“The Darkness Out There” by Penelope Lively.

In short, a “nice old lady” tells a couple of young kids about what they did to a young German who survived a plane crash over Britain during WW2.

I think it was there for the “the nice old lady was actually nasty and cruel and the evil nazi was actually just a scared, fairly innocent boy”.

From where I lived, just the lager and cider together was snakebite, and with blackcurrant it was a “snakebite and black” - but I think there was a lot of regional variety (in the UK, at least).

I have heard lager/cider/blackcurrant called a snakebite before though (I remember it causing a disagreement in the pub) - but I’ve also heard it called a “diesel” (which elsewhere was something mixed with guinness). I’m pretty sure you sometimes got different things in different pubs in the same town.

I suppose pre-internet, we were just relying on the drunk people ordering things to decide what they wanted to call stuff (“what was that purple mixed drink called that made me throw up on my own shoes?”).

Mix rice up with tomato sauce, melt a bit of mozzarella cheese in, some slices of pepperoni in it, sprinkle in some basil and oregano… check behind you that nobody can see you commit culinary crimes… delicious.

To (controversially) go one step further, all unsweetened carbohydrate bases are interchangeable.

You can put pasta topping on a pizza, you can put pizza topping on rice, you can put toastie fillings on a potato waffle and it always ends up nice.

Pubs in the UK used to (or still do?) have blackcurrant and lime cordial for this.

“Lager and Lime”, “Lager and Blackcurrant” and “Cider and Blackcurrant” were pretty common 20-30 years ago. A shot of cordial (concentrated juice), then filled up with lager beer.

There was also orange cordial behind the bar, but nobody ever drank “Lager and orange”. I believe it was some form of crime.

It’s a bit weird, isn’t it?

Technically, the navigational tool is “a compass” and the geometric draw-a-circle tool is “a pair of compasses” (I don’t know why) - but in general use, people just call both of them “a compass”.

We’ve had hundreds of years to rename one of them, but for some reason haven’t bothered.

Me “Hi, is that, umm… Phones, number four, uhhhh?”

Phones4u “Haha, yes, but It’s pronounced ‘Phones For You’”

Me “Oh, it’s it a wrong number? I’ve got it written down here, it’s a number four, not a word ‘for’ f-o-r, and it’s not the word ‘you’, but just a letter U on its own, which is pronounced ‘uh’”

Phones4u “yes, that’s how we write it”

Me “Why? Why didn’t you do it properly? It’s just like that argument with the 90s boyband Fiveive all over again.”

Etc etc

I thought the pull-string light switch inside the bathroom was the standard in the UK?

I’ve only seen switches outside bathrooms in the last 5 years, in recent “having the bathroom re-done” cases.

It might be an age of house or regional thing though.

Here they still exist - they just make you pay if you want a new one. I (and seemingly most people) use them all the time still, but I guess more people reuse them more times now. I’m quite happy to pay 30p for one when the old ones get used up. I think they’re a bit sturdier than they used to be too - so less likely for the handles to snap when you’ve still got a mile to walk home.

I guess it mostly cut down on unwanted ones getting littered etc. Now they’re valuable, all the more reason to hoard them in a cupboard in the kitchen.

Where you are it sounds like they stopped existing - what do you put your food shopping in? Do you still have a thousand left that you previously hoarded?

I think technically it’s both, but it’s mainly focused on the former - the shop and supermarket ones. You now pay 20 or 30p for them - previously when they were free, they would sometimes force a bag on you, even if you didn’t want one (I guess to walk around advertising their shop).

Throwing pretend milkshakes at a pretend Nigel Farridge is disrespectful.

We should be burning effigies of him on bonfires.

“Hmm…”, said the sword, quizzically. “The scriptures on those are a little vague in the translation the Blacksmith had”.

The sword paused for a moment to think, its metal shifting subtly in a manner which could vaguely be described as coy.

“Maybe…”, stuttered the sword, “you could show me what that means”.

“Hahaha!”, said the sword. “I will twist your mind until you’re wearing mixed fabrics, having pre-marital sex, and using the Lord’s name in vain!”, it cackled.

“I’ll even make you skip church on the sabbath!”.

… “étoile de mer”, which would roughly translate as “star of the sea” or “sea star” - the same as the Spanish “estrella de mar”, Portuguese “estrela do mar” or Romanian “stea de mare”.

I miss lovely, earthy, warm, friendly chocolatey Brownbuntu.

I always felt purplebuntu was a bit vile.

As far as I’m aware, in English, the punctuation goes outside the quotes, unless it’s part of the original quote.

In American, the punctuation goes inside the quotes, even if it’s not part of the sentence being quoted.

I’m unsure of the habits of other English-speaking countries.

It’s not all of Lemmy though - on Feddit.uk, nobody’s even mentioned it. The Britons are just discussing the wide variety of meals you can make by combining chips, cheese, beans, gravy and curry sauce in different arrangements.

Kup from 80’s Transformers

I was under the impression it was partially due to him feeling the ‘U’ made the words feel “too French”, and he supposedly really hated the French (apparently he was a bit of a fan of the ol’ racism), but mainly he wanted something new and uniquely American - and English spelling was even more regional, wild and inconsistent back then, so he hoped to simplify it, bring it some consistency, ideally whilst also telling the French to piss off.

In combination with the exercise it sounds like you’re doing anyway, have you tried a bit of Yoga and a bit of listening to meditative sounds before/during bed/sleep/end of day? You may have tried similar things already, but if not, maybe worth a go? It’s not going to pass/waste time as such, but might put you into a better position to stop your mind racing with negativity, especially in that crucial pre-sleep phase.

Particularly looking at “Yoga for Anxiety” or “Yoga for Mental Health” type things, moreso than general strength and fitness Yoga. You’ll find a bunch online. You might find something like this Yoga Healthcare Alliance 10 Week Course works for you (it’s promoted by the UK’s NHS for some conditions). It’s focusing on basic de-stressing, de-tensing muscles, breathing focus, and may help you feel calm and relaxed - which may give you a good nights sleep - which could potentially do wonders for beginning to recover.

I’d also suggest combining it with some “sleep headphones” - a fabric headband with some really flat headphone speakers inside it - then listen to a combination of “meditation for anxiety” or “8 hours deep sleep ambient soundscape” type things whilst you lie there.

Ideally you’d do the Yoga sat on your bed, then drop straight into something like “a nice man tells you you’re great and everything will be fine” followed by some sort of “inner peace meditation that lasts 8 hours or longer”. Obviously, you’ll find your own preferred voices/sounds. I’ve also used white noise style “starship engine sound” or “on a night train” audio.

If you watch them on your phone with “Newpipe”, you can save them as videos or just as audio files - which you can then set up as playlists in VLC. No point in downloading the same thing every night.

This whole set of things might not work for you at all, but if you’re up for hours anyway, what do you have to lose?

Personally, I found this process helped me massively on my way out of a similar patch (combined with exercising more, quitting caffeine for a while, CBT therapy - it was a multiple angle approach).

Regardless, I wish you luck and pass you my best wishes in your recovery.