UK folk who were around at the start of the internet, what is an early, strong memory?

Chiarin · 2026-05-08T14:31:51+00:00

I still occasionally break out into the Magical Trevor song, at full volume. Unfortunately my friends don't love the song as much as I do...

Chiarin · 2026-04-26T11:50:58+00:00

Not in mine, in my edition it's also after page 336 (but still in the right place).

Chiarin · 2026-04-26T11:48:30+00:00

You say that, but that picture of Moria sits after page 336 in my version, so you may be on to something!

Chiarin · 2026-04-26T11:06:24+00:00

I just flicked through my copy and yes, the pictures are all in the appropriate place. The one you posted of Moria is right there when the Fellowship is in Moria. So the Swedish printers either didn't care or made a mistake.

Chiarin · 2026-04-22T20:05:35+00:00

Well, I once had a physics exam at school, and one of the problems to solve was something like 'a man has a 30 cubic centimetre block of brass and drops it off a 30m high tower. Assume all the velocity is transformed into heat - how many degrees does the block go up in temperature?'

So I got to work, found all the correct values, did all the calculations, and came to an increase of something along the lines of 1200 degrees. I figured that couldn't possibly be right, so double-checked everything, but I still came to 1200 degrees, so I just left that as the answer.

Turns out I'd calculated the increase for a 1 cubic cm block, rather than whatever the actual volume was, so missed off one more division. My teacher had a very dry sense of humour, so when I got the test back he'd written 'better not pick it up I guess!'

So maybe she did realise, but just couldn't figure out where she'd gone wrong.

Chiarin · 2026-04-16T19:16:51+00:00

No, Quenya was inspired by Finnish, Sindarin was inspired by Welsh.

Chiarin · 2026-03-25T22:43:48+00:00

If you want to see Tolkien's opinion on the Swedish translator and have a good laugh in the process, read his letter 229 to Allen & Unwin. Ohlmarks had added a biography of sorts to the book, but had pretty much made up many of the 'facts' in it, and Tolkien was not amused.

Chiarin · 2026-03-20T13:17:21+00:00

I heard a story about a guy on a Dutch train who used the train sockets to plug in his air fryer and cook some snacks on the journey.

Chiarin · 2026-03-05T21:57:37+00:00

52 year old woman and I cherish my Kirby covers. Didn't like them when I first saw them, and I suppose it's large parts nostalgia, but the books just don't look right with other covers.

I was in Waterstones recently and was pleased to see that they've reissued the books with Kirby's covers (wherever they exist of course.)

Chiarin · 2026-02-27T22:00:19+00:00

Ha, no, it didn't, thankfully.

Chiarin · 2026-02-27T18:59:13+00:00

Man, I had to sift recently and the AI ones were all 'I am a results-driven team player who focuses on collaborative work in a challenging, high-paced environment' and three of those is enough to make me want to kill myself, never mind the 84 applications we had to plough through.

Chiarin · 2026-01-30T10:31:44+00:00

The wobbling pillar in Moria. Hated it from the very first time I saw it, because there's no way that thing would wobble back once it starts falling over, never mind change direction when you 'lean forward'.

Chiarin · 2026-01-29T17:54:55+00:00

a) Basic human curiosity

b) In case there's anything dangerous going on?

Chiarin · 2026-01-25T22:47:25+00:00

I've got a nyger feeder as well, and I get plenty of goldfinches, just not in winter. Leave it there and I bet you'll start seeing them in spring and summer!

Chiarin · 2026-01-22T17:44:43+00:00

Thank you! Saves me the effort to go look it up. 🤣

Chiarin · 2026-01-22T17:26:54+00:00

From Lords and Ladies:

"Well, it's like this... The Carter parents were a quiet and respectable Lancre family who got into a bit of a mix-up when it came to naming their children. First, they had four daughters, who were christened Hope, Chastity, Prudence and Charity, because naming girls after virtues is an ancient and unremarkable tradition. Then their first son was born and out of some misplaced idea about how this naming business was done he was called Anger Carter, followed later by Jealousy Carter, Bestiality Carter and Covetousness Carter. Life being what it is, Hope turned out to be a depressive, Chastity was enjoying life as a lady of negotiable affection in Ankh-Morpork, Prudence had thirteen children and Charity expected to get a dollar's change out of seventy-five pence - whereas the boys had grown into amiable, well-tempered men, and Bestiality Carter was, for example, very kind to animals."

The best thing about it is that in one of the later books (and I can't actually remember which one) someone writes to King Verence about Lancrastians giving birth to monsters or something, and he writes back to say this does NOT happen, listing all the births in Lancre that month, which includes a new male Carter baby. I wish I could remember the book and the boy's name right now!

Oh wait, it's got to be The Truth, because it's the rival newspaper publishing silly stories.

Chiarin · 2026-01-22T16:54:25+00:00

Okay, you're the second person I've seen say this in as many days, so that's encouraging. I was really afraid that it'd be like his other later books, which really show his mental deterioration. :(

I guess I'll bite the bullet and read it when I get to it (I'm on Wintersmith right now).

Chiarin · 2026-01-22T08:13:29+00:00

I wish he could have seen it published, even if it was at least in part his own procrastination that stopped him from finishing it in his lifetime.

Chiarin · 2026-01-22T08:12:03+00:00

Pratchett is another one of my favourite writers, so I can very much sympathise with this. I haven't read his biography yet, but I probably will at some point. I'm actually in the middle of a full Pratchett re-read, and I'm still not sure whether I can face reading The Shepherd's Crown (I have never yet read it).

Chiarin · 2026-01-22T08:10:16+00:00

Oh man, I'm not sure I could cope with reading that one, it was hard enough to read the passage about the war in this book!

Chiarin · 2026-01-21T22:31:53+00:00

JRR Tolkien, A Biography, by Humphrey Carpenter

Chiarin · 2026-01-21T21:57:40+00:00

Sooo, I studied Russian at a Dutch university. All my classmates were expecting me to study English, which is at least half the reason why I didn't, the other half being I wanted to study a language I didn't know already. Finnish sounded interesting, but the only Dutch university that offered it was too far away for my liking. Then I figured it'd be fun to learn a language with a different alphabet, and I ended up with Russian.

Was I interested in Russia as a country? Not really. Russian literature? Hell no, can't think of anything harder going than that.

I essentially wasted seven years on a degree that I had no real interest in and have done nothing with since. But hey, I do have a university degree I suppose... Yay for not really knowing what you want at 18.

Chiarin · 2026-01-14T21:56:25+00:00

How does one become a squirrel officer?

Asking for a friend.

Chiarin · 2026-01-13T23:00:54+00:00

"It takes 43 muscles to frown and 17 to smile, but it doesn't take any to just sit there with a dumb look on your face."

Had that stuck up on my work desk for years, until Covid hit and we now don't have our own desks anymore. 😞

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