Another grey day! With a high percentage chance of rain according to my weather app, so I wore a light rain jacket over my running gear this morning. And it did rain but not really enough to worry about. It would be nice, however, to see a bit more sunshine! A person can grow weary of grey clouds!
I read that some people are objecting to influencers filming their visits to restaurants, sometimes just filming the food they are eating, sometimes giving an overview of the restaurant, and most often including selfies in the mix. I may need to change my photographic habits before someone complains about me. I am certainly not an influencer but I do like to take photos of the meals I am about to consume, mostly to share on the family messenger chat and occasionally to post on my blog. A waitress interviewed for the newspapers says that in fact influencers busily filming their meals are probably the least annoying of the clients she has to deal with.
High on her list of dislikes are the arrogant who consider themselves superior to the waitress, looking down on her for having a “lowly” job and ranging from condescending to downright bossy in their dealings with staff. You never know quite why someone is working as a waitress: it may be a student job; maybe it’s the only job available in the place where she chooses to live; maybe she just enjoys dealing with people (so long as they are polite. I’ve never been a waitress but I remember dealing with the arrogant and supercilious when I worked in a shoe shop in my student days. There was a certain class of customer who would demand to see a range of shoes in a particular style or colour and eventually walk away without having made a purchase, leaving a scattering of shoes on the floor for the assistants to put away in the correct places.
At least such customers didn’t walk out with shoes they hadn’t paid for, unlike the “dine and dasher” who orders fancy food, tucks in appreciatively and then quietly leaves without paying. These exist in Spain as well, the “sin pagar” who are the bane of restaurant staff’s life, especially as waiters and waitresses are notoriously poorly paid. The waitress interviewed for the newspaper tells of pursuing such customers down the street and making them come back and pay, despite their excuse that they had a meeting to go to!
She also wrote about the “work from homers” who don’t actually work from home but from the place where they a cup of coffee and make it last for hours! I remember a friend from my student days during my time studying in France. She would order a “menthe à l’eau” - peppermint cordial or syrup accompanied by a jug of water for the customer to dilute to their liking - which she would manage to spin out for several hours, adding water until it had almost no green colour left. The cafe was a warmer place to study than her student flat!
Donald Trump has just made his state of the union speech, the longest US Congress has seen from a President's State of Union address. But history shows he's had a challenger in former Democratic President Bill Clinton:
1 - Donald Trump, February 2026: 1:47:40
2 - Bill Clinton, January 2000: 1:28:49
3 - Bill Clinton, January 1995: 1:24:58
4 - Donald Trump, February 2019: 1:22:25
5 - Donald Trump, January 2018: 1:20:32
As for the shortest recorded State of the Union, that's a title held by Republican Richard Nixon, who offered Congress some relief by speaking for under half an hour when he finished after just 28 minutes and 55 seconds in January 1972.
It provoked actor Robert de Niro to criticise his president. Many celebrities seem to be doing that lately, all of them being dismissed as just a singer, just an actor, or on the case of De Niro, demented!
So it goes.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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