Reply to: test please delete

[NickFitz]

Midweek (well, nearly) movie night’s premiere was Relay (2024) in which Riz Ahmed acts as an intermediary between corrupt big businesses and people who have information that could harm them. This is an excellent thriller, taut and suspenseful, eschewing fights and car chases in favour of an ever-building sense of paranoia and menace. Well worth putting on your watchlist

And then a further episode of Silo. I had thought I was only behind by one season but realised the other day that there are three seasons now and I’m still on S1, so I suppose I ought to get a move on

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Tea has been M&S pre-digested chicken chasseur, with chips and peas. Nice enough

And lunch was an M&S steak slice, which was OK but not as good as a Greggs steak bake - maybe not even quite as good as the Pukka variant, though close

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

It’s sunny yet also cloudy out, and going to be a hot one: already at 24°C, it’ll reach 28° for much of the afternoon. There’s a bit of a breeze, but not as much as yesterday. The barometers are up a bit at 1007/1015mB

I slept soundly until just before 10am this morning, and awoke feeling refreshed - I think the new drug that was making me so tired must be largely out of my system now

But speaking of getting things out of my system, I still hadn’t got around to dropping off a new piss sample at the GP, though at least I got around to getting the jar for it last Friday; I don’t think they’re open for such things at the weekend, and I forgot about it yesterday morning. So I duly gathered that, and have dropped it off at the surgery - somewhere I feel I’ve visited a lot lately

There was an adult magpie hanging around next to the gate from the park to the surgery which had a vaguely hangdog air about it. Upon closer inspection, its feathers looked rather scruffy. This is the time of year when adults moult, so I think it was just a little embarrassed to be seen out and about in such a state

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Cloudy and humid (81% apparently). Currently 22 degrees ('feels like' 24) and that's the high for the day. Cloud set to clear as the day progresses. Barometer up to 1021 mBar.

Sunrise 05:23; Sunset 20:54 BST

I have found many musty / dirty towels stashed in Mum's bedroom which are now all getting the hot wash treatment before I put them away in the airing cupboard.

I can't figure out what she's doing with worn clothes, as they don't go into the laundry basket. Short of going through all the drawers and doing a pants inspection, I'm not sure how to deal with that. I'll ask my brother when he's back tomorrow.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Tuesday.

Grey.

Damp.

Wanly sunny.

22.2 deg in here, 23.2 in the kitchen, 22 in the leanto, 20 out the back.

1013 mBar, 29.9 in Hg, 759.8 Torr, 14.69 psi, (down from 1014 last night), 64% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 1st of April 2020 barrydidit, BR14, LM, MrMarkyMark, NF, WTFH, and I popped in, whilst on the 2nd of April 2020 (oh, the relief: another day) Brillo popped in along with NF.

Entertainment: Dimbleby waffling on about Harry Dexter White & how he managed to help destroy the British Empire.

On the eve of the 49th renewal the AA subscription was cancelled: only took 20 minutes on the phone.

Walk (abbreviated, 3 miles) walked in the grey gloom & eventual light drizzle. Two conversations.

Irritating parking on the road: one side the pavement covered in parked cars, on the other a delivery truck parked on the pavement & a chap with a perambulator was unable to pass so I marched into the middle of the road & stopped the traffic so he could follow me through. Good deed of the day.

Lunch: brunch. Entertainment: the man thing on R4 <click> Sky Arts Movies E2/4. Noir followed by the sort of movies I don't watch such as "Singing in the Rain" etc.

TPTV: "William Tell" S1 E20 "The shrew (1958)". Not as good as Robin Hood with Richard Green but there you go.

Some minor "gardening": hacking back the brambles: some in next door were 15 feet long, grown since the spring, and thick stemmed with it. Dead headed the roses & hacked back the self planted one that, despite the warnings, failed to give me any flowers whatsoever. I think it's on borrowed time. .

Drains are blocked up the road again. Time for Dynorod aka Welsh Water contractors. Sounds like it'll be that wagon with the long hose pipe again.


Jack Hargreaves Old Country. Gathering wild horses in the New Forest. Goats.

UFO bollox on Blaze. The Zimbabwe skool UFO thing.

Sunken Ships. HMS Barham. The medium was mentioned towards the end: the last prosecution for witchcraft.

Bab5 S2 E14 "There all the honour lies". Dirty deeds amongst the Membari in an attempt to fit Sheridan up with murder. More Kosh.

Book.

History's most shocking.

[WTFH]

Morning all
Cloudy! this morning and very humid. No sign of rain.
Walk has been walked.

[NickFitz]

Tonight’s reading was more of Parable of the Talents in which their remote community is gradually expanding, though usually because of some hideous tragedy befalling other people

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Sweet and sour pork with fried rice for tea

Accompanying this, a series called Homicide on Netflix which is basically NYPD detectives talking about old cases, the first being the murder of Jennifer Stahl and two of her friends in 2001

[NickFitz]

The Corolla has been resurrected!

The new jump-start battery pack thing I’d bought looks a lot chunkier and generally competent than the cheaper old ones, and sure enough, it got it started without batting an eyelid and still showed a full charge afterwards when I plugged it into the fag lighter to top it up

With that done, I wanted to drive by a suitably long and circuitous route to ensure the car battery could get properly charged, so I decided to go anticlockwise round the outer ring road, such as it is. This was mainly because that gave me an excuse to take a detour up the residential road in the northwest of the city that’s lined with Giant Redwoods, which I’ve been meaning to go and have a look at for years. The road follows what was once the course of the main drive to the local big house when that area was still a village, and the trees date from then. They’re nowhere near fully mature yet, but they looked nice as it was very sunny, which really brought out their colouring

So onwards round the city, including finally seeing a bit of road lined with those flags of St. George that fascists seem to have been hanging everywhere except here. These were in the estate where you’ll find the types who rant about immigrants causing crime. For as long as I’ve been here, though, there’s been a roughly 60 to 80% probability that any story in the local paper about either petty crime or drunken murder will involve somebody who lives around there, or maybe just grew up there

I finally made it to M&S, where the phone app still resolutely refuses to self-scan things; I don’t know if it’s the rubbish in-store wi-fi, though that’s the most likely culprit. Anyway, I’m resigned now to just stuffing things in my bag like a blatant shoplifter, then having to tip it out and start again at the self-checkouts

And onwards to Sainsbury’s. I realised this morning, when somebody on Bluesky tweeted about Viz arriving in the post, that I’d got my dates mixed up and it won’t be in the shops until this Thursday. Anyway, I got various bits, though the refurbishment is still going on, which means I’m forgetting stuff because my entire shopping process has been refined over more than twenty-five years to depend on specific parts of my route around the store triggering the memory that I need something from that bit

It’s very sunny and Simpsonesque out now but there’s also a decent breeze, making it just about bearable

[xoggoth]

Footpath clearance part done, just two of us. Nice coffe and biccies at other bloke's place.

[NickFitz]

Links are up

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Sunny with lumps of fluff. Currently 20 degrees ('feels like' 24) with a high of 33 expected. Barometer up to 1019 mBar.

Sunrise 05:21; Sunset 20:55 BST

One meeting done for gig1 this morning. Mum keeps popping in to offer me cups of coffee.

[xoggoth]

Little volunteery thing clearing local footpath this morning, else nowt on apart from walk and farting about in the garden.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Another cloudy and breezy one, and I think there’s been a shower or two overnight and early morning; no more expected, but they said that yesterday and I think there may have been a brief and very light one in the evening. It might brighten up a little later in the afternoon. It’s 17°C (“feels like” 14°) with an expected high of 23°, and the barometers are back up at 1005/1013mB

I’d not got around to doing the mundane laundry at the weekend so that’s on an Express cycle; supposedly 1h50m for a wash and dry, though sometimes it needs a bit more drying once it’s done

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Monday apparently.

Dry.

Wanly sunny.

Cloudy with patches of blue sky.

21.8 deg in here, 23.1 in the kitchen, 21 in the leanto, 17.5 out the back.

1011.5 mBar, 29.87 in Hg, 758.7 Torr, 14.67 psi, (up from 1007 last night), 58% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 1st of April 2020 between 19:00 and 20:00 AndyGarbs, BR14, LM, MrMarkyMark, and NF popped in. Another empty bottle put back in the cupboard was found by LM.

Stone me, only another 4 hours of April 1th 2020 to go. . Checks: only another 2 pages before we reach the dizzy heights of April 2nd. .

Shopping trip to Morrisons done dusted washed dried sanitised & put away: voucher for £4 off my next purchase over £40. I cant carry £40 of groceries (nice word that) unless it contains about £25 of cheese, which is how I got it to exceed £30 previously. And the fridge is still half full from the last time. I suspect this is yet another voucher that will meet the bin.

Lunch: brunch. Entertainment: the end of the CofE thing, then something about masculinity that was so much less inneresting than the Mud thing that it rapidly went <click>.

Thought I'd forgotten something: Sky Arts: Movies E1/4.

Saw my new niece & my niece in law on the front pavement waiting for a taxi.

Walk (abbreviated, 3 miles) walked in the grey gloom. Had a conversation with someone whose beech tree had thrown a branch last week. If this heat continues it'll probably throw some more. The stagger up the hill from the lock is getting easier: don't have to pause any more, must be getting fitterer every time I do it.

Entertainment: Jack Hargreaves: Old Country. Fishing. Chub. Which he compared with something tasteless with no firmness, and full of pins. Back in the long long ago day the peasantry used to fish for such things, and rather than put them back as is now the case, the catch would be taken home, boiled in the copper (remember the copper? Bet you don't) then ground up & added to the feed for the chickens to increase the protein. Apparently it didn't taste the eggs.

And here's what it looks like now:

Tea: Mr Brains faggots with peas & such like. Entertainment: PM. <click> UFO bollox on Blaze: Belgium UFOs 1990s. It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.

Sunken Ships: Bismark. More of her crew survived than the 3 who survived from HMS Hood.

As someone once said: "There's something wrong with our bloody ships".

Bab5 S2 E13 "Hunter, Prey". Ambassador Kosh gives a helping hand.

Blaze: Secrets in the sand. Egyptian desert. Syrian desert. White Sands desert footprints from 20,000 years ago, long prior to Clovis. Can't readily understand quite why they spend so much time jump cutting from one irritating presenter to another.

Blaze: Secrets in the dark. Witch bottle from Greenwich. Resonant cave in Finland. Dead sea cave with concealed Roman era swords. Waterloo excavation that found bits of bodies & not much else, it being the midden from the hospital. Other crap I can't remember due to extreme lack of innerest.

Bit of "Safe House" the dvd of which resides upstairs somewhere.

Drizzling very very finely.