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Thank you malone. I tried the new thread but it just seems to relate to crosswords.

Alanfi, if you want to join in the chatter on this thread - originally about grammar, apostrophes etc but with diversions into all sorts of things - feel free! If you have a query about a crossword clue or a quiz question, start a new thread.

PS The site itself is Crossword Help Forum so that's the main focus!

Tyke will, I'm sure, be pleased with the empty beer cans. I certainly would be. Here in Scotland, whether or not wee Nicky Sturgeon gets her independence dream, her government are bringing in cans (and bottles) as a new currency within a year or so. Each will be the equivalent of 20 pence.

I'm thinking of stockpiling the remnants from my own consumption of beverages (all soft drinks, of course - hic!), requesting donations from others, and wandering the streets with a supermarket trolley picking up the riches that have been thoughtlessly thrown away, to cash in when the new regulations come into force.

This time next year, Rodney, we'll be millionaires!

Skyewalker

I`m old enough to remember when `pop` and beer bottles could be returned to corner shops/off licences for cash. My mates and me used to roam the streets searching for them - nothing new about recycling!

I still have my milk delivered by a milkman/woman - the empties are rinsed and collected.

Shopping used to be contained in paper bags and `carriers` - no plastic!

I'm of that age too, Tyke. I'm just annoyed that, instead of putting stuff in the the appropriate recycling bin, as I do conscientiously, I'm going to have to take all empties back to a shop/supermarket to collect 20p on each item. I don't know how it's going to work but, if I've had a party and am left with the empties from, e.g., a few cases of beer and wine, will I have to scan each can/bottle individually into some machine to redeem each 20p having, possibly, made an otherwise unnecessary car journey to the nearest recycling point. It's the usual virtue-signalling policy being brought in before being fully thought through as to how it can be implemented, or if the added burden on shopkeepers to process each can and bottle return will have an appreciable impact on recycling.

Rant over. Sorry to have put a downer on such a usually humorous and upbeat thread.

Malone and Jigjag

Thanks for your interest in my sprouts. I have never thought of using the peelings but what a great idea. I must have prepared about 200 in the last 3 days of "entertaining". I like the idea of awarding points to them. I would say Morrisons 9/10, Asda 5/10.

Day off from the kitchen today. I didn't make many mistakes. Forgot to cook the pigs in blankets on Christmas Day. Yesterday forgot to put the Yorkshire Puddings in the oven. Somebody noticed when we started to eat. So I put them in and we literally had Yorkshire Puddings for pudding.

I read that the brilliant darts woman likes to go to your favourite restaurant, Nandos, for butterfly, chicken and mash. After Jigjag's problem with the lepidoptera at M&S. I was surprised other places serve it.

Skyewalker

Thanks for your entertaining postings on re-cycling the beer cans. I hope they organise it properly. My cousin in Norway takes them back to the supermarket where a machine crushes them and gives him a credit. I don't know if they have re-cycling collections though. Nicolas Turgeon's proposals don't seem very efficient though.

Grunger

I am glad you "prepared" the sprouts for their fate.

The woman darts player was amazing. She is so good that she is playing in the Mens Championship not the Womens. And to beat the world number 11 man is astonishing. It must have been the mash that inspired her. I get butterflies in my stomach before I eat the chicken at Nando's but it has done nothing for me.

For years they have reycled bottles and cans in Canada (appropriate, hey? Which leads me to another thought, my grandchildren sing "Inky, stinky, dry or wet, I am inappropriate"). Any place selling cans or bottles has to refund the 10 cents or whatever on any can or bottle taken to them. I saw several gentlemen of the road pushing their supermarket trolleys collecting what others couldn't be bothered to take to the shop.
So skyewalker, if you wanted you could just leave the aforementioned outside for the men with the trolleys, thus providing employment or being charitable without buying mince pies and saving yourself the bother of going to the shops/recycling macine (I believe it is likely to be machines here). Having said that, after 2 week's holiday a friend and I had enough cans/bottles to "buy" a nice bottle for the last day, which we just left out for the scavengers.
I've never been to a cleaner city.
I'm sorry I didn't wish you all a MC. I was in North Wales, by the sea in the sun on Christmas Day. I gave the sprout-haters in the family some extraordinarily realistic sprouts, which were actually truffles. Hope they haven't been stir-fried with bacon.

Thanks, all - like in an Oscar-winning speech, I'm scared of leaving anyone out!

It's been great catching up on all the sprouts, recycling, Nando's etc stuff. I'm a little jaded after Christmas - 'who ate all the [mince] pies?' is going to be fired at me for days and weeks to come.

The recycling, paying a deposit on bottles works only moderately well in Germany. It's rather a complicated system and parts of it seem more bother than it's worth (literally).

Rosalind, are there any Brussels truffles going spare? I'd willingly give them a home.