1. I’m playing at being Tarzan. Anyone want to be Jane?2. Munguin fancies this little cottage for a weekend retreat.3. I heard Munguin calling for a Lord Privy Seal, but I was in the Arctic Ocean at the time. I got here as quickly as I could.4. On the other hand, this might be more appropriate for Munguin. Whatcha think?5. Gang of Gang-Gang Cockatoos.6. Hmmm, them stupid cats think they can get them birds up on that pipe. Me, I’m just sitting here pondering the intellectual mysteries of the world.7. Devil’s Flower Mantis.8. Luna in repose.9. It’s not fair to call us Warthogs. We don’t have any warts and we didn’t go to that magic school with Harry Potter either.10. The resident Tortoise in a certain Bulgarian garden.11. Hawaii.12. The picture of innocence.13. Glen Finnan.14. How many kinds of Evening Primrose grow in a Bulgarian Country Garden?15. Let’s make a start to our new home.16. I love you, mummy.17. Katmandu.18. Don’t mix me up with Liam. I’m the bright one.19. What’s the plural of Platipus? Well, whatever it is, that’s us.
20. I hope you’re socially distancing. Don’t forget it’s not gone away yet. See you next week.
Life successfully reaffirmed, Tris, for which I am profoundly grateful.
If Mr. M. is thinking of buying the ivy-bedecked property, I would tell him to beware: who knows what multitudes of sins are being covered up by it, in addition to whatever the dreaded Hedera helix is doing to the roans and the pointing.
Ed…….I do wonder why ivy covered walls are viewed in such a positive light. Apart from the obvious structural damage to walls and roof, the people who live there are living inside a green cocoon, surely infested with insects, spiders, scorpions, worms, and probably the occasional snake. Imagine the unending chore of keeping the windows and doors free from the all-encompassing vegetation.
At first, I thought you were having us on with ‘puggle’. It’s not listed in my full OED (admittedly 1971 edition), nor the McQuarrie Australian Dictionary (1990). Then I remembered that I don’t have to look things up in books any more – that’s what the interweb is for – and I came up with this:
“As nouns the difference between platypus and puggle is that platypus is an egg-laying, semi-aquatic mammal with a bill resembling that of a duck, that has a mole-like body, a tail resembling that of a beaver, a waterproof pelt, and flat webbed feet — males have poisonous spurs on the inside of the back legs; ornithorhynchus anatinus while puggle is (chiefly Australia) a baby monotreme (echidna or platypus) or puggle can be (US) a small mixed breed of dog created by mating a pug and beagle.
“As a verb puggle is (UK regional) to coax (a rabbit) from a burrow by poking a stick down the hole and moving it about.”
I thought the online OED was subscription only, but no longer, it seems, as I came up with this extract:
“A baby echidna or platypus. Origin – 1990s, from Puggle, the proprietary name of an Australian range of soft toys.”
So now we know!
Strangely, neither print nor online versions of the OED give the familiar Scottish ‘puggle’ so it was back to the bookshelf and the Concise Scots Dictionary:
“At a standstill due to exhaustion or frustration; done for, at the end of one’s tether. Perhaps from extended Eng. slang ‘buggled’, very drunk, or euphemistic rendering of Eng. slang ‘buggered’.”
Never known Scots to be euphemistic with that word, but perhaps you’ve all got ‘refained’ over the many decades I’ve been away.
Thanks, Rakali, for extending my vocabulary and prompting an enjoyable research digression. Yet again, another MNR schoolday.
Hate to tell you Tris but No2 isn’t a cottage, it’s a Greenhouse 🙂 I’m with Ed it can’t be structurally safe.
Lovely glimpses of Bulgarian life this week too and it’s good to know that the cats haven’t driven away all other animal life. Though I suppose the tortoise might be fleeing, just at a very slow pace 🙂
That’s quite the fox I’ve never seen one that shading before. And what an adorable picture to end SS on. Lovely stuff and I join Ed in life being re-affirmed.
The tortoise was, in fact, being watched by the cats. I’ll leave John to tell the story, but it seems that all the people who live in his little Bulgarian village, spend their lives making sure that little animals get well looked after. It’s the kind of place Munguin could settle.
That two reaffirmations. Things are going according to plan.
The Resident Tortoise moves at a remarkable pace, PP, almost as fast as the Resident Sassenach when sh hears the top coming off a gin bottle. The RT is rarely spotted but it was the cats that drew attention to his/her reappearance. They’d obviously come across something of interest in the long grass and closer inspection located the RT.
I fished him/her out for a photie but he first withdrew into his shell and the cats lost interest in unresponsive playmate (or potential prey). Then he stuck his neck out and took off like the Usain Bolt of the tortoise world. Covered the few metres back into the jungle in only a few seconds – with cats in vain pursuit. They emerged s yet again doing feline impersonations of Worzel Gummidge, covered in sticky-willies, blades of dried grass, and whatever other foliage they’d picked up.
Minnie and Numbi are definitely not in the running for Bulgaria’s Most Elegant and Best Dressed Cat award.
John …..Always something new on MNR, so now I’m off to look up sassenach, Usain Bolt, Worzel Gummidge, and sticky-willies. I’m thinking that a Usain Bolt might be similar to a Gordian knot, but then I could be wrong about that.
Americans as a rule are not strong on geography, and are especially challenged by eastern European places that used to be dreadful Soviet communist places, but which have become scenic, historic, tourist-friendly places with cats, tortoises, storks, and what not. Along those lines, I was thinking that Bulgaria is the place that had a Soviet-era communist dictator that people hated so much that when the Soviet empire fell, they shot both him AND his wife. Turns out that was in fact Romania, not Bulgaria. So my apologies! 😉
LOL. The two are next door to each other. I don;t think Zivkov was as unpopular, but Bulgaria was a lot better run, and although it probably wasn’t the nicest place to live in the past, at least they had food and work.
Tris……Nothing like hunger to piss people people off I guess. 😉 Interesting that Romania banned capital punishment AFTER the hastily convened and judicially questionable show trial and immediate execution by firing squad.
The trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu was a short trial held on 25 December 1989 by an Exceptional Military Tribunal, a drumhead court-martial created at the request of a newly formed group called the National Salvation Front, resulting in the death sentence and execution of former Romanian President and Romanian Communist Party General Secretary, Nicolae Ceaușescu, and his wife, Elena Ceaușescu.
Marked by irregularities that are typical of kangaroo courts and show trials, the main charge was genocide—namely, murdering “over 60,000 people” during the revolution in Timișoara.[1] Other sources put the death toll between 689 and 1,200.[2][3][4] Nevertheless, the charges did not affect the trial, as the verdict had been already decided before the tribunal had been created; General Victor Stănculescu had brought with him a specially selected team of paratroopers from a crack regiment, handpicked earlier in the morning to act as a firing squad. Before the legal proceedings began, Stănculescu had already selected the spot where the execution would take place—along one side of the wall in the barracks’ square.[1]
Nicolae Ceaușescu refused to recognize the tribunal, arguing its lack of constitutional basis and claiming that the revolutionary authorities were part of a Soviet plot.[1]
From Wikipedia.
The build up to it was fascinating. I’m sure there is footage on Youtube.
I’m against the death penalty.
I don’t think that there was any doubt that he was guilty over the years of hideous crimes against his people. I was in Romania not long before the revolution. It was an utter scandal the way that people in a European country were living.
He should have been imprisoned and made to suffer some of what his people had. Hunger, cold, misery, abject poverty.
I remember hearing that when he visited France he stayed at the Presidential palace and stole some stuff. He was on his way to England afterwards and the president phoned the queen to tell her to lock up her valuables…. a big job in Buckingham Palace.
He was feted by western powers because he was against the Soviet Union and refused to be a part of Comecon … but although we feted him, I don’t think we supported him financially and, given that he didn’t get support from the USSR, he was on his own… a bit like Britain’s going to be in a few months.
Tris……What a truly amazing story! I agree that a life sentence in uncomfortable prison accommodations would have been a much more appropriate punishment.
I like the comment about what a chore it would be for the Queen to lock up all her valuables at the palace. 🙂
That’s absolutely bizarre! What an amazing story!
It’s a different situation, but I’m reminded of the story of how female royalty and aristocracy in England took pains to hide away articles of jewelry when Queen Mary was visiting. Not that she would actually steal it, but if she spotted an item that she liked, she’d make such a point of praising it, that a gift would be mandatory. 🙂
You have to be careful in at least some Arab cultures (maybe John can clarify) not to admire stuff in their homes, or they by a rule of courteousness are obliged to give it to you.
Oh what a lovely 3 piece suite that you just bought yesterday…. Thank you very much. 🙂
Ceausescu is the one you’re thinking of, Danny. As Tris says, he was th tyrant of Romania, our modern neighbour. At one time, a Scottish friend had a factory making drill-pipe for the oil industry. He got a huge order from Romania worth millions of pounds, which was duly produced and shipped. He was covered by the UK’s export credit guarantee so was not worried by the Ceausescu government defaulting on their letter of credit.
But… the Romanians would not take delivery, hoping it would becomes ‘distressed cargo’ and pick it upon the cheap. That’s what eventually happened. My mate could not take the shipment back for resale as the order was to very precise specifications and could not easily be sold on to another customer. He therefore claimed on the UK government’s export credit scheme. No go. Thatcher was PM at the time, and true to form, the official line was that a claim would be “damaging to our relations with Romania – and that’s more important than your drill-pipe order. ”
That just about bankrupted my fellow clansman and he eventually had to cut his losses by liquidating the business. Another once-successful Scottish company became a casualty of Thatcherism. No wonder she’s reviled as much as her buddy Ceausescu. I think many Scots would have wished her the same fate.
John…..what a terrible story! That guy was running a criminal enterprise that makes Trumpy look like a humanitarian. And then the behavior of Thatcher enabling him!
That’s right Tris. He pretends to write books (actually ghost written by others,) but he certainly doesn’t read them. He won’t even read government briefing papers….which is a bit of a problem from time to time. 😉
The difference is, I think, that whereas Johnson is capable of absorbing the content of a briefing paper of more than one paragraph, he’s too fecking lazy and self-involved to do so. Trump, on the other hand, is not just too fecking lazy and self-involved, his learning disability, his monumental ignorance, his general lack of mental capacity and his sheer stupidity, together with his very evident cognitive decline, mean that he’d be incapable of it even if he were to try.
And even if by some miracle he did succeed, the next person he spoke to on the subject would drive it out of his mind. Especially if that person were Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Yes Ed, Tris……..We have Trumpy figured out pretty accurately I think.
Probably no great surprises in Mary Trump’s book, but a unique family perspective. A rather grim article last week in The Atlantic just after the book went on sale:
And I guess you would if he and his inadequacies didn’t have so much influence on so many lives.
I’d be interested to know if any other Clinical Psychologists with doctoral degrees have an opinion on her diagnosis. Is this book an serious educated look at the depth of the personality disorders (which a fool could see he has) or is she putting her whole career on the line for a bit of family spite?
I’d also like to see someone write a similar book on Johnson.
Tris…..Quite a few psychologists have opined on his potential personality disorder(s). But then they’ve never medically examined him. Dr. Trump’s views seem generally consistent with those, but she can’t diagnose him clinically because he’s family. So who knows?! At least her book offers an in-depth family perspective that other books don’t, while at one point she says that some particular diagnosis would require a battery of tests that he would never submit to.
Anyway, we can hope that it might all be academic for the country after the election….LOL.
As for Johnson, it seems that he and his government isn’t afflicted with as many leaks……or at least as many tell-all books in real time…….as Trump’s White House has been. But maybe he has a pissed off relative somewhere who might spill the beans someday. 😉
At least in his new plane, he’ll be easily identified for quarantine……LOL.
Presidential tell-all books used to come out AFTER a president had left office, but Trump’ s administration started leaking almost from the first. It’s been fun to watch him try and fail to hush them up. He seems to have found that at the presidential level, non-disclosure agreements are not worth the paper they’re printed on. 😉
Oh, Ceaușescu was a vile old Stalinist piece of work, right enough. Trump is only a wannabe compared to him. Trump has infected the body politic of America, but the disease hasn’t progressed to full-blown septicaemia quite yet.
Ed….well said! I’m told that the transformation of the old “Iron Curtain” countries of eastern Europe into attractive tourist destinations has taken some getting used to by older Americans who remember the worst of the Russian and eastern European dictators. Some might remember Stalin himself I suppose.
Panda Paws……I just looked up Usain Bolt. Turns out that it’s a human individual and not a hardware fastener or a car model. I do sometimes feel as if I live under a rock when it comes to knowledge of popular culture, but this is related to athletics; and since I’m opposed to athletics and athleticism in all its forms, I make no apologies. 😉
Hahahahaha……..wow Tris, do you have the wrong idea there! Since my youngest years, whenever the urge for physical exercise comes over me, I grab a book, lie down on the couch, and the urge passes. 😉
We used to have very own Scottish example – Alan Wells, who won 100-metre gold at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. And Eric Liddell took 400m gold at the 1924 Paris Olympics, later to be commemorated in the Chariots of Fire movie.
Panda Paws……That picture reminds me of a vine called Kudzu that you may have heard of which grows in the American Southeast……in states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia……..that covers not only houses, but trees and grass and pretty much everything else in its path. (Stories of people being strangled to death overnight by Kudzu as they sleep by an open window may be apocryphal. 😉 )
Hmm just having relaxing look at soppy Sunday .
To bring my blood pressure into equilibrium.
Having been on the Torygraph site reading
About Doris with his much much younger
courtesan and their bastard Child .
With the Torygraph fawning all over a fat
Failed dilettante with a passion for younger
Women (Epstein ?)
And who dumped his legal wife and children.
One can only imagine if a leader of another
Political party was to carry on in such a
Untrustworthy manner ….Well Really !!!
Apologies if I cause a ripple in the tranquility
Of soppy Sunday
The cottage does look idyllic and the old bridge adds to its quaintness,
Do you think that when the house eventually falls down there will remain an ivy ghost shaped house☺️
We have ivy on the garden walls here… not on the house. From time to time when the wind is bad, the ivy strips off the wall, from the overhang at the top. I’m then snet to cut it down. I can testify that the stuff I cut down is strong enough to be a building material and I’d not be in the least surprised if it was what is holding the cottage up!
Ivy is great stuff for the wildlife and in the right place a very lovely plant. I’ve even seen frogs sitting 6 feet up in it waiting patiently for insects. A great many species both live all year round in it and over-winter. Ed’s right though you don’t want it on your house lifting roof slates and such and as for picture 2, imagine the dampness and the insects?
For anyone interested in a bit of trivia that doesn’t already know this, common ivy. Hedera Helix has two stages of development with different types of growth. The Juvenile with the easily recognisable leaves and the Adult with its upright rigid stems, ovate wavy edged leaves, flowers and berries.
If you live near adult stage ivy it will seed all over your garden and if it gets established in your hedge then that’s one more job you can add to the ‘onerous garden tasks’ category that all gardeners have.
Here’s a bit more for all you horticultural types who have managed to stay awake.
WordPress has me wondering sometimes. I thought I was posting a link and it showed the first page of the article instead.
How come when I actually want it to that, it doesn’t work?
That’s interesting Grieg! My experience is that (almost) the only time it shows an image is when it’s a jpg image and the link ends in “.jpg”. Otherwise it only shows a clickable link.
BTW…..I’m only seeing a blank space where the link would be in your posting. I don’t see either the link OR an image.
I say “almost” since WordPress always treats a link to a New York Times article differently than any others. An image comes up which looks like an introductory page. It includes a picture related to the article, with the title of the piece and maybe a few words of the article. Then to see more of it, I click on the picture and the article on the Times website comes up in a new Window.
Lovely photos. The cat is wondering if he or she is getting fed.
Morocco this week, not a place I associate with waterfalls although not the same colour as we are used to. This video includes monkeys so it fits in with the Soppy Sunday theme.
Friends of mine went to Hawaii and visited the lava fields. Fascinating.
If you fancy going be aware that it is not just a country walk.
Here are some of the instrucions :
===========================
Here are some tips from for essential lava field fashion from the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory geologists who walk miles on Kīlauea lava flows—both new and old.
Fields of newly erupted lava are not flat—they’re hummocks, cracks and crags that have been uplifted and overturned by the pressure of molten lava moving within the flows. To prevent sprains, shoes with support are a must. Boots with high ankle tops are ideal. But, low or mid-top shoes will work with thicker socks. No-show socks or no socks at all are not recommended as they provide fragments of glass a direct path to your skin.
================
Full details to be found at: https://bigislandnow.com/2017/04/13/whats-hot-and-not-in-lava-field-fashion/
Brenda…..Interesting information! Nice picture of Hawaii making more of itself. As I understand it, the Hawaiian lava flows are slow moving and relatively safe and predictable as volcanoes and lava flows go, but as you note they’re very hot and you have to be careful. I would love to visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the island of Hawaii of the State of Hawaii. (The island of Hawaii is usually called the “Big Island.”)
Yes Marcia, I’ve heard comments about the “fire and brimstone” sulfur smell of the Hawaiian volcanoes. You also hear about the smell of the thermal features at Yellowstone. I’ve noticed it when I’ve been at Yellowstone, but it’s generally not too bad, and depends on the particular features, the direction of the wind, etc.
Yep Tris! Sulfur Caldron at Yellowstone for example smells of rotten eggs, has a temperature just about that of boiling water, and is almost as acidic as battery acid. Not a good place to take a dip, or have the wind blowing in your direction. 😉
The green house is a tearoom called Tu Hwnt I’r Bont,Llanrwst, Conwy. It apparently means “Beyond the Bridge”.
The tenant appeared on TV recently saying the greenery hadn’t been cut back because it was closed due to lockdown but it would be given a haircut once they would be allowed to open. I imagine it’s open now to some extent. It’s a National Trust property and hundreds of years old.
That’s really quite interesting. I do see that Virginia Creeper is a “vine” and not “ivy.” Now I’m thinking that maybe ivy is posh, but vines are more weed-like. And for that matter some vines are creepers and other vines are climbers. And for that matter, not all climbers climb the same way. VERY complicated! 😉
As for the dreaded Kudzu of the southern USA, it seems to be a vine. But apparently whether or not is has……or will…….ultimately eat the South is a matter of debate. I found this entertaining article….. “The True Story of Kudzu, the Vine That Never Truly Ate the South”…….which debunks the Kudzu hysteria. But there are angry comments that take a contrary position. 😉
LOL Tris…..I suspect that Kudzu IS hard to kill out, like lots of weeds are. On the other hand, I think the guy made a good point that the place people tend to see HUGE areas of it for miles and miles is out of their car windows, where it grows along poorly attended highway rights-of-way which are not grazed by cattle or plowed and seeded for agriculture. So it probably LOOKS worse than it really is from a car window perspective. I know the place I’ve seen it are along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico along miles and miles of Mississippi and Alabama highways. Not areas that are farmed for agriculture or developed for residential use.
Munguin says that if it ever has the audacity to show up in his grounds he will be obliged to get jolly cross… however, Mississippi and Alabama…pffff… does he look like he cares?
Munguin just said…. “See that Danny fellow that’s a friend of yours, Tristan” (he calls me Tristan on Sundays), “well, he appears to catch on quick. Much more switched on than most of your friends! Now be so kind as to bring me another cocktail before I retire.”
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
Life successfully reaffirmed, Tris, for which I am profoundly grateful.
If Mr. M. is thinking of buying the ivy-bedecked property, I would tell him to beware: who knows what multitudes of sins are being covered up by it, in addition to whatever the dreaded Hedera helix is doing to the roans and the pointing.
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I’m sure the surveyor’s report will tell him it all has to go, actually.
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🙂
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Ah yes. Maybe he’ll just have the one in Japan instead.
But glad to know that life is reaffirmed.
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Ed…….I do wonder why ivy covered walls are viewed in such a positive light. Apart from the obvious structural damage to walls and roof, the people who live there are living inside a green cocoon, surely infested with insects, spiders, scorpions, worms, and probably the occasional snake. Imagine the unending chore of keeping the windows and doors free from the all-encompassing vegetation.
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Picture 19: the plural of Puggle is Puggles. ….. A Baby Marsupial is called a Joey. A baby Monotreme (Echidna and Platypus) is called a Puggle. 🙂
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Oh, thank you Rakali.
Then Puggles it is. 🙂
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At first, I thought you were having us on with ‘puggle’. It’s not listed in my full OED (admittedly 1971 edition), nor the McQuarrie Australian Dictionary (1990). Then I remembered that I don’t have to look things up in books any more – that’s what the interweb is for – and I came up with this:
“As nouns the difference between platypus and puggle is that platypus is an egg-laying, semi-aquatic mammal with a bill resembling that of a duck, that has a mole-like body, a tail resembling that of a beaver, a waterproof pelt, and flat webbed feet — males have poisonous spurs on the inside of the back legs; ornithorhynchus anatinus while puggle is (chiefly Australia) a baby monotreme (echidna or platypus) or puggle can be (US) a small mixed breed of dog created by mating a pug and beagle.
“As a verb puggle is (UK regional) to coax (a rabbit) from a burrow by poking a stick down the hole and moving it about.”
I thought the online OED was subscription only, but no longer, it seems, as I came up with this extract:
“A baby echidna or platypus. Origin – 1990s, from Puggle, the proprietary name of an Australian range of soft toys.”
So now we know!
Strangely, neither print nor online versions of the OED give the familiar Scottish ‘puggle’ so it was back to the bookshelf and the Concise Scots Dictionary:
“At a standstill due to exhaustion or frustration; done for, at the end of one’s tether. Perhaps from extended Eng. slang ‘buggled’, very drunk, or euphemistic rendering of Eng. slang ‘buggered’.”
Never known Scots to be euphemistic with that word, but perhaps you’ve all got ‘refained’ over the many decades I’ve been away.
Thanks, Rakali, for extending my vocabulary and prompting an enjoyable research digression. Yet again, another MNR schoolday.
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LOL us? refained? Ey think not!
Well, except Munguin, of course.
Tell them the tortoise story, John.
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John…..Fascinating account of your research! Always something new to know on Munguin’s New Republic.
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Hate to tell you Tris but No2 isn’t a cottage, it’s a Greenhouse 🙂 I’m with Ed it can’t be structurally safe.
Lovely glimpses of Bulgarian life this week too and it’s good to know that the cats haven’t driven away all other animal life. Though I suppose the tortoise might be fleeing, just at a very slow pace 🙂
That’s quite the fox I’ve never seen one that shading before. And what an adorable picture to end SS on. Lovely stuff and I join Ed in life being re-affirmed.
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The tortoise was, in fact, being watched by the cats. I’ll leave John to tell the story, but it seems that all the people who live in his little Bulgarian village, spend their lives making sure that little animals get well looked after. It’s the kind of place Munguin could settle.
That two reaffirmations. Things are going according to plan.
Yay!
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The Resident Tortoise moves at a remarkable pace, PP, almost as fast as the Resident Sassenach when sh hears the top coming off a gin bottle. The RT is rarely spotted but it was the cats that drew attention to his/her reappearance. They’d obviously come across something of interest in the long grass and closer inspection located the RT.
I fished him/her out for a photie but he first withdrew into his shell and the cats lost interest in unresponsive playmate (or potential prey). Then he stuck his neck out and took off like the Usain Bolt of the tortoise world. Covered the few metres back into the jungle in only a few seconds – with cats in vain pursuit. They emerged s yet again doing feline impersonations of Worzel Gummidge, covered in sticky-willies, blades of dried grass, and whatever other foliage they’d picked up.
Minnie and Numbi are definitely not in the running for Bulgaria’s Most Elegant and Best Dressed Cat award.
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John …..Always something new on MNR, so now I’m off to look up sassenach, Usain Bolt, Worzel Gummidge, and sticky-willies. I’m thinking that a Usain Bolt might be similar to a Gordian knot, but then I could be wrong about that.
Americans as a rule are not strong on geography, and are especially challenged by eastern European places that used to be dreadful Soviet communist places, but which have become scenic, historic, tourist-friendly places with cats, tortoises, storks, and what not. Along those lines, I was thinking that Bulgaria is the place that had a Soviet-era communist dictator that people hated so much that when the Soviet empire fell, they shot both him AND his wife. Turns out that was in fact Romania, not Bulgaria. So my apologies! 😉
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LOL. The two are next door to each other. I don;t think Zivkov was as unpopular, but Bulgaria was a lot better run, and although it probably wasn’t the nicest place to live in the past, at least they had food and work.
In Romania, they were genuinely starving.
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Tris……Nothing like hunger to piss people people off I guess. 😉 Interesting that Romania banned capital punishment AFTER the hastily convened and judicially questionable show trial and immediate execution by firing squad.
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Christmas day execution:
The trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu was a short trial held on 25 December 1989 by an Exceptional Military Tribunal, a drumhead court-martial created at the request of a newly formed group called the National Salvation Front, resulting in the death sentence and execution of former Romanian President and Romanian Communist Party General Secretary, Nicolae Ceaușescu, and his wife, Elena Ceaușescu.
Marked by irregularities that are typical of kangaroo courts and show trials, the main charge was genocide—namely, murdering “over 60,000 people” during the revolution in Timișoara.[1] Other sources put the death toll between 689 and 1,200.[2][3][4] Nevertheless, the charges did not affect the trial, as the verdict had been already decided before the tribunal had been created; General Victor Stănculescu had brought with him a specially selected team of paratroopers from a crack regiment, handpicked earlier in the morning to act as a firing squad. Before the legal proceedings began, Stănculescu had already selected the spot where the execution would take place—along one side of the wall in the barracks’ square.[1]
Nicolae Ceaușescu refused to recognize the tribunal, arguing its lack of constitutional basis and claiming that the revolutionary authorities were part of a Soviet plot.[1]
From Wikipedia.
The build up to it was fascinating. I’m sure there is footage on Youtube.
I’m against the death penalty.
I don’t think that there was any doubt that he was guilty over the years of hideous crimes against his people. I was in Romania not long before the revolution. It was an utter scandal the way that people in a European country were living.
He should have been imprisoned and made to suffer some of what his people had. Hunger, cold, misery, abject poverty.
I remember hearing that when he visited France he stayed at the Presidential palace and stole some stuff. He was on his way to England afterwards and the president phoned the queen to tell her to lock up her valuables…. a big job in Buckingham Palace.
He was feted by western powers because he was against the Soviet Union and refused to be a part of Comecon … but although we feted him, I don’t think we supported him financially and, given that he didn’t get support from the USSR, he was on his own… a bit like Britain’s going to be in a few months.
I wonder what will happen to Boris. 🙂
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Tris……What a truly amazing story! I agree that a life sentence in uncomfortable prison accommodations would have been a much more appropriate punishment.
I like the comment about what a chore it would be for the Queen to lock up all her valuables at the palace. 🙂
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Yes, well it’s not like they’d fit into a removal van…
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🙂
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https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-05-13-mn-1168-story.html
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That’s absolutely bizarre! What an amazing story!
It’s a different situation, but I’m reminded of the story of how female royalty and aristocracy in England took pains to hide away articles of jewelry when Queen Mary was visiting. Not that she would actually steal it, but if she spotted an item that she liked, she’d make such a point of praising it, that a gift would be mandatory. 🙂
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You have to be careful in at least some Arab cultures (maybe John can clarify) not to admire stuff in their homes, or they by a rule of courteousness are obliged to give it to you.
Oh what a lovely 3 piece suite that you just bought yesterday…. Thank you very much. 🙂
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Tris……Well now, a shrewd guy could make out like a bandit in that culture. 😉
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Ceausescu is the one you’re thinking of, Danny. As Tris says, he was th tyrant of Romania, our modern neighbour. At one time, a Scottish friend had a factory making drill-pipe for the oil industry. He got a huge order from Romania worth millions of pounds, which was duly produced and shipped. He was covered by the UK’s export credit guarantee so was not worried by the Ceausescu government defaulting on their letter of credit.
But… the Romanians would not take delivery, hoping it would becomes ‘distressed cargo’ and pick it upon the cheap. That’s what eventually happened. My mate could not take the shipment back for resale as the order was to very precise specifications and could not easily be sold on to another customer. He therefore claimed on the UK government’s export credit scheme. No go. Thatcher was PM at the time, and true to form, the official line was that a claim would be “damaging to our relations with Romania – and that’s more important than your drill-pipe order. ”
That just about bankrupted my fellow clansman and he eventually had to cut his losses by liquidating the business. Another once-successful Scottish company became a casualty of Thatcherism. No wonder she’s reviled as much as her buddy Ceausescu. I think many Scots would have wished her the same fate.
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“Northern” neighbour that should have been. I don’t think Ceausescu’s Romania and “modern” belong in the same sentence.
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John…..what a terrible story! That guy was running a criminal enterprise that makes Trumpy look like a humanitarian. And then the behavior of Thatcher enabling him!
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Oh come on, Danny. NOTHING would make Trumpy look humanitarian or human even!
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True! And he would clearly admire Mr. Ceausescu’s business tactics. 🙂
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I was going to say that he may have read one of his books, then I remembered that Trumpy and books don’t really belong in the same universe.
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That’s right Tris. He pretends to write books (actually ghost written by others,) but he certainly doesn’t read them. He won’t even read government briefing papers….which is a bit of a problem from time to time. 😉
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In that matter, he has a considerable amount in common with Johnson.
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The difference is, I think, that whereas Johnson is capable of absorbing the content of a briefing paper of more than one paragraph, he’s too fecking lazy and self-involved to do so. Trump, on the other hand, is not just too fecking lazy and self-involved, his learning disability, his monumental ignorance, his general lack of mental capacity and his sheer stupidity, together with his very evident cognitive decline, mean that he’d be incapable of it even if he were to try.
And even if by some miracle he did succeed, the next person he spoke to on the subject would drive it out of his mind. Especially if that person were Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
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You got them sussed.
You’re right of course. Johnson was bright enough to get a degree at Oxford, but he’s far to lazy to read a briefing paper.
Probably the lure of a bottle of something expensive gets in the way.
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Yes Ed, Tris……..We have Trumpy figured out pretty accurately I think.
Probably no great surprises in Mary Trump’s book, but a unique family perspective. A rather grim article last week in The Atlantic just after the book went on sale:
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/07/mary-trump-donald-trump-and-american-psyche/614251/
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In a way, you could perhaps feel sorry for him.
And I guess you would if he and his inadequacies didn’t have so much influence on so many lives.
I’d be interested to know if any other Clinical Psychologists with doctoral degrees have an opinion on her diagnosis. Is this book an serious educated look at the depth of the personality disorders (which a fool could see he has) or is she putting her whole career on the line for a bit of family spite?
I’d also like to see someone write a similar book on Johnson.
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Tris…..Quite a few psychologists have opined on his potential personality disorder(s). But then they’ve never medically examined him. Dr. Trump’s views seem generally consistent with those, but she can’t diagnose him clinically because he’s family. So who knows?! At least her book offers an in-depth family perspective that other books don’t, while at one point she says that some particular diagnosis would require a battery of tests that he would never submit to.
Anyway, we can hope that it might all be academic for the country after the election….LOL.
As for Johnson, it seems that he and his government isn’t afflicted with as many leaks……or at least as many tell-all books in real time…….as Trump’s White House has been. But maybe he has a pissed off relative somewhere who might spill the beans someday. 😉
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Well, when he took over as prime minister his brother, who was a junior miniter under the Maybot, resigned.
There’s a potential. I’m not sure about his sister. She was, I think, anti-Brexit.
I’m sure that some people will blow the gaff on him.
A politician inevitably makes enemies.
I hear he’s doing a tour of Scotland to bind the union together. I’m really looking forward to it.
Actually, I think that Nicola should order quarantine for 3 weeks as soon as he crosses the border in his newly painted plane. 🙂
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At least in his new plane, he’ll be easily identified for quarantine……LOL.
Presidential tell-all books used to come out AFTER a president had left office, but Trump’ s administration started leaking almost from the first. It’s been fun to watch him try and fail to hush them up. He seems to have found that at the presidential level, non-disclosure agreements are not worth the paper they’re printed on. 😉
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You have to feel sorry for him…. What am I saying? Of course you don’t. Suck it up, Doñny
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🙂
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Oh, Ceaușescu was a vile old Stalinist piece of work, right enough. Trump is only a wannabe compared to him. Trump has infected the body politic of America, but the disease hasn’t progressed to full-blown septicaemia quite yet.
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Ed….well said! I’m told that the transformation of the old “Iron Curtain” countries of eastern Europe into attractive tourist destinations has taken some getting used to by older Americans who remember the worst of the Russian and eastern European dictators. Some might remember Stalin himself I suppose.
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🙂
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Hahaha! Life in a Bulgarian Village – never dull. Nothing is as fast as Resident Sassenach when the gin bottle opens except possibly me…
Who did we compare people to before Usain though, that’s what I want to know.
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Panda Paws……I just looked up Usain Bolt. Turns out that it’s a human individual and not a hardware fastener or a car model. I do sometimes feel as if I live under a rock when it comes to knowledge of popular culture, but this is related to athletics; and since I’m opposed to athletics and athleticism in all its forms, I make no apologies. 😉
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LOL, Danny. There was me imagining that you did a 5 mile run before breakfast every morning.
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Hahahahaha……..wow Tris, do you have the wrong idea there! Since my youngest years, whenever the urge for physical exercise comes over me, I grab a book, lie down on the couch, and the urge passes. 😉
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Take deep breaths, Danny!!!!
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🙂
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Ah… maybe Bannister?
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We used to have very own Scottish example – Alan Wells, who won 100-metre gold at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. And Eric Liddell took 400m gold at the 1924 Paris Olympics, later to be commemorated in the Chariots of Fire movie.
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Panda Paws……That picture reminds me of a vine called Kudzu that you may have heard of which grows in the American Southeast……in states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia……..that covers not only houses, but trees and grass and pretty much everything else in its path. (Stories of people being strangled to death overnight by Kudzu as they sleep by an open window may be apocryphal. 😉 )
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“Stories of people being strangled to death overnight by Kudzu as they sleep by an open window may be apocryphal”
I’m sure I saw that episode of Classic Star Trek 🙂
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🙂
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LOL… yeah, mind, I’d probably not want to sleep with an open window LOL
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LOL……Always good to be cautious! 😉
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Hmm just having relaxing look at soppy Sunday .
To bring my blood pressure into equilibrium.
Having been on the Torygraph site reading
About Doris with his much much younger
courtesan and their bastard Child .
With the Torygraph fawning all over a fat
Failed dilettante with a passion for younger
Women (Epstein ?)
And who dumped his legal wife and children.
One can only imagine if a leader of another
Political party was to carry on in such a
Untrustworthy manner ….Well Really !!!
Apologies if I cause a ripple in the tranquility
Of soppy Sunday
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2020/07/18/2020-07-18_boris_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq0RglTN43wyGR-NQABDM7ErkcnEMN6jgniYeqwz6a86k.jpg?imwidth=960
Yuk !
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I wonder what he’s thinking in that pic.
Who are you?
What number are you?
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LOL. I understand that the article said that he wouldn’t order another national lockdown if things got worse in the winter.
What an idiot.
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The cottage does look idyllic and the old bridge adds to its quaintness,
Do you think that when the house eventually falls down there will remain an ivy ghost shaped house☺️
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He he.
We have ivy on the garden walls here… not on the house. From time to time when the wind is bad, the ivy strips off the wall, from the overhang at the top. I’m then snet to cut it down. I can testify that the stuff I cut down is strong enough to be a building material and I’d not be in the least surprised if it was what is holding the cottage up!
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Ivy is great stuff for the wildlife and in the right place a very lovely plant. I’ve even seen frogs sitting 6 feet up in it waiting patiently for insects. A great many species both live all year round in it and over-winter. Ed’s right though you don’t want it on your house lifting roof slates and such and as for picture 2, imagine the dampness and the insects?
For anyone interested in a bit of trivia that doesn’t already know this, common ivy. Hedera Helix has two stages of development with different types of growth. The Juvenile with the easily recognisable leaves and the Adult with its upright rigid stems, ovate wavy edged leaves, flowers and berries.
If you live near adult stage ivy it will seed all over your garden and if it gets established in your hedge then that’s one more job you can add to the ‘onerous garden tasks’ category that all gardeners have.
Here’s a bit more for all you horticultural types who have managed to stay awake.
Click to access f0e3a76b-926f-4cde-b703-417563ae93df.pdf
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WordPress has me wondering sometimes. I thought I was posting a link and it showed the first page of the article instead.
How come when I actually want it to that, it doesn’t work?
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That’s interesting Grieg! My experience is that (almost) the only time it shows an image is when it’s a jpg image and the link ends in “.jpg”. Otherwise it only shows a clickable link.
BTW…..I’m only seeing a blank space where the link would be in your posting. I don’t see either the link OR an image.
I say “almost” since WordPress always treats a link to a New York Times article differently than any others. An image comes up which looks like an introductory page. It includes a picture related to the article, with the title of the piece and maybe a few words of the article. Then to see more of it, I click on the picture and the article on the Times website comes up in a new Window.
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LOL. The mysteries of WordPress are beyond us all!
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Lovely photos. The cat is wondering if he or she is getting fed.
Morocco this week, not a place I associate with waterfalls although not the same colour as we are used to. This video includes monkeys so it fits in with the Soppy Sunday theme.
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Loved that, Marcia.
Sandy water reminds me a bit of the brown water we get sometimes.
And the little ones were just awesome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouzoud_Falls
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Friends of mine went to Hawaii and visited the lava fields. Fascinating.
If you fancy going be aware that it is not just a country walk.
Here are some of the instrucions :
===========================
Here are some tips from for essential lava field fashion from the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory geologists who walk miles on Kīlauea lava flows—both new and old.
Fields of newly erupted lava are not flat—they’re hummocks, cracks and crags that have been uplifted and overturned by the pressure of molten lava moving within the flows. To prevent sprains, shoes with support are a must. Boots with high ankle tops are ideal. But, low or mid-top shoes will work with thicker socks. No-show socks or no socks at all are not recommended as they provide fragments of glass a direct path to your skin.
================
Full details to be found at:
https://bigislandnow.com/2017/04/13/whats-hot-and-not-in-lava-field-fashion/
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Ahhh, how I wish I could go to Hawaii, but, when would I ever be able to come home?
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Brenda…..Interesting information! Nice picture of Hawaii making more of itself. As I understand it, the Hawaiian lava flows are slow moving and relatively safe and predictable as volcanoes and lava flows go, but as you note they’re very hot and you have to be careful. I would love to visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the island of Hawaii of the State of Hawaii. (The island of Hawaii is usually called the “Big Island.”)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawai%CA%BBi_Volcanoes_National_Park
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What you cannot sample from the internet is the smell of sulphur that must be in the air from the volcanoes and lava flows.
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Yes Marcia, I’ve heard comments about the “fire and brimstone” sulfur smell of the Hawaiian volcanoes. You also hear about the smell of the thermal features at Yellowstone. I’ve noticed it when I’ve been at Yellowstone, but it’s generally not too bad, and depends on the particular features, the direction of the wind, etc.
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Some places in Iceland too…
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Probably just as well it windy up there!
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Yep Tris! Sulfur Caldron at Yellowstone for example smells of rotten eggs, has a temperature just about that of boiling water, and is almost as acidic as battery acid. Not a good place to take a dip, or have the wind blowing in your direction. 😉
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I’ll try to remember that, Danny!!! Not much into being boiled though even if the water isn’t acidic.
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An adventurous guy was dissolved in 2016
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38018209
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Oh heavens… what a way to go…. Ewwwwwww
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Dave…..I remember the news report when this happened, but didn’t hear the grisly details.
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Thanks John for your research on the various puggles around the world.
And to complete the set, here’s an Echidna puggle 🙂
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What a wee cutie.
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Beautiful view of Loch Shiel and the Glenfinnan monument!
https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/day-1745-jacobite-rising-begins-glenfinnan-1469279
I don’t recall ever hearing of Bonnie Dundee; either the song or the man, John Graham, 7th Laird of Claverhouse:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_Dundee
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Very nice! I like that!
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The green house is a tearoom called Tu Hwnt I’r Bont,Llanrwst, Conwy. It apparently means “Beyond the Bridge”.
The tenant appeared on TV recently saying the greenery hadn’t been cut back because it was closed due to lockdown but it would be given a haircut once they would be allowed to open. I imagine it’s open now to some extent. It’s a National Trust property and hundreds of years old.
It looks idyllic.
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Oh, thank you for that info.
Opened on July 14.
https://www.tuhwntirbont.co.uk/
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What an amazing place!
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I’m wondering if it is ivy though… Ivy doesn’t go red in autumn. It looks like it could be Parthenocissus quinquefolia or Virginia Creeper.
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Yes, I believe the gentleman said it was Virginia Creeper. There are other pictures showing its autumnal colours.
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Ah great. Thanks. That clears it up.
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That’s really quite interesting. I do see that Virginia Creeper is a “vine” and not “ivy.” Now I’m thinking that maybe ivy is posh, but vines are more weed-like. And for that matter some vines are creepers and other vines are climbers. And for that matter, not all climbers climb the same way. VERY complicated! 😉
https://www.thespruce.com/difference-between-climbers-and-creepers-2131020
As for the dreaded Kudzu of the southern USA, it seems to be a vine. But apparently whether or not is has……or will…….ultimately eat the South is a matter of debate. I found this entertaining article….. “The True Story of Kudzu, the Vine That Never Truly Ate the South”…….which debunks the Kudzu hysteria. But there are angry comments that take a contrary position. 😉
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/true-story-kudzu-vine-ate-south-180956325/
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That stuff is evil, Danny.
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LOL Tris…..I suspect that Kudzu IS hard to kill out, like lots of weeds are. On the other hand, I think the guy made a good point that the place people tend to see HUGE areas of it for miles and miles is out of their car windows, where it grows along poorly attended highway rights-of-way which are not grazed by cattle or plowed and seeded for agriculture. So it probably LOOKS worse than it really is from a car window perspective. I know the place I’ve seen it are along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico along miles and miles of Mississippi and Alabama highways. Not areas that are farmed for agriculture or developed for residential use.
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Munguin says that if it ever has the audacity to show up in his grounds he will be obliged to get jolly cross… however, Mississippi and Alabama…pffff… does he look like he cares?
🙂
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LOL…..So I’m thinking that Mr. Muguin does not desire plantings of Mississippi and Alabama Kudzu for the Munguin Towers gardens. 😉
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Munguin just said…. “See that Danny fellow that’s a friend of yours, Tristan” (he calls me Tristan on Sundays), “well, he appears to catch on quick. Much more switched on than most of your friends! Now be so kind as to bring me another cocktail before I retire.”
(He’s very polite.)
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🙂
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