Is this the first Nobel laureate to run a country? How bloody amazing. Well done Mexico!

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.

Hah! In Scotland we dip pizza in batter and deep fry it. With a deep-fried Mars bar for afters.

https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/five-glaswegian-chip-shop-delicacies-11462402

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 was layin' out there for two damn hours before anyone came to check on me! Heat stroke, it turns out. Just as well it wasn't a stroke stroke, I'd be dead."

Ha ha, yes, they are such entitled hedonists these days, not like the Borgias for example...

Back in the late 1970s friend and I decided to hitchhike through Europe - we were living in London. We got zero rides from Calais and ended up catching a train to Paris, arriving at nearly midnight. The hotels near the station were too expensive, and we were sitting in the gutter looking at a map when a young man asked if he could help.

He said he knew where there were cheaper hotels, and offered to walk us there. He was charming, funny and warm, and we had a great conversation as we walked. After a mile or so he said, well this is crazy, why don't you come and stay at my place? My mother won't mind.

He took us to a grand Paris apartment, like from a film. His mother was already in bed, but she called out instructions for putting fresh sheets on the sofas. Hearing that we hadn't eaten all day, he took us out for a meal at a couscous restaurant nearby (it was after 1am by now). He explained that he had to leave early in the morning because he taught at a school for special needs children outside the city, but that his mother would give us breakfast.

And that is what happened - she was charming and warm, and acted as if it was perfectly normal to feed two random foreigners her son had brought home in the middle of the night.

I've loved Paris ever since.

A long-dead cat for your pleasure. She arrived on my doorstep a starving kitten; after extensive travel in New Zealand she went to live in Canada, where she apparently lived to a ripe old age.

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.

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.

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.

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

Nope, I'm old and have evolved into an 11am friend. I keep hearing about how old people are out of bed at sparrow fart and get stuff done, but it's never happened to me.

They started out in late summer. In an area with very cold winters. I'm no brainiac, but even to me this seems like poor planning.

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 have a friend with two daughters in their late teens, early 20s. I asked him the other day how they felt about climate change. He said they believed it was happening, but they don't think it's nearly as bad as "the media makes out". He added, "You know, we went through the Cold War and fear of nuclear annihilation and that didn't happen, so..." We were interrupted then so I didn't get to yell at him. But I think a lot of people think that way. Pffft, probably won't happen, news orgs exaggerating for clicks, someone will fix it etc etc. While shrugging at all the floods and fires and storms happening around the globe, and booking a cheap flight to Malaga. It's exasperating!

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.)

I'm still loving my iPod Classic. I got it a little Bluetooth dongle so I can listen via my hearing aids. I find iTunes beyond irritating though and am always looking for an alternative for adding music.