Daisy

How now brown cow! She was  standing in a high meadow at Fulwood Head in Sheffield's southern suburbs. When you look closely at that snout with its nostrils, doesn't it look something like an alien creature? Perhaps that's just in my crazy imagination...

At first I just thought the brown cow with the misty green suburbs beyond would make a decent picture and then when I spotted the grass still in its mush, I thought, "Zoom in!" and the top picture is the result.

I'm rather pleased with it. Take me to your leader Daisy!

Nightmare

On the left Linda Bolanos and on the right Richard Field. They were a couple and co-incidentally they were both hospital anaesthetists in Boston, Massachusetts. To be an anaesthetist is a great achievement. All that learning, all that training, all that responsibility. An anaesthetist is a vital cog in almost every hospital operation.

Naturally, anaesthetists are well-rewarded. In my view, they deserve to be well-paid. After all they are dealing directly with other human beings' lives. They are not property developers or insurance brokers. Anaesthetists are people who, in work terms, really matter..

I don't know about Richard and Linda's past history of love and life but they had found each other and were planning to get married. They shared a luxury apartment in Boston  and no doubt they had nice cars, nice holidays, nice friends. In short they were really starting to live "The American Dream". 

But last Friday the dream died. Instead, they experienced "The American Nightmare". A thirty year old fellow called Bampumim Teixeira, intent on robbery,  got into their apartment and killed them. Before the killing Richard was able to text a friend this message - "Gunman in the house".

But it appears that Richard and Linda did not die by shooting. They had been tied up and their throats had been cruelly slit. It is further reported that Teixeira had scrawled a message of retribution on a wall inside the apartment. What retribution? What had they done wrong? Perhaps Teixeira was inflamed with jealousy because he could see  with his own eyes how close his victims were to "The American Dream" and how far away he would always be. In his rage, he even tore up photos of the unfortunate couple.

May they rest in peace.

Philip

Last week, Prince Philip, the Queen's husband and consort, announced that he was giving up his schedule of royal duties. After all, he is 95 years old so I don't think that anyone could possibly begrudge him stepping back from the limelight.

Here in England, he is as familiar to the populace as the rising sun. Nearly all of us  have "known" him all our lives.

Through the decades, he has variously attracted respect, ridicule, affection and laughter. He is famous for his gaffes. Many of them have been picked up accidentally on nearby microphones. The list is long and they point to a man who is to political correctness what hounds are to foxes. As I present a small selection of Prince Philip's most noteworthy gaffes, I must acknowledge that this post was largely inspired by yesterday morning's "Sunday Round-Up" over at "Shooting Parrots".  Thank you Ian!

Now, over to his royal highness:-

“You managed not to get eaten then?” To a British student who had trekked in Papua New Guinea, during an official visit in 1998.

“If you travel as much as we do you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort – provided you don't travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.” To the Aircraft Research Association in 2002.

“Do you still throw spears at each other?” Prince Philip shocks Aboriginal leader William Brin at the Aboriginal Cultural Park in Queensland, 2002.

“If it doesn't fart or eat hay, she isn't interested.” Of his daughter, Princess Anne.

“I thought it was against the law these days for a woman to solicit.” Said to a woman solicitor.

“What about Tom Jones? He's made a million and he's a bloody awful singer.” Response to a comment at a small-business lunch about how difficult it is in Britain to get rich.

“The problem with London is the tourists. They cause the congestion. If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion.” At the opening of City Hall in 2002.

“And what exotic part of the world do you come from?” Asked in 1999 of Tory politician Lord Taylor of Warwick, whose parents are Jamaican. He replied: “Birmingham.”

Amy

Normally, I don't really do heroes and heroines. The cult of celebrity has become an obnoxious sideshow in modern life, so that things that really matter are often smothered by tittle tattle about nobodies like the Kardashians.

However, over the past year or so I have become quite  a fan of an American political reporter called Amy Goodman. She heads up a show called "Democracy Now!" which puts a very different slant on political, social and environmental happenings - principally though not exclusively in The United States. I find it very refreshing.

This show is the obverse of "Fox News". It investigates police shootings, environmental disasters and of course shadows the latest moves of the Trump administration. Interviewees are given time to explain themselves properly because "Democracy Now!" isn't looking to muster trite soundbites. Instead, it seeks to get at the truth.

Amy Goodman has a calm, pleasant and dignified manner but underneath that you detect someone who is passionate about social and environmental justice. In her questioning she can be like a dog with a bone but she is always respectful of those she quizzes. 

"Democracy Now!" has taught me a lot about ordinary American life behind the gloss, putting a different slant on things. I usually watch it on our local TV channel - "Sheffield Live" but it is also available to view over the internet. Go here. To see the latest show go to "Daily Shows" on  the top bar.

Encore

Yesterday was a lovely day. Shirley was going shopping in Leeds with a friend so I  decided to drive out into Derbyshire specifically to take photographs of the bluebells in Lindop Wood. It is just south of the hamlet of Calton Lees on the Chatsworth Estate.

I discovered Lindop Wood's bluebells four or five years back when I was rambling in the area without a camera. Having very recently seen the bluebells in Sheffield's ancient Ecclesall Woods, I guessed correctly that they would also be out in Derbyshire.

You have to catch bluebells when they are blooming and that period of time doesn't last for long - two weeks at most. If you miss them you have to wait another year.

With my bad knee and a chest infection, I have not been feeling too well of late. But the walk to Lindop Wood and back to the car would be a under a mile. I could surely cope with that. 

I also took a few pictures of an old, open-sided barn and the cows that were loitering there waiting to be milked. And a few more pictures in Calton Lees itself. The blue paint indicates that the cottage belongs to Chatsworth House - ancestral home of the Dukes of Devonshire.

Bluebells

In Bluebell Time

They came back.

A haze of indigo, purple and violet blue

Swirling across that secret glade

Like morning mist 

Drifting the mottled shadows

Under gnarled and timeworn trees

Where invisible thrushes carolled

In the heart of those fairy woods.

And it was lovely and it was blue.

Tumbling down to the brook 

And all along the margins of the path.

I bent and held a single stem against my palm

Silently pledging no hurt or harm

To see them dangling like drops of rain

To see the blueness once again.

Yet they made no ringing or jingling sound

As they reclaimed their ancient ground.
What joy and truth was thereby found
To see the bluebells all around.

Pictures of bluebells in Ecclesall Woods, Sheffield
May 4th 2017

Excellence

Clint back home

As some of you may recall, my car is a silver Hyundai i20 named Clint. He was named after a chocolate bunny who is still incarcerated in a Queensland fridge. I had hoped that naming my car after that bunny would stir worldwide pressure to get the other Clint out of his icy prison. But so far it hasn't worked. Go here.

Anyway, back to my Clint. Owing to a driver malfunction, Clint's bottom was slightly crunched when he reversed into a Vauxhall Corsa. The upshot was that I had to activate car insurance for the first time in ten years.

You always feel apprehensive about getting insurance companies to keep their promises but in this instance everything went like clockwork.

I contacted my insurance company and spent ten minutes on the telephone talking with Cassy who resides in Glasgow, Scotland. As I attended university in Scotland I had minimal trouble deciphering her thick Scottish brogue.

Last Thursday morning, two days after the accident,  I had a phone call from the car repair people based in Wombwell near Barnsley. They asked if it would be okay to pick up my car later that day. I agreed and a couple of hours later a car transporter arrived to take Clint away.

On Friday morning, the car repair people phoned me back to say that the damage had been assessed and work was about to commence. They estimated that the car would be back with me today, a week after being picked up.

This morning we had another phone call from them asking if it was still okay to return Clint today. Then they said he'd be back home an hour later. And so Clint came home, riding proud and silver in the May sunshine aboard the Green Flag car transporter..

The repair is faultless and not only that, the car repair people gave Clint a thorough clean and even blacked his tyres so he looks like new again.

I had to communicate with four employees of the car repair service and they were all pleasant, polite and professional. They kept all of their promises and made the process quite painless. I have been most impressed and I intend to send them a letter of praise - much nicer to write than a letter of complaint. If only all services we tap into were as efficient and professional as this one has been. Marvellous!

Clint's left buttock - now healed