Partying like it's 1984

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Welcome

You've found Russell & Carol. We're lucky enough to live in a beautiful part of Cornwall with Astra the rescue dog and a lot of computers. We sometimes get around to blogging about things which interest/enrage us.

If you've registered with the site you should be able to see a selection of pictures.

December 2020

Chilly start, so had to give up with the sandals - but some lovely sunshine... so still no need for heating. Birds have been busy with the berries - Cotoneaster, Ivy and Leycesterii still easily favourites. One of the blackbirds has been ingenously leaping from other plants (and lemonry roof!) to try to get the most dngly berries

November 2020

Wet and windy start - but some glorious sunshine too and still pretty warm for November so sandals still the order of the day - and a lovely day on the patio too! Enjoyed our luniversary.

Some of our pictures

#ThrowBackThursday here's a picture of #Padstow harbour in 1920s! via @TheSeafood orth Helford - BosvealStar Trails Over Godrevy Lighthouse by David Gregory from PenzanceAngarrack Christmas Lights - takedownScented Peonies from Simon and JoThe Veiled Virgin - Giovanni Strazza (1815–1878)Awesome Creativity by Łukasz WiktorzakFlowers on Memorial Fields - Padstow, 2014

Weather at Hayle - Foundry End

Weather at Hayle - Foundry End - about a mile west of Angarrack as the crow flies

Carol

Title Typesort icon Date
Life, death and vanilla slices Biblio 6 years 27 weeks
Lavender Morning Biblio 6 years 25 weeks
Sea Glass Biblio 6 years 11 weeks
The Gone-Away World Biblio 5 years 16 weeks
The gone-away world Biblio 5 years 10 weeks
Tigerman Biblio 4 years 45 weeks
The Sins of the Father: A Mediaeval Mystery Biblio 4 years 45 weeks
Whited Sepulchres: A Mediaeval Mystery Biblio 4 years 45 weeks
One Hundred Names Biblio 4 years 45 weeks
EU moves to restrict hormone-disrupting chemical found in plastics | Society | The Guardian Biblio 3 years 12 weeks
A General Dictionary of Provincialisms Biblio 3 years 8 weeks
Clay Biblio 2 years 41 weeks
more

Recent posts for Russell

Russell's picture

Neo-Liberalism at its finest...?

Sun, 27/11/2011 - 10:56pm — Russell

So, the top man at Thomas Cook trousers £15m in 'hard earned and decent' (my sarcasm) bonuses over the last couple of years and now Thomas Cook is in dire trouble and planning to lay off thousands.  Well thank goodness for Free markets.  Nurses, teachers and other public servants must have their pensions cut, but goold old chief executives must have huge payouts even in times of trouble.  We're all in it together of course....

 

Russell's picture

Gaza Flotilla II Underway

Tue, 28/06/2011 - 11:55pm — Russell

Many brave people are going with the Gaza Flotilla II assembling in the Med right now.  The Zionist Entity has made its usual revolting attempts to stop the ships before they sail and smear the people but the ships are going.  Shame on Greece, Cyprus, The USA, Canada, France and Australia for telling their citizens not to participate.  Interestingly The Zionist Entity is claiming that people on the flotilla entering Gazan waters 'will be treated as individuals having attempted to enter Israel illegally' (Jerusalem Post) thus demonstrating that they consider Gaza to be under the authority of the Zionist Entity...

Russell's picture

Oh FFS religionists again...

Fri, 12/02/2010 - 1:50am — Russell

I nearly choked on my old man's sherry recently when I read about a 'science' teacher in the USA (where else?) who liked to add christian commentary to his science lessons basically saying the science he was teaching was wrong and that his religious view was correct.  He had been sacked it seemed and there was a 'reinstate him' movement from the concerned kids who were praying for him because they now believed science was unreliable.

 

Russell's picture

Cyrus the Great of Persia - the first Christ of the Judaeans

Thu, 08/11/2007 - 5:13pm — Russell

"And when no elite existed, one could always be imported from elsewhere. Cyrus [the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire], even as he flattered the Babylonians with the attentions he paid to Marduk [Babylonian God], had not ignored the yearnings of the city's deportees, exiles such as the Judaeans, brought to Babylon decades previously - for the Persians had recognised in these wretched captives, and in their homesickness, a resource of great potential.

Russell's picture

The UK Surveillance Society

Sat, 10/05/2008 - 10:47pm — Russell

"If you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear" is the mantra of the proponents of the surveillance society. It's rubbish of course as we all have things to hide such as our bank account or credit card details! Privacy International's 2007 survey gave the UK the lowest privacy ranking in the EU putting it in the 'endemic surveillance' category alongside Russia and Singapore. So do we good citizens actually need to worry?

 

Recent posts for Carol

Feast of St Piala, patron saint of Phillack, near Hayle

Tue, 24/11/2020 - 1:00am — Carol

Today is the Feast of St Piala, patron saint of Phillack, near Hayle. Piala was sister to Gwinear, both Irish missionaries who came ashore at the Hayle estuary. She was killed by the pagan Cornish king Tewdrig.

Date: 
Mon, 23/11/2020

Cornish Feast of St Erth (also known as Erc), patron saint of St Erth near Hayle

Sun, 01/11/2020 - 1:00am — Carol

Today is the Cornish Feast of St Erth (also known as Erc), patron saint of St Erth near Hayle. An Irishman and brother to Ia (St Ives) and Uny, Erc was converted by St Patrick and traveled to Cornwall. He would later return to Ireland, living to the age of 93


Date: 
Sat, 31/10/2020

Nearly There / Nearly Home Trees

Mon, 07/12/2020 - 1:22pm — Carol
Nearly There / Nearly Home Trees

Spotted on Etsy - Nearly There / Nearly Home Trees. Hand Made Fused Glass Picture. Freestanding, Individual Well Loved Landmark to the Gateway of Cornwall

 

Poem - For the Fallen

Wed, 11/11/2020 - 12:54pm — Carol

 

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Poem - In Flanders Fields

Wed, 11/11/2020 - 12:36pm — Carol

 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
  That mark our place; and in the sky
  The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
  Loved and were loved, and now we lie
      In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
  The torch; be yours to hold it high.
  If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
      In Flanders fields.

 

Quote - "So hope for a great sea-change On the far side of revenge"

Sun, 08/11/2020 - 12:46pm — Carol

Seamus Heaney On Suffering, Self-healing, and Hope for a Great Sea Change

 

 

To mark Joe Biden's President-elect status, RTE put together a piece on his shistory and voiced by him reading an excerpt from the Seamus Heaney poem “The Cure at Troy” written in 1991 - his version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes written in the fifth century BC. 

As though Heaney wrote it for this exact time as we navigate a mighty sea-change.

Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.

History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a farther shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

Quote - "My mission is to seek beauty, find humour, and bring joy"

Sun, 08/11/2020 - 12:41pm — Carol

“My mission is to seek beauty, find humour, and bring joy.”

As I spoke that aloud, I woke up.

It was as if a huge stone had rolled off my chest.

I had a mission statement!

Who knew, now that my hair’s turned white, to finally have a mission statement?  Let alone such a mission!

So simple, so delightful to fulfill. One that is not transactional; that does not include commodification. 

Your sea change has stimulated a sea change in me.

“Whither leads the voyage?

Word of the day is 'podsnappery' (19th century, from Dickens): 'insular complacency and blinkered self-satisfaction'

Mon, 02/11/2020 - 4:36pm — Carol

Word of the day is 'podsnappery' (19th century, from Dickens): 'insular complacency and blinkered self-satisfaction'.

Susie Dent Tweet

 

 

Pleiades: Japanese Festival of lanthorns, celebrated about November

Sat, 31/10/2020 - 4:17pm — Carol

 

November 1 marked as All Saints' Day, and in the pre-Reformation calendars the last day of October was marked All Hallow Eve, and the 2nd of November as All Souls'; indicating clearly a three days' festival of the dead, commencing in the evening, and originally regulated by the Pleiades—an emphatic testimony how much astronomy has been mixed up with the rites and customs even of the English of[Pg 125] to-day. In former days the relics were more numerous, in the Hallowe'en torches of the Irish, the bonfires of the Scotch, the coel-coeth fires of the Welsh, and the tindle fires of Cornwall, all lighted on Hallowe'en. In France it still lingers more than here, for to this very day the Parisians at this festival repair to the cemeteries, and lunch at the graves of their ancestors.

3D Render England | Geological Map 1957

Wed, 28/10/2020 - 11:30am — Carol
3D Render England | Geological Map 1957

England from Geological Map of Great Britain, Sheet 2, England and Wales - 2nd Edition - 1957 3D Render

 

https://twitter.com/geo_spatialist/status/1318200776037203968

3D Render Cornwall | Geological Map 1957

Wed, 28/10/2020 - 11:27am — Carol
3D Render Cornwall | Geological Map 1957

Cornwall extracted from Geological Map of Great Britain, Sheet 2, England and Wales - 2nd Edition - 1957 3D Render

 

https://twitter.com/geo_spatialist/status/1318200776037203968

Quote - Today Is The Tomorrow You Worried About Yesterday, And All Is Well

Tue, 27/10/2020 - 5:48pm — Carol

Today is the Tomorrow you Worried about Yesterday and All is Well
- attributed to Dale Carnegie

 

Seen on a wooden plaque repaired on BBC The Repair Shop

BBC iPlayer - The Repair Shop - 60-Minute Versions: Episode 19

Wood wizard Will Kirk repairs a hand-carved wooden plaque, the remarkable work of Carol Bolton’s father, in 1937 when he was just 12 years old

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0007znp/the-repair-shop-60minute-versions-episode-19