ferval wrote:

Where is everyone? Are you all away restocking the fall-out shelter or queuing for your courgette and iceberg lettuce ration? I'm occupied shifting heaters round the house and boiling water since my ancient boiler is on the blink and it's so old that there's no spares available so it's got to be a new one. I hope it's installed quickly, even my great granny had a polished black range that gave her heat and hot water. The cat is, of course, outraged that there's no warmth behind her radiator hammock and is drawing me filthy looks from my bed where she has retired in a monumental huff.

2017 is real b*st*rd, ain't it?

Our boiler is on it's last legs too, has sprung a leak that just keeps getting larger and we are increasing the size of buckets underneath in accordance. It will just have to last a bit longer, it has no choice in the matter  The joys of living on the sea, everything eventually rusts. sigh.

My 17yr old washing machine required a new thermostat last week, first breakdown in all those years. Touch wood it will have to last a bit longer too.

No shortages of either zucchinis or lettuces in Greece though....

Still teetotal, Temp?

I have not had a single drink since Boxing Day. I am now a teetotal pagan and, apart from spending all of last week comatose under a pile of used anti-viral tissues, have never felt better in my life.

I do not recommend Vitamin C or 'flu jabs: they do not work.

Iceberg lettuces are now fetching £1.99 per head in Morrisons: people have started growing this incredibly boring salad item in their lofts. The lettuce is a member of the daisy family, a fact which I did not know until yesterday. The broccoli blackmarket is also flourishing in Devon and unseemly tussles over packs of frozen vegetables have been observed in the Holsworthy Waitrose - usually an oasis of middle-class restraint, calm and decorum. Not these days.

PS I am no longer getting email notifications about replies to Res His watched topics: my "notifications" specifications have been changed and I cannot alter the new settings. This is somewhat disconcerting and not a little distressing, especially in my weakened, post-viral, teetotal state.

I have checked your profile Temp and the "Always notify me of replies" is definitely set to "Yes", so if you are not receiving these then it looks like your e-mail account itself is suppressing them. This can happen with some e-mail clients which can interpret a lot of incoming mail from the same sender to which you never reply as "junk" or even "spam" after a while. Depending on the client one solution can be to add the sender to your e-mail contacts. However others, especially freebie e-mail accounts, sometimes give you no further option once this has occurred.

The picture book village of Bibury in Gloucestershire:



Can you see it?

After complaints about it on twitter etc, somebody has gone and vandalised it.

He should go out and get an old VW .....................see how they liked that.

No complaint from the owner about all the scruffs taking selfies there? He should post a few pics - people in shorts seen from behind are surely a big enough blot in the view from his place.

nordmann wrote:

I have checked your profile Temp and the "Always notify me of replies" is definitely set to "Yes", so if you are not receiving these then it looks like your e-mail account itself is suppressing them. This can happen with some e-mail clients which can interpret a lot of incoming mail from the same sender to which you never reply as "junk" or even "spam" after a while. Depending on the client one solution can be to add the sender to your e-mail contacts. However others, especially freebie e-mail accounts, sometimes give you no further option once this has occurred.

Thank you, sir. Not only is my immune system suppressed, but it seems my email account has been suppressed too. Very tiresome when I didn't ask anyone to do this.

However, as advised, I have added Res His to my list of contacts and have sent an email to you (not you personally, but to Res His) as a test. I await the outcome with bated breath. Will I ever receive a Res His notification again? I hope so - I rather miss these little messages: they have sort of become a comforting part of life.

No e-mail has arrived that I can see, Temp.

nordmann wrote:

No e-mail has arrived that I can see, Temp.

Seems it could be a problem with the email address showing on my profile - I've just sent you a PM about this. Sorry to pester, but it would be nice to sort the problem out if possible.

I had a look - the upper/lower case thing doesn't matter. That's why you got "already in use" when you tried to change it. In any case (groan!) I've sent a test mail from the admin panel here so see if you got it. Let me know using PM if you did or didn't and we can take it from there ...

We think we may have sorted this, nordmann. Could you (or someone!) just reply here and I'll see if a notification comes through? Ta.

EDIT: Should have put this in technical problems thread - sorry.

Reply duly posted.

This is the most activity in the bar in a long time :)

Yes, such excitement . 

However, efforts have, alas, all been futile: no notifications whatsoever have come through. I did find out that someone was pretending to be Sainsbury's and that they had been blocked, thank goodness. Just shows you - you can't trust anyone. They'll be telling me Marks and Sparks is unsafe next.  

I don't somehow think they'll ever have me on Homeland working for the CIA (in that big room with all the computer screens and things). I'm not very good at this computer malarkey.  



Still nil desperandum - perhaps a message notification will come through in a bit - there can sometimes be a delay.

Thanks again, nord, for trying to help. You are a bon oeuf. Got to go out now, but will keep you all informed if a Res His reply notification email does eventually wing its way to Devon. I know this is uppermost on everyone's mind at the moment, and is more worrying to you all even than the outcome of the rugby.

PS Five Six emoticons in one message - Priscilla will be horrified.

I'm not sure but you don't now also have to clear the Bullguard cached record of "invalid" certs too, Temp, as per the command I referred to yesterday by PM.

Horrifying Priscilla is what this bar is all about, I thought. Oh, oh .... here she comes .

Well, are we supposed to report when the notice from ResHis doesn't appear?

I habitually check in a couple of times a day, and most often - sadly - only reply when I think I know something.

And as somebody said, never eat on an empty stomach, let me have a traditional small Absolut in order to  keep the taste buds quiet.

Cheers.

On top of the UK's shortages of fresh vegetables I now see that cod and haddock are in short supply. You'll all be back on snoek and dried egg soon!

OK, I've pressed the Windows key and R - now what do I do, Saul?

Golden Rule: If you do not know how to open a command prompt then never ever ever enter a command in one you find open.

The command I sent you presupposes a version and path for Bullguard that may be slightly different from the one you have. Without getting too technical therefore the steps you need to take are:

Identify the "program files" path to where the Bullguard executables reside.
Open a command prompt window as administrator
Navigate to the executable using the path identified earlier
Verify the presence of the required executable
Run the command as specified with appropriate switches
Restart the PC (or just the Bullguard service)

If all that makes perfect sense to you then you have my deepest condolences, but you also have your notifications back in about 10 minutes or so. If it doesn't then I'm afraid you might have to hassle your tame lad again - the one who apparently wasn't clever or interested enough to ask what programme you used to filter incoming mail after it became obvious that it was being filtered out.

What's Saul? Besides being a pre-Paulian dickhead before he went all anal retentive and became a mega-dickhead I'm not sure I get the reference. I sincerely hope it means the former and that you see me as a mild irritant who as yet hasn't started seeing lights and hearing disembodied voices and then embarked on a spree of letter writing in green biro advising total strangers that women aren't that great and that disembodied voices telling you to stock up on green ink are actually quite normal.

nordmann wrote:

What's Saul? Besides being a pre-Paulian dickhead before he went all anal retentive and became a mega-dickhead I'm not sure I get the reference. I sincerely hope it means the former and that you see me as a mild irritant who as yet hasn't started seeing lights and hearing disembodied voices and then embarked on a spree of letter writing in green biro advising total strangers that women aren't that great and that disembodied voices telling you to stock up on green ink are actually quite normal.

Absolutely not the mega-dickhead to whom you refer. Nothing biblical, religious or anything else remotely offensive intended. Surely you've heard of Homeland - it's an excellent series and  had Henry VIII in Seasons 1-3 before he got himself hung in Baghdad.  Saul is a really good guy and is one of my heroes.

My reference was a poor attempt at humour: Carrie (girl in picture) and Saul are rather good with computers and smart phones and such: they would have thwarted at least five terrorist plots using these devices while I was still faffing about trying to work out what "identify the 'program file' path" means.

It were a joke, sir.

Anyway, the computer shop lad has obviously not actually been much help. He did seem a bit baffled, but then so was I. I have tried to override the security cert. as advised, but God knows what I've actually done. I just hope the Sainsbury fake hasn't now got access to my computer. If I get delivery of about 1000 pots of Onken natural yoghurt, plus 500 "Taste the Difference" iceberg lettuces at £1.99 each I'll know I'm in real trouble.

Thanks for trying to help anyway.

Here is some rather confusing info about Saul:

Played by Mandy Patinkin, Saul Berenson is Middle East Division Chief of the CIA. Saul recruited a young Carrie Mathison into the CIA, and is a friend and mentor to her. His measured approach to his job often clashes with Carrie's drastic, impulsive methods.

Saul is instrumental in getting cooperation from captured terrorist Aileen Morgan, which leads to information that implicates Tom Walker. Saul later runs afoul of CIA Director Estes when he discovers that Estes and then-CIA director William Walden ordered a drone strike that hit a school in Iraq and have been taking measures to cover up the incident. After an operation with Carrie in Beirut, Saul finds a copy of the confession tape that Brody recorded. This leads to Saul, Carrie, and Estes forming a task force attempting to use Brody as a re-doubled agent against al-Qaeda. Saul discovers that Estes' plan is to have Brody killed once the operation is finished, and tries to put a stop to it which leads to further friction with Estes, almost losing his job. However, Peter Quinn, the black ops operative hired by Estes to kill Brody, decides not to go through with the plan once Abu Nazir is killed. When Estes is killed at the bombing of the memorial service for William Walden at Langley on December 12, Saul becomes the acting director of the CIA.

I don't (horror shock!) watch TV and haven't done in decades, so that particular Saul escaped my attention. I'd better say in advance that also any other TV Sauls to which you may allude in future witticisms will end up immediately in the "dickhead" pigeon hole in my brain's "To Get Around To, Probably Never" department. Apologies and all that, but I'm finding my fiction-coping neural receptors are completely preoccupied these days with what we used to call "the news" and which now is rapidly becoming indistinguishable from Magic Roundabout out-takes and what might be a projected script for "Used Toilet Paper - The Musical". CIA directors figure largely in that too, along with giant orange dicks running the free world.

Oh, and South Park, which at least resonates on the cynical level and is sometimes bloody good too.

I imagine we're going to get this issue more and more now (I'm talking about the digitally signed certificate stuff again now). This forum does not use certificates, and certain filters such as Bullguard interpret this as potentially dodgy so insist you effectively set up a certificate locally on your machine so they can pretend that it does. If you click however on "nah, just carry on" then Bullshit & Co will decide you think we're more evil than a US press secretary and protect you from us thereafter.

The solution is to certify the site, and this can be done. It means converting it to SSL protocol, something which will satisfy Bullshit requirements but will also automatically break every link to any non-signed network entity contained within the site. At the moment of conversion it would also identify this site most likely as a spam source to internet watchdogs like Google etc. Paul's posts alone would probably be estimated to have the same spam potential based on dodgy http links as a mid-sized ex Eastern Bloc country. Oh, and 99% of any pictures posted here would not only disappear but end up most certainly itemised on "level orange" security lists run by the factional versions of your Saul and the like. Especially the bloody cats.

I've been deferring thinking about all this up to now. But it will only become all the more necessary as time goes on - that's the way th'interweb has gone folks - and even now I imagine that Res His figures as a comedy item in first year students' tutorials in Chinese, Upper Siberian and Nigerian Hacking Colleges and similar establishments.

Maybe time for someone else to open a more modern version of Res His from scratch with more Bullshit friendly design?

Meles meles wrote:

On top of the UK's shortages of fresh vegetables I now see that cod and haddock are in short supply. You'll all be back on snoek and dried egg soon!

I'm not sure that (in the minds of the British public at least) snoek is ever going to get over the clumsy government marketing attempts of the 1940s. They really should have come up with a better name. Apparently even New Zealanders won't touch it:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff-nation/assignments/travel-food-tips-from-our-readers/10399460/Why-don-t-Kiwis-eat-barracouta

The Kiwis do, however, go in for orange roughy as an alternative to cod and haddock. So there's an opportunity there perhaps. Just make sure that the marketers remember not to let the public know that orange roughy is one of the slimehead family.

As for dried egg, then a significant proportion of young Britons (my nephew included) are already consuming 'whey protein' as part of their body-building regimen - so they probably wouldn't know the difference or care. I 'shake' my head whenever I see youngsters buying those hideous big tubs of protein shakes. When I used to lift weights I swore by grilled pork chops and baked beans. Mind you increased protein intake means increased flatulence whichever way one consumes it.

Now, however, I'm in my salad days - literally - I eat a mixed green salad at least once a day summer or winter. It's actually surprising to hear that there is a 'fresh vegetable shortage' because my experience of so many of my fellow UK citizens (even in the 21st century) is that very few of them eat any greens at all whether they be fresh, frozen, tinned, raw or cooked.

nordmann wrote:

Maybe time for someone else to open a more modern version of Res His from scratch with more Bullshit friendly design?

Sincerely hope that is not a hint that the death knell for Res His as we know it may be heard soon. That said, I suspect no one posting here fully realises the time and effort that has gone/is going into keeping this site running smoothly and efficiently. I'm sure I speak for all your regular contributors when I say your work is very much appreciated - always has been. This is not a grovel: I mean it.

I very much regret if my fussing about something as unimportant as regular notifications of replies to watched topics and private messages has caused you any anxiety (?) and/or more work. As ever, I am probably imagining things, but I honestly wish now I'd never mentioned any of this: the protection of my computer is my problem, not yours.

Homeland is good - better than The Young Pope anyhow, even if Saul isn't as good-looking as Pope Pius XIII (Jude Law). At least I understand what's happening in Homeland - most of the time.

Well, I'm extremely grateful for any diversion from the nightmare that is masquerading as reality these days and Homeland suits me very nicely for that, thank you very much. Iranian parallel nuclear programmes, Israeli machinations and duplicity in the CIA are light relief in comparison and most of the characters are at least better looking than the real thing.

Can I echo what Temp has just posted, nordmann, this site really is appreciated and the effort involved in maintaining it is not underestimated. Fora where there is any proper discussion of anything interesting are getting fewer and fewer and less and less well used. Everyone seems to be migrating onto Facey, Twitty, Snappy, Insty type things and I have managed so far to resist, I suppose it's my version of 'I don't watch telly', so I'm out of touch with popular culture in my own way.

Anyway, Homeland's on in 10 minutes and I'm looking forward to it.

We joined Facebook recently just to follow our children while they were overseas.  We used an assumed name so as not to be inundated with "friends" requests, and just had our children, my husband's beloved West Ham United and our local newspaper.  Even so, I was amazed at how appalling it was - the kids' photos got lost underneath all the 'likes' of photos we weren't interested in.  One baby is much the same as another - unless they are closely linked to you.  And we seemed to still get lots of trivia that I am not interested in.  I didn't expect to enjoy it, but I was surprised at just how dreadful it was, and hard to navigate.  I gather there are groups devoted to specific topics on Facebook that I might enjoy more but I don't know how they operate. 

Vizzer, barracouta here seems to be an unfavoured fish, as you say.  I am not a fisherperson, so don't know from personal experience.  Orange roughy is popular, but ranks very low on the sustainable fish criteria.  It also tends to be expensive - here all fish is expensive, but orange roughy specially so. (All food seems to be expensive here, I suppose because we have to rely on trade for our economy and anything popular overseas ups the price here.  I still find it hard to understand why NZ lamb should be cheaper in Britain than it is here.) I like warehou myself, (serelliola or some such word is it Latin name) and it is cheap, though I see it is also on the red list of Forest and Bird's fish ratings (though most fish are, except for herrings and such like).

Just after I wrote that, I opened the latest newsletter from Forest and Bird, and it was talking about the yellow-eyed penguin reduction in numbers and said one of the reasons for this was a rise in the numbers of barracouta, and suggested a number of possible reasons for this - climate change, changes in fishing practices.

Ferval, you are online. Could you just reply to this by putting "test"? 

Ta.

I'll do it.


TEST

Did it work, Temp?

Nope.

But I've got someone working on it who knows what he's doing - unlike Darren, Dave (aka Dive) or Duke from the computer shop, nice lads all, but who were perhaps a bit out of their depth.

I've just drowned.

Thanks Trike for replying.

Blo**y H**l!

I've just been on my usual Monday trip to the physioterrorists. 

When leaving their place of entertainment I found that my car wouldn't start.

As I'm subscribing to a local version of an aid agency, this was called, they came, and fresh current fed into the battery, following which I drove some 80 km., wasting valuable time which I had intended putting to good use otherwise, thus having to put several errands off 'till tomorrow.

As this is named a drinking venue, I'd like some drinks, and some sympathy as well, please.

Sorry Temp, I'm not ignoring you, I went out but left myself logged in. Any luck yet?

And 'Sorry' to you as well Neilsen, things mechanical are indeed a bluddy nuisance. After my 3 week saga with the little drip before Christmas, I've had a knackered boiler scenario for the past couple of weeks - the chilliest of the winter so far of course. The wind blew out the pilot light and it wouldn't relight so the gas man cometh, tut tutted and pointed out that my boiler could easily find a home in the Science museum given its vintage. Getting the necessary silly wee part therefore took some considerable time, so did installing it as the connections hadn't been unscrewed since it was first fitted, God knows how long ago. I suppose I should invest in a new one but it would require serious replumbing and major upheaval and I can't face that right now. Anyway, modern boilers are spat together of tinfoil and then ornamented with all sorts of computerised gee-gaws designed to break down and keep plumbers in big houses and fancy cars.
Sigh.

Hi ferval - I realised that you had either logged out or just hadn't seen my post! Trike came to my rescue.

No more worries with my computer protection, touch wood. The partner of one of my friends, a chap who is an IT specialist (Exeter University no less), came round this morning and lectured me very sternly. His explanations and admonishments were even more incomprehensible than nordmann in full flight, so I begged him just to fix it. Even he couldn't fix the wretched notifications thing (not a Bullguard issue, apparently), but that's not important. I was just worried I had done something really stupid which I probably had. Nordmann's "never, ever, ever" warning above put the fear of Thor in me. With reason apparently. One realises now just how ignorant one is: the world has definitely left me behind.

You and Neilsen both have my sympathy. Cars and boilers are up there with computers when it comes to causing helpless stress. I'd put car and boiler breakdown top of stress list actually, followed by computer malfunction, followed by vacuum cleaner blockage, followed by divorce.

But life goes on. Let's hope Res His does.

This is for me good mate, P. She'll get the joke:


I love the expression of the one on the left!

Caro wrote:

We joined Facebook recently just to follow our children while they were overseas.  We used an assumed name so as not to be inundated with "friends" requests, and just had our children, my husband's beloved West Ham United and our local newspaper.  Even so, I was amazed at how appalling it was - the kids' photos got lost underneath all the 'likes' of photos we weren't interested in.  One baby is much the same as another - unless they are closely linked to you.  And we seemed to still get lots of trivia that I am not interested in.  I didn't expect to enjoy it, but I was surprised at just how dreadful it was, and hard to navigate.  I gather there are groups devoted to specific topics on Facebook that I might enjoy more but I don't know how they operate. 

You can turn off or block whoever you want to on Facebook Caro and don't have to be getting photos and lots of trivia from people that you don't want. On the top right hand side of anything that appears on your page there is a little v, just click on it for a drop box where you can choose to hide notifications from anyone that you are not interested in. Plus there is the private message capacity. Or you can change your privacy settings, or lock your whole page to anyone but those you name or just create a private group that will be inaccessable to anyone but those you want. On the top blue toolbar, in the far right corner there is another v to click on which will give you all the privacy settings.  

We've used it for years to keep in touch and share photos with kids and family spread everywhere across the globe and find it very effective if you are strict with what or who you want or don't want appearing. It takes a little while at first to block any unwanted stuff as they appear but it will soon settle down and you'll only be getting the notifications that you want to see. Just takes a bit of getting used to is all.

Taking family history to the limit;

Man dresses as ancestors

Hope you've had a great day!

Watch out when Doris arrives over your way tomorrow.

I didn't realise that it was Priscilla's birthday, so I wish her a happy one belatedly.

It was already pretty blowy in this part of the Midlands last night so I'm not looking forward to Storm Doris at all.

Yes, a hearty "gratulere med dagen" from the heathens too!

Thank you  all for the good wishes - I think -- is nordman wishing me a free dagger in the middle?  I have problems with language - anyone's. Nice title for a bad book, that... "A Storm Called Doris."

Multiple Earth sized planets found orbiting dwarf star Trappist-1:

And already a warning Trike http://newsthump.com/2017/02/23/alien-life-beyond-the-solar-system-already-eying-up-uk-benefits-system-warns-nigel-farage/

Triceratops wrote:

Multiple Earth sized planets found orbiting dwarf star Trappist-1:

And Triceratops it is explored by Belgian!...
http://www.trappist.ulg.ac.be/cms/c_3300885/en/trappist-portail
It immediately let me think about beer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trappists

I first thought it was a joke of mine but see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST
"The Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope–South (TRAPPIST) is a Belgian optic robotic telescope, situated high in the Chilean mountains at ESO's La Silla Observatory, which came online in 2010. It is named in homage to the Trappist religious order, who are known for brewing the Trappist beer.^[1][2] 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trappist_beer
You see with Belgians no jokes

Your friend Paul.

Islanddawn wrote:

And already a warning Trike

They may have seen our TV broadcasts, ID. In which case they might think Earthlings look like this;

Good grief Trike! Don't show those to David Cameron whatever you do.

With all the chat today about Franglais, Norman French and Jèrriais I've developed a wish for a cider or an apple brandy. Maybe I'll have a Calvados or even a pommeau (not to be confused with a Pimms).



Bouonne santé!

Vizzer,


or something freshening for the nearly summer time of the last days overhere..un vin coupé au lieu de couper le Calvados avec "apple juice"? a Schorle Morle in Germany
http://passion-histoire.net/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=39621&start=15


PaulRyckier a écrit :
Faget ou autres,
quand j'étais en Allemagne, à Merzig pour être précis (en Saarland), ils me disent (je ne parlais pas courrament l'allemand ce temps, comme je le fais maintenant) qu'ils buvaient à table et même pour apaiser la soif, un vin coupé et appellaient ça: "Schaule maule" ou quelque chose avec un nom avoisinant. Et ça doit avoir été dans les années soixante-dix.
Ma question: Est-ce que vous, qui habite en Allemagne, avez entendu parler d'un terme quelconque, qui ressemble à ça et en relation avec du vin coupé?
Peut-être que Laumesfeld de la Lorraine tudesque peut répondre la question?
Cordialement, Paul.
Reply from Laumesfeld (Isleifson on Historum) my friend from the same "borderland" as I (mixture between the Germanic and the Latin area )
Oui bien sûr, dans le temps, quand les artisans arrivaient sur un chantier, ils criaient:
"Fra breng Konkel"
Toi la bonne femme amène la cruche de vin
ce vin était toujours "gedeeft"
Baptisé, donc coupé avec de l'eau.

Wine which is "gedeeft" in Alleman (Lorrain Tudesque), "baptisé" in French...alors "baptized wine" please   with a bit of citron (lemon)
NO, no, not Franglais for me...only French from the Académie française or Queen's English...I was once in Newcastle and they initiated me in Geordie...

Kind regards from your drinking mate, Paul.

14th March; 3/14 is Pi Day !!!!!!!!!!





Check out this Lemon Meringue;

When I was in France once I hooked up for the time with a Vietnamese lady and one of the other people at the place where I was staying ribbed me (not nastily) about speaking "Franglais" and the other lady having a Vietnamese accent and wondering how the heck we managed to be mutually intelligible. We did manage though. As I mentioned on another thread a while ago I did have to pay attention to the subtitles when I watched BBC4's showing of "Engrenages" (Spiral) - especially for the slang and the "gros mots".

Trike, don't make me feel hungry - there are so many things I can't eat now.

Greetings peeps.... 2nd time in as many weeks and I'm back in hospital... Just had a confrontation with the management coz they put me on the biggest bed I've ever seen in a hospital. It's brand spanking new, got everything on board to sail around the world with enough room for a crew of four. But try sleeping on it... I can't even get on it. It's far too big... Too wide... Too long and too high. Four nights ago they changed it... An I've been pleading with them for my old bed back. Then i phoned my son to come pick me up... I can get a better sleep in my car. So for four days there was no other bed and I'd have to make do, or they'll see what they can do in the morning... Well nothing happens... I never dreamed it would.. but when they heard me asking to be picked up a bed suddenly became available..
In the morning... No good, if there's a bed available i want it now... And sure enough I go it, but it should never have come to this... And now a good dose of the loopy juice and I'm away with the fairies.

Not sure who's keeping who on whose toes there, normanhurst. One cannot set too high a value on a good night's kip - here's hoping an appropriate cot is located.

Take care of yourself, Normanhurst.

Post this for Anglo Norman, released later this week it is set on Jersey during WW2: