However given the violence we saw the GOP is prepared to engage in for a Presidency they lost if I was the Secret Service detailing President Biden and Vice President Harris I would become very worried the moment Trump became Speaker.
The Pandora's box of political violence, once opened, unleashes the possibility of violence engulfing the people who opened that box. It wouldn't be altogether surprising if Trump got up to his old tricks and found that other people, keener on preserving the republic than he is, followed suit but with a more specific and targeted approach.
Your regular reminder that the overwhelming majority of political violence in the US over the last few years has been perpetrated by groupings who tend to vote for the Democrats.
And also that hardly anyone - on any side - has actually been directly killed as a result of the violence, and even fewer of those deaths were in any way deliberate.
I can't imagine you'll get a citation in either direction that isn't affected by bias. Note that I said political violence, not terrorism, in case the distinction matters - possibly the former relates more to home affairs, the latter to foreign. Also "the last few years" - that article was published June 2020, so isn't even directly relevant.
But, that list groups large numbers of related incidents under single headers. The George Floyd protests are listed as having caused $1-2bn of insured property damage in total, whereas the equivalent figure for 6 January was $30m. There are - as far as I can tell - no other incidents listed which can easily be classified as "right wing".
I referenced terrorism since you had said ‘hardly anyone has been killed’ - but you’re quite right to include rioting (depending on its cause or intent) within the category. ‘Last few years’ is pretty imprecise, too, and I’d say the link is relevant. (And I suspect, though I might be wrong, that most detailed analyses you might turn up, from whatever political perspective, won’t be much more recent than that given the effort involved in producing them.)
I’m not for a moment trying to argue that it’s all ‘the right’, but it does seem that you original claim simply wasn’t true.
The troubling question is what of the future, and in terms of organisations actively planning violence, it certainly makes sense to look back at more than the last two years.
"The aesthetics practitioner got the car in February 2021 - but she soon realised that the vehicle was faulty and took it to the garage since she was concerned with her safety.
Zara claims there were issues with the passenger seatbelt and lights on her dash - and her engine would make a strange noise when she drove between her home and work in Manchester.
She then took it to get it looked at - and when the car was returned with the service light off her dashboard and a bill for £2,500, she thought all was well.
But months later her engine seized and Land Rover slapped her with a hefty £27,000 bill - saying it was HER fault for not "maintaining the vehicle.""
...."I have a toddler, and I told them I don't feel safe in this car, I'm paying £1,450 a month, and it's a lot of money."
However given the violence we saw the GOP is prepared to engage in for a Presidency they lost if I was the Secret Service detailing President Biden and Vice President Harris I would become very worried the moment Trump became Speaker.
The Pandora's box of political violence, once opened, unleashes the possibility of violence engulfing the people who opened that box. It wouldn't be altogether surprising if Trump got up to his old tricks and found that other people, keener on preserving the republic than he is, followed suit but with a more specific and targeted approach.
Your regular reminder that the overwhelming majority of political violence in the US over the last few years has been perpetrated by groupings who tend to vote for the Democrats.
And also that hardly anyone - on any side - has actually been directly killed as a result of the violence, and even fewer of those deaths were in any way deliberate.
Funny, for some reason, that site doesn’t define the shooting of Republican Congressman Steve Scalise in 2017 by a Sanders supporter in its list of left-wing terrorism. One wonders what else they managed to leave out:
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Yes. Semi-legalisation is a disaster. The worst of all worlds.
Prompted by the discussion on podcasts yesterday, I rediscovered econtalk- there’s a great episode on the drug situation in the US/Mexico.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I’m pretty sure the solution is a coherent, dedicated policy, at either end of the war on drugs vs full legalisation spectrum.
Drugs are a catastrophe for the individual, families and our society. My view has seriously hardened in recent years.
The issue with cannabis is classification. I get given from time to time serious opiates by the NHS, I harvest mother nature's bounty of fungi from Dartmoor, and I smoke cannabis on the infrequent occasions I get my hands on it. The first two are class A, and in theory I could go to prison for life if I shared them with a mate, while cannabis is virtually decriminalised and I have no idea why. Its subjective psychological effects are much the strongest of the three, it gives you lung cancer via the most usual method of ingestion, and I knew a senior psychiatrist at a London hospital in the 80s who told me then that cannabis psychosis was the single thing he saw most of. It's bizarre: it is as if gin and brandy and vodka counted as spirits but whisky were legally a soft drink.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
GB News is becoming our version of Fox news. Hence it removed Andrew Neil and replaced him with Farage and has some telegenic presenters like Tom Harwood and Nana Akua.
It knows its target market, Leavers, anti lockdown voters, some anti vaxxers, small government types, conservatives and is sticking to it. It may not be everyone's cup of tea but left liberals and Remainers already have C4 news as you say and the Guardian etc. Indeed already GB news gets more weekly viewers than Sky news on some estimates
I don't watch TV but I have no problem at all with GB News and wish them well. Over the past 5 or so years, much mainstream news has become indistinguishable with ideology and propoganda. The left should not have a monopoly over this. GB News is not even right wing anyway, in terms of British public opinion I would say it is actually pretty centrist. It is the mainstream media who are way to the left of public opinion.
It is sad that Andrew Neill's original idea didn't work the way he hoped it would. However, GB News need to be commercially successful and the idea of creating a more objective and neutral BBC was never going to fly, in this respect.
Just turned it on, and they are talking about Jezza!
Yes. Semi-legalisation is a disaster. The worst of all worlds.
Prompted by the discussion on podcasts yesterday, I rediscovered econtalk- there’s a great episode on the drug situation in the US/Mexico.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I’m pretty sure the solution is a coherent, dedicated policy, at either end of the war on drugs vs full legalisation spectrum.
Drugs are a catastrophe for the individual, families and our society. My view has seriously hardened in recent years.
Yes mine too. It seemed harmless fun while I was at school and uni, but a few too many friends had their lives blighted by cannabis use, and if not them their families.
I don't think a doped up country is one that can prosper in the modern world.
@isam - once of this parish - has just emailed me this. A graph correlating (inverted) covid cases with conservative Voting Intention. He says he started tracking it some months ago. The echo is quite spooky
For me this is a pretty good reason to unban @isam because he does stuff like this. But this is not my site. And he also says he is now too busy and hassled to come on PB anyway, so maybe it is all moot
Interesting article from Anne Applebaum on the strange appeal of Putin’s Russia for some on the US right. And how they as grievously mistaken as the old lefties who once fawned on Stalin and his heirs.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/false-romance-russia/603433/ … In his landmark 1981 book, Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba, Paul Hollander wrote of the hospitality showered on sympathetic Western visitors to the Communist world: the banquets in Moscow thrown for George Bernard Shaw, the feasts laid out for Mary McCarthy and Susan Sontag in North Vietnam. But his conclusion was that these performances were not the key to explaining why some Western intellectuals became enamored of communism. Far more important was their estrangement and alienation from their own cultures: “Intellectuals critical of their own society proved highly susceptible to the claims put forward by the leaders and spokesmen of the societies they inspected in the course of these travels.”
Hollander was writing about left-wing intellectuals in the 20th century, and many such people are still around, paying court to left-wing dictators in Venezuela or Bolivia who dislike America. There are also, in our society as in most others, quite a few people who are paid to help America’s enemies, or to spread their propaganda. There always have been.
But in the 21st century, we must also contend with a new phenomenon: right-wing intellectuals, now deeply critical of their own societies, who have begun paying court to right-wing dictators who dislike America. And their motives are curiously familiar. All around them, they see degeneracy, racial mixing, demographic change, “political correctness,” same-sex marriage, religious decline. The America that they actually inhabit no longer matches the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant America that they remember, or think they remember. And so they have begun to look abroad, seeking to find the spiritually unified, ethnically pure nations that, they imagine, are morally stronger than their own. Nations, for example, such as Russia.…
"The aesthetics practitioner got the car in February 2021 - but she soon realised that the vehicle was faulty and took it to the garage since she was concerned with her safety.
Zara claims there were issues with the passenger seatbelt and lights on her dash - and her engine would make a strange noise when she drove between her home and work in Manchester.
She then took it to get it looked at - and when the car was returned with the service light off her dashboard and a bill for £2,500, she thought all was well.
But months later her engine seized and Land Rover slapped her with a hefty £27,000 bill - saying it was HER fault for not "maintaining the vehicle.""
...."I have a toddler, and I told them I don't feel safe in this car, I'm paying £1,450 a month, and it's a lot of money."
@isam - once of this parish - has just emailed me this. A graph correlating (inverted) covid cases with conservative Voting Intention. He says he started tracking it some months ago. The echo is quite spooky
For me this is a pretty good reason to unban @isam because he does stuff like this. But this is not my site. And he also says he is now too busy and hassled to come on PB anyway, so maybe it is all moot
Whatever, this is worthy of scrutiny
Why did he get the ban hammer? He seemed to have reined in his posts over the past year or two.
It doesn't seem way out there to think when we get big spikes in Covid cases the media is filled with Plague Island, Boris is killing all the oldies, look how much worse we are doing than Europe, etc etc etc, and people react accordingly.
Its very strange how quiet the media go when cases fall here and Europe spike, if they do mention it is is mumble mumble, something about waves hit at different times, mumble mumble.
@isam - once of this parish - has just emailed me this. A graph correlating (inverted) covid cases with conservative Voting Intention. He says he started tracking it some months ago. The echo is quite spooky
For me this is a pretty good reason to unban @isam because he does stuff like this. But this is not my site. And he also says he is now too busy and hassled to come on PB anyway, so maybe it is all moot
Whatever, this is worthy of scrutiny
Why did he get the ban hammer? He seemed to have reigned in his posts over the past year or two.
@isam - once of this parish - has just emailed me this. A graph correlating (inverted) covid cases with conservative Voting Intention. He says he started tracking it some months ago. The echo is quite spooky
For me this is a pretty good reason to unban @isam because he does stuff like this. But this is not my site. And he also says he is now too busy and hassled to come on PB anyway, so maybe it is all moot
Whatever, this is worthy of scrutiny
Voters get distracted from all the balls-ups Johnson is making?
A pregnant woman from New Zealand says she has been forced to turn to the Taliban for protection after her home country refused to allow her re-entry to give birth due to draconian coronavirus restrictions.
Charlotte Bellis, a former Al Jazeera reporter, found out that she was pregnant while living in Qatar, where extramarital sex - and therefore being pregnant outside of marriage - is illegal.
With such strict border controls in New Zealand, Ms Bellis was forced to resort to going back to Afghanistan, the only other country she had a visa for.
Jesus Wept, I see @TSE has gone all hyperbole again on Trump. Next up, why Trump is worse than Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined, as well probably being Damien from The Omen.
Ironic that you should use the phrase hyperbole and then use exactly that to describe TSE's position. Here is my view, and I don't think it is hyperbolic in any sense: Trump is a wannabe despot. He is a liar and a fraud with massive psychological problems, including narcissism and sociopathy. He is one of the biggest threats to US, and by extension Western democracy ever. His continuous claims that the election "was stolen" is designed to convince con and manipulate the more gullible in his following.
Is he worse than Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined? Probably not, but none of them were leaders of the Western world and none of them had the constraints of the US Constitution
Rosie Duffield MP @RosieDuffield1 Kent Police, Parliamentary Security team and the Speaker's Office have been helpful but it is the Labour Party that have offered me no support at all since I unexpectedly became an MP 5 years ago. I am today considering my future in the Party very carefully...
A pregnant woman from New Zealand says she has been forced to turn to the Taliban for protection after her home country refused to allow her re-entry to give birth due to draconian coronavirus restrictions.
Charlotte Bellis, a former Al Jazeera reporter, found out that she was pregnant while living in Qatar, where extramarital sex - and therefore being pregnant outside of marriage - is illegal.
With such strict border controls in New Zealand, Ms Bellis was forced to resort to going back to Afghanistan, the only other country she had a visa for.
Good header, but suffice to say my willingness to bet against Trump becoming POTUS early would be based only on comparing the odds to likely inflation over that period and other investment options. It's not a bet with any meaningful level of risk. The platform risk of the bookie going bust before 2025 is higher than Trump moving back into the White House in that time.
However given the violence we saw the GOP is prepared to engage in for a Presidency they lost if I was the Secret Service detailing President Biden and Vice President Harris I would become very worried the moment Trump became Speaker.
The Pandora's box of political violence, once opened, unleashes the possibility of violence engulfing the people who opened that box. It wouldn't be altogether surprising if Trump got up to his old tricks and found that other people, keener on preserving the republic than he is, followed suit but with a more specific and targeted approach.
Your regular reminder that the overwhelming majority of political violence in the US over the last few years has been perpetrated by groupings who tend to vote for the Democrats.
And also that hardly anyone - on any side - has actually been directly killed as a result of the violence, and even fewer of those deaths were in any way deliberate.
I can't imagine you'll get a citation in either direction that isn't affected by bias. Note that I said political violence, not terrorism, in case the distinction matters - possibly the former relates more to home affairs, the latter to foreign. Also "the last few years" - that article was published June 2020, so isn't even directly relevant.
But, that list groups large numbers of related incidents under single headers. The George Floyd protests are listed as having caused $1-2bn of insured property damage in total, whereas the equivalent figure for 6 January was $30m. There are - as far as I can tell - no other incidents listed which can easily be classified as "right wing".
I referenced terrorism since you had said ‘hardly anyone has been killed’ - but you’re quite right to include rioting (depending on its cause or intent) within the category. ‘Last few years’ is pretty imprecise, too, and I’d say the link is relevant. (And I suspect, though I might be wrong, that most detailed analyses you might turn up, from whatever political perspective, won’t be much more recent than that given the effort involved in producing them.)
I’m not for a moment trying to argue that it’s all ‘the right’, but it does seem that you original claim simply wasn’t true.
The troubling question is what of the future, and in terms of organisations actively planning violence, it certainly makes sense to look back at more than the last two years.
Everything you say is fair, but you do seem to be trying a bit too hard to redefine the terms of my claim, which was quite specific.
I'll happily admit I'm wrong if you can explain which combination of events perpetrated by right wingers since - say - Trump's inauguration come close to the $1-2bn damage estimated to have been caused by the George Floyd protests. Or, equivalently, that that figure is significantly overestimated. I assume we are in agreement that said protests were clearly categorisable as "left wing".
By the way, one of the weaknesses of the link you provided is that it counts events, not damage caused (either in terms of lives lost or of property damage), and also that it counts failed plots equally with those that were successful. That's the correct metric for security forces planning preventative action (as you say) but less useful when looking at real world perceptions.
@isam - once of this parish - has just emailed me this. A graph correlating (inverted) covid cases with conservative Voting Intention. He says he started tracking it some months ago. The echo is quite spooky
For me this is a pretty good reason to unban @isam because he does stuff like this. But this is not my site. And he also says he is now too busy and hassled to come on PB anyway, so maybe it is all moot
Whatever, this is worthy of scrutiny
Likely that there's something in this- for the last couple of years, management of Covid has been a massive issue, and when the government seems to be doing badly, its ratings go down.
However, the zigs and zags of that mask the more interesting (I think) effect. When the government was making a complete dog's breakfast of things around Christmas 2020/1, they were roughly at parity with Labour. There were a lot of cases around Christmas 2021/2, but everyone knew things weren't as bad. And yet the government were 5-10 points behind. There's some other slow-acting factor which is less favourable for Boris and his followers.
My guess? The wages boost has run out of steam a bit and price rises have overtaken it. The spurt-boost in living standards in 2014/5 (and the stagnation that preceded it, and the one that followed it) looks like it got Cameron over the line in 2015, but screwed him over in 2016.
Governments that leave the population feeling richer at the end of their term are forgiven a lot. Can Boris and Rishi do that? I don't know, but the projections don't look great.
A pregnant woman from New Zealand says she has been forced to turn to the Taliban for protection after her home country refused to allow her re-entry to give birth due to draconian coronavirus restrictions.
Charlotte Bellis, a former Al Jazeera reporter, found out that she was pregnant while living in Qatar, where extramarital sex - and therefore being pregnant outside of marriage - is illegal.
With such strict border controls in New Zealand, Ms Bellis was forced to resort to going back to Afghanistan, the only other country she had a visa for.
Why did he get the ban hammer? He seemed to have reined in his posts over the past year or two.
In the run up to it he did seem to be rather pestering Mike about (I think) saying that Ken was a discredited force when Boris beat him, when Mike had said Ken looked value at odds on when the betting v Boris first opened.
I've no idea if that had anything to do with it, but I do remember a lot of that from Sam before he (re)departed. I'd like to see him back, but if he does return he should probably show the site owner a bit more respect; there are plenty of other people here for him to persistently and insistently disagree with if he wants the argument.
@isam - once of this parish - has just emailed me this. A graph correlating (inverted) covid cases with conservative Voting Intention. He says he started tracking it some months ago. The echo is quite spooky
For me this is a pretty good reason to unban @isam because he does stuff like this. But this is not my site. And he also says he is now too busy and hassled to come on PB anyway, so maybe it is all moot
Whatever, this is worthy of scrutiny
Likely that there's something in this- for the last couple of years, management of Covid has been a massive issue, and when the government seems to be doing badly, its ratings go down.
However, the zigs and zags of that mask the more interesting (I think) effect. When the government was making a complete dog's breakfast of things around Christmas 2020/1, they were roughly at parity with Labour. There were a lot of cases around Christmas 2021/2, but everyone knew things weren't as bad. And yet the government were 5-10 points behind. There's some other slow-acting factor which is less favourable for Boris and his followers.
My guess? The wages boost has run out of steam a bit and price rises have overtaken it. The spurt-boost in living standards in 2014/5 (and the stagnation that preceded it, and the one that followed it) looks like it got Cameron over the line in 2015, but screwed him over in 2016.
Governments that leave the population feeling richer at the end of their term are forgiven a lot. Can Boris and Rishi do that? I don't know, but the projections don't look great.
Plus of course the very real possibility that Partygate has broken the link, to the Tories’ disadvantage
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
I did a commercial for Lufthansa in Munich and was accompanied by their head of security. In passing he explained their technique for dealing with angry flyers. A steward or stewardess would ask the passenger what it was that was making them irritated?
After listening they would say they were extremely sorry and they would get their superior. Another steward would arrive and ask the passenger to go through the story again from the beginning and the exercise would be repeated .
After two or three visits the passenger's anger would dissipate.
This is the Johnson method. Let the public blow off steam until they have no more steam to blow off. And thanks to the assistance of Sue Grey and Cressida Dick it might well have worked
Interesting article from Anne Applebaum on the strange appeal of Putin’s Russia for some on the US right. And how they as grievously mistaken as the old lefties who once fawned on Stalin and his heirs.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/false-romance-russia/603433/ … In his landmark 1981 book, Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba, Paul Hollander wrote of the hospitality showered on sympathetic Western visitors to the Communist world: the banquets in Moscow thrown for George Bernard Shaw, the feasts laid out for Mary McCarthy and Susan Sontag in North Vietnam. But his conclusion was that these performances were not the key to explaining why some Western intellectuals became enamored of communism. Far more important was their estrangement and alienation from their own cultures: “Intellectuals critical of their own society proved highly susceptible to the claims put forward by the leaders and spokesmen of the societies they inspected in the course of these travels.”
Hollander was writing about left-wing intellectuals in the 20th century, and many such people are still around, paying court to left-wing dictators in Venezuela or Bolivia who dislike America. There are also, in our society as in most others, quite a few people who are paid to help America’s enemies, or to spread their propaganda. There always have been.
But in the 21st century, we must also contend with a new phenomenon: right-wing intellectuals, now deeply critical of their own societies, who have begun paying court to right-wing dictators who dislike America. And their motives are curiously familiar. All around them, they see degeneracy, racial mixing, demographic change, “political correctness,” same-sex marriage, religious decline. The America that they actually inhabit no longer matches the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant America that they remember, or think they remember. And so they have begun to look abroad, seeking to find the spiritually unified, ethnically pure nations that, they imagine, are morally stronger than their own. Nations, for example, such as Russia.…
It isn't difficult to see the appeal of Putin's Russia. It is an alternative to the emerging post-liberal western order, which many people view as a nightmare. But the image Putin projects of Russia is clearly different from the brutal reality of life within it. There are definite similarities with the soviet era, in this respect.
Even though there is much about recent developments in Britain that cause me to despair, it is still more free and ultimately more malleable and correctable over time than authoritarian regimes like Russia. But there is no guarantee that this will remain the case forever. A lot of ground has been lost to dangerous forces on both left and right; it is a very different country to the one that hosted the Olympics a decade ago, and this just makes me sad. Still, life goes on, and there is always hope that things will improve.
GB News "strategy" from the beginning is just plain weird. They want to cater for your more Brexity types, and then they go and hire a load of anti-vaxxer / anti-lockdown presenters from Talk Radio, when their target audience is generally older, scare shitless of COVID, will take as many jabs as needed.
GB News "strategy" from the beginning is just plain weird. They want to cater for your more Brexity types, and then they go and hire a load of anti-vaxxer / anti-lockdown presenters from Talk Radio, when their target audience is generally older, scare shitless of COVID, will take as many jabs as needed.
Are they catering for different people at different times of the day? I assume that Anne Diamond and Barratt Homes aren't anti-vaxxers and that's who my mum watches on it.
By the way, there's an absolutely cracking rugby match on ITV right now. Sale 27 Leicester 26 with 5 minutes left. Feels an age since I saw donestic rugby on TV. There seems more mauling than in previous years. Has there been a rule change? I like mauling and lament it's decline since my day.
GB News "strategy" from the beginning is just plain weird. They want to cater for your more Brexity types, and then they go and hire a load of anti-vaxxer / anti-lockdown presenters from Talk Radio, when their target audience is generally older, scare shitless of COVID, will take as many jabs as needed.
Are they catering for different people at different times of the day? I assume that Anne Diamond and Barratt Homes aren't anti-vaxxers and that's who my mum watches on it.
I don't watch it, but a quick glance and all their evening line-up it is wall to wall anti-vaxxers / anti-lockdown, Farage, Dolan, Wooton, Oliver, etc. The likes of Diamond and Holmes were only just hired, as the same time as hiring Darren "smash up Marx grave" Grimes!!!!
Interesting article from Anne Applebaum on the strange appeal of Putin’s Russia for some on the US right. And how they as grievously mistaken as the old lefties who once fawned on Stalin and his heirs.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/false-romance-russia/603433/ … In his landmark 1981 book, Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba, Paul Hollander wrote of the hospitality showered on sympathetic Western visitors to the Communist world: the banquets in Moscow thrown for George Bernard Shaw, the feasts laid out for Mary McCarthy and Susan Sontag in North Vietnam. But his conclusion was that these performances were not the key to explaining why some Western intellectuals became enamored of communism. Far more important was their estrangement and alienation from their own cultures: “Intellectuals critical of their own society proved highly susceptible to the claims put forward by the leaders and spokesmen of the societies they inspected in the course of these travels.”
Hollander was writing about left-wing intellectuals in the 20th century, and many such people are still around, paying court to left-wing dictators in Venezuela or Bolivia who dislike America. There are also, in our society as in most others, quite a few people who are paid to help America’s enemies, or to spread their propaganda. There always have been.
But in the 21st century, we must also contend with a new phenomenon: right-wing intellectuals, now deeply critical of their own societies, who have begun paying court to right-wing dictators who dislike America. And their motives are curiously familiar. All around them, they see degeneracy, racial mixing, demographic change, “political correctness,” same-sex marriage, religious decline. The America that they actually inhabit no longer matches the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant America that they remember, or think they remember. And so they have begun to look abroad, seeking to find the spiritually unified, ethnically pure nations that, they imagine, are morally stronger than their own. Nations, for example, such as Russia.…
Thankfully there’s none of that Putin worship nonsense on PB.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Grazie, again
If you - or any other PB'er - wants advice on gardening and gardening design DM me. I will even come and plant for you for those living nearby (so Lakes and North London). Anywhere else you have to ask nicely.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Grazie, again
If you - or any other PB'er - wants advice on gardening and gardening design DM me. I will even come and plant for you for those living nearby (so Lakes and North London). Anywhere else you have to ask nicely.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
I did a commercial for Lufthansa in Munich and was accompanied by their head of security. In passing he explained their technique for dealing with angry flyers. A steward or stewardess would ask the passenger what it was that was making them irritated?
After listening they would say they were extremely sorry and they would get their superior. Another steward would arrive and ask the passenger to go through the story again from the beginning and the exercise would be repeated .
After two or three visits the passenger's anger would dissipate.
This is the Johnson method. Let the public blow off steam until they have no more steam to blow off. And thanks to the assistance of Sue Grey and Cressida Dick it might well have worked
It may have done. I am still hoping enough MPs have made up their minds and are holding off letters till Gray for maximum effect, and that dom has further shots in his locker
@isam - once of this parish - has just emailed me this. A graph correlating (inverted) covid cases with conservative Voting Intention. He says he started tracking it some months ago. The echo is quite spooky
For me this is a pretty good reason to unban @isam because he does stuff like this. But this is not my site. And he also says he is now too busy and hassled to come on PB anyway, so maybe it is all moot
Whatever, this is worthy of scrutiny
I do stuff like this too. In 2017/19 I messed about with Brexit vote %ages, long term unemployment etc, and placed my bets accordingly.
It didn't go very well, tbh. The best approach is to just copy what OGH suggests ATL - when he shot down my Burnham theory he was absolutely right
By the way, there's an absolutely cracking rugby match on ITV right now. Sale 27 Leicester 26 with 5 minutes left. Feels an age since I saw donestic rugby on TV. There seems more mauling than in previous years. Has there been a rule change? I like mauling and lament it's decline since my day.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
They are about something completely different: i.e. initial variants of the polio vaccine were actual polio, but a very weak strain. And because they were - you know - an actual live virus, then the weakened polio virus ended up spreading in the wild.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
That is not the case, as you would realise if you had read and understood the first sentence of the first link.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Grazie, again
If you - or any other PB'er - wants advice on gardening and gardening design DM me. I will even come and plant for you for those living nearby (so Lakes and North London). Anywhere else you have to ask nicely.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
Sweet Jesus. And WaPo isn’t half as mad as the NYT
I am sure the WaPo editorial team thought what a great cartoon, hits the nail right on the head.
What is also interesting is that this subset of people think it is absolutely fine to go around humorously smearing people in this way, but hypersensitive to the correct labels being used for other groups.
Sweet Jesus. And WaPo isn’t half as mad as the NYT
I am sure the WaPo editorial team thought what a great cartoon, hits the nail right on the head.
What is also interesting is that this subset of people think it is absolutely fine to go around humorously smearing people in this way, but hypersensitive to the correct labels being used for other groups.
Sweet Jesus. And WaPo isn’t half as mad as the NYT
I am sure the WaPo editorial team thought what a great cartoon, hits the nail right on the head.
In fairness I think most people who make or share political cartoons think they are much more clever and insightful than they think they are.
Which is not as big a slam as it sounds, it's just that a good political cartoon is hard, much harder for instance than a moderately smart or insightful piece of writing.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
That is not the case, as you would realise if you had read and understood the first sentence of the first link.
"A vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV)"
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Grazie, again
If you - or any other PB'er - wants advice on gardening and gardening design DM me. I will even come and plant for you for those living nearby (so Lakes and North London). Anywhere else you have to ask nicely.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Grazie, again
If you - or any other PB'er - wants advice on gardening and gardening design DM me. I will even come and plant for you for those living nearby (so Lakes and North London). Anywhere else you have to ask nicely.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
That sounds like something for Sunday evening TV with somebody like Harriet Walter in the lead role.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
That is not the case, as you would realise if you had read and understood the first sentence of the first link.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
That is not the case, as you would realise if you had read and understood the first sentence of the first link.
"A vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV)"
That line?
How is that not an example of a vaccine evolved version of a virus? Which may not be what you meant to ask but is what you asked.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
That is not the case, as you would realise if you had read and understood the first sentence of the first link.
"A vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV)"
That line?
Presumably he saw the words "strain", "weakened" and "vaccine" and stopped thinking at that point.
Sweet Jesus. And WaPo isn’t half as mad as the NYT
I am sure the WaPo editorial team thought what a great cartoon, hits the nail right on the head.
In fairness I think most people who make or share political cartoons think they are much more clever and insightful than they think they are.
Which is not as big a slam as it sounds, it's just that a good political cartoon is hard, much harder for instance than a moderately smart or insightful piece of writing.
I fail to see how anybody can think writing fascist down the side of a lorry is clever or insightful.
And obviously in this case, the truckers are protesting against being forced to be vaccinated. Now I don't have a huge amount of time for anti-vax stand point, but truckers in North America, of all jobs, seems the miles down the totem pole in terms of risk. A job where you spend days / weeks sitting alone in a cab only interacting with people to fill up for gas.
Matt manages brilliant cutting cartoons without ever resorting to this kind of stuff.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
That is not the case, as you would realise if you had read and understood the first sentence of the first link.
"A vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV)"
That line?
How is that not an example of a vaccine evolved version of a virus? Which may not be what you meant to ask but is what you asked.
It's not a vaccine-evolved virus in the sense of the anti-vax stuff you posted: "the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity" .
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Grazie, again
If you - or any other PB'er - wants advice on gardening and gardening design DM me. I will even come and plant for you for those living nearby (so Lakes and North London). Anywhere else you have to ask nicely.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
That is not the case, as you would realise if you had read and understood the first sentence of the first link.
"A vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV)"
That line?
How is that not an example of a vaccine evolved version of a virus? Which may not be what you meant to ask but is what you asked.
It's not a vaccine-evolved virus in the sense of the anti-vax stuff you posted: "the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity" .
Nothing whatsoever to do with it.
I posted no such thing. You don't seem to be terribly intelligent.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
That is not the case, as you would realise if you had read and understood the first sentence of the first link.
"A vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV)"
That line?
How is that not an example of a vaccine evolved version of a virus? Which may not be what you meant to ask but is what you asked.
It's not a vaccine-evolved virus in the sense of the anti-vax stuff you posted: "the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity" .
Nothing whatsoever to do with it.
I posted no such thing. You don't seem to be terribly intelligent.
Don't you know you are talking to the smartest man in the room....
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Grazie, again
If you - or any other PB'er - wants advice on gardening and gardening design DM me. I will even come and plant for you for those living nearby (so Lakes and North London). Anywhere else you have to ask nicely.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Grazie, again
If you - or any other PB'er - wants advice on gardening and gardening design DM me. I will even come and plant for you for those living nearby (so Lakes and North London). Anywhere else you have to ask nicely.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
That sounds like something for Sunday evening TV with somebody like Harriet Walter in the lead role.
I have started writing a drama series - but there is no gardening in it it all. Only investigations.
Rosemary & Thyme was execrable.
The plotting is the hardest part and I am not a screen writer so will see how far I can take it before I throw it in the bin or sell to someone to finish.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
That is not the case, as you would realise if you had read and understood the first sentence of the first link.
"A vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV)"
That line?
How is that not an example of a vaccine evolved version of a virus? Which may not be what you meant to ask but is what you asked.
It's not a vaccine-evolved virus in the sense of the anti-vax stuff you posted: "the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity" .
Nothing whatsoever to do with it.
I posted no such thing. You don't seem to be terribly intelligent.
No, I'm sorry - you didn't post it in the first place.
But you did try to contradict someone who said it wasn't sane. On the basis of something you'd misunderstood. And now you won't admit you'd misunderstood it. That is absurd.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Grazie, again
If you - or any other PB'er - wants advice on gardening and gardening design DM me. I will even come and plant for you for those living nearby (so Lakes and North London). Anywhere else you have to ask nicely.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
That is not the case, as you would realise if you had read and understood the first sentence of the first link.
"A vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV)"
That line?
And anyway I don't see in principle how viruses would not evolve to evade vaccines, and it seems to be accepted that they do, e.g.
Second, relaxing restrictions boosts transmission and allows the virus population to expand, which enhances its adaptive evolutionary potential and increases the risk of vaccine-resistant strains emerging through antigenic drift
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Grazie, again
If you - or any other PB'er - wants advice on gardening and gardening design DM me. I will even come and plant for you for those living nearby (so Lakes and North London). Anywhere else you have to ask nicely.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Grazie, again
If you - or any other PB'er - wants advice on gardening and gardening design DM me. I will even come and plant for you for those living nearby (so Lakes and North London). Anywhere else you have to ask nicely.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
That is not the case, as you would realise if you had read and understood the first sentence of the first link.
"A vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV)"
That line?
And anyway I don't see in principle how viruses would not evolve to evade vaccines, and it seems to be accepted that they do, e.g.
Second, relaxing restrictions boosts transmission and allows the virus population to expand, which enhances its adaptive evolutionary potential and increases the risk of vaccine-resistant strains emerging through antigenic drift
They don't evolve to evade vaccines. They evolve anyway, and the ones that happen to evade immunity - whether derived from vaccines or infection - will have a competitive advantage.
But the point is that the more infections there are, the more opportunities there will be for the virus to evolve. If vaccination reduces the number of infections, then it will reduce those opportunities.
Does anyone know any more than Wiki about the etymology of Scot-? Here's what I found there -
"The etymology of Late Latin Scoti is unclear. It is not a Latin derivation, nor does it correspond to any known Goidelic (Gaelic) term the Gaels used to name themselves as a whole or a constituent population-group. The implication is that this Late Latin word rendered a Primitive Irish term for a social grouping, occupation or activity, and only later became an ethnonym.
Several derivations have been conjectured but none has gained general acceptance in mainstream scholarship. In the 19th century Aonghas MacCoinnich proposed that Scoti came from Gaelic Sgaothaich, meaning "crowd" or "horde".
Charles Oman derived it from Gaelic Scuit, meaning someone cut-off. He believed it referred to bands of outcast Gaelic raiders, suggesting that the Scots were to the Gaels what the Vikings were to the Norse.
More recently, Philip Freeman has speculated on the likelihood of a group of raiders adopting a name from an Indo-European root, *skot, citing the parallel in Greek skotos (σκότος), meaning "darkness, gloom".
An origin has also been suggested in a word related to the English scot (as in tax) and Old Norse skot; this referred to an activity in ceremonies whereby ownership of land was transferred by placing a parcel of earth in the lap of a new owner,[15] whence 11th century King Olaf, one of Sweden's first known rulers, may have been known as a scot king" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoti#Etymology
Which seems to leave us with Hordeland, Outcastland, Gloomland or Taxland as the somewhat less than inspiring etymological options.
I think the Gloom might be a good name for the currency
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Grazie, again
If you - or any other PB'er - wants advice on gardening and gardening design DM me. I will even come and plant for you for those living nearby (so Lakes and North London). Anywhere else you have to ask nicely.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Grazie, again
If you - or any other PB'er - wants advice on gardening and gardening design DM me. I will even come and plant for you for those living nearby (so Lakes and North London). Anywhere else you have to ask nicely.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
That sounds like something for Sunday evening TV with somebody like Harriet Walter in the lead role.
I have started writing a drama series - but there is no gardening in it it all. Only investigations.
Rosemary & Thyme was execrable.
The plotting is the hardest part and I am not a screen writer so will see how far I can take it before I throw it in the bin or sell to someone to finish.
Rosemary and Thyme is hilariously absurd. More murders than Midsommer, and the leads can barely keep a straight face.
I do agree about gardening though. It is good for the soul. There is an ancient pleasure in growing things and being part of the seasons. My garden can be an untidy mess, but always a pleasure that way. Nature should not be too ordered.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
That is not the case, as you would realise if you had read and understood the first sentence of the first link.
"A vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV)"
That line?
And anyway I don't see in principle how viruses would not evolve to evade vaccines, and it seems to be accepted that they do, e.g.
Second, relaxing restrictions boosts transmission and allows the virus population to expand, which enhances its adaptive evolutionary potential and increases the risk of vaccine-resistant strains emerging through antigenic drift
They don't evolve to evade vaccines. They evolve anyway, and the ones that happen to evade immunity - whether derived from vaccines or infection - will have a competitive advantage.
But the point is that the more infections there are, the more opportunities there will be for the virus to evolve. If vaccination reduces the number of infections, then it will reduce those opportunities.
Oh rly? I was fairly clear that evolution was pretty much consciously directed towards the Omega Point. Sure I read that somewhere.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
Is there a single virus where mass vaccination has led to that outcome to the extent that the overall clinical outcomes were worse then they would have been without mass vaccination?
No idea
All I know is that I’ve seen apparently sane virologists and evolutionary biologists arguing this point: vaccines can be theoretically counter-productive
That’s strange; the only discussion on this subject I’ve seen from immunologists and virologists has been the exact reverse: vaccines aren’t antibiotics, after all (they’re simply a method of triggering the natural immune response by alerting and training the immune system) and the maximum risk of new variants comes about with the widest spread of the virus (as there are that many more reproducing viruses with that much more opportunities for mutation).
The fact that Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron have all come from regions of low/no vaccination (some predating vax) and no hints of any dangerous variants coming from regions of high vax would rather support them.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
That is not the case, as you would realise if you had read and understood the first sentence of the first link.
"A vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV)"
That line?
How is that not an example of a vaccine evolved version of a virus? Which may not be what you meant to ask but is what you asked.
It's not a vaccine-evolved virus in the sense of the anti-vax stuff you posted: "the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity" .
Nothing whatsoever to do with it.
I posted no such thing. You don't seem to be terribly intelligent.
No, I'm sorry - you didn't post it in the first place.
But you did try to contradict someone who said it wasn't sane. On the basis of something you'd misunderstood. And now you won't admit you'd misunderstood it. That is absurd.
No, it was never not a sane position, and it was certainly not an anti vax position to ask whether vaccines, splendid as they are, have some limitations.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
Quite.
I’ve also seen it linked to, by not-the-usual suspects. GBNews seems to be making an impact, after a terrible start
Good luck to them. The more independent voices the better. C4 News has been pumping out leftwing nonsense for decades
Anyway, if you want something different to talk about we could talk about women, Article 10 of the ECHR and what, if any, the police's role in this should be. It touches on Scotland, Wales, the police, law and Europe - as well as, of course, women. So pretty much a full bingo card.
Does it involve aliens, GPT4 and arguments about the best Goan fish curry recipes? I/f not, sorry. Not interested
No. Of course not. Such dreary geeky topics. I don't even know what the second one means.
Maybe someone else will bite.
Or I could do some work. Next door's cat is staring at me evilly. He/she is probably an alien, maybe even a GPT4 alien who likes fish.
There - that'll have to do.
You tried. Fair play
Believe it or not I AM interested in your garden!
You said it was REALLY big. How big? And you say you could happily spend all day gardening. Why do you think that is? How does it affect you? Is there an endorphin high at the end, is it the pleasure of seeing flowers, or growing your own veg?
Genuine questions. One day I will retire, at least a bit, and I wonder if I might like a garden….
OK - here goes. In a curious way gardening chose me. Oh I wanted a nice garden for the children.
But what I eventually realised was that I was drawn to it because it helped soothe & calm me whenever I was troubled or worried. It rooted me in a way. And then it made me feel good. It answered various needs in me I was only dimly aware I had.
How? It is sensuous - you use your eyes, you have to take the time to really observe & see & when you do you see such beauty & often in unexpected combinations: rain on a spider's web, bees burrowing into allium flowers, the light shining through canna leaves. My mind is a very visual one. I think in pictures. I try to paint pictures with words. I cannot draw. But gardening gives me the ability to create something beautiful & visual.
Then there is scent. A garden without scent is absurd.
Sound - water obviously but the sound of grasses moving in wind. In the Lakes we are on a hill. It can be very windy so I'm experimenting with grasses for just that reason.
Taste - an obvious one this. But I eat lemons, figs, apples, pears & blackberries I have grown myself. The sense of achievement is superb.
Touch - overlooked but real. The feel of different sorts of leaves or petals or running your fingers through lavender etc. Or having your hands in earth. Honestly it is lovely.
Yes - gardening is sensuous. And creative.
Plus the physical exercise & being outside in all weathers. It is tiring but so fulfilling & yes gives me a high. The sense of stretching my body, of being tired & dirty is good - together with a sense of achievement - of being able to look & say "I've done that".
It's unexpected. Whatever you plan it will never quite work out as you wanted. That is part of the joy. You have a partner - Mother Nature - who will do her own thing.
It is quiet. It puts my mind into a sort of suspended animation where whatever I'm thinking about goes into the back - like someone stuffing clothes into a cupboard without bothering to hang them up. But somehow when I switch my mind back on, it is all a bit clearer & more ordered than before.
The Lakes garden is big - about 1/3 of an acre I think. On a hill. On limestone. Windy. But very sunny with fabulous views & a mile from the sea. Front garden - largely done. Back garden: needs sorting. Then some additional land next to it which is a huge mess. Just wild. I am just beginning to think about this.
I need to draw it out on paper, work out what I want to do, how it relates to the house, the views of it & from it etc. I would like to have a formal French-style potager with veg, a greenhouse, a garden building to sit in with my books, maybe a hot tub & an area of large sweeping planted curvaceous beds. It needs mystery too.
So that's why I can spend all day. I am not a tidy lawn & small border sort of a girl.
Here are my roses from a few years back in London to give you an idea of the sensuous aspect.
Eloquent as ever and also pretty persuasive. And enlightening. Much to think about. Thankyou
Maybe I should get a garden. I can see the enormous pleasure of growing your own fruit and veg and I totally get the reward of proper physical work - it is good for you, AND you earn your appetite
I have just one more question. You’ve spoken of your Neapolitan background. Don’t you miss the Campanian sun? Are you totally adjusted to British weather?
When I think about the next Act in my life I do yearn for real warmth and sun. Mediterranean, but tempered. Maybe Portugal. Or go the whole hog and go tropical, like Sri Lanka. The sweet soft evenings are so seductive….
Yes and no. Naples is not famous for its gardens. That level of heat is not really good for gardens. Where I am we get sun all day and when it is there - being near the sea - it can get beautifully warm. Also I like mist and cold weather too. I don't like very hot humid weather.
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
Grazie, again
If you - or any other PB'er - wants advice on gardening and gardening design DM me. I will even come and plant for you for those living nearby (so Lakes and North London). Anywhere else you have to ask nicely.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
That sounds like something for Sunday evening TV with somebody like Harriet Walter in the lead role.
I have started writing a drama series - but there is no gardening in it it all. Only investigations.
Rosemary & Thyme was execrable.
The plotting is the hardest part and I am not a screen writer so will see how far I can take it before I throw it in the bin or sell to someone to finish.
Good luck with that. Yes, plot is the hardest thing. Then dialogue. Then prose. Or to be more accurate, not so much hardest but a rarer skill. More people can do good prose than can do good dialogue than can do good plot. That's my view anyway.
Sweet Jesus. And WaPo isn’t half as mad as the NYT
I am sure the WaPo editorial team thought what a great cartoon, hits the nail right on the head.
In fairness I think most people who make or share political cartoons think they are much more clever and insightful than they think they are.
Which is not as big a slam as it sounds, it's just that a good political cartoon is hard, much harder for instance than a moderately smart or insightful piece of writing.
I fail to see how anybody can think writing fascist down the side of a lorry is clever or insightful.
And obviously in this case, the truckers are protesting against being forced to be vaccinated. Now I don't have a huge amount of time for anti-vax stand point, but truckers in North America, of all jobs, seems the miles down the totem pole in terms of risk. A job where you spend days / weeks sitting alone in a cab only interacting with people to fill up for gas.
Matt manages brilliant cutting cartoons without ever resorting to this kind of stuff.
Matt is brilliant. Mrs J has started getting me his annual book each Christmas, and there is rarely a miss. He also avoids - mostly - getting personal about people and characters.
Not sure why you need to apologise for GB News. Some of their presenters are a bit irritating but I don't get the hate.
It is a channel that spreads antivax bollocks.
But there is a sane position which is anti-vax. Ie the more we vax the more we force the virus to evolve to evade immunity, creating evermore sinister variants
I don’t agree with it, but I can see the logic
Then there is the insane anti-vax stuff, Bill Gates and microchips and the rest, but that is different
That's only a sane position if you don't understand the differences between bacteria and vaccines.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
Those papers aren't talking about vaccines producing evolutionary pressure on the virus. They're talking about people actually getting a virus from the vaccine itself.
That is not the case, as you would realise if you had read and understood the first sentence of the first link.
"A vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV)"
That line?
How is that not an example of a vaccine evolved version of a virus? Which may not be what you meant to ask but is what you asked.
And actually this may be the point: Polio tb measles vaccines are attenuated virus, Covid vaccines are not, and here is a suggestion that therein lies the problem:
"Many approved live attenuated vaccines have stayed effective for decades, such as for yellow fever. Emergex believes this is because they allow T cells, a key part of our immune ‘memory’ for future infections, to target proteins inside the virus rather than on the surface.
“Many of the vaccines currently being developed for Covid-19 are targeting surface proteins and particularly the spike [protein],” said Rademacher. “Our results suggest that this may not produce an equivalently safe, effective, and long-lived immune response compared to that seen with live attenuated vaccines.” "
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_violence
I referenced terrorism since you had said ‘hardly anyone has been killed’ - but you’re quite right to include rioting (depending on its cause or intent) within the category.
‘Last few years’ is pretty imprecise, too, and I’d say the link is relevant. (And I suspect, though I might be wrong, that most detailed analyses you might turn up, from whatever political perspective, won’t be much more recent than that given the effort involved in producing them.)
I’m not for a moment trying to argue that it’s all ‘the right’, but it does seem that you original claim simply wasn’t true.
The troubling question is what of the future, and in terms of organisations actively planning violence, it certainly makes sense to look back at more than the last two years.
"The aesthetics practitioner got the car in February 2021 - but she soon realised that the vehicle was faulty and took it to the garage since she was concerned with her safety.
Zara claims there were issues with the passenger seatbelt and lights on her dash - and her engine would make a strange noise when she drove between her home and work in Manchester.
She then took it to get it looked at - and when the car was returned with the service light off her dashboard and a bill for £2,500, she thought all was well.
But months later her engine seized and Land Rover slapped her with a hefty £27,000 bill - saying it was HER fault for not "maintaining the vehicle.""
...."I have a toddler, and I told them I don't feel safe in this car, I'm paying £1,450 a month, and it's a lot of money."
Rob Dawson
@RobDawsonESPN
Further statement from Man United: “Mason Greenwood will not return to training or play matches until further notice.”
Campania is very humid and the sun is fierce so it is something to be enjoyed but also something to be avoided as well: the rush to the sea in summer, the closing of shutters to keep the heat out etc.
Husband and I talked in the past (ie before Covid hit and we'd moved into our house) of spending part of the winter abroad - in the Mediterranean, exploring different places, then further afield, maybe even renting for 3 months. That was the vague plan. It still is.
https://whitstableviews.com/2022/01/30/why-canterbury-whitstable-needs-a-new-labour-m-p/
I’d have thought a simple rebuttal of any “lies” would have sufficed.
I don't think a doped up country is one that can prosper in the modern world.
@isam - once of this parish - has just emailed me this. A graph correlating (inverted) covid cases with conservative Voting Intention. He says he started tracking it some months ago. The echo is quite spooky
For me this is a pretty good reason to unban @isam because he does stuff like this. But this is not my site. And he also says he is now too busy and hassled to come on PB anyway, so maybe it is all moot
Whatever, this is worthy of scrutiny
And how they as grievously mistaken as the old lefties who once fawned on Stalin and his heirs.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/false-romance-russia/603433/
… In his landmark 1981 book, Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba, Paul Hollander wrote of the hospitality showered on sympathetic Western visitors to the Communist world: the banquets in Moscow thrown for George Bernard Shaw, the feasts laid out for Mary McCarthy and Susan Sontag in North Vietnam. But his conclusion was that these performances were not the key to explaining why some Western intellectuals became enamored of communism. Far more important was their estrangement and alienation from their own cultures: “Intellectuals critical of their own society proved highly susceptible to the claims put forward by the leaders and spokesmen of the societies they inspected in the course of these travels.”
Hollander was writing about left-wing intellectuals in the 20th century, and many such people are still around, paying court to left-wing dictators in Venezuela or Bolivia who dislike America. There are also, in our society as in most others, quite a few people who are paid to help America’s enemies, or to spread their propaganda. There always have been.
But in the 21st century, we must also contend with a new phenomenon: right-wing intellectuals, now deeply critical of their own societies, who have begun paying court to right-wing dictators who dislike America. And their motives are curiously familiar. All around them, they see degeneracy, racial mixing, demographic change, “political correctness,” same-sex marriage, religious decline. The America that they actually inhabit no longer matches the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant America that they remember, or think they remember. And so they have begun to look abroad, seeking to find the spiritually unified, ethnically pure nations that, they imagine, are morally stronger than their own. Nations, for example, such as Russia.…
Harry and Meghan reveal Spotify Covid row concerns
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-60191264
It doesn't seem way out there to think when we get big spikes in Covid cases the media is filled with Plague Island, Boris is killing all the oldies, look how much worse we are doing than Europe, etc etc etc, and people react accordingly.
Its very strange how quiet the media go when cases fall here and Europe spike, if they do mention it is is mumble mumble, something about waves hit at different times, mumble mumble.
Charlotte Bellis, a former Al Jazeera reporter, found out that she was pregnant while living in Qatar, where extramarital sex - and therefore being pregnant outside of marriage - is illegal.
With such strict border controls in New Zealand, Ms Bellis was forced to resort to going back to Afghanistan, the only other country she had a visa for.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/01/30/pregnant-woman-forced-appeal-taliban-new-zealand-covid-rules/
Is he worse than Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined? Probably not, but none of them were leaders of the Western world and none of them had the constraints of the US Constitution
“I’ve asked my doctor to give me long ears and liver spots and I’m going to wear a brown coat but that doesn’t turn me into a f***ing cocker spaniel.
“A man who gets his d**k chopped off is actually inflicting an extraordinary act of violence on himself.”
Germaine Greer as quoted on that thread
More seriously, I presume it is BA.2 and we will more than likely get an uptick because of it at some point.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/jan/30/laurence-fox-has-coronavirus-and-taking-ivermectin
I'll happily admit I'm wrong if you can explain which combination of events perpetrated by right wingers since - say - Trump's inauguration come close to the $1-2bn damage estimated to have been caused by the George Floyd protests. Or, equivalently, that that figure is significantly overestimated. I assume we are in agreement that said protests were clearly categorisable as "left wing".
By the way, one of the weaknesses of the link you provided is that it counts events, not damage caused (either in terms of lives lost or of property damage), and also that it counts failed plots equally with those that were successful. That's the correct metric for security forces planning preventative action (as you say) but less useful when looking at real world perceptions.
Likely that there's something in this- for the last couple of years, management of Covid has been a massive issue, and when the government seems to be doing badly, its ratings go down.
However, the zigs and zags of that mask the more interesting (I think) effect. When the government was making a complete dog's breakfast of things around Christmas 2020/1, they were roughly at parity with Labour. There were a lot of cases around Christmas 2021/2, but everyone knew things weren't as bad. And yet the government were 5-10 points behind. There's some other slow-acting factor which is less favourable for Boris and his followers.
My guess? The wages boost has run out of steam a bit and price rises have overtaken it. The spurt-boost in living standards in 2014/5 (and the stagnation that preceded it, and the one that followed it) looks like it got Cameron over the line in 2015, but screwed him over in 2016.
Governments that leave the population feeling richer at the end of their term are forgiven a lot. Can Boris and Rishi do that? I don't know, but the projections don't look great.
https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1487795742634909697?s=20&t=Fsc3Sv1K2YzatP2df1pgJA
I've no idea if that had anything to do with it, but I do remember a lot of that from Sam before he (re)departed. I'd like to see him back, but if he does return he should probably show the site owner a bit more respect; there are plenty of other people here for him to persistently and insistently disagree with if he wants the argument.
Do you notice all the vaccine evolved versions of polio, TB, measles, etc. out there?
After listening they would say they were extremely sorry and they would get their superior. Another steward would arrive and ask the passenger to go through the story again from the beginning and the exercise would be repeated .
After two or three visits the passenger's anger would dissipate.
This is the Johnson method. Let the public blow off steam until they have no more steam to blow off. And thanks to the assistance of Sue Grey and Cressida Dick it might well have worked
Even though there is much about recent developments in Britain that cause me to despair, it is still more free and ultimately more malleable and correctable over time than authoritarian regimes like Russia. But there is no guarantee that this will remain the case forever. A lot of ground has been lost to dangerous forces on both left and right; it is a very different country to the one that hosted the Olympics a decade ago, and this just makes me sad. Still, life goes on, and there is always hope that things will improve.
There seems more mauling than in previous years. Has there been a rule change? I like mauling and lament it's decline since my day.
Maybe my final career will be as some sort of freelance gardener-cum-investigator.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/hcp/vaccine-derived-poliovirus-faq.html
Yes for measles
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23782719/
Which are you, Felicity Kendal or Pam Ferris?
It didn't go very well, tbh. The best approach is to just copy what OGH suggests ATL - when he shot down my Burnham theory he was absolutely right
(Still a really interesting graph from Isam).
https://twitter.com/deAdder/status/1487069788769865731?s=20&t=IOfPX2l6jiqHltQBznPkNw
Did you even read those links?
They are about something completely different: i.e. initial variants of the polio vaccine were actual polio, but a very weak strain. And because they were - you know - an actual live virus, then the weakened polio virus ended up spreading in the wild.
What is also interesting is that this subset of people think it is absolutely fine to go around humorously smearing people in this way, but hypersensitive to the correct labels being used for other groups.
Which is not as big a slam as it sounds, it's just that a good political cartoon is hard, much harder for instance than a moderately smart or insightful piece of writing.
That line?
(*wets pants in terror*)
And obviously in this case, the truckers are protesting against being forced to be vaccinated. Now I don't have a huge amount of time for anti-vax stand point, but truckers in North America, of all jobs, seems the miles down the totem pole in terms of risk. A job where you spend days / weeks sitting alone in a cab only interacting with people to fill up for gas.
Matt manages brilliant cutting cartoons without ever resorting to this kind of stuff.
Nothing whatsoever to do with it.
The secateurs are for the plants, the withering questions and gimlet eye for the suspects.
That's your fault, that is.
Rosemary & Thyme was execrable.
The plotting is the hardest part and I am not a screen writer so will see how far I can take it before I throw it in the bin or sell to someone to finish.
But you did try to contradict someone who said it wasn't sane. On the basis of something you'd misunderstood. And now you won't admit you'd misunderstood it. That is absurd.
Follows the ongoing Mendy case.
Second, relaxing restrictions boosts transmission and
allows the virus population to expand, which enhances
its adaptive evolutionary potential and increases the
risk of vaccine-resistant strains emerging through
antigenic drift
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210727195333.htm
*checks bank balance*
Then again, perhaps not.
Evidently, football still has a massive issue with the type of toxic masculinity that belongs in the dark ages
But the point is that the more infections there are, the more opportunities there will be for the virus to evolve. If vaccination reduces the number of infections, then it will reduce those opportunities.
"The etymology of Late Latin Scoti is unclear. It is not a Latin derivation, nor does it correspond to any known Goidelic (Gaelic) term the Gaels used to name themselves as a whole or a constituent population-group. The implication is that this Late Latin word rendered a Primitive Irish term for a social grouping, occupation or activity, and only later became an ethnonym.
Several derivations have been conjectured but none has gained general acceptance in mainstream scholarship. In the 19th century Aonghas MacCoinnich proposed that Scoti came from Gaelic Sgaothaich, meaning "crowd" or "horde".
Charles Oman derived it from Gaelic Scuit, meaning someone cut-off. He believed it referred to bands of outcast Gaelic raiders, suggesting that the Scots were to the Gaels what the Vikings were to the Norse.
More recently, Philip Freeman has speculated on the likelihood of a group of raiders adopting a name from an Indo-European root, *skot, citing the parallel in Greek skotos (σκότος), meaning "darkness, gloom".
An origin has also been suggested in a word related to the English scot (as in tax) and Old Norse skot; this referred to an activity in ceremonies whereby ownership of land was transferred by placing a parcel of earth in the lap of a new owner,[15] whence 11th century King Olaf, one of Sweden's first known rulers, may have been known as a scot king"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoti#Etymology
Which seems to leave us with Hordeland, Outcastland, Gloomland or Taxland as the somewhat less than inspiring etymological options.
I think the Gloom might be a good name for the currency
I think the polls close in Portugal at 7pm UK time and we should expect the first exit polls fairly soon after.
Turnout is looking fair - last time it failed to break 50% - I think it will be high 50s this time.
Might this be a problem for Sir Keir going forward?
I do agree about gardening though. It is good for the soul. There is an ancient pleasure in growing things and being part of the seasons. My garden can be an untidy mess, but always a pleasure that way. Nature should not be too ordered.
Sounds like her in R.E.D., secateurs in hand.
The fact that Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron have all come from regions of low/no vaccination (some predating vax) and no hints of any dangerous variants coming from regions of high vax would rather support them.
It's a real skill.
"Many approved live attenuated vaccines have stayed effective for decades, such as for yellow fever. Emergex believes this is because they allow T cells, a key part of our immune ‘memory’ for future infections, to target proteins inside the virus rather than on the surface.
“Many of the vaccines currently being developed for Covid-19 are targeting surface proteins and particularly the spike [protein],” said Rademacher. “Our results suggest that this may not produce an equivalently safe, effective, and long-lived immune response compared to that seen with live attenuated vaccines.” "
https://www.labiotech.eu/trends-news/emergex-covid-19-vaccine/
So it may be that polio etc are entirely off point anyway.