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Name: Tibley Bobley [Researcher: 170471]

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ABOUT THIS RESEARCHER

Created: 25th March 2001

Just the facts

bat

spider

Just a few of the facts to be more accurate. Not all of them. Not all the facts are interesting and the ones that interest me might not interest you.

My brain is of a disappointingly average sort of size. I'd like to interest myself in a lot more things but, what with the modest (some might say minuscule) brain capacity, I have to limit myself. Arthropods fascinate me spider and so does evolution. Contagious and inherited diseases too. The natural environment. Meteorology.

The things people believe and the reasons they believe them, often puzzle me. Things that puzzle me would make a very long list. Economics and quantum mechanics would also be on that list. That would be a list of things that interest me even though I don't remotely understand them.

I like life (not necessarily my own) but cannot always believe in its existence. It doesn't make sense to me.

Lists aren't very interesting, are they? This list can only get stranger so I'll stop here.

Now that I come to think about it, even my very limited subset of all the things that are interesting, is too long to list. But not to worry. There's a vast amount of it to be found here at h2g2, which is one of the reasons that I'm here. You can find it almost anywhere you look.

For example, click on this link if you would like to discover some jolly interesting Arthropods.

Oh, alright! (1-7)(0x4-7x1) = 42

Recently I've started writing very short stories - mainly horror with a touch of sci-fi and fantasy mixed in. I decided to give this a go because all my other little hobbies have been practically eliminated by the pain and pain-killers that have made mincemeat of my memory and ability to think. They're just long enough to help me to focus my mind for an hour or so and short and simple enough so I don't have a chance to forget who and what I was writing about. If you like short horror stories click on the links below to read them. There are a few stories at the bottom of the list that aren't spooky. I've put them together at the bottom because, if you're anything like me, you'll be disappointed to read about mundane reality when you were hoping for something ghastly. Mind you, even the ones rooted in reality are not what you might call "nice".

Specimen

The Mares of Diomedes

Jack in the Green

Reflections

Cycles of the Moon

The Ooze: Mind Out of Matter

A Spirit of Discord at Harmony Hall

The Girl Who Loved Rats

Vlad and Brunhilda

What the.....?

Run Through The Jungle

Sunset!

Decay (Sadly, based on true events. I've changed the names of my aunt and her friend.)

Just for Fun

In An Office

The Bovine Collection

A Tiger by the Tail (is really a pop at our government masquerading as a story)

42-Word Stories

If you like reading short stories but are not keen on the sort I write, you can find a lot of different types over at Fiction Central. If you like writing stories, you can also submit them there. And if you want people to read, comment and make suggestions on how you might improve your writing, you can submit stories, poems, essays and so on, to The Alternative Writing Workshop. Entries submitted to The AWW may be picked for The h2g2 UnderGuide - which is another good place to find interesting things to read.

AND yet another good place to find stories, news and other information is The h2g2 Post.

Here's my link to where the current action is (if there is currently any action): The 20 Most Recently Updated Conversations.

And my handy addresses link.

On 1 June 2009 I was awarded a very special badge (by Pinniped), after struggling and failing to meet a writing challenge to 'Defend the Indefensible'. I attempted to defend cannibalism, thinking it a suitably indefensible diet for any nice human being. The entry was submitted to Peer Review (that was part of the challenge) and unexpectedly (by me at least) got picked for the Edited Guide. It got past the peers, the moderators and the editors then fell at the last hurdle when (it appears) the BBC lawyers nobbled it. The award is for "ruffling the powers in the towers" - because they seem to have decided that cannibalism is indeed indefensible and (I hope) that I defended it well enough to worry them. This is my wonderful new badge.

Order of the Velvet Gauntlet
Because Editors shouldn't be Surgeons. They should be Midwives

Can't think why anyone would want to but, just in case, you can send me an email by clicking here.

Some People I Like

Tibley Bobley

And in case you're interested, this is a female of the species

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RESEARCHER DATA

Name:

Tibley Bobley
Last posted: 3 Weeks Ago

Researcher Number:

170471

Referenced Entries:

h2g2 Fiction Central

The People I Like

UnderGuide Archives: About the UnderGuide

A Tiger by the Tail Tale

Mrs Endhouse

A Strange Infection

A Spirit of Discord at Harmony Hall

The Mares of Diomedes

Reflections

What the ....... ?

The Ooze: Mind out of Matter

Sun

Run Through the Jungle

The Bovine Collection

The Girl Who Loved Rats

Referenced Researchers:

CONVERSATIONS

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CONVERSATION	COMMUNITY	LATEST POST	LATEST REPLY

A48889741 - Piet�	h2g2	Mar 25, 2009	Yesterday
How bees produce honey:	h2g2	3 Weeks Ago	No replies
Pain and the fear of pain	h2g2	3 Weeks Ago	No replies
Free software to change docs to pdfs	h2g2	3 Weeks Ago	No replies
Express elevator to hell - going down!	h2g2	Sep 21, 2009	Oct 4, 2009
What do you know about speedwell?	h2g2	Oct 2, 2009	Oct 2, 2009
Any customers of Scottish Power or British Gas?	h2g2	Sep 28, 2009	Sep 29, 2009
Progress	h2g2	Sep 26, 2009	Sep 28, 2009
Busy busy busy	h2g2	Sep 20, 2009	No replies
Can it be over?	h2g2	Sep 17, 2009	No replies



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MESSAGES

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Leave a Message		LATEST POST

Just leaving a hug		Aug 23, 2009
Energetic Alexander		Jun 25, 2009
UG Gem Polisher Calling...		May 21, 2009
Cannibalism - and that book		Apr 22, 2009
Good luck		Apr 3, 2009
The Idiot's Guide to Stock Markets		Nov 29, 2008
Knock, knock....		Jul 30, 2008
Thanks		Mar 30, 2008
Just a short story ......		Mar 21, 2008
Hi		Mar 15, 2008


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JOURNAL

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Pain and the fear of pain
Oct 4, 2009

Here we go again - with an old enemy returned. For the past couple of weeks I've had a new pain - in my face this time. And pretty severe it is too. I've been dosing up with my ample supply of pain-killers and trying to ignore it as far as possible. But the pain-killers haven't been much good. Last night I tipped over into a fresh new hell. The pain started about 5pm and I took a dose. The pain just carried on regardless - getting stronger all the time. Took another pill at about 8pm and another couple of pills at 11pm. The pain just kept increasing. Went to bed - and further hours of torment. It lasted about 12 or 13 hours I suppose. I must have fallen to sleep round about 7am as the pain was starting to subside of its own accord. I considered calling a doctor in the night but just couldn't bear to move. I've only ever once called a doc out of hours before (after getting food poisoning by PanAm). Anyway, I rang my GP surgery at 9 o'clock this morning and got through to the out of hours service. They told me to come in to the local hospital. I rang my brother and he took me as I wasn't in any fit state to drive.

Saw a very nice Irish doctor. He checked me over and concluded that my old tumour (benign - though it doesn't feel it) was back, pressing on my trigeminal nerve and causing a painful little something they call 'trigeminal neuralgia' (that's face ache). The pain is extraordinary. The damned tumour didn't do that last time - it was painful enough without, by anybody's standards. Hearing what pain-killers I was already taking for my fibromyalgia, he told me to treble the dose of amitriptyline (in the short-term and - increase it by 10 times in the longer term), quadruple the dose of dihydrocodeine and forget about taking the co-codamol as it won't touch a condition like trigeminal neuralgia. He said people with this condition take strong doses of morphine and even that doesn't work very well. He said it was lucky I had all these painkillers at home, what with it being a Sunday. He told me to ring my doc's surgery first thing tomorrow and get them to make me an appointment with the ent specialist pronto - operation required urgently.

It's almost enough to make me believe there's a god. Dear old Mother Nature could hardly be so malevolent. I know of no greater coward than me, when it comes to pain and to hear this doc today, it sounds as though I've got just about the most painful condition any devil could wish on me. I can certainly vouch for the level of agony - and the failure of pain-killers to kill it. Anyway, I'm pretty dopy now. If I don't say very much for a while, it'll be no great mystery to anyone. Sorry for this extended whinge if you've been unlucky enough to come across it.

Discuss this entry - 14 replies - Latest reply: 3 Weeks Ago

Progress
Sep 26, 2009

It took a week for the feeders to arrive. As soon as they turned up, I dashed off to Mr M's and we took them down to the hives. It was a messy business - put me in mind of that old song: "When Father Painted the Parlour". We both got well coated in syrup, but at least it didn't come gushing out through the fronts of the hives, like last time. There didn't seem to be many bees coming and going. Mr M had a bonfire just in front of the hives earlier. He said the wind was blowing away from them. Not sure it was a good place to have a fire though. Not just because of the heat and smoke, but because of the barrier in the bees' flight path from their hive entrances - and an unrecognised landmark in their 'map' of the features in front of their hives. I fear some bees may have been lost and that would explain why so few were about. Anyway... three of the feeders (the 'contact feeders') seem to be working well, but the fourth (a 'rapid feeder') is being ignored at the moment. I'm going over tomorrow to see what the problem is. My idea is to drape a strip of syrup-soaked material between the syrup reservoir and the hole in the crown board. That should tempt the little ladies.

I found some (relatively) inexpensive British National hives for sale (�108 each plus VAT and delivery, from Thorne Bee Supplies if anyone's interested) but you have to knock them together yourself as they come flat packed. I rang my brother to ask if he had a place where I could have a go at some hive DIY and he said yes. Then I asked him if he'd help me if I got in a pickle with it and he said yes. Then he suggested I order 4 of these hives. So I did. Good grief. It's quite a lot of money but it's still comparatively dead cheap. With VAT (why don't they include the VAT in the quoted price?) and delivery added, it's going to cost over �500. But you could pay as much as �795 for just *one* of those snazzy new "Beehaus" hives. Even an ordinary WBC, ready constructed, is about �330 plus VAT and delivery. And a British National, ready made, is usually closer to �250 (net).

So why 4 you may wonder. My theory is that the idea of having something satisfying to do in the winter appeals to my brother. He hates winter and gets that sad sap syndrome, or whatever you call it. He knows I'll be useless and I know he likes making things. Nice balance.

I told Mr M about the 4 new hives and he gasped in astonishment at the extravagance of such an outlay, but I think I managed to convince him that I haven't gone completely insane. Oh, I should've mentioned that he's decided we'll be partners in this bee/honey enterprise - so it's important that I don't give him the impression that he's made a big mistake and associated himself with a total nutter

And one last thing. I'm a member of my local beekeeper association now. My membership confirmation came through last week.

Unconnected but uplifting story about a bottled water ban that I've just come across: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/2009092...n-in-world-first-bottl-b1f5339.html

Discuss this entry - 1 reply - Latest reply: Sep 28, 2009

Express elevator to hell - going down!
Sep 21, 2009

Relax. Everything's back to normal. It's Monday.

First I got my BT telephone bill, which was a lot higher than normal - and only about 20% of it was for calls (and most of the call cost was for telephone help to set up a BT router). (And BT broadband isn't included in the telephone bill for some reason. Broadband's paid for separately.) Reluctantly, I telephoned BT. Obviously I didn't get through first time. Does anybody? No. Probably not. It took me 4 goes and half a morning. A slog through all those horrible telephone menus 4 bl**dy times! The man I finally spoke to blamed most of the increase on VAT. As of this quarter BT has stopped separating out the VAT element of the bill. I pointed out that this didn't explain the increase and requested VAT invoices in future. He told me that he could only order VAT invoices for me if I agreed to pay by direct debit. I'm ashamed to say this caused me to be discourteous to the unfortunate call-centre geezer (some poor, overworked, underpaid person in India). No doubt any "inaccuracies" he was peddling were only those BT instructed him to - but it annoyed me. He went off to talk to his manager, then came back and said they could, after all, send me VAT invoices without forcing me to pay by D/D.

We keep a BT "file of shame" at work with copies of BT's outrageous invoice mistakes that run into thousands of pounds, so no way would I ever pay the shysters (or pathologically error-prone outpatients) by direct debit - given how almost impossible it is to get through to them by phone or speak to someone reasonable if you do ever manage to get through. While I was navigating the telephone menu I also tried their online chat service. I watched as my place in a queue went down very slowly from 8 to "you are next in the queue" - then suddenly jumped back down the queue again. It took about half an hour and as an advisor picked me from the queue, I was just finishing my call to India.

Then I got to work and had to take a voyage around HM Rev and Custom's telephone menus. After listening and pressing, listening and pressing, listening and pressing, the imperious voice said they were busy. It instructed me to "try again later", and cut me off. Twice.

Our bank statements hadn't arrived so I telephoned the bank. They couldn't deal with me because I gave them the wrong "relationship manager" name. I had to phone another office to find out who our current relationship manager was. And found that the relationship manager had changed twice since the last one listed in our file - and the s*d**** bank hadn't bothered to tell me.

Oh, I could go on. Opened a bill from TML, our office telephone service provider and notice they're still trying to charge us over �50 for a broadband service that was so pathetically bad that we had no choice but to go back to the hated BT. Whether we like it or not, we can't escape from BT

All I want to do is rip out all the curs'ed phones and get on with my job

On and on it goes. Down and down we go - aren't we there yet? Must be close to the bottom by now...

Discuss this entry - 1 reply - Latest reply: Oct 4, 2009

Busy busy busy
Sep 20, 2009

That's just the way it seems. Busy like a tortoise... or a snail. Something slow-moving that does two things and feels it's worn its little self out in expending a tremendous amount of energy. I've been meaning to add a journal while it's still fresh in what's left of my memory.

First thing is, I'm feeling unusual. Usual is pessimism: wall to wall, floor to ceiling pessimism. Some optimism has crept in from somewhere and it's a curious sensation. Its origin is probably The Stretcher. Every time someone said I could write, I thought they were just being nice. I still think they were being nice but perhaps they weren't *just* being nice. Maybe I'm really not too bad now, after plenty of help from the truly excellent writers over in AWW, at writing the sort of things that appeal to me to write (which is usually horror, as Pin rightly pointed out).

Anyway, this peculiar feeling has struck me with the full force of its oddness over the last couple of days, because I suddenly realised that I was working with someone even more pessimistic than I normally am. It was Mr M, the beekeeper. He made some syrup (winter feed for the bees) and we put it in the hives a week last Wednesday. Then we checked to see how it was going down last Wednesday. It wasn't going down too well. They seem to have taken a few sips, the plastic bottles partly collapsed and they couldn't get any more out because (I'm only guessing) of the vacuum trying to suck back in opposition to any tendency for the stuff to flow out. Or maybe the holes just got bunged up with sugar crystals. So Friday Mr M topped up the bottles (a messy business) and punched a load more holes in them. Then the stuff started trickling out through the front of the hives. That sort of thing has to be avoided at all costs. It leads to robbing by wasps and other bees. You can lose colonies that way.

The trouble is, he'd no proper feeders, so he used large plastic milk and water bottles with a few needle holes pierced into the sides. He said he wasn't about to buy any proper feeders because they were too expensive. I said I'd be happy to buy them and he told me if I did, I should only buy 2 because it would be a waste of money if the bees didn't survive the winter. And then he'd have to wait until he could bag another swarm or two next year because he wasn't going to buy bees at the price breeders charge for them.

Now that's what I call pessimism! We turned the gushing bottles over so the holes were uppermost and he said he'd sort something out next day. When I got home I looked up the price of feeders, expecting the worst. And discovered the simple ones cost less than a fiver each! (Bigger, more complicated ones are, indeed, expensive.) He was right about the price of bees though. A queen costs �45 and a little nucleus of bees costs �200. So I ordered 4 feeders. They should arrive by next Wednesday I hope - in time to get some winter feed into the bees. Much later and it would be too late. Feeding them syrup after about mid-October can cause dysentery. But I'm feeling optimistic about getting them in good shape for winter.

We had a chat about it yesterday and I think I've managed to infect him with this bit of confidence that's geeing me up just now. I must remember to ask what he's been using to feed his bees all these years...

Discuss this entry (No replies)

Still bumbling along
Aug 23, 2009

Last Sunday I visited a Beekeeper Association apiary not too far from where I live. They have a sort of open training morning every Sunday in August. It was really interesting and enjoyable. The first to arrive was a retired bee inspector who was giving the lesson. If he hadn't been parked on the side of the road, climbing into his bee suit, I don't think I could possibly have found the place. The apiary is well hidden. Anyway, in the end there were 9 of us. We were kitted out with suits and gloves from a shed beside the hives. There were 5 hives: 4 Nationals and a WBC and we all had a go at manipulating the bees. That is to say, we smoked and opened each of the hives, removed frames and were taught the right way to inspect them. (It's a lot remember and I'm going to need to practise.) We found the queen in every hive - which was amazing to me, because the beekeeper in the next village who lets me have a go with his bees, has never found a queen in any of his hives.

The ex-inspector gentleman, was very scathing about the WBC hive: said it was only there to show people how awkward and awful it was to work with. That surprised me because I just assumed that it would be the best hive for the bees, having sort of cavity walls. It's the only hive with double walls so I thought it would keep them warmer and drier in the winter and stop them getting overheated in the summer. The ex-inspector confirmed that, when he was a bee inspector, carrying out bee inspections in the spring, he found that even when a lot of the colonies in the National hives had perished over the winter, the colonies in WBC hives almost always survived. But the WBC is the biggest, heaviest and most difficult hive to use and holds the smallest amount of honey (Nationals takes 11 frames per super, whereas WBCs only take 10). Think I'd rather keep the bees alive over the winter than get 10% more honey though.

We checked for varroa mites. There were none to be seen on the slide-out, white painted boards, under the hives' mesh floors so, the ex-inspector took an uncapping fork to a patch of drone brood in each hive and dragged about half a dozen larvae from each hive. The mites apparently prefer drone brood. Poor drones. They're attacked by their sisters in autumn, mites at any time and the beekeeper if s/he wants to check for mites. They each had one or two mites on them. Having confirmed what he already suspected, he wiped them unceremoniously on the grass.

The bees in every one of the hives was calm. The one hive they expected to be a bit bolshie was also fairly calm. That hive lost its queen a couple of weeks ago or more and they haven't made a new one. Workers were laying unfertilised (drone) eggs. The not having a queen and having laying workers is unsettling for them. They're a dying colony. The beekeepers plan to salvage what they can. To do this, they're going to take the hive out into the field, some distance from the apiary, and evict all the bees by opening it up and shaking them off all the frames. The laying workers will perish in the grass because they'll be too heavy to fly back to the apiary and those that can will fly home. When they find their hive isn't there, they'll drift in to one of the other hives. They'll be allowed to enter because they'll submit to the guard bees. If they were robbing bees they wouldn't be allowed in without a fight.

It was a morning full of fascination for me. I drove home bubbling with enthusiasm. Can't remember the last time I felt so awake.

Yesterday I went to an open day of a different BKA at an even closer apiary. People sat around eating and drinking and swatting the wasps off their cans of pop and glasses of beer. It was a nice, sunny day and people were nice and friendly. It's at times like that I know I'm a bit strange. I really didn't enjoy it and couldn't wait to get away - though I probably didn't give that impression. I wish I had social skills. Ah well. That's the BKA I'm going to join and I expect I'll feel more relaxed about it when we get down to the business of beekeeping training.

Discuss this entry - 16 replies - Latest reply: Sep 11, 2009

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GUIDE ENTRIES

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ID	TITLE	COMMUNITY	STATUS	CREATED

A55365474	The Bees In My Bonnet	h2g2	-	Aug 5, 2009
A54538329	Limp or Swing... or Swim	h2g2	-	Jul 16, 2009
A54495246	Bees (WIP)	h2g2	-	Jul 15, 2009
A54342894	Limp or Swing... or Swim	h2g2	-	Jul 12, 2009
A54342858	Testing	h2g2	-	Jul 12, 2009
A53971301	Community Spirit (WIP)	h2g2	-	Jul 2, 2009
A53750595	An Incident Behind the Comfort Zone	h2g2	-	Jun 27, 2009
A52005395	Alexander: The Tireless Conqueror	h2g2	Edited	Jun 24, 2009
A53173857	Splat	h2g2	-	Jun 14, 2009
A52007546	To Bee-keep or Not to Bee-keep?	h2g2	Edited	Jun 8, 2009
A50670281		h2g2	-	Jun 1, 2009
A47629524	Filth - What Is It Good For?	h2g2	Edited	Mar 20, 2009



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