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The Edinburgh pic is Torphican Place I think, although I cannae be sure as most of the area was bulldozed in the sixties. My guess is that’s where Diane’s Poll Hall is now. Anyone ken mair?
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“Pool Hall”. It is a haunt of counts, though…
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“a haunt of counts”? You mean a place were British Earls hang out? Downton Abbey having made us all aware that the wives of British Earls are Countesses, since “Earless” would sound really silly. (Not that Marchioness for the wife of a Marquess doesn’t sound silly enough anyway.)
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Remove the “o” and you get my meaning…
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Conan…….Oh! 😉
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Indeed.
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LOL
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Was that in the centre of town, Conan?
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Just a spit away from Haymarket station. Or should that be spurt…?
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Oh yeah, I know the area. A bit posher now!
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Very nice selection of Soppy Sunday pictures this week! The Bison herd with the little ones is outstanding.
The picture of old Edinburgh is evocative of even older pictures I’ve seen of Dickens’ Victorian London. LOVE those chimney pots!
I assume that the deer is what is sometimes called a stag, and is what the royals love to kill when they are in residence at Balmoral. (The royals in residence, not the stags.) Anyway, I’m reminded of the film “The Queen” (which features a stag,) where news has reached Balmoral that Diana has been killed, and the Queen is quite put out that the people are acting emotionally about someone they never met. Her Majesty has ordered that the vulgar newspaper accounts be kept from “the boys” so they won’t get all weepy too. Finally Philip solves the problem. He announces that in the morning he’s going to take the boys “out” to trek the Highlands and with any luck, blow away a stag. Maybe it will be cold, with driving rain and sleet as a diversion. Just the ticket to make a man or boy forget his troubles!
That brings us to Puglia (which Wikipedia says is the Italian name for Apulia……a historical and administrative region in Southern Italy.) Even without Wiki, I knew we were seeing the shores of the Mediterranean, since almost everything is painted white. But not white with blue roofs and trim like Santorini in the Aegean. The Wiki article has a picture of Santorini where ONE…….count them ONE…..house is not white. It is red. (I assume that house is now vacant due to the miscreant who painted his house that way having been driven out of town by the tourism authorities.)
As for the sea life, and things like Jellyfish, Flower Urchins, Octopuses, and Cephalopods, I can frankly take them or leave them. But it’s nice that Munguin caters to niche interests…….however “NICHE” they may be when we’re talking Cephalopods.
The political touches were nice too. Such as the little fox getting fed, rather than being torn apart by Tory nobility on horseback with packs of dogs. And then especially the reaction to Mrs. May’s latest actions. Thank GOD that the poor woman will finally have some time to do her job right, what with not having to deal with those countless meetings with the Scottish First Minister. I would call her (Mrs. May) an *******, but I reserve that term for our own clueless idiot Trumpy.
With a salute to the orangs, thanks for an edition of Soppy Sunday that lent itself well to commentary and opinion!
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Danny,
Cephalopods are a tad different from humans. But they have a beauty of their own. They are not as niché as you think. Lots of humans are enamoured with their almost utterly different geometry and physiology – there is a far better technical word for it, but I forget it – and the interesting fact that they appear to have no nuclear weapons.
This is one of the high spots of my week. If it is a toss up between beating Saint Mirren 5 – 0, and this, well the coin may continue spinning for a while.
Best wishes.
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Douglas……Glad you picked up on my little joke about niche interests. I myself successfully lobbied for inclusion of the American rattlesnake among the cute animals. The cephalopod while somewhat unusual in appearance (by non-cephalopod standards,) is certainly beautifully colored. And who can fault a creature that not only has no nuclear weapons, but doesn’t even crave them. 😉
Cheers!
Have a good week.
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I’m all for animals that don’t want nuclear weapons.
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Munguin is flattered to be up there with the football!!
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trispw,
You are up there with the football!
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We are flattered!!!
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Wow, that was a detailed analysis of the page, Danny.
The octopus was for you too. I seem to recall that you expressed an interest in them. 🙂
Imagine painting a house RED in the Med. Probably British settlers wanting to make their houses look like brick built homes in the UK.
The Diana episode was the only time I can remember when the queen personally came in for universal criticism.
I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it at the time, but looking back there was a good deal of anger at what was probably stiff upper lip, but was taken to be utter indifference.
On the 20th anniversary we are having to hear it all again.
That little fox is some fellow. It’s only the upper classes here that enjoy tearing them apart. The rest of us like to share our world with them.
It would certainly be nice if Mrs May ended up getting something right. Just even once would be a real boost. I’m not holding my breath though!
I see that Mr T is working out how he can pardon himself when he is found guilty of trying to fix the election.
It seems to me he wouldn’t have had to do much to persuade Putin to be on his side. After all, if you were Putin, who would you rather negotiate with?
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Tris……The octopus was very nice, and a pretty shade of red. After consulting the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia, I discover that an octopus IS a Cephalopod, which is and I quite: “any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda (Greek plural κεφαλόποδα, kephalópoda; “head-feet”) such as a squid, octopus or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, and a set of arms or tentacles (muscular hydrostats) modified from the primitive molluscan foot.”
I also took the added precaution of looking up the plural of Octopus to verify that it is “Octopuses” and not “Octopi” (a common but incorrect rendering I discovered.) It turns out that since Octopus has a Greek and not a Latin root, the proper plural is “es” and not “i”. I wanted to be ready if Conan (with his love for Latin) challenged me on the point. Sadly he did not, and I had no opportunity to pontificate on the subject. 😉
So, a Cephalopod is an Octopus, a Squid, or a Nautilus. I would say that the brightly colored Cephalopop in the picture is likely a Squid of some sort, since it is certainly not an Octopus or a Nautilus.
The picture of Santorini in Wikipedia is unusual in that it is not the usual blinding closeup of white painted houses, with blue-domed churches and assorted blue trim. The photograph shows a broader view of rocks and earth which are naturally colored, since for some reason the Santorinians have NOT painted them white. I had assumed that everything around the shore of the Mediterranean, Adriatic, or Aegean had to be painted white by law.
Now that you mention it, I think the red house on Santorini might in fact be natural red brick.
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LOL.
Where WOULD we be were it not for Wikipedia?
It was remiss of Conan not to challenge you so you could demonstrate your superior knowledge of the Greek plurals… but that was probably because he has a similar superior knowledge…
Ha ha.
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Yes, that Conan probably already knew the plural of Octopus occurred to me too. I just hate it when I encounter someone as smart or smarter than I…..AND Wikipedia. (I DO hope it’s “I” and not “me” BTW.)
When I see the picture postcard places like Santorini and Puglia, I always wonder if the whole place is a rabbit warren of those famous little white houses stacked one on another like building blocks. Surely there must be an actual town or city around there someplace with significant public buildings and streets large enough to accommodate cars and buses, with stop lights, and McDonald’s and KFC, etc.
For example, if you look at the Egyptian tourist brochures and picture postcards, you would think that the pyramids are sitting alone in the desert. What you never see is the view from the other direction where you see the roads and streets and buildings of the city of Giza, and the skyline of metropolitan Cairo.
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Yep, I’d say it’s I. My rule for that is to add the verb (in my head) He is cleverer than I AM,
I can’t talk for Italy, only having den to Venice, but most of the coastal villages in the Mediterranean that I’ve visited have had lovely streets of white houses (and sometimes pale pink and green ones), but sure, in any town of any size there is a centre and now, I guess most have a Starbucks and/or McDonalds!
Huge disappointment that the pyramids are pretty much in the town. U’d always pictured them out there in the desert!
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A couple of views from the city and looking toward the city.
Interesting that the smooth white limestone casing stones that originally gave the pyramids polished white surfaces is mostly gone now. Stripped off to provide construction material for buildings in Cairo.
Glad to hear that those cities and towns may have Starbucks and McDonald’s. A mark of civilization itself! 😉
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PS Tris……Yes, I do that add the implied verb trick myself. It’s the only way I can keep “I” and “me” straight.
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Awesome Danny, that we use the same method, oceans apart, of getting our grammar right! 🙂
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Danny, I think the cephalopod in the pic is a cuttlefish.
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Could well be. There are different sorts of Cephalopoda including squid, octopuses, and nautiluses.
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Yes Greig, it is certainly a Cuttlefish. I knew it didn’t really look like squid that I’ve seen. So I looked up Cuttlefish and Wiki says that Cuttlefish are marine animals of the order Sepiida. They belong to the class Cephalopoda, which also includes squid, octopuses, and nautiluses. Cuttlefish have a unique internal shell, the cuttlebone. Despite their name, cuttlefish are not fish but molluscs. Thanks for the info.
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Yes Greig, it is certainly a Cuttlefish. I knew it didn’t really look like squid that I’ve seen. So I looked up Cuttlefish and Wiki says that Cuttlefish are marine animals of the order Sepiida. They belong to the class Cephalopoda, which also includes squid, octopuses, and nautiluses. Cuttlefish have a unique internal shell, the cuttlebone. Despite their name, cuttlefish are not fish but molluscs. Thanks for the info.
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I wasn’t falling into that trap 🙂 John Brownlie got me once with a schoolboy error on conjugation. Admittedly I was drunk…
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Embarrassing, specially from the one who speaks English as a second language.
I once corrected some smartarse on Twitter, only to be corrected myself, much to my embarrassment.
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“quote” not “quite”
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Thank goodness someone else hits their head against a wall and asks, “why is their no edit facility whatsoever?”
Even the mad and bad Herald allows corrections?
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It’s coz I got the cheap ass version, Douglas. If you pay them money they probably provide all sorts of refinements. But you know Munguin. Tight as a duck’s whatsit.
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Tris…..On the Trump matter you raised, it must be nice for Mr. Putin to have stalwart allies in the Trump Cabinet and among the White House staff and Trump family……not to mention Mr. Trump himself. The problem is that many of them (including the Trump sons) have lied under oath about meetings with Russian contacts which they later seemed to conveniently “forget.” That’s a serious federal crime, and the Post and the Times (and other media) have reliably reported from White House sources that Trump is investigating his executive power to pardon his own family…..and YES…..HIMSELF. The president’s power to pardon is unquestioned, since it is explicitly defined in the Constitution; but the document says nothing about whether he can pardon HIMSELF (or his own family.) The issue was raised as it potentially involved Richard Nixon back during Watergate, but was never tested then. It seems unlikely that the founders of the republic and the framers of the federal constitution had it in mind to effectively place the person of the President above the law……like the British Monarch. But if Trump tests it, a battle in the federal courts would surely ensue, and the constitutional question would have to be settled by the US Supreme Court.
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If Putin and Trump are in a love in, perhaps future historians will see this as ‘peace in our time’? The more they man lurve, the less likely they are to annihilate us all with a nuclear bombardment. Merely because they too would be radioactive dead meat.
It is not, exactly mutually assured destruction of folk like thee and me that don’t matter, it is their mutually assured destruction, which, frankly I think they care about a lot more about than thee and me.
I know, clutching at straws for the human race.
I think this is a dangerous time. Optimists seem to think that their wee part of the planet would be somehow saved.
Lets assume that the entire Russian nuclear arsenal was distributed almost entirely to the USA, with only a few bombs falling on the UK. What would their targets be?
I’d expect the Helensburgh area to be a target, but, and this is the point, London as a control centre and Aldermaston as a build site for weapons. They too would be blasted to oblivion.
We are a geographically compact nation.
I doubt a successful three pronged attack on Faslane, London and Aldermaston would leave many of us alive, far less being happy to be alive.
That is the future that retaining a nuclear capability leaves us. A complete, utter wasteland.
Theresa May has a lot to answer for.
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Well said! I always hope that Russia and China wouldn’t much want to destroy countries who are such good customers for their stuff. Gas and oil for Russia I guess, and China for just about every form of manufactured product.
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But Mr Trump is bringing it back to make America great again, and Theresa is taking back control….. Oh excuse me while I go and laugh hysterically.
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You’re a cheery soul.
I think I’ll go live in Reykjavik, while I can still afford the flight!
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lovely – nature is so colourful isn’t it! I’d a fox in the garden the other day just lying around in the, then, sun. Have been visited by deer this year too. But never once have I seen an orang in the street even though I’ve got trees 🙂 LOVED the first picture. The polar bear was stunning and that’s some size of fish with that diver. The cephalopod has an eerie type of beauty too.
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I think you need to get an orang family for the trees. A tree needs an orang or two.
I wish I could take a family in. They could share with the mice and the blackbirds.
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Sorry for the duplicate Cuttlefish post (above.) It apparently arose from an extra letter which scrambled my ID that WordPress recognizes me by, and the posting showed up first as “awaiting moderation” and then seemed to disappear. So I just corrected the ID, reposted the message, and it came up fine. But it turns out it didn’t disappear. Then Tris approved the original, and we had TWO postings to Grieg about the Cuttlefish. 😉
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Jeeez. It’s all far too complicated for my little brain, Danny. 🙂
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