Early Risers.

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Lots of cloud here with one or two blue patches of sky.  Some sunny spells expected and it will be a dry, warm and breezy day but not as hot as yesterday. 13°C rising to 21°C.

Feeling rather achy today as I spent a bit of time  in the garden yesterday tidying up and doing things requested by Management.   We even had a BBQ in the evening but just for the two of us.

Herself has been in whirling dervish mode since our return from our cruise on Friday.  I think the washing machine was fired up within 20 minutes of us getting home!

We had an Ocado delivery booked for Friday evening and that went rather pear-shaped.  Very sheepish driver knocked and said "There's a bit of a problem with your delivery."   Somehow a bottle of brandy got broken and saturated about half of our order so lots of stuff had to be rejected. A large credit along with a voucher off our next shop for the inconvenience has been received.  We ended up doing a shopping trip to Sainsbury's on Saturday morning as it was quicker than waiting for Ocado to re-deliver although they did offer a slot between 11.00pm and midnight on Friday which we rejected as we expected to be in the Land of Nod by then.

I have avoided talking about rugby, suffice to say that Quins have come a cropper...twice.

The Eurovision Carpfest has been avoided in this household for many years however I too enjoyed watching the Eagles LA concert again.

Today there will be some unspecified pottering ©ChrisF although one thing that I may do is try to find a reasonably priced*portable air conditioner for The Shed,  it got rather hot in there yesterday.  Been meaning to do it for ages but keep putting it off.

*Err, anyone know what a reasonable price for such a thing is?

Timetogettamoveon according to Herself, she's always in a hurry.  I'm not.

Have a good one,

Bob.

Edited May 13 by grandadbob

[Tony_S]

41 minutes ago, polybear said:

bet no-one messed about in his lessons though….could do with a few of those today….

If no one misbehaved , why was he chucking dividers around then? 

[TheQ]

Also consider the university effect, in days gone past those in TV had come from many industries and walks of life. Today a great many have taken " media studies" at school through to university level. So they all come out with the same bland outlook..

 

I hate talking heads programmes, a dozen people saying a few words each, instead of a single presenter.

 

Just took another thorn out of my forepaws, decided I'd better get some thorne proof gloves..

 

Amazon says I did a couple of years ago... I suspect swmbo put them somewhere safe and I've not seen them since.

 

Mooring Awl,

No sleep, still only  Aurora Bactongasworks, 4.5 hours sleep daylight,  long awake, 2 hours sleep.

 

Ben the happy Collie enjoyed his patrol again,  heavy dew again, 100% blue Welkin, 15C out there warm for the time of day.

 

Of getting things online, brain went into overdrive, during the long awake ordered no less than 4 items, 2 modelling not for unmentionables, but left overs might be, two for sail making. The sail making is marine eyelet grommets, and tools,  somewhat better quality than the cheap and nasties mostly sold on eBay. A pack of 5 eyelets cost the same as over 400 cheap eyelets.

 

Plans for today,

Make a couple of hooks for SWMBO's new loom, they are to stop a shaft spinning when she wants.

Spinny thingy,

Check MRC bank account to see if the card reader payment arrived.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 13 by TheQ

[jjb1970]

I am really excelling myself next month. I got an invite to a meeting in Germany to discuss reducing GHG emissions (what else?) organised at short notice. So I cancelled my existing flight to Tokyo and booked a flight Singapore - Frankfurt - Tokyo - Singapore. I get home on Saturday morning and then fly to Copenhagen to talk about the urgent need to emit less. My daughter gave me an ear bashing last night, I told her not to blame me, I have no real desire to spend a large part of the month flying around. I have to say, it is ridiculous.

 

The thing I was slightly annoyed about other than the obvious of such a meeting being called at short notice is I had to cancel my Tokyo trip with Asiana as they're an excellent airline and will soon disappear into Korean Air. I now fly with Air China, another airline I like but I fear this was my last opportunity to fly with Asiana. Their food offering is superb, well it is if you like Korean food. 

[Erichill16]

Morning All,

Early riser today. Already at the hoapital in Sheffield for my delayed annual check up. May be some interesting results today. The test has taken a year to complete but I’m not sure if the tests will reveal anything. 
Robert

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, from a dull but dry rock, 15c currently and torrential rain predicto-guessed for later.

 

Some washing action then off to Screwfix for parts for a Mrs NHN project, (therefore a priority) and maybe pop in to see Trackshack John on the way home as he's not very well currently.

 

Later, who knows, but I suspect dusting and vacuuming may feature.  Pah.

[Gwiwer]

9 hours ago, zarniwhoop said:

Assumed I'd missed the Aurora (forecast for Saturday night was much less powerful), but noticed on BBC news mid-evening that there was a possibility between 11pm and 2a.m. They also showed coast cloud down here. Went out a few minutes ago - they were right about the cloud, total cover.

 

 

 

10 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

And that is what I shall say when I head off to bed in a moment.  And then the aurora alarm goes off.  It's looking possible on screen but it's not looking possible outside with cloud at 8/8.  

 

It's also dark so I wouldn't be able to see anything anyway 🤣

Sure enough the aurora alarm pinged at 2.30am and woke me. 
 

There was a “red alert” suggesting visibility by both camera and eye anywhere in the UK.  The interference level was rather high and a second source suggested around a 40% chance of an aurora. 
 

The rain beating on the windows told me it wasn’t worth getting out of bed for. Total cloud cover. 
 

Captain Slackbladder was relieved that I had been woken so it wasn’t entirely pointless. 
 

Welcome to Moanday. We are threatened with a return of the sun after lunch. 

[iL Dottore]

An interesting bit of trivia that touches on some of the topics we've discussed (albeit tangentially).

 

Last Friday I met up with some chums and acquaintances - a few of whom are in a Guards Regiment. Jokingly, I asked if all the officers were still "wuperts and wodneys". They laughed and said that was not the case anymore - anyone, from any background, could become an officer in HM Army except for the Guards Regiments - where because the regimental requirement is for the officers to pay their mess bills promptly and as in the Guards Regiments the monthly mess bill is usually more than what a junior officer earns in month - this effectively limits the officers of these regiments to the scions of wealthy families.

 

A similar situation exists in media: most entry level paying media jobs require the applicant to have garnered experience through unpaid internships. But as such internships tend to be concentrated in London (not a city friendly to the unwaged youngster), it's only those youngsters with wealthy parents that can afford to do an an unpaid internship in London. "Mummy or Daddy knowing someone" (aka nepotism) is also an important aspect.

Edited May 13 by iL Dottore
Word missing

[Hroth]

Currently sunny with clouds gathering around the edges, light wind, warmish.  Rain is promised by the Met Office from 5pm, and from 2pm by the BBC seaweed observers.  Oh Joy!

 

I just thought, my first sentence was verging on a Shipping Forecast report from coastal stations style...

 

 

Edited May 13 by Hroth
A Thort.

[Winslow Boy]

That sounds a bit like how grounds maintenance operatives ( please note that doesn't include gardeners) are hired in that if they are; upright, can hold a strimmer and walk they get the job.

 

Ps the brain cell is reserved for gardeners and above.

Edited May 13 by Winslow Boy

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

A bright and sunny start to the day here in England’s northwest corner. My first task this morning is to clean the windows, we used to have good window cleaners, but they became unreliable, sometimes it would be 8 - 10 weeks between visits, instead of every 4 weeks, so we sacked them. I’m hoping to get the back windows done this morning and the front windows done after dinner. 
 

I did calculus, differentiation and integration at college, we were taught be an ex-rocket scientist, so he made learning it all quite easy. But I’ve never used any of all that outside of college and as that was many years ago, I’ve now forgotten it all. 
 

Anyway, I’d best get on with it. 
 

Brian

[PhilJ W]

4 hours ago, Hroth said:

There was a programme about trying to read the Herculaneum scrolls (charred to carbonised swiss rolls by Vesuvius in 79AD) on Ch5 at 9pm.  It would have been a decent half-hour programme, but was padded out by programme makers dross to an hour.

The big reveal was that after much effort, one word was deciphered....

Then the programme ended!

I followed something similar, about the same excavation a week or two back on BBC2. No mention of any scrolls AFAICR. It was a bakery in the process of rebuilding but still baking bread. Horrifically three skeletons were found, two women and a young child. As it turned out from a forensic tests that they were most likely slaves and even worse they were locked into a room with no means of escape.

[DaveF]

A bright warm sunny morning after some overnight rain.  The washing is on, my part of the housework done so what do I do next?

 

The answer is more scanning plus sorting things out to be got rid off as there is quite a lot of space in the general waste bin which is collected tomorrow.  Later there may be a trip to another town to look at things in a shop and then home via a garden centre.

 

As for calculus, I was taught it in the 5th year (now yr11) as we had finished the 0 level syllabus during the previous year.  By the the time the 0 level exams came along we had done the 1st year of the A level Maths syllabus.  It came in handy when I did A level physics and even when I was doing my Biology degree.  Later on when I was teaching I used to enjoy looking after Maths classes when a teacher was off ill and I was able able to teach just about everything on the syllabus.  It always surprised the maths staff.

 

David

Edited May 13 by DaveF

[PhilJ W]

9 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Typically, we were away so missed all the Northern Lights excitement on Friday.

Yesterday, I kept going outside but could see zilch, though heard foxes having a barney in the woods.

Just been out in my slippers, as you do. Now not sure if these are just reflections from the ground,  or whether I'm seeing something not really there, but could these be the Northern Lights?

 

 

 

 

There is a touch of green yellow and pink in there. It was similar for me last night.

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

So I cancelled my existing flight to Tokyo and booked a flight Singapore - Frankfurt - Tokyo - Singapore. I get home on Saturday morning and then fly to Copenhagen to talk about the urgent need to emit less.

It does seem a little bit odd to be flying around to talk about emitting less CO2. But, from my recent reading it does appear that airline flights are in the crosshairs because they are the most visible aspect of CO2 emissions that could be reduced, even though they are nowhere near being the leaders in CO2 emissions.

 

The thing is there are some simple ways of reducing emissions without undue sacrifice. One of which is to stop eating out of season fruit and vegetables. Do you really need out of season asparagus, strawberries or avocados flown in from god knows where?

 

That, and repurposing - where possible - older buildings rather than tearing down and building anew (using concrete - a significant source of CO2) would go far to improving the environment.

 

[Hroth]

11 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I followed something similar, about the same excavation a week or two back on BBC2. No mention of any scrolls AFAICR. It was a bakery in the process of rebuilding but still baking bread. Horrifically three skeletons were found, two women and a young child. As it turned out from a forensic tests that they were most likely slaves and even worse they were locked into a room with no means of escape.

 

The 3 part series was about an dig on a previously unexplored part of Pompeii.  Again, it was a bit over-inflated and could have been done in two 1 hour episodes. 

 

I got the impression that because there was so much going on at the site before the eruption that with the builders there, nothing else was going on.  The main thrust of the programmes was interpretation of what each room would be used for, not that this was the case on the day of the eruption.

 

There were a number of conclusions drawn about the bodies found in the small room that I felt uncomfortable about.  Slaves? Probably.  Locked in? A supposition without much evidence.  It COULD be said that they were unable to make an escape in time and took shelter in what looked like a sturdy refuge, and were killed when the roof collapsed under the weight of the ejecta.  At least they didn't get burned alive when the pyroclastic flow arrived.  I also felt that classical slavery was being interpreted through the prism of the African slave experience, which is unhelpful.  Slavery is slavery, but we don't have enough information to compare the conditions.

 

But it was interesting!

 

 

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Only one callout from bladder control last night about two o'clock. I took advantage of it to look north to see if there were any more northern lights. There was a greenish light just on the horizon that looked like a green mist. This set me thinking, what would or did our far ancestors have made of such events? Would they have hidden in fear and sacrificed the odd maiden or two?  

[PhilJ W]

47 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

It does seem a little bit odd to be flying around to talk about emitting less CO2. But, from my recent reading it does appear that airline flights are in the crosshairs because they are the most visible aspect of CO2 emissions that could be reduced, even though they are nowhere near being the leaders in CO2 emissions.

 

The thing is there are some simple ways of reducing emissions without undue sacrifice. One of which is to stop eating out of season fruit and vegetables. Do you really need out of season asparagus, strawberries or avocados flown in from god knows where?

 

That, and repurposing - where possible - older buildings rather than tearing down and building anew (using concrete - a significant source of CO2) would go far to improving the environment.

 

It is not the long distance flights that are the problem as often there's no viable alternative. It's the short flights that are the most polluting especially when there is a greener alternative such as Eurostar.

[TheQ]

Only if you live near Eurostar...

 

Hooks made and installed for new loom.. one escaped for a while and hid under the fridge..

 

Spinny thing is now working ish.. given to SWMBO for trials..

I expect there are improvements to be made... The outer arm is a bit heavy, and slightly out of balance, that certainly needs work.

 

Another thorn taken from paw...

 

Muggacoffee then Ben's long walk.

 

[Coombe Barton]

2 hours ago, DaveF said:

It always surprised the maths staff.

How do you tell and extrovert mathematician?

They're looking at your shoes rather then their own.

 

[45156]

Afternoon All,

 

Lily needed to go to the vet's for anal gland evacuation, nail trimmng, andto have some knots removed from her bum.  Not so easy with me still not driving.  The neighbour who drove her while I was in hospital is herself in hospital. so couldn't assist this time.  We were prepared for this. and luckily the local bus on one of its odd circulars passes outside the vet's door.  So off we goes for the 9.43 bus  30747 leading Lily, and me there for moral support.  AND IT WORKED - bus dropped us outside the vet's - Lily treated and no longer has a smelly backside - and we sat in the waiting room for half an hour waiting for the next bus to come round.  And Lil was as good as gold on the bus, and surprisingly in the vet's - 30747 puts it down to my presence, as the last time while I was in hospital, Lily was very fractious indeed, to the extent that they were going to sedate her if she didn't calm down.

 

30747 now off to Ludlow again on the next bus to get some shopping.  I will go with her tomorrow for the rest, and then in the afternoon, I get my hearing aids fitted - stand by for another large bill.

 

No Aurora here, just clouds, and a nasty thunderstorm last night, and it sounds as if Ross on Wye copped it.

 

There was something else to say, but I've forgotten what it was*

 

Regards to All

Stewart

 

* It was that I could never understand advanced maths either - at Uni, I kept asking "why?", and the tutors ansewered "Because - you'll find out why later".  I never did, and I never finished my course as a result. 

Also, I will need to change the car, as my clutch foot is weak, and I will have to get an automatic.

Edited May 13 by 45156

[iL Dottore]

4 hours ago, Hroth said:

I also felt that classical slavery was being interpreted through the prism of the African slave experience, which is unhelpful. 

Slavery in Ancient Rome and the African Slave trade in the 1700s were two very different beasts indeed. Roman citizens could become slaves in certain circumstances, Roman slaves could be (and were) regularly manumitted, many (most?) Roman slaves who became freedmen then went on to own slaves themselves, although many Roman slaves were treated abominably?(such as the "public slaves"), many were valuable property, valued and treated very well indeed (much as today, a proud luxury car owner cossets and favours his Ferrari or Rolls Royce). Many such ch slaves lived better than poor Roman citizens.

 

And let's not forget the Sports Superstars of the Roman Empire: The Gladiators- nearly all of whom were slaves (and with luck and skill could retire as very rich ex-slaves indeed).

 

Two very different beasts indeed!

 

Edited May 13 by iL Dottore
Completed text on freedmen

[The White Rabbit]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

...There was a greenish light just on the horizon that looked like a green mist. This set me thinking, what would or did our far ancestors have made of such events? Would they have hidden in fear and sacrificed the odd maiden or two?  

 

It's a sign from the Gods. Though quite what sign they were sending would be open to different interpretations. And no doubt open to abuse by unscrupulous individuals. 

 

One definition of 'magic' I heard, was it's something which we don't currently understand or can't explain logically. Whether we're in 2024AD or 2024BC. 

[Tony_S]

4 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

That sounds a bit like how grounds maintenance operatives ( please note that doesn't include gardeners) are hired in that if they are; upright, can hold a strimmer and walk they get the job.

 

Ps the brain cell is reserved for gardeners and above.

I think I would have quite liked a career as a grounds maintenance operative. 

[Gwiwer]

4 hours ago, Hroth said:

my first sentence was verging on a Shipping Forecast report from coastal stations style..

Something Dr SWMBO has always found comforting. She often listens to the shipping forecast on her way to sleep. 
 

I use it for watch-keeping purposes these days. 
 

“Distant (Signal) West: West-south-west 4; 13; 998 steady; rain in past hour; misty or fine later; slight; moderate to good occasionally very poor.”

Edited May 13 by Gwiwer