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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • 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.



  • 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.”







  • Huh, I did not know that. Thanks! I was in a discussion over lunch the other day about chemistry - one woman revealed she was a chemistry teacher, which prompted an anti-science member of the group to scoff, “What relevance does chemistry have in daily life?” I gave cooking as a prime example of chemistry - cakes rise, sauces reduce, roasts brown. And now I can emulsifying to the list!





  • – 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.


  • Last year my email address - initialslastname@gmail.com - was added to the group list for a bunch of old ladies in England. First I was advised of my spot on the flower roster for the church, then I got someone’s holiday photos, a reminder that Gerald’s birthday was on the 9th, a lovely eCard congratulating me on my wedding anniversary… on and on.

    I tried deleting them but they kept coming, and I worried about all the cool stuff initialslastname was missing out on. I sent an email to the whole group saying stop it & got a heartfelt apology and promises to correct it, but the emails have kept on coming - they all have me in their address books now. If I wasn’t so lazy it would be a good incentive to move fully to my proton address.



  • 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.



  • 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!!!