[IS,P!, UK] I have :-) Kylie has been ever-present in my life since the day I saw her arrive in Ramsey Street, as Lennie Mitchell, and deck Scott Robinson. That was about 1986/7-ish, I think.
[Rosie] Really? Though I must admit I've never thought of the root of her family moniker. She's got a sister who is also in the entertainment game - Dannii. I wonder whether she's a tailless type as well. [Phil] You worry me, old son. Next you'll be telling me that you're a Home and Away follower as well. Eeek!
[Dujon] How very dare you! As if I'd watch that tripe! Although, I will confess that many, many moons ago, I used to watch Sons & Daughters and A Country Practice. Mrs Phil and I were reminiscing about them a couple of days ago. She used to watch The Flying Doctors too, but I never got into it, apart from when I wanted to check out the rumour that the actress who played Maria Ramsey had moved there.
[Phil] Blimey, how much of our trash to you get over there? Mind you A Country Practice did have a homely sort of feel to it and some of the characters were reasonably portrayed. Not that I watched it of course.
Voyeurism at its lowest ebb, Rosie. We have our own version it seems. 'Turkey slapping' for heaven's sake! Yes, I had a look when it first started all those years ago, but not since. You keep yours and we'll keep ours . . . deal?
Mrs Phil used to be quite keen on Shortland Street as well. I think that's abuot it for Aus soaps. One Aus program we used to enjoy, but haven't seen in yonks was Murder Call. It was quite good, dedpite being remarkably cheesy and phenomenally fomulaic.
(Dujon) OK - deal. I read in today's paper that the actual audiences for Big Brother are remarkably small and probably mostly under 25 but the popular press and sometimes the serious press treats it as a serious and important programme. The participants are morons; a distillation of stupidity, and you wouldn't touch them with the proverbial 18-foot disinfected bargepole. Most of my friends have never seen any of it.
(Rosie) I'm under 25 and I've never seen any of it either. I know that doesn't advance the conversation much; I just haven't said anything for a while and I wanted to feel involoved.
What I meant was... I saw a big posted advertising the arrival of a new Suzuki car showroom, it might have been somewhere in West Sussex yesterday. Unfortunately the chosen font left a very small gap between two of the words, so it looked like it said: NOWHERE SUZUKI. Cracking.
Why were marks subtracted from one of my last ever essays for poor use of english because I chose to spell "rôle" with a circumflex in its rightful place?
(Knobbly) Because the examiner's wife had had an affair with Arsène Wenger. I'd say the circumflex is optional as the word becomes more and more part of the English (note capital) language. It's certainly not wrong.
(Dujon) Do you ever get snow? Must be pretty rare, I'd have thought. Good thunderstorm here this evening with one very close strike (guess 150 yd), the type that produces a crack and a ripping sound.
No, Rosie. Well, nearly no. It is indeed very rare indeed for snow at my level (250 metres above sea level) but it has happened. Last night was the first dusting a little farther up the mountains from me, about a half hour drive. My son lives in the area and my wife headed off to work there this fine morn. I have no idea at this stage as to how much settled but, as is usual in this country, roads were closed and general chaos ensued. I'm guessing that less than 5mm landed, though ice could be the more important factor. I don't envy you the lightning type storm. That sort of thing is not unusual here at my location. There is a number of stains on the carpet to prove it. :-)
(Rosie) Oops. Yes, I think I changed the capital E when I took the capital U away from 'Use'. (To whom it may concern) We certainly are having a lot of weather at the moment.
[Rosie] Did you know that the official French orthography abolished most circumflexes over the letters "i" and "u", except where ambiguity and homographs could occur. This has not bee widely adopted by the French, even though the French Academy encourages it. I know this is not really relevant, but I thought it was QI.
(Dujon) I love thunderstorms, the louder and closer the better up to but not including my house. I have found over the years that lightning flashes vary considerably in length and intensity. On Fri 28 Aug 1958 at about 9 in the morning there was a tremendous blinding flash and an almost instantaneous deafening boom. I thought it had hit nextdoor's front garden at the very furthest but again it was about 150 yd away and completely destroyed a large tree. I found out later that it was a high-level storm with cloudbase about 7000 ft so the flash must have been that long. Most are less than a third of that. On the other hand I have seen a flash hit the ground about 20 yds outside the window at work but it produced no more than a loud pop, and was probably very short, a few hundred feet. (Knobbly) Oh yes, there's always the bloody weather, as I found out when I became a junior forecaster and had to do shifts. I left eventually for the pleasures of 8.30 to 5 in the chemical industry and meteorolgy is now just a fairly serious hobby.
(Phil) The French take their language quite seriously, which I think is a good thing, even if they slightly overdo it. We could do with a bit of that in this country but the culture is against it. (Knobbly) I suspect your examiner was "following guidelines" but should have used common sense. To actually dock marks for that is quite absurd.