Chug! Chug! Chug!

Chugging. It's not downing your beverage quickly. Well, that too. It's also short for "charity mugging". The people, usually attractive young kids fresh out of uni or college, who approach innocent passers-by, present a sad story about [homeless people, veterans, abused animals, so on] and then ask for a donation: they are chugging.

Turns out [many? most? some?] people get paid to chug.

Creche. Daycare centers. In commercial centres, it seems. I heard an advertisement on the radio today that a new shopping mall has a large creche. This weekend, a few parents were chugging outside the local swimming pool (located on my block) with signs saying "Save Our Creche".


For those of you keeping track at home, today in Edinburgh the sun rose at 05:38 AM and set at 8:45 PM. That's over 15 hours of sunlight! And it's only the end of April. No wonder I can't sleep in the mornings.

Compare, for DC: 6:15 AM sunrise, 7:58 PM sunset. 13.5 hours of sunlight.

The temperature was in the mid-60's, very sunny with a slight breeze. And at the beginning of exam time, so people studied outside in shorts and tanks.
That seems a little extreme to me.