Reply to: test please delete

[NickFitz]

The watery wildlife returned to the telly today

This evening, I watched 24 Hours in A&E

And tonight’s reading was more of A Game of Birds and Wolves, in which there was a brief history of the founding of the Wrens in WWI, their disbanding afterwards, and their hasty re-founding in WWII. Apparently fifteen thousand women applied to join the initial intake of fifteen hundred, which was a problem as the Admiralty didn’t have anybody to handle the applications, as they hadn’t employed any women with sufficient naval experience to do that yet

There’ve been a couple of references to the Operations Room under the Admiralty where stuff was plotted on the wall (not to be confused with the Operations Room at the Western Approaches in Liverpool from which things were actually controlled). I assume that was in the space in the basement that’s now divided up into various meeting rooms, but I’ve never been down there - on the few occasions I’ve been to the office, we were upstairs

I’ve spent almost all of today wrestling with getting the forum running on AWS for testing purposes. I’m about there now; just got to work out some bottleneck that’s making one step of the data import crawl along at a snail’s pace

Monday again tomorrow. Everything I’ve been working on recently was done and dusted last week, so I’ve got to start in on some other stuff that the other dev largely finished before she left, but which involves liaising with other teams to get it into action

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

I'm reading a book about Ada Lovelace. I've only just learned (maybe something everyone else knew) that the Analytical Engine (i.e. world's first computer) was never actually built, and Lovelace's program never run until many years later on a modern emulator (where a bug was found!). I feel quite cheated.

Yes, Babbage was renowned, or perhaps notorious, for having marvellous ideas but never finishing anything

[mudskipper]

I'm reading a book about Ada Lovelace. I've only just learned (maybe something everyone else knew) that the Analytical Engine (i.e. world's first computer) was never actually built, and Lovelace's program never run until many years later on a modern emulator (where a bug was found!). I feel quite cheated.

[NickFitz]

Tea has been the last of the beef short ribs in Guinness thing, with chips

That’s been sat in the freezer for ages, but it’s about time it moved out and made space for something else

It was quite cold when I was finally able to eat it, as the router seems to have succumbed to a touch of heatstroke at some point last night. It’s working OK now, but various things had ended up using the 4G backup wifi. In particular, the stereo-paired HomePods I use for sound from the telly had become so confused that one of them was refusing to switch from the 4G wifi while the other had realised it should go back to the normal one. Even powering off for a few seconds didn’t help, and in the end I had to unlink them from my phone and restart them as if from new. This was a pain as it meant standing near them holding my phone and confirming things while they got themselves set up, though to be fair it does go very smoothly with the minimum of questions. Anyway, with that done, they were back to working OK and I was able to return to my lukewarm food

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Sunday.

Damply dry.

Sunny (wanly).

Blue sky in parts.

23.6 deg in here, 24.5 in the kitchen, 22 in the leanto, 19 outside, 20 in the saltinghouse.

1009 mBar, 29.796 in Hg, 756.8 Torr, 14.63 psi, (up from 1005 last night), 57% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 31st of March 2020 AndyGarbs, covbob, eek, LM, NF, vetran, WTFH and I popped in. NF was doing hard sums about the electric & gas readings whilst I was reading The Mitrokhin Archive which was at the stage to naming all the useful idiots giving away bomb secrets to Stalin.

Washing frenzy in progress. It spotted with rain just to celebrate. .

Defrosting fridge again. Contents of said fridge now in Lidl(tm) electric cool box thing and the freezer. Couldn't find the power supply I usually use so pressed another one from Ye Olde Sloughe of Desponde into use.

Lunch: brunch. Entertainment: yahoo news about the Orange Mother****er as is my wont when Di Ti Di is on R4 & I can't be arsed to find anything else.

Those things at the requisite stage of dryness & requiring the attention of the iRon have received & are airing upstairs.

Entertainment: Archive Hour: The Home Guard, first broadcast 2003. Goodness me, I never knew there was a Home Guard Act 1951 when "they" imagined that the Home Guard might be able to defend against Soviet nukes. Disbanded 1957.

Fridge is still defrosting. Maybe I should do it more frequently, preferably before there's enough ice to support a polar bear.

Fridge defrosted.

Tea: baked beans with cheese & baked spuds. Nice enough.

During washing up & cleaning out the fridge it started raining, so the two items still on the line met the TD which still took 15 minutes to dry the feckers.

Fridge cleaned & reassembled.

Entertainment: TPTV: The Directors: Howard Hawks.

Some bollox on 5 about TV shows from the 1970s, including the toe curling Parkinson interview with Helen Mirren (whose name I had to look up FFS , my ongoing brain rot is becoming irritating).

Some bollox on 5 about the summer of 1976 (which I remember) and the autumn deluge of 1976 which I don't.

Blaze: The Danny Trejo Unearthed Mysteries thing. More bollox. Oh look: there's a Roman villa in that Engerland place, who'd have thunk? I suppose the Romans had a mere 400 years to build one or two. After all, whatever did they do for us?

Followed by bolloxy UFO bollox on DMAX. The Truth is Out There apparently. This one was about a load of septics in Kelly fighting off LGMs in 1955.

Roy Noble visiting Penderyn and environs. Including the distillery. 2016.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Sunny spells with lots of cumuli clumping around the place looking scenic. It’s 21°C with an expected high of just 23°, and there’s a strong breeze making it “feel like” 18°. The barometers are steady at 1003/1011mB

The bedroom got cooler overnight! It was down to around 23° when I awoke, from 25° when I went to sleep. And the breeze is currently helping it cool down even more

[NickFitz]

To keep the apes happy, we watched the first episode of Chimp Kingdom on Netflix, about a very large group living in a rainforest in Uganda

Tonight’s reading was A Game of Birds and Wolves which is about the war games developed by a team of Wrens at the Western Approaches in WWII to develop better tactics to counter U-boat wolf packs in the Atlantic

The bedroom was back up to 28°C earlier but there was a decent breeze, so I left the big window completely ajar for a couple of hours which brought it down to just over 25°

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Tea was brought to me from the East African place

Still looking pleasant enough out, but there might be some rain soon

[NickFitz]

Too small for that. It’s an A5-sized envelope with something of moderate thickness in the middle - possibly a few grammes of coke wrapped up

The mystery is solved! It occurred to me to go to Companies House and have a look at the list of shareholders in the confirmation statement for the limited company through which we all own the property, and the chap it’s addressed to is on there

The list doesn’t have any addresses though, so I have no idea which of the 50+ flats is his. So I’ve emailed the management company to ask them to either tell me his address so I can take it to him, or let him know so he can come and collect it

I’d already scribbled out the address with black Sharpie and stuck a “Not known, return to sender” label on it. But I don’t suppose he’ll mind that - he’ll just be glad to get his gramme of coke or whatever it is

[ladymuck]

The bed was stripped and the linen washed before we went to Costco. On account of us buying things that needed refrigeration, we opted to leave the storage unit visit for another day.

The bedding is now dry and I'll put it back on at some point.

A magpie keeps investigating the tub that my gooseberry plant lives in. Its not fruiting yet so it's not to nick my berries.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Maybe I should buy it to keep my books in

That's more or less wot I did. Then I ended up having to fecking live in it with them.

Never mind, I don't suppose I'll last a lot longer, then someone else can dispose of all the crap.

i.e. my dear niece/nephew when I put him down as executor. . <DrS in Mad Cruel Bastard mode>

[NickFitz]

The ground floor centre right flat opposite is being emptied of its furniture, which is being deposited in a van parked on the lawn. Just checked and it’s still for sale on RightMove. Maybe I should buy it to keep my books in

And the mundane laundry is on, using the quick cycle that does washing and drying in less than two hours

[NickFitz]

^^^ I wonder if it's packets of tobacco like my parcel. .

Too small for that. It’s an A5-sized envelope with something of moderate thickness in the middle - possibly a few grammes of coke wrapped up

[NickFitz]

Afternoon denizens

Lots of cumuli en masse outside with blue gaps here and there, and the wind is getting back up. It’s too hot but nowhere near as bad as the last few days: 28°C, which is the worst it’ll be and marks the end of the present heatwave, as it’ll fall back to the low twenties from tomorrow - though there are signs and portents of more unpleasantness starting next weekend. The barometers are down to 1003/1011mB

Sad news for the apes today as the wildlife stuff has been cancelled in favour of cricket! I’ll have to find something else for them to watch among the various streaming services

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Sunny with a mix of lumpy and wispy fluff. A tiny hint of a breeze. No sign of damp from the 4am rain that woke me up. Currently 28 degrees with a high of 30 expected. There's also a chance that the overnight low will drop below 20. Barometer up to 1017 mBar.

Sunrise 04:46; Sunset 21:23 BST

Waiting for a delivery and then HWMBO and I will go over to Costco before stopping at my storage place on way back to check for BBQ parts and make an educated guess as to what size unit to move to. The one I have is technically too big for what's in it and the price increase next month has galvanised me into moving to a cheaper location.