Marty

Hey, Gary! Hope your day's going better than the expression on that guy's face you have just shared with us suggests his day is...

I'm largely in agreement with @Valkyrie on this one, particularly when it comes to idioms and word-for-word translation. I remember in the early days of digital translation being frustrated by the fact that idioms were almost always translated wrongly. For example, the German expression "es gibt" literally means "there is" (or "there are"), but in the early days of digital translation it would always be translated to "it gives" (which is what the two words individually mean). And one only needs to read certain instruction manual for, say, self-assembly furniture to see the confusion that can result when trying to understand the word-for-word translation of them from the original Chinese into English. As for how I would feel about any of my stories being translated - if I ever finish any of my longer novels, I'll let you know.

I could be wrong, I'm suspecting that it may have been the American soldiers who came over to Europe during WWI (not WWII) who took the term French Fries back to the US... And apparently The Netherlands also lay claim to being the originators of the French Fries. In French, yes. But in UK English it is "potato chips", or simply "chips". As an aside, I read on Wikipedia that the United States supplies China with most of their French fries, while Canada supplies 22% of China's import of them.

Good night, gang! Chat yous all on the morrow.

Belgians urged to eat more chips (French fries) by lockdown-hit potato growers: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52439934 I read somewhere that chips (aka French fries across the pond) actually originate from Belgium, although France naturally disputes that. And just what is it with them there darned Americans that they try to insist that a potato crisp is actually a chip?

Only if they find out where the rooster(s) went. (Go out in camouflage after dark, Albert...)

Yes, yes, and yes again. But a young muscle stud like him would be just the ticket. It's hard work preparing the vegetable plot by myself. And then he could help with landscaping and decorating. And...! ...I'll let him use a ladder when necessary. A big strong lad like that may break my kitchen chairs if I make him stand on them.

He's more than welcome to take the shirt off his back, but I claim first dibs on the rest of him!

Well, if you do kill any of them, here's a recipe just for you. https://www.marthastewart.com/925889/chicken-fricassee-fricassee-de-poulet-lancienne

Doing good, thanks for asking. Yourself?

Greetings, young man!

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Well it looks as though the rain is settling in for the day. Currently just after 1pm here, and the temperature is a lot lower today than recently. Currently around 7°C (45°F), but feeling only about 2°C (36°F) with no sun to warm the day. The high is expected to be around 11°C (51.8°F). Not really expecting a huge amount of rain; forecast is for around 14mm (half an inch) in total for today and tomorrow, which will be enough to (a) water the garden, and (b) put a temporary halt to me turning more ground in the vegetable plot. I'm hoping to get the onion sets planted either today or tomorrow - if only because the advice is that they should be planted by the end of April if they are to yield a good crop. The seed potatoes aren't so critical, so can wait another week or so. We can expect late frosts up to the first of June, and that could kill any potato shoots and put them back anyway. I'm currently moving some of the larger and/or heavier items of mine from the rented accommodation to the new place. Some of them can be carried round. Some will fit in the car. There's a brand new colour A3 printer that I bought myself for Xmas currently in the car waiting to go round. It's never even been taken out of the box yet, and it only just fit on the back seat (it's a hatchback, so I could have dropped the back seats if necessary). There may be one or two items that I will need help carrying round, but the house was rented fully furnished, so I don't have to be moving heavy items of furniture. It's getting time to give my landlord his month's notice of me ending the tenancy agreement. I may leave that another week or so, as I really need to get the last of my own stuff moved first, and then give the house a thorough cleaning.

Is that a consequence of the covid-19 lockdown?

right back at you!

Sad to hear that, Albert.

It never occurred to me that myna birds (or mynah birds) are actually members of the starling family. Back maybe fifty years or so mynah birds were often kept as pets in the UK (maybe they still are) , largely because of their ability to mimic, and talk, much as many parrots can. Now that I think about it, common starlings are quite good mimics as well (though maybe not as good as mynah birds). Thanks for that piece of information, Albert! Now, here's a mynah bird that insists it is actually a chicken:

https://www.thespruce.com/european-starling-identification-385980 Or this, from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_starling

My experience is that starlings often appear shiny black. It's only in certain light, or in close-up, that the speckling is really obvious.

Reminds me of a joke I like to tell people sometimes: "I love children, but I couldn't eat a full one."

Perhaps you could buy a garden rake, hoe, wheelbarrow, and a smallish petrol lawnmower, and ship them over to me here in Ireland... I can pay you back via PayPal.

Well the rain finally arrived at around 4:30pm and chased me back indoors. But I had to be indoors anyway, to attend a Zoom online board meeting of a national LGBT+ organisation that I am a board member of. There wasn't a great deal of rain, however, and it's now 7pm and the day is dry again. I'm not going back into the garden this evening, as there is more rain forecast over the next couple of days, and I want to treat some timbers in the new place before they get wet again. I think I may have mentioned having taken up some of the floorboards in the living room, as there was signs of water damage. The builder is supposed to try to prevent the water coming in, but that certainly won't happen before the lockdown ends (whenever that may be). I have some wood preservative, and I intend treating the damaged areas on the floor joists before they get wet again.

That reminds me of the satirical piece by Jonathan Swift in 1729 (more famous possibly for his novel Gulliver's Travels) who suggested eating the babies of the poorer classes as a way of preventing them becoming a burden on their parents or country. It's only about 3,400 words long, and can be read online at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm Swift was Anglo-Irish, and was also Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

That video was shot in Ireland. A flock of starlings in flight like that is known as a murmuration of starlings. As far as I am aware, starlings only murmurate outside the breeding season, and they nest as single family units (although there may be several nests in the same general location). There's actually a pair nesting in the eaves of the house I am currently renting. And a few months ago, when the plumber was fitting new taps to the wash-hand-basin in the upstairs bathroom of my new place, he found an old starlings nest when he removed the panelling under the basin. The hole through the wall for the drains for the basin and the bath was not sealed, which allowed the birds access to the space behind the panel. That has now been sealed up, so the poor starlings will have to find a new nesting site (there's loads of suitable places for them). Funnily enough, when the plumber first saw the nest he came rushing downstairs to inform me he'd found a rat's nest!

Not quite yet, Gary. But I think it's going to, either later today or some time tomorrow. The house martins are still flying above the rooftops, so that's a good sign for the very near future.