In my experience, there are three types:

• Alive and well, as here - they are up at 6am, clearing up, making breakfast, rolling other people out of the way to vacuum etc.
• Still hungover, as here - the ones being rolled out of the way etc
• Still partying - arrive at 6:am straight from another party, hoovering up leftover pizza, talking at both the above types and keen not to stop the party until Jan 2nd at the earliest.

I have no great desire to be remembered. It is neither here nor there from my point of view. As to how people are likely to remember me, ‘quiet’ and ‘intelligent’ are two words that crop up a lot from people who I interact with casually or occasionally. Those who know be better would probably focus on my environmental and conservation work etc.

Related to that, due to the role that I played in stopping an area being sold for development and instead becoming designated as a nature reserve on one occasion, there is a meadow that is casually called after me by some people that I worked with. I suppose that I would be happy to be remembered as a meadow.

I assume that the issue is doe to hard water from the borehole - and so limescale buildup, which can quickly kill heating elements.

I look after a few systems with this issue, and have installed water softeners to deal with it. There is some info here.

Evidently there are something like 300 medieval castles that have substantial stonework remaining in the UK. Don’t know about Ireland though. There are over twice that number if you include earthworks only - plus all the rest that are earlier.

I have been to nine listed on this map, and at least 20 others that aren’t.

It gave me a starting point for a terms of reference document for a Green Champions group that I set up at work. That is the only beneficial thing that I can recall.

I have tried to find other uses, but so far nothing else has actually proven up to scratch. I expect that I could have spent more time composing and tweaking prompts and proofreading the output, but it takes as long as writing the damned documents myself.

Philosophy is the disease for which it should be the cure.

― Herbert Feigl, Inquiries and Provocations: Selected Writings 1929–1974

Aliyev’s comments are short-sighted, delusional bollocks but… have you never had a candle as a gift?

From Nov 24th, we progressively decorate the house, one item per day, throughout Brumalia - the old Roman/Byzantine winter festival - in preparation for Saturnalia.

Otherwise, we’ll have a pair of candles going for the eight sabbats themselves, regardless of anything else that we do for them, but I don’t think that candles alone really count as decorations.

Yes, fun idea. No problem with that but… that ‘flag’ is a sail. They’re different things.

Improve education for girls worldwide. A very strong link has been established by numerous studies.

Leaving aside points about driving licence numbers being unique or whatever, it would be the silver pentagram that I made back in the '90s and have worn (or occasionally carry in my wallet etc, when the cord breaks) ever since.

Facilities manager for a wildlife and heritage charity. I lead a small team looking after health & safety, compliance and building maintenance and repairs.

Ninety percent of my time is spent at the keyboard, but since I am peripatetic and move around the properties that I cover, I have a different, and usually beautiful, view out of the window each day of the week. When I am not sat behind a desk, I will be crawling through an attic or have my head down a sewer or something.

My time is spent arranging contractors for routine servicing or repair projects, reviewing fire risk assessments and dealing with outstanding actions, writing client briefs for renewable energy projects, chasing people to do workplace inspections, advising on risk assessments, updating our compliance tracker, arranging asbestos surveys, ensuring that everyone who needs training has it up to date, proving to utility companies that their meters are wildly inaccurate and need to be replaced, working out why the biomass boiler/sewage treatment plant/water heater/automatic gate/car park machine/phone system/greywater pump/security alarm/whatever isn’t working and getting it fixed and so on.

Recently went to a screening of the 1922 Nosferatu with a live accompanist creating an improvised soundtrack on violin, piano and waterphone - which was not an instrument that I had not encountered before, but evidently features in the score of The Matrix, Aliens and a range of other films. I can certainly see why - it was extremely atmospheric. I had seen Nosferatu a couple of times before - as well as the 1979 Herzog version, and Shadow of the Vampire (2000) - but this definitely added something new.

By that age, I was into my third long-term job (> 5 years) and had had upwards of 16 short term ones - multiple part time ones at once, or some just for a few weeks or a couple of months here and there between the long-term ones etc.

48 doesn’t seem that unlikely - nor even an indicator that they will not be staying put for any length of time unless your job is a shitty one with a high turnover anyway.

It’s my turn to cook tonight. I’m doing a shakshuka.

I think that the closest that I had at school was the library. Even decades later I am still happy when surrounded by books.

Otherwise, somewhere green: walking in woodland or sitting by a stream always improves things.

Excluding pretty much everything that I saw as a kid - when you go into basically everything blind - it would be After Hours (1985). I either hadn’t read anything about it or hadn’t been paying attention. Standing outside the cinema, I just saw that it was by Scorsese and went in.

I still think that it is one of his most under-appreciated films. And I loved the Ted Lasso homage, combining it with the Divine Comedy.

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) - Aubrey Plaza in an engaging character piece that has hints of Eagle vs Shark among others. It’s not outstanding by any means and not among Plaza’s best, but still witty and touching.

Oh yes, very much - and not just with movies, but TV, novels, stage performance and the like.

As a kid, it was just the overall visuals and spectacle as much as anything - details of the plot were secondary. Into my teens and early twenties and think that plot details came to dominate and after that exploring interesting concepts began to take priority. Then I guess that I began to appreciate the production side of things more: writing quality and cinematography etc maybe into my 30s and 40s. And these days (in my 50s) I am much more focused on character-driven things.

I am - in the UK - and I think that it should be opt out rather than opt in.