[rab] Also no idea, as I have no nieces. But something for the parents seems like a capital idea.
When my niece was born my wife and I bought things for the baby aged 6-12 months; the parent received so much newborn baby stuff they were rather grateful for things that wouldn't be useless in a few months time. I would suggest Baby Gap, as they contain really nice things that are a bit too expensive for parents to justify, but perfect for an uncle/aunt to get!
Or alternatively, the Hotel Chocolat New Baby Discovery Box, which is what we'll be getting for my sister who is due to have her second child in the next week...
Or alternatively, the Hotel Chocolat New Baby Discovery Box, which is what we'll be getting for my sister who is due to have her second child in the next week...
Thanks for your suggestion. We've emailed the proud parents with an offer of a sum of money in the form of gifts for baby, gifts for them, or invested into some kind of dullness fund. They'll let us know when mother and daughter come home from hospital.
In other news, we had the degree exam board meeting this morning and results are now posted. Most of the fun of the latter is now removed by exam numbers, rather than names, being posted.
[rab] Well that's no fun at all. I remember clearly the thrill of going to the department, reading my name, and then hearing someone hoot "LOOK WHO GOT A THIRD!"
Laughing stock
[nights] I didn't even have to go to the department - results for all subjects were posted outside on the walls of Senate House in Cambridge for all to see...
[Chalky] Could you drop me an email when you have a moment? [andrewdotjohn@ayadotyaledotedu] I can't seem to put my hands on your email address. Thanks.
[CdM] 'tis done
Aluminium Ant Nest Casting
This took me about a minute to find. There is a lot more about this on the web.
This weekend I am mostly....
learning about ancient woodland in Cheltenham, on a two-day course. Part work, part pleasure. See you Monday, thickets ;o)
Banter for its own sake
Beautiful June afternoon. Heavy sinister-looking cloud, gusty northerly wind, spots of rain, almost dark enough to need the light on, temperature 11°C. This reminds me, as did last summer, of some of the dreadful summers of the 50's. As I write this it's got lighter so no thunder. Not yet.
This weekend I will be mostly...
gardening. Finally, a weekend at home - the first one for a month!
Stormy Weather
[Rosie] It's them left-handed storms of which you must be more careful. Hopefully it turned out to be just a right-handed jobby.
[penelope] You made your new nest and have to accept the consequences. I feel no sorrow for your predicament as I have chosen to work from home. Tee hee!
[penelope] You made your new nest and have to accept the consequences. I feel no sorrow for your predicament as I have chosen to work from home. Tee hee!
[Phil] I saw his show 'Current Puns' a couple of years ago at the Fringe. It was good. Most memorable pun: I'm minded to see this one too, even if it looks like it might be somewhat similar.
Hidden text
I had a friend whose ambition was to be run over by a steam train. When he was, he was chuffed to bits.re cycling
[pen] " ... extra-tough for decades of comfortable, reliable daily service." LOL :-D
From €680? I'd want an engine too for that price! :-)
le météo
Weird at the moment. Huge storm last night, chilly yet sweaty today. Trams full of people. Nights not happy.
turns the volume right down to '0'
It's a bit quiet in here this week! Today I am mostly writing a press release, and this weekend I will mostly be listening to my mum singing in a 'Music for a MidSummer Night' choral concert in Lincoln. And planting more beans.
Home, where's that?
Mrs INJ and I will be spending a weekend at home for the first time since the middle of May. A bit of gardening is on the cards, but I will be helping out at the Derbyshire Schools Orienteering Championships on Saturday and maybe competing in an event on Sunday.
Half a silly van
I'm doing some G&S this weekend, but without the G.
Chinese Earring
[ImNotJohn] I wonder it's still called "orienteering" and hasn't made the jump to "orientationeering" in the twenty five years since I did any.
I miss the old OS maps. I stopped using them about the time they completed the old red-cover One Inch To One Mile series and began redoing the job in pink-cover 1:50 000 metric maps (talk about make-work in government!). They must have done all of the UK in metric by now I would think.
As a teen I salivated over the prospect of a complete collection of OS maps. I think I have six.
I've often wished for the same types of maps with the same degree of coverage in the places I've lived since leaving the UK, but other countries missed that particular boat and are unlikely to go that route now we have "better" GPS systems. It was one of the nastier shocks to find that other western countries didn't have super-accurate maps for the asking. I had to use boat charts and forestry "blueprint" jobs for the most part. Joni Mitchell had it right.
I miss the old OS maps. I stopped using them about the time they completed the old red-cover One Inch To One Mile series and began redoing the job in pink-cover 1:50 000 metric maps (talk about make-work in government!). They must have done all of the UK in metric by now I would think.
As a teen I salivated over the prospect of a complete collection of OS maps. I think I have six.
I've often wished for the same types of maps with the same degree of coverage in the places I've lived since leaving the UK, but other countries missed that particular boat and are unlikely to go that route now we have "better" GPS systems. It was one of the nastier shocks to find that other western countries didn't have super-accurate maps for the asking. I had to use boat charts and forestry "blueprint" jobs for the most part. Joni Mitchell had it right.
for ImNotJohn
Incidentally, it took me about five attempts to type your screen name without automatically inserting spaces (I tried Im Not John, ImNot John, Im NotJohn, then did some of them again before I got my brain to do it right). I've never had that happen before. Did you design for that effect?
Something for the weekend
I'm doing the world premiere of "What happened here - a retelling of Lear" tonite, and the second and final-for-us-but-hopefully-not-for-the-author show tomorrow nite. Sunday is a rest day :oD First Sunday without either rehearsal or show since nehwwonktnodi...
[Sierra Mike] I answer to INJ mostly. In fact elsewhere I tend to be just NotJohn - Im not sure why I've got the 'Im' in the Morniverse.
I'm also a bit of a cartophile - I've got 2 shelves devoted to them at the moment. I have a version of the StevieruleTM which goes 'No Map no Trip'.
OS maps now cover the whole of the UK at 1:25000 and are so much clearer than the 1:50000, which I use mostly for cycling. I still love the 1 inch tourist maps with the colouring & hachuring but you can't beat the large scale for navigating in mist/cloud. Also you get spoilt by the quality of orienteering maps 1:10000 or 1:15000 using specialised software, where you can navigate to the nearest 10 metres.
I'm also a bit of a cartophile - I've got 2 shelves devoted to them at the moment. I have a version of the StevieruleTM which goes 'No Map no Trip'.
OS maps now cover the whole of the UK at 1:25000 and are so much clearer than the 1:50000, which I use mostly for cycling. I still love the 1 inch tourist maps with the colouring & hachuring but you can't beat the large scale for navigating in mist/cloud. Also you get spoilt by the quality of orienteering maps 1:10000 or 1:15000 using specialised software, where you can navigate to the nearest 10 metres.
1:25000 maps
[S M & INJ] These come in an attractive orange cover, far nicer than the 1:50000s' lurid pink.
TQ 3516 5955
I have inherited dozens of OS maps from my cartophilic Dad, mostly 6th Edition but some older than that (pre-war). The expansion of some towns is phenomenal. Crawley, for example, was a compact place with a station and a high street but is now a vast, amorphous sprawl. The new 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 maps are more accurate and detailed than their older counterparts, particularly in regard of contours. There are sad (old meaning) bits such as "Course of old railway" and "Mines (disused)" (Yeah, so's mine). Even though the OS Grid has always been metric I'll never get used to heights in metres. My house is at 557 ft, not 169 metres, so I claim the title of Highest-living Morniverser.
[Non-mappies look away NOW] The OS Grid is a Transverse Mercator projection, prime meridian 2°W, based on a model of the Earth developed by Sir George Airy over 100 years ago. It's a tiny bit different from modern values both in size and degree of flattening. There is a scale reduction of 0.04%, presumably to allow for the expansion of the scale in the projection away from the prime meridian.
[Non-mappies look away NOW] The OS Grid is a Transverse Mercator projection, prime meridian 2°W, based on a model of the Earth developed by Sir George Airy over 100 years ago. It's a tiny bit different from modern values both in size and degree of flattening. There is a scale reduction of 0.04%, presumably to allow for the expansion of the scale in the projection away from the prime meridian.
ST 6370 7585
[Rosie] I cannot claim such a lofty domicile, but two minutes' drive gently uphill takes me to this point, Cossham Hospital, the highest point in Bristol at 369 feet (112 meters). On a clear day the views over the city, the Severn Valley, Forest of Dean and even the Brecons are excellent. Oh, and thanks for the techie stuff!
[ImNotJohn & Bigsmith] Blimey. We used to use the old red cover jobs when I was doing it, though admitedly I was less than serious about orienteering and probably just ran with an amateur crowd. I had no idea there was a 1:25 000 series of maps available commercially. Do they cover the entire UK? The only 1:50 000 OS map I can reliably put my hand on today would be "Land's End and The Lizard", and I can't for the life of me remember why I bought that one. I used a couple of Welsh ones until they fell apart but Land's End? When did I go there? It has some touristy annotations on it, like scenic photography overlooks and so forth, which my Welsh ones didn't. I suspect it was a detail added halfway through the print run or something.
[Rosie] That's a nice legacy you have. I didn't remember that the 1 Inch to 1 Mile series had a metric grid. I do remember that we were taught to read an OS map in Geography class when I was around 11 or 12. That's when I fell in love with the things.
[Rosie] That's a nice legacy you have. I didn't remember that the 1 Inch to 1 Mile series had a metric grid. I do remember that we were taught to read an OS map in Geography class when I was around 11 or 12. That's when I fell in love with the things.
[SM] It's the wonder of satellite technology. Effectively the whole country has been remapped (at least as far as contours are concerned) in a matter of a couple of years whereas before there was a large team of cartographers doing physical surveys. This has got rid of some of the more obvious mistakes that used to exist, although there are still paths shown going over cliff edges in a couple of places that I know.
For orienteering we normally start with a base plot (usually from the OS) with contour intervals down to 2.5 metres where appropriate (5m for very steep ground). There is then a specialised package (OCAD - there were others but this has come out on top) which has all the correct colours and symbols built in and you can build the map from that. There is still a need for fieldwork, but the whole thing is much slicker and maps get changed up to about 2 weeks before an event. Also with cheap high-quality printing most events now have the courses pre-printed - no need to copy from a master, and you can even run off more copies while the event is taking place if you get more than expected on one course. With electronic punching you get a print-out of your final and split times as soon as you finish and results from an event are on the web the same day. Up to about 10 years ago you left an SAE at the event and got the results about 1-2 weeks later.
For orienteering we normally start with a base plot (usually from the OS) with contour intervals down to 2.5 metres where appropriate (5m for very steep ground). There is then a specialised package (OCAD - there were others but this has come out on top) which has all the correct colours and symbols built in and you can build the map from that. There is still a need for fieldwork, but the whole thing is much slicker and maps get changed up to about 2 weeks before an event. Also with cheap high-quality printing most events now have the courses pre-printed - no need to copy from a master, and you can even run off more copies while the event is taking place if you get more than expected on one course. With electronic punching you get a print-out of your final and split times as soon as you finish and results from an event are on the web the same day. Up to about 10 years ago you left an SAE at the event and got the results about 1-2 weeks later.
More map stuff
For mountain walking I like Harvey Maps. They are at 1:40000, often photo-enlarged to 1:25000. They aren't as good in farmland as they don't show field boundaries, but they do show what is actually on the ground - there are different symbols for a right of way which is visible and one which is not visible as well as another for a visible path which is not a r.o.w.. They also change the colour of the contours to show rocky or marshy ground.
yes, I can't sleep
This weekend I will continue recovering.
I like maps but do not own many (only one proper map, really), mainly because we don't have much landscape over here. Or perhaps we have far too much of it. In any case, [INJ] I feel remarkably uneasy when I am in an unfamiliar place without a map, and I really need to know where North is. Changing hemispheres is very disturbing. I came very close to mapping our parts of Oman, at least as far as roads and such things go, because they (maps) either did not exist or were wildly inaccurate. But the cost of GPSrs was too high. I now have a nifty little one, and have been enjoying the occasional geocache, thanks to my sister and brother-in-law's introduction. It definitely helps break up long drives, and is a fun way to explore new places. I haven't done orienteering in at least 20 years.
I like maps but do not own many (only one proper map, really), mainly because we don't have much landscape over here. Or perhaps we have far too much of it. In any case, [INJ] I feel remarkably uneasy when I am in an unfamiliar place without a map, and I really need to know where North is. Changing hemispheres is very disturbing. I came very close to mapping our parts of Oman, at least as far as roads and such things go, because they (maps) either did not exist or were wildly inaccurate. But the cost of GPSrs was too high. I now have a nifty little one, and have been enjoying the occasional geocache, thanks to my sister and brother-in-law's introduction. It definitely helps break up long drives, and is a fun way to explore new places. I haven't done orienteering in at least 20 years.
Paths Off Cliffs
[ImNotJohn] For years I lived in a street that the local "A-Z" type guide showed as having a cross street where there wasn't so much as a kerbstone. When this error survived two reprintings I got clued in. By pure chance I was living next door to a copyright protection scheme. The map publisher had put in a fake street so that they could easily catch competitors who saved the cost of a survey just by copying their maps. I've learned since then that an awful lot of this sort of thing goes on. Dictionaries, thesauri (?) and encyclopediae (??) have fake entries in them to snare copyright infringers. The original pubishers work on the theory that you'd be unlikely to actually read the articles/entries since you can't get to them in any day-to-day use of the dictionary/thesarus/encyclopedia but only by reading through them serially.
I have to admit, sending someone off a cliff seems a bit much though. I hope this gets fixed in GPS sets since judging from recent news items some GPSers are a bit too slavish when it comes to following the directions their boxes give them and I wouldn't be surprised to read of someone stepping out into empty space.
[Bigsmith] Thanks for the map info.
I have to admit, sending someone off a cliff seems a bit much though. I hope this gets fixed in GPS sets since judging from recent news items some GPSers are a bit too slavish when it comes to following the directions their boxes give them and I wouldn't be surprised to read of someone stepping out into empty space.
[Bigsmith] Thanks for the map info.
1:25 000
Now nothing will suffice but that I order a 1:25 000 map of Land's end and The Lizard.
MapsspaM
I have a couple of 1:25000 maps covering my area of residence. A month or so ago I dug out one of them in order to scan part of it and send the resultant image to a cyber-acquaintance. I doubt that I had referred to this publication within the last three or four years. I also forgot to put it back in stowage that evening. The following afternoon my wife came home and plonked down before me a new copy of the very same map. Having given her a puzzled look she explained that the previous evening she had looked for the 'missing' map and, not finding it, thought it best to buy a new one.
midsummary
Hmmph. Raining and cool. The sweetpeas need it.
Paths to oblivion
(INJ) It could be a clifftop path that has disappeared due to coastal erosion if you're anywhere near the east coast.
(Bigsmith) So, Fishponds, Bristol, then. I had heard of it, for some reason, probably to do with the railway, which I see has been ripped up.
Bristols
Hmm, talking of Bristol, I'm going there for the first time shortly - any recommendations for good places to take a 3 year old and 5 month old? We've got the zoo on our (short) list already...
Cliff Paths
I wasn't clear enough. In both the cases I know of the path exists, but the line has been 'smoothed' to an easy curve and so doesn't avoid the feature whereas, on the ground, there is a deviation to miss it.
[SM] Yes, the false street is indeed a standard copyright protection measure.
[Rosie] You may hold the highest living Morniverser right now, but if so I probably held the title for a couple of years when we had a 10th floor apartment here in Singapore. Now we are back at sea level.
[Rosie] You may hold the highest living Morniverser right now, but if so I probably held the title for a couple of years when we had a 10th floor apartment here in Singapore. Now we are back at sea level.
higher, higher
Without having any idea of where everyone lives, I think that Dujon might be the loftiest Morniverser, since he lives on a mountain outside Sydney. The first Antipopilg in 2003 was at Blaxland, (1404 feet, or 427 metres) and I don't think he'd be much lower than that (if not higher up).
up and up
I was kidding about the apartment in Singapore, obviously, but I was living at 265m back in 2003-2004 when we were in Texas. In my pre-Morniverse days I lived at 188m in VIrginia and at about 280m in Ann Arbor Michigan. None of these surpasses Dujon. If I can go back to my childhood, though, I lived for a year at 946m, and INJ was at university at 1250m around the same time.
(I think there is a pretty good chance that INJ is also the person here who has been up the highest (while still staying on the ground) though I might be wrong about that.)
The roof of the world
flerdle) It may well be Dujon, then, for current residence. My feet-on-the-ground record is El Teide in Tenerife, 3717 m or 12,196 ft. The air pressure there is about 64% of sea-level pressure and you noticed it. Quite a lot of puffing and blowing climbing the few hundred feet from the cable car to the summit. Water would boil at 88°C, just about enough to thicken gravy but not enough for a decent cuppa.
I spent most of my first couple of decades at around 1000ft. It didn't seem very high at the time, probably because it isn't.
I lived for a year at about 420m on the Swiss/French border. It didn't feel at all high, because everything around was so much higher, namely the Jura mountains to the west, and the Alps etc to the south-east.
[Rosie] When I typed that about INJ I was vaguely thinking "we already had this conversation not so long ago", and your Tenerife posting reminds me that indeed we did.
Senior moment
(CdM) Probably my fault, then, because stuck on my bedroom wall is a b & w 1978 photo of me and half a dozen other herberts and several herbertesses, all from Croydon Astronomical Society, as we crowd round the summit marker. Where has INJ been? I think I've probably got the record for current UK residents. The modest height does make a difference in that snow, on the rare occasions that it falls, lasts much longer up here than in London and numerous occasions when there's light drizzle and mist whereas London is dry. Some of this is the London Heat-Island effect which on a warm calm summer night can be quite stark, with temperature differences of 8°C.
Walking tall
[flerdle] Thanks for adding a few inches to my height. I am at a mere 250 metres (depending on where on my little plot of paradise you stand) which is around and about 850 feet asl. As it is now approaching, if not past, the noon time I might pop down to my local club for a wee bit of luncheon delight, which should bring me home quite heady. Cheers.
[Dujon] You still win ;-) .
elevated positions
At the risk of blowing my own trumpet (but, hell, I am proud of it), my highest point is the summit of Mera Peak in the Himalaya at 6476 metres (21,247 ft). I now live at about 40m asl.
[Rosie] No, my fault, not yours. I just remembered because my highest is almost identical to yours, but in a completely different part of the world (Colorado Rockies).
(INJ) I'm impressed. Did you need oxygen? It's not warm up there either, is it? (Guess -15°C, if summer, plus a "breeze").
Just a trifle nippy
[Rosie] - No oxygen. I was slowed down by the lack of it, but not reduced to gasping. The main effect was that I lost my appetite completely. I was there in March-April, so pre-monsoon. Overnight it was regularly down to about -20°C. During the day there was a lot of bright sunshine, but I reckon the shade temperature didn't get above freezing; it was fleece jacket, thick gloves & balaclava even when working quite hard and down clothing as soon as the sun set.
Mera is the highest 'trekking peak' in the Himalaya, anything over 6500m is a 'climbing peak' even if there is no technical difficulty. However Aconcagua is higher and presents no technical difficulties and is only about 20km from a good motor road. It's probably the ultimate challenge for the non-climber.
Mera is the highest 'trekking peak' in the Himalaya, anything over 6500m is a 'climbing peak' even if there is no technical difficulty. However Aconcagua is higher and presents no technical difficulties and is only about 20km from a good motor road. It's probably the ultimate challenge for the non-climber.
(INJ) I'm further impressed. The pressure up there is about 42% of sea level pressure. Apparently the lack of oxygen causes considerable problems with cognitive tasks but as I imagine you weren't writing up a PhD up there it probably didn't matter. Well done! I could manage Leith Hill (965 ft) these days but probably not Snowdon (3561 ft) even if I called it Yr Wyddfa.
[Rosie] Acclimatisation helps a lot. We flew in to about 2400m and then walked in for about 10 days, mostly on the ‘walk high, sleep low’ principle, which got us to a camp at about 5300. We then did a short day up to 5800 and then a push to the top. I reckon the last 700m would have taken me a bit over 2 hours from sea level (I was fitter then), and actually took between 4 & 5 hours. We then dropped about 1500m, to below the previous 2 camps. As for cognitive impairment – I ‘lost’ a good part of the next day. I couldn’t remember much of it only a day or two later and have never been able to, even prompted by photos. Another interesting effect was that my tent companion went into a pattern of Cheyne-Stoking while asleep – disturbing when you first hear it, but common at altitude. Of course, one of the effects of the cold and low pressure is that the air is extremely dry – it was hard to drink enough, especially as water bottles exposed to the air froze. It’s the physically hardest thing I’ve ever done and I certainly couldn't do it now.
Result!
The good news is that we've discovered the cat is a mouser (one of the reasons for getting her). The bad news is finding this out obviously entailed a renewed incursion. We look forward to being woken up by her dropping half-dead mice on our faces and being shown how to kill them. Will need to look at the bait trays over the weekend to see where its been taken. Sometime over the next few weeks we're getting our floors repaired which should seal up some of the holes at least.
Revisiting the bait sites I discover the trays in the kitchen are untouched, which is good news, but the one I put under the sink cabinet in the bathroom had disappeared! I have an image of a family of mice living in a red tray marked 'Poison' somewhere down there...
[Rab] I've seen that Tom & Jerry episode...
A week with nothing to say? Yikes!
Perhaps we need a couple of new games, as we've not had any in 8 months (ignoring Mystery Crescent, restarted after running out of steam. Well gosh, it's run out of steam again!)
Mystery Crescent
I'll kill it off if no-one can be bothered to play (and if I can remember the winning move - I don't think I wrote it down anywhere).
I think Tuj is right. This is a great mc site, but we have perhaps let it get a bit stagnant. My vote is for keeping AVMA, since it is almost a defining game of this server, but some of the other games could be given a breather. And with that in mind, I've killed the clerihew game.
imho, pretty much any of the other games could be rested.
[Kim] I think that may be the case - it's suffered from not being quite the right game for the pace of the server.
Meanwhile, could Film Club be due a more meritorious retirement? The thing is, now we need to have some suggestions for new games to spruce up the place!
Meanwhile, could Film Club be due a more meritorious retirement? The thing is, now we need to have some suggestions for new games to spruce up the place!
I know I've not been here much recently, but perhaps Film Club could be retired in favour of a Book Club? Or if anyone was wanting to pretend to be youthful again, how about a video games club? It might test people's Google skills if nothing else!
Of course, at this time of year, Dunx's annual Festival of Crescent means that attention is necessarily (albeit temporarily) diverted elsewhere. But I'm always in favour of a cull.
You know you're getting old when....
[rab] .....two things happen. The first is - you can't remember the winning move of a game that you created and the second is, errrr...., oh yes, you have to ask for help in killing it.
[Kim] Think Richard O'Sullivan.
[Rab] None the wiser. I kept thinking of Gilbert O'Sullivan and it put me off.
Right, er, Chatsworth, or Lanhydrock maybe.
New game idea/request
Can we have a banter game of some kind?
Well, I wouldn't contribute to it.
Oh dear
Having instigated this, I feel responsible - and I certainly don't want blood on my hands if the game slots vanish entirely again =(
However, I've not really got any ideas. Except, well... I've seen an online game called NationStates where one runs a country via its inner workings. So I wondered if perhaps we could invent the continent of Morningtonia, each stake a claim to some land and then see how our national/international diplomacy skills are... and hope that the answer to the question "When does the game end?" isn't necessarily "NUCLEAR WAR!"
However, I've not really got any ideas. Except, well... I've seen an online game called NationStates where one runs a country via its inner workings. So I wondered if perhaps we could invent the continent of Morningtonia, each stake a claim to some land and then see how our national/international diplomacy skills are... and hope that the answer to the question "When does the game end?" isn't necessarily "NUCLEAR WAR!"
On second thoughts:
... I'd like to suggest a game called "Lead Balloon".
New game idea
Cat chess? This rules variant is slightly different from the last one I saw, but looks promising.
[Tuj] A game of Morningtonian Government sounds like fun to me.
New Games
I like both ideas that don't involve cat chess. I don't understand how Cat Chess would work. Bantering would be my vote if it is an ether/ore choice.
New Games
Have you noticed that there isn't a single game of "Mornington Crescent" in play on this server. Why don't we start one of those?
How do you play that then, Kim?
Blasphemy, apostasy, iconoclasm etc.
I dont' think MC itself works very well here. It really has to be played live so that the players can display all the mock-gravity and in-depth knowledge of arcane rules that this involves. It's a performance, really, and needs rather good actors.
Then maybe a game of 'Dress Rehearsal Mornington Crescent' will show what sheer hard work has to go into putting on a slick performance in the Game itself? I'm thinking this might give us an insight into the director's final, fraught instructions, the referee's frantic consultations with the rule book(s) and the performers' last-minute nerves showing through.
and then
Game slot still available, of the suggestions go along with pen.
Dusted the cob webs off the BBQ over the weekend. My only quibble was the sausages, those from the local butcher cooked a treat but the Walls sausages almost went up in flames they were spitting so much fat.
Dusted the cob webs off the BBQ over the weekend. My only quibble was the sausages, those from the local butcher cooked a treat but the Walls sausages almost went up in flames they were spitting so much fat.
[Rosie] A lot of the games are like that -- improv theatre, really. Take a look at the yorkives link on the front page here and contemplate the glories of the past, when MC was the main game played.
Ah, just seen it's CANCELLED - but I guess the question still stands...
(rab) Do you really need to ask that?
[rab] Yep, that's us. All things considered, just as well we cancelled (a couple of months back) as only one song is yet complete, and we keep going back to the synopsis and tweaking. Should show up next year in the form of a reading or full production, hopefully. We're devoting tomorrow to completing a 10 minute extract which will be done this year at Theatre 503 in London, then podcast as an audio-format musical.
Good luck. If you do ever come up to Edinburgh be sure to drop me a line so we can catch up over an IPA or something.
[rab] Coincidentally, I'll be teaching a course on the IPA next semester.
[rab, Néa] aɪd lʌv ə bɪə
Projoy's post
What do all the little squares mean?
(rab, Néa) Isopropyl alcohol is not good for you.
squarelets
[SM] They mean your browser isn't rendering International Phonetic Alphabet symbols
[Rosie] Any chance you can get the rain to stop? It's started leaking into our flat. Roofers have been called but they're a bit busy today.
Rain
(rab) Edinburgh, yes? It'll gradually peter out but Saturday afternoon brings another dollop. Hope you can get it done before then. This used to happen at work rather a lot so we set up an indoor raingauge network.
I suppose if you get 6% (21 days' worth) of your annual average rainfall on one day you can expect problems. Two surprising things about Edinburgh -it's further west than you think (more so than Bristol) and not as wet as you think. Paisley (just to the west of Glasgow) has twice as much rain as Edinburgh.
[Rosie] Rest assured, the men are up there now tying the chimney down. It needs to resurfaced or something, which means we need to get somewhere between 7 and 10 neighbours to contribute to the costs. Oh what fun!
(rab) What fun indeed! Glad it's never happened to me (yet). More rain Saturday but fairly routine stuff.
it is a-raining not in Tokyo
It has been pissing down (scientific term) here in Brussels for as long as memory serves. I drove the new Alfa to Cologne on Friday and visibility in the rain was worse than in a carwash. Don't you just love summer in Northern Europe?
Niederschlage
(ISP) The official term is AFPD. Take heart; this is a bad summer by most standards and least it's better than winter.
Smug
It has been a lot better over here than up north this summer. We have avoided rain for the most part (apart from 72mm in 4 hours the Sunday before last). It's looking a bit iffy for the rest of the week, though.
Deperately trying to think of something other than the weather to talk about
Does anyone here like cold tea? I do.
Cold tea
Yes, especially with ice and a slice of lemon or a sprig of mint.
Iced tea, yes. Hot tea gone cold: URHGURHUGHHUHYYEEAEAUURK.
I generally don't drink tea, but regularly drink hot coffee gone cold, and occasionally iced coffee. I hasten to add that if I had milk in my coffee, I would, in all probability, drink it neither iced nor gone-cold.
(Softers, Graham III) No, I meant tea gone cold. Great! Coffee gone cold is just as good. I make a virtue of necessity because having brewed it I get on with doing something and forget about the drink.
Cold tea
Well, I drink tea and coffee without milk anyway.
Once I have made myself a cup of tea, I'll drink it all, even if it has gone cold. Coffee less so. I love iced tea, and iced coffee, and make both at home in the summer. If I'm at home, I put milk in tea and coffee. If I'm in Holland, I'll drink them without milk.
Milk
Milk! Foul substance that from bovine teats expressed
For infant calves, man steals for ends perverse
Drinking that infant nourishment, whose end
Ends crated in the dark before the knife
Cuts short -- but to pick up the thread again --
Vile stuff for human stomach never meant
That rots i' the open air in scant three days
Else churned to yellow grease; or rotted more
With fungus mingled in ten thousand ways
Until it stinks like to the arse of Hades -- contd. p. 94
Re: Milk
Yeah, what Raak said!
What, no cheese?
Panna cotta, custard, Yorkshire puddings, macaroni cheese, icecream, buttered toast, cappucino, parsley sauce... [Phil, Raak] I don't believe you.
[pen] I was with you all the way until you mentioned parsley sauce, whereupon Raak suddenly started to make more sense.
[CdM] OK. Switch that to 'peppercorn sauce' for your rib-eye steak.
[pen] Well, I don't like milk, custard, panna cotta or cappucino; but the others are nice.
Lait, leche, llaeth etc
(Phil) What do you put on your cornflakes/shredded wheat/weetabix? Not syrup, I hope.
[Rosie] As a result, I very rarely eat breakfast cereals. If I do, the milk needs to be as fresh and cold as possible.
[Rosie] I put canned fruit on my muesli. If I ate porridge, which I don't, I'd make it with water.
Dairy products
I stopped taking milk in tea and coffee as a result of trying to reduce my cholesterol count. I like milk and cheese and all the things pen listed, so tea and coffee without milk keeps the intake down without too much pain.
Anyone who was a child in the late '40's will have had it drummed into them the milk was a Good Thing (free at school, off the ration) and as far as I'm concerned it still is, within limits. Nothing could beat slurping the cream off the top of the bottle, and still can't. Fortunately, at the moment I don't have a cat, which would obviously have first shout.
Showing my age
Free school milk nearly put me off milk for life. In summer it was stacked in the playground in the sun for a couple of hours before we got it, so it was always warm and slightly off.
I now only drink skimmed when I have a choice - full cream just tastes greasy to me. However I still eat too much cheese and use plenty of whole milk & cream in cooking.
I now only drink skimmed when I have a choice - full cream just tastes greasy to me. However I still eat too much cheese and use plenty of whole milk & cream in cooking.
I went off milk somewhere between 14 and 18, I reckon. I used to drink loads of it before then. The thought of the cream off the top of the bottle makes me feel queasy these days. Oh, and please don't even mention the "straight from the cow" option - yuk!
We have a cat but he doesn't like milk, or cheese, strangely. First cat I've known not to like either or both. We had school milk in the 50s, in 1/3 pint bottles, and a choice of orange juice (which I preferred) and then Jersey milk was very creamy (it's not now due to over processing). I can remember the milkman delivering the milk in churns and filling up a jug my mother used to leave on the doorstep. I think they introduced bottles in about 1956. Then bottles were replaced by humbug shaped Tetra Paks in about 1967.
(Software) Cats shouldn't have milk too often but binge-licking every now and again won't do any harm. Cats are also useful for hoovering up bits of chicken off the floor.
[Rosie] There is nothing useful a cat can do that a labrador and a mousetrap can't.
[Phil] Possibly true, but with a cat you don't have to keep careful track of which one you are petting.
[Rosie] Our cat won't eat cooked chicken either. [CdM} Another advantage of cats is that they don't need to be exercised or groomed regularly.
Ours occasionally comes along and licks the milk at the bottom of our muesli bowls. And she's much better at dealing with the mice than the traps. She also spends a lot of time sitting on the internet, acting as some kind of firewall I think.
[Rosie] True. But Phil might point out that the same is true of mousetraps.
We've recently discovered that there are at least two other cats in the building, which could be why we saw a flurry of mouse activity before we got ours.
I have just discovered that our cat likes icecream. As regards chasing mice he is a pacifist. The other day he was seen lying in our garden with a dormouse nibbling a fallen apple about 30cm from his nose.
My cat presented me with a very much alive and wriggling mouse yesterday. It was a great big ferocious critter, probably weighing well over a quarter of an ounce.
moustory
[Simons] And then? What happened next?
Well, I managed to catch it, then popped it in a cardboard box for an hour or so to give it a chance to calm down, then let it go, ready for the cat to catch at some other time.
(SM) The cat is turning into an angler, then?
random, catless
*complains about the cold*
Frigidity
(flerdle) Me too. It's a lousy August here. The temperature is staying mostly below 20 and my home-made sundial is getting very little exercise.
[Rosie] Your sundial doesn't enable you to dial up any sun?
Springy steps
As August fades into the past the promise of a new season is enticing my olfactory senses from their hibernation. A pleasant hour and a half of practice at my local bowling club (after which I was accepted as a member of the Hat-Wearing-Volvo-Driving Geriatric Club) combined with a beautiful and warm day (maximum 18.9ºC) has contrived an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity within the castle known as 'Dujon's Folly'. Oh, happy days.
Dial-up radiaton
(pen) Fat chance. I spent a long time getting all the geometry right (it's on a wall) but little chance of testing it. People on the weather newsgroup with actual sun-measuring equipment say that it the dullest August for a long time and scarcely better than January. That's when they're not hurling miss-spelt abuse at each other and generally acting like ****s, ****s and ****s, even. What gets into people? This is a haven of well-mannered sanity.
Putting a spell on you
[Rosie] Can I assume you misspelled misspell on purpose?
What do we think about that university lecturer's suggestion that the 20 most common spelling mistakes should be accepted as variant spellings? (For examples and the lecturer's argument, see article on Times Higher Education website.)
What do we think about that university lecturer's suggestion that the 20 most common spelling mistakes should be accepted as variant spellings? (For examples and the lecturer's argument, see article on Times Higher Education website.)
(Knobbly) Did you mean the "miss" or the "spelt"? The latter is an approved form in my C.O.D. 1964. Maybe the "miss" ought to have only one "s". As to the university lecturer, he is either playing Devil's Advocate, a posh way of saying "taking the piss", or is pretty comprehensively ignorant of language. His ideas have been well rebutted in the replies on the site. I see he's a professor of criminology. I'd lock him up and throw the key away. Know what I mean, guv?
(Rosie) Yes, I meant the "miss". One s from the prefix mis- and the other which was already on the beginning of the verb.
Meteorological irony
The air above about 3000 feet the last few days is very warm and dry and if the cloud disappeared the temperature would shoot up rapidly to about 28°C. But the lower layer of air is cool and moist and cloud can't penetrate the warm air, being cooler and therefore denser. So if the upper air were cooler there'd be some chance of the cloud being carried upwards and evaporating and we'd have a warm, sunny day. Maybe not 28°C but at least 23°C. BTW the sudden rise of temperature as you go up above about 3000 feet (in this case) is called an inversion and is a common feature. In Siberia in winter it can be as much as 25 degC warmer aloft than at the surface, say -20° compared with -45°.
Bah!
I'm working from home on a Saturday, trying to get stuff done before going on holiday for two weeks in a fortnight's time. But it's an opportunity to go through my CD collection one-by-one as I work. I hadn't unpacked them since I moved here almost a year ago. Right now: CD 3 of the complete collection of Vaughan Williams symphonies.
Blah!
I turned 50 while on holiday last week. I find it oddly liberating. Can anyone tell me why this is?
[Kim] It's because you know that your next birthday won't be your sixtieth :0(.
[Kim] Because you have realised that, despite the trepidation and build-up, you don't actually feel any different?
I ended up working most of Sunday too. And it rained. What a write-off of a weekend. Never mind. All of this will soon be over.
I ended up working most of Sunday too. And it rained. What a write-off of a weekend. Never mind. All of this will soon be over.
*complains about the cold. Again.*
Happy Birthday, Kim. 50 isn't that old. Not a lot you can do about it, anyway, other than walk in front of a bus beforehand (too late now).
Happy Birthday, Kim. 50 isn't that old. Not a lot you can do about it, anyway, other than walk in front of a bus beforehand (too late now).
Silver surfers
(Software) Neither will mine.
Shameless self-promotion, cross-posted at other sites
There's another beer and music festival this weekend at philspub
Re: trumpet blowing
Love to come, but ...
Since it has been so quiet here for so long, may I just say, a propos of nothing except general boasting, that I have just scored 227 in a single scrabble move? Thank you.
[CdM] Wow! How?
(CdM) Is that possible? 227 is a prime number and I thought scores were always multiplied by various factors rather than added. Apart from that, v good.
[Rosie] Presumably it was 59 tripled plus the bonus 50 for using all 7 letter from the rack.
I thought you'd never ask
[Phil, Rosie] The word was EQUISETA, played across two triple word scores on an existing Q, and also making the words ET and SWING. The letters in EQUISETA have a total value of 18 (including the double letter score on the I), which when twice tripled gives 162. ET contributed another 6 points (because it was also on a triple word), and SWING contributed another 9. That plus the 50 point bonus gives 227. (Note, by the way, that the tiles in my hand were worth a grand total of 7 points.)
It was a very high scoring game: my opponent got 417 points and still lost by over 100.
It was a very high scoring game: my opponent got 417 points and still lost by over 100.
I think CdM has stunned us all into silence with that accomplishment. In other news, I'm about to jet off for two weeks with the windy miller, taking in a road trip to Turin to visit a friend. On Monday, I am working 'from home' to finish off a press campaign (look out for Ancient Tree Hunt news about the 'Acorns to Ancients' seed collecting month hitting a local newspaper near you). And also,if anyone fancies a bosky trip to Hainault, there's a forest festival taking place in Hainault Forest from September 21 onwards - Speed Dating walks in the woods, anyone? Alternatively, learn woodland management, take part in forest art sessions, or take a guided 'Silent Walk' to listen to the sounds of the forest. If I wasn't elsewhere,. I'd go myself.
Well, you live and learn.. "Bosky" is definitely a word I'll endeavour to add to my everyday vocabulary.
To the woods!
(Phil) I'm surprised you didn't know it already, man of your calibre. I came across it as a teenager though I admit it's not used much.
[Rosie] When it comes to expanding my vocab, I'm all ears - which explains why I got called Wingnut at school, incidentally.
A propos of nothing...
Doubt if there's a game in this, but things have been quiet in here just lately, but I as wondering how high one could count with film/book names, particularly using just ordinals, rather than cardinals.. Starting with "First Among Equals".
Forty-Second Street?
The Third Man (oblig)
Born on the Fourth of July
The Fifth Element
The Sixth Sense
The Inn of the Seventh Happiness
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
10
Right up to the minute, we have The Eighth Wonder
The Ninth Gate
The Tenth Man (3.33 times more oblig than previously)
The Eleventh Hour
Twelfth Night: Or What You Will.
Apollo 13
Sticking to the ordinals concept
Friday the 13th
That classic: The Fourteenth Man
The Magnificent Seven
going in sequence after all:
15 Minutes
Pay Attention please
[Software] We're looking for ordinal numbers here, so the next one is Fifteenth
Mind you I think we must be getting close to the limit
Mind you I think we must be getting close to the limit
The Fifteenth. (But I admit that I have started cheating now.)
[INJ/CdM] I have cheated this morning and discovered that the lowest ordinal for which there is not a non-TV, feature-length film is 31st!
I have a couple in mind for later on, but I looked up 14th. On the other hand Phil's original suggestion included books, and I don't see why we should exclude made-for-TV films as long as they're feature length (say 80 mins minimum). I'm surprised at 31st not being there though as the last day of 7 months and last day of the year.
Further cheating
And when I do look I discover I actually did know a book with 31st in the title - annoying, that.
Ancient film
Knuckles rapped but - Quartorze Juliette
Then something with 33rd, then Miracle on 34th Street.
[Software] I'll say, I wouldn't stand for that kind of spelling from one of my students.
[nights] Nonono, it's a sort of French Kind Hearts and Coronets, in which Mme Binoche plays fourteen different roles.
[CdM] I see. I'm still not impressed though, Juliette Binoche is bad enough when she's just playing one role, let alone fourteen.
Quiet in here.
For the benefit of Ms Pitstop
I saw my first F1 race last night. It was rather fun in a loud fast car sort of way.
Noisy cars
[CdM] Ah - beat me to it. I was just going to ask if you'd watched it, and if not, if it had had an impact on your night.
[Phil] I saw the race from a slightly unusual vantage point. Because the race went by Singapore's business district, a number of offices with good views hosted parties, and we were invited to one of those. I was a bit sceptical beforehand, but it was actually really cool: an excellent birds-eye view of about one third of the track. A group of us also went downstairs for a while in the middle of the race, where we couldn't see much but could certainly hear it. This way of watching the race also had a couple of other advantages: food and wine; and access to television coverage. Given that I don't really follow F1 that closely, I liked being able to hear commentary while watching. I'm sure that being trackside would be a different experience, but I'm not sure I would have gotten so much out of it. All in all, a fun evening.
[CdM] Ah, but did you see where the race was won and lost: i.e. in the Ferrari Pit?
[CdM] I've heard trackside isn't so great, especially if you don't speak the local lingo. A friend of mine was phoned by someone at Spa to find out who had won the grand prix he'd just been watching, as he couldn't find out at the track.
Trackside at the British Grand Prix a few years ago, we were given little radios with earphones to get the trackside commentary, which was excellent. It's a lot more exciting close up - especially in the wet...
Shame about Dress Rehearsal. Never mind though, eh. Anyone have any ideas for new games?
I've just had one. An idea. Condensed books? Summarise the plot of a book in a particularly glib fashion, much like "So the Danish guy dies".
New games
(nights) Good idea, not that I'd be the star contributor.
New Game
[nights] I think something similar has been done somewhere before - but it could be anywhere in the last 12 years, so I'm certainly up for a new version.
New Game
I am an occasional contributor to, but mostly an amused reader of the "Ridiculously Easy Poetry" game currently being played in another place. Certain opening lines seem to come up quite frequently, sometimes involving fleas. I wonder whether a poetry-based "hillocks" game would be enjoyable for a while ("If I should die and go to Innisfree"). Any thoughts?
[nights] We definitely played that game a couple of years ago -- iirc it involved three-word and then two-word summaries. That doesn't mean we couldn't resurrect it, of course.
[Kim] I like that idea...
[Kim] I like that idea...
[CdM] I think that was "Butler Did It" and it was more than a couple of years ago. :)
Well, as the consensus seems positive, I'll create the game.
Me, too.
Who's a hillock?
I don't understand. Boo hoo hoo. What's the point of the new poetry game?
What a Hillock
Don't cry... "Wuthering Hillocks" is a game which aims to ease the poverty of the TV, film and book industries by suggesting inexpensive remakes of old hits, for example "One walked round the cuckoo's nest" or "Who wants to be a milliner?". I'm guessing that the first lines in the new game should be cheap versions of fine famous poetry. Is that it nights? As for the point of it, well...
Never Mind The Hillocks
[BL] Nothing to do with me, squire. I think Kim is the man (or possibly woman, but I think man) you need.
Oh yes...
I read back as far as "I'll create the game..." above... So - Kim?
Hillocks for the uninitiated
Yes, blamelewis has it right. "When hillocks collide" was an early-ish game on MCiOS and was set in the genre of film. It basically describes the scene of an accident. The film version generated such classics as "The Man Who Wasn't There Who Knew The Man Who Shot The Man Who Fell to Earth in Iron Mask With Two Brains", "One Million Years in Tibet" and "Sink the Titanic!". I mused idly that one could do something like that with well-known lines from poetry, hence "If I should die and go to Innisfree". I hadn't really thought about a ruleset, but perhaps there should be a minimum of two lines and no maximum, the metre of the first line should determine the metre of subsequent lines, rhyme is nice, but not essential. Is that enough to be going on with, folks?
*sigh*
It's a lovely day. I wish I'd got washing out on the line.
Behold!
(pen)
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty. (Wordsworth).
Earth has not anything to show more fair
Any more fares?
Any more fares?(Flanders & Swann)
Any more fares?
Any more fares?(Flanders & Swann)
My wife has been cleverly filtering the (snail) mail the last week so I ended up thinking the only people who had remembered my Birthday were the TV Licensing people.
rabturous
Happy Birthday!!
Happy Birthday to Rab!
Additionally, does anyone have anything fun planned for the weekend?
Habby Pirthday, rab!
[nights] No.
I'm being taken out tonight for a mystery meal. I think.
[rab] Taken all the labels off your tin cans, have you? ;) Slightly belated returns from here too!
[Tuj] Ah, what we used to call The Fabulous Mystery Dining Experience, back when I lived in halls. These days, if I cook out of cans, I'm sneered at by all the French people I know.
(nights) Not surprised; you're supposed to put it in a saucepan. :-)
I planted trees today. And then went dancing. All in all, quite satisfying.
Why on earth would anyone ever want three differently-coloured phones on their desk?
To match their handbag on any particular day, of course. (Well, if Posh can buy cars to match her clothes....)
Phones
If it was good enough for Reginald Perrin...
More Phones
...and a fantastic Pete & Dud sketch...
Seasonal update
It's blissfully cold this morning. Very refreshing.
I'm just glad the wind's dropped. The sign on the front of our local Post Office blew off when we were out yesterday (but, luckily, not right in front of the building).
[rab] It's probably a sign.
[Kim] No, it was a sign.
Just had the following train announcement: "Please note it is illegal to play pre-recorded music of popular music artists on trains or at stations because we do not hold a performing rights licence". Not simply because it annoys the crap out of everyone.
[rab] That leaves you clear to broadcast the back catalogue of any unpopular music artist...
muzak
(rab) I wonder if that applies to shops. I hope so.
Muzak
Unfortunately, most places, including my butcher, fork out for the PRS (aka thieving bastards) licence. The butcher, since you ask, has a radio playing, hence he needs the PRS licence.
The PRS
(Phil) I don't see why musicians shouldn't be paid for any public performance though I don't know the scale of charges. Yes, I am in the MU. I would have thought you would have been more put out by the cost of a music licence from the local council, for which you receive bugger all except a piece of paper and a bill.
"Music Licence from the Council"
No such thing any more. It all comes in the premises licence these days, thankfully.
Pub bore
(Phil) Ah! Didn't know that. But does it cost more if you are licensed for music or are all premises licensed thus?
On a different subject what do you think of the practice of discretionary closing times?, i.e. the pub will stay open the advertised extra half hour if the manager thinks it worth it on any particular evening. To me it's wanting to have your cake and eat it, or less formally, taking the piss. If you're in the pub you don't know how fast to drink or whether to have another half, say, or if arriving late, as I often do, whether the pub will be open or not. To be on the safe side I will be assuming that the place will be closed at all times, as are many of my mates. There's quite a good choice in Carshalton and I wonder if the new manager knows that. He will soon.
[Rosie] Here in Embra there's been 'late' opening for quite some time, which means most pubs close variously between 12 and 1am, and a few staying open to 3 (or 4 during the Festival). It's generally been accepted that if a place is rather quiet, it might close early, but that it's good etiquette for the staff to go round about half-an-hour beforehand to let you know that this is likely to happen, and to suggest venues that are likely to be open later. Seemed to work rather well. (I say 'seemed', as my late-night drinking days are largely behind me now).
I'm bored
I've stopped opening emails today. They've all been boring so far this morning - or have been asking me to do things I don't have time for, so I thought I'd save myself the hassle and stop opening them altogether. People will soon get the point and stop sending them.
pubs
(rab) That's reasonable if the hours are as late as that but my "local" is merely extending from 11 to 1130, and on Sundays from 1030 to 11, each night at the manager's discretion. For a "regular" that won't do because one of the points about a favourite pub is its predictablity. This seems a blundering accountant-driven policy or maybe the manager's just a lazy arsehole. We are taking punitive action.
I don't know why, but when I'm in a different timezone, I feel normal rules don't apply.
Los geht's
Anyone care for a mug of kitten?
[Knobbly] Milk no sugar please.
Black with ginger please.
Variable opening
[Rosie] I believe I've spoken on this matter on another site, but the crux of the matter is that I'm with you on this one. My pub is licensed until 1am on friday and saturday, but I close at 12. Customers need consistency, and they need to know where they stand. On very rare occasions, I will stay open until 1am, but that is for the likes of our football team's annual prizegiving, and they all know in advance. They tend to leave about 12.30 anyway though. If the pub has 50 customers one friday night and you stay open the extra 30 minutes, what happens next week when there are 45 customers. You make yourself an immediate target for bickering. If you going to take punitive action, may I suggest you let the gaffer know before you do so, as he may not notice. He also might be more likely to change his ways in advance of losing custom.
[Rosie] Your other question. No, there is no variation in cost that tallies with what your licensable activities are. You do, though, open yourself up to a much bigger can of worms in the matter of your neighbours and their potential objections.
Chucking-out time
(Phil) I think the manager may have seen sense, though not through customer persuasion AFAIK, because there is now a completely new regime after less than a fortnight of this arbitrary stuff and the pub now has a 24-hr licence all week and is advertised (in the bar) as being open from midday to 11.30 a.m., the half-hour closed being apparently to put a few things in order each day. There is no mention of management discretion on the notice. Does this mean I can stay there drinking, probably alone, until 4 in the morning (say)? What on earth is the point of that because Carshalton is not exactly Soho. I'd like to know what's going on but the barman (not the manager) couldn't help, or wouldn't.
[Rosie] Have you been in the bar since Monday then?
(Phil) Sanity has prevailed with the appearance of yet another regime in which closing time is 1130 (pm) except Friday and Saturday which are midnight and Sundays which are 11 pm. These are modest extensions to the original times. The manager could have kept his itchy fingers off the keyboard and printer until he'd made his mind up but all's well that ends well.
(pen) Shurrup. Wha' if I 'ave? :-)
(pen) Shurrup. Wha' if I 'ave? :-)
Hours and Hours
Over here one has to move pub to get different closing times, it's all according to the type of licence issued, i.e. whether or not the licensee is able to have live music. Very strange but one gets used to it.
Hmm, looks like this site is about to become target for a lorryload of spam. Will need to think about tightening up the security I guess.
In the meantime, you might want to check the status of our latest building project.
[rab] Nice lav ;o)
[pen] That one's on its way out. The new one is sitting in a box in the spare bedroom.
[Rosie] Glad to hear you have stability again.
zbchk bnud
maith fthmri fuqv ktndamcs yetxq latids umgjkyftd
So nice to see we have visitors from another galaxy.
I thought it was one of us posting from a palm raspberry thing straight after emerging from the dentist's surgery.
(pen) :-)
Ching
Nice dusting of snow this morning, oddly, more in front of than out the back of the block.
Noting a slot and the date, does anyone have any inspiration for an advent-themed game of MC?
[Tuj] Done. Can you wait up until midnight to make your move? Sorry if that was a bit rude...
[pen] I knew someone would be able to hatch my half-idea =) thank you!
[Tuj] You're going to have to wait another day for a morsel of chocolate. Softers just got today's.
Odd Problem
Sorry to interrupt, but I need to get a message through to rab and the firewall here is stopping me posting to OMC/N&Q at the moment. I'm seeing a nod problem with the index page here at MC5. The names and moves displayed on it are not the same as those showing last in the games themselves. Is anyone else seeing this, or is this confined to my proxied-by-idiots world? Am I living in pre-cached hell again?
All looks fine here, Stevie.
Looks like a caching problem at your end, but I've resynched the index with the game data anyway.
Chocolate covered cache. Ooh!
[rab] *sighs* Okay. I'll resign myself to never seeing the site in it's real state then.
I could try adding the appropriate http header to try and request a non-cache.
OK
See if that works.
Cache Deals Only
[rab] Seems to have fixed it for now. Clever, you.
It's almost a week since anyone said anything, so I'll break the silence. I think I've moved into the 'finishing off projects' phase at work before my last day in the office on 23 December. How strange this is...
Not at all unusual if you are a proper professional, pen, which I assume you are.
I'm definitely demob happy now. I'm finishing off other people's jobs and bringing mince pies into work. I don't even like mince pies that much.
It gets very quiet in here over the weekend. Does that imply that most of mc5s posts are posted when the poster ought to be working?
[Knobbly] I am shocked, shocked to hear such a suggestion!
[knobbers] How very dare you??!!
I'd really like to express my hurt at the suggestion but, since I'm at work at the moment, I can't.
[Knobbly] Now look what you've done! Everyone is too ashamed to play any more. There has hardly been a move in any game for two days.
Shhh! Some of us have work to do, keep the noise down.
BOO! .....apologises to neighbours.....
Chirp
We've had a lot of dealings with tradesmen recently. None of them too disastrous (although there is still one job outstanding in the bathroom, scheduled for 8am tomorrow). But when something really good happens, I get so pleased. Our roofer was scheduled to check a few things out tomorrow morning in advance of the down-tools period (I had visions of a waterfall coming though the extractor fan on Christmas day). He phoned me up just now saying "I'm in the area, shall I come now?"; leapt onto the roof, found everything that was wrong with it and told me it would be thirty-five quid to fix. It was done in about the time it took me to get to the cashpoint and back.
Oh, and when I told him that one of his rivals told us we needed a whole new roof, he looked at me like I was mad and said, "Nah... this one will last about 20 years".
[rab] Is your bathroom fixed now?
This is my last day at work...
Woken by the telephone at ten o'clock this morning. Augh! The four best hours of the day lost in slumber, never to return! Oh well, I doubt if anyone else is at work today.
[Raak] I'm trying to plan a night off on Jan 2nd. It looks like it might work -)
[Raak] I'm still at work... Can't afford any time off, as I need all my leave for the imminent arrival of a new addition to the family. So I'll take this opportunity to wish a Merry Crimbo to everyone at MC5!
Merries
Happy wotsit. I'm obliged by the cult of Jobs to tell you this comes via my Father's iPhone.
Happinesses
Phew, Christmas successfully accomplished in the traditional manner. The Windy Miller is, this moment, accompanying the AA man in their attempts to get the car started, in anticipation of driving back to the Netherlands tomorrow. I have a chicken curry simmering on the hob, and was until a few moments ago, studying a book of Heath Robinson illustrations. Next, we will play with the new kitchen-windowsill weather monitoring station and see if we can't find out how to turn the outside temperature up a bit.
twelve days of Christmas
Monday, 2 December - the third consecutive day with a visit from the AA man. Today, they are taking the car away to a garage to be fixed. The advantage is that I get to spend extra time with the Windy Miller (we went to the cinema to see Australia last night - our first-ever cinema date. Marvellous cinematography, probably a lot of it CGI, but sh*t writing - maudlin, predictable and worst of all, it had Nicole Kidman in it). The disadvantage is that he is getting impatient as he has work to do back at home.
this year
I'm packing, and moving. Moving and packing. Eek!
[pen] You have my deepest empathy.
[CdM] Ignore Pen, it may not be great, but her way of seeing Australia is a lot less bother than yours.
[pen] It's a new beginning - sounds exciting. I enjoyed my 2 years in the Netherlands and would probably have stayed longer except for my ex.
epjlqroab nfpaub
hajoqpr budr znbq zoaidfeum cbrglknov mtsjiaex bveowfzyt
My heavens he's found me - anyone available to give me a lift to Bletchley?
Very cryptic, Duj :o)
I wonder if epjlqroab nfpaub is the same person as zbchk bnud from back in November?
[Knobbly] Don't be ridiculous, the names are completely different from each other.
Moving day T-3
I have two chairs and one lamp left. Everything else has been sold or is in boxes. Even my bed will sell on Ebay today, and a mate with a garage will sell my car for me. Lummy.
So you weren't joking when you said you were leaving, pen. :o)
Holland
[penelope] Where will you be living? Will you be using only public transport once you move? I've never been to Holland but I understand they have invested heavily in public transportation.
dead game?
Has Film Club run it's course, or does someone else want to suggest a new subject for it?
Public???
[SM] Public transport? Heavens no. I will be riding a stately omafiets, a birthday present from my schatje molenaar.
omafiets
[penelope] Would that be a bicycle, horse, moped or skateboard?
It's a 'granny bike' - big wheels, sprung seat, upright handlebars, luggage rack and shopping panniers, enormously comfortable and particularly suited for flat places.
Fietspads
[pen] In my my experience the wind always blows in you face whichever way you are cycling in Holland, making the traditional bikes hard work.
[Softers] Yup. But mine's aluminium so pretty light. And the wind blows against you wherever you cycle in Lincolnshire too, so that's nothing new.
Velocity vectors
(Softers, pen) The only possible conclusions are that either there is no wind in Holland, Lindsey and Kesteven or that you never cycle at less than about 50 mph. Impressive.
Bike
[penelope] The sprung seat is particularly suited to flat places? :)
Does this bicycle come with one of those teardrop-shaped "Pifo" electric horns that were so popular the last time I rode a bike?
Does this bicycle come with one of those teardrop-shaped "Pifo" electric horns that were so popular the last time I rode a bike?
[flerdle] Nice one. I read the linked article, then took a mouthfull of hot coffee just as I got to the bit about "30 blasts from one pumping-up". I immediately pictured Inspector Clouseau, in disguise, madly pumping as he cycled toward a pedestrian crowd (the parrot-inflation bit in the "Salty Swedish Sea Captain From The Salty Sea" scene is one of my favourite Sellars moments).
I'm probably going to need a new workstation keyboard now.
I'm probably going to need a new workstation keyboard now.
I've been a fan of Matthew Somerville's alternative front-end to the National Rail website for quite some time, traintimes.org.uk, on the grounds that it works better than the real one. He's recently added a live train map, and I particularly like the description of how it works:
Live departure data is fetched from the National Rail website, much like my timetable site, and then it does a bit of maths and magic.
Blowin' in the wind
*blushing* I drove the windy miller to his usual Saturday leading the volunteers and various lads at the mill this morning (practising driving (a) on the wrong side of the road and (b) on the wrong side of the car) but we were a bit later than his normal arrival time. You can see the mill from some way off because of the flat landscape, and when we were about half a mile away, the WM could see the sails were already turning and exclaimed: 'There are flags on the sails!'. As we got closer, we realised what they were. There was a Dutch tricolour on one sail, and a Union flag on the opposite one (bought specially off t'internet). And there were muffins and stroopwafels to have with coffee there this morning. Then I came home, made soup, tidied up a bit, and watched Alec Guinness in Cromwell on BBC 2 which you can get here. Bloody marvellous :o).
Arrivals
[pen] Yay!
*fancies a stroopwafel - all of a sudden*
Welkom
[pen] Nice. Watch out for the speed cameras ;o). The cable channels carry only the BBC (for copyright reasons, apparently) but if you live near the coast you can get all the UK channels (analogue ones, only probably) on an aerial.
[penelope] Happiness to you.
Thanks all :o)
Back to the mill tonight - it's floodlit farming night, so farms and mills on the island of Hoekshe Waard (that's this one) will be floodlit for busloads of sightseers to tour.
This morning's trip to the small supermarket lead me past two market-stall type vans in the main street of this large village/small town. One was a cheesemonger, on whose stall I spotted a small solitary block of English cheddar, bright orange and tightly encased in plastic, amongst the big wheels of Dutch cheese and the small morsels of some of the better-known French cheeses. There are so many good British cheeses, but none of them are known here. Hardly any of them are known behind the counters of Tesco either, but that's a different problem. *goes to chivvy up the British Cheese Marketing people*.
Back to the mill tonight - it's floodlit farming night, so farms and mills on the island of Hoekshe Waard (that's this one) will be floodlit for busloads of sightseers to tour.
This morning's trip to the small supermarket lead me past two market-stall type vans in the main street of this large village/small town. One was a cheesemonger, on whose stall I spotted a small solitary block of English cheddar, bright orange and tightly encased in plastic, amongst the big wheels of Dutch cheese and the small morsels of some of the better-known French cheeses. There are so many good British cheeses, but none of them are known here. Hardly any of them are known behind the counters of Tesco either, but that's a different problem. *goes to chivvy up the British Cheese Marketing people*.
Cheesy lines
[pen] Perhaps if you polish off the advent chocs we could have a game writing slogans for cheese!
mmmm, cheese...
gah
I was putting together my advent chocolate feast when my internet connection broke - actually the wind dropped on the windy miller's wifi network. So if anyone can polish off the chocolates and start on the cheese, they'd be welcome to do it.
Pilgrimage
BTW, there will be a Pilgrimage in London on Feb 14th, if anyone's interested.
[penelope] eat local food - the world will thank you for it much later.
[Phil] I do, mostly - the potatoes here are particularly good, they actually taste of potato. But if they're going to import some cheese from the UK, you'd think they'd cart the good stuff about, not the orange plastic-wrapped-in-plastic stuff, wouldn't you? They seem to manage to bring in some decent French cheese.
Cheese
[Pen] Actually, the Dutch tend to like their plasticky orange cheeses - Edam and Gouda being cases in point - but some of the smoky varieties are very nice, and you should be able to get tastier Boerenkaas and goat cheeses if you look hard enough. I don't know where your windmill is but I assume there isn't an English shop round the corner. Are there no local farmers who make their own? Have you tried whingeing to Windy? On an unrelated note, are you coming to Othello? I can put you up...
Good try
[IS,P!] I'm almost ashamed to admit it, and please don't take it personally, but theatre ain't my bag. I struggle to appreciate drama and hardly watch films - Jan and I went to the cinema for the first time together in December, two years after we met. Sooo I will leave an Othello seat for someone who will appreciate it more.Perhaps we should have a Brussels Sprouting Pilg at some point though.
*has just google-mapped peneloopij's woonplaats*
Pilgrimage
[SM] Is that for people who don't have anything else to do on Valentines Day?
Slogans for cheese?
And now there's a new game slot, shall we start a Cheesy slogans game?
[Kim] What else might one have to do on Valentine's Day?
[Kim] What else might one have to do on Valentine's Day?
Cheese
[pen] I remember being aghast in a supermarket in Perigord (admittedly in a fairly ex-pat-filled town), and seeing Red Leicester amongst the French cheeses. Especially galling was the £11 per kg price tag!
a nice bit of...
[Phil] That's marketing for you! I'd like some jong Lincolnshire Poacher, voor mij.
[Phil] French Cheese. Galling. I get that.
I like all cheeses, but some better than others, obviously.
[Softers] Have left a question for you in AVMA - I assumed you would be looking in there. Perhaps a reply in here might be best, if that's OK with you. [ Then all will be revealed :-)]
[Soft] Ah - I've just seen it. Thanks. The reason I asked - have to go to St Helier to do some work in early Feb and thought it might be nice to connect. But as you're not there ....
:-(
:-(
3rd time lucky
Potty mouth? You ARE in Jersey, then?
St Helier
[Chalks] Yes, I am here, well I work in St Helier and live just outside. When you over?
[Softers] Any chance of you emailing? k/e/davenport/@/// gmail.com [sans hyphens - natch] :)
Well?
We're all dying to know - did Softers email Chalky? Will the Jerseypilg go ahead? Find out in next week's episode of... Chat
*chuckles*
[peneloopij] He did. It may.
In the meantime...
Sunny and very cold today in Zuid Holland. We may even yet go for a bike ride. I have no idea what my windy miller is doing downstairs while I'm upstairs trying to write something, but it sounds like he's reorganisisng something and I'm afraid to go and look.
Windy Miller
[Pen] Please tell me he has a blue coat, a red necktie and a brown upturned-flowerpot hat...
As You Like It
[IS,P!] why certainly. He has a blue coat, red neckerchief and a brown upturned-flowerpot hat. The coat and neckerchief are in the laundry basket waiting to be ironed, but he keeps the hat in the car.
You don't press his hat?
Good grief, woman, what are you thinking about? Everyone from where I came from has a flat hat (they, the wearers, are said to also have whippets and cobblestones and ghosts, but that's just not true). Even I have one! (pictures available at £150 each, on request - and after a full security cheque (price to be negotiated)).
Highly Rural
It seems to me that Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cutherbert, Dibble and Grubb will be getting jealous of all this attention.
Clarification required
[Dujon] You have one what? Ghost? Cobblestone? Whippet?
And anyway we'll have the RSPCA round to you for ironing your whippets.
You don't need to iron a flat hat - the incessant beating of the rain on it will do that for you.
And anyway we'll have the RSPCA round to you for ironing your whippets.
You don't need to iron a flat hat - the incessant beating of the rain on it will do that for you.
Just so you know, reading this conversation is like looking at a Dali painting to me. Every time I think I'm getting the drift of it, one of the pieces flops over and makes a shape like an elephant (or a swan).
hatters
[Duj] it's not a flat hat - we're talking about the traditional attire of windy miller, the hat is upturned-flower-pot shaped. The landscape here in South Holland is flat. I can see how you got confused.
[pen] Wait. You are ironing the landscape?
[CdM] A man knocked at my door and asked if I wanted my garden landscaped. I don't think my neighbours would appreciate me turning my portrait garden sideways.
[Phil] proper lol and in the office too.
Well, well, well
I suppose that the next you lot will tell me is you don't launder your money. Honestly! What are Great Britain and the Nederlands coming to? Whatever, I bet it's a bit warmer here (excluding the Mint investigations) than it is at your picturesque location. Na, Na, Na Na Ner. ;-)
Sweat, y'bugger
(Duj) You're welcome to 39°C with high humidity. 39°F would do me OK at the moment. There was a foot of snow here on Monday morning and still about half that even now.
Life threatening thingiwhatsits
Rosie, that is not funny. ;-) So it was you who peeked at my weather site from an area somewhere near London. You can keep your snow as I'm just hoping my air conditioning unit keeps running. Today (Saturday) should be fine - sort of - but tomorrow I fear. 47ºC is most definitely not going to be fun.
(Dujon) It would seem to be a good day to hang out the washing around here. I doubt if you'll get a true 47°C though Melbourne might. The cool change could be quite something. I'll keep an eye on it.
By contrast
(Duj) To cool off try this rather agreeable city.
Newsflash
I rudely interrupt to bring you the essential news that at 23.09 today I will be exactly* 1/3rd century old. Oh, and it's snowing.
* Subject to how one chooses to define of 'exact'
Optimist
As a special not-birthday treat, my wife took me to the optometrists. He (the optometrist, not my wife) said my prescription had changed "a little bit", but when I compared the two sets of numbers I could detect no correlation between them whatsoever.
[Rab] Were you wearing glasses at the time?
Ageism
(rab) Date of birth 9 Oct 1975 at 5 a.m. then? I have taken a century as 36524.25 days. On 18 July this year at 6 pm I shall be two-thirds of a century old. On 23 July last year I was twice as old as you. I do like faffing about with a calculator.
Rosie old chap, too much time on your hands? Very good though!
Tempus ambulat
(Bigsmith) I see mathematics (or arithmetic, which this is) as a recreation. Time to spare? Work out my date of birth. (Don't forget the leap years, all n of them.)
[Rosie] We seem to disagree by a day and an hour, even though I used the same length of a century as you... bother.
[Rosie] You're not the only one... a good friend of mine (and a Cambridge Maths graduate) recently delighted to inform me I was 7884 days old. Not long 'til the big 8000!
(rab) 10th October then? My mistake. But I don't see how I can be an hour out because 36524.25/3=12174.75 exactly. So we have to subtract 0.75 day (18 hr) from the time you gave initially, making it 5.09 a.m. I called it 5 a.m. because we're not shot from guns exactly. My double-your-age date is wrong, too. It should be 31 Aug 08 at 6 pm, if you were born at 6 a.m. 10/10/75.
Rosie's date of birth
17 November 1942 (n = 17).
[Rosie] Did you take daylight saving time into account?
uohrixg yzrqmefdx
bvkj kqna hojxkmtd uzrltjvx ityksr owucr nxdawbgvc
(rab) No. I will have no truck with such arbitrary adjustments in my sophisticated numerical analyses :-). You are right, of course, provided you were born in Britain, or possibly Spain or some West African countries.
(Bigsmith) And so are you. (6 pm, they tell me).
(Bigsmith) And so are you. (6 pm, they tell me).
Accuracy
[uohrixg yzrqmefdx] That, good sir, was jolly close, as I believe even Rosie would acknowledge. I do think though that you have missed by a bit. Rosie does not live 'south of the border' and nor does he live so far west of the meridian.
I would give you 'bvyk anq.s and ityksr+polar co-ordinates' when related to the orbit of Triton as seen from Earth.
I would give you 'bvyk anq.s and ityksr+polar co-ordinates' when related to the orbit of Triton as seen from Earth.
[Rosie] 6 pm aye? Then by applying the Euclidian theory of longitudinal drift to a trans-Mercator projection I determine that that would have been in Crowborough, Sussex.
(Bigsmith) Correct yet again. Amazing. Would have been Purley (nudge, nudge) but for the war. The OS Grid is a Transverse Mercator projection BTW. Very gudermannian. (Dujon) 0° 03' 36.8" W. Can't be too accurate; don't want to go in the wrong house.
[Rosie] Bugger, I thought I'd made it up! I remember we have discussed things map-wise before. I do enjoy a good OS map so it must have been subconcious. WildpantsMC may be long gone but the player profiles page is still on-line and easy to search.
That's how I know about your London Welsh parents!
That's how I know about your London Welsh parents!
Apologies for my recent absence
I can proudly announce the arrival on planet Earth of Maxwell Theodore Stanley Kirby!
MTSK
Hullo Max.
Maxwell - he'll be a demon at physics. Congratulations. Hope all are well.
(Bigsmith) I thought that's where you must have got it. Still up, is it? I haven't looked for years.
(Bigsmith) I thought that's where you must have got it. Still up, is it? I haven't looked for years.
as per MCiOS
Welcome Max!!
Ex Libri Bardus
Are we done? Does anyone have a good idea with which to replace it?
[SM] Bear in mind there's been an open game slot beneath it for quite some time now. Ideas and energy seem somewhat lacking in the Morniverse lately.
Bent Saws
Don't count your chickens before the fat lady sings.
Unused Games
[Tuj] I was under the impression that there was some sort of inner council that came up with games and were the only ones able to make them. I should add that I don't have any good game ideas with which to replace Ex Libri Bardus, I was just thinking that it was looking a bit threadbare, and that my last few moves in it missed the point so widely that the sooner they were hidden in the archive the better. I don't know what I was thinking when I made them (he said in his best "Kryten" voice).
Bent Saws
[Software] That sounds like something Marlon from The Perishers would say. I like it.
I've done the honours for Ex Libri.
Max
Cheers for the good wishes, folks - pictures are up on my Facebook!
Mad Max
[Uncle Korky] Congratulations and felicitations to all. I haven't gone a-facebooking as a picture does not always tell a thousand words. The question, therefore, is, "is he smart?"
Bent Saws
Where there's muck, there's hope. Let's have a go. [UK] Congratulations to you on the arrival of Maxwell. A silver hammer is in the post.
Bent Saws
A jolly good idea and I like the game name too. Let lightning strike while the iron's hot.
Bent Saws
Raak, I loved your "bank" saw. It's (not) funny because it's true.
Sponsored silence
OK, it's been silent for a week... someone say something!
oblig.
something
Not that I'm proposing any changes, but I wonder if games would become more or less active if they weren't stamped with the date and time of the last move. Less active is my guess.
Max
[Dujon] Can't vouch for smart, yet, but I'd like to think there's potential! [Kim] Ta muchly!
ONe week later
Bright and cold here (can also be said for me as well as the weather) and today I am going to take to the road. Enough of nerves, I've just got to drive. But after 25 years of driving on the other side of the road, and the other side of the car, it's all a bit weird.
Left Hooker
Hi pen, hold your breath and prepare for a few rapped knuckles on you left hand! You'll get used to it quicker than you think. Just watch out for those nasty entry/exit points that the Clogs like so much, you find yourself merging with traffic entering the motorway as you are trying to leave. Very unnerving the first time.
The bit that un-nerves me is the crossroads with no marked priority here in the village - like a US 4-way stop. I struggle to use those to turn left across oncoming traffic and end up lurching about.
Technical writing test
Changing the subject just a little, I've got a job interview tomorrow for a tech writer role. And they've given me a little test document to polish. It contains a clever twist on bad documentation technique I've not seen before: 'Note how Figure 1 does not show the following....'
I just love that. Specially creating a diagram that doesn't show the thing you want to highlight. Hats off to 'em. I'm just hoping this document was intentionally altered to make a harder test. But in these cases there's always the risk that a legitimate document really was genuinely that badly-written. Still, if so, at least I'll have plenty of rewriting work to do.
This page was NOT intentionally left blank, comes to mind :o).
This Page Intentionally Blank
[Software] TPILB has a very good pedigree. It was used extensively in the 1970s when replacement pages for technical manuals had only half the content of the original, resulting in one blank side right where everyone had hitherto been used to finding text. It was a way of avoiding the (then) expensive customer service calls about non-existent missing text that went nowhere. It also meant that the original contents page would still work, mostly, as the page numbering wasn't screwed up by the change. The only alternative would be to reprint the entire chapter from the change onward which would likely prove to be prohibitively expensive. These days, one often sees such material reproduced either electronically, which makes no sense, or on single-sided copies of the original material, which makes sense but is still odd when you come across it.
Tech Speak
[SM] I know, I'm an engineer and at one point in my distant past was responsible for the printing and distribution of technical manual updates (on a subcontract). It still bemuses the uninitiated though.
You Tech the High Road
Ah! Reminds me when I was a technical author myself. I can still take a 20-year-old New World gas cooker to pieces... Just don't ask me to put it together again when I've drawn the pictures.
[Software] Sorry for lecturing the knowledgable.
I think it's spring.
[penelope] Are you loving Holland? Are the tulips growing yet? Have you been overrun by clog-wearing mice?
[SM] Starting to withstand/endure/cope with Holland rather than like it or love it. Still not quite sure what I'm doing here... The tulips are just poking their leaves through in the garden (we're further south than the main tulip-growing areas - there are mostly pear and apple orchards and celeriac fields here), and there are precious few mice, or even rabbits. Apparently the water table is too high for them to dig warrens. But there are lots of hares, herons, some large bird of prey that I have yet to identify, kingfishers (ijsvogels - I've also realised I have a whole new vocabulary of wildlife to learn) and the most interefered-with trees I have ever seen in my life. There is not one tree here that has been allowed to grow accoring to its natural form. Every single tree has been either trimmed, clipped, pollarded, coppiced, brashed or felled. Tree-fiddling is the national obsession.
Clogland
You'll grow to love the place, pen. The south is a bit severe, the Dutch reclaimed most of the land so they do what they like with it. I lived in Nord Holland which is a bit less over-cultivated and the trees are allowed to do tree things, to a degree anyway. I lived in a town called Huizen, my garden used to back on the Ijsselmeer but it is now about 1km away!
[Softers] I take it all back. The invitation to an interview for a promising job which was issued and then witdrawn has been issued again. I'm hopeful once more. More on this later...
Expansionism
[Software] Those Dutch hey? Having given up their world exploits they are now about to invade the Channel by stealth. I shall now make a concerted effort to monitor the Indian and Pacific Oceans; the thought of the whole of Huizen sneaking across to reclaim Van Deimen's Land has my kernees kernocking.
[Dujon] We in Britain have a cunning plan to foil the Dutch takeover by stealth of the North Sea. As they gradually move out to rebuild the land bridge we are simultaneously moving the coast of East Anglia inland. By the time the Dutch catch us up we’ll all be in Dublin.
[penelope] I expect Software is right and that once the fast-relocation shellshock has worn off, the ground turns colours other than brown and you have gainful employment you will wonder why you didn't move years ago.
(INJ) Coastal erosion will see to that anyway, so they say.
Those Darn Dikes
[ImNotJohn] This plan will play merry hell with the old Risk and Diplomacy games. I expect after-market stickers will be available for pre-game coastline reconfiguration.
* waves from Santa Fe *
*twiddles thumbs*
I had an interview yesterday, and did a looong written test today, by email. Now I'm anxiously waiting to hear if I've got a fantastic three-day a week, English speaking/writing job at the university that pays as much as my five-day-a-week not-for-profit job did back in Blighty...
Mmmm. Part-time.
Huisvrouw
I can see you getting used to the lifestyle in Clogland, pen.
Mmmmm....five-day-a-week.
And the rest of the time, I am...
Housework, looking after the windy miller (who does 5 x 12 hour days and all day Saturday at the mill), and some freelance work... Pah!
(pen) 60 hours a week sounds like trubble at mill.
[Rosie] Sounds like a part-time job to me :( *(moan, moan, bleat, whinge etc etc etc ad nauseam until someone points out I chose to do this for a living, and that I get to live in a pub)*
[Phil] Presumably you also have the option to hire someone so that you work fewer hours, but with obvious consequences for your finances.
Welcome to London Heathrow, The World's Most Miserable Airport. I've just been biometrised and hassled at security despite the fact I've been in secure areas for the last twelve hours.
[rab] Yes I could pay someone to some some of the stuff I do. But they wouldn't do it as well as I do. If they did, I wouldn't able to afford them. Also, I enjoy 95% of what I do - especially the quality control :-)
[Phil] I hear you. The windy miller is the same - he takes huge pride in the work that he does (construction project management - and this one is a HUGE project) but being on site to make sure things happen on schedule takes its toll and he's usually too exhausted to do anything on Sunday - which is the only day we have at home together. So much for moving here to spend more time together. Part of my 'job' at the moment is taking care of him, as much as he'll let me. *sigh*
*was in England for three days and thought it was lovely*
* was on Iona and Colonsay for four days and thought they were lovely *
*was in East Grinstead for two hours and thought it was awful*
*is envious of rab*
*was in the Crowne Plaza Buckingham Gate for 2 hours and it was so dull we moved to the Holiday Inn, Oxford Street*
*was at home*
*thought, therefore was*
[CdM] Was what? ;o)
(pen) Cogitavit ergo erat. I dunno.
*just got a phone call telling her she's got the job*
[pen] Congratulations!
*Thought that congratulations were due to Penelope*
*just got a phone call from Job*
belen
Well done.
*Has an idea for a game*
Called "News has come to Harvard": we make up new elements for the periodic table and provide hilarious, surreal or topical explanations of their nature and purpose. Eg:
Excusium: constituent element in whitewash. Frequently used by politicians.
Any support?
rab's phonecall
Is that Job of Old Testament fame?
[Kim] I see! Good title, tidy idea. One on board =)
[Tuj] Thanks. Any against? Where should I slot it?
Luminous silly Kates
(Kim) Go ahead.
Thanks. No slots currently available here or anywhere else. Has "Bent Saws" reached its proverbial, do you think?
Outage
Hello there. I'm going to be taking the site down for a short while for an upgrade.
Outrage
Let's see if that has worked? It seems I've even stopped the galloping slashes this time!
Just saw the Elements game. There is a site that I had bookmarked and only deleted on Friday which is very enjoyable. Apparently now been published as a book - http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/sillymolecules/sillymols.htm - Molecules with Silly Names. Some of them were featured on QI a few years ago.
jdf397dhf
aaaa525zzz
Shh! It's fallen asleep.
shavonda@hotmail.com
suck all the channel on tv sucks badly
Parse the preceding sentence, thoughtfully provided by someone.
Actually, I think the real problem with TV is that most of the channels suck quite well.
Suck all. The channel on TV sucks badly.
It's the voice from the future. When interactive TV is the norm a lonely politician's husband has to get a 'helping hand' when the signal gets a bit fuzzy.
It's the voice from the future. When interactive TV is the norm a lonely politician's husband has to get a 'helping hand' when the signal gets a bit fuzzy.
Suck! All the channel on TV sucks. Badly.
There's usually suck all on TV worth watching anyway.
There's usually suck all on TV worth watching anyway.
Speaking of which, ten days without a move suggests that UK GAZETEER FILM CLUB might have outlived its span. Does anyone have a suggestion for another one?
Six word stories?
"Six word stories?" Simons suggested. Silence.
(No, really, I'd be up for that.)
Six word stories
I was about to suggest that
Six Word Stories
How does it go?
You tell a story in six
Damn! Bad planning on my part
With a short preface (say "Story One", and so on) this could be hatched inside the Eight Moves Game, giving it a kick up the jacksy also.
I love the idea of 'Precisely Eight Words' being bent to stories. I may try that, even if it's not an official diversion... Also, I had an idea the other day for a one-line-at-a-time Gilbert & Sullivan play. Ambitious, but not impossible. Thought I'd run it up the flagpole of the collective.
Good news, bad news.
Hello there. The good news is that the company that provides the disk space and bandwidth this site needs to function is upgrading the capacity of both of them this afternoon, at no charge. The bad news is that this necessitates a change of IP address (the server will be moving from Edinburgh to London).
What this means in practice is that after 4pm BST today, some of you will see the old version, and some of you the new. You'll be able to tell the difference, because you won't be able to post to the old one. It typically takes about 24hours, maybe longer, for the process to complete. Restarting your browser/computer/modem may (or may not) help - it depends on where the old IP addresses are being cached.
Don't be perturbed if the site fails to load for a bit.
Back up
Right, this is back up, but you can only get here if you know how to get here.
First!
Er, second, then
In the medals!
*sour*
Yes, you can tell it's London-hosted now. It just feels so much more... familiar.
(Pj) Aye. Mebbe.
[Projoy] A euphemism for contemptuous?
But is it Sarf of the river, in which case no-one will visit it outside the hours of daylight?
It'll soon be wanting a little cottage in the country for weekends though...
I see the spammers have found the film club - perhaps this is indeed a good point to pull the plug on it.
Eight word stories.
If this is proposed as a new game (perhaps to replace the Film Club) then may I suggest a title?
"A man was born; he lived, then died."
"A man was born; he lived, then died."
A novel in 6 words
If it's going to be eight words, then I'll post my favourite 6-worder here (not mine but can't remember who did write it - though Orson Welles is the name in my head):
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
[INJ] Hemingway.
Another game idea
Tarol Hunt (of goblinscomic.com) has been writing nonsense Twitters, usually of the form 'If I ...' Some of these are worthy of Jack Handy himself: "If I was stung by a bee, it'd better not be a laser bee because those guys are puuuuuure laser." Can we have a go? "If I was a caveman, I probably wouldn't ever say 'Yabba Dabba Doo' unless I was being deeply ironic."
"If I was going to speak, I'd try to be there to hear it. It'd be a pity to miss one after all these years."
this week...
I can't believe no-one has anything to say for a whole weekend! So this week, I'm going to post something in here every day. Monday: Whit Monday public holiday here in the Netherlands, so I'm accompanying the Windy Miller (a veteran of four well-executed restorations of stationary engines - portable and wheelbarrow-sized sources of farmyard power, some of which are almost 100-years old) to the largest exhibition of stationary engines in the country, in Eindhoven. I will come back smelling of kerosene, a bit sunburnt and a bit sooty. In return, I get a day's outing somewhere cultural. I'm lining up the Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and a Tennyson Society thing in England next week.
Eindhoven
[pen] I don't expect that you'll have time to visit the Philips Museum while you are there, but it is worth a shot. No holiday here, that was last week in secular UK. I spent a surprisingly dry and sunny weekend in west Wales, even managed an afternoon on the beach, though the sun failed to hit my Channel Island hardened skin.
Hols
I've been in Scotland for a week, with no access (although I was told that wi-fi at Boat of Garten post office cost 'buttons'). 5 days of mostly showery weather and then a stunning day on Friday, so I left the ladies to go cycling in Abernethy Forest and walked into the heart of the Cairngorms (Loch Avon via the top of Bynack Mor). I now have a nicely-burnt left side to my face - the perils of a circular walk.
Unhols
On the Costa Brava for three days last week, attending a conference held at a hotel on the beach. Wednesday was free, so a colleague and I drove up to see Cadaqués. Came home with a developing cough that took out most of the weekend.
Yet another Game idea - well not really
Some herbert has put something in Carpe Diem - Fish of the Day. It was a good game that ended five years ago and could be worth restarting. Any takers?
[Raak] Not swiney cough, one hopes?
[Rosie] Agree - a cracking game which generated huge chuckleness way back then. I have a hunch that it was the game that spawned Breadmaster's legendary " For pity's sake child ..." and then something about tying down the moons of Jupiter. Anyway, my friend, just thought I'd point out that the same game is currently steaming along in OrangeMC under the title Ubersetzen Sie (add umlaut to first letter) - but if one don't play in there - the information I have imparted is rather irrelevant. :)
[Rosie] Agree - a cracking game which generated huge chuckleness way back then. I have a hunch that it was the game that spawned Breadmaster's legendary " For pity's sake child ..." and then something about tying down the moons of Jupiter. Anyway, my friend, just thought I'd point out that the same game is currently steaming along in OrangeMC under the title Ubersetzen Sie (add umlaut to first letter) - but if one don't play in there - the information I have imparted is rather irrelevant. :)
(Chalky) Let's continue with it on Orange, then, which frankly I'd forgotten about.
[Chalky] No *cough* fever, so *cough* *cough* hopefu*cough*lly not. *cough* *cough* *cough*
Tuesday's events
Tuesday... hmmm... work. Gridlock traffic getting into and out of Rotterdam, too much good coffee trying to stay awake through meetings, and an hour and a half of ironing when I finally got home. Wednesday? Gridlocked traffic again this morning - a 34km drive took an hour and ten minutes, not enough breakfast (have already made a start on my packed lunch an it's only 09.40) but there's the prospect of a proper English haircut with a proper English hairdresser in England on Saturday morning (it means I can actually ask for the haircut I want, rather than have the one the Dutch dameskappers want to give me) so anything is bearable this week. Even another 3mph crawl home this evening.
Saw Holland (well, bits of it) on the TV last night in an advert. It looked frenetic.
(penelope, Re: Ironing) Can't you just feed the clothes through the millstone?
(penelope, Re: Ironing) Can't you just feed the clothes through the millstone?
ironmilling
[SM] Nice idea, but the milling faces of millstones are designed for cutting and shearing the grains, not merely crushing them, so you'd have to piece together the shreds of clothing afterwards. More trouble than it's worth really. The drive home this evening was only 45 minutes - the best time for a week now. Some bits of Holland are frenetic. Luckily, I live in a nice rural bit :o)
freneticism
(pen) I thought the Dutch were sort of stoic.
[Rosie] Yeah, but they drive ruthlessly on the motorways in their Calvinistic rush to be at home being stoic.
Green ironing
What you need is not a grain mill, but an olive press. Of course it would be hard to get the oil stains out afterwards, but you could definitely get a good crease in those underpants. That would have the additional advantage of being drivable by donkey-power, so you could iron on a windless day.
donkeyfarts
[INJ] I don't understand how you can control the donkey's flatulence so accurately.
Donkey Flatulence
(penelope) I think you just have to stop them eating the mashed olives.
* waves from Haifa *
* waves from Rehovot *
mashed olives
All the more for me. *parp* Oh, I beg your pardon.
That small interval has probably cleared the air. Is anyone left standing?
*parp* That's the last one, I promise.
*Has just got the hang of doing that small writing everyone else does, as opposed to this one which isn't quite as small*... Just thought I'd mention.
[Simons Mith] Was Silveo the bloke who fell under a bus whilst wearing clean underpants? ;)
* waves from Aberdeen *
*waves from Hamsey Green*
It's a wonderful little place, full of houses and things.
*waves from West End Live 7 hours ago*
*waves from Zuid Holland*
Flat and slightly rainy this morning, but still very green and pleasant.
* Waves from his office *
Another week begins, nothing particularly pleasant to report.
*Waves from Barking*
...or perhaps he's drowning...
paging Mr Raak, paging Mr Raak
Please proceed to the AVMA game, where a task is waiting for you.