The article begins: “Mohammed Abu Al-Qumsan had just picked up birth certificates for his newly-born twins when he found out they had been killed, along with his wife and her mother, by an Israeli strike on the Gaza apartment where they were sheltering.”
There’s more detail about the attack (tank shell) and a photo of the grieving man.
Scotland, hands down. I feel so lucky to be living here. I was only going to stay three years & then go back to New Zealand and settle down. Thirty-five years later I’m still here. I fell in love with the hills - and the freedom to walk on them - the lochs, the ancient ruins. But most of all I fell in love with the people. Their craic, their warmth and craziness, their generosity, their music. I love that you can talk to anyone and you’ll often hear an amazing life story.
I love things like this: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/anti-deportations-group-issues-guide-24107754
I love the cultural richness that’s come from successive waves of immigration, from Italy, India & Pakistan, China, Poland and more.
I love the food. I love haggis and Arbroath smokies and Aberdeen butteries and shortbread and oatcakes and Tunnocks caramel wafers.
And least I forget, yes, I love the weather.
Vanuatu is one of the best places I’ve ever been. Really interesting people.
I was on a work trip back in the 80s that took me to one of the northern islands of Vanuatu. Our plane landed on a football field, that’s how remote our destination was. After we set up camp, someone said they’d heard there was a teacher from New Zealand in the nearby village. Well I’m a New Zealander too, so off I went to meet her. Within the first few minutes we had worked out that not only were we originally from the same small town… she was my older brother’s first girlfriend.
But actually because NZ has a small population and we all travel a lot, it’s not as mad a coincidence as all that. It sometimes feels like we are all just a couple of degrees of separation from each other. “Oh you’re from Oamaru? Do you know XY?” “Not really, but one of my cousins works for his sister, ZY.”
I had this issue with an Android recently - but it was my own phone, an old one I wanted to test a SIM on. I couldn’t remember the PIN, couldn’t even recall having a PIN for this phone. I had to dig deep through the tech forums to find a solution, but got there eventually. And yes, I read that over and over during my search, “it’s for your security”. Argh!
In the UK I’m paying about £1.41 to £1.45 per litre. I’m no good at maths sorry, you’ll have to do the calculations.
This happens with my hearing aids. They cost a small fortune, but the audiologist won’t do anything about it because it’s intermittent - I can never show it happening. “The charging case must be dirty” etc. The manufacturer, Phonak, says any fault reporting must be done through the retailer. It seems to happen mainly when I’ve got something on where I really really need to be able to hear properly, or when I want to use Bluetooth to listen to music.
AAAARRRRRRGHHHHHHH is putting it mildly. My fury knows no bounds.
I’m still loving my iPod Classic. I got it a little Bluetooth dongle so I can listen via my hearing aids. I find iTunes beyond irritating though and am always looking for an alternative for adding music.
I just listened to a podcast on this whole saga - what a wild ride.
Struwwelpeter. We had an English copy handed down by my grandfather. It’s insane.
Example: “Die gar traurige Geschichte mit dem Feuerzeug (“The Very Sad Tale with the Matches”): A girl plays with matches, accidentally ignites herself and burns to death. Only her cats mourn her.”
– pay for a large residence and security on the outskirts, then stay inside. Use disguises/body doubles when going out.
So … you can everything you want, except sponteneity? Or privacy, with all those staff hanging around. And there’d still be some douche tracking your private jet.
Ha ha, read this wonderful piece through thinking, sounds great but what would I ever make? And then omg, yarn winder. I’m a knitter, and my yarn winder is a plastic monstrosity. I mean I’m never going to do it myself, but there definitely is a market for beautifully machined yarn winders.
Thanks! Will do some more research…
Oh dear. I was planning to visit Japan in the autumn. Guess I will give it a swerve. Maybe Korea then? I haven’t flown anywhere since the Before Times and have a hankering for foreign travel.
It was partly because my parents forced me into a scholarship that was tied to teaching afterwards - I was entirely unsuited to being a teacher, but neither of them even attended high school, and to them being a teacher was the pinnacle of achievement. I was pretty good academically but university overwhelmed me, so between that and no incentive to succeed, I failed miserably, only passing a few courses. I ended up getting a professional qualification (not a degree) in my 30s and had a decent career.
Living in a squat for a few years showed me I would have made a fantastic electrian or plumber, but you had to have a penis for that for some reason.
Oh yes, I’d forgotten about Winnie. I have a lot more respect for science and literature prizes than the peace prize though. Harder work, I reckon.
Is this the first Nobel laureate to run a country? How bloody amazing. Well done Mexico!
I my (extensive) cookie experience, double chocolate usually means the same amount of chips, but the dough part is also chocolate flavoured. Hard to tell in this instance, but the “double” cookies may be a shade darker.
This is the correct answer. It’s how ships avoid running into each other. When whoever is steering the vessel is facing the bow (front, usually the pointy bit), port is their left, starboard their right. Ship’s running lights are red on the port side, green on the left. So if you’re out on the water at night, you can immediately see whether a ship is coming towards you or moving away. The rule for passing an oncoming vessel is “port to port”, thus avoiding confusion and collision.
Sitting up in bed I would consider the headboard the stern, because I have my back to it, and the foot the bow. So the area to starboard is right, and portside is left. Ahoy maties!!!
I just watched that BBC doco about the guy, blood-freezing stuff. The way he worked his way up from being a minor prince to de facto king… yikes.