Oh, those are just to stop the kids escaping from the paedodungeon.

I genuinely didn’t realise that! It looked like they were missing, and just had the little nubs underneath.

Would you perhaps like to imagine they were missing, if only for the sake of my previous comment? :)

How often do you write the word “wads”? I can see a potential problem.

Or Hocus Pocus, by Focus (youtube link)

✅️ Menacing scream at audience
✅️ As loud as possible
✅️ Crazy eyes
✅️ Flute

Hahaha. Oops. That one was automatic/accidental, but I’m not going to change it :)

As mentioned above/below, perhaps it should have been wikipædia :)

Twitter is actually 1982’s classic erotic Atari 2600 game "Beat 'em and eat 'em.

There’s Vladimir Putin at the top of the building, firing his pixellated ejaculate over the side and the player controls both Elon Musk and Donald Trump, running left and right with their mouths open to collect it.

article on videogamegeek wikipaedia article

Great, I’ll look in to that, thank you - and I hope you do write such a book one day :)

This is fascinating stuff. Is there anywhere where more of this kind of thing is written down?

I suddenly picked up “allergies*” in my late 30s - couldn’t work out what they were, other than antihistamines (cetirizine or loratidine) made them “not as bad”, and I also needed to avoid certain things in particular (breathing in dust, aerosols, perfumes, other chemical fumes, car fumes, cigarette fumes, wood dust and drinking alcohol).

Turned out to be Nasal Polyps. I was due for surgery to remove them in 2020, but then Covid happened and I’ve been on a waiting list since. Surgery may completely remove the problem, or at least lessen it - but they could grow back within five years.

Basically every day is like I’ve got cold or sometimes flu. Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in phlegm. If I take antihistamines, it’s pretty mild or controllable, as long as I can reasonably avoid those triggers. Sometimes I have to drink lemsip in the morning (powdered hot drink of paracetamol, lemon flavour & decongestant). It’s there every day, permanently, but how severe it is varies between “slightly inconvenient” and “too unwell to work”.

Antihistamines are essential for me to function at all, and make a huge difference - though I feel they’ve become less effective in the last year or so. Thankfully they’re very cheap over the counter (~£1.30 for 30 days’ worth). I also use a saltwater nasal spray sometimes, and I sometimes eat a lot of menthol sweets. I have to be careful with decongestants to avoid “rebound congestion” where your nose adjusts to life with decongestants, then becomes twice as blocked up if you stop.

If I drink alcohol or breathe perfume etc, my sinuses block up within half an hour, I can get an asthmatic response, and I get crippling arthritic pain in my hands and joints. Sometimes perfume and other sprays can cause severe, possibly dangerous breathing problems. I have an asthma inhaler for these emergencies, and always have to carry it with me, in case someone sprays perfume in an enclosed space (which might cause me to die).

If I keep reasonable control over these things, I can live pretty “normally”. If I actually get a cold, it’s like I’ve got a “double cold”, and it can make me too ill to go to work.

When it’s bad, it’s a pretty miserable existence to be honest, but in the larger scale of things it’s not a serious or life-threatening illness, so you feel guilty for complaining.

When it’s not so bad, I can normally ignore it for most of the day - and I have a pretty active job and am otherwise fairly healthy. It’s worst in the morning/night when I’m horizontal.

Your case outlined in the original post sounds particularly upsetting and you have my sympathies. You’re not being a baby.

*technically it’s an intolerance or hypersensitivity, and not truly an allergy, though it behaves in much the same way, and symptoms can be controlled in much the same way.

“YOU. THE ONE WHO IS MOVING NOW.”

Are you The Gatekeeper from the tv/boardgame Atmosfear?

Me “Hi, is that, umm… Phones, number four, uhhhh?”

Phones4u “Haha, yes, but It’s pronounced ‘Phones For You’”

Me “Oh, it’s it a wrong number? I’ve got it written down here, it’s a number four, not a word ‘for’ f-o-r, and it’s not the word ‘you’, but just a letter U on its own, which is pronounced ‘uh’”

Phones4u “yes, that’s how we write it”

Me “Why? Why didn’t you do it properly? It’s just like that argument with the 90s boyband Fiveive all over again.”

Etc etc

I thought the pull-string light switch inside the bathroom was the standard in the UK?

I’ve only seen switches outside bathrooms in the last 5 years, in recent “having the bathroom re-done” cases.

It might be an age of house or regional thing though.

Here they still exist - they just make you pay if you want a new one. I (and seemingly most people) use them all the time still, but I guess more people reuse them more times now. I’m quite happy to pay 30p for one when the old ones get used up. I think they’re a bit sturdier than they used to be too - so less likely for the handles to snap when you’ve still got a mile to walk home.

I guess it mostly cut down on unwanted ones getting littered etc. Now they’re valuable, all the more reason to hoard them in a cupboard in the kitchen.

Where you are it sounds like they stopped existing - what do you put your food shopping in? Do you still have a thousand left that you previously hoarded?

I think technically it’s both, but it’s mainly focused on the former - the shop and supermarket ones. You now pay 20 or 30p for them - previously when they were free, they would sometimes force a bag on you, even if you didn’t want one (I guess to walk around advertising their shop).

Throwing pretend milkshakes at a pretend Nigel Farridge is disrespectful.

We should be burning effigies of him on bonfires.

I miss lovely, earthy, warm, friendly chocolatey Brownbuntu.

I always felt purplebuntu was a bit vile.

As far as I’m aware, in English, the punctuation goes outside the quotes, unless it’s part of the original quote.

In American, the punctuation goes inside the quotes, even if it’s not part of the sentence being quoted.

I’m unsure of the habits of other English-speaking countries.

I was under the impression it was partially due to him feeling the ‘U’ made the words feel “too French”, and he supposedly really hated the French (apparently he was a bit of a fan of the ol’ racism), but mainly he wanted something new and uniquely American - and English spelling was even more regional, wild and inconsistent back then, so he hoped to simplify it, bring it some consistency, ideally whilst also telling the French to piss off.

In combination with the exercise it sounds like you’re doing anyway, have you tried a bit of Yoga and a bit of listening to meditative sounds before/during bed/sleep/end of day? You may have tried similar things already, but if not, maybe worth a go? It’s not going to pass/waste time as such, but might put you into a better position to stop your mind racing with negativity, especially in that crucial pre-sleep phase.

Particularly looking at “Yoga for Anxiety” or “Yoga for Mental Health” type things, moreso than general strength and fitness Yoga. You’ll find a bunch online. You might find something like this Yoga Healthcare Alliance 10 Week Course works for you (it’s promoted by the UK’s NHS for some conditions). It’s focusing on basic de-stressing, de-tensing muscles, breathing focus, and may help you feel calm and relaxed - which may give you a good nights sleep - which could potentially do wonders for beginning to recover.

I’d also suggest combining it with some “sleep headphones” - a fabric headband with some really flat headphone speakers inside it - then listen to a combination of “meditation for anxiety” or “8 hours deep sleep ambient soundscape” type things whilst you lie there.

Ideally you’d do the Yoga sat on your bed, then drop straight into something like “a nice man tells you you’re great and everything will be fine” followed by some sort of “inner peace meditation that lasts 8 hours or longer”. Obviously, you’ll find your own preferred voices/sounds. I’ve also used white noise style “starship engine sound” or “on a night train” audio.

If you watch them on your phone with “Newpipe”, you can save them as videos or just as audio files - which you can then set up as playlists in VLC. No point in downloading the same thing every night.

This whole set of things might not work for you at all, but if you’re up for hours anyway, what do you have to lose?

Personally, I found this process helped me massively on my way out of a similar patch (combined with exercising more, quitting caffeine for a while, CBT therapy - it was a multiple angle approach).

Regardless, I wish you luck and pass you my best wishes in your recovery.

Walwe