Pedro1954

Their boss will be tight lipped but I like Sablo’s lateral thinking - a visit to Ayil at CC. That should be interesting if only to see how the two guardians react to being used as target practice by all the cupid nestlings. Are The Powers up to something or are they about to be blindsided? Probably the latter if a certain AI pair get involved. Enjoyed chapter one and the thought of more to come will keep me smiling.... great stuff, thanks.

Heel mooi. Dank U wel. Will the boys meet Karel again? I feel there is a story there. Pepernoten are fun, speculaas are nice with coffee (or tea), but my favourite is gevullde speculaas which is a bit like two layers of a soft speculaas held together by a layer of marzipan - rich, filling and delicious. ...Thanks for bringing back memories of many visits to the Netherlands, often at the beginning of December.

Another touching piece. I do like your stories with quiet, slightly older characters. Thank you.

Thank you for these evocative poems on an autumnal theme. Wonderful. Thank you too for introducing me to the Rubaiyat and especially its interlocked form. The latter appeals to my sense of symmetry. Best wishes to you and your readers for the holidays and 2018.

Foisted on your calculus class? Sorry I thought you said 'frosted'. Will there be one super-nerd who suggests mapping the cake to a different space such that the hole becomes infinitesimally small....?

Thanks for another delightful tale. Well it had to be delightful with carrot cake in it! Problem: First Iteration: The cake has been set to cool as the boys go to shop. Frosting would not be applied until cool.Therefore divide horizontally as the least intellectually challenging solution. Paul and Jimmy share the bowl of frosting after everyone else has gone home. Second iteration.The problem states the cake is already frosted. My geometry skills are too rusty to have arrived at Jay's solution which I immediately saw was both elegant and correct. Third iteration: The question is the wrong one. The cake is intended for sharing. Paul cuts off enough for himself (and Jimmy) and leaves the crumbs to be fought over by the other guests. (I think someone else had suggested this) Fourth iteration: The question becomes irrelevant. Pointing at his mother, who is eyeing up the cake and whose BMI is sub-optimal ( or should that be supra-optimal), the neighbour's kid says "a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips." The boys' guilt trip over the implied carb loading makes them lose the appetite for the cake. Corollary: Paul's brother is relieved of his glass of prosecco before he has a chance to drink it to be replaced by a mug of builders tea and a badge denoting him as designated driver for all the guests. Lemma. The original question/solution is still valid if the hole or cake is circular. What are the conditions on the shape of the hole and cake for the solution still to be valid? Is it that the shapes should have two planes of symmetry at right angles? Or is it only necessary to be able to identify the centres of mass of the cake and the missing piece? Pleas Sir! Are we doing Algebra next week? Or 3-D calculus?

RR, I found this story a while back and I have just re-read the story so far. I hope that you are able to overcome your block and give us more. I used to read a lot of SciFi when I was about 2/3 my current age. The style of this reminds me of Larry Niven. No doubt others will beg to differ, but so what: it's still good.

Another great chapter in another great story. As JeffreyL says, the boys are not out of the woods yet, but I wonder if Bailey is about to get significant help from a quarter he doesn't expect - Daniel. Daniel was very quick to see Bailey's mother needed to be removed from the scene when she found the boys together, and I took his comment that 'the boys will be down in just a minute' to mean he was trying to give them a bit of space. Given his take on Daniel's relationship with his mother, he would take the comment negatively, but Declan didn't seem to have a problem with it. I have this feeling we are being misled by a 'sleight of pen' about Daniel.

I do like these little glimpses into the gentle growth of the relationship between these two reserved, more mature men. More please.

Thank you for a different take on were creatures -a wereduck indeed! Enjoyed the story, nice build up of tension and I had a good groan/laugh at the last line.