Reply to: test please delete

[NickFitz]

Tea: sausage and onion casserole with chips and peas

Accompanied by a new episode of Traffic Cops

[NickFitz]

Just as well it wasn't controlling a rocket. .

It wasn't controlling a rocket, was it? Just askin' like.

Shades of FORTRAN IV encode & decode from dear dead days far beyond recall.

No rockets, sadly. I think that would be the Ministry of Transport?

Speaking of transport, I've booked a visit from Halfords tomorrow with a new battery for the car which they will also fit, saving me the trouble of finding an 11mm spanner. They gave me the option of either choosing a two to three hour time slot for an additional thirty to fifty quid, or any time between 8am and 8pm for no extra charge beyond the £25 fitting fee. I chose the latter

Thinking about it, they didn't make clear whether the exorbitant charges for the shorter time slots included the £25 or were in addition to it. Either way, it's too much. But now, in theory, the car should start OK when I want to go shopping on Friday morning, which is expected to be very cold and might be more than the gradually failing battery can handle

[DoctorStrangelove]

Lunch has been the rest of the duck, pancakes and plum sauce

This morning, I did what I do best: be the only one of four people looking at something to spot that a configuration value that was supposed to be a floating point number was being passed as a string, which was why the thing being configured wasn't doing anything

To my mind, it ought to have complained about the invalid value rather than going into a silent sulk, but maybe whoever developed it had their reasons for doing it that way

Just as well it wasn't controlling a rocket. .

It wasn't controlling a rocket, was it? Just askin' like.

Shades of FORTRAN IV encode & decode from dear dead days far beyond recall.

[NickFitz]

Lunch has been the rest of the duck, pancakes and plum sauce

This morning, I did what I do best: be the only one of four people looking at something to spot that a configuration value that was supposed to be a floating point number was being passed as a string, which was why the thing being configured wasn't doing anything

To my mind, it ought to have complained about the invalid value rather than going into a silent sulk, but maybe whoever developed it had their reasons for doing it that way

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Wednesday.

Has the Canada and Greenland Anschluss happened yet?

Frosty.

Dark.

Grey.

Sunless.

Dry.

Cold in here at 10 deg, 8.5 deg in the kitchen, 6 deg in the leanto, 3 deg in the salting house.

It wasn't slippery outside as I checked the saltinghouse.

999.5 mBar, 29.515 in Hg, 749.68 Torr, 14.496 psi (untapped but somewhere above 993 at a guess), 61% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 18th of December 2019 SimonMac popped in after making a fuss at the office, DaveB went shopping for tat with his Mrs, BR14 had breaded haddock for tea, and NF wasn't watching the Wire for a change, whereas I took next door to Bridgend Hospital & back, the weather being quite foul with 40 mph limit on the M4, something I'm very unlikely to do ever again.

Lunch: brunch.

Entertainment: thing on R4 about how to read the newspapers, followed by The Fan Heater and my tinnitus. Followed by this morning's "Sideways" which had a clip of that Jobs character surrounded by his sychophantic fanbois at the iphone presentation 2007.

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in the cold grey gloom: rather raw out there today

Freecell score: 75%, running average:81%.

Ain't the interweb wunnerful: in "Buy Jupiter (1975)" Asimov mentions a couple of editors of his acquaintance who he'd lost touch with over the years: James L. Quinn and Horace Gold. The interweb gives DOB & DOD for both in microseconds. One of them outlasted Asimov himself. Curiously said tome is inscribed "Happy 12th Birthday, Catriona and Una, xxx" with semi unreadable names apended: said 12th birthday being some time after 1981, so whoever that was/is is now in his/her mid 50s.

Tea: beans on toast etc.

Entertainment: PM.

"Britain's biggest dig" with Alice Roberts: red hair in this one.

"Full steam ahead", more steamy railway stuff.

Maigret's Mistake (1994) with Bruno Cremer.

Thankfully I won't be watching tv until 02:00 tonight. That's held off until next Tuesday.

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Cliudy. Frosty. Currently -1 with a high of 3 expected. There may be some snow around 4pm. Barometer up to 1004 mBar.

Sunrise 08:05; Sunset 16:12.

Much ice needed to be scraped off my car. As a result I was later than I'd have preferred in leaving home and desks in my preferred section were already occupied on arrival at ClientCo's office. There were still plenty of availabile desks elsewhere which does increase my chances of being left alone by ConsultancyCo people.

[WTFH]

Morning all
Slippery out there, but a pleasant enough walk achieved what it needed.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Deep frost out there this morning; I thought for a moment there'd been more snow when I opened the curtains as the roofs of the cars were all white, but it turns out it's just the ice that's formed on them. It's currently -2°C (but apparently doesn't feel any colder now, though last night it reckoned it felt like -7°) and not getting any warmer than 2°, while the barometers continue their steady upward climb, having reached 991/999mB

[NickFitz]

Tonight's viewing was the new 24 Hours in Police Custody about the escape of a bunch of people from Yarl's Wood IDC

I know the country around there fairly well as I used to walk and cycle around there in my youth, before such places were even thought of. It's very close to Twinwood Airfield, whence Glen Miller departed on his last flight. A chap I was at school with is one of the biggest landowners around there; I wouldn't be surprised if the IDC is built on land leased or bought from him.

And in February 1933 we're up to the twelfth, with Hindenburg still waving through decrees

Goodnight all

[ladymuck]

Lunch was a sausage in a roll (one of those part baked one I keep in the freezer).

Dinner was soup.

I have to go into the office for the next three days which means (a) getting up early, (b) having to dress smartly, (c) most likely scraping ice off my car, (d) being grumpy when the people I'm there to meet cancel or ask to meet on Teams instead.

[NickFitz]

Tea has been this moderately spicy Turkish chicken and potato dish. I didn't bother with the green thing, not having the ingredients, and my chicken was thighs (bone in, skin on) so I cooked everything together rather than adding the chicken later. It turned out really well; very tasty stuff

[NickFitz]

Another day done. Halfway through the week now! Which isn't as good as all the way through, of course, but I'll take it

In email today, the half-yearly service charge invoice for the flat. It's only gone up by about £7 this year, which may mollify those who were whining about last year's rather large increase. That happened because they'd worked out the budget for stuff that will need doing over the next twenty or thirty years and need to make sure the reserves are topped up for when various rather hefty bills (new lift, etc.) come due, but a few people hadn't bothered reading the email and attached documents that explained all this in great detail and got quite agitated about it

[NickFitz]

Cottons & socks in the TD which is generating the usual selection of random numbers: how it can go from 8 minutes left to 37 remains a mystery wrapped in an Enigma. Maybe it's coz it's German.

Mine does that, but also gets to displaying 15 minutes and stays there for a couple of hours or more

[NickFitz]

Duck with pancakes and plum sauce for lunch

A "team retrospective" meeting that should have been happening right now has been cancelled, for which much thanks

[ladymuck]

Dry laundry put away. Wet laundry draped about.

The snow has gone and the sun has come out.