Under A Spreading Chestnut-tree,

The village smithy stands,

The smith, a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands;

And the muscles of his brawny arms

Are strong as iron bands,

you may recognise the open of The Village Blacksmith by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807–1882, and whilst there are still blacksmiths alas there are virtually no Chestnut trees for him to be under, which is amazing when it was reported that in America there were estimated to be 4 billion trees spreading in dense canopies from Maine to Mississippi and Florida, the loss of these trees was reported in The Bismarck Daily Tribune in 1920, the paper estimated that the value of the trees was $400,000,000 as recently as a decade before, but what caused the decline of so many trees? It was in fact a fungus, imported from Asia, the blight began in the 1890s the trees are “technically extinct,” according to The American Chestnut Foundation, but there is hope, some scientists are crossing American chestnuts with Chinese chestnut trees, which are resistant to the blight, others are infecting trees with other viruses to kill the blight another approach is to sequence the DNA of the American chestnut and the fungus that causes blight, in part to guarantee that any trees reintroduced into the wild are truly blight resistant, the problem in the wild being that the trees when found seldom reach maturity before dyeing, and if you do find one on one of your walks or travels, have a look here to identify it, amazing that something as small as a fungus can bring down a whole forest.

In So Many Films,

CGI, computer generated graphics is used,

 but in some films there still has to be an actual building or landscape, albeit in miniature, like the one above from Golden Eye,

 or this one from the The Lord of the Rings trilogy – 2001 to 2003,

 bigger still work on Minas Tirith for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,

 there is not really a Grand Budapest Hotel, but there are some that might have influenced Wes Anderson’s hotel design in the Oscar-winning The Grand Budapest Hotel, having seen the film many times, the ideas for the hotel are in all of these at the above link,

 Superman Returns,

and of course the Harry Potter series – 2001 to 2011, for a look at some of the other film models that have been used by studios have a look here for a few more.

First Thing,

to the veterinary surgery with Mariana,

 which took some time, not removing the stitches, which went well, in three days we can remove the dressing and the kittens do not have to wear cones anymore, what took the time was crossing the railway line, a train stopped on the level crossing with its last carriage blocking the crossing, if it had gone just one carriage length more all would have been well, but there it is, back to Mariana the vets fee today was again 100 baht to remove the stitches and re-dress the wound, looking at the kittens vaccination books they are all due back in two weeks time for some more injections, then that should be it for the next year, in the late afternoon we were off to the Thepprasit Road weekend night market, the market shrine in-between the two main buildings looking stunning in the low sunlight,

 looking towards Jomtien slight cloud,

 zooming in the sky turning grey,

 and quite a bit of cloud looking inland,

 opposite the bar this evening one stall selling clothes,

 no work on the steelworks since our last visit, or so I thought,

 a quick look at one of the fresh fruit stalls,

  strawberries,

 with fresh cream, yummy!

 the stall holders hard at work,

 there were a few customers in the pet section,

 the Discus shop had a number of small fish for sale,

 as well as crayfish and shrimps,

 I stopped by at the pet store, we were fine for kittens food, but I bought a nail clipper for them, watching the vet use one that the kittens claw goes through seemed a lot easier to use than the nail clippers that we use,

 one of the markets cats,

 I made my way to the petting stall,

 where a goat,

 was decorated I guess for the Chinese New Year which was today, 

 sunset over the market,

 when I took the first picture of the steelworks I did not see any changes, but now looking up the steelworks has a roof, so work continues, 

 arriving at the bar Jim and Brian were already there,

 the coconut juice seller on the downhill slope slows,

 to make the turn into the aisle,

followed by this seller,

 there was only one stall opposite the bar,

 but later another group arrived at the vacant space,

 at first I thought it was a beauty treatment stall,

 the girls got ready for a few pictures, 

 just one more,

 come on girls, smile please! by the way the stall was selling nose jobs for 9,900 apparently,

 after saying our goodbyes to Jim and Brian, we made our way home,

where the aroma of a delicious beef stew awaited us, we watched the BBC's Bargain Hunt, each week the Red team takes on the Blue team in a bargain hunt, both teams have £300 and one hour at a fair to buy antiques which they have to sell at auction, hopefully making money into the bargain, and each team has its own expert to guide them, also on Friday it is the time of reckoning for the two experts that have travelled in the UK every day for a week, buying antiques and then sell them all on Friday at auction, any profits go to charity, the show is the Antiques Road Trip, and great fun it is too, we rounded off the evening with a couple more from Game of Thrones and with that we were off to bed.

I Have Been Reading About Mysteries,

of the First World War,

and came across the story of a petrol hoarder, a Hungarian tinsmith by the name of Béla Kiss, off to war he went, all went well but as the war progressed his decision to hoard petrol before the war now made sense to the townspeople, they with his housekeeper opened the first barrel, but it did not contain petrol, it contained alcohol, with a preserved body inside! from the article,

'A search of Kiss’ property revealed 24 dead bodies, 23 women and a man, who had been strangled and pickled in alcohol. Further investigation uncovered a secret room and stacks of letters between Kiss and 74 different women. Police discovered that he had defrauded countless women and had even been taken to court. They issued an arrest warrant for Kiss. He was almost apprehended in a Serbian hospital in October of 1916, but escaped at the last minute.

From there, Kiss vanished. Rumours circulated about a French Foreign Legion soldier who used his alias (Hoffman) and boasted about strangling people). Another alleged sighting occurred in New York City. But Béla Kiss’ fate – and his story in general – remains one of the more sinister mysteries of World War One. It’s also likely that not all of his victims were found',

a likeness of Béla Kiss, he has also been the depicted in a film, The Kiss of a Killer, not my sort of film, but I am sure Diana would love it! one has to ask if he had not gone of to war, how many other victims would have shared the same fate? for a fuller version of the murders have a look here.

What A Stunning Picture,

taken early this morning,

as NASA launched an experiment to measure nitric oxide in the polar sky from the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska, staff photographer Jamie Adkins captured this amazing picture.

Keeping To An Amazing Picture Theme,

this one below looks,

so unreal it has to be true, and it is, normally when ice forms there are small air bubbles or other imperfections that make it visible, but just occasionally bubbles or other impurities do not form, so it does indeed look like Andy Poineau of Boyne City, Michigan has been Photoshopped, but he has not, the 63-year-old architect was pictured on Lake Charlevoix on his Facebook page, on January 16, Andy Poineau managed to draw the attention of his online friends, some of which couldn’t help sharing it on their own accounts. Eventually, one of the photos was picked up by the Facebook page of Physics-Astronomy.com, where it was shared over 70,000 times, that was only the beginning, as soon the photo made the front page of Reddit, and was featured on various major news sites, Poineau’s phone started ringing, and before he could realise what was going on, he was doing phone interviews with the likes of USA Today, “It’s gotten so many views, I just never knew how fast something could go like this,” the 63-year-old man said. “I am completely blown away by this whole explosion, it’s hard to tell how thick it is by looking at it,” Poineau told Petoskey News. “I first threw a big rock on it and it didn’t do anything, but it was creepy because I didn’t want to walk out there too far. It was a little scary. That’s why I had the shovel with me, I was using it to make sure the ice was OK.” I still keep thinking the picture has been 'doctored' but by all accounts it has not, an amazing picture.

Yesterday I Had A Telephone Call,

from Jack Levy,

 our BUPA bill was waiting, we called into pay it, 112,000 baht later we were almost on our way, when we were told the house contents and second motorcycle insurance renewals were waiting to be sent, so we paid them as well,

 next stop Friendship for a few bits and pieces, 

 also I called into the kitchen supply store next door, we wanted to pick up some round ice cube moulds, round ice cube?it does not make sense said like that, but the mould make ice in spheres, the middle size we have was out of stock, but they did have the mini and large size spheres so we bought two of each,

on the way back we stopped for a ice tea and coffee take away at the rear of Friendship, in the afternoon we let the kittens out of their room sans cones, by now their wounds from being spayed and neutered were healing well, we kept them out of the living room since their operations as there were so many things to catch their cones on, they went berserk rushing around at breakneck speed everywhere, then went to sleep,

after our evening meal it was feet up for three more episodes of Game of Thrones, each episode more compiling than the last, as midnight approached we were then off to bed.