This week’s assignment over at The Gallery is Friends.
So I decided to dig one out of the archives which I’ve not uploaded before.
Click the image for a large version from Flickr
This is our friend Katy (left) with her three children and Noreen. It was taken close to the late Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage at Dungeness (with the hills of the Weald of Kent in the background) during our break in Rye in September 2010. We had a fun week sharing a cottage and doing a bit of exploring.
Today, 29 February, is a unique day. So unique it happens, to a first approximation, only every four years.
But that, of course, depends upon what value unique has in your philosophy.
Scientifically today is indeed unique, in the formally correct sense. There is no other like it, for it will never occur again, at least as far as we currently understand the laws of physics which govern our universe.
Why? Because time, that ethereal quantity we measure in todays and years, is unidirectional and ever progressing. This time, this very instant, can never occur again. Hence it must be that this, and every other, today must be unique.
Enjoy your once in a lifetime experience!
Various newsfeeds (eg. here) this morning are reporting that the Archbishop of Canterbury has said he believes the law has no right to legalise same-sex marriage.
While the reverend Archbishop has every right to believe whatever the hell idiotic notions he likes — well he believes in God, Hell and the Resurrection, so why stop there — he is factually wrong about the law.
“The law” is a civil process, enacted by the government of the day on our behalf. It is not an adjunct of the Church. Therefore the government of the day has every right to legislate for whatever it likes — save only for the approval of parliament, international law and a major peoples’ revolution.
Who taught the reverend gentleman politics and constitutional history?
(By the way, look at the photo, he’s even already growing Devil’s horns from his eyebrows!)
OK, so here are a few amusements I’ve come across recently which you may have missed.
First, one for all you book lovers: the 20 most beautiful bookshops in the world. And only two are in North America!
While on words, you can test your vocabulary online. It takes about 5 minutes and you’re on your honour not to cheat!
After that you’ll need your 8 hours sleep. Except that apparently needing 8 hours is a myth.
So guys, you lie awake at night. You’re not really worrying about the size of your dangly bits, are you?!
And as if that weren’t worrying enough it has now been found that there at least five kinds of fungus which farm animals — and we’re one of them!
Finally we return to books. Books with leather bindings are generally rather nice. But human leather? Yep! Here’s a short history behind anthropodermic bibliopegy. And there’s another here.
Sweet dreams!
Courtesy of Thoughts of Angel …
Oh God it’s going to be a day of giant rhubarb news stories.
Following on from Chancellor Osborne’s apparently sudden realisations, our beloved Metropolitan Police have issued a list of plants we should all have to deter burglars.
Yeah OK, so far.
The news report finishes with the Met’s advice that Hedges and shrubs in the front garden should be kept to a height of no more than three feet in order to avoid giving a burglar a screen behind which he can conceal himself.
Leaving aside, for a moment, the implication that female felons don’t try to hide, there’s a problem with this. The list of suggested plants includes Gunnera manicata (above; deciduous and grows to 2.5m), Golden Bamboo (grows to 3.5m) and several conifers, none of which are susceptible to being pruned or trimmed successfully to under 1 metre nor are really suitable for the average suburban garden.
Duh!
<Paging Alan Titchmarsh>
So UK Chancellor George Osborne has come to the dramatic conclusion that the UK has run out of money. I wonder where he’s been for the last several years that this has only just dawned on him? Worrying!
Experiment, week 15. This week’s five things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful.
[Both pictures culled from the internet. The top one is Patric being his normal self, albeit at a formal function. The lower is of Patric, enrobed, in procession at Windsor in his role as Secretary to the Order of the Garter. Sadly I don’t have a picture of him in his herald’s tabard.]
Well, we’re rolling on towards Spring anyway. And just to prove it here are some photos from our garden today.
First the snowdrops. We have only a couple of small clusters under the apple tree but they’re still looking good …
Most of the early mauve crocuses are now past their best, partly I think due to last week’s breezes knocking them over. But here are a couple that are still good.
I especially like this one …
And finally a feral pigeon enjoying the Spring sunshine between bouts of feeding and rutting.
The photo doesn’t show off the wonderful iridescent pink and green shades on their necks and breasts which are really stunning when they catch the light right. Well who wouldn’t want iridescent pink breasts?
A handful of recently discovered, somewhat cynical quotes …
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
[Soren Kierkegaard]
Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.
[Robert Heinlein]
If you can’t convince them … Confuse them!
[Harry S Truman]
What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public.
[Vilhjalmur Stefansson]