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Messages - Slim

#31
Wordle 1,002 4/6*

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Thought I'd got it in two for sure .. anyway 2 mins.
#32
Food and Drink / Re: W(h)ine
March 16, 2024, 09:47:10 PM
I bought this in Tesco on Friday, just to try a bourbon-cask-aged wine. A bit more expensive than I'd usually pay. Really nice. The bourbon taste is subtle.


#33
General Discussion / Re: COVID-19
March 16, 2024, 04:48:12 PM
Very unfortunate, given that it's generally those with the fewest points to lose who have passed on the jabs.
#34
Cycling / Re: Cycling 2024
March 16, 2024, 03:42:03 PM
Rain was due over in the afternoon and I didn't want to get out of bed early, so I only wanted to do 40-odd. A simple plan: to go down the Southbound Route for 20 miles or so, then come back.

As I emerged onto the Earl Shilton bypass I saw what appeared to be cars parked on either side, at the junction. Very odd place to park, I thought .. but as I drew closer it was evident that they'd just smacked into each other head-on. I'd guess one of the drivers overestimated the time he had to turn right in the oncoming traffic. Nasty, but fortunately everyone appeared to have emerged unscathed.

At Coventry Road after 20 miles I decided to turn right to Shamford, rather than straight over to Broughton Astley. I only wanted to do a couple more miles before coming back so I was just messing around really. Then I took a left turn signposted to Frolesworth. I expected it to devolve into a gritty track more suited to a gravel bike but no, it was a thoroughly decently surfaced, quiet road. Not particularly interesting though, just a road through farmland.

Frolesworth is also not particularly interesting. Quite a pleasant little village but one of those places that has a church but no pubs or shops, which I find perverse. My intention had been to turn back and come the same way but I saw a sign to Broughton Astley, so I followed that. I came back the usual way from there.

The rain came down three hours earlier than it was supposed to, but it was light. Was sunny over the first hour of the ride.

Home on 47.22 miles. 266 this month.

I listened to Judas Priest's Unleashed in the East. I don't think I've listened to the whole thing since the early 1980s, and actually I still haven't, I switched it off to go in the Co-op at Stoney to get a croissant and put 5 Live on when I came out. Then 6 Music, then a corking FA Cup tie between Wolves and Coventry.

https://www.strava.com/activities/10972138894
#35
Wordle 1,001 3/6*

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90 secs.
#36
General Discussion / Re: Dreams
March 15, 2024, 03:39:00 PM
Do you have places in your dreams that keep recurring there, but don't exist in real life?

I dreamed about two of these places early this morning. One is a place a way out of Hartlepool, on the road to Elwick. The road forks to the left and there's a pub there, a quiet place with a gravel path. I've dreamed about it many times, but it's not real.

The other one is a place in London. It's an oddly low key place, almost like a nondescript part of Middlesbrough or Northampton. Like residential streets near a provincial town centre. Sometimes there's a small shopping mall there. One time I went in, and sat in a coffee shop; a drab place with wooden seats. But if you keep walking through these streets, eventually you come to some sort of theatre district, lit up brightly with tall buildings; theatres and glittering lights. Not only that but when you turn back, there's some sort of upmarket hotel with an outdoor garden. Again, I've visited them many times in dreams but none of them are real. Sometimes the basic plot of the dream  is that I can't find them.
#37
Wordle 1,000 🎉 3/6*

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3 mins.
#38
Moving Pictures / Re: Red Dwarf
March 14, 2024, 05:59:44 PM
The Promised Land

In April 2020, two years and five months after the last episode of XII was first shown, Red Dwarf returned for a 90 minute feature-length piece - the most recent instalment to date, and possibly the last ever.

I did have a suspicion that stretching an idea to 90 minutes might be a bit ambitious, but the story Doug Naylor came up with here completely justifies the feature length treatment.

The crew find a Holly backup disk in the hold (this is a brilliant visual gag - it's a 6 foot floppy disk). But of course, having been restarted from his original startup file, Holly doesn't recognise Kryten or the cat, he's aware that Lister is supposed to be in stasis. Rimmer is a hologram of course.

So, on the basis that the ship has essentially been abandoned, Holly decides to follow his programming and decommission it. So the Dwarfers flee in Starbug.

Not long afterwards, they meet a three members of Felis Sapiens (the same species as the cat) aboard a derelict. As established long ago in the first series, they worship Lister as their god.

I think my only real problem with this one is that the cat barely reacts to this. It's the first time he's seen other members of his own species for decades, and two of them are women! But it doesn't seem to register.

Overall - it's a joy, and a fitting end to the whole shebang. It's clever, imaginative, engaging and very funny. And there's even a bit of pathos, and some sentimental, touching dialogue between Lister and Rimmer when the hologram has a bit of an existential crisis.

It strikes a nice balance between a sitcom, with audience reaction present - and a feature film, with an appropriate cinematic soundtrack. It's the best of both worlds.

And here endeth my one episode per-day Dwarfathon that I embarked upon on January 1st. It's been a blast.
#39
General Discussion / Re: COVID-19
March 14, 2024, 11:50:12 AM
The COVID vaccines substantially reduce the risk of virus-related heart failure and blood clots:

https://heart.bmj.com/content/early/2024/01/24/heartjnl-2023-323483

#40
General Discussion / Re: COVID-19
March 14, 2024, 11:01:11 AM
It's why I'm a white person. Helps me to absorb UV and synthesise vitamin D.
#41
Wordle 999 4/6*

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A minute. Should have looked for the more obvious choice on the third. It's always the more commonly used word.
#42
General Discussion / Re: Tin Foiler Watch
March 14, 2024, 12:47:09 AM
#43
Moving Pictures / Re: Red Dwarf
March 13, 2024, 11:52:58 PM
XII:6 Skipper

And so we come to the finale of the last, or at least the most recent, series of Red Dwarf. Just the 2020 90 minute special left now.

The cat and Lister find Captain Hollister's old personnel files, in which he derides Rimmer as never being likely to amount to anything. Later, a disruption in the spacetime continuum causes consequences from alternate universes, connected to decisions not taken in the present universe to occur. So when they decide not to do something, it happens. It sounds bizarre but it's a useful vehicle for some classic Red Dwarf comedy in the time-honoured manner.

However this plot element fizzles out to be replaced by a tenuously related idea, in which Rimmer decides to dimension-jump into alternate universes, in search of a world where he isn't a complete loser and failure. Again some absolutely brilliant comedy ensues from this, and delightfully, in one of them, Rimmer finds himself back on Red Dwarf before the drive plate accident - in his old uniform, and with the crew still alive. Why exactly he's a hologram in this universe is not explained, because he isn't in one of the others. Even more nostalgically, Norman Lovett returns to play Holly. But while I can accept Rimmer looking nearly 30 years older, Holly doesn't quite look right. Maybe they should have used a heavily pixellated Holly like they did in the first series. Maybe they could even have reused the old footage and made the words fit using AI. Or something.

The various different Listers in the other universe, very different in character from the familiar Lister, are brilliantly done.

One thing that bothered me, though. It's implied that Rimmer is necessarily a failure in every possible universe, but we know that's not true. There's at least one in which he's modest, highly accomplished, dashing, charismatic, selfless and brave. What a guy. But it seems that Ace Rimmer has been discreetly airbrushed from the Dave canon.

It's not perfect, but overall it's a joy.
#44
Cycling / Re: Cycling 2024
March 13, 2024, 11:18:49 PM
A dry day for a change and unusually mild with it, although the wind from the south was fairly strong. I left work early with the idea of doing a decently long ride, possibly even a fondo, down the southbound route. Once again I came right down the A444 over the first few miles, rather than going through Ellistown and Bagworth.

Delightfully, I found the village shop at Gilmorton open so I bought some goodies.

I turned back after 30.3 miles, along Station Road near Husbands Bosworth. I was going to take a longer route home and I didn't want to do more than the fondo distance. I reckoned I'd be home by about 2100.

It was getting dark by this time, and I took a wrong turn down Lutterworth Road. My more serious error came after Stoney Stanton, when I failed to take the left turn to Potters Marston. I do enjoy cycling in the dark but I'm definitely more likely to make navigation errors. I realised I'd gone badly wrong when I found myself in Huncote, a place I don't think I'd ever been in my life.



Google Maps to the rescue then and I plotted a course homeward, but within a few miles I'd missed a turn again and found myself in Croft. That was particularly annoying because I'd  descended a steep hill completely unnecessarily, and of course I had to come back up.

By this time I was convinced I wasn't going to get home until after 2200, but in fact I hadn't gone that far off track. I came back up through unfamiliar territory (Thurlaston and Desford Rd) then nearer home, the quickest possible way, through Donington le Heath rather than Ibstock and was back home on 64.58 miles. I'll put the road through Thurlaston on my list of places to revisit.

Very glad to have the tailwind on the way back, it made a big difference.

I did regret coming through Donington le Heath. It used to be fine, but there's a steep descent called Standard Hill which has been resurfaced in a bizarre wavy, ripply texture and although it's alright in a car it is absolutely boneshaking on a bike. Horrible in the dark especially.

Anyway, glad to have given the March distance tally a bit of a boost. It's been a rotten cycling month. 219 miles done and I'll be happy enough with 400.

https://www.strava.com/activities/10954222829
#45
Wordle 998 3/6*

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About a minute.