Keeping busy

[Rhyd6]

The garden's never looked so tidy, all veggies planted, flower beds, tubs and troughs filled, house cleaned, all rooms thoroughly searched for stuff not needed but kept "just in case". What to do now, so in order to stave off boredom I thought I'd download a new type of solitaire onto my kindle. Tried pyramid solitaire, not bad but soon got bored with it, then decided to give spider solitaire a go ..............jeez this was designed by someone with a very weird sense of humour. I've been trying to solve it for a couple of days now and I haven't even got beyond the first level, this should keep me occupied for the duration - I hope, or maybe drive me round the twist.

R6

[bungeejumper]

I would hesitate to admit to anybody just how much time I've wasted on spider solitaire during my life. I only ever managed two suits - anything more, and I had no hope whatsoever, because I'm not much of a deep strategist - but having picked up that level sufficiently to win five, ten or twenty games in a row, I was somehow hooked into the repetition of it, even though every logical bone in my body was screaming "aw come on, you've got it cracked, so why not move onto something more difficult?"

It was mesmeric, although at the same time mindless. And then something rather wonderful happened. Windows 10 came along, and the devil's very own clutch of built in games weren't included any more for some reason, and suddenly I was free. It gave me some sort of an insight into how people can get sucked into gambling addictions, though. The familiarity of the game was strangely comforting and relaxing, even when I was losing.

Mental down-time, I suppose? These days I'm also gardening the place to within an inch of its life, and cleaning and fixing small things on the cars, and picking up my paint brushes from time to time to inflict yet another of my artistic creations upon the world. (My two years of attending local-authority art classes have been one of the best investments I've ever made, now that those days are out of bounds.)

And every so often I turn on the TV and look at what's on iPlayer, and it's murder, murder, police and more murder dramas, unless it's hospital dramas of course, and I wonder just how many murder dramas humanity really needs? I'm bingeing on the arts and culture back-catalogue, though. And the Attenborough repeats, which I can watch endlessly. Marvellous.

BJ

[madhatter]

If you have a library membership, then get the Libby app, it should allow you to enter the library number details and borrow books. Not sure quite how it works, as it still dependant on a book being not just on their list, but also available

Presumably, like a physical library there is a stock, and may be more than one copy available, but they could all have been borrowed.

If a book is available, you can borrow for 7, 14 or 21 days, and can ask for a renewal.

I am in the London area, but it may well be available across the country.

[kiloran]

I'm spending a lot (too much!) time on Spotify, listening to Hancock (not Matt ), the Goon Show and bits of music, and iPlayer for ISIRTA and whatever.

And the garden has had a damned good thrashing. Not a weed to be seen.

--kiloran

[Howyoudoin]

I’m actually finding that I’m working far longer hours than I ever did when I was in the office, due to the fact that everything is over email now.

Not afraid to admit that I’ve snapped at a few people, at my level and above, for both sending on stuff to me that I don’t consider ‘my’ work and for setting ridiculous deadlines (can you read this 60 page document by tomorrow morning and let me know if you have any comments)?

Think people have got brave cos there is no way to walk to their desk and tell them what a dick they are being at the moment.

HYD

[ReformedCharacter]

I'm spending a lot (too much!) time on Spotify, listening to Hancock (not Matt ),

And the garden has had a damned good thrashing. Not a weed to be seen.

--kiloran

Well done for thrashing the garden, it's good to let them know who's in charge.

But anyway, it sounds like you might be a Hancock fan. I've been trying to find an episode with Sid James where SJ has to pay Hancock some money and SJ cons Hancock out of most of what he owes him by saying 'that's a Crimean penny, that's worth 2/6 and that one's a Victorian ha'penny worth at least a bob now... It's a brilliant piece of script writing and a welcome reminder of pre-decimal coinage. Any idea?

RC

[JohnB]

The Internet Archive have scanned lots of books and made the facsimile pages available to borrow. Normally there is a restricted number of borrowers for each item, but they lifted that restriction.

I've no idea how people can run out of stuff to do. I have a house of books and hard disks full of TV and uncompleted projects, and all those browser bookmarks you never returned to, and the garden grows new weeds every day. Granted you can get bored doing too much of the same thing, but then you just switch format.

But then I'm FIREd at the start of a 50 year retirement...

[kiloran]

But anyway, it sounds like you might be a Hancock fan. I've been trying to find an episode with Sid James where SJ has to pay Hancock some money and SJ cons Hancock out of most of what he owes him by saying 'that's a Crimean penny, that's worth 2/6 and that one's a Victorian ha'penny worth at least a bob now... It's a brilliant piece of script writing and a welcome reminder of pre-decimal coinage. Any idea?

RC

Sorry RC, I've probably heard over half of the episodes over the years, maybe more, and I don't recall that one.
But if I do happen upon it, I'll let you know

Does anything here ring a bell: http://www.tonyhancock.org.uk/episode-guide

--kiloran

[stevensfo]

I'm spending a lot (too much!) time on Spotify, listening to Hancock (not Matt ),

And the garden has had a damned good thrashing. Not a weed to be seen.

--kiloran

Well done for thrashing the garden, it's good to let them know who's in charge.

But anyway, it sounds like you might be a Hancock fan. I've been trying to find an episode with Sid James where SJ has to pay Hancock some money and SJ cons Hancock out of most of what he owes him by saying 'that's a Crimean penny, that's worth 2/6 and that one's a Victorian ha'penny worth at least a bob now... It's a brilliant piece of script writing and a welcome reminder of pre-decimal coinage. Any idea?

RC

He fools Tony into thinking that because a sixpence, pennies etc are from 1910....etc, then allowing for inflation, they must be worth a lot more. So poor Tony goes off trying to pay his sixpenny bus fare with threepence from 1920...etc etc. I haven't heard it for years but I have the mp3 somewhere. Finding that specific episode will not be easy without the title or more info. I'll have a look tomorrow.

Steve

[UncleEbenezer]

I'm spending a lot (too much!) time on Spotify, listening to Hancock (not Matt ),

Surely I can't be the only one who hears Matt on t'wireless and thinks Tony - the Village Idiot of Suburbia.

[kiloran]

I'm spending a lot (too much!) time on Spotify, listening to Hancock (not Matt ),

Surely I can't be the only one who hears Matt on t'wireless and thinks Tony - the Village Idiot of Suburbia.

Tony had character and quirks
Matt has............ er......blandness

--kiloran

[kiloran]

I'm spending a lot (too much!) time on Spotify, listening to Hancock (not Matt ),
--kiloran

But anyway, it sounds like you might be a Hancock fan. I've been trying to find an episode with Sid James where SJ has to pay Hancock some money and SJ cons Hancock out of most of what he owes him by saying 'that's a Crimean penny, that's worth 2/6 and that one's a Victorian ha'penny worth at least a bob now... It's a brilliant piece of script writing and a welcome reminder of pre-decimal coinage. Any idea?

RC

Would you believe it! I was listening to some Hancock's Half Hour just now and found that episode. It's "Agricultural 'ancock":

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007v1p4 at about 10m20s
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n-d2aSKN4k at about 10m

Enjoy!

--kiloran

[stevensfo]

If you have a library membership, then get the Libby app, it should allow you to enter the library number details and borrow books. Not sure quite how it works, as it still dependant on a book being not just on their list, but also available

Presumably, like a physical library there is a stock, and may be more than one copy available, but they could all have been borrowed.

If a book is available, you can borrow for 7, 14 or 21 days, and can ask for a renewal.

I am in the London area, but it may well be available across the country.

I'll have to give that one a try. The thought of free audiobooks is quite interesting. I have an app called RBdigital for our library but it never, ever worked correctly, even with the librarian's help.

Steve

[tjh290633]

I have an app called RBdigital for our library but it never, ever worked correctly, even with the librarian's help.

Steve

Our Library (West Sussex CC) used to use Libro, but changed to RB. That had a recent update and seems to have changed in the last week or so. That was after 27th July and before 10th August.

I managed to get my wife's download into a readable condition, but paging seems to have gone AWOL.

TJH

[Loup321]

The small one has used Libby to complete the Library Summer Reading Challenge. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, and the 13-Storey Treehouse books come with all the hand drawn pictures as well. Not sure whether it's more educational than Minecraft though... (Before anyone suggests reading of any sort is educational, try those books. I can heartily recommend them to any child around 9 who doesn't like reading. And Kes Gray's The Trouble with Daisy books for slightly younger ~7-8 yrs.)

[ReformedCharacter]

I'm spending a lot (too much!) time on Spotify, listening to Hancock (not Matt ),
--kiloran

But anyway, it sounds like you might be a Hancock fan. I've been trying to find an episode with Sid James where SJ has to pay Hancock some money and SJ cons Hancock out of most of what he owes him by saying 'that's a Crimean penny, that's worth 2/6 and that one's a Victorian ha'penny worth at least a bob now... It's a brilliant piece of script writing and a welcome reminder of pre-decimal coinage. Any idea?

RC

Would you believe it! I was listening to some Hancock's Half Hour just now and found that episode. It's "Agricultural 'ancock":

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007v1p4 at about 10m20s
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n-d2aSKN4k at about 10m

Enjoy!

--kiloran

Thank you very much kiloran - that was indeed the episode - and I did enjoy it again

RC