Broithe

There were, indeed, as nice as they usually are. Even the crows won't eat them.

These were the white-toothed ones, first seen in Wexford twenty years ago - probably not reached you yet. And 'my' cat is doing her best to slow down the advancement of the front.

'Mine' left me two shrews for my breakfast a few weeks ago. I was going to admonish her over this, as I would generally see shrews as not a great problem. They're not given to invading houses or causing 'us' much trouble. However, I was fortunate enough to look into the matter before I embarrassed myself and found that these shrews are of an invasive species, first seen in Ireland in 2005 and have been causing the native pygmy shrews some issues. So, I managed to avoid making myself look even more of an idiot in the cat's eyes... Next-door have gone away for ten days and I just came back from Lidl to find her sitting on the doorstep with a bag of food...

You must be completely tessellated.

Anybody living on the Big Island 30 years ago will be aware of the term 'Portillo moment'. It refers to the time when he, as a cabinet minister, managed to lose a seat which had been Tory since 1950 and, with it, his expectation of being Tory leader after Major. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portillo_moment

Possible overheating issues, I think.

'Mine' has intermittent power failure issues.

You'll struggle to re-gauge it for that track.

There are hooks on the ones that Lidl should have shortly - it will be interesting to see if they are the same height... https://www.lidl.ie/p/folding-saw-horse/p10029198 They don't seen to have the handy notches, though.

As I've mentioned before, I 'moderate' another forum and it can be surprising how heated things can get. It hasn't happened for a while now, but we've had the cops call round at least four times over various threats, including a potential firebombing of a café, after the owner criticised some local healthcare activities... I once had to stop two blokes organising a fight in a pub car park because one had made a joke about the fact that the other one had left the apostrophe out of the word "I'll" at the beginning of a sentence, making it look like "Ill" - the jokey way that he did this meant the the perpetrator of the missing apostrophe felt that he was saying that he made him sick... We have people who find sport in causing issues - one chap is adept at posting ambiguous comments, then claiming that he meant the less obvious version, when challenged. People sign up to start arguments, then sign up again to agree with themselves. We have people immersed in conspiracy theories who consider that anybody who doesn't fully agree with their fantasies is being intentionally disrespectful. Nobody ever censored that Hitler bloke on an internet forum, and look what he got up to...

I was unaware of the worldwide transport chaos when I attempted to set off to the hardware shop on my bike. However, it functioned correctly, without any apparent software issues. On the way there and back, I had to pass through a temporary single-file traffic management zone, where the new houses are being finished, on the old petrol station. The traffic was controlled by two lads with Stop/Go boards and they seemed to still be interfaced in a functional manner, by means of a line-of-sight communication system. Phew.

It's not just you - It won't let me post one at 4.8MB, apparently. "Sorry, an unknown server error occurred when uploading this file. (Error code: DSC_0797.JPG could not be saved.)

Ah, that's why @Garfield's been quiet - locked in a room with tweezers and a tiny hammer.

Whenever @David Holman mentions Chatham, I am reminded of a marvellous little sketch from Round the Horne. It was a radio show and the joke only really works in audio, but it's worth running it by. The basis is the similarity of the words peace and piece. Charles and Fiona are two fading film stars, usually engaged in very earnest black-and-white war films, with rather upper-class, clipped English accents. In this case, Charles is playing a somewhat traumatised naval officer. Charles! You've returned at last. Yes, Fiona, I just had to go away and find a little peace. A little peace, Charles? Yes, Fiona, a little peace. And did you find a little peace, Charles. Yes, Fiona, I did. She's a barmaid in Chatham. Well, it amuses me...

Cyprus has no real rivers, but a few watercourses that can get rather active after heavy rain. My route to school was across this one - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Erimi,+Cyprus/@34.6580452,32.9141172,197m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x14e73016c37cafff:0xa75fddacd7c6b3bb!8m2!3d34.6818602!4d32.9202321!16s%2Fm%2F02q5vg_?entry=ttu - it was a very substantial structure, intended to survive the frequent violent flash floods, but the whole bridge was removed one night and deposited half a mile away, by the coast. Allegedly, a temporary dam, or two, had been formed by landslides upstream and, upon failing, these released a large surge of floodwater and boulders. The event was actually witnessed by a chap driving towards the bridge, at about 2am, when he saw the apocalypse unfolding in the glow of his Triumph Herald's headlights, luckily from a 'safe' distance... The theory was that the bridge immediately upstream had survived as the two waves arrived there separately, but happened to have combined by the time they reached the bridge that failed. Luckily, the waters subsided as quick as they came and it was feasible to carefully drive over the riverbed within a few hours, but there was a temporary Bailey Bridge for a while after, whilst the reconstruction was organised.

And always remember to add the prototypical signs, once the glue has dried.

When a friend's son was about ten, he was reading the list of ingredients on a bottle of brown sauce and came to "molasses", this was an unknown substance to him. He decided to find out about the subject by asking us - "What is a "molass"?" We still occasionally make sure that he, now 40ish, has not forgotten this.

A night on the tiles - you'll deserve it after this lot...

I would expect a 1955 one to be brass. MetroVick became part of AEI, before all that was eaten up by GEC in the late 60s. Where I worked went the same "financial efficiency" way - we had cast brass plates, then cast aluminium, then stamped brass, then just printed onto anodised aluminium sheet. If it was still surviving, it would be crayon on old egg boxes by now.

In Dublin at the moment.

Tell her they are for her, they're like small, mobile doll's houses.

Bloodhounds of the sea....

Make sure your name is recorded for the commission when he orders a few.

If my chips have eyes, the gulls can have 'em.