Reply to: test please delete

[NickFitz]

Tea was beef & Guinness casserole with chips

This was accompanied by the third part of the HBO documentary about the French trader. Definitely stitched up by the bank, but it doesn’t seem as if he’s going to dodge some prison time

And finally some more of XPD, which I’ve nearly finished. I suspect nobody is going to come out of it well, assuming anybody comes out of it at all. At least one of the characters has managed to die of natural causes rather than with the assistance of one or other of the intelligence services involved

It’s sprint planning tomorrow, which will consist largely of me being given responsibility for various things the other dev has been working on but will be leaving unfinished when she leaves at the end of the week. Not her fault, mind; it’s stuff where nothing can be done because it depends on somebody in another team who’s on leave, or somebody has to decide how they want something to work and hasn’t. At least she’s done an excellent job of documenting everything she can think of. Having read it all, I now know a lot more about what we’re supposed to be doing than I have done up till now

Goodnight all

[ladymuck]

HWMBO cooked up some duck and made a very delicious plum sauce.

Watching this week's MasterChef.

[NickFitz]

Lunch was the very last leftovers from KFC

Sick of their stuff now for another couple of months. I always order too much thinking it’ll come in handy for lunch during the week, but can’t stand the sight of it by the time I’ve done with it

This afternoon, I realised I’d accidentally missed off a pretty crucial bit of the app. It works fine when I’m testing stuff by sending direct HTTP requests and the like, which is what I do most of the time. But when one actually used the button in the web page, as normal people will, a crucial step had been missed

Easy to wire it up though; everything necessary was already there and working, so I just needed to add a couple of lines and it was sorted

With work done, it was time once again for the monthly trek round to the chemist’s. I thought it would be warm as it’s very sunny and Simpsonesque out now; I even debated whether to bother wearing a coat. But it turns out there’s a very cool and very lazy breeze that was blowing right at me as soon as I got around the corner

Once home, I remembered to set the bread maker to work on a white loaf, which I’ve forgotten to get it doing for a couple of days

And with all that out of the way, perhaps I’ll finally have time to work out what to have for tea

[WTFH]

Morning all
Sunrise was 5:30am, and we had a very pleasant early morning walk. Sun still shining with no hint of a breeze, and a farmer is muck spreading somewhere nearby.

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Blue sky, some wispy bits, breezy. Currently 12 degrees with a high of 17 expected. Cloud cover set to increase as the day progresses. Barometer up to 1016 mBar.

Sunrise 05:14; Sunset 20:42 BST

Last day at all my coal faces for a week, as HWMBO and I are off to Cadiz for a little holiday tomorrow (flying Heathrow - Paris - Seville, as that's perfectly sensible).

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

It’s cloudy but more layered with bigger gaps this morning, so the sun manages to get through occasionally as it ascends the heavens. It’s 7°C and aiming for 14°, and the barometers are back up a little at 1003/1011mB

I made a couple of posts on BlueSky last night explaining one aspect of working in the games industry in the late 1980s. These were in reply to an account I’ve followed since Twitter days, somebody who’s really into reviving retro hardware and software, as well as doing things like porting Doom to run on a pregnancy test, and has a large following as a result. Normally, I might expect a couple of likes and maybe even a reply or two. This morning, I find I have “30+” notifications over there

Better go and see what they all want

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Tuesday apparently.

Dry.

Was sunny, now grey.

Was blue sky: now grey.

Verging on chilly in here at 16.1 deg, 17 in the kitchen, 14 in the leanto, 10 in the saltinghouse.

1012 mBar, 29.88 in Hg, 759 Torr, 14.6778 psi, (up from 1011 last night), 59% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 27th of March 2020 Neighbourhood watch lady checked that NF was ok, NF, LM, WTFH and I popped in, and I discovered there's jam making sugar with added pectin, oddly enough intended for making jam. Who'd have thunk? We never used that in our house. (That's "we" as in "my mum").

Well the knee performed well last night: I was out of bed about half an hour after retiring since the knee was complaining like billyo: much ibuprofen and paracetamol and whisky (single malt) got me through the night though not much sleep was had.

Might get some vodka since it seems a bit wasteful using single malt for anaesthetic. .

Washing frenzy in progress.

Some kind bird shat upon two of my pillowcases so they've been rewashed in the sink with powder and bleach to kill everything, then the spindrier was dug out of the saltinghouse and pressed into use for the rinsing stage of things.

Shirts in off the line as they're dry enough to meet the iRon after brunch.

Lunch: Brunch. Entertainment: the joys of the Weimar Republic and the lunacy of the Treaty of Versailles surrender document getting things ready for 20 years later.

Aha: "Elkins in Israel: 5: The Granite Grandmother": looks like this is the talk that I remember from 40 odd years ago. I think Michael Elkins relates how one of his children was ill and Golda brewed up some potion or other which Elkins duly despached to the toilet where it stained the porcelain green. I also think he was the chap who said "Of my Athens they have made a Sparta". Naturally enough I can't find any of this on line & no doubt the Beeb wiped the tapes decades ago. One of the talks was in The Listener August 1983.

Fecking knee is hurting again. More drugs needed.

Most of that requiring the attentions of the iRon received it & are now airing upstairs. The cotton twill shirts were, perhaps, damper than I'd realised, but they'll air ok.

During this labour a big contretemps between a couple of magpies and a couple of jackdaws took place right outside the window: dunno what the jackdaw had done but it was attacked & pursued across the gardens by both magpies. They were Not Happy.

.

Listened to Michael Elkins on Desert Island Discs. Goodness me, he was a socialist and as far from Bibi the Nazi as one might imagine.

Bit of the repeat of Am Dro which I didn't know had returned. It clashes with Sergeant Cork so that ain't happening.

Book.

Wassup Docs? on R4.

Tea: soup etc. Nice enough. Entertainment: PM.

Am Dro S10 E2 on iplayer. Oh look: Pontardawe where a long long ago GF used to have her evil way with me. And he's right, you can see Swansea Bay from up there. .

Book. Other book.

Sky Arts: Ian Fleming: the curse of James Bond (2025).

Sean Connery vs James Bond. Well it's on.

[NickFitz]

The bodies continue to pile up in XPD

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

KFC leftovers for tea

To go along with it, the second episode of To Think Like a Killer on iPlayer

[xoggoth]

The old farts meet up was indoors as too cold for old farts. Grrr. Still, had a nice wander round huge garden afterwards.

[ladymuck]

Afternoon all

Grey, dull, chilly. Currently 11 degrees ('feels like' 9) with a high of 12 expected. The sun might make an appearance this afternoon. Barometer down to 1013 mBar.

Sunrise 05:16; Sunset 20:41 BST

Many meetings this morning. Had a catch up with a chap at Gig1 that may result in more work, may not. My contract ends at the end of June, unless this other thing comes off.

I was wondering why the flat was so cold. HWMBO noticed the boiler had an error code flashing. This turned out to be a low pressure warning. Cue then working out how to increase the boiler pressure with the power of a YouTube instructional video in the absence of any useful instructions in the technical installation manual (no owner / user manual was provided). I have created a crib sheet with photos and instructions for future reference.

With that successfully resolved, my attention turned to working out why my coffee machine has taken to leaking and watching yet another YouTube instructional video about how to trace and fix leaks. This will be a project for another day.

[xoggoth]

Nice longish walk with not loony lady this morning, none of the rain predicted by the weather forecast. Old farts coffee meet up thing soon in a mansion garden.

[NickFitz]

Lunch has been the same as yesterday: hot wings and ketchup

[NickFitz]

Links are up

[WTFH]

Morning all
CBS, etc and yesterday's strong northerly wind has dropped.
There was ground frost in some of the fields, but our walk was pleasant.
More shed building this evening if the weather stays like this.