Ferval admitted to being a Piscean, like Priscilla; so it must be her birthday around this time too.

Happy Birthday to you, ferval, whenever it is - or was.

You two are not at all what one expects from dreamy Piscean types. I once read one of those things which tell you which star-signs get on (gloriously irrational nonsense that I love). I am a Libran, and was warned to avoid folk born at this time of the year, because Librans and Pisceans invariably "egg one another on".

Here's to continued egging on.

No, I admitted to being an Aquarian, but nevertheless I wish Priscilla a belated Happy Birthday. I hope you had a lovely day. mid-term not withstanding.

Lord help me but I was tempted to look up Aquarius and Libra compatability and found this:

In general-

This is typically a light and fun match. You have a lot of things in common and there is a natural mental connection here.

From the Aquarius point of view-

An unusual quirk and risk in this relationship from your side, is that your Libra is likely to be very sensitive to social expectations and rules - they want to fit in, and like to be popular. Things which you probably don't give much thought to. Worse, sometimes you just don't care for such rituals or approval from others, so be wary that your rebellious streak doesn't scare your Libra, especially if their career is dependant on regular social occasions or impressing clients etc.

From the Libran viewpoint-

You're both fun loving, rational, objective and excellent communicators. Both of you are very sociable, exciting and carefree. The first potential negative area in this match is that you can sometimes be a little bossy, and your Aquarius is likely to have a secret rebellious streak. Get too bossy with this partner and you may find they often do the exact opposite, just on general principle! This can also apply to social norms and conventions, which your Aquarius may be quite comfortable breaking if they feel too restricted.

I've filleted out the bits that refer to ramantic entanglements, much as I enjoy your virtual company......


It's just a joke, nordmann. I don't believe any of it, honest, please don't ban me from the board. Apart of course from where it talks about the Aquarian's fast mind and desire to question everything in an objective and intriguing way.  That's me, absolutely.

Oh, sorry I got it wrong, Aquarian person! Happy Birthday whenever it was, anyway.

I'm not bossy at all.

I'm chuffed to bits that I am described as "rational".

Do you remember when we all started singing hymns, thinking that nord was on his holidays? I suspect discussing horoscopes is marginally worse. We'd better stop  - don't want the Boss to have an apoplectic fit. However, must just add:

ferval wrote:

 
It's just a joke, nordmann. I don't believe any of it, honest, please don't ban me from the board. Apart of course from where it talks about the Aquarian's fast mind and desire to question everything in an objective and intriguing way.  That's me, absolutely.

Yes that is definitely you, ferval; bet it's nord too.

Proper astrology is actually very interesting. There, I've said it.

Oh heck, what have I said? It is actually a wonder I am still allowed around here, isn't it?  

I think we must be grateful that attendance at n's seminars is somewhat sparse, I'm sure that's why we get allowed a bit of leeway to waffle away on these dubious topics. As long as we don't do it too often.

It's dry and sunny here for the second day in a row and forecast to stay thus for another couple of days - I may survive this winter sane after all.

Priscilla wrote:

Gil, with your difficult address and double birthday - (a benefit of religions, if ever but we won't log it in there) do you actually get any cards? Thanks for the greeting.

Not many - don't think our posties can read cuneiform!

ps - Do you have an "aide-de-calm" as Sellar & Yeatman say Montcalm did? Sounds a useful idea.

As I seem to be everyone else's aide-de-calm (In real life, not here) I have not sought a personal one after doing so many many years ago during a traumatic time and then deciding that my own council was better after all. Get through your own and then it helps cope with others - mainly by discussing options, not being hot on applying sympathy.
Do you pay excess postage on stone post cards, Gil? It would be fun to send one just for fun. Well, clay anyway. I'll see if I can find me wedgie stick. I have friends who sent the same postcard back and forth for years until the stamp bit was really thick and it eventually got lost - jamming a machine somewhere I imagine.

most likely it is Frammin' at the jim-jam, frippin' in the krotz.

Sincerely thine must plead guilty to being a Piscean also.  I think I mentioned last year - or maybe even the year before - that I entered this world (well when I entered it as a baby rather than an embryo) on St Patrick's Day.  When I was at school I used to get cards with shamrock inside though those days are over (i.e. I haven't had any shamrock on my birthday for many a long year).

A useful hiatus in the morning's usual activities: I have successfully wormed Bosworth.

And I've followed your instructions and permed the dog .... although perhaps I blow-dried a bit too long for a golden retriever:

Temperance wrote:

A useful hiatus in the morning's usual activities: I have successfully wormed Bosworth.

How did you manage that Temp? Any handy tips you might have to offer on that one would be appreciated? My last attempt to worm the cat was an utter failure with only half of the stuff going down, Moira is obviously wise to it now, grrrr. Now have to wait until I can get some more worming stuff and in the meantime she's surely still got half worms instead of whole ones.

"Swallow the pill, Bosworth; just swallow the pill..."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC372253/

Or just get the vet to administer an injection. (no, not the 10 bob one tempting though that is.)

I've never have had any trouble worming the cats - it just sort of happens naturally - it's de-worming them that gives me the problems.

Following instructions, I have dewormed the huffs and permed the grandchildren. What are we waiting for then?  Is the ticker taped yet? I do so enjoy surprises.

Meles meles wrote:

And I've followed your instructions and permed the dog .... although perhaps I blow-dried a bit too long for a golden retriever:

I think the hair-do has turned into a hare-do.

Well, hare of the dog, and all that, but maybe I should have given him a bun, or tied it into a coney-tail.

And on that note p'raps I should buck up my ideas, get doe to business and stop rabbiting on, although I would just like to work "viscacha" into this post too. But, would you warren it, I just can't leveret into the conversation.






.... I'll go get me coat.

Not long to wait. March was  mad for you, MM.

Scut it out, MM, you've got form vis-a-viscatcha rabbit puns.

Interpret this as you will, I'm saying nothing.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mysterious-chimpanzee-behaviour-could-be-sacred-rituals-and-show-that-chimps-believe-in-god-a6911301.html

My dog and cat both believe in god. My dog thinks it's me ... my cat is certain that it's her.

I'm not rising to the bait, so there.

... is that his Beatitude the Arch Bish .... the Primate of all England?

I'm steering clear of the 'Benefits of Religion' thread at the moment, but further to Temp's (now deleted) scatalogical comments there, I would just like to suggest a possible, if unlikely, benefit of religion ... it being a ripe source of irreverant fun and mickey taking, as exemplified by the local Catalan tradition of 'El Caganer'.

El Caganer, "the shitter" is a figure that is traditionally found on all local Christmas Nativity scenes, whether in homes, churches, or public buildings .... usually lurking coyly somewhere at the back behind a pillar, or ducked down hiding amongst the sheperds and their flocks of sheep, quietly taking the opportunity, while everyone else is adoring the new-born Messiah, to do his business.

The traditional Caganer, who has been appearing on Nativity scenes since the 17th century, is a male Catalan peasant with a red phrygian cap (the barretina), a pipe in his mouth, and his trousers around his ankles:



But since the 1940s it has become common to poke gentle fun at politicians, celebraties and other well-known people:

   

They're not meant to be mocking, it's more a case of "remember that thou art mortal too", and indeed many local politicians are quite proud when they get portrayed, as it means they've finally made it or at least they've been noticed.

     

.... I'll pull up my trousers and go get my coat.

Much more to the point - and funnier - than my comments, MM.


Who was it who wrote about his misery on discovering that the lovely Celia had to use the chamber pot, like all other mortals? Ah, the inimitable Jonathan Swift. It's a cruel poem.



Thus finishing his grand survey,

Disgusted Strephon stole away

Repeating in his amorous fits,

Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!

We could have a Poo 'n' Loo Thread - hopefully it would prove to be a sillier one - and by that I mean a happier one - than any religious topic has so far been. Nordmann did start a Farting Thread once which was very popular, but I think I managed to ruin even that by dragging Martin Luther's bottom into the discussion.

Ever read Aubrey Beardsley's "Venus and Tannhauser"? More or less every bodily function of the goddess was someone's source of gratification.

Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:

Ever read Aubrey Beardsley's "Venus and Tannhauser"? More or less every bodily function of the goddess was someone's source of gratification.

I haven't, but I dread to think what he put in it. I believe it was finished by another writer, and that the edition actually published was cleaned up?

Wasn't it inspired by some intense and gloomy Wagnerian thing? The Germans always seem to take everything so seriously.

Whilst those oh-so-serious Germans might see the toilet simply as a functional and practical device, to the English it is of course a source of endless ribaldry, and the basis of a whole genre of comedy ...





But actually that's not true at all, as you'd well know if you've ever been to a cabaret night in Kôln or Berlin? 

Those stools depicted with the caganer figurines seem decidely loose looking. I'd recommend iced mint tea for them (or the potter) as an ancient remedy to regulate the constitution and firm up the poo.

Judging by their stool samples, the Queen, well-known as an abstemious eater, would ironically seem to need to reduce her intake of red meat ... while the Pope, with a typical Argentine's love of huge steaks of beef, nevertheless certainly seems to be getting plenty of roughage.

And I love the expression on the face of Snowy/Milou the dog!

Germans take their stools very seriously indeed, and in fact like to examine them closely before consigning them to the high seas.

These were once to be found over all that fair land, though I notice in recent years a depressing trend towards the more orthodox "denial" relationship with one's excreta:

Did those loos come with magnifying glass attachments Nordmann?

Islanddawn,

yes those stools, very serious objects indeed. Having some twelve of those things under my supervision in different houses...you can't imagine what there can happen with them...and when some don't function correctly in the for hire appartments it is immediately catastrophy...especially when the "solids" don't wash away...

And there are that many causes for that phenomenon, as for instance the evacuation blocked or the flow of the water around the pot not strong enough, or the quantity of a batch of water not enough to give the push in the siphon...

And the difficulties can also come from the very inner design of the stool too I have experienced...
Lately bought once a stool with so called less water consumption with instead of one big hole as supply, where the water is directed into a trench around and above in the edge, instead a tube with holes around the edge to work as jets around the inner of the stool...
but forget it...the jets aren't strong enough to push the more stronger packets...and after some month the holes are narrowed by the lime stone in the water...
You had the same effect also with the first type, when the design was so that the trench around above was too close to the central supplying hole, where the trench after some months was narrowed by the lime stone formed in that trench...

I had once a new toilet with in my opinion a wrong design, where in my opinion the design of the syphon wasn't adequate, or it was the trench above which was to narrow to the supplying hole...someone had said I had to install a ventil in the evacuation pipe to allow to aspire air while evacuating...what I did... nothing changed...
After one year of misery I had bought a decent stool...taken a hammer to demolish the old one....and since the installement of the new one no difficulities anymore...
And now carefully since that event when I have to buy a new toilet pot...

Kind regards from your northern friend in Belgium.

Thankyou Paul for a fascinating insight.

We have a new member, quocbao 93

Guinness use a four-leaf clover instead of a shamrock in a Canadian advert;



Is this a flora pas ?????

Happy Paddy's Day to the Irish contingent  

How about his compatriots?

Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
Happy feast day St Patrick (even if Nordmann says you're not real)
Happy birthday to me.

(the third line doesn't really fit the tune of the song though)


I also hope the people who had/or will be having a birthday around this time enjoyed/will enjoy their respective birthdays.


I'm not going to discuss "stools" - it's bad enough having to do the bowel cancer test (well taking the samples to send off) every so many years.

LiR wrote:

Happy feast day St Patrick (even if Nordmann says you're not real)

Far from it - I actually reckon there were at least four of them!

Hope you're having a blast, LiR. Many happy returns !!!

nordmann wrote:

LiR wrote:

Happy feast day St Patrick (even if Nordmann says you're not real)

Far from it - I actually reckon there were at least four of them!

Hope you're having a blast, LiR. Many happy returns !!!

Any Irish ones?

Happy Birthday for yesterday, LiR!

PS ID - I loved that River Dance by Shaun the Sheep and his pals. I'd never seen it before. It did go on a bit though! Let's have it again (but the shorter version) while everyone sips their black coffee this morning.

Belated Happy Birthday, LiR;


St Pat's day birthday cake.

They really should have known better, asking the Great British Public to choose a name for a ship:

RRS Boaty McBoatface

The Sea Lords can't really overrule the vote, can they? We do live in Britain after all - the mother of democracy!

I think they can Temp, and probably will.

In addition to the names on the BBC site, Boat Marley and the Whalers was another suggestion.


Their site is having technical issues at the moment. Try again later to add your own suggestion:

NERC Ship Naming

This was simply asking for trouble, wasn't it?



Universities & science minister, Jo Johnson, said:


"Can you imagine one of the world's biggest research labs travelling to the Antarctic with your suggested name proudly emblazoned on the side? The polar research ship represents a leap forward in securing Britain's place as a world leader in marine and climate change science - and illustrates this government's commitment to invest in research facilities on a record scale.


Royal Research Ship David Attenborough is actually my choice for a serious name, but she'll always be Boaty now, whatever goes officially on her side.

Vivian Fuchs, Hubert Wilkins or James Weddel.

Gosh, how quiet it is. Are we closing down for Easter?

Temperance wrote:

Gosh, how quiet it is. Are we closing down for Easter?

Temperance, just have no subjects to do historical research for and present it overhere for the moment.

Your friend, Paul.