What Do You Think Today?

[Avatar]

Build a little wire frame / cage that fits over the joins and mesh that?

(I got hit in the eye once with a perspex salt cellar hurled by my brother...the eye was so purple people accused me of colouring it in. )

--A

[peter]

Damn - post a picture of that black eye Kizza. We deserve to see this!

(Only kidding; apparently posting pics on here is really hard unless you're a grade l computer graduate! )

Got a chewing up at work yesterday (well - obliquely) because the shop was not up to speed (presentationaly) one morning after I'd been working the night before. Suffice to say that I gave as good as I got (respectfully) and laid down a few home-truths about the business. Not by and large what managers want to hear so I'm guessing my days will be numbered. Cest la vie; the world is changing around us and I'm not sure that there's much future in retail in the way we do it. In the immortal words of Ron Moody's Fagin "I'm reviewing the situation!)

Placed a new product onto the shop shelves this week - just what the consumer needs to improve his/her life........ alcoholic water. Available in the sparkling or still variety it's bound to fill that difficult gap between "shall I have a healthy day today" and"today I feel like getting pickled". (Lightbulb goes on in head) "I know - I'll drink some alcoholic water!"

Fuck - I need to be out of this!

[Avatar]

No it's not.

Go here: https://imgbb.com/

Drag and drop an image onto the page (or click "browse" and browse to it).

Click "Upload."

Wait a mo...

Copy the cod it gives you and paste code in here.

--A

[peter]

Okay; I can open the link - from that point on I'm stymied. I understand the principal behind drag and drop...... but I wouldn't begin to know how to go about getting to the pictures stored on my android from the page you linked me to! There is no button on this page saying ,"your pictures can be found here". The page means nothing to me.

Sorry Av; I'm just not good at this!

[Avatar]

Do you see a button that says "start uploading"?

If yes, click on it, and it should open a dialogue where you can navigate to where the picture you want to upload is stored on your device. (The folder or whatever.)

--A

[sgt.null]

Peter - why buy alcoholic water when
I can just buy alcohol?

I was sound asleep so I missed my unit
Calling me and asking about a radio. Of course
I left the unit 5 1/2 hours before that. I am
Guessing they found it. No secondary phone call.

During the covid shutdown my local comic book
Store has been doing an online auction. I've been
Doing well. Getting various assorted DC miniseries
For $5-$20 each. Last week I simply asked about
A Marvel Comics Omnibus [Squadron Supreme]
It was $70, marked down from $120. Miscommunication
Later? I now own the book. Oops.

[Kizza]

I looked in the mirror before I left the house this morning in attempt to remember the importance of vanity. I have shaved by brail in the shower for years and years. Black eye is still there. I doubt I am posting it, but it has black, blue, purple, red and yellow qualities. Its full across my top eyelid. Bloody dawg.

Alcoholic water eh? Well what'll they think of next? 5% alcohol water.... Sounds like moonshine next to a river with clever labelling to attract the egg white high protein dieting, muscle shop generation maybe?

Hey Sarge, I never heard of the Squadron Supreme before. Sounds like Power Princess was the origin which morphed into Wonder Woman, is that right?

[peter]

Jesus - I don't even know where to start with this!

Chaos.

That seems to be the only word to describe what is happening in the UK as the lockdown is released and people finally emerge blinking into the sunlight (literally) of the hottest days of the year to date. The pent-up frustration of weeks of isolation and curtailment of 'normal' activity has boiled over into multiple occurrences of disorder and ignoring of the pleas of those in charge to adhere to sensible precautions of social distancing; we have groups of heavy drinking celebrants battling it out with police on the Barbican in Plymouth and in Exmouth; people urinating in the streets and gutters in the absence of public toilets - yesterday a 'major incident' was declared on the South Coast when huge numbers of people descended on the beaches of Bournemouth, Poole and other Dorset resorts, completely ignoring any form of distancing or other measures designed to prevent a 'second spike' in the battle against Covid. Reports of incidents of confrontation between the police and public abound, on one occasion resulting in officers being assaulted while they tried to administer first aid to an injured person lying on the ground.

It was of course entirely predictable. Anyone who has spent the lockdown period on the 'frontline', serving in the convenience and corner stores, the 7-11's and off-licences up and down the length and breadth of the country (allowed to remain open to serve the needs of people making their 'limited and essential purchases') can tell you how the people have spent their period of enforced containment. By, in large part, engaging in an extended 'drunk' of twelve weeks duration. This is how the lockdown has been managed, how it has been tolerated, in huge numbers of households - and now the lid has been lifted the results are pouring out onto the sunshine of our beaches and parks so that the party may continue. The idea that any kind of social responsibility worthy of the name, any kind of decent altruistic thinking persists in huge numbers of our population is bullshit. The dumbed down, social media driven society we have made for ourselves, or has been instituted upon us depending on your viewpoint, is so shallow, so rotten at its core that nothing of the type of rectitude, of moral uprightness, of backbone, that would be required to see us through this kind of societal upheaval exists anymore. Gone are the days of the post-war 'British Spirit' (if they ever truly existed) that in the past pulled us through such crises in the past. Now it's booze, Netflix and Facebook, until that gets boring enough such that a bit of relaxation in the rules and a spell of hot weather gives the opportunity to get out and run riot on a wider stage.

And our lying, dissembling excuse for a Government will be entirely happy with this because it provides them with the perfect get out of jail card, the '9-11 distraction' they need from the truly abysmal performance they have managed to date, and the ability to point the finger and say "this is your fault, this is all your doing" when the inevitable rise in Covid cases arrives in due course. The justification will be in their hands for Johnson and Cummings, Raab and their like, to do as they please with our freedoms, our lives, our society - to mould it as they will into whatever distorted vision they have of 'the way things should be'.

When a society becomes sick it becomes no longer the case that adhering to its norms is the benchmark against which an individuals mental health can be judged; to live by such norms in this case becomes an act of bringing that sickness into oneself. In such cases the diseased society exhibits a rise in aberent behaviour, in depression and anxiety: it takes refuge in drink and drugs and shallow means of distraction such as consumerism and flip-flopping from this fad to the next. It becomes wide and shallow and ill at its core. And this is reflected in exactly what we have seen in the past few days - in people so unable to constrain their own behaviour that they would put at risk all of the sacrifice that has been made in their name in order to commit such unbridled exhibitions of vacuous selfishness and antisocial disorder.

We live in a society in the UK that has been built in the post war years upon sand; I've engaged with it, I take my share of the blame. We have in recent times bought as a nation the lies that our political leaders have told us; and the greater the lies, the more we have elevated them until we finish up with where we are today with exactly the Government we deserve, presiding over a nation steeped in chaos, sickness and despair. James O'Brien recently quoted a line from the BBC drama Chernobyl that I think stands reiteration here.

We are on dangerous ground right now because of our secrets and our lies. They are practically what defines us. When the truth offends us we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there. But it is still there. Every lie we tell incrres a debt to the truth and sooner or later that debt is paid.

Today, look out of your windows, open your newspapers, turn on your televisions and what you will see is the Piper calling to collect on that debt.

[sgt.null]

Kizza - the Squadron Supreme came a out later
As a tribute to the JLA. In 1971 in fact, in the pages
Of the Avengers. Starting out as bad guys. The
Squadron Sinister.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squadron_Supreme

[peter]

In the UK, and to follow the great English tradition of talking about the weather on 'first contact' every day, we seem to have undergone a period of three seasons compressed as it were, into a period of about five months. Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me, but I seem to recall that there has been a nice distinct passage from winter into a green spring and then following this, a really hot spell of full-on summer weather in May and June. Suddenly in the last few days however, we seemed to be plunged into an early autumn, with temperatures falling and the gusty winds associated with that season. I am minded to wonder if this pattern will continue into an early onset winter - or even dare I think it, a complete double cycle of two whole sets of seasons occuring over the course of only one year!



And to continue on matters geophysical (is the weather a branch of geophysics?) I was interested to read the other day that the United Nations uses effectively the Postel Azithumal Equidistant on it's flag, named after the French astronomer and cartographer who first used it in 1581. This representation of the Earth (if you need reminding) shows the landmass of the globe as if viewed from a position above the north pole, with the more southerly countries stretched out and bent round to accommodate them on the more peripheral parts of the disk. I was rather pleased to find, on doing a bit of searching to see if prints of the same were available, that it is the configuration of the Earth as envisaged by that bastion of logical thought and common sense, The Flat Earth Society. More power to their elbow I say!

(And upon which note I invite you to repair to the Loresraat for a more technical question arising from this, should you feel so inclined. )

[Kizza]

Peter, I read one of Avs comment on the weather without the pollution during these lockdowns, and that the earth is "heating up". I thought that was interesting. Ask Av to look it up for you.

Gotta admit tho, the winters 'round our way seem to be getting colder each year. But then I reckon I am not getting any younger and so that may have something to do with how I feel.... I was thinking in spite of how cold it is, it is better than a bushfire.

Bloody Covid on the rise in Victoria. Individual suburbs on lockdown there, and the cascade of rules to try and reel the outbreaks back in.
The root of the new spikes in Melbourne, Victoria is not clear cut. However i am sure that not observing social distancing during marches and protests has not helped.
I think it is fair to call it a second wave.

[peter]

We too, have our first localised lockdown instituted in Leicester where a second spike of infections has been experienced. It is highly unlikely that it will be long before other areas join them and one wonders if it won't become sufficiently generalized to necessitate a nationwide return to full lockdown restrictions. It is hard to see how any kind of economic recovery can be kick-started under such circumstances should they occur. No business can thrive in the stop/start environment of the type one can envisage and no doubt our Governments will be at pains to avoid this. One of the first steps (in my humble opinion) would be to isolate all Covid patients into the Nightingale Hospitals specially designed for the purpose. It seems nothing short of madness to me that infectious individuals should be mixed in our hospitals with patients of the non-Covid variety. This, a workable testing, track and trace system and isolation of the vulnerable groups within society would go a long way toward making the disastrous option of a return to full lockdown unnecessary.

[Avatar]

It was just that the drastically reduced air pollution meant less heat was being reflected back into space.

Air pollution levels are almost back to normal in many places though, and in some places, have even exceeded "normal" levels as industry tries to catch up.

--A

[Kizza]

Thanks Av, I was being a smart-arse. But I did think it was interesting in terms of what happened when the pollution backed off. Now I am sure you will dig up a quote to use against me.... It has been one of those kinds of weeks.
Sometimes when asked what i do for a living I am urged to tell people I am a professional astrologer. That can be some fun.

Rained all night and the gutters flowed!

Have a good day everyone.

[Avatar]

I genuinely didn't pick up on it. I tend to be a bit literal, I suspect it's the aphantasia.

Wish we had rain here, but winter is our dry season, so it's just dry and brown and dark early.

Warmed up a little though, highs in the low 20's / high teens for the week, although the lows are below 5C.

--A

[Kizza]

I look forward to friday nights. But it is a bit cold, so I don't think that there will be any hi-jinking up mucking going on in my neck of the woods.
Not at least until after the sun goes down.

Have a good weekend all!

[Skyweir]

Peter, I read one of Avs comment on the weather without the pollution during these lockdowns, and that the earth is "heating up". I thought that was interesting. Ask Av to look it up for you.

Gotta admit tho, the winters 'round our way seem to be getting colder each year. But then I reckon I am not getting any younger and so that may have something to do with how I feel.... I was thinking in spite of how cold it is, it is better than a bushfire.

Bloody Covid on the rise in Victoria. Individual suburbs on lockdown there, and the cascade of rules to try and reel the outbreaks back in.
The root of the new spikes in Melbourne, Victoria is not clear cut. However i am sure that not observing social distancing during marches and protests has not helped.
I think it is fair to call it a second wave.

Yup ... they may have opened up too soon.

[peter]

The pubs and bars in the UK are due to open today with the social distancing rules in place that state all patrons must be seated at significantly distanced tables with only table service and no gathering at the bar. This reduces the possible number of customers that can be entertained in each establishment to .....mmmm........ say around a quater of it's normal levels. Simultaneously to the above openings, travel restrictions are being released to allow tourism to restart within the UK itself.

In my neck of the woods, the South-West of the country and heavily dependent on tourism, there is much consternation among the local populace that an influx of tourists this weekend (one hundred thousand are predicted) will import the virus into the area, bringing about a surge of cases that we have to date been spared. Tempers are already running high in the area - there have been instances of social disturbance in a number of places with heavy drinking groups of people battling the police trying to disperse them - and I can envisage a situation in towns like Newquay tonight, where thousands of previously locked down locals head for the first night in the pubs and run straight into thousands of tourists hitting the town on their first night of holiday - and all find themselves, halfway through the night, with a few beers already under their belt, in a situation where all of the establishments are full with dug-in sitting customers and they can't get a drink for love nor money. The result, for anyone who does not know what a normal Saturday night in the summer season can be like, is likely to be carnage. The miserable number of police that will be expected to save the day when the angry punters start looking for something to vent their fury on must be bricking it! Poor bastards.

[peter]

Meanwhile the UK Government have at last come up with its list of the fifty two countries (plus or minus) that Brits can travel to and return from without having to quarantine for two weeks on returning to. Problem is that many of the countries on the list won't let UK residents in without quarantining for two weeks - and it's really difficult to find out which ones on our list that they are! Add to this that while most travel insurance will cover you if you fall sick with the virus while you are actually on holiday, they won't cover you for cancellation due to covid prior to your leaving, either if you get it yourself or if your holiday is stopped due to a generalized Covid lockdown being reinstated. So unless you're going on a cheap throw away holiday that you can loose without a second thought you can't fucking go anyway. Great!

[I'm Murrin]

People from England shouldn't be going on holiday abroad right now anyway. We still have the highest infection rate in Europe, it's been a hard few months but whatever the government says it's far from over.