The Night Mail

[Tony_S]

13 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

but his UFO conspiracy beliefs are unshakable.

Although I couldn’t agree with my family member I was interested why an otherwise very intelligent person could hold such beliefs to the extent of deriding those of us who were sceptical of alternative views and accepted rational beliefs. I always thought being sceptical and rational  were good attributes but not in  conspiracy world. At least he believed in vaccines and the Apollo moon landings. I have been reading a book (published by MiT , not run off on a home printer) looking at why so many people believe paranormal or conspiracy theories. I don’t think my relative will be buying it. He has of course written and published a book about his psychic journey. We were sent a free copy. I must admit I haven’t read it. Aditi opened it and there was a chapter all about her father’s final weeks in hospital and death. Names had been changed but she was absolutely livid and upset. She hasn’t ever mentioned it to him. We have been told that messages have been “received” both from Aditi’s Dad and Matthew. I tried to be nice in the past and just said you have had some dreams not messages. Aditi told me she nearly said “why would Matthew communicate with you, he didn’t like you”. Communication now seems like that between the two Korea’s with I suspect Aditi’s brother having the role of Sweden or Switzerland. 
Tony

[SM42]

The problem with trying to be rational with the conspiracy theorist is that they mark you down a s gullible or part of the problem. 

 

A bit like those who just dismiss stuff as fake news. 

 

No matter how much evidence you put forward  it's all a lie. 

 

Anything that doesn't confrm their view is to be ignored. 

 

I do regret not starting one about Covid vaccinations along the lines of:

 

It's all made up, but the vaccinations are to protect the gullible and easily led when the real virus is released by the world elite,  thus eradicating all those who fight back and threaten to expose them. 

 

Would have been fun to watch some heads implode.  

 

 

Andy

[SM42]

I will soon be departing for the local church for the blessing of the food baskets 

 

Services started at 10am and will take place about every 15 minutes till 4 pm or thereabouts. 

 

Travelling anywhere near a church today will not ensure quick passage. 

 

Andy

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

There is an assumption anyone who's worked in or on radar must have seen or know about UFOs..

Not one ever..

That's because the UFOs have cloaking devices to hide from our primitive detection systems.

 

After 10 pints of Guinness and the same number of Blackbush whiskey chasers, I've seen plenty of UFOs, and the star system they've come from.

[Tony_S]

4 minutes ago, SM42 said:

I will soon be departing for the local church for the blessing of the food baskets 

 

Services started at 10am and will take place about every 15 minutes till 4 pm or thereabouts. 

 

Travelling anywhere near a church today will not ensure quick passage. 

 

Andy

Matthew volunteered at a Polish charity in Cork. The administrator said when she and her husband first arrived in Ireland they took their food along to the local Catholic Church to be blessed. The priest knew nothing of this practice. He asked them to wait and came back, looking happy and did the deed. They asked if he had gone to read about it.   He said he had rung the Vatican for advice and it was perfectly fine for him to bless the food. Some churches in Ireland have predominantly Polish congregations now.  

[Tony_S]

45 minutes ago, SM42 said:

the real virus is released by the world elite,

The absolutely horrible respiratory virus I have at the moment  might be a contender…

[Happy Hippo]

With the Reading mob descending on us tomorrow evening, one would think that we are running frantically around trying to get the place sorted out prior to their arrival.

 

Far from it:  We are busy making the most of the better weather before it folds back into cold and rain on Monday.

 

Yesterday I finally got around to planting out the potato tubers: As usual the heavens waited patiently until I was 60% through the task before opening.  This ensured I was clean from mud before I got back to the house.

 

This morning I was tasked with assisting in planting ut the broad beans and then weeding the ornamental bed between the vegetable plot and the lawn.

 

I came to the conclusion that the garden is quite boggy after all the rain we've had.

 

However, compared to next door's field, our garden is obviously suffering a drought.

 

This afternoon ought to be taken up with the conversion of more useful timber into sawdust and shavings.

[GMKAT7]

Good afternoon folks,

 

In a similar vein to Happy Hippo, I once had a UFO experience after a rather long August Bank Holiday marinating my liver with Bass. It was quite dark when we were finally ejected from the Black Horse pub.

 

Walking along the main road home (I was on the pavement) I noticed a bright, white light in front of me. As it came closer I was convinced that it was aliens coming for me.

 

Only when it was right on top of me was it revealed to be the police helicopter.

The walk home after that encounter was a lot more sober 😂

 

Cheers, Nigel.

 

[NHY 581]

5 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

With the Reading mob descending on us tomorrow evening, one would think that we are running frantically around trying to get the place sorted out prior to their arrival.

 

Oh come on H. It's not particularly arduous. As long as they have a few books and magazines to flick through there shouldn't be too much trouble. They'll only get fractious if the tea and cake runs out. Keep them supplied whilst they're perusing a few copies of Rubber and Plastic Weekly and they should be pleasant enough. 

 

 

[Steamport Southport]

3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

The boys who controlled access to the sixth form common room music system were very keen on Stockhausen and the more atonal end of jazz and progressive rock. Any other music was derided.  I have happily listened to what I like since then. Interestingly I think now that they had cult like attributes and the rest of us “couldn’t be expected to appreciate their erudition”. Similarly, I have had to put up for years with criticism from one extended family member as I just can’t share his beliefs about conspiracy theories and paranormal stuff. Fortunately I am no longer required to politely tolerate as I have ceased communicating with him after he really annoyed me. Annoyed, as in got me so livid, I needed my angina spray. 

 

The only "proper" music I don't get is Jazz.

 

I don't mean like swing or traditional, but all that improvised stuff. Not that I particularly like the normal Jazz either....

 

 

[Dave Hunt]

39 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I came to the conclusion that the garden is quite boggy after all the rain we've had.

 

Your honorary horticulture and meteorological BSc is in the post...

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

The absolutely horrible respiratory virus I have at the moment  might be a contender…

 

If it's anything like the one I've just had I really don't want to be part of that elite ever again; it was 'orrible. Fortunately it is virtually gone because had I gone to the hospital for my operation next Tuesday whilst under its influence they would have refused me admission.

 

Dave

[SM42]

As predicted traffic  chaos around the church. 

 

The service before the one we took part in

 

Note the large plastic drum of holy water in the foreground

 

 

Wesolych Swiat 

 

Andy

[Dave Hunt]

The weather in North Hipposhire is quite reasonable and I am pretty much over the lurgy; unfortunately that means that I am out of excuses not to undertake a session of clearing blanket weed out of the pond. Apparently it was imported from Australia. I wish they'd kept it to themselves.

 

Dave

[polybear]

3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Similarly, I have had to put up for years with criticism from one extended family member as I just can’t share his beliefs about conspiracy theories and paranormal stuff. Fortunately I am no longer required to politely tolerate as I have ceased communicating with him after he really annoyed me. Annoyed, as in got me so livid, I needed my angina spray. 

 

Bear can recommend a tactical swing from a lump of three by two......

[Oldddudders]

3 hours ago, Canal Digger said:

I have a wide taste in music, however one slightly strange thing is Musical Theatre, have watched some of the 'classic' film musicals, which left me cold, watched (or got involved backstage locally) the same musical live, fantastic! Is it an emotional thing, where you are involved?

Involvement - 'even' as stage-crew, a vital role in any production - does increase one's pride in anything. Sherry and her now-ex were involved with Rugeley Musical Theatre Company for years when they lived in Little Haywood, not least as Secretary and Chairman. When she now looks at contemporary videos, she can see the poor standards they were able to achieve. But that is partly due to being involved with TOADS (Torquay Operatic & Dramatic Society) where a much larger membership, and ownership of a 220-tiered-seat auditorium enables 9 plays per year to a very high standard. 

 

I joined TOADS when Sherry and I got together in 2014, but had no ambition to act, instead being FOH Manager etc. But when a vacancy arose late in a play's development I was not slow to accept the request to give it a try. My first acting role, with 4 costume changes and quite a bit of dialogue here and there was a tall order at 73, but 'Allo 'Allo survived 13 performances, despite my being Leclerc. And we made nearly £20k. The buzz was there. 

[NHY 581]

1 minute ago, Dave Hunt said:

unfortunately that means that I am out of excuses not to undertake a session of clearing blanket weed out of the pond. Apparently it was imported from Australia. I wish they'd kept it to themselves.

 

Dave

 

To be fair, over the years, we did send them a fair amount of undesirables. They're just getting their own back.

 

 

[Oldddudders]

1 minute ago, NHY 581 said:

To be fair, over the years, we did send them a fair amount of undesirables. They're just getting their own back.

Including my aunt and uncle, who set sail on Canberra many years ago, only to come back some years later. Pity. 

[Tony_S]

I did go out into the garden but only to pick up the garden chairs that blew about a couple of days ago . I also went next door to retrieve the wrongly delivered (no house number) package  that Evri had delivered. Neighbours were so scared they were about to have a break in they were preparing to return from Wales. Anyway I used the extract text from image tool and got the correct tracking number (it wasn't what it looked like!) and over the road neighbour phoned people along the road he had done building jobs for to,see if they knew who the named person was. It was one of those names that can either be a forename or surname. The mysterious visitor at the neighbours was the young man who had contacted Evri and had come looking for the front door shown in their photo. Anyway the nice lad had been united with his packages, the neighbours have been calmed down and will enjoy Easter in North Wales. I asked my neighbour to withdraw her police report of the suspicious character at their door. She had done so.

 

Edited March 30 by Tony_S

[AndyID]

1 hour ago, GMKAT7 said:

Good afternoon folks,

 

In a similar vein to Happy Hippo, I once had a UFO experience after a rather long August Bank Holiday marinating my liver with Bass. It was quite dark when we were finally ejected from the Black Horse pub.

 

Walking along the main road home (I was on the pavement) I noticed a bright, white light in front of me. As it came closer I was convinced that it was aliens coming for me.

 

Only when it was right on top of me was it revealed to be the police helicopter.

The walk home after that encounter was a lot more sober 😂

 

Cheers, Nigel.

 

 

Many, many years ago my friend Alastair and I were returning from the pub in Aviemore to the campsite at Loch Morlich in his sister's 1955 VW. The conversation went something like this:

 

"OMG Alastair! There's a policeman standing on the back bumper and he's shining his torch in the rear window. What are we going to do?"

 

It turned out that a torch in the storage space behind the back seat had been switched on and it was pointing vertically up at the rear window.

[Danemouth]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

As predicted traffic  chaos around the church. 

 

The service before the one we took part in

 

Note the large plastic drum of holy water in the foreground

 

 

Wesolych Swiat 

 

Andy

 

A Catholic Church where I am sacristan in the capital of the Principality is shared with the Polish community did exactly the same thing this morning

 

Dave

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

Involvement - 'even' as stage-crew, a vital role in any production - does increase one's pride in anything. Sherry and her now-ex were involved with Rugeley Musical Theatre Company for years when they lived in Little Haywood, not least as Secretary and Chairman. When she now looks at contemporary videos, she can see the poor standards they were able to achieve. But that is partly due to being involved with TOADS (Torquay Operatic & Dramatic Society) where a much larger membership, and ownership of a 220-tiered-seat auditorium enables 9 plays per year to a very high standard. 

 

I joined TOADS when Sherry and I got together in 2014, but had no ambition to act, instead being FOH Manager etc. But when a vacancy arose late in a play's development I was not slow to accept the request to give it a try. My first acting role, with 4 costume changes and quite a bit of dialogue here and there was a tall order at 73, but 'Allo 'Allo survived 13 performances, despite my being Leclerc. And we made nearly £20k. The buzz was there. 

The buzz of live theatre - I absolutely love it!

And when you get to a certain level of AmDram it becomes indistinguishable to (and sometime better than) professional theatre.

 

I’ve been lucky enough to act in a semi professional capacity, and to work for incredibly demanding directors – which meant I was pushed to the limit of what I could do on stage in terms of stagecraft, and then some. 
 

Buried amongst my video media is a recording of a performance of the last play I was in; the one where I played a perverted sex murderer (a really fun role to play). The play was put on by a semi professional theatre company and because of that, performances and standards were incredibly high.
 

I normally do not like watching myself perform (although I do have recordings of all my performances somewhere or other - taken so that I could improve my acting), but when I watched my last performance, my first thought was “what an evil creepy old guy”. it really was slightly schizophrenic watching on the video someone who looks like me, but was behaving and speaking absolutely nothing like me!

[iL Dottore]

Conspiracies and “modern classical music“.

I hope that you will indulge in me as I merge the two topics and come to the conclusion that:

 

There is a conspiracy amongst the lizard people and the elite to force us to like “modern music” composers, by thrusting the likes of Benjamin Britten, Harrison Birtwhistle, and Luciano Berio down our throats whilst ruthlessly suppressing those modern composers, like Arvo Part and Jodie Talbot, who really know how to write tuneful music. Once we tolerate atonal music, we will be ripe for brainwashing by atonal musical neural reprogramming.

 

Thank you, I shall now retire and put on my tinfoil pyjamas….

[Erichill16]

4 hours ago, TheQ said:

There is an assumption anyone who's worked in or on radar must have seen or know about UFOs..

Not one ever..

Ah, but you would say that wouldn't you!

[Willie Whizz]

2 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

The only "proper" music I don't get is Jazz.

 

I don't mean like swing or traditional, but all that improvised stuff. Not that I particularly like the normal Jazz either....

 

 

I have a strange relationship with jazz. I can listen to three or four tunes - say 10-15 minutes, and thoroughly enjoy it, especially live. But sit me down to listen to a whole CD-ful and I’m climbing the walls beyond half-way through …