tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69692916623997146782024-03-14T03:44:44.352-05:00The Naked Ape Gets DressedTHE NAKED APE GETS DRESSED. For those who strive for better things and who understand, as did Ben Jonson, that: "the pipe marks the point at which the orang-utan ends and man begins".
- And those who understand S T Coleridge's: "While Fate tramples on things of beauty, the indignant human heart shall utter them."NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.comBlogger674125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-49112392604767045942023-09-03T07:25:00.001-05:002023-09-03T07:25:07.438-05:00Dovima (centre).<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCDESY954VhbvgvOoNd1hp2KcsyCULGjhdz0aP_EZp97R8BzGf1hAuAzlBimEdQ4ZoVEz1am6rFCK1S-teMcr00We2b0Hu2URpi_SS4Uuwbg_-jergsR6M-yL_9QVqJeNKXNWHG-xEo03GrXHqXSJmSE6HiLoKEaaH7gqZMlK_XmovNnq94gB4DVyoukIQ/s1372/Screenshot_20230901-130738_Gallery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1372" data-original-width="1195" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCDESY954VhbvgvOoNd1hp2KcsyCULGjhdz0aP_EZp97R8BzGf1hAuAzlBimEdQ4ZoVEz1am6rFCK1S-teMcr00We2b0Hu2URpi_SS4Uuwbg_-jergsR6M-yL_9QVqJeNKXNWHG-xEo03GrXHqXSJmSE6HiLoKEaaH7gqZMlK_XmovNnq94gB4DVyoukIQ/s320/Screenshot_20230901-130738_Gallery.jpg" width="279" /></a></div><br /><p></p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-82508418272920102382023-05-17T01:14:00.001-05:002023-05-17T01:14:12.540-05:00Is there anybody there?<p> Is there anybody there?</p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-59378183045166405162022-12-30T01:10:00.001-05:002022-12-30T01:10:22.325-05:002023<p> Happy New Year, A.D. 2023. It is as well to wish it. </p><p><br /></p><p>Not everyone will agree with me on the following.</p><p><br /></p><p>I really don't care.</p><p><br /></p><p>We thought that the Puritans were subdued when Oliver Cromwell's warty head was paraded on a pike yet, like a biblical plague of locusts, they are back in swarms, and want to cancel Christmas Yet To Come: 'to save the planet' Tuna Grimberg-style.</p><p><br /></p><p>We also thought that Communism was a failing experiment, confined to certain, defined corners of the world. However, like a sudden, vast army of red ants, quasi-Communists are adapting into functionaries of the unelected, autocratic, subversive World Economic Forum's new model army, for the One World Order: blending 'population control' with totalitarianism, and feudalism. </p><p><br /></p><p>We lost our truly iconic Queen, and we now have an irritable, self-centred, lacklustre head of a highly dysfunctional remaining family, unfilling her place. Having spent decades at once protesting that he has no political function, he was also enthusiastically conspiring, hand in glove with the WEF, to bring its undemocratic totalitarian agenda to fruition, under the beard of 'environmentalism'. </p><p><br /></p><p>I doubt whether The Old Pretence will be with the rest of us in 'owning nosink und being heppy', according to Big Brother Schweizer Schwab. What do you think? Moreover, this particular 'environmentalism' does not seem to be aimed at the companies laying horrific, obvious physical waste to the land, the rainforests, and the oceans. It is all concerned with imprecise twaddle about 'global warming' or 'climate change' of our (dying) planet, as part of its 4.5 billion year history.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Neo-Communists are mobilising - the likes of the WEF; the Hungarian Nazi; Bubba G and, with their bent robots, already, quite openly, subverting the real will of the people. Whether they will sweep throughout South America, and lay it to the same waste as Cuba and Venezuela, or just buy it all, remains to be seen. With the help of the UN, and Communist judges, springing Lula from his lengthy gaol term for massive corruption, summarily expunging his record, and refusing to allow a constitutional audit of the recent election, they are making real headway in Brazil; as they made serious headway in total control everywhere with 'the pandemic', and their pharmaceutical poisons, and as they are right now inching out digital currency, economic and social control, Chinese-style digital identity, social points, and '15 mile cities', as well as teaching Gen Z to become terrorised, culture-cancelling vandals, ignorami, and even bigger slaves than the millions already mercilessly exploited on the 'minimum wage'; soon to be earning much less than enough to pay basic bills; while vast, rootless, untaxed corporations swell their profits to record levels, and smirk in their offshore shadows.</p><p><br /></p><p>None of our national situation is helped by an apparently arranged and paid for (even encouraged) long-haul migration of tens of thousands of paperless, alien immigrants to our shores by irregular routes; nor by the lamentable fact that we have not just The Sugar Plum Fairy as captain of our football team, but we have its siblings leading all the opposition parties - all as equally sold-out to the WEF as the thumping, thick-skinned, narcisistic snob, who is the unelected, unmandated Prime Minister which we had thrust upon us, once the WEF declined to accept party members' due election of Ms Truss. </p><p><br /></p><p>Our apparently undenied vetoing of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, in the tragedy there, and our pandering to the diktats of the US Deep State, openly interfering in the region, in a plan arranged with their planted President Zelensky, and relayed through an obviously senile marionette, are an utter and complete disgrace to our nation. It sounds like the ultimate bathos but what we really need is a leader, like the one played by Hugh Grant, in Love Actually, who will tell the US Deep State, and Sleepy Joe, and the WEF to sling their hooks.</p><p><br /></p><p>Many people seem to be as glad to see the back of 2022, as they were of 2021. Whether 2023 will be any better, or much, much worse depends upon US ALL WAKING UP TO WHAT IS GOING ON RIGHT UNDER OUR VERY NOSES.</p><p><br /></p><p>Accordingly: Happy New Year - and 'God Bless Us Every One'.</p><p><br /></p><p>I have attached this to a recording of the ending of the 1812 Overture, by Tchaikovsky; for two reasons: first, because the inclusion of the cannons and the bells is uplifting and, secondly, because the warmongering, whimpering, snivelling, self-pitying, oleaginous, thespian, jetting, international tramp, and scrounger, Zelensky, has been trying to persuade countries not to play Tchaikovsky - just because he was Russian.</p><p>https://youtu.be/u2W1Wi2U9sQ</p><p><br /></p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-87113997519037029972022-04-23T02:44:00.001-05:002022-04-23T02:44:09.520-05:00Dovima, by Richard Avedon<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzlTBxWtr9a0VMT1QETvp0lvXqBZLak6PJFnu1dxTelvFH9hePQt2uiVcA63RLNAT5uEHfi-fgytOArDP8hcSJnnzjAFDHeyCuyxJbyCSJL4EH4eON3eKI16VOYUaL1GF99AV_3S5pGsmS0Qy1oustv5BNwYi3-Q5Az-bwkoo6HGVGGQ-jTvqukHXoJw/s961/20220423_084224.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="727" data-original-width="961" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzlTBxWtr9a0VMT1QETvp0lvXqBZLak6PJFnu1dxTelvFH9hePQt2uiVcA63RLNAT5uEHfi-fgytOArDP8hcSJnnzjAFDHeyCuyxJbyCSJL4EH4eON3eKI16VOYUaL1GF99AV_3S5pGsmS0Qy1oustv5BNwYi3-Q5Az-bwkoo6HGVGGQ-jTvqukHXoJw/s320/20220423_084224.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-83243246714746612162022-04-08T11:17:00.002-05:002022-04-08T11:17:17.021-05:00LOSING TOUCH<p> 'We are not sure of sorrow,</p><p>And joy was never sure;</p><p>To-day will die to-morrow;</p><p>Time stoops to no man's lure...'</p><p><br /></p><p>From 'The Garden of Prosperpine', by A. C. Swinburne.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was thinking of the whole streets of the houses of those whom I have known in this town; from those who were already really very old when I was a small child, up to the more recent death announcements, mainly for members of my parents' generation. There are roll calls of them. It is true that I have been quite far away, for decades, more than I have ever been here. </p><p><br /></p><p>However, friends and acquaintances, who date from the beginning of our memory, never really fade much, if at all; even though we have not seen them, or even heard of them, for years on end. Then, when one comes across them again (sometimes, but not always, through social media), there are various reactions. </p><p><br /></p><p>Some people behave as though we have always been in touch, or take up where we left off (and it might have been at age 10). However, quite a number are happy to reminisce at a safe distance but, even though we might now live fairly close, fight shy of actually meeting. Sometimes, I feel the same, and I have been wondering why. I have heard it said that remeeting people after a parting is redolent of the resurrection, but I feel that applies most to serendipitous encounters.</p><p><br /></p><p>There can be a degree of reluctance to engage in a prolonged reunion, and it is not shyness. No, I think that it is because we like to keep our memories intact, and we do not want them disturbed - or even shattered - in their overall integrity, *by what we have all become*.</p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-57285584790755582862022-04-06T15:01:00.001-05:002022-04-06T15:01:54.429-05:00The Woodlanders<p> Rusty and I went for a woodland walk, and discovered this scented, cream rhodie in bloom. On the way back, for some reason, I asked whether she had met Mr and Mrs 'P' when she was in Brazil. Apparently not. Then I said:</p><p><br /></p><p>"Mr P was a total wreck: cocaine, alcohol, cigarettes, and had lost most of his teeth - but had kept his hair."</p><p><br /></p><p>Rusty: "Apart from the cocaine and the hair, that sounds like you."</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6eRD1PUWnJhLZjbyHpV3rkd9Ec9N64TwHdq4VHepGCXRp8DkqELPNHinlQ3KyCHJvd1FTnbiih9udfZ3RbtWDaDhCbbwnxnW07VV7KdGwjb-gFYfOxIH6yhJTyLtb_0-LPuUJyMOqGntTGlcC68KG-sWxuctoMeP5aXiLYveO5DZ6oFUWWt6vdHYbqg/s1600/IMG-20220406-WA0007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6eRD1PUWnJhLZjbyHpV3rkd9Ec9N64TwHdq4VHepGCXRp8DkqELPNHinlQ3KyCHJvd1FTnbiih9udfZ3RbtWDaDhCbbwnxnW07VV7KdGwjb-gFYfOxIH6yhJTyLtb_0-LPuUJyMOqGntTGlcC68KG-sWxuctoMeP5aXiLYveO5DZ6oFUWWt6vdHYbqg/s320/IMG-20220406-WA0007.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-72038401352850030122022-03-26T21:35:00.003-05:002022-03-26T21:35:51.407-05:00Podcast, hosted by Mimi Novic<p> Mimi Novic (miminovic.co.uk) kindly invited me to do a podcast, which is here: </p><p><br /></p><p>https://open.spotify.com/episode/3gjL2xdq7UBq20V1W8vsT4?si=AxOVLVUHTYavofXEL6cjEA</p><p><br /></p><p>Mimi also really inspired me to get posting here again!</p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-43087535203343513832022-03-25T10:34:00.000-05:002022-03-25T10:34:27.095-05:00<p> https://youtu.be/2Sw1G1GDmqg</p><p><br /></p><p>Elis Regina's performances have long beguiled my senses. The internet does not bring us scent, but performances, such as this, get as close as possible. Her living scent reaches out, from beyond her early grave. If those whom the gods love die young, she was surely one of them.</p><p><br /></p><p>After the seeming end of the song, and at the beginning of the applause, the drums beat back in, and she goes on, giving them more, very naturally; to a perfect ending. No wonder that she was her nation's darling, and that they filled the streets for her funeral. Brazilians call her 'Furação' - 'Hurricane'.</p><p><br /></p><p>Thanks to live recordings, she beguiles our senses forever.</p><p><br /></p><p>Very rough translation of the lyrics:</p><p><br /></p><p>Two Steps Here, Two Steps There.</p><p><br /></p><p>With a chill in my soul,</p><p>I asked you to dance,</p><p>Your voice was soothing;</p><p>Two steps here, two steps there.</p><p> </p><p>My treacherous heart</p><p>Was pounding more than the bongo drums,</p><p>Shivering more than the maracas,</p><p>Skipping beats with love.</p><p> </p><p>My head was spinning,</p><p>Making turns more than any couple on the dance floor,</p><p>Oh your sweet perfume of gardenias</p><p>Just don't ask me to tell any more of it...</p><p> </p><p>Your hand landing on my neck,</p><p>The smoothness of your back,</p><p>Which haunted as a phantasy,</p><p>My lonely nights for so long.</p><p> </p><p>A fake diamond ring on my finger,</p><p>A pair of earrings matching the necklace,</p><p>And the end of an annoying Band-Aid,</p><p>Hurting one of my heels.</p><p> </p><p>Now here I am, lonely, making myself drunk,</p><p>With a mix of whisky and Guaraná soda,</p><p>I just heard your voice, gently whispering:</p><p>'Two steps here, two steps there'.</p><p><br /></p><p>In total abandonment, you left the illusion,</p><p>That I had in my heart for you.</p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-41789596814232874222022-02-08T18:18:00.002-05:002022-02-08T18:18:56.495-05:00Rio de Janeiro, from Santa Teresa.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiMitoavpilGhVQUDxcmbh3UkVAcEBZzC-mvDBP27kI_4o0pLfxRADe-EeWSkYUPiO7W7bd5jcZI_-IDerZAweCIKwTL6t9MxYXcYjAeHohwlrvWrefd5byKhiozz1Chpg7kB6bQ9AVhjm7rZpU-xMOY75PD8dlHDuDDM0LEWN1XzOWp7U2526GM6G57g=s1200" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="807" data-original-width="1200" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiMitoavpilGhVQUDxcmbh3UkVAcEBZzC-mvDBP27kI_4o0pLfxRADe-EeWSkYUPiO7W7bd5jcZI_-IDerZAweCIKwTL6t9MxYXcYjAeHohwlrvWrefd5byKhiozz1Chpg7kB6bQ9AVhjm7rZpU-xMOY75PD8dlHDuDDM0LEWN1XzOWp7U2526GM6G57g=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-37000577561139208112022-01-27T12:48:00.000-05:002022-01-27T12:48:45.564-05:00Flower sellers in Old Covent Garden Market.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjdBoTX5v7BkXNPrxp9JoJchuKmnSk4suZ4_DVLB6tKeuLZ3UyA7ULVD5FPr_4jigTXcy7njx-pT_sJIPAVeYAgDnmusAF9OAQYA7Vdy7lGDDTL-OKHeb7-U7SxJCEN8Uu25Uydc48jaMoFJANACSiWvtGDez9fD9uSy9utR9EkpFyDa9EP5nO4WszfOA=s1246" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1246" data-original-width="1094" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjdBoTX5v7BkXNPrxp9JoJchuKmnSk4suZ4_DVLB6tKeuLZ3UyA7ULVD5FPr_4jigTXcy7njx-pT_sJIPAVeYAgDnmusAF9OAQYA7Vdy7lGDDTL-OKHeb7-U7SxJCEN8Uu25Uydc48jaMoFJANACSiWvtGDez9fD9uSy9utR9EkpFyDa9EP5nO4WszfOA=s320" width="281" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-38297934766414516682022-01-27T12:41:00.001-05:002022-01-27T12:41:25.482-05:00<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgd8AG-nG7BskfBDuhC-1ik_QfAhWRiNqqQXe_m9zbtOGRFDDMYMxrpWzNWRqzRGPA_kdE4qWxr36JnB2UZopZOI4mmdBojDLcxisDiJQBzmeQ9WHObXY638EagN7JUBl32eFACv_1fccP4sDU-ahISuyUOtg8se6LWrhVSvJ0ZSbtBiJQD3CO6g2g66w=s1179" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="911" data-original-width="1179" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgd8AG-nG7BskfBDuhC-1ik_QfAhWRiNqqQXe_m9zbtOGRFDDMYMxrpWzNWRqzRGPA_kdE4qWxr36JnB2UZopZOI4mmdBojDLcxisDiJQBzmeQ9WHObXY638EagN7JUBl32eFACv_1fccP4sDU-ahISuyUOtg8se6LWrhVSvJ0ZSbtBiJQD3CO6g2g66w=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-45182277618277617972022-01-27T12:39:00.003-05:002022-01-27T12:39:55.161-05:00Mary Nolan.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEij2k2B0H-7vCq9LtVToDgFU2nm8f3kDuR76QCUEx_Je-kNkjHeixPuGrxETIGLdyxslW346UoLJQUd6-kCWJ8x4tB7PQ6SJ6uV6IJCoTwKNE2TNW8-_jqrsXUMAoYySgtjy4n2tVawPfEJdLRBQ9R4vu2RbE2qWATSamNcnr1ux8JTohskJ_6CMp3SKw=s1361" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1361" data-original-width="1100" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEij2k2B0H-7vCq9LtVToDgFU2nm8f3kDuR76QCUEx_Je-kNkjHeixPuGrxETIGLdyxslW346UoLJQUd6-kCWJ8x4tB7PQ6SJ6uV6IJCoTwKNE2TNW8-_jqrsXUMAoYySgtjy4n2tVawPfEJdLRBQ9R4vu2RbE2qWATSamNcnr1ux8JTohskJ_6CMp3SKw=s320" width="259" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-17027217387948436802022-01-03T14:38:00.004-05:002022-01-03T14:44:08.537-05:00<p> Motor Car Mascots</p><p>Two of the most famous motor car symbols in the world must surely be Rolls Royce’s Spirit of Ecstasy, and Mercedes-Benz’s Three Pointed Star. Each of them has a much less than obvious origin.</p><p><br /></p><p>Rolls Royce</p><p>The first Rolls Royces were delivered without any radiator ornament at all. However, in 1909, an early motoring enthusiast, John Douglas-Scott-Montagu, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, commissioned artist and sculptor Charles Robinson Sykes to sculpt him a mascot for his own Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. Sykes took as his model Eleanor Velasco Thornton, who had risen from modest origins, and had been Montagu’s secretary, since 1902, on the staff of Montagu’s magazine, The Car Illustrated, appearing on the cover, and in skits as ‘Alice in Motorland’, and she very probably became Montagu’s mistress. </p><p><br /></p><p>Eleanor was already in a clique of early motoring enthusiasts, including Montagu, Sykes, Charles Rolls, Henry Royce, and Claude Johnson. She had even been involved in organizing the 1000 Mile Car Trial in 1900, in which Montagu had competed, as well as being a model and inspiration for some of Sykes’s earlier art works. From this commission, the prototype of the eventual Spirit of Ecstasy resulted – with a female figure in exiguous, windswept clothes, one leg raised – and with a forefinger pressed to her lips, which was easily interpreted as a symbol of secret love, and this mascot became known as The Whisper.</p><p><br /></p><p>Owing to early Rolls Royce owners’ inclination for privately commissioning radiator adornments which Claude Johnson, the chairman of Rolls Royce, sometimes saw as inappropriate, he decided in 1910 that the company should produce its own mascot, to discourage such practices, and turned to Sykes, with the instructions to produce a symbol that would convey: “...the spirit of the Rolls Royce, namely, speed with silence, absence of vibration, the mysterious harnessing of great energy and a beautiful, living organism of superb grace.” Johnson wanted an evocation of classical beauty, in the form of Nike. Sykes then adapted the design of The Whisper into what was, at first, called the Spirit of Speed, and which became, from February 1911, the enduring symbol called the Spirit of Ecstasy; incidentally, many say still bearing Eleanor Thornton’s features. </p><p><br /></p><p>Indeed, it became her unofficial memorial after she was lost at sea in 1915 when, travelling with Montagu, their ship, SS Persia, was hit by a torpedo from a German U-boat in the Mediterranean. Swept out of his arms by a surge of water on deck, she was lost, but Montagu survived. Sykes’s signature, and the date February 6th 1911, appeared on the plinths of the castings of the Spirit of Ecstasy until 1951. Originally fitted as an optional extra (and rather disliked by Henry Royce), it became standard by the 192s. </p><p><br /></p><p>Originally, it was silver plated, until 1914; after that nickel or chrome was used; although it has also been made in gold plate and, sadly, even studded with diamonds. The need for clearer driving vision from the windscreens of later, lower cars first gave rise to the Kneeling Lady (also designed by Sykes), which was used between 1934-1939 and also between 1946-1956; until a standing version, in a reduced size, was produced for modern vehicles. The modern version, a mere three inches in height, retracts on impact but, despite this mundane practicality, carries with it still the romantic aura of its origins. </p><p><br /></p><p>Another, much less known but interesting, mascot design appeared in 1957, in Rolls Royce’s sister company. Owing to a demand for a lower, sportier Bentley saloon, the coach builder H J Mulliner (later merged with Park Ward), introduced a streamlined four-door saloon, designed by Herbert Nye, on the Bentley S1 Continental chassis. The chairman of Mulliner’s between 1944-1960 was Harry Talbot Johnstone, and the crest of a ‘winged spur’ on his arms was adopted as the Flying Spur on the radiator cap of some examples of this innovative model of Bentley. Other coach builders, such as James Young, copied the sleek four-door Continental design – and it also appeared in a Rolls Royce version - but these others are not true Flying Spurs at all; although they are often innocently misdescribed as such. </p><p><br /></p><p>Daimler and Mercedes Benz</p><p>Gottlieb Daimler originally founded Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) in 1890, while Carl Benz began Benz & Cie in 1883. Both businesses helped lay the early foundations of motorized vehicle transportation, and Benz is widely credited as the inventor of the internal combustion engine, while Daimler delivered the first production-line, four cylinder street cars. The British Daimler Motor Company Limited, founded by H J Lawson in London in 1896, was entirely separate; Lawson just having bought the licence to use the Daimler name from Gottlieb Daimler. In fact, amongst the first cars collected and driven by John Douglas-Scott-Montagu were German Daimlers and, as a result of him driving the then Prince of Wales in one, the first horseless carriage soon owned by the British royal family was a German Daimler.</p><p><br /></p><p>After Gottlieb Daimler died in 1900, chief engineer Wilhelm Maybach took over and formed an association with racing enthusiast Emil Jellinek. It was the name of Jellinek’s daughter Mercédès – a Spanish girl’s name, meaning “mercies” (deriving from the Spanish name for the Virgin Mary), which was the inspiration for the later, enduring trade name of the merged companies, Daimler and Benz. In 1900 Jellinek had bought and modified a Daimler car, which he called ‘Mercedes’. When the Daimler and Benz companies merged in 1926, the joint brand name became Mercedes- Benz.</p><p><br /></p><p>Daimler’s sons Paul and Adolf recalled an 1872 picture postcard sent by their father to their mother with a three-pointed star, marking the location of his house in Germany, with the explanation that, one day, the star would shine over his factory and bring prosperity to it. DMG took the star as the company’s logo, trademarking three and four-pointed stars, but only actually using the now familiar three-pointed one. The logo began in a blue colour but was changed to its signature silver after the company’s involvement in the first Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in 1934.</p><p><br /></p><p>Meanwhile, Benz & Cie trademarked its own logo: originally, a laurel wreath surrounding the company’s name. On merger of the companies in 1926, the name became Mercedes-Benz, which first appeared in a laurel wreath, around Daimler’s three-pointed star. Accordingly, in the modern logo, which is just the three-pointed star, there is Daimler’s original concept, and in the name Mercedes-Benz there is the name of a little girl, who had no more association with either company than that her father had had an association with the Daimler company.</p><p><br /></p><p> According to the modern Mercedes-Benz company, the three-pointed star has always represented the company’s drive towards universal motorization; with its engines dominating all means of transport in the three elements of land, sea, and air. </p><p><br /></p><p>Whether the symbol of the Three Pointed Star or the symbol of the Spirit of Ecstasy now holds more sway in the imagination of the world, I leave to the reader to judge.</p><div><br /></div>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-77218432618926208392022-01-01T11:15:00.000-05:002022-01-01T11:15:20.913-05:00Well, I suppose that I might as well restart this<p>I find this performance, by Elis Regina, of her own song, just the most moving performance of anything that I have ever watched. It also coincides with tremendous saudades for Brasil, and my own feelings at this time.</p><p><br /></p><p>https://youtu.be/35FPZR24djg</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-91811819179758357672021-12-31T16:30:00.004-05:002021-12-31T16:30:59.756-05:00<p> It seems that people still come in here. Maybe, I will restart it, because it has never brought me the grief of more interactive social media.</p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-17048588727334654232021-07-13T06:33:00.001-05:002021-07-13T06:33:58.170-05:00<p> <a href="https://reedsy.com/storey-nicholas" target="_blank"></p><p> <img src="https://assets-cdn.reedsy.com/images/reedsy-profile-button.png" width="380" /></p><p></a></p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-49055701580040099202021-02-14T05:09:00.000-05:002021-02-14T05:09:45.034-05:00Lights Out<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Maybe our souls are just part of the shared spirit of
creation and, maybe, we also know, deep down, that all living things share in
it and that is why every shot bird or mammal and every landed fish touches us;
even though God gave man dominion over all creatures and they provide us with
food and clothing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I also think that some inanimate objects can be
possessed of what we recognize as a kind of soul: look at, say a 1931 eight
litre Bentley (the last in the W O Bentley direct line and only one hundred
made); or a Joseph Manton musket; or the revolutionary 1875 prototype boxlock shotgun
(bearing a commemorative plate), patented by Anson & Deeley of Westley
Richards in 1875; or a fragile first edition (1859) of Edward FitzGerald’s
translation of the Rubi</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">á</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">y</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">á</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">t of Omar
Khayy</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">á</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">m.
Such things as these are also touched with a kind of spirit. It was even said
of Rosa Lewis’s old Cavendish Hotel ; in a fond farewell to the old place, in
October 1962, and before it went to join the Tabard and the Mermaid Inns, <i>The
New Statesman</i> said that the site of the hotel at the junction of Jermyn
Street and Duke Street had become a ‘mysterious space-time inn at a
metaphysical junction ’. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The great London tobacconists that I have been
privileged to have known had atmospheres, auras, presences: Sullivan Powell in
the Burlington Arcade, selling its majestic, great, tightly rolled, sweet,
robust and untipped <i>sub rosa</i> <i>Oriental Cigarettes</i>, in their black
and gold boxes of twenty five or a hundred, swathed in thick tissue paper; even
unlit their aroma wooed the nostrils of the gods. Benson & Hedges were in
Bond Street, with their elegant, oval <i>Cairo Cigarettes</i>, sold in
turquoise boxes, and venerable Fribourg & Treyer (est. 1720) were near the
top of Haymarket and in here, if you listened very carefully, you could still
hear Beau Brummell’s retreating footsteps after placing his very last order of
their <i>Old Paris</i> and <i>Macouba</i> snuffs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Alas! All gone. Mercifully, at least, the frontage of
32 Haymarket is preserved and Wilsons of Sharrow took over the Fribourg &
Treyer snuff receipts and still produce their snuffs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sullivan Powell’s whole range of cigarettes and Benson
& Hedges’ <i>Cairo Cigarettes </i>were the sudden victims of
over-regulation by the European Union banning all cigarettes with more than
fifteen milligrammes of tar. The playwright John Osborne said in an
incandescent letter to <i>The Times</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“As a schoolboy I narrowly escaped from ‘European’
bombs on my doorstep. I can forgive this eagerness, but not the compounding of
the insult by dashing the tobacco from my lips forty years on”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Fribourg & Treyer, one of London’s oldest
surviving businesses, and still successful as a tobacconist and snuff chandler,
was taken over, in the early 1980s, by Imperial Tobacco, which moved them out
and then shut them down.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Every time that I first missed these shops, I felt the
same mingled disbelief, confusion and anger that I had felt when I first found
Sulka gone from Bond Street. Disbelief and confusion because it is difficult to
believe that such wonderful shops, that have been an important living part of
the London landscape, can just disappear without so much as a murmur of protest
or a tear of regret, and then anger that they have actually gone.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the last year at least three more great
tobacconists have shut down: first, Shervington’s (formerly John Brumfitt, who
popularized <i>Romeo y Julieta</i> Havanas) in Holborn Bars; then S Weingott
& Son (where Rumpole most certainly must have bought his small cigars),
just outside the Temple, in Fleet Street and now G Smith & Sons in the
Charing Cross Road. I imagine that, with the coming into force of the total ban
on advertising and displaying tobacco products, most of the nation’s remaining
small tobacconists (often also sweet shops and newsagents), will fall like
ninepins; family businesses will be wiped out and their staff, in the midst of
national bankruptcy postponed, will be put on the dole, to join the thousands
already there by virtue of pub closures, in the wake of the public smoking ban,
which was ostensibly introduced to protect employees from pub patrons’ smoke.
Whoever dreamed up the policy for all this over-regulation lives, I warrant,
either down a rabbit hole or behind a looking glass. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Those who govern the nation tell us that we live in a
‘Big Society’ of tolerance, inclusivity, classlessness and liberalism but,
excuse me, I do not feel beneficially either ‘tolerated’ or ‘included’ when I
am encouraged, with so much misplaced and forcible enthusiasm, to give up good
tobacco, which John Osborne rightly described as “one of life’s few and
reliable pleasures”. Moreover, I deeply resent it when this misplaced
encouragement comes from ‘bullies’ who masquerade as ‘liberals’ in a society
which is most notably ‘Big’ in being in economic free-fall and social decay.
The legislative process has very swiftly moved from a position of tolerance
(say, in decriminalizing homosexual practices) to the point at which we may now
even marry our best male friend but, somehow, we may not lawfully join him in a
cigar in the smoking room of a private club which was established to provide a
place for men to sit around, and smoke, and drink and talk. The statute book
reflects a very queer state of affairs indeed, resulting from twisted,
tendentious reasoning, based on skewed or irrelevant evidence. A small,
unventilated and smoke-filled bar might well present a health risk to a barman
who works there all day, every day, for thirty years but show me a Carlton Club
servant who has developed a smoking-related illness as a result of the smoking
room activities of its members and note, as we pass, that at least one ‘New
Labour’ member of parliament wished to excuse working men’s clubs from the
smoking ban; presumably because they all agreed with John Osborne that smoking
is indeed one of life’s few and reliable pleasures.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Very shortly, most remaining tobacco sales will have
to be conducted through internet transactions and any remaining tobacconist
shops will become blank-fronted stores reminiscent of Soho’s seedy old
pornographers (before they felt able to set window displays suggestive of their
wares) and all remaining tobacco shop customers will feel obliged to dart in
and out of them in mufflers and macs, with hats pulled well down because,
gradually, smoking tobacco is being branded a perversion; one of the many
modern British taboos, dreamed up by tin-Hitlers and enforced by their
jobsworths who have jumped out of the walls at us: wagging their fingers,
rattling their clipboards and brandishing their regulations and cheap biros;
telling us that they presume to tell us what is best for us . <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What is actually best for us is to reclaim the lost
land of true liberalism and true conservatism, which have been displaced by
policies of commercialism and popularity-at-any-cost, developed as Thatcherism
and taken to new highs (or lows) by the monstrous architects of so-called ‘New
Labour’ and now the current leaders of the consensus-coalition-in-conflict. For
me, reclaiming that lost land means revisiting the principles of J S Mill’s ‘<i>On
Liberty</i>’ and understanding the basis of Disrraeli’s Tory democracy, as well
as understanding and accepting that we are not all created equal in this world
at all. Such understanding and acceptance of the <i>real</i> diversity of
society is the foundation stone for our mutual compassion towards this “poor,
frail, fallen humankind”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is the rank intolerance which is behind all the
banning, as well as the control- freakery, that really sticks in my craw. Who
do these people think that they are? In his book “State of Fear”, Michael
Crichton mentions a woman who founded a movement to ban di-hydrogen monoxide
because “it can cause drowning”. A number of morons then supported her
'movement' <i>to ban water</i>, which very nicely suggests that those keen on
banning things are not necessarily armed with any knowledge or powers of
reasoning or even appreciation of all the consequences of what they are doing.
It seems that they are just empowering themselves at the expense of others’
enjoyments. That sounds more like a perversion to me than does smoking tobacco.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">If the fox-hunting ban bribe to the chattering
classes, in return for backing Blair’s invasion of Iraq, had ever been
effective as legislation, thousands of hounds would, presumably, have been
destroyed (as they are not pet dogs) and all paid hunt staff would have been
put out of work; all for the sake of banning one effective means of controlling
a wantonly destructive pest which (most seem to agree) needs to be controlled
in some way.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The fact that the tastes and values of the urban
rabble and chattering classes are increasingly pandered to by ignorant and
thoughtless bullies most certainly does not make modern Britain a tolerant,
inclusive, classless or liberal society at all. It is time to take a <i>real</i>
stand against all the flummery and to support organizations such as FOREST; the
Countryside Alliance, and the British Association for Shooting and
Conservation; otherwise, you can bet your bottom dollar that it will not be
long before there are serious moves to outlaw the actual possession and use of
tobacco and to ban shooting. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Why not take a leaf out of the book of the distillers
and brewers? They, despite the devastation caused by alcohol abuse (ranging
from alcohol-induced dementia and sudden death to vehicle accidents causing
death and permanent injury to wholly innocent by-standers), seem to have done
rather better (by lobbying) than just to avoid tighter controls on the purchase
and consumption of alcohol and have even managed to abolish licensing hours
altogether. Where were the tight-lipped puritans then?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-44935613353935039392021-02-14T04:02:00.002-05:002021-02-14T04:02:50.648-05:00Religious Leaders<p> Where are the so-called religious leaders - Bishops, Rabbis, Imams, and so on, at this present time? They seem to be cowering in corners.</p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-83475130543323441932021-02-14T03:36:00.000-05:002021-02-14T03:36:48.961-05:00An Open Letter to HRH The Prince of Wales<p> </p><br />
One certainly does not need to be a social historian to realize that the standards of, and restrictions upon, the royal family have lamentably slackened since a king had to give up his throne to marry an American divorcée. However, even with the general ethical decline in public life, the involvement of HRH The Prince of Wales (and any other members of the royal family), in the political and economic forum, known as the World Economic Forum, must still be a totally unacceptable breach of the important convention that, since they are unelected, the royal family must keep right out of all concerns of a political and economic nature.<br />
<br />
When I wrote to HRH's private secretary, in September 2006, seeking support, on essentially environmental grounds, to save the old Odeon building in St Austell (before the then SWRDA, Restormel Borough Council, and our own, quite adequate, local busybodies, such as 'Brewer' James Staughton, virtually destroyed our town centre), Sir Michael Peat, by letter, dated 15th September, declined my appeal, with the words: "The problem that HRH always has is how he can intervene in a way that does not cut across the due legal processes and which does not give the impression that he is just being a busybody without any proper locus.". What, one might ask, has changed?<br />
<br />
The purported environmental and ecological 'cover' provided by a mixed bag of unelected 'characters', such as Schwab, Gates, Soros, and Thunberg, and various tycoons, and boneheaded 'celebrities', even backed, to some extent, by national treasures, such as Sir David Attenborough, is not enough to empower an also unelected, heir presumptive to the throne to be supporting and propounding what is openly intended to be a (presumably, selective), quasi-socialist, global 'reset', imposed by Diktat of this merry band, with their recondite claims to suzerainty; least of all, side by side with: the heretical, proselytizing, communist Pope; China, and all the other big mouths involved in Herr Schwab's plans for world domination - like an insane, 'wannabe' dictator: in substance, form, appearance, and sound; right out of a second-rate Bond-style novel.<br />
<br />
The environmental and ecological disaster, which mankind has been busily generating, actually for about the last 200 years, is an entirely separate issue, for which there is completely axiomatic, potential mitigation, once the simple will is found, within the proper governments of the world, to enact the necessary measuresNJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-44697949524223271822021-02-14T03:32:00.001-05:002021-02-14T03:32:24.778-05:00'NICK' CLEGG, FACEBOOK FLUNKEY<p> I suppose that a man who will sell such political principles as he has (especially when they are of the 'modern liberal' kind, which appears to be Fascism in a skirt), will readily crawl to the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, for dollars galore; even if the consequence is that the stripped bones of true liberal philosophy are left to bleach in the sun.</p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-44761241670713963032020-12-10T05:59:00.002-05:002020-12-10T05:59:44.638-05:00<p> https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=HSVaivzAHWc&feature=share</p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-42133860346449935032020-08-08T12:08:00.001-05:002020-08-08T12:08:19.014-05:00Is There Anybody There?<p> Is there anybody there? If so, I might well restart this blog.</p>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-720985214200279902020-05-16T00:17:00.001-05:002020-05-16T00:17:09.125-05:00If I restart this blog, is there anybody out there?NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-28245548311058631852018-05-16T04:44:00.001-05:002018-05-16T04:48:58.123-05:00Here we are again. Well, I last posted here in 2013. That was from Brazil. But now I am back in Cornwall. I wonder whether anyone still follows me. Let's see...NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969291662399714678.post-52071165155985285352013-12-03T08:19:00.002-05:002013-12-03T08:19:30.608-05:00NOT Spam - A Cottage in Croatia<a href="http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/croatia/CR1808.htm">http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/croatia/CR1808.htm</a>NJShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17029310454977877828noreply@blogger.com0