Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

@Jaz007 Nah, it's the weather. Thinking is difficult at the moment

@Jaz007 We Brits don't have the best sense of humour in optimal conditions. Make it slightly too warm, or too cold, or when we're kinda hungry, or thirsty, or sleepy, or anything else other than "sitting down in agreeable weather with a cup of tea" and it just isn't funny.

Except it was, and I forgot the obligatory smiley, so no worries.

@Jaz007 No Worries... I was just left thinking "does he not realise that it's just too hot?"

If it's too hot for a cup of tea - it's just too hot

Do the British have A/C in your cars?
(Forgive the random questions, I’m fascinated by this apparent lack of preparation for the elements. 😉)

Edit: oh yeah, you folk don’t drive cars, everyone rides in those red double decker bus things like in Harry Potter don’t they?

@Th3solution There are many a British lady and gentleman equipped with motorcar contrivances; they do indeed often arrive equipped with atmospheric persuasion systems...

@KALofKRYPTON Lol, that’s good. I was starting to wonder if the imports of the Aston Martins and Jaguars here to the states not only had to add mph gauges and shift the steering wheel to the left side, but also included adding superfluous temperature control systems.
So, the solution to the summer heat wave is clear ... spend your day in the car.

@Th3solution we use mph as standard. It's a non-straightforward heady mix of imperial and metric measurements for pretty much anything and everything.

Eg. You'll think of your fuel and tank in terms of gallons but buy it in litres. It keeps us sharp when it comes to boozing - where standard in use pub measurements range through gallons, pints, carafes, ounces, litres centilitres and millilitres.

@Th3solution We're not prepared for anything, so don't worry about asking obvious questions. I spent far too long in my previous job trying to convince people of things we needed, only to get the "oh, that never happens here" brush-off literally the week before all heck broke loose.

It'll happen in winter, too (roll on winter). Always does.

There was a beautiful story a couple years back of huge complaints after snow cancelled trains and left people stranded, so the train company said "Don't worry, folks! We're investing in the infrastructure needed to keep the rails open in snow!" and some smiling suits were photographed in front of their massive new de-icer train, which cost them some millions of pounds.

The following year, it didn't snow. Nor the next year. After the third year of no snow, somebody at the train company said "Hold on, we've got this multi-million pound de-icer train just sitting here, costing us maintenance bills, and we haven't ever had to use it because it hasn't snowed in three years and therefore never will again." So, to please their shareholders and save them a couple thousand, the company sold the de-icer train.

The following year, it snowed. Badly. The train company were back on the news, losing millions in fares and operational income, as well as suffering terrible PR when the local news played them back the footage of their celebratory de-icer train purchase from four years previous and asked the obvious question: "So, where is it, then?" So guess what?

They went and bought another one. After it had finished snowing.

Didn't snow the next year. Or the year after that.

The UK is supremely average for everything. Our climate, our culture, everything "does just fine" most of the time. But when something goes wrong, we're world leaders at complaining.

@RogerRoger "... our culture?' Ouch.
We're certainly not perfect, nowhere is. But there is far, far more culturally vacant - or indeed bankrupt than we.

@KALofKRYPTON Poor choice of words on my part; I meant our general population's attitude and approach to situations, our cultural character. As a society, we've become somewhat lackadaisical of late. Again, speaking generally, of course (which I never really like to do).

Our "culture" culture, our history and our values and whatnot, I'll defend to the hilt, warts and all.

@RogerRoger Quite right.

I'm on a train. The airco doesn't work because of the heat, ironically. Apparently this is the life I live.

@Kidfried any rain? Still dry as a bone here?

@Kidfried I was on a bus yesterday. When I got out I was greeted by a nice cold breeze of 38 degrees! That bus was like a riding sauna. Tomorrow's rain can't come soon enough...

I can't wait for it to rain tomorrow! Sunday will be nice and cool too. Well, 19 degrees, which on any normal summer day I would be moaning is too hot. I wonder if there been any scientific explanation as to why Europe has been so abnormally hot this summer. Apparently this could even become the norm. In which case I'm moving to Greenland.

@RogerRoger There is a lot of apathy in this country nowadays, sadly, and people have become far more selfish. Britain has a lot to be proud of - the birthplace of modern democracy, the rule of law and human rights, as well as our cultural output - along with many things not to be proud of. However, I've recently found myself questioning what "British values" are, particularly when used as a cynical political slogan by those whose actions do not align with them.

The Moon is looking pretty cool right now!

@Octane Feels like I'm in a real life Bloodborne!

@JohnnyShoulder Indeed!

This is the best I could do with my crappy camera:

@FullbringIchigo Hi, Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker is primarily a PvP game, right? Managed to play the beta yesterday, but the gameplay was a little bit too chaotic for me. The camera and the targeting could use some work. On the plus side, the character models did looked pretty good, though.

In my experience, those loudly proclaiming to uphold "British values" are those who have the least idea of what they truly are, or have the most twisted and distorted view on the real lessons from history. That being said, they'd probably say the same about me, and that's why our politicians spend every Wednesday yelling at one another like schoolchildren.

Oh, and save me a seat on whatever mode of transport you're booking to Greenland.