The roads in our village are being resurfaced this week.

I came home from work today to find that the dropped kerb in front of my drive has been replaced by a raised one! 

As I understand it, this renders accessing my drive illegal as technically I have to drive on a pavement to do so.

Also, now I don't have a dropped kerb that renders it illegal for any inconsiderate twat to block my drive.

Will be contacting Calderfail (sic) council tomorrow...

Quote from: Fishy on February 21, 2024, 10:10:11 AMFound a great creepy/supernatural film on iPlayer last night.. Relic... surprisingly good

Yes, that's quite a good chiller, with an original plot and sensitively-handled subject matter that makes it stand out from the crowd.

I've a particular affection for the BT Tower, as a former employer's Fitzrovia-based HQ was only yards down the road and I really enjoyed my visits down there, having work lunches at the various eateries pretty much within the tower's shadow, all on expenses of course.

It's the first London landmark I see on my occasional journeys into King's Cross station, assuming the Emirates stadium doesn't count as one.

Greece has just transcended its deeply embedded Orthodox Christian identity and legalised same-sex marriage.

Thank Zeus for that!

Quote from: Matt2112 on January 23, 2024, 07:26:35 PMI'm going to be doing some solo acoustic gigs this year (and may add a percussionist for some/all of them) so have started upping the practise regime.

Today I was working on an arpeggio for the intro to Wasted Years (which is in Em with the droned open E); I've seen it done on acoustic by the nut, so an octave lower than Maiden's original version - nothing wrong with that.

But I wanted to see if I could figure it out in the octave it "should" be and found if I fretted a standard C chord shape but with the first finger  on the B string's 8th fret, then I had an Em chord* to work from, i.e.

0 (E)
8 (G)
0 (G)
9 (B)
10 (G)
0 (E)

That left my pinkie to fret the distinctive notes of the arpeggio (albeit I was doing this on the kid's small guitar at the time - and my slight affliction of my right hand didn't help - so it wasn't terribly clean).
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I do need to pull my gigging acoustic guitar out of its case though and use that.  Let's see how it goes.

This actually didn't go anywhere near as well as I thought it would - I underestimated the difference in the sizes between the kid's guitar and my APX and the fingering was impossible for a smooth and clean arpeggio; the tension caused by the stretching hampered the movements too much.

So for "gig-friendly" purposes for now, I've settled on just using pull-offs on the top E, like how it's originally performed, but getting the open G and B strings to ring in tandem to fill it out.

There seems to be flat earth forums aplenty on social media where "Poe's Law" is manifest to extreme degrees; many are almost indistinguishable from parody.

I was slightly shocked and saddened to hear this news on the drive home tonight.

He seemed to have been on the radio for as long as I can remember listening to it.

Those TOTP re-runs on BBC Four will have even more of a sense of nostalgia now.

Commuted both ways in daylight today.  Definitely lifted the mood.

If there's one rule that should definitely be introduced, it's one that penalises goalkeepers when they collect the ball in a stable, standing position and flop to the ground. 

I find it annoying even when my own team's 'keeper does it (which recently hasn't been often given our shocking run of form    ).

Nick, my condolences for your and your family's loss.

I trust your mum had the best care in her final few years; my own family has learned how precious that is over the last 5 years or so ourselves.

All the best to you.

Quote from: dom on February 06, 2024, 12:44:25 PM95%? - maybe it was covered more than I wanted to hear but that's a wild exaggeration!

That I heard - the other 5% was the equally execrable pious cringefest that is "'Thought' For The Day".

So basically 100% of obsequious deference to bogus authority figures, one of whom by the way proclaims he has been "divinely" chosen by the other, which of course begs the question why this doesn't preclude allowing a potentially terminal disease to slip through "His" omnipotent, omnibenevolent grasp.

Quote from: Fishy on February 05, 2024, 07:25:08 PMThe gush factor on the Beeb  6 o clock news about the king cancer diagnosis was almost palpable then they get Witchell in.. fuck off.  Think I'll be staying away from the news for the next few weeks/months

About 95% of BBC News's and Radio 4's coverage was taken up by all that this morning.  All the usual fawning sycophants and apologists are being given grossly disproportionate amounts of airtime, Royal-splaining for the proles who of course are regarded with the bigotry of low expectations.

Quote from: David L on February 03, 2024, 11:51:59 PMNobody. Tonight's feature on Channel 4. Just an excuse for gratuitous violence really. I guess it's what the young'uns want nowadays.
Nice to see Doc Emmett Brown looking so good after all these years though

Cracking film.  I must still be a young 'un!

Just seen a short piece on BBC News about the film Poor Things and its multiple Oscar nominations, comprising of an interview with director Yorgos Lanthimos and lead actress/producer Emma Stone.

What should have been insightful and informative was amateurishly done; it was shockingly edited, with dumb OK! magazine-level questions (Stone simply burst out laughing at one of them) and the standard parting shot of "the best director category is still dominated by men".

To top it off there was a horrendous and unintentional crash cut back to the news host, although in fairness she wasn't sticking her middle finger up direct to camera at the time.

Saw this in a very sparsely attended screening at the Showcase.

Greek writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos turns his signature bizarro style to this adapted tale of a woman (Emma Stone) who has committed suicide being reanimated (although the premise is a fair bit more complicated and darker than that).

With obvious parallels to Frankenstein, this explores various ethical and philosophical themes, a fair portion of which concerns the voracious sexual appetite of Stone's lead character; these scenes leave virtually nothing to the imagination, so earning the 18 rating from the BBFC (which made cuts on the technicality that it showed minors in the same frame as adults who are performing sexually explicit acts (context is everything)).

This has often deliciously funny dialogue, remarkable production design and an outstanding, deservedly Oscar-nominated performance from Emma Stone.  Mark Ruffalo is also highly impressive in a scenery-chewing support role (also Oscar-nominated) and I'll always have time for Willem Defoe no matter what he's in.

So, it's all very impressive and admirable on many levels - yet I couldn't love it.  It's long at 140 minutes and seems it; despite the film's many qualities, it does drag a little, and I felt it was trying to cram in too many ideas at times - sometimes, less is more.

However, this hasn't been festooned with award nominations for nothing, and if you don't mind something a bit different, I'd recommend it.

Rating: ***