Get in before the backlash - “bloody Americans, coming over here, taking our jobs…”

pleasant texture

I’d go with “rubbery”.

He’s only 60 - I thought he was much older than that.

I once moved into a house that had been lived in by a very elderly person. In the kitchen there was a pincushion hanging on the wall that was covered in death notices clipped from the newspaper. Kind of like doom scrolling, just super personal. Watching everyone you knew die, until it was your turn.

I’ve made myself sad all over again. :(

Cheap to buy maybe, but expensive to moor and maintain. A friend who bought a small second-hand yacht said his new hobby was tearing up £20 notes in a cold shower.

Potatoes have fruits as well - they look like little dark green tomatoes. Toxic of course, because nightshade.

If only they could be more like Chuck Feeney.

In February 2011, Feeney became a signatory to The Giving Pledge. In his letter to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the founders of The Giving Pledge, Feeney wrote, “I cannot think of a more personally rewarding and appropriate use of wealth than to give while one is living—to personally devote oneself to meaningful efforts to improve the human condition. More importantly, today’s needs are so great and varied that intelligent philanthropic support and positive interventions can have greater value and impact today than if they are delayed when the needs are greater.” He gave away a final $7 million in late 2016, to the same recipient of his first charitable donations, Cornell University. Over the course of his life, he gave away more than $8 billion.

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

You know what grinds my gears? I give someone a jar of my homemade jam, or of honey from my bees, in one of my GOOD jars, and I never see that jar again. One “friend” said she had some jars, did I want them? Yes please! Aaaand they were weird tall skinny jars or tiny sample size jars, all with the labels still on. Straight in the recycling bin. I should have kept them and given her a tiny sample jar of honey instead of the normal pound.

Rant over.

God Speed You! Black Emperor.

Not a band, but Patti Smith, with Philip Glass.

Maybe I enjoy the misery.

I hope this comes up on Homes Under the Hammer. “Plenty of potential here for someone wanting to expand their rental portfolio! Seems to be a slight issue with damp…”

It’s in London. Nuff said.

“I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather. Not screaming in terror like his passengers.”

I mean back in the olden days I would pay for a newspaper, for example, because the ads were USEFUL. Every week there’d be a motors section where all the dealers would advertise their deals on a full page each, and punters would try and sell their clapped-out cars in the classifieds. Then once a week it was the day for job vacacies, another day was property. Gradually the businesses started getting websites and stopped advertising in papers - which in turn got thinner and less useful. They had their own websites but most never worked out how to make money from them. People could get their news on TV, newspapers were only useful for starting fires with.

Magazines have followed a similar pattern I guess. It’s a bit of a death spiral. Sad, but there you go. The online ads are just garbage, they’re not useful at all. I don’t want them, I don’t want anything they’re trying to sell.

The only person I know who believes this twaddle about vaccines is a retired nurse and very religious (Christian). Even though everyone in our friend group and in her own family has survived multiple vaccines unscathed, she still issues dire warnings about the latest batch. Arguing has no effect, so I just laugh in her face now.

I look like that mouth-hanging-open emoji right now. Convoluted for sure!

Our municipal taxes are paid directly to the local council. Education is funded by central government.

I’m 72 and yes, you’re spot-on. You’re both young! Seriously, if I hear of someone dying at 62, I think oh how sad, so young! Perspective is everything.

School taxes? What is that?

It’s the same in the UK - employer deducts the tax and National Insurance (which pays for health care, state pension etc), and most of the time it’s correct.

This year I had to do my own tax calculation because of an inheritance, and it was such a pain! But I got some guidance from the HMRC phone line and filed the return online. It turned out I owed a lot less than I’d thought.