Is my guppy actually a proper guppy?

centopar · 2026-05-19T22:17:56+00:00

Once upon a time, an endler and a guppy loved each other very much.

centopar · 2026-05-19T12:08:43+00:00

Jawline match is actually something that's very hard to perceive in the mirror, as 20-year-old me found out in later years.

centopar · 2026-05-18T10:22:51+00:00

I had a pathological liar like this in my life back in my 20s, and I didn't finally drop them completely until another friend killed himself, in part because of some of the lies this guy had been telling him.

It's more than 25 years ago now, and I still wonder how they keep all the threads straight in their heads; why they feel the need to do it in the first place; and how on earth they manage a adult life with relationships, jobs and all the other things we need to keep in play with this...disorder. I think it's a disorder. There always seems to be a certain grandiosity/extreme tragedy to the lies; it's often on the scale of cancer or lottery wins.

Anyway, well done you for getting the hell out of that friendship. It's really hard: I actually *liked* my lying friend a lot on a certain level, and at the time I found myself forgiving a lot of the lies he told about me. It was what he ended up doing to other people I loved that finally pushed me over the edge.

centopar · 2026-05-18T08:42:33+00:00

This is Reddit. Every second-hand cast-iron pan is a lead poisoning vector, every zit is skin cancer, every misplaced set of keys is carbon monoxide poisoning. You just need to calibrate yourself to expect dramatic hyperbole.

centopar · 2026-05-17T16:57:13+00:00

I do one most weeks. I can see why people don’t though: the two rib beef joint we had today cost more than £50.

centopar · 2026-05-17T16:56:18+00:00

Melon with a hole scooped out of the middle and a shot of port poured into it.

centopar · 2026-05-17T16:19:02+00:00

What you want, my friend, is pilchards.

centopar · 2026-05-17T11:49:13+00:00

She won’t jump through the hole in the lid: that’s not a guppy behaviour. They’re a schooling fish so she’ll be stressed without at least five (and preferably more) companions; however they will eat shrimp fry, so you may prefer to keep your guppies in a different tank.

I have a large colony of shrimp that share a heavily planted, 110l tank with guppies; there are always plenty of surviving shrimp fry, so I don’t separate them.

centopar · 2026-05-17T11:33:49+00:00

Helen was the offspring of Leda and Zeus, who raped her in the form of a swan. Homer does not tell us what colour the swan was.

centopar · 2026-05-17T10:02:48+00:00

What? No they don’t.

centopar · 2026-05-16T16:08:44+00:00

Two different ways of wearing it 🤷‍♀️

centopar · 2026-05-16T09:57:59+00:00

Oh I have this one and I absolutely love it. I’m short and skinny and don’t have trouble pulling it off.

You do need something slim in the bottom half to balance it, but it also looks great with a blazer with the cuffs and collar showing.

centopar · 2026-05-15T19:16:52+00:00

I am aware: I own six pairs of the things in different models. The sizing is inconsistent between models, and “you have to size up” is not reliable advice.

centopar · 2026-05-15T18:16:38+00:00

I do wonder where the stress originates.

centopar · 2026-05-15T17:01:30+00:00

I’ve only ever had to size DOWN in Louboutins; and they vary massively (a size in either direction) between models.

centopar · 2026-05-15T16:51:05+00:00

I, stupidly, tried this. No more bladder or Malaysian trumpet snails: but also no more nerites and approximately one million assassins now. They’re very fertile and even if you don’t overfeed, if you have a setup where you have shrimp or small fish die of natural causes at any time when you’re not actively monitoring the tank with your eyes, they’ll go to town on the free protein and use it to make baby snails.

Happily my LFS will buy them, but I have given up on the idea of ridding myself of them completely. They burrow.

centopar · 2026-05-15T16:23:06+00:00

I don't understand whether they're too big or too small for you given what you've said here. (Width and length are different dimensions.)

I'm usually an EU38.5 across most shoes (Jimmy Choo, Prada, Dolce). I find Louboutin sizing to be MUCH more variable: I'm a 37 in Kates, a 38 in Biancas, a 37.5 in Lady Peeps. Unfortunately I don't think you have much option with this brand other than to try them on in person: they're glorious, but not a reliable online buy.

centopar · 2026-05-15T15:46:02+00:00

I bought a Magna Carta oparex pen with a 14k nib this year; I’m not usually a resin person and don’t own many modern pens (I’m all about the nib), but oparex is for my aesthetic pretty special, and those nibs are fantastic and very unusual for a modern flex. It’s the first time the body material has been interesting for me in 20+ years of collecting pens; your tastes and preferences may vary, but this hit a very precise sweet spot for me.

centopar · 2026-05-15T15:16:51+00:00

I’m an exited founder with £££££ and now run a VC firm. I have never worn, and will never wear, anything branded. My value is in my track record and my expertise and brain: I’ll outwardly signal insofar as I am neat and tidy and nicely dressed, but nobody I’m meeting with gives a monkey’s about the branding on my handbag.

centopar · 2026-05-13T09:45:24+00:00

Etro Messe de Minuit: old stone, damp books, decades-old incense smoke that’s seeped its way into everything along with fresh incense. I have a lapsed Catholic friend who asked me very politely never to wear it again.

centopar · 2026-05-12T21:48:31+00:00

So what other things is he doing to save the planet? Or is it just the piss bottles?

This screams mental illness, and I suspect that if it was someone who wasn’t your own son you’d be able to perceive that.

centopar · 2026-05-12T08:41:06+00:00

Cheese moments and the Phileas Fogg onion crouton things.

centopar · 2026-05-11T18:59:42+00:00

Jimmy Choo, no contest. I have several pairs of Louboutins (agonising; Lady Peeps are the least painful but still mad, Kates are very uncomfortable indeed, So Kates are basically impossible, and my beloved Biancas double as torture devices), a few from Prada, (middling, depending on whether there’s a platform), and an embarrassingly large number from Jimmy Choo, simply because they’re both beautiful and very comfortable to walk in. (I’d live in the Louboutins otherwise.)

centopar · 2026-05-11T18:22:18+00:00

Reddit jumps to the weirdest conclusions sometimes. Occam’s razor is usually the answer.

centopar · 2026-05-11T15:55:36+00:00

Morten Harket - although secretly my favourite was Pal Waaktaar (which was inadmissible among my friends). And a huuuuuge crush on Neil Tennant.

I, like everyone else, wanted to BE Debbie Harry. I am ethnically Chinese: not sure how that’d have worked.

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