xaphod

I wasn't overly impressed by the 'fait accompli' presented to the users of the board,

(1) No 'wouldn't you think this is a good idea'?

(2)No 'I'm in negotiations with Jeff'

(3)No 'Jeff and I have agreed to make the transfer and your representations/concerns in (1) are incorporated.'

Richie,

I thank you for taking up the responsibility of hosting the old hhplace and would hope that the the users enjoy the service they had there, funded by the generosity of 'Silhouette'.

Now I note that the server is with your company, which you presumably own. I guess that the cost of this is covered by the links you have provided, but knowing the mentality of companies, this thriving board will be regarded as a 'profit centre' ripe for exploitation. Maybe not now, but if your mainstream business takes a bit of a downturn, then I forsee the possibility of membership of the board quietly being renamed one day to 'basic membership'.

Some time later 'basic membership' will be limited in functionality, but 'premium membership' will restore this, but, lo, as soon as you press the premium membership button it will be giz yer credit card number, Guv.

Maybe, I'm wrong in all this; I hope so, so you can leave this on the board as a monument to 'Xaphod doesn't know what he's talking about', but if it disappears quickly, those who have seen it will remember my words and may have cause to remember that 'Xaphod wasn't so daft after all'.

BCNU, guys.

Xa

Hi, drumitt, I was a bit of a hothead in my youth, riding motorcycles and doing too much drinking. ..... slowed down a bit and took to single-handed sailing, which has just as big a danger buzz. The point is that my heeling has been with me all the time, and now I'm comfortable with my 'abnormality'. As you say, guys wearing heels will never be accepted as normal in the near future, but if we can find acceptance in society, that, for me, will be enough. I suppose this might be called 'mellowing with age'. Love to chat further, but I have Calv coming to stay for the weekend, so I need to get busy around the house. Xa

Even the brain-dead can wear nice heels.

Meeeow !

Xa

Boot Fan .... If you are a guy, please post this in 'For Everybody'. Like it says on the tin, this forum is meant to be 'Girls only'. Xa

too nerdy then!

No .... just interesting.

I always thought that the Iridium system was an 'all or nothing' system. If you didn't have all 77 satellites in the constellation, there was always a risk that your mobile phone conversation would be cut off because there wouldn't be one of the missing satellites to hand over to as the low-earth-orbit satellites passed overhead.

(For others reading, satellite TV is sent from geostationary satellites at an altitude of about 23000 miles where their orbit time is 24 hours, which co-incides with the passing of a day, thus making the satellite appear stationary in the sky. For low power mobile phone signal, this distance is a bit of a long haul, although not impossible, yours truly having worked on a geostationary mobile system. The Iridium system worked on a lot of satellites, one of which would be in view at all times.)

Therein lay the problem, that until you got all 77 satellites in orbit, there was always the possibility of holes in the coverage. Now 77 satellites aint cheap, and the production methods certainly are not 'mass production'. Actually, having worked in a satellite making company, the production methods are best described as 'hand built in the lab'. This is a bit mean, and I would get a hell of a lot of censure from the guys with MBAs (master of bullshit augmentation) who run the place.

From what I understand, before I retired, the finances and logistics never came together to get the system to work properly, although a reduced coverage system did stagger into service.

Xa

I'm perturbed by all this.

In view of Shaq91's age of 15, I'm worried that any correspondence with him, especially replying to his suggestions of what outfits to wear, might cause bona-fide members of this board to be placed in an embarassing situation.

I would suggest caution in your replies.

To Shaq91, I have said before that the internet has a whole bunch of unwholesome people. I like to think that there aren't many of them here, but I aint that naive .... I'm 50 years old and, despite what you might think, you have a hell of a lot to learn ! You may regard the above as a restriction on your freedoms, but I hope you will come to realise that the concern isn't too misplaced.

Xa (moderator mode)

(Wow, this account's still valid.)

Hey stranger, don't leave it so long next time !

Welcome back.

Xa

Please forgive me from being somewhat jaundiced regarding our Eastern Europe contingent, especially when most of the crap I have to delete every day to keep our board clean, seems to come from there. BTW, you good 'ol casino boys from the US of A are pretty scummy too ! Xa

In the film 'Tin Cup' * which featured a mercurial, sometimes brilliant, but many times flawed, golf ace, the US team's wives were featured as a regimented phalanx of identically-dressed bimbos. I didn't realise that they looked like this is real life .... Not a fat one, not an ugly one, not an old one, anywhere ! I suppose that if the team fails to win a golf trophy, they can take home trophy wives instead ! Xa *Kevin Costner and Renee Russo starred.

Hi, Nigel, I took a pic of the wine fermenting, so I will get around to posting it sometime. I was moving last year, so didn't make any wine. I have only about a gallon of damson '04 left, so I'm keeping it for special occasions. I seem to have gone a bit over the top this year, by way of compensation. Funnily enough, I was thinking of putting up a topic in 'General Discussion', illustrating other hobbies we do. I can't say that wine-making is a hobby of mine, but something I do when the mood takes me. Xa PS, When you say an Iridium flare, I presume you mean the re-entry of one of 77 satellites in the ill-fated 'Iridium' communications system. Are the re-entry times documented somewhere (presumably on the net); otherwise, how did you know where and when to look, just out of my geeky tecchie interest ?

.... and the ebay seller is located in Ukraine. Judging by all the spammers from the ex-communist countries trying to sell us drugs and all sorts of other crap, do you think that if you send your dollars (big numbers !!! ) out East, do you think anything will return the other way ? ..... and, surprise, surprise, he's blitzed the 'for sale' section too. I havn't got time to check through his posts now, but if anyone finds anything trying to sell drugs or other sh1t, tell me, and I'll blow him away. Xa

There are times in my life when all is at peace with the world. On a bright sunny morning a couple of days ago, I came down to the kitchen for breakfast. On the worktop were a couple of 5 gallon (23 litre) carboys with this season's home-made wine fermenting. Alone, the picking of the fruit represents about 20 hours' work, so when all is finished, it gives me a sense of achievement. The blackberry wine carboy was still not full, but I had picked the necessary fruit the evening before to make the remaining gallon of juice. The remaining work is not arduous. All I have to do is to put the 6 lb (2.7 Kg) of blackberries in a pot, add a gallon of water and bring to the boil, so I reached for my big cooking pot which sits on the top of the kitchen cupboards. Up there, it's bit hard to get at .... but not when I'm wearing 5" heels .... HEH HEH. Xa BTW, all you alcohol guzzlers, you can't come round to drink it yet. Fruit wines take at least a year to make, which is conveniently at the time the blackberries are in season again, so before you drink 'em, you pick 'em !

Generally I associate jods with women who look like and sound like their animals, but, since I've been looking for a pair of trousers that are well fitted, the idea of jods is beginning to appeal. Great pics, BTW. Xa

The quality is reasonable, that's all I can say. The heel attachment wasn't the strongest on the pair of 5.5" heel, 0.5" plat stils I purchased. OK, at this height it's difficult to make things totally non-twangy, but this pair were worse than some I have. The leather quality is not the best, nor the worst. Shipping from Germany to the UK was fine via DHL. Xa

Xa, thanks for the write up.

Can't remember the maker but in Selfridges there was a perfect pair of 4" heel knee boots for a mere £595. The upper of each boot was made from a single piece of superb quality black leather. Not a seam in sight.

What ! only £595, .... Xaphod disappears in a trail of dust towards Selfridges, and to hell with buying any central heating oil this year.

They were the CLs I was talking about.

CU

Xa

Just a brief note to say what happened on the day....

I arrived at Paradiso slightly late, to find nobody there! Actually, Si did something like:-

I came,

I saw nuffin,

I phoned Xaphod

.... who wasn't listening for his phone .... I tend to edit out huge amounts of racket in London to remain sane. Mobile phones are firmly in this category.

Sitting at the first table in the restaurant, I saw a somewhat hesitant guy say to the maitre-d that he was meeting some people .... this was at9 who was equally at home editing out guys with bald domes and 4" stilettos. Si appeared a few seconds later (big lurker is Si, posts rarely, and comes to heelmeets more frequently than he posts).

Lunch was ordered, Fog appeared. Conversation was split, Si and Fog talking heely stuff and at9 and myself realising that we were alumni of the same university .... we actually overlapped by a couple of years. It's getting scary there's now about a 0.1% chance that active heelies on this board are alumni of that place. Compare this with a very rough 0.00001% of the online people on the Planet !

Unlike Dilbert, who does not appreciate that non-techies have only a small threshold of pain when immersed in techie conversation, at9 and myself tried to dispense with the jargon from time-to time. Funnily enough, we found, of all things, heels to be a peculiarly eclectic* source of common interest.

Eventually we prised ouself out of the restaurant to have a wander down the Oxford St shoe shops. I had sortof canned the idea of dragging the guys off to Christian Louboutin, so we went to Selfridges instead. All was not lost, though, because the Louboutin knee-highs I sought were in Selfridges for a mere £795 (now you know why I get mad that the Sunday Times rips me off by £0.20 per week when I have to save up so much to buy these babies! )

Time had passed: at9 had an evening appointment, and Si, Fog and myself made an appointment with some beer at Waterloo station.

A good time was had by all, and surprise, surprise, we will be doing the same thing again in maybe 6 weeks' time, or so.

Xa

* I ration myself severely on my use of the word eclectic. I must be in debt to several future years by now.

That's it .... I've stopped buying the Sunday Times from here-on out.

Over the last two years they have increased the price from £1.50 to £2 which is about 5 times the rate of inflation.

OK, I like it for the fairly unbiassed coverage (unlike the Telegraph they conceal fairly well their feeling that the sun shines out of the Conservative Party's bottom). The financial pages are as perspicatious as any other paper which tries to conceal that none of them knows how the markets work, couching retrospective analysis in terms of knowledgeable foresight. For a heely, of course, the Style magazine is topping on the cake, giving some indication of the good-looking shoes on the market (amongst a whole load of fashionista trivia).

But now, you have cooked your goose. Not only can I obtain the information elsewhere, but your nasty cheap ploy to get me to buy 4 newspapers instead of the one which would have the bumper A/W edition of Style has annoyed me so intensely that you can go to hell.

Xa

This I cannot and will not deal with. ......

Unfortunately the internet attracts a whole bunch of unwholesome people.

The heel-wearing guys, and the few girls who enjoy being here too, do not want to be associated with any of this human rubbish, but, regretably, the spammers don't seem to get the message.

My personal feeling is to question the justification why this scum should be allowed to overpopulate this fair planet, but politics to the right of Atilla the Hun is no longer allowed. In some circles, guys wearing heels may be regarded as deviant scum, so this idea is best not pursued !!!!

The practical upshot of this is that we do our best to remove the rubbish as quickly as possible, but if you look at any particular time, you might find a little rubbish here. In some ways it's like a front garden. You like to keep it looking good with flowers and shrubs, but every now-and-again some idiot throws his crisp bag or beer can into your garden, so you have to pick up his rubbish and throw it in the trash. It might piss you off, but, unless you can find him and have a 'discussion' in a dark alley for 10 minutes, there is little else you can do.

Xa

Yes, I've done that before. It's usually of necessity because skirts don't have the luggage capacity. You can then start to play the co-ordination game with bag and shoes. One thing I have done is to wear all black, but with a red pair of boots and a matching bag. I was hoping to do it on our forthcoming lunch trip to London, but the weather looks as it will be too warm. (We seem to be in for an Indian Summer in the UK this year.) Another thing that can be done is to carry a portfolio. There are some quite good ones in tan, which, of course, can match your tan boots, which themselves contrast well with jeans. Xa

Heavy-duty guys stuff this morning, ripping out a load of bindweed from a neglected corner of the garden. I also had a bonfire still burning from the day before when I had been trimming the hedge, so I dumped all the weed on the bonfire before lunch. This afternoon was a skirt and heels afternoon, but before I went out, I put on an old pair of tatty platform boots to hoist some rubbish that had fallen off the fire back on, using a pitchfork. The trick is to keep upwind of the fire, so my after-shave wasn't overpowered by the stink of smoke. Xa

Reminds me of a, possibly true, story of British understatement.

Plane flying over the Mediterranean encounters the remnants of a Saharan dust-storm.

One by one the engines are choked with the dust and fail.

When an eerie silence pervades the aircraft, the captain comes on the intercom to announce,

"By now you will realise that the dust storm we have flown through has stopped the engines. Let me assure you that we are trying very hard to restart them !"

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I understand that this was done by diving down to clearer air and blowing the sand out before the sea washed it out.

Xa

Hi, Cis, Nice to see you have found us. Hopefully your stay will be enjoyable and you will be able to do all you want in heels. I wonder where you are. Best wishes, Xa

IMHO, this woman deserves pity instead of respect.

Sneeze and she will be blown over.

Blow in her ear and dust will come out of the other one.

http://www.thefashionspot.com/forums/f48/victoria-beckham-design-shoes-gina-5604.html

Xa

Hi, at9 Good stuff, the more the merrier. Fog and I usually stay at Paradiso for at least an hour, so if you're a bit late it won't matter too much. The place tends to get fairly full by about 1300, so be warned. Xa

Hi, Fog, Presumably that was your text to my mobile last night. OK, that's a date. Wed 13th Sept at Paradiso, say 1245 for 1300. Xa