thread 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
permalink 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
permalink Any fava
beans involved?
permalink only in a liverless
risotto
permalink Call me old fashioned
but much as a I love liver, risotto is not the place for such offal
permalink 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.
permalink 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.
permalink on a whim
i cycled to Ely on Saturday. Got the train back though because fuck cycling into that headwind
permalink average speed was good i take it.
...
permalink 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.
permalink Bloody hells.
You're all scamps.
permalink It's been around a decade
since I drove past Ely on my way home from Basildon. That's the bestest I've been.
permalink I'm rather enjoying Fallout on Prime Video.
. .
permalink 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.
permalink That doesn't surprise me.
I'm also watching the first series of Traces on BBC. It's good.
permalink 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
permalink 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.
permalink I struggled with FO4
and GTA4, maybe it's bad numerology.
permalink 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)
permalink Ooo and we just saw a red squirrel
From about 10 feet away
permalink 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.
thread 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?
permalink I am sorry you had to go through that.
Nobody should have to go to Newcastle.
permalink I really enjoyed Newcastle.
.
permalink How very dare
you, sir XD

There was zero (0) crimes while I was there, apart from maybe against dress sense.
permalink 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.
permalink 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?
permalink Dementiad
sounds like a multi-discipline athletics event
permalink 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.
permalink He would have had to stay quiite a while to see that
if he arrived in 2004
permalink Sorry, I was drunk that year.
.
permalink Aside from the bloody old people
that seems very splendid.
permalink 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?
permalink Had we not jumped to 4rthur by 2004?
Which incidentally was TWENTY YEARS AGO.
permalink I think we were still on both
and good luck on finding your 4rthur posts!
permalink B3ta, Flibz, Dynofoo,
4rthur.

Anyone up for a Web Archive trawl? Nope, thought not :)
permalink I never did Flibz.
Dynafoo had the goldfish, right?
permalink 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
permalink I snapped the front nearside coil spring on my daughter's car
Bugger.
permalink It did,
yus.
permalink 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.
permalink 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.
permalink 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?
permalink 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.
permalink 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.
permalink You did WHAT to Garry?
,
permalink 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.
permalink West of glasgow
On the north of the Clyde, just round the corner from Faslane.
permalink I had a mad week of travel, Sicily Croatia and Venice.
Finished off by a visit to Amy's family in the west country.
permalink oh and does anyone have tips for logging in on a new device
i keep getting errors on the new surface thing
permalink Have you tried chucking it in the sea?
Or CIIIJASIIE?
permalink clear all the cookies
and try a different browser.
permalink 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).
permalink Thank you dear
I'll give it a try
permalink Down
yer?
permalink Not that far
only Bristol
permalink Up north then?
 
permalink Alreet & full snot
I think I have a big rather than hayfever.
permalink 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…
permalink I am in Kirkcudbright form the 13th for a week of working from holiday
. i'm crossing fingers for decent weather.
permalink today's probably the day
lot's more wind coming through the rest of the week
permalink It was indeed
Magical weather window. Great Cairngorms day! Just having the obligatory pint then driving back to Fife.
permalink 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)
permalink I like my OnePlus Nord
And there's a new version too
permalink ignore me
The new ones are massively more expensive
permalink 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
permalink 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.
permalink Well done!
.
permalink that's easy for you to say
I would hope
permalink Sehr gut!
 
permalink 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?
permalink 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.
permalink 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.
permalink 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.
permalink which bit of Leeds?
It's not like Compton any more
permalink 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.
permalink 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
permalink The Armley gyratory is far worse than a bloke having a wank on the wall of the co-op bank
. .
permalink "I'm from west Kirkstall"
.
permalink Sounds like a challenging wank to me.
permalink Not for him
From what we could see
permalink 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.
permalink Did you make a pre-'pull your socks up' comment
or is it coincidence?
permalink we did have a chat
about various things, so I'll put it down to my excellent management techniques
permalink what exactly do you have against ankles?
are you a victorian puritan ?
permalink 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...
thread 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.
permalink No
but I can rewrite it in FoxPro if you like

/Obsolete skills
permalink Put it on fivr
Or something similar
permalink We may do that.
A personal recommendation would be nice if anyone has one, but we might have to fivr it.
permalink Ha! Haven’t seen that in years!
I could do it in Access myself but I don’t have time.
permalink I haven't seen it
since this afternoon.
permalink Talking of obsolete,
I'm making an image map in HTML.
permalink oh lovely
put an animated gif/rollover on it too
permalink A little doggy running around
as a HR tag.
permalink 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.
thread pinch & a
punch for the rest of the month*

fireworks eh? what are they like..
and do they?


*no returns
permalink bad day for a bidet
silly cunt he was
have a tune..

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7WCdYFqz5g&pp=ygUTcmFkaW9oZWFkIGlkaW90ZXF1ZQ%3D%3D
permalink We moseyed down to Margate fur a couple of days.
It was rather excellent.

I cannot recommend The Crab Museum highly enough.
permalink 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.
permalink The crab museum is utterly amazing
I hope you found the bonus content in the loo
permalink Do you get
crabs from the bog seat?
permalink You’re on the right track…
But without actual infestation.
permalink Or itching?
 
permalink Not unless you brought that with you.
No additional itching conferred.
permalink 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
permalink 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.
permalink 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
permalink I have never had internet in the sky before.
This is my message to you. From the sky.
permalink 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.
permalink I have a small backpack
And that’s it.
permalink My small backpack gained some weighty parmesan this trip
And my back is now iffy... Though actually I blame the Renault Clio hire car.
permalink Hello
2nd 4 day week is rather fun.
permalink Hello old
horse
permalink I only look old
Because my hair is grey
permalink At least
you have hair.
permalink This is true
I should grow a beard as well and see if it goes full on badger
permalink 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.
permalink 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.
thread I was going caving tomorrow
A 6 hour journey through an active cave to a sump and back.

I really wanted to tick this sump off, and now the cave is flooded.

I am devastated.

I start my journey to become a Paramedic on the 29th, so i may never get to do it.

What has upset you today?
permalink oh 'tick'!
.
permalink our company has been acquired
I am promised it'll be ok, but, you know. I would potentially get some cash after 18 months and the new "boss" doesn't seem to be too full of shit.

I haven't been too upset today, bit of a headache but I've got next week off.

What do you have to do to be a paramedic?
permalink Generally a paramedic degree is required,
so three years of that at £9,500 a year, plus a year of placement.

Or I can do 2 years as an ECA (on the 999 ambulances, but essentially carrying folk, driving the ambulance and doing CPR) and then do an on-the-job course for 2 years to get my paramedic qualification.

I think the latter seems more sensible - less time in classrooms, more fun adn about £100k better off.
permalink oh well
if you get to drive it, that makes it all worthwhile
permalink good luck with the training!
I'm sure you'll get days off, the health service isn't *that* short of staff yet, so you can always try another time
permalink It is, but unions and socialism.
I've been told that during COVID budgets were uncapped. We're now seriously struggling with money and we've been told we have to shed 65 staff. Nobody's being made redundant, but if someone leaves they're not being replaced.
permalink Hippo bapsday
Justie!
permalink danke!
????
ETA: huh... the board completely freaked out 'cause I posted an emoji. best not do that again!
permalink ????
.

Edit. I couldn’t resist trying it myself.
permalink just make a big blanket fort in your bed and
lie there for 6 hours.. then chop your arm off to get out.
permalink this
definetly this
permalink just left hospital after a fun couple of days
Having triggered the well-oiled 'middle-aged Glaswegian male having a heart attack' protocols

Now I know far much about exercise-induced troponin and have been ejected with a course of amoxicillin, a clean bill of health, and a stern warning not to run a half-marathon so soon after a chest infection

Turns out you can be *too* healthy
permalink bloody heck
that's a load of fun.

turns out hearts are quite important
permalink i assume you are have square sausage and fried
haggis to balance things up now?
permalink pepperoni stuffed crust, halloumi fries
and a family-sized tiramisu

clearly the appropriate way to celebrate not having heart disease
permalink if anyone is into bleepy music
Tom (of kittenwar fame) has had some things released but some random labels.

Souncloud linkification
permalink MrsJam and I run a church, and we gather on a Tuesday during term time
So Tuesday was our Easter and it was great, we had around 65 people and we did communion. During communion I put dinner background worship music on YouTube.

And then the music cuts out and an advert comes on. "This Ramadan..."

So we now pay for YouTube premium.

Which led to me exploring YouTube music and discovering Sixpence none the Richer did a Christmas album in 2008 and I really like it.
permalink Just get a decent adblocker!
Fuck 'em.
permalink It's not our equipment
and I like YouTube music and an grateful for the excuse to have it
permalink Church was pretty good today,
I need a kip now.
permalink All the same stuff
innit?
permalink Think of it as different sportsball teams.
Not much difference from the outside, very important from the inside, and with a violent minority who give the proper fans a bad name.
permalink The important difference being
sportsball teams actually exist

Like I physically sat and watched England beat New Zealand yesterday
permalink you mean you bore witness
and expect us to take your word as gospel
permalink Lo verily did Saint Sophie of Ecclestone
take an astounding return caught and bowled

But, lo, did she also drop an absolute sitter in the last over. Indeed she did, my sweet children
permalink Oh,
SITTER

My bad.
permalink Sports are all pretend just like wrestling.
It's carefully crafted to suck money out of you and keep you pacified.

Religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, it wasn't profitable enough.
permalink Sports are pretend to the extent that it really doesn't matter who wins
But they do tangibly exist.As do the people playing them

Unlike other things we could mention
permalink tell you what
I'm very rarely pacified by Huddersfield fucking Town
permalink I like this
Good for me
permalink I refer the learned gentleman to how well dressed all
the priests are in the vatican . See also the US tv evangelists, They may not be profitable but there's plenty of gold swilling around, and almost all of it came from the sheep not the shepherds.

but I agree with you about existing, churches exist and as you demonstrate generally do good work, it's just the reason they exist isn't the same as the stated reason they exist.
permalink Quite a lot of it came
from the Aztecs
permalink Huh?
.
permalink source of the gold
badum
permalink Everyone loves
a gold badum.
permalink Even with that in mind
Are you saying there are people in your church who blanket don't like Muslims? And you're cool with that?
permalink I would not be okay with that,
but I would be okay with people not wanting Islamic content in their Christian conference, much as they might not want Everton songs in my Liverpool mix.

I do not know anything about football or religious bigotry, so I hope the analogy works - I bloody love Ramadan, me. Iftar is the bollocks, even today.
permalink Sure, but it was an advert,
not the content.
permalink It is all content to the audience.q
I hate how okay we have all become with adverts.
permalink I haven't seen an advert since before the panini started
that's how little I am okay with them
permalink No it just wasn't the most appropriate thing to come on.
We do pretty well with Muslims on the estate as we get a lot of asylum seekers housed here
permalink Shirley any advert would've been disruptive though
So the religious content is mostly irrelevant?

Obviously our primate brains are too attuned to spotting the bits that don't match the pattern, more than recognising how much is the same.
permalink Indeed. But it's funny that the disruptive ad mentioned ramadan.
.
permalink that's brilliant
hope you did the joke about primark & if it fitr..
permalink Running Man, but cut with Bradley and Barney Walsh from gladiators
doing the presenting
permalink Was this an answer to what upset you? And a real thing?
Or hopefully just part of a cheese dream.
permalink he's literally called
fromage

so guessing the latter
permalink A vision of what could be
If I could be arsed
permalink first world problems
you silly bitch