The Breakfast Club Returns!

[LilyLangtrey]

Good evening, Clunkers!

Welcome to the Breakfast Club where the kettle is permanently on, the drinks flow and the snacks are both self-replenishing and calorie-free.

We start each day with a look at history and a tribute to a brave or inspiring woman. Mostly though, we just chat randomly about current affairs, recipes, life in lockdown, literature, music and anything else that comes into our heads.

Veteran Clunkers welcome. Anyone else who wants to join in the chat - sense of humour essential! - welcome.

Kettle's on ☕️☕️☕️

I love the fact your wallpaper is so old! I really miss some of the decor my parents and grandparents had. Trying to work out if flying ducks on the wall are now retro enough to be ironically cool.

😁 at Mr N, who as far as I know hasn’t found anywhere yet, but I am worried that he will find somewhere for us to go to, unless lockdown changes.

I love Pop Master, I do get some of the questions right but I never score myself. 😁

After PM I went into the garden, dead headed, had a dig around, pulled up the sneaky weeds, cut the grass and had a good sweep.

Talking about MR N, he has committed the ultimate sin, I did a dark wash today and he left tissues in the pocket.....😡😭

The cupboard can now wait until tomorrow.

@AnneKipanki, that really did make me laugh. 😂

I am always leaving tissues in the pockets of things. Then all the bits end up all over the utility room floor and stuck onto everything.

I am still hoping it is going to go up.@meercat23.

@meercat23

I am always leaving tissues in the pockets of things. Then all the bits end up all over the utility room floor and stuck onto everything.

It is so annoying, I normally check his pockets, I didn’t today. 😠😁

I think it is one of the most annoying thing there is to get annoyed about. 😁

@TracysShoulder

The pop master answers are always on the tip of my tongue but I just can't get at them .

This is me and I am flipping my hand as well. 😁

I agree Nellyyy and I can't even be annoyed with anyone else about it! Mr M doesn't use tissues so I can't shift the blame anywhere.😁

Am unhappy. Went to the tip and the storage unit with dh today. had my day all planned out and then..

Mum has had her shower fixed, so is coming over to me tomorrow for a shower, which means I need to clean the bathroom and the shower today, and move things around so she can use the spare room to change in. She then wants me to drive her home and do some admin for her. Tomorrow is ds's 25th birthday, I did have other plans!

The job offer I had is still ongoing. As I have had the temerity to live abroad they want me to provide proof I was there, with job references (I didn't work whilst there, and if a Cdr RN isn't good enough as a referee I don't know what is), and AirBnB receipts for where I stayed. Have emailed to see if a couple of tenancy agreements would do instead! The email address to which I have send all these things was written incorrrectly, so I had to try 5 different versions before I didn't get a bounce back. I have emailed my putative employer to point this out, with much use of the subjunctive; and that it is possible to be a trailing spouse of a Crown Servant sent abroad by HMG.

I also have to bake ds a cake for tomorrow.

On this day in 1632, Sir Christopher Wren was born in a little village in Wiltshire. Not only was he an architect but also an anatomist, astronomer, physicist and mathematician. After the Great Fire of London, he was tasked with rebuilding 52 churches including St Paul’s Cathedral. He was a founder of the Royal Society.

The Restoration must have been a very interesting time to live, if one could avoid dying of plague. So many interesting and talented men and women, in both science and the arts. And Sam Pepys to tell us all about them.

Sir Christopher seems to have been a good chap as well as hugely talented - he doesn't seem to have been one of those geniuses who was difficult to work with.

His idea of a dome for St Paul's was quite radical at the time and there was quite a lot of opposition, but he quietly went on his way and built his dome. And it's become an iconic part of the London skyline, so much so that in the Blitz, Churchill gave orders that St Paul's should be saved 'at all costs'. The story of the St Paul's Watch, the team of volunteers responsible for fire-watching during air-raids, is one of the lesser known stories of the Blitz.

Wren's tomb in the crypt of St Paul's is really unobtrusive - it's possible to walk past it without noticing it (I know - I did!) But he doesn't need an elaborate tomb. His epitaph is si monumentum requiris, circumspice - 'If you seek his monument, look about you'.

Oh Nelly, LittleBoyHippo leaves tissues in his pockets, it is a nightmare if I miss them, especially on a dark wash. I feel your pain!

Loved the OTD, especially the image of the judge walking around with a special bag with the offending book in .

I am just catching my breath quickly. How can LittleBoyHippo and Little Hippo play football for 3 hours, then chase each other in the playground for an hour and still have heaps of energy ? I have promised to make cookies, but told them I needed a sit down with a cup of tea for 10 min first .

I wonder if the butlers have any carrot cake left in the pantry ?

For those who understand these things....
www.zerohedge.com/markets/socially-target-bonds-brave-new-yoorp

This might explain the above better:
www.ft.com/content/...

EU enjoys ‘outrageous demand’ for first Covid-related bond

Debt issue linked to job support programmes draws Europe’s largest ever order book

The EU met with huge demand for an issue of new coronavirus-related bonds on Tuesday, with bankers saying the sale had received the largest ever order book in Europe’s bond markets.

The deal forms the start of a borrowing binge that will make Brussels one of the region’s biggest debt issuers. Investors placed bids for more than €230bn, far exceeding the €17bn of bonds on offer, according to one of the banks arranging the deal. Buyers were drawn by the relatively high yields on the bonds, which came with 10-year and 20-year maturities, and offered more income for investors than the eurozone’s safest government debt.

The sale is the first under the EU’s €100bn SURE programme, which will provide loans to support member states’ efforts to keep workers in jobs during the pandemic. Brussels will ramp up its debt issuance next year as it funds the larger €750bn coronavirus recovery package agreed in July.

“This is outrageous demand, which they are going to need for the huge wave of supply on the way,” said Peter Goves, a strategist at MFS Investment Management. “This is just an appetiser for what’s coming in 2021.”

The new 10-year bond was expected to price at a yield of minus 0.26 per cent, according to guidance from banks arranging the deal. Despite the negative yield, that would be substantially higher than the yield of minus 0.62 per cent offered by a 10-year German bond, which serves as the euro area’s benchmark safe asset. The EU bonds also offer extra yield compared with France, seen by some analysts as a potential reference for the debt.

“It was clearly priced to be attractive,” Mr Goves said. Investors were also encouraged, he added, by the expectation that the European Central Bank would buy EU debt under its asset-purchase programmes, along with Brussels’ triple A credit rating — particularly given the relative scarcity of top-rated debt in the euro area. Of the region’s big bond markets, only Germany enjoys a top rating.

The EU’s existing bonds have underperformed other eurozone debt since the summer as investors anticipate a deluge of new issuance. Prior to Tuesday’s sale, Brussels had roughly €50bn of debt outstanding, but is expected to sell as much as €200bn next year alone.

The banks working on Tuesday’s deal were Barclays, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Nomura and UniCredit.

Afternoon peeps, I'm way behind as usual but just wanted to say hi. Enjoyed today's OTDs @Lily, thanks!

@Nelllyyy "Ah poor Wallace and Gromit, glad they were soon back in the right hands, I dare say Nick had had a few bevvies to celebrate, hence the leaving on the back seat of the cab. 👍🏻"

Or as my father was fond of saying of anyone who'd over-indulged at a meal... "There was too much parsley on the potato!"

His epitaph is si monumentum requiris, circumspice - 'If you seek his monument, look about you'.

I love that, Sarah. One of my great pleasures, before the lockdown, was to stand in the nave of a cathedral or abbey, gaze around me in wonder for a good ten minutes, and then go and read some of the plaques and memorials. It was like breathing and touching history.

The Vatican was quite breathtaking. Even though I'm not much of a believer (no soul ), you could tell that this was a holy place that had been held in veneration for centuries (OK, many of the Popes were, umm, worldly but it had an atmosphere that was tangible).

Each Pope had his own monument around the nave. Those alone were a dead giveaway. The bigger, the showier the monument, the bigger the ego interred beneath it. The grandest was that of Alexander VI - Rodrigo Borgia. The modest ones were really the ones to seek out. Rather like Sir Christopher Wren, really.

Nelly, I trained MrL very early on in our marriage. I refuse to check his pockets. That's his job, always has been. He's learned the hard way

especially the image of the judge walking around with a special bag with the offending book in

I know, Hippo. It was such a delightful detail, how could I resist?

[quote Therebythedoor]@Nelllyyy "Ah poor Wallace and Gromit, glad they were soon back in the right hands, I dare say Nick had had a few bevvies to celebrate, hence the leaving on the back seat of the cab. 👍🏻"

Or as my father was fond of saying of anyone who'd over-indulged at a meal... "There was too much parsley on the potato!"[/quote]
Great words. 😂😁

I am so glad it is just not me that finds the tissue subject so annoying.

@MoreHippoThanPenguin, my Grandsons are like that, I have no idea where their energy comes from, they are very early risers as well, I cannot remember my 2 ever being like that. 😁

@LilyLangtrey, that’s the problem though, I have told him over the years, yet he still does it, he has even gone to work with the white fluff on his navy blue uniform, he has no shame. 😁

I washed Dh's military ID card once...he learned!!

@thegcatsmother

I washed Dh's military ID card once...he learned!!

🙀🙀😁

@TracysShoulder

Haha Anne, I'm not sure you'd get an exact pattern number match if you run out.

We could make a retro corner in the BC.

😬 Tracy What has prevented you from having it putting it up Anne?

I could help furnish the corner with my mahogany dining table and chairs I've had for 30 years.

They are still in great condition and functional and only used by the 3 of us.
It will do me my day. Using this phrase is a sign of getting old.
My DMIL used it and I was always 🤔 but now I know exactly what she meant.

The retro corner. Sounds good.

My dad once put his overalls in the wash - that he wore for diy or working on the car - with a ten bob note in the pocket. Back when ten shillings was worth something. My mum tells of how she went through the washing gathering together tiny fragments of the note, determined to recover enough of it to take to the bank and get it changed.

He never went out anywhere in those overalls, so why he had money in the pocket I don't think we ever knew.

Hippo, there's a new carrot cake in the cake cabinet. Here you go...
It wouldn't hurt to have a glass of sparking wine would it? I wish they were real

I'm the tissue culprit here. I forget if I've pushed one up my sleeve.

I'm another one with no soul but there's just something about the atmosphere in a church or cathedral that is like no other building, same with temples in Far East.