“Don’t say things about someone behind their back, if you wouldn’t be prepared to say it to their face”

It’s fairly simple… Gender-affirming care is ok if THEY do it.

I learned not to say things about people behind their back, that you’d not be prepared to say to their face, aged 14.

Cost me a black eye & split lip, also some pride. Valuable lesson though that stuck with me to this day over 2 decades later.

Knoble, sorry for calling you Knobless.

My dad is a pensioner now, and got put in a lovely bungalow by local housing association. It came with with a lovely garden, and he was really excited by the prospect of a cherry tree.

Well, the cherries are ready, and the birds ate the lot!

And if you ever get close to him? … he’ll betray you, too.

My initial response is prob as sarcastic as the others but a thought just occurred to me.

Skyrim, v1. The og release, before all the mods and bug fixes.

Undoubtedly still a better game than Star field. But was it the Skyrim we revere today? Will Starfield be transformed into something fun over the next decade?

What am I on about. Almost certainly not lol.

How much weed is that?

Current price of an oz in the UK, if you know the right person: ~£160 Current exchange rate of $2500: £1,962 1962 / 160 = 12.26 oz per year

So about an oz a month. I’m happy to pick up the slack for lil’ Timmy.

This is so dumb and I love it

Yes, English is weird.

‘Bough’ and ‘cough’ are not pronounced the same. ‘Bough’ and ‘bow’ are pronounced the same. ‘Knee’ and ‘Leigh’ are pronounced the same. ‘Neigh’ and ‘nay’ are pronounced the same. ‘Polish’ (the nationality) and ‘polish’ (as in what you do to a metal object) are not pronounced the same. ‘Tear’ (as in to rip) and ‘tear’ (as in to cry) are spelled the same, but not pronounced the same. Other words which are spelled the same, but pronounced differently:

resume / resume present / present record / record close / close use / use live / live

It’s not just the genetic predisposition (which is arguably made worse with bully XLs due to so many of the lineage being bred from a small number of very aggressive specimens). It’s the size of them. They are orders of magnitude more dangerous than most other breeds when they go feral.

There is also definitely a factor at play where the sort of person to want a scary looking dog is also the sort of person who’s less likely to properly socialise and train them. But it’s mental to argue that say, a 7-foot tall gladiator is no more dangerous than a 5-foot tall gardener. Size and bite strength matters.

I do think there are more humane options available than just destroying them all. Muzzles in public; all dogs should really be on a lead in a public space, but especially v strong breeds; mandated training and chipping as a prerequisite of owning a dog; tougher laws that reflect if you own a deadly weapon on 4 legs that causes harm or death, you are responsible as if you carried out the attack yourself.

Jacob sighed deeply. He didn’t want to do these things; he didn’t want to be this way. Yet, try as he might, the nasty thoughts would begin to swirl in the deeper recesses of his mind. Cursed since childhood with what he affectionately termed his ‘angry ridealong’, Jacob had tried everything you can imagine (and everything you can’t) to rid himself of his dark burden. Meds, counselling, hypnotherapy, even a brief stint in jail for animal abuse. He hated the way the medication made him feel; blunted, stunted and zombified. None of it was effective; before long, the voices would start up. The only effective way to silence them was to kill again. His last victim didn’t put up much of a fight, and he felt genuine remorse at having to take the life of someone so old. They didn’t speak any English, but the plea to be spared transcended language.

Our murderer is tall and strong; with his massive frame and skittering glances, only the brave (or stupid) would feel no fear to find him lurking behind them on a gloomy, silent street. Slung across one broad shoulder is a rucksack containing his latest haul, assorted baubles and gleaming knick-knacks taken from his last victim. Although he took little pleasure in the killings, Jacob was pleased; surely this latest haul would be worth something. The soft hotel bed and a warm shower that these ill-gotten gains provided would surely relieve some of this awful tension, the throbbing at his temples.

Ducking into the sort of alleyway that makes an everyday person shudder (you know the type; badly-drawn graffiti now obscured by years of badly-scrawled tags, overflowing dumpsters, featuring shadowy corners and a small army of rats), Jacob squats down to empty his bag and assess his prizes. Onto the dirty concrete tumbles a variety of items; a brass candlestick holder, a pocket watch, some old coins, various unknowable deities in what perhaps was old ivory… aha, what’s this! A lamp, which if it were gold (as he hoped), would be worth a pretty penny; perhaps it was an antique. It certainly looked very old, to Jacob’s untrained eyes.

The lamp was covered in grime and dust. For a brief moment, he wondered: why someone would keep an antique lamp but never touch it? No matter. What was important right now was ascertaining exactly what this antique was made of. Spitting on his sleeve, Jacob rubbed the lamp in a clockwise motion.

PFFFFFFFFFFFFF went the lamp, a stream of thick purple smoke pouring from the spout. Shocked & surprised, Jacob yelped and dropped it, with a loud “CLANG” as the metal struck the pavement. To his incredulity, the smoke began to take shape; the swirls and sworls folding in upon itself, growing thicker, and what was this… he could have sworn that the smoke was taking the shape of a person.

Seconds ticked by as Jacob sat there, his mouth agape, watching the vapour coalesce until floating before him, no question now, was a genie. Jacob had never seen a genie before, but the folk tales had surprisingly done a solid job in terms of description. What these tales passed down through time had utterly failed to describe though were its eyes. Blazing blue, no sclera, just two round orbs of purest sapphire. As the genie slowly turned its head downwards to fix that azure gaze upon our unfortunate protaganist, Jacob for the first time in his life felt terror.

The genie spoke… if you can call it that. The voice that emerged was as far from human as one can imagine. It rasped like the buzzing of ten thousand wasps; it rushed as if a thousand rivers were converging about your ears; the voice was inexplicably resonant, deep and burring, whilst also having a sharp component like a saw cutting through stone. “YOU, WHO AWAKEN ME FROM SLUMBER. I GRANT THEE WISHES THREE. I CANNOT RAISE FROM UNDER, NOR ALTER LOVE FOR THEE. CHOOSE WISELY, CHOOSE THRICELY”

Jacob’s jaw worked silently for several beats. Like a child in a sweet shop, he was lost to decision paralysis. The nasty voice made itself immediately known: “Kill everyone, Jacob. Wish to kill everyone”. But, fresh from a kill, there was a space for reason too. “If I kill everyone, who will I kill next?” And then; a moment of clarity. A memory.

“Do you know what I am? What kind of man I am?” he asked the genie with trepidation. The djinn nodded, sagely. Jacob took a deep breath and said: “I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to have these thoughts anymore. I don’t want to have to kill people. For my first wish… I wish to not be a murderer anymore!” The smoky beings’ eyes flashed, impossibly a more electric blue than before. It pointed one finger at the man prostrated before it, and boomed “IT IS DONE.” Jacob began to cry, sobbing as he could feel his angry ridealong receding back, back, back, further back into his mind, until with a tiny ‘pop’ it was gone.

With a newfound clarity, an enormous wave of guilt washed over him. The guilt was too much to bear; Jacob felt his heart might burst, so leaden and weighted did it feel in that moment. The thought of going through the remainder of his life with such a burden was almost as bad as carrying the angry ridealong. “I can’t take it! I wish I didn’t feel guilt!” he cried in despair. Another smoky finger extended; “IT IS DONE” boomed the genie.

In an instant, Jacob felt his mind clear. It wasn’t his fault he killed all those people, after all. He was just born wired-up wrong, then the violent childhood and abuse from his parents reinforced the bad wiring. Maybe if society hadn’t failed him, he wouldn’t have become a murderer! It was society’s fault! But alongside the lack of guilt, he noticed something curious. A sort of bored, detached flatness. This would not do. A man needs passions, hobbies, and interests to enjoy life. Anything else is merely existing. And so, Jacob asked for his third wish: “Genie? I wish to have a passion”. The finger extended once more, and that booming, raspy voice for the final time spoke: “IT IS DONE”.

Jacob yawned, and stretched. He felt good again. But there was a nagging itch at the back of his mind… and a quiet, whispering voice began to speak…

‘Thich Nhat Hanh - Heart of the Buddah’s Teachings’. I didn’t become a Buddhist, but it gave me some really useful mental tools to be happier.

I had a bit of a fucked up childhood, left home at 15, was really angry & bitter for a while. I was already many years into a general attempt to let go and be happier, I believe the knowledge from that book has made me happier and more resilient.