Early Risers.

[woodenhead]

As a child I enjoyed the 'Riverboat' series by Philip Jose Farmer - a science fiction story about all the inhabitants of the planet earth going to a new planet when they die.

 

I guess it was a case of taking religion and the idea of life after death and applying a science fiction slant to it.  Was an enjoyable read without placing too many suspensions of laws of physics into the mix.

 

What I don't like about science fiction is the excuse to ignore the laws of physics, however, without such suspension or bending then really there couldn't be any science fiction.

 

Damn my need for logic..🤣

[DaveF]

I thought Mills and Boon came under the heading of comics not books and no, I do not read them.

 

I had a short walk this morning which did me good and said hello to the bin men as they worked their away along the road.

 

Since then I've read, watched some YouTube, had lunch, a nap and watched a cab ride on the MOB in Switzerland.  I've also received a few phone calls, I think they all want to know what I remember about the surgery - not a lot as I was under a general anaesthetic.

 

It's been mild and sunny much of the day so it has felt very pleasant.

 

David

[Tony_S]

14 minutes ago, Ian Abel said:

Evening had us watching what I'd consider a MUST SEE on Netflix (maybe other platforms elsewhere in the world) -

It is also on Netflix in the UK.  

[jamie92208]

Good evening g, very late on Parade today. Ears lowered first thing then Beth and I set off to Angouleme. The main point of the expedition was for her to see an orthopod about her shoulder.  First we fou d the hospital des

Ite road works and closed roads and sussed out where to park.  Them lunch at a Chinese buffet followed by some shopping north of the town.  Finally we saw the surgeon. The bad news is that her rotator cuff has gone missing.  The good news is that he can fix it with a new style of prosthesis thst has the ball on tbe shoulder blade and the socket in the Humerus.  He wants to move quickly so there is much to do in the coming days.  

 

Jamie

[PupCam]

 

Evening All!

 

5 hours ago, Flanged Wheel said:

Despite being an Olympic-class reader, and studying physics at university, I’ve never got into science fiction (beyond HHGTTG & even that was better as the original radio series).

 

 

Agreed!     The original radio play was by far the best form.    

 

4 hours ago, southern42 said:

I am more your occasional fiction reader. As a kid it started with Enid Blyton adventure books and progressed onto other out in the countryside fiction adventure books.

 

Anyone here remember the Billy Brewster stories?   About the height of my early fiction reading.     Never really did take to fiction.

 

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

I found this amongst the books Mrs iD read as a teenager and never threw away.

 

One for @DaveF or @Gwiwer perhaps?

 

Here!   That's not our correspondent from the Distant Signal (West) as a younger man is it?       He kept that sort of business quiet.

 

ION

 

Had a great day with the two Junior Junior Puppers (its half-term this week hereabouts).    Elder JJP has a fascination with floods at the moment so we went over to Great Barford to see how the Great Ouse is doing.     It is at least river shaped again although, as you can see, there doesn't seem to be much use for the weir and the lock at the moment still!   I think the drop is ~6'-8'   normally.

 

 

 

TTFN

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 20 by PupCam

[Hroth]

31 minutes ago, PupCam said:

 

Evening All!

 

 

Agreed!     The original radio play was by far the best form.    

 

 

Anyone here remember the Billy Brewster stories?   About the height of my early fiction reading.     Never really did take to fiction.

 

 

Here!   That's not our correspondent from the Distant Signal (West) as a younger man is it?       He kept that sort of business quiet.

 

ION

 

Had a great day with the two Junior Junior Puppers (its half-term this week hereabouts).    Elder JJP has a fascination with floods at the moment so we went over to Great Barford to see how the Great Ouse is doing.     It is at least river shaped again although, as you can see, there doesn't seem to be much use for the weir and the lock at the moment still!   I think the drop is ~6'-8'   normally.

 

 

 

TTFN

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks as if the fall is currently about 6".

 

About the same as Autherly Stop Lock between the Shroppie and the Staffs&Worcs!

 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. No sign yet of the predicted rain but its getting a bit muggy. If you were asked to name the longest living animal on Earth most of you would probably say a tortoise, but you,d be wrong its this:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_shark#:~:text=The Greenland shark has the,period of 8–18 years.

[Gwiwer]

56 minutes ago, PupCam said:

That's not our correspondent from the Distant Signal (West) as a younger man

Correct. It is not!  
 

Until it faded in the Australian sun the head-gear was officially described as Auburn. 
 

 

[Gwiwer]

26 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Looks as if the fall is currently about 6".

 

About the same as Autherly Stop Lock between the Shroppie and the Staffs&Worcs!

 

That’s even less than Richmond half-tide lock on the Thames. 
 

 

[Coombe Barton]

... Tomorrow I’m running the first gee-up session for those who failed analytics – it’s talk direct and get tough time. See how many turn up. ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/02/20/covid-nothing-new-disagreeing-with-people-and-handover/

[Hroth]

6 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

That’s even less than Richmond half-tide lock on the Thames. 
 

 

 

All to stop the beastly Salopians pinching water from the West Midlands!

 

[Sidecar Racer]

11 hours ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

 Sorry about that , it was on Facebook and would have needed a whole

article opening to find . If it ever pops up again I'll search it out .

 

 

 

 Well that picture turned up again so I opened the page and trawled through a lot

educational stuff , eventually I came to the picture , guess what , no second part .

 

 😡 😡 😡 😡

 

[Dave Hunt]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

The bad news is that her rotator cuff has gone missing.  The good news is that he can fix it with a new style of prosthesis thst has the ball on tbe shoulder blade and the socket in the Humerus.  He wants to move quickly so there is much to do in the coming days.  

 

A friend of ours has recently had that very operation, Jamie, and it has worked a treat; already only a month after the event she has much of the mobility restored and is pain free so I hope that Beth has the same result.

 

Dave  

[monkeysarefun]

14 hours ago, The Lurker said:

Are you being served? To my mind all shows that well outstayed their welcome

 

 

We got two bonus series of  16 episodes of this gem!  Mr Humphries (played by John Inman) is sent to Australia by Mr Grace, to work for his cousins chain down here - Bone Brothers.

All other characters are played by local actors but are doppelgangers of the British cast,  the store layout is eerily similar and even the plots of the episodes are based on the UK ones.

 

 

Why? Who knows!

 

 

Edited February 20 by monkeysarefun

[jjb1970]

I just had a fine example of customer service from Lufthansa, they cancelled the Frankfurt - Brussels sector of a flight from Singapore to Brussels I booked a few weeks ago for April. No offer to reschedule, no offer of a partial refund if I wanted to take a train from Frankfurt, no explanation of options, just a terse e-mail that my connection was 'not granted' despite the flight having been ticketed and confirmed. They didn't even tell me I was eligible for a refund. That'd be unacceptable for any air fare, it's less acceptable if you've paid for a long haul trip in business class. To rub salt in, it took over an hour going around in circles on the phone to get my cancellation and apparently it'll be seven working days to get the refund. I won't be in a hurry to use them again.

[monkeysarefun]

Stormy weather!   Usually our storms arrive from the west, formed over the hot land,  but currently due to something meteorological  with the warm ocean, we are getting awesome almost-daily monsoonal rain style storms that come from the east.

 

I was in the eastern suburbs yesterday when 50mm was dumped in 45 minutes.  This  was my view from the supermarket I was sheltering in:

 

[Tony_S]

5 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Stormy weather

When we were coming home on Saturday evening it wasn’t raining but it had rained heavily earlier. Not far from home there is a junction where you take a slip road bypassing a roundabout. It isn’t lit but I thought it looked as if the road was moving. There was so much water coming off fields, it looked like a river. I slowed down and wasn’t affected but it was unexpected, it doesn’t usually get like that. 

[pH]

11 hours ago, Hroth said:

I've always been a voracious reader.  I remember when I got my first childrens library ticket, and wanted to borrow a volume of an encyclopedia which I was much taken with.  I was most disappointed to be told it was for reference only...

I’ve always been a reader. As a kid, I didn’t want to be restricted to the kids’ section of the library, which you were supposed to be, with a kid’s ticket. Fortunately, one of the librarians was a next-door neighbour, so that was that problem solved.

 

And we’re delighted that our grandkids are all keen readers, two of them especially. Last weekend, our daughter-in-law sent a picture of our 7 year old grandson’s first “proper” haircut i.e. done in a hairdresser’s. To keep him occupied while his hair was cut, the hairdresser offered the choice of a laptop or a book. He took the book and, as is usual with a new book, was totally absorbed for the whole time.

[TheQ]

Of extreme soggyness Norfolk's records go back to 1832, we will exceed the highest rain fall for February ever recorded, and most of the rest of the autumn / winter has been very soggy too.

 

Evening Awl,

 

This evening i let Ben out to meet swmbo who had just arrived from weaving.

Instead of running straight to her, her took a circuitous route avoiding water and mud, then carefully stepped over the muddy tracks from the car wheels to get to her. It takes a lot to make a Border Collie avoid muddy ground.

 

On leaving in the landrover I got a huge vibration from the front wheels, stopped got out check tyres were up and wheels secure , all ok , it did it again, stopped checked again seemed ok. Thought I'll turn round when I can and take the car. But then the shaking stopped and hadn't come back, all I can think of is the wheels picked up a large lump of mud on the inside and went unbalanced. Eventually it got spun off..

 

MRC went well. Although I was feeling rough to start with I felt better later.

We've had some light rain this evening but not a lot. The weather radar shows Gwiwer is getting very wet and it's coming this way.

 

Muggachoccy gone

Good night Awl

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Well I ended up heading out into the garden an getting some gardening done. I’ve had 3 evergreen plants that I’ve I wanted to planted for some time, but was waiting until the summer plants had died off, so I could see where the gaps were. So these all got planted this morning. I’m glad I’d packed away all my gardening tools when I did, as whilst we were having dinner, it started to rain, so the afternoon was spent in the cellar, until ‘Vidal Baboon’s’ hair salon opened and I had my ears lowered. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Today would have been ChrisF's 76th birthday. His Facebook account is still open, how do we close it?

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[Ozexpatriate]

12 hours ago, Flanged Wheel said:

We watched the new Ghostbusters as a family over Christmas.

Ghostbusters Afterlife was a bunch of fun. Nicely tied to the 1984 original (not any of the sequels) extending that storyline.

 

Inevitably, there is a sequel to 'Afterlife on the way.

[Ozexpatriate]

8 hours ago, woodenhead said:

What I don't like about science fiction is the excuse to ignore the laws of physics

There may be physics we haven't discovered yet.

 

Or perhaps dark matter is just another term for the æther.

 

We can live in hope that wormholes/space warp and artificial gravity / antigravity might be realizable. What would John Harrison (of chronometer fame) have made of GPS?