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CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Mick Harper
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Me having Skype. That is funny.
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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Decaf lungo is as ridiculous as alcohol free whisky.
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Mick Harper
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I disagree though, yes, Lungo wouldn't be my first choice. For instance, as has been well rehearsed in these columns, I love the taste of beer but can't drink alcohol for migranous reasons. Hence Beck's Blue Label or the late lamented Oasis beer-flavoured fizzy water. As for whisky, what really would be the difference between you settling down with your Laouauphraig Single Malt with or without alcohol? As I understand it you whisky snobs savour the peaty flavour (or as we would say, the label) but you don't actually 'get off' on it.

It may be that your wife has been serving you up with de-alcoholed drinks for years because of your excesses in the past. That is also why she gave all your jazz records to the charity shop 'by mistake' during your last rehab.
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Mick Harper
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Tesco Report Tesco Report Tesco Report Tesco Report

One of the upshots of the present difficulties is that you have to grab what's going and today it was Guacamole. It was only when I got home that I realised I didn't know how to eat it. I used to know, I distinctly remember eating it in relatively rarefied circumstances, but not now. Anyway I started dipping Ryvitas into it and that seemed to work, it even matched up with half-memories.

Now la problema. Not a trace of avocado. I could taste the "chopped tomatoes, red chillies and a hint of lime" but there was definitely no avocado. So here's the question. Losing a sense of taste is the first sign of Covid-19 but does anyone know whether that means just avocado or is it general? And if I haven't got Covid-19 what the hell are Tesco playing at?
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Mick Harper
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A relative of mine rang rather unexpectedly though she does from time to time, and after an exchange of pleasantries, news and so forth, it emerged that she had been asked to do so at the behest of two other relatives. They were apparently worried about me. When I enquired who it was they supposed was sending out the various emails with my name attached, there was a pause, then "Oh, I don't know, I suppose it's this lockdown business." When I pointed out I was the family member least affected by lockdown on account of having been in that state de facto as opposed to de jure for the last several decades, there was another pause, "Oh well, I suppose we were just worried about you. I'm sorry I mentioned it now." She said this in a good-natured sort of way and I realised that she was satisfied the old Mick was alive and kicking.
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Mick Harper
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We have installed this new piece of software that automatically removes feeble jokes. Yes, you two, better up your game. It just converted my little squib Corvid-19 to 'Covid-19'. It recognised, I suppose, that this was not Avian flu and that the joke had therefore failed.
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Mick Harper
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This switch to sugar is proving highly problematic but it has to mastered if I'm to publish my celebrity diet book. I mentioned the fact that sugar can never match the sweetness of sweeteners so I am heaping sugar in as if I'm one of those kids in situation comedies. But I don't have a sit com mum to clear up after me so the spoon that stirs gets steadily encrusted with sugar thereby delivering steadily less sugar per spoonful. Meanwhile the spoon is subtly transferring dampness to the sugar bowl which soon takes on the characteristics of a Cornish china clay landscape, thus requiring even more spoon excavation and still less per spoon. Well, I don't have to spell out the full horror of the situation but before you say it, yes, I've tried the two spoon solution. It works for a bit, then you absent-mindedly forget and it's the north face of the Eiger all over again. Only kidding! Celebrity diet book. April fool! Get yours in first is my motto.
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Mick Harper
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I've got a dry racking cough. I had a bit of toast stuck.
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Mick Harper
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This automatic translation device that comes with Google Chrome has a name. We call it the Borrie Button.

Google Translate is a free multilingual statistical and neural machine translation service developed by Google, to translate text and websites from one language into another. It offers a website interface, a mobile app for Android and iOS, and an application programming interface that helps developers build browser extensions and software applications. As of March 2020, Google Translate supports 109 languages at various levels and as of April 2016, claimed over 500 million total users.

But not, ironically, Borrie himself. The Wiki entry says "This page needs updating" so I shouldn't rely on it for modish idioms if I were you. But then I have to rely on Hattie for all the Romance languages and she learned them with the SOE durng the war. She's good on sub-machine gun parts.
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Mick Harper
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Any road, let's test it out with something taken from the internet. I'll just press my random number generator

Jürgen Kieser
5.0 out of 5 stars Ein sehr unterhaltsames Werk
Schlussendlich ist die präsentierte These auch keine Lösung für die Frage wie die Englische Sprache so geworden ist wie sie ist bei den Quellen auf die sich angeblich stützt. Aber das Buch ist unterhaltsam und stößt interessante Gedanken an. Für Leute geeignet die gerne "Rants" lesen oder sich wirklich für das Phänomen Englisch intensiver interessieren und alternative Ideen suchen.

Goodness me, what can it all mean?

Jürgen Kieser
5.0 out of 5 stars A very entertaining work
Finally, the presented thesis is not a solution to the question of how the English language has become as it is in the sources on which it is allegedly based. But the book is entertaining and pokes interesting thoughts. Suitable for people who like to read “Rants” or who are really interested in the phenomenon of English and are looking for alternative ideas.

I didn't know 'rants' is the same in German. Sounds like a book well worth buying.
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Mick Harper
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Hang about a minute. THOBR isn't available in German. If the bloke can read it in English why can't he do his own translation? Unless it's been machine-translated into German. O Mein Gott, What Der Ficken, Laffen Aus Louden.
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Chad


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Just imagine what might have been, if Google Translate had been available to you, in your previous incarnation as a luminary of the Charismatic Movement... You could have really upped the ante when it came to ‘speaking in tongues’.
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Mick Harper
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I grew up in a place called Hither Green and there was a film about it on the telly tonight. Its most prominent feature according to this programme is that it has one of the largest driving test centres south of the Thames. That does pretty well sum it up if memory serves.
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Mick Harper
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This lock-down and queue-outside business means shopping has to be done systematically. I've got a list. Trouble is there's something I need but I'm damned if I can remember what it is. Three times I've realised what it is. Three times I've dropped everything and hurried, Pentel in hand, to my list. Three times I've found washing up liquid is already on it. I need a list of things that are already on the list.
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Mick Harper
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Enough already with 'our brave doctors and nurses putting their lives on the line'. It's like the automatic 'our brave soldiers in harm's way'. It's what they signed up for. Just for starters it means there isn't a word left for the actual brave ones. But apart from that, it's all strictly relative. For many years I did what was statistically the second most hazardous job to life and limb (after deep sea fishing), motorcycle courier. Nobody said we were in harm's way on the front line. Well, we did, to one another, accompanied by a slight swaying of the torso, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

Not that I was a very brave motorbike courier. Nothing to do with lacking moral fibre (about average, I would think) but because of my advanced age (call sign: Uncle Bike Thomas). I knew what there was to lose. Those young twerps didn't have a clue. Ironically now I take on the entire world every day of the week without a qualm but once again I don't hear anything about ‘our brave Applied Epistemologists’. Quite right too. It's 'Mike Tyson Syndrome'. How can you be frightened by people you beat the shit out of every day of the week? And for real, not just between ourselves with a slight sway of the torso.
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