John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱

Molly Mookins of Mookington Hall 19th July 2014 - 27th December 2021 The very best of dogs. Farewell my lovely girl. I hope that wherever you are, you are still dancing x.

@ortrudethevegan Sorry Melanie, I don't quite understand your question?

@mcdonnelljp What is it?

Continuing last week's cheese theme, Susan uses both Cheddar and Stilton in the sauce. As we live within spitting distance of the gorge itself, our Cheddar comes from Cheddar, but any old Tom, Dirk or Abdul can call their cheese 'Cheddar'. Conversely Stilton is a PDO, but in one of those modern ironies, cheese made in Stilton can't be called Stilton.

Remarkably hazy day. Looking out over Monkton Heathfield (landowning in this area, as in much of Merrie England was split between Crown, Clergy and Nobility - in Taunton's case, the Bishop of Winchester, Taunton Priory, and (at first) the Counts of Mortain then the Earls of Salisbury (the Montagues are still kicking around, but their claim is somewhat iffy).

Lucy, pursuer of thrown stones.

Staving off glumness by marching about the slopes of the Blackdowns and marvelling at Nature.

@QcWynter @paul_g_mclaugh Me neither, though as an autodidact I'm not much of a stickler for pronunciation; as long as we can make ourselves understood, let a thousand flowers bloom.

@paul_g_mclaugh @mcdonnelljp I beg your pardon. I thought your question related to "dye" or "dee" but I see now that it relates to "spora". I have never heard emphasis on "spora".

Yo, sir, @QcWynter, just heard Matt Goodwin talk of the "dye-a-sporas" vs my understanding of "die-asp-pora" diaspora to be clear. Your erudition along with @mcdonnelljp would be most welcome. I do get the fungal reference, but hmmm...

I always wondered what happened to him.

A clear frontrunner for this year's 'Hitler really liked dogs' award.

Rosie off for a haircut today, so we toiled down to Taunton and set them up for the groomers by walking them through the local flood defences.

The State needs to understand that it's our money not theirs.

@SparkleInSepia Thank you x.

There are troubling gaps in human knowledge - we are still unable to marry general relativity with quantum mechanics, and while we can date bread to at least 14kya, the earliest cheese rocks up 7k years later. It's impossible to credit that bread wasn't invented just so early Man could enjoy a cheese and pickle sandwich, so clearly something is wrong here. In terms of etymology, as you might expect from one of our foundational foods, it's a direct line to proto-Indo European via all the usual suspects (Old Saxon, Latin). Interestingly the Frog version 'fromage' has nothing to do with cheese; it derives from the Latin 'forma', referring to any molded food. In this brave post-modern world, we could make a case that pâté is fromage.

@anyoneelsedone Good lord no; fool me once etc.

For my foreign tweeps, the fact the electorate preferred this bunch of clowns over the last lot should tell you how terrible the Tories were.

We've discovered that Rosie has a small but nasty cut on her rear right; she shall be swinging in her hammock for the next few days.