bluebottle

You wouldn't get many of those concrete cows in a mainline cattle wagon.

For the plural of a proper name ending in y, simply add an s. The example given in The Oxford Guide to English Usage is "the three Marys". Say three hail andys if you got it wrong. Hmm... the spell checker obviously hasn't heard of the Oxford Guide!

Watch out for plastic RSPCA officers!

We have to worry about how His Hipponess is to be dealt with in a real emergency...

Went a long way over my head! Sometimes, I feel as if I'm in Walter Mitty's huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy hydroplane: " 'Rev her up to 8,500! We’re going through!' The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa...''

Generally speaking, I resent the inane postings of those trying to vandalise Wikipedia, but I'm amused by a section added to the "talk" page for the article on the WWII French Resistance. Someone asked, in mock innocence, what uniform the résistants wore... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:French_Resistance#what_did_they_wear

According to Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, we have a choice of two plural forms of forum: forums and fora, the second reflecting the word's Latin origin. The first is “several times more frequent in Oxford English Corpus data, and is preferable for all meanings other than 'a public square in an ancient Roman town or city'", though fora is quite often used in technical or legal writing. To come nearer to home: “When used as the plural of 'an internet site where users can post comments about an issue' it presents a piquant discord between the ultramodern and the ancient, or is utterly pretentious, depending on your point of view: e.g. They may well also seek advice from other crackers*, through online fora or in chatrooms. Edit: * "crackers" = criminal hackers.

Correction: "next week" should read "coming Saturday".

Remembering Helen's babyhood mishaps, and in readiness for when Emily would be old enough to crawl, I equipped all hard and angular items of furniture in my house. Also appropriate safeguards for resident and visiting GDs. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Safety-Edge-Corner-Guards-Baby/b?ie=UTF8&node=60569031

Certainly looks like a happy chap! Best wishes, Matthew!

Well, I was using "fabulous" in its old sense "Such as is met with only in fable; beyond the usual range of fact"; rather than the latterday "Now frequently in trivial use, esp. = ‘marvellous’, ‘terrific’." (OED) I could have added that I was, in fact, "Contented with little and cantie wi' mair". e.g. a copy of the Wizard or Rover and a bag of "soor plooms" sweeties.

Last time I came to see model railways in the flesh, I got arrested.

Perhaps, but we can all guess when somebody's going to tell us that nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Out and about earlier than is my wont, this morning, I caught up with a gaggle of children waiting for the lollipop lady to clear their passage across a busy road, on their way to the local primary school. Several of them were discussing their pocket money, mentioning sums which would have seemed fabulous to me back in the late 1940s/early 50s. I remembered asking my mother when we were going to get a television set, as did a few of the wealthier inhabitants of our tenement street: "Oh, not for a while, they're still too dear", she said. "What, you mean a pound?" "Aye, that's right, son." Back to today on Southey Green Road, when I overheard one small girl say that she got two pounds a week, I was sorely tempted to say: "When I was your age, you could buy two tellys for that!"

Remember when nearly sixteen, On your very first date as a teen. At the movies? If yes, Then I bet you can't guess, What was shown on the cinema screen.

And detached toenails - Ouch!!

When I last dined with Lady Dundee, She said: "Do you fart when you pee?" I said:"Not a bit! But I belch when I s**t." And I felt that was one up to me!

No Donner und Blitzen here, just a short sharp Regenschauer. Must get up to Asda at some point, the cupboard being bare.

Is that why I've seen so many people wearing specs the size of porthole lights? Edit: interrupted by phone call, left post garbled and incomplete.

I remember watching an entertaining match for charity on TV years back where a batsman (afraid I can't remember his name) had a similar problem. He managed to scuffle the ball a few yards away, then sprinted past a dawdling fielder to boot it over the boundary. Howzat?

Though there be madness here, yet there is method in't...

Don't know about you, me old, but I'm most likely to scatter typos when I'm in too much of a hurry to point out an amusing typo on someone else's post before I'm beaten to it ...

Unfortunately, it didn't occur to the Native Americans to build a thirty-foot high wall around their reservation. (Edited to delete first thought as possibly probably inviting censorship).

Not unless the cat had a highly reflective anal sphincter!

Sounds like the only time you're really safe is when you're out in the motor, Bob!