Thread 12 - TalkLair: “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 11).

The days are gradually growing longer, but the worst of the winter weather is not yet behind us. In the TalkLair, we remain hunkered down keeping cosy and warm. 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…

They look delicious @artant! I ordered some hot x buns from sainsburys last week but they were sadly sold out. There’s no substitute for homemade ones though.

@Kucinghitam your garden is gorgeous.

@MouseMinge poor Francis! Cats are such worries. I hope he’s feeling better soon and it isn’t too expensive. Kasper has some gingivitis, so I got some logic enzyme paste but naturally he doesn’t much like me applying it. There’s no chance of me being able to use a toothbrush since I’ve no one to hold him, so I get him between my knees and use my finger to rub it on his gums. He wriggles a lot but doesn’t seem to mind the meaty taste.

And hooray for final radiotherapy! You must be so relieved.

My mememe news is that I’m getting some side effects now. I suddenly felt very unwell earlier, my head was spinning and I felt sick so had to take antiemetics and go back to bed. It passed about 30 mins later, helped in part by my friend and I imagining the most bizarre ways to die, and I was able to go out for a short walk on the sunshine. My joints are also starting to ache intermittently but that’s ok.

I carried on working when I got back and was very, very pleased with some excel formulae wotidid. Possibly my proudest moment this year.

If anyone is familiar with the Pulfrich effect, here is a cat with my owl pendulum. Although it’s the cat’s owl pendulum now, I didn’t have the heart to take it off him when I left.

Glad the medical drama turned out to be just muscular, Sinner.

Excellent progress, Mouse - almost there! Hope the drugs get Francis sorted.quickly.

MaBint has to rub something on the gums of the cat she cat sits for (probably the same stuff as Kasper is having). He's the most laid back cat I've met, though, and isn't the least bit bothered. Excellent work coming up with complex Excel formulae when aching and lightheaded; I always seem to need a few goes at them even without distractions.

Hope you're soon on the mend, VB. And fantastic cat pic, again! I share the Excel love; it's not the most user-friendly to the beginner, but such a powerful tool. And there's loads I can't do. I used to have to do a lot of calcs in my job, and the question always was, would you rather do them in Excel, or Mathcad? I very much preferred Excel. Nowadays it only survives in my database of beer-making, but that's low-tech stuff! 😀

@duc748 any idea how you calculate the square root of something as part of a sum? E.g. w *√x / √y

I ended up having to do the =SQRT calculations in separate cells and it's going to keep me awake tonight...

I think you just need brackets around the square roots, like this,

=C8*(SQRT(C6))/(SQRT(C7))

I'm happy to hear that your radiotherapy is done, Mouse - hopefully the side effects won't last long.

I took my daughter to feed some waterfowl yesterday and she caught two pigeons. She loves catching them and is disappointed that we can't keep them as pets!

We saw a scorpion bug, I will try to put photos up when we get home. I never can from the phone.

I am in awe of all your Excel skillz. I use spreadsheets to keep track of stuff for the tax return and for things like tracking if I've sent a poem somewhere for publication and if it got accepted or not (usually but not invariably not), but I have never tried to do more mathematically than add up with it.

Congratulations on the end of radiotherapy @MouseMinge! I hope everything will go to plan looking ahead.

Am greatly impressed by @artant's hot cross buns, I rather wish I could work up enough motivation to make my own.

That inspired me to look up a recipe! Read through it, and thought, fuck that, what a faff! 😃

I used a particularly faffy recipe but the texture is streets ahead of any of my previous attempts. I should have upped the spice levels a bit but they’re bloody good buns!

Oh and they’re huge! I reckon I could have halved the quantiles and made at least nine decent sized buns.

They do look terrific. Maybe one day. But I've got no mixer. I've managed all my life so far with just a blender, and I like the idea of 'doing it with your hands' (especially bread-making).

Yeah, I reckon they’d be doable but hard work by hand (especially when you add the butter; I think that’d get really unruly). I’m rubbish at hand kneading though so I love my stand mixer.

That mixer: a thousand quid! 😕

You'd need to modify the method a bit. But I never 'rub butter in' (except pastry) anyway. Bread-type recipes where a small amount of butter is rubbed into a lot of flour, I just melt the butter and add it in with the other liquids. I dunno how wet the mix is, but maybe that baguette handle-of-a-wooden-spoon method might be appropriate? Just thinking aloud, really.

With this, the butter is added when the dough is already formed. My mixer was a bit baffled by it (as was I) but the butter made it into the dough eventually. I think you’d need the butter to be really soft and then you could kind of fold it through.

And yes, that’s one expensive mixer!

Those hot cross buns look so good @artant ! I've never even thought of cooking them myself but that's probably because I'm sort of agnostic about them. I've happily eaten them but never feel the need to have to eat them if that makes sense. I'm not very good with seasonal bakes. I think that both mince pies - which I will eat if I have to - and Christmas pudding - which I won't eat - are just meh-ish. Well that's unfair. Mince pies, a bit meh, Christmas pudding, bugger off.

@VictorianBigot so sorry you've had horrible side effects. I'm glad the antiemitics did their job. I wish they would with me. I'm guessing that they do something and I'd just be worse without them. I'm looking forward to this period of too much sickness to pass soon. I've spent a lot of today in bed feeling quite sorry for myself. That said the afternoon drama was quite good a mix of Majorie Kemp and Julian of Norwich which was interesting. I'm a big fan of Julian of Norwich. When life gets hard I repeat her "mantra" of "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." It works more often than it doesn't.

The boy is still a big swollen head because it's hard to get the antibiotics down him. He's eating and affectionate though and doesn't appear to be in pain. I'm hoping the swelling starts to recede soon but I'm not worried about my poor little mite. He's currently curled up against my legs and where I've spent most of the day in bed he's been with me snuggled up and I've had either an arm around him or a hand on his back as I went in and out of sleep. We're looking after each other.

Sorry for the multiple post mentiness but I didn't want to do a madly long post. It's a while since I've used Excel but I totally get the feeling of pure achievement when you manage something you've not managed before and the way it can just get everything in order for you so that all the mental arithmitic and calculators are unnecessary is a bit bloody wonderful. That said, I'll always get a thrill from a calculator with a till roll thing on it.

I think I've covered everything. If I've missed something, sorry, my head is mullered today and it's one of those days when Julian of Norwich is having to work a bit harder. Fingers crossed tomorrow will be better.

Many cats, for all their feigned indifference, can be quite extraordinarily kind when you're unwell or unhappy. NB: Not All Cats!

I had the same again today, around the same time which was a bit strange. The antiemetics really sedate me (cyclizine), but that’s quite nice on a day off I suppose. Did you tell your doctor the antiemetics aren’t working for you? Perhaps they could find some alternatives.

I’ve been listening to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘dream baby dream’ mantra a lot these past few days. Gotta keep the light burning.

I hope sweet Francis is on the mend soon.

Unlike mince pies, I’m agnostic about hot cross buns too. I’m still annoyed I haven’t managed to have at least one this year though.

I love that Julian of Norwich quote and find it enormously helpful in difficult times.

I am feeling bruised this morning - made the mistake of commenting on a post in Threads last night and got jumped on by a couple of transwomen. Apparently I'm an unreasonable paranoid bigot for talking about women's need for safeguarding.

Yeah, but you're our unreasonable paranoid bigot, Brit!