John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱

Somerset. Dysphoric male. Knows more about chickens than you might think necessary. Married to the actual Susan, the platonic ideal of Susans everywhere.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

Molly Mookins of Mookington Hall
19th July 2014 - 27th December 2021
The very best of dogs. Farewell my lovely girl. I hope that wherever you are, you are still dancing x.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

Unlike moderns who can dither for years over basic questions on matters of sex, our forebears were much more Decided; the golden beetroot was shunned simply because beetroots are red, dammit.

That's understandable in that 'beet' derives from the Brythonic term for 'red', and who is going to argue with a Druid? (We stole 'root' from the Vikings as part of our vigorous cultural exchange). Personally, I am ambi-beetual; both are delicious.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

@ortrudethevegan Sorry Melanie, I don't quite understand your question?

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

Continuing last week's cheese theme, Susan uses both Cheddar and Stilton in the sauce. As we live within spitting distance of the gorge itself, our Cheddar comes from Cheddar, but any old Tom, Dirk or Abdul can call their cheese 'Cheddar'.

Conversely Stilton is a PDO, but in one of those modern ironies, cheese made in Stilton can't be called Stilton.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

Remarkably hazy day. Looking out over Monkton Heathfield (landowning in this area, as in much of Merrie England was split between Crown, Clergy and Nobility - in Taunton's case, the Bishop of Winchester, Taunton Priory, and (at first) the Counts of Mortain then the Earls of Salisbury (the Montagues are still kicking around, but their claim is somewhat iffy).

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

Staving off glumness by marching about the slopes of the Blackdowns and marvelling at Nature.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

Lucy, pursuer of thrown stones.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

@QcWynter @paul_g_mclaugh Me neither, though as an autodidact I'm not much of a stickler for pronunciation; as long as we can make ourselves understood, let a thousand flowers bloom.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

I always wondered what happened to him.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

A clear frontrunner for this year's 'Hitler really liked dogs' award.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

Rosie off for a haircut today, so we toiled down to Taunton and set them up for the groomers by walking them through the local flood defences.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

The State needs to understand that it's our money not theirs.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

@SparkleInSepia Thank you x.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

There are troubling gaps in human knowledge - we are still unable to marry general relativity with quantum mechanics, and while we can date bread to at least 14kya, the earliest cheese rocks up 7k years later.

It's impossible to credit that bread wasn't invented just so early Man could enjoy a cheese and pickle sandwich, so clearly something is wrong here.

In terms of etymology, as you might expect from one of our foundational foods, it's a direct line to proto-Indo European via all the usual suspects (Old Saxon, Latin).

Interestingly the Frog version 'fromage' has nothing to do with cheese; it derives from the Latin 'forma', referring to any molded food. In this brave post-modern world, we could make a case that pâté is fromage.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

@anyoneelsedone Good lord no; fool me once etc.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

For my foreign tweeps, the fact the electorate preferred this bunch of clowns over the last lot should tell you how terrible the Tories were.

[John McDonnell 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🇮🇱 @mcdonnelljp]

We've discovered that Rosie has a small but nasty cut on her rear right; she shall be swinging in her hammock for the next few days.