Meenzer

I did gather that, yes.

Is this some bizarre dairy product-based extension of the handkerchief code of which I'm unaware or something?

Sound advice that.

Oh and don't use sarcasm. Especially with "air quotes".

Be yourself. Unless you're an arsehole.

The local market's been swimming in butternut squash recently so I've been using that a lot. Roast some cubes of it with a couple of sliced red onions and some garlic, stir it through pasta with some creme fraiche or similar - easy as you like and dead nice. (Note to Ugly Mackems - cook the pasta first. )

Stick it in the blender, even if the bits are still crunchy at least they'll be smaller bits...

He's been banned? For quoting a bit of Auf Wiedersehen Pet?

Off to HH tomorrow as it happens, Parky (then Berlin from Saturday). I shall pass on your regards to Lange Reihe, I can tell you miss it like crazy.

Ludovico Einaudi - Nightbook An album of modern instrumental piano music wouldn't normally be my cup of Earl Grey, but this is proper lovely. Atmospheric and moody and spot on for this time of year. Title track:

If you think that's racist, you should see what they say about us...

It deserves a line-by-line dissection, "Sk8er Boi"-style.

I wouldn't mind, but the fella in question was actually from Mainz. The plot thickens...

I'd love to help, but I realise that "study it at uni" and "go and live there for five years" aren't massively practical.

omg. Yes then.

I think you mean you were brain-washed about English history and literature by liberals who think you can learn everything from books.

Cool. Going to chase up the return/warranty thing via Amazon/the manufacturer now - just wanted to see if there was anything obvious I was missing first. I'll let yous know how it goes... Thanks all.

Catchy.

Yes this is true, the muslims that were deported from Karachi to Fenham are all doing very well and seem very well integrated (all praise be to Allah). Hopefully the next lot deported from Somalia will blend in nicely in Throckley omg. Another one. And from NO too. They are like buses, you can never get one then you get three come along all at once And when they do come they're full of immigrants.

"Burn-in" (or indeed "bum-in") was a bit of a misnomer, I suppose dead pixels is more the phrase I was looking for. Took this with my rubbish mobile but you get the idea. In fact, looking at this again it's clearly utterly fucked, isn't it?

Anyway, SE London must be part of a parallel universe because there's English flags all over the bloody place.

Aye, nobody does Shakespeare at school like.

The BBC is anti-British except when it's pro-British except when it's anti-British.

I've had a nifty little Samsung netbook since shortly before Christmas and it has made me a very happy bunny. On booting it up today, however, all of a sudden there's an ugly case of what I can only describe as "burn-in" - more specifically, there's an uneven band of 5-15 black pixels around the bottom and right-hand edges of the screen. For want of a better comparison, it looks like the effect you get when you burn a piece of paper for a few seconds. Not particularly useful from a tech support perspective, I know. But anyway: without expecting anyone to be able to solve my specific woes, when this kind of thing happens generally, is there any way of resolving it or am I looking at invoking the warranty ASAP?

A short distance behind Four Poofs And A Piano (he wishes) as the best argument for gassing 'em all.