I’m the …erm, white bird of the family…Best mates.Oooops, somehow that bridge slipped in again…Oregon.Another one of Zeb Soanes’ London foxes.Nethergate, Dundee. Any guesses as to when?Icelandic pony.Oink, oink!Olympic Forest in Washington State.Mountain Gorilla.River Glass, Isle of Man.40 winks maybe… actually 50 would be better…Come back to …Sorrento.Donkey Sanctuary.Lake Victoria, Uganda, and one of its residents.I’m not biting my nails either.
Great orangutans, as always! On the photo of the Nethergate – it seemed to me that a couple of ladies in there were wearing what looked to me to be Edwardian styles, which would put the photo before WWI. As the electric trams didn’t start until July 1900, that would narrow it down a bit, if I’m right about the fashions. I tried a reverse image search on it and got quite a lot of interesting photies of bygone Dundee – here’s a shortened URL to try: http://tinyurl.com/y8689mrv.
You can zoom in on the image on the ebay site to see detail a bit more clearly. You can also see the back. It’s an unused example…so no postmark, but interestingly it says it’s printed in Bavaria ! ( so, yes, pre-1914 then!)
Details and biography of A.L Reis can be found here:
Great detective work, Jake! I had a look and fiddled around a bit, and here’s a shortened URL for the large-sized image of the front of the postcard of the Nethergate, pre-WWI. It’s colourized, but the resolution’s a bit better than the B&W one Tris found. http://tinyurl.com/y845v2o5
Are you ready for another of my interminable anecdotes? If not, you know what you have to do…
One of the places I lived during my time in East Africa was the city of Arusha in Tanzania – it’s not all that far over the border with Kenya, and there’s a major road link between Arusha and Nairobi from which you get a splendid view of, among other things, Kilimanjaro rising up out of the plain, stupendously. Arusha is a fair-sized place, with a population of coming on half a million in the city itself, and about 350,000 in the rest of the whole Arusha region.
One of the things that is not immediately evident about Arusha – because it is so often shrouded in cloud – is the fact that it has this stonking great volcano, Mt. Meru, right to the north of it (http://tinyurl.com/yc945kl8); in fact, the streets in the central area are pretty much aligned on the mountain. It’s a lot smaller than Kilimanjaro, of course, which is enormous, but it’s also a lot pointier and more stereotypically volcano-looking. It’s also much livelier than its bigger brother – it last erupted in 1910. Sensibly, it’s been turned into a national park. Here’s a photo, not the best of the mountain but it shows what I mean about the street alignment. http://tinyurl.com/y9dkglfh
One of the other eye-catching things that photo shows is jacaranda trees in bloom. Apart from being just beautiful, it shows that the photo was taken late November / December time. It was a surprise to me that jacarandas are not native to Africa – they come from the Americas. Another of my favourite trees around there is the Nandi flame tree. This is not your other flame tree, as in Thika, which is a frangipani. The Nandi flame tree is also called the African tulip tree, its Linnaean name being Spathodea campanulata, for those as cares about such things. Nandi… short version… an area in Western Kenya, in colonial times known as the White Highlands, where the wazungu got up to White Mischief at cooler altitudes. The tree’s range extends well beyond there, of course. Here are a couple of photies. http://tinyurl.com/y9bz4qrghttp://tinyurl.com/yahgdxov
As I was saying… that colourful lizard whose photie Tris included is called, among other things, a rainbow lizard, for fairly obvious reasons. They really are cute… that one is a male, and its Linnaean name is, I believe, Agama agama – there are several species of Agama, and loads of subspecies, but that one is the one called a red-headed Kenyan rock lizard, I think. Not that I never heard them called that in Kenya. I think the Swahili-speakers would just call one mjusi, but then Swahili is mainly an urban sort of language, as my pals would readily admit – for example, a zebra is a punda milia, in other words, a stripey donkey. Here’s the photie of an Agama agama (male) from Wikipedia, full size: http://tinyurl.com/y89o4ak4. Anyway, even if that’s not technically the correct (sub)species, it’ll be close. Here’s another: http://tinyurl.com/y8574bby. That one is a lionotus.
In Arusha, I shared my accommodations with a representative of the lionotus clan… One day as I turned round to lock my door on my way out of my house, I felt this Thing go down the back of my neck, between my neck and my shirt. Scaly. Cool. I froze, thinking “SNAKE!!” After a few moments of heart-stopping fear, I realized that snakes do not have four little feet, and do not scuttle. So I gingerly removed my shirt from my waistband and out hopped Mr. Lionotus, and scuttled off to hide into my house, where I decided to let him be. They eat insects, after all.
Mr. Lionotus would adhere to a wall and catch insects during the day, and retire to sleep in my food cupboard, though I never quite managed to catch him at it. I have no idea how he got in there, because I never did manage to spot any holes. He used to leave me a little offering on the lid of my tub of margarine, which I would remove before I had my morning toast. The offering, and then the lid. In that order.
Rainbow lizards can change colour too, becoming increasingly bright when they want to court a female, and when they do, they are really, really eye-catching. I have read that bright colours on beasties tell predators “I am not good to eat, and possibly even poisonous”, but I never tried to catch and eat Mr. Lionotus, so I wouldn’t know.
Mr Lionotis sounds like a pretty standard room mate… you do him some favours; he does you some favours.
It’s another example though of how everything has its place in the great scheme of things. If all of Mr Lionitus’s family were to be extinct, life would become a lot more difficult for the rest of us. Flies aren’t just irritating; they are dangerous.
The trees are beautiful. The colours amazing. Thanks for sharing these photographs.
Edd……Pretty trees, and a nice looking lionotus too. I wouldn’t care for the crawling down my back part. Or even sharing my house for that matter. That volcano looks pretty close too.
I didn’t care for it much inside my shirt either! I imagine it was sunbathing on the top of the house door – I used to leave that ajar for the breeze – so I expect I gave it about as much of a shock in closing the door on it as it gave me in escaping.
As for the volcano, I imagined, wrongly, that it was extinct, like Arthur’s Seat, or extremely unlikely to do anything noteworthy, like Kilimanjaro, so at least I didn’t waste any time worrying about it when I was there. It was only some time later that I thought to myself, “Hang on a minute…”.
Yea edd…., I can imagine it was no fun for Lionitus either…..LOL.
Those volcanoes can be treacherous. I read that beautiful Mt. Rainier in Washington state is considered one of the most dangerous in the world, based on various considerations, including recent activity and nearness to a major population center. Everyone in that part of the country remembers the major eruption of Mount St. Helens very well, also in the Cascade Range, but in a relatively unpopulated area.
Yes, Rainier is beautiful, but of course deadly. It must be rather startling and upsetting for a proud homeowner in the Seattle area to be told by some earnest young geologist in the USGS that his house is built on the remains of many old lahar flows, interspersed with numerous tsunami deposits! And that even without a new one of either, it will all turn to jelly in a moderate earthquake as it liquefies and the whole building collapses into it.
If I were an insurance company, I wouldn’t want to touch any properties with a bargepole if they are within reach of Rainier!
At least where I grew up, in East Dunbartonshire, it was only old mine workings that used to give way occasionally. This sort of thing, Danny – this story is about Edinburgh, though. http://tinyurl.com/ya6bu8yd
Edd……I’ve had family that once lived in an old lead and zinc mining region in northeast Oklahoma and southwest Missouri. In that area as I understand it, the water table is high, and the mines had to be pumped continually. Then when they were abandoned, the water filled the drifts and somewhat stabilized the ground above. Nevertheless, cave-ins happen, and it always becomes an issue in a new area of development, especially since not that much is known about where the old mines were located as much as a century ago.
I hadn’t thought about the earthquake issue in the volcanic deposits around Seattle. Of course the entire west coast of North America is part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where 90% of the world’s earthquakes happen and where 75% of the world’s volcanoes are located (Wiki says.) I read that the major damage to structures in San Francisco’s 1989 earthquake was in the Marina District along the Bay near the Golden gate, which was built on landfill that liquefied in the quake. It was land originally constructed as a site for the 1915 Pan-Pacific Exposition, using rubble from the 1906 earthquake with mud and sand dredged from the Bay. Then the Exposition structures were torn down and the land was developed as a residential area.
San Francisco as late as the 1960’s had an almost quaint urban appearance, due to building height restrictions put in place for the rebuilding of the city after the almost total destruction from the quake and fire in 1906. But then the height restrictions were lifted with the imposition of new building codes which are supposed to make buildings on bed rock quake-proof. Now sadly, high-rise downtown San Francisco looks like any other big city, but the little 1906 houses and buildings still give much of the city a unique appearance.
I remember the 1989 earthquake well, Danny – not because I was there, but because I had been there just two weeks before, I’d driven across the Bay Bridge, and even been on the Nimitz freeway. I remember particularly the difficulty in trying to get through on the phone to find out if my friends were OK! I love San Francisco, and in the rest of the Bay Area, Berkeley. I miss my days of travelling all over – though I have to say that I always preferred arriving to flying.
Edd……What a small world! You had fortunate timing, since you drove two of the places where there was loss of life in the quake. Most of the fatalities in the quake were due to the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct in Oakland……..part of the Nimitz Freeway. Forty-two people were killed there (of the quake total of 63) when the double-decker structure collapsed down on itself. There was also the collapse of a 50 ft section of the upper deck of the Eastern (Oakland side) Span of the Bay Bridge, which indirectly caused one death when snarled traffic was later incorrectly re-routed.
The earthquake caused or accelerated various improvements. Upgrades to modern earthquake standards on bridges and structures were accelerated, and a part of the Nimitz Freeway was re-routed to eliminate the Cypress Street Viaduct which had split an Oakland neighborhood. On the San Francisco side, the Embarcadero Freeway was damaged in the quake, and after a contentious battle between commercial interests and environmental activists, the entire multi-lane double-decker freeway was demolished to provide a better view of the bay around the end of the peninsula leading to the Golden Gate Bridge. Only in San Francisco! (Dealing with activists of all stripes is a nightmare in famously ungovernable California, where the so-called “government” in Sacramento seems to issue more like “suggestions” than state laws.)
The Bay Bridge (actually three bridge spans passing across an island in the center of the Bay) as you may know carries Interstate Highway I-80 across the Bay between Oakland and San Francisco. I-80 is a roughly 3,000 mile long highway between New York City and San Francisco, which enters northern California from Nevada in a beautiful route through the High Sierras (the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range.) The collapsed section of the bridge was replaced, but major repairs were needed. The decision was made to replace the seismically unsound eastern span of the bridge between Yerba Buena Island and Oakland. While various Cable-Stayed designs like the Queensferry Bridge were proposed, they ended up choosing a suspension bridge with a single tall tower and an extended viaduct structure. This picture shows the new bridge in lights behind the dark cantilever bridge in front (before removal,) which is the one you would have driven in 1989 before the quake. Oakland is in the distance in this picture. Removal of the last remnants of the old span will be finally completed by the end of this year.
That’s a great photo, Danny. I didn’t like the Bay Bridge much at all when I drove over it, especially that cantilevered section. My father taught engineering at Strathclyde University, and he gave me a bit of a feel for bridges. I’m not post-rationalizing, I used the Bay Bridge on my way from SFO up to Berkeley and beyond and disliked it so much that I drove back on the – checks map – Hayward-San Mateo bridge. Very long, very boring – at night, anyway.
I spent quite a lot of that break in Berkeley and Oakland, and I know that I had driven on the bits of the Nimitz that came down, and on the Embarcadero freeway as well, because I checked at the time. It gave me a very, very peculiar and unpleasant sensation in my gut when I saw what had happened there on the TV news back in New York.
On the other hand, a good few million people must have done all those things too at some point in their lives, but probably not all that many of them were from Scotland.
Edd……I can imagine the unpleasant sensation you felt when thinking about having traveled the collapsed section of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland. The pictures were awful showing the rescue attempts of people from cars crushed when the upper level came down on them. The traffic on the Nimitz was not as heavy as it might have been at that time in the evening, since many people were at (or watching on TV) the 1989 “World Series” game 3 (US baseball championship) between the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants that was being played that night at Candlestick Park on the San Francisco side of the bay. A nationwide TV audience (the World Series of Baseball is a VERY big deal) learned of the earthquake in real time when the TV signal from Candlestick Park blanked out. This clip is a retrospective video which shows the breakup of the TV signal when the quake hit Candlestick Park, and also shows pictures of the fires in the Marina District up by the Golden gate Bridge (which was built on landfill that liquified), the collapsed 50 ft section of upper deck roadway of the Bay Bridge, and a horrendous view of the double-deck collapse on the Nimitz Freeway.
Yes, the Bay Bridge is a cobbled together affair…..with a double suspension span on the SF side of Yerba Buena Island in the bay, and what in 1989 was the cantilever bridge on the Oakland side of the island. The Bay Bridge also suffers in comparison with the beautiful and iconic Golden Gate Bridge just to the north and around a bend in the Bay.
Yes, the San Mateo – Hayward bridge, far to the south of the Bay Bridge is a reasonable (if unspectacular) passage over the water. I have been to the bay area on business travel several times, and when I have business on the Oakland side, it’s usually to the south, in or around Stockton. In that case, after flying into SFO, I go south and take the San Mateo. Except for the high rise section of the bridge over the navigation channel on the western side of the bay, it is a flat topped trestle design just 35 ft above the water. The 7 mile trip across the water seems to take a long time, but it’s sort of interesting to spend that much time right above the water. In 1989, I think the bridge east of the high rise section would have been a single four lane span without shoulders. Now it has east bound and west bound parallel spans, each with three lanes and shoulders.
When the original two-lane San Mateo Bridge with a lift-type drawbridge was opened in 1929, it was the longest bridge in the world. A section of the original 1929 two-lane bridge was maintained as a fishing pier just south of the high rise section of the modern bridge. (But the pier is now closed pending repairs and safety concerns.)
The modern bridge, and the old bridge (fishing pier) beside the high rise section of the new span.
Before the bridges were built across the bay, the San Francisco Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street was an important terminal for the ferries that operated in San Francisco Bay. Said to be (according to Wiki) second only to London’s Charing Cross Station as a transit terminal. Solidly built on the Embarcadero, it was damaged but still standing after the 1906 quake and fire that destroyed most of the city. In recent years, it has been restored to its former glory, and it can be easily seen again after the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway that ran just in front of it and obscured the view for years.
Here’s a picture of the way it looked after the 1906 earthquake, with the charred rubble of Market Street seen in front…..and the way it looks today.
And an interesting old film from 1906……taken just days before the earthquake. Someone mounted a movie camera on the front of a cable car and took a trip down Market Street with the Ferry Building looming closer and closer in front, and looking exactly as it does today at the foot of the new Market Street. A bittersweet film showing the old Market Street just days before its destruction, and people who may or may not make it through the earthquake.
At the end, the cable car is turned around on a circular turntable in front of the building. To this day, at a turnaround, they let you get off the car and help the gripman and conductor push it around.
Thanks again, Danny. I remember the one from Candlestick Park very well; I was having a beer in a bar somewhere on the Upper West Side and that was on the TV – might have been another channel, I suppose, but I remember the way everyone sat up, took notice, went quiet… Very frightening. No real news for hours, I seem to remember.
The photos are great, and that 1906 movie is just amazing – my God, the HATS! My God, the driving! The Embarcadero – it is good to see old buildings lovingly restored, it looks fabulous. The city fathers must have been crazy to let anyone build a freeway in front of it in the first place.
Nice pictures! I do like that bridge!
Claypott’s castle is quite nice. Seems sensibly sized and in good condition as castles go. Just wonder how they keep kids from decorating big stone walls like that with graffiti.
I remember going in about 20 years ago. I’ve no recollection of how I knew it was open.. It’s beautifully kept inside. I wonder why they don’t open it more…
Claypotts is just a mile or so from Munguin Towers. Munguin had his beady eye on it for a while, but in fact it is rather close to a main road and the traffic noise would disturb his concentration. I’m not sure how they manage to avoid graffiti.
lovely pictures and so nice to see a gorilla – haven’t had one for ages. Unfortunately both lowland and mountain gorillas are on the extinction list. Nice kitties too. And I’m sure Danny appreciated the American scenery.
Especially enjoyed the Rickina video.
And how does that London guy get the foxes to pose? I’ve one that visits but runs away of it sees you! Or maybe it’s just me??
I like the gorilla and the fox too. Yes, Oregon and Washington are always nice, especially west of the Cascade Range where there’s lots of water (unless you prefer sunny skies to gray rainy skies.) There’s also the fact that Mount Rainier is an active volcano that could wipe out a good part of Seattle when it erupts……which will make the cloudy sky problem seem pretty much a piece of cake. But it IS pretty.
Rush limbaugh ????? And GOP lawmakers vote against aid
For their own people … Only in America shame !
But no doubt they will be gerrymandered back into
Congress.
Defence secretary says Britain’s efforts to help its Caribbean territories have been as good as any other country’s
Apart from them being UK dependent territory
Fallon is a disciple of the Trump use of language
a born lier unfortunately for him a very bad one ,
As an possible explainer most of the territory’s are populated
With non white residents ….
Apparently he is, but his private island is in tatters. Oh well, easy come, easy go.
The people are safe as they had a wine cellar to hide it. Fortunately for him he can rebuild… unlike some of the other islands. I hope he’s going to make large charitable payments to his neighbours.
I wonder who carries his homeowners’ insurance? Oh – I know – Virgin Money. I expect he gets a good deal through them.
What? Joking? Not a bit of it – the Mango Mussolini reportedly claimed $17 million in insurance payouts for hurricane damage at Mar a Lago, even though there hadn’t been any. Actually, I’m not suggesting that Richard Branson would do anything similar; you have to be special sort of person to do that sort of thing, and not be in the least ashamed of it, and somehow manage to stay out of jail, all at the same time.
Edd…..There were reports showing the hurricane shutters up at Mar a Lago. But Irma’s path drifted west and came up the Gulf Coast, so Palm Beach should have come out OK. That’s not to say Trumpy won’t file a multi-million dollar insurance claim for non-existent damage, as he did after those previous storms. The AP report on their investigation was published last year, which shows that he pocketed money from the claim. Once a grifter, always a grifter!
I like the term “Mango Mussolini.” The resemblance is striking, even to the Mussolini-type poses as he basks in the cheers of his minions after another rant at one of his campaign-style rallies.
Edd….Trumpy’s description of his apparently nonexistent losses in those previous storms……even if they were true…….is enough to break your heart. 😉
“Landscaping, roofing, walls, painting, leaks, artwork in the — you know, the great tapestries, tiles, Spanish tiles, the beach, the erosion,” he said of the storm damage. “It’s still not what it was.”
I like “Mango Mussolini” myself, of course, but I can’t claim ownership – that belongs to a pal of mine, Norberto Colón, who hates the Orange One with a purple passion. No, the one I thought up was Don Naranjón, Naranjón being an augmentative form and meaning Great Big Orange, and it also happens to be the name of a juice bar opposite the Magic Wood, near Sunset Square in Guadalupe, Nueva León, Mexico. Here’s their logo thingmie from facebook – enjoy! (If there’s a way to insert photos directly in these comments, I don’t know it – maybe Danny can help me out?)
Hi Ed……..I like Don Naranjón too. 😀
The Mussolini name struck me not only from some facial resemblance when Trumpy mugs for the camera, but also by the way he steps back from the microphone with a self-satisfied look on his face as he basks in the cheers of the faithful. One demagogue is much like another I guess.
One great thing about WordPress I like (that Blogspot did not allow) is that you simply copy and paste a URL in the text and it comes up as a clickable link.
I know of no way to upload a picture file from my hard drive, but as you probably know, you can insert into the text any JPG image that’s posted on the internet. (Has a URL……starts with http:// and ends with .jpg) A Google image search yields internet posted images in this format. So you just copy and paste the JPG URL, and when you enter it into WordPress, it comes up as the jpg image itself and not as the clickable link.
It’s also nice that you can do the same copy and paste routine of a YouTube URL, and it comes up with the video embedded in the text, and not as the clickable link.
Ed….while Tris was explaining how you post pictures on the blog using one line and eight words for the explanation……..I was writing four paragraphs on the subject.
Tris is familiar with the fact that if someone asks me the time of day, I tell them how to build a clock. 😉
OK, please bear with me, I’m going to try to post an inline jpg. Now to find something half-way appropriate…
Och, who cares: this is my foster son L-Jay Maasai, which is his stage name because he’s a gospel singer (!?), and I am immensely proud of him. He is also a total sweetheart, not that I’m biased or anything. Here goes!
Well, his crazy father dumped him on me at one point – without warning – and then disappeared for an extended period, and he was always a wonderful little lad – and doubly or trebly remarkable given the circumstances. So I had him stay with me for as long as he wanted, and see his mother whenever he wanted, and it broke my heart when I had to leave Kenya and leave him behind. I have another foster son too, Sam, who is currently working his way into or up in the Kenyan diplomatic service. He was an orphan, so there were no parental complications there. Still, I couldn’t adopt either of them.
Anyway, looking at them now, maybe I wasn’t such a disaster as a parent after all. My other boy worries me more: his hobby seems to be crashing cars, as in total write-offs and lucky to be alive.
Ed…..He’s really very good. Beautifully done video!
A great honor to be an elder, but I think I might have tried to renegotiate the dinner of rare goat liver in the bush. 😉
In one of those synchronicity things, about an hour ago I got an e-mail from L-Jay himself to say hello, and was I OK. Just a few words, but then I didn’t say very much to my dad either when I was 21. Oh, if worrying about them is a sign of a good parent, then I must be bloody marvellous!
Encouraged by my success in posting a jpg inline, I shall now attempt a video. If that succeeds, I shall declare myself the new Einstein, and accept a long-standing challenge to dive gracefully from a great height into a damp handkerchief while programming a VCR. So… right. Here’s L-Jay in full Maasai costume. He always could light up the room with that smile of his.
I take some credit for keeping him in touch with his Maasai roots. Partly as a result of that, I suppose – I maybe said this on here already at some point – I got made an honorary Maasai elder – they sprang it on me as a surprise… I wasn’t going to take that trip, but L-Jay turned up the persuasion. The women were tasked with selecting an appropriate Maasai name for me, and they decided on Saruni. So that’s my name in Maa.
Much pombe [home-brewed beer] was consumed during this – I used to have some photographs of the occasion, and I looked decidedly pie-eyed in them. The manufacture of Maasai pombe involves the use of the sausages from the sausage tree; there may be other uses for them but I don’t know any (go on, look up “sausage tree”, you know you want to). Anyway, slightly fizzy, pleasantly tart and surprisingly alcoholic. The ceremony also involved going out into the bush with some of the other elders and consuming a goat, slaughtered in my honour and cooked in the traditional manner over a wood fire… as part of that I had to eat very rare goat liver and pretend I liked it.
The pombe helped a great deal with that. Anyway, here’s L-Jay. I recognize some of the folk in the boma towards the end. Just to correct any misapprehensions, I spotted a couple who I know are university graduates, and no, they’re not slumming it, nor were they brought in as extras – they returned to the traditional way of life after graduating, and brought their knowledge to bear on the welfare of their cattle, and other matters of supreme importance.
Ed…..He’s really very good. Beautifully done video!
A great honor to be an elder, but I think I might have tried to renegotiate the dinner of rare goat liver in the bush. 😉
It’s not even that there are so many awful people among the Westminster Tories, it’s that they are so spectacularly incompetent as well. Not one of them instils any positive feeling of any kind in me, and I really don’t think I’m all that hard to please. The only choice we have at present is grue in disgust or howl in outrage, and I have so many more pleasant ideas about how I would like to spend my dotage. Citizen of my own country would be a start.
Yeah, I used to like a drink or 20 myself, and I wouldn’t have chosen myself as Defence Secretary either. I found that giving up alcohol wasn’t all that difficult, finally, but smoking… I think I was a serious nicotine addict from the first time I ever had any. It rang all my little reward centres somehow. There has to be a genetic component to addictions, I’m as sure as I can be of that.
Yea Niko. A lot of strange politics going on with a Republican party that is badly split between its leadership in Congress and the far right wing “Freedom Caucus” faction of the House of Representatives. (More or less the old “Tea Party” Republicans.) With the further complication that Trumpy is so annoyed that the Republican Congress can’t actually pass anything, that he is reportedly furious and barely on speaking terms with his party’s own Congressional leadership.
Anyway, the “must pass” hurricane relief bill coincided with a “must pass” budget extension and debt limit increase. The leadership bundled them together….so that the non-controversial hurricane relief part would piggy back on the VERY controversial (with the right wing faction) budget and debt ceiling extensions. This infuriated the right wing faction which made it impossible to pass the combined bill with Republican votes alone. When that happens, the GOP has to ask for Democratic votes…….which always comes with political strings attached.
So off the Republican and Democratic Congressional leadership went to the White House to thrash out a deal with Trumpy in the Oval Office. The Democrats say they’ll provide the votes to pass, but they want a 3 month extension of the budget part of the bill so they can bargain for more in December. As the Republicans were arguing for a much longer extension, Trumpy (desperate for a win about SOMETHING) sided with the Democrats and threw the GOP leadership under the bus.
The result was that the first significant bill of the Trump administration passed with 100% Democratic support, and a total of 107 Republican votes AGAINST in the two Houses. The right wing faction is more furious than ever of course.
AND another Hurricane is right now coming ashore in Florida, which will require ANOTHER emergency appropriation. Maybe Trumpy will end up governing with more Democratic than Republican support (on some items.) But there will be political strings attached.
As for gerrymandering, that helps you only if you end up with the Republican nomination in the general election. Before that you have to win the primary in your own party. So mainstream Republicans these days are always worried about being “primaryed” from the far right. But maybe a right wing Republican who didn’t vote for disaster relief might now have someone come at him from the Republican center.
It’s a difficult time to be a Republican officeholder.
LOL. Yes, I guess we moan a lot about cloudy skies here in Scotland, but I suspect we’d moan a good deal more if a volcano erupted and wiped out half a city…
Yes Tris……in hindsight, between the earthquakes and the volcanoes, the western coast of North America was probably not the best place to build big cities. 😉
Tris. Yes, the hurricanes are a bummer. And sometimes they come far up the east coast. One in New England in 1938 killed almost 700 people. With Harvey and Irma in the news, it’s ironic that the last few days have seen the anniversary of two other deadly hurricanes in American history. The Labor Day (September 2) Hurricane that struck the Florida Keys in 1935 was the first Category 5 hurricane that had ever came ashore in the United States. (There have only been two more since then.) There were over 400 fatalities in the sparsely populated region.
The deadliest natural disaster in the history of North America was the hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900. Galveston was then the Queen City of Texas, and was built on a flat barrier island off the coast, at sea level or below. A storm surge of 15 ft swept over the island. No one knows how many died, but the number is estimated between 6,000 and 12,000. They burned the bodies on the beach and the fires continued into November. A horror like something out of the Middle Ages apparently.
September can be a bad time in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. I see that Irma is now between Key West and the city of Marathon. Marathon spans several tiny little islands east of Key West.
Yes, the great old tribal chiefs could be very eloquent. They also looked good when they sat for photographers, and gave interviews with reporters more than one might think.
It is frightening how many animals are on the extinction lists. And it’s worrying that people don’t seem to realise the knock on effects of the disappearance of an animal.
The Nethergate photo was taken last week? Good of Munguin to allow visitors to his castle once a year? Would not like to pick up the gorilla’s pint by mistake…
The Spook still plays for Arbroath FC in League 2 so cannot go to the Hibs games. Although I didn’t see him I’m pretty sure he would have been at the Hibs/Rangers Cup Final which as everyone knows Hibs won!
The Spook still plays for Arbroath Football Club in League Two so misses the Hibs games. Although I didn’t see him I’m pretty sure he was at Hampden when Hibs beat Rangers in the Scottish Cup Final. I’m sure Niko misses him as they were great pals!
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
`Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.’
But I was one-and-twenty
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
`The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
‘Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.’
And I am two-and-twenty
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.
Smart penguin that Munguin – I guess he got the idea for a potting shed from the castle’s name, Claypotts. I’d love to see a pic of the splendour that is Munguin Towers though – it must make the likes of Versailles look like a ramshackle boarding house by comparison.
Indeed the are. My alter-ego Capability Price Williams is responsible for the upkeep of the estate, although we don;t see much of him. The outdoors staff are kept separate, y’know.
Well, yes. Clay pots are kept in a potting shed, aren’t they. There was, when I was a child, a garage/filling station (gas station) on that road. While Claypotts Castle had two ts, it was called Claypots garage, with one t!
Munguin Towers does make Versailles look shabby, but Munguin doesn’t provide photographs, lest it should alert his enemies to his whereabouts. Life is like that for media moguls.
Tris, I know Dundee doesn’t have trams nowadays but does it still have The Auld Tram coffee and snack bar? It is actually housed in a renovated horse tram, I’m sure. I was last in Dundee 3 years ago and I’m fairly certain The Auld Tram was operating (as a food outlet, that is, not as a tram) in High Street at that time.
It’s still there, Andi. Just beside what used to be the Dundee head office of the Clydesdale Bank. I passed it only the other day on my way to the dentists.
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
Great orangutans, as always! On the photo of the Nethergate – it seemed to me that a couple of ladies in there were wearing what looked to me to be Edwardian styles, which would put the photo before WWI. As the electric trams didn’t start until July 1900, that would narrow it down a bit, if I’m right about the fashions. I tried a reverse image search on it and got quite a lot of interesting photies of bygone Dundee – here’s a shortened URL to try: http://tinyurl.com/y8689mrv.
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Thanks Ed… Excellent.
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It appears to be a post card, published by A.L. Reis.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dundee-Nethergate-Plough-Inn-Shops-Tram-Lines-PPC-by-A-Louis-Reis-Unused
You can zoom in on the image on the ebay site to see detail a bit more clearly. You can also see the back. It’s an unused example…so no postmark, but interestingly it says it’s printed in Bavaria ! ( so, yes, pre-1914 then!)
Details and biography of A.L Reis can be found here:
http://www.manfamily.org/about/other-families/reis-family/jonas-reis/alphonse-louis-reis-1860-1940
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Great research, Jake. Thanks.
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Great detective work, Jake! I had a look and fiddled around a bit, and here’s a shortened URL for the large-sized image of the front of the postcard of the Nethergate, pre-WWI. It’s colourized, but the resolution’s a bit better than the B&W one Tris found. http://tinyurl.com/y845v2o5
Are you ready for another of my interminable anecdotes? If not, you know what you have to do…
One of the places I lived during my time in East Africa was the city of Arusha in Tanzania – it’s not all that far over the border with Kenya, and there’s a major road link between Arusha and Nairobi from which you get a splendid view of, among other things, Kilimanjaro rising up out of the plain, stupendously. Arusha is a fair-sized place, with a population of coming on half a million in the city itself, and about 350,000 in the rest of the whole Arusha region.
One of the things that is not immediately evident about Arusha – because it is so often shrouded in cloud – is the fact that it has this stonking great volcano, Mt. Meru, right to the north of it (http://tinyurl.com/yc945kl8); in fact, the streets in the central area are pretty much aligned on the mountain. It’s a lot smaller than Kilimanjaro, of course, which is enormous, but it’s also a lot pointier and more stereotypically volcano-looking. It’s also much livelier than its bigger brother – it last erupted in 1910. Sensibly, it’s been turned into a national park. Here’s a photo, not the best of the mountain but it shows what I mean about the street alignment. http://tinyurl.com/y9dkglfh
One of the other eye-catching things that photo shows is jacaranda trees in bloom. Apart from being just beautiful, it shows that the photo was taken late November / December time. It was a surprise to me that jacarandas are not native to Africa – they come from the Americas. Another of my favourite trees around there is the Nandi flame tree. This is not your other flame tree, as in Thika, which is a frangipani. The Nandi flame tree is also called the African tulip tree, its Linnaean name being Spathodea campanulata, for those as cares about such things. Nandi… short version… an area in Western Kenya, in colonial times known as the White Highlands, where the wazungu got up to White Mischief at cooler altitudes. The tree’s range extends well beyond there, of course. Here are a couple of photies. http://tinyurl.com/y9bz4qrg http://tinyurl.com/yahgdxov
As I was saying… that colourful lizard whose photie Tris included is called, among other things, a rainbow lizard, for fairly obvious reasons. They really are cute… that one is a male, and its Linnaean name is, I believe, Agama agama – there are several species of Agama, and loads of subspecies, but that one is the one called a red-headed Kenyan rock lizard, I think. Not that I never heard them called that in Kenya. I think the Swahili-speakers would just call one mjusi, but then Swahili is mainly an urban sort of language, as my pals would readily admit – for example, a zebra is a punda milia, in other words, a stripey donkey. Here’s the photie of an Agama agama (male) from Wikipedia, full size: http://tinyurl.com/y89o4ak4. Anyway, even if that’s not technically the correct (sub)species, it’ll be close. Here’s another: http://tinyurl.com/y8574bby. That one is a lionotus.
In Arusha, I shared my accommodations with a representative of the lionotus clan… One day as I turned round to lock my door on my way out of my house, I felt this Thing go down the back of my neck, between my neck and my shirt. Scaly. Cool. I froze, thinking “SNAKE!!” After a few moments of heart-stopping fear, I realized that snakes do not have four little feet, and do not scuttle. So I gingerly removed my shirt from my waistband and out hopped Mr. Lionotus, and scuttled off to hide into my house, where I decided to let him be. They eat insects, after all.
Mr. Lionotus would adhere to a wall and catch insects during the day, and retire to sleep in my food cupboard, though I never quite managed to catch him at it. I have no idea how he got in there, because I never did manage to spot any holes. He used to leave me a little offering on the lid of my tub of margarine, which I would remove before I had my morning toast. The offering, and then the lid. In that order.
Rainbow lizards can change colour too, becoming increasingly bright when they want to court a female, and when they do, they are really, really eye-catching. I have read that bright colours on beasties tell predators “I am not good to eat, and possibly even poisonous”, but I never tried to catch and eat Mr. Lionotus, so I wouldn’t know.
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LOL. Another fascinating story.
Mr Lionotis sounds like a pretty standard room mate… you do him some favours; he does you some favours.
It’s another example though of how everything has its place in the great scheme of things. If all of Mr Lionitus’s family were to be extinct, life would become a lot more difficult for the rest of us. Flies aren’t just irritating; they are dangerous.
The trees are beautiful. The colours amazing. Thanks for sharing these photographs.
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Edd……Pretty trees, and a nice looking lionotus too. I wouldn’t care for the crawling down my back part. Or even sharing my house for that matter. That volcano looks pretty close too.
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I didn’t care for it much inside my shirt either! I imagine it was sunbathing on the top of the house door – I used to leave that ajar for the breeze – so I expect I gave it about as much of a shock in closing the door on it as it gave me in escaping.
As for the volcano, I imagined, wrongly, that it was extinct, like Arthur’s Seat, or extremely unlikely to do anything noteworthy, like Kilimanjaro, so at least I didn’t waste any time worrying about it when I was there. It was only some time later that I thought to myself, “Hang on a minute…”.
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Yea edd…., I can imagine it was no fun for Lionitus either…..LOL.
Those volcanoes can be treacherous. I read that beautiful Mt. Rainier in Washington state is considered one of the most dangerous in the world, based on various considerations, including recent activity and nearness to a major population center. Everyone in that part of the country remembers the major eruption of Mount St. Helens very well, also in the Cascade Range, but in a relatively unpopulated area.
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Yes, Rainier is beautiful, but of course deadly. It must be rather startling and upsetting for a proud homeowner in the Seattle area to be told by some earnest young geologist in the USGS that his house is built on the remains of many old lahar flows, interspersed with numerous tsunami deposits! And that even without a new one of either, it will all turn to jelly in a moderate earthquake as it liquefies and the whole building collapses into it.
If I were an insurance company, I wouldn’t want to touch any properties with a bargepole if they are within reach of Rainier!
At least where I grew up, in East Dunbartonshire, it was only old mine workings that used to give way occasionally. This sort of thing, Danny – this story is about Edinburgh, though. http://tinyurl.com/ya6bu8yd
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Edd……I’ve had family that once lived in an old lead and zinc mining region in northeast Oklahoma and southwest Missouri. In that area as I understand it, the water table is high, and the mines had to be pumped continually. Then when they were abandoned, the water filled the drifts and somewhat stabilized the ground above. Nevertheless, cave-ins happen, and it always becomes an issue in a new area of development, especially since not that much is known about where the old mines were located as much as a century ago.
I hadn’t thought about the earthquake issue in the volcanic deposits around Seattle. Of course the entire west coast of North America is part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where 90% of the world’s earthquakes happen and where 75% of the world’s volcanoes are located (Wiki says.) I read that the major damage to structures in San Francisco’s 1989 earthquake was in the Marina District along the Bay near the Golden gate, which was built on landfill that liquefied in the quake. It was land originally constructed as a site for the 1915 Pan-Pacific Exposition, using rubble from the 1906 earthquake with mud and sand dredged from the Bay. Then the Exposition structures were torn down and the land was developed as a residential area.
San Francisco as late as the 1960’s had an almost quaint urban appearance, due to building height restrictions put in place for the rebuilding of the city after the almost total destruction from the quake and fire in 1906. But then the height restrictions were lifted with the imposition of new building codes which are supposed to make buildings on bed rock quake-proof. Now sadly, high-rise downtown San Francisco looks like any other big city, but the little 1906 houses and buildings still give much of the city a unique appearance.
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I remember the 1989 earthquake well, Danny – not because I was there, but because I had been there just two weeks before, I’d driven across the Bay Bridge, and even been on the Nimitz freeway. I remember particularly the difficulty in trying to get through on the phone to find out if my friends were OK! I love San Francisco, and in the rest of the Bay Area, Berkeley. I miss my days of travelling all over – though I have to say that I always preferred arriving to flying.
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Edd……What a small world! You had fortunate timing, since you drove two of the places where there was loss of life in the quake. Most of the fatalities in the quake were due to the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct in Oakland……..part of the Nimitz Freeway. Forty-two people were killed there (of the quake total of 63) when the double-decker structure collapsed down on itself. There was also the collapse of a 50 ft section of the upper deck of the Eastern (Oakland side) Span of the Bay Bridge, which indirectly caused one death when snarled traffic was later incorrectly re-routed.
The earthquake caused or accelerated various improvements. Upgrades to modern earthquake standards on bridges and structures were accelerated, and a part of the Nimitz Freeway was re-routed to eliminate the Cypress Street Viaduct which had split an Oakland neighborhood. On the San Francisco side, the Embarcadero Freeway was damaged in the quake, and after a contentious battle between commercial interests and environmental activists, the entire multi-lane double-decker freeway was demolished to provide a better view of the bay around the end of the peninsula leading to the Golden Gate Bridge. Only in San Francisco! (Dealing with activists of all stripes is a nightmare in famously ungovernable California, where the so-called “government” in Sacramento seems to issue more like “suggestions” than state laws.)
The Bay Bridge (actually three bridge spans passing across an island in the center of the Bay) as you may know carries Interstate Highway I-80 across the Bay between Oakland and San Francisco. I-80 is a roughly 3,000 mile long highway between New York City and San Francisco, which enters northern California from Nevada in a beautiful route through the High Sierras (the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range.) The collapsed section of the bridge was replaced, but major repairs were needed. The decision was made to replace the seismically unsound eastern span of the bridge between Yerba Buena Island and Oakland. While various Cable-Stayed designs like the Queensferry Bridge were proposed, they ended up choosing a suspension bridge with a single tall tower and an extended viaduct structure. This picture shows the new bridge in lights behind the dark cantilever bridge in front (before removal,) which is the one you would have driven in 1989 before the quake. Oakland is in the distance in this picture. Removal of the last remnants of the old span will be finally completed by the end of this year.
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That’s a great photo, Danny. I didn’t like the Bay Bridge much at all when I drove over it, especially that cantilevered section. My father taught engineering at Strathclyde University, and he gave me a bit of a feel for bridges. I’m not post-rationalizing, I used the Bay Bridge on my way from SFO up to Berkeley and beyond and disliked it so much that I drove back on the – checks map – Hayward-San Mateo bridge. Very long, very boring – at night, anyway.
I spent quite a lot of that break in Berkeley and Oakland, and I know that I had driven on the bits of the Nimitz that came down, and on the Embarcadero freeway as well, because I checked at the time. It gave me a very, very peculiar and unpleasant sensation in my gut when I saw what had happened there on the TV news back in New York.
On the other hand, a good few million people must have done all those things too at some point in their lives, but probably not all that many of them were from Scotland.
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Edd……I can imagine the unpleasant sensation you felt when thinking about having traveled the collapsed section of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland. The pictures were awful showing the rescue attempts of people from cars crushed when the upper level came down on them. The traffic on the Nimitz was not as heavy as it might have been at that time in the evening, since many people were at (or watching on TV) the 1989 “World Series” game 3 (US baseball championship) between the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants that was being played that night at Candlestick Park on the San Francisco side of the bay. A nationwide TV audience (the World Series of Baseball is a VERY big deal) learned of the earthquake in real time when the TV signal from Candlestick Park blanked out. This clip is a retrospective video which shows the breakup of the TV signal when the quake hit Candlestick Park, and also shows pictures of the fires in the Marina District up by the Golden gate Bridge (which was built on landfill that liquified), the collapsed 50 ft section of upper deck roadway of the Bay Bridge, and a horrendous view of the double-deck collapse on the Nimitz Freeway.
Yes, the Bay Bridge is a cobbled together affair…..with a double suspension span on the SF side of Yerba Buena Island in the bay, and what in 1989 was the cantilever bridge on the Oakland side of the island. The Bay Bridge also suffers in comparison with the beautiful and iconic Golden Gate Bridge just to the north and around a bend in the Bay.
Yes, the San Mateo – Hayward bridge, far to the south of the Bay Bridge is a reasonable (if unspectacular) passage over the water. I have been to the bay area on business travel several times, and when I have business on the Oakland side, it’s usually to the south, in or around Stockton. In that case, after flying into SFO, I go south and take the San Mateo. Except for the high rise section of the bridge over the navigation channel on the western side of the bay, it is a flat topped trestle design just 35 ft above the water. The 7 mile trip across the water seems to take a long time, but it’s sort of interesting to spend that much time right above the water. In 1989, I think the bridge east of the high rise section would have been a single four lane span without shoulders. Now it has east bound and west bound parallel spans, each with three lanes and shoulders.
When the original two-lane San Mateo Bridge with a lift-type drawbridge was opened in 1929, it was the longest bridge in the world. A section of the original 1929 two-lane bridge was maintained as a fishing pier just south of the high rise section of the modern bridge. (But the pier is now closed pending repairs and safety concerns.)
The modern bridge, and the old bridge (fishing pier) beside the high rise section of the new span.
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PS Edd:
Before the bridges were built across the bay, the San Francisco Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street was an important terminal for the ferries that operated in San Francisco Bay. Said to be (according to Wiki) second only to London’s Charing Cross Station as a transit terminal. Solidly built on the Embarcadero, it was damaged but still standing after the 1906 quake and fire that destroyed most of the city. In recent years, it has been restored to its former glory, and it can be easily seen again after the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway that ran just in front of it and obscured the view for years.
Here’s a picture of the way it looked after the 1906 earthquake, with the charred rubble of Market Street seen in front…..and the way it looks today.
And an interesting old film from 1906……taken just days before the earthquake. Someone mounted a movie camera on the front of a cable car and took a trip down Market Street with the Ferry Building looming closer and closer in front, and looking exactly as it does today at the foot of the new Market Street. A bittersweet film showing the old Market Street just days before its destruction, and people who may or may not make it through the earthquake.
At the end, the cable car is turned around on a circular turntable in front of the building. To this day, at a turnaround, they let you get off the car and help the gripman and conductor push it around.
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Thanks again, Danny. I remember the one from Candlestick Park very well; I was having a beer in a bar somewhere on the Upper West Side and that was on the TV – might have been another channel, I suppose, but I remember the way everyone sat up, took notice, went quiet… Very frightening. No real news for hours, I seem to remember.
The photos are great, and that 1906 movie is just amazing – my God, the HATS! My God, the driving! The Embarcadero – it is good to see old buildings lovingly restored, it looks fabulous. The city fathers must have been crazy to let anyone build a freeway in front of it in the first place.
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You wouldn’t mind him sharing your house if he ate all the flies, Danny.
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Tris….Yes, that would be a plus for sure. 😉
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We spent a decade in Tanzania, living in Dar es Salaam and often visited Arusha and Moshi. This was in the 80s and 90s. Great memories
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What work were you doing out there, Tatu?
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I was looking after our two young children, husband was a QS doing project management type of work
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Great… if you ever want to write anything about it, let me know. I’m always interested in guest posts.
I hope to talk Ed into one someday. 🙂
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I miss it terribly sometimes. You fall in love, and it breaks your heart…
Now, Tatu3 , if you tell me that your children are Moja1 and Mbili2, we shall have to have a discussion on the need to look after Number 1.
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Nice pictures! I do like that bridge!
Claypott’s castle is quite nice. Seems sensibly sized and in good condition as castles go. Just wonder how they keep kids from decorating big stone walls like that with graffiti.
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I used to go into Claypotts Castle when it was only 3d to get it. Sad that it is only open for one weekend a year.
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Too bad that it’s not open more than that. Does it have any furnishings, or just bare rooms?
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It was just bare rooms when we visited, Danny.
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I remember going in about 20 years ago. I’ve no recollection of how I knew it was open.. It’s beautifully kept inside. I wonder why they don’t open it more…
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Claypotts is just a mile or so from Munguin Towers. Munguin had his beady eye on it for a while, but in fact it is rather close to a main road and the traffic noise would disturb his concentration. I’m not sure how they manage to avoid graffiti.
As you can see in the photo here https://www.darkdundee.co.uk/archive/dundee-landmarks/claypotts-castle/ it is surrounded by modern housing.
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Interesting to see the castle in its modern surroundings.
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Must put a few quid on the value of these houses, having a castle as a neighbour…
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Danny, they deter graffiti writers by pouring boiling oil and molten lead on them from the upper storeys – it’s a castle thing 🙂
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LOL Andi… and I thought it was becasue the local neds were too stupid to get the lid off the spray tins!
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Mebbes they just sniffed the stuff instead.
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Andi….LOL…..yea, that would do it. Modern construction has apparently largely abandoned the boiling oil/molten lead technology to deter vandalism. 😉
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Which, Danny, is why there is so much of it.
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lovely pictures and so nice to see a gorilla – haven’t had one for ages. Unfortunately both lowland and mountain gorillas are on the extinction list. Nice kitties too. And I’m sure Danny appreciated the American scenery.
Especially enjoyed the Rickina video.
And how does that London guy get the foxes to pose? I’ve one that visits but runs away of it sees you! Or maybe it’s just me??
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I like the gorilla and the fox too. Yes, Oregon and Washington are always nice, especially west of the Cascade Range where there’s lots of water (unless you prefer sunny skies to gray rainy skies.) There’s also the fact that Mount Rainier is an active volcano that could wipe out a good part of Seattle when it erupts……which will make the cloudy sky problem seem pretty much a piece of cake. But it IS pretty.
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Danny
Rush limbaugh ????? And GOP lawmakers vote against aid
For their own people … Only in America shame !
But no doubt they will be gerrymandered back into
Congress.
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LOL Don’t get Danny started on Limbaugh, Niko.
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LOL Tris…..yes, Limbaugh’s a piece of work! But he has to share notoriety with the occupant of the White House now.
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Err only in America
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/10/michael-fallon-defends-uks-response-to-hurricane-irma
Defence secretary says Britain’s efforts to help its Caribbean territories have been as good as any other country’s
Apart from them being UK dependent territory
Fallon is a disciple of the Trump use of language
a born lier unfortunately for him a very bad one ,
As an possible explainer most of the territory’s are populated
With non white residents ….
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Has Her Majesty’s government checked to see if Richard Branson is OK? He was huddled in his wine cellar the last I heard.
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Apparently he is, but his private island is in tatters. Oh well, easy come, easy go.
The people are safe as they had a wine cellar to hide it. Fortunately for him he can rebuild… unlike some of the other islands. I hope he’s going to make large charitable payments to his neighbours.
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Having a luxurious private island does have its problems…..LOL.
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Well, I wouldn’t know personally, but Munguin…
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I wonder who carries his homeowners’ insurance? Oh – I know – Virgin Money. I expect he gets a good deal through them.
What? Joking? Not a bit of it – the Mango Mussolini reportedly claimed $17 million in insurance payouts for hurricane damage at Mar a Lago, even though there hadn’t been any. Actually, I’m not suggesting that Richard Branson would do anything similar; you have to be special sort of person to do that sort of thing, and not be in the least ashamed of it, and somehow manage to stay out of jail, all at the same time.
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Oops, not any of the current crop of Atlantic hurricanes, and in particular not Irma. It was some time ago.
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Edd…..There were reports showing the hurricane shutters up at Mar a Lago. But Irma’s path drifted west and came up the Gulf Coast, so Palm Beach should have come out OK. That’s not to say Trumpy won’t file a multi-million dollar insurance claim for non-existent damage, as he did after those previous storms. The AP report on their investigation was published last year, which shows that he pocketed money from the claim. Once a grifter, always a grifter!
I like the term “Mango Mussolini.” The resemblance is striking, even to the Mussolini-type poses as he basks in the cheers of his minions after another rant at one of his campaign-style rallies.
https://apnews.com/1fefeef4a4e84fa4af6441f4b6d221f0
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Yeah, I like that term too!
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Edd….Trumpy’s description of his apparently nonexistent losses in those previous storms……even if they were true…….is enough to break your heart. 😉
“Landscaping, roofing, walls, painting, leaks, artwork in the — you know, the great tapestries, tiles, Spanish tiles, the beach, the erosion,” he said of the storm damage. “It’s still not what it was.”
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Awwww… poor Trump.
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Why does none of that surprise me?
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I like “Mango Mussolini” myself, of course, but I can’t claim ownership – that belongs to a pal of mine, Norberto Colón, who hates the Orange One with a purple passion. No, the one I thought up was Don Naranjón, Naranjón being an augmentative form and meaning Great Big Orange, and it also happens to be the name of a juice bar opposite the Magic Wood, near Sunset Square in Guadalupe, Nueva León, Mexico. Here’s their logo thingmie from facebook – enjoy! (If there’s a way to insert photos directly in these comments, I don’t know it – maybe Danny can help me out?)
http://tinyurl.com/ybu9qz2f
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Ha ha… that looks just like him.
Right click on photograph; copy image address.; paste.
🙂
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Hi Ed……..I like Don Naranjón too. 😀
The Mussolini name struck me not only from some facial resemblance when Trumpy mugs for the camera, but also by the way he steps back from the microphone with a self-satisfied look on his face as he basks in the cheers of the faithful. One demagogue is much like another I guess.
One great thing about WordPress I like (that Blogspot did not allow) is that you simply copy and paste a URL in the text and it comes up as a clickable link.
I know of no way to upload a picture file from my hard drive, but as you probably know, you can insert into the text any JPG image that’s posted on the internet. (Has a URL……starts with http:// and ends with .jpg) A Google image search yields internet posted images in this format. So you just copy and paste the JPG URL, and when you enter it into WordPress, it comes up as the jpg image itself and not as the clickable link.
It’s also nice that you can do the same copy and paste routine of a YouTube URL, and it comes up with the video embedded in the text, and not as the clickable link.
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Ed….while Tris was explaining how you post pictures on the blog using one line and eight words for the explanation……..I was writing four paragraphs on the subject.
Tris is familiar with the fact that if someone asks me the time of day, I tell them how to build a clock. 😉
Brevity in my opinion is highly overrated!
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LOL
Ed, it’s true!
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OK, please bear with me, I’m going to try to post an inline jpg. Now to find something half-way appropriate…
Och, who cares: this is my foster son L-Jay Maasai, which is his stage name because he’s a gospel singer (!?), and I am immensely proud of him. He is also a total sweetheart, not that I’m biased or anything. Here goes!
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Ed…..What a fine looking guy! From a family you knew in Africa?
Great picture too.
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Well, his crazy father dumped him on me at one point – without warning – and then disappeared for an extended period, and he was always a wonderful little lad – and doubly or trebly remarkable given the circumstances. So I had him stay with me for as long as he wanted, and see his mother whenever he wanted, and it broke my heart when I had to leave Kenya and leave him behind. I have another foster son too, Sam, who is currently working his way into or up in the Kenyan diplomatic service. He was an orphan, so there were no parental complications there. Still, I couldn’t adopt either of them.
Anyway, looking at them now, maybe I wasn’t such a disaster as a parent after all. My other boy worries me more: his hobby seems to be crashing cars, as in total write-offs and lucky to be alive.
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Ed….sounds like you’re a good parent. Including worrying about the kids. 🙂
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Ed…..time sequence of my last two comments got reversed. But I’ve got it straight now. Thanks.
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Ed…..He’s really very good. Beautifully done video!
A great honor to be an elder, but I think I might have tried to renegotiate the dinner of rare goat liver in the bush. 😉
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PS: I guess I was thinking Godson. Probably a foster son would not be from a family you know.
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Cool looking geezer, Ed.
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In one of those synchronicity things, about an hour ago I got an e-mail from L-Jay himself to say hello, and was I OK. Just a few words, but then I didn’t say very much to my dad either when I was 21. Oh, if worrying about them is a sign of a good parent, then I must be bloody marvellous!
Encouraged by my success in posting a jpg inline, I shall now attempt a video. If that succeeds, I shall declare myself the new Einstein, and accept a long-standing challenge to dive gracefully from a great height into a damp handkerchief while programming a VCR. So… right. Here’s L-Jay in full Maasai costume. He always could light up the room with that smile of his.
I take some credit for keeping him in touch with his Maasai roots. Partly as a result of that, I suppose – I maybe said this on here already at some point – I got made an honorary Maasai elder – they sprang it on me as a surprise… I wasn’t going to take that trip, but L-Jay turned up the persuasion. The women were tasked with selecting an appropriate Maasai name for me, and they decided on Saruni. So that’s my name in Maa.
Much pombe [home-brewed beer] was consumed during this – I used to have some photographs of the occasion, and I looked decidedly pie-eyed in them. The manufacture of Maasai pombe involves the use of the sausages from the sausage tree; there may be other uses for them but I don’t know any (go on, look up “sausage tree”, you know you want to). Anyway, slightly fizzy, pleasantly tart and surprisingly alcoholic. The ceremony also involved going out into the bush with some of the other elders and consuming a goat, slaughtered in my honour and cooked in the traditional manner over a wood fire… as part of that I had to eat very rare goat liver and pretend I liked it.
The pombe helped a great deal with that. Anyway, here’s L-Jay. I recognize some of the folk in the boma towards the end. Just to correct any misapprehensions, I spotted a couple who I know are university graduates, and no, they’re not slumming it, nor were they brought in as extras – they returned to the traditional way of life after graduating, and brought their knowledge to bear on the welfare of their cattle, and other matters of supreme importance.
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Wow. He’s good. Great voice and fantastic dancer.
And you an elder… I never cease to be amazed Ed.
Thanks for sharing the video.
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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc3EKBXSCXef0OCg1OxynVA
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Ed…..He’s really very good. Beautifully done video!
A great honor to be an elder, but I think I might have tried to renegotiate the dinner of rare goat liver in the bush. 😉
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Fallon is a moron. He had to get a young SPAD to stand up for him when STV gave him a hard time about the disappearing Frigates
Apparently he likes a drink or 20.
Scary he’s in charge of UK defence. Let’s hope if ever there is a need for him it happens on one of his sober moments.
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It’s not even that there are so many awful people among the Westminster Tories, it’s that they are so spectacularly incompetent as well. Not one of them instils any positive feeling of any kind in me, and I really don’t think I’m all that hard to please. The only choice we have at present is grue in disgust or howl in outrage, and I have so many more pleasant ideas about how I would like to spend my dotage. Citizen of my own country would be a start.
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My mother is convinced that this is the most incompetent government that she has ever known.
Pathetic. And Fallon needs sacking first. But Gove, Rudd, Hunt and Johnson are close after him. As for Fox… PFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
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Six letters… first letter w…
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That’s flattering him.
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Yeah, I used to like a drink or 20 myself, and I wouldn’t have chosen myself as Defence Secretary either. I found that giving up alcohol wasn’t all that difficult, finally, but smoking… I think I was a serious nicotine addict from the first time I ever had any. It rang all my little reward centres somehow. There has to be a genetic component to addictions, I’m as sure as I can be of that.
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Yes, I’m pretty sure that that’s true, Ed.
Anyway Fallon (google his name and drink) has form. This one is a corker for a defence secretary:
https://tompride.wordpress.com/2016/12/11/visibly-drunk-michael-fallon-had-to-be-forcibly-separated-from-attractive-russian-spy-by-a-minder/
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As they say in the movies, OMFG.
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Yea Niko. A lot of strange politics going on with a Republican party that is badly split between its leadership in Congress and the far right wing “Freedom Caucus” faction of the House of Representatives. (More or less the old “Tea Party” Republicans.) With the further complication that Trumpy is so annoyed that the Republican Congress can’t actually pass anything, that he is reportedly furious and barely on speaking terms with his party’s own Congressional leadership.
Anyway, the “must pass” hurricane relief bill coincided with a “must pass” budget extension and debt limit increase. The leadership bundled them together….so that the non-controversial hurricane relief part would piggy back on the VERY controversial (with the right wing faction) budget and debt ceiling extensions. This infuriated the right wing faction which made it impossible to pass the combined bill with Republican votes alone. When that happens, the GOP has to ask for Democratic votes…….which always comes with political strings attached.
So off the Republican and Democratic Congressional leadership went to the White House to thrash out a deal with Trumpy in the Oval Office. The Democrats say they’ll provide the votes to pass, but they want a 3 month extension of the budget part of the bill so they can bargain for more in December. As the Republicans were arguing for a much longer extension, Trumpy (desperate for a win about SOMETHING) sided with the Democrats and threw the GOP leadership under the bus.
The result was that the first significant bill of the Trump administration passed with 100% Democratic support, and a total of 107 Republican votes AGAINST in the two Houses. The right wing faction is more furious than ever of course.
AND another Hurricane is right now coming ashore in Florida, which will require ANOTHER emergency appropriation. Maybe Trumpy will end up governing with more Democratic than Republican support (on some items.) But there will be political strings attached.
As for gerrymandering, that helps you only if you end up with the Republican nomination in the general election. Before that you have to win the primary in your own party. So mainstream Republicans these days are always worried about being “primaryed” from the far right. But maybe a right wing Republican who didn’t vote for disaster relief might now have someone come at him from the Republican center.
It’s a difficult time to be a Republican officeholder.
Stay tuned…….
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If it is possible, I think the Washington government is even more farcical than the Westminster one.
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For sure Tris!
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LOL. Yes, I guess we moan a lot about cloudy skies here in Scotland, but I suspect we’d moan a good deal more if a volcano erupted and wiped out half a city…
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Yes Tris……in hindsight, between the earthquakes and the volcanoes, the western coast of North America was probably not the best place to build big cities. 😉
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The southern part wasn’t a brilliant idea either, really… what with hurricanes and all…
I think you’re in the best place, mate.
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Tris. Yes, the hurricanes are a bummer. And sometimes they come far up the east coast. One in New England in 1938 killed almost 700 people. With Harvey and Irma in the news, it’s ironic that the last few days have seen the anniversary of two other deadly hurricanes in American history. The Labor Day (September 2) Hurricane that struck the Florida Keys in 1935 was the first Category 5 hurricane that had ever came ashore in the United States. (There have only been two more since then.) There were over 400 fatalities in the sparsely populated region.
The deadliest natural disaster in the history of North America was the hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900. Galveston was then the Queen City of Texas, and was built on a flat barrier island off the coast, at sea level or below. A storm surge of 15 ft swept over the island. No one knows how many died, but the number is estimated between 6,000 and 12,000. They burned the bodies on the beach and the fires continued into November. A horror like something out of the Middle Ages apparently.
September can be a bad time in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. I see that Irma is now between Key West and the city of Marathon. Marathon spans several tiny little islands east of Key West.
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Maybe Hollow Horn Bear has something here…
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Yes, the great old tribal chiefs could be very eloquent. They also looked good when they sat for photographers, and gave interviews with reporters more than one might think.
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It is frightening how many animals are on the extinction lists. And it’s worrying that people don’t seem to realise the knock on effects of the disappearance of an animal.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4327480/Radio-4-announcer-befriends-Gaspard-fox.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4700214/Newsreader-s-adopted-fox-turns-vixen.html
Trouble is brewing in Islington…
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East Africa is famous for its wildlife, but even during my time there I could see it decline before my eyes. It’s enough to make one weep.
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Unfortunately it will continue until the perpetrator of all this is extinct itself.
When mankind goes the world will recover.
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The Nethergate photo was taken last week? Good of Munguin to allow visitors to his castle once a year? Would not like to pick up the gorilla’s pint by mistake…
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Easy mistake to make in the Port O’ Leith.
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LOL, Isn’t that where Spookie lives?
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Nah, he lives in the posh part of Leith near the Swing Brig. Or used to; perhaps Niko has kept in touch or John has seen him at Hibs games?
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I knew he was in the posh bit. His flat was pretty nice. Somehow, sadly, he and I lost touch. I still miss his wit, and his bad spelling.
🙂
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The Spook still plays for Arbroath FC in League 2 so cannot go to the Hibs games. Although I didn’t see him I’m pretty sure he would have been at the Hibs/Rangers Cup Final which as everyone knows Hibs won!
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I must make it down to a game this season. It’s not that far away. I’d like to see him play.
What’s that you say?
Hibs won!
Does that mean Rangers LOST?
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The Spook still plays for Arbroath Football Club in League Two so misses the Hibs games. Although I didn’t see him I’m pretty sure he was at Hampden when Hibs beat Rangers in the Scottish Cup Final. I’m sure Niko misses him as they were great pals!
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He was very fond of Niko, and made me promise to look after him after he gave up blogging to concentrate on getting married.
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Spooks oh him I hate
Him
XIII
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
`Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.’
But I was one-and-twenty
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
`The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
‘Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.’
And I am two-and-twenty
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.
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Aye right
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Hmmmm…. I thought I recognised it!
Munguin was thinking of using the castle as a potting shed. In which case visitors cold have access 2 or 3 times a year!
You’re right. I’ve never tried drinking a gorilla’s pint and I’m not eager to try.
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Smart penguin that Munguin – I guess he got the idea for a potting shed from the castle’s name, Claypotts. I’d love to see a pic of the splendour that is Munguin Towers though – it must make the likes of Versailles look like a ramshackle boarding house by comparison.
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The gardens are sweeping and majestic, complete with Munguin sized swing.
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Indeed the are. My alter-ego Capability Price Williams is responsible for the upkeep of the estate, although we don;t see much of him. The outdoors staff are kept separate, y’know.
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Well, yes. Clay pots are kept in a potting shed, aren’t they. There was, when I was a child, a garage/filling station (gas station) on that road. While Claypotts Castle had two ts, it was called Claypots garage, with one t!
Munguin Towers does make Versailles look shabby, but Munguin doesn’t provide photographs, lest it should alert his enemies to his whereabouts. Life is like that for media moguls.
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Tris, I know Dundee doesn’t have trams nowadays but does it still have The Auld Tram coffee and snack bar? It is actually housed in a renovated horse tram, I’m sure. I was last in Dundee 3 years ago and I’m fairly certain The Auld Tram was operating (as a food outlet, that is, not as a tram) in High Street at that time.
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It’s still there, Andi. Just beside what used to be the Dundee head office of the Clydesdale Bank. I passed it only the other day on my way to the dentists.
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