Scottish Blend.

Creamy, crunchy, fruity? What you want is Eton Mess. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/eton-mess

What's funny is that (according to the old testament) when Moses came down off the mountain with the tablets and found everyone worshipping the golden calf, he had a big hissy fit and smashed them. So then after doing quite a bit of murdering he had to go back up the mountain to get a second set. Exodus 32-34

I asked a religious relative how it was ok for Moses to murder people when he had only just be told by God himself "thou shalt not kill", and she said it was because the don't kill thing came further down the list than having only the one god.

Struwwelpeter. We had an English copy handed down by my grandfather. It's insane.

Example: "Die gar traurige Geschichte mit dem Feuerzeug ("The Very Sad Tale with the Matches"): A girl plays with matches, accidentally ignites herself and burns to death. Only her cats mourn her."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter

"You can love the company as much as you like, but the company will never love you back." - My dad.

I set out tonight to make a delicious chicken paprika kind of stewish thing I've done before. As is my usual habit I took the jar of paprika from the cupboard and sprinkled a generous amount in the pan. Tasted after half an hour and fuck me, it was HOT.

It was cayenne pepper, not paprika.

My stomach actually hurts a bit.

My dog was a big tall greyhound, and one time he was humped by another dog - a tiny Yorkshire terrier. It was clinging to his hock (ankle) and banging away for dear life, while my dog ignored it. Its owner and I were both laughing too hard to do anything about it, it was a ludicrous sight.

Sorry not to be more helpful.

Growing up we had a coal fire in the sitting room and a coal range in the kitchen. The range was a wet-back, so it heated water as well. Lovely and cosy in the winter but sweltering in the summer. We had a special coal shed. The coalman would carry big sacks of coal in on his shoulder and empty them into the bin. Coal on one side, firewood and kindling on the other. Mum had the knack of setting the flues just so at night to bank the fire, so that in the morning it just needed a couple of sticks of kindling on the embers to get it going again.

The range was a bastard to cook on. The spot directly over the firebox was hottest. If you needed it even hotter you could lift a cover off - it had a second ring outside that for bigger pans. Moving along from the hot spot towards the chimney were cooler sections. For the lowest heat you moved the pan to the back. There was so much shuffling around! And don't get me started on the oven. And the constant film of soot, the gusts of ash when you shovelled in coal from the scuttle. Gross. I love my induction hob and electric oven.

https://youtu.be/limwsUnH4iQ?feature=shared

Regular teabags are sometimes made using non-biodegradable plastic - be sure to buy those made with this starch based plastic. When I first saw biodegradable teabags I was surprised, I thought teabags were made of paper. Not so, it turns out.

I actually knew someone who died of that parrot disease. Psittacosis? He caught it off a budgie.

Here it is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psittacosis

This bit made me laugh:

Þórdís [reporter] says people are flocking and letting the warning words of the Civil Defence fall on deaf ears. The police are also working hard to remove cars that are inside the closure area.

Þórdís and Bragi [photographer] are watching the eruption up close. However, they cannot stay there for long because the lava is expected to soon flow over the roads they used to get there.

I know a young man who headed back to India for an arranged marriage. I expressed my extreme surprise that he would agree to marry someone he'd never met, and he said he trusted his parents to choose someone compatible. "After all, they know me better than anyone else." I remain baffled, honestly. He seems an otherwise savvy, modern person. But there you go, happy to commit to a stranger.

I dread to think what kind of bloke my parents would have picked for me...

Aww, I've enjoyed seeing your armour evolve, it looks fantastic. I don't do other socials, so this really is goodbye. Fare thee well, sirrah!

Ps: Jerboa is pretty nice.

It was me, I did it, I put that cheeky note on the noticeboard. I told the boss I accepted responsibility because I was in charge on that shift, but in fact it was me all along. Sorry Derek. (Not sorry.)

Go back even further - there were some very clever people people around in ancient times. Example: the Antikythera device. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

Who knows what they might have come up with? So much knowledge was lost to fire and flood and warfare over the centuries.

I do beekeeping with an educational project and my bugbear is hygiene. Bad habits had set in before I joined the group - not cleaning hive tools or beesuits, not properly cleaning and storing feeding and honey extraction kit, it was all pretty filthy and gross. They tease me for being a martinet, but we sell the honey FFS! And the bees themselves deserve protection from people casually risking the spread of disease.

No, not attractive. That's a man who spends a LOT of time in the gym, looking at himself in the mirror. He eats and drinks weird stuff and possibly is on drugs that make him angry. Not my cup of tea.

My favourite pup, also sadly long gone. In disguise so no-one recognises him.

Single about 25 years. I'm 71 and I absolutely love my life. I have lots of friends and a very active life, but I love coming home and being alone there. Before menopause I had a strong libido and terrible taste in men, so I had a lot of truly awful relationships, with endless drama.

It's kind of by choice I guess, though I don't get offers. A few years ago a guy gave me the eye and I contemplated it, until I caught sight of his bare feet. Oh dear god no. Self-care is important mate, you need to see a podiatrist.

The main con of being single for me is not enough hugs and cuddles. The pros are too many to give up for that though. I get to decide everything and make plans based on what I want. I can fart loudly, talk to my potplants and be lazy without Someone rolling their eyes, it's bliss.

Not in the trash, but I regifted something a friend sent me the week before Christmas. Wrapped it in fresh paper and gave it to another friend on Christmas Eve. No-one need know...

In earthquakes in NZ the wooden houses flex for sure. What kills you is the brick chimney falling through the roof.

You should be ok if you stay focused and alert. When you're in the driver's seat you will always be in the middle of the road next to the white line, whatever country you're in.

The trickiest part is making turns. Driving in Europe, the US and Canada I used to say to myself "loooong left and tight right". In Ireland, you'll be turning right across the oncoming traffic. It's tricky because if you don't focus, habit will take you on to the wrong side of the road. After a couple of days you'll get used to it.

Hire an automatic, they're more common these days anyway. Having said that, I never had a problem changing gears withe the "wrong" hand.

Enjoy! The Irish countryside is lovely.

I live alone, so a warm toilet seat would be terrifying.

I'm loving it honestly. I've gotten myself into a complete fankle with I think five different logins, but it's great. I've made a couple of posts even. Having always been a lurker, I now feel more like a participant rather than a consumer. I don't want a monolith, I like the neighborhood feel, having to figure things out, knit up the threads myself.

I my (extensive) cookie experience, double chocolate usually means the same amount of chips, but the dough part is also chocolate flavoured. Hard to tell in this instance, but the "double" cookies may be a shade darker.

Such a weird concept - you don't trust someone who has a wide variety of friends? I have several very different hobbies/activities, so naturally there's little overlap in my friend groups. Most of my friends are like this - for example one belongs to three choirs and I don't know any of those friends. Or her kayaking friends, or her work friends. I'm giggling thinking how baffled she'd be if I started questioning her "loyalty". Even my very closest friends have other friend groups I'm not part of. So what?

This feels like an episode of The Apprentice. Lord Sugar (appropriate!): “Willy Wonka? More like Willy Wanker.” Cut to sweaty Project Manager about to be fired.

One time I was walking through a city centre after midnight after drinks with friends - who told me to get a taxi because it's so dangerous. I got to a pedestrianised street and there at the orher end was a group of tough-looking POC in hoodies. Uh oh. There seemed to be an argument in progress. Uh oh. I carried on though, to avoid a long detour. As I got nearer I caught the drift of the argument. "We're only telling you this because we love you, mate." Muffled sobbing. "Yeah, we worry about you! We want you to be happy!" It was teens in the midst of a full-on psychodrama, actually quite wholesome. I carried on home, berating myself for racial profiling. For a non-event it had quite a profound effect on my thinking.

I grew up without TV. The first television I saw was in the window of a shop - not for sale, the shop owner had set it up as a novelty. The Apollo programme was big news at the time, and it was showing a rocket launch. I remember standing watching it for so long someone was sent out to look for me.

My escape from boredom back then was books. I read voraciously, always had a stack of books from the library. My parents often yelled at me to "get outside and play", so I'd be forced to bicycle around aimlessly with my friends. We were so bored!

These days? Lemmy, crossword puzzles and knitting socks (see below), yes indeed. But also sport, beekeeping, socialising. And reading books. On my phone of course!

Live on TV, what a moron.

Baked potato, done properly in the oven so the skin is crispy, broken open and the inside mashed up with butter and grated cheese. Food of the gods.

I think any rational person who has the capacity for independent thought and has a shred of empathy for other humans will inevitably oppose Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

Agreed. I would only add that opposing that treatment of Palestinians is NOT antisemitic.

It's even more mildly infuriating for us across the pond... we don't have Thanksgiving but we now get the Black Friday/ Cyber Monday nonsense. Grrr!

Sky jailed for displaying "extremist" rainbow. Sun and light drizzle under investigation.

I remember a guy telling me that whenever a new woman started at work they'd phone her up say, "Is Mike there?" She'd say she was new & didn't know. "Oh, ok. Can you just stand up and call out if anyone's seen Mike? Last name Hunt." "Has anyone seen Mike Hunt?" Cue applause from the whole room.

I remember when all the controversy started I thought wow, this must be exaggerated somehow, and sought out what she had actually said. Oh. My. Fucking. God. When she was challenged she didn't just double down, she quadrupled down, and then some. Loathsome woman, just awful.

Oh this gave me a nice nostalgia hit! Back in the late 60s I think it was, there was a similar scheme where you sent a dollar to the address at the top of a list of ten names, added your name to the bottom of the list and sent the list to ten other people. There were various other chain letter things going around, threatening a curse if you didn't pass them on, but this was a specific cash one. I had quite an argument with the idiot who sent it to me - he said the chain wouldn't work if I broke it. You were supposed to end up with hundreds of dollars.

Shhhhh, I think maybe they’ve forgotten about it….

England, Scotland and Wales are all there though. Northern Ireland... I don't think they have a national flag they all agree on.

Purely anecdotally, from seeing what happens to other women's hair, scraping it hard back from the face into a bun or ponytail (aka "Croydon facelift") does lead to a receding hairline. Making your hair stand up doesn't pressure the hair follicle like that though, so I think you're good. I still have all my hair after decades of stand-up styling.