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Does this make sense to you? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13056657/helsinki-finland-finnair-measure-passengers-weight.html They could charge by weight for all I care😄

Yes, riggers, I remember! And when BBC2 was off air, you got the "test card"!

Snap! It's only a very short time ago (matter of a few days) that I quoted that poem on another thread.

Wools, here are a few sentences I have copied from a book I am reading and I was keen to reproduce them here because, while I think the same things, I do not have the writer's facility for expressing them. The following remarks are made by one of the characters and I have paraphrased only slightly so as to guard the sense. We live in such a humourless age. It used to be possible to laugh....... Well, now there are all sorts of censors and killjoys. Earnest, ignorant people who lecture us on what we can think and say. And do you know, we have lain down and submitted to the whole process. It's been the most remarkable display of passivity. There is a bit more along similar lines but I think we get a good flavour of what the speaker in the story means to say.

Wools, you must remember those TEFL job adverts which called for native speakers only. You'd think that the BBC would aim to be an exponent of the language of English. There again, I don't suppose such adverts would be allowed these days. Setting standards used to be something to be admired. I expect if you used that phrase now, you'd be reviled or "cancelled" or whatever meaningless word is in current use. I seem to remember that the BBC's mission was to "inform, educate and entertain", in that order. I'd like to know to what degree they themselves think they are fulfilling that brief?

Betise, how have we come to this? I now have to accustom myself to a world that has gone mad.

Just as well you don't watch, Norman, it'll make your toes curl. But for OH putting it on, I'd turn it all off altogether.

You've hit the nail on the head, Wools but I hesitated to point it out.

Has anyone noticed that there are now a whole slew of newsreaders and presenters who speak indistinctly and stumble over the simplest words? Many of the experienced staff have disappeared off the screen. Of course, there has been natural wastage: death, retirement, got rid of for various dubious practices, "retrenched", let go. But do they have to recruit a whole lot of rookies who either look half-terrified (with good reason) or who are unashamedly upfront and over-confident. Nobody now expects anyone from the BBC to speak the king's English (whatever that may be) but you do expect them to be able to read the news in a way and accent that is comprehensible to the majority of viewers and listeners. To think that I had met Albanians who told me they learned English by listening to BBC radio and only last week, I watched a documentary on French TV where a man said that during the 1940s he listened exclusively to the BBC News because he couldn't be confident that the Vichy government would tell the truth about things happening in France at the time. If it's just about cost-cutting, I'd rather they reduced this 24 hour rolling news nonsense and go back to less but better presented news.

Easy answer, inform your avocat who will present your case to a judge who will say that, as you have no access to a telephone, you may go free! I make this seemingly risible observation because 7 sans papiers have been released from a detention centre precisely because they have no telephone to use to contact their families and their legal team. Of course it is unknown as to who had vandalised the telephones!

Indeed, damp and cold have returned. I did not have unfounded expectations, if anything, I was mightily surprised at the daffodils (as betise has pointed out) and violets and the warm sunshine.

Didn't see that game, Gardian, so can't comment though I know Italy's been improving. Didn't see the first half of the Wales vs Scotland, just thought Wales would be 'ammered, as the older Welsh people liked to say. But I thought the second half was worth watching....if only they hadn't missed their first conversion!!

I don't think any spectator likes too much kicking. Don't know what's happened to all that excellent passing the French were doing at the world cup. That's it, no numbers 10 and 11 and their game is just not the same. As for Willemze getting 2 yellow cards to make a red.....?! What on earth was he thinking?

France did not play as I expected and I was left completely flat although Ireland lived up to its reputation. Here is an article from Clive Woodward, in case someone wishes to comment. Gardian? Wooly? Anyone else who is interested but I might not immediately think of you, please do pile in! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/article-13039691/Sir-Clive-Woodward-Six-Nations-pinnacle-rugby-game-wake-missing-stars.html

Don't know where exactly you were, betise, but the maire of Agen was on the news, complaining about the mess and destruction.

I went out for a nordic walk, the first I have had for weeks. So I took the opportunity to ask my friends who was making crêpes abd whether anyone had a favourite recipe. Might have predicted the answer. Yes, I'll be making some tonight but I just make them with the usual flour, milk and eggs.....er...I've heard that one before! Anyway, I decided I'd have a go this evening but, when I got back to where I'd parked my car, the boulangerie was open. Went in and there in front of the till were a pile of pancakes, nicely burnt on the edges. So I just bought some plus some pastries which were domed shaped with apples and an almond paste inside. So crêpe-making will have to wait, possibly for another year!

Bravo! Very nice and very difficult, I imagine.

Thank you, betise, that sounds good and clear. I must say the consistency of single cream sounds a lot tastier than the consistency of emulsion paint, which is what a French friend told me!

It's tomorrow but no crêpes chez moi, never succeeded in making them. Never thin enough, never brown enough, never taste good enough.... I have French friends that russle them up without fuss but nobody actually seems to know the exact quantities of flour, or milk or even eggs when I ask. Maybe it's one of those French culinary secrets that nobody wants to divulge to foreigners?

NOT spring chez nous today. Cloudy, grey, fine misty rain.....back to square one.

ALBF writes: Never stand still is my motto in life. You perhaps have never heard of this well-known poem? Leisure by William Henry Davies Next What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like skies at night. No time to turn at Beauty's glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance. No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich that smile her eyes began. A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.

Obviously, betise, it's not just humans who are confused. Only 2 days ago, I saw a flight of grues sounding all excited to be off somewhere. I wasn't even sure if they were headed north or south. Then I saw a pair on the ground in the middle of a field, must have lost their friends and family...poor things.

Well then, why don't you change your name to Peter Pan? You should teach all the little ALBFs to call you Papa Peter Pan....has a certain ring to it, no?

It's felt like it these past 2 or 3 days. There is a mildness to the air, the winds are temperate, the sun shines, all around nature is waking up. Yesterday, OH said summer must be here, I have seen my first lizard. But, but, but.....it's STILL only JANUARY?

Oh ALBF STOP being so over dramatic and exaggerating every remark you make. OF COURSE, France is NOT one gigantic tourist theme park! That is just plain silly. They said that about Wales decades and decades ago but no one who actually lived there thought that. Same here, it's so NOT a theme park where I live. How you love all these ridiculous generalisations you make. Grow up, do......