(Pen) There really is no mystery about them, they're just hopeless!!!

Anyone want to hear about salsa dancing? I'm going to tell you anyway. It was brilliant! My first time, and the men were still hopeless - they're supposed to lead, and either I'm not listening carefully enough or they're too scared to be firm and lead properly. I suspect it might be my fault... mwahahaha!

(pen) Most men, and especially musicians, can't dance unless they're pissed, and don't actually like it, except as a grope. But some can, and I wish you well. :-)

I can't dance unless it's a really grinding techno beat. at which point it doesn't matter. however I echo Rosie when I say that some men (including me) enjoy dancing 'properly', and I'm sure you will find one. but you can't have me for several reasons, the most important of which being that an ocean separates us. *sigh*.

I'm with Rosie, penelope.
I have not had a dancing lesson in my life to date. I also suspect that I am one of a majority of males in that situation. Years ago, as a teenager, I looked at some books on the subject (well, one) which was full of black and white footprints. I gave up. When I watch accomplished dancers - and I'm not speaking of those 'professionals' who trip the light fantastic with fixed grins on their faces - I can see that many people gain much pleasure from the exercise. You are now allowed to address me as Wallflower.

Please, chaps, don't give up. Dancing with a man leading is one of the nicest things I've done for a long time. They're itching for more men to join in, and if you just take a deep breath and dive in with a beginner's class (which is what I did last night), follow the teacher for an hour - which is all enjoyable - you'll be rewarded with a floor full of ladies to choose from. It's not hard, you just have to count: one, two, three... five, six, seven... and practice. The music is great, they hand out flyers for more events while you're there - I could dance four nights a week without a permanent partner and without driving too far at all if I wanted - and they even sell beer there. What more could you want? My motivations for dancing? To get out of the house, perhaps find a nice man to dance with more than once, and to get a smaller arse!

Oh, and the mystery of the date-standing-me-up on Sunday night has been explained. He was locked up in a police cell for the weekend when the officers returning his escaped dog realised there was a warrant for his arrest after previously being charged with being drunk in charge of a vehicle when he slept in the car after a wedding month ago. He got the date of his magistrate's court appearance wrong and failed to attend, so was locked up on Saturday afternoon, and had to wait there until a court appearance on Monday. I don't think you could make it up. I could make a fortune from writing a newspaper column about my experiences as a single woman... or has it already been done?

I'm laughing, actually, but I don't think I'll be talking to him again.

I rest my case!!!

(Pen) Still, it could have been worse, he might have actually turned up for the date. I can't imagine what kind of trouble you would have ended up in, probably something to do with drunken dogs wearing tutu's!!!

[pen] My wife used to go to Salsa in Berkhamsted, but hasn't been for a while. No way I'd go with her - one of the benefits of being married is that I don't feel compelled to dance very often these days. I dare say that if we ever got divorced or separated I'd have to once again suffer the terpsichorean muse - but until then I stay seated and quaff the vino instead.

[penelope] You can also take heart from this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3006130.stm

[penelope] Not that I'm saying you're over 75 (on the contrary, I've always considered you to be something of a pin-up around these parts) but at least you can see there are advantages to dancing.

[Darren] Thank you - the advantage to dancing is you know your dance partner isn't locked up...
*blushs at the pin-up reference, but drains to a deathly pallor when she realises this could mean a dart-board pin-up*

Everyone under 75 qualifying as a pin-up sounds like an interesting rule. I know that's not what you said, Darren, but it would be.

[Blob] Hmmm. Mr Néa's view is that if he hadn't been married, he never would have had to dance - as it is, he had to dance the waltz at his weddings. Personally, I rather enjoy dancing provided it's with a guy who can lead. I don't dance very well, so the man has to be good at it.

is it bad that every time I go dancing, I wake up the following morning with sore feet, shoulders and neck?

Depends if you were breakdancing or not.

Or the type of car in which you slept. penelope might be able to help.

I've noticed in the last few years, a growing tendancy to groan slightly when getting in and out of chairs, regardless of the previous evenings activities. I don't suppose this is something that's going to improve with age! The funny thing is, when I'm out on the river and especially when other people are egging me on, I do all kinds of crazy stunts, but when I get home, I do the old "wait till your my age" routine, so that my flatmate makes me a nice cuppa, Hee Hee.

[Pooksad] You are clearly starting to experience the hypocrisy of old age. This is also manufested in the desire to resort to adages ssuch as: "Don't do as I do, do as I say,", and "When I was young..." Keep a note of the symptoms.

If only I had listened to what my mother told me when I was younger.

[Pooksad] For more symptoms, see the "You know you're getting old when......." game in the archive.

(Raak) Duly noted and alarmingly familiar.

Sorry it's been a while. Check the info page to read about posting links (you get a couple for free, at least until we start getting spammed again),

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hiding text but not, note, HTML (yet)

and the HTML rewriter that automatically Goods your Bad HTML. This is a work in progress, so feel free to point out where the dwimmery failed. I ran it on all 47000-odd existing moves, fewer than 100 of which caused big problems. The only thing that might catch you out is that if you put a paragraph in the middle of a bold move, only the first bit appears bold. I'm working on that.

Enjoy.

Ooooh! Funky.

*cheers*

Thanks for all your hard work!

Well - Hello again :-) :-)

Hip hip

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hooray!

Hip hip

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hooray!

Hip hip

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hooray!

Hello all, I've not been here before in this or a previous guise, so I can't say whether this is better or not.

It looks really good! Adding my podume of thanks to the pile.

Welcome back! Very tasteful reveal buttons! BTW, what's the difference between "silky smooth" and "safe but dull"? I can't see a difference on Safari.

Ah, it's the dotted borders!

Hap hap... hoozah!

Hurrah! I like the fact that everyone is now called Monica. It suits my new latin temperament, apart from the fact that tonight it was a bad lesson. Despite dancing A LOT, I got everything wrong and my deodorant failed. :o(

Hello everyone.

Welcome back

Nice to be back in a posh new home. Well done, rab, and thanks.

Oh well done Rab. It looks rather excellent!

Any possibility to reinstall the script for reordering the Jigsaw story? Or perhaps Orange might host it, since it's an Orange game?

Thanks.

[Raak] Not just the borders, but also the placing of the corner elements and spacing/padding within the main box. The 'proper' version is able to apply the right styling to all elements based on where they appear; the IE version has to fake a lot of this by hand and is therefore more likely to apply the wrong spacing to the wrong elements. It just looks shit, basically.

[Raak] Bugger, I don't think I kept a copy of that script. Perhaps you could see if Dunx is happy to host, and mail him a copy. If he's unwilling send it along and I'll pop it up somewhere.

And I can get in at work! Double Hoozah!

Splendid to see mc⁵'s return to the Morniverse from realms unkown and unknowable. I also like the

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Little hidden thingy

- very smart !

[rab] How does one return to the menu ? I know you can use the browser "back" button, but isn't there usually a pressable button - or am I being dimnthick as usual ?

Aha - it's that faint little "up" down the bottom there isn't it.

Hi folks. Nice colour scheme Rab! I must confess I feel a little underdressed.

Very very shiny!!

...but suddenly it appears to not like my name.

Hm. This game accepts the é but the Limericks game didn't. Mysteeeerious.

In the team game, when using IE, I am unable to see the team clours of the persons name wehich could be why some players have confused web colors. Firefox renders them as they should be seen in IE they all the default colour are as in this.

Hallowen is over now to look forward to Bonfire night. We will probably be going to an organised event on Saturday and will be taking along our 4 year old for the first time. Previous years the show has been quite spectacular.

Still don't understand about the magic word thing... well, I'll worry about that if I ever want to post links.
In the mean time, to go off on a tangent; I currently have posession of the email adress a.n.onymous(@hotmail.co.uk) and no longer want it. If anyone can convincingly explain why they need it, perhaps it can be arranged, rather than just let the account time out and go to waste.

(Knobbly) The magic word is secret (seriously). Send me an email and all will be revealed. My email address is at http://www.geocities.com/pantsmcprofiles/profiles.html#ros

[Néa] Dunno why that was. It should cope with füññy chåractérs better now.

[Inkspøt] I've colourised the colour as well as the moniker now.

Checking the time?

[rab] In the words of a certain fictional television civil servant, "he who would keep a secret must keep it a secret that he hath a secret to keep." One of the reasons I removed the prompt from the enabling field over at that other place and made it unobtrusive is that most of the time no prompt is needed or wanted. When it is, the user will get an explanatory message. As long as people are shown that a special word is wanted (whether it's actually wanted or not for any given post) and without the hint obviating the need to ask, they're going to keep asking about it.

(Dan) My favourite smells are ortho-nitrophenol and tertiary butyl alcohol, each in their own way nasally sumptuous. What that makes me I'd rather not know.

[Dan] True. And here you get a couple of links for free, so there's not even any reason for it to appear under normal circumstances.

[rab] Two comments beyond my earlier wordless praise.
1. The look of the site really is excellent -- very sleek, very clean, very functional.
2. I tried to access the AVMA game on the site by cellphone today and got a "memory full" message. I'm able to access games on Orange and mcios without problem. Any reason that you know of why this site would be more problematic?

[CdM] 1. Thanks. 2. No idea. Did any of the other pages work?

Nice one, rab - good to see it back.

Jolly nice rab, well done! I look forward to wasting the other half of my day here.

And I'd say this is

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very clever and definitely not

poo

I don't manage to see much tv, and period dramas are a real turn off. So it has been a real pleasure to watch Bleak House these last couple of weeks shown as short episodes. The cast has been great and it has been wonderful to see the various plot lines emerge and slowly twist together. I'm hooked.

We are back! Great work, rab. My apologies for not appearing earlier but a local storm put my ADSL modem to the ulitimate test; it failed. Prior to that my hot water heater began to urinate, my little router seems also to have suffered from the modem's spike syndrome and my blood pressure thingywhatsit decided it had a mind of its own and inflates its cuff at random moments: It's not been a good week financially as that's about £500+ out of the reserve. *sobs and looks with large green eyes for sympathy*