Blogathon 14/21: Get Smart v2.0
We are a dual Alexa/Google household. The Sonos One on the breakfast bar has Alexa built into it. We mainly use this pairing to tell
Blogathon 13/21: Sour grapes
The last few evenings I’ve been dipping into old documentation on the NAS, and deciding what needs keeping and what can be forever deleted. In
Blogathon 12/21: Get Smart?
Our energy provider has recently taken to strafing me with regular texts and emails imploring me to make an appointment to get a Smart meter
Blogathon 11/21: Teams etiquette
We dipped into S2 of Staged (iPlayer) last night, at around 15 minutes each, the episodes are pleasingly short, and the characters are charming. I’m
Blogathon 10/21: Unheard herd
Lots of Teams calls, when WFH, inevitably lead to things being overheard, there was even a radio commercial that did a little song about being
Blogathon 09/21: Marvellous
The elder child of the house is making us watch every Marvel film in chronological story order. I sortov understand the desire for this, watch
Blogathon 08/21: No room at the Inn
In our ‘front room’ we have a three-person couch/sofa/settee (delete as applicable) and a largeish armchair. At the time of writing the three-person couch/sofa/settee (delete
Blogathon 07/21: Pulling the plug
I haven’t wanted to do this because I’ve been clinging on to the past, and yet this is completely the right decision; it’s time to
Blogathon 06/21: Two wheels good
And while I’m thinking of motorbikes, I thought I’d do a heroes gallery of just some of the bikes I’ve been honoured to have owned.
Blogathon 05/21: Missing you already
She’s out there now. In the dark. In the garage. Waiting for me. It’s been such a long time. Apart from a couple of runs
Blogathon 04/21: Strapped
My Fitbit died. Out of warranty and with no safety net, the only course of action was to get a new one (because I wanted
Blogathon 03/21: Goggleboxing
Do we have two new victims joiners of this here Blogathon thing? Well wash my fanny with a jar of apple sauce and call me
Blogathon 02/21: It’s Groundhog Day. Again
I could write a detailed academic essay on the film Groundhog Day, but I will make every effort to avoid that level of analysis here.
Blogathon 01/21: Back once again with the renegade master
Can you Adam and believe it? It’s that time of the year again. It seems to come around every February: Young Masher‘s annual Blogathon, where
Sunday AM geekage
After walking the dogs (and brrrr, it’ was minus 2c out there!) I’ve been catching up with some overdue geekage. I’ve updated the core .php
They have eyes, but can they read?
Twitter has banned the sitting President of the USA for life. Facebook has banned the sitting President of the USA at least until inauguration day.
Superstition
Don’t walk under ladders Find a pin (penny) and all day long you’ll have a pin (penny) Lucky rabbits foot (but not lucky for the
Trump’s last stand
8th January: after the attempted coup in Washington DC, I have added Scenario 14 and Scenario 15 Looking over the water at what’s going on
Sonorous Dog
Today is 2nd January 2021 and Spaniel The Senior is two years old. Yet, bizarrely, it seems like she’s always been part of our lives.
No need for words?
A couple of mornings ago I woke with the rapidly fading memory of a vivid dream. Less than half an hour later all the details
Still learning
I fancy doing a course and yes I know I’ve got a lot of things on my plate but time is money (or something) and
When normal life resumes…
This sentence wriggled its way through the atmosphere and lodged itself into my mind. We had been discussing places we could go to when the
Now wash your hands. Ouch!
One of the unfortunate side-effects of the new normal that is washing one’s hands every 8.7 seconds is that the tips of the fingers on
2 forward, 1 back
I set a deadline to have the latest novel finished by Christmas. Excuse my hysterical laughter but… Ahahahahahahahaaaahahahahaaaa! I’ve gone off track a few times.
Lockdown dreaming
To begin properly, there’s no significant difference in my life between Lockdown 1.0, Lockdown 2.0 (the sequel), Tier 3 (v1.0), or any of the days,
Gone sailing
Yesterday I spent the day sailing on the Humber. We left Hull Marina on the ebb tide and sailed down towards the estuary mouth. We
The ticking of the calendar
Because it’s that time of year, I’ve just had the car serviced; two years old, time marching quicker than it should. I was prompted to
The Motorcycling Detectorist
(sounds like it should be a crossover TV drama written by Dennis Potter) For the past few weekends there’s been a chap poking about in
No, no, no, no!
It’s not a staycation if you’re travelling to somewhere else in the UK. It’s only a staycation if you are remaining in your house. This
Maiden voyage
In an endeavour to support mankind’s continual goal to break new ground, push back the barriers, to experience strange new things, to boldly go where
Miles on the clock
A couple of weeks ago my daughter decided she’d like to see us (after some prodding from her old man, obviously). But how to safely
Out of office
Lunchtime on Friday I set my out of office with words to the effect of ‘See you next month, bitches!’ except couched in far more
It ain’t where you think it is
You know when you walk into a room and you’ve already forgotten what it was you walked into the room for? Well this isn’t that
Film review: Snowpiercer (2013)
Background:I am a recent convert to the Snowpiercer work; coming in at the third version of the tale. The first telling is in the French
We’re all going on a…
Summer Holiday! These are unusual times and the risks of mixing with too many people are, frankly, risky. So we have deferred the fortnight away
Going for Bronze
The Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme may have changed since I got my award, but in those far-off days gaining an award boiled down to:
Some more whimsy!
Totally inspired by a twitter conversation with @CharlieCoffee, where we started musing about gigs that we went to as youngsters, I’ve been using my dogwalking
Jobs, jobs, jobs; and holidays
The last few weekends I’ve been pretty busy outside. I quite like being busy outside (ssssh, don’t tell anyone – taps finger against nose). A