Thread 20 - TalkLair: "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness; that is life"

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous Thread 19)

Britain swelters in yet another heatwave.

In the TalkLair, all the curtains are closed against the blazing sun as the denizens lurk like creatures of the night... or maybe we are creatures of the night. But rest assured, despite our scary fangs, the denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch, 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…

A volcano-powered bike would be quite something.

Congratulations, have fun, take care.

But also, post Glen Hansard, no no no motorbikes, dangerous, eek.

Stay safe.

And have fun.

Nice looking bike. As others have said, have fun and take care.

An internet rabbithole (that I may come back to later) led me to this excellent action shot of 'man late for meeting': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyndham_Childs

Desmodromic describes the cam operating gubbins. Instead of a chain, looped over the cam, an axle runs from a gear engaging with the crankshaft and likewise, on the end of the camshaft.

Yes II'll get me anorak...

What year is it, BTW?

See, you lost me at cam. I thought it was a river.

09, Sinner.

Can I ask a stupid question about MN? I access it on my lap-top. I can fire it up on my mobe, but it's not 'me', and I can't post, see any notifications etc. I can't remember what happened on Day 1 of MN, but there doesn't seem to be a 'log-in' option. On my mobe (not the app, I think, but ordinary version) there's a log-out option (as if I'm already logged in, but I'm not). Hitting that does not seem to do anything. How can I link my mobe to the account on my lap-top? Any ideas? Surely it's possible to be logged in on two devices at once? Otherwise I thought I'd maybe ask in Site Stuff.

You can be logged in to multiple devices at once via the browser for sure.

Mine sometimes gets in a tizz over cookies, so I delete cookies and history for mumsnet only and then it lets me login again.

via the browser

Ah, maybe that's the key; I'm on Firefox on my lap-top, but the mobe will be Chrome. Could that be the explanation?

I've gone back to 100% Firefox on my Ubuntu PC (because Chrome went bonkers on me ... full screen, I couldn't minimise it or shut it down and the only escape was to power off and then uninstall the bastard). You can install Firefox on your phone, if need be. I'm tempted to do it on my iPhone, whose browser I hate with a passion (along with pretty much everything else about it, apart from it's size). Never again!

In other time-wasting news, I've watched one-and-a-half episodes of something called Crossfire on the BBC iPlayer. Wondering "Is it just me, or is this really as bad as it seems?" I googled reviews and came across this zinger from Lucy Mangan in the Graun. She is spot on!

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/sep/20/crossfire-review-keeley-hawes-stars-in-the-worlds-most-stupidly-corridor-based-thriller

Oh, thanks so much for that, Gonners! I was giggling like a loon. I haven't seen it, natch. Still a few good writers left at the Graun.

That’s an excellent review. Trouble is it’s sort of made me want to actually watch what sounds like a truly dreadful programme.

And that’s a very nice looking bike @moto748e - may you have many excellent adventures together!

I love the review and hope the show doesn’t make it onto any of the streaming channels I watch.

@moto748e It might be different for me because I’m using a MacBook and an iPhone, I don’t use the app and access MN via the browser (Safari) only. but on my phone browser there’s a little person icon in the top right corner and when you tap on that, you get the drop down menu with the log in option.

I’m generally logged in on both devices at the same time and there hasn’t been any problem with that. In fact right now I’ve got both open in front of me.

I’m logged in on iPhone app, iPad app and desktop browser at the same time all the time.

Thanks, Kuc. I get that menu OK, but previously I only saw 'log out'. But now, I see your 'register or log in'. Clicking on that has no effect though. I daresay if I downloaded Firefox on my mobe, so I was always using the same browser, that might sort it out, but dunno if I CBA.

Remember my story about losing my Sex Matters brooch in London? Guess what arrived in the post today; isn't that lovely?

That's kind of them, moto.

I'm in something of a bind at the moment as my work has, quite literally, dried up. Everything is dust dry and nothing is growing. Most of my customers don't water properly, despite me imploring them to at least do some, so their gardens are in their death throes. Rain keeps appearing in the forecast and then doesn't happen or, if it does rain, it's for about a minute tops, and everything is dry again within five minutes.

My main customer is in the high Cotswolds, where the soil is about six inches of clay over limestone rubble so it drains really fast. He has his own water supply but doesn't like us watering. We still do some when he's not about, particularly the vegetable garden and new trees, but everything is so crispy at the moment.

Rant over, but it's all getting a bit desperate.

We're on the East Kent coast and although it hasn't been quite as blisteringly hot here (merely "too hot"), it has been sunny and very dry. Bizarrely, everything is growing and flowering like crazy apart from the grass at the back of the house (east-facing), which is stone dead and has been replaced by a beige, dried up clover-like "substance". The grass at the front looks quite tired, but is still recognisably grass.

I have added this to my ever-lengthening list of things not to care about. 😆

I can still remember the days when a few sunny days together in the summer were thought of as a good thing. It's hardly baking hot (well, not in most of the country).

Here in Craggy Island we haven't had rain for 6 weeks and everything is pretty dead looking. We had about 2mm of rain this afternoon, like 20 minutes of spotty rain.

My only contribution to other life-forms is making sure that half a dozen large plant-pot drip trays are filled with water twice a day for the benefit of the sparrows and other little-brown-birds, who do love a splash about and sit on the fence watching me do it! In normal years, they then dry off and go and roll in the dust. Hence the expression bird-brained?