The Autumn Bluestocking - mist, mellow fruitfulness and hot chocolate!

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

Welcome one and all - as the nights draw in, pull up a chair to the fire, and the gerbils will be along soon with hot chocolate and Tunnock’s teacakes.

No, don't try to soft soap me, Boily. I just want normality back.

fzzzzzzzzzzz!

Ah, that's better - back to my old self.

Totally!!

Love is blind though, to me you'll always look how you did when I first met you and fell in love.

Even if you have had MAJOR work done since then

Often on this thread I need the Laugh reaction, for example @ifIwerenotanandroid pictures where she thinks she’s back to her old self. Could we agree that one of the others also means Laugh and if so, which?

I already use Love to express sympathy, I don’t love the situation but am sending you the MN version of concern.

On another site (where I used to spend a lot of time before they changed it and it now triggers my vertigo) you can choose as many as you like from educational, interesting, funny, agree, disagree and love.
You aren’t told who clicked on them, but it’s easy to hide any or all of them.

I've been using the love one to equal laugh and commiserations.

All because some arseholes got upset when people used the laughing one on posts.

‘Reactions’ don’t show up on the app, I much prefer people quoting or otherwise posting.

Well, just an upgrade here & an upgrade there...

Love for laugh I suppose makes sense.

Thank you for your suggestion about subscribing to MN so that my brain isn’t upset by moving adverts in the periphery of my vision. Strangely all websites now load on my iPad at normal speed and the device doesn’t get hot. Hmmm.

Noted. I’d react less in that case, trying to avoid overwhelming the thread.

It makes a huge difference not having the adverts all over MN doesn't it!

I'm watching the first episode of Bake Off but I might not watch the series. (I've already stopped watching Strictly).

Is it me, or is Iain a trans identifying woman? 🤔

I spotted that too Myrtle - there was a little intro film which showed Iain walking hand-in-hand with his girlfriend - who towered over him.

Somebody commented to him [..until proven otherwise] that he looked 15, and I expected him to have a bad reaction because of the implications of not being a grown man, but he just laughed it off as a compliment.

The voice is very convincing, but apart from that .....

He is described as a former amateur powerlifting champion - I'm speculating wildly here, but I can't imagine him doing very well in the men's powerlifting competitions, can you?

GBBO quickly lost its charm for me too, so I just watch it if it happens to be on, which it was the other day.

I spotted that too Myrtle - there was a little intro film which showed Iain walking hand-in-hand with his girlfriend - who towered over him.

Somebody commented to him [..until proven otherwise] that he looked 15, and I expected him to have a bad reaction because of the implications of not being a grown man, but he just laughed it off as a compliment.

The voice is very convincing, but apart from that .....

He is described as a former amateur powerlifting champion - I'm speculating wildly here, but I can't imagine him doing very well in the men's powerlifting competitions, can you?

GBBO quickly lost its charm for me too, so I just watch it if it happens to be on, which it was the other day.

His girlfriend does tower over him, but then a tall friend's husband is much shorter. She's 5'10"' and he's 5'5".

But Iain's face is feminine and I can't see brow ridges. I could be wrong and it would be easier to tell if seen in person.

So I don't know yet.

I looked up some articles about him and none of them mention a trans identity, not even the tabloids, so maybe he's just a short guy.

I had a look at the Black Forest Gateau thread and saw this in somebody's comment:
I can't help with the gateau but will you be having a prawn cocktail to start and a t-bone steak with a garnish of grilled tomato for main?

Well that took me back to the 60s when my parents finally had enough money for us to go out for a meal with me very occasionally and we used to go to a pub which had branched out to a steak bar (might have been a Berni Inn) and that was exactly the menu we used to get.

Oh the days when Orange juice was in some restaurants classed as a starter!

My favourite meal out was prawn cocktail, steak and chips and black forest gateau.

I missed the last thread completely.

But something popped up on my FB feed just now and I wanted to find you to show you.

Apparently someone’s grandmother made this coffee table and I thought of you @MarieDeGournay Another project, perhaps?

I shall try to catch up, but may fall
asleep before I do…

Oh wow! Marie's finished one is a few pages back and it's amazing but that takes it to a whole different level!

You were here in spirit yesterday when we all got assimilated by the borg!

Oh wow, that’s the perfect answer to my two reservations about model building - where to keep it and how to stop it getting dusty.

Oh the days when Orange juice was in some restaurants classed as a starter!

That used to happen at the boarding school where I used to work about 20 years ago. At that time (not now) staff supper for those on evening duty was a 3 course meal away from the main dining hall. If too many people had signed in to eat - usually because the gap year students had brought their friends, who were charged a relatively small amount for the meal - then the first course became orange juice.

As someone who couldn’t drink orange juice that was disappointing. A quiet supper was a useful perk when teaching had begun at 8:35am and evening duty finished at 10:15pm.

Always the well-defined nipples

Immediately after I made this remark, the nipples on each of the subsequent android representations became less and less prominent. Coincidence? Or just the effect of me catching up late as usual.

I think I just answered my own question

(Edited for stupid glitch on stupid phone that runs words together when it's too late to do anything about it)

That coffee table is lovely, @Swashbuckled.

It reminds me a little of the Roman cities (eg Chester?) where they find mosaics when redeveloping, leave them where they are but cover them with glass so they can still be seen by passers-by. Isn’t there something similar inside a supermarket somewhere?

On a university site I’ve visited some of the paving has been replaced by glass, offering a view of crockery below. There used to be a Victorian villa there so I assume the crockery was found on the site when it was redeveloped.

I have found a picture: you can see the glass on the right. No prizes for recognising the library tower in the background.

Lab warming up - or doesn’t that apply to androids?

I do like that the coffee table house has windows and doors, with net curtains.