Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[alastairq]

17 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

The last inhabitant was a cat.

If the not-my-cats that visit from next door are anything to go by, the cat would be the only living thing capable of eating everything else without a qualm...

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, alastairq said:

If the not-my-cats that visit from next door are anything to go by, the cat would be the only living thing capable of eating everything else without a qualm...

 

I have a vague idea the whole story may have been told from the cat's point of view, which was on top of the church tower...

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

There was a children's book I read back in the 70s and dimly remember, in which an English costal village broke free and drifted off southwards over the equator and finally ended up in the Antarctic ice. The last inhabitant was a cat.

In the context of this conversation, the moral of that would appear to be: 'be careful what you wish for!'  

Jim

Edited December 6, 2021 by Caley Jim

[Annie]

6 hours ago, Edwardian said:

So, this is Northern Powergrid's live power cut map this morning. The power went off on the night of Friday, 26th November, so these folk are 10 days into their involuntary return to the Middle Ages.  Outside the NPG supply area, I assume there are also still people without power. 

 

 

It's enough to make a ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In just 10 days we can make you a peasant.

 

Seriously though that's pretty darn awful.  When I was living on an offshore island for a time the power would often go out when we got the Winter storms coming in.  Three days was about the worst we had from memory, but with it being a small community we knew very well that the local power board guys would be out in it all carrying their gear across the salt marsh or through the bush where there wasn't road access. 

Where I was living at the time we didn't have the power on so it didn't make much difference to us personally, but it still wasn't a good feeling knowing that the power board guys were out in it all trying to get things reconnected again.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Annie
more to say

[alastairq]

To be fair, when the actual map is expanded, it doesn't look so bad....each blob being a separate, reported, incident.

 

Trouble with the mapping is, the blobs don't contract with the scale of the maps.

[Nearholmer]

Another interesting lecture from the Newcomen Society 

 

[Ramblin Rich]

Labour MP admits to accidently switching on No 10 Christmas lights early

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/10/labour-mp-admits-accidently-switching-on-no-10-christmas-lights-early

 

I especially like the fact that the lights later failed to work when the Pifflemeister tried to switch them on!

[Edwardian]

Good gag on R4 today: No 10's Christmas 2020 Schrödinger's Party (it can be simultaneously considered to have happened and not to have happened).

[Compound2632]

Just now, Edwardian said:

Good gag on R4 today: No 10's Christmas 2020 Schrödinger's Party (it can be simultaneously considered to have happened and not to have happened).

 

Only until it has been observed. As far as I can find out, the measurement has been made. 

 

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.

[Dunsignalling]

Just now, Compound2632 said:

 

Only until it has been observed. As far as I can find out, the measurement has been made. 

 

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.

And when the door was opened, all within were found to be (brain) dead.

[Edwardian]

12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Only until it has been observed. As far as I can find out, the measurement has been made. 

 

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.

 

12 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

And when the door was opened, all within were found to be (brain) dead.

 

Hence my favourite (and only) Schrödinger joke. I know I've posted some version of it before, but I am easily pleased and such things never get old for me.

 

So,

 

Schrödinger is pulled over by the police and the officer asks to check inside his car boot.

 

"Oh", the policeman then says to Schrödinger, "Did you know there's a dead cat in the boot?"

 

"Well", says Schrödinger, "there is now"

[Annie]

[Annie]

[Edwardian]

Now we have Johnson's Law: The number of parties that may, or may not, have taken place will expand to fill the capacity of the enquiry into them. 

[Nearholmer]

It’s all a sort of mirror version of The Christmas Carol, in which a ludicrously profligate, and excessively merry old scrivener brings the Cratchit family to misery by involving his Chief Clerk, Mrs Cratchit, in a completely OTT office party, during which she photo-copies her nether regions and posts copies round the premises, and after which she gets home (unable to remember how) at three o’clock in the morning, and ends up sleeping comatose on the hall floor.
 

He is then visited by The Ghost of Dominic Cummings, and The Enquiry into Christmases Past, which seek to teach him the error of his ways, and set him on a better path.
 

The Enquiry into Christmases Yet to Come, then shows him a vision of the Cratchits smiling and happy, gathered around a restored Mrs Cratchit, who has got home early following a very modest office party involving one dry Sherry each, a stultifyingly dull speech incorporating weak jokes, and lots of very forced bonhomie between staff members who wouldn’t normally be seen dead talking with one another, which was over by six o’clock, much to the relief of all involved.

 

But, by then it’s all too late. The bells of Christmas toll, and we see Mrs Cratchit, alone at her kitchen table, weeping into her hankie, regretting for the rest of her life ever having had anything to do with the old scrivener, who she knows will continue to blunder forward through life, leaving a trail of human wreckage behind him.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Here is an engraving from the book, showing the start of the office party, which suggest another version of the story, with Falstaff as the PM.

 

 

 

 

[Edwardian]

And then, on 15th December 2020, there was the Downing Street Christmas Quiz, in which the PM "briefly took part virtually" to thank staff for their work during the pandemic.

 

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Falstaff as the PM

Falstaff was funny, and although bathed in pathos, very human…

[alastairq]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Here is an engraving from the book, showing the start of the office party, which suggest another version of the story, with Falstaff as the PM.

 

 

 

 

 

Some ''large ladies'' there...?

[alastairq]

Pardon my higgerance, but.....what are these ''office parties'' that seem to be the topic of conversation all the time?

 

HAving never had, or wanted, an ''office'' [never mind a thing called a 'desk?]  involved in any of my 50 years of money-grabbin' earning....It all seems to me to be 'other-wordly'....

 

Whatever happened to a quick ''merry Christmas'' and soddin' off home  as quickly as possible?

I must admit to preferring to scootle off home to family etc, than to hang around having to listen to pretentious majors spouting their Sandhurst-created waffle n bull...

I'm too darned large for small talk....

 

Spent 2 minutes booking a booster jabber, and 26 hours trying to cancel it...

[Nearholmer]

This could get me in a lot of trouble, but the woman on Falstaff’s knee instantly reminded me of our neighbour two doors along (not in demeanour, I hasten to add, only stature).

[alastairq]

1 minute ago, Nearholmer said:

This could get me in a lot of trouble, but the woman on Falstaff’s knee instantly reminded me of our neighbour two doors along (not in demeanour, I hasten to add, only stature).

 Not the sort of social behaviour one needs if in the early stages of osteoporosis?

[uax6]

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

This could get me in a lot of trouble, but the woman on Falstaff’s knee instantly reminded me of our neighbour two doors along (not in demeanour, I hasten to add, only stature).

And your address is....?

 

Andy G

[Edwardian]

6 minutes ago, uax6 said:

And your address is....?

 

Andy G

 

Don't need a house number, he'll show up on Google Earth

[Compound2632]

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

This could get me in a lot of trouble, but the woman on Falstaff’s knee instantly reminded me of our neighbour two doors along

 

You're still suffering from the sprain?