Greedy

Yesterday a professional competitive eater from Chicago ate 444 chicken wings in 30 minutes in a competition in Philadelphia. Can imagine he was a lot of fun to be around a few hours later!

And who could forget National Hot Chocolate Day. Sounds like a good idea to me!

Into swapping? In this case seeds! Get out there and swap those seeds as it is International Swap Seeds Day.

                                                   Airplanes or was a bird this way walking?

Everybody has their own agenda within the EU. But it is sad to see the (socialist) leader of Greece threaten to veto further sanctions against Putin's regime. Which are an attempt to put an end to the terrible violence in the Ukraine.

He has also demand Greece be given a clean slate in regards to its loans. The pension scheme they have is generous whilst data points to the UK being 21st on a list of 27 nations with a poor pension scheme, and Poland with one of the least generous pension systmes relative to average earnings.

This is of course a complex problem. But it boils down to whether both the EU and Greece should rethink their relationship.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2929810/Berner-Mountain-pup-slips-slides-icy-hill-owner-films-slow-motion-mesmerising-results.html#v-4017181079001http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2929810/Berner-Mountain-pup-slips-slides-icy-hill-owner-films-slow-motion-mesmerising-results.html#v-4017181079001

A visit to the cinema. On the menu is Birdman with Michael Keaton. A washed up actor who was once famous for playing an iconic super hero. The jury is out.

A visit to the cinema also includes buying a ticket. A matter of a 30 seconds, maximum 40 seconds. Then the food. Popcorn, sweet or savoury, small, medium or large. Served by dancing girls? Slushy, which colour, which size and which way would you like your straw to curl. I have a suggestion where they can put their curly straws!

Not enough. Hot dog. Made from the lips and unmentionable areas of the poor long dead animal. Mustard or ketchup?Who cares!

Balancing everything precariously one ventures into the cinema to watch the film. I fear not. More like going into the cinema to listen to slurping of drinks, munching of chocolate and sucking down of popcorn with the mouth-watering constitency of damp cardboard.

Should be good;-)

The Black Keys - Next Girl [Official Music Video]

Miss You - Rolling Stones

Inane Answering Message Day

National Inane Answering Message Day...no really, it is! Go and liven up those dull messages with something funky.

And something if not healthy for my heart, then at least close to it:-) National croissant day.

                                                            Beautifully frosted trees

                                                       Chains frozen in place.

Arthole. Apparently you can have your anus cast in bronze. Now that would look beautiful hanging on the wall. Not.

A woman in the UK believes it is possible to live healthily and feed yourself on 80pence a day, which is 5.60 pounds (where's the key for pounds?). Which is about 31zł in Poland.
Is this possible? The diet includes carrots, rice and onions. But where is the joy?

In Poland it is called owsianka and in the British Isles it is called porridge. Cooked and served with milk it is warming and tasty . Grandfather took his with a pinch of salt, and in Indonesia it was served with red kidney beans. The oats from which it is made are a good source of dietary fibre for one and all.
When largesse know no bounds it is wonderful with raisins. These wonderful small packets of flavour contain 72 percent sugar and are high in anti-oxidants. But most importantly they are very tasty and suit porridge down to the ground. Enjoy and smacznego:-)

                                                        Retro street lighting

If your not coming you can telephone, text, email, send a smoke signal,  pigeon post or use mirrors. But say something, please!

Tired, bored, sad or just plain bloody minded and humpy. Don't worry for today is Curmudgeons Day. Revel in you curmudgeonliness;-)

Blue Oyster Cult - (Don't Fear) The Reaper 1976 [Studio Version]cowbell ...

Annoying. ''Would you play that song, you know the one you played last night''. So you play the song. They nod their head and settle in to listen to this new tune. But what do you do? Familiarity means you start to hum, and then sing fitfully.
They look at you. You stop. Annoying.

A Russian Bear, which can carry nuclear cruise missile, wandered from its normal course yesterday just south of Bournemouth. The RAF escorted them away from their intrusive flight pattern.
If they want to visit the lovely old and wonderfully fun British seaside they should of just said:-) A plate of cockles and whelks and a pint of best bitter have been put aside for them, for when they return;-)

Nothing beats that wonderful dull clang as a pair of  bespectacled people kiss.

Want to be loved by one and all in your vicinity?  Grab your Kazoo and enjoy National Kazoo Day.

Hey, love technology? Go and thank a Plug In Developer...go on, you know you want to:-)

Today is also Fun at Work Day...what morons think these thing up? Have fun ladies and gentlemen!

Today is Data Privacy Day...are you listening Facebook and Mr Government snooper. Hands off!

Frozen drain beauty

                                        Beauty and chaotic form on a frozen drain.

Tablet, laptop, ipod, ipad notebook... how we used to reach for a book. Now we reach for a charger and an electrical socket. Plug into the system, be the system.

Stock photography by Douglas Scott at Alamy

Whales and humans

Irony.

Sperm whales live in pods. Pods are made up of between three up to twenty whales.  The pods are comprised of adult females and young whales.  The females help each other in feeding and tending to the young and offering protection to the calves of other mothers.

Young adult males leave the pod at around six years of age. They then live singly with other male whales. They return to the waters of their birth in their late twenties. Even then it is only fleeting and the male forms no deep bonds within the pod.

The whaling society of Nantucket aped this life pattern, on the very animal on which they hunted. The men were at home for three or four months, and then they went to sea for anything between two to three years. The women tended the young and ran the businesses and maintained the daily running of the community.

Both female whales and women in Nantucket ran their affairs in the long term absence of males.

It's early morning. Builders know this. Tap tap tap. hammer, drill. This continues just long enough to wake those foolish enough to slumber on a day off from the daily rate race.Tap tap tap, hammer and drill.
 And then, as if by magic, they stop, finish, cease their labours. All is quite, all is peaceful. There misssion has been completed. Make enough noise and declare that we are up and working. Then peacefully retreat for tea and a sarnie.
Wonderful.

Just finished Suspended Sentences by Patrick Modiano. And now full steam ahead into In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick. The true tale (no pun intended) that inspired Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

A French judge has stopped inspired and probably vegetarian, jumper knitting parents from naming their child Nutella. He obviously thought this fad had spread far enough!

Food. Pure natural healthy food. Like raspberries? Of course you do! Especially when they are flavoured with castoreum. This lovely substance comes from the scent gland of a beaver. Give me more beaver flavourings! Yummy.

Have  a  magnet? Good. Hang it over your cereal and you will see tiny parts of the contents of your bowl move. Why? The cereal contains tiny iron filings, minute iron particles. Enjoy your breakfast! Now where is my porridge, that must be pure and wholesome. Or is it?

Dan Auerbach - Real Desire

BATZZ in the belfry - Fade To Grey

Whispered Words (Pretty Lies). Dan Auerbach.

The Black Keys - Sons of Anarchy HD

Thin Lizzy- Cowboy Song

Apparently the human body is made from the following elements in these approximate proportions: 65% oxygen, 18% carbon, 10% hydrogen, 3% nitrogen, 2% calcium, 1% phosphorus, and 1% of other elements  such as potassium, sodium, iron and zinc.

I must be lacking a few elements today!

When coffee is not coffee

 Yesterday we ventured into the world of coffee, a dark world full of snobbery and disinformation. 

Naively we asked for a Cafe Latte. The waitress took the order and scuttled off to have this complicated order prepared. About 20 minutes later she returned and left the standard bland white cup and saucer in front of us.

We looked, we scooped back the froth, lightly sprinked with the merest dusting of something brown, And what did we find? Well, not much. Lurking at the bottom of the cup was milk, which is white, and so was the content of our cups. The waitress was asked if we could have some coffee in our coffee, and she tried valiantly to argue that it was a Cafe Latte! But we pointed out that it should actually, and here's the important thing, it should actually have some coffee in it!

The drink was made again and was brown, but still not very tasty, but at least brown with a smidgin of cheap coffee to taste.

According to the standard recipe for this complicated drink you require, ''1 1/3 cups hot freshly brewed dark roast espresso coffee''.

 

                                 Beauty in electrical modernity as it reaches out from a wall.

Corners are everywhere, look! there's one over there!  They sit silent, brooding and geometrically square. A fool is paced there, for all to ridicule when acting like an idiot at school.

A corner is dirty, for there accumulates everything, dust, fluff and even the clothes lazy people wear.

Imagine a fathomless dark endless ocean , an expanse of seemingly infinite water in staggering volumes. For instance the total area for all the worlds’ oceans is by area, 361,9000,000 km 2 and by volume 1,335,000,000 km 3. Big in other words, very big. And in an ocean a turtle is swimming and doing whatever turtles do to pass the time as they glide through the depths, maybe thinking of lady turtles or where his next meal will come from. Now we don’t know if it is a 900kg leatherback measuring up to 200cm, or one of its smaller brethren, but definitely a turtle. Well, anyway there it is swimming along minding its own business, dreaming of whatever turtles dream of, whilst at the same time somebody unknown to us, and for reasons unknown, too, chooses to throw a life preserver into the water, whether it is an emergency, we know not, just for fun, possibly or simply for the stimulation of seeing something rubbery floating on the ever moving sea, we simply do not know. And at that very exact moment, that very same second, whilst bobbing about on the boundless Main, our turtle, which just happens to be passing, pokes his or her head out of the briny and finds a life preserver wrapped around its scrawny neck. We are talking very, very, very slim odds.
The     These are the odds of you or I being born so enjoy your weekend!

 

So you waited for it, prayed for it, sought it with every fibre of your being, like a raft adrift on a sea of boredom, that stretched in a seemingly endless fashion over the week's horizon, seeks refuge from land. Friday, yes Friday. Land ho!

Derived from Frīġedæġ, which meant the 'day of frigg'. And and then the dimensions of space and time change in some imperceptible way. The weekend flies by, and then it is Monday again. So enjoy your Friday while it lasts.

Nym - Cansaço

Nym - Et Moi

                                                                 Going my way?

Finding the screw top on a bottle fitted loosely? Best solution. Tighten the aforesaid screw top excruciatingly tight to the bottle. Later watch as somebody tries to open it.

According to that band of happy folk at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the world has taken a step closer towards destruction and the end of civilization.

We are now at three minutes to midnight, so to speak!

Global warming and the proliferation of nuclear weapons is leading us to our doom. Time for another bowl of porridge methinks. 

Now let me think, where did I put my tin hat?

?

 It's official ladies. A German judge ruled today that men do have the right to urinate standing up.
This is apparently a serious matter in Germany and there are even red signs forbidding men from peeing from a standing position!

What is more, the judge ruled men cannot be held accountable for any 'collateral damage' and presumably iffy smell. Glad to see the judiciary taking such serious matters in hand:-)

A report has claimed that McDonald's fries contain imethylpolysiloxane which for the non-chemistry people (me) is a type of silicone used in Silly Putty! That probably explains why they always stuck to my digestive tract when I ate them. Folks, please note the use of past tense!
 If that is not enough to get your taste buds drooling they also use a petrol-based chemical, namely tertiary butylhydroquinone. It just rolls of the tongue.
Smacznego - Enjoy your meal!

Stock photography by Douglas Scott at Alamy

It is fatal and unerringly effective in shattering your focus. What? The large piece of black coloured food, a remnant of a quickly digested meal. Maybe an olive? The result? One's eye is continually drawn to this one spot, this singular place in space and time. The speech of the speaker is lost to some indistinct background noise, a mere babble as everything focuses on an determining just what former piece of food is embedded between their teeth and gums.
''Im sorry, what were you saying?''

A thoroughly enjoyable film. Tres Bien!

Miejsce na ziemi - Un Place Sur La Terre

An absorbing French film, watched with Polish sub-titles and a real joy. Starring Benoit Poelvoorde and the lovely Ariane Labed. Disillusioned photograper witnesses a beautiful, gifted but depressed neighbour attempt to commit suicide. He comes to her aide and as she slowly recovers they start to form a bond.
Wonderful music and beautifully acted. Give it try, why not?

Intelligence  is the ability to adapt to change. Stephen Hawking 

So true;-)

Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try t make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. Stephen Hawking

But be careful not to trip over your laces!

Long invigorating walk today taking in a leisurely stroll around Fortress Boyen, which was built by between 1844-1856, for those of a historical persuasion. Mud free thanks to a chilly start to the day which was much appreciated. Later the walk encompassed a meandering stroll through the town and down to the ice-free lake, which was truly beautiful with the spring sunshine, no sorry I mean winter sunshine glinting of its surface. The final stop on the route was a visit to the inevitable Biedronka!

The haze is slowy burning away the night away and the old planet trundles majestically into another day.

                                                                Beauty in decay

                                                                           Great

A warm (punning) thank you goes to Global warming, whether due to natural events or to the endearing efforts of the selfless human race. The heating is switched off, sorry Mr Putin even less profit for your, but great for me! Mild, mild... mild I say! Not the weather, no..but Mild which is an Ale from Britain. 

It sits  patiently in a glass with  a dark colour and exudes a come drink me attitude and is about  3% to 4% in strength. Smooth and satisfying. 

Time to plunge back into Suspended Sentences by Patrick Modliano accompanied by coffee and an enormous chocolate cookie.

                              A truly hearty breakfast for Saturday

                                         Shining diamond encrusted planking and slate grey sky.

                                               27th December cold and grey but beautiful.

Entering the abode I was assailed by the entreaty to divest myself of the tired garb of the day, relax and enjoy the dish of the day. A combination of cocoa, sugar, flour, egg and devotion to the task in hand was handed to me after being warmed through for a few minutes. Wonderful to eat and the effort to prepare much appreciated.

Crazy weather day.....possibly with thanks to technology enhanced global warming...who knows! Bereft of snow which is terribly sad. Not. The temperature rose to  balmy 7 degrees. And wait, there's more. The sun burst through like spring flowers shrugging aside the impediment of snow to blossom and pour its rays down on us. A few hours later the heavens opened to the acompaniment of thunder! Wonderful.

Back online and loving it!