*There is nothing as beautiful as a sheltered valley where birds make their nests in the hearts of the giant trees, and the river runs in the shade and the sunlight. Sweet valley. It’s good to live in you. (Song Pet Clark wrote about her home in Switzerland.)
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MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
Snails eat your pants?
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My apologies Conan……..I didn’t intend to duplicate your comment. I just wrote and posted it before I saw your message.
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lol ouch.
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Exceptionally nice assortment of critters and places this week! The orangs are both cute AND well groomed. (Orangs can sometimes look a little scruffy. )
An American rattlesnake is always a handsome contribution to Soppy Sunday. And this picture shows why the “Western Diamondback” species of rattler is so named.
I’d not given much thought to urban wildlife, although we do have deer munch our grass from time to time, and have seen the occasional coyote. The other day, we spotted a red fox in the front yard.
I see that the identity of the Croydon Cat Ripper has been solved, at least to the satisfaction of Scotland Yard.
Nothing escapes the attention of the New York Times. This article is from the September 20 edition.
Just one typo!: Should be “plants” I think. Fun to think about “pants” though in the context of snails. 😉
Also enjoyed Petula’s French song lyric as the caption of the Swiss landscape.
Finally, trying to figure out the Egyptian picture was fun. A little confusing at first since you usually see the bent pyramid of Sneferu from this perspective:
Then I saw one of the Colossi of Memnon in the picture. In fact (Wiki says,) the colossi are statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III of Dynasty XVIII (ca. 1350 BC), which stand near the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor. So since Wiki says the bent pyramid was built by Sneferu of Dynasty IV in 2600 BC, that means that the bent pyramid and the big statue are separated by more than 300 miles and 1200 years. But they do look great standing side by side on the bank of the Nile.
I think that “Assassin’s Creed” may be a movie or a series of movies, or a computer game or games. Wiki probably knows that too, but at that point I abandoned the search. 😉
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LOL. I thought for a minute there that the cat killer was the inhabitant of no 10 Downing Street. Frankly it wouldn’t have surprised me, except that with her record, sh’d probably have failed at killing the cats.
Yes, I’m indebted to both you and Conan for the pants/plants controversy.
It is of course, moths, not snails that eat your pants.
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Tris……..Moths with shells did come to mind.
It did occur to me that No.10 was somehow involved in the crimes. 😉
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It depends on how long you wear them. I think after a couple of weeks + continuous wear the snails, along with a number of other creepy crawlies will become very interested in your pants.
Your social life will take a dive though.
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Well, working a Munguin Towers, yer social life is pretty much non-existent anyway…
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That’s me going on a Leonard Cohen binge now – Hallelujah!
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There are worse things to binge on.
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PS: Prompted by the cool Egyptian picture, a couple of archaeological issues that might (or might not) be of interest.
Wiki: “The mortuary temple of Hatshepsut…..is considered one of the “incomparable monuments of ancient Egypt.”
It is also one of the premier tourist sites in Egypt, and as it is viewed from the front, most of what you see is a twentieth century reconstruction.
Wiki: “The Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw is responsible for the study and restoration of the three levels of the temple. As of early 1995, the first two levels were almost complete, and the top level was still under reconstruction.”
By most accounts, the reconstruction is well done and generally accurate, using original historical material, but……
Wiki: “The architecture of the original temple has been considerably altered as a result of misguided reconstruction in the early twentieth century AD.”
What it looked like before the twentieth century:
What it looks like today:
——————————————
We all know that the English raped and pillaged half the world in the days of empire. But turning to more serious matters about the English, there is the fact that they rebuilt Stonehenge in the twentieth century, using heavy modern construction equipment, and were then pretty slow in telling the public about it in later years.
Then there was what Sir Arthur Evans did at Knossos on Crete. For example:
The “throne” in the throne room of the “palace” as excavated:
That same “throne” in the same location of the so-called “oldest throne room in Europe” that Sir Arthur built and decorated:
A rather interesting and apparently balanced account of the issues that faced Arthur Evans and his archaeologists, and the problematic outcomes at Knossos.
https://smarthistory.org/conservation-knossos/
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When I know that something has been totally renovated and probably looks nothing like it used to, I lose interest in it.
Why would I be interested in Stonehenge when it was built by some blokes from Tarmac Construction with heavy
earth moving material.
Things don’t last forever. I’d rather see the ruin than something manufactured.
Still, it’s probably done to boost the tourism business. Money money money.
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Tris……I think I’ve read that Knossos is second only to the Acropolis in Athens in terms of Greek tourist dollars. After more than 30 years of the most recent “restoration,” it’s hard to find good before and after pictures on the internet. The “new” white stone does look a little odd and gives a jig saw puzzle effect.
Certainly modern Stonehenge as a tourist site looks nothing like nineteenth century Stonehenge.
1870’s:
ca. 1950: (The images of Stonehenge they’d probably like tourists not to see. Although, I’ve read that descriptive information now includes wording that acknowledges the modern reconstruction.)
At least there wasn’t much left to see of Eilean Donan before they started rebuilding it:
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Yes, I know. I can understand the desire to rebuild and make it look like what they think (know) it looked like back …. whenever.
And it makes it a more interesting tourist experience, and for many it is satisfying.
Maybe I’m odd, but I’d rather see it untouched by modern building techniques.
There is no atmosphere whatsoever in a rebuild.
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Tris…..I feel the same way.
I thought that the article on Sir Arthur Evans and Knossos also gave a good idea of what archaeological excavators are faced with when the issue of “preserving ” newly unearthed ruins is considered.
A lot of the stuff in Egypt was preserved for thousands of years by being covered with sand. But as soon as a site is excavated, then it becomes subject to weathering.
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It is without doubt a dilemma. If you leave it covered, it’s there, but no one can see it, study it, learn from it, make money from it…
If you don’t leave it there, you destroy it.
Renovating though, it seems to me, is yet another question.
I don’t know the answer.
You might ask, was the queen right to do up Windsor Castle after the fire, employing skilled men to recreate it the way it was?
Or should she have left that wing a burnt out wreck, but at least the “original” burnt out wreck?
I’d rather see the real thing in bad shape than a reconstruction.
But that’s just me.
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And I think that is Leonard Cohen singing “You Want it Darker” in the clip from Assassin’s Creed.
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Tatu3…….Yes, that is Cohen.
https://uproxx.com/gaming/new-assassins-creed-origins-trailer/
http://www.cjnews.com/news/canada/why-was-assassins-creed-given-rights-to-a-leonard-cohen-song-and-not-the-mso
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What cute elephants. Love an ely me! I’ve never had bear and chips, is it nice? The puppy was cute too I admit it. Scruffy orangs – I think you mean bedhead hair….
Not surprised the orangs love school, as the tv demonstrates they have a great time here, despite having P1 assessments. It does them no harm at all because there aren’t any tests….
One poor boy had the hiccups this week. Made me wonder how many species got the hiccups – is it just great apes? I was going to look it up. Then I thought, that’s what we have Danny for 🙂
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Ho ho ho!
Dannycyclopedia?
Indeed!
When I learned to teach/train, we were taught that before you moved on to the next level, you had to be sure that people had understood the level you had just completed. Contrôle de la connaissance. I can’t really imagine how you can safely move on without it.
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Panda Paws……You have it exactly right about the orangs. Nothing wrong that some judicious use of a comb would not cure. 😉
I’m working my sources on animal hiccups, but I did happen onto some information from The Atlantic about heart disease in captive gorillas, with some interesting historical background.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/gorilla-guts/554636/
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so lots of animals hiccup then. I wonder if the old keys down the back trick works for them?
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Breathe into a paper poke, my granny always said. Why, I have no idea.
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Something to do with the CO2 build up I suspect.
BTW, I think that the lion is a juvenile male.
The head shape and general outline give me that impression.
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🙂 Yes re-breathing CO2, and that fits Conan’s comment too.
You could be right about the lion. I’ll bow to your greater knowledge.
I can’t understand why he didn’t kill the wildebeest and eat it, or store it.
Maybe too young to know that that’s what he was supposed to do?
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Hyperventilation.
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Not Sunday I know but was out with the (increasingly confident) Moose the husky today on old golf course.
I think I’ve found his limit for now (he’s still a young dog) and its somewhere around 35-40km!
Daughter & I did two walks with him today with a half hour break for food (her & him). According to her fit-thing tracker we did about 10km (I doubt this, more like 8km) but regardless the dog did at least 4 times our distance as he was off the leash all the time.
He was completely knackered on the way home though – instead of running back to us he’d just lie in the shade & wait for us to catch up.
Huskies are duracell bunnies & moreover are very prey-focused. I can see what Conan (IIRC) meant about experienced handling required. I wouldn’t trust any of them around livestock unless they were brought up in that environment & even then…
Around people they’re fine provided their owner has a clue about basic dog training.
IMHO these dogs are TOTALLY unsuitable for 99% of people in the UK. Even taking the dog for a walk on the leash for two hours a day isn’t going to come close to what it needs.
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naw that was me mate. Careful handling, heidstrong dugs!
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Ah so it was 🙂
That’s a good description of them.
He’s been out here maybe 10 weeks running now & knows the route well so we’re mixing it up a bit so he doesn’t hurtle off to the same trees (which can be 200-300m away) all the time.
The dog had a bad time when younger & doesn’t wag his tail much (or bark) so the sight of him with paws up on tree wagging tail and barking at magpies (who take the piss out of him by following him around) is priceless 🙂
He knows better than to tackle the crows on our street though – one turns into four or five very rapidly and you’re surrounded 😉
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I love it when a dog (or any animal) that had a hard start in life, finds a loving home.
Wish more could.
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He he… that’s some walking. But they must get that kind of exercise and unless you can give it to them, you should probably get a corgi or something.
We had Labradors when we were young and each one of us had to take them out every day and let them run wild. Fortunately we lived in the country so it wasn’t a problem.
Under exercised dogs are unhappy dogs.
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Resurrected the GoPro youngest daughter took with her to Ecuador for these walks. Leave it running & there’s bound to be something for a Soppy Sunday piccie
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