Saturday, August 09, 2008

Soggy Saturday - Restful Day

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Picture 1 is to show one of my starling-proof bird feeders and, as you can see, the tits can manage the entrance quite easily. As can robins, finches, sparrows and although not for a week or two, bullfinches.

I feel guilty of discrimination - a starlingphobe in fact. It is anthropomorphism at its worst but they are vexatious creatures who selfishly grab all the food and fight among themselves.

Picture 2 is an Icelandic 'Puffin' by Helen and, as I said previously, long serving members of EPS will have a wry smile to see one again.

Nicely handled environment with quite a long lens. A camera-club judge though would probably advise cropping some off the left, so as to have the bird slightly less central. Smashing colours and foreground detail.

Picture 3 was from the Isle of Wight and another Classic Car we chanced upon. There was no-one with this one though, so I couldn't ask.

I know we are probably not alone but neither of us can work up mch enthusiasm for the Olympics. There seems to be so much hype and if 'spectacle' is overdone it becomes kitsch.

There's a place in the Art World for kitsch and Jeff Koons and Co. occupy it splendidly.

Comments

Bungus ..... Thanks for the picture comments. I had said 'Turner-esque' because of a famous art history anecdote of an occasion when he and Constable were both young, and their paintings were hung side by side in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. On hanging day Turner glowered at the pictures (his included a beach). Two hours later he returned with paints and a brush and inserted a bright red ball on his beach. The effect was to wreck the Constable next door. The story goes that an attendant said to a colleague "He's not supposed to do that, is he?". The colleague replied "Are you going to tell him then? 'cos I'm not".

He had a reputation for liking a flash of red somewhere strategic in a picture anyway.

Re Serif. I am beginning to feel that Serif software leaves much to be desired. The blurbs are persuasive but the goods fall short. It would have been straightforward to burn onto DVDs what I needed to transfer, and to find the original discs for the programmes.

I hope your Firefox returns home. In my opinion it is better than IE7.

My locating of Pete, Manxislander, on the Isle of Wight was a straightforward typo having mentioned I of W so frequently of late.

Thanks for the Litheram stuff. I had forgotten we had previously discussed it.

AnonymousRob ...... So pleased to have your comment. I guess we had all assumed it was either work or DIY or something else which was occupying you. The sooner you have done with that awful work stuff the better !

The left-handed material is interesting. In the 1940s there was still pressure to conform to a right-handed norm and in slang terms left-handed people were called 'cack-handed'. I don't know if this was common everywhere ?

Another expression I grew up with, was being asked "What are you gawping at?" If you were caught studying something closely.

I can't help further with the identity of the car. I should have made a note. Perhaps now Reg has returned from holiday he will identify it.

anonymous ..... As acknowledged above. A mental slip, putting Manxislander on the Isle of Wight. Sorry !

Jill ..... I shall be speaking to David in the morning and I shall make enquiries about the orange towel.

How interesting - your mini-saga about the wedding. Y loved reading about the bride's outfit and flowers.

How outrageous - the catering ! With it being RC and lengthy someone should have arrived with a few loaves and fishes etc., and there would have been plenty to go round - plus left-overs ! Especially as the lusty singing (even if only you) had acted as an appetite stimulant.

I remember talking to Jenny at your GW and my guess is that she would have been embarrassed, even though it hadn't been her responsibility.

Whenever I do a barbeque I pre-cook sausages, chicken legs, beefburgers etc, indoors before taking them out to the barbeque for a final touch of the charcoal taste on the actual barbeque. A blackened chicken drumstick which oozes blood when you bite it, is a surefire recipe for food-poisoning.

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Sleep tight. Catch you tomorrow.

..... I thought the 'sheep-dog?' was due for an outing.

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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Took Me awhile to track this down as i was rather intregued what type of car this was,Anyway the emblem narrowed it down for me and I can confirm its an alvis. I am pretty sure its a Alvis TA14 Drophead Coupe.

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C44882

Kevin

Anonymous said...

Just to add A little more information alvis wemt on to make tanks and still do and is coventry based i believe.
The hood ornament is a Silver Eagle mascot altho the Hare mascot was more popular http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Alvis_TA14_Tickford_DHC_front.jpg

Kevin

Anonymous said...

Anonymousrob;

I felt bad about the Stags at half time but they managed a useful draw in the end which must give them some encouragement.

Pleased to discover that you continue to enjoy your work (could there be a hint of Scunthorpe Utd there?).
And thanks for being so understanding about the invitation. I do like to reply formally if at all possible.

I don’t recall any ‘keggy-handers’ being forced to write ‘normally’ in my time, although a generation earlier …

Jill:
Like your RC wedding, the one I went to, about 30 years ago was also followed by a two hour wait before eating (at Barney’s near Walesby, which later went down market to become the predecessor of the Ma Hubbard chain). In our case the delay was because everyone present had to be photographed. But, when we eventually ate, the food was good and plentiful – and hot. I recall that every table, for four or six, got a whole large cauliflower with cheese sauce, for instance.
Although the bride and groom now live in Mapperley, and we are out of touch apart from Xmas cards, we were invited to their Silver Wedding party and to Rod’s 50th Birthday Bash (this year, so I was unable to attend).
I think RG is right about the advisability of precooking meats for a barbecue especially when it is for large numbers who all want to eat at once (I will here state that barbeque is a modern abomination of a spelling, almost certainly imported from across the Atlantic).
I forgot to comment on the mass-produced chicken issue yesterday. I have been doing almost everything possible to avoid eating chucky meat for years now, unless known to be free-range. I also try pretty hard to only buy British beef and pork meat and products.

Saturday blog:
You have starlings, we don’t (although next door, with a large stretch of open lawn, do). But we have collared doves and wood pigeons which require similar precautions to allow the poor little sparrows and blackbirds to feed. I presume your cage, like mine, is homemade.
And the picture of the extremely attractive sea parrot lends irony to the comment about starlings being greedy.

Anonymous Kevin:
Thanks for the classic car identification.
I agree with Rob that the radiator mascot of the classic car looks like the Spirit of Ecstasy but haven’t all Rolls had the distinctive angular top above the radiator grill? I think it could be a Silver Eagle which was the name given to an Alvis marque. Perhaps Kevin will clarify?

Kitsch, you say?
I haven’t watched much of the Olympics so far but, from what I did see, I’d say the opening ceremony was the most impressive ever.
The Chinese would, of course, be expected to be good at fireworks and the ‘birdsnest’ and some of the other buildings are stunning. Pity about the smog.

I know the Turner ‘orange dot’ story but I thought the picture so un-Turner like that you appeared to be stretching things a bit. But it makes for comment, hey?

I sympathise with your plight over transferring files and programmes but I would say that Serif and Gizoo are bit like the Netto of the computer world; not the best but very often good value. And, if you complain, I’d be surprised if they don’t offer a refund.

Firefox has crept back under the wire, but I never deliberately use it. I have no idea what IE7 is, so I won’t bother.

Pleased you have cleared up Manx Pete’s Tangle of the Isles.

If I hadn’t read about it before I would have expected Litheram’s dog, from the sound of the name, to be something out of the Kama Sutra.

To me, in Mansfield, 'cack-handed' always meant generally clumsy and inept (although I don’t doubt the derivation). ‘Keggy-handed’ meant left-handed.
I had a friend, a good sportsman who, on NS, became a RAF PE Instructor and then a PE Teacher, who was a wholely a right-footed centre-forward; batted left handed at cricket and bowled right-handed; played golf left-handed and tennis right-handed; etc…
I am familiar with ‘gawping’ and recall the act of creeping through the bushes to watch couples making love ‘al fresco’ (something in which I never indulged - the watching, that is) being known as ‘piking’.
One of my father’s favourite words (possibly from Ruddington via Hucknall) was “clarty”; used to describe something like mutton fat which sticks to the roof of the mouth.
One Mansfield saying which I have never ‘fathomed’ is
“In ‘is eye’oles”,
indicating that someone is highly delighted. I have found no one who has been able to explain this (inc google).

Anonymous said...

I see Kevin beat me to it!

Anonymous said...

Have just watched GB win their first gold medal - a Welsh lady who cycled 75 miles through mountains in what looked like a monsoon. I was intrigued to see that the blond studio presenter (the one who isn't Sue Barker) had a big mauve plastic bucket next to her to catch the drips that were coming through the studio roof!

I have never liked barbecues, only one we used to like was a friend who had a gas-fired barbecue which seemed to cook things properly - but no barbecue smell/flavour, so it might as well have been cooked indoors.....

At the wedding I got the chap doing the barbecuing (am not calling him a chef) to cut one of the thick sausages in half lengthways, then cook it on both sides on the slightly cooler bit of the grill thing. When I was satisfied it was cooked through and not burnt, R and I shared it with a roll. That was all we ate, and a pudding.

Like Bungus, nearly all the meat we eat is British and organic. But we don't eat nearly as much meat as we used to.

One of the clues in yesterday's Quick Crossword was 'another name for goldfinch'. I don't know of one, and couldn't find it anywhere. I hope the answer is in Monday's DTel, we don't have a Sunday paper.

Liked the puffin and sand-eels picture - years ago when my children were in the Puffin Book Club I knitted them sweaters with puffins on, a real labour of love!

I know the expression cack-handed but use it for general awkwardness/clumsiness, not left-handedness. Our oldest son is left-handed in everything, as are his three children, no-one else in family is.

Anonymous said...

Jill:
I too eat much less meat then in times gone by; largely because Sandra has been a fish-eating vegetarian for some 16 years (since watching a TV documentary about intensive rearing and abattoir methods).

The only 'other name for goldfinch' I can find is the Latin ‘carduelis’

In contrast, I ONLY have a Sunday paper (apart from local papers) and struggle to read it before the next Sunday.

Good to have someone who thinks the same ‘cack-handed’ way as myself.

Anonymous said...

From what I can see the alvis hood ornament unlike the rolls royse changed alot, Thay used a Hare,eagle(early and late)and Firefly. Some have them and some dont and even the same model can differ so I have to asume that it was possibly an optional extra.

The one on the car is an an early eagle and rare, it certenly looks like a flying lady, if you notice under the ornament it has the red triangle of alvis, Alvis purchased vickers but have sinsed droped the alvis from the name as it was known as alvis vickers.

kevin

Heres a close up picture of the eagle

http://flickr.com/photos/22009880@N06/2683933638/

Anonymous said...

I've just enlarged the picture of the Alvis and can clearly see it is not a Rolls. Thanks to Kevin and others for identification. Even though it's not a Roller I still want one!

I like the puffin picture; exhibitions were full of them years ago so give it a go, Helen. Enter it into the N&EMPF Exhibition this year; what have you got to lose?

I'm completely lost with the Serif, Firefox, IE7 comments; it's like a foreign language to me.

I've always understood cack-handed to describe my non-existent DIY skills not left-handedness. My Irish Uncle Joe, on seeing anyone use their left hand would ask Are you clooty? When I used to play cricket I bowled with my left arm and batted right handed. I throw with my left hand and write with my right hand. I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

Which reminds me of the other old one I used to be a kelptomaniac but now I'm taking something for it.

Hopefully a late equaliser will boost the confidence at Field Mill; makes a change from conceding them as seemed to happen last season. First silverware of the season to ManU with an understrength side. Looks like the same old, same old in the Premiership this season.

The Olympics are failing to ignite me as well. I did hear a radio interview with 'our' gold medal winner in which she said the team tactics to enable her to win were planned far in advance, with discussions starting in 2007 (May, I think). Not quite fitting with the heroic story the meedja like to put across.

Rob