Spirit of Turpentine

9°C, showers, clammy

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Fine morning to unblock a stinking drain.The overspill left a layer of slimey mud below the window which must have been teeming with life. My guess is there were algae living in it along with the inevitable fungi. Further along the food chain were a growing family of slugs, looking like miniature gherkins. They were so happy. The fungi spent their time making the rotten newspaper smell, and the jelly-like clear slimes- what were they.. Or maybe not; times like this I need an expert in microscopic-smelly-lifeforms.
All wet and shiny clean now.

A day to be confused by stuff that people write. Go away, sit in a quiet dark room and and think really hard.

9°C, 'orrible showers.

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The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: Film about the son of a Concentration Camp commandant. I don't mind giving key elements of the plot because the film is so bad that I urge you to avoid it. The kid is bored in the house where the Camp's commandant is posted, he climes out and makes friends with a Jewish kid over the electric fence. Eventually he digs in to try to find the Jewish kid's father, and ends up in a gas chamber himself. Sentimental, absurd and twee.
Red sky in the morning; you know the rest.

9°C, windy. but fairly dry & warm

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The list of things needing repairs is growing like snow rolling down a hill purportedly does. The bike has a broken wheel + a twisted chain; a drain is blocked, roof leaks on the shed, a sofa needs patching, and other things I can't be bothered to think about right now.
At least I could ride the bike home, but not risking that wheel again. It's not even that old, only a few thousand miles and it broke through the rim at a eyeleted spoke hole; they're not supposed to do that.
....bum!

10-13°C. Windy & showers. heavy ones.

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Watched a borrowed DVD last night that turned out to be a pirate copy. This one was filmed in a cinema, you could hear people coughing and sometimes talking. The little parasite must have been sitting near the back with the videocam, because the bassy loud bits drowned out any clarity so that quite a few passages of dialogue were difficult to follow  There was a hollow loss of mid-range sounds that is common in cinemas, but the colour was off key too. At first I considered that the film was shot in a nostalgic desaturated colour-space, with added grain.
Cinemas frequently show videos pleading for people to avoid pirate videos, but I don't think they need to bother. What I saw last night wasn't really a proper film, certainly nothing that could compete with the product that film producers are trying to sell. I don't see any reason to buy a disks from a pirate dealer because the genuine DVDs are don't cost much anyway.

9°C, Dull, dull, dull.

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Richard Maybe: Flora Britannica is my kind of plant book. It covers plants that are largely native to Britain, though some naturalised ones are covered but it's different. It isn't a gardening book. It's got nothing on how to propogate, where to plant or anything like that. this one is about folklore, for want of a better word.

Church & State: interesting story from America, well, the USA anyway. : It seems they do have some people in power who are resisting the dominance of church in US state politics. For the past century, no US president has gained power without openly declaring his Christianity. This is unconstitutional of course if you know anything of the US constitution which aims at removing the inevitable corruption that appears when religious leaders gain political power.

6°C, Fog

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Now, suddenly we see it's winter. I am not cold. Credit that to long-johns & a vest.

10°C, clearing. Ride 65 miles

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New game: Far Cry 2, driving around in the African savannah.
Real life, cycling around Warwickshire for 65 miles. One of them makes you fit

9°C, respite from rain.

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Where have I put my latest P60? I really need to find this startlingly plain document amongst the other plain sheets that I get sent every month.
If anyone knows where it is; please tell me in a comment.

Bessie appears to be searching in this photo, but clearly she has misunderstood the nature of the problem.
Hewlet Packard printers are very economical to use. They use almost no ink, and any paper that it prints out can be recycled. All you do is take the plain white paper that it normally churns out and put it back in the lower tray because, though it does consume ink, none of it gets onto the paper.The only drawback is with this printer, like the Epson I had before, is that it is incapable of doing what printers are supposed to do. But I mustn't loose sight of the fact that there is no running cost beyond the electricity that it consumes, and the rage that it generates.

9°C, Showers, quite heavy too

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Appetite- Constantly hungry today, all those trips to the canteen, raiding my locker (it was full of food). But still hungry. Am I pregnant? Can't be! But Matt suggested a possible- it's the colder weather. Has my metabolism increased to create more warmth?

Douglass Adams: in the book "Last Chance To See"... this guy has a very powerful way of writing that combines wit, human vulnerability and above all- protest.
Concerning the slaughter of a goat for the sake of filming Komodo dragons:
There is stuff like this throughout the book. He can't resist anthropomorphising animals and situations with sensitivity but not with excessive sentimentality. I have only read his fiction stuff before, this is so fresh.

8°C. sun & showers

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Switch-on: I put the heating on yesterday. It's only on for a few hours each day so far. A bit later than last year, but autumn was colder then. The ride home today was rather horrible- the black wet road didn't show up the light pools very well. Dry road is clear enough even with spots of water on my specs. Wet roads are not so, car headlights do light up the kerb-stones though so little chance of hitting the verge and taking a spill.