The Bluestocking - Invoking Split Pea Annexe B

[Magpiecomplex]

Welcome all, pull up a gerbil and make yourself comfortable!

Try themmmmmmm.

i have tried to relate/ connect to my husband ( who is a healthy eating fitness fanatic) by telling him about our gerbils health problem.

He did not seem to understand.

Should I LTB?

I think they tidied away the blue and silver wrappers, ate those Tunnocks and were protecting the red ones for Boily. You can see they're eating dark chocolate teacakes in the image.

Obvs.

Surely all Tunnocks teacakes are white mallowy goodness inside? What they're eating looks more like dark chocolate cakey truffles of the 1970s type (probably rum-soaked), coated in dark chocolate.

And it's blue & gold wrappers. I think we need a Tunnocks identification chart hanging up in the Bluestocking. I'm sure Boily can oblige, as she seems to have the best behaved AI. Badges should also be given, when earned.

You can have my back bedroom, as long as you don't mind sharing with a huffy moulting cat

My husband is huffy and hairy so moults, so that will not be a problem,

<packs bag> TAXI !!!

<Gets out clean bedding. >

<Backs away from hissing cat>

The chairs in the living room recline you'll be fine on one of them!

Poor gerbils. I think it’s just the ruddy AIs having a Rubenesque phase. Because as we know, nothing consumed at the Bluestocking is fattening.

The gerbils have misunderstood, they’re trying to find you some chocolate caramel wafers which have been obsolete for about a decade.

I'm loving all the Fat Gerbil tales.
Random qus....

1. Does anyone remember a kids telly program called "Fat Tulip"?
2. Is a cross gerbil a grrbil?

My brother's wife's name is Gerlinde and she can be a bit, how should I phrase it, "terse" maybe (mainly when talking to me tbf), and she is referred to as "Auntie Grrrrrlinde" by my children.

Gerlinde is definitely a gerbil name. You'll never be able to think of her without picturing a furry rodent now. 😁

Which might not be a good thing, a S-i-L sized 'terse' gerbil could be truly terrifying.

She is one of the least fuzzy rodenty people I know :) She softened a bit since she became a grandmother though.

More or less yes, whale oil beef hooked said quickly =....

I'm a bit suspicious of the 'oil' because it makes it sound a bit stage-Irishy, where we all say 'Shure an' don't Oi shpake like dis..'🙄

'Feck' - no idea of the etymology and it's too damn hot to go down that particular rabbit hole today - means to steal in Dublin slang, like 'nick'.

It obviously works wonderfully as a substitute for fck, it allows you to nearly say fck, everybody knows you're thinking 'F*ck!', but it comes out as the mild 'feck' instead. Win-win:-)

My mother remembered a mid 1950s conversation where a bunch of London Labour party types (she lived in a house full of them) discussed what to make for a fundraising effort. A fellow Irish person suggested toys, and another bloke, who was from Macclesfield agreed that was a good idea, and said he was sure he'd be able to get some remnants of silk for the - - - - ties.

The 'eye' 'oy' difference in pronunciation does not run in the way many English people (with tin ears imo) imagine in many parts of Ireland.

English with tin ears?
Deano, wash your mouth out immediately!

We have full, rich and diverse ways of speaking, with wonderful regional dialects and discrete words. It's a beautiful language in all its forms and not to be mocked.

< Gets off soapbox>

I do wonder if my nans accent was very specific to where she was brought up, and was ask anglicised as she lived in England for a very long time.

Although both her sisters sounded exactly the same.

She would also exclaim, “holy Mary mother of god”, and cross herself.

It is, how could I not know that, growing up bilingual in standard English and Broad Norfolk? So is American English. But both of them are often very poor at reproducing Irish English accents.

Mind you, I just rewatched the episode of Castle with an alleged Geordie accent, so mutual battlement between our eastern and western neighbours have to be acknowledged.

And there is that segment of middle-class s-e English RP speakers who think that everyone else has 'an accent', but not them, oh no.

In Norn Iron and particularly urban Belfast it's the 'ow' vowel that gives away your social origin, and sometimes even what estate you grew up on.

I sometimes imagine a local production of The Importance of Being Earnest where Lady Bracknell talks about a 'HAUN-beg'.

But that would be unrealistic. 'Haun' for hand is a very East Belfast thing, and I imagine Lady Bracknell would have been from Cultra, or maybe Crawfordsburn.

For all you tractor fans on here the dog and I came across this on our walk this morning. I thought of you all so I took a couple of pics.

I WANT ONE!!
Whatever it is, and despite the fact that it wouldn't fit in my garden and that I have no need for it, and that I wouldn't know how to operate it I WANT ONE!!

It is a forestry tractor and an absolute monster of a machine!!

When it comes to heavy machinery the yellow and black colour scheme is more my thing.