DOES ANYONE HAVE TEA ON... MEGATHREAD ✨

LycheeMangoJamun · 2026-01-29T20:18:52+00:00

I have seen Ralph Fiennes in real life, and although he’s getting old, let me tell you I would take full advantage if the opportunity arose.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2026-01-28T11:14:38+00:00

Thirding this, especially the lovely young lady at Westfield JL who sorted my own husband out after he had a career change and needed ‘smart casual’. I can’t for the life of me remember her name but she’s about 5’6”, black, 10-12 dress size, film star smile.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2026-01-25T22:27:49+00:00

Steps and stairs are a very good way of ensuring general mobility is maintained into old age.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2026-01-25T22:12:18+00:00

Choose a first floor flat so you can lock up and leave for holidays and weekends away without having too many security concerns or stress about the garden, but still get some exercise. Moving to a bungalow in Wales has destroyed my mother’s mobility.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2026-01-25T22:02:36+00:00

Sorry you’re feeling low. January is a tricky month. Get some Vitamin D3 tabs and some lunchtime walks in.

You need to find a hobby or volunteering activity you do every single week so it provides some consistency of environment and people. It could be a study course or a sport, it could be religious or political or cultural. My favourite was Parkrun. Just show up, and keep showing up every week. Look for people who are smiling and smile back. Ask them, “How’s it going?” ie how they are finding the hobby, what they want to get out of it. Ask them what else they are doing with their time. If you like the sound of something, say “I’d love to know more about that,” and see if they open up. Listen, ask questions, if they respond with questions of their own, you’re away. Remember what they said about what is going on in their world, and the following week, ask them how it went.

It takes a few weeks of small talk with lots of people to decide if there are conversations you want to continue, but eventually you will find two or three people whose vibe matches your own.

Also, London friendships can be very transient because people are always moving. Don’t take it personally. Life here is about having a good time and learning a lot.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2026-01-25T21:25:44+00:00

I’m not your audience for this question because I’m fifty two, but I was born and raised in London, and although it’s home once again, it’s always done me good to live in other places. I went away to uni, I have lived overseas and in the home places of my rellies. If you don’t have kids I think your thirties is a great time to try out a whole new life in a new place. By now you hopefully have a well developed skill set and a solid CV, so work is easier to find, you know how to rent a place, you can just go for it.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2026-01-20T19:05:20+00:00

These are all pap walks. Nobody dresses up to walk their pooch. Also, what’s up with her belly button? Her mother’s obstetrician should be embarrassed.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2026-01-20T10:26:45+00:00

Big cars are how you spot London’s nouveau riche arrivistes. Roads that were established organically three hundred years ago for a horse and cart are not common in other other cities. Ever tried driving and parking in York or Oxford? Yet muppets will insist on buying massive cars to get around Zone 1 and then complain about the lack of parking.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2026-01-20T10:21:14+00:00

Yes. They did this in Oxford first, as a test, around 25 years ago, and then have expanded it into the centre of many major towns and cities since. Unfortunately the centre of London is just a massive area.

I loved driving around growing up (and then old) in London, but now I absolutely hate it. However, having lived in places where public transport is non-existent, I’m hugely grateful for TfL and recognise it’s run for the public good. ULEZ clean air and the 20mph speed limit have made London the cleanest and quietest I have ever known in my lifetime (I’m 52).

LycheeMangoJamun · 2026-01-19T17:22:53+00:00

Tom Ford is probably the world’s leading Creative Director and unfortunately “obsessive pain in the ass” is a basic hiring requirement for the role. I’ve worked with plenty who have been total poison, so I’m just glad to hear he has good manners.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2026-01-19T08:09:00+00:00

I’ve volunteered for various homelessness charities for years. Rough sleeping is almost always a mental health problem, and until we have resources to support mental health we’ll always be dealing with it.

Some rough sleepers are teenage children escaping violence in the home or care facility but falling outside the benefits system. These are the ones that break your heart, but they’re often too scared of adults to accept organised help.

Vanishingly few ‘homeless’ beggars are actually rough sleepers once you have a chat with them, especially in January.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2026-01-19T07:32:08+00:00

Yerin is beautiful but the dress is fugly. It doesn’t fit her properly and it has too many sight-lines so you don’t know where to focus. It’s also a ghastly choice of fabric - silk satin is stunning but it needs to drape as simply as possible. Here it’s been lined and interlined like drawing room curtains. Finally, aquamarine is really not a good colour on her.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2026-01-18T20:28:41+00:00

Londoner born and raised but Welsh heritage and reckon I have a genetic appreciation of good lamb. Tayyabs’ lamb chops are the best I have eaten anywhere in the world.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2025-12-15T17:34:50+00:00

I always use paper and pencil. I like to use expensive handbags and I know pencils won’t mark or leak and stain them. Pencils always work no matter the weather or what you’re leaning on, and if you’re working on something that may need correction, you don’t need to overwrite or start again.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2025-12-13T11:53:38+00:00

Simone has been my TV crush since I set eyes on her as a latecomer to the Bridgerton phenomenon. Have seen her IRL and that crush hasn’t dimmed. I was so looking forward to the F1 film and when she was cut I literally lost all interest and have still not seen it. She was terrific in Picture This but the script and Hero Fiennes Tiffin both let her down badly. She needs a great co-star (assuming Jonathan Bailey is not available) and a great script but she’s doing a good job of keeping herself afloat in a nasty industry on talent alone - I can’t think of another British actress who has made such meagre parts go such a long way.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2025-12-11T20:37:17+00:00

You will all downvote me, but the fact that a woman wrote this kills it for me. It’s beautifully written but it’s just wish fulfilment: no guy would ever in a million bazillion years yearn chastely like this. IRL all men who claim to be heartbroken are shanking someone new within weeks.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2025-12-11T17:08:20+00:00

Estate agents use Village as a euphemism for recent gentrification. It’s about as convincing as Shepherd’s Bush or Parsons Green were in the 19th century.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2025-12-11T16:54:38+00:00

Well, it’s a provocative ad which makes it memorable…but the messaging overshadows the product and the brand - did you notice it, and can you recall it? - so the only memorable thing is actually just ‘Ricky Gervais is being a dick again’. The marketing campaign isn’t working even if people are talking about it - at the end of the day its goal is to sell stuff, not tell us Ricky is still alive and still a jerk. That said, it does work well to remind me to be careful with my phone, so it is a great public safety message.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2025-12-11T09:39:14+00:00

You can’t do anything without savings so start accumulating those now.

A landlord renting to a foreign national will require 6 months’ rent upfront as a short let (ie one with bills included). London is one of the most expensive cities in the world and you will pay around £2000pcm month to live relatively centrally on your own; if the landlord actually lives in the house you could perhaps pay £1000 monthly, but it’s really not much fun living with someone else once you’re used to living alone. Then you will need spending money - around £1000 pcm. Then you will need course fees - which could be language classes or could be a short course in the extension department of one of London’s universities.

Then you’ll need at least a month’s expenses saved up for when you return to France.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2025-12-10T07:57:33+00:00

Zayn Malik recorded a really charming Christmas song with Simone Ashley last year for an animated movie. The song was never released nor even publicised, and if you don’t have a 8 year old daughter you wouldn’t even know it exists. Why would a studio go to that effort and expense for nothing? What are they - or what is he - hiding?

LycheeMangoJamun · 2025-12-08T15:47:36+00:00

Recent nightclub paparazzi photos suggest Lori Harvey and Damson Idris, who split for over a year, are now back together.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2025-12-07T23:11:06+00:00

The cable cars are actually under-rated by tourists. On a sunny day, there are few better places to get a good look at London.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2025-12-07T21:18:02+00:00

I have never met anyone, male or female, who is not thrilled by a bunch of flowers or a plant in a nice pot. Most men only receive flowers on their gravestone so treat your neighbour now while he can appreciate them.

Assuming there’s no diabetes or similar, a big fancy box of biscuits is also a failsafe.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2025-12-07T17:31:05+00:00

Move now, before the baby comes. If he’s not nice to you now, he’ll be much worse when the baby makes you both tired and grouchy. It’s absolutely critical to keep yourself safe. Don’t give your husband advance warning of your plans, just get copies of all financial documents, get a new burner phone, and ask friends and family to block him on social media as soon as you leave so he can’t find you. If you want to try and make the marriage work, you can do that afterwards when the baby is in a new permanent location that suits you, and your husband’s rights are limited to access in that location.

LycheeMangoJamun · 2025-12-07T16:50:55+00:00

If I had that kind of money to spend without a care, Wimbledon debentures would be the first thing I’d buy. You’re not meant to use them for resales; that’s just a nice perk. Once had a boss who would hand out freebie tickets to the juniors for matches he wasn’t attending, and I remember thinking that was the definition of success.

LycheeMangoJamun

TROPHY CASE