That kind of biscuit is a scone.

Meanwhile in New Zealand, Scotch pancakes are called pikelets. I made pikelets here in Scotland and someone called them drop scones. Shit really is crazy.

18 - I thought I was fat because waifs were in style, but my body was actually banging. I’m 72. I would most of all appreciate being arthritis free, with major organs all working at optimum.

Look after your knees, people.

When I think of crypto I think of that bloke grubbing through landfill for a lost hard drive. I think of Sam Bankman Fried. I think of Trump’s meme coin. Yes, I’m sure someone must be explaining it wrong to this old lady.

I used to drag my clothes into bed with me in winter when I was a kid. No central heating, no double glazing, no insulation, no carpets. Might as well have been living in a tent.

UK: I don’t know if it’s produced domestically, but pasta is dirt cheap. Own brand spaghetti can be under 60p a kilo. Tinned tomatoes are also cheap, so there you go - dinner.

Potatoes and brown onions are fairly cheap, ditto carrots.

Eggs, of course. £2.70 ($3.50) a dozen, medium free range.

People pay huge amounts of money for clothes with adverts on them.

Compound interest.

Same! Passionfruit also. Mmmm.

I have two feeds: one is “subscribed” for all the stuff I’m actually interested in, and the other is “all”, for when I’m up for a bit of US politics, Reddit-bashing and weird German memes…

I once stayed in a youth hostel rural Quebec and had a really weirdly hostile reception from people there, despite dredging up my very best schoolgirl French to try and make conversation. Turns out they thought I was from Ontario. When I revealed I was a Kiwi they were all suddenly very friendly. Too late!

https://youtu.be/0Wf5nFbA_YM

I wear a cheapish waterproof one while swimming. The pool has a clock but I can’t see it without my specs.

A long, loooonng time ago I met a woman who was one of the people dressing up as reenactors in an early colonial American settlement. She cosplayed as a weaver in a house that had a pond outside. Every day before she started work she would hoik her skirt up under her armpits and wade into the pond to pick up coins with her feet (she had very articulate toes). Inevitably she turned round one day to find a family of visitors gawping at her non-colonial underwear. She said the coins added up to quite a haul over the week.

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

pleasant texture

I’d go with “rubbery”.

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