Thread 17 - TalkLair: "Okay, first of all, what's with the outfit? Live in the now, okay? You look like DeBarge."

[RasaSayangEh]

(Previous thread 16).

Spring is springing, daffodils blooming all over our LairGarden, which have not all been picked by a neighbour's kid...

In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, cosy rugs are down on the floors looking a bit stained by cat hairball regurgitation. 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 love their relationship with other animals. They'll just lounge around with birds on them, and all manner of fauna and flora around them like Disney on speedballs. And yeah, crocs are like "Whatever, dude, I can't even begin with these beasties, like they're rude but so chill and sometimes you just need a bit of a butt jump from a hairy large rodent."

They are the chillest animals I've ever seen. I want to be one, it looks really relaxing.

That sounds brilliant @FagsMagsandBags and inspired me to look up "meet a sloth". I discovered (to MrG's utter delight) that we can meet them at Wingham, which is only about 20 minutes from here! You can also meet the ring-tailed lemurs (my absolute favourites) and various other chaps. I foresee many visits when the weather warms up a bit!

I think we'll avoid the capybaras, though, as they may have been told that MrG once ate one of their relatives. He didn't eat a whole capybara, obviously ... it fed the entire village.

I did at one time have a collection of photos of capybaras with various creatures sitting on them. It's probably on a drive somewhere, but it would be nice to see the pics again.

A rather niche collection! They do seem to be the planet's most laid-back animals, don't they?

I dunno, just did a search on 'animals sitting on capybaras' and there's loads out there.

When I was a kid we used sometimes to watch dinosaur films and when two dinosaurs came face to face they'd almost always fight to the death, for no apparent reason, so to see creatures just sitting on each other and chilling out makes an excellent contrast.

I need to step away from the AI Pied Piper. It's just too much fun making pictures of my house!

That looks a lot like my grandmother's house @RasaSayangEh, except hers was a 30s semi.

I don't have a picture of her house but I did find a photo of one of the several houses bombed on her street.

On that cheery note, my dad would have been 82 today. I like to do something to mark it so I'm going to head out to a waterfall I stumbled across in a forest last year and hope it's not too busy on a sunny Saturday. There was nobody around at all the last time I went so it felt really special, just sitting next to it listening to the roar of the water reverberating off the trees.

I love the look of your house, @RasaSayangEh ! It looks so solid and comfortable and reminds me of the house my paternal grandparents lived in, which is still my favourite house ever.

I note that one of the garden chairs only has one arm rest.

I note that one of the garden chairs only has one arm rest.

Haha yes! It's these little "tells" that the image was made by AI. When it gets smart enough to figure this out, humans will be doomed...

I've just been in Morrisons and there was a mother with a 5 year old boy and 8 year old girl (estimates). Mum and daughter were talking an son kept trying to say something.

He said, "I'm trying to explain something, but you're not listening to me!" The daughter said, kindly, "All right, explain it, then."

"You don't understand! I'm LITERALLY fatally wounded!" came the explanation.

@SinnerBoy did he say what he was fatally wounded with?

Young kids can be very funny that way. I was working in a garden one time and a grandchild was staying with the customer, a boy of about seven or eight. Nice lad. I had been engrossed in my thoughts when I became aware of his plaintive wails, 'I shall be stuck here for ever and ever!'. He'd got himself all tangled up in a shrub and couldn't free himself. It was really funny at the time, but I untangled him and he went spinning off somewhere else.

I'm starting to think we don't need AI to be doomed, we'll doom ourselves just fine without it!

No, I missed the rest as I turned off to another aisle. I should have stayed to neb!

Geese react to harmonica music in Taipei's Daan Forest Park. They really like the music.

I'm also impressed at the man's squat, he must have thighs of steel.

https://x.com/khnh80044/status/1908557751447593147

That is glorious! He must have nerves of steel too, to squat down in front of a pair of geese. The ones on Barnes Pond used to get round behind annoying toddlers and push them into the water. (This may have made me laugh.)

Those geese are just adorable! Who knew they loved harmonica music? I feel like finding a goose and trying a bit of incompetent harmonica blowing at it. Wonder if it works on other water fowl...

I couldn't tell from the angle of filming whether the man was doing a proper 'Asian' squat which requires no effort at all, if he wasn't then he must indeed have thighs of steel! I never realised that the Asian squat was a particular thing until I met DH and discovered he couldn't squat fully and thought he was somehow defective - then I didn't believe him initially when he said that he didn't know anybody [Western] who could squat! Everybody I knew (back home) can just drop into a full squat and stay there, quite comfortably, for many minutes at a time.

I can do it, but not for long without something to steady myself. I suspect it's very counter-intuitive to have your feet flat on the floor unless you've done it from early childhood. My sister could do it as a small child in Singapore, presumably copying the Cantonese amah. She never actually sat on a potty! She also spoke no English for quite a while. Yes, our mother's parenting skills were quite something!

That's astonishing - the geese are so fascinated. (And I can't squat either - I think one must have to learn how to do this very young, and keep practising!)

As the clip ends, the goose on the right turns and honks "Encore!"

For someone who is remarkably feeble in so many ways, I've always been a good squatter. A great planker as well, better than people with strength far superior to my own. I wonder if it's because I wanted to be a ballet dancer when I was a child and taught myself as much as I could at home by reading books and watching some stuff on telly? I think I developed a good core strength very early on. I'm undoubtedly a lot shitter at all of this of late, but it pleases me to know that I once was "fitter" than I appeared.

Today I met up with someone I first met on GU about a million years ago (about twenty years ago). We've chatted and stuff since then but never met in the flesh. Today we did! We had the most wonderful time, the weather adored us and we both had our first ever manicure. We've each individually done our own nails before and I know I'm good at it and so ... but I've always fancied a bit of a pamper. So we were manicure virgins today and it was wonderful. She went for a shade of blue that screamed by the sea and brings out the beauty of her hands. I went for red because I haven't gone red for ages and was already wearing red clogs, jeans and a red shirt. Mine look great as well, but hers caught something magical which I loved. And it was fun having it done. Next time we're going for the pedicure as well!

Not long until I meet the sloths now!!!

Having your feet flat on the floor isn't just counterintuitive, it's physically impossible for me - my ankles don't flex far enough that way. They do extend beautifully in the other direction, though - I can lie on my back with my legs straight and my feet flat on the floor.

Is it Tuesday for sloths?

Lovely to meet other GUT people, Fags. DH and I will be doing that in France in June if anybody remembers Tethys and Fawaz and Tasselhoff (on different days, not all at once). DH is 10Smith if anybody remembers him.