Christmas stocking filler

 

Taxidermy Large Male Lion

£7995

Ephemeral

A local out of town shopping centre we visit fairly regularly used to have a Holland & Barrett store. We’d pop in occasionally for odds and ends we can’t easily find elsewhere.

The last time we visited the shopping centre we noticed a new store being fitted out. We scratched our heads for a moment, wondering what was there before until we realised it had been the Holland & Barrett store. 

We only remembered because on a previous visit, the woman serving there had told us it was closing. If we hadn’t known the store was closing, we wouldn’t have noticed its absence for ages and even then we’d have forgotten where it was. 

Modern out of town retail seems to be like that. Stores open, stores close but they barely generate enough impact to be noticed when they are gone.

Seems harsh

Samsung bans ChatGPT-like AI after security breach, warns of employee termination

The South Korean company found that employees had uploaded sensitive code to AI platforms, raising fears that the data may be made available to other users.

Consumer electronics from the corporation, such as Windows laptops and Android smartphones, are unaffected. Samsung issued a warning that violating the new rules could result in termination.

On the other hand, the threat of termination could do much to liven up our public sector.  

Alice Meets the King

Alice gazed at the strange cat crouched on a branch in a nearby tree. Surely it was grinning at her.

“Please tell me what you are grinning at and who are you?” Alice asked the cat, for there seemed to be no-one else to ask at the moment.

“I am Cat GPT,” purred the cat, grinning ever more widely with each purr.

“Cat GPT? What a strange name. May I enquired what it means?” asked Alice politely.

“Cat - General Purpose Tabby,” explained the strange cat grinning even more. “Ask me anything. I do not guarantee to reply cogently, but ask me anyway because I am duty bound to offer some answer. Anyway, serendipity is we are told, the spice of life.”

“Oh how interesting, I am sure to ask you many things. I see that already,” said Alice, but just then she spied an odd figure shambling from a nearby group of trees with improbably green leaves.

“It’s the King,” hissed the cat, “bow and tell him how warm it is. He keeps telling us we are all going to fry because we have more and more candles on our birthday cakes. I suggest you make a casual remark about it becoming remarkably warm just lately and how you loathe birthday cake.”

“But I cannot say that because it is not at all warm and I am quite partial to birthday cake,” Alice protested. Yet it was too late, the King had seen them. He gathered together his heavy green robes embellished with what looked like astrological symbols woven in gold thread. He adjusted a small crown on the very top of his head then cleared his throat as if about to pose a difficult question.

“We have lost the Royal Pen and the Coronation,” the King announced in a sing-song voice before sitting down on a large grey tortoise. “The Coronation escaped from the Royal Menagerie this morning and has not been seen since,” the King explained, huffing and puffing. “And one of the Royal Donkeys is missing,” he added.

“Oh dear your majesty, so many problems and difficulties, but it is quite warm enough for me and I think birthday cake can be rather too sweet should anyone be interested,” said Alice, bowing low.

“What is more,” the King added, apparently ignoring Alice and birthday cake for the moment, “what is more I have Me-Me and Spare to contend with.”

“Me-Me and Spare? Alice enquired politely.

“The Me-Me and Spare stage act. They cavort around the stage throwing custard pies the audience. They even throw custard pies at the Royal Donkeys.”

“It doesn’t sound very amusing,” Alice offered.

“It is certainly not amusing. They have written a book about how to throw custard pies at Royal Donkeys but that is only volume one. For all I know the whole thing could amount to ten volumes on the same subject and now I cannot find the Coronation in case they intend to throw custard pies at that too.”

At that moment the sound of many trumpets wafted towards them, apparently coming from no great distance. The King cupped a hand to the Royal Ear. “I hear it, I hear the Coronation. It must have become lost in the trees, the poor old thing.”

The King heaved himself up from the tortoise. Alice thought he seemed smaller than before. As if he was shrinking. Somehow she knew it was time to go, to leave this strange world to its King, its trumpets and its custard pies.

Alice paused for a moment, gazing at the strange scene. Cat GPT seemed to be bigger than before while the King was most certainly shrinking, his crown already too big for his little head.

Alice hurried away towards a more comforting world of muffins and tea in the garden. Although even muffins and tea on the lawn would never be the same since Pronoun the butler went mad and had to be incarcerated in the notorious Budlight Asylum. In spite of which, Alice hurried away.

Royalty and Roads

It’s grey, wet and cold here in Derbyshire. I hope Charles the Daft can explain why it isn’t as warm as he and his cronies have been predicting for many years.

I’ll admit to being mildly surprised that the whole coronation rigmarole is going ahead even though Charles has made it pretty obvious that he is more politician than King. Maybe a president would be worse. Seems more and more unlikely, but maybe it’s still a good argument against replacing Charles’ crew with presidents.

While we’re on the subject of royalty, the current state of the roads came up while chatting with relatives this week. They live in Derbyshire too, but spend a lot of time in Surrey and in their view Surrey roads are worse than ours by quite a margin. They were told by a Surrey relative of theirs that the only good road in Surrey is one leading to Epsom Racecourse used by royalty.

Only an anecdote and not to be taken too seriously, but it does make a chap wonder if roads could evolve into elite roads and peasant roads. Peasant roads would only ever have a bucket of tarmac dumped into the worst potholes. The approach would be a development of Zil lanes perhaps.

Silence broken

Well - our rural Norfolk silence didn't last long. What looked like RAF Typhoons cavorting across the sky above saw to that. 

By gum, those things make the whole atmosphere tremble. We don't see them in Derbyshire - Harley-Davidsons on the A6 don't come close when it comes to a deep-throated, air-shaking rumble.

Fifty Years

Imagine a time machine which only makes journeys into the future and cannot make the return journey. Another restriction is that it only operates in increments of fifty years. It is possible to stop the machine anywhen within these limitations but not possible to go back.

The obvious question is how keen people might be to take advantage of this form of time travel. Not particularly keen is my guess. For example, I imagined using the machine for a single fifty year journey to see what our street will look like fifty years from now.

Not very imaginative but it’s a start. Here’s the first problem though – I find I have no idea what our street will look like fifty years from now. It is currently a street of houses mostly from the 1930s – will it look much the same in fifty years?

Obviously the parked cars won’t look the same in fifty years unless everyone turns into a vintage car enthusiast. But the street could have any appearance from much the same to largely derelict with a road full of potholes and thriving weeds.

Yet if I look back fifty years in the other direction to 1972, the street probably hasn’t changed drastically apart from the parked cars, double-glazed windows and various home improvement bits and pieces. Yet for some reason it feels unlikely that the next fifty years will not undergo a more substantial change.

I’m sure some of this negative outlook derives from our destructive culture of political pessimism. In spite of the Crimplene trousers and rusty cars, I recall 1972 as a more optimistic time. Now there is a pervasive sense that we are teetering on the edge of some kind of major decline or worse.

Hardly surprising I suppose - with so many political loons trying their best to undermine reality. Weeds and dereliction it is then – unless we actually do something about the loons before reality deals with the problem good and hard.

The Little Moon Hut

Chinese scientists spot 'mysterious hut' on far side of the moon

Scientists and engineers working on the Chang'e 4 lunar mission are going to investigate the unusual object using the Yutu 2 (Jade Rabbit) rover.


That little hut could be an alien equivalent of Thoreau’s cabin. A place to get away from it all. I'm quite envious, it seems like the perfect location for some quiet contemplation, but now the media of the world could descend on it and spoil everything.

Imagine living there, reading, gazing up into space every now and then, contemplating the mysteries of the universe. No constant media barrage, no political correctness, no creeping totalitarian nonsense, no Christmas, no coronavirus debacle. Until one day...

Solutions

While weaving the car through endless roadworks on the school run this morning, Mrs H noticed a truck claiming to offer ‘Logistics Solutions’ or some similar marketing claim. It seems obvious enough that businesses would claim to offer solutions to something or other, but the word 'Solutions' seemed superfluous. A logistics outfit wouldn’t offer ‘Logistics Problems’. 

Lots of businesses seem to offer 'solutions', but it occurred to me that I’ve never seen a claim to offer ‘Political Integrity Solutions’. Maybe there's no market for it. Another thought could be the division of public and private sectors via their approach to solutions.

Private. Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.

Public. Don’t bring me solutions, bring me problems.

Might need valeting afterwards

 

Pixelated Bums in Sherwood Forest

Call the Sheriff of Nottingham! Bands of merry NUDIST men walking around Sherwood Forest startle more buttoned-up visitors

• Visitors to Sherwood Forest have complained after finding naturists in the woods
• Petition was launched to get the owners to force anyone visiting to wear clothes
• But owners said nudists have been legally visiting for decades and can continue

It's one way to boost tourism I suppose. Robin Hood is so last century.

Cool at last

We tootled off into Matlock for a stroll and a coffee this morning. The heatwave finally seems to have abated so we can get a few jobs done around the house without wilting in the heat. Not that it has been unpleasant for us. Sitting in the garden under the shade of the Amelanchier wasn't at all arduous.

Thanks to all the loft insulation, it has been very warm upstairs in the bedrooms and hardly cooled at all during the night. So much so that we decided to sleep on the floor downstairs which was a few degrees cooler and we could open the patio doors. 

Surprisingly enjoyable it was too, sleeping on the floor on a few folded duvets. It brought back quite vivid memories of the flat in Coventry which Mrs H shared with a friend during her college days. We slept as well as we do in the bedroom, although getting up in the morning wasn't quite as easy as in those far off Coventry days. 

If that's what it says on the description

 

Source

June 3rd 3021

I spent a few moments gazing out of the window this morning. It's something I often do, but this morning it occurred to me to imagine what the street outside might look like a thousand years from now. What will it look like on June 3rd 3021?

Looking at it another way, a thousand years ago on June 3rd 1021 the street would certainly have been different in that it would not have been there at all. The whole town was probably no more that one or two cottages and a few farms - if that. It was centuries before coal was discovered and serious building began.

Nobody in 1021 could have foreseen how things would change over the next thousand years and 3021 is just as impenetrable to us now. All we have is our imagination, so in my imagination the whole street has disappeared by 3021. Houses, road, everything all gone. Nothing left for estate agents to do. There are a few trees, bushes and brambles but no sign whatever of our street. Not even a few foundations sticking up through the undergrowth.

No familiar landmarks either and the lie of the land is far more difficult to make out because of the trees. Taking these musings a little further, I imagined myself meandering through the trees towards what in 2021 was Sainsbury’s. I can just about make out where it must have been. 

Now there is nothing but a log cabin in a clearing. A thread of smoke from a stone chimney winds itself into still air. A dog barks and animal pelts are drying in the sun. Yet in spite of the sunshine it is quite chilly for June.

Why a log cabin? Maybe in a thousand years from now, large areas of the UK are virtually uninhabited apart from a few hardy types who prefer to scratch a primitive life in what is now a wilderness. Not because of some catastrophe but because over the centuries the global population declined and people left for more congenial areas of the world. They migrated to areas where natural resources are still plentiful and vast automated farms more feasible.

Aha – I’ve just noticed. The sky hereabouts in 3021 is blue with no visible vapour trails from aircraft. Apart from the birds it is almost silent - an almost deserted land. I quite like it but a few flakes of snow are falling. It certainly is cold – colder that I expected. Global cooling has set in perhaps. Another reason why people left.

Risky

From Dave R.

Mystery object

I don't think this is too difficult, but maybe that's because I know what it is.

Seems harsh

Recently heard over our local garden centre's speaker system.

Kevin to compost - Kevin to compost.

Poor Kevin. I wonder what he'd done?

Paint it valdez

It’s house decorating time again so we are immersed in the vexed problem of choosing paint colours. Usually B&Q paints will do but shock horror – the B&Q own brand paint range has been changed.

Tackle any decorating project on a budget with new own brand paint range

If you’re looking to refresh your living space with new season shades, on a budget, the new B&Q GoodHome paint range is an ideal place to start.

The extensive range offers 80 shades to choose from, for general walls and ceilings. Additional specialist kitchen, bathrooms and furniture paints are available in an edited colour palette of 25 shades.

Now the colours have names such as toulon, cleveland, santo domingo and valdez. Place names which may or may not suggest a colour which may or may not be the colour B&Q has chosen to go with the name. What the blue menton blazes they were thinking of I don’t know.

A hint of cosmopolitan sophistication? No – in that case people would surely go for paint produced by an outfit with a double-barrelled name so they could leave the colour charts lying around.

I wonder if there is a colour called Jaywick?

Which newspaper is best -

- for cleaning the car windscreen?

As we know, a ball of newspaper is quite good for cleaning the inside of a car windscreen. This morning I used a sheet from an old copy of the Daily Telegraph probably acquired last year as packing material, but there are only one or two sheets left and these days we do not receive a free newspaper to replace it.

Problems, problems.

Unwanted

Presumably there is a story behind this.