“I was layin’ out there for two damn hours before anyone came to check on me! Heat stroke, it turns out. Just as well it wasn’t a stroke stroke, I’d be dead.”

Cheese and marmalade, the sharper both are the better. Mmm.

I’m on a combo binge. Recently I read an obituary for CJ Sansom, a writer of historical detective fiction. I’d never heard of him, but the books sounded good so I started reading them. Next thing I see there’s a TV series, Shardlake (Disney+), so now I’m watching that. Pretty well done, and the lead actor is great. (On to the third book in the series now.)

I my (extensive) cookie experience, double chocolate usually means the same amount of chips, but the dough part is also chocolate flavoured. Hard to tell in this instance, but the “double” cookies may be a shade darker.

For me olives were an acquired taste.

The first time I ate in a restaurant I was about 12 I think. It was a fancy Italian place. When I saw the dishes of (green, pimento-stuffed) olives on the table I was excited to try one. I’d only ever seen pictures of them in American magazines - this was mid-60s New Zealand, Coca Cola was exotic. I put one in my mouth, and almost gagged, the flavour was so completely awful. I spat it into a napkin.

Fast forward to today, and I would gladly hoover up the whole dishful and ask for more. My favourite olive is a big fat juicy Kalamata. I also love tapenade made with black olives. The only olives I dislike are the flavourless cardboardy lumps sometimes passed off as olives.

I know a young man who headed back to India for an arranged marriage. I expressed my extreme surprise that he would agree to marry someone he’d never met, and he said he trusted his parents to choose someone compatible. “After all, they know me better than anyone else.” I remain baffled, honestly. He seems an otherwise savvy, modern person. But there you go, happy to commit to a stranger.

I dread to think what kind of bloke my parents would have picked for me…

I do hug my friends (and family when they visit from far, far away), I’m very huggy. Cuddling is another level of intimacy though. I do miss it, a bit.

My farts are so loud you probably heard me earlier and thought it was a car with engine trouble.

Single about 25 years. I’m 71 and I absolutely love my life. I have lots of friends and a very active life, but I love coming home and being alone there. Before menopause I had a strong libido and terrible taste in men, so I had a lot of truly awful relationships, with endless drama.

It’s kind of by choice I guess, though I don’t get offers. A few years ago a guy gave me the eye and I contemplated it, until I caught sight of his bare feet. Oh dear god no. Self-care is important mate, you need to see a podiatrist.

The main con of being single for me is not enough hugs and cuddles. The pros are too many to give up for that though. I get to decide everything and make plans based on what I want. I can fart loudly, talk to my potplants and be lazy without Someone rolling their eyes, it’s bliss.

No, not attractive. That’s a man who spends a LOT of time in the gym, looking at himself in the mirror. He eats and drinks weird stuff and possibly is on drugs that make him angry. Not my cup of tea.

I’ve started reading Hominids already and finding it interesting but the writing is annoying me - there’s some lacivious drooling over the lead scientist’s lacy bra, plus details of her appearance, while her male assistant is merely “gawky”. It seems a quick read though so I’ll hang in there. (Speaking of Neanderthals, the Kim Stanley Robinson novel Shaman is set at a time when we coexisted, very interesting speculation on their mentality and interaction with our mob.)

Next on my list is Leckie - I loved the Ancillary trilogy and am looking forward to more Radch.

Thanks, brilliant list and I love the summaries. I’m taking a few recommendations because it seems we have similar tastes.

Sister Wendy. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QBv0HezlOBw

I do beekeeping with an educational project and my bugbear is hygiene. Bad habits had set in before I joined the group - not cleaning hive tools or beesuits, not properly cleaning and storing feeding and honey extraction kit, it was all pretty filthy and gross. They tease me for being a martinet, but we sell the honey FFS! And the bees themselves deserve protection from people casually risking the spread of disease.

Well that unlocked a memory. I was on a road trip around California and stopped off in a small town to do my laundry. An elderly gent was already in the laundromat and the washing machine window showed bright, bright blue. He said he recalled that his late wife used to use blueing tablets to get the sheets etc white. “I couldn’t find any at the store, but these toilet cleaning tablets are blue, so figured I’d try them.”

This is what my late mother used: https://www.retonthenet.co.uk/vintage-washing-laundry-reckitts-bag-blue-reckitt--coleman-hull-dolly-bag-1960s-nos-dolly-blue-5487-p.asp

I remember when all the controversy started I thought wow, this must be exaggerated somehow, and sought out what she had actually said. Oh. My. Fucking. God. When she was challenged she didn’t just double down, she quadrupled down, and then some. Loathsome woman, just awful.

Far-away family are the only reason I use FB too. My sister and some of my nieces use it to a disturbing degree, “checking in” when they’re in restaurants etc, posting “memories”, pictures of their kids. My sister has a special pose for her FB selfies - head tilt, fake smile. I hate it all with a burning fire, even when I’m clicking the heart button on a puppy photo.

AI just seems like another step closer to the abyss, the death of true creativity.

Charcoal?

Lol! It was quite a nostalgia trip for me to write about coal, and it never occurred to me that many people of course would never have experienced it. I’m 71 years old and grew up in New Zealand.

Our coal was pretty good quality, it came in large shiny chunks - some of them were too big for the firebox, so you had to break them up with a hammer. There was a lower grade of coal that was cheaper, but it didn’t burn as hot.

Filthy, awful fuel. Looking back I’m amazed we didn’t all get lung cancer or something, the amount of soot we breathed in.

I did cook it on the stove. Soaking the oats overnight beforehand makes it more unctuous imo. And of course I added a bit of salt, that goes without saying.

Gigi. I loved back when I was a little girl (“leeetle girrrrl”), but rewatching as an adult I was HORRIFIED.