This Is A New One For Me,

I have heard of chastity belts,

but this is the first chastity bra I have seen.

When I First Looked At This Advertisement From Panasonic,

there was something strangely familiar about it,

 and then it struck me, no not the wave, where I had seen it before,

it was of course based on one of Hokusai's woodblock prints, it belongs to the series 'Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji' (Fugaku sanjūrokkei), this one perhaps the most famous of them all titled, 'Under the Wave, off Kanagawa' (Kanagawa oki nami-ura), having said there were thirty six views, created between 1826 and 1833, there were eventually forty six, ten more being added later, thirty six were included in the original publication and due to their popularity, 10 additional prints were added after, but what a great way to create interest in one of Panasonic's products, in this case the crispy lettuce and an eggplant in an ad for refrigerators. 

The Problem,

after a 2 year study,

 the conception that people who had a few over the limit would slowly wander nearer to train tracks when they were waiting for a train and fall onto the tracks appears to be untrue,

the study group of data scientists at the West Japan Railway Company have found that ninety percent of falls are the result of people in a drunken stupor, getting up from a bench they were sitting on and walking straight off the platform, only ten percent of drunks gradually drifted towards the ledge, while an outstanding majority briskly walked off the ledge as if they knew exactly where they were going, the results of course surprised everyone, after reviewing the results, JR West is now considering a sweeping reorientation of all platform benches, they have already rolled out a few testing sights to see if a drop on falls can be measured, incidents involving people falling off the platform have been on the rise in recent years, which is what prompted the study, according to the MILT, in 2013 there were 221 incidents, a figure that has doubled over the last 10 years and of that, alcohol-related incidents rose 4-fold, I wonder if British Rail or what ever it is now called might be interested in these results?

The Day Slipped Past,

then just as we were getting ready for our bar-b-q,

  the heavens opened up, so we had to cook and eat indoors,

our feast for the evening,

 the normal mussels we buy were out of stock, the ones available were these from Chile, a little smaller than usual, but just as tasty,

 'Cheers!',

 the fish enjoyed a few extra feeds as we ate our meal,

 next course garlic bread,

 then on to our main course, rice, pork crackling and a egg dish for Diana,

 pork chop, and mash for myself, of course as soon as we finished the meal it stopped raining, so we made a move outside to listen to some music as we normally do, I had put hundreds of songs on to my telephone, there were still so many that we had not listen to, I should have mentioned that earlier we had been watching some episodes of Poirot, so keeping to the mood of that period and a little earlier I put on a series of songs from Dance Band Days, both volumes 1 & 2, some of them brought back so many memories especially this one by Henry Hall & His Orchestra, recorded in 1943, 

 The Teddy Bear's Picnic, my father changed the words slightly, he was a good singer as it happened or it seemed so to me back in 1953 or 54, unlike my mother who could not hold a note and being German had an accent, oh how we enjoyed singing the song it started like this,

'if Ve go down in the Voods today',

laughter all around as Mum had terrible trouble pronouncing the letter W, then a few songs further on one by one of my favourite bands of the time, Harry Roy and his band, with vocals by Billy Currie, the story of poor Mini on her first night out with her boyfriend, 

the song, She had to go and lose it at the Astor, I should also mention that Harry Roy also sung a song that at the time we all took great delight in joining in,

Salome, great catchy music and words, you must remember way back in those days there was no television, just a radio and if you were lucky your parents, (in my case grandparents) had a record player with some of the records like the ones above to listen and sing along to, strangely enough the picture above on the music cover could, with a few less people in it, been us, happy days,

I mentioned that during the day we watched a couple from Poirot,

and after our musical extravaganza we came inside to watch 2 more episodes of The Curse of Oak Island, an intriguing mystery for sure, by now it was well after midnight so we were then off to bed.

We Both Enjoy Going Fishing,

as does 22-year-old butcher Luke Cartridge,

 but unfortunately he broke his left leg during a night out in Newcastle last November, so what to do? answer buy a mobility scooter and attach the boat to it!

he bought the second hand scooter for £120, so off he and his girlfriend Natasha went with her walking along side, Luke said: 'there’s a handle on the back of the scooter that I was able to chain the boat to, We set out with Natasha walking alongside me and knew it would take a while because it’s pretty slow anyway even when it’s not towing a rowing boat',

'the traffic started building up behind me and I suddenly realised the were traffic jams stretching way back, most of the drivers were okay about it, most of them were laughing and quite a few got out to take pictures, on the way back the police pulled me over and asked for a word, “They said I wasn’t doing anything wrong but that I was causing traffic hold ups", they asked me to park my boat somewhere nearby as it was getting dark so I left it at my mum’s, Me and Natasha only wanted a day fishing we didn’t think it would cause so much fuss, I wouldn’t care but we never caught a thing!' and who said going fishing is boring? what a great day out.

When I First Looked At This Picture,

I thought I was looking at a 3D rendition,

 where the objects would be filled with colour at a later stage, but it was not, using thin wooden dowels and a bit of glue, artist Janusz Grünspek creates scale replicas of everyday objects that from a distance appear like line drawings, dining room tables and chairs, power tools, clocks and paper racks are all there,

and even a candle chandelier are formed from delicately cut and bent wooden pieces that mimic the form of digitally-rendered wireframes, amazing.

Now If We Were Going To Buy Another Car,

this is a great reason for buying this one,

the manufacturer guarantees the paint finish for the life of the car, which would be great news for people like me, after just 6 or so years my truck needed a complete respray where the sun had totally ruined the paint work, less than six years further on and it needs another respray, the paint has failed again, but had I bought one of these the resprays would have been free! the paint is a finish that's not quite matte and not exactly satin, it is a textured exterior paint, developed over the course of four years and protected by an international patent, the paint will initially be offered in only two hues: Ice Grey and Ice Silver, both offer a slightly sandpaper-ish tactile treat that's no accident: the lacquer is infused with fine particles of silica (aka sand) and micro-beads of polyamide, so if in June when this finish is available on the new Peugeot 208 and we were in the market for a new car this one would be given, because of it's lifetime paint work guarantee, a place near the top of our wish list.