Early Risers.

[Gwiwer]

Still in bed at 4pm. Attempting to oust the nasty germ by feeding it hot curry. I am definitely unwell. Back later I hope.

[Two_sugars]

I know the feeling. . . . .Had an appointment at the surgery to see a Doctor, plus more bloods taken just afore midwinter . 

 

 

Of course I caught summat . . .felt like a bag o' sh!te ever since . . . . . . .Speyside medicine getting 'hammered.

 

Even had to ask DD1 to do a bit of shopping. . . . .She thinks I'm at de'aths door.

 

 

I'm not!!!

 

 

John

[New Haven Neil]

A'noon.

 

Went out for a drive to the deep south, found a decent little café we previously hadn't known of. Couldn't be ar$ed to wash the cars.

 

Tie is a hit, Chis - white shirt would be better though.  Make it stand out more.

 

Watching that Guernsey Literary Potato Pie film thing - Mrs NHN disgusted, she grew up in Guernsey, and the scenes are NOT filmed there!  Looks nothing like apparently.  Luckily it was borrowed. Looked like North Devon, Clovelly maybe.

[Tony_S]

A'noon.

 

Went out for a drive to the deep south, found a decent little café we previously hadn't known of. Couldn't be ar$ed to wash the cars.

 

Tie is a hit, Chis - white shirt would be better though.  Make it stand out more.

 

Watching that Guernsey Literary Potato Pie film thing - Mrs NHN disgusted, she grew up in Guernsey, and the scenes are NOT filmed there!  Looks nothing like apparently.  Luckily it was borrowed. Looked like North Devon, Clovelly maybe.

North Devon, Bristol and Clerkenwell according to IMDB.

[Coombe Barton]

Watching that Guernsey Literary Potato Pie film thing - Mrs NHN disgusted, she grew up in Guernsey, and the scenes are NOT filmed there!  Looks nothing like apparently.  Luckily it was borrowed. Looked like North Devon, Clovelly maybe.

 

https://www.thelocationguide.com/2018/04/the-guernsey-literary-and-potato-peel-pie-society-filmed-in-london-and-bristol/#

 

Similar to Closely is Bucks Mills, just along the coast

[BoD]

Evening all.

 

I do like the tie, Chris, although going by the photo it looks as if you are already half way on your journey to down under.

Edited January 6, 2019 by BoD

[TheQ]

Afternoon Awl,

It's a little cooler here today, heavily overcast.

 

Today was our dinghy open events today, and we had dozens of the rugrats out there, the were 14 in the over 12ft class and probably double that in the under12ft class.

 

Because it was their event we lost 3 yeomans to run the event. We also lost another three who decided not to compete due to the very light winds.

 

Race 1 course 5p,3p,5p,3p 1p. Wind north westerly between 0 and 5mph. Tide incoming very strongly.

 

Only 4 yeoman competing.

To give an into the wind start, they moved the start line down the the village green between buoys 1 and 2.

 

We were struggling in the light winds to manoeuvre, there were also hoards of dinghies coming down for their start after us. Because of the other boats when the buzzer went we were drifting backwards over the line. We had to sail away from where we wanted to be, the right side of the line to start.

 

By the time we achieved this, the others had a hundred yard head start. Once clear behind the line we turned to chase. The wind on our left we drifted with the tide time the first corner as we rounded it, the buzzer went for the next class start.

On rounding the corner the wind changed to the forward right hand side. But not forward enough to stop us sailing straight up river. We tried to keep In the middle to gain most from the tide. We slowly caught the 3rd place boat and passed it before the bend, on rounding that we were head to wind so started tacking into the wind, the tide pushing us into it exaggerates it's strength.

We were gaining but still Following as we rounded buoy 5 which was 2 hundred yards further on than buoy 4.

 

Round buoy 5 and up spinnaker, we slowly sailed against the tide, catching the other two who swapped places. Just before the lead boat got to buoy 3 we were told the course was shortend, so we sailed past buoy 3 on the correct side, we the caught the lead two boats. we passed one by sticking close to the bank as far out of the tide as possible. Unfortunately the lead boat was doing the same, so we finished just a few feet behind the lead boat in a time of over an hour.

 

Race 2, only two in our race but still Hoards of rug rats. Same course, but the wind was northerly this time.

 

 

We started facing the right way, and not far behind the other boat. We basically followed them, tacking up to the corner, straight up to the bend, then tacked up to buoy 5. We were close behind on rounding. Up spinnaker and we quickly? Overtook the lead boat. Again a shortend course so we very slowly gained and left the other boat behind to finish first.

 

We then dived into the club quickly to obtain dinner before the hoards finished. We had pasta bolgnese, very nice too. We had a second Muggacoffee while waiting for the next start, we had no competitors but we're surrounded by dinghies, so had to wait till We could move the boat.

 

While doing this the mooring rings were being removed as boats left. This week they start renewing all the wooden quay heading. Finding somewhere to Moor between races could be difficult for the next few weeks.

 

Well I'm home, I've had a long bath, dinner, and play with Ben. Eyelid inspection beckons..

[AndyID]

I wish car companies would build self cleaning cars

 

On one occasion I put a gearbox in the back of my ancient VW. I left it there overnight. Unfortunately it was upside down and the oil had leaked out the breather hole and filled the footwell with oil.

 

No problem. Drilled a hole in the floor and caught the oil in a drain pan.

[BoD]

Evening all again.

 

I pressed post before I'd completed typing the last post.

 

This morning I had my first ever flu jab. The surgery phoned yesterday at 8:30 telling me I was entitled to one and I could have one at 10:15 this morning. I guess they have contractual obligations to fulfil. I decided to have it and I await any side effects with interest. Given that I'm still recovering from a very heavy, almost flu like cold, I probably won't notice anyway.

[AndyID]

Atypical weather here at the moment. It's up to 5C already and it's not even 10am. The snow is nearly all gone.

[JohnDMJ]

On the basis that my alarm will sound off in 11 hours, I'm off to inspect the eyelids in the hope I may be awake for my return to work in the morning.

 

Night awl!

[pH]

I have always had a knack of being able to distinguish Canadian and American accents, I think because the Canadian accent is 'softer'.

I think that's a generalisation - or perhaps two. There isn't a Canadian or an American accent - there are many of each. First Nations people often have a very distinctly-accented English, influenced by their own languages. Listen to someone from Newfoundland and Labrador - there are strong traces of Irish and West of England accents (amongst others) in their speech. A fluently bilingual Quebecer often retains the occasional sound or phrasing from French. There's supposed to be a distinguishing sound in Canadian English - the pronunciation of the 'ou' sound as 'oo' as in 'aboot', but the only area I've heard that at all (and then not very much) is in Ontario.

 

I will agree that the accent is pretty homogeneous from about Ontario west. I think that's because the non-indigenous settlers came from many different places in a short time, so the next generation had no single accent to learn. There are a few exceptions, where small areas were settled by people from the same non English speaking country. They learned English, but because there was another common language, the accent is influenced by that other language.

 

Same applies to the US. Think of the accents of Louisiana, Boston and the northern states like Minnesota - very different, but all American.

 

(Edit - spelling)

Edited January 6, 2019 by pH

[Happy Hippo]

 

 

Tie is a hit, Chis - white shirt would be better though.  Make it stand out more.

 

 

I saw the shirt and thought of this!

 

ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaUa8UXmxeQ

Edited January 6, 2019 by Happy Hippo

[Happy Hippo]

Don't know why the link doesn't work

 

Edited January 6, 2019 by Happy Hippo

[Purley Oaks]

Evening all

 

Went to see The Favourite yesterday evening. A lot of fun, a lot of swearing and some sex (it's a 15 in the UK); no idea how much liberty has been taken. See from Wiki that she was the last Stuart royal and that Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlbrough, was one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber, but political differences soured their relationship. A lot of fun with some great acting, a great script, great costumes, direction and location.

 

Waiting for the BBC Les Miserables which I nearly gave up on last week. Hope to get into the story a lot more from hereonin.

 

Just relaxing with a whisky and soda on ice. Wonderful.

 

Rick, hope you're both feeling a little better. This cold is nasty.

 

Hope your evenings are going to plan

 

Mal

[Gwiwer]

I meet and speak with a large number of international travellers. I can normally tell Canadians from Americans by accent alone but also by demeanour and humour. Canadians are not shy of approaching people to ask for, or usually just to confirm, directions. Americans (along with Japanese, Hong Kong / Chinese and Belgians) argue among themselves while trying to rotate a piece of paper to face north.

 

Aside from that Canadians will often travel with maple-leaf patched on bags or clothing and will introduce themselves as Canadian. Which feeds me the line “Welcome - and how is Canadia today?” They invariably get the joke. The follow-up is that folk from Canada are surely Canadans.

 

You won’t find that level of humo(u)r among our American visitors.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Ventured into town today, easy on Sundays as car parking is free. Despite that the place is like a ghost town what with the bigger stores either going to the wall or pulling out. Anyway I got what I went into the town for and stocked up for the next couple of months.

 

I saw the shirt and thought of this!

 

ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaUa8UXmxeQ

To work it should be http not ttps.

[jamie92208]

You won’t find that level of humo(u)r among our American visitors.

Not quite, Canadians are from America as well.   It's just that folk from the US of A have usurped the name of their continent.  Mind you they think that all citizens of the United Kingdom are English.

 

Jamie

[Tony_S]

While we were visiting Enfield one of the relatives asked if he could see the boot size of my car. He wanted to,know if his dog would have enough space. He was fairly certain it would. Knowing what sort of dog he had I did ask if it was now Lab tested.

Tony

[pH]

See from Wiki that she was the last Stuart royal ...

What about Charles Edward and his daddy? Last crowned Stuart royal, yes, but with less of a claim to the throne than those two under the rules applied up until 1689.

 

But then, all of them might possibly have had less of a claim than this guy's ancestors:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Abney-Hastings,_14th_Earl_of_Loudoun

[Purley Oaks]

What about Charles Edward and his daddy? Last crowned Stuart royal, yes, but with less of a claim to the throne than those two under the rules applied up until 1689.

 

But then, all of them might possibly have had less of a claim than this guy's ancestors:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Abney-Hastings,_14th_Earl_of_Loudoun

Haha! Don't start! After Anne came the Hanovers, morphing into the Windsors. What did the Bonnie Prince do? Won one, lost (a big) one.

 

I prefer watching the Scotland-England 6Nations match!

 

Mal

[pH]

Haha! Don't start! After Anne came the Hanovers, morphing into the Windsors. What did the Bonnie Prince do? Won one, lost (a big) one.

 

I prefer watching the Scotland-England 6Nations match!

 

Mal

Mal, don't get me wrong - I think the Old and/or Young Pretender would have been disatrous monarchs. But, by the rules prevailing up until 1689, they should have succeeded to the throne.

[Gwiwer]

Not quite, Canadians are from America as well.   It's just that folk from the US of A have usurped the name of their continent.  Mind you they think that all citizens of the United Kingdom are English.

 

Jamie

Indeed. And Yoorp is one huge if slightly bemusing theme park.

 

While working in Australia a part of the tramway job was meet, greet, sell tickets and provide directions for our tram network. Which happened to offer an every-eight-minutes service from Station Pier, cruise ship terminal to the city, into central Melbourne.

 

Many cruise patrons were retured USA citizens and some could gave been forgiven for being in a time-warp docking in different cities every few days.

 

A few of the beauties which I was party to included:-

 

- “Which of your cute little streetcars crosses the harbour bridge?” (Not all cities in Australia have harbour bridges!)

 

- “How many of these does it cost to ride?” (Brandishing a roll of greenbacks) - “None sir. Those are American dollars and are not accepted here”. - (Thunderous face) “Boy - I said Boy - these are American dollars valid in every State in the Union ..... “

 

- “Cute set-up you have here. What do you guys do when the park closes?” (It’s Australia - we get very drunk, argue about football and eat meat pies. It’s not a park. And only the bottle shops close)

 

- “Where do the Vienna Boys Choir perform?” (In Austria sir. Without the “al” in the middle)

 

- “Do you speak Am-er-i-can?”

- “Sorry no. I speak English, French, German, some Cornish, Welsh, Portuguese, Spanish and Latin. But not American”

- (turns to wife) “Wilma - we may have a problem here. These guys don’t speak our language ............”

 

I kid you not. That last one had me in stitches as soon as frustdated wife had dragged husband away.

[Coombe Barton]

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2019/01/06/sandys-chemo-day-19-of-126/

[The Stationmaster]

Evening all,

 

Neil I can confirm that the small harbour (very badly) passed off as S Peter Port in the Guernsey Potato Literary thingy film is indeed Clovelly.  Quite what the producers and location chooser thought they were doing picking a place where you land by small boat as a port which can handle ships of several thousand tons burden i really don't know but it looked absolutely stupid I'm afraid.  The only thing I can add is that we have landed in Clovelly at the same steps which were used in the film so it was hardly a major test spotting it.

 

Her cold is n ow my cold with uncomfortable coughing and a runny nose, according to Karen on Tesco's pharmacy counter 'there's a bug going round' - I wish it would bug(ger) off to somewhere else as it's distinctly uncomfy when I cough.   Oh and I did do some bacon to go with my mushrooms but I have now started my potato diet so none of those (not that there were any that I was allowed to have as they were being saved for this evening's curry).  We thought 'Manhunt' on ITV this evening was quite well done, hope it stays that way.

 

Anyway time to dose with Beechams and away to bed, g'night all. 

 

PS Presumably RMweb will be melting down in approx 10 hrs and 35 minutes from now