web analytics

It looks a wreck, to be honest

Behold, Poohsticks Bridge. Or a replica. It’s really hard to tell from the article which is the original and which is the later reproduction built on the same spot for tourists with the help of Disney. And I get the impression both of them have had continual repairs.

This is the bridge where A.A. Milne played Poohsticks with his son, which inspired the first Pooh book. The game of Poohsticks is where you drop something (or two somethings) in the water and observe them coming out the other side. I guess. I was never a fan.

Anyway! The original bridge (I think) is up for auction, guide price £40,000 – £60,000. “Being offered in situ in East Sussex. Viewing strictly by appointment”

So, you also get the land? Or you get a disassembled bridge and you have reassemble it somewhere else? Or you’re bidding on the privilege of owning the touristy one? It’s all very confusing.

Whatever. I found the rest of the auction catalogue more interesting.

September 30, 2021 — 6:06 pm
Comments: 4

Finnish origami artist Juho Könkkölä folded this sucker out of a single sheet of paper in 41 hours. The link to the time-lapse video mentioned in the article goes to Instagram. Don’t go to Instagram. It is a silly place.

I found the same video on YouTube (which is also a silly place, but at least it doesn’t make me log in to view files).

And being the impatient person that I am, I didn’t have the attention span to watch 41 hours compressed to 19 minutes, so I asked it to play back double speed.

At that speed, it looks more like he’s molding clay. Which may be a clue to what’s going on in his head – a process by which he leaves a certain amount of material for each feature he means to fold.

He spends a long time planning his stuff, a process he goes into a bit in this article. I can juuuuust about wrap my head around…no. No, I can’t.

September 29, 2021 — 6:41 pm
Comments: 4

We has a petrol crisis

We’re having a gas crisis. Did you know? I assumed you did, but then I didn’t realize you had a gas crisis four months ago until I was trawling the internet looking for pictures earlier.

Here’s an explainer: it’s fake. It’s fakity-fake-fake. It’s hooey, bullshit and rubbish. Rather, shortages are real enough, but it’s panic buying brought on entirely by newspaper headlines. Somebody did this a-purpose, but why?

Greenies hoping to stop car travel? (They succeeded…everyone’s afraid to go anywhere). Remainers hoping to discredit Brexit?

I also didn’t know until a little while ago that people in the States were banging pots and pans to honor nurses during the pandemic. I thought that was something dreamed up by a dweeb on Facebunk to worship the NHS.

You have to wonder how much brainstorming goes on in the Illuminati PR Division.

Never mind. Let’s have some Fun with Math.

The sign says 133.9p per liter.
There are 3.7854 liters in a US gallon.
As of just now £1 = $1.35.
I make that $6.84267831 a gallon. Honestly? I thought it was more than that. The pound must have fallen against the dollar.

September 28, 2021 — 6:14 pm
Comments: 12

I has a stick

I bought a very crooked walking stick at a church fete this Summer. It is a chicken herding stick. It is for herding chickens who are not safe in the presence of my hands.

Albert. I’m talking about Albert.

I gently guide him around with the thick end when I need him to go somewhere. Albert has come to hate the chicken stick with intensity and goes out of his way to kick and peck at it.

Maybe that’s because I push him around with it. But looking at it this evening in the umbrella stand, I believe it’s because it looks like a snake.

Gosh, my camera phone is getting crappier, isn’t it?

September 27, 2021 — 6:31 pm
Comments: 9

Well, okay then

Video clip.

We’re all in the 6+ hour band, yes? I wonder if we have an early warning system in effect.

They didn’t have for the 2004 “Boxing Day” Tsunami in Indonesia. There was a lag of several hours between the earthquake and the wave but, as people pointed out at the time, who’s going to pick up the phone and who are they going to call.

“Hello, Indonesia? This is scientists.”

Oh, look. The UK government is instituting a mobile-phone-based emergency alert system…erm, now.

Have a good weekend, everyone. Stay dry…?

September 24, 2021 — 6:10 pm
Comments: 18

Batten down the hatches

After a dreary Summer, comes a miserable Winter. They’ve been bigging up shortages, and now shortages are coming to pass.

Partly self-fulfilling. BP announced gas rationing for their filling stations today and this afternoon our local (non BP) station had a brutal queue.

Meat, particularly beef, is getting scarce. I had a hankering for a slow-cooked beef joint and we couldn’t find a brisket for less than £8. (Still not eating the bugs, tho).

Tuesday we went into a supermarket – in person! – for the first time in…oh, fifteen months. It was fully stocked, but the online shopping has shown up some missing products. If they keep talking about it, people will naturally start to hoard toilet paper again.

Natural gas prices have exploded. Electricity also, and little suppliers are going bust. We’re preparing for blackouts.

That’s the second fire of the season. We’ve opted to go with all wood this year (instead of switching to solid fuel for the coldest months) because it’s much, much easier. Also we once had a delivery guy drop a literal ton of coal at the end of our drive, blocking it. We’re getting a little old and crunky for that kind of manual labor.

If it’s a cold one, I’m disappearing under the electric blanket for the season.

September 23, 2021 — 7:23 pm
Comments: 14

We’re all going to dieeeeeeeeprobably not

Twenty years ago, some dude wrote a paper about the volcano on La Palma in the Canaries. He thought the West face of the Cumbre Vieja volcano was unstable and, given another eruption, might shear off and fall into the sea.

You know, Cumbre Vieja. The one that’s erupting right now.

If the West face fell into the sea, he estimated it would generate a tsunami that would cross the Atlantic and reach the Eastern Seaboard seventy-five feet high.

Where the silly numbers in the illustration come from, I do not know. I found it here, but there’s no credit.

Only 23 feet for us, though it really doesn’t matter. We’re on the shores of the English Channel and slightly below sea level. A 23-foot wave hitting us might as well be 300 feet. We’d be goners.

There is precedent. They think Doggerland was sunk by a piece of Norway that slid into the sea 8,000 years ago.

Cheers!

September 22, 2021 — 7:11 pm
Comments: 20

Happy Equinox!

There is not really an equal amount of day and night, though. Because twilight. (The picture represents how wide a band twilight really is).

Kind of an interesting article. Apparently, there are two types of twilight. Civil twilight is when the sun is 6 degrees or less below the horizon and you can carry on doing normal daylight things. Nautical twilight is when the sea becomes difficult to make out, usually when the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon. At 18 degrees below the horizon, it am dark.

Also, it isn’t really dark six months of the year at the poles. Because twilight.

Oh, and people? Summer’s gone. Bend over!

September 21, 2021 — 8:13 pm
Comments: 17

Hmmm…

I was sitting at my desk today and I heard a clip-clop, clip-clop. Ran to the window, and I saw this ^^^

Not literally that. I whipped my cellphone out, but it didn’t wake up fast enough and the hearse clopped up the hill out of sight. I stole this picture from this funeral website.

I tried to find a picture from the actual funeral home, but I couldn’t because – are you ready for this? – there wasn’t a funeral scheduled in my town today.

Must be a private service. I’ll have to ask someone from church. I can’t possibly have seen a phantom hearse. I’m as psychic as a potato.

September 20, 2021 — 6:24 pm
Comments: 6

Huh.

This is Kane. The internet tells me he is “the most successful masked wrestler of all time.”

He’s also Glenn Jacobs, Mayor of Knox County, Tennessee.

Why does a county have a mayor? I don’t remember counties having mayors when I was in Tennessee. Cities have mayors, counties are just…counties. I may never know. Knoxcounty.org appears to be down. Or maybe it doesn’t like my foreign IP.

Also, he’s just told Biden to pound sand on a vaccine mandate.

I am not ashamed of any of this. I find it delightful. Woohoo Tennessee!

Good weekend, everyone.

September 17, 2021 — 6:54 pm
Comments: 15