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Hi Sherlock The Otter, welcome to the forum. Nice avatar, you are very good looking! Me, sigh, I am just a shadow of my former self. Don't worry, if you had duplicate thread, the moderators would put you in straightjacket and throw you inside the padded room..., I meant, they would take care of it. No worries, the most punishment they could give is asking you for a shorter nickname. 😛 As for your questions, if I have to pick one, it's probably the one in Sherlock's kitchen. I love how amazed John was at Sherlock's cluelessness, even after all this time. I love how Sherlock kept not getting it and suggested that Lestrade should be the best man because he is a man and good at it. It's the root of their relationship really. It's nice, warm, weird, funny and tastes surprisingly good 😛 I think that is also one of the reasons of why there are so many of us feel connected to the character. Socially awkward, was mostly portrayed as weirdo, sidekick, villain traits, but with Sherlock, it is endearing, it's alright, it's okay. So yah, my answer. If you asked for monologue, I'd call dibs on best man speech.

"Aladdin". This one gets a "blah" from me. There were parts I liked (the "Ali Ababwa" song was still good, Carpet was Carpety, some funny new scenes such as their arrival at the palace); and taken as its own thing, it wasn't necessarily a bad movie. But it was a bad remake, in my opinion. The flow, the acting, the added instrumentation, and the parts of the story they changed, all failed to capture the mood and emotion of the original story. Aladdin's own characterization was more or less on point, and even the Genie's was okay; but everyone else's felt off to me, especially Jasmine's. In the original she was much more canny and spunky, I thought. I didn't like her new arc of trying to prove herself good enough to be Sultan as a woman, nor her "I am woman, hear me roar" song which was, frankly, just annoying. She actually came across as more whiny and helpless and less defiant than her animated counterpart. Jafar, too, seemed less poised and calculating and more like he just had anger issues. He lacked the menace and imposing figure of the original, as well as the humor; probably because his sidekick/quipping partner, Iago, was reduced to an insentient bird spy rather than an actual character in this version. Everyone seemed a little dumbed down, actually. A lot of the cleverness I liked so much in the original characters/story was taken out, and what was left in was not emoted convincingly. So all in all, the animated version is vastly superior, and I'll probably never bother to watch this one again unless I'm with someone else who wants to see it. 5/10 for me, at best.

For VBS ... here's an aerial view of the area I live in. Each one of those tiny gray dots beside the roads is a house. Yet you can see how wooded it still is. Even when they clear cut (strip) the land to build, they always leave the trees in between the construction sites. And in the area in the middle, where there doesn't seem to be as many roads … there are, almost. The trees are just older and denser so you can't see them as well, and also there are bigger lots in that area; more space between the houses. And just to the south is the big national forest I mentioned. So that's how we manage to have (relatively) high population density and still encounter woodland creatures on a daily basis. It's too many people for a healthy environment … mostly due to all the cars … but it could be a lot, lot worse. But you'd have to go all the way into downtown Washington DC to see nothing but concrete. I doubt if the bears make it that far.

And because sharing is caring, you want us to suffer along with you, right? Well mission accomplished, but at least it's a nice song.

I suggest you use axe.exe instead of husband.com to deal with her request. :p Anyway, as for my reason, no, not related to dog. I believe it's easier when you want to find the end of the toilet paper for some cases. If I remember correctly, it happened in a mall, you know, those huge closed dispenser they mounted on the wall. More often than not, the end of the t.p held on the roll. Since it's only accessible from below (for us), in this case, you'd need to stick your hand inside and try to roll them to get the end to come out so you can access it. Since it is mounted 'side ways', it could be over or under but I found out that you could roll forever when the position is over while it's much easier to get then when it's under. Good god, I can't believe I went technical over this. Can I count it as valuable use of time today?

Sorry, but I'm all out of husbands.

No I think it's more to do with flapping about like a spooked flock of birds, cos you are so aware of the clock ticking... Tick, tock. Ah, memories of Andrew...😍 Not positive you are supposed to be quite so in love with the mortal enemy!

I think it is... partly because of the time pressure. There were only four of us, so I can certainly see the advantage of having a full team of six. Having said that, the lovely German couple my pal and I were with, were both brilliant. You need a bit of creative thinking... You also forget that the staff are listening to you the whole time! They said to us afterwards, that we were an infuriating group... We very quickly worked out the solutions and then immediately talked ourselves out of it. Ha!

I don’t know if anyone has heard of John Dickson Carr? He was an American writer who wrote a biography of Doyle. He was also a writer of classic era crime fiction specialising I guess in the classic locked room-type mysteries. In fact his story The Hollow Man was voted the best locked room mystery ever. He wrote 22 stories using his hero Sir Henry Merrivale (under the pen name Carter Dickson) and 23 stories starring his most famous creation Dr Gideon Fell. These were written between 1933 and 1967. Carr died in 1977. Id always meant to check out Carr’s stories (having only read his biography of Doyle and his famous collection of Holmes pastiches called The Exploits Of Sherlock Holmes, written with Adrian Conan Doyle) Last week I bought Carr’s first Gideon Fell book Hag’s Nook. Let’s just say that I’ll be looking for more. This isn’t a long book 150+ pages but the plot is great, it’s well written Imo, it’s certainly atmospheric and Fell is a great character. He’s a large chap that wears a cape, walks on two sticks and is writing his magnum opus about the history of English drinking habits. Like Nero Wolfe and Morse, Fell likes his beer. Ive also just listened to two Gideon Fell radio plays on YouTube starring English actor Donald Sinden as Fell. Definitely worth checking out. Definitely the kind of book for a wintry night and a glass of something medicinal.👍

Note to those not reading or watching GoT - this is purposefully misquoted from a different show (source and many more here). (Golden Girls)

So, here are all the things I liked about the ending:

If I want Canon, I read Canon.... Mark and Steven can do what thy like with their show. I never fell for Johnlock. A beautiful, loving male friendship works for me.

VBS, you gave that poor little doggie some love, and you arranged for her to have a safe place where she could die in peace, which are the most helpful things you could have done for her. From your account, this disease came on pretty fast, so the owner may not have been aware that she was ill. Or the dog may have wandered away from home some time ago, and become infected after that. So it wasn't necessarily a case of neglect. Sometimes bad things just happen.

It was on mitigating the effects of heatwaves in urban areas, not my fave so glad it's done. The block we did on the Amazon was definitely the best. Yeah the course is good, glad I signed up though I've had a few major stress-outs when I've got a deadline and forty thousand other things to do! I've been doing some conservation volunteering for a couple of charities, I quite enjoy tromping around beaches looking for beasties. I also did a brilliant reptile and amphibian course a few weeks ago, surveying and IDing local species, the little guy in the pic below was my fave, gorgeous fella, didn't want to put him back! Hm, what else? I dug a little wildlife pond in my back garden, hoping I'll get some interesting things move in over time. I'm doing a bat course at the end of the month. I'm off kayaking next Friday, which should be good. Then I'm on holidays the week after, heading up to Scotland for a week.

Even if you do, you'll find majority of us already inside. So there is nothing to be ashamed of. May I know why you asked for season 3 specifically? Your favorite season? Because if you asked for season 2, I'd choose the sheet scene in Buckingham Palace, most likely, although I love all TRF as it tugs my heartstring the most. But you see, I have worked very hard (not) to achieve my current status as Pantless in Buckingham Palace and would like to feel represented.

That's a good scene, Tobe, but the topic is Series 3 scenes -- so you now have a good excuse to run through those episodes again, using either your memory or a DVD. That series has a lot of good scenes, so I'll need to think awhile.

I got Sherlock too! I doubt the scientific nature of this quiz, some of the questions are rigged.

Actually, I thought this deserved its own topic, so I've taken the liberty of splitting it off. Thanks for pointing this out! These four stories are pastiches by John Taylor, purported to be based on the contents of a wooden (not tin this time!) box where Watson has kept memorabilia of some old too-hot-to-report cases which have now cooled sufficiently that he feels free to report on them. Judging by comments I've seen online, the reading is (of course) superb, but several people found the background music pretty distracting. Unfortunately, the page you originally linked to appears to be a pirated copy of the audio book -- but fortunately the audio CD (and also what appears to be audio streaming) is available for a reasonable price (or even free) from Amazon UK. Note that the streaming comes with a one-month free trial, so presumably one can sign up, listen to this book, and then decide whether or not to keep the service.

My Flat mate has 4K Ultra machine and some discs and the upgrade is noticeable. A bit like going from DVD to Blu Ray. Like other folk here I would consider buying if it has new extras. But probably wouldn't invest until I own a 4K player. Which will not occur until my current Blu Ray player bites the dust.

Wha..what? Unsolicited blabbering, and lately lack of ability to retain short-term memory and I think I have started to forget which stories I have told and haven't. Gasp, am I the person I'm always ranting about??!! 😲 Holy smoke, I must be unbearable. Mmmm mmm *stroking invisible beard* I see where you are coming from.. (Read: I think you are nuts )

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Also, it's not always as easy as it might seem to just go to another state. Say you want an abortion, but you have to go to another state to get it … can you afford to get there? Can you get enough time off from work to travel? Etc. It's a big country, especially out west. But yes, regional differences can end up being discriminatory … as recently as the late '70's, it was still illegal for persons of different races to be married in North Carolina. I remember, because I had a bit of a crush on a black friend (I'm white) and someone made a point of telling me this … because she disapproved of my crush. I frankly didn't see any reason for her prejudice, no matter how widely it was shared by the general population of that state, to dictate who I could or couldn't marry. So in that sense, yes, it can be scary when the laws represent the beliefs of the local population. By that time, however, the population was becoming more accepting of mixed-race marriages, so the law wasn't enforced any more. But does that make it okay that it was law in the first place? Not to my way of thinking. And it took the federal courts to break up a lot of that kind of thing. Which is why we have them.

I have to disagree, I think it does have significant effect. The most efficient way to control supply is to control demand. Again, I'm talking about plastic bags though, as I'm more laser focused on the aftermath. And looking at the way mostly people behave, the most efficient control, unfortunately, is through banning. Most people wouldn't care or think twice about using excessive plastic, or wasting helium as long as they don't feel the inconvenience of cost, for example, or scarcity. By banning it, it automatically reduce demands. Without demands, supply would be cut, production would be cut. I'm afraid it's not the case at all. We could decide the last attempt to make use of plastic bag and give it multiple lives, it's true. But at the end, it's still plastic bag. Even if we reused and recycled them, it'd still end up somewhere you can't control. There are many landfills but they are questionable and simply not enough to cater our waste. Most likely the treatment and re-purposing of those only cover small percentage of actual waste. How do they get into ocean? I know some landfills could be uninhabited island, or they could be island of their own. Plastic bags could also travel from inland waterways, or wind. It's more likely that there are many ways that the plastic bag that you use, even when you are not living near the ocean, could end up at the ocean. Even when you dispose it responsibly. Certain months of the year, the pristine beach that I frequent would become a thrash site. The monsoon and strong wind would carry up a lot of garbage from I'm not sure where. When I meant a lot, it's a lot. Piles and piles of garbage, from tree trunks to mostly...plastics. I have comparison pictures somewhere. There could also be times when we sailed through a nice beautiful ocean and island, and suddenly find that we were in between streak of garbage floating on the ocean surface. It could come from neighboring island, it could be dumped from ship. The point is, unless you see it breaks down (I did have couple of so-called more environmental plastic bags that breaks down to pieces and dust after I used it to keep something for couple of years), plastic bags would end up somewhere.

Check out Grammarly.com.

Tonight Alex and I saw the biggest darn rainbow we'd ever seen. It occurred shortly before sunset, which presumably accounted for the top of it being around 50 degrees above the horizon (i.e., more than halfway to the top of the sky). The entire arc was bright and visible (plus we could see portions of a very dim outer rainbow). I just stood there enjoying it till it started to fade. I took some photos too, but there was of course no way to get the entire thing in one shot, and I'm not sure I'd be able to do an accurate paste-up on anything with such a plain background.