Thread 14 - TalkLair: “What The Hell Are We Supposed To Use, Man? Harsh Language?”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 13).

Summer should be well under way, but the chilly wind, grey clouds and pouring rain beg to differ. Looks like 2024 continues to be a washout - on the bright side, the Tories got washed out too! 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…

I did like Skiathos, I had some of the best food there I just wouldn't go back although I'd recommend it to anyone who wanted a recommendation for a really good Greek island that isn't all drunkeness, shagging, throwing up in the streets and giving British tourists a bad name. It really is a lovely place.

With Greek islands I mostly avoid ones with an actual airport. That seems to be enough of an inconvenience to mean that the worst behaved drunken tourists self-exclude. For a quiet, beachy holiday I like Greece very much but my last such holiday was in Italy on the Amalfi coast which was ace (but more expensive and our luggage didn’t turn up til halfway through which was non-optimal).

I long for an actual holiday but mum-wrangling makes such a thing an impossible dream at the moment. If I could get away this year it’d be to Venice to the biennale. I mind less about not being able to go this time than I did two years ago but I still mind a bit.

I’ve been to the Amalfi coast and further south, it was beautiful. I’d love to go back. I speak some Italian now too so it would be nice to actually get to use it properly. I haven’t been on holiday for years and years, I really must bite the bullet and book something.

I love Greece but we are not beach people and both of us burn rather than tan so no lying on the beach for us. However, we both love history and archaeology and architecture and scenery so we've been more to mainland Greece than the islands, though we did a fantastic trip from Athens to Istanbul on a sailing ship (Star Clipper) that stopped at Mykonos, Kos and Patmos, and then at Ephesus, Pergamon and Troy on the way to Istanbul. We also loved Istanbul, though we didn't spend nearly long enough there. We got a bus from Istanbul to Thessaloniki and then another one to Grevena, where a friend of mine ran a geopark in that area. She (American) and her Greek husband ran us all over the place, including the Meteora national park, which was wonderful.

We were going to go on the Star Clipper again two years ago, from Athens to Venice, but DH was still positive for covid unbeknown to us (well past the contagious stage but rules is rules and they wouldn't let us on the ship), so we ended up retreating to a hotel room in Athens with the iPad and hotels.com and figuring out a week in Corfu and a ferry and train trip across to Italy via Rome to Venice on the day we were supposed to arrive on the ship. The biennale was on that year and we enjoyed the art hugely.

Excellent feeding progress @MouseMinge!

How weird was that bathroom @VictorianBigot ? It's like they built a mud-and-sticks cave for a pet platypus or something!

Re: travel, I am always somewhat puzzled by the complaints that a destination is "boring" - either you didn't do your research beforehand, or it's you who are boring, surely?

The only time I'd say I'd been unexpectedly bored was one holiday in Greece, where we were in a hotel that was up the mountain from the beach. Which was all fine, but then MrKitty got a 3 day migraine, and I wasn't insured on the car, so was pretty 'trapped' in the hotel.

Links to a couple of fun colour-perception tests.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5167227-do-people-just-not-know-what-turquoise-is

That frst one is impossible. When it shows turquoise you have to pick blue or green - but it isn't!

Mine says my boundary is hue 176, bluer than 68% of the population. For me, turquoise is green apparently. I don't really get it.

On a couple of occasions I've referred to a colour as blue and somebody has told me it's actually brown. I've had a colour-blindness test and I'm not colour blind so not sure what's going on there. My dad was red-green colour blind and used to wear some interesting colour combinations.

My boundary is even bluer than yours VB - 174. My first DH was red/green colour blind but essentially it meant he tended to see shades of green as fairly unpleasant muddy greys.

Red is seen as a muddy grey too I believe. Which is funny as my dad had a red car. Interestingly, there's a link between protanopia and deuteranopia* and *certain psychiatric disorders.

Mine says my boundary is hue 176, bluer than 68% of the population. For me, turquoise is green apparently. I don't really get it.

Ooh snap! I felt confused too, because IMO turquoise is turquoise. But, I suppose the whole point is that human perception of the boundary between blue and green is so individual and subjective. IIRC there are languages where there aren't separate words for those colours?

I did well on the other test (the Pantone one) with a score of 2.

Great minds

I don't think I want to go there, and find further evidence of decrepitude! 😀Brew day today, for once yesterday I got a bit organised and got all the ingredients weighed out ready last night.

Score: 0
About your score: A lower score is better, with ZERO being a perfect score. The circle graph displays the regions of the color spectrum where your hue discrimination is low.

and

Your boundary is at hue 174, just like the population median. You're a true neutral.

Which I feel is 'weird' because at times I feel like I see blue too brightly when out in the wild. I always feel like someone has dialled up the hue on bluebells and cornflowers.

I got 2 on the Pantone one (which I may try again on my iPad) and 174 on the blue green one. That one does seem to force you to decide whether you call turquoise blue or green though. I guess I think if it as a green you blue rather than a bluey green even though it’s really 50:50 but that’s also the area of the colour wheel the Pantone one identifies as my weak area so fair dos.

On a couple of occasions I've referred to a colour as blue and somebody has told me it's actually brown. I've had a colour-blindness test and I'm not colour blind so not sure what's going on there

Perhaps they were colourblind.

Ooooh! I hadn't considered this possibility but it makes perfect sense.

Blue/green is very much all relative. I'm wearing a pair of jeans in a dark blue-green colour with a deep but bright green top. MrG said they were blue. So I put on a dark blue sweatshirt and he said now they're green. The label says "teal".

Hah, Kuc! I'm 180. Its a shame they didn't let you say blue-green, or green blue.

Interesting test. I scored 2 on the Pantone and 66% on the other one. "Your boundary is at hue 166, greener than 90% of the population".

Colour blind people can get special glasses to see the whole range of colours. I'd like to get some for both my brothers but have been waiting to see if the price comes down. With our dad being a GP we'd be taken down the surgery in childhood and he'd do hearing, eyesight and reflex tests and it turned out that both brothers are colour blind.

Colour blind people can get special glasses to see the whole range of colours

Wow, I didn't know about these! Have they been around long?

I don't know, but I came across them about ten years ago. I've seen clips of people putting them on for the first time and seeming very shocked at how different everything looks.

Yes, I've seen those clips too. It must be a very weird experience. Apparently the stats are that about 1 in 12 men have colour blindness but only about 1 in 200 women. One of the benefits of two X chromosomes!

My dad's sister was colour blind too.