mike carey

... But doesn't cope with snow ...

'Rent Monsieur' misspelt?

As has been alluded to by others, the moderators will remove reviews from here but invariably they leave the post here and edit out the 'review' part and replace it with red bold text saying this is not the place for that review. They will occasionally delete posts or even whole threads if they are inflammatory, but that is vanishingly rare (or I haven't noticed it) and inappropriately placed reviews do not fall into that category. If a review was in here and there is no longer any evidence of it having been here, I would assume that the poster had removed it himself. (An exception, Escort Travels threads seem to be removed when the period they cover has passed.)

Happy birthday, Keith!

There's a town called Yass (only two s's) just outside Canberra so of course the crew from The Queer Eye had to go there to film for the show! https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/of-course-the-queer-eye-guys-visited-a-town-called-named-yass_us_5b17f26ce4b0599bc6df3e76 Edit to add a twitter thread.

Well said, @Kurtis Wolfe!

It was, 10.30pm. I hadn't noticed that additional 6 point.

I must try that some time!

I happened to catch my message count today at 6,666 a number starting and ending with 666. Am I cursed? You`ll be happy to know that by the time you see this I will have passed that frightening point in my history in the forum.

To stay down this rabbit warren for a moment longer, I like the way the Economist in an article discussing a merchant banker, an astronaut or an engineer in general terms (as opposed to talking about a specific person on one of those roles) will use 'she' rather than 'he' or 'they' just often enough that it jars (in a good way) and challenges assumptions.

From the leading edge of the calendar, allow me to wish @MartyB and @pitman the happiest of happy birthdays for 5 June (which it is here as we speak)!

That, or because he only listed the languages he considered relevant to his marketing on the site. Or both.

Perhaps so, but the question is, who decides what is a reasonable amount of time. Do we expect people to check e-mail every hour, every day or at 9am every Monday? I don't presume to guess when they will. Do we have a right always to expect a reply, or should we have to write an e-mail in such a way that elicits a reply. I know I have received e-mails that my response is to note but not to reply. How to reply to communications is a minefield no matter what the format of the communication.

I have chatted on line with @VictorPowers but nothing is certain until it happens.

I won't ask what you think of the wagyu burger that McDonalds had here a couple of months back. (It was good.)

A comment without reading the Wiki entry, Eritrea was an Italian colony for quite a while, whereas the occupation of Ethiopia was relatively brief. Asmara is noted for the substantial amount of art deco architecture there. The two countries were united after the Italians left but that suppressed their separate identities, so their separation was not really a surprise.

I can't agree. There was a time when the phone was an immediate way of contacting a person when they were at home, but you didn't get to pass a message unless the phone was answered—but you knew that your message hadn't been delivered. As the ability to leave a message has improved, from secretaries to answering machines then voicemail, I've increasingly regarded the technology as being there for my benefit not the caller's. It's rude if I don't acknowledge a message, and reply to it, but I get to set the terms of that not the caller/sender. The flip side of my approach to this issue is that I accept that others don't have the same rules that I have, so if one method fails I will search for others if I want to contact them urgently and just wait, without judgment, if the matter is not pressing. I guess my point is that each of us may have particular views of how and when we should respond (if at all) to missed calls, voicemails, texts, e-mails and snail mail, but we can't assume that others share our views. Silence may indicate rudeness but we should not assume that it does.

Yes, that's the intention. No worries, no problems, no probs, no wuckers. It's standard usage here, not some edgy slang, so for us it doesn't get that 'overused' feel. There are, of course, people who don't like it for whatever curmudgeonly reasons.

I didn't read it that way. He didn't say that bottom clients (individuals) are more important, he said that there are more of them so maintaining them as a group is more important. That's not the same as saying he's not interested in you as a client.

Sorry if I wasn't being clear, I agree that what you cite is not whataboutism. In the post you quoted I made a comment about what-about and then in the second para talked about the monkey issue. I agree with the interpretation of the issue you made (mine, about using the quote of the chief rabbi to ascribe anti-Semitism to Ms Barr's critics [although she did not claim that defence] is another way to interpret it and the two interpretations are not mutually exclusive). As I saw it, both he and Roseanne received mixed reviews, with supporters and condemners, and even among the condemners there was not agreement on the appropriate response. So the court of public opinion did not let the chief rabbi off. I also agree on the PR issue, but the imperatives that flow from bad publicity are different for commercial organisations than for religious bodies or political parties. With ABC it was purely the money and so they sacked her. Religions and political parties have believers who will allow them a free pass, so there is no imperative to sanction the chief rabbi (and IIRC the more liberal branches of Judaism in Israel who are more likely to be critical have no say in his appointment), just as evangelicals accepted the irreligious pronouncements of 45 and enough of the GOP have accepted his political missteps. The biggest exception I can think of is the loss of authority of the Catholic church in some countries as a result of child sexual abuse (witness two referendums in Ireland), but even that was so gradual that the church didn't notice it was happening.

Let it go. (And this post is itself whataboutism. I made one comment about the issue. The deflection in that case was material to the thread and I was engaged in the thread. That doesn't mean I need to comment every time it arises. I wasn't engaged in this thread, and indeed I hadn't even read the post in question.) But since you asked, I'm not sure it is. Whataboutism is trying to silence one criticism because the person making it wasn't criticising something else. This seems to be a wild series of non-sequiturs, (whether seriously or for ironic effect), saying that the chief rabbi called blacks monkeys therefore that was Jewish religious belief therefore criticising her for calling blacks monkeys is anti-Semetic.

Those coffee pods are good if you know the room will have a machine, although I have an ideological reluctance (not refusal) to use them on environmental grounds. I bought some that fitted the machine in my SF hotel last year (they provided some free ones, not the minibar hell @LaffingBear describes) but I wasn`t able to give the ones I had left away in PS so I left them in my room. A hotel I use in Sydney had a machine in one room I had, but only one time. The next time when there wasn`t one I asked about it when I checked out and they said that only certain rooms had one, but they gave me a complimentary flat white. Generally speaking I`m more than happy to go and find a decent espresso coffee rather than take what I can get in my hotel room.

Guineapig in Perú, crocodile and camel here. Kangaroo shouldn't count in Australia, but I guess it does, and it's on supermarket shelves here (so is crocodile for that matter). I've had goat, but it's not all that exotic either. There are vast numbers of feral goats on arid rangelands in Australia, and in recent years graziers have been mustering them for (mainly) an export meat trade, and in poor seasons they provide a good source of extra income.

Qantas hasn't got there yet (well, they hadn't when I last flew) so radio silence on SYD-LAX/SFO/DFW, but the inflight entertainment is more than adequate to keep me busy if I can't sleep, And even in economy they seem to bring snacks around every couple of hours. Over 14-15 hours in the air, it might be nice to check in here or on social media, but I can live without it!

I sorta like it for its novelty value at the moment, but I share your regret that it takes away one assured period of unplugged time. I haven't used a paid wi-fi service on a flight yet, and doubt I would unless I'd been off-line for a while before the flight and needed to catch up. 'Need' is nonsense, of course, and I'm not working so that imperative is absent now, and there is often wi-fi in the departure lounge and you're always stuck there for a bit before a flight. The one time I have used it was on my Alaska flight from SFO to PSP last year, and that only allowed web based text messages, not general internet access.