Can I just note that my brother (🇨🇦) joined an online book club and ended up meeting someone (🇦🇺). She moved here and a year ago to be with him.

Italian voice actor Carlo Bononi was the voice of all of the characters on Pingu. A trained clown by trade, he used a theater technique called grammelot, which consists of "speaking" in a mix of babbled gibberish noises. He improvised all the voices live and unscripted.

Indeed! Especially as the cabin fever tends to hit around late Feb.

We don’t have much by way of flowers until May. Then we have a bunch all at once :)

You know, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen one here. I think crocuses are the first flowers (both native and cultivated).

No snowdrops hereabouts, only snow. Sorry!

I block AI on sight. Thanks for the heads-up.

Sometimes they didn't print them and I could never figure out why not. I'll always regret this one not getting in. I used a different phone/email address every time, but it's possible they'd twigged my style.

“Squeeze my lemon til the juice runs down my leg”
Yep, checks out.

This is gorgeous!

“Gifted” sounds weird to me too. Not sure the source of it. I suppose it remains to be seen whether it’s a fad or an actual change in the language.

Where I live, “can I get” is a common and perfectly acceptable (if a little casual) way to ask for something. We’re generally pretty casual here :)

I don’t know. Is there a problem with it?