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Showing posts from November, 2020

Bristol zoo is to close

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  Making way for houses, but who for? After over 180 years, it is sad to tell you that Bristol Zoo will close at the end of 2022.  The Labour run council says it will use the grounds for affordable housing, but who for? Being Labour, the housing will probably be for immigrants so they can buy votes for the election as they are losing too manny voters to UKIP and the Green Party ,

Protect our fishermen

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  The fishing bill is passed The fishing fleets of France are in a bind. They want a fight with the fleets of the UK, bring it on, we beat Iceland in the 80's during want was known as the Cod War .  If they turn the other way they come into conflict with the fleets of Spain , on the subject of fishing, it is a disturbing thought that if whales didn't eat so many sardines , and we didn't have the fleets to catch them; they would overrun the seas within two decades. My romance novella A Sailor's Love has a fisherman as one of the main characters. The black and white images are ones I took when I lived in Yorkshire , four generations of my mother's family fished the North Sea.

Off to Spain for the evening

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 A virtual time-traveler I will watch La Peste about Seville  as I intend to buy the series in the new year. Most of the travel I do these days is around India, and going to films from the 1950's to the 1990's. The reason for this is at the time I watch, movies had music as part of the story; nowadays, most of the films appear to be trying to fit a story around as much singing and dancing as you can put in 2 hours.

Exorcism

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  On Exorcism The night terrors   of last night had me thinking of the possinilty of an exorcism this morning.  I know the Catholic church believes in exorcising spirits, but I am not sure how the other religions view the situation.  I often find the need to keep myself awake, that way I have some control over my thoughts. I cannot blame coffee, or watching scary films late at night as my caffeine intake has been reduced to almost nil in the last five years. I know the medical profession does not, and has never, approve of lobotomies as they are both brutal and deadly; the fatality rate is almost 80% within five of the operation but I was so worried I did consider it as an option. Another hazard is nobody knows what damage is done to the mind as the patient is left in a vegetative state, but that would be better than suffering another night like last night.

A slight setback

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  I found a series from Spain which I have trouble with subtitles. Some months ago, I bought the movie Capitan Alatriste; the Spanish Musketeer ; it is a delight to watch. So, when I found I could download the subtitles for series about El Capitano I was doubly delighted. The only problem is I found my laptop will not accept the files, I am hoping when I get a new pc in the New Year I can download the files and enjoy the series. I am not sure if it is a fault at my end or from the subtitle provider; if the worse comes to the worse I can watch the first half of the series until I can find the second half subtitles - I live in hope.

I spent last night in Finland

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  Ivalo If you have read my blog, you will have come to the conclusion that I have no restrictions, other than being a good series, to where I watch TV series from. One of the best areas, for  me, other than Spain is Finland . The series Ivalo is about a virus imported from Bosnia via Russian soldiers, the object was to commit genocide o the Muslim population by giving a batch of men a virus, and telling them to rape the women. Mass murder but with no evidence. To many people the Finns come over as cold, to understand how they feel you need to understand a little of the history of the area. For centuries there has been a dispute over an area of land with Sweden , this goes back to the 1700's.  Not forgetting during the second world war Sweden was neutral which meant Germany had the run of the country. They also share and dispute an area with Norway to the north of the state.  To the East Finland has had a running war with Russia since the beginning of the last century over land

A Christmas Romance

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  Out for the Christmas rush. My extended edition romance e-book  will be out this week with a surprise ending for our erstwhile lovers, as things take an unexpected turn of events.

A vote for Labour

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  Vote Labour to turn the UK into another Argentina. Online reports from Argentina are saying that organised crime is out of control in the cities. Airlines avoid landing here because the airport tariff is Four times that of any other country, including Brazil . With a corrupt goverment and out-of-control unions reports tell of several companies leaving the control each week. To the young, this is how the UK was in the mid-80's, we never knew which union was going to hold the government to ransom.  To correct an oft misstated proposition, made by Labour voters, Margaret Thatcher did not ruin the country by standing up to the unions, she saved the UK. If anyone tried to wreck the UK it was Arthur Scargill , but the NUM leader became his nemesis, when he brought the miners out he forgot they had worked so hard and for so long; there were coal piles all over the north of England . At the time, miners who crossed the picket lines were branded "scum" but the truth is if the h

Italian TV series

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  Mani Pulite One trilogy from Italy I would like to get is the series 1992 , 1993 , and 1994 . The series is based on the downfall of Turin mayor Mario Chiesa which not only brought his party to its knees, but instigated the policy of Mani Pulite (clean hands) in Italian politics during this period. Chiesa thought his party would stand by him at the trial for corruption, but they rejected him which lead him to turn on fellow members; this cascaded to the point where nobody trusted anyone.

North Wales

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  A History built in stone . Many years ago, I almost went to North Wales to meet a lady I'd met online, for a break from the anger in my family; it never happened as she never returned my emails. The coast of North Wales is guarded by several major castles that srpread their wings from Conwy Castle to Chester , in England . These fortresses were as important as the Cinque Forts that are along the South coast of England . Though it is hard to get to North Wales, and the welcome could be unpleasant as the people are not friendly to intelopers undertandable when in the 70's people in London bought second homes there forcing locals out; I fell a journey to North Wales would be worth the trip.

Welsh language programmes on S4C

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  Before Hinterland A couple of nights ago, I was chatting to a person at S4C ; Channel 4 Wales about the gripping serial Craith featuring Sian Reece-Williams . Before Hinterland became popular I had been watching S4C since the days when Philip Madoc was in A Mind to Kill. When we lived in the North Bristol area I was also able to listen to BBC Radio Wales , a won several prizes from shows on the radio' now we are in South Bristol we are out of range of the BBC Radio Wales signal. I did get a surprise when watching Hinterland, I didn't expect to see subtitles, as I don't use them for UK TV, but some of the show is in Welsh. Whether for financial reason, or to give more interest to the viewers; I noticed that many of the shows are shot near Aberystwth . In one episode the police officers pass a disused RAF station; it is easy to miss this point as the station sign is off the road. I contacted the local tourist board and found that the station was used to test rockets during

Criminal; France

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  A perplexing question. I started watching the Criminal series; I enjoyed the versions from Spain and France , but the version from Germany irritated to the point of forcing me to turn off. I never saw the UK version as it has David Tennant in, and after seeing him in Deadwater Fell  I avoid him. One of the French episodes set a perplexing question; the story centers around a girl who claims she is a survivor of the massacre at the Bataclan theatre   and has been receiving thousands of euros as such per year. However, the evidence shows her running into the theatre minutes after the shooting as others were escaping. The problem arises because one of the investigators is a victim and she dashes into the questioning and accuses the girl of being a fraud. The problem for her chief is that if she goes ahead and exposes the girl her colleague will be brought up on harassment charges, not to mention she should not have been there as she is on sick-leave. To protect her friend, the chief

PC Gamer

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  I need a new laptop. When I get a new PC, it will be used mainly for downloading films and watching YouTube .  The reasons for this are I haven't played a PC game for so long, I am out of touch, and I have little interest in gaming as my reactions are too slow for the modern gaming world, which is why I used to play Tropico ; the series does not involve quick responses for shooting targets.

The Long Duel is over

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  More bitter than Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. A few months ago the longest and most bitter conflict in MGM and Hollywood ended. The bitterness between Olivia de Haviland and her sister, Joan Fontaine came to an end; not because Olivia forgave her sister for sharing the de Haviland name, a name she was forbidden to use in public, but because at the age of 104 Olivia passed away. The rancor Olivia had to her sister makes the Bette Davis and Joan Crawford rows appear like friends meeting after a long parting.

Badgers

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  Badger gassing should be banned . During the late 60's and early 70's in the UK there was an outbreak of  tubercolosis which was wrongly attributed to have been spread by badgers.  The proof of their innocence did nothing to stop the spread of the inhumane spread of badger gassing and culling that still goes on.  True, they can be vicious but if you were being gassed or clubbed to death I bet you would be nasty; having survived a fire, three years ago, I can imagine how these lovely animals felt as I still have nightmares of that night.

Post-Brexit UK

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 The EU flounders as the UK thrives . As the sensible people of the UK thought, Brexit is t great benefit now we are not paying over £50 billion a year to Germany . The Project Fear idiots who wanted to stay in the EU are now being shown up as the UK makes more deals each week, and the EU drowns trying to support a German economy that will never recover from decades of bad management. All we need to do is to secure the living of the fishing fleets in the UK.

Ruby Anniversary

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  40 years ago I left the Royal Air Force . I am on the left of the photo holding my friend's shoulders. 40 years, and two life times ago I ended my 6-year contract with the Royal Air Force , and became a person again, not a number.

November 1st

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  All Saint's Day To some people today, November 1st , is known as All saint's Day . However, that practice has only come into common usage in the last two centuries as to the Catholic church today is All Soul's Day . A day given to those who for some reason are unable to have a Christian burial. After all, yesterday was Halloween  to the people of Spain and her descendants Noche de los Muertos ( Night of the Dead ); a time when they can talk to their ancestors.