Score one for the little man. (Or, if you insist, ‘person.’)

Someone in the USA has foreclosed a debt on the Bank of America. Sheriff’s Deputies descended on a branch in Collier County, Florida and started to remove desks, chairs and other stuff – including the cash in the tellers’ drawers. The action was the result of a court judgement against the bank who had claimed that the individual was in arrears of payment of a non-existent mortgage – the property in question had been bought for cash.

I wonder could we start a trend?

Story here.

Anybody know what’s causing this?

(With a little help from her Poppop)

Just for a change, no politicians or bureaucrats, just a ‘normal,’ couple, Kathy Witterick, 38, and husband David Stocker from Canada who are refusing to say whether their new baby is a boy or a girl.  They are, they say,  leaving the decision up to him – or her.  Talk about throwing your children to the wolves – I hope one of their male relatives defies the whacko parents and teaches the boys a good right hook.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1389593/Kathy-Witterick-David-Stocker-raising-genderless-baby.html

Shot these while I was shooting the competition entry – amazing what a difference a couple of weeks makes 🙂

The first three blooms are all on the same bush.

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I should really have made the title of this piece, ‘Proper,’ nouns as verbs because I don’t intend to discuss that awful American habit of randomly using a noun as a verb.  A piece in the tech pages caught my eye the other day.  It was discussing the measurement of commercial success of a brand by the use of the brand name as a verb.  The obvious examples are ‘google,’ and ‘skype’  (Lower case initial letters when used as verbs.)  What was interesting was an inference that this was a new thing.  It seems that the writer had not made the connection between this idea and, for example, ‘hoovering,’ the carpet, ‘sellotaping’ something, or ‘(tele-) phoning someone.  There is also the matter of brand names becoming generic terms – we use a biro to write something, for example.  (In Serbian, a radio comms set is a ‘motorola,’ and in Romanian, a refrigerator is a ‘frigeder – say it with a Spanish pronounciation.)

I’m sure the charioteers can come up with other examples, but what interested me is the implied sense that nothing happened before 1970, or so.  There seems to be a disconnection somewhere in which anything that happened before the cultural revolution is discounted – in the air-headed chatterati expression, is ‘not relevant,’ or is ‘out-moded.’

That might go some way to explain why the country is in the mess it is.   (On the other hand, of course, it might not 🙂  )

Inspired by the question about what are you like, I put together this photo essay which you may find interesting – or not 🙂 Continue reading “Me”

It’s May here in Cyprus…well, it’s May everywhere, but you know what I mean. Yesterday it was so cold and damp that I actually had to light the fire and this afternoon we had four inches of rain. It was hissing it down. However, the rain has cleared away for the moment and the air is lovely and clear this evening, so I took the opportunity to shoot these.

From New Zealand.

Greenpeace loses charity status case

Greenpeace New Zealand’s political activities mean it cannot register as a charity, the High Court has decided.

Greenpeace appealed against a 2010 ruling by the Charities Commission which found its promotion of “disarmament and peace” was political rather than educational and while it did not directly advocate illegal acts, Greenpeace members had acted illegally.

Now, I wonder if our own courts will man-up and agree that vandalism and criminal damage are not charitable activities?

Not holding my breath…