Wow, I turn my back for a few days and the pub is filled with interesting conversations! My current obsessions (baseball playoffs, my son’s new 3-piece suit, classic cocktails, memorizing Hoagy Carmichael songs, etc.) have kept me preoccupied for a few days.

@puroandson      his virtual world needs a new word for ‘met’ as ‘read’ wouldn’t work,…[Read more]

@puroandson     That list seems like overkill to me – as you say, this isn’t the arctic.  On the other hand, people used to a warmer climate might tend to feel the cold more.

Statistically speaking, the range of temperatures encountered in southern England in November is likely to be between 7 to 11 degrees C, and in December 2 to 8 degrees…[Read more]

@puroandson @cathannabel @mudlark @jimthefish

MEANDERING THOUGHTS ALERT!

The writing of which Puro speaks was that associated with the police negligence during a soccer match and the ensuing pandemonium and tragedy.

This above sentence is one that would only be used outside the UK (maybe even Europe). Britons and many Europeans would just say “…[Read more]

@puroandson—

he chose a Blog by @jimthefish on the Buffyverse which was also well loved by the teacher

You’ve no idea how chuffed that makes me. (And is that ‘make like a tree and bark’?)

Sorry, I’ve not been around much but I’ve taken the lurch back into full-time further education again and it’s been a surprisingly rapacious devourer of time…[Read more]

@cathannabel
As I look back on much of my email correspondence these days, I think I am reaching that stage of life where I always blame auto-correct as a way of preserving my self-dignity…(not that it necessarily convinces the recipients of my emails, of course).

@cathannabel. Just caught up with your blog, that @puroandson brought to our attention.

Brilliant piece on cosmopolitanism! I have only dipped into some of your other entries, but plan on going back. Wonderful stuff. It sounds (reads) like you are embracing retirement really well. Something I am having a few challenges with, actually. But reading…[Read more]

Hi all, I’m back. Apologies for being away. Will try to back on more regularly.

@pedant @blenkinsopthebrave new pub has been started, in outer space.

@nerys @missy @ichabod and others, the lovely Soniya has been dealt with.

@badwolf11 @cathannabel and others. I too sometimes have trouble logging in and have to wait. It’s not anything you have…[Read more]

@cathannabel  Did you see any of the American remake of “The Returned”?  Awful, awful, awful, like a badly cracked bell.  I’m sure the producers would have just strung it out into six seasons if they could have . . . although even in the US, the idea of closed-ended series working for higher quality and an actual story has taken root.  I await the…[Read more]

@janetteb  I was disappointed by the recent Del Toro Crimson Peak.

Haven’t seen it yet — I was put off, really, by an interview with this director before CP was released, about how deeply involved he’d become in just playing around with monsters and horror scares on film.  I think he told his one big story — and it is a big one — in “The D…[Read more]

@cathannabel, @puroandson, @janetteB, @ichabod

I can take or leave zombies, unless there is something truly brilliant, like this clip from “Cockneys v. Zombies” with (I think) the final performance of the wonderful Richard Briers:

@missy  “Miss Peregrine” opens here this weekend, and I’m going to see it asap — Burton’s work is always worth a look, IMO.  And after “Penny Dreadful”, I’d follow Eva Green anywhere — well, almost.

@cathannabel  @puroandson  The zombie theme has always seemed to me to be hermetically sealed with nowhere to go but in circles, so I steer cle…[Read more]

@cathannabel  Thanks for the recce — saw the Wilderpeople and enjoyed it very much, but I hadn’t heard of the Huppert film.  Is it a new-ish one of hers?  She’s always in interesting movies, though sometimes a tad too rarified for me.  This one sounds attractive, though.

@cathannabel

I only used VPN to log in. Once in, I turned it if and that seems to have flushed whatever caching issue was stopping the problem resolving properly.

@cathannabel     I saw them in the other order so when I heard Moriarty ask “Did you miss me?” I thought of the 10th Doctor.

@CathAnnabel   Congratulations on your imminent retirement! I’m sure you have lots of exhilarating plans for spending your time. I look forward to reading the blog.  🙂

@cathannabel Indeed best wishes for retirement and Christmas.

@Bluesqueakpip A forum for “Face of Evil” sounds like an excellent suggestion. I re watched it recently. Always fun. I will resist the temptation to talk more about it now.

@puroandson We tried making eggnog one year and deemed it not worth the effort to make again. It appears that we…[Read more]

@cathannabel

Pah! Slacker! 😉

@CathAnnabel      I’m not sure. I think she must age at least a bit, because the gizmo that’s keeping her alive is “healing” her. Unless it’s healing her literally every second? It’s kind of hard to imagine how that could work, actually. But hard luck for her having been essentially frozen at such a young age, because the lack of visible aging wi…[Read more]

@cathannabel & @craig

Thank you both.  (:  Tee Hee

Now I feel better!  The Emperor himself is impressed!  Day made, really.   (:

The pictures are perfect.  They really show the similarities.

Here is A BONKERS theory.  IT is the same person, but those weird eighties earrings Ellie has on are creating a hologram, so she looks differe…[Read more]

@cathannabel  The Returned! French spookiness of a very high quality indeed and featuring a drowned valley…

Yes!  How could I forget . . . really looking forward to that one.  Now, I’ve got to get some sleep, but just to have a little nightmare material to take with me, can somebody fill me in a bit on the Fisher King himself, in legend and stor…[Read more]