I was intrigued by this headline as when I arrived back from holiday after three weeks away , all my lavender that I had grown in containers and pots had died, literally shrivelled to a woody mass. The main problem was the heat of the sun, and the fact that positioned where it was at the front of the patio that the heat and lack of water destroyed it. Except it is supposed to be a very hardy plant. Although I’ve got to admit mine was very old.
Nice to know that the French have a similar problem, there is a possiblity that the Instagrammers will no longer be able to picture the swathes of purple in acres of fields to the instantaneous delight of their viewers. French growers for many reasons are switching to growing almonds, pistachio and ponengranate. Some are moving to raising laying hens under new French agricultural emergency acts( a shortage of eggs).
There are climatic changes too, so an infinity pool of purple into the distance may no longer be an option while sipping your impeccable dry rosé, but at least you can nibble almonds and pistachios with it.
Chickens wander through blooming lavender rows near a table with rosé wine and nuts.
Not knowing anything about the German language I never really understood what Hitler was saying or how he managed to enthrall so many people with his speeches. I suppose he really was speaking nonsense, that appealed to generations of people who felt they had been unfairly treated, it did not need to make sense, but it did need to play on their reactions or fears. A soundbite and then a lot of rabble rousing cheering.
Is it possible that today’s politicians use the same technique? Polarising people into thinking or believing what they want and then mobilising them into actions which history will judge as shameful.
Let’s hope we have moved on, I really think we have.
So this claim by President Trump that China had used “the largest compromise of election data in history” contradicts the findings of a Senior Intelligence Expert who investigated the claim in 2020 and is now the CIA director no less. Yes Joe Biden beat Donald Trump fair and square.
Well, we may all laugh at his claim and the fact that President Trump is belittling even his own Security forces. The President took twenty five minutes to rant about it on a recording that some will believe because they want to believe.
I think I understand better how Hitler worked and how he mobilised those who wanted to believe him.
My experience, though is tempered by the people who made fun of Hitler, I was a child born in the 1960’s and there was some brilliant television programmes made by men and women who had lived through the war. One “Dad’s Army “has always stayed with me. The programme itself was genius but the opening credits stuck a chord.
” Who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler?
If you think ol’ England’s done
We are the one’s who will stop your little game
We are the one’s who will make you think again.”
The tone was definitely Hitler was a clown, a clown who unfortunately resulted in a horrendous amount of innocent people getting killed. Even during the War though there were colloquial songs aimed at making fun at the Nazi Establishment ” Hitler Only has one ball” which was very funny. There were others too, I found this one You Tube it made me laugh . I do believe Spike was from California
The Chinese Embassy in Washington stated that China ” has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the US” and also wary of the need to fact-check the president’s claims first- several US networks chose not to broadcast it live on their main channels.
It’s funny what thoughts reading a headline generates, the article explained that the Republican’s are concerned that their mid term election results will be weak and perhaps this is the reason for the twenty five minute rant about the Chinese bogey man .
In the end though a sense of humour ridiculing the pompous and corrupt works wonders and I’m afraid the headline made me smile.
Torn newspaper fragments swirl dramatically against a dark red backdrop.
I just thought I’d cheer everyone up with this headline or cause a bout of mass hysteria.
It popped up on my timeline,I can’t give you any more details without signing up for a monthly subscription.Sorry.
So I’m in the same boat as you lot and will have to worry about the possibility of the pathogenic fungi and have no facts that you can refer to.
I mean mushrooms can be tasty or deadly and anyone who has seen the video of spores being flung into the air at volumes a human sneeze can only dream of will know what I mean.You can Google now if you like.
Add to that the wonderful vocabulary of the mushroom world,such as septate mycelium(walls nutrients can flow along).Rhizomorphic thick rope,root like strands that colonise aggressively and Tomentose ,Cotton,Cloudy or fuzzy mycelium that spreads softly and dare I say it creepily.
Well the permutations of catastrophic illness and destruction are endless
Thanks to Matty Edwards and BBC Online News for the Headline
The main thing that strikes me about this story is that yet again we have a beautiful old building going to wreck and ruin, owned by a foreign group called the “Fragrance Group” from Thailand who had acquired the building known as the “Grand Atlantic Hotel” in Weston Supermare with the promise of restoring it to it’s former glory and having a hotel that attracts high spending visitors to Weston.
Instead we have neglect and an increasingly deteriorating situation with the local Council up in arms as the building is increasingly being targeted by “urban explorers” who break into the premises , filming their exploits and in some cases writing graffiti on the internal walls and the “Fragrance Group” say they are doing everything they can to stop the dangerous and anti-social behaviour and they are working on plans to restore the hotel.
Their approach is to barricade the building with metal fences, however this hasn’t stopped the intrusions.
Perhaps the reality is time will move on , the building will become uninhabitable and the land will be redeveloped into luxury flats. Bye Bye Grand Atlantic hotel and hello profitable real estate deal.
Thanks to Nardine Saad and BBC Online News for the Headline.
Wow, this is something I wish they would pass in our Parliament here, and even President Trump think it’s a good idea. The House of Representatives have voted to make daylight saving time permanent by passing the Sunshine Protection Act on Tuesday. The bill removes the need for American’s to change their clocks twice a year and put the US under time currently observed between March and November, known as permanent standard time.
There are still those who argue that darker winter mornings will lead to increase in road accident and that increased light in the morning helps the sleep cycle. The rest of us feel that messing around with clocks twice a year is a pain and that your body adjusts naturally to the changing light conditions and does not need an artificial prod of an extra hour or one less hour about Easter and in November.
The mnemonic Spring Forward , Fall Back would be redundant.
Thanks to the Times of India World Desk for the Headline
Seems timely to revisit the choice that was made in Florida at the turn of last century to introduce a non-native tree into the swamplands in order to drain the land and allow development.
Today those invasive trees cover 400,000 acres of native sawgrass marshes and have led to significant changes to the ecological balance. The Melaleuca tree uses vast amounts of water in comparison to the Sawgrass which actually had a natural ebb and flow with it’s surroundings. The land needing an ebb and flow of water. Added to that the Melaleuca’s tree wafer thin and highly combustible bark and there is a double whammy of fire and water environmental damage, not to mention it’s cascading seeds and darkening canopy which prevents native species from thriving or even surviving.
The current cost of managing this invasive species is mounting and has to be met from Government resources. The use of biological methods such as introducing the Melaleuca Snout Beetle and the Melaleuca psyllid from Australia to reduce the tree’s ability to propagate have been moderately successful. Basically however the timebomb was set two hundred years ago without understanding the total picture and the ecology.
Thanks to Dearbail Jordan and Leanna Byrne and BBC Online News for the Headline
The Chief Executive of the Company Mondelez who now own the Cadbury’s brand and have factories in Russia has defended their decision to stay in Russia despite the Ukraine invasion by the Russian’s in 2022.
His reasoning is that although they pay taxes to Russia which could be being used to fund the Ukranian War, the reality is that they have also kept employing a lot of Russians , who let’s face it need jobs and careers and also that if they had left their factories and all the equipment, it would have been taken over by the Russian’s at great cost to Mondelez and it is estimated that the Russian’s would have made more money from their own production of chocolate then even Mondelez.
So it has been a compromise, unlike Mc Donalds who exited straight away, the makers of the Cadbury Brand has continued in the hope that the conflict will be resolved and that the Eastern European sweet tooth can continue to be satisfied.
The targeting of Russian Oil Refineries has had the knock on effect of causing fuel shortages in Russia and in President Putin announcing that Russia’s air defence systems were not robust enough.
The truth is becoming to come out, perhaps the Russian’s never saw air defence as a priority, it is such a big Country. There is also a problem with repairing and replacing spare parts should a key are of the refinery be damaged by a Ukranian Drone.
Sad to say , it all comes down to oil supplies again, with Russia now saying it will stop exporting oil and aviation fuel. So all of it’s output will be for the domestic market. Perhaps prices are coming down again since the Strait of Hormuz looks as if it will be open for traffic again.
Thanks to Dominic Waghorn and Sky News Online for the Headline.
Perhaps this is yesterday’s news or perhaps it isn’t. It’s really hard to tell. The one thing I know is we must have “Peace”.
What happened in the Middle East apparently is one of the greatest strategic blunders in US History.
I beg to differ, the whole thing was a crime against Humanity and perhaps we are fortunate today that we see these people for who they are and that their motives were despicable and so many innocent people have been harmed by their actions.
How culturally different the approach to being in the News is in Egypt. The citizen who spotted and successfully rescued six endangered loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) in the local Obour Market in Cairo Governate remains nameless.
However he bought all six turtles from the market stall holder and contacted the Ministry of the Environment and they intervened to ensure their safe rescue.
The Ministry’s Sea Turtle Rescue Center praised the citizen for his actions, I in turn praise the citizen for his modesty and initiative. The sea turtles play a vital role in maintaining the balance of marine ecosystems.
thenotsomightyom 