The Brunch round-up: The week and how it made us feel

The Royals, (Bridgerton, but made with local ingredients) is a hot mess. Clichéd plot, zero chemistry, and romance tropes even Mills & Boon wouldn’t touch. Bhumi Pednekar actually runs a company called Work Potato. But the breakout star on the show is Ishaan Khatter’s chest. The Maharaja is shirtless at polo matches, in castle corridors, mid-monologue. His pecs get more screen time than most of the cast. BRB, watching in HD.

At the FineWaters Summit in the US last month, aqua sommeliers delicately sipped different “flavours” of H20, swirled them around their mouths and rated them the way they would rate wine. Haters boiled with rage, insisting that all water tastes the same. Umm, no! The stuff from the tap feels different from the matka. Even bottled brands have their own vibe. Next time, sip, don’t chug.

Everyone’s favourite petty-dispute subreddit, Am I The A**hole?, is turning into a game show. Host Jimmy Carr will invite participants to present their case before him and two judges (comedians, who else?). We’ll finally put a face to all those A*holes. Hope it’s better than that other subreddit adap, Florida Man.

A Pew Research Center study asked Americans what they consider to be the ideal age to get married: 25 to 29, apparently. And the best time to have a kid? 27. Who took this survey? Indian moms? Our mummies have already set this benchmark. They didn’t need this extra validation, Pew Research. Why you gotta do us like that?

Thank heavens for typos. Some days they’re the brightest spot in a long day of work. A viral thread has collated the funniest email goof-ups: “Right from the gecko” (Instead of get-go); “nipping it in the butt” (Eww!) and “work ethnic” (for ethic), “I’m balling” (they mean bawling). Stay wild, people. We need these LOLs.

Remember Elizabeth Holmes, the Theranos founder who tried to sell us blood tests based on dodgy science and went to prison for fraud. Billy Evans, her partner and baby daddy, has a startup that promises diagnoses from not just blood, but urine, and saliva samples too. Hollywood has Bonnie and Clyde. Bollywood has Bunty and Babli. Silicon Valley now has Liz and Billy.

When the Swiss posted on their socials that the Tällibahn cable car service to the Gadmer Dolomites was open for the summer, we ran straight to the comments. They did not disappoint. “Use a headscarf” one user said. Another asked which items were banned on board. The Swiss deleted the posts. They’re not renaming the ride.

Instagram now lets you chat with AI versions of your fav characters. Who among us hasn’t dreamed of sexting Mr Darcy, asking Marie Curie for radium recipes, and swapping face-mask ideas with Cleopatra? Someone on Brunch was pretty chatty with Voldemort this week. Wait. Is this an extra horcrux no one told us about?