GreyShuck

Fairly standard (for the UK, in the '70s): black trousers, blue or white shirt, dark blue blazer, school tie etc.

BUT, the blazer had the school emblem on, which was derived from the poultry trade that had been a major feature of the town’s prosperity at one time: we all had a large un-ironic turkey embroidered on our chests.

Does Ivor the Engine count as a cartoon? Animation, certainly, but I’m not sure about ‘cartoon’ as such.

Anyway, it is the 1975 version for me.

I use Rainy Days for the radar, and - since I’m in the UK - the Met Office weather app, which has a Next Rain widget.

The single biggest thing for me is having a range of knowledgeable and intelligent friends and spending time with them. It very soon puts things in perspective.

The “British Warm” was the intermediary as I understand it: a shorter greatcoat favoured by Britsh officers in WW1. The Trenchcoat itself was modeled to fit over, accompany or replace this.

The original type of coat that would have been worn when riding was the Great Coat - which did cover the whole body, down to the ankles (and included the front of the body much better than a cloak). Those would have been worn by military officers, particularly.

Those were fine for riding, but then if you were off your horse and end up in the newly developed trench warfare - starting from around the US civil war onwards - you ended up wading through mud which got caked to the coat. So then they started cutting the coats shorter and they became Trench Coats.

The actual reason that we don’t is pretty much because of the invention of sewing machines. Once sewing machines were widespread, making coats became sooo much cheaper than they had been. Coats need a lot of tightly made seams which took time and so made coats very expensive. With sewing machines, making these seams was vastly quicker and more reliable.

Coats win over cloaks in so many ways because you can do things with your arms without exposing them or your torso to the rain and cold: impossible with a cloak.

Capes were the short versions - and intended to cover the shoulder and back without seams that might let the rain in, but with the new machine made seams, they were not needed either.

The really big change was when it became affordable to outfit armies with coats instead of cloaks or capes. At that point all the caché and prestige that was associated with military rank disappeared from cloaks and capes and they were suddenly neither useful not fashionable.

Nowadays, of course, they are no longer what your unfashionable dad would have worn: they are quite old enough to have regained a certain style.

I’m in the UK - live in a rural location and work at several other rural locations. It is a 10 - 45 min drive depending on which one I am at. There is no suitable public transport to any of them - and since I sometimes have to head over to another for some incident or another, cycling - which would be possible to the closest one otherwise - would then prove difficult.

In my first job, I used to cycle 5 miles each way daily, and I was able to walk to one job for a while, but pretty much every other job has required me to commute by car/truck - mostly 20+ mins. One short-term job involved driving 1 hour 30 or more - but it was only ever going to be short-term.

Relevant XKCD

There were 30 sheep involved in the original transaction.

The troll has 25.

His sons have 2.

The shepherds have the 3 that were returned.

To look at it the other way, the shepherd paid a net amount of 27 sheep. The troll has 25, his sons have the other 2.

You don’t add the 27 and the 2 - the 27 is the total of the 25 and the 2.

You can’t lose what you weren’t following in the first place.

This presupposes that I am paying any attention to them, rather than trying to block, skip or otherwise avoid them - which is what I am usually doing.

We used to have a coal fire when I was growing up, so routinely in the winters.

When I was unemployed I used to walk waaaay more than I do now - both to get to places and just as a hobby - and I’d hope to do the same when retired, as long as I am fit enough. That’s walking though. Standing in one place is something that I find extremely wearing and have never done when not necessary. As I understand it this is fundamental to the nature of bipeds. To stand still, we constantly need to adjust balance. However, when walking, it is basically a continuous, controlled fall forwards, and takes less energy. For quadrupeds, it is the other way around: they are stable when standing, but require constant effort to walk or run.

I probably spend most of my reading time horizontal rather than sitting, but if I am reading when vertical then, again, it will be walking - or pacing around - rather than standing. I would seem really weird to simply stand there and read.

Movie - Titanic. It has simply never appealed.

TV - any popular reality show. They are just not my thing.

I recall hearing that one should never use a three letter word starting with ‘g’ and ending with ‘t’ (i.e. get, git, got, gut). Instead: obtain, stomach, ‘being unhelpful’ etc.

This was before github was a thing, of course.

Validate your child’s feelings. Let them know that you understand that they are scared and that it is ok to be scared.

Depends what you mean by body language. I think that most can recognise basic facial expressions like happiness and fear before they can talk, and understand things like pointing and reaching for things to express interest etc.

Finnegans Wake. I read it across the year with an online group. It was always on the edge of incomprehensibility - often well over the edge - but it definitely had a impact.

This year’s ‘big read’ will be the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms I’m just about to make a start.

Depends whether I am working or not. If it has been a workday, then often the half hour or hour that I set aside at the end of the day for reading before I go to sleep.

If I am not working, and don’t need to get up do things immediately, then the time just after waking and before I get breakfast. Maybe read a little, plan the day and check the Web.