mike carey

Earlier today a member started a new thread on response times, which we merged with one started earlier in the year. So the OP that has been mentioned today was the OP of the older thread (and the one to which @BenjaminNicholas's comment above refers). I have just added a third thread, from last year to the mix. While I'm here, there are a couple of other threads that are more or less relevant but which through age (2021 for one) or being differently focussed are best referenced here rather than be merged into a single thread. There is a degree of consistency, although not unanimity, in the responses.

I had all three as a child, but I probably should enquire about a booster shot.

I'm sorry that words like 'catamaran' dog you so! Shall we just call it a 'fairy'. I mean 'ferry'.

A little off-topic, but a shipyard in Tasmania is building an electric fast catamaran to operate from Buenos Aires to Colonia. Building the world's largest electric ferry - ABC News WWW.ABC.NET.AU Over the centuries ferries have evolved from using paddles to steam engines, to burning diesel and gas. Can the...

Those who've been in past years will understand this!

Quite a few grandmas have run out of fucks to give and now say and laugh at things they might once have thought inappropriate. 'Growing old disgracefully' is not said without reason.

I hope he's been okay in the cyclone this weekend!

I don't think Ms Kushner was blaming the trees for the fires, but their presence would certainly not have helped. Eucalypts are fire tolerant and many depend on fire in their life cycle. They do inhibit the growth of other plants near them, and in fires the eucalyptus oil in their leaves can burn explosively. That said, conifers are also fire prone so it wouldn't be down to the gum trees alone. What is true is that they do not occur naturally there so anything about them that contributes to fires is a reason for them not to be there, but they are. And as an exotic species they don't have the other pests and parasites that constrain them in Australia. I can't comment on the comparisons between US and French responses to the pandemic, but Ms Brook's characterisation of the Australian response, the we were all in this together, rings true. The state government with the toughest border restrictions (but relative internal freedom) won an unprecedented 53 of the 59 seats in the state Parliament in an election in early 2021. I've meant for some time to get a copy of Julia Baird's book Phosphorescence. I should do that now, although I've still not finished the novel I was reading at Palm Springs last year.

'Do your remember when if you didn't know something ... you didn't know it?' 'Unless you got in the car and went to the library to look it up.' 'Luxury! We had to catch the bus.' 'Unless you were one of those kids whose parents had had a salesman convince your parents to buy a set of Encyclopædia Britannica.' (I was one of those.) The full title of the thread should have included the words '... in a post-pandemic world', and the exchange above was a symptom of one of the things that has changed almost everything this century for better or worse, but the pandemic may have been one of the tipping points in that it may have 'intensified a culture of excessive individualism, narcissism, and disconnection from one another'. This is an interesting discussion from the Adelaide Writers' Festival last week, broadcast on ABC Radio National, that both posed the question and explored some of the ways to counteract it by looking at the world beyond the immediate and the self. The State of the Self: Have we lost a sense of community in a post pandemic world? - ABC listen WWW.ABC.NET.AU Despite the promise that we were “all in it together”, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a flight from sociability. While...

The moderators have determined that the rather specific question posed in this thread is sufficiently different to the similarly titled image gallery thread title for it to remain separate.

We've moved this thread to the Spa. There is an older thread in the Spa about Karl but time has moved on since it was last active so we'll provide a link here rather than merge the threads.

For no apparent reason I am reminded of the old joke that A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion but chooses not to.

https://rent.men/Musclebullx

@Cash4Trash thanks for some suggestions!

We've had references here to Reddit threads in all sorts of topics (and its range of subreddits is one of its characteristics). I confess I hadn't paid much attention to it, rather I'd read threads there in isolation. I know that in the past it had a reputation for being something of a free-for-all sewer, but this article from the Atlantic paints a different picture. I was particularly taken by the reference to a Lurkers subreddit that had tens of thousands of followers but NO ONE had posted anything in it. If nothing else, this is a rather whimsical read. I apologise to anyone who has already used their monthly quota of free Atlantic articles, but you could always clear them from your cache. The Fundamental Humanity of Reddit - The Atlantic WWW.THEATLANTIC.COM Reddit’s not perfect, but it may be the best platform on a junky web. I'd be interested in anyone else's opinions of, or experiences in Reddit.

Next week sounds good, but so do other things. As you say, taste and desires vary over time.

Gentlemen, and any who identify differently, this is not the place to have a general discussion about trans issues. The question posed was a simple one, why is it that there are so few reviews of trans men who are providers. Part of the answer is the number of such providers advertising. Members' replies have also reflected that demand for their services is somewhat niche. Although the original title was somewhat oblique, the ensuing conversation has been open in using widely accepted terms so we've amended the title to use those terms. We will moderate the thread to remove comments that are or can easily be perceived as transphobic, and ask that you discuss these providers respectfully and not misgender them.

While we merge threads when they are recent, we will not always do so if they are relatively old. For those who are interested there is an old thread with some discussion at:

Phoenix is not just a city in a remote desert. In Greek and Egyptian mythology the phoenix is associated with Apollo, so there is an internal logic to his choice of a name.

Nah, don't think an air fryer would be the best thing to cook battered food from scratch. Deep frying is fine once you work out that the bubbles in the oil are from the water in the food you're cooking, not from the fat itself. You test for heat by dropping a small piece of what you want to cook into it, if it froths, you're about right. But have a fire blanket on hand, hot fat is dangerous, you can burn your house down. (Hot jam/jellies or anything with a lot of sugar in them are seriously hot too, but they'll stick to you and keep burning you, but not your kitchen.)

*sleuthing*

*Bows*

Sam often spins a bit of a yarn and peddles surprises.

We merged the two previous threads.