Jamie123

As a kid, I found the best plan was to give them your report card and - before they've had time to read it - leave the house on some urgent pretext. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT return for at least two hours. By that time they have (hopefully) calmed down somewhat.

And E is death of YOU?

What does he do when they get an A? Buy them a Cray supercomputer?

I agree Americans are as entitled to have view on brexit as we are to moan about Trump. I am just a little surprised someone in Florida would care much one way or the other whether one small island thousand of miles away stays politically united with the European mainland or not.

That's Lord Bucket-Head in the middle! He'd have got my vote

Does Brexit make a lot of difference to you in Florida?

Where's the fun in that?

Oh I'm not illogical - I just enjoy complaining

I am?

Good idea! It's no use letting a woman loose in a store. She'll spend all her husband's hard-earned cash on shoes, handbags, scarves and whatever-else! *Jamie123 braces himself for the flaming to come. P.S. Why do women need so many shoes? I own two pairs of shoes - a smart pair and a scruffy pair. Yet my wife (who has the same number of feet as me) has more pairs of shoes than I can count.

I feared this would happen. Theresa May has 315 seats, 11 short of what she needs. So how is she going to stay in power. Alliance with the SNP? That's not going to happen now is it? The Liberals have 12 seats. If she does a deal with them, she'll win by 1 seat! It's 2010 all over again - only better! (Note to mods: I'm not endorsing any candidate here - I'm only talking about numbers!) P.S. OK I was wrong - she's doing a deal with the DUP instead. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-40219030 She's bound to talk like that, but she's shaking in her shoes I'll bet! She now has (effectively) 328 seats - a majority of 2 which she can lose that at any time at the whim of the Northern Irish. I don't think this situation can last for very long.

You've got those things over there too have you?

The most famous thing about Pierre de Fermat (despite his much more useful "Little" Theorem) is a note he scribbled in a copy of Diophantus' Arithmetica - a proposition to the effect that a^n+b^n can never equal c^n when a, b, c and n are all whole numbers and n is 3 or greater, but that the proof of this would not fit in the margin. (Except of course he said it in Latin.) After three hundred and fifty eight years of failed attempts by history's greatest mathematicians, Andrew Wiles (an English mathematician working at Princeton) proved that the statement was true. The proof ran to 109 pages, so it's hardly surprising Fermat couldn't find room for it!

Said in a menacing tone! They don't make TV ads like they used to. (Neither do people always appreciate it when you and your kids stage a "1980's Weetabix Reenactment" down the cereal aisle - so I've found.)

You wouldn't want a grand old thread like this to come to an end would you? So for another exciting change of direction let's discuss "Professor Poopsnaggle and his Flying Steam Zeppelin"! (If you don't know what I'm talking about check out... ...though with all the "boom boom chugga chugga" you may have to turn it off after 1 minute 9 seconds to avoid gnawing off your legs.) I never actually "watched" the show per se, but I do remember it being on on Saturday mornings when I was getting my breakfast. What got me about it is that it wasn't so much a "Zeppelin"... this is a Zeppelin... ...as a bus with an undersized blimp tied to the top... ...with no propulsion other than two electric fans at the rear. So how did it fly...let alone keep up with a Quantas 747?

It's similar here sort-of. Labour (which is more-or-less Democrat give-or-take) was in government when they had a leader who was charismatic, dealt with realities (or what seemed at the time to be realities) rather than theoretical ideals and looked as though he had a clue what he was talking about. (He didn't as it turned out, but that's another story.) Now they have Jeremy Corbyn who seems to be a 70's/80's era socialist who's as dull as ditchwater to boot. The people who would have voted Labour had Tony Blair or someone like him still been in charge are going over to Theresa in droves. I'm tempted not to even bother voting this time, the result is a foregone conclusion.

haha - I think you and I have some of the same dark tastes in humour!

I love the Adrian Mole books. In fact Sue Townsend who wrote them (now sadly deceased) often claimed the "William" books were part of her inspiration. I had a colleague a few years ago who came from a very large Irish Catholic family. He told me he and all his siblings were expected to work when they were kids. When I said "I guess that's how you earned your allowance" he looked at me funny and said "we didn't really get any allowance". I guess food and a bed to sleep in was their "allowance"!

Actually I don't believe I've ever heard of Connie Willis, but I will certainly check her out. Books I would recommend.... Have you ever read the "William" books by Richmal Crompton? The hero - William Brown - is an 11-year-old schoolboy who lives in an almost constant state of war with the adult world (parents, older siblings, fussy neighbours, local farmers etc.) His gang "The Outlaws" also clashes with the odious Hubert Lane and his gang. William's "lady love" is a sweet little girl called Joan who lives next door to him, while his worst nightmare is another girl called Violet Elizabeth, the spoilt and domineering daughter of the self-made village squire. There are about 40 books in total, spanning the period from early post-WW1 right up to the 1970s. (William - like Bart Simpson - never ages. He is always 11.) However I wouldn't bother with the later stories too much: the real classics were all published between 1922 and around 1935.

Oh well we can now add: Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Hee-Haw show, and Jerome K. Jerome to the list!

Oh yes - I've been in Hampton Court maze myself many times. It's actually neither as easy as Harris makes it out to be, nor as difficult as he finds it!

That is my favourite book of all time! There was a sequel "Three Men on the Bummel" but it was not so funny as the original. Some of my favourite bits: Harris' dismal attempt to sing comic songs (which leads into the story of the German professor and his two students) "The cheese" Harris and the pie Uncle Podger and the picture-hanging The battle of the pineapple chunks

You've gotta love these guys...

No but I have watched Oklahoma! "I'm just a girl who can't say nnnn....nnnnnnn...nnnnnn...." (I got that joke off Vort - blame him!)