What's made your day today?

[Fishy]

Car insurance renewal came in..  had a go at a compare site with a few quotes giving it over £30 cheaper.. got back to my current insurer mentioning that I could get cheaper .. could they match and they did ...
Companies seem to rely on folks being lazy and just accepting this kind of stuff instead of shopping around a little bit

[pxr5]

Picked our new pup Bella earlier. She's currently snoozing on me. 

[Slim]

About two years ago I helped to fund the last Sea Power album, and the last of my funder goodies have just been hand-delivered by the band's management! A hand-written lyric sheet and two posters.

[Matt2112]

My employers gave me a Selfridges gift card loaded with a not inconsiderable sum, so I took a trip to its store at Manchester's Trafford Centre to collect a present chosen by the little un's mum - and to treat myself, of course.

After a lengthy browse, I indulged in two bottles of red wine at prices I would otherwise almost never pay for such things - a Spanish "Flower And The Bee" Souson and, costing twice as much, a 2012 Joseph Swan Californian Zinfandel.

They had better be good...

[The Picnic Wasp]

Delighted to read that Murdo MacLeod the former Celtic and Borussia Dortmund player is home again after 103 days in hospital following heart surgery. Murdo is a local lad and I had the privilege of playing against him on a couple of occasions at a young age. I remember after one of those games my dad who had come to watch me play, raving to my grandad about the talent he had just observed. Sadly, it wasn't mine. Something about Murdo that is often discussed is him being struck full force by a Branco free-kick at Italia '90 and being knocked out cold. He remembers nothing about the rest of the game. Get well soon Murdo.

[Matt2112]

A most enjoyable Christmassy afternoon - took the little 'un on her annual visit to Santa's grotto and he had a proper, real beard!

[pxr5]

Yesterday. Playing Cards Against Humanity with our son and his girlfriend - best laugh I've had in ages, side splitting and tears spilling.

[Matt2112]

Annual Xmas panto; the little un's mum always insists on a front row seat, and tonight I found myself being the audience "fall guy" for the comic lead's roastings almost throughout.

Loved it.

[The Picnic Wasp]

Annual Xmas panto; the little un's mum always insists on a front row seat, and tonight I found myself being the audience "fall guy" for the comic lead's roastings almost throughout.

Loved it.

You're very brave. I would hate that.😁

[The Picnic Wasp]

I adopted a Macaw a few months ago. He already had a strange repertoire but occasionally when he's being bad tempered it can be accidentally totally in context and very amusing. He likes to throw a chrome dish, which sits on the roof of his cage, noisily onto the floor. I couldn't find it earlier so said to him in a stern tone "no dish, no pistachios! He leant forward quite menacingly and shouted "whatever!". I told him he was being rude to which he relied "shut up!". Hysterical! Maybe it's not accidental.😂

[Slim]

Found a source for sunset times to the second for a location 300 metres from here, and I've managed to get them into a text file and convert them into a spreadsheetable form so I could draw a graph. The Y axis is seconds after noon GMT when sunset takes place. The leftmost datapoint is for 13th December 2022 when the sun set at 3:50pm and 19 seconds. The rightmost datapoint is for 25th June 2023 when the sun sets at 8:34pm and 9 seconds. Those are of course the earliest and latest sunsets, respectively.

All times in GMT.

[Fishy]

Getting the Xmas decorations down.. served their purpose now begone 😀

[The Picnic Wasp]

My alcohol induced atrial fibrillation has ceased after only three hours. I just love the tranquility of sinus rhythm. Never take that steady pulse for granted people.

[David L]

Central heating finally fixed today - faulty 3-port valve replaced. Just the complaint to do now to put an end to the saga.

[Slim]

This made me smile:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64160726

The teenage stars of the 1968 film Romeo and Juliet are suing Paramount Pictures for sexual abuse.

Because: "Whiting and Hussey have suffered emotional damage and mental anguish for decades as a result of the way they were treated".

And yet:

In a 2018 interview with trade publication Variety, Hussey defended the nude scene.

"Nobody my age had done that before," she said, adding that Zeffirelli shot it tastefully. "It was needed for the film."

In a separate interview with Fox News, also conducted in 2018, she said the scene was "taboo" in the US, but that nudity was common in European films at the time.

"It wasn't that big of a deal," she said. "And Leonard wasn't shy at all! In the middle of shooting, I just completely forgot I didn't have clothes on."