GreyShuck

I’d always suggest volunteering - be it wildlife conservation or staffing a charity shop or restoring vintage trains in a museum or whatever. Pick something that you have a little interest in and you will already have that in common with the other volunteers and, as a volunteer, you have no commitments and can walk away at any point.

I don’t think that I had anything like this from cartoons, but I had read about ginger beer in various childhood books long before I actually encountered it in the flesh and also Turkish delight from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, which was also one that I didn’t encounter IRL until later.

Ginger beer turned out to be a bit of a disappointment - not a patch on elderflower pressé, for example - but Turkish delight lived up to that passage, and I have thought about the book pretty much every time I have tasted it over the decades since.

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.

As far as TV is concerned, Murderbot, The Eternaut, Babylon Berlin & Your Friends and Neighbors continue to be the best that we are watching at the moment - pretty much in that order.

Film:

• The Penguin Lessons (2025) - Steve Coogan puts in a fine, morose performance here. It takes a while to engage, but pays off well in the end. Nothing groundbreaking, but well worth a view.

• The Salt Path (2025) - a solid adaptation of the book which, perhaps inevitably, focuses more on the emotional journey of the couple than the incidents of the walk as the book tends to. It did not entirely grab me and felt rather overlong as a result, but still an interesting and well acted tale.

Most recently, spot the car that isn’t black, white, grey, blue or red.

Commercial vehicles don’t count. Gold/bronze gets 1 pt; yellow gets 2 or 4 if it isn’t a sports car; pink gets 4; dark/british racing green gets 4 or 8 if it isn’t vintage; any other type of green gets 6.

We were making this up at the time. That’s as far as we got.

We have played the legs game occasionally, but not much fun on motorways.

And “Horse” from Eagle vs Shark. You win the round when you see a horse and say “horse”.

I really can’t recall but not a lot at all. To avoid the whole blood-diamond thing we bought a vintage one from a charity, where it had been donated.

Catching up after a couple of weeks away, so:

The Righteous Gemstones - after an unfocussed start to the 4th and final season, it has picked up again in the second half. One more episode to go.

Sirens - the new, much vaunted miniseries, and another in the ‘aren’t rich people terrible’ genre. I have only seen the first ep so far. I will continue, but that episode didn’t really live up to the hype, IMHO.

The Eternaut - Intriguing Argentine apocalypse tale. Also only the first ep so far, but I am definitely hooked.

Murderbot - I’ve been looking forward to this one, having read the first few books. It has been cricitised for being slow, but I am enjoying it so far.

Poker Face - the return of this neo-Columbo show. It is as undemandingly entertaining as before.

Babylon Berlin - halfway through season 1 and it continues to be stylish, grim and gripping.

Your Friends and Neighbors - and another ‘aren’t rich people terrible’ tale, which is developing engagingly.

It’s the end of a fortnight’s holiday for me, so I’m driving home tomorrow, followed by pizza and undemanding tv comedy when I get home to my wife. I have missed her a lot.

On Sunday there are some post-holiday logistics and chores to sort out, but we’ll have lunch out and probably play Gloom in the evening: a card game that one of the friends with whom I am on holiday introduced me to. I ordered a set myself after the first game.

Yes. Why do you ask?

Not specifically for the eyes or posture, but for overall approach and attitude to situations like this:

• Marcus Aurelius’ quote: Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil. - and stoicism in general.
• Imagine them sitting on the toilet. You can’t take them too seriously like that.
• Take a longer perspective: consider whether this interaction will be of any significance at all in 10 years time?

I had a nap yesterday afternoon, which is probably the first for several months. However, I am on holiday for a couple of weeks now, so will probably be having more over that time.

Pizza, cheesecake, wife’s puppy eyes,

Shadow (2018) - beautifully designed and shot, particularly in the first half. Relatively gory for a wuxia: I didn’t mind but my wife, who is quite sensitive to such things, found it too much at times.

As with Zhang Yimou’s earlier House of Flying Daggers I felt that that it didn’t really reach a conclusion as much as ended the story and then drifted to a stop.

Definitely worth seeing though.

No. I’m not interested in interaction when I am buying or selling something. Nor playing games, or getting or giving social strokes or whatever. I will do that on separate occasions.

I will pay the price asked or I will look elsewhere.

I don’t drink either - or any other hot drinks. I have never liked them.

There was a while when, every other year or so, in the depths of winter, I would get it into my head that my tastes might have changed and would accept someone’s offer of something: tea, coffee, hot chocolate or whatever. But I’d always end up taking one sip and realise my folly.

And, no, Iced tea or similar does nothing for me either.

There is a window for “Where were you when…?” questions, I think.

• Kennedy? Nope.
• Moon landing? Just about.
• Challenger? Yep.
• Princess Di? Yep.
• 9/11? Yep.
• Lockdowns? Whatever…

I think that I am drifting past that window nowadays.

A satsuma. The penultimate element of my lunch.

The ultimate will be a banana, in a few minutes.

I’m peripatetic - I move between 3 different offices in a typical week, plus occasionally WFH. So:

• Coastal heath, birch & oak woodland, the sea off to the side and a nuclear reactor in the background. In the autumn we’ll get a starling murmuration in the later afternoon.
• A small stretch of rough grass and a river wall, with the top of a couple of abandoned military buildings over the top of that. The occasional hare or barn owl will pass by.
• The lawn and occasional ornamental trees of a moderately-sized country house with a shallow valley and more woodland behind that.
• A tussocky lawn, a couple of larch and a spectacular old oak, then a mixed alder and ash covert with a small stream behind that. Hares, a great spotted woodpecker and the occasional stoat put in an appearance.

Beautifully shot and some fine performances all round. Very much a character-based one though. Don’t go into it looking for action or fast-moving plot.

• The Studio - First episode - seems fun, but too similar to The Franchise just at the moment, and without the subtle wit of that one.
• The Righteous Gemstones - part way through season 4. This season lacks the coherence of the previous ones and seems to be be relying on continuous gross-out humour to make up for that. There was a natural end point with season 3. I will give this another episode, but may abandon it there.
• Adolescence - I completely agree with those who say that it isn’t the kids who need to see Adolescence, but the parents. I found that there was some heavy-handed moralising in eps 2 & 4, but 1 and 3 were intense and excellent and all of them were technically impressive.
• The White Lotus - another compelling season of the wealthy and damned paraded for our judgement. Fine performances from Posey, Issacs and Goggins particularly.
• The Residence - I wasn’t sure about episode 1. It seemed to be trying too hard and not nearly as funny as the director seems to think, but episode 2 was much improved. I’ll continue.