Easter without The Telegraph?
Resurrection of some buns, and bunnies by the score?
Is this the point of Easter, or is there something more?
Yes hot cross buns may be the thing which oddly give a clue,
To why we celebrate this fest, though meanings are perdue.
A lot of financial experts and other commentators are up in arms about the Cyprus Solution, which slaps a 40% ‘fee’ on savers with more than 100,000 euros in a couple of local banks. ‘Poor, unsuspecting savers’, allegedly. Many of them are British pensioners lured to Aphrodite’s Isle by a mouth-watering 5% tax rate; and even more are Russsian emigres from whom (à la Russia’s President Medvedev’s enigmatic quoation from Lenin) “the stealing of what has already been stolen continues”. 
Now I’m not anti-capitalist, nor pro-communist but I do wonder how this arrangement is remotely less acceptable than forcing innocent tax-payers to pick up the tab for the profligacy of bankers; because the thing about banks is that we usually rely on them to stay in business and not to mess with our money, but when they fail, we the savers bear some responsiblity for having chosen to let them use it. It’s a business arangement gone wrong – between consenting partners, not between banks and their ‘victims’.
Of course I sympathise with the British pensioners whose retirement bubble has burst so spectacularly – surely the Bank of Cyprus, if not the Laiki bank, was ‘reliable’? It probably was, for many years. But if I were a eurozone taxpayer I would strongly resent having to bail it out when tens of thousands of depositors, attracted by the offer of tax holidays in the sun, held on to their funds.
We’re back from our hols in N Ireland to write some pomes about our Easter dreams
Courtesy Matt and the DT
Never have I read of such total incompetence. A la DM. The need for troops and helicopters to ‘rescue’ rural people. (We already know town dwellers are witless wonders!)
What is wrong with them? If you live in remote rural places you take great care to have sufficient stocks of everything thereunto! Admissions of running out of fuel and food for man and beast after 4 days is ludicrous in the extreme.
Anyone that relies on anything but coal and a solid fuel central heating system wants their heads examining as all other fuel systems require electricity to drive the furnace, most solid fuel systems will still work on convection! Coal is delivered in the Autumn by the ton! You can guarantee that the electricity will go out, so oil lamps with sufficient spare wicks and oil are de rigeur, (yes, they are still made as are old fashioned mantles!) If you have any sense a small generator just to run the freezers. Sufficient box milk, flour and yeast and you are in business!
It is early October and the weather is mild on the South China Sea. Hong Kong is beautiful as always, cooler and dryer than during the summer. The city is remarkable. Despite its reputation for being cosmopolitan, ostensibly a glorious marriage of Chinese and British civilisations the city remains at its heart thoroughly Chinese. That is not to say that the British have not left their mark on the city. Traffic flows on the proper side of the road, the left. Despite the best attempts of the Chinese government to undermine traces of the British past signs are still found now and again. The street names are often British in origin – Hennessey, Morrison, Queen’s Road East. Place names are much the same – George V Park, Aberdeen, Victoria Harbour. Even the tea here is a bit different. Of course the actual tea itself is Chinese; there is no other way about it. The preparation is different, never-the-less. There is milk and a bit of sugar in it. This is a-typical for the Chinese who prefer their tea mild and natural. Through the hustle one sees order. People queue prior to entering underground trains. There is a bit more attention paid to not simply ploughing others over. This is utterly unlike the mainland where a mad dash for anything resembling an open seat is seemingly inevitable and one learns simply to push ahead without regard for others, a sort of universal understanding that no offence is intended. There is no other way, after all, the move with so many people around.
Wish I could do that!
Remember the picture I posted?
The house in the wood wot we love?
Well the paperwork’s going quite smoothly
And we’re fixing a date for the move.
I’ve got to admire Mrs Janus –
For her architect’s eye and her skill
At turning the place into ‘our’ place,
Saying where there’s a way there’s a will.
And a bonus I’ve found in the detail
Gives a boost to a roy’list like me.
Them woods wot surround our new palace
Belong to the Queen. Te he hee.
This stared out as a comment on Christopher’s post about his recent visit to La Belle Province, but it got so long and convoluted I decided not to clutter the comments there with its length.
I worked in Canada from mid 1969 to late 1978 living first in Ottawa then nearby across the Ottawa River in the Province of Quebec. I worked for a subsidiary of Bell Canada (the telephone company) and my wife worked, first in the public service (Department of Finance) then on Parliament Hill for a couple of MP’s.
There had been festering discontent in Quebec regarding separation for years, probably ever since Confederation (1867) even the choice of Ottawa as the capital (1857) was flavored by the divide and was one of those many English compromises that almost worked. Choosing Toronto (the largest and a very English city) would have put the capital too close to the US border and memories of “Manifest Destiny” and the unpleasantness of 1812 were still a factor, choosing Montreal would seem to be giving control to the French, also remembered for their recent aggression in Europe, so Queen Victoria herself announced that the capital would henceforth be Ottawa (formerly Bytown, named after Colonel John By who built the Rideau canal system as a defense against the US in 1812). Ottawa was conveniently located almost exactly halfway between Toronto and Montreal and as a wag of the day reported was “a slumbering sub-arctic lumber village”.
Mrs FEEG and I have just got back from a city break in Vienna. Lots of Strudel and lots of Schnitzel, although without the noodles mentioned in that silly song in the dreadful musical about the von Trapp family, but with plenty of ErdapfelSalat or Austrian Potato Salad. (Yes I know the German for potato is Kartoffel, but the Austrians prefer to use the French way of naming them!). We also overindulged somewhat in the Café Central and the Sacher Hotel on speciality coffees and cakes!
We saw many of the sights and especially good was the Lippizaners being put through their paces at a training session and practice performance at the Spanish Riding School near the Hofburg Palace of Vienna. All in all, a great time was had by us.
Imagine our surprise when, having left Vienna on a very cold but bright sunny day, we woke up at home to another dose of global warming requiring the drive to be cleared yet again!
Boadicea's Chariot 
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