Ops-Normal.org

Lovely photos, om15 . Magnus , I'm glad Milo is on the mend. Just had the hardest workout of my life. Nearly threw up. Not helped by the fact that the gym is the temperature of the average inferno. Still at least we have nice weather for the fetes de promotion, the end of school knees-up, which is t...

27C here, heading for 34. Cycled into work, the last uphill bit was rather unpleasant. Magnus - ouch. All the best to him (and your wallet). Talking of LHR delays, I spent around 5 hours on a plane last Friday afternoon, trying to get home, including a return to stand to refuel! Storms in GVA appare...

Law-abidingly, I handed my UK licence in just before my first year here was up (you can drive on an English licence for a year, then you're supposed to change). Filled in a form, paid some money and was handed a Swiss one in return. A friend with more brains than me, prior to getting his Swiss licen...

Greybull don't asset-strip. To the best of my knowledge (and I have some about this) it's a bona fide attempt to run a business, which doesn't always succeed. I suspect much of the reporting may be as a result of Greybull trying to hold the government's feet to the fire in order to get their loan. I...

Welcome back, 4ma. Mother's Day here too - I was presented with Octokitten2's present (made at school) - a mosaic which closely resembles a stingray (in a good way), inexplicably stuck on the bottom of a frying pan. "It's an ornament for balconies, or something" he said. Bless I am celebrating survi...

Alison, I think that gesture says everything about you as a person. My view is that hatred of anything "other" (such as transphobia) stems from deep insecurity.

You, in contrast, are a great example to us all. Thanks again for the site.

Posts like Undried Plum's restore my dwindling faith in humanity as it is represented on this site. OFSO, listen to yourself - you are actually taking the piss, presumably? Cape, come on, that can't be your best argument? Because really, if that is all that you can dredge up, best give up attempts a...

Absolutely freezing here. Low of 3, high of 8. Local wind (bise) blowing (straight from Siberia). 5C when I went for a run at 0815 this morning; then nearly froze to death at the football tournament (friend arrived with an extra coat for me and I still couldn't get warm). Woke up to snow at 700m, th...

My accent is all over the place, I think. I'm from the West Midlands (not Brum) and had the local, vaguely rural accent until I went to secondary school, where it turned into BBC English. Then I lived in Bristol, Paris, Germany, Bristol again, Guildford - please God I have retained nothing of that, ...

Blimey, Magnus, don't do that again. Hope you're back on the pop shortly. Thanks for the info on the Prospect G-TPN. I knew it was named after a ship but didn't have the details. It's freezing here. I am having a quiet day at home, under the weather and on antibiotics, which are making me feel rough...

OFSO, I used to live in Wapping, and then Limehouse (Narrow St) and I loved it. I'd just come back from living in Hong Kong and in comparison, it felt uncrowded and light (because of the open space created by the river). We used to drink in the Town of Ramsgate, and the old incarnation of what is no...

Yeah, I really didn't understand the booze before working thing (and I very much like a drink).

Alison, if you take this site down, I will have to spend my time at work doing, er, work. I'm sure you understand the seriousness of that

Hope all is well 4master, hopefully see you back soon.

Thanks IDC, I'll bear that in mind for next time.

Congratulations, ribrash! Lovely news. Any more details? (us girls like a bit of that)

I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter, hf, best wishes for a swift recovery. She is obviously a trooper if she's taking that in her stride! Sounds horrid. Glad the birth went well in other respects though...

Hi Smeagol, sorry haven't been on this thread for a while. I ended up on BA via LHR at the suggestion of my travel department - which I went with because it's one of the 2 airlines I'm collecting airmiles with. Premium Economy was....ok. It was a 777 I think. Actually, it wasn't that ok. The seats w...

Finally back in the office after getting off my 12th flight in 4 weeks yesterday (the last one was self-inflicted, a trip to the UK to see friends).

Much to do, none of it tempting.

Now I'm in Genoa, which has the worst pavements of any vaguely civilized city I have ever been in, particularly in high heels. Amazing local fish (eaten as sushi) called moreno, plus this is the home of pesto. Yum. Plus a lot of v nice wine. Still made it to the gym this morning. Also got in a bit o...

I'm usually very cynical about these cruise ship "dramas", but this genuinely looked quite bad. Contrast a power outage on a Cunard ship reported in the (I know...) Daily Mail a few weeks ago. "Traumatised" passengers seeking their money back after a 15-minute outage. "I thought we were being attack...