JonM

Yes, I think that's a very good summary - and as Farmduck says, it's still a bit of a stretch with the statistics. Some genes correlate well with a geographical area. In the UK, if you take only people who were born somewhere and their grandparents were also born there, you can find gene variants that say 70% of people in Cornwall have and 40% of people in Norfolk. If you do that over lots of genes and lots of places, you can get some kind of statistical picture, but it's a pretty inexact science.

1841 is the oldest available census for almost everywhere in England. Before then you are on to parish records which can be a bit patchier. Good luck with working out exactly which one of the Thomas Jones christened in a Welsh village church in a particular year is the one you want... (One of my ancestors was born in St. Helens in 1831. There were 5 people with his name born that year. I was able to find the correct one only because the other 4 had died before the age of 5. We're all the descendants of the people who didn't die of cholera, typhoid etc.) And the stuff about pre-1800 is unlikely to be correct for many people on here, because of the Industrial revolution. The towns and cities of Lancashire & Yorkshire saw mass movements of population from rural Britain & Ireland. Unless your ancestors stayed in one place or have uncommon names, it gets pretty difficult.

Well, yes, but I should point out that (based on the fitness thread figures) I'm less than half the weight of some people my age and height.

I've traced nearly all of my ancestors 8 generations back. Obviously the numbers double for each generation and it starts to get harder past 1800. If I go back to say the 1830s/1840s - something like 14 out of 32 of my ancestors are in Widnes, St. Helens or Runcorn. If you go back a generation from that, they've nearly all moved there from somewhere else. Widnes & St. Helens didn't really exist until the industrial revolution and then sucked in people from across the north of England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland etc. So quite a few of my "St. Helens" ancestors came from Flintshire & were glassworkers. I have Scottish ancestors who moved to Birkenhead to work at Cammell Laird in the 1850s and their children married the children of other Scots who'd moved there. Add in the fact that Irish and Scandinavian people would have been landing in North West England throughout the post-Roman period and you start to get something that looks like what Shrek posted. Widnes had several more later waves of immigration e.g. from Poland and Lithuania in the early 1900s. Liverpool, Widnes & Runcorn still had Welsh speaking churches after WW II. That said, I'm fairly sceptical about the DNA thing, other than for matching distant cousins. My wife gets her results back in a couple of weeks - hers will be rather more interesting.

No point taking chances with things that might be an injury - rest until it doesn't hurt. My wife did parkrun in a bit under 34 minutes today. She hadn't run more than 3k in quite a few months, so was pretty pleased with that time.

Maybe you know otherwise, but I thought it was just that the original nitrate films just don't last very long and although the library of congress got some of the originals, they need fairly expensive & time consuming restoration work to be watchable again.

Went to see Stan & Ollie this morning - loved it. I can't remember a film before that's had me in tears of laughter at one point and almost crying at the sad bit too.

My target for the year is 1500 miles (running). Did 46 miles last week, so off to a good start.

After my henchmen have finished fitting out this underwater volcano base with shark tanks and we've established rugby union as a major sport, I'll move onto my secondary goals of getting this book completed and on sale on Amazon and running from Vatersay to the Butt of Lewis.

I'm also 48, probably helps that I had some very specific goals in mind to accomplish when I stopped paid work, so it feels like the start of something different rather than just having finished something. Also, youngest son is 18 and we'll have an empty house once A levels are done in June, so it would've been a time of changes anyway.

I left my job in 2018 after 20-odd years with the same company and have enjoyed "decompressing" so much that I've decided to extend my originally planned "year off" to rather longer ?

Friend who's just started a commercial drone business reckons it's a max 5 year prison sentence plus civil damages - and likely to be at the maximum end of the scale if they catch whoever did it.

Both my sons did it for GCSE within the past 5 years, so yes. Unfortunately, secondary school english literature does have that effect on any book. (Although, to be fair, Lord of the Flies is absolute rubbish whether you did it at school or not.) Steinbeck did some really great work.

Presumably you know about the possibility of doing parkrun on Christmas Day and/or doing one or two parkruns on New Years Day? http://www.parkrun.org.uk/special-events/ Quick count says I've done 39 different parkruns. Should hit 40 this weekend as we're in Scotland on Saturday morning.

Try this for a slowed-down cover: Then try listening to the original without being reminded of Alvin & the chipmunks ?

Sounds like you know a lot more about it than I do. Herons are relatively common here (although I only see them once or twice per year at most.) Egrets used to be very rare in the UK, but their range has gradually expanded from France into Southern England over the last 20-30 years. Ibis are currently very rare visitors, but the expectation is that if we continue to get warmer, they'll start breeding here.

Saw a Little Egret up a tree in the village today. Never seen one before and thought it was a heron, but some knowledgeable people came along and checked it on the internet and from the photos, seems they were right.

Well, their lead singer Jello Biafra has definitely lost a few court cases in his time too. Including one for defrauding the rest of the band of royalties for a decade...

Shame the UK only has one such line (maybe two?) Going from Peterborough to Edinburgh in under three and a half hours is pretty impressive.

Two red kites and a barn owl while out on my run this morning. When I was kid, you had to go to Rhyader and be lucky to see a red kite. Pretty much seem them every day around our village now.

I really like the Oysterband cover, but there's some great ones on Youtube - Springsteen, The Stray Cats, Dead Kennedys. The original (I think) by The Crickets ain't bad either.

Luton Town came pretty close - they were relegated on the last day from the top division the year before the Premier League started, by failing to beat Notts County, who were already down. They had five years in the conference/national league.

They're more scared of the neighbours cat than they are of people. They don't even run until I'm within about 10 feet.

Cos they're eating my garden. And they seem to do a pretty good job of working out what's a weed and what's vegetables, flowers etc. At least they don't seem to kill the trees like bigger deer do.

Three muntjacs in our garden this morning. I'll need to work out where they're getting in and chase 'em off without my wife noticing.