I’m a bit handsome, aren’t I?Adolf (now renamed Tom) has moved house!Let’s be friends.Vestas’ bee still working…Ticino, Switzerland.What big eyes you have, Grandma!They are even the same colours.When I tell you to behave…Norway.Head gardener here…Dar es Salaam.Who’s cute (and knows it)?I’m not sure why people don’t like me.Fancy a swim?Nice bath! What? You never heard of a mud pack?Reykjavik.Mangroves are amazing.That you off then… OK, until next time.
That looks like what we call a “yellowjacket” here in the States. Looks similar to a hornet, and both are a form of wasp Wiki says. We were gone for a couple weeks, and one or the other took up residence in our mailbox and wouldn’t let us get our mail. Don’t know which one actually. Hard to tell while running. Anyway, nasty critters!
“Wasp” is a very old word… wasp or wesp in Scots, wesp in Dutch, Wespe in German, vespa in Italian (the scooters are onomatopoeic), avispa in Spanish, viespe in Romanian. The French “guêpe” is to “wasp” as “guerre” is to “war”; it’s the same sound mutation. Over in the Slavics, it’s some variation on оsa [оса in Cyrillic], which is definitely cognate. It’s not universal in the Indo-European languages, though, and there are many wot I wot not of.
Or “wee bastard” in Fife speak. I know they’re a necessary part of the eco system and I honestly avoid killing them if at all possible, but why do they have to be such gits.
I call them Jaspers. I always thought everyone called them Jaspers but it turns out nobody else calls them Jaspers. I have no idea where or when this entered my brain but I cannot get it out. Jaspers forever.
Ed…….Interesting! An old word used for many different stinging insects. Here in the Midwest USA, we generally reserve the name “wasp” for the Great Black Wasp, Sphex Pensylvanicus. (A solitary, slower moving, less excitable creature than Yellowjackets and Hornets. Google says: “Being solitary wasps, it is very rare and difficult to be stung by a black wasp.”)
Wiki: “Sphex pensylvanicus was the subject of the first article on an insect written by a native of the New World, when observations made by John Bartram on S. pensylvanicus were presented to the Royal Society in 1749 by Peter Collinson.”
John Bartram (1699 – 1777) was an early American botanist, horticulturist and explorer born in Darby, Pennsylvania Colony.
Interesting! It’s a feature of AmEng v. BrEng that Americans took words for the wildlife from the old country and applied them to different bits of nature; an American robin is really not all that like the bird we know in the UK, for example. One of the things that pisses me off sometimes about American movies – particularly cartoon for kids, I think – that the ones set in England (I use the term advisedly) are nevertheless populated by animals which do not exist in the UK – raccoons, skunks and groundhogs, for example.
It’s a common phenomenon, really: the world is much more complex than any human brain can comprehend fully, so it’s only logical that there are more things out there than we have words for. In fact, there are more things going on in our own heads – emotions and reactions, noumena in all their variety – that we don’t have words for, and cannot properly perceive. One of the great things about my line of work as a translator and English editor is (was) that continually learning new words (which everybody does, but I’m trained to do it) implies continually taking on board new concepts and learning to see things from additional angles. It helps me see the rich tapestry of life in greater detail, I think, and understand things with greater “granularity”, which seems to be a buzz word just now.
That’s the great thing about learning furrin as well: as one of my lecturers at uni put it, succinctly, all languages slice up reality differently.
I find it all very satisfying and gratifying, which is OK by me because I know I’m a bit peculiar.
Well said! I had a physics professor who said that one of the problems with physics for example, is that we need to come up with a way to describe the details of atomic nuclei using language that was developed to say “look out, there’s a Saber Toothed Tiger outside the cave.”
I read somewhere that Navajo has language resources that can describe the interactions of subatomic particles and all those quarks much better than English can. Wouldn’t surprise me; it like the old chestnut about the Inuit having 16 words for snow (whether it’s true or not I wouldn’t know).
One of the more cringingly awful and embarrassing moments in recent history was when Trumpy had the remaining Navajo code talkers in the White House, those of’em who could make it, anyway, ostensibly to honour them for their service. However… off he goes, unscripted, on one of his appalling, self-serving diatribes leaving said Navajo code talkers standing around looking incredibly uncomfortable (and old, making the poor old things stand about while he was ranting!) – and then he got into his schtick about Elizabeth Warren in which he told the audience, and the Navajo veterans shifting from foot to foot right behind him, about how he’d nicknamed her Pocahontas…
Yes Ed, cringingly embarrassing is a perfect description. He could have just said a few words of appreciation and gotten a good media moment out of it. Instead he babbles on and then you see him shift gears and launch into the insult about Senator Warren whom (he says) THEY call Pocahontas….as the old guys lean on their canes, one in a wheelchair, and stare ahead without changing expression.
Ranks right up there with the famous political speech to the young “non-political” Boy Scouts that the Scout organization had to apologize for after he left.
Ed……Trumpy is spending so much time sliming Biden that he may not have noticed that Senator Warren is now at the top of the polling, neck and neck with Biden. She leads in many polls, with the other candidates mostly far behind. So he may have to come up with some new native American insults for her. The big bankers and the Wall Street crowd will cheer him on, since they’re terrified at the prospect of a Warren presidency.
I just heard Warren slap down some guy who talked about someone saying that marriage was supposed to be between a man and a woman, to which Warren replied that (a) the person must have been a guy; (b) he should probably marry just one woman; and (c) … if he could find one. Beautifully delivered. If I had a vote, I’d vote for her, or maybe Mayor Pete, to whom I’m partial.
Buttigieg is still doing well in money raising, but is still far behind in the polling. Generally Biden and Warren are neck and neck at the front of the pack, but in some polls Warren has pulled ahead.
Danny, I myself have always held to the view that people who are against gay marriage probably shouldn’t marry people who’re the same sex as themselves.
Ed…….I’d say you’re right about that marriage idea……LOL. (I loved Elizabeth Warren’s comment BTW. Very well delivered! Tris sent me a clip.) I remember when Mitt Romney was running in 2012, someone said the Republicans might decide that marriage should be between one man and AT LEAST one woman. You might enjoy this clip from last night’s “Saturday Night Live.” They said that since 45 men have been president (it’s really 44 of course), Buttigieg would not likely be the first one who is gay. Surely there’s been at least one before.
Tris…..Don’t really know which would be the better candidate, but the conventional wisdom seems to be that Trump has more concern about Biden as an opponent. Maybe Biden would get more votes among blue collar workers in the industrial “rust belt” Midwest where Trump won the election in 2016.
Danny – re that CNN clip about the Warren extending her lead (I think I’ve got the right one, with WordPress it is SOOOO easy to lose one’s place), I spotted a thing about growing up trans. Munguinites might like to take a look at it: https://is.gd/Vdv51z.
I’ve certainly heard that (about the snow). It’s not unreasonable given that for them snow is a massively important element of life, and there are, after all, many different kinds of snow.
I remember the first time I went camping in the Western Highlands. Beautiful day, loads of walking, sun shining and early evening I decided to bath in the burn.
Sitting on a rock washing myself, and feeling like a country boy, I did notice the odd insect.
Later that night in sleeping bad… Oh ****.
The wee gits bite everywhere… and I mean everywhere.
Still, if it’s any comfort to you Canadian and Greenlandic midges are every bit as intolerable.
A snatch of song from lord knows when comes to mind :
“Oh the black fly, the little black fly, always the black fly wherever you go,
I’ll die with the black fly picking my bones, in North Ontario-io, in North Ontario”.
Clearly something like the Hieland Midgie ???
Don’t know about other Slavic languages, but ‘oca’ is good in Bulgarian. Gaelic is ‘speach’ (-ch as is loch, not speech). Suggests a connection with the Scots ‘speug’ (sparrow) but other than both having wings, that might be a bit of an etymological stretch. Or even entomological.
Yes, John, I couldn’t find any etymological connection either – unless that [sp] at the beginning of the word is the only bit that’s been retained over time. Romance and Slavic languages are my thing, really; not much cop at all at the other indoeuropean languages.
Bulgaria being next door to Romania, both langues often feature on labels, menus etc. In my early days here, not having learned the Cyrillic alphabet, I’d fall back on the Romanian and could have a reasonable stab at understanding through my knowledge of Latin and Italian. Even after getting the hang of Cyrillic and acquiring a semi-decent smattering of Bulgarian, there are pitfalls.
After interpreting a restaurant menu for the Resident Sassenach, she opted for chicken soup. That proved to be finished, so she decided any soup would do. I suggested pork-something soup, the ‘something’ being beyond my vocabulary but she could hardly go wrong with that. A few minutes later, a bowl of pig’s-ear soup was delivered – complete with gristly bits and indeterminate fatty lumps. The RS appetite mysteriously disappeared. Even more so when my ‘skembe chorba’ arrived – tripe stew, which has always offended her refined English sensitivities.
In France, I was in a restaurant which specialised in steaks. Not being keen on the warm but uncooked style I searched for something else on the menu. There were andouilletes, which my Collins gem dictionary translated as sausages. When I cut in to them they were stuffed with tripe.
Tripe is OK if you take just a bit of time to prepare it by washing/rinsing it and then trimming it .
Haven’t eaten it for years though.
Served it once at a dinner party. Haven’t seen those folks for years either !
Oh yes, such an easy trap to fall into: from “a bit hot in here, innit?” to “I”m hot and horny!Similarly, “Laissez-moi vous allumer” does not mean “Let me give you a light”, it means “Let me turn you on”. Come on baby, light my fire!
those were lovely. And yes Mr opening picture you are a handsome chap – Tris thinks so as he’s posted you several times. No they don’t all look alike you philistines! But he’s so cute, he can bear repeating.
Lovely stuff – I wish I looked as pretty with a mudpack. Lots of cats today which suits me. One seems to be dogged by a lookalike though. (Ouch!)
Norway looks gorgeous. Did you know Norway struck oil and got richer? Can you imagine such a thing…
Ooft. WordPress bunged that in early as I was trying to sign in. I was going to say – Norway struck oil and got richer? How very extraordinary! Whoever heard of such a thing? In fact I read the other week that the interest from some sort of oil fund they’d set up was several time the Scottish Government’s annual expenditure.
It’s all lies, of course, just like that fictional oilfield to the west of the Shetlands, because our friendly Westminster Government wouldn’t lie to us, ever, now would it? Perish the thought!
I understand that the fiction is that Norway no long really needs the oil income, because the interest gained on its two oil funds FAR surpasses any amount that the actual oil brings in.
Aren’t we lucky that we don’t have a government that lies to us about these things, but instead, gets on with the serious business of punching above our weight.
You only have to visit Norway for a few days to see …. Oh. Yes… ah, well, hmmmmmm
Ah well, yes, there is a limited number of pictures of cute orangutans to be had, so there is bound to be some repetition.
John tells me that the cat is renamed Tom, after Tom Selleck , who was apparently a big star. He does look like him.
We could have been Norway. If we didn’t have to punch above our weight to stay in favour with America, and if we didn’t have to subsidise projects that never come anywhere near us.
Tom is in Blue Bloods now – he plays an Irish American police Commissioner in NYC, who’s dad was the same. Lots of Irish Americans – cough backstop- lots of Scottish Americans too but they don’t seem to agitate as much for the old country.
Among the agitators in “Blue Bloods” are throngs of misguided African-Americans who are often whipped into a frenzy of anti-police street protests by a smooth talking, criminally corrupt black preacher . It’s a popular mainstream TV network show, just beginning its tenth season I think, in spite of its racism. Maybe having something to do with Tom Selleck’s right wing politics.
I’ve only seen the first series which was a bit cliched and home spun in my opinion but passed the time. Though I remember an episode with the preacher – if it’s the same one. It didn’t seem too dodgy as a one off but if it’s a recurring theme…
PP…..I haven’t watched the last two or three seasons of “Blue Bloods” (it just started its tenth,) but that corrupt black preacher who kept the poorly educated and excitable African-American street people riled up against the “good guys”…..(the New York City Police Department and the lily white Irish American police family headed by Frank Reagan (played by Selleck) who runs the department)……..became a recurring character who spanned seasons. I’m surprised that a big mainstream TV network like CBS didn’t receive lots of pushback about the clearly implied racism. (And from season two, Frank’s nemesis at city hall was a black mayor……a self-serving politician who invariably was shown pandering to the “blacks”, much to Frank’s displeasure.)
Other than the racism that no one has seemed to notice in its 10 year run, it’s a sloppy sentimental storyline about a close knit Catholic Irish-American family who have been policemen for generations. Sort of the Walton Family transplanted to the mean streets of New York City. The plots are simple, and the crooks and terrorists are always caught and punished in time for the Reagan family Sunday dinner after mass that is shown in almost every episode.
Selleck is an engaging actor who is very likable as the no-nonsense police Commissioner, as long as you ignore the excitable black people, and the fact that Selleck is a gun nut who has held leadership positions in the National Rifle Association. Politically, he claims to be an independent with libertarian leanings.
Interesting. And given that, as one of the correspondents says, that will not have included the 16-18 year olds, I think it may be even more hopeful than 50-50
I can see a rather large number of ways in which the the top 1% will be able to make themselves even more monstrously rich on the back of this. Suspend tax laws? Wahey!
Vestas’s bee looks like a Buff-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris). I know there’s no such thing as an evil animal (except for some human ones) but that croc certainly looks like it’s working on it. As for the walrus, it reminds me that I could be doing with shedding some pounds but at least I had my annual dental check recently so my tusks are OK 🙂
“Bumblebee” is one of my favourite words in English. One of my favourite words in Russian, oddly enough, is жужжание (zhuzhzhaniye), buzzing. There’s an odd word for buzzing in English: bombination. Which brings us back rather neatly to the wonderful buff-tailed bumblebee, whose Linnaean names is, as andimac just said, Bombus terrestris.
As is bombazine. Even though I know what it means, it always sounds to me as if it should refer to something like an outsize tuba crossed with a church organ. “She played a soulful tune on the bombazine, to the tinkling accompaniment of the clepsydra and a descant on the cornucopia….”.
I used to have to put on my motorbike jacket and gloves to pick up my mum’s cat. I patted her head and she would sink her teeth into the glove, wrap her forelegs around my wrist and her back legs would try and disembowel my forearm.
I could then carry her to the cat box like that. Obviously not evil, but…
/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-shropshirestar-mna.s3.amazonaws.com/public/LHPG46F2B5ER3D6QXWIW3S37TU.jpg)
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
Life reaffirmed by orangutans and others. Thank you, Tris, I needed that.
Lovely pictures. Very fine.
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Oh I do like satisfied customers, Ed.
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I see the tiger has found a way round the smacking ban. You bite your delinquent off-spring instead.
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Trust clever tigers to see the clear way ahead!
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That looks like what we call a “yellowjacket” here in the States. Looks similar to a hornet, and both are a form of wasp Wiki says. We were gone for a couple weeks, and one or the other took up residence in our mailbox and wouldn’t let us get our mail. Don’t know which one actually. Hard to tell while running. Anyway, nasty critters!
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“Wasp” is a very old word… wasp or wesp in Scots, wesp in Dutch, Wespe in German, vespa in Italian (the scooters are onomatopoeic), avispa in Spanish, viespe in Romanian. The French “guêpe” is to “wasp” as “guerre” is to “war”; it’s the same sound mutation. Over in the Slavics, it’s some variation on оsa [оса in Cyrillic], which is definitely cognate. It’s not universal in the Indo-European languages, though, and there are many wot I wot not of.
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Or “wee bastard” in Fife speak. I know they’re a necessary part of the eco system and I honestly avoid killing them if at all possible, but why do they have to be such gits.
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Indeed Greig! All I wanted was my mail. 😉
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Good question, Greig12.
I once fell out with a boss of mine because she killed on rather than just opening the window and letting him/her out.
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I call them Jaspers. I always thought everyone called them Jaspers but it turns out nobody else calls them Jaspers. I have no idea where or when this entered my brain but I cannot get it out. Jaspers forever.
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Do you often make up words?
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Have to say, though, that it’s a rather nice name for them.
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Ed…….Interesting! An old word used for many different stinging insects. Here in the Midwest USA, we generally reserve the name “wasp” for the Great Black Wasp, Sphex Pensylvanicus. (A solitary, slower moving, less excitable creature than Yellowjackets and Hornets. Google says: “Being solitary wasps, it is very rare and difficult to be stung by a black wasp.”)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphex_pensylvanicus
So what’s the association with Pennsylvania?
Wiki: “Sphex pensylvanicus was the subject of the first article on an insect written by a native of the New World, when observations made by John Bartram on S. pensylvanicus were presented to the Royal Society in 1749 by Peter Collinson.”
John Bartram (1699 – 1777) was an early American botanist, horticulturist and explorer born in Darby, Pennsylvania Colony.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bartram
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Interesting! It’s a feature of AmEng v. BrEng that Americans took words for the wildlife from the old country and applied them to different bits of nature; an American robin is really not all that like the bird we know in the UK, for example. One of the things that pisses me off sometimes about American movies – particularly cartoon for kids, I think – that the ones set in England (I use the term advisedly) are nevertheless populated by animals which do not exist in the UK – raccoons, skunks and groundhogs, for example.
It’s a common phenomenon, really: the world is much more complex than any human brain can comprehend fully, so it’s only logical that there are more things out there than we have words for. In fact, there are more things going on in our own heads – emotions and reactions, noumena in all their variety – that we don’t have words for, and cannot properly perceive. One of the great things about my line of work as a translator and English editor is (was) that continually learning new words (which everybody does, but I’m trained to do it) implies continually taking on board new concepts and learning to see things from additional angles. It helps me see the rich tapestry of life in greater detail, I think, and understand things with greater “granularity”, which seems to be a buzz word just now.
That’s the great thing about learning furrin as well: as one of my lecturers at uni put it, succinctly, all languages slice up reality differently.
I find it all very satisfying and gratifying, which is OK by me because I know I’m a bit peculiar.
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Well said! I had a physics professor who said that one of the problems with physics for example, is that we need to come up with a way to describe the details of atomic nuclei using language that was developed to say “look out, there’s a Saber Toothed Tiger outside the cave.”
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🙂 LOL
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I read somewhere that Navajo has language resources that can describe the interactions of subatomic particles and all those quarks much better than English can. Wouldn’t surprise me; it like the old chestnut about the Inuit having 16 words for snow (whether it’s true or not I wouldn’t know).
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The military made use of native American languages in the world wars. The Navajo code talkers of WWII are particularly well known.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker
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One of the more cringingly awful and embarrassing moments in recent history was when Trumpy had the remaining Navajo code talkers in the White House, those of’em who could make it, anyway, ostensibly to honour them for their service. However… off he goes, unscripted, on one of his appalling, self-serving diatribes leaving said Navajo code talkers standing around looking incredibly uncomfortable (and old, making the poor old things stand about while he was ranting!) – and then he got into his schtick about Elizabeth Warren in which he told the audience, and the Navajo veterans shifting from foot to foot right behind him, about how he’d nicknamed her Pocahontas…
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He really is the thickest thicky of all the incredible thick thickies. He has absolutely no self awareness at all.
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Yes Ed, cringingly embarrassing is a perfect description. He could have just said a few words of appreciation and gotten a good media moment out of it. Instead he babbles on and then you see him shift gears and launch into the insult about Senator Warren whom (he says) THEY call Pocahontas….as the old guys lean on their canes, one in a wheelchair, and stare ahead without changing expression.
Ranks right up there with the famous political speech to the young “non-political” Boy Scouts that the Scout organization had to apologize for after he left.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/27/boy-scouts-apologizes-for-trump-speech-241036
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Ed…..I’ve tried to post a PS to the above message three times, to no apparent effect. So if the message below is a repeat, please forgive me.
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Ed……Trumpy is spending so much time sliming Biden that he may not have noticed that Senator Warren is now at the top of the polling, neck and neck with Biden. She leads in many polls, with the other candidates mostly far behind. So he may have to come up with some new native American insults for her. The big bankers and the Wall Street crowd will cheer him on, since they’re terrified at the prospect of a Warren presidency.
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I just heard Warren slap down some guy who talked about someone saying that marriage was supposed to be between a man and a woman, to which Warren replied that (a) the person must have been a guy; (b) he should probably marry just one woman; and (c) … if he could find one. Beautifully delivered. If I had a vote, I’d vote for her, or maybe Mayor Pete, to whom I’m partial.
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Ed. I thought that was a brilliant move. So did her audience.
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Ed…..
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/65429563/GettyImages_1168718775.0.jpg)
Buttigieg is still doing well in money raising, but is still far behind in the polling. Generally Biden and Warren are neck and neck at the front of the pack, but in some polls Warren has pulled ahead.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2020-democratic-polls-elizabeth-warren-extends-lead-across-early-states-new-hampshire-draws-even-with-biden-in-iowa/
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Great article, Danny. Thanks for sharing it.
I wonder which one Trump fears going against.
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Danny, I myself have always held to the view that people who are against gay marriage probably shouldn’t marry people who’re the same sex as themselves.
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Ed…….I’d say you’re right about that marriage idea……LOL. (I loved Elizabeth Warren’s comment BTW. Very well delivered! Tris sent me a clip.) I remember when Mitt Romney was running in 2012, someone said the Republicans might decide that marriage should be between one man and AT LEAST one woman. You might enjoy this clip from last night’s “Saturday Night Live.” They said that since 45 men have been president (it’s really 44 of course), Buttigieg would not likely be the first one who is gay. Surely there’s been at least one before.
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Tris…..Don’t really know which would be the better candidate, but the conventional wisdom seems to be that Trump has more concern about Biden as an opponent. Maybe Biden would get more votes among blue collar workers in the industrial “rust belt” Midwest where Trump won the election in 2016.
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Early days, but I think it will be one of the most interesting elections when the time comes.
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Danny – re that CNN clip about the Warren extending her lead (I think I’ve got the right one, with WordPress it is SOOOO easy to lose one’s place), I spotted a thing about growing up trans. Munguinites might like to take a look at it: https://is.gd/Vdv51z.
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How fortunate that they seem to have less trouble with bone spurs in the native American races!!!
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I think that the bone spur malady is mostly confined to narcissistic rich guys. 😉
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I see that the article mentions that the Brits used Welsh to a limited extent. I had heard that they used Scottish Gaelic too, but it isn’t mentioned.
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Unencrypted Welsh and Gaelic would drive the Germans crazy trying to break the code. 😉
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I’ve certainly heard that (about the snow). It’s not unreasonable given that for them snow is a massively important element of life, and there are, after all, many different kinds of snow.
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A bit?
LOL.
🙂
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Wasps have been around for a long time. When you consider that they are very unpopular animals, it’s surprising that they have lasted.
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We still have midges. Any survivor of nuclear attack will have to contend with radiation and swarms of Scottish bloody midges.
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I remember the first time I went camping in the Western Highlands. Beautiful day, loads of walking, sun shining and early evening I decided to bath in the burn.
Sitting on a rock washing myself, and feeling like a country boy, I did notice the odd insect.
Later that night in sleeping bad… Oh ****.
The wee gits bite everywhere… and I mean everywhere.
Still, if it’s any comfort to you Canadian and Greenlandic midges are every bit as intolerable.
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A snatch of song from lord knows when comes to mind :
“Oh the black fly, the little black fly, always the black fly wherever you go,
I’ll die with the black fly picking my bones, in North Ontario-io, in North Ontario”.
Clearly something like the Hieland Midgie ???
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I wonder. I suspect that they get midges in North Ontario too. Maybe that’s what they call them.
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Don’t know about other Slavic languages, but ‘oca’ is good in Bulgarian. Gaelic is ‘speach’ (-ch as is loch, not speech). Suggests a connection with the Scots ‘speug’ (sparrow) but other than both having wings, that might be a bit of an etymological stretch. Or even entomological.
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Just a bit of a stretch, I think, after all a Boeing 707 also has wings!
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Yes, John, I couldn’t find any etymological connection either – unless that [sp] at the beginning of the word is the only bit that’s been retained over time. Romance and Slavic languages are my thing, really; not much cop at all at the other indoeuropean languages.
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Bulgaria being next door to Romania, both langues often feature on labels, menus etc. In my early days here, not having learned the Cyrillic alphabet, I’d fall back on the Romanian and could have a reasonable stab at understanding through my knowledge of Latin and Italian. Even after getting the hang of Cyrillic and acquiring a semi-decent smattering of Bulgarian, there are pitfalls.
After interpreting a restaurant menu for the Resident Sassenach, she opted for chicken soup. That proved to be finished, so she decided any soup would do. I suggested pork-something soup, the ‘something’ being beyond my vocabulary but she could hardly go wrong with that. A few minutes later, a bowl of pig’s-ear soup was delivered – complete with gristly bits and indeterminate fatty lumps. The RS appetite mysteriously disappeared. Even more so when my ‘skembe chorba’ arrived – tripe stew, which has always offended her refined English sensitivities.
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Oops… In Vienna, I once ordered myself sheep’s brain by mistake. I resolved not to do that again in a hurry.
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In France, I was in a restaurant which specialised in steaks. Not being keen on the warm but uncooked style I searched for something else on the menu. There were andouilletes, which my Collins gem dictionary translated as sausages. When I cut in to them they were stuffed with tripe.
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Actually, Dave, John… I’ve never had tripe. What’s it taste like.
I’m keen on liver and I love kidneys. I was looking at heart the other days and wondering if I should buy it… but I’ve never even seen tripe.
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Tripe is OK if you take just a bit of time to prepare it by washing/rinsing it and then trimming it .
Haven’t eaten it for years though.
Served it once at a dinner party. Haven’t seen those folks for years either !
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LOL. Now we know how to get rid of people we don’t want to see again!
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Ah, the joys of almost speaking a language, John.
I remember the strange looks I got at a dinner party when I announced: “Je suis chaud” instead of saying: “J’ai chaud”.
Instead of remarking on how warm the evening was, I had mistakenly told the assembled company that I was sexy.
Some of the looks were downright incredulity!
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Oh yes, such an easy trap to fall into: from “a bit hot in here, innit?” to “I”m hot and horny!Similarly, “Laissez-moi vous allumer” does not mean “Let me give you a light”, it means “Let me turn you on”. Come on baby, light my fire!
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Foreigners, huh? What can you do with them?
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Such a strain having to shout so loud at them all the time when they wilfully refuse to understand one…
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Damned cheek!
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Oh well, Danny… it was probably only bills!
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🙂
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those were lovely. And yes Mr opening picture you are a handsome chap – Tris thinks so as he’s posted you several times. No they don’t all look alike you philistines! But he’s so cute, he can bear repeating.
Lovely stuff – I wish I looked as pretty with a mudpack. Lots of cats today which suits me. One seems to be dogged by a lookalike though. (Ouch!)
Norway looks gorgeous. Did you know Norway struck oil and got richer? Can you imagine such a thing…
Overall very life affirming.
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Indeed!
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Ooft. WordPress bunged that in early as I was trying to sign in. I was going to say – Norway struck oil and got richer? How very extraordinary! Whoever heard of such a thing? In fact I read the other week that the interest from some sort of oil fund they’d set up was several time the Scottish Government’s annual expenditure.
It’s all lies, of course, just like that fictional oilfield to the west of the Shetlands, because our friendly Westminster Government wouldn’t lie to us, ever, now would it? Perish the thought!
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I understand that the fiction is that Norway no long really needs the oil income, because the interest gained on its two oil funds FAR surpasses any amount that the actual oil brings in.
Aren’t we lucky that we don’t have a government that lies to us about these things, but instead, gets on with the serious business of punching above our weight.
You only have to visit Norway for a few days to see …. Oh. Yes… ah, well, hmmmmmm
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Ah well, yes, there is a limited number of pictures of cute orangutans to be had, so there is bound to be some repetition.
John tells me that the cat is renamed Tom, after Tom Selleck , who was apparently a big star. He does look like him.
We could have been Norway. If we didn’t have to punch above our weight to stay in favour with America, and if we didn’t have to subsidise projects that never come anywhere near us.
Sigh.
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Ah! Now I understand. Magnum PI. Very apt. Cats are into everything too.
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Tom is in Blue Bloods now – he plays an Irish American police Commissioner in NYC, who’s dad was the same. Lots of Irish Americans – cough backstop- lots of Scottish Americans too but they don’t seem to agitate as much for the old country.
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Among the agitators in “Blue Bloods” are throngs of misguided African-Americans who are often whipped into a frenzy of anti-police street protests by a smooth talking, criminally corrupt black preacher . It’s a popular mainstream TV network show, just beginning its tenth season I think, in spite of its racism. Maybe having something to do with Tom Selleck’s right wing politics.
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I’ve only seen the first series which was a bit cliched and home spun in my opinion but passed the time. Though I remember an episode with the preacher – if it’s the same one. It didn’t seem too dodgy as a one off but if it’s a recurring theme…
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PP…..I haven’t watched the last two or three seasons of “Blue Bloods” (it just started its tenth,) but that corrupt black preacher who kept the poorly educated and excitable African-American street people riled up against the “good guys”…..(the New York City Police Department and the lily white Irish American police family headed by Frank Reagan (played by Selleck) who runs the department)……..became a recurring character who spanned seasons. I’m surprised that a big mainstream TV network like CBS didn’t receive lots of pushback about the clearly implied racism. (And from season two, Frank’s nemesis at city hall was a black mayor……a self-serving politician who invariably was shown pandering to the “blacks”, much to Frank’s displeasure.)
Other than the racism that no one has seemed to notice in its 10 year run, it’s a sloppy sentimental storyline about a close knit Catholic Irish-American family who have been policemen for generations. Sort of the Walton Family transplanted to the mean streets of New York City. The plots are simple, and the crooks and terrorists are always caught and punished in time for the Reagan family Sunday dinner after mass that is shown in almost every episode.
Selleck is an engaging actor who is very likable as the no-nonsense police Commissioner, as long as you ignore the excitable black people, and the fact that Selleck is a gun nut who has held leadership positions in the National Rifle Association. Politically, he claims to be an independent with libertarian leanings.
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dreadfully off topic but I crave indulgence. New poll puts indy at 50% and also a GE prediction. Unfortunately 5 Tories predicted to survive.
http://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/2019/10/historic-breakthrough-as-panelbase-poll.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ScotGoesPop+%28SCOT+goes+POP%21%29
Okay back to cute critters and stunning vistas.
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Interesting. And given that, as one of the correspondents says, that will not have included the 16-18 year olds, I think it may be even more hopeful than 50-50
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O/T but here’s something I thought may be of interest for those who haven’t seen it already.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/10/11/hmrc-plan-to-suspend-the-rule-of-law-in-the-event-of-brexit/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+org%2FlWWh+%28Tax+Research+UK+2%29
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It just gets worse, doesn’t it?
I can see a rather large number of ways in which the the top 1% will be able to make themselves even more monstrously rich on the back of this. Suspend tax laws? Wahey!
Ba$tards.
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Needless to say, the people who will profit from this will not be Munguin and you and me…
Lordy…
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Vestas’s bee looks like a Buff-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris). I know there’s no such thing as an evil animal (except for some human ones) but that croc certainly looks like it’s working on it. As for the walrus, it reminds me that I could be doing with shedding some pounds but at least I had my annual dental check recently so my tusks are OK 🙂
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“Bumblebee” is one of my favourite words in English. One of my favourite words in Russian, oddly enough, is жужжание (zhuzhzhaniye), buzzing. There’s an odd word for buzzing in English: bombination. Which brings us back rather neatly to the wonderful buff-tailed bumblebee, whose Linnaean names is, as andimac just said, Bombus terrestris.
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Bombination is, indeed, a fabulous word.
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As is bombazine. Even though I know what it means, it always sounds to me as if it should refer to something like an outsize tuba crossed with a church organ. “She played a soulful tune on the bombazine, to the tinkling accompaniment of the clepsydra and a descant on the cornucopia….”.
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Ah, well, I had to look that up.
For anyone else who wishes to know (maybe I’m the only one who didn’t) it’s mourning wear in this style…
Still, maybe you could get a tune out of it, who can say?
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More a rustle and a ruffle rather than a riff…
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Tris….That’s Mary Todd Lincoln BTW.
In brighter attire:
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I had absolutely no idea when I put up the pic. LOL.
You have to wonder how they got through doors with such wide dresses.
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Hard to move around surely. Mary’s “Strawberry Dress” is still in existence and is occasionally exhibited.
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I used to have to put on my motorbike jacket and gloves to pick up my mum’s cat. I patted her head and she would sink her teeth into the glove, wrap her forelegs around my wrist and her back legs would try and disembowel my forearm.
I could then carry her to the cat box like that. Obviously not evil, but…
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Sounds like an utterly charming animal. A Tory perchance?
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Close but no cigar.
Its the same one as last week – white-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lucorum).
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Maybe the croc is apprenticed to Patel?
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