Thread 9 - TalkLair: “Russell's teapot goes on being round”

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous threads (thread 8).

The new lair of JTT escapees is all cosy and homey; we have truly settled here. Outside, the garden is blooming with summer flowers - should bloody well be, what with all that rain. 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…

Big congratulations to baby weasel, that's lovely news. I know the marks are down on the big ones, maths and English, this year and on most of the others too. I find the whole thing baffling so it's always good to hear of someone who's got what they needed even if not exactly what they wanted.

My last dressmaking class today 😟but I'm very much hoping to be signed up for another that starts next month and if not that one then January. There's an issue with their online application page at the moment. They've migrated it and it's trying to make me pay the full cost - which I wouldnt' be able to afford and in fact do not have enough to pay even knowing I'd get my money back - and amusingly insisting that we give the name of a parent or next of kin so they can be kept up to date with how we're doing. The college does mature classes but the majority of their students are just out of school at 16.

I've had a mare with my sewing machine this week but something happened to one of the other women in the class today which was pretty much the same as the problem I was having and the machine needed a new needle because the old one was blunt. I'm going to change my needle and if that doesn't work there's a sewing machine repair place I can take it to (which I'll ask Snoop to drive me to because washing machines are really bloody heavy!) so I didn't finish my garment today but through powering through I have everything done except putting the elastic into the channel (that I managed to get sewn up in the last 10 minutes) and I have trousers! I'm so bloody chuffed with myself. Thursday has been my favourite day of the week for the last six weeks and I can't wait to do more of it. A lovely bunch of women too including one I'm keeping in touch with. I'm so glad I decided to give it a go.

It's an odd situation. Lots are disappointed with their marks, but universities are still letting them in so in practice all is the same, except a lot of young people feel a bit cheated. Fortunately she still got above her offer, but there's room for a little feeling of deflation too. I have pointed out she's done better than I did in my levels, which is very impressive as she's still ONLY A BABY.

Very well done baby Weasel, I hope she is successful and happy the next phase of her education.

A levels only matter until you’ve got a degree.

So true.

I stopped at O levels but that didn’t matter once I was a qualified nurse. I really loved doing relevant training courses, especially the HIV-related ones because they were so immersive and ground-breaking at the time, but I actively avoided doing any interminable degrees while working full-time, fuck that for a game of soldiers, and I did pretty well in my career by always promising to consider it in future.

Bah! Just glanced proudly out of the window at the three pots I’ve FILLED with dahlia tubers today (weeks too late to flower but we’ll see, feel I’m owed a long hot sunny autumn after the miserable July and August we’ve had), and thought “fucking hell, is that a slug on the pot already?!?” and there were THREE massive ones all heading towards the few tender shoots above soil level. I remember why I rarely bother with dahlias, gorgeous though they are. I’ve copper-taped all my pots, but they were by a low wall, so the slugs were slithering down onto the pots, not up the walls of the pot.

Do slugs serve any useful purpose? We have the massive, slimy Ethpanish Ethslugs here, so utterly disgusting that even the birds won't go near them. What is fascinating, though, is that if you kill them with boiling water then teams of well-organised ants will carry them off.

I thought I’d try again with dahlias this year but once again it’s been an abject failure. This year they haven’t been eaten by slugs though. This year I changed things up by simply forgetting to plant them.

I bought one at the garden centre the other week (as an actual plant rather than a tuber) and that’s flowering in a big pot by the front door.

Something is attacking my fig tree though.

Some slugs eat other slugs, and they also eat mostly dying and rotting vegetation, so they’re useful for garden maintenance. But alas they also love the fresh new growth of certain plants, generally the plants that I most love and cherish. Echifuckinacea for a start..

A long-read article about Titan, the submersible that imploded earlier this year: if the boss of Ocean Gate hadn't died along with the others in the catastrophic dive, he'd be facing so many charges. It's a good read but quite upsetting. It never needed to happen, mainly because Titan should never, ever have been in use.

The Titan submersible disaster was years in the making

Thanks, reading it now, and marvelling that this all happened just 2 months ago. Such a gripping story, it had everything, including a whole week wondering how we might cope drifting around on the bottom of the ocean, or trapped in the wreckage, or yes, the second-best option after recovery of the vessel/survival: implosion in less than the blink of an eye. I learnt so much about physics that week! I bet a lot of school kids around the world were very receptive to physics lessons in the aftermath.

And my God, the testing. Every piece of the Limiting Factor was pressure-tested to 20,000psi, equivalent to a depth of 43,000 feet—20 percent greater than full ocean depth. There was so much testing that Triton built its own state-of-the-art pressure chambers in Barcelona, Spain. The only high-powered pressure chamber large enough to fit the passenger sphere was located in St. Petersburg, Russia, so the four-ton titanium orb was shipped halfway around the world. For days the sphere was squeezed mercilessly, simulating repeated dives to depths beyond any existing on earth. Afterward, it showed zero evidence of fatigue. “Even millions of cycles would not adversely affect it,” Lahey told me. The crushing pressure only makes the sphere stronger.

Stockton Rush was basically just a slightly better-bred Donald Trump.

What has become of Titan? Did they recover anything of the bodies? Is anybody going to be charged?

Very interesting article.

I suspect, like plane crashes, there's an extensive period of analysing the bits of wreckage and comparing damage with models of possible scenarios to work out exactly what happened before they decide on any charges. And I'm not sure how jurisdiction would work in a case like this. The incident was in international waters, but the building, operation of the company and contracts with passengers presumably come under specific national jurisdictions (although maybe not all the same one).

As.for bodies, they did report finding 'presumed human remains' during the rescue but I've not heard anything since to confirm that.

Oh, I got distracted by submersibles and forgot to say many congrats to the Weaslet!

Congratulations to Weaselette!

@MouseMinge that sewing class sounds great. I really must get to grips with my sewing machine and your words encourage me.

On Tuesday I taught one of my customers how to sew on a button. He's 61 but had somehow never learned, which surprises me because I feel like I was born knowing how to sew on buttons. I took along a bit of fabric and some buttons for him to practice with, but first had to show him how to thread a needle and then we proceeded to buttons. It was a bit strange, but he picked it up well and said he'll probably pluck up the courage to start on his shirts at the weekend.

We've had slugs so huge here in the past week that I've been picking them up and binning them. Yuk. I expect they're all part of the Great Plan but they can bugger off anyway.

We've had even more slugs in our house than in previous years. I suppose it's to do with the very wet summer, meaning under our house is probably a revolting bog.

My family and social circle, meanwhile, are all abuzz about the plane crash near Kuala Lumpur. We all know that road very well, it's on the way to the "old" airport which is still in use for smaller domestic airlines and private jets. Where the crash happened, the highway goes right through a new and modern, middle-class/posh/naice sort of housing development. It's quite terrifying to imagine if the plane had come down on the houses. There's been some very distressing dashcam footage released.

I'm sure there must be slugs somewhere in New England but I've never seen any in our garden - the old one or this one. I had lovely hostas in our old garden and will put some in this one when I get it going (next year, please God).

Tri I recently showed my son how to sew on a button- he's 24 and I've never been asked to sew one in for him before, so never had chance before to say "no, son, I'll show you". My job here is done I think, as he can cook, clean, wash and iron.

He's young enough to thread needles OK, but I have one of these, which works amazingly well:

https://www.tulipneedles.co.uk/product/tulip-suitto-auto-needle-threader

My Dad used to darn his own socks because he’d had to do it in the Navy (National Service) and was better at it than my Mum.

I have sewn on buttons but not well or neatly.

Does anybody still darn socks?

I tried to teach my daughter to sew and knit but she's basically not interested in either activity. I think my boys could sew a button on, but that's about it.