Toast

<misses point> dug, n a. The pap or udder of female mammalia; also the teat or nipple; usually in reference to suckling. As applied to a woman's breast, now contemptuous. (OED)

This is what caught my eye: "she remains adamant that she won't be taking chemotherapy drugs even if they can extend her life for a few more months, because she's seen how bad the side effects can be."

It's a bit weird here. The snow has largely disappeared from the open fields, but in other places it's still deep. A good 12 inches (30.48 cm) where the dog is, and much more in the drifts.

All this makes Didcot seem positively paradisiacal.

Just saw this on Facebook.

People complaining that they had too much choice. LOL

" the hospital in Los Angeles" You'd think a big city like LA would have more than one hospital.

Oh yes, the Coventry ring road is the work of the devil.

I think the fact that most of the road signs in Portsmouth direct you "Out Of City" says it all.

They can easily get round this by calling it Eddie Stobart.

It's really on and off here. Sun came out, I rugged up myself and the dog and went out and it instantly turned into a blizzard again. Dog ventured down a long narrow gap full of low bushes and trees, well fenced in both sides with sheep wire as it divides two small fields. Came back without his coat. I could see the bright splash of pink (I know) right at the end. The joys of terrier ownership.

True, but you just never know. Say you'd had to choose someone from The Vicar Of Dibley - most people would have gone for Peacock and yet ....

Well it's bloody cold here. I wish somebody had warned me.

You don't have to do anything after submitting your team. And it could all be over in a matter of days, it would only need five (or even three!) deaths.

Anyway .... the snow is here now. I went to the butchers about six miles (9.656 km) away and it began snowing heavily while I was there. Nothing from halfway home. Been back about an hour and it's chucking it down now, everything covered. Most importantly, the smoked ham hock is gently simmering away and there is shin of beef in the fridge. We are equipped for soup and stew.

Inches are a better yardstick than those fiddly little cm and mm.

Nothing here. Nice sunny day but v cold. Bird bath water frozen solid.

Not bad.

Done. Although we do not have a corner shop, indeed no shop of any variety. I don't buy soup, so may venture out to the excellent game butcher/farm shop for a smoked ham hock tomorrow. Make some proper winter warmer soup. A few flakes of snow fell here on the North Wessex Downs© today. Otherwise a nice day with some sunshine.

I was about to say I had, but looking at her bibliography I don't recognise any of the titles. Obviously made a deep impression.

Yes. They're right about natural causes though.

That pretty much spells it out, although there are two mistakes in the article. "the coroner works extensively on every body to find the cause of death, regardless of whether that death is thought to be suspicious." That should say pathologist. They are using 'coroner' in its US sense there. And a really bad mistake: "Liz Dawn, who died of an aggressive form of lung cancer called Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease." COPD is not lung cancer!

"What was previously referred to as old age" was often likely to involve dementia, also described as senility. Now seen as an illness or disease. As for heart attacks, any kind of organ failure is natural causes - unless it's been directly caused by an outside event, accident or trauma. It's the body breaking down or wearing out. That's natural, or people would live forever. There's a grey area when someone suffers a fatal stroke or heart attack associated with a traumatic accident such as a fall.

Sean's right though. Cancer and other diseases are all 'natural'. They're saying natural causes because they don't want to go into details, but those details will of course be entered on the death certificate. Formal obituaries in newspapers often don't mention the actual cause of death, presumably out of discretion.