[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.

[nfras], [Dujon], [Rosie],[Raak], and [nights], why spell it when you can sing it? Do you know of this song?

Brits readily occupy cable cars on London's island. And you need this song, too.

"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!

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.

[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?

[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.

[CdM] You're an economist. You like everything cut.

Has everyone had a nice 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 _. ;)

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,

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?

[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...

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.

!

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.