Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@social.cleverlibre.org

Well I have just been to our local branch of Aldi (in Luxembourg) and they only had 4 varieties of tomatoes on display and I had the last pack of one of the varieties so now they are down to 3!

I blame Brexit!

I'm looking to book a holiday in Costa Rica for the middle of the year. The cheapest flights are all via US airports. Given that I have been told by experienced travellers to avoid at any price, US airports (their ratings on sites that rate airports are also absolutely the bottom of the pits that considering the USA is NOT a 3rd world country), how much extra should I be prepared to pay to avoid flights via the USA?

Is there anyone out there who can come up with a coherent explanation of why Britain is so critically short of some fruit and veg that supermarkets are imposing rationing and yet from all the photos I have seen, and my own personal experience here in Luxembourg, there are absolutely no such shortages in other countries in northern Europe, yet according to the mainstream media in Britain, it's due to absolutely anything their imaginative reporters can dream up EXCEPT Brexit. It rather seems to me that if France, on Britain's doorstep, has absolutely no shortage whatsoever and Britain is rationing, that blaming the weather in Morocco or elsewhere is an exercise in gaslighting rather than in factual reporting.

I think throughout most of people’s lives people don’t really think of its inevitable conclusion or at least only very rarely. However, I am now in my early 70s and that inevitable conclusion is, well, sort of closing in on me a little bit.

I believe a lot of people derive some comfort from the idea of going to heaven; rather fewer from the idea of going to hell.

In recent years, “new age” spiritual beliefs have postulated the concept of reincarnation, and I must admit it is a very attractive idea. I was therefore slightly disappointed to read, in a book about obscure Tibetan Buddhist beliefs, that the true cognoscenti of that branch of Buddhism pooh-pooh the whole concept of reincarnation as being a visualisation of the reincarnation of the ego; something that in spiritual terms you most certainly do not want to retain.

I always found it rather perverse that, whilst we in the West tend generally to hanker after the preservation of our existence in some form, after death, in Hinduism, the goal is to be forever freed from repeated reincarnations. To that end, Hindus desirous of short circuiting their rebirth cycle often make their way to the city Varanasi on the sacred river Ganges, Just prior to their impending demise in order that they may die within that holy city and that their body may be burned on the banks of the sacred river Ganges which, in theory, frees them from the cycle of birth and rebirth!

This makes Varanasi a city with a very errrrr - interesting atmosphere. Aside from its alleged abbreviation of the cycle of rebirth, Varanasi is also the home of Shiva, who happens to be the god of dope (cannabis, pot or what you will) and so although alcohol is forbidden within the city limits, grass is freely available. Many residents of the city and much of its workforce are followers of Shiva and take their obligation to emulate Shiva very seriously - Varanasi is a city in which a substantial proportion of the population considers it a religious obligation to get as stoned as they can 24/7. This makes it an other worldly experience, if that is the right description!

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/food/we-dont-need-foreign-muck-like-tomatoes-the-gammons-guide-to-seasonal-british-vegetables-20230222231898

Just had a new internet service installed at the moment it's delivering about 730 Mbps downstream and 100 Mbps upstream. How does that compare with what other people are getting. Surprisingly, it's not fibre direct to my desk like my ultra-fast service in Thailand - this is coax.

In the UK and in many other countries, a woman who marries generally takes her husband's surname, losing in the process, the identity she has had since birth.
I find this extremely odd; why in an age of emancipation do we continue with this practice. I guess it had some validity in the back in the days when a wife was just part of her husband's goods and chattels and had no legal rights of her own, but today?
Moving to Belgium some years back brought this home to me as, there, woman do not, as a rule, change their name upon marriage nor do they do so in many other European countries.
Do any of my Prehistoric Elephant friends have a strong view on this?