where art collides philosoperontap

Very pleasant sitting out on Hannah & George’s covered deck with a gentle rain making relaxing noises as it lands on the roof. It is fresh out here now but the temperature is set to rocket later. We still have sounds of thunder all around. Earlier a neighbour shared a video of a direct hit of simultaneous thunder and lightning. Today the Silver Bullet will have its satnav coordinates set to nowf and the tropic of Lincoln where the greenhouse chillies will no doubt be grateful for any aqueous relief we might bring.

THG has done a good job tidying H&G’s garden. Chopped back lots of growth to reveal some lovely rose plants beneath. It mostly went to the Essex County Council Recycling Centre or some similarly titled site. They were doing a steady trade with a constant queue of cars waiting to gain access. 

In the wood and timber skip I spotted a bar stool in perfect condition but a) I couldn’t reach it, b) I don’t think you are allowed to do that sort of thing anyway and c) we already sourced some on Facebook Market place that fulfil our needs. I have two in the workshop that can be moved out to the bbq area for use during extended pitmaster sessions. One is for the pitmaster himself and the other for a drinking buddy positioned there to keep him company. Plenty of bbq sessions in prospect over the next few weeks I imagine.

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Roasting in the demesne of THG. The deck in front of the shed is not too bad as it has been in shade all day. I am watching a documentary on the history of the SAS on the TV through the wide open shed doors. That and drinking a cold one as seems right and proper on a day like this.

Tomorrow is forecast to be hotter and LNER has cancelled the direct trains to Lincoln, the buggers. Our Tom and our Joe were on such trains. They are now going to have to investigate alternatives that involve changing at Newark. Not ideal but they need to get here, in particular as Joe is off to Day 1 of the Trent Bridge test with his mates.

Long old day at the cricket in Chelmsford yesterday with Tom and George. Notts got the result before the end of day 3. Hot sunny day though not as hot as it is going to be tomorrow and the rest of the week where the forecast is to hit 35 degrees. We asked a steward for lunch recommendations to find out there were none in the ground so we nipped out and had a kebab at a Turkish restaurant down the road. Shish Meze in Moulsham Street. V good fair play. It was nice to get into some aircon. After the game we met THG and Hannah in The Orange Tree before walking back to Moulsham Street to the Balti King.

Today is the joint second longest day, I assume, based on the notion that the days either side of the equinox are of equal length. Doesn’t matter really. Up before five as it was already light and the day is not to be wasted. I did go out onto the deck but at this time in the morning there is still a chill in the air so came back in to the living room. I must say H&G have done a great job decorating their house.

I’m on standby this morning to take H&G to Bexley Heath (the ‘Eaf) to pick up their new car. Electric job. That’s about all I know about it. They did tell me. I had planned to take a stroll to watch the cricket but as you now know the game didn’t last into the fourth day. When I were a lad they were only three dayers anyway. Will find something else to do. THG is helping them sort the garden but tbh that ain’t ma thang, especially in this heat.

Great night at the chateau with the gang. Met in the Castle Hill club first which some of you will know is just outside the castle gates. Four pints was roughly sixteen quid. Inside the castle four pints was thirty quid! Service was quick though. They obviously wanted you to buy more beer 🙂 

We got in just as Marti Pellow was starting. I’d never eard of him but apaz he was lead singer of wet wet wet. Not really my kind of music but he was only the support act. I was there for Billy Ocean. Anyway turns out Marti is Scottish which took me by surprise. No reason really. He had lots of fans in the audience.

In the break between sets we retired to the Castle Hill Club only to be told upon exit that if we went out we wouldn’t be let back in. Ppfffttt (yes), pshaw and huh! The others were already in the club by the time I got this information. I figured there was no point in watching old Bill on my own, though Simon was still inside, so I joined the others and mentioned our plight. Sue rolled her sleeves up and went to talk to the supervisor who agreed, if we were only 2 mins, to let us back in on the basis that we had really just popped out to use the loo and avoid the massive queues for the ladies and that it was nothing to do with the 2x price of beer. My lager was too gassy to knock it back so I left half a pint behind.

Barnacle Bill was very good fair play and a step up from Marti in my mind. Even his new stuff was good. The lad is seventy six years old, I observed. Walked home whilst the others went back to the club to order taxis. Took me ages to get home as I had wisely opted to wear flip flops seeing as my sandals are in the workshop being mended. ie I’ve glued a strap back into place.

Now we are speeding south in the silver bullet with THG at the controls. Off to see Essex v Notts and staying with Hannah and George who very conveniently live a short walk from the ground. It’s going to be v hot. WIll need to stay hydrated. Notts are currently walloping Essex. Unfortunately the England and Wales men’s team ain’t faring so well against New Zealand who should level the series today and make for an interesting final test at Trent Bridge. I’m going to days 3, 4 and 5 (if it is the will of Allah).

Found out last night, although my memory is a little hazy on the subject, that Fosters butchers has been sold. Wot! After 6 generations! 130 years! Bumped in to the woman that works there (soz I don’t know your name). Didn’t recognise her at first, not being in her butchers gear an all. Anyway apparently Andy is no longer there. Oh no. Come to think of it he hasn’t been there the last couple of times I’ve been in. Will have to see how it goes.

Ciao fellows.

PS it is at once the longest day and Father’s Day.

Had a weird dream last night. Was off somewhere in Essex on business (gawd knows why) and was waiting in the train station in London (I assume). When the train arrived it had no carriage walls, just bucket seats. I got on and at some stage the walls miraculously appeared. Then I realised that I really had no idea where I was going so I got my phone out to look. Found it was THG’s phone which was no use whatsoever. I got off the train somewhere and decided I should find a wifi connection to check using my laptop. I went into a shop of some sort and when I opened the laptop found that the screen was broken at the hinge and I could see some of the electronics inside. At that point the woman in the shop recognised me and suggested we should go out for a cocktail. It was lunchtime. The End. 

Weird. What’s even weirder is that I can remember the dream!

It was light at ten to four this morning. Tomorrow is the longest day. Oh nooo. Where did it all go? Now it is ten past six and it has just started to rain. Just looking out of the conservatory at my new scaffold planks table and am pleased I got all the wood preservative down. The table still needs fixing to the base but it is v heavy and won’t be going anywhere in a hurry. 

Then, as I was looking out the window, the hedgehog scampered down the garden path and when it got past the bbq turned towards the fence. There is a hole there that it must use to get next door. It’s where the fox used to go through so plenty big enough.

Later, after two of THG’s finest banana pancakes with imitation maple syrup to break the fast, I am back in the conservatory with the door open to a now fresh, after the rain, morning. Will need to give some thought to what to do today. Tonight we are off to see Billy Ocean with support act Marti Pellow who some of our pals are quite excited about. I didn’t even know whether Marti was a him or a her. Never eard of im (turns out Marti is a him). Anyway because we are off at the crack of a bit after dawn in the morning I need to get packed before we go out tonight. We are off to Chelmsford to see Hannah & George but also to watch Essex v Notts which is the reason for the early departure. Won’t need to pack much as we are back on Tuesday. A few essentials.

I do need to buy some new sandals so might nip to GoOutdoors for that. Then a bit of family history stuff.

Tomorrow is father’s day apaz. It’s not historically significant in the way that Mother’s Day is but if the kids want to mark it in some way that is ok. We are off out for a curry somewhere in Chelmsford.

05:15. A bit bleary eyed but awake with the conservatory doors open enjoying the start to what is forecast to be a “scorcher”. Clear blue skies. Perfect bbq weather. I have a marinade in mind for the chicken. Doubt we have all the ingredients but we shall see. Might need to pop out to a suitable market.

Terrible golf yesterday and everyone was quite knackered towards the end as it was a warm day. We did sit outside for the meal at the Woodcocks. It was mostly shandies all round. Just the thing after a hot afternoon pounding the fairways. I actually lost a ball. A good one an all. Titleist 3. I don’t often lose a ball but the rough was knee deep and, like I said, the golf was terrible.

The garden is dead still. No wind. The only movement is the occasional flight of a bird. A robin hopped onto one of the scaffold planks that have been drying out, held up by various bits of furniture and a couple of saw horses. Today is the day they will be assembled. The resultant table will easily seat twelve and will be a good addition to the patio. Got a couple of benches to sand down too but they can wait until the table is finished.

The hedgehog just ambled down the garden path moving away from me. Must have been foraging nearer the house. We haven’t seen the fox for some time. It is no more. Went out for a wander meself. Heavy dew on the scaffold planks.

The batch transcriber I set in motion last night has a long way to go until it finishes. In seven hours or so it has only managed 28 out of 250 wills. I suspect moving from Pro version of Gemini to Flash has slowed it down but it also makes it cheaper. Will have to see when the batch finishes. It isn’t an urgent job. And only needs doing once. At this rate it will Sunday before it is finished. Looking at the logs it paused several times during the night. Once for three hours. Maybe shows the capacity management issues facing this new technology. Maybe some people are hammering the AI servers hard overnight. It’s no wonder they are forecasting massive AI driven data centre growth.

…

An hour and 45 mins later I’m up and checked the logs again. I’ve just found out that my mac shuts down wifi if it thinks it is inactive. I thought if I leave it plugged in and with code running that would be enough to keep it awake. I was wrong. I have now discovered the  “caffeinate” command to keep the mac from going to sleep. Ya learn something new every day. Now my tech pals will say “huh, you’ve only just found that out?” I say it is never too late to learn. I’m churning through one will every two minutes so should all be done by this evening.

Was racking my brains trying to decide what to have for breakfast when THG came up with the offer of half an avocado on some sourdough. Good idea. Will slip in a couple of rashers of pig.  Breakfast on the deck in front of the lake. V pleasant. The deck is in shade at this time of day which makes it doubly pleasant in this weather. The robin is back to keep me company. THG has gone to the gym.

Twill be warm work assembling the table top later. Gotta be done. Next week I want to move on to the compost bins.

…

Cream crackered. Been at it all day making the new garden table. The table top is now finished and in place on the base. Took me until 6pmish. A few breaks during the day especially as it was 29 degrees celsius. #toohotman. We are glad we didn’t buy tix for Madness. Some of our pals are there but it’s been a busy few days/weeks and a night in is called for. Shoved some chicken in greek marinade on the barbie at around 6.30 and sat down to eat in the company of THG at seven. V pleasant meal accompanied  by a bottle of 2020 Amarone. The simple things in life.

Good day at the Lincolnshire show yesterday. Rain kept off and by the end it was tshirt weather. Bumped into a lot of folk we knew. Bought six pairs of black working socks for a fiver. Gawd knows when I’ll use them but at five quid it doesn’t really matter. Also bought some sausages and a pair of sketchers trainers/shoes. Been meaning to source a pair of trainers for a while.

Healthily tired when we got home and settled in front of the cricket on the telly. Wasn’t particularly hungry so had a single sausage sandwich later, ie one sausage and one slice of bread, toasted. Would have had an early night were it not for the fact that THG had the football on so I hung around

Got a few things to do this morning. Already tweaked the python script to use the gemini flash version instead of pro for the will transcriptions I’ve been working on. The pro version was burning through too many credits. 

This AI stuff opens up lots of possibilities. I have to manually check some names, especially place names but the effort level is orders of magnitude lower than manual transcription. Plus I wouldn’t have been able to sort the script so quickly aaand the knowledge of how to manoeuvre the way around the workings of the image viewer on the NLW website was pretty specialist. I don’t think they want you to be able to scrape their website. Anyway, it’s sorted.

Now sat in the conservatoire with the doors open listening to cheerful birdsong. THG has gone swimming. On the way here I took a look at the sandals I had planned to wear yesterday but had to abandon as a strap had broken. Figured a bit of superglue might do the job but it won’t. A new pair beckons. They do get heavily used over the summer. I reckon they last me maybe 4 or 5 years. At least new sandals won’t pong to begin with.

Gonna be a warmun today. Golf this pm. Second coat of wood preservative on the scaffold planks this morning, when I eventually get going. Tomorrow I should be able to build the actual table top and then all I need to do is figure out how to attach it to the base. There will also be the question of how to lift it but that is for another day and the (able and enthusiastic) assistance of a pal or two.

Blossoms continue to emerge in the wildflower meadow. All good.

Quite heavy rain falling on the empire of THG. The forecast said light rain but we know better. Still the garden will like it. It’s going to stop in 52 minutes anyway says THG, looking at her app. Should be a good day for the Lincolnshire Show. Gotta nip to the Rose to buy a few picnic provisions before we go.

The scaffold planks got their first coat of wood preservative yesterday before the deluge began. I’ll stick the next coat on on Friday and then would be able to assemble the table on Saturday. Might need help turning it over. 4 x scaffold planks = v heavy, man.

Twenty past five in the morning. Just seen a bloke out running. That’s commitment. There’s a little bit of breeze out there. Cloudy. Supposed to hit around twenty five degrees today and then rain in the evening. Summer rain. The sort of rain you don’t mind being caught out in, I guess. Summer rain.

The rest of this post has been written by Gemini AI:

Time for a cuppa, I suppose. There’s something about the silence of the early hours that makes the first tea of the day taste just that little bit better. It’s a clean slate, isn’t it? Before the emails, the notifications, the endless buzz of the working day. Just the steam rising and the quiet satisfaction of being up before the rest of the world. It’s barely light, and yet, the day feels full of possibility—or perhaps just full of chores. I should probably check the weather again, but why bother? It’s going to do what it’s going to do, rain or shine. For now, it’s just me, the kettle, and the quiet.

A bit poncey if you ask me.

Got an email from BA re our delayed bags on the Sorrento trip:

“Dear Mr Davies

We need more information to progress your case. Please review our previous email correspondence and provide us with the information we’ve requested.

If we don’t receive this information, we’ll assume you no longer require support with your case and this will be closed

Lotsa Lurve

BA”

I added the Lotsa Lurve bit. Well this is a bit of progress as I wasn’t expecting to hear from them for weeks based on expectations set by a google search. No suggestion as to what I hadn’t sent them. Sigh

I resent the detail of the claim and got another email back over night.

“to proceed with reviewing and settling your claim, we do require the Property Irregularity Report (PIR) file reference number (also known as the AHL reference) associated with your delayed baggage.”

Sigh. I had already sent them the report. It was an attachment named “lost baggage”. I’ve resent it. I’ve also suggested that 200,000 Avios might be a suitable level of compensation. If you don’t ask…

Anyway it’s going to be a lovely week ahead and we are at home yay. I had pondered heading to Trent Bridge but I have the bit between my teeth and am going to build the garden table using the scaffold planks I’ve been keeping specially for the job. Nottinghamshire are playing Zummerzet and need 426 runs to win with 7 wickets remaining. It ain’t apnin. Might even get the compost bins made. This is the week to do it. 

Me ‘n’ THG are also off to the Lincolnshire Show on Wednesday. Not been for years. There’s always been something business related that got in the way. This is the year. We quite like going to the show even though it’s the same exhibits every year. Doesn’t matter. Lunch in the WI tent is always a good prospect, or tea and cake. One year it rained cats and dogs so I bought a leather Australian bush hat or similar which did a good job of keeping my specs dry. Not sure I still have it. Don’t recall seeing it for years. That year we got a lift back to the car park in a bus being driven by one of the parents from Eastgate school. V handy. Anyway won’t need the bush hat this week. I will wear a sun hat though. Good job I’ve had my hips sorted as the Lincs Show would be a non starter otherwise. 

THG mentioned a picnic for the day at the show. Nowt fancy. Just good quality. Crusty rolls fresh from the baker. Some nice ham wot I bought at Fosters. Maybe a bag of Pipers cheese and onion crisps. Pipers were giving them away free at the bar in the showground last time we went.

In other news, one of the kids sent a video from the Download festival. Wow what a huge crowd I thought to myself. Then the camera panned to the rear and I realised he was quite near the front. It’s a bit like when we went to see the Eagles in Hyde Park. Never seen so many people in my life. Would have needed binoculars had we been standing at the back.

Looking out from the conservatory I see that the runner beans have reached the top of the canes. Also noticed a few flowers so it won’t be long before the beans appear. The broad beans emerged a while back. Can’t be long before we are eating broad beans. The tomatoes are also flowering. And the habanero chillies. Hot hot hot.

Gotta go. That tea won’t make itself yanow.

Gentle start to the day. Slept well, I think, after a v busy day yesterday including cancellation dramas on the rail network and accidentally being shown to the bar reserved for Paul McCartney’s family and friends. Free beer and crisps though the promoter soon realised there had been a mistake and we were instead moved to the private bar at the back of the main auditorium.

Back upstairs to the reserved VIP seats, many of which remained empty until just before Paul appeared on stage at which point the family and friends emptied out of the bar and into the seats around us.

Rob Brydon appeared with Paul on stage to do the interviewing in a fireside chat that lasted over two hours. We got an insight into how each song on the Boys of Dungeon Lane album was written. All in all a great evening. We felt privileged to be there.

The queue outside stretched pretty much along the road to Camden Lock. Maybe a third of a mile. In the rain. We walked, with no embarrassment whatsoever, to the front of the line and joined the very small queue to pick up our guest list tickets. One person we spoke with over the barrier had been queueing since six am. There was a slight feeling of annoyance coming in one direction. Water off a ducks back tbh. They will have secured good seats near the front of the stage for their efforts.

…

Bit of a surreal life really. Last night it was the Paul McCartney gig. Breakfast this morning with THG and our Tom at Lumi in Camden. Chose it because of its google ratings. Yanow what? It really lived up to expectations. If I get a chance I’ll add to the reviews.

Anyway, today I’m meeting a woman from Australia in a trendy caff in Shoreditch to talk about Carmarthenshire in the eighteenth century. In fact about a baptist church called Hebron. Doesn’t come more niche than this. I am quite excited about it. No idea what she looks like. And don’t worry THG knows what I’m doing.

Then it’s the CCUK council meeting followed no doubt by a couple of refreshing beverages before rolling the dice on the train network for the journey home. Tomorrow it is cricket at Trent Bridge but tomorrow is another day…

So yesterday I discovered that Gemini can decipher 18th century scripts. I had tried this before some time ago and failed but perhaps that was chatgpt or just an earlier, less mature version of AI. The upshot of it is I can now read diary entries and wills that were otherwise just gibberish. You do have to sanity check the work and corrections do need to be made but AI breaks the back of it. The confluence of ultra modern technology with the archaic! Results have already been great.

Today is a new day, a new dawn and I have a gym induction plus a pilates class. The last month or more has been a bit of a whirlwind and such activities have been neglected. It is still raining mind you but this, in our case, has been good for the garden. THG has not yet been out on her regular tour of inspection due to the weather. She has, however, brought a pot of tea into the conservatory. Fair play.

Busy enough week ahead. Off to see Paul McCartney at the Camden Roundhouse on Wednesday. Breakfast with some of the kids on Thursday followed by lunch with someone who has similar research interests as me and has flown over from Oz especially to go the the library in Aberystwyth. Then it’s a board meeting before catching the last direct train home.