@HilsP
Account based inUnited Kingdom
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- United Kingdom
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Potential Grumpy Old Woman. Getting closer every day!
UK
Joined March 2009
- Tweets13.8K
- Following715
- Followers376
- Likes129K
HilsP 💙 retweeted
We should never lose our sense of wonder.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The video is AI-generated, showing common artifacts like the statue's solid gold eyes without pupils, floaty/unatural toddler movements and physics, and anomalous background elements.
x.com/Samanth6062532…
youtube.com/watch?v=-_JoLz…
HilsP 💙 retweeted
JUST HAD TO BE SHARED ☕️
Buying a fucking coffee has become unnecessarily complicated.
There was a time when you walked into a café and asked for a coffee.
That was it.
"Coffee please."
Somebody put coffee in a cup, you gave them some money, and everybody got on with their fucking day.
Not anymore.
Now you walk into somewhere like Costa and ordering a coffee feels like you're filling out a mortgage application.
"What would you like?"
Coffee.
"Americano, latte, cappuccino, flat white, cortado, mocha, macchiato, espresso, double espresso, iced latte, iced Americano, frappe?"
Fucking hell.
I don't know.
The brown one that wakes me up.
Then comes the size.
Small, medium, large, regular, tall, grande, massive, fucking oil drum.
I'll have a large.
Excellent.
Surely we're finished.
Oh no.
"What milk would you like?"
Milk.
"Whole, semi skimmed, skimmed, oat, almond, coconut, soya?"
Cow.
Just whatever normally comes out of a fucking cow.
Then they start offering you syrups.
Vanilla, caramel, hazelnut, salted caramel, gingerbread, cinnamon, chocolate, white chocolate, pumpkin spice, sugar free vanilla, sugar free caramel.
No.
I wanted a coffee.
I didn't come in to design a fucking Yankee Candle.
But we're still nowhere near finished.
Would I like an extra shot?
Decaf?
Half caf?
An extra hot one?
Skinny?
Whipped cream?
Cold foam?
Chocolate sprinkles?
Cinnamon dust?
Caramel drizzle?
Chocolate drizzle?
Ice?
Crushed ice?
Less ice?
More ice?
At this point I'm expecting them to ask whether I'd like fucking underfloor heating installed.
And there's always somebody in front of you who knows this system intimately.
"Can I have a large iced skinny oat milk caramel latte, half sweet, extra hot, two pumps of vanilla, one pump of hazelnut, no foam, extra shot, light ice, whipped cream, caramel drizzle?"
Fucking hell, Barbara.
You're not ordering a drink.
You're giving the launch sequence for a fucking nuclear submarine.
Meanwhile I'm standing behind her thinking, "Coffee. Milk. Two sugars. Please let me go home."
Then comes the price.
"That'll be five pounds eighty please."
FIVE POUNDS EIGHTY?
For a fucking coffee?
For that money I want to keep the mug.
In fact, I want shares in the fucking building.
And because you've already stood there answering twenty seven questions about milk and syrup, you just tap your card like you've developed Stockholm syndrome.
Then they finally hand it over.
And I've ordered the biggest fucking size they've got because, naturally, I'm thinking bigger cup means more coffee.
Silly me.
The cup's the size of a fucking paint tin, but about fourteen percent of it appears to be coffee.
The rest is milk, foam, whipped cream, syrup, ice, chocolate dust, caramel drizzle and whatever other fucking building materials they've used to construct it.
You've basically ordered a coffee and they've built a fucking extension on top of it.
If you've gone for one of the cold ones it's even worse.
You pick up this enormous plastic cup thinking you've got enough caffeine to see you through until Thursday, then realise three quarters of the bastard is ice.
Six quid for twelve ice cubes, a splash of milk and a frightened little espresso hiding at the bottom.
Take the ice out and your "large" coffee would fit in a fucking egg cup.
And then there's the whipped cream.
Fucking mountains of it.
You've got to eat your way through half of the Alps before you even reach the beverage you actually ordered.
By the time you finally locate the coffee, you've consumed eight hundred calories and you've got cream on your nose.
At that point it's not a drink anymore.
It's a fucking dessert with a caffeine problem.
And somehow we've all just accepted this.
We've gone from putting the kettle on and spooning Nescafé into a mug to standing in a queue while somebody called Tyler asks what fucking personality we'd like our milk to have.
I don't need my coffee to be an experience.
I don't need it handcrafted.
I don't need it drizzled.
I don't need it dusted.
I don't need it topped with something that looks like insulation foam.
I just want it hot, strong and capable of making me slightly less likely to tell everyone to fuck off before nine o'clock in the morning.
It's coffee.
Put it in a cup.
Give it to me.
And stop making me take a fucking GCSE before I'm allowed to drink it.
HilsP 💙 retweeted
We are so delighted with this beautiful video that celebrates 30 yrs of Ebony. Our visit from our President today was truly special for all of us. Please watch!
Celebrating 30 years of Ebony Horse Club. 🐴
The Queen, President of Ebony Horse Club, visited the youth charity and community riding centre at their stables in Brixton.
🐎 Her Majesty met volunteers and young people who use the stables, including two teenagers who have just gained places at the British Racing School.
The Queen also met horses, including Taylor and Maggie, who have joined Ebony from the Royal Mews.
HilsP 💙 retweeted
In June 1992, Gloria Davey pushed through dense undergrowth during a Women’s Institute walk in Norfolk and found gravestones. Behind them was a church almost swallowed by ivy. She got inside. By then the roof was failing, the tower was cracked, burial vaults had been exposed and the abandoned building showed signs of satanic use.
Her husband Bob was a retired agricultural engineer and a churchwarden. When Gloria told him what she had found at St Mary’s, Houghton-on-the-Hill, he decided he could not leave a consecrated church that way. He began clearing the churchyard. Then the church. What started as tidying became the work of the rest of his life.
With a few volunteers and support from Norfolk County Council, Bob cut back the ivy, repaired walls, reroofed the nave and chancel, put glass back in the windows, laid a floor and rebuilt the north doorway. The bell tower was repaired too. The original bell was found, lifted back into place and rang for the Millennium.
Then, in 1996, the restoration changed completely. A contractor noticed paint in a corner of the nave. According to Bob, when plaster came away, “The first thing I saw was the head of an angel.” Beneath later plaster were layers of medieval paintings, including an extraordinary late-11th-century scheme now regarded as one of the most complete early medieval sets in Britain.
Some may date to around 1090. The east wall includes a rare early image of the Trinity and Last Judgement. A church that had been left open to rain and ivy was holding Christian art that had survived for roughly nine centuries without anyone understanding what was still there.
Experts stepped in. In 2006 the Friends of St Mary’s received £191,500 from the Heritage Fund for conservation of the wall paintings. Bob had already spent years doing work himself, finding money and persuading others to help. He later received an MBE for services to church restoration.
St Mary’s is still a consecrated Anglican church. Volunteers care for it, welcome visitors and keep the place open, and worship returned after decades of silence. The deserted medieval village around Houghton-on-the-Hill largely disappeared. Its little church survived — and because one couple refused to walk past a ruin, so did a remarkable thousand-year record of Christian faith.
HilsP 💙 retweeted
Mayor of Charlotte, NC asks
that we not post about this
lady murdered on a Charlotte train
by a repeat offender with 14 prior arrests
I say in Iryna’s memory please share
and make this go viral!
We will never forgot her ever
HilsP 💙 retweeted
989,910 & counting, just short of 10,090 signatures.
We’re edging closer to ONE MILLION signatures, but we still need your help.
If you haven’t signed the petition yet, please do. Already signed? Please share.
Tonight let’s reach one million together 👇bit.ly/3UpBvB4
HilsP 💙 retweeted
As we enter yet another week of drought conditions please, I beg you, put out water for the wildlife.
They have nothing.
No puddles.
No ponds.
No streams.
All have dried up.
Sometimes the birds are thought of and provided for.
But the nocturnal animals go unseen.
Unthought of.
No kind dishes.
Just the tantalising smell of water from a pond they may drown in, or a drain they may get trapped in.
Or a stagnant, dirty old birdbath they may get fatal fluke from.
Hedgehogs need to drink a lot of water to stay healthy. Please provide clean, fresh, safe, ground level water each evening for our precious nocturnal wildlife.
Tap water is best.
Pop a dish or two out tonight.
Dying of thirst is a terrible, painful way to die.
It should never happen to any animal, and certainly not in a country that has the safest tap water in the world.
The few minutes it takes you to fill a dish will make the difference between life and death.❤️
HilsP 💙 retweeted
A few things one simply ought to know about dining…
There was once a rather charming understanding that good manners were not a performance, nor a means of advertising one’s social standing. They were simply how one behaved when one had been brought up to consider other people.
How dreadfully unfashionable.
Nevertheless, for those still inclined towards civilisation, a few gentle reminders:
1. Never order for the table without asking first.
People have preferences, allergies and dietary requirements. Assuming otherwise is not confidence; it is merely presumptuousness wearing a dinner jacket.
2. Wait until everyone has been served before beginning.
One does not commence eating whilst another is still waiting for their plate. Hunger is not generally considered an emergency.
3. Never reach across the table.
Ask for something to be passed. One is dining, not recreating the final moments of a rugby scrum.
4. When tasting wine, one is checking for faults.
It is not an opportunity to announce whether one personally approves of the Merlot. If you dislike it, that is perfectly permissible. The wine is not required to defend itself.
5. Keep your telephone off the table.
Unless the Prime Minister, the King or possibly the undertaker is expected to telephone, it can remain in one’s pocket. Conversation with the people actually sitting opposite you is generally considered preferable.
6. Taste before seasoning.
The chef has presumably spent rather longer preparing the dish than you have spent looking at it. Give him the courtesy of one mouthful before reaching for the salt.
7. If you need to leave the table, simply excuse yourself.
No explanation is required. Nobody needs to know whether you are visiting the lavatory, answering a call or attending to the affairs of the realm.
8. Hold a wine glass by the stem, not the bowl.
Apart from being considerably more elegant, it prevents one’s hand from warming the wine. One should ideally drink it as the vintner intended, rather than as a radiator.
9. Never announce that something is expensive, nor enquire what it cost.
Money is vulgar when discussed unnecessarily. True wealth has never needed to whisper its price tag.
10. Match the pace of the table.
Do not devour your meal as though pursued by hounds, nor eat at such glacial speed that everyone else begins contemplating the next century.
11. If you are the host, everyone’s comfort comes before your own.
A good host notices the empty glass, introduces the quiet guest into the conversation and ensures nobody is left wondering where they fit.
12. Above all, understand what etiquette actually is.
It is not knowing which fork to use whilst making everyone around you feel inferior for not knowing.
It is consideration.
It is restraint.
It is making other people feel comfortable without drawing attention to the fact that you are doing so.
And that, ultimately, is the difference between manners and mere mannersism.
One can purchase an expensive table, a magnificent house and a bottle of wine that costs more than most people’s weekly wages.
One cannot purchase good breeding.
That, regrettably, still requires upbringing.🎩💙
HilsP 💙 retweeted
I didn’t know PC Andrew Harper.
But the night he died, we were working the same shift, in different locations, in different forces, doing the same job; emergency response.
He made a choice I couldn’t. He was on the way back in for handover and he took the last emergency call, like so many of us have.
I couldn’t, I had a prisoner on board.
When I got home, I read what had happened.
The best of us, taken, just for doing his job.
That’s why you get this to One Million.
Thank you.
#ThinBlueLine 🚨
HilsP 💙 retweeted
Torpenhow Hill, England
When the Saxons arrived and asked the locals what that hill was called, the Welsh replied, “Pen,” which simply means hill in Welsh.
The Saxons, apparently not spotting they’d already been given the full answer, added their own word for hill: tor. So it became Torpen - literally Hill Hill.
A few centuries later, the Norse turned up and repeated the exercise, adding haugr, their word for hill. Now it was effectively Torpenhaugr - Hill Hill Hill.
Then the English arrived, looked at the whole thing, shrugged, and added “Hill” on the end for good measure.
Thus we ended up with Torpenhow Hill:
Hill Hill Hill Hill.
It’s comforting to know that for over a thousand years, successive generations have been independently deciding that the previous lot hadn’t made it quite clear enough that it was, in fact, a hill.
Language is magnificent.
Humans… less so.🤷🏻♂️🤣
BBC recently aired a clip of 60s schoolkids. In the accompanying clip not one of today's youngsters could, like, utter a single sentence, like, without using the word 'like' at least once, or twice!
Better than 'f...ing' which litters some conversations, I suppose.
HilsP 💙 retweeted
The Somerset Farmhouse of 1 North Street, Williton were approached by a "food influencer" that wanted to charge them £2,000 for a review.
They put out a video of Sally eating a sausage roll instead 😆.
Lets make Sally and the Somerset Farmhouse famous for free.
