I have noticed in the past 5-10 years how often I will find myself intensely comfortable with a writer, comedian, philosopher, journalist, academic and then discover they are *exactly* my age - normally to within 1 or 2 years. I do push against it but my unconscious mind isn’t helping…

Had similar experience going to Romeo and Juliet in Wales recently (where it’s really rare for anything other than a Shakespeare comedy to be performed). Lots of laughing in dark places. Not fault of production, which was good. Also, grown ups were laughing but not kids. Was it nerves? Or alcohol?

Anecdotally, but I’ve noticed that same thing. All the French families I know who came here and stayed arrived before 1940. (Slightly relevant caveat: can think of a number of British/French/African people who were born in African nations, spent years in France and permanently relocated to UK.)

Also I’ve misspelt cueing!

Cuing is used in some schools in Wales. A reading expert just resigned from the government’s literacy panel because of a failure to commit to phonics. My own kids were taught here through phonics but multiple cuing schemes have been operating across Wales.

www.itv.com/news/2025-10...

There’s a sort of gulf in my (our) generation between people who grew up in multicultural areas of huge cities and everyone else. In that I’ll describe the levels of racist violence; the fact the NF were on our council; organised in the pub behind our house - and people look at you like you’re mad.

My youngest is very partial to a fancy bookmark. An ornate library card and a fancy bookmark every December for 6 visits a year. Or a poster. 6 visits a year and you get a pick of some really cool book cover/graphic art posters which aren’t available to buy. I’d have gone for that!

Because (broadly) we construct romantic relationships with the woman taking the vulnerable, passive, receiver part. Same reason that Nancy Sinatra managed to persuade the songwriter of These Boots Were Made for Walking to change it from a man’s to a woman’s song, because it felt too mean as it was.

Every time they interviewed young Caerphilly voters they all said they were swinging behind Plaid to block Reform. The Plaid candidate is well known and liked (and people are furious at Labour) but it was very tactical.

I had a similar response. I’m more ADHD and can do small talk but have a habit of a) being much too honest b) plunging into the honest bit of the conversation with both feet and whether the other person is ready or not c) wanting to talk about *everything* so all conversations last 3+ hours.

Sorry, mid 80s to start of the 90s…

Yes. UEFA banned English football fans from European matches in the early 90s, I think.

I’ve moved increasingly over to audio for fiction (this is partly because I’m dyslexic and have to read for my academic day job and just wouldn’t consume fiction if I had to read it as well!)

But I know that quite a number of my friends have moved over to audio as well.

Am trying to use Libro.fm