h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Did I tell you that the new VC wanted to restructure the university? Well, a lot of the computer systems we use have been seriously affected by that and aren't likely to work for the next couple of weeks. The other thing the VC has done is insist that all students get their next year's timetables before their results are calculated? This means they're being told what lessons they have to attend even though we don't actually know whether they've progressed to the next level. Oh well, that's not part of the uni I'm involved in, but it does seem to be an unnecessary muddle.

Geographically there was a hand sanitiser nearby at the entrance to the shop, but with the one-way system there'd be no way to reach it without leaving the shop and re-entering, presumably while carrying goods/resources out of the shop (setting) before you pay for them, which could be considered setting-lifting.

Still no storms or cool weather, alas. The trouble with this first floor maisonette is that it is much hotter than it should be in summer (though lovely in winter). Yesterday I went for a bike ride and it was much cooler cycling outside than being indoors.

Our local swimming pool has opened for lane swimming - with lanes now two-lanes wide to allow distancing. I know the virus doesn't like water that much so it should be okay, but not sure yet. Also the pool closes at 9pm. I reckon if they were open between 1am-4am I would have been very tempted to go to cool down at nighttime...

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Oh no, that is just typical that things aren't working because of a restructure That is indeed about the timetable - could cause more appeals if people get their timetables and start planning, and then discover that they have to do resits instead... Fascinating the unnecessary muddles there are out there - I found out this week that your opposite number over here was having to create modules in quadruplicate because she couldn't guess which one of each four would be used for timetabling. They started showing up in the data reports I have been working on, so there is definite potential to streamline processes!

Ah, that isn't good that the hand sanitiser was at the entrance rather than the exit - could be accused of setting-lifting indeed...

Sorry to hear your hot weather is still continuing with no breaks. Yes, I can imagine swimming at 1am would be very tempting - I have to admit I opened my door at 1am this morning because the rain was lashing down and the thunder was rumbling so I wasn't asleep - the air was pleasingly fresh. Quite warm indoors this evening, even though I have the window open, as there isn't much of a breeze...

I got a surprise today when a card arrived Thank you for the photos. I'm particularly impressed by the fluffy thing - almost bigger than a kitten, but I can imagine it is a comforting toy for to play with

As far as I can tell, the university rotates around Timetabling, while every other department has to make their needs secondary...

Oh, you've had rain? We still haven't had any this week though the forecast is that we're supposed to have some tonight at last - and the storms that will drop temperatures back into the 20s.

Glad you got the card - Thank You once again for the - though today has been lying on the bathroom floor as it is the coolest part of our home.

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Ah, yes that makes sense

Fascinating the difference in the weather - since St Swithun's day we have only had a handful of rain-free days here. Another good thunderstorm this evening, with torrential rain again - there was thunder and a rainbow earlier, though, which was an unusual combination

My pleasure to give a little treat Glad has found a relatively cool place to lie, and hopefully the thunderstorm is not too disturbing when it arrives.

I had to retune the TV this evening, and seem to have lost the channel Dave (although Dave ja vu is fine) Might be something to do with the storm, or it might need retuning again... Always random what channels appear when I retune - before today I had three different BBC1 channels, but now I only have two, which is sufficient

We've finally had some rain just now!
The BBC South Today programme has been saying how it is unprecedented to have six days in a row over 34 degrees. Rivers and reservoirs are low with talks of hosepipe bans - I don't know if you've seen this news story next to the dinosaur museum:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-hampshire-53755710/isle-of-wight-lake-fish-gasping-for-air-in-low-water

I've been trying to avoid tuning as in odd weather conditions you can lose channels. Still, it is better than the old days when there were only 4 channels and French telly ghosted in the background of ITV on sunny days.

It is a bit cooler at last, so I'm debating going out for a run and wondering whether I'd be rained on. People say daft things like 'running in the rain is refreshing' - but only people who don't wear glasses... I still like to be able to see where I'm going.

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Yay for the rain at last - that is sad about the fish running out of water That sort of unprecedented weather isn't good, either... Glad the evening was cooler, and I hope you managed to get out for a good run.

I had no choice but to retune, because I couldn't get any channel other than BBC1 I found out what the problem was, though - my TV is mid-way between two antennae, and it was tuning to Wales because the signal for BBC1 Wales was the strongest. I managed to force it to tune to England, so now BBC1 is channel 201, but all the other channels are where they should be again

That must have been strange to see French TV programmes in the background of ITV programmes - we were lucky, that we actually had 5 channels in those days, because we could pick up S4C from Wales as Channel 5 I liked watching Wil Cuac Cuac as well as Wil Quack Quack

I hope you have a good weekend. I plan to make another video from the thunderstorm filming I did, so that will be fun as well as doing the usual things like going to the supermarket resource setting.

I did indeed go out for a run. I thought I'd try running in a baseball cap to keep the rain away from my glasses, but had only gone about a mile before it stopped raining anyway. Still, I successfully proved I can run 6-miles while wearing a hat, even if I don't yet know how well wearing a hat works in keeping rain away. Still, between now and April I should have plenty of opportunities. Just have to work out how to lose 3 stone in the meantime too...

We weren't allowed to have Channel 5 because broadcasting it 'might interfere with French television' which seemed unfair as their telly already interfered with ours...

After work today I hope to meet up with my former assistant who I've not seen since March. Not sure what we're doing yet - still a bit nervous of being out and about, particularly if we go indoors which being potentially rainy we may well do...

Hope you have a great weekend - good luck with the resource setting and anything else you get up to.

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Ah, yes hopefully a hat will help with the rain-on-glasses situation, and that's good that you have learned you can run with a hat even when it is not raining

I hope you had a good evening on Friday, and felt as safe as possible.

I had a very good weekend. The supermarket was relatively quiet, so shopping went well. Then on Sunday I was feeling a bit 'meh' about Burton Mere, because it isn't as good when I can't get into the hides as I'm not tall enough to see over the reeds, but I decided to go anyway, and found they had opened a hide It has no windows, so plenty of fresh air blows through. There were a couple of 'twitchers' in there looking for a very very rare bird, and while they were waiting they pointed out a very rare bird as well as a couple of rare birds, so I did well adding to my bird list I also found a Goldcrest all by myself (by photographing anything that moved in a particular tree), so I'm impressed with that

I hope you all had a good weekend

The weekend was largely uneventful.

On Saturday the running club's themed run was 'School' so I wore not one, but BOTH my old school ties:
Sandown High School Red House - Last worn 1996
Sandown High School 6th Form - last worn 1998
Though I've put on 5 stone since I was at school I was delighted to discover they both still fit.

On Sunday I went to Co-op when I discovered they had put a new scanner barrier like they have when you go to Asda in the doorway and a sign next to it saying 'please follow the instructions'. I walked through the barrier, the lights at the top flashed and an automated voice said, 'worple worple'.
I would have expected the message to be something like 'wear a facemask' or maybe the scanners counted the people coming in and out and had a message about waiting until someone leaves, but as I went around the shop every now and then you could hear the thing saying 'worple worple'.

I suspect it is one of those cases where unless you actually know what it is supposed to be saying, you can't make it out. But if you know what it is saying then you'll be able to hear it.

Yesterday we went out of the house and to Royal Victoria Country Park. My son was doing his 'I'm not coming, I'm not coming, I don't want to go' bit and when I'd told the children, 'pack a bag bringing everything you'll need' unsurprisingly he didn't bring anything, but Lucy packed a big bag. When we arrived it was raining and he hadn't brought a coat and nor had my daughter – her bag contained 5 diaries/notepad, 3 pairs of shoes, a bottle of bubble mixture, a bubble gun, various colouring pencils, pens, highlighters and an electric pencil sharpener…

My son lasted 2½ hours before he went into a 'I want to go home! I'm bored, I want to go home!' meltdown, which is a 2020 record. He spent much of the time before that actually swinging on swings and zip wire –I've not seen them interested in playing in a park for ages. Mind you it helped that we saw one of Sarah's friends and her family there. So we had a ride on the miniature railway and when he did his 'I'm bored' whining we let him sit in the car and play on his tablet when we found the fairy castle tree, which we climbed.

When we went home I went to the co-op to buy some milk, and the 'worple worple' machine has been unplugged.

&#8203;Yesterday evening I was lucky enough to be one of the 20 chosen to go to a running club track session, held at Wyvern College's J-track. There I did a Flying 30 session (accelerate for 30m, peak sprinting for 30m, decelerate for 30m and then recovery jog for 90mand start again) while trying to keep arms at the correct 90 degree angle and keeping shoulders, neck relaxed while trying to gently grip with your thumb 'as if you are carrying a crisp'. I did about 25 of those.

Talking as you were of rare birds, had you heard they've released more white-tailed eagles? Also the have been rescued and taken to the RSPCA's holding facility:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-53769763

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Great idea to wear two ties to the 'School' themed run I'm not sure they told me how much I weighed the last time I got weighed at school, but I certainly weigh less now - the official school uniform belt didn't fit me then (although that was partly because sitting down makes everything bunch up at the front - sitting down does also prevent trousers without a belt from falling down, though ). Have you seen the Government advert? http://www.nhs.uk/better-health/ I was gratified to find that the advice for underweight people includes build-up milkshakes, which is what I used in 2005 even though the doctor I asked didn't know if they would be any good or not, so you might find some useful information in there, too.

"I suspect it is one of those cases where unless you actually know what it is supposed to be saying, you can't make it out."

Ah, yes - like 'The train to @@@@ is arriving at platform ###' That 'worple worple' barrier doesn't make it easy to follow the instructions, though, whatever they were Glad you managed to get what you needed without being told off for not following the instructions, anyway! Not surprising it was unplugged after a while - the staff must have found it very annoying!

That's good that your son managed to enjoy more than two hours out of the house, and that was a good compromise for him to use the tablet in the car rather than the house while you all played outside some more I find it very tempting to stay indoors myself these days, but I went into town on Tuesday just for a look around outside while my mum was in the bank, so that was refreshing. I also went to a plumbing centre to help mum order some parts for repairs that are needed - they weren't sure if they were a 'setting' or not, but I erred on the side of caution.

That track session sounds great - I can imagine that honing your running technique will make a difference to your times in longer runs

I saw the news about the White Tailed Eagles in OnTheWight - excellent! That is also very good news indeed that the have been rescued. Is rain forecast near you soon? We've had a bit overnight in the last few days, so that was good. Today there have been thick clouds, but it is quite warm too.

I don't think I was ever actually weighed at school - and my last school photo was in 1993. I must admit I hadn't seen that advert - I tend not to see adverts, so I'll look at that later.

But yes - train platform announcements are very much based on the unless you know what the announcement is saying, you'll never know principle.

Well, I'm home alone now until Tuesday as my wife and children are off to spend time with the inlaws as it is my mother-in-law's birthday on Sunday and someone has to look after the , so unusually I'm working from the lounge for the first time since March.

Do you have plans for the weekend?

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I was weighed twice at school, and we had to eat lunch first, for some reason

Wow, that will be an unusual weekend for you and but good for you to have a change of scenery at work in the lounge

Another delivery funny happened here today - seems our local delivery drivers are not very good with their technology! Last month, my mum ordered some stuff, and it all arrived as expected, but two of the items broke last week. The company promised to deliver replacements yesterday, but the delivery driver didn't turn up even though Mum was in all day. After Mum e-mailed, they replied to say they did turn up, and replaced the four broken items. Turned out, totally coincidentally, that there was another customer in the area who had bought the same items, and the driver went to their house instead - they got a pleasant surprise of brand new items that they hadn't asked for Means mum will have to wait a bit longer for her replacements, but at least the mystery was solved!

I'll be doing the usual food shopping tomorrow. On Sunday, I plan to have a go at working out how to sell some items to CeX, as it is fascinating typing in barcodes and seeing what prices pop up

I hope you have a good weekend

We had a delivery problem last week too - we were expecting a intended for my mother-in-law and we had a parcel put through our door addressed to number 21, and we're 36. So after I'd finished work I went to 21 and knocked on the door to pass their parcel, and they had our parcel there .

The weekend had far more drama on the journey than I had expected. I went to Eastleigh station and bought my ticket to Ryde Pier Head as I normally do, got on the train - had to change at Pompey & Southsea and arrived at Pompey Harbour where, after I got off the train, I got splatted by a bird. I then went down to the ferry where I was told that though I had bought a ticket, as I hadn't booked via the app they wouldn't let me on the ferry for 2 hours as the earlier ferries were full. Fortunately someone didn't turn up and I was let on, and was able to spend the day seeing my older sister as well as seeing my step-grandfather.

Back in March my wife decided she didn't like that we have blinds in our room and cut all the strings, only for lockdown to turn up and mean that we haven't had blinds or curtains in our bedroom, and every day I've been standing on the desk pegging a towel to the rail where the blinds used to be. But finally we've been able to order curtains and they've arrived last week. I put the pole up but the curtains were drooping so I decided I needed to get more support for them.
So at nammet time yesterday I went down the path to B&Q to get some more curtain rings (we had some but the curtain was a bit droopy so I thought I'd get some more). Now I get that due to Covid shops have had to change their layouts, add lines to encourage people to stay 2m apart, have one-way systems, more screens at counters and rearrange where things are in the shop. But it would help if they updated their signs so customers can find what they're looking for. Curtains are now in the aisle labelled 'Fertilisers and Chemicals'. Last night I successfully spread fertiliser across the window - or increased the amount of curtain rings on the curtains.

You can read the latest about the journey of the Landing Craft Tank here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-53860453

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Wow, that was weird that the parcels got swapped, but lucky that the problem was easily fixed

'They' say it's lucky to be splatted by guano, but not much fun when you're in the middle of a journey I hope you were able to clear it up fairly easily. Hopefully that gave you the luck that you were able to get on the ferry even though they had not booked your ticket correctly to include a seat reservation. Glad you had a good day when you got there

"Last night I successfully spread fertiliser across the window" -

Disappointing that the signs were not helpful - even if they were not able to reconfigure the signs to be accurate, they could at least have taken them down so they were not totally confusing... Glad you found what you were looking for eventually, anyway.

There were some fun and games in the supermarket at the weekend, too - it was quite quiet, so not too bad, but it got really noisy when we were at the checkout and the technology broke down. The self-checkout broke, so our cashier went to help, then when she returned to her checkout, that had broken, so she transferred all our stuff to he next checkout and beeped it through, but by the time that had been done the card machine had broken, so she transferred the bill to the next checkout so we could pay, and by then we were almost out the door Got there eventually, but it was a bit with all sorts of alarms and warning beeps going off.

Much calmer when I went to the RSPB - I had a good time in the hide with no windows again, as there were more twitchers looking for (and not finding) the very very rare bird!

Oh wow, the Landing Craft Tank looks great - superb restoration

It was an odd problem but easily sorted simply by crossing the road.

I'm off for the next 3 days, though we've no plans at the moment. The family is back home, and hopefully on Saturday I'll be back on the Island seeing friends once more.

Over the next few days it is time to spend a small fortune on school uniform once more, while my son is due back at school late next week and my daughter is back the week after.

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I'm sure you will find some good things to do on your days off and I hope you have smooth journeys at the weekend. I don't have any particular plans for the bank holiday yet, but I will plan to go somewhere with my camera

Good luck with the school uniform shopping, and I wish your children all the best for the new term.

Having a few lazy days now as not entirely well at the moment (though nothing Covid-related). Although tomorrow I hope to see friends on the Island again, taking a break away from school uniform shopping.

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Ah, yes glad you've been able to have a rest as you're not feeling 100% - I hope you feel much better tomorrow and have a good day

I had a bit of fun and games last night, as came out to play - they don't usually appear until September, so it was a surprise. On the one hand it was fascinating watching it scoot down the curtain and squeeze round the radiator pipe, but on the other hand it was rather large, so luckily it went into the hoover box without too much trouble.

I hope you have good weather for the weekend. I'm not sure what it will be like here - today was cold and wet this morning, but it is sunny now, which is pleasant. It is 'Moth Night' tonight, though, and I'm not sure it is suitable weather for them, but I'll have a look later, just in case.

It's more a hoping I'll be better by this time next week sort of thing, so we'll see. So I didn't really go anywhere during my days off and won't be going anywhere tomorrow. I did visit the Island for a day and spend time with friends there, which was a pleasant break. It is the not seeing people outside my wife and children that's the hardest thing for me about this whole virus.

Is it just me or has pretty much completely stopped working in the last few days? I can never get onto it at the moment.

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Glad you had a good trip to the Island Yes, I saw your cartoon about lack of socialising opportunities Difficult indeed... I miss travelling, but I'm so glad we were able to visit the Model Railway Exhibition in January - I think of that often, as it was an excellent day

Ah, was fine for me yesterday, but I have been struggling with it this morning as it would only load one or two bits - that explains that...

It was cold on Friday night, so no moths were to be seen - cold again last night, but I did see one Typical that when the meteor shower was on, the skies were cloudy, but moths prefer cloudy nights, and this weekend the skies have been clear

I found antother little nature reserve place at the weekend - not the best, though, because the main footpath didn't allow bikes, so there was a barrier that people had to step over, so I was completely blocked out. I found a good place to sit in the car park, though, so it was pleasant watching swallows and house martins flying over.

Look after yourself