Thread 17 - TalkLair: "Okay, first of all, what's with the outfit? Live in the now, okay? You look like DeBarge."

[RasaSayangEh]

(Previous thread 16).

Spring is springing, daffodils blooming all over our LairGarden, which have not all been picked by a neighbour's kid...

In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, cosy rugs are down on the floors looking a bit stained by cat hairball regurgitation. The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch though, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics. We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Sitting around after dinner, enjoying a bit of tiramisu for dessert, brief lull in conversation to the quiet sound of spoons scraping in bowls.

Suddenly, DD2 screamed "Oh my GOD!!!!!" and sat there, frozen, spoon halfway to her mouth, eyes wide and glassy.

Alarmed, we all turned to stare, DH and I both started to ask what was wrong.

She then exclaimed, "The Count!"
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"I just realised why it's funny! He's not just a vampire, he counts 'VUN! hahahaha TWO! hahahaha TREE! hahahaha'..."

Erm.. ?

Er ... what? Or was that your point?

Which character? I could think of about half a dozen and am still angry that they gave the little weasel, George, my birthday!

@RasaSayangEh in the way of many of us, has just got why he's called The Count.

I get it. There's many a time that's been me.

@FagsMagsandBags ... re what Archers character, it was Alice, I think. But (like you) I would happily eliminate many of them in entertaining ways.

Oh my god. Yes. You were gone for ages. Stay gone!

Who is "you"? Me, or Alice?

Alice!

You stay, Gonners.

Alice!

Yes exactly - although not me, but DD2

It was so funny because we hadn't been talking about any even slightly Sesame Street or vampire or maths-related. So the realisation must have popped into her head totally at random, and then she way she shrieked it out with no context!

Thanks to MN, I've now found out what a French door fridge is. Also, people spend 1400 euros on them. Wow! I need a new (and bigger and better) fridge, but I'm not going to be spending that kind of money!

They look unnecessarily complicated.

OK. Numb brain yesterday, obviously. The Count counts... I see!

My DDIL has a French door fridge but I don’t like it. Everything frozen is immediately accessible to the children and stuff gets buried under other stuff. I have a massive American fridge but it’s the side by side type, which for me feels more functional.

By the way @FagsMagsandBagsI am reading a brilliant biography of Jane Austen, called “Jane Austen: a life in small things” by Paula Byrne. Highly recommended. It goes way beyond an outline of her life and includes things like the plays she went to and the novels she read, the places she visited and how she got there and her relationships with people inside and outside her (very extensive) family, and how the effects of all of these show up in her writing.

That sounds fascinating, Brit.

Much better than the recent BBC4 offering of 'Jane Austen, a personal recollection' which turned out to be a 1970s programme consisting of half and hour's rambling by an anti-feminist woman who went on to co-found the Huffington Post. Her sole qualification appeared to be having read and liked the books as a child. She'd misunderstood a lot of the content, had no particular understanding of the relevant period of history, and was deeply ignorant of medicine both ancient and modern.

And on the topic of entirely misunderstanding something: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5349486-dh-says-cat-needs-to-show-more-gratitude?

That's a fellow who presumably gets confused why parasols don't behave the same as pianos, cars aren't similar to cauliflowers and so forth?

Loving that! 😁

Wigan two tries up already in the women's Challenge Cup Final. How great it must be for these girls, some of them only 18, to be playing at Wembley.

@moto748e I've just got home from a cloudy, windy, totally deserted beach and watched the highlights of that on the BBC - Wigan certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves!

A thread you only need to read the title of to know this man is clueless! Greatful cats!

Btw, I miss the laughter emoji so shall lose love for funny or I love what you've said. Apparently it was being used sarcastically so we can't have nice things. Of course it will be used sarcastically sometimes. I fought not to laugh at idiots. And I won the fight!

The book sounds great, @Britinme I'll get that I think, so thank you.

They have Mansfield Park on BBCFour this week which I'm excited about. Least favourite of many (mine is Northanger Abbey), I enjoy that it's more political which I didn't realise when I first read it. I still enjoyed it though.

Is Mansfield Park the first-cousins-marry-shock-horror one? Two of my first-cousins married (their mothers were sisters), having "fallen in lurve" at an aunt's house one summer. He's a year younger than me and she's the same age as my sister, i.e. 7 years younger than him. So she would have been a very precocious 11 at the time and he would have been 18. Sis (who was there) remembers the holiday with some horror! Fortunately they didn't breed (because the combo of weirdness doesn't bear thinking about) and last I heard - from her entirely sane and lovely mum, about 10 years ago - she had just married husband #4 and (I paraphrase) "Maybe this one will stick, but frankly I don't think the husbands are the problem."

Anyway, I must watch that, so thanks for the heads-up! Have a totally random MN emoji! One can only pray that it's not offensive.