The Bluestocking women's Pub- spring is sprunging and MN's name generator can do one!

[lcakethereforeIam]

Welcome to the Bluestocking women's pub. Men are directed to the Staunch Ally just down the road. Otherwise all are welcome. Pull up a chair, give your order to the Wait Gerbil or the Gerbil behind the bar.

Don't forget to name change if you wish to.

I suspect 'coffin' comes from the same root.

We've just placed garden netting over the herb trellis. When we planted seed, the birds took all the seeds. Though the oregano took and has been transplanted into the trellis basket. Hardy little bugger.

This time I bought small plants in an effort to get the herbs to grow to a more substantial size.

Anyway I spotted the jackdaws were ripping out the lemon thyme for nesting material yesterday and much as I want the birds to thrive, my herbs are important to me. So we have covered them today while the nesting season continues. Hopefully that will stop them ripping out the thyme.

Yes, I looked them up - that’s what I meant below, didn’t notice that my coffer had been auto corrupted to coffee.

Does coffee, possibly as something valuable kept in a coffer, share an ancestor?

I've heard it posited that birds line their nests with fragrant herbs and twigs in an attempt to keep down parasites. Mebbe that's what the daws were up to.

Some birds have also adapted to use cigarette ends as nest lining. The theory is that there's enough nicotine left in them for its insecticidal activity to be beneficial.

Interesting to know. I am deliberately growing scented plants. I do hope they grow!

Don't apologise!
Did you know that the Bluestocking has a very popular Pedantry Corner - we like that kind of thing - and there's a lovely comfy chair there by the fire that has now been designated the Chair of Comparative Slavonic Philology, and you can sit there any time and there'll be a guaranteed audience of interested Stockingers

Coffre in French meaning a chest or coffer.

Coffee is from the Arabic qahwah via Turkish into Dutch, acc to Copilot.

Copilot also has the root of 'coffer' from Greek via Latin via Old French via Middle English via etc...

Birds and cigarettes

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-26464789

Jays do this thing called 'anting'. They'll sprawl on an ants nests and let the insects crawl over them. Even picking them up and placing them amongst their feathers. No-one's quite sure what they're up to. The speculation is it's anti-parasite. But they stagger around while they're doing it, like they're stoned. They've also been seen doing it with cigarette butt's.

I did see something, possibly yesterday, of houses whose roof spaces had been insulated with cigarette filters. The houses were near a factory, now closed, that manufactured cigarettes. The filters were either factory floor sweepings, a perk from being employed there or handed out when it closed down. Apparently, as insulation, they worked very well.

Brilliant!

I have a very comfy punctuation, grammar and setting things straight chair in Pedantry Corner. It's lovely to see you here!

Stockwell fire blamed on bird carrying lit cigarette

That's why I never go sarf of ve river, mate - sarf london gels have no clue abaht fire safety, innit😄

I once had a tour of the John Player's factory in Nottingham before it closed 10 years ago. On getting out of the car, the air smelled like a freshly-opened packet of cigarettes.

Inside there were bins the size of oil drums filled with loose waste cigarettes. Employees could take as many as they wanted. Strictly speaking they shouldn't take any, but if the drums are completely open then how was that enforced?

I do love scented plants. We had a herb lawn in the front garden but rather than chamomile, it seemed to be marjoram which had escaped & gone rogue. Then one night it disappeared, down to bare earth. I always assumed it was the deer who used to stop by. Blighters!

My fave is lemon verbena, though, & I must get some more soon, as I haven't seen last year's pots anywhere - although that could be down to DH moving, saving or culling them. 🙄He's very good at saving plants in the garage over the winter, but he also 'disappears' things & then denies it. It's a good thing he's so lovely. 😁

What was the link between coffee and coffin @ErrolTheDragon ? I missed that

Oh!

Also this:
https://www.cultivatetoplate.com/peppermint-geranium-pelargonium-tomentosum/
which I'm hoping is still doing well in the garage. Soft, furry leaves that smell of mint... mmmmm...

@WearyAuldWumman I too have a vast fund of information, on diverse topics, which I always up my sleeve should anyone need to be bored to death. I am also a pedant. Happy to pull up a chair next to that of Slavonic Studies and bang on for hours.

All our local birds are being noisy. The pheasant cocks shout 'Fuck me! Fuck me! PLEASE!' across the fields at regular intervals. The blackbirds are doing a fair bit of that feet-first fighting over territory, and the robins are busy being bolshy little shits to each other.

It is also the start of the season of naive and suicidal young animals. Squirrels, Rabbits. Possibly a hare this evening, but I passed it in a flash of headlights, and it might have been an adult.

@MarieDeGournay You're very kind.

The bloke who taught Slavonic Philology at Glasgow (comparative or otherwise) was one John Dunn. He was not a poet.

In Honours, I had to see him once a week for a tutorial. He had a habit of sliding down in his chair.

One day, he slid all the way down and under his desk. He then climbed back up and behaved as if nothing had happened.

@EdithStourton Our street is overrun with grey squirrels (of the suicidal kind) thanks to the bloke down the bottom end who insists on feeding them in his house.

I'd wondered why my bulbs kept disappearing. The daffies have survived, but I've lost tulips and muscari. (I think that daffies are poisonous?)

Or coffer in English meaning a big suitcase or storage box.

😂😂😂

His 'pretend nothing happened' response reminded me of something that
somebody's granny was told to do one should one's knicker elastic break and one's knickers fall around one's ankles in public:
calmly step out of them without looking down, and hail a taxi😄

It was speculation, Stars, because of the similarity in spelling.
But coffee is from an Arabic word, and coffin/coffers from Old French into Middle English, ultimately from a Greek word.

That's the kind of amiable ramble through etymology that we enjoy so much over in Pedantry Corner😄

Edith, you can have the Chair of Diverse Topics - well one of them, I think we'd need several😄.
Or the 'Very Large Sofa of Diverse Topics' perhaps?

It's April, 8 minutes old already!
G'night dear Stockingers, sleep well and have undemanding dreams🌛

Oh, I remember that!

Well not it happening...The advice, I meant...but it nearly did once....

Nice. On a long weekend with DH in the days when you could still get a mini-break from Edinburgh Airport.

I bought my holiday underwear from John Lewis instead of M&S. Mistake.

As DH and I strolled along le Promenade des Anglais, I realised that my new breeks were heading inexorably downwards. I informed DH of this from the side of my mouth and desperately held onto the offending garment through my summer skirt.

DH helpfully burst out laughing whilst walking behind me and intoning "Are yer breeks fa'in doon quine?"

Thankfully, we made it back to the hotel before I disgraced myself.

About a year ago, I came across some photographs that DH had taken in Nice. One was a boring looking photograph of the Promenade des Anglais. I squinted at the said photograph and realised that the figure hobbling in the distance, was my then 40 something self hanging onto the side of my skirt and trying to look inconspicuous.

shakes fist