I keep my bike parked in the office.
It's been leaning against the wall for over an hour now.

A minute ago, the rear tyre spontaneously deflated - I could hear the sound the seat made as it slowly shifted its position agaisnt the wall. It took about 10 seconds to go from firm to flaccid. (Thankfully, I keep a spare tube and pump in a drawer.)

Can anyone tell my why this happened after 80 minutes of being perfectly happy?

Alternatively: is it an omen, what should I fear, and what do you fear for the week ahead?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 10:25, 76 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

It is an omen.
It is predicting that you'll be getting the bus home tonight. I've just discovered that phone's predictive spells 'mofo' before 'omen'...
( Roota zweeeeeoooooowm, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 10:47, Reply)

I think you may be right.
As I said, I keep a spare inner tyre and pump in the office - but have just discovered that the pump nozzle isn't compatible with the connecting tube, so I can't inflate said tyre.

Arsesocks.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 10:51, Reply)

Aaah the old shroeder valve thang
My pump does both [smugs]
but I doesn't ride a bike [fails]
(CheatingRabbit, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:12, Reply)

no - not that
They've just forgotten to mill a thread on the pump, so I can't attach it to the connecting tube.

:(
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:44, Reply)

I fear Zombies.

(PsychoChomp, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 10:51, Reply)

Good call.

( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 10:51, Reply)

I fear carbohydrates.

( girlinthehole, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 10:53, Reply)

Shall I eat your potatoes
in order to allay this fear?
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:09, Reply)

Noooooo!
Don't touch my tatties.

Just make sure I don't overdose on them.
( girlinthehole, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:16, Reply)

You can never
have too many tatties.
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:19, Reply)

*looks at belly*
Oh yes you can : (
( girlinthehole, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:29, Reply)

I fear that the world will collapse in to irreversible turmoil, thus rendering my attempts to lead a good life entirely pointless.

(Slip Digby is a meat puppet, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 10:54, Reply)

I detect a fight between Aristotle and Camus
A: Not pointless - virtue is its own reward.
C: Not pointless, but absurd.
A: Fuck off.


If only Plato had written dialogues like that...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:11, Reply)

I referred to Socrates as "Socky" in my translations.
Agamemnon was "Aggy", Odysseus was "Oddy" or "The Man-Slag".
It was also fun to see how many innuendoes I could slip in.

We were set an essay to explain the benefits of writing in dialogue form and how it would help an argument; I wrote an argument for the dialogue form IN dialogue form. Man I'm cool.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:23, Reply)

You're so young
and yet you've managed to climb so high up the nerd scale already.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:36, Reply)

Youknowsit. I'm proud of it.
Oh, here we go. Most likely a waste of thread

Teacher: So, Plato made extensive use of the dialogue form. Do you know why he did so?
Student: I have little idea why. Please enlighten me.
Teacher: Well, imagine you are in the classroom, and I give you a large page of data. I don’t explain any of it to you, but expect you to synthesise it and understand it. Can you understand why that might be difficult?
Student: Certainly.
Teacher: By having a dialogue with the teacher, you are able to ask questions and assemble the information in such a way that it makes more sense. Are we not in agreement?
Student: You speak the truth, but how does that relate to the dialogue form?
Teacher: Rather than being didactic, and providing his listeners with a chunk of knowledge, Socrates works through it with them, which makes it much easier for them to understand. And as a teacher, you do not tell your students the answer, do you? You guide them, provide them with the right information, and steer them through trouble. Am I not correct?
Student: By all means.
Teacher: Furthermore, doesn’t this engage the reader and make it more interesting?
Student: I agree.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:55, Reply)

Clever.
I was always mildly amused at Plato launching his attacks on the drama by means of... um... an essentially dramatic form.

It's like using a TV programme to slag off TV. YOU HEAR THAT, CHARLIE BROOKER, YOU FAT, FATUOUS TWAT?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:58, Reply)

Have you read the Ion?
"Socrates" slags off Ion for being a...fuck, can't remember, bard in English, it's not quite a rhetor... ah well. But tells him he is not a true artist, just an interpreter of interpreters. That the poet gets his inspiration from the Muses, and interprets it. And in his recital he only interprets what has gone before.

Plato writing as Socrates? Interpreting what has gone before? Eh? Eh? EH?
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:04, Reply)

Linda Smith had a nice little joke
based on the idea that Plato was an annoyingly smarmy and meretricious student of Socrates, whom he spent his whole life following around and saying, "Wow! That's a tremendously clever thing to have said! I must write it down!"
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:07, Reply)

But you have to hand it to him.
Socrates never wrote anything down. So much stuff would have been lost.
And you don't know what is Socrates and what is Plato. Socrates could have been a twat; Plato could just be making him make sense.

Or not.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:09, Reply)

Hmmm
At least Plato wasn't above throwing in the odd pun here and there. And he's man enough to admit that most of the dialogues happen at drinking-parties.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:13, Reply)

Unfortunately there is one minor problem with this model
students refuse to take part in the dialogue.

This term I will be mostly bashing them about the head with heavy literature - the Chickenlady model.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:58, Reply)

Be glad you never had me as a student.
I got quite adept at asking stupid/deep questions to get teachers off track.
Like whether there is an ultimate Form and what the Form of a Form is.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:02, Reply)

I would LOVE to have a student who asks questions!
It saves me from talking at them for nearly two hours non-stop...and I can you, very, very easily.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:04, Reply)

Are you an English teacher?
I can't remember. Or not sure I ever knew.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:05, Reply)

This term I am mostly an English lecturer
with added Art lecturer thrown in for good measure and extra pay, yay!
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:10, Reply)

oh god so sorry for calling you a teacher!
I'm awfully cackhanded at Art, though I do like that picture of Oliver Cromwell with the bees and the dead lion and the miners and all that sort of shit :D
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:13, Reply)

That's okay...I used to be a teacher
but I got tired of constantly being covered in small children's snot.

And undergrads are far, far quieter - generally because they're asleep during morning lectures.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:18, Reply)

This is a lovely train of thought.
Carry on.

Also, whether there is Formal vice towards which the soul might properly be attracted.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:08, Reply)

Never really got that far with it. But:
"animal" "living thing" "brainmelt"

Also in a similar vein:
Is there a form of an emotion? And ultimately a "perfect" emotion each emotion aspires to be like? And what is it?
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:12, Reply)

Aristotle and Camus were not alive at the same time.
Thus rendering your supposed dialogue invalid.

*talks bollox because I can*
( girlinthehole, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:24, Reply)

I'm sympathetic to transcendental idealism
and the idea that time and space are categories of the pure understanding rather than things in themselves. Time is nothing to me! Ha!
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:31, Reply)

I love it when you make my brain hurt.

( girlinthehole, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:32, Reply)

Be thankful it's only your brain
;)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:36, Reply)

A certain, well-established estate agency deciding
that they don't like my references for some reason and decide not to give us the house we're hoping to move into this week. Unfortunately it sounds like they're being a bit cunty with the incumbent tenants which isn't reassuring.
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:02, Reply)

I fear this cold getting worse
And turning into full-blown man-flu. I'm survining on lemsip and coffee right now, can't even face food which for me is utterly bizarre.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:06, Reply)

Because somebody coated the insides of your tire with chloroform
Prompting the rubber to break down, causing a blowout. They then planned to rape you and throw you off a bridge.

Oh, I love BBC drama.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:19, Reply)

I bloody *love* Waking the Dead.
It's an hour of no-talking in my house... Except to occasionally cry "Boyd may be tough, but he gets results!"
(Slip Digby is a meat puppet, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:23, Reply)

There's always a lot of sex though.
Not brilliant when you watch it with your parents.
Did you see that faux-Waking The Dead with Boyd as a priest? It was called Confessions or something. Or at least I thought it was Boyd...
♥ Trevor Eve...
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:24, Reply)

Nooooo
I've not seen last nights yet. *covers eyes*
(Applebite Uh! A cow!, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:26, Reply)

It was very good.
Boyd shouted at some people.
(Slip Digby is a meat puppet, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:29, Reply)

So essentially like every other week then?
I loved the interrogation scene last week where that dude puked everywhere.
Boyd FTW.
(Applebite Uh! A cow!, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:32, Reply)

There is a lot of puke in this series.
There was puke last night too. It's a veritable vomitarium in th Cold Case Unit at the moment.
(Slip Digby is a meat puppet, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:35, Reply)

Well thats... lovely.

(Applebite Uh! A cow!, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:41, Reply)

Isn't it?
They must have had an effects guy that said in pre-production meetings "look, I'm really good at vomit, right? Chunky, smooth, watery, biley, whatever kind of vom you want, I'm yer man."
(Slip Digby is a meat puppet, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:47, Reply)

Was that not Martin Shaw?

(Slip Digby is a meat puppet, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:29, Reply)

THEY ARE THE SAME PERSON
Ah, it's called "Apparitions". How lovely.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:53, Reply)

How dare you! The Eve pisses all over the Shaw!
Apparitions started badly, but ended well. For a BBC supernatural thriller, anyway...
(Slip Digby is a meat puppet, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:59, Reply)

It did become an orgy of DEMONS.
Quite enjoyable.
I don't actually watch much TV, but I've realised I'm a sucker for Charmed and crimey sceney investigationary thingies. Like CSI.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:00, Reply)

My G/F is always harping on about it
Might put down the Xbox controller next Sunday and watch it....

Generally though if she likes it it must be shit
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:24, Reply)

same goes for us.
this current one is cracking!
a bit darker than it used to be?
( blaireau69 , the Cumbrian Travis Bickle., Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:26, Reply)

The only thing cracking was Gemma's pelvis.

( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:27, Reply)

HAHAHAHA OH FUCK!

(Slip Digby is a meat puppet, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:30, Reply)

Very much so.
But then, Boyd has lost his son and Stella, and Spence is being a dick, so the darkness is good!
(Slip Digby is a meat puppet, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:31, Reply)

I rarely watch things like Waking the dead.
I fear the commitment of having to be able to catch the second episode.
( girlinthehole, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:31, Reply)

Thats what iPlayer is for.
I'll be watching last night's ep as soon as I've had shower.
(Applebite Uh! A cow!, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:34, Reply)

Is whatserface still in Waking the Dead?
Claire Goose?

MMMmmmmMMMMmmmm.
*reveries*
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:33, Reply)

Nah, Mel died ages ago
Another death that lays heavy on the mind of DSI Boyd. *mancrush*
(Slip Digby is a meat puppet, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:34, Reply)

It's clearly a lot less worth watching now.

( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:35, Reply)

RIP MEL SILVA IN R HEARTS 4EVA.

(Slip Digby is a meat puppet, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:49, Reply)

Very much this.

( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:52, Reply)

I actually forgot how lovely Claire Goose is, and you have reminded me. Well, you and Google.

(Slip Digby is a meat puppet, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:59, Reply)

I fear
A lack of response from all my job applications. There must be a cushty 20k/year job out there for me, where I can also surf b3ta and drink as much coffee as I like. Surely!?
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:21, Reply)

The salary becomes almost immaterial
when weighed up against access to b3ta and the availability of coffee.
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:27, Reply)

This is true
I think a full day of actual work without even the occasional 5 minute b3ta break will be too much for me..
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:45, Reply)

Academia, my friend.
What do you think I'm doing now?

(And the pay's (a bit) better than that, too. Shall I get my own croissant on the way to the balcony?)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:34, Reply)

Ha!
You're getting (metaphorically) fat upon the backs of the hardworking sessional staff who mark all the papers, deal with all the students yet only get paid during term time.


Grrrrr!

/rants but is secretly pleased to have a job this year again
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:02, Reply)

Please don't remind me of my sessional days.
I've said it before - I'm one of the few people in the world to have welcomed my first income tax deduction: until I was almost 30, I'd never earned enough to have to pay it.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:05, Reply)

As you know
I was entirely jobless for July and some of August...then suddenly..."Oh, Chickenlady could you possibly teach EVERY STUDENT in the UK please?" (I'm paraphrasing here).

I'm looking forward to it as I have a rather large masochistic streak.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:08, Reply)

You should fear being stuck in the office all night.
I fear something happening to render me unable to see Leeds boy tomorrow.
(Applebite Uh! A cow!, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:27, Reply)

Like what
Being attacked by a horde of angry rabid 3 foot wasps?
( jim_bob can herd cats., Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:32, Reply)

If that horde of angry three foot wasps is called mother,
Then yes.

I got attacked by enough wasps yesterday, thank you.
(Applebite Uh! A cow!, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 11:39, Reply)

Fuck me...
Wasps possessed by the angry spirit of Norman Bates? Now that is fucking weird.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:04, Reply)

I fear not completing reading the set texts for this term
which could be slightly worrying as I'm not the student...I'm teaching them.

I also fear that the leopards will escape from my New Orleans advanced zoo.

/currently addicted to Zoo Tycoon
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 12:06, Reply)

Going flaccid after 80 minutes...
Isn't THAT bad...






What?
( snee held his breath since, Mon 14 Sep 2009, 15:36, Reply)

At the risk of returning to the topic
Although I enjoy Waking the Dead as much as the next man. The deflating type is possibly due to the contraction of the inner tube as it cools. Depends on how far you rode on it (heat builds up over the duration of the journey)
If you ran over something that punctured the tyre and it stayed in the tyre it is possible that it would have sealed its own hole (snigger - he said 'hole') until the heat disappated and the seal was broken
(conanow, Tue 15 Sep 2009, 8:33, Reply)