Is there any wonder I need to keep refilling the birdbath with water. I looked out of the kitchen-window and there was this big fat pigeon....... Fortunately he/she sat there while I fetched my camera. ....... But as soon as he/she spotted me, Picture 2 ensued. Fortunately my Nikon doesn't suffer from much shutter-delay.
A quiet day, a few jobs, much radio and newspapers plus naps. To add to our house selling problems gypsies/travellers/ or whatever you are supposed to call them have moved onto the football field opposite. Not a good selling point ! Y hasn't seen them yet of course.
Comments......Bungus ..... What bit of the 'blog reader advice' didn't you understand? I've published exactly the same piece before because I have it my Google notebook and I just copy/paste it into the blog. You have never demurred in the past. It is supposed to help folks who don't know about clicking a picture, or the orange coloured live links etc..
Anyoldhow.... I am relieved that you are not ill. I had guessed Friday would be hospital day but feared it had laid you low. Really pleased, as you are, that the chemo-tablets seem done with. And that you will be a little less concerned about infection. Joan, Y and I will make an arrangement soon to come over and have a wander round Rufford or similar. Perhaps Laxton would be interesting at this time of year.
I don't despise clever titles - in the right place. For me, a simple basic record shot's title should simply be where it is or what it is illustrating. Where there is a purpose, OK. For instance I thought your 'Springtime?' was first rate. I know the 'smileys' irritate you but, as I point out, you are not my only reader. There is somewhere a device for disabling 'smileys' in HTML documents (which the blog is) at the readers end. I will research it and let you know.
Y and I are both aware of the NT problems you mention. The trouble is that, if a certain person is elected to the Chair, the rest of the committee will refuse to serve. Hence the pressure on me to stand, so that we can carry on much the same as we are now. The present Chairman, Peter, who is excellent, has to stand down because the Constitution says so. The 'other members in general' you mention just want things to be done and it is very difficult to persuade new people to come on the committee.
Reg ....... Thank you very much for the 'scale' info. We certainly have such a range of expertise involved in the blog. I knew absolutely nothing about any of that.
That something should be 1" to the 1 foot was an easy starting point, and also your aero modellers 1/4 . How odd that the railways should be obscure. Perhaps something to do with Telford or Isambard Kingdon Brunel being awkward old sods. Just found this link to George Stevenson and it seems that the width of the wagonway at Killingworth Colliery was at the bottom of it.
I'm sure that AnonymousRob will negotiate a work-break into his blogging - Whoooops - a typo, that should be the other way round !
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A busy week lies ahead - Nat Trst Committee meeting on Tuesday, Nat Trst Annual Dinner on Wednesday (I may gave WoW a miss) , and Lumsdale Walk on Thursday evening.
Quotation time ........Still with Dylan Thomas :-
Quotation time ........Still with Dylan Thomas :-
" Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light"
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light"
Dylan Thomas
Please open the link under his name and, when it's open, click the play button and hear him read it while you read the poem on the page. I think it gives all of us who are the wrong side of 70, permission to carry on 'sounding off' about things in general.
I generally avoid the news in this blog because most of it is trivial but this is important. Our Horse Chestnut trees are under threat from conker canker. According to the Telegraph half of our two million trees already have it, and there is no cure.
In The News Quiz on Radio 4 at lunchtime there was much hilarity about the fundamentalist preachers who had quoted the holy book that 'you should take a homosexual up a mountain and toss him off'. The panel had great fun with it. I've just checked the link and all the interior links are live, if you decided you wanted to listen to the prog.
Catch you tomorrow. And once only, just to please Bungus, no smiley and no animated line.
I generally avoid the news in this blog because most of it is trivial but this is important. Our Horse Chestnut trees are under threat from conker canker. According to the Telegraph half of our two million trees already have it, and there is no cure.
In The News Quiz on Radio 4 at lunchtime there was much hilarity about the fundamentalist preachers who had quoted the holy book that 'you should take a homosexual up a mountain and toss him off'. The panel had great fun with it. I've just checked the link and all the interior links are live, if you decided you wanted to listen to the prog.
Catch you tomorrow. And once only, just to please Bungus, no smiley and no animated line.
>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<< .
On the post before this one, was the blog advice supposed to be all purple goobledygook? Or am I missing something here? Am I supposed to click on something to put it into English?
ReplyDeleteWe have got pigeons that sit in the bird bath just like yours. I am always filling it up.....
I don't think I would mind if the horse chestnut tree in next door's garden got conker canker (well, I suppose I would really) as it triggers off my hay-fever every year. It is a splendid tree with a dark salmon pink flower. I thought this was unusual, but apparently not.
Sorry to read about the gippos in the football field, may well put off potential buyers. Have they been there before? Do they stay long? Have the Council any intention of trying to evict them? I have no sympathy with them whatsoever.
I forgot to tell you that two or three days ago I got really stuck on DT crossword, it wouldn't go right at all. Next day I discovered why - there was a clue 'Queen's favourite place?' to which I had put 'Newcastle' (and which I still maintain is a perfectly good answer). But the correct one was 'Leicester'.
The NT Committee - I had enough of this sort of thing on various PTA groups when I was on Committee. In this case it certainly sounds as if you ought to be the Chairman - a sort of benign dictator? I often think this would be a good form of government, things would get done, but dictators in general seemed to lack benignness (benignicity?).
Bungus, pleased to hear things are going well, you can be sociable again - though I think clubbing is out....
I can only suppose that your travellers will be moved on fairly quickly if they don’t go of their own volition. I think that a lot, perhaps most, of them ARE 'travellers'.
ReplyDeleteThe bit of the 'blog reader advice' that, like Jill, I didn't understand was all of it.
I tried to copy it here and, surprise, surprise, it came out in English! viz:
"Blog reading advice - New readers ...... Pleased to learn of some new readers and the following notes may be helpful...."
Hieroplyphics is but one of the languages with which I am not familiar.
I hope we can arrange a jaunt hereabouts. Laxton is always interesting but might present you with mobility difficulties. But you are quite capable of working around those, I suppose.
If it is to be a Wed or Fri as previously agreed, let me know if you want me to try booking at the Snooty Fox for a carvery.
Please ignore me re smileys. I do not expect your blog to be based on my prejudices. But do not expect me to stop expressing them!
In case we are talking at cross purposes, my point is that if you are Chair and Yvonne is Sec some members might see this as nepotism.
Reg .......
Dublo Scale sounds incredibly small! And so does Gauge 0 at 7mm represents (it will never ‘equal’, says he cattily) 1 foot. But a bit of imaginative calculation (8” represents 30’0”) makes it seem realistic.
As an architect I grew up using 1/8scale, ie, 1/8” represents 1’0” (or 1/4 to 1/2 fs scale for more detail) which, of course, was replaced by the near equivalent of 1/100 when we went metric.
My knowledge of dolls’ houses does not extend much beyond recognising them!
I was unaware that there is a standard scale although the toy furniture indicates that there should be.
I recall that with Dinky toys the aircraft were much smaller in scale than the army vehicles. This always irritated me because, so far as I was concerned, it precluded playing happily with the 2 together.
I can quote at length, if anyone wishes, why the standard gauge was governed by the width of a horses backside (as compared with the Killingworth bottom) which in turn governed the size of the space shuttle’s engines. I’ll do it anyway, briefly, as I recall it.
“Roman chariot width was based on the width of the horse. Early English carts were built to fit the ruts caused by the chariots. This was about 4’8” and was used to establish the railway gauge. This gauge was adopted in the USA and governed the width of tunnels. The engines to the space shuttle have to pass through one or more tunnels on their journey from manufacture to assembly. Therefore the diameter of a space shuttle’s engines is governed by the width of a horse’s arse.”
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Back to blog:
A very familiar Dylan Thomas poem, but none the worse for that, in a very difficult rhyming theme (RG will give it the name which escapes me for the moment) which I have never mastered. The only other quality poem I know, successfully following this form, is ‘The Price of Freedom’ by Kathy Grindrod (in her anthology ‘Something the Heart Can’t Hold’). I starts:-
“The gnawing anguish and the stomach’s dread
she spoke of, and the black bread they yearned for
touched me so. “Sometimes I stole it,” she said”
I can only think the conker trees must have been sucking pennies (‘d’ that is).
Your News Quiz item reminds me more of Max Miller than fundamentalist preachers.
Jill:
The pink horse chestnut is not uncommon but far less common than the white.
Hitler had no sympathy for the gypsies either. I am all for the ‘real’ ones (and hippies) being allowed to do their thing but believe that there should be tighter controls and easier options for moving them on.
I don’t understand either ‘Newcastle’ or ‘Leicester’.
Even if the dictators start benignly, they more often than not seem to stray (Mugabe?).
I know RG is in favour of the system but I believe that depends upon him being in charge.
My experience indicates that a few determined and like minded people (eg, the Nottingham Arts Ball Committee of the 1950s) can easily, and legitimately, gain control.
I’ll go for ‘benignity’ which goes nicely with ‘dignity’.
I can think of a few people I would like to club but will demur to your wishes.
I'm back earlier today (from our caravan) than I thought I would be. I had decided to stay whilst Elaine went to work but then we got a phone call from the neighbours to say Elaine's car had had a tyre slashed last night - one of several on the street. So I've come back to change the wheel and have also taken the opportunity to develop half a dozen films.
ReplyDeleteI can see 'New-castle' as a good answer for the Queen's favourite place but, if I remember correctly, the Earl of Leicester was a 'favourite' of Elizabeth I.
Glad to hear, Bungus, you may soon be allowed out to play.
I like the progress with the cherry-blossom cyanotype but still find the blue too bright. Can I suggest a bit of desaturation? To me, it's starting to have a Japanese feel to it.
It must have been Y's rambling group that we saw the other day. I can't remember what time it was but the start time of the walk definitely fits as does the location.
Congratulations to Portsmouth on their historic FA Cup triumph. They seem to have made heavy weather of the back end of the season since beating Utd in the cup but they got there eventually. I didn't watch the game as we were in PC World buying a laptop and Photoshop CS3 but I saw the goal and heard the last 20 minutes commentary on the radio. The Yorkshire rivalry should make the Doncaster v Leeds play off final intersting. Both teams have done really well this season, especially Leeds who started on minus 15 points. Doncaster, though, have had an incredible few seasons since coming back into the league.
Another Brian Clough story, which an ex-work colleague of mine swears is true. Cloughie made Trevor Francis the first £1million footballer in Britain. On Trev's first day at the City Ground, Cloughie introduced him to his new team mates, "This is Trevor Francis, the first £1million footballer in Britain. Go and make the tea for the lads, Trev." Sadly, history does not record whether he remembered the slop-bowl.
Rob