Thanks for posting this, it’s truly helpful. I’m trying similar methods with a few friends who have lots of wonderful qualities but also some weird bigotries. The hardest thing is controlling my anger - their views have real, damaging consequences for people who have done them no harm, whom they have never even met. But you’re right, an angry reproach feels like an attack and can have the opposite effect.

Same in France, though they’ve loosened up a bit. Used to be saints names only.

https://twitter.com/AdamJSmithGA/status/1814723038564192535

Creamy, crunchy, fruity? What you want is Eton Mess. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/eton-mess

What’s funny is that (according to the old testament) when Moses came down off the mountain with the tablets and found everyone worshipping the golden calf, he had a big hissy fit and smashed them. So then after doing quite a bit of murdering he had to go back up the mountain to get a second set. Exodus 32-34

I asked a religious relative how it was ok for Moses to murder people when he had only just be told by God himself “thou shalt not kill”, and she said it was because the don’t kill thing came further down the list than having only the one god.

I remember my poor niece saying, “I can’t believe they let us leave the hospital with her! She’s so tiny and fragile! We don’t know what we’re doing!”

We call them zoodies in our sports club, to differentiate them from hoodies, which have no zip.

For me olives were an acquired taste.

The first time I ate in a restaurant I was about 12 I think. It was a fancy Italian place. When I saw the dishes of (green, pimento-stuffed) olives on the table I was excited to try one. I’d only ever seen pictures of them in American magazines - this was mid-60s New Zealand, Coca Cola was exotic. I put one in my mouth, and almost gagged, the flavour was so completely awful. I spat it into a napkin.

Fast forward to today, and I would gladly hoover up the whole dishful and ask for more. My favourite olive is a big fat juicy Kalamata. I also love tapenade made with black olives. The only olives I dislike are the flavourless cardboardy lumps sometimes passed off as olives.

I know a young man who headed back to India for an arranged marriage. I expressed my extreme surprise that he would agree to marry someone he’d never met, and he said he trusted his parents to choose someone compatible. “After all, they know me better than anyone else.” I remain baffled, honestly. He seems an otherwise savvy, modern person. But there you go, happy to commit to a stranger.

I dread to think what kind of bloke my parents would have picked for me…

I do hug my friends (and family when they visit from far, far away), I’m very huggy. Cuddling is another level of intimacy though. I do miss it, a bit.

My farts are so loud you probably heard me earlier and thought it was a car with engine trouble.

Why thank you!

Single about 25 years. I’m 71 and I absolutely love my life. I have lots of friends and a very active life, but I love coming home and being alone there. Before menopause I had a strong libido and terrible taste in men, so I had a lot of truly awful relationships, with endless drama.

It’s kind of by choice I guess, though I don’t get offers. A few years ago a guy gave me the eye and I contemplated it, until I caught sight of his bare feet. Oh dear god no. Self-care is important mate, you need to see a podiatrist.

The main con of being single for me is not enough hugs and cuddles. The pros are too many to give up for that though. I get to decide everything and make plans based on what I want. I can fart loudly, talk to my potplants and be lazy without Someone rolling their eyes, it’s bliss.

No, not attractive. That’s a man who spends a LOT of time in the gym, looking at himself in the mirror. He eats and drinks weird stuff and possibly is on drugs that make him angry. Not my cup of tea.

I was going to suggest proper orthotics as well. Mine were expensive but have served me well for years. I move them into whatever shoes or boots I’m wearing. They don’t work with sandals sadly.

Sister Wendy. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QBv0HezlOBw

I stayed in a high-rise flat once where the lift was regularly used as a urinal. Climbing the stairs was much preferable to riding up in a stinking box.

I had a rescue greyhound, an ex-racer, and how I leash-trained him was to transform the leash into a brake. When he pulled on the leash, I stopped. When he stopped pulling, we carried on. At first we stopped every few paces, it was agonising. But eventually (he was not very bright) the penny dropped and he realised he was controlling the brake. All he had to do was walk at a steady pace without pulling and we would get to the park quicker. It was funny seeing him try to hurry me along by exerting the most exquisitely tiny bit of pressure on the lead.

I do beekeeping with an educational project and my bugbear is hygiene. Bad habits had set in before I joined the group - not cleaning hive tools or beesuits, not properly cleaning and storing feeding and honey extraction kit, it was all pretty filthy and gross. They tease me for being a martinet, but we sell the honey FFS! And the bees themselves deserve protection from people casually risking the spread of disease.

I visited Egypt a few years back and it was like that. It made for a nice visit, because none of the temples, tombs etc were overcrowded, though that meant the souvenir sellers were desperate. Cairo Museum was almost empty. Our tour guide there said was going to give up and start a restaurant with some friends. She spoke several European languages and was learning Mandarin, but was struggling to make a living. She hated the Islamist revolutionaries for damaging the tourism industry.

A view of the Arab Spring: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-56000950

Ha ha yes, he was experimenting. I did wonder how he got on. Bright blue sheets I fear.