draliman on life

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World.

Where do you get your news?
While I’m making my packed lunch for work I get Alexa to play the BBC headlines. Then at lunchtime while I’m eating my lunch at work I read the BBC news website. Sometimes for a laugh I read one of the commercial news websites as well.

What ‘old person’ thing do you do?
I’m already getting on a bit so the stuff I do isn’t “old person” stuff, it’s “normal stuff” 🙂

When was the coldest you’ve ever been? The warmest?
I really can’t remember. Possibly back when I lived in Germany. Being mid-continent and away from the sea the temperature varied between -15 and 30-odd, which you don’t get in Cornwall. We get more like -2 to mid-twenties. Currently being mid-winter it’s hovering between around 4 and 9 degrees, so not too cold.

Do you eat food that’s past its expiry date if it still smells and looks fine?
Yes, of course. One of the biggest reasons for wasted food is people chucking food away the moment it hits its expiry date. Hard cheese? Doesn’t go off. Eggs? Float test (and a sniff when you crack them). One of the biggest is “eat within 3 days of opening”. What a massive lie. I’ve eaten perfectly good stuff 2 weeks after opening.

Then there’s people who mix up “best before”, “sell by” and “use by”. “Sell buy” is an instruction for the shop, and food is fine after “best before”, it’s just not necessarily at its best.

Juts know what to watch out for. Any mould anywhere on bread? Throw the loaf away, the spores will be everywhere. Soft cheese – mould permeates inside, so you can’t just cut if off. Stuff like that. You can tell by sniffing something and a tiny taste if something’s gone off, usually.

Use your common sense, people! And obviously, if you’re feeding small children, be a lot more careful – best not to take chances with the little ones!

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World.

What’s something your brain tries to make you do, which you have to will yourself NOT to do? (could be a bad habit, a physical response to something…your interpretation is as good as mine!)
Much as I hate going the same way as many others, eating! Specifically chocolate. I still have a big bar of chocolate from Christmas I’m a bit scared to open, as technically it should be eaten over an entire week but I might not be able to stop myself eating it all in one go. It my absolute favourite, too.

Here’s the chocolate bar in question.

I love how it says “More to Share”. Like, get your own chocolate bar. This is my chocolate bar. You can’t have any.

When someone finds out what you do, or where you are from, what question do they always ask you?
They don’t. Their eyes just glaze over as all interest fades. IT does that to people. Either that or they describe some problem they have with their computer and ask me to fix it. Yeah, sure mate. £20 per hour.

What’s something terrifying that we’ve all come to accept as a fact of life?
This is not exactly terrifying, but…

I was walking into town yesterday around 0845 and I walked down a street with a lot of jewellers. Their windows were full of people putting out the displays – rings, necklaces and the like. And it was all totally normal.

Then I thought, why? The only reason they have to remove the displays overnight is because of the risk of theft. We buy insurance which covers theft. We lock our houses, cars, bikes. We buy security cameras and alarms. We password protect everything. It costs us a fortune. All because of the risk some bastard who’s too lazy to get a job is going to help themselves to our stuff. And we accept it as normal.

Should governments make laws to protect people from harming themselves? Could that even work?
In general, no. Not once they’re adults. And it doesn’t always work. If someone really wants to do something they’ll find a way. One big exception that really did work was making it law to wear a seat belt in a car. Saved a lot of lives, that did. Also spared a lot of emergency workers the trauma of having to scrape splattered body parts up off the pavement.

Tiny poll: I’m curious what type of questions YOU, the reader, would like to see more of? Less of? Has SYW gotten too philosophical and less fun in nature?
I’m happy with the questions 🙂

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World.

Is “hello” enough for you these days?
Sounds a bit much. It almost implies there’s something more to come. And I really hope there isn’t. A little wave of the hand, a little nod of the head, a little grunt which somehow manages to combine “Hi, alright?” into one poorly-enunciated syllable is my choice.

Do you believe in Murphy? (Anything that can go wrong will go wrong)
Of course. Believing in the Great Law of Murphy is a form of disaster preparedness.

And for anyone who reckons “that could never happen, what are the odds?” here’s some ridiculous odd for you. I was doing my laundry yesterday. There were five pairs of socks in the machine and when I pulled out the first five socks there wasn’t a single match. What are the odds of that?

Does evil come from within? If so, why?
Evil does come from within. And also for without. And from the in-between too. Keep your eyes peeled.

Are intelligent people more or less happy than others? What defines intelligence?
Yes. Both. Either. Neither. I’m not sure what intelligence has to do with happiness, though living in blissful ignorance sounds quite nice these days.

“Ignorance” doesn’t necessarily correlate with “intelligence”, mind. You could be extremely intelligent yet know very little. The definition of intelligence is the “ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills”. It doesn’t mean you actually know anything about anything.

Here’s my post for Melanie’s Share Your World. This week is a reflection of last year.

Advance warning – my answers are very boring. I see time passing as a continuous thing rather than packaging everything into “years” and having a fresh new start, so I wasn’t really paying much attention to last year.

What was the single best thing that happened in your life this past year?
Hmm. I can’t think of one single best thing. It’s not like I won the lottery or anything. And that would count as miraculous anyway since I don’t buy a ticket.

The most challenging?
I have nothing really challenging to report. It was just a normal year.

One thing you learned in 2019?
On boy, these questions! It was just another year.

Given all your experiences, insights, and lessons learned in 2019, what’s the best advice you could give yourself for 2020?
Sorry to be boring but life just goes on. 2019 was the same as 2018, 2017, 2016…

What’s the best meal/food you ate in 2019?
I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention. I seem to remember there was a very nice burger at some point. Though that might have been in 2018.

What are three activities you plan to use in the coming year to relieve stress?
I have no particular plans.

Any resolutions you’d care to share?
I don’t make resolutions. I don’t like the guilt when I don’t follow them.

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World.

Do dogs ‘talk’ (communicate) with their own species?
Presumably. Who else are they going to talk to properly? I expect different dog species have a bit of trouble communicating, though. And dogs from different countries woof in different languages,

Have you ever had to work on Christmas Day?
No, no more than just a few bits I’ve had to check on and off, but done from home.

If someone gifts you something that you immediately loathe, do you pretend to really like it anyway or are you brutally honest about your opinion?
I would pretend to like it. No need to be nasty.

Which popular drink, found during the Christmas season most often, is called “milk punch?”
I imagine it would be eggnog, which sounds a bit gross to be honest.

How many ghosts show up during “A Christmas Carol?”
I immediately thought “three”, of course, but then I Googled it to see and there were in fact four – I had forgotten about his old business partner, Jacob Marley!

Are you all about the holly and jolly or more about remembering the alleged ‘true’ meaning of Christmas?
I’m more about the ‘true’ meaning of Christmas.

Presents.

Please share a memory or thought about the holiday season if you’d like, whatever kind of celebration you may observe.
Christmas always used to be about Gran coming down to visit from Scotland for a couple of weeks. We had things we always used to do, like going to a little place nearby and buying satsumas. She’s been gone a good while now, twenty years I think.