Meenzer

Balls, if you'd been on LNER rather than Lumo I was going to try and order a cherry tomato toastie to be delivered to your seat.

All right, Grumpy.

It's nice to care enough again to be disappointed.

If you'd posted that an hour ago we genuinely might have taken you up on it. All sorted and in 97% black and white company at the One Tun now though. Have a good one

Now for me to try and locate Isegrim based solely on pictorial clues (ok, and a WhatsApp conversation)

He's queuing for a pee, dog.

SJP'dYP

Turnips are irredeemable, however

Stir-fried with onion, garlic, soy sauce and some sesame seeds. Sorted

If I had a car, I'd have a bumper sticker saying "My other car has a bumper sticker saying my other car has a bumper sticker".

All that carving takes time, you know.

I'm fairly frugal when it comes to food shopping but my one indulgence is an organic veg box delivery. Between that (which is much, much longer-lived - and tastier - than supermarket produce) and frozen veg, that covers most of what we need. I'm aware it's a middle-class indulgence, but it doesn't actually work out that much more expensive than buying what's available in the shops, especially when supply and pricing are increasingly patchy. I also need to check myself, because there are times when I find myself thinking that limits on supermarket purchases aren't a bad thing per se - I've seen first-hand how selfishly people acted during the pandemic, for example, and I don't blame big chains for wanting to stop themselves from being exploited by piss-takers. It's also important to note that this isn't a new thing - Asda have introduced temporary limits on things like value-brand pasta in the recent past, all depending on demand. But obviously that doesn't change the fact that we are - quite obviously - suffering more than most as a result of Brexit. Unfortunately, persuading people of this was always going to be a long game, so we have to keep drip-feeding stuff like this until it finally filters through. We're talking years or decades rather than months, regrettably...

I wouldn't recommend Sean Lock these days though.

Nae twa doots.

A bunch of us went to Killin (which is just about relevant, since it's right at the north-east edge of the Trossachs) in late November and while it wasn't exactly ideal weather-wise to say the least , it was still plenty nice. The scenery obviously isn't as spectacular as when you go further north but it's definitely that bit more convenient coming from points south. If you're on the Loch Lomond side of the national park then the tourist infrastructure is especially well set up for families and the like - bike hire in towns like Balloch, etc - and on the east side you're not too far from somewhere like Stirling if you want to spend a day that isn't hills and lakes. Maybe base yourself somewhere around Loch Lomond for the holiday side of things but give yourselves the option of one day where you have a proper big drive out somewhere further north for a bit of variety? Depends what your kids are like on a long drive, obviously.

Cheers buddy

Thread.

❌ Final ❓ As yet undetermined pub somewhere in London that doesn't require booking and won't be majority Manc ✅ On to Gloomy's afterparty with my 10-hour Vengaboys playlist

Is it the woke Mr Southgate? [chortles]

Well, if there's any kind of positive karma in the universe, there's only one outcome now: 1-0 Botman.