Fire With Fire 6

Perfectly mean. How does he do it?

Fire With Fire 5

Out on bail and making threats.

The Gentle Art of Love

Beano and Mitzi just adore each other. They spend lots of time cuddled up together snugly.



The vet was so clever when he removed Beano's right eye 13 years ago - it just looks like it's closed.



On the other hand, Jae Jae the Sumatran tiger has no idea how to entice his lady Melati. Just prior to this clip, he had pounced on her, much to her distaste. So then he tried a ploy equally unlikely to succeed. (You may want to reduce the volume, there were a few noisy children watching.)



See how tiny she is compared to him?

Fire With Fire 4

Picked out in the line-up. But he doesn't look bothered.

Odds and Sods, Cabbages and Kings

Thanks to our wonderful "traffic calming" methods in London, I regularly have to abuse my car by going over ridiculously large road humps (unaffectionately known as "sleeping policemen"), and recently the clunking has been worrying me. A call yesterday to the RAC and I found myself being towed to the Nissan dealership to have a broken coil spring replaced.

But not on the same day. Nissan dealerships apparently don't carry Nissan parts, and when they order them, they take some days to arrive. Eventually we agreed on a clone piece (and then a new battery, you know how it goes) but I would get it back this morning.

No. No call. No apology. No more me for a customer. And a bill for over £280.

But one of the more surreal and interesting news items of the week is the fate of good old Dick The Shit (Richard The Turd, geddit?) who died in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was buried at Greyfriars church in Leicestershire, central England, but the church is long gone. So some of his fans - those particularly who think he was maligned by Shakespeare and did not murder the two little princes in the Tower before usurping their throne - have been hunting down the whereabouts of his remains. Old maps proved that the site of the church was now under the car park of a council building.

One parking space bizarrely had a letter R painted on it (for reserved, presumably) and Dick's top fan stood there and got a funny feeling. When the archaeological dig began, bones were found under that parking space. The woman was disappointed to find that the body had severe scoliosis, and like other Richardists she did not believe the slander of the hunchback. But they dug him up. They scanned him. They radio-carbon dated him. They did a facial reconstruction. And they found a 17th generation descendant of his sister for a DNA test. Guess what? It's him! Unbelievable!

 

Richard's portrait

 

Reconstruction

 

 

 

 

 

 

                      

Reconstruction.

Fire With Fire 3

Under arrest.

Fire With Fire 2

Nasty man with BIG shoulders!

Fire With Fire 1

Nasty, nasty man.

Charity Man

At the Global Poverty Project 2010.

Castles in the Sand

This year's sandcastle building competition on Coney Island.

What Next?

Well, folks, I've got to the end of LOCI, so I am now racking my brains for a new theme for my posts.

While I await ideas either from my brain or yours, dear readers, I'll just post a few random pictures.

Remember this one of Vincent filming Don't Go In The Woods in 2008? It's the wallpaper on my phone.

To The Boy In The Blue Knit Cap - Day 11

And so the beautiful Bobby prepares to ride off into the sunset.

To The Boy In The Blue Knit Cap - Day 10

Such expressive hands...

Playing to your strengths

As most visitors to this blog will most likely have realised, I don't cook. I'm not very good and I find it really boring.

So you can imagine how delighted I was to find yesterday that the teacher I was covering yesterday was the Food Technology teacher, and there was cooking as the cover work.

The school is one I know of old, though it has gone through many changes, and is due some more at Easter. The students used to be really difficult, but in my more recent visits there current cohort are much more amenable. Thank goodness.

The first class was to bake Anzac biscuits (so named because they originate in Australia and New Zealand. They are made from flour, rolled oats, golden syrup, butter and baking soda.

Sadly, the cut-outs spread on the baking trays and formed a whole. That would have been OK, but not all the trays were properly greased, and it was all I could do to chip a few crumbs from one.

The next two classes had to make a basic vegetable stir fry. There was a reasonable choice of ingredients, but kids being kids, most wouldn't touch some of them, especially the mushrooms, so no one's finished product lookd anything like this:

One girl rejected hers, so rather than waste it, I forced myself to eat it with a little soy sauce. It was yummy.

The kids were great throughout, and I'm not even dreading doing more of the same tomorrow and Thursday.

I feel I've had a very lucky escape.

To The Boy In The Blue Knit Cat - Day 9

Big, handsome, concerned Bobby.

To The Boy In The Blue Knit Cap - Day 8

Don't wory, Bobby, I think we all want to strangle the little squit.

To The Boy In The Blue Knit Cap - Day 7

May I read your hand, Det. Goren?

To The Boy In The Blue Knit Cap - Day 6

This one is just because I love it.

To The Boy In The Blue Knit Cap - Day 5

Bobby looks surprised. Well, of course - the stupid girl's interested in someone else!

To The Boy In The Blue Knit Cap - Day 4

He's in the background, but Bobby still dominates the scene.