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The Banter Page
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If you're wanting to get something off your chest, make general comments about the server, or post lonely hearts ads, then this is the place for you.
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Oh dear
[rab] you're going to an awful lot of trouble for the sake of my accent...
Wow, that's the worst one yet!
[Néa] Oh I don't know - it makes you look exotic! ;o)
Öh kæy
If that hasn't fixed it, I've still got two lines of defence.
Oh, and by the way, I meant 8859-1 above, not 8959. Silly me...
Go rab!!
That seems to have done it!
Go me!!
I got the front page picture story on this week's Motor Trader for one of my less highly-visible clients *grins*
Eccles
[pen]Happy clients can only mean two things, a big bonus and cakes all round.
[Inkers] happy clients are clients who give you even more work to do - yay!! But with a bit of luck, I'll be working on next year's London to Brighton run as well as the Goodwood FOS :o)
On this day in history
I do like Goodwood FOS and free tickets from the Sunday Times but not the rain that drenched us from the finish line back to the paddock, though the black bin liner with makeshift arm holes was better than nothing. Sunburnt and drenched all in one fantastic day.
To my emailbox Google sends me news alerts fo my home town. These days it is usually about the new natural gas terminal and pipeline. But today it sent me a suprise item from the US Navy . A little bit of Milford history I never knew before.
[Inkers] How do you get the home town stuff from Google then? I'm fed up of writing to complain to the editor of my home town's online local paper when they write things sooo badly and make funadamental mistakes. I used to work on that paper (under a different editor)and it was brilliant.
Weather report: Colleagues report temperatures ranging from -5 last night in the woods, -3 this morning in Uxbridge and -1 at the traffic lights as I was pulling in to the office. Brilliant sunshine, no wind whatsoever (the flags are hanging straight down).
(pen) -5°C in the woods? How did they know? Surely they can't be such a dedicated weather nut as I am. I once went for a walk 'round midnite with a thermometer in Slines Oak Valley, near to me. By torchlight I read it at -15°C, better than the paltry -11°C in my back garden up on the hill. -15°C is bloody cold whatever you're doing. This was 6/7 Feb '91.
[Rosie] Because he left his car there while he and a friend were out mountain biking in the dark (yes, they're both nuts) and the temperature sensor said so when he returned to the car two hours later. When I lived in deepest Wiltshire, the yard thermometer registered an overnight low of -11 once or twice... we were on a country estate kind of in a dip at the bottom of the downs close to Sandy Lane/Nine Elms near Calne. This would be December '97/Jan '98. I'd concur with bloody cold but hell, I love it! ;o)
[pen]If you go from the Google home page to About Google to Google Services & Tools in the Services go to Alerts. I put in Milford Haven - News, to be sent once a day.

This frost in the morning is giving some wonderful clear skies these last few evenings it looks like another big chill tonight.

[Inkspot] They do frost forecasts too?
Jimmy Osmond to win!!
Not sure as Google will be picking up from news or entertainment sites. But if you want to know about Jenny and whether or not she will win I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here try William Hills or one of the other bookies for the latest odds.
[Inkers] No, I don't want to know. I'm restricting my viewing to BBC2 for the next 6 weeks.
foggy outside
Can nearly 10 million viewers of the GBP be wrong? Missed it last night as I was playing with my new toys, but I'm starting to warm to Carol Thatcher which surely must be wrong.

I love my new computer... except for the Microsoft Home Suite which is awful it is more like the old Lotus Suite with 1-2-3 and WordPro the writer and spreadsheet are very poor relatives to Excel and Word and the package has no Powerpoint.

[Inkspot] In answer to your question, yes. They were wrong in the General Election too.
I'd go further. Almost all of the GBP are consistently wrong about pretty much anything where they're given the opportunity to voice an opinion. The "Great" is meant sarcastically.
"Reality"
How can anyone possibly care which of a bunch of talentless attention-seeking arseholes "wins"? The only possible source of entertainment could be a punch-up, which is no more edifying than hoping for a pile-up in Formula 1 or a truly "great" foul in football. Lee Bowyer, Roy Keane, where are you? Tickle my jaded palate.
*imagines a punch-up at the hustings and starts to get interested in politics again* Oh, maybe that's the way to civil war. Is there no decent fun to be had these days?
Remember me?
No. *teehee*
[Rosie] I care. There may not be as much difference between the parties as of yore, but... oh, wait, you were talking about the TV programme, weren't you?
(Bigsmith) Yes. You're from Bristol ISTR. (Projoy) Point taken. :-)
Fighting it out.
I've often thought - most particularly with respect to Northern Ireland before the GFA, but it could be applied to almost any bitterly fought dispute - that the way to solve the whole thing would be to get all the people who are so violently interested in their cause, on both sides, all together in one big stadium. An effort should be made to ensure that they had roughly equal numbers. Then supply them all with daggers, pick-axes, baseball bats etc. And let them fight it out between themselves where no-one else gets in the way and becomes "collateral damage". This to my mind would solve several problems at once:
a) You'd get a result - possibly a true "dead heat" I suppose where everyone was killed, but that would only happen occasionally.
b) You'd rid the world of some highly unpleasant people without having to bring back capital punishment.
c) It could be televised as Reality T.V. par excellence, with Ant & Dec commenting wryly on the various gruesome deaths being meted out.
d) If grudges persisted then there could be an agreed re-match, say every five years to allow for the next crop of fanatics to wipe each other out.
Now the funny thing is - if this, rather than being in a stadium was played out in a huge open field, you'd pretty much have the gameplan of a mediæval battle - except that we'd be replacing professional soldiers with volunteer amateurs. It's got to come.
(Rosie) Spot on.
Coming in during dinner
This is not the way to gain popularity but I must say that most of the entries in that game are the most laborious clunking nonsense and show nothing like the form and humour of the original ISIHAC game, which I'm beginning to doubt anyone has ever heard.
ISTR?
What's ISTR? I tried a search and came up with the Institute of Safety in Technology and Research, International Symposium on Trends in Radiopharmaceuticals or the International Society for Third Sector Research, none of which sound very ISIHAC.
ISTR
[Knob] Lol, no not ISIHAC - I Seem To Remember - you may also see IIRC which is If I Remember Correctly.
etc.
[Knob] This game may prove of interest - if of no help whatsoever.
Odd question
Hello. Slightly odd question, but does anyone know of any cordless landline phones where the base station and charger are separate units? I ask cos I think my current phone (a hand-me-down from the folks) is a bit rubbish, but I don't really need to buy two handsets given that I live in a 1bed flat. However, the phone point is in a really silly place and I don't want to trail a cable for miles so that the phone can be left to charge where I can actually get to it.
goodness gracious, MC5 indeed be back. Hello everyone. =)
Cable confusion
[rab] Yes, though I cannot give you brand(s) or model number(s). It does however involve having two (usually small plug pack) power supplies (unless the 'receiver' has one built in) - one for the receiver - that's the one which connects to the landline - and one for the 'phone handset, which is simply a battery charger. I've just had a look at mine, an el-cheapo Panasonic unit, but it does not have the facility though I'm sure that one of my previous units (Uniden?) did, even though I didn't use it.
portachat
[rab] I've got a BT Quartet system which I bought about 4 years ago [though mine is only the 'duet' version because I didn't see the need to buy 3 handsets]. The base station with aerial plugs into phone point and power socket down here in my kitchen/officy place and the portable handset sits on its own charger which is plugged in upstairs in one of the bedrooms. The phone itself often gets lost in one of the bedrooms but appears to keep its charge for days without sitting it back on its power plinth. Very handy - it's even effective from my friend's house which is a few doors down the road.
Duet
[Chalky] It's more of a 'monet' that I'm after: base station + 1 handset + charger separate from the base station (as the base station has to sit in a place where I don't want to put the phone to charge).
clarification
[rab] That's exactly what I have. Base Station + Handset/Charger in a different place. Perhaps I didn't make myself very clear.
further clarifiaction
ie. the Base Station doesn't have a handset with it.
Cool I'll look into that.
Whee!
My contract's just been extended - only by a year thus far, but it's a start.
[rab] Yay!
Whee!
[rab] Congrats :o)
I've just got the go-ahead for a new pilot scheme which could double the size of my department :o)
aaah ... nice to be needed :-)
neckless
My polo neck became completely detached from my sweater during the course of today. The stitching unravelled and I'm now wearing a crew neck sweater with a rather neat and separate collar. Watch next year's catwalks...
I thought you meant your actual neck had come off for a minute.
(Darren) That's also how I read it just momentarily, and had visions of pen's out-of-body experience. The mind boggled.
site navigation
Is it just my browser, or do the individual game pages no longer have a 'back to main' button?
[Juxta] Try bottom right - a very discreet pale grey on my browser: It should say "pre - up - next".
weather report
It's vary vary dark - hailstorms and lashing rain. Glad I'm at home.
met check
We've had lashing rain and wind this morning and i expect there'll be more, but as I speak, I'm squinting at my PC screen because the sun is hitting it... we've got a window in the maelstrom of meteorological matter right now :o) It's the most light I've seen for about five days.
Someone here once had a go at me for banging on about the weather. Well, thats's Witshire Wisdom for you. :-) Anyway, half an inch of rain measured at Hughes Hall this morning but still a very dry year overall (about 70%) and the grass isn't yet squelchy. Tap your barometers; you won't see them this low very often especially in the south-west.
[Rosie] I'm fickle, me :-)
[Chalky] thanks. =)
and weather!
Also, had our first (and quite possibly last) snow of the year here in Seattle yesterday. I threw a snowball and everything. =D Usually we don't get any until January or February, if at all.
(Juxtapose) Seattle's climate, as far as I can make out, is as close to British as anywhere in the USA, perhaps just a shade warmer. Of course if you're a displaced Brit, as opposed to a Yank, you won't need telling that.
[Rosie] From Boston, originally, never yet hopped the Atlantic (although I would dearly love to). It's nice to know I'd feel right at home over there. =)
Boston, Mass of snow
(Juxtapose) Seattle looks a deal milder than Boston in the winter, which I'd imagine is also quite windy and raw. The worst thing about the British winter is the light (absence of). If it's cloudy as it usually is then it's pretty well dark by 4 pm, and earlier still in the north.
The darkness
Was in Tallinn (Estonia) the weekend before last. It was dark there by 3pm local time.
MWP
What happened to Wild Pants MC?
[Bigsmith] It died and we all moved to other sites. That's the most detail I think we ever really got. Not that there was a coverup or anything (but now I think of it...).
Yes, I did once criticize nights for ending a post with an ellipsis.
The Death of Pants
(Darren) So it was you, was it? :-)
Yes, I pulled Pants down.
(I bet you'd all thought we'd seen the last of the Pants MC puns, eh?)
[Bigsmith] You didn't happen to take a side trip to Kernu Commune, did you? Just wondering...
Dead Pants
[Bigs] If you're really missing the Pants style, you could always play on Orange in Pants mode
introducing a new theme
I've just put my flat up in Lincolnshire on the market, and have made an offer on a bungalow up there for my mum to live in. Is it unethical to charge her rent until she sells her house and puts the cash in to pay for it?! This is all sooo exciting...
Fog-bound here in Herts. Dead busy here in the office, but all good.
Mist and Fog
[penelope] What a strange question. If you are merely acting as a go-between (meaning you are financing the transaction until such time as your mother raises her own funds), then yes. Depending on your relationship with your mother the amount 'charged' could be commercial rent or simply enough to cover your costs in bringing the deal to a closure. Should you be a rich and grateful daughter then you could, at your discretion, ignore your expenditure and not mention the subject.
I suspect that most of England will be under varying degrees of fog today - the football World Cup draw was finalised last night ... joking ... honest ... joking ... truly, truly.
Fog
(Dujon) Widespread fog today in low lying areas but none here up on the Downs. Both Gatwick and Heathrow have had fog all day as you will see from this and this and if you really fancy some cold stuff try this.
How can anyone live in such temperatures? Minus 34°C for heaven's sake! I am aware that some of our North American friends experience such extremes but I cannot, literally cannot, imagine what it must be like. Add to that the nearly three feet of snow they had in the previous twenty four hours, which would hardly warm one's feet, and I'm ever so pleased I'm not living there.
Brass monkeys
(Dujon) The -34°C is rather mild for Jakutsk in Dec/Jan. The mean is -43°C. There is no wind, or snowfall, but the ground is snow-covered from what fell in Oct/Nov, typically about a foot. The only weather is fog, which can last for a week or more with temperatures down to -51°C, the lowest I've seen in 4 yrs daily monitoring. The short summer is like that of central France and it hardly ever rains. I bet they make the most of it. There is an even colder place, Ojmjakon, where the January mean is -50°C with no weather at all, just brief sunshine while the sun crawls shyly above the horizon for a few hours. Young kids are not allowed out of it goes below -45 because the cold air can damage their lungs. If you were so daft as to put the mouthpiece of a brass instrument to your lips in that degree of cold it would blow more than two semitones flat, the least of your worries, I'd say. Perhaps there's a special short Russian trombone.
Cockup, monickerwise
Why has my name come out wrong? Grr!
Semitones of trombone-flatness
Now there's a metric to trump Degrees Stevie, I do believe.
Flat brass instruments?
What's the science behind that then, Rosie? I would have expected extreme cold weather to reduce the size of the instrument, thus shortening the column of air one needs to vibrate. I would expect this effect to sharpen the instrument.
Flat horns
(Phil) The instrument does get a tiny bit shorter (about 2 mm at -50°C) but the overwhelming effect is the reduction in the speed of sound as the temperature goes down. Since there is a standing wave in the instrument the lower speed causes it to take longer to go down and up the instrument, thus lowering the frequency and therefore the pitch. In effect the instrument becomes longer as far as the standing wave sees it. Of course the player's breath warms it up quite a bit, about halfway beteen ambient and body temperature. Even allowing for this (which I didn't in my original posting), the adjustment is about one inch on the tuning slide for 20 degrees and this is just a bit more than is usually available. So if you're playing outside at 0°C all you could do would be to play "short", as they say. Fortunately I don't do marching bands or Sally Army stuff.
So presumably in old, draughty churches without heating it must be impossible to get accurate tuning for the organ for the same reason.
It's pretty difficult to get accurate tuning on any kind of church organ in any case...
True. Accurate was the wrong word... consistent?
(Darren) That's correct. The whole instrument would be flat and it wouldn't sound wrong but any other instrument accompanying it would have to tune down a bit. Rather difficult with a piano. One way round it would be to have a small bleed of a lighter gas into the air the organ uses. You could use hydrogen, helium, neon, methane, ammonia or hydrogen fluoride. Perhaps I should patent this lunacy.
Wouldn't some of those risk producing the Amazing Exploding Organ? That puts me in mind of the Large Hot Pipe Organ which produces sound by exploding a propane/air mix in its pipes.
The LHPO
(Darren) It's blown itself to pieces and taken the website with it. I drew a blank with your link, alas. Helium would be safe enough and it's much cheaper than it used to be. It would be amusing to use sulphur hexafluoride, totally inert and non-toxic. It would lower the pitch by over an octave. I think I'd better shut up now.
Large Hot Pipe Organ (thanks to google), with MP3s (although the site doesn't seem to have the bandwidth to supply them very well).
Cold Brass
My curiosity is partially because I'm playing carols at the village Christmas tree tomorrow evening with the local brass band. Getting 40 or so of us in tune may be interesting if we get a cold evening.
What instrument do you play again, Phil?
Brass monkeys
(Phil) If all the brass is out of tune by the same amount it won't matter. I suspect there will be enough left on the tuning slide to accomodate an average cold evening.
[Darren] I'm currently reviving my interest in playing B-flat cornet, having not really played it for nearly 3 years.
[Rosie] That was what I thought. I might have to get a bit of practice in tonight, and give the old horn a good clean.
(Phil) I hope your lip won't have gone. I wouldn't dare go three days without blowing a few raspberrires down my nine-foot tube. Brass is a treadmill; constant practice just to stand still.
I had that dream again last night - the one where my teeth crumble and fall out. :o(
[Rosie] I was jolly chuffed with my performance as 2nd Cornet. Good news was that my part had nothing above more than an octave above Middle C, so my lip survived with no problems. They've now gone and asked me to join them on Sunday morning to play at various points around the village, traditionally accompanied by hip-flasks. Mr Phil has given permissions, so it looks like I might end up signing up to join permanently in the New Year.
s/Mr/Mrs
Top C
(Phil) Shouldn't be too bad. One is expected to get that note on the 'bone (not too often) but the worst thing about it is reading it, being all in bass clef. The rule is that if it's in the stratosphere and on a space it's a C, otherwise it's a B (usually Bb). If it's a D the composer/arranger is not a trombone player. These high notes are far better played by trumpets and cornets anyway. Power to your embouchure. :-)
[Rosie] I used to feel the same when I played violin, and the music dropped off the bottom of the treble stave. I've never been fond of leger lines.
I always get annoyed when a composer writes a bottom B# for a cello. At first sight, this note appears not to be on the instrument.
[rab] It can't happen too often, can it?
The leger domain
(Darren) Although leger lines are part and parcel of trombone playing (especially 1st and 2nd trombones) I'm very glad they don't go into Tenor Clef which to me would make it unreadable instead of merely difficult. Treble Clef is never used because most 'bonists can't read that either unless like me they're also piano players.
They're dropping like flies
Blimey. Betty Tucker in The Archers AND Nana Moon in East Enders both die in one evening.
[Raak] It happens often enough for you to realise that you shouldn't get caught out by it, if that makes any sense. Depends on what key you're in, you see...
Sharp's the word
(rab) There are B#s all over the place in Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 78, which I am currently murdering. There are few in the Moonlight Sonata too.
dreams
I have that one too, Pen. =/ icky icky
How do you get rid of the smell of a stink bomb? Some little f*cker put one under my front door mat while I was out shopping tonight. I'd like to rub it all over his best Nikes.
Season of goodwill
Hope Rosie doesn't mind me quoting this in here [picked up from Limerick Game] ..
"(Chalky) Cheers. The busiest thing I am doing at this time of the year is firing off apologetic letters to all those who sent a Christmas card to my late Mum. Oh, the sins of omission."
[Rosie] How soon one forgets! This is quite a poignant time for you in some respects, 'though I suspect you will end up doing exactly as you wish, according to your personal bodyclock, and having a rip-roaring time. Have you been deluged by kindly invites so you're 'not on your own at Christmas'?
xmas preps
I've just stirred 2kg of chocolate truffle mix into a glossy, brandy-infused bowlful of indulgence, now it has to cool off to almost-solid in the utility room (luckily it's bloody cold in there) so I can scoop it out with a melon-baller into about 400 truffles. Yum. And I'm still in my pyjamas :o).
I think I'll have my mum and a friend coming for xmas. The friend was coming over from France to stay between christmas and new year anyway, but brought forward his trip because of a funeral, so I've insisted he should come here. [Rosie] The point I'm getting around to is, the prospect of having someone new and 'not family' at christmas is lovely. If someone offers you an invitation, accept it. They may need to invite you as much as you feel like accepting it. Sometimes, when you dilute a family, it gets better.
And another thing
An unseasonal December wasp has died in my salsa dancing shoe. What does it mean?
notes and queries
[pen] .. the inside of your salsa shoe is a more effective as a wasp killer than the minus degree temperatures outside? What does this say about your shoe?
Christmas invites
(Chalky) No invites. I think friends know me well enough not to do that though I wouldn't mind going to my various cousins in N London, an agreeable lot, but maybe they too know that I won't mind being on my own. Or perhaps they're having a tremendous row about what to do at Christmas. You never know. :-) (pen) If a Morniverser turned up on the doorstep they'd be welcomed with open arms. It would be a most original way to spend Christmas. Re - dead wasp. It means you've got hot feet. Of course this should be interpreted metaphorically and with the kindest possible intentions. :-)
Early Christmas present
New laptop. Whee! Thanks, HMG.
*hangs over*
Christmas office do last night *groogh*. About 50% of the company stayed at my house last night, and another 12%, not wanting to be left out, appeared on the doorstep for breakfast this morning.
Ooh! Shiny!
[rab] Snap! New laptop appeared on my desk over lunch.
I think I make the mistake of not leaving my desk at lunchtime. If I did, maybe I would get a new laptop too.
Aah! My eyes!
Something Needs to be Done about high-resolution screens. This laptop has a 1900 by 1200 screen 13 inches wide, but of course all the fonts are exactly the same size in pixels as they were when 640 by 480 was the largest screen you could have. The first thing I had to do to make the laptop usable was to set all the options to get text in a readable size and a mouse pointer I can see. There needs to be a switch at some point from specifying font size in pixels to specifying it in millimetres. (Points won't do, having for better or worse been tied to pixels when a pixel was about the same as a point, and having shrunk along with them. There are probably people nowadays who think that a typographical "point" means a point of light on a screen.) The display would inform the computer of its physical size, and all GUI elements would have their sizes specified in physical distances instead of pixels.
[Raak] That is rather silly...

[pen] We had our works do last Tuesday night. A few of us managed to struggle in the next day... I went home after an hour. That was Very Naughty Indeed.

[rab] you didn't plan to work a whole day? V.N.I. indeed. There's no let-up here... besides which, I got a promotion this morning and am now account Manager :oD. Despite that, I still feel hungover, and very, very tired. There's a queue stalling at the printer right now, and it's making me cry, that's how tired and emotional I am!
[pen] It's not that I didn't plan to skive off a whole day, it's kinda what ended up happening... Off school now though, whee!
one more day
I'm working all day tomorrow... bliss! I might take my laundry to dry on the office radiators as I don't have to have the heating on at home and there's no-one else in. By the way, snow is forecast for the south-east in the middle of next week :o)
Wibble
Strangeness.
Sorry 'bout that. Having server problems but not, it appears, with this website. Play on.
plays
Not that there's much to do. I've been training for the past week, so it's taken me till now to sift through my emails! And I think we're all finishing about 1pm, for some drinks. I'd better get food as well, as I haven't had breakfast and the canteen is way too busy for me to be bothered to go up there.
food on tap?
[snorgle] You have a canteen? Wow. Even though I have the best job in the world, we still have to bring our own lunch in or head out in the car at lunch time to buy it. Today I have pasta and tomatoes left over from last night, mircowaved :oP
Christmas cheer
Don't be surprised if this site falls over during the Christmas period. I think we're being hacked.
point sizes
[Raak] But pixels are quite essential if you're working with a projector and have no idea what the actual size might be!
Merry Christmas everyone!
(Uncle K) You're joking. All my friends have disappeared and my family is 250 miles away. All Christmas does is to exacerbate problems. Why don't we just kill it?
bah humbugness
[Rosie] You could always come to the Middle East. Not much of a Christmas here to complain about... :-D
[Projoy] Ok, there would be some issues of detail to work out in moving to a world of mm-measured font sizes (projectors these days are smart enough to just show the same pixels that are on the laptop screen, however many or few there are), but it would be an improvement on the present situation of fonts getting smaller and smaller as the screens get better. With 150 pixels per inch it's painful already, what will it be like at 300? When you print things out, they don't get smaller and smaller as the printer resolution gets better. The issue has already been addressed there, and things come out, for the most part, at constant physical size.

Happy merries all. Who needs friends and family when there's Bach on the radio 24 hours a day?

Starr quality
What's Mrs Ringo doing on the radio, Raak, I'd have thought her more suitable to the visual media. Then again I've not seen her for years so maybe it's for the best.
[rab] Thanks for dragging the site back. Did it kick and scream?
(flerdle) Not a bad idea! Must go abroad next year. Anywhere. Britain around Christmas is a tiresome and silly place. (rab) May I endorse Duj's thanks. It's all smoke and mirrors as far as I'm concerned.
Merry (not-location-related-not-family-related-not-anything-other-than-the-spirit-of-goodwill-related) Christmas. =)
Checking in from Mum and Dad's
Wireless networks are great! Pleased to inform that everything seems fine on the server front. Will check with Andy when I next see him. Trust everyone's Christmas was good (mine was) and that the impending calendar-related novelty is as fun.
filling The Gap
Hang the expense, I'll put the central heating on now.
hny
*drops lump of coal*
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