MrsDoyle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harnaam_Kaur

Meanwhile I’m making do with two black hairs on my chinny chin chin.

Washing soda

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_carbonate

I’m hit! Woman down! Slipped on the ice and am now in hospital with a fucked-up knee. Waiting for an MRI scan, spending the night here. Codeine isn’t helping, hoping for some hillbilly heroin.

On the bright side I have excellent friends and neighbours. I feel loved.

Getting old is a sniper’s alley. You’re running through, and all around you people are getting picked off, dropping to the ground. Cancer, stroke, dementia, falling down the stairs. Somehow you’re still going, brilliant! But then you find a lump, or get chest pains…

So far I’m one of the lucky ones, still dodging the bullets but hoping for a good clean end when it’s my turn.

A blunder.

If I’m baking or cooking to a recipe with unusual ingredients I definitely make a list. I’ve got a master list of staples on my phone with check boxes that I sometimes use. But mostly I wing it. Top tip: never do your grocery shopping when you’re hungry.

Now try a cube of Stilton with a glass of vintage port. Heavenly combo.

What worries me is that these Boko Haram arses have kidnapped lots of children and young women over the years - I fear some could be killed in these strikes.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nigeria-mass-abduction-boko-haram-girls-kidnapped-reports-isis/

“Organic” especially pisses me off when applied to honey. There’s no such thing as organic honey. Bees have a range of three miles or more, and they will forage on whatever they like.

Not for me, I hate them. BUT. I watched a documentary recently where a blind man wore a pair (the Meta ones maybe?) and was able to use them to navigate around on foot, alone, without other aids. He also tried out a self-driving car, and showed how he already uses his phone’s AI to help him; for example he gets it to describe the shirt he’s about to put on. The programme shook my ideas up. I hate AI, driverless cars, all this tech that takes away our autonomy in various ways. But I hadn’t considered that for many people it’s liberating, it gives them independence.

In art, this fellow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kinkade

It’s the only Wiki entry on an artist that I’ve seen with no examples of his work. The nearest is a photo of a photo of Kinkade with one of his paintings.

I’m not being snobbish - it does give me the same vibe as AI generated images touted as art. Nostalgia, colour saturation, cliché, all dialled up to the max. The man died in 2012 but lives on as a brand.

Do you live in Edinburgh by any chance? Because that all sounds familiar…

It’s not a pipe, it’s a picture of a pipe.

When I lived in Edinburgh’s Old Town in the 90s I had a couple of young guisers come to the door, not trick or treating, but “a penny for the guy”*. I gave them a pound each, they were thrilled.

*The guy is Guy Fawkes, “remember remember the fifth of November”.

I do a lot of water sports in the UK and we use VHF radios. Certain frequencies are used by marinas and the like, and nearby boats will be tuned into them. Then there is a frequency used for emergency calls - the coastguard listens on that and answers, and will move your call to another frequency for more details, leaving the mayday one open again.

We mainly use VHF for boat-to-boat comms, or boat-to-shore. The local range is decent - a few miles from our base, depending on atmospheric conditions, obstacles etc. I honestly have no idea if you could use VHF radios between cars though. It’s not private for a start - everyone can hear you - and once someone is yammering on the marina frequency no-one else can transmit. So it’s just brief messages with protocols.

My friends and neighbours and I all use a variety of messaging services and apps like Spond to organise get-togethers, sporting events, working bees etc etc. I’m in a ridiculous number of WhatsApp groups, all very active, and I see most people in them irl regularly. Without the internet I don’t know how we’d cope. It’s hard enough herding cats in a group chat, imagine the number of phone calls we’d be making!

Swimming works for me. I joined a gym at a hotel that has a pool, reasonable price and usually fairly few people. I like to swim lengths, thinking of nothing at all, for half an hour to an hour. Good for general fitness, stamina.

I thought it was interesting that she was ok with all the neighbourhood surveillance until it was used against her.

Kiwi fruit 🥝 - nature’s scrubbing brush. One per day is all you need.

Ah yes, I should have read all the comments.

https://edmondscooking.co.nz/recipes/sauces-and-chuteny/plum-sauce/

It says to wait at least two weeks before using, but I find it gets even better after a couple of years! Especially delicious on sausages.