Milk is preferable, with a splash of water. I use oat milk, but water is fine in a pinch. I add such a small amount of salt that it may as well be a placebo.
Here are my hard-earned porridge cooking tips, not that you asked:
Start soaking the oats the night before in the pot you'll cook them in (in the fridge if you're using dairy). This softens the oats and reduces cooking time by a lot.
First thing in the morning, cook them on the lowest heat for about 20 minutes while you do your routine. This way you don't need to stir them constantly, they're extraordinarily creamy, and you won't burn the oats to your pan.
Then add a touch of cream (or milk) to your bowl to cool the oats down some, and add some maple syrup if you're into decadence. Ultra low effort, maximum effect.
And if you want to get real weird with it, add some pomegranate seeds. I don't generally bother, because pomegranates are a bit of work, but it's awesome.
When I drink black tea it's with milk, using freshly boiled water (allow bubbling to stop) in a preheated cup. Milk gets added after steeping so as not to scald. For the love of all that's holy, don't microwave the water. Use a kettle or a pot.
Green and most herbal tea gets neither milk nor sugar, but sometimes honey. Add a little cold water to the herbs first, so you don't extract bitter compounds: using near 100C water is why so many people think they dislike green and herbal tea. (Ginger, hemp, chamomile and hibiscus are the main exceptions to this rule - they need boiling water for the floral flavours.)
I love coffee, but I have enough herbal tea to open an apothecary. Just be careful that you're not getting teabags with plastic in them! Pukka are consistently great, as are Suki.
Favourite fancy biscuits are from the Island Bakery [0] in Scotland. Their Lemon Melts and their Chocolate Gingers are just about perfect. I know you can find their shortbread in the US, but not sure about other varieties. The biscuits come in a little cardboard boat and it's adorable.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Horse Outside is great craic!
(between the Rubberbandits and Kneecap, it seems like fashionable irish lads are already prepared to live in a camera-full* surveillance society? After all, when you're riding a pony you can give the gait analyst one of these \/m.)
* On the white hoof, Kevin Mallon is confident enough nothing will ever link him to Shergar that his face appears all over the Sun. If something should cross my desk before the Devil calls him in, I do know someone with swine.
EDIT: at least the patrimachy was an excellent chaser; nice references both to Philly's finest and the Black "tis but a scratch" Knight.
Also, I don't know if sex ratios have anything to do with it, but rural** russian bridesmaids may be less selective than the irish lasses***; in this vid even Subaru guy pulls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuSf1UcFRq0
** I've forgotten the details but IIRC it was Ershov visiting Dijkstra — so D takes E for a hike out in the dutch countryside, and E says "aha, you westerners do actually have a few unpaved roads, too"
*** as the irish lasses in my circles are fond of full and frank discussions with sticks, before fighting any of their do stumpa asail fathers I think I'd want "not a rock for twenty mile, not a clump of tree, but covered a man of my own men with his rifle cocked on his knee."
I thought Pirozhkov's "Zacepila" a much better song and story, but just as "Horse Outside" is the Rubberbandit's way of poking fun (with equine accompaniment) at their stereotypical compatriots' wedding traditions, "Gorko!" is his: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuioDDQ3aCs
It is grand when a chorus changes its meaning due to intervening verses, and in particular the line "if you're looking for a ride I've a horse outside" changes both the people referred to by "you" and the identity of the "horse", on either side of your one breaking the fourth wall and saying "I will of course /
if you grab me by the ponytail and..."
Does it get more rural than the Republic of Sakha, where cow shed ownership(a) is enough for cover of local edition GQ magazine(b) (no Subaru required!)
As the father comes before the son, commentary on (b), then (a):
I love how russian artists support their local scene, eg Emin on the piano and Pirozhkov on a pony. (looks like the ones I don't recognise were KVN players?)
Timati's got some good lines, eg:
Ya vsegda ekstrafresh kak vladelets khimchistki
Moy otbelennyy kesh ne popadayet pod riski
and
Odna strochka po TsB ravna barrelyu nefti
Zaklyuchayu kontrakty s Gazpromom v kazhdom kuplete
but I still prefer MC Doni's tri-scriptal:
Я нашёл себя и меня нашли
إن شاء الله или c'est la vie
Now to Sakha (where the population seems just about to recover to its late-Soviet peak):
That's especially true because land tenure in the RF doesn't include subsoil (and therefore mineral) rights.
0:29 after hearing so much about metaphorical vatniks, here's a literal quilted jacket?
(Timati's line is that cash sticks to intellectuals; here it's to the cow shed)
1:17 the cow shed is fresh because even european cows are comfortable at a lower temperature range than humans, and the Yakut cow is especially cold-adapted[2]
1:20 pretty sure the steaming has been exaggerated for comic effect — no, wait, that's not steaming, that's probably smudging against the insects. I once asked a colleague who was telling Siberia stories why they didn't do their fieldwork in summer, and they quickly answered: "mud and mosquitos"
1:22 didn't HN discuss blackhouses?[3] this line provides a reason they may have been more popular than "white houses" before screens, or at least glass windows, were cheap and widespread.
1:51 tripod goblets make sense for steppe nomads — circular feet on stemware are pretty unstable until one has cheap and widespread flat tabletops?
how early is attestation for this style of jacket? put a bolo tie on and you could almost go line dancing in that (although the sleeves are more reminiscent of a "Mutz")...
1:54 this seems like a decent design for a cow shed — the slop should wind up in the grabens allowing the cows to stand with relatively dry hooves on the horsts?
it's 3/4 of an hour, so it'll be some time before I get around to it, but I am curious if they go into any more detail than a Michael Collins biography I'd read about how the Republicans had not only had access to, but even been altering the paper files in, the Black & Tans' archives.
[1] how come only the elementary school student knows about the diamond pipes?
