All that queuing and then someone jabs a needle in your arm! What is the world coming to.

Spring Arriving

A couple of years ago, we had some daffodils in the house, complete bulbs that is, which grew and were lovely. We put the bulbs away in some soil in the hope they would return. They did nothing last year though, and we thought they were doing nothing this year—to the point that we were getting ready to just throw them. However, one of them then produced a little shoot, which has been growing strong, and was joined by a second bulb after a few days. For some reason I’ve been measuring1,2 them a few times per day, tracking their growth!

Edit: Finished: I gave up measuring once they really began wilting. The tips were brown and it was increasingly difficult to measure things. Interesting to see the relatively quick growth at the beginning tapering off to a maximum height. Hopefully there’ll be something to measure next year too!

I’m beginning to think the idea of responsibility has become very disconnected from the concept of consequences in this country…

Advent Is Each Year

It’s that most wonderful time again—time for my Advent Calendar, produced by my wonderful partner Heather.

Advent 2020

The 2020 version of my wonderful Advent Calendar

First, a reminder of last year’s offering:

Advent Calendar

November 30

Sweeties

A Puzzle

Milky Bar Buttons

Twix And Galaxy

Snickers And Bounty

Bear Head

Teaser And Bounty

Wall Crawling Snowman

Crisp M&Ms

More LIttle Chocolates

Twix-Bounty

More Raisins

A Mars Bounty

Mars Is In This Galaxy

Screwy Car

Galaxy-Mars

Puzzle U

Milky Buttons

Teasing The Galaxy

Between The Meals

Sun-Maid

The Snickers Way

Rugby Dood

Snowman Number 2

FInal Day

Balls

One big, two small, all chocolate

One of the awesome things about my advent calendar is that it starts a day earlier than others! Starting traditionally with some chocolate balls!

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Absolutely terrifying crash in the F1 race this afternoon, from which Grosjean somehow walked away. For anyone doubting the value of motor-racing, that’s the sort of safety advancement might one day save your life on the motorway.

Not Available Via Seance

The incomparable, and appropriately named, Amazing Randi died last week. He was the finest of sceptics, and a knight of truth. I feel his anger towards those who would lie and take advantage.

Here is his marvellous TED Talk

Here he is in an interview basically doing Uri Geller’s act without lying about things:

And a bit of “ESP“:

Surviving The Quacks (i.e. the lying charlatan “faith healers”):

There’s a wonderful documentary from a few years back, “An Honest Liar”, well worth a watch if you get the chance.

And here’s a link to some bonus Penn and Teller content because they get angry about this bullshit too.

An Historic Getaway

The world shutting down due to Covid has, for obvious reasons, somewhat curtailed this summer’s activities. Not a lot has been happening while this pandemic is brought more under control. We finally reached a point (at least for now) where restrictions were lifted enough, and Heather and I felt comfortable enough, that we could tentatively take up with the trip we had planned for Easter, just delayed by several months.

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NASA SpaceX Demo-2 looking much more hopeful for launch this time round. Come on!