Things you have just found out

I find it incredible how most people (including me) know next to nothing about the people who run the EU, or about the institutions in general. In great part due to laziness, but I think not enough is done to make it more widely known. In that regard, I've always found the Franco-German channel Arte to be quite refreshing: they're sometimes comically pro-EU, but at least they're making a genuine effort at making that dream live. Their evenings news are especially well made IMO: they actually speak about what's happening in other EU countries and try to give us a feel about how life is like in those countries, and in the rest of the world too for that matter.

I didn't mean to. I probably shouldn't post on a phone.

Calling a spade a spade has nothing to do with the usage of the word to refer to black people, which comes from the card suit, not the farming implement. What I didn't know was that the farming implement itself is a mistranslation from Greek originally perpetrated by Erasmus (he gets everywhere), and then copied by an English translator.

colvinism.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/call-a-spade-a-spade-miley-cyrus-and-the-ancient-greeks/

I didn't get the point of LonginusNaso's nick until I googled his signature. Interesting.

Thank you. I am "grateful for the enlightnement", as per this thread's stated purpose.

By the way, I discovered the Smiths through a cover by Placebo. Not quite the same type as Manning's though.

There is a certain charm to his covers, though. I may be wrong but it seems to me he's actually trying, as opposed to what most comedians would've done, i.e. go for over the top terrible singing.

This might be overstretching your imagination and your trust in me, but I once knew a parish priest who both looked and sounded like Bernard Manning. I'd say Bernard Manning was probably easier to live with, however, and had better manners.