It's reached 15°C for the first time this year at Maison Rosie, the second latest date for this since I started records in 1983. The average date is 22 March but is very variable, standard deviation 24 days. Earliest was 27 Jan 2003 and the latest 25 Apr 1986. Are we going to have a hot summer? HTFSIK.

Don't know where they came from; I didn't put them there, or here.

[Rosei] WTF is HTFSIK?

Better late than never

(pen) I knew you would. :-) The backslashes seem to accompany apostrophes and increase by one each time you preview. Test: (lots of backslashes removed, rab) 6 previews.

Well, thats (sic) that theory down the pan.

The game has nine lives, it seems.

Right - I'll investigate the slashing.

It's now "fixed" I believe. Let me know if you notice anything else that's a bit odd.

Do you want me to put the Dutch game out of its misery, or shall I just let you guess how many 'o's after the 'M' in Mornington are required. (It's not very many).

(rab) How many, FFS? I've tried up to twelve. Thanks for fixing the apostrophe problem, BTW.

[Rosie] It was three. You had a typo with "Crescent."

(Darren) I have a very red face. It's the monicker effect.

Three.

A story game has been created from the ashes of Dutch.
[Rosie] Today was a perfect day for the garden it was warm enough here in North Wilts to have lunch outside (south facing garden). If the sun shines tomorrow the curtains will be drawn to cut the glare on the tv while the Grand Prix is on.

(Inkspot) Not (gasp) Swindon? Nice here too, max 17.4°C.

Near to Swindon, just south of J16 of the M4. Little old ladies would lie in front of bulldozers than see Wootton Bassett become part of Swindon, and the town of Swindon is never mentioned in polite company.

I haven't got it yet :(

(Inkspot) Swindon must have something going for it even though they don't build steam locos there anymore because my niece's finacé commutes there every day from Chepstow while she herself works in Cardiff. Mad! (Phil) You disappoint me, man. Why? How the fuck should I know?

Not that one should really moan about it, but the clock in here is over an hour fast. At least, I hope it is.

The server thought we were in Berlin. I've now told it we're in London. (Although, as it happens, I'm in Croatia so I hadn't noticed the clock-skew).

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to have fixed the problem. I'll look at this more closely when I return.

[Rosie] Ah, of course. I had the first two words as "Hope the" and couldn't get my head past that.

[Rosie] Having lost your email address, you might want to look into the Pilgrim game... Likewise Simons, Botherer.

(Projoy) Just Been There, Done That. My email address is at http://www.geocities.com/pantsmcprofiles/profiles.html

[CdM] You just had to insert economics, didn't you. *falling around giggling*

The clock seems to have corrected itself now - I think. I'm confused by being in a different timezone.

For those who have an interest...
News on RugbyPilgIII

[Néa, CdM] Seeing that post reminded me of a thought I had in Hong Kong, which is that it appears to be rapidly approaching a phenomenon closely related to the 'Shoe Event Horizon'.
Currently perfectly good 20 storey buildings are being torn down to make space for 40 storey ones. This demolition increases the pressure on commercial space, thus increasing the value of the space in those buildings. Before long, before a building is complete the most advantageous thing to do economically will be to pull it down again and start buiding an even taller one. This process then becomes a self-reinforcing spiral.

Hope it is back up and running soon.

When the Beeb announced the other day that it was going to dipense with Grandstand on Saturdays, part of me jumped with joy at the ent of this leviathan. The coverage of sport on the BBC has gone downhill, it only covers what it feels comfortable with. Take snooker wall to wall at the moment completley at odds with the low viewing figures it achieves. How long does it give to Match of the Day to cover all the days football, they may only have the rights to the Premiership but why not cover the Chamionship as well. And as for the rugby... just don't get me started. Just to say it could be greatly improved, it is final whistle quick chat then stop for the footie results. Motor racing is on the website but nothing on the screen, there is a whole raft of racing outside F1. The propsal is to have specific programmes, on BBC1 to make way for other output mmmmmmmmm? More day time tv as if Mon-Fri was not enough!!

Personally, I like the snooker.

(Inkspot) These days if you want sport you pay for it, and a good deal more than the licence fee.

[Darren] Me too, which is rather a bad thing when one should be cramming all the maths one can into one's head, not wasting time watching things of that ilk...

(Tuj) While watching the snooker, work out in your head the angle of departure of the object ball as a function of the direction of the cue ball and the distance between them in ball radii. Differentiate it with respect to the cue-ball direction. Appreciate the skill of snooker players.

[Rosie] My forays as a very amateurish snooker player suggest to me there's more to be gained from experience and practice than maths skills! I'm told darts is good for one's counting skills also, though I've never found that much of a spectator sport...

Croquet ruined my snooker. Not that either of them are/were much good, but there was a definite detrimental effect.