2012 — 11 February: Saturday
Last night's entertainment for my young visitors? "The Adjustment Bureau"1 and a couple of "Castles" they hadn't yet seen. I also succeeded in persuading them to take away a bunch of DVDs that have been replaced by Blu-rays... Result!
It's not yet midnight but they have already retired, and I'll do so after the dishes. I gather there's a mix of sunshine and frost heading this way later today. G'night.
OK, I concede...
... the sun is shining — brightly, even — but that doesn't change the fact that the porch thermometer says it's currently -8C and "Sounds of the 60s" is already going strong. The young people slumber on.
Say what?
Is it just me, or is something awry here:
Pulsars are among the most exotic celestial bodies known... A sub-class of them, known as millisecond pulsars, spin up to several hundred times per second around their own axes. Previous studies reached the paradoxical conclusion that some millisecond pulsars are older than the universe itself.
Breakfast, Mrs Landingham. Quickly.
During our chilly walk...
... Mike made a potentially useful suggestion for dealing with my Oppo Blu-ray player's ailing tray mechanism. His, too, is a reluctant "opener" and he's mastered the art of an appropriate gentle thump. However, he also notes that the tray never fails to open when it already contains a disc, so I might be able to get away with simply leaving a blank DVD in the player whenever I set it to standby after a viewing session. Providing I can get the bl***y tray to open in the first place, of course.
It's 12:52 and I await Junior's return from a charity shop / tip run before the three of us head out somewhere for a bite of lunch. I can now once again see quite a lot of my dining room table. Makes a pleasant change.
And, lo! It came to pass...
... that I eventually succeeded in parking a spare DVD in the Oppo Blu-ray and, so far, it seems to be a workaround. Before that, we had a slo-mo lunch in Soton (I'm never going to the Grand Café again) and a series of Shift Up Logical / Shift Down Logical transfers of stuff to and from the loft, not to mention some house cleaning and tidying. Amazing energy, these young people have. They've now (19:05) departed, having tired of my company a night earlier than originally planned :-)