Reply to: test please delete

[NickFitz]

Today’s wildlife offering had crept back up to four hours, and was further augmented with Planet Earth III

Tonight, I started reading The Time of the Crack (title shortened to just The Crack after its initial publication in 1973) by Emma Tennant. This is a post-apocalyptic thing where a massive earthquake drastically rearranges London; the crack of the title runs where the Thames used to be, south London now being a lot further away. The main protagonist is Baba, a bunny girl from the Playboy Club, while other aspects of the story involve a soothsayer from a fairground leading a band of women, a couple of experimental psychiatrists, and some property tycoons. It’s OK but the author's got a magical realism thing going on which grates on me a bit. Still, it’s not very long so I’ll probably finish it

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Tea was brought to me from a Thai place in town, and was mostly very nice indeed

The bit that wasn’t nice was that they’d forgotten to send the rice. Luckily I had some in the freezer, though that wasn’t jasmine rice

And Deliveroo didn’t do a very good job of getting somebody to bring it either. It kept saying they were at the restaurant, then that they were on their way to the restaurant, then that they were trying to find somebody to go to the restaurant - this weirdly-reversed sequence of events happened three times before somebody finally collected it and brought it to me. According to the receipt, the restaurant had been told it would be collected about thirty minutes before it actually was, which explains why it was also a bit cold and had to be warmed up in the microwave

So: excellent food, but the service left a lot to be desired

[NickFitz]

I got the right name, wrong channel. It's on Channel 5.

Ah, right! Cheers

[ladymuck]

Assuming you meant Surgeons: At the Edge of Life, I can’t find it on iPlayer - the most recent one there is S7, from last year

I got the right name, wrong channel. It's on Channel 5.

[NickFitz]

Thanks, NF, for the prompt about Inside the Factory. Did you know there's a new series of Surgeons: A Matter of Life and Death on BBC?

Assuming you meant Surgeons: At the Edge of Life, I can’t find it on iPlayer - the most recent one there is S7, from last year

[NickFitz]

Afternoon denizens

It’s looking quite Simpsonesque out today. Reasonably mild too at 8°C, which is today’s high. The barometers are up at 1003/1011mB

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Depending on which window I look out of, it's either dull and cloudy or blue sky with lumps of fluff. Damp from overnight/early morning rain. Currently 10 degrees and that's the high for the day. There might be more rain, there might be a bit more sunshine. Barometer up to 1015 mBar.

Sunrise 07:58; Sunset 16:25 GMT

HWMBO and I went to the farmers' market but didn't buy anything. Sainsbury's has a personalised offer of a discount on FeverTree tonic so I bought half a dozen bottles.

Thanks, NF, for the prompt about Inside the Factory. Did you know there's a new series of Surgeons: A Matter of Life and Death on BBC?

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Saturday.

Dry.

Sunny.

Chilly in here at 12.3 deg, 11 in the kitchen, 9 in the leanto, 5.6 in the saltinghouse.

1007 mBar, 29.74 in Hg, 755.3 Torr, 14.6 psi, (up from 1002 last night), 67% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 12th of March 2020 things were hotting up and not in a good way: NF found that bog roll had disappeared from the shops, eek's parents were on a cruise ship which was returning to port, , and LM added to the joy by wondering if they'd be allowed to disembark, quackhandle popped in, and WTFH was sussing out where & who in France was looking for a contractor.

Washing frenzy in progress.

Lunch: brunch. Entertainment: end of FOOC. Noon o'clock news. MoneyBox <click>

Walk (unabbreviated, towpath) walked in the sunshine.

Now getting outside a mug of mediocre but consistent coffee before embarking on the iRoning.

Washing frenzy complete: half a cup of water out of the TD this time.

Tea: soup etc. with the soup not being what I was expecting but nice enough.

PM. More news of the latest ravings of the Demented Orange Mother****er. Thirty Ought Six for the win. .

Maigret: "The Wedding Guest (1962)": Didn't remember much of this one: prisoner in the condemned cell gives Our Hero a lead on a murder. Lots of recognisable guest actors: John Slater (400+ eps of Z Cars), Philip Latham, Peter Madden (who I always associate with No Hiding Place for some reason though he was only in 1 or 2 eps), and Frank Williams before he became the vicar in Dad's Army.

Book. Other book.

PBS documentary (ITV news 2018) about Waco just to demonstrate how utterly utterly useless the Septics really are.

WTF those clowns in the helicopters were doing is beyond me.

Ruby Ridge is yet another example of their truly inspiring incompetence.

And yet the Orange Mother****er still walks the earth.

[NickFitz]

Tonight’s major motion picture premiere was Elevation (2024) which is one of those apocalyptic stories involving things that kill everybody - but not above 8,000 feet in this case, which is why it was filmed in Colorado. It’s not bad, though A Quiet Place did it better with decibels instead of altitude

After that, a rewatch of Ronin (1998) because it cropped up on Bluesky the other day and I realised I hadn’t watched it in a few years. It’s still excellent, though it could do with a 4K upgrade

Finally, S2 of Hijack (TV Series 2023– ) is out which reminded me that I still hadn’t got around to watching S1, so I thought I’d give it a try. Turns out it’s excellent - much better than most things of this kind, which have plot holes you could drive a bus through. I’m still thinking there are a few things left unexplained so far, but I’m very much inclined to grant it the “it’s not a documentary” opt-out, because it’s damn good telly

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Tea has been a rack of ribs and chips. I went for the “firecracker” BBQ sauce one this time; it’s got a bit of a kick to it, but it's not exceptionally hot. Nice enough though

To go with this, the first episode of the new series of Inside the Factory, which is also the Christmas special. It’s about gingerbread and filmed at a fairly small family-run factory, and includes interesting side quests on the making of snow for indoor ski slopes, and Apollo 8’s Christmas visit to the Moon

[ladymuck]

It's clouded over here but has been a nice day for the most part.

I clocked off around 3pm.

[xoggoth]

Nice sunny few hours with loony lady 1. Glad it wasn't like yesterday, although still some big puddles on the road. Seem to be a few new potholes opened up in last week or two.

[NickFitz]

Much-delayed lunch has been a bit of pork pie

I see I forgot to mention that I did the mundane laundry last night, so that’s one less chore to do

[NickFitz]

Shopping done!

It was Big Sainsbury’s today, as I wasn’t able to go last week when Viz came out. The journey there proved annoying due to two sets of temporary traffic lights at roadworks. Then when I made it to the outer ring road, it for some reason slowed to a crawl the entire way down the hill and across the river. There weren’t any signs of a crash or breakdown, so no idea what caused that, but the various delays meant it took twice as long to get there as it normally would

Coming back, the ring road had sorted itself out and traffic was flowing smoothly - on that side. I was now on the other side, and that also slowed to a crawl all the way back up the hill, for equally inexplicable reasons

Anyway, the shopping was successfully accomplished, including getting Viz. I would have been annoyed if I’d forgotten it after all that

And just as I arrived home (where my preferred parking place was still free), the sun came out! There are some wisps of grey cloud drifting past quite quickly, suggesting the wind is stronger higher up, but it generally looks quite scenic out there now

[NickFitz]

Royal Mail finally showed up with the ClientGov laptop at 12:45, just squeezing under the wire for “Guaranteed 1pm” delivery. A different van turned up over an hour earlier, but that was for something going to one of my downstairs neighbours, and probably not guaranteed for any particular time

The laptop is useless anyway as they have to phone me with the login details, which won’t happen before Monday at the earliest

I did some mucking around with RealityKit while I was waiting, so the morning wasn’t a complete waste. But I’d sooner have had the shopping done by now and be having lunch

Speaking of which, Sainsbury’s beckons