Slideshow

Earlier today, Steve at "Shadows and Light" posted a snowy photo of Liverpool Street Station in London. That snow keeps falling down - endlessly. Though Steve had snapped the original picture a few years back, it had been lifted and animated by Google. Steve played no part in the enhancement nor the selection.

The same happened with some of my pictures. I snapped the photographs five years ago and soon afterwards Google got a hold of them and kind of processed them into a short but fast-moving slide show. The images go by pretty quickly and I have no means of slowing them down nor restoring their original colour and sharpness.

The pictures flash by. The black and white one shows  a snowy scene in our garden in the winter of 2016. And there are those swans we saw in the boating lake behind Colchester Castle in Essex. The herd of cows are resting in the shadow of Hardwick Hall in the summer 0f 2015. This was the original image:-

Google don't seem to provide this unrequested service any more. Maybe it was just an experiment.

I still bewail the loss of Panoramio which was hosted by Google. They pulled the plug on it in  2016. I had contributed to this worldwide photo site for almost ten years, carefully geo-locating  multiple images I had collected during my travels around the world.

There was nothing that I nor the thousands of other Panoramio contributors could do to prevent the site's disappearance. Could the same happen to Blogger in the future?  I hope not but it is possible. After all, nothing lasts forever and if Google ever determine that their blog hosting service has run its course or become too costly or technically too problematic then Blogger could go in heartbeat, taking with it everybody's blogposts. They have become precious evidence of the lives we bloggers have been living through recent years but in the end there would be no vote, no debate. They would just go without even a puff of smoke.

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Olivia Colman/ The Queen Mother and The Last Duel

It’s been a nice evening. 

Before I watched the movie, I wrote the blog then watched this delightful video of National Treasure Olivia Colman reading one of the original Queen Mum’s letters to her mother in law  Queen Mary.

The applause pleased me as it wasn’t just for the scene stealing Colman. ( who deserved what she got) ……but it was also an affectionate nod to the Queen Mother , who always seems to have seen the best in people ( except for Wallace Simpson of course)

The chef had the best line..”France Will Rise Again”

The Last Duel was an excellent watch. Another swan song triumph for Ridley Scott 

Jodie Comer was especially good in this gritty portrayal of middle age misogyny and male pride.

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Siambr Wen

 

Siambr Wen 

Foolishly I left around a dozen sprouts on the kitchen worktop last night

This moment of utter madness allowed Albert to spend a happy few minutes after lights out playfully flicking a good portion of them onto the floor where Dorothy found them in the middle of the night.

I knew trouble was afoot when I was awoken by a whole series of sprout flavoured burps followed by some immensely loud farts. 

The kitchen floor resembled the La Brea Tar pits in Los Angeles when I got downstairs 

And I won’t describe the state of my Egyptian Cotton white duvet cover

I almost lost the will to live 

This afternoon I have delivered the village Christmas cards, some 40 in all. The ones earmarked for people on the outskirts of the village, I will do tomorrow by car, (that’s another ten or so) 

I don’t take the dogs with me as they never “get” walking up drives and paths they are not used to , so alone and with headphones in, the whole process lasts around an hour.

It only took me 45 minutes today as I had forgotten around ten cards.

The weather was cooling by 3pm . The sky in the West an ice/grey blue.

I photographed Siambr Wen, the remains of the. 16th Century country house that housed a room which doubled as a local courtroom. Siambr Wen means White Chamber in Welsh

It looked spooky and cold seen through the trees.

I was glad to get home to a warm cottage before the light changed.

This afternoon I’m watching The Last Duel on Disney +

Homemade gyoza dumplings for supper

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Monday

 Happy Monday my friends. How are you today?  What is on your heart?

Gratitude list

Exercise

A good meal

All of you

Your turn?

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Ratana

T.W.Ratana

Who is Ratana? He or she or it  has been knocking on the doors of Blogland for a while now but he or she or it suffers the same fate day after day - deletion. No matter what he or she or it says, we press the delete button and Ratana is gone.

I felt that is was nigh time that I found out more about Ratana so I turned to The Holy Oracle for guidance. Who might  this mysterious being be and where might it reside? Has he or she or it left its mark in history?

Google suggested that Ratana might be the founder of a mashed up Maori-Christian sect in New Zealand. He was Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana and he departed this earthly life in 1939 but back on 8 November 1918 Rātana saw a vision, which he regarded as divinely inspired, asking him to preach the gospel to the Māori people, to destroy the power of the tohunga, and to cure the spirits and bodies of his people. 

The Ratana religion still continues in New Zealand and has exercised significant influence in the nation's politics. Below there's a picture of perhaps the most photogenic Ratana church in the country:-

Maybe I was on the wrong track. Maybe the Kiwi religious visionary was not the Ratana I needed to pursue, not our eminently deletable Ratana. Thus I went in search of other Ratanas. Could it be the North American outdoor furniture supplier: "Ratana signifies elegance in timeless design and exceptional quality of outdoor furniture. Ranging from traditional, to transitional, and contemporary, Ratana can cater any style and setting that truly enhances the enjoyment of home and casual living experiences." Perhaps not.

Perhaps I needed to focus on the  Ratana restaurant in Milan, Italy: "Great place with an industrial style. Tables are nicely spaced, which isn’t a given. Food was amazing, very simple ingredients, but prepared in an unusual way or paired unexpectedly. Drinks were very good.Staff was very attentive and competent.All together made for an excellent evening."

The more you research "Ratana", the more avenues you discover.  Ultimately, I deduce that our Ratana is almost certainly a Cambodian business venture called "Ratana Gaming". They have their own Facebook page and maybe one of their tech-savvy geeks discovered a way to invade Blogland with their unwanted spam. That in itself should be enough for Facebook to take them down in my opinion or should we instead applaud their entrepreneurial ingenuity?

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