@elodieunderglass At NO POINT in this video did I know what was going to happen next

Oh wow. Thank you so much for thinking of me!!

Okay the WEIRDEST THING is going going down right now

So some guy in Michigan in the US has just found a letter in his grandmother’s house; it seems to be a pen pal letter from 1973ish, and it’s from a young Welsh girl. In it, she lists:

So this American dude decides to take a photo, whack it on Twitter and ask the only Welsh person he knows if there’s any way to track this Welsh girl down, because you know, ALL WELSH PEOPLE KNOW EACH OTHER, OBVIOUSLY

Except

I am furious to report that it has worked

Welsh person he tags doesn’t know, but takes up the challenge. Someone reckons the Catrin might be a woman who translated a hymn book once, and checks the foreword to see that the dates and ages do seem to be about right. Someone else suddenly has a brainwave - wait, isn’t she the mother of Steff, the comedian?

My husband gets tagged, takes one look at this letter, and is like “That is 1000% my aunt.”

So now it’s 20 to midnight, Steff’s aunt has obviously not yet seen the excited message to put Twitter out of their misery, and my mother-in-law is currently on the phone gleefully telling us that when that letter was written her sister had never sat on a horse in her life before, and she’d lied to an American pen pal for clout before the internet even existed.

UPDATE: the aunt has confirmed. She has given no comment as yet on the horses.

UPDATE 2: Local Woman’s Family Cannot Stop Dragging Her

There’s a segment in a bbc sounds show where a random Welsh caller is put on with the host and he had SIXTY SECONDS to find someone they have in common and he does it so very very well

US authorities have turned to Europe for help with the country's severe egg shortage. The shortfall is due to bird flu, which has plagued the United States for several years.

The Finnish Poultry Association says it has been contacted about exporting eggs to the US. The organisation's executive director, Veera Lehtilä, told Yle on Saturday that exporting eggs does not seem to be possible at the moment because no market access negotiations have been held with US authorities. This can be a drawn-out process involving extensive inspections and studies.

According to the Danish magazine AgriWatch, the US has also requested eggs from Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands.

One of Sweden’s biggest egg producers, Kronägg, told the daily Aftonbladet that it is unlikely to export eggs to the US, saying it would be difficult due to various export restrictions. Meanwhile, there is also an egg shortage in Europe.

(full article)

Eka laitetaa hirveet tullit ja muutenki törttöillää oikee olan takaa ja sit kerjätää munaa...

let it be known to the english-speaking audience that in finnish, the word for egg is also slang for penis. yes, everyone has been very hilarious about america begging europe for eggs. as they should.

They also asked Germany, and idk about our northern neighbours, but one of the reasons we don't have problems like this is that every single living chicken in Germany, including bio, tiny and backyard flocks, has to be vaccinated against both salmonella and chicken pest. The rules around bird flu are also much harsher.

These problems are self-made in the USian industry and directly related to the USian government's and public's unwillingness to support scientifically sound farming and food safety practices. And this is also the reason every time the US tries to broker free trade deals with European countries, there's mass protests over here.

Meanwhile also in Germany:

Eggs from Germany might turn out to be a load of balls... ;->

Vivaldi played by the South African elementary school Goede Hoop Marimba Band

Turn ON the sound

AMAZING

Slow down, turn on the sound and take a couple of minutes to enjoy this!

I think Vivaldi would have been tickled by this as he actually wrote so much of his music for an all girl orphanage/school. So to see a group of girls still playing his music hundreds of years later?!?!?! On an instrument he'd never seen?!?!?!

Wow, the drama in this performance. Genuinely amazing.

This made me so happy that I'm going to close Tumblr and go take some time to bask in the feeling instead of scrolling right on to the next thing.

Trail cam catching a deer fawn with the zoomies

All of my followers need to slow down and look at this immediately

Halberstadt, Germany 1890/1900

A cyanometer is a device used to measure the intensity of blue in the sky, often used in meteorology and atmospheric studies. It typically consists of a series of blue color patches or a color gradient, allowing the user to compare the sky’s color to these reference colors.

Do you like the wheel of the sky

Well I like that it doesn't take 5 minutes to scroll past.

Horror Musical Instrument

cut to me, playing my horror instrument at 4 am; my downstairs neighbors bang relentlessly at their ceiling with a broom stick, trying to stop me from summoning witches

Unmute!

Took me a couple years to get around to researching this, but it’s an instrument made by Morfbeats. Browsing the website, this instrument is possibly called Marvin, Mini Marvin, or Micro Marvin.

The good news is that everyone saying they want one potentially can get one, they are available for purchase as of this post.

The bad news is that they are very expensive.

Regardless, consider: Bard that plays one of these.

Jael and Sisera, 1787

James Northcote

One of P.G. Wodehouse's favourite descriptions of having a hangover. (With or without butter in a lordly dish.)

Hard Jael time...

My roommate thought she hated cooking and then she moved in with me and started using knives that were actually sharp and realized cooking is fun. Sometimes I wonder how many other situations are like this. It's not you, or your skills. It's just the lack of correct tools. Everyone knows you need a knife in the kitchen but no one mentions a sharpening stone.

Also you should probably sharpen your knife.

Speaking less metaphorically I literally do wonder how many people would realize Cooking Doesn't Suck if only they had sharper knives. Cutting vegetables is not supposed to be a workout. You're not supposed to apply force when you press down. If you have to force the knife down then the knife is dull! This is a fixable problem!

I hated cooking with my mother because it was always a hectic struggle of finding each ingredient as and when it was needed and I am not good at finding things becase it hits the blind spot in my poor sensory filtering and litteralness. it turns out when I have the space and warning to get all my ingredients together ahead of time and line them up in order in easy reach? Not only do I enjoy even quite fiddly backing but I am actually damg good at it.

The following info is for Ordinary kitchen knives, from inexpensive supermarket brands to Wüsthof, Zwilling, Sabatier, Global etc.

Knives that aren't Ordinary - ceramic, Damascus, single-bevel Japanese etc. - need more specialised care.

*****

Get a steel OR a pull-through sharpener and, if your knives aren't as sharp as they can be, steel or pull-through all of them about 20 times, then use a carrot and a ripe tomato to test how the knife cuts through something resistant and something squashy.

What's wanted is an edge which cuts - push forward, pull back, cut complete - because it's sharp rather than because it's pressing down hard or sawing to and fro.

Finish by rinsing each knife with very hot water, then dry them and put them in their block / drawer / whatever.

NB, if knives have been transformed from dull to sharp, expect to pay "Steel Fee" at least once and know where the Elastoplast / Band-Aid is kept.

Once accustomed to these sharp knives, using them becomes much easier. After use, wash off any ingredient gunk, rinse under very hot water, steel or pull through the sharpener a couple of times, rinse again, dry and put away.

Knives prepped and maintained like this will have safe * and reliable working edges for a long, long time.

*****

* I've heard / read comments about "sharp isn't safe".

Yes, it is.

Sharp blades cut with far less effort than blunt ones, and it's the need for unnecessary effort that sends a knife skittering off in an unexpected, dangerous direction that usually ends where it's least wanted.

Sharp is better.

It was really bad.

Cartoon from the 1990s:

The cartoon is spot on, because "No Smoking" sections were a joke.

There were even "No Smoking" seats on planes, and you can imagine how well THAT worked.

@dduane and I can both remember the way long flights always ended with us needing a shower, a complete change of clothes and a laundry trip, just one of several details which put a very different complexion on nostalgic yearning for "The Golden Age of Air Travel".

Until 2004, when Ireland's indoor-smoking ban came in, we had to do the same shower / change / washing-machine routine after any visit to a pub.

Our local in particular is an old building with low ceilings which kept the fug of smoke down where it could really cling, and the landlord, though a non-smoker himself, must have inhaled an obscene amount of it.

I sometimes wonder if he's ever gone for a check-up...

The trick is stopping before the gratings turn pink.

Tea Time - Alice De Vliegher , 2023.

Belgian , b. 1997 -

Acrylic on canvas , 90 x 60. cm.