Visiting my students on their apprenticeships and seeing them really excited and enthusiastic about what they're doing. Whenever I start getting a bit cynical about teaching, I think about a student excitedly showing me the production line that he's now responsible for maintaining. Warm glowy feelings a-go-go.

[nights] could I ask what/where you teach?

[Bismarck] You can indeed - I teach at a further education college in France on the local equivalent of an HND in Industrial Maintenance and another in Physical Measurement. Our kids are training to be maintenance or metrology techs of all stripes, or to go on to further study at engineering school. My speciality is technical and scientific English, as the French have finally realised that all the innovation in the world is useless if no-one can understand them. I'm also involved in the administration of our apprenticeship scheme, and I genuinely feel like I've found my niche. [/advert]

[Nights] Anything to do with IUT Louis Pasteur (near Strasbourg) or Karim Kalfane's maintenance programme?

[Bismarck] Er, yes indeed - Karim just retired in October! I've taken over two of his apprentices!

Wandering through Google Earth in a VR headset. Rome, Florence, Burning Man, all right there in my computer room.

Getting my Jehovah's Witness advent calender. Every time you open a door, someone tells you to piss off.

Mobile phone signal in the Channel Tunnel "Hi! I'm in the car! On a train! In a tunnel! Under the sea! Etc!"

Doughnut season. Hot and fresh from the baker and, although not the anglo-saxon kind, soft and delicious. Lovely just with cinnamon and sugar.

[nights] Shame on you, hunting innocent doughnuts

London. If I had seven zeros in my bank account I’d live here. Instead I content myself with visiting from time to time. London Festival of Baroque Music this weekend (and all week, but a weekend is a long enough break).

(Raak) 10^-8p should last several nanoseconds.

[Rosie] But what nanoseconds!

(Raak) Indeed, but what about the other 10¹⁸ or so?

I have a new pleasure to add: Using 'phut' as an expletive.

Experiencing a good night-time thunderstorm. There's just been one here but they were a lot more frequent in the '50s and '60s.

A follow-on from the last: florid and exuberant words.
Bamboozle, euphonium, badonkadonk, oleaginous, hornswoggle, sonorous... 'Exuberant' itself, for that matter.

Using singular verbs for "none" as it sure as heck isn't plural
Something I have inherited from my late dad is saying, for example, "none of them is even remotely competent". It genuinely gives me pleasure in a way that using the subjunctive in conversation no longer does.

(Phil) Similarly, Not inserting an intrusive "r", as in "Aston Villa is a football club."

Seeing someone rocking cool or fun clothes
Sharp blue trouser suit, fluorescent orange heels - although it did look like the heels were killing her

Having just moved to Sheffield ("that city of razors and knives" - John Betjeman), getting in a pint for well under a fiver. This is a beer city for sure.

[Raak] What a ... creature. And we're told, "The tasselled wobbegong can be readily identified by the fringe of dermal lobes on its head." Which is all well and good, but I can't help but notice that the reader is left entirely to their own devices for identifying which part is the head.

"The tasselled wobbegong can be..." A sentence worthy of Jack Vance!

Getting a birthday present from Waitrose I was nattering away to an assistant and mentioned I'd just had a birthday. He reached up to the shelf and pulled down a box of chocolates and said "I've seen you here quite a lot so have this on the house". I'd scoffed the lot by the end of the evening.

Confusing students thoroughly by using measurements in teragrams. I've always said I became a teacher chiefly to amuse myself.

(nights) That's about a million tons, innit? Have you thought of using attoparsecs? It's about 3 cm, a little over an inch.

I've been into TikTok lately and sometimes there's this really awesome pianist that does at-home piano bars. It makes me so happy as do all of the people that come in for them. Sometimes he has gigs that he's allowed to broadcast on TikTok and that makes me happy, too. And the regulars come in, too.

Reading the thought: "We need free speech, that's how we find out who all the idiots are"

Wide window sills
Yes, it's a bit random, but I chanced to be reminded of it this evening, so I'm putting it in. When I was a kid, my house has wide window sills. Wide enough for a kid to sit on. And in the summer, I used to sit on the window sill and read for hours after my bedtime, sometimes till 4am or so, I suspect. The only risk of being spotted would have been if my parents decided to go into the garden, which they basically never did after about 6pm, any time of year. Some of my friends' houses had or have yucky, narrow window sills, and I always viewed them (the sills, that is) with disdain. My current house also has nice wide window sills everywhere, and while I no longer need them as ad-hoc midnight seating, they're still handy for plant pots, ornaments and things. It's only a little thing, almost inconsequential really, but that's what little pleasures are all about, so I'm putting it in this game.

Posting on behalf of something or someone else: Seeing a frog, jumping out of a lap, and nosing at said frog in order to make it jump and then finding it and nosing it again and making it jump.

Discovering that the Internet has the lyrics to the songs on Faust Tapes inside it.
J'ais mal aux dents, J'ais mal aux pieds aussie
J'ais mal aux dents, J'ais mal aux pieds aussie
J'ais mal aux dents, J'ais mal aux pieds aussie

Getting food delivered when you aren't feeling good.

(Stevie) Woss wrong with yer feet, cobber?

[Superman] Other people's schadenfreude makes me sad.

Moving your limbs I'm not so keen on getting too hot, or too cold, or rained on, or achey or blistered or whatever, but physical activity is undeniably a net plus even if there are a few flies in the ointment.

[SM] The flies are the best part!