String fellow

As is this entire thread.

Anyone wishing to know exactly when they themselves will expire can find out by visiting www.death-clock.org and entering a few personal details.

Boxing Day - traditionally a day for fox-hunting. So never a good day for foxes, especially in rural areas where there are tractor boys!

I agree that a draw would have been best, or maybe even an Ipswich win! The last thing City need right now is for the two-horse race to become a three-horse race.

Front-door letter-boxes fitted with brushes on the inside - guaranteed to bend every card, letter and magazine pushed through them, and leave anything not pushed through completely vulnerable to being stolen.

A recent survey amongst left-leaning under-30s in America showed that Trump had 49% support compared with 43% support for Biden, because of the latter's staunch support for Israel. It's not clear to me how the left in this country can square that particular circle, given their hatred of both Trump and Netanyahu.

The word 'holiday' is derived from the phrase 'holy day', so saying 'Happy Holidays' might not be that silly for any religious date on the calendar.

TV antiques expert Charles Hanson seems to be in hot water. Will he be going, going gone to jail for beating his wife? Did he think that 'Flog It' meant something other than selling junk? https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/charles-hanson-bargain-hunt-assault-charges-derbyshire-b1128401.html

The PC brigade seem to forget that by trying not offend a small minority, they risk offending a large majority with their nonsense.

HMRC recently sent me a 12-page form to fill in regarding the capital gains (which amounted to virtually nothing) that a close relative had made in the few days of life remaining to them after the start of the new financial year in April. If the solicitor handling my late relative's estate hadn't agreed to deal with it, I'd have happily torn it up!

Anyone who has dipped into the Crazy Stat thread will, like me, be thinking - beware of Yorkshire teams!

Isn't it slightly strange to say 37.5% of the teams in the Championship? Translated, that means City have now gained more points this season than the bottom 9 clubs did throughout the whole of last season. If the current average of 2.5 pts/game continues, we'll end up with 115 pts, and will almost certainly be in the top 4.1666667% teams in the Championship, or top, to put it into plain English.

'Piers Morgan' is rich in anagrams. Here are a few:- A grim person Grim persona More rasping

Maybe the elephant in the room is the proposed Ben Gurion Canal, which would link the Gulf of Aqaba to the Mediterranean Sea, and might be routed through Gaza. It would infuriate Egypt and maybe blow apart the Camp David Accord. When the idea of such a rival to the Suez Canal was originally considered, the Americans had the idea of detonating over 500 nuclear devices buried under the Negev Desert as a quick way of excavating the route!

Talk of a two-state solution glosses over the problem of East Jerusalem, which has sacred sites for Jews, Moslems and Christians. It's not clear how that issue could be resolved, since it can't be physically divided into two. Maybe Israel also fears that an independent Palestine would end up as essentially an Iranian exclave, with the possibility of it eventually becoming armed with WMD. Such an outcome would probably result in a situation not dissimilar to that on the Korean peninsula, but with far higher risks, due to the very different religious ideologies underpinning the whole unending conflict. Another issue is that of the physical separation of Gaza from the West Bank, which further muddies the waters of the two-state solution. Israel wouldn't accept a land corridor between the two regions.

How many times in the past has City had 50+ points before Christmas? And they could have 60+ points by the start of the new year!

I thought that there was a cut-off period of 3 years for retrospective claims, so one relating to a car accident in 2019 would now be null and void. Assuming that's the case, I'd contest the claim, partly because the insurance company might increase my next premium if they were to cough up the extra dosh to the money-grabbing claimant.

Strangely, this morning that channel was a completely blank screen on my telly, but now it's back on as normal without rescanning. Apologies for the false alarm.

What's happened to Al Jazeera on Freeview? Has it been pulled, because of its biassed reporting, just as RT News was? Although Al Jazeera and i24, the satellite channel on Hotbird, having been covering the same story since Oct 7, the difference in perspectives is amazing.

If professional snooker players are allowed to wear a glove on their bridge hand - what next? Why not go a step further and have a small artificial bridge fitted to it? Imo, for what it's worth, wearing a glove on the bridge hand should be banned. Also, the pointy end of cue shouldn't be coloured anything other than the natural colour of ash. Oh, and Desislava Bozilova should carry a whip, just in case the players need disciplining.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67053011

I wonder if this news will filter through to the late Bill Kenwright?

In the politically correct world we now inhabit, the reality is... it's safer to be offensively awful than awfully offensive!

Fiona the sheep has had a good shear after being rescued from the bottom of a sheer cliff-face, following over 2 years of sheer loneliness. Three cheers (or should that be three sheers)?! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-67326713

Question: What's the link between City's current points total and the 4x4 Magic Square below? 7 2 21 9 12 18 3 6 1 8 10 20 19 11 5 4 Answer: The number 39. City, of course, have 39 points, and 39 is the total of every row, every column, both diagonals, both opposite pairs of across-the-corner numbers, the four corner blocks of 2x2 squares, the three blocks of 2x2 squares across the centre, the opposite-edge pairs added both left with right and up with down, and the corner numbers added up. There may also be other groups that I've missed. (On Countdown today, Ben Hanlin, the guest in Dictionary Corner, referenced this Magic Square in one of his Halloween tricks, thereby one-upping Rachel Riley.)