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Post by bjd on May 5, 2024 18:17:23 GMT
Is that a snub? How many presidents go to the airport to meet important visitors? Macron would have lost face if he had gone, I suppose.
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Post by bjd on May 5, 2024 6:49:52 GMT
14° this morning and clouding over. We are supposed to get some more rain this evening and again tomorrow. It's certainly mild though since it was 22° last night. A general improvement in the weather is forecast for mid-week.
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Post by bjd on May 5, 2024 6:47:03 GMT
I'm sure Xi feels like the biggest lion so is just showing his power. It's mostly the US which has the biggest showdown with China, so relations are certainly a bit easier with the EU and elsewhere, allowing Xi to show off in public and assert Chinese importance.
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Post by bjd on May 4, 2024 14:57:32 GMT
What have these actresses and singers have to do at a correspondents' dinner? They aren't journalists or spokespeople or anything related to White House correspondents.
Agree about Coco Rocha -- looks like she died and was dug up.
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Post by bjd on May 2, 2024 6:52:45 GMT
With so much news coverage about the student protests about the Gaza war on US campuses, I don't understand why these peaceful protests are being evacuated by police and students are being expelled from university. What about free speech in the States? When the protests are peaceful, which most of them appear to be, why are extra police being brought in?
It made me think about the anti-Vietnam war protests in the late 1960s-early 1970s. Were the students expelled then too?
It seems like a huge step given the high US tuitions in all these universities and the fact that graduation is really close. Will they lose any chance of getting a degree? I watched a debate about this on France 24 and the head of the philosophy department at Emory University (a white woman) was arrested when she went out to see what was going on. She was freed since she took part in the debate a few days later, but it still appears to be an over-reaction.
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Post by bjd on May 1, 2024 18:06:25 GMT
That's what we had all day today too, Mich. It got above 11° only when it stopped raining around 6pm.
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Post by bjd on Apr 30, 2024 17:20:42 GMT
Bert Lahr American actor who played the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz movie
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Post by bjd on Apr 30, 2024 17:19:33 GMT
Watford City in England
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Post by bjd on Apr 30, 2024 17:16:08 GMT
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Post by bjd on Apr 30, 2024 17:08:07 GMT
I took a few general garden photos today and this is a rare close-up: The others are general photos so I'll put them in gardening waffle
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Post by bjd on Apr 30, 2024 17:03:32 GMT
24° and sunny here today. Lovely outside and I spent some time planting flowers. Temps are supposed to drop again though.
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Post by bjd on Apr 30, 2024 6:18:28 GMT
We have been getting a fair amount of rain lately but this morning is clear and only 9°. This afternoon it should be 22, then rain and just 12° tomorrow. The week's forecast is really up and down, with low 20s by the weekend.
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Post by bjd on Apr 29, 2024 6:32:12 GMT
I have read it too, Bixa. I liked it a lot. I must confess that the movie of The English Patient was almost better than the book.
Just finishing Timothy Garton Ash's Homelands about Europe, particularly since the post-WW2 years and his personal relation to it. He is totally pro-European and tells how the EU was created by people who had lived the end of the troubles of WW2 and swore Never Again and how now, the current phase of nationalist-populism threatens all that has been done. He talks of the errors that have been made and shows how the English vote for Brexit was a long time in the making and the English ambivalence about Europe has always been there.
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Post by bjd on Apr 28, 2024 6:46:22 GMT
After days of on and off rain and a hailstorm late yesterday afternoon, today the sky is clear and the sun is shining this morning and it's 9°. It should warm up a bit and I'll get a bit of planting done before the rains return.
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Post by bjd on Apr 28, 2024 6:42:31 GMT
Interestingly, the first country to recognize Israel in 1948 was the Soviet Union. The States took their time. Now Israel can do whatever it wants: bombing the hell out of Gaza, bombing northern Lebanon, letting the crazy settlers destroy Palestinian farms and houses in the occupied West Bank and the US has their back.
As I heard a new commentator say the other day while talking about the US Congress finally passing the military aid packages, not only does Israel get over 3 billion dollars a year, they got another 26 billion in this package. It's a country of less than 10M people, and as Kimby says, it's a wealthy one. Meanwhile, Ukraine is invaded, getting bombed and destroyed and has many more people.
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Post by bjd on Apr 25, 2024 9:15:18 GMT
Yesterday's crappy weather sent me to the garden centre. I bought a couple of blue flowering sages and some small lantana plants. Of course, they force the plants so they will bloom early and tempt buyers but I know the sages will keep going till late fall. I also bought 3 centhrantus (valeriane) plants to put in the hottest part of the garden. They will bloom before the sedum does.
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Post by bjd on Apr 23, 2024 18:11:32 GMT
That sounds horrible, Cheery. I feel sorry for the bus driver too, especially since it was obviously not the first time.
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Post by bjd on Apr 23, 2024 8:20:36 GMT
Dull, damp, cold. Totally uninspiring. It sounds as though you need a holiday in the sun, Mick.
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Post by bjd on Apr 23, 2024 6:43:54 GMT
Sonja Henie Norwegian Olympic ice skating medalist and actress in the first half of the 20th century
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Post by bjd on Apr 23, 2024 6:41:59 GMT
Dortmund Important city in northern Germany whose industrial past has become a hub for new technologies
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Post by bjd on Apr 23, 2024 6:37:14 GMT
8° and raining lightly this morning. A cool week in store for us, with barely mid-teens in the forecast.
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Post by bjd on Apr 23, 2024 6:28:03 GMT
It is pretty but where is everyone? It wasn't even raining.
I just had a look on Wikipedia to see where it is located. Turns out that the population is about 30,000 and declining. And that the place was a large American army base until 1993.
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Post by bjd on Apr 20, 2024 6:57:53 GMT
What does "gritters on standby" mean?
Mick, don't forget that only 2 years ago, you were all complaining that it was too hot and dry and that temps reached 40° in England.
Sunny and 7° this morning, we should get close to 20° again this afternoon.
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Post by bjd on Apr 19, 2024 18:08:04 GMT
Bela Lugosi Real name Béla Blaskó, American actor of Hungarian origin best known for playing Dracula
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Post by bjd on Apr 19, 2024 18:05:11 GMT
Falmouth Port town in Cornwall, England
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Post by bjd on Apr 19, 2024 18:03:32 GMT
I think in France the current covid vaccine campaign is for over-80s and those with fragile immune systems.
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Post by bjd on Apr 19, 2024 7:27:55 GMT
Why or why do weeds grow so much better than everything else? I spent the last two days digging weeds out of garden beds. Not just "weeds" but clumps of grass. I finish in one place and they have sprung up elsewhere. I know I need mulch but can't find anything that looks right. What I found in bags is chunks of pine bark and used that in the bed I dug out to make a path. Wood chips would have been better but can't get those in bulk. We bought a wood chipper but the pieces are not very small.
So I have been putting most of the weeds and grass I pull into the compost pile and will use that to cover the beds after they decompose. Unfortunately, there are seeds in there so the weeds will grow back. It's not the most attractive look but it's the best I can do.
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Post by bjd on Apr 19, 2024 7:18:58 GMT
I like the Brunetti books by Donna Leon. Have read lots of them. I was surprised to learn that she had left Venice and now lives in Switzerland. I suppose it was either for tax purposes or because she can't stand the tourists any more.
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Post by bjd on Apr 19, 2024 5:51:02 GMT
I have a mix of mostly fiction (in particular detective stories) and non-fiction piling up. I found a book about an Inspector Gently in a book box. Written in the mid-1950s and very old-fashioned, taking place somewhere around Norfolk.
Then at my local library, they recently bought a few detective stories in English. I have no idea who recommends them. One I started also takes place around Norwich and is one of a series by Elly Griffiths, The Night Hawks. I find it terribly written -- it reads like the screen play for a TV show -- and will probably take it back unread after getting through the first few chapters.
I bought Homelands by Timothy Garton Ash. He is a British professor of European history and writes about his own personal relationship with Europe. I haven't started it yet but generally appreciate his writing. There is also Barack Obama's first autobiographical book (Tales from my Father, or something like that)in my pile. Found at the local charity shop.
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Post by bjd on Apr 19, 2024 5:38:16 GMT
Clear sky and 5°C this morning! I turned the heating on again. It is supposed to be 20° this afternoon.
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