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.

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.

Let's see if that's worked...

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.

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?

... I should check that those who aren't can still gain entry if they are legitimate.

That worked!

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.

[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.

[penelope] Was it not Little Britain that did the Slimming Club, I though League of Gentlemen was the Dole office meetings.

[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.

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.

[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?

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.