Broken Drummers.

[DrummerLady]

Next Drummers is Monday night!

Adrian, I didn't see your question as I don't come on here much anymore. Christmas meeting is Monday 5th December. The meal has to be pre-booked. I'll sort out the prices with the Puzzle on Monday then start taking orders.

Pretty much all Drummers meetings are on the first Monday of the month. Occasionally it has to be moved (January will be the second Monday as no-one would come on 2nd Jan) but it is rare and I try to make everyone very aware of the change.

[Grace Speaker]

Many apologies - I got my dates crossed & have a lecture to go to at the Royal Institute given by a Physics professor on Astrobiology. Does it get any nerdier than that?
Hope you all have fun and please count me in for the Christmas meet

[Basement]

Colin and I would like to come along for Christmas!

[chrisboote]

Julia and I will come to the Christmas dinner please

[DrummerLady]

So, Drummers met Monday. November is often quiet as December is the month that everyone makes an effort for; but we had a good sized crowd. I did the quiz early, thinking that everyone who was coming had come but then two more arrived. They declined to have the questions repeated.

The quiz was done by me. It was on Discworld nude scenes. I noticed long ago that there are a lot of scenes in Discworld where are character ends up running around naked. For a series where the only sex scene consists of the line, "and then the bedsprings went 'glink''", it is quite remarkable. Strangely, I seem to be the only person to have made this observation. My searches when compiling the questions threw up some interesting fanart and a couple of things I had forgotten but no-one seemed to have picked up on the trend.

No-one else at Drummers had observed Terry's love of public nudity either. Alex C. asked me if this stuff was really all in my head (the answer is mostly, yes, but I had to re-read a few sections in order to formulate the questions). The winner was Andrew, which was convenient as I had forgotten to bring the prize along. He will do the Christmas quiz.

Much of the conversation revolved around Sim's new job. We are planning an activity around that so watch this space for more info. It turned out that Edmund, a mild-mannered civil servant by day, fights crime in his spare time. He also wants to know what sex the chickens we eat are. He claims that we don't eat many roosters. Only he didn't say "roosters". Pete got very intense explaining to Sim why Welsh sheep are better than Australian ones. Since I am married to a Welshman, I wasn't really surprised.

The Monkey Puzzle had not completed the Christmas menu Monday. I have emailed Gary and will start taking orders as soon as I have it. The Christmas dinner will take place on Monday 5th December.

We are not doing anymore afternoon meets this year but I'm planning something exciting with Sim in January.

I'll be in touch soon to sort out Christmas.

[chrisboote]

Edmund is semi-incorrect

The reason for the incredibly low price of chicken compared with its status as a 'luxury' meat in my childhood, is because it is now possible to sex chicks, and the male ones are exactly what we do eat, after they have been overfed and stuffed full of growth hormones for a year or so (except for the ones flogged off for experimentation, or food for birds of prey and reptiles)

Female chicks have a long (in comparison) lifetime of antibiotics, protein and calcium supplements, and artificial colourants (to make their yolks yellower) to look forwards to until the petfood manufactory looms

[Grace Speaker]

Edmund is semi-incorrect

The reason for the incredibly low price of chicken compared with its status as a 'luxury' meat in my childhood, is because it is now possible to sex chicks, and the male ones are exactly what we do eat, after they have been overfed and stuffed full of growth hormones for a year or so (except for the ones flogged off for experimentation, or food for birds of prey and reptiles)

Female chicks have a long (in comparison) lifetime of antibiotics, protein and calcium supplements, and artificial colourants (to make their yolks yellower) to look forwards to until the petfood manufactory looms

**shudders** Dreadful business one of the many reasons I became a Veggie

[chrisboote]

I strongly approve of vegetarians, as did Terry

As he once said, "When society collapses, they are corn-fed, and think of themselves as no better than sheep"

[Grace Speaker]

I strongly approve of vegetarians, as did Terry

As he once said, "When society collapses, they are corn-fed, and think of themselves as no better than sheep"

Indeed? May I remind you of the example he gave of Granny Aching locking in a violent, murderous dog in a barn with a mother ewe - it was, I believe, the dog that came out with it's tail between it's legs . . .
. . . and, if I may quote Mr Nutt, "Come on then, if you think you're hard enough . . ."

[Sandra]

Edmund is semi-incorrect

The reason for the incredibly low price of chicken compared with its status as a 'luxury' meat in my childhood, is because it is now possible to sex chicks, and the male ones are exactly what we do eat, after they have been overfed and stuffed full of growth hormones for a year or so

No where near that long - the hens probably live a year (including laying time) while the cocks will barely see 2 months.

Generally in olden times the cocks would have to be slaughtered by 6 months as they'd start fighting before then - and keeping that many non-layers through winter would be too expensive.

[DrummerLady]

Thank you for the information, Chris. I shall inform Edmund that actually he does eat a lot of ... roosters.

Meanwhile, Gary says that the Christmas menu is done but not posted online. He promised to email it to me. I'll hassle him again if he doesn't.

[chrisboote]

I strongly approve of vegetarians, as did Terry

As he once said, "When society collapses, they are corn-fed, and think of themselves as no better than sheep"

Indeed? May I remind you of the example he gave of Granny Aching locking in a violent, murderous dog in a barn with a mother ewe - it was, I believe, the dog that came out with it's tail between it's legs . . .
. . . and, if I may quote Mr Nutt, "Come on then, if you think you're hard enough . . ."

Good point, well made

[DrummerLady]

OK, we have the menu for the Christmas Dinner. Anyone on the mailing list should have it. It's also on our Facebook Page.

Please PM me if you want to come but are not on the list. I'm not posting it here as I can only monitor so many possible lines of response.

[DrummerLady]

The Christmas dinner was Monday night. 27 people attended. While that's not a record (33 is the record), it's one of the highest attendances we've had.

For me, the first part was greeting everyone and making sure that they knew what they were having for dinner. We had several newbies: Rak, who has been to an afternoon meet but never an evening one; Caroline, who went through a journey for Hell to get there; and Hazel, Mark's girlfriend (this is the Mark who is friends with Sim and Eunice, not the other Mark - keep up people!). It was nice to see such a mix of members. There were some who have been coming for over 10 years, while others joined recently. There were the hardcore members who come every month and others who drop in every now and then. It was great to catch up with so many people.

I sat with Julia and Mahrie who, upon discovering that they were compatriots, discussed Scotland extensively and ending up sing the Scottish folk song "Marie's Wedding". Daren and I debated whether we were supposed to eat the aubergines in which our meals were housed. Apparently not, according to the staff, as they were not cooked through, but Daren nevertheless ate all of his plus most of Marina's, as she was not hungry.

After dinner Andrew did a quiz on Discworld hats. He wore his own jester's cap especially for the occasion (he also wore it on the train to work and all the way home). It all ran smoothly as we decided to print the question papers rather than shout to such a large group. I am sorry to report that Chris won. He says that he will do a quiz on firsts for January. Later in a discussion on quiz rules (or lack thereof), I reminded everyone that ANYONE can do a quiz. The whole winner does it next time thing is just a way of making sure that someone does it. The result is that Marina has declared that she will do a quiz for February.

Sim brought her Lockedinaroom flyers. We have decided that there will be a special Drummers session on Sunday 22nd January at 2pm. I will send a separate email about it. Thanks Sim!

I must also thank Steeljam, that brave non-conformist who ordered the fish. Steve has told me that he is maintaining our website, which he designed, at his own expense. Thank you very much for that Steve.

I had suggested that it would be nice if people could make an effort to look festive. I saw many people wearing bright red tops. Special mentions to Jax and Sim who turned up in cheesy Christmas jumpers. Chris was adamant that Sim's jumper was not a Christmas jumper as it showed a penguin in the snow and it does not snow in Antarctica in December. This was in spite of the fact that the penguin was wearing a Santa hat! This should give you some idea of what to expect with Chris' quiz next month.

Next meeting is Monday 9th January. That is the second Monday as few people would have come on Monday 2nd. Otherwise, we're sticking to the first Monday schedule.

[chrisboote]

This should give you some idea of what to expect with Chris' quiz next month.

Accuracy, specificity, and a rather alluring attention to detail?