Badger G

I've just started reading Game of Thrones and so far I'm following it just fine BUT....

Does George RR Martin name every single character from the King to the baggage-handlers just for the fun of it or (given the complex nature of the murderous plots I've been told to expect)...do I need to memorise every name just in case?

If so...will the Author prompt me when the name crops up again or will I have to remember (for example) that Khal Drogo sells horses?

I'm only on page 27 so NO SPOILERS please!

A Canadian friend of mine recently told me that Dreamcatchers are more of a gimmick that's been embraced by tourists than a real artifact.

Is this true?

If so, I'd better tell my friend who's about to get a tattoo of one.

All I remember was that it had a line about filling out forms wrong to screw the system so you'd be a "Jamaican woman named Ben" or something.

It was really funny and I can't for the life of me remember what it was called, even reading through lots of tracklists :(

A friend has just given us a lovely Indian cotton bedsheet.

Unfortunatley it came from an apartment that stank of stale curry and the smell has stuck fast to the sheet.

We've just washed it with our nicest smelling powder and it still smells very bad.

What can we do?

We also have a thick woollen blanket (almost like thick felt) that smells just as bad.

I have....a large bag of shredded mixed frozen cabbage

some large white onions

Raw carrots

New potatoes

Garlic

Dried Pearl Barley (which I've never used before)

Dried mixed herbs

Dried Oregano

Dried Basil

Various Indian Spices

Salt n Pepper

Can I do anything with any combination of these without needing to buy many more ingredients?

I also have a slow cooker I'd like to try out!

I'm not vegetarian anymore but I try to cook "veggie" as often as I can but I'll buy cheaper meats if I know the meal will stretch.

I live in the UK and am looking to buy a pair of Waterproof Overtrousers so I can get to work warm and dry! (I don't drive)

NONE of my waterproof jackets have been truly waterproof, even the expensive ones. I usually end up soaked to the skin in torrential rain. Worse, I end up sweating badly if the weather is warm and wet.

I don't hold out much hope for a really good pair of Waterproof trousers, but does anyone know where I can find a pair?

A question for people in the UK who have had a Hobbity/Medieval/Fantasy type wedding.

I've always fancied a wedding with a fantasy or medieval feel to it. Possibly even just a bit "Hobbity"...rustic or etherial.

I've just watched "Jam and Jerusalem" and although I'm not into fairy wings and dreadlocks, I'd LOVE a wedding as pretty as Tash's...

How and where can it be done on the cheap?

Can you tell me a bit about your wedding?

I live in Cumbria, but between us we have family in Nottingham, North Wales, Northumbria and Cornwall.

So...any ideas where to even start?

I have NO money right now, so this is still purely so I know where to start saving!

I'm not a Christian, (I'm Pagan) but I collect religious texts from Christianity, Bhuddism Hinduism and Islam.

My Auntie is a Born-Again Christian and has taken to randomly quoting bits from the Bible and can turn any conversation into something resembling a sermon...as a result, it's easy to get confused!

I have a few different translations of the Bible I'm working my way through. (KJV, NIV and the Good News).

The other evening she was talking about Moses (or Aaron)....something about striking a rock and God saying Moses won't enter the Kingdom of Heaven because Moses did it under his own power?

What bit of the Bible might she have been talking about?

I don't want YOUR interpretation of if Moses went to Heaven or not, I just want to find the reference to see what she was going on about...(and why she brought it up during a conversation about her collection of Marionettes!)

I'm not fit at all, but I've just joined my local gym to sort that out!

I bought some really supportive running shoes and some strong sports bras!

Why is it that I can jog for ages (at increasing speeds and elevations) on the treadmill but not at all on the path through the park?

When I use the treadmill, I can breathe steadily and comfortably also my ankles, boobs and bum don't ache at all. I know this is partly to do with the posture I adopt on the treadmill so I don't fall off!

When I wear the exact same kit and jog along a well maintained path, everything hurts and I can't sort out my breathing at all. I usually end up with a twanging ankle and a sore throat from my breath rattling. This is the reason I've never taken to jogging!

It's all bad!

Any suggestions to sort out my breathing and comfort?

Righto...working in a large public library I'm used to serving people from all walks of life. Many accents, many language barriers, all ages and with all kinds of dis/abilities.

I am a hearing person.

One of my colleages has been very deaf from birth, and lip reads perfectly, so I know how to speak to someone who lip-reads.

I can talk to someone who is totally silent and signing with their hands (I can't sign) so long as I can watch their face move roughly in time with the gestures. I get the "feel" and go from there!

But I've come a bit unstuck on how to deal with people who are deaf AND mute..and in the case I'm about to describe ether very rude or totally socially unaware!

It's been worrying me since I served such a person the other day. He walked up to the counter and without smiling, (or any expression whatsovever) pointed at a PC and held up one finger.

I took this to mean "A PC for an hour" so I said "Yes that's fine, that will be £2"

He just stared at me, then scowled, then went back to staring blankly at me.

THEN he pointed at a PC and made an "In half" gesture accross his body.

I said "Half an hour? Ok, that will be £1"

He wrote "Since when?" on a bit of paper and scowled again. At this point I held up a blank "Free PC" card and asked if he had one. (Being deaf, he could have had one for free if he also has a library card)

He shook his head. He didn't have one, so we would normally charge him until he got one.

He then underlined the "Since When?" he'd written.

Eventually, after I'd written "Since always", he paid his £1 and got on with his computing.

Later on when I passed him, I asked him if he'd got everything sorted and he smiled (a bit) and nodded.

The thing is...he didn't have ANY facial expressions when he (barely) communicated..and it made me "clam up" too.

I speak with my hands all over the place and with lots of expressions. I'm an open, chatty person.

I felt myself tensing up and I felt my face go taught and freeze up as I struggled to "read" my customer's wishes. This is usually my strongest skill.

It felt like I'd lost my own voice!

I felt bad for the man, wondering if he has this isolating effect on everyone he meets simply because he stands and stares. Maybe he blames others for the fact he can't make himself "heard". Perhaps he was autistic?

I think it was because he didn't move his mouth at all that I lost comfort zone.

Any thoughts or tips? Am I overthinking this?

If a couple have been married in the UK the traditional opposite-sex way, what happens to the legal status of the marriage if one spouse transitions?

Can transgender people marry "normally" in the UK at the moment, or do they still have to have a Civil Partnership instead?

I like a nicely formed wrist on a guy. I think Orlando Bloom has nice hands and wrists.

I especially like it if a man wears festival bands, beaded bracelets or leather thongs around his wrists to show them off.

Am I unusual?

When he first started work, my fiance signed the "Opt out" form to allow the hotel he works for to give him more than 48hours a week if they need him.

He's getting plenty of hours at the moment, and he's no stranger to hard work. At the moment he's working harder than ever...

Does this also mean they can give him less than 8 hours between shifts?

His recent working pattern has been

3pm-2am

3pm-2am

12noon-3pm-6pm-11pm

then, tomorrow morning he'll have to go in for 6am till 11am!

It's this last shift that worries me, it's less than 8 hours after finishing work (Not to mention the fact it takes him 30 mins to get home by bike!)

As you can understand, he's shattered right now because his shifts aren't exactly easy, but can they actually make him finish one "Split shift" then start again less than 8 hours later?

I've just had a rummage in my bathroom cabinets and discovered I've got more old makeup than I thought. Some of it I've had for about 7 years!

Yuck!

Getting all of it out of it's plastic cases is going to be a very long, powdery/greasy task, especially since I was into dark, gothic colours.

I'd like to be eco-friendly but I'm not even sure what plastics will recycle anyway (The labels are all worn off!).

Should I chuck it all in the bin, and start with a clean slate this time?

I'm not planning on buying that much makeup ever again anyway.

What do you advise I (or anyone else) should do if they are not sure if the person they are addressing is male or female?

I don't mean people who clearly have an androdgnous style, or are any shade of LGBT. I've done it myself in the past, and I never really minded if people got it "wrong" for a moment until they saw my curves!

I mean when it's genuinely hard to guess. The person is dressed neutrally, and is ether a man with gynocomastia and a "babyface" that smoothes out any masculine features OR a woman with broad shoulders, cropped hair and a husky voice (like a lot of locals in my area!)

I say this because it's cropped up once or twice at work, where I've had to address someone directly and get their attention in a crowded room ie "Exuse me sir, you've left your shopping at the counter", or if a colleage askes "Who needs help on the computer?" and I'd have to answer in earshot "This lady here".

I worry that using the word "This person here" would offend as much as getting their gender wrong, especially if that person doesn't consider themselves to be in any way unusual looking!

Sometimes, gender references are totally unavoidable.

HELP!

I'm a complete novice when it comes to plants so I have just bought a very small Hedra Helix houseplant to get me started! (It's in a pot about the size of a large mug at the moment!)

I would like to know how best to water and feed it and in what light conditions it flourishes best.

It already looks like it will trail nicely down from any high window or hanging basket when it grows.

I would also like to know how fast they grow so I can plan ahead with my plantpots.

Thanks!

I've been having a look at the website for the Church of Satan, and have been aware of it through bits and bobs of research for years.

I'm fairly impressed with the commandments of Satansim, and have a lot of admiration for people who's moral code is so simple, and geared towards being decent to eachother because it's rational to do so, not because you are scared not to!

Essentially, I'm an open minded person who found out what the Church of Satan really was before I got hysterical and judgemental!

With such a such a controvercial label, how do you guys manage in the workplace?

How on EARTH do you explain, when inevitably asked....what your Satanism means.

As a Pagan, wearing a pentagram at work throws up all kinds of questions, and I find it hard enough against accusations of "Devil worshipper" from the public when I'm nothing of the sort!

Nether are you, but the word Satan is bound to scare folk off!

If you are British and use British Sign language, can you hold a conversation with an American in American sign-language?

Are the two languages very different or do they have common themes?

What about when you visit non-English speaking countries?

I ask out of sheer curiosity. I'm not very good at picking up foreign languages and It's occured to me that when travelling abroad (especially for longer trips) deaf people might actually have to learn the sign language as well as the spoken/written one!

I haven't got much to go on, (and I can't sing a note so my friends can't help!).

I used to sing a hymn with the Chutch of Scotland, and I heard it again recently without the lyrics on a bagpipe CD coming from a shop in Edinburgh.(!)

It's a rousing cheerful hymn, not a slow one. I'm fairly sure the lyrics include the words

"You walk before me Lord"

Any suggestions at all will be appreciated. It's driving me nuts. I want to hear it again!

I'm not a Christian, and never was a regular churchgoer ( I just helped out in the Church of Scotland band), so I'm not even sure it's a scottish hymn.

We followed the instructions on the starter kit, adding the purifier to the water, waiting 24 hours, then adding the sea monkey eggs.

They hatched nicely and there were loads flitting about there by the very next afternoon!

We waited 2 days, then fed the sea monkeys with the small end of the spoon, then waited another 2 days and fed them again.

We were a bit worried that there may be less now than a day ago, and the water was looking a bit cloudy, so I've just been online and found out it's best to get them oxygen. I have just used a straw and blown into the tank for about 2 minutes.

I shall do this again every day.

The website that advised this, also says we should not have fed them for about 4 days after adding them because the egg sachet also contained food.

Should we hold off their 3rd feeding for another few days now? The water is looking a bit grubby and I don't want to overfeed them.

I don't want to have to buy a load of equipment from the official website if we can use things we have at home, or can get at a local petshop, what tips to you have to save money and keep our sea monkeys happy?