In the excitement of national pride

Read that as excrement at first. Then realised that it’s probably quite fitting.

Bombastic? Pretentious? Braggart?

In the grand scheme of things I don’t do ‘angry’ that much at all, but the two times when I am most likely to angry at all are commuting to work and then back again. Commuting to, because I will be fuming over the latest environment-destroying, genocidal nazi shit that has hit the news overnight and on the way back because I will be grumbling over whatever nonsense and stupidity has arrived on my desk during that day.

In both cases, I make a positive attempt to get it out of my system by the time I arrive at the end of the travel. I recall a study that concluded that a 16mins commute was optimal for that - which mine was exactly at the time.

I’m the older end of Gen X, and have never smoked. The major factor in starting is peer pressure and I didn’t have any peers around me at the critical time who did. My family didn’t either.

I seldom drink alcohol and then I have only ever enjoyed cider - not beer, wine or spirits. This is just a matter of the taste for me. I simply don’t like it.

As a kid, I had had grape juice and I had heard adults enthusing about wine as usual and I had a idea what it must taste like.

If you imagine a taste/mouthfeel spectrum with wine at one end and grape juice in the middle, what I imagined wine to taste like was pretty much at the opposite end of that spectrum to what it actually tastes like. I had one mouthful and had no desire for any more at all. I have obviously tried wine and the rest at various times since, but my opinion is basically the same.

With cider, I’ll seldom have more that a pint or two a month these days.

I am not familiar with either culture, but I’d guess that he does.

and asked me out on a date again

Was this specifically described as a date? If so, I’d suggest that this is the way in to politely raise this. In fact even if it was ambiguous, it still is the way to do it: “Just so that we are both clear, although I enjoyed meeting you the other night, I don’t want to take things any further than these casual meetings.” or similar. I’m assuming that you did enjoy it - or you wouldn’t be considering another one.

You could restate that you will soon be moving (people can be incredibly selective about what they take in and what they don’t) if you want to - although you shouldn’t need to give a reason if you don’t want to.

I always heard it as trombeleese, which I imagined to be some exotic musical instrument like this:

My comment was a (half) joking one on the increase in capacity over time due to technology advance - and the bloat in software. As I recall, the early USB sticks that I had were something like 32mb - useless by todays standards. Meanwhile the increasing size of even blank .docx pages has been remarked on over the years.

In my experience, they last until you look at the capacity a few years and several changes of use down the line and end up giving to someone for some weird reason with a single MS document filling it up.

I was around 20 years too late.

They didn’t attend mine either, as it happens, on the grounds that they too were “late” by then.

I don’t know whether it is ‘the best’ but one that I find springs to mind quite often is a moment with a new Christmas present once. It was one of those walk-along-then-spin-and-shoot robots - a very simple thing, since this was in the early '70s. However, my memory is of utter joy and entrancement as I set it going then leapt out of the way, on to the furniture, before it opened its chest and fired.

It must have been a present from my parents, so they were probably happy that I liked it. Whether they were quite so happy after the first hour or two of the same thing, I don’t know.

Right handed. My wallet is in my left pocket, since anything that I need to do with it will involve holding it with my left and doing the thing with my right.

Both my phones (home and work) are in my right, since I can carry out basic functions on them one handed.

Comments like that say far more about the person saying it than about the person being described most of the time, I’d say.

I’d need to know how good the describer is like in that area before I could make any assessment about the describee.

By that age, I was into my third long-term job (> 5 years) and had had upwards of 16 short term ones - multiple part time ones at once, or some just for a few weeks or a couple of months here and there between the long-term ones etc.

48 doesn’t seem that unlikely - nor even an indicator that they will not be staying put for any length of time unless your job is a shitty one with a high turnover anyway.

It’s my turn to cook tonight. I’m doing a shakshuka.

Fairly standard (for the UK, in the '70s): black trousers, blue or white shirt, dark blue blazer, school tie etc.

BUT, the blazer had the school emblem on, which was derived from the poultry trade that had been a major feature of the town’s prosperity at one time: we all had a large un-ironic turkey embroidered on our chests.

Without looking for sources - so I could be totally wrong - I believe that it did darken proportionately and that light meters would register that. However, human eyes are not light meters and adjust to the dimmer light without you knowing.

Does Ivor the Engine count as a cartoon? Animation, certainly, but I’m not sure about ‘cartoon’ as such.

Anyway, it is the 1975 version for me.

I don’t know whether it was you, but I have responded to this same question on Lemmy before.

Yes. We had a coal fire when I was growing up - in the 60s and 70s -, so it was an everyday thing during the winters.

The single biggest thing for me is having a range of knowledgeable and intelligent friends and spending time with them. It very soon puts things in perspective.

The “British Warm” was the intermediary as I understand it: a shorter greatcoat favoured by Britsh officers in WW1. The Trenchcoat itself was modeled to fit over, accompany or replace this.