Tidings
Snowfall in Times Square. Filmed by Nomadic Ambience.
As is the custom here, posting will be intermittent over the holidays and readers are advised to subscribe to the blog feed, which will alert you to anything new as and when it materialises. Thanks for another 1.5 million or so visits this year and thousands of comments, many of which prompted discussions that are much more interesting than the actual posts. Which is pretty much the idea. And particular thanks to all those who’ve made PayPal donations to keep this rickety barge above water. It’s much appreciated. Curious newcomers and those with nothing better to do are welcome to rummage through the reheated series in search of entertainment.
To you and yours, a very good one. 
…posting will be intermittent over the holidays…
Be a little light from this side of the pond as well, not many of us left.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Not a Christmas carol, but hey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPikOKBYpk0
As is the custom here, posting will be intermittent over the holidays
Rest assured, David, that you can count on us to drink everything we can find.
But seriously, Merry Christmas, David, and thanks for another wonderful year of making the internet a better, more civilized, and more congenial place.
you can count on us to drink everything we can find.
Dibs on the mayonnaise.
Merry Christmas.
May God bless all.
*especially Texas*
Raises glass…
Amusing irony: Leftist legislators get carjacked in Chicago and Philadelphia.
The Stan Freberg version of “I’m Gettin’ Nuttin’ for Christmas”, animated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n-D5djkMiI
On the serious side, this became one of my top favorite Christmas songs a few years ago. I hope you enjoy it.
A Spotless Rose (by Herbert Howells) – King’s College Cambridge, 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUMNucHrE28
Merry Christmas!
Happy Festivus one and all!
Let today be about the airing of grievances and the feats of strength. Unfortunately my previous hernia operations aren’t holding up too well, so let’s just keep it to the airing of grievances.
For example, where I live, supermarkets advertise the meat they sell, by the pound, but the sales label is by the kilogram. My local supermarket advertised fresh turkeys for $2.29* per pound. When I checked all the meat sections, the only fresh turkeys I could find were tagged at $6.15 per kilogram (approximately $2.79/lb).
When I was finally able to flag down a clerk who worked the meat department to ask where the $2.29/lb. turkeys were, he told me I was looking at them. I said the turkeys were $6.15/kg. He said that’s $2.29/lb. I said no it’s not. He said yes it is. I took out my phone and did the calculation for him. He said that’s wrong. I said no it’s not. He said yes it is. I said get the manager. The manager said those are $2.29/lb. I showed him the calculation on my phone and he, finally, realized I was right.
So, I asked, where are the $2.29/lb turkeys? He said we’re out.
Festivus for the rest of us. Cue the feats of strength.
*$2.29/lb Canadian dollars. A similar turkey would sell for $1.41/lb US dollars. Who knows how many UK pounds per pound that works out to. 😉
supermarkets advertise the meat they sell, by the pound, but the sales label is by the kilogram
I do love Canada’s peculiarly schizophrenic approach to the metric system.
I said no it’s not. He said yes it is
In first year engineering we had an entire course on various measurement unit systems. The ostensible reason was that we might end up working in any country with its own idiosyncratic system of units for doing engineering calculations. I use it every time I go grocery shopping.
I do love Canada’s peculiarly schizophrenic approach to the metric system.
I was still in school when the switch happened, so I got taught both systems. As a result I’m incompetent in both imperial and metric. As a result, I know enough to always check.
A very Merry Christmas and a restful break to you and yours!
I’m incompetent in both imperial and metric
I’ve lost track of the number of girlfriends I’ve taught how to divide by 2.2.
Morning, all.
Also works on Turkey.
Tim Worstall shares a thought quite alien to Guardian columnists.
Not entirely unrelated.
Merry Christmas, all!
This holiday, I practice self-love by accepting I am a horrible person for laughing at articles like this.
Since Rachel McEneny, of Albany, N.Y., began sniffling last Saturday, she has taken two rapid tests, both negative. Yet when a housekeeper came to her home, Ms. McEneny drove her car in circles around the neighborhood with her dog, Yaeger, afraid that she might give her employee the coronavirus in the remote case that both tests had produced a false negative.
As Ms. McEneny’s illness dragged on, she was unconvinced by the at-home test results and took a P.C.R. test on Thursday. She began wearing a mask when watching television with her teenage daughter.
Surely Woody Allen must be seeing all this neurosis and developing a script.
Also – ping! Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, so I placed a ha’penny in the old man’s hat.
Also – ping! Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, so I placed a ha’penny in the old man’s hat.
Bless you, madam. Should your Beloved Other suggest a pre-lunch outing, may your destination be somewhere more glamorous than the car park of the nearest Halfords.
Slow-motion micro-organisms. Photographed by James Weiss.
Meanwhile, one would think someone, even with useless degrees, who writes for a radio station actually to have seen a band – other than the world’s most overrated.
Add “never heard of the bickering in the studio, or changing of band members” before to things unheard of.
What in 2021 isn’t?
Hang on, a minute ago it was all four white guys.
OK, add never watched high school sports, seen an astronaut past the Mercury 7, or watched any news from Iraq or Afghanistan to the list of ignorance.
NPR – trolling through the dregs of useless degree grads.
I’ve lost track of the number of girlfriends I’ve taught how to divide by 2.2.
It’s good that they were teachable. And it’s not purely a girl thing: For instance, I see plenty of guys driving on underinflated tires.
Edward Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks’ painting, updated for COVID quarantine mandates.
From the comments:
“I still cannot understand how partying in restaurants is so important for some people…. seriously, it’s a frivolous treat that’s easy to go without.”
“The way this country idolizes instant and individual gratification has twisted people’s psyches so much”
I continue to marvel at the people who cannot (refuse to) understand the devastating psychological costs of social isolation. Regardless of one’s opinions about COVID, that blindness is, well, revealing.
From pst’s link tweeter bio – pronouns, “…commentary on CNN, MSNBC, BBC…”.
Coming in broken and stupid, I think we can safely ignore all after.
From the comments:
Also from the comments…
OK, table for one at Bellevue, please.
Make that for two.
David, is there something I need to know before I next visit the UK? (Via Old Holborn)
David, is there something I need to know before I next visit the UK?
We are a proud and ancient people, and our ways are mysterious.
I’ve lost track of the number of girlfriends I’ve taught how to divide by 2.2.
Braggart. Some of us less blessed types have to teach them to multiply by 2.2
Speaking of mysterious ways…
Earlier today, The Other Half ventured out on a supposedly minor, last-minute grocery-shopping expedition. He returned, eventually, looking shell-shocked, with tales of abandoning one supermarket in favour of another, smaller one, due to a car park rendered unnavigable by patrons’ triple-parking, and clutching a bag containing a loaf, potatoes, some salted caramel cake bars, and, for reasons that escape me, six packets of crumpets.
At first glance, I assumed he’d been involved in some protracted, quite vigorous scuffle.
He returned, eventually, looking shell-shocked,
My sympathies. The local Tesco was like something out of a zombie film. 🙂
The local Tesco was like something out of a zombie film. 🙂
The contents of the bag, which I had to prise loose from his white-knuckle grip, bore little relation to items we wanted, but given his ashen face and twitching eye, I thanked him for his efforts. Amid the heaving crowds and with shelves apparently being stripped bare, as if the apocalypse were looming, I’m assuming blind panic kicked in. Hence the quantity of crumpets.
“Must… return… to… cave… with… something…”
I practice self-love by accepting I am a horrible person for laughing at articles like this.
Follow up anecdote: Yesterday AM, took the Old Man to the Dr for a followup visit. Doc related that he’s “super busy” with video visits (!) concerning the ‘rona, yet of the 30 tests (PCR) administered prior, one came back positive.
Doc mentioned that psychotropic drugs might’ve been dropped into the water supply. That, or too many people are stupid.
Did I mention that I highly approve of said Doc?
Doc mentioned that psychotropic drugs might’ve been dropped into the water supply.
One of the pleasures of living in the country is that out here, we all have our own wells. It had not previously occurred to me that may be why my neighbors and I are immune to COVID hysteria.
And a Merry Christmas to you & yours.
The Christmas shop was surprisingly convivial in these parts – a trip to the big M&S for a Christmas Eve lobster, followed by the small local Sainsbury’s for a stuffed Turkey breast joint and all the fresh fruit and veg.
No shortages, no long queues, no fights in the aisles. Oddly, King Edward potatoes are on short supply, crowded out by Maris Piper and Whites. But everything else in full abundance, despite the dire predictions of the anti-Brexit crowd.
And it’s not purely a girl thing
Nope. And I am aware enough of my ignorance of car mechanics, so I am pretty aggressive in regular maintenance and always search out the reliable autoshop in the area just in case.
As far as division/multiplication? I partially blame the demise of home economics. It is a great way to learn how to do fractions in one’s head when converting recipes. I was fully able to tutor my daughters when fractions made their way into math about 5th grade.
I partially blame the demise of home economics.
Home economics and shop ought to be part of the standard curriculum in junior high and high schools. (Not sure what the equivalent would be in the UK, but I’m thinking ages 12-18.) Everyone should learn the basics of cooking, cleaning, mending clothes, shopping, keeping a budget, wood- and metal-work, auto maintenance, and the skills for home maintenance and repair.
And it’s not purely a girl thing
My late friends are all married and don’t do the grocery shopping.
I partially blame the demise of home economics
I can count on one hand the number of women I’ve dated who could cook.
We are a proud and ancient people, and our ways are mysterious.
I have heard ancient tales of the curse of cabbages, and I shudder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct40CLTCC7A
Home economics and shop ought to be part of the standard curriculum in junior high and high schools…
Also shooting, cleaning, and maintaining firearms. Not only is that a useful skill, just knowing that people have such skills causes lefties to wet themselves. 😀
The Christmas shop was surprisingly convivial in these parts
All I know is he stumbled in, clutching his random purchases, looking like he’d arrived, via time machine, from the trenches of WWII.
In other news, it’s crumpets for breakfast.
Elsewhere…
“EmmyBun” is troubled.
I can count on one hand the number of women I’ve dated who could cook.
Holy moly … everyone, and I mean everyone, should know the basics of putting together a tasty, nutritious meal. From scratch.
My girls can cook because I had them in the kitchen with me in one capacity or another when they were old enough to crack eggs into a bowl.
everyone, and I mean everyone, should know the basics of putting together a tasty, nutritious meal. From scratch.
What, no Doordash? Ubereats? Delivery service?
Oh, the humanity!
Merry Christmas to all, most especially to our kind and generous host.
Yep, merry Christmas AND a happy new year to all and sundry. Special thanks to our gracious host for providing a place of light and amusement.
My girls can cook
Well, that’s it, isn’t it? Most women learn how to cook because they have to, to feed their families. With something like two-thirds of Western households now being single mothers who work, and young women not getting married until late in life if at all, there’s no time or incentive to learn.
I have no doubt that there are millennials, Useless ad Angry studies majors, journalists, and Acela corridor dwellers who would believe this.
“EmmyBun” is troubled.
Rushing to the defend the honour of cross-dressing dog-molesting paedophiles is an interesting choice, though I think “EmmyBun” rather misses the point. The society-wide gaslighting of others, such that they are expected to affirm an obvious lie, and which often does entail very real pressure, is rather insulting, and nothing like respect.
My Tibetan singing bowl has been carolling and has contributed a little towards extra rancid yak butter for your Christmas pleasure.
contributed a little towards extra rancid yak butter for your Christmas pleasure.
Bless you. May you one day find yourself explaining that fartulence isn’t actually a word (even though arguably it should be).
fartulence isn’t actually a word
It isn’t? Pity. It would go well with tauroscatic as in “he was full of tauroscatic fartulence”