Behold! I bring you tidings of great joy, for this writer hath just finished bloody work for the year, after a massively stressful month. If she had her way, certain developers and project ‘managers’ would be strung up by the bollocks (in festively fetching tinsel, of course) and hung from the top of the big pine tree on the village green.
Now able to turn her attention to much more important matters, she finds that there is another round of the European Cups this weekend.
Since nearly all the home sides lost last weekend, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen this week, but let us hope that trend continues for matches featuring teams whose names end in ‘ster’.
Onna telly this week
Friday 18th December
| Pumas v Cheetahs | 17:00 | Sky Sports Mix |
| Castres v Newcastle | 17:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Scarlets v Toulon | 19:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Wasps v Montpellier | 20:00 | BT Sport ? |
Saturday 19th December
| Leinster v Northampton | 13:00 | Channel 4 / BT Sport 2 |
| Gloucester v Ulster | 15:15 | BT Sport 2 |
| Clermont v Munster | 17:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Sale v Edinburgh | 20:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Bordeaux v Dragons | 20:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Worcester v Ospreys | 20:00 | S4C |
Sunday 20th December
| Harlequins v Racing 92 | 15:15 | BT Sport 2 |
| Connacht v Bristol | 17:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Cardiff 28 – 0 Stade Français |
Ovally Balls 
I remember a few years ago there was a bit of a stushie because apple products couldn’t run Flash, the reason being that Apple thought Flash was shite and leaked like a sieve, so refused to support it
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I have just assumed that Melbury is the next town over from Melchester and he is trying to erect a new football stadium or some such nonsense in one of his odd computer games. Everyone else seems to know.
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I think this ‘melbury’ is some sort of log cabin for his garden. I’m thinking something like this….
https://www.katahdincedarloghomes.com/showcase-home/addison-13061/
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Isn’t that Suavo’s old house?
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It would make sense if it’s a log cabin though as the sod he can’t get to fit right must be part of the roof and with it not being fully erect that’s not a surprise.
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He also seems to be having trouble getting radiators into it.
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That is a beautiful house.
I like the idea of having a porch you can sit on and strum a guitar or pick up a bow and play a fiddle tune or two with friends, especially if it’s overlooking water.
It wouldn’t have to be quite so grand as that one in the link, but if you are forcing my hand I’ll take it
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Just found the ideal place for both Clyde and Chimpie (and perhaps even Ticht!?)
Log cabins at Beavers Bend!
https://www.beaversbendlodging.com/
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Ticht – I would never, ever do banking on a phone or tablet.
Windows Defender really isn’t all that. McAfee is okay. Certainly many of the free anti-malware programmes are bad (or even Trojan horses), but Norton’s always been solid – have never had a virus. Basically, you get what you pay for.
Actually, I’ve just checked on Defender, and it is highly rated.
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‘Ticht – I would never, ever do banking on a phone or tablet.’
Err. Oh. Is this cos they’re massively insecure?
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may have to change my online banking habits
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That’s it BB – exactly what I’m building in the back garden. ‘swhy it’s taking a bit of time to erect.
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” it’s taking a bit of time to erect.”
Is this because you’re massively insecure?
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Getting the hot tub and fire pit in the double height gazebo is particularly troublesome.
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No CMW, I’m just a bit of a slow mover.
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“Just found the ideal place for both Clyde and Chimpie (and perhaps even Ticht!?)”
I think we will need Ticht as I believe he bought a beaver-bender a while back to save on having to get a plumber out. We’ll be ages doing it by hand without one.
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Bhatti to Bath for rest of season. Weir back to Glasgae possibly
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Chimpie, Double height you say? I suggest a double-sized ladder.
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I believe OT used to be in Evil Gazebo so he can probably help.
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CMW – hope your kid is fine.
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Getting the hot tub and fire pit in the double height gazebo
Sorry, I can’t let this slide. How many couples are having over Chimpie?
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@Craigs – She’ll be fine, she still says she hasn’t got it.
I think I might have pissed her off a bit this morning. Mrs CMW offered to deliver the Christmas cards Middle One wrote the other day for her classmates (she should have got them written sooner to hand over at school, but we didn’t realise you had to hand them over to the school to hang on to for three days or somesuch). I appeared out of the shower to say that when you think about it it’s not really on for them to be delivered at all now.
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Tham, as far as I’m aware, but I’m open to being corrected, the most secure system is iOs on either your own wifi or using cellular data when out and about rather than public wifi.
I just had a squint at Norton’s own site and they confirmed iOs is pretty secure, as long as it isn’t jailbroken. The mobile bank apps are safer than computer log ins, it’s much harder to plant a key logger on a phone, and everything I’ve just had a look at (Norton, Which and a site called Nerd Wallet ) seems to suggest phones are okay.
I don’t know what lurks beneath all those whack-a-mole pop ups that come with rugby streams, even after I’ve used McAffee or Norton in the past I never fully trusted them.
A lot of Internet security comes down to user safety, I would never follow a link from an email from my bank or paypal or ebay or any other place, if I feel I need to follow up on an email I log on to the website from my browser or via the app for banks.
I keep everything up to date and my bank uses text and phone messages to confirm any new or unusual looking transactions.
My kids ordered from Nandos using my card recently, what a palaver it was to get my bank to pay them. Apparently stolen cards are often used for ordering from Nandos!
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Heartless, CMW. Now tell ’em Santa doesn’t exist.
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@TomP – I think that would be too much this year as I’ve already been identified as the Chief Elf who puts the chocolates in the advent calendar each day (or forgets to). I’m trying to make sure The Eldest and the Middle One don’t share this knowledge with the Little One, but they’re using the situation to bully me.
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I didn’t really stand much of a chance as some of the childminding children now turn up earlier than some of our kids get up, but not every day. Too many or too few chocolates delivered by the elves and QUESTIONS HAD TO BE ASKED. Then they found the ammunition dump and it was all over.
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Tons of our players are being linked in the press with other clubs, Big Duhan to Wuss for six figures (frankly he can do better than Wuss) Andrew Davidson to Glaws, Big Bill to France somewhere, Watson to England, though the first he’d heard of it was when someone showed him the story in the press.
I hope this is just their agents planting stories about out of contract players in order to push up their price, but it is going to be difficult to hold on to these guys and we’ll become little more than a feeder club for others with the wallets to challenge for honours
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When ours were of the age to be described as the oldest one, middle one, youngest one, I showed the youngest one the Nasa Santa tracker on Christmas Eve, she turned and demanded of her sisters, “See?”, “Told you”
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48 years since they landed anyone on the Moon and they’re pissing around with a Santa tracker. You wouldn’t see the boy Elon Musk wasting time on that sort of thing when there’s a Mars to fly to,
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Tomp – can Santa even deliver presents to Mars? Or maybe there’s ANOTHER SANTA ON MARS!!!!
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We had the conjunction of the planets yesterday and the shortest day of the year. I know people scoff at all the new age druidy bullshit (me included) but at least when it was made up they (Romans and Norsemen) could observe stuff happening and it just was a poor explanation based on relative ignorance.
Rather than some batshit writings which you are encouraged to believe without any evidence whatsoever.
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@Craigs – You don’t have to believe our batshit writings, you can take them or leave them.
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When is Peterson’s new book out?
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Craigs, if it were up to Nasa, they’d just mock up Mars on a stage set and invite Santa to “land” the sleigh on the Red Planet.
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Tomp – I’m sure you have it on pre order.
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Ach, too slow on the JP front. I shall call TomP Thunder-stealer and worship him in a grove.
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JPs position in Dog is the main reason I don’t rate him BTW.
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“JPs position in Dog is the main reason I don’t rate him”
Is this a yoga thing again?
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And by ‘rate’ I mean ‘take the rest of what he says seriously’. Not a character judgement.
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CMW – every word true.
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My apologies for misleading the blog, it isn’t NASA who do the Santa tracking, at fist I wanted to call the organisation NORAID, but it’ un likely that an organisation that supports the goal of a united Ireland under the peace process is going to be tracking Santa.
So I plumped for NASA, but in fact I was closer than I thought with Noraid, it is in fact NORAD who track the big man and his deer, The North American Aerospace Defense Command, they would be in position to keep tabs on a flying sleigh right enough.
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Those acronyms can be bastards
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My apologies to the hard-working employees of NASA and thanks for the Teflon, although you didn’t invent it.
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The American tax system includes something called an IRA, an individual retirement account. I believe that in the Boston area it was quite common to invest one’s money in an IRA and the IRA.
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Speaking of Teflon, we watched the film Dark Waters recently, it goes on a bit, but it is a very interesting subject, Big Corps v little lawyer and very ill neighbours.
The film was based on a NYT article – The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-nightmare.html
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I’m pretty sure NASA track him too, but, quite rightly, we don’t know about it.
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Ooh, perfluorinated compounds. ‘sgonna be a hot topic in coming years from a professional POV. Regulatory environment in the UK has a lot of catching up to do on these.
Rob Billot (lawyer started it all) did a column for the graun last week.
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“Ooh, perfluorinated compounds”
Most efficacious in every case?
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I was able to see the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction yesterday, just after sunset – and was able toreflect a little on the state of mankind and ‘progress’ over the last 400 years………………
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On the internet safety thing………………….
-I use Norton 360 on this Dell laptop. 100% safe so far – in fact it tends to be ultra cautious. Worth the money fo peace of mind.
– My better half uses Apple laptop and phone – works wonderfully together BUT her passwords have been hacked – a not infrequent problem with Apple users – impact seems benign, but who knows. This happened 4/5 years ago, persists and Apple aren’t interested.
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