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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/
Girly-do
I do hope you maintained your cool and didn't wear any fairy wings, pen.
more girly goings-on...
[Softers] No way. We had a very sophisticated evening in a Greek restaurant, not even any plate-smashing. And today, my department at work threw a bash for me too - with a water-taxi down the Oude Maas to the Hotel New York in Rotterdam for afternoon tea, and back again. The weather cleared up spectacularly and it was wonderful. The poor old windy miller didn't get supper cooked for him tonight - I was still stuffed! (But I did cycle to the Chinese takeaway for him)
Weekendings
Saw the Staffordshire Hoard (or at least some of the finer pieces) on Saturday at Lichfield Cathedral - remarkable for its quality (gold filigree and cloisonné work, etc.). There's a moment in the video presentation where one of the experts says: "We get asked if this is the largest Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard ever found - it's the ONLY Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard ever found". Also went to Wightwick (pronounced 'wittik') Manor, possibly the best William Morris house in the country. Morris never saw it, but it was entirely furnished from Morris's shop in Oxford Street by the Mander family of Mander's Paints.
Also had a quick look at CdM's childhood home.
Hoardings
[INJ] I'd love to see that. The hoard, not CdM's childhood home - I doubt it even has a blue plaque, does it?
Remove that plaque
[Pen] Not any more, it hasn't.
Week's ages
A week since the last post - anyone got anything interesting to report? This morning, I'm going to take my camera down to the windy miller's (non-functioning) mill at Maasdam, and take photos. One of his apprentices spent four days creating decorations for it for our wedding; buntings, 6ft carved initials painted red, and carved intertwined wedding rings, all strung between the tips of the sails and floodlit. He took us out to see it the night before we got married. *beams*
Long weekend
As usual at this time of year, spent in a friend's cottage in the North York Moors. Almost didn't make it along the track on Friday after torrential rain. After that fine walking in forest and over the largest expanse of heather moorland in the world - all bright purple and with a glorious sweet scent. Cold and windy, mind you.
[INJ] Excellent. A week on Sat, I'm off to Wensleydale, to play in the Hardraw Scaur Brass Band Contest. Also spending a week in Swaledale for half-term. Can't wait to get back up to North Yorkshire :-)
Cheese please
*yearns for a proper bit of Wensleydale* God I miss English cheese.
Cracking cheese Grommit
Ah, yes. The clog stuff is a bit waxy. Great for using one of those cheese slicers that they love, though.
waxy rubber and no taste
Dutch cheese - always highly spoken of, but as far as I can make out (and I may have said this before elsewhere), there are only three varieties. However you can have them at any age you like. But until they get a couple of years old, there's no real taste, and no texture. And you can't grate it - ever. I think it's a bit arse-about-elbow to design the cheese to suit the cheese slicer, isn't it? And the cheese slicer/cheese scraper/cheese plane only works for about 40% of the truckle - it doesn't work once to get towards the edges of the cheese. Surprisingly inefficient for the Dutch. Rant over. Now bring me some proper cheese, please.
Pass the Dutch-cheese on the left-hand side
[pen] At least it's lower in fat than cheddar et al.
alert: not at all posh sense of taste and style
[pen] agreed about the slicer. Mine seem to go mad towards the edge; I'd thought it was just me.

My taste in cheese is not so sophisticated. *prepares for ostracism*. I don't like camembert or brie or veiny or runny or very hard very smelly cheese. I do like what is sold here as "Dutch smoked", whether it has anything to do with the Netherlands I'm not sure. Thinking about it, liking it might, in part, be due to growing up with Kraft processed cheddar (in the blue cardboard box, doesn't need refrigeration), which it does bear a passing resemblance to in texture. Not sure if that product ever got to the UK, i think it was a US thing that turned up here in the 40s or 50s. I haven't eaten the stuff for decades, I found a tin of it in Oman but wasn't game to actually eat more than a small wedge to confirm its identity.

Anyway, crumbly feta (not smooth, yuk) is good. A nice cottage cheese sometimes finds its way into my diet. Cheddar, well, what is sold here as cheddar, no idea if it is or not, is my main cheese, in a lower fat variety, not because I'm a low fat fanatic, but because this particular one just seems to be less greasy, especially when melted or grilled where it turns out beautifully, compared to some others.

And i will fight even my best friends and relations for haloumi. You have been warned :o)

Do me a haloumi
[flerdle] Just buy double the amount. I like mine grilled with a sprinkling of fresh chopped mint and freshly-ground black pepper.
Grilled is obligatory, but you can keep the mint.
Nooooo, it's mine, all mine, i tell you.
feeding frenzy
Damn you. Now I'm checking out sausages punt en el and slavering over my desk. The sausagepalace is only about 7km from the windy miller's office. I can see I'll have to make a visit. (And then probably hate them and end up making my own with the new KitchenAid mixer-with-meat-grinder-attachment-and-sausage-stuffer-thingamebob that is about to be purchased with the wedding present money.)
It pains me...
I love cheese. Almost all varieties (only one I can think of that I don't like is cottage cheese). I like hard, soft, creamy, waxy, crumbly, mild, mature, sharp, sweet, blue, goat's, ewe's, cow's, flavoured and so on. Love 'em all.
However, I am on a self-imposed low saturated fat diet, so the only cheese I eat now (other than for a very rare treat) is low-fat cream cheese. Then again, I loved smoking, but I don't do that any more either.
Wearing kilts on ankles is now fashionable
Went to my first pub games last night (Sept. 7 - USA/Central time) so, like um, what 2am Friday for Brits? I forget . . .
Brit Food
It was at a Celtic Pub. I also had Bangers and Mash there. Different.
Fashion advice
[KS] Kilts on ankles is fashionable? That would be one kilt per ankle I assume. That's a new one on me. On the other hand, kilts round ankles......
tartanankles
I'm trying to think of a kilt pun, but I'm failing.
[pen] It's for the best, the community frowns on puns here. Tell a bad one and you might get kilt.
[pen] I think Tuj may try to get a monopoly on the kilt puns, but I'll try to make sure he doesn't hog manay of them.
It's poor 'uns that we really frown upon.
You can make them more presentable by tartan them up.
Yes, kilts on ankles
It was from a game, basically "pin the tail on the donkey." It was "tape the kilt on the Scotsman, though." I ended up putting it on his ankle! I think a kilt on each ankle would be pretty cool - new fashion instead of bell bottoms!
PUNishment
As for puns, I have the BEST pun ever, but you have to know technical terms about the Christan fish and Swedish/Norwegian/ (thus, unfortunately sometimes) Lutheran cuisine.
Puns
I know an absolutely filthy pun in French. Only works in French though.
Does the pun involve a pullover, perchance?
[SM] Indeed :)
Puns and French
My pun does not involve a pullover and is in English. I might be able to read the French one, might not. I need to brush up on my French.
French puns
[Phil] So it's not the one about the vicar, the bicycle and the scouring powder?
Flappy
I don't know if a technical issue with my hosts has affected this site but if you have noticed any outages it's due to "severe flapping of HSRP on customer vlans". I thought I should pass that on.
HSRP?
Huge Sheets of Rubberised Paper.
Surely they shouldn't be sending data around in vans these days.
Highly Spiced Rice Pudding?
streaking by
[CdM] I read that as 'High Speed Rice Pudding'. The pudding-mistakes compound themselves because I read Rab's post thinking of a Dutch dessert called 'vla' (basically cold custard), and a Limburgse tart called 'vlai'. And I'm bloomin' hungry this morning.
[INJ] Do not underestimate the bandwidth of a transit van full of DAT tapes.
(Packet rate's lousy though.)
[Simons] Reminds me of A Fire Upon the Deep, where the protagonists get transport on a spaceship whose "cargo" is a one-third xor of a one-time pad.
Desserts
Oh, come on, I know y'all are just PUDDING on a show of your favorite puns!
I read "vla" as "via" and thought of a company called Viasat and thus, thought of pudding being sent through outer space.
[Kag] And what if I gave a tart response denying that claim? ...Oh, bugger.
Sticky end to pudding puns
Well that ended very messily, didn't it? Is anythinjg nice happening this weekend? I have to admit, I'm bored, bored, bored, this weekend and not even entertained by the thought that I can actually hang washing outside today. Roll on work on Monday.
slow weekend.
[pen] No work for me for quite a while, either domestic or paid; I'll be lucky to know what day it is. But anyway, people visiting, catching up on reading, and finishing decorating my crutches.
Spent Friday to Sunday in the South-West supporting 'The Prince's Trust Wild UK Challenge' sponsored by Capgemini. I took part last year but once was enough. So 3 days of camping, manning checkpoints, lugging gear around and clapping and cheering. A successful event - plenty of money raised and only 2 competitors hospitalised after coming off bikes (neither seriously injured).
[flerdle] Well, that sounds like a plan that takes into account the circumstances. I hope it mends like what it's supposed to.
Well, my weekend improved. Making something always improves my mood, so the construction of seven jars of marmalade before breakfast on Sunday, followed by a couple of hours out on the bikes with the windy miller in the glorious late-summer weather did wonders. Today, I'm not officially at work, so plan to splend some time writing up a review of the one-day course on writing for SEO (last Friday, Utrecht), an hour getting a bit further with writing up a report from the mini-conference/debate on private equity (last Thursday night, Amsterdam), and three hours ironing (my living room, in front of the TV, tonight.)
[pen] Quite right: who'd want a wrinkly living room?
To be filed under "Fire, baptisms thereof"
Well, I just did my first ever TV interview. Live. On national TV.
[CdM] Did it go well? Is there somewhere online one might be able to see it?
[flerdle] Please explain how you will be decorating your crutch? While you were in getting the leg fixed did you have some more intimate operations performed? Perhaps a spot of vagazzling? Oh, sorry, plural, my mistake, carry on. Coat!
[Phil] Thanks for asking. I guess it went OK, given that they have asked me back. On the other hand, I really don't want to become a pundit. On the other other hand, the pen-equivalent at my institution is constantly pushing me to do this sort of stuff. Can it be seen online? I certainly hope not. :-)
penequivalent
I don't do PR anymore! I'm just English Editor.... and I sneak in marketing advice at the same time.
cooking
I want to write a cookbook. Of course, all my measures are American. I wonder if I should find British equivalents and published a British edition, too.
What size are your cups?
[KS] If you want to publish in the UK (and this will probably also be the case for places like Australia), you'll certainly have to change the measurements, but you should also get someone to check over the names of ingredients and their availability as well as possible substitutes unless you want to confine your readership to people who live in the major English cities. For example, I live in a small city of about 250,000 people with all the major supermarket chains but the nearest source of buckwheat flour for me would be a 90 minutes round trip.
It's a source of constant irritation to me that any internet search for a recipe draws you to lists of ingredients in US imperial units, mostly because I can never remember what a cup is. One gotcha to be aware of is that US pints are smaller than UK pints (16floz instead of 20floz).

For ingredient substitutions my procedure is the following. First, look for something in your cupboard that you think tastes like the missing ingredient. If that fails, look for something that looks like the missing ingredient. If even that fails, look for something that sounds like the missing ingredient.

My gelignite-based desserts have made many a dinner party go with a bang. (Although they do have the advantage of being strictly vegetarian).

One size fits all
[KS] don't change the measurements! Just include imperial and metric along with US cup measurements... Lots of recipe books and websites do this. Then you only have to produce one version.
[INJ] Try your local windmill for buckwheat. Alternatively, I can bring you 5kg next Saturday. The buckwheat is free but it'll cost you merely the price of the ferry ticket.
buckwheat
[Pen] That's the distance to the watermill who make the flour I usually use for breadmaking. I can buy the normal white, wholemeal and malted grain from my local butchers, but more specialist stuff is only sold at the mill.
sorry for not looking in here earlier
I meant to add...
[INJ] Doesn't your mill supply any other shops? Poor you. I think even though I complain about the paucity of food here, (no big chunks of meat, for a start - there's nothing to roast in this bit of the Netherlands) I can actually get a lot of local produce, and just have to cut my culinary cloth accordingly.
*waves from Beijing*
[Pen] It might do, but I haven't found it yet.
This weekend, I am mostly...
making sandwiches to feed 50 new volunteers at three windmills on the island. I volunteer that I am a complete idiot.
Never volunteer
[pen] You must be using yards of Edam and spek.
[Softers] Metres. There's still several decimetres of it left in the fridge, dammit. Tasteless cheese. But no-one can say I'm not inburgering into my new life here.
MKS
[pen] as an engineer I seriously slipped up there.
Plea
I posted this on MCIOS as well: Anyone in the Morniverse know of a suitable family for an Italian language student in or near Hastings? She is a charming young lady mid 20s and she stayed with Mrs Software and I for a month this summer.
finding ingredients
[rab] finding ingredients that way sounds dangerous. Taste? I can see how that would work. However, looking alike, I think could get really confusing! My sister says I should give this link to show how that could be dangerous. Though, I'm not sure that you'd have a lot of these in your house. Now, I just need to find the metric equivalents to US - I'm sure they're online - just gotta get going in a bit. I'll bother y'all about ingredients over times, maybe ;) I don't think I'll be using too much different, though - baking powder, sugar, flour, salt, pepper, garlic powder, butter . . . things off the top of my head that I'll be using at times.
gelignite
I hope no one had too much of a fire in their belly...
Is it me?
Am I being over-sensitive, or has the tone of the Limerick Game taken a slide down a particularly sexist hill this week? Kagome Shuko provided a dreadful first line, so I *ahem* said something. And now I find the next line refers to 'a prude'. I don't think I'm being a prude, but I do like to see standards maintained, and I think there are plenty of alternatives first lines that don't include referring to women with tits like melons. That's not a limerick I would enjoy contributing to. And I'm sure some of the chaps here similarly would avoid contributing to limericks about everyman's small cocks, erectile dysfunction and disappointing conjugal performance - and all the other male foibles and deficiences. The MC community has never felt the need to scrape the bottom of this particular barrel before (although there are plenty of other barrels that everyone enjoys delving deep into), so why now?
By limerick standards our output is exceptionally clean. I think the occasional dive into the depths of depravity is necessary and indeed unavoidable. Citations:

[1.] The lim'rick packs laughs anatomical
In space that is quite economical,
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean,
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

[2.] Legman, who compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology, held that the true limerick as a folk form is always obscene, and cites similar opinions by Arnold Bennett and George Bernard Shaw, describing the clean limerick as a periodic fad and object of magazine contests, rarely rising above mediocrity.

That said, I don't think an excess of filth, whether or not it's folklorically accurate, is particularly funny either. One, or, perhaps I should say 'the MC community' needs mostly clean stuff to throw the filth into sharper relief. So I think my conclusion is to bring on the odd willy joke, and not to start complaining until we've had several in succession.

[Pen] I was about to agree wholeheartedly (and indeed KS's first line was singularly juvenile), but I went to the game and in fact there aren't any crude limericks currently on the top page. So, although I agree with your sentiment, you may actually be overstating the issue. Actually, I think we went through a dip into the area where saucy starts bordering on filthy a couple of weeks ago and have climbed out again.
continuing
Maybe you're influenced by the output on MCiOS - but I wouldn't class any of the currently visible lot as more than saucy.
Addendum
Also, I don't actually think tits do like melons.
I'm with penelope in this instance. That line was pathetic, and completely out of keeping with the tone of the website.
More generally [SM] I believe your example #1 shows the type of limerick many of us prefer. The form may have its root in ribaldry, but there's a clear market for amusing rhymes and syllabic dexterity rather than innuendo.
*waves from Strasbourg* Well, I've emerged victorious from my part 1 exams - what are we all up to this weekend?
Weekend
I'll be drumming at this event on Saturday. Have spent this morning sanding down a batch of new bachi.
My son turns 16 tomorrow ("arrrghhh, not more fireworks, Dad!!!!"). Having family & friends round on Sunday to celebrate. Can't do tomorrow as it's the school open day.
Next Friday is more interesting, as I'll be playing The Last Post, alone, at Beaumont Leys Shopping Centre (which covers 7 acres (2.8ha), as I presume you've never been). Never played it in public before, so I'm somewhat "bricking it".
I'm 6 hours behind...
Happy Guy Fawkes Day/Night!
breaking radio silence
Making an official request for a new round of Clerihew poems. Always liked the metrical freedom they afforded me as a rookie MC'er.
Come rhyme with me
[Juxtapose] Given the glacial pace of game turnover here, I feel obliged to point you gently in the direction of a Clerihew game currently taking place over at Orange.
slow madness
You know you've been in a brace for too long when you reach for the velcro strap to haul your other (unbound, uninjured) leg around too.

Only two more days, i hope.

Fingers crossed for you, flerdle.
Fingers also crossed, flerdle.

Things are incredibly dangerous around here - a thick fog has enveloped the city and driving is an exciting adventure in remembering which is your exit as the signs have disappeared in the mist. Oh well.
run away
I'm free! FREE! Ahahahahahah!

Oh sh!t. I have no muscle now. *crumples*

Good news
[Flerdle] Just get started on going for walks to build it up. When you're no longer walking in a circle, you're better.
lol - genuinely :)
mijn ook. Ik lollt. Oooh... converting txt-speak into Dutch is fun!
[pen] share the joke.
I make that either:
'Me too, I lol'd' or
'My Orang Utan is slumped in his chair'
[Softers] the Dutch have a fairly regular set of verb endings, and have co-opted quite a few English words, which they adapt by tampering with the verb endings. So, you'll get something like 'Checken' - to check; Ik checkt, u checkd, etc. And 'Springen' - to jump. Although I was disappointed to learn that they hadn't bothered to co-opt 'trampolinen' - to jump on a trampoline. Ik trampolint would be very useful, I thought.
[INJ] Correct.
[pen] Of course my experience of Dutch predates txtpraat.
French has done the same thing, except worse. They don't just text LOL, and write G instead of j'ai, they say LOL in conversation. No sign of 'j'ai LOLé' for the moment, but it's only a matter of time until I see my nieces again.
it's all gone, gone, gone...
It's sop foggy here in Rotterdam this morning that from the window of my 6th floor office, I can see nothing but mist. But I can hear the pile-driver thud-thud-thudding away on the building site in the middle of campus.
Over to the weather where you are
Getting weathered on near Southampton. Walked from the hotel to the office (through woods) and in half an hour got a sharp shower, mist, a beautiful sunrise and mirky greyness. Plus a couple of roe deer - always a bonus.
Weather eye
It is bright and sunny here, 15C. :o)
Max 14.0°C here and sunny. The sky is still clear (8.15 pm) and it's only gone down to about 9° so no excuse not to get the telescope out, though I'm sure I can find one.
The snowheads on the weather group have gone very sulky and are reduced to looking at charts 16 days ahead which everyone (including the snowfreaks) knows should be labelled "For entertainment only". Ho ho, hee hee.
33°C and humid is forecast for the day. Currently very sultry (the weather, not me).
Not quite so warm a forecast for Dujon's place. About 30°C today. Tomorrow though is different. 36°C is the current guess. I do hope that the BoM is wrong.
Megathermality
(Dujon) Hmm, 36° is a bit much. It exceeds my record by the smallest possible amount. (10 Aug 03). Last December 36°F (2C) would have been a bonus. (Monthly mean 0.1°C, should be just over 5°).
Yes, when I moved down here I was somewhat unaccustomed to the heat. My first day of 42°C was somewhat of a revelation. When the wind blows it's a bit like living in a hairdryer. Still, it's a fairly dry heat in Melbourne, not like that nasty humid heat you get in the tropics.
[nfras] Indeed. I vividly remember 43+ degrees combined with gale force winds as something I had never encountered before. 43 degrees, been there done that. Gale force winds, likewise. The two together -- a completely new meteorological experience.
[CdM] Presumably you'd have a wind warming factor, so that 43 degrees in a wind feels as hot as 50?
Further megathermality
(Raak, CdM) It's the wet-bulb temperature that counts. This is the temperature of a wet or moist surface, lowered by evaporation of water or in this case sweat. I know that the hot blast from the interior is very dry and the wet-bulb could be as low as 20° if the humidity is about say 10%. So the stronger the wind the cooler you'll feel. My guess is that those conditions are far from intolerable. Was that actually the case?
Sweating
[Rosie] Yes and No. Remember that it's relative humidity that is normally quoted. Then there is the problem of how much an individual sweats and thus the effectiveness of its cooling. Perhaps this is why some people enjoy warm weather whilst others find it uncomfortable.
I cannot speak for others but in my case when it becomes really hot and the relative humidity is high (say, over 20%) my sweat pores open and drench me in my own perspiration but affords no relief.
dry good, wet bad
[Rosie] Yesterday I went for an experimental hop around town and it was fine. Very pleasant in fact. Then again I don't perspire much, and have a famously warped sense of temperature. The wind was strong enough to affect how easy it was for me in my somewhat delicate state to move about (out at Tulla it seems to have measured a constant 40-50km/h all day; in the city it was all over the place). Temp was 34°C with rel hum of 23% and "wet bulb depression" according to the BoM of 14 - so i suppose that made it a nice 20°C day.
[flerdle] Wet Bulb Depression? Sounds like what happens when you have a nurse take your temperature.
Staying out of the kitchen
(flerdle) Those figures all tie up according to my Tables of everything to do with meteorology. It seems to me that the climate of Melbourne is mostly rather bland and pleasant but every now and then someone leaves the oven door open and SE Australia gets scorched but that's probably preferable to the constant high humidity of somehwere near the equator even if the the temperature rarely rises above about 33°. Power to yer lallies, BTW. Kangaroo motion sounds hard work.
Antipodes
In just over a week Mrs Software and I will be landing in Melbourne. We plan a trip along the coast to Narooma to meet an old coleague and then Sydney where we fly to NZ for my daughter's wedding. so lets hope the weather is up to speed by then.
[Software] When do you arrive? And are you staying in Melbourne for any period of time? Because if so we should definitely organise a meeting in your honour. I think flerdle is game to walk just about anywhere now.
[Softers, CdM] I concur.
Will only be in Melbourne briefly as we are heading down the coast to Warrnambool. Sadly we have planned a tight schedule visiting relatives and friends so on this occasion it may not be possible. But as I now have a daughter down under this will not be my last trip!
NZ is not Down Under. It is Under And To The Right of Down Under, but close enough. :)
(nfras) Shurely it's even more Down Under than Australia from a UK point of view.
Uhhh
I am a straight female, just so y'all know.
Rectilinearity
(KagShu) No-one has suspected otherwise, though it must be said that many men, including this one, appreciate a modest degree of curvature.
Okay, I was just confused by some comments I saw earlier while I was MIA - writing for NaNoWriMo.
[KS] Ah, OK. I thought I had missed something. :)
I was pretty sure you were female but admit that sexual orientation hadn't crossed my mind.
Reminds me of an interesting (well it is to me) story. When I was in high school we had a mock exam in English. I was talking to one of the teachers afterwards about the two examples given in one question. Both were travel pieces, neither was attributed. My teacher explained that almost everyone had identified the writer of the first piece as a male and the second as a female. Neither piece had anything that clearly identified the gender of the author. The funny thing was the writer of the first piece was male, and the writer of the second was female, and they were both written by the same person. The journalist had undergone a sex change between writing the two articles (there was a gap of about 5 years between them) but somehow most people had picked up a difference in the way each article was written. Spooky!
[KS] Those of us who went to your book website some time ago had guessed at the gender (either that or your parents really didn't like you!). Sexual orientation has never been an issue in the morniverse as far as I can tell.
He, she or it
(KS) It's been obvious to me almost from the word go that you were female, just as I reckon it's equally obvious that I am not. Gay or straight, nobody's bothered here.
No way!
Rosie's a bloke? Well, stone me!
[Phil] we all wondered why you had been flirting with him for so long.
(INJ) Chalky sussed me out immediately, years ago. But like me he's pretty astute.
No way!
Rosie's astute? Well, stone me!
(nfras) Hmm, not quite astute enough to be absolutely certain that you got my joke. Grovelling apols if you did. This is getting so elliptical it's in danger of disappearing up its own latus rectum.
Rosie's a stoat? Blimey, my whole world is crumbling sound me!
Well, there you go Philippa, it just shows you shouldn't jump to conclusions.
What a silly old gal I am. "sound" should have read "around".
[Rosie] The joke was received and understood, as I hope mine was :)
I forget that I've known some of you lot for nearly 13 years, and what might appear plain as day to me is unfathomable to others. (THIRTEEN years???!!!)
Spanning-tree topology change
Those of you who noticed Friday evening's outage (I certainly didn't) will be reassured to know that it was "triggered by a spanning-tree topology change [creating] a broadcast storm". I presume this refers to platform alterations on the Circle Line prompting unladylike outbursts from Samantha.
(nfras) I may have underestimated your sense of humour. The thing is, I have actually met Chalky. (Shut up at the back)
(rab) A spanning-tree is clearly a reference to an old-style wooden railway sleeper. There's been some re-ballasting and realignment of the track and one of the permanent way gang, in defiance of regulations, has put it on Twitter.
[pen] only 13 years? Newbie! ;-)
[Rosie] My sense of humour is childish, absurdust and crude. Much like me really. I hope to meet a bunch of you when I am next back in the Old Country, depending on when that is. I tried to get to see Phil last time I was over but the god of the M6 is a cruel and jealous god and sent plagues of cones, jams and Eddie Stobart to confound me.
(nfras) Well, that's the M6 for you. The deity of the B269 is much more benign, and I live just off it.
But seriously, folks...
[pen] It is rather daunting isn't it. I've been doing this online since 1995. It's strange that the number of contributors has stayed fairly stable over the years, as if the world of MC can only sustain a certain number of people. I was looking at the Yorkives the other day, trying to find my first contribution. Brought back many memories, many of which I can't even remember.
[Phil] Didn't you know there's a one-in, one-out policy? Now, if you could start to think about making a move now please, ...
has met quite a few Morniversers . . .
... most of whom might discern the subtle difference between 'quite a lot of' [which I'd originally typed] and 'quite a few'.
[rab] There can't be a one-in, one-out policy. If the gestalt entity that is Uncle Korky/INJ/CdM/Dujon left, it would take time to invent new personae. Stevie would have a fit.
[rab] I think you've terrified everyone into silence, too afraid to stick their heads above the parapet and say anything in case anyone remembers how long they've been here, and 'isn't it time you made room for someone new?'.
I think I must be approaching my 10th anniversary, but I could be out by a couple of years either way.
Very little of the threatened snow in southern England - so no excuse for leaving early for my 4 hour drive home.
Threatened snow? Haven't seen/read/heard a forecast for two days. Must update myself.
Niviation
An inch of snow here this morning. It settled on the grass and even on the side roads for a time.
Just wind, rain and 2.5C here in Rotterdam. And final day in the office before January - hurrah!
Tauranga
I cane to NZ for my daughter's wedding equipped for sun and sand, however I need an umbrella and gumboots.
Florida
Pleasant and sunny down here in Florida. And I've been here about 14 years I think.
Clarification
Er, when I say "here" I don't mean Florida. I mean here.
Heisenberg
(CdM) Could you move around a bit, preferably completely at random and as fast as possible. Then we will know your location to a greater degree of accuracy than currently specified.
He already does
[Rosie] I don't think that works for molecules of CdM. On the other hand, the speed of a flerdle is highly dependent on slope, being relatively speedy now along a flat, perfectly horizontal surface and very much slower on any inclination or declination, whereas say a rock or a basketball shows very different behaviour.

Oh, and *waves from sunny Brisbane*

(flerdle) Are you saying that cadmium-containg alloys are beyond the laws of physics? Outrageous! Don't tell Uri Geller, whatever you do. May your mobility on inclined planes rapidly approach the norm.
talking of Uri Geller and planes...
Uri Geller sat three seats in front of me and my mother on a flight from Venice to the UK. I watched the rivets and joins of the wings and fuselage very carefully during the entire flight. (Stranegly enough, Jude Law sat in front of us on the flight out. He's much smaller than you think.)
Not the size you thought
I flew with the late lamented Phil Linott on the little 40-seater from Dublin to Leeds once. He was very tall - pushing 2m, I reckon.
Orthography
(pen) Stranegly sounds like a small village in Scotland. Hard luck. :-)
(INJ) Two miles? Yeah, that's big, too big, obviously.
[Rosie] I've just moved rapidly to Tennessee, if that helps. Drove up through an impressive storm, as well. Hearing the tornado sirens wailing as we were driving was a little unnerving.
very tropical
It is pouring rain this evening here (in Brisbane still) but, unusually, there is no lightning/thunder at all.
Vorticity
(CdM) I thought you were somewhere round there. I'm envious of your vigorous local convective activity. All we get here is mist, drizzle and general gloom. It's mild (10°) much to the disgust of the snowfreaks, but they're either weird or bonkers.
[Rosie] Have you seen the W Yorkshire lenticular cloud photos doing the rounds today?
Altocumulus lenticularis
(Phil) I certainly have - brilliant. We don't get 'em round here because the hills aren't high enough. You should see the ones they get in New Zealand and in the USA in the lee of The Rockies. More envy. :-(
Land of the long white cloud
[Rosie] Sadly I have seen many of them though it is midsummer here. Oh, well, now it is Christmas.
Land of extensive featureless stratus giving slight drizzle
(Softers) At least you can see the sides and ends.
Land of - what now?
What ends? We saw no ends on our Christmas eve and day. Very wet, windy, and uncomfortable.
singing
I saw the clouds on Christmas day, their old familiar shades of gray, the raindrops fell and I could tell the weather was so dreary, hey.
[KS, G] Where was that?
lenticular loomers
I saw something approaching lenticular cloudage a couple of days after Christmas, over the Lincolnshire wolds - a splendid sight, but I don't think it would have lenticulated fully. Now, back in, the Netherlands, it's drizzling heavily, grey, it's already getting dark, and sounds like a war zone out there as the village boys have been setting off their Belgian firecrackers all day, and the farm boys have been filling old milk churns with carbide bomblets and shooting the lids off across the fields. One way of seeing out the old year, I suppose. The windy miller and I are planning a quiet night in with a couple of slow-cooked lamb shanks and a bottle of wine.
Cloudage?? Oh, pen, pleeeze! Even the most anorakky weather nut doesn't talk like that. Did it give rainage, which went down the drainage? Or was it snowage, so your car needed towage? <rapper>

Good to hear that Dutch boys are allowed out, unsupervised, to be a little naughty.

clearage
It was a totally clear night here after a hot and almost completely cloud-free day - something of a rarity here. I did not bother going in to town for the fireworks, but watched a very decent display from the back yard. They seemed to be coming from the general direction of a local school and went on for a very long time. A licence is needed to even obtain fireworks here, let alone let them off, though some people manage it anyway.

Apparently the Arts Centre spire caught fire. Whoops.

Happy New Year to the collective mc5ers.
verbage
[Rosie] I'm not playing with words as a weather nut, I'm playing with words as a word nut. So there. *raspberry* *winkage*
BTW
HNY all.
Oh, go on then
[pen] Happy new year, but as a fellow word nut, I wonder why you don't abhor the current lazy vogue for "-age" creations, spewing spurious neologisms all over the place. *winkage continued*
Umbrage
(pen) Ah, "Raspberry". That was the whole family's nickname for my piano teacher when I was a child. Little could she have imagined that I would be blowing the said fruit down a 9-ft tube 30 years later. Real name Doris Austin (Miss). Always going on about my fingerage and phrasage. A bit fierce but good. Not one to indulge in winkage, as you can imagine.
usage
.. not even a spot of badinage?
Carthage
(Carthage?) I remember talking a load of -age badinage with a wordy friend some time around 1998, but don't recall seeing much of it since then. We also had a go at adding '-ster' on the end of evey word. That was fun too. But I don't like Dutch enough to have fun with the national habit of making a diminutive out of everything to informalise it; bier > biertje, jongen >jongetje, bord > bordtje. (Beer, lad and plate, respectivly.)
BTW Chalks, what are you doing up so early? (Or so late?)
Cobblers!
[pen] is Schoenlappertje a diminutive term for a cobbler? All I know is that it's a blummin' good non-sweet, blackcurrant beer.
I need to set fire to a Manchester suburb
....Wantage of Burnage. Boo-boom!
[Phil] Yus, it is. I took the 'tje' off it and ran it through Googletranslate, then the Brain of Google told me it was cobblers.
[pen] Smashing. If you see a bottle, I'd thoroughly recommend buying and drinking it.
Pilgrimage
Following suggestions at MC in Outerspace, would a Saturday in March be suitable for an MCPilg in London? Do see the discussion in the Pilgrim Game on Orange-age
Location
I live in Lake Charles, LA, USA.
ages and ages . . .
You know, like Ron on Kim Possible would say "snackage." I guess you could say on Friday I got my "concertage" on? Or is that my "nerdage" for the band Lost And Found?
Pilg
[KS] Yes, you'd probably have to make a full weekend of it. Still, I'm sure accommodation could be arranged.
Angels
KS] Yes, feel free to combine it with a longer visit to our fair shores.
Hang on Guys, I've just had this great idea! LAPilg?
(INJ) LA is an awful long way for Ms Shuko.
Geographically challenged
Ah, Yes. Still, it's not a bad idea.
[INJ] I think what you wanted to propose was NOPilg. I might sign up for that one!
Or maybe La Pilg (or should I say le pélérinage)
LAPilg
INJ's idea for a Pilg in Louisiana sounds great for Ms Shuko - a bit far for the rest of us though...
You know you're getting old when...
you're filling out a form online that requires your date of birth and when you click the drop-down box to bring up your year of birth you have to scroll down to find it.....
Kim, you're catching up. When I click on those things I get a depth reading. 6' is becoming uncomfortably close. :)
dob
I was filling in one that offered me the opportunity to say I was born in 1900!
I still love web forms that insist on postcodes for (republic of) Irish addresses. I know of a few parcels that have arrived at Irish houses addressed to, e.g. Mr M O'Donnell, 10 Ardan Bothar an Glas, Drogheda, Co Louth, Sorry Mr Postman, Amazon wouldn't let me order this unless I had a postcode.
[Phil] Even worse are forms that insist on only allowing US Zip Codes. Or only allowing US states, even though you have selected a country other than the US.
(nfras) I've never found that, and I've bought quite a bit of stuff from the USA (music, books). In fact the last order they sent twice. Anybody want a copy of the conductor score for The Chicken, arr. Kriss Berg?
postcode
Phil] I'm surprised that the phrase fitted in the postcode box!
[nfras] which reminds me that many Irish people I know have put 90210 in the postcode section :-)
[Merlyn] Even stupider are the web form designers that don't limit the number of characters.
Yes, if I am ever going to be in the UK, I'd let you know. Though, I don't know if I'll ever be. New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Alexandria, Metairie - all places in LA that are "close enough" for me. Shreveport and Monroe are a little far, but doable. Texas - Houston, Beaumont, Orange. Far, but doable - Seguin, New Braunfels, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Ft. Worth. . .
I've sometimes seen the addresses things that can be irritating toanybody. Yep, even sometimes to us in the US. I tell things that I don't live in the Ukraine. Silly forms. However, it's not usually those for me. It's those CAPTCHAs. I've had one in Greek, one we think was in something like Urdo or Arabic . . . some others with weird symbols.
Did you know there's a country with a name that states a fact about weather? ********************** Ukraine ************************* Get it? UK Rain E (rainy)
Compulsory fields
The field that irks me when compulsory is that of "County", for counties in the sense implied by the form ceased to exist in Scotland in the 70s, and Edinburgh is one of those places (like Manchester) where the city and county are much the same thing. Or, to put it another way, they lie within Unitary Authority Areas of the same name. So in the box I'm often reduced to writing "Scotland", when they let me get away with that, or "Midlothian" when they force a choice. Perhaps in the future I should paste in what I've written here...

I'm sure I've told the story before of how my credit card company managed to have my address as being in "Manchester, Lancashire, Lancashire". When I moved to Edinburgh, it changes to "Edinburgh, Midlothian, Lancashire"...

Pilgrimage
Pilgrimage in London proposed for 24th March. See discussion here: http://www.dunx.org/cgi-bin/forum?forum=game00074&displayStyle=york&tail=40#bottom
Please keep all discussion on the Orange site to avoid cross posting confusion
that doesn't mean...
You can all talk about other things here, you know! How was your week?
Hard - preparing documents for government officials :(
Next week, I start my new job though :)
New Jobber
[Phil] excellent!
My week started in England with shopping and the best fish and chips for lunch in Cleethorpes on Monday, sailed across the North Sea at night (failed to see the Northern Lights despite peering out from the deck at nearly midnight), busy time at work (wrote loads, organised a reception for the sustainability team at the business school). Now: finishing off more loads of writing, and trying to plan ahead.
Started a blog. It's under my Second Life identity, though, so no-one need try looking for it.
My week
Very very tough, for reasons that I'm not going to get into. But, on the bright side, not quite as tough as the week before.
[Raak] Is that a slog?
[Phil] Ha ha, yes, a SLog, hopefully not a slog! Just a few snaps of places in SL so far.
Travelogue
Back after a fortnight in Ethiopia, where Mrs INJ and I had wanted to go for years. A fascinating place – the oldest continuously Christian country in the world and the only African country never to be colonised (the Italians never subdued it in the 1930s). It has a fascinating culture with a history mixed with legend. This is the country of the Queen of Sheba, who was seduced by Solomon and whose son Menelik is said to have brought the Ark of the Covenant back from Israel. It is the country of the Axumite civilisation whose trade reached as far away as West Africa, Zanzibar, Sri Lanka and the Caucasus (as well as possibly supplying some of the ‘Nubian’ pharaohs) and who raised huge pillars over their tombs (the great stele in Axum is believed to be the tallest monolith ever made – although it probably fell and broke almost immediately after it had been erected). It is a country with a tradition of building churches and monasteries in the most inaccessible places; culminating in the rock-cut churches of Lalibela, created by cutting down into the solid rock from above – if they had been in Europe they would have been as well-known as Notre Dame.
It is intensely Christian for the most part; you have to have a reasonable knowledge of Christian tradition to get the most from the cultural aspects of the country. We went for Timkat – the major festival, which is at Epiphany in the Coptic/Julian calendar and celebrates both the adoration of the Magi and Christ’s baptism with mass-participation parades, street celebrations and young adult baptism. And yet it is tolerant of other faiths – there is a significant muslim minority (10%+) and a few Rastafarians and others and no obvious conflict.
It also has magnificent and varied scenery with mountains, lakes, rivers with spectacular waterfalls (the Tissisat falls on the Blue Nile share the meaning of their name with the local name for the Victoria Falls – Mosi oa Tunya, or ‘the smoke that thunders’) and vast empty depressions where rivers disappear into salt pans. The birdlife is still abundant and varied, although much of the larger wildlife is under threat from a large population with a tradition of hunting.
The downsides? Tourist infrastructure isn’t great – hotels have irregular water and electricity, roads are mostly poor (and occasionally atrocious), there is poverty, though no famine at the moment after a very good harvest – much earlier famine was caused by difficulties in distributing food rather than an absolute lack of it. The food is OK, especially if you like injira, the staple bread substitute, which bears a certain resemblance to cold wet flannel IMO.
Oh, and as a bonus, we went to a resort owned by Haile Gabreselassie and he was there, so we got to have a chat and a photo-opportunity.
If you aren’t too insistent on comfort, then go if you get the chance.
[INJ] Really interesting, thanks for sharing.
[Tuj]Indeed.
Meteorology
Solid steady snow in Derby now. Started with light and gentle about 3pm - now big wetter flakes - could be interesting if it keeps up overnight.
Had a choir concert last night - everyone got there fine, but I think nearly half the choir couldn't get home.
singing to stay cheerful
[Knobbers] Yikes.
[INJ] it's 'only' -4C here today. (I know Néa will better this statistic). Yesterday was the most startlingly clear, bright, cold chilly day I have seen since I was in Vermont in January 1988. I put some photos on my Facebook page, if you can see that. We had a couple of inches of powdery snow on Friday afternoon, but early yesterday morning it was -12C (according to the ladies in the bakery, who were in at 5am), rising to -10C by the time the windy miller and I headed out to his mill, and brilliantly sunny - one of those winter days when you get a big and welcome dose of sunlight. Random banks of fog drifting around the area added a thick and sparkling rime to the the lines of pollard willows and alders lining the dikes on our route there. The water container inside the mill was frozen - it was -8C in there. It was a truly spectacular weather day.
Super!
Apologies for writing like Jilly Cooper. I'm having the equivalent of a guilty McDonald's hamburger and reading her latest paperback at the moment.
[pen] yeah :-)
Cold
Just about to go and have a teleconference with our Ukrainian development team. They were reporting -30 last week, but then Kiev does have a bit of a heat island effect.
It's like a clean scene from Alien!
I do hope Raak is not on of those SLers who has to have an SL wife give SL birth! I saw a video of that and the baby came straigh out of the stomach . . . something very disturbing about that!
random
Was that really Raak? Perhaps he's having an out-of-body experience.
[!Raak] 'Ere, oo are you?
[pen] The whole point of SL is to have out-of-body experiences, I think. I suspect that SLRaak has somehow got free and is posting here along with RLRaak. But, in this virtual space (where we can't see the giveaway goatee) how will we be able to tell them apart?
Daaahn-da-dun-dun... Daaahn-da-dun-dun-DAAAAH
SL Raak isn't called Raak, of course. I think of her as an imaginary version of myself.
[Raak] So do I.
Hidden textJust typing that gave me the creeps
She has a male shape and skin as well, but rarely wears them.
Well, that brought the conversation to a standstill
Going out to bang a few drums shortly, then various errands and home. Snow and ice is still lying here and there but the roads are all clear.
clear roads
The roads are clear here too. It's bluddy cold though. I saw a small car (one of the 'moped cars' with a teeny engine that requires no proper driving licence) driving across the ice on the dog-leg shaped dead-end remnant of river called the Binnenmaas by the mill this morning. And a quad-bike doing power-slides and throwing up powdered snow on the ice too.
Ice and thickness
[Pen] This is a serious question as frozen rivers are a rarity where I live. How do the drivers of such vehicles (or even skaters and skiers for that matter) know that the ice is sufficient to carry their distributed weight? It sound rather fraught to me.
Sluggish
[Duj] The stretch of water I refer to *was* a river but became a lake in the 13th century when the intrepid Dutch diverted the flow of the Maas at this point into another channel to improve its navigability. It could be considered a small lake now, although it also acts as a reservoir for water pumped out of the polder on its way to the river proper. So, all these 'frozen rivers' are actually frozen lakes and canals, where water can stand still for long periods, allowing it to freeze. As to the thickness of the ice, the Dutch are very organised about this kind of thing. Every stretch of water, it seems, has an 'icemaster' who will measure the thickness and deem it fit for skating. The Dutch rarely do things independently; they love to do everything together, so there aren't a lot of daredevils going it alone in defying the icemaster. And they are aware of where the water is deep or not deep - falling through the ice into shallow water is acceptable, it seems. As for me, I discovered the other night that years and years of being warned not to go onto dangerous British ice have left me with a terror of walking on even the safest Dutch ice. That's another activity that the windy miller will have to do without me. :o/
In other news, I have been measured up for sunglasses at the opticians, and have bought a pair of summer shoes on Ebay - ones that I was dithering about in a high street shop last summer, but have found at one-third of the price on Ebay. Now, if the temperature would just lift above freezing for the first time in a fortnight...
It's that thing again
It just started snowing again. Arse.
A man of little trust
[Penelope] Thanks. From memory of my short time in England falling through the ice did my shoes and confidence little good. Perhaps I was a sook? I'm off now to my local bottle shop (off licence) to purchase my week's vittles. I might wobble a bit but I'm confident that I will not sink. ;)
6C
Blimey, it's hot.
Nearly a week has passed again. Apparently it's going to be scorchio on Thursday in the UK.
reduced to weather updates
[Phil] Indeed. If it carries on like this, I'll be getting the box of summer clothes out of the attic.
Is spring springing?
It has warmed up to double figures on the rock, hopefully no more hard frosts - which will encourage the bloody grass to grow.
Then you'll be moaning about mowing the stuff! :)
It's more than three years since I was responsible for a lawn. I'm not sure if I miss it or not. The house we currently live in is a bit weird and unfriendly as far as outside space is concerned. The gravelled space in the back yard is designed to be looked at rather than walked on or used; I think the person who designed it wouldn't make the same design again.
I'm sure I don't miss it. We finally took out our front lawn last year and did fun things involving boulders and native plants what have various qualities such as being interesting looking year round. I also dug out swathes of the back yard and planted a soil-improving winter crop and will be attempting some vegetable gardening this year. The purist in me wants to do it without spending as much on soil amendments as the veg would have cost in the market. The neighbor's massive fir tree dropping needles all over doesn't do wonders for the pH, so I will probably have to do something.
[Dan] Stevie probably has a chainsaw you can borrow.
Water, water everywhere
This comment will only interest those of us who live in the land of drought and flooding plains.
Warragamba dam, built to act as a reservoir for Sydney's drinking water rather than a flood mitigation device, is almost at a level that will trigger the spillways to do their job. To the best of my knowledge the last time this happened was in about 1998. Given that I don't live down stream of the dam I really shouldn't start singing 'Oh, happy days', but I will. :)
[Dujon] You could sell some to the SE of England.
[INJ] It'd make a change. The spillways have in fact been actuated and the additional water added to the Nepean/Hawkesbury river system has submerged bridges and brought about the expected flooding - minor at this stage.
water water water water water
[Dujon] Hoping you haven't been washed off your mountain up there. Looks dreadful.
Wobblies
[flerdle] No, m'dear, although the world did seem to move yesterday when I was nowhere near the kitchen table! I think though that it was but the garbage truck doing its rounds. ;)
That could have been a summer's day
Shorts and T-shirt today and mowing the lawn for the first time.
A slightly silly pondering
Over any given year where I live there must be thousands of birds fly over, take up temporary digs whilst migrating or live within a territory they have staked out in which my humble plot of land exists. Why do dead birds not litter my land and the local parks? Cockatoos are blessed with long lives whilst the smaller birds such as finches and wrens are supposed to be relatively short lived (they were when I used to breed them.) Over the last ten years I have seen two (2) deceased avians. One was a parrot in the local park and the other a juvenile butcher bird which I witnessed being attacked by other local birds.
Why is it so? Are there places scattered around the world where birds go to die? Is there an ornithologist in the house?
A couple of thoughts from an ameteur birder (but not an ornithologist, still less a twitcher). The ones flying over are pretty healthy, as are the ones you see staking out territories. Ill and infirm birds will tend to hide where predators can't see them, such as in thick undergrowth. Also dead birds don't tend to last long. Generally predator birds and rodents dispose of them quickly. They also decompose very quickly, bones and all, as the bones are mostly pretty fragile. Having said that, I reckon to find 3 or 4 dead birds a year in my ordinary suburban garden, and that doesn't count the drifts of feathers left when our local sparrowhawk has caught another little bird too intent on one of our feeders to keep a proper look out.
Salient points, INJ, I have no doubt. Ants too can do a very efficient demolition job on a carcass, but I doubt (in fact would reject) the idea that bird feathers are nutriment for scavengers. The reason for that attitude is that individual feathers, presumably resulting from natural 'moulting', are common and most certainly not a part of a drift of feathers produced by either direct attack or the efforts of scavengers. Who hasn't come across a particularly attractive feather from time to time and wondered what type of bird lost it?
[Dujon] Indeed, I'm sure that in your neck of the woods ants will be particularly efficient at cleaning up. I agree feathers are a bit different, but they must be destroyed fairly quickly if only because otherwise we'd be up to our necks in them. Also they are pretty much pure keratin which, despite its toughness, is none the less protein and so crying out to be recycled. I'm now into speculation, but I would suspect insects & bugs are likely to be the cleaning crew and will reprocess the feathers into chitin etc.
Surely there's someone in the morniverse who can add a bit more scientific rigour at this point.
All I know is...
Big fleas have little fleas,
Upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas,
and so, ad infinitum.
The_Siphonaptera
Back biting
[pen] My old dad used to recite that one to me..
Dad chat
[Softers] Mine too. Is it a dad thing?
When dads recite cute poems
To their children oh so clever
They then recite them to their own
And on and on for ever.
Ditties not deadies
[p,S & P] Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your most edifying contributions. ;)
We didn't rehearse it, honest
[Duj] Graag gedaan. I love the collective brain of this place.
My pleasure, ma'am
So do I, though it's often somewhat of the variety known as scatter.
Poems
Poems I learned when I was little were "Eletelephony," "Ooey Gooey," and "A Peanut Sat on a Rail Road Track." The one my Daddy really liked to recite was "Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts."
My Silly Poem
I enjoy all this doggerel
As much as tasty custard
I like to read the silly words
That [Pen] and [Dujon] mustered.
More dad pomes ...
If all the world were apple pie
And all the sea were ink
And all the trees were bread and cheese
What would we have to drink?
Pedigree doggerel
I find it all so flattering
That you so like that poem
But this could take a battering
If scoured with fine-toothed comb.
How about...
how about a new game (to replace the terminally ill holiday anagrams) in which we can record the wonderful aphorisms passed on by our parents (whether in verse or prose). It might make a useful repository of knowledge. Or it might not.
One favourite from my dad is "If we had ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs."
Worth a try.
[Phil] +1 for that.
*approves*
It's a tough job
Just come back from a long weekend in Reims, tasting champagne, partly paid for by Mrs INJ's sister as a joint significant birthday present (late for her, early for me). Just got to arrange the party now!
How awful for you
[INJ] Think of the headaches and the expense...!!
Just got back from a weekend with my mum in England. I did the 'SH' of POSH with a forced upgrade on the ferry to England - I had to take an outside 5-berth cabin with double bed, bigger bathroom and satellite TV as a solo occupant instead of an inside cabin with 2 bunkbeds, no TV and cubicle bathroom. As I'd had a v. busy day at work with no time for lunch, I celebrated with steak, chips and a huge glass of red wine in the brasserie on board, and woke up just as we were sailing into the Humber past Spurn Point lighthouse. *sigh*
It's lovely to see that we still have stoics contributing to the site. 8-)
Death of Games wanted
I just tried to end the Holiday Anagrams game, but the usual didn't work.
Chain pulled
[Raak] I've put it out of its misery, which - thanks to the miracles of modern technology - I did from the comfort of the toilet, appropriatly enough.
Anaphorisms
[Phil] Go for it, while there's a slot.
this weekend I will be mostly
Cleaning cupboards, laundrifying (it's a good drying day) and cursing the internet radio as it keeps cutting out during the best bits.
is it just me?
I've just discovered (via AVMA) that there is a good chance that cfm is female. That led me to wonder to myself: why/how do I create mental images of MCers, based purely on their posts on this site (and others)? And why do I oh-so-frequently turn out to be wrong?
[Phil] Absoliutely - Uncle Korky had me fooled for a long time with the name and the false whiskers, and there aren't that many Philippas around either.
Also, if you follow CdM's 'helpful reference' on AVMA you'll see that the question of cfm's gender may not be resolved.
Gender bending
It is amazing how often first impressions can be wrong. I wonder if some in the Morniverse deliberately conceal their true gender/sex whichever applies?
[INJ] Indeed, hence my "good chance" comment. I don't actually make assumptions, as far as I'm aware, but I do have a "mind's eye" that seems to kick in subconsciously. Call it a woman's intuition if you will.
*smiles androgynously*
*thought irach and cfm were one and the same* :-)
Test
Things seem to be 'working' after an upgrade, but I got enough error messages I'm a bit uncertain. At least I remembered to not have the magic quotes thing turn itself back on.
Oh good.
Things indeed weren't 'working', but now they are. Apologies for any inconvenience etc.
apols not needed
[rab] Grateful thanks that the site is here at all - it's somewhere for me to come when I'm trying to avoid converting a 'stream of consciousness' from the Dean into something approaching an introduction for the latest issue of the alumni mag. Inspiration needed - and I'm sure I'll find it by writing limericks and doggerel.
7 days of silence
Well, that was an interesting couple of days. I may have found a house to move to, 5 miles from work, and a school for the kids to go to, which lies 80% of the way to work. It also happens to have had the 2nd best A-level results in the country for a state school last year. Lots of forms to fill in now :-(
Formation
[Phil] Jolly good. Here in NL, house prices are dropping (9% this year, apparently, but they are grossly over-priced) and the windy miller is getting busier and busier. Also, I get a permanent work contract this summer (after 3 years of one-year contracts) which makes it easier for us to get a mortgage. I may have a new house with a BATH and a DISHWASHER by the end of the year!
[pen] If only I could get a mortgage :( It's rental for us for a while yet.
What I did this weekend
In gratitude for all the tens of thousands of pounds worth of business I've put their way over the years, Marriott Hotels gave me a couple of tickets to the London Sevens Rugby at Twickenham on Sunday. I'd just like to say that the 15 minutes in which Fiji demolished the All-Blacks was the most exciting bit of rugby I've ever watched.
A picking of the collective mornibrain
Is anyone here particularly knowledgeable about Venice? MsCdM, MsCdM junior and I are going to a conference in Florence at the end of next month, and we are then planning also to visit Venice. The only places I have been in Italy are Rome and Turin, so I am interested in any recommendations -- if anyone has specific hotels they could recommend, that would be particularly useful. We're happy to pay for location and comfort (up to a point; we are certainly not looking for recommendations to 5 star hotels).
Travel advisor
I stopped at the Hotel Al Sole on the Fondamenta Minotta which is walking distance from the station. It was some years ago but it was good and relatively cheap (nothing is cheap in Venice). There was a family run restaurant a couple of doors away which was one of the best around we discovered having eaten elsewhere.
tripping
We stayed in a cheap place in San Polo, so no help with accommodation here :-) . We had little idea and didn't mind the adventure so turned up and booked a place at the visitor booth at the station. But I've generally found when planning trips that online accommodation sites are fine to give an idea of what's around, and perhaps get a good deal. Anywhere in Santa Croce, San Polo or San Marco will put you in the thick of things and be easily accessible from the station, especially if you travel light like I do. The train from Florence is very quick and regular, so no problem getting there and back, we stayed for two nights coming from our Florence base and that did not feel too short a time, but it would have been good to stay a little longer since we accidentally turned up during the Biennale! The city is very tiny and easy to get around on foot or by vaporetto.
splish splash
[pen] We just moved (see MCiOS for details) and I am pleased to report it has a good bath - but I'm sure it's easier to get your bath fix by going to the UK than visiting us :-) .
Wet feet
[Flerdle] Thanks for the offer. My nearest alternative is only 20 miles away, so I'm afraid your offer of hot water comes some way down the list at present. Who's to say wherther or not things will change?
[CdM] When my mum and I 'did' Venice, we stayed in Treviso - a pleasant enough town a couple of stops up the railway line, and travelled in to Venice by train (it's a spectacular approach across the water - and stepping out of the 1940s railway station into 16th century venice took our breath away). This gave us the advantage of not having to pay Venice prices for hotels, nor for dinner (if we chose not to). I'd echo Flerdle's advice - read the 'traveller reviews' on TripAdvisor or Expedia.
just 7 days...
So much has changed since last friday, not least of which is the weather in the UK, accompanied by about 3 inches of grass growth in my back garden. Also, it looks likely that I shall be taking on the rental of a house "down south" (roughly here) in about 2 weeks. Subject to rustling up a load of money ...
Sarf of the M4
[Phil] It's bloody lovely round there. I worked near Ramsbury for a while, and at Hopgrass Farm on the A4 just outside Hungerford for a bit too. (Used to be owned by Johnny Morris, apparently, and I didn't know at the time, but my dad was friends with his son at Art School in the late 50s-early 60s and stayed with the Morrises at Lambourn. JM also used to own The Pelican, the pub at Froxfield on the A4 (my favourite road ever). The windy miller & I stayed there a couple of years ago. They didn't seem too bothered by the rain coming through the roof.) Anyway - good luck with the move. I hope you like it down there as much as I did.
(Phil, pen) If you go shopping in Hungerford go in the morning because it's murder in the afternoon.
That's awful, Rosie. Literally. I was working in the Savernake Forest that day.
It is amazing how the word "Hungerford" is etched into our minds. We found it hard to consider any houses that were up for rent there, simply because it would remind us of that every single day. turns out that the house we're going for is technically in Little Hungerford, but that was subsumed into Hermitage as house-building filled in the gaps between villages.
Port Arthur was creepy enough already, and then...
How horrible.
I had not heard of that, probably because ten days earlier was Hoddle Street, which is just a short drive from here. He wiles away his time in prison working out ways to continue his career as a vexatious litigant, thereby popping up in the vews often enough to keep the wound from fully healing. Parole in 2014? Somehow I think not.
Vhat would be news, vbviously.
(Chalky) You strike me as an unlikely lumberjack. The admittedly awful joke was very current at the time, as these things are.
I cycled 100 miles yesterday. Wall-clock time 8h32, time in motion (what my bike computer records) 6h58m54. Free beer at the end, then collapsed in a heap.
(Raak) V good. How many times round the cathedral was that?
MmmmmMMMmmMMmmmMmmmmm.....free beer :-) Well done, sir!
[Rosie] Just once, via the north Norfolk coast. It's surprising how many hills there are in England's flat bits.
[Raak] The merest mention of N Norfolk always makes me think of Hunstanton and twitch inwardly - the most confusing and disturbing place I've ever been to.
[Raak] Well done! So you'll be out here for Around the Bay, then?
[Phil] Knowing "Sunny Hunny" well, I can see why you think it disturbing, but why confusing? [Raak] Well done! I am exhausted just thinking about it.
I've just discovered they had photo points set up, taking pictures of everyone. [flerdle] There's a small matter of a 10,000 mile ride to get there.
[Boolbar] I tend to know more or less which direction I am facing, which my family discovered recently when I stopped in mid-conversation, looked around the room and said "Sorry, I just couldn't work out which way was south for a moment". Hunstanton threw me, as I wasn't concentrating, but knew I was in Norfolk for two days. Therefore I got a bit startle by seeing the sun setting over the sea as I looked out from the shore. It took me a while to get my head round it, but it continued to freak me out for the rest of the day. And still does, to be honest.
East Is East
[Phil] Oh I see. Hunstanton drives you around the bend. :)
that'd be good training, then...
[Raak] If you start soon, you'd easily get here in time for next year's :-)
Peering in
Just received an email from the hosting people. My interpretation of their breathless gobbledygook is that you may discern slightly slower page loading than normal. Can't say I've noticed.
I saw a Google Car today, with the giant golfball of cameras pointing in all directions mounted on top. It drove right into the private parking area behind my house, and out again. So I might at some point see myself on Google Street View. I wonder how slickly automated their process is. Is the Car continuously uploading everything, which is then processed into Street View images in seconds?
Just had a look on Google Maps, and their current picture of the scene is from 2008. So, four years to revisit a tiny private entrance in a suburb of a small town. There must be some interesting estimate to be made from that of how many miles of road there are in the world, or how many Google Cars there are.
For the record, I really like Hunstanton - site of many a good family holiday!
Hunstanton hinders chat
[UK] that really did it, didn't it? More than a week with nowt to say. For the record, I really like Mablethorpe. Sunny here in Rotterdam today, but cool. Or cold.
Norfolk enchants
[pen] I know! What happened there?! Never been to Mablethorpe myself. If we're tipping the nod to UK holiday resorts, I'm going to endorse Barmouth, and see how long this kills the conversation for!
Dorset does it
Rather partial to a long weekend in Lyme Regis myself.
Just come back from a long weekend in Pembrokeshire. I'd put a few votes in for St David's/Whitesands.
Europie (pronounced YORRuhpee) beach on the Isle of Lewis gets a big vote from me - in fact, pretty much any beach on the Outer Hebrides.
Barmouth/Y Bermo
(Uncle K) Got sunburnt there as a small boy on holiday in 1947, so I was told but can't actually remember.
[Phil] I spent a week on Lewis/Harris one June. Glorious white sand beaches with not a soul in sight for miles and a temperature of about 10.
Gecko surprise
Yesterday, Sunday, my wife and I involved ourselves in a clean up of our garage and workshop. This sudden activity was a result of the local council announcing a 'collection' day, which involves the collection of all and any junk which won't fit into the normal bin - at no charge. It also brings out the scavengers among our population (the first five or six articles we took up to the road were gone within five minutes.)
That's the background. One of the later jobs was to move a dilapidated old cupboard/drawer combination from the workshop. My wife did the initial moving of the thing - it was surprisingly heavy for its size - from its position against the brick wall against which it stood. Me, being the lazy sod that I am, was 'having a rest' and a restorative dose of wine. She popped up into my quiet place and informed me that behind the cupboard was living a gecko. Naturally I did the reverse pop and ambled down the stairs to have a dekko. She was right but at the same time wrong. There were three leaf-tailed geckos clinging grimly to the brickwork. Supposedly these wee attractive reptiles are common in this neck of the woods but because of their superb camouflage are rarely noticed. The interesting part of this rather long post is that they were of three different colours. One was grey, one was a mid to dark green and the last a very dark chocolate colour. The latter could have been a very dark green; I'm sure that I'm a bit colour blind in the green/brown range when it comes to the darker shades, particularly in poor light.
I have done a bit of a search on the 'Net but cannot find anything that might indicate that geckos are like chameleons - in the sense of adapting their colouring to the background. Is there a herpetologist in the house?
Prochain station, Château d'Eau!
Here's the thing. Mlle nights and I were watching television a few nights ago, when she turned to me and said "You know, it's the oddest thing. When I was in Paris last week, there were a load of British people on the métro."

"Of course there were, dear, there's British people everywhere."

"Yes, but it was at Château d'Eau, they all seemed quite over excited, and there's nothing remotely interesting there. Do you think it had anything to do with that silly game you play with the Tube?"

And so, I'm back. How is everyone?
Those long, lonely nights
[nights] Good to see you! I am led to wonder: has anyone really gone on a Château d'Eau Pilg? And what do everyone else's significant others think/know of MCing?
Water Castles
I'll admit to getting off the rame at Château d'Eau and then getting on the next one, just in order to say I'd been there.
Mrs INJ just seems to go along with MCing with a 'well, it means he doesn't go out drinking or womanising'* resignation. However, when driving in France we do mark the water towers on a 0-4 stars scale.
*This is almost always true
Another silent week in MC5-land. What-ho, chaps!
No News = Good news?
Well, the weather is iffy but at least Murray is grinding on at Wimbledon. Is that worth mentioning?
Oh, I say, what a volleh!
(Softers) I suppose so but I prefer to watch the ladies. All that grumble and grunt.
G + G
You can get grunt from engines. And I am willing to grumble for a very small fee, without the bother of travelling to Wimbledon. BTW, My mum has gone to watch the tennis today. C'mon Tim! (oblig.)
Where does all the ruddy dust come from? is a depressing and never-ending task to keep shifting it from places where I don't want it to places where I don't care about it.
so soggy
We had a full sunny day here today. It's almost a shock to the system.
(pen) Where indeed? The answer, I fear is mostly our own bodies. And the Sahara.
(flerdle) Didn't know you were over here. :-)
*announces cake break*
Gelukkige Verjaardag Penelopij!
HBTY HBTY HBDP HBTY
Today is also Teddy Bears' Picnic Day. So two reasons to celebrate!
wringing out the teddy bears
[All] Cheers. I've got a massive craving for cake this week... huge wodges of it (and seconds), mostly chocolate, but the occasional coffee and walnut. I made scones last night (on my birthday) as it was all I had time for (and there was new jam), but I think the baking of a full-blown coffee and walnut cake is called for this weekend. Not sure if I have any cake tins anymore - I remember one lot went rusty and had to be binned, and I can't remember if I bought any more.
late as usual
[pen] Happy Yesterday!
proost!
Een beetje laat.
The cake is a lie.
real cake
It's reality here, Phil. This wet weekend has been officially declared the penelope cake festival extension. I've found my cake tins (thankfully not yet rusty) and will be turning the mixer all the way up to 11.
*originally typed 'cake tines' and wondered if there was a Freudian reason behind my thoughts of the large amount of cake that you'd need a tractor to shift.*
alter-ego
I've just been spooked to see someone using my real name to play a move in the limericks game - and had to check the time stamp to make sure it wasn't me. (It wasn't, unless I was sleep-surfing last night)
Are you sure?
[Pen] When I saw the name on the front screen I assumed it was you in a (very) late night unguarded moment.
(pen) You would never use such clunking scansion. Would you? Not all God's children got rhythm.
me again, given the lack of activity here
Can I have another go at the sodding O'Limp-dicks, or at least the media coverage thereof? Well, I'm going to any way. The first five pages of the Grauniad, supposedly a thinking person's paper, were devoted to the activities of a load over-muscled herberts and herbertines doing stupid boring things. The entirety of BBC1 output is devoted to this nonsense and the drains have overflowed into BBC2 to the extent that University Challenge, an antidote to this brain-numbing bollocks, seems to have been suspended, to be replaced by the displaced EastEnders, an everyday story of thickos buggering up their lives, and which seems to amuse the dimwits. Will we win any medals, gold, silver, bronze, cast iron, medium manganese steel, cupro-nickel, duralumin, bakelite, neoprene, mahogany? Please Do Not Ask This Question As A Hailstorm Of Profanity Often Gives Offence.
[Rosie] I'm one of the people that's delighted to have something worth watching on TV for a change. I'm also starting to enjoy sports I've not really watched before (basketball, volleyball etc) and am rather proud of the improvements the British contestants (I refuse to use the ghastly "Team GB" tag) have made, men's gymnastics being a prime example. I find most sport lacks any thrill these days, but I always really enjoy the Olympics.
I'd compete for a bakelite medal. In ambling, perhaps.
(Phil) But for the media overkill I, like most people I know, would be simply indifferent to the whole thing and just ignore it. But the entire front and subsequent eight pages of the Grauniad, of all papers, plus the Olympic supplement, are devoted to these activities. They are about to receive an abusive email and I imagine it won't be the only one, not by a long chalk. They won't print it, but they'll know what I think.
[Rosie] Ah, I avoid all that kind of annoyance by never buying a newspaper. The radio, the internet, and my lovely internet friends keep me pretty well informed. The last of those providing the most balanced view, especially when averaged out (my Facebook friends range from Radical Stalinist to White Van Man).
The above is untrue
I apologise for my over-generalisation. I do buy local newspapers when I'm on holiday, especially in France.
(Phil) I don't get a newspaper for news but more for views and opinions and to get ideas from. News, I find, is best from Radio 4. I might just about persuade myself to switch on the telly if there are things like floods or other mayhem.
Anyone else feel that the Film Club game may have run its course?
[UK] Fine with me to kill it.
Film Club
And me, for what it's worth, being no good at it.
Wow!
I've been enjoying the Olympics hugely (helped by the fact that I'm between assignments and so have more time). So I would like to record that I feel privileged to have watched arguably the greatest race in the history of athletics. The mens 800m had not only a world record, but also every athlete in the race recorded the fastest ever time for someone finishing in that position in a race. Quite astonishing. Move over Mr Bolt.
And also
In addition, every athlete recorded either a world record, a national record or a personal best.
Film Club
As much as I love Film Club, it has tailed off, and I think we've used virtually every available category over the past few years.

Could we perhaps replace it with a variant...? How about a round of Benefit Gigs, where we select an appropriate topic, and have to suggest the bands / artistes on the line-up?
...tumbleweed...
Well, this has obviously been another of my infamous conversation-killers! Alternatively, I don't recall seeing a game anywhere where players could showcase whole limericks - any interest in that?
(UK) Not a bad idea. Any subject. Discreet filth allowed. Off you go!
[Rosie] Thanks! At least one supported for Limerick Showcase - anyone care to kill Film Club? (Any last objections, speak now!)
I say kill the film club. But then I don't think I have voting rights any more, as I do tend to forget to pop by.

This time due to moving house - the last flat leaked, from the roof and the bathroom wall. I am fairly handy, as blokes go, but that was beyond my capabilities.

In other news, how's the weather? Strasbourg is melting. Literally melting. Every summer this happens, we get a huge heatwave and everyone panics. IBut I can't hear them from inside this fridge.
Alsatian quasi-megathermality
(nights) Strasbourg therefore consists of what we chemists call a "low-melting solid". May I be a little less than gobsmacked by your 32°C with low-moderate humidity given that it's been nearly 30°C here in the grounds of Plas Huws?
[Rosie] Oh very well. It just seems hotter because of people's reaction to news of the heatwave. I got text messages saying "Best of luck!" Luck with what? I don't understand.
Another sweaty one here today with some rather feeble apologetic thunder. I see Strasbourg is even hotter and more humid than yesterday. Er, bonne chance.
Lived up to expectations, certainly. But fortunately my client had the air con on. The good news is, it's finally raining! Hooray!
luckily we have our feet in the water here in NL
It was 34.5C on Saturday afternoon here in Zuid Holland; only 32C on Sunday afternoon, and a positively chilly 27C yesterday. No significant rain yet, dammit. We swam in the river on Sunday morning - it was the nicest open-water swim I've ever had.
boing
The first tentative whiffs of spring here today, and a very pleasant change it has been. After 7-10 years of drought, this has been a return to the olden-days of very wet winters. Do not like those. But today was lovely, at least the bits that I ventured outside in.

Mind you it will probably be washed away in more downpours next week, if the gales don't do the job first. *glum*

Differences
[flerdle] Perhaps at your place it's been a normal wet winter. My own castle has found a normal dry winter, although June and July were reasonably damp (75 & 15 mm respectively). So far August has produced not a drip nor a drop of precipitation - our last rain was on 24 July (1.8mm.) Even with the winds we have had the late wattles are flowering nicely making wonderful yellow splotches along the street scape. Spring is just around the corner . . . hurrah!
So what was the last good meal you had at a restaurant?
I'll have the...
A couple of weeks ago, on a very hot Friday evening when the back of the house (and therefore the kitchen) was too hot to be able to do any cooking, the windy miller and I went out to our favourite local restaurant, the Drie Linden. I had a bloody lovely chunk of grilled cod fillet in a mustard sauce. We sat outside on the back terrace, looking north over the fields of our island, Hoeksche Waard. There were half a dozen hares jumping around in the adjacent field, a kids' end-of-summer camp bonfire in the middle distance, and the flaming stacks and chimneys of the Shell Pernis Refinery at Europoort in the far distance. We're going there again tonight, because it's our first wedding anniversary today :oD
This evening, I will be mostly eating...
Last night I had the trout. It was even better than the cod, although I wish the chef had seasoned and buttered the inside of the fish - the part I was going to eat - rather than the skin, which is the part that I didn't eat.
A reasonable creme brulee afterwards - but unremarkable. And a good cup of coffee. The windy miller and I are going to look at a house for sale three doors away from this restaurant. If we buy it, we won't be able to afford to go and eat there any more.
Happy anniversary then, penelope!
[pen] Seconding what nights said, in memory of the passing of the old dating updates posted to the Morniverse =)
Ta v much
I've only just beginning to realise what I have missed out on during my singleton's life. We're going to a 45th anniversary party of some friends on Sunday - if the windy miller and I get to that anniverary, we'll be in our mid-90s.
Couples
[pen] You are forgetting that there is always the spectre of divorce. That can make a big dent in your finances, wreck your social circle, raid your pension and alienate some or all of your children and it may not be your fault. It is always nice to see couples that have made it, though.
spectres?
I don't believe in ghosts. Besides, our social circles are in two different countries, our finances are divisible, our pensions are separate, we don't have kids. And we don't intend to.
Choices
[pen] you have it covered, then. Nevertheless, separate finance and pensions are not immune from vindictive ex-wives (or husbands for that matter) when it gets to court.
T'weather
Bit chillier here today. Supposed to get warmer for the weekend, so that's OK
whither t'weather?
I saw that England had got noticeably cooler over the past couple of days. Temperatures are still holding up on this side of the Narrow Sea. 13C this morning, blustery, showers expected. Must.... buy... thermals....
Plans for t'weekend?
Daughter has first practice with new church choir tonight. Royal Berkshire County Show tomorrow :-)
between friday and monday, showers predicted, predictably.
I will scorekeep at a roller derby bout. The rest of the time I will be ill. *koff, gasp*

I am so sick of the rain here. Just go away.

Friday to Monday
I will sleep, do laundry, and cook a free-range French chicken that is taking up too much space in the freezer.
weekend
I will head down the allotment and see if I can dig over and compost another vegetable bed or two ready for the winter planting. And, weather permitting, cut the grass.
that reminds me
I might try planting some late purple sprouting broccoli. I've been told I may get a small crop in March if I do it now - and they won't be prone to the caterpillars that ate the whole bloody lot that I planted in June.
work tomorrow :(
I am very glad it was a drier weekend than I thought it would be. I managed to plant out some of the seedlings, now that it is warmer and the sun is actually getting to the vege patch (small back yard, high fences). The challenge will be keeping the slugs and snails at bay, I think, and stopping the blackbirds from ploughing up the entire bed.
Yorkshiremen
You're lucky. Last May, we scarified the lawn, hollow-tined it, fertilised it and overseeded it. Then we went for a three week holiday, expecting to find the grass knee deep when we got back. It didn't rain. We returned to find bare earth and a bevy of portly pigeons.
There's Something About West Berkshire
Is anyone else in England feeling like they're heading back towards drought? I think it's only rained twice in the last 3 weeks, since I fed my lawn. I'll probably get the sprinkler out tomorrow, it's getting so bad.
There's also something about north-east Surrey
(Phil) Only 4.7 mm rain this month (average 66). Good - don't have to cut the grass so often. I do nothing to encourage the growth of anything in my garden whatsoever. The only things I apply are shears, secateurs and ripsaws, having a hedge and a number of bushes. The idea of watering the grass is to me as absurd as leaving stuff out for the dear foxes. 2003 was a good summer, hot and dry and everything went straw-like with great cracks in the "lawn". Boo to gardening! My garden is actually quite tidy, believe it or not.
Labouring the point
No danger of drought after the wettest summer for ages. There was a "hosepipe" ban here until the middle of April. What is a hosepipe? Some people got ever so upset but what do they expect if they leave water out to dry on the grass.
[Rosie] I'm not so keen on the rest of the gardening malarkey, but I do like my stripy lawn, cut with a 50 year old mower.
Mom's memorial service
Went out and did stuff with friends today after mom's memorial service...she had died on the 15th...
[Giertrud] I'm very sorry to hear about your mom. Keep doing the stuff with friends. And keep coming here.
ty penelope
(Giertrude) As pen says, keep and value your friends but on the other hand don't pretend nothing has changed. You may find yourself more at home with one or two new people. My mother was widowed for 27 years and had to find a few new activities and friends which she did successfully. We can all do it and I wish you all strength.
to Giertrud
Sincere condolences on the loss of your mother. It is surprising how much we do either for, or because of, or by reference to our mothers and the loss of that key reference point throws our lives off balance for a while. You will recover that equilibrium over time. Until then, focus on what is necessary for you and for those you love, take comfort from the familiar (Glow-worms!) and try not to dwell on the loss.
10 days with no conversation! Time to break the ice.
Is it that cold where you are, Phil?
I feel like a sonnet
We haven't had a general poetry game for a while. At the moment there's just Wretchedly Difficult Poetry and Slightly Less Wretchedly Difficult Poetry, both at Orange, taking about a year per poem. Shall I compare us to a plate of eels?
[Software] It was, until this evening when we got our central heating fixed - oh frabjous day!
fish's off, dear
[Raak] Better that than a surfeit of lampreys.
You look like a sonnet
[Raak] Aren't Glo-worms and Limericks enough for you?
[Kim] Ok, but apart from the glow-worms and limericks...and haiku...
We could come up with a poetry form that combines all three ... the glimmeraiku ...
haikimerworm
[Jim] Now you're being ridiculous.
can't keep me away
[Cross-post] There is a somewhat late notice proposal for pilg-type goodness up at Orange, do drop in and say hello.
I have combined the glow-worm and haiku
The last three lines of this verse
Form a nice haiku
By using five-seven-five
As they always do

Also, it's instructional... :]
Season of . . .
Fog, actually. A rather warm and very wet one for the last 24 hours or so. Not terribly thick; I can see about 250 yd. It's low cloud, because places like Heathrow and Gatwick have only got a bit of mist. The air above the fog is even warmer and if it were to clear the temperature would shoot up to over 20°C in no time. It may happen tomorrow.
Fog
It didn't. It was just more fog, not terribly thick but we've now had 52 hours of it and everything is dripping. Previously invisible cobwebs are everywhere. Down at the pub, being 400 ft lower, they wonder what I'm on about. They always wonder what I'm on about.
Webs
I've noticed all the cobwebs as well. Usually I notice them when they wrap around my face and a spider clings to my nose. Now I can duck. Speaking of spiders, they have released these nearby.
Clouds of spiders
[Rosie] Still got your head in the clouds? At your age? Really! ;)
[Boolbar] That's a lovely photograph of surface tension at work. I wonder what the author of the article meant by "8cm long". Usually I describe spider size by the distance across the legs with a further comment about the paps to tip of the abdomen dimension if appropriate. Have you come across one yet?
Apparently there are about 1014 spiders on the earth which is about 20,000 for each and every one of us. That's quite a few decent meals. Well, meals.
[Dujon] Other sources suggest it is 8cm leg span. I haven't measured but I'm sure we get the odd house spider around that size.
[Rosie] 1014. Now that's what I call a world wide web!
[Boolbar] *groan*
Microthermality
Saturday was the coldest October day in 30 years' recording in the grounds of Plas Rhosi. Max temperature 6.0°C with a nice fresh northerly wind and showers. Delightful. Tonight the wind has died down and there's a brilliant night sky and frost. The grass, over the squelchy mud underneath, has that "crisper whisper" as you walk on it. Screen temperature -1.3°C.
Spring forward, fall back
How virtuous I felt this morning, getting up by BST, while gentlemen in England still abed took putting back the clocks as an excuse to stay in bed an hour longer, instead of an opportunity to fill an extra unforgiving hour with sixty minutes worth of noodling on the Internet.
[Rosie] It was certainly parky up on the Ridgeway at 8am. Car's thermometer said zero, but the wind in our faces certainly made it feel much colder. The visibility reminded me of Switzerland though - could see all the way to the horizon :-)
Ridgeway? That's something the cloggies can only dream of
Here, even the motorway run-up to a big bridge slows 'em down. Dutch drivers have no idea what to do in order to climb a hill without causing a traffic jam.
(pen) Are there any words in Dutch for a hill, mountain, slope etc? Probably about one-tenth of the number in Welsh.
Hilly
I parked nose-in on my little parking pull-in last night, which is on something like a 12% slope, leaving the front of the car rather higher than the rear. I had to free-wheel back out and get on the level before the engine would start. Not doing that again with a low petrol tank.
it's all the same to them
[Rosie] Heuvel for hill, helling for slope, and berg for mountain. No mention of bluffs, cliffs, butte, downs. (Although duine for dune). My knowledge of Dutch is not encyclopaedic, but they very rarely get mentioned. Here, the kids go toboganning down the edges of the dijks (they don't all end in water - some have fields/houses/roads on both sides); maximum run = about 15 metres max.
(pen) Houses on both sides? I thought the purpose of a dyke/dijk was to hold back water in emergency so isn't that a bit like building houses on the beach? Have I got his right? As to hilly words, I imagine Afrikaans must have a few because South Africa is pretty steep at the edges.
(Phil) Must have been very low. But how did you get up there in the first place?
[Rosie] It's just a little pull-in, about 50% longer than my car, but is rather a steep slope up to the garage (which I don't use...for the car). I think that's only about the 5th time I've gone in nose first in the 5 months I've been parking there. It might have been coincidence that the engine wouldn't fire until I was on the level, as the tank still has enough about 3 gallons in (approx)
Anyone in London on saturday?
*Cross-post alert*
Just a nudge that there is a get-together this Saturday afternoon in London. Details on the Pilgrim page at Orange
sacrificial houses
[Rosie] There's a concept of sacrificial land - the water is going to come up 'so far' but no further. I think the same is thought of some of the houses. Besides, the flood would only reach the bottom half of your house where the washing machine, bikes and canoes are kept. The living room and kitchen are usually at the same level as the road running along the top of the dyke.
The Cruel Sea
(pen) Ah! The Dutch must be a stoic lot. I'm happy on my hill but ironically a few million years ago it was a beach, which accounts for the deposits of rounded pebbles a couple of miles away, the so-called Blackheath Beds.
back at my desk
There's thick and dull fog obscuring the whole of Rotterdam from my 6th floor office window this morning. Yet as I drove off the ferry which arrived in Rotterdam from Blighty this morning, I was almost blinded by the sun shining into the off-ramp. Oh well. Never mind. The eggs, sausage and bacon on board this morning was very nice.
coincidental food
No fog here, but I do have egg, sausage and bacon on some bread, which I find tastier than a board.
Calling a plate a plate by any other name would taste as tasty
Funnily enough, 'plate' in Dutch is 'bord'.
egging on
Oh come on everyone... don't make the whole front page look like it's 'me, me, me'. Say something!
something (oblig.)
arrow_circle_down
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