Seventy Years Ago

The Blitz began on September 7, 1940 and lasted until May 10, 1941 and saw Britain sustain prolonged periods of heavy bombing by the Nazi Germany air forces in several phases of intensity.

A series of photos published in today’s Telegraph blend scenes from 2010 with the same location in 1940.

The Bank of England, London

Park Street Bristol

Any Old Irony

One of my favourite blogging tools as you know is the irony meter.

I’d like to thank whoever it was who came up with it.

As we near a certain visit to these parts, thanks too to Kenfitlike for directing my attention to the following Jesus and Mo cartoon strip.

Telly in Aberdeen

Calling Russell and Ken Fitlike!

(Thanks to Scott for this!)

Hey! Stavros! Mun hae mait! nip oot an’ get me a buttery!
Crocker! Hoos yer doos?

It Was All a Misteak!

I stumbled on this spelling error from Tony Blair in 2001.

Inexplicably, the then Prime Minister of the country couldn’t spell tomorrow! (A statement of fact not a wisecrack).

The Newsround (Childrens’ news) article at the time quoted thus:

“Prime Minister Tony Blair’s admitted the mistake he made in an important letter was a spelling error and not his bad handwriting.Britain’s leader was writing a letter to a prospective Labour MP when he spelled the word tomorrow wrongly, instead writing “toomorrow”. Even worse for Mr Blair, he spelled the word wrongly three times in the letter.

The article goes on to say;

The Prime Minister’s political opponents have used the mistake to make fun of Mr Blair, but his office in Downing Street said it might not have been a spelling mistake.They said that it might have been Mr Blair’s messy handwriting that was the problem, not his spelling. But the PM said: “I regret I have to put my hands up and say it was indeed my spelling that was at fault.”

And a former teacher revealed how a young Tony Blair mixed up his geometry by labelling the hypotenuse on a triangle the “rhinoceros”. He apparently told his teacher: “Sir, I knew the answer was something like hippopotamus, but rhinoceros was the first thing that came into my head.”

I’m imagining Blair at the Iraq inquiry. “I knew the thing we were to do was something like persuasion, but invasion was the first thing that came into my head”. When Alistair said our game of golf had been delayed I thought he said “What’s the name of that gulf we’re going to invade?”.

When people were saying “Don’t invade Iraq it’s illegal, immoral and will result in 1000′s of deaths” Peter told me that what they were actually saying was “Just agree to anything Dubya says”

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

By Christy Moore?

Eh?

Trust me – It works

Old Ladies

This is the Lady Jean the postboat/pleasure craft at Balmaha. I guess this photo is probably from the 1960′s and I’d estimate that by that time she’d be around thirty years old (she was built in 1936).

The Lady Jean at Balmaha

And here’s another one of her from around the same vintage (Edit: on reflection, probably a good bit earlier)

She and her sister boats Margaret and Marion are Great Britain’s only freshwater post boats. There are only two permanently inhabited islands on the loch but the mail has to get through. They also take passengers to Inchcailloch and cruises on their post journey. Daughter no 2 and I sailed to The Loch Lomond Nature Reserve at Inchcailloch in Margaret this afternoon. We returned on Marion.

Lady Jean was there too

The Lady Jean this afternoon

This was our view as we were about to set sail on Margaret

A similar view from years gone by

And here’s Marion too.

Crime Blockbuster

Thanks to Ken Fitlike

Apparently there’s now a nationwide campaign for people to surreptitiously place the book in crime sections.

My Kind of Paradise

It’s the name of the new Brian Hughes album.  I wrote here about recording some moothie for it (time flies!)

I’m on the following track albeit briefly (the last 30 seconds or so). Brian gave the main solo to the guitarist because as he explains “he’s a professional and cost me a fortune”. For my part just think opposites here!

(GOD BLESS) FRIDAY NIGHT

I notice Brian’s last album is on SPOTIFY I’m on tracks one and four there.

Help Needed

This film of a frog mistiming its attempt at capturing a dragonfly, reminds me of a goalkeeper. I can’t remember which one. Can anyone help?

Fat Chancer?

Rochdale’s Alternative Website goes some way beyond the two quotes which have gone viral about Cyril Smith since his death i.e. “He was a larger than life character” and “He never married” (copyright all newspapers). The article highlights the allegations of sexual abuse of young boys levelled at Smith and the fact that he never sued.