Guess who was in the florist department of the supermarket today. I managed a nice close-up of one of the new hydrangias they got. This one was all in the pink.
Daily Archives: 13/06/2016
Share Your World: 2016 -Week 24
What is the most fun thing you did in school?
School was not fun, but I did enjoy playing land hockey. I was a right back and my friend the left back. We were the defence that stopped the others advancing. Actually we were both football fans at the time and it was the nearest we got to a football match. Young ladies did not play football at that time. Otherwise the most fun thing I did at school was leaving.
What is your favorite type of dog? (can be anything from a specific breed, a stuffed animal or character in a movie)
I never had a dog, so had to compensate with films. Definitely my favourite was the Hound of the Baskerville. My dad always favoured Greyhounds, although he was not a dog fan really. He often took me with him to the racing track. I know it is cruel to the animals and when their career is finished, but when I was a kid you did not think of things like that. You just saw 6 greyhounds chasing a lookalike rabit mounted on a piece of wire rushing around a track, but dad liked to have a little flutter on who was going to win.
Otherwise I now compensate by taking photos of dogs.
I met this wonderful example of an english bull dog on a walk. I had an interesting conversation with the owner, although I was not sure who owned who as this specimen had other ideas, but it is a wonderful dog, so well proportioned and a great expression on its face, a likeness to Winston Churchill somewhere.
You are invited to a party that will be attended by many fascinating people you never met. Would you attend this party if you were to go by yourself?
Of course, parties attended by I, me and myself are the most interesting. Just imagine Brad Pitt making a date with me, or that gladiator guy, Russell Crowe. I might even be able to brush up my Russian knowledge with a eye to eye talk with Vladimir Putin. There are untold possibilities.
Never In My Life Have I seen the Aurora borealis or visited Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
Daily Prompt: We are rebuilding – daily service will be resumed as soon as possible
What did I see when I switched on my Apple computer today. Of course, they are rebuilding, a new app, a new programme – great. Mr. Swiss told me about it yesterday and he already got it on Saturday. We both have Apple Macbooks as an alternative to our Microsoft computers. Mr. Swiss got his in a special offer and gave it to me to try out. I became an Apple disciple straight away, although in the meanwhile I also got myself a new Microsoft with Windows 10, I am completely rebuilding.
So now apple told me that I would have to be patient. My computers basically speak German and this screen says that the installation is being completed, another 11 minutes, although it was just a matter of 5-6 minutes and a new start which it did all on its own. Computer time is faster than real time, although there are exceptions.
Rebuilding has been the story of my life it seems. I grew up in London town after the war and there was not very much left in my area, being near the docklands, which seemed to have been a favourite target of the enemy aircraft. Although my dad told me from his war experiences in Germany in the last part of his war service, there was not much left in the German large towns either. It was war: you bomb my town and I will bomb yours. There were a few countries involved in this war and rebuilding was planned afterwards. This has resulted in a new modern European design, each country doing its own thing. High towers, lots of glass, and traffic free zones in the cities, the traffic mainly being banned to the outside peripheries. The center of London, where I grew up, was an exception. They left the ruins for about ten years until they deicided what to do with them. It seems to me that they are still deciding and what they have done up to now has not impressed me.
Switzerland was neutral during the war years and so the country was spared from the bomb destructions. I think the bad guy in this war thing decided to leave Switzerland as a nice little country to use after the war as a sort of unspoilt center, just my thoughts on the matter. To a certain degree it worked, but mainly because that guy was no longer there to plan anything big with Switzerland. The only ruins you see in Switzerland are where they decided to build a new bank or factory. The old parts are under some preservation law and Bern is still Bern with its covered streets. Our town of Solothurn was founded by the Romans. If they now walked the streets they would find the cobbles very Roman friendly. Our problem is when they decide to rebuild something, they find a few skeletons, an old Roman wall and even the outlines of a Roman villa (near the local hospital). This is OK, but means another pause in the work until the archaelogists decide what to do with the bones and the wall remains. In our little village, on the fringe of Solothurn, they discovered it was a hanging place for the criminals. Beneath the estate where I live, there were three skeletons which were just tossed into a hole. Probably the criminals of the old days.
In the meanwhile my Apple computer has its new start. Computers are something in daily life but they are being constantly rebuilt. I remember facebook when it was, well, just a Facebook. Now I see daily videos of dogs being rescued, cats doing things that cats do not usually do, and also humans doing things that are sort of super human. I do not find it funny if someone has an accident, and I strongly believe that all the trash I see in Facebook is a trick, not real, just designed to make you go “oooh” and “aaah”. Of course you can eliminate the stuff that bores you. I eliminated at least 20 various cooking sites because it was all the same stuff under another name and it was just plain boring. 100 ways how to cook pizza toppings. What happened: I got the same pizza variations under other site names. They conspire with each other behind your back.
Facebook has been re-built so often that if the original returned again, I would probably not even recognise it as being a return.
I just got a plish thingy on my iPad/iPhone and iEverything else: Microsoft wants to buy business network Linkedin – for 26 million dollar. I think I am in the wrong business, another rebuild taking place.
It is fashion to do it new, to keep one step ahead and be modern. I am 70 years old (next December) but it seems to me my life has been one big re-build. Now I am tired, although I do like my computers. They rebuild themselves all on their own. Not to mention pingbacks and the grid …..
Daily Prompt: We are rebuilding, daily service will be resumed as soon as possible.
Good Morning
Some time ago I visited a new museum in our local town of Solothurn showing old electrical stuff, from computers to radios and also televisions. Those televisions were really memories from the past, before the days of the megascreen.
I think we had our first television when I was about 8-9 years old. It was something like the one on the left. Dad must have got it on a deal somewhere because we never had the money for something special. It was an Echo television. Memory tells me that there were only two products available in our neck of the woods, an Echo or a Ferguson, at least that was what dad told us.
It seems strange to believe that we had such a small screen. Programmes only began at around 5.00 p.m. with children’s hour. I would be glued to the TV screen already a quarter of an hour before the official programme, watching the same old start-up film before the actual programme began. At around 6.00 p.m. the programme was finished and it was peace until 8.00 p.m. when the evening programmes began. I don’t remember the details, but every film and programme was something special. The old black and white cowboy films with people like Hopalong Cassidy and the Cisco Kid who were the first. I remember Cisco’s partner was Pancho placed by a guy called Leo Carillo. They all had partners, no cowboy rode alone. The guy that played Cassidy was William Boyd, and mum remembered him from the films when she was young. I just had a quick look in Internet and found he was born in 1895, so the first TV film heroes were not exactly young and lovely.
Who was the Cisco Kid? It was Duncan Renaldo and it seems he was actually born in Romania in 1904, although it seems he was not actually sure when and where he was born. In any case he formed part of my childhood thanks to TV.
At the beginning we only had one programme in GB, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). As the years passed on television screens grew. I remember my uncle had a mega magnifying glass that he hung over his screen to make the picture bigger, which he did, but you had to sit in front of the TV. If you had a side view of the screen the picture was distorted.
When commercial TV arrived, it was a second channel and you had to have an adaptor. Dad bought one cheap “down the Lane”, Brick Lane in the East End of London where you did not ask questions about the origin of the goods. It was a small box with two aerials sticking out of the top, one on the right and one on the left. You plugged it into the tv and you had your second channel, known as ITV. Unfortunately it was not so easy. It seemed the TV signals were something mystical floating in the air and you had to move these antenna things until you had the perfect reception. It was also necessary to take a walk with the adaptor to get the strongest signal which it seemed was when holding the box in up in the middle of the room with nothing to rest it on and dad did not want to stand in the middle of the room when the television was on.
I think I saw my first coloured tv when I arrived in Switerland, must have been around 1966 when they were in the shops.
Even our felines watch the TV today, as long as the programme suits their taste. Personally I do not watch a lot of TV, just a couple of programmes. I prefer to read a book and in the warmer months I am outside on the porch until it is too dark to read anything. TV no longer rules my life, thank goodness. They were for me good old days in the past, but everything has its season and TV no longer does it for me.
And now I have to transform myself into the housewife fairy, waving her magic vacuum cleaner through the home and turning it into a palace. Afterwards my fairy coach will be waiting to transport me to the magical shopping emporium. Must be careful not to lose my walking stick on the way – on the other hand it might be found by the golden oldie Prince of the year who will be knocking at my door this evening to see if it fits.
Have fun, it is the beginning of a new week with untold opportunities and if you find life boring you can always watch the TV. In Europe we now have the football European cup games from Paris accompanied with street wars amongst the various supporters of the different countrys, a real international get together and it keeps the medical staff busy.
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 