18.08.2020 Hot, hotter, hottist ever and MS Reversion!

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Tuesday 18th 06:00, 66F, slightly misty and overcast with a peculiar, orange light. The harvested fields look dark orange too. Even a glimpse of a low, orange sun right now.

Thunderstorms and cloudbursts are forecast for the whole country. Mostly this afternoon. There was the patter of a few drops of heavy rain just now. The grass is yellow from heat and drought in places.

Short showers delayed my walk. The wind was so light the turbines were still. Fortunately the little traffic saved my legs from being blasted with tyre spray. Something must have built up on the roads because there was white froth in the tyre tracks.

It feels stiflingly hot indoors at 81F. The 30-40cm thick, Rockwool insulation, which I fitted 20 years ago, acts as a thermal store. It takes ages to cool down after high temperatures. Some kind of shade for the south facing roof would help.

Something like solar panels would do. Except that they are far too expensive if you missed the former "Farmer's Party" generous subsidies for the middle classes. i.e. Those who could borrow the money from the bank on a short term loan, could easily repay the entire cost of a solar roof. Then be into profit from their 2-way connection to the grid in only a couple of years.

Meanwhile, the Danish, rural poor burn filthy industrial pallets on inefficient old stoves. It's not all bad news. At least they don't chainsaw logs 24½x365½ any more.

As Death Valley registers a new record at 130F/54.5ish C, Japan is matching its own records at 41C. Remember those immortal words? "Just a slight touch of flu and soon over." Now Chump has even killed the Arctic sea ice. As well as 160,000 people who believed his delusions. Wot a legassy for a cult leader innit?

It felt very warm at 11am when I left for a hilly ride. It rose from 70-75F in the fourteen miles and the hour and a bit, that I was gone. Going remarkably well considering how little I have ridden this year. There were places along the road where it had obviously just rained hard but I saw no sign of any rain. A headwind had picked up a little on the return journey. With the wind turbines safely [?] back in action.

W10 2004 update: Is it too much to ask to have my dark taskbar back but leave everything else alone? Click on dark and it's all bløødy Night Vision! A lower achieving sociopath with obsessive/compulsive pedantry [Aka: An MS Fuckwit] has come up with this complete and utter, brain dead nonsense.

It took a committee of several more obscenely overpaid, MS fuckwits to pass it up to the ridiculously overpaid, drooling fuckwitted MS executive moron who signed off on it. Why isn't it allowed to have a dark taskbar without changing everything else? Why is white not an allowed accent colour? Give a fuckwit a little power... MS' little dictators have been reigning monopolistic terror on their victims for decades! The Lukashenkos of digital hell. Nature abhors a monopoly even more than a vacuum!

Problem solved. I reverted to the last, broken version before the even more broken 2004 downdate. I'll probably have to do the same to the laptop. Last time I checked it had the taskbar welded immovably to the top of the screen! The laptop was even more broken than when I last looked. Reverted!

16.00 First roll[s] of thunder but no rain yet. The Head Gardener is risking fate by attending to Her garden water collection and distribution system. As you do when it is thundering. We must all pray that her Wellies will provide sufficient protection from Her Upstairs.

16:15 First rain. Short lived and not repeated!

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