SUSIE BENSON

Sometimes you just have to go back to one of my favourites....still the best @jamieoliver brownie ever... I’ve even managed to get a photo of myself in the front cover courtesy of my sister in 2007!

@MENnewsdesk On to Great Bridgewaer street to get back on to Deansgate, where you then have to go back on yourself down Deansgate or straight on to Liverpool Road…Madness !

@MENnewsdesk Yes and it’s a bus lane that only 3 buses actually use.. one of them being the free bus round town and the other 2 buses don’t even go very often! So what’s the point of it even being a bus lane at all! There was no need for it and it means having to go to the next junction

Drivers have been left baffled manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-m…

@BLAIMGame As a restaurant manager.. The craziest rule was one that said a maximum number of 6 guests could book a table as long as they were from only 2 households max… Six grown men would walk all with wedding rings on in for their booking.. “Are you from 2 household’s gents?”

It was 4 years ago this month that Covid restrictions were introduced that meant you could only buy a drink in a pub if you had a Scotch Egg with it. What was the most moronic Covid rule you remember?

@cactusncookies In a jar of crunchy peanut butter.

Imagine you have 10 min to hide a peanut in your house. The FBI is going to look for it for the next 24 hours. If they don’t find it you get a million dollars. Where are you hiding it?

@Nigella_Lawson Thank you for this amazingly easy, most delicious chocolate cake recipe ever. With an Irish husband, it’s the perfect way to end our St Patrick’s Day…

🍀 It’s #StPatricksDay, so – no surprises here – my Chocolate Guinness Cake is #RecipeOfTheDay! nigella.com/recipes/chocol…

@Nigella_Lawson So eventually made your Lasagne of Love.. It does take a while but looks so worth it…. The problem is now, how do I ever go back to my quick version ? Although a few tricks from the recipe will be added..

We hope you enjoyed your trip to ‘Flora’! From your alien friends, scientists and the CHS South Drama department! 👽🛸🔭🥼#OpenEvening @chssouthmcr

A British writer penned the best description of Donald Trump I’ve ever read: “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief. Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that: • Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are. • You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?' If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.” -Nate White

@eddieizzard Love that you are now a susy…lots of love Susie x

As people may now well know, I have added the name ‘Suzy’ to my names.  So going forward I am preferring Suzy but I don’t mind Eddie.  And I prefer she/her but I don’t mind he/him.  So no one can really get it wrong unless they call me Kenneth or Sabrina.  I am remaining Eddie Izzard in public.  Thank you.  Suzy/Eddie.

View from the top: Manchester city centre and its climbing skyline. Read and then look at the cracking pictures from readers and others confidentials.com/manchester/vie…

@JonathSchofield Yes of course… thanks

@SUSESUE May I put this image up on a gallery on Manchester Confidential as part of a piece describing the views? It will be credited to you of course.

This is from above Littleborough. Where is your best viewpoint for studying the new Manchester skyline?

@PhillipaJC @softcellhq @HRP_palaces Little place called brooks bottom.

I am so excited! Got tickets for @softcellhq at @HRP_palaces Hampton Court- my two fav things combined, besides fashion. History, Marc, together. What could be more perfect?

@SeasonDeeper Why are they a these and not a that?

Comment if you know what these are.

Do you think the British Home Office have watched The Swimmers on @Netflixuk? I think not. @GaryLineker #GaryLineker

@paulmarkbailey Trouble is always rains in August! But still loads of stuff to do! Have fun ..

@TonyMaudsley1 Oh and don’t get me started about what they all wear every week…

@TonyMaudsley1 Exactly what I have been thinking! Why do they fuck up@every week…. They should be making thousands of pounds and making great impressions…. But no always a disaster!

@Lucy_Worsley @BBCTwo Because it’s lovely !

This is an unseen publicity still for our series AGATHA CHRISTIE on @BBCTwo, taken in Istanbul by the super talented Lorien Reed Drake. It was never used because WHY OH WHY IS SHE HOLDING THE CUSHION bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod…

Visiting space aliens, upon seeing humans oppress — or kill — one another over who they worship, who they sleep with, what side of an arbitrary line they’re born on, or how absorptive their skin is to sunlight, would surely race home & report no sign of intelligent life on Earth.