I accept that mayo is overused over here, but at least we don't actually pour it over salads. It's used for dipping, as condiments should be!

Ah well, at least you tried them, I won't hold it against you! A good friend of mine is an American (well, technically, although her accent is quite English) who's been living here since her family moved over when she was about 10. Her parents never had mince pies in the house because they assumed they were made of…

Yeah - what do all these Concerned Parents think their kids are doing on the internet? I still remember when I was at boarding school age 18 and one of the boys in my year made what he clearly thought was a really clever and hilarious 2 Girls 1 Cup reference (oooooh, scandalous!) and most of the 13-year-old First Year…

I feel for you, I really do. Thankfully the ranch craze hasn't crossed the Atlantic, a fact for which I am eternally grateful.

If you haven't yet, try balsamic glaze. I have it on most of my salads and it's glorious (and relatively healthy compared to oilier dressings). Lettuce, rocket, strips of bell pepper, cucumber, tomato and avocado with balsamic glaze and occasionally some tuna/salmon is my lunch a good 6 days out of 7...

I'm British and I never had ranch dressing until I went to Orlando when I was about 10. I had a salad with ranch and I puked (I think it was partly the sun and too much sugar at Universal, but to this day even the smell of ranch makes me nauseated).

I'm sure my body heat would help warm him up... we could snuggle in a single sleeping bag like snowed-in Arctic explorers.

OMG I have the Imperial March as my mum's ringtone!! It's a sort of family in joke. Great minds think alike.

Easy to say. I was about to graduate and needed a job, and it was the only interview I'd got.

If you want to, start with her Tortall books - the Alanna quartet to start, and go from there. You can definitely get into them as an adult, but you need to read them in order and stick with it! Much like Harry Potter, the earlier series are much more childlike in length, plot and tone - not bad, but a little more…

I haven't written ff in years, but back in the day I did a lot of Harry Potter oneshots (usually a scene/something that was mentioned in the books, but from the point of view of a different character), a Tom Riddle origin fic (this was before HBP came out, obviously! It was embarrassingly emo), a couple of long…

Thanks! It's going well so far - after that interview I was pleasantly surprised to find that well over half the trainees are women!

I don't want to say specifically because I ended up accepting a contract with them (I know that seems crazy but it was right in the middle of the recession and it was my only offer - beggars can't be choosers! At least that partner retired before I started). It's the UK office of one of the white shoe US law firms.

Good old government leave! My mum learnt her lesson with me - for my sister, she took a two year secondment to the Civil Service just as she started trying to get pregnant and made use of it herself. (whilst still on her crazy bank salary). Talk about playing the system.

I do think there's something in this. 9-12 months is a really, really long time in some industries - the financial sector, for one. Also if a lot of what you do involves client facing work, taking a lot of time off can mean you have far less business to come back to. There are ways to manage it, of course - some…

My mum was an investment banker back in the 80's when there weren't many women doing it (she was very high up too, I think by the time she had me she was a VC) and she was so scared they'd freeze her out she didn't take any maternity leave at all. AT ALL. She had me on the Friday and was back at work on Monday, using…

"Sticks and stones" is one of the biggest lies ever told.

Mark, I will echo what has already been said - you ARE a delight, and you became my favourite Jezebel writer with the same rapidity that that damned Rosebud article was burned into my brain forevermore.

I think Pamela was probably well out of it!

Samantha Morton definitely has the acting chops but I see her more as Nancy just because I think Unity always seemed very young looking.