The Lurker

Greetings from a mild Boring Borough where the night has drawn a veil over the grey skies.

christmas meal will be turkey with the trimmings. I have a one person pud as I am the only one who likes it.

today has been relatively quiet and it is just the four of us tomorrow. Relatives will be visited later in the week.

have a great Christmas/ festive season.

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

Some are allegedly arriving today. However a portion of sprouts purchased much earlier this year exist in a frozen state, just in case. I think I will be preparing and cooking the sprouts.  It doesn’t take long. 

I think sprouts used to be a lot more bitter- but it has been bred out of them in recent decades. Same thing had happened to aubergines apparently. No need to boil sprouts for ever and no need to salt aubergines or stir is you used to have to do,

old recipes a La Mrs Beaton called for carrots to be boiled for ages too; maybe they were once less sweet as well.

7 hours ago, DaveF said:

Still windy here, it was hard working getting to and from the car.  The wreath had blown off the church door.

 

The clouds I saw this morning are apparently called iridescent clouds, caused by ice crystals or water droplets when the sun strikes them at the correct angle.  

 

 

 

David

Superb!

there are similar pictures on the BBC where they are referred to as Mother-of-Pearl clouds

Happy birthday BR60103

I’ve had fried Christmas Pudding as leftovers  on Boxing Day- but not deep fried. 

29 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I probably was attempting to be slightly amusing about Aditi’s choice of clothing for holidays but I am always happy to learn something from following comments.  
When we went to:the  Canary Islands, Aditi was really excited to see all the volcanic features she had taught about years before when she was a geography lecturer. 
Tony

There's something really rather powerful about seeing something you've studied in the flesh so to speak. Even the Falmouth Ria and Malham, both of which came up in my Geography O level.

11 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

This is timely for anyone having a "Bah Humbug!" moment.

 

CNN: The Christmas songs you love to hate the most

 

There's a couple on my list that are worse than some of those. Like "Six White Boomers" (by the bearded, bespectacled pædophile and portrait painter to her late majesty) which is not likely on a US list.

 

Anyone up for a round of Whamageddon?

 

I've lost already. 🙁

 

My Mum had a Rolf Harris Christmas Album that we listened to lots when I was little. I quite liked Six White Boomers and the one about "Forget you ever saw me dust".  There was one about a Christmas Pig and one about a Banksia.

2 hours ago, Flanged Wheel said:

Speaking of alternative versions of Christmas carols, my rather wonderful Grandmother recalled (with some glee) singing as a child:

 

“Hark the herald angels sing,

Mrs Simpson’s nicked our king”…

 

I read Andrew Lownie’s biography of Edward VIII earlier this year - most interesting. I seem to have had a spate of reading biographies of English kings as I also worked through Marc Morris’ “A Great and Terrible King” on Edward I, a thoroughly absorbing read and highly recommended.

 

We sang proper versions of all the carols this evening at the Carols by Candlelight service that we went to in Kuala Lumpur. We were at the 7pm service which was the last of the four versions of the service that ran today. All were ticketed (although free) and completely sold out. Beautifully done with an exceptional choir and orchestra. Fully in the festive spirit until we stepped back out into the heat!

I remember as a child in Singapore that the person who dressed up as Father Christmas at the Sunday school party wore sandals. 

4 hours ago, Tony_S said:

We are going to Iceland in the summer so I imagine Aditi will be planning the packing for any weather possibilities. Not sure what to wear for volcanic fallout though. 

A hard hat

5 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

... Dreckly – bit like mañana but with less urgency. ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2023/12/16/sounds-of-the-season-2023-14-covid-virus-spread-in-recent-maps/

Sounds a bit like my Grandma. When we were little and pestering her to do something, she’d say it would be done “now presently”, which meant it would done when she got to it, which might be a good long wait!

The earliest known ancestors of pelicans date back at least 36m years  and are remarkably similar to today’s species. Clearly they mastered a particular niche and have been exploiting it ever since.

JVol1004 is great, the train framed by the arches and the tangle of bridges.

I think the biggest thing we could do for the planet is stop having so many children. There is something irksome with all these celebrities and their vast families. It makes the aspirational classes want big families too.

i think Sir David Attenborough said it one of his shows but it doesn’t get repeated.

controversially, the Chinese one child policy probably delayed some of the warming.

and that is probably a little too political for which I apologise 

I was interested that Nearholmer had seen the Night Ferry at Tonbridge. I was under the impression that it ran via Faversham and Canterbury East, and the SREMG site has a 1953 summer timing which shows the route as just that. Having said that, wikipedia mentions that it became electric hauled after the electrification of the South Eastern mainline in 1961 it was usually hauled by a class 71. I guess that routes were not fixed in stone and there were diversionary routes a-plenty. Olddudders' mention of BTR1 above reminds me he posted about the different routes as BT1, BT2 etc on a different thread (years ago probably!)

5 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The UK aside, it surprises me that there's this sort of different rates for different places inside the Schengen Area. Is it mostly because Switzerland is not in the EU?

 

All of your stories of 'not available in Switzerland' surprise me. It makes me wonder if (and I have some idea why not) the Swiss adopted the Euro and EU membership this might go away.

 

Seems like that sort of thing is a consequence of choosing to live in Switzerland.

Surely there are different pay rates for the same job within the US? That is prevalent in the Uk - some places especially London tend to be more expensive and command higher pay scales and so the work carried out is more expensive - I guess it is a vicious circle.

21 hours ago, polybear said:

Someone fitted a ULEZ Camera at lunchtime.

Someone else blew it up a few hours later - literally; judging by the damage to a van parked on the other side of the road and also a house I'd say they overcooked it just a tad.......

They'll be in deep, deep Poo if caught - the Anti-Terror Police are all over it.

If that is the one in Sidcup, that delayed Younger Lurker and I on the school run yesterday - the road we used everyday (Willersley Avenue) was blocked off with forensics boys and the gazebo things they set up. We didn't know what had happened - I just guessed it was an RTA but Younger Lurker could see all the forensics stuff and so we feared it was a stabbing or shooting.

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

On the Turner prize, I am probably the minority view but I like this year's winner and find it really rather powerful.

 

I find modern art very marmite. I  share the derisory views of much of it but every now and again I  see stuff I really like. 

 

A few years ago there was a Doris Salcedo exhibit called Shibboleth,  it was a giant crack on the turbine hall floor. The media went into over drive over that one, I went to see it to scoff and found it really rather compelling, invoking some rather deep thought within me.

Not seen this year's winner but a number of years ago (well before the Lurker boys), Mrs Lurker was working at Channel 4 who were sponsors. They ran staff competitions with various attendance prizes. We were there the night Tracey Emin's Bed won (or at least was displayed). The following year, it was not opening night but stull before the hoi polloi were let in. One of the exhibits was a blob of blu-tac stuck on the wall with some comment on the permanence or lack of it in art. I couldn't restrain open laughter. We left shortly afterwards and we've not been back.

5 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Yeah its  overcast here too!

 

You want to make sure you don't end up with Ricketts with that kind of cloud cover.

Took us years to go but I am glad we did. I had forgotten about the railway - which I think was mentioned- but I hadn’t forgotten the guide playing a tympani to try to reproduce what it was like when the caves were used as a shelter during the blitz - we got noise but of course not the vibrations and dustfall.

11 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

At least they won't be able to book Sticky Vicky* this year!

 

* Google if you must but not family friendly and NSFW.

 

 

It’s ok the BBC has an article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-67564925

Happy birthday GDB