A random thread for small things that don't really warrant a thread of their own

[Guy]

After 5 minutes of fruitlessly searching the house from top to bottom for my glasses, I looked down to see them in my shirt pocket. Arse. 

Welcome to my world

[citoyen]

I found this... it answers the question (but there's no veracity check for it!)

https://www.answers.com/Q/Why_do_officers_have_more_medals_than_soldiers

That pretty much tallies with what a senior RAF officer (wing commander, iirc) once told me, though I think he was partly being self-deprecating.

[ian]

Statistically, the more medals you have, the less likely you are to have been shot. So the best way to survive a war is to start it with a lot of medals and the best way to win a war is to ensure your military has plentiful and splendid chest ornamentation.

[Mr Larrington]

The answers are probably all related to:

Tea, milk in first
Scones, jam under cream

And cricket.

[woollypigs]

I for one welcome our new overlords ...

The large echo showing up on SoCal radar this evening is not precipitation, but actually a cloud of lady bugs termed a "bloom" #CAwx

80 by 80 MILES ACROSS !!!

https://twitter.com/NWSSanDiego/status/1136115889516867586

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ladybugs-on-radar-20190604-story.html

[Beardy]

Now this is a Queens birthday honour I can get behind.
Boyd Tunnock, creator of the Tunnock Teacake and founder of the makers of caramel logs has been knighted.

[fuaran]

Now this is a Queens birthday honour I can get behind.
Boyd Tunnock, creator of the Tunnock Teacake and founder of the makers of caramel logs has been knighted.

Not surprising, he is keen to rebrand Tunnocks are keen to rebrand as a 'British' product, replacing the lion rampart with the union jack.

[Edd]

So a robot has been made that has mastered "irony".

The technology is based on a computer program that analyses the best response the robot should make in a normal conversation and then flips words and adds verbal emphasis like overstatement to introduce irony. (When the intended meaning of a phrase is opposite to the literal meaning.) So, in a conversation about the weather, the phrase “I hate raining. I usually have a bad mood when it rains” becomes “Super! I utterly love raining”, with, say, unusual elongated stress on the word utterly and a smile.

newscientist.com/article/2206270

That won't get annoying!

[Steph]

CHUFFY!

In my local Lidl, never mind Ireland
https://www.buzz.ie/news/lidl-ireland-now-selling-giant-inflatable-sloth-dirt-cheap-328933

[Deano]

Loads of knackered-looking people dressed mainly in black on my train.

Ah, it was Download this weekend.

[fd3]

I have come to think that people on the forum look like their avatar.  I will be very disappointed if citoyen is not in fact Mark Cavendish and if Mr Larrington turns out not to be a bear.

[Beardy]

Ms Beardy the younger has just made us watch a documentary on Flat Earthers. I’m scared, very scared!

[andrewc]

For several nights now I've heard a strange noise from outside my flat.   Looking down into the carpark below, it's a chap in a shellsuit, pacing backwards & forwards while flinging his hands behind him to slap himself on the back, hence the noise.  He's out there now.  Rather odd.  Some new exercise fad I've not heard about ?  Religious self flagellation ?

[T42]

Sounds like the DTs.

[Cudzoziemiec]

A couple of hours ago I caught a bike thief. Another one, possibly. Except of course I didn't catch them. And it was the wrong sort of bike. But I did see it happen. Red motorbike, white scooter, riding up and down a street in the city centre (Park St), motorbike is two-up. Doesn't seem to be using either mirrors or indicators, suddenly swerving into side streets. Later see them in a side street further up, they've met another biker. All in full face helmets and leather jackets. One jumps on a little black scooter parked there – lots of m/c parking round there – another holds the front wheel between his legs, a quick tug on the bars and the steering lock is broken and off they go. All took about 30 seconds. So I phoned the police. Describing it all with their "methodical" questions took a lot longer than 30 seconds. Not sure I'd bother again unless personal injury was involved. I'm pretty sure all three bikes were stolen, probably the scooters will end up as charred mess later tonight, maybe on the cycle path. Hey ho, great fun.

[andrewc]

For several nights now I've heard a strange noise from outside my flat.   Looking down into the carpark below, it's a chap in a shellsuit, pacing backwards & forwards while flinging his hands behind him to slap himself on the back, hence the noise.  He's out there now.  Rather odd.  Some new exercise fad I've not heard about ?  Religious self flagellation ?

And every night since. No more back slapping, just pacing up & down in the car park with big headphones on.   He must have seriously bad taste in music. (someone complained to the security chap about mine last night, said it was too loud! I turned it off at 11PM like the lease says.)

[T42]

Bloke next door hanged himself on Wednesday evening.

[hellymedic]

Bloke next door hanged himself on Wednesday evening.

How dreadful!

Thoughts are with those left behind.

[T42]

Yeah, wife & 6 kids from ~6 up to 18.  I just hope she didn't tell the youngest to go and tell Daddy that dinner was ready.

[woollypigs]

Well that is a way to catch a ferry - https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=CYAvn_1561661752

[Wowbagger]

The Church of England is very weird.

[Beardy]

The Church of England <insert religious organisation here> is very weird.

IFTFY

[Jurek]

The Church of England <insert religious organisation here> is very weird.

IFTFY

You beat me to it...

[Wowbagger]

At choir we run a "200 Club" as a means of fund raising. I think there are somewhere in the region of 200 £1 "shares" which are distributed rather unevenly throughout the membership and supporters. I contribute £5 a month, as does Phyllis. Each month, 50% of the takings are redistributed as prizes in a draw. Normally there are 3 prizes.

In tonight's draw, P. Walker won all three. I won first and second, Phyllis won third. I don't suppose she will ever know.

[Wowbagger]

The Church of England <insert religious organisation here> is very weird.

IFTFY

You beat me to it...

Our choir director plays the organ in a local church where Sunday was the vicar's last service before his retirement. He asked a small group of us to sing Parry's "I was Glad", which is a fine piece of stirring music not dissimilar to the same composer's "Jerusalem".

OK, allowing for the general weirdness of believing in deities, the bit that I find quite incredibly weird is "communion" in which people eat and drink stuff meant to represent Christ's mortal remains. And what I find even weirder is the vast number of people I know who seem perfectly sane when you talk to them but think that this is a perfectly normal piece of behaviour and participate in it.

I honestly had never come across this stuff first hand until I was well into my adult life and I really can't get my head round it at all. I think I will have to try to get my pal Enid, who is a methodist minister, to try to explain it to me. I'm not sure that methodists indulge in this sort of ritualistic cannibalism and I know that Jan, who was brought up a unitarian, alsa finds it weird and very sinister.