quiet round here innitmy week/weekend has freed right up. I was supposed to be doing a glass blowing course yesterday then a football match on Saturday. Both, alas, postponed (I assume for different reaasons). What are you plans for the weekend?
Additionally, I appreciate cricket is of minority interest round here, but it's all going down in Multan lads.
It’s my friends birthdaySo the herd that is my family is going for lunch with them. Pizza at a fancy hipster place.
Sunday if the weather holds I’ll take the children out to a Halloween pumpkin patch / maze.
My main aim is to spend at least an hour 1:1 which each small person
Then I recommend you stop breeding.
Stat.
I have the same
Number of children as you
And I have
stopped breeding.
So you practice what you preach?
Doot
It's our 10th wedding anniversary tomorrow
so we're doing a pub crawl on Saturday, starting where we got married and ending where we had the reception.
woot!
Congrats :D
Blimey, ten years already!
Congrats!
We will be joining you.
Probably not from the very beginning though.
Why on earth did you get married in Hampstead?
Also, see you at some point along the crawl. Unlikely to be until pub #3 at least, I reckon.
Why not?
Cool. I'd better turn on the ringer on my phone.
Well, wrong side of the Heath, if you ask me
;)
Cool - yes, please do! Though not needed til tomorrow.
I'm heading up north
to see the mighty CARDIACS with, amazingly, William D. Drake (ex keyboards for Cardiacs) in support. As an additional bonus I'll be attending with the lovely Mrs Witchy, who's fortunately met most of these idiots before.
I'm currently full of manflu, which is a tad annoying
as there were clear skies and aurora last night and I didn't go anywhere with clear skies because of the lurgy.
Not sure what the weekend brings but there will be some kind of birthday shenanigans.
Is it deadly manflu
Or Covid?
Deadly manflu I think,
doesn't feel very covidy. It's making me feel rubbish without actually being stopping me doing much. Other than venturing out in the middle of the night to stand in a cold field.
Are you feeling better now?
. Did you get any aurora viewing in the end?
I spent saturday in bed and didn't do much yesterday
and I'm still a bit rough this morning.
Bored of it now to be honest. Something's gone wrong at work and I could do with a bit more brain power to see what's happened.
and no, I didn't see the aurora.
A couple of the photos I took look a bit red in places but my ukrainians took phone photos which clearly show the aurora
I saw it in my garden.
It was purplish with a hint of green.
Is standard procedure not still to take a test
if you have a shitty cold that could be the 'rona
Or has that all gone to the dogs in Blighty?
the prevailing logic as I see it
is that if you test and it's positive, that means you have to change your plans and avoid giving it to other people, whereas if you avoid testing and just call it 'the cold that's going round' then you can carry on your merry way light of conscience
actually had a proper argument with my mum last week about this, she was coming to visit when complaining about having a bad cold and constant cough and losing her voice. I refused to let her come without testing negative, and guess what, it turns out the 'cold' that's been carving a swathe through the whole village for weeks is covid and now I'm the party pooper who has ruined things and killed off their blissful denial
Yeah, that's kinda what I thought
Sad, innit?
I’m following in the footsteps of jammers
and taking part in a Christian hackathon in London. And, like jammers, I have a cold.
Very cool.
Have you had a look at the projects?
Yah.
I’m cheating really because I’m already attached to a project.
which one?
..
-
https://kingdomcode.org.uk/build/2024/breeze-translate/
Brilliant, go well!
We get ESL / non-English speakers at our church sometimes and we struggle to make anything understandable for them.
The app already exists and works well and is very affordable.
At the moment onboarding is manual but we hope it will be self serve after this weekend.
Cool.
So how was it?
I’d just left the house on the bike to go to work one day last week…
When I suddenly had a completely flat back tyre. I’d only got a hundred yards, so I wheeled it home and got the bus.
This morning was the first chance I’ve had to deal with it in daylight.
Two inch sewing needle through the tyre. What the fuck was that doing on the road?
Anyway… new tube in and I’ve just been for a cracking 35km ride in the sun. Gorgeous day.
Am in a train to a week in an a-frame
in the Volcanic Eifel with my boy.
Next stop breakfast at McD in Dortmund. Then two more trains and two more busses.
I'm going here: https://www.strotzbüschermühle.de/de/
I hope the fancy umlauts in the URL work for you, that's all they have.
they should call them ürls and be done with it
I wondered about accents in URLs and now I have learned about the existence of
punycode, so that's nice.
pre-umlauted URL, this way
Thanks for fixing it.
.
Here was me thinking URLs could be Unicode
..
As I understand it
they can be, but not all devices or software necessarily understand all of Unicode, nor do they need to because there's only a strict subset of it that's applicable, and Punycode allows devices or code with only basic ASCII comprehension to stay in the game. it's a neat trick
Hang on, all devices or software don't necessarily understand all of Unicode?
In 2024? FFS!
Morning
It has been quiet, but then of course, I don't check for a couple of days and it's posts up the wazoo!
A week with too many people dying has been followed by a week with too many people having major operations
Oh and I actually got to travel for work, rather than Mrs C, although it was only to Auckland. Although she also arrived in AKL shortly before I left
I, a tall lanky bearded 40-something bloke with a bit of a beer belly
went to try out my local hill running club yesterday
got there and it's 15 tall lanky bearded 40-something blokes with a bit of a beer belly
Ha! This does sound familiar
Although I wish I was still 40-something
Having successfully managed to run 42 km a few weeks ago, I have been lazy as fuck, and really do need to get out running again
Been on holiday in Greece
Which was nice. A bonus was getting bumped up to Club Europe for the flight home. Brought down rather by arriving at Gatwick to fucked trains, so rather than a seat on a direct train to Cambridge I'm on the floor in the vestibule of a train to London Victoria
Every rail line
is broken, Dave. All broken. They're dead Dave.
To get to the Toon next week was going to take 6-7 hours, half of that time spent on a bus. So I'm driving. My car, obvs, not the bus.
my wife's gone to Norwich to see some friends
It's what, an hour's drive? But she's been good and got the train. She had a choice of an hour sitting at Cambridge then changing at Stowmarket wherever the fuck that is, or a rail replacement bus, over 2 hours journey. Although she's found a self service wine bar so train was still a better option.
A self service wine bar?
.
apparently so
https://www.wallowwine.co.uk/
Ah you have to load a card at the bar.
I was wondering how they dealt with underage drinkers (other than it being a wine bar)
At least that takes
some of the angst off it.
Don't get me wrong, I accept that lines need maintenance. But this seems to be ALL lines all at the same time. Much like all roads around Liliput appear to be shut most of the time too.
Is that not to stop
the Lilliputians from escaping?
Yes, and now they've
started burning our takeaways.
It doesn't help, of course, that the roads round here are built on soggy dust. They build them and people come, then they sink into the fens a year later and become absolute car wreckers. I drove an old way home recently and the road was so bad it nearly smashed my sump. The back way to Prickwillow (stop that) has been closed since the beginning of Sept, and now they've closed the A10 to Lynn.
Sump!
There it is
went to the North norfolk Railway with friends
yesterday (Sunday).
got disrupted there too, the visiting class 26 broke down
We now return for another episode of "Could everyone please stop dying?"
Had a great weekend in Rotorua drinking beer and running around a lake. Upset initially by one of my best friends who was with us getting a call on Thurs night to say her brother had just dropped dead after a seizure.
Then I get into work yesterday, to find the wife of a close cow orker had just dropped dead from an aneurism.
Fuck's sake!
Fuck :(
.
Oh, and I can't stress this enough,
mate. What a shitter, hugs to all!
Fucks' sake
indeed.
Thanks all. Bit of a headfuck
One of these happening out of the blue is freaky enough, but two in five days. Jebus
This is indeed shit, so sorry to hear it.
A friend had a mild aneurism last Friday (20th), seemed to be okay according to the nuerosurgeon on Saturday, had surgery in the afternoon which went to shit, had a massive stroke and died on Monday afternoon.
Also, my mother went to the GP with one complaint, got called back to check something else and is now lined up for surgery in the next week or so and none of us are entirely sure what for - more clarity should be available after her pre-op appt tomorrow which my sister is going along to as well. But gah... keeping everything crossed.
Fuckity fuck
This sort of thing absolutely shouldn't be allowed.
Couldn't agree
more
Thirded
Enough of this shite!
Fourthed.
This sort of thing can properly GTF. Hope all's well, Ems x
Fifthed, obvs.
FFS
bloody hell
there's really no need for that
Yeah
innit
we've just discovered our child
has a stash of chocolate in a drawer in her bedroom. I appreciate the Molesworth boarding school hi-jinx of it, I'm just a bit disappointed she was caught so easily.
the good news is
I now have access to confiscated Rolos
Cracking Peel
session etc.
pfft
I believe they've unexpectedly reformed, and are in session for Riley & Coe in November
Why not
pilfer said stash and deny knowledge?
I will next time
Have you seen my Rolos?
Which Rolos?
or a protection racket
every third Rolo as a sweetener to not tell mum
These are nice Rolos...
wouldn't want anything to "happen" to them.
My kids are bunking off school today
as we're off to the isle of wight for a long weekend. We're somewhere near Southampton staying with family, catching a ferry at lunch time.
Uh oh.
That’s where I am.
Portsmouth or the island?
..
Southampton
-
I'm in Bishopstoke next to Eastleigh
for the next hour or so.
Slightly too far for me
and I saw this too late. Sorry.
I'm in a hotel in Sandown. It's lovely and feels oldschool -
rambling corridors with a couple of steps every now and then for no apparent reason,, attentive staff, smells old. But the rooms are en suite, there's wifi, the food is good.
This morning there's a fantastic view out to sea.
Strangely enough
I have relatives in Bishopstoke
It's not great aunt Susan
and great uncle Mickey is it?
No
Uncle* Derry and family
*actual first cousin once removed, but uncle makes more generational sense
Fuck
Sorry for your losses. Are you doing alright?
Well, they're more losses of people who I know than directly mine
but it is a bit of a headfuck. I'm OK, but somewhat discombobulated
I will be in London next weekend for reasons
And I will be on my own on Sunday morning. Can any locals recommend something interesting I could do?
where are you staying?
.
staying in bed with a hangover seems like a solid option
I'm in shoreditch
but unlike most of the country, London has working public transport so I should be able to get around.
I've been conditioned by my son and dog to wake up at 6am everyday so the bed/hangover won't be an option.
If you are around on the friday
Joel Vietch's band is doing a reunion
https://www.seetickets.com/event/7-seconds-of-love/new-cross-inn/2945465
I'm not free
on the friday unfortunately :( It's just that sunday morning that I need to fill with something.
Oh god.
Too much rum.
We may not be entirely well.
It's a rum do
and no mistake!
Mount Gay?
.
Among others
There were St Lucian runs too. Bounty (a bit rough), Chairman’s (much better), and his knows what.
We survived. Overnight flight home tonight. Boo hiss.
apply limes
..
and a few ice cubes
As I understand things, the lime must be inside the coconut
?
I have covid
And it’s making my neck ache.
Just rum or rum cocktails?
I am also quite achey
Buggered if I'm paying for a test though
Just my neck
I only have 1 test left and I’m saving that to prove I can go to work on Monday
I always have 20 from Amazone at home
Come round and you can have some
just nearly did a Naked Gun
finished lecture, went for a wee, realised just as I unzipped I was still wearing a radio mic
Hah
well saved.
Arf!
Fuckity fuck fuck
Greek bus timetables aren't easy to acess
Can confirm.
If you're looking at Thessaloniki I know the app works, but I doubt you are looking at Thessaloniki.
I'm not
Due to the Lefkada canal being blocked, we're not taking the yacht up to Corfu. This is problematic as that's where I'm flying from.
I think I've got an itinerary worked out now though, the buses at least seem to run on the same days and in a way that is helpful. Hopefully. Getting a bus from Lefkada to Preveza, Preveza to Parga, Parga to Igoumenitsa and a ferry from there to Corfu (all this on Wednesday). Wish me luck.
I don't know how far apart those places are
but I think you need more than luck.
I'm afraid that
"taking the yacht up to Corfu" is not a euphemism I am familiar with
There’s a blockage in the Lefkada canal though.
Ouch
Sounds
painful
bet they're more reliable
than the number 7 into town
the first one was ok
the second didn't exist and and the third party website I got the times for it from had lied to me
Why is everywhere out of crocodile steaks?
I can find crocodile burgers, but not a single fillet, anywhere.
Maybe the sale
of them was too snappy.
I have heard from my butcher - apparently there is just a national shortage,
but there is a delivery expected at the end of October.
I need the Crocodile in December, so not too worried, but I was going to order it along with some Wagyu to reduce the shipping cost, and I need that sooner.
maybe you should open a crocodile farm
you'd probably get on TV and you could sell the eggs
Or reverse engineer
some expensive handbags.
when you order it
don't forget to tell them to make it snappy
My youngest is six today.
I've just dropped £75 on a Chinese which seems criminal. At least it's not stuff I could cook at home, I spent £15 on two burgers and chips the other day and I could've cooked them at home.
You couldn’t cook
the other week.
I can't cook *healthy*
..
Anyway I realised I'm just being old. 8 of us ate, under a tenner each is ok.
Glasgow chineseses seem to be in a massive citywide competition on value for money
If I gave my local one £75 they'd probably solve world hunger
face squeezed up against the glass, pleading for no more complimentary chicken rolls
*legs it up to Glasgow*
You're not helping.
That's exactly the kind of thing I expect when spending £75 on a takeaway. Maybe I should just move.
Amy's got a new phone
And managed to log herself out of here a mnd now just gets errors when trying... Anyone got any tips.
She cant reply to this of course so feel free to say anything you want about her...
Roghadlytits
bacon.
I am really struggling with these shifts.
I am perpetually tired and it is making me miserable. I love the work, but I cannot cope with always being tired. I am hoping I get used to it.
Have you considered
wearing a different style of dress?
I wonder if he's considered
that he's just a miserable git and is never happy, or whether that's just us?
Oh, absolutely.
Other people seem to not be devastatingly miserable all the time?
limes
in a car door
cunting
murray
My brane read that as
Cunting Al Murray
Try an incognito window in a different browser
MrsJam is in hospital and it fills me with dread. I know better, but I also know what kind of things go wrong.
Is she out now?
Are you coping alright?
She's doing ok but still in, we're coping fine at home
And I got over the dread.
Although I just made up an excuse at work
about not being able to concentrate well enough to get complicated stuff done because my wife's in hospital, and then I realised it's true.
You should take it easy
And spoil her too. It is miserable sitting about all day in an arseless gown
She shoulld be coming home tomorrow.
I've had to cancel a work trip to Cornwall, which I wasn't really invested in but I rather like the downtime involved in two days of rail travel. I would've got to spend time with my new team and would've got to speak to my boss for the second time ever. Never mind.
It’s good that she’s coming home!
Has she got a lot of recuperation to do or is she basically fixed and ready get back to life?
She's significantly better than when she went in,
we'll see how well she is. She's certainly going to take it easy to start with, and I've demonstrated I can cope on my own*
*except, perhaps, for feeding the kids. I'm not a cook.
kids are pretty robust
Tin of beans or frozen sweetcorn with everything, all the vitamins you need short term
if it wasn't for lack of a single nutrient
baked beans would be a perfect food
so long as they haven't has to go begging the neighbours for scraps, you've been doing just fine Jammers. you don't need to be fat-tongued twat Jamie Oliver to be able to keep children fed well enough to survive, there exists whole assortments of meals and meal accompaniments that are designed to be simple and nutritious, despite all the fearmongering
What's the single nutrient?
My child lives on pasta with red pesto and the occasional cheese toastie or banana smoothie. She's 10, about 6 foot 3, and apparently healthy. As long as they're not smoking and living on takeaways they're normally ok for a bit.
aha
on looking it up, I have found: 1, it's not a lack as much as a lower rate of something, and 2: it's actually not an issue anyway
it's something to do with the levels of various amino acids, they're different in plant proteins compared to animal ones but not detrimentally so; there was a study many moons ago and the conclusion got misreported by the papers - gosh, it's good that kind of thing doesn't happen any more eh? :D
ah
I will make sure to feed them sausagess as well then
cowboy dinners
*parp*
Well
I know what I'm having for lunch tomorrow.
That is such a reality.
I often tell other people to take time off for things I would consider skiving in myself.
delete all cookies for this domain
and refresh the login page before trying again
I have told her this
...
I didn't have any cookies.
Incognito tab works though, so thanks to CJ.
what browser?
if it's iOS/Safari then Apple made some recent updates to their default security settings that take a huff with here
Oh FFS. I already can’t get on here from my laptop
Phone hanging in there.
Hello from the Caribbean, lovely people.
The trouble with the Caribbean
it's that it's too lovely. If MrsJam didn't have an in-person job I could q quite happily have stayed.
hello.
you are in my default Caribbean Worlde answer.
I've had 3 projects over there in that general direction.. never a sniff of a work trip.
Works in Incognito mode as mentioned above.
I think I need to change my settings to get that login to carry across to the normal mode.
I don't have an iOS device which makes it hard for me to test
but apparently the issue is that the newest updates makes the default browser setting to be block all cookies, which breaks how some sites (including this one) does logins
you should be able to change this in the settings to go back to how it was in the before before
I use this place almost exclusively on ios
And haven’t had an issue.
Happy to do things under the pretence of helping to diagnose the issue though. Just let me know what I can do.
I found a disabled “block all cookies” option deep in the settings
But I don’t think it’s ever been on. It would definitely break most of the internet if it was.
Edit: from what I can tell, this was never enabled by default.
That's mental.
Although now I'm typing perhaps it's for series without SSL?
I found something that didn't work on my home web ae to vwr because it's not SSL but I can't remember what it is.
Edit: auto-play video needs SSL.
ah ha!
Yes, if you go to the http version of this place, it doesn't work in iOS safari. Slap an 's' on the http and it'll work.
Cancel your subscription.
It's the only language Big Message board understands.
Well, that's what you get
for getting a new phone!
One assumes she has already applied limes, sprayed it silver (and walked about a bit), covered it in jam and chucked it in the sea?
In 'things I never knew were a thing' news
there's a chap outside our office 'testing the lightning conductor', which is a genuine thing apparently and not just someone casing the office to rob it. He's got a massive stick and a box with wires coming out of it.
how did you not now they were a thing?
bits of metal running down the side of churches and that.
They are of arguable use and not required by building regs, but insurers like them
I knew they existed
It just never occurred that someone tested them. My knowledge of building, buildings and people who build buildings is pretty minimal
Ah yes that makes sense
.. they are mostly checking someone hasn't nicked them, the old ones were copper.
Are the new ones not still copper?
Assumed they still would be
Nah, too nickable.
I think they are aluminium or steel.
My youngest was asking how special effects were done on star wars
(eg, do they pain real bullets red and fire them for the laser blasters?)
This led to me explaining how force ghosts are done and I offered to show him by making him a force ghost.
He has rarely been so happy on a school morning.
CFB
The official Sennheiser account
just posted in a sega megadrive sub about playing the altered beast soundtrack on their HE1 headphones, which require a $10k downpayment to start the order process. Very weird.