I will be forever scarred by not one but two duck gang rapes I witnessed. The second one involved them raping another male duck to death, presumably because all the females were hiding as far away as they could. Absolute bastards.

Mostly through friends, Bandcamp, sometimes BBC Radio 6. And catching random bands at festivals and liking them.

If you know someone you are the line manager for is drinking heavily don’t you have a duty of care towards them? It’s a health and safety issue if nothing else

Were they genuinely Marxist? Or did people just call them Marxist because they had more liberal policies than the norm for the area? Liberalism ≠ socialism, and socialism ≠ Marxism.

It’s a drinking city. People go out for a family meal, get pissed up, things get raucous, fights happen. It’s not everyone, but if you work in bars it’s one of the nights you dread, especially in the rougher places where the fights kick off. I worked in one of the roughest city centre bars many years back and the fights between women were way worse than the ones between men. Absolutely vicious… And I say that as a woman btw.

In Liverpool, which prides itself on its Liverpool roots, Paddy’s Day is one of the days to avoid town and most of the pubs for me. Absolute carnage. The other ones to avoid are Grand National weekend, particularly Ladies Day, and Mother’s Day.

The three things that stop me moving to another country are money (or ability to get a job for the money I need), family (I have an elderly mum who I need to be around for) and residency issues (thanks Brexit). I guess if I was super rich I would be able to get residency more easily, but in the absence of a teletransporter it wouldn’t fix the family issue.

My mum’s told me about putting newspaper on the seat of the outdoor toilet in the middle of winter if you absolutely had to go in the night, to make it bearable (1950s northern England). The warmth of someone else’s arsecheeks is much more preferable to that, thanks.

Antibiotics, and tea

Fuck, that sounds good. Gonna try it!

Probably not the longest, but the most ridiculous. We have a big free African music festival in our city and there are loads of different food stalls with great food. There was a Kenyan one that my best friend really wanted to go to as she lived in Kenya when she was a kid, and the queue was big which usually means good food. However once we were in the queue we realised the queue was moving really slowly… No matter, it must be worth it when we get there surely… After 45 mins I really wanted to go somewhere else but the sunk cost fallacy and the thought of getting in another queue made me stay… After over an hour we finally get to the front and realise that the reason it’s so slow is because they have the most illogical ordering system that doesn’t make sense, and even the staff seem totally confused. An hour and a half later we finally get our food and it’s ok. Just ok. In a big field full of amazing food we managed to pick the most mediocre one, and stupidly queued along with loads of other stupid queueing people for no good reason except being in a queue.

I grew up in an area with middle schools, and went to one, I think they were age 8 to 12. So people went up to secondary school a year later than most regions. I have no idea why it was like that. We also had spam fritters for lunch which no-one else I know from my generation (Gen X) had to endure. We were just fucking weird I guess.

Tony Blair was a CIA plant. This was told to me by a colleague who was told this by his vicar. I find it highly plausible. I also joke that his predecessor John Smith was murdered to make way for Tony Blair, but if it turned out to be true I wouldn’t be 100% surprised.

Quietly, peacefully, and when I’m ready. All my experience of death has been unpleasant and traumatic, and I’d really like mine to just be ok. I know it’s a lot to hope for though.

I’m imagining your brother watching you bounce down the rocks shaking his head and saying “you haven’t changed a bit”. Mainly because that’s exactly what my brother would do.

“Prisencolinensinainciusol” by Adriano Celentano. I don’t know if we could really say what language it’s in, but I definitely don’t speak it.

https://youtu.be/-VsmF9m_Nt8

I think make sure she knows you’re on her side, and that you don’t value the opinion of those people. “I just don’t understand why they are so critical of your body and feel the need to comment on you all the time. You’re a healthy weight, and you look incredible, its just bizarre that they behave that way. What is their problem? I wonder if it’s jealousy, or maybe they’ve been brought up to be insecure about their bodies, such a shame to be like that, I’m glad we’re not like that” etc. Keep trying to reinforce that this is their issue, not hers.

Stuffed vine leaves. I made them once for a gathering I had and they took me about 3 hours in all. Everyone loved them but for the time they took me, and how much of a pain in the arse they were to make, it wasn’t worth it. The ready made ones in tins are just fine.

TIL there’s more than one book!

This was a really interesting read, thank you.