Squiffy-Marie von Bladet, PhD

*sneers in sheriff off of Unforgiven* "Abundance of what?"

I take the deeply esoteric view that February often has 28 days but this forbidden lore is not to be disseminated lightly I hope I can count on your discretion

I have been given to understand that the Chancellor's "growth policy" is in fact pounding a clipboard while charting "Growth! Growth! Growth!". Is this correct and if so is it likely to help?

It is perhaps not entirely to my credit that I have read many J Austen books that aren't Mansfield Park but so far none that are. (I wonder if it is the kind of book they sell in "bookstores"; maybe I should check.)

Donald Duck Weekblad - Wikipedia

No, not in Enggerlnd. But here the weekly is huge[1] and in Scandiwegia, Germany, Italy and even Portugal the monthly pocketbook versions are very widespread (and I personally have exemplars of all of them)

[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_...

On Continong, he very much plays second fiddle to D Duck in the latter's eponymous comics, which Dutch children (for one) all read in their childhoods

I'm hearing this now for the first time

I’m coming round to the position that academics using AI in this manner should resign.

Sadly my award-winning screenplay "One Agreeable Experience After Another" remains unshot, unsold and unwritten, otherwise I would certainly warmly recommend it to you

As the proverb says, "Take a person food and they are fooded for a day; show them to a place to go fooding and they are fooded for as long as they continue to go there I guess"

today at the World Metaphors Classic the leader of the USA didn't bother to find out the details of the situation his team was in and blindly assumed they would win a matchup they ended up losing, jeopardizing their long-term standing for no good reason

I'm tentatively thinking US&A have a decent shot at winning the entire thing by default as other teams either stay home or get abducted by ICE

We, like PG Wodehouse's many characters, are fond of quoting Proverbs 18:22 on this: "Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD."

My trusty "world time" casio analog/digital watch strapped as ever to my dainty wrist

*shuffles feet in Casio* Um, not quite all of us.

"The first ten million years were the worst. The second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million years I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline."

(I myself occasionally attend an occasional opera, on occasion, but I would not say with confidence that that is a thing that happens more years than not)

I fear this may overcount the number of European opera dwellers since I know for a fact that Operas Georg attends over a million European opera performances every year

I post this occasionally just in case

bsky.app/profile/vonb...

As a Dutchperson, it is considered rude to use polite pronouns with anyone except maybe doctors and the police; I can still barely form a sentence with "u" forms

Imagine branding yourself as "C Hitchens only less interesting"; even his novels look like a reasonable idea by comparison

Oh, thanks. (I don't think I have seen the movie since the 1980s and I now look forward to this edition as a precondition for revisiting it.)

IIRC the plot of "Abba: the movie"--which some critics have described as "definitely one of the Abba movies of all time"--hinges on: (a) Australia is a long way from almost everywhere, and (b) everywhere in Australia is a long way from everywhere else in Australia (c) this is quite inconvenient

Yes, hello, is that God? Yeah, hi. I have a complaint. You gave me this brain that’s designed for finding berries and avoiding lions and now people are ‘just circling back’ to see if we can ‘move the needle’ on ‘key initiatives’? NONE of those things are berries.

The Household Children are aware of old things mostly via TikTok memes, I think, but at least one of them got into B Dylan via the recent movie. (My sampling of "people" is pretty spotty these days, but who ever really listened to much of later Elvis?)

In my experience, it is already an excellent time to be on friendly terms with someone who has a 3D printer and is willing to do you an occasional favour

Want to feel old? The NME is reporting that a 20 y/o is listening to the Pixies because her “grandparents used to play them” In alarming news, the NME is reporting that a 20 y/o student is listening to The Pixies because “They remind me of when I was little because my grandparents always used to play them.” Hey old people, ...

The Poke (updated Feb 2018) attributes it to the NME (RIP), so it is presumably at least that old. I can only vouch that I remember seeing it "ages ago"

www.thepoke.com/2018/02/02/w...

We for one are reminded of this classic

There's an Elvis concert movie playing in the local arthouse cinema, for whatever reason, but I take the point. Billie Holliday and Frank Sinatra are still appreciated for their musics, but E Presley is in the unfortunate situation that most of his stuff sucked ass for decades before his death