75 Comments

That photo of us meeting has been deepfaked by AI. Nice try though, Becks

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Feb 21Liked by Rebecca Holden

I distinctly remember...

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A case of false memory syndrome I'm afraid

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Feb 21·edited Feb 21Liked by Rebecca Holden

Yes, well... it would not be the first time I remembered ( and wrote about) something that never even happened.

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🤣🤣

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🤣

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🤣

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Camera never lies, Terry. Honest! 👀

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Don't make me larf

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😁

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😄

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Thanks for mentioning my course, and for anagammatising my name 🤣

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Feb 21Liked by Rebecca Holden

I think "Meefy" has a certain charm, actually. Nice addition to the lengthening list of aliases.

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Lol

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There'll be more coming, I can assure you....! 🤣

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😮😜

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You certainly don’t need a creative writing course, I feel I should add neither does Terry. You are both creative enough. I don't understand iced tea either, give me builders brew everyday. Once again thanks for the chuckles. Or am I commenting to robots 🤔🤔xx

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I'm TEACHING it! Chortle. Thanks for compliment

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Thanks, Jo - what a lovely thing to say! And yes, iced tea seems so wrong. In a similarly shocking vein, when I was out and about yesterday I saw a bus-stop advert for Costa depicting pictures of three different examples of their new line: HOT MILKSHAKES.

HOT MILKSHAKES?!!!!!!!! 🤯

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I worked at a milk bar in my youth. We totally enjoyed having hot milkshakes for lunch. They were SO good. I've only found a couple of places since then that were prepared to make one for me, but I can promise that if you try one, you'll totally understand the attraction. SO GOOD.

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Feb 23Liked by Rebecca Holden

Is it like a latte, with warm foamed milk? I'm intrigued!! I would def try one (or many).

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No. You literally make a milkshake then use the hot frother to heat it. Really yummy. Hot, delightfully sweet, frothy milk.

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Feb 23Liked by Rebecca Holden

Ohhhhhh . . . . I'm in!

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Oh wow, Beth! 🤩 Sounds like I need to sample a hot milkshake!

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Feb 21Liked by Rebecca Holden

Two things: that’s *clearly* an AI-generated photo of your first meeting. 🤣 Also, way more women take writing courses? Why am I not surprised. Men tend not to lack confidence, howsoever equipped…

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LOL

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I'm sure you're right. I've read research that found that men tend to be over-confident and women under-confident, and usually misguided in both cases

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Feb 21Liked by Rebecca Holden

🎯 yep absolutely

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Oooooh, that's a jolly good way of putting it. *grabs notebook*

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And they say the camera never lies...! 📸 And that's an excellent point about confidence, Jill. 🙌 Thank you!

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Quite fluid, indeed!! Perhaps you and Terry should hold a blind tea-tasting event, with press and paparazzi taking full advantage. At least there would be WITNESSES!

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I can't risk sullying my delicate palate by quaffing teabag tea.

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I'm sure Rebecca would be happy to relieve the tea of its bag(s) in deference to Your Delicacy. Though I'm also sure that is not your point.

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Exactly so, Elizabeth. 😁

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Undress the tea? There'd be a riot! 🫣

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Feb 23Liked by Rebecca Holden

So loose!!!

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SHOCKING! 😮

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Killjoy. 🙄

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😂

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YES!!!!!!!

*consults diary*

*books press agent*

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The word "blind" might be your friend here, Rebecca. My father had a dear friend who landed, in late life, on a certain, select, expensive, preferred scotch. We kept a bottle of it on the bar in our house, just for this one friend. At some point, after many months (lest you imagine them sucking it dry in one evening), the bottle was emptied. Rather than replace it in kind, my father decanted cheaper scotch into the vacant vessel. His friend, may he and my father rest in peace, was never the wiser.

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Elizabeth, were you watching me last week when I was decanting the cheap coffee into the empty jar which HAD housed the more expensive stuff?! Jim prefers the high-end brand, which I buy when it's on offer. Well, we'd run out, and the good stuff wasn't on offer, and I certainly wasn't going to pay eight quid for it! Went with the own brand for less than half the price.... and shhhh, he hasn't noticed. 👀

It's all about presentation, isn't it?!

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Solidarity! Fist bumps! Mum's the word!

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I will tell him, unless you make a modest contribution to my holiday fund <snigger>

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🙄

To be honest, his sense of taste has been compromised since he lost his sense of smell, so I can get away with a LOT in the kitchen.... 🤣

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😁

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Feb 21Liked by Rebecca Holden

Dr. Meefy Ranter! Hilarious! ( I always thought his real name was Ferdy Mere-Rant.) But what really cracks me up is your use of "teabaggage". At my age, I carry around a LOT of baggage. Teabaggage, fortunately, is not a burden that weighs me down. Whew!

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Lol

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Thanks, Sharron! I accumulate baggage myself at about the rate I drink tea - so there's rather a lot of both in my life! 🤣

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Feb 22Liked by Rebecca Holden

HAH!

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Feb 21Liked by Rebecca Holden

Meefy Ranter?

Sounds like the name of a reggae band. :).

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Ooooooh, it DOES!!! 🤣🎵

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Another delightful read (by a possibly fictitious author!!)

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Thanks, Beth!!! Oh, I'm definitely real - I just pinched myself to check, and I yelped audibly! 🤣

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😂

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I want to know the qualifications of Dr. Meefy Ranter. Does he hold a PHd from Full Sail Online college? (A real school in the US.) An undergraduate degree in Tea Leaves from Harvord College? (Not a real school. Note the spelling.)

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Hmmmm, now you're asking, Carissa! 🤣

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I graduated from my own college

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Ah, so you were the judge, jury AND executioner of your own education, then? Now that explains a great deal... 😉

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The name, Madam, is Dr Tel. My PhD was awarded by a panel of three, whose names are obviously confidential

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Ah, Professors Willow, Minty and Mocha, I'll be bound....

#letscat(s)outofbag

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🤣 You may say that but I could not possibly comment

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🤣

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Golly, is that true? That Tetley's might have supply issues? 'Cos it is my better half's favourite brand also.

AND, in his time he and his Dad would always take thermos's of iced tea out to the paddocks when they were working over summer. Didn't appeal to me at all.

Tea's tea - surely it's meant to be hot. There's something very comfortable about tea and especially when one has had a shock. A good brew with a dash of milk and a hefty spoonful of sugar seems so restorative. Iced tea? Meh!

33 degrees here today, my brain is sluggish to dormant and I missed the anagram. Sorry, Terry!

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I gather from the article that the threat to Tetley stocks are due to the disruption in the Red Sea, and that other brands are also affected. I've examined my own stocks and have added a box of teabags to my next online grocery order!

Cold tea - whether by design or accident - is not something I relish either! Yuck!

33°? Golly! It's pelting with rain here, and I've got the lights on despite it being nearly 10am. Today's high is destined to be 11° - brrrrrr!

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Would LOVE 11 degrees! Remind me I said that when I complain in the middle of our winter.

Bushfires beginning now, across the state. People are being asked to prepare to evacuate in certain locations...

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Oh gosh, bushfires - that's really scary! Hope all's well. 🫣

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😂

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Things are going to heat up around here if you are truly taking a course with Dr. Meefy Ranter🤣

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I cannot WAIT to report back, Donna! 😁 Looking forward to it!

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Feb 23Liked by Rebecca Holden

I found this Tea Fact Sheet - 2022 from the Tea Association of the USA https://www.teausa.com/teausa/images/Tea_Fact_2021.pdf.

Ice Tea or iced tea is a year round thing in Texas. When I moved here in 2011, Jim said that if I ever asked for iced tea, to refrain from asking for the ice, as most iced tea was kept in the fridge. He suggested that if I asked for ice, then I would be identified as "not from around these parts".

I found this on EnterpriseAppsToday, "Tea is mostly referred to as an aromatic beverage. It is easy to make a beverage and requires ingredients such as water, milk, sugar, and tea powder." I thought of you and Terry and shuddered for you. Tea powder?!

Also, January 2024 was the US's National Hot Tea Month.

When you and Terry meet up again in person, live stream it so we can all weigh in on if either of you are real . . . 😄

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😂

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Oh wow, that's brilliant, Mary - thank you! Your Jim's advice so as to avoid your being singled out as 'not from around these parts' has really made me smile! 😃

'National Hot Tea Month'? Wow, we need us one of those over here! Although I have to say that we don't call it 'hot tea', just 'tea'! Otherwise it's rather like ordering 'toasted toast' in Germany, when you want, well, toast! - as I'd written about here: https://rebeccaholden.substack.com/p/124-well-preserved

Good plan about the live stream! Of course, there is the potential for at least four very different outcomes:

1. Neither of us is real.

2. Terry isn't real.

3. I'm not real.

4. Both of us are real.

5. I'll have a tea, please.

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Feb 23Liked by Rebecca Holden

Haha! Yes to all, and if you and Terry livestream, maybe holograms of the both of you, "side by each" (as the French Canadians say), you two drinking real tea, and the holograms drinking AI iced tea . . . I feel an Oscar coming on for "Best Short - Foreign".

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🤣

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