I think I can actually see his brain dribbling out of his ears.

I’m getting tired of this story now. Of course it’s important, but the media are milking it to death. BBC main evening news currently interviewing random members of the public on what they think about it. Come on, surely there are more important things to cover than the opinions of Jenny in Cardiff?

YouTube video by Rai Adriano Celentano canta "Prisencolinensinainciusol" da "Formula due" del 1973

Gotta be this. Complete nonsense, but sounding vaguely American… youtu.be/fU-wH8SrFro?...

Are we allowed to follow some pop culture things but not others? Please advise, seeing as you obviously make the rules.

That's so crazy, it just might work.

And being obliged to pay the debts of his EX wife. Obviously everyone knows that when you’re divorced, you have to cover for all your former spouse’s financial mistakes, no matter how stupid.

Self Defense 🩴 TikTok video by Anwar Jibawi

Something like this?
www.tiktok.com/@anwar/video...

She.

I once saw Jeremy Hardy in a balti house in Birmingham. I was too starstruck to speak to him so I just stared at him from across the restaurant while we both ate our dinner. I’m sure that didn’t make him feel uncomfortable at all.

We did Mansfield Park, so we were off to a rough start anyway as IMV that’s by some distance the least enjoyable of Austen’s novels, but studying it for (badly taught) English A level put me off Austen for years. Was well into my 30s before I discovered how wonderful she is.

Not keen on that, sorry! I’m in the fortunate position of having paid off my mortgage now, but I had an offset and it worked well for me. I had to specifically ask for it; it seems they’re not offered routinely (or at least, they weren’t 20 years ago!).

Why don’t more people have offset mortgages? They’re very popular in some countries but seem to be rare in the UK.

I only know her because she was on Strictly, so it’s interesting to hear more.

Friend once heard an American visitor ask for a train ticket to Loogabarooga. In my head that’s how it’s pronounced now.

“Doesn’t suffer fools gladly” = dickhead.

“Storied” is the one that seems to be everywhere at the moment. It seems to be a synonym for “famous“ or “renowned”. Am also seeing a lot of “wheelhouse“, as in “that’s in my wheelhouse“. I know language is a living thing and we should embrace changes, but for some reason those two really annoy me!

Miss Jones in Rising Damp. Frances de la Tour was 30 when the series started.

A few people have said to me that a desire to start doing good works might kick in when I get older. We shall see! But I will never understand the mindset of people who say things like “I don’t want to retire because I’ll be bored“. There are so many more interesting things to do than go to work!

I’m so bewildered by this attitude. I retired 3 years ago and do no ”work” of any kind, paid, unpaid, voluntary, whatever. And I absolutely love it! The only stress comes from insufferable do-gooders who keep asking “what do you DO with your retirement?”, and can’t understand when I say “nothing”.

Sounds about right. I had an HP with an ink subscription. It seemed a good deal, until I decided to stop the subscription because I had loads of unused cartridges. Then I found that that the cartridges don’t work if you stop paying! What a rip-off. No more HP for me.

When I was about 4 I fell off the back seat of the car after an abrupt stop. Parents were waiting for the scream, but then a voice from the floor announced loudly: “BLOODY hell”. My mum used to tell that story quite proudly!

Absolutely. I chatted to my late mother for years after she died. Friends thought this was perfectly reasonable, but I think they would have staged an intervention if she had started to talk back.

Such kindness. And his dad at the end reminding him to say thank you; even after everything they’ve been through, still polite and courteous. Amazing.

Some colleagues went to a big international conference in the Netherlands. They were very shocked to discover that the beverage served with lunch was… milk. I’d expect better of the French though!

I love it when an interviewer politely destroys an interviewee. My favourite was Matthew Sweet gently ripping Naomi Wolf's book to shreds. I don't think she ever recovered.

I am so tired of people who ought to know better (MPs and others) churning out nonsense like this. It’s only giving the affected women false hope. There are still some who believe the government might fix the “injustice“ by giving them a full backdated pension. They’re going to be very disappointed.

YouTube video by PopcornMax Magic Coffee Table

And the magic coffee table…

youtu.be/-_kXIGvB1uU?...

YouTube video by PopcornMax Magic Coffee Table

Time for another rerun of this classic…

youtu.be/-_kXIGvB1uU?...

I won a Pony Club best-groomed* prize in 1976.

*For grooming the pony, not me.

The message about having children is also aimed at keeping women in their place, ie so their focus should be on becoming homemakers rather than any of this woke nonsense about getting educated and having a career.