Friend of mine just spent a few days in Vegas with new GF. Before going, he was telling me of their trip.

My friend's not a gambler, so I was asking him what he planned to do. He told me she likes to play slots and roulette and told him she "always wins".

Uh, no.

Well, they seem to be happy together, so good for them. Sounded like they had a nice trip when we chatted after.

very few people that go to vegas lose. at least that is what they have told me.
especially slot players.

Reverse Labouchere every time.

There is buried treasure at Hoe Lane. There is a disused, public right of way with railings on either side in the middle of Theobalds Park. Temple Bar used to be here, but they put it back in the City. Time for a pink gin. Lots of swans about. The New River trek continues.

There's a joke here about buried treasure and Hoes, but I'm not up to figuring it out just now.

buried treasure would be great to find but the problem is you have to dig it up.

Hoe Lane, a sub-suburbia.

The Queen of Tonga stole the show at the Coronation, but I knew that already. My grandfather worked at the Royal Small Arms factory at Enfield Lock, helping to make rifles and machine guns. As did Leslie Welch, the Memory Man. He died when I was about 15 months old, but I do have a memory of him. I’m told he used to chain-smoke, eat boiled sweets, and barely say a word. The river Lea splits in two round there, but rivers don’t have locks, and nobody knows if it’s spelt Lea or Lee, as in Lee-Enfield rifle, and I find it confusing. What I did not know was that his parents also moved down from Sunderland, and are buried somewhere at St James’s Church at Enfield Highway. I didn’t even know that he had parents. Is that normal? I think he was also in the Merchant Navy. My mother and he were watching TV one time, and it featured Galveston, or some port in Texas, and he remarked that he’d been there. One of the few things he said. I don’t talk much either.

Check, the Lee-Enfield is named after its designer, James Paris Lee. It's coincidence that it was made in a factory next to the river Lee.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Paris_Lee

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Small_Arms_Factory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Lea

Guns are beautiful tools.

I don’t understand water towers, not at all, but the one in Trent Park is what they all should look like. Space age, like Cockfosters tube station, clearly ahead of its time in its use of concrete. A gem. The obelisk is imported, however. The golf course has public footpaths. I remember the pair of trees straddling a fairway being thin rather than wide, but that’s the memory.

That's really cool looking. I wonder if that lattice work is load-bearing.

yep load bearing with all the triangles. that thing without them wouldnt last a week.
the long x supports keep if from moving to and fro

There is no form over function ITT, Phat. I won't allow it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockfosters_Water_Tower

There is nothing good about Ponders End. We got moved there when I was 13. Nothing there, except a world class view from the 18th floor. The whole of north London, and much else besides. On a clear day, you could see as far as Crystal Palace and Croydon transmitters. I liked living up high, there is a feeling of escape to it.



"It's as close as London gets to New Jersey. But it's one of my favourite places for walking, through the Lee Valley. It gets beautiful in that urban way, but then you go through soap factories up near Ponders End. It's got a wonderful, dislocated, alienated feeling."

I love it. It would have been just as cool in Planet of the Apes if Charlton Heston rode down the beach and saw that tower.

yea that would go over great. only some brits would even know what is was.
and what are you going to tell people that ask.

oh it is the cockfosters tower. aptly named if for its looks.

How the **** did somebody come up with that design in their head, have a sufficient understanding of mathematics, materials and engineering to figure out it would work, and find a builder skilled enough to make it? It's amazing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperboloid

The pantheon in Rome is much more amazing, completed ~128 A.D. Especially how the dome was constructed and the materials used to lighten the load of the dome itself.

construction-and-behavior-of-the-pantheon/

Great cities must carry their identity to their fingertips. Go to a corner of some bar or cafe in Paris, find a speck of dust there, and it will be effortlessly, unmistakably Parisian. Urban London is all contrasts. One minute is King’s Cross, now a high-tech, international transport hub, the next is quiet, Georgian Wharton Street, beautifully lined by cherry blossom. Children with toy guns and London accents running around the 1950s Golden Lane estate, like in a timewarp, all of it forgotten London.

how come our calendar is based around a folk hero.


that needs to go in the pissed me off thread.

It isn't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar

Don't forget to put the clocks forward.

it is.
the year on the calender is the year after his death. if he was even a real person.

on each calendar we have dec 25th. easter. etc. all based on that.

of course each country adds their own special events as well.

Yeah, it's actually all pagan feasts and stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...agan-symbolism

The Pagan's will win out in the end. Only to be replaced by other Pagan festivals. And the beat goes on........

Nothing more pagan than April Fools' day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day