Thermodynamic Pedantry Alert
If one leaves one's fridge door open, one's kitchen gets warmer.
Another great SFTWS though ...
What was the big story of 2020? With the luxury of two weeks' hindsight, I think we can all agree: it was, of course, the year autonomous vehicles failed to go mainstream again. Five years ago, you might have been excused for thinking they were already rolling off the production line (that'll be their dodgy brakes) but then …
Someone's autobiography (Sting?) spoke of his days as a lad helping the local baker's van deliveries. He would be rewarded y the driver with a deliberately broken cake that could be written off against wastage.
Corner shops used to sell loose biscuits from tins. There was always the chance of a cheap selection of more exotic varieties in a "broken biscuits" box.
We already have golden passports that reveal your net worth.
Cyprus scandal exposes EU ‘golden passport’ problem
I'm holding off buying a passport until I can get a tartan one.
But he's Robert Fripp. The Robert Fripp. You know, King Crimson? Played on Bowie's Heroes and loads of other stuff you probably know. He invented Frippatronics back in the 70's and produced all sorts of weird stuff - a most excellent soundtrack to my teenage ears!
I saw Robert Fripp play live when I was a student in the 80s. He was with his League of Crafty Guitarists (i.e. his music students) performing at the Irish Centre in Leeds.
It wasn't your typical gig: he paused towards the end to take questions from the audience. Someone asked the forbidden question that we all wanted to ask him but were too scared: "What's the tuning for your strings?" (Fripp and his students famously employ an unconventional 'alternative' guitar tuning) He kept a poker face and answered: "Good question. Next question."
Yeh. Robert Fripp, one of the kings of Prog Rock guitar married to Toyah, a punk (albeit a very refined punk).
There's an oxymoron right there!
Saw Toyah live in the late '70's. Never seen anybody bounce around a stage for so long without stopping (it's a wonder she doesn't need 'support' now. What a rack)!
That would have been un sandwich[0] avec jambon et fromage, which is almost entirely but not quite the similarly named item from the other side of the Channel, despite that one's freshness and edibility being guaranteed by washing it every two weeks and resealing it in clingfilm.
[0] l'Académie Française has clearly given up.
Based on the online Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française, the word was "borrowed" from English, as stated in the 8th version of the dictionary dating back to 1935.
It was hoped that with the Brexit the UK would ask to get it back, as part of its sovereignty over English language, so it would be removed in the 9th edition, to no avail.
BJ strikes again!
Too right.
Far too many people seem to think 'a ham and cheese sandwich' in - say - France or Germany is going to be like two slices of Warburtons, one slice of reformed meat mostly (but not entirely) from porcine sources (and not entirely meat, in most cases), and a perfect square of yellow plasticine with some cheese flavouring in it layered together.
Let's hope the hungry customs police don't follow these cheeky monkeys...
They found that monkeys do, indeed, have a sophisticated sense of what they are doing—at least, adults and sub-adults do. These animals have a preference for stealing high-value items, and will often hold out either for more rewards, or for better ones, if they are in possession of such items
Now, what study does not reveal is how these monkeys value iPhones against Android handsets
"Now, what study does not reveal is how these monkeys value iPhones against Android handsets"
The study said that juvenile monkeys have no discrimination about what they steal. Their elders educate them. They learn the tourists' responses to something being stolen - and remember the graduated reward in subsequent negotiations with other tourists. That implies they would be able to distinguish the range of objects in some detail - possibly even factoring in things about a tourist's appearance?
I kick myself over lots of missed chances along these lines.
One I got right was buying shares in physical Palladium - apart from a big blip last year (obvious reasons), it is way up on my initial punt.
Others doing OK are Games Workshop, and several vaccine companies which I got in quite low on.
Yet to see what all the fuss about Amazon is. 'Make a second income on a £25 investment'? Pah!
This lady is looking a bit glum inspecting her stash of gold bars
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This post has been deleted by its author
... was a great TV series, I may have watched each episode dozens of times. The French version was very good, the French actors who dubbed Brett Sinclair and Danny Wilde transformed a little bit the dialogues, adding something to the show? Nowadays, dubbing is so bad I prefer watching series in original language with subtitles.
For UK truckers coming to France, instead of buying some industrial sandwiches in another shop on a motorway rest area, I would suggest them to take a break in a village, to buy their bread in a boulangerie, some ham in a charcuterie and their cheese by a fromager. It won't be much more expensive, and it will be hundreds of time better. There are many local producers who make some great food.