megustaleer

The Bob Ross programmes were watched regularly by Mr meg last year, but I quickly became bored by them. As you say, it's not the same thing at all as the "Artist of the Year" programmes. I did find his biography, shown some time last year, very interesting, but watching him produce what I find rather formulaic pictures, evening after evening, has lost its fascination for me. Even Mr meg only watches occasionally nowadays.

A couple of things I have been watching recently , but which have now finished: Our Yorkshire Farm. In my younger days, back in the late sixties, early seventies I used to have a daydream of myself becoming the 'earth-mother' type, with a large family, growing our own food, keeping livestock etc. This series showed just how had that kind of life can be. Admittedly, I had a smallholding in mind, not vast areas of remote Yorkshire moorland, but it has been interesting, and enjoyable to see how the family worked together and supported each other. Mr meg couldn't get his head around the size of the family, and had to count all nine children at the start of each episode. I've always enjoyed a crime series - although not so much these days , as modern ones are far too dark for my taste. The Pact , which finished on Tuesday was intriguing. A group of women played a prank on the rather unpleasant owner of the small brewery where they worked. When the man was found dead the following morning they thought he might have had a heart attack and agreed together to say nothing. As ever, keeping the secret lead to any number of revelations about them and their lives, and about their employer, and the various twists and turns had me gripped and intrigued, not just about the death, but about the lives and the secrets of all the people involved. Now they are finished nothing else has caught my eye, except for a run of an old (2017) "Landscape Artist of The Year" competition on Sky Arts. At the moment it is on every morning, just in time for a cup of tea and a break from the gardening! I've watched a couple previous series of it though the various stages of the pandemic, and also "Portrait Artist of the Year". I would be happy to watch that seven days a week all year long!

I used to enjoy a nice rioja when dining with our neighbours (about half a dozen times a year) but a glass and a half used to go to my knees and my eyelids and was not particularly pleasant. Or a liqueur, in a glass or poured over icecream. Five years ago we moved house and now have a not very sociable neighbour one side and a convenience store car park the other. In addition I am now on medication that doesn't mix with alcohol. So, alcoholic beverages are just used for cooking these days. I like the taste they give to a dish, but am happy to have the alcohol cooked off.

A book critic once tried to write, In despondecy he gave up the fightHis mind was a blank

A book critic once tried to write

Young Harold had a very strange trick Of claiming that he was called Nick It all went pear shaped When in a cafe he vaped.... And the fumes made the customers sick

Blue sky and sunshine first thing, then at about 9, and out of that clear blue sky, there came a hailstorm. Heavy, but thankfully short. Luckily I hadn't taken the trays of young plants out of the grow-house. There's been no more hail. but several short sharp showers, so I think I will leave the plants under cover.

A man named Muldoon from Nebraska.... Met a girl, but was too shy to ask her.. "Won't you go out tonight, The moon shines so bright?"

A man named Muldoon from Nebraska.... Met a girl, but was too shy to ask her....

I have a weakness for Victorian 'Parlour Poetry', so I offer you: The boy stood on the burning deck, Whence all but he had fled; The flame that lit the battle’s wreck, Shone round him o’er the dead. Yet beautiful and bright he stood, As born to rule the storm; A creature of heroic blood, A proud, though childlike form. The flames rolled on – he would not go, Without his father’s word; That father, faint in death below, His voice no longer heard. He called aloud – ‘Say, father, say If yet my task is done?’ He knew not that the chieftain lay Unconscious of his son. ‘Speak, father!’ once again he cried, ‘If I may yet be gone!’ – And but the booming shots replied, And fast the flames rolled on. Upon his brow he felt their breath And in his waving hair; And look’d from that lone post of death, In still yet brave despair. And shouted but once more aloud, ‘My father! must I stay?’ While o’er him fast, through sail and shroud, The wreathing fires made way. They wrapped the ship in splendour wild, They caught the flag on high, And streamed above the gallant child, Like banners in the sky. There came a burst of thunder sound – The boy – oh! where was he? Ask of the winds that far around With fragments strewed the sea! With mast, and helm and pennon fair, That well had borne their part, But the noblest thing which perished there, Was that young faithful heart. Casabianca - Felicia Hemans (1793 - 1835)

Bonus points for that!

Seems an odd basis on which to choose one's reading, but I suppose no worse than choosing to read a book because it's cover picture catches one's eye.

Book Group Online. The forum that I and a number of new members here also belong to, and which was due to close down at the end of this month. The forum has been given a last minute reprieve as one of the moderators has offered to take over, for at least the next year, Luna has just been asked to join the moderating team. Seemed worth celebrating her promotion here as well as there.

My brother kneels, so saith Kabir, To stone and brass in heathen-wise, But in my brother’s voice I hear My own unanswered agonies. His God is as his fates assign, His prayer is all the world’s and mine, The Prayer - Rudyard Kipling

Congratulations Raven. Hope you know what you are letting yourself in for ! I am happy to say that lunababymoonchild has agreed join us on the moderator team for BGO. Maybe I can retire soon!

A woman called Scilly, from Thames..... Invented some silly team games

We seem to have forgotten, again, how a limerick is constructed.

I did not find the second episode as irritating as the first, the actors seem more at home in this period than back in the twenties - but it does seem to have moved on very quickly. Is it to be an episode per decade, I wonder?

I'm not taken by Lily James, either - or rather, by the character she plays, Linda Radlett It seems to be a thing I have about 1920s novels in general - I find so many of the characters very superficial. Presumably they are the "bright young things" needing to fit as much fun as possible into their lives, so many of the previous generation having had their youthful years wiped out by the Great War, or the influenza pandemic that followed. But I do find them & their small concerns tedious. Apart from the music, which did jar, I didn't think the girls had a particularly 1920s look - but it's maybe set a bit too early for the flapper fashions I am thinking of, or that their restricted upbringing had kept them a bit behind the times. Their faces seemed to be quite C21 - possibly that is what France found annoying about Lily James. I am not dismissing it altogether - I will watch episode two and see if i become acclimatised.

A pirate's parrot named Polly St Butty With its swearing drove everyone nutty. It couldn't be staid, it's nuts it mislaid... So they sealed up its beak with some putty. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> A diet of chocolate and cheese

For this one I have added an 's' to make a singular into a plural! EARTH has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still! Upon Westminster Bridge - William Wordsworth

A pirate's parrot named Polly St Butty With its swearing drove everyone nutty

Well, the iconic version of that plot is And Then Thee Were None by Agatha Christie. Although it was probably called something else when you read it, as it has had at least three titles. The original had a word in it that is now considered offensive. Of course variations on this plot has been used by other authors, so there may be a more recent version featiurung what we now call 'celebrities' - I don't think the original characters were necessarily celebrities, but were people who had committed crimes for which they had never been punished. This is, apparently, the best-selling crime novel of all time,

Fifty-one definitely. Trouble is that a number of the remaining titles are so familiar that I can't be sure whether I have read them, read about them, heard/seen on film, TV or radio or heard them talked about by friends.

like to put beans in my ears Whenever aunt Margaret appears She swears a storm, For it's very bad form