Cross posting whore?
Quite possibly, but I realise not all of you are on BaceFook
So I've been finding it hard to concentrate and read books of late, so despite having a bookcase full of things to be read, I've gone back to some old favourites. Currently making my way back through Iain M. Banks' Culture books. Still the greatest sci-fi series ever, IMHO. Quickly run through Consider Phlebas and just finished The Player Of Games this morning. Actually got quite emotional at the end, which I think comes down to missing pxy, who I bonded over with Mr Banks and dodgy techno, amongst other things. And when pxy made tunes or put together mixes, he always went by the moniker DJ Flere Imsaho.
Still not forgiven that fucker for dying. That applies both to pxy and Iain Banks
For me, I often think about Pxy when making mashed potatoes
as he had a spirited conversation with me about the benefits of a potato ricer. It's a wierd thing to be cooking a meal for the family and then to be struck by sadness over someone I wasn't that close to no longer being around.
As for Mr Banks, I've never read any of his sci fi, but I loved his other fiction works. I read The Wasp Factory on the recommendation of my Art teacher at school, which got me hooked on Banks.
I'll have to reread them and see if they still grab me so well, and then I'll give his sci fi a go.
Fuck, I had forgotten the potato ricer.
northerness.. northanity?
we are doing a house swap with a mate in my home town, so we are presently surrounded by pheasants, chaffinches and herons and things overlooking their pond. It is of course raining now.
We are still working this week but the aim is for some minor catching up with people and pootling about the place.
/notmyblog
I just spent a lovely week drinking fine wine on top of a hill in Chianti
Then I slipped on the front step of my house this morning and can't walk
Any fava
beans involved?
only in a liverless
risotto
Call me old fashioned
but much as a I love liver, risotto is not the place for such offal
be careful with northerners
They get very eggy if it's the wrong north.
We went to Ely on Saturday, it was very nice, I had a very nice salt beef bagel from a stall on the market, and a lady offered to show us how to sneak into the cathedral without paying, but the child was having a strop so we didn't. I did not see Witchy.
4 men in white lab coats and goggles just walked past my office window, they didn't seem to be panicking about anything, but if the zombie apocalypse is happening, you heard it here first.
That's 'cos I don't live in Ely any more, silly.
I'm 6 miles up the road and closer to Naaaaarfk. I'd have come into town for a coffee or summat if you'd said you were around though.
on a whim
i cycled to Ely on Saturday. Got the train back though because fuck cycling into that headwind
average speed was good i take it.
...
no
i'm way out of shape and i stopped for things such as a peacock sat on a gate.
Also i was stupid and used Long Drove out of Cottenham which is fucking awful
Could have told you that
as an ex-Cottenhamite
it's not my first time
making that mistake
So in fact you should
have told yourself too!
i went for a 38mile ride yesterday
took photos of baby cows.
Baby cow
do do do do?
I drove past Ely a month or so ago whilst on the way to my aunt's house near Dereham
I shall be heading back that way on the 30th for her funeral and also to see her solicitor as I'm executor for her will.
Bloody hells.
You're all scamps.
It's been around a decade
since I drove past Ely on my way home from Basildon. That's the closest I've been.
I'm rather enjoying Fallout on Prime Video.
. .
it's on my watchlist
Apparently the fanboys are furious about something inconsequential but it looks fun.
Ah. I see. It's woke. Except it isn't so they're backpedalling with canon or some bollocks.
That doesn't surprise me.
I'm also watching the first series of Traces on BBC. It's good.
There's always some twats
but as far as I can see, the fanboi reaction has been unusually favourable
No spoilers though, as we haven't gotten around to watching yet
And having now watched the first 2 episodes last night
it looks bloody brilliant
I bounced right off Fallout 4 when playing it
but I'm quite enjoying the show. I'm only 2 episodes in but I'm enjoying it.
I struggled with FO4
and GTA4, maybe it's bad numerology.
Fallout 76 is free if you have prime
so I might give that a go, and I've got a pip boy face for my watch (but I'll turn it off soon cos it eats battery)
Ooo and we just saw a red squirrel
From about 10 feet away
that's very
cool
I was oop north last week too
well, Auckland (which is roughly 500 km north of here)
It was very wet, very warm and very windy.
I just got sucked into a wiki-hole
did you know that Christopher Guest, of Nigel Tufnel/Spinal Tap fames is both actually a genuine hereditary baron and also married to Jamie Lee Curtis? I also didn't know his brother was the yuppie next door neighbour in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
I should probably do some work.
Is that an offer?
I've got a team meeting starting in a moment, fancy being me for an hour?
Those are actually
things I knew about Mr Guest!
Just taught my kids (5 and 7) about percussive maintenance.
They're walking round the house saying something isn't working and hitting it.
"Oh! Chair isn't working!" *Hit hit*
Home.
That was a weird 2.5 days. Hospital on weds afternoon for a clinic visit and meds check/bloods etc, then hoon up north for Dad's funeral on thurs. A great success, if you can use that as a description. Lots of folk saying what a lovely service it was - me and my sis wrote the words for it. Pics on a big telly, that type of thing.
Pilgrimage to my favourite Newcastle pub then over the river to see mates in my old local - all of which had come to the funeral which was awesome of them.
Yesterday was mostly deadmin ((c) C_illuminator) but I got up the coast to my happy place in the shadow of Bamburgh Castle, then food at Mrs Witchy's.
Today was more deadmin. Coffee with the lovely Mrs W then back down here in 20 degree weather which is BONKERS.
Everyone alreet?
I am sorry you had to go through that.
Nobody should have to go to Newcastle.
I really enjoyed Newcastle.
.
How very dare
you, sir XD
There was zero (0) crimes while I was there, apart from maybe against dress sense.
Aye, areet.
Glad it went well for you.
Went to visit my elderly friend who is now in the same nursing home as her husband, who has dementia. She's very muddled now and has also lost a lot of mobility so being in a nursing home is good, but she doesn't have the money to stay where she is now. She thinks they're just going to let her stay anyway though.
I was up in Yorkshire with my parents for a bit last week
while my mum isn't completely dementiad out yet, she's definitely more out than in these days. Nice to see them and all, but it's hard work. My dad's finally getting some help, but he really needs to be forced to do stuff, and he's not really that keen on bothering people. He's also in and out of hospital due to a small tumor in his bladder that the doctors can't decide if they've sorted, so he's even more resistant to us helping. Bloody old people.
Anyway, rest of the week has been nice, it's school easter holidays so it's been my turn to entertain the child, we did lots of messing about and other fun stuff.
And finally (this is not my blog), we've been sorting a load of old books for a charity shop run. In one of them I found an airline receipt for flights for me to Chicago and back in August 2004. I have absolutely no recollection of going to Chicago in August 2004. You've all known me for years, can you remember me going?
Dementiad
sounds like a multi-discipline athletics event
You had a deep dish pizza
and couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about.
You saw the big bean thing too.
The end.
He would have had to stay quiite a while to see that
if he arrived in 2004
Sorry, I was drunk that year.
.
Aside from the bloody old people
that seems very splendid.
That is all sounding remarkably familiar
My mother is definitely losing bits of her memory, though the message that she needs a) hearing aids and b) to do something that engages her brain actively (ie not passive activities like reading or listening to the radio) have finally got through. It won't bring back anything, but might slow the disappearance of the rest down.
My father also had a lump in his bladder. They took it out before Xmas, it was cancerous but at his 3 month check up they didn't see any sign of it so fingers crossed it's not coming back. Not that he said so, but I think he was most worried about having a general anaesthetic at the age of 86 as its notorious for knocking out brain cells, especially if there's any sign of dementia (not that he has any, thankfully).
I've enjoyed the easter school holidays by experiencing emptier public transport.
Re Chicago, have you consulted your b3ta posts for clues?
Had we not jumped to 4rthur by 2004?
Which incidentally was TWENTY YEARS AGO.
I think we were still on both
and good luck on finding your 4rthur posts!
B3ta, Flibz, Dynofoo,
4rthur.
Anyone up for a Web Archive trawl? Nope, thought not :)
I never did Flibz.
Dynafoo had the goldfish, right?
Pretty sure I transferred direct
from b3ta to 4rthur. And realised I was much more at home there, as I can't fucking hummus, but I can talk nonsense with the best of them
I snapped the front nearside coil spring on my daughter's car
Bugger.
It did,
yus.
I pitched the case to my mum about power of attorney just being a bit of admin,
let's see how she gets on with persuading my dad.
I was pleased me and Sis
both had full POA for Dad. It made the care home stuff so much easier for everyone, AND we were lucky he'd done a will back in 1997 which laid out his wishes. So yeah, let's hope she sees sense.
Yeah, PoA seems to be a very sensible thing to do,
just like other types of insurance, really. Hope you and your mum prevail. Does your dad respond to the 'if xxx happens to you, without PoA, we can't make any decisions about it' kind of reasoning?
He doesn't like to think about it
so I think you have to plant the seed and let him come to it himself. He's doing other stuff to protect mum, like putting direct debits out of the joint account instead of his own, so I expect he'll get there.
There's very little wrong with them just now, luckily, except for the same memory problem as your mum! Fingers crossed your dad stays tip top.
i've been in Scotland for a bit
went to my folks (now happily living in Helensburgh and very much invigorated by being in an actual town rather than a quiet village, which is great) for Easter weekend, and then up to Fort William with friends for a few days of whitewater paddleboarding development.
made a little bit awkward by the one place in Britain that's had less than usual rain being Lochaber, so a few of the rivers we wanted to paddle were (compared to what they should be) mere trickles. Had a gentle but long start on the Lochy, then bumped our way down the Spean from Roy Bridge to Spean Bridge the next day. Thursday was better as we went to the Garry which had a scheduled dam release so guaranteed water levels (loads of kayakers there). Friday we drove over to the Findhorn at Logie Bridge as that had much better flow on. Saturday a massive dump of rain brought the Orchy into play, which was good as I wanted to get back to Helensburgh, but it was so windy we struggled to actually go down stream in flowing rapids..
then I drove back from Helensburgh today. Had a fun week.
You did WHAT to Garry?
,
Now I need to
look up where Helensburgh is as my brain is telling me I've never heard of it, though I must've done.
West of glasgow
On the north of the Clyde, just round the corner from Faslane.
I had a mad week of travel, Sicily Croatia and Venice.
Finished off by a visit to Amy's family in the west country.
oh and does anyone have tips for logging in on a new device
i keep getting errors on the new surface thing
Have you tried chucking it in the sea?
Or CIIIJASIIE?
clear all the cookies
and try a different browser.
Success!
I hadn't considered cookies as it's a brand new machine, but of course chrome has synced things from the other devices.
To delete specific cookies in chrome... for amy
In the Privacy section, click the Content settings button (highlighted in red). Click on All cookies and site data. You can choose to delete one cookie. If you would like to remove all cookies click on the Remove all button (highlighted in red).
Thank you dear
I'll give it a try
Down
yer?
Not that far
only Bristol
Up north then?
Alreet & full snot
I think I have a big rather than hayfever.
Alreet here.
Feeling for you, having been through exactly the same recently.
Im in Scotland… having a day or so up in the Cairngorms. Hoping for a walkable Munro day tomorrow…
I am in Kirkcudbright form the 13th for a week of working from holiday
. i'm crossing fingers for decent weather.
today's probably the day
lot's more wind coming through the rest of the week
It was indeed
Magical weather window. Great Cairngorms day! Just having the obligatory pint then driving back to Fife.
other
didn't latch my waterproof case quite right and now my phone has a damp problem. screen's not in a great way, cameras all fogged up.
Current one is a Samsung M33, my replacement budget is ~£240-£260. Can easily get an M34 for that. What else would people recommend? Staying android (obviously, at that budget)
I like my OnePlus Nord
And there's a new version too
ignore me
The new ones are massively more expensive
amazingly
keeping it in a box with a load of silica pouches all week has more or less cleared up the screen, the cameras are fine and only the finger print sensor is a bit iffy
Aye, good.
Found out over the weekend that I'd passed my German Einbürgerungstest (Naturalisation test) with 33 points out of 33 so that was pleasing.
Well done!
.
that's easy for you to say
I would hope
Sehr gut!
A friend's son stepped in front of a train recently.
He's looking for a blue L-shaped firework for the memorial. He's seen them on tiktok so thinks they exist.
Any ideas?
Alreet, I guess
Trying to get back to some level of fitness, which is quite hard
And in a turn up for the books, it's me, not Mrs C who is off to Auckland for a few days this week.
I am in Leeds.
I'm dropping the kids at my mum's for the week, and because it's going to be a bit blowy on the M62 we came over last night. I'm working here for the day, then we're off out to eat, then I'll go home.
I regret not bringing my slippers, and I'll be ridiculously productive as I don't have any distractions.
So I'm now all alone in my mum's house,
and I'm locked in because my step-dad is very security conscious.
It's a bit weird cos or does are never locked at home.
I'm regretting leaving the snacks in the car.
which bit of Leeds?
It's not like Compton any more
Holt Park,
so it's not the nicest part of leeds but certainly not the worst.
Step-dad used to be a special constable, I think that's made him super security oriented.
Armley perhaps?
Although I think the worst thing I saw when my mate lived there was a bloke having a wank on the wall of the Co-Op carpark
The Armley gyratory is far worse than a bloke having a wank on the wall of the co-op bank
. .
"I'm from west Kirkstall"
.
Sounds like a challenging wank to me.
…
Not for him
From what we could see
I was dreading having a 'pull your socks up or clear off'
conversation at work, but it seems like the person in question has indeed raised their hosiery, so I can delay it for a few months. Management fucking bites.
Did you make a pre-'pull your socks up' comment
or is it coincidence?
we did have a chat
about various things, so I'll put it down to my excellent management techniques
what exactly do you have against ankles?
are you a victorian puritan ?
MrsJam on the phone: Can I pass you a load of swiss rolls from the car?
I'll be at the back gate in 10 minutes, shall I call you?
Me: Nah, just beep the horn and I'll come out.
Me 10 minutes later: Whose that idiot beeping their horn?? I'd better check it out...
Asky?
Anyone know any freelancers for a bit of properly paid MS Access +VBA development? Standalone tool, not client/server, hence Access rather than a SQL back end and a web-served front end. There are reasons.
No
but I can rewrite it in FoxPro if you like
/Obsolete skills
Put it on fivr
Or something similar
We may do that.
A personal recommendation would be nice if anyone has one, but we might have to fivr it.
Ha! Haven’t seen that in years!
I could do it in Access myself but I don’t have time.
I haven't seen it
since this afternoon.
Talking of obsolete,
I'm making an image map in HTML.
oh lovely
put an animated gif/rollover on it too
A little doggy running around
as a HR tag.
To make matters worse
The HMTL is strict dhtml, and if it's wrong it gets treated as plain text.
It took a while to figure out why it was wrong because the documentation was either too complicated (ie, the full html 5 specification) or not compliant, nothing in-between.
pinch & a
punch for the rest of the month*
fireworks eh? what are they like..
and do they?
*no returns
bad day for a bidet
silly cunt he was
have a tune..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7WCdYFqz5g&pp=ygUTcmFkaW9oZWFkIGlkaW90ZXF1ZQ%3D%3D
We moseyed down to Margate fur a couple of days.
It was rather excellent.
I cannot recommend The Crab Museum highly enough.
Funnily enough,
I was listening to Dan Schreiber's 'we can be weirdos' podcast today and my next episode is all about the world's best crab joke, it features this very museum so I shall be getting it in my ears tomorrow.
The crab museum is utterly amazing
I hope you found the bonus content in the loo
Do you get
crabs from the bog seat?
You’re on the right track…
But without actual infestation.
Or itching?
Not unless you brought that with you.
No additional itching conferred.
Blimey hyraki!
It's a lesser spotted Riggers
Easter weekend was pretty chill. Several cricket games at the Basin, gratifying watching England Women beat New Zealand. Far too much beer on Saturday, and a chilled Sunday round a mate's with excellent pizza. Not entirely happy about having to go to work shortly though
alright Riggers, been on the Top Deck again?
I've just been to the circus, surprisingly entertaining. I do like a shit magician and a tight rope walker.
I've put lighting in the kids' play shed.
I opted for a trip to b&q for a couple of led panels rather than get led strip from china. It meant that it's all done and dusted, though I'll a add a second switch on then mezzanine if they start sleeping out there
I have never had internet in the sky before.
This is my message to you. From the sky.
is it a bird? is it a plane..?
did oyu just forget to put your phone on flight mode?
I arrived at stansted ariport at 5:20am this morning and it was rammed, fast track security took about 15 minutes.
first of 3 ryanair flights this week.. at least it was on time, I also have no regrets about not brining my suitcase.
I have a small backpack
And that’s it.
My small backpack gained some weighty parmesan this trip
And my back is now iffy... Though actually I blame the Renault Clio hire car.
Hello
2nd 4 day week is rather fun.
Hello old
horse
I only look old
Because my hair is grey
At least
you have hair.
This is true
I should grow a beard as well and see if it goes full on badger
I was running low on space on c:
so I had a look at what I could delete. Acrobat was taking up 19Gb.
It looks like it was all updates that it hadn't then deleted.
I am in Catania airport in Sicily
I've found where ALL the groups of Italian school kids on school trips come from. One careful air strike and we could deal with the menace once and for all.
My flight is delayed 2.5 hours. Joy.