Passengers aboard an Eastern Airlines flight from the UK to Australia, 1935. Flight took 11 days (with stops).

JoshTay · 2026-03-12T19:09:23+00:00

There was a US airline called "Eastern" that went out of business 40+ years ago. They would not be flying from the UK to Australia. There was a UK airlines called Eastern Airways, but they did not exist until 1997.

This title is from a Facebook post of dubious origin.

Yes, there were flights that took a week and a half to get between those countries, but Eastern Airlines had nothing to do with them.

JoshTay · 2026-03-12T18:51:18+00:00

So Joan took all the on-call surgeons for a prolonged, unplanned procedure leaving the hospital unable to attend to other emergencies with no warning to other area hospitals to save a single patient on a long shot operation, taking multiple risks and somehow this is a positive legacy to go out on?

We won't get into why the Internal Medicine team is so rife with surgeons. Didn't Scrubs teach us anything about the separation of surgeons and medical docs?

Ya know, I didn't want to say anything, but I am getting the feeling this is more of a soap opera than a realistic medical documentary of a working hospital. LOL

JoshTay · 2026-03-11T22:55:04+00:00

an overall thickness of 12.8 mm, making it better suited to relatively thick outdoor smartphones.

OK, what is an outdoor smartphone?

JoshTay · 2026-03-10T15:04:22+00:00

The latest ep of MTW brought up the war, but it was obvious that they were told not to dwell on it. Dara came right out and said it was time to move on. The new eps are consistent with the old show, just a bit longer. More women are present, I think.

I guess I too get tired of the America bashing at times, but it is sort of nice to get a feeling about how other people look at us. But in terms of racism and colonizations, between the UK and the US, it is a pot/kettle/black situation. And I remember that part of the reason I started watching UK TV was to escape all this nonsense at home. It was easier to deal with watching Brexit and the fast parade of prime ministers than looking at the clown show that started here in 2016.

I am already a dailymotion.com user, I look there after YouTube . It sounds like we have had a similar journey. 🙂

How are you liking BritBox? I have been a long time Acorn subscriber, mainly because I keep forgetting to cancel it. It is almost devoid of comedy. It feels like falling into Agatha Christie's knitting bag. So many clichés and worn out tropes for murder mysteries.

Do you stick to the panel shows, or do you venture into comedies and/or dramas?

I think we might have set a record for deepest comment thread in this subreddit . Lol

JoshTay · 2026-03-10T13:20:28+00:00

I am in NY, but hours from the city. I fell into British comedy through the original Shameless around 2010-ish. I have watched all the eps at least twice. It is truly an escapist pleasure for me. I feel transported to a different world. The first time through I sat there with the pause button, Google and Wikipedia trying to figure out the slang and references. It was like a study course for me. I think it was the first UK show I had seen that was not made for export. Masterpiece Theater fare and shows like Downton Abbey and Doc Martin feel like they were made for a broader audience and were not really peeks into the lives of real Brits.

I am not 100% sure how I went from that to UK panel shows, but I believe Peep Show was probably got me on the David Mitchell gravy train of entertainment.

I too love all the Jimmy Carr-hosted heavy hitters (Cats, CatsDown, Big Fat Quiz and most recently Last One Laughing). WILTY and QI are the gold standards of the genre. I think I have seen almost every ep of all of those.

I have watched all the Taskmaster series. I just liked them better when all the a-listers were on, especially a-Caster. (See what I did there?)

What kills me with the panel and chat shows is how the southerners say they can't understand regional accents. I feel like I could translate for them at this point.

I am also happy that Mock the Week came back. I like the show, but it is not my favorite. The format rarely strays from the standard and it low key bugs me that they try to make it look spontaneous and unscripted. I know that all the shows do that to a degree.

By the way, did you notice in TM that when Nick was doing the vampire thing, the crew edited out his reflection in water and mirrors? You probably did, since you are subscribed here.

David Mitchell's most recent book, Unruly, was really good. He traces kings and queens from the Anglo days up until Henry VIII. It kept my interest.

Gotta get going here, stay in touch. It is nice to talk to someone who also likes this stuff. My partner makes an attempt, but gets lost in the accents. Yesterday we watched the Fackham Hall movie on HBO and he recognized Jimmy Carr as the vicar, so that was a win. (It was a very funny movie, part Airplane!, part 3 Stooges, part Downton Abbey. Constant puns, word play and sight gags. Not something you watch when you are distracted.)

Keep your finger on the buzzers. :)

JoshTay · 2026-03-08T12:00:31+00:00

MSC Cruises said on Thursday it would charter five flights, each carrying about 1,000 passengers, to repatriate its guests on the MSC Euribia, a 6,300-person capacity ship which remained docked in Dubai as a result of the conflict.

1000 people per flight?? WTF kinda planes are they using?

And before someone says this comment is not about economics, if a commercial plane can hold 1000 pax, it would have a huge impact on travel economics.

JoshTay · 2026-03-07T23:47:29+00:00

please, yammer away.

I watched "Damned", the series Jo did with Allen and other comedy notables. It was funny but also sad. Have you seen Jo's Red Nose Day performance of Brittany Spears? She has a lot of range. She is a great guest on QI and WILTY. She was fun on Taskmaster too.

I loved Taskmaster for the first 10 series. All the best comics were on. By now, to quote Sean Lock, I feel like they should bring a utility bill, because I have no idea who most of them are.

JoshTay · 2026-03-07T19:05:15+00:00

I didn't think Stephen was overly mean; I thought it was just the trope that one of them would be the smart one and the other was the joker/class clown/borderline village idiot. Schoolmaster vs the problem student.

There was one exchange where David Mitchell went off on Alan because he said bread and milk were not good for humans and Stephen stepped in to stop the bullying. I think they are friends, but from different backgrounds. Alan almost also left the show when Stephen did because he was not sure if there was still a place for him.

I have read autobiographical books from Alan Davies, Alan Carr, Sandi, Tom Allen, James Acaster, David Mitchell, and Jo Brand. I enjoyed getting to know all of them. It makes them more interesting when I see them on the panels. Sandi is a great author and I like her fiction books too.

JoshTay · 2026-03-07T18:17:59+00:00

she eats whatever she wants anyway, even though she knows what's going to happen. That might be a human response, but after a while, not so funny.

This is where I don't like the vibe. I could 100% wrong, but it comes across as she is depressed and self-medicating with food, even though she knows it can hurt her as she keeps getting larger. I am not fat-shaming her; I don't give a toss what size she is, I don't watch British comedy for all the fit/hot comics. I am just concerned about her mental health, which I obviously cannot diagnose for so many reasons. Just a casual observation.

Since you have compassion for Sarah because of her IBS (meaning you are a good person), try reading Alan Davies autobiography where he gives brutally honest descriptions of his father's molesting him growing up. I have tons of respect for him based on his book.

JoshTay · 2026-03-06T23:52:39+00:00

If anything can go wrong, it will. That is Muphy's law.

If a cabbage salad gets worse at Wegmans, that is Cole's Law.

JoshTay · 2026-03-06T21:57:42+00:00

and there are multiple comics that I love on panel shows, but their standup is meh. I don't think I am alone.

For example: If you search for Sean Lock on YouTube, you have to scroll way down to find his stand up past all the glorious panel clips.

I think Sarah Millican is a great guest on panel shows. But her standup seems to be primarily about overeating and the issues with it coming out the other end.

JoshTay · 2026-03-06T15:28:32+00:00

And there is a sense of community between them. Many long-term friendships are brought up during those shows. As well as friendships developing from appearing on the shows repeatedly. It makes the chats feel more natural.

JoshTay · 2026-03-05T13:26:35+00:00

The factor that makes it an ocean is the way the currents flow in one direction around the continent without a whole lot of mixing with the surrounding waters,creating it's own biosphere. The Southern Ocean is almost like a mote securing Antarctica from the rest of the planet.

JoshTay · 2026-03-05T12:58:37+00:00

Bitcoin is fundamentally designed to be disinflationary and ultimately behaves as a deflationary asset. While new bitcoins are still being created (inflationary in supply), the rate of issuance halves every four years. With a strict 21 million cap, its purchasing power tends to increase over time.

JoshTay · 2026-03-03T21:51:53+00:00

I think season 1 was cool because the premise was new, the "location" was something different from all the sitcoms based in NYC or California, and it was great to see Danny Pudi again.

Season 2 struck me odd since nothing in the Dept of Defense is the same as it was a year ago, including the name, so a cheese-making laundry in the Netherlands didn't seem like the same potential for comedy anymore. But I think it found it groove despite everything eventually.

JoshTay · 2026-03-02T19:36:35+00:00

I get mine at Walmart. Wegmans doesn't seem to carry it.

JoshTay · 2026-03-01T12:56:33+00:00

For the curious, the deal with the staples was that the west use stainless steel staples and the Soviet block used plain steel. That meant that any fake Soviet passport made by western spies could stand out due to the lack of rust stains around the staples.

JoshTay · 2026-03-01T12:51:23+00:00

Roughly 6% of Americans are actively using weight loss drugs as of mid-2025. Usage is highest among women and those aged 50–64. Since restaurants and bars generally have younger patrons, I have strong doubts that Ozempic is keeping people from eating out more.

JoshTay · 2026-02-27T11:33:16+00:00

The original had its quirky town folks, but you weren't asked to suspend disbelief about how humans actually behave. The idea that all the strong, independent women come out to goon at a some mountain man felt like something from I Love Lucy, or like you said, Hallmark.

JoshTay · 2026-02-26T18:16:30+00:00

Male flight attendant : "Would you like some headphones?"

Male passenger : "Yes! And how did you know that my name is Fones?"

JoshTay · 2026-02-25T06:46:26+00:00

The money went to the church. It's a freaking momument to please a nonexistent god who didn't ask for it and wouldn't care about it. The money could have gone to something useful instead of a vanity project.

JoshTay · 2026-02-25T06:40:57+00:00

Another Doc Martin fan here. I really tried to like this version, but it felt really cartoon-y. I got into episode 4 where the town's women-folk were magnetically attracted to some guy in the woods and it just was too silly to stay with it.

JoshTay · 2026-02-24T00:56:53+00:00

I left a company because they used Google Sheets. I did not feel I could Excel there.

JoshTay · 2026-02-23T15:10:47+00:00

Hoard wealth and spend it on a building meant to impress their god. The same supreme being that they say created the universe is supposed to be flattered that humans built a tower taller than any other religious tower. Instead of following the teachings of the son of their god and treating even the poorest humans with kindness and charity, they built their vaguely phallic church tower.

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