Dusty's Frugal Fortnights Return!

dustydigger

weenancyinAmerica said:

Don't worry - most of the world is having political meltdowns too. The ones we are having here in the US wouldn't be believed if written into a novel - unless it was a horror story. I didn't post anything while DJT was president because I always felt I needed to apologize for how awful he was (and still is). If he comes back in office, I may have to go into hibernation.

. I feel for you,Nancy! All through 2019 and 2020 I spent hours a day watching Trumps antics on You Tube. The Jan 6th riot was just unbelievable,and so is the blindness of his supporters in following him. We always talk about the need to suspend disbelief in our reading so as to ignore the fact that looked at closely,using logic,we would decide it was all rubbish. Well,in politics people sem to suspend isbelief at all times,swallowing politicians lies on a daily basis.But our version of DJT was so egregious in his lying he did terrible damage to the country. Brexit was a dreadful mistake based on lies and half truths,and he persuade half the country to believe it,and got into power and destroyed a significant proportion of our economy. Truss has bombed the rest of it.

And now people want him to come back. Unbelievable. I dont feel the modern usage of the word gaslighting is strong enough.Too tactful or euphemistic.

dustydigger

I feel like changing our chemist,who deliver our repeat medications. So many delays,or mistakes. Mr Dusty has to take eyedrops every day for the rest of his life,to keep the fluid ducts in his eyes open. Some of the brands really cause irritation ,even pain. He finds the Pfizer brand,the original, works best for him. Some generic brands must use  a different suspension fluid,and they can really inflame his eyes.Years of hammering at the chemist has fairly well got it into the docs that Pfizer is best,but they dont like giving it because it is expensive -  over £18 a vial.Zentiva is only £12 . We have it on the chemists records that we only want Pfizer or Martindale which is also about £12,but is reasonably OK,but never Zentiva. But every 6 months or so we get sent Zentiva,despite a note on the files that we dont want it. Work for me on the phone to the chemist,always a new person without a clue that I have to bring up to date,then we cant just return the old stuff,the order  has to be re-prescribed,and its all a hassle,takes days,and Mr D has to use the dregs of his old vial,fretting all the time that it is over the 28 days,and I have to reassure him its OK to use it. Very wearing. But would another chemist be any better. Could be that its the surgery just trying to save money,whoever doing the prescription just trying to save money,without ever checking the records.........sigh..........

dustydigger

Well,the last few days we had beef casserole,chinese curried chicken pasties,a smattering of veggie meals,so of course its back to the defaault meal,salmon! .

Lightly part fry onions and tomatoes,remove,lightly fry fish for only a couple of minutes,add the tomato onion mix,200g Napolina tinned tomatoes,pinch o fcurry powder add water to cover everything,put on the lid and simmer very slowly for a quite a while till fish is very tender,add lashings of peanut butter and cook for another 5 minutes very carefully so that the peanut butter doesnt burn,and there you are,three meals worth of what you would probably call a fish stew?. Reheat in the microwave as required. I like having it for Mr D for supper,3 mins reheating it and leftover spuds from dinnertime,and its a nice quick and easy meal when I am not up to more elaborate stuff.

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By the way,I hope I am not annoying anyone by talking about dinner at midday,then supper,rather than lunch and dinner in the evening. I used to frequent another website and someone picked me up on my usage of dinner..Apparently you dine in the evening. Well sorry,I am from the northeast,and we have dinner in the middle of the day. Obviously you will call the evening meal dinner if it is the heaviest biggest meal of the day,probably after being out at work all day. But I make our biggest meal of the day after midday,so it is dinner! I soon left that website by the way.

Funny how people get irritated by regional language usage. We pick up our particular usages before we can barely walk. But I remember back in Africa,before Amin trashed the economy and there were lots of expats around. Oh boy,the ladies could be a pain. Their husbands held high positions,and the women were ladies of leisure,with servants,  lunching at the the golf club,or thethe swimming poolclub (whites only,the local people couldnt afford it)

I remember one lady,with a double barrelled name asking me why my kids addressed me as Mam instead of the much finer Mum?. I didnt tell her that Mam was a definite step up from what I addressed my parents as.Not dad,but Da,pronounced rather like the Irish and welsh versions,very board aah sound. And my mother was Ma,pronounced exactly like Da,a long high vowel.I think that lady would have fainted if she heard me say ''Me Ma'' in that broad way.

You would have to be an an elder person to remember the hubbub when Nancy Mitford published ''Noblesse Oblige'' back in around 1960 which claimed to show how your use of particular words showed whether you were aristocratic. I obviously failed the test with Mrs Double Barrel back in 1971!  I really enjoy the subject of language  structure and usage,its fascinating/

tooldle

Re the eye drops. Might it be a supply issue? My pharmacist often substitutes items on my repeat  prescription these days. Not ideal, and whether something is better than nothing is a down to  the individual concerned. If it is a money saving issue for the NHS, there is always the option of a private script or buying over the counter if possible. 

About 20 or so years ago there was a mistake on my inhaler prescription. The first time it happened the pharmacist dispensed as normal and sent the prescription back for correction. When it happened again, I was offered the inhaler at the market rate, whilst I arranged correction of the prescription. At that time the cost was £83. I dread to think what they cost now. 

The overall bill for medicines dispensed on nhs prescriptions  must be horrendous 

sheilavw

Dusty, here we say dinner time , for lunch time, and tea time for evening meal. My Daughter who now lives down South calls it lunch, then evening meal Dinner. When they visit I confuse my 8 year old Grandson when I ask him mid day what he wants for dinner. He will say Grandma its too early for dinner, its only lunch!

beanielou

Lunch for lunch.
Tea in the evening unless going out for dinner!

tooldle

I was brought up with dinner and tea (South coast of England) and now in Wales we say the same. Going out for dinner however is used to mean evening time. 

weenancyinAmerica

Confuse it more - it is lunch at midday and supper in the evening. Only have "dinner" when eating with relatives on a Sunday. Somewhere I have Nancy Mitford's book. Will have to dig it out again.

dustydigger

weenancyinAmerica said:

Confuse it more - it is lunch at midday and supper in the evening. Only have "dinner" when eating with relatives on a Sunday. Somewhere I have Nancy Mitford's book. Will have to dig it out again.

I think Mitford was poking fun at a upper class generation already passing,slyly pointing out the snobbery that asserted that all these new people,photographers,models,designers etc from the working class who were now coming up in the world,should learn to speak Queen;s English. Actors regularly did that.

There were endless discusions on the matter in the 60s,and we plebs with out regional accents were meant to be ashamed of them. I personally made an attempt at at least an much more muted geordie accent,and it was claimed that within a 50 years regional accents would be mostly gone. In those days you just wouldnt get a job on the BBC etc if you had such an accent. So,imagine the surprise when a whole generation of annoyed young talented people rejected that whole thing and retained their accents,and young upper class youths deliberately took on  aspects of  lower class accents,and Estuary English developed. Prince ,oops,sorry,King Charles,still has an accent very close to the Queen's,but the differences between him and his sons is much much greater.And today we have a much greater range of accents among TV presenters etc,but still not very thick accents,as they lead to lack of clear comprehension.

I find the whole topic of linguistics very interesting,and I'm sure we all have words and phrases that we took in as children,and feel sure we are right about and others wrong.

Do you use a lounge, sitting room,or a living room?And in said room,will you be sitting on a couch,a sofa or a settee

dreaming

Hi Dusty - I too love linguistics and also appreciate local dialects/idioms. There are some accents which I find grate a little, and I couldn't watch Rab C Nesbit as I really had no idea what he was saying but usually can attune my ear quite quickly to people. When I was working I was asked 2 or 3 times to speak to people on the phones when colleagues had trouble understanding them although I cannot for the life of me imitate other dialects or speak other languages. It's not just the different words I like but the rhythms and inflections as well. Confusingly I call the midday meal lunch and dinner, and the evening meal tea/dinner/supper according the what I'm eating and when, and also who I am speaking to. Similarly I have a living room, a sitting room, and a lounge - all the same room - and the room I am in right now is variably the spare room, the study, or the craft room. Quite a lot of rooms to fit into a 2 bed bungalow . Right, I'm off to sit on the sofa or settee (again I use both interchangeably but never couch). For reference, i am born and bred in Northampton which is East Midlands I guess, although we get BBC Anglia News. No wonder I'm confused!