Bluestocking! The Gerbical

[ifIwerenotanandroid]

Welcome to the Bluestocking, where gerbils dance & quokkas - well, no-one's quite sure what they're up to.

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5169893-les-bas-bleus-the-bluestocking?page=1

School dinners axed after mice found in kitchen
Ysgol Syr Hugh Owen: Caernarfon school axes dinners after mice found in kitchen (bbc.com)

Hello? And this is a problem how? Maybe mice are less efficient than gerbils, or maybe their customer-facing skills aren't as good or something...

The little caption under the photo made me laugh
'Mice - though not one shown above - have been found in the school's kitchen, leading to the suspension of school dinners'

Wasn't there a big kerfuffle when a polar bear was featured in a BBC nature programme although it had never actually met David Attenborough, or something?
The Beeb must have been worried that someone would point out that they knew that mouse personally, and that it had never been to Wales, let alone Caernarfon, casting doubt on the veracity of all of the BBC's output..

Cooked school dinners have been suspended at a comprehensive after mice were found running around its kitchen.

I think there's a typo there. Surely it should read:
Cooked school dinners have been suspended at a comprehensive after mice were found running around its kitchen.

Obviously the mice haven't gone to the same catering college as our gerbils.

Bon jour! Je suis en Nice en vacance. Il pleut tres fort qui est un peu of un bugger, il est tres sunny quand nous departons from Manchester.

So expect more outbreaks of franglais....I'm afraid in real life I'm one of those Brits abroad who rarely attempts to say anything in the local language because I know the person I'm talking to will almost certainly understand English better than my attempts.

Never mind, we've had a jolly nice dinner.

At least it wasn't 'school dinners suspended after mice found axed in kitchen'.

One of my DC has suffered kitchen mice in the past. They didn't do any cooking and were just bloody useless. Like the mice we had when I was a DC: also crap at catering, DM had to do it all.

Malheureusement about le pluie, @ErrolTheDragon Est-ce-que Marseilles plus bon pour les dragonnes? Pas des objections de les grand jettes de feu que vous breathes, tu et ton mari*?

*Qui j'assume est aussi un dragonne?

That mouse is adorable. I want to adopt it. Although the cats might like it a bit too much.

In one of my first jobs I took a call from someone hysterical because they'd seen a mouse in the school. While I was trying to sort something out 'as a matter of urgency' they rang back. It was the school gerbil that had escaped.

I'm not going to lie, I'm bored of mice at the moment. The cats are catching around two a day at the minute. I came back today and they'd left one for me in my potterying shed. Last night they were fighting over two after already catching one in the day. The day before that was another two. And these are just the ones I know about.

The corn field behind us is semi harvested so I'm guessing all the fieldmice have scarpered into the woods and the cats are just having a field day, literally.

School - mice - gerbils - nifty tying together of all the elements there, Cake

I've been keeping that anecdote in my back pocket, knew it would come in handy one day 😏

Bonsoir Er-role!
Sorry about la pluie in Nice. Quand it rains heavily en France, les Francais say: 'Il pleut comme vache qui pisse' ☔🐄🚽
I hope le soleil appears demain.

Me too as I'm doing a bedding wash first thing.

When I was a good little Irish Catholic girl, I was expected to have a special interest in a specific saint - it wasn't an article of faith or anything, just one of those tiresome expressions of piety🙄

Mine was St Martin de Porres, because he is always depicted as having a dog, a cat and a mouse together, peacefully eating the food he has put down for them.

I actually liked animals more than saints, and St M. de P. handily ticked both boxes I still have a little statue of him.

I really think that the franglais here is bloody atrocious it is positively french FFS.

anyway I had a quick wander dans les autre threads

et le voila came across monsiere meno video

Je love him.

Je t’aime the nouveau name that he has come up with regarde les homme who Pense they are la instead of le.

it is a sex mimic.

Bang on

I think I need a couple of snowballs and a slow gin though as I (confession here) i did go on AIBU for more time than is socially acceptable

soz

I used to wonder about the origin of the phrase 'taking the Mick', I was a strange child. It's sometimes the Michael or even Archangel. I thought it originally was 'mimic' and someone (I suspected a cockney) just had fun with it. You've just reminded me, I'll have to go a-googling.

There was also my related theory about 'taking the piss' and fly agaric.

C'est vrai.
Les vache pisse tres fort.
Aussie les chevals (cheveaux? I always mixed up les horses et le hair.)

lcakethereforeIam ·I used to wonder about the origin of the phrase 'taking the Mick'

That's a tricky one, Cake. It's probably Cockney rhyming slang, but it's confusingly close to 'acting the Mick' which uses 'Mick' as an offensive word for Irish people:
(ethnic slur) offensive term for a person of Irish descent
(derogatory) a slang name for an Irishman or a Roman Catholic
a contemptuous term for a person of Irish birth or descent.

So whether the verb is 'taking' or 'acting' makes a huge difference!

That never occurred to me. It reminds me of, when my kids were much younger, talking about them 'having a paddy' then actually thinking about the phrase and trying not to use it. Fortunately, I've always been a piss taker myself and my children's paddying days are, for the most part, long behind them. Although the behaviour of tas has tempted me to trot it out now and again.

Not today Satan!

I'm very pro Martin de Porres - the animals obviously, but the poverty, the mixed race thing, his work for the poor. And being a Dominican.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MartindePorres

A picture of him was put up in our church some time in the last year, and we suspect our new PP, since he has a great commitment to social justice and is besotted with animals.

I dislike the expression 'taking/acting the Mick' for exactly those reasons. Obviously, it isn't used in Ireland.

edited to remove too much very

As an animal mad kid I would have been all over this guy, had I ever hear of him. I was chuffed when I discovered my birthday was shared with the feast day of the Patron Saint of animals 😁

You're right, 'paddy' is used offensively too, it's funny but 'paddy' sounds vaguely condescending whereas 'mick' is just plain nasty. If you get called a stupid Paddy, it's bad, but if you're called a stupid Mick, it's really threatening.

People in Ireland do use the expression 'acting the Mick', Deano - they obviously aren't aware of how it's used abroad, and just think it's a fun expression. I don't think it's even a case of a group re-appropriating offensive words to use affectionately amongst themselves*, I think it's just lack of awareness.

*e.g. the folk group called 'Paddy Goes to Holyhead' - not actually a Frankie Goes.. tribute band, they just had fun with the name😂

Do they? I have obviously led a sheltered life. Mind you, I am also pretty deaf.

I think Paddy as a diminutive as Patrick is okay (I've worked with at least one) but it still makes me feel a little uneasy. Perhaps there's an element of reclaiming and even having fun with the stereotype/slur, much like we do with 'terf'.

Can someone get me some paracetamol and a nice strong cup of tea, I'm slightly hungover after downing three bottles of Bluestocking sloe gin to console myself after discovering copilots multi-timing ways.

Poor boiled

I saw him last night and he begged me to forgive him - anyone else?

Told him to piss off and went to AIBU to post about the situation, but decided against it as it would be “too outing”

And i would have sounded even more bonkers than i already am.