Thread 13 - TalkLair: “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 12).

Looks like spring has sprung! Tulips, apple blossom and early hay fever are upon us. In the TalkLair, we remain hunkered down keeping cosy and warm, because "something something 'til May is out". 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…

Oh no, poor you. I hope you're over it soon, with no nasty side effects.

@SinnerBoy It's not Scoptic Sensitivity Syndrome, is it? A friend of mine was diagnosed with it, when we were doing A Levels, one of our college lecturers tested him and he read 3 books in the holidays.

He'd never managed to finish one before.

I'd never heard of that so I had to look it up. How debilitating! How did he manage to read anything at all before his diagnosis?

Mine's convergence insufficiency, so my eyes work independently from one another among other things. I see a combination of the two below - a little bit of double vision and lots of halo. It also stops me from being able to experience things like magic eyes or 3D film. I remember going to see Beowulf in 3D at the cinema... from start to finish all I could see was everything in double! I was gutted when my friend got tickets for us to see Blade Runner 2049 and realised it was the 3D version. That was an uncomfortable three hours lol.

@Kucinghitam That sounds dreadful. I hope you're being well looked after and at least feel able to eat something soon.

Oops, forgot to post the pic:

Poor Kuc. Bed, fluids, vitamin B supplement at night, don't try to fight it, it will win.

Mochi has been very solicitous. She completely switched from hanging around DH (her favourite human) to spending all day and all night on my sickbed. I reckon as a predator, she can sense my weakness and is waiting for me to die so she can eat me.

Not at all. It's just the slightly raised temperature making you into a better hot-water-bottle for her.

Sweet cat.

Hot water bottle with potential for later snack. The ideal cat companion.

I hope it passes quickly. And that reminds me to look into private boosters - they were supposed to be out this spring/summer.

Auden's Shield of Achilles (difference between heroic myth and horrible reality)

Another good take on that story is Tibor Fisher's Possibly 40 ships.

She's so cute... I love how her markings make it look like she's permanently smiling.

VB

I'd never heard of that so I had to look it up. How debilitating! How did he manage to read anything at all before his diagnosis?

With great difficulty, he only sees text right in his central vision. He was given some coloured cellophane sheets and went "Fuck! I can see all the words!"

He now has coloured glasses with two different shades, one person lens.

Mochi's a sweetheart. GWS, Kuc. Three times! I am the only person I know who's never had Covid. And I most certainly don't want it, ever.

@SinnerBoy coloured cellophane is one of the options for my issue too I think. It must have been so tough for him to get through school and GCSEs.

@duc748 I haven’t had it and definitely do not want it.

DDs have a school friend with some sort of visual condition, he has coloured spectacles and a set of coloured cellophane sheets.

VictorianBigot · Today 10:55

coloured cellophane is one of the options for my issue too I think. It must have been so tough for him to get through school and GCSEs.

Just entirely! He was labelled as troublesome and dropped out, hence us both doing GCSEs & A Levels at a further education college. He was lucky that our lecturer knew - she was the first person qualified in Britain to diagnose it.

Blimey, thank goodness she was there and recognised it. There was so little awareness or tolerance of stuff like that. I remember people at school who in hindsight obviously had dyslexia being told off and laughed at. I didn’t manage to take GCSEs and certainly not A Levels because of the difficulty I had with focus, I became completely overwhelmed and burnt out. No one ever suggested ADHD to me, it was just something naughty boys had. I had to do adult education to learn all the biology and maths I missed out on to enable me to go to university. I lost so many years to that. It was only then, after struggling so much with the actual writing of assessments throughout despite understanding the subjects, that ADHD was suggested and I was encouraged to go through the (lengthy) process of diagnosis. I was so surprised by the suggestion. I’m glad things have shifted now and learning difficulties are being recognised, but the flip side of that is the waiting lists are years long. So many people aren’t getting the help they need in time for it not to affect their future choices.

Sympathies Kuc. I hope you feel better soon.

Hope you have a speedy recovery and don’t become a Mochi meal @Kucinghitam !

I had a horrible cold that started with a tickly throat and moved on to a cough all accompanied by a wildly fluctuating temperature a couple of months ago. I think I got it from my brother who delayed a visit because of a tickly sore throat but was clearly not well when he was here. He tested negative for Covid and I didn’t bother to test as I only had out of date tests but I do wonder whether it was Covid. I also completely lost my sense of smell which is only gradually returning now.

Mr Veg is still full of it and has been stamping about with a face like fury. His hearing has gone off in one ear and he's barking 'What?! what?!' every time I speak. Hope he gets better soon.

@artant the one time I had Covid all I had was a tickly sore throat for a couple of days - didn't even lose my sense of smell. DH had it and was completely asymptomatic.

I had Covid last year and had a very high temperature and was in bed for a good few days. Didn’t lose my sense of smell that time and I thought it wasn’t a symptom now but no idea really whether what I had this time was Covid. I hadn’t noticed the smell thing really until I went to the garden centre and none of the herbs smelt of anything!

I hope you're better soon, @Kucinghitam and Mochi doesn't want to eat you! Well, she probably wouldn't mind but she's looking after you and being so damn cute about it. Her markings are adorable. I think that Francis is mostly looking after me although very, very annoyingly a lot of the time when he constantly miaows at me and I want to throw him out of the window and then cry because I'm evil and I threw a cat out of a window.

Your eye thing would give me really bad headaches, @VictorianBigot and it certainly makes sense re books not being your thing for so long. They wouldn't be mine either if I was having to deal with all that doubling up of letters and stuff. Humans are such weird creatures with all the things that can be wrong with us/are different about us that nobody knows about for years so we get called "stupis" when we're anything but because we've been getting by despite it being so much harder for us than others. I say we and us. I don't have any of those issues so any stupidity is real and my own!

I went over to Snoop's today. I got the train from mine and she picked me up from the station. Her house is too far from the station for me to have walked it. She's currently looking after Beam her brother and sister-in-law's big ole standard poodle. Seamus, my greyhound nephew was with us as always. Snoop had a hangover and I'm just generally able to fall asleep at the drop of a hat all of the bloody time so after we'd eaten some food and stuff we were listening to a podcast that was very funny, her at one end of the sofa, Beam in the middle and me at the other end. I woke up after being asleep for about an hour, same podcast different episode, being licked by Beam and Snoop having just woken up at the other end of the sofa. We didn't chat much today but it was very nice all of us, Seamus was on the sofa next to ours fast asleep, just sleeping together. We also had a very short walk around the block before feeding the boys which was a real pleasure. It was a nice day which hasn't quite pulled me out of my currently slump - nothing to worry about, just head mangled with all of the shit that's going on - it certainly made me feel a bit better in the moment which is sometimes all you can ask of life.

Sounds like you had a lovely day with Snoop and pooches, Mouse!

I'm still feeling rather crap, this thing is nasty.

I've spent the day listening to podcasts about the election and fuck me but I'm depressed at the whole Farage thing. He's like the never-healing, constantly seeping, fungus-infected anal fissure of British politics.

I see he got milk-shaked again today.

I need to just stop following politics until after the election. The coverage all revolts me, perhaps bizarrely (or not) for completely opposing reasons. The right-wing nut jobs need no further explanation, the rest are just revelling smugly in their thought-terminating-cliche-ridden thigh-clenching certainty of the Holy Sword of Righteousness coming to smite [Insert Bad People].

One podcast scoldingly informed me that I can't even spoil my ballot because that would be very inconsiderate of me, for wasting the precious time of the counters. I should just fuck off and die if I'm not going to vote for a Righteous.