Yeah, I can live with Bitches tellin' me they love me.

And just wait until you'll see me in person, 'babies.

::Snuggles the entire thread, declaring this HAS to be good day at Bitches::

fancy dress=costumes/masquerade, right? because when I came across it as a kid I just pictured really dressed-up folk till Hyacinth Bucket.

Me, too. As do, apparently, just about all USians. I spent my junior year of college at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, and the first social event I went to was a fancy dress party for...I can't even remember what group (knowing me, it was either a literature geeks party or something churchy). All the visiting students from the US came all gussied up in our dressiest dresses or nattiest sportjackets and ties, and stood around utterly baffled at being surrounded by kangaroos and aliens and Ladies of the Lake. None of the USians until that very instant had had any inkling that "fancy" meant "fanciful" and not "swank."

It was a very mutually amused and baffled and WTFy party, but still kinda fun; still, I didn't go to any fancy dress parties after that one.

I would, once I knew and figured out "What are you supposed to be?" wasn't some existential thing. Yeah, Tep, much better than commercial jingles, but SMM has even more staying power than he knew, apparently. I'm cool with it though.

None of the USians until that very instant had had any inkling that "fancy" meant "fanciful" and not "swank."

This is why everyone should adopt my philosophy of reading many mysteries set in a country before you go there.

I want to see the wolves in the walls costume. Badly.

I'm wondering whether there's anyone who has kept track of when the Christmas decorations have gone on sale each year. I think the first week in October is the earliest I've seen them. The stores are all Halloween decorations next to Christmas decorations, making me consider a Nightmare Before Christmas approach to outdoor decorating. I was rather taken with the animated lighted vulture at Michael's. I think arranging bits of one of the plastic human skeletons around it would be a nice touch. For Christmas, I could stick a Santa hat in its mouth.

Yes, fancy dress = costumes. Heh. Oh, English, English, why are you so variable?

I haven't the heart to retype my whole gigantic post, so key points:

• I'm basing the Year 8 & 9 curriculum around this. Should be fun.

• This week, my class were basing their literacy activities around

• Meanwhile, this kid is not in my class, thank God. He's in my friend's class, two doors down from mine. His father is an Elvis Impersonator. Evidently he's planning to follow in his father's footsteps. Only with Michael Jackson. Um. Yeah. Not sure if this is quite as horrifyingly funny if you don't actually see the kid on a daily basis, but, dear heaven, this amused the crap out of me. (Although, props to him, he's put A LOT of effort into this. And there are stacks of other ones he's done. And he has costumes and everything. And he's choreographed the crap out of it all. But, but, but...it's uncanny how like Michael Jackson he isn't. Um. Also, the camera appears to be operated by a small child, or possibly the family dog. And has a disquieting tendency to drift right, to what I presume is his father's torso. And I presume that the anonymous and rather disquieting sliver of flesh jutting out in an unfortunate location is his father's thumb. But...yes. Quite unfortunate.)

Really-o, truly-o Happy Birthday, omnis!!!

Michael's has an animated lighted vulture? Oh, I could mess with that all year long. Wonder if there's a Michael's around here.

if I ask you to help bury the body and we're not married, you're not gonna be *less* likely to tell

I just want it to always be my choice, not yours. Would you take that choice away from someone you deemed friend?

ita, I'm with you on the weirdness of the marital privilege. I guess I can see some of the arguments but it's still kind of odd. The part about not being able to force a spouse to testify makes more sense to me than the spouse actually being prevented from it.

And it's also kind of unfair - I don't get to have a heart-to-heart with someone after my hit-and-run. At least not with someone I'm not paying.

Not at all! Certainly it's your choice whether or not you rat on me. Even if we're married. I just think this should be part of the pre-nup, or something.