test please delete

[DoctorStrangelove]

No need for BDC, it is .22 with an AO mil dot scope. It's claiming manual adjustment is 1 click = 1/4" at 100yds, so with a bit of practice I should be spot on.

22Short, 22LR, 22Long, or 22 popgun?

Just askin' like.

I was, of course, being facetious with the BDC thing.

No idea why, happened long ago (some looks Victorian), but my garden is full of broken glass and china. Certainly keeps the moles away.

So was ours, in places. Possibly due to the house being owned by a doctor way back then, who would also have been the pharmacist/dispenser/etc. A lot of the broken stuff in ours looks like it could belong in a chemistry set.

Was his name Walter White?

The Strangelove garden used to turn up bits of clay pipe (smoking kind) presumably from when the navvies built the canal.

Oh, and an old penny, from about George IIIish.

[NickFitz]

Shopping done

The car's engine warning light came on on the way back. I suspect it's the same thing as the other year, as that also happened on a particularly warm day

Once I was back I plugged the diagnostic thingy in and got a code back, so I'll check that to see if it's the same. If so, I figure it can probably be ignored for three weeks if the weather settles back to normal, as it only really affects acceleration and I can live with that.

[original PM]

hmmm so it's a lovely day and the beer garden beckons

but I am supposed to be working

can i blag it and finish the day in the beer garden?

or am i destined to spend the rest of the day looking out of a hot office window

all will be revealed soon ish...

[NickFitz]

We have a code!

P0171 System Too Lean (Bank 1).

Quite common on a Corolla of this age at around this mileage, it seems. Possible causes range from a dirty Mass Air Flow sensor to a leaking intake gasket; but the sensor is the most common one.

Worth getting it checked at as it can cause the engine to run hot enough to cause damage, though I haven't noticed the temperature gauge going any higher than usual.

Anyway, it turns out there's a Toyota dealership about ten minutes walk from ClientCo, so I'll pop in there and see about getting it looked at, and maybe even splash out on their 80,000 mile special service given that it's 10,000 miles overdue

Done over 35,000 miles since then

It's the same code, so either I never got round to clearing it last time and I'm just seeing that, or it's the same thing. The weather's going to cool down next week, so I'll leave it for now and hope for the best

Then I may splash out on having the Toyota people look at it once I'm done with ClientCo. Or maybe just buy a new MAF and fit it myself; might as well take advantage having two car parts shops within a couple of hundred yards of home

Somebody on Quora a while back asked what the quality of Toyota engines was like. A mechanic responded with the time a bloke drove his car in for them to look at, and it turned out it had thrown a rod. He was suitably impressed that it had made it there in the first place, but then the owner explained that it had actually happened about five days before - he just hadn't brought the car in straight away as he'd needed to carry on using it to drive to work

[NickFitz]

Bacon butty for lunch

[NickFitz]

Laundry done.

The chestnut trees outside are coming into leaf at a rapid pace. I won't be able to see when the people in the flat over the Polish café are watching TV until autumn

[NickFitz]

Pork chops, chips, peas, and gravy for tea

Just popped out the back. It's a very balmy night out there

Apparently we may get thunderstorms tomorrow teatime, which would be good - I like a nice, brief, self-contained cataclysm

[NickFitz]

Tonight's silver screen experience (barring hospital stuff on iPlayer during dinner) opened with The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), which I've certainly seen before, though probably on TV in the 1980s, as by 1977 I wasn't going to the Granada cinema for James Bond double bill matinees full of thirteen year olds in the school holidays

But I remember the Union Flag parachute bit, so it wasn't new to me.

Remember how, in those days, there was a standing agreement that no film could be shown on TV until at least five years after its cinema release? And the Bond films were late to TV, as the rights owners were still making money off said cinema double bills for years. So I assume it was some time in the mid-1980s that I saw it.

Anyway, it's not very good really IMHO

The pace in the Egypt scenes, among others, is far too slow, and the villain's henchmen too often come across as a bunch of incompetent nitwits, rather than deadly killers outwitted by an even more deadly adversary. 3/10 for this one, unless an even worse one turns up (I haven't seen most of the rest), but I doubt it'll ever get above 5/10.

After that disappointment, Total Recall (2012). As the date suggests, this is not the original with Arnold Schwarzenegger, but the more recent variant, which apparently isn't as good because it lacks all the deep and meaningful aspects of the original. But it's a fast-paced action flick, and it uses the very same Transport font that we have today on the holographic road signs on the maglev freeways high above London; and that alone is a good enough reason to cut it some slack

Also, the road signs show the correct destinations much as you'd see them today, such as including St. Thomas's Hospital, complete with red-background capital H plate to the right of the sign, on the sign for Westminster Bridge and other points south of the river

Some people would say that depicting road signage well is not a sufficient reason to like a film that can be seen as a travesty of the original. Those people and I do not share the same values.

Goodnight all

[DoctorStrangelove]

Don't listen to the Director's commentary on the 1990 one because his take on it is definitely non-Dickian.

Which was a bit of a disappointment so I stopped listening to it at that point.

[WTFH]

Morning all sunny on the dog walk earlier, now looks like rain heading in over Golden Cap