Colette Willis

My husband and I once overheard a man in SuperValu pointing out the sale offer on champagne, to which his wife replied “but darling, we’ve plenty of champagne at home!”

Jean Harlow, when introduced to Margot Asquith, clumsily pronounced it MargoT, who immediately quipped – “No, my dear, the T is silent, as in Harlot”

No one before Sam successfully raised a child, which is why the human species went extinct in Mesopotamia. Seriously, the best way to read this is that countless billions of humans did just fine but Sam is not as competent and self-reliant as them, and that's what AI wants us to be: dependent.

Oh how good is #Mr.Scorsese? Three episodes in and I am simply delighted by it.

Such a great show

“Frost on an outdoor Rodin”

I mean… How can you NOT follow this genius?

A plague on both their houses!

Love to be told by my GP that asking if menopause is a factor in musculoskeletal problems is “bringing a lot of hot air into the issue.” If he means the steam coming out of my ears, then yes, he’s correct.

Tastes great, less filling

Martin Amis on meeting Anthony Burgess. My late best friend used to grade hangovers- eg the ‘angry cat trying to get out through your eyeballs hangover,’ the ‘vague, zen-like hangover’ and worst of all, the ‘dinner with Anthony Burgess hangover’. I guess this is where he got it from.

He’s just…astonishing, like a god made flesh. Objectively speaking, like.

"Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a lawn, which was the stage, and the lawn went back towards the lake in the grounds of the college, and the play began in natural light. But as it developed, and as it became time for Ariel to say his farewell to the world of The Tempest, the evening had started to close in and there was some artificial lighting coming on. And as Ariel uttered his last speech, he turned and he ran across the grass, and he got to the edge of the lake and he just kept running across the top of the water — the producer having thoughtfully provided a kind of walkway an inch beneath the water. And you could see and you could hear the plish, plash as he ran away from you across the top of the lake, until the gloom enveloped him and he disappeared from your view. And as he did so, from the further shore, a firework rocket was ignited, and it went whoosh into the air, and high up there it burst into lots of sparks, and all the sparks went out, and he had gone. "When you look up the stage directions, it says, 'Exit Ariel.”

A story Stoppard told several times, in several places:

I love the running joke in Platonic where Seth Rogen kicks these over every time he sees one.

Sounds like the perfect meal!

Mick playing the odds.

Generations of my family did and do work at Dublin Airport; my parents met while working there. Why name it for one individual when it represents all of us? Dublin Airport is a perfectly good name.

My absolute fav. The caption, the pose. The setting.

Cliff, shit, just remembered we need one more picture for the calendar. Fuck it just grab the Custard Creams and riff with it.

Stunning cover

I don’t mind when tv or movie adaptations veer from the book - it’s a different medium - but holy Jesus #Trespasses is uncannily like the mental film that played in my head while reading Louise Kennedy’s incredible book. Devastating, moving, brilliant work by all involved.

I recoiled in horror many times, but at “sweet tits” I emitted an involuntary cry of disgust. Dear god.

newspapser clippings top shows a photo of a woman with the caption julia roberts finds her holes get better with age. the bottom clipping is a retraction stating holes should have been roles

It was probably to keep spiders out of her hair.

Congratulations!

Blows my mind that a panel of her peers awarded her Columnist of the Year last month - for the second consecutive year.

Mimi Leder’s direction of Jennifer Aniston’s acting is the apotheosis of this show’s style, and I am HERE for it #MorningShowSeasonFinale #GetInLoserWereGoingToCamptown

Remembering that time the late Queen set off from the Shire to take a ring to Mordor.

type for books used to be set using little metal letters built into words in racks and then inked and pressed on to paper. If you had stock phrases you wanted to reuse a lot you could make a cast of them called a ‘stereotype’. The sound of them *clicking* into place, in French, is ‘cliché’

The reason that magnolia flowers are more rigid and less soft compared to other flowers is because magnolia trees belong to one of the earliest lineages of flowering plants, and predate bees. They evolved to be pollinated by beetles, and still are

Bill Nye is short for William New Year's Eve