Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@social.cleverlibre.org
Retired software engineer & woodworker.
Anglo-francophone.
Detest tories. Subscribe to green, leftish radical politics but not to any particular political party!.
Love the EU and all it stands for, moreover, I spent the last 10 years of my career working at an EU agency.
Enthusiastic photographer, especially wildlife and most especially butterflies.
Slightly knowledgeable gardener.
Atheist; loathe almost all religions and pity the people deluded enough to follow them. I make exceptions for Buddhism as it isn't really a religion in the strictest sense of the word as it doesn't postulate the existence of any god, and Jainism which is the epitome of peace.
For anyone who is interested, my header photo is of the most stupendous sunset I have ever seen. On the right is the waterfront of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the left is Thailand and in the middle, acting as the border between the two countries is the mighty Mekong river.
Joined Nov 2022
That is exactly what the government in Luxembourg has done - all public transport; trains, trams and buses, within the borders of the Grand Duchy is now free!
I think my favourite French-ism imported into English is the phrase "cul de sac", which had friends of mine from France who were visiting England, in fits of laughter. In English, "cul de sac" is a rather twee, middle class euphemism for a dead end; in France it is a slangy and distinctly vulgar way of saying the same thing. The correct French term is "voie sans issue" whereas "cul de sac" literally translated into English means "the arsehole of a bag" and it's not 'twee' at all!
I'm sure there are dozens of other examples of the same phenomenon.
Certainly, in the opposite direction, there are loads:
Un smoking (in French) = a dinner jacket
Un parking = a car park
Un pressing = a dry cleaners
Du shampooing = shampoo
There are doubtless 100s of other examples that I can't bring to mind right now!
It must be one of the most misused French words that has migrated to the English language.
The word "chef" in French actually means "manager", "head", "boss", "guv'nor". So "chef de cuisine" simply means the manager of the kitchen, the cook in charge of the kitchen. The French word for someone who cooks food for a living, in a restaurant or hotel is "cuisinier" or "cuisinière" not "chef".
@maclean@mastodon.scot
I hope you don't mind, I used your pic as a target for my Artificial Intelligence sharpening and noise reduction system. This is the result:
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Ironic that most of the Mastodon client activity is supporting by far the most restrictive OS -- Apple's iOS, the linchpin to the dominance of the technology industry's most control-freakish company.
Even the Mozilla-backed app falls into this category, which is a shame.
This from the Guardian:
"Tim Lang, emeritus professor of food policy at City, University of London and author of Feeding Britain, said: “Our supply chains are creaking and we are seeing a forerunner of what could be a huge crisis. There has been a total failure by the government to develop a proper food strategy.
He said it is “absurd” to be increasingly relying on fresh produce grown more than 1,000 miles away in places such as north Africa while UK production is being wound down.
It is not just food that is at risk in complex supply chains. Pharmacists, who rely on drugs from China and India, report that some patients are now forced to go from chemist to chemist to try to find one that can fill their prescriptions. There have been shortages of cold and flu medicines, from Lemsip to Night Nurse, over the winter."
Personally, I would point out that shortages of Lemsip, Night Nurse and the like are of no real significance - no one is going to die for the want of Lemsip, FFS. Shortages of some antibiotics are clearly rather more serious, however, so long as there are alternatives, not life threatening but the moment we run out of the full range of broad spectrum antibiotics then people will die as a result!
I always feel sorry for Americans when they start talking about how many US$ this treatment or that treatment or this test or that test would cost whereas in the EU countries such treatments or examinations either cost nothing or cost a modest $10 - $15.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Question for some #actuallyautistic friends.
I'm self diagnosed. I'm 42 years old and self diagnosed last year after taking some online tests.
I highly suspect that my oldest daughter is also on the spectrum.
I'm told that getting an official diagnosis would be expensive (I've heard as high as $1,500). I'm also extremely mistrustful of therapists, as I saw five since 2010 and none of them could tell I was autistic despite some very obvious signs (they also did fuck all for my depression and anxiety).
Are there any benefits to having my kid diagnosed? I feel like if I was diagnosed when I was a kid it wouldn't have mattered much. I might have made some choices that effected me economically (like not joining the military, which would have put me on a different career path) but otherwise my mental health would have stayed the same.
A change in medication and the adoption of permanent blood sugar monitoring via a stick on gadget under my arm has meant that my morning routine of:
have bath
weigh myself naked after bath
test blood sugar with a finger prick
enter data in an Excel sheet that I created for the purpose
take small mountain of pills
The disruption of moving from daily finger prick to permanent monitoring meant that I forget to weigh myself and record it in the spreadsheet for nearly a month.
My weight had been rising inexorably as the long acting insulin that I have just started taking, tends to promote weight gain (not at all helpful if you are a type II diabetic as weight is a major factor in the disease. I finally remembered to weigh myself this morning and was pleasantly surprised to find that far from putting on weight, I have actually lost more than a kilo (= 2.2 lbs). This is I suspect due to me cutting back on alcohol, to almost nothing; I wasn't a heavy drinker but the odd tinnie here and there does add up to a LOT of calories.
Prof Roy Taylor who recently made some groundbreaking discoveries the field of diabetes, describes alcohol as "liquid fat" and my experience certainly bears that out!
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
The actual price of the average house in the UK in the early 1960s was about 3000 GBP and UK family income was about 2000 GBP, an easy 2 to 3 ratio!, whereas today your average UK family only makes 32,000 against a 300,000 house price (like in the USA, your prices have spiked from about 200,000 two years ago, unfortunately, your wages have not gone up
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
@DavidPenington @EugeneMcParland
"Don't exit Russia by selling your business to others to operate."
As if the top people at Heineken ever had the intention to do so.
They did exactly the opposite and expanded their business in Russia, abusing the situation for profit.
This is a company led by unscrupulous people, sponsoring Putins terrorist actions. You should avoid drinking their #bloedBier and their other products.
See https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heineken_(brouwerij)#Lijst_van_merknamen_in_bezit_van_Heineken_NV
@MadeyeTheCarnaptious @BelieveinScotland
No, I'm far from convinced that a similar sized town in the UK would boast an Aldi, a Lidl, a Colruyt (a Belgian discount chain where I tend to shop most of the time), a Match (a Hungarian chain) and a Cactus (the local Luxembourgish supermarket chain) all in premises of substantial size. The Aldi and the Lidl are literally next door neighbours!
@MadeyeTheCarnaptious @BelieveinScotland
Ah sorry yes - I thought everyone knew where I live so well know, am I!
Mersch in Luxembourg.
@MadeyeTheCarnaptious @BelieveinScotland
Is that why I can go buy tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and any other salad stuff or veg that I want at any one of the 5 supermarkets in our local town (population around 10,000)
Heinekan is utter shit anyway. Even my Dutch friends used to call it disparagingly "chemical beer"
@MadeyeTheCarnaptious @BelieveinScotland
Of course it is because of Brexit, anyone barring a complete fückin cretin would acknowledge that! If every EU country has the full range of salad and other veg with no shortages at all (as seems to be the case judging by things here in Luxembourg and the photos of supermarket shelves groaning under the weight of fresh produce taken in other EU countries) and Britain is practically completely starved of fresh veg even though just a few Kilometres across the Channel in France, there is no shortage at whatsoever, it takes a criminal leap of utter, rampant stupidity (or being in the BBC newsroom) to believe that it isn't anything to do with Brexit!
The question is is it a direct consequence of Brexit or an indirect one? The fact that trucks bringing stuff into Britain get snagged in 70 hour queues and therefore drivers are refusing to deliver to Britain at all - now that is a direct consequence of Brexit as is the fact that British buyers are now last in the queue when veg in short supply is parcelled out. The fact that British growers can't expand their production because they can't get the labour to harvest; labour that used to come from the EU, it is an indirect consequence, I suppose!
Retired software engineer & woodworker.
Anglo-francophone.
Detest tories. Subscribe to green, leftish radical politics but not to any particular political party!.
Love the EU and all it stands for, moreover, I spent the last 10 years of my career working at an EU agency.
Enthusiastic photographer, especially wildlife and most especially butterflies.
Slightly knowledgeable gardener.
Atheist; loathe almost all religions and pity the people deluded enough to follow them. I make exceptions for Buddhism as it isn't really a religion in the strictest sense of the word as it doesn't postulate the existence of any god, and Jainism which is the epitome of peace.
For anyone who is interested, my header photo is of the most stupendous sunset I have ever seen. On the right is the waterfront of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the left is Thailand and in the middle, acting as the border between the two countries is the mighty Mekong river.
Joined Nov 2022
