The Official Nonsense Thread

[Caspin]

Minty, I do not like the sound of your new workplace. Are you looking for alternatives or do you need to give yourself a break from job hunting for a while? Sometimes you sound like Eyore in his gloomy place.

I am going to see a fireworks display tonight. Usually I just look out of the window, it's been ages since I went to a proper organised display. The last one I went to was up on a hill. Everything was fine while the fireworks were going off, then suddenly the event ended and everything was pitch black. Getting down off the hill in the dark and rain was perilous. Tonight's is just in a school field near where I live, so it should be slightly less complicated to find my way home. I will have a torch in my pocket just in case.

The neighbours in the house next door usually have a load of rockets and so on (they must be absolutely loaded given the cost of those things) but unfortunately they are pretty incompetent. One year they set fire to a small hedge when a lantern fell over at a bonfire night party (imagine keeping control of a bonfire but being ultimately endangered by a tealight!), another year they ignited a bush when a rocket failed to launch vertically (sorry, that sounds a bit dodgy), another time their party came to an abrupt end and I could hear screaming and then silence. Presumably someone picked up a hot sparkler or something stupid. Anyway, it's probably safer to be further away from that house tonight!

[Caspin]

Friday Friday Friday

The fireworks I went to see were really amazing. A bunch of rockets and things went up at about 7.00 pm, which is when it was supposed to start. I thought they were OK and was fairly happy with what I'd seen. Drifted into the drinks tent where they had heated up some mulled wine using a tea urn and were giving it out in paper cups (classy bird, me) and was then started when the main fireworks display commenced! I cannot imagine how much money that school had spent on that display. It rivaled most large cities at new year! Some cracking sparkles.

Tonight I'm off to see the play "Tis Pity She's A Whore" at the playhouse at the Globe. As far as I know it will be candlelit, or at least low light, as in days of yore. I read that the promotional posters were judged too raunchy to be displayed on the Tube, which made me laugh given some of the sights you see on the Underground! I expect raucousness, incest and general misbehaviour. Good.

[Minty]

I'm not going to look for alternatives - yet. The turnover of staff is so mad there's a chance of being able to get into something better if I stick it out - they're always having to pinch staff from one side of the business to prop up another side.

Bonfire night was quiet this year, unless they are saving it up for Saturday, but the trains were mobbed coming home as people returned from the organised firework displays. Can't believe the fuss made about Lewes burning an Alex Salmond effegy, they've burned about everyone else that's annoyed them over the years.

'Tis Pity She's A Whore' - something else Game Of Thrones ripped off!

Mulled wine. Now realised it's the start of the mulled wine season. Yet there are still wasps. Wasps in November. Bizarre!

[Caspin]

Funny you should say that - chased a wasp out of the living room this afternoon, shortly after deciding that it was time to change to the winter duvet. It is madness that there are still all these creatures flying around (and that I have survived until November with only a summer duvet). On the plus side, the heating bill will be small this quarter, due to no heating!

The play last night was really great - nudity, lots of laughs, blood all over the stage and the whole thing done by candlelight. How many candles (I hear you wondering)? Well, ninety that I counted, not including the ones being carried around by actors.

Here is a picture from inside the playhouse. Live musicians in the gallery and some of the candelabra about to be pulled up on ropes towards the snazzy painted ceiling.




Afterwards, walked along to the Tower of London to have a look at the massive ceramic poppy display. It's quite impressive. Unfortunately it wasn't possible to take a good picture, as there's no flash on my iPad and whenever I tried to find the "night vision" mode it started making a video or opening a calendar. It's my fault, not the tech, I am a bit hopeless sometimes. I did take an OK-ish one of the Tower Bridge before I crossed the river though. Like many people, London looks prettier in the dark.




So now you feel like you had a virtual night out with Caspin, right? Lucky devils.

I suppose I will go and get dinner organised now and possibly watch the last Dr Who of the series. I taped last week's episode so I could watch the two parts together. It hasn't been the most enjoyable Dr Who series but maybe it will go out on a high.

[Minty]

Hear ya on Dr Who, Capaldi has been awful, or at least mildly dull. That last episode only confirmed what has been the case the whole series, Jenna Coleman's been propping up the show. No wonder she's decided to cut & run.

Which reminds me, nearly got run over on my way home on Friday thanks to some yobs in a muppetmobile with lowered suspension taking a corner at 40 mph. Another danger of late night working - the morons have come out to play when you're heading home.

[Caspin]

Oh I don't know about Capaldi being awful. I quite like him, but he's had nothing to work with. There have a been a few moments when he was terribly funny (but the number of these moments was far, far too small). The storylines this series were absurd, with this ongoing Mr Pink business and these side characters that are supposed to be terribly important, but you don't get to see enough of them to give two hoots, or these highly emotional scenes with no proper background, because the Dr is all shiny and new (sort of) and it doesn't make as much sense as it would with a Dr you've got used to. Jenna Coleman was good - she did her best with some pretty weak scripts and had generally excellent hair.

Oh well, I still watch it as it is the perfect mush for my weekend level of brain activity, but I hope they put a lot of effort into the crimbo special.

Please take care crossing the road. Much as I love pancakes, we don't want you getting squished into one. Use the minty-green cross code!

[Minty]

Still the wasps persist. I can't believe how many are still around considering how cold it has been this week.

It's been a dull, dull week of getting up, going to work, coming home, getting ready for the next day & going to bed. I haven't even watched anything on TV this week & the news has passed me by. We could have been invaded by Mars for all the attention I've paid.

[Caspin]

You've still got wasps - I seem to be under attack from ladybirds! Some really oddly patterned ones keep turning up. I try to work out if they are the type you are supposed to kill but they don't really look like any of the pictures on the website. Surely they will all be shuffling off soon, as this is becoming silly.

It is a bit of a struggle this week isn't it. I felt quite good when I woke up this morning, considering, but after waiting in the rain for 50 minutes for a bus that never came, then having to defect to the Tube to be crushed and bashed about during rush hour, which I normally avoid completely, I now feel completely beaten up. It was a relief to get to my desk so I could sit down. Oh well, onwards and upwards!

[Minty]

Left work late yesterday, & knowing it meant I'd no chance of catching my usual train, I opted for the bus stop to get me further along. Except the buses never came. Phoned the depot & they said "those buses don't start until 7pm."

"No they don't they start at 5pm."

"I'm looking at the time table sir, they start at 7pm."

"I'm looking at the timetable too you have printed at the bus stop - it's 1700 hrs - that's 5pm in the 24 hour clock."

"Um - gaunae haud on a minute while I check something?"

10 seconds later:

[Recorded message] "We are sorry, but this line is temporarily out of order."



I ended up getting a bus going in the opposite direction after giving up & deciding to walk to the local train station instead. When I reached it, the train I thought I'd no chance of getting was there - it had been delayed for over a half hour due to problems with the line. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry moment!

Shocked at Warren Clarke's death, although he was never the fittest man. They're all dropping off this year like flies. Last week it was Alvin Stardust, the week before that it was Lynda Bellingham. It's like being a wifey at a bingo hall & inbetween the games all you hear is "did you hear that's so-and-so passed away?" all night long.

[Caspin]

Blimey. Sounds as though the bus company there needs to do a bit of staff training on use of the 24 hour clock. I discovered why my bus never turned up the other day - they've been on diversion for about a month, meaning that I have been picking it up at an unusual location, but they suddenly started following the regular route again that morning. So really I was waiting for a bus that was never going to arrive. Lovely.

I'm off to Stratford tonight to see "The Witch of Edmonton", which should tie in nicely with my recent reading.

Feeling like death warmed up at the moment, so it will be nice to leave work early today and get out of London even if only for a short while.

Hope everyone has a restful weekend. I will catch up with you when I get back.