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Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 20:40 Fri 09 Oct 2015
by jdaw1
I wonder whether Mr Toad is giving up house boating (= port drinking) for the joy of motoring (= astronomy in a cloudy country). Is there any evidence to support this hypothesis?

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 20:47 Fri 09 Oct 2015
by DRT
jdaw1 wrote:I wonder whether Mr Toad is giving up house boating (= port drinking) for the joy of motoring (= astronomy in a cloudy country). Is there any evidence to support this hypothesis?
No. Mr Toad gave up daily house boating to increase his life expectancy. He took up motoring as a replacement for hill walking, which is no longer possible. A slight shift in investment vehicles might have eased the transition, but both house boating and motoring will continue in moderation.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 23:55 Fri 09 Oct 2015
by djewesbury
Sorry. I got here late. But I wanted to point out that nobody self-identifies as politically correct. (By the way, politically correct is a phrase containing an attributive adverb. Why did you hyphenate it? The only reason I haven't reported you is that I find you such a recalcitrant student and I hate correcting your work.) Politically correct is a phrase only used by people who want to say that they are not politically correct, whatever that means. And last time I looked, political correctness had gone mad. That was possibly around 1998. Since then, everyone has just tried to be nice.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 06:35 Sat 10 Oct 2015
by DRT
The Moon, Jupiter, Mars (very, very dim) and Venus in alignment this morning...
Screen Shot 2015-10-10 at 06.33.48.png
Screen Shot 2015-10-10 at 06.33.48.png (473.85 KiB) Viewed 15939 times

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 09:22 Sat 10 Oct 2015
by djewesbury
Some specks of dirt on your lens there Del.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 11:48 Sat 10 Oct 2015
by jdaw1
djewesbury wrote:Sorry. I got here late. But I wanted to point out that nobody self-identifies as politically correct. (By the way, politically correct is a phrase containing an attributive adverb. Why did you hyphenate it? The only reason I haven't reported you is that I find you such a recalcitrant student and I hate correcting your work.) Politically correct is a phrase only used by people who want to say that they are not politically correct, whatever that means. And last time I looked, political correctness had gone mad. That was possibly around 1998. Since then, everyone has just tried to be nice.
What a garbled paragraph—multiple complaints, no organisation.
djewesbury wrote:nobody self-identifies as politically correct
Interestingly absolutist, but let’s ignore that. Those who, particularly on Amercan campuses, seemingly dedicate their lives to finding and exaggerating the slightest ‘micro-agression’: how do they describe themselves?

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 11:59 Sat 10 Oct 2015
by djewesbury
jdaw1 wrote:
djewesbury wrote:Sorry. I got here late. But I wanted to point out that nobody self-identifies as politically correct. (By the way, politically correct is a phrase containing an attributive adverb. Why did you hyphenate it? The only reason I haven't reported you is that I find you such a recalcitrant student and I hate correcting your work.) Politically correct is a phrase only used by people who want to say that they are not politically correct, whatever that means. And last time I looked, political correctness had gone mad. That was possibly around 1998. Since then, everyone has just tried to be nice.
What a garbled paragraph—multiple complaints, no organisation.
I'm quite happy that the main sin was accepted and atoned for in the Other Place.
jdaw1 wrote:
djewesbury wrote:nobody self-identifies as politically correct
Interestingly absolutist, but let’s ignore that. Those who, particularly on Amercan campuses, seemingly dedicate their lives to finding and exaggerating the slightest ‘micro-agression’: how do they describe themselves?
I honestly have not heard anyone except Rod Liddle and Jeremy Clarkson (and now you) use the words 'politically correct' (or, in your case, 'politically-correct') in recent decades. It's a gibe that fills me with nostalgia for the dying days of John Major's government, propped up by David Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party as they teeter from disaster to disaster, the streets left uncleaned, the dead left unburied because everyone was too bored to die, the nuns falling off their bikes as they cycle across cricket pitches that the groundsman has spiked with over-toasted crumpets.

More seriously, I think the coinage of the term in the USA in the 1980s is really so long ago, and the backlash against it was so extreme, that nobody currently wishing to suggest that perhaps language could be used with some sensitivity (to history, to any one of the many multiple barriers to equality of opportunity) would ever dream of calling themselves politically correct. Your opponent is a straw man, a vestige of political debates of the last millennium. You need to find a new one.

You call me absolutist, but I say that your phraseology is fallacious. Prove me wrong - and I will happily use the thread provided for acknowledgement of same.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 13:12 Sat 10 Oct 2015
by jdaw1
I will attempt to find one person — one person would be enough to default “nobody” — who self-identifies as politically correct, with or without hyphen, and upon finding will invite the obvious.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 17:41 Sat 10 Oct 2015
by DRT
Please take your discussion to another thread.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 20:02 Sat 10 Oct 2015
by djewesbury
Well you're an admin. Don't tell us to do it. You have the power.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 23:28 Sat 10 Oct 2015
by DRT
djewesbury wrote:Well you're an admin. Don't tell us to do it. You have the power.
An Admin who hijacks a thread should be gracious enough to do the work.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 10:33 Sun 11 Oct 2015
by jdaw1
My head is swimming with being ill. Derek: choose the posts; move them; delete this one.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 10:58 Sun 11 Oct 2015
by PhilW
Did any of our more northern members see, or even better photograph the northern lights these last couple of nights?

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 10:59 Sun 11 Oct 2015
by djewesbury
Sorry. Too cloudy.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 00:30 Sat 21 Nov 2015
by Alex Bridgeman
It may be effing freezing outside this event by, but it's a beautiful clear sky.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 00:57 Sat 21 Nov 2015
by DRT
AHB wrote:It may be effing freezing outside this event by, but it's a beautiful clear sky.
Not here :(

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 01:12 Tue 12 Jan 2016
by LGTrotter
I saw a shooting star. With the skys we've been having, seeing any star seems like a bleeding miracle.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 01:30 Tue 12 Jan 2016
by DRT
LGTrotter wrote:With the skys we've been having, seeing any star seems like a bleeding miracle.
+1 :(

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 00:33 Thu 14 Jan 2016
by TLW
Looks like a good reason to be up early - or late - over the weekend if the skies are clear.

http://earthsky.org/space/comet-catalin ... -394533365

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 01:43 Thu 14 Jan 2016
by DRT
I have been hoping to have a date with Catalina for many weeks but the two of us just don't seem to be in the right place at the right time : :roll:

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 01:52 Thu 14 Jan 2016
by LGTrotter
You've got a lovely high pressure coming in over the weekend, should be some clear skys. Wrap up warm though because it will be chilly. Minus ten to fifteen mentioned on the weather forecast. I hope this won't prove a problem for your twelve incher.

I nearly made it through without an innuendo.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 02:08 Thu 14 Jan 2016
by LGTrotter
Having read about this comet it sounds like one for the connoisseur, a Duckworth-Lewis for star-gazers. In other words most of us will have no idea what's going on.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 20:40 Fri 22 Jan 2016
by DRT
Howl away, Gentlemen...
IMG_2452.jpg
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Only 99% this evening but tomorrow's 100% full Moon is likely to be hidden by cloud.

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 22:47 Fri 22 Jan 2016
by Glenn E.
Very nice!

Re: A reason to get up early

Posted: 22:57 Fri 22 Jan 2016
by Alex Bridgeman
What happened to the comet I failed to see?