All flying cars that have been built have been shit as a car and shit as a plane. The only variations is how much the shit leans towards the car functionality or the plane functionality.

Perpetual motion
Cold fusion
Flying cars
Teleportation
Heavy-lift dirigibles

Religion and sex are powerplays
Manipulate the people for the money they pay
Selling skin, selling God
The numbers look the same on their credit cards
Politicians say no to drugs
While we pay for wars in South America

Fighting fire with empty words
While the banks get fat
And the poor stay poor
And the rich get rich
And the cops get paid
To look away
As the one percent rules America

“Spreading the Disease” from the album “Operation: Mindcrime” by Queensrÿche (1988)

They do quiet, existential despair like no-one else.

On the plus side, I no longer want to be a billionaire, so there’s that.

Bunny! Ball ball!

I use Kenji’s method as well and it’s never once failed. Here’s a video 'splanation in case that suits you better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IeKQSW1LX8

I don’t think so. Oh, wait, I have a petrol strimmer / bushcutter that has a choke! So, yes!

The shoes thing works with expensive dress shoes as well. I knew a guy who wore fairly high end suits and handmade shoes to work. His cobbler told him to always get two pairs and they’ll last a lot longer if you alternate them so they get a rest day than if you buy one pair at a time and use them daily.

Almost every adult in the UK learns on manual - I’ve known about three people in my life who learned on automatic and are only licensed to drive automatics - but with the rise of electric cars (and an increase in automatics generally) I wonder if my kids will learn.

What I never learned, but which my parents did was exactly when and to use the choke on a car. I know fuel injection made chokes unnecessary and I’ve never driven a car that had one.

Ah, yes, the emergency services!

“You wanna go down Three Oak lane, I forget what its ‘proper’ name is, but there used to be a farm there called Three Oak Farm, so that’s what we all call the lane round here. 'Course the farm’s gone. And so have the oaks. Anyway, go along there until you get to the field where the unexploded bomb was found back in '68, and turn right. Then left past the field where the cows got sick last year. If you reach shagger’s hill, you’ve gone too far. Now there’s a ford down that way, so you can’t miss it. Except, I suppose, in this weather since it hasn’t rained in a month and the ford’s probably dried up. Most important thing though, you don’t want to start from here.”

You should become a cabbie in London. They all have to memorise 320 routes, 25,000 streets and 20,000 places of interest, e.g. hotels, stations, tourist attractions and so on. It’s called The Knowledge. There’s some evidence that mastering The Knowledge actually alters the structure of the brain!

I’ll go with:

• Either defining or subverting a genre.
• At least one likeable character, ideally the protagonist.
• Some kind of mystery at their heart.
• Leave you thinking about them after they’ve finished
• Believable characters, convincing dialogue, plausible villain

Way back in the 80s I knew a guy who scored all films by adding up the number of bare breasts and explosions. He said 3 was a minimum score for a good film.

Ok. I mean, I asked a specific question and some of the answers weren’t relevant. I wasn’t complaining just clarifying.

As part of the question I did say: “What are your best economical recipes that aren’t just beans, chickpeas, and rice? Meals you actively looks forward to, rather than just a budget way of getting calories inside you?”

Mustard greens are not easy to come by over here, unfortunately.

I do cook beans and rice, those meals are already in my rotation, I just don’t feel I need more beans and rice recipes. I’ll give the eggplant recipe a go.

I do saag aloo and saag paneer reasonably often. Always good to get some spinach into the kids.

I have half a dozen beans and rice recipes, from Red Beans and Rice to Rajma Masala to Nigerian Rice and Beans. But I’m looking for recipes a step up from that. Might try the homemade pizza, it’s been a while!