AgentPete

AgentPete

Guardian Full Member
Capo Famiglia From London UK
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  • AgentPete
    United-Nations
    No water since Thursday for many people here in Hastings area. No sanitation, no washing up, businesses closed, long traffic jams for water distribution points (no car? forget it). This is Southern Water at it’s chaotic finest, a rerun of what they did to neighbouring Rye last year. How on earth did we agree to privatise this so-obviously public utility?
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    Ed Simnett
    Ed Simnett
    I don't think you understand- as long as the dividends keep flowing (pun intended) all is good...
    AgentPete
    AgentPete
    Yup. Or as someone remarked only the other day, it’s only wrong for the Uk govt to own UK public services… whereas it’s perfectly OK for foreign govts to own UK public services…
    Ed Simnett
    Ed Simnett
    That's a very profound point. Thatcher would have been horrified to learn that the UK privatized industries were owned by foreign governments, who use the profits from the UK not to pay to financial shareholders (market discipline!), but to, in essence, subsidize their own country's service (socialism!)
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Decayed alien mural in Warminster car park. Alien, left, literary agent, right.
    I read a book about Warminster’s space visitors, “The Warminster Mystery” when I was ten. That’s what propelled us here 18 months ago: childhood curiosity.
    I found no trace of aliens.
    Just as well.
    Instead, I found a mystical landscape as wild and unsettling as anything Lovecraft could conjecture.
    And people whose wit, kindness and generosity is as boundless as space itself.
    :) p.
    alien.jpg
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    I never knew what these spring wreaths really meant, nor would I necessarily have been told: at least, not told the truth, whatever that is.
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    mickleinapickle
    mickleinapickle
    I mean the lavender in the green pot.
    Pamela Jo
    Pamela Jo
    I know mickle. But that kind of lavender needs a French climate. It's probably had too much water and too little sun. I've give up growing it in Ireland. Augustifloria Munstead all the way. English lavender.

    My comment was on the very old wisteria because there is nothing like it when it blooms. If only I had one growing around my doorway but not near my septic.
    mickleinapickle
    mickleinapickle
    Wisteria is glorious @Pamela Jo. We had one scrambling above the downstairs front window before we moved. It was only about 3 years old, and just about to conquer the world. The young couple who bought the house promptly chopped it down. The dirty rotten scoundrels!

    Here in the retirement complex, an old bloke had one in a pot for about 5 years. He's too infirm now, so I've inherited it. It's starved and stunted, and may never recover. I've planted it in the ground next to a wooden panelled fence. Hoping for the best.

    Interesting posts by BIG Pete. I do like photos and snippets about pagan thingamybobs and suchlike.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Yesterday was Fish Transport Day, a Colony of 30 Golden Ancistrus some 25 years old. Pleased to say all now happy in Hastings, no casualties.
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    Jonny
    Jonny
    Hope the little wrigglers made it safely. You'll need to keep an eye on them as now they are next the sea they could be plotting a great escape.
    Pamela Jo
    Pamela Jo
    " The feature most commonly associated with the genus are the fleshy tentacles found on the head in adult males; females may possess tentacles along the snout margin but they are smaller and they lack tentacles on the head"

    You had me at "fleshy tentacles." I could not believe they lived to be 25 years. Ancistrus - Wikipedia. So far the only thing I've kept alive that long are my sons.
    Pamela Jo
    Pamela Jo
    "now they are next to the sea they could be plotting a great escape."



    On little aquatic motorcycles they steer with their fleshy tentacles
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Just a few more days of chaos, but expecting to be back at this week’s Huddle on Saturday! Focus at the moment is on closing down things in Warminster, will be doing two return trips there from Hastings before the weekend… and kipping on the floor in a sleeping bag! Roll on Saturday.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Same boxes, different place :) Apparently I'm an undiagnosed pack-rat...
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    mickleinapickle
    mickleinapickle
    E G Logan
    E G Logan
    Watch out, @AgentPete - you'll be surprised how easy it is to become 'box-blind'.

    The trick (ha! I wish I could always do it) is to not let a day pass without taking something out of a box. Ideally emptying it. Otherwise they just sit there, gathering cat/dog hair, dust and general fluff.
    I've just counted: 24, opened and partly-full – and they've been there since the end of January. Mind you, there were even more then.
    Peyton Stafford
    Peyton Stafford
    Looks OK to me. House in order. Boxes stacked for the next move. What's the problem? You should see the boxes of books where I live...
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Exhausting day, and two more coming up, but here's a summary so far.
    Completed the purchase yesterday. Traveled down to Hastings for electricity and gas visits this morning. Both need a lot more work than expected, ouch.
    But no complaints from me. The place has bags of character. Very warm vibes.
    The best news so far is that the internet gear was ready waiting for me to hook up and it worked flawlessly. Disaster scenario would have involved getting BT to send engineers, literally taking weeks until everything working properly. But that's avoided. Next step will be this weekend when the rest of the network stuff, computers etc are here and hopefully reassembled. For the moment just getting by with my cellphone.
    Getting back very late tonight to Warminster for an early load-up tomorrow...
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Just completed on the house :)

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    Peyton Stafford
    Peyton Stafford
    You Brits amaze me, how you live in government-supported anarchy. Something like the Southern States here. So glad you got a home. If anyone deserves peace and stability, that one is you, because you bring it to so many of us. Thank you..
    Rich.
    Rich.
    Congratulations, Pete, wonderful news! :dizzy:
    Pamela Jo
    Pamela Jo
    done the lord of the rings GIF
    Now you only have to save the Shire.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
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    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Back from coffee this morning to find this guest sitting outside the door. Very tame. But what is it…?
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    Hannah Faoileán
    Hannah Faoileán
    It's definitely a rather battered red kite. Here in Scotland, they're a rare sight round where I live, more in Stirlingshire and further north. There are loads of red kites in the South of England though. Up here, I see buzzards pretty much every day and kestrels most days. I love birds of prey - they are magnificent.
    E G Logan
    E G Logan
    I don't think it's so much tame as just hasn't learned yet to fear humans. Unless it was hand-reared by someone...

    I saw our stork/heron (you pays your money...) again last week by the river. It's a seriously tall bird. I don't see how it's going to find any fish unless they fall out of the sky – the river is full of nothing but rain water.
    Pamela Jo
    Pamela Jo
    EG a woman who lives in a town the County over started feeding raw chicken to a heron. It now stops in for coffee and raw chicken on a daily basis.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Have just exchanged contracts on new home. After 16 months searching, it’s hard to believe. Hasn’t sunk in yet.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Updates done, all seems OK, but let us know if something isn't working as expected.
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    Bloo
    Bloo
    This is new...

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    Does it mean I've six minutes to make an invisible edit, or is that how long it takes for my post to become visible?

    Or is it some sort of glitch?
    AgentPete
    AgentPete
    It's a scheduled posting feature, not yet configured!
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    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    This sort of evening in Wiltshire... Electricity is flickering...

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    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    I’ve been invited to play Skittles! Very excited! It’s huge in Wiltshire, but a bit underground. As played for 1000 years, the game that spawned 10-pin bowling (but with nine). I have no idea how to play...
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    Ed Simnett
    Ed Simnett
    Well... as long as they don't start discussing burning large straw effigies as an end of game celebration
    Pamela Jo
    Pamela Jo
    What a wonderful video series. Thank you. The tiny half dead blackthorn I rescued and planted is now overtaking the apple tree I planted nearby. Now I'm looking up hornbeam. I've thought of trying to grow osage orange trees here in Ireland. They are very hard to germinate but it's what my Irish great grandfather used to plant hedges on his homestead in Kansas. Because I truly miss these.

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    Hannah Faoileán
    Hannah Faoileán
    Hornbeam is hardy and a very quick grower once it gets going. Looks good as a hedge when mixed with holly. The holly gives you year-round green. Hornbeam's branches tend to bend in very modern sculpture-like ways, so it looks good once its leaves have fallen as well.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Suddenly getting snowed under with manuscript submissions, presumably everyone’s been writing like crazy over the break. Thoughts…
    • Almost everyone ignores submission guidelines on the website, some even paste their whole ms into the contact form, just horrible. Toughening up that form right now to stop this.
    • Most subs are for 100,000+ word mss, of which 99% or more will be seriously flawed. The best advice I can give these folk is to start coming to Huddles. I do suggest this sometimes, to those projects that seem to have some potential. The response is always no, and quite often offence is taken. But all of them would happily work with me one-on-one. I would need 2400 hours per day!
    • As an agent I’m not here to indulge folks’ writing fantasies, I’m here to make money for both parties. Reflect that commercial reality in your sub and you'll succeed.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    So much sickness going round (Bloo…?) at the moment, chills vomiting etc. Too much close contact with my fellow humans on tube trains, I think. Back to bed for a bit.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    A friend of mine wants to get his book onto Amazon from a Word doc… it’s a simple process, but he’d like someone to do it for him… anyone care to assist? Modest fee involved.
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    Peyton Stafford
    Peyton Stafford
    Amazon pays a 70% royalty for exclusives have him look at Smashwords for distribution to B&N, etc.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    I so dislike pompous people who put the phone down when they’ve finished talking at you. Just sayin’.
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