test please delete

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Rainy start today, there seeming to have been showers, at least, overnight. There's some wan sunshine breaking through now and again though, and it's expected to dry out and brighten up more later. It's 12°C ("feels like" 6°) with a high of 16° expected for a very brief period this afternoon; the barometers are up a bit but sticking to the lower region of their range at 992/1000mB

Friday!

Today is only expected to be moderately busy. The mundane laundry is already on, needing only a Quick Wash cycle. And there's the trip to the glasses place at lunchtime, with its attendant minor concerns around parking. Though I've still got a few visitor permits for that zone from when I lived in the old place, so I don't know why I get concerned about it

[ladymuck]

Morning all

There's blue sky poking through the cloud. Currently 14 degrees with a high of 18 expected. Rain forecast on and off all day. Barometer up to 1005 mBar.

Sunrise 04:46; Sunset 21:14 BST

Quick tidy up of the front room before my 10 am meeting as a chap is coming about 11 am to effect repairs on the plasterboard blocking up the fireplace. Of course, I could do it myself but tenants are not encouraged to do such things.

[xoggoth]

Just doing me little puzzle things this morning. Hate it when crossword clues are name of some sports person or celeb, I never have a clue. Out with ll1 this afternoon.

[ladymuck]

All repairs done. I had dug out the paint that matched the walls, as the landlady left a little bit for ad hoc small repairs. The chap said that wasn't the right paint as the wall was white and the colour just faded. He later told me I was right, and the paint I'd supplied was the right stuff.

[NickFitz]

The new glasses have been collected! They're better for looking through, based on initial impressions, and also very light and easy on the ears. The nosepieces sit in a slightly different position so I'll have to get used to that, but generally they're excellent!

When I went there last week, there were roadworks and lorries unloading and stuff like that on the way, so I was only just on time. This time I allowed an extra ten minutes, and as there were none of those annoyances en route I arrived ten minutes early. The place was all closed up, so I assumed they were out to lunch. By five past one, I was double-checking my texts to see if I'd got the right day and time. And by quarter past, I was texting and phoning, getting no reply to either

I'd decided to wait until twenty past and give up, but just before that the lady turned up, apologised, and explained that she'd just had to take her husband, who's the technical guy that makes all the glasses, to hospital!

Don't know what's wrong but it sounds as if he's had a condition for a while which occasionally necessitates a trip to the Royal when it flares up. It's a shame; he's a really nice chap

Anyway, I was then able to get my new glasses. The frames I went for are in steel; I'd tried the same style in titanium, but that was a bit dark. Lovely and light though, and since then I'd realised that my reading glasses are comparatively heavy and uncomfortable. So I asked if I could get the titanium ones made up as a new pair of reading glasses.

This resulted in a detailed explanation of various aspects of lenses and the way they're fitted into frames, which was all very interesting and came down to the fact that those particular frames weren't up to the job, reading lenses being thicker than distance ones. Instead, she produced about half a dozen titanium frames of various styles, all of which were suited for reading glasses, and I picked one of those that felt really comfortable and light. So I'll be back there again in a week or ten days to collect them

And before all of that, lunch was the leftover pork cutlet in a wholemeal bap with apple sauce

[NickFitz]

Tea has been lamb chops with chips, peas and gravy

Accompanied by the first half of S9E2 of Trucking Hell

[NickFitz]

Two major motion picture premieres tonight!

First up was The Accountant 2 (2025) (or The Accountant² according to the title card). This is excellent, though of course it lacks the magic of the first one where the nature of Christian's neurodivergence was revealed over the course of the story. There's also very little accountancy in there, rather than it being a major aspect of the plot. I can only assume that the critics who asserted that it's better than the first one are normies (to use the terminology of the film) and therefore didn't appreciate the first one in the same way the neurodivergent do. But it's a cracking film

Next: Heretic (2024) in which a couple of young female Mormon missionaries find their beliefs challenged after knocking on a door they really shouldn't have knocked on. I thought this was also excellent, with a particularly powerful performance by Hugh Grant as the challenger of beliefs. It takes a lot of skill to portray a character so menacing without even raising one's voice

Both of these are "Free With Prime" at the moment, should you fancy a return on your investment

Goodnight all

[WTFH]

Morning all
Thunderstorms haven’t arrived yet.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Saturday.

Wet. Remarkably wet. Not a good day to do the washing.

Grey.

Sunless.

Chilly in here at 17.4 deg, 18 deg in the kitchen, 16 in the leanto.

1001.5 mBar, 29.57 in Hg, 751.2 Torr, 14.52 psi, (down from 1002.5 last night), 70% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 22nd of January 2020 LM watched Chris Packham railing about overpopulation so I posted a vid of the start of "Survivors (1975)" , coincidentally the then current plague was ramping itself up in China. BR14 popped in. NF was doing his mapping thing.

Freecell score in the ongoing deluge: 85%, running average: 82%.

Lunch: brunch.

Entertainment: 12 o'clock news.

Moneybox <click>

More potching in the garage. The toolbox is progressing.

Just found the deleted scene from "Young Winston (1972)":

https://www.robertarchibaldshaw.com/young-winston

Well there's a thing: been looking for that for years.

Tea: soup etc. Nice enough.

Entertainment: PM. Sounds like The Chief Autist has dialled things back a bit.

Massive Engineering Mistakes. S5 E5/E6: Memphis TN: I40 crack in bridge caused by hydrogen embritlement in a weld. It had been cracked for years and was detected just before total failure. Brisbane malt silo demolition failure: tough things silos: fell halfway over & stuck. Miami FL 1974: DEA facility (ex car sales building with parking on roof): roof collapsed due to salt in the concrete rusting the steel reinforcement. Bellmawr NJ ramp wall collapse: water yet again.

Corpus Christi TX August 2020: dredger ruptured a propane gas pipeline in a dock. Impressive fuel air explosion & fire. Spain A7 River Verde viaduct collapse during construction 2005: loose bolt in the temporary scaffolding. Tower crane collapse in Liverpool 2009: for unknown reasons the steel in the foundation piles for the crane was shorter than might have been expected & failed. No comment. . Highway 36 Denver Colorado 2019: gravity wall collapse due to waterlogging of the soil during construction.

[NickFitz]

Afternoon denizens

Grey day out, with rain expected any minute and carrying on into early evening. It's 14° but "feels like" 10°, so presumably the high of 15° will feel like 11°. The barometers are about the same at 993/1000mB