My Lobster is too Buttery

 I'd like to say these are "nice problems to have" or "very middle class problems" but I fear the truth is that the problems which beset me are quite unusual. It's my birthday and there have been two disappointments.

I bought myself a popcorn cannon, and while it will support 8 bar and survive an explosive decompression, it takes forever to build pressure and it doesn't actually pop many of the kernels.

On top of that my chiffonier has a silk lined cutlery drawer, which now has a moth infestation.

Richard "I know just how you feel" B

Plagueis

 The dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some would consider unnatural. I'm going to argue that one of the abilities conferred by the light side of the force is to make flight school exams easier.

If I were a fighter pilot I'd have probably learned to fly motor gliders, then a Chipmonk, then a turboprop trainer like a Tucano. Then a fast jet trainer like a Hawk, and then finally transferred to whatever type I fly, like a Typhoon.

Luke Skywalker probably learned to fly the hover car as a child and we know that he was competent in the T-16. Shortly after he arrives at the secret rebel base on Yavin IV he is flying an X-Wing by himself on a combat mission. This will be the first time he's operated outside of atmosphere, and the first time he's used an astromech droid.It will have been cut to maintain the runtime of the film, but I expect there was a training montage where Luke Skywalker completed the type conversion course from T-16 to X-Wing. I imagine scenes of him with a folder full of papers and notes and a stack of flight manuals. Him in a classroom with an instructor at a blackboard. Him sitting in the back seat of the rare training variant of the X-Wing with a large sign that says "Solo from front seat only". Him taking an exam. Him demonstrating some maneuver with a model X-Wing. Him sitting on the front of the X-Wing trainer.

All this must have been done in the time it took the rebels to decode the stolen plans and plan their assault. He clearly did very well in flight school.

Richard "always fade out of a montage" B

Recovery Drink

 A couple of weeks ago I climbed the hardest route I've ever done. It was a crack climb, so you're holding a good proportion of your weight by jamming your hand into a gap and making the hand as fat as you can. It's also overhanging at about 20°

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mSrFJI4BQwA

Somehow this route grabbed my imagination and I spent a lot of time and effort learning to climb it. It's the achievement in my life that I've tried the hardest to accomplish. The first time I got to the top I had made both sets of knuckles red and sore and they were bleeding on the right. My right foot was bruised, I was very out of breath, and my core muscles felt like I'd been made to do sit-ups until I couldn't even move.

It was 100% worth it.

Richard "wide boyz" B

Scales

Instead of doing a weird escapology act to weigh myself underwater, I made an appointment with the sports science department of a local college and had a load of health tests and body composition analysis done. While I'm generally fit and healthy, a full 23% of me is fat, which is rather high. I have to either lower my target weight or increase my muscle.

It reminds me of when I went out with a fantastically thin girl. She lived with me for a year and a diet rich in pasties and red wine allowed her to put on a little bit of weight. She's much more polite than me. When the doctor asked he her weight she gave some impossibly low number, the doctor then asked for he "target weight" she wanted to say "fuck off" but managed to subsititute that with "I haven't got one".

Richard "full fat" B

Dress Code

There are several photos of my late father doing informal activities (lawnmowing, boating, standing outside his house with his family, etc) while wearing a shirt and a tie.

I've just been to a track day with my brother. Thankfully it's not competitive motorsport so we don't have to wear fireproof suits, but we do still have to wear long sleeves and long trousers. The narrow pedalbox in my car also means that we end up wearing "racing driver" shoes. I like to wear a cardigan to trackdays to offset the fact that the racing driver shoes make it look like I'm taking the day altogether too seriously, but this time it was far too hot for a cardi.

Other than the crash helmet and the shoes I was dressed in summer mountaineering clothes. Very lightweight and slightly stretchy slacks and a similar pullover. My brother was struggling to find something with long sleeves that wouldn't be too hot and would stand the rigours of a day of driving. He very nearly chose a cotton dress shirt, and if he had he would also have worn a tie as a tribute to our father.

The chap with whom we were sharing a garage was a distinguished older gentleman, and judging by the livery on his towing car, he owned a Ferrari dealership. Without a hint of irony he was wearing a dress shirt both to drive and to prepare his track cars.

Richard "Brian James Race Shuttle 3" B

Paris Fashion Week

 One of my friends is the most stylish and glamorous woman I've ever met. She works in an office, but she looks like she's going to a modelling job. For an evening of heavy drinking at my house she had dressed as carefully as you or I would to go to a wedding. Just sometimes, however, she looks as classless and ordinary as the rest of us.

I gave her too many drinks, made her unwell and she had to go home. Apparently between the taxi and her front door she exploded into a fountain of vomit. Her husband had to sluice her off with the garden hose before she was even clean enough to walk indoors to the shower.

Richard "over-served" B