(1130) Late brunch or early lunch. (1215) afternoon all. Looking for a film … part two of Isilme tomorrow morn. (1216) Late note from Steve … it’s passed 219 to 211. (1221)
10. Moosh corner
9. Need to talk about this one
8. It needs fixing all right
7. Comey M and Diddy
Isilme and that time of year again (part one of two)
It’s that time of year again. Our strawberries have not been that prolific, but furnished us with strawberries to have with cream the other day. The remaining few will likely go into a trifle. We had a few raspberries and yoghurt last week too.
Then the blackcurrants started to ripen. Well, they were well-ripened by the time I got around to picking any. The birds were certainly upset. The jackdaws were doing low fly-bys and squawking. This set the sparrows off.
The sparrows were sitting on the guttering angrily chirping at me. Then one, a teenager no doubt, decided to risk it and flew into the bay tree. Some of the blackcurrant branches poke up through the bay tree.
Teen sparrow was chirping as if to say, “I’m going to show her. I’ll take some of the berries. I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it” The others were chorusing, “No, come back, don’t risk it. Don’t risk it!” You could hear the urgency in their chirps.
I walked round the tree (the long way, just to sneak up) and tried to see Teen sparrow but the others obviously alerted him and he flew off before I got to see him. And then there was complete silence.
(0557) Sun is coming up over there, so maybe a fine day … always that poisoned mist and yet the sky wants to go all cumulus and blue. Low wind, high pollen, medium uv, low pollution, top of 19C.
5. Over at OoL
https://orphansofliberty.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-arrogant-criminality-and.html
4. More of this morning’s topics
3. Steve at 1094
2. A few topics this morning
1. DAD at 1094
a) Meet France’s new anti-green movement.
b) US President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB) is causing shares to slide in Europe’s renewable energy sector.
c) “Hit them with anything you can”: Pro-EU Media calls for “War” on Hungary and Slovakia.
d) As Germany’s economic malaise persists, the number of unemployed people has climbed by 7 per cent in June compared to a year before.
(1513) Final stretch for the day.
27. The post item I don’t know how to write
I should write something about our tavern being welcoming … meant to be so, we’d never drive a new patron away but it might sound patron…izing … so I’ll say nothing.
However, I did see something about the infighting Uniparty v Reform v Restore v Advance v UKIP v Homeland and someone tweeted: “Why must the Right, whenever someone tries to advance our cause … always descend to infighting like rats in a sack?”
Thought that an interesting observation.
26. Moosh corner
25. Steve at 1094 with War Room
24. Las Vegas endtimes?
23. Alligator Alcatraz
22. From downunder
21. Rachel Reeves
A review:
“I have to take exception to other reviewers calling Time Limit, a courtroom drama. There are no scenes in any courtroom, military or civilian. Still it’s a very engrossing story.
Richard Widmark is acting as an investigative officer for the Judge Advocate General’s Office trying to ascertain if there are enough facts to bring Richard Basehart to trial for treason. Basehart was a prisoner of war in Korea who is accused of collaborating with the enemy.
Through a lot of patient probing of Basehart and others, Widmark arrives at a very ugly story that while it doesn’t totally exonerate Basehart it does give him the basis for a defense. So much so that Widmark requests he be assigned as Basehart’s attorney when he does come up for court martial.
Time Limit ran for 127 performances on Broadway in 1956 and starred Arthur Kennedy and Richard Kiley in the roles Widmark and Basehart play. Widmark’s good friend Karl Malden did this one time only job of directing and gets good performances from his cast.
Time Limit asks a lot of disturbing questions about the behavior of prisoners of war and whether we expect too much from them. Ironically when the USS Pueblo was taken by the North Koreans in the late sixties, these same questions were asked for real.”
As usual, there are other spinoff questions attached to Korean War and Vietnam dramas, not least the Manchurian Candidate, esp. the 1962 version with Frank Sinatra, which both he and JFK himself were involved in … whether to release, whether not. It was a wild time from the late 50till, say, 1973 and the MK Ultra trial.
(1229) Afternoon all. (1255)
20. How well fed will they be?
19. Reasonable force
18. High Theatre
17. The insanity of it all
16. 🍿🍿🍿
15. Turkey violating Greek waters
14. Given carte blanche, the psychosis soon shows
13. The endangered English
On a roll here, chaps and chapesses .. that song by Ry Cooder, sung on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1982, was of course Elvis Presley’s, from 1961 … meaning 21 years later … so there’s a lot of this sort of thing going on. Written by Doc Pomus.
Doc Pomus, Wiki bio:
(Written) for what he said were “… those people stumbling around in the night out there, uncertain or not always so certain of exactly where they fit in and where they were headed.”
John Lennon told Pomus the first song the Beatles practiced together was a Pomus song. Bob Dylan came to Pomus when Dylan was experiencing writer’s block.
Pomus also focused in later life on helping forgotten R&B artists who had fallen on hard times.[3] The Rhythm and Blues Foundation provides artist grants through The Doc Pomus Artist Assistance Fund.[21]
“Save the Last Dance for Me” has been called his crowning achievement. The lyrics came to him at his wedding, watching his wife dance with others, Pomus being unable to dance because of polio’s effects on his body.[12][9]
And that very song is the finale in my long saga/trilogy called Masquerade, in which the two partners in life have passed over to the next house, about to go through yet another door to the next phase, apart, so they dance to this Doc Pomus song:
All right, enough nostalgia for now … let’s get back to the current day and its horrible politics … after an episode of The Saint which, incidentally, I’ve just sent to a friend of mine called lida, an architect/artist:
First … time for a little ditty from an ole guitarist, Ry Cooder:
Actually, David Lindley also played guitar on that track. Right … going to state, categorically, that I have never in my life moved from one sister to another … there have just been some things happening in RL in the last few days which two people know about, involving a big sister, long gone in the mists of time.
Just reminded me of the song, that’s all, plus the idea of returning to memories … hmmmmm, not at all sure about that as an exercise. Mixed. First there’s an album from the 70s by a German band, Thirsty Moon, called You’ll Never Come Back. Well I have … here I am for now … back. Who knows for how long?
Two other songs spring to mind … O Flower of Scotland … with:
Those days are past now
And in the past they must remain
But we can still rise now
And be the nation again
Phew … talk about Britain in our case being right there in that position now. The other song was The Carnival Is Over, by the Seekers.
Now that song I’ve written of before. The scene was a warm summer’s evening by a bay, on the beach in Victoria, Oz, in the late 60s … endless summer, zero concept of that freedom ever ending, and a group of us were trudging through cool sand (I suppose) up to an actual, a real carnival, up in town beside a pier jutting out into the bay.
The wind was variable, the evening otherwise calm … we were just happy to be going to the carnival. The wind changed direction and the tannoys at the carnival suddenly sent a song our way … Judith Durham and that song. I swear that that is in no way embellished, embroidered … that’s exactly how it happened, the rest of the memory gone.
Some time after that, I did return here, drove north from London … there we go … things can suddenly change. Moral of the story? Appreciate what we have while we still have it.
……
(1048) Sorry about the overkill but here’s a live version of it:
If you really want overkill, longsuffering tavern patrons, wait for Sunday afternoon around 1600, ha ha.
(0655) Well, we had the marathon fat-chewing yesterday, solving all the problems of the world, back to biz. (0746)
10. Finally found what IYE was referring to
Hmmmm, not going to spend any more time on it, other than to say it’s a rare occasion where (probably) Toodles as I know her Christian beliefs, plus IYE, plus I, all flatly reject the source as apocryphal and frankly anathema, as it stems from the other side. Separate post from me at some stage on esoteric pseudo-mysticism.
9. On Taxis for Veterans
… plus the HofL fence (Tue 9)
8. Act Blue
7. In which I obey the call
6. Younger “Restore” set
5. NYC communist cultist
4. DAD at 1093
a) Fusion is an illusion. During my long lifetime, ever since Dounray [AKA Doom Ray] started research, it has always been 30 years away.
b) RN President Bardella: Saving France is now a “Civilisational Challenge”. Le Pen’s heir is focusing on a potential confrontation with the far Left.
c) Poland. Dirty-tricks Tusk refuses to accept victory of Nawrocki in presidential election.
d) Jaguar car sales plunge 97.5% in Europe; after disastrous ‘Copy Nothing’ woke rebrand.