The Bluestocking: the one where AI finally learns what a blackbird is (we hope)

[Magpiecomplex]

Welcome all, New Year (nearly), new thread!

The streamlined mallard is absolutely brilliant Magpie😂

MarieDeBandicoot sounds fun and yes I agree, it is highly unlikely to be already taken!
But I feel I'm known as MdeG by now elsewhere on MN, I don't know why but it seems important to be consistently me, even under a pseudonym. Which I chose before I discovered the wonderful Bluestocking, unfortunately.

Do I use the philosophers' or bandicoots' loo, you ask, Fuzzy - well, that's a difficult question for me, so I tend to stand outside the philosophers' loo wondering 'To pee, or not to pee, that is the question...'..

Only kidding, because bandicoot loos are very rare, in fact last time I was in a pub in my natural habitat I asked the barman where the bandicoot loo was and he said 'Anywhere between here and Toowoomba, mate, and mind the spiders'

Leaps into pedantry corner ...

No they aren't. They have a different genus:

Vaccinium myrtillus - bilberries
Vaccinium corymbosum - blueberries
Myrtus communis - common myrtle

While bilberries and blueberries are sweet, myrtleberries are spicy and aromatic. They are used for flavouring things rather than for just eating.

Wow! I didn't know that. I was under the impression they were all the same.

<deep bow honouring inkymoose>

The name Vaccinium myrtillus suggests someone, sometime, thought they looked like myrtle berries. And they do get called whortleberries, or hurts.

It just makes Myrtle more special. It has delightful flowers of course, that come before the berries - and the small aromatic leaves of the myrtle plant are there all year round! The berries are not like the common blue or bil. instead, the berries are used for many culinary applications. Marvellous if you ask me.

And then there's bog myrtle, which is yet another different genus, but is apparently very effective as an insect repellent. Particularly against the Scottish midge!

Most of mine usually contain Boiled and beetle in them unless I purposely want to remain hidden in order to talk about something I don't want used in trying to identify me as to who and where I am (or if I want to know where I can go on holiday for 18K*) or I'm taking the piss out of something/someone!

*That wasn't me!!!

Myrtle, in her various forms.

DHs family came from the West Country and called them whortleberries. We've got a jar of whortleberry chutney in the fridge at the moment.

.

Have you seen Mallard, @MarieDeGournay? I haven't, but I have seen Sir Nigel Gresley.

Android that's lovely. Myrtle why do you want to be a lion? You're beautiful.

Aww, thank you ❤

I think being a white haired middle aged lady means I don't get immediately spotted in the AI images. So Beetle, Moose and Android are there, magpie and blackbird etc but I'm just lost as a lady.

Someone suggested lion and I thought that might be fun.

Tbf I know what you mean. A cake persona can be a bit bizarre. Lionesses are awesome, they do most of the hunting.

.

There won't be the same question as there is with cake about who eats and who gets eaten, when we are looking at a lioness <gulp>

I've just realised Myrtle, you originally wanted to be a mountain lion which means you would also be a cougar <nudge>.

This is a wise notice, in my opinion.

(Is it only me who sees “womb” written there, when not looking carefully ?)

Not just you.

Found a cougar wandering about eyeing up the capybaras ... also boily seems to have gone for the cheapo version of the Tunnocks for some reason

I used to go collecting these, near where I lived, when I was a teenager - they were called whinberries there (rural South Shropshire).

Late into the Stocking again today and as usual have missed soooo much!

Magpie - yes I've seen the Mallard in the NRM, and I saw another A4 loco in a siding at Crewe when passing through on the Holyhead train once - I'm sure my fellow-passengers were alarmed at somebody jumping excitedly out of their seat to follow the sighting of something to the last fading glance...
It might have been the Sir Nigel Gresley, which was in Crewe for while - it might be back with the North Yorkshire Moors Railway now? Where did you see it?

For one mad moment I thought you meant that you had actually met Sir Nigel Gresley and I was going to have to stoop to kiss the hem of your garment, but he died in 1941 so my poor back is spared the stooping, ouch!

Myrtle - I love having a lioness around, and I must say you've acquired the art of looking cool while perched on a bar stool very quickly, for somebody who just popped in straight from the savanna! Respect😎

Actually, I saw 'Fenians' when not looking carefully!

In moments of (mild) domestic dispute my mother used to sometimes accuse my father of having taken the Fenian oath: 'never take the advice of a woman'.

I have no idea whether such an oath existed, but her grandfather had been a Fenian.

Not sure we need any of that at the Bluestocking. Though they'd get rid of those Union Jacks.

DS1 was mad keen on trains, as a small child - we took him to see Sir Nigel Gresley at the NRM - and for ages afterwards, any locomotive from that series was called a Presley Train. He has grown out of it now, thankfully - but is still utterly train-obsessed, and works for a company that maintains rail infrastructure.