test please delete

[NickFitz]

Tonight's major motion picture premiere was Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) in which the mighty ape busies himself with important work in Hollow Earth and the hitherto unknown Subterranean Earth region (complete with tautologous name), while the big lizard does its dumb lizard stuff of smashing places up for no good reason up on normal Earth. There's also the big moth, which doesn't seem to do anything much but apparently it's friends with the lizard and that helps. It's quite good fun as these things go, but I'd be happy enough if they just stuck with the ape rather than dragging the lizard in, and the ape seemed to have things pretty much in hand

And then a rewatch of Gladiator (2000) because the new one is out now and I'll need to remember the old one well enough to moan that the new one isn't as good

Time to get to sleep now as I need to be up for Monkey Life tomorrow, hopefully without giant lizards

Goodnight all

[ladymuck]

Morning all, Glasgow calling

Dull and overcast. Currently 9 degrees ('feels like' 7) with a high of 10 expected. Rain forecast off and on for most of the day. Barometer at 1024 mBar.

HWMBO tells me localised flooding is forecast for 30th/31st and high winds on the 1st, when I'm due to head home.

Big family dinner this afternoon.

[sadkingbilly]

morning
today's eye exercise Kokhma, Russian Federation in 33* moves! (6 x 6 map)
*1 oops.
lots of FOG today

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Still foggy, though it seemed to reduce in density somewhat late last night and isn't as thick now as it was yesterday afternoon. It's still mild for the time of year but still a tad chilly, at 4°C rising to 6° in a bit. The barometers are down to 1016/1024mB

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning Afternoon.

Saturday.

Dry.

Grey.

Gloomy.

Sunless.

Chilly in here at 11.8 deg, 11 deg in the kitchen, 9.5 deg in the leanto.

1025 mBar, 30.268 in Hg, 768.8 Torr, 14.866 psi, (down from 1027 last night), 63% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 14th of December 2019 LM went to the Playhouse Theatre to see Cyrano, I watched the concluding eps of BTVS and the remaining eps of Angel so as to start the final season next, while Brillo watched an Xmas movie with the kids: "Die Hard", whereas vetran watched an amateur version of Beauty & the Beast and NF watched "The Wire", totally against expectations.

Shopping trip to Morrisons done dusted washed dried sanitised & put away. Managed to find where they'd hidden the cranberry juice which saved buying it from Tesco.

Walk (greatly augmented again) walked in the grey gloom: not as raw as yesterday but still quite chilly. Spotted Alcwyn's Rock in the River Neath at Tonna again.

Lunch: brunch. The blood blister on the tongue burst last night but it's still sore.

Freecell score: 91%, running average: 81%.

Tea: spag with a tuna based sauce from a recipe I found on line. Well it was edible. With the usual load of chilli powder & peppers & paprika added, plus some BBE parsley from the back of the cupboard. . Oh, and a boiled egg. Not in the recipe but there you go.

Entertainment: Slice bread waffling on about home DNA tests.

BBC4: what we watched in 1984: I didn't watch any of this so:

PBS: Thirties in Colour: Countdown to War. What would we watch if Adolph hadn't been invented?

Quest: Massive Engineering Mistakes: Harrisburg, Penn, Walnut Street river bridge deck taken away by ice on the river: scour around base of pillars: BER. Brighton Beach (not that one) Brooklyn condominium construction failure. Naples, Italy: sinkhole in hospital parking lot: punching shear. Hammersmith flyover cracking due to cable corrosion.

"Momento Mori (1992)" Muriel Spark. Goodness me, Maggie Smith plays a good villain.

[NickFitz]

Lunch has been a couple of Christmas leftover sausage rolls

I need to make turkey soup. I've got the leftover thigh from the other day and my sister donated a leg and some meat from the Christmas bird, so that should be enough to make a medium-sized batch

[NickFitz]

For tea, the usual "special offer" from KFC

[NickFitz]

Today's viewing was the usual Monkey Life plus other wildlife stuff

And I did a bit of mucking around with getting SpriteKit stuff working in SwiftUI, again

This evening, I finished reading the George Sherston (i.e. Siegfried Sassoon) memoirs. He'd got to the point of quite looking forward to going to the front because he was fed up with boring admin stuff, but then his brigade was struck down by flu. Once that had passed, they were moved north and finally went to the front. And on his second night, having led a few men forward on a sneak attack on a German machine gun post, an overeager sergeant from his own company who didn't realise they weren't back yet shot him in the head as he returned to his own lines! Only a graze on the scalp and he was able to walk to the medical post, but this resulted in him getting shipped back to hospital in England again and, of course, the German side collapsed that autumn and there was no war to go back to

The turkey bits and veg are in the slow cooker now, so there should be soup some time tomorrow

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

The fog has lifted but it's still cloudy, though it may brighten upon a bit this afternoon. It's 5°C and expected to soar to 8°, with the barometers up a little at 1017/1025mB

The turkey soup has had the bones taken out, veg blended, and chopped meat added. I've also chucked in some pearl barley, just for a change. It should be ready by early afternoon, so it'll be soup for lunch

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Bright and dry. Windy. I could see sky half an hour ago. Currently 10 degrees ('feels like' 7) with a high of 11 expected. Rain expected off and on all day. Barometer down to 1020 mBar.

Yesterday's family get together was good. HWMBO cooked a huge turkey and a multitude of accompanying dishes, all on a Mexican/Peruvian theme. Snacking on left overs and finishing the clearing up is the plan for today.