Mike Carpenter

This is lovely, but I have always thought that eiders sound more like Frankie Howerd!

I’m thinking about the “The Old Oligarch” here (1.14).

Wouldn’t it be better to use a known 5th century greek word, like “archē”?

“Intellectual”, my arse.

I don’t really like the phrase, “not interesting”. It seems to block any thought about the question in hand.

Tam Dalyell?

He is a tedious has been.

My view is that we should not have any referendums about anything ever. Referendums are bad news, and certainly not democratic.

It seems that Grok is totally irrelevant to anything. Just ignore it. And generally AI is barking at the wrong tree. 🌳

I’m sorry, but stoicism leaves me cold.

and Minehead

I need to confess that I don’t understand most of the Daily Mail’s headlines.

Is that actually true?

It seems that the American spelling, “ass”, instead of “arse” is relatively recent. I recently read a letter written by a soldier in the American civil war who used the spelling, “arse”.

Thank you, Anna. I was especially thinking about the big “forests” along the border (eg. Kielder etc.)

Eoghan, I assume that a similar situation is true in Britain as well?

Perhaps I’m confusing him with Nelly the Elephant’s brother.

I thought that it was well known that he ran away from the circus to be an accountant!

Do people still grate cheese in the nude?

What the hell is an “influencer”? She certainly doesn’t influence me!

Absolutely

Surely you mean Peter Swallow, not James?

You don’t know much about strokes. I had a stroke many years ago, and I don’t do that!

I think you’re right, probably. I still need think about that.

I think that J. S. Mill got it right on this (he called them “plebiscites”).

For myself, I don’t want another referendum on anything at all ever. They are supposed to be “democratic”, but they are anything but, as recent events have shown.

Can you please stop using the phrase “Gen Z”? It does my head in. What next for the next generation? Do we start at A again or Z’ or what? It’s not big or clever.

He’s the world’s uncle!

i will never get past this. the collapse of the global trade system because one guy does not understand what a trade deficit is.

Nice photo of the difference between the Yellow-legged Gull and the Herring Gull (the latter has pink legs).