Quiztime

 

PLACES

Today's quiz is all about places. You are going to see five pictures of cities followed by five pictures of countries but where are they? As usual, the answers may be found in the "Comments" attached to this blogpost.

Cities...

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Countries...

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Confucius

We have all heard of Confucius but that wasn't his real name. His proper name was Kong Qiu. The Latinized version of his name was coined in the sixteenth century - long after Kong Qiu lived in this world. He was born in 551 BC and died in 479 BC. If you want to learn more about him, visit his page on Wikipedia.

Most people only know the name Confucius and we are also aware that he had some wise things to say as he reflected on life. Here are three of his typical sayings...

The three above are pretty well-known sayings but here are three recently discovered and unfamiliar quotes by the great man:-

Okay, I admit - I was just jesting. Why not have a go at making up your own amusing Confucius meme and leaving it in the Comments section. Remember, Confucius he say:- "Folk who do not leave funny Confucius quotes are boring old farts!"

Fatherhood

Zachary on the left and our son Ian on the right. The photograph was taken just yesterday afternoon. Zach was six months old this week. He's coming on nicely. If you look closely you can see that his first tooth has come through. He's a pretty physical little fellow, rolling and threatening to crawl. Naturally he is the apple of his parents' eyes. 

Ian will be forty years old this summer and Sarah, Zach's mother, is not far behind. I am sure that it crossed their minds, just a couple of years ago, that they might never be parents so having Zach has been a great blessing. He is much loved and well provided for.

I was thirty when Ian was born. Witnessing his birth in the delivery room at Nether Edge Hospital was perhaps the most joyous moment of my life. To see another human being coming into the world was so overwhelming that his gender meant nothing to me and I only realised he was male when the midwife in attendance announced, "You have got a beautiful baby boy!"

For almost forty years, I believe I have been a good father to Ian. There's no guidebook. You just have to go with your instincts. Of course it helped that I have a lovely wife who  has always been a devoted, caring and capable mother. Nursing is essentially a practical job in which panicking should be avoided and Shirley brought a lot of that practicality and common sense to her mothering role.

We won't get to see Zach again  until the middle of May when my whole family will descend upon a rather luxurious Portuguese villa just a stone's throw from the sea. Of course Zach will get to see his girl cousins again - including happy Margot who was born just nine days after him.

Sleepy

Poor Mr Trump. Spotted sleeping several times during his current trial in New York City. There he is above, faithfully captured by the court artist. Of course Mr Trump denies that he ever drifted off into dreamland and with typical infantile spite he has derided the work of the court artist who he claims has sought to ridicule him.

Ironically, Mr Trump has frequently referred to President Biden as "Sleepy Joe" but now the boot appears to be on the other foot. Dozy Donald will have to think of another name to call the president - for that is how it works with playground bullies.

I have a smidgen of sympathy for Mr Trump with regard to nodding off. There was a time when I never napped. The only time I slept was in bed - usually for an unbroken seven hours. However, now I frequently and reluctantly nod off  when I am sitting comfortably on one of our sofas in the evening. Before I know it, twenty minutes has just disappeared. I guess it's a sign of growing old.

When I sleep I dream of angels and acts of kindness, swimming towards sinking suns with a pod of dolphins or reliving childhood scenes. But what does Mr Trump dream about?  He's possibly a Roman emperor in a toga or a mega-rich business leader with a spotless record or Adolf Hitler stirring the masses from a balcony in Berlin: "Das ist ein vitch-hunt!"

Anyway, if you also refute the work of the court artist, here's another image of Mr Trump having forty winks during his trial.  This time it's a photograph and as we all know - the camera never lies. Does it? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

Crookedness

"Crookedness". I also considered the terms "Scamming" and "Mugging" for this blogpost's title. I have written about insurance companies before and how they try to push up premiums to the max without, apparently, being brought to heel by the law. Because they seem to be able get away with it scot-free,  they continue to do it. Here are three previous posts where I bang on about the very same subject - BANG! BANG! BANG!

From memory, here is the transcript of a phone call I made just this morning to the big, nationwide insurance company that currently  provides my car insurance:-

CHIBUZO Hello you are through to Chibuzo . How can I help you today?
PUDDING I want to talk about my new car insurance premium.
CHIBUZO Why? What seems to be the problem?
PUDDING Well I am quite shocked that it has increased a full 20% on last year's premium so I was wondering if there was any way of reducing it?
CHIBUZO The best I can do is to reduce it to £378.07
PUDDING Well that sounds a much more reasonable figure. And the insurance details remain exactly the same?
CHIBUZO Yes. Just the same. Do you wish to accept the new offer?
PUDDING Okay, I'll take it.
CHIBUZO I will send you the revised insurance details by e-mail.
PUDDING Will the previous automatic renewal be cancelled?
CHIBUZO Yes. No problem. Is there anything else I can do for you today?
PUDDING No but thanks for dealing with my issue so swiftly.
CHIBUZO No problem. Enjoy the rest of your day.
PUDDING Goodbye!

One of the things that surprised me about this phone call was that Chibuzo must have been able to get all my details up on screen just through my phone number. I did not have to read out my policy number nor spell my name - nothing like that.

It was also surprising that there was no need for a small battle of wills. Chibuzo caved in and offered the reduced premium immediately. Making that four minute call saved me exactly £26. So that is £26 (American: $32.35) in my pocket and not in the vaults of the insurance company.

I have had this kind of experience many times now and it is all so very wrong. Undoubtedly, some "customers" will pay increased bills without querying them - perhaps naively believing that legitimate insurance companies would never rip them off.

And if you are wondering about the illustration at the top, it concerns an old English nursery rhyme:-

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,

He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;

He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,

And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

George

Stained glass window in St George's Hall, Liverpool

Today is St George's Day. He is the patron saint of England. I have written about him before.

As far as I am concerned, St George has nothing to do with England. He was chosen as our patron saint by King Edward III (1312-1377). Apparently,  St George seemed to represent the ideal of chivalry but even in Edward III's time he was a semi-mythical character.

He never visited England and may have been a Roman military leader, mostly based in the eastern region of modern Turkey. His life story is uncertain. There are many half-truths and theories but for the life of me I cannot understand why he gained his legendary status. He was venerated in various parts of the middle east and of course the nation of Georgia is named after him. He is also the patron saint of Catalonia in Spain.

England deserves a saint from these islands  - pure and simple. If we can have a referendum about leaving The European Union we can surely have a referendum on who should be our patron saint. My money would be on Saint Cuthbert (634 - 687). He was  a real man  who did a lot of good in his lifetime and became  The Bishop of Lindisfarne. He is buried in Durham Cathedral.

I have devised a voting slip to be printed off and posted back by English people only. We don't want any Americans, Australians, Canadians, Irish, Germans, New Zealanders, Swedes, Welsh or Scots deciding who the replacement Patron Saint of England should be:-

The United States of America do not have a proper patron saint so it is about time those folks chose one. I would like to nominate Saint Barack after the 44th president or Saint Bob after Bob Dylan. Both would surely be very acceptable but being a limey I guess it is not really my place to even make a suggestion.

Ripper

In relation to my "Missing" blogpost in which I focused partly on The Yorkshire Ripper's marital home in Bradford, I received the following comment from Debbie Williams:-

"In 1980 I'd just started studying at Sheffield University. I still remember the fear we felt as The Ripper had murdered a student at Leeds University. The student union organised transport to take us back to our halls of residence and my parents paid for taxis, rather than let me walk home. We were jubilant and so relieved when Peter Sutcliffe was caught, frightening close to the University campus. Looking back, I wonder if Sutcliffe would have been caught sooner if most of his victims hadn't been prostitutes?"

I remember that time very well. I had joined a Workers Educational Association course in creative writing in The University of Sheffield's Arts Tower. There were posters on every floor urging women to take their safety seriously. Don't go home alone/Take taxis at night etc.. And this was all because  of the terror that The Ripper was causing.

It affected my wife Shirley who was a young hospital nurse at the time.  Fortunately, she had a little car to bring her home but various levels of anxiety were experienced by all female hospital workers whose shift patterns meant they often left work  at nighttime.

Throughout his deadly campaign, there had never been a known attack  here in Sheffield. Nearly all of his unfortunate victims were bludgeoned to death up in  West Yorkshire - Bradford, Leeds, Huddersfield and Halifax. He killed thirteen women and severely injured several others.  One of his survivors recalled him shouting, "Filthy prostitute!" as he struck her.

The fear  in Sheffield was pretty strong even though nobody had been attacked here but up in Bradford and Leeds  the levels of fear must have been off the scale. Female university students had been targeted in addition to prostitutes whose lives are just as precious anyway.

The Yorkshire Ripper was finally captured by accident in a dark office car park off Melbourne Avenue just  a mile and a half from this  keyboard. It was January 2nd 1981 and he had driven  24 year old Olivia Reivers  there. He had his trademark ball-pein hammer in the boot (American: trunk) of his car.  Whatever might have been about to happen was stopped by a pair of policemen slowly cruising down the avenue  in a squad car.  They did a vehicle check  and discovered that Sutcliffe's car was displaying false number plates. He was promptly arrested. 

The next day one of those police officers returned to the arrest scene and found the hammer in  bushes where The Ripper had been allowed to urinate before being taken to the local police station. Then, thankfully, the clues were joined up and after forty eight hours Sutcliffe admitted who he was.

Sutcliffe and Sonia on their wedding day in 1974