ballpoint

Rubbish. Hoi are not crustacea, they're molluscs.

They'd better get a move on. Only 10 more Prime Ministers till Christmas.

But Putin doesn't control the places where the drones "landed", however hard he's tried. He's making a veiled threat to the UN Secretary-General against visiting another nation's sovereign territory.

He was made CMG by Queen Elizabeth in her New Year's honour's list, and only just presented it by Princes Anne. He obviously made an impression on the queen when he appeared with her at the London Olympics' opening ceremony. I can see her dry sense of humour in awarding it, rather than a CBE as most entertainers get.

It's a Merc. I got three years of first class insurance free when I bought the car. When I went to reinsure it with the same company after that they quoted 87,000. Trying another insurer's local office gave 67,000, so I went online to the kangaroo place and was very pleasantly surprised. The car's now five years old, and this is from the latest policy, my second year with them: "Normal" premium would be 66,440.15 Driver discount 11,724.73 No claim discount (they checked with my previous insurer and gave this right away, the first year I was with them) 31,722.07 "Other" discounts (Dash-cam) 7978.67 Total premium (excluding compulsory) 25,507.09

Along with the rise of mobile phone games and social media. Kids are stuffing themselves with high energy food and beverages while fixated on their phones. I imagine that the next evolutionary step for humans will be the loss of legs and the introduction of a large sucker on the posterior, allowing them to clamp themselves to the couch, limpet like.

While most car insurance here is for the car only, regardless of who's driving it (and in some cases who even owns it, as the insurance may be transferred to the new owner when the car's sold), some companies offer a discount if only driven by drivers named in the policy. For example, my car, insured with "R", has only my wife's and my names listed. They wouldn't pay out if anyone else was driving. While I doubt if your girlfriend has such a policy, it's worth checking, and you may be allowed to add your name to the list as well. ("R" allow up to four designated drivers, with the policy discount being based on the age of the youngest, so if you're older than your girlfriend there wouldn't be any additional payment). (It's well worth considering a named driver policy. I was quoted between 67,000 - 87,000 a year for my car with other companies, but, with named driver and dash-cam discounts, "R" insured it for 27,000). Edit: Wasn't sure about naming the company, so changed it to "R".

Couldn't resist posting one more cutting edge in-car entertainment system, and then I'll stop. Honest. Never realised these were a thing either. For very smooth roads only I'd imagine.

Not a joke, but following on from my previous post. I never realised these were a thing. For those owning a bluetooth phone, but still have an old car with only a radio-cassette player for entertainment (like a semi evolved dinosaur):

Still got one of these lying about somewhere. And the later one that broadcasts an FM signal that you can tune your car radio into. I used to hook it up to my Sony mp3 player when taking long taxi rides from Bangkok to up country places. Had the taxi drivers scratching their heads, wondering what radio station I was listening to.