Yeah, especially as you can get them so cheap at the butcher's

Australia are shutting down the game nicely, so half expecting a handshake soon.

Hope Smithy is fighting fit for the next test. No sport in shooting a lame duck.

Weather's looking okish today. Possible showers mid afternoon, but could get a full day in. Australia need 29 to avoid the follow on, so no real danger of that. Not an easy day to bat, though, so could see England get Australia out and have a lead. Tomorrow looks a better day to bat, so hard to see ...

Tomorrow has rain forecast all day. Saturday isn't looking great either. This has a draw written all over it, which is lucky as Australia usually give us a kicking at Lord's :)

Trump has carefully cultivated a reputation for being an extremely bad liar, which makes him far more trustworthy than most politicians whom people (quite correctly) assume are very good liars. You can trust Trump, it is reasoned, because you can spot his lies a mile away. Much like a parent, who ha...

The McDonald's in Luxor, Egypt, has the ketchup served in little silver dishes and a waiter service. The McDonald's in Fez, Morocco, has some truly fantastic local cuisine and was the best place to get small denomination banknotes in the entire country. The McDonald's in New York was the biggest shi...

I recommend getting to Marke early and scouting out for some metallic surfaces. A church bell is perhaps too obvious, but you will find a wide variety of vehicles and shop signs. Produce a small hammer (I'd suggest a toffee hammer, ideally made of copper or brass) and lightly strike the metal for th...

Online casinos are for chumps. Real world casinos can be a bit of fun if you like that sort of thing, but people who play the fruities are tragic.

Wikipedia disagrees with you about Lidar. But, should any offender, present Lidar/Radar as their defence, I would be lenient because it shows an understanding of the concepts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar Nope, I don't think it does. Me and wiki don't always see eye to eye, but we seem to ag...

I've heard of people not being paid on time, but never experienced it myself. Most people's experience is that the money just turns up in their bank account. I couldn't tell you with complete confidence when my payday is, but I think it's something like the forth Friday of the month.

Another thing that gets my goat is people who use "acronym" as a synonym for abbreviation. LASER and SCUBA are acronyms (these days nouns too), UK and USA are not; all are abbreviations. Radar was an acronym by all accounts, yet lidar never was, being instead a portmanteau like electrocution. You c...

There was a debating society at Exeter uni which once decided to debate whether or not it was right to allow the far right to speak at debates. They invited certain left wing speakers to argue in favour of no platform, with the society committee members arguing in favour of free speech and using arg...

Damned useful info, that. I was toying with starting a business specialising in organic sloth manure for people who want slow growing plants (cuts down on the pruning, huge demand), but now I'm going to have to redo my production estimates.

When mildly inebriated my skills at the pool table, especially in the aerial game (both when taking shots and fielding), are unequalled.

It's silly season, Ora. There are a load of political journalists with nothing remotely interesting to talk about. Anyone says anything and it counts as news. This isn't a new phenomenon. It's been like this since time immemorial.

@ https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49251257 How is this news? EU has said for months that they are not renegotiating the exit deal. This isn't news, except to the few Tories so wrapped up in their own fantastical worlds... Once again you're falling for the bluster, Ora. There are no Tories remo...

Time for some positive spin... The opening game of the 2005 Ashes saw Australia win the toss and bat first. After the first innings their wasn't much in it. In the second Australia posted a monster total and England... didn't. Australia won by well over 200 runs. So, clearly England are well on cour...

Well, that was a limp ending... and the next test is at Lord's which isn't exactly our most successful ground. England need an almighty kick up the backside!

Time for an unlikely hero... and there's perhaps no-one quite as unlikely as Moeen...

Any thunderstorms forecast?

The pendulum swings towards Australia... is Stokes in heroic mood today, do you think?