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Just booked the Brewers Fayre in Swansea, Kataleya's birthday and they have a great play zone. 7 years old today, time flies.

Mushroom Krapow again 🙂

Just got another 5 year fix on the only property i have still with a mortgage, there's 7 years left on it. The 5 year fix i was on wasn't up until end of Dec, but i got another for the princely sum of £5 more each month, which considering which way interest rates are going and how volatile things are in general, i was well pleased with. No fees either, just straight mortgage switch, slight increase in interest rate. Had to pay a small early release fee, but considering i got another 5year at just £5 more a month, and for peace of mind with high inflation and rates climbing to combat it, i was happy to pay it. Once that finishes, they'll only be 2 years on it, could just pay it all off in one go if need be.

Other kiev, leftover garlic bread from the freezer and sweetcorn.

lol... Angus N.Y. Strip (best steak I've had in months), a jacket (lol), carrots with Caesar dressing for dip, vino. Perfect meal.

Apart from almost getting caught nicking diesel in a very unsophisticated scam, my other "bad day at the office" was going up a Panamax Crane, removing 2 hoist motors, putting (welding) in 2 new ones, lowering the old motors into the back of an awaiting ford pickup for financial redemption at a Scrapyard to the tune of several quid, only to find out the following day I was up the wrong crane... Easy mistake to make, and if they hadn't sequentially numbered the cranes for ease of identification, I'd have been fine 555. Why do they make numbers so complicated?. Still not as bad a Nick Leeson though.

All four seasons in the same day

G's Restaurant in Bangkok has great frankfurters along with many other authentic German sausages (flown in). US 'hot dogs' suck...however these days there are a number of very good options for quality sausages. https://www.instagram.com/gsbangkokrestaurant/

Haven't made an omelette for a very long while, ham, cheese and onion. Not very tidy, but tasted great.

I never eat hot dogs, but those bastards on that other thread made me want one!

None of those sausages actually contain any dog at all, and should fail the trade descriptions act 😊

I really need to try this approach. Looks damn good as well.

After my carb overload yesterday with the pizza, I replaced the Spegetti with veg today.

For my day out in the boat fishing I took cold pizza. Worked out well. .

Teelac, why smoke come out of my mouth when i breath?

Regarding the panic attacks,used to get them when I was drinking. Anxiety was terrible. Booze cause's a lot more shit than liver disease. Attacks would come on anytime,had to leave the supermarket once as I had one, vision all over the place as well. Proper scary. Best thing you can do is stop drinking, made a massive difference to my physical and mental health.

Pretty much agree with many sentiments here. Will Smith is an idol to many people, getting up and hitting a guy for a puerile and offensive comment sends the wrong message. He puts himself across as a smiling, fun family man who's everyone's friend, but the facade soon dropped. CR didn't threaten anyone, although his joke was in very poor taste and offensive to Jada, it didn't warrant a violent reaction. My opinion is - He should have got up, confronted CR verbally and asked him to apologise for his comments, so CR was then in a position to make a choice which would then be on him. He could have refused, and WS would have been the better man, or he could have done so and then they both had a woke man hug, everyone happy and everyone comes out looking good. Poor judgement on WS for his actions, and the waterworks afterwards slightly OTT. Jada Pinkett came out of this with dignity and grace, she rose above the offensive comment and let it go. She's a tough cookie. The level of "wokery" and the frankly, quote sickly sweet level of virtue signalling by all and sundry in Hollywood where anyone with an even slightly right of centrist view is vilified, cajoled and ostracized is hypocritical to the extreme. Here are people pontificating on social justice and how awful toxic white masculinity is, how terrible things are for trans people and those facing a class, sexual and colour struggle, meanwhile while clutching $120k (approx guess I got from a tabloid) "Gift bags", quaffing champagne and Oysters. Yet they witness a crime of violence and give the bloke a standing ovation for it.

Had my limit on a very difficult day. This was the biggest at just over 4lbs.

Butcher's sausages with veg and beans.

211 with 3 balls to spare .. 🙂

Did my 3 mile walk, sunny - snow- dull - snow - sunny - snow. Snowing again but +3 C

I put on my big thermal waterproof fishing coat, on top of a heavy fleece hoodie and gloves. Got out the end of the road and it started to snow again and was very windy, decided to duck out on the 3 mile route because it takes me out into open fields. Did 2 miles which takes me past 4 pubs. Stayed strong and am now showered up with a hot cup of tea. Looking forward to the snooker tonight.

Getting "geeked up" to see McCartney here in May...Like many others, forget how much great music he made on his own without the Beatles...

Just did a quick trip to town, half hour round trip. Came out M&S to snow ❄️ Got home and 🌞 Shit is f***d up for sure.🤣

No Big Kahuna dog?

Its been a fair while since I read these. I think I will also go back and re read them now. I do love a good series of books I can get my teeth into.

Yep. In all honesty I don't have that much experience swallowing Manston products so perhaps I was a tad unfair in my comparison !

I'll have to take your word on that Mr. Dangle......

Mechanically separated meat, mechanically recovered/reclaimed meat, or mechanically deboned meat is a paste-like meat product produced by forcing pureed or ground beef, pork, mutton, turkey or chicken, under high pressure through a sieve or similar device to separate the bone from the edible meat tissue. Sounds delicious.

Lap cheong sausage is my favourite. Add it to the rice cooker with a handful of frozen veggie and you're good to go! Leftovers? ...Wang it in the "wabe" for a few minutes with leftover veggie and scoff it down... Sausage with bread? Then Manstons fat boy sausages are good ....They seemed to have improved the ingredients over the last 5 years...Prior to that everything by Manstons was saltier than ladyboys' cum!

on the bay today...

Best of luck to you buddy. "Wake up call" I reckon. You can use this event as a turn around. Not easy, but once you get "on the program" it becomes normal. First couple weeks is a bitch. But, once you get going it's normal and when you begin to see progress and begin to feel better - you will keep on keepin on. Now's the time bro. You have a lot of good years left. Get with it.

Just arrived home; greeted at Manchester Airport with a temperature on 4 degrees centigrade.

Just got back from four nights in Vancouver yesterday, a little shopping and a lot of barhopping; of course it had to snow last night but it's warm enough now that it is all melting off today anyway and I won't even bother clearing most of the yard. My arthritic knee was bothering me the first day or two in YVR but I toughed it out and managed to get a 7 km walk in on my last day there - seems to do better the more I exercise it which is a good sign for the summer because I really need to lose some weight this year after mostly sitting around and drinking too much beer for the last two years of the covid BS - don't want to travel to Thailand until I can fit back into my tropical shirts and shorts again, lol...

@Stillearly @Starshine @Butch @Lemondropkid Thanks for all your wishes…..everything pointed away from something serious like artery blockage. Even had an ultrasound with the jelly. Going back for the treadmill test in 2 weeks, which will be even more conclusive. I have some awful lifestyle habits that I must break, the pains did coincide with when I got very lazy after temperatures dropped. Could also be panic attacks, even though it seems like my heart feels fine when I’m the most excited, it almost always comes on when I’m doing f—k all. Could be digestion too…..anyway, I’m going to try and be little more active, sleep a solid 8 hours in a comfortable position with no distractions, spend less time on the couch and maybe chew my food a little longer

B'fast: Joe's Special - eggs, lean ground beef, onions, garlic, spinach, spices >>> (back story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe's_Special Hash browns w/Sonoma pepper Jack, fresh black beans with yoghurt, carrot juice, coffee.

He's already training for the next awards show ...

Much like society these days, many "powerful" organisations are keen to meet the agenda of a few, vocal and self righteous individuals for fear of being cast into the abyss of refusing to conform with woke agendas and ideals. Sadly, the very word "Racist" is no longer used to describe a person, it is used as a weapon to discredit and destroy careers. It's used by the vocal minority, the professionally offended and those who feel history should be rewritten to reflect the current times rather than the historical. For a professional especially an entertainer / director / producer to be labelled an "-ist" of some description can be career ending. Shunned by Hollywood, dropped by publishing companies and generally avoided by sponsors for fear of bad PR. Now, we are effectively being dictated to on what we can and cannot watch, or even have an opinion on. Our freedoms of choice are being insidiously eroded by the sneering left wing liberal elites who feel they can decide what is good for us and what is not. This also restricts artistic license as well. Freedom of expression is not freedom if it has to be tempered by unbalanced rules which do nothing to improve the nature of the art. It's like saying "present me a piece of art to inspire me with this one, broken pencil". Hollywood has always been an incestuous, corrupt, self serving, narcissistic cesspit of humanity. Historically it has hardly been a beacon of integrity and fair play, and unfortunately the longer people inhabit such a world, the further detached they become from reality. No amount of posturing will ever change that and as time goes on, it's going to get a lot worse.

I’d say something about it being a scalper’s dream, but out of respect for GI Jane, we won’t be mentioning anything about scalps

The last leg in the trip... The novel Blue at the Mizzen is the twentieth and last completed historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1999. It is set after the Napoleonic wars, in the fight for Chilean independence from Spain.

Hi, I like to throw a fly every now and then.. Where was this?

I'm going to give this a GO, soon. 🤪

One more chirp. A thoughtful opinion piece from a highly respect athlete - one of the NBA GOATs - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. . . . Will Smith Did a Bad, Bad Thing Slapping Chris Rock was also a blow to men, women, the entertainment industry, and the Black community. https://kareem.substack.com/p/will-smith-did-a-bad-bad-thing?s=r When Will Smith stormed onto the Oscar stage to strike Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife’s short hair, he did a lot more damage than just to Rock’s face. With a single petulant blow, he advocated violence, diminished women, insulted the entertainment industry, and perpetuated stereotypes about the Black community. That’s a lot to unpack. Let’s start with the facts: Rock made a reference to Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, as looking like Demi Moore in GI Jane, in which Moore had shaved her head. Jada Pinkett Smith suffers from alopecia, which causes hair loss. Ok, I can see where the Smiths might not have found that joke funny. But Hollywood awards shows are traditionally a venue where much worse things have been said about celebrities as a means of downplaying the fact that it’s basically a gathering of multimillionaires giving each other awards to boost business so they can make even more money. The Smiths could have reacted by politely laughing along with the joke or by glowering angrily at Rock. Instead, Smith felt the need to get up in front of his industry peers and millions of people around the world, hit another man, then return to his seat to bellow: “Keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth.” Twice. Some have romanticized Smith’s actions as that of a loving husband defending his wife. Comedian Tiffany Haddish, who starred in the movie Girls Trip with Pinkett Smith, praised Smith’s actions: “[F]or me, it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen because it made me believe that there are still men out there that love and care about their women, their wives.” Actually, it was the opposite. Smith’s slap was also a slap to women. If Rock had physically attacked Pinkett Smith, Smith’s intervention would have been welcome. Or if he’d remained in his seat and yelled his post-slap threat, that would have been unnecessary, but understandable. But by hitting Rock, he announced that his wife was incapable of defending herself—against words. From everything I’d seen of Pinkett Smith over the years, she’s a very capable, tough, smart woman who can single-handedly take on a lame joke at the Academy Awards show. This patronizing, paternal attitude infantilizes women and reduces them to helpless damsels needing a Big Strong Man to defend their honor least they swoon from the vapors. If he was really doing it for his wife, and not his own need to prove himself, he might have thought about the negative attention this brought on them, much harsher than the benign joke. That would have been truly defending and respecting her. This “women need men to defend them” is the same justification currently being proclaimed by conservatives passing laws to restrict abortion and the LGBTQ+ community. Worse than the slap was Smith’s tearful, self-serving acceptance speech in which he rambled on about all the women in the movie King Richard that he’s protected. Those who protect don’t brag about it in front of 15 million people. They just do it and shut up. You don’t do it as a movie promotion claiming how you’re like the character you just won an award portraying. By using these women to virtue signal, he was in fact exploiting them to benefit himself. But, of course, the speech was about justifying his violence. Apparently, so many people need Smith’s protection that occasionally it gets too much and someone needs to be smacked. What is the legacy of Smith’s violence? He’s brought back the Toxic Bro ideal of embracing Kobra Kai teachings of “might makes right” and “talk is for losers.” Let’s not forget that this macho John Wayne philosophy was expressed in two movies in which Wayne spanked grown women to teach them a lesson. Young boys—especially Black boys—watching their movie idol not just hit another man over a joke, but then justify it as him being a superhero-like protector, are now much more prone to follow in his childish footsteps. Perhaps the saddest confirmation of this is the tweet from Smith’s child Jaden: “And That’s How We Do It.” The Black community also takes a direct hit from Smith. One of the main talking points from those supporting the systemic racism in America is characterizing Blacks as more prone to violence and less able to control their emotions. Smith just gave comfort to the enemy by providing them with the perfect optics they were dreaming of. Fox News host Jeanine Pirro wasted no time going full-metal jacket racist by declaring the Oscars are “not the hood.” What would she have said if Brad Pitt slapped Ricky Gervais? This isn’t Rodeo Drive? Many will be reinvigorated to continue their campaign to marginalize African Americans and others through voter suppression campaign. As for the damage to show business, Smith’s violence is an implied threat to all comedians who now have to worry that an edgy or insulting joke might be met with violence. Good thing Don Rickles, Bill Burr, or Ricky Gervais weren’t there. As comedian Kathy Griffin tweeted: “Now we all have to worry about who wants to be the next Will Smith in comedy clubs and theaters.” The one bright note is that Chris Rock, clearly stunned, managed to handle the moment with grace and maturity. If only Smith’s acceptance speech had shown similar grace and maturity—and included, instead of self-aggrandizing excuses, a heartfelt apology to Rock. I met Will Smith when I appeared on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air 28 years ago. And I’ve been to his house. I like him. He’s charming, sincere, and funny. I’m also a big fan of his movies. He’s an accomplished and dedicated actor who deserves the professional accolades he’s received. But it will be difficult to watch the next movie without remembering this sad performance. I don’t want to see him punished or ostracized because of this one, albeit a big one, mistake. I just want this to be a cautionary tale for others not to romanticize or glorify bad behavior. And I want Smith to be the man who really protects others—by admitting the harm he’s done to others. . . . . . . . . Update: Since this article was first published, Will Smith has issued an apology to Chris Rock, the Academy, and the audience. In part, he posted: “Violence in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive. My behavior at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally,” Smith wrote. “I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.”

Hello, all. I was Captain Morgan previously on the Secrets Forum and I only just discovered this one, so I'd like to get set up for access. I have been to Patts a handful of times over the past decade and I've enjoyed other such travel for the past 2 decades. I've been anxiously waiting for the LOS to return to any semblance of its former glory for travelers. I'm looking for current info on the real scene from folks in the know, so I can be ready to return as soon as the candy store is properly open for business. I recognize a few names that I see on this Forum from the old days, so I'm hoping that I've found the right place to be.