Coping in the Time of Covid-19 - New and Improved!

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  • So sorry about your friend, Boogie.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    You've obviously got an Office Gremlin; he's a cousin of the Laundry Gremlin who takes individual socks from the washing machine.

    @Boogie - so sorry to hear of your neighbour, but what a lovely tribute to pay to her!

    @Simon Toad - glad to hear it's not Covid, but take care and get well soon.
  • AravisAravis Shipmate
    It’s the Borrowers! I think the species predates biros, but I’m sure later generations of Borrowers have found some way of using them.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited May 2020
    Thankyou all for your messages. No paracetemol today. I just have a nasty cough!

    I find that I remember more of my dreams when I am on a mild anti-psychotic. Sadly I had to go back on one for anxiety/paranoia (not as bad as it sounds - a bi-polar thing). It is a teeny tiny dose but enough to help me muster my own coping resources.

    I think my dreams are about feelings more than what happens. They can be a good indicator of what I feel when I am awake because they are so intense.
  • So, the question is ... the stack of pens I keep in the lab. Where have they gone? There's been no one in there for 6 weeks ... and still they've walked!

    You have one of those, too?

    Every now and then I go and get a box of biros, and distribute them to every conceivable place I might need a pen. It doesn't take long for them to evaporate. Perhaps one time I'll get a distinctive-looking set, so I can have the fun of trying to spot them when they show up elsewhere.
  • They won't show up. They will have been Devoured by Daemons...
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    My dreams last night also featured ballet dancing @la vie en rouge , as well as trans driving instructors. Very odd.
  • I have thought of tagging pens like they do migratory birds.
  • I collect pens. I don't quite know how, but I seem to come home with more than I left carrying fairly regularly. There's a sort of attraction that happens when holding a pen that means if I'm handed one to do something it's now attached to me.
  • I collect pens. I don't quite know how, but I seem to come home with more than I left carrying fairly regularly. There's a sort of attraction that happens when holding a pen that means if I'm handed one to do something it's now attached to me.

    @Alan Cresswell - we've solved the problem. All the pens are in @Curiosity killed's bag.
  • PendragonPendragon Shipmate
    My work pens get snaffled by the screening techs. Home ones the Dragonlets are partly responsible for their migration.

    I had weird dreams a few weeks back but thankfully they've mostly subsided.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    So, the question is ... the stack of pens I keep in the lab. Where have they gone? There's been no one in there for 6 weeks ... and still they've walked!
    Black biros are the pupal stage of wire coat hangars. When the adult emerges it is very soft and can pass through the smallest of holes. (It consumes the pupal shell the nutrients of which enable it to harden once it finds a suitable location in which to assume the adult larval form.)

    Coat hangars remain sexually inactive while suspended but when laid flat with others they become sexually active (they are hermaphrodites) and can be hard to separate. They lay microscopically small eggs pale grey and hairy, closely resembling laundry fluff.

    So far the larval stage has not been definitively observed. Some think the larvae are what we generally know as paperclips, but there is some unaccounted-for variation amongst them which doesn’t seem to be reflected in the adult coat hangar.

    So far, coat hangars have proved remarkably resistant to captive breeding, and become utterly dormant under observation at all life-stages.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    @BroJames - that absolutely has to go in the Quotes File! :mrgreen:
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    KarlLB wrote: »
    ... I know the H2G2TG answer, but, seriously, where do they go? Where are my thousands of biros? ...
    Thanks to the miracle of DuckDuckGo.com, I now know both the meaning of H2G2TG (which I should have been able to figure out on my own) and what a "biro" is.

    I think I shall quit while I am ahead, and retire for the night.


  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    ...but not quite yet. I feel compelled to note that the late, great Bill Vaughan, a longtime columnist for the Kansas City Star (in the blessed days before McClatchy bought and cheapened the paper), proved conclusively that paper clips are the larval form of wire coat hangers.

    This is not to say that pens couldn't be an intermediate state, however.
  • Only because there is a picture of a very big paperclip included in this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    OTOH there is a plastic wallet of black biros which has been living on top of a bookshelf on the bedroom landing for months. The owner doesn't take charge of them. Elsewhere in the house, his pens lie about in abandonment. Under piles of papers, down the side of seats, and yet, even so, he will complain that he does not have any pens.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Piglet wrote: »
    @BroJames - that absolutely has to go in the Quotes File! :mrgreen:
    Too kind, @Piglet My inner proof-reader is cross with me that I allowed ‘adult larval form’ to slip through at the end of the first paragraph. It should just have read ‘adult form’. :smile:
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Rossweisse wrote: »
    ...but not quite yet. I feel compelled to note that the late, great Bill Vaughan, a longtime columnist for the Kansas City Star (in the blessed days before McClatchy bought and cheapened the paper), proved conclusively that paper clips are the larval form of wire coat hangers.

    This is not to say that pens couldn't be an intermediate state, however.
    That theory went out of favour when an army of paper clips invaded the Microsoft Office and managed to get one of their agents inside the software to annoy the world. That doesn't mean the theory is wrong, but human nature is such that we avoid positive views of those things we despise: wasps, toilet roll hoarders and animated paper clips.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Rossweisse wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    ... I know the H2G2TG answer, but, seriously, where do they go? Where are my thousands of biros? ...
    Thanks to the miracle of DuckDuckGo.com, I now know both the meaning of H2G2TG (which I should have been able to figure out on my own) and what a "biro" is.

    I think I shall quit while I am ahead, and retire for the night.


    Just for you, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/biro
  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    When Child 1 became mobile, I became very aware of potential choking hazards. Every time I found a biro with a lid I binned the lid. It's not as though biros dry up without a lid. And yet I kept finding biro lids; there seemed no end to them.

    Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, every time the North East Man found a biro without a lid, he binned the biro, and kept buying new packs of lidded biros.

    My bafflement as to where the choking-hazard lids were coming from was only matched by the North East Man's bafflement as to where the lids on his biros were going.....
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I'm not a fan of biros - much prefer fineline pens, so much so that I named myself after them.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I prefer finelines too, Fineline - especially the 0.3mm "ultra-fine" ones - they seem to suit my handwriting, for which I used to receive compliments.
  • I mostly gave up on my Hand Write Ing some time ago, but, if I ever do have to use a pen, a fineline is what I prefer.

  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I have small occasion for handwriting, but when I do the ballpoint (never a Biro) has a barrel made of stag antler, the tapered top and bottom section are of glossy gunmetal, the clip and point gold, with an elegant strip of decorative gold inlay between horn and metal. I love it. And yes, it did cost a bit.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Piglet wrote: »
    I prefer finelines too, Fineline - especially the 0.3mm "ultra-fine" ones - they seem to suit my handwriting, for which I used to receive compliments.

    I like them extra fine. You can get as fine as 0.05mm if you buy a set of them. Not so good for handwriting, but nice for drawing. But finelines do also better suit my handwriting (which never receives compliments! :lol:) as I'm left handed and biros seem to stick, and don't move smoothly or create a smooth line. I guess because, as a left hander, I'm pushing rather than pulling the pen. I sometimes draw with biro though and that goes well - because the pen can go in any direction with drawing. No left-to-right protocol.
  • edited May 2020
    I'm not understanding "biro". internet says it's a UK brandname of ballpoint pen. Kind of like UK calls a vacuum cleaner a hoover? Crunchy versus smooth peanut butter?
  • Yes, like we hoover rather than vacuum, although both are used. Biro, although originally a eponym, is a generic word for ball point pen. (And I choose crunchy peanut butter, much nicer than smooth.)
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Like how Americans call tissues Kleenex.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Here is a list of 50 things people in various countries call by their brand name. It's alphabetical, and biro is number 5.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    When Child 1 became mobile, I became very aware of potential choking hazards. Every time I found a biro with a lid I binned the lid. It's not as though biros dry up without a lid. And yet I kept finding biro lids; there seemed no end to them.

    Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, every time the North East Man found a biro without a lid, he binned the biro, and kept buying new packs of lidded biros.

    My bafflement as to where the choking-hazard lids were coming from was only matched by the North East Man's bafflement as to where the lids on his biros were going.....

    Problem with biros without a lid is they write on things. I always plump for retractables for that reason.
  • I'm not understanding "biro". internet says it's a UK brandname of ballpoint pen.
    I thought it was the name of the person who invented the ballpoint pen. Possibly Hungarian?
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    I believe Bitp is registered as a brand name (by Bic?). And it is the surname of the Hungarian inventor.
  • Biro, although originally a eponym, is a generic word for ball point pen.

    I hadn't realised eponym was so opaque, it means named after the inventor, so describes sandwiches and wellingtons, as well as biros.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    BroJames wrote: »
    I believe Bitp is registered as a brand name (by Bic?). And it is the surname of the Hungarian inventor.
    Where is autocorrect when you need it? How does ‘Bitp’ get a pass? It should be ‘Biro’.
  • Maybe 'Bitp' is short for 'Bitpen' - a virtual pen, as bitcoin is a virtual currency.

    I'll get me coat.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    I very much doubt if either Sandwich or Wellington had anything to do with the invention of sandwiches or wellingtons. (I believe the Earl of Sandwich merely imported a lower class item into his club. No-one slapped a filling into bread before? Pull the other one.)
  • EigonEigon Shipmate
    There's also Val Biro, who was the author and illustrator of a series of children's books about a car called Gumdrop. He was from Hungary originally.
  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    We have a fine selection of reusable cotton shopping bags. We are now putting them through the washing machine every single time they are used. They are shrinking! Yesterday I used seven for a small shop- one of them could hold little more than a family sized packet of crisps.

    Anyone else observing that they have to take more and more bags to carry less and less?
  • Jengie JonJengie Jon Shipmate
    I must admit the one clear adaptation I made was I bought a trolley. I do not have a car and I knew I needed to be able to transport larger amounts and get them home in order to reduce the contact time I had.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    I've found myself short of a bag on a couple of occasions, and then buy another one - though there's a substantial collection in my kitchen already. That's mostly just how my routine has changed, instead of walking into work with a wee backpack with a flask of coffee, my lunch and 3 or 4 bags for shopping after work (which also serve the job of stopping the banana for my lunch getting bruised) I'm heading out with just the carrier bags stuffed in my coat pocket. Added to which instead of swinging via Sainsbury's on my way home 2-3 times a week I'm doing 1-2 shops a week which are then, obviously, a bit bigger than before so even when I have the same number of bags they're not enough.

    Though, I'm not washing my plastic or fabric bags. I keep them in two stacks, so there's at least a week between using the same bag - which should be more than enough for any viral particles that had got onto them to become inactive.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    @Alan Cresswell said -
    Though, I'm not washing my plastic or fabric bags. I keep them in two stacks, so there's at least a week between using the same bag - which should be more than enough for any viral particles that had got onto them to become inactive.

    That’s what I do. I have two sets of bags and shop twice a week, so I’m only using each bag once a week.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I just use my bags for life and my rucksack. I always have several bags for life inside my rucksack. I don't wash them afterwards - I won't be touching them at any point other than the point I next go shopping. I just leave them in a corner so any virus particles will die by themselves. Though if they still had virus particles on when I went shopping again, it wouldn't make a lot of difference, as any food I put into them from the supermarket may also have virus particles on anyway. I guess because I live alone, I don't have to be so careful though, because I don't have to worry about other people inadvertently touching the bags, and I know I will wash my hands after going shopping.

    I have considered getting a trolley like Jengie Jon mentions - it's a hilly walk to Asda, a mile there and a mile back, and I struggle with carrying heavy loads. Though I am also thinking if I go very late in the evening, close to closing time, it is much quieter, and I could go three times a week and buy small amounts. Plus I'd be there each time for such a short time, I'd be far less likely to encounter people than if I do all my shopping at once, walking all round the store. I also find I get a bit overwhelmed if I'm there too long, and harder to think straight. So little and often seems oddly a safer way for me to do it, even though the official advice is to go as infrequently as possible.

    This whole situation is requiring a lot of strategic thinking, I'm finding.
  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    According to the British Museum shop webpage, our bag was 38 x 38 cm when we bought it - it's now 32cm x 32 cm. I think all our cotton bags have shrunk by a similar amount.

    If we use plastic bags we don't wash them, but peg them on the washing line to air for 3 days.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    I just leave my bags lying about in an abandoned posture. Until I get them into my scheme for re-use. I have a lot, since I have a helper collect from Waitrose, and they send the order in multiple bags. The second lot was in their very nice green recycled bags. These I am working through, cutting into strips and making them into a fruit basket (I think) according to a raffia technique taught me when I was 8. I wasn't very good at it, and have done none since. My mat ended up about 4 inches across while everyone else except Theo had large place mats. Theo had a bowl because she pulled too tight. This means I know how to make my bowl. It will not be in the running for the Mrs Joyful prize for rafia work at St Custard's because of irregularities in the material used. I found my raffia mat the other week, but it is now hiding again. My current work is already much larger! Miss Warren would be pleased something stuck from my year in her classroom.
  • JapesJapes Shipmate
    My shopping trolley has been having a weekly outing. I was definitely a swing by the supermarket(s) on the way home from work kind of shopper or a walk down in the evening if I had some spare energy to wear off and only really used the trolley for shopping for times I was having houseguests or making lots of cake for work.

    My real difficulty with trying to shop only once a week is trying to stick to just one shop. I've always shopped around and never stuck to just one supermarket. Plus, there are some things in the heavy or awkward to transport category I've always tried to get from the local shops as my attempt to help keep those going.

    I did notice the other day that the three re-usable cotton bags I have, which are not actually used for shopping but rather as my peg bag, a paper for shredding bag, and the gardening gloves bag, have all shrunk as they've had more washes this year than previous years....
  • Curiosity killedCuriosity killed Shipmate
    edited May 2020
    I have a couple of reusable bags in my shoulder bag (just made a backpack rather than the tote bag I was using as it was going into holes), and I do wash the cotton one sometimes, but mostly air it between shops. The other bag is made from recycled plastic bags and wipes down with soapy water, but also airs between shops.

    That's one of the biggest changes for me too, reducing down to a couple of shops a week, instead of a daily after supper wander round the shops as extra steps, so one supermarket shop and one to the chemist to pick up medications and any other small shops in that area. We do have corner shops for the more far-flung bits of the town, but I live nearer the High Street shops, so the Tesco's or M&S Food supermarkets are my nearest shops.

    The other big change is only being allowed one walk, so I am limited by my daughter's energy levels and can't take her for a short walk then go back out for a longer one, or take her out for two shorter walks as a way of achieving 10 000 steps.
  • St EverildSt Everild Shipmate
    Although I don't do our "big shop" (he who does the cooking does that) I have wandered to our local shop (about 200 yds from my front door) if I have had a particular yearning for something specific for lunch (prawns in Marie Rose sauce, recently - no idea why and no, I'm definately not pregnant).
    I have stopped taking a reusable bag because I think it might be better for the cashier to pack a brand new and untouched poly bag with my bits and pieces, rather than my basket, which they don't know where it has been of whether my hand, carrying it bu the handle, might have contaminated it and so contaminate them.
  • @Curiosity killed - I gather that Our Glorious Leader may well be allowing us TWO walks per day, so that, presumably, would be of some help to you, and your daughter?

    We await his announcement later today, of course...
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Two walks can be done for health reasons, and I would see accompanying an ill daughter for a short walk as a health/caring thing, and shouldn't stop you going for another walk, for your own exercise needs, if you are going to a quiet place and keeping distance. But everyone seems to interpret the rules a bit differently. I know of people who take a timer and won't be out longer than an hour. I go for longer than an hour.

    I don't find it hard sticking to one shop, as it's a very big supermarket, so has a good variety, but I do miss the other food shops I would sometimes go to, for a different selection, but they would require taking a bus, or a very long walk, or they are too small for me to feel comfortable going into, because I don't know how social distancing would be possible. I really miss buying yellow sticker bargains - that was a fun, serendipitous part of shopping, seeing what nice/unusual stuff might be reduced. There are never any left now. Food shopping has stopped being fun, and is a chore, which made me sad at first, to the point where I would get tearful in Asda, which made me feel a bit daft, but now I guess I have adapted to this and just see it as the way it is for the time being.

    Something I'm glad I did before lockdown was go to Lush and buy a few bath bombs. I make each one last a couple of weeks, so they have lasted so far and will continue to last. Just a small piece of them makes the bath colourful and smell nice.
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