Musings and Thoughts

Varley · #51 22nd July 2018, 14:22

Help! I am now surrounded by angry croquet losing come-over vegetables. Variants of the domesticated Manx Triffid. They all thought the sea journey was an insurmountable obstacle until Bob put them right.

Engine Serang · #52 24th July 2018, 06:20

[QUOTE=Varley;16360] Variants of the domesticated Manx Triffid. QUOTE]

We live and learn, domesticatedness has arrived on Shady Mona. Is it contagious? Are we safe here in the Emerald Isle ( Brown Isle)? Inoculations all around.

Varley · #53 24th July 2018, 10:34

I will get a report from two recent visitors shortly. I have no doubt the native will have a pharmacological treatment should she have detected any problem (and no doubt it will be based on either poteen or one's own urine. Perhaps even both together - no wool of bat yet prescribed but that is only a matter of time!).

I am ashamed the inoculation controversy that seems poised to be reignited here (by a lunch friend of mine, too) should have jumped over the water. You may yet prove Hibernia the saner place. (If you've a mind to, the Government site is providing a 'bill board' for this. I am sure googling IoM, Gov and Dialogue will get you there or https://iomgov.dialogue-app.com)

BobClay · #54 24th July 2018, 10:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Varley

Help! I am now surrounded by angry croquet losing come-over vegetables. Variants of the domesticated Manx Triffid. They all thought the sea journey was an insurmountable obstacle until Bob put them right.

The sea was a barrier to those lovely little Triffids, although not to their spores.

I may have misread you. I thought you were referring to that awful film of the book made in 1963. In which the problem was solved in the end when it was found that seawater dissolved Triffids and the human race won out in the end.

Not quite like the book … which I recently read is still in print, more than half a century on, and is still looked on as one of the great post apocalyptic stories.

A boot in the guts for author John Wyndham who I imagine was still recovering from another of his classic books 'The Midwich Cuckoos' which they renamed insanely for the film 'The Village of the Damned.' That was a pity because the film was quite faithful to the book, and didn't resort to a silly Hollywood style ending (not John Wyndham's style at all.)

Varley · #55 25th July 2018, 00:45

No, Bob. You were right. I can remember the film but not the book although I did read it as a boy.

BobClay · #56 25th July 2018, 23:20

I read it as a kid also. I found the most frightening thing about it was not so much the Triffids (bunch of pansies in my opinion … arf arf

) but the thought of a world where nearly everybody has suddenly become blind overnight. Pretty scary stuff for its day.

tugger · #57 26th July 2018, 07:16

Hands on socks Bob hands on socks and you'll have no worry about going blind.
Tugger

BobClay · #58 7th October 2018, 12:02

Comet 46P/Wirtanen will pass within 12 million km of the Earth on December 16th. Astronomically speaking that's getting close to a near miss. Current thinking is that is should be a fairly easy naked eye comet, but these things are unpredictable.

It's about 1 kilometre across and currently out near the orbit of Mars.

Comets used to be seen as harbingers of doom, so best leave yer Xmas shopping to the last minute to save a few bob.

BobClay · #59 18th November 2020, 15:04

No, not a comet ... the planet Mercury. Mercury is a small planet, but one thing we don't need is comets the size of Mercury ... (although this is the year 2020, I'm starting to think anything can happen.

)

The tail is made of Sodium which sputters out of the ground under the relentless blast of a Sun filled sky.

Some decades ago I dropped a small piece of Sodium into an ink well in the physics lab at Dartmouth St, Secondary Modern School as a joke. It did a passable imitation of Mount Vesuvius on heat ... and got me the long walk for the cane and punishment book.

https://spaceweathergallery.com/indi...load_id=169723

BobClay · #60 22nd February 2021, 18:16

Final moments of the Stellar Banner caught on camera. Given the size of the that ship, she's going down pretty quickly. I guess a cargo of iron ore is unforgiving. Not sure why that fellah is cheering, doesn't seem like much to cheer about to me.

https://youtu.be/eoHD3VfhYxo

Malcolm G · #61 22nd February 2021, 19:24

Maybe it was his way of expressing astonishment at the funnel re-emerging after the hull had gone.

I suppose the speed of sinking could depend on how well the preparation for scuttling was carried out - which seems to have been quite efficient.

Harry Nicholson · #62 4th March 2021, 18:27

The radar scanner is turning as she dives. Perhaps that was requested by the outfit that took the video - just for enhanced effect?
Another new reef for the crustaceans and polyps.

BobClay · #63 4th March 2021, 18:30

Yes I noticed the scanner was rotating. Presumably on emergency power ....

Varley · #64 5th March 2021, 01:41

That was well spotted. Must have been the Emergency generator, I wonder if by accident or if not-to-be-skeleton crew needed it. Imagine the radar was connected only because it had been left 'on' not because it was intended for use.

Engine Serang · #65 5th March 2021, 08:03

I was musing recently; they can't touch you for it you know, as Ken Dodd would say; and wondered how many skeleton crew and contract Sparkys could dance on the head of a rotating radar scanner.

Varley · #66 5th March 2021, 14:37

Are you sure that those are proper usages of the semi-colon?

I suggest that it is more likely that at 0705 you had 'lost' any long words you might have once had and your edit was a disingenuous subterfuge.

Engine Serang · #67 5th March 2021, 15:42

Ah come on Mr V. Spelling, grammar, punctuation, syntax, semi-anything's are all so last century. We are the texting generation. I'll bet you invite Lady Cynthia to a rubber of croquet, tea and a sticky bun by text, Stiffies are all but forgotten, a little bit sad but MS moves onwards.
Congrats on paying attention to the Edit, Thursday evening can be quiet in Douglas.

Dartskipper · #68 5th March 2021, 20:49

There is a year, one month and one week missing between posts 58 and 59.

I think Bob's time warping machine does actually work after all, contrary to popular opinion.

Could it report back next week's Euromillions winning number?

Harry Nicholson · #69 5th March 2021, 21:40

Can't recall who said it - but it was some famous author of yester-year. As he was dying, a friend asked if he had any regrets.
He replied: "Yes! I may have used too many semi-colons".

Even so, the semi-colon is sometimes claimed to be a way of acknowledging your reader's intelligence.

There's seems to be no Morse for the character; what can this mean?

Malcolm G · #70 5th March 2021, 21:48

for ; some may use -.-.-. but i don't think that it is 'official'

BobClay · #71 6th March 2021, 10:58

It's not in the Handbook. (Yes I know it's sad but I have a copy, comes in handy when 'show off' Hams use oddball Q codes.)

So anybody using the above should be taken out back and shot.

Engine Serang · #72 6th March 2021, 12:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by BobClay

So anybody using the above should be taken out back and shot.

"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit.

Someone had raw meat for his dinner last night.

BobClay · #73 6th March 2021, 13:21

It's the only way to be sure:

https://youtu.be/nnHmUk_J6xQ

Engine Serang · #74 6th March 2021, 16:48

I just love submarine films.

BobClay · #75 6th March 2021, 17:02

Just for you then. Spot the badly adjusted valve.