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Har har

Actual headline: “Council fills in potholes after residents paint penises around them

They initially tried to scrub out the penii, but that just made the potholes worse, naturally. Oh the huffy tone of the local council. See, this put pressure on pothole repair crews, who were expected to fill different potholes that day.

This was in Uckfield, Sussex earlier this week. It’s near Piltdown. Yes, that Piltdown.

May 17, 2023 — 7:11 pm
Comments: 10

Woopsie doodle!

So you know that biofeedback dingus I bought? I bought two of them. Here’s how that happened.

I asked Ebay to show me Buy It Now listings, because it was my birthday and I wanted my toy now, now, now. The first listing to come up was £30 cheaper than anyone else. Cool I thought and entered that amount.

Turns out, it wasn’t a Buy It Now, it was an auction – with, like, seven days left on it. I ain’t waiting that long! No problem, thinks I, that’s so cheap, someone will surely outbid me in the last few minutes.

You see where this is going.

So I bought a Buy It Now and then I won the flipping auction a week later. The picture is from the listing; it’s totally that other lady’s lacy bedspread.

It’s new in box with the shrinkwrap and everything, so I’m just going to re-list it. I’ve never sold anything on Ebay, though – have you? Any tips and tricks?

May 16, 2023 — 7:22 pm
Comments: 6

What it is living in a 500 year old house, part #563

Ivy. Growing through a tiny hole in the wood of the windowsill.

I went outside and stripped the brick of all the parent ivy, but this little shoot still thrives. You know what that means, yeah? It’s living off stuff in the house.

The walls are about a foot thick and apparently solid…cement? So godnose. Some Georgian peasant probably walled up grandma.

Eh. I exaggerate. The house was built somewhere between 1505, when the first house in the neighborhood was built, and 1610, when we have a delinquent tax bill for the property. So somewhere between 413 and 518 years old. It’s a real fixer upper.

No, we don’t owe 413 years worth of interest and penalties. They forgive it after seven years.

May 15, 2023 — 6:54 pm
Comments: 6

Serenity now!

This is what I bought myself for my birthday. It’s a biofeedback dingus meditation aid. It fits across your forehead reads your brainwaves, heart rate, respiration and stillness.

Yes, somehow it knows when you fidget. I don’t know how it measures that, but I tested it and it does indeed chime at me when I twiddle my fingers.

It does seem to be accurately measuring brain activity, too. Depending on the ‘soundscape’ you choose, it plays – for example – high winds when your brain is active and gentle breezes and bird song when it’s calm. I tried counting backwards from 100 by sevens and nearly caused a tsunami.

There’s a newer model than this one, but it’s fabric and suitable to be worn overnight while you sleep. I didn’t need that and thus was able to get a new old tech version on Ebay for (relatively) cheap.

I need it today. My day started at 5 when the cat bit me and went downhill from there. Good weekend, all!

May 12, 2023 — 7:03 pm
Comments: 4

Romance is not dead

I got an angle grinder for my birthday. In fairness, I asked for it. There are some frozen bolts around the place driving me knuts.

I knew they were for cutting through bits of metal. I didn’t realize you could use them for other stuff, like polishing and deburring. I mean, not that I do all that much deburring.

Before I hit up YouTube – it’s always YouTube these days – any of y’all know any fun angle grinder tricks?

May 11, 2023 — 7:00 pm
Comments: 14

Nouveau as all get out

Check this out. It’s Mr and Mrs Kipling’s invitation to George V’s coronation in 1911. It’s a cracking thing. From the May monthly newsletter of The Keep, which is the East Sussex record archive.

I wanted to link to a bigger version for you, but I haven’t yet found it in their Kipling papers. I haven’t looked very hard.

The Keep is in a place called Falmer (if you play Skyrim you’ll know why that tickles me) near Brighton.

it’s kind of miserable to visit in person. You have to get a reader’s ticket in advance and you have to know exactly what you want to see – no browsing the collection. Staff can be rude.

But it’s fun to browse online. At least, it is if you live in Sussex. They have quite a lot of their papers digitized and searchable. Periodically, I do a search of the name of our house + the name of our parish to see what turns up. There was a man of that name in this (very small) parish in the 1820s, so that’s probably our guy.

Nothing new has turned up for a while, though. I have a feeling the gub’ment scanning money has dried up.

May 10, 2023 — 7:52 pm
Comments: 6

Too soon?

Embiggenend

Charles has already said he isn’t going to have a hands-off approach to current events like his mother did. He intends to be an activist king, and Net Zero is his passion.

This is very bad news for the monarchy, though he clearly doesn’t know it yet. It’s on shaky ground with a lot of people as it is.

Can you imagine a whole country huddling in the dark in the cold eating bugs while a man in a jeweled hat sitting on a gold chair in a marble palace harangues them for their selfishness?

May 9, 2023 — 6:01 pm
Comments: 9

Ominous

In case you missed it, the Grim Reaper walked past the doorway during the coronation Saturday. I haven’t read an official explanation, but it’s surely a non-ghostly member of the cathedral staff who put his hood up at an inopportune moment.

Yes, I watched. I wasn’t going to, but my cousin from Alabama called to tell me she got up at 4am to watch (who knew I had a monarchist in the family?) and that shamed me into it.

I was astonished at how much Jesus there was in the ceremony. So many prayers. If I had to guess, I’d say most of the sermonizing was from the Reformation – all that emphasis on upholding Protestantism.

Penny Mordaunt held that sword straight up for two freaking hours and looked good doing it. Mad respect. It’s a shame she’s a WEF stooge.

Anyway, it was a heck of a spectacle and I’m glad I watched. Brits do spectacle. I had hoped to find pictures of the Barons of the Cinque Ports at the do, just to round the week out, but nobody’s published any yet.

Tomorrow – back to work!

May 8, 2023 — 7:01 pm
Comments: 7

The barons are back, baby!

Annnnd it’s Friday. Lord help you people if someone died because I ain’t doing a Dead Pool until I’m back.

Zo! If they don’t sit at the monarch’s right hand at dinner and they don’t carry a canopy, is there any point inviting the Barons of the Cinque Ports to the coronation? Victoria didn’t think so, so she didn’t.

The Barons yelped like scalded hounds. When the old gal popped her clogs at last, the Mayor of Rye brought their grievance to the Court of Claims. Which is, believe it or not, a special court that decides who gets to do what at a coronation.

The court ruled somewhat in their favor – they had a right to attend but they don’t get to do anything. So, yes, the Barons of the Cinque Ports will be there tomorrow. The barons will all be the mayors, looks like. They’re pretty ordinary men and women nowadays – we’ve chatted with some of them at village fêtes – but they do have spiffy costumes for special occasions.

I doubt we’ll watch the coronation live, but we’ll probably watch the recap. Modern Brits are awfully good at pulling off this pageantry stuff (I say modern Brits – if you followed any of the links to coronations past, there were plenty of screwups).

p.s. Astonished to see someone has published a series of bodice-rippers feature the Barons of the Cinque Ports.

May 5, 2023 — 3:00 pm
Comments: 5

Silver gilt bells and a horse’s ass

The canopy that the Barons of the Cinque Ports held over the monarch was cloth of gold with little silver gilt bells, held aloft on spears or staves. At Henry VIII’s coronation, the canopy was reportedly held over him while he rode a horse, so it had to be pretty tall.

The Barons took the canopy home as a payment, sometimes taking it in turns and sometimes selling it and splitting the money. Bits of various canopies and Baron costumes survive in local museums.

The silver gilt cup above is in the V&A and was made of recycled canopy bells used during the coronation of James II in 1685. Two Barons (from the same family) pooled their share to make it.

At the coronation of Charles II in 1661, the Barons were attacked by the king’s footmen as soon as they were done escorting the king. The footmen dragged the Barons down the hall and almost into the street, hoping to pinch the canopy. The Barons prevailed, but while they were fighting, others snuck in and took their seats at the dinner table and ‘the poor barons’, per Samuel Pepys, ‘naturally unwilling to lose their dinner, were necessitated to eat it at the bottom of the second table below the Masters in Chancery and others of the long robe!’

At the coronation of George III, William Talbot the Lord Steward (responsible for organizing the business) didn’t set aside tables for the Barons. An argument ensued that only ended when Talbot (a pugnacious man) threatened them with a duel.

Incidentally, Talbot presided over the banquet on horseback. He went to a lot of trouble to teach his horse to walk backwards away from the thrones. Which went splendidly, but the horse kept walking back into the hall backwards, presenting his ass to the king. The crowd hooted.

George IV was the last monarch to walk to the banquet under the Cinque Ports canopy. He decided to walk in front of the canopy for some reason, the barons struggled to overtake him, and the whole procession hobbled down the road at an undignified jog-trot. I have read elsewhere that alcohol may have been involved.

May 4, 2023 — 3:00 pm
Comments: 4