The Official Nonsense Thread

[Minty]

It was a beautiful day up here yesterday, the temperatures went up a little. Down in the Lake District, some places were having almost summer like temperatures. Down in the Severn valley however they were getting battered by it.

Wednesday, half way through the week. I'm already at the stage of wishing the days of my life away for the weekend.

[Caspin]

I know what you mean. I try really hard not to wish my life away, but it can be tricky if work is tiring or boring and the weekend seems far away. I really shouldn't complain, though. A great many people are a lot worse off than I am.

I went to the bookshop to try to order some other books about witch trials, but one is out of print completely and the other is print-on-demand and would have been around 30 quid for a paperback, so I decided not to bother. I've spent a lot of money on books recently, now that I am not buying from Amazon, so I don't think I can justify that price. I am sure there are other books on the subject that are still in print. I suppose I could have looked in a library, but they are either all closed or are full of computers and only seem to lend out DVDs not books.

[Minty]

If you are anywhere near a big old university, see if they allow the public to become library members. I'm still with the Glasgow Uni Library having given up on the locals - as with your own ones the numbers of books is becoming less & the number of PCs is becoming more. It's a sign of the times that libraries are becoming more orientated to being revenue generators (e.g. lending DVDs) than places of learning, & I don't like it.

[Caspin]

You, my dear Minty, are a genius. I work in a big old university, for heaven's sake, and have done so for my entire working career! I am probably automatically a member of all the libraries, I just don't use them. They're full of students, you know. I am still not confident that there a lot of books available because "everything's online these days" but it certainly gives me options to explore. Well done Minty!

It is a real shame that local libraries are essentially standing in as Blockbuster video stores. I don't begrudge them the revenue, lord knows they probably need it, but I don't like it either. It's fine that they have some computers there, for people who don't have good internet at home - I've seen people in there writing CVs and doing job hunting. One that I pass on my way home has a play areas for kids and I don't really mind that either, although it must get noisy sometimes. They do book clubs and things for the little ones there. The racks and racks of DVDs and video games for hire that have taken the place of books upsets me a little. Even more of a problem, though, is that they don't seem to have librarians any more - the people at the desk are like sales assistants, just checking things in and out. I miss the good old days of being given a project and strolling down to the library, where the knowledgeable librarian would help look for resources and I would sit there doing my research in peace and quiet - actually learning not only about the subject but also learning from the librarian how to do research. That little library of my youth (below) is closed now, as far as I know, and the building, which is old and beautiful, is sitting vacant, probably waiting to be turned into luxury flats. Oh well, those were good old days and they're not coming back.




Have you ever used the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh? It is a wondrous place. I used to go there quite a lot when I lived there because it has a huge range of materials and they run a terrific system (or at least they did twenty years ago, I hope they still have it) where you could order materials in advance (for a fee, but a small one) and then when you turned up on your appointed day they would have everything laid out in a booth, ready for you to start work. Sometimes they would even post out photocopies of papers that were not easily accessible in the university libraries. Best of all was the fact that it was such a lovely, quiet place to work.

Enough reminiscing. Better get on with another exciting day of work followed by a thrilling trip to John Lewis to buy a lamp!

[Minty]

Yes, I've used the National Library of Scotland, which is a treasure trove of all sorts of obscure books, papers & collections. They even have old musical fanzines stored there. It's too tempting to go in with a plan in mind & get completely lost following something else.

Last time I went in there it was to get some material to give as evidence to the MSP Robin Harper (Greens) that some dickhead in his party was trying to set him up to get him removed, but that's another story.

[Caspin]

You have a lot of stories, Minty. You remind me of my landlord in that regard. I had to call him at the weekend because the person who lives in the flat below reckons water is leaking from my bathroom into hers, but I cannot find the source despite my best efforts. Good old landlord is sending round some kind of hit squad of plumbers to track it down. For a moment I thought he was going to rush over himself, which would have meant a lengthy visit as he likes to tell me all his tales and jokes, which I don't mind but I do get a bit dizzy watching him knock back cups of tea with four sugars in each and it would have been slightly disruptive.

I didn't do much this weekend. Everyone is sick (not me, yet, knock on wood etc). I mostly read my book and daydreamed on the sofa, in between mini domestic crises and getting up to provide hot beverages to harbingers of disease. I am trying to finish watching Breaking Bad. I think there are only 3-4 episodes left. It's really gripping I must say.

Oh yes and I remembered to put the clocks back. For some reason I am teased every year about the bloody clock, even though I only forgot on one single occasion in the past! Usually it's me who reminds other, but they will never let me forget that incident!

[Minty]

Pretty amazed to find the garden in one piece this morning as it was a wild night.

It's still Germ City in my workplace. Everywhere you go there is the sounds of nasal trumpetting & lungs hacking - & one clatty bar steward who sneezes without bothering to cover his face while doing so. I'm hoping that my recent sickness has given me some immunity to their rotten bugs.

Know what you mean about people going on & on about putting the clocks back. Had it one time with two people doing it automatically so the clocks all went back 2 hours & it wasn't until hours later that anyone noticed. At least computers do it for you.

Thank goodness this is pay week. Why is there always so much month left at the end of the money?

[Caspin]

Get you and your wild nights

Clatty. That is an ace word. A guy from Scotland has started work in the next office so I will try to work it into conversation in a moment. He's going to have to get used to me visiting for my daily fix of his lovely accent anyway. Hopefully this will go better than when I experimented with "tapping that sh1t" with the American.

Yeah, payday on Halloween. Don't spend all your hard-earned pennies on sweets now will you!

[Caspin]

Day off today. I am waiting for a package to be delivered. Unfortunately the company attempting to deliver it appear to be entirely incompetent and I am losing hope that I will ever receive the damned thing.

I am fighting the urge to log in to work! It's quite busy but I really must chill out and try to enjoy my day off. I guess I'll load up a game and lose myself in that for a while. I need to sit quietly somewhere and try not to get injured. This week so far has been quite bad for clumsiness. I cut my hand on the box when unpacking the new lamp and nearly severed a finger, then somehow lacerated my arm at work on Monday (still haven't found out the cause) and bled all over my desk, to the alarm of my poor colleagues. Then last night I went to get my haircut and ended up nearly being scalped! My hairdresser had to take a phone call from his wife while he was washing my hair so he asked the beautician to take over. I was fine with that until it turned out that she has insanely long, pointy nails and was wearing huge gemstone rings on all of her fingers, so I ended up with quite a lot of scratches. I feel slightly fragile today.

Speaking of severed fingers, I neglected to take my own advice not to buy too many sweets.

Got these for trick-or-treaters (hopefully there won't be any and I can scoff the lot).




The orange balls are menacing pumpkins and the white balls are bloodshot eyes. The sticks are supposed to be "severed fingers", which I can relate to, but I only realised that when I opened the bag. In the shop I thought they were little coffins! It amuses me that there is some factory somewhere churning out chocolate balls that then get wrapped up to be eyeballs/footballs/christmas puds or whatever is needed at that time of year, plus one producing those sticks that are shaped like bodies - they've done a pretty rubbish job of making them look like fingers (coffins would have been easier, why was I not consulted...) but in a few weeks they'll be santa-shaped no doubt.

Silly, aren't they.

[Caspin]

Well, just in case anyone was wondering - the package did not turn up (they will make their fifth attempt on Saturday, or so they claim) and I did eat the majority of those chocolate eyeballs plus several severed fingers. I grazed my hand after misjudging the position of a door handle but no other injuries were incurred. So not an entirely successful day, but not a total disaster either. Sometimes that's as good as it gets.

In other news, I played a bit of Sims 3 and my sim was verbally abused by Ollie's sim (he has the "proper" trait and is generally intolerant of Caspin's excitable shenanigans) before being thrown out of the house into the snow while wearing only her PJs!

I remain indignant on my pixel-person's behalf.