Thread 15 - TalkLair: “I Can't Lie To You About Your Chances, But... You Have My Sympathies.”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 14).

Autumn seems to have gone straight into winter. It's cold, wet and windy. In the TalkLair, 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). The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch though, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics.

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

I've got a poor sense of smell, which dates to me being knocked unconscious, aged ten. I also went seriously downhill with maths.

One thing I can smell is mould, I always know if something is off in the fridge, or bread etc, whereas my wife seems oblivious.

Lovely crystal pics! I'm not a scientist, though I do love art and I was married to a scientist for thirty years so I guess that gives me a toehold.

Lovely pretty crystals! I have a deep fondness for crystals because Science Here are a couple of my pictures of protein crystals - approx 10-20 microns long.

@Vegemiteandhoneyontoast they were all in cat boxes and no seats were sullied.

What proteins are they, Kuc?

Ah, that would be confidential

Wow @Kucinghitam, the ones in the second pic are particularly stunning.

I don’t know if I count as a scientist or not. I have a life sciences degree and the work I do is scientific, but I’m not in a lab or doing academic research.

@Kucinghitam have you ever visited Roger Hiorns Seizure at Yorkshire Sculpture Park? It’s just the thing if you love crystals.

Oh and lovely pictures!

Yes! We have seen it several times, gorgeous copper sulphate crystals! I'm not sure if that exhibit is still open though - it was gradually deteriorating over the years IIRC.

It was a bit of a miracle that they got it out of its original home and up to Yorkshire at all! It was made as a temporary installation so in London visitors wore wellies and wandered around without a care in the world. I seem to recall plastic overshoes and much more visitor monitoring at YSP.

I just looked it up and it seems to be. I’d love to see it next time I’m in Yorkshire.

Definitely worth seeing if you can!

I remember as a kid (BTW I don't much like the MN trend to use the term 'child' to refer to anyone under 18: 'child' reminds me of Dickens) attempting to grow copper sulphate crystals by suspending a small crystal, tied to a bit of cotton and dangling in a jar of solution. Much like lighting fires by rubbing sticks together, it always seemed like one of those childhood things that never actually worked. Lemon juice for invisible ink was another one. Load of bollocks.

I've just got home from spending the whole afternoon with my neighbour at Burford Garden Centre. It's absolutely enormous, very posh, beautifully laid out and weirdly intense. Just us, two women. We dawdled over cushions and rugs, felt fabrics, looked in the art gallery, gazed at all the Christmas decorations and fancy cakes and generally idled our way around the whole place. She bought a fine hat, a trilby, that perfectly matched the coat she was wearing. Afterwards we had tea and orange polenta cake before coming home. I'm done in but very much appreciated spending time with another woman just looking at stuff, without anyone getting bored.

very much appreciated spending time with another woman just looking at stuff, without anyone getting bored.

I know where you're coming from...

When I was in my 1st year at senior school we did about crystals in Mixed Science and the teacher brought in an enormous copper sulphate crystal she'd grown and was very proud of. We were allowed to pass it around to admire it.

In my mind it was the size of a hand but I didn't get to hold it so can't be sure, as someone dropped it before it got to me. All over the floor, many, many shards of copper sulphate.

I'd like to give a shout-out to Jack, the lad who looked about 17 and upgraded our BT broadband. It took him (solo) a mere 90 minutes, involving ladders up two telegraph poles, drilling through a wall and much more. But the moment he plugged it in, it worked and we are now zipping along. He warned us that the phone wouldn't be switched over until midnight, as that was a BT issue. We went out and came back less than an hour later to a message on the answerphone saying we were now connected.

Bizarrely, though, the ancient, disconnected, drooping wiring from the telegraph pole is still in situ - just chopped off at our end. You'd think they'd take the dead wire down from the telegraph poles! Or maybe that's just my tidy mind, and anyone else wouldn't?

A quick going back to unmentionables because as (un)luck would have it there was a page about dogs and historical facts in this month's BBC History magazine. Until the mid 19th century dog doings were worth money. It was used in tannery and doing stuff with sheepskin. All old leather goods had dog doings in them somewhere in the procedure. Apparently the people who collected the doings were generally of a higher education than people who collected other stuff and often came from more skilled labour and were now older/ill/something along those lines.

The next little thing I'll be reading is Victorians inventing dog breeds.

Anyway, that's it. No more mention of unmentionables be those doings be from wo/man or beast.

very much appreciated spending time with another woman just looking at stuff, without anyone getting bored.

I have lunch with my best friend here most weeks and we wander through art galleries and museums and thrift stores and have a wonderful time in a way that much though I love him I just don't have with DH. Women need women I think, and men probably need men.

That garden centre visit sounds great. I like just mooching about on my own but with a female friend is more of a treat.

That is quite extraordinary.

I wonder why they stopped using it. I must go to bed now but I've opened an article on it ready for the morning. Apparently dog doings were known as 'Puer'.

That's the sort of thing I do, @VictorianBigot . My life is endless rabbit holes, not that I'm complaining because I do love rabbit holes. I'm currently in rabbit hole heaven as I research around something from the Victorian period that I discovered recently and has fascinated me. Off the back of that, which I'm reading around and up on, I'm having deep joy in the last couple of decades of the 19th century . Things like the puer thing add another layer to the understanding of what it was like to be alive at that time and I absolutely love it.

Has anyone clocked this thread? It's unbelievable - a husband has billed his wife because he had to pay more for bills etc when she was on maternity leave!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5223668-husband-thinks-i-owe-him-money-for-maternity-leave?page=1

I'm still in shock from a busy MN thread branding my town as a shit-hole! 😡

JFC. Who would even think of that?