Paladin

Chapter 29 Andre and I shared glances, “We recognize you from the funeral, so we know you’re Ollie’s grandmother, but why are you here?” “I’m here about the ashes. The funeral people phoned to tell me the ashes are available and want to know what I’m going to do with them. I really don’t know what I should do, and I want to know what Ollie thinks before I tell the funeral people. What do you think Ollie will want to do with them?” I was surprised and relieved because I didn’t expe

Kate is certainly not the shallow trophy wife she seemed when we first met her. She has been through this with Bruce 'countless times'. Are her final words a threat or just a truth? She has indicated that she doesn't 'tolerate' Bruce's affairs, just remains 'silent', whatever that means. She seems to like Damien so she could just be warning him to be prepared to join a long line of similar men who have fallen under Bruce's spell. Kate has raised the tension again and there is much more to happen. I'm looking forward to the next twist in this story.

My little bit of digging on the etymology if the word "Thermodynamics" turned up this in Wikipedia. Thermodynamics has an intricate etymology. By a surface-level analysis, the word consists of two parts that can be traced back to Ancient Greek. Firstly, thermo- ("of heat"; used in words such as thermometer) can be traced back to the root θέρμη therme, meaning "heat". Secondly, the word dynamics ("science of force [or power]") can be traced back to the root δύναμις dynamis, meaning "power". In 1849, the adjective thermo-dynamic is used by William Thomson. In 1854, the noun thermo-dynamics is used by Thomson and William Rankine to represent the science of generalized heat engines. Pierre Perrot claims that the term thermodynamics was coined by James Joule in 1858 to designate the science of relations between heat and power, however, Joule never used that term, but used instead the term perfect thermo-dynamic engine in reference to Thomson's 1849 phraseology.

Pick up a...Penguin! Really! Like chat up in a Penguin Bar. Nah, Don't think it's got wings. I'll just have a Tim Tam.

And one of my long term favourites.

Yes we are all hoping I will survive

Gees guys I can only afford to have a couple scrambled, otherwise I may not survive.

Given that @Myr has become sequipedalian, I find that I'm becoming hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliaphobia (pronounced hippo-poto-monstro-ses-quipper-DAY-lia-phobia.) Just so there are no misinterpretations, sequipedalian means "given to using long words" and hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliaphobia means "having a fear of long words".

Another amazing and wonderful chapter. The more we see of Kate the more interesting and complex she is. She alluded to her background and I wonder what that would reveal. The bomb has stopped ticking and the sexual tension released. They are one in their passion for each other and I expect they will experience it. Will there be any long term damage? Next chapter please.

Fact checking is an interesting, and sometimes, intercontinental sport. In the case of longest intercontinental flights it depends how you measure them. Do you use great circle distance between the two airports, the actual distance covered or time taken flying between the two airports. Airlines don't necessarily fly the great circle route even though it is the shortest because a longer route could be quicker because of assistance from jet stream tail winds. So sometimes they talk about distance and sometimes they talk about time in the air. In terms of time in the air for a commercial flight the record goes to (drumbeat): The flight from Ceylon to Australia on Aug 30, 1943 remains the record holder for longest time airborne (for a commercial passenger flight) at 32 hours, 9 minutes. During WWII, when Japan controlled much of SE Asia, Qantas operated a regular commercial intercontinental service, using Catalina aircraft, between Perth and Ceylon called "Operation Double Sunrise". The distance was 3,512 miles which shows how commercial flying has changed. An interesting note is that the current Qantas plans for long distance non stop flights are called "Project Sunrise."

I'm weirdly confused by the story and these comments haven't helped. I think Ned has already rearranged a couple of my synapses.

Yesterday I would have liked to have posted "that uncharacteristically @Myr keeps posting long words" but I am obviously wrong. My mind is addled and I need an electroencephalograph to identify the problem.

Yeah I underestimated. I didn't notice that his contract was six nights a week and assumed it continued as three. I need tweak my reading comprehension.

Wonderful chapter I'm enjoying this story more and more. I'm with you @RainbowPhoenixWI. I started with a spreadsheet but I've ended up with a relational database.

The choice of Word of the Day is incomprehensible, even if we are at the start of a run of very long words. Everyone knows the answer to the question 'what is the meaning of life, the universe and everything' is '42'.

Am I right to assume that Prentiss made something like $135,000 in Vegas? Hope he's investing well. The club owner will send Do-yun a special invite. You probably won't need to do more than three shows. Technically, only one, but Do-yun may want to make sure nobody dies at your show before he goes. So Ned is somehow making Prentiss the trigger for assassins. I look forward to learning how. Meeting in the club where this all started in New York. Why am I suspicious?

So the Xpress we all know so well is back with accusations based on incomplete information. That should increase readership as well as up the ante in the Cottontail V Jamie match.

By coincidence antidisestablishmentarianism is one of the long words discussed on a recent episode of a YouTube channel called Words Unraveled which I would highly recommend to anyone interested words and especially the quirkiness of words. The discussion about antidisestablishmentarianism starts at 11 minutes and includes an entertaining and fascinating explanation of why the word is so well known in USA. Enjoy. The link is

Bruce's wife appears every inch the shallow trophy wife. She and Bruce seem to be trapped in a marriage with little in common. The tension between Bruce and Damian is like a bomb about to explode. We see another side of Bruce when he drops his guard, relaxes and sees beauty in nature and describes art in football. Even then the tension remains between them. Damian and Bruce both have backgrounds and positions that would be threatened by a sexual relationship. Difficult to negotiate, especially with that ticking bomb.

OK, I'm hooked and want to know what happens next. The Norwegians are not just students just as Matt doesn't want to be just the 'school ambassador'. I'm sure there can be diplomacy on both sides, leading to an agreed position which can be acceded to, by mutual consent, by Matt and Oscar.

John Denver - Moreton Bay - YouTube (at 2:48 M, time reference) I'm exhilarated @sandrewn that you have chosen an Australian reference (Moreton Bay) for word of the day. Dare I hope that such exhilaration and elation will be as contagious as smiles.

I don't have anything to add to the comments, so I'll just say cheerio for now and be back tomorrow.

I thought about John as well, but he was close to blind without his glasses. There's no reference to Cottontail wearing glasses. I love the suggestion that political journalists are only concerned about digging up dirt on politicians with no interest in policies. Now what was that family that springs to mind? Cottontail could stir up interest on Xpress by speculating on why Jamie has stopped his dalliance with college boys. Xpress doesn't have a history of being concerned with facts and accuracy so the speculation could be as wild as him having a girlfriend.

He certainly did. Mad Dogs and Englishman is one of my favourites along with Mrs Worthington. I also like his song "Let's do it" with lines such as "cute young men who sell antiques do it" and "teenagers squeezed into jeans do it" along with some scandalous comments about Texas. What was that definition of blithe again?

And adapted from the play written by the somewhat blithe gay English playwright and performer Noel Coward.