Latest Moan From You and Me 2024

Pretty desperate act, eh? Unfortunately, since the digital switchover in 2012, I can only get BBC1, BBC2 and BBC News 24, so the delights on offer via all the other channels are a hidden mystery. I can get Channel 4 on my ipad, but the ITV app has never worked for some reason. Hey ho! My life is almost certainly richer for this lack as it gives me time to get through a heck of a lot of books.

 

Oooooo...a bit grumpy this morning, @NigelJ? Those of us who live in France are so used to acronyms that it's almost a national sport deciphering them So...you have WFA = winter fuel allowance. WASPI is an acronym of 'Women Against State Pension Inequality', not an abbreviation. I've no idea what the tulip reference is, either, but if UK is facing a ban on bulb imports well tough! Those of us in europe who have spent the last eight years deprived of the right to buy seeds, bulbs and plants from UK will have little sympathy. Sorry!

 

I've never worked out why boxers do that stupid staring at one another anyway, they even have a pretend scuffle sometimes.

 

@noisette47, the tulip reference is a Labour MP allegedly involved in murky deals with billionaires in Pakistan … or possibly Bangladesh. I haven’t been following it closely. Doubtless she will resign and then be reinstated after a suitable interval (several days, or maybe even a couple of weeks, so the argument can be “that scandal was last yr and we have moved on”).

 

Ahhh..just another crooked politician, then. It will be headline news when an honest one comes to light

 

@noisette47 I've just never got on with acronyms, especially when they appear with no "translation" the first time they are used in a document.
Without an explanation my mind starts to trying to work out what words might fit.
For example at work I get told by a member of the SMT to have an SME meeting about the HSVL RO system and I'm ready to go home with a headache.

 

Apparently this dates back to 2013 so ancient history in terms of politics.

 

You mean the agitation and propaganda troops in the Guardian

 

We once had a delivery man come and we also had an old TV waiting to go to the tip. So we convinced the chap it was a super TV that he should really have. He happily loaded it into the back of his van and thanked us. It did need a set top box though.

Around here we have "rag and bone" men always on the prowl. You can't leave your mower out the front and go round the back for a minute.

 

It’s a bit of both. Am in a cold spot transmitter-wise, but also in need of an aerial upgrade. It has to be in the loft rather than outside, so full reception would be unlikely. TBH, I don’t care. I could get a smart TV and therefore receive via the internet, but I am adverse to smart devices on privacy grounds. Or I could go the cable route, but I’m also adverse to paying out monthly for something I likely wouldn’t use much. My current TV is pretty old now. When it expires, I doubt I’ll bother to replace it.

Once the BBC stops buying the rights to show Wimbledon tennis, I’ll have no reason to bother getting a licence or having a TV.

 

Ah, interesting. Has it been dragged up this week to move the spotlight off the WASPIs, I wonder?

Meanwhile, some of the recently convicted French rapists are appealing their sentences on the basis they did not know that the comatose woman presented to them had not consented! So, they get a retrial! That poor woman can’t put it all behind her even now. Shameful.

 

We get a visit from scrap metal hunters once a year. When my elderly neighbour was alive, they got very short shrift, probably because their land resembles the local tip anyway.
Being told to go and procreate themselves by a stout, toothless French peasant in a pinny, brandishing an equally stout walking stick, we didn't see them for dust
They were gob-smacked and quite pleased when, one year, in response to their enquiry as to whether we had anything for them, they were offered a (nearly) whole Renault Espace. Of course, I had to physically tie up OH while the offending vehicle was surgically removed from our drive, but he got over it, eventually

 

If you didn't watch the 11 minute face to face standoff then I'm sure you won't know about the real hard hitting journalism that brought us "beard gate". For those not in the know it's because one of the boxers has a beard that's too long to fight in and it may have contravened the rules.


I also think it's a great start to a special relationship when trumps campaign manager publicly calls the new ambassador a moron.