Morning all…Some other world.Bibury, England.Bluebell wood, and the gardener.Snuggle time.…and again.Famille Canard. (Gerry).And yet more snuggles.Erice Castle, Italy.Country garden.Gone fishing.Lewis.Baby Kitten.High Five.Rhode Island Road!I want to play!Hello…who are you little buddy?Neat beard, huh?Nairobi.Joey and Teddy!OK, that’s it for this week. See you soon…
those were adorable – loved the kitty cats of various types. Though aren’t all kittens babies? 🙂 And snuggling animals, how cute. The Rhode Island road was stunning – beautiful. I’d say it was life affirming but Ed would tell me off for plagiarism so I won’t…
Plagiarism, PP? As if! Those of us who are as mature and wise as I am realise that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Thanks for the laugh, PP – and indeed, to Tris, for a very uplifting and life-affirming selection of photies today, though the baby orangutans look just a trifle melancholy, I think. But then so would you in their position.
The cheetahs now… oh, fond memories from Africa, reinforced by the pic of Nairobi, where I lived for years, but not long enough. I know where that photie was taken from, actually. Yes – the cheetahs. The name for a cheetah in Swahili is duma, (doo’ma), not to be confused with chui (choo’-ee – it’s your basic five-vowel system). I add that because I could never get the two straight in my mind and my guys used to mock me for it mercilessly. Nevertheless, Swahili is a lingua franca and originally an urban language, so animal words can do double duty: punda = donkey; punda wa mlia = donkey with stripes = zebra; chui = leopard (meditate on the roots of “leopard” for a moment); chui wa mlia = tiger (not native to E Africa, of course) on our trips to some of the last places on earth where the “charismatic megafauna” are to be found…
I’m talking IUCN red list here. The habitat is shrinking and the populations are declining – fast. Even over the few years I spent in Kenya, I saw the glory of its wildlife dwindle.
To cheer us all up again, here’s a thing I turned up about cheetahs, from National Geographic: https://t1p.de/p7c2op.
Intrigued to learn that punda = donkey in Swahili. In Zulu, it’s an intimate part of female anatomy, rhyming in English with one of the would-be PMs. Not quite so offensive, though. It’s been borrowed by Seffrican English as almost synonymous with ‘a bit of all right’.
For the first time in 100 years, Britons are dying earlier. The UK now has the worst health trends in western Europe – and doctors and experts believe that the impact of austerity is a major factor
the Tory plan is coming to fruition
how to solve paying pensions and
elderly care kill the low paid population
er slowly by malnutrition and hard long
underpaid work
The Rhode Island road is a beautiful picture. I wonder if those are cherry blossoms. Rhode Island has a cherry blossom festival about the same time as the more famous one in Washington, DC.
Some Rhode Island trivia:
Rhode Island is the smallest state with the longest official name.
The land area of Rhode Island is 1214 square miles; roughly 37 mi x 48 mi in maximum latitude and longitude with about 14% of the area of the state being water.
It’s full official state name comes from its colonial name: “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations”
The capital and largest city of Rhode island is Providence.
Tris…….The cherry trees in Washington were a gift from Japan in 1912 (a long story actually….see below) and the National Cherry Blossom Festival in the Spring is a big deal in Washington.
Perhaps surprising that the trees survived WWII, and Wiki says someone cut down four of the trees immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack. But during the war they were renamed “Oriental” flowering cherry trees and cooler heads prevailed. The cherry blossom festival was suspended for the duration. 🙂
OMG Tris…..I almost missed this effrontery from Niko. 😉
Niko……I’m so embarrassed that my trivial lighthearted postings are apparently crowding out serious sobersided messages from humorless drudges like yourself who spend time wringing their hands and rending their garments over monumental matters of world peace and nuclear Armageddon.
Perhaps you’ve missed my (more serious) previous postings about the English in the age of empire being culpable for almost every evil in the world today, including Middle Eastern conflicts involving peoples and borders. I’ve also pointed out on numerous occasions that the English….possessing no written constitution and mindlessly clinging to hereditary monarchy….are demonstrably incapable of self-government.
Specifically, how’s that Brexit thing working out for ya? I’m surprised that given your perpetual preoccupation with governmental policy, you don’t have it all sorted by now.
And BTW, the video you posted with thanks to the USA is in fact a 1961 RUSSIAN atmospheric test of a 50 megaton nuclear bomb. Although I may have almost total responsibility for all current aspects of American geopolitical and military policy, my influence on half-century-old Russian nuclear policy is considerably more constrained.
😉
If anyone’s interested, the translation of the title is “Best clip on Earth”, with overtones of “Warmest-hearted clip ever” – “samyy dobryy” means “best” (most good, actually), but it’s the superlative of the “good” in the phrase “he’s a good man, a good-hearted soul”. The other common word for “good”, khoroshiy, is the good in “khoroshiy spektakl” – a good show; “khoroshaya kniga” and “khoroshee vino” – a good newspaper, good wine. The superlative of khoroshiy is nayluchshiy, just to complicate matters, but I expect everyone’s lost patience with this already, and who cares anyway, the film’s lovely.
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
those were adorable – loved the kitty cats of various types. Though aren’t all kittens babies? 🙂 And snuggling animals, how cute. The Rhode Island road was stunning – beautiful. I’d say it was life affirming but Ed would tell me off for plagiarism so I won’t…
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Well, that kitten was particularly babyish, so I thought I could get away with it.
Yep, you have to watch out for that Ed, but I suspect that sometimes it’s his evil twin that is responsible!
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Plagiarism, PP? As if! Those of us who are as mature and wise as I am realise that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Thanks for the laugh, PP – and indeed, to Tris, for a very uplifting and life-affirming selection of photies today, though the baby orangutans look just a trifle melancholy, I think. But then so would you in their position.
The cheetahs now… oh, fond memories from Africa, reinforced by the pic of Nairobi, where I lived for years, but not long enough. I know where that photie was taken from, actually. Yes – the cheetahs. The name for a cheetah in Swahili is duma, (doo’ma), not to be confused with chui (choo’-ee – it’s your basic five-vowel system). I add that because I could never get the two straight in my mind and my guys used to mock me for it mercilessly. Nevertheless, Swahili is a lingua franca and originally an urban language, so animal words can do double duty: punda = donkey; punda wa mlia = donkey with stripes = zebra; chui = leopard (meditate on the roots of “leopard” for a moment); chui wa mlia = tiger (not native to E Africa, of course) on our trips to some of the last places on earth where the “charismatic megafauna” are to be found…
I’m talking IUCN red list here. The habitat is shrinking and the populations are declining – fast. Even over the few years I spent in Kenya, I saw the glory of its wildlife dwindle.
To cheer us all up again, here’s a thing I turned up about cheetahs, from National Geographic: https://t1p.de/p7c2op.
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Er… this bit, “on our trips to some of the last places on earth where the “charismatic megafauna” are to be found…” should come after “mercilessly”.
Is it just me, or would other people like WordPress to allow us to go back and fix things?
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Most of us would like WordPress to do a lot of stuff….
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Intrigued to learn that punda = donkey in Swahili. In Zulu, it’s an intimate part of female anatomy, rhyming in English with one of the would-be PMs. Not quite so offensive, though. It’s been borrowed by Seffrican English as almost synonymous with ‘a bit of all right’.
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LOL.
But what rhymes with Johnson?
🙂
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Some fascinating facts there, both in your post and in the piece of cheetahs. 0-60 in under three seconds… what??????
Love that a zebra is a donkey with stripes.
Reminds me of a lime in French being a green lemon!
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tris a good read
be a lot worse under Boris
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/23/why-is-life-expectancy-falling
For the first time in 100 years, Britons are dying earlier. The UK now has the worst health trends in western Europe – and doctors and experts believe that the impact of austerity is a major factor
the Tory plan is coming to fruition
how to solve paying pensions and
elderly care kill the low paid population
er slowly by malnutrition and hard long
underpaid work
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s scary, Niko.
Austerity, it seems to me, has had no beneficial effects at all, except perhaps for the super rich group upon which it didn’t impact.
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Oh, but it did impact the super-rich, Tris – it benefited them enormously…
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Yes, Ed. I suppose that’s right. Sigh!
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o/t an interview in Der Spiegel with Nicola Sturgeon. In English – I mean my German isn’t that good!
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nicola-sturgeon-boris-johnson-lacks-competence-a-1273642.html
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Good interview.
Thanks, PP.
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https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nicola-sturgeon-boris-johnson-lacks-everything in a normal human being-a-1273642.html
History will wonder how we trusted Boris with Britain
Max Hastings
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/06/history-will-wonder-how-we-trusted-boris-with-britain/
Max not a noted Lefty (lefty seems to be the rights new pejorative
as in he/she is lefty don’t believe them )
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The thing is, though, that if no one likes him, how come he beat his nearest rival so handily?
There must be 160 people who likes him, and remember the other two in the last round got only 152 votes between them.
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Wow! That Italian castle – no place for sleepwalkers.
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LOL
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The Rhode Island road is a beautiful picture. I wonder if those are cherry blossoms. Rhode Island has a cherry blossom festival about the same time as the more famous one in Washington, DC.
Some Rhode Island trivia:
Rhode Island is the smallest state with the longest official name.
The land area of Rhode Island is 1214 square miles; roughly 37 mi x 48 mi in maximum latitude and longitude with about 14% of the area of the state being water.
It’s full official state name comes from its colonial name: “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations”
The capital and largest city of Rhode island is Providence.
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It’s my favourite state, Danny.
I assume it to be cherry blossom.
When I saw the pic I immediately though “Japan”, and was amazed to find it where it really was.
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Tris…….The cherry trees in Washington were a gift from Japan in 1912 (a long story actually….see below) and the National Cherry Blossom Festival in the Spring is a big deal in Washington.
Perhaps surprising that the trees survived WWII, and Wiki says someone cut down four of the trees immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack. But during the war they were renamed “Oriental” flowering cherry trees and cooler heads prevailed. The cherry blossom festival was suspended for the duration. 🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cherry_Blossom_Festival
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Old Danny
Talking trivia as ever
Meanwhile the USA dragging
The world into a long drawn
Out war in the Middle East
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Thanks you very much
USA
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OMG Tris…..I almost missed this effrontery from Niko. 😉
Niko……I’m so embarrassed that my trivial lighthearted postings are apparently crowding out serious sobersided messages from humorless drudges like yourself who spend time wringing their hands and rending their garments over monumental matters of world peace and nuclear Armageddon.
Perhaps you’ve missed my (more serious) previous postings about the English in the age of empire being culpable for almost every evil in the world today, including Middle Eastern conflicts involving peoples and borders. I’ve also pointed out on numerous occasions that the English….possessing no written constitution and mindlessly clinging to hereditary monarchy….are demonstrably incapable of self-government.
Specifically, how’s that Brexit thing working out for ya? I’m surprised that given your perpetual preoccupation with governmental policy, you don’t have it all sorted by now.
And BTW, the video you posted with thanks to the USA is in fact a 1961 RUSSIAN atmospheric test of a 50 megaton nuclear bomb. Although I may have almost total responsibility for all current aspects of American geopolitical and military policy, my influence on half-century-old Russian nuclear policy is considerably more constrained.
😉
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LOL Danny. Sorted!
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Not really fair to blame Danny, Niko.
It’s a bit like blaming us for the fact that so far Hunt has agreed with everything that the Orange Idiot has said.
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Being kind to animals compilation.
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that was adorable Marcia. Good to see that orang utans and chimps like having pet cats too!
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Awwwwwwwwwwwww…. so lovely. A brilliant find, Marcia.
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If anyone’s interested, the translation of the title is “Best clip on Earth”, with overtones of “Warmest-hearted clip ever” – “samyy dobryy” means “best” (most good, actually), but it’s the superlative of the “good” in the phrase “he’s a good man, a good-hearted soul”. The other common word for “good”, khoroshiy, is the good in “khoroshiy spektakl” – a good show; “khoroshaya kniga” and “khoroshee vino” – a good newspaper, good wine. The superlative of khoroshiy is nayluchshiy, just to complicate matters, but I expect everyone’s lost patience with this already, and who cares anyway, the film’s lovely.
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LOL…
Your grammar never ceases to amaze me. And I thought I was a pedant!
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