test please delete

[NickFitz]

For tea tonight, I thought I'd try a Texan BBQ place not far away (though I didn't go there myself, of course). It was very nice for the most part: very good fries, exceptional onion rings, very tender brisket and pulled beef. But I found the sauces a little too much: the buffalo one was a touch too hot to balance its flavour, and the sweet & smoky one was a bit too sweet. Authentic, I suppose, as Americans make everything too sweet. Anyway, overall it was really good, but I'll have to revisit their range of sauces to see what alternatives might be more to my taste

[NickFitz]

Now watching live TV in the form of Argos: How Do They Really Do It? on channel 5.

Ooh, that sounds interesting!

[xoggoth]

Just back from karaoke. No ladies this time.

[NickFitz]

Tonight's birthday special motion picture premiere was the unexpectedly topical Conclave (2024). Rumours that a studio exec tried to persuade them to call it Pope Idol remain unconfirmed. It's very good indeed

And then a rewatch of The Island (2005) which, it must be admitted, is hardly in the same league. But it does have lots of exciting action, albeit after a rather slow-burning start, and some good comedy moments from Steve Buscemi thrown in midway to leaven the horrific nature of the story

Goodnight all

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Wednesday apparently.

Torrential rain overnight.

Damp.

Blue sky in parts.

Sunny.

Chilly in here at 15.8 deg, 15.5 deg in the kitchen, 13 in the leanto.

1006 mBar, 29.707 in Hg, 754.56 Torr, 14.59 psi, (up from 1003 last night), 62% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 11th of January 2020 it was unpleasantly cold, wet, & nasty, Brillo popped in, DaveB expressed his admiration for The Chronicles of Amber & his hope for a film/tv series of same, I was in with the hoi polloi before deciding it was too unpleasant for a walk, and LM successfully moved the car, avoiding a fine, and had the shopping delivered at the same time, while NF was puzzled by the three matches of association football within a week.

Right ear is blocked again. Ho hum. Have to get some more ear drops, not that the last lot seemed particularly effective, it must be said.

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in the greyish gloom.

Lunch: brunch.

Entertainment: TWATO. Wall to wall pope seems to have paused for the moment. Oooops. Spoke too soon. .

More work on The Great Spider Hunt: part of the front bedroom duly turfed up & vacced under. Too knackered today to do a lot though.

Tea: chilli (3 bean, Tesco) con carne with rice etc. Nice enough.

Entertainment: some R4 bollox about SPADs and such like. PM.

Hannah Fry: Doorbells: specifically, In General, the Ring video doorbell.

Maigret (1999) "First Class Murder".

More: Maigret's Little Joke (1963). Last in the series. Roger Delgado lost his head.

[WTFH]

Morning all
Only one coughing fit during the night, so I'm feeling well rested this morning. Heavy rain through the night has given way to sunshine.
The great tit has stopped laying at 6 eggs and seems to be thinking about incubating them.

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Overcast and dull. Damp from much overnight rain that kept me awake from about 4.30 am onwards. Currently 9 degrees ('feels like' 6) with a high of 13 expected. More rain possible off and on throughout the day. Barometer down to 1009 mBar.

Sunrise 05:49; Sunset 20:12 BST

Took ages to get to sleep, thanks to much coughing. Then awake again thanks to much rain. I have logged on to work but may not get much done and am more likely to take at least another half day off.

I am hoping over the course of the next couple of weeks that the pound weakens against the dollar just in time for when my next invoice gets paid. Currently have an unrealised loss of about 3% of the invoice value. All it needs is for Trump to say something sensible for a change.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Rather grey day and quite breezy too. It's 13° striving for 15°, while the barometers have turned back downwards at 1001/1009mB

[NickFitz]

Lunch has been the last of the cold chipolatas stuffed into a white bap

Meanwhile, HMRC has decided in its infinite wisdom that our Dad owes them around £290 in tax

This has led to a long email chain between my brother, my sister, and myself as we try to make sense of their calculations. It's not exactly going to break the bank but as executors, my brother and I have a legal responsibility to ensure His Majesty's servants aren't bilking the estate. The whole thing is complicated by the figure at question being something to do with the Married Couple's Allowance, which is only available to couples in which one or both were born before 1935. Working out how much it should be depends on various factors including calculations based solely on the husband's income, that being the way they did things back in the day

Being applicable only to an ever-shrinking and, by now, very small proportion of the population means it's sufficiently obscure and similar in name to the Marriage Allowance that Googling tends to throw up a lot of irrelevant results. So my brother has brought his lifetime of legal expertise to bear and composed a letter which takes several paragraphs to basically say "Umm… this bit? What's it mean, and are you sure it's right? Ta."

[NickFitz]

I am hoping over the course of the next couple of weeks that the pound weakens against the dollar just in time for when my next invoice gets paid. Currently have an unrealised loss of about 3% of the invoice value. All it needs is for Trump to say something sensible for a change.

At least you didn't accept payment in Tesla stock