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The Banter Page
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If you're wanting to get something off your chest, make general comments about the server, or post lonely hearts ads, then this is the place for you.
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[Knobbly] Alas, The Sage wasn't built when I was there. I left in 1977 :-(
[Phil] Ah... I got the wrong end of the thingummy.
[Knobbly] ...which I deliberately proffered to you. Apols for a cheap stunt :-)
(Phil) Cunning, too.
*waves from Strasbourg*
* waves from Stroud *
cross-posted
Impromptu mini-virtual pilg in the MCiOS chat room a little while ago was greatly enjoyed by flerdle, nfras, Néa, nat and, briefly, Phil. These last two days I seem to have been able to "stay alive" in there for hours at a time (not zombie-ify like it used to - losing the connection somehow), so why not drop in, hang around for a while and see who turns up?

nfras mentioned that monday and thursday evenings (our times - about 11am UK time in summer) are likely for him, and I can try that too. UK nights, late, might be a possibility in the winter. Doesn't have to be formal, or lots of people. Suggest-o-matic!

[flerdle] Was that a specific invitation to nights and me? :-)
You probly think this song is about you...
[Uncle Korky] The more the merrier! :-)
[UK] First time I read "UK" in flerdle's post I thought of you rather than the country I'm in - the rampant effect of context I assume!
[Tuj] Similarly, I wondered what flerdle might want with me late, possibly in the winter. Moving swiftly along.
It seems MCiOS is down.
[Rosie] It was probably asleep like everyone else at that time of night ;o)
I went to MC5 today; it was shut.
It's up but I rarely go there anyway.
Is everyone on holiday? Everyone here in NL is on hols - there's no traffic on the motorways and I can leave home for work 20 minutes later than normal. But the weather here has been lovely (if a little hot at times) and the mosquito population is thriving in the dykes :o(
Factory holidays, love 'em. When I lived in Hilversum it was the same. I was required to take only 2 weeks during July/August which meant that trips to the coast were really easy on the weekends.
Back at work
Well - I've been on holiday for 11 days, but nothing's changed. Can I go away again?
[INJ] If when you come back your desk is still there, then it's a result. Quit complaining.
Yes, but
[Softers] I was borrowing a desk when I went on holiday. I came back to find everyone else had moved to a different building, but my monitor and docking station hadn't been moved. I don't know if that's a result or not - given that something usually gets lost if you let 'facilities' move it for you.
And furthermore
(Softers) I always regard it as a result if on returning to my car after the pub I find it is still there. On only one occasion has this not been the case and it was recovered about 6 hours later with a seriously damaged steering lock.
[INJ] That little remark is a great example of life mimicking art - have you seen the film 'Office Space'? Just beware when your desk is moved to the basement.
Or the men's room.
pssst... anyone here?
Not me...
...busy listening to the cricket.
Ah, it's finished now. I'm here then. Anyone else?
I am but I'm just about to go out for a summer evening walk. And maybe a beer on the way back.
Back now. What have I missed?
*Waves from Thun*
[Kim] Don't fall off any Alps.

I haven't been abroad for years and years. Which is green of me, I suppose, but dull.

lPTVUPFN
Hi! RjdBkz
Just back from the North York Moors - staying in a cottage belonging to friends. End of a multiply-gated track a mile from the road, no phone, no TV, nearest pub or shops half an hour away. No choice but to relax.
*down from alps*
This is just to say that, if anyone has any new game ideas, I am not averse to the closure of the Harvard game. A month has passed since any new elements were discovered there. Some clever person might come up with an element that incorporates the winning move.
New Game
"Late For The Ball"? I always enjoyed that on "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue".
North York Moors
[ImNotJohn] Batteries went dead in the old PPS then?
Can I just say that the Tesco's 'Three Bean Salad' represents excellent value for money? The one I just ate contained more like two hundred beans in it rather than just three.
Whereas I just had Thousand Island dressing on my salad and there wasn't a single island in it as far as I could tell.
[SMs] Skim-reading I thought Sierra Mike had quadruple-posted! But you both made me smile.
Server issues
Hello there. I'm occasionally finding that this site doesn't load - I get a 'cannot connect to the website' message (or 'connection refused'), despite the fact that as far as I know, the server is running properly at the remote end. This has happened to me from two different networks, so I'd be interested to know if anyone else is experiencing this before I investigate further. It's quite sporadic, so you may not notice anything amiss.
Connection refused
I'm seeing it. About 15% of the time, at a guess.
Me too.
Right - that points to some kind of server problem.
I've seen it as well, in the last week.
Me too, occasionally, recently.
Support tell me it should now be fixed. Let me know if it happens again.
No problem this morning. I'm here, aren't I?
Not bitter
I've got a bottle of Angostura bitters. With roughly four dashes used so far, which leaves about a millennium's supply remaining. Does anyone actually use this stuff?? If so, what for? And how often? I'm wondering if Mr Angostura and company have a real racket going here, or if they're actually doing themselves a disservice by selling their customers centuries worth of their product in a single hit. Perhaps their sales would be better if they sold it in the same size bottle as, say, Tabasco or something. Just idle speculation as the chat here seems otherwise quiet…
(SM) It's like pepper. Get a jar of it and it lasts for ever. I had a girlfriend who was very keen on the said bitters whereas I preferred bitter. I had a sip of her drink once - it was vile.
[SM] Have you got a bottle of gin handy? Add a couple of dashes to a G & T and you get pink gin. Used to be very popular in the '60s when I used to work behind a bar.
Pink gin
Gin could be arranged, although it's not something I normally drink. But plainly I could buy a couple of crates of gin and the bitters would still outlast them. And a bottle of gin would lakst me 3-6 months. Y'know, I was viewing using up this bottle of bitters as a challenge, but unless I really go for it, which is sort of cheating, I don't think I'm going to manage it in my remaining lifespan.
Pink gin and water is also nice. 2 or 3 drops added to a ginger beer is one of my favourite very, very low alcohol drinks. Oh, and one of the several versions of rock shandy is 50/50 ginger ale and soda water, with a few drops of bitters.
A bit of searching and I've found culinary uses at this site
Bitters added to lemonade cuts some of the sweetness and makes a nice summer garden drink.
gin clear
Is it any good for cleaning shower heads?
[pen] Only if it can dissolve the dead spiders.
That 'Shakespeare in Crescent' game we've just had brought to our notice was pretty good. We must do that again.
[Simons Mith] When I was a student, one of the drinks of choice at the time was a long vodka which consisted of a few drops of bitters smeared round a highball glass, ice, a shot of vodka, a dash of lime and topped up with soda water. A bit girly but very drinkable.
Poncy booze
(nfras) How does that help achieve the main objective of student drinking which is to get pissed as quickly and cheaply as possible, then as now?
[INJ] I'll second anything in iambic pentameter!
[Rosie] Well, it's a cheap drink. No charge for bitters or soda, normally. When my dad was in the Royal Navy, it was traditional for midshipmen, and some other low-ranking officers, to drink pink gin, as all you paid for was the gin - hence it was the cheapest drink in the Officers' Mess - because midshipmen were so lowly paid.
(Phil) Didn't they have grog? Maybe not often enough. When I was a student we only drank spirits if we were deliberately trying to get as pissed as possible because in those days a shot of spirits was nearly twice the price of a pint of beer. In today's money I'd estimate the prices as £2 and £3.50.
When I was at Uni (mid-late 90s) my University Union used to do a happy hour. 50p a pint (the usual price at the time in a pub was £1-£1.25 depending on the brand). At about quarter to seven you'd see the bar packed with students buying 4 or 6 pints at a time. They would take them back to their table and drink them over the next couple of hours. You might think that the beer tasted awful after sitting in a glass for over an hour, and you'd be right. But it was cheap.
[Rosie] Yes, they did have rum until July 1970 (one eighth of a pint per day), which I think was issued as two-water grog (watered-down 2 parts water to 1 part rum). Pusser's Rum has been made since about 1980 to the old Admiralty recipe and a donation goes to the Royal Navy Sailor's Fund from every bottle sold. I have some of the blue label, bottled at 54%abv, and it's quite a fierce nip if you don't water it down at all.
However, when the officers gathered for a social in their mess, the poor midshipmen (officer cadets, essentially) would have to join in, and behave like an officer, while on a phenomenally meagre wage, hence the most popular cheap, "sophisticated" drink for them (i.e. not neat spirits or beer) was pink gin.
Naval drinks
[Phil] You may have just enlightened me. I've heard my father (who was in the Navy), talk about 'Pussers Kai'. I thought, in the context, it was cocoa with a slug of rum. This now looks likely and a quick google supports that. However this was a long time before 1980.
According to a relative, the grog ration, at least for the CPOs, was issued as a mess bar credit in the 60s and 70s.
"Mug of Kye, Sir?"
[INJ] Ah, Kye (the spelling I've grown up with)! I've found some web sites that describe it as thick cocoa made with condensed milk, but according to my RN dad, it was cocoa made with water and no milk at all. As he's a hardy soul, that's still how my dad makes cocoa. It takes some getting used to, but it's OK.
Did the disappearance from the Tube Map of the River Thames pass unnoticed within the Morningverse?
[Kim] Why do you think it was re-instated so quickly? Of course Boris took the credit, but we have our people in the right places.
It is believed that the disappearance was as as a result of a misfiled email from one of CAMREC's more obscure sub-committees which was looking at the possible effects of global warming on the great game. That, together with an excess of zeal in the TfL publications department caused this somewhat embarrassing episode.
No long-term harm done, although there has been an official protest against the result of the Harlesden MCC vs Leytonstone Strilers 3rd Division top of the table clash on Tuesday evening. Rodney (Bridges Up!) Spurlington, lost his board 3 clash against the up-and-coming Shane Clotswold and blamed it on an inability to use the tactic which earned him his nickname. This one could run and run.
CAMREC?
I googled CAMREC but nothing I got there deciphered the acronym in a meaningful context (which I assume is involved with games of Mornington Crescent). Could someone let me in on what it stands for? I very rarely get to listen to I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, so if I'm asking about something well-known I apologise for not having the faintest. Thanks.
What is CAMREC
[SM] You need the Encylopaedia Morningtonia
*waves from Vancouver*. Where I have been talking about eggs. As one does.
[CdM] Olé
Or, to steal a prior joke of Dan's, perhaps that should have been *huevos from Vancouver*
(CdM) Can't follow that. Nor, it seems, can anyone else as it has now been a week.
To be fair, Rosie, I've been away!! I feels sometimes I chitter incessantly on here...
I was thinking of a new game: Wizards' Duel. You have two teams of wizards. In order to make a move you must change shape into a creature or thing that beats, defeats or otherwise trumps whetever the other side has just changed into. So you might get a sequence like

Wizards: Elephant
Witches: Mouse
Wizards: Cat
Witches: Dog
Wizards: B - A - T - H
Witches: Telephone

at which point I have to admit I'm stumped so presumably the witches win that round. We'd have to kill off news Has Come to Harvard, but I believe that game's only hanging on while we await a replacement anyway.

[SM] Done.
[pen] Anywhere nice/interesting?
Normandie sur mer
[Softers] Down the coast - eating our way around Normandy! Marvellous thank you - perfect weather too.
[pen] Watch out for those dodgy moules ;o)
Am I the only person in the world who doesn't like seafood? I love fish, but if it comes out of the sea it's got to have a backbone if I'm going to eat it. The windy miller is the same. I wish I did like seafood, because so many other people seem to enjoy it so much.
[pen] My reaction to mussels is a reboot of the digestive system from both ends. Fish that looks like fish is fine, and prawns and shrimps are ok, but I'm wary of anything else from the sea. I wonder what these are like to eat?
[pen] Shame, the French love their moule et frites and it is standard fare everywhere.
Marine mouthfuls
(pen, Raak) With you on that. I'd rather eat Co-op Fish Fingers, let alone the real thing, than fancy stuff you have to pick at. What other people like doesn't bother me; I'm not a social eater, or a particularly elegant one.
Something fishy
[Raak & penelope & Software] I have tried eating (or swallowing) oysters but, regrettably, have yet to manage ingesting one. The same applies to asparagus. I suspect that it's something to do with the smell of them but have no solid evidence to support the hypothesis.
[Rosie] Whilst I do like fish meals, at least the ones I cook myself, I find they become cold long before I've managed to scoff the lot. When it comes to fine-boned fish I tend to your approach as it really is, unless one is starving, not worth the effort.
[All] Don't get me started on calamari. Maybe it is my aging teeth or the manner in which the samples to which I have been subjected have been cooked, but I'd rather try to eat a standard primary school 'rubber'.
Swimmingly
[Duj] Ditto calamari. It's just fried rubber bands, innit? And Aspragus... anything that makes your wee smell so bad can't be good for you, can it? Sadly, the Dutch here go a bundle over it, and I have to eat it to be polite. What's worse, they like the fat, white ones that have lived in the dark (like forced rhubarb), which are bigger than the small green shoots you get in Engeland.
Rhubarb, on the other hand, treated the proper way (plenty of sugar, and paired with either ginger or strawberries) is yummy. Fooled, crumbled or just stewed.
Stinky wee
[pen] Asparagus does have that strange effect but it is delicious. But I am with you all the way with rhubarb as long as there is cream, ice cream (the Belgian/Dutch way) or custard.
I have eaten plenty of asparagus, but I don't sniff my wee, so I've never noticed the oft-claimed effect.
Calamari (or squid, if we're not going to be all precious about it) is blummin' gorgeous in my opinion. Deep fried in a light batter (50/50 self-rasing and cornflour), it should be light and lovely. If it's rubbery it has been over-cooked.
I've had oysters, but I'm not as impressed as I thought I ought to be. Sweetbreads though are another contentious foodstuff that I love.
I have seen oysters eaten, whole and raw. That's quite enough for me.
Oysters
Are overrated in my opinion. Back in the 19th century they were poor peoples food.
I'm with Phil on this. Asparagus - delicious when fresh and in season (and the after-odour isn't that unpleasant or strong IMO). Calamari - rubbery = overcooked, properly cooked and fresh they almost melt and taste lovely. Oysters - nice - taste of the sea - but too expensive for what they are. In fact I like most molluscs and crustacea (though it's hard to do much with whelks).
We need to take some lessons from the chinese - Sour is as good a flavour as sweet and slimy is as good a mouth sensation as crunchy - just different.
[INJ] Have you tried sour beers (i.e. Belgian Lambics)? Fantastic once you eradicate the "beer shouldn't be sour" conditioning from your head.
Aerial oxidation
(Phil) How does that differ in principle from eradicating the "butter shouldn't be rancid" conditioning from your head? Sour beer tastes awful, like vinegar, which is what it is, at least partly.
[Rosie] Start with something like Hoegarden which is a wheat beer and has a slightly sour note. It's made with a sort of wheat porridge that gives it a great cloudy appearance and the orange and cardamon notes give it a spicy aroma. Once you have developed a taste for that the leap to things like the Lambics is not so great.
[Phil et al] I am rather partial to Franziskaner on a warm day. This is a wheat beer with an interesting smoky flavour. In fact around Munich there are many microbreweries that offer similar smoky beers.
Purveyors of sour beer
[Phil] I don't think I've tried Lambics. I've had plenty of wheat beers, including Hoegaarden and don't mind the slight sour edge to them. Whether I'd like anything further down that line will have to be determined by experiment.
BTW if you're ever in Derby you might like to visit what used to be a fairly unpleasant and run-down pub called 'The Royal Standard', now taken over by CAMRA and revived as The Brewery Tap. At quiet times they do a 'tasting tray' consisting of 3 or 4 different beers - about 1/3 pint of each.
On which thought, will you be serving in 2/3 pint measures?
[Rosie] Think of sour sweets, like fizzy-cola-bottle-type things. Or a really crisp granny smith apple. That sort of sour, not vinegar. I have a few bottles of Mort Subite Gueuze (which is a fairly easy entry point to the world of lambics) lying around, and may have one with my dinner tonight, now that my mind is on the subject.
[Software] Have you ever tried the Bamberg-brewed Schlenkerla Rauchbier. "Smoky" would be a massive understatement for it. Again, a shocking flavour and aroma at first, but it is truly wonderful once you get past that.
[CdM] A pub run by CAMRA? I shudder to think. It reminds me of the car that Homer Simpson designed.
More seriously, I hope their tasting tray is exactly a third of a pint of each (unlike the glasses CAMRA provided at the Derby beer festival, and at least one other I know of, where the third-pint line was at 0.3pints, instead of 0.33pints, meaning CAMRA themselves were selling 10% short measures). And I shan't be bothering with stocking 2/3pt glasses, if the legislation ever comes in. I don't do 1/3pt at present anyway, but 2/3 just seems silly to me.
(Phil) Aye, mebbe. I've had sour beer once or twice, the difference being it had gone off as opposed to being deliberately sour.
[Phil] I've not tried the Bamberg but it sounds interesting. Why does the government not grasp the bull by the horns and dump all imperial measures for good and just get on with what was started half-heartedly 40 years ago.
[Software] If we abandon the pint, what measures would you permit, or would you allow any size measure to be used?
[Phil] 25cl, 33cl, 50cl 1l
Hello again everybody. Turns out that I'd totally forgotten how to operate a keyboard. How are we all?
[INJ] I can appreciate your thinking, although I think a litre is a bit big for responsible consumption of draught beer. I don't want the law to change for a few reasons. One of which is that I seem resistant to change in general and I "like" pints. Also, I'll (probably) have to re-stock all my beer glasses, which could cost me over 500 quid.
It's currently a little frustrating that I can't sell a pint or half-pint of lemonade. I can sell a "large" or "small" lemonade, in pint and half-pint glasses. Or I can sell "568ml" or "284ml" in the same glasses. As far as I know, only beer, cider and milk can be legally be sold in pints in the UK, although there is no such restriction throughout the rest of Europe, where it is perfectly legal to use Imperial measures for anything.
Curiously "shandy and any other beverage of which beer is a constituent part" counts as beer for the Weights and Measures (Beer and Cider) Act 1998. So anything with a bit of draught beer in it, should be served in thirds or multiples of halves. How odd. I have in mind things like the Irish method of serving a Black Russian (with a Guinness head on it). Sorry, I've started thinking out loud now.
How rude
[nights] Hi ! :-)
[Phil] I did not say abandon the pint glass in pubs, the continentals do use them but you never actually get a pint in them - they do like their froth. What I was alluding to was the indecision of whether we are a metric or imperial nation. At the moment it is a=half cocked with some things sold in imperial and some in metric (metric martyrs in the marketplace for example). There needs to be clear leadership. As for selling liquids in taverns the UK still has a half-cocked approach. Spirits are metric; beer is imperial. While I agree that spirits should be sold in standard sizes (many continentals have a relaxed view on what constitutes a measure) I think that draught beer could be sold in whatever size glass that the licensee chooses - provided that it is priced accordingly and clearly stated.
Softers) Uniformity of units is not necessary except to the tidy-minded. All you need to know is what you're getting and for all users to be familiar with those units. A pub that sold beer in metric units would very likely lose a lot of customers. If it is not necessary to change it is necessary not to change. A pint glass of whatever style is a very familiar object (shut up at the back). This keeps people happier except for the aforesaid tidy-minded commitee members and they are very few in number. Actually we should use cubic attoparsecs (19.34 to the pint).
I've written about this before, but beer sizes in Australia are weird and wonderful.
In Melbourne the standard drink is a pot, which is 285ml. In Sydney this same measure is called a middy, in Hobart a ten and in Darwin a handle, while in Adelaide it is called a schooner (or even an up-sized schooner as the old schooner was 255ml or 9 fl oz), however, asking for a schooner in any other city will get you 425ml. If you want 425ml in Adelaide you will need to ask for a pint, but if you ask for a pint in any other city you get 570ml. To get this size of drink in Adelaide you need to ask for an Imperial Pint. In Darwin and north Queensland (where men are men and sheep are worried) you also get a 7, which is 200ml (probably because a small measure of beer stays cold, while a big beer goes warm over time - not because they like drinking girl sizes).
It makes travelling in Australia more adventurous.
Physics
(nfras) How can a small measure stay colder for longer than a large one? It doesn't; you drink it quicker. The small Queensland measures wouldn't go down too well in Carshalton (London Borough of Sutton) where not only are men men but women are as well.
[Rosie] He didn't say it stays colder for longer. He said it "stays cold" -- presumably for the period while you're drinking it. And there's no assumption that you drink it quicker; you drink it at the same rate :-) </outpedanting>
Blinks
[Phil] Is it really true that our friends on the continent can use imperial measures? I'd not heard that before, but I can believe it on the general observation that UK governments tend to believe that they must follow EU rules, whereas other European governments (notably France and Germany) know that nothing bad will happen if they don't.
I saw the moons of Jupiter last night, and very nice they were too - four of them, strung out in a line... didn't appear to be tied down at all...
[rab] It is UK legislation that has specifically outlawed imperial measures. There is no specific EU legislation to the same effect. So it is not the case that France and Germany et al have not applied EU legislation to the same extent as the UK, but that we have created extra legislation to deal with our own indecision.
This is what I have been told by someone I believe. I await correction though :-)
Pint
[Rosie] It would make no difference if beer were sold in either provided they were uniform and priced pro rata. Anyway, it would give unscrupulous barmen/maids the opportunity to short measure even more. [Phil/Rosie] my rant was about the indecision of government to go properly metric. Selling beer is pretty small beer (if you excuse the pun) it is the other nonsense that gets to me. Supermarket solids packaged in metric, liquid sold in imperial; Petrol sold in litres; building standards metric, distances measured in miles; temperature still given in Fahrenheit as well as Centigrade; metric taught at school and public weighing machines in imperial (my son was taught metric at school and does not understand pounds and ounces); the list of confusion goes on.
Furlong/elephant/fortnight
(Softers) Internally, railways still use chains and I don't mean the bit joining old loose-coupled goods wagons. I think we should remain Imperial because the words are part of the language and culture. Sixteen tonnes and what do you get? Deserved mockery.
[Software] Deep down, I know that standardisation is right, but I just simply love old Imperial measures (and coinage). A friend of mine who runs a flower wholesale outlet spent an entire day last week quoting all prices in old money, for fun. He didn't restrict himself to pounds, shillings and pence, oh no...tanners, florins, guineas, crowns, half-crowns and farthings were all brought into play. It made his day go by much faster.
There's a wonderful list of unusual units of measurement at one of my favourite websites, Phrontistery, which includes the dalton, the darcy, the footlambert and the face-cord. For sheer frivolity, I try to incorporate some of the words from that site into conversation, so I think it's quite easy to see why I want to cling on to Imperial measures.
The sins of omission
(Phil) What about the threepenny bit, everyone's favourite coin in those days? There's even a building named after it.
My thrupence-worth
My infant school, which was attached to the junior school I also attended (built in the 60s, I think) had a hall shaped like a 'thrupenny bit' and was known locally, for a time as 'The Thrupenny Bit School' to differentiate it from the junior school buildings, although there's no reference to it on Google, as far as I can find. It was Lacey Gardens Infant School, if anyone is interested...
[Rosie/Phil] Despite over two centuries of metrication the French still use old measures if you are worried about their eradication from the culture. They often use puce for inch, livre for pound (weight) and of course the demi for a half (pint).
[Software] Indeed, on a few occasions in France I've forgotten about that and have asked for a demi when I wanted a half-litre of beer.
(Softers) I know. Did you mean pouce? :-)
[Rosie] Oui.
Threp'ny Bit
[penelope] A pre WWII threepenny bit, or a post-blackout one?
Dodecagons
(SM) Few people, even of my age, have seen the silver threepenny bit. I was once given one as change by a bus conductor about 1953 but had to spend it to get home, or walk two miles. I have found another one (1920) in my heap of old coins. They're tiddlers, 5/8" across. The chunky version was around in 1940, as I have one, and two more from the sixties. They're nice. Equivalent in the fifties to about 30p in today's money.
Ag 3d
My mum used to have a few for sprinkling in the Christmas pud; although I can't remember ever seeing them in circulation. Here in the Channel Islands we had our own 3d bits. In Guernsey they were nickel silver with a scalloped edge and in Jersey they were round. The latter reason was why we never had 3d slots on our pay-on-answer paypghones.
Another broken tooth
I can just recall the silver threepenny bit in the Christmas pudding, but I think they'd all been lost by my adolescence. I don't know about the buying power of the dodecagonal version, but I can remember being able to buy a poke of chips for 3d around 1960.
In my young days...
In 1960, 3d was the standard child fare on an Edinburgh bus, 6d for adults. I remember my grandmother once showed me a silver thruppence, but I don't remember what it looked like. But here's a site with more info.
Boose fare? Ye 'ad boose fare?
I'm pretty sure I remember seeing a silver 1.25p piece when I was very young, but I don't think we still had them for the Christmas pudding. I expect INJ had eaten them all.
CdM, you just made milk come out of my nose. I wouldn't have minded so much, but some of the cornflakes I was eating as I read took the same route.
[SM] I'm re-assured that you were eating cornflakes at the time. I'd be worried if this was a phenomenon that could occur spontaneously.
*wanders out into the back garden with a book and a drink*
Finally, we are getting some warm weather. Well, warmish: 21°. Yay sun.
Autumnal evening classes...
My first Dutch lesson tonight, with a new teacher. This batch should be more effective than the first lot, which I did when I was still in England and not hearing Dutch every day.
(pen) How are your gghhhutterals?
gggghhhastly
[Rosie] Loosening up nicely. All I need really is a heavy cold.
A propos something else, I think I just persuaded the global director of Shell to stand in front of my video camera and give me his opinion on ethical management. My job amazes me sometimes.
(pen) Do they give you a Welsh primer? If you can pronounce Machynlleth correctly you will have problem with any language anywhere in the known Universe, except possibly Xhosa and Scouse.
Cockup
"problem" = "no problem"
prrrroblems
[Rosie] The trouble with Machynlleth (with the lisping 'L' like Sister Wendy's, is that right?) is there is no R in it. In Dutch, the Gs are gagging, as are the aitches, the Rs are rolled, the emphasis comes just about every other syllable and there are usually at least five syllables per word. Nouns like 'verzekering' (insurance, with the emphasis on the 'zek', pron. 'zay') are compounded from all kinds of words mulched together. It all takes an awful lot of effort for a poor Anglo-Saxon speaking accustomed to putting together one syllable at a time.
cok op
speaking = speaker, toch?
Gegokoop
[pen] When I worked in Hilversum my team leader used to speak Dutch with a Cockney accent. He got by, though - even married a nice Dutch lady.
(pen) Maybe Welsh not the best idea, then, though the gutturals are splendid. Try chwech ( = six). Vowel is "ä." The Welsh "r" and the breathy unvoiced "rh" are rolled but too short and front-of mouth for Dutch, if my hearing is correct. Isn't the Dutch "v" often pronounced "f"? In Welsh the "f" is always pronounced "v". Not much help there, then.
Couldn't hear any double-L in Sister Wendy's speech. It's a non-plosive hiss from the sides of the tongue about halfway back ("voiceless lateral fricative" apparently). Don't spoil it by following it with an ordinary "L". Dead easy. :-)
*wipes keyboard with damp cloth*
Blimey!
This old place still exists. Horrah!
Hail Boolbar!
[Boolbar] Horrah! You're back!
...as you once said yourself!
Sailing
I'm sailing over to the UK on Sunday night - hurrah! I love sleeping on ships.
Rotterdam-Harwich? Hope its not rough ;o)
[Softers] Rotterdam-Hull. Some parts of Hull are very rough indeed, but I shall keep the car doors locked when I disembark ;o)
enough silence
I know it was a terrible joke, but three days of silent protest is enough. I'm sorry, OK?
Forgiven
Not your fault I sure, pen ;o)
hasn't thought of anything witty and amusing to add to any games recently.
*waves from England, for a change*
Had a surprisingly calm North Sea crossing last night, despite driving to the port in gales and lashing rain. The geordies complaining this morning that 'the curtains were moving' made me giggle though.
[Knobbly] I know the feeling!
[pen] Welcome back! Hope we've managed to keep it much as you left it.
Calm Nordsee Crossing?
[pen] Shurely an oxymoron?
Meteorological orthodoxy
(Softers) Can happen, like a dry day in Blaenau Ffestiniog.
Timing
ticker ticker Timex
[Rab] Good, bad or indifferent?
Time
Aren't all the electronics made in the same place now anyway?
[rab] What's the secret of good comedy?
[CdM] Is this a reverse chat game now?
I was wondering earlier what a game of Reverse Reverse MC would look like. Any thoughts?
Anybody got any new game ideas? Tuj?
[Raak] Good to see you back. i was just thinking today that you hadn't posted for a while (whether that "while" is a few days or longer I didn't check, but I was aware that you were missing...).
[CdM] That's odd, I haven't been away much, although by chance I might not have posted on mc5 for a few days.
[CdM] Nearly as good as your waiting for T comment on the MCiOS chat =D
Which reminds me
Not that anyone will will notice... but there will be a brief outage on Thursday night when the Powers That Be perform a memory upgrade ('bout 9ish or thereabouts).
[Raak] Ah well. I guess your contributions are just always so good that even a few days absence is noteworthy!
game idea?
I'd always wanted to try Cheddar Gorge Haiku... perhaps too similar to what we've got going now. I also thought it'd be good fun to write a play one line / stage direction / light cue at a time.
Obviously still too new... What does Simons Mith mean in the limerick game by 'see comments'? Where do I look for comments?
[Knobbly] If you do 'view source', however that works on your particular browser, nested in amongst all the HTML muck you'll see a hidden line 4 and line 5 that occurred to me. Why I didn't use the HIDE tags is beyond me. I must have thought we were temporarily back in 1998 or something.
backetry
Back. Ferry apparently headed back towards the English coast in the middle of the night so some poor chap with fits could be helicoptered orf. After all the fuss was over, I got up at 6am and went out on deck with a huge cup of tea and a piece of my mum's neighbour's best fruitcake for breakfast expecting to see the lights on Rotterdam and we were still in the middle of the black North Sea. Quelle disappointment. However, all was well. The customs people didn't object to the vintage stationary engine I had stashed in the boot, and the trousers I bought for the windy miller fit like a charm.
Trousers
[penelope] You bribed the customs officers with trousers?
This weekend I will be mostly...
we're leaving the mill on Saturday lunchtime and heading back to Blighty via Dover for a wedding near Bath on Sunday. And then dashing back to NL. This time, the windy miller is coming with me - hurrah!
Huwelijk
Dat is groot. Veilige reis!
OzjYFXdF
Hi! crEgCiaE
Great, now we've got Klingons as well as Dutchmen.
So we have double dutch?
I believe Klingon is actually a 70-30 mix of Polish and 133t-sp33k
Gormless old git
(SM) Can't figure out what 133t-sp33k is. Something to do with teaspoons, 133 of them?
[Rosie] Something along those lines. And good afternoon everybody.
It's a count of the average number of grains of demerara sugar. 133 teaspoons hold 33,000. Obvious really.
That's a mere 225 grains per teaspoon, which doesn't seem quite enough. It all depends on de size of dem grains. Is there an EU standard?
It's a level teaspoonful.
That means about 22 mg per grain, which is probably about right. If it were cyanide or nicotine you be approximately 50% dead.
[Rosie] Interesting coincidence, work today has had a similar effect on me.
*waved from Palma de Mallorca, message delayed in transmission*
It was surprisingly nice there.
I hestitate to mention it...
... but here in sunny Strasbourg, Christmas is upon us, with the opening of the annual Christmas markets. How are things looking elsewhere in the Morniverse?
Bah humbug... or pepernoten
Here in the Netherlands, Sintaklaas (December 5) is more important than Christmas. His arrival from Spain, as documented on national TV, was dogged by bad weather, but he is already out and about with his blacked-out moorish assistants, strangely all called Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) and gathering information about how good the children have been. Children leave their shoes out overnight in the hope of having them filled with sweets (snoepjes) if they've been good, and a lump of coal is they haven't. Traditional sweets are particular to Dutch tastes - pepernoten which looks like earwax and tastes of aniseed, and strange crunchy things that look like dog meal and taste of aniseed. I'm not fond of aniseed...
Pelargonia
I made some pelargonium cuttings earlier in the year - far more than I could ever possibly use. Enough to start a small nursery, in point of fact. And of course, as I didn't really care whether they lived or died, most of the little blighters have survived. So what shall I do with 'em all now? I've got dozens and dozens! Any suggestions? Anyone want a few pot plants?
Oh, they're Mabel Grey. Small, pretty purple flowers, but their main schtick is that their leaves smell of lemon sherbert.
gerania
[Simons] Give them away as Christmas presents or let a a charity market stall sell them? I'd have a few for my purple patch - they sound nice.
OK, it just took me about 45 minutes to cross the city centre on my bike, versus the usual 15. The markets are beginning to annoy me.
(nights) Which city? Truro? Los Angeles?
[Rosie] Strasbourg, capital of overpriced tat - at the moment at least. Oh, the tourists.
Invading markets
[nights] I shouldn't worry too much, at least not just yet. I think the plan is to do England first.
Blue geese
[Simons Mith] I knew it. I knew all that money and time wasn't being expended for the simple reason of spreading holiday cheer and joy.
Surfing archives elsewhere...
Next time there's a slot open, I vote we use the team colours option for a game of "Eamon the Chivalrous".
[Tuj] What's that, then?
Such a ladies' man, so he is.
(nights) Good question. I Think We Should Be Told.
A rather schizophrenic MC variant I noticed high up the lists in the archives at MCiOS and Orange. And I'm very much a fan of the team colour options rab gave us.
[Eamon the Chivalrous] I like it, a lot.
quietly now... someone might be reading this
*whispers* It's my last official day in the office before Crimbo. I'm only coming in tomorrow (a 70km round trip, btw) to collect my Christmas box! Below freezing all day today in Rotterdam. Nearly -5C this morning as I got into the car - and surprisingly as I reached the campus too.
Brass Monkey
Chilly this morning although no frost, the air was surprisingly dry and pretty well no wind here on the island. I think it felt colder yesterday because of the wind chill. [pen] if you are on yers 'ols you can maybe squeeze in some practice for the canal skating ;0)
More brass monkey
It's been snowing here since 11.30 a.m. and has just about stopped now. Total less than an inch. Temperature zero and last night it went down to -7°. (Top right-hand bit of Surrey).
We had a high of -1 here in Strasbourg, and a few snowflakes. Météo France are promising a lot of snow this weekend, but frankly, I don't trust any organisation that insists its name is written in print in ALL CAPS.
Happiness is
[Rosie] Twenty minutes ago the temperature at my humpy was 40.3ºC. It has now dropped by nearly a degree. I'm ever so happy. ;)
Megathermality
(Dujon) You're welcome to that even though I see from the latest Richmond AFB METAR that the humidity is quite low. Highest ever (i.e. since 1983) at Hughes Hall is 35.9°C, 10 Aug '03. Interesting, but I are a sweaty little f****r and don't want too much of it. 30°C is all right every now and then but we haven't even reached that in the last 3 years.
[Rosie] I assume you'll have got the snowshoes out to ensure that you get snowed in at the pub, rather than at the Hughes residence tonight, what with 20cm forecast for your area.
Bah! Its rain again today here. Still chilly, though.
A light covering of snow here, but a very slow thaw at between 0 and +1C. Grey and overcast though, so useless for taking photos. More snow later!
variable
It was 39°C here yesterday. I did not sweat, but many others on the trams looked very hot and bothered. Now it is 15°C and raining.

The last few days can be seen here (it refreshes and will scroll off in a couple of days).

(INJ) I'm just beginning to think they've overdone it for this particular area because the wind is too northerly whereas it needs to be north-east for us to get a good dumping when the snow is generated by convection over the North Sea, which is still surprisingly warm. East Anglia and north Kent will get it but I'm probably just too far west, even allowing for the altitude (560 ft). Verification time (as they call it) will be tomorrow afternoon. There won't be much after that.
Snow
3 inches so far and not much more to come, I reckon. The newsgroup (uk.sci.weather) are absolutely wetting themselves but many of them seem to have little other life than weather + computers.
No relevance, I just really quite liked this sentence.
The visiting fans were aghast when she blatantly snorted a powdery substance up her nose and nearly cause a large scale riot but although she stopped play and quickly looked in her rule-book, just because an uppity linesman stated that Thomas Cech definitely was offside, an official spokesman snorted and stated sarcastically that such a strange combination of circumstances would hardly explain how the former mistress of the Compte de Bergerac was magnificent but forever embarrassed that her sinuous proboscis protruded into the area.
I thought it was supposed to be summer
I caught the Great Melbourne Run on Sky Sports last night in my hotel room. I'd rather be in Leeds - torrential rain and a grey sky down there, when we'd had mostly cold & clear.
Oh, and about 2 inches of snow in the evening and overnight - roads clear, pavements tricky.
it sneeuwt
-4°C outside the house and -6°C outside the village, plus a couple of inches of snow. It all looks very nice indeed.
After a 20 minute flurry yesterday which left very unrealistic-looking white powder on my garden, which melted a bit, then froze solid, it's snowing again now. It's settling nicely too. Lovely weather for the funeral party who will be arriving in 90 minutes
[Phil] Yes, if one of them were to fall and hurt themselves it would cast a bit of a gloom across the proceedings.
Verification time
3 inches of snow (8 cm). Rainfall equivalent 8.3 mm after I'd melted and measured it. This is just slightly more than the normal amount for such a depth. In February I got 28 cm (11") snow from 21.3 mm rainfall equivalent.
(INJ) You are a very naughty boy.
[INJ] One of the funeral (cremation) party commented that at least the departed ended the day warmer than they did. He didn't say this to the bereaved family though.
It's snowing again in Leicester, with plenty forecast (or not, depending on whose forecast you believe) overnight.
Here for the duration
6 inches of snow since last night - Coniston in the Southern Lake District.
I haven't brought my power supply for my laptop, so this is probably my last communication for a week. I'll therefore be the first to say Merry Christmas to all of you. Have a really good break and may you all receive what you would have hoped for.
Well, the snow didn't arrive. So we have now had the sum total of about half an inch over a period of 3 days. We do have very, very icy roads though, so at least I can have some fun.
(Phil) Handbrake turns at your age? I dunno.
(INJ) Cheers, and may your stocking contain an adaptor.
I sent a card to my newsagent for delivering my paper every day, having all the stuff I want etc etc. But I'd bought the card there. Is there a term for this?
[Rosie] Yes - agedness.
[Rosie] Driving is one of the few pleasures left in my life....
Donuts (or doughnuts)
It appears that many regions of the U.K. are experiencing rather cold weather. As I type there is a cyclone banging around and about the northwestern bit of Australia. Now, just about anyone who lives here would tell you that Marble Bar is hot and could possibly be nominated as the hottest location in the country. The said cyclone has just clipped Marble Bar.
So I had a little bit of a look at Marble Bar. Even though I live here and know its reputation I didn't know this little bit of information relative to the town.
"It is known as 'the hottest town in Australia' a fact which is still recorded by the Guinness Book of Records. For 161 consecutive days to 20 April 1924 the temperature in the town never dropped below 100°F (37.8°C)."
I do so hope that that bit of trivia will make you feel a wee bit warmer. ;(
(Dujon) Doesn't the record actually say that the maximum temperature each day reached 100°F for 161 consecutive days. I can't believe that it stayed above 100°F all night, every night. That has happened very occasionally in the Sahara (and probably elsewhere) in high summer but is very rare.
At the moment a temperature of 5°C would be nice. It hasn't been that high since last Sunday week and it's been down to -7°. White Christmas? No thank you. That white stuff is cold and stops you getting about.
Bing Crosby
[Rosie] As usual here in the channel we have missed the worst of it. A sprinkling last Thursday which caused mayhem on the roads and now the sun is shining and its about 7C.
Yeah. White (near-)Christmases aren't all they're cracked up to be. Though we've had some crunchy goodness here, so I've not been sliding around too much on it.
[Rosie] Possibly so, but I don't really know and thus accept the data. In Dec./Jan. 1988/9 or thereabouts I spent four or five weeks in a place called Hillston. That was a dreadful period. At a guess I'd say that I experienced 14 days of overnight temperature above 100ºF. I shall check and report back should I find any objective observations.
Desert songs
(Dujon) I looked at OZBOM, an excellent site, and it confirmed that it was the maxima that were all over 100°F. I suspect the minima were mostly 25° to 30°. In the last few years Adelaide has had a record high minimum of 34°C. To get a minimum of 100°F (37.8°C) you really need quite a stiff breeze to stop the lowest layers cooling and becoming decoupled from the circulation. You get a sandstorm thrown in for good measure, of course. The only place that doesn't seem to need this condition is Death Valley, where there have been several well-authenticated instances of the night minimum being above 110°F. Glad I'm not the weather observer there, or in Ojmjakon, Siberia, January mean -50°C. Yes, fifty. Wrap up well, as my Mum used to say.
the season
Festive Fun wishes to all x
No sweat
[Rosie] Thank you. I must have missed that information, thanks for the clarification. As far as wrapping up well is concerned your Mum's advice sounds like it should have been originally decreed by one of those pesky Yorkshire men (before they subsisted on gravel, of course). ;)
Happy Christmas, whether you believe in anything or not. I like Dec 25th - probably my happiest day of the year.
Merry Christmas from your friends in the States. Today in Seattle (where it is still the 24th for another few hours) the weather was truly lovely - a Christmas oddity since we usually receive rain every December.
Thanks for inventing MC, and then for letting us with no Tubes play too. =)
Ching
Merry Chingmas!
Happy Non-Demominational Generic Winter Season Festival, everyone. (I'm told Hannukah is still on back order.)
Hakunnah? True, there's none in the shops here either, SM. I blame the Buying Department.
Looking back, if that was my happiest day of the year, the rest must be bloody miserable.
Wow!
Well - the finest winter week I've had in Britain for many a year. Most days crisp and clear, some snowfall most nights to top up any thaw and to keep it all looking nice. Plenty of fairly low-level walks with stunning views of the Lake District tops. It was real picture postcards stuff. Temperatures at valley floor level 0-2 during the day going down to -4 or -5 overnight. Got up to about 500m one day but just too much snow - breaking trail and post-holing to mid-thigh has me knackered after about 10 minutes these days.
A recommendation: try the Church House Inn in Torver - 5 locally brewed real ales and a chef who really knows how to cook.
[INJ] Sounds wonderful. I've just caught Julia whatserface doing one of Wainwright's walks on the BBC this mrorning - in summer, I presume - and I can imagine it was an uplifting Xmas week for you. Here in Zuid Holland, we're back to the dim, dank 2-degrees-and-withering-damp weather that eats your core. Yuk.
Happy New Year
Farewell the noughties, hail the new and sparkling teens.
(Softers) Well, at least the sun has come out. Well, I presume it's the sun.
I take it all back. Minus 5 degrees, dry, cold and clear-ish, with plenty of snow at ours, much less in the centre of Rotterdam and mostly clear roads. There was a lovely red sunrise this morning as I drove (late) to work because the car needed scraping free of ice a second time after the windy miller did it for me earlier. And a lovely street party last night with the neighbours - pea soup, rokeworst, rum punch and a brazier. And a enlarged version of a board+puck game similar to shove-ha'penny, at which I did not suck. Hurrah!
If anyone's interested - it's not gone above zero here in Strasbourg since I got back, heavy snow and wind shut the trams down for a bit on Friday night, and everyone's just getting on with their lives. It doesn't, however, stop me cursing the security guard at work's name up and down when he won't open the building at 7h45 instead of 8h. Grr.
[nights] Getting on with it? Whatever next!
[nights] Let's all sing together, shall we: "Jobsworth, jobsworth, it's more than me jobsworth". Blimey where did I drag that one up from.
"I don't care, rain or snow,
Whatever you want, the answer's no."
Is that as old as TW3 - I have an image of Lance Percival singing it.
I always thought it was a Jeremy Taylor song; certainly I remember him singing it, and I always assumed he wrote it. Now I must go to the google.
Looks like you're right, but that's not the context in which I remember it. It's definitely in black and white in my memory.
[IS,P] Did you spend any time in South Africa?
Whoever sang it, I would love to teach it to the people of France. However I've yet to find a good translation for "jobsworth". But yes, people are just dealing with the cold - the phrase "Keep Calm and Carry On" seems apposite.
Jobsworth
Looks like it's probably 'That's Life' I remember it from.
The Jobsworth Song
I don't know that song, but in my head as I read the words they fitted themselves to the tune of christmas carol 'Torches'.
Hellooooo?
It's been very quiet in here for the past week.
Oh sorry. I had the volume turned right down :o(
*speechless*
Warning, sports joke
[pen] You are Daryl Harper and I claim my 5 rand.
*gazes upwards at sports joke flying overhead, out of reach*
Howzat!
I think if you consider, you'll
Find that the game called Wizards' Duel
Has joined the choir invisibule -
In other words, it's dead.

It's not too much to do with me -
I've played but intermittently -
So would anybody mind if we
Played something else instead?
Not in the least. And an extra point for rhyming.
I was at a Burns supper on Saturday night at which the songs were accompanied by mandolin and musical saw. Not quite as silly as swanee kazoo but an interesting combination nonetheless.
[rab] There's evidence that it was 'cutting edge' music in the heyday of the mandolin.
Bugger. Missed Burns Night. Always meant to go to one of them.
We hae meat an' we can eat
[Projoy] It's not too late. Burns Night is tonight - Rab is obviously not a true Scotsman if he's prepared to go to a supper on the wrong day just because it's the weekend (unless he's going to another tonight).
We'll be having our regular 'confuse-a-foreigner' night tonight with guests from Spain, Germany and China. This is one of the times when my Scottish blood, through the maternal line, takes precedence over the Welsh, on the paternal side.
Alas, philspub is acting as a neutral venue for a skittles cup semi-final tonight, for which no supper is required. Any other week, and I'd've been able to do haggis for the skittles supper.
I suspect I might cook some tonight anyway, and have a small glass of whisky (Scapa 1993 is looking very inviting) to wash it down.
Malt Teasers
I suspect I'll be having a Ledaig 1990 before bedtime.
[INJ] Hate to disappoint you, but I am not in any reasonable sense a Scotsman.
Well, Burns Night was a non-event here. I did however have my birthday party. Involving a cake made of marshmallows, and being spanked for my years in the middle of a rowdy bar at 1am. It was great!
Age-related corporal punishment
They were all oldies, were they? Serves you right, young man. :-)
Worse, they were from the south. They have strange ways, down there.
I'm enjoying the new Cat on a Warm Tin Roof game (being a fan of the various film clubs). However, I was wondering if it was worth having an entry convention to differentiate between films, books, & songs... I was thinking - keep films in bold, books in italics, and songs in quote marks?
[Uncle Korky] I don't see the point in doing that. Am I missing something?
[UK] It's all that most of us can do to even post in the right game most of the time. I think you'd be asking way too much of us. :-)
Eh, if you're posting something unusually obscure, just post a hint as well. Besides, what typographic notation would we use for plays, musicals, etc.?
balloon.a.down.lead.like.goes.idea
[UK] Is your idea based on some local government entry convention/system/policy - ie. why do something once when you can employ three people to do it in triplicate? :)


[On the plus side - at least it blew away the tumbleweed in here]
Everything in its place
I'm sure we can work out a comprehensive notation system. Things like poems in UPPER CASE(unless they're by e e cummings) etc.
Clearly we need to start a notation game to sort out these little stylistic niggles before the new process is formally adopted.
Although, if we do that, we're going to need meta-notation to distinguish between styles proposed, under consideration, accepted and rejected. [Chalks] That's why we need a committee, of course; if you start doing this sort of thing properly it's bound to turn out to be more complicated than one head can contain.
I nominate Chalky to be on the ad hoc search committee charged with finding a steering committee to oversee the establishment of a notation game.
But surely we need to agree on the nomination procedures first?
[rab] Agreed, as long as we don't make things needlessly bureaucratic.
OK then, so I suggest the usual: each candidate will need the backing of twenty (20) signatures. In the event of more than one nomination, we'll need to instigate an election process. Obviously, the most sensible way to do this is a two-round procedure, where we use a single-transferrable vote to whittle down to two candidates, and a second round to decide the final victor. We will of course need to do this for each committee post, but it's a pretty straightforward procedure, so won't be much hassle to implement.
[rab] You start :o)
[pen] No can do - as maintainer of this site, it would open up a massive conflict of interest and leave me open to prosecution by the EU, probably.
*Resolves not to post anything stupid in future*
[Korks] Please do. Post, that is. Not 'not post'.
:):)
I wish I hadn't said that
[UK] I've made that resolution about once a week since debuting on the morniverse. Hasn't worked yet.
(INJ) Still doesn't work, does it. :-) Debuting??? Go on; it's a wind-up.
Daybooing
[Rosie] It's a tricky one, isn't it? It ought to be OK as a word, but I'm unhappy with all ways of pronouncing it.
verbing weirds nouns
I see what you've done there. Avoid 'debuting' at all costs. You can only 'make a debut'.
(INJ, pen) - I think I'd prefer deb-yewing with the accent on the first syllable. It'll turn up on Five Live now you've let it out of the bag.
While we're on the subject, how do people pronounce "valeting"?
deb-OO-ing
I would not say it, but if pushed, after thinking for a while: val-AY-ing or perhaps VAL-ay-ing.

Ugly.

[Flerdle] The common pronunciation I hear is 'VAL-ett-ing', at least when you're talking about car cleaning. Not heard it for being a gentleman's gentleman.
On a similar basis, I'm looking forward with relish to the challenges of gerunding "ballet", "fracas", "wii", "Playdoh" and "adieu"
(I've often thought the word "Boeing" looked rather awkward for related morphological/phonological tension reasons).
Ah, another good one to add to the list above would be "algebra".
I do have a fondness for the (not terribly prevalent, but permitted) alternative spelling of "queuing" that keeps the "e", resulting in "queueing"; a whopping 5 consecutive vowels.
Semi-tangentially
I seem to recall reading a newspaper article about an RSI-like injury that had been christened "wiiitis".
[INJ] That reminds me that "buffet" is pronounced "boo-fay" except when referring to catering provision on British trains, where it's "buff-it".
[rab] Really? I beg to differ. "Buff-it" would only be used by me as a verb relating to what strong winds can do to a person.
Buff, Eh?
[Rab] Not to mention the notices on the cross-channel ferries which say: 'To the buffet/Au Snack-bar'
aye, buff, ay!
Saying "boof-ay" here would get you strange looks.
(and that's for any pronunciation of "oo")
[flerdle] even "stool"?
I thought girls had "boof ay's" in the '60s.
(Phil) When you've polished your nice brass beer pump don't you then buff it for that extra gleam?
[Phil] Especially!
[Rosie] No. I have staff to do that for me :)
[flerdle] how are you pronouncing the "boof" of "boof-ay"? Like "boo" or "book"?
actually, it's Smörgåsbord
Either works just as badly - as I said. It's always "buff-ay" here unless you're over 80 and posh or putting it on. Buff as in huff, puff, stuff and, um, buff.
Snoo
I don't think we've had a week without at least a small covering of the white stuff since before Christmas. Most weeks, it has been topped up at least twice, but mostly melts away before the next lot comes. Gah.
(pen) - Are you bemoaning the fact that it doesn't stay or that it's there at all? With me it would be the latter. Cold, messy and stops you getting about. This view doesn't go down well with the weather newsgroups but they're mainly inhabited by 13-yr-olds, it seems to me, even if their actual age is over four thimes that. Roll on summer. Then they'll start throwing their toys about because they haven't got their promised thunderstorms.
[Rosie] That it's *still* coming. It started snowing this morning when I was eating breakfast. By the time I got in the car to drive to work, it was white over again. And then there was a snowstorm for an hour or so at mid-day. I have to concede that the roads have been fine though.
(pen) - Nothing mild in the next week but no ferocious cold either. Just well, crap, really. Haven't seen the sun for ages or much of the night sky.
Zonne
[Rosie] Poor you. Seeing the sun from time to time *does* make a difference. It was sunny this morning, and it was an incredibly cold but incredibly sunny day last Friday, when a friend visiting from England and my sister-in-law drove down to Belgium to see an exhibition of hellebores (surprisingly interesting - and incredibly fragrant) and took two walks - first through an arboretum deep in sunlit snow but full of colourful flowering witch-hazels, and secondly across a brilliantly sunny heath, covered in about 6" of snow, when I nearly froze my face off. And the stars last night were quite incredible too. Minus 3.5C this morning. Light ice on the car. No traffic - school holidays - hurrah!
Oh, and there were two storks sitting in a rudimentary stork's nest on a stork's nest pole alongside the road as I drove into work this morning. Perhaps they can see spring coming from that height.
feeling the need..
To dispel any ugly thoughts about stork baggage, no, I'm not.
[Penlope] Oh, poor you. ;)
Well, that thought certainly shut us all up!
[INJ] Don't let it. As I tried to say on Facebook (for those what do it) I'm much better Professional Uncle material than I am parent material. Besides, kids are so annoying, and so expensive. I just got a fresh bit of freelance work in, and celebrated by buying a new handbag. Now is that responsible parent-like behaviour?
Uncle pen
The mind boggles. BTW My mum had a nice handbag and we were still fed.
A thought of more than 8 words
Somehow, CdM continues to make splendid contributions to the 8-word game despite belligerently flouting the laws. Top Crescenteering.
[Tuj] Thank you. My greater pride, however, is that I just provoked pen into a rules violation.
Well done all of you.
Pride comes...
[CdM] as a fallen dish, left cold. Or something. ;o)
breaking the silence
SIX degrees on the way to work this morning. All the ice has disappeared from the water in the canals. Meanwhile, in Vancouver, NL's golden boy Sven Kramer (one gold medal under his belt already) was mislead by his coach as to when to change lanes in the speed skating, and lost a second gold medal in speed skating last night. The whole country is gutted this morning.
kiddiwinki
[pen] Professional Uncle? Is there something you are not telling us?
Losing a gold medal
[Penolope] How can you lose a gold medal on a skating rink, never mind two? Perhaps he needs a tighter belt or a better piece of string. On a more serious note: How can an experienced competitor get it so wrong and then blame his coach?
Sorry, penelope, it weren't deliberate like. :(
It's amazed me how little the French seem to care about the Olympics. But then we have political problems to worry about - oh, no, wait, that was the Netherlands too!
voting
Yep - a tumultuous week here in the flat country. I get to vote in local elections here next week, which will be interesting. But I've also made sure I can vote in the UK elections. Hurrah!
Jesus HUGHES
(Ping INJ) - One of the answers (correctly given) in last Monday's University Challange was "Anarcho-Syndicalism".
[Mono] Ditto here. It feels a little immoral being registered in two countries, but I wanted so much to vote for our regional council. We're also battening down the hatches because according to Météo-France, "WE'RE ALL DOOOMED!"
Yoo-hoo!
Anyone about?
Bum. The windy miller and I didn't vote - we were sitting drinking coffee in a very genteel Dutch front parlour, looking over a stadhuis and a canal and talking about planning issues and weather lore.
Windy
No not the Miller, pen. Just bloody windy. Cold too. Brrr! Bring on Spring.
Coming out of London City Airport the other day, I was intrigued by two large signs instructing pilots to "CAUTION YOUR BLAST". Obviously this was the first thing I typed into Google when I got home, and it brought up many webpages with people asking what it meant. The answer I like best is the one that says it means not to accelerate too rapidly going onto the runway because you run the risk of blowing the ground crew over in the process.
(rab) How do you caution a blast? Do you say "OK, blast, you've committed an offence but we've decided not to prosecute this time provided you admit culpability"? Why don't these buggers speak English?
I think it might be due to limited sign space. I trust the interpretation of the message is part of a pilot's training, as being a native English speaker won't even help you with this one.
[rab] The turning points at LCY are very tight, and I suppose it must be to remind pilots to be wary of where their blast is directed.
This video shows an example of people not cautioning the blast of a Airbus 340, where the pilot has no choice of where to direct his full throttle "blast".
It'd be interesting to collect signs that don't entirely say what they mean. The only two I can think of are "Blind Summit" in the UK, which means "there's something you need to be ready for beyond the crest of this hill; such as a single-track bridge, an abrupt curve or a yak crossing, but we're not telling"; and one you often see when exiting tunnels in the US, which just says "Lights". It's reminding you that you might have left your headlights on when leaving the tunnel but presumably they don't want to say "Turn your lights off now" for fear people would obey it at night.
(Dan) There was a (maybe apocryphal) example of that at a level crossing in Yorkshire where it said "Wait while red light shows" in case there's another train coming in the opposite direction. But there were cases where motorists stopped at a green light because colloquially the sign means "Wait until the red light shows". There are so many ways of rephrasing it but they missed them all.
[rab] I had exactly the same reaction when I last went through there.
Weather
Foul weather here last night, our coastal roads were closed because of the high tide overspill during the rush hour, resulting chaos. Very windy and torrential rain at times. So much for BST!
(Softers) I see you've still got a nice bracing force 6-7 with a few hail showers. It'll calm down pretty soon, though. And don't forget that but for the clocks you'd have got them an hour earlier. Not everything is bad.
Ten, long days and a lot of chocolate eggs
So has everyone finished their chocolate stash? The windy miller and I have resorted to buying the half-price leftover Easter Eggs in the supermarket - cappucino flavoured mini-eggs for me.
Any plans for the weekend? We'll go out to Willemstad (look it up on google maps - the town's fortifications are shaped like Lisa Simpson's hair) for coffee and appeltaart tonight, and the windy miller will have a trappist beer or two. Other than that... I have no idea.
chocolate? what chocolate?
I had a Lindt mini egg. As I've all but wiped saturated fat out of my diet since about a month ago, the pleasure of eating it was overwhelmed by the disappointment that I had given in and eaten it. I'm enjoying getting into the jeans that I kept for 2 years in the hope that I'd fit into them again some day though.
[Phil] Now I feel fat and guilty. Cheers. ;o)
Trappist beer?
(pen) If anything loosens the tongue......
[Rosie] I imagine the brewers' taste testing sessions were conducted behind locked doors, and not everything was written down...
[pen] Soz, that wasn't my intention :-(
Html..
Hey guys, don't mean to butt in, or anything, but how do you do all the html thingies for the posts? I can do bold, italics and line spaces, but how do you do the other things. Please can someone help?
all the right moves ..
[FGZstar] Go to main menu page - bottom right you'll see 'settings - info' - press info :)
(FGZstar) Unfortunately, "info" links to a website (Dr Qu+xum, a former Morniverser) that is no longer there. Here are a few you might like:
hr = a page-wide grey underline
sup = superscript, sub = subscript
p = paragraph (adds an extra line space)
font size="x" where x can go from -2 to +2.
strike = a line through the text
href="url"> any message</a> for an external link.
There is loads more which you can Google. Go for the simplest stuff or you'll end up learning the entirety of Hungarian literature when all you want is to ask for the loo.
Cockup
Before "href" insert <a
As an alternative to monkeying with the font size, you can use <small> </small> and <big> </big> tags.
HTML Primer
I have a saved copy of DrQu+xum's helpful primer stashed away somewhere. I'll dig it out and make it available online again.
primed
Might be simplest to host it here if you find it. Whatever, I'll update the link if the source material can be tracked down.
Okay, here goes!

fraser+info2=success!

Thanks, guys! I seem to be cured of my affliction!

Dr Q
(INJ) Bugger me, it's still there. Why couldn't I get it earlier?
hmmm
[FGZstar] Curiously enough - I had a hunch you might demonstrate your new found prowess. All power to you :)
more html queries
Okay, now that I have the basics, I would like some direction in terms of photos. Can i put in the file ref of my memory card or temp storage device and it will upload, or do I need to keep the file in permanent storage on the computer?
[FGZstar] There's no uploading to this site, and unless your computer is running a web server and is online all the time, a picture stored on it won't be visible anywhere else. You would need to upload the picture to somewhere of your own on the web, and link to it from here.
There are sites like Photobucket that will allow you to do that. (Although I think that one's owned by Rupert Murdoch, so you may have philosophical objections to using it). ImageShack is another.
(Raak, rab) Can I do that with Flickr? My God, you're all doomed.
If it's on Flickr, or Zooomr, or anywhere else, you can link it here. Whether you should...
[Raak] Nice panoramic - but a bit sticky-outy to the right. Where be it?
(Chalky) Click on it and you'll find it's probably not far from Naarj.
[Chalky] The view from my office window (carefully zoomed and cropped to avoid the concrete). Doesn't stick out on my screen. :-)
One day, I'll put up a pic from my office window - downtown Rotterdam, skyscrapers, splendid bridges and all. One the other hand, from my home office (the spare room) I can see the sails of a windmill, a thatched barn, and the village hall. And a load of very, very ordinary houses, all very close together.
What about Facebook? I've got some pretty panoramics pics i've taken over my travels, I'll put some up soon, or I'll link to my facebook for any other FB members out there
Yay! It works!

Now the challenge: Name that location
[FGZ*] Bryce3D?
The shape of the bay looks a bit like Rio.
Nope. I'll tell you that it's in Asia.
Hmmm... That looks like a fair-sized city -- and I have been to a lot of cities in Asia but don't recognise this one. I don't think it's Hong Kong. But there are a lot of large cities in China that I've never seen, so I wonder if it might be one of those. I'm also a bit bemused by what is in the left of the picture: a rollercoaster???
Yep, it's the run-away mine train at a theme park which I visited. Sadly this particular roller coaster was closed for maintenance on the day. It looks like fun, too.
Ah, ok. It is HK Disneyland, looking over Discovery Bay. I've never been to that part of HK.
[CdM] You are soooo close, but no cigar. You are certainly right in half of your answer.
All praise to the Google
OK, got it. Ocean Park in Hong Kong. Haven't been to that part of HK either. Things about the Disneyland guess didn't quite seem right, looking at Google maps, but I assumed it was just something odd about the angle of the picture that I couldn't quite work out.

What kind of cigar do I get?
Here you go, it's cuban.
'Cuban'?
[FGZ] No it's not, it's cylindrical.
A week is a long time in politics. It's a long time in a queue for a Bucks Fizz reunion ticket too.
Q
[Phil] About 8 days too long in my view.
Before today there was 9-day hiatus in this very game. Quite inexcusable.
I suppose everyone just cleared out to avoid the cigar smoke...
Do other people agree that "Change Just One Thing" has become a bit stale? It was very fun for a while, but we don't seem to have found any interesting way to develop the game.
I wuld agree with that, when I suggested a sentence change I waited 2 weeks to get no answer, so I changed it anyway. Any suggestions for a new game?
June so soon?
This month's conversation will mostly be... contributuons please
British Airways
Why is it that British Airways can't agree with their crew long enough to avoid strike action? I just hope they don't branch out into brewery tours...
Particle physics?
[pen] Contributuons? Some sort of elementary particle I'm guessing.
Yes.
'Yes' and 'No' are the most basic particles known as contributuons.
Contributuons are not entirely stable. They are sometimes known to decay into mehons, particularly nowadays when enthusiasm is so often considered passé.
We must all don HAZMAT suits immediately, as prolonged exposure to contributuons can cause long term healf effects.
H & S
(FGZS) Er, no "h" in healf, BTW. Talking of which, why does anyone working outside seem to have to wear a high-vis jacket? Will it be compulsory for everyone? Should I wear one as a pedestrian? At a recent football match it took six big blokes and a woman, all with this ludicrous garb, to carry an injured footballer off the pitch on a stretcher. You could almost feel the self-importance oozing from the telly screen. After all, this was football, a Very Serious Matter. Come on, you Blues! (whoops).
A high-vis jacket makes a very effective Cloak of Invisibility (I am told) if you want to explore somewhere outside that you're not supposed to be.
(Raak) Mm, I hadn't thought of that. Could be useful for committing gross trespass in railway tunnels. (I have actually done that). It's a bit like donning police uniform without the risk of committing the serious offence of impersonating a police officer. One could get a hard hat as well and be pretty well untouchable. The more I think about it the better it gets. You could give one as a Christmas present to someone with low self-esteem but obviously they would find it difficult to adopt the swagger. Let us raise a glass to The Law of Unintended Consequences.
DayGlo
It is now compulsory to carry hi-viz jackets in cars when driving in France. Not just for the driver either, one for each seat and they cannot be stored in the boot.
[Rosie] Are you sure they weren't just wearing your away kit of a couple of seasons ago? ;)
(Softers) That sounds most un-French unless I've misjudged the place. Where are you supposed to store them? When is it compulsory to wear them, and if it isn't, what are they for?
(Tuj) Yes, not good, was it.
[SW] Surely that would be almost as effective as the swiss needing compulsory lifejackets in their cars. I think it's just an excuse for the Gendarmerie to nick any english folks who haven't been told yet!
Upon reading some risk assessments once, I was surprised to learn that we were required to carry throwlines when within 1KM of water.
(various) What's the chance of losing the will to live while reading a Risk Assessment? Shouldn't there be a Risk Assessment before one does this kind of thing?
Re: DayGlo
[Rosie] On autoroutes and main roads with hard shoulders. No guidance on storage, sadly. We keep them in the glove box. [FGZs] Not quite; the Swiss do have a few lakes.
On a completely unrelated note...
I am currently in Heathrow T5 awaiting a flight home to Edinburgh as the last leg of my 10 month world tour, and would you beleive it! BA have let me into their lounge. Free internet and free food! OMG!!!!!!!
BA Executive Club
[FGZs] Let you in for free? That can only mean bad news.
BAa baa black sheep
[FGZ] On my last trip via T5 I found I was able to pick up the free BA signal in the Wetherspoons. Don't know if they've noticed since then (or perhaps they simply don't care).
BA Club (not too sure about executive)
[SW] Well, apparently my round the world ticket was changed in nature when the person I spoke to put me on a new flight back to Edinburgh becuase the other one was cancelled (strike). It then became what is called a full fare ticket, which as well as being fully flexible, also lets you into the executive lounge. It was brill. Especially the fully open bar, where the spirits and wine and beers were just sitting for you to help yourself. And the sarnies were lovely too. Especially the cvaviar and foie gras on rye...
cvaviar?
Kevaviar. Yum. ;o)
I'm inburgering - I knew the back roads around the polder to avoid the hold-ups caused by a very slow double-portokabin being carried precariously on a tractor and trailer along the main road into the village last night. Hurrah! That's no mean feat when you consider that all the dyke roads look the same (raised above the fields, lined with alder trees and dotted with houses) and there are no hills or big landmarks to orientate yourself.
Clogland
[pen] Yes, disorientating isn't it? When I worked in Hilversum we used to play cricket in a field on the way to Utrecht somewhere. I could never find my way to it on my own.
Cvaviar
I will have you know that cvaviar is a russian term, meaning shrimp or prawns. Also, the Foie Gras mentioned was actually foie gras flavoured spread. BA's not that good, or they'd be able to pay their staff a decent wage, and not have a strike.
I'm new to this place, but it looks interesting
Is there an overview of the games?
Games overview
[Kage] Greetings! 'Games overview' - er, sort of. If you click on the 'Bushy Tailed' link you'll see an archive of all the old games played in the past that have now finished. That gives a good selection of the sort of word games and other random improvisational stuff we play here. The live games are the dozen or so displayed on the main page, of which this game, 'The Banter Page' is one. Then there's more silliness at the 'mcios' and 'orange' links lurking in the bottom left portion of the main page.

The idea of these is sites is to post a comment/move in whatever games take your fancy, then come back later to see what others have added. The pace is sedate - you get a few new moves on each site each day. It's a bit like Twitter in that respect, I suppose.

As far as how to play individual games, well that varies. The simplest are games like the limerick or haiku games, where you just post the next line to a limerick or haiku (OK, they're senryu really, usually with a comic tone). In most other games we're just making things up as we go along.

Are you familiar with I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue? This site is a web-based version of this long-running comedy radio show. We try to play most of the games they play on ISIHAC, and invent our own in the same style. That's what this site – and Orange and MCiOS contain.

indeed
Hello new chaps. It's just a case of slotting in and playing a line you think might be funny/constructive/setting up a killer of an ending. I think there's a lot to be said for generous play (eschewing the laughs for one line in order to allow the biggest laugh with the next player's line) and we haven't seen so much of it recently - I guess because Facebook is stealing everyone's attention and the moves don't come as fast as they used to. (Jeez, I've been playing here for 12 years!!!)
In other matters, writing for work is the last thing I feel like doing today. I've been asked to write a news article and there are so many stipulations and limitations in it that the commissioner might as well write it herself. Pah. Grump.
Article
[Pen] OK, I bet you £5 you can't work the word 'armadillo' into it.
[Simons] You're right. I can't get the word armadillo into it. Can you send the five quid by paypal?
Silly
What do you get if you cross a vibrator with a lizard?
Hidden textAn armadildo.
Braaaaiiiinnnnsss
Can I just say that I finding the ongoing MC5 Zombie carnival to be at least as entertaining as the Festival of Crescent at dunx.org? I now have a chance to play in Ex Libri Bardus which I didn't take up at the time.
Bushy Tailed?
Where did all the games in the bushy tailed come from? I've never seen any of them until they turned up there. Am I miising something? All I can see are the bright eyed and the bushy tailed. Are there more?
Yes - click the 'See more' button!
[SM] You think we should all start playing the old games again then? The idea of a Zombie Festival of Crescent does rather tickle me.
So, when is rab's birthday then? Seems like the date for the zombie fest. (Actually, it should probably be his deathday (i.e., pre-anniversaries of his death), but that's tougher to work out.)
NO IT'S NOT.
You do the math!
[CdM] This year, as it happens, on a somewhat numerically pleasing day. Certainly cause for some kind of celebration.
September 8? October 10?
October 20th?
Tennis
[CdM] Second time lucky.
I'm not understanding the attempt at concurrent cheddars in the 8 words room. I think I'll just wait for someone braver than me to work out how to play, and join in later.
[Knobbly] Now I'm with you.
Cheddars in parallel
(Knobbly, Tuj) Eight cheddars run concurrently. The first eight entries are the first lines of eight cheddars on eight different subjects. The next eight entries are the second lines of these eight cheddars and so on until, well, we'll think about that. Ideally it needs eight different contributors or there could be confusion. Thus Softers and I have done our first lines and eagerly await your respective contributions and those of others.
I haven't a clue
Listening to the first episode I've ever heard of "I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue."
[Rosie] Ta. Can't always explain what's going on in eight words I guess! I'll confess my original idea was that the first move would contain eight first words of eight cheddars, the next move the second word of each, and so on. So we'll get round to that when this comes to a natural conclusion, I guess.
(Tuj) I have a feeling this is going to go on a bit; we're still waiting for four first lines. Oh well.
(KagShuk) Few would admit to that. Well done. Pity you never heard Humphrey Lyttleton as chairman but Jack Dee is a good replacement.
Cheddars
Interestingly, the first three in the 8 word game can be read together or each could be the start of one.
in case Tuj stumbles in here...
Happy Birthday, Sir
football
wot a load of guff --i would sooner nail my arse to the floor than sit and watch a game.
Nailing one's arse to the floor
[gillo] I like the sentiment, but now I'm wondering about the logistics. I suppose you'd have to sit on the floor with legs out straight and then put the nails in diagonally from each side. Aim from just the middle of the frontmost parts of your rear jeans pockets to come out through the bottom middle of each pocket. You'd need to use at least 6" nails as well, I'd think, and I doubt you'd get a very strong attachment. I did try doing a little ASCII diagram but I couldn't get it to convey what I wanted.
Mon the Germans!!!!
I think we should have a poems parody game - don't think I can start it, can I?
I think that I shall never see
A purple cow that looks like thee
This poem is a pure mess
With lots of regards to Gilet Burgess.
That 70s Game
Took a gander and was appalled, appalled I say, to see no one had posted "Goodieeeeeees! Goody goody yum yum". Words fail me.
Game slot
We havn't played T.L.A. for a while. Any support for a themed version? Eg: M.U.G. - Most Under-achieving Goalkeeper - a World Cup T.L.A.
T.L.A.
W.A.S.I.
(What A Spiffing Idea - bit of a PG Wodehouse one, that.)
buzz! Penelope used four letters.
I think the Cat on a Warm Tin Roof is probably done to a turn by now. Perhaps it would make a good candidate for replacement by T.L.A.
How about a game of Fictional MC, where all the stations played in the game are fictional, and the player have to assign each station a place on the tube map as they give it's name. It may be inspired by a fictional work, or jut completely made up by the player. It could possibly replace Cat on a Warm Tin Roof. Of course, MC would stay as the winner, because it's quite irreplaceable in my mind. Any thoughts?
Morningside Castle
[FGZ] I think that's an excellent idea. Sort of a bit like Boardman's, but hopefully without getting as silly as Boardman's often does.
Actually, have had thoughts of changing the winner to Aldwych, since it's appeared on screen a lot, in various guises.
A week has gone by since...
It's all very well everyone being too polite to say anything, but it does get slightly tedious. Or are you all on summer hols? Next week, the windy miller and I will be mostly noodling around the north of England along Hadrian's wall, and visiting friends that I haven't seen for far too long. Can't wait!
Shhhhh! You'll wake them up
I think it's a matter of momentum and critical mass. The more people there are contributing to a site the more others are prompted to do so. I tend to skim looking for updated games and probably only review the whole morniverse about once a fortnight. We need to start an argument - that's always good for pulling people in.
I'm working in Newcastle this week, but next week I'll probably be in Leeds, so no chance of viewing some of the remarkable sights in the evening on Newcastle Quays together I'm afraid.
Very well then
[INJ] Really, that's the kind of stupid comment that could only have been made by someone who thinks speed limits should by higher, hates winter, is opposed to summer time, likes vuvuzelas, is a language fascist, supports Manchester United, and thinks Tom Baker was the best Doctor Who.
See petard - hoist by.
Well, your failure to proof-read your entry just demonstrates your lack of intellectual rigour and means I can dismiss your comment as unworthy of response.
Wait a minute! Tom Baker? I'll see you outside!
Can't you two boys play nicely?
(CdM) I, er, sort of prefer summer. Don't hit me, please, pretty please. *suddenly remembers who he is* When did you last experience a winter, anyway?
That's more like it
Scrap!
Fight, fight, fight!
Come on over here, CdM. Oh, you are? Sorry.
Vuvuzelas are one of modern music's most wonderful inventions and those that play them the musicians of the future. Who could ever forget the marvellous interplay of the long and short horns, the seemingly random effects produced by the instruments' flats, sharps and true tonal quality as exhibited recently in the various cities of the South African Republic? Sit down sir, with an open mind, and listen.
Every orchestra should have at least 1000 in its wind section.
[Rosie] I'm in the middle of winter right now!
Winter, Hah! It's not winter if you can go outside with fewer than three layers on.
Grim op north
[INJ] Dunno what you are talking about. The temperature has rarely dipped below 15C (day and night) for the last two months down here :o).
Grim down south
(CdM) - Yurss.
(Duj) Many big clubs here have already banned them. Health and Safety can occasionally be useful.
[Rosie] It does get nippy here and there down here. Charlotte Pass recorded -20° C a few days ago.       ;)
(Duj) - Well it would; it's 6000 feet up in a valley. According to an admittedly pretty crap source Sydney Airport has never recorded a frost though I imagine things get a little more parky where you are. English record is -26.1° (Harper Adams College, Newport, Salop, 10 Jan 82). The record for SE England is probably -21° at Bodiam, Sussex, Jan 1940. At Maison Rosie it's -12.9° on 10 Feb 86. Feeble! Even sodding Gatwick Airport has done better than that, as it often does. *sobs*.
Sitting on the Fence...
I am native to the UK, but I spent most of the last year in NZ, so missed the worst winter ever (thank god), and got a suntan instead. It was to my dismay, however, that I returned to find my mum had a better tan than me. Bloody global warming.
On a completely unrelated note...
How does one define next day delivery?
One more thing...
Since when did the Circle line become a spiral?
Next Day Delivery
Is an additional charge for the same poor service.
Monotonically decreasing radii vectores
(FGZstar) - Eh? Please explain.
Disappearing into a black hole
It was about 4-6 months ago. I commented on it in another place.
[Rosie] Trains now run from Hammersmith and then effectively transfer from the H&C to the circle. I don't know what proportion do that and whether they can go round a few times and then escape out to Barking. It's been the subject of frantic discussions at CAMREC.
NDD
[Software] Spot on. I bought some shoes and paid for Next day delivery, and had them delivered 5 days later. I was furious.
The Cir- er.. Spiral Line
I think they run from Hammersmith to Edgware Road via the circle, then back the other way. I will be down in London (hopefully) later in the week, so I shall report back when I know more. I only realised when I looked at the tube map the other day.
The 'Lasso Line'
It is all explained here.
Next Day
[FGZ] It is never worth it. I bought a TV (using my online trade account) to be delivered to my son. I was offered "Next Day" at £12.99 but went for the free option. It was delivered the next day.
(Softers) Ah! It is all so clear to me now.
(INJ) Oh, that CAMREC.
Overground
Has anyone else been on the new Overground trains yet? I think they should make the tube trains with interconnecting carriages too. It would save everyone ending up in the one carriage.
Who has to work to make money
I've got to write tons of articles in August so I can make money. While I like writing, the amount I need to write is not fun. I get page view bonus, too - quite like a salesman gets commission - and I'm also trying to hit a million page views, so if you don't mind, would you view my articles?
Who lives in Lake Charles, LA, USA . . .
*is happy*
Sorry, I've not been around for a while and I must have missed the arrival of KagomeShuko. If I didn't know better I'd think it was spam. But obviously a regular poster who usually makes witty and urbane comments.
In the spirit of shameless self promotion, can I maybe try to direct you to my blog?
who doesn't have to work to get money
The state pays me to be alive, along with a number of other age-related concessions. Also, I get a useful pension from BP.
who lives in Warlingham, Surrey, UK
*is smug*
[FGZStar] In the spirit of shameless self-intoxication, can I direct you to buy me a pint?
Who needs to buy.
[Sierra Mike] I will happily give you this virtual pint of tapwater.
[FGZstar] If you're heading out of Sydney or down to Melbourne or Canberra announce it on the Pilg page on Orange as PaulWay is in Canberra, flerdle, CdM and I are in Melbourne and I think someone's in the Blue Mountains.
Bugger, just realised you're already off in the land of the long white bodies, I mean cloud.
Oh, really?
Strange you should think that, as I'm actually back home in the UK (The blog's a bit out of date, needs updating)
a very pleasant chap.
[nfras] Our mountain man of mystery would be Dujon; he doesn't travel, so PaulWay and I verified he exists by going to Blaxland ourselves in December 2003; one of the first antipopilgs. It might even have been the first antipopilg.
That's flerdle on the right (as you view the image) and me on the left. PaulWay declined the offer of inclusion (he was too busy programming his brand new all-singing all-dancing MP3 player).
As you can see my 'pleasant chap' (thanks flerdle) reputation came from my inability to keep up my head and thus was forced to address my witticisms to the beer drenched table at which we sat. Incidentally, the drink that flerdle had before her at that moment was not coffee. ;)
Yes, couldn't recall if it was Dujon or Dunx and didn't want to cause anyone offence.
Really, truly, ridgy didge?
Was it really 2003, flerdle? I suppose it must have been as I have brown hair in that photograph. I now look more like a polar bear rather than the grizzly that I presented as in those days. *sobs*
Proof of existence
(flerdle) Oh, he exists all right - I've spoken to him on the phone, would you believe. A charming fellow but with a poor sense of timing - it was about 3.45 a.m. here but we yakked away for over half an hour. Must've cost him a fortune. One of only three Morniversers I've actually spoken to.
So is anyone but me actually in the UK?
[FGZ*] I was, but I'm not now.
(FGZstar) - Yes, me, hence Duj's phone bill.
[FGZstar) I am, more or less indefinitely.
Who just made a new website with the help of Giertrud
Please, go take a look at www.everlastinglight.tk and let me know what you think!
[KS] I think it needs some extracts and perhaps some sample illustrations, and maybe you should say which age range each book is aimed at. And it also desperately needs a professional portrait picture of you, the author. At first glance (and that's all you get from any web-user visiting your pages for the first time - I think the patience limit is less than 7 seconds, isn't it?) there's not enough information there to make the books appealing and make me want to buy them.
Right now it won't load for me...
You need to lighten up the background, as the text is hard to read, and change the font to being bigger and more interesting, as the current font is a bit dull. May I suggest Verdana or maybe even Arial, although as it's for children's books, maybe Comic Sans would be more appropriate. Also rethink the logo as it doesn't really jump out at you. I'll try and have a go later and if it looks good I'll upload it onto the web and post it here for you.
[FGZStar] I'm in Leicester. At Phil's pub.
I knew that one. What happened to your web page, anyway? It's coming up account suspended
rooly trooly 2003
Sorry, bit late, but [nfras] Don't worry, Dunx and Dan are always getting mixed up Elsewhere. Some people doubt that there are more than about three people actually here at all.

Actually in the photo I linked to above that's Dujon on the left, me wallaby in the middle and PaulWay dressed in a rather fetching shade of blue in the background (sorry about the poor light, you might not have seen him properly). I have met many people in the Morniverse, but not Rosie (or Dan or Dunx).

Closing time
(Phil) - FGZstar is right. I can't get the website. Wotchoobinuptu?
Furry animals
(flerdle) - Erm, all I can see is two wallabies, one central and bright, the other to the left and dark. Am I being a bit slow or has there been a cockup?
The Morniversers I have actually met are Software and Chalky, and v. good company they are.
[Rosie] The one on the left is, I was assured, a bear, albeit with a pointy nose. PaulWay is rather tall and rectangular, with a slight metallic undercoat.
it's his car's Empeg player
The physical reality
(flerdle) Ah! I'd best say nothing. These, BTW are me, separated by a mere 60 years. Control yourself, woman. :-)
indeed
[Rosie] Awww. By the way, you might like to see the next photo too (no. 9). I only appear in ap12 :-)
High altitude bees
[Rosie] Good Lord. Why is your beehive so high off the ground? ;o)
(flerdle) Only No. 8 comes up. To get the rest I have to alter the address each time.
(pen) Surrey slugs are the most voracious creatures known to man and try to eat the thermometers.
everlasting light
[KS] Echoing what the others have said - though I don't have a problem with the logo. It's not really clear whether it's up and running yet - if this is just a mock-up then I think you need to say so. If not then it needs more than 2 books (that's all I found at any rate). The warning around the young adult books looks a bit nannyish without any books to link it to. However the main problem at the moment is the legibility - it's not easy to read and there isn't anything that jumps out to make you want to dig deeper. Best of luck with the venture.
Logo
Here is a basic mock-up for the Logo
[KS] I still can't get it to load. Not sure if it is a browser compatibility issue; I've tried both safari and firefox on a mac.
pics
[Rosie] That's right, it's just a photo not a html page with arrows and such. There is an index somewhere, but my website is pretty disorganised right now.
still looking for any website suggestions
The site is up and running, but I only have two books published at the moment, so the website is still a work in progress.
still looking for any website suggestions
The site is up and running, but I only have two books published at the moment, so the website is still a work in progress.
Who has just done some updates to the webpage
1) Pictures will have to wait until I can get them done. 2) Books waiting to be added. 3)Besides those two things, does it look better now?
re FGZstar
Can't see the picture. Told me I was not authorized to see it.
re FGZstar
Can't see the picture. Told me I was not authorized to see it.
Should Work Now
with appreciation to FGZstar
Thanks, but the logo at the top is based on the publishing logo on the back of the books. Take a look at the "peek inside" and go to the very last page: Amazon Link Here
[KS] Are you the author, proofreader, publisher, retailer and website designer? If so, to be honest, I don't think you're doing any of those 5 things very well. I just skimmed through the opening pages of Ace's Adventures and, apart from the black dog scenario being rather old hat (and unsound
Hidden textif everything was pure black, even in daylight, the dog would not show up against a black background
), the introduction page has at least two errors: comma instead of period at end of first paragraph; "answer" instead of "answered" in paragraph 3. I'd also prefer "different from" to "different than", but I'm English and picky.

Even with my love of sub-clauses and punctuation, "With this book, you, too, can be a mystery solver!" just seems too much - especially for a back cover that is supposed to grab people's attention.

Sorry to sound harsh, but my suggestion is that you should send your two books to professional publishers, with an open and optimistic mind. Take on board their comments, because they really do know what sells, and how to sell it.

Now that's what I call a speeding fine.
You can afford it.
(INJ) It would be interesting to what his income was, and the formula for calculating his fine.
A mere bagatelle
[Rosie] I read it as 300 x his daily income of £2166 based on a speed of 300kph (but I assume there would be some sort of graduated calculation before you got to 1 days income per kph)
not suspicious at all
I do like the speed camera's cunning disguise.
A fine country
In New Zealand they hide behind trees and around corners with unmarked vans.
Mustn't say 'And why not?'...Mustn't say 'And why not?'...Mustn't say 'And why not?'...Mustn't say 'And why not?'...
[INJ] I agree with your expressed sentiment. In New South Wales, where I live, the R.T.A. (Roads and Traffic Authority) erect huge signs by the roadside announcing that there is a fixed 'speed camera' ahead. People still get caught travelling above the designated speed limit. Really, how stupid can some people be?
There are constant 'Letters to the Editor' in newspapers declaiming speeding fines as 'revenue raisers' and that for some obscure reason the writer feels that a fine for exceeding a speed limit is some form of tax.
There is a simple answer isn't there?
Whoa!
(INJ) If the fine is proportional to the speed this would mean someone on £100 a day (fairly modest by Swiss standards) who exceeded a limit of (say) 120 kph by 10kph would get a fine of £13,000, which is absurd. Even if the fine is only proportional to the excess it's still £1000 for a fairly minor infringement.
The actual fine is so huge that either his income is much higher than £2166 a day or some other formula is used. Logically, it ought to be proportional to the square of the speed minus the square of the speed limit thus giving the excess braking distance. Doing this, one finds

fine = 0.004 x daily income x (V2 - V2lim) with V in kph

But applying this to the ordinary geezer on £100 a day doing 130 kph in a 120 kph limit gives, coincidentally, the same £1000 as before. Maybe it's proprtional to the cube of fourth power of the speed or possibly to income above a certain level. But then if you were poor you'd have no fine at all. I can't make sense of it It's all bollocks and obviously quite beyond the innumerates at the Grauniad, a paper I read BTW.
(Duj) Of course there is and they never catch me despite a tendency to leg it. But it depends on the fine. Speeding on a motorway (say 85 mph instead of 70) is hardly arson, rape and bloody murder, except maybe in Switzerland, a very well-ordered country.

Haven't I anything better to do? Well, just tonight, no, alas.

[Rosie] You may not know that you have to pay an annual tax in order to be allowed to drive on motorways in Switzerland at all, even if you are only passing through the country. Also, it's very hard to get in and out of Switzerland without using a stretch of motorway. Cunning, eh!
Swizz swizz
[Phil] Yeah - the payment covers January to December rather than a rolling 12-month period from the date of purchase, so if you buy it in October you've been done out of two-thirds of the benefits already, and the sticker they give you to show you've paid the highway robbery tax doesn't peel off either. Hmmph.
(Phil, pen) What a horrible little place, and in so many other ways as well.
Oh, I quite liked it...once I learnt to love efficiency.
Helvetia
[Phil] Your previous: Even Steve McQueen found out that, and he was only riding a motorcycle.
You have to hand it to the Swiss
Cunning, hiding the speed camera inside a perfectly innocuous six-foot tall, four foot wide block of Emmenthal.
[SM] Speeding cheese???
[Pen] The holes are crafted to give extra downforce.
Cheese
[penelope] You didn't follow the link ImNotJohn posted?
*grooooghyere*
[SM] I know the story, was just trying to paint a different picture. I think English cheeses are faster. At least one English cheese can travel at the speed of sound; Macheddar.
(pen) But only Brie-fly. Now look what you've started.
Maybe I'll sit and watch with a pint of Wensleyd-ale!
[penelope] Gouda you top that!?
I'm a sympathetic listener - camembert your soul to me.
Well, if one can't unburden on a rock like you, Rosie, what's a roquefort?
You can Comté me out.
Come, come, Softers. You could be a little friendleerdammer than that.
Oh Software's all right, providing you approach him caerphilly.
Yes but pen -- manchegoes on a bit.
Yes, but his views are similar to mine; Edamplify them, having grater loquaciousness.
I think we should all just chalk this one down to experience.
Hmmm, you lot are starting to get my goat.
Well, there's stiltons of cheese puns to get through!
Are you sure, because I'm at a complete g-lous-cester
Actually, I've decided I'm enjoying this little vignottes.
Cheese attributes
It needs a game. Biscuits for Cheese, anyone? And then when the cheeseboard is empty, other grocery items. *rubs hands gleefully at the thought of punnage*
That's a gouda Idea, but my cheeseboard is running out of content already
Wendy said pizza retard.
May I remind you that a rolling stone gathers no mozzarella.
Have we processed far enough on this one?
Microsoft would not tolerate further cheese-related punnery - but Applewood.
[Phil] MS were always a bit primula and proper like that.
[Rab] Absolutely, I rang them up to complain, but the lady I spoke to just made fun of me, the laughing cow!
I'll tried to give them a babybel on skype, but the computer gave me a BSoD (Blue Stilton of Death).
[rab] Sorry it took me so long to respond, but I was watching some Danish Blue!
[Phil] Whilst downing a yarg of ale as well, I'd wager.
[rab] Wise words, sir! Wiser than a Derby Sage.
[Phil] Well, a sage should know his Kraft.
I think this is starting to seem a bit cheesy!
[FGZStar] No whey! That same thought occurd to me as well.
who thinks she needs to find a clever Brit who wants to move to America to marry
When I was a little girl, my mom worked with ribbons and I'd wear them in my hair. Surprisingly, my friend would ask, what's the Beaufort.
Who is already married and has no particular wish to move to America
At the risk of getting onto a more serious plane I do remember going into a Delicatessen in Georgetown (a suburb of Washington DC, for non-US readers) and seeing a cheese labelled as Double Gloucester - the English version of Cheddar!
Next to it was one labelled as Low-fat Single Gloucester!
[INJ] That would be a cheese plane, then? They do exist, mainly to take molecule-thin slices of rubbery Dutch cheese of the right size to fit on a piece of bread. BTW, what's a cheese molecule properly called? I genuinely don't know. Cheesium?
(pen) There's every molecule under the sun in cheese (maybe not uranium hexafluoride) and some of them are quite big, like vegetable fats (50-55 carbons). On the other hand some are quite small and volatile like butyric acid, the smelly feet pong.
I want to know if at about 4pm, we can sit down and Havarti.
Thinks ImNotJohn is clever, but didn't say it was him who she wanted to marry
Oh, so we are on to chemistry puns, or cheese and chemistry puns? Cheesemestry?
Mercaptan's Log - Stardate 28810 :- Uhura is still banging them out, the dirty cow.
Ooh, spooky. I think you need to take a look on orange MC, Rosie.
cheeseshop
[INJ] I just saw a cheese here advertised as a "Goats' Milk Chevre".
(FGZs) Point me a little more specifically. I can't find any reference to farting there.
My location has nothing to do with farting.
Spot the difference...
Well, I wouldn't want to try getting around London with this. How many changes can you spot? (Comparison with the real one is cheating)
Easy, easy!
There are no stations, no lines, no key, no river.
Do I win?
Are you having trouble viewing the map? It's definitely there.
[FGZ] I like the idea of leaving it mostly correct with just a few subversive entries.
I suppose I did get a bit carried away, especially with the Jubilee line..
I can see it fine now - don't know what happened before.
Now working on another one, which includes all disused stations and proposed extensions (except fleet line). Any ideas about what to do with the white city area? It's a bit of a mess.
who knows nothing about the London Underground other than the funny black circle sign
Would need to be maps of Lake Charles for me. Then, I don't even know if I'd notice many things. I can get lost in my own city. I know I'm good. Why, thank you!
Tube Map
iirc somewhere in the ether there is a tube map where you have to drag and drop ALL the station names into their correct places. fictifino where...
Drunk Map
I think that I might try putting together a tube map with all the stations replaced with drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic). My thoughts so far is that the overground could be beer, and the circle line could be mixers, with possibly the jubilee as high proof alcohol. All of the connecting stations would be cocktails, and the others brand names. I think maybe the W&C would be just cocktails, and maybe the circle line as whisky.
Who wants to share more fun with people
I think many of you would love the site www.sporcle.com I love playing there and there are some people that complain about a few things being too U.S. Centric . . . so y'all could make a good balance most likely if you make quizzes!
*waves from Vilnius*
Yay! My Morphsuit has arrived!
[FGZstar] Pictures! Better yet, wear it to a pilg (see Orange game) and I'll try to resist the temptation to superglue the zipper shut.
BQULrfMYJfYgdDG
E93S6T hop hey la la ley http://avtozastivxux.sweb.wankah.cz
I'm not going to that URL, I might end up talking like him.
Don't Be Surly
And a jaunty "hop hey la la ley" to you to, Mr., Mrs. or Ms. XhLFMGIIvYvcLDqucg.
XhLFMGIIvYvcLDqucg
[SM] I did a quick Google search for the name 'XhLFMGIIvYvcLDqucg', and nothing came up. On the other hand, if you remove the 'cg' from the end, you have slightly better luck. This leads me to suspect that Mr, Mrs or Mz XhL FMG IvY vcDqu (whose homepage is here) may be operating under a (frankly, rather transparent) pseudonym.
Now Wash Your Hands Please
[SM] I followed your links and now I feel dirty.
translation
It does read a lot better if you feed it through Google translate.
Gibberish
Well, in most language options at least one recognizable word appears. I have noted sleep, even and Hugo after a few tries.
Ffolineb
Translating into Welsh provides only one phrase I recognised, viz Ysgol gynradd Gymraeg = Welsh primary school, and there is commendable gender agreement. That's what it's all about, then.
Who doesn't want to be a spammer . . .
None of that makes any sense to me . . . I'm just sad that no more people seem to be playing my Literary Rhyme Time quiz (or rating or nominating it . . . hint, hint). I took my time thinking of clever clues for that quiz! See? http://www.sporcle.com/games/kagomeshuko/literaryrhymetime Er, does HTML work . . . Quiz is here
Quiz site
I did look, and got about a third, (and saved a cached copy of the quiz) but I'm not really interested in registering. So I'm an invisible quiz-taker, and I suspect I'm not alone in this. The other thing is, as you said earlier, all the quizzes are mostly US-centric and yes, while it would be nice to make it more international, I feel rather too outnumbered by all the US guys to make any perceptible difference. Sorry.

Haven't got 'John's Stinky White Vegetables', because I can't think of a suitable literary surname, but I suspect you should be ashamed of yourself for that one.

Somewhere on my hard disk I've got a punny work-in-progress quiz a bit like this one of yours. Mine contains entries such as 'many-sized virtue' - 'paragon'. 'King's son publishes' - 'prints'. Some need more work, like that 'paragon' one. The clue doesn't fit the answer very closely.

[SM]
Hidden textBunyan
[K] I enjoyed the quiz, and got 15, which I thought was not too bad for the time limit
Hidden textwould have been 16 if I had been able to spell 'Malory' correctly; *hangs head in shame*
.
GQfQKSGtdcrLDjEcxtc
1EEjv2 hi all ?heey ? messus mangle
I think Simons Mith is the one to answer you there, sHEvKENZEyy. I believe he studied that very subject at university.
Have we all been shamed into silence?
[pen] Excellent! I don't have any good pics of myself to hand to try, but here's something appropriate.
who is thoroughly confused by pen's link
What's going on there?
[KS] I believe that is penelope herself in the picture (and a rather good picture it is too).
Another picture, that is, not another picture of penelope.
Posters
[aak] Thangyew. A friend of mine took it, insiting that it was homework for a portrait photography course she was doing. I was leaning inside her old garden shed holding two foil reflectors in outstretched arms. The wonders of photography, eh? But it'll do for my next book jacket, heheh!
Posters
Interesting in that Raak's is actually Raak.
[ISP] Well spotted! I am in fact a 28-year-old woman with a shaved head except for a tightly woven topknot and massively muscled shoulders and arms. Beware my biceps, for they can crack walnuts.
[Raak] I'd always thought you were in your 30s. Strange how things get confused :)
[Phil] It's a hard life as a Balkan mercenary.
This weekend, I am mostly...
catching up with a schoolfriend who is making the trip from Galway. I still find it staggering that I have had some friends for more than 30 years. Tomorrow, I have earmarked picking sloes and making sloe gin as one of our principal activities, and I notice that it's going to piss it down with rain. *rse. On Sunday (when it will also piss it down with rain), we will make an early start to the Vogelmaarkt in Antwerp so we can breakfast on pieces of fried fish known as kibbeling (yum) and waffles as big as our heads covered in chocolate and whipped cream, before watching the live kitchen gadget demonstrations, marvelling at the Moroccan spice stalls and buying trinkets and savouries according to our whim. (Is 'whim' like 'sheep' in that the plural is the same as the singular?)
Colloquial inconsistency
(pen) Shurely if you can say "piss" you can say "arse"? I know I can, and in style. I think the plural of "whim" is boring old "whims" and of "sheep", "sheeps". Just ask a Frenchman.
Old mate
(pen) I have a friend (whom I have seen recently) of 57 years' acquaintance. Is this a greater proportion of my life than 30 years is of yours? Come on, have to hurry you.
Quite so
Like Rosie I have a friend that I first met at primary school, so that is also 57 years, and I am younger than Rosie.
old acquaintance
I am 44 and married the person I sat next to in Infant School.
posters
I seem to have missed the boat a bit, but I've stil created an advert
Fail
[FGZ] Hmm. well done on the typography etc, but really, swearing? Do you really need to?
FGZStar's Poster
That went over my head I'm afraid.
The plurals of words . . .
are sheep for sheep and fish or fishes for fish. Sheeps is only a form of a verb. Sheeps means grazes. Yes, the plural of "whim" is boring old "whims." However,there is "cacti" and "cactuses." Even more fun is that there is "octopi," "octopuses," and "octopodes." More plurals fun: rhinoceroses, rhinoceri, rhinocerotes.
Yes, I'm afraid I also fond FGZstar's poster both meaningless and mildly offensive.
[Plural] I still occasionally come across people who insist "data" can only be a plural. Funny that they don't make the same fuss about "agenda".
[INJ/SM] I presume it was intended as the opposite of the magnificent "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters of the Second World War.
Kornfläken
(ISP) I think "data" can be both but I agree that to insist that it is always plural is pretentious and a bit annoying, a bit like government propagandums.
(Phil) Don't quite remember 'em, but if you say so. :-)
[Phil] Thanks. I'm not overly conversant with WWII UK memes unfortunately. In fact, Mr. Chad (known elsewhere as Kilroy) is the sum total of my knowledge of the matter. Or was, since I now know something else thanks to you and FGZStar.
I recognised the reference to 'Keep Calm and Carry On' - available on mugs near you - but still don't see what FGZstar means. I'm happy to accept that it's just a generational thing.
About datum and agendum
Datum and agendum are singular. One singular piece of data and one singular thing to do, rather than a list. The minute it is two (or more) they become data and agenda. So, "What's on the agenda?" is correct being people are going to expect more than one item. If I say the only thing on the agenda is the meeting, that's wrong, it's the agendum. Yes, I am just being a grammar nazi. I don't really care that much about those words.
To more interesting topics, like how this forum works
I'm trying to do the hidden words thing.
Hidden textIs this how I hide words?
Wow! I must be smart!
I figured that out!
Hidden textI must be smart!
At least, that is not when trying to make text small.
[INJ} I am given to understand by today's youth that "to bail" would indicate giving up in a dramatic way. It would appear to come from "bailing out (of an aeroplane)". Incidentally, "Keep Calm and Carry On" is available on a mug in my own kitchen.
agendum?
[Kagome...] If you have a lst of things to be done (from the latin gerundive), or an agenda, and it only contains one item, it is still a list of things to be done. So I disagree, and would say that an agenda for a meeting is always an agenda, regardless of how many items are on it. More specifically, each item on an agenda would be an agendum.
[Kag] And you got the singular of Nazi wrong too; it's Nazus. :-)
[Phil] I have it on very good authority that each thing on an agenda is an itum.
with an upside-down crown
[Phil] I have a "Keep Calm and Carry On" t-shirt. frogstar has one that says "Now Panic and Freak Out". To date I don't think we've worn them at the same time.
[KS] A datum is a data point and so is a count noun with a plural of data. However data meaning information is a mass noun and takes a singular agreement.
Everybody Keep Calm
The whole 'Just Bail' Idea related to something one of the guys I know from my accommodation, who once said 'let's just bail' at a party, and so it stuck, and got written on a large board and put in the window. It was then at a recent poster sale that we saw a 'keep calm' poster, and decided to change it. It was initially going to be 'Just Bail', but this would not fit with the whole idea of an odd number of lines, so the expletive got added. We are now planning on getting the poster printed up at A2 or A1 size, and put on the kitchen wall.
Now Carry On...
I have now had a tinker with the old photoshop, and have made something else. Hopefully you'll all find this one more to your liking.
Whoops!
Ignore the above. This is actually the link.
[FGZ] You want to put up that helpful new tube map you've been working on...
bailing
And I thought that bailing, or bailing out, was a nautical term . . .
US Politics
So if Obama bailed out the banks, does that mean he dumped all the water out of them?
Damn Yankees
I believe that in the form stated it is more a metaphor for removing someone from the tender mercies of the law by posting a bond so that they don't have to sit in a cell until they are called to answer for their deeds. Of course, the financial "experts" behind the whole meltdown will never be called to answer for their deeds, so it all metaphorically falls apart. Rather like The Bailout.
Baling out
This is enlightening: bale or bail
Wouldn't "Bale Out" be some sort of harvest-related activity, possibly taking place in WWII and involving steam tractors and Land Girls?
Bale Out
And I thought it would be taking blocks of hay out of the barn.
The Phrase Finder
The phrase finder site is great! It is often a start for my research on the origins of phrases when I write that type of article, and often quoted as the source as many sources are mentioned on the pages.
Keep calm and swear your head off
I was at Liverpool Street station at the weekend, and was mildly shocked (although not, being me, actually offended) to walk past a (shut) kiosk proudly displaying a greetings card with the message "KEEP CALM AND FUCK OFF" to any and all passers by. I suspect that Mary Whitehouse would not have approved...
[jim] I suspect you are right. Nothing good ever came of telling that lady to keep calm.
Acronym
Yes, I believe she formed a campaign originally entitled Clean Up National Television.
Acronyms
TLA has just been closed. Any ideas for a new game?
Anything like a poetry parody game?
I think that I shall never see
A purple cow that looks like thee
This poem is a pure mess
With lots of apologies to Gilet Burgess.
*controversial* a game of Mornington Crescent perhaps?
MC game
Well, we could... Could someone just go over the rules quickly? It's been so long.
Tongue in Cheek
[KagomeShuko] See: The Obligatory Limericks Game Reincarnated

Though to be fair I saw no problem with your mother's snoring since it followed the same beat as my favourite limerick by Spike Milligan:
Things that go bump in the night
Should really not give one a fright
It's the hole in each ear
Which lets in the fear
That, and the absence of light

If we've got to the point where people would object to Spike if he were to post that, we are in trouble.
If we've got to the point where Spike posts that, then the dead are walking the earth and we have greater worries than scansion.
True. :/
Post-Hallowe'en
Is it just me who uses the apostrophe there?
[Pen] Surely it should be 'Hallow'e'en'
erm...
Missing S & missing V? Perhaps. But it's deffo not the way Hallmark spell it.
[Pen] I was starting from 'All Hallows Eve' but then had to account for the final 'n' so I've taken Halloween to be an abbreviated form of 'All Hallows Eventide'.
[penelope] You've missed the apostrophe from penelop'
[Phil] I've missed a lot of things in my time. *sigh*
I'd be grateful for more movers and shakers in the limericks game please - to set good examples of rhyming and scansion to those perhaps less accustomed to the sound and feel of a good limerick, and perhaps also to show Marc that there are other subjects apart from sex to be limericked, and repeated references tend to make people drift away from the game.
[Pen] That's unfair to Marc. You have to go back over 20 screens and 50-100 moves to see the last time he tried anything even remotely naughty. And he got told off last time as well. By you...
hmmm
Really? Apologies if it seemed unjust - but I have that impression. I will try to adjust my stance.
I'm with Pen
Though not, perhaps, in singling out Marc. I think there have a few too many somewhat coarse limericks across all the servers recently. We need a few rules of thumb here like:
- First lines ending 'Phuket' (or Nantucket, etc.) are never going to be funny
- Filth is always funnier if it's not signalled in advance.
Add your own.
(INJ) I agree more or less with your filth stance though if someone puts up an obviously dirty first line there is a strong temptation to carry on with the bawdiness. Unexpected filth is much funnier; years ago on PantsMC I put up the innocent first line:
"There was a young fellow from Streatham strettum", which was followed by
"Who chewed off his bollocks and ate 'em"
Aha, I thought, this is good.
The worst thing about too many of the current limericks is the lack of rhythm. I look at them and groan and think "Why bother?"
Da diddly diddly dum
(INJ, Rosie et al.) Agreeing with the aforementioned points of lax scansion and over-active glands; but I would add that limericks which start with an obvious hope that they'll end up coarsely can be funny when subsequent moves elegantly sidestep it.
However, everything in moderation...
sidestepping
I like the sidestepping thing. It seems particularly English and I find I use it a lot here - especially as I'm in the lavisicous hotbed of the Netherlands and sometimes pretending to be more archetypally (sp?) English than I actually am seems to be the only way to avoid lowering myself to their standards. Oh. That means I am very English after all, doesn't it?
(And that rumour about the Dutch being liberal and easy-going? Don't believe a word of it. Most of them are Calvinists. It's a more conservative and male-dominated business and academic environment than any I have encountered before.
*waves from Leipzig*
With regards to Nantucket
I do have to say that there is a funny and not at all dirty limerick. If you'll take a look here. (Yes, I know there is a misspelled word. It was posted more than two years ago.
I always want to rhyme bucket and Nantucket with Kirby Puckett.
Guess who's back...
In response to Simon's Mith, who asked for the tube map a while back, It will be posted when I can find that pesky link (I think it's down the back of the sofa somewhere). I am also now working at an anagram Europe map, which may be posted soon.
Jellied Eel
Does anybody eat that? One time I thought I saw somebody write "Jelly Diel." I don't know if they were ignorant or joking.
[KS] I've eaten it - nice taste, slightly odd texture. Eels used to be a very important part of people's diet in the South and East of England. Like oysters it's had a bit of an up and down ride in terms of prestige.
Eels are now endangered in the UK. There's a big tradition of eating them here in the Netherlands too ('paling'), especially smoked, but the flavour is a bit too strong for me. I suppose I'd eat them if I was absolutely starving and there was nothing else.
The Eastenders used to love their jellied eels and mash in the old days. I have eaten it down Petticoat Lane back in the '60s.
My dad loves jellied eels, still eats them. In fact, only last week on the Hairy Bikers show they had jellied eels.
I've had smoked eel, thinly sliced on canapés at a provincial art gallery (which I've just realised sounds a bit like the start of an Alan Bennett monologue). Very nice, IMHO. Also, I seem to remember smoked eel paté, but I can't remember when or where. I don't remember disliking it though.
Never tried 'em
Jellied Eels
They don't sound appetizing to me (of course, I don't/can't eat seafood - most of it, just the smell of it cooking, makes me sick to my stomach). I think the person who used "Jelly diel" thought it was some sort of pastry come to think of it.
Deels
Had eel for lunch today (in Bruges and in a virulent green sauce), partly prompted by this discussion. I enjoyed it. I also really enjoyed Bruges, which I was visiting for the first time - what a gorgeous town!
Kicking up my eels
Best eel I ever had was in Tokyo, many years ago now, at a dedicated unagi restaurant. Very good indeed. (Also, I fell instantly in love with my server, who looked like a young Susan Sarandon.)
*eels over*
I have not tried eel, as far as I know, but given my general dislike of eating animals aquatic, there is a good chance I would not like it. That said, it would very much depend on how it is done.
Eelsprit d'elverscalier
I should have said "Ead over eels" rather than "Kicking up my eels".
Jampanese Language
I am wondering if jellied eels would be "Unagi Zerī" in Japanese, or perhaps they use "Jam" and it'd be "Unagi Jamu." Just don't get in a jam confusing unagi and usagi. Two very different animals!
Prezzies
I didn't get any eels for my birthday, thankfully!
*wears 'igh 'eels*
So has anyone got snow yet?
A few flurries in Leeds yesterday - just cold (about -2) & sunny at the moment.
big fat raindrops though
[penelope] Not here, alas.
Roll on global warming!
Snow yesterday evening and thick snow this morning, but not enough to lie.
[Raak] Oh I dunno. I'll lie at the drop of a hat.
'igh 'eels
Come on pen, you are a girl, you can always wear high heels whether or not there is snow.
It's snowing in Edinburgh! And just in time, as they've just finished building Christmas!
[FGZ] Shedding it down now.
Sunday lunchtime in Zuid Holland
Still below zero, still sunny, still no snow...
Parky
(pen) Same as here. The weather newsgroup are absolutely out of their prams because it's cold and there's NO SNOW. I sometime wonder about the company I keep. There's at least another week of this Siberian NW Russian stuff.
We woke up to an inch or so of snow on Friday morning. A lot of it is still around. Our little back roads are like ice rinks :-(
We must have had about 6-8 inches since last night. The buses continue to run (albeit stopping short of some of the further-flung places). I look forward to one flake falling within the M25 later in the week and the end of the universe being declared by the media, again.
State of Emergency
(rab) Not a whole flake, shurely? We had a little here tonight, well within the noisy racetrack/car park, and I have had a level 16" (39 cm) in the back garden (14 Jan 1987). Your point is well made, though.
*sigh*
Minus 3, overcast, dry. Still no snow in Zuid Holland.
The walk to work was a bit treacherous, mostly cos the road in runs east-west with a hill to the south, so when it snows it doesn't melt. Poor motorist being dug out of a turning into it. Heavy dumpage as we speak.
Unseasonal snow
We even had snow here on the island which caused the usual chaos. I understand that the Isle of Donkies had it worst (being so much further north) and its airport remains closed again today because of frozen snow. We had to do without UK papers this weekend because of the weather. No crossword - bah!
Where are you, Softers? I forget - sorry
[Software] *taps the internet*
Where am I?
A familiar question, especially after a night on the tiles. In the deep south, Jersey.
Mass panic alert
There were 7 inches of Snow in Edinburgh. The capital city of Scotland went completely to shit today because of a little bit of snow. Schools closed, traffic halted, train service gone haywire. Oh, but on a happy note, the deadline for my Art and Design portfolio got moved back a day! Happy times!
There seems to be this curious attitude in Britain that everywhere else handles an unexpected dump of snow better. It's simply not true. Stevie might like to inform you about how badly they seem to handle it in the US and from experience, they don't handle it at all well in Russia. People are just generally less inclined to whine about it in other places, or you just don't hear about it in the UK. It's like me being asked by my family and friends how I handle the heat in Australia. The answer - same as the Aussies: I close the curtains and stay inside with the air-conditioning running full bore.
[FGZ] Respectfully, I beg to differ. This is the most snow I've seen in a major UK urban area, and people seem to be handling it pretty well as far as I can tell. Driving is extremely difficult. A colleague of mine who lives in a cul-de-sac in Newington said that someone drove into it by accident on Sunday, and it took them 45 minutes to get out again (with help from the local residents). Another was unable to drive her car into her garage and has had to abandon it in front of a "Do not park in front of this notice" notice at work, because the car parks on campus are inaccessible. The fact that buses are running at all - albeit sporadically and with some diversions - is pretty impressive in my opinion.

Closing schools seems like a ludicrous overreaction, but actually it's pretty sensible. On the one hand it reduces pressure on the buses and the roads in general. On the other there is also the chance (admittedly more so in rural areas) that conditions could worsen and the kids wouldn't be able to get home and would have to stay at school overnight. This happened at my old school (albeit after I left) and it sounded like a bloody nightmare for all concerned. And, of course, teachers don't always live in the catchment areas of the school (can't afford to if it's a good one) so they'd be short-staffed as well.

But, hey, ho, as long as it allows you to hand in something late without incurring a penalty, then that's ok.

Snow point in whining
[nfras] In the U.S., the degree of coping-with-winter is highly variable. As you'd expect, it depends on what the particular place is used to. I've lived in Michigan, where they handle (normal) snowfall easily and as a matter of course. The salt trucks are out, the plows are out, and the roads are generally cleared pretty easily and efficiently. I've also lived in Virginia, which was a very different story. And of course that makes sense -- a city in Virginia, which gets one major snowfall every couple of years, is not going to have an army of snowplows on hand to cope with that. And neither they should. Same goes for Edinburgh.
Leeds, which is where I'm working at the moment, has about 3cms of snow in the centre and maybe up to 10 in higher, outlying areas. I lived here in the 70s and 80s and this is well within the norms for the city of those days at least. There are a few individual cases of people having problems, but basically the city is coping fine with all public transport running as normal.
Turns out that the Embra experience depends on where you are in the city. I swung into town earlier and was surprised at how little snow there was. You need to head south beyond the railway line to see the real stuff. A colleague who lives a few hundred yards south of me showed me a picture of his house taken earlier today, with about a foot (or more) of snow on his wheelie bin. I guess the closer you get to the sea, the less snow there will be. Take a trip down to Blackford or the Braids if you can as it's really spectacular. A very impressive igloo has been built by the campus bus stop. I've got pictures which I'll share next time I'm near my USB cable.
What campus? I know there's a half finished igloo by the ECA, because it was the architecture students that built it.
KB
Here's an igloo, agnother igloo
Here's what it looks like in the Deep South if you can't get there.
Tierra Nevada del Sur
(rab) Too right. Ten inches level depth in my back garden. Nothing moves, especially me, except to measure the bloody stuff. I've no tea and I bet the Co-op hasn't got any either
[Rosie] Given your inordinate mastery of all things meteorological, why didn't you stock up?
(Phil) Your commendation is noted and appreciated but it should not be assumed that such sagacity extends to other areas of life. Actually, I didn't believe it would be anything like as bad because the Met Office has cried wolf on numerous occasions. In this case, they were right but a slight change in the wind direction would have meant the snow would have either landed somewhere else or hardly anywhere. As it turned out it was just right for this area to get a dumping. There's very little in the west of Surrey or north of the Thames. I won't be going out tonight; too many steep hills between here and the pub and I'm far too old for heroics.
tea-mergency
[Rosie] I have stock! There are three boxes of proper English tea in the cellar. I can post one over...
[Rosie] I have friends in Chaldon who will have plenty in store. Do you have a team of trained homing huskies?
(pen) The Co-op had oodles of their routine non-posh tea. All is well.
(INJ) This road, the quickest route, would probably be closed even to huskies.
The photo in the above link doesn't do justice to the steepness of the hill. To the left of the camera the road is essentially level and the part of the hill shown is about 1 in 5, steepening further down. Approaching it in a car the road seems to go over the edge of a cliff. I think the reason is due to the use of a fairly wide-angle lens, which always has this effect. Using a long lens you can make even a railway gradient look insurmountable.
royal tea
[Rosie] Thanks goodness. I love the Co-op, especially since they revamped themselves. Their 'Indian Prince' tea makes a wonderful, ordinary cuppa and is as good as anything Twinings makes.
'eels or, uh, 'ills
What's a hill? j/k . . . where I live is very flat, but I've seen much steeper!
steep hills
If you ride an adult trike down a really steep hill, you can go really fast.
(KS, G) England is surprisingly hilly, though mostly on a small scale. Wales and Scotland are seriously hilly, mountainous in places, and any level piece of land is occupied by a rugby or football pitch. The hill in the picture drops 250 ft in about 1/3 mile so your trike had better have good brakes.
(pen) Your Cop-op sounds a good deal classier than mine but I can walk there, which gets one off one's bum if nothing else.
A good cuppa after a walk
[Rosie] Splendid. There's nothing better after a walk to buy teabags - a good cuppa.
Midweekery
So. No news really. Grey and gloomy and only just below freezing here. We could do with a sparkling winter day, I reckon.
'Ot innit?
Above freezing overnight last night. A positively balmy 5° walking in to work. A little sheen of water over the still glassy ice on the pavements.
Scorchio!
5°C here too, and 3°C overnight - feels positively balmy. I didn't even wear gloves this morning! We didn't have as much snow as the UK, so our pavements are now mostly clear. The ditches are still filled with billowing drifts though.
Weather
Our weather is crazy. It's been from -1.6666666666666667C (29F) at the lowest on some days and today the high was around 21.666666666666668C (71F)!
I tried to guess the temperature in Celsius and my guess was a tiny bit high, but I ended up saying that I was a bit high.
She just might be . . . though I don't know on what. Helium, maybe? But most likely, sugar.
It seems that the snow has finally cleared! Shame, because it means there is not chance of my looming examination being postponed. I suppose I should do at least some revision, then!
Recurring nightmares
(KS) Not enough 6's. :-)
Court in the act
I was in court today, and I realized that (with the possible exception of a wedding I once attended), this was a first for me. Let me hasten to add that I was not there for any bad reason. It wasn't even to contest the $60 ticket I got for jaywalking last week.
Balls in court
I've been a number of times; and on each occasion I've been sent away because nothing was actually happening.
Serial offender
Two appearances in magistrates courts (Oxted 1978, Croydon 1987) for Driving with Undue Care and Attention. First one, guilty - quite a big fine, second one - Case Dismissed, cockup on the part of the then-new Crown Prosecution Service. My cousin, a solicitor now retired said that if you saw the shambles that is the back office of most police stations you'd wonder how they ever manage to prosecute anybody.
Young and Offensive
I have never been in court, though that may be likely to change if they ever find out who did poke Camilla with that stick at the student protests.
[Cross-posted in other places] Anybody want a single ticket to the recording of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, this Saturday (18th Dec) in Crawley? Cost price £9. email phil at philspub dot co dot uk. First come first served.
ISIHAC
[Phil] Damn it! That date is my sister's birthday. Sorry, old chap, but the £9 must remain in my wallet.
Numbers
666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666 . . . is that enough, [Rosie]?
I'm too sexy for my math
I found that last post very sixy.
I found it really annoying ;^)
Blind drunk. At 7.30pm. For shame. Bloody students.
Let me correct that
Blind Drunk. At 7.30am. For shame. Bloody lecturers.
Moderation in all things, dammit
Mellow. At 1230 am. For shame. Drink-driving laws.
(KagShuk) Well, not really, but a commendable effort. Try these: 142857 X 7, 25641 X 39, 1369863 X 73.
Rosie surely knows this, but it's fun to multiply 142857 by all sorts of numbers. For the geeks among us.
Court in the act
I've been in court lots of times. I was the court reporter in our local magistrates court for about a year. Wonderful job - like watching a whole day of soap operas. There was the woman fined for keeping Shetland ponies in her kitchen, the father fined for punching the upstart who copped a feel of his teenage daughter at her birthday party, the businessman who bought his way out of a driving ban by paying a huge fine, but wore Tweety-Pie socks under his sober business suit... all recorded in detail.
I haven't had a drink since a glass of red wine last Monday. It's about time... (it's a bad idea to drink when I'm cooking - things tend to go wrong - and I cook every night.)
Who does have a calculator on her computer
I could do those math problems by hand, but it'd take too long before I head off to bed, so the computer calculator is it.
142857x7=999999, 25641x39=999999, 1369863x73=99999999

A bunch of nines . . . how about a bunch of bananas?
Quiet
Hello? Anybody there?
Currently trundling through a landscape that looks like an infrared photograph. All the green stuff is completely white. No snow but the thickest frost I've ever seen.
shush - I'm hoovering
Currently blasting through the going-away-for-Christmas-but-bringing-back-friends-for-New-Year cleaning. Veeeerrrryyy slow thaw going on, but it's good to know that it's warm enough for the salt and grit on the roads to work.
Merry Christmas!
HC
Have a good one
[KS] I assume Niblet Woofles is the one in the middle, holding Valerie Bridget and Briana.
no people, two dogs
Santa in middle. White and tan dog (as reindeer) is Niblet. Black and tan dog (as Santa) is Woofles. Valerie, Bridget, and Briana are not in the picture.
I'm back
My absence was enforced by 'the weather'. A couple of weeks ago a small but nasty storm decided to travel across my little bit of territory. In the process of doing so it deposited about 75mm of rain and hailstorms the size of a florin in about half of an hour. Regrettably it also targeted me with lots of high voltage sparkly things. The aftermath was somewhat sobering, even though I was quite sober at the time. At two in the afternoon it became as dark as it was at eight that evening (I checked) and then IT happened. Casualties so far have all been computer related/connected. Computer: fried; hard drives: fried; back ups: fried; UPS: fried; modem: fried; router: fried; weather station: suspect (i.e. yet to be proven).
Oddly enough - and I'm assuming that the telephone line was the ingress for this devilish behaviour - the two telephone lines and the various devices attached survived unscathed. Even the ADSL filters exhibit normal behaviour. The circuit breaker in the 'fuse box' dropped out and, at least to date, no other damage seems to have been inflicted.
I am now using a new bright and shiny computer thingy (I hope that my insurance company will come to the party else I'll be skint).
Circumstance now dictates the use of Windows 7 (although I suppose I could install my original XP) which, despite all the media praise, I find rather odd. Is it possible that I am becoming a Luddite?
(Dujon) That sounds pretty dreadful and ironically it's the kind of weather that I like. If not the telephone line could it have been caused by an induced current from a nearby bolt of lightning. Was your house nearly struck, for instance? Some people I know disconnect everything computer-related if there's a storm about, something I regard as a bit chicken, like hiding under the table, but it might have worked. I don't know. It wouldn't have made any difference if the damage was caused by induced currents.
Meanwhile, we've had the coldest December for over a century but it's now slowly relenting and it felt positively balmy outside tonight with a temperature of 2°C and light rain. It should get a bit milder still in the next few days but the average will still be below 0°C, over 5° below what it should be. Good riddance to December, as ever. Gloomy, cold and miserable with the steaming dog-turd of Christmas as seasoning. Let's do a restart and have a new year.
Oddly, despite the temperature having risen 10°ree;C in the past week, it actually feels colder in my flat now than it did then. I suspect that a number of people in the other flats are away and we're not getting the benefit of their heating. Also ours was just left on a 'stop the pipes from freezing' setting while we were away, and I think it's taking some time to warm the walls back up. Beautiful old stone buildings - donchalove'em? And we're moving into a bigger one!
Grumbling and bumbling
[Rosie] Induced currents? I would say that that is quite probable. The circuit breaker dropping out also indicates either some imbalance in the power circuit or an outright over-current surge. I suspect both. The weather station seems to be defunct - in the sense that it's not reporting any wind data and will not 'talk' to the computer via its com port. The anemometer is, of course, well above the roof (it is 12 metres above ground level).
[rab] I understand your coolness. When Mrs Duj and I bought the property in which we now reside it had been unoccupied for three or four months. Unlike your own home ours is just a simple brick and timber construction and would not, I assume, have the same heat sink properties as a stone building. In our case the house can still be cool but simply living in the place makes it far more comfortable than it was when it was deserted.
Happy new year to all!
Happy New Year!!!
It's 1/1/11!!!
That's 1derful!
1-dering in, late as usual
Happy New Year, everyone. So far so good - friends over for dinner on NYE, followed by fireworks just outside the house - as did everyone else in the street. Together, they all made a fantastic display. And last night, an authentic Chinese meal, made by one of our lovely houseguests, who brought a box of cooking kit with her on the ferry over from England so she could cook for us. Five dishes... and all of it scrumptious. I cooked the rice - and made some strawberry ripple icecream with the last of last summer's strawberries from the freezer. Roll on spring...
erm... hullo?
Anyone home? Me again... first day back in the office for me this morning (it means leaving home before the sun is up, but I caught sunrise along the motorway - most spectacularly red for half a minute or so before the partial eclipse which made it all dark again) and apart from my PC forgetting to show me the server where all my work is stored, I think everything is exactly as I left it, almost three weeks ago. So... how was it for you?
yep, everything in my office is exactly as I left it last night :-)
S'allright for you
Not all of us can find a full-time job! (and I had to forego a week's leave in October because of a magazine deadline and add the days off onto my Xmas leave - which did rankle a bit as I was denied an autumn trip to England!)
It's still a Bank Holiday here!
No Uni until next week. Bloody lazy are us students. I decided to take a trip to London. Will be visiting a certain crescent, although will avoid the transport museum, as it is overpriced.
Ice Cream
Do strawberries have nipples? BTW I didn't know banks could go on holiday.
Is there something catching?
If there's something catching, I think I need to stay away from these forums and Gier's posts. They are quite crazy!
Isn't it lovely and warm today! 12.3 degrees already, and it's not even 11am :-)
coatless
I went out on an errand without a coat this morning. 10C here in Zuid Holland - balmy!
Sick
I have been knocked sideways by the 'flu. Lying in bed MCing on my mobile.p
[Software] Is a 'mobile p' the same as a gazunder?
Yes
Saw Spamalot tonight
Software, did you eat any Spam while sick?
Spam
[Giertrud] Never touch the nasty stuff. I saw Spamalot on Broadway in one of the pre-opening shows. Got real cheap tickets and had a great time!
Burns night tonight - hope you're all practising your 'Address to a Haggis'.
I forgot. I was shopping for shoes on Ebay. I haven't yet seen a haggis on sale in the Netherlands.
[Pen] It's OK, there's still time to go out and kill a sheep.
I tried vegetarian haggis last night, which was nicer than I feared. Might try the real thing next year.
Sheepwise
[INJ] They only keep'em as pets here. I can't actually buy lamb in our local supermarket. Fools...
[Pen] Easier to catch one then.
Weekending. Belated Christmas gift giving at sister-in-laws this evening.
Weekendingagain
Has no-one really had anything to say in the past week? Hmmph! Not much to report here and no real plans for the weekend - but a MAHOOSSIVE basket of ironing to do.
Ironing
That's what rugby matches on the TV are for.
What???
And make it more of a chore than it needs to be? I'd prefer a spaghetti western or WW2 film...
Ironing your hand
Nah, sport's more efficient to iron to. You can hear from the commentary whether it's a bit you really want to be watching and if you miss anything significant they'll almost certainly repeat it.
Ironing?
Ironing? What's that? In the states, it's the Super Bowl this weekend. Lots of handegg.
Super Bowl
Mmm . . . sounds like it could hold a lot of pretzels.
Sunnink to say
(pen) I'm building a telescope. It has a 5" lens that someone gave me but of course you have to mount it, as Andy Gray would say.
The weather is lovely here, now that it has stopped raining. For the moment.
summink to say
Im just going to say something so KagomeShuko's portrait of Father Christmas finally disappears off the top of the page.
This may involve gratuitous line breaks

or even spurious paragraph breaks
but who cares?
In other news, it's fair in Rotterdam this morning - sunny, blue skies, 8C, and the hellebore in the garden is about to bloom - for the first time in 2 years.

Hooray!
It worked!
Hellebore
Now you can go fishing by crushing the hellebore and throwing into a pool. I am unreliably informed this will 'stun' the fish.
A quick bit of market research. If you went into a cafe/bar at lunchtime for a panini, what filling would you want?
Paninos
If I went in just once then probably something in the Ham & Cheese line - if I went in regularly I'd want a selection. Last Saturday Mrs INJ and I shared a Mushroom and Gorgonzola and a Tuna Melt.
[Phil] Generally, anything containing no cheese and not full of glop. Sweet Chilli Chicken, Ham and Piccalilli and Smoked Mackerel and Salad are the things I've had recently at a cafe I often go to for lunch at the weekend. The Ham (when they have it) is proper ham, of course, not vacuum-packed water-filled slices of reconstituted mechanically recovered meat. The Piccalilli might also have been homemade, not poured from a jar of clonmult.
Toasted Salad?
[Raak] Salad in a panini? I assume that Phil's intending these to be served hot, whereas your suggestions sound like excellent sandwich fillings.
Lifficles
Marvellous Raak. I love the "BECCLES (pl. n.) The small bone buttons placed in bacon sandwiches by unemployed guerrilla dentist." It reminds me of two things about my younger sister. She had a throry that you only get those buttons in bacon when there's a Labour government. She also had a lot of difficulty one weekend evening in the pub (many years ago, of course) when a handsome young man told he he was an 'armydentist'. She tried to fasten the two words together, like 'taxidermist', and couldn't understand what the job was.
Re; panini ham'n'cheese is the default filling, but I'd also go for perhaps hot roast beef with wholegrain mustard, and the smoked mackerel sounds good too. Can you lift the lid afterwards to stuff some watercress in?
Some colleagues of mine had to go on a trip to Flums (a town somewhere in darkest Switzerland) recently. The name seemed horribly familiar for some reason, but I couldn't think why I might ever have heard of the place. Eventually I tracked it down to the Meaning of Liff. FLUMS: Women who only talk to each other at parties.
Panini
Interesting from the responses I've had so far, here and elsewhere, that no-one has suggested anything vaguely Italian (with the exception of funghi con gorgonzola).
[INJ] Now I think of it, the Smoked Mackerel one was an untoasted baguette, but the Sweet Chilli Chicken is a toasted panini, and includes some lettucey things and chopped gherkins.
UN-Italian panini
[Phil] I suspect it's because the Italians would never take cheap bread and squish it between hot plates to make it palatable, let alone consider it a delicacy. It's a rather recent lunch-comestible-vendor's invention.
[pen] Neither would my favorite Norwich café. Only the best ciabatta!
panino
[rab] thank you

[Phil] Brie, bacon and tomato is a personal fave when I'm feeling evil.
[pen] I used to get my lunchtime panino/i in a food court in Dublin, cooked by Italians. They had a choice of 4 each day, and were various combinations of parma ham, bresaola, aubergine, olives, mozzarella, basil, pesto, sundried tomato etc. Always delicious, and great with a large espresso.
in Dublin, cooked by Italians...
[Phil] If I was feeling mean, I'd point out that you may have just described immigrants selling a bastardised version of what Dubliners might consider foreign food. But I'm not. I'm just hungry. It's the last of the proper British pork chops tonight (ie more than 4mm thick), when the windy miller finally gets home.
Anything that doesn't involve potatoes and/or coleslaw counts as foreign food in Ireland :-)
The reason I asked in the first place is that I have a "Panini Grill" which does great toasted sandwiches, but I want to take advantage of the lunchtime panini market. My personal preference for fillings seems to be miles away from what other people want/expect, for which information I'm very grateful.
Market Research
[Phil] I'd suggest going round a few of your local coffee shops just before lunch time and see what they have most of on their shelves. You can be sure they've done the research. The only difference about your trade is that you could probably go a little dryer and saltier.
Mind you this definitely sounds like 'teaching your grandmother'.
[INJ] This assumes that supply = demand. There are at least two canteens that I've encountered that would run out of certain things very quickly on a daily basis and never increase their order of those things. You could even ask 'Do you have any more X?' and they would say 'No, they always sell out really quickly'...
Results of Panini Research
[Phil] Geez, Phil, are you running a pub or trying to make your eatery some sort of 'up-market' restaurant with fancy names for ordinary dishes? Surely a panino is just a bread roll into which, like a couple of bread slices, you can insert anything you damn well like? What's wrong with marketing a 'Salad Roll' or an 'Egg and Bacon Roll'?
[Dujon] In order: Yes and no; yes; and nothing. I just found the article interesting
I'm revamping my menu, with an eye on relaunching the food side of the business to create some lunchtime trade in the area. Everyone's feedback has been very useful. We already do sandwiches and toasted sandwiches, but I've found that people charge a bit more for something that doesn't come in traditional English white or brown bread; more importantly, people seem willing to pay a bit more, for something that doesn't really cost any extra to produce if it's in, say, ciabatta rather than two slices of fantastic, locally baked bread.
Rolling over
[Phil] Sorry if I sounded a bit abrupt.
I do understand your viewpoint and, if that's what your customers want and are prepared to pay for, then I wish you all the best. You wouldn't be a businessman if you didn't explore all avenues in order to satisfy your clients. I like your comment on locally baked bread. Around my neck of the woods we have a plethora of bread varieties marketed in bulk to those of us who see bread as a staple. It's probably a couple of decades ago now, but at that time I noticed a severe decline in the quality of bread on offer. After testing just about every 'brand' available I gave up on bread for a goodly time (they all tasted 'plasticy' to me). I'm a slow learner and not very observant at times, Phil, but then I realised that there is a small local bakery in our small local shopping area which is a mere 400 metres from Maison Dujon. My bread now comes exclusively from that wee shop.
I suppose I'm saying that fresh is good. Do you intend to bake your own stock - or can you coerce one of your local bakeries into doing so? Ullage is always a problem when it comes to perishables so I'd guess you'd have to build in a wastage factor when pricing each product.
Between them, Greggs and Tesco have all but killed the traditional baker in the UK, so loaves that actually taste of something are now 'premium products' with price tags to match. See, for example, this place that opened round the corner from the flat we just moved out of.
[Dujon] The other issue is price. The large, white tin loaves that I get from the bakery are £1.54, from which I can get about 5 sandwiches per loaf. I can buy frozen ciabatta for approx 30p each. I do like the thought of the local baker making my bread, but I'd need to be doing serious volumes for them to make something specially for me, I'd imagine. Maybe when I've a few minutes on monday I'll have a natter with them.
if only
Don't get me started on bread. There are two sorts of supermarket bread here - the 'baked elsewhere' kind, which is passable, and the 'baked-off in-store', which is good if you eat it within 20 minutes. After that, it doesn't even make good toast - it's way too dry. But we also have two bakers in the village - one of them is excellent, if you like a proper wholemeal loaf - which we do. Sadly our breadmachine is a little under-used, although I do a lot of other baking. If I can stand to have the kitchen full of smoke, home-made naan bread is a real treat.
bread.
I'm not bread's biggest fan. As a student, I find a loaf too big, as I'll buy it when I fancy toast, and then come back to it a few days later to find it completely unusable. I wish they would do mini mini loaves, with 6 slices each.
[FGZstar] If you're only using it for toast then freeze what you dont use - already sliced. Most toasters will toast it ok from frozen. When working away from home I make bread on Friday or Saturday and then slice whatever's left after the weekend and freeze it for Mrs INJ to use, a slice at a time, during the week.
I suppose, but it seems whenever I consider that, I suddenly will find myself wanting a bacon sandwich, and having no unfrozen bread.
You can toast from frozen in less time than it takes to grill bacon - but it would take a little longer to just thaw the bread, unless you use a microwave.
mmmmbacon
Freeze a loaf in pairs of slices? Then you can hammer them (in pairs) into the toaster slot and put it on the 'barely stiffened up' setting to *just* thaw it to the perfect state for wrapping around your bacon sandwich.
I freeze thinly sliced granary loaves from a good local baker, and I generally find I can 'peel off' individual slices whenever I need to, although I do sometimes need to use a knife to split them apart. Individual slices defrost in around 20-30 minutes if you just separate them and lay them out on a plate, and 30 seconds in a toaster does the trick too. The key part of my technique is using thin-sliced brown bread which lets me split slices off while the loaf is still frozen solid - but if you can find bread like that it does save the faff of splitting it into sections before freezing.
Strange bread rituals
I keep bread (from Waitrose, Sainsbury, or the baker up the road) in the fridge, and it stays as fresh as when it was bought. Why are people keepng it in the freezer?
Freezing
1. That way it keeps for weeks if necessary.
2. Not enough spare room in the fridge!
What INJ said. I/we usually use about 1/3 to 1/2 of a loaf while it's fresh, then after a couple of days freeze the rest and eat it gradually, interspersed with other varieties of bread. We seem to have a reasonable variety of good bread here, although it IS expensive. As long as the loaf wasn't squished, the slices snap apart fine, and can be toasted from frozen or a tiny zap in the microwave if you don't want to wait a few minutes for the slices to thaw naturally. I have a bread machine and make about a loaf a month or two, usually when it can be taken to family sunday lunch, because it does not keep as well as store bought and I find it very difficult to slice a loaf myself, so the slices are too large

In other news, I think our summer might be over already. not that we really had much of one, but still, it was warm for a couple of days there.

I buy a loaf of bread every day, more or less. The hardest problem with making it last is not eating it :-)
I freeze my bread which works fine for us. We buy a toast sliced wholemeal or granary bloomer or raised tin made by a local artisan baker. We mostly use it for toast although I sneak the odd sandwich. I find that this quality product, cost about £1.40, freezes much better than factory bread.
I buy bread about once a week. None of it comes wrapped in plastic. There's only me eating it, but I eat a lot of bread, so it does occupy quite a lot of space in the fridge. I also got a panini press a few months ago, which is excellent for a warm meal when I can't be bothered actually cooking.
All the king's horses...
Went on holiday in December. Had an accident. Broke my back. Spent 2 weeks in Swiss hospital. Came home. Had operation. Back at work now. 'S'life, innit?
[Kim] Ouch! Trust it will all heal completely.
Walls and falls
[Kim] That'll teach you, old egg. I do hope that you're not now wheelchair bound. If not then a couple of months and the surgeons' knives have served you extraordinarily well. Good luck.
[Kim] Yes, ouch. Poor you.
echte grijp
Aye, best wishes Kim. As an aside, I've just seen real flu for the first time - the windy miller is just starting to pick up a little after three days of eating nothing, drinking very little and being unable to move out of bed. He ate half a strawberry this afternoon. It's terrifying.
urgh.
[Kim] oh my. I hope you make a swift and full recovery.
[penelope] Yes, it is; I'm sure you're keeping a close eye on him, and I hope he recovers soon. I've only had it once, and that is more than enough. I lost about three weeks in a haze of coughing, vomiting and other unpleasantness. I had a lot in reserve so wasn't worried about not eating :o) .
Seasonal 'flu
[pen] My sympathies to the windy miller. I caught the 'flu for the first time in about 40 years and it completely floored me. I am just beginning to get back to normal now. I have had more days off work sick this year than in the previous 10. On the up side I have lost nearly a stone (6.5kg in netherlandsspeak) which has a beneficial effect on revitalizing my wardrobe!
Thanks all. Today might be the day he actually eats something other than chicken broth or yogurt. Luckily I only work part-time and I can spend some time at home. And the washing machine is now mended... a household of flu and having to wash things by hand for two weeks wasn't much fun.
Happy birthday, Chalky!
:-)
Belated
Hi Chalks, how goes it with you? Any sign of revitalizing your visit?
got a new mobile...
Hurrah! MC5 works on my mobile! Android rocks.
Though it seems the preview makes a full post impossible...it won't go after that...and the whoops button is missing...
aha
Got the previews back...still no whoops.
[pen] However, I advise that he does not eat any chicken yogurt.
Chicken... yoghurt?
Off-hand, I can't think of any circumstances where eating chicken yoghurt would be a good idea.
Mmmm.. Chicken...
I anticipate cooking chicken in yoghurt within the next 3 days. Nicer than just cream in a sort of supreme-ish using up roast chicken leftovers dish.
Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant
Rabbits
Down the pub tonight, Rosie?
Oooh, yeah. Grilled chicken (in cubes, on a wooden skewer) marinaded in spices, yogurt and lime juice, served with a satay sauce... I think that's one for when the windy miller has his appetite back.
(Softers) Of course - life goes on as normal. Not sure where to park the dragon. The former licensee, a young woman from New Romney, is the only purely English person I have met who can pronounce the Welsh "ll" properly. She'd lived in S Wales for a short time. All you need is to have heard it.
I think Uncle Korky has just won the Holiday Anagrams game.
(INJ) Yes, best yet provided it comes from his own head, though the previous one, from Softers, gave me the best guffaw.
Anagrams
Apols for multi-posting. Got carried away.
Downton Crescent
Sorry about the outage there (not that anyone will have noticed) - major system upgrade.
Me again
It's the end of the working week for me, and the beginning of Pig Week. Does anyone have plans for the weekend?
The windy miller is slowly getting back to form, and we will be going to the mill together tomorrow morning - for the first time in three weeks. Not sure what we'll do in the afternoon. The weekend will also include laundry and ironing. And possibly a bastardised version of Robert Carrier's Normandy pheasant, using Dutch cooking pears instead of apples.
Off up to Leeds for a friend's birthday party on Saturday and staying over. Unfortunately it's fancy dress, themed on 'Songs from the Shows' (she's keen on amateur operatics). So we're in 'South Pacific' mode, though Mrs INJ insists on wearing another skirt below the grass one and didn't seem at all impressed by my idea of a coconut shell bikini.
coconots
Well, they're not exactly short of food-miles are they? Perhaps Mrs INJ was thinking of something grown a bit more locally. Swedes, perhaps.
[INJ] I'm sure you'd look rather fetching in one.
[pen] Long weekend here, working part of it, mooching around catching up on sleep otherwise, hoorah! And I got a haircut today. Ever so much fun to be had.
Well, that was nice
Excellent time had by all - reunion with a lot of old (in both senses) walking friends. On the costume front - we looked pretty good, but were upstaged by Sally Bowles.
Meltdown
Anyone got shares in British Energy or EDF?
[pen] What happens in Pig Week?
Pig week
[Tuj] Ask Projoy. It's more a Facebook Thing...
say nothing, do nothing
It's actually a quote from The Specials. But what song, guys and gals?
specialist
Not a challenge these days with Google, pen.
Pieces of eight
Softers, you're mistaking this unlimited chat thingy with the eight words pages! As they said, the lunatics are taking over the asylum.
Asylum seeking
[pen] sorry, didn't realize I had limited it.
slow talking
Anyone got any news? I'm having a slow morning. I might go into the office this afternoon (magazine deadline coming up, profs to interview tomorrow and Monday and I ought to at least try to sound intelligent), am thinking about how to approach a new one-day-a-week role I've been given (which means the windy miller and I can afford to have a cleaner - hurrah!) and am looking forward to visiting Blighty over Easter - a long-overdue visit, postponed because of the windy miller's illness.
no news is good news
[penelope] Not really. The weather is pleasant here and a few weeks ago I planted a vege garden. Tonight is cool and clear, but I'm not away from the city, so I can't see many stars.
Why is it that no-one will believe that I have actually sprained my ankle on April Fool's Day. It's not a joke, and certainly no laughing matter.
Ouch!
I believe you. If it's a proper sprain, not just a bad twist or wrench, then it can be worse than breaking it, as tendon typically won't heal as well or as quickly as bone.
twenty bloody degrees
I object, I object, I object - it's 20C here this afternoon, yet only the 2nd April. That's just not right. My blood's not yet adjusted to warmer temperatures, and I'm all pink in the face.
Thermal responses
(pen) That's because you're a lady. Gentlemen, such as myself, merely perspire without the attendant rubicundity. Only horses sweat.
panic over
[Rosie] Back down to 13 degrees today. And the windy miller and I gambled on the 10% chance of no rain - so went to Antwerp to shop at the Sunday market - and won. And saw English morris dancers holding up very well in proper clogs against some nancy German upstarts who were all wearing white sneakers. Lightweights.
Hot, hot, hot
According to our local met office today is an April record on the rock of 20.7C. It certainly was nice strolling around at lunchtime.
It's warm but very windy here. We had to tape a bit of cardboard over a fireplace to prevent the cat from climbing up the chimney (as an interim measure before we get our hands on a fireguard). The way it's flexing in the wind really does bring home how silly an idea a fireplace is if you care about keeping any warm air in a room!
(Softers) 20.9°C in the grounds of Plas Huws, an approximately once-a-year event (for April). You wanna live somewhere warmer.
(rab) Can't fault your reasoning, even if you had a fire, but there is the trouser-singeing radiation.
27°C in Melbourne yesterday. About the same today. Parents fly out to Perth and thence back to Scotland tomorrow. Sister and family arrive on Tuesday. 2am arrival, bloody inconsiderate if you ask me.
Upstage
[Rosie] The late news reported a peak of 22.8C.
Got sunburn yesterday in London
(G III) As it's only early April you must have been exposing parts of the body on which the sun don't normally shine, and if you got away with it, good for you.
Train clocks (long)
I've no idea where to put this, so here'll do. Perusing the Evening Standard on my way over to my current temporary place of residence, I espied a full-page advertisement for a 'Flying Scotsman clock'. This appeared to be a combined exercise in kitsch, model railways and clockmaking, and all credit to the company concerned for coming up with the idea. For just five low payments of £24.99 this superb work could be yours, or mine, or someone else's.

Now, two things struck me about this edifice. The first thing was that it included a circular track upon which a model Flying Scotsman train would appear at hourly intervals to mark the passage of time. All well and good. But curiously, not only was the track circular, but the model locomotives and carriages that used it were themselves curiously (but clearly necessarily) banana-shaped. I've never seen this in any full-sized item of rolling stock, and I was consequently surprised that such a deviation from reality was considered acceptable in the model. I wondered to myself whether the model was OO-gauge, because I think I'd quite like to own a banana-shaped locomotive, even if it could only go round corners of a tightly-prescribed radius. Impractical even on the smallest layout, but unarguably entertaining. I also wondered whether these remarkable machines were available in right-handed variants too.

The second thing that struck me was that this clock-making company was making (or, at least, expects to make) enough profit from these devices to justify putting a full-page advertisement in a high-circulation newspaper. Now, assuming the cost to manufacture one of these clocks is in the region of 20–30 pounds, that still requires quite a lot of people willing to shell out for one before the cost of a full-page spread (a few grand, I suspect) justifies itself. So who are these train-, clock- and kitsch-loving individuals, and how many of them are out there running loose?? I think we should be told.

Whoops
Went to the shopping centre to buy some stuff for the BoRiS and came back with an iPhone. Had a look at one of those Android jobbies too but was more impressed with the iPhone than I anticipated.
Win!
Picked the National winner and Mrs Software had the second. Celebrations over the weekend.
Friday Friday Friday
Busy busy busy... if I work all day tomorrow from home, I should get through enough work to be able to catch the ferry to Blighty on Wednesday evening to go and have fish and chips with my mum.
Now where pen?
Please tell me...using this map. http://www.anagramtubemap.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
No fair...I had to look of the doddery lady question's answer to post!
(Giertrud) Blighty is a very old affectionate slang term for Britain and has a sense of "home".
oh!
Then...all of that ... and more.
[Simons Mith] Never underestimate the propensity of the great unwashed to spend their money on tat. Take for example this wonderful Priness Diana Porcelain Baby Doll. Surely the work of a demented mind. Or perhaps you'd like to see a Wall Mounted Motorbike Cuckoo clock. This was advertised in my free monthly RACV magazine and gave me a chuckle. It makes me wonder what sort of operation is required to completely remove someone's sense of taste. But it must be cheap.
gopping
[nfras] *bokes*
Filing from Provence
[Pen] Did you also always read the warning sign as saying 'Thonk Boke'?
[INJ] erm... not that I can remember. Here we have 'Gordels om, ook in achterin'. So belt up.
BTW, what are you doing having a Fling in Provence? Does Mrs INJ know?
Shrinking violet
I am dieting. Just so you know. Day 2...
Not fade away
Have you bought the dress already?
[Softers] Part 1 is 'one-size-fits-all' and has been reserved at the Posh Frock Shop. (That's a completely unhelpful description - in fact it's a rather fabulous and very expensive Japanese jacket.) My mum is using her pensioner's bus pass to travel to buy it later this week. Part 2 will be made to measure.
it can't be just me, can it?
Isn't it a bit quiet around here? Are you all busy or what?
Writing my CV
'Tis a little on the quiet side this week.
Shhhh! Be vewy, vewy quiet.
Grading exams
F, F, F, F minus, F, F minus, F plus, F, F, F, F, F plus, F minusminus, F minus, F minus, F, F, F minus...
Showing off
(Phil) 105 what?
[CdM] Sounds like you might need to widen your scale a bit...

Yesterday I embarked on a 12 hour round trip to be asked three questions by a US visa official. The good news is that the visa is approved, so I don't have to return with any additional documentation which is a relief, as the train fare to London is not cheap.

Meanwhile we're just waiting for rab Jr to arrive. Some friends of ours were three months early which has put the wind up us...

[Rosie] 105 lies to help me get a job.
The land of the free...
[rab] what's the point of the Edinburgh consulate?
Pointiness
Emergency passports for US citizens. My wife needed one once, so the proximity was very handy.
(Phil) A purveyor of that which cheers? Best of luck, whatever you do. Out-of-work is not good for anyone and it's happened to me three times.
[Rosie, Phil] Out-of-work has been happening to me for 3 years now, and boy is it ever getting the better of my sanity.
Hidden textWibble

Maybe I should try the lying...
C (Lie) V
[Knobbers] Why not? I'm sure lots of people do.
Statement contrary to reality
I wouldn't. Particularly as anyone who's any good as a wordsmith can use the truth to say what they want without actually needing to lie.
it's on the noticeboard...
I feel fairly confident that no-one will make any objections to the notice of impending marriage between the windy miller and me, which for the next three weeks will be pinned on the noticeboard, almost behind the filing cabinet, in the inner porch of the back door of the British Consulate in Amsterdam. You have to speak through the intercom to the grumpy security guard at the front door, and again at the back door intercom to get in there, so I doubt you'll get in anyway. I took a friend with me to Amsterdam today, and she had to wait on the street until I complained to the consul officer, and he sent the guard out to bring her in.
I would protest in the strongest terms, if I had good reason, and/or could be bothered...so feel free, and go ahead!
Beware of the Leopard
[Pen] Congratulations. Break a leg, as I think they say in Belgium :-)
It should be banned
I trust it's written in English, translated from the Dutch via Estonian, Kurdish, American Sign Language and Xhosa. That sounds like a good excuse for a gin.
chin chin
[INJ] Indeed. Cheers. :o)
(pen) Never tried it - there aren't enough saints to choose from. Works for some and I hope it does for you.
the knot
Congrats is the usual thing. I tried it once, but the wheels fell off after a while, didn't stop me doing it again though, but that was for pension reasons.
[Softers] This is like getting my first car at the age of 46. Although, of course, I actually passed my driving test at 17 and bought my first car at 23. And somewhere halfway through that analogy, it stopped working. I'm marrying the windy miller for his money and for the free flour.
(pen) Not going Dutch, then. :-)
Free flour?
[pen] sounds like a grind...
Impending connubial arrangement
Congratulations. I think our intention to submit appeared on a scrolltext screensaver in the waiting room of the registry office.
New wardrobe
Thanks all. We may even start booking things this week, if the windy miller gets his finger out. In other news, there's a fairly important event at the university today, and I wanted to look a bit smarter than usual. I had to root through the wardrobe to find a suit that wasn't too big this morning... this diet business appears to be working.
[pen] congrats on the gradual "vanishing lady" trick.
Wham spam thank you mam
Looks like this site is currently the victim of an automated spam attack. I may have to temporarily disable posting at short notice while I introduce a countermeasure. Apologies if that's the case.
Mr Fixit?
Let's see if that's worked...
Seems to have
You will understand if I don't reveal precisely what I've done to stem the flow... but as at MCiOS you may be asked a simple question from time to time. Don't take offence if this happens to you.
http://xkcd.com/810/
Having seen the posts before they were wiped I thought they might be taking the first baby steps towards xkcd #810. A good few years to go yet, though.
Looks like I'm encookied already, eh?
Which reminds me...
... I should check that those who aren't can still gain entry if they are legitimate.
Good
That worked!
cookies?
No thanks - I'm on a diet. 7kg lost so far.
Whereas I appear to have put on a stone. I'm holding out a vague hope that it's just my not-very-accurate scales.
stoney ground
[SM] I can heartily recommend Slimming World. It's effective, and it's a very healthy way of eating (and supposed to educate you away from the way of eating that made you fat in the first place). I haven't felt as well as this for yonks. If you can't bear to go to a club meeting (too many echoes of 'The League of Gentlemen' and their sketches of the victimisation at the Fat Club meetings) then do it online, and join the Facebook Group that acts as an online meeting.
Bit of Dust
[penelope] Was it not Little Britain that did the Slimming Club, I though League of Gentlemen was the Dole office meetings.
Fat chance
[FGZa] I stand corrected. Fat, unemployed... the two go together in that kind of world. *ducks*
Why did you duck?
[FGZ*] Avoiding the sail of a windmill.
And the sale of a windmill, one would hope, to say nothing of a funeral. Don't try to be La Doña Quixote, pen.
uncapitalised
Luckily we don't own any windmills - most of them are owned by charitable foundations. There are only a few privately-owned and commerically run mills in NL, and usually they have to diversify to make ends meet - shops, tea rooms and cafes etc. However, there is a large consulation project sponsored by the province to come up with new ideas to make mills less reliant on public money, of which there is less and less available. By the way.
lack of capital
[pen] belt tightening is endemic. Thanks to the banks everybody is now poor while they continue dishing out obscene bonuses.
Something I've never seen explained is what happened to all the money. Bonuses are measured in millions, while the losses are measured in billions, so while one can object to the bonuses for other reasons, that isn't where the money went. It was lost by being lent for mortgages to people who never paid it back, and who spent it on buying houses, so presumably construction firms and property developers got the bulk of it. Who owns those? The banks?
rab jr
Our little boy came kicking and screaming into the world at 3.41 this morning. In honour of MC regular _tim_, we've called him Underscore. Have yet to be given the spec sheet, but from what I remember he's about average in size and weight. Mother and baby (and father, for that matter) all a bit shattered and overwhelmed by the experience, but doing well. Should you feel the need to goo, drop me an email and I'll send a pic once everyone's presentable.
Congratulations!
[Rab] Marvellous news! Best wishes to all involved. Now - get some sleep while you still can. I understand it can be in scarce supply.
(rab) Congratulations to all. I'm sure he'll pass his QA inspection. Investor in People really works, doesn't it?
(Raak) Good question. One answer could be that the money didn't exist in the first place, as your answer sort of implies.
_Rablet_
Congratulations. And thanks for an excuse to do some head-wetting.
rabbit
Congrats, rab! Treasure the early years, before he discovers DH loops!
Congratulations!
Er, that says it all, really.
Congratulation, rab! And belatedly to penelope. What is the world coming to? People getting married and popping sprogs and living happily ever after?
Well done, rab and Mrs rab. As pen says, get some sleep now. Lots. When the young one gets home you won't get much. Ever again. Seriously. But very worth it :)
That was an unfortunate typo. I'm sure rab and pen deserve more than one congratulation. Take as many as you like, I have a whole box here.
Well played rab and Mrs rab and a big welcome to Master _Underscore_
(Chalky) Hello. :-)
*waves from Eastern France* I'm still here, although I've forgotten almost all of my HTML skills, so expect really off moves from me for a while as I get my arm in.
[rab] A little late to the party, but congratulations!
[nights] How far east? I'm somewhere in the vicintiy of D*sn*yland this weekend, driving a van, for charity.
[Phil] About as far east as you can get - Strasbourg. What kind of a charity takes a van to D*sn*yland? Sounds like a charity I'd like.
deep freeze frustration.
Good morning campers. For two mornings running, I have pulled out of the freezer the less-than-successful vegetarian curry to defrost (unsuccessful because the broccoli in it didn't behave very well, not because it's vegetarian, and pulled out of the freezer because the tubs are unidentified, but we only find out when we get home from work. D'oh!), disappointing the windy miller, who gets very short-tempered when he's hungry. So I'm trying to get back into his good books with pork chops and mushrooms tonight. The curry has gone on the compost.
broccoli + freezer = difficult. I seem to remember that to freeze anything with broccoli in, you barely need to cook it at all, as it'll get all the cooking it needs when you reheat it.
Food wastage.
[Pen] That'll teach you. Just label it properly. Simples!
I always do, where 'always' has a value that has been known to exceed 50%.
[pen] Broccoli curry? Not sure I'd be keen on that. I discovered a great YouTube channel some months back that is full of great vegetarian Indian dishes. http://www.manjulaskitchen.com
As we say here in Oz, she's daggy, but the recipes are great.
Bloemkool curry
[nfras] As a brassica, it was OK when freshly cooked - as is cauliflower curry - in fact the two were mixed. But it doesn't like being frozen. I should have known better. Last night's pork chops were great though. And thanks for the curry link - will give it a whizz.
I miss having a freezer. These days I bulk cook on a Sunday when I have time, and eat it for Monday and Tuesday as well. Veggie chilli works really well that way, especially with a slug of bourbon.
[nights] I haven't had a microwave for over 3 months now, and don't miss it. Don't really use our freezer either, for that matter as we tend to cook and eat, and then eat until it's finished :)
[pen] Ahh, that's where you have me. Broccoli I love, could eat it every day and would probably try a broccoli curry (broccoli pakora is very nice). I understand that some people eat cauliflower in the same way that I understand that some people like other people to wee on them. If that floats your boat, fine, just don't expect me to participate. Mrs nfras tries to poison me every now and then by hiding it in mashed potato and hoping I won't notice. I do.
Incidentally, at the last mini-Melbourne Antipopilg we discussed the pronounciation of broccoli, specifically the last vowel sound. I use "brocco-lee" whereas I often hear the locals saying "brocco-lie".
[nfras] Where I live the last syllable is usually, but not universally, pronounced with the short 'i'. By that I mean that the 'li' bit of it agrees with 'bit' and 'it'.
I've often heard it pronounced as if it were this place. Goes with batt'ry, which one hears rather too often.
[Rosie] I've seen it written the same way. By greengrocers.
I can never spell it either. I have no excuses - it's my favourite vegetable also, and it's also spelt the same in French, so I'm pretty much stuck either way.
Spelling? Why not singing?
[nfras], [Dujon], [Rosie],[Raak], and [nights], why spell it when you can sing it? Do you know of this song?
Just remember. . .
Brits readily occupy cable cars on London's island. And you need this song, too.
Broc
"Brocco-lie" is a very common pronunciation in Leicester. And it drives me up the wall. That and "straight-the-way" instead of "straightaway". Arrgghh!
brits grits
It's Britons. People from that island are called Britons. Not Brits - that was a word invented by lazy tabloid journalists and it makes me cringe everytime I hear it.
(Kag) V good. I actually LOL'ed.
(pen) I think it's an American invention, not a tabloid one, though the latter (and many others) have picked it up. I'll use it when Americans start to regard it as cool to refer to themselves as Yanks.
lighten up, guv
[Rosie] Was it light when you posted that at 03.58 on the shortest night?
(pen) Probably, a bit. I've just put up new curtains to eliminate the horrible possibility of knowing. I'm a very naughty boy.
Ah, the days are getting longer...
[CdM] Ah yes, but are the nips getting bigger?
Britophile
[pen] Me, I like the abbreviation. :-)
Well, Midsummer went off without a hitch here, as it coincides with the annual Fête de la Musique. Lots of bands in the street, lots of alcohol consumed, lots of people absent at work the next day. Brilliant.
brile
[CdM] You're an economist. You like everything cut.
Has everyone had a nice weekend?
Something for the weekend
Saturday at a friend's 80th birthday party with excellent food and much music - impromptu and prepared - the majority of the guests were capable of sight-reading so we had a choir of about 40 in his (very large) garden.
Sunday at the Derbyshire County show - walking distance for us. A scorcher - drinks and ice-creams doing a roaring trade, but some pretty hot-looking sheep and bad-tempered cattle.
Friday at Hyde Park for great gig. Saturday was a wander around Windsor Castle (blagged a free ticket for daughter as she sang in the chapel there last year and didn't have time to do the tour). Sunday was a day of rest.
Tweaked a few pins and did a little repair work on the piano here. Perspired freely. Replaced lost fluid with a modest quantity of an available product, even at one in the morning. Was informed that the price difference between weak and strong beers as purchased by the pub is much greater than the difference in price at the bar. "Sensible" drinkers are subsidising piss-heads as it makes business sense.
(INJ) Hot-looking sheep? Please do not feed the Welsh jokes.
We managed a trip to the museum to meet some friends, and a pub lunch. Were very proud to have successfully left the house for an extended period. However, _ has been a bit unsettled since, so perhaps the experience left him in a state of shock.
His first decent excursion and you take him to a place full of dead things and then subject him to a pub? No wonder he's a bit grumpy. Poor _. ;)
Hot
Maximum temperature today (Monday) in the grounds of Maison Rosie was 30.7°C and pretty humid with it. Even more unusual was the previous night's minimum of 19.3°C, a record for June in nearly 30 years and nearly a record for any month. Bit sweaty during band rehearsal. Tuesday cooler and Wednesday cooler still, which is boring, but at least you feel less knackered,
And now, the weather
It depends on who you ask, but here in the European Capital of Traffic Jams that Don't Move At All, it was 36ishC yesterday, and 23 overnight. Sleep is but a distant memory, and I content myself with the fact that today I get to teach in an airconditioned conference room...
(nights) Paris, I presume.
[nights] (Maybe I already knew this, and I have forgotten.) What do you teach?
weather or not
[Rosie et al] We had this yesterday afternoon; it was quite spectacular.
[Rosie] Actually Strasbourg - like Paris, but smaller and much nicer.

[CdM] English as a Foreign Concept for business - so instead of "Brian is in the kitchen", it's "Mr Smith is in the conference room". And it's finally cooled down...
Antwarp
I was in Antwerp on Tuesday, here (very, very impressive building) where it was 36 or 37C. To my Former-flatmate-from-Hertfordshire-days-visiting-from-New-Zealand, the heat, after flying in from wintry Wellington, floored her. It almost floored me too. But the thunderstorms that night were spectacular. I've just put her on a train to Amsterdam (I can now drive round Rotterdam without getting lost, hurrah!), and today it's a very fresh and pleasant 20C.
[pen] Same here. Hoorah for continental microclimates!
Whoops, I think I pressed the wrong button and deleted everyone else. Forever alone.
where's the button for the restore point?
Back in the office after a week off. The nice thing is I nowhave the desk next to the window, so I have a view of the Erasmusbrug, the Willemsbrug, the old railway bridge AND the Unilever glass box among the skyscrapers of Rotterdam. Quaite naice.
Rooms with a view
Penelope, that reminds of my office of a few years (too many) ago. The fact that I was a significant contributor to the design layout of the place has nothing to do with this, of course. The department of the organisation in which I worked was situated on the 20th floor of a building which itself was positioned on a relatively high point of the City of Sydney. The windows rose from thigh height to the ceiling. The view took in the top of the Harbour Bridge, the buildings of the main CBD and then a panoramic sweep of Sydney Harbour (Port Jackson) all the way out to the harbour's heads. It really hurt, but I had to turn my back on it else I'd have done sweet nothing in the way of work.
Laundry
What do you lot do while doing laundry? I'm experimenting with brainstorming the week to come in a notebook while my smalls go around and around and around, and it works well.
Well, nights, I find that doing laundry is an exercise in concentration. Firstly it's getting the right temperature of the water in the copper. Then there's the right balance of water to cloth to consider. After that it's what, if any, domestic aids - such as soap - might be required. After those it becomes necessary to move the wooden dowel I use for agitation in such a manner as to effect the most efficient cleaning whirls and swirls. Whilst doing the latter my mind drifts to the mangling and then the efficacy of hanging the final product right-way-up or up-side-down. Laundry, nights, is an art and is not something that should be taken lightly. Anyway, your notebook will get wet.
[nights] I mostly sleep, having put the machine on to run overnight.
(Dujon) Do you have a coal fire under the copper or are you still using eucalyptus logs? Soda is very good, isn't it? I prefer wooden pegs, or pigs as they call them in NZ (and SA, it seems).
[Rosie] Gerroff! The wood of the eucalypti beneath the copper? That's reserved for the hot water heater and bushfires. Blimey, you Britons aren't half backward. Soda? Indeed; a tablespoon of bi-carb goes a long way when washing. Pegs/pigs/pugs around this wee bit of territory are not my responsibility but I do find that the plastic (non gypsy supplied) tend to snap all too often after being subjected to sunlight.
Being serious for a moment: Should I be required to buy a scuttleworth of coal for the fireplace that I don't have I have no idea as to where I might buy it.
Ash Google
[Dujon] That's what Google is for. Or, as it used to be called, the Yellow Pages. Or the small ads in the back of your local newspaper. Or ask at any house with a smoking chimney.
I am now virtually convinced that e-technology is ringing the death knell of common sense and 'nouse'
Trying to raise the pH
(Dujon) Bicarb's no good - you want proper soda, Na2CO3. Alkaline enough to dissolve aluminium. Try it in a saucepan with a bit of heat. It'll fizz nicely. Don't do it for too long or the pan will have a hole in its bottom which is all very well for us humans but not cooking vessels. As for coal, this can be obtained from any of Britain's many preserved steam railways and is of a quality high enough to be burned at the ferocious rate required in a locomotive firebox. Or you could get it direct from Poland as we don't have any mines left. About £80 a ton. With you on pegs. Use wooden dolly pegs; they last for ever.
(pen) esp. satnav. Recently someone was given several column-inches in the Grauniad Technology Section to describe how inadequate the device was because it had got her lost driving from Wolverhampton to Stoke and she nearly landed up in Shrewsbury. If that had happened to me I'd have kept very quiet about it, not wishing to appear a complete tosser, but you know what people are like these days. I won't say any more because I can get really sarky.
MapNav
Quite. I always like to have a lookie at a map before I set off, so at least I am informed about the route/heading/places en route. People who blindly trust a SatNav are eejuts.
Technology
When I taught engineering at night school I always told students that they had to know the answer before using a calculator. They used to laugh at this but I used to point out that you first had to estimate the decimal place otherwise the calculator answer could be orders of magnitude out. This principle applies to all technology, it is useful for accuracy but you need to know what you are doing before starting.
[penelope] Around my neck of the woods it would be hard to find a house with a chimney, never mind one with a proper coal burning hearth an 'ob and a couple of hunting dogs to keep one's feet warm. A few decades ago oil burners were all the rage but the cost of fuel seems to have put those foul things to rest - even the use of the common wood burning heaters seem to be well and truly on the decline. After your comment (mine was meant to be light hearted) I did look at Google and my local paper's classified advertisements. Unfortunately my common sense and nous came to naught. Should I ever need a scuttleworth of coal I shall be trawling the local railway lines for inadvertent sullage. :)
sullage
[Dujon] Apologies, I didn't mean my comment to sound so brusque, but where on earth do you live, you poor coal-less thing?!?! Next point: I don't think you mean 'sullage', unless you're burning cowpats and horse dung...
*chuckles*
No, penelope, I didn't. It was a slip of the brain or fingers. Please read the word as 'ullage'. On the coal question: Australia exports huge amounts of coal and uses various grades of coal in its power stations but I can quite honestly say that in my fifty-odd year sojourn in this country I have never seen coal being burned domestically. It sounds odd, but it's true, although it's impossible for me to say that it doesn't happen.
Sad about Hershey's practices
I am sad about Hershey's practices. I just found out that they source their cocoa from cacao farms that use slave labor. Children are sold to farmers, never paid, are beaten . . . Mars and Nestle are not great, either. However, they promised to stop these practices by 2020. Cadbury for you brits is fine, but Hershey's distributes it in the United States.
Chocolate is evil
[Kaggers] I suppose this is why it's important to check that Incidentally, we're Britons, not 'brits', pfffft. (And Norwegians, Australians, and residents of just about every country in between those two.)
*has made a move in every game*
Too much maybe?
Yeah.
O-Kaaaaaay

*slopes off*
seldom chalked
[Chalks] It's not as if you do it every day, or even every week. Welcome back, missus!
*waves from Bristol*
"white horses from Westbury"
[ChalkyPhilCdMIrach] Does anyone who contributed a line to the riddle glow-worm know what the answer was? I can only find one word that seems to satisfy all clues, are there others?
Hidden textI can only find 'nerd'.
[Knobbly] That was all I found. I'd been staring at line 1 wanting to make the answer "Néa" but couldn't conjure a line 2 which would squeeze two accented words in.
[Knobbly] So it would seem.
Hidden text"neon" would have been possible, prior to line 4
. A little apt, I suppose?
I didn't think of Néa when I posted Line 3 (I should have), so i was aiming for NERD at that point -- because, as Phil said, it seemed fitting.
Missed the riddle
I read the glow worms, but I missed the riddle. All this "line 1" talk is making me think poetry. I think you Britons *rolls eyes at self* might like this poem of mine: Bigfoot's Love Slave.
the KS poem
Gosh. I clicked. Powerful ending.
Making my name show on everything in the first box.
*foils Giertrud's diabolical plan*
T-11
Back in NL. I have been hen-partied. :o/
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