Happy Thanksgiving,

to all of our American friends,

and to offthemark.com for the cartoon.

An Unusual Place Setting,

designed by an artist we featured a couple of weeks ago,

 at that time we mentioned he had designed a pack of tarot cards, and now for something completely different from the same artist, Salvador Dali, this place setting,

which consists of a six piece set, (silver-gilt) comprising of two forks, two knives and two enameled spoons, specifically named:

Fourchette 4 dents à manche poisson (Four tooth fork with a fish handle)

Fourchette-éléphant 3 dents (Elephant fork with three teeth)

Couteau escargot aux larmes (Snail knife with tears)

Cocteau feuille (leaf knife)

Petite cuillère-artichaut (small artichoke spoon)

Cuillère-artichaut (artichoke spoon)

the six piece setting sold for $28,125 US at Sotheby’s in 2012, I imagine the set has risen a touch since then, crikey think about how much the tableware would cost if you had invited 6 friends around for a meal!

I Have Seen Many Items,

made from LEGO bricks,

 but this is a first for myself, a LEGO guitar, admittedly it is held together by epoxy, but it still looks kind of neat, 

 the instrument was made by Mike Clifford and used a Les Paul design in vector file format in Fusion 360, a 3D design program, to develop the shape. Then, after building a mold, he poured epoxy over the bricks, 

Clifford describes the process at Core77:

'The most challenging part of this guitar build was creating a solid guitar blank from the Legos and epoxy. I put the Lego bricks on a backplate in a pixelated elliptical pattern. I then put the Legos face down into a partially cured layer of epoxy, then poured more epoxy to halfway cover the Legos. After this epoxy cured, I could remove the backplate that was holding the Legos together, pour more epoxy resin over them to fill in the backs of the Legos. While the epoxy was still fluid, I added a second layer of Legos, and finally came back to fill in the entire form with resin. After I had the epoxy Lego guitar blank, I could just use standard woodworking processes for guitar building, to shape the guitar from the epoxy Lego blank'.

no news as to how it plays or sounds, but I can see no reason why it should not work.

Seeing This Wheel Of Cheese,

reminded me,

of the huge one we saw at Borough Market on our last visit there, but the cheese above is in a class if its own, Västerbottensost cheese is known as the “Emperor of Cheeses” in Sweden, and apparently is impossible to be made elsewhere, the secret to why Västerbottensost cheese can only be produced in Burträsk has been dubbed one of Sweden’s most intriguing mysteries. Over the years, people have tried expanding production of this famous cheese in various parts of the northern country, but to no avail. They tried making it in Falkenberg, a municipality in southern Sweden, in Bollnäs, a settlement in central Sweden, and even in the city of Umeå, close to Burträsk village. but the resulting cheese just didn’t taste like the original. The same recipe and production protocol were respected to the letter, but the Västerbottensost cheese made in Burträsk always tasted better, photograph Wikimedia Commons,

despite using forensic DNA analysis techniques to decipher the link between Västerbottensost and the Burträsk dairy factory, cheese experts have been unable to offer an irrefutable explanation. When the local factory expanded, large holes between the old building and the new one were left uncovered so the air could flow freely, just in case the factory flora was indeed key to the cheese, Västerbottensost  is a slow-maturing cheese, requiring at least 14 months on the shelves of the dairy factory in Burträsk. It’s complex taste and creamy texture make it very popular in Sweden, but because it’s always in short supply (around 4,000 tonnes of it are made per year), its price is about double that of other aged cheeses, how strange that even with all types of testing it can not be made anywhere else, what a mystery.

It Was Slightly Drizzerling As We Left,

and any hope of it stopping disappeared as we neared our destination,

 which was Lesnes Abbey near Belvedere, Kent, it started raining harder, so for today we decided to make a move back from Abbey Wood, but first a couple of poses,

 before we got too wet, still it was a nice drive past Danson Park which I had not visited since the 1950s,

and this is what I remember about it most, the 9.5" model railway that used to run alongside the lake, photograph from Francis Frith,

 in the afternoon Diana was out,

 on a works outing, to 10 Pin Croydon, in the Purley Way,

group photograph,

 let the games commence!

 Diana with Zusana and Wilma,

 everyone is happy,

 and smiling,

the final score, 

 a quick pose for the team outside,

 and I was soon on my way past the gate house to pick Diana up from the 162 bus stop,

a walk back home,

 and it was feet up for another couple from the excellent Taboo, we were both so amazed that we managed to miss this excellent series when it first aired, but there it is, we are making up for it now, and with that we were off to bed.

Do Not Mess With Fish, 253,

and you thought fish were fun!

well if you thought one Billy Bass talking fish fish was fun, how about 75 singing and choreographed Billy Basses? 

and here they all are, singing "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees and "Once In A Lifetime" by the Talking Heads, all filmed at the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club in Chicago, what a neat piece of work or would you call it art?

I Have Never Really Understood Games Like This,

where you pay real money to create a character,

take the case of this Chinese gamer, he upgraded his character by spending money on his creation, would you call it that? $1.4 million as it happens on his character in the MMORPG Justice Online and he nearly lost his character, all because of a friend, Geek.com has the details:

in this case of Justice Online, the original player lent his pricey character to a friend. The friend then apparently tried to sell the character back for about $55,000, but accidentally listed the price as $552 instead. This led to yet another player snapping up the great unintentional bargain before any other sales could go through, fortunately, it all worked out. The sale was reversed. The character returned to its original home, and the innocent frugal player who bought the character got over $12,000 in damages,

 $1.4 million for a character, $12,000 in damages? I really do not understand any of this.