Long thought to have been damaged in the Great Fire of 1834 - which is believed to have originated in the furnace room of the hall’s basement - new archaeological evidence, supported by historical records, reveals that sections of the hall’s medieval stone walls not only survived the blaze and a nearby WWII bomb strike, but were restored, re-roofed and continued to be used until the building’s final demolition in 1851.

Hmm. Sounds like WWII started much earlier than I had heard.

Bite my shiny metal ass!

It’s a variation on a local folkloric figure, and the image is modified from the album of a poem about the figure by Martin Newell and the Hosepipe Band.

An excellent sausage and cheese toasted sandwich.

2 x 240L wheelie bins - one for dry mixed recycling, the other for residual waste. They are collected on alternating weeks.

We could pay for a third for green waste, but we compost instead (and have a bokashi bin to assist with that).

There are a few communal glass bins around which we will drop stuff off to as we pass from time to time, since that is not included in the DMR selection.

Soft plastics - bags, film etc - are also not included, but can be recycled at supermarkets - or collected by them when they make a home delivery (which is what we do).

Tetrapaks, WEEE, batteries etc need to be taken to the local recycling centre. We’ll book a slot about once a quarter for that.

Early in secondary school, back in the '70s, the music teacher had some issue or another - if I ever knew, I have long since forgotten - and had simply given up. She did not even attempt to teach anything. As a result, we were allowed to do anything at all as long as long as it was quiet.

I did an assignment on early Russian space flight. I don’t know why that particularly, but it was my obsession at the time, so I did. It was never marked and no-one else had any interest. It contained a lot of detail from numerous sources, but I doubt that it was that great really. However, that I was allowed to do it at all surprised me at the time and had been a source of fond amusement for me even since.

It’s 2°C outside, but fairly toasty inside because both Mrs GreyShuck and I have the lurgy and so the heating is turned up. Personally, my temp is all over the place. My feet were simultaneously too hot and too cold most of last night.

It has become big business for the mafia in southern Italy for example.

Usually it is just individuals or people from small businesses that tip rubbish somewhere they are not allowed to and then ‘fly’ from the scene: just leave it and run. This is usually so that they don’t have to pay to dispose of it - but sometimes just because they can’t be arsed to go to the actual waste disposal site.

Increasingly, criminal organisations are finding that they can make money from this: charging businesses for the disposal but then just dumping it - as this case seems to be, from the scale of it.

I have read comparisons in the past. I don’t have them to hand, but the conclusion was that dishwashers were more efficient in terms of water use and energy. However, the type of hand-washing that it was being compared to was itself a very inefficient style of washing (tap running continuously? two full sinks for rinsing? I can’t recall, but not the way that we do).

So handwashing the way we do is probably more efficient but it seems that there isn’t THAT much in it either way, and given the time taken and that we cook from scratch almost all the time, we use a dishwasher for the vast bulk of stuff.

One that is very good but not as widely known as I’d expect is The Americans from 2013.

WW1 - grandfather was a stoker in the RN. His ship was involved in the battle of Jutland. He was then in the RN reserves until he aged out on Sept 1st 1939. A great uncle was KIA in the trenches in France. Another was in the Mesopotamia campaign under Townsend. He had a rough time of it, but I don’t know the details.

WW2 - dad was in the RASC. In Normandy on D-Day+6, initially working on Mulberry B, but was then given a Sherman that had had its turret blown off and was clearing roads toward Caen. Later he was guarding munitions factories back in the UK, which is where he met mum, who had started the war filling jars with jam, but then was filling shells with explosive.

Malaya “emergency” - an uncle was there and hated everything about it.

As a kid, in the UK, back in the '70s, I was watching Roots and was wondering why they were so keen to get to Scotland. I eventually realised that this was set in the US, of course, and the north there was different.

So I suppose that was my default then but, these days, I typically find myself trying to work out exactly when and where a thing is set, if it isn’t obvious, automatically - before I actually settle into the plot or anything.

That’s nothing. I have no granadillas, rambutans or mangosteens either.

I guess that you might attract some - but it is going to depend where you are as much as the light source. I’m in the UK, for example, and wouldn’t get a lot of moths right now as we are well into autumn.

However, even with glowsticks, I’d expect that you will find something - just not a lot.

Film - The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1920) - it had been decades since I last watched it through. Still as wonderfully grotesque, and the influence on Tim Burton is clear.

TV - Pluribus - The first episode could pretty much be a standalone, with an excellent performance from Seahorn. Overtones of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and a lot of '50s sci-fi. Really interested to see how this develops.

TV - Down Cemetary Road - another Mick Herron adaptation but, unlike Slow Horses, this one doesn’t seem to have found a consistent tone and some of the Darren Boyd scenes, particularly, were really over-egged. I’ll continue though.

TV - Leonard and Hungry Paul - cozy and heartwarming are woven through this one. If that’s what you are looking for, it definitely delivers.

TV - Wolf Hall - season 2 continues with writing and performances just as good as the first. Excellent and intelligent drama.

With our current one, it really isn’t a lot - it is more taking the the garden furniture apart and getting in the shed and that kind of thing really, although Mrs Greyshuck is going for a bit of winter planting this year, so there are a couple of cold-frames that I will be building for some of the seedlings - partly from the temperature, partly from grazing deer etc.

We are very unlikely to get much snow - or even too much cold, given the climate situation - but it will probably be below zero some of the time and we’'ll definitely get rain if nothing else so we will need to protect some things from that.

From today, I will be using my remaining holiday days to have Fridays off for the rest of the year leading to the fortnight off over Xmas and New year.

I’m not going to be doing much with these 3-day weekends beyond winterising the garden, doing a few household jobs and reading etc, but that’s pretty much the point as far as I am concerned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortina_d'Ampezzo

Because I became curious about why the car was named that.

I have no idea where you are or how possible it might be, but I’d suggest volunteering for some local thing: soup kitchen, wildlife conservation, charity shop, whatever.

That will get you out of the house, meeting people - basically without any commitment on your part, so you can walk away, potentially learning new skills and making connections that could lead to a job.