test please delete

[NickFitz]

Shopping done!

I went over via the old flat to avoid the roadworks. The chestnut trees have their pink candles on

This fits in with their pattern of flowering a few weeks later than the one with white candles down at the end of next door’s garden here (or possibly a garden on the next street along, but next-door’s garden is very long).

I went to M&S as it’s convenient to pop in there when approaching from that direction. I tried to use the self-scan bit on the phone app which is usually fine, but the store wi-fi seemed to be having an off day, and I can never get a signal in there. So I ended up stuffing things straight into my M&S tote bag like a brazen shoplifter, then dumping it all out and repacking it at the self checkout

The ongoing “improvement” of Big Sainsbury’s is still going on, resulting in a convoluted route around the place. But Viz is still in its new place right by the door, so I was able to get that without getting lost. There’s an extra-wide aisle in the middle which used to be baked goods, but the lateral displacement of product ranges means they’ve moved along a bit and the wide one is now all the foreign stuff like imported Polish biscuits, spices by the kilo, and large sacks of rice. If I used Facebook, I’d start a rumour that it’s because Sainsbury’s have adopted a corporate strategy of mostly selling goods for immigrants in future, and need to give them the extra space previously used by native British customers

Returning home, I forgot about the roadworks and came that way, but they weren’t causing too many holdups at that time of day. A Mini with white stripes had nicked my preferred parking spot by the time I got back. I can’t remember if this one comes for the weekend or just visits for part of the day, so I need to keep an eye out for it clearing off so I can go all the way downstairs for the sake of moving one car’s length further up

Almost time for lunch!

And now the “502 Bad Gateway” errors have subsided and I’ve finally managed to post this, it is time for lunch

[NickFitz]

I took three bags of cut-up corrugated cardboard, the packaging of the new desk, over to the bins; I hadn’t been able to get rid of them till now due to Bank Holiday bin shenanigans. It turned out that other people must also have been hoarding as I filled the space that was left in the next-to-last recycling bin, leaving just one for fifty-odd flats until Wednesday

I vaguely remember this happening the other year when the bins hadn’t been put out one week; it took about three weeks for the situation to stabilise

With that done, I thought I ought to do something about the pallet situation in the car park out the back (actually the side as my block is perpendicular to the road). You may recall that the desk delivery chap had said he’d get rid of the pallets, but did so by dumping them out there, where they’ve been occupying the parking space furthest from the road; there’s only seven or eight spaces out there, and they usually fill up at weekends with visitors and so on, so this was a definite nuisance.

There are two pallets and one was mounted vertically in the centre of the other, supported by a diagonal brace at each end. The desktop box had been on one side and the box with the end panels and other bits on the other, the whole assemblage being wrapped in polythene or the like (which he did take away). I thought I’d break this down and take it all to the tip, so I grabbed my claw hammer and went down, taking the car round there to load it up.

First problem: the braces were screwed on with what turned out to be extremely long screws, and wouldn’t give way at a few bangs of the hammer. So I had to traipse back upstairs for a screwdriver. This allowed me to unscrew them, eventually, and the couple of screws that were keeping the two pallets together at the base gave way easily.

Second problem: they’re big and heavy. So big that they don’t fit in the back of my car; or at least they won't easily fit. And they're also too heavy for me to easily experiment with different angles trying to get them in

So in the end, I propped them up against next door’s garden wall in the parking space. Maybe somebody will nick them, maybe they’ll still be there months from now. But at least it’s now possible to use the space for parking, as nature intended

[NickFitz]

Just logged on to the work machine for the farewell meeting for the other dev. Just me on this project now

I’m still not entirely clear what’s going to happen, and I don’t think anybody else is either. This service is supposed to be going into maintenance mode and will then become redundant when a new whiz-bang thing goes live next year. But we all know how those big this-one-does-everything projects tend to go

[NickFitz]

Tea has been a rack of ribs and chips. The ribs were from M&S this time, with a Korean chilli BBQ glaze. Very nice as it turned out, though not as fiery as one would expect from the Koreans, who probably weren’t really involved at all

I left the bed to air earlier today, but it’s been partly remade. I just need to re-cover the duvet and encase the pillows

[NickFitz]

The bed has been made!

I’ve been waiting for Royal Mail to deliver the lead cutter I bought off eBay. It was supposed to arrive any time after half four this afternoon, and past experience of that timeslot for parcels suggested some time around half seven was likely. Finally, around quarter to nine, I refreshed the Royal Mail app to see if there was any update that would explain its non-appearance - and it turned out it had arrived an hour earlier! There was even a photo of it just outside, on the doormat. I can only assume they must have tiptoed up to the door to leave it there, despite it being pretty large, because I was watching S2E1 of the documentary about the ferry Estonia in Swedish with subtitles, so the TV wasn’t turned up particularly loud and I’m sure I would have heard if he’d knocked

Anyway, I decided this was no time of night to start unpacking vintage letterpress machinery, so I shoved the box out of the way in the study and got on with finishing making the bed

[NickFitz]

Tonight’s major motion picture premiere was The Spy Gone North (2018), a Korean film about espionage between the North and South parts of that peninsula in the 1990s. This was said to be an “edge of your seat thriller” but it isn’t anything of the kind, unless complex subtleties of political interaction drive you to a frenzy. It’s good though, albeit probably more interesting if you’re Korean, and based on a true story - though I think the filmmakers had to be careful not to upset governments on both sides by adding an extensive disclaimer at the start. Is it really true that the government in the South paid several million dollars for Kim Jong Il to fire mortars into the DMZ a few days before an election? Would he really have accepted such a deal because he wanted to ensure the conservatives won so he had somebody against whom to rattle his sabres? I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me

This was followed by a rewatch of Jupiter Ascending (2015). Spoiler alert I suppose, but I like the notion that the planet Earth is, in fact, owned by a stateless illegal immigrant

And then the next episode of Pluribus in which certain recondite limitations of the invaders are suggested if you pay attention, and the chap from the cold open several episodes ago moves closer to becoming a player

Goodnight all