Stormy Weather II

[greenilex]

Over here in the States people are getting excited about the forthcoming total eclipse of the sun...

Last time I saw an eclipse was in the main square in Haarlem with thousands of others.

[Pulcinella]

Over here in the States people are getting excited about the forthcoming total eclipse of the sun.

The sun has been effectively totally eclipsed today in York by thick cloud: no need to go to the States!
Incessant rain too.
Supposed to be better next week.

[BBMmk2]

Over here in the States people are getting excited about the forthcoming total eclipse of the sun...

Last time I saw an eclipse was in the main square in Haarlem with thousands of others.

That sounds great!

[Serial_Apologist]

Over here in the States people are getting excited about the forthcoming total eclipse of the sun...

Last time I saw an eclipse was in the main square in Haarlem with thousands of others.

The Dutch Haarlem, then...

[Lat-Literal]

Been busy Lat!:)

Than k goodness, the weather people have forecasted the weather wrong!!

Thanks bbm.

You are very kind and - given what you have told us - an impressively robust man.

Keep it brief. I didn't get where I am today by not following that motto. It's been an ex-CPRE President Bill Bryson's tupperware sky here today. As he often said, only in England and it shapes our character more than anyone can say. Had a haircut. The brown layer was removed to reveal, how should I put it, silver. Like it's never been before. Shocking really. If I see this month next year it will have gone all that way but then I knew it was coming. The old Alistair Darling if he had an increasingly wrinkled 12 year old's face. I'm now less brown than my mother. Still, it's better than the Bobby Charlton Dad dance side. The cutter was younger than me. His parents had both died several years ago. I couldn't ask him how because he was as are 70% of immigrants here from, quote "the country of Kurdistan". One never knows what might have happened. It may well be that 70% of immigrants nationwide are from the same "country". There is a lot that "ours" don't know even though they think they do. The national news is now a fantasy and often a very ugly one with it. It's a shame but it's true.

[Serial_Apologist]

Alistair Darling

Never trust a man who dyes his eyebrows black after his hair has gone white, I say.

[Lat-Literal]

Over here in the States people are getting excited about the forthcoming total eclipse of the sun...

Last time I saw an eclipse was in the main square in Haarlem with thousands of others.

That's actually very exciting. I was on Greenwich Hill - when was it? - 1999 I think it was. A little disappointing because Alderney got the best of it but what a wonderful thing for our friends in America to be contemplating. To be reborn. Well, that would have to involve chasing eclipses, cloud watching and constantly travelling from crop circles to ancient stones.

Greenilex, enjoy!

Never trust a man who dyes his eyebrows black after his hair has gone white, I say.

Our paths did cross - a nice man, I think, on balance, but not that I am telling tales out of school, a tongue oddly like that of a navvy.

So, yes, I think you are probably right there (as always).

I will tell you about McNulty, not that you asked.

He had a fearsome reputation and is well documented as having been subsequently disgraced. I was so scared of him I would shake. But, you know, he was so sweet and could be funny with it. I really liked him. He'd tolerate any limitation in the lower orders which was quite the opposite way he was with the seniors. And he'd send down personal notes of thanks to me. That to my mind was how it should be. Politicians are so strange. I also met McDonnell via him who I think is difficult to assess currently. Trustworthy? Not sure - but nice and so civil. One of the worst days of my life was the day I was required to shake the hand of Geoff Hoon. Rightly or wrongly, when I got home I washed my hands well on behalf of Dr David Kelly.

[Serial_Apologist]

That's actually very exciting. I was on Greenwich Hill - when was it? - 1999 I think it was. A little disappointing because Alderney got the best of it but what a wonderful thing for our friends in America to be contemplating. To be reborn. Well, that would have to involve chasing eclipses, cloud watching and constantly travelling from ancient stones to crop circles.

I was in Loughton on that day - took some photos with my Instamatic camera, which turned out good enough to convey the way in which, in addition to the diminution of light levels, the effect of the almost total eclipse was to almost remove all red from the colour spectrum, resulting from a strange blue hue seeming to envelop everything, enhancing the colour of anything in natural light blue, particularly flowers - a luminescent effect more associated with evening light on a clear day at the stage just after sundown, or the setting sun's disappearance behind trees, hills or buildings to the west, immediately prior to twilight. People were describing the sensation as akin to being on LSD. Not that I'd know about any of that, of course!

[Lat-Literal]

I was in Loughton on that day - took some photos with my Instamatic camera, which turned out good enough to convey the way in which, in addition to the diminution of light levels, the effect of the almost total eclipse was to almost remove all red from the colour spectrum, resulting from a strange blue hue seeming to envelop everything, enhancing the colour of anything in natural light blue, particularly flowers - a luminescent effect more associated with evening light on a clear day at the stage just after sundown, or the setting sun's disappearance behind trees, hills or buildings to the west, immediately prior to twilight. People were describing the sensation as akin to being on LSD. Not that I'd know about any of that, of course!

I like that a lot. In the old days, I'd have said Kodak red and Agfa blue. Now it is all different. You are right about the word "luminiscent" and I would be wrong in my tendency to talk about "fluorescence" but either way certain flowers really strike in that way in a late or partial light. You do know LSD. We all of some age do culturally via the ears and the eyes without ingesting it per se. But it is the old adage - you can't beat natural over the artificially induced. I'd suggest that the people in your clip not for the first time got it the wrong way round.

[Serial_Apologist]

I like that a lot. In the old days, I'd have said Kodak red and Agfa blue. Now it is all different. You are right about the word "luminiscent" and I would be wrong in my tendency to talk about "fluorescence" but either way certain flowers really strike in that way in a late or partial light. You do know LSD. We all of some age do culturally via the ears and the eyes without ingesting it per se. But it is the old adage - you can't beat natural over the artificially induced. I'd suggest that the people in your clip not for the first time got it the wrong way round.

In that connection Aldous Huxley's last novel "Island" is worth a read, blamed though it has been (along with "The Doors of Perception", relating his experience with LSD) for addicting every generation since he wrote in in the early 1960s.

[DracoM]

Erm................weather?
Cricket nationwide rained off, up here rain all afternoon / as I write, grey skies, and it's genuinely cold tonight.

Crikey.

I think a bit of hallucinatory stuff is the only way to go right now.........................

[BBMmk2]

More rain later, methinks.

[Serial_Apologist]

More rain later, methinks.

Bucketing down here in London since around 10 am, and looking likely to last until well into the night. With temps a measly 13 C (mid-April/mid-October norms ) looks like a brolly, mac and backpack trip through puddles on foot for the midweek groceries, one dripping mile away. I expect the ever-cheerful Big Issue seller will be there, as always, sheltered under the eaves

[DracoM]

Well, for once....I'm nearly smiling.....hold tha breath, lads, but, it's actually sun, warm sun, people out and smiling in the market oop 'ere.............and everyone incredulous given what the bloomin' weather has been doing for weeks.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, for once....I'm nearly smiling.....hold tha breath, lads, but, it's actually sun, warm sun, people out and smiling in the market oop 'ere.............and everyone incredulous given what the bloomin' weather has been doing for weeks.

300 miles is quite a distance apart when it comes to strong rain-bearing frontal systems such as today's. With showers and even thunderstorms, on the other hand, a few hundred yards can be no distance - as well I recall, sheltering with others in a pub porch for half an hour after closing time, only to find bone dry roads a mere short distance off, in the direction I was headed!