Sunday Again!

time for our Sunday lunch, 

but today early as Diana has to go into work, so first back to Wilt for a read and a sherry, 

4 spring rolls for starters,

eyes down and tuck in,

for our main course roast duck, with gravy for Diana,

sans gravy for myself,

'Cheers!',

we rounded off the meal with one of these,

a blond Belgium chocolate ganache, after which Diana was off to work, 

for myself I settled on Apocalypto, a gruesome, but powerful movie, movie making at it's best, on a subject that many of us find so interesting not the least because only recently has more been found out about the Incas, Mayans and Aztecs, only a few years I read that a new temple complex had been discovered, which I followed with a documentary, Monster Reconstructed: Acrocanthosaurus, the Acrocanthosaurus was the greatest predator ever to stalk North America - a 12m beast able to kill 30 ton prey, you can watch the video here, 

I rounded off the evening with Gunpowder, during which Diana returned home, so a coffee and a chat as we watched the end of that, as Diana has a early start tomorrow we were then off to bed.

I Never Thought It Was Possible,

but reading can kill you!

photograph STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP, last year I made a post about how arsenic used in some book covers could be deadly, well it appears that other covers that contain the deadly chemical have been found, in France's national library, above, the books were taken off the shelves were identified as potentially dangerous by University of Delaware researchers, the library said the books would only cause minor harm from handling them, "We have put these works in quarantine and an external laboratory will analyse them to evaluate how much arsenic is present in each volume," said a spokesperson from the National Library of France, the four books include the 1862-1863 book of the Royal Horticultural Society, two volumes of Edward Hayes' "The Ballads of Ireland" from 1855, and an 1856 bilingual anthology of Romanian poetry by Henry Stanley, the list of potentially hazardous titles was put together by the Poison Book Project. The initiative is run by researchers from the University of Delaware in collaboration with Delaware's Winterthur Museum,

photograph Leeds City Council, also another deadly volume was found closer to home, My Own Garden: The Young Gardener's Yearbook was published in 1855 and has a vivid green cover, senior librarian Rhian Isaac discovered the book while cross-referencing the library's collection against the Poison Book Project's global database of known toxic texts, I wonder how many more volumes of death are lurking out there in your local library? I jest, Allie Alvis, a rare book collections cataloguer for Washington, D.C., book dealer Type Punch Matrix and a former special collections reference librarian at the Smithsonian Libraries, has researched books containing arsenic dating back to the 17th century stated that: "We are not aware of any cases of anyone getting seriously ill from handling a book like this," she said. "We just want to make people aware of the potential hazards so that we can avoid any tragedy ever happening from one of these books." the article is here.

Not Quite As Famous As The Eiffel Tower,

but pretty close, 

photograph Dietmar Rabich via Wikimedia Commons, the sails of the Windmill located in Paris's 18th arrondissement, made from wood and metal have come to be a tourist destination in the city, according to the Moulin Rouge's Instagram post, windmill sails have been turning on the building for 135 years, since its opening, but they gave out, 

photograph  © Benoit Tessier, Reuters, the collapsed sails were reportedly rebuilt 20 years ago to make them lighter and were checked every two months, Raphaël, a local resident, told Le Parisien it was “quite upsetting to see the windmill without its sails – it’s a symbol of Pigalle and of all Paris”. André Duval, the front-of-house manager in the 1980s and a neighbour for 50 years, was equally shocked, “Paris without its windmill is like Paris without the Eiffel Tower,” he said, as it happens we nearly went to the Molin Rouge way back in March 2018, 

but we ended up here, 

in the Lido de Paris,

and what a show it was! back to the windmill, the Paris police chief, Laurent Nuñez, confirmed that no one had been hurt, “safety architects” had been dispatched to the scene, and there was no risk of further collapse, may the sails soon be back and turning.

Crikey!

Saturday has raced around again, 

I just do not know where the time goes, Diana had just left for work, so I decided to look at the Venus fly traps, the first one I was letting the flower stalk grow, 

and looking carefully, 

I noticed a few new traps growing, 

but unfortunately the one next door, 

had a couple of traps that were going black, I am guessing that is not a good sign! but again a couple of new traps were appearing,

this one is going great guns, it now has 7 traps growing on long leaves I guess they are called, 

this is the same plant when I bought it, no long stems at all, 

the flower spike on this one is growing well, 

the flowers just starting to open, looking at my e-mails I had received a nice photograph from Jeff, 

it was taken 9 years ago to the day last Friday, from left to right, myself, Brian and Jeff, we were sat at the bar in Thepprasit market, many thanks Jeff for the photograph, also looking forward to meeting up again, next I decided to try and make one of our photographs have a look like it had been taken using the Autochrome process, 

I decided on this one of Diana when we went to Kew Gardens for one of the many orchid shows, above the photograph straight out of the camera,

I changed it to a black & white,

going back to the colour photograph, I added a little haze and darken the corners,

added a touch of pastel shades,

and took some colour out, 

in this one I tried a bokeh look,

and then change to plain black & white,

next a slight sepia tone, 

and then a full sepia tone, and what about the Autochrome look I was trying for? I just could not duplicate the effect, still it was great fun playing the photograph in the afternoon, then time for my evening read and a sherry, 

the Eye nearly finished, 

for my meal tonight bangers & mash,

'Cheers!', then feet up for,

 Blade Runner, the Harrison Ford version, which I thoroughly enjoyed, although at the time it was not well received,

next the epic How the West Was Won, an all star cast included Carroll Baker, Lee J. Cobb, Henry Fonda, Carolyn Jones, Karl Malden, Gregory Peck, George Peppard, Robert Preston, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart, Eli Wallach, John Wayne and Richard Widmark. The supporting cast features Brigid Bazlen, Walter Brennan, David Brian, Ken Curtis, Andy Devine, Jack Lambert, Raymond Massey as Abraham Lincoln, Agnes Moorehead, Harry Morgan as Ulysses S. Grant, Thelma Ritter, Mickey Shaughnessy, Harry Dean Stanton, Russ Tamblyn and if you were quick you would have seen Lee Van Cleef playing one of the bad guys, of course, all giving great performances as one would expect, also as it was recorded in true three-lens Cinerama with the according three-panel panorama projected onto an enormous curved screen, the scenes were just so impressive, during the film Diana arrived home so we settled down and continued to watch the film until we were both tired and we were then off to bed.

Smoke Rings,

are with us once again, 

photograph Artkraft Strauss Archive, on the 22nd. of this month I made a post about smoking volcano rings, and then today I saw this, smoke rings from a cigarette advertising campaign,

found on Reddit, 

apparently according to the blurb, and I quote:

"In 1941 a billboard was installed that marked one of the most well knows advertising campaigns in history; Camel cigarettes. This billboard was apart of Times Square’s history for 26 long years. The billboard displayed a man blowing smoke toward his audience with “Camel” gleaming in bright lights, for two and a half decades the Camel Cigarette was advertised with two novel billboards that were so clever they easily caught the attention of the passing public. Known as spectaculars, these billboards blew the illusion of a giant smoke ring every four seconds. Steam from a piston-driven diaphragm was forced out of a hole, and this mimicked a person smoking. The spectacular most often photographed was located in New York City's Times Square at 44th Street and Broadway. Some consider this Camel billboard the most famous of all outdoor advertising signs", 

what a neat way to draw attention to your product, as it happens Camel were the cigarettes of my choice when I was on 3 - 4 packs a day, before having a bet with Alf, Hi Alf, that I could not give up smoking for 1 year, the loser to donate the winnings to MERCY Pattaya, a charity for street kids, I stopped there and then, after a year of not smoking Alf honoured his bet, and gave the charity 10,000 baht as agreed, 

the charity was chosen after the death of Steve Blumenthal, whose favorite the MERCY charity was, as it happens I made a couple of posts about Steve, here and here, in the years that followed a total of over 200,000 baht was donated to the charity by friends of Steve and the TQ2 crowd.

I Had No Idea Things Like This Existed,

I have read that it is a good idea to leave a radio, or better still the television on, 

when you are out of the house to deter burglars, of course running a television is a cost, especially a big screen one, but I was still amazed at how many of these lights that give the look of a television on in your home are on offer, I just looked at one page of TV simulators with flashing LED that had 36 of them on the page, and there were more pages! I have to ask the question to burglars, 'do they work?' happily I do not know any burglars to ask, but it would be interesting to know.

Diana Was On Late Shift Today,

so we had a lazy day,

starting with hard fried eggs on baked beans on toast, 'Cheers!", with a mug of Rosy Lee, 

after Diana left for work I did my exercises and showered, next I gave the aquarium a huge spring clean, and it needed it! in the evening time for my evening meal, but first continue my read of Private Eye, 

 for my meal tonight a chicken, bacon and leek pie, 

'Cheers!', this time with a red wine,

next out to the number 54 bus stop and into town,

changing buses at the war memorial for number 227, 

I was soon here, this week meeting Steve at the Moon & Stars, the place was packed, I ended up standing for the first pint, then a table became free shortly before Steve arrived, we chatted away, 

as it happens Steve had watched all of the Mr. Bates Vs the Post Office, so we had a chat about how despicable the senior management at the post office really are, after saying our farewells we made a move for our homes, Diana had beaten me home so it was feet up for the last part of Mr Bates vs The Post Office, it was amazing how unfeeling the upper management of the Post Office were, they knew there were problems, but totally failed to act letting innocent people go to prison, and worse still the management are still dragging their feet, only yesterday this headline and I quote:

“Post Office inquiry latest: Former executive accused of 'blatant lie' - as barrister loses patience at scandal inquiry. Angela van den Bogerd returned to the inquiry for a second day of evidence over failures that led to sub-postmasters being wrongly convicted of theft and fraud.”

yesterdays article is here, the Post Office should be thoroughly ashamed of itself but it is not, the management still refuse as of yesterday to hand over crucial documents, and I bet not a single person from the Post Office management will spend a day in jail, despite the fact faulty computer software resulted in some 230 post office workers being imprisoned on false charges of theft and fraud, thousands of others were accused of similar misdeeds, as the programme finished we were off to bed.