Thread 8 - TalkLair: “Brewing Russell's teapot”

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous threads (thread 7).

The new lair of JTT escapees is all cosy and homey; we have truly settled here. Outside, the garden is blooming with spring flowers. Inside, the hearth is glowing, pictures are up on the walls, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them).

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

I have a phone bag about that size. Just big enough for phone, lipsalve, pack of tissues - very handy for hot weather occasions when you don't need a proper bag.

I also don't much like cases that clothe my phone - tight rubberised p[lastic or whatever.

I like the iphone a lot in all its incarnations. They are beautiful devices and I like to use them, er, naked!

I once met Sir Jonny Ives (Apple design director? Designed the iphone and some Macs, anyway), before he was a Sir. In fact - this is ridiculous - I interviewed him for a job, and didn't appoint him. Who was it at Decca who didn't sign the Beatles?

Mine's an iPhone and it's about 7"x4". I have it in a case that has a couple of slots for credit cards and my driving licence. The problem isn't the size of the phone but the inadequacy of pocket size in so many women's clothes. I wear jeans most of the time and some of them are OK but some leave most of the phone hanging out of it. I tend to stick it down my bra in that instance.

@duc748 - it's 46 mm long (5 3/4 inches)

Arf! I hope you're not a surveyor! 146 mm maybe? That sounds like MrG's current ancient Motorola, which used to be mine. I've ordered him the Nokia C02 - 32 GB, currently £75 at Currys, which is price-matching the cheapest available elsewhere. It's 148.7 x 71.2 (mm, not inches). It looks as though it will do the job, which mainly involves sitting in his pocket and receiving texts which he ignores. The benefit of buying it from a shop (we'll pick it up there) is that they'll set it up for him and transfer the data, thus saving him much swearing from me.

@angelico53 turning Jonny Ive down for a job is some claim to fame! I think he’s not at Apple any more but his design leadership there did really change the way tech looks starting with the original iMac. Ive borrowed heavily from Dieter Rams work for Braun though (Rams is generous enough to see it as homage rather than shameless plagiarism, I think).

@angelico53 - I met the editor at Puffin who turned down Harry Potter.

Heh! My only thought is that you want to make sure that the straps are secure and maybe the leather would be stronger.

I have a new handbag - it's taken me ages to get used to the fastenings on the strap on the handle. For a long time, at first, the handle would come away unexpectedly. You don't want your phone dropping on the floor because the handle has detached itself

I think mine is about 6.5 x 3-ish inches. It's a Motorola which I've gotten into since whichever make it was I had got lost and I was given a spare Motorola by Snoop. Since then, when she's updating her phone she gives me her old one and it's always a Motorola and I'm really happy with them.

I was put off for years because I think in the early days Motorola had a bad rep for being a bit pants but they're v good these days and on the cheaper end of the market for what you get.

I'm going to tell her she needs to update soon because mine is getting slow and lazy which I know is probably because of too many apps but what's a woman to do? I need them all!

Mines 5.75 x 3.8 inches, according to my Vernier caliper. It fits in my jeans pocket.

Anyway, I may have inadvertently caused some marital strife.

My daughter brought some friends home and one is called Sky. At some point, one of the girls called her Skyler. When I dropped her off, I asked her mother if she was a Breaking Bad fan and she have me a look.

I explained and her expression - she said, "Well, her dad picked it!" Face like thunder....

@Gonners Duh! I blame it on the stupid way they number (can't think of a better verb!) tape-measures. 😉And I have done a bit of surveying, many years ago...

@artant - an industrial designer, then? Jonny applied for a job through a London agency. His onlybexperience at the time was with Ideal Standard designing bathroom stuff in porcelain (it was late 80s, I think). I appointed some good ones with small appliances background instead, and they did great work for us.

@Britinme - no! That's surely worse than saying that four oiece groups were on the way out...

Turning down Harry Potter definitely orders of magnitude worse than turning down Jonny Ive when all he’d designed was toilets! Plus for all that his work at Apple was game changing for the tech industry, the mouse of the first iMac was horrible to use and the toilet seat iBook was one of the ugliest things ever.

AIBU to feel disturbed and tense about the situation in Russia? We're veering between obsessively watching the news and desperately avoiding it.

I know what you mean - and the fact that the people who have been reporting on the war seem as unsure what's going to happen as the rest of us isn't reassuring.

The Russia thing is both terrifying and fascinating. That a mercenary force has been doing so much of the fighting in Ukraine is bad enough to begin with but one really would have hoped that any move against Putin would have come from someone opposed to the war rather than someone thinking the Russian army isn’t pulling its weight.

It's oddly fascinating and quite bizarre. I don't feel tense about it, but that's probably a general attitude that when something's out of your control, worrying about it probably won't help. Back in the mid-70s I was working in Germany when the Russians went a bit bonkers and started holding military exercises right on the East German border, about 50 miles away. One of my friends (an army wife who I'd known since we were teenagers) hooted with laughter at the official family evacuation plan: if they crossed the border, she should chuck her children in the car, drive to the Hook of Holland and get on a ferry. As she pointed out, pretty much everyone's husband drove the family car to work and would presumably be too busy to drive it home and then make his way back to camp by bus or whatever.

It seems to be calming down a bit for the moment but with Lukashenko as peace broker (an improbable concept) and Erdogan telling Putin to act with common sense which isn’t something I’d thought either had much idea about.

Yes. You have to wonder what both of them are up to - not just in this case, but at all times.

I don’t even know about what’s happening in Russia because I’ve been transfixed by the Oceangate story, and feel I’ve had a crash course in physics over the last few days. Also not had much internet - think it’s the hot weather as we have copper wires (or something, IDK) - so the little online time I’ve had has been spent on submarines and submersibles.

And lots of sunbathing, and reading trashy novels harvested during my recent trip to my Dad, sister, and friend. Next on the list is Graham Smith’s Abolish the Monarchy. Not a trashy novel, obvs.

The Russia thing is quite scary but I find myself not really caring. It's such a mess already that while I'm certain it can get worse, as long as fingers stay away from nuke buttons and Russian and Ukrainian people aren't even worse off than they already are then the awful Wagner can have at it with the awful Putin and his enabling arseholes.

It's the regulation-free, buccaneering (sp?) culture we need in these postbrexitian times. Who cares if the laws of physics is against us? We know better, create our own reality. Meanwhile, migrant in the sea.

Oh, and a cage fight between techbros to look forward to! How relevant!

"Oh, and a cage fight between techbros to look forward to! How relevant!"

Although Elon Musk is awful, I have to confess that he quite often makes me laugh. He did an impromptu interview with (I think) Lewis Goodall that was an absolute car-crash.

I think the interview was with some BBC bod? But yes, an absolute car-crash.

According to Apple Weather, today is the last day of this week's heatwave. I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed; I love hot humid weather, but I'm tired of having to water the garden!

I'll have to decide whether to stay downstairs on the sofa bed (cool room, good air circulation round the bed, one window, angled away from the rising sun) or go back to the bedroom with six windows, the one nearest my head facing the sunrise.

I think I'll stick in the cool space while the days are so long.