mike carey

Umm, no, rom com is not a new young'uns term. It's been around at least since Bridget Jones's Diary or When Harry met Sally.

I would have thought driving the full length of Route 66 was worth it just for the bragging rights. A wildly tangential aside. The captain of the England cricket team is Joe Root. In test cricket (the really serious version) players wear white shirts and trousers. In the less serious one day and twenty over versions, players wear coloured clothes and have their names and a number on their backs. Root is not the captain in the shorter versions of the game, but he was in the team for one series here this summer. In those games he chose the number 66 for his shirt. It took a while for the penny to drop, but there he was with Root 66 on his back.

That's the Cabana, not the Backstage.

I certainly use it, but mainly to call people in the US, and my fairly basic mobile phone plan's included minutes can be used on domestic or international calls. It's just more convenient (and sensible) to use my home internet data rather than those minutes. (There can also be issues calling or texting numbers provided by services like google voice.) Here, many phone plans include all calls. I realise there are real issues making international calls from some countries.

Not everyone outside the US uses WhatsApp, for example only about 10% of my contacts show up as having it. Unless you have confirmed with them that they have it installed ATM, I wouldn't assume that they use it. IDK either if using the + makes a difference, but it may be what WhatsApp uses to identify the start of a phone number. In any case it's a good idea always to use it if you ever travel outside your home country. The + enables the phone service to automatically use the correct international dialing access code from the country you're in (unlike the US, it's 0011 here). (All my Australian contacts are in my phone in the +61 format [with the leading 0 in the area code dropped off] rather than the standard domestic format. Although if I'm calling a new number I use just the 8 digit number if it's in the same area code, and the leading zero area code format for others, not the +61 format.)

Once I had installed WhatsApp I added numbers to my regular contact list on my [samsung] phone and they showed up with a phone icon and a WhatsApp icon if that number has been used for the app. WhatsApp icons also appeared on many of my pre-existing contacts.

Brilliant tweet from Benjamin Law: 'You've not known happiness until you discover your mates took their two-year-old to Mardi Gras last night and now she can't stop joyously chanting to you, "DYKES ON BIKES, DYKES ON BIKES." '

@BabyBoomer, I thought it was perfectly clear to me and wouldn't have commented at all if no one had taken it differently.

I read what Boomer said to mean that a weekend was such a lucrative appointment that Derek was less likely to be a no show than on a shorter, lower fee appointment. Not that there was any prepaying involved.

I'm not sure that is the case. I get the impression that the phone number is a label for the WhatsApp account, not that it is linked to the actual number. WhatsApp uses internet connectivity, not the PSTN. I have used WhatsApp in the US when the Australian phone number it references wasn't working. I would suggest trying to set up your account with the google voice number. As long as it's your GV number, no one else will try to use it for a WhatsApp connection.

The Jewish/Balkans/Yugoslav/Iberian link is quite plausible, as is such a lineage ending up in Germany 400 years ago. The Jewish community that lived in Moorish Spain for centuries was expelled to Sarajevo in 1492 and those people would have blended into the wider Jewish diaspora in Europe. Separately, anyone with parents from different ethnic backgrounds would have a mixture of those backgrounds in their genetic makeup. Siblings could easily have different makeups, one skewing to the mother's side and the other to the father's. Another thing to consider is the possibility of an extramarital liaison that brought in genetic material not apparent from family trees that assume all was in the family. One of the delicious side-effects of genetic ethnic profiling is the occasional discovery of non-white heritage in avowed white supremacists. On a more positive level, it can defuse our exclusivist perceptions of our racial origins. Our European origins are complex given the migration and mixture of groups across the continent. 'German' communities were present across modern Germany but also all around the Baltic Sea and as far as Russia. Up until 1918, Europe had multi-ethnic empires in which groups were mixed. In the settler countries, intermingling of indigenous and settler communities is less ambiguous. (Hello Elizabeth Warren.)

His calendar says he's in DC 2-5 Mar.

While I can understand 'culling' patients who turn up late as a method of keeping the day on schedule, I have some difficulty with the idea of doing so when the doctor is behind schedule. A sort of 'you have to be on time but I can be as late as I need to be' attitude. I would have thought you should be able to keep your place in the line until the time at which the doctor would have seen you on that day. You could be lucky, as it were, if you were an hour late and the doctor was an hour and five minutes behind schedule, you could be unlucky and be five minutes late on a day when the doctor was on time (although 5 to 15 minutes grace would be appropriate).

You mean you've seen the hundreds of times I've looked at your profile? fml!

@jeremywalker makes some good points. I would say that clients should let the escorts take the lead, don't push them, they are in business and you shouldn't push them to make their business personal with you. Don't push them for off-the-clock time, don't chat aimlessly with them unless they initiate it. As I think I've mentioned before, I chat with a small number of escorts, text messages, the occasional voice call, but I've let them define the frequency and detail of those interactions.

Australian consumer law would prohibit that. If you don't quote the fee as part of the cost, you can't charge it. It would be interesting if someone booked on line with an Australian reseller whether the charge would stand up.

I suspect it would be impossible to control any analysis of a possible link for a type of self-fulfilling prophecy, people doing crazy things not because of a full moon but because they knew it was one.

It took you decades?

Not now (it shows up as 'not found 404') but I didn't check earlier either, I relied on previous experience. In the past, if profiles have been inaccessible, I could see them if I logged out. If it still comes up inaccessible to you, try logging out and looking again, if it shows the 404 message that would mean he has since renamed his profile.

'Inaccessible' means he has blocked you.

Bonne anniversaire!

This is a reasonably good summary of where things are now. https://www.dmarge.com/2016/05/difference-formal-semi-formal.html#gsi1 As it says, formal used to mean white tie (tails), semi-formal meant black tie (tuxedo, or dinner suit), but semi-formal now often means lounge suit. The military have uniform equivalents of (at least) black tie. Earlier in my time in the RAAF when we had a base at Penang, guys would have shirts made that had the required white front, cuffs and collar but had wild patterns (think batik or Hawaiian shirt material) for the back and sleeves. So, during the formal part of the meal they would look the part, but after that they could tone the look down. Despite what the article says about black, you often see people wearing [matching] coloured ties and cummerbunds. (I have a red set of them.)

Yep, bought one for £99 from a menswear shop in the local town when I was on a course with the RAF. There were a few occasions during the few months I was there where it was mandatory for Mess functions and several more where it was preferred. I think it would have cost me £40 to rent one, so like others have said, buying made sense. I still have it although it is several years since I've worn it.

Fron Granny's Column in the SMH [edited]: ' Visiting an IT office I saw a label 'AMD' and when I asked was told it meant 'air movement device'. I asked why it wasn't just labelled 'fan'? Because, I was told, the geeks would ask what an 'F.A.N.' was.

I wouldn't get hung up on the origin of words. Meanings change over time and sometimes all reference to a word's origin is lost. Who uses awful to mean fill with awe? The OED lists the meaning of patient as, 'A person receiving or registered to receive medical treatment.' It has lost any trace of its origin. 'Endure without complaint' is the definition of the adjective, not the noun, and I don't think patients are expected, by definition, to be patient. I recall a [probably apocryphal] story of a student referring to clients in a pharmacy lecture only to have the lecturer state imperiously that lawyers and prostitutes have clients, pharmacists have patients. That is not to say I don't get snippy about some of the shifts of usage. I bridle at announcements on trains and aeroplanes referring to customers instead of passengers. It may be a useful way to remind staff that that is their relationship with the passengers, but not as a way to address said passengers.