Early Risers.

[DaveF]

At 07.30 the temperature was -1°C and no wind, by 08.30 it was 3°C and the wind was east, about Force 4.  The forecast is for rain from about 14.00 and all day tomorrow and into Sunday morning.  But there is to be no snow here.

 

Last night I ended up watching Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Gondoliers" which I recorded the other day, then I watched some music videos of Gaby Albrechet, a German singer.  After that I went to bed and slept quite well but with a very odd dream about being in church and half way through the service everything was moved round, then the congregation went outside to do some gardening before coming back in to finish the service.

 

Today I have some phone calls to make, before that there will be the usual visit to church for the midweek communion service followed by coffee.  I must remember to tell them I shall not be there for a number of weeks as next week I shall be busy making the final preparations and then recuperating.  Helping with the service requires moving a lot of things round and can be quite heavy work at times.

 

I might go and look at the sea but I think it may be from inside the car.

 

David

[Hroth]

47 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

One thing that bemuses me about modern sport is how both the terms “sport” and “athlete” have become rather loose in the definition: Darts? Tiddlywinks? Boules? Snooker? Really? And the “athletes” in some of the less energetic “sports” are hardly at the peak of human physical prowess, are they?

 

The current wonder child of darts is a 16 year old.

He doesn't look 16, he looks 20 years older, from the era when darts players would perform with an 'arrer in one hand and a pint of beer in t'other...

That he's from Runcorn is not a glowing tribute to Cheshire...

 

ION

 

So far, the Yellow Snow has not arrived, just cold wet rain.

 

[Gwiwer]

9 hours ago, Hroth said:

I went to bed earlier but woke up and I'm trying to get tired enough to want to sleep again

You do know that if you go to bed earlier you have to wake later to make up for it. 

[Hroth]

1 minute ago, Gwiwer said:

You do know that if you go to bed earlier you have to wake later to make up for it. 

 

I may have a catch-up nap in the afternoon...

 

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

Well, yesterday’s nice weather has gone, it’s back to more rain this morning, pah. Sheila has her second post op consultation this afternoon, from what I can see when I administer her eye drops all looks good to me, but then I’m not an expert in that field. We are hoping that her eye drop regime will again be altered, with hopefully the antibiotic drops stopped altogether, but we’ll just have to wait and see. 
 

Anyway, best get on with things, back later.

 

Brian

[pH]

A bit of a theme on a local walk yesterday afternoon:

 

 

[Gwiwer]

2 hours ago, Grizz said:

London Underground (the tube network not the terrorist group) is marked out in KM and mètres from an obscure place call Ongar….possibly because that’s where the bloke who thought of it lived at the time? 

Because at the time Ongar was the farthest point on the network from the centre. That section of line closed leaving Epping as the terminus but Chesham as the most distant. 
 

To have remeasured the entire London Underground network and re-post every plate (LU distance plates are fixed at 200m intervals) would have been wasteful so the zero-point at Ongar was retained. 
 

The railway to Ongar is now in the hands of a private heritage operator who has been required to retain the zero post. It is still there at Ongar station but not at the end of the line. It was installed some 10m from the stop-block and there it remains meaning in theory all LU distances are “out” by around 10m. 
 

Another curiosity of this arises where lines meet. Not necessarily at physical junctions; distances are also “transferred” at interchange stations. 
 

The Central and District Lines stop either side of an island platform at Mile End for example. Distance from Ongar increases westbound and that is “transferred” to the westbound District Line where they meet. Distance therefore continues to increase on both lines as they take their differing routes through town. They meet again at Ealing Broadway where there is a “change of distance” (the District being a little longer than the Central” just as occurs on the “big railway”.
 

What of the eastbound District Line?  As posted distance increases west from Mile End so it decreases eastbound. Until the end of that line near Cranham in the vast Upminster depot sidings. But it doesn’t reach zero. So the “origin” of the District Line is at something like 10kms not 0kms.  The distance has “reduced towards Ongar” 
 

The same is true for all other LU lines. 

[monkeysarefun]

The climate here possibly makes sport a more fun proposition. Although summer can have brutal  40+ degree days, when standing out in  blowtorch heat  at deep fine leg for hours on end covered in flies and seeing the wicket through a shimmering haze of  midday sun and dust eddies and  impending heat exhaustion can put a bit of  a dampener on it.

 

Being NSW, Rugby League was the prescribed winter sport, which I was not a huge fan of playing at the time given that the 4 or 5 early-developed kids would just wade through we more petite types as we grabbed on to them trying to drag them down through sheer weight of  numbers as they trudged to the try line with the rest of us just clinging on for the ride. 

 

  And soccer was for the more  delicate kiddies  and the girls and the "New Australians" who seemed to like it, so that was out.

 

So when an Australian Rules programme was announced for NSW schools I gave that a go and was instantly a changed person. Up until then Aussie Rules was a weird game that was called VFL, played in Victoria. WE called it "Aerial ping-pong" and it had scores that no one could decipher, like "10 3 63 to 15 7 97" which to us was like hieroglyphics or the Nazi code that the Americans broke when they captured the enigma machine as depicted in the movie  "U-571"*

 

But from the first game I was hooked, the field was massive so you were free to tear around it chasing the crazily bouncing ball  without bumping into anyone else , there were no stupid rules like offside or not being allowed to grab someones shirt and spin them around and around, basically the only thing for the umpire to rule on was if you got tackled in possession. Its like British Bulldog combined with Hot Potato and punching. 

 

Australian Rules -   The opposite of Un-Australian.

 

 

 

 

 

(*yeah I Just put that in cos I know it pees yous off!)

Edited February 8 by monkeysarefun

[monkeysarefun]

8 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

There's a good image here of the visitor sideline.

 

 

Is that  ALL the one team..?

Edited February 8 by monkeysarefun

[Hroth]

For years, "Aussie Rules Football" was something the Football Pools used to offer for the fanatic gamblers to waste their money on when Real Football was on holiday.

 

I don't think anyone in the UK knew what the mad Aussies were up to!

 

As for Hollywood movies...

 

Edited February 8 by Hroth

[Barry O]

Sleeting here now.. cars coming down from the airport have about. 5 of an inch in snow cover.. but its very wet..

 

Baz

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Only two interruptions from bladder control and seven hours sleep in all. Only this morning Arthur Itis was in his element what with the rain and bladder control was making up for lost time as well. Both have eased off now as has the rain but the forecast is that it will come back later. I am taking the car in for a service tomorrow, hopefully there will not be any nasty surprises. The parcel I was waiting for arrived about half an hour ago so the rest of the day is mine.

[southern42]

' morning all from red dragon land.

Chuckinitdarn. Windy. 2.3C.

 

Received an email this morning from the Reykjavik Grapevine (though nothing on the website yet) re:

New eruption in Iceland at 0530 today.

(Scroll back to find the start of it.)

 

Multi camera with info

 

Mugadecaf now and getting some jobbies done.

 

Take care. Be good. Don't get (too) distracted.

Polly

 

Edited February 8 by southern42

[monkeysarefun]

49 minutes ago, Hroth said:

For years, "Aussie Rules Football" was something the Football Pools used to offer for the fanatic gamblers to waste their money on when Real Football was on holiday.

 

I don't think anyone in the UK knew what the mad Aussies were up to!

 

As for Hollywood movies...

 

 

 

 

We did have soccer teams back then but they were pretty much just European ethnic communities,, mainly Serbians,  Croatians , Greeks, Italians  and so on with team names like "Harkoah" which is probably spelt wrong, Sydney Olympic and Marconi - perhaps those were what you got to bet on? 

 

Infamous for crowd violence, flares, brawls etc  especially when the Croats played the Serbs which didn't help soccers cause here  in any way, they just piss3d the rest of us off with their nonsense, especially given back then it was a girls game anyway..

 

In the end the ethnic clubs all got banned and were replaced with clubs based on Sydney geographic regions.

Edited February 8 by monkeysarefun

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, pH said:

A bit of a theme on a local walk yesterday afternoon:

 

 

As a devoted dog lover with two aging, idiosyncratic and utterly and thoroughly loved dogs, I really get hacked off when people disregard and ignore the fundamentals of good and responsible dog handling. 
 

I always clean up after Lucy and Schotty (even if means scooping up a handful or two of earth and grass as well when the faeces are liquid). The only time I’ve not cleaned up after Schotty was when we first got him and he would work his way into the middle of a thick bush to defecate. I reckoned that if I couldn’t get to it, then no one else could either and it could safely biodegrade.

Of course my two, as adorable as they are, are hardly angels or plaster saints. Schotty for one is a mouthy git at times, but responds to commands and stops barking. Unfortunately, one situation where it’s difficult to get him to stop barking is when we meet a large white dog - I suspect he had a very bad encounter with such a dog type after he had been dumped and before he was rescued. Lucy, on the other hand, loves nothing better to roll in cow pats or fox excrement given half the chance. I definitely need to keep a beady eye on Ms Lucy whenever we are near a field of cows. But even in absence of large white dogs or grazing cows, I maintain situational awareness at all times and can intervene with commands - at the right time - if needed.

 

Attention to your dog (and their body language): attention to your surroundings (including people and other dogs) and proper waste management should be paramount when you walk your dog - it’s NOT an opportunity for you to catch up on soshul meeja on your idiot-phone.

 

Dogs, like (to a lesser extent) cats, are not fashion accessories or a disposable whim, they are a serious (and time-consuming) life-long commitment.

Edited February 8 by iL Dottore

[Hroth]

Some very wet "snow" (thick sleet?) at the mo, its not going to stick.

 

[monkeysarefun]

Thousands of years from now, archeologists are going to find little plastic bags filled with something which upon careful spectrographic or whatever examination will turn put to be dog poo.

 

They will spend ages  wondering  why we went to such careful lengths to preserve it. 

[monkeysarefun]

20 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

I always clean up after Lucy and Schotty (even if means scooping up a handful or two of earth and grass as well when the faeces are liquid). The only time I’ve not cleaned up after Schotty was when we first got him and he would work his way into the middle of a thick bush to defecate. I reckoned that if I couldn’t get to it, then no one else could either and it could safely biodegrade.

 

 

Sometimes Gary The Parrot does a poo on my shoulder.

 

You darent do that with dogs.

Edited February 8 by monkeysarefun

[Hroth]

1 minute ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

Sometimes Gary The Parrot does a poo on my shoulder.

 

You cant do that with dogs.

 

You've never seen the people who tuck small dogs under their arms?

 

[Andy Hayter]

1 minute ago, Hroth said:

 

You've never seen the people who tuck small dogs under their arms?

 

 

Or in handbags - as seems to be the way with female Parisians of a certain age.

 

[Hroth]

7 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Thousands of years from now, archeologists are going to find little plastic bags filled with something which upon careful spectrographic or whatever examination will turn put to be dog poo.

 

They will spend ages  wondering  why we went to such careful lengths to preserve it. 

 

The thing that worries me is the people who carefully gather the stuff up, then hang the baggy on a bush or railings.

 

Is it a form of virtue signalling?

 

[monkeysarefun]

2 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

You've never seen the people who tuck small dogs under their arms?

 

 

 

Assuming your avatar is accurate, are you tucked up like that at the moment?  Post a selfie!

[Tony_S]

11 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Thousands of years from now, archeologists are going to find little plastic bags filled with something which upon careful spectrographic or whatever examination will turn put to be dog poo.

 

They will spend ages  wondering  why we went to such careful lengths to preserve it. 

Can you guess why they had to put locks on the dog poo bins in our nearest park?

[monkeysarefun]

25 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

The thing that worries me is the people who carefully gather the stuff up, then hang the baggy on a bush or railings.

 

Is it a form of virtue signalling?

 

 

 

No it just causes needless concern to subsequent dogs who  detect it and worry that somewhere up ahead is a dog so big that  it can poo 4 feet up.

 

 

Edited February 8 by monkeysarefun

[iL Dottore]

22 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Thousands of years from now, archeologists are going to find little plastic bags filled with something which upon careful spectrographic or whatever examination will turn put to be dog poo.

 

They will spend ages  wondering  why we went to such careful lengths to preserve it. 

Not sure if they’ll find much in Switzerland. Scattered around the countryside and along nature trails are the Robidog where you can grab a few poo bags (for free) and which also have a bin for the disposal of full bags. The bins are emptied on a regular basis and the contents incinerated.

 

Whilst on defecatory matters, I have to report on a somewhat amusing dog-cat “situation”: after one of the neighbourhood cats had been chased out of “their” garden by Schotty and Lucy one time too many, the moggie upped the ante by coming to our front door (whilst Mrs iD was out with the dogs) and defecating on the front door mat. These acts of sabotage were rapidly brought to an end by the early return, one day, of Mrs iD and the Wolfpack who caught the cat in “mid-strain” (so to speak). Had the Wolfpack not been on the leash, the furry terrorist would have had a very short shelf-life indeed (The Wolfpack are intensely territorial).

 

We no longer have a fouled front door mat, but by the way Lucy and Schotty shoot into the garden first thing in the morning, I think that pussycat is now conducting nighttime “wee and run” raids. If one of these eventually coincide with one of Lucy’s really early morning “really gotta go out now” moments, pussy is going to get a BIG surprise …..

Edited February 8 by iL Dottore