OneGuyFromBarlick

Nice picture of a common garden spider Tardis, as a genus, amazing but much maligned creatures. Nothing to be scared of with any of our natives of course. I love em!

Araneus Diadematus

The spider web site (no pun intended) is great for photos, Ian. I'll use your site to draw attention to Mrs Tiz's favourite, what she calls `jumpy spiders': Salticus scenicus
How can anyone fail to love such an endearing little creature? Just look at those lovely eyes!

I liked the close-up one of the spiderlings on the page you linked. We have a lot of sparrows in our garden and they like to find the clusters of spiderlings when they need a high-protein diet in the breeding season. I think they must also take adult spiders because we see them so often hovering outside the tops of our windows to pick off the beasties. At times like that the humble sparrow could be mistaken for a large humming bird and they're also adept at catching flying ants which involves amazing mid-air manoeuvres.

Simon Barnes, who writes on sport and and wildlife for The Times, says that butterflies are having a difficult time with so much rain, especially the garden species such as cabbage whites, tortoise shells and peacocks, whereas the grassland types such as meadow brown seem to be surviving more readily.

I once met a Governor spider in Perth WA. You don't want to know the size of it! Big Harry told me they were OK and ate the flies so we left it alone.
How big Kev is. You have to move him round the workshop before you can get to anything? Funny thing is the lighting stand made in China is Imperial measurements not metric. This could be the secret of their success!

I'm glad the PO has relented and a post box will be painted gold in Colne.

I guess another one will be painted gold in Hebden for the rower Andrew Triggs-Hodge....assuming there is one in Hebden! Maybe Burnsall where he went to junior school, or Threshfield where he went to the secondary school. He was though born in Halton, Buckinghamshire and I hope it doesn't appear there - he did move to N Yorks at age one.

Didn't start rowing until he went to Staffordshire University where he joined the boat club.

Someone has worked out that if Yorkshire was an independant country, it would lie 11th in the medal table. To the chagrin of Lancashire, who on its historic boundaries would be joint 11th with them. As was noted, this is some 12 places above Australia, but as the journalist said given that the Australians would be charity itself if the boot was on the other foot, there was no need to see how many other counties would be above the land 'down under'.

Richard Broughton

Stanley wrote:How big Kev is. You have to move him round the workshop before you can get to anything!

I have the same problem in the kitchen...

The local news showed the post box in Hebden being painted gold yesterday Bruff.

There's a gold painted postbox up in Colne near where the Pendle Mp Andrew Stephenson lives. I doubt whether he painted it though.

You never know, he'd prefer that to red..... Did you notice he didn't take the photo opportunity at Clarion House?
Richard, I heard the item about the Yorkshire medals and thought it was a good laugh!
Shock Horror! Olympic swimmers pee in the pool......

A couple of years ago we bought a digital radio, not because we wanted digital reception (FM was fine) but to get the radio's facility for automated recording of programmes using the electronic programme guide (EPG). This works as on a TV recorder, but the radio has an SD card which stores an updated EPG file each day by downloading information from the radio transmission. Last week it stopped getting the EPG updates. I tried lots of things, moving the radio, altering the aerial position, deleting the old EPG guide files (by putting the SD card in my PC USB widget), formatting the card and starting again - but all to no avail. This week we still haven't got EPG and I was beginning to think we'd need to buy a new radio. Then I found this hidden away on the BBC's web site...

"Why am I unable to access EPG information on my digital radio during the London 2012 Olympic Games? Due to the launch of the new digital radio station, BBC Radio 5 live Olympics Extra, it is not possible to provide the EPG (electronic programme guide) across digital radios from 30th July to the end of the Olympic Games. The absence of the EPG is due to the lack of available bandwidth during this very busy period of sporting events. We apologise to our listeners for the loss of this service."
http://faq.external.bbc.co.uk/questions ... lympic_epg

Now why didn't they broadcast this news on the radio service, instead of some of those trailers they're always broadcasting between programmes? They could have saved me and others a lot of trouble! I wonder if they're getting a percentage commission from the manufacturers and retailers of radios on all the new radios sold during the Olympics?

PanBiker wrote:Nice picture of a common garden spider Tardis, as a genus, amazing but much maligned creatures. Nothing to be scared of with any of our natives of course. I love em!

Araneus Diadematus

I wasn't frightened

The bin wasn't full, so I left it there undisturbed for a bit longer

Just for the record - as a couple of people have mentioned it both on and offline - a few weeks ago I was mischievously misquoted out of context as saying in a post that the demise of OGFB was imminent. That wasn’t the case. No point in raking over old coals but all I would ask is that I’m not wrongly accused.

After all, there are plenty of other things you CAN have a go at me for which ARE correct

Like being a freeloader?



This caught my attention in Private Eye. Surely a misprint? Our MP accepting a freebie from a repressive regime? No doubt he'll protest if it's wrong....

Stanley wrote:Like being a freeloader?

Unbelievable.

Quite, I agree. You did give permission..... Some of us have this curious idea that supporting the site by making a small donation every now and again so that Doc doesn't have to subsidise us is a good thing. Servers don't come cheap!

Neither does graphic design time, which I willingly gave to try and help Doc out with the website logo. Sometimes, if you don’t have an excess amount of money, you try and do your bit by giving your time and skills instead.

The effort I expended would have cost my design clients far more than a quid, believe me. I was also willing to spend even more time on the project - the examples I sent were just to ascertain whether they were the kind of thing Doc wanted. I wasn’t expecting them to be presented to the membership!

Your above reply and attitude, perhaps, illustrates why more folk don’t join and donate. So ironically you have, in effect, denied Doc an amount of money and potentially fresh input from a wider variety of people.

Tizer - there's a mention of this problem in this week's Private Eye (P.10) They say it is a cunning wheeze to boost the listening figures for Radio 5live .

I chat to someone on twitter

Today I found her on wikipedia

I was surprised that no journalists of either local paper turned up for the West Craven Area Committee on Tuesday night.

Do they get insulted and patronised too?

Callunna wrote:Neither does graphic design time, which I willingly gave to try and help Doc out with the website logo. Sometimes, if you don’t have an excess amount of money, you try and do your bit by giving your time and skills instead.

The effort I expended would have cost my design clients far more than a quid, believe me. I was also willing to spend even more time on the project

I offered too, as I have very little funding

You are to be commended Callunna, although maybe a barter of goods is seen as "disrespectful" to the tax paying majority as it becomes avoidance

A good example arrived in my email Inbox today showing the benefits of viewing your messages as `plain text' instead of `HTML' (the former is what we all had to use in the past and the latter is what most people use now because it can show colour and graphics). It's a fraudulent email purporting to be from Nationwide Building Society shown here as most people will view it, in HTML...


Now here it is in plain text and you can easily see it's a fraud from the web address of the http link which has `homestaymalaysia' in it. That's the web site you would be connecting to if you clicked on the `Initiate the Process' link shown in the top picture.

I listened to the money programme on Saturday and immediately worried about someone doing the Wonga scam on my account. The world is a very insecure place......
What attracted my attention was the failure of a quartz wall clock. I found it worked on its back but not upright so I have ditched it after the usual IA of giving it a good clout! (IA is an army term; immediate action.) I think this is the first quartz movement that has ever failed me.

Perhaps there's something strange going on in the luminiferous ether. I moved a battery operated clock from the lounge to the conservatory yesterday so I could keep an eye on the time and not miss the 6.00pm news. I almost did miss it because the clock stopped at about 5.50 even though it had been going when I moved it. I corrected the time setting and put it back in the lounge - and it's been going accurately ever since! The conservatory was a few degrees warmer than the lounge but I would have expected that to favour battery life rather than stop the clock.

"(IA is an army term; immediate action.) "
Cock - Hook - and Look. They did a good job - it's imprinted on my brain.
On reflection - they always called it First IA, which is nonsense because if it's immediate, it's always going to be first. I think it's called tautology.

Reading the B&E I find a report from the police at the West Craven Area Committee

Yet I know, no journalist was present

I wouldn't want to question integrity

Tiz , in HTML mail normally hovering over link with right mouse will show the link address. The poor english is also a bit of a giveaway.
Tardis , I think its called press releases ( though I think a good journalist/ paper should make the source clear.