December’s rainbow

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2~5°C, light NE winds, some showers. Cycle 60.8 miles.

NE winds brought light showers from the North Sea today. This new fleece long sleeve shirt did the trick- no chills for me. I have ot recommend this stuff, even when wet, it’s warm in the way that woollen shirts are.Weather like this is great for rainbows- even in the middle of the day- possible because the sun is still quite low.
Today has the earliest sunset of the year.

Somewhere near Packington, Leicestershire.

The Screaming

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11°C, dry.

In work a bit early, but a strange atmosphere- there was hardly any screaming. Most of the girls turn up about 08.20, so that’s when it reaches a real crescendo- enough to hurt your ears and leave you with mild tinnitus. Girls scream to greet each other, they scream to agree about things, and scream when discussing television programmes: at other times they scream for no apparent reason at all. Sometimes, I can’t bear to ask- the explanation could be so intensely mundane that my mind would go.

corrupt system32

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<7°C, & falling under clear starry skies.

Poorly computer (again gasp): On Windows 2000, the System32system file is corrupt, meaning no bootup. I don’t know how this happens, but last night Kaspersky raised the alarm and offered to delete some infected files. It will be a few days until I can SFC file checker from the boot-up floppy discs. Last time I tried that technique, however, it failed- no repair worked.
What a pain, it’s all the time setting up the OS that’s at risk, no important files are in danger though. Just time- a precious commodity at this end of term.

Why this one?

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9°C, bad of rain tonight, dry until now

Why is this a news story? : Knox-Kercher murder case. Why, of all the murder trials going on in the world has this one floated to the top of the popularity ratings of the media.

A vague guess: it’s a story starring pretty people. Some papers are discussing their ‘surprise’ that this crime was committed by people who are not the archetypal evil criminal.Maybe it is a surprise if you take the hollywood-shallow notion that criminals are possessed by some evil force, in the christian understanding of the word.

Holly recommends Mike Leigh’s "HAPPY GO LUCKY" (2008) on Channel 4 tomorrow. Take note.

horizontally going down

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<3°C, dropping, but dry now.

Strange sleep routine: bed early, too tired to notice the others arriving home at mid-night. Then waker at 3 unable to get any more sleep. Camomile tea fixed it so that I nearly slept through the alarm. It is not supposed to work like this.

Ilych

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7°C, distinctly warm compared to yesterday. Dry, SE wind, light

Entrance exam again.: Had a good group today, it all went well. I couldn’t help noticing a minor irony- 24 kids sitting a test to win a place in a selective grammar school, the whole time, overlooked by a statue of Lenin in the corner. Yes it was a History room, but he did look earnest.

This one tastes of Christmas

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5°C, northerly, clear

Here is a fine chocolate, there is as much variety in the taste of plain chocolate as there is in Whisky. This one is certainly a single malt: however the Bournville I had in work today wasn’t even an unbranded blend; not sure that stuff even deserves the name ‘chocolate’ to be blunt.
This bar came as a surprise when driving home yesterday- it tastes of Christmas. Each block leaves a cherry-rich soft night-time after-taste. This is the peaty island malt of the chocolate world. Divine and Green & Blacks, you are up against some competition here. I bet many overlook this princely prize with its own-brand name and low price; don’t make that mistake- there are treasures of some depth to experience in this bar.

Now, steal yourself; off you to go the local Co-op to buy some.

Cwm Cau

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6°C, miserable here, better in Powys


On the South face of Cadair Idris, the lake Llyn Cau. Yesterday. The snow started at about 1,000ft, it formed a decent ground-cover a few hundred metres higher here at this lake Llyn Cau. We had intended to go to the beach but the mountains called with their bright white peaks in the patches of sunshine.

Ultrasonic

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9°C, has the battery failed in the thermometer? It’s colder than this. 6° probably

That SW wind blows strongly some more.
Mosquito is a siren (in the UK anyway) that is meant to repel teenagers. Shops and cafes use them to repel loiterers and they are becoming quite commonplace. The claim is that they can’t be heard by older people and selectively annoy ‘youth’ who then go away.
Explain why I can hear them then! I am 45 years old (as of yesterday).
The device makes a sound rather like the sonar effect you hear on tacky WWII submarine films, only the pitch is octaves higher, as high as the sound bats make I’d say.
I ponder…
Had no luck yet finding the frequency that these things peak at, but Pipistrelle bats begin at 15 and range up to 45KHz. Not sure of the physics at play here, but wouldn’t there be harmonics at an octave above and and another below?
None in my tutor group have ever heard a bat- they said today. I had to ask.

Shot in south Wales.