My friend Gavin from New Zealand has sent me this seasonal poem. Today is October the 16th 10 weeks till Christmas Day I’m starting to count down Good tidings I do say. Today is Oct the 23rd 9 weeks till Christmas Day There’s sales in all the shops and malls To make us all hip-ho … | Continue reading
Seems like we are getting all that rain that missed us during the summer. | Continue reading
This American woman’s name is Kelly Loeffler. The photo is not AI generated or otherwise altered, and was used by her for publicity purposes. This is who she is, and what she does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Loeffler If you don’t want to read that, here’s the short versi … | Continue reading
This is the thirteenth part of a fiction serial, in 752 words. The more Tony thought about what had happened, the angrier he got. He went over all of the favours he had done for Janice over the years, and mentally totted up all the money he had paid her. And he had never asked … … | Continue reading
WordPress is at it again, messing around with the comments boxes on posts. Since yesterday afternoon, I have been unable to leave comments on the posts of some of the bloggers I follow. Now today I have been emailed to be informed that some followers are unable to leave a comment … | Continue reading
The last batch of saved medieval memes for now. 7 for me. | Continue reading
This is the twelfth part of a fiction serial, in 754 words. When Tony got the phone call from Janice, it didn’t occur to him that Lang might have said anything to her. She sounded friendly too. “How about we meet for a drink, Tony? I’m not going out at night any more so any … Con … | Continue reading
**Disclaimer** I do not vouch for the veracity of any of these facts. | Continue reading
Today marks the first day of the second week of looking after Basil the dog during the day. Following a few problems last week, things started off well this morning. Once he had a run around the back garden and was given a treat, he came inside to work off some energy by playing … | Continue reading
This is the eleventh part of a fiction serial, in 763 words. Lang had only carried a briefcase into the hotel, and the other man was empty-handed. Tony presumed that it was not going to be an overnight stay, so decided to wait. Inside the hotel, Christopher was seated in the bar, … | Continue reading
The information on these two lists is probably already known to most of you. But some readers might see something new. Now on to the age-related content! Cheese interval. Politics. And a cat to finish on! | Continue reading
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This is the tenth part of a fiction serial, in 832 words. Janice hadn’t stopped talking since they had left to head back to Leeds. Tony started off being happy for her, and pleased that he had helped her. She was going to get two hundred a month from that strange-looking bloke, j … | Continue reading
Despite some occasional heavy rain, it was mostly pleasant weather last week, with strong sunshine on some days, and warm enough that we have not had to put the heating on. Other than a couple of wet days when I had to walk Basil the dog, I have managed to still be wearing shorts … | Continue reading
Susan Dell is the wife of the CEO of Dell Technologies, Michael Dell. He is a billionaire, and he and his wife are donors to Donald Trump’s savings programme for children, and strong supporters of him politically. They recently appeared next to Trump in the Oval Office, and Susan … | Continue reading
Sam Altman is the American CEO of OpenAI. If you want to know more about him and his company, you can read this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI He now wants humans to reduce their water consumption to benefit the growth of AI data centres. Remember when it started, once the … | Continue reading
This is the ninth part of a fiction serial, in 771 words. Janice waited for a full thirty minutes after the bank had opened for business before sending Tony in on a scouting mission. “You go in there, ask for a form to open a new account, and see if you can see that bloke … Conti … | Continue reading
Chipping Camden, England. Eastbury Manor House. Borough of Barking, London. | Continue reading
What’s going on with WordPress this afternoon? A new-style comments box, making me log in every time to leave a comment on other blogs. It’s really annoying! Anyone else getting this? Or is it just me? They should change the name to Wordpests. | Continue reading
TRUMP FANS LOOK AWAY NOW. A gold statue depicting Donald Trump fully naked and crushing a smaller man’s shoulders has been unveiled in the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, France. Titled “The Orange Plague,” the 2.6-meter statue by Danish artist Jens Galschiøt, is a de … | Continue reading
Today is the last day Basil will be with us during the day until next Tuesday. He is going to stay with members of our neighbour’s family until then. I will be feeding Alfie (Alfredo) the cat in his absence, but will have a break from hosting Basil until Tuesday. As you will know … | Continue reading
This is the eighth part of a fiction serial, in 830 words. Irish Tony wasn’t Irish. But his name was Flanagan, and that, and the occasional pint of Guinness in his local pub, had earned him the nickname. In fact, he was Leeds born and bred, brought up in a children’s home after b … | Continue reading
This is the seventh part of a fiction serial, in 780 words. Janice Bickerstaffe was nobody’s fool. Her lessons in life had all been learned the hard way. Married too young to a womaniser who liked to slap her around when he had too much booze, it had been a shock at first when he … | Continue reading
Yesterday was the first day of looking after Basil from 08:30 until 17:00. He calmed down eventually, after first worrying why he had been left, and staring at the front door. So just after 09:30 I took him across to Beetley Meadows for a walk. That went well, at first. He stayed … | Continue reading
I was contacted by Jeremy Desmon. He has created a website named ‘Rhymehamster’. This supplies rhyming word suggestions for any word you type into in. I tried it, and it worked well. It also tells you if the word has nothing that ryhmes with it. I typed ‘Tortuous’ as an example. … | Continue reading
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This is the sixth part of a fiction serial, in 779 words. As requested, Christopher was outside the station when Janice arrived at Harrogate. He had booked a table in a fancy hotel restaurant nearby, and was pleased to see that she was suitably dressed in more conservative attire … | Continue reading
Starting tomorrow, I will be looking after next door’s dog, Basil. It will be for a few days each week over the next 14 days, and I will be taking him for some nice long walks locally. This may curtail my blog posts somewhat, (not a bad thing, I hear you cry) but I hope … Continu … | Continue reading
This is the fifth part of a fiction serial, in 769 words. Christopher didn’t fool himself that it was going to be easy. He was going to have to set up a property company, to act as a front for the running of the houses. It would be easy enough to name some of his … Continue readi … | Continue reading
Well the weather is still remarkably pleasant for October. Sunny days in the main, although the evenings are getting chilly. The fact there has still been very little rain has prompted the water companies to retain the hosepipe ban. It is probably not going to be relaxed until ne … | Continue reading
This is a song from the 1930s, recorded at the time by the crooner, Rudy Valee. However, in 1965 it became a massive hit for the English comedian, singer, and variety performer, Ken Dodd. I was 13 years old then, and found it hard to believe this record was number one in the char … | Continue reading
This is the fourth part of a fiction serial, in 790 words. By the time they approached Harrogate thirty minutes later, Christopher had received many interesting answers to the numerous questions he had asked the prostitute, whose name was Janice. She had not been especially surpr … | Continue reading
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After I recently posted about an AI overview of my blog, many of you, including me, noticed that it made no mention of my dearly departed dog, Ollie. Given that Ollie was the mainstay of my blog for the twelve years of his life, that did seem strange. So yesterday I did a regular … | Continue reading
This is the third part of a fiction serial, in 837 words. It was known in the town that Mr Lang always closed the bank sharply at three-thirty every day. He and the staff needed the remaining time to complete the paperwork, balance the money in against the money paid out, and to … | Continue reading
This is the second part of a fiction serial, in 813 words. Christopher’s house was his sanctuary. No local people were ever invited back there, and he never held dinner parties or garden parties as his father had liked to do. It had started life a a six-bedroom family home with a … | Continue reading
Because they make me laugh. 7 for me. | Continue reading
This is the first part of a fiction serial, in 780 words. Christopher Lang was walking home from work on a pleasant summer evening. The small market town was already closing down for the night, though the Red Lion pub was just beginning what would probably be a busy session. Tues … | Continue reading
I asked AI (Chatgpt) for an overview of my blog. I wanted to see how much material they had already content-scraped and stored. This reply took just 3 SECONDS. Read that again. THREE SECONDS! ‘I’ve had a look through the site, including the current front page, your About page, an … | Continue reading