Photo comp #34 “Autumn”

I have just taken my dear old aunt to the dentist, and while driving her there, the autumn was very apparent. So, while it seems a trifle trite, the subject for the next comp is “Autumn”. This can be any aspect of Autumn from Halloween to Guy Fawkes or the (in our case, non-existent) apple harvest, or anything you think is representative of the autumnal season!

Deadline will be midnight on 1st December, as we should have returned from our Thanksgiving visit to Washington DC by then (hurricanes willing!)

Here is something to get you going, our Forsythia on the turn:-

Autumn colours

November Poetry Competition.

OK, lets see if I can get this done before I lose my internet connection.

We are well into the season of mellow mists and fruitfulness, so it’s too late for that.   There is however considerable disgruntlement about political happenings just about everywhere.  In spades here because of the thankfully soon to be over presidential election and elsewhere pertaining to potential acts of northern British secession, attack dog behaviour of ex-pat. Welsh antipodean prime ministers, or even the fare dodging antics of Chancellors.

So how about “A modern Guy Fawkes”  any length or scheme (but as always, extra points for rumpy pumpy)

By the time judgement day comes around  (no not November 5 or  6,  let’s make it November 30)  at least we here in the US will be free of the pols. until January, when hopefully a freezing cold Washington inaugural may take out some of the weaklings.

Sports quote of the day

This from Telford Vice’s sports column in today’s Sunday Crimes Times

… that ineffectual collection of suits , the ………….. who look up from their trough of television money only when it is danger of not overflowing, would have squealed …………..

If it wasn’t so darn true it would be funny.

I’ve deliberately left blank the name of the organization (take a guess) and what they would have squealed about (complete quote lower down the page.)

Thought it too good not too share.

Continue reading “Sports quote of the day”

More stuff for gossip lovers

Some years ago I bought Claire Tomalin’s biography of Samuel Pepys (The Unequalled Self) and have enjoyed re-reading it several times since. Ms Tomalin offers all the pleasures of academic study; every source is noted; every reference given its provenance. But she is also a lively story-teller – no dusty tome, this! And Sam was a perfect subject: not a saint but a reluctant sinner, living during England’s most troubled times – the 17thC, the Commonwealth, the Restoration;  with politics, war, plague and fire; all played out in the heart of London. The book presents the context for Sam’s often gossipy, irreverent views both as a family man and a successful civil servant coping with the turbulence of his times.

And now I have bought another of Claire Tomalin’s biographies, this time Charles Dickens (A Life), which promises to be equally engrossing. Another subject whose life was spent in critical observation of his species, again centred on the capital during an interesting age.

Chronicles of a Westcentric

My wife, with a group of friends, has just returned from a five day shopping/sightseeing trip to New York. She got the boys some cracking designer garb. I’m not into the branded stuff much myself. Me, I’m easy to clothe. Call me eccentric I don’t care, as long as there is no green on the garment I’ll wear anything. “Is there anything you want?” she asked me before she crossed the ocean to the Land of the Superpower. I noted the missing word darling from the end of her question but let it pass.

I said “Get us a couple of papers”. (This sentence might be construed as abrupt to non-Westcentrics but it is not in any way rude. It is common vernacular in the West). My little darling didn’t disappoint. Continue reading “Chronicles of a Westcentric”

If the Italians can do it, so can we……

News has just come out that Silvio Berlusconi has just been sentenced to 4 years in jail. If only we could do the same thing to one or two former UK Prime Ministers, maybe with the period multiplied by a factor of ten! (And a few of their co-conspirators too!).

Berlusconi was only found guilty of tax fraud. It should really be possible to jail they there politicians for ANY kind of fraud. Only trouble is, the House of Commons would be pretty empty!