The Diary Room

[Diane65]

Many thanks for that quick train fare lesson, very useful information. I too have some red spotted hanky vouchers left so I'll definitely be booking a journey for the Dickens Festival soon :) Hope a good offer comes along for you too!

I don't understand why your journey has to be so expensive though. Mine's £12.10 return and I'm travelling from Hither Green (about 10 minutes from London Bridge), which should mean that there should be no more than that on top of your Manchester-London ticket.

If I had a brain I would be dangerous - Why didn't I think of looking at booking them separately? I've booked enough in my time! I will have a re think now.

[canadian_turtle]

Good luck! PM me if you need any info on travelling to this part of Greater London :)

[Ms Thrifty]

Canterbury would be my favourite location in that general area but their Xmas market seems surprisingly small, with only 12 stalls!

http://www.christmas-markets.org/englan ... cation.php

I think there's a thread on MSE which lists all the tips for reducing rail fares, such as booking a journey in 2 legs, isn't there?

[steve9872]

I am not so sure, some are too complex for someone to make overnight and they would need to have a great knowledge and nohow of complex patterns in order to get the angles and lines right, also in the fake ones the stems are snapped, whereas a genuine one will have stems bent as if blown over in the wind. The one I saw (first one I add) yesterday was amazingly complex some squares had no route in, so how could they have been done without damage; where people have accessed some of the squares you could see where they have stepped or brushed through due to damage into square. Some of the comments section is well dodgy though. link below:

http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2012 ... 2012c.html

There's a number of misconceptions about crop circles.
Correcting the first one:
ALL crop circles, without exception, are man made!

Another mis-conception to correct:
Whether stems are bent or broken depends entirely on the structure of the stem at the time of bending. Put simply, if its dry, it will break, if its wet, it will bend.

The big ones:
"some squares had no route in" actually they do but you need to zoom in or view from a different angle to see the narrow paths. They're only visible when the line of sight coincides with a path and by necessity they would be narrow. Quite a few paths appear to be in the corners of squares

The patterns take planning but an experienced team of 2 or 3 could easily create such a pattern in just a few hours. Just because you don't know how its done, doesn't mean it cannot be done. I admire the workmanship!

[canadian_turtle]

ALL crop circles, without exception, are man made!

How would you know? I don't believe in Aliens myself, but unless I am personally involved in making all crop circles ever I can also not make a definite statement about it. It's like, never say never

[steve9872]

ALL crop circles, without exception, are man made!

How would you know? I don't believe in Aliens myself, but unless I am personally involved in making all crop circles ever I can also not make a definite statement about it. It's like, never say never

If not man or aliens then what?
I don't see plants doing that to themselves. Wildlife? something chasing something else would produce a seemingly random pattern of zig zags, not a circle. Wind? the only kind of wind that produces a tight circular pattern is a tornado and that produces a linear path of destruction. I'm including short lived tornadoes in that. A simple vortex produced by a nearby cliff or hill would lose power before it reached the middle of the field to flatten crops.
Certainly all the complex patterns are man made, there's no way nature could produce them, but the simple circles are now newcomers to the art getting some practice in before progressing onto more complex patterns. I expect there's some rivalry between teams now to produce really complex patterns.

[canadian_turtle]

What I meant was: While I don't believe aliens make them I cannot say for certain (I only can make a certain statement about it if I was there when it was made or someone I know has made them).

[Beate]

Well I didn't want to fess up before, but I am Spartacus. I helped a friend make them all. A little friend who just wanted to call home and leave a message. You guys just don't understand the intergalactic communication system.

[brettie]

I think they are a great piece of artwork but awfully shortlived.

By the way has anyone seen the Danny Dyer documentry where he goes in search of aliens?

[Octopus]

Me needy sleep