Craig Sawyers

My daughter lives in New South Wales. Looking at the countryside you can see one reason why.

Not sure how I missed this one! So a belated Happy Birthday!!

Well that was a totally awesome concert - The Eagles in Birmingham (the UK one). Two and a half hours with no break - basically their iconic Greatest Hits and Hotel California albums (which I bought back in the day and still have) and a whole load of other, quite advanced sonically, stuff from later albums. The line up was the only remaining and performing member Don Henley (71) and slightly later members Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmidt, both also 71. Singing Glenn Frey's vocals was his son Deacon Frey (26), who was superb, and much to Carole's delight - Vince Gill. And the guys had lost none of their vocal ability and high notes despite their advancing years. It was the nearest thing to a hifi concert I've been to - the sound quality was excellent. One hell of an evening. This was the set list: Take It Easy One of These Nights Take It to the Limit Tequila Sunrise Witchy Woman In the City (Joe Walsh song) I Can't Tell You Why New Kid in Town Peaceful Easy Feeling Love Will Keep Us Alive Lyin' Eyes Don't Let Our Love Start Slippin' Away (Vince Gill cover) Those Shoes Already Gone Walk Away (James Gang cover) Life's Been Good (Joe Walsh song) The Boys of Summer (Don Henley song) Heartache Tonight Funk #49 (James Gang cover) Life in the Fast Lane Hotel California Rocky Mountain Way (Joe Walsh song) Desperado Best of My Love

That is a totally insane tube! https://frank.pocnet.net/sheets/140/3/304TL.pdf .

Are those transmitter tubes in the Moth amps?

I bought a 55" LG OLED about a year ago, maybe less. What a stunning device. Of course with any TV you have to go through all the set up process, because out of the box might not at all be what you want to look at. But usually there is something on the web about most models and what the recommended settings are, and for different ambient light (daylight, artificial light, darkened room etc). It was the previous year's model. The only difference with the new model was some minor differences in the computing engine - but the OLED panel was the same. Last year's was UKP1,300, this years was UKP3.500. No brainer choice! Likewise with Sony - there seems to be no doubt that it is better than an LG with the same screen size, but with a big price tag premium.

OK - so I'm from the North of England, so I don't have a problem with the dialect of the new presenters of Top Gear post Matt Leblanc. But what say you guys and gals in the US of A - can you understand what is going on? The accent is basically Lancashire.

Went to see Nicholas Nickleby at the Bristol Old Vic. This is a massive version of the Dickens novel for the stage. Part 1 started at 1:30pm, and Part 2 finished at 11pm. Total intervals were just over two hours. The amazing thing is that it was staged by recent graduates of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School - so very young professional actors. It was absolutely stunning, first off. And an titanic act of memory - it is 7 hours in total, and many of the main characters are on stage for much of that (Nicholas, Kate, Ralph). Ralph Nickelby in particular was impressive. The monstrous money focused manipulator is in his fifties - so it is a tough role for someone in their early 20's - but he carried it off perfectly. A great day out!

What did/do you play?

The comments under the vid are gold: “Throw it in the garbage – 0 seconds”; “This sounds like someone is narrating my unsuccessful foreplay”; “I'm buying this for somebody I hate” And many more.

Belated happy birthday!

Why does that remind me of Team America?

Two comedy plays in Stratford (on Avon) yesterday. We live 60 miles away so it is an easy drive. First one was As You Like It by Shakespeare https://www.rsc.org.uk/as-you-like-it/. The Royal Shakespeare Company produce superb plays, and this was one of those. They keep them totally fresh, and very easy to understand, not at all high-brow. That was in the afternoon. Second one, in the evening, was a late Restoration Comedy called The Provoked Wife, by Vanbrugh, again superb. https://www.rsc.org.uk/the-provoked-wife/ Bit of background. Oliver Cromwell was one of the key people behind the Civil War in England in the mid 1600's. Once his troops had seized power, he had the king Charles I beheaded. Being hard puritans, they put in place reforms that included defacing the inside of churches and cathedrals, painting the insides white (covering up medieval wall paintings) and chipping the faces from statues of saints etc. They also banned public entertainment (and closed all the theatres), shut many pubs, sport and even swearing (anyone playing sport was flogged, swearing was a fine). Britain became a cheerless place. When Cromwell died, Charles II (who had been living in exile in Holland) was restored to the throne, and reversed all of Cromwell's bans - which was exceedingly popular! Theatres was all reopened, and playwrights all went to town with the Restoration Comedies - all of them bawdy and hilarious. One of the late Restoration playwrights was John Vanbrugh. As astonishingly versatile guy, he was not only a well known playwright, he was also an architect - designing Castle Howard https://www.castlehoward.co.uk/ and Blenheim Palace https://www.blenheimpalace.com/ . PS Charles II escaped after a 650 mile flight with a reward of £1000 on his head, and pursued by Cromwell's troops. He was so pissed when he was restored to the throne, he had those who had signed the death warrant for his father Charles I arrested, and had them hanged, drawn and quartered in The Mall in London. He also had Cromwell's body dug up and posthumously hanged in public.

I think you just got unlucky. We've had 7 cats over the years, and although we have had vets bills as a result of injuries from fighting other cats, we have not had any eye infections. But I can see that getting drops into a cat's eyes is a pretty fraught exercise!

Live video feed from the ISS https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ESRS/HDEV/

I wish I had more "likes" to give for that find, Knucks. Hilarous!

There were teachers at my school I could well believe got up to that sort of shenanigans

RIP Murray Gell-Mann, the guy who won the (unshared) Nobel Prize for particle physics symmetry and the Quark. A genius from an early age, he won a place at Yale at the age of 15 and graduated at 19. A full Professor at 29.

Not at all Jose. For what it is worth I was one of the 48% who voted to stay in the EU, as did the rest of my family. My daughter was in tears when the vote went to leave, and emigrated to Australia. And the daughter of very old friends (a lawyer) retrained in French law and went to live and work in Paris. It is the younger generation who feel particularly betrayed by Brexit.

Well, I've been saying that will not happen on a number of occasions. But the idea is gaining some traction. I think the thing is that three years ago, there was a simple binary choice - IN or OUT, with a simple majority gaining the day. All that people were were going on, in making the judgement, was based on lies of one sort or another. Now that the population knows what the full scale of horror actually is, the idea that the whole issue is more of an informed choice. Regarding lies, Boris Johnson is now being sued for misconduct in public office for his Brexit battlebus slogan saying that we spent £350m a week on the EU and "Let's fund our NHS now!". In fact that does not take count of the rebate or other economic elements such as trade, jobs and investment, so our real terms contribution is about half what Johnson falsely claimed. And then he suggested that money would go into the NHS, which was clearly misleading. And anyway, a fair chunk goes into our contribution to the European Space Agency, CERN, ITER and a number of large scientific research projects. I sincerely hope that noone in the Brexit punch up suggests we pull out of those.

This almost counts for inclusion in Trump Rants, but it relates to the increasingly stupid political situation in the UK. May resigned because she could not get a majority to vote for her withdrawal deal from the EU. So far 11 candidates have put their name forward to take her job, and probably a few more before voting starts. They are all banging on about renegotiating the Brexit deal - and the EU are saying absolutely no way is that going to happen. The other major party - Labour - are likewise tearing themselves to shreds, and are led by a 1970's style political throwback Jeremy Corbyn. Apart from the anti-semitism row. And yesterday they expelled Alastair Campbell (he was Tony Blair's political advisor and media chief - a real rottweiler) from the Labour Party for voting Liberal Democrat in the European elections. Here is a sobering statistic. In 1950 there were 2.8 million members of the Conservative Party, and 1 million in the Labour Party (and millions more in "Block Trades Union" votes). Such is the demise of public engagement with politics there are now more members of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSBP) than there are of all political parties added together. It is an unholy mess, candidly.

That ridiculous video clip missed out the fact that Steven Fry actually hit Hugh Laurie with the bat. This includes the end.

The 6th & Final Affair Jake was dying. His wife sat at the bedside. He looked up and said weakly: 'I have something I must confess.' 'There's no need to, 'his wife replied. 'No,' he insisted, 'I want to die in peace.. I slept with your sister, your best friend, her best friend, and your mother!' 'I know,' she replied. 'Now just rest and let the poison work.'

The 5th Affair A man walked into a cafe, Went to the bar and ordered a beer. 'Certainly, Sir, that'll be one cent.' 'One Cent?' the man exclaimed... He glanced at the menu and asked: 'How much for a nice juicy steak And a bottle of wine?' 'A nickel,' the barman replied. 'A nickel?' exclaimed the man. 'Where's the guy who owns this place?' The bartender replied: 'Upstairs, with my wife.' The man asked: 'What's he doing upstairs With your wife?' The bartender replied: 'The same thing I'm doing To his business down here.'