles

small cheeses

(nights) Can't see anything wrong with your contribution. :-)

Winter clean

Hello. On one of my occasional wander-throughs I noted that the lost consonants game is now a year old. I thought things were looking a little dusty around here, but I didn't realise that dusty. I moot a winter clean, and the start of, at least, a team game since I went to the trouble of writing the team-colours strap-on. Only thing holding me back is that I'm currently an active participant in practically zero of the games, so who am I to say anything?

[rab] seconded. lost consonants has been discussing its own end lately - why not put it out of its misery.

Boobar

Lost Consonants must be retied! I want to lay a new game!

Make Way! Make Way!

Well, I've just made some space by taking advantage of poor defending at Here and There. So Lost Consonants may still have some tim to save itself.

Spirited away

[INJ] That's the spirit!

Electronic tagging

So, anyone up for a spot of tag wrestling?

oo-er

[rab]Strap-on? Thank you for an interesting mental image on a boring (ie nothing whatsoever to do) work day. ;)

Kicking heels

So no tag game then...

Inkers] Personally I'm very much up for it, though wondering how many teams we'll have. Has the mising consonants game received a stay of execution? Unless his rabness just wishes to make the tag game because it has already entailed some effort... ;]

'netiquette

< moan > In the past, new games have been launched AFTER consultation [however brief] in here. Seems as though the latest three have appeared without a by-your-leave. I'm all for following up rab's hard work with a Team Colours Tag Game but just wish I could be here when a slot appears. < /moan >
Perhaps a bout of serial killing is called for ...

*Offers Chalky a silver hammer*

[Chalky] Thank you for saying what I wanted to say, but declined for fear of appearing overly heavy-handed. In fact I've half a mind to kill all the games, and start afresh...

freshness?

[rab] Seeking a feeling of freshness? Try changing your underpants!
naaah, I'm all for a few changes. Go ahead. Cull a few.

From the eats, shoots and leaves department

Email just received: "I have mail for Dr. Factory Mallard. Please email me, his room number or department."

[pen] May I assure you that my gussets are always lemon-fresh.

I agree with everybody. a fresh start is a scary prospect, but quite an attractive one I'll admit. kill some things that seem twisted and nasty, and plant some fresh young vibrant things. or start a new game, whichever you prefer.

Robin

What the Furc...

The Furcation Game is an undoubted work of art, but the last serious move [Tuj] was 4 months ago and it seems to be in a sufficient state of decay to be attracting the local graffiti artists. Is anyone planning another megapost, or should it quietly pass into history?

Furcing hell

I vote for putting it below the line. It can always be reinstated on special occasions, monarch's birthdays and the like as required. Except I'll have to do this 'behind the scenes' as the game is, in fact, unwinnable. One more vote (from someone like Tuj, Martha or matt) and I'll do it.

Oh, and can I suggest that for Tag Wrestling, the two team colours be navy and crimson?

*rushing in and out *

Bags I be Crimson - [navy don't look much different on my browser]- please someone start the game - haven't even got time to look back and see what we consenced on ... never mind compose a suitably beguiling, witty pre-match talk ...

OK, how about cornflower blue instead?

Lovely, petal :-)

Tagnation

Who's in which team?

I guess you join the team who's turn it is by making a move.

rab] Or the cornflower team if you want to win, of course.
Re: the games crisis (or not), I'm of course staunchly in favour of keeping the Furcation Game going, which hopefully doesn't make me unique... unless you want to cryogenically freeze it (with its own special not-quite-in-the-archives bit on the games list, o' coruse) - provided something similarly gargantuan is put up in its stead, like Acre Street or a Long Winded Variant. Just to discourage the itninerant game starters Chalky moaned about (seconded). And what exactly has been got into with the "what have i got myself into" game? Its ugly unpunctuated appearance on the page angers me...

NB

"O' coruse" is ancient Gaelic for "naturally". That did affect the punctuation of that sentence too...

Blimey Tuj - such erudition! But glad you're still speaking to me :-) [clue = Scissor Sisters]

I'll be brutally honest, I've never understood the furcation game, so it's passing is no great worry to me.

I wish I could look at the rest of the site but I have printing to do so it'll have to wait until lunchtime now. bother.

Special status

I think a special status for the Furcation Game would be appropriate... I'll just have to think a little about what that would actually mean.

I vote special status for the Furc Game. So there :oP

Jolly Good

And that might just be the fillip I need to get cracking with a new move over the Christmas break.

it's a sad state of affairs when I'm on campus from 08h45, and my first opportunity to check these boards is now, 17h07. today, however, has been an exceptionally busy day. grr.

Business

Students working... whatever next?

rab] Good luck with Fillip. And was that really Martha Farquar?

[tuj] crikey I hadn't noticed... hello Martha!
[rab] oh hee hee, yes we're all awfully lazy, we never work, etc etc...

[nights] Who said Uni. wasn't a good training ground for a 9 to 5 job? Welcome to the real world, sir. The world where such hours are considered to be short and there's no student union available for cheap beer and there's no lovely undergraduates gracing the premises and where everyone grows old and where ... *sobs*

PC erratum

That should have read: " . . . no intelligent . . . "

Time-inappropriate recreational activity

(Duj) So what are you doing in here during working hours? We know where you live. :-)

Trawling for intelligent undergraduates, Rosie. I thought that was obvious. . ;-)

Yeah, 'n mi 'ouse is allus open for them I just said, rite?

[nights] That was a tongue-in-cheek comment.

But what's going on here? Why was the Tag Wrestling just killed like that instead of having another round? Why are other games that should have been killed twenty years ago still limping on with festering wounds and a slightly disgusting smell? Why do I bother?

[rab] sorry I don't think my eyes were focusing. looking at it now you were being quite clearly humourous, and my brain just didn't process it. It's doing that a worrying amount. gaaah. I'll not bring up university again.
and I'm not sure why you bother, but I really am glad you do, as it gives largely computer illiterate buffoons like me the chance to have a bit of a laugh on a daily basis, and that's something to be pleased with, I think.

[Dujon] it's ok, I know full well what 9 to 5 is like, I do it most summers (well, the last two anyway) at our local council as an admin assistant. unlike a lot of students, I do actually know what work IS (moan moan moan, grumble, shake wiggle wiggle - I'll shut up now.)

Sorry if I seem grumpy today - the reason being that I am. A slight hangover is not helping the fact that due to a "system error" (aka fuckup) I've not been paid. And since I've not yet had any opportunity to hand anyone my P45, I expect that when the 'emergency payment' is made on Monday (assuming no further fuckups) it'll be taxed to buggery as well and take about six months to sort itself out. I really have no idea why we pay these people.

looking on the bright side

Perhaps they haven't been paid either :-)

Non-payment

(rab) Are you a victim of Capita, or Crapita as Private Eye calls them? Why do we pay these people? Because they're cheap and nasty and cheapness is all that matters. Chalky's suggestion, though a comfort, is implausible.

(Takes deep breath before launching into boring story of evil ex-boss) Let me tell you about my evil ex-boss. He was the most evil and deeply twisted person I have ever imagined (apart from my sister, obviously). He trusted nobody. Thus, my immediate boss was in charge of the company's finances, but he couldn't sign cheques. Only Bob (EE-B) could do that. And if Bob didn't want to sign a cheque, he wouldn't. Thus, cheques that had been written to pay bills were rudely returned to us if the bill had not already gone beyond the second warning and become a lawyer's letter setting a date for the court action ("ONLY AN IDIOT PAYS A BILL WHEN IT ARRIVES!"). This principle extended to employees' wages, which were also all paid by cheque. If Bob was in a bad mood (which was pretty much all the time) he would simply not sign them and we would all have to wait indefinitely for our money. What of our contracts? Ha, we didn't have any, because Bob didn't like contracts. Why did anyone work there? People either left within a couple of days or had their spirits utterly broken and became trapped. I escaped after seven months. I would further list Bob's other charming characteristics (his habit of chain-smoking cheap American cigars, his casual racism and sexism, his astonishing right-wing views, his incomprehensibility, owing to a combination of an American accent with the effects of having chain-smoked said cigars for, apparently, several centuries) but I won't. The point is: we considered ourselves lucky if we got paid at all.

My boss is great, honestly. Sorry. Anyway, shouldn't we be enjoying ISAHAC on the airwaves about now? Or have I missed it?

ISIHAC

The new series beings on 06/12/04 with Linda Smith joining the regulars at the Anvil Theatre, Basingstoke. Andy Hamilton will be guesting at the New Theatre, Hull, followed by a Best of the Year show on 27/12/04. After that I'm not sure

:) :) :) :) :)

new series of ISIHAC? martha you've made me the happiest man in the south west. off to the pub to celebrate - watch out for drunken postings later on!

Oh, forgot to mention...

Hamish and Dougal's Hogmanay, featuring an all-star cast and copious tea-drinking, on New Year's Eve at 11.20pm. And there's a News Quiz of the Year. And the rest of the Xmas TV schedule sucks

Radio, I meant. And the TV schedule succks too, but that goes without saying

Zhooomph!!

Audience

What was that??

I don't know, it went without saying

[Martha] Many thanks for the information.

Cull

6 games below the line... And the Furcation Game to sort of so on the line... and I have half a mind to give "what have i got myself into" the euthanasia treatment... Exciting times. New tag variant very good.

Hmm, put a rogue "so" in there. No idea why.

[Tuj] perhaps to keep the rest of us on our toes. I'd do some euthanising myself but I'm frankly afraid to, given the jolly big mess I made on Orange.

Saedi

nights] Of course, what would really shake things up would be to end the Long Game and the Limericks game and replace those with reverse versions too...

[Tuj] The Reverse Long Game would never start!

There did used to be a Long esreveR Game at York, which eventually began, I believe.

Wouldn't an esreveR game simply be Reverse Reverse, and therefore normal?

*opens mouth to give smart-aleck answer, then closes it again when he realises how confused he is*

I have mooed a new direction for the lost consonant game. Not sure if it will ork.

Lemon fresh

Hmmm... things are certainly feeling much fresher round here. Job update: I now, finally, have a contract. I'm going to head along to salaries after a lunchtime meeting so I have the whole afternoon to moan at people. Looking forward to it...

Ella

Where am I?

Thought I'd taken a wrong turn for a minute then! Just returned from a fortnight's jolly to find all the furniture at home moved into different rooms (due to flood) and a similarly re-vamped MC site (although with rather less water involved and altogether more entertaining). [Rab] good for you! Get it all out of your system - you'll feel much better!

Scary Mary

Hello there, Ella. I was wondering what had happened to you - and hoping we hadn't scared you off. Didn't get much moaning done, sadly - everything seems to have worked out. Indeed, my pension contributions may even have been kept up to date, which is the main thing. Now... let's see how/when/if I can get a staff card...

Ella

Petrified

I'm not scared Rab, but should I be?

[rab] hooray that your job problems got sorted out - I'm going through a bit of a 'mare with *a certain well known UK based supermarket chain*, oddly enough, about contracts. I'm still on one contract, even though I should be on a higher one as I do more hours a week than that. grr. still, at least the christmas carols over the PA haven't started yet.

[Ella] No, no, no, no, no. Of course not. Nothing to be worried about at all. Perfectly normal group of people here. No risk, no danger. Nothing to worry about. No need to worry about a thing. Just ignore rab. Don't worry about a thing.

Ella

*leaves trail of dust as she leaves Mornington Cresent at high speed* :-)

Ella

Silly girl, doesn't she know she's in spoon? Running away won't fix that ...

it's gone awful quiet on here, so I'm going to borrow a technique from a message board I used to frequent. So, what is everyone listening to?

One side of a colleague's telephone conversation and the annoyingly-pitched fan in my laptop. In the distance is the quiet, repetitive shhh-clunk of a digital copying machine...

office sounds

The hum and grind of the printer trying to staple 400 documents, the tap of keyboards, and the intermittent muttered oaths and curses of colleagues as they get on with their day-to-day work. And I'm hoping that sometime soon, one of them is going to ask me if I want any lunch fetching from the supermarket... some hope.

I'm listening to PMQT. Rock on!

A presentation given by students at a posh 'do' at the top of Canary Wharf tower :) Nobody's asking any questions.

My colleague, typing. And the distant waft of Christmas CDs from the adjacent office.

An episode of the Simpsons I've got on the DVD player. (The joys of working at home.)

Crackling PA System

(aka penelope)

This is to let you know that on Monday December 13th there will be a special recording at the Cochrane Theatre, Southampton Row, London WC1 (nearest tube: Holborn) of a show starring the cast of "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" and entitled "Hamish & Dougal's Hogmanay Special", which is due to transmit on Radio 4 on New Year's Eve from 11.30pm till Midnight.
Regular listeners to "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" will know of Hamish and Dougal from their frequent appearances in the 'Sound Charades' round. Radio 4 have already broadcast two series featuring Hamish & Dougal, starring Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden in the title roles, with Alison Steadman playing their housekeeper Mrs Naughtie, and Jeremy Hardy playing the local laird.
This one-off special show will include the regular cast, with appearances from Humphrey Lyttelton, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Sandi Toksvig and Colin Sell, with some additional surprise guests. The show starts recording at 7.30pm, with doors opening at 7pm.
The Cochrane is not a large theatre (there are just 300 seats available) so you'll need to act soon to secure a ticket. The tickets cost £8 each and are obtainable from the theatre's box office on 020 7269 1606. Tickets will be on sale from today (Wednesday 1st December) From 1.30pm and thereafter the box office is open from 10am-6pm Monday to Friday, and 12pm-3pm on Saturday and Sunday. If the tickets have not sold out by the send of the week we will put them on sale to the general public. The next series of 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue' starts transmitting on Radio 4 on Monday 6th December at 6.30pm, with a repeat on the following Sunday at 12.04pm. It runs for six weeks including a 'Best Of' programme from the past year. Recordings of the Spring Series of the show in 2005 will probably take place in May or June, so expect notification of these recordings in March or April.

La musica

nights] You've asked this before. And the answer is 1) my stomach gurgling and 2) Lemon Jelly.

listening

OK - this is WAY later than you asked the question - but I am currently listening to a prog on BBC1 about Brian Wilson [Beach Boys] and Pet Sounds.

It's actually quite interesting.

[Chalky] If I didn't know better, I'd think you were damning with faint praise. As it happens, I'd meant to watch that but I completely forgot.

[tuj] have I? oopsie. good choice though. I personally am listening to winter chill 2003, kind of appropriate for such a cold day.

This morning, I am mostly listening to my Christmas Pan Pipes CD, which will no doubt cause a great deal of annoyance to anyone in the immediate vicinity.

[Darren] Shame you missed it :-)

Does anyone fancy revisiting Animal/Vegetable/Mineral/Abstract?

Baa

Am I alone in not appreciating Pet Sounds? Yes there is the odd good track but as an album it's rather lacking I find.

I'm bored...

Why does work seem sooo unappealing on some days? The only music I have on my hard drive is The The's Soul Mining album... or I suppose I could tune into Xfm or Radio 4 online and tell anyone who doesn't like it to butt out... Or maybe I could just leave a full hour and a half before I actually should to head for Park Lane and a photoshoot I'm to direct. Heheheh.

I wish I still lived in London

[pen] go for xfm, I'll appreciate it. mainly because I miss it from those lovely days when I lived in London.

[chalky] yes please, if memory serves that one's full of hilarity, and fibre.

I wish I lived in London

[nights] Someone else who loves London! People think I'm mad when I say I'd like to live there.

London

(Raak) Depends where you are at the moment. For my part, I would find a small to medium sized town a living death, however traffic-free it were, but it suits some people, I'm sure.

I am now, to the utter horror of the rest of the office, enjoying Nigel Ogden's Wurlitzer Christmas.

[UK] you're just like my Dad. He has asked me for, in all seriousness (I think - it was on the phone), The Organist Entertains on CD for christmas. aaaaargh.

[Raak, anyone that'll listen] I really miss London at the moment - things to do that aren't uni, work or pub!

[Rosie] I'm in Norwich, which is as you describe. I have to go to Cambridge or London for proper culture.

[nights] Where are you at the moment?

Dan

[Raak] If you've been in Norwich more than a year or two and it still doesn't have any culture, it's probably your own fault. If the people who like a certain thing always go to some other place to get it, they perpetuate the situation in which there's a market for that thing in that other place and none in the place they come from. Therefore, people in Norwich who like a certain kind of culture should never leave it, and they'll thereby coerce the place into being the sort of place they like to be in.

(It also helps if you kill off everyone who actively opposes the sort of thing you like.)

What's

a wurlitzer, Uncle Korky? It sounds amusing.

Wurlitzer

Is it animal, vegetable, mineral, or abstract? Or maybe a high-speed land vehicle?

I believe a Wurlitzer is a specialised piece of plumbing equipment manufactured from pig trotters using a proprietary process in certain secretive factories in the former East Germany. Highly sought after by installers of bidets, the common Wurlitzer can only be purchased if the buyer is recommended to the vendor by at least two other customers and after placing a bond of thirteen Austrian schillings in a specific numbered Swiss bank account.

It became fashionable as a jazz instrument in the Berlin salons of the 1920s, because of its resolutely unmelodious nature in all but the most skilled of hands (just like, say, the double bass) but mostly because it could be eaten in extremity (very much unlike, say, the double bass).

Apple Ogies

We apologies for this sudden outbreak of lying in what is usually a much more truth-inclined space.

Oh well.

Dan

Nonsense. Utter tosh! I tell you it's an instrument consisting of a broad, flat cylinder with holes drilled radially into it at regular intervals, affixed to a length of string to its center. It's also cunningly made with vanes set into it so that it will spin when swung round by its cord, with the result that it produces a most harmonious tone. It got its name when its first purchaser, speaking to a somewhat deaf salesman, said "I'll certainly enjoy showing my friends this, er... how do you say it?" To which the salesman, thinking he had been asked "how do you play it?", replied: "Whirl it, sir."

sorry, i'd groan, but...

Aargghh!

Can someone please cuff Dan around the ears.

Edible instruments

(Dunx) A double bass is probably the most edible of all instruments, being almost entirely wood. Saw it up, pulp it and serve it as a slurry with hot milk and demerara sugar, and you have the perfect high-fibre breakfast cereal. In one end and out the other, unchanged, giving the possibility of recycling after suitable purification.

AXI

Edible instruments II

[Rosie] I think you'll need to figure out how to strip away the strings during the automated production line of your perfect breakfast cereal. Otherwise people halfway across the world may think it's a brilliant idea.

Well, it's a...

I'm wondering what treats might be on Nigel Ogden's Wurlitzer Christmas. In a Persian Christmas Supermarket? In A Christmas Monastery Garden? Oh, I Do Like To Be Beside The Christmas Seaside?

Is it time to start the 'Bah! Humbug! I hate Christmas!' discussion yet?

it is most certainly time to start the "I hate Christmas" discussion (well apart from the religious meaning, but that's another story). point one - explosion in heart-rending charity adverts. I really don't like them.

[Raak] beautiful Bath still - however it's probably more to do with the fact that I have a rather large amount of work at the moment, and I don't have time for anything other than work, uni or pub. sorry, I think I was in a really crap mood when I posted that one.

humbugs

[penelope] Move here, you'll miss it entirely, but you'll have to put up with the azaan five times a day :-)

(miss Christmas, that was)

Late response to Dan

Look at THIS, it's awesome!

I had too

Sorry, I'm a little excitable today... hehehe...

Not only but also

Oh, and are we going to play Animal/Vegetable/Mineral/Abstract? If s, can we do some sort of colourful variant?

[Tuj] How about Animal/Vegetable/Mineral/Abstract or any combination thereof PLUS the colour[s] of said 'object'. Am I taking you too literally?

Chalky] Pass... I just like the colours a lot and want to reward rab's endeavour by having them used in lots of games. Plus it might spawn some new hybrid game, which is always good!

[Tuj] Have you ever noticed that if you search for pretty much any word in Google image search, there is a Toothpaste for Dinner cartoon which includes it?

ISIHAC

so, what did we all think of the new ISIHAC? I didn't hear it last night, I was on the bus (which crashed into another bus, but that's for a later date when I have more time), but I have four hours of research ahead of me later so I'll pull it up on 'listen again'.

[nights] Pretty good, as always. The new guest, Linda someone-or-other, was fine.

dodgy lines

Between the Lines seems to have come up with some odd colours, if in doubt the altenative web colours are;
 for Bakerloo
 for Central
 for Circle
 “#32CD32” for District
 for Hammersmith and City
 for Jubilee
 for Metropolitan
 for Northern
 for Piccadily
 for Victoria
 for Waterloo and City
 for Docklands Light Railway
 for National Rail

It's all very pretty, dear Inkspot, and forgive my thickitude, but what exactly is the reason/point/aim?

[Chalky] I'm not clear what the Between the Lines game is supposed to be, really, but I'm assuming it's MC where (a) your name colour has to match the stations you play, and (b) to switch lines, you need to use a station which actually lies on an intersection between them. So far, though, I don't think that's the way people have been playing it. Still, that (and my almost inevitable lack of grasp of the whole thing meaning these rules are totally useless) is what happens if you don't explain the rules at the top of the game properly.

Bad lines

The idea came from wishing to use the colourised name whatsit that rab has introduced in a game of MC. Then it came to me to use the colours of the lines from the Tube map. Unfortunately the new game slot stayed open (for what seemed like several days) and so the game idea festered.
While it was gnawing away, I wondered about stations like Canada Water and Sloane Square. Could these be incorporated into the stance? Keeping it as simple as possible, a colour for the player and in the text…. sounded good at the time, this may have been one idea too far.

There you have it a colourised experimental game. If play becomes fraught it will make way for something else. Is there a point? After watching Paul Burrel eat a kangaroo’s testicle … probably not.

Bad lines

*ahem* [cattily]

... passing through

Is it just me or is there an air of despondency in here? I was up and about quite early this am, popped in to have a look and moved swiftly on ...
I couldn't even think of a faux french line 5 for the limerick, diverted as I was by Korky's bream :-) Don't wanna play colours or tag, don't wanna tell lies or furcate, the current regurgitated cheddar is looking tricky, the consonants have lost their way ... oh dear oh dear oh dear. Ah well - at least I'm posting in here :-)

[Chalks] You've put your finger on it for me. Stagnant limericks are usually easy to shift - I just write a crap last line, then start a new one, hoping others will follow with renewed vigour. I really think Lost Consonants has had it - time to say goodbye. The Colours Game is too complicated to work out for the time I have available to post at work, I'm not old enough to Furcate, and we've been too clever by half in the current regurgitation. I'm gonna go in there and play some crap moves to shift this constiptation. Hold tight... !

Poo

Tee hee, "crap moves to shift constipation" - what a lovely image, penelope. Chalky, I quite agree.

[chalky] I see what you mean, but then I like lying. it's good practise for in real life.

ISIHAC

Jack Dee will be the special guest for programmes 5 and 6 of the new series, coming from the Assembly Hall Theatre in Tunbridge Wells (10/1/05 and 17/1/05)

If anyone is going to be in the audience for those two, let me know as we could probably meet up. I couldn't get tickets myself, but I am nonetheless local.

giving a nod to ...

Penelope the Purgative
Rab the Agreeable
Nights the .. er .. seer and deceiver
and anyone else who has posted and brightened up this place :-)

Previous post... I mean was in the audience for.

Deep and calming breaths

Chalky] Time to brighten things up... And I definitely agreed with pen on the consonants I'm afraid. And on the poop analogy...
If you need a new game, just go ahead and make one - could there be a better place (even for just an idea)?.

OK, a touch over the top;

but I bet it got your attention!

The Spirit of Winter

Let my ice fingers close over your heart...

...let my drear mornings offer you no hope of sunshine to come. I shall not rest my snows nor my gloomy rains until torpor reigns in the Morniverse and nothing is but glumness, glumness everywhere. Hibernate, run from me, or try to endure me - you cannot prevent me nor the keening grey sorrow of the moods I offer.

[spirit] a popular phrase in my house... "oooo-kaaay..." (say it out loud, slightly like jim carrey *shudder*)

[chalky] thanks... I think. I do my best.

[Tuj] yes it did!

[The Spirit of Winter]
Bring on your frosts of spectre-grey, your frozen leaves and skies of dun! The weakening eye of day can never chill; for friendship doth not turn cold when that warm heart that beats deep within fires the furnace of goodwill. Thus shall this community seek the warmth of its homely hearth whilst the dregs of winter's spirit is humbled ...

The Spirit of Winter

[Chalky]OOOoooooOOOOh! Get you!

[spirit, chalky] take it OUTSIDE, both of you!

Furcational Adjournment

Is it time to grant it special status yet? I fancy an imposter's game, or summat...

The Spirit of Winter

I am outside.

Jasmine

Err.?

Hello!!!!

Hello to you too

I'm a bit worried. You're not the jasmine to which my wife took her secateurs a couple of days ago are you? If you are I shall have to have a cup of tea a Bex and a good lie down. Oh dear, oh dear . . .

Special (i.e. no) service

[Tuj] The SpecialStatus AddOn Pack (TM) has not yet been enabled, so, erm, no.

a little off topic (no change there, then) but thank God it's Friday. has everyone else had a shocking week or is it just me?

[nights] probably just you

Bah! I enjoyed that poetic exchange and would have happily crossed further swords with the 'spirit', teetering, as we were, on the brink of yet another 'Winter versus Summer Debate'.
So the follow-up disappointed somewhat, whilst bringing to mind Wot Dan Said in MCiOS a couple of weeks back [and I paraphrase] - anonymous posting by regulars is relatively harmless fun ... however, if the post is directed at a named person, perhaps it's fairer not to hide behind the cloak of anonymity?

*throws down gauntlet in the spirit of goodwill* :-)

[nights] it's not just you. blech.

[nights/flerdle] Definitly not just you two. Too.

Bob the dog! Good to see you :-)

[Chalks] Likewise! I've not been as apparent as usual over the last few months, but I am very much still here. New job going well – chickens still pecky – children still boingy.
I back Tuj for a game of impostors!

The Spirit of Goodwill

Ok, then.

The Spirit of Goodwill

Do you want your gauntlet back?

Not dead but... dormant

rab] Well, assuming this Add On Pack (AOP) has resurrectional properties, I guess we can temporarily shuffle it below the line and go, with Bob the Dog's backing, for a game of imposters.

[Bob] welcome back!!
[rab] so what happened? I couldn't get in last night or all day today (that's trying via my home connection and up at university)
[everyone] glad it wasn't just me. last week of term, woo!

[nights] *Flattered* But I never left!

[bob] ah but doesn't flattery get me... no wait, get me somewhere... everywhere? sorry, it's rather late and I'm a bit tired and emotional at the moment... hello anyway.

racing frogs

Who wants to race frogs with me? I want a league but need to invite people! Try www.racingfrogs.org.....it's a level of maintenance just under playing Celebdaq. And probably designed for 14-year-olds. But shhh....

Food, food, food!

I think escargot is more my pace.

slurg on a lily pad

[ZK] My frog is in training, do you have a frog in each area.

On the weekend we went out and bought our Christmas tree. After I had put on the lights it was for the boys to hang the decorations on the tree. Francis, likes to let Owen know the benefits of being his big brother, as frequently as possible. Putting baubles on the tree he was able to put his extra height to advantage “…and another one up here, and this one can go near the top over here…”. Being the uneven handed dad I am I helped Owen put a couple at the same height to end that bit of squabbling. Which left Tom the toddler, who with a little bit of help was able to put the fairy on top and with the highest bauble. The finished tree looks wonderful.

I'd already done the racing frogs thing. They started making it more and more biased towards people buying the book and/or paying to enter the VIP room, by eg giving a "pike detector" to all those who'd paid. And it's... well, it's tedious, once the novelty wears off.

minibug

[rab] Might you be able to put a chevron on a tag in the limerick game?

[Projoy] Thanks for locating it... Netscape managed to render the page properly so I never saw the damage it caused on other browsers. Can you check it's properly fixed? Oh, and congratulations to Raak for discovering one of the bugs in the html checker. *fumbles in prize box* Here, have the 1995 copy of the Edinburgh and Lothians edition of "The Phone Book".

Yep, all fixed.

Frogs

Ooh, looks like very silly fun. Which pond are you in, ZK?

cute bear...

[rab] I like the bear...

[ZK] nice to see you again... obviously the Univesity of Birmingham doesn't give people enough work... :p

[ink] stop it, I'm missing my unstoppable family already at the moment, and you're not helping. Doesn't help that I'm so close to going home...

[Breadmaster] Windymore Lake, I think. Tend to race in Fergal's Cove.
[nights] Thankyou *blushes* I'd like to give the University credit for my constant absenteeism, in fact it was my drama group and its criminal rehearsal-cum-social schedule, and my boyfriend, wot's been keeping me occupied. The University kept me busy a bit though :) Semester over?

it's all getting a bit hectic...

Can you believe it - I had a dream last night in which - due to a horrible hairdressing mistake - my hair turned blonde. What a nightmare...

[pen] I think you'd look simply dashing as a blonde.

[ZK] teaching finishes tomorrow, thank God... although I'm going to be down here until december 23 working for *a certain well known UK based supermarket chain* because, let's face it, ALL students are poor and I need the overtime...

.. trying to attract rab's attention ..

hey rab - are you there?

[pen] No, don't go blonde - perhaps dark purple? That'll look good. [BtD] Gorgeous! [nights] hectic - just hectic. [rab] nice bear. [spirit of winter] Rum. [mince pie] *scoff*

Guess Who

Catching up with a thread from above... I'm up for an imposters game as well.

*burp*

oops - what I meant to say was...
Number of meals out in the past 18 hours - 2.
Number of meals out in the past 18 hours that the boss has paid for - 2
Mince pies - 1 (same as at 9am, nothing to add here)

Should I be expecting a P45 or an invitation to join the Directors of the company?

possibly both.

An invitation to join the Directors of the company in *what*?

Attended

[Chalky] No, I've been sent to Coventry. (Literally).

Furcating

rab] Any news on El Furco's special status? I tried to shuffle it 'neath the line for a while to free up space for (probably) an imposters' game, but it dint work... Coventry nice?

Romance?

It's On. It's Off. It's On again, but not for another three weeks... Time to call Emergency Boyfriend #1. *sigh*

[pen] (((((((((((((hug)))))))))))))) it'll work out for the best - whatever the hell THAT might be. this is my first Christmas working in retail as opposed to catering. I'm certainly NOT loving it.

Grrr to cold weather

I'm ill and God I wish I weren't. I know it's only coldy/fluey stuff (at least I think that's all it is, might get the Doc to give me some sympathy in the morning, or at least to tell me to bugger off from wasting their time) but it's that kind of "I know it's going to get worse before it gets better" thing going on. Time to go home and retreat under the duvet in front of the telly I think. Good luck, pen.

Sent to Coventry

[rab] Coventry is not far from me if you fancy a pint..?

Man 'Flu

[rab] If it's bad... go to bed. Keep hot. Drink plenty of fluids and sleep. Don't drag yourself around if you feel shitty, you only spread it around anyway!
[In other news] Thanks goodness for emergency boyfriends...

Christmas Quiz

I've posted a Christmas Quiz if anyone's interested. It's also in Orange MC where there was another free game slot.

Knobbly

[heading in the blue box at the top]

Can you really post lonely hearts adverts?

lonely hearts are lonely for a reason...

[Knobbly] You can... although you risk attracting someone who thinks that Mornington Crescent is a fun thing to do. Is that really what you want?

[rab] fluids are the key, and not doing anything also helps, in my experience. [in other news] thanks to work I had trouble focusing by the end of my shift today *sob*

but what reason?

[Knobbly]Well, someone did before - last year, I think.

I do

[snorgle] 'twas Darren, if I recall.

I expect I'll be buggering off home shortly. The flu didn't come in the end; however, a (potentially nasty) ear infection did. The nice doctor gave me enough antibiotics to kill a horse and it seems to be clearing. Won't be until Christmas Eve till I get the full all-clear (and, with luck, internet access from home) so I'm not in the most joyful and triumphant mood just now. Heigh-ho.

*exits jingling bells*

Would ya believe it?!

Just found two cats abandoned at an empty council house. Called the RSPCA. They told me that they don't deal with abandoned cats! So much for their advertising campaign!

blimey

[UK] That's why the Cat Protection League exists. You should have someone locally who looks after them. Failing that, try the local paper for an appeal...

pussy cats

The Cats Protection League are usually more helpful - if you can get a local phone number, a real cat lover may come out and be willing to take them in. The RSPCA are usually hopeless, from what I've heard. At least with dogs, you can usually get the police to take them, I'm not sure about cats.

We are not amewsed

I went for them purely because we knew where the outgoing tenants went and I wanted them to go for a prosecution. Fortunately, one of my colleagues used to be an Animal Warden, and had the numbers of several RSPCA officers on her mobile. She called one of them and briefed him; he straight away got onto the outgoing tenants at their new address and got them to pick up the cats there and then in his prescence. Just goes to show it's not what you know, but who!

miow

Good job, UK!

More quizes

Cross posting
I take part in a couple of quizzes on-line and have created a testing ground group on MSN. If you like this one I will do another longer one next week. There are only two rules
1. only one answer per posting
2. no consecutive posting.

It's quiet..

in the morniverse! I think most people must be off doing Xmassy things.. I'm still in work, but will probably have a half day with boozing this pm.

who eat all the pies

Still working hard as ever at work, last day having a break till 4 January. The sausage rolls, coke and mince pies have arrived for lunch.

Ho hum...

Still working... will be tomorrow also... back in on 30th... bah!

ho ho ho

MMmm. chocolates, crisps, nibbles, wine..

Oh, and

not back in till January 10th. Yay! New Year in Dublin coming up..

pnelope

Mincing

Mince pie in lieu of lunch, but a meeting at 1pm, so looks like I have to keep my work hat on for a couple more hours. After this, I'm not back in the office until 4th Jan :o)

bits to the grindstone

Still working normally today. Working from home (yeah, right) tomorrow, then off until 4th Jan including seeing the New Year in in Paris.

plump

What holiday?

Working till 9pm today and tomorrow. Back at work on 27th every day till 3rd. I resisted the offer of overtime on Xmas day and Boxing day. Sob

Whee!

Mr BT's been and gone so I can now do this at home, kids. The engineer seemed very surprised that there was a line in situ already and he didn't actually need to do anything that couldn't have been done at the exchange. I've been trying to tell BT this for two months. Now, let's see if I can get that 75 quid back then, shall I?

Merry Christmas, One and All. I'll pop my head round the door from Edinburgh the next couple of days, before shooting down south to see the family. This would be Total Holiday if it weren't for the fact I should really apply for a permanent job that's come up and that has a deadline in January.

More Seasoning

Merry Christmas to all. The presents are wrapped. A mince pie and carrot have been left out, crossing my fingers for a seven o' clock lie in ;)
Over at Celebdaq, Celebrity Mornington Crescent itis a special congratulations to Christmas No1 DrQ.
It is also a sad farewell from CMC to long time Celebdaq player Chalky.

(Cross-posting) Merry Christmas, everyone!

Wishu

We wishu a merry Chrimulus. Pass the sherry, vicar.

...two front teeth

Seven was realistic but in the end we were woken up by Owen at just gone six. But it has been a good Christmas Day with lots of giving and receiving. Lord of the Rings extended box set, Monsterous Regiment, J J Cale - Anyway the Wind Blows - The Anthology, and best of all Brazil on DVD; No jumpers, no ties, no shirts for work. A very good Christmas indeed.

thank goodness that is over

Same as Inkspot - awoken at 6ish by excited eight year old. We had a non-traditional day, spending dinnertime at local Thai Boathouse restaurant (really good - highly recommended). We entertained guests in the evening with a buffet that no-one had any room for. Masses of pants and socks - surprisingly pleasant day!

polly1337

wtf is apropos??

BEN OWNS

internet tourettes there? cuh. merry christmas everyone. we had a very sedate christmas which is most unlike us. back at university on the tenth, but home for a week then back at *a certain well-know UK based supermarket chain* on friday. and russian politics research in the meantime. oh, and make sure you watch tomb raider, which is on TV either tonight or tomorrow...

Yesterdays news

As a habit over Christmas I don't buy a newspaper and avoid the tv news, World War III could break out, I just would not know. The major concern is how many more days is this turkey going to last.

Arriving back from more drinks in time to see Mr Bean. I was knocked out of my revellry my the pictures from Sri Lanka on the ITV News. The incredible devastation of this Act of God, visited on so many thousands, has taken my own jollity of celebrating the birth of the Son of God seem hollow. Tonight I am restless, trying not to think.

projects underway

Wa-hey! For the first time in ages, and at the risk of appearing anti-social, I've had the chance to mooch about undisturbed at home, and in addition to a satisfyingly long walk in lovely winter sunshine this afternoon (the third such walk this holiday - I'm doing really well), I've got the printer set up ready to produce my masterpiece photos saved up from various trips this year. Cooooooool :o). I'm a bit frantic about going to a rather smart New Year party tomorrow night though - it necessitated the purchase of a velvet coat. Will report back with results. How many people, when pissed, will think that I'm Lisa Tarbuck? Guesses please!

Tarbyness

[pen] Cultivate a very slight Scouse accent and you'll be set.

being as noone else has said it, happy new year. hope 2005 is everything everyone wants it to be.

penelisatabuckelope

omigod... I didn't get recognised at all! The party was just too posh and too arty for anyone to have even watched ITV!

penelisatarbuckelope

And a Happy New Year to you lot too! :o)

5

To all a happy new year!

0things

I'm pretty sure I typed "05" in my first Apropos... who stole it?

wasn't me.

[Tuj] I ain't not stolen nuffink ;o)

0ooo...

boo!

Catch me if you can!

Zzzzzz

mmmmmm...what...? noisey youngsters!

put the kettle on

The office is quiet, everyone seems to be in shock at being back at work. Thankfully very few emails.

Cute Teddy

Am I right in thinking that the little Teddy currently making an appearance top left of the Welcome (Menu) Page originally exhibited him~(or indeed her~)self on Rick's Beer powereed MC site of blessèd memory ? Or am I befuddled ? Happy New Year BTW.

I haven't had any email since about december 23. I love university vacations.
On a sidenote, happy birthday me...

HBTY
HBTY
HBDN
HBTY

[nights] Happy Biirthday! I suppose that makes you ancient, like the rest of us, now?

[pen] shut up shut up shut up. I'm only 20.

[nights] *splits ancient sides laughing and loses dentures* I'm forty this year, you young fool. I'm still not old!

[pen] and with an attitude like that, you never will be. more alcohol!!

XL-ent

[pen] No, at 40 you are still a youngster! (Well I am anyway).

[Boolbar] I know I'm still young - I've just installed broadband at home and only had to shout at one technical helpdesk person. I tried the old trick, calling again in the hope of talking to another techie, and it worked. This one knew what I was talking about and helped me install the right modem drivers. Only problem is, I have to sit on the bottom step of the stairs so that all the cables reach. The plan is to go wireless too, as both my flatmate and I want broadband on our laptops. At this rate, I'm going to have a house full of spaghetti.

Bloody hell it's fast :o)

Warning, team!

I'm migrating to a new ISP. This will mean new IP addresses, and so a longer downtime than the last change, because DNS will have to be changed. Should be 2 days or so, and not for a couple of weeks.

Yule never believe it.

Happy New Year to you all. I've had an, um, interesting Festive Period. Some of it is fairly standard seasonal stuff, such as most of the railway notwork being switched off for the duration of the holiday season, entailing a couple of hundred passengers all having to disembark at Leamington Spa and then proceed through a single set of double doors to watch buses hang around outside the station for a few minutes with doors resolutely closed before then departing, empty, into the sunset. The rest, however, is less so and I hope you excuse my indulgence of reporting it here, especially when we've been reminded of the true meaning of the word 'disaster' the last few days.

The plan was to have a quiet couple of days with the immediate family at my brother's house, taking a short trip down the road to have lunch with my Grandparents, Uncle and Aunt. To begin with, I was unsure as to whether I'd be able to go down south as my doctor had muttered something about the possibility of needing some mildly urgent surgery if the drugs she gave me didn't do what they were supposed to do. Luckily, the drugs did and I very nearly managed to avoid hospitals for the duration.

Unfortunately, Grandma was admitted a few days before Christmas, needing (I believe) a minor repair to her leg. So we went and chatted to her, and she seemed ok, if a little pissed off and bored. (This exacerbated by the fact that the women's magazines in the hospital shop were deemed by her 'pornographic'. She has a point.) I presented her with a gift of stationery that she had asked for, presumably so she could continue to compose her wacky free-form-jazz letters from time to time, which I said I enjoyed receiving (which much is true).

We then ambled across to her house where Grandad and the Aunt and Uncle were in situ for the second (of three) Christmas meals. This was all very jolly: Grandad's not entirely compos-mentis these days, but still tells a funny story or two. Unfortunately we had to break up the party atmosphere by taking him to a care home (he's not compos-mentis enough to be able to look after himself when Grandma's away). I can't say I felt entirely at ease with all the incumbents of the institution, but I suppose that's the way these places are. And I'm sure Grandad knows how to fend off the advances of dotty old ladies. Anyway, apart from some hoo-hah about medication and managing to kill a kamikaze deer that ran into the car on the way, this all passed off smoothly. We all, apart from my father (who was driving) slept in the car on the way home.

Understandably, Dad needs an early night. And what does he do, but trip on the stair leading into the bathroom and need taking to Casualty? He returns two hours later with his foot in plaster and hobbling about on crutches. To add excitement to the proceedings, my brother lives in a Victorian house where the loo is downstairs and the sleeping quarters up...

I learnt today that sadly, I shall not be receiving any more of Grandma's trademark letters on account of her passing away this morning. I'm told it happened as quickly and as peacefully as one can hope for once they realised the treatment she was on wasn't working and there was nothing more that could be done.

[rab] I'm sorry to hear about your grandmother.

[rab] likewise, my condolences on losing your grandma. my thoughts are with you at what I know is a really difficult time.

[rab] aww - hope she had a wonderful life. I really loved all three of my grandmothers [don't ask!] and they've all gone now and although they appear in my dreams on a regular basis, I miss them dreadfully.

[rab] Sorry to hear about that. I, too, have lost both my grandmothers but I only ever knew one of them. Still, one can't wind back the clock without being literal about it.

[rab] All sympathies extended. I lost a grandparent for the first time at the end of last summer, and it knocks you flat to think that someone who has had such an effect on your life and who you are has gone.

[rab] I hope Grandpa is going to be OK. Best wishes to you and your family after what sounds like a glum Christmas.

ISP move

Coo, new ISP is impressive. Migration is booked for the 13th, and they've already given me my IP addresses. This means that I can, in theory, set it all up to fail over fairly gracefully.

Crap, perhaps I should read the recent moves before posting. My condolences as well, Rab.

[rab] Might I add my commiseration to those already expressed? Regrettably most of us have to experience such events at some stage of our lives.
On a brighter note, your father must have received wonderful service at the hospital. If you had that problem here (at least in New South Wales) I'd lay odds on a minimum five hour turnaround and more likely eight. Some ten years or so ago I had a "bit of a turn" and was carted off to my local hospital by ambulance; the ambos weren't sure whether it was a heart thing or not. I lay in the A&E on a stretcher bed for five hours before a doctor saw me. This was a weekday afternoon, not the weekend. As best I can gather from the press the situation is much worse these days. So, congratulations to your health department and your local doctors.
I hope your grandfather is found decent long term care and that your father has a short recuperation.

Tx

Thanks, all. [Nik] Which ISP is that. I'm looking at getting adsl, but am a bit befuddled by the myriad of resellings of the same package.

runs in late and adds another condolence to the pile

I'm moving to Zen as they've long held a reputation similar to Nildram, but are currently a lot cheaper (only £1 less on the basic unmetered 512kbps package, but with free static IP blocks, where Nildram charge £3.50 for a single IP then £5.88 for a block of 8). The price difference wasn't enough to move, but Nildram's stability has been shocking for the last few months. It might be worth you checking out ADSLGuide - look at the 'fastest ISPs' chart, then poke around the forums for some of those ISPs.

Suspect packages

I don't have any flashy requirements (like fixed IP, or the need for decent upstream speeds or even email/webspace) so what I can't decide is whether a basic package whose only limitation that might affect me would be a bandwidth cap of something like 1 or 2 Gb a month, or if it's worth the extra few quid a month for an uncapped service. I don't do any internet gaming, download movies or whatever. The only big downloads I do are new software packages (I'm not doing anymore OS updates since the last one killed my laptop for a bit). I guess the question I ask is, how much bandwidth does a fairly normal amount of web browsing and the odd bit of ssh and scping actually consume?

Oh, and the other issue, of course, is that my only computer is a Mac, so a Mac-aware (if not outright friendly) ISP would be a bonus. In any case, I'll want to purchase an ethernet modem that's compatible with my wireless box.

General surfing doesn't use much - I tend not to transfer more than 1-2GB *total*, running the web and email servers on top, and I use BitTorrent every now and again. As for atypical system support, I've no idea who does what well, although I would expect companies like Zen and Nildram to be better than volume providers like AOL and Wannado.

Straightness

So, let's get this straight, even running a web server you use less than 2Gb a month?

From the Nildram access stats, "Total time on-line was 40 days 3:12:56s, during which time 2.206 GB were transferred." - this was the connection that went squiffy over christmas. It hasn't noticed me being dis/connected since then. I believe the 'transferred' figure includes uploads as well as downloads, but can't be sure. Most providers cap based on downloads and ignore uploads anyway. And let's face it, it's not a very busy web server (mostly text, which is all compressed for transfer).

On the other hand, er: 'You made 2 connections during October. Total time on-line was 17 days 23:28:28s, during which time 9.990 GB were transferred.' and 'You made 1 connections during September. Total time on-line was 38 days 4:43s, during which time 4.784 GB were transferred.' I was a very heavy BitTorrent user around that time, though.

broken link

[Nik] Tried Adsl Guide just the site I needed back in September ;^)

Limerickers

Please don't take offence because you know I love you all dearly and all that boll*cks - but The Limerick Game - gah!
Proper names should have Capital Letters
The first line should begin with a Capital letter
There's too much inconsequential nattering which breaks the flow
Finally - do we have to go to the far end of a fart every time something remotely 'welsh' is mentioned?
:-) :-) :-)

< mode=sarcastic > and yes, there really is a Chat Game on this server - you're reading it now < /s>

oo-er

Methinks I got out of bed the wrong side this morning.

[Chalky] Well, at least it only took you two minutes to notice...! :-)

[Incle Korks] I've had three cups of tea, so feel a bit better now. :-)

Chalky]

I agree, but I couldn't resist the limerick line.

also agreed, and I know I'm quite an offender. I promise to try and limerick things that make sense and scan, and use capital letters.

Pants

Grrr... slightly annoyed with my ex-funding body, who've quite reasonably asked for a report on what their money was spent on. Unfortunately, the covering letter of their request directed me to a webpage containing the wrong set of guidance notes. Although these were sufficiently similar to make sense in the context of the rest of the documentation, the differences are enough to require a further heavy editing session. I so wanted this finished, like, last year. Fucktards.

[rab] if it's any consolation, I'm currently putting together my section of a presentation on corruption under the Brezhnev regime in the soviet union. I had a text message while I was at work earlier from one of the group. "Hi (nights), hope you're getting on OK. I've been talking to (someone else), and apparently our presentation has to be quite analytical, so could you try and do that? thanks! see you tomorrow!".
So instead of being in bed at the moment, I'm sat in front of word trying to pull analysis from a rather dark place. gaaaah. (dies.)

The Incredibles

A turbulent day with Prince Harry still front page (good for the celebdaq shares), Busted are splitting unfortunately - McFly are sticking it out, Jackie Stallone must be shown the door of the BB House (John to stay). MC⁵ returns.

yes, hooray MC5 is back in my life. I was thinking that it was telewest being their usually competent selves.

It took until Sunday evening for MC5 to reappear on my interwebnet thingy ... but nice to see it again :o)

ooooh

yay - it's taken 'til around now for it to appear on my screen aswell. Which gives me the opportunity to 'pologise to Rosie in particular for the 'far end of a fart .... anything remotely welsh' remark which looked much more vehement on screen than was intended.

Cambrian flatus

(Chalky) Vehemence not detected. But you might have used a capital "W". :-)

Since youy mentioned the Welsh...

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.

MCISP5

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!

Speedy

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

Welsh Film Club

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

WFC

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.

Wales...

The Curse/Monster of Pen-y-fan

Robin

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!

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 airline

Amusingly, 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

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.

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.

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] 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"?

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.

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.

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.

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 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* :)

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.

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!

Does anyone know any up-and-coming children's illustrators who would like an interesting (paid!) project - creating projected backdrops for a show I'm doing later in the year. UK-based is ideal, but could be anywhere in the UK. Email for more or see here for more background.

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.

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.

[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.

[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 :-)]

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?

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.

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.

...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!!

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?

[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?"

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"?

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 ...

Ah...

Here's the page for aforementioned internal deodorant, although it's very coy about the fart business.

[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] 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)

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 :-)

[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.

stehvelo

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.

[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.

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.

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.

'Leccy

[Darren] Cor, another one! That's you, Kevan, me and this guy (note: lots of swearing. Lots. It's also a games-related website, for those with bonus-annoying work nannies).

[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*

[Chalky] I just did - I haven't been there for 6 months by the looks of it.
*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!

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...

[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!

But does Friday really make much difference when you're a student...?

Amy G

Arghhh

Nights - are you from bath uni cos we did that too? and if you are I am very confused............

Amy G

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.

Past your bath time.

[Amy G] Welcome to the boards, the games are played here at MCiOS and Orange. It may all seem strange at first but this will pass with time; so I've been told.

[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.

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.

[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.

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 ;)

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? ;-)

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.

[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...

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)

st d

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.

(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.

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.

[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 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.

Kim

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.

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.

[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)))))))))

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...

[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.

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.

[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...

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.

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.

(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.

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.

Knobbly

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 ...

Sancho

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

Sancho

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!

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?

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.

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.

Mouse trap

[rab] The only way I find works well is those wooden snappy traps baited with bread and cheddar cheese rolled into a small ball. Poison may work but although I've found it eaten, I've never found a dead mouse to confirm.
Alternatively try this.

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.

Wol

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.

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.

[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*

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?

Rugby

[Rosie] Yes, you should change your underwear. Other things you should know: Russia has an area of approximately 17,075,200 kmsq.

http://www.davebrownhats.com/
http://www.loc.gov/
http://www.threebrain.com/weeeeee.shtml

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 :-)

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.

[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

[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 ...

[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.

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.

jess

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.

jess

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.

st d

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.

That's funny

In Glasgow I thought they just nicked them. Oh well, live and learn.

Irouléguy

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?

Irouléguy

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.

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.

[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.

Irouléguy

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.)

Irouéleguy

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.

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...

[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.

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.

st d

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 :)

Peter Singer

I googled Peter Singer -- see, e.g. here. He's a hard-line utilitarian, who believes that defective newborn babies should be killed, and that meat-eating is wrong. Is his argument for taxes that the government will use our money more wisely than we will?

[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.

Singer

Ah, he gives a précis'd version of the argument on this page. It's sort of how I put it, but not quite.

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.

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.

Singer & Co.

[Raak] To add to that, I typed up the relevant bit of the Singer argument, which is here for a short while.

er... and hopefully your browser will word wrap that.

Libertarian Teuchters

Brad DeLong's follow-up to Belle Waring's post is pretty good, too.

[Breadmaster] Am I right in presuming you will be in the philosophy department at NUS? I ask as a big fan of the John Holbo/Belle Waring blog...

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!

[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.

[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.