Thread 10 - TalkLair: “The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles.”

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous threads (thread 9).

Although the nights are gradually drawing in, the new lair of JTT escapees is all cosy and homey inside. The hearth is glowing, the walls covered in dubious artwork, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, 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…

@Britinme it must be scary when it's close by, bringing the reality of the insanity of gun (lack of control) so near. You're right though, nothing will change and it's heartbreaking that nothing will make that happen. I think Sandyhook proved that.

@MouseMinge luckily I'm on an Amtrak train heading for New Jersey as I write. Taking off from Newark tomorrow evening with my 11 year old granddaughter for a ten day introduction to British cousins and British heritage.

Yes, it’s so sad, and no, it will never improve. I read that after every mass shooting in the US there’s a corresponding spike in gun sales.

I mean, in my end of the world fantasies OF COURSE I’m going to want a gun, and the first thing I’ll do is steal one from my dead-from-the-apocalypse farmer neighbour(s). After all, nothing kills zombies better than a gun.

American gun culture always sounds really scary but it must be all the more so when a mass shooting happens so close to home.

I have felt very safe here in Maine since I got here, even though there's a high rate of gun ownership (bug hunting culture here so mostly guns used for that). Bizarrely this doesn't change that much. This guy was hearing voices and was hospitalised for mental health issues this summer so by our local standards he is an outlier. The only other shootings I've heard of in the last 21 years have been intra-family disputes and suicides (including, sadly, DH's son about 13 years ago.)

Big hunting not bug hunting! Even Americans don't use guns to hunt bugs!

@Britinme I wondered if it was affecting you when I heard it on the news but I thought I’d sound silly asking since Maine is such a big place. That’s so scary.

@SinnerBoy love the little birdie pics!

Arf!

I was enjoying the somewhat surreal image of bug hunting with guns!

I bet some Americans shoot bugs. I've seen Italians shoot butterflies.

Glad you're safely out of the way, Brit. It's ridiculous that someone with those known recent issues was able to buy that gun - or didn't have it removed when released from hospital.

I confess that I used to use my son's BB handgun during the crepuscular hours to shoot the huge, orange slugs devastating my plants.

My god, but a Freudian could have a field day with that sentence.

macman has a pop gun, you know, uses “caps” I think they’re called, and you could take someone’s eye out with it, although probably not kill them without some fluke. Anyway, it looks like a real gun, so I’m pretty sure it would scare off any post-apocalyptic marauders, from a distance anyway.

Argh! The Ethpanish Ethlugs! I flick them on to the path and use boiling water, which is harsh but very quick. They all disappear by morning, which suggests that the early-rising birds (who won't touch them) find they make a delicious breakfast, or perhaps late-evening snack, when cooked and de-slimed.

<Boaks>

Hahaha, @Gonners !

I couldn't do it now, I don't think. I hate the buggers and they devastate my flowers (garden too small for serious veg). I now collect them with wooden tongs and put them in the bin. Whence I'm sure some escape and go back to chomping and sliming.

I've been stalking the huge labyrinth spider in the shed. Became quite fond of her, but she hasn't been seen for about three weeks now. I suspected that my son, who is genuinely scared of spiders, like his ma, had killed her by throwing something at her; he'd never get close enough to swat her. But he denies it, and though he's no stranger to deception, I believe the blighter.

But they are matriphagic, and at least three smaller ones are toddling about, about 1cm across including legs (so not that small, really), so perhaps she has spun off, usefully and we hope tastily, to the Great Web.

@Kucinghitam - From the eagerness with which blackbirds eat slugs & snails, I assume it's their equivalent of cheung fun. Which, coincidentally, we had for lunch today! We live in deepest, most uncivilised East Kent and made an excursion with a cool-bag to Canterbury, where "Thais R Us" has gone wild in the dim sum freezer. I may have to buy an extra freezer before the next trip.

@angelico53 - I didn't know about matriphagy! Ungrateful little critters.

There was something mentioned in an article about the shooting - ongoing when it was written - in, I think, The NYT which I found in an email from Esquire. The journalist had interviewed a couple of homeless men who were sleeping in the park because it was well-lit and safe. One of them said that he'd arrived 10 days ago and he'd come to Maine because it was such a safe place but it didn't seem so safe now. The journalist said that it was a sad fact about the US that there is a population drowning in guns and yet they can't find homes and safe spaces for the homeless or feed the homeless and poor. Esquire had talked about it because the writer said he'd never seen that juxtaposition in the reporting of a mass shooting before and commended the journalist for talking to the homeless people. It wasn't written in any way to make one cry but it brought me close to tears because it is all so desperately sad. Of course not feeding or housing the poor and homeless is a huge issue in the UK as well but thankfully not the gun violence.

Homelessness is a huge issue in Portland right now. People have been camping during the summer but you can't do that in a Maine winter. Exacerbated by large numbers of asylum- seekers turning up in Portland rather than anywhere else in Maine while housing gets ever more unaffordable

It's awful news about the shooting, I read that he was / is a military firearms instructor. Quite why people need a hypersonic, military grade weapon, which can fire so rapidly is beyond me.

Apparently, AR-15 were over 20% of gun sales in the USA and one in 20 people own one.

Hours have passed and I’m still giddy with relief about the electricity bill. And while waiting for the BT engineer who was supposed to come between 16.00 and 18.00 I half-tidied the dining room table and half-tidied the kitchen table. That may not sound like much but the dining room table had become the clean laundry pile and the kitchen table was just evidence that I’ve only been able to sit in this one chair in this one room for the past 18 months (scifuckingatica), so is full of vital stuff and rubbish.

The engineer didn’t come despite an email at 16.40 to say she (it was a she last time too, a different one! That pleases me) was “on her way”. Doesn’t actually matter, as almost as soon as I rang BT on Monday about the crap broadband - 0.13mbps FFS! - it mysteriously recovered to the giddy heights of 2.45mbps and has been fine all week. But if it HAD mattered, I’d be pretty fucking annoyed.

Anyway, it looks like a real gun, so I’m pretty sure it would scare off any post-apocalyptic marauders,

I'm pleased to hear that MNetters are planning for the future! 😁

A humanity destroying apocalypse is a recurrent, constant daydream of mine, although rather less so now I’m retired, as it was work that made me long for everyone else to just be dead and save me that long fucking commute to work every day.

I imagine all the things I’d have to do to survive - my neighbours will all be dead, obviously, especially King Wayne, who’s one of those macho alpha “I’ll take charge now, dear” types, he’s gonna die first - and I think about it a lot because I can go a week without seeing anyone except macman. (Don’t pity me, I like it that way.)

That post made me look to what I'd call ' the Old, old Place', (FU), which I think few people here were on (@artant ? Anyone?). But I can't seem to access it now. It kinda looked like it was just limping on anyway.