After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

We did this ‘baby led weening’ stuff and, for a while, the sprogs would reach for the broccoli and other veggies. However, as soon as they were exposed to chicken dippers by the grand parents, all bets were off. To be fair, it wasn’t just them - society as a whole is not geared to providing nutritional meals to youngsters. We, of course, try to present them with balanced meals and sometimes they’ll grudgingly eat some of their veggies, but it feels like a loosing battle.

It really does. I had fried frog legs in Malaysia. Just like tiny chicken wings.

As a Scot I’m always secretly pleased when we get a pass while the rest of the UK gets a ‘meh’.

That said, the North of England, Cornwall and Brighton, and parts of Wales are definitely worth a visit.

Did you make it to Scotland? Edinburgh is lovely and the Highlands and Islands are definitely worth a visit.

Australia. Not that it was wholly terrible. It just wasn’t what I expected and I overcooked it by staying for 2 years.

To be fair, it could never have lived up to the super-positive stereotype it has here in the UK.

We think of Aussies as fun-living, friendly, witty, laid-back beautiful people who are down to earth yet somehow savvy and open-minded. They love a drink and a BBQ and have a ‘live and let live’, inclusive attitude. Basically everything we Brits would love to be if we weren’t so repressed.

I think this cliche comes from a cross between Crocodile Dundee and through meeting the thousands of charming Aussies who end up working behind bars when they visit the UK in their youth.

Also, with the British weather being what it is, we imagine anywhere with a sunny climate would encourage people with a similarly sunny disposition.

Anyway, I’ll spare you the details, but having travelled extensively throughout Australia - well beyond Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane - I found little of the stereotype I’d expected and quite a lot of the opposite.

I did meet some great people, but they were mainly Irish 🤣

At 48 it’s funny how the comfort of normality has become a thing.

However, as someone who tried and enjoyed Acid, E, cocaine, speed, weed, valium, mushrooms, ketomine and alcohol in his 20s I admit I’m pretty curious about DMT.

I’ve just read the Irvine Welsh book Dead Man’s Trousers and it’s definitely piqued my interest in psychodelics, but I just don’t feel there’s room for that in my life at the moment.

Keen to hear how it goes. When I took Acid I had the best time, but I always knew that I was on it and could therefore explain to my consciousness that it was a trip.

I understand the DMT experience is more profound and can genuinely reveal things to people about themselves, which lasts post-trip as people process the insights it reveals.

True. Of course, there are plenty of good traditions. Birthday cakes. Halloween. Christmas. Sometimes OCD can be useful.

Well, I live in the UK under a Labour government, but chances are it’s only a matter of time before a certain Trump licker gets in and brazenly asset strips the country, all to the thunderous applause of flag-shagging low-income supporters who inexplicably believe he’s one of them.

Sometimes. My mind playfully mixes it up, though. Instead of dwelling on the past it’ll force me to second guess relationships with friends and colleagues, or it may throw in the inevitably death of loved ones.

In all seriousness, I usually drift off pretty well. I tend to think about a warm, cosy place where I’m safe from a raging wintery storm outside. This place also has snacks, hot drinks and internet. Sometimes it’s a lighthouse or sometimes it’s like an isolated weather station. Pretty weird, I know, but it keeps the mental wolves from the door, so to speak.

I did get banned, for using ChatGPT to fix my spelling and then using an old account to go back, which was ban evasion. I’d been on it for 12 years. I guess the point is that the banned people on here these days are not necessarily batshit trolls, many of us are semi-normal :-)

I agree. In my case it was a necessity, so I spent a bit of time actively looking for a Reddit alternative.

I half-heartedly joined Lemmy on a random instance (is that what they’re called? I forget). Anyway, it was Lemmy.pl and it went offline for a bit before I could get anywhere with it.

I tried again with lemmy.world and then stumbled across Boost, which was my favourite app for Reddit before they locked everything down and forced everyone on to the inferior Reddit app.

Anyway, the experience now is great. Just like old times. I confess I’ve no real interest in the fediverse as such, although I’m of course greatful that others do and that it exists. I’m just glad to be able to easily interact with communities that seems to be free from oppressive moderation and cold, automated admins that ban longtime users for accidental missteps.

The slow but inevitable murder of platforms by their paymasters is a real pisser.

Feels like every platform starts well, expands and just gradually mutates into unusable corporate dogshit.

Depends entirely on how successful the media wanted him to be. He could be a just, moral and enlightened force for good, but if the he wasn’t dancing to the tune of certain corporations the public could very easily be made to hate him.

I fully lurk on public social media, but on here and formerly on Reddit I habitatully post several times a day. Never occured to me to just not interact with it, and I was surprised to learn that a friend of mine, who was always sharing stuff he’d seen on Reddit, had never posted in the decade or so he’d been using the platform.

From recent experience it feels like Reddit is stricter with bans and access than FB, and applies more tracking and detection tech, lest your previously anonymous internet persona upset a mod.

I have a new Reddit account, running on Brave on a VM at work. I use it as a news and pop culture aggregate. I used to post in the big UK sites for well over a decade, but recently got a site wide permanent ban for ban evasion (I hadn’t realised that throwaway accounts were no longer allowed).

My new account has insufficient karma to post (another petty rule), but having been on Lemmy for a few months Reddit now seems cold, hostile and impersonal in comparison.

Computer programming.

Joking! There’s no way in hell that’s true around here. I’m pretty sure some of you guys could code The Matrix.

My specialist subject would probably be 90s UK Indie bands.

We have this old glass square tray thing with a glass cover that we use. We leave the butter out and it’s spreads great. We live in quite a cold climate (extreme North of Scotland), so it’s ideal. Perhaps not the best idea in Dubai…

That’s surprising about the time thing. Why is that? My cheap battery powered watch doesn’t significantly drift from the actual time. Why would a PC be any different? Just curious.