Small wins

[MsD]

The Fly Whisperer.

[Wouter D]

Successfully shepherded a particularly irritating bluebottle out of the window, without resorting to swearing at the top of my voice (much).

Given that the word "bluebottle" resolves to this nasty critter in my head, I am curious to learn why TG's house is permanently under water.

[Toby Gymshorts]

It's because I live in the year 3,000.

[pebblethefish]

Thanks to an obscure word in today's crossword I found that this creature exists


And I feel my life is better for knowing this.

[MsD]

I won £5 on the "Set for Life" lottery last night, for a £1.50 ticket. Winning. I have to go and buy some yoghurt for a market research project now, for which I will be reimbursed, so *free 6 pack of yoghurt* coming up.

[ursus arctos]

Wouter, what are these creatures called in Dutch?

[Wouter D]

Dat is een bromvlieg.

Literal translation: grumbling fly.

[Femme Folle]

pebblethefish is that an echidna?

[pebblethefish]

It's a desman. Which were the spare six letters I needed to make tradesman, but I though, nah, can't be a word, but looked it up, and found the creature that looks like it crawled out of 1970s childrens TV.

[treibeis]

It's because I live in the year 3,000.

You don't do commas in years.

Well, you obviously do, but one doesn't.

[ursus arctos]

Can we really be certain about the details of punctuation conventions 981 years from now?

[Toby Gymshorts]

I didn't even realise it was there, so I can only assume that autocorrect assumed we were dealing in numbers rather than year conventions.

Anyway, I'm sure you got the reference.

[Guy Profumo]

You don't do commas in years.

Well, you obviously do, but one doesn't.

But does AD precede or follow the year number?

(And please. None of this "common era" bollocks.

It's AD. If you get to define the calendar, you can get to define the abbreviations and the conventions)

[Bored Of Education]

After a really stressful 10 days building up to the kids coming back to school today, it was a nice chilled day where I thought I would be scraping them of the ceiling. Could me different tomorrow and it is 1 day down, 189 to go but I am going to chalk it up as a small win for today.

[WOM]

Mrs WOM said the same thing. Most of her grade 8s are her returning grade 7s from last year, and she said they all stood for the anthem, took off their hats, no horsing around or gum-chewing. She said it freaked her out a bit.

[Toby Gymshorts]

People standing for anthems freaks me out, an' all.

[ursus arctos]

Playing anthems freaks me out.

[San Bernardhinault]

Yeah. It's very disturbing. Can you imagine them playing the anthem in school? Every day? How much would that freak you out.

[Sporting]

What if they all took a knee?

[ursus arctos]

Especially given that I had to go through the whole "refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance" nonsense during the Vietnam War.

[caja-dglh]

There is something added to this all being done through a dreadful PA system (see Indy 500, every school in America). It is impressive they can source such dreadful loudspeakers.

[ursus arctos]

They are made to the same specifications as those in the New York City Subway

[Sporting]

They are made to the same specifications as those in the New York City Subway

The C line one is better than the A line.

[WOM]

When I was a kid, it was the anthem followed by the Lord's Prayer. Can you imagine? But yeah, the whole anthem thing freaks me out in schools, ballgames, wherever.

[Sporting]

All that said, who isn't stirred by the mass singing of the Welsh national anthem before (and often during) rugby matches in Cardiff?