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…

Evidently those of us who have been vaccinated are going to be turned into some kind of enslaved zombies when the eclipse activates us. I await it with interest.

It's just occurred to me - could it have been the Northern Lights, which apparently did put on a bit of a show locally in February last year? It wasn't really like lightning, more flashes of pink/red/green "clouds" of light. Ah well, I expect the local paper will tell us tomorrow.

We didn't drive up to the totality area (too many cars jamming tiny rural roads) but we did see it at 97% of totality from our driveway. Luckily one of our neighbours had a pair of proper glasses to see it through. I'd made a pinhole camera with instructions from a YouTube video but it was pretty crappy. Actually it's been a really nice day today - temps in the low 60s F and lots of sunshine and clear skies. I went swimming this morning which always makes me feel good ("Thar she blows!" I heard them say).

I'm glad you had a nice birthday Mouse.

@VictorianBigot I'm hoping to get bloods done tomorrow. I also need to call Brighton in the morning to tell them there is no way I can come in to have my pump removed and I'm hoping they'll do that in Worthing although my upper GI nurse seems to think that I'm supposed to have one last pump but if I'm so ill they might skip it. At this point imagine me shrugging my shoulders in an "I've no idea what's going on" stylee. To be fair my upper GI nurse was not very helpful at all today and I'm hoping for more help from the chemo people tomorrow although I was specifically call the upper GI team if I had a problem. Blah.

Today has been okay-ish. I'm hoping that stuff gets resolved tomorrow. I know that won't mean I'll be instantly well again but it would be nice to be on the road to sorting them at least.

All of us in the UK can I recommend to you The Assembly where Michael Sheen is interviewed/asked questions by a small audience of neurodiverse young people and young to older adults with special needs (I'm sure that's no longer the right terminology, so apologies but I don't know the right terminology). It's only half an hour long and it's rather uplifting. At the end a group of three sing Here Comes the Sun and everyone joins in toward the end. One of the singers, a young woman, has the most sublime voice and as a result it's just beautiful. I watched on iPlayer this evening and it proper cheered me up.

That sounds great, Mouse, and as Gonners said, Happy YesterBirthday!

I watched The Assembly the other night. It was joyous. The singing was great as was the recital of Do not go gentle into that good night (a poem my mother regularly misquotes).

MouseMinge

Well, whatever happens, I hope it's sorted with a minimum of hassle. Hopefully, you'll be feeling better and better in short order, if not immediately.

It's my daughter's birthday today and it's grey and drizzly. She has a load of friends due round at 1pm, she'd initially told them to come at 10am! And three will be sleeping over. Got all the food ready to go and she's already opened her presents.

I will have to cope with a horde of screaming girls until 3-4 pm, when my wife comes back with the cake. I have some games ready - Dobble is one and I bought some dinky post it notes, so they can do that thing where they write on one and stick it on their forehead, to try and guess what the word is.

They plan some sort of dance along, with Youtube and playing Roblox & Minecraft together.

@SinnerBoy, I can recommend something we call the Name Game (goes without saying that we neither invented nor named it). Works for all ages and mixed family groups etc. Takes way longer to describe than to get the idea and get playing.

1. Divide people into two teams.
2. Everybody gets (say) 4 or 5 slips of paper, upon which they write a name on each. Can be real, fictional, cartoon, member of the party, somebody's cat. The only rule is that the name has to be one that the whole group has at least a fighting chance of knowing.
3. NO LOOKING AT OR DISCUSSING EACH OTHER'S INPUTS.
4. All papers folded up and placed in a bowl.
5. Round 1 - Step 1. Set a timer for 30/45/60 seconds. Person 1 of Team A takes a paper from the bowl and describes the named person (obviously without saying the name), until Team A guesses and thus "wins" the piece of paper. Person 1 keeps going until time is up.
6. Round 1 - Step 2. Person 1 of Team B has a turn for the 30/45/60 seconds.
7. Round 1 - Step 3. Person 2 of Team A has a turn, then Person 2 of Team B, and so on. Until all the papers in the bowl are used up. Now the Teams count up how many papers they have.
8. Papers all folded up and returned to the bowl.
9. Round 2. Again, people taking their timed turns drawing names out of the bowl. But this time, the clue to be given is one word only. This means that a lot of the heavy lifting is down to remembering the names from Round 1 and being able to make the association. Scoring as before, totted up with the previous round.
10. Round 3. This round is strictly charades, no sound. By this round, the teams will have strategised (much secretive whispering) how to rapidly mime the names, with usually comical results. Final scores calculated in aggregate.

This game results in way more hilarity than my boring description suggests. Often, you'll end up with multiples of the same name, e.g. someone who's been in the news recently or has just been discussed earlier the same day - somehow, this makes it funnier each time the name reappears.

Amongst our friend group, we've been playing it since uni, and even when our various DC were quite young they were able to join in. These days all the DC are sullen teenagers and yet they always beg to play whenever we get together.

(BTW the more players, the shorter the time or more names to be written in the first place, to give more people a turn at performing.)

Thanks, Kuc.

We used to call the name on the forehead game the Rizla game because we played it with rolling paper for tobacco. Well for spliffs. The more stoned we got the better the names we came up with the more funny the game became.

Happy days! 😄

That sounds like a lot of fun, Kuc. My DGC are mostly still a bit too young for that but I will remember it for a few years' time. Oldest DGD is about to turn 12 on the 18th so she could do it, probably, but the younger ones aren't really up for it yet.

One time we played was after a group visit to a historic church. We ended up with numerous instances of [an otherwise obscure ancient abbot].

Another time, there had been something-or-other kerfuffle about Parliamentary business in the news. There were several Rishi Sunaks, two Liz Trusses, a Thatcher, one Pitt the Younger, a Keir Starmer, etc. Our team came up with a mime for "lettuce" that signified all the prime ministers/politicians, so every time somebody did the lettuce mime we would all shriek RishiSunakLizTrussThatcherStarmerPitt!

They didn't play it in the end. My wife got 3 different coloured ribbons and matching cards, which she held up and called a different colour. They had to jump onto the ribbon of the colour she said, much hilarity ensued.

They did a dance / sing off to Youtube on telly and then hide and seek and sardines. At 8pm, 3 left and the other 4 (including daughter) were banished upstairs to be quieter.

How old I’d your DD, @SinnerBoy ? That sounds like a fun party.

That sounds like a fabulous party! I hope ChezSinner is still intact, after the sleepover.

Britinme

She's 11.

Kucinghitam

That sounds like a fabulous party! I hope ChezSinner is still intact, after the sleepover.

Most of the house is OK, I did big clean up last night and the reminder this morning. The last guest left at 14:00. The Somme her bedroom isn't in quite as good order as downstairs...

The Somme

What is sardines? Or was that supper?

Oh nm I googled it. Slightly disappointed it wasn’t a random snack!

😁

My DH and I are listening our way through the "Witch Trials of J K Rowling" podcasts. Most of it is well known to me because of my involvement in this site, but he knew far less than me and his eyebrows would be bouncing off his hairline (if he had one...)

I really like the way Megan starts with the Christian Rightwingers banning and burning the HP books - puts it into much broader context. I might give it another listen, next time I have a long car journey to do (about 2 weeks probably).

I really got a lot from The Witch Trials of J K Rowling. I might give it another listen too as well.

Anyway! Hello peeps. I've been absent for a few days because after going to A&E on Wednesday I got kept in. Thought I'd be set free on Thursday, then yesterday and finally today I escaped. One of the positives is that when you have cancer you are isolated so I got my own room with ensuite which was quite nice and fancy. It wasn't really fancy but it was nice and made sleep much easier.

I'm more or less fine after potassium and magnesium infusions overnight on Wednesday, then some other infusion, I can't remember what, a head CT scan to make sure that my brain hadn't gone dulally. By Thursday the dizziness had gone which was bloody great but for reasons I'm not sure of I had to have a blood transfusion. There was going to be a second but phew, one was enough. Then my potassium went down again so I had to have another one. This mornings bloods came back good. Calcium still a bit low but otherwise I got freedom. Snoop picked me up and brought my lovely Seamus. We had a little walk along the seafront and now I'm home with my Francis who was delighted to see me. I'm still a little on the weak side but so much better than I was.

I might have gone to A&E on Tuesday actually. My brain's a bit mash up and I can't remember. Anyway, whatever day it was I'm now home. Huzzah!

Oh yes, and as she collected me from the hospital it hardly needs saying but Snoop is back from India and I am SO bloody happy to see her again. I missed her more than words can say. She looks so good and had a brilliant time which also makes me SO bloody happy. That is all! 🙂

Blimey, Mouse, what a carry on! It's good to know you're being properly looked after, mind you, and lovely that you have caring friends close by.