[pen] I do sincerely hope you didn't get the two parking tickets at the same place ;-) Seriously though, aren't there yellow lines and so on in your area?

Phil, I'm not daft. I got one last weekend in Notting Hill due to lying naked on a couch still having a very expensive facial at the time the parking ticket ran out, and another in Ealing on Sunday due to parking on a single yellow line on a Sunday afternoon. Anywhere other than London, Sunday afternoons on a single yellow would be OK, wouldn't they?

Do I spy candles on the MC⁵ logo? *brings out a cake *

Since the parking came under the council here the interpretations have become very strict and a lucrative income stream. The FM manager of our office is going to bring in a clamping policy for unauthorised parking in allocated staff areas, I can see trouble ahead. Our council members tend to see themselves above such policies, no smoking in Civic Buildings inc meeting rooms and private offices seems not to apply to them only officers and members of the public.

The number of candles may be misleading - the site doesn't celebrate its 4th birthday until Jan 16th.

I, on the other hand, ...

I think someone has vandalised your menora rab. :o) MHROTD.

Drat - just missed saying it on the day itself

[Sierra, Chalky] Thanks.

More flat-based excitement this morning. The electricity went off during Mrs-rab-to-be's shower, which I thought was just a generic power cut since no fuses had tripped in our fusebox. A note of warning was sounded by the fact that our neighbour across the way wasn't experiencing any trouble, nor had anyone else called Scottish Power when I phoned them. The chap's been out and I'm told that the supply cable from the distribution box in the stairwell to our fuse box exploded as a result of too much load imposed on it by our shower (of all things - I would have thought the oven were more power-hungry). We were lucky it didn't cause a fire or disrupt the whole street's supply. Apparently it's all due to the fact that the previous owners (or their electrician) didn't inform Scottish Power that extra capacity would be needed when they did up the bathroom. There's quite a lot of things they didn't seem to do well, humph.

[Rab] Happy Belated Birthday... and commis for your water/electricity woes. You'll just have to boil up a few pans of water and take a bath together :o)

(rab) I think showers take 10 kW, or about 40 amps, which is a lot. With a 10-kW oven you could start a cottage indusry smelting iron ore.

[rab] They didn't find the homonculus you made from bits of dead bodies in the cellar or the high-voltage equipment needed to reanimate it then?
Good to see that the legendary Scottish parsimony extends to the current carrying capacity of domestic wiring. "Just enough and nae morrrrrrre, d'ye ken?".

[Rosie] Yes, 40A would cause quite a glow...

[SMike] Nice theory, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that the electrics probably haven't been upgraded since they were installed. I estimate that this would have been around about the time that electricity was invented, given that the block was erected in 1897.

Presumably the wiring spec was predicated on the widespread use of the household Wimshurst Machine to make up the difference for those high-current spinning wheels and so forth.

In America the current per watt would be at least twice what it is here and the said shower would take nearly 90 amps. The wires would need to have four times the cross-sectional area. I suppose they know this. It does have the advantage of being safer, at least in one aspect.

Brief and forced hiatus there. Nothing to worry about, moving up to university for my second year. All very exciting. Now living in the delightful town of Royal Leamington Spa, and after around a month there's finally internet in our household.

[Tuj]Good to see you back, and good luck and enjoy your second year

If I wanted to find out about Nail Fungus, I can't think of a better place to go.

Tuj] Welcome back too. Whereabouts in Leam? I grew up in Warwick and went to school in Leam. One of the first places outside the big cities to have curry houses back in the early 70s, doncherknow.

I hope this won't offend, but I would like to know how to pronounce the names "Tuj" and "Irouléguy" properly. Please excuse if this breaks etiquette in some way.

[Sierra] ih-RULE-eh-GEE (hard G, primary stress on RULE). I'm not sure about Tuj but most people at pilgs say "Tudge" (thus revealing that we talk about you non-attendees behind your backs).

[SM] Yes, I'd go "tudge", though oddly most people I'd talk to who've seen the name have the first instinct "toozh" (vowel like "smooth" consonant like "pleasure". Irouléguy's a good one to learn - daft as I am I initially thought it was a bizarre variation on naming himself "I rule" Guy.
[Darren] Oh dear oh dear. I'd hate to think what.
[Irouléguy] South Leam, Brunswick Street. Lovely part of the world, though I haven't tested any curries yet.
[Inkers] Thanks very much!

SM] Mine's from a French appelation controllée.
Tuj] It wasn't daft. A lot of people thought that until I got the chance to explain it at a pilg.
There's a number of decent pubs on the Radford Road, but I don't know south Leam otherwise - I did most of my drinking in town and north Leam. If you get over to Warwick, the Zetland in Church Street is a lovely boozer.

[Irouléguy] I may have been the only person to recognize the AC, and guess the pronunciation :-) I'd be interested to know if anyone else did.

What I did at the weekend. Recording thanks to Pave's cameraphone.

[Phil, Irouléguy] I didn't spot the appelation controllée; I don't even know what one is.

[Knobbly] It's a system the French use for wines which ensures that only wine made in a particular place (or in a particular way) can bear a particular name. The most famous example is Champagne.

[Tuj] I would automatically say Toozh, although there's a vague sense in my head that it could be a to-eye (but not quite like that, sort of using the Russian "bI" sound, where the "j" implies palatisation.

Er, in fact like the second person in Russian.)

[Phil] I based an AVMA on I's AC quite a while ago. I'm quite sure INJ knows it as well.

[tuj] Toodge, in my head.

I read 'tuj' as tudge. But then again everyone knows I talk funny.

Iroul's AC I vaguely recognised, though I don't think I've ever drunk it. 'Tuj' is 'tudge' for me (unless it's 'tüy')

[flerdle] You talk funny? This is how I pronounce "Tuj". (Sorry about the format. I tried converting it to mp3 but then it turned into scratchy silence.)

(Néa) Real Player comes up but just sits there, doing nothing. Any ideas? (flerdle) No funnier than me because that's how I say it.

[Tuj, Irouléguy] Thanks. Sorry if that seemed dense. I had been hearing them as "Toy" and "I rule a gye". Thank Jod we didn't meet yet.

[Rosie] No, I don't know - I opened that file in Quicktime. Does this work?