Question 1 - I am afraid of forgetting everything - not just lessons learned, but holidays, meals eaten, books read - people, places, myself. I hope not, but the next 10 years, and the 10 after that, will be decline, not growth ... Question 2 - I own around a thousand books, and if there was some way to transfer them to a Kindle then I would. I would have loved to have one when I was a commuter though. I used to carry books back and forth, and to the library. Question from me - can you 'borrow' eBooks from your library? Or must you buy them? And can you lend a good book to your friend, without giving them the Kindle and your whole library? As for audio-books, I love them. I listen to them with earphones, which tends to stop the mind wandering. But the only time I tried to drive like that, I realised I was paying far too much attention to the book ... So I would only drive and listen (through loudspeakers!) if it was a book I knew well, and didn't mind skipping chunks of while the road took my attention.

I just post a 'Good luck, Fred, on the Patheos site, and .... I am signing up here too. I have, if not friends here, at least people who know me better than most others on the net ... I am so sorry that I haven't read the thread yet, but it's nearly two in the morning, and I must go to bed Thank you, mmy, Kit, and hapax, and all the others who are going to make this is not safe, at least a well-defended space. Safety, I fear is not going to be easy. By the by, and possibly on another thread, I saw the Poe-troll and wondered if I hadn't read somewhere about Elagabalus marrying his horse (possibly in Duggan). But according to Wikipedia: according to Cassius Dio, his most stable relationship seems to have been with his chariot driver, a blond slave from Caria named Hierocles, whom he referred to as his husband And if you have one stable mate, you don't want another ...

Chris Y: I agree about French leave - though not sure about French horn v Cor Anglais - but I assumed Dutch courage referred to the origins of gin in Holland, and extended from there to refer to all alcoholic forms of en-couragement, while retaining its specific use to refer only to gin. Dutch auction is the way they sold bulbs ...

"Chinese fire drill" is a term with an unfortunate pedigree but as far as I know there is no other term for "an activity where everyone stands up and runs around and sits back down in a different place than they stood up from" other than that explicit description, which isn't useful. Musical chairs? Or is Chinese fire drill less organised?

Actually, looking at my icon reminds me of Lydia .... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHXZA_5XMJ4

Thank you! One of life's little mysteries solved ....

My views on tattoos are not worth mentioning - but can anyone explain how, if every cell in your body is replaced over seven or whatever years, my husband's tattoo is still on his arm fifty years after he had it done? Faded and blurred, no longer relevant, but there.

Re Jesurgislac: Well, you know, she didn't create the upheavals alone. All of that was just about the time I started reading here, but as I recall, there were several people who took delight in goading her. And she didn't back down, ever. I had a lot of pleasure in arguing with her - and even though we usually started at opposite ends of the argument, we would sometimes meet in the middle - but it could take a lot of time and energy to do so. I suspect that I was one of the people who wore every one else down

People don't know what it means to say, for example, that there's a 30% of rain. It means that 3 out of the ten cows in the field next door are lying down.

But with different icons ....

It happened before - if I remember correctly, hapax was impersonated earlier, and Dorothy claimed it was actually not an impersonation ....

I think that if you use TypePad - which requires a password ... you might be less hijackable ... Although someone could just replicate your icon and name, it wouldn't have the same history. But I could be proved wrong.

Do you do this to the English? So what, next time Kit comes in here and mentions how much she likes England, we blame her because it was built ON THE BLOOD OF IRISH AND INDIAN BABBYS!! No, CaryB - people don't even need to say anything nice about the English before everyone dumps on them. And most of the time they are using English, instead of British - or the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland God, I think some people would have been happier if Irish terrorists had actually succeeded in Murdering Mrs Thatcher, not just three Conservative politicians, and three women whose only crime was to be married to Conservative politicians ...