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Post by bjd on May 9, 2024 17:48:46 GMT
Isn't it some kind of viburnum?
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Post by bjd on May 9, 2024 17:47:55 GMT
Off topic, but I saw an American asking on a forum if his Second Amendment right to bear arms would be respected when he went to England. Did he also ask whether he could use "real money" in England?
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Post by bjd on May 9, 2024 7:46:13 GMT
Here is the pale blue one:
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Post by bjd on May 9, 2024 6:10:44 GMT
Pernilla Wahlgren Swedish singer and actress
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Post by bjd on May 9, 2024 6:08:07 GMT
France Country in western Europe
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Post by bjd on May 9, 2024 6:06:31 GMT
Can't you sleep downstairs? Our house in Toulouse was always hotter upstairs than downstairs since, as you know, heat rises. And we had no air-conditioning. It's tough trying to sleep when it's that hot.
Meanwhile, this morning it's a clear sky and 10°. Forecast for this afternoon is 25°.
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Post by bjd on May 8, 2024 18:14:22 GMT
Warmish (21°) and sunny today. Up to 28-30 forecast by Saturday then back to cooler and rainier weather.
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Post by bjd on May 8, 2024 18:13:05 GMT
I beat you to it, Patrick. I quoted from that article in post 777.
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Post by bjd on May 8, 2024 5:59:39 GMT
It sounds as though Cheery has been hanging around this thread for too long. She who never says anything nasty about anyone or anything has gotten into the spirit of it all.
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Post by bjd on May 7, 2024 15:38:43 GMT
I couldn't see the NY Times article but consoled myself by reading Marina Hyde in the Guardian: "If you haven’t sat in mismatched pyjamas huffing toast while remarking what an unacceptable misstep Lana Del Rey’s mosquito net was, and how Chanel seems to be going tits up, then you have simply failed to capitalise on the digital banquet spread out for you. These are dark times, and nothing but … gratitude, I think? … should be shown for film director Taika Waititi’s decision to come dressed as a brown pleather three-piece suite, while his wife, Rita Ora, presented as the ribbon curtain tacked over their back door to keep the flies off it."
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Post by bjd on May 7, 2024 7:31:42 GMT
I like Mindy Kaling's dress! In keeping with the nature theme, she is dressed in a high tunnel.
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Post by bjd on May 7, 2024 6:55:41 GMT
Looking back a few pages, I find that I mentioned a rose bush that grew too tall last November. It grew back so well that it had lots of buds but was smothered by the wisteria it was too close to. Yesterday, I threw out some agapanthus and moved the rosebush there. The stem with all the buds on it broke but I figure that thing is so tough that moving it at the wrong time will not hurt it. Since it had been moved just a few months ago, it hadn't rooted in too much so was easy to dig out. And I put it back close to the fence so it can get as tall as it likes.
I saw too that Kimby had mentioned irises. Mine have nearly all bloomed this year. I had moved them around so didn't know which colours were where but some are really pretty. I had never seen many of them in bloom before and they are a lovely pale blue. If the rain and wind don't wreck them I'll try to get a picture. So, the advice on irises seems to be: plant fairly shallow so that the rhizomes get sun on them and then wait.
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Post by bjd on May 7, 2024 6:14:43 GMT
I have had enough just looking at the pics on the BBC website. At least there is some sort of flowery/nature theme this year to excuse the extravagance.
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Post by bjd on May 6, 2024 17:47:10 GMT
Who is the guy standing beside Lincoln?
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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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