StreetCowboy

People would work a few hours in a paid job to pay their rent - or live in their family’s accommodation, or provide services in lieu of rent, or build their own home. When you don’t need a garage or a home cinema your housing can be a lot cheaper. When the streets are quiet with traffic and a pleasant place to meet your friends, you can live with less. When your city is a park you don’t need a garden.

I think you're confusing choosing the best government for the time with genuine mistakes. The former, we can rethink. Genuine mistakes we have to pursue to the end, as a learning experience, lest we make them again. Were we to (I was going to say 'back out now') recant and rejoin, we would not have suffered enough. We must continue until the country begs us to recant, until the demand to rejoin is universal; anything less would be a surrender to common sense and practicality. I hope that our grandchildren will be allowed to rejoin. We are lucky that we currently seem to be accumulating a surplus of small boats, should we have to get by with a reversal of Dunkirk.

Republic of China internal affairs, or People's Republic of China internal affairs?

You're dead on there. When you make a mistake, you should go in with both feet, irreversable. No looking back, no turning back, onwards and upwards, no mountain too high, no challenge insurmountable, a price worth paying, can't judge by money alone, can't judge by numbers, no point in thinking twice, no turning back, never surrender, never give in. How long will it take our grandchildren to join the EU?.

Generally, whenever Americans exercise the 2nd amendment in the spirit in which it was intended - Waco siege, murder of Lincoln, shooting of Ronald Reagan, the Civl War, it is generally looked on with ill-favour. The whole point of the 2nd Amendment is the right of the populace to overthrow the government by force of arms. Without domestic nuclear weapons, the 2nd Amendment is no more than an empty fantasy that results in unnecesasary murders.

I thought it was in the Constitution, rather than the Bible. Maybe they have a different Bible in the USA.

He's a bhoy

That's one less pleasant evening you're going to enjoy. I am sure you could trim your list of pleasant evenings to as short as an Ayatollah's. You're choice. I don;t actually have a list of pleasant evenings to which I aspire nor limit myself, I just enjoy them as they occur. SC

Only ColinNeil can answer that question. I don’t know how the answer would start, but it would probably end “****ing loads”

I’m not normally one to play one-up-man-ship on the forum, but I did get a run of tee-shirts printed “I’m a boring pedantic bastard…” not auto-corrected by the forum software, and I forget if it was “I’m” or “I am” - more probably the latter, for spacing on the shirt. I rest my case.

That’s great that an 85 year old can remember his recent history.

Back in the day, I’d sooner cycle 100 km than walk one, thanks to osteoarthritis. After some hammer-and-chiselry, I’d still rather cycle 100 km than walk one, but I’d walk two rather than take a taxi. If your hips and knees are healthy, a night out on the town dancing with a ladyboy can be a pleasant evening’s entertainment, so long as you don’t leave them out of pocket.

I went out for a quick fang round my suburb this evening, just to keep my mileage up. I’d specifically waited till after sunset, when the majority would be buka puasa, to take advantage of the low traffic - forgetting about the Food Panda riders on their second delivery - is someone else’s dinner worth dying for? And I got to thinking, if you had an urgent delivery, would you rather give it to the SAS, Tom Cruise, Valentino Rossi, Jason Statham or a Food Panda rider? I’d struggle to choose between the Food Panda rider or Valentino Rossi; Valentino’s age counts in his favour - you don’t want your essential delivery scattered over the tarmac the wrong side of a red light… That thought took me as far as the turn onto the Sprint Highway, where a kind car driver left ample space for me to merge with traffic. I went all the way to the end of my suburb, where I came upon a ‘ghost rider’ on a motorbike with no lights, but he turned into the cemetery; “fair enough”, I thought, “If he’s not returning home then he’s learning the route for his final journey”. I’d not really planned my route all the way through, and with low but not sparse traffic, the turning off the main road Jalan Damansara into TTDI is potentially hazardous, but nothing that cannot be addressed with reckless abandon and remarkable good fortune. Village driving is the norm in TTDI, and I try always to acknowledge when that results in courteous consideration, and I saluted the driver who waited patiently before turning, though I thought he could reasonably turned ahead of me. It must be tough for the Food Panda riders, sitting idle and fasting all day, then a surge of deliveries just when it’s time to Buka Puasa. And they’ve got to earn a day’s wage in the space of an hour, all with low blood sugar and possibly dehydrated.

He might be Valentino Rossi on the scooter

They pray the last nail in? That might work if you’re the son of a carpenter…

How do they hammer in the last nail?

He would’ve been unhappy at them selling tickets. He was quite clear that temples were for prophets, not profits.

I wasn’t invited either, but that’s no excuse for death threats

I think I never mentioned that our railway fully opened last month, and with the end of the free rides (there’s nothing better than a hundred thousand freeloaders for finding defects) but this weekend it was not too busy to take a ride with the bikes on Sunday. We had a look at the fancy bike rack (I could not find the instructional poster telling people to park perpendicular to the rack not parallel, but as you can see, one side is for motorbikes, one side for cycles. The motorbike sign has a red line across it for emphasis Kuchai station is a difficult station to drive to, thanks to confusing highways all around it, but luckily, the only safe road goes right past the station. Situated as it is on waste ground between highways, and next to a big power distribution yard, there is plenty of room for park’n’ride car parks. I’d rather have stations people could go to, rather than cars… On my way to work on Tuesday, I thought I should put my headlamp flashing as a lot of people think part of the route is one way, when it is not. In fact, the problem occurred further up, where the road is clearly bi-directional, and I encountered a car driver on the wrong side of the road to avoid queuing with the traffic. I could see that the driver had seen me, and I pulled into the middle of my lane to show that a close pass was not an option. I refused to pass him on my right - his left - into the path of the coming motorcyclists, and I pulled up in front of him when he refused to get back in his lane to allow me to proceed I had to wait a couple of minutes for him to reverse, and head over to his own lane, until I could pass. Personally, I blame Waze for plotting routes for motorists that are unsuitable for traffic , and that will be congested by the time that they get there. If he has now learnt to drive on the left, we will all be safer.

My dear old mother forgot that she smoked.

That’s commendable. Most people refuse to give up driving until they don’t know that they need to.

Your doctor, or your tailor?

Do they make you come out in arrows?

I am going to answer the Cemeteries part of the question that was inferred, rather than implied. Some of my favourite cycling routes pass by or through cemeteries. There is one nice ride that passes with the Muslim cemetery to the left, and the crematorium to the right. It is not such a nice ride going up the hill. We went to visit a former colleague - a late colleague - at the crematorium, the day before his ceremony. Near the big Hokkien cemetery on the edge of the city, there is the Nirvana crematorium, with what looks like a residential waiting room adjacent. There was a pack of stray dogs hanging about outside, I’ve never seen them gnawing on bones, and I always struggle not to imagine it. The pub in the middle of the cemetery was not open the first time that we passed by (to be fair, it was 10 am) and now is gone completely. Unlike Diggers (the Athletic Arms) on Ardmillan Terrace, opposite the cemetery, which I have never cycled past.

The OP is lucky to still have a job. With that attitude, he should be planning on early retirement, and keeping his eyes open for voluntary severance opportunities. I guess the 81-year old is winding him up in the hope that a promotion opportunity arises.