Yup. Matt’s great. Love the podcast.

The Winds of Winter being released. Surely its coming any day now…

But for real, the youngest is going to school in September so I will have an extra day off in the week with no work and no kids.

Watched Titanic at the cinema when it came out. I was still very tearful at school the next day and my friends were mocking me about being sad at how the romance ended (no spoilers!) But really it was thinking about how all those people lost their lives and it really happened. That mom and the kids in steerage…

Yup, all the time. To give an example, yesterday I watched DC League of Super Pets with my child and cried quite a lot at one bit (if you’ve seen it, you probably know which bit). It’s a solid movie overall too - great voice cast.

It’s not unusual for me to cry when reading or listening to the news.

I’m 41 too, but a woman.

I accidentally used a clothes washing pod once, and it made the clean dishes taste so awful that they all had yo go straight back in the dishwasher. Then again, I have to hand-wash any plastics, as just one wash in the machine taints them for me. It’s why I’ve switched to mostly glass food storage.

He does love sitting on laundry, but this was a mountain and very vulnerable to avalanche.

I recently cleared mine off and the cat was so grateful for his new seat.

Under-cabinet is the best use I can think of. But rows of them in a white ceiling, especially I a living or bedroom area is yuck. I’d rather have an Artex ceiling!

Knew what it was before I clicked! Great sketch

Spotlights have very limited domestic use, and beyond a few applications, look hideous as well as offering poor function.

Also, is it the spots making the kitchen look AI generated?

There’s another one in Sidmouth Devon:

I love my steamer. It’s easier to use than an iron and less damaging. You can’t fuse beads with it though

Synesthesia. I was about 20 before I learned it has a name and not everyone has strong colour associations for numbers and letters, or sees a visible map of time in their head, or has music take shape. It never occurred to me to question it because it’s always been my norm.

I’m sorry you went through that. I hope things continue to get better and better.

Another one I think should be added is that she presided over the selling off of large amount of council housing (homes owned by local authorities and rented at controlled to people who needed them or for free in the case of some benefit claimants).

The scheme is called Right to Buy and was lauded as a way for everyone to own their own home, as they were sold to the tenants at way below market value.

However, housing stock was not replenished, as local authorities did not get all the money from the sales, and were further restricted from using what they did get to build new housing.

What we’ve been left with us severely depleted council housing. Where I live and work, we have a huge list of applicants, and only those with the very highest level of need can get a council property, leaving others to pay extortionate private rents or become homeless.

Furthermore, the rules around resale weren’t strict enough so you see ex council housing on property websites where people have made tens of thousands in profit on selling them. Many of these are now in the hands of private landlords.

Thanks for adding this!

I’m from the UK but I have my own version of this.

I went to a Church of England school. When I was about 8, we had this super religious teacher start. She was Methodist so made us change the words of the lord’s prayer to her version. I loudly and defiantly said the old one every time.

It wasn’t long after, that I stopped saying prayers altogether, making sure to stare ahead with lips tight and hands unclasped, so nobody could mistake me as being pious!

I probably would have been that annoying kid had just been schooled in the USA.

I wrote my own comment before seeing yours. I see what you are getting at, but this is all theatre. Straight white Christians still hold the power and the wealth, it just suits the oligarchy to pretend they don’t.

American conservatives have been frighteningly effective at pushing this narrative that they are the outsiders, that they’re fighting against the status quo, so it doesn’t surprise me that they would steal punk.

They consider it a radical act to be straight, white, and Christian, when in fact that always has been, and still is the majority, as well as those who hold the money and the power.

From my perspective, this has been one of their most successful moves and it’s been brewing for decades - look at the tea party. There has never been a leftist or even liberal machine to rage against, but pretending that there is gets all the normies to feel special and oppressed at the same time, culminating in this fucking shitshow you have over there.

Fuck these Nazis

I would really love to try the Quebec type. Hopefully one day I will fetch to Canada to have the real stuff.