Right. Also see: ‘duping delight’. Psychopaths love that shit. To them, it’s the elixir of life. From all the careful planning and the obtaining and concealing of the drug, to the administration of the drug and the anticipation of watching the victim drink it down, gleeful that THEY know something their…

Ok I haven’t seen Outlander and I haven’t seen Game of Thrones (not one jolly minute). Thank christ.

Right. But also if it’s considered an important enough find even on private land, like something historically significant (probably like this villa), the state will take it right out of the land owner’s/finders hands automatically, with fair compensation of course, but losing them any ownership and rights they might…

Digging up plague pits happens surprisingly often. Many of them were patted down flat and turned into public commons in the 18thC, so today, right underneath the lovely flat grassy tree-lined parks where the locals sun themselves, their dogs run and their kiddies jump all over the bouncy castle, lie mouldering corpses…

Here ya go - reopening soon after a water main burst flooded it a couple years ago.

Herne Hill, fahkin’ell. Caught between Brixton and Elephant & Castle like a rose between two thorns.

Of course this will prompt accusations and snickers about the Germans (“itz Nazi time all over againz!”) and the non-German immigrants (“itz because the brownz!”).

Right. Thailand too — there are no plain moisturisers anywhere, they all have ‘brightening/lightening’ ingredients.

YES thank you. While other people try to point out that ‘some people’ stood by and ‘did nothing, knew nothing, thought nothing’ while abuse was taking place right under their flaring nostrils...

Right. And media time and attention is not allocated according to the ratios of empathetic quantity. News media is allocated according to what looks visually dramatic and how much footage is available. That’s why warehouse fires, smokestack/high-rise demolitions, shootouts and raids are featured so commonly — they…

The lunatic asylum family days out were wonderful for the kids. When they were done laughing themselves sick at the half-disrobed inmates screeching, rocking back and forth, slapping themselves in the face, butting their heads into the walls and crapping in the corner, the parents could join in the fun by reminding…

The school (responded) that keeping the alleged assailant and the girl in the same class and on field trips was not a problem because she wasn’t sexually assaulted again.

Right. They seem to think that just because consensual sex happened once, it’s a permanent item on the menu, and any objections the woman might attempt to make in future to insertion of that same penis are null and void, histrionic and insane, and ‘proof’ that she’s a scheming man-hating tart. It’s as if a woman has…

Even today, there’s a ‘traditional’ (very expensive, tasteful, old fashioned heritage) department store in an old money residential/commercial area of SW London which hides its sanitary products on one of the bottom shelves of the haberdashery department. Right down on the floorboards, between the skeins of wool and…

The sharing economy is all about acclimatising the naive, well-meaning citizens of what used to be a prosperous society to being poor and not having enough capital to go around. Consequently we now have ‘regular joes’ acting as amateur freelancers in what were once professionally regulated/managed and supervised…

No, it’s not ‘less than one percent’. At Eton for example, there are 70 free places out of a student body of 1300. That’s 5-6% of kids riding for free because they are poor but of high potential.

It’s complicated. And accent only plays one part of it — there are certain terms and phrases, certain speaking habits, certain hand and body gestures too that are ‘tells’ for background.

Yes! ‘Fierce climbers’!

But also, not about income — it’s all about background. Your family can be as broke as hell but if your great-great-great-grandfather was a Prime Minister in the 19th Century, you’ll attend any school your parents wish, and your social circles from birth will be very impressive.

That’s why Kate Middleton and her sister Pippa were quietly called the ‘Nice-To-Meet-You Middletons’ by the upper circles around William. Because saying ‘nice to meet you’ when you’re introduced to someone is quite a rude thing to say and a red flag that denotes your background as ‘trying to mind my manners…