I planted about a hundred spring bulbs at the end of last year and they're pretty much all coming up nicely now. I can recognize the daffs as they're easy, but having mislaid my planting map I have pretty much no idea what's going to flower where. Which is all rather exciting.

Did you know you can't use 'Beef Stew' as a password?

It's not stroganoff

I think they make champagne bottles hard to open to ensure you're sober enough, but the joke's on them because I have a sword.

Shingle beaches are wank

Just had some new logs delivered for the stove. On the plus side, delivery was free, the delivery guy was lovely and the wood is nice and dry. However, they're nearly all softwood, they're a bit short and they're a bit grubby so not very attractive in our indoor wood stack. I'll be going back to the slightly more damp ash logs that we got last time for my next purchase but I'll make sure I buy them a couple of weeks before I want to burn them. Ah well, no big problem and not an expensive lesson.

MY YEAR IN DIETS
 
Veganuary 
Fibreuary  
Starch 
Cakepril 
MaycaroniCheese 
June&tonic 
Julicecream 
Augustickytoffeepudding 
Septembeer 
Octoblerone 
Doughvember 
Decemburger 

Here’s all the writing about beer that grabbed our attention in this wet, gloomy first week of January 2024, from stats to smoked beer.

#beer #pubs

https://boakandbailey.com/2024/01/news-nuggets-and-longreads-6-january-2024-innsmouth-look/

There you go. Epiphany. Everyone can STFU about it now. It's over.

Thank you Jesus, see you at Easter.

@GypsumFantastic I'm also glad that the sunrise is FINALLY getting earlier. Stupid solar time.

Nice article about us here:
https://communitylivingmagazine.com/there-was-a-real-hunger-to-learn-and-absorption-in-work/

Just in case anyone's waiting for an update on my fun (and I use the word quite wrongly) #BhutJolokiaExperiments, I can reveal that the escalation stage ended with my Christmas phall. While I can happily eat such things, the subsequent level of suffering would be better suited for an Easter meal. Pepping up an already hot curry with three ghost chillies was a step too far for me so tonight I'm back to the far more sensible two in a nice kofta curry for the sake of my lower alimentary canal.

Anyway, I've been right down the rabbit hole. Have an analemme.

https://www.perseus.gr/Astro-Solar-Analemma-102816.htm

Basically, clock time is different from sun time due to our orbit around the sun being elliptical. Actual day length (sun time) varies throughout the year by up to 30 seconds whereas clock time remains constant to keep things simple in modern society.

https://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/eqtime

I have finally decided to look up the reason why our sunrises are still getting later even though we've passed the solstice. It's pretty interesting if, like me, you're a massive nerd. Here's the best article I've found:
https://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/rs_solstices#:~:text=In%20other%20words%2C%20the%20Sun,as%20measured%20by%20the%20clock.

It's actually a bit shit. Not full-on shit but definitely shitter than I remembered. Sorry if I'd got anyone's hopes up.

I'm watching Predator 2. I have a real soft spot for this film. I know it's not as polished as Predator but it was one of my only VHS tapes when I was a student. And it's part of the holy triptych of the late Bill Paxton's film deaths. #Aliens #Terminator #Predator

Die Tage:

Non-cognate interlexical homographs: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/non-cognate-interlexical-homographs-text-vote/#jp-carousel-14058

Right then, time to start on the Christmas curry. I'm having laal maas, which is lamb cooked with thirty dried chillies and a LOT of cloves. I use Kashmiri chillies for this, which are nice and mild, but today I'm pepping it up a bit by adding three ghost chillies to the mix in a continuation of my bhut jolokia experiments. Which I may come to regret.