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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 1st, 2023

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    • In meetings at work, for my actions or actions that I need to follow up on etc. If I am prepared, I will add them to an existing document that we are working from in the meeting or will create a specific actions email as we go. If I am not prepared, it will be notes jotted in a physical notebook. In either case, I will then copy any actions for me to MS TO Do - which is one of the very few relevant apps that we have available on both the locked down phones and laptops. Just occasionally, it is more appropriate to make notes directly in the TO Do app.

    • Generally for non-work stuff, I will use Google tasks - since it available on all platforms and integrates with the calendar etc. I would love to find a good alternative to google and have tried a few over the years, but have never found anything that I can get to at work and on all platforms at home and will integrate with a calendar that is also available on all platforms - including those that my SO uses - as well as this.

    The majority of notes that I make these days are either things that I have to do or are updates on the status of particular projects or systems though.



  • Bbc Radio 4 have any number of dramas in their back catalogue. One that I particularly enjoyed is Alan Plater’s Only a Matter of Time - available on the Internet archive, I find.

    Then Orson Welles original War of the Worlds by the Mercury Theatre on the Air in 1938 is well worth a listen. That is available in several places around the Web.

    Then, of course, there is Big Finish, who started off doing Doctor Who audios and have produced hundreds over the years - far more hours than there are of T V Doctor Who, classic and new - but they also produce a lot of other dramas, based on other properties and some completely original.

    Overall their earlier ones are where the standout tales are, but they are fairly reliably entertaining throughout.


  • Last was in May this year and the next - probably just camping - will be in September.

    I am very fortunate in having a friend with a holiday chalet. A group of us go down to open in up and stay for a week or two most years. The only cost is the fuel to get there.

    My SO and I usually aim to get another week away - maybe camping, maybe a holiday cottage - later in the year too.

    We are in the UK and always go to other location in the UK for holidays. Neither of us have flown since the '90s and have no intention of doing so again.




  • Archive.is link..

    Personally, I always used to carry a paperback with me and would read in the odd moments that this writer seems to recall as being so dull and soul destroying. I still do carry e-books on my phone of course and use them in exactly the same way - but also with the option of doomscrolling, of course.

    As for TV, I was never one for TV - or radio - as background noise. With fiends, I had a bit of reputation of going round and turning such things off when I entered the room, so that we could talk without distraction. I would ask them first, of course.


  • We moved from a small town most recently, and prior to that we lived (and I worked) on an island nature reserve for several years. I haven’t lived in anything like a large urban area for the last 18 years or so. Even coming back to the mainland and living in a small town was quite a shock!

    However, in many ways this is more rural and quieter than the nature reserve - since there are no visitors. Both my SO and I are loving it. We are planning to create a no-dig veg plot in the garden and get a bit more structure to it - since it is largely just lawn at the moment - but we are here for keeps now (we hope) and we will be taking our time.


  • I didn’t get a lot further than the garden this weekend but, having moved to a rural spot (East Anglia, UK) only a couple of months back, we are still finding new things in and around the garden.

    One of the most notable is that a Kestrel has recently fledged in the woodland at the end of the garden - so it and parent are quite prominent and vocal on the several suitable perches around and about. We have set up the bins on a tripod in the front window and are getting some great views.

    We also have a red kite passing overhead quite frequently.

    Otherwise, brown hare loping through the garden, plenty of grey squirrel and occasional muntjac, green and occasional great spotted woodpeckers. Most smaller birds are steering clear at the moment due to the predators though. Then a southern hawker made a few passes on Sunday, and a several meadow browns and a red admiral were flitting about. We have burdock growing along the edges in a few places and just noticed a cluster of lords and ladies at the bottom.

    We also noticed a branch had fallen from one of the adjoining ash trees and was hung up on the power line. A call to UKPN brought them out to deal with it surprisingly quickly. Looking at the canopy, I fear that it is succumbing to ash dieback. I expect that we will have more falling branches and that it will need to be felled this winter or next.



  • For this kind of thing I (eventually) use a basic Pomodoro method: Set a timer for 20 mins and make a start on one of the jobs. You can do pretty much anything for just 20mins - and with some of these kind of things that have been hanging around for a while it could just be a question of working out exactly what you do need to do and getting stuff ready to do it next time etc.

    Either way, work at it for 20mins. Then your timer will go off and you can stop and reward yourself - if you want to. Chances are, that by the 20mins mark you may well be stuck in and might just want to push on and get it done - then get your reward.

    Strict Pomodoro is to work for 20mins then break for 5 and repeat, but that depends on the situation.






  • Yes, I thoroughly enjoy short stories, for all the reasons that you give.

    I grew up on the classic fantasy tales: Conan, Fafhred and the Grey Mouser, the Dying Earth tales, and all of Dunsany, Clarke Ashton Smith etc etc as well as Lovecraft, Poe and M R James and the rest.

    As well as focusing on a single mood or concept, as you suggest, short stories - particularly the more literary ones - are great as single character studies, or dealing with particular interactions in a way that isolates and brings them to the forefront simply by being given a beginning and end.






  • Another BF listener here - I really liked Walker and McGann on screen in Annika too.

    Otherwise, my SO and I have the Ted Lasso finale lined up. The third season (yes, I know, but I agree with the Americans that there is a distinction between series and season) has been a necessary conclusion to the material in the previous two, but not without some fun moments.

    And - in terms of other UK TV - we are just on to season two of Jam and Jerusalem which I totally missed at the time but am enjoying now.

    Otherwise, in non-UK shows, Drops of God and Shrinking are the clear highlights in our lineup at the moment.


  • A week.

    I was in my teens and had no commitments at the time and just spontaneously decided not to eat or sleep for a few days - which I later decided would be a week. At the time, I had no idea of the world record for this or I probably would have tried for that - although, obviously, I was not supervised or anything.

    The afternoons from the second day onwards were the worst - when I felt pretty lousy - but otherwise I was running on serotonin and was pretty much on a natural high for most the duration.

    At the end, I cycled 12 miles during which one of my feet cramped and left me jabbing at the pedal as it went past, but I did it ok.

    I slept extremely well when I finally did, but I took some while to get back into the whole eating thing again.

    There is no way in hell that I could do anything like that now.