Do ghoulies come from Goole?

Rain here seems to have scared them all off. All you can hear is the sound of misfiring broomsticks.

Not here, it's been very quiet. Mind you we live just a little way out from the rest of the houses around here, on a not-very well lit long lane, so he kids tend not to come aound our street.
Lots about just a few streets away, though. We nearly ran a rather small skeleton down while on our way to my brothers for a celebratory Chinese meal and watching the original 'Nosferatu'.

Had rather a good day today, hence the celebs. Fully expected a serious days' final work in preparation for a court case tomorrow (on behalf of someone else, not me guv ). But the ex-employer backed off at the very last minute and have agreed to pay the young lady a considerable sum of money rather than argue in court why they fired her without reason and lose the case.

That's 3 out of 3 in the past couple of months, and the girls' parents have offered me a rather nice sum for getting the result, even though I hadn't asked for anything other than a few bob for my travel expenses.
Not only caused mayhem but got paid for doing it

No ghoulies, No ghosties and no long legged beasties. I haven't given up hope for a bit of things bumping in the night though.

Funnily enough I have been prepping for a tribunal too. This one is land not employment though. The hearing is Tuesday and Wednesday so I am at that gnawing at the nails stage.

Here that often means getting upsuspecting burglars and going into the lounge to find a heap of dog, where she's fallen off the sofa again in her sleep.

Interesting insights into Dave's love life here. Possibly the consequence of all that cross dressing etc.

Never cross.
It always puts a smile on someone's face

OHHhhhh tempting

just been given some plums....any idea what to do with them?

(apologies, I missed this last night ...)

Good luck.
If you've not done it before, it helps to remember it's not a court and the process is a lot less formal. Protocols are much more civil and understandable, and they make allowances for those who are not legally skilled in the process and normally very helpful. Actually they can sometimes be quite enjoyable, if you like the convoluted thought processes and logical mazes that the law throws up.
Just follow your argument/brief.
You'll be fine.

The neat thing with tribunals is that the panel or judge/member is expert in the field, and they don't take any nonsense and flim-flam. Courts (and the poor victim in the cases) can too often be dazzled by legalese and oratory which obscure the truth. Mind you, with employment / disability cases its usually clear cut enough for that to not matter. I normally advise court for simple cases, it carries more weight with employers (that's why the 2 of the last 3 rolled over, they admitted they'd happily have gone to a tribunal).

I mainly take on cases as advocate where employees (especially apprentices) have been unfairly treated. Most of them can't afford full legal help and are scared s-less of the idea of legal challenge and the process, even though it's actually normally pretty clear-cut. In some respects I feel a bit guilty when they they're amazed it alll gets sorted out nicely without bloodshed, but I'm more bloody angry that it's such a daunting task for most people.

*sensible off*
Anyway, I love the challenge, and the trouble it causes employers who should know better.

Oddly enough, we've got some which taste lovely but are as hard as nails, so it's first attempt at plum gin. Should be like damson, I guess, and I've done that before.

Before they cart me away for insanity ...
I guess it’s about time to think about some housekeeping. (no, I'm not going to wear an apron).

We’ve nearly reached the point where opening Username Silliness part 2 is due!!!
There doesn’t seem to be a hard and fast rule as to when this happens. In 'Chatter', 7,499 posts seems to be a magic number for many threads to open a new part. However, recently one of the ‘count to a million’ threads opened a new part around the 9,500 mark - after they requested it - and other threads in the past couple of years have closed at well over the 7,500 mark. But then again, some have done so at well below that (and well below our current figure too), one recently moved at considerably under 4,000.
Some were done by request from within the thread, many by the mods - although I suspect a lot of those might have been actually done by posting a request directly to moderator.
Assuming there isn’t a hard and fast rule when to do it, would it be neatest to request a move for the New Year? As we're running at about 800 posts a month (October's figure), I guess we’d be up to somewhere around 9,000 posts by New Year at the current rate, but it could easily be more.
Shall I mail the mods to see if there’s an upper limit, and whether we can hold until the New Year if we wanted? Or do we want to have some other cut-off point – 7,500 posts (sometime in the next couple of weeks) or 8,000 (probably end of the month)?
Personally I’d vote for either early December, so all the C*r*stm*s and New Year posts were together in the new thread, or sometime early in the New Year so they're all together at the end of the old one.

Words of wisdom (or any other) ?

*WARNING THERE ARE NO WISE WORDS IN THE FOLLOWING POST* (so i've gone for "other" )
i noticed a few weeks ago that about 8 or 9 threads all got a new part....except ours (even though ours was longer at that stage...) in fact ours was the only one on the front page....i wasn't sure if it happened automatically or whether mods decided (and they were hoping ours died)

i've never really "done" plums before so i wasn't sure what to do with them or how long they take to cook....a frangipane and plum tart sounded nice in my brain...i don't think there are enough for jam .....

Anyone else wants to follow the logic - go to the Chatter forum list and click on 'Replies' at the top right of the list. It will organise the threads into the highest to lowest number order.


Must have been a bit of mod tidying - much as I love coinkidinks, I can't believe they all requested a renewal at the same time.
Just looked again, and we're now the only thread open with that high a number of posts.
Something will clearly have to happen eventually - we may smell funny but clearly we're not going to die anytime soon .
Perhaps it's 'wait and see' for a bit and request a tidy cutoff if they just let us run?

do you think it's all the cheese?!

Perhaps - combined mystically with some Ninja force which resulted in inexplicable powers of thread

Thought - it would be nice to have some control over the changeover so we could have the first post in the new thread as a sort of welcome and explanation (that'll be fun ) for anyone who picks up after the move.

yes it's evolved somewhat from its original purpose....people dropping in willy nilly with ne'er a word about the origins of their name it's anarchy!!!

Yep, though I wonder if it's actually in the UK

i almost added that but thought i'd leave the window open ....

Speaking of which - we never did find out about that bat ....

it was a tragic story though.
the battles we fought together....
it's how i "met" lots of FMs you, An and Flight amongst a host of others...

if you want to re-live the good times...

ETA re-reading now it gives away some secret information for the keen sighted

Already bookmarked
and downloaded and cached just in case anything horrid ever happened to the DS site.
Which reminds me - while rummaging through some boxes to try and find my copy of Eno's 'Oblique Strategy' cards, I found a pile of floppy disks with all my e-mails and bulletin board/Usenet posts for 1995-1998.

Only to discover I formatted them using Windows 95s Drivespace software, which encrypted saved info in a way that allowed you to save twice as much info on a floppy (essential back then when storage cost a bloody fortune). And there's no way of reading it without installing Win95 or 98 on a pc as a dual boot and all that stuff.
A job for sometime when I'm not doing anything for weeks I think.
Pity

EDIT: just noticed, the first post in that thread has a different smiley face to what I've seen before

the square one? maybe that was an early sign that the bat was already in control of the laptop? (i'm up to page 11 as i type!!!!)