test please delete

[NickFitz]

Tonight's major motion picture premiere was The Zone of Interest (2023) in which the commandant of Auschwitz leads a pleasant family life next door to the camp. When this came out, I saw a lot of people saying it must be seen in the cinema because so much of the import of the film was in the background soundscape, where one can hear the day to day sounds of the camp in the distance although nothing of its operations is really shown. But I think what these people were really saying or revealing was that at home, they can't turn the telly up too loud for fear of disturbing the neighbours, or maybe just can't afford a decent soundbar. I listened to it on my AirPods Max headphones, as I usually do with films, and the soundscape came across very well. The last time I was in a cinema, it was painfully loud, and that would have been worse. Anyway, none of that is really the point of the film, which I thought was very powerful

And then a couple more episodes of Masters of the Air, which continues to confuse anachronism with drama. In one of these episodes a flyer gets a weekend pass and goes to London for the weekend, where he experiences an air raid along the lines of those of 1940. By the summer of 1942, which I think is the time he was supposed to be there (it couldn't have been any earlier given how long it took for the Yanks to get involved), the Nazis had most of their bombers tied up on the Eastern Front and London wasn't seeing very much of that kind of thing at all; I believe the last major air raid there was in May 1941. But why let the facts get in the way of a TV show

Goodnight all

[WTFH]

l
TFIF, etc.
Overcast and windy out. 2C at 6.30am, felt like f***ing freezing.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Friday.

Dry.

Was sunny, now grey.

Chilly in here at 11.1 deg, 10.5 in the kitchen, 7 deg in the leanto, 4.6 deg in the saltinghouse.

1025 mbar, 30.268 in Hg, 768.8 Torr, 14.866 psi, (down from 1033 last night), 60% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 25th of December 2019, Bah! Humbug!, NF went to bed early after watching Deadpool with adverts because there wasn't anything else to do, and Brillo was anticipating The Return of Janey.

In other news, the missing sock remains missing, not on the garden path or the lawn, so I must assume that either the WM or the TD ate it.

In other other news, I left the kitchen light on over night again. Haven't done that for a while. Probably obsessed with finding said sock when going to bed. .

Lunch: brunch.

Entertainment: the 11:45 thing about the couple shipwrecked by a whale in the 1970s.

Shopping trip to Morrisons done dusted washed dried sanitised & put away.

Entertainment: the 13:45 thing about chance & probability.

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in the grey gloom & cold wind.

Tea: soup etc. Stone me that Hovis wholemeal is heavy stuff, very difficult to get down my gullet, I wouldn't have bought it if they'd had the usual bread in stock.

The News Quiz.

Freecell score (W95): 90%, running average: 88%.

Joanna Lumley's Best Bits: in my own words. Haven't seen many of these since about 1981.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Grey day out, and it seems to be getting quite breezy again. Currently 4°C but "feels like" -6°, which seems like an excessive amount of wind chill; anyway, it seems that's the best we can hope for today. The barometers are scurrying back down from the dizzy heights of yesterday, being 1018/1026mB

I don't need to go shopping today!

What, if anything, I will do instead remains to be seen

[WTFH]

Sleety snow here now. Might light the fire.

[NickFitz]

Lunch earlier was a bacon butty

I started to get something done, to wit, putting up those new Roman blinds for the small side window and the balcony door. But upon opening the smaller parcel, I found that I don't have a masonry drill bit of the right size for putting up the brackets, because I have precisely one masonry bit and it's too big. So I've ordered a set of bits off Amazon, and will do the blinds another time

I think I'll reward myself for having wrapped that job up so quickly with a cup of coffee, and maybe some biscuits

[NickFitz]

Over on Bluesky, the (probably American) moderators banned Viz's account for being spam

It's been restored now, after lots of British people explained to them that they're idiots and it's a genuine publication. One chap memorably described it as "like Mad magazine, but funny"

One of the responses castigating them included the famous photo of David Bowie reading Viz on a train with a big grin on his face. This reminded me that I'd been meaning to check and, sure enough, I still have my copy of that very issue! It's number 40 from February/March 1990

[ladymuck]

Morning all, local time 0651

Lovely sunrise was observed earlier. Now it's blue sky with some wispy fluff. Currently 22 with a high of 28 expected. Thunderstorms coming but not today hence the barometer is down to 1008 mBar.

Sunrise 06:24: Sunset 19:25

We start wending our way home this morning, getting the train to the airport after a light breakfast. First stop will be Auckland where we have 23 hours to spend.

[NickFitz]

Tea has been chicken madras with rice and naan

Bit of rain here now, but supposedly it won't last

[WTFH]

Just noticed that the rules on home distilling have changed, but good old hector cannot be contacted to find out what the new rules are.

Anyway, TFBSZ.