Reply to: test please delete

[NickFitz]

Another movie premiere tonight: The Mastermind (2025) in which a failed art student organises a heist of four valuable paintings from his local museum. Unfortunately, his organisational skills prove to be somewhat lacking. This has a plot that could make this a light-hearted heist movie or even a farce; but despite farcical elements intruding, it’s an unremitting personal tragedy. A very good film, but don’t expect to chuckle much because even when it’s funny, it’s sad that it’s funny

With my soul burdened by that misery (in a good way) I decided to rewatch Ghosted (2023) because it’s got a lot of entertaining action and is generally good fun

Finally, S1E1 of a thing that’s been on my Apple TV watchlist since it first started but which I hadn’t got around to yet: Silo (TV Series 2023– ) in which people live in a silo. But should they? This, I gather, is the question that is to be addressed. Lots of world building in this first episode, as one would expect, but it seems to have potential

Goodnight all

[ladymuck]

Tedious drive down to Mum's but a much better flow on the way home. Mostly, I think, because we left a good hour or more earlier than I thought we would.

Met my brother's new beau, who is very lovely and my Mum seems very happy chatting to (and she is very patient about).

[NickFitz]

Lunch was a roast beef bap (white), and tea has been sausage casserole with chips and peas

The air conditioner has been in action for most of the day and it’s doing a very good job of keeping the room down to a pleasant temperature

I’ve been doing more work on the new forum software, and it turned out a few things I thought I’d have to tweak in code are actually in there already, just needing various settings and bits of configuration to be set up the right way

[xoggoth]

Walk with not loony lady 3 this afternoon, I chose a nice dark woody area. Coffee and cake at nice cafe overlooking the local reservoir afterwards.

Erected some scaffolding with intention of sealing leak in conservatory roof this morning but on close inspection sealant ain't gonna do it, glass panel has dropped about a cm on one edge. Have to pay an expert, darn it.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Another sunny start, with just some high wispy strands. Some of these are contrails dispersing, while others seem to be natural in origin. It’s just hit 20° and is expected to top out at 27°, with the barometers heading up again at 1019/1027mB

Last night’s duvet choice seems to have been reasonable; I wondered if I might find even the one-third option to be too warm but ended up sleeping soundly, and it felt just about right when I awoke

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Sunny, wispy fluff. Currently 22 degrees ('feels like' 25) with a high of 31 expected. Barometer up to 1031 mBar.

Sunrise 04:58; Sunset 20:59 BST

Yesterday we did go to big Tesco and bought all bottles of normal tonic that they had on the shelf, plus some other bits.

HWMBO's holiday laundry was done, dried on the airer in the garden, and put away.

Dinner was a light pasta dish with asparagus, peas and purple mange tout in a lemon and cream sauce.

Off to see Mum today and my brother has said he'll have a go at fitting the replacement wing mirror for me.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Sunday.

Dry.

Sunny.

Blue sky.

18.6 deg in here, 19 in the kitchen, 17 in the leanto, 15.4 in the saltinghouse.

1025 mBar, 30.27 in Hg, 768.8 Torr, 14.87 psi, (up from 1024 last night), 67% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 28th of March 2020 eek, LM, NF, and vetran popped in, with NF doing the running death count, and vetran disappointing us by pointing out the Aldi vibration plate thing was online only, unlike the other essential from Lidl: the chainsaw. .

Must be getting better: I raised a bit of a sweat in bed last night, though waking every now & again to exercise the knee is getting a bit old to be honest, but at least I can go back to bed rather than spend half the night dozing in the living room armchair..

Washing frenzy in progress. Let's hope nothing tulips on the sheets this time.

Walk (unabbreviated, towpath) walked in the unbearable heat of the morning. Must be warm coz I raised a bit of a sweat.

Lunch: brunch. Entertainment: my tinnitus.

Counted 26 orchids in next door's lawn. The damn things are coming up like topsy.

Page of book. Page of other book.

Dozing whilst listening to Pulse DSOTM.

That requiring the attention of the iRon received it & all is now airing upstairs.

Tea: beans on toast with scrambled egg. Entertainment: R4 poetry crap. <click>

TPTV: The Directors: Fritz Lang.

Blaze: History's greatest mysteries: Havana syndrome.

TPTV: Sergeant Cork S4 E4: The case of the dutiful murderer. (1964). Peter Sallis & a number of other white actors playing gentlemen of Chinese extraction. The woman appears to have been of Chinese/Asian origin.

Blaze: Hazardous History with the Fonz: Very extreme mostly Septic sports. As tedious as might be expected: Septic Auto polo where people get killed, Septic Aviation golf where people get killed. Septic football where people get killed. Septic rounders where people get killed. Septic Rollerball where people get killed even deader. (I made that one up). Oh look: non stop cycling on what looks like a Rollerball track for 6 days whilst doped up to the eyeballs: people get killed. Olympic pigeon shooting. Septic goose pulling: ripping the head off a live goose that's hanging from a framework whilst riding a horse. Ice hockey. Car racing on Septic board tracks.

Blaze: Mediaeval Murder Mysteries: Christopher Marlowe.

[NickFitz]

There was less wildlife stuff than usual on today, and it was all Attenborough again. But after that, there was a documentary about the Avro Lancaster which was good

Later, I read more about The Middle Kingdoms, where one Martin Luther has been stirring things up a bit

It’s still 24°C in here, so the full duvet clearly wasn’t a viable option; but outside is expected to fall to 12° overnight, and I’m not sure how much inside will cool down. I decided to risk going all the way down to the one-third duvet, skipping the two-third option. I suspect I might be considering the no-duvet option tomorrow night if it’s as hot as predicted

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Tea tonight was from KFC

Still nice out

[NickFitz]

Afternoon denizens

It’s another warm and sunny one, as was foretold: 23°C and likely to reach 24° shortly, though tomorrow and Monday will be the ones where it gets well past that. The barometers are up to 1016/1023mB

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Sunny with some wisps. No breeze. Currently 26 degrees with a high of 29 expected. Barometer up to 1026 mBar.

Sunrise 04:59; Sunset 20:58 BST

HWMBO and I had a lovely dinner at Cinnamon Club in St James's last night. A bit fuzzy headed this morning. However we did get up and go to the farmers' market to procure venison, mushrooms, asparagus, pickles, tomatoes, strawberries and raspberries.

At some point we will go to big Tesco as Fever Tree tonic is on offer.

[WTFH]

Morning all
Slightly overcast earlier, but that is burning off now. Very humid.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Saturday.

Dry.

Grey.

Sunless.

18.3 deg in here, 19 in the kitchen, 18 in the leanto.

1021 mBar, 30.15 in Hg, 765.8 Torr, 14.8 psi, (up from 1018 last night (assuming I tapped it)), 71% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 28th of March 2020, at the start of Bunter's lockdown, AndyGarbs, eek, LM, NF, and I popped in, whilst Aldi were offering a nice plate compactor for those with concrete patio to lay after the use of the Lidl offer of a chainsaw. .

Trip to that Swansea to donate this month's pile o'books to Oxfam. Not as many as usual due to the interminable T.H.White tome. Glad to see the back of that. .

38 down and an X5 back, this last turned out to be a double decker but I resisted the temptations of the top deck due the pain of coming back down again.

Lunch: brunch. Entertainment: Moneybox <click>. The News Quiz in the hope of staying awake for it this time. .

Been greyish all morning but the sun is out now. Warm it ain't.

Walk (abbreviated, towpath) walked: too knackered to do the full 4 miles, did 3 instead.

Actually raised a bit of a sweat so it's warmed up nicely.

Oddly enough, despite the quantity of clothing worn in bed earlier in the week, no sweat or anything approaching warmth was achieved, which seems to show I was sore afflicted with something or other.

Entertainment: Classic Movies "The 3 days of the condor". Fell asleep this time. I seem to be doing that rather a lot at the moment.

Tea: soup. That one I like. Entertainment: PM.

Dial 999. The gold robbery one.

Maigret S4 E9 "The Judge's House".

Twiglet zone: S2 E9. E10. Time waits for no man.

Blazian bollox: 'Itler's 'Andmaidens.

Blazian Bollox: 'Itler's Sex Life.

Coldwar thing on BBC Alba.

[NickFitz]

Tonight’s major motion picture premiere was Project Hail Mary (2026) which I’ve been looking forward to since I read the book sometime around the start of the year. I thought it was really good

I’m hoping its success is enough to get the film of his novel Artemis off the starting blocks, because I reckon that would make a good film too

After that, a rewatch of 21 Bridges (2019) which is a good take on the copaganda theme of the cop with an undeserved bad rep dealing with a situation where only his style of policing will get the job done

And finally, the final episode of S1 of Pluribus, which was clearly written once they’d been guaranteed S2, and none the worse for that as it sets up a new direction for things, suggesting the alien group mind may not be as impenetrable as it seems

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Tea has been a thick-cut ribeye steak with fried onions and chips

This was accompanied by the rest of the shoplifting thing from yesterday

This afternoon, I thoroughly investigated the matter of tulips; specifically, the replacement of the word “tulip” with “tulip”. I’d forgotten that this isn’t done using vB’s naughty words list, which will only replace things with *s, but using another feature that allows for replacement of arbitrary strings. In XenForo, there is no such global replacement feature but the censored words feature can do replacement. The importer doesn’t do anything about either of them, so I need to add a custom step to make that all work as it currently does

Fun fact (may not be that much fun): the replacement happens as the page is rendered, so all your naughty words are safely in the database, awaiting an age that’s more linguistically relaxed