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Thanks, Grunger. That was wonderful stuff - your post, not the place that was the pits! There's another scheme, I don't know if it'll be available near you, but worth investigating. It's the Pastry Immersion Exercise. There are no press-up involved and despite its initials, it's definitely not a confused mess.

Grunger & Malone

I thought PITS would turn out to be just pie in the sky.

Tyke

Thats very clever

Jigjag, Tyke51

I agree - very funny. Grunger may be a little despondent after that failure - and she looked a little pasty the last time I saw her - so I think we should all work hard to track down a suitable course, activity for her.

Tyke

Very clever of you to spot that.

Malone

I like the pasty pun. I also like a pasty occassionally. Despite your post I am afraid nobody has found a suitable course for me, so I decided to give "The Pits" another chance. They are offering a "lifestyle" course, You get a manual and attend some lessons. I sent a cheque for the stuff which includes P and P. That must be Pie and Pampering so I am looking forward to it.

Grunger,

I've always felt that anything involving 'Lifestyle' is best avoided. It often leads to a lot of goody-goody stuff, involving happy thoughts and exercise plans and … oh, all sorts of unwanted bits and pieces. I'm sure the P and P would not have resulted in any pies, or pampering - it's more likely to be Punishment and Purgatory.

Back to PU...
While reading a book the other day, I came across the word 'seamstress'. This reminded me of our happy discussions, debates. I did wonder, though, what the male equivalent of that word would be. I know tailor/tailoress, ogre/ogress, author/authoress and so on. My good old friend, Chambers, helped me out - seamstress' is the female version of a 'seamster', a person who sews. Well, I've never encountered one of those, that word, before!

Grunger

You need to be careful. P and P also stands for something else - rather unpleasant and quite unsuitable for you.

Malone

I always thought that seamstress was the female of seamer - a bowler who uses the seam of the ball. Seameress would be ungainly, hence seamstress. I wouldnt know about sewing.

jigjag

I see what you mean. Initials are tricky . I will have to watch my P's and Q's

Although I favour -ess words we just use the male version in ladies cricket, seamer spinner etc. Even I would find off-spinneress ungainly.

Malone

In the market there is a sewing stall but the seamstress pronounces it sem-stress. I dont know if that is common.

In The Spectator magazine, there's an advice column and someone wrote in about the problems of greetings during this virus. Instead of shaking hands, hugging or kissing, she suggested the overarm bowling greeting. What on earth is that?

Grunger

Mis-used initials are annoying. We have talked about problems with AA. CMA etc.

I have been hearing for months that the Government is short of PPE. Well, when I was a student, there were too many reading PPE, and some became professional politicians. I read today that Hancock and Sunpack have got PPE, so the Government has too much rather than too little.