The Bluestocking. All gerbils welcome, must have own frou-frou skirt.

[Magpiecomplex]

New thread!

Whether it's bucks fighting for dominance or does fighting off unwanted sexual advances, that's not behaviour we expect to see in our all-women pub!

(a few of our animals are male but they're impeccably behaved like Colin.)

Colin, yes.
Steven and Kevin ( the rowdy seagulls) less so. But they tended to stay outside on the roof

Isn't there a tiny Greek island monastery that refuses to allow any females ashore, even nanny goats? I like to think of all the female wild birds, mammals, reptiles and the like that must live there while the monks sip their black tea, eat their plain crackers and thank their Lord for the women elsewhere that ensure their little community doesn't die out in a generation. Bet they don't let tm join, wonder how they feel about tw?

Deano I'm sorry for mis-species-ing you as a non-human.

I always thought you were a bat! I think I read Volecape as Volecape and not vole-cape so I thought of a bat wearing an impressive cape, instead of voles.. that doesn't make much sense, does it? I'd better dig deeper - and the name Dean made me think of cloisters and that made me think of belfries. So Dean volecape was a bat, to me.
I like bats, BTW
Where Elderberries comes in, I don't know - I probably didn't even try to process it intellectually, cos you were a bat already.
I trust I have made myself abundantly clear😂and will henceforth think of you as a human Dean, Deano.
Can we keep the impressive cape though? I like it, and I think it suits you.

@lcakethereforeIam

Thank you, and yes, please; that’s very kind of you to share the gravy.

I shall go exploring another day; thanks for the tips. Been out there this morning but now am tied to the house. Am cooking a meal for a friend early evening, and hosting takes me a long way out of my comfort zone. Prepping, cooking and tidying the ship. Next time I might ask if the gerbils do outside catering… 🤔

Yes, it's the middle bit of Halkidiki.

I think they may have had to make an exception for chickens so they could have eggs, but I might have made that bit up.

Yes! I should have thought of that! It's on the license plate of my car, even. Name change ahoy when I work out how to do it.

Yes! I should have thought of that! It's on the license plate of my car, even. Name change ahoy when I work out how to do it.

You won't be able to change it on this thread of course, but you can get one ready to use on the next one.

I like bats. Its possible that I am bats, but nonetheless I am human. There was an island in the Irish midlands that didn't allow anything female, and also where nothing ever died.

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

I have been there quite a few times, despite being female, but it is perfectly true that I didn't die. At that time.

I defiance of prevailing anti-Americanism elsewhere on MN, may I say that I think chickadee is a much better word than tit(mouse).

As in the film 'My Little Chickadee'? I always thought chickadee was just a madey-uppy word, every day a schoolday at the Bluestocking!

'My Little Chickadee' has to have the highest proportion of quotable quips from any Mae West film, the ones I remember are :
'Goodness what beautiful diamonds'
MW: 'Goodness had nothing to do with it, honey'

She somehow - can't remember how! - ends up teaching a class of children and she's reading from the blackboard
'He is a good boy, She is a good girl, They are good children'.
and she turns to the camera and says
'Saaayyyy, what is this? Propaganda?'

And in court - where she did not have Naomi Cunningham defending her😄- the judge thunders at her
'Are you showing contempt for this court??'
'No judge, I'm doing my best to hide it'
😂

Chickadees are very cute little birds, I must say. We get the most beautiful cardinals in our back yard sometimes, and I even saw a bluebird once at my previous house though I don't think they're common in these parts. What we never see is magpies - I don't think they exist over here. When I was in London last November I was always so happy to see them in the park. I will try and make a fairly obvious chickadee name for the next Bluestocking thread.

Cool!

I wondered what the AI (MS Bing) would make of 'black capped chickadee'...

tsikililichickadee ?
ChickadeeSee
wittyChickadee
Chickadeedledoo
ChickchickchickchickchickaDee

And last night I had a few goes at imagining making the pub a bit more swashbuckling...

There's somethin' mighty strange goin' on there, shipmates!

Why are pirates called 'pirates'?

Because they arrrrrrre.

'Tis the influence of @Swashbuckled, right enough. Arrrr!

Pic 2:
Because they aaaaarrrrrrgggghhhh!

I was thinking of Chickadeeinme to make the connection even more blindingly obvious.

I think we'll recognise you.

🫣

Of course! Perfect.

I like the name chickadee, it's onomatopoeic I think.

There are magpies in North America, a black billed magpie, that looks very similar to our Pica pica and a yellow billed magpie, found only in California, which is very handsome. The bbm is rarely found in Maine though. I wonder why that is? Wikipedia says it followed the buffalo herds.

My favourite magpie (after my fellow Bluestockinger) is the Iberian magpie. The distribution of that used to confuse me, found in Spain and East Asia. A big gap between the two populations. I now see they've decided they're two different species, so I can sleep without having to worry about it any more.

....there's just the tapir question, South/Central America and Malaysia?

OK, so a few lab experiments escaped & someone got spat on by a ferret. That's just how it is down at the Swashbuckler's Arms.