My mother never tried to teach me that stuff. But the woman we had to do the cooking and the cleaning also had childminding as her responsibility, so you pick stuff up. It's not like we had TV to watch, or anything.

I spent my formative years with a single dad who's an academic. I didn't ever learn housekeeping, but I had shelving down.

I think my parents expected me to osmotically acquire knowledge of how to do stuff--or, what actually happened, that we'd turn around and find we had the same standards they had, and would have to take more mundane, hands-on, steps to maintaining them. I mean, my mother kept as tidy a house when she had staff as when she didn't. It was a thing.

She still mops my kitchen every now and again. And then we argue.

I love this celeb-rampage story:

At 2am bar staff refused to serve any more alcohol. Undaunted, Kiefer persuaded management to let them loose in the lobby.

He ordered yet more booze on room service, then staggered around the entrance hall, entertaining pals with a bizarre, flailing breakdancing routine.

It was then that a huge Christmas tree caught his eye.

"I hate that f***ing Christmas tree," he declared. "The tree HAS to come down."

Kiefer warned staff: "I'm smashing it - can I pay for it?"

A staff member replied: "I'm absolutely sure you can, sir."

The Lost Boys star - famously ditched by Julia Roberts five days before their wedding in 1991 - then hurled himself into the Norwegian Spruce, sending baubles and lights crashing to the ground. Pulling pine needles out of his hair and t-shirt, he said to a hotel employee: "Ooh sorry about that...you're so cool. This f***ing hotel rocks."

A staff member replied: "I'm absolutely sure you can, sir."

I am now imagining Stephen Fry as Jeeves saying this.

I have the same standards my mother does, but no idea how to keep them. It's odd. I like the place to at least look neat at all times, maybe not spotless, but tidy. Unfortunately my switch only goes from overwhelmed to scrubbingthewholeplacerightnow. So I needed to be taught that say picking up and doing the dishes daily, laundry on weekends, and actual scrubbing twice a month is fine.

A friend of mine bumped into a hammered Kiefer on the way to the men's, and asked him to say hello to my friend's fiancée, since she was a huge fan. Kiefer ended up sitting with them for twenty minutes.

So even though he seems to be a big old lush, he gets cool points from me.

Sharon circling the drain?

[link]

I always remember Victor's mantra, "No Hope, no Pope, and home by 10." I wonder what the mantra is now?

We're allowed to go home early for the game, but no one dares. Also, not many of us care about the game.

It feels like a trap.

I think my parents expected me to osmotically acquire knowledge of how to do stuff

This happened to me with pumping gas. When I was learning to drive my mother sent me out to pump the gas, and I had no idea where to start. I had to explain to her that it wasn't like I'd been paying attention. I had books!

First or second time I pumped gas, I got a faceful of it. Humiliating.

And tasted bad.