CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

I have now signed up, for £12 a month, to be a 'supporter' of the Guardian. Partly from guilt--every time I use one of their stories there is a plangent reminder I'm getting it for free and they're going broke. Partly because I think the Guardian needs to exist in this wicked world. Partly to see what's in it for me.

This is despite me giving up the Saturday Guardian because there wasn't (quite) enough in it for me. I can't say I have missed it--even the TV recommendations, which were sound if you ignored any programme made by or about women, blacks, the poor... oh, you know, anybody who wasn't me. Apart from the sport, so I have signed up for a daily Sport briefing.

Let me know if you observe any shift in my intemperate opinions.

[Boreades]

I'm always reassured that there are still people willing to be a "Supporter" of The Guardian. Because the Scott Trust still needs a willing public to assist with the money laundering from the Scott Trust's Cayman Island accounts. Allegedly.

[Boreades]

Will no-one think of the children? In the shire town of Newbury, children may be suffering from PTSD and need counseling.

[Mick Harper]

So I'm on my new gadget making my first lecturette and I've chosen my avatar. Vaguely reminiscent of that bloke off the telly, you know who I mean. All I need now is a neutral but reasonably authoritative setting. Anything that doesn't detract from the words. The most standard thing in the world. At a lectern, sitting behind a desk, in a library, in a classroom, at a pulpit... I just don't mind, I'm just messing with concepts at the moment. And I've been offered an unknown but vast choice.

I've scrolled through the first few hundred and they haven't offered me a single one. I'd say 'back to the drawing board' if I weren't at the drawing board. Thank God I'm still young.

[Boreades]

[Pete Jones]

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00789R001300180002-7.pdf

CIA has the ark of the covenant, and Indiana Jones was just a cover story.

I can't tell if this was redacted with White-out, rather than the black marker, or if the notes and doodles (not to mention the subject matter) were the scattered braindroppings of the analyst.

At the end, we have the words:

"[How is it opened]" followed by a drawing of a "Seraphim," but it just looks like an eagle to me.

[Mick Harper]

You were enquiring about our rules, Pete. One of which is that anyone referring us to URLs is expected to do the work and tell us what he (or she) has found, rather than being a bit cryptic and expecting us to find out for ourselves.

It's not that we wouldn't. It's just a saving on manpower if one person does it rather than everyone has to do it.

[Mick Harper]

I've run into a near-terminal problem with Synthesia, my 'make a YouTube without leaving your desk' service. It's a marvel, you can do everything in the known universe. Except preview what you've done.

You can see your avatar, you can see the background, you can hear the words that are going to be spoken, you can preview that, but not all put together. To see what everyone's going to see, you have to press the finished button and then, not only can you change nothing, but you only have a limited number of finished projects (thirty a year? something like that) if you decide you need to make changes.

Which, knowing me, would be about thirty times for the average YouTube. I'm not a perfectionist but I do like to get it right. Every time I think I've cracked something I am driven back into my kennel.

[Mick Harper]

Alles klaar. On enquiry I discovered they had 'cancelled' the facility and while my communicant, bot or human, had 'no information' why they did, I know why they did. It costs them to generate the finished product--which is why we are limited to a set number--but it costs much the same to generate a preview and everyone was making a large number of edits (say, about thirty) and previewing each one. As you do.

[Mick Harper]

If I'm spring cleaning my flat in anticipation of my sister's impending visit, do I also have to do today's exercises? I say not, but I'm hopelessly biased. What does the panel think and does it make a difference that I won't be starting the actual cleaning until tomorrow?

[Boreades]

Cleaning should be considered as Occupational Therapy.

Especially if you are pushing a broom or vacuum cleaner around the place.

Make sure your Smart Watch counts the steps, so it counts as part of your Daily Exercise.

[Mick Harper]

It's my knees that's holding me back. Did you know floors are not entirely accessible by (a) brooms (b) vacuum cleaners and (c) Flash squeegee mops that you can't find but swore you had one somewhere but it doesn't matter because you haven't got any Flash anyway?

PS Playing Ms Gaynor's I will survive at top volume doesn't get the job done either.

[Mick Harper]

Cheese Connoisseurs Corner

Laughing Cow has a nifty red string to open the box with relative ease (if you know it's there, amateurs don't) but the triangles themselves are the usual nightmare when it come to getting the contents out. Add plentiful (sea) salt and (black) pepper to ensure taste.

[Pete Jones]

There is an individual cheese product called Baby Belle here in the US. Each fat discoid cheese is coated in thick red wax, which must be removed by pulling a kind of string from around the discoid's equator. If you find a wet red globule of mush on your floor, it means the toddler didn't bother or the dog is getting picky in his old age (or both)

[Mick Harper]

Our joint favourite NFL owner, a Mr Robert Kraft, used to sell whole tubs of the stuff here in Britain. My mum rarely bought it though because she couldn't maintain portion control amidst a squall of competing brats.

Or it may have been Primula. Checking my facts (for the first time since the old queen died) I have decided to switch anyway because of this