Marty

Greetings, Page! They certainly all sound very tasty.

Happy Saturday to you, as well, bro! (Although your companion today looks sort of melancholy...)

I recently mentioned a niece of mine who has had horses in her life since she was about ten years old (so for somewhere around forty years). Here's a photo that must have been taken more than twenty years ago of her on one of her favourite horses - the one whose birth I mentioned I was once "forced" to watch on a 3 hour homemade VHS video...

The vaccine roll-out here in Ireland is moving along; just not as quickly as might be hoped (largely due to the supply of the vaccines). The "online calculator" is currently showing this for my expected date(s) to get the vaccine (based on my age and medical history): Given a vaccination rate of 42,000 a week and an uptake of 74%, you should expect to receive your first dose of vaccine between 21/2/2021 and 9/5/2021. Depending on the date of the first inoculation, you should then get your second dose by between 14/3/2021 and 30/5/2021. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the actual dates are closer to the earlier than the later predicted ones.

Greetings, young Albert! (I'm currently Zooming )

Four years ago today, I took a walk in the woods, and came away with the following macro photograph of some hazel catkins. I'm sure they are there again this year. Unfortunately those woods are further than 5km from home, and the current lockdown rules don't allow me to travel further than that for exercise.

I don't know who to feel more sorry for - you or Thistle... But, maybe if you ask very nicely, perhaps @clochette will knit a waterproof jumper for the poor wee mutt...

Happy Saturday, all! Unfortunately, due to social distancing, and the current Covid-19 lockdown - not to mention that it snowed overnight, which would make it somewhat dangerous to go driving round in my "Oldsmobile" - it looks as though, should I decide to go looking for the Heart of Saturday Night tonight, I may have to do what Tom Waits suggests in the introduction to this live version of the song - and call myself up on the phone... I sincerely hope the video actually plays for everyone. And apologies for the poor quality of the video itself - the sound is perfect, though.

After midnight... So I'm off to bed. Goodnight, all! Hopefully this plays for everybody. It's one of my favourite songs by The Cure, if only because of its sheer simplicity.. [EDIT] If it doesn't play (as @dughlas has already said) it was Lovesong.

Here's a fascinating article about how the way we actually say numbers may affect our mathematical ability: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191121-why-you-might-be-counting-in-the-wrong-language Extract: If I asked you to write down the number “ninety-two”, you wouldn’t have to think twice. By the time we’re adults, the connection between numerals and their names is almost automatic, so we barely give them a second thought. Which is why it might surprise you to hear that the English for 92 isn’t a great way to describe the number, and some languages are even worse. Other languages do a much better job of describing digits. But it’s not just a matter of semantics – as early as 1798 scientists suggested that that the language we learn to count in could impact our numerical ability. In fact, one Western country actually overhauled its entire counting system within the last century, to make it easier to teach and do mathematics. [ . . . ] Numbers in the modern Welsh system are very transparent. Now, 92 is naw deg dau, or “nine ten two”, much like the system used in East Asian languages. In the older, traditional system, (which is still used for dates and ages), 92 is written dau ar ddeg a phedwar ugain, or “two on ten and four twenty”. The new system was actually created by a Welsh Patagonian businessman for accounting purposes, but it was eventually introduced into Welsh schools in the 1940s. In Wales today, about 80% of pupils are taught maths in English, but 20% are taught in modern Welsh. This provides the perfect opportunity to experiment with children who learn maths in different languages, but study the same curriculum, and who are from a similar cultural background, to see if the East Asian style counting system really is more effective than the ones we use in the West. Six-year-old children taught in Welsh and English were tested on their ability to estimate the position of two-digit numbers on a blank number line, labelled “0” on one end and “100” on the other. Both groups performed the same on tests of general arithmetic but the Welsh children did better on the estimation task. “We think that it's because the Welsh medium children had a somewhat more precise representation of two-digit numbers,” says Ann Dowker, lead author on the study and experimental psychologist at the University of Oxford. “They may have had a greater understanding of the relationships between numbers, how large they are relative to other numbers.”

I suppose I just had to use a photo showing the hedge that I am tidying up as my week 46 offering in my challenge to take and upload a new black-and-white photograph every week for 52 weeks...

Brrrr.... That reminds me of when my youngest sister worked as a nanny in Canada for a year, some time back in the late 1970's... I got a letter from her one time that had the following in it: The weather's not too bad today. It's -30 degrees. It was below -40 a couple of days back. Those would have been Fahrenheit temperatures at the time. Although, interestingly, -40F is also -40C.

Happy Friday to you as well, bro! I'm not sure about landscaping... Looks to me as though he's also in need of a touch of manscaping...

The official Driving Licence Medical Report Form that my doctor had to fill in had one section where the doctor had to say whether I need to wear corrective lenses while driving (spectacles, in other words). He also asked me to read the letters on an eye test chart from across the room, to make sure my distance vision was okay. Something similar to the following:

Similar, although maybe just a wee bit warmer than you're experiencing. Just in from the garden, where it was 2°C/36°F, although it felt more like -7°C/19°F at times in the stiff breeze. The Irish Met Office reckon that it will become noticeably warmer over the weekend, with daytime temperatures possibly getting as high as 13°C/55°F. The downside to that is that there's likely to be a good bit of rain. It's actually been quite pleasant working outside this week - once I had wrapped myself up well.

Sweet dreams, Mr B! I hope that one plays for everyone.

Talking of The Cure...

Greetings, Mr B! All good down under?

Good afternoon, ma fée! Hope all's well in Picardy.

Greetings, young Albert! Things do, indeed! But hopefully this piece of lockdown silliness will play for you all....

That surprises me. It's supposed to be the "Official" version of that song. I wonder why it should have been uploaded in such a way that it would be unwatchable in certain countries...?

Happy Lunar New Year to you as well. Not sure if it's just a problem at your end, dugh, but I'll drop a different version of the video in spoiler tags below. Let me know if that one doesn't play as well. If it doesn't, try clicking on this link to the version I shared originally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGgMZpGYiy8&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=TheCureVEVO

Happy Friday, everyone!

It's after midnight, so I'm off to bed... Good night, all!