It makes more sense if you understand that the “thorn” (Þ) is pronounced “th”.

Interestingly, the thorn was in pretty common use until the printing press took off because most of the presses in England were imported from France and Germany, neither of which used the thorn so their typefaces didn’t include one. For a while people used ‘y’ in place of the thorn (hence “ye olde”), but eventually it fell out of use all together

It’s a universal rule that anyone who references their supposed IQ like this is at most half as smart as they think they are

The years start coming and they don’t stop coming

The major supermarket chain where I live has a “shop and go” system. You get a battery powered barcode scanner that you take round and scan items before you put them in your trolley, then hand it over to an operator at the end. They can download the list of items to the till, then you pay and leave.

They have a “random spot check” system where sometimes they pick a few random items out of your trolley and check that they are on the list. I’m imagining that some people get away with theft, but it’s probably not a lot more than people who are going to steal normally anyway

Can’t speak to others’ motivations, but my wife had to “keep the peace” with her grandparents by seeing them on Christmas, even though they were awful people who took pleasure in bullying and belittling her mum. If we didn’t show up on Christmas for an hour or two and put up with some snide comments and a few “I’m only joking don’t be so serious”, then her mum would have to put up with months of full on abuse.

We didn’t need substances to cope with it, but I can totally see how people might feel like a drink or a toke with some family they do enjoy socialising with could make it easier to be with family they don’t enjoy spending time with, but feel obligated to to avoid hurt feelings.

For whatever reason my mother in law didn’t just cut contact and leave them to die alone in their crappy little house surrounded by their hate and resentment and friends who also couldn’t stand them. Thankfully they are dead now, so we don’t have to put up with them.

so far

I suppose the point of a longsword is less “wickedly sharp razor blade to slice and dice with precision” and more “wedge shaped heavy piece of metal to drop on people with the hope of finding a gap in their armour”

Over grip seems like a really great way to slice your hand open

sigh guess I need to go write another letter to my MP

True in most places with large immigrant populations, and goes double if it’s not just “<country name>” cuisine, but “<specific region in country name>”. There is a place around the corner from my work that specializes in Lanzhou beef noodles - it’s down a side street in a little shopping arcade, I’m guaranteed to be the only white guy in there but it’s absolutely fantastic food

His politics are about what you’d imagine to look at him - senior MP in the centre-right National party, a “slash and burn the public sector and privatise everything cos free market something something” type - but yeah, he probably came out of that whole incident ahead from now he responded to it

its more likely than you think

Yeah, I’m just appreciating the artistry in setting up a shot like this for a domb visual gag. This would have taken actual effort, bravo

HYPE